CINNAMON GARDENS. 199 



than a century has elapsed since they were formed by the Dutch, 

 they are already becoming a wilderness. Those which surround 

 Colombo on the land side exhibit the effects of a quarter of a 

 century of neglect, and produce a feeling of disappointment 

 and melancholy. The beautiful shrubs which furnish this spice 

 have been left to the wild growth of nature, and in some places 

 are entirely supplanted by an undergrowth of jungle, while in 

 others a thick cover of climbing plants and other parasites 

 conceals them under masses of verdure and blossom. It would, 

 however, be erroneous to suppose that the cinnamon-gardens 

 have been universally doomed to the same neglect. Thus 

 Professor Schmarda, who visited Mr. Stewart's plantation two 

 miles to the south of Colombo, admired the beautiful order 

 in which it was kept. A reddish sandy clay and fine white 

 quartz sand form the soil of the plantation. White sand is 

 considered as the best ground for the cinnamon tree to grow 

 on, but it requires an abundance of rain (which is never want- 

 ing in the south-western part of the island), much sun, and 

 many termites. For these otherwise so destructive creatures 

 do not injure the cinnamon trees, but render themselves useful 

 by destroying many other insects. They consequently remain 

 unmolested, and everywhere raise their high conical mounds 

 in the midst of the plantation. The aspect of a well-con- 

 ditioned cinnamon-garden is rather monotonous, for though 

 the trees when left to their full growth attain a height of forty 

 or fifty feet, yet, as the best spice is furnished by the shoots 

 that spring from the roots after the chief stem has been re- 

 moved, they are kept as a kind of coppice, and nob allowed to 

 rise higher than ten feet. 



Nutmegs and cloves, the costly productions of the remotest 

 isles of the Indian Ocean, were known in Europe for centuries 

 before the countries where they grow had ever been heard of. 

 Arabian navigators brought them to Egypt, where they were 

 purchased by the Venetians, and sold at an enormous profit to 

 the nations of the West. But, as is well known, the commercial 

 grandeur of the City of the Lagunes was suddenly eclipsed 

 after Vasco de Grama discovered the new maritime road to the 

 East Indies, round the Cape of Grood Hope (1498) ; and when, 

 a few years later, the countrymen of the great navigator 

 conquered the Moluccas (1511), they for a short time mono^ 



