222 



CHAPTEE XX. 



TROPICAL SPICES. 



The Cinnamon Gardens of Ceylon — Immense profits of the Dutch — Decline of 

 the Trade — Neglected state of the Gardens — Mode of preparing the Rind — 

 Nutmegs and Cloves — Cruel monopoly of the Dutch — A Spice Fire in Amster- 

 dam — The Clove Tree — Beauty of an Avenue of Clove Trees — The Nutmeg 

 Tree — Mace — The Pepper Vine — The Pimento Tree. 



ALTHOUGH the beautiful laurel, whose bark furnishes 

 the most exquisite of all the spices of the East, is indi- 

 genous in the forests of Ceylon, yet as no author previous to 

 the fourteenth century mentions its aromatic rind among the 

 productions of the island, there is every reason to believe that 

 the cinnamon, which in 

 the earlier ages was im- 

 ported into Europe through 

 Arabia, was obtained first 

 from Africa, and after- 

 wards from India. That 

 the Portuguese, who had 

 been mainly attracted to 

 the East by the fame of 

 its spices, were nearly 

 twenty years in India be- 

 fore they took steps to obtain a footing at Colombo, proves that 

 there can have been nothing very remarkable in the quality of 

 the spice at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and that 

 the high reputation of the Ceylon cinnamon is comparatively 

 modern, and attributable to the attention bestowed upon its 

 preparation for market by the Portuguese, and afterwards on 

 its cultivation by the Dutch. 



Cinnaruon. 



