a26 ISLAND OF CEYLON. 



defiariijor ^.'^1, 5. 10. The DapbnoideSj or I/ocinnamofif {eems 

 not to be thought the genuine kind, yet fold at the price of 

 three hundred denarii^ or ;^.8. 13. 9, the fame price as the 

 true cinnamon. The Cinna77iomimi caniocans was the exprefled 

 juice of a nut, and perhaps a different article from the true c'ui- 

 najnon^ was fold for no more than forty afles, or two fhillings 

 and feven-pence. The antients, according to Pliny, efteemed, 

 as we do at prefent, the cinnamon of the young twigs. It was 

 chiefly made ufe of as a perfume, either as an ingredient for 

 their unguents, or to rub their bodies with, in form of oil. 

 They appear to have been ignorant of the tree that produced it, 

 as well as the country ; they fuppofed that it came from that 

 part of JEtLiopia which bordered on the Troglodytes. Pliny fays 

 they bought all they could of their neighbors ; but even Mr. 

 Bruce, who would certainly do all the honor he could to Mthio- 

 pia, never mentions it among his botanical enumerations. Pliny 

 talks confufedly of along voyage made with the cargoes of this 

 pretious article, and of the croffing of vaft feas : of the cinna- 

 mon being under the prote6lion of the god AJfabiiiuSy and of 

 its never being cut without his permiffion. I dare fay that the 

 Cinnamon and Cajfia came then as it does now, from the Ma- 

 labar coaft, and Taprobone or Ceylcn, and that the merchants 

 croffing the Sinus /Ethiopicus in fearch of it, induced the Roman 

 Naturalift to make JEthiopia its native country *. 



The antients give a moft romantic account of thefe trees, 

 that of their being guarded by a dire fpecies of bat, fighting 

 cruelly with their fharp claws -, and by flying ferpents ; one was 



* Pliny, in lib. xii, c. xlx. and other parts of his Nat, Hift. treats largely of this tree. 



the 



