CORTEX ClNNAMOMl. 



.3:^1 



production of the far East is moreover implied by the name Darchinl 

 (from (lav, wood or bai'k, and Ch'tn'i, Chinese) given to it by the 

 Arabians and Persians. 



If this view of the case is admissible, we must regard the ancient 

 cinnamon to have been the substance now known as Chinese Ciis»ia 

 lignea or CJunese Cinnamon, and cassia as one of the thicker and 

 pei'haps less aromatic barks of the same group, such in fact as are still 

 found in commerce. 



Of the circumstances which led to the collection of cinnamon in 

 Ceylon, and of the period at which it was commenced, nothing is 

 known. That the Chinese were concerned in the discovery is not an 

 unreasonable supposition, seeing that they traded to Ceylon, and were 

 in all probability acquainted with the cassia-yielding species of Cin- 

 namomum of Southern China, a tree extremely like the cinnamon 

 tree of Ceylon. 



Whatever may be the facts, the early notices of cinnamon as a pro- 

 duction of Ceylon are not prior to the 13th century. The very tii-st, 

 according to Yule,^ is a mention of the spice by Kazwini, an Arab 

 writer of about A.D. 1275, very soon after which period it is noticed by 

 the historian of the Egyptian Sultan Kelaoun, A.D. 1283. The prince of 

 Ceylon is stated to have sent an aml^ssador, Al-Hadj-Abu-Othman, to 

 the Sultan's court. It was mentioned that Ceylon produced elephants, 

 Bakam (the wood of Ccesalpinia Sapan L. — see page 21G), pearls and 

 also cinnamon.' 



A still more positive evidence is due to the IVIinorite friar, John of 

 Montecorvino, a missionary who visited India. This man, in a letter 

 under date December 20th, 1202 or 1293, written at " Mabar, citta dell' 

 India di sopra," and still extant in the Medicean library at Florence, 

 says that the cinnamon tree is of medium bulk, and in trunk, bark 

 and foliage, like a laurel, and that great store of its bark is carried forth 

 from the island which is near by Malabar.' 



Again, it is mentioned by the Mahomedan traveller Ibn Batuta 

 about A.D. 1340,^ and a century later by the Venetian merchant Nicolo 

 di Conti, whose description of the tree is very correct.^ 



The circumnavigation of the Cape of Good Hope led to the real dis- 

 covery of Ceylon by the Portuguese in 1.505, and to their permanent 

 occupation of the island in 1536, chiefly for the sake of the cinnamon. 

 It is from the first of these dates that more exact accounts of the spice 

 began to reach Europe. Thus in 1511 Barbosa distinguished the fine 

 cinnamon of Ceylon from the inferior Canella trisfa of Malabar. Garcia 

 de Orta, about the middle of the same century, stated that Ceylon cinna- 

 mon was forty times as dear as that of Malabar. Clusius, the translator 



apparently at Calicut, where the Portu- 

 guese found it on their first arrival. Here, 

 says Marco, the ships from Aden obtained 

 their lading from the East, and carried it 

 into the Red Sea for Alexandria, whence 

 it passed into Europe by means of the 

 Venetians.— See also Yule, Book of .b'er 

 Marco Polo, ii. (1871) 325. 327. 



^ Marco Polo, ii. 255. 



- Quatremirt (in the book (quoted at 

 page 511, note 4), ii. 284. 



'^ Yule, Cathay and (he way thither, i.213, 

 also Kunstmann, Anzeijen der baieriichen 

 Akadeniie, 24 and 25 December 1855. p. 163 

 and 169. 



•* Travels of Ibn Batuta, translated by 

 Lee, Lond. 1829. 184. 



^ Ramusio, Raccolta delle Navigationi et 

 Viaiji/i, i. (1563) 339 ; Kunstmann, Kennt- 

 niss huliens im filnfzehntKii Jahrhundert, 

 1864. 39. 



