Particular Account of the Cinnamon. 349 
kept separate till the quantity expected from the district be 
made up. The several processes required, in cutting and bark- 
ing the cinnamon are parcelled out among several classes of 
choliahs who are employed only to perform their own particular 
branches; by this subdivision of labour, the service becomes much 
easier to them, and much more profitable to their employers. 
The next step, after the cinnamon has been carried into the 
company’s store houses, is to examine its quality. This task 
is imposed upon the company’s surgeons, and a very disagree- 
able one it proves to be. It is performed by taking a few 
sticks out of each bundle, and chewing them successively, as 
the taste is the only sure method of ascertaining the quality. 
The cinnamon, by the repetition of this operation, excoriates 
the tongue and the inside of the mouth, and causes such an into- 
lerable pain as renders it impossible for them to continue the 
process above two or three days successively. The surgeons 
are however obliged in their turns to resume it, as they are 
responsible for the goodness of the cinnamon ; it is customary 
for them to mitigate the pain by eating a piece of bread and 
butter between whiles. 
The best cinnamon is rather pliable, and ought not much to 
exceed stout writing paper in thickness. It is of a light yel- 
lowish colour : it possesses a sweet taste, not so hot as to oc- 
casion pain, and not succeeded by any after-taste. The inferior 
kind is distinguished by being thicker, of a darker and brownish 
colour, hot and pungent when chewed, and succeeded by a 
disagreeable bitter after-taste. 
After the quality of the cinnamon has been by tins means 
ascertained, it is made up into large bundles, each about four 
feet long, and all of the same w'eiglit. The weight of each 
