LAUREL. 
127 
classes of choliahs, who are employed only to per- 
form their own particular branches ; by this sub- 
division of labour the service becomes much easier 
to them, and much more profitable to their em- 
“ The next step, after the cinnamon has been 
carried into the company’s storehouses, is to exa- 
mine its quality. This task is imposed upon the 
company’s surgeons, and a very disagreeable one it 
proves to be. It is performed by taking a few 
sticks out of each bundle, and chewing them suc- 
cessively, as the taste is the only sure method of as- 
certaining the quality. The cinnamon, by the re- 
petition of this operation, excoriates the tongue and 
the inside of the mouth, and causes such an in- 
tolerable pain as renders it impossible for them to 
continue the process above two or three days suc- 
cessively. 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 cin- 
namon is rather pliable, and ought not much to ex- 
ceed stout writing-paper in thickness. It is of a light 
yellowish colour ; it possesses a sweet taste, not so 
hot as to occasion 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 dis- 
agreeable bitter after-taste. 
