_Cortex Cinnamomi Zeylanici_; _Cinnamon_; F. _Cannelle de Ceylan_; G.
_Zimmt_, _Ceylon Zimmt_, _Kaneel_.
=Botanical Origin=—_Cinnamomum zeylanicum_ Breyne,—a small evergreen
tree, richly clothed with beautiful, shining leaves usually somewhat
glaucous beneath, and having panicles of greenish flowers of
disagreeable odour.
It is a native of Ceylon, where, according to Thwaites, it is generally
distributed through the forests up to an elevation of 3,000 feet, and
one variety even to 8,000 feet. It is exceedingly variable in stature,
and in the outline, size and consistence of the leaf; and several
of the extreme forms are very unlike one another and have received
specific names. But there are also numerous intermediate forms; and
in a large suite of specimens, many occur of which it is impossible
to determine whether they should be referred to this species or to
that. Thwaites[1917] is of opinion that some still admitted species,
as _C. obtusifolium_ Nees and _C. iners_ Reinw., will prove on further
investigation to be mere forms of _C. zeylanicum_.
Beddome,[1918] Conservator of Forests in Madras, remarks that in the
moist forests of South-western India there are 7 or 8 well-marked
varieties which might easily be regarded as so many distinct species,
but for the fact that they are so connected _inter se_ by intermediate
forms, that it is impossible to find constant characters worthy of
specific distinction. They grow from the sea-level up to the highest
elevations, and, as Beddome thinks, owe their differences chiefly to
local circumstances, so that he is disposed to class them simply as
forms of _C. zeylanicum_.
=History=—(For that of the essential oil of cinnamon see page 526).
Cinnamon was held in high esteem in the most remote times of history.
In the words of the learned Dr. Vincent, Dean of Westminster,[1919]
it seems to have been the first spice sought after in all oriental
voyages. Both cinnamon and cassia are mentioned as precious odoriferous
substances in the Mosaic writings and in the Biblical books of Psalms,
Proverbs, Canticles, Ezekiel and Revelations, also by Theophrastus,
Herodotus, Galen, Dioscorides, Pliny, Strabo and many other writers of
antiquity: and from the accounts which have thus come down to us, there
appears reason for believing that the spices referred to were nearly
the same as those of the present day. That cinnamon and cassia were
extremely analogous, is proved by the remark of Galen, that the finest
cassia differs so little from the lowest quality of cinnamon, that the
first may be substituted for the second, provided a double weight of it
be used.
[1917] _Enumeratio Plantarum Zeylaniæ_, 1864. 252.—Consult also
Meissner in De Cand. _Prod._ xv. sect. i. 10.
[1918] _Flora Sylvatica for Southern India_, 1872. 262.
[1919] _Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients in the Indian Ocean_,
ii. (1807) 512.
It is also evident that both were regarded as among the most costly
of aromatics, for the offering made by Seleucus II. Callinicus, king
of Syria, and his brother Antiochus Hierax, to the temple of Apollo
at Miletus, B.C. 243, consisting chiefly of vessels of gold and
silver, and olibanum, myrrh (σμύρνη), costus (page 382), included also
two pounds of _Cassia_ (κασία), and the same quantity of _Cinnamon_
(κιννάμωμον).[1920]
In connexion with this subject there is one remarkable fact to be
noticed, which is that none of the cinnamon of the ancients was
obtained from Ceylon. “In the pages of no author,” says Tennent,[1921]
“European or Asiatic, from the earliest ages to the close of the
thirteenth century, is there the remotest allusion to cinnamon as an
indigenous production, or even as an article of commerce in Ceylon.”
Nor do the annuals of the Chinese, between whom and the inhabitants
of Ceylon, from the 4th to the 8th centuries, there was frequent
intercourse and exchange of commodities, name _Cinnamon_ as one of the
productions of the island. The Sacred Books and other ancient records
of the Singhalese are also completely silent on this point.
Cassia, under the name of _Kwei_, is mentioned in the earliest Chinese
herbal,—that of the emperor Shen-nung, who reigned about 2700 B.C., in
the ancient Chinese[1922] Classics, and in the _Rh-ya_, a herbal dating
from 1200 B.C. In the _Hai-yao-pên-ts’ao_, written in the 8th century,
mention is made of _Tien-chu kwei_. Tien-chu is the ancient name for
India: perhaps the allusion may be to the cassia bark of Malabar.
In connexion with these extremely early references to the spice, it may
be stated that a bark supposed to be _cassia_ is mentioned as imported
into Egypt together with gold, ivory, frankincense, precious woods, and
apes, in the 17th century B.C.[1923]
The accounts given by Dioscorides, Ptolemy and the author of the
Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, indicate that cinnamon and cassia were
obtained from Arabia and Eastern Africa; and we further know that the
importers were Phœnicians, who traded by Egypt and the Red Sea with
Arabia. Whether the spice under notice was really a production of
Arabia or Africa, or whether it was imported thither from Southern
China (the present source of the best sort of cassia), is a question
which has excited no small amount of discussion.
We are in favour of the second alternative,—firstly, because no
substance of the nature of cinnamon is known to be produced in Arabia
or Africa; and secondly, because the commercial intercourse which
was undoubtedly carried on by China with India and Arabia, and which
also existed between Arabia, India and Africa, is amply sufficient to
explain the importation of Chinese produce.[1924] That the spice was a
production of the far East is moreover implied by the name _Darchini_
(from _dar_, wood or bark, and _Chini_, Chinese) given to it by the
Arabians and Persians.
[1920] Chishull, _Antiquities Asiaticæ_, 1728. 65-72.
[1921] _Ceylon_, i (1859) 575.
[1922] We are indebted to Dr. Bretschneider of Pekin for these
references to Chinese literature. For information about some of the
works quoted, see his pamphlet _On the Study and Value of Chinese
Botanical Works_, Foochow, 1870.
[1923] Dümichen, _Fleet of an Egyptian Queen_, Leipzig, 1868, p. 1.
[1924] “ ... That there was an ulterior commerce beyond Ceylon is
indubitable; for at Ceylon the trade from Malacca and the Golden
Chersonese met the merchants from Arabia, Persia and Egypt. This might
possibly have been in the hands of the Malays or even the Chinese,
who seem to have been navigators in all ages as universally as the
Arabians....” Vincent, _op. cit._ ii. 284. 285.—In the time of Marco
Polo, the trade of China westward met the trade of the Red Sea, no
longer in Ceylon, but on the coast of Malabar, apparently at Calicut,
where the Portuguese 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 Ser Marco Polo_, ii. (1871)
325, 327.
If this view of the case is admissible, we must regard the ancient
cinnamon to have been the substance now known as _Chinese Cassia
lignea_ or _Chinese Cinnamon_, and cassia as one of the thicker and
perhaps 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 _Cinnamomum_
of Southern China, a tree extremely like the cinnamon tree of Ceylon.
Whatever may be the facts, the early notices of cinnamon as a
production of Ceylon are not prior to the 13th century. The very first,
according to Yule,[1925] 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 ambassador, Al-Hadj-Abu-Othman, to
the Sultan’s court. It was mentioned that Ceylon produced elephants,
Bakam (the wood of _Cæsalpinia Sapan_ L.—see page 216), pearls and also
_cinnamon_.[1926]
A still more positive evidence is due to the Minorite friar, John of
Montecorvino, a missionary who visited India. This man, in a letter
under date December 20th, 1292 or 1293, written at “Mabar, città 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.[1927]
Again, it is mentioned by the Mahomedan traveller Ibn Batuta about A.D.
1340,[1928] and a century later by the Venetian merchant Nicolo di
Conti, whose description of the tree is very correct.[1929]
The circumnavigation of the Cape of Good Hope led to the real discovery
of Ceylon by the Portuguese in 1505, 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 trista_ of Malabar. Garcia de Orta,
about the middle of the same century, stated that Ceylon cinnamon was
forty times as dear as that of Malabar. Clusius, the translator of
Garcia, saw branches of the cinnamon tree as early as 1571 at Bristol
and in Holland.
[1925] _Marco Polo_, ii. 255.
[1926] _Quatremère_ (in the book quoted at page 511, note 4), ii. 284.
[1927] Yule, _Cathay and the way thither_, i. 213, also Kunstmann,
_Anzeigen der baierischen Akademie_, 24 and 25 December 1855. p. 163
and 169.
[1928] _Travels of Ibn Batuta_, translated by Lee, Lond. 1829. 184.
[1929] Ramusio, _Raccolta delle Navigationi et Viaggi_, i. (1563) 339;
Kunstmann, _Kenntniss Indiens im fünfzehnten Jahrhundert_, 1864. 39.
At this period cinnamon was cut from trees growing wild in the forests
in the interior of Ceylon, the bark being exacted as tribute from the
Singhalese kings by the Portuguese. A peculiar caste called _chalias_,
who are said to have emigrated from India to Ceylon in the 13th
century, and who in after-times became cinnamon-peelers, delivered the
bark to the Portuguese. The cruel oppression of these _chalias_ was not
mitigated by the Dutch, who from the year 1656 were virtually masters
of the whole seaboard, and conceded the cinnamon trade to their East
India Company as a profitable monopoly, which the Company exercised
with the greatest severity.[1930] The bark previous to shipment was
minutely examined by special officers, to guard against frauds on the
part of the _chalias_.
About 1770 De Koke conceived the happy idea, in opposition to the
universal prejudice in favour of wild-growing cinnamon, of attempting
the cultivation of the tree. This project was carried out under
Governors Falck and Van der Graff with extraordinary success, so that
the Dutch were able, independently of the kingdom of Kandy, to furnish
about 400,000 lb. of cinnamon annually, thereby supplying the entire
European demand. In fact, they completely ruled the trade, and would
even _burn_ the cinnamon in Holland, lest its unusual abundance should
reduce the price.
After Ceylon had been wrested from the Dutch by the English in 1796,
the cinnamon trade became the monopoly of the English East India
Company, who then obtained more cinnamon from the forests, especially
after the year 1815, when the kingdom of Kandy fell under British rule.
But though the _chalias_ had much increased in numbers, the yearly
production of cinnamon does not appear to have exceeded 500,000 lb. The
condition of the unfortunate _chalias_ was not ameliorated until 1833,
when the monopoly granted to the Company was finally abolished, and
Government, ceasing to be the sole exporters of cinnamon, permitted the
merchants of Colombo and Galle to share in the trade.
Cinnamon however was still burdened with an export duty equal to a
third or a half of its value; in consequence of which and of the
competition with cinnamon raised in Java, and with cassia from China
and other places, the cultivation in Ceylon began to suffer. This duty
was not removed until 1853.
The earliest notice of cinnamon in connexion with Northern Europe that
we have met with, is the diploma granted by Chilperic II., king of the
Franks, to the monastery of Corbie in Normandy, A.D. 716, in which
provision is made for a certain supply of spices and grocery, including
5 lb. of _Cinnamon_.[1931]
The extraordinary value set on cinnamon at this period is remarkably
illustrated by some letters written from Italy, in which mention
is here and there incidentally made of presents of spices and
incense.[1932] Thus in A.D. 745, Gemmulus, a Roman deacon, sends to
Boniface, archbishop of Mayence (“_cum magnâ reverentiâ_”), 4 ounces
of _Cinnamon_, 4 ounces of Costus, and 2 pounds of Pepper. In A.D.
748, Theophilacias, a Roman archdeacon, presents to the same bishop
similar spices and incense. Lullus, the successor of Boniface, sends to
Eadburga, _abbatissa Thanetensis_,[1933] _circa_ A.D. 732-751—“_unum
graphium argenteum et storacis et_ cinnamomi _partem aliquam_”; and
about the same date, another present of cinnamon to archbishop Boniface
is recorded. Under date A.D. 732-742, a letter is extant of three
persons to the abbess Cuneburga, to whom the writers offer—“_turis et
piperis et_ cinnamomi _permodica xenia, sed omni mentis affectione
destinata_.”
[1930] Tennent, _op. cit._ ii. 52.
[1931] Pardessus, _Diplomata_, etc., Paris, 1849. ii. 309.
[1932] Jaffé, _Bibliotheca Rerum Germanicarum_, Berlin, iii. (1866)
154. 199. 214. 216-8. 109.
[1933] Doubtless _Eadburh_, third abbess of Minster in the Isle of
Thanet in Kent. She died A.D. 751.
In the 9th century, _Cinnamon_, pepper, costus, cloves, and several
indigenous aromatic plants were used in the monastery of St. Gall in
Switzerland as ingredients for seasoning fish.[1934]
Of the pecuniary value of this spice in England, there are many notices
from the year 1264 downwards.[1935] In the 16th century it was probably
not plentiful, if we may judge from the fact that it figures among the
New Year’s gifts to Philip and Mary (1556-57), and to Queen Elizabeth
(1561-62).[1936]
=Production and Commerce=[1937]—The best cinnamon is produced,
according to Thwaites,[1938] from a cultivated or selected form of the
tree (var. α.), distinguished by large leaves of somewhat irregular
shape. But the bark of all the forms possesses the odour of cinnamon
in a greater or less degree. It is not however always possible to
judge of the quality of the bark from the foliage, so that the peelers
when collecting from uncultivated trees, are in the habit of tasting
the bark before commencing operations, and pass over some trees as
unfit for their purpose. The bark of varieties β. _multiflorum_ and
γ. _ovalifolium_ is of very inferior quality, and said to be never
collected unless for the purpose of adulteration.
The best variety appears to find the conditions most favourable to
its culture, in the strip of country, 12 to 15 miles broad, on the
south-west coast of Ceylon, between Negumbo, Colombo and Matura,
where the tree is grown up to an elevation of 1500 feet. A very
sandy clay soil, or fine white quartz, with a good sub-soil and free
exposure to the sun and rain, are the circumstances best adapted for
the cultivation. The management of the plantations resembles that of
oak coppice in England. The system of pruning checks the plant from
becoming a tree, and induces it to form a stool from which four or five
shoots are allowed to grow; these are cut at the age of 1½ to 2 years,
when the greyish-green epidermis begins to turn brown by reason of the
formation of a corky layer. They are not all cut at the same time, but
only as they arrive at the proper state of maturity; they are then 6 to
10 feet high and 1 to 2 inches thick. In some of the cinnamon gardens
at Colombo, the stools are very large and old, dating back, it is
supposed, from the time of the Dutch.
[1934] _Pharm. Journ._ viii. (1877) 121.
[1935] Eden, _State of the Poor_, ii. (1797) appendix; Rogers, _Hist.
of Agriculture and Prices in England_, ii. (1866) 543.
[1936] Nicholls, _Progresses and Processions of Q. Elizabeth_, i.
(1823) xxxiv. 118.
[1937] Additional information may be found in two papers by Marshall,
in Thomson’s _Annals of Philosophy_, x. (1817) 241 and 346; see also
Leschenault de la Tour, _Mém. du Musée d’Hist. nat._ viii. (1822)
436-446.
[1938] _Op. cit._ 252-253.
In consequence of the increased flow of sap which occurs after the
heavy rains in May and June, and again in November and December, the
bark at those seasons is easily separated from the wood, so that a
principal harvest takes place in the spring, and a smaller one in the
latter part of the year.
The shoots having been cut off by means of a long sickle-shaped hook
called a _catty_, and stripped of their leaves, are slightly trimmed
with a knife, the little pieces thus removed being reserved and sold as
_Cinnamon Chips_. The bark is next cut through at distances of about
a foot, and slit lengthwise, when it is easily and completely removed
by the insertion of a peculiar knife termed a _mama_, the separation
being assisted, if necessary, by strongly rubbing with the handle. The
pieces of bark are now carefully put one into another, and the compound
sticks firmly bound together into bundles. Thus they are left for 24
hours or more, during which a sort of “_fermentation_” (?) goes on
which facilitates the subsequent removal part. This is accomplished
by placing each quill on a stick of wood of suitable thickness, and
carefully scraping off with a knife the outer and middle cortical
layer. In a few hours after this operation, the peeler commences to
place the smaller tubes within the larger, also inserting the small
pieces so as to make up an almost solid stick, of about 40 inches in
length. The cinnamon thus prepared is kept one day in the shade, and
then placed on wicker trays in the sun to dry. When sufficiently dry,
it is made into bundles of about 30 lb. each.[1939]
The cinnamon gardens of Ceylon were estimated in 1860-64 to occupy an
area of about 14,400 acres; in the catalogue of the British Colonies,
Paris Exhibition, 1878, about 2 millions of acres are stated to be
under cultivation in the island, 26,000 acres with cinnamon.[1940]