X544(6)

PLATE VI. COLPITTY, FROM THE CINNAMON GARDENS.

This is a back view of the residence built and formerly occupied by Robert Boyd, Esq., one of the senior members of the Ceylon civil service, who about nine years since retired on a pension, after a long and honourable service in the Island. It affords a good specimen of the elegance and comfort of oriental life; and when the drawing was made, it was occupied by Colonel Arbuthnot, commanding H. M.'s 90th regiment and the garrison of Colombo, now equerry to the Queen.

The centre building, or pavilion, contains the drawing, dining, and sitting-rooms, on one floor; the sleeping apartments are in the cool and well-shaded circular bungalow on the left; and the kitchen, the servants' quarters, stabling, &c., stand in the detached buildings on the other side - the former communicating with the pavilion by a covered way. The grounds, which are tastefully laid out, contain some fine trees, and beautiful clumps of the graceful bamboo, represented in the view, which is taken from the cinnamon gardens, near the Ceylon rifles' mess-house, looking across an arm of the lake of Colombo, and backed by the lofty cocoa-nut groves of Colpitty.

In the foreground a man is represented in the act of cutting cinnamon for peeling, and an account of this operation, and of the cultivation of the plant generally, as well as a description of the gardens, will be appropriate here.

These grounds, or gardens, which are barely separated from Slave Island, as previously stated, extend to Morotto - being ten or twelve miles in circuit - and form one of the most delightful rides and drives in the vicinity of Colombo. The soil is a remarkable specimen of the silicious kind, the surface in many parts being pure quartz-sand, as white as snow. From a few inches below the surface to the roots of the plant, the sand is generally of a grey colour; and its component parts are stated by Davy to consist of silicious sand 98.5, vegetable matter 1.0, water 0.5 = 100.0.

It appears strange that the cinnamon-plant should succeed best in so poor a soil, but it is accounted for by the sheltered situation of the gardens, which are on a level, nearly, with the lake of Colombo; the climate being extremely humid, its temperature high and very equable, and the ground refreshed by frequent showers.

The cinnamon plant or shrub, Laurus Cinnamomim, is not allowed to grow above the height of nine or ten feet in the cultivated state, though in the jungle it becomes a large tree, and the produce is comparatively valueless.

The leaf is like that of the common laurel in shape and size, but has three longitudinal fibres, or ribs - instead of one, like the former and most other leaves - dividing its surface into four nearly equal sections. The young leaves, on first shooting out, are of a bright red, and afterwards become of a dark green colour. No odour is exhaled from the shrub; but if you bruise a leaf, and rub it strongly together, you will perceive a slight scent of cinnamon. Those, therefore, who look for " the perfumed breeze" in their ride through the gardens will be so far disappointed. The shrub bears a small fruit, not unlike an acorn, which is ripe in September; when boiled in water it gives out an oil which floats on the surface, and, when cold, is white and hard like tallow, having a pleasant smell; the natives use it as an ointment. The essential oil extracted from the cinnamon itself is very powerful, and is used for medicinal purposes, as well as to protect books, &c., from the ravages of the moth, which, in Ceylon, are dreadful.

The cinnamon is the bark or rind of the shrub, which, before it is cut, is of a whitish colour. The branches should be three years old before they are lopped, when the peel is dexterously slit, lengthwise, and squeezed off without breaking, and then dried in the sun. The barking seasons are from April to August, and from November to January.

When quite dry, the cinnamon is formed into bales of about four feet in length and one in diameter, weighing 100 lbs.; the smaller pipes being inserted into the larger to form the requisite length.

In the time of the Dutch, and of the British also, till about ten years since, the government possessed a perfect monopoly of all the cinnamon in the Island; but at the recommendation of the Commissioners of Inquiry, this monopoly was abolished in 1833, when the gardens were ordered to be sold in lots, and an export duty was imposed of 3s. 6d. per lb. on the first sort, 3s. on the second, and 2s. per lb. on the third sort of cinnamon. This rate was subsequently modified, and in 1842 it was reduced to an uniform duty of 1s. per lb. on all cinnamon exported.

It is stated, in the Report of the Commissioners, that from 1823 (when the contract with the East India Company expired) to 1831, the gross revenue accruing from the government sales in London varied from £52,400 to ,£170,434 per annum, and that the average quantity annually sold in the seven years preceding 1831 was 457,800 lbs.; the average prices obtained for the different sorts being 6s. 6d, per lb. In the same document the charges for the cinnamon department, and other expenses in Ceylon and London, are estimated at £42,000 per annum.

By a return published in the Colombo Overland Herald, it appears that the total quantity of cinnamon exported from Ceylon for the year ending the 31st of August, 1844, amounted to 938,698 lbs., being more than double the average quantity sold in the same period under the government monopoly.

The first cinnamon gardens were formed in Ceylon, under the Dutch governor Falck, between the years 1765 and 1785.