Herodotus relates that cassia grew in Arabia, but that cinnamon was brought there by birds from India, the fabled birthplace of Bacchus. This writer states that cassia grew in a shallow lake, the borders of which were infested with winged animals resembling bats; that these were powerful creatures and uttered piercing cries; but that the Arabs made war against them for the purpose of obtaining the spice and, defending their eyes from the attack of the monsters, drove them from their stronghold for a brief period and then, unmolested, collected the cassia. [Illustration: CEYLON] A still more marvelous account was given by a Grecian historian of the manner in which cinnamon was obtained, which is as follows: “The Arabs themselves were perfectly ignorant of the situation of the favored spots which produced this spice; some, however, asserted with much appearance of probability that it grew in the country where Bacchus was born, and they gave the following account of the plan resorted to for obtaining cinnamon: Some very large birds collected together a quantity of the shoots and small branches of the cinnamon and built their nests with it on the lofty mountains inaccessible to man; and the inhabitants of the country placed large pieces of carrion flesh near the haunts of the birds who bore it to their nests which, not being made strong enough to hold the additional load, gave way, falling to the valley below, where it was gathered up by the natives and exported to foreign lands.” It was exported into India in the time of the authors of the Periplus of the Erythræan Sea, and even long before it was much used among masters of the ancient world. Celsius recommends that it should be given “perparationem.” It is mentioned in the herb book of the Chinese Emperor Shen-nong, and was known in China 2,700 B. C. under the name of “Kwei” and was introduced into Egypt about 1,600 or 1,500 B. C., and China maintained her monopoly until the discovery of cinnamon on the Island of Ceylon. It would appear that cinnamon was not confined to Asia, much less to Ceylon, in former times. Ibn-Batuta is credited with having first mentioned the Island of Ceylon as a cinnamon region, for the Sayalan of Kazwini and Yakut is not Ceylon, as supposed by Colonel Yale and others, but Rami or Sumatra. The Romans were supplied by the Arabs, the cinnamon being carried up the Nile in ships, then across the desert on camels to the Red Sea, which they crossed to a port of Arabia, where India merchants were met and exchanges took place, the cinnamon being the most important article of commerce from India, and in this way the odors of the far-famed cinnamon spice came, by poetical liberty, to be associated with “Araby the Blest” by the system of transit by caravans overland through Arabia.