The Romans communicated with India only once each year during the reign of Augustus, and at such times invested about £403,000 in the trade of cinnamon. They figured on about 100 per cent. profit. History tells us it was at one time sold in Rome at $25 per pound. Even in comparatively modern times the products of the more eastern parts of Asia were chiefly imported into Europe by way of Egypt. The Venetians almost entirely controlled this lucrative branch of commerce, and through their hands these articles were supplied to the rest of Europe. But when the passage around the Cape of Good Hope was discovered by the Portuguese, in 1498, Indian commerce was turned into a different channel and the Portuguese soon supplanted the Venetians in the traffic of Indian commodities. Early in the sixteenth century they obtained permission from the powers of Ceylon to establish a factory on that island. Although the Europeans had obtained license from the ruling authorities to pursue this trade, the Arab merchants did not submit without a struggle to the intrusion. They vigorously opposed the landing of the strangers who were taking their trade away from them, but the Portuguese built the fort of Colombo and soon after made a treaty with the king of Kandy, by the terms of which the Portuguese agreed to assist the king of Kandy and his successors in all their wars and in return were to receive out of the Kandyan territory an annual supply of 124,000 pounds of cinnamon. The Dutch viewed with a jealous eye the rich and thriving Portuguese, and soon after they established themselves in the East Indies, and became desirous of monopolizing the cinnamon trade, they tried to undermine the Portuguese by showing favors to the king of Kandy, and in this way tried to have him drive the Portuguese from the island. The Dutch were partly successful in their bold attempt, as the king of Kandy, in 1612, agreed to sell the Dutch East India Company all the cinnamon that he could collect in his kingdom. The Portuguese, however, would not quietly submit, but after a long contesting of the matter it ended in 1645 in a treaty of peace with the Dutch, by which both nations were to share equally. During the time this treaty was in force both nations employed native cinnamon cutters to cut and prepare the aromatic bark, and all that was collected on either side was deposited in a central situation upon the river Dondegam, near Negombo. When the cinnamon harvest was completed an equal division of the quantity obtained was made, each party paying half the cost of harvesting. This amicable arrangement was not, however, of very long continuance, and in 1652 a fresh war proved more disastrous to the Portuguese, who were finally expelled from the Island of Ceylon in 1658. The Dutch now made strenuous efforts to obtain a monopoly of the cinnamon trade, and they also tried for the exclusive commerce of the Malabar coast. This was very expensive to the Dutch, as merchants of