The Cinnamon Gardens of Ceylon--Immense profits of the Dutch--Decline of the Trade--Neglected state of the Gardens--Nutmegs and Cloves-- Cruel monopoly of the Dutch--A Spice Fire in Amsterdam--The Clove Tree--Beauty of an Avenue of Clove Trees--The Nutmeg Tree--Mace-- The Pepper Vine--The Pimento Tree. Although the beautiful laurel whose bark furnishes the most exquisite of all the spices of the East, is indigenous to the forests of Ceylon, yet, as no author previous to the fourteenth century mentions its aromatic rind among the productions of the island, there is every reason to believe that the cinnamon, which in the earlier ages was imported into Europe through Arabia, was obtained first from Africa, and afterwards from India. That the Portuguese, who had been mainly attracted to the East by the fame of its spices, were nearly twenty years in India before they took steps to obtain a footing at Colombo, proves that there can have been nothing very remarkable in the quality of the spice at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and that the high reputation of the Ceylon cinnamon is comparatively modern, and attributable to the attention bestowed upon its preparation for market by the Portuguese, and afterwards on its cultivation by the Dutch. Long after the appearance of Europeans in Ceylon, cinnamon was only found in the forests of the interior, where it was cut and brought away by the _Chalias_, an emigrant tribe which, in consideration of its location in villages, was bound to go into the woods to cut and deliver, at certain prices, a given quantity of cinnamon properly peeled and ready for exportation. This system remained unchanged so long as Portugal was master of the country, but the forests in which the spice was found being exposed to constant incursions from the Kandyans, the Dutch were compelled to form enclosed plantations of their own within range of their fortresses. The native chieftains, fearful of losing the profits derived from the labour of the Chalias, who were attached as serfs to their domains, and whose work they let out to the Dutch, were at first extremely opposed to this innovation, and endeavoured to persuade the Hollanders that the cinnamon would degenerate as soon as it was artificially planted. The withering of many of the young trees seemed to justify the assertion, but on a closer examination it was found that boiling water had been poured upon the roots. A law was now passed declaring the wilful injury of a cinnamon plant a crime punishable with death, and by this severity the project was saved.