aste.
5. _Savel kuroondu_, mucilaginous or glutinous cinnamon. This sort
acquires a very considerable degree of hardness, which the chewing of
it sufficiently proves. It has otherwise little taste, and an
ungrateful smell; but the color is very fine, and it is often mixed
with the first and best sort; the color being much alike, excepting
only that in the good sort some few yellowish spots appear towards the
extremities.
6. _Dawool kuroondu_, or drum cinnamon. The wood of this tree, when
grown hard, is light and tough, and the natives make some of their
vessels and drums of it. The bark is of a pale color.
7. _Nika kuroondu_, wild cinnamon, whose leaf resembles that of the
nicasol (_Vitex Negundo_). The bark of this tree has neither taste or
smell when peeled, and is made use of by the natives only in physic,
and to extract an oil from to anoint their bodies.
8. _Mal kuroondu_, flowering cinnamon, because this tree is always in
blossom. The substance of the wood never becomes so solid and weighty
in this as in the other named species, which are sometimes nine or ten
feet in circumference. If this ever-flowering cinnamon be cut or
bored, a limpid water will issue out of the wound; but it is of use
only for the leaves and bark.
9. _Toupat kuroondu_, trefoil cinnamon, of which there are three
varieties, which grow in the mountains and valleys of the interior
about Kandy.
10. _We kuroondu_, white ant's cinnamon.
The first-named four of these are, however, alone varieties of the
_Cinnamonum verum_.
Good cinnamon is known by the following properties:--It is thin and
rather pliable; it ought to be about the substance of royal paper, or
somewhat thicker. It admits of a considerable degree of pressure, and
bends before it breaks; the fracture is then splintering. It is of a
light color, approaching to yellow, bordering but little upon the
brown; it possesses a sweetish taste, at the same time it is not
stronger than can be borne without pain, and is not succeeded by any
after-taste. The more cinnamon departs from these characteristics, the
coarser and less serviceable it is esteemed; and it should be rejected
if it be hard, and thick as a half-crown piece; if it be very dark
colored or brown; if it be very pungent and hot on the tongue, with a
taste bordering upon that of cloves, so that it cannot be suffered
without pain. Particular care should be taken that it is not
false-packed, or mixed with cinnamon of a
|