Page:The Periplus of the Erythræan Sea.djvu/93

 that called zigir, with a scent like a rose.... The cinnamon has many names, from the different places where it grows. But the best sort is that which is like the casia of Mosyllum, and this cinnamon is called Mosyllitic, as well as the cassia." And this cinnamon, he says, "when fresh, in its greatest perfection, is of a dark color, something between the color of wine and a dark ash, like a small twig or spray full of knots, and very fragrant."

Roman writers distinguish between true cinnamon and cassia; the former was valued at 1500 denarii (about $325) the pound; the later at 50 denarii. The Periplus makes no distinction; "cassia" it mentions at Mosyllum and Opone, and the "harder cassia" at Malao. Cinnamon, under the Empire, probably meant the tender shoots and flower-tips of the tree, which were reserved for the emperors and patricians, and distributed to them on solemn occasions. Cassia was the commercial article, and included the bark, the split wood, and the root. The Romans could not distinguish between species, and their classification was according to the appearance of the product as it came to them.

As to the country of origin, Herodotus (book III) states that cassia was from Arabia; naturally so, as the Phoenicians brought it thence. He distinguishes cinnamon, and gives a fabulous story of its recovery from the nests of great birds "in those countries in which Bacchus was nursed," which in Greek legend meant India. The Periplus says that it was produced in Somaliland, to which Strabo and other Roman writers refer as the regio cinnamomifera in the same belief. But there is no sign of a cinnamon tree in that region at present, where the requisite conditions of soil and climate do not exist. Pliny (VI, 29) indicates that it was merely trans-shipped there. Strabo (XVI, IV, 14) says that it came from the "far interior" of this region, and that nearer the coast only the "false cassia" grew. Pliny (XXI, 42) says that it came from Aethiopia and was brought "over vast tracts of sea" to Ocelis by the Troglodytes, who took five years in making the round trip. Here are indications of that the true cinnamon was brought from India and the Far East to the Somali coast, and there mixed with bark from the laurel-groves mentioned in §11 and by Strabo, and taken thence to Arabia and Egypt. The Periplus notes also (§10) the "larger ships" required at Mosyllum for the cinnamon trade. This was probably the very midst of the "Land of Punt" whence the Egyptian fleet brough cinnamon 15 centuries before.

In India various barks and twigs are sold as cassia and cinnamon, and according to Watt (op. cit., p.313) it is still almost impossible to