KINNAMON (f1np), translated cinnamon,' occurs in three places of Scripture ; first, about 1600 years before the Christian era, in Exod. xxx. 23, where it is enumerated as one of the ingredi ents employed in the prepatation of the holy anointing oil. It is next mentioned in Prov. vii. 17, again in Cant. iv. 14, while in Rev. xviii. 13, among the merchandise of Babylon, we have cin namon, and odours, and ointments, and frankin cense.' In the earliest notice it is called kinnamon berem, or 'sweet cinnamon.' Dr. Vincent is in clined to consider khennah besem and ainnamon besenz as derived from the same root.
Many writers have doubted whether the kinna mon of the Hebrews is the sante article that we now call cinnamon. Celsius quotes R. Ben Melech (ad Cant. iv. 14) and Saadias (Exod. xxx.) as con sidering it to be the Lign Aloe, or Agallochum. Others have doubted whether our cinnamon was at all known to the ancients. But the same thing has been said of almost every other drug which is noticed by them. If we were to put faith in all these doubts, we should be left without any sub stances possessed of sufficiently remarkable pro perties to have been articles of ancient commerce. The word myrod,uomot, occurs in many of the Greek authors, as Herodotus, Hippocrates, Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Galen, etc. The first of these, writ ing 4.00 years before the Christian em, describes cinnamon as a product of Arabia, and of cinnamon he says, • which we, as instructed by the Phceni cians, call mvvcfp.conov.' He states, moreover, that the Ambians were unacquainted with the particular spot in Ivhich it was produced, but that some as serted it grew in the region where Bacchus was educated. From all this we can only infer that it was the production of a distant country, probably India, and that it was obtained by the route of the Red Sea. Theophrastus (ix. 5) gives a fuller but still fabulous account of its production, and it is not until the time of Dioscorides, Galen, and the Periplus of the Erythrxan sea, that we get more definite information. Galen says that cassia and cinnamon are so much alike that it is not an easy matter to distinguish the one from the other. This is a difficulty that still continues to be experienced.
Dioscorides (i. t 2) says that cassia grows in Arabia, and that there are several kinds of it ; and of cinna mon he states also (i. 13) that there are several species, named from the different places where it is procured. But the best sort is that which is like the cassia of Mosylon, and is itself called Mosyllitic, or as Pliny says, Portus Mosyllites quo cinnamo mum devehitur' (vi. 29). Several kinds are de scribed by Dioscorides, and no fewer than ten kinds in the Periplus of Arrian (vid. Vincent, Periplus, p. 711), and among these the LKA7) pirrya, from the Greek crx7ont6s, hard,' which he translates xylocassia,' or wood cinnamon,' and states to be 'a term which occurs frequently, and perhaps distinguishes the cassia lignea (wood cin namon) from the cassia fistula (cannella, or pipe cinnamon).' Cinnamon of the best quality is imported in the present clay from Ceylon, and also from the Mala. bar coast, in consequence of the cinnamon plant (Cinnamomum Zodann-tem) having been introduced there from Ceylon. An inferior kind is also ex ported from the peninsula of India, the produce of other species of cinnamomum, according to Dr. Wight. From these countries the cinnamon and cassia of the ancients must most likely have been obtained, though both are also produced in the islands of Sumatm and Borneo, in China, and in Cochinchina.
Cassia bark, as we have seen, was distinguished with difficulty from cinnamon by the ancients. In the present day it is often sold for cinnamon ; in- ' deed, unless a purchaser specify true cinnamon, he will probably be supplied with nothing but cassia. It is made up into similar bundles with cinnamon, has the same general appearance, smell, and taste ; but its substance is thicker and coarser, its colour darker, its flavour much less sweet and fine than that of Ceylon cinnamon, while it is more pun gent, and is followed by a bitter taste ; it is also less closely quilled, and breaks shorter than genu ine cinnamon. There can be no reasonable doubt, as cinnamon and cassia were known to the Greeks, that they must have been known to the Hebrews also, as the commerce with India can be proved to have been much more ancient than is generally supposed [FLIDDAD1.—J. F. R.