capital cherry-brandy of them: tbe trade in cinnamon
is of recent introduction, and is much encouraged by
the Inglis family, to whose exertions these people are
so greatly indebted; the cinnamon is the peeled bark of
a small species, allied to that of Ceylon, and though
inferior in flavour, and mucilaginous (like cassia), finds
a ready market at Calcutta. I t has been used to
adulterate the Ceylon cinnamon ; and an extensive
fraud was attempted by some Europeans at Calcutta,
who sent boxes of this, with a top layer of the genuine,
to England. The smell of the cinnamon loads was as
fragrant as that of the fish was offensive.
I n the evening we arrived at Nonkreem, a large
village in a broad marshy valley, where we procured
accommodation with some difficulty, the people being
by no means civil, and the Raj ah holding himself
independent of the British Government.
Atmospheric denudation and weathering have produced
remarkable effects on the lower part of the
Nonkreem valley, which is blocked up by a pine-crested
hill, 200 feet high, entirely formed of round blocks of
granite, heaped up so as to resemble an old moraine ;
but like the Nunklow boulders, these are not arranged
as if by glacial action. The granite is very soft, decomposing
into a coarse reddish sand, that colours the
Boga-panee. To procure the iron sand, which is disseminated
through it, the natives conduct water over the'
beds, and as the lighter particles are washed away, the
remainder is removed to troughs, where the separation
of the ore is completed. The smelting is very rudely
earned on in charcoal fires, blown by enormous doubleupright
action bellows, worked by two persons, who stand on
the machine, raising the flaps with their hands, and
expanding them with their feet, as shown in the cut on
the next page. There is neither furnace nor flux used
in the reduction. The fire is kindled on one side of an
NONKREEM VILLAGE.
stone (like the head-stone of a grave), with a
small arched hole close to the ground: near this hole
the bellows are suspended; and a bamboo tube from
each of its compartments, meet in a larger one, by
which the draft is directed under the hole in the stone