154 TRAVELS IN THE EAST INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 



one hundred and fifty years ; the trees, therefore, are 

 of very different sizes. Here at Amboina it is not 

 expected to bear fruit before its twelfth or fifteenth 

 year, and to cease yielding when it is seventy-five 

 years old. Its limited distribution has always at- 

 tracted attention, and E-umphius, who describes it as 

 " the most beautiful, the most elegant, and the most 

 precious of all known trees," remarks : " Hence it ap- 

 pears that the Great Disposer of things in His wis- 

 dom, allotting His gifts to the several regions of the 

 world, placed cloves in the kingdom of the Moluccas, 

 beyond which, by no human industry, can they be 

 propagated or perfectly cultivated." In the last ob- 

 servation, however, he was mistaken, for since his 

 time it has been successfully introduced into the isl- 

 and of Penang, in the Strait of Malacca, and Suma- 

 tra, Bourbon, Zanzibar, and the coast of Guiana and 

 the West India Islands. The clove is the flower-bud, 

 and grows in clusters at the ends of the twigs. The 

 annual yield of a good tree is about four pounds and 

 a half, and the yearly crop on Amboina, Haruku, 

 Saparua, and Nusalaut, the only islands where the 

 tree is now cultivated, is 350,000 Amsterdam pounds.* 

 It is, however, extremely variable and uncertain — for 

 example, in 1846 it was 869,727 Amsterdam pounds, 

 but in 1849 it was only 89,923, or little more than 

 one-tenth of what it was three years before. Piga- 

 fetta informs us that, when the Spanish first came to 

 the Moluccas, there were no restrictions on the cul- 

 ture or sale of the clove. The annual crop at that 



* According to official statements, the total yield from 1675 to 1854 

 was 100,034,036 Amsterdam pounds. 



