FORMER MONOPOLIES. 309 



the whole native population east of Celebes is either 

 Mohammedan or heathen. 



The islands on which the clove-tree grew spon- 

 taneously, and the ones originally kno^vn as " the 

 Moluccas," are Ternate, Tidore, Motii", Makian, and 

 Bachian, which are situated in a row off the west 

 coast of the southern half of Gilolo. Of this group 

 Tidore and Bachian, only, l^elong to the prince of 

 Xernate, and the Dutch East India Company, in order 

 to make the monopoly they already enjoyed more 

 perfect, offered this prince a yearly sum of seventeen 

 thousand four hundred guilders, nearly seven thou- 

 sand dollars, for the privilege of destroying all 

 the clove and nutmeg trees they could find in his 

 M^de territory ; for besides these five islands and 

 other smaller ones near them, and also the adjoin- 

 ing coast of Gilolo, where the clove-tree was indi- 

 genous, it had been introduced by the natives 

 themselves into Ceram, Bui'u, and Amboina, before 

 the arrival of the Portuguese. ' This offer the prince 

 accepted in 1652, perhaps because he could not re- 

 fuse longer. From that date his power began to de- 

 cline, and in 1848 he was unable to make the people 

 of tlie little island of Makian acknowledge his sover- 

 eignty, which once extended from north of Gilolo to 

 Buton and Muna south of Celebes, a distance of six 

 hundred geographical miles. His emj^ire also in- 

 cluded the western coast of Celebes ; and the islands 

 that lie between it and Bachian, Biu'u, and a large 

 j)art of Ceram, and one-half the area of Gilolo, were 

 within its limits. For a long time expeditions were 

 fitted out every year T)y the Dutch, to search each 



