230 TROPICAL SPICES 



are about nine years old, they begin to bear. They are 

 dioecious, having male or barren flowers upon one tree, and 

 female or fertile upon another. The flowers of both are small, 

 white, bell-shaped, without any calyx ; the embryo-fruit appear- 

 ing at the bottom of the female flowers in the form of a little 

 reddish knob. When ripe, it resembles in appearance and size 

 a small peach, and then the outer rind, which is about half an 

 inch thick, bursts at the side, and discloses a shining black nut, 

 which seems the darker from the contrast ofthe leafy network of 

 a fine red colour with which it is enve- 

 loped. The latter forms the Mace of com- 

 merce, and having been laid to dry in 

 the shade for a short time, is packed in 

 bags and pressed together very tightly. 

 The shell of the nut is larger and harder 

 than that of the filbert, and could not, in 

 the state in which it is gathered, be 

 broken without injuring the nut. On 

 that account the nuts are successively 

 dried in the sun and then by fire-heat, 

 Nutmeg. till the kernel shrinks so much as to 



rattle in the shell, which is then easily 

 broken. After this the nuts are three times soaked in sea-water 

 and lime ; they are then laid in a heap, where they heat and get 

 rid of their superfluous moisture by evaporation. This process 

 is pursued to preserve the substance and flavour of the nut, as 

 well as to destroy its vegetative power. 



The kernel contains both a fixed oil, which is obtained by 

 pressure, a pound generally yielding three ounces, and a trans- 

 parent volatile oil, which may be obtained by distillation in the 

 proportion of one thirty-second part of the weight of nutmeg used. 

 Banda still furnishes the most and the best nutmegs, though 

 the tree is now cultivated in many other tropical countries. 

 The yearly produce is estimated at about 500,000 pounds of 

 nutmegs and 150,000 pounds of mace. 



The outer, rinds are likewise not without use to the natives. 

 They are laid in large heaps, and allowed to putrefy, when they 

 get covered with a blackish mushroom, which is esteemed as a 

 great delicacy. 



