100 SPICES 



CHAP. 



Mace seems at this time to have been much more in 

 request than nutmegs, which are hardly mentioned in 

 these early days in Europe. 



The Portuguese located the home of the plant in 

 Banda in 1512, and held the trade in these spices until 

 they were driven out by the Dutch, who held the 

 monopoly for many years. They endeavoured to limit 

 the trees to Banda and Amboyna, destroying all the 

 trees in the other islands, but it is said that the fruit 

 pigeons more or less frustrated their efforts by swallow- 

 ing the seeds and transporting them to other islands in 

 the neighbourhood. 



The accumulations of nutmegs and mace in Holland 

 were so large that it is said that the crops of sixteen 

 years were in their warehouses, and in 1760 an immense 

 quantity of nutmegs and cloves were burnt at Amster- 

 dam to keep the prices up. 



Prices were very high till much later, for we read of 

 the import price of mace in London in 1806 being 85s. 

 to 90s. per lb., with an import duty of 7s. Id. per Ib. 

 added. 



But now Sir Stamford Kaffles had begun to foster 

 the cultivation of the spices in Bencoolen, in Sumatra, 

 and in Penang, and to break down the monopoly of the 

 Dutch. In Bencoolen he records in 1820 that he had 

 100,000 trees, of which one-fourth were in bearing, but 

 on the abandonment of that settlement by the British, 

 all cultivation disappeared and cultivation centred in 

 Penang. 



IN PENANG 



The history of the cultivation of the nutmeg in 

 Penang dates almost from the first colonisation of the 

 island by the British. The founding of the settlement 

 by Captain Light took place in 1786. At that time 

 the Dutch had the monopoly of nutmegs and cloves, and 

 it was hoped that it might be possible to break this 

 monopoly down by the introduction of these spices into 

 English colonies. The Honourable East India Com- 



