112 THE NUTMEG. 



thought that the native country of the Clove plant and 

 the Nutmeg ^^•as either Java or Cevlon ; but these is- 

 lands were really only stations on the track of the clove- 

 trade. Nicolo de Conti discovered this when he visited 

 Java from India in the first half of the fifteenth century. 

 There he v^-as told that the home of this spice was 

 fifteen days further to the east. The discover\' of the 

 Moluccas, which according to O. VVartburg took place 

 in 1511 and is to be attributed to Antonio d'Abreo and 

 Francisco Serrano, enlightened Europe on the origin of 

 the clove. When the Moluccas fell into the hands of 

 the Portugese the spice trade passed to them, and a 

 hundred \ ears later to the Dutch East India Company. 

 This compan^• sought by every possible means to monop- 

 olise the production of cloves and nutmegs, and even 

 confined their cultivation to a few islands in order to 

 control it more effectually : on the other islands these 

 spice - trees were extirpated. In order to fetch high 

 prices the compan\' put only a limited quantity onto 

 the market; and when, in consecjuence of good crops, 

 the store grew too large in 1760 part of it was burnt 

 by the admiralty at Amsterdam. In spite of the strict 

 watch kept by the Dutch, the French Governors of the 

 Mauritius and the L^ourbons succeeded in the latter half 

 of the eighteenth centur^' in obtaining possession of 

 Clove and Nutmeg trees and planted them on their 

 islands. The English, during their occupation of the 

 Moluccas from 1795 to 1802, spread the spice plants 

 beyond these islands. And now they are grown over 

 a great part of the tropics. The Clove plant has almost 



