360 



THE CLOVE. 



the Narcissus and certain Acacias — labour under 

 the same ill-fame. 



Here, after admiring the delicious view of the 

 tree-crowned uplands, the low grounds buried in 

 the richest forest, the cocoa-fringed shore of purest 

 white, and the sea blue as a slab of lapis lazuli, we 

 had an opportunity of inspecting the celebrated 

 clove plantations of Zanzibar. According to 

 Castanheda, when Yasco da Gama first touched at 

 Mombasah and Melinde, their Reguli sent him, 

 amongst other presents, cloves, and declared that 

 their countries grew the spice. Other travellers 

 mention the clove being found at various parts of 

 East Africa, and Andrea Corsali in Ramusio de- 

 scribes the produce as 6 not like those of India, but 

 shaped more like our acorns.' The Dutch, how- 

 ever, since their conquest of the Moluccas or Spice 

 Islands in 1607, monopolized the clove like the 

 nutmeg ; and by destroying the former and enslav- 

 ing the cultivators, they confined it, lest the price 

 should fall, to the single Island of Amboyna. 

 The naturalist traveller, M. Poivre, when governor 

 of the Isle of Prance, brought from the least 

 frequented of the Moluccas, in June 27, 1770, 

 some 450 nutmeg stalks and 10,000 nutmegs in 

 blossom or about to blossom, together with 70 

 clove trees and a box of plants, many of them 



