THE CLOYE-TREE. 



153 



place so liigh a value on such simple objects, and 

 had obtaiiied theh- first specimeus. Java is perhaps 

 the only island iu the archipelago -^^^here such orna- 

 ments could have been made by the natives, but I do 

 not find that they are especially priced there, or 

 that they have been dug np vrith other relics of pre- 

 vious ages. 



Off this coast lie three islands, the Three Broth* 

 ers, and on their shores the natives found a number 

 of rare shells. In the streets of the village consid- 

 erable quantities of cloves that had been gathered on 

 the neighboring hill-sides were exposed to the sun on 

 mats between the frequent showers, but the culture 

 of that spice has been so neglected of late years, that 

 this was the only place where I saw the fruit in all 

 the Moluccas. The clove-tree {OarophjUm aroimti- 

 ms) belongs to the order of myrtles, which also in- 

 cludes the pomegranate, the guava, and the rose- 

 apple. The trunk of the full-grown tree is from eight 

 to twelve inches in diameter, and occiisionally much 

 more. Its topmost branches are usually forty or fifty 

 feet from the gi-ound, though I have seen a tree not 

 larger than a cherry-tree fully loaded with fruit. It 

 was originally confined to the five islands off the west 

 coast of Gilolo, which then comprised the whole 

 group knovm as the Moluccas," a name that has 

 since been extended to Bui'u, Amboina, and the other 

 islands off the south coast of Ceram, where the clove 

 has been introduced and cultivated mthin a com- 

 paratively late period- On those five islands it begins 

 to bear in its seventh or eighth year, and sometimes 

 continues to yield until it has reached an age of nearly 



