THE CLOVE AND NUTMEG. 
123 
liii^li conical mounds in the mitlst of the plantation. The 
aspect of a well- conditioned ciunamon-^aiden is rather 
monotonous, for though the trees when left to their full 
groTVth^ attain a height of forty or fifYy feet, yet, as the 
best spice is i'lirnished hy the shoots that spring from the 
roots after the chief stem haa been removed, they are kept 
as a kind of coppice, and not allowed to rise higher than 
ten leet. 
Nutmegs aad cloves, the costly productions of the 
remotest isles of the Indian Ocean, were known in Europe 
for centuries before the countries where they grow ]iad 
ever been heai*d of Arabian navigators brought them to 
I'igypfc, where they were pur- 
chased by the YenetiaiiSj and 
Eold at an enormous profit to 
the nations of the West, Bnt, 
as is well known, the commercial 
grandeur of the City of the 
Lagunes was suddenly eclipsed 
after Vasco de Gama discovered 
the new maritime road to the 
Kast Indies, round the Cape of 
Good Hop© (1498); and when, 
a few years later, the countrymen 
of the great navigator conquered 
the Moluccas (1511), they for a short time monopolised the 
whole spice trade much more than their predecessors had 
ever done before. But here also, as in Ceylon, the Portuguese 
were soon obliged to yield to a stronger rival ; for the Dutch 
now appeared upon the scene, and by dint of enteqirise and 
courage soon made themselves masters of the Indian Ocean, 
In 1605 they drove the Portuguese from Amboyna, and 
before 162 1 bad ©lapsed the whole of the lliloluccas were in 
their possession. Five- and- twenty years later, Ceylon also 
fell into theii' hands, and thus they became the sole pur- 
veyors of cinnamon, cloves, and nutmegs to Enrope. Un- 
fortunately, the scandalous m:uni<"r in which they misused 
