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Updated: May 1, 2025
Another account says that they come to some of the spice islands of the East to eat nutmegs, which so intoxicate them, that they fall down senseless, and are then killed. Mr Hooker, however, assured me that they were found only in New Guinea, and in a few groups of islands in its immediate neighbourhood.
In that multitude of islands which make up the Eastern Archipelago there were but five at that period where grew the clove Ternate, Tydor, Motiel, Makian, and Bacia. Pepper and ginger, even nutmegs, cassia, and mace, were but vulgar drugs, precious as they were already to the world and the world's commerce, compared with this most magnificent spice.
Two table-spoonfuls of sweet marjoram, \ powdered. Two nutmegs, / A bunch of pot-herbs, chopped small. A sixpenny loaf of stale bread, grated. Half a pound of butter, cut into the bread. Two eggs. A table-spoonful of salt. A table-spoonful of black pepper. Grate the bread, and having softened the crust in water, mix it with the crumbs.
A chorus of renewed promises and entreaties to continue followed this terrible threat. "Well, jist as I was sayin' it, good and loud, what should that blessed racket do but stop short, jist as if they'd all been shot dead; an' jist at that very min'it I was yellin' 'gratin' nutmegs! at the top o' my lungs!"
Upon the disaster I have been speaking of you may very well suppose that we came to an anchor as soon as we could, which was upon a small island not far from Banda, where, though the Dutch keep no factory, yet they come at the season to buy nutmegs and mace.
The nutmegs, which form the only export of the place, are all grown upon Great Banda, the largest of the three islands. It averages 500 feet in height, and is luxuriantly wooded. Banda Neira, the next in point of size, is the residence of the government officers, the troops, and the convicts. It is not so high as Great Banda, and does not produce a single nutmeg.
I grated the nutmegs and pounded the cinnamon up, and then, with one hand full of each, I went on deck, and walked slowly up and down in front of the American tourists. Soon I heard an ecstatic cry, "My dear, I distinctly smelt spice then!" Another turn, and another jubilant exclamation: "It's quite true about the spicy breezes. I got a delicious whiff just then.
The debt which the mediæval world owed to the East is shown both in the fruits and the spices which are described as growing in the garden, and in the pastimes said to have been enjoyed in its cool shade. We read of pomegranates, nutmegs, almonds, dates, figs, liquorice, aniseed, cinnamon, and zedoary, an Eastern plant used as a stimulant. When the poet would tell of dance and song, he goes by
"Well, that made him laugh; he seemed to forget about the nutmegs, and says he, 'That's a bright scheme, but it won't do; we shall want the Province some day, and I guess we'll buy it of King William; they say he is over head and ears in debt, and owes nine hundred millions of pounds starling we'll buy it, as we did Florida.
To humor him they went off in different directions; Hazel with his ax to level cocoanut trees, and Helen to search for fruits in the jungle. She came back in about an hour, very proud of some pods she had found with nutmegs inside them. She ran to Welch. He was not in the boat.
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