Before I close my account of the vegetable productions of this part of India, I must take some notice of the spices. Java originally produced none but pepper. This is now sent from hence into Europe to a great value, but the quantity consumed here is very small: the inhabitants use Capsicum, or, as it is called in Europe, Cayan pepper, almost universally in its stead. Cloves and nutmegs, having been monopolized by the Dutch, are become too dear to be plentifully used by the other inhabitants of this country, who are very fond of them. Cloves, although they are said originally to have been the produce of Machian, or Bachian, a small island far to the eastward, and only fifteen miles to the northward of the line, and to have been from thence disseminated by the Dutch, at their first coming into these parts, over all the eastern islands, are now confined to Amboina, and the small isles that lie in its neighbourhood; the Dutch having, by different treaties of peace between them and the conquered kings of all the other islands, stipulated, that they should have only a certain number of trees in their dominions, and in future quarrels, as a punishment for disobedience and rebellion, lessened the quantity, till at last they left them no claim to any. Nutmegs have in a manner been extirpated in all the islands except their first native soil, Banda, which easily supplies every nation upon earth, and would as easily supply every nation in another globe of the same dimensions, if there was any such to which the industrious Hollander could transport the commodity; it is, however, certain, that there are a few trees of this spice upon the coast of New Guinea. There may perhaps be both cloves and nutmegs upon other islands to the eastward; for those, neither the Dutch, nor any other European, seem to think it worthwhile to examine.

Voyaging Accounts