volcanic, those of New Guinea and its islands are certainly not so, but probably
much the same as those of Bencoolen, Penang, and Singapore. The growing of nutmegs,
therefore, in countries not so congenial to it as its native ones, is somewhat
like the attempt to grow maw or the vine in the northern, in competition with the
southern countries of Europe. Were the monopoly therefore abolished in the Dutch
possessions, the probability is that the cultivation would cease in the British. But
as the nutmeg even in its native country is always inferior in its wild to its
cultivated state, a considerable amount of skill and labour must continue to be
exercised in producing it even there; and as in the remote and rather rude countries
most congenial to it, this is not likely soon to happen, it is probable that the culture
in the British settlements may continue to be carried on for a long time.
In 1850 the total produce of mace and nutmegs in their parent country was, as
already stated, 580,000 pounds, exclusive of wild ones, of which no estimate can be
given. In the countries to which the culture has been transferred within the
Archipelago (in every other region than this in which it has been tried it has failed
for marketable purposes), the whole produce in the same year was estimated at
about 470,000, making a total produce of 900,000. This, with the exception of wild
nutmegs, which are not considerable, forms the whole consumption of the world
“ from China to Peru.” The amount exceeds that of 1708 by no more than
30,000 pounds. As early as 1615, and while the Portuguese and Dutch were
struggling for the monopoly, the consumption of our own country was estimated at
115,000. In 1850 it was short of 200,000. The consumption of black pepper in
1615 was no more than 450,000 pounds, and in 1850 had increased to near 8,200,000.
Thus, in a period of 235 years, our consumption of mace and nutmegs had barely
increased by 74 per cent., while that of black pepper, to say nothing of the correla-
lative condiments of capsicums and pimento, had multiplied by no less than 611 per
cent. When we consider these facts, and advert to the vast increase which has
taken place in the wealth and population of the world during the last two centuries,
it must, I think, be concluded that the taste for nutmegs in the middle ages, and
in the earlier periods of the Indian trade, was a fashion which has been long on the
decline, and that the article is at present the mere luxury of a very small number.
This view of the taste for it having been in early times in some measure a caprice,
seems to be confirmed by the recent change which has taken place in the relative
estimations of the mace and nutmeg, which have qualities so near to each other
that they cannot easily be distinguished, and which also, are always produced in the
same proportions to each other. In former times the mace bore what may be called
a fancy price, and sold for double the price of the nutmeg, or even more, whereas
at present it is hardly equal to it in market value.
With respect to the nutmeg as an article of husbandry, it is hardly necessary to
observe that it can have no possible advantage over any other commodity except in
so far as it may be more suitable to a particular soil and climate. Within its own
natural limits, very wide ones as it happens, it ought when not interfered with by
legislation, to be always a staple product, for the obvious reason that it can there be
reared with less labour than anywhere else. Beyond these it is certain that its
culture must be conducted with manifest disadvantage, and that more congenial
products ought to be preferred to it. The factitious value once put on it and on the
clove, and which it is evident they owed to the caprice of fashion and their rarity,
ought to be utterly discarded as simply irrational.
0 .
OBY, correctly, PULO-UBI, th a t is “ Y am island.” This is the name of several
islets in the Archipelago, but that which is best known to navigators is one on the
coast of Cambodia, and at the entrance of the Gulf of Siam in north latitude 8° 25',
and east longitude 104° 54'. Itis a mass of granite from 300 to 400 feet high, covered
with a forest of stunted trees. When I visited it on my way to Siam in 1821, its
inhabitants consisted of about a dozen poor Cochin-Chinese cultivating a few patches
of vegetables. The soil is thin and sterile, and the place of consequence only as a
land-mark, and for the wooding and watering of the junks trading between Siam,
Cambodia and the Malayan countries. A large wild yam seems to be plentiful in the
woods, from which, most probably,the island takes its name. Its only wild quadruped is
a squirrel, and the most abundant birds are the white shore pigeon, Columba littoralis.
OBY MAJOR, a translation by the Portuguese of the Pulo ubi basar of the
Malays, that is “ Great Yam Island,” the epithet being intended to distinguish it
from an islet near it called Oby latta, or correctly, Pulo ubi lata, “ Creeping Yam
Island.” Oby major is a considerable island of the Molucca Sea, between 30 and
40 miles south of Gilolo and the true Moluccas. Its extreme length from east to
west is about 40 miles, its greatest breadth about 15, and its area 624 geographical
miles. Around it are several small islands, as Gomona, Lukisong, Oby latta, Pulo-
maya (Deception Island), and Pulo-pisang (Banana Island). Beyond these few
particulars nothing is known of the island, and nothing at all of its inhabitants.
OLANGrO. This is the name of a long narrow islet on the eastern side of (Jebu,
one of the principal Philippines. Maktan, the scene of the death of Magellan, lies
between it and the main island. I t is in north latitude 10° 15', and in east longitude
124° 46', distant about three leagues from Qebu.
OMBAY, correctly PULO-OMBAI (in Malay “ fringed islan d ” ), is the furthest
east, and the largest of the five islands which lie between the large ones of Floris
and Timur. It is separated to the west from Pantar, correctly Putar, by a strait
five miles broad, and to the east from Timur by one of fifteen at its narrowest
part, the last well known to navigators as the Ombay Passage. Its extreme eastern
point is in south latitude 8° 9' 40" and east longitude 125° 6'; and its extreme
western in latitude 8° 9', and longitude 124° 27'. Its greatest length, which is from
east to west, is 45 miles, its greatest breadth about 10, and its area computed
at 732 square geographical miles. At its western extremity it is indented by a
deep bay. The land is high and bold, and the formation volcanic, although it is
not ascertained to contain any active volcano. Prom the accounts given of them
the inhabitants appear to be of the Negro-Malayan race, having dark brown complexions,
thick lips, flattened noses, and frizzled or curling hair. They are a rude
people, whose arms consist of bows and arrows, spears, and krises, and who have no
knowledge of fire-arms. Like the rudest inhabitants of Borneo and Celebes, they
are head-hunters, contenting themselves, however, with preserving, as a trophy, the
lower jaw-bone, instead of the whole skull. They seem to have some acquaintance
with iron, to practise a rude husbandry, and to have domesticated the ox, hog, dog,
and common fowl. Such is the account given of them by the companions of M.
Freycinet, who visited the island in 1817. Some of the natives of the coast,
however, seem to have adopted the Mahommedan religion.
OIL, in Malay minah, and in Javanese langa, both of them words of extensive
currency throughout the Malay and Philippine Archipelagos. The plants from
which fatty oils are chiefly extracted are the coco-palm, the ground pea, the
sesame, and the palma-christi; the first for edible use, and the three last for the
lamp. In the islands of the Molucca Sea, a fine esculent oil is expressed from the
nut of the kanari tree (Canarium commune). I am not aware that oil is expressed
in any of the islands from cruciform plants, nor is flax reared for this
purpose. Animal oils are hardly used in any shape : essential oils are obtained from
the clove, the nutmeg, the kayu-puti (Melaleuca cajeput) and in great abundance and
cheapness from the Malay camphor-tree (Dryobalanops camphora).
ONION (ALLIUM). The Malay and Javanese name for the onion is bawang, the
latter tongue adding for the polite dialect, brambang. The word bawang is almost
universal in the other languages of the Archipelago, wherever the plant is known.
As in many other cases, however, it is a generic term, the epithet “ red ” being
given to the common onion (Allium cepa), and “ white ” to garlic, the only two
species of the family known in the Archipelago. The onion, a small variety, is
largely cultivated in Java, but only at an elevation of three or four thousand feet
above the level of the sea, so that although bearing a native name, or at least one
not traceable to any foreign source, it is probably an exotic. It forms an article of
inland traffic, and has long been exported. Thus we find Barbosa enumerating it as
one of the articles brought by the Javanese to Malacca before the Portuguese
conquest.
OPHIR. Among the many places to which this name has been whimsically
given, there are two mountains, in the Archipelago to which the Portuguese have
applied it,—one in the Peninsula, and one in Sumatra. The last of these is in the
interior of the island, and towards its southern coast, inland from Pasammah. Its