the Malayan countries. A third name is gaumedi, and this is that uBed by the
natives of the Moluccas themselves. I have the authority of my friend Professor
Wilson for saying that this word is Sanscrit, and means, literally, “ cow’s-marrow.”
The time when cloves were first brought to India, and from India to Europe, can
be a matter of little better than reasonable inference. In the detailed list of Indian
commodities given in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, as existing at the ports of
Western India, the clove is not included, and from this negative evidence it is to be
inferred that it did not, at the period when this compilation was made, exist in the
Indian markets, or at least did not rank as a staple commodity. The information of
the Periplus is supposed to refer to about the tenth year of the reign of Nero, or the
63rd of Christ. Granting all this to be true, it follows that cloves were unknown in
India, and consequently in Europe, about the middle of the first century. A celebrated
law of the digest of the reign of Aurelian first names cloves among the Indian
commodities imported into Alexandria. This law refers to the time between 176
and 180, so that there can be no doubt but that cloves were known both in Europe
and in India towards the close of the second century. Thus we have a connexion
existing between Continental India and the Malayan Archipelago of seventeen
centuries duration.
Some, however, have fancied that the clove was known in Europe a century earlier
and this seems to have been the opinion of the early Portuguese historians of India.
“ The knowledge of cloves,” says De Cauto, “ is so ancient that already Pliny, who
lived in the time of the Emperor Domitian, takes notice of them, for in his twelfth
book, chapter vii., he says there is in India a seed like pepper, except that it is
longer, which is called cariofilum by some, while others call it gariofilum.” The
passage in Pliny referred to is literally as follows. “ There is also in India a commodity
like grains of pepper called gariophyllon, but larger and more fragile. I t is said
to be produced in an Indian sacred grove (Indico luco). It is brought on account of
its perfume.” Had cloves really existed in the Roman markets at the time, no one
would have thought of describing them as resembling pepper, that is, as globular
grains. Instead of being spherical, their resemblance to a small iron nail was so
obvious that all the Europeans named them on this account.
The names given to the clove by European nations, or by the Asiatic ones through
whom they received it, although they may not much assist us in tracing its
commercial history, are, at least, a subject of curiosity. The historian, De Cauto, in
continuation of the passage above quoted, says, “ The Persians call the clove calafur,
and speaking on this matter, with permission of the physicians, it appears to us that
the cariofilum of the Latin is corrupted from the calafur of the Moors, for they have
some resemblance. And as this drug passed into Europe through the hands of the
Moors, with the name of calafur, it appears that the Europeans did not change it.
The Castilians called cloves gilope, because those which they got came from the
island of Gilolo. The people of the Moluccas call them chanqué. The Brahmin
physicians first called them lavanga, but afterwards gave them the Moorish name.
Generally all nations give them a name of their own as we have done, for the first of
us that reached these islands (the Moluccas), taking them in their hands, and
observing their resemblance to iron nails called them cravo, by which they are now
so well known in the world.” Decade iv., book vii., chapter 9.
The Persian calafur of the author is probably the Arabic karnafil, and therefore
comes nearer to the Latin word. If this, then, be the true derivation of the latter,
and Pliny’s name really referred to the clove, although inaccurately described, the
fact would carry us back in the history of the clove trade to the time of the Sabeans.
The strange corruption of the word Gilolo, which De Cauto states was the name
adopted in his time by the Spaniards, is not now to be found, that I am aware of, in
any Spanish dictionary. If the Arabic word karnafil be the origin of the Latin word,
it follows that it is so also of the Italian garofane, and of the French giroflé. The
striking resemblance of cloves to tackets or small nails is so obvious that it has
suggested most of their European names, as the Portuguese cravo, the Spanish clavo,
the French clou-de-girofle; or clove-nails, our own clove from the last, the German
kloben, and the Dutch kruid-nagel or herb-nails. Even the Chinese have their
“ odoriferous nails,” as already mentioned.
India was no sooner visited by intelligent modern Europeans, than the clove, as
well as every other Indian product, is accuratelyjdescribed for the first time ; forming a
complete contrast with the vague and uncertain knowledge of antiquity and the
middle ages, a proof how very little was known before the actual arrival of the
Portuguese by the new route. Barbosa is as usual wonderfully correct in his
account of the clove, although it is not certain that he visited the Moluccas. In one
place he describes the tree, which he compares to a laurel. He accurately describes
the clove harvest, and he names the places of production. In another, he describes
the nature and course of the trade with the fidelity and intelligence of an educated
merchant of our own times. I t is as follows : “ The clove grows in the islands called
Molucche, and from these it is brought to Malacca, and thence to Calicut, a country
of Malabar. I t is worth in Calicut, the bahar (712 small pounds of Venice), from 500
to 600 fanoes (about 50 gold scudi, or 12 marchette per pound), and cleaned from
sticks and chaff 700 fanoes, the export duty being 18 fanoes the bahar. In Maluccha,
where the clove grows, it is sold at from one to two ducats the bahar (equal to from
four to six pounds the marchetta) according to the number of purchasers who come
for it. In Malacca it sells at from 10 to 14 ducats, according to the demand of the
merchants.” Ramusio.
Pigafetta’s account of the clove is a good popular one, even at the present day.
“ I landed,” says he, “ the same day, (November 17th, 1521), in order to see how the
cloves grew, and this is what I observed. The tree from which they are gathered is
tall, and its trunk about the size of a man’s body, more or less, according to the age
of the plant. Its branches spread at the middle of the tree, but at its top form a
pyramid. The bark is of an olive colour, and the leaf is like that of the laurel. The
cloves come out at the end of the smaller branches, in little clusters of from ten to
twenty. These trees bear fruit more on one side than the other, according to the
season of the year. The cloves, on their first appearance, are white; but when they
ripen they become red, and being dried they become black. They are gathered twice
a year; once, at the Nativity of our Lord; and once, at that of St. John the Baptist.
In these times the air is more temperate than in others;—most so in December.
When the year is sufficiently hot and there is little rain, there are gathered in each
of these islands from 300 to 400 bahars of cloves. The clove tree will only live in
the mountains, and if transported to the plains it dies. The leaves, the bark, and
even the wood itself, as long as they are green, have the strength and fragrance of
the fruit itself. If the fruit be not gathered when it is properly ripe, it becomes large
and hard, so that no virtue remains in it. It is alleged that the clouds perfect the
cloves; and, in fact, we daily saw a cloud to descend, and surround one or other of
the mountains. Among these people every one possesses some of these trees, and
each person guards his own, and gathers the fruit, but no labour is bestowed on their
cultivation. The clove-tree will not flourish except in the mountains of the five
islands of Maluccha. There are, no doubt, a few plants in Gilolo, and in a small
island between Tidor and Mutir, called Mare, but the fruit is not good.” Primo
Viaggio intomo al Globo, p. 144.
The clove appears, from Pigafetta’s statement, to have been private property, and
entirely free in culture and trade; Malays, Javanese, Chinese, Macassars, and Arabs,
all competing for it in an open market. The annual quantity produced, according to
him, in the five islands, seems to have been from 1500 to 2000 bahars; and the bahar
is an Arabian weight, computed in the Moluccas at about 590 pounds. The companions
of Magellan themselves loaded two ships with cloves at a single island, Tidor,
after a stay, from their arrival to their departure, of no more than forty-four days.
De Cauto, whose information is more recent than that of Pigafetta, and, in such a
matter, it may be presumed more correct, says, that the yearly product was 6000
bahars of ungarbled, and 4000 of garbled or clean cloves; which reduced to pounds
would give 3,540,000, and 2,360,000. The prices quoted by Barbosa for the Moluccas,
supposing the money he mentions to be the gold ducat of Venice, are 14d. and 28d.
a cwt. At Malacca they rise to from 11s. to 15s. 6d. At Calicut, Barbosa’s quotations,
taking the fanoes or fanam at 4Jd., are 35s. 8d. and 42s. 8\d. We may trace these
cloves from Calicut to one of their most remote consumers. In England, before the
d -o v e ry of the passage by the Cape of Good Hope, a pound of cloves cost 30s., or
1684. per cwt. Thus many unskilful sea voyages and tedious land journeys, with
stupments and trans-shipments, loadings and unloadings, many custom and many
transit duties, brought a commodity of which the first cost was not worth a penny
a pound, to-be sold to the consumer 360 times this amount, This is a picture of the
rudest state of a remote commerce. Our ancestors must have ascribed curative virtues
to tne clove which it does not possess, or they never could have been tempted
to give the enormous price quoted for a mere condiment.
" °1S1T 6Se, “ ad? ^ e ir first appearance in the parent country of cloves, in
^aYlng been expelled by the Dutch in 1605, they had the prinp
e o e clove trade for ninety-three years,—a period of rapine, violence,