monopoly, and they would take care not to give their subjects
more than would amount to their usual wages, while
they would surely exact as large a quantity of spice as they
could possibly obtain. Drake and other early voyagers
always seem to have purchased their spice-cargoes from the
Sultans and liaj ahs, and not from the cultivators. Now
the absorption of so much labour in the cultivation of this
one product must necessarily have raised the price of food
and other necessaries; and when it was abolished, more
rice would be grown, more sago made, more fish caught,
and more tortoise-shell, rattan, gum-dammer, and other
valuable products of the seas and the forests would be obtained.
I believe, therefore, that this abolition of the spice
trade in the Moluccas was actually beneficial to the inhabitants,
and that it was an act both wise in itself and
morally and politically justifiable.
In the selection of the places in which to carry on the
cultivation, the Dutch were not altogether fortunate or
wise. Banda was chosen for nutmegs, and was eminently
successful, since it continues to this day to produce a large
supply of this spice, and to yield a considerable revenue.
Amboyna was fixed upon for establishing the clove cultivation
; but the soil and climate, although apparently very
similar to that of its native islands, is not favourable, and
for some years the Government have actually been paying
to the cultivators a higher rate than they could purchase
cloves elsewhere, owing to a great fall in the price since the
rate of payment was fixed for a term of years by the Dutch
Government, and which rate is still most honourably paid.
In walking about the suburbs of Ternate, we find
everywhere the ruins of massive stone and brick buildings,
gateways and arches,, showing at once the superior
wealth of the ancient town and the destructive effects of
earthquakes. • It was during my second stay in the town,
after my return from New Guinea, that I first felt an
earthquake. It was a very slight one, scarcely more than
has been felt in this country, but occurring in a place that
had been many times destroyed By them it was rather
more exciting. I had just awoke at gun-fire (5 A.M.),
when suddenly the thatch began to rustle and shake as if
an army of cats were galloping over it, and immediately
afterwards my bed shook too, so that for an instant I
imagined myself back in New Guinea, in my fragile house,
which shook when an old cock went to roost on the ridse: O /
but remembering that I was now on a solid earthen
floor, I said to myself, “ Why, it’s an earthquake,” and lay
still in the pleasing expectation of another shock; but
none came, and this was the only earthquake I ever felt
in Ternate.
The last great one was in February 1840, when almost
every house in the place was destroyed. It began about