In the Eastern Seas

by William Henry Giles Kingston

The two young ladies, with Frau Ursula, were able to accompany us. Our road lay through a grove of palm-trees, and wound up a hill, till we reached the plantations of young cacao-trees. They were covered with long red cucumber-like fruit. The plants had been brought here from Madagascar, where it was first discovered by the Spaniards. They are great consumers of it in various forms. Chocolate comes from the Spanish chocolate, which is composed of cacao pounded with Indian corn, to which honey is sometimes added. The sugar-cane was also introduced, as sugar assists in neutralising the bitter qualities of the cacao. I need scarcely point out the difference between the cacao—often written cocoa—plant and fruit, from which the now much used beverage is made, and the lofty cocoa-nut palms with their well-known nuts full of juice. In the woods we saw numbers of green parrots, which uttered their shrill deafening screams as they darted to and fro through the thick foliage.

Proceeding again along the beach, my sister and Grace, feeling thirsty, asked for a draught of water, but neither stream nor fountain was in sight. When one of our attendants heard what was inquired for, “Stop,” he said, “you shall have it.” Directly afterwards, we saw him climb up a cocoa-nut palm above our heads, whence he cut off some of the clusters of large green fruit. Immediately descending, he struck off the end with a hatchet, and presented each of us with a goblet of the freshest and most sparkling water I ever tasted. We had before only found the more mature fruit, after the liquid has assumed a milk-like appearance.

A short way on, we saw the hill-side covered with myrtle-like trees, and found that they were plantations of clove-trees. The clove-tree belongs to the order of myrtles. The trunks of the full-grown trees were about twelve inches in diameter. Their topmost branches were from forty to fifty feet from the ground. However, we found some very small ones, fully loaded with fruit. The clove is the flower bud, and it grows in clusters at the end of the twigs. Our guide told us that the annual yield of a good tree is about four pounds and a half. When the buds are young, they are nearly white; when more mature, they change to a light green, and ultimately to a bright red. They are then picked by the hand, or beaten off with bamboos, on cloths spread under the trees. They are simply dried in the sun for use, when their colour changes from red to black. The leaves, the bark, and young twigs, have also a peculiar aroma. It grows best on the high hillsides, on a volcanic soil, or a loose sandy loam. Curiously enough, although cloves are used in all parts of the world, the inhabitants of these islands do not eat them. They employ them in making models of their prows and bamboo huts, by running a small wire through them before they are dried. I remember seeing a number of these models in the Great Exhibition in England, many of them of very elaborate construction. When cloves were first introduced into England, thirty shillings per pound was paid for them. They are now cultivated in several other places, and consequently their value in the Spice Islands has greatly fallen.

As we returned home in the evening, we passed along a pathway lined by rows of pine-apples, which had, like the cocoa-nut trees, been brought from Tropical America. We also saw creatures leaping from branch to branch. The servants caught some, when we found them to be flying dragons; not such as Saint George fought with, but small lizards known as the Draco volans. They were provided with broad folds in the skin, along each side of the body, which enabled them not really to fly, but, as a parachute would do, to sustain them in the air while they leap from branch to branch.

I was ahead of our party when I heard a loud hammering or tapping, and creeping near, I saw a cocoa-nut, which had just fallen from a tree, and an enormous crab working away at it. I stopped to watch him. He had torn off the dry husk which covered the latter with his powerful claws, just at the point where the three black scars are found marked. He was now breaking the shell by hammering with one of his heavy claws. As soon as this was done, he began to pick out the rich food, by means of his pincer-like claws. Our servants as they came up chased and caught him, tying up his claws, and saying that we should find it, when cooked, one of the greatest delicacies in the place.

We stopped for the night at the house of Mr Hooker’s friend, a little outside the town. Our beds were placed in a verandah, merely covered with mats at night; our heads only guarded by mosquito curtains, though we could hear the venomous insects buzzing outside. As I put my head on the pillow before going to sleep, the sound of the low cooing of doves came up out of the forest, while the tree frogs piped out their shrill notes.

Next day, when pulling along the narrow channel of the beautiful harbour on our return to the brig, we gazed down over the side with astonishment at the lovely spectacle the bottom of the sea afforded. It was thickly covered with a mass of corals, actiniae, and other productions of the ocean, of vast dimensions, of every possible form, and of the most brilliant colours. In some places the depth, Mr Hooker said, was fifty feet, and in others twenty, for the bottom was very uneven. Here appeared some deep chasm, here a hill rose up, there a valley was seen, here rocks of every possible shape, the whole covered with a forest of living vegetables, as I may call them.

“See, see!” cried Emily; “there swims a beautiful fish; there, another; and there, another. Some are red; there is a yellow one; there is one spotted and banded; there is another striped in the most curious manner. See how leisurely they swim, as if admiring the beauty of their country!”

“Look there! What is that floating by us?” exclaimed Grace; “what a lovely orange mass!”

“See, there is another, of a beautiful rose colour!” said Emily.