Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/416

 400 COMMERCIAL DESCRIPTION OF that of the round nutmeg, may be had in the mar- kets of the eastern parts of the Arcliipelago for four Spanish dollars, or 1 5s. l^,d. per cvvt. ; and further to the west, as at Bali, at five Spanish dol- lars, or 18s. lOjd. per cvvt. Freed from the shell, this is, for the first, 5,^,/,- Spanish dollars the picul, or 20s. ll'fd. per cvvt. ; and for the second, 6^^^ Spanish dollars per picul, or UGs. 2jd. per cvvt. There is a striking accordance between these prices and those paid when the trade was free, if we ad- vert that the former is enhanced by the charges incident to the risk of smuggling, and receive a bounty from the exorbitant cost of the monopoly product. In the first Dutch voyage, when the Hollanders competed with the Portuguese, the Chinese, and the native traders of the western por- tion of the Archipelago, they paid no more for their nutmegs than l-—-, Spanish dollar per picul, or 4s. 6d. per cwt., which makes the cost of the clean nutmegs 1^ Spanish dollar per picul, or 7s. 3^d. per cwt. At Sunda Calapa, the modern Batavia, where nutmegs were brought by the Ja- vanese for the convenience of the Arabs, the Hin- dus, and Mahomedans of Western India, Lin- schoten tells us, that the cost of nutmegs in the shell was no more, at an average, than 2^^- Spa- nish dollars per picul, or l^d. per lb., or 10s. 10|d. per cvvt., which reduces the clean nutmeg, exclu- sive of the petty charge of husking them, to no 4