Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/403

] produce of the nutmeg plantations at Banda sufficient for exportation, and wishing, besides, to prevent all contraband trade in that precious commodity, ordered, some years before we arrived in Amboyna, all the nutmeg-trees in that island to be destroyed. This order was executed, and very few of the devoted trees escaped destruction; but a hurricane which happened the same year, deranged all their avaricious calculations. It compleated in Banda, the devastation which the Council had executed at Amboyna.

The same Council afterwards issued orders to endeavour to repair the havock which they had committed at Amboyna. They now wished to re-establish the culture of the nutmeg there. Hence those which we saw near the road, are still very young. Yet we observed several in the gardens of the town, and even opposite to the house of the Commander of the place, which were much larger, having escaped the destructive orders issued by the government at Batavia.

We found the beautiful laurel, called laurus culilaban, which yields, by distillation, an aromatic-oil very much in request. The natives know how to extract this precious oil, and make it an article of commerce.

The largest clove trees which we saw in this excursion, were not above twenty-two feet in height;