ive land eight years at least are commonly allowed. Having early
remarked the great promise of the trees I tried by every means in my
power to interest the Bengal government in our views, and at length, by
the assistance of Dr. Roxburgh, I succeeded.

SECOND IMPORTATION OF PLANTS.

A few months ago his son arrived here from Amboina, with twenty-two
thousand nutmeg plants, and upwards of six thousand cloves, which are
already in my nurseries, and flourishing like those which preceded them.
About the time the nutmegs fruited one clove tree flowered. Only three of
the original importation had survived their transit and the accidents
attending their planting out. Its buds are now filling, and I hope to
transmit specimens of them also. The Malay chiefs have eagerly engaged in
the cultivation of their respective shares. I have retained eight
thousand nutmegs as a plantation from which the fruit may hereafter be
disseminated. Every kind of soil and every variety of situation has been
tried. The cloves are not yet widely dispersed, for, being a tender
plant, I choose to have them under my own eye.

...

Since the death of Mr. Campbell Mr. Roxburgh has been appointed to the
superintendence, and the latest accounts from thence justify the sanguine
expectations formed of the ultimate importance of the trade; there being
at that period upwards of twenty thousand nutmeg trees in full bearing,
capable of yielding annually two hundred thousand pounds weight of
nutmegs, and fifty thousand pounds of mace. The clove plants have proved
more delicate, but the quality of their spice equal to any produced in
the Moluccas.

CULTURE LEFT TO INDIVIDUALS.

It is understood that the Company has declined the monopoly of the trade
and left the cultivation to individual exertion; directing however that
its own immediate plantations be kept up by the labour of convicts from
Bengal, and reserving to itself an export duty of ten per cent on the
value of the spices.

CAMPHOR.

Among the valuable productions of the island as articles of commerce a
conspicuous place belongs to the camphor.

This peculiar substance, called by the natives kapur-barus,* and
distinguished by the epithet of native camphor from another sort which
shall be mentioned hereafter, is a drug for which Sumatra and Borneo have
been celebrated from the earliest times, and with the virtues of which
the Arabian physicians appear to have been acquainted. Chemists formerly
enter