d contours of the
spice-bearing trees, the wealth of delicate blossom and peach-like
fruit, and the flickering emerald light from hues shading through the
whole gamut of colour, from the tender verdure of spring to the glossy
darkness of winter evergreen. Colossal kanari-trees, veritable monarchs
of the forest, tower over the nutmegs, and form an unbroken roof of
interlacing boughs, for the nutmeg, needing shelter to bring the fruit
to perfection, is not suffered to attain a height of more than seventy
feet. The columnar trunks of the majestic kanaris wreathe their huge
girth with lace-like fern and broad-leaved epiphytal plants, and the
symmetrical beauty of the conical nutmeg-trees in these forest aisles
suggests a vast sanctuary of Nature, enshrining the mystic presence of
Divinity. Here, as amid the shades of unfallen Eden, we can imagine a
trysting-place of God and man in the perennial "cool of the day," which
breathes through the green twilight of these solemn groves, redolent
with the incense from myriad sprays of creamy blossom and ripened nuts
in shells of pink-flushed amber, for flower and fruit deck the
"gold-bearing tree" without intermission, and every day produces a
fresh harvest of nutmegs. The brown kernel of the opening fruit,
contained in a network of scarlet mace, falls to the ground in
twenty-four hours, and unremitting care is needed in gathering and
handling the nutmegs with the _gaai-gaai_, a long stick ending with a
prong, to break off the ripe fruit into the woven basket accurately
poised beneath the wooden fork. Only the female trees yield the
precious crop, and the highest point of production, attained at the
twentieth year, continues undiminished through four subsequent decades,
after which the strength of the average tree declines, although it
often lives for a century. The cooing of the nutmeg pigeon, which feeds
on the abundant fruit, echoes through the shadowy glades with soothing
monotony. Yellow canaries flit through the vivid green of the pointed
foliage, and the scarlet crests of parrots glow through the dark
canopies of the giant kanari-trees. The voices of children at play, the
distant songs of the nutmeg-gatherers, the plash of the waves on the
coral reef, and the scented breeze whispering in the green crowns of a
million trees, blend in harmonious concord to fill the sylvan temple of
tropical Nature with mysterious music. At wide intervals the white
houses of the planters gleam ami