A further flight of stairs descends to the outside
coast or Achterval, but wherever we go, to quote the words of a modern
traveller, "we may imagine ourselves transported to the holy groves
whereof ancient poets sing." From the rich carpet of velvety moss and
plumy fern to the green vault of the leafy roof, the eye for once seems
"satisfied with seeing," for no hint of imperfection breaks the fairy
spell of enchantment in this poetic nutmeg-forest. Among serpentine
kanari roots, which stream across the mossy turf as though poured out
in liquid form and then petrified, we come across brown babies sleeping
in the shade, and cradled softly in the tender lap of earth, while the
mother, crooning a low song, pursues her work among the rustling
leaves. Terrace after terrace, the green aisles mount to the summit of
the great ridge, and the ruined forts on each wooded promontory recall
the long-past days when the "fruit of gold" demanded the increasing
vigilance of military power to defeat the onslaught of merchantman or
privateer, willing to run every risk in order to capture a cargo of
spices, and secure fabulous gains by appeasing the frantic thirst of
Europe for the novel luxury of the aromatic spoils. The mediaeval craze
has died away, and the pungent spices of the Orient have taken a
permanent position of reasonable proportion in the culinary art of
modern times, but the glamour of the past, like the amber haze of a
tropical sunset, still environs the poetic tree in the island home
where, amid evergreen foliage and waxen flowers, the famous "fruit of
gold" still opens each coral-lined censer to exhale a wealth of undying
fragrance on the balmy air.

THE SOELA-BESSIR ISLES.

Outside the fairy circle of the exquisite Moluccas, a tiny cluster of
palm-clad islets gems the wide blue spaces of the lonely sea, unbroken
for many leagues by any foothold possible for human habitation. The
Dutch steamer only calls thrice a year at the remote Soela-Bessir
group, in quest of rattan, a plentiful product of these fertile isles,
where the leafy ladders of the aspiring parasite climb to the green
crowns of the tallest palms, wrapping them in the fatal embrace which
eventually levels the strongest monarch of the tropical forest to the
earth. The thick mantle of glossy foliage often hides the multitude of
hooks, loops, and nooses which the pliant cane flings round branch and
stem, gripped by long ropes of flexible fibre, hardening i