low--and from
these avenues radiate, intersecting every portion of the plantation.
Here were planted some five thousand nutmeg trees, and perhaps a
thousand of the clove, besides coffee trees, palms, etc. The nutmeg
is an evergreen of great beauty, conical in shape, and from twenty
to twenty-five feet in height, the branches thickly decorated with
polished, deep-green foliage rising from the ground to the summit.
Almost hidden among these emerald leaves grows the pear-shaped
fruit. As it ripens the yellow external tegument opens, revealing the
dark-red mace, that is closely enwrapped about a thin black shell.
This, in turn, encloses a fragrant kernel, the nutmeg of commerce.
Both leaf and blossom are marked by the same aromatic perfume that
distinguishes the fruit.

The clove tree, though somewhat smaller than the nutmeg, is quite
similar in appearance, and, if possible, even more graceful and
beautiful. The leaves are shaped like a lance, the blossoms pure white
and deliciously fragrant, and they cluster thickly on every branch and
twig almost to the summit of the tree. The cloves--"spice nails," as
they are often called--are not a fruit, but undeveloped buds, the stem
being the calyx, and the head the folded petals. Their dark color, as
we see them, is due to the smoking process through which they pass
in curing. The clove is a native of the Moluccas, and has been
transplanted to many parts of the East Indies; but nowhere, not even
in its picturesque Faderland, does it thrive better than in Singapore,
Pulo Penang and other islands of the Malayan Archipelago.

One singular-looking fruit that I saw in China I must not forget to
mention--the flat peach, called by the Chinese _ping taou_, or "peach
cake." It has the appearance of having been flattened by pressure at
the head and stalk, being something less than three-fourths of an
inch through the centre from eye to stem, and consisting wholly of the
stone and skin; while the sides, which swell around the centre, are
only an eighth of an inch in thickness. Its transverse diameter is
about two and a half inches.

The camphor tree (_Laurus camphora_) grows abundantly in China and
Japan, producing a very large proportion of the gum that supplies
the markets of Europe and our own country, as well as the trunks and
chests so universally esteemed as protectives against the ravages of
moths and the still more destructive white ant of the tropics. This
tree grows to the heigh