t a diarrhoea, and
drank in milk, procures sleep.

A few days after the cloves are gathered, they are collected together
and dried before the fire in bundles, by which operation they lose
their natural beautiful red colour, changing into a deep purple or
black. This is perhaps partly owing to their being sprinkled with
water, which is said to be necessary for preventing worms from getting
into them. Those persons who are sent for this commodity in the
company's ships, practise a fraud of this nature, in order to conceal
their thefts: For, having abstracted a certain quantity or proportion
from the cloves received on board, they place two or three hogsheads
of sea-water among those remaining, which is all sucked up in a few
days by the cloves, which that recover their former weight. By this
contrivance, the captain and merchant or supercargo agreeing
together, find a way to cheat the company out of part of this valuable
commodity. Yet this fraud, though easy and expeditious, is extremely
dangerous as when detected it is invariably punished with death,
and the company never want spies. Owing to this, cloves are commonly
enough called galgen kruid, or gallows-spice, as frequently bringing
men to an ill end.

The king of Amboina has a pension from the company, and a guard of
European soldiers, maintained at its expence. The inhabitants of the
island are of middle stature, and of black complexions, being all
extremely lazy and given to thieving; yet some of them are very
ingenious, and have a singular art of working up the cloves while
green into a variety of curious toys, as small ships or houses,
crowns, and such like, which are annually sent to Europe as presents,
and are much esteemed. Those of the Amboinese who acknowledge the
authority of the king are Mahomedans, but there are many idolaters who
live in the mountains, and maintain their independence, considering
themselves as free men, but the king and the Hollanders reckon them
savages; and as they are guilty of frequent robberies and murders,
they are always reduced to slavery when caught, and are treated with
the utmost rigour, and employed in the hardest labour. On this
account a most excessive hatred subsists between them and the other
inhabitants of the island, with whom they are perpetually at war,
and to whom they hardly ever give quarter. Their arms are bucklers;
swords, and javelins or pikes.

The garrison kept in the fort of Amboina is numerous, and cons