valued in a world without modern medicine. The fact that it takes more than 3000
flower buds to produce one kilogram of dried cloves may also explain why they are
so valuable.
Wallace arrived in Ternate in January 1858 and rented a house from the Dutchman
Maarten van Duivenbode who was the owner of many ships, plantations and whole
districts in the Spice Islands and had become known as the ‘King of Ternate’. The
house had four rooms, a large hall, verandahs front and back, a garden full of fruit
trees and a deep well but was in need of some repairs. Five minutes’ walk down the
road from Wallace’s house was the market and the waterfront with its outrigger fishing
boats drawn up on the beach. At the waterfront one had beautiful views across the water
to the perfect volcanic cone of Mount Kiematabu on the opposite island of Tidore,
with its summit often swathed in cloud. Behind his house rose Mount Gamalama,
the volcano that dominated Ternate and threatened to erupt at any time as it smoked,
belched and occasionally shook the town. The lower part of the mountain was almost
entirely covered with a forest of fruit trees with mangoes, durian, mangosteens and
Fort Oranje, Mount Gamalama and the Spice Islands, J. Van den Bosch, 1818162 Where Australia Collides with Asiahttp://www.ebook3000.com