ces. The islands so fiercely
contested were twice owned by England, but finally relinquished in that
readjustment of power necessitated by the fall of Napoleon. Although
the Moluccas were declared open to the flag of every friendly nation in
1853, it was not until twenty years later that every vestige of
monopoly disappeared, and the Spice Islands were liberated from the
political chicanery of rival Powers. Peace brooded at last over the
sea-girt Elysium, where "Nature tries her finest touch," and in the
green shades of these "ultimate islands," the tumult of the world died
away into silence. Old German and Flemish ballads borrow quaint
anachronisms from that sylvan sanctuary of incense-laden sweetness,
which coloured the thoughts and dreams of contemporary poets, and added
exotic traits to their descriptions of northern scenery. "The nutmeg
boughs in the Garden of Love," droop over the fair-haired Teutonic
maiden in her home amid German pine-forests, and she gathers "the
scented fruit of gold," as a worthy _gage d'amour_ for her stalwart
Saxon lover, with that picturesque incongruity of poetical license
permitted to mediaeval versifiers. The canvas of many an early painter
depicts the sacred figures of Madonna and Child on an incongruous
background of German or Italian landscape, and the mediaeval poet seldom
hesitates to enrich his verse with whimsical allusions, full of
fantastical inaccuracy, but valuable as revelations of current thoughts
and ideas. Only a slight sketch of the prolonged conflict waged for
centuries round the nutmeg groves of the remote Moluccas is possible in
this little record, but even the briefest account of the Spice Islands
demands mention of evidence proving the value attached to the precious
"fruit of gold," then outweighing every other product of tropical
climes in popular estimation.

Three volcanic peaks tower up before us on reaching Ternate, the first
of the Molucca group. This mountain chain includes types representing
every period of volcanic agency. The smoking cone of Ternate slopes in
sweeping contours to the blue strait unbroken by bay or creek, and
smaller satellites flank the central height, grooved by wooded gorges.
The serrated ridge of Tidore, the opposite island, culminates in the
red pinnacle formed by a fresh pyramid of lava above the ruined wall of
a broken crater, the gap creating a sheltered inlet, where a fishing
boat with yellow sails skims like a huge butterfly acros