and to yield a considerable revenue. Amboyna was fixed upon for
establishing the clove cultivation; but the soil and climate,
although apparently very similar to that of its native islands,
is not favourable, and for some years the Government have
actually been paying to the cultivators a higher rate than they
could purchase cloves elsewhere, owing to a great fall in the
price since the rate of payment was fixed for a term of years by
the Dutch Government, and which rate is still most honourably
paid.

In walking about the suburbs of Ternate, we find everywhere the
ruins of massive stone and brick buildings, gateways and arches,
showing at once the superior wealth of the ancient town and the
destructive effects of earthquakes. It was during my second stay
in the town, after my return from New Guinea, that I first felt
an earthquake. It was a very slight one, scarcely more than has
been felt in this country, but occurring in a place that lad been
many times destroyed by them it was rather more exciting. I had
just awoke at gun-fire (5 A.M.), when suddenly the thatch began
to rustle and shake as if an army of cats were galloping over it,
and immediately afterwards my bed shook too, so that for an
instant I imagined myself back in New Guinea, in my fragile
house, which shook when an old cock went to roost on the ridge;
but remembering that I was now on a solid earthen floor, I said
to myself, "Why, it's an earthquake," and lay still in the
pleasing expectation of another shock; but none came, and this
was the only earthquake I ever felt in Ternate.

The last great one was in February 1840, when almost every house
in the place was destroyed. It began about midnight on the