Ternate

P. L. 2. 639. (See also Banda, Tidore.) Ternate and Tidore are two islands of the Moluccas in the East Indies. The following is given by Purchas: “The Hands of the Spicerie, which properly are called so, because all the Pepper, Cloves, Sinamon, Ginger, Nutmegs, and Masticke that is spent in Europe is brought from them, are many, though the most famous of that Gulfe are five small Hands under the Equinoctiall: in one hundred nintie foure degrees from the Meridian of Toledo, Emperor Charles the fift included in the morgage which the made of them to the King of Portugall for three hundred and fifty you sand Duckets, which are Terrenate of eight or nine leagues compa e, with a Port called Talangame, and in it raigned Corala, which yielded himself for subject to the King of when the Shippes that remained of Magi lanes fleete found these Hands. The Hand of Tidore stands one league from Terrenate to the South; it hath tenne leagues compa e.” (Pilgrimes 3. 904.) Elsewhere we read: Of the Hands of Molucca “Tarenate is the chief est; and the King thereof was The Clove-trees are as bigge sometime Lord of them all. Castile,... as a man about, tall; the Boughes large in the midst, and pointed at the top; the Leaves, as of Bay-trees; the Barke of Olive colour. The Cloves grow ten and twentie together, in the tops of the Boughes; first white, red at ripene e, black by the drying. They gather them twice a yeere, in June and December, The Leafe, Barke, and Wood being greene, is as strong as the Clove. If they take them not in their time, they grow great and hard. Every man hath his owne Trees, and best owes little Husbandry on them.” (lb. I. 244.) The value of the spices produced in these islands made them the scene of much strife, among both the natives and the various European traders. Milton mentions some of the Spice Islands, though not Ternate and Tidore, in his papers setting forth the claims of the English for satisfaction by the Dutch. (Lit. Senat. (44, 45) 7. 234, Camoens writes of them in the Lusiads: for injuries inflicted 235.) Here see o’er Oriental seas bespread Infinite island-groups and alwhere strewed Tidore, Ternate view, whose burning head Lanceth the wavy flame and fiery flood: There see the groves the biting clove-bud shed, Bought with the price of Portugheze’s blood. (10. 132, trans. 305