We saw little to admire in the ‘palace,’ a single-storied lodge of coral rag, and ample porches looking upon sundry courts and yards, negro quarters and drying-grounds. There is here a well said to be 100 fathoms deep, which gives water only in the rainy seasons; most of the upland plantations must draw the element from the little streams. The Arab care-takers, after refreshing us with cocoa-nut milk, led us out to inspect the grounds. These Semites, satiated with verdure, despise the idea of assisting nature, and yet at Maskat they will gaze delighted upon a dusty, ragged plot of sand-veiled rock, dotted with consumptive trees, and dignified by the name of a garden. Some years ago Lieut.- Colonel Hamerton taught the late Sayyid to plant rose-trees, which gave a crop as abundant as those of ancient Syria: during their owners’ absence the slaves uprooted the young growth in very wantonness. The nutmeg fared as badly. The Consul also succeeded in producing wall- flowers, lavender, and the apple-scented as well as the common geranium: imported from Europe with abundant trouble, they met the fate of all the roses. The Ravenala, or Travellers’ tree, was brought from the Seychelles by the Sayyid with the same unsuccess. Several kinds of jasmines were transported from Cutch to Zanzibar: the Arabs objected to them, that the scent depresses the male sex and unduly excites the feminine. Many flowers—for instance, the Narcissus and certain Acacias— labour under the same ill-fame. Here, after admiring the delicious view of the tree-crowned uplands, the low grounds buried in the richest forest, the cocoa-fringed shore of purest white, and the sea blue as a slab of lapis lazuli, we had an opportunity of inspecting the celebrated clove plantations of Zanzibar. According to Castanheda, when Vasco da Gama first touched at Mombasah and Melinde, their Reguli sent him, amongst other presents, cloves, and declared that their countries grew the spice. Other travellers mention the clove being found at various parts of East Africa, and Andrea Corsali in Ramusio describes the produce as ‘not like those of India, but shaped more like our acorns.’ The Dutch, however, since their conquest of the Moluccas or Spice Islands in 1607, monopolized the clove like the nutmeg; and by destroying the former and enslaving the cultivators, they confined it, lest the price should fall, to the single Island of Amboyna. The naturalist traveller, M. Poivre, when governor of the Isle of France, brought from the least frequented of the Moluccas, in June 27, 1770, some 450 nutmeg stalks and 10,000 nutmegs in blossom or about to blossom, together with 70 clove trees and a box of plants, many of them well above the earth. In 1772 a further supply was procured; the greater part was kept in the Isle of France, the rest were dispersed amongst the Seychelles, Bourbon, and Cayenne. All the specimens given to private individuals died: skilful botanists, however,