The clove (Karanful), planted in picturesque bands, streaking the red argillaceous hills, is allowed to run to wood, and to die, withered at the top, in the shape of a bushy thick-foliaged tree 35 feet tall, and somewhat resembling a laurel. Grown from seed, it bears in the fifth year, and the fruit, the unexpanded flower-bud, is usually ripe in October. In rainy years the harvest beginning with early September is continued uninterruptedly: when the season, however, is dry the picking ceases in November and December, to be resumed in January. Hence the tales of two yields per annum. The crop, which lasts even till March, and which appears to be very uncertain, is hand-picked by Wasawahili and slaves—gathered, in fact, like coffee, except that, requiring ladders and more labour, it is a very slow process. Under favourable circumstances the tree should produce a maximum of 6 lbs; here, however, the ground is neither cleared nor manured, and the consequence is, that 30 trees rarely yield more than 35 lbs per annum. The fruit is sun-dried upon matting for three days: the workmen forget to turn it, and allow it to be broken and injured; moreover, they will not smoke it, and thus prevent over-shrinking and wrinkling. Some years ago Mr Wilson, an English engineer who died at Zanzibar, produced, by attending to the tree, and by properly desiccating his cloves upon iron hurdles, a superior article, with red shanks and large full heads. M. Sausse, a Creole from Bourbon or Mauritius, also succeeded in extracting an excellent oil, the clove oil of commerce being generally made by distilling cinnamon leaves. This novelty became a universal favourite with the Zanzibar public, who held it to be highly medicinal, and used it especially for _inflammations_. Locally the spice is employed as a condiment and infused as a medicine and a tonic: women of the poorer classes make necklaces and ear-rings of the corns; they also pound them to a paste, and mould them into different shapes.