He returned the next day to ask the armada to demonstrate its firearms, and the gunners gladly complied. “He took the greatest pleasure in it,” Pigafetta noted. “He had been a great fighter in his youth, as we were told.”
Later that day, Pigafetta finally had his chance to examine cloves carefully. These aromatic, humble bushes (Syzygium aromaticum) had inspired the voyage that had cost so many lives, and moved the destinies of empire around the world. Kingdoms in the East and West alike depended on them for economic support, and they provided the incentive for the emerging world economy. Centuries before Magellan, the Chinese had imported cloves, which were believed to have medicinal value. They were also used to flavor food and to sweeten breath. Europe found even more applications for the clove. Its essence, when applied to the eyes, supposedly improved vision. Its powder, when applied to the forehead, supposedly relieved fevers and colds. If added to food, it supposedly stimulated the bladder and cleansed the colon. If consumed with milk, it supposedly made intercourse more satisfying. It was miraculous, precious, and wonderful in all respects.
The word “clove” is derived from clou, the French word for nail, and the shape of its dried flowerbud is indeed reminiscent of a nail. The trees are slow to mature; from seedling to crop can take as long as seven or even eight years. Until it reaches the age of twenty-five or thereabouts, a clove tree will yield approximately eight pounds of the precious spice each year, depending on fluctuations in the climate. The ideal soil for growing cloves could be found in the Spice Islands: a deep, loamy, well-drained volcanic soil. Drenching rain is essential. The islands receive about one hundred inches of rain a year, ideal for cloves. The clove buds vary in length from one-half to three-quarters of an inch, and they contain up to 20 percent essential oil. The principal component is eugenol, an aromatic oil that imparts to cloves their distinctive, smoky flavor.
Harvesting cloves requires considerable care because the buds are fragile. The trick is to pull the buds away from the stems without damaging the branches; this was usually done by using the hand as a brush to sweep clusters of buds into waiting baskets or extended aprons. Once harvested, the buds were placed in the open for a few days to dry out. When desiccated, the stems and heads of the clove turn brown, and their weight is reduced by as much as two-thirds. Even after they are packed, they continue to lose moisture and weight, though at a much slower rate.
Now that Pigafetta was face-to-face with the source of all this wealth and struggle, he described it with obvious fascination:
The clove tree is tall and as thick as a man’s body or thereabouts. Its branches spread out somewhat widely in the middle, but at the top they have the shape of a summit. Its leaves resemble those of the laurel, and the bark is of a dark color. The cloves grow at the end of the twigs, ten or twenty in a cluster. Those trees generally have more cloves on one side than on the other, according to the season. When the cloves sprout, they are white, when ripe, red, and when dried, black. They are gathered twice per year, once at the nativity of our Savior and the other at the nativity of St. John the Baptist; for the climate is more moderate at those two seasons. . . . When the year is very hot and there is little rain, those people gather three or four hundred bahars in each of those islands. Those trees grow only in the mountains, and if any of them are planted in the lowlands near the mountains, they do not live. The leaves, the bark, and the green wood are as strong as the cloves. If the latter are not gathered when they are ripe, they become large and so hard that only their husk is good. No cloves are grown in the world except in the five mountains of those five islands. . . . Almost every day we saw a mist descend and encircle now one and now another of those mountains, on account of which those cloves become perfect.
Nutmeg was almost as important and valuable as cloves, and Pigafetta offered this description of its appearance in the wild: “The tree resembles our walnut tree, and has leaves like it. When the nut is gathered it is as large as a small quince, with the same sort of down, and it is of the same color. Its first rind is as thick as the green rind of our walnut. Under that there is a thin layer, under which is found the mace. The latter is a brilliant red and is wrapped about the rind of the nut, and within that is the nutmeg.”
In the early hours of Monday, November 25, Almanzor sailed out to the fleet in his proa to the resonant accompaniment of gongs. As he passed between the armada’s ships, he announced that the cloves would be ready for delivery within four days. Overjoyed, the men of the armada fired their weapons to celebrate the event and to impress the king.
Later the same day, the men began to load what eventually amounted to 791 catis of cloves, about 1,400 pounds. “As those were the first cloves which we had laden in our ships, we fired many pieces.” The more spices they took on board, the more anxious the men of the armada became to return to Spain before another disaster befell them.
Now that the Europeans finally had their hands on the spices, Almanzor chose this moment to involve them in local politics, explaining that he wanted his visitors to return to the islands as soon as possible with even more ships. Even though the officers had experienced the bitter lessons of becoming ensnared in local vendettas, they blithely assured Almanzor they would help him. Content with this vague promise of assistance, the king invited everyone ashore for a banquet to celebrate the occasion.
The innocent gesture immediately sent the men of the armada into a panic because it reminded them of both the massacre at the banquet on Cebu and of Serrão’s death by poisoning. Suddenly, the officers of the armada saw signs of impending doom wherever they looked; for example, “We saw those Indians speaking very low to our captives.” Even the recently cleaned streets of the village, visible from the boats, appeared ominous. But they could not spurn the king’s invitation because they depended on his goodwill for access to the spices. “Some of us, supposing that this was some treachery . . . were in great doubt and of contrary opinion to those who wished to go to the banquet, saying that we ought not to go ashore and reminding them of another such misfortune.” Rather than go ashore, the officers offered to invite the king onto their ships, where they would bestow gifts on him, and even leave behind four men who wished to remain in the Spice Islands. (And good luck to those who remained in this dangerous place; they would certainly need it.)
Accepting the counteroffer, Almanzor immediately boarded Trinidad, boasting that he “entered there as safely as into his own houses.” As the suspicious sailors listened, he said he was “greatly amazed” to hear that the armada was about to weigh anchor and sail away. “The space of time for lading the ships was thirty days,” he explained. He meant no harm, or so he said, and only wanted to help them obtain their spices and journey home safely. “He besought us that we should not leave at once, seeing that it was not yet the season for navigation among those islands, and also because of the rocks and reefs that were around the island of Bandan, and also because we might easily have encountered the Portuguese.” These were all persuasive arguments, as the officers realized. And he demonstrated his sincerity by saying that if the armada wanted to leave now, he would do nothing to stop it; he requested only that they take back all the gifts they had conferred on him “because the kings his neighbors would say that the king of Tidore had received so many gifts from so great a king”—that is, King Charles—“and had given him nothing, and they would think that we had departed only for fear of some deception and treachery, whereby he would always be named and reputed a traitor.”