Account of the Cloves

The cloves grow in an island beyond Java called Maluco, and from thence they bring it to Malacca, and from there to Calicut and all the Malabar country. Each bahar is worth in Calicut 500 and 600 fanoes, and if it is clean of husks and sticks, at seven hundred fanoes, and xviiij fanoes per bahar are paid as export duty. At Maluco where it grows it is worth from one to two ducats the bahar; according to the multitude of buyers who go for it. In Malacca the bahar of these cloves is worth as much as fourteen ducats the bahar according to the demand of the merchants.