_ 71 _ there is a lot of nutmeg. In the Molucca islands there are cloves and long pepper, and much very good nutmeg in Banda. In islands called Butun, Banggai and Macassar they say there are diamonds, iron, gold and sandalwood, and in Timor much valuable merchandise. On an island further away on the way to Java called Sunda they say there is good cinnamon, and there is also some in Java but it is strong, and much pepper, which they will exchange for cloves which are used as much on this island as in the province of Germany. I say nothing of ginger because it is as widely spread as jungle through the whole archipelago. They tell me that if they fish up pearls, they make no account of them. There is no island that does not have some gold from its own soil, and many other merchandise and slaves, timber and pitch for making ships, as much as Val de Graca, and the provisions of dried sago would last twenty years. There are no more than four hundred leagues in the crossing from Sumatra to the Moluccas, and the sea is as quiet as a pond. To China is as much again, and a little further there are the Ryukyu islands where they say that a bahar of cloves and pepper is worth more than a hundred cruzados. One can sail there in fifteen days and back in the same, and whoever holds the Moluccas can hold this against all the world. God willing, someone will give more
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