Far away from the noisy Europe on the warm and blue Maluku Sea there were two beautiful volcanic islands laying one by one – divided only by the 1-mile wide strait. The islands were ruled by two sultans. They were rich – on the islands they had plantations of the valuable and rare cloves. But they hate each other and wasted much of their wealth fighting each other.
When whites came to the Maluku Sea they invited two European kingdoms to protect them against enemy. Europeans built on the islands their castles and… took the monopoly on cloves trade. Then the third European kingdom smuggled out precious spice-tree seedings to the colonies in the other parts of the world. Cloves became less valuable, sultans less rich. But their descendends still live on the beautiful volcanic islands and still have some power…
The tale only? No, the islands: Ternate and Tidore exists. I saw them today on the Maluku Sea.
(for the St Valentine’s Day to all the girls I loved…)
