Nutmeg and mace

The 10 tiny Banda islands bask in the scattered, dazzled confusion of western Melanesia. There isn’t much nearby. Java is 2,000km west, and other Indonesian islands are a protracted, bobbing boat trip away. An almost entirely Muslim population of around 15,000 clings to these beautiful volcanic rocks, the oceans plunging 6km beneath them. Waves lap the white beaches and sea winds buffet the palms.

If it wasn’t for nutmeg, nobody would have heard of the Bandas. Nutmeg was these islands’ making, breaking and remaking. The spice very likely evolved here, and for centuries this was the only place it grew on the planet. The luckless archipelago has therefore suffered an importance in wild disproportion to its size, tossed and tussled over by European powers since its “discovery” in the 16th century. Run, the smallest island, had the hardest time of it, flicking between English and Dutch control like a metronome.

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