344 cook's first voyage jan. 



a dozen of them for a Spanish dollar, which is above 

 fivepence a piece : the small deer cost us twopence 

 a piece, and the larger, of which two only were 

 brought down, a rupee. Many kinds of fish are to 

 be had here, which the natives sell by hand, and we 

 found them tolerably cheap. Cocoa-nuts we bought 

 at the rate of a hundred for a dollar, if they were 

 picked ; and if they were taken promiscously, one 

 hundred and thirty. Plantains we found in great 

 plenty ; we procured also some pine-apples, water- 

 melons, jaccas, and pumkins ; besides rice, the 

 greater part of which was of the mountain-kind, 

 that grows on dry land ; yams, and several other 

 vegetables, at a very reasonable rate. 



The inhabitants are Javenese, whose raja is sub- 

 ject to the sultan of Bantam. Their customs are 

 very similar to those of the Indians about Batavia ; 

 but they seem to be more jealous of their women, 

 for we never saw any of them during all the time 

 we were there, except one by chance in the woods, 

 as she was running away to hide herself. They pro- 

 fess the Mahometan religion, but I believe there is 

 not a mosque in the whole island : we were among 

 them during the fast, which the Turks call Ramadan, 

 which they seemed to keep with great rigour, for 

 not one of them would touch a morsel of victuals, 

 or even chew their betel till sun-set. 



Their food is nearly the same as that of the Ba- 

 tavian Indians, except the addition of the nuts of 

 the palm, called Cycas circinalis, with which, upon 

 the coast of New Holland, some of our people were 

 made sick, and some of our hogs poisoned. 



Upon observing these nuts to be part of their 

 food, we enquired by what means they deprived them 

 of their deleterious quality ; and they told us, that 

 they first cut them into thin slices, and dried them 

 in the sun, then steeped them in fresh water for 

 three months, and afterwards, pressing out the water, 

 dried them in the sun a second time ; but we learnt 



