DAMPIEirS SOJOURN IN GREAT NICOBAR 255 



The privateer Cygnet of London, Captain Swan, originally 

 fitted out to trade in the South Seas, in which Dampier made 

 that part of his voyage round the world, extending from Realejo 

 in Western Nicaragua to the Nicobars, had left the north-west 

 coast of Australia on March 12, 1688, and anchored nowhere 

 until she reached the islands where he was permitted to quit 

 her. 



Since Captain Swan had been left ashore at Mindanao and 

 his place taken by Read, it had been Dampier's continual 

 desire to part from the vessel, and he explains in his narrative 

 the reasons for the captain's objection to his desertion. 



"... The 25th day of April 1688 we crossed the equator, 

 still coasting to the northward, between the island Sumatra 

 and a range of small islands lying 14 or 15 leagues off it. . . . 



" The 29th we saw a sail to the north of us, which we chased, 

 but it being little wind, we did not come up with her till the 

 30th day. Then, being within a league of her. Captain Read 

 went in a canoe and took her, and brought her aboard. She 

 was a prau with four men in her, belonging to Achin, whither 

 she was bound. She came from one of those coconut islands 

 that we passed by, and was laden with coconuts and with 

 coconut oil. Captain Read ordered his men to take aboard all 

 the nuts, and as much of the oil as he thought convenient, and 

 then cut a hole in the bottom of the prau and turned her loose, 

 keeping the men prisoners. 



" It was not for the lucre of the cargo that Captain Read took 



which compelled them to remain in the forest wringing wet, no fewer than 

 twenty-one fell ill of fever, which ultimately proved fatal in four cases. — \^ide 

 Corvetten Galathea's Jordourseiling, 1852. 



{b) During a stay of thirty-two days amongst the islands, the frigate 

 Novara, with a crew of 320 men, had six cases of fever, but, when in the 

 Straits of Malacca, fifteen more developed the same illness. All recovered, 

 and those of the company who had never set foot on shore, furnished the 

 largest contingent. — Vide Cruise of the Novara, 1858. 



(c) Of the five from the Terrapin who ascended the Galathea River 

 and spent a night in the interior of the island, each was down with malaria 

 either during the voyage to, or after arrival at, Singapore. 



