364 SAVU ISLAND TO BATAVIA CHAP, xvi 



that any of our officers would write down the name of the 

 ship, commander's name, where we came from, and where 

 bound, with any particulars we chose relating to ourselves, 

 for the information of any of our friends who might come 

 after us, as we saw that some ships, especially Portuguese, 

 had done. This book, he told us, was kept merely for the 

 information of those who might come through these straits. 

 In the other, which was a fair book, he entered the names 

 of the ships and commanders, which only were sent to the 

 Governor and Council of the Indies. On our writing 

 down Europe as the place we had come from, he said : 

 "Very well, anything you please, but this is merely for 

 the information of your friends." In the proa were 

 some small turtle, many fowls and ducks, also parrots, 

 parroquets, rice-birds and monkeys, some few of which we 

 bought, paying a dollar for a small turtle, and the same, at 

 first for ten, afterwards for fifteen large fowls, two monkeys, 

 or a whole cage of paddy-birds. 



4:th. Calm with light breezes, not sufficient to stem the 

 current, which was very strong. To make our situation as 

 tantalising as possible, innumerable proas were sailing about 

 us in all directions. A boat was sent ashore for grass, and 

 landed at an Indian town, where by hard bargaining 

 some cocoanuts were bought at about three halfpence 

 apiece, and rice in the straw at about five farthings a gallon. 

 Neither here, nor in any other place where we have had 

 connections with them, would they take any money but 

 Spanish dollars. Large quantities of that floating substance 

 which I have mentioned before under the name of sea- 

 sawdust, had been seen ever since we came into the straits, 

 and particularly to-day. Among it were many leaves, fruits, 

 old stalks of plantain trees, plants of Pistia stratiotes, and 

 such like trash, from whence we almost concluded that it 

 came out of some river. 



5th. Early in the morning a proa came on board, bring- 

 ing a Dutchman, who said that his post was much like 

 that of the man who was on board on the 3rd. He 

 presented a printed paper, of which he had copies in 



