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. 
4th. 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 8rd. He 
presented a printed paper, of which he had copies in 
