196 VOYAGE FROM INDIxi TO SIAM AND MALACCA. 



not advisable to advance any further in the darkness. 



17. — At 4 o'cloci?: the anchor was weighed ; we had favour- 

 able wind and soon left the month of the channel. We then 

 passed many cliffs which stood high out above the water and 

 also a few islands. The rocks were of a peculiar shape ; some 

 were only high, steep square blocks, others had the shape of 

 pillars, others again stretched in long rows from east to west, 

 and they had obtuse points, which looked like carved work. 

 Their colour was red, from time to time striped with white ; this 

 was either caused by their being injured by the influence of the 

 weather or by the excrements of the birds. 



About midday we passed a very narrow strait between two 

 small islands ; at one side the steep rocks were red and I could 

 distinguish the strata, which resembled the red rock felspar 

 very much. There was a deep horizontal cave in another rock, 

 about one man's heig'ht above the water, from which bird's nests 

 are collected. 



"We also saw a Malay Proh or ship sailing towards these 

 islands. Towards evening the clouds gathered very threateningly 

 in the north, and at 5 o'clock the anchor was cast in twenty 

 fathoms of water, and the small islands, the Three Brothers, lay 

 before us at a distance of four German miles. 



The sailors caug-ht some silver Catfish, which is often fished 

 for here, but several of them had already paid for this luxury 

 with gastric fever, which had to be cured vrith. tartar-emetic 

 and a special diet. 



18. — In the morning the atmosphere was misty ; we had a 

 storm and some rain, therefore the anchor was not weighed until 

 5 o'clock. At 10 o'clock we passed the Three Brothers and at 

 midday the four so-called rocks on our left and Pullu Lontar on 

 the right. The latter is a mountainous island, bigger than those 

 on our left, which consisted of the same kind of cliffs as I have 

 described yesterday. After that we saw the birds' islands ; there 

 were many of them, and they consisted almost only of rocks. 



After six o'clock the anchor was cast again before the strait 

 situated between two particularly steep birds' islands, which are 

 in fact only steep rocks. 



19. — Before day-break the anchor was weighed again, but 

 though the wind came from the land it changed and was not very 

 strong, therefore it was later than nine o'clock before we passed 



