S O O L O O. 339 



and Betel-nut. The vegetables were capsicums, cucumbers, yams, 

 sweet-potatoes, garlic, onions, edible fern-roots, and radishes of the 

 salmon variety, but thicker and more acrid in flavour. 



In walking about the parts of the town we were permitted to enter, 

 large slabs of cut granite were seen, which were presumed to be from 

 China, where the walls of canals or streamlets are lined with it. But 

 Dr. Pickering in his rambles discovered pieces that had been cut as if 

 to form a monument, and remarked a difference between it and the 

 Chinese kind. On one or two pieces he saw the mark No. 1, in black 

 paint ; the material resembled the Chelmsford granite, and it occurred 

 to him that the stone had been cut in Boston.* I did not hear of this 

 circumstance until after we had left Sooloo, and have little doubt now 

 that the interdiction against our gentlemen visiting some parts of the 

 town was owing to the fear they had of the discovery of this plunder. 

 This may have been the reason why they so readily complied with my 

 demands, in order to get rid of us as soon as possible, feeling them- 

 selves guilty, and being unprepared for defence; for, of the numerous 

 guns mounted, few if any were serviceable. 



The theft of the pistol was so barefaced an affair, that I made up my 

 mind to insist on its restoration. At the setting of the watch in the 

 evening, it had been our practice on board the Vincennes to fire a 

 small brass howitzer. This frequently, in the calm evenings, produced 

 a great reverberation, and rolled along the water to the surrounding 

 islands with considerable noise. Instead of it, on this evening, I 

 ordered one of the long guns to be fired, believing that the sound and 

 reverberation alone would suffice to intimidate such robbers. One was 

 accordingly fired in the direction of the town, which fairly shook the 

 island, as they said, and it was not long before we saw that the rogues 

 were fully aroused, for the clatter of gongs and voices that came over 

 the water, and the motion of lights, convinced me that the pistol would 

 be forthcoming in the morning. In this I was not mistaken, for at 

 early daylight I was awakened by a special messenger from the Datu 

 to tell me that the pistol was found, and would be brought off without 

 delay; that he had been searching for it all night, and had at last suc- 

 ceeded in finding it, as well as the thief, on whom he intended to inflict 

 the bastinado. Accordingly, in a short time the pistol was delivered 

 on board, and every expression of friendship and good-will given, with 

 the strongest assurances that nothing of the kind should happen again. 



* Since our return, inquiries have been made by him, which resulted in proving that such 

 was in truth their origin, and that the vessel in which they were shipped was for a long- 

 time missing. The identical stones which he saw were a part of a monument that was 

 on its way to Canton. 



