No. 39.— 1889.] 



ACCOUNT OF CEYLON. 



235 



culprit should not sink deep enough, he ran great risk of 

 having his head smashed against the keel. This occurred in 

 one instance in Galle Harbour during 1647. Gambling, drunk- 

 enness, smoking between decks, were also punished severely. 



Saar sailed, with his father's consent, in the December fleet 

 of 1644. He had enlisted on the 25th of November, in pre- 

 sence of the seventeen principal officers of the East India 

 Company. On the 30th of November he was sent to Middel- 

 burg, and embarked on board a ship of that name, of 

 550 lasts of 30 cwt. each, carrying 36 guns and about 450 

 men, crew and soldiers all told. This vessel set sail on 

 the 8th of January, 1645. 



After fifteen years' of the roughest military experience in 

 the East, and many a wound received in the Company's 

 behalf, Saar at length turned his thoughts homeward. He 

 seems to have left Ceylon in September, 1658, and after 

 another year's service in the Eastern Archipelago returned 

 to Batavia for the last time on the 15th November, 1659- 

 The next day the stout German soldier got his discharge. 

 It is signed by "Burchard Koch,"* a fellow-countryman 

 and captain in the army of the Staaten-General of the 

 United Netherlands and the Dutch East India Company. 

 The Governor-General of Dutch India at the time was 

 Joan Maetsuycker. On the 14th December Saar sailed 

 from Batavia in the ship "Princ [sic!"] Wilhelm"t— one of a 

 fleet of nine ; on the 6th of July, 1660, he arrived at 

 Flushing ; and on the 11th of August reached Nuremberg. 

 His fervent wish to see his father again was not, however, to 

 be realised, for he had died eight months previously. 



Saar, it appears, had kept a regular diary for a number of 

 years, but unfortunately lost it at sea, and had to re-write his 

 experiences from memory. He offered to give further verbal 

 information to any reader of his travels who desired it ; 

 adding to this offer " that he heartily wished every one of 

 his readers more fortune at home than he had." 



* Burehart Cochx. f Prins Willem. 



