386 



HISTORY OF THE SEA. 



sun taste like figs, and may be preserved in any climate. Green 

 plantains dried and grated furnish an excellent flour for bread 

 or puddings. The Mosquito Indians squeeze a plantain into a 

 calabash of water and drink it : they call it mishlaw, and it re- 

 resembles lambs'-wool made of apples and ale. It drinks brisk 

 and cool, and is very pleasant." Such was the plantain two 

 centuries ago. 



The Sultan of Mindanao received the strangers with favor, 

 and would gladly have induced them to settle upon the island 

 and form the nucleus of an English trading station. Dampier 

 would have remained, but the majority were against him. After 

 a time, a mutiny broke out, — the principal cause being the want 

 of active employment; and, as Captain Swan manifested no 

 energy or address in quelling it, he and thirty-six men were left 

 at Mindanao, the rest escaping with the ship. Dampier here 

 remarks that they had buried sixteen men upon the island, who 

 had died by poison, — the natives revenging the slightest dal- 

 liance with their women with a deadly, though lingering, dose or 

 potion. Some of the mutineers that ran off with the vessel died 

 of poison administered at Mindanao four months afterwards. 



SURF BATHING BY NATIVES. 



Head, the new captain, and Dampier, cruised for some time 

 among the Philippine Islands. At one of these they saw an 

 extraordinary display of surf-bathing on the part of the natives 

 The art seemed to be practised as well by the women as the 

 men, and children in arms were taught to gambol in the water 



