230 
A VOYAGE TO 
/ 
[North Coast. 
February severa ^ canoes were along-side for the purpose of barter. Before 
Friday is. noon, five other prows steered into the road from the S. W., anchor- 
ing near the former six ; and we had more people about the ship 
than I chose to admit on board, for each of them wore a short dagger 
or cress by his side. My people were under arms, and the guns 
were exercised and a shot fired at the request of the chiefs ; in the 
evening they all retired quietly, but our guns were kept ready and 
half the people at quarters all night. The weather was very rainy; 
Saturday 19 . and towards morning, much noise was heard amongst the prows. 
At daylight they got under sail, and steered through the narrow 
passage between Cape Wilberforce and Bromby's Isles, by which 
we had come ; and afterwards directed their course south-eastward 
into the Gulph of Carpentaria. 
My desire to learn every thing concerning these people, and 
the strict look-out which it had been necessary to keep upon them, 
prevented me attending to any other business during their stay. 
According to Pobassoo, from whom my information was principally 
obtained, sixty prows belonging to the Rajah of Boni, and carrying 
one thousand men, had left Macassar with the north-west monsoon, 
two months before, upon an expedition to this coast ; and the fleet 
was then lying in different places to the westward, five or six toge- 
ther, Pobassoo’s division being the foremost. These prows seemed 
to be about twenty-five tons, and to have twenty or twenty-five men 
in each ; that of Pobassoo carried two small brass guns, obtained 
from the Dutch, but the others had only muskets ; besides which, 
every Malay wears a cress or dagger, either secretly or openly. I 
inquired after bows and arrows, and the ippo poison, but they had 
none of them ; and it was with difficulty they could understand what 
was meant by the ippo. 
The object of their expedition was a certain marine animal, 
called trepang. Of this they gave me two dried specimens; and it 
proved to be the beche-de-mer, or sea cucumber which we had first 
seen on the reefs of the East Coast, and had afterwards hauled on 
