also, that the island was able to raise, upon very short notice, 7300 fighting men, armed with muskets, spears, lances, and targets. Of this force, Laai was said to furnish 2600, Seba 2000, Regeeua 1500, Timo 800, and Massarā 400. Besides the arms that have been already mentioned, each man is furnished with a large pole-axe, resembling a wood-bill, except that it has a straight edge, and is much heavier: this, in the hands of people who have courage to come to close quarters with an enemy, must be a dreadful weapon; and we were told that they were so dexterous with their lances, that, at the distance of sixty feet, they would throw them with such exactness as to pierce a man's heart, and such force as to go quite through his body.

How far this account of the martial prowess of the inhabitants of Savu may be true, we cannot take upon us to determine; but during our stay we saw no appearance of it. We saw, indeed, in the town-house, or house of assembly, about one hundred spears and targets, which served to arm the people who were sent down to intimidate us at the trading-place; but they seemed to be the refuse of old armories, no two being of the same make or length, for some were six, and some sixteen feet long: we saw no lance among them, and as to the muskets, though they were clean on the outside, they were eaten into holes by the rust within; and the people themselves appeared to be so little acquainted with military discipline, that they marched like a disorderly rabble, every one having, instead of his target, a cock, some tobacco, or other merchandise of the like kind, which he took that opportunity to bring down to sell, and few or none of their cartridge-boxes were furnished with either powder or ball, though a piece of paper was thrust into the hole to save appearances. We saw a few swivel guns and pateraros at the town-house, and a great gun before it; but the swivels and pateraros lay out of their carriages, and the great gun lay upon a heap of stones, almost consumed with rust, with the touch-hole downwards, possibly to conceal its size, which might perhaps be little less than that of the bore.

We could not discover that among these people there was any rank of distinction between the raja and the land-owners: the land-owners were respectable in proportion to their possessions; the inferior ranks consist of manufacturers, labouring poor, and slaves. The slaves, like the peasants in some parts of Europe, are connected with the estate, and both descend together; but though the land-owner can sell his slave, he has no other power over his person, not even to correct him, without the privity and approbation of the raja. Some have five hundred of these slaves, and some not half-a-dozen: the common price of them is a fat hog. When a great man goes out, he is constantly attended by two or more of them: one of them carries a sword or hanger, the hilt of which is commonly of silver, and adorned with large tassels of horse-hair; and another carries a bag which contains betel, areca, lime, and tobacco. In these attendants consists all their magnificence, for the raja himself has no other mark of distinction.

The chief object of pride among these people, like that of a Welshman, is a long pedigree of respectable ancestors, and, indeed, a veneration for antiquity seems to be carried farther here than in any other country: even a house that has been well inhabited for many generations, becomes almost sacred, and few articles either of use or luxury bear so high a price as stones, which having been long sat upon, are become even and smooth: those who can purchase such stones, or are possessed of them by inheritance, place them round their houses, where they serve as seats for their dependants.

Every raja sets up in the principal town of his province, or nigree, a large stone, which serves as a memorial of his reign. In the principal town of Seba, where we lay, there are thirteen such stones, besides many fragments of others, which had been set up in earlier times, and are now mouldering away: these monuments seem to prove that some kind of civil establishment here is of considerable antiquity. The last thirteen reigns in England make something more than 276 years. Many of these stones are so large, that it is difficult to conceive by what means they were brought to their present station, especially as it is the summit of a hill; but the world is full of memorials of human strength, in which the mechanical powers that have been since added by mathematical science, seem to be surpassed; and of such monuments there are not a few among the remains of barbarous antiquity in our own country, besides those upon Salisbury Plain. These stones not only

record the reigns of successive princes, but serve for a purpose much more extraordinary, and probably altogether peculiar to this country. When a raja dies, a general feast is proclaimed throughout his dominions, and all his subjects assemble round these stones; almost every living creature that can be caught is then killed, and the feast lasts for a less or greater number of weeks or months, as the kingdom happens to be more or less furnished with live stock at the time; the stones serve for tables. When this madness is over, a fast must necessarily ensue, and the whole kingdom is obliged to subsist upon syrup and water, if it happens in the dry season, when no vegetables can be procured, till a new stock of animals can be raised from the few that have escaped by chance, or been preserved by policy from the general massacre, or can be procured from the neighbouring kingdoms. Such, however, is the account that we received from Mr. Lange.

We had no opportunity to examine any of their manufactures, except that of their cloth, which they spin, weave, and dye; we did not, indeed, see them employed, but many of the instruments which they use fell in our way. We saw their machine for clearing cotton of its seeds, which is made upon the same principles as those in Europe, but it is so small that it might be taken for a model or a toy; it consists of two cylinders, like our round rulers, somewhat less than an inch in diameter, one of which, being turned round by a plain winch, turns the other by means of an endless worm; and the whole machine is not more than fourteen inches long, and seven high; that which we saw had been much used, and many pieces of cotton were hanging about it, so that there is no reason to doubt its being a fair specimen of the rest. We also once saw their apparatus for spinning; it consisted of a bobbin, on which was wound a small quantity of thread, and a kind of distaff filled with cotton; we conjectured, therefore, that they spin by hand, as the women of Europe did before the introduction of wheels; and I am told that they have not yet found their way into some parts of it. Their loom seemed to be in one respect preferable to ours, for the web was not stretched upon a frame, but extended by a piece of wood at each end, round one of which the cloth was rolled, and round the other the threads; the web was about half a yard broad, and the length of the shuttle was equal to the breadth of the web, so that probably their work goes on but slowly. That they dyed this cloth we first guessed from its colour, and from the indigo which we saw in their plantations; and our conjecture was afterwards confirmed by Mr. Lange's account. I have already observed, that it is dyed in the yarn, and we once saw them dyeing what was said to be girdles for the women, of a dirty red, but with what drug we did not think it worth while to inquire.

The religion of these people, according to Mr. Lange's information, is an absurd kind of paganism, every man choosing his own god, and determining for himself how he should be worshipped; so that there are almost as many gods and modes of worship as people. In their morals, however, they are said to be irreproachable, even upon the principles of Christianity. No man is allowed more than one wife, yet an illicit commerce between the sexes is in a manner unknown among them; instances of theft are very rare; and they are so far from revenging a supposed injury by murder, that if any difference arises between them, they will not so much as make it the subject of debate, lest they should be provoked to resentment and ill-will, but immediately and implicitly refer it to the determination of their king.

They appeared to be a healthy and long-lived people; yet some of them were marked with the small-pox, which Mr. Lange told us had several times made its appearance among them, and was treated with the same precautions as the plague. As soon as a person was seized with the distemper, he was removed to some solitary place, very remote from any habitation, where the disease was left to take its course, and the patient supplied with daily food by reaching it to him at the end of a long pole. Of their domestic economy we could learn but little; in one instance, however, their delicacy and cleanliness are very remarkable. Many of us were ashore here three successive days, from a very early hour in the morning till it was dark, yet we never saw the least trace of an offering to Cloacina, nor could we so much as guess where they were made. In a country so populous this is very difficult to be accounted for; and perhaps there is no other country in the world where the secret is so effectually kept. The boats in use here are a kind of proa.

U

This island was settled by the Portuguese almost as soon as they first found their way into this part of the occan; but they were in a short time supplanted by the Dutch. The Dutch, however, did not take possession of it, but only sent sloops to trade with the natives, probably for provisions to support the inhabitants of their spice islands, who, applying themselves wholly to the cultivation of that important article of trade, and laying out all their ground in plantations, can breed few animals. Possibly their supplies by this occasional traffic were precarious; possibly they were jealous of being supplanted in their turn; but however that be, their East India Company, about ten years ago, entered into a treaty with the Rajas, by which the Company stipulated to furnish each of them with a certain quantity of silk, fine linen, cutlery ware, arrack, and other articles, every year; and the Rajas engaged that neither they nor their subjects should trade with any person except the Company, without having first obtained their consent; and that they would admit a resident on behalf of the Company to reside upon the island, and see that their part of the treaty was fulfilled. They also engaged to supply annually a certain quantity of rice, maize, and calevances. The maize and calevances are sent to Timor in sloops, which are kept there for that purpose, each of which is navigated by ten Indians; and the rice is fetched away annually by a ship which brings the Company's returns, and anchors alternately in each of the three bays. These returns are delivered to the Rajas in the form of a present, and the cask of arrack they and their principal people never cease to drink as long as a drop of it remains. In consequence of this treaty, the Dutch placed three persons upon the island; Mr. Lange, his colleague, the native of Timor, the son of an Indian woman by a Portuguese, and one Frederick Craig, the son of an Indian woman by a Dutchman. Lange visits each of the Rajas once in two months, when he makes the tour of the island, attended by fifty slaves on horseback. He exhorts these chiefs to plant, if it appears that they have been remiss, and observes where the crops are got in, that he may order sloops to fetch it; so that it passes immediately from the ground to the Dutch storehouses at Timor. In these excursions he always carries with him some bottles of arrack, which he finds of great use in opening the hearts of the Rajas with whom he is to deal. During the ten years that he had resided upon this island he had never seen a European besides ourselves, except at the arrival of the Dutch ship, which had sailed about two months before we arrived; and he is now to be distinguished from the natives only by his colour and his dress, for he sits upon the ground, chews his betel, and in every respect has adopted their character and manners. He has married an Indian woman of the island of Timor, who keeps his house after the fashion of her country; and he gave that as a reason for not inviting us to visit him, saying, that he could entertain us in no other manner than the Indians had done; and he spoke no language readily but that of the country.

The office of Mr. Frederick Craig is to instruct the youth of the country in reading and writing, and the principles of the Christian religion; the Dutch having printed versions of the New Testament, a catechism, and several other tracts, in the language of this and the neighbouring islands. Dr. Solander, who was at his house, saw the books, and the copybooks also, of his scholars, many of whom wrote a very fair hand.

He boasted that there

were no less than six hundred Christians in the township of Seba; but what the Dutch Christianity of these Indians may be, it is not perhaps very easy to guess, for there is not a church, nor even a priest, in the whole island.

While we were at this place, we made several inquiries concerning the neighbouring islands, and the intelligence which we received is to the following effect. A small island to the westward of Savu, the name of which we did not learn, produces nothing of any consequence but reca-nuts, of which the Dutch receive annually the freight of two sloops, in return for presents that they make to the islanders. Timor is the chief; and the Dutch residents on the other islands go thither once a year to pass their accounts. The place is nearly in the same state as in Dampier's time, the Dutch having there a fort and storehouses; and, by Lange's account, we might there have been supplied with every necessary that we expected to procure at Batavia, salt provisions and arrack not excepted. But the Portuguese are still in possession of several towns on the north side of the island, particularly Laphao and Sesial. About two years before our arrival, a French ship was wrecked upon the east coast of

Timor ; and after she had lain some days upon the shoal, a sudden gale broke her up at once, and drowned the captain, with the greatest part of the crew. Those who got ashore, among whom was one of the lieutenants, made the best of their way to Concordia; they were four days upon the road, where they were obliged to leave part of their company through fatigue, and the rest, to the number of about eighty, arrived at the town. They were supplied with every necessary, and sent back to the wreck, with proper assistance for recovering what could be fished up. They fortunately got up all their bullion, which was in chests, and several of their guns, which were very large. They then returned to the town, but their companions who had been left upon the road were missing, having, as it was supposed, been kept among the Indians, either by persuasion or force; for they are very desirous of having Europeans among them, to instruct them in the art of war. After a stay of more than two months at Concordia, their number was diminished nearly one-half by sickness, in consequence of the fatigue and hardship which they had suffered by the shipwreck, and the survivors were sent in a small vessel to Europe.

Rotte is in much the same situation as Savu; a Dutch factor resides upon it to manage the natives, and look after its produce, which consists, among other articles, of sugar.

Formerly it was made only by bruising the canes, and boiling the juice to a syrup, in the same manner as toddy; but great improvements have lately been made in preparing this valuable commodity. The three little islands called the Solars are also under the influence of the Dutch settlement at Concordia: they are flat and low, but abound with provisions of every kind, and the middlemost is said to have a good harbour for shipping. Ende, another little island to the westward of the Solars, is still in the hands of the Portuguese, who have a good town and harbour on the north-east corner of it, called Larntuca: they had formerly a har bour on the south side of it, but that being much inferior to Larntuca, has for some time been altogether neglected.

The inhabitants of each of these little islands speak a language peculiar to themselves, and it is an object of Dutch policy to prevent, as much as possible, their learning the language of each other. If they spoke a common language, they would learn, by a mutual intercourse with each other, to plant such things as would be of more value to themselves than their present produce, though of less advantage to the Dutch; but their languages being different, they can communicate no such knowledge to each other, and the Dutch secure to themselves the benefit of supplying their several necessities upon their own terms, which it is reasonable to suppose are not very moderate. It is probably with a view to this advantage that the Dutch never teach their own language to the natives of these islands, and have been at the expense of translating the Testament and catechisms into the different languages of each; for in proportion as Dutch had become the language of their religion, it would have become the common language of them all.

To this account of Savu, I shall only add a small specimen of its language, by which it will appear to have some affinity with that of the South Sea Islands, many of the words being exactly the same, and the numbers manifestly derived from the same source.

In this account of the island of Savu it must be remembered, that except the facts in which we were parties, and the account of the objects which we had an opportunity to examine, the whole is founded merely upon the report of Mr. Lange, upon whose authority alone therefore it must rest.

CHAPTER X.-THE

RUN FROM THE ISLAND OF SAVU TO BATAVIA, AND AN ACCOUNT OF THE TRANSACTIONS THERE WHILE THE SHIP WAS REFITTING.

In the morning of Friday, the 21st of September, 1770, we got under sail, and stood away to the westward, along the north side of the island of Savu, and of the smaller that lies to the westward of it, which at noon bore from us S.S.E., distant two leagues. At four o'clock in the afternoon, we discovered a small low island, bearing S.S.W., distant three leagues, which has no place in any chart now extant, at least in none that I have been able to procure it lies in latitude 10° 47′ S., longitude 238° 28′ W. At noon on the 22d, we were in latitude 11° 10′ S., longitude 240° 38′ W. In the evening of the 23d, we found the variation of the needle to be 2° 44′ W.; as soon as we got clear of the islands, we had constantly a swell from the southward, which I imagined was not caused by a wind blowing from that quarter, but by the sea being so determined by the position of the coast of New Holland.

At noon on the 26th, being in latitude 10° 47′ S., longitude 249° 52′ W., we found the variation to be 3° 10′ W., and our situation to be twenty-five miles to the northward of the log; for which I know not how to account. At noon, on the 27th, our latitude, by observation, was 10° 51′ S., which was agreeable to the log; and our longitude was 252° 11′ W. We steered N.W. all day on the 28th, in order to make the land of Java; and at noon, on the 29th, our latitude by observation was 9° 31′ S., longitude 254° 10′ W.; and in the morning of the 30th, I took into my possession the log-book and journals, at least all I could find, of the officers, petty officers, and seamen, and enjoined them secrecy with respect to where they had been. At seven in the evening, being in the latitude of Java Head, and not seeing any land, I concluded that we were too far to the westward: I therefore hauled up E.N.E., having before steered N. by E. In the night, we had thunder and lightning; and about twelve o'clock, by the light of the flashes, we saw the land bearing east. I then tacked and stood to the S. W. till four o'clock in the morning of the 1st of October; and at six, Java Head, or the west end of Jiva, bore S.E. by E., distant five leagues: soon after we saw Prince's Island, bearing E. S.; and at ten, the island of Cracatoa, bearing N.E. Cracatoa is a remarkably high-peaked island, and at noon it bore N. 40 E., distant seven leagues.

I must now observe, that during our run from Savu, I allowed twenty minutes a-day for the westerly current, which I concluded must run strong at this time, especially off the coast of Java; and I found that this allowance was just equivalent to the effect of the current upon the ship. At four o'clock in the morning of the 2d, we fetched close in with the coast of Java, in fifteen fathom; we then stood along the coast, and early in the forenoon I sent the boat ashore to try if she could procure some fruit for Tupia, who was very ill, and some grass for the buffaloes that were still alive. In an hour or two she returned with four cocoa-nuts,