They Are Then All Conducted To An Appointed Place, Where The
Favourite Wife Throws A Ball From Her Hand, And Where It Stops Marks The
Place Of Their Deaths.
Being come there, and turning their faces to the
east, they all draw their daggers and stab themselves to the heart;
after which they smear themselves with their own blood, and thus die.
The men of this island are excellent soldiers, being hardy, valiant, and
desperate to the last degree, sticking at nothing commanded by their
king, however dangerous; and, should he even command them to plunge a
dagger into their own breast, or to leap from a precipice, or into a den
of wild beasts, they instantly obey: For the displeasure of their
sovereign is as certain death as the point of a sword, or the fangs of a
beast of prey. Their complexion is tawny, like the other natives of
India, and they go entirely naked; but their women are of a fairer hue,
and are more modestly cloathed than the men.
After this relation of the Portuguese, having satisfied the Javans for
the provisions they had supplied, and received a promise of good
entertainment to the English when they might return to their island,
Candish took leave of them, making a present to their king of three
large cannon. Next day, being the 16th of March, he made sail for the
Cape of Good Hope, spending all the rest of that month, all April, and a
part of May, in traversing the vast ocean between the island of Java and
the southern extremity of Africa, making many observations on the
appearances of the stars, the weather, winds, tides, currents,
soundings, and bearings and positions of lands.
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