At This Time I Observed That It Is An
Error To Suppose That It Is Always Calm During An Earthquake;
For we had
a fine fresh gale at S.S.W. both days on which the earthquake happened.
Next day
The court sat about eleven o'clock, continuing the trial; and
while the wife was in her greatest violence in the accusation of her
husband, the earth shook again with much violence, which obliged the
court again to break up.
That same day, the 28th September, I and four more of our men were sent
off for Batavia in a Chinese sloop, the other five men being promised to
be sent after us in a short time, but we never heard of them afterwards.
We sailed westwards till we came to the island of Lancas, in lat. 5 deg. 27'
S. and by my estimation, 2 deg. 21', or 155 miles W. from Amboina. We then
steered W. by N. till we made two islands called the Cabeses, whence
we procured some hundred cocoa nuts. The eastermost island, to which we
sent our boat, is low and uninhabited, but has been planted full of
cocoa-nut trees by the Dutch, for the use of their vessels going between
the spice islands and Batavia, as it is a kind of miracle to see any
other ship in these parts except those belonging to the Dutch. Off this
island we met our own bark which had brought us from America to Amboina,
the Dutch having fitted her up with a main-mast and converted her into a
very good vessel. This island is in lat. 5 deg. 23' S. and nearly W. by N.
from the island of Lancas, about forty-five miles distant, and has a
shoal extending about two miles from the shore. To the S.W. of this is
the other island of Cabeses, a pretty high island, on which the Dutch
always keep a corporal and two soldiers, who go two or three times all
over the isle to see that no cloves are planted, and if they find any to
cut them down and burn them, lest any other nation might be able to
procure that commodity, in which case Amboina would become of little
value, as cloves are its only valuable product.
We next passed by the S. end of the island of Bouton, or Booton,
which is pretty large, and in the lat. of 5 deg. 45' S. We steered W. from
thence, between the islands Celebes and Zalayer or Salayr. The
S.W. leg or peninsula of Celebes is very high land. Celebes is composed
of very high land, very well inhabited, being a very large island,
extending through seven degrees of latitude. On the west side of its
southern end the Dutch have a factory named Macasser, where they have a
fortress of about seventy guns, and a garrison of 600 or 700 Dutch
soldiers. The chief product is rice, with which they supply most of
their eastern islands from hence.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 274 of 431
Words from 142531 to 143037
of 224764
