Some account of Savu
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to them by Europeans, the refuse of old armories, no two being of any thing near the same lengh, the whole verying in that particular from 6 feet to 16; as for their Lances not one of us saw one of them; their musquets tho clean on the outside were honeycombd with rust on the inside; few or none of their Cartridge boxes had either powder or ball in them and to compleat, all the swivels and patereroes at the Duch house were all laying out of their carriages, and the one great gun which lay before it on a heap of stones was not only more honeycomb’d with rust than any peice of artillery I have ever seen but had the touchhole turnd downwards, probably to conceal its size which might not be in all probability much less than the bore of the gun itself.
The Duch however use these Islanders as auxliaries in their wars against the inhabitants of Timor where they do good service, their lives at all events not being near so valuable as those of Duchmen.
This Island had been setled by the Portugese almost from their first coming into these seas. When the Duch first came here they were however
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from State Library of NSW Transcription of Banks's Journal page (vol. 2) 377, February 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-banks_remarks-342.html