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On the 26th, a sloop laden with rice was sent out from this place in order to land her cargo at Macassar; but after having attempted it three days she was forced to return. The weather was now exceedingly tempestuous, and all navigation at an end from east to west till the return of the eastern monsoon. On the same day two large sloops that were bound to the eastward anchored here, and the next morning also a large ship from Batavia, with troops on board for the Banda islands; but none of the crew of any of these vessels were suffered to speak to any of our people, our boats being restrained from going on board them, and theirs from coming on board us. As this was a mortifying restriction we requested Mr. Swellingrabel to buy us some salt meat from the large ship; and he was so obliging as to procure us four casks of very good European meat, two of pork and two of beef.
On the 28th a fleet of more than an hundred sail of the small country vessels, called Proas, anchored here; their burden is from twelve to eighteen and twenty ton, and they carry from sixteen to twenty men. I was told that they carried on a fishery round the Island, going out with one monsoon, and coming back with the other, so as always to keep under the lee of the land: the fish was sent to the China market, and I observed that all these vessels carried Dutch colours.
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Volume I of the London 1773 Edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, pages 640 - 641, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv01/640.html