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We procured plenty of fresh provisions all the while we lay here at a reasonable rate: the beef is excellent; but it would be difficult to procure enough of it for a squadron. Rice may be had in any quantity, so may fowls and fruit: there are also abundance of wild hogs in the woods, which may be purchased at a low price, as the natives, being Mahometans, never eat them. Fish may be caught with the seine, and the natives, at times, supplied us with turtle; for this, like pork, is a dainty which they never touch.
Celebes is the key of the Molucca, or spice islands, which, whoever is in possession of it, must necessarily command: most of the ships that are bound to them, or to Banda, touch here, and always go between this island and that of Solayer. The bullocks here are the breed that have the bunch on the back, besides which the island produces horses, buffaloes, goats, sheep, and deer. The arrack and sugar that are consumed here are brought from Batavia.
The latitude of Bonthain hill is 5° 3° S., longitude by account I17° 53' E. The variation of the compass while we were here was I° 1° W. The tides are very irregular; commonly it is but once high water and once low water in four and twenty hours, and there is seldom six feet difference between them.
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Volume I of the London 1773 Edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, page 648, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv01/648.html