1 7 7 .1 - of other refrefhments can be procured. Prince’s liland is,
. ~a°U-.1''i upon the whole, certainly more eligible than either of them ;
Tuefday 15. an(j the water is brackifh, if it is filled at the lower
part of the brook, yet higher up it will be found excellent.
The firft and fecond, and perhaps the thirdihip that comes
in the feafon may be tolerably fupplied with turtle ; butthofe
that come afterwards mu# be content with fmall ones. Thofe
that we bought were of the green kind, and at an average coft
.us about a half-penny or three farthings a pound. We were
much difappointed to find them neither fat nor well flavoured
; and we imputed it to their having been long kept
in crawls or pens of brackifh water, without food. The
fowls are large, and we bought a dozen of them for a Spa-
nifh dollar, which is about five pence a piece: the fmall
deer coft us two pence a piece, and the larger, of which two
only were brought down, a rupee. Many kinds of fifh are
to be had here, which the natives fell by hand, and we found
them tolerably cheap. Cocoa-nuts- we bought at the rate of
a hundred for a dollar, if they were picked; and if they
were taken promifcuoufly, one hundred and thirty. Plantains
we found in great plenty; we procured alfoTome pine
apples, water melons, jaccas, and pumkins; befid.es rice,
the greater part of which was of the mountain kind, that
grows in dry land ; yams, and feveral other vegetables, at a
very reafonable rate.
The inhabitants are Javanefe, whofe Raja is fubjeft to the
Sultan of Bantam. Their cuftoms are very fimilar to thofe
of the Indians about Batavia; but they feem to be more
jealous of their women, for we never faw any of them during
all the time that we were there, except one by chance in the
woods, as fhe was running away to hide herfelf. They pro-
fiefs the Mahometan religion, but I believe there is no,t a
3 mofque
mofque in the whole ifland: we were among them during 1771.
fhe faft, which the Turks- call Ramadan, which they feemed 1----^
to keep with great rigour, for not one of them would touch
.a morfelof victuals, or even chew their betel till fun-fet.
Their food is nearly the fame as that of the Batavian Indians,
except the addition of the nuts of the palm, called
Cycas circinalis, with which, upon the coaft of New Holland,
Tome of our people were made lick, and fome of our hogs
poifoned.
Upon obferving thefe nuts to be part of their food, we enquired
by what means they deprived them of their deleterious
quality; and they told us, that they firft cut them into thin
filices, and dried them in the fun, then fteeped them in frefh
water for three months, and afterwards, prefling out the
water, dried them in the fun a fecond time; but we learnt
that, after all they are eaten only in times of fcarcity, when
they mix them with their rice to make it go farther.
The houfes of their town are built upon piles, or pillars,
Tour or five feet above the ground : upon thefe is laid a floor
o f bamboo canes, which are placed at fome diftance from
each other, fo as to leave a free paflage for the air from below:
the walls alfo are of bamboo;, which are interwoven,
hurdlewife, with fmall flicks, that are fattened perpendicularly
to the beams which form the frame of the building:
it has a Hoping roof, which is To well thatched with
palm leaves, that neither the fun nor the rain can find entrance.
The ground over which this building is eredled, is
.an oblong fquaré. In the middle o f one fide is the door,
and in the middle between that and the end of the houfe,
towards the left hand, is a window: a partition runs out
from each end towards the middle, which, if continued,
would divide the whole floor into two equal parts, longitu-
Yóu. III. . 3 A dinally,