S. long. 78 deg. E. and less
than half a degree N.N.E. is a small group called the Adu islands,
surrounded by a reef--E.]

Being delivered out of this _pound_, we followed our course till the 9th
May about four in the afternoon, when we got sight of the islands of
Nicobar, on which we bore in and anchored on the north side of the
channel. But as the wind changed to S.W. we had to weigh again, and go
over to the south side of the channel, where we came to an anchor under
a small island on that shore. We here got fresh water and cocoa-nuts,
but very little other refreshments; yet the natives came off to us in
long canoes that could have carried twenty men in each. They brought
gums to sell instead of amber, with which they deceived several of our
men; for these eastern people are wholly given to deceit. They brought
also hens and cocoa-nuts for sale; but held them at so dear a rate that
we bought very few. We staid here ten days, putting our ordnance in
order and trimming our ships, that we might be in readiness at our first
port, which we were not now far from.

In the morning of the 20th April, we set sail for Sumatra, but the wind
blew hard at S.S.W. and the current set against us, so that we could not
proceed. While beating up and down, two of our ships sprung leaks, on
which we were forced to go to the island of Sombrero,[108] ten or
twelve leagues north of Nicobar. Here we in the Admiral lost an anchor,
for the ground is foul, and grown full of false coral and some rocks,
which cut our cable asunder, so that we could not recover our anchor.
The people of these islands go entirely naked, except that their parts
are bound up in a piece of cloth, which goes round the waist like a
girdle, and thence between their legs. They are all of a tawny hue, and
paint their faces of divers colours. They are stout and well-made, but
very fearful, so that none of them would come on board our ships, or
even enter our boats. The general reported that he had seen some of
their priests all over cloathed, but quite close to their bodies, as if
sewed on; having their faces painted green, black, and yellow, and horns
on their heads turned backwards, painted of the same colours, together
with a tail hanging down behind from their buttocks, altogether as we
see the devil sometimes painted in Europe. Demanding why they went in
that strange attire, he was told that the devil sometimes appeared to
them in such form in their sacrifices, and th