cucumbers, cocos, _figu_, _sagu_, with divers other sorts. And among all
the rest we had one fruit, in bigness, form and husk, like a bay berry,
hard of substance and pleasant of taste, which being sudden becometh
soft, and is a most good and wholesome victual; whereof we took
reasonable store, as we did also of the other fruits and spices. So that
to confess a truth, since the time that we first set out of our country
of England, we happened upon no place, Ternate only excepted, wherein we
found more comforts and better means of refreshing.

At our departure from Barateve, we set our course for Java Major; where
arriving, we found great courtesy, and honourable entertainment. This
island is governed by five kings, whom they call Rajah; as Rajah Donaw,
and Rajah Mang Bange, and Rajah Cabuccapollo, which live as having one
spirit and one mind. Of these five we had four a-shipboard at once, and
two or three often. They are wonderfully delighted in coloured clothes,
as red and green; the upper part of their bodies are naked, save their
heads, whereupon they wear a Turkish roll as do the Maluccians. From the
middle downward they wear a _pintado_ of silk, trailing upon the ground,
in colour as they best like. The Maluccians hate that their women should
be seen of strangers; but these offer them of high courtesy, yea, the
kings themselves. The people are of goodly stature and warlike, well
provided of swords and targets, with daggers, all being of their own
work, and most artificially done, both in tempering their metal, as also
in the form; whereof we bought reasonable store. They have an house in
every village for their common assembly; every day they meet twice,
men, women, and children, bringing with them such victuals as they think
good, some fruits, some rice boiled, some hens roasted, some _sagu_,
having a table made three foot from the ground, whereon they set their
meat, that every person sitting at the table may eat, one rejoicing in
the company of another. They boil their rice in an earthen pot, made in
form of a sugar loaf, being full of holes, as our pots which we water
our gardens withal, and it is open at the great end, wherein they get
their rice dry, without any moisture. In the mean time they have ready
another great earthen pot, as set fast in a furnace, boiling full of
water, whereinto they put their pot with rice, by such measure, that
they swelling become soft at the first, and by their swelling stopping