f white or printed linens, or
cottons, such as loose gowns or jackets, coloured handkerchiefs,
clasp knives, razors, and bar iron; metal buttons had for some
time a good run, which a stranger on board here would soon have
perceived, as there was scarcely a coat or jacket to-be seen upon
deck with a button on it. The natives on these islands are the
same sort of people, and speak the same language, as people on
Mindanao; they have a great deal of the Malay both in appearance
and disposition; they are nearly the same size, make, and colour,
and have many of their features; they wore in general jackets and
trousers, but the lower orders had seldom any thing but a wrapper
round the waist; they commonly wore a handkerchief, or other
piece of linen round the head, in the manner of a turban. In the
sash or wrapper, which all wear round the waist, they had their
cress or dagger stuck, the scabbard of which was a case of wood.
Many of these natives were troubled with a disease much
resembling the leprosy; their skins were covered with a dry
scurf, like the scales of a fish, which had a very disagreeable
appearance.

Their canoes were of various sizes; the bottom is hollowed out
of the trunk of a tree, and they were generally raised with an
upper work of split bamboo, which was set very close and light;
they had an outrigger on each side to balance them; they had also
a larger boat on which they mounted three small pieces of cannon,
of brass; these pieces, I was told, were of their own
manufactory, which I could readily believe, as they were of a
very different make to any I had ever seen; they were very long,
and of narrow bore, and were mounted with a swivel, upon posts,
placed one at each end, and one in the center of the boat; they
had a long wooden tail fixed to them, by which they turn about
and point them.

These boats will contain and conceal a great number of men;
they were commonly covered with an awning of split bamboo, raised
some distance above the gunwall, like the ridge of a house. Their
mast was composed of three bamboos, two of which stood as a pair
of sheers, and required no shrouds; the third stood forward, and
answered the purpose of a stay; and upon this mast they set a
square sail. On Hummock Island, as well as the south side of
Mindanao, were many pleasant looking spots, which appeared to be
cultivated land.

When we left these islands, the wind being from the westward,
we steered to the southward. A