something
like halberts in their hands, but whether they were of iron or
wood we could not discern. The houses stood on posts; they
appeared to be well built, and neatly thatched.

Their canoes were also neatly made, being hollowed out of
trees, with bamboo outriggers on each side to prevent them from
oversetting; a piece of wood is left at the stern, which projects
like a proa, to break the water before it comes to the bow: each
canoe has a mast, on which they hoist a square piece of matt as a
sail. Their fishing-hooks and lines are mostly European, and it
is possible that there is a Dutch resident on the island, as we
saw a small Dutch flag placed before a house to the northward of
the place where we went with the boat; though it is natural to
suppose, that if any European had been there, he would have come
to the boat, or that the natives would have made us understand
there was one on the island.

The cloathing these people in general wore, was made of a
coarse kind of callico, though some of them wore silk, and most
of them had something resembling a turban round their heads; a
few, indeed, wore a Chinese pointed hat. There can be no doubt
but the Dutch supply these people with cloathing and other
necessaries, which, of course, must be for some production of the
island. I showed one of the natives some cloves, and he gave me
to understand that they had the same. I do not think the Dutch
send very often to this island, from the extreme avidity the
natives showed in purchasing our hatchets and cloathing: they are
mild, and apparently a quiet people, and the confidence they
placed in us was sufficient to prove that strangers were not
unwelcome guests among them.

From the 6th to the 10th, we had fresh gales of wind at west,
with very heavy squalls and much rain, which often obliged us to
clew all up. During the last four days we only got eight leagues
on our course, and there being every appearance of a continuation
of westerly winds, (this being the south-west monsoon in the
China seas) with heavy squalls, or rather tornados of wind and
rain, which endangered the masts: on the 10th, Lieutenant Ball
relinquished the purpose of going through the streights of
-Macasser_, and adopted that of making the passage between
-Celebes_ and _Gilolo_, through the _Moluccas_ and
the streights of _Salayer_; accordingly, at six in the
morning, we bore up for the south point of _Lirog_, which
lay south-east by east twelve or fo