s.
We sailed westwards till we came to the island of Lancas, in lat. 5 deg. 27'
S. and by my estimation, 2 deg. 21', or 155 miles W. from Amboina. We then
steered W. by N. till we made two islands called the _Cabeses_, whence
we procured some hundred cocoa nuts. The eastermost island, to which we
sent our boat, is low and uninhabited, but has been planted full of
cocoa-nut trees by the Dutch, for the use of their vessels going between
the spice islands and Batavia, as it is a kind of miracle to see any
other ship in these parts except those belonging to the Dutch. Off this
island we met our own bark which had brought us from America to Amboina,
the Dutch having fitted her up with a main-mast and converted her into a
very good vessel. This island is in lat. 5 deg. 23' S. and nearly W. by N.
from the island of Lancas, about forty-five miles distant, and has a
shoal extending about two miles from the shore. To the S.W. of this is
the other island of _Cabeses_, a pretty high island, on which the Dutch
always keep a corporal and two soldiers, who go two or three times all
over the isle to see that no cloves are planted, and if they find any to
cut them down and burn them, lest any other nation might be able to
procure that commodity, in which case Amboina would become of little
value, as cloves are its only valuable product.

We next passed by the S. end of the island of _Bouton_, or _Booton_,
which is pretty large, and in the lat. of 5 deg. 45' S. We steered W. from
thence, between the islands _Celebes_ and _Zalayer_ or _Salayr_. The
S.W. leg or peninsula of Celebes is very high land. Celebes is composed
of very high land, very well inhabited, being a very large island,
extending through seven degrees of latitude. On the west side of its
southern end the Dutch have a factory named Macasser, where they have a
fortress of about seventy guns, and a garrison of 600 or 700 Dutch
soldiers. The chief product is rice, with which they supply most of
their eastern islands from hence. There are said to be gold-mines in
this island, of which the Dutch are not yet masters, as the inhabitants
are often at war with them, and have hitherto been able to keep them
from those parts of the island. Between the south end of Celebes and the
island of Salayr there are three small low islands, and the best channel
is through between the island next to Salayr, and another small isle to
the northward. This is called the _second_ passage, the first, th