They Are Tall And Strong Built, Having All Very
Small Black Eyes, And Very Few Of Them Have Any Beards.
They will steal
and commit all manner of villainy to procure wealth.
At Bantam they
purchase female slaves, as they cannot bring any women out of China. By
these slaves they have many children; and when they go back to China,
without intending to return to Bantam, they carry all their children
along with them, but sell their women. They send always some of their
goods to China by every fleet of junks; for if they die at Bantam, all
the goods they have there fall to the king. If they cut their hair, they
must never return to China; but their children may, providing their hair
has never been cut.
Sec. 2.A brief Discourse of many Dangers by Fire, and other Treacheries of
the Javanese.
After our two ships, the Dragon and Hector, were laden, and all things
set in order, our general, Sir James Lancaster, departed from Bantam on
the 21st February, 1603, leaving nine persons resident in that city,
over whom he appointed Mr William Starkie to be chief commander. He
likewise left thirteen others, who were appointed to go in our pinnace
for Banda, over whom Thomas Tudd, merchant, was constituted chief
commander, and Thomas Keith master of the pinnace. At his departure, the
general left orders that the pinnace should be sent away with all speed;
wherefore, having taken on board fifty-six chests and bales of goods,
she set sail at night on the 6th March; but meeting with contrary winds,
was forced to return to Bantam after having been two months at sea,
beating up to no purpose. Also, at our general's departure, he left us
two houses full of goods, besides some being at the Dutchman's house;
but we were too few in number to have kept one house well, had not God
of his great mercy preserved us.
Before the departure of our ships, a quarrel had taken place between our
people and the Javanese, who sought by all manner of ways to be
revenged; so that presently after the departure of our pinnace, they
began to attempt setting fire to our principal house, by means of
fire-arrows and fire-darts in the night; and when we brought out any
quantity of our goods to air, they were sure to set some part of the
town on fire to windward not far from us. If these fire-arrows had not,
by God's good providence, been seen by some of our people, that house
and all its goods had surely been consumed, as plainly appeared when we
came afterwards to repair the roof. But, as the malice of the rascal
sort began now plainly to appear, and continued for two years against
us, so did the merciful protection of God begin to shew itself, and
continued to the last day, as will manifestly be seen in the sequel of
this discourse:
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