Hamilton’s account of the east indies.

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a fire, and blow it with his mouth. And 1 faw one broil a filh to eat with his boiledrice. The females have their regular menjirua. They have no tail, and walk upright.They are of a melancholy difpofition, and have a grave dejected countenance, and evenwhen they are-young, they are never inclined to play, as moll other animals are.There is a fmaller fort, but of a different fpecies, called Oumpaes ; but their legs andarms are very fmall.

They have many large crocodiles or alligators in their rivers and marlhes, and fome-times they go a mile or two off to fea, and get foul of the filler’s nets. I wascleaning a velfel (that I bought at Samarang) on a bed of ooze, and had ftages fittedfor my people to Hand on, when the water came round the velfel, and we were plaguedwith five or fix alligators, which wanted to be on the ftage, and every moment difturbedour men ; fo I, and two of my men, fat on the veffels deck, and fired mufkets at them,but our ball did them no harm, becaufe their hard fcaly coat was fhot-proof. At laftwe contrived to fhoot at their eyes, and we Ihot at one fo. As foon as he found hiin-felf wounded, he turned tail on us, and, with great flouncings, made towards the fhoreabout half a mile from us, and the reft following him, we were pretty quiet after that.A day or two after, fome fifhers told us, that they had feen a dead alligator lying onthe fhore, and pointed whereabout they faw him. I went in a boat afhore, and foundhim lying at full length. I meafured his length, and found, from his nofe to his tail,twenty-feven feet and an half, and he was about one third part of his length in circum-ference about the belly.

I was in Samarang in 1704, in the months of July and Auguft, when navigation onthat coaft is accounted dangerous. A war happened then to break out between thenatives of that part of Java and the Dutch , about the fucceffion of a new Sun Suonan,or Emperor, the old one demifing about that time. The Dutch would impofe the oldEmperor ’s brother on them againft the general bent of the nation, and the nobilitywere for his eldeft fon, being the eftablifhed law and cuftom of the country.

I being then bound for Batavia, the commodore defired me to carry a packet ofletters for the general and his council, which I did, and delivered them, before theywere fix days old, to the general (Jan Van Hoorn), which piece of fervice recommendedme to his favour ; which he demonftrated afterwards in fome indulgences I had, andfome confidence he repofed in me.

The war begun then, lafted twenty years longer than at firft the Dutch imagined.It taught the Javans the art of war, having a great number of Maccaflers and Bailies,who had been trained up in the Dutch Company’s wars againft feveral nations. Manyof them came into the eldeft fon’s intereft, who having as good courage and fubtleftratageins, with much greater agility of body than the Dutch , made the war more-terrible and dangerous than any the Company had ever entered into, notwith-standing the pretender had a large party of Javans, and was affifted by Maccaffers,Amboinefe, Bailies and Bougies ; but they wanted the European difcipline that theothers had who ferved the young Emperor , for they could encamp and mine as well asthe Dutch . •

A Dutch captain, in his march towards the Dutch camp, fell, with his company,into an ambufh of Javans. Some of his men were killed, but he and moil of hismen were taken prifoners. The Dutch camp was pitched on the fide of a river, andthe Javans a few miles above them on the fame river’s fide. Next day, to the Dutch great amazement, they faw the captain and his inen fwimming down with the ftream,ion bundles of reeds, with all their legs, thigh-bones and arms broken, and moll ofthem alive. Their countrymen took them out of the river, and ufed means to fave

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