355
the camphor be expofed to the air it infenfibly evaporates. The tree which produces itis called capor *. Here alfo cinnamon grows, ginger, mirabolans, oranges, lemons,fugar-canes, melons, citrons, radifhes, onions, &c. Among the animals are elephants,horfes, buffaloes, hogs, goats, fowls, geefe, crows, and many other birds.
It is faid the king of Burne has two pearls as large as pullets’ eggs, and fo perfectlyfound that when placed on a polifhed table, they never remain at reft. When wecarried him our prefents, I made fign of my defire to fee them, which he promifed IIhould do ; but this never came to pafs. Some of the chiefs told me they knew ofthem. ,
The Mahomedans of this country have brafs money perforated fo as to firing it.On one fide it has four characters of the great King of China . This money is calledP J ci f. In our commerce with the Borneans for a cathil of quickfilver, they gave ushx china bowls. The cathil weighs two pounds J. For a quire - of paper we receivedftill more. A cathil of brafs purchafed a fmall vafe of porcelain ; and for threeknives we obtained one of larger fize : for a hundred and fixty cathils of brafs we ob-tained a bahar (344 lbs. avoirdupois) of wax. The bahar is a weight equal to twohundred and three cathils. For eighty cathils of brafs we purchafed a bahar of fait;and for forty cathils of that metal a bahar of anime, a kind of gum ufed for paying ofIhips, for in this country they have no pitch. Twenty tabils make a cathil. The mer-chandizes moft in requeft here are copper, quickfilver, cinnabar, glafs, woollen cloths,linens, and, prized above all others, iron and magnifying glaffes.
, The junks we have before mentioned are their largeft veffels. They are conftructed}n the following manner : the fides to within two fpans of the dead work are of plank-ln g faftened one piece to another by wooden pins, and nicely finilhed : in the upperpart they are formed of large bamboos, which project in a falient angle from the junkto form a counterpoife ||. Thefe junks will carry as great a burthen as our veffels.The malts are made of the fame bamboos, and the fails of the bark of trees.
Having noticed a confiderable quantity of porcelain at Burne, I madefome inquiries^fpecling it. I learnt it was formed of a very white kind of earth, which is left for|? a lf a century under ground to refine, fo that they hence hold as a proverb, that thefather buries himfelf for the welfare of his fon. It is pretended, that if poifon be puttnto thefe vafes of porcelain, they immediately break.
The ifland of Burne is fo extenfive, that it requires three months to fail round it.ft lies in latitude five degrees fifteeen minutes north, longitude one hundred andle venty-fix degrees, forty minutes from the line of demarcation §.
On
The belt camphor at prefent comes from Borneo . Hid. Gen. des Voy. loc. eft. p. 140.
T The pici or pice is the coin of fmalleft value current in the Ead Indies. It is as deferibed made in'-hina.
t The cathil of Batavia, in the ill and of Java, weighs 1,355 lbs. and decimals avoirdupois; it is of 16Y s, as in China ; if the tail, or as Pigafetta calls it, tabil of Borneo , be equivalent in weight to that oftl 38 cathil confills of 20 tails in Borneo , the weight in Engliih avoirdupois will be 1,694 lbs. Ina ' e "-fttrologie of Biernorod, Paris, 1803, the weight of the cathil of Java, Siam. Malacca, and Sumatra ,re ,S lv fn. Jn the three firft places it is nearly the fame, viz. equal to 1,355 lbs. avoirdupois, but the" ,s only of t6 tails. Now 1,694 lbs. avoirdupois, the cathil of 20 tails, is equal to 1,878 lbs. ofn„ ar - , ona » or nearly two Spanilh pounds. The bahar of Borneo maybe reckoned equal to 344 lbs.
|, ,rd 'r is ' Eng.Tr. , ,
ext j 1IS ^ erves to balance the junk or keep it deady. The text does not a&ually date that the reed workends from the fides of the junk, but allows the interpretation given, fince the author dates that it ferves
as a
^ounterpoife. Amorhtti.
0 £jf, This is the latitude of the city of Borneo. The longitude is not exa£f, Borneo lying in 160°, 10'e line of demarcation. The Chevalier Pigafetta marked in his plan of the ifland of Borneo the did,
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