The 19th of June, we fell in with the island of Diego Grasiosa, in lat. 7 deg. 30’ S. and in long. 110 deg. 40’ S. by our reckoning.[70] This seemed a pleasant island, and a good place for refreshment, if any proper place could be found for anchoring.  We sought but little for anchoring there, as the wind was bad, and the tide set towards the shore, so that we durst not stay to search any farther.  The island seemed to be some ten or twelve leagues long, abounding in fish and birds, and appeared an entire forest of cocoa-trees.  What else it yielded we knew not.  The 11th July, we again passed the equator, where we were becalmed, with excessive heat, and much thunder and lightning.  The 19th we descried land, which seemed many islands, locked as it were into one, in lat. 2 deg.  N. under the high coast of the great island of Sumatra.[71] We here sent off our boat to get some fresh water; but the sea went with so violent a breach [surf] upon the shore, that the people durst not land.  The natives of the island, or islands, made great fires along the shore, as if inviting us to land.

[Footnote 70:  Diego Garcia, in the indicated latitude nearly, and in long. 72 deg.  E. from Greenwich.—­E.]

[Footnote 71:  There is no such cluster of islands in the indicated latitude and situation; but off the S.W. coast of Sumatra, between the line and lat. 2 deg.  N. are several islands of some size, considerably distant from each other and from Sumatra.—­E.]

The 28th we anchored near a small island, where we sent our boat ashore for fresh water; but finding none, the people brought off some cocoa-nuts, saying that the island was quite full of cocoa palms, which had very few nuts upon them.  We saw three or four persons on this island, but they went away and would not come near us:  It was supposed these people were left here to gather cocoa-nuts, to have them ready when others should come to carry them away.  The 26th of the same month, July 1605, we came to anchor within a league of a large island called Bata,[72] in lat. 20’ S. We here set up a shallop or bark, and named her the Bat.  This island has no inhabitants, but abounds in woods and streams of water, as also with fish, monkies, and a kind of bird, said to be the bat of the country, of which I killed one as large as a hare.  In shape it resembled a squirrel; only that from its sides there hung down great flaps of skin; which, when he leapt from tree to tree, he could spread out like a pair of wings, as though to fly with them.[73] They are very nimble, and leap from bough to bough, often holding only by their tails.  As our shallop was built in the kingdom of these beasts, we called her therefore the Bat.

[Footnote 72:  Pulo Botoa is about as much north of the line as Bata is said in the text to be south.  But the island at which they stopt may have been Pulo Mintaon, about 40 minutes in length from S. to N. and the north end of which reaches to the equator.—­E.]