already, on which there are mounted eight guns that carry a ball of about eight pounds weight:  It is just sufficient to keep the country people in subjection, and is intended for no other purpose:  It lies on the south side of a small river, and there is water for a ship to come close to it.  The Dutch resident has the command of the place, and of Bullocomba, another town which lies about twenty miles farther to the eastward, where there is such another fort, and a few soldiers, who at the proper season are employed in gathering the rice, which the people pay as a tax to the Dutch.

Wood and water are to be procured here in great plenty; we cut our wood near the river, under Bonthain hill:  Our water was procured partly from that river, and partly from another; when from the other, our boat went above the fort with the casks that were to be filled, where there is a good rolling way; but as the river is small, and has a bar, the boat, after it is loaded, can come out only at high water.  There are several other small rivers in the bay, from which water may be got upon occasion.

We procured plenty of fresh provisions all the while we lay here at a reasonable rate:  The beef is excellent; but it would be difficult to procure enough of it for a squadron.  Rice may be had in any quantity, so may fowls and fruit:  There are also abundance of wild hogs in the woods, which may be purchased at a low price, as the natives, being Mahometans, never eat them.  Fish may be caught with the seine, and the natives, at times, supplied us with turtle; for this, like pork, is a dainty which they ever touch.

Celebes is the key of the Molucca, or Spice Islands, which, whoever is in possession of it must necessarily command:  Most of the ships that are bound to them, or to Banda, touch here, and always go between this island and that of Solayer.  The bullocks here are the breed that have the bunch on the back, besides which the island produces horses, buffaloes, goats, sheep, and deer.  The arrack and sugar that are consumed here are brought from Batavia.

The latitude of Bonthain hill is 5 deg. 30’ S., longitude, by account, 117 deg. 53’ E. The variation of the compass while we were here was 1 deg. 16’ W. The tides are very irregular; commonly it is but once high water and once low water in four-and-twenty hours, and there is seldom six feet difference between them.

SECTION XII.

Passage from Bonthain Bay, in the Island of Celebes, to Batavia:  Transactions there, and the Voyage round the Cape of Good Hope to England.