Gunpowder was in great request among them and we were given to understand that we might obtain everything we required, excepting water, for money or for gunpowder.  Trada aer was so often repeated that we re-embarked quite disappointed.

On our way to the boat we were accompanied by the whole mob, which had now increased to forty or fifty people:  all the men were armed with cresses, and two amongst them had swords and spears; but there was no appearance of hostility or of any unfriendly disposition towards us.  When they saw our empty barica in the boat they intimated by signs that we might fill it, and Mr. Bedwell and Mr. Cunningham accordingly accompanied one of our people to the well to take advantage of their offer; for a few gallons of water were now of great importance to us.

We then took a friendly leave of these islanders under the full expectation on their part of our returning in the morning with rupees and powder to barter with their commodities; whereas I had quite determined to leave the bay the moment that the day dawned.

The two following modes of proceeding were now only left to us; namely, either to beat back to Coepang which bore East by North 120 miles, or to bear up and pass through the straits of Lombock or Allas, and go to Madura or Sourabaya for water, of which, on a reduced allowance, we had enough on board for fifteen days.

To do the first would probably take a week or ten days, even if favoured by the wind.  At Coepang we could procure everything we wanted; and the only arguments against such a measure were the probable length of the voyage, and when there, the chance of being delayed until the adverse monsoon should set in against us, by which our return to Port Jackson would be perhaps prevented.  To undertake the second would, from our being weakly manned, subject us to danger from the Malay piratical proas in passing the Straits; but as the latter mode of proceeding could be resorted to in the event of our failing in the other, our united opinion was that, of the two plans, the better was to go to Timor.  Upon this decision all hands were immediately set to work to fill our empty water-casks with salt water and to get all the weighty things off the deck into the hold, in order to give the vessel more stability.

October 25.

This was completed by night and at break of day we left the anchorage with a fresh breeze from East-South-East.

Considering the short time we were on shore it would be the greatest presumption for me to say anything respecting Savu, when so good an account is already before the public in Captain Cook’s voyage.* Every circumstance that we could compare with it is still correct, except that the women appear to have lost the decency he describes them to possess; for there were several whom curiosity and the novelty of our arrival had brought down to see us, naked to the hips, which alone supported a petticoat or wrapper of blue cotton stuff that exposed their knees.