but feed on the guts and skins, which last they broil after singing off the hair.[199] They also make a dish of locusts, which come at certain seasons to devour their potatoes; on which occasions they catch these insects in nets, and broil or bake them in earthen pans, when they are tolerable eating.  Their ordinary drink is water; but they make also a kind of liquor of the juice of sugar-canes, boiled up with black-berries, allowed afterwards to ferment four or five days in jars.  It then settles and becomes clear, when it affords a strong and pleasant liquor, which they call bashee, resembling our English beer both in taste and colour.  I can give no account of their language, as it has no affinity either to Chinese or Malay.  Their weapons are lances headed with iron, and they wear a kind of armour of buffalo-hide without sleeves, reaching below their knees, where it is three feet wide, and as stiff as a board, but close at the shoulders.

[Footnote 199:  This is rather inexplicable, as we cannot conceive how they got the guts and skins without killing the goats.—­E.]

I could not perceive that they had any worship, neither saw I any idols among them.  They seemed to have no government or precedency, except that the children were very respectful to their parents.  They seem, however, to be regulated by some ancient customs, instead of laws, as we saw a young lad buried alive, which we supposed was for being guilty of theft.  The men have each only one wife, and she and her children were very obedient to the head of the family.  The boys are brought up to fishing along with their fathers; and the girls work along with their mothers in the plantations in the vallies, where each family plants a piece of ground proportional to their numbers.  They are a civil quiet people, not only among themselves, but in their intercourse with strangers; for all the time we were here, though they came frequently aboard, exchanging their yellow metal, goats, and fruits, for iron, we never saw them differ either among themselves or with our men, though occasions of the latter were not wanting.  They have no coins, neither any weights or scales, but give their pieces of yellow metal by guess.  During our stay here, we provided ourselves with seventy or eighty fat hogs, and great plenty of potatoes, for our intended voyage to Manilla.

On the 25th September, we were forced out to sea by a violent storm, which lasted till the 29th, when we made the best of our way back to the Bashees, which we reached on the 1st October.  This last storm so disheartened our men, that they resolved to give up the design of cruising before Manilla; and, by the persuasions of Captain Read, who now commanded, and Captain Teat, our master, it was determined to sail for Cape Comorin, and thence into the Red Sea.  As the eastern monsoon was at hand, our nearest and best way had been to pass through the Straits of Malacca; but Teat persuaded the men to go round by the east side of the Philippines, and thence, keeping south of the Spice islands, to pass into the Indian ocean by the south of Timor.