Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/479

Rh but, altogether, I believe, they came to about a halfpenny or three farthings a pound. They were of the green kind, but not fat nor well flavoured in any degree, as they are in most other parts. This I believe is in great measure owing to the people keeping them, sometimes for a very long time, in crawls of brackish water, where they have no kind of food given to them. Fowls are tolerably cheap, a dozen large ones sold when we were there for a Spanish dollar, which is 5d. apiece. They have also plenty of monkeys and small deer (Moschus pygmæus), the largest of which are not quite so big as a new fallen lamb, and another kind of deer, called by them munchack, about the size of a sheep. The monkeys were about half a dollar (2s. 6d.), the small deer 2d.; the larger, of which they brought down only two, a rupee, or 2s. Fish they have of various kinds, and we always found them tolerably cheap. Vegetables they have: cocoanuts—a dollar for 100, if you choose them, or 130 if you take them as they come,—plantains in plenty, some water melons, pine-apples, jaccas (jack fruit), pumpkins; also rice, chiefly of the mountain sort which grows on dry land, yams, and several other vegetables: all which are sold reasonably enough.

The inhabitants are Javans, whose Radja is subject to the Sultan of Bantam, from whom they receive orders, and to whom they possibly pay a tribute, but of that I am not certain. Their customs, I believe, are very much like those of the Indians about Batavia, only they seem much more jealous of their women, so much so that I never saw one during the whole time of our stay, unless she was running away at full speed to hide herself in the woods. Their religion is Mahometanism, but I believe they have not a mosque upon the island: they were, however, very strict in the observance of their fast (the same as the Ramadan of the Turks), during which we happened to come. Not one would touch victuals until sunset, or even chew their betel; but half an hour before that time all went home to cook the kettle, nor would they stay for any time but in the hope of extraordinary profit.

The food was nearly the same as the Batavian Indians, adding only to it the nuts of the palm Cycas circinalis, with