Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/362

302 our vessels rode at anchor was infested by alligators; but this did not deter several of our sailors from bathing in it. We afterwards found some of the prints of their feet in the woods. It is particularly during the night-time that these animals are most to be feared.

Whilst we lay at anchor we were visited by several of the chiefs. The chief of Ravak supped and slept on board the Esperance the night before our departure; but as soon as he saw preparations for weighing anchor, he threw himself into the sea, from the apprehension that we were going to carry him away with us. We should have been surprised at his harbouring such a suspicion, if we had not been informed, that five months before the Dutch had carried off his brother, during an entertainment which they had made for him on board of their vessel. This chief wore trowsers, with a very wide Indian cloak, and a waistcoat of satin. His ear-rings were of gold.

The inhabitants of this island had declared war against the Dutch, and the greater part of them, with the most powerful of the chiefs, to whom they give the title of Sultan, at their head, were gone to unite with the inhabitants of Ceram, in order to attack the Governor of Amboyna, who was expected there on his visit to the Molucca Islands. The inhabitants of the huts built on the