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The remains of a stone fort up the river are still seen, but the one on Pulo Laboan is destroyed. Both banks of the river are planted with pepper, which formerly produced sixty thousand piculs annually; these are now running to decay from want of commerce.

All these and other particularities are plainly and truely here deliuered by one Thomas Steuens a learned Englishman, who in the yeere 1579 going as a passenger in the Portugale Fleete from Lisbon into India, wrote the same from Goa to his father in England: Whereunto I haue added the memorable voyage of M. Iames Lancaster, who doth not onely recount and confirme most of the things aboue mentioned, but also doth acquaint vs with the state of the voyage beyond Cape Comori, and the Isle of Ceilon, with the Isles of Nicubar and Gomes Polo lying within two leagues of the rich Island Sumatra, and those of Pulo Pinaom, with the maine land of Iuncalaon and the streight of Malacca.

This fleet sailed from Canton on the 31st January, 1804. After sighting Pulo Auro, near the Straits of Malacca, the Royal George, one of the Indiamen, made the signal for four strange sail in the south-west. On this the commodore directed four of the Indiamen to go down and examine them.

Owing to contrary winds, he was unable to get up with five Dutch ships that were about Pulo Laer, and which took a Portuguese galliot coming from China. He returned therefore to Malacca to refit his ships, and resolved to attempt the Dutch fort of Jacatara , the best which was possessed by these rebels in all Asia.

A distinction is made between them and the Malays of Johor, but none is perceptible." To these authorities I shall add that of Mr. Thomas Raffles, at this time Secretary to the government of Pulo Pinang, a gentleman whose intelligence and zeal in the pursuit of knowledge give the strongest hope of his becoming an ornament to oriental literature.

Leaving Rottee we passed, soon after dark, round the western end of Pulo Douw, and stood for the position of a shoal reported by Mr. Lewis of the Colonial schooner, Isabella, to be in latitude 14 degrees 43 minutes South, and longitude 119 degrees 20 minutes East.

Company's Ship Dunira, October 19th, 1820, with a fine breeze, and arrived at Pulo Penang, or Prince of Wales's Island, on the 6th of November. The houses have a noble appearance, and are built after the form of those in Calcutta. The inhabitants are principally Malays; of them I shall speak more hereafter.

"2d. Once more bade adieu to our kind friends; reached the vessel at 4 P.M., and got under weigh directly. At dusk anchored in the passage between the sands. "3d. Five A.M. under weigh. Clear of the sands about mid-day, and shaped our course for Singapore. "4th. Strong breeze from w.s.w. Beating from leeward of Datu to Pulo Murrundum, in a nasty chop of a head sea."

July 14th. We left Batang Onan in order to return, stopped that night at a kampong called Koto Moran, and the next evening reached Sa-masam; from whence we proceeded by a different road from what we had travelled before to Sa­pisang, where we procured sampans, and went down the Batang-tara river to the sea. July 22nd we returned to Pulo Punchong. End of Mr. Miller's Narrative.

In very stormy weather, ships and boats also are compelled to seek shelter in Pulo Bay; a vile, unhealthy place situated about twelve miles south-east of Rat Island, and surrounded with a low, swampy, agueish-looking country. The Siamese suffer severely in this harbour from fever and ague, and ship-masters are glad to leave it as soon as the weather moderates.