Way.--E.]

[Footnote 19: Most probably the same with Pulo Pinang, now called Prince
of Wales's Island: the Portuguese orthography being used in the text, in
which language _ao_, or rather _aom_, as in the next section, has oar
sound of _ang_.--E.]

We remained at this place till the end of August, our refreshments being
very small, consisting only of oysters, growing on the rocks, great
wilks, or conchs, and a few fish, which we took with hooks and lines. We
landed our sick upon one of these uninhabited islands, for the sake of
their health, yet twenty-six of them died here, among whom was John
Hall, our master, and Rainald Golding, a merchant of much honesty and
discretion. There are abundance of trees in these islands of white wood,
so tall and straight as to be well fitted for masts, being often an
hundred feet long. When winter was past, and our ship fitted for going
to sea, we had only now remaining thirty-three men and one boy,
twenty-two only of whom were sound and fit for labour, and not above a
third even of these were mariners. Being under the necessity of seeking
some place for refreshments, we went over to the main-land of Malacca,
and came next day to anchor in a bay two leagues from the shore. Then
our captain, Mr James Lancaster, with his lieutenant, Mr Edmund Barker,
the author of this narrative, having manned the boat, went on shore, to
see if we could fall in with any inhabitants. On landing, we could see
the tracks of some barefooted people, who had been there not long
before, for their foe was still burning; yet we could see no people,
nor any living creature, except a fowl called oxbird, being a grey
sea-bird, in colour like a _snipe_, but different in the beak. Being by
no means shy, we killed about eight dozen of them with small shot, and
having spent the day fruitlessly, we went on board in the evening.