Pulo Condore

By now, we did not have much time to stay in Luzon and so we decided to:

• sail to Pulo Condore on the coast of Cambodia.
• carry our booty with us and there, careen if we could find any convenient place for it
• return to Manila by the latter end of May and wait for the Acapulco ship that comes about that time.

We set our prisoners ashore and sailed from Luconia on February 26, with the wind east-north-east and fair weather, and a brisk gale.

We were in latitude 14 degrees north when we began to steer away for Pulo Condore, and we steered south by west.

In our way thither we went pretty near the shoals of Pracel and other shoals which are very dangerous.

We were very much afraid of them but escaped them without so much as seeing them, only at the very south end of the Pracel shoals we saw three little sandy islands or spots of sand standing just above water within a mile of us.

PULO CONDORE

On March 13 we saw Condore island. The 14th day about noon we anchored on the north side of the island against a sandy bay two mile from the shore, in ten fathom clean hard sand, with both ship and prize.

Pulo Condore is the principal of a heap of islands and the only inhabited one of them.

They lie in latitude 8 degrees 40 minutes north, and about twenty leagues south and by east from the mouth of the river of Cambodia.

These islands lie so near together that at a distance they appear to be but one island.

Two of these islands are pretty large and of a good height, they may be seen fourteen or fifteen leagues at sea; the rest are but little spots.

The biggest of the two (which is the inhabited one) is about four or five leagues long and lies east and west. It is not above three mile broad at the broadest place, in most places not above a mile wide.

The other large island is about three mile long and half a mile wide.

This island stretches north and south. It is so conveniently placed at the west end of the biggest island that between both there is formed a very commodious harbour. The entrance of this harbour is on the north side where the two islands are near a mile asunder.

There are 3-4 small keys and a good deep channel between them and the biggest island. Towards the south end of the harbour the two islands do in a manner close up, leaving only a small passage for boats and canoes.

There are no more islands on the north side but five or six on the south side of the great island. See the Table.

The mould of these islands for the biggest part is blackish and pretty deep, only the hills are somewhat stony. The eastern part of the biggest island is sandy yet all clothed with trees of divers sorts. The trees do not grow so thick as I have seen them in some places, but they are generally large and tall and fit for any use.

The Tar-Tree

This tree is much larger than any other on this island and which I have not seen anywhere else.

It is 3-4 foot diameter in the body, from whence is drawn a sort of clammy juice, which being boiled a little becomes perfect tar.

If you boil it much it will become hard as pitch. It may be put to either use; we used it both ways, and found it to be very serviceable.

The way that they get this juice is by cutting a great gap horizontally in the body of the tree half through, and about a foot from the ground; and then cutting the upper part of the body aslope inwardly downward, till in the middle of the tree it meets with the traverse cutting or plain.

In this plain horizontal semicircular stump they make a hollow like a basin, that may contain a quart or two.

Into this hole the juice which drains from the wounded upper part of the tree falls; from whence you must empty it every day. It will run thus for some months and then dry away, and the tree will recover again.

The fruit-trees that nature has bestowed on these isles are mangoes; and trees bearing a sort of grape, and other trees bearing a kind of wild or bastard nutmegs. These all grow wild in the woods and in very great plenty.

The Mango

The mangoes here grow on trees as big as apple-trees: those at Fort St. George are not so large.

The fruit of these is as big as a small peach but long and smaller towards the top: it is of a yellowish colour when ripe; it is very juicy, and of a pleasant smell and delicate taste.

When the mango is young they cut them in two pieces and pickle them with salt and vinegar in which they put some cloves of garlic.

This is an excellent sauce and much esteemed; it is called mango-achar.

Achar I presume signifies sauce. They make in the East Indies, especially at Siam and Pegu, several sorts of achar, as of the young tops of bamboos, etc., bamboo-achar and mango-achar are most used.

The mangoes were ripe when we were there (as were also the rest of these fruits) and they have then so delicate a fragrancy that we could smell them out in the thick woods, if we had but the wind of them, while we were a good way from them and could not see them; and we generally found them out this way. Mangoes are common in many places of the East Indies; but I did never know any grow wild only at this place.

These, though not so big as those I have seen at Achin and at Madras or Fort St. George are yet every whit as pleasant as the best sort of their garden mangoes.

GRAPE-TREE

The grape-tree grows with a straight body of a diameter about a foot or more, and has but few limbs or boughs. The fruit grows in clusters all about the body of the tree, like the jack, durian, and cocoa fruits. There are of them both red and white.

They are much like such grapes as grow on our vines both in shape and colour; and they are of a very pleasant winy taste. I never saw these but on the two biggest of these islands; the rest had no tar-trees, mangoes, grape-trees, nor wild nutmegs.

The Wild Or Bastard-Nutmeg

The wild nutmeg-tree is as big as a walnut-tree; but it does not spread so much. The boughs are gross and the fruit grows among the boughs as the walnut and other fruits.

This nutmeg is much smaller than the true nutmeg and longer also.

It is enclosed with a thin shell, and a sort of mace, encircling the nut within the shell. This bastard nutmeg is so much like the true nutmeg in shape that at our first arrival here we thought it to be the true one; but it has no manner of smell nor taste.

The animals of these islands are some hogs, lizards and iguanas; and some of those creatures mentioned in Chapter 11 which are like but much bigger than the iguanas.

Here are many sorts of birds, as parrots, parakeets, doves and pigeons. Here are also a sort of wild cocks and hens: they are much like our tame fowl of that kind; but a great deal less, for they are about the bigness of a crow.

The cocks do crow like ours but much more small and shrill; and by their crowing we do first find them out in the woods where we shoot them. Their flesh is very white and sweet.

There are a great many limpets and mussels, and plenty of green turtle.

The Migration Of The Turtle

These turtles leave their common feeding-places and go to places a great way from thence to lay particularly to the island Ascension.

Now I have discoursed with some since that subject was printed who are of opinion that when the laying-time is over they never go from thence, but lie somewhere in the sea about the island, which I think is very improbable: for there can be no food for them there, as I could soon make appear; as particularly from hence, that the sea about the isle of Ascension is so deep as to admit of no anchoring but at one place, where there is no sign of grass: and we never bring up with our sounding-lead any grass or weeds out of very deep seas, but sand or the like only.

But if this be granted, that there is food for them, yet I have a great deal of reason to believe that the turtle go from hence; for after the laying-time you shall never see them, and wherever turtle are you will see them rise and hold their head above water to breathe once in seven or eight minutes, or at longest in ten or twelve. And if any man does but consider how fish take their certain seasons of the year to go from one sea to another this should not seem strange; even fowls also having their seasons to remove from one place to another.

These islands are pretty well watered with small brooks of fresh water that run flush into the sea for ten months in the year. The latter end of March they begin to dry away, and in April you shall have none in the brooks but what is lodged in deep holes; but you may dig wells in some places. In May when the rain comes the land is again replenished with water and the brooks run out into the sea.