Derde reys, gedaan voor de Engelsche Maatschappy na Oost-Indien, met drie scheepen, de Draak, Hector, en ...

III. CHAPTER.

Report given to them at Delisa by the Moors and Gujaratis regarding various matters, and especially regarding the monsoons (settled winds). How long they stayed there. Their arrival at Priaman and Bantam.

Uncommonly large pieces of Ambergris.

The Moors here told us that in some years, pieces of ambergris are found that weigh twenty quintals, a weight of 100 pounds, and are so large that several men can hide behind them without being seen. This is on the coasts of Mombasa, Magadoxa, Pata, Brava, etc., which all lie in a row.

Those of Comora are a false people.

The inhabitants of this place make a trip every year to the islands of Comora to buy slaves, and relate that those islanders are a false and treacherous people, such that they had once murdered fifty of their own at a certain time, and therefore they now traded with them from within their own ship's board.

On Pemba, 8 Dutchmen had become Moors.

On Pemba, they said, there were eight Dutchmen who had been there for three or four years, two of whom had become Moors.

The Monsoon Trade-wind in those regions described.

They reckon that the monsoon of the southerly winds begins annually on the first of May and lasts for one hundred days. The strongest winds, which they said to be miraculous, are in June and July. On the 10th of August, the wind begins to slacken, and this is immediately followed by the north wind, which lasts for three months, during which time they harvest the most aloe on the islands, which is nothing other than the
How the aloe is harvested.

sap of Semper vivens a certain succulent plant, literally "always living", which is gathered in September and dried in this way.

Purchase of Aloe.

On the 23rd of May, I sent men ashore to buy a quantity of aloe, and brought 1250 pounds on board, which cost the Company 250 thalers. I did the same on several trips, so that in total we bought 1833 pounds of aloe.