deer, buffaloes, two or three forts of muftela, porcupine, and the fmall hog-deer, almoft compleat the catalogue of our mammalia.

Birds I have feen very few indeed, and very few fpecies of infects. Ants, of twenty or thirty kinds, abound here fo much as to make it almost impoffible to preferve birds or infects. I have frequently attempted it, but in vain.

I have met with one inftance, and only one, of a ftratum of foffil fhells. I had fome notion that it was an obfervation (of CONDA MINE'S I think) that no fuch thing was to be found between the tropics.

:

The island of Enganho, though Gtuated only about ninety miles to the fouthward of Malbro', was fo little known, on account of the terrible rocks and breakers which entirely furround it, that it was even doubtful whether it was inhabited to this ifland I have made a voyage. With great difficulty and danger we beat up the whole fouth-weft fide of it, without finding any place where we could attempt to land; and we loft two anchors, and had very nearly fuffered fhipwreck before we found a fecure place into which we might run the veffel. At laft, however, we difcovered a fpacious harbour at the fouth-eaft end of the island, and I immediatly went into it in the boat, and ordered the veffel to follow me as foon as poffible, for it was then a dead calm. We rowed directly into this bay; and as foon as we had got round the points of an ifland which lay off the harbour, we difcovered all the beach covered with naked favages, who were all armed with lances and clubs; and twelve canoes full of them, who,

till we had paffed them had lain concealed, immediately rufhed out upon me, making a horrid noise: this, you may fuppose, alarmed us greatly; and as I had only one European and four black foldiers, befides the four lafcars that rowed the boat, I thought it beft to retura, if poffible, under the guns. of the veffel, before I ventured to fpeak with them. In cafe we were attacked, I ordered the feapoys to referve their fire till they could be fure their balls would take effect; and then to take advantage of the confufion our firing would throw the favages into, and attack them, if poffible, with their bayonets. The canoes, however, after hav ing purfued for a mile, or a mile and a half, luckily ftopped a little to confult together, which gave us an opportunity to efcape them, as they did not care to purfue us out to fea. The fame afternoon the veffel came to an anchor in the bay, and we were prefently visited by fifty or fixty canoes full of people. They paddled round the vessel, and called to us in a language which nobody on board understood, though I had people with me who underftood the languages spoken on all the other islands. They feemed to look at every thing about the veffel very attentively; but more from the motive of pilfering than from curiofity, for they watched an op portunity, and unfhipped the rudder of the boat, and paddled way with it. I fired a mufquet over their heads, the noife of which frightened them fo, that all of them immediately leaped into the fea, but foon recovered themselves and paddled off.

They are a tall, well-made people; the men in general about five G 3

feet

feet eight or ten inches high; the women fhorter and more clumfily built. They are of a red colour, and have straight black hair, which the men cut fhort, but the women let grow long, and roll up in a circle on the top of their heads very neatly. The men go entirely naked, and the women wear nothing more than a very narrow flip of plantain leaf. The men always go armed with fix or eight lances, made of the wood of the cabbage. tree, which is extremely hard; they are about fix feet long, and topped with the large bones of fifh fharpened and barbed, or with a piece of bamboo hardened in the fire, very fharp-pointed, and its concave part armed with the jaw bones and teeth of fifh, fo that it would be almoft impoffible to extract them from a wound. They have no iron or other metal that I could fee, yet they build very neat canoes; they are formed of two thin boards fewed together, and the feam filled with a refinous fubfiance. They are about ten feet ong, and about a foot broad, and have an out-rigger on each fide, to prevent their overfetting. They fplit trees into boards with ftone wedges.

Their houfes are circular, fupported on ten or twelve iron-wood iticks about fix feet long: they are neatly floored with plank, and the roof rifes immediately from the floor in a conical form, fo as to refemble a ftraw bee hive; their diameter is not above eight fect.

Thefe people have no rice, fowls, or cattle, of any kind: they feem to live upon cocoa nuts, fweet potatoes, aad fugar - canes. They catch fish, and dry them in the smoke; these fifh they either firike

with their lances, or catch in a drawing net, of which they make very neat ones.

They do not chew betel, a cuftom which prevails univerfally among the eastern nations.

I went on fhore the day after the veffel anchored in the bay, hoping to be able to fee fomething of the country, and to meet with fome of the chiefs. I faw a few houfes near the beach, and went towards them; but the natives flocked down to the beach, to the number of fixty or feventy men, well armed with their lances &c. and put themselves in our way; yet, when we approached them, they retreated flowly, making fome few threatening geltures. I then ordered my companions to halt, and be well on their guard, and went alone towards them: they permitted me to come among them, and I gave them fome knives, pieces of cloth, and looking-glaffes, with all which they feemed well pleased, and allowed me to take from them their lances, &c. and give them to my fervant, whom I called to take them. Finding them to behave civilly, I made figns that I wanted to go to their houfes and eat with them; they immediately fent people, who brought me cocoa-nuts, but did not feem to approve of my going to their houfes: however, I determined to venture thither, and feeing a path leading towards them, I went forward, attended by about twenty of them, who, as foon as we had got hind fome trees, which prevented my people fecing us, began to lay violent hands on my cloaths, and endeavoured to pull them off; but having a fmall hanger, I drew it, and, making a ftroke at the moft officious of them, retreated

retreated as faft as poffible to the beach. Soon after, we heard the found of a conch-fhell; upon which all the people retired, with all poflible expedition, to a party of about two hundred, who were af fembled at about a mile distance. It was now near fun-fet, and we were near a mile from our boat; and, as I was apprehenfive we might be way-laid in our return, if we ftaid longer, I ordered my people to return with all poflible speed; but first went to the houses the natives had abandoned, and found them ftripped of every thing; fo that I fuppofe this party had been employed in removing their wives, children, &c. into the woods. I intended to have attempted another day to have penetrated into the country, and had prepared my people for it; but the inconfiderate refentment of an officer, who was fent with me, rendered my fcheme abortive. He had been in the boat to fome of the natives, who had waded out on a reef of rocks, and called to us; they had brought fome cocoa-nuts, for which he gave them pieces of cloth: one of them feeing his hanger laying befide him in the boat, fnatched it and ran away; upon which he fired upon them, and purfued them to fome, of their houses, which, finding empty, he burnt. This fet the whole country in alarm; conchfhells were founded all over the bay, and in the morning we faw great multitudes of people affembled in different places, making ufe of threatening geftures; fo that finding it would be unfafe to venture among them again, as, for want of understanding their language, we could not come to any explanation with them, I ordered

the anchor to be weighed, and failed out of the bay, bringing away two of the natives with me.

In our return home, my defire of feeing fome yet unexplored parts of the island of Sumatra, occafioned me to order the veffel to put me on fhore at a place called Flat Point, on the fouthern extremity of the ifland, from whence I walked to Fort Malbro'. In this journey I. underwent great hardships, being fometimes obliged to walk on the fandy beach, expofed to the fun, from fix in the morning till fix at night,, without any refreshment; fometimes precipices to afcend or defcend, fo fteep that we could only draw ourselves up, or let ourfelves down, by a rattan; at other times rapid rivers to crofs, and then to walk the remaining part of the day in wet cloaths. The confequence of these hardships has been a violent fever; but, much as I then regretted having quitted the fhip, I had, when I came to Fort Malbro', more reafon to rejoice; for I then found that the veffel, in her voyage home, was lot, and every foul on board perifhed. This has, however, been a fevere ftroke upon me; for, as I was obliged to leave all my baggage on board, it being impracticable to carry it over land, I lost all my cloaths, books, fpecimens, manufcripts, notes, arms, &c. from Enganho; in fhort, almost every thing which I had either brought with me, or collected during my refidence in this island.

I forgot to mention, that, when I was at Tappanooly, I faw what I find in PURCHAS'S Pilgrim called the wonderful plant of Sombrero: his account, however, is fomewhat exaggerated, when he fays it bears

G 4

leaves

leaves, and grows to be a great tree. The name by which it is known to the Malays is Lalan-lout, that is, fea-grafs. It is found in fandy bays, in fhallow water, where it appears like a slender strait stick, but, when you attempt to touch it, immediately withdraws itself into the fand. I could never obferve any tentacula: : a broken piece, near a foot long, which, after many unfuccefsful attempts, I drew out, was perfectly ftrait and uniform, and resembled a worm drawn over a knitting-needle; when dry, it is a

coral.

The fea cocoa-nut, which has long been erroneously confidered as a marine production, and been fo extremely fcarce and valuable, is now discovered to be the fruit of a palm with flabelliform leaves, which grow abundantly on the fmall islands to the eastward of Madagascar, called in our Charts, Mahi, &c. and by the French, Les Iles des Sechelles. To thefe iflands, the French have fent a large colony, and planted them with cloves and nutmeg trees, as they have likewife the islands of Bourbon and Mauritius.

The child was then about five years old, and exceedingly tractable and fenfible, which enabled me to make the following obfervations upon him with great accuracy and frequent repetition.

1. He viewed every object which was prefented to him with but one eye at a time.

2. If the object was prefented on his right-fide, he viewed it with his left eye; and if it was prefented on his left-fide, he viewed it with his right eye.

3. He turned the pupil of that eye, which was on the fame fide with the object, in fuch a direction that the image of the object might fall on that part of the bottom of the eye where the optic nerve enters it.

4. When an object was held directly before him, he turned his head a little to one fide, and obferved it with but one eye, viz. with that most distant from the object, turning away the other in the manner above defcribed; and when he became tired with obferving it with that eye, he turned his head the contrary way, and observed it with the other eye alone, with equal facility; but never turned the axes of both eyes on it at the fame time.

5. He faw letters, which were written on bits of paper, fo as to name them with equal eafe, and at equal diftances, with one eye as

with the other.

6. There was no perceptible difference in the diameters of the irifes, nor in the contractibility of them, after having covered his eyes from the light. Thefe obfervations were carefully made by writing fingle letters on fhreds of paper, and laying wagers with the

child that he could not read them when they were prefented at certain diftances and directions.

From these circumftances it appeared, that there was no defect in either eye, which is the common caufe of fquinting, fo well obferved by M. BUFFON and Dr. REID; and hence, that the disease was fimply a depraved habit of moving his eyes, and might, probably be occafioned by the form of a cap or head-drefs, which might have been too prominent on the fides of his face, like bluffs ufed on coach horses; and might thence, in early infancy, have made it more convenient for the child to view objects placed obliquely with the oppofite eye, till by habit the mufculi adductores were become ftronger, and more ready for motion than their antagonists.

A paper gnomon was made, and fixed to a cap; and when this artificial nofe was placed over his real nofe, fo as to project an inch between his eyes, the child, rather than turn his head fo far to look at oblique objects, immediately began to view them with that eye which was next to them. But the death of Dr. SANDFORD, which happened foon after, occafioned the removal of his family; and the grief and cares of Mrs. SANDFORD prevented this, and the other me. thods propofed, from being put in

execution.

About a month ago I had again an opportunity of feeing master D. SANDFORD, and obferved all the circumstances of his mode of vifion to be exactly as they were fix years before, except that they feemed established by longer habit; fo that I could not by any means induce him to bend the

axes of both his eyes on the fame object, not even for a moment.

A gnomon of thin brafs was made to ftand over his nofe, with a half circle of the fame metal to go round his temples; thefe were covered with black filk, and by means of a buckle behind his head, and a crois piece over the crown of his head, this gnomon was managed fo as to be worn without any inconvenience, and projected before his nofe about two inches and an half. By the ufe of this gnomon he foon found it less inconvenient to view all oblique objects with the eye next to them, inftead of the eye oppofite to them.

After this habit was weakened, by a week's use of the gnomon, two bits of wood, about the size of a goofe-quill, were blackened, all but a quarter of an inch at their fummits; these were frequently prefented for him to look at, one being held on one fide the extremity of his black gnomon, and the other on the other fide of it. As he viewed thefe, they were gradually brought forwards beyond the gnomon, and then one concealed behind the other: by thefe means, in another week, he could bend both his eyes on the fame object for half a minute together.

was

By the practice of this exercife before a glafs, almost every hour in the day, he became in another week able to read for a minute together, with his eyes both directed on the fame objects; and I have no doubt, if he has patience enough to perfevere in thefe efforts, but he will, in the courfe of fome months, overcome this unfightly habit.

I fhall