crockery. As bad weather seemed coming on, we got inside the
reefs and anchored opposite the village of Warns-warns to wait
for a change.

The night was very squally, and though in a good harbour we
rolled and jerked uneasily; but in the morning I had greater
cause for uneasiness in the discovery that our entire Goram crew
had decamped, taking with them all they possessed and a little
more, and leaving us without any small boat in which to land. I
immediately told my Amboyna men to load and fire the muskets as a
signal of distress, which was soon answered by the village chief
sending off a boat, which took me on shore. I requested that
messengers should be immediately sent to the neighbouring
villages in quest of the fugitives, which was promptly done. My
prau was brought into a small creek, where it could securely rest
in the mud at low water, and part of a house was given me in
which T could stay for a while. I now found my progress again
suddenly checked, just when I thought I had overcome my chief
difficulties. As I had treated my men with the greatest kindness,
and had given them almost everything they had asked for, I can
impute their running away only to their being totally
unaccustomed to the restraint of a European master, and to some
undefined dread of my ultimate intentions regarding them. The
oldest man was an opium smoker, and a reputed thief, but I had
been obliged to take him at the last moment as a substitute for
another. I feel sure it was he who induced the others to run
away, and as they knew the country well, and had several hours'
start of us, there was little chance of catching them.

We were here in the great sago district of East Ceram which