In the morning of the 20th April, we set sail for Sumatra, but the wind blew hard at S.S.W. and the current set against us, so that we could not proceed. While beating up and down, two of our ships sprung leaks, on which we were forced to go to the island of Sombrero,[108] ten or twelve leagues north of Nicobar. Here we in the Admiral lost an anchor, for the ground is foul, and grown full of false coral and some rocks, which cut our cable asunder, so that we could not recover our anchor. The people of these islands go entirely naked, except that their parts are bound up in a piece of cloth, which goes round the waist like a girdle, and thence between their legs. They are all of a tawny hue, and paint their faces of divers colours. They are stout and well-made, but very fearful, so that none of them would come on board our ships, or even enter our boats. The general reported that he had seen some of their priests all over cloathed, but quite close to their bodies, as if sewed on; having their faces painted green, black, and yellow, and horns on their heads turned backwards, painted of the same colours, together with a tail hanging down behind from their buttocks, altogether as we see the devil sometimes painted in Europe. Demanding why they went in that strange attire, he was told that the devil sometimes appeared to them in such form in their sacrifices, and therefore his servants the priests were so cloathed. There grew many trees in this island, sufficiently tall, thick, and straight to make main-masts for the largest ship in all our fleet, and this island is full of such. [Footnote 108: So called, because on the north end of the largest island of the cluster there is a hill resembling the top of an umbrella--ASTL. I. 267. a.] Upon the sands of this island of Sombrero we found a small twig growing up like a young tree, and on offering to pluck it up, it shrinks down to the ground, and sinks, unless held very hard. On being plucked up, a great worm is found to be its root, and as the tree groweth in greatness, so doth the worm diminish; and as soon as the worm is entirely turned into tree, it rooteth in the earth, and so becomes great. This transformation is one of the strangest wonders that I saw in all my travels: For, if this tree is plucked up while young, and the leaves and bark stripped off, it becomes a hard stone when dry, much like white coral: Thus is this worm twice transformed into different natures. Of these we gathered and brought home many. * * * * *