A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 08Kerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 08
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
_Balee_, or Bally, is an island to the eastward of Macasser, standing in
8° 30' S. latitude.[148] It produces great abundance of rice,
cotton-yarn, slaves, and coarse white cloth, which is in great request
at Bantam. The commodities for sale there, are the smallest sort of blue
and white beads, iron, and coarse porcelain.
[Footnote 148: Instead of the eastwards, Bally is W.S.W. of Macasser, in
long. 115° E. and lat. 8° 30' S. while Macasser is in about the lat. of
5° 15' S. and in 120° E. long.--E.]
_Timor_ is an island to the eastwards of Bally, in the latitude of 10°
40'. This island produces great quantities of _Chindanna_, called by us
white saunders, of which the largest logs are accounted the best, and
which sells at Bantam for 20 dollars the pekul, at the season when the
junks are here. Wax likewise is brought from thence in large cakes,
worth at Bantam 18, 19, 20, and even 30 dollars the pekul, according to
quantity and demand. Great frauds are practised with this article, so
that it requires great attention in the purchaser, and the cakes ought
to be broken, to see that nothing be mixed with it. The commodities
carried there for sale are chopping knives, small bugles, porcelain,
coloured taffetas, but not blacks, Chinese _frying-pans_,[149] Chinese
bells, and thin silver plates beaten out quite flat, and thin like a
wafer, about the breadth of a hand. There is much profit made in this
trade, as the Chinese have sometimes given four for one to our men who
had adventured with them.
[Footnote 149: Perhaps, as stated in conjunction with bells, _gongs_ are
here meant, which are not unlike frying-pans.--E.]
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