"It was the Nicobar custom in 1566," says Master Cæsar Frederike, that "if any ship come near to that place or coast as they pass that way, as in my voyage it happened, as I came from Malacca through the channel of Sombrero, there came two of their barques near our ship, laden with fruit, as with _monces_ (which we call Adam's apples, which fruit is like to our turnips, but is very sweet and good to eat). They would not come into the ship for anything we could do, neither would they take any money for their fruit, but they would truck for old shirts or old linen breeches. These rags we let down with a rope into their barque unto them, and look what they thought their things to be worth; so much fruit they would make fast to the rope, and let us hale it in: and it was told me that sometimes a man shall have for an old shirt a good piece of amber."[117] In his _East Africa and Malabar_,[118] Barbosa refers shortly to the Nicobars. "In front of Sumatra, across the Gulf of the Ganges, are five or six small islands, which have very good water and ports for ships: they are inhabited by Gentiles, poor people, they are called Niconbar; and they find in them very good amber, which they carry thence to Malacca and other ports." Captain John Davis, of Arctic fame, the inventor of the "back-staff," the earliest form of quadrant, piloted a Dutch ship to the East Indies, and touched, in 1599, at the Central Nicobars. He wrote that "... the people brought in great store of hens, oranges, lemons, and other fruit, and some ambergris which we bought for pieces of linen cloth and table napkins. These isles are pleasant and fruitful, lowland, and have good road for ships. The people are most base, only living upon fruits and fish, not manuring the ground, and therefore having no rice."[119] During the reign of Elizabeth, Sir James Lancaster made several voyages to the East Indies, and touched at the Nicobars. Two of his officers, Barker and May, have chronicled a visit to the islands in 1592, in a description that would apply more accurately to the Pulo Wai group. "The islands of Nicobar," says Barker, "we found inhabited with Moors, and after we came to an anchor, the people came aboard us in their canoes with hens, cocos, plantains, and other fruits, and in two days they brought to us royals of plate, giving us them for calicut cloth, which royals they find by diving for them in the sea, which were lost not long before by two Portugal ships which were bound for China and were cast away there. They call in their language the coco, _calambe_ (Malay, _klapa_); the plantain, _pison_ (Mal., _pisang_); a hen, _iam_ (Mal., _ayam_); a fish, _iccan_ (Mal., _ikan_); and a hog, _babi_ (Mal., _babi_)"; and May, the other writer, says that the natives were in religion Mohammedans.