Lancaster's own account of the "Islands of Nicobar" is more interesting, and is based on his experiences there in 1602. Of either Pulo Milo or Kondul he writes:-- "Here we had fresh water and some coconuts, other refreshing had we none. Yet the people came aboard our ships in long canoes which would hold twenty men in one of them, and brought gums to sell instead of amber, and therewithal deceived divers of our men: for these people of the east are wholly given to deceit. They brought us hens and coconuts to sell, but held them very dear, so that we bought few of them. We stayed here ten days.... "We were forced to go to the island of Sombrero (the Portuguese name for Chaura) some 10 or 12 leagues to the northward of Little Nicobar. Here we lost an anchor, for the ground is foul and groweth full of counterfeit coral and some rocks, which cut our cable asunder. "The people of these islands go naked, having only the privities bound up in a piece of linen cloth, which cometh about their middles like a girdle and so between their twist. They are all of a tawny colour, and anoint their faces with divers colours: they are well limbed, but very fearful: for none of them would come aboard our ships, or enter our boats. "The General reported that he had seen some of their priests all apparelled, but close to their bodies, as if they had been sewed in it; and upon their heads a pair of horns turning backwards (_tá-chökla_), with their faces painted green, black, and yellow, and their horns also painted the same colour. And behind them, upon their buttocks, a tail hanging down very much like in the manner as in some painted clothes we paint the devil in our country. He demanding wherefore they went in that attire, answer was made him, that in such form the devil appeared to them in their sacrifices, and therefore the priests, his servants, were so apparelled. In this island grow trees which for their tallness, greatness, and straightness will serve the biggest ships in all our fleet for a mainmast, and the island is full of these trees." This description of the island cannot be said to be applicable at the present day.