The next day a deputation composed of several of the gentlemen in the ship’s company, the vice-king being retained aboard as hostage, received a great entertainment ashore. They were conducted with great honour to the “castle,” where, the chronicler avers, were at least a thousand persons assembled. Sixty “grave personages,” said to be the king’s council, sat in seats of honour. Presently the king entered, walking beneath a rich canopy and guarded by twelve “launces.” He was sumptuously attired in a garment of cloth of gold depending from his waist to the ground. His legs were bare, but on his feet were shoes of cordovan skin. His head was topped with finely wreathed hooped rings of gold. About his neck was a gold chain in great links. On his fingers were six jewels. He took his chair of state, and a page standing at his right began “breathing and gathering the ayre” with a gorgeous fan, “in length two foote, and in breadth one foote, set with 8 saphyres, richly imbroidered, and knit to a staffe 3 foote in length.” At the conclusion of their entertainment Drake’s men were escorted back to their ship by one of the king’s council. From Ternate, with an abundance of cloves added to their rich cargo, they sailed to the southward of Celebes, and anchored off a small uninhabited island, where they remained twenty-six days refreshing themselves, and meanwhile graving the ship (cleaning the ship’s bottom). Again underway, after sighting Celebes, by contrary winds they became entangled among islands and barely escaped wreck on a rock. They escaped only by lighting the ship of three tons of their precious cloves and several pieces of ordnance, and the sudden coming of a “happy gale” which blew them off. In February they fell in with the fruitful island of “Barateve” (Batjan), where they rested three days enjoying the hospitality of the friendly people and repairing the ship. Thence their course was set for Java major. Here they arrived in March, and also met much courtesy from the natives, with “honourable entertainment” by the rajahs then governing the island. From Java they steered for the Cape of Good Hope. This they passed in June. They found it not at all the dangerous cape that the Portuguese had reported, but a “most stately thing,” and the finest cape they had seen in all their travels. A month later they were at Sierra Leone. Here they stopped long enough to take in fresh provisions. Then setting sail for the last time, they finally arrived at their home port in England on the third of November, 1580, after an absence of three years.