made ready to fire their cannon. [Illustration: La bataille d'dutre nous et contpe sieux de Manille faicte le 14 Decembre an^o 1600] Another year had now gone by. It was January of 1601, and Van Noort's condition was still very dangerous. There were no supplies on board. The Chinese pilots did not know the coast of Borneo. There were many islands and many straits, and Van Noort had lost all idea as to his exact position. When he met a Chinese vessel on the way to India he forced it to heave to and stole the mate, who was an experienced sailor. Then the wind suddenly refused to blow from the right direction, and it was many weeks before the _Mauritius_ reached the harbor of Cheribon, in the central part of Java, many miles away from Bantam. [Illustration] Van Noort called upon his few remaining officers to decide what they ought to do. If his expedition were to be a financial success, he must find some place where he could buy spices. Bantam was near by, but according to the stories of Houtman and his expedition, the people in Bantam were very unfriendly. With his twenty-three men the Dutch commander did not dare to risk another battle. It is true that since the visit of Houtman his successor Van Neck had established very good relations with the sultan; but Van Noort had been away from home for over three years, and knew nothing of Van Neck's voyage. He might have guessed that there were Hollanders in Bantam when he found that there were no spices to be had in any of the other Javanese ports. Wherever he went he heard the same story. All the spices were now being sent to Bantam, where the Hollanders paid a very high price for them. But Van Noort distrusted this report. It might be another plot of the Portuguese to catch him, and to keep out of harm's way, he sailed through the straits of Bali, avoided the north coast of Java and went to the Cape of Good Hope.