Another merchant who reached out for trade in strange seas was Captain Ebenezer Parsons, who sent ships to the Red Sea, took on cargoes of coffee for Smyrna, and cleared, in some voyages, from 300 to 400 per cent. A still larger profit was made by Captain Jonathan Carnes, of Salem, in a number of ventures to Sumatra. While at Bencoolen, on that island, he learned by accident that pepper grew wild on its uncivilized northwest coast. Returning to Salem, Carnes imparted his information to Jonathan Peele, who at once furnished the money with which a schooner named the _Rajah_ was built. Carnes armed the _Rajah_ with four guns, shipped a crew of ten men, loaded her with brandy, gin, tobacco, bar iron, and dried fish, and then, in November, 1795, cleared out for the East Indies. These proceedings aroused the greatest curiosity in Boston as well as Salem; for neither owner nor captain would say a word about the destination of the schooner; and this curiosity grew, as the months passed and nothing was heard from the _Rajah_. Accordingly, when, after eighteen months, the schooner came sailing into port loaded to the hatch coamings with pepper, she created more excitement in Salem than any other vessel that entered the port that year. The profit on this voyage amounted to 700 per cent. When the _Rajah_ was fitted for a second voyage in the same secret manner, a number of merchants sent other vessels in chase, hoping to find where she obtained her pepper; but Captain Carnes eluded them all, and once more brought home a cargo at an immense profit. In the third voyage, however, his secret buying place was discovered, and thereafter he had to be contented with the ordinary cent per cent. One of the most celebrated voyages of the period was that of the ship _Columbia_, Captain John Kendrick, with the sloop _Washington_, Captain Robert Gray, as a tender, to the northwest coast of the continent to trade for furs.