in the habit of assembling on the beach during moon-light nights, when they are taken with great facility. The natives usually let the female go again, and are also averse to striking them with a harpoon, being influenced by some superstitious feeling. They also requested that we would not disturb the hawk's-bill turtle,[52] which we found sleeping on the water, but willingly caught the others for us themselves. On one of the islands at which we stopped, a large hawk's-bill turtle was found dead in the forest. The shell was two feet and a quarter in diameter, and yielded a head[53] weighing a pound and a half. On one of the dry sand-banks we met with a quantity of sea-mews' eggs, deposited in nests on the shelly sand, very close to one another, each containing only two eggs. Numbers of the birds hovered about the bank, their presence having first attracted our attention to the spot. While we were at anchor under the coast of Timor-Laut one night, we heard the lowing of a number of wild cattle, and in the morning saw the traces of them along the sandy beach. The wild cattle, with which the island abounds, are black, and have upright horns, their size being about the same as that of two-year-old cattle in Holland. The natives catch them with nooses of rattan, and also shoot them with arrows. Wild hogs are also to be met with in abundance. Monkeys do not exist on the island, and it is a singular thing that throughout the Moluccan Archipelago they are only to be found on the island of Batchian, near the south end of Gilolo. Showers of rain, and strong unfavourable winds, rendered our return voyage tedious and disagreeable, and we did not reach Larrat until the 9th of June. On our arrival we hauled up the tender and the boat on the beach, to clean their bottoms, which had become very necessary. I continued here until the 11th, busily employed with my official duties, when I returned to the brig, accompanied by several of the chiefs. I had given permission to one of my interpreters to take on board a quantity of tortoise-shell and trepang, to purchase which he had brought from Banda a quantity of goods suited to the taste of the natives. I had thus an opportunity of witnessing closely the manner in which the trade is conducted. He purchased a picul (133lbs. avoirdupoise) of trepang, for goods of the value of twenty-two guilders (£1. 17_s._) These consisted of two Javanese dresses, two pieces of lining chintz, two red _karwasses_, two parangs or chopping-knives, two bush-knives, two plates, two combs, two handkerchiefs for the head, and two catties (two pounds and a half) of copper wire. According to an old custom, the articles they receive for their produce must always be in pairs, except they consist of valuables, such as gold, elephants' tusks, &c., which are valued and paid for accordingly.