Next morning Dampier dismissed his guide and started for Cachao by water. He describes the boat as of the size of a Gravesend wherry, with a kind of awning to shelter the passengers when it rained. The sailors rowed all night, turn and turn about. At midnight everybody went ashore to sup at some houses by the river-side; the owners of which waited for them with lighted candles, arrack, and tea, dishes of meat and other provisions ready cooked. Here they stayed an hour, then entered the boat afresh and pushed onwards. The passengers were a merry lot. They laughed incessantly and sang heartily, though Dampier says their singing resembled the noise of people crying. Ignorant of the language, he sat mute amongst these jolly travellers. Next morning he was put ashore a few miles short of Cachao. There was a good path, and stepping out briskly he entered the city by noon. He immediately repaired to the house of an English merchant with whom Captain Weldon lodged, and stayed with him a few days, but he was so enfeebled by a wasting disorder which had fastened upon him that he was scarcely able to crawl about. His illness was exasperated by disappointment, for he now discovered that he had made his walking journey only to learn that Weldon had abandoned his scheme to purchase a sloop to trade to Cochin China. The moment he felt strong enough to travel he returned to his ship, and Captain Weldon shortly afterwards joining the vessel, they weighed anchor and sailed from Tonquin. It was now February, 1689. Nothing of moment happened during the passage to the Straits of Malacca. The ship arrived at Acheen about the beginning of March, where Dampier took leave of Weldon and went ashore. He gives in this volume of his travels a long and interesting account of Acheen, and in describing the soil of the country prints the following brief passage of recollection. “The Champion Land, such as I have seen, is some black, some grey, some reddish, and all of a deep mold. But to be very particular in these things, especially in my Travels, is more than I can pretend to, tho' it may be I took as much notice of the difference of Soil as I met with it as most Travellers have done, having been bred in my youth in _Somersetshire_, at a place called _East Coker_, near _Yeovil_ or _Evil_: in which Parish there is a great variety of Soil as I have ordinarily met with anywhere, _viz._ black, red, yellow, sandy, stony, clay, morass, or swampy, etc. I had the more reason to take notice of this, because this Village in a great measure is Let out in small Leases for Lives of 20, 30, 40 or 50 Pound _per Ann._, under Coll. _Helliar_, the Lord of the Mannor: and most, if not all these Tenants, had their own Land scattered in small pieces up and down several sorts of Land in the Parish; so that every one had piece of every sort of Land, his Black ground, his Sandy, Clay, and some of 20, 30, or 40 Shillings an Acre. My Mother, being possest of one of these