ntelligence that made
every heart, except one, beat with delight. Was it possible? Yes, it was
true--true! We were _ordered home_. Oh, the delight, the frantic joy,
which was diffused through the whole ship. To have witnessed the scene
we should have been considered as mad. Every one embracing one another,
shaking hands, animosities reconciled at once, all heart-burnings
forgotten: we could have hugged every thing we met--dogs, monkeys,
pigs--except the captain. All our sufferings and privations were
forgotten in the general ecstasy, and, although thousands of leagues
were still to be run before we could arrive at the desired goal, and
months must pass away, time and space were for the time annihilated,
and, in our rapture, we fancied and we spoke as if we were within reach
of our kindred and our homes. Could it be the Samarang that we were on
board of?--the same ship that we were in not one hour ago?--the silent,
melancholy vessel, now all hands laughing, screaming, huzzaing, dancing,
and polkaing up and down the deck like maniacs? And then when the
excitement was a little over, and we became more rational, Why were we
ordered home? was the first surmise. We had been sent out on a seven
years' expedition, and we had not yet been out four. The surveys were
not half finished. Was it the row that the captain had had with the
admiral, and the reports of many officers who had quitted the ship? We
made up our minds at last that it must have been upon the
representations of the admiral to the Admiralty that we had been ordered
home. There could be no other reason. We drank his health in nine times
nine.

[Illustration: ILLANOAN PIRATE.

(TAMPASSOOK, BORNEO.)

F. M. DELT.

M. N. HANHART LITH. PRINTERS

LONDON; LONGMAN & CO. 1848]

On the 24th of March we sailed from Balam-bangan, with the intention of
making a flying survey of the coast of Borneo, as far as the island of
Labuan and the country at Sarawak, to make the best of our way to
Sincapore, at which place we hoped to arrive about the 1st of May, there
to receive our final orders and start for England. It would be tedious,
and it is not necessary, to give a description of the survey which we
afterwards made. We went over the same ground as before, and we surveyed
with a musket in one hand and a sextant in the other, for the natives
were not to be trusted. Our warlike friends at Tampassook did not much
relish our re-appearance on their coast. A Spanish slave made h