ch at first the inhabitants so readily
promised to furnish. We suspected that there were Dutchmen, or at least
Dutch partisans in the town; and that, having discovered us to be
English, they had dispatched an armed party to prevent our having any
intercourse with the natives, who arrived about two hours after our
friendly conference, and were the people that defied us from the shore.

SECTION IX.

_The Passage from Mindanao to the Island of Celebes, with a particular
Account of the Streight of Macassar, in which many Errors are
corrected._

After leaving Mindanao, I stood to the westward for the passage between
the islands of Borneo and Celebes, called the Streight of Macassar, and
made it on Saturday the 14th. I observed, that during the whole of this
run we had a strong north-westerly current; but that while we were
nearer to Mindanao than Celebes, it ran rather towards the north than
the west; and that when we came nearer to Celebes than we were to
Mindanao, it ran rather towards the west than the north. The land of
Celebes on the north end runs along to the entrance of the passage, is
very lofty, and seems to trend away about W. by S. to a remarkable point
in the passage, which makes in a hummock, and which at first we took for
an island. I believe it to be the same which in the French charts is
called Stroomen Point, but I gave it the name of _Hummock Point_. Its
latitude, according to my account, is 1 deg. 20' N., longitude 121 deg. 39' E.;
and it is a good mark for those to know the passage that fall in with
the land coming from the eastward, who, if possible, should always make
this side of the passage. From Hummock Point the land trends more away
to the southward, about S.W. by W. and to the southward of it there is a
deep bay, full of islands and rocks, which appeared to me to be very
dangerous. Just off the point there are two rocks, which, though they
are above water, cannot be seen, from a ship till she is close to the
land. To the eastward of this point, close to the shore, are two
islands, one of them very flat, long, and even, and the other swelling
into a hill; both these islands, as well as the adjacent country, are
well covered with trees: I stood close in a little to the eastward of
them, and had no ground with an hundred fathom, within half a mile of
the shore, which seemed to be rocky. A little to the westward of these
islands, we saw no less than sixty boats, which were fishing on some
shoa