Page 395
An.1687
The Inhabitants. Proflituting of Women.
Borneo ; but at Celebes, the Philippine Islands and the Spice Islands, it seems borrowed for the carrying of Trade.
The Inhabitants of Pulo Condore are but a small people in stature, well enough shaped , and of a darker colour than the Mindanayans. They are pretty long visaged ; their Hair is black and streight, their Eyes are but small and black, their Noses of a mean bigness and pretty high, their Lips thin, their Teeth white, and little Mouths. They are ve- ry civil people, but extraordinary poor. Their chiefest employment is to draw the juice of those Trees that I have described, to make Tar. They preserve it in wooden Troughs, and when they have their Cargo they transport it to Cochinchina, their Mother Country. Some others of them im- ploy themselves to catch Turtle, and boil up their Fat to Oyl, which they also transport home. These people have great large Nets, with wide meshes to catch the Turtle. The Jamaica Turtlers have such ; and I did never see the like Nets but at Ja- maica and here.
They are so free of their Women, that they would bring them aboard, and offer them to us ; and many of our men hired them for a small mat- ter. This is a custom used by several Nations in the East Indies; as at Pegu, Siam, Cochinchina,and Cam- bodia, as I have been told. It is used at Tunquin al- fo to my knowledge, for I did afterward make a Voyage thither, and most of our Men had Women aboard all the time of our abode there. In Africa, also, on the Coast of Guinea, our Merchants, Fa- ctors, and Seamen that reside there, have their black Misses. It is accounted a piece of policy to do it, for the chief Factors and Captains of Ships have the great Mens Daughters offered them, the Mandarins or Noblemens at Tunquin, and even the Kings Wives in Guinea, and by this sort of Alliance the