Page 505
An.1688
His Voyage to Tonqueen, Malacca, &c.
A short time after this Captain Welden arrived here from Fort St. George, in a Ship called the Cur- tana, bound to Tonqueen. This being a more agree- able Voyage than to Persia, at this time of the year, besides that the Ship was better accommodated, especially with a Surgeon, and I being still sick; I therefore chose rather to serve Captain Welden than Captain Bowry. But to go on with a particular ac- count of that Expedition were to carry my Reader back again: whom having brought thus far to- wards England in my Circum-Navigation of the Globe, I shall not now weary him with new Ram- bles, nor so much swell this Volume as I must to describe the Tour I made in those remote parts of the East Indies, from and to Sumatra. So that my Voyage to Tonqueen at this time, as also another to Malacca afterwards, with my Observations in them, and the Descriptions of those and the Neighbouring Countries ; as well as the Description of the Island Sumatra it self, and therein the Kingdom and City of Achin, Bencouli, &c. I shall refer to another place, where I may give a particular relation of them. In short, it may suffice, that I set out to Tonqueen with Captain Welden about July 1688, and returned to Achin in the April following. I staid here till the latter end of September 1689. and making a short Voyage to Malacca, came thither again about Christ- mas. Soon after that I went to Fort St. George, and staying there about 5 months, I return'd once more to Sumatra; not to Achin, but Bencouli, an English Factory on the West Coast; of which I was Gun- ner about 5 months more.
So that having brought my Reader to Sumatra, without carrying him back, I shall bring him on the next way from thence to England: And of all that occurrd between my first setting out from this Island in 1688; and my final departure from it at the beginning of the year 1691, I shall only take notice