84 ACCOUNT OF THE ^VKECK
less with regnrcl both to the lost ship and the crew. The natives they encountered were men of stalwart frame, naked, and very dark-skinned ; they wore a headdress forming a kind of crown, but with no covering on any part of their bodies except their middle. They then returned, the crew beginning to suffer very much, chiefly from sore eyes. They left the cliff Tortelduyf on the starboard side. On the 15th of March they saw many gulls, entirely black but of small size, and on the ITth, several wag-tails. On the 26th, the point Wynkoopsbergen lay to the W.N.W. of them, distant three miles. They continued to coast along at a distance of four, five, six, or seven miles, and would have again touched land had the weather permitted.
On the 14th of April they made for the west point of Java, and there fell in again with the JVaeckefide Boey, which had lost its boat and schuyt and fourteen men, and had got some timber from the Vergulde Draeck at 31° 15' south latitude, without having perceived anything else.
Further, from the journal of the Waechende Boey it ap- pears, that having arrived on the 23rd of February 1658, at 31° 40', they saw land at a distance of eight miles from them, bore down upon it, and found it to be an island about three miles distant from the mainland. On the 24th, they came to anchor in seventeen fathoms Avater and launched the boat, there being a bar between the ship and the shore. On the 25th, they still lay at 31° 20'.
On the 26th, on the return of the boat from the shore, the steersman reported many signs of the lost ship Draeck, but neither footpaths nor any places where traces of human beings had been left were discovered, notwithstanding they had been in all directions both inland and along the coast. They further reported that wood and other objects, portions of boxes, etc., a barrel, and other things had been found; also a number of pieces of plank, standing upright in a circle. Having weighed anchor they sailed along the
