"The Javans are proud, brave, and treacherous, and so vindictive, that for any slight offence (and they consider as the most unpardonable the touching their forehead with your hand) they declare amok to revenge it. They navigate much to every part of the Eastern Archipelago, and say that formerly they used to navigate the ocean as far as the island of Madagascar (St. Laurence).
"The city of Bintam, or Banta, which is in the middle of the opening of the straits of Sunda, stands in the centre of a large bay, which from point to point may be about three leagues wide, the bottom good, and the depth of water from two to six fathoms. A river of sufficient depth for junks and galleys, falls into this bay, and divides the town into two parts. On one side of the town there is a fort, built of sun-dried bricks: the walls are about seven palms thick, the bulwarks of wood, well furnished with artillery.
"The island of Sunda is more mountainous than Java. It has six good sea-ports: Chiamo, at the extremity of the island; Chacatara, or Caravam; Tangaram, Cheginde, Pandang, and Bintam, which have a great traffic, on account of the trade carried on, not only with Java, but with Malacca and Sumatra.
"The principal city of this kingdom is called Daro, situated a little towards the interior, and we are assured that when Henriquez Lerne first visited it, this town had upwards of fifty thousand inhabitants, and that the kingdom had upwards of one hundred thousand fighting men.
"The soil is very rich. An inferior gold, of six carats, is found. There is abundance of butcher's meat, game and provisions, and tamarinds which serve the natives for vinegar. The inhabitants are not very warlike, much addicted to their idolatries, and hate the Mahomedans, and particularly since they were conquered by the Sangue Páti Dama.
"Here four or five thousand slaves may be purchased, on account of the numerous population, and its being lawful for the father to sell the children. The women are handsome, and those of the nobles chaste, which is not the case with those of the lower classes. There are monasteries or convents for the women, into which the nobles put their daughters, when they cannot match them in marriage according to their wishes. The married women, when their husbands die, must, as a point of honour, die with them, and if they should be afraid of death they are put into the convents.
"The kingdom descends from father to son, and not from uncle to nephew, (son of the sister), as among the Malabars and other infidels in India.
"They are fond of rich arms, ornamented with gold and inlaid work. Their krises are gilt, and also the point of their lances. Many other particulars might be added (but we reserve them for our geography[11]), concerning the productions of this island, in which upwards of thirty thousand quintals of pepper are collected annually."
Decad. iv. Chapter 13.
"In the year 1522, Jorge Albuquerque, governor of Malacca, equipped a vessel to carry Henriquez Lerne, with a competent suite and certain presents, to the king Samiam above mentioned, for the purpose of establishing a commercial intercourse. Lerne was well received by the king, who was fully sensible of the importance of such a connection, in the war in which he was then engaged with the Moors (Mahomedans); and, therefore, he requested that, for the protection of the trade, the king of Portugal should erect a fortress, and that he would load as many ships as he chose with pepper, in return for such merchandise as the country required. And further, he (the king) obliged himself, as a pledge of his friendship, to give him annually a thousand bags of pepper, from the day on which the building of the fortress should commence.