The crew was composed of seventy-nine persons, comprising Chinese, Malays, Cingalese, Bengalese, Hindostanese, and Europeans.

As a general rule, those of each country generally took their meals separately with their own countrymen.

They all had immense plates of rice, and little bowls full of curry; a few pieces of dried fish supplied the place of bread.

They poured the curry over the rice, and mixing the whole together with their hands, made it into small balls which they put into their mouths with a small piece of fish; about half their food used generally to fall back again into their plates.
The costume of these people was very simple.

Many of them had nothing more than a pair of short trousers on, with a dirty old turban, and even the place of this was sometimes supplied by a coloured rag, or a cast-off sailor's cap.