The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism Volume I Part 11

And now, before leaving the Asiatic coast, let us, as many English naval vessels have done, pay a flying visit to a still more northern harbour, that of Plover Bay, which forms the very apex of the China Station.

Sailing, or steaming, through Bering Sea, it is satisfactory to know that so shallow is it that a vessel can anchor in almost any part of it, though hundreds of miles from land.(97) Plover Bay does _not_ derive its name from the whaling which is often pursued in its waters, although an ingenious Dutchman, of the service in which the writer was engaged at the periods of his visits, persisted in calling it "Blubber" Bay; its name is due to the visit of H.M.S. _Plover_ in 1848-9, when engaged in the search for Sir John Franklin. The bay is a most secure haven, sheltered at the ocean end by a long spit, and walled in on three sides by rugged mountains and bare cliffs, the former composed of an infinite number of fragments of rock, split up by the action of frost. Besides many coloured lichens and mosses, there is hardly a sign of vegetation, except at one patch of country near a small inner harbour, where domesticated reindeer graze. On the spit before mentioned is a village of Tchuktchi natives; their tents are composed of hide, walrus, seal, or reindeer, with here and there a piece of old sail-cloth, obtained from the whalers, the whole patchwork covering a framework formed of the large bones of whales and walrus. The remains of underground houses are seen, but the people who used them have pa.s.sed away. The present race makes no use of such houses. Their canoes are of skin, covering sometimes a wooden and sometimes a bone frame. On either side of one of these craft, which is identical with the Greenland "oomiak," or women's boat, it is usual to have a sealskin blown out tight, and the ends fastened to the gunwale; these serve as floats to steady the canoe. They often carry sail, and proceed safely far out to sea, even crossing Bering Straits to the American side. The natives are a hardy race; the writer has seen one of them carry the awkward burden of a carpenter's chest, weighing two hundred pounds, without apparent exertion.

One of their princ.i.p.al men was of considerable service to the expedition and to a party of telegraph constructors, who were left there in a wooden house made in San Francisco, and erected in a few days in this barren spot. This native, by name Nauk.u.m, was taken down into the engine-room of the telegraph steamer-_G. S. Wright_. He looked round carefully and thoughtfully, and then, shaking his head, said, solemnly, "Too muchee wheel; makee man too muchee think!" His curiosity on board was unappeasable. "What's that fellow?" was his query with regard to anything, from the donkey-engine to the hencoops. Colonel Bulkley gave him a suit of mock uniform, gorgeous with b.u.t.tons. One of the men remarked to him, "Why, Nauk.u.m, you'll be a king soon!" But this magnificent prospect did not seem, judging from the way he received it, to be much to his taste. This man had been sometimes entrusted with as much as five barrels of villainous whisky for trading purposes, and he had always accounted satisfactorily to the trader for its use. The whisky sold to the natives is of the most horrible kind, scarcely superior to "coal oil" or paraffine. They appeared to understand the telegraph scheme in a general way. One explaining it, said, "S'pose lope fixy, well; one Melican man Plower Bay, make talky all same San Flancisco Melican." Perhaps quite as lucid an explanation as you could get from an agricultural labourer or a street arab at home.

Colonel Bulkley, at his second visit to Plover Bay, caused a small house of planks to be constructed for Nauk.u.m, and made him many presents. A draughtsman attached to the party made a sketch, "A Dream of the Future,"

which was a lively representation of the future prospects of Nauk.u.m and his family. The room was picturesque with paddles, skins, brand-new Henry rifles, preserved meat tins, &c.; and civilisation was triumphant.

Although Plover Bay is almost in sight of the Arctic Ocean, very little snow remained on the barren country round it, except on the distant mountains, or in deep ravines, where it has lain for ages. "That there snow," said one of the sailors, pointing to such a spot, "is three hundred years old if it's a day. Why, don't you see the wrinkles all over the face of it?" Wrinkles and ridges are common enough in snow; but the idea of a.s.sociating age with them was original.

The whalers are often very successful in and outside Plover Bay in securing their prey. Each boat is known by its own private mark-a cross, red stripes, or what not-on its sail, so that at a distance they can be distinguished from their respective vessels. When the whale is harpooned, often a long and dangerous job, and is floating dead in the water, a small flag is planted in it. After the monster is towed alongside the vessel, it is cut up into large rectangular chunks, and it is a curious and not altogether pleasant sight to witness the deck of a whaling s.h.i.+p covered with blubber. This can be either barreled, or the oil "tryed out" on the spot. If the latter, the blubber is cut into "mincemeat," and chopping knives, and even mincing machines, are employed. The oil is boiled out on board, and the vessel when seen at a distance looks as if on fire. On these occasions the sailors have a feast of dough-nuts, which are cooked in boiling whale-oil, fritters of whale brain, and other dishes. The writer has tasted whale in various shapes, but although it is eatable, it is by no means luxurious food.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WHALERS AT WORK.]

It was in these waters of Bering Sea and the Arctic that the _Shenandoah_ played such havoc during the American war. In 1865 she burned _thirty_ American whalers, taking off the officers and crews, and sending them down to San Francisco. The captain of an English whaler, the _Robert Tawns_, of Sydney, had warned and saved some American vessels, and was in consequence threatened by the pirate captain. The writer was an eye-witness of the results of this wanton destruction of private property. The coasts were strewed with the remains of the burned vessels, while the natives had boats, spars, &c., in numbers.

But Plover Bay has an interest attaching to it of far more importance than anything to be said about whaling or Arctic expeditions. It is more than probable that from or near that bay the wandering Tunguse, or Tchuktchi, crossed Bering Straits, and peopled America. The latter, in canoes holding fifteen or twenty persons, do it now; why not in the "long ago?" The writer has, in common with many who have visited Alaska (formerly Russian-America, before the country was purchased by the United States), remarked the almost Chinese or j.a.panese cast of features possessed by the coast natives of that country. Their Asiatic origin could not be doubted, and, on the other hand, Aleuts-natives of the Aleutian Islands, which stretch out in a grand chain from Alaska-who had s.h.i.+pped as sailors on the Russo-American Telegraph Expedition, and a Tchuktchi boy brought down to be educated, were constantly taken for j.a.panese or Chinamen in San Francisco, where there are 40,000 of the former people. Junks have on two occasions been driven across the Pacific Ocean, and have landed their crews.(98) These facts occurred in 1832-3; the first on the coast near Cape Flattery, North-west America, and the second in the harbour of Oahu, Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands. In the former case all the crew but two men and a boy were killed by the natives. In the latter case, however, the Sandwich Islanders treated the nine j.a.panese, forming the crew of the junk, with kindness, and, when they saw the strangers so much resembling them in many respects, said, "It is plain, now, we come from Asia." How easily, then, could we account for the peopling of any island or coast in the Pacific. Whether, therefore, stress of weather obliged some unfortunate Chinamen or j.a.panese to people America, or whether they, or, at all events, some Northern Asiatics, took the "short sea route," _via_ Bering Straits, there is a very strong probability in favour of the New World having been peopled from not merely the Old World, but the Oldest World-Asia.

The Pacific Ocean generally bears itself in a manner which justifies its t.i.tle. The long sweeps of its waves are far more pleasant to the sailor than the "choppy" waves of the Atlantic. But the Pacific is by no means always so, as the writer very well knows. He will not soon forget November, 1865, nor will those of his companions who still survive.

Leaving Petropaulovski on November 1st, a fortnight of what sailors term "dirty weather" culminated in a gale from the south-east. It was no "capful of wind," but a veritable tempest, which broke over the devoted s.h.i.+p. At its outset, the wind was so powerful that it blew the main-boom from the ropes which held it, and it swung round with great violence against the "smoke-stack" (funnel) of the steamer, knocking it overboard.

The guys, or chains by which it had been held upright, were snapped, and it went to the bottom. Here was a dilemma; the engines were rendered nearly useless, and a few hours later were made absolutely powerless, for the rudder became disabled, and the steering-wheel was utterly unavailable. During this period a very curious circ.u.mstance happened; the sea driving faster than the vessel-itself a log lying in the trough of the waves, which rose in mountains on all sides-acted on the screw in such a manner that in its turn it worked the engines at a greater rate than they had ever attained by steam! After much trouble the couplings were disconnected, but for several hours the jarring of the machinery revolving at lightning speed threatened to make a breach in the stern.

No one on board will soon forget the night of that great gale. The vessel, scarcely larger than a "penny" steamer, and having "guards," or bulwarks, little higher than the rail of those boats, was engulfed in the tempestuous waters. It seemed literally to be driving under the water.

Waves broke over it every few minutes; a rope had to be stretched along the deck for the sailors to hold on by, while the brave commander, Captain Marston, was literally _tied_ to the aft bulwark, where, half frozen and half drowned, he remained at his post during an entire night. The steamer had the "house on deck," so common in American vessels. It was divided into state-rooms, very comfortably fitted, but had doors and windows of the lightest character. At the commencement of the gale, these were literally battered to pieces by the waves das.h.i.+ng over the vessel; it was a matter of doubt whether the whole house might not be carried off bodily.

The officers of the expedition took refuge in the small cabin aft, which had been previously the general ward-room of the vessel, where the meals were served. A great sea broke over its skylight, smas.h.i.+ng the gla.s.s to atoms, putting out the lamps and stove, and filling momentarily the cabin with about three feet of water. A landsman would have thought his last hour had come. But the hull of the vessel was sound; the pumps were in good order, and worked steadily by a "donkey" engine in the engine-room, and the water soon disappeared. The men coiled themselves up that night amid a pile of ropes and sails, boxes, and miscellaneous matters lying on the "counter" of the vessel, _i.e._, that part of the stern lying immediately over the rudder. Next morning, in place of the capital breakfasts all had been enjoying-fish and game from Kamchatka, tinned fruits and meats from California, hot rolls and cakes-the steward and cook could only, with great difficulty, provide some rather shaky coffee and the regular "hard bread" (biscuit) of the s.h.i.+p.

The storm increased in violence; it was unsafe to venture on deck. The writer's room-mate, M. Laborne, a genial and cultivated man of the world, who spoke seven languages fluently, sat down, and wrote a last letter to his mother, enclosing it afterwards in a bottle. "It will never reach her," said poor Laborne, with tears dimming his eyes; "but it is all I can do." Each tried to comfort the other, and prepare for the worst. "If we are to die, let us die like men," said Adjutant Wright. "Come down in the engine-room," another said, "and if we've got to die, let's die decently."

The chief engineer lighted a fire on the iron floor below the boilers, and it was the only part of the vessel which was at all comfortable.

n.o.ble-hearted Colonel Bulkley spent his time in cheering the men, and reminding them that the sea has been proved to be an infinitely safer place than the land. No single one on board really expected to survive.

Meantime, the gale was expending its rage by tearing every sail to ribbons. Rags and streamers fluttered from the yards; there was not a single piece of canvas intact. The cabins held a wreck of trunks, furniture, and crockery.

In one of the cabins several boxes of soap, in bars, had been stored. When the gale commenced to abate, some one ventured into the house on deck, when it was discovered that it was full of soapsuds, which swashed backwards and forwards through the series of rooms. The water had washed and rewashed the bars of soap till they were not thicker than sticks of sealing-wax.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OUR "PATENT SMOKE-STACK."]

At last, after a week of this horrible weather, morning broke with a sight of the sun, and moderate wind. There were spare sails on board, and the rudder could be repaired; but what could be done about the funnel? The engineer's ingenuity came out conspicuously. He had one of the usual water-tanks brought on deck, and the two ends knocked out. Then, setting it up over the boiler, he with pieces of sheet-iron raised this square erection till it was about nine feet high, and it gave a sufficient draught to the furnaces. "Covert's Patent Smoke-Stack" created a sensation on the safe arrival of the vessel in San Francisco, and was inspected by hundreds of visitors. The little steamer had ploughed through 10,000 miles of water that season. She was immediately taken to one of the wharfs, and entirely remodelled. The sides were slightly raised, and a ward-room and aft-cabin, handsomely fitted in yacht-fas.h.i.+on, took the place of the house on deck. It was roofed or decked at top in such a manner that the heaviest seas could wash over the vessel without doing the slightest injury, and she afterwards made two voyages, going over a distance of 20,000 miles.

Poor old _Wright_! She went to the bottom at last, with all her crew and pa.s.sengers, some years later, off Cape Flattery, at the entrance of the Straits of Fuca, and scarcely a vestige of her was ever found.

And now, retracing our steps _en route_ for the Australian station, let us call at one of the most important of England's settlements, which has been termed the Liverpool of the East. Singapore consists of an island twenty-five miles long and fifteen or so broad, lying off the south extremity of Malacca, and having a city of the same name on its southern side. The surface is very level, the highest elevation being only 520 feet. In 1818, Sir Stamford Raffles found it an island covered with virgin forests and dense jungles, with a miserable population on its creeks and rivers of fishermen and pirates. It has now a population of about 100,000, of which Chinese number more than half. In 1819 the British flag was hoisted over the new settlement; but it took five years on the part of Mr.

Crawford, the diplomatic representative of Great Britain, to negotiate terms with its then owner, the Sultan of Joh.o.r.e, whereby for a heavy yearly payment it was, with all the islands within ten miles of the coast, given up with absolute possession to the Honourable East India Company.

Since that period, its history has been one of unexampled prosperity. It is a free port, the revenue being raised entirely from imports on opium and spirits. Its prosperity as a commercial port is due to the fact that it is an entrepot for the whole trade of the Malayan Archipelago, the Eastern Archipelago, Cochin China, Siam, and Java. Twelve years ago it exported over sixty-six million rupees' worth of gambier, tin, pepper, nutmegs, coffee, tortoise-sh.e.l.l, rare woods, sago, tapioca, camphor, gutta-percha, and rattans. It is vastly greater now. Exclusive of innumerable native craft, 1,697 square-rigged vessels entered the port in 1864-5. It has two splendid harbours, one a sheltered roadstead near the town, with safe anchorage; the other, a land-locked harbour, three miles from the town, capable of admitting vessels of the largest draught.

Splendid wharfs have been erected by the many steam-s.h.i.+p companies and merchants, and there are fortifications which command the harbour and roads.

"A great deal has been written about the natural beauties of Ceylon and Java," says Mr. Cameron,(99) "and some theologians, determined to give the first scene in the Mosaic narrative a local habitation, have fixed the paradise of unfallen man on one or other of those n.o.ble islands. Nor has their enthusiasm carried them to any ridiculous extreme; for the beauty of some parts of Java and Ceylon might well accord with the description given us, or rather which we are accustomed to infer, of that land from which man was driven on his first great sin.

"I have seen both Ceylon and Java, and admired in no grudging measure their many charms; but for calm placid loveliness, I should place Singapore high above them both. It is a loveliness, too, that at once strikes the eye, from whatever point we view the island, which combines all the advantages of an always beautiful and often imposing coast-line, with an endless succession of hill and dale stretching inland. The entire circ.u.mference of the island is one panorama, where the magnificent tropical forest, with its undergrowth of jungle, runs down at one place to the very water's edge, dipping its large leaves in the gla.s.sy sea, and at another is abruptly broken by a brown rocky cliff, or a late landslip, over which the jungle has not yet had time to extend itself. Here and there, too, are scattered little green islands, set like gems on the bosom of the hushed waters, between which the excursionist, the trader, or the pirate, is wont to steer his course. 'Eternal summer gilds these sh.o.r.es;'

no sooner has the blossom of one tree pa.s.sed away, than that of another takes its place and sheds perfume all around. As for the foliage, that never seems to die. Perfumed isles are in many people's minds merely fabled dreams, but they are easy of realisation here. There is scarcely a part of the island, except those few places where the original forest and jungle have been cleared away, from which at night-time, on the first breathings of the land winds, may not be felt those lovely forest perfumes, even at the distance of more than a mile from sh.o.r.e. These land winds-or, more properly, land airs, for they can scarcely be said to blow, but only to breathe-usually commence at ten o'clock at night, and continue within an hour or two of sunrise. They are welcomed by all-by the sailor because they speed him on either course, and by the wearied resident because of their delicious coolness."

Another writer(100) speaks with the same enthusiasm of the well-kept country roads, and approaches to the houses of residents, where one may travel for miles through unbroken avenues of fruit-trees, or beneath an over-arching canopy of evergreen palms. The long and well-kept approaches to the European dwellings never fail to win the praise of strangers. "In them may be discovered the same lavish profusion of overhanging foliage which we see around us on every side; besides that, there are often hedges of wild heliotrope, cropped as square as if built up of stone, and forming compact barriers of green leaves, which yet blossom with gold and purple flowers." Behind these, broad bananas nod their bending leaves, while a choice flower-garden, a close-shaven lawn, and a croquet-ground, are not uncommonly the surroundings of the residence. If it is early morning, there is an unspeakable charm about the spot. The air is cool, even bracing; and beneath the shade of forest trees, the rich blossom of orchids are seen depending from the boughs, while songless birds twitter among the foliage, or beneath shrubs which the convolvulus has decked with a hundred variegated flowers. Here and there the slender stem of the aloe, rising from an armoury of spiked leaves, lifts its cone of white bells on high, or the deep orange pine-apple peeps out from a green belt of fleshy foliage, and breathes its bright fragrance around. The house will invariably have a s.p.a.cious verandah, underneath which flowers in China vases, and easy chairs of all kinds, are placed. If perfect peace can steal through the senses into the soul-if it can be distilled like some subtle ether from all that is beautiful in nature-surely in such an island as this we shall find that supreme happiness which we all know to be unattainable elsewhere. Alas! even in this bright spot, unalloyed bliss cannot be expected. The temperature is very high, showing an average in the shade, all the year round, of between 85 and 95 Fahr. p.r.i.c.kly heat, and many other disorders, are caused by it on the European const.i.tution.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VIEW IN THE STRAITS OF MALACCA.]

The old Strait of Singhapura, that lies between the island of Singapore and the mainland of Joh.o.r.e, is a narrow tortuous pa.s.sage, for many centuries the only thoroughfare for s.h.i.+ps pa.s.sing to the eastward of Malacca. Not many years ago, where charming bungalows, the residences of the merchants, are built among the ever verdant foliage, it was but the home of hordes of piratical marauders, who carried on their depredations with a high hand, sometimes adventuring on distant voyages in fleets of forty or fifty prahus. Indeed, it is stated, in the old Malay annals, that for nearly two hundred years the entire population of Singapore and the surrounding islands and coasts of Joh.o.r.e subsisted on fis.h.i.+ng and pirating; the former only being resorted to when the prevailing monsoon was too strong to admit of the successful prosecution of the latter.

Single cases of piracy sometimes occur now; but it has been nearly stopped. Of the numberless vessels and boats which give life to the waters of the old strait, nearly all have honest work to do-fis.h.i.+ng, timber carrying, or otherwise trading. "A very extraordinary flotilla," says Mr.

Cameron, "of a rather nondescript character may be often seen in this part of the strait at certain seasons of the year. These are huge rafts of unsawn, newly-cut timber; they are generally 500 or 600 feet long, and sixty or seventy broad, the logs being skilfully laid together, and carefully bound by strong rattan-rope, each raft often containing 2,000 logs. They have always one or two attap-houses built upon them, and carry crews of twenty or twenty-five men, the married men taking their wives and children with them. The timber composing them is generally cut many miles away, in some creek or river on the mainland." They sometimes have sails.

They will irresistibly remind the traveller of those picturesque rafts on the Rhine, on which there are cabins, with the smoke curling from their stove-pipes, and women, children, and dogs, the men with long sweeps keeping the valuable floating freight in the current. Many a German, now in England or America, made his first trip through the Fatherland to its coast on a Rhine raft.

The sailor generally makes his first acquaintance with the island of Singapore by entering through New Harbour, and the scenery is said to be almost unsurpa.s.sed by anything in the world. The steamer enters between the large island and a cl.u.s.ter of islets, standing high out of the water with rocky banks, and covered to their summits by rich green jungle, with here and there a few forest trees towering above it high in the air. Under the vessel's keel, too, as she pa.s.ses slowly over the shoaler patches of the entrance, may be seen beautiful beds of coral, which, in their variegated colours and fantastic shapes, vie with the scenery above. The Peninsular and Oriental Steamers' wharfs are situated at the head of a small bay, with the island of Pulo Brani in front. They have a frontage of 1,200 feet, and coal sheds built of brick, and tile-roofed; they often contain 20,000 tons of coal. Including some premises in Singapore itself, some 70,000 or 80,000 have been expended on their station-a tolerable proof of the commercial importance of the place. Two other companies have extensive wharfs also. The pa.s.sengers land here, and drive up to the city, a distance of some three miles. Those who remain on board, and "Jack" is likely to be of the number, for the first few days after arrival, find entertainment in the feats of swarms of small Malay boys, who immediately surround the vessel in toy boats just big enough to float them, and induce the pa.s.sengers to throw small coins into the water, for which they dive to the bottom, and generally succeed in recovering. Almost all the s.h.i.+ps visiting Singapore have their bottoms examined, and some have had as many as twenty or thirty sheets of copper put on by Malay divers. One man will put on as many as two sheets in an hour, going down a dozen or more times.

There are now extensive docks at and around New Harbour.

On rounding the eastern exit of New Harbour, the s.h.i.+pping and harbour of Singapore at once burst on the view, with the white walls of the houses, and the dark verdure of the shrubbery of the town nearly hidden by the network of spars and rigging that intervenes. The splendid boats of the French Messageries, and our own Peninsular and Oriental lines, the opium steamers of the great firm of Messrs. Jardine, of China, and Messrs. Cama, of Bombay; and the beautifully-modelled American or English clippers, which have taken the place of the box-shaped, heavy-rigged East Indiamen of days of yore, with men-of-war of all nations, help to make a n.o.ble sight. This is only part of the scene, for interspersed are huge Chinese junks of all sizes, ranging up to 600 or 700 tons measurement. The sampans, or two-oared Chinese boats, used to convey pa.s.sengers ash.o.r.e, are identical in shape. All have alike the square bow and the broad flat stern, and from the largest to the smallest, on what in a British vessel would be called her "head-boards," all have two eyes embossed and painted, glaring out over the water. John Chinaman's explanation of this custom is, that if "no got eyes, no can see." During the south-west monsoon they are in Singapore by scores, and of all colours, red, green, black, or yellow; these are said to be the badge of the particular province to which they belong. Ornamental painting and carving is confined princ.i.p.ally to the high stern, which generally bears some fantastic figuring, conspicuous in which can invariably be traced the outlines of a spread eagle, not unlike that on an American dollar. Did "spread-eagleism" as well as population first reach America from China?

"It is difficult," says Mr. Cameron, "while looking at these junks, to imagine how they can manage in a seaway; and yet at times they must encounter the heaviest weather along the Chinese coast in the northern lat.i.tudes. It is true that when they encounter a gale they generally run before it; but yet in a typhoon this would be of little avail to ease a s.h.i.+p. There is no doubt they must possess some good qualities, and, probably, speed, with a fair wind in a smooth sea, is one of them. Not many years ago a boat-builder in Singapore bought one of the common sampans used by the coolie boatmen, which are exactly the same shape as the junks, and rigged her like an English cutter, giving her a false keel, and s.h.i.+fting weather-board, and, strange to say, won with her every race that he tried."

Pa.s.sing the junks at night, a strange spectacle may be observed. Amid the beating of gongs, jangling of bells, and discordant shouts, the nightly religious ceremonies of the sailors are performed. Lanterns are swinging, torches flaring, and gilt paper burning, while quant.i.ties of food are scattered in the sea as an offering of their wors.h.i.+p. Many of those junks, could they but speak, might reveal a story, gentle reader-

"A tale unfold, whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul."

[Ill.u.s.tration: JUNKS IN A CHINESE HARBOUR.]

The chief trade of not a few has been, and still is, the traffic of human freight; and it is, unfortunately, only too lucrative. Large numbers of junks leave China for the islands annually packed with men, picked up, impressed, or lured on board, and kept there till the gambier and pepper planters purchase them, and hurry them off to the interior. It is not so much that they usually have to complain of cruelty, or even an unreasonably long term of servitude; their real danger is in the overcrowding of the vessels that bring them. The men cost nothing, except a meagre allowance of rice, and the more the s.h.i.+pper can crowd into his vessel the greater must be his profit. "It would," says the writer just quoted, "be a better speculation for the trader whose junk could only carry properly 300 men, to take on board 600 men, and lose 250 on the way down, than it would be for him to start with his legitimate number, and land them all safely; for in the first case, he would bring 350 men to market, and in the other only 300. That this process of reasoning is actually put in practice by the Chinese, there was not long ago ample and very mournful evidence to prove. Two of these junks had arrived in the harbour of Singapore, and had remained unnoticed for about a week, during which the owners had bargained for the engagement of most of their cargo.

At this time two dead bodies were found floating in the harbour; an inquest was held, and it then transpired that one of these two junks on the way down from China had lost 250 men out of 600, and the other 200 out of 400."

[Ill.u.s.tration: ISLANDS IN THE STRAITS OF MALACCA.]

The Malay prahus are the craft of the inhabitants of the straits, and are something like the Chinese junks, though never so large as the largest of the latter, rarely exceeding fifty or sixty tons burden. They have one mast, a tripod made of three bamboos, two or three feet apart at the deck, and tapering up to a point at the top. Across two of the bamboos smaller pieces of the same wood are lashed, making the mast thus act as a shroud or ladder also. They carry a large lug-sail of coa.r.s.e gra.s.s-cloth, having a yard both at top and bottom. The curious part of them is the top hamper about the stem. With the deck three feet out of the water forward, the top of the housing is fifteen or more feet high. They are steered with two rudders, one on either quarter. In addition to the s.h.i.+ps and native craft, are hundreds of small boats of all descriptions constantly moving about with fruits, provisions, birds, monkeys, sh.e.l.ls, and corals for sale. The sailor has a splendid chance of securing, on merely nominal terms, the inevitable parrot, a funny little Jocko, or some lovely corals, of all hues, green, purple, pink, mauve, blue, and in shape often resembling flowers and shrubbery. A whole boat-load of the latter may be obtained for a dollar and a half or a couple of dollars.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHINESE JUNK AT SINGAPORE.]

Singapore has a frontage of three miles, and has fine Government buildings, court-house, town-hall, clubs, inst.i.tutes, masonic lodge, theatre, and the grandest English cathedral in Asia-that of St. Andrew's.

In Commercial Square, the business centre of Singapore, all nationalities seem to be represented. Here, too, are the Kling gharry-drivers, having active little ponies and neat conveyances. Jack ash.o.r.e will be pestered with their applications. "These Klings," says Mr. Thomson, "seldom, if ever, resort to blows; but their language leaves nothing for the most vindictive spirit to desire. Once, at one of the landing-places, I observed a British tar come ash.o.r.e for a holiday. He was forthwith beset by a group of Kling gharry-drivers, and, finding that the strongest of British words were as nothing when pitted against the Kling vocabulary, and that no half-dozen of them would stand up like men against his huge iron fists, he seized the nearest man, and hurled him into the sea. It was the most harmless way of disposing of his enemy, who swam to a boat, and it left Jack in undisturbed and immediate possession of the field." The naval officer will find excellent deer-hunting and wild-hog shooting to be had near the city, and tiger-hunting at a distance. Tigers, indeed, were formerly terribly destructive of native life on the island; it was said that a man _per diem_ was sacrificed. Now, cases are more rare. For good living, Singapore can hardly be beaten; fruit in particular is abundant and cheap. Pine-apples, cocoa-nuts, bananas of thirty varieties, mangoes, custard-apples, and oranges, with many commoner fruits, abound. Then there is the mangosteen, the delicious "apple of the East," thought by many to surpa.s.s any fruit in the world, and the durian, a fruit as big as a boy's head, with seeds as big as walnuts enclosed in a pulpy, fruity custard.

The taste for this fruit is an acquired one, and is impossible to describe, while the smell is most disgusting. So great is the longing for it, when once the taste _is_ acquired, that the highest prices are freely offered for it, particularly by some of the rich natives. A former King of Ava spent enormous sums over it, and could hardly then satisfy his rapacious appet.i.te. A succeeding monarch kept a special steamer at Rangoon, and when the supplies came into the city it was loaded up, and dispatched at once to the capital-500 miles up a river. The smell of the durian is so unpleasant that the fruit is never seen on the tables of the merchants or planters; it is eaten slily in corners, and out of doors.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SINGAPORE, LOOKING SEAWARDS.]

And Jack ash.o.r.e will find many other novelties in eating. Roast monkey is obtainable, although not eaten as much as formerly by the Malays. In the streets of Singapore a meal of three or four courses can be obtained for three halfpence from travelling _restaurateurs_, always Chinamen, who carry their little charcoal stoves and soup-pots with them. The authority princ.i.p.ally quoted says that, contrary to received opinion, they are very clean and particular in their culinary arrangements. One must not, however, too closely examine the nature of the viands. And now let us proceed to the Australian Station, which includes New Guinea, Australia proper, and New Zealand.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOOKING DOWN ON SINGAPORE.]

This is a most important colony of Great Britain, although by no means its most important possession, a country as English as England itself, tempered only by a slight colonial flavour. Here Jack will find himself at home, whether in the fine streets of Melbourne, or the older and more pleasant city of Sydney, with its beautiful surroundings.

When the seventeenth century was in its early youth, that vast ocean which stretches from Asia to the Antarctic was scarcely known by navigators. The coasts of Eastern Africa, of India, and the archipelago of islands to the eastward, were partially explored; but while there was a very strong belief that a land existed in the southern hemisphere, it was an inspiration only based on probabilities. The pilots and map-makers put down, as well as they were able, the discoveries already made; _must_ there not be _some_ great island or continent to balance all that waste of water which they were forced to place on the southern hemisphere? Terra Australis, "the Southern Land," was therefore in a sense discovered before its discovery, just as the late Sir Roderick Murchison predicted gold there before Hargreaves found it.(101)

In the year 1606, Pedro Fernando de Quiros started from Peru on a voyage of discovery to the westward. He found some important islands, to which he gave the name "Australia del Espiritu Santo," and which are now believed to have been part of the New Hebrides group. The vessel of his second in command became separated in consequence of a storm, and by this Luis vas Torres in consequence reached New Guinea and Australia proper, besides what is now known as Torres Straits, which channel separates them. The same year a Dutch vessel coasted about the Gulf of Carpentaria, and it is to the persistent efforts of the navigators of Holland that the Australian coasts became well explored. From 1616, at intervals, till 1644, they instigated many voyages, the leading ones of which were the two made by Tasman, in the second of which he circ.u.mnavigated Australia. "New Holland"

was the t.i.tle long applied to the western part of Australia-sometimes, indeed, to the whole country.

The voyages of the Dutch had not that glamour of romance which so often attaches to those of the Spanish and English. They did not meet natives laden with evidences of the natural wealth of their country, and adorned by barbaric ornaments. On the contrary, the coasts of Australia did not appear prepossessing, while the natives were wretched and squalid. Could they have known of its after-destiny, England might not hold it to-day.

When Dampier, sent out by William III. more than fifty years afterwards, re-discovered the west coast of Australia, he had little to record more than the number of sharks on the coast, his astonishment at the kangaroos jumping about on sh.o.r.e, and his disgust for the few natives he met, whom he described as "the most unpleasant-looking and worst-featured of any people" he had ever encountered.