Narrative of the Circumnavigation of the Globe by the Austrian Frigate Novara Volume Ii Part 4

Of the therapeutic powers of various plants that are found in their forests, the natives have but little knowledge. All that they have ever had of drugs have been almost entirely supplied from Europe by captains of English vessels. Although they attach the most extravagant importance to the possession of these, these medicines are, if anything, more prejudicial than beneficial to them, as they of course understand nothing of their use, and often apply them in the most absurd manner. It seems that once some s.h.i.+p captain in order to get quit of their importunities made over to them all the articles he could most conveniently spare, such as castor-oil, Epsom salts, spirit of camphor, turpentine, peppermint, eau de Cologne, &c. &c., and ever since they pester each visitor for medicine!

A native once urgently begged us to give him a little spirit of turpentine; on our asking him to what purpose he wished to apply it, he answered that he wanted to rub himself with it, and take a few drops internally, because he believed it was an excellent preservative against ague and pain in the chest!

The maladies with which the natives are most commonly afflicted, are intermittent fever, phthisis, and rheumatism. In some cases we remarked _Elephantiasis Arabica_ (the Juzam of Arab writers), called by the Nicobarians _Kelloidy_, attacking the bones, and several different forms of cuticular eruption. The severity of these diseases must be ascribed less to the insalubrity of the climate than to the unwholesome mode of existence of the natives. Can we feel surprised that naked men, who do not inhabit the more favourably situated spots ventilated by regular winds, but live on the swampy coast, in the sandy bays that are fringed with a forest belt, where they can grow their cocoa-palms with the least labour to themselves, who leave their bodies exposed now to the violence of tropical rains, now to the fiery rays of a tropical sun, and whose food consists almost exclusively of cocoa-nuts and the fruit of the _panda.n.u.s_,--can we wonder that they should be in an especial degree subject to disease? It is a mistake to suppose that the food of inhabitants of the tropics is that a.s.signed by Nature herself, and therefore the most beneficial and suitable. For, despite all theory, which for residents in the tropics chiefly prescribes substances with plenty of carbon and nitrogen as the proper articles of food, we see Europeans, more especially Englishmen, in the hottest climate in the world, with a thermometer that rarely falls below 86 Fahr., devouring, just as in a more northern climate, strong soups, gigantic beef-steaks, and mutton cutlets to any extent, contemptuously turning up their noses at mere vegetable diet, and barely touching marmalade or sweetmeats; yet there they are blooming in the best of health, far better even than that of the natives. Indeed, it is a fact full of interest, and confirmed by observations carried on for years, that in the Presidency of Madras, for example, the Hindoos and Mahmudas, so widely different in their customs and mode of life, were much more seriously attacked by fever than the Europeans resident there, in such entirely different conditions of climate than they were accustomed to. On the other hand, so far as regards sanitary measures, that portion of the aboriginal population presents the most favourable results which is most intimately allied to the Europeans, and applies in its own case the precepts of modern civilization.

So soon as the natives are attacked by fever with any severity, they rapidly succ.u.mb. However, we have never heard tell of any of that barbarous inhumanity which any medicine-man, whose treatment is unsuccessful, is said to experience at the hands of the relatives and friends of the patient, which indeed is all the more improbable as, were such really the case, considering the small advantages and scrimp fees likely to be picked up by a smart medicine-man among such an impoverished race, there would hardly be met with one Manluena in the entire group! The head-mark of a doctor in the southern islands is his unusually long floating hair. On our inquiring of a native what qualifications were requisite in order to become a doctor, he replied with the most charming navete: "One must be the son of a doctor!" From this reply we may gather that in the Nicobar Islands medical skill and knowledge of the healing art are confined to certain families! We afterwards found this information confirmed, upon our discovering that the youthful Manluena of Great Nicobar, who so severely kneaded and twisted the arm of one of the a.s.sociates of the Expedition, was the son of an aged doctor of the island of Kondul, and owed his reputation solely to the circ.u.mstance of his kindred. Besides cases of sickness, the advice, the adroitness, and the zeal of the Manluena are held in special repute for the driving out of the evil spirit or _Eewees_, by which, as already mentioned, the inhabitants of the Nicobar Islands believe themselves to be incessantly surrounded.

Of idols proper, such as barbarous tribes construct and honour, and to whom they dedicate temples, they have none; nor have they any object in nature, as, for instance, a lofty tree, a huge rock or a hill, to which they attach a certain charm, like some of the Central American tribes.

They have not even a word for the Divine idea in their language, nor for G.o.dhead, nor for any Beneficent Principle or Being, and the rudely carved figures, which are found set up in all sorts of comical postures within their huts, are intended to serve no higher purpose, than to frighten away those evil spirits which even the Manluena has been unable to see, though he sets himself forward as able to hold converse with them.

The notion of a Being, whose wisdom and whose love rule the world, is quite as foreign to their minds as the conception of a spiritual life in the future after death. We repeatedly asked one of their most intelligent leaders, who also spoke a little English, whether he believed he should ever again recognize his dead friends and relatives? But he replied invariably with a cold, indifferent, "Never, never!" All that we told them of the privileges of a believing Christian, of a Divine Being, of the belief in a future state of existence after death, served only to fill them with astonishment, but they seemed ready enough to listen to such subjects. What little they had heard upon these truths from missionaries and s.h.i.+p captains, appeared however to have left them with very confused notions.

From all that came under our notice, the mode of life of these islanders is singularly uniform and indolent, its most important events consisting probably of the alterations necessary by the interchange of the seasons.

They know of no other method of computing time than the change of the moon and of the monsoons. At the beginning of the wet season or S.W. monsoon, and at the corresponding period of the dry season or N.E. monsoon, there are certain festivals, which somewhat resemble the "sowing feasts" and "harvest homes" of the American aboriginal stocks. They have however no appointed day of rest, corresponding to the sabbath of the Christian Church, nor indeed do they need such, seeing that in their mode of life every day is a holiday! They have no measure for time, nor indeed for anything else: not a single native could give us any idea of his own age, nor could count above 20.[23] Time has for them not the slightest value: the watchword "_Time is money!_" which first given by England, is at present resounding throughout the world, falls voiceless and ineffectual on their insensible ears. Their reckoning of time is as limited as their capacity for recollecting by-gone occurrences. The presence of Christian missionaries at various periods, as also the visit of the Danish corvette _Galatea_ in 1847, had already almost entirely disappeared from their memory. Only among a very few of their numbers have some of the names clung to the recollection, such as _Galatea_, and _Steene Bille_ (which they p.r.o.nounced _Piller_).

We could not find anything that bore the least resemblance to any settled form of government, to any distribution upon fixed principles of the possessions of the general community, to any recognition of individual right, to any tribunal for settling quarrels, &c. &c. They recognize the relations of family and of property; on the other hand, the power of the captain, one of whom the greater number of villages has each for itself, and whom they call _Mah_ or _Umiaha_ (old), extends no further than giving him the right to be the first to trade with such foreign s.h.i.+ps as make their appearance, and to inaugurate the barter-system. Indeed this very inst.i.tution of captains.h.i.+p, although much liked by the natives, does not at all seem as though it were part of their own system, but to date from the period when English merchant vessels began to visit these islands regularly.

As to the social life of the natives, their family relations, and so forth, we could get such scanty and uncertain data to go upon, what with the cursory visits we paid to the various islands, and considering the women and children had everywhere fled, while the men regarded us simply as intruders, that we do not venture to publish any special information upon this point. Be it however permitted to express our opinion, that, judging by the tendency to a decent style of dress and the extreme elegance of the decorations of the canoes and the huts of the islanders of Kar-Nicobar, as contrasted with the dest.i.tution, nakedness, and wretched condition of the natives of the southern islands of the group, civilization seems to be advancing from north to south with slow but sure steps. And it will probably interest the philologist to be informed that both in Kar-Nicobar and Nangkauri, the most important settlement bears the same name, Malacca, as the chief city on the adjoining Malay peninsula. As the natives in this delicious _far niente_ existence live exclusively upon the precious gifts of an all-bountiful Nature, which provides them at once with food and drink, one naturally finds among them few implements of labour, indeed only such as are indispensably necessary in erecting their huts, in preparing their canoes, and in enabling them readily to open the cocoa-nuts. And even these tools, as, for instance, hatchets, cutla.s.ses, files, &c., were first procured through intercourse with civilization.

Their weapons consist merely of lances or javelins with points of iron or hardened wood, by the number of which, it is presumed, the wealth of a Nicobar islander is estimated. A cross-bow, which we saw in the possession of a native of Kar-Nicobar, although made on the island, was manifestly of European design originally, and merely an imitation.

Of musical instruments we did not find a single specimen in Kar-Nicobar, whereas on the southern islands there is a six, sometimes a seven-holed flute in use, made of bamboo-cane, which, as we afterwards discovered, had been brought hither by the Malays; and also a kind of guitar about two or three feet in length, hollowed out, and with sound-holes in the side, and made of thick bamboo and reed strings. On the whole, however, the Nicobarians seem to be much too apathetic and indifferent a race to have any special predilection for music, singing, or dancing. Accordingly at their monsoon festivals and other holiday-times, their notion of dancing is limited to hopping round in a circle with arms entwined, while they at the same time keep up a listless humming noise.

In the case of such a race, which has no civilization or industry of its own, it is out of the question to speak of their having any regular industrial occupation in the strict sense of the word. The particular and to them most beneficent plant, which supplies them at once with enough to eat and to drink, at the same time brings them, very reluctantly, into contact with civilization, and will yet become a main agent in introducing a knowledge of those necessities and acquaintance with those articles which are the product of a higher grade of civilization alone. The ripe nuts of the cocoa-palm const.i.tute the chief article of export of the Nicobar Islands, and, what is even more important, supply the stimulus, which already arouses the native to a certain degree of activity, although most of the nuts that are put on s.h.i.+p-board are collected not by the natives, but by the crews of the Malay vessels. All other articles of export, such as _b.i.+.c.he de mar_, edible birds' nests, tortoise-sh.e.l.l, amber, &c., are of very inferior importance, and are only taken as by-freight. According to published doc.u.ments the northern islands can supply 10,000,000 cocoa-nuts, of which however, at present, not much more than 5,000,000, to wit, 3,000,000 from Kar-Nicobar alone, and 2,000,000 from the rest of the islands, are exported in all. As this fruit is one-sixth of the price it bears on the coasts of Bengal, the concourse of English and Malay vessels, especially from Pulo Penang, increases every year.[24] The trade is carried on by way of barter instead of money payments, although silver is highly valued too; for here also, despite all that is reported of the inordinate longing of the Nicobar natives for tobacco, gla.s.s beads, and such like rubbish, the truth of the adage is fully borne out that "Money is the most _universal merchandise_." Of silver coins, the natives are only acquainted with rupees, Spanish dollars, and English threepenny pieces, which latter they call "small rupees." Gold is as yet unknown among the southern islands, and therefore is valueless in the eyes of the natives.

So long as the relations of the natives with foreign nations were exclusively confined to barter with some couple of dozen English and Malay vessels, which latter visited the islands with the N.E. monsoon and left with the S.W. monsoon, thus making but one voyage in the course of the year, the natives of the various islands kept up among themselves quite a frequent and regular communication. This favourable trait was undoubtedly owing in great measure to the defectiveness of their otherwise very elegant, but small, slight-built canoes, which are but ill adapted for voyaging to any remote distance.

Respecting that other swarthy, crisp-haired, savage race, widely different from that inhabiting the coasts of Nicobar, which, according to a legend, dwells in the forests of Great Nicobar, and lives upon snakes, vermin, roots, and leaves of plants, and in the Nicobar idiom called _Baju-oal-Tschua_, we could only add to our stock of information by recitals that obviously pertained to the domain of Fable-land. When, however, we remember that not a single traveller or author who has indulged such gossiping, nay, that not even the natives who tell such stories of them, have ever seen one of this race, we shall be excused for suggesting in reply to the numberless conjectures afloat respecting these mysterious inhabitants, that the alleged denizens of the interior of Great Nicobar are neither a widely different race of men from the coast-natives, nor yet an offshoot of the crisp-haired swarthy race of Papuas from New Guinea, but that, dispossessed and degraded by a conjuncture of various hostile influences, they hold, with respect to the inhabitants of the sea-board, a similar position to that occupied by the Bushmen of Namaqualand to the Hottentots of Cape Colony.

In the circ.u.mstances in which the inhabitants of this group of islands at present find themselves, without traditions, without proverbs, without songs, without monuments, and especially without any characteristic peculiarity in their habits and customs which could possibly throw a ray of light upon the obscurity of their origin, it is a bold undertaking to express any decided opinion as to the derivation and genealogy of this people. By far the most probable theory, as is also admitted by Dr. Rink, who visited these islands with the Danish Expedition, would represent them as an offshoot from the north-westerly boundary of the Malay race, as a people which, while possessing much in common with the Indo-Chinese stock, nevertheless in its physical characteristics seems to hold a middle rank between the Malay and the Burmese.

Considering the study _of language_ as a most important and reliable source of information, the members of the Expedition made it their main object to draw up, in conformity with what is known as Gallatin's method, so extensively used by all American and English travellers, a vocabulary of about 200 words in both languages, viz. that used by the inhabitants of Nicobar, and that (widely different in all respects except the numerals) in use among the natives of the more southern islands. As a Malay barque from Pulo Penang was lying at anchor during our stay on the northern sh.o.r.es of Great Nicobar, so favourable an opportunity was of course made use of to prepare a similar vocabulary of the Malay idiom spoken at that port, which will give the philologist the advantage of being able to judge for himself as to the similarity existing between these two idioms, and thence, by a.n.a.logy, between the two races, and discriminate whether those scholars, such as Vatu, come nearer the truth who maintain that the Nicobar language is of Malay derivation with an admixture of foreign words, princ.i.p.ally European, or those other students of philology who, as for instance Adelung, hold that the idiom used by these islanders is identical with some of the languages of the Indo-Chinese peninsula.

At the same time the ethnographer of the Expedition had endeavoured to ascertain by means of a new system of measurements of the human frame, drawn up by himself in concert with Dr. Edward Schwarz, one of the physicians of the Expedition, and with the co-operation and a.s.sistance of the latter, various data, such as, when applied to the various races inhabiting the earth, might justify many new and striking conclusions, and ultimately result in definitely fixing the relation, resemblance, or physical dissimilarity of the various races of man. Such a plan makes it much more easy by means of figures, those most undeniable evidences of the results of investigations, to get speedily and accurately at the required results, than by all the most specious theories laid down in the less certain domain of philosophic speculation.

These measurements, applied at three chief regions of the body, namely, the head, the trunk, and the upper and lower extremities, are intended to be scientifically discussed in a special memoir,[25] and we accordingly confine ourselves here to remarking that the various points of measurements were not only determined in an anthropological point of view, but that among the 68 different categories, into which these measurements are naturally distributed, there occur some which supply many curious points of inquiry, as also considerable a.s.sistance not merely to national economics, the result of the light thrown upon the subject of the average of muscular strength of the various races as found by the dynamometer, but also to the graphic art, with respect to a more accurate acquaintance with the human skeleton as well as the entire figure.

In like manner we never omitted to collect some of the hair of the head from as many as possible of the various individuals measured, since the laborious researches of Peter Brown of Philadelphia on the human hair, have elevated it into a very remarkable means of tracing the origin of the various disparities of race.

It must also be considered as an especial boon for the science of comparative anatomy, as well as universal ethnography, that we succeeded in bringing away with us from the Nicobar Islands the skulls of two of the natives.

Lastly, a small collection of twenty-three subjects of ethnographical inquiry, collected from the various islands, will be found useful, partly as ill.u.s.trating the information already obtained, partly as affording evidence of the amount of culture of the inhabitants of the Nicobar Archipelago.

We are still called upon to answer the question already propounded, whether the Nicobar Islands are suited as the site of a colony, and whether the numerous attempts already made in this direction did not probably fall through for other reasons than those of climate.

According to inquiries inst.i.tuted by the members of the Austrian Expedition, this insular group, by its geographical position in one of the very chiefest commercial routes of the world, and by the richness and abundance of the products of its soil, offers sufficient points of attraction to interest any leading commercial or maritime power, in securing possession of it. With regard to any colonization or cultivation of the soil by free European immigrants, there is as little to be said as of almost any other islands in the tropics. In order to make such spots aids to the extension of civilization, the utmost certainty of rule is imperatively necessary, such as was inst.i.tuted with such marvellous results by England in Pulo Penang, Singapore, Sydney, &c. The climate of the Nicobars is very far from being so deadly, that mere residence upon them must speedily prove fatal to Europeans, and it will undoubtedly be signally ameliorated by a partial clearing of the forests, cultivation of the soil, channelling of the rivers, and drainage of the swamps. All such works however must be executed by Malay or Indian labourers, under the superintendence of Europeans. From what we have learned by personal observation of the surprising influence which the transportation system has exercised in Australia upon the cultivation and development of the soil, as also upon the social condition of the convicts themselves, we do not hesitate, despite the distrust of experiments of such a nature which prevails in certain philosophic circles of Europe, to express our opinion, that with a little prudence and forbearance convict labourers in abundance could be imported, who would be at once better off, more contented, and more disposed to do honour to their man's estate than as at present confined at home in their dreary prison cells.[26]

If the various experiments. .h.i.therto made have all fallen through, the "effect defective" undoubtedly arises from the deficiency of means requisite for such an undertaking, and in the limited number of men, merely humanly speaking, who were engaged in such enterprises. The mere prime cost of clearing and cultivation, so as to enable them to antic.i.p.ate a good return for their labour, must be set down as at the lowest computation between 100,000 and 150,000; the number of labourers employed in the undertaking at from 300 to 400; of whom all skilled artisans, such as carpenters, joiners, locksmiths, blacksmiths, bricklayers, masons, &c., must accompany the settlers from Europe.

The sums expended for the first outlay must not however be set down as entirely thrown away, since the fertility of the islands in those colonial products that are most valuable, and the enormous quant.i.ty of cocoa-nut palms, must, under the impulse of cultivation and industrious habits, speedily make returns in countless tides of prosperity. So far as regards the aboriginal population, of whom there are not above 5000 or 6000 on all the islands, they would experience but little annoyance from the carrying out of such an enterprise. In fact, morally and materially they could only gain from the introduction of a foreign element. At present they are confined to the narrow belt of sh.o.r.e, where grows the cocoa-palm, their sole support. The interior of the island, so prolific in natural wealth of the most varied description, and which would become infinitely more valuable under a proper development of its capabilities, is utterly unknown and valueless to the native.

Once a settlement were fairly set a-going on the above-mentioned principles, the inhabitants of the Nicobar Archipelago would be placed under the tutelage of European civilization, and in their transactions would no longer be exposed to the knavery and caprices of s.h.i.+ps' captains.

It would be necessary to watch over the natives as over minors, so as not alone to secure for them material benefits, but by liberal sympathetic treatment as the groundwork of their education, gradually to establish that faith whose introduction hitherto, despite numerous praiseworthy endeavours in the past as well as the present century, has been doomed to be unsuccessful through a variety of extraneous circ.u.mstances. Moreover, the Nicobar Archipelago would be a most convenient central station whence to impart the blessings of Christianity to the pagans of the adjoining groups of islands.

MEMORANDUM

Relating to those points of the Nicobar Archipelago whose geographical position was ascertained by the _Novara_ Expedition.

+--------------+-----------------+-----------------+ PLACE OF Lat.i.tude North. Longitude East OBSERVATION. from Greenwich. +--------------+-----------------+-----------------+ Saui Cove 9 14' 8" 92 44' 46" Komios 9 7 32 92 43 42 Morrock Bay 8 32 30 93 34 10 Kaulaha 8 2 10 93 29 40 Kondul 7 12 17 93 39 57 Galatea Cove 6 48 26 93 49 51 +--------------+-----------------+-----------------+

A very careful measurement, made at the point of observation in Saui, of the Moon's distance from Jupiter, gave 6 h. 11 min. 2 sec., or 92 45'

30" East.

Our voyage from the south side of Great Nicobar to Singapore occupied twenty days. This time the fine weather seemed to have entirely abandoned us. Day and night, at almost all hours and from all parts of the sky, we encountered severe thunder-storms, with water-spouts, lightning, thunder, and the most tremendous rain-squalls. We could thoroughly realize that we were in the tropics at the beginning of the rainy season. One day during the prevalence of one of those floods, five tons during the first half hour, and in the course of an hour and a half eight tons, or 32,000 pints of water, were collected by the sailors in buckets and other similar utensils. These storms came now from the coast of Sumatra, now from the Malay peninsula, or yet again from the Straits of Malacca, and gave our jolly tars not a moment of repose. These tempests alternated with calms accompanied by a most oppressive sweltering hot temperature, and if by chance a breeze sprang up, it was sure to come out of the straits dead against us, and, coupled with the strong contrary current, fairly arrested our progress. Thus tacking about for 14 days between the north sh.o.r.e of Sumatra and Junk-Ceylon, we made as much way in that time as a fast steamer would have done in as many hours, and it was but poor consolation to us that several s.h.i.+ps close to us, perhaps six or eight, shared the same adverse destiny.

An incident of a very singular nature suddenly gave us all plenty of excitement. As our deeply respected chaplain was sitting reading one evening in his cabin, he became sensible of a peculiar pressure on his foot; the servant being called, made his appearance with a candle, and on examining the floor was horror-struck at perceiving a pretty large sea-snake (_Chorsydrus fasciatus_), coiled round the foot of the priest.

In the same instant this gentleman instinctively rid himself of the poisonous reptile by a vigorous kick, while the various persons who hurried to the spot were resolved they would secure this dangerous a.s.sailant dead or alive. Within the narrow limits of a s.h.i.+p's state-room, a campaign is speedily brought to a close. His snakes.h.i.+p was forthwith routed out of his asylum, and hacked into more pieces than was exactly agreeable to the zoologists, who had been extremely anxious, and even expected, to preserve this now doubly interesting reptile almost uninjured in spirits of wine. It was a tolerably large specimen, one inch thick, and about three feet long, and had apparently either wriggled up the cable, or had been washed on board by a wave through the open sky-light of the cabin.

At length on the 9th of April wind and weather changed, and, in company with the entire squadron of companions in misfortune, we sailed gaily into the Straits of Malacca, with all sail set, and dead before the wind. On the 11th of April, early in the morning, we found Pulo Penang (also called Areca, or Prince of Wales' Island) lying broad on our port beam. Its chains of forest-clad mountains, gloomy, and overcast with dense ma.s.ses of cloud, prevented our realizing the charms of this possession of England, such as they have been described by all who have visited it.

On the 12th of April we steered between the Sambelongs, or Nine Islands, and the island of Djara, and caught a glimpse of the lofty well-wooded mountains of the kingdom of Perah. The channel through these straits is becoming more and more contracted owing to the _debouche_ at this point of the river Perah. Shallow sand-banks and small rocky islands impede the navigation, and it is a common precaution for s.h.i.+ps to cast anchor at the least approach of foul weather, an operation which is the more readily set about that the water is nowhere above twenty fathoms, but good holding ground throughout the straits. Moreover, the charts of these regions are thoroughly reliable and accurate, while at the most dangerous spot, where a sand-bank with only one fathom of water over it lies right in the tracks of vessels, a light-s.h.i.+p is moored, which we pa.s.sed on the 13th of April, and continued our voyage through the night in perfect safety.

On the morning of the 14th April, the hill of Ophir (called also Ledang or Pudang), 5700 feet high, lay fair before us. We now found ourselves opposite the town of Malacca. The channel at this point approaches so close to the mainland, that we could easily distinguish churches and houses, and the frigate exchanged signals with the neighbouring semaph.o.r.e.

Malacca, once the Malay capital, has at present altogether lost its former importance, and of the three English colonies in the Straits of Malacca, usually known as the _Straits Settlements_, is the least important in either a political or a commercial sense. The entire region was, until within these few years, in most evil repute for the atrocious piracies perpetrated here. Natives used to lie in wait in small canoes filled with merchandise of all sorts, with which they boarded the pa.s.sing s.h.i.+ps, and while these were supplying themselves with fruit and fresh provisions, the former were spying the number of crew, as also the means of defence of the unfortunate vessel; after which it usually happened, that during the night the more defenceless of them, while becalmed or lying at anchor, would be attacked by an overwhelming force of pirates and ruthlessly plundered.

Captain Steen Bille relates, that even so late as 1846, he loaded his cannon with shot, and maintained extra vigilance during the night.

We now sped along, still favoured by the wind, during the ensuing night, and on the morning of the 15th April had the satisfaction of reaching the entrance of the bay of Singapore, without once having to lie at anchor in the straits. The landscape that lay outstretched before us was splendid,--lofty wooded islands on the coast of Sumatra, and a whole archipelago of islets lay around us, in the channels between which prahus were sailing about, while Chinese junks, full-rigged s.h.i.+ps and barques, were working in or out as the case might be, all intimating the proximity of a great mart of commerce. Equally fortunate as in the straits was our pa.s.sage through the labyrinth of islands, through which a vessel must wind in order to reach Singapore. And this roadstead itself, what a contrast it presented to the lovely beach of the Nicobar Islands! Here were thousands of s.h.i.+ps of all sizes and rigs, and the flags of nearly all sea-faring nations in the world. We found at anchor the English frigate _Amethyst_, and the screw corvette _Niger_; and having warped ourselves into their vicinity, by 2 P.M. we had cast anchor in 13 fathoms water. Almost immediately afterwards an officer came off from the _Amethyst_ to welcome us, and to impart to us the unpleasant intelligence that cholera had been raging in the city for some weeks past, and had also committed great havoc among the s.h.i.+pping in harbour. Even the captain and one of the crew of an English merchantman had succ.u.mbed but a few hours previously to this fell scourge, and the vessel had her flag half-mast high as a signal of mourning. This information at once deranged all our plans and projects with respect to Singapore, and had we not been compelled to victual here, we should at once have set sail. However, under the circ.u.mstances there was nothing to do but to spend five or six days at Singapore, and this breathing-s.p.a.ce we availed ourselves of to obtain as much information as possible both by eye and ear touching this very remarkable colony, and its not less interesting inhabitants.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Anciennes relations des Indes et de la Chine de deux voyageurs Mahometans, qui y allerent dans le IXeme siecle. Traduit de l'Arabe avec des remarques par Eus. Renaudot. Paris, chez Coignard, 1718. 8vo.

[2] Journal of the Voyage of the I.R. s.h.i.+p _Joseph and Theresa_ to the new Austrian plantations in Asia and Africa, by Nicolas Fontana, s.h.i.+p-surgeon to Mr. Brambilla, body physician to the Emperor, a.s.sistant surgeon in the army. Translated from the Italian MS. by Joseph-Eyerle. Dessau and Leipzig,--"_Buch-handlung der Gelehrten._"

[3] "I have drawn up these doc.u.ments," writes Prince Kaunitz, in a state paper addressed to the Empress, dated 27th March, 1776, "in such manner as to advance the objects of your Majesty in establis.h.i.+ng commercial intercourse between Austria and the Indies, without incurring disagreeable results, which might accrue from the conferring of unrestricted authority."

[4] A piece of parchment, cut out of a book in zig-zag fas.h.i.+on, which in former times was necessary in all commerce with barbarians, the captains of privateers, when unable to read, being enabled, by comparing the torn-out leaf (_scontrino_) with the counterfoil, which it was customary to give to all trading persons, to determine to what nationality the vessel belonged.

[5] A few years previous, in 1782, a certain C. F. von Brocktroff, of Kiel, had addressed a memorial to the Emperor Joseph II., in the course of which he warmly advocated the annexation, settlement, and reclamation of the Nicobar Islands, and, on the strength of fifteen years' experience in the East Indies, promised immense profits to the Austrian-German trade by this method of procedure. This interesting treatise will be found among the Government Archives at Vienna, and will be published in full in another section.

[6] Bolts had several times come before the public as an author. In 1771 he issued in London a work in two volumes 4to, ent.i.tled, "Considerations on Indian Affairs," which was also translated into French. Further, he published a "_Recueil des pieces authentiques relatives aux affaires de la ci-devant societe Imperiale-Asiatique de Trieste, gerees a Anvers_," which appeared in 4to (116 pages) at Paris, in 1787.

[7] The results of this voyage of discovery are embodied partly in a work in two volumes: "Steen Bille's account of the voyage of the corvette _Galatea_, round the world" (Copenhagen, Leipzig, 1852), partly in a Geographical sketch of the Nicobar Islands, with special remarks upon Geology, by Dr. H. Rink (Copenhagen, 1847): there will be likewise found in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, under the heading "Nicobar Islands," and at p. 261 of the third volume of the "Journal of the Indian Archipelago," under the t.i.tle "Sketches at the Nicobars," a variety of valuable contributions to our stock of knowledge respecting this island group. In addition, Mr. A. E. Zhishmann, Professor in the Imperial Royal Academy of Commerce and Navigation at Trieste, published, in antic.i.p.ation of the projected visit of the _Novara_ to this Archipelago, a valuable historico-geographical sketch, ent.i.tled, "The Nicobar Islands" (Trieste, Printing Office of the Austrian Lloyds, 1857), which appeared at the same time in the Transactions of the Imp. Roy.

Geographical Society for 1857.