CHAPTER XLII

IN EASTERN SEAS

[Sidenote: 1849. Macao, June 9.]

We left the scene of this “untoward event” on the morning of June 9. On the 21st anchored in Manila Bay.

Respecting either the Bay or the City, it would be difficult to write anything new, having so recently described the visit of the _Dido_ to this hospitable place.

[Sidenote: June 21.]

We were interested in the remains of an old Spanish galleon, at anchor off Cavite Point; the same class so greedily sought by our cruisers in days gone by.

[Sidenote: July 2.]

Sailed from Manila, July 2.

[Sidenote: Balabec, July 16.]

In these intricate seas it took most of the day for the master and myself to study the charts and sailing directions, as supplied by the Admiralty.

We so arranged that the master should keep the middle, while I took charge of the morning watch.

[Sidenote: July 17.]

It was on the 17th that I relieved the master; he assuring me that we were now past, as far as the Admiralty charts and directions were concerned, all dangers, and that I might wash decks or make sail as I liked.

Decided on making sail, standing to the westward in open sea; nothing in sight.

This done, we were in the act of coiling up ropes for washing decks, while on the starboard-hammock netting I felt that unpleasant sensation of the ship scraping the bottom, just as the headsman sang out, “nine fathoms.”

She would not answer her helm, but stuck fast.

As the sails came down and hands turned up, boatswain piped “Out boats,” the other watch rushed to their stations, as good men will, without inquiring the cause.

We had taken the ground at the top of high-water; boats went away to sound. Booms and spars over the side to support her, as the tide left; guns slung, buoyed, and cast overboard.

Pinnace, Lieutenant Comber, sent to Labuan for assistance. The launch laid out best bower-anchor in the direction in which we came.

[Sidenote: July 18.]

The next morning at half-past seven the ship lifted.

The heaviest part was the weighing and replacing guns. The launch lifted the guns and brought them alongside; the main-yard tackle, properly secured, had to weigh them, the fall was passed round the quarter-deck capstan.

Boys manned the bars and ran round; but when the gun reached the surface it required men at the capstan to hoist it over the hammock netting.

[Illustration: Mæander _on Shore_.]

I mention this to show what every engineer knows, the extraordinary power and buoyancy of salt water.

[Sidenote: July 19.]

By breakfast-time we were steering, with all sail set, for Balambangan; and, if the rusty appearance of the muzzles of the guns had not told tales, no one who met us could have seen that anything had happened.

[Sidenote: July 20.]

Met in Kimanis Bay the H.E.T.C. steam-frigate _Semiramis_, Commander Daniell, with our pinnace in tow. They manned the rigging and gave us three hearty cheers.

Comber told me that, after the tide fell, the ship had the appearance of lying on the top of a hill.

[Sidenote: July 22.]

Came to off Coal Point, Labuan. Coal had become so scarce at Singapore that the Commander-in-Chief had sent to borrow some from the Dutch Government at Batavia.

All the surface coal had been picked off by the then contractors, before the Charter was granted to the Eastern Archipelago Company to supply our steamers, and that part of the seam at which they were now working was some 200 yards from the water’s edge.

By working in the cool of the morning and evening, we put on board in a few days 150 tons, filling the after-hold.

[Sidenote: Aug. 13.]

We had just completed our dirty job, when the news reached us that the Sekarran and Serebas pirates had put to sea, and that the _Albatros_, Captain Farquhar, accompanied by Sir James Brooke and his native force, was out in search of them: by the time we got to the Bornean coast the fleet of pirates had been destroyed. Conceive my ill-luck! Lucky Farquhar!

[Sidenote: Aug. 20.]

Arrived at Singapore. Ran with our cargo into New Harbour by the western entrance.

[Sidenote: Aug. 24.]

_Hastings_, with flag flying, arrived in the roads in tow of _Fury_ from Trincomalee.

Having reported to the Admiralty the natural advantages of the Inner Harbour of Singapore as a coaling-station over twelve months ago, and no notice having been taken of my letter, I now sent a similar statement, with survey, to the Secretary of the P. and O. Company.

Found the _Australia_ schooner at Singapore, sent to us by the Admiral from Trincomalee, to man and take to Sydney for the Colonial Government. Sent Lieutenant Comber and eight men in charge of her.

[Sidenote: Sept. 13.]

_Hastings_ left for China in tow of _Fury_; a farewell salute for Sir Francis Collier.

[To my sorrow we never met again. He died in China shortly after we left the station.]

[Sidenote: Sept. 24.]

We took leave of our many kind friends, and proceeded on a more interesting voyage than usually falls to the lot of a man-of-war.

Our orders were, after having removed the garrison and stores from Port Essington, to visit Sydney and Auckland, and call at the Friendly and Society Islands on our way to Valparaiso.

With these instructions came a private letter from Rear-Admiral J. W. Deans Dundas, Second Sea Lord, from which I quote the following:--

I need not recommend Lead and Look Out to ye, but the Straits are difficult and so are Society Islands.

Keep _Mæander_ off the ground, and when there is a doubt, put her head round. God speed ye.--Yours faithfully,

J. W. D. DUNDAS.

The _Australia_ was sent in advance, with directions to wait for us in the Straits of Sunda. We ran between the Islands of Banca and Billiton on the 29th, and anchored in Anjer roads on October 1.

Anjer is nothing in itself: a small Dutch town and fort, clean, as Dutch places are, with a large, comparatively dirty-looking Malay village attached, inhabited partly by Chinese.

The tree of Anjer is a striking object, a Banyan of great size, growing close to the landing-place. From its summit rises a flagstaff, from which floats the tricoloured flag of the Netherlands Government.

[Sidenote: Oct. 1.]

Anjer is the resort of vessels passing through the Straits, and may be considered the key of the Eastern Archipelago. Letters left here, properly addressed, find their way to any part of the world.

The boats which come alongside are laden with a variety of fruits, vegetables, live-stock, monkeys, parrots, etc., to suit the tastes and wants of the outward or homeward bound traders.

Having despatched the schooner to Sydney by the western coast of Australia, we weighed on the afternoon of October 3.

Our route to the eastward for the next 3000 miles lay between the 6th and 10th degrees of latitude, during which we should pass a succession of beautiful islands, with the sea in all probability so smooth that a canoe might live in it: the finest weather and the prevailing winds in our favour.

[Sidenote: Java, Oct. 6.]

A short run carried us into Batavia Roads. On nearing this spacious anchorage, in which the flags of all nations may be seen, from the prahus of the Spice Islands to the fine traders of the United States, you are at once impressed with the idea that you are approaching a large and opulent city.

We passed inside the fortified island of Onrust, on which stands the great Naval Arsenal.

Saluted the Dutch Admiral, while running in, with 13 guns, and the Netherlands flag with 21.

A United States ship near us had a cargo of Wenham Lake ice, the master of which sent to inform our officers that they were welcome to as much ice as they liked.

I have always found much generosity and frankness among the officers of the American marine.

They “calculate” and they “guess,” and have a fair notion of the value of a dollar, and are smart fellows at a bargain; they occasionally deal a little in the marvellous sea-serpent line, but they are amusing, with one exception, which will appear hereafter.

Batavia deserves a great deal more notice than we had time to bestow upon it, being the capital of all the Dutch possessions in the Far East, with a mixed population, chiefly Javanese, of about 120,000.

Like Manila, the city is approached from seaward by a long straight canal, running between two massive walls; and, as there is a strong current generally setting out, the easiest way to stem it is to land the crew and track the boat.

The houses near the sea, although large and handsome buildings, are used for business purposes only. The situation is on a swampy flat, and at certain times unhealthy.

The appearance of a British man-of-war is so uncommon, that the _Mæander_ excited considerable speculation; but when we had stated our destination, and that our chief object was to pay our respects to His Serene Highness, Duke Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, the explanation seemed to be satisfactory.

I had met His Serene Highness last year at Madeira.

We were entertained at a grand dinner given by the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, General and Commander-in-Chief, whose example was followed by several of the heads of departments. Dinners and balls followed in rapid succession.

The Batavia races took place while we were there, most of the prizes being carried off by horses of English breed. The enterprising members of this Turf Club gave a ball and supper, and made their appearance in scarlet coats.

Even during this short stay in the roads, some of those whose hammocks were in the fore-part of the ship, and got the first of the land breeze, did not escape the fatal effects of malaria.

[Sidenote: Oct. 16.]

Sailed 16th. Kept along the Java Coast.

The fishing-boats, or “flying canoes of Java,” as they are not inaptly styled, were objects of surprise and admiration. They are long, with just beam enough to enable a man to sit between the gunwales.

Passing Maduira and Java, we came abreast of the Island of Bali, the only island in the Archipelago where the two great forms in the Hindoo religion, the Brahminical (the original) and the Bhuddist (the reformed), exist together, undisturbed.

Bali has a remarkably high peak; and looks like a mountain sloping out into extensive fertile and rich plains, producing two crops a year; and as we passed along we saw abundance of cattle, fruit-trees, and vegetables.

[Sidenote: Nov. 5.]

It would be superfluous for me to attempt to describe all the beautiful islands we passed.

Beyond the influence of Dutch protection, no more fishing canoes enlivened the scene; no smoke rose from the numerous inlets along the coasts to indicate the abodes of human beings. In the dense green vegetation of the jungle, death-like stillness reigned supreme.

In the course of our run, we passed numerous volcanic mountains; and when in the 123rd degree of longitude, two islands attracted special attention.

One, Comba, of a conical shape, had all day been shooting up vast volumes of smoke. After dark, when at the distance of a couple of miles, we opened out the eastern side and observed the crater boiling over in immense masses, rolling down the side of the mountain, losing none of its brightness until it reached the sea, boiling the water.

[Illustration: _Comba._]

After passing Timor, and shaping a course more to the south-east, between the two small islands of Babi and Kambing (Pig and Goat), leaving Welta on our port side, we steered for Port Essington. A strong current set us to the westward.

When working up the Australian coast, we were boarded by a canoe, with a crew of six of the veriest-looking savages we had yet beheld.

[Sidenote: Nov. 11.]

One pair of trousers, the only article of apparel between them. The then wearer announced himself, in tolerable English, as one of the tribe attached to the settlement of Port Essington.

[Sidenote: Nov. 12.]

We came to on the evening of November 12, in the outer anchorage, and communicated to Captain M‘Arthur, then in command of the Royal Marines, the agreeable and unexpected intelligence that we were come to remove them.

While the garrison rejoiced, the natives, especially the women, showed their grief by cutting their heads and faces with sharp flints, and otherwise disfiguring their already unprepossessing persons.

Port Essington is situated on Coburg Peninsula, at the most northern part of Australia. It was discovered by Captain Philip King, in his survey between the years of 1818 and 1821; and formed, after the settlements of Melville Island and Raffles Bay had been abandoned, a harbour of refuge for vessels bound through Torres Straits, as well as a convenient place for holding commercial intercourse with the Eastern Archipelago.

The settlement was established by Captain Sir J. Gordon Bremer in the _Alligator_, assisted by Commander Owen Stanley in the _Britomart_ in October 1838.

They named the town Victoria: it consisted of a few wooden houses and small huts, sufficient for the accommodation of the garrison, built near the head of the harbour, some sixteen miles from the entrance. A better site might have been selected nearer the sea, which would have been cooler, and better supplied with water.

[Illustration: Mæander _off Port Essington_.]

A deeper anchorage, too, might have been considered; although, for convenience, we took the _Mæander_ up off the settlement, we were much too near the bottom had it been the stormy season.

The country about Port Essington is undulating; there are ranges of hills 10 or 15 miles from the settlement, rising to about 450 feet, visible from the harbour.

It is an unhealthy climate; the most frequent afflictions are intermittent fevers and impairment of the digestive organs, caused by the moist heat of the land-locked harbour, the swamps, and mangrove marshes.

There are tribes of natives on Coburg Peninsula, differing but little in physical appearance, manners, and customs, but speaking a different dialect. They meet occasionally to make corroboree, a kind of dramatic dance, more famous for its noise than anything else.

A dread of invasion from the cannibal tribes in the interior made them unite, and was another cause of regret at the removal of the marines.

[Illustration: _An Australian Grave._]

When a native dies, he is wrapped in the bark of a tree, and bound round with cord.

A stage is made, by placing two forked branches, eight or ten feet in height, upright in the ground, the forks uppermost, distant from each other about five or six feet and facing the tree.

A piece of wood is placed transversely, resting on the upright branches. Upon this inclined stage the body, wrapped in its coffin of bark, is laid, and there it remains.

These places of deposit are avoided by the natives. Evil spirits haunt them; when they are obliged to pass, they carry a fire-stick to propitiate the spirit of darkness. Curiously enough, this mode of disposing of their dead is common all over Australia, and, to their credit, the blacks have never disturbed or defaced the graves of the Europeans buried at Port Essington.

We only remained long enough to be amused and interested with everything we saw, enjoying excursions into the country; and the fact of my having control over a quantity of damaged bread made the natives very obliging.

We had corroborees so often, that the kangaroo dance was as well performed on the main-deck of the _Mæander_, thousands of miles from where it originated, as we had seen it on the spot.

During our stay, shooting-parties were got up. The best of the lagoons are situated on the eastern side of the harbour; where there is a succession of them. The jungle, through which we rode, was open below but shaded overhead.

We were attended by marines who had been longest on the station, more intelligent in the jungle than the natives, who joined us for the sake of what they were likely to get to eat, were cheerful and obliging, and useful in carrying our ammunition, provender, and tents.

Among the marines there were a few who, having a taste for that sort of life, had for years supplied the settlement with game, and eventually became experienced hunters, and excelled the natives in sagacity in all that appertains to the mysteries of the jungle.

These men alone were enough to make a bush-party agreeable.

Highest in military rank was Sergeant Copp, a steady, untiring, keen sportsman. Corporals Rowe, Chalford, and Jeffries were all good shots, good-tempered, hard-working fellows, for whom the natives would do anything.

It was wonderful to see the dexterity with which they would light a fire and erect a bush-hut.

They were all cooks; Private Crayton, super-excellent. He had been a London butcher, and was sharp and intelligent.

Among them was Hutchings, a huge fellow. He used to prefer going alone, and never returned empty-handed; more generally hung round with game,--fifteen or twenty geese, a whole flock of ducks, a native companion or two as long as himself, two or three kangaroos, and a handkerchief full of small birds (specimens of natural history), the only part of him visible being his great red face, besmeared with perspiration and blood.

At the time of our visit these extensive swamps were, with the exception of occasional patches and a few holes, quite dry, and covered over with a crust of land clay sufficiently strong to bear our weight, but not that of our horses; the latter were nearly bogged on more than one occasion.

It was late the first day when we arrived on our ground, and we had only time to light fires and pitch our tents on the banks of a stream when the sun went down.

While we were preparing for supper, an iguana about two feet long ran past me, and at the same pace mounted a tree. I pointed out the disgusting animal to one of our natives. In less time than it takes me to write, he was caught by the tail, split up the back, spread out with skewers, roasted, and eaten.

Long before the break of day we heard that peculiar noise occasioned by the wings of wild-fowl: then came the low, distant cackle of geese, and the strange noise of the whistling-duck passing overhead.

I believe we were all alike in a state of excitement. Daylight came at last, but with it an excitement of another kind.

No one experiencing what we did, could ever forget the myriads of flies. Everything was black with them--the ground, the air, our food. They clung to our clothes, they stuck to our faces. To rid ourselves of them, we stripped and rushed into the water, diving to get clear--but no! they would hover about and swarm on any part of our bodies that appeared above the surface.

We were not entirely free for one moment, until we left them and our sport together. Never before had I fully understood the curse of that particular plague of Egypt.

However, by spreading a silk handkerchief over the head, and keeping it in its place with a light straw hat, we succeeded in protecting our necks and faces from the thickest of them; and as there was just sufficient wind to keep the corners of the head-dress flapping about, we thus partially disappointed our tormentors.

With the exception of this one drawback, better sport we could not have had. There was room for any number of guns.

The geese have one peculiarity--they perch upon trees, so that an unskilful sportsman may have, in his way, as much amusement as the man who brings down his geese right and left from a considerable height.

In spite of the flies we remained several days in nearly the same locality. Those who disliked them and preferred more violent exercise found it in the pursuit of kangaroo, only obtained with some pains and labour, but the tail afforded excellent soup.

The geese and ducks also we found delicious eating.

The lagoons, too, were excellent places for sport: they are between 200 and 300 acres in extent, surrounded by forest trees, and with numerous little retiring coves about them, in which we might conceal ourselves and watch for the game; but, except as retreats from the sun, which was oppressively hot, these hiding-places were not necessary, as the geese were such geese that they did not understand the use of powder and shot, and at the same time it seemed they imagined that on the top of a tree they were safe. If, after a while, one particular set got more knowing, there were often lagoons with fresh geese at no distance.

The natives will kill almost every kind of bird with their spears or throwing-sticks. With water-fowl they are so expert that by stealing close to them, or lying motionless for a while in one of the patches of water when the lagoons are dry, they catch their legs with their hands.

On observing, while shooting, a spot that looked as if it had only just been quitted by some wild beast, and not feeling quite comfortable, I questioned a native as to what it meant; he immediately imbedded his body into the muddy hole, and had I not seen him go in I should have trodden on him. One of their ways of taking a dirty advantage of the game!

On one occasion, while near the entrance to the harbour, a whole tribe of natives,--men, women, children, and dogs,--without the slightest hesitation entered the river to swim across, the small children holding on to the long hair of the mothers.

Within a few yards I observed a huge alligator asleep in the sun.

When the dusky tribe were safe across, I awoke my sleepy friend with the contents of both barrels. He lifted his head and sloped into the water, being only tickled with my No. 4.

We destroyed, according to orders, what still remained of the settlement. The buildings could have been of no use to the natives, and would probably have been the cause of bloodshed.

I said one day to “Bob,” an intelligent savage, “Do you intend to take possession of the Governor’s house after we are gone?”

He replied with an air of indifference, “I suppose I must.”

We heard afterwards that Bob had grown so conceited that they were under the necessity of putting a spear through his body.

We had another reason for not leaving the houses in anything like a habitable state: had they looked too comfortable there would have been an inducement to other parties to try their hands at a settlement on the same spot--an object that was not considered desirable by the Government.

There is no doubt that there should be some port or refuge for disabled ships or wrecked crews on this coast; and as soon as the corrected charts of the surveys of that zealous and indefatigable officer, the late Captain Owen Stanley, shall have been published, the channel by Torres Straits will be oftener frequented.

From what I could learn no better place could be found than Cape York or Port Albany, which have all the advantages Port Essington lacks, and are not more than a mile out of the way of vessels going from Sydney to India.

There were two schooners of forty or fifty tons that I amused myself in destroying with five-inch shells and a fuse which burns under water--passing a line under the bow and bringing the ends as far aft as the main-mast.

It was easy to attach a fuse and draw the shell close up to the keel. There was plenty of time to take up a position in my gig, half cable length astern, before the burning fuse reached the shell, when the explosion was beautiful. Some of the spars went into the air, while the bow and stern shook hands as they went below.

Besides what had been used for domestic purposes, there was a small mountain of empty casks which made a glorious attempt at fireworks before we left.

We left behind at Port Essington a number of cattle; there were already many quite wild in the bush that had escaped from the settlement at an earlier period and increased in numbers.

Several horses were also left. In our excursions I frequently noticed the footprints, not only of those that had been running wild for years, but of young foals.

The garrison, marching down to embark, with the band at their head, did not excite sufficient interest to draw the blackfellows, except a few of the softer sex, from their search for what they could find among the ruins of the buildings.

During our stay we lost our surgeon, Mr. John Clarke--a man who, by his kind and gentle manner and his amiable disposition, endeared himself to us all. He contracted a disease at Hong Kong, from which he never perfectly recovered.