A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels Volume Xiii Part 27

In eating, they are easily satisfied, though the few that are rich have many savory dishes. Rice, with a small proportion of flesh or fish, is the food of the poor; and they have greatly the advantage of the Mahometan Indians, whose religion forbids them to eat of many things which they could most easily procure. The Chinese, on the contrary, being under no restraint, eat, besides pork, dogs, cats, frogs, lizards, serpents of many kinds, and a great variety of sea-animals, which the other inhabitants of this country do not consider as food: They also eat many vegetables, which an European, except he was peris.h.i.+ng with hunger, would never touch.[157]

[Footnote 157: The reader may turn to our account of Anson's voyage for some particulars respecting their taste. Indeed, in almost every voyage he will find abundantly disgusting information of this singularly unamiable people. It is but fair, however, to allow them credit for one of the virtues of necessity. Their capability of subsisting on such food as others reject, is a very requisite part of education in their own country, where the danger of famine is so great and frequent.--E.]

The Chinese have a singular superst.i.tion with regard to the burial of their dead; for they will upon no occasion open the ground a second time where a body has been interred. Their burying-grounds, therefore, in the neighbourhood of Batavia, cover many hundred acres, and the Dutch, grudging the waste of so much land, will not sell any for this purpose but at the most exorbitant price. The Chinese, however, contrive to raise the purchase-money, and afford another instance of the folly and weakness of human nature, in transferring a regard for the living to the dead, and making that the object of solicitude and expence, which cannot receive the least benefit from either. Under the influence of this universal prejudice, they take an uncommon method to preserve the body entire, and prevent the remains of it from being mixed with the earth that surrounds it. They enclose it in a large thick coffin of wood, not made of planks joined together, but hollowed out of the solid timber like a canoe; this being covered, and let down into the grave, is surrounded with a coat of their mortar, called chinam, about eight or ten inches thick, which in a short time becomes as hard as a stone. The relations of the deceased attend the funeral ceremony, with a considerable number of women that are hired to weep: It might reasonably be supposed that the hired appearance of sorrow could no more flatter the living than benefit the dead, yet the appearance of sorrow is known to be hired among people much more reflective and enlightened than the Chinese. In Batavia, the law requires that every man should be buried according to his rank, which is in no case dispensed with; so that if the deceased has not left sufficient to pay his debts, an officer takes an inventory of what was in his possession when he died, and out of the produce buries him in the manner prescribed, leaving only the overplus to his creditors. Thus in many instances are the living sacrificed to the dead, and money that should discharge a debt, or feed an orphan, lavished in idle processions, or materials that are deposited in the earth to rot.[158]

[Footnote 158: Their veneration for the dead is certainly excessive, and by no means in unison with the rest of their character, which seems to be made up of the grossest selfishness, avarice, and apathy. They often visit the graves of their friends, strew flowers around them, and when they leave them, deposit presents and sundry articles of provisions, which, of course, are soon removed, though not by the dead. In this, respect, then, it is very obvious that their mourning may not be quite useless to the living.--E.]

Another numerous cla.s.s among the inhabitants of this country is the slaves; for by slaves the Dutch, Portuguese, and Indians, however different in their rank or situation, are constantly attended: They are purchased from Sumatra, Malacca, and almost all the eastern islands.

The natives of Java, very few of whom, as I have before observed, live in the neighbourhood of Batavia, have an exemption from slavery under the sanction of very severe penal laws, which I believe are seldom violated. The price of these slaves is from ten to twenty pounds sterling; but girls, if they have beauty, sometimes fetch a hundred.

They are a very lazy set of people; but as they will do but little work, they are content with a little victuals, subsisting altogether upon boiled rice, and a small quant.i.ty of the cheapest fish. As they are natives of different countries, they differ from each other extremely, both in person and disposition. The African negroes, called here _Papua_, are the worst, and consequently may be purchased for the least money: They are all thieves, and all incorrigible. Next to these are the Bougis and Maca.s.sars, both from the island of Celebes: These are lazy in the highest degree, and though not so much addicted to theft as the negroes, have a cruel and vindictive spirit, which renders them extremely dangerous, especially as, to gratify their resentment, they will make no scruple of sacrificing life. The best slaves, and consequently the dearest, are procured from the island of Bali: The most beautiful women from Nias, a small island on the coast of Sumatra; but they are of a tender and delicate const.i.tution, and soon fall a sacrifice to the unwholesome air of Batavia.[159] Besides these, there are Malays, and slaves of several other denominations, whose particular characteristics I do not remember.

[Footnote 159: Other causes operate to the early extinction of these unfortunate females,--the l.u.s.ts of their masters, and the cruel jealousy, ingenious and discriminating in torture, of their mistresses.

Stavorinus well explains what is here meant. Speaking of the ladies of Batavia, he writes to this effect. In common with most women in India, they have an extreme jealousy of their husbands and female slaves. If they observe the least familiarity between them, they set no bounds to their revenge against the poor creatures, who, in general, have no alternative but that of gratifying their masters, or experiencing very harsh usage from them. On such discovery, their mistresses punish them in different ways, whipping them with ropes; or beating them with canes, till they fall down exhausted. One of the modes of tormenting them, is to pinch them with their toes in a certain tender part, against which their vengeance is chiefly directed; for this purpose, these wretched girls are made to sit before them in a peculiar position, and so exquisite is their suffering, that they often faint away. Indeed, the refinements in cruelty practised on them almost exceed belief.--E.]

These slaves are wholly in the power of their masters, with respect to any punishment that does not take away life; but if a slave dies in consequence of punishment, though his death should not appear to have been intended, the master is called to a severe account, and he is generally condemned to suffer capitally. For this reason the master seldom inflicts punishment upon the slave himself, but applies to an officer called a Marineu, one of whom is stationed in every district.

The duty of the Marineu is to quell riots, and take offenders into custody; but more particularly to apprehend runaway slaves, and punish them for such crimes as the master, supported by proper evidence, lays to their charge: The punishment, however, is not inflicted by the Marineu in person, but by slaves who are bred up to the business. Men are punished publicly, before the door of their master's house; but women within it. The punishment is, by stripes, the number being proportioned to the offence; and they are given with rods made of rattans, which are split into slender twigs for the purpose, and fetch blood at every stroke. A common punishment costs the master a rix-dollar, and a severe one a ducatoon, about six s.h.i.+llings and eight-pence. The master is also obliged to allow the slave three dubbelcheys, equal to about seven-pence half-penny a-week, as an encouragement, and to prevent his being under temptations to steal, too strong to be resisted.

Concerning the government of this place I can say but little. We observed, however, a remarkable subordination among the people. Every man who is able to keep house has a certain specific rank, acquired by the length of his services to the Company: The different ranks which are thus acquired are distinguished by the ornaments of the coaches and the dresses of the coachmen: Some are obliged to ride in plain coaches, some are allowed to paint them in different manners and degrees, and some to gild them. The coachman also appears in clothes that are quite plain, or more or less adorned with lace.[160]

[Footnote 160: The distinctions of rank, and all the punctilios of the respective ceremonies and homage, are attended to at Batavia with the most religious exactness. Stavorinus specifies many instances, which, to some readers, it might be amusing enough to transcribe. But in fact, and to be honest, the writer has neither time, inclination, nor patience to interfere with such mummeries, or investigate the claims to precedency and peculiarly modified respect set up by Dutch merchants, and their still more consequential spouses. He has not the smallest pretensions to the office of master of the ceremonies for any society whatever.--E.]

The officer who presides here has the t.i.tle of Governor General of the Indies, and the Dutch governors of all the other settlements are subordinate to him, and obliged to repair to Batavia that he may pa.s.s their accounts. If they appear to have been criminal, or even negligent, he punishes them by delay, and detains them during pleasure, sometimes one year, sometimes two years, and sometimes three; for they cannot quit the place till he gives them a dismission. Next to the governor are the members of the council, called here _Edele Heeren_, and by the corruption of the English, _Idoleers_. These Idoleers take upon them so much state, that whoever meets them in a carriage is expected to rise up and bow, then to drive on one side of the road, and there stop till they are past: The same homage is required also to their wives, and even their children; and it is commonly paid them by the inhabitants. But some of our captains have thought so slavish a mark of respect beneath the dignity which they derive from the service of his Britannic majesty, and have refused to pay it; yet, if they were in a hired carriage, nothing could deter the coachman from honouring the Dutch grandee at their expence, but the most peremptory menace of immediate death.[161]

[Footnote 161: The reader will remember what Captain Carteret says on this subject, in the account given of his voyage.--E.]

Justice is administered here by a body of lawyers, who have ranks of distinction among themselves. Concerning their proceedings in questions of property, I know nothing; but their decisions in criminal cases seem to be severe with respect to the natives, and lenient with respect to their own people, in a criminal degree. A Christian always is indulged with an opportunity of escaping before he is brought to a trial, whatever may have been his offence; and if he is brought to a trial and convicted, he is seldom punished with death; while the poor Indians, on the contrary, are hanged, and broken upon the wheel, and even impaled alive without mercy.[162]

[Footnote 162: Impalement, as practised at Batavia, is one of the most shocking punishments ever invented. An iron spike, about six feet long, is forcibly pa.s.sed between the back-bone and the skin from the lower part of the body, where a cross cut is made for its insertion, till it come out betwixt the shoulders and neck, the executioner guiding the point of it so that none of the vitals or large blood vessels may be wounded. The under end of the spike is afterwards made fast to a wooden post, which is then stuck into the ground, so that the miserable wretch is raised aloft, where he is supported partly by the iron spike in his skin, and partly by a little bench, projecting about ten feet from the ground. He may remain alive in this most cruel situation for several days, during which period he is tortured besides with hunger and thirst, for no victuals, of any kind, are allowed him; and numerous insects also continually torment him in the fervent heat of the sun. His misery is the greater and longer, as the weather is clear and dry. Should a shower of rain fall, he is soon relieved from torment, as it is noticed that any water getting into the wounds speedily induces gangrene and death.

Stavorinus saw an execution of this sort, and relates some very affecting particulars. The fort.i.tude of the wretched sufferer was astonis.h.i.+ng. He uttered no complaint, unless when the spike was fastened to the post, when the agitation occasioned by hammering, &c. appeared to give him intolerable pain, so that he roared out. He did so again when the post was lifted up and put into the ground. In this dreadful situation he continued till death ended his torment, which happened next day. This was owing to a light shower of rain, of about an hour's continuance, half an hour after which he breathed his last. He continually complained of thirst, which no one was allowed to relieve by a single drop of water.--E.]

The Malays and Chinese have judicial officers of their own, under the denominations of captains and lieutenants, who determine in civil cases, subject to an appeal to the Dutch court.

The taxes paid by these people to the Company are very considerable; and that which is exacted of them for liberty to wear their hair, is by no means the least. They are paid monthly, and, to save the trouble and charge of collecting them, a flag is hoisted upon the top of a house in the middle of the town when a payment is due, and the Chinese have experienced that it is their interest to repair thither with their money without delay.

The money current here consists of ducats, worth a hundred and thirty-two stivers; ducatoons, eighty stivers; imperial rix-dollars, sixty; rupees of Batavia, thirty; sch.e.l.lings, six; double cheys, two stivers and a half; and doits, one fourth of a stiver. Spanish dollars, when we were here, were at five s.h.i.+llings and five-pence; and we were told, that they were never lower than five s.h.i.+llings and four-pence, even at the Company's warehouse. For English guineas we could never get more than nineteen s.h.i.+llings upon an average; for though the Chinese would give twenty s.h.i.+llings for some of the brightest, they would give no more than seventeen s.h.i.+llings for those that were much worn.

It may perhaps be of some advantage to strangers to be told that there are two kinds of coin here, of the same denomination, milled and unmilled, and that the milled is of most value. A milled ducatoon is worth eighty stivers; but an unmilled ducatoon is worth no more than seventy-two. All accounts are kept in rix-dollars and stivers, which, here at least, are mere nominal coins, like our pound sterling. The rix-dollar is equal to forty-eight stivers, about four s.h.i.+llings and six-pence English currency.[163]

[Footnote 163: The reader need scarcely be informed, that the statements given in the text as to the respective value of the coin, are fitted to the circ.u.mstances of the period at which the account of the voyage was published. It was thought unnecessary to correct them to the present times in this place.--E.]

SECTION XL.

_The Pa.s.sage from Batavia to the Cape of Good Hope. Some Account of Prince's Island and its Inhabitants. Our Arrival at the Cape of Good Hope. Some Remarks on the Run from Java Head to that Place, and to Saint Helena. The Return of the s.h.i.+p to England_.[164]

[Footnote 164: The original contains some remarks on the language of Prince's Island, and a comparative view of it with the Malay and Javanese. These have been omitted, because another opportunity will present of treating the subject more fully than could be done here, without antic.i.p.ating information which belongs to another place. Much additional light has been thrown on this interesting topic since the date of this navigation.--E.]

On Thursday the 27th of December, at six o'clock in the morning, we weighed again and stood out to sea. After much delay by contrary winds, we weathered Pulo Pare on the 29th, and stood in for the main: Soon after, we fetched a small island under the main, in the midway between Batavia and Bantam, called Maneater's Island. The next day, we weathered first Wapping Island, and then Pulo Babi. On the 31st, we stood over to the Sumatra sh.o.r.e; and on the morning of new-year's-day, 1771, we stood over for the Java sh.o.r.e.

We continued our course as the wind permitted us till three o'clock in the afternoon of the 5th, when we anch.o.r.ed under the south-east side of Prince's Island in eighteen fathom, in order to recruit our wood and water, and procure refreshments for the sick, many of whom were now become much worse than they were when we left Batavia. As soon as the s.h.i.+p was secured, I went ash.o.r.e, accompanied by Mr Banks and Dr Solander, and we were met upon the beach by some Indians, who carried us immediately to a man, who, they said, was their king. After we had exchanged a few compliments with his majesty, we proceeded to business; but in settling the price of turtle we could not agree: This however did not discourage us, as we made no doubt but that we should buy them at our own price in the morning. As soon as we parted, the Indians dispersed, and we proceeded along the sh.o.r.e in search of a watering-place. In this we were more successful; we found water very conveniently situated, and, if a little care was taken in filling it, we had reason to believe that it would prove good. Just as we were going off, some Indians, who remained with a canoe upon the beach, sold us three turtle, but exacted a promise of us that we should not tell the king.

The next morning, while a party was employed in filling water, we renewed our traffic for turtle: At first, the Indians dropped their demands slowly, but about noon they agreed to take the price that we offered, so that before night we had turtle in plenty: The three that we had purchased the evening before, were in the mean time served to the s.h.i.+p's company, who, till the day before, had not once been served with salt provisions from the time of our arrival at Savu, which was now near four months. In the evening, Mr Banks went to pay his respects to the king, at his palace, in the middle of a rice field, and though his majesty was busily employed in dressing his own supper, he received the stranger very graciously.

The next day, the natives came down to the trading place, with fowls, fish, monkies, small deer, and some vegetables, but no turtle; for they said that we had bought them all the day before. The next day, however, more turtle appeared at market, and some were brought down every day afterwards, during our stay, though the whole, together, was not equal to the quant.i.ty that we bought the day after our arrival.

On the 11th, Mr Banks having learnt from the servant whom he had hired at Batavia, that the Indians of this island had a town upon the sh.o.r.e, at some distance to the westward, determined to see it. With this view he set out in the morning, accompanied by the second lieutenant; and as he had some reason to think that his visit would not be agreeable to the inhabitants, he told the people whom he met, as he was advancing along the sh.o.r.e, that he was in search of plants, which indeed was also true.

In about two hours they arrived at a place where there were four or five houses, and meeting with an old man, they ventured to make some enquiries concerning the town. He said that it was far distant; but they were not to be discouraged in their enterprize, and he, seeing them proceed in their journey, joined company and went on with them. He attempted several times to lead them out of the way, but without success; and at length they came within sight of the houses. The old man then entered cordially into their party, and conducted them into the town. The name of it is Samadang; it consists of about four hundred houses, and is divided by a river of brackish water into two parts, one of which is called the old town, and the other the new. As soon as they entered the old town, they met several Indians whom they had seen at the trading-place, and one of them undertook to carry them over to the new town, at the rate of two-pence a-head. When the bargain was made, two very small canoes were produced, in which they embarked; the canoes being placed along-side of each other, and held together, a precaution which was absolutely necessary to prevent their oversetting, the navigation was at length safely performed, though not without some difficulty; and when they landed in the new town, the people received them with great friends.h.i.+p, and showed them the houses of their kings and princ.i.p.al people, which are in this district: Few of them, however, were open, for at this time the people had taken up their residence in the rice-grounds, to defend the crop against the birds and monkies, by which it would otherwise have been destroyed. When their curiosity was satisfied, they hired a large sailing boat for two rupees, four s.h.i.+llings, which brought them back to the s.h.i.+p time enough to dine upon one of the small deer, weighing only forty pounds, which had been bought the day before, and proved to be very good and savoury meat.

We went on sh.o.r.e in the evening, to see how the people who were employed in wooding and watering went on, and were informed that an axe had been stolen. As the pa.s.sing over this fault might encourage the commission of others of the same kind, application was immediately made to the king, who, after some altercation, promised that the axe should be restored in the morning; and kept his word, for it was brought to us by a man who pretended that the thief, being afraid of a discovery, had privately brought it and left it at his house in the night.

We continued to purchase between two and three hundred weight of turtle in a day, besides fowls and other necessaries; and in the evening of the 13th, having nearly completed our wood and water, Mr Banks went ash.o.r.e to take leave of his majesty, to whom he had made several trifling presents, and at parting gave him two quires of paper, which he graciously received. They had much conversation, in the course of which his majesty enquired, why the English did not touch there as they had been used to do. Mr Banks replied, that he supposed it was because they found a deficiency of turtle, of which there not being enough to supply one s.h.i.+p, many could not be expected. To supply this defect, he advised his majesty to breed cattle, buffaloes, and sheep, a measure which he did not seem much inclined to adopt.

On the 14th, we made ready to sail, having on board a good stock of refreshments, which we purchased of the natives, consisting of turtle, fowl, fish, two species of deer, one as big as a sheep, the other not larger than a rabbit; with cocoa-nuts, plantains, limes, and other vegetables. The deer, however, served only for present use, for we could seldom keep one of them alive more than four-and-twenty hours after it was on board. On our part, the trade was carried on chiefly with Spanish dollars, the natives seeming to set little value upon any thing else; so that our people, who had a general permission to trade, parted with old s.h.i.+rts and other articles, which they were obliged to subst.i.tute for money, to great disadvantage. In the morning of the 15th, we weighed, with a light breeze at N.E. and stood out to sea. Java Head, from which I took my departure, lies in lat.i.tude 6 49' S., longitude 258 12' W.

Prince's Island, where we lay about ten days, is, in the Malay language, called _Pulo Selan_, and in the language of the inhabitants, _Pulo Paneitan_. It is a small island, situated in the western mouth of the Streight of Sunda. It is woody, and a very small part of it only has been cleared: There is no remarkable hill upon it, yet the English call the small eminence which is just over the landing-place the Pike. It was formerly much frequented by the India s.h.i.+ps of many nations, but especially those of England, which of late have forsaken it, as it is said, because the water is bad; and touch either at North Island, a small island that lies on the coast of Sumatra, without the east entrance of the streight, or at Mew Bay, which lies only a few leagues from Prince's Island, at neither of which places any considerable quant.i.ty of other refreshments can be procured. Prince's Island is, upon the whole, certainly more eligible than either of them; and though the water is brackish if it is filled at the lower part of the brook, yet higher up it will be found excellent.

The first and second, and perhaps the third s.h.i.+p that comes in the season, may be tolerably supplied with turtle; but those that come afterwards must be content with small ones. Those that we bought were of the green kind, and at an average cost us about a half-penny or three farthings a pound. We were much disappointed to find them neither fat nor well flavoured; and we imputed it to their having been long kept in crawls or pens of brackish water, without food. The fowls are large, and we bought a dozen of them for a Spanish dollar, which is about five-pence a-piece: The small deer cost us two-pence a-piece, and the larger, of which two only were brought down, a rupee. Many kinds of fish are to be had here, which the natives sell by hand, and we found them tolerably cheap. Cocoa-nuts we bought at the rate of a hundred for a dollar, if they were picked; and if they were taken promiscuously, one hundred and thirty. Plantains we found in great plenty: We procured also some pine-apples, water melons, jaccas, and pumpkins; besides rice, the greater part of which was of the mountain kind, that grows on dry land; yams, and several other vegetables, at a very reasonable rate.

The inhabitants are Javanese, whose Raja is subject to the Sultan of Bantam. Their customs are very similar to those of the Indians about Batavia; but they seem to be more jealous of their women, for we never saw any of them during all the time we were there, except one by chance in the woods, as she was running away to hide herself. They profess the Mahometan religion, but I believe there is not a mosque in the whole island: We were among them during the fast, which the Turks call _Ramadan_, which they seemed to keep with great rigour, for not one of them would touch a morsel of victuals, or even chew their betel, till sun-set.

Their food is nearly the same as that of the Batavian Indians, except the addition of the nuts of the palm, called _Cycas circinalis_, with which, upon the coast of New Holland, some of our people were made sick, and some of our hogs poisoned.

Upon observing these nuts to be part of their food, we enquired by what means they deprived them of their deleterious quality; and they told us, that, they first cut them into thin slices, and dried them in the sun; then steeped them in fresh water for three months, and afterwards, pressing out the water, dried them in the sun a second time; but we learnt that, after all, they are eaten only in times of scarcity, when they mix them with their rice to make it go farther.

The houses of their town are built upon piles, or pillars, four or five feet above the ground: Upon these is laid a floor of bamboo canes, which are placed at some distance from each other, so as to leave a free pa.s.sage for the air from below; the walls also are of bamboo, which are interwoven, hurdlewise, with small sticks, that are fastened perpendicularly to the beams which form the frame of the building: It has a sloping roof, which is so well thatched with palm leaves, that neither the sun nor the rain can find entrance. The ground over which this building is erected, is an oblong square. In the middle of one side is the door, and in the middle between that and the end of the house, towards the left hand, is a window: A part.i.tion runs out from each end towards the middle, which, if continued, would divide the whole floor into two equal parts, longitudinally; but they do not meet in the middle, so that an opening is left over-against the door: Each end of the house therefore, to the right and left of the door, is divided into two rooms, like stalls in a stable, all open towards the pa.s.sage from the door to the wall on the opposite side: In that next the door to the left hand, the children sleep; that opposite to it, on the right hand, is allotted to strangers; the master and his wife sleep in the inner room on the left hand, and that opposite to it is the kitchen. There is no difference between the houses of the poor and the rich, but in the size; except that the royal palace, and the house of a man, whose name was _Gundang_, the next in riches and influence to the king, were walled with boards, instead of being wattled with sticks and bamboo.

As the people are obliged to abandon the town, and live in the rice-fields at certain seasons, to secure their crops from the birds and the monkies, they have occasional houses there for their accommodation.

They are exactly the same as the houses in the town, except that they are smaller, and are elevated eight or ten feet above the ground instead of four.

The disposition of the people, as far as we could discover it, is good.

They dealt with us very honestly, except, like all other Indians, and the itinerant retailers of fish in London, they asked sometimes twice, and sometimes thrice as much for their commodities as they would take.

As what they brought to market belonged, in different proportions, to a considerable number of the natives, and it would have been difficult to purchase it in separate lots, they found out a very easy expedient, with which every one was satisfied: They put all that was bought of one kind, as plantains, or cocoa-nuts, together; and when we had agreed for the heap, they divided the money that was paid for it among those of whose separate property it consisted, in a proportion corresponding with their contributions. Sometimes, indeed, they changed our money, giving us 240 doits, amounting to five s.h.i.+llings, for a Spanish dollar, and ninety-six, amounting to two s.h.i.+llings, for a Bengal rupee.

They all speak the Malay language, though they have a language of their own, different both from the Malay and the Javanese. Their own language they call _Catta Gunung_, the language of the mountains; and they say that it is spoken upon the mountains of Java, whence their tribe originally migrated, first to Mew Bay, and then to their present station, being driven from their first settlement by tygers, which they found too numerous to subdue.

We now made the best of our way for the Cape of Good Hope, but the seeds of disease which we had received at Batavia began to appear with the most threatening symptoms in dysenteries and slow fevers. Lest the water which we had taken in at Prince's Island should have any share in our sickness, we purified it with lime, and we washed all parts of the s.h.i.+p between decks with vinegar, as a remedy against infection. Mr Banks was among the sick, and for some time there was no hope of his life. We were very soon in a most deplorable situation; the s.h.i.+p was nothing better than an hospital, in which those that were able to go about were too few to attend the sick, who were confined to their hammocks; and we had almost every night a dead body to commit to the sea. In the course of about six weeks, we buried Mr Sporing, a gentleman who was in Mr Banks's retinue, Mr Parkinson, his natural history painter, Mr Green, the astronomer, the boatswain, the carpenter and his mate, Mr Monkhouse, the mids.h.i.+pman, who had fothered the s.h.i.+p after she had been stranded on the coast of New Holland, our old jolly sail-maker and his a.s.sistant, the s.h.i.+p's cook, the corporal of the marines, two of the carpenter's crew, a mids.h.i.+pman, and nine seamen; in all three-and-twenty persons, besides the seven that we buried at Batavia.[165] On Friday the 15th of March, about ten o'clock in the morning, we anch.o.r.ed off the Cape of Good Hope, in seven fathom, with an oozy bottom. The west point of the bay, called the Lion's Tail, bore W.N.W., and the castle S.W., distant about a mile and a half. I immediately waited upon the governor, who told me that I should have every thing the country afforded. My first care was to provide a proper place ash.o.r.e for the sick, which were not a few; and a house was soon found, where it was agreed they should be lodged and boarded at the rate of two s.h.i.+llings a-head per day.

[Footnote 165: In the Biog. Brit. where a summary of Cook's Voyages is given, an observation is made on this melancholy part of the narrative, which the reader may not be displeased to see copied here. "It is probable that these calamitous events, which could not fail of making a powerful impression on the mind of Lieutenant Cook, might give occasion to his turning his thoughts more zealously to those methods of preserving the health of seamen, which he afterwards pursued with such remarkable success." These methods will be amply detailed hereafter.--E.]

Our run from Java Head to this place afforded very few subjects of remark that can be of use to future navigators; such as occurred, however, I shall set down. We had left Java Head eleven days before we got the general south-east trade-wind, during which time we did not advance above 5 to the southward, and 3 to the west, having variable light airs, interrupted by calms, with sultry weather, and an unwholesome air, occasioned probably by the load of vapours which the eastern trade-wind and westerly monsoons bring into these lat.i.tudes, both which blow in these seas at the time of the year when we happened to be there. The easterly wind prevails as far as 10 or 12 S., and the westerly as far as 6 or 8; in the intermediate s.p.a.ce the winds are variable, and the air, I believe, always unwholesome; it certainly aggravated the diseases which we brought with us from Batavia, and particularly the flux, which was not in the least degree checked by any medicine, so that whoever was seized with it considered himself as a dead man; but we had no sooner got into the trade-wind, than we began to feel its salutary effects: We buried indeed several of our people afterwards, but they were such as had been taken on board in a state so low and feeble that there was scarcely a possibility of their recovery.

At first we suspected that this dreadful disorder might have been brought upon us by the water that we took on board at Prince's Island, or even by the turtle that we bought there; but there is not the least reason to believe that this suspicion was well-grounded, for all the s.h.i.+ps that came from Batavia at the same season, suffered in the same degree, and some of them even more severely, though none of them touched at Prince's Island in their way.

A few days after we left Java, we saw b.o.o.bies about the s.h.i.+p for several nights successively, and as these birds are known to roost every night on sh.o.r.e, we thought them an indication that some island was not far distant; perhaps it might be the island of Selam, which, in different charts, is very differently laid down both in name and situation.

The variation of the compa.s.s off the west coast of Java, is about 3 W., and so it continued without any sensible variation, in the common track of s.h.i.+ps, to the longitude of 288 W., lat.i.tude 22 S., after which it increased apace, so that in longitude 295, lat.i.tude 23, the variation was 10 20' W.: In seven degrees more of longitude, and one of lat.i.tude, it increased two degrees; in the same s.p.a.ce farther to the west, it increased five degrees: In lat.i.tude 28, longitude 314, it was 24, 20', in lat.i.tude 29, longitude 317, it was 26 10', and was then stationary for the s.p.a.ce of about ten degrees farther to the west; but in lat.i.tude 34, longitude 333, we observed it twice to be 28 1/4 W., and this was its greatest variation, for in lat.i.tude 35 1/2 longitude 337, it was 24, and continued gradually to decrease; so that off Cape Anguillas it was 22 30', and in Table Bay 20 30' W.

As to currents, it did not appear that they were at all considerable, till we came within a little distance of the meridian of Madagascar; for after we had made 52 of longitude from Java Head, we found, by observation, that our error in longitude was only two degrees, and it was the same when we had made only nineteen. This error might be owing partly to a current setting to the westward, partly to our not making proper allowances for the setting of the sea before which we run, and perhaps to an error in the a.s.sumed longitude of Java Head. If that longitude is erroneous, the error must be imputed to the imperfection of the charts of which I made use in reducing the longitude from Batavia to that place, for there can be no doubt but that the longitude of Batavia is well determined. After we had pa.s.sed the longitude of 307, the effects of the westerly currents began to be considerable; for, in three days, our error in longitude was 1 5': The velocity of the current kept increasing as we proceeded to the westward, in so much, that for five days successively after we made the land, we were driven to the S.W. or S.W. by W., not less than twenty leagues a-day; and this continued till we were within sixty or seventy leagues of the Cape, where the current set sometimes one way, and sometimes the other, though inclining rather to the westward.