A Voyage to Cochin China

Front matter

A VOYAGE TO COCHIN CHINA. London: Printed by A. & R.Spottiswoode, New-Street-Square, A VOYAGE TO COCHIN CHINA. BY JOHN WHITE, m LIEUTENANT IN THE UNITED STATES NAVV. Prodesse quam conspici. LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, BROWN, AND GREEN, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1824.

ADVERTISEMENT.

. 1 his volume was not originally intended ibr pub lication, but written as a Memoir to be deposited in the archives of the " East India Marine Society of Salem." Some of the author's friends, how ever, who had read the manuscript, (among whom was the Hon. John Pickering, who kindly as sisted him with advice) conceived it of sufficient general interest to be published, and it is accord ingly submitted, " with all its imperfections upon its head." In regard to style, grammatical accuracy, and mode of arrangement, he requests his readers to bear in mind, that this is not a book written by a professed scholar, but the production of an un lettered seaman. In the course of the work, he has endeavoured to account for the discrepancy between his own humble though faithful narrative and descriptions, and the vague and disjointed ac counts of some former writers, by which the Co chin Chinese character is so differently represented.

Chapter I

Leave the Land. — Snow Storm — Attacked by a Portuguese ship. — Arrival at, and description qf, Saint Salvador. — Passage to Batavia. — Abrolkos Bank. — Description qf, and remarks on, Tristan d Acunha — Jonathan Lambert. — Passage qfthe Cape. — Arrival at Batavia. On Saturday the 2d day of January 1819 we sailed from Salem, and the next day had a severe gale, with snow, from the north-east. On the 4th of February crossed the Equator. On the 9th of the same month, in the afternoon, being in latitude of 5° 50' south, and longitude 29° 20' west, two sail of vessels were descried ahead, standing in the same direction with ourselves. We took little further notice of this incident, (as at this time of general peace the whole navigation of the world was in motion,) than to observe that we were approaching them rapidly, which excited a consequent emotion of exultation at the superiority of our sailing.

K At sunset we had approached so near as to see their hulls, which indicated a prospect of soon passing them. The evening, being pleasant, was passed on deck in conversation relative to past events, and in speculations on the future ; resources which seamen are often fain to adopt to relieve the tedium and monotony of a voyage. At 11 o'clock the two vessels, which had been obscured from our view by the darkness of the evening, were now perceived to be quite near. We saw that they were large ships, and that our course would lead us between them, and quite near the windward one ; on our near approach to which, on passing, and just while we were about to hail her, her crew poured, or intended probably to pour into us, the contents of their two stern chase guns. We were much surprised at this, and hailed them, demanding their reason for firing at us ; but so great was the confusion of voices on board the stranger, that we could not be heard.

We were rapidly passing them, and, as we ranged along, were successively saluted with five more guns, charged with grape, as we found by the shot which came on board, without however doing the least damage. We found by their language that they were Portuguese, and concluded that they mistook us for a Patriot privateer ; and by the small report of their guns, and imbecility of the fire, it was apparent that they must have been a long time charged, or their powder bad; perhaps both. As we had not deviated from our course during this rencontre, had reduced no sail, and sailed much faster than our uncivil neighbour, we were soon out of his reach, and little further notice was taken of the affair by us, than occasionally regret ting that our own guns had not been mounted at the time, which we conceived would have effec tually prevented him from having all the exercise on his side.

As we were at peace with all the world, it had not been considered necessary to take them on deck till we approached the straits of Sunda, and they were at this moment silently reclining on the ballast below. On the 11th February, in lat. 11° 4' south, and long. 31° 35' west, our main mast was discovered to be badly sprung, and it was deemed unsafe to proceed on our voyage without repairing it ; as it could not well be done at sea, we determined to repair immediately to St. Salvador, in the Bay ot All Saints, which was our nearest port, where we arrived on the 15th. The city of Bahia, or St. Salvador, is situated on a peninsula, which bounds, on the south side, the picturesque, safe, and capacious Bay of All Saints, and is said to contain one hundred thousand inhabitants, thirty thousand of which are white, and the residue negroes and mulattoes.

It is divided into the upper and lower towns, the latter of which is occupied by mechanics, traders, and the lower classes of the people ; it is at the foot of a precipitous hill, skirts the harbour, and is mean and dirty. Here are situated the counting-houses b and stores of the Brazil Company, and of the mer chants who reside in the upper town, (which is on the summit of the hill,) in handsome villas, com manding extensive prospects of the sea, the neigh bouring coasts, and the circumjacent country, with the picturesque bay, crowded with vessels of all nations, spread, like a map, at their feet. The upper town, which is approached by zig-zag roads on the face of the precipice, is tolerably regularly built. On each side of the great square are situated the palaces of the governor and the archbishop, with many superb public buildings, and the splendid mansions of the nobility and opulent gentry.

The streets are well paved, and the churches, built of the most costly materials, are crowded with deco rations of immense value, the voluntary contributions of superstitious devotees and zealous fanatics. The climate is healthy, the air salubrious and balmy, the soil kind and productive, and the com forts and necessaries of life abundant. The principal articles of export are gold and silver, jewellery, precious stones, sugar, rum, coffee, hides, jerked beef; cocoa, dye-woods, and tobacco ; the latter is a monopoly of the crown, and is said to produce a great revenue. Timber for ship-building is here found in o-reat abundance, and of very superior qualities, and the science of naval architecture has been carried to as great a degree of perfection as in any part of the world ; the artists of Bahia having produced some as fine and complete models of maritime beauty, in their Brazil ships, as any country can boast.

Their articles of import from the United States, with which a brisk trade has of late years been carried on, are principally dried and pickled fish, flour, butter, cheese, lumber, cabinet work, carriages, shoes, hats, &c. From Europe, besides some of the above articles, they receive woollen, cotton, linen, and silk stuffs, cutlery and fire-arms, wines, brandy, and various fancy articles. A coasting trade is pursued with the neighbouring provinces, and they have established a lucrative commerce with the East Indies. Most of the fruits which are produced within the tropics are found in the market, and a particular kind of orange, of large size and delicious flavour, without seeds, is here only indigenous. All Portuguese vessels, sailing from St. Salvador to Rio de Janeiro, are obliged to take with them a quantity of this fruit for the use of the royal family.

The inhabitants, like the Portuguese in general, are great bigots, and not very favourably disposed towards protestants; but the American and English residents, of which latter there are many, form a very agreeable society among themselves. The thermometer in the shade, at noon, ranged from 83° to 86° of Fahrenheit during our stay here. The latitude of Cape St. Salvador, the extreme point of the peninsula, (on which is situated Fort Cabo, commanding the entrance between it and the island of Taporica or Itaparica, which bounds b the west side of the channel,) is 12° 58' south, and the longitude 38° 13' west. From the Cape an ex tensive bank of coral projects out to the south and south-east : its extreme outer verge being a little more than two miles from the land, it is said not to have less than four fathoms of water on it, though by the ripplings caused by the rapidity of the tide over it, a stranger would suppose it to be much shoaler.

There is little or no variation of the compass here. On the 22d, having completed our repairs, and laid in a fresh stock of water and provisions, we sailed from St. Salvador. On the 25th we crossed the Abrolhos bank, our approach to which was indicated by the temperature of the water, and our arrival on it by the lead. Our shoalest water was 21 fathoms ; coarse grey and yellow sand, broken shells and coral. On the 12th of March we saw and passed the island of Tristan d'Acunha, through many shoals of kelp and other marine plants. This island, from recent circumstances, has acquired some celebrity, and excited no small degree of interest ; and this it was, of which, in the year 1811, Jonathan Lam bert of Salem took formal possession, issued a pro clamation indicative of his right to the soil, and invited navigators of all nations, whose route might lie near the island, to touch at his settlement for the refreshments needed on a long passage, and which, he anticipated, his industry would draw from the earth, and the adjacent sea ; and he signified his readiness to receive in payment whatever might be most convenient for his visitors to part with, that could be any way useful to him in his solitary abode.

For the purpose of being able to fulfil his engagements, he took with him to the island various implements of husbandry, seeds of the most useful culinary plants which grow in the United States, and, touching at South America, he there procured seeds, scions, &c. of many tropical plants, the fruits of which, he hoped, would not only be a very agreeable acquisition to his little colony for food, but would furnish an abundant supply to ships which might visit his establishment. He was also furnished with a variety of fishing apparatus, for which he found great use ; for in no part of the world are fish in greater plenty, of more delicious flavour, or taken with greater facility, than at this island. The shores abound in seals, sea-lions, sea elephants, and other amphibious animals ; and the cliffs and precipices are the resorts of innumerable flights of aquatic fowls, such as albatrosses, pen guins, pintados, sdver-wings, cape-hens, and various other kinds, which abound in the antarctic regions ; in the interior, wild hogs and goats are found.

The spot on which Lambert fixed his residence was the largest of a group of three islands, named Tristan d' Acunha, after the Portuguese discoverer ; the other two are situated six or seven leagues south-westerly, and are called respectively Night ingale and Inaccessible. They are all very high, mountainous, and rugged ; and the appearances of deep chasms, abrupt precipices, and various subb stances scattered about, which bear indisputable marks of the action of fire, indubitably indicate the volcanic origin of these islands. Tristan d' Acunha, excepting the peak, is clothed with verdure, and some trees of considerable size grow in the vallies ; the other islands of this group are barren, and present a very inhospitable aspect; a few stinted shrubs are seen in some places, cling ing to the sides of the deep fissures through which the mountain torrents rush during occasional rains, or the melting of the winter snows, which at times crown the rugged peaks of these alpine islands.

The island of Tristan d' Acunha affords abund ance of good fresh water ; the bay, or indentation called the road, though scarcely deserving that name, is situated on the north side of it, having deep water very near the shore, with a bottom of slimy black sand, and the bank of soundings is very precipitous, by which vessels are in danger of drifting from the anchorage with an off-shore wind, and with a sudden gale on shore, (which is not un frequent,) the hazard of shipwreck would be im minent. These reasons should deter vessels from anchoring, and induce them to lie by while their boats are on shore. A beautiful cascade of limpid water rushes from the mountains, and falls into a large basin near the landing place, from whence there is an outlet to the sea, through which it escapes over a bed of polished pebbles, and mingles with the ocean.

In watering, boats lie near the beach, and through a hose receive the water from this stream, without removing the casks. Some difficulty is experienced in approaching the shore by means of the vast quantities of kelp, or trumpet-weed, of immense size, which extend a considerable distance into the sea, and no small effort is necessary to overcome the resistance presented by this obstacle. Lambert and his associates had resided here nearly two years, and already had their industry been crowned with great success : they had collected a number of the skins of seals, sea lions, &c. and a considerable quantity of oil, from the same animals. The soil, congenial to the growth of the various kinds of plants, which they had naturalized there, had begun to reward their toils with a plentiful crop of roots, fruits, and pulse, and they were made happy in the fruition of their hopes, and in the flattering prospects of future independence, which were spread before them.

In the midst of the enlivening feelings which pervaded their minds on the success of their under taking, a melancholy incident took place, which rent asunder the bonds of this little society, and spread desolation over their domains. This was no less than the death of Lambert, the soul of their enterprize ; he is reported to have been drowned, while on a visit to one of the adjacent islands. Disheartened by this unfortunate occurrence, by which they were deprived of an intelligent leader, and distrusting their own powers to prosecute their original designs to a favourable issue, they shortly after this event quitted the island in a ship which touched there ; and in 1814 their huts were found falling to the ground, their enclosures in ruins, and every part of this once flourishing establishment marked with the devastations of time and neglect.

Tristan d' Acunha has since that period excited some attention, from the circumstance of its occu pation in 1816 by a company of British troops from the Cape of Good Hope, as an outpost of the army of surveillance stationed at St. Helena, the rugged and gloomy prison of Napoleon Bonaparte ; but this garrison was soon withdrawn, for the most obvious reasons, and which it is astonishing had not previously occurred to the projectors of this measure, and prevented its adoption. The most pro minent reasons were, (among many others,) that the island of Tristan d' Acunha could in no way faci litate the escape of Bonaparte from St. Helena, and that the anchorage was so bad that no vessels could lie there in safety, which latter objection was most painfully exemplified to them, in the shipwreck, and total loss of a sloop of war, with nearly all her crew, on the island, a short time previous to its abandonment by them.

The latitude of the peak of Tristan drAcunha is given at 37° 6' south, and longitude 11° 44' west: more recent observations give the longitude of the cascade at 12° 2' west ; and the latter, by that most able and intelligent navigator Horsburgh, is considered to be correct. The variation of the compass is about 10° westerly. We had the usual winds and weather experienced in passing the Cape of Good Hope, and in running up our Easting, which we did in the latitude of about 40° south. April 14th, we passed the islands of St. Paul's and Amsterdam, without seeing them however, the weather being very hazy ; and on the 4th of May, in the morning, we saw Java head, at noon entered the straits of Sunda, and on the 9th anchored in Batavia roads.

Chapter II

Departure from Batavia. — Straits of Banka. — Attacked by Pirates. — Arrival at, and description of, Mintow. — Island qf Banka. — Description qf Pirate Proas. — Commerce qf Banka. .Having replenished our stock of water and fresh provisions, and despatched some business which had called us to this place, we sailed on the 18th, and pursued our course for the ultimate destination of our outward voyage. On the 22d, having crossed the Java sea, we saw the island of Lucepera, at the southern entrance of the straits of Banka, and on the following day we entered those straits. The weather, which had been very sultry since our leav ing Batavia, had now become almost intolerable from the great heat; so that the heavy squalls of rain which we experienced every night, although ac companied with terrific thunder and lightning, were welcomed by us, for the refreshing coolness which attended them.

At 11 o'clock A.M. on the 24th, being abreast of Fourth Point, and contiguous to the mouth of the Palamban river, which falls into the straits of Banka, from the island of Sumatra, we discovered three large proas, as the Malay vessels are called, in the offing, standing for us, and as it was nearly calm, they, with the assistance of their oars, soon approached sufficiently near for us to discover that they were full of men, and had each two banks of oars, with a barricado built across their forecastles, above a man's height, and projecting out several feet beyond the gunwale, or top of the vessel, on each side, in the centre of which was a round per foration or embrasure, through which projected the muzzle of a large cannon. One of these vessels was larger than the others, wore a long pendant of blue and white longitudinal stripes, and acted as commodore, and they each wore a flag of a blue or dark green ground, with a white border at the mast, and on the upper and lower edges, but none at the fly.

We counted on one side of this boat thirty seven oars, and presuming both sides equal, she was propelled by seventy-four oars ; the other two, we thought, were about one quarter part less, giving them in the aggregate one hundred and eighty-five oars. These formidable and hostile ap pearances immediately designated them to us as a squadron of those piratical proas, which infest, more or less, all these straits between the Indian and Pacific oceans and the China sea, who are al ways on the watch for small or defenceless vessels, and who, emboldened by some late successes, have ventured to attack even men of war ; and so serious have been their depredations upon the commerce of the East, of late years, and so shocking to humanity their savage cruelty to their prisoners, (massacreing immediately all the Lascars, or native sailors on board the captured vessels, and putting to death, with the most lingering and agonizing tortures, all the Europeans or whites,) that merchant vessels seldom navigate singly those seas, but associate together for mutual protection against these barbarians, who are principally Malays.

As their intention was evidently' to attack us, preparations were made to repel them. It being nearly calm, they possessed a great advantage over us by means of their oars in point of manœuvring, and kept their heads or barricadoes constantly presented to us : they approached with a great appearance of resolution till nearly within range of our guns, when they began to slacken and kept aloof, probably for the purpose of reconnoitring. With a view of ascertaining their distance from us, we gave them a shot from a six pounder, which fell somewhat short of them ; immediately, as if electrified by this salute, every oar was set briskly to work, and they made directly for us, with every appearance of determined courage, tossing up the water with their oars, which moved without the least regularity, and assumed the appearance of the legs of a centipede in rapid motion.

They were permitted to ap proach within fair reach of our guns, when a broadside was given them of three six pounders. The shot of one passed over them, that of another dropped just under the quarter of the largest, and the third, striking the water a few yards short of her, bounded over her barricado, and was lost to our view. A great confusion was caused on board the the squadron by this specimen of our gunnery, and two smaller vessels pulled alongside of the commodore, where they lay for some time. We had now drifted by the current into shoal water, upon a sand that lies at some distance from the Sumatra side of the straits, when fortunately a breeze sprung up in the eastern quarter, and we were compelled to make a tack to the southward, to clear the shoal. A body of dark and dense clouds had been collecting for several hours, in the south, and now had ap proached quite near us, in the shape of a squall.

Our course to avoid the shoal, before mentioned, had led us about three miles to the southward of the enemy, who were still lying inactive, and we could perceive that the commodore had his mast down. The squall now came down upon us with a fresh breeze ; we immediately made all sad in our course, which was within a short distance of the pirates; on our approach to them, we prepared to give them another broadside with grape, langrage, and double round, but they thought proper to re tire as we passed. Being unwilling to have charged our guns to no purpose, we could not resist the im pulse which their piratical conduct had produced, and with a view to put our security beyond all question, to give them one more broadside, the shot striking round them like hail. The trucks of our gun carriages had been made of a species of wood which grows in the island of Sumatra, and was chosen for that purpose on ac count of its great hardness ; but another essential quality, that of being tough, and not liable to split, had been overlooked in the selection, for which omission we were on this occasion considerable suf ferers.

One of our guns had already become useless, in consequence of the brittle qualities of the trucks, and two of the others were much injured ; and our pleasure was by no means enhanced, on perceiving our enemies, who we afterwards found had been repairing damages, make all sail in pursuit, and keep up a constant fire upon us, which we returned, till our guns were all dismounted arid lay on deck. Their shot, however, did us no kind of injury, being spent short of us. Being now deprived of our artillery, and in case of calm having no means of defence but our small arms, which would have availed us Httle against such overwhelming numbers, we determined to steer for Mintow, a Dutch settlement in the island of Banka, then in sight, where we arrived in the evening, followed by our still troublesome pursuers, to within a short distance of the anchorage.

On the following morning we went on shore, and while landing were met by a peon or servant, who had been dispatched by the Master attendant to escort us to his office, where we, according to custom, made our report of our vessel, cargo and destination. After satisfying him in these respects, he directed an attendant to go with us and point out the house of the resident, by whom we were received with great civility ; and when he was informed of our reasons for touching at the settlement, he immediately gave orders to have us sup plied with powder and shot from the public magazines, as we had expended a great proportion of our original stock in the action with the pirates; and he supplied us from his own go-downs, as store houses are called in India, with a sufficient quantity of wood, (of which we had none proper on board,) suitable for gun trucks.

But on examination it was found that no shot could be spared us ; they how ever supplied us with four blocks of tin, which we cut up for langrage. On relating the action which we had the preceding day, and describing the pirate proas to the resident, he immediately recognised in them three armed vessels full of men, from the island of Lingin, a few leagues to the northward, who had a few days previous cut a vessel out of the roads in the night, directly under the guns of the fort; and he congratulated us on our escape from them, as they were well armed, and had taken from the prize just mentioned a considerable quantity of opium, with which they constantly kept themselves in a state of inebriety. He assured us that the guns we had seen on board them were brass eighteen pounders, that their crews were all armed with pikes, or spears, and javelins, and that they had several European muskets taken out of the prizes which had had the misfortune to fall into their hands, and in the use of c which they had become very expert.

He pointed out to us a small trading brig lying on the beach, which had belonged to a Chinese at Sincapoor, and which had been captured off the Nanka Islands, in Banka Straits, a few leagues to the eastward, by these very boats, and retaken a few days before by two Dutch gun boats, which had also captured one of their proas (now lying on the beach near the Chinese brig), the crew of which had fought with great desperation, nor did they yield till every man of them had been desperately wounded, and even then, while lying on deck, and incapable of stand ing, thrusting with their spears, and darting their javelins at their victors, by which some of the Dutch sailors were killed, and many others badly wounded, several of the latter of which had since died of their hurts, from the malignity of the poison with which the weapons of the pirates had been imbued.

The resident also informed us that the captured proa was about fifty-five feet long, and had twenty eight oars of a side on two banks. Her gun, which had been dismounted and lay on the shore, was an English brass eighteen pounder, with a sliding car riage, and that her barricado was composed of blocks of hewn timber, ten inches square, placed horizontally on each other, and secured together by trenails, about six feet high, projecting six feet out side the gunwale on each side, and the front of it covered with plates of iron. Her crew, of which only eighteen survived out of about an hundred, had added to the natural ferocity of their temper, by a free use of opium, combined with the juice of a root called bang ; these stimulants, when associated with their Mahometan persuasion of the doctrine of predestination, render them totally exempt from fear, produce the most ungovernable rage and des peration, and stimulate them to deeds of the most savage and diabolical barbarity.

On our return to the beach, for the purpose of going on board, we found the landing covered with soldiers, in fatigue uniform, who had just landed from a Dutch merchant ship from Batavia, then in the road ; we found that they had arrived but the day before, consisted of two companies of one hundred men each, and were a detachment of a body of four thousand troops recently sent out from Holland to occupy the island of Banka, pre paratory to a meditated descent on Palamban, on the opposite coast of Sumatra, a Dutch factory and fort which had been recently wrested from their hands by the reigning sultaun. They were fine-looking men, and appeared to be in high spirits. On arriving on board, we found that our carpen ter was rendered unfit for duty by a fall into the hold ; and at this time the accident was peculiarly unfortunate.

Stimulated, however, by necessity, all hands were immediately set to work upon the wood which had been procured on shore, and before sun set on the following day the united efforts of the officers and crew had produced a set of tolerable trucks for our guns, and they were mounted and put in order for use. In the afternoon a canoe with fish came along c side, of which we purchased a sufficiency for the ship's company at a reasonable rate. Our steward, who spoke the Malay language, learnt from the old man in the canoe, that he had been boarded in the offing a few hours since by the three proas who had attacked us on the preceding day ; and he was told by them that they had two men killed and one wounded on board the commodore, besides con derable damage done their vessel, by the shot which had passed over their barricado, after striking the water, and that they were waiting in the offing to intercept us when we should again come out.