Travels in the East Indian archipelago

by Albert S. Bickmore

The passion for this vice among the Malays is also shown in their language; for, according to Mr. Crawfurd, there is one specific name for cock-fighting, one for the natural and one for the artificial spur of the cock, two names for the comb, three for crowing, two for a cock-pit, and one for a professional cock-fighter.

But to return to the garden, where, among more interesting objects, were some images of the Brahman or Buddhist gods, worshipped by the ancient Javanese. One, particularly monstrous, appeared to have the body of a man and the head of a beast. A favorite model was to represent a man with the head of an elephant, seated on a throne that rested on a row of human skulls.

Hinduism was undoubtedly introduced into the archipelago in the same way as Mohammedanism—namely, by those who came from the West to trade, first into Sumatra, and afterward into Java and Celebes. This commercial intercourse probably began in the very remotest ages; for, according to Sir Gardner Wilkinson, the Egyptians used tin in manufacturing their implements of bronze two thousand years before the Christian era, and it is more probable that this tin came from the Malay peninsula than from Cornwall, the only two sources of any importance that are yet known for this valuable metal, if we include with the former the islands of Billiton and Banca. In the “Periplus of the Erythræan Sea,” written about A. D. 60, it is stated that this mineral was found at two cities on the western coast of India, but that it came from countries farther east. In this same descriptive treatise it is also mentioned that the malabrathrum, a kind of odoriferous gum imported from India for the use of the luxurious Romans, was found at Barake, a port on the coast of Malabar, but that it likewise came from some land farther east; and malabrathrum is supposed by many to be the modern benzoin, a resin obtained from the Styrax benzoin, a plant only found in the lands of the Battas, in Sumatra, and on the coast of Brunai, in the northern part of Borneo.

A KLING.

NATIVE OF BILUCHISTAN.

Although we gather from the records of Western nations these indications of products coming from the archipelago in the earliest ages, yet we have no information in regard to the time that the Hindu traders, who sailed eastward from India and purchased these valuable articles, succeeded in planting their own religion among those distant nations. The annals of both the Malay and Javanese are evidently fanciful, and are generally considered unreliable for any date previous to the introduction of Mohammedanism. Simple chronological lists are found in Java, which refer as far back as A. D. 78; but Mr. Crawfurd says that “they are incontestable fabrications, often differing widely from each other, and containing gaps of whole centuries.”

The people who came from India on these early voyages were probably of the same Talagu or Telugu nation as those now called by the Malays “Klings” or “Kalings,” a word evidently derived from Kalinga, the Sanscrit name for the northern part of the coast of Coromandel. They have always continued to trade with the peninsula, and I met them on the coast of Sumatra. Barbosa, who saw them at Malacca when the Portuguese first arrived at that city, thus describes them:[5] “There are many great merchants here, Moor as well as Gentile strangers, but chiefly of the Chetis, who are of the Coromandel coast, and have large ships, which they call giunchi” (junks). Unlike the irregular winds that must have greatly discouraged the early Greeks and Phœnicians from long voyages over the Euxine and the Mediterranean, the steady monsoons of the Bay of Bengal invited those people out to sea, and by their regular changes promised to bring them within a year safely back to their homes.

The United States steamship Iroquois was then lying in the roads, and our consular agent at this port invited Captain Rodgers, our consul from Batavia, who was there on business, and myself, to take a ride with him out to a sugar-plantation that was under his care. In those hot countries it is the custom to start early on pleasure excursions, in order to avoid the scorching heat of the noonday sun. We were therefore astir at six. Our friend had obtained a large post-coach giving ample room for four persons, but, like all such carriages in Java, it was so heavy and clumsy that both the driver and a footman, who was perched up in a high box behind, had to constantly lash our four little ponies to keep them up to even a moderate rate of speed. Our ride of ten miles was over a well-graded road, beautifully shaded for most of the way with tamarind-trees. Parallel with the carriage-roads, in Java, there is always one for buffaloes and carts, and in this manner the former are almost always kept in prime order. Such a great double highway begins at Angir, on the Strait of Sunda, and extends throughout the whole length of the island to Banyuwangi, on the Strait of Bali. It passes near Bantam and Batavia, and thence along the low lands near the north coast to Cheribon and Samarang, thence south of Mount Japara and so eastward. This, I was informed, was made by Marshal Daendals, who governed Java under the French rule in 1809. There is also a military road from Samarang to Surakarta and Jokyokarta, where the two native princes now reside. Java also enjoys a very complete system of telegraphic communication. On the 23d of October, 1856, the first line, between Batavia (Weltevreden) and Buitenzorg, was finished. Immediately after, it was so rapidly extended that, in 1859, 1,670 English miles were completed. A telegraphic cable was also laid in that year from Batavia up the Straits of Banca and Rhio to Singapore; but, unfortunately, it was broken in a short time, probably by the anchor of some vessel in those shallow straits. After it had been repaired it was immediately broken a second time, and in 1861 the enterprise was given up, but now they are laying another cable across the Strait of Sunda, from Angir to the district of Lampong; thence it will extend up the west coast to Bencoolen and Padang, and, passing across the Padang plateau, through Fort de Rock and Paya Kombo, come to the Strait of Malacca, and be laid directly across to Singapore.