Travels in the East Indian archipelago

by Albert S. Bickmore

When we started from Padang it was planned that a man-of-war should come to Siboga and take us back; but we have been obliged to wait here ten days, and now she has come only to take the Resident, and go to Singkel, the farthest point up the coast held by the Dutch.

The captain of the steamer on which I came from Surabaya to Batavia, however, has chanced to arrive in a little prau, in which he has been visiting several places along the coast for the purpose of ascertaining the facilities for obtaining timber to be used in constructing some government buildings at Padang. He is now on the point of sailing to the Batu Islands and thence to Padang, and proposes that I share the dangers of such a voyage in his little boat, an offer which I gladly accept, but Mr. Terville, the inspector, prefers to wait for the return of the steamship. Our boat is about thirty feet long by eight broad, and instead of being covered by a flat deck, has a steep roof, which descends on either side to the railing like the Javanese junks. Aft, where the tiller sweeps round, the deck is horizontal, but, as the stern is nearly as sharply-pointed as the bow, there is little room to sit. We have one mast, with a large, tattered mainsail and two jibs.

At midnight there was a little breeze from the land and we weighed anchor and stood to sea. In the morning we found ourselves becalmed about five miles from Tunkus Nasi, a sharp, conical island, which forms the southern extremity of Tapanuli Bay. Somewhat more to the west was the high plateau-like island of Mensalla. On its northwestern shore there is a waterfall, where the water leaps down some two hundred feet directly into the sea. It is so high that when I was at Siboga, people who have been at Barus assured me they have been able to see it when the sun shone on it, though the distance is some sixteen miles. At sunset we were so far down the coast that it was time for us to change our course to the south if we would visit the Batu Islands.

Our Malay captain was anxious that we should keep on our course to Padang; my friend said he cared very little to go to those islands, and when I looked at the ragged mainsail and realized that it would probably disappear in a moment if a heavy squall chanced to strike us, I gave my vote to continue on near the shore. Besides, the sky looked threatening, and we were evidently in a miserable vessel to live out a fresh gale and a heavy sea. Near midnight I was aroused by our boat pitching and rolling heavily, and the captain shouting out to his Malay crew all sorts of orders in rapid succession. Soon he came down to inform us, in the most trembling tones, it was so dark that it was not possible to see any thing, and in a few moments we should all be drowned. I hurried on deck, more from a habit of always wishing to see what is going to happen, than from fear. A thick, black mass of clouds was rolling up from seaward and spreading over the sky with alarming rapidity. The mainsail was taken in and only the main-jib was set, when the first gust struck us. Immediately, as if rolled over by a gigantic hand, our boat careened until her lee-rail was completely under water, and I thought, for a moment, she would certainly capsize. The main-jib burst into ribbons, and at last we righted. The flying-jib was then set, when she came near upsetting again. We were then only about a mile from the land, and the wind was directly on shore, so that it was impossible to save ourselves by running before it. Nothing could be done to keep off the rocks excepting to heave-to and trust to our anchor. All the cable possible was paid out, and yet the tempest continued to drive us toward the land. Another gust came, and as the lightning flashed I could see that we were not half a mile from a high island with precipitous shores, encircled by a coral reef, where the heavy swell rolling directly in from the ocean was breaking apparently twelve or fifteen feet high. I knew that at the rate we were drifting we must strike on it in fifteen minutes, and that to a certainty our frail boat would be broken into fragments in an instant. There was no possibility of escape, for the most expert swimmer could not possibly have saved himself in such a frightful surf. I coolly concluded that that would be the last of my dangers and resigned myself to my fate. Soon, however, the horizon became somewhat clearer, and, better than all, our anchor had evidently struck into good holding-ground and was keeping us from drifting. In an hour more the tempest was over, though the heavy swell continued to roll in as before. In the morning we found ourselves not far from Ayar Bangis, and put in there while our crew mended the sails. This is the port to which the coffee raised in the valley of Rau, in the interior, is brought down, to be hence shipped in praus to Padang, where it is placed in the government storehouse and sold at auction four times a year, viz., in March, June, September, and December. Natal, about twenty-five miles north of here, is the chief port to which is brought the valuable coffee raised in the fertile valley of Mandéling, of which Fort Elout is the capital. All this part of Sumatra abounds in very valuable timber, and the Resident here showed us some magnificent logs which his natives are sawing into planks. If we had such timber in our country we would use it for the nicest kinds of veneering.

As the storm continued, we remained for a day among the islands off Ayar Bangis. They are mostly low, and nearly all composed of coral rock. The natives live on fish and the cocoa-nuts which they raise in great numbers on these low coral islands.

The chief value of the cocoa-nuts here, as in the eastern part of the archipelago, is for the oil they yield; considerable quantities of that article are brought to Padang from these, the Batu and other islands off this part of Sumatra.

At sunset, next day, we were near Pasaman, a small place on the coast, west of the lofty peak of Ophir. Thousands of small, fleecy cumuli at that time covered the sky, and, as the sun neared the horizon, all these clouds were changed into the brightest gold. Indeed, the whole sky seemed literally paved with small blocks of gold, most of which were bordered with a narrow margin of purple. One end of this great arch seemed to rest on the distant horizon, the other on the crests of the lofty mountains east of us, but especially on the top of Mount Ophir, whose western side was lighted up with tints of gold and purple of surpassing richness.

All this glorious display in the heavens was so perfectly repeated, even to the minutest details, on the calm sea, that it was difficult to tell which to admire more, the sky or the ocean. Of all the rich sunsets I enjoyed while in the tropical East, this was by far the most magnificent, and never did I imagine it was possible for any one, while here on earth, to behold a scene that would so nearly approach the splendor of the Celestial City, described in the apocalyptic vision as being “of pure gold, like unto clear glass.”

The next morning we were near Tiku, a village at the mouth of the small stream that flows out from the lake in the bottom of the great crater of Manindyu. The circular mountain-range which forms the walls of this great crater was clearly seen, and the deep rent through it, by which the waters collected in the bottom of the crater find a passage out to the sea. Twenty miles south of Tiku is Priaman, the place to which most of the coffee from the Menangkabau, or, as the Dutch prefer to call it, the Padang plateau, is brought to be sent in praus to Padang. On the evening of the fifth day the Apenburg, on Ape Hill, which marks the approach to Padang, and the shipping in the road, near by, were in full view. One large and very fine ship was flying the American ensign. In a few hours more I found myself again in the palace of the governor, and thus the expedition through the land of cannibals was safely over.

The American ship was owned by one of the largest and most enterprising firms in Boston. Her captain and his lady were on shore, and I soon hurried to their boarding-place; and, at once, we almost felt ourselves back in New England, and forgot that we were far from America, in a land of palms, and of one long, endless summer.