[CHAPTER V]
THE SECOND VOYAGE TO INDIA—SUCCESS
There was now a great boom in the Indian trade. Whosoever could beg, borrow, or steal a few thousand guilders; whoever possessed an old scow which could perhaps be made to float, whoever was related to a man who had a cousin who had some influence on the exchange, suddenly became an Indian trader, equipped a ship, hired sailors, had mysterious conferences with nautical gentlemen who talked about their great experience in foreign waters, and then waited for the early days of spring to bid God-speed to his little expedition. Every city must have its own Indian fleet. Companies were formed, stockholders quarreled about the apportionment of the necessary capital, and at once they split up into other smaller companies. There was an "Old" Indian Trading Company. The next day there was a rival called the "New" Indian Trading Company. There was an Indian company which was backed by the province of Zeeland. There was a private enterprise of the city of Rotterdam. To be honest, there were too many companies for the small size of the country. Before another dozen years had passed they were all amalgamated into one strong commercial body, the great Dutch East India Company, but during the first years hundreds of ships stampeded to the promised land of Java and Bali and the Moluccas, and for one fleet of small vessels which came home with a profit there were a dozen which either were shipwrecked on the way or which had ruined their shareholders before they had passed the equator.
Amsterdam, as always, was the leader in this activity. It was not only a question of capital. There had to be men of vision, merchants who were willing to do things on a large scale, before such a venture could return any profit. And while the ships of the Zeeland Company were hurried to sea, and left long before the others, and incidentally came back a few years later, Amsterdam quietly collected eight hundred thousand guilders and advertised for competent officers and willing men for a large expedition. This time, it was decided, everything was to be done with scientific precision, and nothing must be left to chance. The commander in chief of the 560 men who were to take part in the expedition was Jacob van Neck, a man of good birth, excellent training, and well-known in the politics of his own city. His most important adviser was Jacob van Heemskerk, fresh from his adventures in the Arctic Sea and ready for new ones in the Indian Ocean. Several of the officers who had been to Bantam with Houtman were engaged for this second voyage. Among them our friend Van der Does, out of whose diary we copied the adventures of the first voyage to the Indies. Even the native element was not lacking. You will remember that the Hollanders had taken several hostages in Madagascar when they visited the east coast of that island in the year 1595. Two of these had been tamed and had been taken to Holland. After a year in Amsterdam they were quite willing to exchange the uncomfortable gloominess of the Dutch climate for a return to their sunny native shores. Also there was a Mohammedan boy by the name of Abdul, whom curiosity had driven from Bali to Holland on board the ship of Houtman.
The fleet of eight vessels left the roads of Texel on the first of May of the year 1598, and with a favorable wind reached the Cape Verde Islands three weeks later. There, a general council of the different captains was asked to decide upon the further course. For with each expedition the knowledge of what ought to be done and what ought to be omitted increased, and the experiences of Houtman on the coast of Africa where his entire crew had been disabled through scurvy, must not be repeated. The fleet must either follow the coast of Africa to get fresh food and water whenever necessary, or the ships must risk a more western course, which would take them a far distance away from land, but would bring them into currents which would carry them to the Indies in a shorter while. They decided to take the western course. It was a very tedious voyage except for the flying-fishes which sometimes accompanied the ship. Luck was with the expedition, and on the ninth of July the ships passed the equator. The little island of Trinidad, off the coast of Brazil, was soon reached, and an inquisitive trip in an open boat to explore this huge rock almost ended in disaster. But such small affairs as a night spent in an open boat in a stormy ocean were all in the day's work and gave the sailors something to talk about.
Within a remarkably short time the lonely island of Tristan d'Acunha was passed, and from there the current and the western winds carried the ships to the Cape of Good Hope. But near this stormy promontory a small hurricane suddenly fell upon the fleet, and after a night of very heavy squalls one of the eight ships had disappeared. It was never seen again. A few days later, this time through carelessness in observing signals, four other ships were separated from their admiral. Several days were spent in coursing about in the attempt to find them. The sea, however, is very wide, and ships very small, and Van Neck with two big and one small vessel at last decided to continue the voyage alone. He was in a hurry. There were many rivals to his great undertaking, and when he actually met a Dutch ship sent out by the province of Zeeland, he insisted that there must be no delay of any sort. The Zeeland ship, however, was not a dangerous competitor. Nine members of its crew of seventy-five had died. Among the others there was so much scurvy that only seven men were able to handle the helm. Only two could climb aloft. The Amsterdam ships ought to have helped their fellow-countrymen, but in the Indian spice trade it was a question of "first come, first served." Therefore they piously commended their Zeeland brethren to the care of the Good Lord and hastened on.
A short stay in Madagascar was necessary because the water in the tanks was of such abominable taste and smelled so badly that it must be replenished. The ships sailed to the east coast of the island, stopped at Santa Maria, well known from the visit of Houtman's ships three years before, and then made a short trip in search of fresh fruit to the bay of Antongil. On the island of Santa Maria they had found a happy population, well governed by an old king and spending their days in hunting wild animals on land or catching whales at sea. But in the Bay of Antongil things had greatly changed since Houtman had left a year before. There had been a war with some of the tribes from the interior of the island. The villages along the coast had been burned, and all the cattle had been killed. Men and women were dying of starvation. Right in the midst of the lovely tropical scenery there lay the decaying corpses of the natives, a prey to vultures and jackals. The expedition of Van Neck, however, had been sent out to buy spices in India and not to reform the heathen inhabitants of African islands. The water-tanks were hastily filled, and on the sixteenth of September the island was left to its own fate.
