Читать книгу The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). The History of Sea Voyages, Discovery, Piracy and Maritime Warfare онлайн

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VIEW IN THE STRAITS OF MALACCA.

The old Strait of Singhapura, that lies between the island of Singapore and the mainland of Johore, is a narrow tortuous passage, for many centuries the only thoroughfare for ships passing to the eastward of Malacca. Not many years ago, where charming bungalows, the residences of the merchants, are built among the ever verdant foliage, it was but the home of hordes of piratical marauders, who carried on their depredations with a high hand, sometimes adventuring on distant voyages in fleets of forty or fifty prahus. Indeed, it is stated, in the old Malay annals, that for nearly two hundred years the entire population of Singapore and the surrounding islands and coasts of Johore subsisted on fishing and pirating; the former only being resorted to when the prevailing monsoon was too strong to admit of the successful prosecution of the latter. Single cases of piracy sometimes occur now; but it has been nearly stopped. Of the numberless vessels and boats which give life to the waters of the old strait, nearly all have honest work to do—fishing, timber carrying, or otherwise trading. “A very extraordinary flotilla,” says Mr. Cameron, “of a rather nondescript character may be often seen in this part of the strait at certain seasons of the year. These are huge rafts of unsawn, newly-cut timber; they are generally 500 or 600 feet long, and sixty or seventy broad, the logs being skilfully laid together, and carefully bound by strong rattan-rope, each raft often containing 2,000 logs. They have always one or two attap-houses built upon them, and carry crews of twenty or twenty-five men, the married men taking their wives and children with them. The timber composing them is generally cut many miles away, in some creek or river on the mainland.” They sometimes have sails. They will irresistibly remind the traveller of those picturesque rafts on the Rhine, on which there are cabins, with the smoke curling from their stove-pipes, and women, children, and dogs, the men with long sweeps keeping the valuable floating freight in the current. Many a German, now in England or America, made his first trip through the Fatherland to its coast on a Rhine raft.