Part 42 (1/2)

On the afternoon after leaving the Strait of Malacca, we overhauled another American s.h.i.+p under neutral colors--the Bremen s.h.i.+p _Ottone_. The transfer had been made at Bremen, in the previous May; the papers were genuine, and the master and crew all Dutchmen, there being no Yankee on board. The change of property, in this case, having every appearance of being _bona fide_, I permitted the s.h.i.+p to pa.s.s on her voyage, which was to Rangoon for rice. For the next few days we coasted the island of Sumatra--taking a final leave of the North end of that island on the last day of the year 1863. A court-martial had been in session several days, settling accounts with the runaways at Singapore, whom we had arrested and brought back. Having sentenced the prisoners, and gotten through with its labors, it was dissolved on this last day of the old year, that we might turn over a new leaf.

Clearing the Sumatra coast, we stretched across to the Bay of Bengal, toward Ceylon, overhauling a number of neutral s.h.i.+ps by the way. Among others, we boarded a large English s.h.i.+p, which had a novel lot of pa.s.sengers on board. She was from Singapore, bound for Jiddah on the Red Sea, and was filled with the faithful followers of Mohammed, on a pilgrimage to Mecca--Jiddah being the nearest seaport to that renowned shrine. My boarding-officer was greeted with great cordiality by these devotees, who exchanged salaams with him, in the most reverential manner, and entered into conversation with him. They wanted to know, they said, about those black giants we had on board the _Alabama_, and whether we fed them on live Yankees, as they had heard. The boarding-officer, who was a bit of a wag, told them that we had made the experiment, but that the Yankee skippers were so lean and tough, that the giants refused to eat them. Whereupon there was a general grunt, and as near an approach to a smile as a Mohammedan ever makes. They then said that they ”had heard that we were in favor of a plurality of wives.” They had heard of Brigham Young and Salt Lake. The officer said, ”Yes, we had a few; three or four dozen a piece.” They now insisted upon his smoking with them, and plied him with other questions, to which they received equally satisfactory answers; and when he got up to depart, they crowded around him at the gangway, and salaamed him over the side, more reverentially than ever. I have no doubt that when these pa.s.sengers arrived at Mecca, and discussed learnedly the American war, half the pilgrims at that revered shrine became good Confederates.

Having doubled the island of Ceylon, and hauled up on the coast of Malabar, we captured on the 14th of January, the _Emma Jane_, of Bath, Maine, from Bombay, bound to Amherst. Having removed from her such articles of provisions as we required, and transferred her crew to the _Alabama_, we burned her. She was in ballast, seeking a cargo, and there was, therefore, no claim of neutral property. The master had his wife on board. Being not a great distance from the land, we ran in for the purpose of discharging our prisoners; and descried the Ghaut mountains the next day. Coasting along a short distance to the eastward, we made the small Hindoo-Portuguese town of Anjenga, where we came to anchor at about four P. M. The town lies on the open coast, having a roadstead, but no harbor.

We ran in and anch.o.r.ed without a pilot. We were soon surrounded by native boats--large canoes capable of carrying considerable burdens--filled with Portuguese and Hindoos, and a mixture of both. Though the dominion of Portugal, on the Malabar coast, has long since departed, there are many mementos of that once enterprising people still to be found. Her churches and fortifications are still standing, the blood of her people is still left--in most cases mixed--and her language, somewhat corrupted, is still spoken. There was no Englishman at Anjenga--the resident magistrate being a Portuguese. He sent his son off to visit us, and make arrangements for landing our prisoners. Later in the afternoon, I sent a lieutenant to call on him. The boat being delayed until some time in the night, and a firing of musketry being heard, I feared that my lieutenant had gotten into some difficulty with the natives, and dispatched Kell, with an armed boat to his a.s.sistance. It proved to be a false alarm. It was a feast day, the magistrate had gone to church,--which caused the delay of the officer--and the firing was a _feu de joie_.

The next morning we sent the prisoners on sh.o.r.e. They were to proceed by inland navigation--parallel with the coast, through a series of lagoons and ca.n.a.ls--to Cochin, a sea-port town about sixty miles distant, where they would find Englishmen and English s.h.i.+pping. I was to provision them, and the Resident Magistrate would send them forward free of expense. The prisoners landed in presence of half the town, who had flocked down to the beach to see the sight. As our boats approached the sh.o.r.e, on which there was quite a surf breaking, a number of native boats came out to receive and land the prisoners. These boats were managed with great dexterity, and pa.s.sed in and out through the roaring surf, without the least accident.

This matter of business accomplished, the natives came off to visit us, in considerable numbers, both men and women. They were a fine, well-formed, rather athletic people, nearly as black as the negro, but with straight hair and prominent features. Very few of them wore any other dress than a cloth about the loins. They were sprightly and chatty, and ran about the decks as pleased as children, inspecting the guns, and other novelties.

Some of the young women had very regular and pleasing features. The best description I can give of them is to request the reader to imagine some belle of his acquaintance to be divested of those garments which would be useless to her in Anjenga--lat.i.tude 8--and instead of charming him with the lily and the rose, to be s.h.i.+ning in l.u.s.trous jet.

Having received on board some fresh provisions for the crew, and gotten rid of our lady and gentlemen visitors, we got under way and stood out to sea, and were still in sight of the Ghaut Mountains when the sun went down. These mountains will be lost to our view to-morrow; but before they disappear, I have a word to say concerning them, and the fertile country of Hindostan, in which they are situated; for nature elaborates here one of her most beautiful and useful of meteorological problems. British India is the most formidable compet.i.tor of the Confederate States for the production of cotton, for the supply of the spindles and looms of the world. The problem to which I wish to call the reader's attention may be stated thus:--_The Great Deserts of Central Africa produce the cotton crop of Hindostan._ I have before had frequent occasion to speak of the monsoons of the East--those periodical winds that blow for one half of the year from one point of the compa.s.s, and then change, and blow the other half of the year from the opposite point. It is these monsoons that work out the problem we have in hand; and it is the Great Deserts alluded to that produce the monsoons.

On the succeeding page will be found a diagram, which will a.s.sist us in the conception of this beautiful operation of nature. It consists of an outline sketch of so much of Asia and the Indian Ocean as are material to our purpose. The Great Deserts, the Himalayas and the Ghauts, are marked on the sketch. Let the dotted line at the bottom of the sketch represent the equator, and the arrows the direction of the winds. Hindostan being in the northern tropic, the north-east monsoon or trade-wind, represented by the arrow A, would prevail there all the year round, but for the local causes of which I am about to speak. The reader will observe that this wind, coming from a high northern lat.i.tude, pa.s.ses almost entirely over _land_ before it reaches Hindostan. It is, therefore, a dry wind. It is rendered even more dry, by its pa.s.sage over the Himalaya range of mountains which wring from it what little moisture it may have evaporated from the lakes and rivers over which it has pa.s.sed. When it reaches the extensive plains between the Himalayas and Ghauts, which are the great cotton region of Hindostan, it has not a drop of water with which to nourish vegetation; and if it were to prevail all the year round, those plains would speedily become parched and waste deserts.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Let us see, now, how this catastrophe is avoided. When the sun is in the southern hemisphere, that is, during the winter season, the north-east monsoon prevails in Hindostan. When he is in the northern hemisphere, the south-west monsoon, which is the rainy monsoon, or crop monsoon, prevails.

This change of monsoons is produced as follows: Soon after the sun crosses the equator into the northern hemisphere, he begins to pour down his fierce rays upon Hindostan, and, pa.s.sing farther and farther to the north, in the latter part of April, or the beginning of May, he is nearly perpendicularly over the Great Deserts marked in the sketch. These deserts are interminable wastes of sand, in which there is not so much as a blade of gra.s.s to be found. They absorb heat very rapidly, and in a short time become like so many fiery furnaces. The air above them rarefies and ascends, a comparative vacuum of great extent is formed, and a great change begins now to take place in the atmospheric phenomena. This vacuum being in the rear of the arrow A, or the north-east monsoon blowing over Hindostan, first slackens the force of this wind--drawing it back, as it were. It becomes weaker and weaker, as the furnaces become hotter and hotter. Calms ensue, and after a long struggle, the wind is finally turned back, and the south-west monsoon has set in.

If the reader will cast his eye on the series of arrows, B, C, D, E, and F, he will see how this gradual change is effected. I say gradual, for it is not effected _per saltum_, but occupies several weeks. The arrow F represents the south-east trade-wind, blowing toward the equator. As this wind nears the equator, it begins to feel the influence of the deserts spoken of. The calm which I have described as beginning at the arrow A, is gradually extended to the equator. As the south-east wind approaches that great circle, it finds nothing to oppose its pa.s.sage. Pretty soon, it not only finds nothing to oppose its pa.s.sage, but something to invite it over; for the calm begins now to give place to an indraught toward the Great Deserts. The south-east wind, thus encouraged, changes its course, first to the north, and then to the north-east, and blows stronger and stronger as the season advances, and the heat acc.u.mulates over the deserts; until at last the south-east trade-wind of the southern hemisphere has become the south-west monsoon of the northern hemisphere! This monsoon prevails from about the 1st of May to the 1st of November, when the sun has again pa.s.sed into the southern hemisphere, and withdrawn his heat from the great deserts. The normal condition of things being thus restored, the vanquished north-east trade-wind regains its courage, and, chasing back the south-west monsoon, resumes its sway.

If the reader will again cast his eye upon the sketch, he will see that the south-west winds which are now blowing over Hindostan, instead of being dry winds, must be heavily laden with moisture. They have had a clean sweep from the tropic of Capricorn, with no land intervening between them and the coast of Hindostan. They have followed the sun in his course, and under the influence of his perpendicular rays have lapped up the waters like a thirsty wolf. The evaporation in these seas is enormous. It has been stated, on the authority of the Secretary of the Geographical Society of Bombay, that it has been found in the Bay of Bengal to exceed an inch daily. From having too little water during the winter months in Hindostan, we are now, in the summer months, in danger of having too much.

The young cotton crop will be drowned out. What is to prevent it? Here we have another beautiful provision at hand. The reader has observed the Ghaut Mountains stretching along parallel with the west coast of Hindostan. These mountains protect the plains from inundation. They have, therefore, equally important functions to perform with the deserts. The south-west monsoon blows square across these mountains. As the heavily laden wind begins to ascend the first slopes, it commences to deposit its moisture. Incessant rains set in, and immense quant.i.ties of water fall before the winds have pa.s.sed the mountains. The precipitation has been known to be as great as twelve or thirteen inches in a single day! The winds, thus deprived of their excess of water are now in a proper condition to fertilize, without drowning the immense plains that lie between the Ghauts and the Himalayas--which, as before remarked, is the cotton region of India. It is thus that the _Great Deserts of Central Asia produce the cotton crop of Hindostan_. To the ignorant Tartar who ventures across the margins of these deserts, all seems dreary, desolate, and death-like, and he is at a loss to conceive for what purpose they were created. Clothe these deserts with verdure, and intersperse them with rivers and mountains, and forthwith the fertile plains of Hindostan would become a great desert, and its two hundred millions of inhabitants perish.

We captured on board the last prize a batch of Bombay newspapers--large ”dailies,” edited with ability, and filled with news from all parts of the world. It is the press, more than anything else, that indicates the growth and prosperity of a country. One only needed to look at the long columns of these immense dailies, filled with advertis.e.m.e.nts, to realize the fact that Bombay was a bee-hive, containing its three hundred thousand inhabitants. We were, indeed, in the midst of a great empire, of which, in the western world, we read, it is true, but of which we have no just conception until we visit it. The British empire in India, stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Strait of Malacca, is a creation which does honor to our race and language. I had coasted nearly its whole extent, and everywhere I found evidences of contentment, thrift, and prosperity. A constant stream of British s.h.i.+pping was pa.s.sing to and fro, developing its immense commerce, and pouring its untold millions into the British exchequer. Powerful and swift steams.h.i.+ps bring the home mails to three or four prominent points along the coast, as Aden, Ceylon, Singapore, Hong Kong, and from these points other steamers spread it broadcast over the empire. Railroads are pushed in every direction, there being as many as three thousand miles in operation, and the navigation of the coast districts of Hindostan has been carried, by means of a series of lagoons and ca.n.a.ls, from Cape Comorin, hundreds of miles to the northward. These railroads and ca.n.a.ls have opened up new fields of industry, and have been of especial service in developing that pet idea of England, the production of cotton.

Up to the breaking out of our war, the cultivation of this valuable staple in India was a mere experiment. It is now an a.s.sured success. Those great fields lying between the Ghauts and the Himalayas of which we have been speaking, are being brought into connection with the sea-board, by lines of easy and cheap transportation. They have been found equal to our Southern plantations in the production of the article, and labor is a hundred per cent. cheaper, at least, than with us. Here are all the elements of cheap production. Our Yankee brethren have talked a good deal of what they ”conquered” in the war, and have been quarrelling ever since over the fruits of their victory. Here is one of their conquests which no one can doubt--the transfer of the cotton supply of the world, from these Southern States to British India. The time is not far distant when Yankee spindles and looms will be spinning and weaving India cotton for the supply of their own people.

The moral conquest of India, by the British people, is even more remarkable and more admirable than its physical conquest. Since their last Indian war, the whole country, from one end of it to the other, has settled down in the most profound peace. Nor is this the peace of despotism, for in comparison with the extent of territory, and the two hundred millions of people to be governed, the number of troops is ridiculously small. The conquest is one of arts and civilization, and not of arms. The railroad, the ca.n.a.l, the s.h.i.+p, the printing press, and above all, a paternal and beneficent government, have worked out the wonderful problem of the submission of teeming millions to the few. It is the conquest of race and of intellect. The docile Hindoo, not devoid of letters himself, has realized the fact that a superior people has come to settle in his country, to still domestic broils, strip former despots of their ill-gotten and much-abused power, and to rule him with humanity and justice. The torch of civilization has shone in dark places, dispelled many prejudices, and brought to light and broken up many hideous practices. Schools and colleges have sprung up everywhere, and the natural taste of the native population for letters has been cultivated. In the very newspapers which we are reviewing are to be found long dissertations and criticisms, by Hindoo scholars, on various matters of morals, science, and literature.

A government whose foundations are thus laid will be durable. In Australia, New Zealand, and other colonies, where the white population, in the course of a few years, will greatly preponderate over the native, mere adolescence will bring about independence. But India will never become adolescent in this sense. She will remain indefinitely a prosperous ward in chancery--the guardian and the ward living amicably together, and each sharing the prosperity of the other.

On the day after leaving the Malabar coast, we spoke a Portuguese bark, from Rio Janeiro bound to Goa, a short distance to the northward of us.

This was the only Portuguese we met in these seas, of which they were, at one period of their history, entire masters. Vasco de Gama had made the seas cla.s.sic by his adventures, and his countrymen, following in his track, had studded the coast with towns, of which Goa was one of the most ancient and important. As between the Hindoo and the Portuguese, the latter would probably long have maintained his ascendency, but there came along that superior race--that white race which has never submitted to any admixture of its blood--of which we have just been speaking, and nature, with her unvarying laws, had done the rest. The Portuguese gave place to the Englishman, as naturally as the African, and afterward the Hindoo, had given place to the Portuguese.

Pa.s.sing through the chain of islands which extends parallel with the Malabar coast for some distance, we stretched across the Arabian Sea in the direction of the east coast of Africa. We were now in the height of the season of the north-east monsoon, which was a fair wind for us, and the weather was as delightful as I have ever experienced it in any part of the globe--not even excepting our own Gulf of Mexico, and coasts of Alabama, and Florida, in the summer season. For twelve successive days, we did not have occasion to lower a studding sail, day or night! We had a constant series of clear skies, and gentle breezes. The nights were serene, and transparent, and the sunsets were magnificent beyond description. The trade wind is, _par excellence_, the wind of beautiful sunsets. Bright, gauzy clouds, float along lazily before it, and sometimes the most charming c.u.muli are piled up on the western horizon while the sun is going down. Stately cathedrals, with their domes and spires complete, may be traced by the eye of fancy, and the most gorgeous of golden, violet, orange, purple, green, and other hues, light up now a colonnade, now a dome, and now a spire of the aerial edifice. And then came on the twilight, with its gray and purple blended, and with the twilight, the sounds of merriment on board the _Alabama_--for we had found a successor for Michael Mahoney, the Irish fiddler, and the usual evening dances were being held. We had been now some time at sea, since leaving Singapore; the ”jail had been delivered,” the proper punishments administered, and Jack, having forgotten both his offences, and their punishment, had again become a ”good boy,” and was as full of fun as ever.

We had some fine fis.h.i.+ng while pa.s.sing through the Arabian Sea. The dolphin came around us in schools, and a number of them were struck with the ”grains,” and caught with lines--the bait being a piece of red flannel rag. And some of the seamen resorted to an ingenious device for entrapping the flying fish by night. A net being spread, with out-riggers, under the bow of the s.h.i.+p, and a light being held just above it, the fish, as they would rise in coveys--being flushed from time to time by the noise of the s.h.i.+p through the water--would rush at the light, and striking against the bow of the s.h.i.+p, tumble into the net beneath. Bartelli, on several mornings, spread my breakfast-table with them.

On the 29th of January, we observed in lat.i.tude 2 43' north, and longitude 51 east; and on the following evening pa.s.sed through a remarkable patch of the sea. At about eight P. M., there being no moon, but the sky being clear, and the stars s.h.i.+ning brightly, we suddenly pa.s.sed from the deep blue water in which we had been sailing, into a patch of water so white that it startled me; so much did it appear like a shoal.

To look over the s.h.i.+p's side, one would have sworn that she was in no more than five or six fathoms of water. The officer of the deck became evidently alarmed, and reported the fact to me, though I myself had observed it. There was no shoal laid down, within several hundred miles of our position, on the chart, and yet here was so manifestly one, that I shortened sail--we were running seven or eight knots per hour at the time, with a fresh breeze--hove the s.h.i.+p to, and got a cast of the deep-sea lead. The line ran out, and out, until a hundred fathoms had been taken by the lead, and still we found no bottom. We now checked the line, and hauling in the lead, made sail again. My fears thus quieted, I observed the phenomenon more at leisure. The patch was extensive. We were several hours in running through it. Around the horizon there was a subdued glare, or flush, as though there were a distant illumination going on, whilst overhead there was a lurid, dark sky, in which the stars paled. The whole face of nature seemed changed, and with but little stretch of the imagination, the _Alabama_ might have been conceived to be a phantom s.h.i.+p, lighted up by the sickly and unearthly glare of a phantom sea, and gliding on under the pale stars one knew not whither.

Upon drawing a bucket of this water, it appeared to be full of minute luminous particles; the particles being instinct with life, and darting, and playing about in every direction; but upon a deck-lantern being brought, and held over the bucket, the little animals would all disappear, and nothing but a bucket full of _grayish_ water would be left. Here was an area of twenty miles square, in which Nature, who delights in life, was holding one of her starlight revels, with her myriads upon myriads of living creatures, each rejoicing in the life given it by its Creator, and dying almost as soon as born. The sun would rise on the morrow, over a sea as blue as usual, with only some motes in the pelluced waters glinting back his rays; and this twenty miles square of life would be no longer distinguishable from the surrounding waters.

We crossed the equator on the 30th of January. The winds had now become light, and frequent calms ensued, though the bright weather continued. On the 9th of February we made the Comoro islands, that lie not a great way from the coast of Africa, and, getting up steam, ran in, and anch.o.r.ed at Johanna. This island is the most frequented of the group; s.h.i.+ps bound to and from the East Indies, by the way of the Mozambique channel, frequently stopping here for refreshments. All these islands are volcanic in origin.