Master Mariner

THE LIFE AND VOYAGES OF

AMASA DELANO

Captain Amasa Delano, 1763-1823



BY
JAMES B. CONNOLLY

1943

[ Table of Contents ] [ Map ] [ Glossary ]

CHAPTER IV

Dutch Hospitality in the Amboynas

ON THE 27TH OF JUNE 1791 the expedition departed from the Pelews for New Guinea. The summer monsoon was on, which meant winds varying from south to west: light winds, mostly, with calms between the variations. The west wind was fair for their course to the New Guineas. If only it would hold steady they would be stepping along; but from west to south and south to west it veered, and in between would come a stretch of a week, two weeks, of flat calm. Trading captains intent on making a passage would have chafed themselves sick during the lengthy calms, but this was a government expedition and making speed was not everything.

On the fifteenth of July they crossed the equator in longitude 1 36° 30' east. Two days later they sailed into a little bay on the southeast side of what Amasa's chart said was the island of Palo-Mysery, in latitude 50 minutes south and longitude 131° 11' east.

The South Pacific was still a strange region to the Western world; charts of the islands were far from being complete. Amasa noted a strong westerly current, which wasn't marked on his chart. Every few days he would sight an island not marked on the charts. He wasn't for allowing a single one of them to escape. He set down the latitude and longitude of every little island for the use of later navigators.

The expedition was now in a part of the South Seas where the early explorers had reported dangerous savage tribes. Commodore McCluer ordered an alert watch kept.

On the fifth of August the two vessels anchored four hundred yards off what should be the island of Manouran, five miles south of the equator in longitude 131° 11'. And so she was when Amasa checked up on her. Hard by her were several little islands, all where they should be when Amasa checked up on them.

The ship's library held the record of a landing party off an English ship having been massacred on the Manouran Island some years before this. The men of the party were ashore for wood and water when the island savages did for them.

Such things happen and might happen again when ships were in need of wood and fresh water, especially water. Being short of water was even a harder prospect than being short of grub. Now at Manouran, both vessels being short of water and the Panther short of wood also, Commodore McCluer ordered three boats to land. He placed Amasa in charge of the landing party.

A small river emptied into the sea near by their anchorage, and a grove of trees was hard by the river. While Amasa's men were at the business of cutting down trees and filling their water casks, he noticed signs of activity on a tiny island not far away. He next noted a canoe paddling toward his party. The canoe was gunnel deep with naked savages. They beached the canoe a cable length away from the mouth of the little river, flourished their spears, and gave voice to loud shouts.

Amasa's men looked at the savages and then at Amasa. He wasn't relishing the prospect himself, but the expedition needed wood and water and his job was to get them. He called to his men to continue their duty.

Two boats were loaded with wood, and the third boat, the water boat, was almost ready to leave when the Panther signaled to come aboard. Amasa ordered the two wood boats to hurry to the ship. Away they went.

The water boat was a little distance up the river, and it wasn't yet filled up. It was sweet, fresh water, and Amasa was set on filling up with it before leaving. That was his duty--to get fresh water.

Amasa filled his last water cask and started down the river, and with the current aiding the drive of their oars they were soon at the mouth of the river. Now there was a bar at the mouth of the river, and Amasa's boat had entered that river while the tide was high and the boat riding light, she then having only her crew and her empty water casks aboard. A light boat rides a swell without difficulty, but a deep-loaded boat does not so easily lift; and Amasa's boat, now deeply loaded, failed to lift to the swell. Also the tide had fallen. She struck bottom and overturned.

Amasa's men were armed; but their muskets and ammunition were now useless for having got wet. The visiting natives began to draw near. They were armed with bows and arrows and spears, and, by all the accounts that Amasa could find in the ship's library, the arrows and the spears would be tipped with poison.

The natives brandished their spears, motioned as if to hurl them, fitted arrows to their bows, and waited to see how Amasa's party reacted to their threats.

It was Amasa's guess now that the savages did not under-stand that his wetted powder had left their muskets useless against their spears. He ordered his boat's crew to buckle on their cartouche boxes, fix bayonets, put muskets to shoulder, and take aim at the natives as if everything were still in good order.

By this time the Panther and her consort were hoisting anchors, which meant that Amasa was to hurry aboard. His immediate problem was to right the boat and get her over the bar. The natives moved nearer to the boat. Amasa ordered those of the boat's crew not busy at righting the boat to keep their wet muskets trained on the approaching canoe.

When the boat was righted, the canoe men were within forty yards of her. "Steady is the word," said Amasa, him-self at the boat's tiller. To those of his crew not rowing he passed the word to continue holding their muskets at a ready.

They made their ship safely; and Amasa, a great one for thanks be, records:

"Our stratagem was happily conceived, admirably executed and successful in its results. We arrived safe on board, with an armed and ferocious band of savages pressing close upon our rear. Our triumph was complete, and was felt in our hearts with not a few emotions of gratitude mingled with a sense of imminent danger."

Amasa had reason to be thankful, the savages he out-witted being of the kinky woolly-headed type, which, by all the accounts of South Sea Island explorers in the ship's library, held extreme hatred against white people-such hatred that whichever would bring them a white man's head, that one they would make a headman. One bringing in three heads would be made a chief.

Amasa did not allow his experience with the savages of Manouran to lessen his appreciation of the island as a place of call for ships after long days at sea. After seeing to the hoisting of his boats and empty water casks aboard the Panther he went below, got out his navigator's log, and inscribed in his large clear penmanship:

"Manouran: A convenient place for a ship to obtain wood and water. The island is six or eight miles in circumference. There is anchorage in 18 fathoms of water with sand or coral bottom. The current sets westward at two miles an hour. While we were at anchor the thermometer stood at an average of 84° for the 15 days. We found no dangers which were not obvious to any alert visiting seamen."

That last sentence: "We found no dangers . . . not obvious" and so on was a characteristic Amasa Delano touch. The narrative of the water-party adventure was for a private audience, a tale for after dinner in the mess; but that "no dangers . . . not obvious" and so on was for the log of the expedition, and for the information of later visiting mariners. If they came to grief at Manouran, let them not say that he hadn't warned them.

Amasa left Manouran without holding hard feelings against the kinky-headed people. Since his experience with Abba Thulle's islanders he had been doing some thinking that had nothing to do with his navigation. One of his thoughts was that perhaps the islanders had been not always fairly dealt with by visiting white men. He developed that thought later.

The expedition continued to move southward, sailing everywhere through archipelagoes of small islands, but with no danger that Amasa could see to a careful navigator. Little islands were everywhere--strange little islands were thick as raisins in a pie; but no reason in the world why a ship could not avoid them. No reason, unless the old explorers were romance writers.

The expedition arrived at their next place of call, which was Revenge Straits off the coast of the big island of New Guinea.

"Revenge Straits: There are many islands and shoals in the Straits, but none which cannot be easily avoided in daylight, with proper vigilance, and with due attention to the lead and the line. The attempt to sail them at night should never be made. The ship came to anchor off a small settlement called Savage Town in the Straits. It was a Malay settlement."

The Malays were the great rovers of the South Seas, moving from island to island in the interest of trade. Whenever a young Malay saw a trading profit ahead he stayed awhile. Sometimes they stayed for good.

Ships cruising those islands regularly picked up Malays to round out their crews. Men being lost at sea, or dying of tropic fevers, made this practice necessary. Commodore McCluer's two vessels carried their full share of Malay seamen.

There was a settlement of Malays at Savage Town, and a number of them boarded the Panther to talk to the Malays in her crew. Being asked if there were danger to white people going ashore, the visiting Malays said there would be. And why so? Well, a visiting white crew before this had molested the native women, and killings had resulted. Commodore McCluer assured the Malays that they need have no fear of molestation of theft women by any of his crew.

Amasa and several brother officers went ashore, and theft feet had hardly hit the beach when they saw the women of the settlement running out from their habitations, grabbing up theft children, and setting full sail for the woods.

The men of the settlement, all Malays, were civil enough, showing them into their dwellings, which were built upon piles, six or eight feet above the ground. The elevation was for dryness and to escape the reptiles, which were crawling numerously on the ground below. The dwellings were of one story, built of split bamboo, and thatched with sago and coconut leaves.

Amasa was charmed with the ingenious Malay method of setting up supporting piles for theft dwellings. They lashed two canoes loaded with stones to a pile, one to each side of the pile at high water; as the tide ebbed, a heavy log, a tree trunk, was let fall upon the pile. The weight of the stone in the canoes and the continuous pounding of the heavy tree trunk drove the supporting pile into the mud.

The houses were set in straight lines with a bamboo walk a yard wide running along in front of the rows of houses. The bamboo floor strips were set an inch apart to let the dirt fall through to the earth under the house. The windows, when a house had any, were made of the transparent part of an oyster shell.

Because of the danger from hostile natives, the expedition was put to much trouble getting fresh water while cruising the New Guinea shore. The crew men were put to digging wells, ten or twelve feet deep, and then they got only brackish water; and it came up a milk-white color from the clay it passed through.

A perquisite of the officers of the expedition was the right to trade on their own account among the islands. They got little chance for that in the Malay settlements of New Guinea. The trading profits there came from gold dust, oyster pearls, and birds of paradise, and the Malays were retaining full control of all three.

Amasa wasn't forgetting his flora and fauna. The beauty of the birds of paradise in New Guinea caught his wide-open eyes early; as also

"The beauty of the various species of the crested pheasant, --a handsome, proud and courageous bird. The cassowary also abounded here, a large bird, measuring seven feet up and down when he stretched his neck; a strong creature, running with great speed and devouring anything eatable he spied along the road; and having the ingenious habit when pursued by dogs over loose stones, of using his large feet to throw the stones back at the dogs."

They met no headhunters or cannibals at close quarters in New Guinea, which wasn't surprising. No landing parties ventured far from the guns of the two ships; and hostile savages doubtless had first heard of how easily white men's guns could sink loaded canoes.

The expedition left New Guinea on September 20th (1791) for Amboyna Island.

"Amboyna: It is in latitude 3° 43' south, and longitude 128° 32' east. The depth of water is 13 fathoms and the bottom muddy. The harbor lies on the west of the island and is spacious. We arrived on the 28th, after south and east winds and pleasant weather. We found the town, the country, the climate and the soil surpassed by none. A great variety of aromatic trees and of fragrant flowering shrubs we saw growing in perfection. The inhabitants of Amboyna have introduced almost all the varieties of beans, pears, potatoes, turnips, beets, carrots and other vegetables. The sugar cane grows abundantly here, as in all the eastern islands. The people have made great progress in the mechanic arts. They do fine work in silver and gold. The Chinese among them are noted for their industry and ingenuity."

This visit was to be of special interest to Commodore McCluer and his officers because of a wholesale massacre of the English by the Dutch there one time. The Dutch were for forgetting the massacre, but not so the English. The playwright Dryden did what he could to keep the bitter memory alive by his tragedy Amboyna, or Cruelties of the Dutch to the English Merchants.

It was a century and a quarter since that massacre of the English in Amboyna, but McCluer's officers were still doubtful of their reception. They need not have been. The English and Dutch might be keeping trading knives sharpened for each other; but the social ritual of that day in the South Sea ports called for mutual entertainment all along the line. The high-placed Dutch residents of Amboyna strained themselves to give McCluer's officers a good time. Amasa was still of an age, still under thirty years, when high social doings were all right with him. He took an especial liking to the form of relaxation theft Dutch hosts called "smoking a pipe."

"As early as six o'clock the ladies and gentlemen would assemble, the gentlemen repair to a room by themselves, and proceed to smoke their long-stemmed pipes and drink beer and Holland gin. They would then join the women and sit in to a hot supper at a table that would be groaning from the weight of the eatables."

On their every evening ashore, which would be pretty nearly every evening, officers were invited to smoke a pipe. In return, the English officers gave a ball. Amasa was moved to far more detailed logging of that bail than to any typhoon he had so far met with. Typhoons were occurrences likely to be encountered any day in the change of monsoons, but this ball in Amboyna was an exceptional event.

"The entertainment was sumptuous and the party in excellent spirits. So great was the exhilaration on their part and so entirely did we give our mind and efforts to the object of the occasion that we found ourselves in danger of producing a counter action in the spirits of the Dutch gentlemen. My fellow officers were intelligent and agreeable men; they were fond of society, and capable of enjoying it to a high degree. The ladies complimented us upon our spirit of gallantry, and maintained that we had contrived to make our party more delightful than any which they had formed among themselves during that entire season. The ladies jocularly asked us why we could not stay longer at Amboyna or take them with us to England. Our answer was of course prompt and courteous, that we were at their command and should be delighted to have them for companions on shore or in our wanderings upon the ocean. They would make us forget, with their songs and their smiles, the anger of the storm and the roar of the billows. We made allusions to the amusements of London as compared to Amboyna, and the interest of a tour for the ladies through the towns and villages of England."

Along about here another tragedy loomed, or at least so Amasa thought. A social tragedy: The Dutch gentlemen present began to make faces and to recall the old enmity between themselves and the English; and among them were those Who believed, and said, that they would not put it past these English gallants to kidnap some of the ladies and carry them to sea in revenge for that ancient unfortunate happening to the English in Amboyna. Serious Amasa records:

"Which was not at all in the thoughts of the English officers; we labored to return the courtesies we received, and to praise the place and the people residing there. For all that, we still discovered great uneasiness in the remarks of the Amboyna gentlemen, which the ladies appeared to be quite willing to excite rather than to allay. At last we became a little alarmed our-selves, and by a happy effort we succeeded in restoring the previous spirit of harmony and confidence."

By this time Amasa was forgetting his flora and fauna. With the social experiences behind him he felt qualified to write, though not for the ship's log:

"We should not forget that the most innocent pleasantries have their limits in conversation with the wives and daughters of the fixed inhabitants of visited places. However honest may be the design to furnish amusement of the hour, yet foreigners must remember in their intercourse with the ladies of a country, how narrow the boundary which divides the last step, in the course of a just familiarity and a delightful vivacity, from the first step into the forbidden field of licence and offense. Constraint, suspicion and severity should never be permitted to enter and disturb the social circle. The best security which can be given in this respect lies in good sense, good principles, a benevolent heart, and the habit of attending to the feelings of others."

The expedition left Amboyna with all the Dutch ladies still safe ashore, and the men of both sides shaking hands all around.