OR
RECOLLECTIONS OF TWENTY-ONE YEARS
PASSED IN
JAVA, SINGAPORE, AUSTRALIA,
AND CHINA.
BY G. F. DAVIDSON.
LONDON:
MADDEN AND MALCOLM,
LEADENHALL STREET.
1846.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY MADDEN AND MALCOLM,
8 LEADENHALL STREET.
The following pages were written to beguile the tediousness of a longvoyage from Hong Kong to England, during the spring and summer of 1844.When I state, that the whole was written with the paper on my knee, forwant of a desk, amid continual interruptions from three young childrenlacking amusement during their long confinement on ship-board, and witha perpetual liability to be pitched to leeward, paper and all,—I shallhave said enough to bespeak from every good-natured reader a candidallowance for whatever defects may attach to the composition. It isnecessary, however, that I should also premise, that the sketches aredrawn entirely from memory, and that the incidents referred to in theearlier chapters, took place some twenty years ago. That my recollectionmay have proved treacherous on some minor points, is very possible; but,whatever may be the merits or demerits of the work in other respects, itcontains, to the best of my knowledge and belief, nothing but truth inthe strictest sense of that term; and, as imbodying the result of my ownpersonal observations in the countries visited,[ii] it may possess aninterest on that account, not always attaching to volumes of higherpretensions.
My wanderings have been neither few nor short, and, perhaps, verify theold proverb, that a rolling stone gathers no moss. I have crossed theOcean in forty different square-rigged vessels; have trod the plains ofHindostan, the wilds of Sumatra, and the mountains of Java; havestrolled among the beautiful hills and dales of Singapore and Penang;have had many a gallop amid the forests and plains of Australia; havepassed through the labyrinth of reefs forming Torres' Straits; and havevisited the far-famed Celestial Empire. My first idea, in endeavouringto retrace my journeyings and adventures, was, that the personalnarrative might serve to amuse a circle of private friends. But thenotices relating to the openings for Trade in the Far East, and to thesubject of Emigration, together with the free strictures upon the causesof the recent depression in our Australian colonies, will, I venture tohope, be not unacceptable to those who are interested in the extensionof British commerce, and in the well-being of the rising communitieswhich form an integral part of the mighty Empire now encircling theGlobe.
Some parts of the work refer to coming events as probable, which havesince become matters of fact; but I have not deemed it necessary tosuppress or to alter what I had written. I am more especially[iii] happy tofind that my suggestions respecting Borneo have, to some extent, beenanticipated; and that the important discovery of its coal-mines has beentaken advantage of by Her Majesty's Government in the very way pointedout in observations written at sea fifteen months ago. Since my arrivalin England, I have learned also, that the feasibility of the navigationof Torres' Straits from west to east, has struck ot