"Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay."
In six days the cargo destined for Batavia was landed, and on a Saturday the vessel cleared for Singapore. The wind was ahead and it was a difficult and dangerous task to work out among the many shoals that lie in the harbor. No pilot could be obtained, and every one advised me to wait till Sunday morning, and start with the fair breeze that was sure to blow in its early hours. I had scruples about sailing on Sunday if it could be avoided, yet feared censure if I detained the vessel, so I resolved to make a start. We got under way, shot between the shoals and cleared the shipping in safety. We passed our Sunday quietly sailing across the Java Sea with the fresh N.W. Monsoon.
We had the task before us of beating up the Carimata Passage against a head monsoon and an opposing current. It was a difficult undertaking, often requiring weeks of fruitless labor, and a month was allotted for the passage to Singapore by our friends in Batavia. On a previous voyage I had found a disadvantage in having the crew engaged in work, which sometimes prevented prompt attention to the manœuvering of the vessel, indeed I considered once that I lost a day or two by being prevented from tacking ship at the moment desired. Now I gave orders that no jobs on the rigging, that were unnecessary, should be undertaken, but that the crew should be kept standing by to work ship. This then received sole attention. The sails were always trimmed, the yards braced, and with every favoring variation of wind we tacked and retacked, fighting our way with incessant vigilance by day and night, slowly gaining ahead in spite of the opposing forces. We steered by rocks and shoals, shot through the narrow Panambanga Channel off the west coast of Borneo, and then, with a steady beat through the Southern China Sea, we gained the Singapore Strait, and anchored in the harbor of Singapore eleven days and a half from Batavia. This was an exciting passage. Sailing night and day in those narrow waters occasioned a great tension of nerves and limited the opportunities for sleep. One night in particular remains in vivid remembrance, when near dangerous shoals, out of sight of land, and uncertain where the current might have drifted us, the hours of anxiety seemed like years, and in the morning I looked in the glass with a half-serious apprehension lest my hair had turned grey, according to stories we read of such effects being produced by strong emotions. But there were pleasant days, when gliding slowly by the evergreen islands, through the smooth blue waters full of minute objects of interest, with distant mountain ranges to rest the eye upon, life seemed as full of romantic enjoyment as the imaginations of fabled story.