Opposed by such difficulties as these the ship made but a slow passage--the best routes had not yet been discovered--and it was the middle of September before they entered the Indian Ocean. The weather then became suddenly calm, and they drifted along beyond the latitude of the western extremity of Java, about a hundred miles south of the Straits of Sunda. Here they began to encounter the China fleet which steers through this strait, for every day one or more sails were visible.
Here they were borne on helplessly by the ocean currents, which at this place are numerous and distracted. The streams that flow through the many isles of the Indian Archipelago, uniting with the greater southern streams, here meet and blend, causing great difficulties to navigation, and often baffling even the most experienced seaman. Yet it was not all left to the currents, for frequently and suddenly the storms came up; and the weather, ever changeful, kept the sailors constantly on the alert.
Yet between the storms the calms were frequent, and sometimes long continued, though of such a sort as required watchfulness. For out of the midst of dead calms the storm would suddenly rise in its might, and all the care which experience could suggest was not always able to avert disaster.
"I don't like this weather, Mr. Brandon. It's the worst that we could have, especially just here."
"Why, we're opposite the Straits of Sunda, the worst place about these parts."
"Pirates. The Malays, you know. We're not over well prepared to meet them, I'm afraid. If they come we'll have to fight them the best way we can; and these calms are the worst thing for us, because the Malay proas can get along in the lightest wind, or with oars, when we can't move at all."
"Are the Malays any worse than usual now?" asked Brandon.
"Well, no worse than they've been for the last ten years. Zangorri is the worst of them all."
"I should think you had. Why, there never was a pirate in these seas that did so much damage. No mortal knows the ships that devil has captured and burned."
"I hope you have arms for the seamen, at any rate."
"Oh, we have one howitzer, and small-arms for the men, and we will have to get along the best way we can with these; but the owners ought never to send us here without a better equipment."