BORNEO
AND
THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO.
London:
Spottiswoode and Shaw,
New-street Square.
BORNEO
AND
THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO.
WITH
DRAWINGS OF COSTUME AND SCENERY.
BY
FRANK S. MARRYAT,
LATE MIDSHIPMAN OF H. M. S. SAMARANG,
SURVEYING VESSEL.
LONDON:
LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS,
PATERNOSTER-ROW.
1848.
INTRODUCTION.
I wish the readers of these pages to understand that it has been with nodesire to appear before the public as an author that I have publishedthis Narrative of the Proceedings of Her Majesty's ship Samarang duringher last Surveying Cruise.
During the time that I was in the ship, I made a large collection ofdrawings, representing, I hope faithfully, the costumes of the nativesand the scenery of a country so new to Europeans. They were considered,on my return, as worthy to be presented to the public, as being morevoluminous and more characteristic than drawings made in haste usuallyare.
I may here observe, that it has been a great error on the part of theAdmiralty, considering the great expense incurred in fitting out vesselsfor survey, that a little additional outlay is not made in supplyingevery vessel with a professional draughtsman, as was invariably the casein the first vessels sent out on discovery. The duties of officers insurveying vessels are much too fatiguing and severe to allow them thetime to make anything but hasty sketches, and they require that practicewith the pencil without which natural talent is of little avail; theconsequence is, that the engravings, which have appeared in too many ofthe Narratives of Journeys and[vi] Expeditions, give not only an imperfect,but even an erroneous, idea of what they would describe.
A hasty pencil sketch, from an unpractised hand, is made over to anartist to reduce to proportion; from him it passes over to the hand ofan engraver, and an interesting plate is produced by their jointlabours. But, in this making up, the character and features of theindividual are lost, or the scenery is composed of foliage notindigenous to the country, but introduced by the artist to make a goodpicture.
In describing people and countries hitherto unknown, no descriptiongiven by the pen will equal one correct drawing. How far I may havesucceeded must be decided by those who have, with me, visited the sameplaces and mixed wi