INDIAN OCEAN IN THIRTEENTH CENTURY 23 



priority in navigation to all others, though some say 

 the Chinese preceded the Javans." x It would be sur- 

 prising if these Javan corsairs and mariners, at home 

 in every part of the Eastern Archipelago, sailing the 

 ocean as far as Madagascar, did not chance now and then 

 to land on the North-West coast of Australia. When 

 Flinders was exploring the Gulf of Carpentaria in 1 802, 

 he was startled by the appearance of six Malay prows 

 which proved to be engaged in collecting Trepang or 

 Beche-de-mer (sea-cucumber) as a dainty for the China 

 market. 2 He learnt that " the natives of Macassar had 

 long been accustomed to fish for the Trepang amongst 

 the islands in the vicinity of Java, . . . but, about twenty 

 years before, one of them had been driven by the North- 

 West monsoon to the coast of New Holland, and finding 

 the Trepang to be abundant, they afterwards returned, 

 and had continued to fish there since that time." 3 Who 

 shall say in what far-off unrecorded cycle of Cathay the 

 North-West monsoon first drove Malay prows to the North 

 Australian coast ? Its desolate appearance, the ferocity 

 of its men, the unloveliness of its women, the apparent 

 lack of everything eatable except fish, are sufficient expla- 

 nation of the fact that visitors did not become settlers. 

 The Malays were barbarians, and not even respectable 

 barbarians. But they were in touch with other races And Malays 

 who were far from being barbarians. Their voyages i^ans 1 ** 1 

 carried them far. Their islands were large and fertile, Arabians, 

 producing commodities very good for commerce. Among ai 

 them were the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, a little group 

 of tiny specks of land, Banda, Amboyna, Ternate, Tidore 

 which produced the world's supply of nutmegs and 

 mace, cloves and allspice. The possession of a complete 

 monopoly of that which all civilized nations must have at 

 any price made the Malay prows welcome everywhere. 

 Especially were they welcome at Malacca, the great central 

 exchange of the Far East, where from time immemorial 

 Malays met Chinese, Hindus, and Arabs. With all these 



1 De Conti. * Flinders, vol. ii. p. 230. 



3 Flinders, vol. ii. p. 257. 



