CRUISE IN THE SOUTHERN CHINA SEA. 69 



through which we had so nearly come to grief before, but miss- 

 ing it with the rudder by a bare yard we soon afterwards got a 

 fair breeze and, running past eight or ten small islands, made 

 Terempa, which is the chief kampong of the Anambas, by 2 p. m. 

 The Anambas Islands are situated in lat. o*N., lorig; 106 E. 

 and extend over an area 65 geographical miles long N. and S. 

 and 55 miles wide. They practically form two groups of which, 

 though the western includes the larger island, the other is greater 

 in area. All the islands are hilly, covered with forest, and afford 

 numerous bays and channels where safe anchorage may be found 

 in spite of the coral reefs that occur everywhere. Although the 

 population is mainly confined to the larger islands, Malays are 

 thinly scattered over most of the rest and there are Chinese 

 Settlements in either group. 



Siantan. 



Terempa lies in a little bay on the north coast of Siantan 

 which is the largest of the easterly Anambas, having probably an 

 area of about 20,000 acres: it is densely covered with heavy 

 forest, is very hilly and rises 1855 feet. 



The kampong is a thriving little place with a Chinese 

 cemetery, twenty or thirty Chinese shops with galvanised iron 

 roofs and a good proportion of its population Chinese. A small 

 steamer the " Banka" calls once or twice a month and yet it is 

 against these islands that the dear old China Seas Directory 

 (3rd edition) still contains the antediluvian warning that "it is 

 dangerous to land without due precaution, for the Malays who 

 reside on them may probably massacre or make slaves of strangers 

 if they perceive a convenient opportunity." A propos of this 

 sort of thing I remember once asking a Danish sailor whom I 

 met on the other side of Sumatra whether he used the English 

 Admiralty publications for these seas, but the skipper of that 

 very old-fashioned little barque the "Hans of Fano" shook his 

 head and replied that he always consulted certain continental 

 sailing directions as our own were far too obsolete and scrappy. 



Terempa is built along the bead of the bay and has a small 

 saltwater creek opening out behind it. As one faces it from 

 seaward an orderly street of Chinese stores with the opium- 

 farmer's place and a Chinese school lie to' the left with a few 



R. A. Soc, No. 41, 1903. 



