Sunda Strait

“ You will accordingly set sail from here together, run out of Sunda Strait, and steer your course for the South-land from the western extremity of Java, keeping as close to the wind as you will find at all possible, that by so doing you may avoid being driven too far westward by the South-easterly winds which generally blow in those waters. You may therefore run on as far as the 32nd or 33rd degree, if you do not fall in with land before that latitude ”

“ So he came back to the ship and got on board and the boat was hoisted up and more sail was set; and the Industry sailed on her way through Sunda strait. Captain Solomon called it Sunday strait. A strait is a rather narrow passage from one sea to another. Sunda strait leads from the Indian Ocean to Java Sea ”

“ The soil appears to be very infertile, yet when the sun was approaching the western horizon, and the cumuli, floating in the pure air, slowly drew along their changing shadows over the innumerable hills and valleys, the whole scene was nearly as delightful as my first view of the tropics in coming up the Strait of Sunda. There is no road in the interior of the island, and every one who will travel the shortest distance, must go on horseback along the sandy beaches. ”

“ Morning came with fine breezes and pleasant weather. At half-past four we saw Winerow Point bearing northwest by west. At seven o'clock we took in all studding-sails and staysails, and the fore and mizzen topgallant-sails. So another day passed and another night. An hour after midnight we took in the main topgallantsail, and lay by with our head to the south until six bells, when we wore ship, proceeding north again, and saw Java Head at nine o'clock to the minute.
We now faced Sunda Strait, the channel that separates Java from Sumatra and unites the Indian Ocean with the Java Sea. ”

“ When a breeze would take us up near the mouth of the channel, it would then die away and let a strong current sweep us away to the east, and one time we were carried most unpleasantly near the high, threatening crags at Palembang Point, near Java Head. Those who have passed Sunda at this time of the year, or Ombay Strait in the beginning of the opposite monsoon, will readily recall the many weary hours they have passed waiting for a favorable breeze to take them only a few miles farther on their long voyage. ”

“ In our progress past the same latitudes in which we had previously encountered such perils, we now met with nothing of interest; steering south by the Strait of Gaspar—to the other side of the island of Banca, instead of by our former route when coming up—we navigated Sunda the same day, getting out into the Indian Ocean at the beginning of October. ”

“ The naked natives coming down to the beach to gaze at us. We ran through the Strait of Sunda about 2 P.M., passing to the westward of Thwart-the-Way.
Soon after passing out of the Strait and shaping our course, we discovered a clipper-looking ship, under topsails, standing towards North Island. Gave chase, although we were in the midst of a rain squall, and in the course of fifteen or twenty minutes we were near enough to him to make him show his colours. They were United States, and upon being boarded he proved to be the Winged Racer, a vessel for which we had been hunting outside the Strait. ”

“ At all events it would seem never to have been made or discovered by any one before us, as we have never heard of such discovery [*] , and the chart shows nothing but open ocean at this place. According to our skipper's estimation in his chart the Strait of Sunda was then N.N.E. of us at about 250 miles' distance; according to the second mate's reckoning the direction was North East, and according to the first mate's estimation North East by North. These statements, however, proved erroneous, since we arrived east of Bali on a north-north-east course. ”

“ Sĕlat is the name by which Singapore is generally known throughout the Archipelago: the strait par excellence. Sĕlat Anyar, the Anjer straits, is the name by which the natives know the straits of Sunda. ”

“ We are not alone. Six or eight vessels are also detained here—for this Strait of Sunda is the great gate through which pass out most of the valuable teas and costly silks of China and Japan, and these ships are carrying cotton goods to those lands to exchange in part for such luxuries. ”

“ After it had been repaired it was immediately broken a second time, and in 1861 the enterprise was given up, but now they are laying another cable across the Strait of Sunda, from Angir to the district of Lampong; thence it will extend up the west coast to Bencoolen and Padang, and, passing across the Padang plateau, through Fort de Rock and Paya Kombo, come to the Strait of Malacca, and be laid directly across to Singapore.
These Javanese ponies go well on a level or down-hill, but when the road becomes steep they frequently stop altogether. ”

“ Krakatoa is one of the many islands that form the large island chain known as the Sunda Islands. The most important islands of this chain are Sumatra, Java, Sumbawa, Flores, and Ceram. Between Sumatra and Java, the largest two of these islands, there is a channel called the Straits of Sunda that connects the waters of the Indian Ocean with those of the Pacific Ocean. The Straits of Sunda is an important piece of water that forms one of the great highways to the East. Shipping is, therefore, always to be found in its waters. ”

“ We instantly let go our anchor, being in a rapid current or tide-way, in seventeen fathoms upon oozy ground. When morning broke on the 31st we had sight of the high land of Sumatra, having an island a-stern, the ledge of rocks we had passed on our starboard, and three small islands forming a triangle on our larboard bow. We were about eight leagues off the high land of Java, but could not then get into the straits of Sunda, as the wind was quite fallen. ”

“ The congested population of the fertile and indented coast of southern China, though not strictly speaking a sea-faring people, found an outlet for their redundant humanity and their commerce in the tropical Sunda Islands. By the sixth century their trading junks were doing an active business in the harbors of Java, Sumatra, and Malacca ”

“ And thus Sunda Kalapa may, in early times, have meant a secret place of deposit or a depot for the traders from continental India, to collect their goods and rendez-vous before leaving in a fleet, to proceed up the coast of Sumatra, and then cross the Bay of Bengal on their way home. The Sunda people have a tradition that Europeans first showed themselves at Nusa Kalapa, a small island lying off the mouth of the Chidani river, and thus a little to the westward of the present town of Batavia. ”

“ The island of Sunda is divided on the south from Java by a very narrow channel. It produces pale gold with abundance of pepper and provisions. The natives are numerous but unwarlike, yet are curious in adorning their arms. They worship idols, and often sell their children to supply their necessities. The women are beautiful, those of the higher ranks being chaste, contrary to what is usual in most parts of the world. They have convents, as in Spain and Portugal, in which they reside while virgins; and the married women kill themselves on the death of their husbands. ”

“ Then we shall probably find calms about the Tropic of Capricorn; after which, without once sighting land, we may very likely find a breeze, more or less favourable, but seldom against us, which will carry us through the Straits of Sunda, between Java and Sumatra, to the west of the great island of Borneo, right away to the north, through the China sea, leaving the Philippine Islands on our right hand, up to Japan. ”

“ Sunda, the Western half of the island called by Europeans generally Java. It extends from Java Head to, and includes the residency of Cheribon, as distinct from the Eastern half of the island, which is Jawa or Java properly so called, and on the island itself always meant, when Java is spoken of. Sunda may be derived from the Sunda word Tunda, to set aside, to put by, and Sa or Saha, Clough, 722, a particle and prefix signifying union, association, with, together. In Sunda Sa in the composition of words means also having the property of. ”

“ The sandy beaches of the shore hold their coco-palms, whose nuts by their milk eke out the scanty supply of drinking water, and whose fronds shade the tombs of the dead.588 The sea-faring Malays of the Sunda Islands, in thickly populated points of the coast, often dwell in permanently inhabited rafts moored near the pile dwellings. ”

“ The glorious fertility of Sunda, with its forest-clad volcanoes, its rushing rivers, and broad green valleys, could certainly not be produced on the arid plains of the famine-stricken Deccan by any amount of energy and wisdom on the part of the government. In order to make a fair comparison between British and Dutch rule in Asia we must pass over from continental India to the island of Ceylon, which in climate, scenery, and products is merely Java on a smaller scale. Java lies a few degrees south of the equator, Ceylon about as far to the north ”

“ The Malay peninsula is practically another island of somewhat the same shape and general trend as Sumatra, and about one-half the size. Its general relations—and the remark applies to the great Sunda Islands as well—appear to be rather more with Burmah, Tenasserim, and even the Cingalese district, than with Siam. Points of connexion between Ceylon and Sumatra, and Ceylon and Borneo, have already (p. 304) been brought out. ”

“ Also a continuons ridge of land uncut by any stream of water, and in this sense is always used in conjunction with the word tali, rope or line as tali alas, the unbroken ridge connecting two hills, or leading from the lowlands to the mountains. Alas in the sense of forest is not Sundaese but Javanese. But in Sunda it is used in composition as seen from the following examples, Alasan, aswalas, kopi alas. ”

“ Natives, Chinese and Arabs, are given seats, and in certain instances some of the members are elected, but more generally they are appointed by government. The islands are often described as of two groups, Java and Madura forming one, and the other consisting of Sumatra, Borneo, Riouw-Lingga Archipelago, Banka, Billiton, Celebes, Molucca Archipelago, the small Sunda Islands, and a part of New Guinea—the Outposts as they are collectively named. ”

“ Borneo, Celebes, Buru, Jilolo, and the Spice Islands, Timor, Ceram, the eastern Sunda Islands were, of course, with Java and Sumatra on the west, New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago on the east, and the Philippines on the north, continental islands; that is to say, fragments of the former prolongation of Asia towards Australia: old lands, large or small portions of which have always risen above the very shallow sea which now separates them from one another. ”

“ The natives of India, coming from the droughty coasts of Coromandel, would be struck with the beauty of the ever-verdant plains and mountains of Java. One of the wives of Silawangi of Pajajaran was called Nyai Mantri Manék Mayang Sunda, Raffles, Java, 2 vol., page 104, which may be translated, her ladyship the counsellor, the beautiful gem of illusion, or her ladyship of the counsellor, the gem of illusion of Sunda. ”

“ Passing through the straits of Saleir, between a cliff-bound island and the south-eastern Cape of Celebes, the returning steamer in due time reaches her moorings in Sourabaya, and a rapid railway journey through Java connects with the outgoing boat from Batavia to Padang, a three days' voyage through a chain of green islands breaking the force of the monsoon on a desolate and harbourless shore. The forest-clad ranges of Sumatra draw nearer at Benkoelen, buried in cocoa-palms on the rim of a quiet bay, within a terrific reef which makes landing impossible in stormy weather. ”

“ The word in Malay means a small variety of deer. Cermis muntjak, which is called in Sunda minchĕk, so that the Sunda people have very likely borrowed the designation of the constellation from the Malays. The position in the heavens of this Kidang constellation regulates the time for cutting forest for yearly paddy clearings.
Kidul, South; Laut kidul, the South sea.
Kidung, a prayer to ward off evil; such prayer brings misfortune upon the thief or the person evil disposed. The prayer is one of Mohammedan tendency, and not Bhuddistical. ”

“ This tremendous crack or fissure crosses the Straits of Sunda, and in consequence we find a number of these vents—as volcanic mountains may be styled—in the Island of Sumatra, which you saw to the nor'ard as you came along. ”

“ On the 20th of June we sailed for Kupang, a port near the southern end of the island of Timur. The southern extremity of the southwestern peninsula of Celebes is low, with mountains of moderate height rising in the interior. As we steamed past it on our way southward to Sapi Strait, between Sumbawa on one side and Commodo and Floris [19] on the other, we found that the eastern monsoon had already freshened to a strong breeze, but it was steady, and the sky and sea reminded one of “the trades.” Many flying-fish sprang out of the sea, as if too happy to remain in their more proper element. ”

“ Jégéng, a plant in the humahs growing innumerable small seeds, of the size of a pin's head, in clusters. It is called in Malay Jawa-wut. It can be steamed like rice and eaten. It is much given to cage birds. The Sunda people have a tradition that their ancestors lived on Jégéng before Paddy was known to them. The Malay word Jawa- wut is Sanscrit, composed of Jawa and But, C. 475 Eating (of Priests) literally Java- eating- See Jawa. ”