Viewing page 25 of 185

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

^[[20]]

[[underlined]] March 1 - At sea [[/underlined]]
We left the Adelphi shortly after nine this morning, and boarded the Plancius, of the K. P. M. line - a swell little Dutch boat.  For an hour before sailing [[strikethrough]] t [[/strikethrough]] we watched the Malay boys diving for coins near the side of the boat.  Each one had a canoe that looked just about as sturdy, and much the same shape, as a peanut-shell.  How they could balance themselves in these little dug-outs was a mystery.  From time to time they would bail them out with a curious scooping motion of their feet.  Once of the boatmen was a famous Singapore character, an elderly, gray-haired Malay, with a lighted cigar always puffing in his mouth.  When a coin came his way, he quickly reversed the cigar, putting the burning end in his mouth, dived for the coin, righted the cigar as soon as his head came to the surface again, and climbed back in his boat with the cigar still lighted.

The boys played an interesting and skillful ball game, striking a rubber ball, anout the size of a tennis ball, with their paddles.  They would send it against the side of the Plancius, catch it time and again on the tip of their paddles, hit it from one boatman to another, and vary the game by hitting it occasionally with their heads.

As we pulled out, the Plancius served us orange ice instead of the customary bouillon on deck.  We left the skyline of Singapore, and the blue hills of Johore behind, and set out through the Straits of Malacca.  All afternoon we were in sight of land, partly [[strikethrough]] occasionally [[/strikethrough]] low coastal country but mostly with mountains rising from the green water.  Many of the mountains were typically volcanic.

The crew and the [[strikethrough]] stewards [[/strikethrough]] boys on the boat are Javanese, and each one wears a batik sash and turban.  We begin learning Malay in earnest, in order to get what we want to eat and drink.

[[left margin]] ^[[image - left arrow]] [[/margin]]
Bill and I sat on deck very late, enjoying the mild evening, the moon and the clouds, and getting a great thrill out of the thought that to-morrow we will be in Sumatra, the island that has been the center of our hopes and plans for so many years.


[[underline]] March 2 - Belawan and Medan.  [[/underline]]

The Plancius docked at Belawan about eleven o'clock, and came alongside in a curious manner all its own.  Two launches came out from land, each with a long rope, which was fastened at one end to stanchions on the boat, at the other to piles on the dock.  A donkey engine on deck wound up the rope, and we were pulled in sideways to the pier.

There was considerable delay while all our baggage was taken ashore.  Then we went ashore and sat on a pile of trunks waiting for the head of the customs.  It was interesting to watch the coolies disembarking from between decks.  There had been twenty or thirty first-class passengers on board, but there were eighteen hundred Javanese between-decks, coming out to work on the plantations.  A stream of them came ashore, each one carrying his worldly goods on his back.  There were women with babies in their arms, men with bird cages, strange bundles of all shapes and sizes tied up in grass matting, boxes of household utensils - a seemingly endless procession.

Transcription Notes:
Typographical errors included per transcription instructions. Edited to include ^[[text]] notation for handwritten text on typed page, as well as standard notation of [[underlined]] etc as recommended by Transcription Centre instructions. -@siobhanleachman