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"And besides," says William, "it is their interest to be honest now, for, as they know upon what terms we got the goods we are to truck with them, so they know we can afford good pennyworths; and in the next place, it saves them going the whole voyage, so that the southerly monsoons yet holding, if they traded with us, they could immediately return with their cargo to China;" though, by the way, we afterwards found they intended for Japan; but that was all one, for by this means they saved at least eight months' voyage.
If it were not for the existence of documents which prove it, no one would believe that twenty pirates, in a boat, amid the raging of a furious tempest, captured a man-of-war which had eighty guns, two hundred armed men, and a brave commander. The eleven ships in the harbor of Mydaw were only awaiting the cessation of the monsoons and the arrival of the King Solomon to sail against Barthelemy.
As there is no good reason to believe that the ancients made regular voyages to India, previously to the discovery of the monsoons; yet, as it is an undoubted fact that some of the exclusive productions of that country, particularly cinnamon, were obtained by them, through their voyages on the Red Sea; it becomes an important and interesting enquiry, by what means these productions were brought to those places on this sea, from which the Romans obtained them.
The monsoons for the most part commence and leave off gradually there; the months of April and May, October and November generally affording weather and winds variable and uncertain.
The whole appearance of nature resembled those solemn preludes to earthquakes and hurricanes in the West Indies, from which the east in general is providentially free. We were allowed very little time for conjecture; in a few minutes the heavy clouds burst over us.... I witnessed seventeen monsoons in India, but this exceeded them all in its awful appearance and dreadful effects.
With the south-west monsoons smart squalls come up sometimes, but they are not very bad. I don't think you will find it any rougher than we had it outside the river to-day on your passage to the Point," replied Captain Rayburn, who stated then that he had seen the Guardian-Mother when she was at Calcutta. "You are bound to Saigon, I think you said."
Yet there are times and seasons when Madras is very enjoyable: just after the south-west monsoons, when all nature is clothed in verdant beauty, and a delightful coolness pervades the air, the Neilgerie Hills cannot be surpassed by those of Mahableshwa or any other sanitary station in India, even the Capital itself, whose shores are washed by the boiling surf from over the triple reefs of rocks during the rainy season; but that time being past, a more tranquil state of things pervades the ocean, and cool sea breezes waft over the city.
The Prince of Wales, when on his visit to India some five or six years since, laid the foundation stone of this structure, but though it is so much needed it seemed to us to grow very slowly. No more unprotected spot could be found on the surf-beaten shore of the Coromandel coast, so completely is it exposed to the fury of the northeast monsoons.
The next day we passed Kedgeree, and anchored in Saugur Roads; furled sails, and veered to forty fathoms. On the following day we passed the Torch, the floating light vessel, which is moored in the eastern channel of the tail of the Saugur sand, for the purpose of guiding vessels up the river during both monsoons.
Now I am wise." "What?" said Findlayson, over his shoulder. Peroo went on as if he were talking to himself "Six seven ten monsoons since, I was watch on the fo'c'sle of the Rewah the Kumpani's big boat and there was a big tufan; green and black water beating, and I held fast to the life-lines, choking under the waters.
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