The Indian Ocean - Michael Pearson [165]
At length I have the satisfaction to inform you of our arrival at Calcutta. The voyage from Madras, short as it is, is a dangerous one; for the entrance to the mouth of the Ganges is a very difficult piece of navigation, on account of the many islands, cut out by the numberless branches of the river; many of which branches are really great rivers themselves, and after sweeping through and fertilising the different parts of several provinces, there disembogue themselves, with great force, and the roaring noise of many waters. Besides there are a number of sand banks, which, from the prodigious force of the waters, change their situation. Therefore it is necessary to have a pilot well skilled in the different channels; but as such are not always to be had, many ships are thereby endangered, and sometimes lost.78
Figure 5 Custom House Wharf, Calcutta. Produced by Sir C. D'Oyly (artist) and Dickinson & Co. (engravers). © National Maritime Museum, London
Figure 6 Madras. Produced by Leighton (artist) and William Measom (engraver), c. 1848. © National Maritime Museum, London
In 1845 Fanny Parks left Kolkata, being towed by a steamer, yet even so the passage nearly defeated them. 'At 8 a.m. while we were in tow of the steamer the Essex ran upon a sandbank; she fell over very disagreeably on her side, was thus carried by the violence of the tide over the obstacle, and righted in deep water.... The pilot was much surprised, as a fortnight before that part of the river was all clear.' The rush of the tides was a real hazard: 'This evening the tide ran with such violence that after the vessel had anchored, it was necessary for a man to remain at the helm. This steering an anchored vessel had a curious and novel effect.'79 Macabre sights added to the distress of the traveller. Up river from Kolkata in 1810 Mrs Graham described how
The other night, in coming up the river, the first object I saw was a dead body, which had lain long enough in the water to be swollen, and to become buoyant. It floated past our boat, almost white, from being so long in the river, and surrounded by fish; and as we got to the landing-place I saw two wild dogs tearing another body, from which one of them had just succeeded in separating a thigh-bone, with which he ran growling away.80
Clearly all this was quite unsatisfactory. New ports had to be created to facilitate the movement of people, and especially of goods. The main ports to serve the steam ships were Aden, Mombasa, Mumbai, Karachi, Colombo, Chennai, Kolkata, Singapore, Fremantle and Jakarta, and then others in East Asia and eastern Australia. Jakarta is a good example of what the imperialists did. As we saw, the approach was quite impossible. Silt from the river Tjiliwong, on which it was located, meant that the foreshore extended by over 20 metres a year! The rapid rise of Singapore after its founding in 1819 was disastrous for Jakarta. As Earl noted in 1832, Jakarta
was formerly visited by numbers of large junks from China and Siam, and by prahus from all parts of the Archipelago; but since the establishment of the British settlement at Singapore, the perfect freedom of commerce enjoyed at that place has attracted the greater part of the native trade, while that formerly carried on by junks between Jakarta and China has totally ceased.81
The Dutch took action. As early as 1832 they built two long piers, but these failed to solve the problem, and finally they had to build a whole new port to serve Jakarta, at Tandjung Priok, 10 km from the capital. This was done in the 1880s. The work included a rail link to Jakarta, an inner harbour, and an outer harbour with two heads each 1,850 metres long, and with an entrance of 125 metres. The object was to enable the Dutch to compete with Singapore, and for a while this was successful. However, the latter was advantaged by a good natural harbour and being a free port for nearly all imports. The late nineteenth century tin and rubber boom in Malaya provided another boost, so that while Jakarta