Narrative of the Circumnavigation of the Globe by the Austrian Frigate Novara, Volume II

Narrative of the Circumnavigation of the Globe by the Austrian Frigate Novara, Volume II - (Commodore B. Von Wullerstorf-Urbair,) Undertaken by Order of the Imperial Government in the Years 1857, 1858, & 1859, Under the Immediate Auspices of His I. and R. Highness the Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, Commander-In-Chief of the

The earliest visitants of whom we have any certain information to this cluster of islands (situated in the Bay of Bengal, between 6 50 and 9 10 N., and 93 and 94 E.), appear to have been Arabian traders, who, on their 2voyages to Southern China, landed on these islands, then known as Megabalu and Legabalu, on the first occasion in 851, and on the second in 877 of the Christian era. Abu-Zeyd-Hassan, one of these adventurers, gave a circumstantial account of these voyages, which has been translated into French, and published by Eusebius Renaudot.[1] After the Cape of Good Hope was doubled in 1497, the Nicobars were chiefly frequented by voyagers in East Indian seas, but without any such visits having in the least contributed to enlarge our information respecting a group so important by geographical position. In 1602, Captain Lancaster, commander of an English ship, passed ten days on the Nicobars, during which he hardly visited the southern islands, Great and Little Nicobar, but kept to the small island of Sombrero, of the northern cluster, now called Bampoka. He there found trees of such circumference and height, as would serve for the construction of the largest ships. Towards the middle of the seventeenth century, Koeping, a Swede, made his appearance at the Nicobars. Happening to be on board a Dutch vessel, which touched in 1647 at one of the islands, he thought he perceived among the inhabitants certain men furnished with caudal appendages, whereas it was their peculiar clothing, which consists of a long narrow piece of woven stuff, wound 3round the body and then left to hang loosely, which gave rise to such a report. With the arrival in Indian waters of Dampier, that daring but most trustworthy of navigators, the information respecting these islands first becomes more definite. He landed in the north-western Bay of the largest of these, to which he assigned the latitude 7 30 N., and gave a most extensive narrative of his adventurous career from the moment he abandoned the corsair-craft he had brought from Europe to seek for assistance on the Nicobars, to the period when, after braving a tremendous storm in a canoe, along with seven of his companions in misfortune he landed half dead on the northernmost point of Sumatra about 1706. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 38462
Author: Scherzer, Karl
Release Date: Jan 1, 2012
Format: eBook
Language: English