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Chapter 87. The Grand Armada. Part 1. The long and narrow peninsula of Malika, extending

south eastward from the territories of Burma, forms the most subtly point of all Asia.

In a continuous line from that peninsula, stretch the long islands of Sumatra, Java, Bali,

and Timor, which, with many others, form a vast mole or a rampart, lengthwise connecting

Asia with Australia, and dividing the long, unbroken Indian Ocean from the thickly-studded

Oriental archipelagos. This rampart is pierced by several Sally ports for the convenience

of ships and whales, conspicuous among which are the Straits of Sanda and Malika. By the

Straits of Sanda, chiefly vessels bound to China from the west emerge into the China

seas. Those narrow Straits of Sanda divide Sumatra from Java, and standing midway in that

vast rampart of islands, buttrested by that bold green promontory known to Seaman as Java

head. They not a little correspond to the central gateway opening into some vast walled

empire, and considering the inexhaustible wealth of spices and silks and jewels and

gold and ivory with which the thousand islands of that Oriental Sea are enriched. It seems

a significant provision of nature that such treasures, by the very formation of the land,

should at least bear the appearance, however ineffectual, of being guarded from the all-grasp

in Western world. The shores of the Straits of Sanda are unsupplied with those dominating

...