A VOYAGE TO AND FROM THE ISLAND OF BORNEO, IN THE EAST INDIES

With A Description of the said Island: giving an Account of the Inhabitants, their Manners, Customs, Religion, Product, chief Ports, and Trade. Together with the Re-establishment of the English Trade there, An. 1714, after our Factory had been destroyed by the Banjareens some Years before. Also a Description of the islands of Canary, Cape Verd, Java, Madura; of the Streights of Bally, the Cape of Good Hope, the Hottentots, the Island of St. Helena, Ascension, &..... The whole very pleasant and very useful to such as shall have occasion to go into those parts. Illustrated with several curious Maps and Cuts 

First Edition: (xvi), 205, (iii) pages, half title page with advertisement on verso, 2 engraved maps - 1 folding, and 5 engraved plates - 2 folding, old sprinkled calf untitled and worn at the top and bottom of the spine and corners , bookplates  on the front endpapers, one of New Battle Library, worm holes in the margin of the last eight leaves, maps and plates are bright the text if very lightly browned, a very good copy. 

RCP Museum (https://history.rcp.ac.uk/blog/best-description-oran-ooutan-daniel-beeckmans-voyage-borneo) 

‘Daniel Beeckman, was a captain in the East India Company. In 1713 he captained the Eagle, a 200-ton galley with a crew of 40 and 16 guns, on a two-year journey to south-east Asia and back again to buy the pepper grown there, a valuable commodity in Europe. The East India Company (EIC) was probably the most powerful corporation in history. At its height, it dominated global trade between Europe, South Asia and East Asia, fought numerous wars using its own army and navy, and conquered and colonised modern-day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Burma. 

‘Beeckman’s Voyage is a detailed account of the journey he and his crew made via the Canary Islands, Cape Verde Islands, the Cape of Good Hope, Christmas Island, Jakarta (known to Beeckman as Batavia) on the island of Java, and on towards Borneo. He wrote on a wide range of topics including the technical details of navigation, weather, flora and fauna, the appearance and customs of the people he met en route, the produce of the countries visited, and internal conflict amongst the ship’s crew. 

‘Beeckman and his crew spent nearly six months in Borneo from June to December 1714, docking at the town on Banjarmassin (‘Banjar Masseen’ in his spelling) on the south of the island, and travelling up the Martapura River to the town of Kayutangi (‘Caytongee’) and beyond. Beeckman was able to secure the purchase of approximately 240–300 tonnes of pepper from the local traders. 

‘Upon their arrival they began a deceit maintained throughout their entire stay that they were in fact not EIC representatives, and were in actually independent traders acting entirely under their own agency. The reason for this was the breakdown in relations between the rulers of the region and the previous EIC traders. Previous EIC representatives had assured the local authorities that they were only traders and had no military designs on the region, but were then reported to have fitted out their warehouse with guns and to have begun attacks on local people, leading to the destruction of the trading post and the arrest and execution of some of the EIC representatives. Apparently oblivious to the irony, Beeckman repeatedly warns the readers of his book about the various ways that the locals on the island would supposedly try to cheat traders seeking to buy pepper or other commodities such as birds nest, dragon’s blood, gold, camphor, and bezoars. 

‘Beeckman described Borneo as ‘the biggest Island, not only in the Indian Sea, but in the whole World, except perhaps California in the South Sea’ (at that time, California was believed to be detached from the north American continent).  Beeckman considered it ‘unwholesome [i.e. unhealthy] because of the Moistness’, and noted that ‘in the beginning of the rainy Season there is no sleeping for the Noise which the Frogs make, whereof there is a vast multitude in these swampy Woods’. He wrote dismissively about many of the customs of the local people, including their rejection of alcohol, their use of opium, their fright at a lunar eclipse, and their belief in evil spirits or demons. He particularly disapproved of the music which he heard at a local wedding. 

‘Beeckman took particular care to describe the animal life encountered on the voyage, recounting seeing flying fish while at sea, as well as dolphins, whales, albatross, alligators and crocodiles, parrots, tortoise, tigers and a great number of flies. He saved his fullest description, however, for one particular primate native to Borneo.’