Page:On the Coromandel Coast.djvu/14

2 port must combine facilities for inland trade as well as a good anchorage. The little ship was a swift sailer, and she dispensed with an escort, thus exhibiting an unusual independence for those days when piracy and buccaneering nourished unchecked. She crept up the inhospitable coast observant but unsuccessful. A formidable line of surf confronted her throughout the entire length of the peninsula. She passed the spot where Madras now stands, then a barren stretch of pale sunburnt sand, and reached Masulipatam. Here the Dutch East India Company had already established a factory. A boat was lowered; an English merchant and one of the Dutchmen were sent ashore. The boat was upset in the surf and the Englishman was nearly drowned. He was already afflicted with that curse of the tropics, dysentery, which he had contracted in a former voyage to Java. The immersion brought on a return of it and he died a few months later at Masulipatam. He was the first victim claimed by the Coromandel Coast from the ranks of the Company's servants. He heads a list unnumbered that extends over nearly two hundred and fifty years.

The ships in which the Europeans made voyages to the East were of about three hundred tons burden. The travellers had to contend with many dangers. In addition to bad weather and attacks from pirates there was the vital question of food and water. The casks that contained the water supply rotted in the tropical climate and barely lasted out the voyage. The water with which they were supplied at the different ports of call teemed with bacilli, producing forms of disease unknown to the English doctors.

The jealousy of the Dutch did not allow the English to remain in peace at Masulipatam. At the end of a quarter of a century they were driven to seek a new centre for their operations. After various adventures this