Trip to Batavia

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Illustration from Reise nach Batavia ; on the right a map showing Europe, Africa, Asia and parts of the American continent
Trip to Batavia
Library St. Gallen Abbey Library
material paper
Page number 370
format 13 cm × 19.5 cm
Time of origin 1669-1682

The illuminated manuscript Journey to Batavia by the Alsatian globetrotter Georg Franz Müller describes episodes from his journey to the Dutch East Indies in pictures and related verses . He depicts the animals, people and the plants of East India and South Africa. The work has been kept in the St. Gallen Abbey Library since 1723 ( Cod. Sang. 1311).

Format, scope, origin

The book in Duodez format has a brass-studded ornate cover. It is like a language customary in those days for students and young members of the upper class pedigree , in friends and supervisors of the owner in the manner of today's poetry album recorded and wrote.

The travel book has a total of 370 pages. This travel book also includes a 455-page manuscript wrapped in cardboard (Cod. Sang. 1278), in which Müller's journey between 1669 and 1682 via South Africa to the East Indies is described in chronological order in prose form. This manuscript was probably written down by two copyists, who are now unknown, in legible handwriting between 1701 and 1705 in the St. Gallischen Dépendance-Kloster Mariaberg in Rorschach . Müller himself added and corrected the finished manuscript.

Contents and trip to the East Indies

The book contains a lot of ethnological, geographical, cultural and botanical information. It is also not arranged chronologically. The respective episodes are arranged without any order.

Illustration of a pineapple

In October 1669 the voyage to the East Indies began on the ship Gouda. Including a two-month stay, Georg Franz Müller and the other travelers traveled a total of 334 days to get from the Netherlands to the East Indies, which was above the average at the time. Among other things, this was due to the bad wind in the Atlantic.

The ship was attacked by two Turkish ships west of Gibraltar , killing 28 and injuring 46. The next destination was the Brazilian island of Fernando , from where attempts were made to reach South Africa. Some sailors and passengers were thrown over deck in storms and drowned. Disease was even more feared than storms, however. Scurvy, for example, was a common marine disease and the Gouda was not spared from it either. Another big problem was the lack of safe drinking water. One tried to collect the rainwater in the sails and other cloths in order to have enough to survive. There was an acute water shortage. Georg Franz Müller wrote: “And although this water was so poor, it tasted so good to me as the best Malvasia”.

The icy cold caused by the Antarctic winds also bothered the travelers. When it got warmer again in the Indian Ocean, the winter clothes were thrown overboard because they were full of lice. Between the Cape Verde Islands and Fernando, she was plagued by the opposite problem: the heat. Müller describes long periods of heat and sunburn. Because of the lack of wind, the ship hardly moved at all. The first stop was the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. He achieved this after six months at sea. He stayed there for almost two months.

The ship «Gouda»
On the left a Chinese man with his wife ("A sinees with his wife")

He describes the indigenous population of South Africa as small and lean, with weak limbs. They are dark brown, but not by nature, but because from an early age they "smear and pollute themselves with many impurities, such as cow dung, fat things and ointments". And their language is also “not like any human”. Müller draws the conclusion that it is "not worthy of paper and dinths" to describe their customs and traditions in more detail.

On August 26, 1670 the ship finally reached the island of Java and Müller wrote "Waß diß seye for a beautiful Paradeyss". He was employed to guard the main Dutch fortress in Batavia . During this time he got to know the Malay language, the country and the people. Malay was the main language in East India at the time. Many different nationalities lived in Batavia, today's Jakarta, including Indians, Persians, Chinese, Formosans (Taiwanese), Malays, Thais and of course Javanese. Müller presents these in verse form in his book.

In total, Georg Franz Müller stayed on Java and other Indonesian islands for almost 12 years, from September 1670 to January 1682. He was a member of Dutch aid contingents that supported Dutch troops in distress. Georg Franz Müller also reports that he was asked by the locals to eat human flesh, which he refused.

In 1682 he was gripped by the desire to return to Europe and give up his service in the East Indian-Dutch company. He traveled back to Amsterdam via South Africa on the “Afrika” within 10 months. In 1683 he went on a pilgrimage to Rome and returned to his hometown Rufach in the spring of 1684. His parents had passed away, and when he revealed himself, everyone wanted to admire the rarities from East India. Sometime between 1684 and 1698 he entered the service of Columban von Andlau in Rorschach as a personal servant. In July 1720 he went back to Rufach. He left behind a large part of the rarities he had brought with him. Georg Franz Müller died on July 26, 1723.

Georg Franz Müller as a pilgrim and a skeleton that represents death
Depiction of a massacre

Descriptions and illustrations

There are a total of 87 illustrations in the book, all of which were drawn by Georg Franz Müller. On these are both people and animals, plants and landscapes, ships and maps. You can find people from the different regions that he has traveled to. These are always subtitled so that you can see from which region the people, animals or plants shown come from or what kind of species it is. However, events are also shown, as can be seen on page 27. You can see ships and a tower with a Dutch flag and people fighting against each other. Georg Franz Müller describes the respective animals, people, etc. in prose and in verse.

Here is an example from the shark:

"My name is Hey, I know very much
wool in the oriental sea,
Man and you are afraid of me, because
I don’t spare anyone,
Yes, whatever I can bear,
I will take that away from everyone,
Dan with me no quatier be dued,
swallow everything into me,
yes, there is no mercy with me,
Dan I am a cruel
creature , there is no worse smear in the water than
me, who takes everything and lags ... "

Müller wrote factual descriptions, but sometimes also added his personal comments and experiences.

literature

  • Karl Schmuki: The "Indian" in the St. Gallen monastery. Georg Franz Müller (1646-1723), a world traveler of the 17th century; from manuscripts no. 1278 and 1311 in the St. Gallen Abbey Library. St. Gallen 2001.
  • Ingrid Grendel and Jeanne Dericks-Tan: From annone to cinnamon, in rhyme and picture. Notes by the world traveler Georg Franz Müller 1646-1723 . Notes on cultural botanicals No. 3, Abadi Verlag 2015, ISSN  2364-3048 .

Web links

Commons : Reise nach Batavia (Georg Franz Müller)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files