Indian Antiquary Vol 48

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 187

OCTOBER, 1919
EPISODES OF PIRACY IN THE EASTERN SEAS
183
same place, put some thirty-six pounder guns in it, and having made a breach prepared to give an assault.
The Fort was by no means in condition to stand an assault successfully. Dropsy, dysentery and scurvy were rife and had carried off a large number of people. The churches were full of sick as also the warehouses; since the beginning of the siege we had lost more than sixteen hundred men, and in fact the only choice was to perish or capitulate. Thomas van Yperen and David Harthouwer went to the enemy's camp, who sent two hostages into the place, and an agreement was come to on the following conditions, viz., That all prisoners should be returned on both sides. That Fort Zeelandia should be surrendered to the Chinese with all the goods and silver in it, which amounted to some tons of gold [1] and also the cannon of which there were forty pieces. That the besieged, to the number of about nine hundred men, well and sick, should march out with arms in their hands and colours flying.
On these conditions the Fort was surrendered after a general discharge of the cannon, which the Chinese insisted upon to assure themselves that they had not been tampered with. The Dutch then embarked and were transported to Batavia.
The arms used by the Chinese are great swords with long handles which they can use either as spears or scythes. They have bows, arrows and long javelins with white streamers. They carry large ensigns, both pendants and standards, on which are painted monsters, heads of devils and the figures of dragons.
They have armour covering them from the head to the knee and a helmet on the head reaching down to the shoulders, with no openings in it except for the mouth and the eyes. On the top of the helmet is a sharp spike which they use very skilfully for wounding their enemy and throwing him down. Their armour is composed of an infinity of plates like scales, and they wear two or three of them, one over the other, which hang down and flap against their thighs and will resist musquet shots. Thus clad they look more like devils than human beings, and indeed many people think them no better than devils. They keep good order in war and in all military operations, and a thousand musquet shots will not make them give ground. At the head of each company there is generally an officer on horseback. two others on the flanks and one in the rear, well armed and carrying their swords drawn with which they cut down any one whom they see giving way." [Voyage de Gautier van Schouten aux Indes Orientales, 1658-1665, Vol. I, p. 270.) .
VIII.
DEATH OF JOHN PETTIT, 1684. The coasts of Cutch (Kachh) and Gujarat, or, speaking roughly, the north-western coast of India from Karachi to Surat, were inhabited from time immemorial by pirates, each new wave of settlers, including recruits from the local Rajpats, taking up the local tradition, and continuing their operations until finally suppressed by the British in the beginning of the nineteenth century. Various names were applied to different sections of these pirates, but, in general, they were referred to by Europeans as Sanganians or Sangadians.
On my reference to Sir Richard Temple as to the origin of this term he writes
"The Sanganian pirates of the coasts of Sindh, Kachh and Kathiâwâr, especially of Kachh, were so famous among Europeans in the 17th century that Ogilby's Atlas (1670) refers to Kachh as Sanga