Friday 28 February 2014

Bontekoe


Subtitle: Religious Selection

It was about time. Yesterday, I started reading in one of my countries most famous historic books, written by fellow ‘Hoorner’ (a citizen of my hometown Hoorn). I’m talking about the book published in 1646 "Journal or memorable description of the East Indian voyage of Willem Bontekoe of Hoorn, including many remarkable and dangerous things that happened to him there".

After losing his previous ship due to pirates of the coast of Barbary, and the subsequent slavery and hardship, skipper Willem IJsbrandtszn. Bontekoe is finally freed and made captain of the large East Indiaman “Nieuw Hoorn” that sailed to the Dutch settlement of the East India Company on Java (Indonesia). The journal is the accounts of the voyage, made between 1618 and 1625.

In the Sunda Strait (between Java and Sumatra), the barrels of rum in the hold of his ship catch fire by the clumsy doing of the ship’s carpenter. Then the fire spreads to the stock of coal and the men are unable to put the fire ou
t. Some sailors and the merchant save themselves by boarding the lifeboat, Bontekoe stays on board. Finally the 300 barrels of black powder explode and 2/3 of the men are blown up on the spot. Captain Bontekoe himself is badly wounded and barely rescued by the men who had fled the ship pre-blast in the life boat. The reduced crew sails on, they suffer from famine, scurvy, attacks from natives (from which many more die), mutiny and poisoning… But get this! When they – only by the magnificent navigational skills and outstanding leadership of Bontekoe himself! – finally find their way to the safety of the Dutch colonisers… the captain sinks to his knees and thanks the Lord God for guiding them to safety. Most remarkable!See more


 

The Limo

On February 14th, Saint Valentine's Day, I witnessed a sight that refuses to dissolve itself from my memory records. It was a large, white stretched limousine that took the road to the local prison.

What was this, I wonder? The first thing I thought (and hope it to be true) was of a man who thought it a perfect joke to go to jail in ironic style. [If I will ever have the privilege of being send to jail, I’ll take a gigantic limo too… whereas I’d go pick up a Royal or Public award on a donkey’s back (if it’s good enough for Jesus… it’s good enough for me).] Or, contrary wise, a car sent for to pick up a released convict. Or perhaps a man or a woman going on a conjugal visit. Or perhaps just a gangster who’s only car is this limo. Just questions again… never an answer.