50 Boundaries and Beyond
the bazaar”.^176 The term “Straits produce” “embraced a bewildering variety
of products”. They covered “practically all the produce, both vegetable
and mineral” found throughout the Malay-Indonesia Archipelago,
including “pepper and other spices, gambier, tin, camphor, beeswax,
coffee, ebony, and antimony, tortoise-shell, bêche-de-mer, bird’s nests,
rattans, gold-dust, pearls, sandalwood, shark βins, agar-agar (seaweeds),
dragon’s blood (a kind of resinous gum), amber[gris] and dammar to
name a few”.^177
While European traders continued to expand their share in the
external trade, the carrying trade conducted by Chinese junks was
experiencing a different fate. Although the number of trading junks
arriving in Singapore rapidly increased even during the First Sino-British
War (Opium War) in 1839‒42, it reached the peak in 1856‒57, when
“the number of their arrival was as high as 143”.^178 However, this marked
the last spurt of Chinese junks from coastal China because their arrivals
declined after that and “by 1863 junks were rapidly disappearing from
the coasting trade of China”.^179 European square-rigged vessels and,
subsequently, steamers βinally achieved an unchallenged position in the
long-distance carrying trade in Asian waters.
Conclusion: Historiographical Remarks
When studying the sea or maritime regions, a contemporary author
inevitably draws upon Fernand Braudel for ideas and vision. In his study
of the Mediterranean, Braudel was able to perceive the unity of the region
despite its great diversity. In a similar fashion, from the perspective of
their maritime history the East Asian Seas can be taken as a geographical
entity. The region was characterized by the vitality and sustainability
of the regional circulation of goods between the producing-areas and
the markets of the countries surrounding the East Asian Seas. Equally
helpful has been K.N. Chaudhuri’s discussion of the Indian Ocean, in
which he applies Braudel’s many concepts. One example is the idea of
connections in long-distance trade. Chaudhuri presents a grand picture
of long-distance trade, stretching beyond the geographical limits of the
Indian Ocean to cover a long stretch of trade routes from the Red Sea at
its western end to the China Seas in the east.
- Ibid.
- Ibid., pp. 108–9.
- Ibid., p. 122.
- Ibid., p. 124.
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