A Voyage to Bali : An Original Account by Alfred E. Ward of a Voyage Undertaken in 1936

Alfred E. Ward

A. E. Ward, 1941

[An English account of Indonesia during the 1930s] Red cloth binding, by William Appleyard & Sons, Bookbinders, Middlesbrough [UK].  175 p. Typed on pink paper, with hand written corrections by Ward. 17 original photographs, with handwritten descriptions below them by Ward.  

An original account of a 1936 voyage to the Island of Bali, calling at Gibraltar, Algiers, Palma, Nice/Monte Carlo, Genoa, Port Said, Ceylon, Sabang, Belawan Deli, Boeloeleng, Sourabaya and Batavia, Singapore.  Ward's accounts are vivid, well written, and often poetic.  Ward wrote much of this account on deck of his boat as letters to his wife.  During the dark days of the 1941 Blitz, Ward took time to type his handwritten letters out and mount original photographs with annotated notes of his voyage.  His narrative primarily describes the social, religious and cultural life of Bali in 1936.  Specific accounts deal with the Temples of Bali, the Valley of the Kings' Tombs, cremation, funeral pyres, Hindu religious practices, the Monkey Dance, marriage ceremonies, the Dutch colonial authorities, Chinese merchants paying Mah Yong, life in the Chinese Quarter in Java, Egyptian fortune tellers, the Chinese Quarter in Singapore, a young Dutch boy with malaria, passage via Suez canal, the attempted suicide of Professor Myron Malkiel Jermovunsky, a white Russian, aboard the ship, etc.  Also includes a two-page manuscript letter to Mrs. & Mrs. J.E. Duchar. From Ward, dated Dec. 5, 1941, "Woodlands," Highfield Eaglescliffe, Via Stockton on Tees, England. "I think of , the Dutch colonial authorities, Chinese merchants paying Mah Yong, life in the Chinese Quarter in Java, Egyptian the adventure of the Monkeys; the Hindhu wedding and cremation ground with its many pyres burning; and the funeral of the Beetle; the burning heat of the sun in the valley of the Kings' tombs.  // I think also of the glory of the Tropical nights in the cool of the evening sitting under the stars which shine with a brilliance we see in England.  And with the voices of the cicardias and crickets, the waving of the tiny laterns of the Fire-flies, there comes crowding many other sounds from the Palms and Banyan trees.  //  It is difficult to think on these things without emotion and my heart aches sometimes at being cut off and out of reach of them. // But all things must have an end, - even my cigar has burnt itself out.  I won't light it again for like my Arabian night it has had its hour. - A.E. Ward, Jany, 19/41."  Page 2-3.