Zeemeeuw — the Seagull — was a Dutch government steamboat (gouvernements-stoomboot) that served throughout the expedition of the Lamtoba column of 1879 as the intelligence and supply vessel between Oleh-leh and the roadstead of Lampanas, as recorded in W. Cool and G. B. Hooijer’s Eene schoone bladzijde uit Atjeh’s geschiedenis (1889).
The reconnaissance voyage
In the last days of July 1879, in order to obtain the intelligence that Generaal van der Heijden’s chiefs had failed to supply, the chief of the military recording brigade — 1e Luitenant der Infanterie G. B. Hooijer — was sent with a corporal-opnemer and several Achehnese chiefs, among whom the celebrated Panglima Tibang, “per gouvernements-stoomboot Zeemeeuw” to Lampanas. From the roadstead, where a warship of the navy lay, Hooijer opened his investigation; it was to the Zeemeeuw that Toekoe Mas, the head of Lampanas, came aboard for the conference at which the landing point was determined and the first sketch of the Lamtoba plain was composed.
The supply line
At the landing of 27 July the little steamer followed among the great steamships of the squadron, “met loshangende witte zeilen aan den grooten mast en kleurrijke seinvlaggen in top,” tracing the soft rise and fall of the sea. Thereafter she maintained the link of supply between Oleh-leh and Lampanas: when the runderpest-thinned valley of Lamtoba failed to furnish fresh meat for the troops — no slaughter cattle having marched with the column — the Zeemeeuw, at the column-commandant’s request, began to bring up slaughter stock with her provision runs. She assisted likewise at the landing of the artillery horses, towing the iron pontoon raft on which they were lowered. On 23 August she came upon the roadstead again, with materials from Oleh-leh for the new quarantine camp being raised at Lampanas — too late that evening to be unloaded by the exhausted coolies before dark.
See Also
Source
Eene schoone bladzijde uit Atjeh’s geschiedenis, door W. Cool en G. B. Hooijer (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1889), pp. 4, 9, 21, 25, 67. OCR-filename: 20260720_115822_DLP-135-Eene_schoone_bladzijde_uit_Atjeh_s_geschiedenis_Nemotron_OCR_v2_OCR.txt.