Early in the morning we were turned out in charge of sentries to clean the paths of the compound, carry water, work on houses, cut up and pack rubber, and carry the filled baskets [[79]]from the store to the river ready for transport by canoe or boat to the place of the great rubber chief down river. If the work done failed to satisfy the sentry, or he had any old scores to pay off to a prisoner who was in his power, the chicotte or the butt-end of the gun was always at hand, and proved an easy means of chastisement for either man or woman, the latter frequently incurring it for nothing worse than a desire for chastity.
Then at sundown we were marched back to the prison house for another night of horrors. It was often impossible to sleep.
On one night in particular we were kept awake hour after hour by the groaning of some of the sick ones, and then towards morning, after a little sleep, we were aroused again by the puny wail of a new-born babe. Was it any wonder that its first cries were weak, and that the little life so recently given seemed on the point of ebbing away? In the morning the sentries agreed that the mother was not fit for work, and reported to the white man accordingly; but three days afterwards the mother was out at work in the hot sun with her baby at her back.
Many prisoners died at the time of which I [[80]]speak—two, three, five, sometimes ten in a day—there was so much hunger and thirst and sickness. When one died, they tied a string round his foot, and dragged him a little way into the bush, dug a shallow hole, and covered him with earth. There were so many that the place became a great mound, and the burials were so carelessly done that one could often see a foot, hand, or even head left exposed; and the stench became so bad that people were unable to pass by the road which was near the “grave.”
And yet, bad as all this was, something happened there which made me glad that I was an ordinary prisoner, and not (what I had thought impossible) something worse. Four big, strong young men were suspected of having stolen some rubber from the white man’s store. It may have been a true accusation; that I do not know—no one knows.
The white man was furious, and said that he would make an example of them, which he proceeded to do. Four tall poles were procured and planted in the ground at the back of his own house, and the four men were brought.
Their heads and beards were shaven, they [[81]]were stripped of their loin cloths, and tied to these poles, not only by the lower parts of their bodies, but by their heads, so that they could not move at all.
This happened in the morning.
The sun climbed up, and stood overhead—they were still there.
The sun slipped down, down, down—they were still there.