This savage and apparently unmeaning ceremony was explained to me by Hodgson, as follows: Death is supposed by the Sambos to result from the influences of a demon, called Wulasha, who, ogre-like, feeds upon the bodies of the dead. To rescue the corpse from this fate, it is necessary to lull the demon to sleep, and then steal away the body and bury it, after which it is safe. To this end they bring in the aid of the drowsy drum and droning pipe, and the women go through a slow and soothing dance. Meanwhile, in the recesses of some hut, where they cannot be seen by Wulasha, a certain number of men carefully disguise themselves, so that they may not afterwards be recognized and tormented; and when the demon is supposed to have been lulled to sleep, they seize the moment to bury the body. I could not ascertain any reason for cutting down the palm-trees, except that it had always been practiced by their ancestors. As the palm-tree is of slow growth, it has resulted, from this custom, that they have nearly disappeared from some parts of the coast. I could not learn that it was the habit to plant a cocoa-nut tree upon the birth of a child, as in some parts of Africa, where the tree receives a common name with the infant, and the annual rings on its trunk mark his age.
If the water disappears from the earthen vessel placed on the grave,—which, as the ware is porous, it seldom fails to do in the course of a few days,—it is taken as evidence that it has been consumed by the dead man, and that he has escaped the maw of Wulasha. This ascertained, preparations are at once made for what is called a Seekroe, or Feast of the Dead—an orgie which I afterwards witnessed higher up the coast, and which will be described in due course.
The negroes brought originally from Jamaica, as also most of their descendants, hold these barbarous practices in contempt, and bury their dead, as they say, “English-gentleman fashion.” But while these practices are discountenanced and prohibited in Bluefields proper, they are, nevertheless, universal elsewhere on the Mosquito Shore.
I cannot omit mentioning here, that I paid a visit both to the establishment and the burial-place of the ill-fated Prussian colony. Many of the houses, now rotting down, had been brought out from Europe, and all around them were wheels of carts falling in pieces, harnesses dropping apart, and plows and instruments of cultivation rusting away, or slowly burying themselves in the earth. They told a sad story of ignorance on the part of the projectors of the establishment, and of the disappointments and sufferings of their victims. The folly of attempting to plant an agricultural colony, from the north of Europe, on low, murky, tropical shores, is inconceivable. Again and again the attempt has been made, on this coast, and as often it has terminated in disaster and death. It was tried by the French at Tehuantepec and Cape Gracias; by the English at Vera Paz and Black River; and by the Belgians and Prussians at Santo Tomas and Bluefields. In no instance did these establishments survive a second year, nor in a single instance did a tenth of the poor colonists escape the grave. The Prussians at Bluefields suffered fearfully. At one time, within four months after their arrival, out of more than a hundred, there were not enough retaining their health to bury the dead, much less to attend to the sick. The natives, jealous of the strangers, would neither assist nor come near them, and absolutely refused to sell them the scanty food requisite for their subsistence. This feeling was rather encouraged than otherwise, by the traders on the coast, who desired to retain the monopoly of trade, as they had always done a preponderance of influence among the natives. They procured the revocation of the grant which had been made to the Messrs. Shepherd of San Juan, from whom the Prussians had purchased a doubtful title, and threatened the stricken strangers with forcible expulsion. Death, however, soon relieved them from taking overt measures; and, at the time of my visit, two or three haggard wretches, whose languid blue eyes and flaxen hair contrasted painfully with the blotched visages of the brutal Sambos, were all that remained of the unfortunate Prussian colony. The burying place was a small opening in the bush, where rank vines sweltered over the sunken graves, a spot reeking with miasmatic damps, from which I retreated with a shudder. I could wish no worse punishment to the originators of that fatal, not to say, criminal enterprise, than that they should stand there, as I stood, that Conscience might hiss in their ears, “Behold thy work!”
Chapter IV.
I made many inquiries in Bluefields, in order to decide on my future movements, to all of which Mr. Bell gave me most intelligent answers. At first, I proposed to ascend the Bluefields river, which takes its rise in the mountainous district of Segovia in Nicaragua, and which is reported to be navigable, for canoes, to within a short distance of the great lakes of that State, from which it is only separated by a narrow range of mountains. Upon its banks dwell several tribes of pure Indians, the Cookras, now but few in number, and the Ramas, a large and docile tribe. Several of the latter visited Bluefields while I was there, bringing down dories and pitpans rudely blocked out, which are afterwards finished by persons expert in that art. They generally speak Spanish, but I could not learn from them that their country was in any respect remarkable, or that it held out any prospect of compensation for a visit, unless it were an indefinite amount of hunger and hard work. So, although I had purchased a canoe, and made other preparations for ascending the river, I determined to proceed northward along the coast, and, embarking in some turtling vessel from Cape Gracias, proceed to San Juan, and penetrate into the interior by the river of the same name.
This, I ascertained, was all the more easy to accomplish, since the whole Mosquito shore is lined with lagoons, only separated from the sea by narrow strips of land, and so connected with each other as to afford an interior navigation, for canoes, from Bluefields to Gracias. So, procuring the additional services of a young Poyas or Paya Indian, who had been left from a trading schooner, I bade “His Mosquito Majesty” and his governor good-by, took an affectionate farewell of old Hodgson, and, with Antonio, sailed away to the northern extremity of the lagoon, having spent exactly a week in Bluefields.
It was a bright morning, and our little sail, filled with the fresh sea-breeze, carried us gayly through the water. Antonio carefully steered the boat, and my Poyer boy sat, like a bronze figure-head, in the bow, while I reclined in the centre, luxuriously smoking a cigar. The white herons flapped lazily around us, and flocks of screaming curlews whirled rapidly over our heads. I could scarcely comprehend the novel reality of my position. The Robinson Crusoe-ish feeling of my youth came back in all of its freshness; I had my own boat, and for companions a descendant of an aboriginal prince, the possessor of a mysterious talisman, devotedly attached to me, half friend, half protector, and a second strange Indian, from some unknown interior, silent as the unwilling genii whom the powerful spell of Solyman kept in obedience to the weird necromancers of the East. It was a strange position and fellowship for one who, scarcely three months before, had carefully cultivated the friendly interest of Mr. Sly, with sinister designs on the plethoric treasury of the Art Union, in New York!