[15]. There was a pole fixed in the centre of the circle, about sixty feet high, near the top of which was a cap, whereon a man stood with a rope suspended, for the purpose of pulling up the door of the cage. The rope being fastened to it, another man would apply rockets through a hole in the back of the cage, until the tiger was made to start. I have seen them come out as black as a coal; one, which was particularly noticed, made two desperate attempts to reach the man on the pole, which he very nearly accomplished, to the great terror of the man, and astonishment of all who beheld him.
[16]. We could well distinguish this brave officer by the long beard which he wore; he was also pointed out to us by some person whom I cannot now remember.
[17]. One of these creatures, after lying on the ground many hours, and supposed dead, rose, on the touch of the elephant’s foot, and coped with him, the elephant roaring dreadfully, till numbers of the pikemen assailed him again, and put an end to his existence. After this circumstance, their whiskers were always burnt, to ascertain if any life remained.
[18]. The guards did not scruple to tell us this; but we had stronger proofs. A few days prior to our being hurried off to Mysore, three covered doolies passed us, and we heard voices, saying, “Good by, my lads,”—“God bless you,”—“We know not where we are to be taken,” &c. These were the three gentlemen, Captain Rumney, Lieutenant Fraser, and Lieutenant Sampson, who were now conveyed to Mysore to be butchered. A note, indicating their apprehensions, was found in a wall of our prison, and their fatal place of confinement, by one Morton, a soldier of the Company’s service. It was written small, but plain, with ink that they must have made themselves, for it was very blue, and was signed by all three. This was the wretched fate of those brave officers! which it is painful for me to record.
[19]. The Cayenne pod.
[20]. Those who are acquainted with the Hindoo customs, know that they keep snakes, consecrated, in their pagodas; in fact, I have seen them often in other places; they are harmless, at least I never heard to the contrary; but the Hindoos must have made them so.
[21]. A kind of grain, resembling a split pea. It was positively asserted by many, that he made use of no kind of food; but this is false, as he would frequently ask for the above grain. He was in the same spot when we left the place; and what seemed most strange to us, was, his not moving to obey nature’s calls. What became of him I know not, but should be highly gratified to learn.
[22]. Late in the evening, the order came to prepare for marching. I had then one child, sixteen months old, by one of the most affectionate of women; she was always suspicious I should leave her, if opportunity offered. She was certainly right in her conjectures; and my answers were uniformly evasive to her questions on that score. The battalion was under arms, while I was in my hut, looking at her and the child alternately. Her soul was in her eyes; and surely never a woman looked at a man with more eagerness and anxiety. I fain would have taken her with me, and the child, who was then smiling in my face. I was eager to give them a final embrace; but fearful of the consequences. O my God! what were my sensations then! and even now, after a lapse of more than thirty years! I am still sure a thousand will never obliterate that moment. In the midst of these mutual distractions, I was repeatedly called by my Moorish name, Shum Shu Cawn, to come and fall in. At last, I resolutely tore myself from her and the child without speaking a single word, and I never saw them more. Farewell! thou most affectionate creature! and may the God of mercy and peace preserve thee and thy infant!——[His surviving friends have observed, that Mr. Scurry, on his return to England, repeatedly sent letters to India, in the hope of their reaching his wife; and, in two or three instances, when he found persons of his acquaintance going to those districts in which she probably resided, he has requested them to use every effort to find her out, and bring her to this country. At the same time he was not without his fears, from the early age at which women die in India, that she was no more. Still he had always sanguine hopes of finding the child, whom he left smiling in its mother’s arms; but in this his expectations were never realized.]
[23]. William Drake, midshipman of the Hannibal; dead—William Whitway, midshipman of the Fortitude, J. Pudman; living—John Wood, of the Chaser Sloop of War; living—John Jourdan, of the Hannibal; unknown—James Scurry, of the Hannibal; the author.
[24]. A bag with four pockets.