As for the miserable slaves, they were so starved, that having killed a Coata monkey, they broiled it, with skin, hair, intestines and all, then tore it to pieces with their teeth, and devoured it like so many cannibals, before it was even half dressed. Of this animal they offered me [[128]]a limb; but, hungry as I was, my stomach could not relish this kind of venison.
A good constitution, sterling health and spirits, now supported me, or I must have sunk under the load of misery and hardships, which were at this time become so intolerable, that the rangers again forsook the camp; and Mr. Vinsack, their conductor, as brave and active a man as ever entered the wood, threw up his commission, as Mr. Mongol had done before, during Colonel Fourgeoud’s first campaign at the Wana.
In the beginning of September, the bloody flux raged in the camp to such a degree, that the colonel saw himself obliged to send off all the sick officers and privates, without exception, not to Paramaribo for recovery in the grand hospital that is there, but to linger and die on the banks of the rivers, where they relieved others to be encamped, and undergo a similar wretchedness; the sick of his own regiment being dispatched to Magdenburg in the Tempatee Creek, and those of the Society troops to Vreedenberg in Cottica.
Colonel Fourgeoud’s inhumanity to the officers was now actually become such, that he would not even permit those who were past recovery a marine to attend them, whatever price they offered; some of whom I have seen expanded between two trees, while the very filth, for want of assistance, was dropping through their hammocks. Of this number was Ensign Strows, who, in this dreadful situation, was ordered to be transported in an open boat [[129]]to Devil’s Harwar, where he died. At length Colonel Fourgeoud himself was seized with this dreadful malady, and his beloved ptisan proved to be of no more avail; yet he soon recovered, by the plentiful use of claret and spices, which he seldom wanted, and which his colleague Seyburg also employed as a preservative of his health, though by swallowing too copious doses he frequently lost the use of his reason. In such a situation, and in such a despicable encampment, our commander in chief had the vanity to expect a deputation from the court at Paramaribo, with congratulations on his victory: in consequence of which he had built an elegant shed, and sent for sheep and hogs to entertain them—but the expected deputies never yet arrived.
On the 5th, therefore, the hogs and sheep were slaughtered, and, for the first time in his life, he ordered one pound per man, bones and all, to be distributed among the poor emaciated soldiers: indeed the number able to partake of this bounty was at present very small.
On the following day a reinforcement of one hundred men arrived from Magdenburg, in Comewina; and from the Society post Vreedenburg, in Cottica, nearly as many. These confirmed the death of Ensign Strows, besides of a great number of privates, who had assisted at the taking of Gado-Saby, and who had expired in the boats during their removal from Barbacoeba.
Intelligence arrived at the same time that the defeated rebels had actually crossed the river Cottica below Pattamaca, [[130]]intent on immediate mischief, and that they were marching to the westward. In consequence of this information, a captain and fifty men were immediately detached, by water, to reconnoitre the banks near the Pinenburg Creek. This party returned upon the 8th, and confirmed the intelligence. Our indefatigable chief now again determined to pursue them; but the slaves who were to carry the ammunition and provisions had been sent home to their masters, nothing but skin and bones, to be exchanged for others, not yet arrived, and to be starved in their turn. I shall therefore relate what happened the two following days, until the arrival of these unfortunate beasts of burden; for so they might with propriety be called.
On the 9th were sold upon credit, and to the highest bidder, the effects of the deceased Ensign Strows, when the poor soldiers, regardless of price, and only wishing to obtain some cloaths and refreshments to keep (in the vulgar phrase) soul and body together, actually paid at the rate of 700 per cent. and this infamous debt was accordingly stated in their accounts. I have seen, for instance, a private marine pay five shillings for a pound of mouldered tobacco, that might be worth six-pence, and double the prime value for a pair of old stockings or shoes. A sick man paid one guinea for a couple of meagre chickens; and for a broken bottle-case to hold his lumber, another paid a similar sum. Thus were these poor dying half-starved wretches deprived of the little property they [[131]]had earned at the expence of their blood and sweat, while this miserable necessity might have been easily prevented by only supplying them with what was their due. A private marine, of the name of Sem, at this time, swore, in the heat of his resentment, that he would certainly shoot Fourgeoud, whenever he had an opportunity; which being overheard, upon condition of repentance, I bribed the evidence not to inform against him, and so literally saved this poor rash fellow from dying on the gallows.
Fortunately, all the world did not possess this chieftain’s insensibility, for this day the good Mrs. Godefroy once more sent up a flat-bottomed barge, with a fat ox, oranges, and plantains for the private soldiers, which was accordingly distributed amongst them. The same evening a small supply of provisions also arrived for me, from Joanna, with a few bottles of port wine; and though part was stolen, and part was damaged by the way, it made me very happy, and I gave nothing to Fourgeoud.
When we speak of provisions in the woods, we only mean sugar, tea, coffee, Boston biscuit, cheese, rum, ham, or a keg of sausages, since little else can be carried through the forest by a single slave, and we were now allowed no more. Shirts, shoes, and stockings were also usually accounted among the necessaries, but the last two articles I did not use, being accustomed to walk barefooted, which I had now practised for more than two years, and with great advantage to my limbs, when I [[132]]compared them with the diseased and ulcerated shanks of my ghastly-looking companions.