We laid down our burdens, and some of us went up to them, armed with guns and lances. Deaan Murnanzack shot the boar that wounded his dog; whereupon another in an instant defended the entrance, and fought so resolutely, that neither the dogs, nor we ourselves, could come near the cattle that were within; till we had made a passage behind them with our hatchets and lances, and then fired upon some of the most resolute, who turned upon us. The rest perceiving themselves attacked behind, fought their way through the dogs, and ran away, with the dogs after them. Words cannot describe the noise there was, especially after a number of them were wounded. We found seven dead, besides several others so wounded that they could not make off. We picked out only one or two of the fattest, for there are very few that will eat them. I did not dare to take any, on account of my office of killing beeves, and the eating of swine’s flesh is accounted so contemptible a thing, that I should have lessened my dignity, and perhaps been degraded; which, whatever mean thoughts I might possibly have, as to the honour of it, I had too good an opinion of its value to part with it for the gratification of my appetite in one meal: for in this case they are curious to a punctilio, that if the daughter of a king be married to any one that is not of a royal family, their children are not admitted to the honour of killing beeves, notwithstanding the father be a freeman, and a chief amongst his neighbours.
We used every evening to sit down near the prince, and discourse of one thing or another to divert the time; now, though it is a common custom amongst the princes here, to converse with every body in the most familiar manner, yet they preserve a decent state and distinction. The people throughout the whole island pay a religious regard to dreams, and imagine that their good demons (for I cannot tell what other name to give their inferior deities, which, as they say, attend on their owleys) tell them in their dreams what ought to be done, or warn them of what ought to be avoided; more especially after a sacrifice, or a prayer to God, and an invocation of this demon. I well remember our discourse this evening turned principally upon this topic. The next morning deaan Murnanzack came to me as I was alone, and discoursed very freely with me about several things; and in particular he advised me to take what beef I wanted, and could carry with me; for we should have no more opportunities of killing any wild cattle. Observing him fond of conversation, I told him, if there were any dependance on dreams, as some had asserted the night before, I should incur his anger that day; having dreamt that I was at home with my parents, and all my relations round about me; that my pockets were full of gold, and they added still to my store. This, I said, did not only throw me into a melancholy when I awaked, to find myself naked in a wood and in a strange country, but it likewise gave me some concern, for that I had always observed, not only when I was a lad in England, but since under my master Mevarrow, that to dream of plenty of gold money was a certain indication of anger. At this deaan Murnanzack smiled, and made answer, “I wonder that you, who laughed but last night at the talk of God’s sending dreams by the good demons, should today be afraid of one.” “However,” says he, “I dare say you will be once mistaken; for I don’t know any thing you can do to make me angry.” I would not have my reader imagine, that I have introduced this story, merely for the sake of telling an idle dream; but it proved the introduction to something very remarkable, and furnished us with a discourse the next evening, that may possibly be thought an agreeable amusement.
The next day we roasted our beef and laid it to cool, in order to bind up in a burden, which we called an enter, to carry at our backs. All I had to do, was to provide for myself, and what with my beef and honey I was pretty well loaded, and as well contented, for I lived in plenty; my honey, likewise, mingled with water, made a pleasant drink. This was the last day of our passage through these groves and habitations of the wild cattle; some of which they attempted once more to surround, more for the sake of their diversion than want of beef: and in this, not wilfully, but for want of knowledge, I spoiled all their sport, by traversing the way they were running, which was directly towards the place where deaan Murnanzack lay in ambush for them. This made them run quite another way, and put him into such a violent passion at first, that he lifted up his lance, and frowning, threatened to kill me, and, indeed, I expected no less, which made me get out of his sight as soon as possible, being apprehensive of some such barbarous treatment as I had before met with from deaan Mevarrow. This prince, however, was of a more generous disposition; for when his passion was over, he sent for me in a very courteous manner, and desired I would spend the evening with him as usual, and sit down by him, which, accordingly, I did. After we had discoursed on a variety of subjects, he, at last, pressed me to give him some account of the customs of my country, and in a more particular manner to inform him, what god or gods we worship, since I seemed to have so little veneration for theirs; and that I would be ingenuous, and tell him, as I had been a great traveller, what things I had seen, in order to improve the evening to the best advantage. “And pray,” says he, “what God is that you adore?” Upon this the company drew round me, and I began by asking them in the first place, if they were not satisfied that there was a God above the skies? I could not say above the heavens, because there was no term in their language expressive of them; nor had they, as I could perceive, any idea of what we christians mean by heaven, as the peculiar residence of the Almighty, and the glorious mansions of the saints after their decease. They told me that they firmly believed there was a God above, who was the supreme Lord of all other gods, demons, or spirits, of what nature or kind soever. “That very God,” said I, “is the deity we adore, for we know of no other God, nor do we pay the tribute of divine worship to any other object than this one—this supreme and only God.” “Do not you then,” said they, “make prayers and sacrifices, and invoke some guardian demons to assist you in the knowledge of the will of that God; and to warn you of any approaching dangers? If your countrymen had such owleys as ours, your good demons would have assisted you that night you lay upon the sands, and have told you in dreams of the danger, and directed you to escape before the morning.”
To this I replied, “that all good men in England acknowledged an overruling Providence; and I am fully persuaded, that it was by the providence of that divine power that I was preserved at that time; and why God did not see fit that the rest should save their lives, is a secret I do not pretend to pry into; but I cannot conceive that your owleys, to which you seem to pay a divine homage, and pray to for their aid and assistance, should have a spirit or a god within them; or visit you in the night when you are asleep, and forewarn you of such misfortunes as you would willingly avoid. I plainly perceive, that they are nothing more than pieces of wood, and alligators’ teeth dressed up; I plainly discern, likewise, how they are made; and I am certain that other wood, and other alligators’ teeth are not living spirits, have no power of speech, and are incapable of knowing things present, much less things to come; for which reason, we look upon it as an act of idolatry to pay that adoration, which belongs to the great God alone, to any created thing, or the likeness of any created thing above, or here below, since he has strictly forbid the worship of any thing but himself.”
Deaan Murnanzack listened to this serious discourse of mine with abundance of attention, and then turned to some of his people and argued with them for some time; partly in vindication of what I had asserted, and partly in endeavouring to explain to them the nature of their owleys, which I am sensible I had not a just notion of at that time. But I was too young when first I was reduced to this slavery, and had neither friends nor books to assist me; besides, I was not capable of making such just remarks then, as I could do now.
But, to proceed; as soon as the deaan had done discoursing with them, he turned again to me and said, “To me it seems very strange, that you, who, but this very morning, told me a dream of your own, and found it happened true, should argue against these owleys of ours; for you mistake us; it is not the wood, nor the alligators’ teeth that we worship; but there are certain guardian demons, who take care of all nations, families, and private persons; and should you be possessed of one of these owleys, and give it the name of some guardian spirit, it will undoubtedly attend you; for how could you know this morning that I should be angry with you, had not one of these good demons visited you and discovered it; and if you had not had such friendly notice, you might, probably, have been killed, though I did not design it; but men’s passions are unruly, and I was highly provoked, I own, though I say not this to reproach you, as if I imagined you wilfully spoiled our sport, for I am fully satisfied you meant no harm. I only mention this to put you in mind that you argue against yourself; besides, if the spirits of our forefathers, or these guardian demons did not declare these to mankind, how should they know them? No one could tell that I should be angry with you, when you had given me no offence; neither did you intend to provoke me, and nothing was done that any such accident should have happened. You do not imagine, I hope, that the great God himself came down to tell you, since these inferior spirits, of whom there are such numbers, could more conveniently attend you. But you observed just now, as I remember, that the great supreme God had forbid you the worship of any thing but himself. Pray did any white man ever see this great God above? or does he often condescend to talk with your people, and not with ours?”
To which I made answer, that no man ever saw God, but some of our forefathers, many ages ago, heard his voice when he descended in a cloud. “But,” says he, “if this was so many years ago, and there is no man now living, black or white, that ever heard the voice of this God, how are you sure it is true? And since, as you allow it was many ages ago, things may be so altered or misrepresented from what they were when your first forefathers told them, that you cannot rely upon their certainty.” I was here at some loss, as they had no knowledge of letters, and consequently, I could not make them comprehend any thing of the sacred scriptures; I only told them, therefore, that we had a way of preserving the memory of things, which they were wholly unacquainted with; and by that means, I said, we had an account of the beginning of the world, and of its creation by God, and that I could tell them a great many strange things in relation thereto, which they then seemed very desirous of hearing.
And, accordingly, I told them that the world was originally dark, and a confused chaos or mass; and that God, by the word of his power, made the sun and moon, the beasts, fish, fowl, trees, herbs, and every thing else. They still persisted in their first objection, and as they imagined with much more reason than before; “for,” said one of them, “though it is possible you may have a better method of preserving the memory of things than we have, yet you could never have the knowledge of what was done before there was any man created.” To this I replied, that God hath revealed the knowledge of this, and much more to particular persons; which, they listening attentively to, I went on to the creation of man, and then of woman’s being made out of a rib, which God took from him while he was asleep. At this they all broke out into astonishment and laughter; and deaan Murnanzack said it was a manifest untruth, and that, therefore, it was a shame to tell such a story with a serious countenance; by this, he said, he was convinced that all the rest was false; for, were this true, a woman would have a rib more than a man, and a man be defective on one side.
Here I was guilty of a gross error through ignorance; however, I think myself obliged ingenuously to confess it. I hope our divines and all good christians will consider the circumstances I was in, and readily forgive me; for I had so little wit, as peremptorily to insist on the truth of it, and affirmed what I had heard, when a child, from illiterate persons, that a man had one rib less on one side than the other; nay, I had so much assurance as to put the whole argument upon this issue, and offered to lay any wager on the fact. The prince laughed at me, though he was willing to be convinced; we had two women with us, one was very lean, whom he ordered to be called, her ribs were told and found to be equal; and after that, a man was examined, and his ribs were the same. They were not all of them, indeed, convinced of the exact number, nor could I myself, in attempting to count them after them. From this time, I perceived deaan Murnanzack treated all I had said on religion with contempt, and immediately resumed his former objection with more vigour, and said, that to talk of what was done before man was created, was perfect nonsense; that what I had asserted in relation to God’s conversing with men, and telling them such and such things, had no manner of evidence; and that the things I pretended to know and talk of, were, in short, nothing more than old women’s tales. “However,” says he, “pray go on, and give us some farther account of this God of yours, who, in former ages, was thus familiar with mankind.” Then I went on with the scripture story of God’s displeasure with the whole world, and the flood which destroyed all men and beasts on the earth, except those in the ark; and of Noah’s taking male and female of every species into it to preserve them. Upon this, one of them shortly replied, “if they had been all destroyed, could not that God who made them at first, make more of them at his pleasure?” But I went on and told them of the rainbow, that it was appointed for a sign of God’s promise not to drown the world again. To this deaan Murnanzack replied, that they had no such tradition handed down to them; “but besides,” says he, “if none but Noah, with his sons and daughters, were saved, pray was Noah a white or a black man?” To which I answered, “Sir, I perceive you give no credit to what I say of this nature.” He said, “There are many things which I do not rightly understand, and shall be glad to be informed of; nay, I would give credit to any thing that a reasonable man can desire, but most of these things are no better than old women’s fictions, and I am fully persuaded that all white men will not talk thus idly as you do.” These were his very words, which he repeated several times, and with which this evening’s conference concluded. It was no small concern to me to find how the truth suffered by my weakness; but I was in hopes that deaan Murnanzack, who was a man of penetration, might consider that I was but a child when I left England, and for that reason, not well acquainted with the topics I undertook to explain.
The next day we went directly forwards, for we were then past all the wild cattle, and deaan Murnanzack therefore hastened homewards. About three in the afternoon, we came to a place where the road divided; here the prince halted, as I perceived, with no other view than to take his leave of me, ordering two men to conduct me and my cattle to his cow-keeper. Here we parted, and we lay that night near the banks of a river, which are the boundaries of deaan Murnanzack’s country, and leads into Madamvovo, the great river which runs through Anterndroea. To this place where I was going, all the cattle come to water. As we were passing through the woods, we met a company of men and women going to fetch water; they stopped and gazed at me with admiration, having never seen a white man before, asking those who accompanied me, who I was? and from whence I came? who waggishly told them they found me in the forest among the wild cattle, and intended to make a present of me to the prince. In order to carry on the jest, I ran towards the women, and talking gibberish, frightened one of them to that degree that she fell into such violent fits, that the rest had much to do to recover her, for which I was afterwards extremely sorry.