Signed by S S before me,
(Signed)
Roger Casement,
His Britannic Majesty’s Consul.
T T’s Statement.
States she belonged to the village of R*, where she lived with her grandmother. R* was attacked by the State soldiers long ago. It was in S T’s time. She does not know if he was with the soldiers, but she heard the bugle blow when they were going away. It was in the afternoon when they came, they began catching and tying the people, and killed lots of them. A lot of people—she thinks perhaps fifty—ran away, and she was in the crowd with them, but the soldiers came after them and killed them all but herself. She was small, and she slid into the bush. The people killed were many, and women—there were not many children. The children had scattered when the soldiers came, but she stayed with the big people, thinking she might be safe.
When they were all killed she waited in the grass for two nights. She was very frightened, and her throat was sore with thirst, and she looked about and at last she found some water in a pot. She stayed on in the grass a third night, and buffaloes came near her and she was very frightened—and they went away. When the morning came she thought she would be better to move, and went away and got up a tree. She was three days without food, and was very hungry. In the tree she was near her grandmother’s house, and she looked around and, seeing no soldiers, she crept to her grandmother’s house and got some food and got up the tree again. The soldiers had gone away hunting for buffaloes, and it was then she was able to get down from the tree. The soldiers came back, and they came towards the trees and bushes calling out: “Now we see you; come down, come down!” This they used to do, so that people, thinking they were really discovered, should give themselves up; but she thought she would stay on, and so she stayed up the tree. Soon afterwards the soldiers went, but she was still afraid to come down. Presently she heard her grandmother calling out to know if she was alive, and when she heard her grandmother’s voice she knew the soldiers were gone, and she answered, but her voice was very small—and she came down and her grandmother took her home.
That was the first time. Soon afterwards she and her grandmother went away to another town called U U*, near V V*, and they were there some days together, when one night the soldiers came. The white man sent the soldiers there because the U U* people had not taken to the State what they were told to take. Neither her own people nor the U U* people knew there was any trouble with the Government, so they were surprised. She was asleep. Her grandmother—her mother’s mother—tried to awaken her, but she did not know. She felt the shaking, but she did not mind because she was sleepy.
The soldiers came quickly into the house—her grandmother rushed out just before. When she heard the noise of the soldiers around the house, and looked and saw her grandmother not there, she ran out and called for her grandmother; and as she ran her brass anklets made a noise, and some one ran after and caught her by the leg, and she fell and the soldiers took her.
There were not many soldiers, only some boys with one soldier (Note.—She means a corporal and some untrained men.—R. C.), and they had caught only one woman and herself. In the morning they began robbing the houses, and took everything they could find and take.
They were taken to a canoe, and went to V V*. The soldier who caught her was the sentry at V V*. At V V* she was kept about a week with the sentry, and when the V V* people took their weekly rations over to P* she was sent over. The other woman who was taken to V V* was ransomed by her friends. They came after them to V V*, and the sentry let her go for 750 rods. She saw the money paid. Her friends came to ransom her too, but the sentry refused, saying the white man wanted her because she was young—the other was an old woman and could not work.
(Signed) T T.
Signed by T T before me.
(Signed)
Roger Casement,
His Britannic Majesty’s Consul.