Without indecent boasting, I believe I may assure this august assembly that I have probed this matter to its very root; the whole truth is in my hands, and shall be faithfully presented to this critical company. I shall be excused from detailing my method of examination; time would fail us were I to make the attempt; suffice it to say that I have brought all possible modes under contribution, and many more, and that not a single fact has been set down unless previously tested by a wild flight of imagination. Upon principle, too, I decline to say how I have arrived at the realities of the case, lest truth should suffer through disapproval of my process.
If I say that I have telegraphed direct, some wretched caviller may observe that he never heard of Kaffir wires. I may have conversed with the ghost of the wicked king of Koussa Kaffir through the medium of Mrs. Marshall, but some joker—how I do detest the race—might object to my plan of marshalling my facts. I may have “asked that solemn question” of the leg of my loo-table, which does not by any means “seem eternal,” something after the fashion of Ion. I may have caught the little toe of Mr. Home, as he was floating in mid-air, and so found my information, as honest debts should be paid, on the nail. I may have—but no more—I respectfully decline to communicate, to-night at least, aught but the ascertained realities.
It is true, then, that a stranded anchor was thrown on the shore of Koussa Kaffir; that it created widespread wonder and inquiry as to its whence, its wherefore, and its whither; that the king, being of an inquiring mind, often examined the anchor, pondered over its shape and its materials; that one day, testing this last with too much energy, one fluke was quite lopped off. His majesty was pleased with the result, although it did not seem to do much towards solving the difficult questions connected with the strange visitor; but it was afterwards generally reported that some of the wisest of the Kaffirs had shaken their heads three times, and had remarked that if anything should happen they should doubt whether it was not for something.
Something did happen. The king that night ate for his supper forty-four ostrich eggs, beside two kangaroos and a missionary. It was too much for even a Kaffir king; he was seized with nightmare, raved of the weight of the anchor on his chest, and died.
The effect produced upon Kaffir public opinion, and the Kaffir press, was startling and instantaneous. The king had broken the anchor; the king had died—had died because he broke the anchor; that was evident, nay was proved—proved by unerring figures, as thus: the king was fifty-five years old; had lived, that is to say, 20,075 days; to say, therefore, that he had not died this day because of his daring impiety was more than 20,000 to one against the doctrine of probabilities.
The anchor, therefore, was a power—was a devil to be feared—that is, a god to be worshipped; for in savage countries there is a wonderful likeness between the two. Thus was born a religion in Koussa Kaffir. Divine honours or dastard fears were lavished on the anchor; a priesthood sprang up who made their account in the Kaffir superstition. They were called anchorites. They were partly cheats, and partly dupes; but they made a livelihood between the two characters. They fixed the nature and the amount of the sacrifices to be offered, and the requirements of the anchor were in remarkable harmony with the wants of its priests. Natural causes, too, were happily blended with supernatural. The anchor was declared to be the great healer of diseases. For immense sums the ministering priests would give small filings to the diseased, and marvellous were the cures produced by oxides and by iron; never, in short, was there a more prosperous faith. The morals of the people, I grieve to say, did not improve in proportion to their faith. An anchor that is supposed to remit sins on sacerdotal intercession is probably not favourable to the higher morals in Koussa Kaffir.
But a trial had to come upon the anchor-devil and its worshippers. Under it it must collapse, or passing through it as through the flame of persecution, come forth stronger and brighter than ever. Which should it be? It was an interesting spectacle. Let me finish my story.
There returned to Koussa Kaffir a native who had voyaged round the world since he had left his native land; he had seen and had observed much; he was well acquainted with anchors; had seen them in all stages and under all conditions; he knew their use by long experience; he had handled them. One time his vessel had been saved by its stout anchor, another time he had had to save the ship by slipping his cable and leaving the anchor at the bottom; he had never known an anchor resent the worst usage; he would not worship this old broken one. Some thought him mad, some wicked; he was called infidel by those who knew his mind, but for a long time he followed his friends’ advice, and said nothing of his awful heresy.
But this condition of mind would hardly last for ever. Travel had improved his intellectual force, as well as given special knowledge about anchors and other things; he began to lament over and even to despise the folly of his race; he burned to cast off some at least of their shackles of ignorance and superstition. “How shall I begin,” cried he one day, “to raise their souls to something higher, while they worship that stupid old rusty anchor in the sand?”
His soul began to burn with the spirit of martyrs and reformers. “I will expose this folly; I will break to pieces their anchor-devil, and when they see that all is well as it was before, they will begin to laugh at their own devil, and will have their minds open to a higher faith.”