My First Voyage to Southern Seas

by William Henry Giles Kingston

“The man is a remnant of one of the tribes of Veddahs. They are the most degraded, or rather least civilised of all the people of Ceylon. They are divided into Rock Veddahs, Village Veddahs, and Coast Veddahs. This man belongs to the first, who are the most barbarous of all. They are omnivorous, eating carrion or anything that comes in their way—roots, or fish, or wild honey, or any animals they can catch; but their favourite food is monkeys and lizards. They live either in caves and nooks in rocks, or on platforms among the boughs of trees. They hunt the deer with bows and arrows, and dry the flesh, which they sometimes barter for articles for which they have a fancy, such as cocoa-nuts, arrow-heads, hatchets, cooking bowls, and coloured cloths. Each family has a head man, who manages domestic affairs, but exercises very little sway over them; their language is of the most limited description; they have no religious rites, no knowledge of a superior being or idea of a future state, and they do not even bury their dead, but cover them up with leaves in the recesses of the forest. They have no names for years, days, or hours; they can scarcely count beyond five on their fingers, and they have no music, games, or amusements of any sort. The Village Veddahs are a degree superior to them, as they live in huts, and roughly cultivate the ground. The Coast Veddahs are somewhat less savage than the first, and employ themselves in fishing and in cutting timber. They have much gentleness of disposition, and though, as might be expected, their morals are in the lowest state, grave crimes are seldom committed. Our government have made most laudable attempts to reclaim them, and in many instances, seconded by the devoted efforts of the missionaries, have met with great success. When I said they have no religious ceremony, I ought to have mentioned that when they are sick, they fancy that they are affected by an evil spirit, and so they send for a devil-dancer to drive it away. Something eatable is made as an offering to the evil spirit, and placed on a tripod of sticks. Before this the devil-dancer, who has his head and girdle decorated with green leaves, begins to shuffle his feet by degrees, working himself into the greatest fury, screaming and moaning, during which time he pretends to receive instructions how to cure the malady. The Wesleyan missionaries especially have laboured indefatigably among these wretched beings, and notwithstanding the low state of barbarism into which they had sunk, have succeeded in converting many hundreds to a knowledge of the glorious truths of Christianity, and in bringing them within the pale of civilisation. They are settled in villages, cultivate the ground, and have schools among them. One or two stations, in consequence of the missionaries having been carried off by fever, have been abandoned; but even there those Veddahs who had come under their influence continued to build cottages and practise the various arts they had learned. Still, throughout the length and breadth of Ceylon, there is a wide, and, I firmly believe, a fruitful field among all castes and tribes for the labours of the Christian missionary.”

Having won the confidence of our Veddah, Mr Fordyce desired him to light a fire by means of two dried sticks—a difficult operation, in which they are said to be great adepts. He replied that he would do as we wished; and breaking one of his arrows in two, he sharpened the end of one into a point, and making a hole in the other, he held it between his feet and twirled the first rapidly round between the palms of his hands. But a few moments had passed before smoke ascended and charcoal appeared; that quickly ignited; and some leaves and sticks being applied, a blazing fire was soon made.

Mr Fordyce, after questioning the savage, inquired if more of his companions were in the neighbourhood. He said yes, and that he could soon bring them. He disappeared, and we got some food ready. In a short time he returned, with nearly twenty wretched-looking beings, their hair and beards hanging in masses down to their waists. Each carried an iron-headed axe in a girdle, a bow about six feet in length strung with twisted bark, and a few ill-made arrows with peacocks’ feathers at one end and an iron unbarbed head tapering to a point at the other. After we had given them the deer’s flesh we had prepared, we set up a mark and told them to shoot at it. They were miserable marksmen, not one arrow in half-a-dozen hitting the target. They said that all they required was to wound their game, and then that they ran it down till it died; that they could kill an elephant by wounding him in the foot. The shaft breaks short off, when, the wound festering, the poor brute becomes so lame that they can easily overtake him and eventually worry him to death.

Travelling on through the forest, we came suddenly on an open space of three hundred acres or more, with a number of huts in the centre, and people actively employed in cultivating the ground. The space was divided into patches, containing paddy or dry rice, grain, Indian corn, coracan, with sweet potatoes, cassava, onions, yams, chillies, as also cotton-plants. I was surprised to find that the cultivators had only a temporary occupation of the ground. It is called chena cultivation. Pumpkins, sugar-cane, hemp, yams, as well as grains and vegetables, are grown. A number of families obtain a licence from the government agent of the district to cultivate a plot of ground in this way for two years, and no more.

A day or two after this, emerging once more from the forest, we found ourselves approaching a village of mud-huts, of different sizes—one of them, built round an open court-yard, had been prepared for our reception, the rooms having been hung with white cloths by the head washerman of the place, whose official duty it is to attend to visitors. The rooms had each but one small window, or hole rather. They all opened into the court. They kept out the air, but certainly no sun could get in. Such a building is the usual habitation even of chiefs. Some have handsome carved furniture, both tables and chairs, and cabinets, while their wives and daughters are decked in flowing robes and ornaments of gold and precious stones.

Scarcely had we taken up our quarters in our new abode, when the head man of the place and some of the chief villagers came in due form to pay their respects to Mr Fordyce. They said that they understood that he was accompanied by some renowned sportsmen, to whom they could offer a magnificent opportunity of displaying their prowess. We pricked up our ears as Mr Fordyce translated this. The neighbourhood was infested by a huge rogue elephant, whom none of these people could succeed in killing. He was not the only one, as many other rogues frequented the tank where he was usually seen, but he was by far the most mischievous. He would walk into fields at night and eat up the corn, and even into gardens and consume the vegetables; several times he had pulled down huts to get at corn stored within them, and once he had upset a cottage and very nearly destroyed the inhabitants. He had besides killed several people—some of whom he had met by chance, and others who had gone out to kill him.

Nowell was not at all daunted by these accounts, and told Mr Fordyce that he had made up his mind to try and kill the rogue. I begged to accompany him, and Mr Fordyce said that he would go and keep us out of mischief. We had our two Moor-men—the chief of whom we called Dango; and several of the villagers volunteered to accompany us and show us the haunts of the rogue. All arrangements were soon made—we were to start by dawn the next morning.

Delighted with the prospect before us, I was about to lie down on a sofa prepared as my bed, when I saw a snake fully four feet long glide in at the door of the room, and coil itself away under my pillow. I had no fancy for such a companion, and not knowing whether or not it was venomous, I shouted to Dango, whom I saw in the court, to come and help me to kill it. Nowell, who had left the room, heard me call, and came at the same time. Dango fearlessly put in his hand, and turning out the snake, said that it was only a rat-snake kept tame about the house for the purpose of killing rats, and that it was perfectly harmless. Still I could not bring myself to lie down on the couch with the expectation of such a visitor. Nowell very good-naturedly said that I might take his sofa, and that he would sleep on mine. I placed myself, therefore, on three cane chairs at the table, on which a lamp was burning. I fell asleep, but was awoke before long by hearing a rattling and scampering noise about the room, when, opening my eyes, I saw a dozen or more rats making free with our boots and eatables, and a number of other articles. Just then from under Nowell’s pillow out glided the rat-snake; quick as thought he seized one rat, then another, and then another, by which time the rats had scampered off. He glided away in pursuit, and I conclude returned and carried away the rest, if he did not eat them on the spot, for they were gone when I awoke.

After hurriedly discussing some coffee and biscuit, we started on our expedition. Mr Fordyce and Nowell had each two rifles. I had only one. Dango was told to keep near me. Poor Solon was very unhappy at again being left behind, but he was so very likely to get killed if he flew at an elephant that it was but prudent not to take him with us. Torches were lighted to show us the way and scare off wild beasts, as we sallied forth from our tapestried chambers. There was a slight crescent moon, and the stars were shining with the most wonderful brilliancy in the dark blue sky on the calm waters of a lake or ruined reservoir, along which our course for some little distance lay. There we had to border round a piece of country which had some years before been subject to the process of chena cultivation, but which, having been again deserted, was covered with a dense thorny jungle such as no man could force his way through without being almost torn in pieces, but which affords a secure retreat to elephants and all other wild animals. Close to the edge of this the cultivated land of the village extended, and people were stationed in watch-houses erected up among the branches of the trees, shrieking and yelling, and beating drums, and making every conceivable noise to drive back into the jungle the elephants who were accustomed to take their morning repast off their fields of coracan, and maize or millet. It was well known that the rogue elephant was near, and so audacious had he become, that though driven off from one part, he was very likely to appear directly afterwards in another. After waiting for some time in the hopes of getting a shot at him from the trees, we came to the conclusion that he suspected danger, and would not again appear. Nowell, who took the lead, therefore resolved to follow him. Dango was too keen about the matter to object, though, as he observed, “Many mans get killed so.”

I ought to have said that Dango had been so much with the English, and so often out with English sportsmen, that he could express himself very tolerably in English. Mr Fordyce, laughing, said that he should prefer watching outside with the horses; so, accompanied by four of the most active villagers, Nowell, Dango, and I prepared to penetrate through the jungle. Our only mode of escaping the thorns was to crawl on our hands and knees, trailing our rifles after us; and to do this without the certainty of their going off, we had to secure the locks in cases. Then we had the possibility of meeting unexpectedly with a cobra di capello, or boa constrictor, or a wild boar, or more dangerous still, a bear, besides running a risk of having our eyes scratched out, and other little inconveniences of that sort. Our chief object was to avoid making any noise.