My First Voyage to Southern Seas

by William Henry Giles Kingston

I lay on a sofa for the remainder of the day and during all the night, suffering great pain. There was no surgeon within some hundred miles of us, and the surgical knowledge of the natives was of a very limited description. Mr Fordyce and Nowell did their best for me, and kept continually fomenting the limb with cold applications of vinegar and water, by which the swelling was somewhat abated. The skin, however, was much broken, and soon became of a bright purple hue. I felt somewhat alarmed, but Dango begged that I would allow him to apply a balsam composed of what I was told was margosse oil. The odour was as disagreeable as that of asafoetida, but not only did it keep all flies away, but it had a most healing and cooling effect, so that after the rest of another day I was able to mount my horse and proceed on our journey. Nowell passed the time by going out and shooting pea-fowl, partridges, and small deer, which added considerably to our bill of fare at dinner time.

During three days after this, we travelled through the dense forest country I have before described. Though nothing could be more sombre or gloomy compared to the bright and open plain we had sometimes traversed, I was thankful for the shade and coolness we obtained, as the heat might again have inflamed my injured leg, I felt at first as if I had had a lump of lead hanging on one side of my horse, but by walking a little every day, that sensation gradually wore off, and in less than a week I was as well as ever.

“You did well in destroying the elephants who were committing depredations on our friends’ fields, but I cannot allow you to undertake, as knight-errants, to attack the rogues infesting all the villages we pass through,” observed Mr Fordyce. “You will certainly get expended yourselves, if you make the attempt.”

Nowell was rather annoyed at this, as he, not having had the severe lesson I had got, was still eager for more elephant-shooting. While Mr Fordyce was speaking, we were approaching the spot where we proposed pitching our tent, near one of the many tanks I have mentioned, now, in most instances, in a sadly ruined condition. Suddenly our ears were assailed by a wild and mournful cry.

“What can that be?” I asked.

“Some human being in pain,” answered Mr Fordyce, pressing on his horse in the direction from whence the sound came.

We followed him till we came to a tree round which stood a number of Veddahs, far less repulsive than those we had before seen. In the centre of the circle, sitting on the ground with his back against the trunk, was a young man with a horrible wound in his stomach, through which his intestines protruded. There he sat, the picture of fortitude and resignation; and though his companions exhibited their grief by their wild howls, he did not show, by the contraction of a muscle, or by any sign of impatience, that he felt the agony his wound was causing, or that he feared the death which must be its result; at the same time the perspiration streaming from his forehead, cheeks, and neck, showed the terrible pain he was suffering. Dango, who came up, inquired how the accident had occurred, when he was told that the young Veddah had just passed a wild buffalo in the cover, scarcely noticing it, when the animal rushed out at him from behind, knocked him down, and gored him from the groin upwards, as he fell. It was pitiable to see him when we felt how little aid we could afford him. He looked up calmly in our faces as if to seek for assurance and consolation there, but he could have found but little of either.

“Such might be your fate, or indeed that of any one of us, as we are traversing these wilds,” observed Mr Fordyce.

The Veddah looked up at him that moment and spoke. Mr Fordyce produced a small copy of the New Testament from his pocket, and read some verses. Instantly the young man’s countenance brightened. He knew and believed the truths contained in that sacred book. He had been educated at one of the missionary establishments, afterwards abandoned; but the seed had not fallen on stony ground. Now our kind friend could afford both comfort and consolation. He continued reading to the poor man till a litter could be formed, and some of the balsam I have mentioned could be procured; his wound was washed and dressed, and bound up, and he was carried to one of our tents. Some of his companions followed and sat outside, but did not attempt to enter. Not a sound all the time did he utter of complaint. Now and then he pointed upward to show us that it was from thence he received strength; that it was there he hoped soon to go. He had come, he said, to speak the truth to some of his tribe who were yet unconverted, and totally ignorant of all knowledge of the gospel; that he would be prevented from bringing those glad tidings to them was the only cause he had to regret being so speedily summoned from the world; but “God’s ways are not man’s ways,” he observed, and he had no doubt that He in his infinite wisdom had good reason for allowing what had happened to occur.

Mr Fordyce asked him the names of those he would wish to speak to, and he having given them, we went out with Dango to try and find them at a spot a short distance from the camp, where we were told that the tribe were assembled. Some hundred people almost black, and destitute of clothing, were assembled under the boughs and among the stems of a huge banyan tree, which formed, as Nowell remarked, a sort of natural temple. In front of it was a small stone altar, with fire burning on it, the flames from which shed a lurid glare on the rapidly darkening shadows of the huge tree. Before the altar were two figures; the most unearthly, horrible—indeed, I may say demoniacal—I have ever set eyes on. I could scarcely believe that they were human. They were black, and with the exception of a piece of cloth round the loins, totally destitute of clothing; they had huge mouths, with grinning teeth and large rolling eyes, while their hair hung from their heads in long snake-like locks, like horses’ tails, reaching almost to the ground. They were shrieking and howling, and making all sorts of horrible noises, while they jumped, and leaped, and whirled round and round with the most extraordinary grimaces, distorting their bodies in every conceivable form, while their hair was tossed up and down in all directions, and whisked about like the reef points of a sail in a gale of wind.