The commerce of the Red Sea has, almost from time immemorial, greatly
suffered from the depredations of Arab pirates, who infest the entire
coasts. The exploits of one individual is dwelt upon by his late
_confreres_ with particular enthusiasm; and his career and deeds were of
so extraordinary a character, that we feel justified in giving the
following brief detail of them, as furnished by an English traveler:
This dreadful man, Ramah ibn Java, the _beau ideal_ of his order, the
personation of an Arab sea robber, was a native of a small village near
Jiddah. At an early period he commenced a mode of life congenial to his
disposition and nature. Purchasing a boat, he, with a band of about
twelve companions, commenced his career as a pirate, and in the course
of a few months he had been so successful that he became the owner of a
vessel of three hundred tons, and manned with a lawless crew. It was a
part of his system to leave British vessels unmolested, and he even
affected to be on good terms with them. We have heard an old officer
describe his appearance. He was then about forty-five years of age,
short in stature, but with a figure compact and square, a constitution
vigorous, and the characteristic qualities of his countrymen--frugality,
and patience of fatigue. Several scars already seamed his face, and the
bone of his arm had been shattered by a matchlock ball when boarding a
vessel. It is a remarkable fact that the intermediate bones sloughed
away, and the arm, connected only by flesh and muscle, was still, by
means of a silver tube affixed around it, capable of exertion.
Ramah was born to be the leader of the wild spirits around him. With a
sternness of purpose that awed those who were near him into a degree of
dread, which totally astonished those who had been accustomed to view
the terms of equality in which the Arab chiefs appear with their
followers, he exacted the most implicit obedience to his will; and the
manner in which he acted toward his son exhibits the length he was
disposed to go with those who thwarted, or did not act up to, the spirit
of his views. The young man, then a mere stripling, had been dispatched
to attack some boats, but he was unsuccessful. "This, dastard, and son
of a dog!" said the enraged father, who had been watching the progress
of the affair, "you return unharmed to tell me! Fling him over the
side!" The chief was obeyed; and but for a boat, which by some chance
was passing some miles astern, he would have been drowned. Of his
existence the father for many months was wholly unconscious, and how he
was reconciled we never heard; but during the interval he was never
known to utter his name. No cause, it appears, existed for a repetition
of the punishment; for while yet a youth, he met the death his father
would have most coveted for him. He fell at the head of a party that was
bravely storming a fort.
Many other acts of cruelty are related of him. Having seized a small
trading boat, he plundered her, and then fastened the crew--five in
number--round the anchor, suspended it from the bows, cut the cable, and
let the anchor, with its living burden, sink to the bottom. He once
attacked a small town on the Persian Gulf. In this town lived one Abder
Russel, a personal friend of the narrator, who related the visit of the
pirates to his dwelling. Seized with a violent illness, he was stretched
on a pallet spread on a floor of his apartment; his wife, to whom he was
devotedly attached, was attending him, his head placed in her lap. A
violent noise arose below--the door was heavily assailed--it yielded--a
sharp conflict took place--shouting and a rushing on the stair-case was
heard, and the pirates were in the apartment. "I read their purpose,"
said Abder to me, "In their looks; but I was bed-ridden, and could not
raise a finger to save her for whose life I would gladly have forfeited
my own, Ramah, the pirate captain, approached her. Entreaties for life
were unavailing; yet for an instant her extreme beauty arrested his arm,
but it was only for an instant. His dagger again gleamed on high, and
she sank a bleeding victim beside me. Cold and apparently inanimate as I
was, I nevertheless felt her warm blood flowing past me, and with her
life it ebbed rapidly away. My eyes must have been fixed with the vacant
look of death: I even felt unmoved as he bent down beside me, and, with
spider-like fingers, stripped the jewels from my hand--the touch of that
villain who had deprived me of all which in life I valued. At length, a
happy insensibility stole over me. How long I remained in this condition
I know not; but when I recovered my senses, fever had left me--cool
blood again traversed my veins. Beside me was a faithful slave, who was
engaged bathing my temples. He had escaped the slaughter by secreting
himself while the murderers remained in the house."
Ramah, although a man of few words with his crew, was nevertheless very
communicative to our officers, whenever he fell in with them. According
to his own account, he managed them by never permitting any
familiarities, nor communicating big plans, and by an impartial
distribution of plunder; but the grand secret, he knew full well, was in
his utter contempt of danger, and that terrible, untaught eloquence, at
the hour of need, where time is brief, and sentences must be condensed
into words, which marked his career. Success crowned all his exploits;
he made war, and levied contributions on whom he pleased. Several times
he kept important sea-port towns in a state of blockade, and his
appearance was every where feared and dreaded.
He took possession of a small sandy islet, not many miles from his
native place, where he built a fort, and would occasionally sally forth,
and plunder and annoy any vessel that he met with. Although now
perfectly blind and wounded in almost every part of his body, yet such
was the dread inspired by the energy of this old chief, that, for a long
time, no one could be found willing to attack the single vessel which he
possessed. At length, a sheik, bolder than his neighbors, proceeded in
three heavy boats to attack Ramah. The followers of the latter, too well
trained to feel or express alarm, save that which arose from affection
for their chief, painted in strong terms the overwhelming superiority of
the approaching force, and counseled his bearing away from them; but he
spurned the idea. The evening drew near, and closed upon him. After a
severe contest they gained the deck. An instant after, dead and dying,
the victor and the vanquished, were given to the wind. Ramah, with a
spirit in accordance with the tenor of his whole career, finding the day
was going against him, was led by a little boy to the magazine, and
then, it is supposed, applied the pipe he had been smoking during the
action to the powder. Such, to his life, was the fitting end of the
pirate chief.
[Illustration: GENERAL JACKSON AND WEATHERFORD]