It is the constant practice in Abyssinia to beset the king’s doors and

windows within his hearing, and there, from early morning to night, to

cry for justice as loud as possible in a distressed and complaining

tone, and in all the different languages they are master of, in order

to their being admitted to have their supposed grievances heard. In a

country so ill governed as Abyssinia is, and so perpetually involved

in war, it may be easily supposed there is no want of people who have

real injuries and violence to complain of: but if it were not so,

this is so much the constant usage, that when it happens (as in the

midst of the rainy season) that few people can approach the capital

or stand without in such bad weather, a set of vagrants are provided,

maintained, and paid, whose sole business it is to cry and lament, as

if they had been really very much injured and oppressed; and this,

they tell you, is for the king’s honour, that he may not be lonely,

by the palace being too quiet. This, of all their absurd customs, was

the most grievous and troublesome to Mr. Bruce. Sometimes, while Mr.

Bruce was busy in his room in the rainy season, there would be four

or five hundred people, who all at once would begin, some roaring and

crying, as if they were in pain, others demanding justice, as if they

were that moment suffering, or if in the instant to be put to death;

and some groaning and sobbing as if just expiring; and this horrid

symphony was so artfully performed, that no ear could distinguish but

that it proceeded from real distress. Mr. Bruce was often so surprised

as to send the soldiers at the door to bring in one of them, thinking

him come from the country, to examine who had injured him: many a time

he was a servant of his own, or some other equally known; or, if he was

a stranger, upon asking him what misfortune had befallen him he would

answer very composedly, nothing was the matter with him; that he had

been sleeping all day with the horses; that hearing from the soldiers

at the door that Mr. Bruce was retired to his apartment he and his

companions had come to cry and make a noise under his window, to do him

honour before the people, for fear he should be melancholy by being too

quiet when alone, and therefore hoped that he would order them drink

that they might continue with a little more spirit.

In the course of his Abyssinian journeyings, the traveller just

mentioned had occasion to pass through a place called Arendi, which

was governed by a female named Sittina, or the Lady. Our traveller

waited on this high and mighty personage. Upon entering the house, a

black slave laid hold of him by the hand, and placed him in a passage,

at the end of which were two opposite doors. Mr. Bruce did not well

know the reason of this; but staid only a few minutes, when he heard

one of the doors at the end of the passage open, and Sittina appeared

magnificently dressed, with a kind of round cap of solid gold upon the

crown of her head, all beaten very thin, and hung round with sequins;

with a variety of gold chains, solitaires, and necklaces of the same

metal, about her neck. Her hair was plaited in ten or twelve small

divisions like tails, which hung down below her waist; and over her

was thrown a common cotton white garment. She had a purple silk stole,

or scarf, hung very gracefully upon her back, brought again round her

waist, without covering her shoulders or arms. Upon her wrists she had

two bracelets like handcuffs, about half an inch thick, and two gold

manacles of the same at her feet, full an inch in diameter, the most

disagreeable and awkward part of her dress. Mr. Bruce expected she

would have hurried through with some affectation of surprise. On the

contrary, she stopped in the middle of the passage, saying, in a very

grave manner, “Kifhalec,--how are you?” Mr. Bruce thought this was an

opportunity of kissing her hand, which he did, without her shewing any

sort of reluctance. “Allow me as a physician, Madam,” said Mr. Bruce,

“to say one word.” She bowed with her head, and said, “Go in at that

door, and I will hear you.” The slave appeared, and carried him through

a door at the bottom of a passage into a room, while her mistress

vanished in at another door at the top, and there was the screen he had

seen the day before, and the lady behind it. She was a woman scarcely

forty, taller than the middle size, had a very round plump face, her

mouth rather large, very red lips, the finest teeth and eyes he had

seen; but at the top of her nose, and between her eyebrows, she had a

small speck made of antimony, four-cornered, and of the size of the

smallest patches formerly worn by ladies of fashion; another rather

longer upon the top of her nose, and one in the middle of her chin.

“Tell me what you would say to me as a physician.” “It was, madam, but

in consequence of your discourse yesterday. That heavy gold cap with

which you press your hair will certainly be the cause of a great part

of it falling off.” “I believe so; but I should catch cold, I am so

accustomed to it, if I was to leave it off. Are you a man of name and

family in your own country?” “Of both, madam.” “Are the women handsome

there?” “The handsomest in the world, madam; but they are so good,

and so excellent in all other respects, that nobody thinks at all of

their beauty, nor do they value themselves upon it.” “And do they allow

you to kiss their hands?” “I understand you, madam, though you have

mistaken me. There is no familiarity in kissing hands; it is a mark of

homage and distant respect paid in my country to our sovereigns, and

to none earthly besides.” “O yes! but the kings.” “Yes, and the queens

too, always on the knee, madam. On her part, it is a mark of gracious

condescension, in favour of rank, merit, and honourable behaviour;

it is a reward for dangerous and difficult services, above all other

compensation.” “But do you know that no man ever kissed my hand but

you?” “It is impossible I should know that, nor is it material. Of

this I am confident, it was meant respectfully, cannot hurt you, and

should not offend you.” “It certainly has done neither,” replied Her

Majesty--and so ended her first lesson on the etiquette of civilized

life.

On another occasion, while in the neighbourhood of Seenaar, our

traveller waited on the king; and about eight o’clock came a servant

from the palace, telling Mr. Bruce that then was the time to “bring

his present.” He sorted the separate articles with all the speed he

could, and went directly to the palace. The king was sitting in a large

apartment, as far as he could guess, at some distance from the former.

He was naked, but had several clothes lying upon his knee, and about

him, and a servant was rubbing him over with very stinking butter or

grease, with which his hair was dropping as if wet with water. Large

as the room was, it could be smelled through the whole of it. The king

asked Mr. Bruce if he ever greased himself as he did? Mr. Bruce said,

very seldom, but fancied it would be very expensive. He then told him

that it was elephant’s grease, which made people strong, and preserved

the skin very smooth. Our traveller said he thought it very proper, but

could not bear the smell of it, though his skin should turn as rough

as an elephant’s for the want of it. The king replied, that if Mr.

Bruce had used it, his hair would not have turned so red as it was, and

that it would all become white presently, when that redness came off.

“You may see,” continued he, “the Arabs driven in here by the Daveina,

and all their cattle taken from them, because they have no longer any

grease for their hair. The sun first turns it red, and then perfectly

white; and you will know them in the street by their hair being the

colour of yours. As for the smell, you will see that cured presently.”

After having rubbed him abundantly with grease, the servants brought

him a pretty large horn, and in it something scented, about the

consistence of honey. It was plain that civet was a great part of the

composition. The king went out at the door, Mr. Bruce supposes into

another room, and there two men deluged him with pitchers of cold

water. He then returned, and a slave anointed him with this sweet

ointment; after which he sat down as completely dressed, being just

going to his woman’s apartment where he was to sup. Mr. Bruce told him,

he wondered why he did not use rose-water as in Abyssinia, Arabia, and

Cairo. He said he had it often from Cairo, when the merchants arrived;

but as it was now long since they came, his people could not make more,

for the rose would not grow in his country, though the women made

something like it of lemon-flower.

Making a skip from Abyssinia to Madagascar we there find the “Royal

state” a ludicrous blending of gingerbread splendour and magnificent

muddle. By-the-by, things may have reformed here by this time, as the

queen of whom this description treats is lately dead: let us hope that

this is the case. Our business, however, is to recite the evidence

of our witnesses--the witness in this case being the courageous and

truthful Ida Pfieffer.

“Towards four o’clock our bearers carried us to the palace. Over the

door is fixed a great gilt eagle with extended wings. According to the

rule here laid down by etiquette we stepped over the threshold first

with the right foot, and observed the same ceremony on coming to a

second gate leading to a great court-yard in front of the palace. Here

we saw the queen sitting on a balcony on the first storey, and were

directed to stand in a row in the court-yard opposite to her. Under

the balcony stood some soldiers, who went through sundry evolutions,

concluding with a very comic point of drill which consisted in suddenly

poking up the right foot as though suddenly stung by a tarantula.

“The queen was wrapped, according to the custom of the country, in a

wide silk simbu and wore on her head a big golden crown. Though she sat

in the shade a very large crimson umbrella was held up over head; this

being, it appears, a point of regal state.

“The queen is of rather dark complexion, and sturdily built, and

although already seventy-five years of age she is, to the misfortune

of her poor country, still hale and of active mind. At one time she is

said to have been a great drunkard, but she has given up that fatal

propensity some years ago.

“To the right of the queen stood her son Prince Rakoto, and on the left

her adopted son Prince Ramboasalama; behind her sat and stood sundry

nephews and nieces and other relatives, male and female, and several

grandees of the empire.

“The minister who had conducted us to the palace made a short speech

to the queen; after which we had to bow three times and to repeat the

words ‘Esaratsara tombokoe,’ equivalent to ‘We salute you cordially,’

to which she replied ‘Esaratsara,’ which means ‘well-good.’ Then we

turned to the left to salute the tomb of Prince Radama lying a few

paces on one side, with three similar bows; whereupon we returned to

our former place in front of the balcony and made three more. Mr.

Lambert (who accompanied Madam Pfieffer) on this occasion, held up

a gold piece of fifty franks value and put it in the hands of the

minister who accompanied us. This gift, which every stranger has to

offer the first time he is presented at court, is called ‘Monosina.’

It is not customary that it should consist of a fifty-franc piece; the

queen contents herself with a Spanish dollar, or a five-frank piece.

After the delivery of the gold piece, the queen asked Mr. Lambert if he

wished to put any question to her, or if he stood in need of anything;

to which he answered, ‘No.’ She also was condescending enough to turn

to me and ask if I was well and if I had escaped the fever. After I had

answered this question, we stayed a few minutes longer looking at each

other, and then the bowings and greetings began anew. We had to take

leave of Radama’s monument, and on returning were reminded not on any

account to put the left foot first over the threshold.”

The royal palace of Madagascar is described by Mrs. Pfieffer as a very

large wooden building, consisting of a ground floor and two storeys

surmounted by a peculiarly high roof. The storeys are surrounded by

broad galleries. Around the building are pillars, also of wood, eighty

feet high, supporting the roof which rises to a height of forty feet

above them, resting in the centre on a pillar no less than a hundred

and twenty feet high. All these columns, the one in the centre not

excepted, consist of a single trunk; and when it is considered that the

woods which contain trees of sufficient size to furnish these columns

are fifty or sixty English miles from the capital, that the roads are

nowhere paved and in some places are quite impassable, and that all the

pillars are dragged hither without the help of a single beast of burden

or any kind of machine, and are afterwards prepared and set up by means

of the simplest tools, the building of this place may with truth be

called a gigantic undertaking, and the place itself be ranked among

the wonders of the world. In bringing home the chief pillar alone five

thousand persons were employed and twelve days were occupied in its

erection.

“All these labours were performed by the people as compulsory service

for which they received neither wages nor food. I was told that during

the progress of the work fifteen thousand persons fell victims to the

hard toil and the want of proper nourishment. But the queen is little

disturbed by such a circumstance--half the population might perish if

only her high behests were fulfilled.

“In front of the principal building a handsome and spacious court-yard

has been left. Around this space stands several pretty houses, all

of wood. The chief building is in fact uninhabited and contains only

halls of state and banquetting rooms. On the left the ‘silver palace’

adjoins the larger one. It takes its name from the fact that all

the vandyked ends with which the roof is decorated are hung with

innumerable little silver bells. Beside the silver palace stands the

monument of King Radama--a tiny wooden house without windows; to this

fact, however, and to the further circumstance of its being built upon

a pedestal, it owes its sole resemblance to a monument.”

The singular custom prevails in Madagascar, that when a king dies all

his treasures in gold and silver ware, and other valuables, are laid

with him in the grave. In case of need, however, the king can dig up

the treasure. “As far as I could ascertain,” says the observant Ida

Pfieffer, “this had been done in several instances.”

The same lady favours us with a description of the chief national

festival among the Malagaseys, the “Feast of the Queen’s Bath.” It

takes place on New Year’s Day.

“On the eve of the feast all the high officers, nobles, and chiefs,

appear at court invited by the queen. They assemble in a great hall;

presently a dish of rice is carried round, each guest taking a pinch in

his fingers and eating it. That is the whole extent of the ceremony on

this first evening.

“Next morning the same company assemble in the same hall. As soon as

they have all met, the queen steps behind a curtain which hangs in a

corner of the room, undresses, and has water thrown over her. As soon

as she has been dressed again she steps forward, holding in her hand an

ox horn, filled with the water which has been poured over her. Part of

this she pours over the assembled company. Then she betakes herself to

a gallery overlooking the court-yard of the palace and pours the rest

over the military assembled there for parade.

“On this auspicious day nothing is seen throughout the whole country

but feasting, dancing, singing, and rejoicing, which is continued till

late at night. The celebration is kept up for eight days dating from

the day of the bath. It is the custom of the people to kill as many

oxen on that day as they contemplate consuming during the other seven;

whoever possesses any oxen at all kills at least one at this feast. The

poor people get pieces of meat in exchange for rice, sweet potatoes,

tobacco, etc. The meat is still tolerably fresh on the eighth day. It

is cut into long thin strips, which are salted and laid one on the

other. The preliminary celebration of the feast occurs a week earlier

and consists of military processions. The votaries of pleasure then

begin their feast and thus have a fortnight’s jollity--a week before

the feast and a week after.

“The soldiers whom I saw in the procession pleased me well enough. They

went through their manœuvres with tolerable accuracy, and, contrary to

my expectation, I found the music not only endurable but positively

harmonious. It appears that some years ago the queen sent for an

European band-master and a complete set of instruments; and her worthy

subjects were inducted into a knowledge of music probably by means of

a stick. The soldiers were dressed in a simple, neat, and perfectly

uniform manner. They wore a tight-fitting jerkin reaching to the chest

and covering part of their loins. The chest was bare and covered by the

gleaming white belts supporting the cartridge-box, which had a good

effect in contrast to the black skins of the soldiers. Their heads are

uncovered. Their arms consisted of a musket and the national lance

called _sagaya_.”

According to the same authority, however, satisfactory as is the

appearance of the Malagasey soldier, his lot is a very hard one. He

receives no pay, and even his regimentals must be provided out of his

own scanty means. To meet these expenses he is obliged, if he is a

craftsman, to beg so much leave each day of his superior; or, if farm

work be his avocation, he on certain days of the week abandons the

barrack for the plough. The soldier, however, says Mrs. Pfieffer, who

would obtain enough leave of absence to enable him to maintain himself

in anything like comfort, must propitiate his captain by giving him

part of his earnings. The officers are generally very little richer

than the soldiers. They certainly receive, like the civil officials, a

remuneration for their services from the customs’ revenues; but the pay

is so small that they cannot live upon it, and are compelled to have

recourse to other means, not always of the most honest description.

According to the law a very small portion of the customs’ revenue

should come to the common soldier; but so insignificant is the amount

that neither common soldiers nor officers think it worth while to make

any fuss about it.

So it comes about that the unlucky Malagasey soldier who can find no

work, and is too far from his native village to receive assistance from

his friends, is in danger of starvation. His leisure hours are spent

in grubbing about the country in search of herbs and roots with which,

and a little rice, he manages to keep life and soul together. The rice

he throws into a pot filled with water, and after it has soaked for a

time the rice-water serves him for a dinner; in the evening he banquets

on the soddened grain remaining in the pot. But in war time, as soon as

he is on an enemy’s territory, he makes up for his protracted season

of “short commons;” he plunders right and left and literally lives

upon the fat of the land; his long training has provided him with an

excellent appetite; indeed, it is said that four able-bodied Malagaseys

are equal to the task of consuming an entire ox in the space of four

days, and at the termination of the feast to be so little incommoded as

to be able to flee from pursuit with the nimbleness of deer-hounds.

The Malagasey soldier at war, however, is only to be envied while his

health remains unimpared, and while he is lucky enough to keep his

carcase within a sound skin. His comrades are bound to take care of

him in sickness--but how are they to do this when they themselves are

pinched by poverty and are without even the common necessaries of life?

It frequently happens on a march that the sick soldier’s companions

will endeavour to rid themselves of him; not by killing him outright,

but by the less charitable process of denying him food to eat or water

to quench his thirst, till, preferring death to further torture, he

begs to be laid under a tree and left, when his tender nurses readily

yield to his solicitations, and he is left to die.

Let us wind up our notice of Royalty and its attributes in Madagascar

by a description of a court ball.

The ball began soon after one o’clock in the day, and was not held in

the apartments of the palace, but in front of the building, in the

great fore-court in which we had been admitted to our audience. As on

that former occasion, the queen sat on the balcony under the shade of

her great parasol, and we were obliged to make the usual obeisances to

her and to the tomb of King Radama. This time, however, we were not

made to stand; comfortable arm-chairs were assigned to us. Gradually

the ball company began to assemble; the guests comprised nobles of both

sexes, officers and their wives, and the queen’s female singers and

dancers. The nobles wore various costumes, and the officers appeared in

European dress: all were obliged to make numerous obeisances. Those who

appeared in costume had seats like ours given them; the rest squatted

about as they liked, in groups on the ground.

“The queen’s female dancers opened the ball with the dreary Malagasey

dance. These charming creatures were wrapped from top to toe in white

simbus, and wore on their heads artificial, or, I should say, very

inartificial flowers, standing up stiffly like little flagstaffs; they

crowded into a group in such a way that they seemed all tied together.

As often as they staggered past the queen’s balcony or the monument

of King Radama, they repeated their salutes, and likewise at the end

of every separate dance. After the female dancers had retired, the

officers executed a very similar dance, only that they kept somewhat

quicker time, and their gestures were more animated--that is to say,

they lifted their feet rather higher than the performers of the other

sex. Those who had hats and caps, waved them in the air from time to

time, and set up a sharp howling, intended to represent cries of joy.

“After the officers followed six couples of children in fancy dresses.

The boys wore the old Spanish costume, or were attired as pages, and

looked tolerably well; but the girls were perfect scarecrows. They wore

old-fashioned French costumes--large, stiff petticoats, with short

bodices--and their heads were quite loaded with ostrich feathers,

flowers, and ribbons. After this little monkey community had performed

certain polonaises, schottisches, and contre-danses, acquitting

themselves, contrary to my expectation, with considerable skill, they

bowed low and retired, making way for a larger company, the males

likewise clad in the old Spanish, the females in the old French garb.

“All these various costumes are commanded by the queen, who generally

gets her ideas from pictures or engravings that come in her way. The

ladies add to the costume prescribed by royalty whatever their own

taste and invention may suggest, generally showing great boldness and

originality in the combination of colours. I will give my readers an

idea of what these costumes are like, by describing one of them.

“The dress was of blue satin, with a border of orange colour, above

which ran a broad stripe of bright cherry-coloured satin. The body,

also of satin, with long skirt, shone with a brimstone hue, and a light

sea green silk shawl was draped above it. The head was covered in

such style with stiff, clumsily-made artificial flowers, with ostrich

feathers, silk ribbons, glass beads, and all kinds of millinery, that

the hair was entirely hidden--not that the fair one lost much thereby,

but that I pitied her for the burden she had to carry.

“The costumes of the other ladies showed similar contrasts in colour,

and some of these tasteful dresses had been improved by a further

stroke of ingenuity, being surmounted by high conical hats, very like

those worn by the Tyrolese peasants.

“The company, consisting exclusively of the higher aristocracy,

executed various European dances, and also performed the Sega, which

the Malagaseys assert to be a native dance, though it is really

derived from the Moors. The figures, steps, and music of the Sega are

all so pleasing that, if it were once introduced in Europe, it could

not fail to become universally fashionable.

[Illustration: Malagasey Ball.]

“This beautiful dance was far from concluding the ball. After a short

pause, during which no refreshments were offered, the _élite_ of

the company, consisting of six couples, stepped into the court-yard.

The gentlemen were Prince Rakoto, the two Labordes, father and son,

two ministers, and a general--all the ladies were princesses or

countesses. The gentlemen were dressed in old Spanish costume, except

Prince Rakoto, who wore a fancy dress so tastefully chosen, that

he might have appeared with distinction in any European Court ball.

He wore trousers of dark blue cloth, with a stripe down the side, a

kind of loose jerkin of maroon-coloured velvet, ornamented with gold

stripes and the most delicate embroidery, and a velvet cap of the same

colour, with two ostrich feathers, fastened by a gold brooch. The whole

dress fitted so well, and the embroidery was so good, that I thought

Mr. Lambert must have taken the prince’s measure with him to Paris,

and that the clothes had been made there; but this was not the case.

Everything, with the exception of the material, had been prepared at

Tananariva--a proof that, if the people of Madagascar are deficient in

invention, they are exceedingly clever in imitating models set before

them.

“This group of dancers appeared with much more effect than their

predecessors, for all the ladies and gentlemen were much more

tastefully attired than the rest of the company. They only performed

European dances.

“The whole of these festivities, which had occupied three hours, had

not put the queen to the slightest expense. The court-yard was the

dancing floor, the sun provided illumination, and every guest was at

liberty to take what refreshment he chose--_when he got home_.

Happy queen! How sincerely many of our ball-givers must envy her!”

[Illustration]

[Illustration: Borneo.]

CHAPTER XIX.

Installation of a Dayak Rajah--A visit to the Grungs--A Dayak

dance--Captain Hall’s visit to Corea--The chief on board the

“Lyra”--Entertained at one’s own expense--The chief loses his

temper--The marriage of King Finow’s daughter--The marriage

ceremonies--Mummying a king--King John’s skull--The Bushman’s

mourning.

In Borneo we find the ruling power to be a Sultan, assisted in his rule

by “Rajahs” and “Pangerans” and “Bandars,” and many others whose titles

are equally unintelligible to us. Each of these minor rulers, however,

appears to rule absolutely over the people in their immediate care;

and much ceremony is observed at their installation. Sir James Brooke,

himself a rajah, was once present at the election of three of these

petty rulers.

With the Dayaks all council is divided into _hot_ and _cold_--peace,

friendship, good intentions, are all included under the latter head;

war, etc., are under the former. Hot is represented by red, and cold by

white. So in everything they make this distinction; and as the public

hall is the place for war councils and war trophies, it is hot in

the extreme, and unfit for friendly conference. A shed was therefore

erected close to the Orang Kaya’s house wherein the ceremony was to

take place. “About nine in the evening we repaired to the scene; loud

music, barbarous but not unpleasing, resounded, and we took our seats

on mats in the midst of our Dayak friends. A feast was in preparation,

and each guest (if I may call them such) brought his share of rice

in bamboos and laid it on the general stock. As one party came up

after another, carrying their burning logs, the effect was very good;

and they kept arriving until the place and its vicinity was literally

crammed with human beings. A large antique sīrih-box was placed in the

midst, and I contributed that greatest of luxuries, tobacco.

“The feast in the meantime was in preparation, some of the principal

people being employed in counting the number who were to eat and

dividing the bamboos into exactly equal portions for each person. About

six inches were allotted to every man, and it took a very long time to

divide it, for they are remarkably particular as to the proper size and

quantity to each share. The bamboos of rice being, however, at length

satisfactorily disposed, the Orang Kaya produced as his share a large

basin full of sauce composed of salt and chilis, and a small stock of

sweetmeats, and then the ceremony of his installation commenced as

follows:

“A jacket, a turban, a cloth for the loins, and a kris (all of white),

were presented to the chiefs as a token of sejiek dingin, or cold

(_i.e._ good). The chief then rose, and taking a white fowl and

waving it over the eatables, repeated nearly the following words [The

commencement, however, is curious enough to dwell upon: the opening

is a sort of invocation beginning with the phrase ‘Samungut Samungi.’

Samungut is a Malay word, Samungi signifying the same in Dayak; the

exact meaning it is difficult to comprehend, but it is here understood

as some principal spirit or fortune which is in men and things. Thus

the Dayaks in stowing their rice at harvest, do it with great care from

a superstitious feeling that the Samungi of the padi will escape. They

now call this principal to be present--that of men, of pigs (their

favorite animal), of padi, and of fruits. They particularly named my

Samungi, that of my ancestors, of the Pangeran from Borneo, of the

Datus and of their ancestors, and of the ancestors of their own tribe.

They call them--that is, their Samungi--to be present. They then call

upon Jovata to grant their prayer that the great man from Europe and

the Datus might hold the government for a length of time]:--‘May the

government be cold (good). May there be rice in our houses. May many

pigs be killed. May male children be born to us. May fruit ripen. May

we be happy, and our goods abundant. We declare ourselves to be true

to the great man and the Datus; what they wish we will do, what they

command is our law.’ Having said this and much more the fowl was taken

by a leading Malay who repeated the latter words, whilst others bound

strips of white cloth round the heads of the multitude. The fowl was

then killed, the blood shed in a bamboo, and each man dipping his

finger in the blood touched his forehead and breast in attestation

of his fidelity. The fowl was now carried away to be cooked, and

when brought back placed with the rest of the feast, and the dancing

commenced. The chief coming forward uttered a loud yell ending in

‘ish,’ which was oftentimes repeated during the dance. He raised his

hand to his forehead and, taking a dish, commenced dancing to lively

music. Three other old chief-men followed his example, each uttering

the yell and making the salute, but without taking the dish. They

danced with arms extended, turning the body frequently, taking very

small steps and little more than lifting their feet from the ground.

Thus they turned backwards and forwards, passed in and out in the inner

rooms, and frequently repeating a yell and making the salutation to me.

The dish in the meantime was changed from one to the other; there was

little variety, no gesticulation, no violence, and though not deficient

in native grace, yet the movements were by no means interesting. The

dance over the feast commenced, and everything was carried on with

great gravity and propriety. I left them shortly after they begun to

eat, and retired, very fagged, to my bed, or rather my board, for

sitting cross-legged for several hours is surely a great affliction.”

Sir J. Brooke, in company with a modern writer on Bornean manners and

customs--Mr. St. John--on another occasion paid a ceremonial visit to a

chief of the Grungs, and with results that are worth chronicling.

“We found the village crowded with the representatives of all the

neighbouring tribes; long strings of men, women, and children were

continually arriving as we approached. Directly we ascended the notched

tree that served as a ladder to the Orang Kaya’s house, we found that

we were no longer free agents. A crowd of old women instantly seized us

and pulled off our shoes and stockings and commenced most vigorously

washing our feet: this water was preserved to fertilize the fields. We

were then conducted to a platform but slightly raised above the floor

and requested to sit down, but the mats were so dirty that we could

scarcely prevail upon ourselves to do so--perhaps the only time it has

occurred to us; generally the mats are charmingly neat and clean. The

arrival of our bedding freed us from this difficulty.

“We were surrounded by a dense mass of men, women, and children who

appeared all to be talking at once; in fact, more excitement was shewn

than I have before observed. We had to do so many things, and almost

all at once,--to sprinkle rice about, to pour a little water on each

child that was presented to us, until, from force of example, the women

and even the men insisted upon the ceremony being performed on them.

“Silence being at last restored, Kasim explained in a long speech the

object of Captain Brooke’s visit. He spoke in Malay, interlarding it

occasionally with Dayak phrases--I say Malay, but Malay that is only

used when addressing the aborigines,--clipping and altering words,

changing the pronunciation, until I find that some have been deceived

into believing this was the true Dayak language. It is to these people

what the Lingua Franca is to Western Asia.

“We got a little respite while eating our dinner; but as soon as we

had finished we were again surrounded. The priestesses of the place

were especially active tying little bells round our wrists and ancles

and bringing rice for us to--how shall I explain it?--in fact for us

to spit on, and this delectable morsel they swallowed. No sooner had

these learned women been satisfied than parents brought their children

and insisted upon their being physicked in the same way, taking care to

have a full share themselves. One horrid old woman actually came six

times.

“The Orang Kaya now advanced and there was strict attention to hear

what he was about to say. He walked to the window and threw some grains

out, and then commenced a kind of prayer asking for good harvests,

for fertility for the women, and for health to them all. During the

whole invocation he kept scattering rice about. The people were very

attentive at first, but soon the murmur of many voices almost drowned

the old man’s tones. He did not appear very much in earnest, but

repeated what he had to say as if he were going over a well-remembered

but little understood lesson; in fact, it is said these invocations

are in words not comprehended even by the Dayaks themselves--perhaps

they are in some Indian language. Then a space was cleared for dancing;

the old Orang Kaya and the elders commenced and were followed by the

priestesses. They walked up to us in succession, passed their hands

over our arms, pressed our palms, and then uttering a yell or a

prolonged screech, went off in a slow measured tread, moving their arms

and hands in unison with their feet, until they reached the end of the

house and came back to where we sat; then another pressure of the palm,

a few more passes to draw virtue out of us, another yell, and off they

went again; at one time there were at least a hundred dancing. Few of

the young people joined in what appeared in this case a sacred dance.

“For three nights we had had little sleep on account of these

ceremonies; but at length, notwithstanding clash of gong and beat of

drum, we sank back in our beds and were soon fast asleep. In perhaps a

couple of hours I awoke; my companion was still sleeping uneasily; the

din was deafening, and I sat up to look around. Unfortunate movement!

I was instantly seized by the hands of two priests and led up to the

Orang Kaya who was leisurely cutting a fowl’s throat. He wanted Captain

Brooke to perform the following ceremony, but I objected to his being

awakened, and offered to do it for him. I was taken to the very end of

the house and the bleeding fowl put in my hands; holding him by his

legs I had to strike the lintels of the doors, sprinkling a little

blood over each. When this was over I had to waive the fowl over the

heads of the women and wish them fertility, over the children and wish

them health, over all the people and wish them prosperity; out of the

window and invoke good crops for them. At last I reached my mats and

sat down preparatory to another sleep, when that horrid old woman led

another detachment of her sex forward to recommence the physicking:

fortunately but few came, and after setting them off dancing again I

fell asleep and in spite of all the noises remained so till morning.”

When, in the year 1818, Captain Basil Hall undertook what was in those

days considered a formidable undertaking--a voyage of discovery to

the coast of Corea and the great Loo Choo Island--he was entertained

at the former place by a potentate of so remarkable a character as to

entitle him to a place among the necessarily few and consequently rare

specimens of savage royalty which figure on these pages. It will be

understood that Captain Hall’s ship, the “Alceste,” had anchored off

Corea, and in the morning sent a boat ashore to feel the way to closer

intimacy.

“The curiosity of the natives was already aroused; every boat was

crowded with people, and ornamented with numerous flags and streamers;

but one of them being distinguished by a large blue umbrella, we

steered towards it, on the supposition that this was an emblem of

rank, in which opinion we were soon confirmed by the sound of music,

which played only on board this boat. On coming closer we saw a fine

patriarchal figure seated under the umbrella; his full white beard

covered his breast and reached below his middle; his robe or mantle,

which was of blue silk and of an immense size, flowed about him in a

magnificent style. His sword was suspended from his waist by a small

belt; but the insignia of his office appeared to be a slender black

rod tipped with silver, about a foot and a half long, with a small

leather thong at one end, and a piece of black crape tied to the

other; this he held in his hand. His hat exceeded in breadth of brim

anything we had yet met with, being, as we supposed, nearly three feet

across. The old chief by signs expressed his wish to go to the ships.

We accordingly rowed to the “Lyra,” which lay nearer to the shore than

the “Alceste.” When the chief’s boat was within ten yards of the brig,

they let go their anchor and threw a rope on board her by which they

drew the boat alongside in a very seamanlike style. The old man did

not find it an easy matter to get up the ship’s side, encumbered as he

was with his splendid robes; he was no sooner on board, however, than

we were crowded with the natives, who boarded us on all sides. Some

climbed up the rigging so as to overlook the quarter-deck, others got

on the poop, and a line was formed along the hammock netting from one

end of the brig to the other. As the evening was fine, it was thought

best to entertain the venerable chief upon deck, rather than give him

the trouble of going down to the cabin, which, indeed, we had reason

to fear would prove too small for the party. Chairs were accordingly

placed upon deck, but the chief made signs that he could not sit on

a chair, nor would he consent for a time to use his mat, which was

brought on board by one of his attendants. He seemed embarrased and

displeased, which we could not at the moment account for, though it

has since occurred to us that he objected to the publicity of the

conference. At length, however, he sat down upon his mat and began

talking with great gravity and composure, without appearing in the

smallest degree sensible that we did not understand a single word that

he said. Meanwhile the crowd of natives increased, and their curiosity

became so great, that they pressed round us in a way nowise agreeable.

Some of them roved about the ship and appeared highly entertained

with everything they saw. The chief himself, however, did not appear

at ease, but continued giving directions to his officers and people

about him with an air of impatience. He more than once ordered them

all into their boats, but they always returned after a few minutes.

One man persevered in climbing over the hammocks close to the chief to

see what was going on; the noise made to keep him back attracted the

chief’s attention, who immediately gave orders to one of the attendants

for his being taken away: it will be seen by and by what was his fate.

It was nearly dark when the chief gave directions for preparing

the boats, and at the same time to two of his attendants to assist

him to get on his legs. Each took an arm, and in this way succeeded

in raising him up, which was no sooner observed by the people, than

they jumped into their boats with the utmost alacrity, and the chief,

after many bows and salaams, walked into his boat. This did not give

him so much trouble as he had experienced in coming on board, for a

platform of grating and planks had been prepared for his accommodation

during his visit, an attention with which he seemed much pleased. So

far all seemed well; but there was still something amiss, for the old

man, seated in state under his umbrella, remained alongside with his

attendants ranged on deck about him, he and his people preserving the

most perfect silence, and making no signs to explain. We were greatly

puzzled to discover what the old gentleman wanted, till at length it

was suggested that, having paid us a visit, he expected a similar

compliment in return. This idea was no sooner started than we proceeded

to pay our respects to him in his boat. He made signs for us to sit

down, honouring us at the same time with a corner of his own mat. When

we were seated he looked about as if in distress at having nothing to

entertain us with, upon which a bottle of wine was sent for and given

him. He ordered an attendant to pour it into several bowls, and putting

the bottle away, made signs for us to drink, but would not taste it

himself till all of us had been served. He was nowise discomposed at

being obliged to entertain his company at their own expense; on the

contrary, he carried off the whole affair with so much cheerfulness

and ease as to make us suspect sometimes that he saw and enjoyed the

oddity of the scene and circumstances as fully as we did ourselves.

After sitting about ten minutes we left the chief in great good humour

and returned on board, thinking of course that he would go straight to

the shore; but in this we were mistaken, for we had no sooner left him

than he pushed off to the distance of ten or twelve yards, and calling

the other boats round him, gave orders for inflicting the discipline

of the bamboo upon the unfortunate culprit who had been ordered into

confinement during the conference. This exhibition, which it was

evidently intended we should witness, had a very ludicrous effect,

for it followed so much in train with the rest of the ceremony, and

was carried on with so much gravity and order, that it looked like

an essential part of the etiquette. During the infliction of this

punishment a profound silence was observed by all the party, except

by five or six persons immediately about the delinquent, whose cries

they accompanied by a sort of song or yell at each blow of the bamboo.

This speedy execution of justice was, no doubt, intended to impress us

with notions of Corean discipline. As it was now dark we did not expect

the chief to pay any more visits this evening; but we underrated his

politeness, for the moment the above scene was concluded he steered

for the ‘Alceste.’ He was in great good humour, and seemed entertained

with the efforts which were made to please him. He asked to look at a

mirror which had caught his attention. When it was put into his hands

he seemed very well satisfied with the figure which it presented, and

continued for some time pulling his beard from side to side with an

air of perfect complacency. One of the attendants thought there could

be no harm in looking at the mirror likewise; but the chief was of

a different opinion, and no sooner observed what he was doing, than

he very angrily made him put down the glass and leave the cabin. The

secretary, too, fell under his displeasure, and was reprimanded with

much acrimony for overlooking our paper when we were writing. Scarcely

five minutes elapsed in short during his stay, without his finding

some cause of complaint against his people; but we could not determine

whether this arose from mere captiousness, or was done to give us a

higher notion of his consequence, because in the interval he was all

cheerfulness and good humour. He was offered tea and cherry-brandy,

which he took along with us, and appeared at his ease in every respect.

We thought that he made signs implying a wish for us to visit him on

shore; to this we cheerfully assented, and an arrangement for landing

in the morning was made accordingly by means of similar signs, with

which the chief appeared much pleased, and rose to go away. He had not

got much beyond the cabin-door, however, before the serenity of his

temper was once more overturned. On passing the gun-room skylight, he

heard the voices of some of his people whom the officers had taken

below, and who were enjoying themselves very merrily amongst their new

acquaintance. The old chief looked down, and observing them drinking

and making a noise, he called to them in a loud passionate voice, which

made them leave their glasses and run up the ladder in great terror.

From thence alarm spread along the lower deck to the midshipmen’s

berth, where another party was carousing. The grog and wine with which

they had been entertained was too potent for this party, as they did

not seem to care much for the old chief, who, posting himself at

the hatchway, ascertained by personal examination who the offenders

were. On this occasion his little rod of office was of much use; he

pushed the people about with it to make them speak, and used it to

turn them round in order to discover their faces. One man, watching

his opportunity when the chief was punching away at somebody who had

just come up, slipped past and ran off; but the quick eye of the old

man was not so easily deceived, and he set off in chase of him round

the quarter-deck. The man had an apron full of biscuits which had been

given to him by the midshipmen; this impeded his running, so that the

chief, nothwithstanding his robes, at last came up with him; but while

he was stirring him up with his rod, the fellow slipped his cargo of

bread into a coil of rope, and then went along with the chief quietly

enough. The old man came back afterwards and found the biscuits,

which he pointed out to us to show that they had not been taken away.

He continued for some time at the hatchway, expecting more people,

but finding none come up, he went below himself to the main-deck and

rummaged under the guns and round the mainmast to discover whether any

one was concealed, but finding no person there he came upon deck, and

shortly after went into his boat.”

The reader has already made the acquaintance of King Finow; here

are some further particulars of him and the manner of his court in

connection with the marriage of his daughter. He had three daughters,

the eldest of whom, about eighteen years of age, had been long

betrothed to Tooitonga, who having expressed his wish that the marriage

should take place, Finow gave orders for the necessary preparations.

Tooitonga was now about forty years of age. The particulars of this

chief’s marriage, which was somewhat different from those of other

chiefs, shall be here described.

The young lady having been profusely anointed with cocoa-nut oil, and

scented with sandal-wood, was dressed in the choicest mats of the

Navigator’s Island, of the finest texture, and as soft as silk. So many

of these costly mats were wrapped round her, perhaps more than forty

yards, that her arms stuck out from her body in a ludicrous manner, and

she could not, strictly speaking, sit down, but was obliged to bend in

a sort of half-sitting posture, leaning upon her female attendants, who

were under the necessity of again raising her when she required it. A

young girl, about five years of age, was also dressed out in a similar

manner to be her immediate and particular attendant; four other young

virgins, about sixteen years of age, were also her attendants, and were

dressed in a manner nearly similar, but not with quite so many mats.

The lady and her five attendants being all ready, proceeded to the

marly of Tooitonga, who was there waiting for their arrival together

with a number of other chiefs, two matabooles sitting before him. The

lady and her attendants being arrived, seated themselves on the green

before Tooitonga. After the lapse of a little time, a woman entered

the circle with her face covered up with white gnatoo; she went into

the house of the marly, and proceeded towards the upper end, where

there sat another woman in waiting with a large roll of gnatoo, a

wooden pillow, and a basket containing bottles of oil. The woman, whose

face was veiled, took the gnatoo from the other, wrapped herself up

in it, and laying her head upon the wooden pillow went, or pretended

to go, fast asleep. No sooner was this done than Tooitonga rose up,

and taking his bride by her hand led her into the house, and seated

her on his left hand. Twenty baked hogs were now brought into the

circle of the marly, and a number of expert cooks came in with knives

(procured from European ships; formerly they used bamboo) to try their

skill in carving with speed and dexterity, which is considered a great

recommendation. A considerable part was shared out to the chiefs, each

taking his portion and putting it in his bosom.

The remainder of the pork was then heaped up and scrambled for at an

appointed signal. The woman who had laid herself down, covered over

with gnatoo, now rose up and went, taking with her the gnatoo and the

basket containing the bottles of oil as her perquisites. Tooitonga

then took his bride by her left hand and led her to his dwelling,

followed by the little girl and the other four attendants. The people

now dispersed each to their home. Tooitonga being arrived with his

bride at his residence, accompanied her into the house appropriated

for her, where he left her to have her mats taken off and her usual

dress put on, after which she amused herself in conversation with the

women. In the meantime a feast was prepared for the evening, of pigs,

fowls, yams, etc., and cava. This was got ready on the marly, where,

about dusk, Tooitonga presiding, the company sat down to receive their

portions, which the generality reserved to take home with them; the

lower orders, indeed, who had but a small quantity, consumed theirs

on the spot. After this cava was shared out and drunk. The musicians

(if so they can be called) next sat down at the bottom of the ring,

opposite to Tooitonga, in the middle of a circle of flambeaus, held by

men who also held baskets of sand to receive the ashes. The musical

instrument consisted of seven or eight bamboos of different lengths

and sizes (from three to six feet long), so as to produce--held

by the middle, and one end being struck on the ground--different

notes according to the intended tune (all the knots being cut out of

the bamboo, and one end plugged up with soft wood). The only other

instrument was a piece of split bamboo, on which a man struck with

two sticks, one in each hand, to regulate the time. The music was an

accompaniment to dancing, which was kept up a considerable time. The

dancing being over, one of the matabooles addressed the company, making

a moral discourse on the subject of chastity. The company then rose

and dispersed to their respective homes. The bride was not present at

this entertainment. Tooitonga being arrived at his house, sent for the

bride, who immediately obeyed the summons. The moment they retired

together, the lights were extinguished, and a man appointed at the

door for the purpose announced it to the people by three hideous yells

(similar to the war whoop), which he followed up immediately by the

loud and repeated sounds of the conch.

For the accuracy of the following description of an Australian monarch

Mr. W. H. R. Jessop is responsible:--

“King John, chief of the great Adelaide tribe, after reigning many

years to the satisfaction of his numerous subjects, was taken ill and

died. His body was not buried as would have been the fate of a common

body, but disembowelled, thoroughly washed, and trussed like a fowl.

Then a triangle was erected like that of a gipsey’s fire, and from it

he was reverently suspended. Over all a tabernacle was made of green

boughs and grass, something in the shape of a beehive. Beneath the

venerated remains thus shrouded, a slow fire was kindled--so slow as to

burn three weeks and not consume the body, against which calamity every

precaution was taken by watching day and night.

“Meanwhile the subjects of the deceased monarch assembled, each one

bearing in his hand a shell, and crowding round the enclosure where the

body was roasting. Then followed a ceremony much too horrid for detail.

It shall only be hinted at. Like all animal bodies subjected to the

action of fire ... the saucer-like shells that were held beneath ...

with which every subject anointed the tip of his tongue!

“Well, when the body had been duly smoked, and as far as possible

mummied, the king’s dutiful _lubras_ took it down, wrapped it up

carefully, and for three months, by means of relief squads, carried

it to and fro through the entire length and breadth of the defunct

king’s domains. The bounds having thus been beaten they return to

head-quarters, and there having selected a gum-tree, proper and tall,

they set the old man gently and firmly in a fork of the topmost bough.

But he might get cold, for they don’t believe in his death while his

body is to be seen, so they build over him a little tent of twigs and

grass, and then leave him to his fate.”

In an earlier part of Mr. Jessop’s hook (Sturtland and Flindersland)

mention is made of a certain “King John,” the proprietor of a skull of

marvellous thickness, which was deposited as a natural curiosity in

the “office” at the Sturtland station. Whether there were two monarchs

of the same name, or this was the veritable skull of the king of

Adelaide fallen from its nest in the gum-tree is not known, though as

the latter monarch was renowned for shrewdness and intelligence, it

is probable that the thick skull belonged to him. “Of his prowess and

the difficulties of his position,” writes Mr. Jessop, “his skull is a

lasting monument, more durable than brass or stone,” graven by art or

man’s device. “Upon it I counted fourteen cavities, in each of which a

marble would rest, all dents made by the waddies or clubs of enemies

whom he had encountered.”

As already intimated the plebeian Bushman receives none of the

sepulchral honours paid to the king. When he shows signs of giving up

the ghost, his friends carry him out of his “wurley,” or hut, and one

of them lays him straight along the ground as though he were already

dead, with his hands by his side, and his feet close together. The

dying man’s friend then commences what to a looker on would pass for

a sort of mesmeric process: he strokes the patient from head to foot,

carefully drawing his hands down the whole length of the body, and when

arrived at the extremities pretending to throw something away. When

this has gone on for the proper time, he pulls up stones and casts them

with angry gestures at some imaginary spirit; not, however, to drive

off any that he had just cast out, but to keep away the chief of evil

spirits, who is always at hand to snatch away a Bushman’s life when he

is so weakened by sickness as to be unable to take fast hold on it.

Should he recover, well and good; but should he die (and it is more

than likely), he is wrapped in his opossum rug after the fashion of a

mummy, strings being wound round his body from his neck to his feet;

and when he is laid in the grave, stones are placed upon him till they

reach the surface of the ground. In some cases, however, the body is

buried upright, and in a bent or sitting posture. The grave is of

an oval or elliptical shape, as might be expected; but what is very

remarkable, the body when laid straight always has its feet to the

east and head to the west, as though to be able to welcome the rising

sun.

Mourning seems to be a very prevalent custom among all the natives, and

they show by their adoption of pretty nearly the same mode a common

bond which seldom appears in any other of their ways and actions.

There are two fashions which take the lead of all others, one in

which red and blue colours are used, and the other in which white is

most conspicuous. These colours are painted on the face in streaks

of various forms, strongly suggestive of the tattooing of the New

Zealanders; but sometimes laid on in such a way that the nose is half

of one colour and half of another.

The women are said to restrict their exhibitions of grief to the

colours alone, but the men extend their signs of woe to plastering

the head with white clay, which their respect will not allow them to

remove; time alone has the power of assuaging their sorrow by crumbling

the nightcap to pieces. As the women work or hunt for food while

the men sit in the wurley all day, this excess of pain and grief is

probably nothing more than an excess of laziness, especially as it

lasts from one to two months at a time. The red earth or ruddle is

found in one spot only in the northern country, somewhere near the

gorge in the Hayward Range. This is much celebrated, and is sought

after by every tribe far and near; and although these tribes are

hostile to each other, and on any other occasion to meet would be to

fight, like the North-American Indian and his “Pipe-stone Quarry,” the

Ruddle plain is neutral ground on which Bushmen foes may meet and dig

in harmony.

[Illustration: Australian Weapons.]

[Illustration: Polynesian War Canoe.]

PART VIII.

SAVAGE M.D.’s.

CHAPTER XX.

Polynesian Surgeons--Figian treatment--A shipwrecked

Figian--Samoan Priests and Doctors--Samoan physics--Polynesian

Disease-makers--Namaquan cruelty--Left to die--Savage

arithmetic--Bartering for Sheep--The Abiadiongs--A Pawnee

M.D.--An Indian Sawbones--A medicine dance--An Indian

vapour bath--Cupping three Queens--What is expected of a

Physician--Hints to Travellers in the East--Stimulants to be

avoided in the East--Cold water bathing in Nubia.

The science of surgery and medicine, as practised among savages, forms

not the least curious and interesting feature in the story of their

lives. Since they have as a rule no belief in natural or unavoidable

death, it follows that natural or unavoidable sickness, as being the

agents of death, are no more faithfully entertained. Unlike us, who

have a name for the thousand ills that afflict us--from tooth-rash to

elephantiasis--the savage has but one name for all the diseases he

is acquainted with, and that one name is--the devil. Ague--and it is

the devil within the man shaking his limbs; rheumatism, myriads of

tiny imps are under the skin nibbling the wretched sufferer’s bones;

stomach-ache, tooth-ache, head-ache--it is the devil, and nobody and

nothing else.

The business of the witch-doctor, or the greegree man, is to eject the

devil from his patient--by fair means or foul as soon as possible.

Dispersed through various preceding chapters instances of the way

in which the ejection is attempted have already been given; we have

witnessed how the Indian medicine-man operated on the sick baby, and

on the unlucky little girl who had a stitch in her side; how the Dayak

doctor cheated the devil and laid a trap for, caught, and replaced his

patient’s departing spirit of life; how the Patagonian quack attempted

the cure of the Patagonian infant. The medical and surgical customs of

many savage nations, however, remain yet to be noticed. Let us see how

they till lately managed such things in Polynesia.

A fractured limb they set without much trouble: applying splinters

of bamboo cane to the sides, and binding it up till it was healed. A

dislocation they usually succeeded in reducing, but the other parts of

their surgical practice were marked by a rude promptness, temerity,

and barbarism almost incredible. A man one day fell from a tree and

dislocated some part of his neck. His companions, on perceiving it,

instantly took him up; one of them placed his head between his own

knees, and held it firmly, while the others, taking hold of his body,

twisted the joint into its proper place.

On another occasion, a number of young men in the district of Faro,

were carrying large stones suspended from each end of a pole across

their shoulders (their usual mode of carrying a burden); one of them so

injured the vertebræ as to be almost unable to move; he had, as they

expressed it, _fate te tua_, broken the back. His fellow-workmen

laid him flat on his face on the grass, one grasped and pulled his

shoulders, and the other his legs, while a third actually pressed with

both knees his whole weight upon the back where the bones appeared

displaced. On being asked what they were doing, they coolly replied

that they were only straightening the man’s back, which had been

broken in with carrying stones. The vertebræ appeared to be replaced,

they bound a long girdle repeatedly round his body, led him home, and

without any other treatment he was in a short time able to resume his

employment.

The operation of trepanning they sometimes attempted, and say they have

practised with success. It is reported that there are persons living in

the Island of Borabora, on whom it has been performed, or at least an

operation very much resembling it: the bones of the skull having been

fractured in battle, they have cleared away the skin and coverings,

and, having removed the fractured piece of bone, have carefully fitted

in a piece of cocoa-nut shell and replaced the covering and skin, on

the healing of which the man has recovered. I never saw any individual

who had undergone this operation, but from the concurrent testimony of

the people I have no doubt they have performed it.

It is also related by Stedman, that on some occasions when the brain

has been injured as well as the bone, they have opened the skull, taken

out the injured portion of the brain, and, having a pig ready, have

killed it, taken out the pig’s brains, put them in the man’s head, and

covered them up. They persist in stating that this has been done, but

add that the persons always became furious with madness and died.

The sick man finds small compassion in Figi. If he is not very sick

he is left to recover as he may, but the patience of his relations is

soon exhausted. This does not seem to arise so much from inhumanity

of disposition as from the miserable belief that some evil spirit has

a hand in the business, and that as long as life remains in the ill

conditioned body, the demon will be lurking about, and may presently

attack another victim. They are a wonderfully matter-of-fact people,

and do not scruple to make urgent representations to the invalid of

the peril he is threatening his relations with by this vacillating

temper--neither getting well nor dying: “You don’t seem to mend in the

least, in fact you are looking disgustingly ill this morning, where’s

the use of holding out? If you are to die, why not do it at once? Be

reasonable and let some one help you out of your misery.”

Gentle and simple experience the same treatment. Mr. Williams relates

the case of a Princess of Nakembo, who fell sick. The aid of the best

native doctors was secured, large offerings made to the gods, and

a temple begun, to secure their favour, but all was in vain. Rich

puddings from sixteen to twenty-one feet in circumference were made,

and through the priests sacrificed to the gods, but, despite all,

the princess grew worse, and it was formally resolved to do her the

charitable office of strangulation, when the missionaries interfered,

took charge of and cured her. The same authority also quotes the

case of a woman of Somosomo, who was in a very abject state through

the protracted absence of her husband. For five weeks, though two

women lived in the same house, she lay uncared for, becoming reduced

to a mere skeleton. After this she had food and medicine from the

missionaries and improved. One morning, however, as a servant was

carrying her her breakfast he met a funeral party who told him to take

the breakfast back. The man could then remember that on the previous

day he had found an old woman at the house of the invalid who made no

secret of her errand but openly declared, “I came to see my friend and

enquire if she was ready to be strangled, but as she is strong we will

not strangle her yet.” As the sequel proved, the old murderess soon

altered her mind.

Another instance given of the extraordinary treatment the sick and

afflicted of Figi receive at the hands of their fellows concerns a

native sailor. There was a violent storm, and the unfortunate in

question with several others were spilt into the sea, and, as was

thought, perished every one. This one man, however, managed to support

himself by swimming till, utterly exhausted, he reached one of a fleet

of canoes, and managed to pull himself aboard unperceived. One would

have thought that his first act would have been to make himself known

to his brother mariners, but he was a Figian among Figians and knew the

probable fate that awaited him. As day broke the man was discovered;

a short council was held, and it being universally agreed that there

was something highly mysterious that this one should be saved while

the rest, including the owner of the ship, who was a prince, should

be lost, and that since he himself could give no better account of

his escape than that “he swam,” the best course would be to knock

him on the head and throw him overboard. One of the crew, however,

presently recognized the wrecked man as a very skilful sailor, and the

craft being short handed, it was finally resolved to let him live,

provided he at once took the great steer oar and steered the vessel. To

handle the steer oar of a Figian canoe is work for a very strong man.

Nevertheless the poor man, weak and trembling from his long immersion,

obeyed and steered the vessel through a long and tedious voyage, when,

more dead than alive, he was carried ashore and housed in a shed. Here

he remained till he was nearly well, when, unluckily, on the very eve

of the ship putting to sea again he showed symptoms of a relapse. “No

one could be spared to look after the invalid, and to take him on the

canoe might give him pain and inconvenience his friends; they therefore

concluded that it would be the best plan to strangle him, which purpose

they, with his own consent, carried out. They kissed and wept over him!

strangled, buried and mourned for him; and the next day set out on

their voyage.”

There is, however, a dreadful charge laid at the door of the Figian

sick--a charge which Europeans who have lived amongst them declare to

be not without foundation. Actuated by inexplicable motives they will,

by lying on the mats of their friends, and by handling their clothing

and cooking utensils, endeavour to communicate the disease with which

they are afflicted. If this be true the anxiety of the Figian to see a

sick relative comfortably entombed is in a great measure accounted for.

Turner, the Polynesian missionary, relates that when a Samoan falls

sick his friends take a present to the priest: he says he will pray to

the god for recovery; and then he goes to the sick person, and anoints

with oil the part affected. He uses no particular oil. When he sits

down he calls some one of the family to hand him some oil, and dipping

his hand into the cup, passes it gently over the part two or three

times. No medicines are used for the sick: if the body is hot, they

go and lie down in cold water; if cold, they kindle a fire and warm

themselves. After death the friends of the deceased are anxious to know

the cause of death: they go with a present to the priest, and beg him

to get the dead man to speak, and confess the sins which caused his

death. The priest may be distant from the dead body, but he pretends to

summon the spirit, and to have it within him. He speaks in his usual

tone, and tells him to say before them all what he did to cause his

death. Then he (the priest) whines out in a weak faltering voice a

reply, as if from the spirit of the departed, confessing that he stole

cocoa nuts from such a place, or that he fished at some particular

spot forbidden by the king, or that he ate the fish which was the

incarnation of his family god. As the priest whines out something of

this sort, he manages to squeeze out some tears, and sob and cry over

it. The friends of the departed feel relieved to know the cause, get up

and go home. At death, one will say to his friend, “I’m going to the

moon--think of me as being there.” Another will say, “I’m going to be a

star;” and mentions the particular part of the heavens where they are

to look for him. Another will say, “I shan’t go away--I shall remain

in the grave, and be here with you.” Thus they seem to think they have

only to choose where their disembodied spirits are to go after death.

They tell of a Tokelau man who went up to the moon, and have their tale

also of “the man in the moon.” They say, too, that the moon is the

special residence of the kings and priests of Tokelau. The stars they

believe to be the spirits of the departed. When the full moon begins

to wane they suppose that it is being eaten by the inhabitants of the

region. From the new moon until the full they consider that the food

is growing again. An eclipse of the moon is thought to be some sudden

calamity destroying the food of the departed kings, and occasions

special concern; and prayers and a meat offering of grated cocoa nut

are immediately presented to their great god Tui Tokelau to avert the

evil. As the eclipse passes off, they think it is all owing to their

prayers.

The Samoans never had recourse to any internal remedy, except an

emetic, which they sometimes tried after having eaten a poisonous

fish. Sometimes, juices from the bush were tried; at other times, the

patient drank water until it was rejected; and on some occasions, mud,

and even the most unmentionable filth was mixed up, and taken as an

emetic draught. Latterly, as their intercourse with Tongans, Figians,

Tahitians, and Sandwich Islanders increased, they made additions to

their pharmacopœia of juices from the bush. As in Egypt, each disease

had its particular physician. Shampooing and anointing the affected

part of the body with scented oil by the native doctors was common; and

to this charms were frequently added, consisting of some flowers from

the bush done up in a piece of native cloth, and put in a conspicuous

place in the thatch, over the patient. Now, however, European medicines

are eagerly sought after; so much so, that every missionary is

obliged to have a dispensary, and to set apart a certain hour every

day to give advice and medicine to the sick. As the Samoans supposed

disease to be occasioned by the wrath of some particular deity, their

principal desire, in any difficult case, was not for medicine, but

to ascertain the cause of the calamity. The friends of the sick went

to the high-priest of the village. He was sure to assign some cause;

and, whatever that was, they were all anxiety to have it removed as

the means of restoration. If he said they were to give up a canoe to

the god, it was given up. If a piece of land was asked, it was passed

over at once. Or if he did not wish anything from the party, he would

probably tell them to assemble the family, “confess, and throw out.”

In this ceremony each member of the family confessed his crimes, and

any judgments which, in anger, he had invoked on the family, or upon

the particular member of it then ill; and as a proof that he revoked

all such imprecations, he took a little water in his mouth and spurted

it out towards the person who was sick. The custom is still kept up by

many; and the sick bed of a dear friend often forms a confessional,

before which long-concealed and most revolting crimes are disclosed.

In surgery they lanced ulcers with a shell or a shark’s tooth, and,

in a similar way, bled from the arm. For inflammatory swellings, they

sometimes tried local bleeding, but shampooing and rubbing with oil

were and are still the more common remedies in such cases. Cuts they

washed in the sea and bound up with a leaf. Into wounds in the scalp

they blew the smoke of burnt chestnut wood. To take a barbed spear from

the arm or leg, they cut into the limb from the opposite side, and

pushed it right through. Amputation they never attempted. The treatment

of the sick was, as it is now, invariably humane, and all that could be

expected. They wanted for no kind of food, which they might desire by

night or day, if it was at all in the power of their friends to procure

it. In the event of the disease assuming a dangerous form, messengers

were dispatched to friends at a distance that they might have an

opportunity of being in time to see and say farewell to a departing

relative. This is still the custom. The greater the rank, the greater

the stir and muster about the sick of friends from the neighbourhood

and from a distance. Everyone who goes to visit a sick friend supposed

to be near death takes with him a present of a fine mat or some other

kind of valuable property as a farewell expression of regard. Among

the worldly minded, whose interests centre in this life, this heaping

together of property by the bedside of a dying relative is still in

high repute.

Of all classes of savage “Mystery-men,” rain-makers, thunder-makers,

fly-makers, etc., the most singular of all, perhaps, are those

denominated disease-makers. Amongst the Tannese, of Polynesia, these

men are feared and worshipped as gods. They are supposed to be

able to create disease and death by _nohak_ burning. Nohak is

literally rubbish, or refuse of food, which these _disease-makers_

are continually searching after. The people therefore take every

precaution, by burning or throwing into the sea all the rubbish they

find lying about, to prevent those men from getting it. Should a

disease-maker find the skin of a lanana, he rolls it up in a leaf, and

wears it all day hanging round his neck, so that the people may see it;

who say to each other, “He has got something; he will do for somebody

at night.” After wearing it all day long, he takes it home in the

evening, and scrapes some bark off a tree; he mixes this up with the

lanana skin, and rolls it up tightly in a leaf, and then puts one end

of it close enough to the fire to cause it to singe and smoulder, and

burn away very gradually. How, when a Tannese falls ill, he is fully

persuaded some disease-maker is burning his _nohak_, so that he

provides himself with a rude kind of horn, made out of some perforated

shell. This shell he gets some one present to blow for him, and this

is fully understood by the disease-maker to mean that the sick man

wishes him to discontinue the burning, and also, that a present shall

be sent to him the next morning; so that when the disease-maker hears

the shell blown, he says to his friends, “That is the man whose rubbish

I am burning, he is ill; let us stop burning, and see what present he

will bring in the morning.” The sick man faithfully keeps his promise,

and, in the morning, some present is made--pigs, mats, and such like.

Whereupon the disease-maker promises he will do all he can to prevent

the rubbish being again burned. Should a person die, his friends

suppose that the disease-makers were not pleased with the presents

made, and burned his rubbish to the end. When it is all burned they

believe the person will die. Nor do the disease-makers seem to be the

impostors, for should one of the craft fall ill, he fully believes some

one is burning his _nohak_, and he blows the shell, and makes the

presents as readily as the rest.

Cruel and abominable as are many of the Polynesian methods of disposing

of their sick and aged, that there is “in lowest depths a deeper

still,” many African tribes furnish an illustration. In an early part

of this volume mention has been made of the poor old Bakalai, whom

Du Chaillu met, and who was “turned out to die.” Such cases are not

without parallel. Burchell quotes such a case, as does Moffat, as

occurring among the Namaquas. This latter gentleman was informed that

in a certain part of the forest there was an old woman squatting all

alone and seemingly dying.

“On reaching the spot we beheld an object of heartrending distress.

It was a venerable looking old woman, a living skeleton, sitting with

her head leaning on her knees. She appeared terrified at our presence,

and especially at me. She tried to rise, but, trembling with weakness,

sunk again to the earth. I addressed her by the name which sounds sweet

in every clime, and charms even the savage ear, ‘My mother, fear not,

we are friends and will do you no harm.’ I put several questions to

her, but she appeared either speechless or afraid to open her lips. I

again repeated ‘Pray mother who are you and how do you come to be in

this situation?’ to which she replied ‘I am a woman, I have been here

four days, my children have left me here to die.’ ‘Your children?’ I

interrupted. ‘Yes,’ raising her hand to her shrivelled bosom, ‘my own

children, three sons and two daughters. They are gone,’ pointing with

her finger, ‘to yonder blue mountain, and have left me to die.’ ‘And

pray why did they leave you?’ I enquired. Spreading out her hands she

replied, ‘I am old, you see, and I am no longer able to serve them;

when they kill game I am too feeble to help them carry home the flesh.

I am not able to gather wood to make fire, and I cannot carry their

children on my back as I used to do.’ This last sentence was more than

I could bear, and though my tongue was cleaving to the roof of my mouth

for want of water, this reply opened a fountain of tears. I remarked

that I was surprised that she had escaped the lions which seemed to

abound and to have approached very near the spot where she was. She

took hold of the skin of her left arm with her fingers and raising

it up as one would do a loose linen, she added, ‘I hear the lions,

but there is nothing on me that they would eat; I have no flesh on me

for them to scent.’ At this moment the waggon drew near which greatly

alarmed her, for she supposed that it was an animal. Assuring her that

it would do her no harm, I said that as I could not stay I would put

her into the waggon and take her with me. At this remark she became

convulsed with terror. Others addressed her, but all to no effect.

She replied that if we took her and left her at another village they

would do the same thing again. ‘It is our custom, I am nearly dead, I

do not want to die again.’ The sun was now piercingly hot; the oxen

were raging in the yoke and we ourselves nearly delirious. Finding it

impossible to influence the woman to move without running the risk of

her dying convulsed in our hands, we collected a quantity of fuel, gave

her a good supply of dry meat, some tobacco, and a knife, with some

other articles, telling her we should return in two days and stop the

night, when she would be able to go with us; only she must keep up a

good fire at night as the lions would smell the dried flesh if they did

not scent her.”

Here is another case; the victim this time is a child, and her

persecutors the Makalolo, likewise a South African tribe.

“The rich show kindness to the poor in expectation of services, and

a poor person who has no relatives will seldom be supplied even with

water in illness, and when dead will be dragged out to be devoured by

the hyænas instead of being buried. Relatives alone will condescend

to touch a dead body. It would be easy to enumerate instances of

inhumanity which I have witnessed. An interesting looking girl came

to my waggon one day in a state of nudity, and almost a skeleton. She

was a captive from another tribe and had been neglected by the man

who claimed her. Having supplied her wants I made enquiry for him,

and found that he had been unsuccessful in raising a crop of corn and

had no food to give her. I volunteered to take her, but he said he

would allow me to feed her and make her fat, and then he would take

her away. I protested against this heartlessness, and as he said he

would not part with his child I was precluded from attending to her

wants. In a day or two she was lost sight of; she had gone out a little

way from the town and being too weak to return had been cruelly left

to perish. Another day I saw a poor boy going to the water to drink,

apparently in a starving condition. This case I brought before the

chief in council and found that his emaciation was ascribed to disease

and want combined. He was not one of the Makalolo, but a member of a

subdued tribe. I showed them that any one professing to claim a child

and refusing proper nutriment would be guilty of his death. Sekeletu

decided that the owner of this boy should give up his alleged right

rather than destroy the child. When I took him he was so far gone as

to be in the cold stage of starvation, but was soon brought round by

a little milk given three or four times a day. On leaving Linyanti I

handed him over to the charge of Sekeletu, who feeds his servants very

well.”

One’s only source of consolation is that among this and neighbouring

tribes intellect is at so low a par that it is more than probable that

they are mainly influenced by a horror of the sight of death, and not

by motives of selfishness or wanton inhumanity. Moreover, if it were

attempted to impart a knowledge of medicine to them, it is doubtful if

in their profound obtuseness they would not inflict much more injury

than work good on a patient that might come under their hands. One

thing is certain, if the following instance furnished by the traveller

Galton may be relied on, their arithmetical capabilities would have to

be greatly cultivated and improved before they could be entrusted with

the admeasurement of drugs; a drop more or less of which kills or cures.

“They have no way of distinguishing days, but reckon by the rainy

season, the dry season, or the pignut season. When inquiries are made

about how many days’ journey off a place may be, their ignorance of

all numerical ideas is very annoying. In practice, whatever they may

possess in their language, they certainly use no numeral greater than

three. When they wish to express four, they take to their fingers which

are to them as formidable instruments of calculation as a sliding rule

is to an English schoolboy. They puzzle very much after five, because

no spare hand remains to grasp and secure the fingers that are required

for units. Yet they seldom lose oxen; the way in which they discover

the loss of one is not by the number of the herd being diminished, but

by the absence of a face they know. When bartering is going on each

sheep must be paid for separately. Thus, suppose two sticks of tobacco

to be the rate of exchange for one sheep, it would sorely puzzle a

Damara to take two sheep and give him four sticks. I have done so and

seen a man first put two of the sticks apart and take a sight over them

at one of the sheep he was about to sell. Having satisfied himself

that that one was honestly paid for, and finding to his surprise that

exactly two sticks remained in hand to settle the account for the other

sheep, he would be afflicted with doubts; the transaction seemed to

come out too pat to be correct, and he would refer back to the first

couple of sticks and then his mind got hazy and confused, and wandered

from one sheep to the other, and he broke off the transaction until

two sticks were put into his hand and one sheep driven away, and then

the other two sticks given him and the second sheep driven away. When

a Damara’s mind is bent upon number it is too much occupied to dwell

upon quantity; thus, a heifer is brought from a man for ten sticks of

tobacco; his large hands being both spread out upon the ground and a

stick placed upon each finger, he gathers up the tobacco; the size of

the mass pleases him and the bargain is struck. You then want to buy

a second heifer: the same process is gone through, but half sticks

instead of whole ones are put upon his fingers; the man is equally

satisfied at the time, but occasionally finds it out and complains

the next day. Once while I watched a Damara floundering hopelessly in

a calculation on one side of me, I observed Dinah my spaniel equally

embarrased on the other. She was overlooking half a dozen of her new

born puppies which had been removed two or three times from her, and

her anxiety was excessive as she tried to find out if they were all

present or if any were still missing. She kept puzzling and running her

eyes over them backwards and forwards but could not satisfy herself.

She evidently had a vague notion of counting, but the figure was too

large for her brain. Taking the two as they stood, dog and Damara, and

comparison reflected no great honour on the man.”

The same gentleman had a very narrow escape of falling into the

merciless hands of a Damara dentist.

“I had occasion to make inquiries for a professional gentleman,

a dentist, as one of my teeth had ached so horribly that I could

hardly endure it. He was employed at a distance, but I subsequently

witnessed, though I did not myself undergo, the exercise of his skill.

He brought a piece of the back sinew of a sheep, which forms a kind of

catgut, and tied this round the unhappy tooth, and the spare end of

the catgut was wound round a stout piece of stick, and this he rolled

up tight to the tooth, and then pressed with all his force against the

jaw till something gave way. I saw the wretched patient sitting for the

rest of the day with his head between his knees and his hands against

his temples.”

The Eboes and Kalabeese of Western Africa hold very curious notions

respecting the administering of doctor’s drugs. When they bury their

dead the sorrowing friends place a tube in the earth communicating with

the body of the deceased, and down this tube they, in after times,

pour palm wine and other liquids for the sustenance of the soul of the

departed, and even medicines, which libations they imagine will produce

the same effect upon the offerer as though absorbed by himself. Thus

an Eboe will come to a surgeon, “Doctor, me sickee;” and when given

the proper medicine, that official must watch the applicant take the

dose on the spot, or he will administer it to the shade of his father,

making the parental benefits to continue even after death; but strange

to say, if given a bottle of rum he becomes suddenly oblivious of his

father’s grave, and forgetting that the ashes of the departed may

probably appreciate rum as much as palm wine and that the paternal clay

may likewise require to be moistened, pours it down his own thorax with

the most lively gestures expressive of satisfaction.

A person styled an Abiadiong, or sorcerer, is always consulted in cases

of sickness, death, or capital crime, to find out the individual who

has brought the malady on his neighbour. He is reputed to derive his

knowledge by education, but is not the bearer of a diploma, save one in

his title. The Abiadiong squats himself beside the sick man--repeats a

number of incantations--tosses strings of beads he has in his hand as

an appeal to the spirit he invokes--rubs the beads alternately on his

own body and that of the sick man--cogitates and decides. Sometimes the

decision is settled by a little copper Palarer beforehand; and, as the

Eboe law gives to the possessor of its privileges an unlimited power

in this respect, it may be imagined what scenes of blood the system

creates and fosters. Alia-lok is the title which, in this country, is

given to a doctor of medicine; but the Kalabeese have little faith

in drugs, and surgical operations are generally performed by the

soft sex. These are confined to two species of cupping--the dry and

the bloody--and to enema administering. The dry cupping is effected

with a pyreform-calabash upon the breasts of women, whose bodies are

chalked over at the same time, to force them to maturity. Razors are

used as scarificators in moist cupping the side and temples of persons

labouring under, what they suppose to be, congestive diseases. Ulcers

are usually dressed by a piece of leaf passed round the diseased part,

and fastened by a bamboo stem. A poison bean, with a string through

a hole bored in it, is frequently worn as a curative ju-ju round a

sore leg--only a modification of the _similia similibus curantur_

system. Perhaps it is to carry out a like idea that dogs are buried in

the ground with their heads above the ground, where the poor creatures

spend three or four days before nature conquers their power of life,

for during this time they are allowed no food. These dogs are generally

impounded so before the door of the sick man. When small-pox prevails

in some places they dot their bodies over with spots of chalk, perhaps

to make the demon of disease believe that they have previously been

visited with a skin affection, and that his ground is already occupied.

It seems easy to set up as M.D. among the Indians of North America.

“Any ignorant idler who takes it into his head to become a doctor gives

notice of it to the Pawnee world, by assuming a solemn deportment,

wearing his robe with the hair outwards, and learning to make a noise

in the throat, which is distinctive of his profession and which

resembles the sound made by a person who is gargling for the relaxed

uvula. Here his medical studies and accomplishments end; and his

reputation depends entirely upon the result of his first attempts, and

must evidently be altogether fortuitous.”

This is the evidence of the traveller Murray, and he further goes on

to back his opinion by quoting two instances of surgical practice that

came under his personal observation.

“In great cases, such as a broken leg or mortal disease of a chief,

the medicine-men are called in to assist with their mummery, but

the treatment of ordinary diseases by these practitioners will be

understood by my noting down accurately what took place at the daily

and nightly visit of the doctor who attended our chief’s lodge. The

patient was one of the children gradually and certainly dying from

shameful maltreatment under the hooping-cough. It should however be

remembered in exculpation of the Galen, that the parents fed the child

three or four times a day with enormous meals of half boiled maize or

buffalo meat, each of which acting as an emetic enabled the wretched

little sufferer to swallow its successor.

“The learned doctor stalked into the lodge with all the dignified

importance of the most practised pulse-feeler, rarely deigning to

salute the parents or other inhabitants. He then stooped down over the

child, took a little earth in his hand which he moistened with saliva,

and with the precious mixture thus formed, he anointed the shoulders,

the forehead, and other parts of the child, especially the pit of the

stomach; then approaching his mouth, to this last, and covering with

his robe his own head and the person of his patient, he commenced the

gargling operation, to which I have before alluded. This I have known

him frequently to continue for three or four hours at the time, when

he left the unfortunate sufferer as he found him without having used

friction or embrocation, or administering medicine of any kind whatever.

“It only remains to add respecting the disciples of Æsculapius, that if

the patient recovers, their fame is blazed abroad, and they receive in

horses, meat, blankets, etc., a fee much higher in proportion to the

wealth of any of the parties than was ever given to Sir Astley Cooper,

or Sir Henry Halford. If the patient dies, the doctor is considered

“bad medicine,” and generally leaves the profession for a year or two,

during which time he pursues the ordinary avocations of stealing,

hunting, or fighting, until his ill name is forgotten or some fortunate

incident has obtained for him a whitewashed reputation.

“I learned that in a hunt a good many Indians had been bruised or

wounded, and several horses killed. Among those who were hurt was

a chief of some distinction; he had a few ribs and one of his arms

broken. The setting of this last, together with the completion of

his wound-dressing, was to be accompanied with much ceremony, so I

determined to be a spectator. I went accordingly to his lodge where

a great crowd was already assembled and with some difficulty made

my way through to the inner circle. Not being quite sure that I was

permitted to see these mysteries, and being fully aware of the danger

of breaking even unintentionally any of their medicine rules, I kept

myself as quiet and unobserved as possible. Before the lodge, and in

the centre of the semi-circle, sat or rather reclined the wounded man,

supported by one or two packs of skins. On each side of him were a row

of his kindred; the elder warriors occupied the front, the younger the

second places, and behind them, close to the lodge, the boys, squaws,

etc. A profound silence was observed, and when all the medicine men

and relatives had arrived and taken their seats, a great medicine pipe

was brought and passed round with the usual ceremonial observance of

a certain number of whiffs to the earth, the buffalo-spirit, and the

Great Spirit. The pipe was not handed to the wounded man, probably

because he was supposed to be for the time under the influence of a bad

spirit, and therefore not entitled to the privileges of the medicine.

When this smoking ceremony was concluded, three or four of the doctors

or conjurors and a few of the great medicine-men assembled round him;

the former proceeded to feel his side and apply some remedy to it,

while one of them set the arm, and bound it very strongly round with

leather thongs. During this operation the medicine-men stooped over

him and went through sundry mummeries which I could not accurately

distinguish.

As soon as the bandages and dressings were completed they began

a medicine dance around him. At first the movement was slow, and

accompanied by a low ordinary chant, but gradually both acquired

violence and rapidity, till at length they reached the height of fury

and frenzy. They swung their tomahawks round the head of the wounded

man, rushed upon him with the most dreadful yells, shook their weapons

violently in his face, jumped repeatedly over him, pretending each

time to give him the fatal blow, then checking it as it descended, and

while once or twice I saw them push and kick his limbs, one of the most

excited struck him several severe blows on the breast. On inquiry, I

learned that all these gesticulations were intended to threaten and

banish the evil spirit which was supposed to have possessed him. While

this was going on a complete silence reigned throughout the crowd, none

being permitted to dance or yell, except those actually engaged in the

medicine ceremonies.

What, however, may be regarded as the Indian’s universal remedy for all

ailments is the sweating bath and sudatory; these sudatories are always

near the village, above or below it, on the bank of the river. They are

generally built of skins, in the form of a Crow or Sioux lodge, covered

with buffalo skins sewed tight together, with a kind of furnace in the

centre; or, in other words, in the centre of the lodge are two walls of

stone about six feet long, and two and a half apart, and about three

feet high; across and over this space between the two walls are laid a

number of round sticks, on which the bathing crib is placed. Contiguous

to the lodge, and outside of it is a little furnace, something similar

in the side of the bank, where the woman kindles a hot fire and heats

to a red heat a number of large stones, which are kept at these

places for this particular purpose; and having them all in readiness,

she goes home or sends word to inform her husband or other one who is

waiting that all is ready, when he makes his appearance entirely naked,

though with a large buffalo robe wrapped around him. He then enters

the lodge, and places himself in the basket with his back towards the

door of the lodge, when the squaw brings in a large stone red-hot,

between two sticks lashed together somewhat in the form of a pair of

tongs, and, placing it under him, throws cold water upon it, which

raises a profusion of vapour about him. He is at once enveloped in a

cloud of steam, and a woman or child will sit at a little distance and

continue to dash water upon the stone, whilst the matron of the lodge

is out, and preparing to make her appearance with another heated stone;

or he will sit and dip from a wooden bowl with a ladle made of the

mountain-sheep’s horn, and throw upon the heated stone, with his own

hands, the water which he is drawing through his lungs and pores the

next moment, in the delectable and exhilarating vapour, as it distils

through the mat of wild sage and other medical and aromatic herbs which

he had strewed over the bottom of his basket, and on which he reclines.

During all this time the lodge is shut perfectly tight, and he quaffs

this delicious and renovating draught to his lungs with deep-drawn

sighs, until he is drenched in the most profuse degree of perspiration

that can be produced; when he makes a signal, at which the lodge is

opened, and he darts forth with the speed of a frightened deer, and

plunges headlong into the river, from which he instantly escapes again,

wraps his robe around him, and makes as fast as possible for home.

Here his limbs are wiped dry and wrapped close and tight within the

fur of the buffalo robes, in which he takes his nap, with his feet to

the fire, then oils his limbs and hair with bear’s-grease, dresses and

plumes himself for a visit, a feast, a parade, or a council.

During Mr. Bruce’s travels through Abyssinia, and while he was

sojourning in the dominions of her Majesty of Sennaar, one afternoon

he was sent for to the palace, when the king told him that several of

his wives were ill, and desired that he would give them his advice,

which he promised to do. He was admitted into a large square apartment,

very ill-lighted, in which were about fifty women, all perfectly black,

without any covering but a very narrow piece of cotton rag about their

waist. While he was musing whether or not all these might be queens, or

whether there was any queen among them, one of them seized him by the

hand and led him into another apartment; this was much better lighted

than the first. Upon a large bench, or sofa, covered with blue Surat

cloth, sat three persons clothed from the neck to the feet with blue

cotton shirts.

One of these, whom Mr. Bruce found to be the favourite, was about six

feet high, and corpulent beyond all proportion. She seemed to him,

next to the elephant and rhinoceros, to be the largest living creature

he had ever met with. Her features were perfectly like those of a

negro; a ring of gold passed through her under lip, and weighed it

down, till, like a flap, it covered her chin, and left her teeth bare,

which were very small and fine. The inside of her lip she had made

black with antimony. Her ears reached down to her shoulders, and had

the appearance of wings; she had in each of them a large ring of gold,

somewhat smaller than a man’s little finger, and about five inches in

diameter. The weight of these had drawn down the hole where the ear was

pierced so much that three fingers might easily pass above the ring.

She had a gold necklace of several rows, one above another, to which

were hung rows of sequins pierced. She had on her ancles two manacles

of gold, larger than any our traveller had ever seen upon the feet of

felons, with which he could not conceive it was possible for her to

walk; but afterwards he found they were hollow. The others were dressed

pretty much in the same manner; only there was one who had chains which

came from her ears to the outside of each nostril, where they were

fastened. There was also a ring put through the gristle of her nose,

and which hung down to the opening of her mouth. It had altogether

something of the appearance of a horse’s bridle. Upon his coming near

them, the eldest put her hand to her mouth and kissed it, saying at the

same time, in very vulgar Arabic, “Kif-halek howajah?” How do you do,

merchant? Mr. Bruce never in his life was more pleased with distant

salutations than at this time. He answered, “Peace be among you! I am a

physician, and not a merchant.” There was not one part of their whole

bodies, inside and outside, in which some of them had not ailments.

The three queens insisted upon being blooded, which desire Mr. Bruce

complied with, as it was an operation that required short attendance;

but, upon producing the lancets, their hearts failed them. They then

all called out for the Tabange, which, in Arabic, means a pistol; but

what they meant by this word was the cupping-instrument, which goes off

with a spring like the snap of a pistol. He had two of these, but not

then in his pocket. He sent his servant home, however, to bring one,

and, that same evening, performed the operations upon the three queens

with great success. The room was overflowed with an effusion of royal

blood, and the whole ended with their insisting upon his giving them

the instrument itself, which he was obliged to do, after cupping two of

their slaves before them, who had no complaints, merely to shew them

how the operation was to be performed.

On another occasion there was recommended to his care a certain

Welled Amlac. He had with him two servants, one of whom, as well as

his master, was ill with an intermitting fever. As our traveller was

abundantly supplied with every necessary, the only inconvenience he

suffered by this was, that of bringing a stranger and a disease into

his family. Being, however, in a strange country himself, and daily

standing in need of the assistance of its inhabitants, he perceived

the policy of rendering services whenever opportunity offered; and,

accordingly, received his two patients with the best possible grace.

To this he was the more induced as he was informed that Welled Amlac

was of the most powerful, resolute, and best attended robbers in all

Maitsha; that this man’s country lay directly in his way to the source

of the Nile; and that under his protection he might bid defiance to

Woodage Asahel, who was considered as the great obstacle to that

journey. After several weeks’ illness the patient recovered. When he

first came to Mr. Bruce’s house, he was but indifferently clothed;

and having no change, his apparel naturally grew worse, so that when

his disease had entirely left him he made a very beggarly appearance

indeed. One evening Mr. Bruce remarked that he could not go home to

his own country without kissing the ground before the Iteghe, by whose

bounty he had been all this time supported. He replied, “Surely not;”

adding that he was ready to go whenever Mr. Bruce should think proper

to give him his clothes. The latter imagined that Welled Amlac might

have brought with him some change of apparel, and delivered it into

the custody of our traveller’s servant; but, on farther explanation,

he found that his patient had not a rag but what was on his back, and

he plainly told Mr. Bruce, that he would rather stay in his house all

his life than be so disgraced before the world as to leave it after

so long a stay, without his clothing him from head to foot; asking

with much confidence: “What signifies your curing me, if you turn me

out of your house like a beggar?” Mr. Bruce still thought there was

something of jest in this, and meeting Ayto Aylo, told him, laughing,

of the conversation that had passed. “There is do doubt,” answered he

very gravely, “that you must clothe him; it is the custom.” “And his

servant too?” asked Mr. Bruce. “Certainly, his servant too: and if he

had ten servants that eat and drank in your house, you must clothe them

all.”--“I think,” rejoined our traveller, “that a physician, at this

rate, had much better let his patients die than recover them at his own

expense.”--“Yagoube,” said his friend, “I see this is not a custom in

your country, but here it invariably is, and if you would pass for a

man of consequence you cannot avoid complying with it, unless you would

make Welled Amlac your enemy. The man is opulent, it is not for the

value of the clothes, but he thinks his importance among his neighbours

is measured by the respect shewn him by the people afar off. Never

fear, he will make you some kind of return; and as for his clothes, I

shall pay for them.” “By no means,” replied Mr. Bruce; “I think the

custom so curious that the knowledge of it is worth the price of the

clothes, and I assure you that, intending as I do to go through the

Maitsha, I consider it as a piece of friendship in you to have brought

me under this obligation.” After this explanation Mr. Bruce immediately

procured the clothes; a girdle, and a pair of sandals, amounting in the

whole to about two guineas, which Welled Amlac received with the same

indifference as if he had been purchasing them for ready money. He then

asked for his servants’ clothes, which he observed were too good, and

that he should take them for his own use when he arrived at Maitsha.

In his capacity of physician Mr. Bruce lays down certain simple rules

to be observed by persons about to travel into far eastern countries;

and though a hundred years old, and more, the said advice is still

wholesome, and may be used with advantage by whomsoever it may concern.

Mr. Bruce’s first general advice to a traveller, is to remember

well what was the state of his constitution before he visited these

countries, and what his complaints were, if he had any; for fear

frequently seizes upon the first sight of the many and sudden deaths we

see upon our first arrival; and our spirits are so lowered by perpetual

perspiration, and our nerves so relaxed, that we are apt to mistake

the ordinary symptoms of a disease, familiar to us in our own country,

for the approach of one of those terrible distempers that are to hurry

us in a few hours into eternity. This has a bad effect in the very

slightest disorders; so that it has become proverbial--If you think you

shall die you shall die.

If a traveller finds that he is as well after having been some time

in this country as he was before entering it, his best way is to make

no innovation in his regimen, further than abating something in the

quantity. But if he is of a tender constitution, he cannot act more

wisely than to follow implicitly the regimen of sober healthy people

of the country, without arguing upon European notions, or substituting

what we consider succedaneums to what we see used upon the spot. All

spirits are to be avoided; even bark is better in water than in wine.

The stomach being relaxed by profuse perspiration, needs something to

strengthen, not to inflame, and enable it to perform digestion. For

this reason (instinct we should call it, if speaking of beasts) the

natives of all eastern countries season every species of food, even the

simplest and mildest rice, so much with spices, especially with pepper,

as absolutely to blister a European palate. These powerful antiseptics

providence has planted in these countries for this use; and the natives

have, from the earliest time, had recourse to them. And hence, in

these dangerous climates, the natives are as healthy as we are in our

northern ones.

Our author lays it down, then, as a positive rule of health, that the

warmest dishes the natives delight in are the most wholesome strangers

can use in the putrid climates of Lower Arabia, Abyssinia, Sennaar,

and Egypt itself; and that spirits, and all fermented liquors, should

be regarded as poisons; and, for fear of temptation, not so much as be

carried along with you, unless as a menstruum for outward applications.

Spring or running water, if you can find it, is to be your only drink.

You cannot be too nice in procuring this article. But as, on both

coasts of the Red Sea, you scarcely find any but stagnant water, the

way which our traveller practised, when at any place that allowed time

and opportunity, was always this: he took a quantity of fine sand,

washed it from the salt quality with which it was impregnated, and

spread it upon a sheet to dry; he then nearly filled an oil-jar with

water, and poured into it as much from a boiling kettle as would serve

to kill all the animalcula and eggs that were in it. He then sifted the

dried sand, as slowly as possible, upon the surface of the water in the

jar, till the sand stood half a foot at the bottom of it; after letting

it settle at night, he drew it off by a hole in the jar with a spigot

in it, about an inch above the sand; then threw the remaining sand out

upon the cloth, and dried and washed it again. This process is sooner

performed than described. The water is as limpid as the purest spring,

and little inferior to the finest Spa. Drink largely of this without

fear, according as your appetite requires. By violent perspiration

the aqueous part of your blood is thrown off; and it is not spirituous

liquor that can restore this, whatever momentary strength it may give

you from another cause. When hot and almost fainting with weakness from

continual perspiration, Mr. Bruce has gone into a warm bath, and been

immediately restored to strength, as upon first rising in the morning.

In Nubia, never scruple to throw yourself into the coldest river or

spring you can find, in whatever degree of heat you are. The reason of

the difference in Europe is that when, by violence, you have raised

yourself to an extraordinary degree of heat, the cold water in which

you plunge yourself checks your perspiration, and shuts your pores

suddenly; the medium is itself too cold, and you do not use force

sufficient to bring back the perspiration, which nought but action

occasioned: whereas, in these warm countries, your perspiration

is natural and constant, though no action be used, only from the

temperature of the medium; therefore, though your pores are shut the

moment you plunge yourself into the cold water, the simple condition of

the outward air again covers you with pearls of sweat the moment you

emerge; and you begin the expanse of the aqueous part of your blood

afresh from the new stock that you have laid in by your immersion. For

this reason, if you are well, deluge yourself from head to foot, even

in the house, where the water is plentiful, by directing a servant to

throw buckets upon you at least once a day, when you are hottest; not

from any imagination that the water braces you, as it is called, for

your bracings will last only for a very few minutes: inundations will

carry watery particles into your blood, though not equal to bathing in

running streams, where the total immersion, the motion of the water,

and the action of the limbs, all conspire to the benefit you are in

quest of.

Do not fatigue yourself if possible. Exercise is not either so

necessary or so salutary here as in Europe. Use fruits sparingly,

especially if too ripe. The musa, or banana, in Arabia Felix, are

rotten-ripe when they are brought to you. Avoid all sorts of fruits

exposed for sale in the markets, as it has probably been gathered in

the sun, and carried miles in it, and all its juices are in a state of

fermentation. Lay it first upon a table covered with a coarse cloth,

and throw frequently a quantity of water upon it; and, if you have an

opportunity, gather it in the dew of the morning before dawn of day,

for then it is far better.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: War Dance of the New Zealanders.]

PART IX.

SAVAGE WARFARE.

CHAPTER XXI.

Hereditary pirates--A Bornean pirate fleet--Rajah Brooke and

the pirates--A tough job against the prahus--No quarter with

the Dayaks--A freebooter captain--Dayak arms--Bornean fighting

tactics--Advance of Sir J. Brooke’s troops--A debate about

fighting--Poisoned arrows--Weapons of the Amazonian Indians--The

blow-gun--A Bornean war dance--War trophies--Heads, scalps, and

brains--Horrible festivity--The Savages of North America.

Amongst the most warlike savages on the face of the earth must be

counted the natives of the coast of Borneo. It would have been more

correct, however, to have alluded to these redoubtable barbarians as

the most warlike on the face of the _sea_ rather than the earth;

for the majority of their conflicts take place in their “prahus” and

“sampans,” and in pursuit of their regular and hereditary calling of

pirates. Nor are they insignificant in point of number; there are the

Sarebus, the Sakarran, the Illanun, the Balagnini, each comprising

a tribe many thousands strong, and sea-robbers to a man, woman, and

child; and, besides these, a whole host of ragamuffin fellows, not

respectable enough for the society of the great pirate community,

and who, being joint-stock owners of a prahu, prowl round the coast,

and snap up any trifle too insignificant for the commanders of the

various fleets; for fleets they are beyond question. The prahus of

which the fleets are composed are long, commodious vessels, propelled

by rowers, and carrying sometimes as many as a hundred men each. Sir

J. Brooke, the celebrated “Rajah of Sarawak,” once had an opportunity

of counting ninety-eight boats about to start on a piratical cruise,

the crews of which, reckoned at the low computation of twenty-five

men each, gave a grand total of nearly two thousand five hundred men.

On the same authority, the internal constitution of these rowers may

be stated as follows:--Commanding each fleet is one man, who holds

his high post either by virtue of high birth or riches; under any

circumstances, however, he must possess bravery and cunning, otherwise,

whatever his station or right conferred by birth, he would very soon

be put down, and a proper leader elected in his place. To each prahu

there is a captain and half a dozen petty officers, generally the

captain’s relations, while all the rest--comprising about four-fifths

of the whole--are slaves. Although, however, these latter are more

or less compelled to serve, they are not without their privileges.

They have the right of plunder, which is indiscriminate, with certain

exemptions--viz., slaves, guns, money, or any other heavy articles,

together with the very finest descriptions of silks and cloths, belong

to the chiefs and free portion of the crew; with the rest the rule is

first come first served.

These worthies are indifferent to blood-shedding, fond of plunder, but

fonder than all of slaves; they despise trade, although its profits

may be shown to be greater than those of sea-plunder, and look on

their calling as the noblest occupation of chiefs and free men. Their

swords they show with boasts, as having belonged to their ancestors,

who were pirates, renowned and terrible in their day. Without doubt

the chief support of the system are the slaves they capture on the

different coasts. If they attack an island, the women and children and

as many men as they require, are carried off. Every boat they take

furnishes its quota of slaves; and when they have collected a full

cargo they visit another coast and dispose of it to the best advantage.

For instance, a cargo of slaves captured on the east coast of Borneo

is sold in the west, and the slaves of the south find ready purchasers

in the north. As the woolly-haired Papuas are generally prized by the

natives, constant visits are made to New Guinea and the easternmost

islands where they are procured and afterwards sold at high prices

amongst any Malay community. On one occasion Rajah Brooke met eighteen

boats belonging to the Illanun pirates, and learned from their chiefs

that they had been two years absent from home; and from the Papuan

negro slaves on board, it was evident that their cruise had extended

from the most eastern islands of the Archipelago to the north-western

coast of Borneo.

Here is a picture of a pirate fleet drawn by Governor Brooke himself:

“At this time it was hinted that a large pirate fleet had been

seen in the vicinity of the coast, and in a day or two afterwards

we had certain news of their having taken the Sadung boats bound

from Singapore; and Datu Pangeran was in consequence despatched to

communicate with them. He returned, bringing the fleet along with him

to the mouth of the river, whence they requested permission to visit

Sarawak, and pay their respects to the Rajah. I was consulted on the

subject, whether I would meet them, and as I preferred a pacific to

a hostile rencontre, and had, moreover, a considerable curiosity

to see these roving gentry, I consented without hesitation. Report

stated that their intention was to attack the Royalist (a war ship

of the English navy), as they had, it was averred, received positive

accounts of her having fifty lacs of rupees on board, and that her

figure-head was of solid gold. As, however, we had no such treasure,

and the meeting was unavoidable and might be hostile, I put myself into

a complete posture of defence, with a determination neither to show

backwardness nor suspicion. The day arrived, and the pirates swept up

the river; eighteen prahus, one following the other, decorated with

flags and streamers, and firing both cannon and musketry; the sight

was interesting and curious, and heightened by the conviction that

these friends of the moment might be enemies the next. Having taken

their stations the chief men proceeded to an interview with the Rajah,

which I attended to witness. Some distrust and much ceremony marked

the meeting; and both parties had numerous followers, who filled the

hall of audience and the avenues leading to it. The pirates consisted

of Illanuns and Malukus from Gillolo. The Illanuns are fine athletic

men with haughty and reserved bearing, and evidently quite ready to be

friends or foes as best suited their purpose.

“Beyond the usual formalities the meeting had nothing to distinguish

it; one party retired to their boats while the other went to their

respective houses, and everything betokened quiet. In the evening I

pulled through the fleet and inspected several of their largest prahus.

The entire force consisted of eighteen boats, three Malukus and fifteen

Illanuns; the smallest of these boats carried twenty men, the largest

(they are mostly large), upwards of a hundred. These larger prahus

are too heavy to pull well, though they carry twenty, forty, and even

fifty oars; their armament consists of one or two six pounders in the

bow, one four pounder, stern-chaser, and a number of swivels, besides

musketry, spears, and swords. The boat is divided into three sections

and fortified by strong planks, one behind the bow, one amidship, and

one astern to protect the steersman. The women and children are crammed

down below, as are the unlucky prisoners taken in the course of an

action.

“Their principal plan is boarding a vessel if possible, and carrying

her by numbers; and certainly if a merchantman fired ill, she would

inevitably be taken, but with grape and canister fairly directed the

slaughter would be so great that they would be glad to steer off before

they had neared a vessel.”

Having given a description, though a necessarily brief one, of these

savage sea-lions, as well as of their laws and government, it may be

worth while to devote a little space to the narration of one of the

very many fights that took place between them and the forces under Sir

J. Brooke, whose chief business, be it understood, was to check and to

do all in his power to suppress the predatory operations of the swarm

of piratical prahus infesting the Malayan Archipelago, to the great

danger not only of peaceful native and Chinese traders, but also of

European merchantmen trading to Singapore and other Chinese ports.

To support Sir J. Brooke in his difficult task, our government in 1843

despatched the “Dido” man-of-war, Captain Henry Keppel, commander.

The “Dido” had been cruising about for a considerable time, and had

performed many toughish jobs in the way of subjugating pirates, when

the time came for the arrival of the English mail at Singapore, which

also included the Bornean letter bags. These were to be forwarded by a

small schooner, but knowing that the said schooner would probably be

anxiously looked for by the pirates, Captain Keppel agreed with Sir

J. Brooke, that it might be as well to send out some assistance to

cruise about the road the schooner must come. It was scarcely worth

while for the “Dido” herself to set out on such an errand, and the

“Dido’s” pinnace was under repair, so it was resolved to man a large

native-built boat, belonging to Sir J. Brooke, and called the “Jolly

Bachelor.” She was fitted with a brass six-pounder long gun, and a

volunteer crew of a mate, two midshipmen, six marines, and twelve

seamen, with a fortnight’s provisions, the whole being under the

command of Mr. Hunt, the “Dido’s” second lieutenant.

After proceeding on her leisurely course for some time, the “Jolly

Bachelor” made out three boats a long way in the offing, to which

they gave chase, but soon lost sight of them owing to their superior

sailing. They, however, appeared a second and a third time after dark,

but without the “Jolly Bachelor” being able to get near them, and it

now being late and the crew being both fatigued and hungry, they pulled

in shore, lighted a fire, cooked their provisions, and then hauled the

boat out to her grapnel near some rocks, for the night; lying down to

rest with their arms by their sides and their muskets round the mast

ready loaded. Having also placed sentries and look-outs near, and

appointed an officer of the watch, they one and all (including the

watch and the look-out it seems), fell fast asleep.

Lieutenant Hunt was the first to awake, and a very considerable

surprise greeted his still sleepy eyes. It was about three o’clock, and

the moon had just risen; the lieutenant disturbed by a slight noise,

raised his head, and lo! there was a savage brandishing his kris and

performing a war dance on the bit of a deck, in an ecstasy of delight,

thinking, in all probability, of the ease with which he had got

possession of a fine trading boat, and calculating the cargo of slaves

he had to sell, but little dreaming of the hornet’s nest into which he

had fallen.

[Illustration: Dayak and Malay Weapons.]