One day, while at the Observatory, I was greatly surprised at seeing one
whom I took to be a Feejeeman, enter my tent, a circumstance so
inconsistent with the respect to our prescribed limit, of which I have
spoken. His colour, however, struck me as lighter than that of any
native I had yet seen. He was a short wrinkled old man, but appeared to
possess great vigour and activity. He had a beard that reached to his
middle, and but little hair, of a reddish-grey colour, on his head. He
gave me no time for inquiry, but at once addressed me in broad Irish,
with a rich Milesian brogue. In a few minutes he made me acquainted with
his story, which, by his own account, was as follows:--
His name was Paddy Connel, but the natives called him Berry; he was born
in the county of Clare, in Ireland; had run away from school when he was
a little fellow, and after wandering about as a vagabond, was pressed
into the army in the first Irish rebellion. At the time the French
landed in Ireland, the regiment to which he was attached marched at once
against the enemy, and soon arrived on the field of battle, where they
were brought to the charge. The first thing he knew or heard, the drums
struck up a White Boy's tune, and his whole regiment went over and
joined the French, with the exception of the officers, who had to flee.
They were then marched against the British, and were soon defeated by
Lord Cornwallis; it was a hard fight, and Paddy found himself among the
slain. When he thought the battle was over, and night came on, he
crawled off and reached home. He was then taken up and tried for his
life, but was acquitted; he was, however, remanded to prison, and busied
himself in effecting the escape of some of his comrades. On this being
discovered, he was confined in the black hole, and soon after sent to
Cork, to be put on board a convict-ship bound to New South Wales. When
he arrived there, his name was not found on the books of the prisoners;
consequently he had been transported by mistake, and was, therefore, set
at liberty. He then worked about for several years, and collected a
small sum of money, but unfortunately fell into bad company, got drunk,
and lost it all. Just about this time Captain Sartori, of the ship
General Wellesley, arrived at Sydney. Having lost a great part of his
crew by sickness and desertion, he desired to procure hands for his
ship, which was still at Sandalwood Bay, and obtained thirty-five men,
one of whom was Paddy Connel. At the time they were ready to depart, a
French privateer, Le Gloriant, Captain Dubardieu, put into Sydney, when
Captain Sartori engaged a passage for himself and his men to the
Feejees. On their way they touched at Norfolk Island, where the ship
struck, and damaged her keel so much that they were obliged to put into
the Bay of Islands for repairs. Paddy asserts that a difficulty had
occurred here between Captain Sartori and his men about their
provisions, which was amicably settled. The Gloriant finally sailed from
New Zealand for Tongataboo, where they arrived just after the capture of
a vessel, which he supposed to have been the Port au Prince, as they had
obtained many articles from the natives, which had evidently belonged to
some large vessel. Here they remained some months, and then sailed for
Sandalwood Bay, where the men, on account of their former quarrel with
Captain Sartori, refused to go on board the General Wellesley: some of
them shipped on board the Gloriant, and others, with Paddy, determined
to remain on shore with the natives. He added, that Captain Sartori was
kind to him, and at parting had given him a pistol, cutlass, and an old
good-for-nothing musket; these, with his sea-chest and a few clothes,
were all that he possessed. He had now lived forty years among these
savages. After hearing his whole story, I told him I did not believe a
word of it; to which he answered, that the main part of it was true, but
he might have made some mistakes, as he had been so much in the habit of
lying to the Feejeeans, that he hardly now knew when he told the truth,
adding, that he had no desire to tell anything but the truth.
Paddy turned out to be a very amusing fellow, and possessed an accurate
knowledge of the Feejee character. Some of the whites told me that he
was more than half Feejee; indeed he seemed to delight in shewing how
nearly he was allied to them in feeling and propensities; and, like
them, seemed to fix his attention upon trifles. He gave me a droll
account of his daily employments, which it would be inappropriate to
give here, and finished by telling me the only wish he had then, was to
get for his little boy, on whom he doated, a small hatchet; and the only
articles he had to offer for it were a few old hens. On my asking him if
he did not cultivate the ground, he said at once no; he found it much
easier to get his living by telling the Feejeeans stories, which he
could always make good enough for them;--these, and the care of his two
little boys, and his hens, and his pigs, when he had any, gave him ample
employment and plenty of food. He had lived much at Rewa, and, until
lately, had been a resident at Levuka, but had, in consequence of his
intrigues, been expelled by the white residents, to the island of
Ambatiki. It appeared that they had unanimously come to the conclusion,
that if he did not remove, they would be obliged to put him to death for
their own safety. I could not induce Whippy or Tom to give me the
circumstances that occasioned this determination; and Paddy would not
communicate more than that his residence on Ambatiki was a forced one,
and that it was as though he was living out of the world, rearing pigs,
fowls, and children. Of the last description of live stock he had
forty-eight, and hoped that he might live to see fifty born to him. He
had had one hundred wives.
~Extraordinary Escape from Drowning.~
The following Narrative of an extraordinary escape from drowning, after
being wrecked among the Rapids of the St. Lawrence, first appeared in
the _Liverpool Mercury_, the Editors of which state that they have
published it by permission of the writer, who is a well-known merchant
of great respectability in that city. We have extracted it from the
pages of the _Edinburgh Magazine_, the Editor of which remarks,--"We
have been induced to transfer it into our Miscellany, not merely from
the uncommon interest of the detail, but because we happen to be able to
vouch for its authenticity."
On the 22nd day of April, 1810, our party set sail in a large schooner
from Fort-George, or Niagara Town, and in two days crossed Lake Ontario
to Kingston, at the head of the river St. Lawrence, distant from Niagara
about 200 miles. Here we hired an American barge (a large flat-bottomed
boat) to carry us to Montreal, a further distance of 200 miles; then set
out from Kingston on the 28th of April, and arrived the same evening at
Ogdensburgh, a distance of 75 miles. The following evening we arrived
at Cornwall, and the succeeding night at Pointe du Lac, on Lake St.
Francis. Here our bargemen obtained our permission to return up the
river; and we embarked in another barge, deeply laden with potashes,
passengers, and luggage. Above Montreal, for nearly 100 miles, the river
St. Lawrence is interrupted in its course by rapids, which are
occasioned by the river being confined in comparatively narrow, shallow,
rocky channels;--through these it rushes with great force and noise, and
is agitated like the ocean in a storm. Many people prefer these rapids,
for grandeur of appearance, to the Falls of Niagara. They are from half
a mile to nine miles long each, and require regular pilots. On the 30th
of April we arrived at the village of the Cedars, immediately below
which are three sets of very dangerous rapids (the Cedars, the
Split-rock, and the Cascades), distant from each other about one mile.
On the morning of the 1st of May we set out from the Cedars, the barge
very deep and very leaky. The captain, a daring rash man, refused to
take a pilot. After we passed the Cedar rapid, not without danger, the
captain called for some rum, swearing, at the same time, that ---- could
not steer the barge better than he did! Soon after this we entered the
Split-rock rapids by a wrong channel, and found ourselves advancing
rapidly towards a dreadful watery precipice, down which we went. The
barge slightly grazed her bottom against the rock, and the fall was so
great as to nearly take away the breath. We here took in a great deal of
water, which was mostly baled out again before we were hurried on to
what the Canadians call the "grand bouillon," or great boiling. In
approaching this place the captain let go the helm, saying, "Here we
fill!" The barge was almost immediately overwhelmed in the midst of
immense foaming breakers, which rushed over the bows, carrying away
planks, oars, &c. About half a minute elapsed between the filling and
going down of the barge, during which I had sufficient presence of mind
to rip off my three coats, and was loosening my suspenders, when the
barge sunk, and I found myself floating in the midst of people, baggage,
&c. Each man caught hold of something; one of the crew caught hold of
me, and kept me down under water, but, contrary to my expectation, let
me go again. On rising to the surface, I got hold of a trunk, on which
two other men were then holding. Just at this spot, where the Split-rock
rapids terminate, the bank of the river is well inhabited; and we could
see women on shore running about much agitated. A canoe put off, and
picked up three of our number, who had gained the bottom of the barge,
which had upset and got rid of its cargo; these they landed on an
island. The canoe put off again, and was approaching near to where I
was, with two others, holding on by the trunk, when, terrified with the
vicinity of the Cascades, to which we were approaching, it put back,
notwithstanding my exhortations, in French and English, to induce the
two men on board to advance. The bad hold which one man had of the
trunk, to which we were adhering, subjected him to constant immersion;
and, in order to escape his seizing hold of me, I let go the trunk, and,
in conjunction with another man, got hold of the boom, (which, with the
gaff, sails, &c., had been detached from the mast, to make room for the
cargo,) and floated off. I had just time to grasp this boom, when we
were hurried into the Cascades; in these I was instantly buried, and
nearly suffocated. On rising to the surface, I found one of my hands
still on the boom, and my companion also adhering to the gaff. Shortly
after descending the Cascades, I perceived the barge, bottom upwards,
floating near me. I succeeded in getting to it, and held by a crack in
one end of it; the violence of the water, and the falling out of the
casks of ashes, had quite wrecked it. For a long time I contented myself
with this hold, not daring to endeavour to get upon the bottom, which I
at length effected; and from this, my new situation, I called out to my
companion, who still preserved his hold of the gaff. He shook his head;
and, when the waves suffered me to look up again, he was gone. He made
no attempt to come near me, being unable or unwilling to let go his
hold, and trust himself to the waves, which were then rolling over his
head.
The Cascades are a kind of fall, or rapid descent, in the river, over a
rocky channel below: going down is called, by the French, "Sauter," to
leap or shove the cascades. For two miles below, the channel continues
in uproar, just like a storm at sea; and I was frequently nearly washed
off the barge by the waves which rolled over. I now entertained no hope
whatever of escaping; and although I continued to exert myself to hold
on, such was the state to which I was reduced by cold, that I wished
only for speedy death, and frequently thought of giving up the contest
as useless. I felt as if compressed into the size of a monkey; my hands
appeared diminished in size one-half; and I certainly should (after I
became cold and much exhausted) have fallen asleep, but for the waves
that were passing over me, and obliged me to attend to my situation. I
had never descended the St. Lawrence before, but I knew there were more
rapids a-head, perhaps another set of the Cascades, but at all events
the La Chine rapids, whose situation I did not exactly know. I was in
hourly expectation of these putting an end to me, and often fancied some
points of ice extending from the shore to be the head of foaming rapids.
At one of the moments in which the succession of waves permitted me to
look up, I saw at a distance a canoe with four men coming towards me,
and waited in confidence to hear the sound of their paddles; but in this
I was disappointed; the men, as I afterwards learnt, were Indians
(genuine descendants of the Tartars) who, happening to fall in with one
of the passenger's trunks, picked it up, and returned to shore for the
purpose of pillaging it, leaving, as they since acknowledged, the man on
the boat to his fate. Indeed, I am certain I should have had more to
fear from their avarice, than to hope from their humanity; and it is
more than probable, that my life would have been taken to secure them in
the possession of my watch and several half-eagles, which I had about
me.
The accident happened at eight o'clock in the morning. In the course of
some hours, as the day advanced, the sun grew warmer, the wind blew from
the south, and the water became calmer. I got upon my knees, and found
myself in the small lake St. Louis, about from three to five miles wide;
with some difficulty I got upon my feet, but was soon convinced, by
cramps and spasms in all my sinews, that I was quite incapable of
swimming any distance, and I was then two miles from shore. I was now
going, with wind and current, to destruction; and cold, hungry, and
fatigued, was obliged again to sit down in the water to rest, when an
extraordinary circumstance greatly relieved me. On examining the wreck,
to see if it was possible to detach any part of it to steer by, I
perceived something loose, entangled in a fork of the wreck, and so
carried along. This I found to be a small trunk, bottom upwards, which,
with some difficulty, I dragged up upon the barge. After near an hour's
work, in which I broke my pen-knife, trying to cut out the lock, I made
a hole in the top, and, to my great satisfaction, drew out a bottle of
rum, a cold tongue, some cheese, and a bag full of bread, cakes, &c.,
all wet. Of these I made a very seasonable, though very moderate use,
and the trunk answered the purpose of a chair to sit upon, elevated
above the surface of the water.
After in vain endeavouring to steer the wreck, or direct its course to
the shore, and having made every signal (with my waistcoat, &c.) in my
power, to the several headlands which I had passed, I fancied I was
driving into a bay, which, however, soon proved to be the termination of
the lake, and the opening of the river, the current of which was
carrying me rapidly along. I passed several small uninhabited islands;
but the banks of the river appearing to be covered with houses, I again
renewed my signals with my waistcoat and a shirt, which I took out of
the trunk, hoping, as the river narrowed, they might be perceived; the
distance was too great. The velocity with which I was going convinced me
of my near approach to the dreadful rapids of La Chine. Night was
drawing on; my destruction appeared certain, but did not disturb me
very much: the idea of death had lost its novelty, and become quite
familiar. Finding signals in vain, I now set up a cry or howl, such as I
thought best calculated to carry to a distance, and, being favoured by
the wind, it did, although at above a mile distance, reach the ears of
some people on shore. At last I perceived a boat rowing towards me,
which, being very small and white-bottomed, I had some time taken for a
fowl with a white breast; and I was taken off the barge by Captain
Johnstone, after being ten hours on the water. I found myself at the
village of La Chine, 21 miles below where the accident happened, and
having been driven by the winding of the current a much greater
distance. I received no other injury than bruised knees and breast, with
a slight cold. The accident took some hold of my imagination, and, for
seven or eight succeeding nights, in my dreams, I was engaged in the
dangers of the Cascades, and surrounded by drowning men.
My escape was owing to a concurrence of fortunate circumstances, which
appear almost providential. I happened to catch hold of various articles
of support, and to exchange each article for another just at the right
time. Nothing but the boom could have carried me down the Cascades
without injury; and nothing but the barge could have saved me below
them. I was also fortunate in having the whole day. Had the accident
happened one hour later, I should have arrived opposite the village of
La Chine after dark, and, of course, would have been destroyed in the
rapids below, to which I was rapidly advancing. The trunk which
furnished me with provisions and a resting-place above the water, I have
every reason to think, was necessary to save my life; without it I must
have passed the whole time in the water, and been exhausted with cold
and hunger. When the people on shore saw our boat take the wrong
channel, they predicted our destruction: the floating luggage, by
supporting us for a time, enabled them to make an exertion to save us;
but as it was not supposed possible to survive the passage of the
Cascades, no further exertions were thought of, nor indeed could they
well have been made.
It was at this very place that General Ambert's brigade of 300 men,
coming to attack Canada, was lost; the French at Montreal received the
first intelligence of the invasion, by the dead bodies floating past the
town. The pilot who conducted the first batteaux, committing the same
error that we did, ran for the wrong channel, and the other batteaux
following close, all were involved in the same destruction. The whole
party with which I was escaped; four left the barge at the Cedar
village, above the rapids, and went to Montreal by land; two more were
saved by the canoe; the barge's crew, all accustomed to labour, were
lost. Of the eight men who passed down the Cascades, none but myself
escaped, or were seen again; nor indeed was it possible for any one,
without my extraordinary luck, and the aid of the barge, to which they
must have been very close, to have escaped; the other men must have
been drowned immediately on entering the Cascades. The trunks, &c., to
which they adhered, and the heavy great-coats which they had on, very
probably helped to overwhelm them; but they must have gone at all
events; swimming in such a current of broken stormy waves was
impossible. Still I think my knowing how to swim kept me more collected,
and rendered me more willing to part with one article of support to gain
a better. Those who could not swim would naturally cling to whatever
hold they first got, and, of course, many had very bad ones. The Captain
passed me above the Cascades, on a sack of woollen clothes, which were
doubtless soon saturated and sunk.
The trunk which I picked up belonged to a young man from Upper Canada,
who was one of those drowned; it contained clothes, and about £70 in
gold, which was restored to his friends. My own trunk contained, besides
clothes, about £200 in gold and bank notes. On my arrival at La Chine, I
offered a reward of 100 dollars, which induced a Canadian to go in
search of it. He found it, some days after, on the shore of an island on
which it had been driven, and brought it to La Chine, where I happened
to be at the time. I paid him his reward, and understood that above
one-third of it was to be immediately applied to the purchase of a
certain number of masses which he had vowed, in the event of success,
previous to his setting out on the search.
* * * * *
~Adventure in the Desert, and Murder of a Sheikh.~
I was awakened for a few minutes, as early as three o'clock on the
following morning, by the sound of many voices in loud and earnest
conversation, amongst which I recognised that of Sheikh Suleiman; but as
noisy conversations at such early hours are by no means uncommon with
these restless spirits of the wilderness, I gave no heed to it, and
composed myself for sleep again, intending to rise by about half after
four, in order to get a dip in the Red Sea, before resuming the march;
and this intention I fulfilled; but just while throwing on the few
clothes I had taken with me, I heard suddenly a loud strife of many
tongues bursting forth, not in our encampment, but in a small copse or
grove of palm trees, about two hundred yards distant. At once the
thought rushed upon my mind, that the Mezzeni had overtaken us, and were
meditating an attack, now that we were so near the place of their main
encampment. This was directly confirmed by the sound of a gun-shot in
the palm-grove, which was soon followed up by a second. I ran up towards
the encampment as rapidly as possible; and just as I reached it, another
shot rang awfully upon my ear. I found our party in a state of the
greatest consternation, and gathered closely together, gazing wildly
towards the grove. The first thing I learnt, was the harrowing fact,
that poor Suleiman had just been murdered by the Mezzeni! It was an
astounding announcement. To what would this desperate blow lead--here,
in the Desert? The prospect of further bloodshed was terrible. It would
have been insupportable, but for the influence of that inward calmness
which is the privilege of the children of God. We were braced up for the
worst, and stood gazing upon the scene, in full expectation that out of
a deep and deadly spirit of revenge, we should be immediately
overpowered by the enemy, and held entirely at their mercy--as any shew
of defence against so many as had now come down upon us, would have been
utterly futile, and might have led to the destruction of us all. How
wild and desolate this awful theatre of death appeared, while, with the
sound of gun-shots still vibrating in our ears, we thought of Suleiman
writhing in his death-throes, and anxiously watched the movements of the
murderers. We were motionless--almost breathless. Each man among us
gazed silently upon his fellow. Our suspense was not of great duration,
but long enough to get the heart secretly lifted up in communion with a
God of mercy. And there was sweet peacefulness in that brief
exercise.... My worst fears were groundless. The hearts of all men are
in God's hands. Our helplessness must have been a powerful matter of
temptation to the blood-stained men, over whom the departed soul of
Suleiman was hovering. But God restrained them....
Having slaughtered their victim, the Mezzeni (of whom above forty were
counted), quietly marched back towards Nuweibia, without exchanging even
a word with us; leaving behind them the corpse of poor Suleiman--a sad
memorial of their malignant vengeance; while several others of their
tribe, who had been lying in ambush beyond the scene of terror, came
forth from their hiding-places, and joined their retreating comrades.
My heart almost sickens at the recollection of this dreadful
transaction, while referring to the notes made on the spot, and
compiling from them the particulars of this sad page.
As soon as the enemy had fairly departed, I took Hassenein with me, and
advanced carefully towards the copse of palm trees, where I found the
mangled body of poor Suleiman quite dead, but with the agony of the
death-pang still visible on his sunburnt and swarthy features. It was a
terrible sight, thus to behold the leader and confidential companion of
our wild route, lying as the clods of the valley, and saturated with his
own life-blood. And how, in a Christian's heart, was the sense of the
sad reality heightened, by knowing that the poor sufferer was a follower
of the false prophet--a Mahommedan--ignorant of Him who was "delivered
for our offences, and raised again for our justification." I have seen
death in many forms; but I never beheld it with so dread an aspect as it
here assumed.
I was more than half inclined to withhold the minute particulars of the
dark tragedy, when arriving at this part of my narrative; but they now
fasten themselves upon my mind, and I feel constrained to leave them on
record.
Suleiman had received three balls through his body, and four
sabre-gashes on his head, which was also nearly severed from the trunk;
and his right arm, which had been evidently raised in an attempt at
warding off a blow, was all but divided near the wrist. We returned to
the encampment, where our Arabs were sitting together, still terrified.
At length a few of them who volunteered their aid, went and washed the
body--wrapped it in an unfolded turban, and prepared it for immediate
interment. They hastily formed a resting-place, about a mile upwards,
towards the hills which skirted the plain in which we were encamped, by
raising four walls of large loose stones. Having made all ready, they
brought up the remains of their leader, laid across the back of his
camel, and, with deep emotion, deposited them in their final abode,
arching it over with large masses of stone, and quitting it with what
appeared to me like deep expressions of vengeance against the tribe, on
which lay the guilt of his murder.
I turned away from the tomb with a heavy heart.... Was my way to the
Holy City of my God to be tracked with blood?
On making a careful inquiry into the particulars immediately connected
with this sad catastrophe, I collected the following:--It appeared, that
while we were resting on the previous day at Wadey el Ayún, the Mezzeni
came down in order to make a final effort at supporting, without
bloodshed, their claim to conduct travellers through their territory to
Akabah. Sheikh Furriqh was of the number, as I have already stated. When
he was about to retire, after an unsuccessful attempt, an Arab of his
tribe came and secretly informed him that his (Furriqh's) nephew had
been shot on the previous day by one of Suleiman's tribe, in reference
to the very question then pending. On receiving this information,
Furriqh at once broke off all negotiation, and quitted the encampment.
It is believed that Suleiman never knew the fact which had been
communicated to Furriqh; but news was brought to him that the Mezzeni
intended to pursue us with an increased force; and this quite accounts
for all the anxiety and timidity which he evinced during the afternoon
and evening preceding his death. It appears that the Mezzeni, bent on
accomplishing their purpose, gathered together their force, and,
following us at dromedary speed, arrived at the encampment as early as
two o'clock in the morning--that a deputation from them came to
Suleiman, while some of the rest remained in the palm-grove, and others
went in advance, and formed ambuscades--that Sheikh Furriqh was one of
the deputation--that Suleiman shewed them the usual hospitality of
breaking bread with them--that the conference ended without any
adjustment of the matter in dispute--that after the deputation had
retired to the copse, two Arabs of a neutral tribe, who had come with us
from Mount Sinai, went to the Mezzeni in order to mediate, but were
unsuccessful--that while they remained Suleiman was sent for, and that
having broken bread with the Mezzeni, he had a right to expect that his
life would be held sacred--that Suleiman had scarcely reached the
adverse party, when Sheikh Furriqh said--"We do not care about the
money, but there is blood between us;"--that instantly one of the
Mezzeni shot him through the body, and that Furriqh cut him down with
his sabre, while two other shots which were fired took effect upon him.
My recollection of Furriqh, from the first moment that he appeared in
our caravan, is such as to convince me that he would readily commit such
an act as this--so subtle--so cruel--so cowardly--without one feeling of
remorse or misgiving.