Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 383, September 1847Various
General
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 383, September 1847
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
homicide; whilst he evidently has a lurking consciousness that he need not
have thrust himself into scenes and places where it became necessary or
advisable to shed blood. To return to his ship, he had to coast the
island, and to pass the territory of a tribe hostile to his friends.
Canoes came out to assail those on which Dr Coulter and his allies were
embarked. He was again compelled to smother humanity, prime, load, and
fire as fast as he could, although "it grieved me afterwards to think I
used such a death-dealing weapon with so much earnestness." Touching
repentance! Compassionate Coulter! But "his dander was up," he says, and
he thought no more, but acted. As anybody else would probably have done,
on finding himself assailed by a flotilla of howling savages, with
blood-coloured teeth, poisoned arrows, and a decided taste for the flesh
of a wholesome white man. What business the doctor had in such a
predicament, is altogether another question. "_Que diable allait-il faire
dans cette galère?_"
The New Irishmen have some queer customs. The night following the battle
was passed by Dr Coulter at one of their outposts, where he was prevented
sleeping by the strange torches kept burning in the house he lodged at.
They consisted of long sticks, with a quantity of cocoa-nut fibre steeped
in rosin and twisted round the top. These were lighted, and held by naked
men, who relieved each other. The idols worshipped by these heathens are
of a peculiarly ludicrous description, ten feet high, made of polished
wood, with arms akimbo, oyster shells for eyes, and red pegs for teeth.
The expression of the face is one of grotesque laughter, irresistibly
provocative of mirth in the beholder. In one respect the example of these
savages might be followed with advantage by more civilised communities.
Their cemeteries are invariably remote from their dwellings, in lonely and
unfrequented spots.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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