Narrative of the Life and Travels of Serjeant B——Butler, Robert
History
Narrative of the Life and Travels of Serjeant B——
Butler, Robert
Butler, Robert, 1784- -- Travel -- India; India -- Description and travel
Early in the morning of the 10th of April we came in sight of the
long-wished for island of St. Helena. This was a place which had been
looked forward to with great eagerness by many in the ship besides
myself, although the objects we had in view were, I doubt not, very
different; for, so far as I am able to judge of my deceitful heart,
the principal motive with me was the hope of seeing the Bengal and
China fleets forward, as was generally expected, that we might not be
detained waiting for them, but steer straight onward for Europe, and
thus, by a prosperous voyage, I might be enabled sooner to leave these
wicked scenes, and arrive the sooner at that happy country where the
blessed streams of divine ordinances that make glad the city of our
God flow in all their abundance. This was what I believe I eagerly
coveted; my desires were, above all things, going out towards God, and
towards the remembrance of his name; but I have every reason to
believe the principal cause why many of my shipmates wished our
arrival at St. Helena so intensely, was on account of their not having
had it in their power, for a considerable time, to gratify a certain
very strong propensity, produced by habit; or, in other words, there
had raged amongst us, for some weeks, a famine of tobacco; the men had
not counted on so tedious a passage to St. Helena, and, from this
fatal mistake, they had not provided themselves with a sufficient
stock before they came on board. The condition of many of these poor,
miserable men, was indeed fitted to draw pity from all who knew from
experience any thing of the amazing force of that desire, and take
into account the present impossibility of getting it gratified, while,
on the other hand, those who are free men, and not slaves to this
lust, might be disposed to treat such people with contempt rather than
sympathy, for being brought into such a miserably restless condition
for the lack of an insignificant, unsightly leaf, and might think, if
they had been in their circumstances, they would have thrown the pipe
overboard, and have resolved against ever touching it again in their
lives; but this is easier said than done, and this I know was a
sacrifice which my unhappy shipmates found entirely too great to be
accomplished.--No, to leave off smoking, and to cast away the pipe as
a nuisance, was altogether out of the question; for smoke they must,
although the appetite by which they were held in bondage compelled
them to employ a strange and disgusting substitute for tobacco; for
they had, for a number of days, been under the necessity of using a
bit of tarry-rope yarn, in the form of oakum, with which they filled
their pipes; and at that sickening stuff they would suck away until
they were like persons in the rage of a fever, occasioned by the
immoderate use of intoxicating liquors. We here see the great need
there is for putting in practice the Apostle's resolution, "to beat
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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