Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy: A weird series of tales of shipwreck and disaster, from the earliest part of the century to the present time, with accounts of providential escapes and heart-rending fatalities.Anonymous
History
Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy: A weird series of tales of shipwreck and disaster, from the earliest part of the century to the present time, with accounts of providential escapes and heart-rending fatalities.
Anonymous
Mutiny; Pirates; Seafaring life; Shipwrecks
When about to resume our journey, we saw several Moors approaching us
armed with lances. Our people instantly seized their arms, and put
themselves in readiness to defend us in case of an attack. Two
officers, followed by several soldiers and sailors, with our
interpreter, advanced to discover their intentions. They instantly
returned with the Moors, who said, that far from wishing to do us
harm, they had come to offer us their assistance, and to conduct us to
Senegal. This offer being accepted of with gratitude by all of us, the
Moors, of whom we had been so afraid, became our protectors and
friends, verifying the old proverb, there are good people everywhere!
As the camp of the Moors was at some considerable distance from where
we were, we set off altogether to reach it before night. After having
walked about two leagues through the burning sands, we found ourselves
again upon the shore. Towards night, our conductors made us strike
again into the interior, saying we were near their camp which is
called in their language Berkelet. But the short distance of the Moors
was found very long by the females and the children, on account of the
downs of sand which we had to ascend and descend every instant, also
of prickly shrubs over which we were frequently obliged to walk. Those
who were barefooted, felt most severely at this time the want of their
shoes. I myself lost among the bushes various shreds of my dress, and
my feet and legs were all streaming with blood. At length, after two
long hours of walking and suffering, we arrived at the camp of that
tribe to which belonged our Arab conductors. We had scarcely got into
the camp, when the dogs, the children, and the Moorish women, began to
annoy us. Some of them threw sand in our eyes, others amused
themselves by snatching at our hair, on pretence of wishing to examine
it. This pinched us, that spit upon us; the dogs bit our legs, whilst
the old harpies cut the buttons from the officers coats, or endeavored
to take away the lace. Our conductors, however, had pity on us, and
chased away the dogs and the curious crowd, who had already made us
suffer as much as the thorns which had torn our feet. The chiefs of
the camp, our guides, and some good women, at last set about getting
us some supper. Water in abundance was given us without payment, and
they sold us fish dried in the sun, and some bowlsful of sour milk, at
a reasonable price.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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