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
They were now permitted to rest until about eight o'clock when they
were carried to the Rajah's house, where they found a supper provided
for them of sago-bread and peas, but in all hardly enough for one man.
Their allowance afterwards was for each man a cocoa nut and an ear of
Indian corn at noon, and the same at night. In this manner they lived
about twenty days, but were not allowed to go out except to the water
to bathe. The natives soon began to relax their vigilance over them,
and in about four months, they were conveyed to the head Rajah of
Parlow. They had not been there long when the head Rajah sent to a
Dutch port called Priggia, which is at the head of a deep bay on the
east side of the island and which is under the care of a commandant
who was a Frenchman, and had been thirty years in the Dutch service.
He arrived at Parlow and sent for Capt. Woodward. He wished him to go
with him to Priggia where he resided, but Captain Woodward refused,
being apprehensive that he should be forced into the Dutch service.
The commandant then enquired where he intended to go. He answered to
Batavia or Macassar and thence to Bengal. He did not offer Captain
Woodward or his people either money, assistance, or clothes, but
seemed quite affronted.
The Rajah now gave him the liberty of returning to Travalla, taking
care, however, to send him in the night for fear that he should get
sight of Dungally, where there lived a Mahomedan priest called Juan
Hadgee. This priest had been at Travalla, and offered a ransom for
Captain Woodward and his men, but the natives were unwilling to take
it, and were fearful that their captives would try to escape to the
town where the priest lived. It happened however, that they were
becalmed off Dungally, so that Captain Woodward could observe its
situation. On arriving at Travalla, he attempted to escape alone by
water, but the canoe being leaky, he came very near losing his life.
But not discouraged, he started immediately for Dungally by land, and
reached it just as the day dawned.
Juan Hadgee received him kindly and provided him with food and
clothing. In the course of three days the chief of Travalla learning
that he had gone to Dungally, sent after him, but the old priest and
the Rajah of Dungally refused to let him go. They told him that in the
course of three months they would convey him to Batavia or Macassar,
and also desired him to send for the four men he had left at
Travalla.--This he did by means of a letter which he wrote with a pen
of bamboo, and sent by the captain of a proa, who delivered it
secretly. The men made their escape from Parlow at the time of a
feast, early in the evening, and arrived at Dungally at twelve o'clock
the next day. They were received with great rejoicing by the natives,
who immediately brought them plenty of victuals. And this fortunate
circumstance revived their hopes of reaching some European settlement,
after many narrow escapes and difficulties.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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