After Losing Many Days Tossing On The Silent Sea, With Innumerable
Dolphins, Flying-Fish, And Sharks Around Us, We Had
Six days of
strong breezes, then calms again tried our patience; and the near
approach of that period, "the break
Of the monsoon," in which it was
believed no boat could live, made us sometimes think our epitaph
would be "Left Zanzibar on 30th April, 1864, and never more heard
of." At last, in the beginning of June, the chronometers showed that
we were near the Indian coast. The black men believed it was true
because we told them it was so, but only began to dance with joy when
they saw sea-weed and serpents floating past. These serpents are
peculiar to these parts, and are mentioned as poisonous in the
sailing directions. We ventured to predict that we should see land
next morning, and at midday the high coast hove in sight, wonderfully
like Africa before the rains begin. Then a haze covered all the
land, and a heavy swell beat towards it. A rock was seen, and a
latitude showed it to be the Choule rock. Making that a fresh
starting-point, we soon found the light-ship, and then the forest of
masts loomed through the haze in Bombay harbour. We had sailed over
2500 miles.
Footnotes:
{1} A remedy composed of from six to eight grains of resin of jalap,
the same of rhubarb, and three each of calomel and quinine, made up
into four pills, with tincture of cardamoms, usually relieved all the
symptoms in five or six hours. Four pills are a full dose for a man-
-one will suffice for a woman. They received from our men the name
of "rousers," from their efficacy in rousing up even those most
prostrated. When their operation is delayed, a dessert-spoonful of
Epsom salts should be given. Quinine after or during the operation
of the pills, in large doses every two or three hours, until deafness
or cinchonism ensued, completed the cure. The only cases in which,
we found ourselves completely helpless, were those in which obstinate
vomiting ensued.
{2} The late Mr. Robson.
{3} In 1865, four years after these forebodings were penned, we
received intelligence that they had all come to pass. Sekeletu died
in the beginning of 1864 - a civil war broke out about the succession
to the chieftainship; a large body of those opposed to the late
chief's uncle, Impololo, being regent, departed with their cattle to
Lake Ngami; an insurrection by the black tribes followed; Impololo
was slain, and the kingdom, of which, under an able sagacious
mission, a vast deal might have been made, has suffered the usual
fate of African conquests. That fate we deeply deplore; for,
whatever other faults the Makololo might justly be charged with, they
did not belong to the class who buy and sell each other, and the
tribes who have succeeded them do.
{4} It was with sorrow that we learned by a letter from Mr. Moffat,
in 1864, that poor Sekeletu was dead.
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