He Looked Delicate, And His Face Wore A Woebegone Expression, Which Apparently Was Habitual, While His Body Was Covered With Numberless Scars And Sores.

The sinews of his knee-joints were very contracted, because, he told Captain Watson, he had to sit fishing so long in one position in the hot sun so that he was almost unable to walk.

His ears had been perforated after the custom of the natives, and in the lobe of each he wore a piece of bamboo at least an inch in diameter.

As was to be expected, from having been fourteen years on the island, he had almost forgotten his native language and with difficulty could make himself intelligible. He was, however, able to give the following account of his life there. The Stedcombe, on leaving Melville Island, had gone to Timor Laut for live stock and had moored off Louron. Mr. Bastell, the mate in charge, then proceeded on shore with the crew, leaving on board the steward, a boy named John Edwards, and himself. As Mr. Bastell and the crew did not return he (Forbes) looked through the glass and then beheld their bodies stretched out on the beach - the heads severed from each. As a canoe was perceived approaching the ship, he proposed to the steward and to John Edwards that they should arm: but the former paid no attention to him. He then proposed that he and John Edwards should punch one of the bolts out of the cable and liberate the ship. They were in the act of doing this when the natives, among whom was the Orang Kaire whom Watson had detained, boarded the Stedcombe. The unfortunate steward was killed on the spot, and the two boys, expecting to share his fate, betook themselves to the rigging and were only induced to descend upon repeated promises that they would not be injured. Strange to say, the natives kept their promises, and after plundering the ship they burnt her. The boys were kept in the capacity of ordinary slaves until about four years before the coming of the Essington, when Edwards died, and since that time Forbes had been unable to move in consequence of the stiffness in his legs. The scars were caused by the natives when he incurred their displeasure. One of their common modes of punishment was to take hot embers from the fire and place them on some part of his body until it was severely burned. When asked how he was treated generally, he replied "Trada Bergouse," meaning very badly. Some few natives, he said, were kind to him, among them the chief who had produced the papers. Speaking of the chief of Louron, he remarked, "Louron cuts me down to the ground" which was thought to imply that he flogged him and knocked him down. Whenever a vessel hove in sight the chief would have him bound hand and foot and keep him so, as long as the vessel remained at the island.

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