12/22/03

            The Queen of Madagascar. A Bombay "suttee." The python in Ceylon.

Tamatave, the capital of Madagascar, was our next anchorage, and there we found the harbor well sprinkled with ships from all over the globe. At that time the Queen of this island territory had not been deposed by the French, and she was then at the zenith of her power. She felt honored by the presence of a British man-of-war in her dominions and was profuse in her endeavor to ingratiate herself in the favor of our commander. She invited all of our officers to the palace, which proved to be a reception on a lavish scale.

The palace was a large building in the center of houses of smaller dimensions. A series of stone steps led up to the entrance, and on the whole I thought the building was much more modern than I expected to see, but still was typical of the Orient. At the entrance we were met by a sort of bodyguard composed of soldiers, tall as the Sikhs of Calcutta, armed with short swords and lances, who formed a line on both sides of the hall. A sort of royal chamberlain conducted us to the audience chamber, where the Queen and her attendants were waiting.

I thought I had never seen such a beautiful woman as she sat on a throne under a dais of gold and silk. She wore a tiara of precious stones on her head instead of the crown she was entitled to, and she probably looked more beautiful without it. Her skin was dark, as were her eyes; her hair curling over her shoulders in wavy abundance. As she rose to great us she showed an outline of her perfect symmetry, with gestures that were imperious and queenly. She was tall, agile, flexible, and her movements were adorable. We judged her age to be about thirty-five years. She held a short conversation with our captain through an interpreter, and then led the way to another sumptuously furnished room, where we were served tea and biscuits. It was a pleasurable entertainment.

On our departure from Tamatave, the bosen borrowed one of the sheets from my bunk, and the Queen’s ensign, a milk-white flag, was hoisted as we left the harbor thundering a farewell salute of twenty-one guns.

Bombay was our ultimate destination, but on our way we crossed over the Seychelles Islands, a British dependency where a school was maintained by England’s government for the education of the indigent wards of the country. Where we anchored, the floor of the ocean could b plainly seen to a depth of fifteen fathoms, and the fairy dell of shell and marine vegetation was a never-ceasing topic interest. After two day’s stop at this interesting port, and a call at Manila in the Philippines, we left for Trincomalee, our home station on the island of Ceylon.

Trincomalee is one of the world’s most beautiful harbors, large enough to accommodate all the navies of the world, completely landlocked and speckled with islands that accentuate its beauty. It has a country behind it that is self-sustaining by its wonderful plantations of tea, spices, coconuts, tropical fruits, vegetables, etc. Here, on a small island inside the harbor, was established a rest house for the use of the officers, with a small for a landing place. The dock afforded a good jumping-off platform when we wanted to bathe. The sharks, though plentiful, were arrant cowards and never bothered when three or four of us were in the water together. One evening a big shovel-nosed shark paraded in front of the dock with only his fin showing. We waited for him to leave until our patience was exhausted, and then three of us lined up abreast, took a running dive from the dock, which gave the shark such a scare that we saw his fin scurrying for open water for minutes afterward.

We reached Bombay after an uneventful trip, and picked our moorings off the Bund. Parsees with their queer hats and Brahmins with caste marks on their foreheads were there in an endless procession, while the humble Hindoos did the digging, the carrying, and the sweeping of the big city. During our leave from the ship we prowled through the bazaars and found plenty to interest us in the Armenian quarter where the girls sat in the doorways with tattoo marks extending from their necks to a point below their navels. Beggars annoyed us all along the line with their display of mutilated limbs, disease in the stages of corruption; and naked children would rub their bellies with one hand, hold out the other and treble, “Rice! Give it rice!”

We were returning through the darkness of the evening when we were attracted by a bright red glow coming from a courtyard just off one of the principal streets of Bombay. On drawing nearer we saw that the courtyard was surrounded by four-story building, the occupants of which were sitting in the windows with their legs dangling outside, while the yard below was crowded with people, their faces illuminated by the blaze of a bonfire set against a building. We were at a loss to know what the gathering meant until one of the crowd explained to us it was a “suttee,” or the burning of the widow with the corpse of her dead husband.

Squeezing through the crowd to get a better view of the proceedings, we saw that a pile of wood had been built up, like a rectangle, with at intervals around it that were stuffed with inflammable kindling. Two men with jars of cocoanut oil were sprinkling it over the mass, and when all was ready a procession filed from one of the houses, led by priests, followed by the corpse on a litter and the child wife. The girl was weeping, and was supported by some old hags who were probably relatives. The corpse was laid on the pyre, and then the wife tried to make a break for freedom, but she was frustrated by the priests, who tied her hands and feet with a cord and tossed her bodily on to the blaze with the corpse. The woman’s screams were drowned in the loud incantations of the priests as the fire mounted in a roar of flame. Suddenly all was silence, as a priest spoke some final benediction. The fire died down, the crowd dispersed, and the suttee rites were over.

There is now a law prohibiting the suttee, but is still observed in some parts of India.

From Bombay we laid our course for Kalicut, then to Aden, where our crew invested their spare cash in ostrich feathers. In another month we were back at Tricomalee to refit and take on supplies.

One bad feature of Ceylon is the snake population. They exist in every variety of species and cussedness. There is always some of the villagers laid up with a snakebite, and a few of them recover. On one hot, sultry day I joined a party for a hike into the country. We were swinging along the road when someone spotted a python in the timber nearby. He had evidently just finished a meal, for his body had a big bulge, which prevented him from moving very swiftly. One of our party had a rifle and started to shoot at him. The first shot missed, while the big snake tried to reach a tree. Another shot struck him ‘midships and that made him angry, for he made a turn, tried to coil, and began reaching and spitting at us. The third shot caught him just behind the jaw and he laid down. It took two more shot to give the reptile his final quietus. He was the longest snake I ever saw, measuring eleven paces (about thirty feet), and beautifully marked.