Narrative of the Life and Travels of Serjeant B–

Upon this march, which, being in the rainy season, exposed us to constant wet, we crossed four rivers in boats; viz. two branches of the Kistna, and two branches of the Cauvery, which overflowed its banks at the time. We were obliged to lie by the side of the last mentioned river some days before we durst venture over, as the basket boats, formerly described, could not withstand such a current; but at last we got over with a considerable degree of difficulty and danger, though without any material damage. I had frequently, upon this march, taken up the resolution of the young man just mentioned, to give it up in despair; and had it not been for that kind of unconquerable spirit I seemed to be possessed of, I certainly would have made application for a doolie, which at this time was hardly to be obtained. I was, indeed, very near dying outright one day. The faithful companion of my toils, who used every means in her power for my benefit, prepared always (if possible) a draught for me when I came to the camp ground; but on this day it would not go down. She entertained very unfavourable hopes of me for some time, but, as the Lord would have it, after I rested a little, I was somewhat recruited; and being near the river last mentioned, we had a respite for a day or two, and being thereby something refreshed, I made out the march, which was four hundred and eighty-five miles, without the help of a doolie. The reader would not at all be surprised to hear of men dying, and giving up, upon a march in this country, if he could form a just idea of their hardships. On the very night before this, there was such a dreadful hurricane, that we could neither sit nor lie, but were obliged to stand and hold the poles of our tents, to keep the wind from carrying them away; and many of the tents were blown down, notwithstanding all the efforts of their inmates to support them; for the pins and cords were no security against the irresistible power of the airy element, but gave way like stubble before the sweeping blast. The ground, on which we had frequently to lie, was so deluged with the rain, that we were often up to the ankles in mud. All we could do in this case was to clear it away with a momatee, (a kind of scraper;) but, after all, the wet ground was a very unwholesome, uncomfortable bed. Our provisions, as I have mentioned before, were mutton and rice; and, had they been good, we would have had no just cause to complain; but, how could the sheep be in good condition in this country, when they live one half of the year upon the roots of grass, not a blade being to be seen during that time, except what grows by the sides of rivers or tanks? and marching them about with the army, you may be sure, did not at all improve their condition. I have looked at a chattie pot, (all their cooking utensils are made of earth, like our tiles or cans,) where half a sheep has been boiled, and, I assure you, there was not a vestige of fat to be seen: and then, the rice being cleaned and cooked in the open air, was always less or more mixed with sand. The only refreshing article we received was our two drams of liquor, which was a very acceptable beverage mixed with water; but I need not labour to make you enter into my feelings, for that would be impossible, unless you had experienced what I have done. However, I would not advise you to try the experiment to gratify your curiosity, or you may think it dear bought; and, in all probability, never come home to tell the tidings. I must say, indeed, that I was quite overjoyed when we received the route to go to India; but if I had known beforehand what I was to be subjected to in that country, I think, and not without cause, that I never would have been able to support the afflictions and hardships which fell to my lot; but the Lord, who is infinitely wise and merciful, in the exercise of that wisdom and mercy, has hid both the pains and pleasures of his dependent creatures from them, that "in the day of prosperity they may be moderately joyful, not knowing how soon afflictions may overtake them, and that in the day of adversity they may consider that the Lord may yet have many even temporal blessings in reserve for them;" and by thus "setting the one over against the other," we may keep an equal, humble, and dependent mind; and thereby act under the injunction of the apostle, namely, to "weep as though we wept not, and rejoice as though we rejoiced not; and buy as though we possessed not; knowing that our time here is short, and that the fashion of this world passeth away."

We reached Trichinopoly upon the 5th October. This march, upon the whole, was the most severe I experienced in India, but it was the last I ever travelled upon foot. I was not long in Trichinopoly till I found the effects of my former troubles; for I was seized with a liver complaint, and a general debility of the nervous system, which rendered me totally unfit for duty. I lingered long in this delicate state, and the doctor proposed sending me home, but the commanding officer was unwilling to part with me, still hoping that my disorder would take a favourable turn. My leading fifer was ordered to do my duty, and I had full liberty to walk about when able, wherever I pleased, and to amuse myself in any way I thought proper. In a word, I continued in this weakly state for about a twelvemonth, when it was found necessary that I should be invalided.

While we lay here, I received an addition to my family, in consequence of my wife having stood godmother for a child belonging to a serjeant of the regiment. But to enable you to understand the story properly, it will be needful to give you an outline of the mother's history, which I will do in as few words as possible.

Nelly Stevenson, (which was her maiden name,) was the daughter of Wm. Stevenson, weaver in Anderston, Glasgow, with whom she lived until she was twenty years of age, at which time she was married to a young man of the name of M'Dougal, who volunteered into the Royals from the 26th regiment when in Dublin. This young man was one of the many who died of the flux when we lay in Wallajahbad. After his decease, she married a serjeant Fleming of the light company, by whom she had the child for whom my wife was sponsor; but this man lived with her only two years, when he also took the flux and died. In about six weeks afterwards13, she married a serjeant Lee of the grenadier company, by whom she had one child, and he being visited with the same disorder as her two former husbands, died also while we lay at Trichinopoly. She was now a widow the third time in the course of six years, and left in a destitute state; but she did not need a fourth husband, because she was over-taken by the same fatal disorder that laid them in the dust, and died in about five weeks' illness, in the twenty-sixth year of her age. Now, in this case, it was plainly our duty to look after the child for which my wife stood, agreeably to the vows of God which were upon her; and a Serjeant Brown of the regiment, and his wife, took charge of Serjeant Lee's child, for whom they had become accountable, after the manner of the Church of England. But I will say no more about this at present, as I will have occasion to speak of the last mentioned child again.

In the course of the time we lay in Trichinopoly, we had one Serjeant Clark affected with that dreadful disorder called hydrophobia, in rather a singular manner. This man being afflicted for some time with a very bad sore in his leg, and hearing that the tongue of a dog licking a sore of this kind had a very healing effect, he had recourse to this expedient, and coaxed a small dog in the barracks, which he took notice of sometimes, to do him, as he thought, this good office; but it would appear by the consequences that followed, that the dog had been disordered before it left off this practice, and before the serjeant was taken to hospital. It may seem strange to the reader, that this dog licking a sore, should produce so alarming an effect; but it was clearly proven, that the man himself had never been bitten; and there was a consultation of the faculty held upon this extraordinary case, who came to the conclusion, that the disease must have proceeded from this cause. The doctors tried repeatedly, and by various methods, to get him to swallow a little water, but all to no purpose; one of them attempted to give some to him in a concealed manner, putting it into what is called a hubble bubble, (a kind of pipe with a long tube, so that he could not see it); but whenever it came near him, he immediately took one of his shaking fits; and they were compelled to take it away without success.

Another extraordinary case of this extraordinary disease occurred while we lay in Masulipatam, which I shall just mention, and no more. One of the Company's artillery men, in the warm season, was seized with the disorder, but no person could tell how he came to be so affected, as there was no appearance of any bite about his body. This nonplussed the faculty completely, for they were sure enough that it was the hydrophobia; but how it had been produced they could not tell. Inquiry was made at his comrade, if he had known of his being bitten at any former period; and he told them, that he recollected perfectly of his being bitten about a twelve-month ago; so, after they had deliberated for some time upon the accounts received, they came to the conclusion, that it was to the effects of this bite, though at such a distance of time, that he owed his death. Before I left the country, a kind of cure, it is said, was discovered for this most dreadful disorder. The cure seems quite natural; but as the way it was commonly said to have been discovered is strange, I shall give a very short account of it. One of the native women being bitten by a dog, and put into a place of confinement, contrived to make her escape, but when she was in the act of running away, some persons discovered her, and pursued her as fast as possible, and the poor creature, in her fright and trembling, fell all her length upon a place covered with broken bottles, and was no doubt cut and mangled dreadfully; however, the great quantity of blood that she lost was thought to have been the means of delivering her from this dreadful malady; and I understand that, since that time, bleeding a person almost to death, has repeatedly been tried with success in India, for this disease.

CHAPTER X

March 19, 1811.– We left Trichinopoly, to proceed to Bangalore. I had upon this march a doolie, for the first time since we came to India; and I had now travelled about 1600 miles with the Royals, since the regiment arrived in the country. We reached Bangalore upon the 12th of April; and, as I continued still very poorly, the doctor told the commanding officer, that it was in vain to keep me in India, in the hopes of regaining my health; for that was a thing not in the least to be expected, so I was ordered to be invalided. I accordingly passed the Board upon the 20th of August, along with thirty-two more; but only eighteen of these were ordered for Europe.

I now, according to promise, resume my story of the little girl that went to Serjeant Brown at Trichinopoly, when we took home the orphan, to whom my wife had been godmother. This serjeant's wife was attacked by the flux, after we came to Bangalore, and being a woman grievously addicted to liquor, she was for some time abandoned by all the women who wished well to their character; but my wife hearing of her deplorable state, could not think of a countrywoman dying amongst black people, without any European woman paying the least attention to her. She determined, therefore, to render her what assistance was in her power; and, accordingly, went one day to her room, where she found her in a very loathsome state, attended only by her black female servant, and the child crying very much. She asked the woman what made the child cry so bitterly? to which she replied, choar elia, (that is, she has no meat; or rather, she is crying for hunger.) After putting clean clothes upon Mrs. Brown's bed, and doing all that she could do for her immediate comfort; she brought the poor starved little creature into our hut14, and said unto me, "O! Robert, if you will not take it amiss, I will keep this poor object, and see if I can do any thing for her." I cheerfully agreed to her humane proposal; and could scarcely help crying, when I saw the child crying; and my wife also bathed in tears. We accordingly kept the child, and Mrs. Brown still getting worse, died in a few days. My wife became much attached to the little girl; and the period drawing near when I had to leave the regiment, we proposed to Serjeant Brown to take her home to Scotland with us, but he formally refused, saying that he would get her brought up himself; but we could not think of leaving her in the country, as Serjeant Brown might soon be taken from her by death15; and, likewise, because a man in his situation could not do his duty to a child like this, when he had no one but a black woman to look after his domestic matters; and besides, we could not think of taking her sister home, and leaving her in the country; so I spoke to the adjutant of the regiment, and it was soon settled that she was to accompany us.

This child was twenty months old when we took her home, and she could not set her foot upon the ground, more than if she had not been twenty weeks; she had the appearance of a monkey, more than any of the human species I ever saw; she was indeed nothing, I may say, but skin and bone; and was all covered over with a kind of white hairy down, and her skin, by being so much exposed to the sun with the black woman, was like a duck's foot, so that she was really a loathsome object; but by the time that she had been with us a few weeks, she not only could stand, but, to our great enjoyment, was able to walk about holding by my hand; but after she began to get a little flesh upon her, she broke all out into boils; many of them of such a size, as to require to be lanced by the doctor, and the scars of several of them remain upon her until this day; but I shall have occasion to speak about the children again; and, therefore, will say no more about them at present.

When I was upon the eve of leaving Bangalore, I thought if God spared me to return home, I might expect to see some of the friends and relatives of the men, who would be inquiring after them; I, therefore, wished to make myself acquainted as well as possible with the state of the regiment; and, for this purpose went to the orderly room, and received a statement of the men who had died and gone home invalids; I shall merely mention the number, as the names would be of no use to the reader. Total strength of his Majesty's 1st, or Royal Scots, after the grenadier company joined in Wallajahbad, 1006. Joined at different periods since the regiment came to India, 941; that is, a total of 1947 men, out of which number have died, and been invalided unfit for further service, eight hundred and forty-five. – Number of women that came to the country with the regiment, sixty-two; joined at different periods, twenty, out of which died thirty-two. We had at this time only two children in life that came out with the regiment, and the total number of children that died upon the passage, and since we landed, fifty-seven; that is a total of nine hundred and thirty-four, including invalids, in less than seven years. There were also eight women who left their husbands in the country, and went to officers of different regiments, being "drawn away of their own lust and enticed;" that insatiable desire of "wearing of gold and putting on of apparel," displayed by too many, was their ruin; but before I left the country, three of these poor wretches died in great misery, and four of them became common prostitutes about Madras. The remaining female of this unhappy class, in consequence of some disease, was reduced to such a state of decrepitude, as to be drawn about in a small cart, being unable to walk. What a pity, and a shame it is, that ever such scenes should be exhibited by those who bear the name of Christians; and, particularly, in a country which we are labouring to Christianize. Sure I am, that it operates greatly against the success of these excellent missionaries, whose labours are carried on near any of our regiments; for, when the natives see the shamefully inconsistent conduct of the soldiers and other Europeans, they cannot but think that their own religion is better than that of our countrymen, since, generally speaking, these are much inferior to them in point of sobriety, and some other moral habits.

It is easier for the Christian reader to conceive, than for me to describe, my feelings for a few days previous to leaving the regiment; but just place yourself, as it were, in my circumstances, and let the past and the future be present to your mind: suppose yourself to have been for seven years absent from your native country, and from all those who were near and dear to you at home, and, above all, from the public ordinances of divine grace, and to have been travelling in that wilderness wherein (both literally and figuratively) there was often no way; and also to have been as it were at the gates of death, when there could be little rational hope entertained of ever being brought up again, much less of having the joyful anticipation of soon being restored to your native country, your friends, and even perhaps to a health of which you had long been deprived; and, in a word, to pure air, pure water, and, above all, to a pure Gospel – I say, suppose yourself placed in these circumstances, and see if you will wonder when I tell you my joyful feelings were excited almost to rapture upon this occasion. But you may be ready to say, was there nothing I was leaving behind me calculated to raise in my mind feelings of an opposite kind? No affectionate friends with whom I had enjoyed agreeable fellowship? No doubt there were such friends, and I bless God I can say, that they were friends who had not only travelled part of the weary way with me in that wilderness, but whose society I hope to enjoy again in the promised land; and when I saw and thought on such friends, my mind was no doubt agitated, and a conflict of joy and grief was awakened in my breast. I will just select one solitary individual for my present purpose, as her situation was peculiarly trying, and consequently better calculated to touch the sympathetic feelings, by way of illustrating what I have stated; namely, that I was not without friends from whose social and religious fellowship I was about to be separated.

This person was a young woman, named Mrs. Copwick, who came along with her husband from his Majesty's 33d, when the volunteers from that regiment joined us before they embarked for Europe. Her father and mother had been for a number of years in the regiment, and she was born and brought up in it; and when she attained her 18th year, the old people encouraged her to keep company with the drill serjeant of the corps, who was a man of very depraved habits, and who, in point of years, might have been her father, but he knew how to manage their failings by his own experience, and used to give them many a hearty treat of liquor for her sake, and to gratify his own insatiable desire for drinking at the same time.

The consequence was, notwithstanding the poor girl's disinclination, that her parents got them joined together in a marriage contract. Mrs. C. had been in our regiment for some time before I was acquainted with her, and our acquaintance arose from my wife bringing her into our hut shortly after we came to Bangalore. We were several times in each other's company before we had any conversation of a religious kind; and the first time that I may say any of us had a favourable opportunity was, I think, one Sabbath forenoon, when I was engaged reading Doddridge's Rise and Progress. I happened to make some observations on the subject, which gave her a suitable opportunity of opening her mind to me, which, it struck me, from some previous circumstances, she had been desirous of doing. I was truly delighted with the simple, undisguised manner in which she expressed her sentiments and feelings, and happy that I had it partly in my power to relieve the uneasiness of her mind, and to assist her inquiries after divine truth. From this time we endeavoured to make it convenient frequently to have some discourse together in our hut; the Sabbath, in a particular manner, being devoted by us for our mutual edification; and she found it a very severe trial indeed to be compelled to exchange our company and conversation for the company and unprofitable conversation of the men, when she went to her barrack-room at night, and, above all, to face her brutal husband, who perceived by her artless manner of endeavouring to persuade him to leave off his wicked courses, how she had been employed. Her attempts to reclaim him, alas! were all in vain, for the best answer that she would receive from him for this kindest of all love, was to keep her tongue to herself, and not trouble him with her – nonsense; and if she attempted, while he was defaming, to entreat, it was well if he did not enforce his denunciations by the weight of an unmerciful hand. Such was the miserable situation of this poor female, who had, besides this, the care of two young children, and was unwearied in her endeavours to make her husband and them comfortable. Now, my dear reader, if you have been placing yourself all along in my circumstances, you will certainly partake, in part, of my feelings; but, after all, it will only be in part; for although the power of imagination is great, yet I am persuaded you will come far short of the reality; still I am sure you will not wonder at my being sorry to part with this truly amiable young woman, who was earnestly desirous to obtain the knowledge of that way in which she might "escape the wrath to come," and in whom I felt the more deeply interested from a consideration of my former situation in the Prince of Wales's Island, where I so earnestly desired some person to assist me in inquiries of a similar kind. Now, all that I could do for her in this case, (for parted we must be,) was to give her my advice, my best gift16, and my blessing with it, namely, Doddridge's Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul, (which book I formerly mentioned having purchased from one of the men in Hydrabad,) and which had been of great use to myself; and I hope the blessing of God has rendered it of great service to her also. In a word, we parted with very sorrowful hearts, but our sorrow was not without hope, for that blessed religion which had formerly supported our minds, and cheered us in many a gloomy hour, left us not even now, when we needed comfort; but told us that the sufferings of the present time were not worthy to be compared with the glory that should be revealed in us at our meeting in Emmanuel's land; and that our light afflictions which might intervene, were but for a moment, and would, by the divine blessing, work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

The invalids left Bangalore upon the 13th September, 1813, and proceeded to Punamalee, a depôt for recruits from Europe, and invalids from India, homeward bound. We were ordered there to be in readiness for the first Company's ship that should touch at Madras. We arrived at Punamalee upon the 1st of October, 1813. I had in this place a severe attack of the bile upon the stomach; but it was not the disorder generally called by that name in this country; for it has nearly all the symptoms of the flux, being accompanied with great pain in the bowels, which are generally much swelled, along with a considerable degree of sickness. I was so much exhausted by it in two days, that I could not turn myself in the bed without assistance. I continued about a week very ill, and had more the appearance of getting a grave in India, than of ever seeing my native country again; but it was the wise saying of a worthy divine, that man is immortal until his day come; for while there are more days, there are means stirred up. But often, since I came to India, have I been inclined to take up the language of good Hezekiah, "I have said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave; I am deprived of the residue of my years. I said I shall not see the Lord, even the Lord, in the land of the living; I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world." But I can now add, with the same good man, "O Lord, thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption; thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back: for the grave cannot praise thee; death cannot celebrate thee; they that go down to the pit cannot hope for thy truth: the living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day." O that I may devote my spared life unto thy service.