Aileen Aroon, A Memoir
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amoment, only broken by some apologetic remark from Pandoo.
When at length happy days of convalescence came round, and I was able toget up and even eat my meals at table, I found my friends the crows alittle more civil and respectful. The thought occurred to me to makefriends with them; I consequently began a regular system of feeding themafter every meal-time. One old crow I caught, and chained to a chairwith a fiddle-string. He was a funny old fellow, with one club-foot.He never refused his food from the very day of his captivity, and I soontaught him a few tricks. One was to lie on his back when so placed forany length of time till set on his legs again. This was called turningthe turtle. But one day this bird of freedom hopped away, fiddle-stringand all, and a whole fortnight elapsed before I saw him again. I wasjust beginning to put faith in a belief common in India--namely, that acrow or any other bird, that has been for any time living with humanbeings, is put to instant death the moment he returns to the bosom ofhis family; when one day, while engaged breakfasting some forty crows,my club-footed pet reappeared, and actually picked the bit from my hand,and ever after, until I left, he came regularly thrice a day to be fed.The other crows came with surprising exactness at meal-times; first onewould alight on the shutter outside the window, and peep in, as if toascertain how nearly done I happened to be, then fly away for five orten minutes, when he would return, and have another keek. As soon,however, as I approached the window, and raised my arm, I was salutedwith a chorus of cawing from the banyan-tree; then down they swooped indozens; and it was no very easy task to fill so many mouths, althoughthe loaves were Government ones.
These pets had a deadly enemy in a brown raven--the Brahma kite; swifterthan arrow from bow he descended, describing the arc of a great circle,and carrying off in his flight the largest lamp of bread he could spy.He, for one, never stopped to bless the hand of the giver; but thecrows, I know, were not ungrateful. Club-foot used to perch beside meon a chair, and pick his morsels from the floor, always premising thattwo windows at least must be open. As to the others, their persecutionsended; they never appeared except when called upon. The last act oftheir aggression was to devour a very fine specimen of praying mantis Ihad confined in a quinine bottle. The first day the paper cover hadbeen torn off, and the mantis had only escaped by keeping close at thebottom; next day, the cover was again broken, and the bottle itselfcapsized; the poor mantis had prayed in vain for once. Club-foot, Ithink, must have stopped all day in the banyan-tree, for I never went tothe window to call him without his appearing at once with a joyful caw;this feat I used often to exhibit to my shipmates who came to visit meduring my illness.
One thing about talking-birds I don't remember ever to have seennoticed--namely, the habit some birds have of talking in their sleep.And, just as a human being will often converse in his dream in along-forgotten language, so birds will often at night be heard repeatingwords or phrases they never could remember in their waking moments. Astarling of mine often roused me at night by calling out my dog's namein loud, distinct tones, although by day his attempts to do so werequite ineffectual. So with a venerable parrot we had on board the saucy_Skipjack_. Polly was a quiet bird in daylight, and much given toserious thought; but at times, in the stillness of the middle watch atsea, would startle the sailors from their slumbers by crying out: "Deen,deen--kill, kill, kill!" in quite an alarming manner. Polly had beenall through the Indian mutiny, and was shut up in Delhi during the sadsiege, so her dreams were not very enviable.
Do parrots know what they say? At times I think they do. Our parson onboard the old _Rumbler_ had no more attentive listener to the Sabbathmorning service than wardroom Polly; but there were times when Pollymade responses when silence would have been more judicious. There wasan amount of humour which it is impossible to describe, in the sly wayshe one day looked the parson in the face, as he had just finished aburst of eloquence both impassioned and impressive, and uttered one ofher impertinent remarks. For some months, she was denied access tochurch because she had once forgotten herself so far as to draw corksduring the sermon--this being considered "highly mutinous andinsubordinate conduct." But she regained her privilege. Poor Poll!I'll never forget the solemn manner in which she shut her eyes one dayat the close of the service, as if still musing on the words of thesermon, on the mutability of all things created, and remarked: "Vanity,vanity, all is vanity, says--says:" she could say no more--the reststuck in her throat, and we were left to ponder on her unfortunate lossof memory in uttering the admonitory sentiment.
CHAPTER NINETEEN.
MY CABIN MATES AND BEDFELLOWS: A SKETCH OF LIFE ON THE COAST OF AFRICA.
"Whaur are gaun crawlin' ferlie, Your impudence protects ye sairly."
Burns.
I was idly sauntering along the only street in Simon's Town one fine dayin June, when I met my little, fat, good-humoured friend, PaymasterPumpkin. He was walking at an enormous pace for the length of his legs,and his round face was redder than ever. He would hardly stop to tellme that H.M.S. _Vesuvius_ was ordered off in two hours--provisions for athousand men--the Kaffirs (scoundrels) had crossed some river (nameunpronounceable) with an army of one hundred thousand men, and were ontheir way to Cape Town, with the murderous intention of breaking everyhuman bone in that fair town, and probably picking them leisurelyafterwards. The upshot of all this, as far as I was concerned, was mybeing appointed to as pretty a model, and as dirty a little craft, asthere was in the service, namely, H.M.S. _Pen-gun_. Our armamentconsisted of four pea-shooters and one Mons Meg; and our orders were torepair to the east coast of Africa, and there pillage, burn, and destroyevery floating thing that dared to carry a slave, without permissionfrom Britannia's queen. Of our adventures there, and how we ruled thewaves, I am at present going to say nothing. I took up my commission assurgeon of this interesting craft, and we soon after sailed.
On first stepping on board the _Pen-gun_, a task which was by no meansdifficult to a person with legs of even moderate length, my nose--yes,my nose--that interesting portion of my physiognomy, which for monthsbefore had inhaled nothing more nauseous than the perfume of a thousandheaths, or the odour of a thousand roses--my nose was assailed by asmell which burst upon my astonished senses, like a compound ofasafoetida, turpentine, and Stilton cheese. As I gasped for breath, thelieutenant in command endeavoured to console me by saying--"Oh, it'sonly the cockroaches: you'll get used to it by-and-by."
"_Only_ the cockroaches!" repeated I to myself, as I went below to lookafter my cabin. This last I found to be of the following dimensions--namely, five feet high (I am five feet ten), six feet long, and six feetbroad at the top; but, owing to the curve of the vessel's side, only twofeet broad at the deck. A cot hung fore and aft along the ship's side,and the remaining furniture consisted of a doll's chest of drawers,beautifully fitted up on top with a contrivance to hold utensils oflavation, and a Liliputian writing-table on the other; thus diminishingmy available space to two square feet, and this in a break-neckposition. My cot, too, was very conveniently placed for receiving thewater which trickled freely from my scuttle when the wind blew, and moreslowly when the wind didn't; so that every night, very much against mywill, I was put under the operations of practical hydropathy. And thiswas my _sanctum, sanctorum_; but had it been clean, or capable ofcleaning, I am a philosopher, and would have rejoiced in it; but it wasneither; and ugh! it was inhabited.
Being what is termed in medical parlance, of the nervo-sanguineoustemperament, my horror of the loathsome things about me for the firstweek almost drove me into a fever. I could not sleep at night, or if Ifell into an uneasy slumber, I was awakened from fearful dreams, to findsome horrid thing creeping or running over my hands or face. When alittle boy, I used to be fond of turning up stones in green meadows, tofeast my eyes upon the many creeping things beneath. I felt now as if Imyself were living _under_ a stone. However, after a year'sslaver-hunting, I got so used to all these creatures, that I did notmind them a bit. I could crack scorpions, bruise the heads
ofcentipedes, laugh at earwigs, be delighted with ants, eat weevils,admire tarantulas, encourage spiders. As for mosquitoes, flies, and allthe smaller genera, I had long since been thoroughly inoculated; andthey could now bleed me as much as they thought proper, without my beingaware of it. It is of the habits of some of these familiar friends Ipurpose giving a short sketch in this chapter and next.
Of the "gentlemen of England who live at home at ease," very few, Isuspect, would know a cockroach, although they found the animal in theirsoap--as I have done more than once. Cockroaches are of two principalkinds--the small, nearly an inch long; and the large, nearly two and ahalf inches. Let the reader fancy to himself a common horsefly of ourown country, half an inch in breadth, and of the length just stated, thebody, ending in two forks, which project beyond the wings, the head,furnished with powerful