the most
quixotic notion that ever entered a human brain; and these jungled
islands, to which I came after a shocking vast orgy one night at
Calcutta, when I fired not only the city but the river, pleased my fancy
to such an extent, that at one time I intended to abide there. I was at
the one called in the chart 'Saddle Hill,' the smallest of them, I
think: and seldom have I had such sensations of peace as I lay a whole
burning day in a rising vale, deeply-shaded in palm and tropical
ranknesses, watching thence the _Speranza_ at anchor: for there was a
little offing here at the shore whence the valley arose, and I could see
one of its long peaks lined with cocoanut-trees, and all cloud burned
out of the sky except the flimsiest lawn-figments, and the sea as
absolutely calm as a lake roughened with breezes, yet making a
considerable noise in its breaking on the shore, as I have noticed in
these sorts of places: I do not know why. These poor Andaman people seem
to have been quite savage, for I met a number of them in roaming the
island, nearly skeletons, yet with limbs and vertebrae still, in
general, cohering, and in some cases dry-skinned and mummified relics of
flesh, and never anywhere a sign of clothes: a very singular thing,
considering their nearness to high old civilisations all about them.
They looked small and black, or almost; and I never found a man without
finding on or near him a spear and other weapons: so that they were
eager folk, and the wayward dark earth was in them, too, as she should
be in her children. They had in many cases some reddish discoloration,
which may have been the traces of betel-nut stains: for betel-nuts
abound there. And I was so pleased with these people, that I took on
board with the gig one of their little tree-canoes: which was my
foolishness: for gig and canoe were only three nights later washed from
the decks into the middle of the sea.

* * * * *

I passed down the Straits of Malacca, and in that short distance between
the Andaman Islands, and the S.W. corner of Borneo I was thrice so
mauled, that at times it seemed quite out of the question that anything
built by man could escape such unfettered cataclysms, and I resigned
myself, but with bitter reproaches, to perish darkly. The effect of the
third upon me, when it was over, was the unloosening afresh of all my
evil passion: for I said: 'Since they mean to slay me, death shall find
me rebelliou