Desecration

“ You must know, then, that we are subject to more than the random gun-shot in the field, for we are sometimes taken out of our house a hundred at a time, and put into a large basket to be placed in a meadow or spare plat of ground suiting the purpose, there to be murdered at leisure. This they call "shooting from the trap," [3] and is done in this way:
We being imprisoned, as I have said, as thick as we can stand in the basket, a man is placed by us to take us out singly, and carry us to a small box, at the distance of fifty or sixty yards ”

“ Directly somebody is seized with this malady a tree is selected at some distance from the settlement up which a little bower is hurriedly made and the person attacked is placed there and left with a little food at hand. Next day the relatives go to see if he or she is living and call out their demands, in a loud voice, a long way off. If there is a movement or an answer they go nearer and throw up some food but if there is no sign of life they hasten back and leave the corpse to decompose in the bower that now serves as a sepulchre. ”

“ The scenes of destruction and murder which we frequently passed in the villages and on our daily march, were dreadful. Houses and furniture burnt, men and women mutilated and murdered, lying about in the most disgusting and barbarous manner, some with their throats cut, some with their eyes and ears gone, and others cut up and most dreadfully exposed; all this for revenge, because they would not, or could not, supply the French army with provisions, and in the hope that these savage proceedings would terrify others into instant compliance. ”

“ The moment that the whole party have taken up their position, the assault is commenced by hurling down large fragments of stone; and the deafening cries and shouts of the hunters so bewilder the affrighted animal, that he knows not where to turn. Meantime he is wounded, the ring closes round him, he seeks vainly for some opening, and in the desperation of his despair would plunge madly down some steep abyss, but there also he is mocked by horrid shouts, and now, struck to the earth by some overwhelming blow, he sinks to rise no more. ”

“ The guns are watching for the targets at all hours—the ever-hungry, ever-ready, murderous, cunning, quick, scientifically-calculating, marvellously-accurate and also the guessing, wondering, blind, groping, helpless guns, which toss their steel messengers over streams, woodlands, and towns, searching for unseen prey in a wide landscape.
Accurate and murderous they seem when you drop low behind a trench wall or huddle in a dug-out as you hear an approaching scream and the earth trembles and the air is wracked by a concussion, and the cry of a man a few yards away tells of a hit. ”

“ Some were torn to pieces on the rack, some were burned to ashes and powder, some were roasted on pillars, some were torn with red-hot tongs, some were shut up in houses and burned in masses, some were hanged on trees, some were executed with the sword, some were plunged in the water, many had gags put into their mouths so that they could not speak and were thus led away to death. Like sheep and lambs, crowds of them were led away to be slaughtered and butchered. ”

“ Violation, mutilation, and impalement were mere common atrocities; many were roasted by slow fires; others cut in pieces while alive, or dragged by mules, with ropes passed through their wounds; some were blown up by gunpowder placed in the ears and mouth; many rolled off the rocks, with their hands bound between their legs, among precipices, where they were abandoned to a lingering death ”

“ So, swallowing a mouthful and a peg, I went into my laboratory to plan murder—legalised murder—on the biggest scale it ever has been planned. I was on the track of a weapon which would make war not only an affair of a single campaign, but of a single half-hour. It would not want an army to work it either. Once let an individual, or two or three at most, in possession of my weapon-that-was-to-be, get within a mile or so of even the largest body of disciplined troops that ever yet a nation put into the field, and—pouf!—in about the time it takes you to say that they would be all dead men. ”

“ On this, every one of the miscreants, emboldened by his fall, wanted to fire his gun at him, or strike him with blows of the sledge-hammer, or stab him with a knife or swords, every one wanted to draw a drop of blood from the fallen hero, and tear off a shred from his garments. ”

“ Closing one's eyes one could see the tall grandsires fighting in the beech forest, a brown patch of hide sighted over the brass knife-blade bead, and death, and to load again with the flat neck of the bullet set in the palm of the hand and covered with powder. ”

“ Only the young birds are fit to eat, but we read in the accounts of our pioneer naturalists that from eight to twenty birds were often killed by the single discharge of a gun, and that as the survivors would again and again return to the lurking- place of their destroyer, attracted by the distressing cries of their wounded comrades, the unfeeling sportsman would continue his work of destruction until more than half of a large flock would be exterminated. ”

“ How like a live thing a shell snarls—as some wild beast, in ferocious glee thrusting the cruel fangs in earth and rock, rending livid flesh with its savage claws, and its fetid breath with poison powder scorching the autumn wind! ’Most always it fizzes and funks in shameful waste. Bullets are the nasty things; a who-whit, a dry spat, a thin hole drilled in a frightful way, as snakes sling their venom in sly and easy scorn. When we got halfway up, and into the angle, so that Russian trenches were on three sides, a number sped about us. ”

“ Muskets smashed at the stock, swords broken, bayonets bent, caps crushed; belts, plumes, and epaulettes torn; drums broken and bugles trod flat; half-buried shot and exploded shells, strewed all the ground, which was furrowed, torn up, and soaked in blood; trees were barked and lopped by the passing bullets, and hedges were scorched by fire.
Already the plunderers had been at work; an officer, covered with wounds, lay stripped, nearly nude, so his uniform had doubtless been a rich one. He was quite dead, and wore on his left arm a bracelet of female hair—a love relic ”

“ It throws the mass of the enemy into disorder, and it is soon just a mob, which turns its back and flees frantically, as fast as it can go, falling under our rifle fire, and strewing the ground with corpses and innumerable wounded who drag themselves along on the ground begging for mercy. ”

“ The flashing steel glitters sharply in the air, nearer and nearer it descends over the victim, in another moment it will be sheathed in her heart, when a sudden cry rings through the room, swift footsteps cross the floor, strong arms seize the body of the murderess from behind and wrench her away from her helpless prey. ”

“ He had almost reached the woods—in another moment he would be safe, when the sharp, whip-like report of War-Cloud’s rifle was heard, and the fleeing man fell to the dust.
The next instant he was surrounded by his pursuers, who made a litter for him with their rifles, and carried him to the house. The injured man was bleeding copiously, and appeared to be seriously, if not mortally wounded. ”

“ On every hand there were evidences of the terrific fighting that had been going on for several days. The fields were strewn with clothing, knapsacks, canteens, muskets, dead horses and broken artillery caissons, and the trees were riddled with bullets, shot and shell. The dead had been buried but with such haste that in many places the bodies were scarcely covered. One time as we came to a halt I was horrified to see a human hand protruding from the earth near my foot. ”

“ The rifles are caked, the uniforms caked, everything is fluid and dissolved, the earth one dripping, soaked, oily mass in which lie the yellow pools with red spiral streams of blood and into which the dead, wounded, and survivors slowly sink down. ”

“ This pitiless massacre includes even the larvæ and pupæ of the males. The executioners drag them from their cells, run them through with their stings, greedily suck the liquids contained in their bodies, and then cast their remains to the winds. This slaughter goes on for many days, continuing till the males have been completely got rid of, they not being able to defend themselves, as they have no stings. ”

“ From the windows, from the roofs, from the trees, the people fired upon the soldiery: the soldiery raked the streets with their fire in return, and stormed the dwellings, and threw the dead bodies out of the casements. The roads were wet everywhere with a tide of blood, always rising higher and higher: the corpses were strewn in all directions. ”

“ In every shattered wood, in every battered hamlet, in all the slopes and dips by which the face of the country was diversified, they lie concealed, tens of thousands of them, in an elaborately and cunningly contrived system of underground defences, armed with rifles, bombs, machine-guns, trench-mortars, and ready to spring out, with all their claws and teeth displayed, on the approach of their prey, the man in khaki. ”

“ In a hideous little room at the back the dead are prepared for their last resting place—prepared in a manner which is shocking, but is the best that can be done. I cannot describe it. In the cool of the evening, when perhaps the enemy's fire has slackened a little, and the bullets only sob very faintly overhead, and the shells have ceased their brutal attentions, stretcher parties come quietly and carry out the corpses. ”

“ Led through the gloom, as if following the lurid eyes of some demoniac being, the soldiers find their way from house to house, from one cluster of cottages to another, rush in, seize their victims, drag them out, and shoot them dead. ”

“ Armed with ponderous clubs and poisoned arrows, their naked bodies besmeared with the juices of noisome plants, and rendered hideous by strange punctures, their long black hair flying loose over their bodies, these tremendous savages would issue from their woods, yelling like beasts of{218} prey, and falling on the plantations of the Europeans, would fire their sugar-mills, slaughter the inhabitants, and make horrid banquets upon their quivering limbs. ”

“ If any of the men die while on an excursion, they erect a scaffold about five feet high, on which they place the corpse covered with the skin of a deer, a bear, or some other animal they have killed in hunting. The dead man’s rifle, tomahawk, bow and arrows are placed along side of him on the scaffold, to which the whole is bound with strings cut from some hide. ”

“ The danger of drawing some others of the hunters to the spot, by repeated firing, was deemed a sufficient reason for not again resorting to the rifle, after it had performed the important duty of disabling the victim. The weapon of the dead man was not to be found, and had doubtless, together with many other less valuable and lighter articles, that he was accustomed to carry about his person, become a prize to his destroyer. ”

“ Assembling his followers, he descended in the night, and guarding all the avenues to prevent escape, he set fire to the house of the probatim, who perished miserably with sixteen of his family, all of whom were burned alive, save a woman, who was killed by a rifle-shot when in the act of leaping from a window with an infant in her arms. ”

“ Under the rock wall, they found a man, dead on his knees, leaning against the wall; his gun, still cocked and deadly, was resting against his shoulder and needing only the movement of a finger to sweep with deadly hail the cotton-bales. ”

“ Every one shoots standing, a few, a very few fire kneeling. No [Pg 33] one tries to take shelter. We reach a little depression in the ground: here the red trousers dead or wounded lie on a heap ground. We knock ‘down’ or bayonet the wounded, for we know that those scoundrels fire at our backs when we have gone [Pg 34] by. There was a Frenchman there stretched out, full length, face down, pretending to be dead. A kick from a strong fusilier soon taught him that we were there. ”

“ Sometimes, when a line of men is crawling through the grass tracking an animal, the trigger of a gun will catch in the stalks, the gun will explode, there will be a scream of a man in the agony of death, and the scared owner of the gun will be charged with murder, for there are no accidents in native law. ”

“ Barricades appear in the streets; and at intervals there is to be heard the roaring of cannon, and desultory firing of musketry from the flat roofs, killing a peaceable citizen now and then, but doing little execution on the enemy. ”

“ Every effort is made to exterminate the otter. No sooner does one venture down the river than traps, gins, nets, dogs, prongs, brickbats, every species of missile, all the artillery of vulgar destruction, are brought against its devoted head. ”

“ There was, I was told, very little stealing but, in the forest districts where the woodcutters all carried long handled hatchets, a blow with which was invariably fatal, there was a good deal of slaughter, as in a quarrel a man struck with whatever was handy. ”

“ Their ideas upon this subject are very peculiar—they attach criminality generally to the place where the injury has been received, and not to the individual who has inflicted it. This renders the atonement more distressing for they watch near the spot like a Cat for it's prey and the first person who may appear is quite certain of being assaulted—they thow one or two spears, and whether they kill wound or even miss their object I am told they consider the atonement sufficient, as I hear it has been satisfactorily proved that they seldom attempt any farther violence. ”