REMARKABLE TRAVELLERS.

BY WILLIAM DALTON,

Author of "The Wolf-Boy of China," "The Tiger Prince," &c.

CAPTAIN KNOX.

TWENTY YEARS A PRISONER IN CEYLON.

ON Sunday, the 19th of October, 1679, two Englishmen (Robert Knox

and Stephen Rutland), with haggard features, barefooted, a few tattered clothes around them, and shoulders bleeding from the effects of bushes and thorns, arrived at the Dutch settlement of Manaar, on the seacoast of the island of Ceylon.

The news of their arrival caused a great commotion among the Hollanders, who flocked from all quarters to see them, as a strange and wonderful sight, for a rumour had spread through the community that the new comers had been for nineteen years and six months prisoners in the interior of the dominions of the ferocious Rajah Singhai.e., "Lion King" of Candy. Many of the people, however, had deeper motives: they desired to gain information about their husbands, fathers, sons, or brothers, who had for years been slaves to the native sovereign, ever the potent enemy, of the Dutch. From Manaar they were taken to Colombo, where the Dutch governor received them hospitably, and then heard from Robert Knox the gist of the following narrative.

In November of 1659, as the East India Company's ship the Ann, commanded by Captain Knox, was lading at Fort St. George, on the coast of Coromandel, for her homeward voyage, there happened so terrible a storm that the Captain was compelled to cut away his mainmast. This so disabled the ship that the Company's agent at the fort ordered Knox to run across to Cotiar, on the coast of Ceylon, to refit, and at the same time to take with him as passengers some Indian merchants, who desired to trade with the Cingalese while the ship's repairs were proceeding. What great events from trivial causes spring. The loss of that mast cost the captain his life, the East India Company several good servants, and the captain's son a captivity of nearly twenty years. But I must not anticipate.

Having but little confidence in the honesty of the Cingalese, the captain for several days forbade his men going ashore, and would only

permit them to treat for the materials for the ship's repairs from the boats. The alacrity, however, with which the people supplied his wants, the suavity, nay hospitality, of their manners, and, moreover, his desire to be the first Englishman to open up a trade with the richest island in the world, threw the plain seaman off his guard, and the crew soon were permitted to go to and fro as they pleased.

This state of things lasted twenty-one days, about which time a large body of troops, headed by a Dissuava (General), arrived at Cotiar. Prudence led the captain to recall at once to the ship every man who happened to be ashore. A messenger from the general soon came alongside, and declared that the latter officer was in charge of a letter from the Lion King of Candy to the commander of the ship. Captain Knox prudently declined going ashore in person to receive the royal letter, but in lieu thereof sent his son Robert and a Mr. Loveland. Being introduced to the Dissuava, that officer desired to know who they were and how long they intended remaining on that coast.

Robert answered, "We are English; and do not intend staying more than twenty or thirty days; but we crave permission to trade with his majesty the Lion King's subjects."

"The king," replied the Dissuava, "knows you are English: he is glad that you have arrived in his dominion. Moreover, his majesty has commanded me to assist you in all you desire; also he has sent a letter, but it must be delivered to none but the captain himself.”

"We are now twelve miles inland," replied Robert; "the captain cannot leave his ship to come so far; but if your lordship will please to go down to the seaside, my father will wait on you to receive the letter."

To this the Dissuava consented, stipulating only that the journey should be made the next morning, the strangers remaining his guests in the interim. Thus did the wily Cingalese entrap two of the English ship's officers: the third and chief was to be taken as easily. In the evening, the Dissuava sent a present of cattle, fruits, &c., to the captain. The messenger delivering these on board ship the next morning informed him that his two men were then coming down with the Dissuava, who desired to see him on shore to deliver the letter from the king into his own hands. The simple seaman, now distrusting nothing, went ashore with seven men, but seating themselves beneath the branches of a tamarind-tree to await the Dissuava's coming, they were surrounded by native troops and borne into the interior to the presence of that personage. Nor did the success of the treacherous Cingalese end here, for the day after the long-boat's crew coming ashore to look after the captain were

all made captives. The Dissuava had thus seized two boats and eighteen men, but he desired to get the ship. To accomplish this, the rogue told the captain that he and his men were only detained until the king could get ready some letters and presents for the English sovereign; “but,” he added, "the Dutch will become jealous of an English ship being so long on the coast, and fire into her, so you had better therefore send a messenger to your officer in command and tell him to bring her up the river." Of course the captain saw through this very shallow scheme. Nevertheless he was compelled to obey, and so he at once sent his son Robert with the desired order. The result was as it should have been—a round robin from the remaining crew, who declared "they would not obey the captain in this instance;" and so they sailed, leaving their commander, his son Robert, and their other shipmates, in the hands of the Dissuava. The good ship having escaped, the native chief returned to Court, leaving orders that the captain and his son should be parted from their countrymen and sent to a town called Bender-Coos-wat, some thirty miles northward of the city of Candy.

At this place the two captives were treated well for about twelve months, when they were unfortunately both seized with the fever of the country, and from which but one recovered-Robert, who now, in addition to captivity, had to mourn the loss of his father.

"Now," to use his own words, "left desolate, sick, and in captivity, having none to comfort him but God, who is the father of the fatherless, and hears the groans of such as are in captivity, his misery became the more acute since he had not the means to bury his parent. In the first instance he sent a little black boy who had become attached to him, and who served as interpreter, to the people of the town to desire their assistance; but they mocked the poor fellow by sending him a rope, with which he might drag the body by the neck into the wood, for no other aid would they give unless he would pay for it."

This barbarous answer, he tells us, increased his trouble for his father's death, since now the body was "likely to lie unburied and become a prey to the wild beasts of the wood, for the ground was very hard, and he had not tools to dig with ;" but remembering he still possessed a gold coin or two and a ring, he hired a man, who helped him to consign his parent's corpse to earth. Left desolate and destitute, save what food he might gather from the woods or the river, and worn to a mere skeleton by grief and ague, he day by day consoled himself by the perusal of two religious books which he had thoughtfully brought with him from the ship. These he read so frequently that he soon got them by heart, but he says pathetically, though they were good and pious writings, he longed for

the truth from the original fountain, the Bible; yet what but a miracle could bring that holy book to him in the midst of those wild woods? But such a miracle happened, for one day, while fishing, with his black boy, an old man asked the latter if his master could read, because, if so, he was in possession of a book that had been left by the Portuguese in Colombo. At Robert's request, the native fetched the volume, and readily sold it to him for a knitted cap. It was the Bible. Its possession was the first gleam of comfort and happiness he knew in Ceylon. He gratefully tells us that he regarded it as a great miracle that God should bestow upon him such an extraordinary blessing, and bring him a Bible in his own native language in such a remote part of the world, and where an Englishman had never before set foot. During his long sojourn in the land, the holy book and he parted neither by night nor day.

Some time after this, Robert met with one of his shipmates, Stephen Rutland, and henceforward they lived together, gaining a livelihood as pedlars-i.e., going from town to town buying and selling tobacco, pepper, garlic, combs, and different kinds of ironware.

This vocation must have been very profitable, for in the course of three or four years we find Knox a prosperous landholder in the capital of Candy, living as finely as any nobleman, and with money enough to lend to others, which he did, according to the custom of the country, at 50 per cent. per annum ; still, as he quaintly tells us, he could not so far forget his native country to be content to dwell in a strange land, where there was a famine of God's word and sacrament, the want of which made all things of little value to him.

Of this city he tells us the houses are small low thatched cottages, built with sticks daubed with clay; the walls are smooth, and the king will not permit them to be higher than one story. They employ no carpenters, but each man builds his own dwelling, and that too without using a single nail. Everything which might be nailed is tied with rattans and other strings which grow in the woods. The country being warm, many of them will not take pains to clay their walls, but make them of boughs and leaves of trees. The poorest sort have not above one room in their houses,-few above two, unless they be great men; neither doth the king allow them to build better. They have commonly two buildings, one opposite to the other, joined together on each side with a wall, which makes a square courtyard in the middle. Round about against the walls of their houses are banks of clay to sit on. Their slaves and servants dwell round about without, in other houses, with their wives and children.

No very inviting description of a city wherein to dwell for so many years. While residing in this place, Knox seems ever to have been in fear of the freaks of the king, one of the cruelest of a cruel race; and with reason, as, when tired of tormenting his meaner subjects, his lion majesty would amuse himself by commanding his great nobles to slay each other— a command too readily if not joyfully obeyed, as the executioners thereby hoped to succeed to the wealth or offices of their victims. Of this amiable monarch it is said that once, to try the hearts of his attendants, and to see what they would do, being in the water swimming, he feigned to be near drowning, and cried out for help. Upon which two young men, more adventurous and forward than the rest, immediately went to his aid, and taking hold of his body, brought the king safe ashore—a service for which his majesty seemed grateful, for he commanded them to appear at the palace. The young men, thinking their fortunes made, obeyed; but the tyrant, turning to one of his great officers, said, "Take both these and cut off their heads, since they dared to presume to lay their vile hands on my person, and did not rather prostrate themselves, that I might lay my hand on them for my relief and safety." A few minutes after the young men were slain.

Now, such freaks being of common occurrence, it is not to be wondered that Knox desired to free himself from such a tiger's den as Candy. Thus he determined to escape at the very first opportunity; but, alas! how sorely was our hero's patience tried, for nine years passed away before that opportunity came. Indeed, escape was no easy matter in a country covered with dense forests and jungle, filled with savage beasts and reptiles, and of the geography of which the friends were in total ignorance. Moreover, all roads and pathways leading to the coasts had been destroyed by the reigning king, to keep the Portuguese and British from the capital. To inquire of the natives the way to the coast would be sheer madness; for, being white, the latter would suspect their design, and send them back to Candy in chains as runaway slaves, for in that capacity alone they were regarded by the Lion King, notwithstanding he permitted them to be at liberty and to prosper within his realm.

Nearly two years Knox and Rutland meditated plans of escape; and at length resolved to begin by returning to their old vocation of peddling. Having provided themselves with the necessary goods, they proceeded from village to village, doing a good trade, and at the same time cunningly eliciting from the people "where the isle was thinnest and fullest inhabited, where and how the watches lay from one country to another, and what commodities were proper for them to carry into all parts," pretending that they would furnish themselves with such wares as the