detected in familiarity with my wife. He was condemned,
and I stayed to eat share of him; the ceremony took
us up three days, and it was only last night that
we finished him.” Mr. Miller was present
at this conversation, and the man spoke with perfect
seriousness. A native of the island of Nias,
who had stabbed a Batta man in a fit of frenzy at
Batang-tara river, near Tappanuli bay, and endeavoured
to make his escape, was, upon the alarm being given,
seized at six in the morning, and before eleven, without
any judicial process, was tied to a stake, cut in
pieces with the utmost eagerness while yet alive, and
eaten upon the spot, partly broiled, but mostly raw.
His head was buried under that of the man whom he
had murdered. This happened in December 1780,
when Mr. William Smith had charge of the settlement.
A raja was fined by Mr. Bradley for having caused
a prisoner to be eaten at a place too close to the
Company’s settlement, and it should have been
remarked that these feasts are never suffered to take
place withinside their own kampongs. Mr. Alexander
Hall made a charge in his public accounts of a sum
paid to a raja as an inducement to him to spare a
man whom he had seen preparing for a victim:
and it is in fact this commendable discouragement of
the practice by our government that occasions its
being so rare a sight to Europeans, in a country where
there are no travellers from curiosity, and where
the servants of the Company, having appearances to
maintain, cannot by their presence as idle spectators
give a sanction to proceedings which it is their duty
to discourage, although their influence is not sufficient
to prevent them.
A Batta chief, named raja Niabin, in the year 1775
surprised a neighbouring kampong with which he was
at enmity, killed the raja by stealth, carried off
the body, and ate it. The injured family complained
to Mr. Nairne, the English chief of Natal, and prayed
for redress. He sent a message on the subject
to Niabin, who returned an insolent and threatening
answer. Mr. Nairne, influenced by his feelings
rather than his judgment (for these people were quite
removed from the Company’s control, and our
interference in their quarrels was not necessary)
marched with a party of fifty or sixty men, of whom
twelve were Europeans, to chastise him; but on approaching
the village they found it so perfectly enclosed with
growing bamboos, within which was a strong paling,
that they could not even see the place or an enemy.
DEATH OF MR. NAIRNE.
As they advanced however to examine the defences a
shot from an unseen person struck Mr. Nairne in the
breast, and he expired immediately. In him was
lost a respectable gentleman of great scientific acquirements,
and a valuable servant of the Company. It was
with much difficulty that the party was enabled to
save the body. A caffree and a Malay who fell
in the struggle were afterwards eaten. Thus the
experience of later days is found to agree with the
uniform testimony of old writers; and although I am
aware that each and every of these proofs taken singly
may admit of some cavil, yet in the aggregate they
will be thought to amount to satisfactory evidence
that human flesh is habitually eaten by a certain
class of the inhabitants of Sumatra.