the window
” In a few momenb my pain, palpita- tion, and difficulty of breathing ceased ; but my thirst continued intolerable. I called aloud for water for God’s fake; had been concluded dead ; but, as loon as they heard meamongstthem, they had still ifclie respect, and tendernels for me to cry out, Give h’nn water, Give him water-! nor would’ one of them at the window at- tempt to touch it until I had drank, But from the water I found no relief; my thirst was rather increased by it ; sol de- termined to drink no more, but patient- ly wait the event s and kept my mouth
1 moist from time to time by sucking the perspiration out of my shirt-sleeves, and catching the drops as they fell, like hea- vy rain from my head and face : you can hardly imagine how unhappy I was if any of them escaped my mouth. ” 1 came into the prison without coat or waist-coat; the season was too hot to
bear the former, and the latter tempted the avarice of one of the guards, who rob- bed me of it when we were under the Veranda. Whilst I was,at this second window, I vvas observed by one of my miserable companions, on the right of me, in the expedient of allaying my thirst by fucking my Hurt-sleeve. He took the hint, and robbed me from time to time ot a considerable part of my store ; tho? after I. detected him, I had even the ad- dress to begin on that sleeve first; when I thought my reservoirs were sufficiently replenished-; and our mouths and noses often met in the contest. This, plunder- er I found afterwards was a worthy young gentleman in the service, Mr. Luffiington, one of the sew who eseaped from death, and since paid me the com- pliment of assuring me, fie believed he owed his life to the many comfortable draughts he had from my sleeves. Before I hit upon this happy expedient, I had, in an ungovernable fit of thirst, attempt- ed drinking my urine ; but it was so in- tensely bitter there was no enduring a second taste, whereas no Bristol water could be more soft or pleasant than, what arose from perspiration.
*”‘ By half an hour past eleven the much greater number of those living were in an outrageous delirium, and the others quite ungovernable ; few retaining any calmness, but the ranks next the windows. They all now found, that water, instead of relieving, rather heightened their un- easinesses ; aud, Air, An’, was the gene- ral cry. Every insult that cquld be de- visedagainst the guardrail the opprobrious names and abuse that the Suba, Monick- ebund, ire. could be loaded .with, were repeated to provoke the gaard to sire up- on us, every man that could,, rushing tu- multuoussy towards the windows with eager hopes of meeting the first, soot. Then a general prayer to Heaven, to ha- sten the approach pi the flames to the right and left of us, and to put a period to our misery.. But these failing, thev whose strength and spirits were quite exhausted, laid themselves down and expired quietly upon their fellows : others, who, had vet some strength and vigour left, made a last effort for the windows, and several sirc-
C c c 2 ceeded
‘0’86* Deplorable’deaths of the-EnilifB’dt Calcutta. Vol. i. ceeded, by leaping and scrambling over the backs and heads of those in the first ranks; and got hold of the bars, from which there was no removing them. Ma- ny to the right and left- funk with -the violent pressure, and were soon suffocat- ed ; for now a steam arose from the liv- ing and the dead, -which affected us, in all its circumstances, as if we were forcibly held with our heads over a bowl full of
.strong volatile spirit of hartshorn, until suffocated ; nor could the effluvia of the one.be distinguished from the other; and frequently, when T was forced, by the load upon my head and sooulders, to hold my face down, I was obliged, near as I was to the window, instantly to raise it again to escape suffocation. “I need not, my dear friend, ask
your .commiseration, when I tell you, that in this plight, from half an hour palt eleven till near two in the morning, I sustained the weight of a heavy man, with his knees in my back, and the pres- sure of his whole body on my head; a Dutch serjeant, who had taken his seat upon my left slioulder, and a Topaz* bearing on my right ; all which nothing could have enabled me long to support; but the props and pressure equally sustain- ed me all around. The two latter I frequently dislodged, by -shifting my hold on the bars, and driving my knuckles in- to their ribs; but my friend above stuck fast, and as he held by two bars, was inmiovaable.
” The repeated trials and efforts I made to dislodge this insufferable incum- brarice upon me at last quite exhausted me; andtowards two o’clock, finding I must quit the window, or sink where I was, 1 resolved cm the former, having bore, truly for the fake of others, infi- nitely srfore for life than- the best of it is worth.
