profit by the lesson I meant to teach them; and added that, from
his knowledge of the country and its customs, he feared we should
fall into great peril by giving offence to these brutal idol
worshippers. This somewhat stayed my purpose, but I was still
uneasy all that day to put my project in execution; and that
evening, meeting the Scots merchant in our walk about the town, I
again called upon him to aid me in it. When he found me resolute
he said that, on further thoughts, he could not but applaud the
design, and told me I should not go alone, but he would go with me;
but he would go first and bring a stout fellow, one of his
countrymen, to go also with us; “and one,” said he, “as famous for
his zeal as you can desire any one to be against such devilish
things as these.” So we agreed to go, only we three and my man-
servant, and resolved to put it in execution the following night
about midnight, with all possible secrecy.
We thought it better to delay it till the next night, because the
caravan being to set forward in the morning, we suppose the
governor could not pretend to give them any satisfaction upon us
when we were out of his power. The Scots merchant, as steady in
his resolution for the enterprise as bold in executing, brought me
a Tartar’s robe or gown of sheepskins, and a bonnet, with a bow and
arrows, and had provided the same for himself and his countryman,
that the people, if they saw us, should not determine who we were.
All the first night we spent in mixing up some combustible matter,
with aqua vitae, gunpowder, and such other materials as we could
get; and having a good quantity of tar in a little pot, about an
hour after night we set out upon our expedition.
We came to the place about eleven o’clock at night, and found that
the people had not the least suspicion of danger attending their
idol. The night was cloudy: yet the moon gave us light enough to
see that the idol stood just in the same posture and place that it
did before. The people seemed to be all at their rest; only that
in the great hut, where we saw the three priests, we saw a light,
and going up close to the door, we heard people talking as if there
were five or six of them; we concluded, therefore, that if we set
wildfire to the idol, those men would come out immediately, and run
up to the place to rescue it from destruction; and what to do with
them we knew not. Once we thought of carrying it away, and setting
fire to it at a distance; but when we came to handle it, we found
it too bulky for our carriage, so we were at a loss again. The
second Scotsman was for setting fire to the hut, and knocking the
creatures that were there on the head when they came out; but I
could not join with that; I was against killing them, if it were
possible to avoid it. “Well, then,” said the Scots merchant, “I
will tell you what we will do: we will try to make them prisoners,
tie their hands, and make them stand and see their idol destroyed.”
As it happened, we had twine or packthread enough about us, which
we used to tie our firelocks together with; so we resolved to
attack these people first, and with as little noise as we could.
The first thing we did, we knocked at the door, when one of the
priests coming to it, we immediately seized upon him, stopped his
mouth, and tied his hands behind him, and led him to the idol,
where we gagged him that he might not make a noise, tied his feet
also together, and left him on the ground.
Two of us then waited at the door, expecting that another would
come out to see what the matter was; but we waited so long till the
third man came back to us; and then nobody coming out, we knocked