The younger fishermen added to this
account, that they had beheld a female figure of supernatural
loveliness, glide and disappear amid the foliage which now luxuriantly
overshadowed the rocks; and, in the spirit of Indian devotees, they
hesitated not to call this delicious vision an incarnated emanation of
Vishnu, in a lovelier form than ever he had appeared before,--at least
far beyond that which he assumed, when he made one of his avatars in the
figure of a tiger. “The inhabitants of the islands, as superstitious as they were
imaginative, deified the vision of the isles after their manner. The old
devotees, while invoking her, stuck close to the bloody rites of Seeva
and Haree, and muttered many a horrid vow over their beads, which they
took care to render effectual by striking sharp reeds into their arms,
and tinging every bead with blood as they spoke. The young women rowed
their light canoes as near as they dared to the haunted isle, making
vows to Camdeo(8), and sending their paper vessels, lit with wax, and
filled with flowers, towards its coast, where they hoped their darling
deity was about to fix his residence. The young men also, at least those
who were in love and fond of music, rowed close to the island to solicit
the god Krishnoo(9) to sanctify it by his presence; and not knowing what
to offer to the deity, they sung their wild airs standing high on the
prow of the canoe, and at last threw a figure of wax, with a kind of
lyre in its hand, towards the shore of the desolate isle. (8) The Cupid of the Indian mythology. (9) The Indian Apollo. “For many a night these canoes might be seen glancing past each other
over the darkened sea, like _shooting stars of the deep_, with their
lighted paper lanthorns, and their offerings of flowers and fruits, left
by some trembling hand on the sands, or hung by a bolder one in baskets
of cane on the rocks; and still the simple islanders felt joy and
devotion united in this “voluntary humility.” It was observed, however,
that the worshippers departed with very different impressions of the
object of their adoration. The women all clung to their oars in
breathless admiration of the sweet sounds that issued from the isle; and
when that ceased they departed, murmuring over in their huts those
“notes angelical,” to which their own language furnished no appropriate
sounds. The men rested long on their oars, to catch a glimpse of the
form which, by the report of the fishermen, wandered there; and, when
disappointed, they rowed home sadly. “Gradually the isle lost its bad character for terror; and in spite of
some old devotees, who told their blood-discoloured beads, and talked of
Seeva and Haree, and even held burning splinters of wood to their
scorched hands, and stuck sharp pieces of iron, which they had purchased
or stolen from the crews of European vessels, in the most fleshy and
sensitive parts of their bodies,--and, moreover, talked of suspending
themselves from trees with the head downwards, till they were consumed
by insects, or calcined by the sun, or rendered delirious by their
position,--in spite of all this, which must have been very affecting,
the young people went on their own way,--the girls offering their
wreaths to Camdeo, and the youths invoking Krishnoo, till the devotees,
in despair, vowed to visit this accursed island, which had set every
body mad, and find out how the unknown deity was to be recognised and
propitiated; and whether flowers, and fruits, and love-vows, and the
beatings of young hearts, were to be substituted for the orthodox and
legitimate offering of nails grown into the hands till they appeared
through their backs, and _setons_ of ropes inserted into the sides, on
which the religionist danced his dance of agony, till the ropes or his
patience failed. In a word, they were determined to find out what this
deity was, who demanded no suffering from her worshippers,--and they
fulfilled their resolution in a manner worthy of their purpose. “One hundred and forty beings, crippled by the austerities of their
religion, unable to manage sail or oar, embarked in a canoe to reach
what they called the accursed isle. The natives, intoxicated with the
belief of their sanctity, stripped themselves naked, to push their boat
through the surf, and then, making their _salams_, implored them to use
oars at least. The devotees, all too intent on their beads, and too well
satisfied of their importance in the eyes of their favourite deities, to
admit a doubt of their safety, set off in triumph,--and the consequence
may be easily conjectured. The boat soon filled and sunk, and the crew
perished without a single sigh of lamentation, except that they had not
feasted the alligators in the sacred waters of the Ganges, or perished
at least under the shadow of the domes of the _holy city_ of Benares, in
either of which cases their salvation must have been unquestionable. “This circumstance, apparently so untoward, operated favourably on the
popularity of the new worship. The old system lost ground every day. Hands, instead of being scorched over the fire, were employed only in
gathering flowers. Nails (with which it was the custom of the devotees
to lard their persons) actually fell in price; and a man might sit at
his ease on his hams with as safe a conscience, and as fair a character,
as if fourscore of them occupied the interval between. On the other
hand, fruits were every day scattered on the shores of the favourite
isle; flowers, too, blushed on its rocks, in all the dazzling luxuriance
of colouring with which the Flora of the East delights to array herself. There was that brilliant and superb lily, which, to this day,
illustrates the comparison between it and Solomon, who, in all his
glory, was not arrayed like one of them. There was the rose unfolding
its “paradise of leaves,” and the scarlet blossom of the bombex, which
an English traveller has voluptuously described as banqueting the eye
with “its mass of vegetable splendour” unparalleled. And the female
votarists at last began to imitate some of “those sounds and sweet airs”
that every breeze seemed to waft to their ears, with increasing strength
of melody, as they floated in their canoes round this isle of
enchantment. “At length one circumstance occurred that put its sanctity of character,
and that of its inmate, out of all doubt.