210 



16th. A party of convicts was employed this 

 day in clearing the ground more fully around the 

 new Roombiyah stockade. A iarge tree, two 

 thirds of the way u[i the hiUoD the left flank, was 

 one of those fingled out for destruction ; and, as 

 it fell, it crushed a liajahpoot convict to death. 

 This man, having been refused permission by the 

 over.seer to go in quest of a draught of water, ob- 

 stinately refused to work, and stood, with his arms 

 folded, on the declivity of the hill: when the 

 tree was nodding to its fall, a loud .nhout warned 

 him of his danger, but, w^hether his feet were 

 chained to the spol by obstinacy, or rivetted by 

 thatfa^5cinatioo which enwraps the senj^es at such 

 a moment, he neither made a raovej leut, nor ut- 

 tered a cry, as the ponderous masF, slowly bend- 

 ing towards bim, swept down with accelerated 

 force, and the crash announced that the last si- 

 new which iiad upheld it had finally snapped in 

 two. 



His body presented a fearful spectacle— his 

 skull wais fractured— his brow beaten in— his ribs 

 crushed to a mummy— his back bone broken, and 

 the bone of the right thigh protruding through a 

 ghaxtly wound, whilst the eyrs, turned iij their 

 iodcetP, spoke volumes as to the exquisite agony 

 endured in that short, last, moment of existence. 



17ih. This day, th^ enemy, becoming em bol- 

 deued by the circumstance of the troops not ha- 

 ving fired on them, approached wdthin fifty yards 

 Of the covering party, and loaded it witb every 

 epithet of abuse, which the Malayan laaguag© 

 affords, and fired a shot or two, A little after 4 

 F. M. Colonel Herbert, Captains Wyiiie, and 



