THE TERRIBLE SENSATION OF RUNNING AMUCK.

Inangahua Times, Volume II, Issue II, 21 July 1880, Page 2

THE TERRIBLE SENSATION OF RUNNING AMUCK.

• • During a recent Mohammedan festival at Kandahar, a capital of Southern Afghanistan, a number of mounted Ch zK as they are named, ran amuck through the British so'dier 1 ? were wounded, and four cf (he Huzis were killed. Running amuck is one of the ♦errors of the East, but is far less com' mon than it formerly was. Originally a Malay custom, it has extended to other countries in which the Mohammed ;n creed is prevalent. The word amuck is a corruption of amoalt, Japanese, to k\ ), and the thing is simply a miscellaneous, indiscriminate killing. The natives of those Eastern lands, become, from long continued, excessive use of opium, ferociously frantic, and their frenzy is often intensified by religious fanaticism. Then absolutely mad, they rush into the street s-ofrequently nude— cursing, biting, and stabbing, with knives which they always carry, whomsoever they encounter. They are dreadful to sre, and still more dreadful to meet. They look like animated, very animated corpses, their features being pinched and sharpened, their skin drawn like parch* ment, their eyes glittering with Cerce insanity, and their enerey bent on slaughs ter. As many as forty persons have been killed by them before they could be overcome. Their appearance is the signal for general alarm. Everybody seizes the first weapon he can reach, and sallies forth to hunt down and exterminate the common for*. Of course, there is no reasoning with them, no w- y of intimidating them. Th^y must be killed for the general safety, and they are killed as soon as possible. Long spears used to be employed al^ogctliT as weapons against them — and they are still employed— being thrown at or thrust into them until they esnire. Firearms are now the offensive weapons wlien these are safe ; but in the narrow, crowded streets of the East, this is not often the case. No'hing is so formidable as an amuck runner, and it is not strange that he is mercilessly slain. The Malays, owing to tlieir ferocity, treachery ard daring, are the most dreaded ot all, especially when armed with the dagger or creese, their native weapon, with which they have a deadly skill, and which makes a terrible and very dangerous wound. A person who has seen an amuck is very apt to remember it.