LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE CALL OF THE SOUTH 
 
 LIFE IN THE SOUTHERN PACIFIC 
 
 PRESS OPINIONS. 
 " Mr Louis Becke writes with a matter-of-fact broad; 
 mind^dne^,Tot unmixed with humour, that wms respect. 
 
 — Times. ... r r ► 
 
 " Through all the records of these vicissitudes of fortune, 
 the same vigorous manliness and the --« keen eye for a 
 situation are conspicuously present. ... S^plv Pj'^';^;'^ 
 with incidents of great P'tli,,-'^"^ moment. The volume is 
 assured of a popular success, "-i?^^/)' Telegraph. 
 
 .'We do not wish to disparage the niodern novel but U 
 is within the mark to say that, after ^^^f °l°"gf .^°'^^ °d 
 fiction Mr. Becke's volume comes as a bracmg ana 
 refreshing draught."— i?ai()' Ne-ws. 
 
 " Worth ten times the ^^\c^:' -Daily ChromcU. 
 
 POPULAR EDITION 
 PRICE ONE SHILLING NET. 
 
 " LONDON: JOHN MILNE 

 
 'NEATH 
 AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 BY 
 
 LOUIS BECKE 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 "THE CALL OF THE SOUTH," "THE ADVENTURES OF LOUIS BLAKE," ETC. 
 
 
 LONDON: JOHN MILNE 
 1909
 
 
 
 NEW SIX SHILLING NOVELS 
 
 WITHIN FOUR WALLS 
 
 J. BLOUNDELLE-BURTON 
 
 PINK PURITY 
 
 GERTIE DE S. WENTWORTH-JAMES 
 
 MORTIMER'S MARRIAGE 
 
 HORACE WYNDHAM 
 
 THE TWO GOODWINS 
 
 R. MURRAY GILCHRIST 
 
 THOU SHALT NOT 
 
 NEWMAN HARDING 
 
 LONDON 
 
 JOHN MILNE
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. THE MAN WHO WAS TOO SMALL FOR HIS BOOTS ^ 
 
 II. DENISON GETS EVEN WITH SAUNDERSON 24 
 
 III. THE DESERTER . . . -37 
 
 IV. THE LONELINESS OF IT . . . 54 
 V. JULIUS ADOLPHUS JENKINS'S CHRISTMAS ALLI- 
 GATOR . . . . .105 
 
 VI. MY FRIEND GEORGE, THE DOCKER . -123 
 
 VII. TERESA STUART : A REMINISCENCE OF THE 
 
 BUSH ... -135 
 
 VIII. CAPTAIN bolter's ESCAPE . . . 147 
 
 IX. SOME SKIPPERS WITH WHOM I HAVE SAILED 1 58 
 
 X. DENISON GIVES A SUPPER PARTY . .167 
 
 XI. CLARKSON's LAST CHANCE . . 1 86 
 
 Xn. A COASTAL TRAMP . . . -197 
 
 XIII. THE MOST HATEFUL PLACE I KNOW , 21 7 
 
 XIV. AN INCIDENT OF MARRIAGE IN THE SOUTH 
 
 SEAS ..... 228 
 
 XV. AN ADVENTURE WITH 'GREY NURSES ' . 242 
 
 A V
 
 vi CONTENTS 
 
 PAGS 
 
 XVI. 'jack shark' .... 255 
 
 XVII. LOTS O' TIME .... 264 
 
 XVIII. THE PALOLO WORM OF SAMOA . . 289 
 
 XIX. THE ' FISHING LIAR ' AND HIS VERIFICATION 295 
 
 XX. ON THE WAYS OF SOME TROPICAL BIRDS . 300 
 
 XXI. VENOMOUS SEA-SNAKES . . . 305 
 
 XXII. SUBMARINE DESERTS . . • 3"
 
 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 THE MAN WHO WAS TOO SMALL 
 FOR HIS BOOTS 
 
 Off the low, densely wooded shore of the western 
 end of the great island of New Britain, in the 
 Western Pacific, a brigantine was lying at anchor. 
 Between the vessel and the mainland were several 
 small islets, little more than sandbanks, but 
 covered with coco palms. A reef encircled the 
 group, and the measured beat of the surf upon the 
 coral barrier began to give forth a louder sound 
 as, with the coming night, the trade wind died 
 away, and the lofty hills in the interior of the 
 mainland became enwrapped in mist. Four miles 
 distant to the eastward lay another cluster of islets, 
 and presently the light of many fires showed along 
 the shores, seeming to rise from the sea. 
 
 On the after-deck of the brigantine two men 
 were pacing to and fro; for'ard, most of the crew
 
 8 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 were having their supper; below in the roomy 
 cabin the lamp was lit and the table laid for 
 supper. 
 
 For another ten minutes the two men walked 
 the deck in silence, then some one called out from 
 for'ard — 
 
 "The captain's boat is coming, Mr. Laidley." 
 
 "All right, bo'sun. Stand by to hoist her up. 
 It's going to be a dirty night." Then putting his 
 head under the flap of the skylight, Laidley, the 
 mate of the brigantine, told the steward that the 
 captain's boat was near. 
 
 His companion, a young man of about five-and- 
 twenty years of age, had seated himself on the rail, 
 pipe in mouth, and was staring moodily at the 
 fires on the farther group of islets, and listening 
 to the click of the rowlocks of the approaching 
 boat. 
 
 The mate was turning to go below, when the 
 young man called him back. 
 
 "Laidley," he said, as he placed his hand on the 
 officer's arm, "we must put an end to this fool's 
 game. Will you stand by me, or must I act 
 alone?" 
 
 "You mean about the skipper?" 
 
 "Yes. I have stood it long enough. My patience 
 is exhausted, and if things go on much longer 
 as they are, I shall either go mad, or knock the 
 little brute's brains out with a belaying-pin. He
 
 TOO SMALL FOR HIS BOOTS 9 
 
 deserves it if only for his heartless treatment 
 of his wretched wife. Will you stand by me or 
 not?" 
 
 The mate was a cautious man and paused ere 
 he replied. 
 
 " What do you propose to do ? I will stand by 
 you to a certain extent, for I am sick of his daily 
 brutality. But I am in a different position to you, 
 and cannot run myself into gaol out of sympathy 
 for the crew and yourself. You are a free man 
 in not being on the articles. To be plain with you, 
 if you mean mutiny, I will have no hand in it, 
 though I know that the crew are ripe for it." 
 
 "Will you take command of the ship, if neces- 
 sity demands it, or the crew force you to do so ? " 
 
 "I shall have no other choice. But, for God's 
 sake, no bloodshed." 
 
 "Rest assured of that. I will take all respon- 
 sibility. After supper I will give him another 
 chance to abandon this cursed treasure-hunt and 
 prosecute the voyage. If he refuses, then I shall 
 act. No man ever yet bluffed me out of my 
 rights." 
 
 The boat, manned by the native seamen, came 
 alongside, and a slenderly built young woman 
 ascended wearily to the deck; after her came her 
 husband. Captain Frank Castell. His garments, 
 from his cap down, were wet through with salt 
 water; slung from his shoulder by a leather strap
 
 10 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 was a small canvas bag, which was heavily 
 weighted. 
 
 "Hoist up the boat, Mr. Laidley," he said 
 sharply, then he paused for a moment at the com- 
 panion-way. "Any more of those d — d red-skinned 
 swine shamming sick?" 
 
 "Another man down with fever, sir, since you 
 left this morning — that makes seven out of the 
 twelve." 
 
 Castell uttered a harsh, barking laugh. 
 
 "They've got to be well in the morning, by six 
 bells, and get the anchor up, or I'll know the 
 reason why. I am going to beat up to that other 
 group of islands first thing in the morning." 
 
 Beyond the usual "Aye, aye, sir," the mate 
 made no reply, though he was well aware that, with 
 seven men sick out of twelve, it would be impos- 
 sible to lift the anchor and make sail, unless the 
 wind was very light and the men given plenty of 
 time. 
 
 Castell went below, and in a few minutes the 
 steward appeared, carrying his soddened sea-boots 
 and several pairs of socks to put in the galley to 
 dry. 
 
 The boots were about three sizes too large for the 
 skipper, having originally belonged to a man who 
 had stood six feet in his stockings, but Castell 
 managed to keep them on his feet by wearing four 
 pairs of thick woollen socks.
 
 TOO SMALL FOR HIS BOOTS ii 
 
 The crew hated those boots, for when the little 
 ruffian knocked a man senseless with a belaying- 
 pin, he made use of his boots by kicking the 
 unfortunate wretch when he was down. 
 
 Supper was served, and eaten almost in silence. 
 Mrs. Castell was not present, her husband merely 
 mentioning that she was tired, and telling the 
 steward to take her something to eat in her cabin. 
 
 Making a hurried meal, the mate rose and went 
 on deck, and the captain and recruiter sat alone, 
 the steward, at a quick sign from the latter, retreat- 
 ing to his pantry. 
 
 "I want to have a few words with you before you 
 turn in. Captain Castell. Is it convenient for you 
 to give me a few minutes now ? " 
 
 Castell swung round in his chair with a flash in 
 his black eyes, for in the tones of the recruiter's 
 voice there was a challenge. He was a rather 
 small, but well-made man of under thirty years of 
 age, and his naturally dark complexion seemed 
 darker still now that he had changed his wet 
 clothes for a well-fitting suit of white American 
 duck. For a moment or two he regarded Meredith 
 in silence, stroking his carefully trimmed beard 
 and moustache. 
 
 "Well, what is it?" he said in a tone of careless 
 insolence. 
 
 " I want to know when you intend to leave this 
 place and set about the business of recruiting native
 
 12 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 labour. We are now over two months out from 
 Samoa, and we have not secured one single 
 recruit." A pause. 
 
 Castell lit a cigar. "Well, go on." 
 
 "I came with you as recruiter, not as an idler. 
 Recruiting is my business, and I cannot afford, 
 and am not disposed to kick my heels on this ship's 
 deck for j£i6 a month — even if I am doing nothing 
 — whilst you spend your time on shore grubbing 
 on the reef for Mexican dollars. By this time we 
 should have been beating back to Samoa with a 
 hundred ' recruits ' on board ; and at the bonus 
 of ten dollars per head that would mean a thou- 
 sand dollars to me." 
 
 Castell leant his elbow on the table, and eyed 
 the speaker evilly. 
 
 " Have you finished ? " he asked. 
 
 "Yes— so far." 
 
 "Then before you go any further let me tell you 
 this. This ship is mine. I shall do what I like, 
 go where I like, and if it suit me, I'll stay on 
 this coast for another six months, and you and 
 your recruiting can go to h — 1. I'm satisfied. Do 
 you understand that ? " 
 
 Meredith was a hot-tempered man, but he kept 
 himself under control, though his swarthy features 
 paled with anger. 
 
 "I don't deny that you are master of your own 
 ship. And if you decide not to continue the cruise.
 
 TOO SMALL FOR HIS BOOTS 13 
 
 you can stay here, and go on grubbing for your 
 cursed dollars — but you will do so alone." 
 
 "Ah-h-h!" and Castell showed his white, even 
 teeth in an ugly smile; "so that is your game, is it, 
 Meredith ? You threaten me, eh ? " 
 
 The recruiter looked calmly at the handsome, 
 evil face. 
 
 "Since you ask me — yes. I threaten you. And 
 I am not a man to make an idle threat. Now 
 listen to me. Those of the crew who are well are 
 ripe for mutiny. You have hazed and bullied and 
 battered them about for two months, and it is a 
 wonder to me that you have not had a knife into 
 your throat long ago. God knows that you de- 
 serve it, you mean, savage little brute ! Ah, sit 
 quiet there and keep your hands in sight — if you 
 try to point a pistol at me, I'll knock your head 
 off. Now," here he dropped his voice almost to 
 a whisper, so as not to alarm Mrs. Castell, "I have 
 but little more to say. The ship is practically in 
 my hands now — at this very moment — and you 
 would be helpless if I raised my finger. Laidley, 
 who is a fool, might back you up — if he did I 
 would put him in irons, take charge of the ship 
 myself, and sail her back to Samoa. And I want 
 you clearly to understand this — that for a week 
 past your life has not been worth five minutes' 
 purchase. Think of that, you blind fool ! Do you 
 know what has saved you from being knocked on
 
 14 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 the head some night in the past and chucked over- 
 board to feed the sharks? Well, I'll tell you." 
 
 Unable to speak, Castell sat staring at Meredith, 
 his two clenched hands on the table. Fear had 
 crept into his heart at last. 
 
 Meredith leant across the table, and the long 
 pent-up rage and scorn in his whispered words 
 made the man quail. 
 
 "This is why, Frank Castell. Because your wife 
 is on board, and she is a good woman, and the 
 men like her as much as they hate you — that is 
 one reason — and because Laidley and the bos'un 
 treat the men with as much humanity as you will 
 allow them to exercise — that is another reason. 
 And the last reason is this — I told the men that 
 when the second mate died it was not from fever, 
 but " 
 
 "But what?" 
 
 The words came from him in a panting gasp, 
 and if hatred for a moment overcoming craven 
 terror could have killed, Meredith would have died 
 there and then. And the recruiter watched the 
 man's face, and revelled in his power over him — 
 the power of the knowledge of secret guilt of an 
 enemy who deserves no pity. Yet it was but a 
 random shot. He smiled and leant back in his 
 chair with folded arms before he answered slowly. 
 
 "I told them that the second mate, when he went 
 on shore with you that day, and you and he began
 
 TOO SMALL FOR HIS BOOTS 15 
 
 your usual search on the reef, I told them, Castell 
 — listen carefully — that he must have had a fit of 
 ague, fallen, and fractured the back of his skull 
 and then rolled off the edge of the reef into deep 
 water and been drowned. But," and he launched 
 the words out like a bolt, " I could have told them 
 something very different, eh? Men don't fracture 
 their skulls in that way, Castell. And I happened 
 to be aloft that afternoon. I was watching you — 
 just to pass the time." (The latter part of this 
 statement was pure fiction, but Castell did not 
 doubt it.) 
 
 Castell's hands, now relaxed and nerveless, were 
 shaking. 
 
 " What do you want me to do ? " he asked, gulp- 
 ing down a lump in his throat. 
 
 "Give up this dollar-hunting right away, and 
 clear out of this fever-stricken hole. Two of the 
 men will be dead in another twenty-four hours. I 
 don't know, nor care, how much money you have 
 found, but I do know that I want to make some 
 myself — and I am top dog now." 
 
 "See here, IMeredith. I'll take you into my con- 
 fidence — aye, and more, you shall stand in with 
 me. I'll give you an eighth share. This is the 
 chance of my life. This morning I discovered that 
 the Dutch barque must have been carried over the 
 reef abreast of us, and brought up on the farther 
 group of islands, where she broke up. This money
 
 i6 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 I have found must have been in the boats when 
 they were smashed up. Another week is all I 
 want." 
 
 Meredith listened in silence, then he spoke. 
 
 "I don't want to stand in with you, Captain 
 Castell. But if you will give me your pledge to 
 stay here no longer than one week, I will talk to the 
 crew. But you will go alone, and at your own 
 risk. Those islands are crowded with natives — 
 savage and treacherous cannibals. If you choose 
 to venture on shore you must leave your wife on 
 board. I will let you have four men as a covering 
 party to stand by in the boat — that is all the help 
 you shall have." 
 
 "Very well. I am satisfied." 
 
 When, three months previously, Meredith had 
 joined the brigantine at Samoa as recruiter, he had 
 done so with misgivings. Castell had a bad name 
 as a "hazing" bully, and no recruiter had ever 
 sailed with him on a second cruise. And yet, when 
 he first came to Samoa from apparently nowhere, 
 though the brigantine's papers (and he) said from 
 Punta Arenas, the white community hailed him 
 as a "good fellow," and were not greatly startled 
 when a month afterwards Nellie Restiaux, the 
 half-caste orphan daughter of a well-to-do trader, 
 fell in love with, and married the dashing American 
 stranger. There were some people who said that
 
 TOO SMALL FOR HIS BOOTS 17 
 
 she would repent it — that he was a bad lot, and 
 that it was only her small fortune of ten thousand 
 dollars in hard cash and some little landed property 
 she possessed in Samoa that had attracted him. 
 And these "croakers," as they were termed by the 
 majority of the community, were not wrong. 
 
 In those days only British ships engaged in the 
 Kanaka labour trade came under the jurisdiction 
 of the High Commissioner for the Western Pacific, 
 and carried Government agents appointed by 
 the Fiji and Queensland authorities — German, 
 American, and French vessels carried recruiters, 
 but no Government agents, and their owners and 
 masters practically did what they liked, and in too 
 many cases did evilly. Castell's brigantine, the 
 Doris Price, was under American colours, and 
 Castell himself was a naturalized American. All 
 the crew, except the boatswain, were Polynesians, 
 and shipped in Samoa for the cruise. Had they 
 known the skipper's reputation they would not have 
 gone near him. Neither would Laidley, Meredith, 
 nor the boatswain. But Hart, the second mate, 
 was a man after Castell's own heart — a brutal, 
 ignorant Prussian. He and Castell soon became 
 very intimate, and before the brigantine had been 
 to sea many days the other officers heard them 
 frequently discussing the wreck of a Dutch barque 
 jn the west end of New Britain five years previ- 
 ously. She had on board eight or nine thousand 
 
 B
 
 i8 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 Mexican dollars. The captain, all the officers, and 
 nearly all of the crew perished, but two Manila 
 men had, a year later, reached Sourabaya and 
 told the tale. Hart had been the mate of a small 
 Dutch schooner sent to seek for the treasure, and 
 from what Laidley and Meredith gathered, the 
 master of the schooner found the spot where the 
 barque had been wrecked, searched for a few days 
 for the money without success, and then he and his 
 boat's crew were attacked by the savage natives, 
 and the terrified skipper abandoned the search and 
 returned to Sourabaya. But Hart had found a 
 few coins strewn among the dehris of dead 
 coral on the reef, and had kept the matter to him- 
 self. 
 
 Soon after leaving Samoa Castell began to knock 
 his crew about. One day he gave a man a savage 
 kicking — the next morning his sea-boots were miss- 
 ing. A second pair disappeared also, and for some 
 days he could not pursue his usual kicking, but 
 when the brigantine called at Wallis Island for 
 provisions, he bought a pair from the local trader 
 there, and although they were much too large and 
 made him present a grotesque appearance, the un- 
 fortunate native crew soon found out that he was 
 making up for lost time — he began to use them 
 on their bodies within an hour after he came on 
 board. 
 
 Immediately after leaving Wallis Island, Castell,
 
 TOO SMALL FOR HIS BOOTS 19 
 
 instead of steering a westerly and southerly course 
 for the New Hebrides — which were to have been 
 the brigantine's first "recruiting" grounds, headed 
 N.N.W. for the western end of New Britain. 
 Meredith went to him and asked him what this 
 meant. Castell calmly told him that he had some- 
 thing else in view than looking for "blackbirds" 
 for the next month or so, and that he was going 
 to spend that time at the west end of New Britain. 
 Meredith was helpless, and could say nor do 
 nothing. And Castell sailed the Doris Price direct 
 to where the Dutch barque had been cast away, and 
 began his search. It was successful from the very 
 first. 
 
 Every morning he. Hart, two native seamen, 
 and Mrs. Castell got into the boat and went on 
 shore. Whilst Castell, his wife and Hart sought 
 for the money, the two seamen were left in the 
 boat, the captain threatening to shoot them dead 
 if they followed him. Why Castell insisted upon 
 taking his wife with him, to suffer physical hard- 
 ships under a tropical sun, and when she was need- 
 ing the utmost care and attention that could be 
 given to her by her husband, Meredith and the 
 mate understood quite well— he was afraid of leav- 
 ing her on board the brigantine, because he feared 
 that she would tell them something of the misery 
 and daily suffering she had endured since she had 
 married such a man as he. And for the same 
 
 B 2
 
 20 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 reason Castell feared to leave her in the boat with 
 the two native sailors. For he knew that they, 
 simple-minded creatures as they were, hated him, 
 and that if his wretched wife appealed to them, 
 they would not refuse to help her on account of the 
 native blood in her veins. 
 
 And so matters had gone on till one day Castell 
 came on board and reported that Hart was missing. 
 Laidley and Meredith strongly suspected that 
 Castell had murdered the man, for although Hart 
 was suffering from fever, it was only slightly, and 
 then of late the two men had frequently quarrelled. 
 But when, at the interview in the cabin, Meredith 
 had thrown out his dark hint, his suspicions be- 
 came a certainty. He had disliked Castell from 
 the first — for it was quite apparent to both him 
 and Laidley that he terrorized his gentle, uncom- 
 plaining wife — he had secured her money, and she 
 had become an incubus. 
 
 Early on the morning after the scene in the 
 cabin, the crew, at Meredith's private request, 
 obeyed Castell 's order, got the ship under way, 
 and in a few hours she let go anchor again on the 
 lee side of the group of islands, and within sight 
 of a native village. The boat was lowered and 
 manned by two sullen men, each of whom was 
 armed with a Snider carbine. 
 
 Castell came on deck, with fury in his heart —
 
 TOO SMALL FOR HIS BOOTS 21 
 
 the steward had informed him that by an accident 
 his four pairs of socks had fallen on the hot galley 
 range, and been burnt to ashes. He made no 
 answer, but gave the man a look that made him 
 shiver. As he was about to descend to the boat, 
 Meredith spoke to him. 
 
 "You are armed, I see, Captain Castell. It is 
 well that you are, for I again warn you that you 
 are risking your life. The two men who are going 
 with you are also armed, but they may want their 
 rifles for their own protection — and they bear you 
 no love." 
 
 Castell nodded, but said nothing, and a quarter 
 of an hour later the boat touched the edge of the 
 reef, and he got out and made direct for the shore 
 — sometimes walking on the coral, sometimes wad- 
 ing across the shallow pools that intervened. The 
 two men in the boat pushed off, dropped the killick, 
 and made themselves comfortable. 
 
 Scarcely had Castell proceeded a mile towards 
 the beach — searching as he went — when the rattle 
 of native war-drums was heard by those on board 
 the ship, though no natives could be seen. But 
 Castell took no heed, and went steadily on, and 
 a few minutes later two or three score of savages, 
 armed with spears and clubs, broke cover from 
 the dense grove of coco palms on the beach, and 
 rushed towards him. 
 
 "The fool !" cried Meredith, "is he mad? Quick,
 
 22 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 steward, pass up some rifles. We must not let the 
 man be murdered, Laidley." 
 
 But ere a shot could be fired from the ship, 
 Castell looked up and realized his danger, drew 
 his revolver and emptied the six chambers at the 
 advancing natives without effect, and then he 
 turned to run — hampered by his enormous boots 
 — and reloading his pistol as he staggered along. 
 And swiftly on came the black men. 
 
 As Meredith and Laidley opened a vain fire — 
 for they were far out of range, and their bullets 
 fell short — the two men in the boat seemed to come 
 to life, and they too began to use their Sniders. 
 But although the savages were in a thick cluster, 
 and not three hundred yards away, not one of them 
 fell — and Meredith knew that they were purposely 
 firing high. They were revelling in the agony of 
 the man who had so long treated them like wild 
 beasts. 
 
 A mocking laugh of triumph came from the pur- 
 suers, as Castell turned to face them, pistol in 
 hand, and then suddenly sank to his waist in a hole 
 of the reef. Clambering out, minus one boot, he 
 rose and staggered on, only to fall again, and 
 then, as he tried to disencumber himself of the 
 other boot, a spear passed through his back. And 
 then the wild men closed in upon him, and he was 
 hidden from view. 
 
 Half-a-minute later they opened out again, and
 
 TOO SMALL FOR HIS BOOTS 23 
 
 one of them vauntingly raised his spear on high 
 and held it up to view — Castell's head was on the 
 point. And the last that was seen of him was his 
 battered and mutilated body being borne along 
 the reef to be consigned to the cannibal ovens — a 
 fitting end to a wicked and cruel life.
 
 II 
 
 DENISON GETS EVEN WITH 
 SAUNDERSON 
 
 Tom Denison, the South Sea supercargo (who 
 was really a kindly-hearted, good young man), had 
 at last, after some years of pleasant and unpleasant 
 remembrances and associations with his firm, sent 
 in his resignation, and somewhat hurriedly left 
 their employment — all on account of Saunderson. 
 
 Saunderson was a member of the firm, and was 
 also travelling inspector of their South Sea Island 
 business, and was always a thorn in the side of 
 their skippers and supercargoes, because he was 
 such a terrible ass, and was always saying or doing 
 things that brought about disaster to every one — 
 and particularly to himself. Every year or so he 
 made a tour of inspection of the various trading 
 stations in the Pacific, to examine the traders' 
 accounts, with the result that he managed to exas- 
 perate everybody, white and native, missionaries 
 and beach-combers, and naval officers of all nations, 
 
 and always got into serious trouble over something 
 
 24
 
 DENISON GETS EVEN 25 
 
 or another, and then returned to Sydney, after a 
 four months' cruise, looking— and feeHng — very ill, 
 and blaming Denison for all his misfortunes and 
 calling upon him to resign. Yet, at the bottom of 
 his heart, Saunderson had a sneaking regard for 
 Denison and also for Packenham, the skipper of 
 the Palestine, who had both saved him, on several 
 occasions, from being assaulted, battered and ex- 
 coriated by furious male natives, who resented the 
 awfully shocking and improper things he said to 
 their women folk in the vernacular. Saunderson 
 intended, of course, to be the pink of politeness 
 and the mirror of propriety, and never knew the 
 nature of the fearful remarks he had made, until 
 Denison had, after rescuing him, explained their 
 enormity, and begged him to discontinue trying to 
 address natives (especially women) in their own 
 language, which he (Saunderson) didn't understand 
 a cent's worth, yet by insisting upon trying to 
 speak it, always brought about serious trouble, and 
 in consequence he (Denison) and Packenham had 
 to suffer in the estimation of every one in the South 
 Seas, through their being associated with such an 
 unutterable idiot. 
 
 But Denison, although he had had furious 
 quarrels with big, fat Alexander Saunderson, his 
 bete noir, liked him secretly (even as Saunderson 
 really liked him), for at bottom the Scotsman was a 
 kind-hearted, gentlemanly sort of an ass, and the
 
 26 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 two, through the influence of peacemaker Skipper 
 Packenham, had always shaken hands after a dis- 
 agreement, and Saunderson had dropped the sub- 
 ject of resignation. 
 
 But at last they had such a quarrel that Denison, 
 who often used excited and careless language when 
 he was worried by Saunderson's awful blunders — 
 though naturally he was a quiet, good, even- 
 tempered young man — threatened to choke him as 
 a "confounded nuisance and overgrown block- 
 head." And as the threat was uttered in front of 
 the British Consulate in Samoa, and in the presence 
 of the British Consul and some European ladies, 
 the firm could not overlook the matter, and regret- 
 fully accepted Denison's resignation, but admitted 
 that he had received great provocation. This is 
 what Saunderson had done — 
 
 There was a native chief named Sulu, to whom 
 Denison wanted to send a few hundreds of Snider 
 cartridges (which was an illegal act for a British 
 subject, and rendered him liable to a heavy fine), 
 but did not know how to manage it. Then an idea 
 came to him. He had one of the ship's pigs killed 
 and cleaned, filled its interior with cartridges, and 
 then had it carefully sewn up ; then he sent it off 
 to Sulu by two of the native crew, who had the 
 animal slung by its feet from a pole. 
 
 It was a Sunday morning, and as the seamen 
 went through the street they met people coming out
 
 DENISON GETS EVEN 27 
 
 of the English church, among whom was Saunder- 
 son, who was walking with the minister. The 
 moment Saunderson saw the sailormen he bade 
 them stop. He wanted to show off, and let the 
 Rev. Mr. Tiggle see that he was a very important 
 person on board the Palestine. 
 
 Where were they taking the pig? he demanded. 
 They replied that Mr. Denison was sending it to 
 Sulu as a present. 
 
 "Then," said Saunderson loftily, "take it back 
 to the ship again, and tell Mr. Denison that I for- 
 bade you to carry a dead pig through the streets 
 on the Sabbath Day." 
 
 "Hear, hear !" said Mr. Tiggle approvingly. 
 
 But the sailors didn't care a rap about Saunder- 
 son, who had no right whatever to interfere with 
 them, and so they took no notice of him and tried 
 to push on. Then Saunderson seized one end of 
 the pole, and again ordered the men back, and a 
 crowd began to gather and enjoy the fun ; and then 
 somehow or other in the struggle the pig came to 
 the ground with a thump, and a lot of cartridges 
 rolled out of its internals. 
 
 In ten seconds the Apia Municipal police seized 
 the sailormen, and the pig and its contents, and 
 carried them off to jail, and the whole town became 
 excited. 
 
 And next morning Tom Denison was haled be- 
 fore the Consuls and fined $500, and left the Court
 
 28 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 looking murder at Saunderson ; and soon after he 
 met and rebuked him in the hearing of the 
 
 Consul. 
 
 Then, as I have said, he resigned, and did not 
 see Saunderson again for two years. 
 
 Now the loss of that $500 rankled in Denison's 
 bosom. Saunderson's firm had certainly once 
 cautioned him about selling arms or ammunition in 
 Samoa, and Saunderson himself took a very lofty 
 standpoint when Denison appealed to him to at 
 least pay half the fine. Denison, he said, had no 
 right to endanger the firm's reputation by illegal 
 practices. Besides, he added, it was wrong from 
 a moral point of view to encourage the natives to 
 fight. Mr. Tiggle, indeed, had told the Consuls 
 that it was a pity that they had not power to im- 
 prison as well as fine offenders. 
 
 "Tiggle is a measly, little, meddlesome ass, 
 whom his brother missionaries (who are gentle- 
 men) don't like — a wretched, snuffling ex-tinker, as 
 I told him, a " 
 
 "He is an excellent man, and a friend of 
 mine " 
 
 "Being a friend of yours is enough to make any 
 right-minded man loathe him," said Denison, 
 who was losing his temper. "Now look here, 
 Saunderson. You were always an ass, but I never 
 thought you were dishonest — and mean as well. 
 Some day you will feel remorse, and repent of your
 
 DENISON GETS EVEN 29 
 
 action in this matter. As you know, my aunt died 
 and left all her money to missions, and it is hard 
 that I should suffer like this for trying to make a 
 little money for myself. Once for all — will you at 
 least pay me half of that scandalous, criminal 
 fine?" 
 
 "Certainly not." 
 
 "Very well, Alexander Saunderson. I cannot 
 find words to express my contempt for you. My 
 opinion of you as an alleged Christian has gone 
 down to zero. You ought to be hung." 
 
 Then, one day, after two years had passed, they 
 met in Pitt Street in Sydney. Saunderson was in 
 grand form, tall hat, frock coat and lavender kids, 
 and his fat face was wreathed in smiles as he held 
 out his hand. 
 
 "How are you, Denison ? So glad to meet you. 
 I heard of you last year. Left the Vision, didn't 
 you, and are now a full-blown captain." 
 
 "Yes, I have the Manaia. She's in dock now, 
 getting an overhaul. I'm so glad to see you, 
 Saunderson. You do look so well, and have such 
 a distingue air." 
 
 Saunderson flushed with pleasure. He little 
 knew that Denison had never forgotten the five 
 hundred dollars, and now thought he saw a way 
 opening unto him.
 
 30 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 "Oh, by the way, Saunderson," he said, as they 
 strolled along together, "I must congratulate you. 
 I heard some one in the Exchange mention your 
 name, and say that you are to be married shortly. 
 Being strangers to me," he added mendaciously, " I 
 could not ask the men who is the lady, much as I 
 was interested." 
 
 Saunderson expanded his manly bosom, "Yes, 
 I am to be married to Mrs. Julius O'Doherty." 
 
 "Mrs. O'Doherty ! Why, I know her well — that 
 is, I knew her when Captain O'Doherty was alive, 
 and he was in the Island trade. You are lucky. 
 She is enormously wealthy." 
 
 "Her wealth," said Saunderson loftily, "has no 
 attractions for me. It is her goodness, her moral 
 worth " 
 
 "Just so, just so, a most estimable lady. I must 
 do myself the pleasure of calling on her and renew- 
 ing my acquaintance. I am sure that even if I were 
 a stranger to her I should be welcome from the 
 fact of you and I being old shipmates ; and then she 
 would be so interested in the queer adventures we 
 have had, and " 
 
 Saunderson looked very uneasy, as Denison 
 went on — 
 
 "By Jove, old man, what times we have had! 
 Oh, shall I ever forget the day when you nearly 
 blew H.M.S. Badger out of the water, when you 
 were trying to dynamite fish, and how Commander
 
 DENISON GETS EVEN 31 
 
 Muddle swore at you, and kicked you over the 
 wharf, and " 
 
 "Yes, yes ! but please, for Heaven's sake, don't 
 say anything about that," said Saunderson, 
 hurriedly wiping his brow. 
 
 "And then — oh, great Csesar's ghost ! when you 
 tackled the devil-fish " 
 
 Saunderson gave a choking sort of groan, and 
 
 then asked Denison to come into the Australia 
 
 Hotel, where he was staying, and have afternoon 
 
 tea. 
 
 ****** 
 
 An hour later they parted, and Denison told him 
 to be sure and tell JMrs. O'Doherty that he would 
 call very soon. Then, with an inward smile, he 
 went on his way rejoicing, for he felt that he now 
 had the pull on Alexander Saunderson, and would 
 get back the equivalent of that iniquitous fine. 
 For he knew the Widow O'Doherty better than her 
 future husband. 
 
 Mrs. O'Doherty was a lady who was close-hauled 
 upon her fiftieth year, and would soon be to wind- 
 ward of it. She was notorious for her great wealth, 
 her meanness, her ostentatious piety, her acidulous 
 tongue, and her resolution to get another husband 
 — Captain Julius O'Doherty having been her 
 second victim, and when that ancient mariner had 
 died, full of years and whisky, and left her his 
 entire fortune, a year later she bought a splendid
 
 o 
 
 2 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 mansion in a fashionable suburb, and began to 
 entertain with a view of getting a third. And her 
 choice fell upon Saunderson, who had heard that 
 she was liable to "go off" at any moment with 
 apoplexy, was encouraged to propose thereby, and 
 was now eager to claim his bride before the apo- 
 plexy robbed him of her and her fortune. And the 
 widow had graciously yielded to his demand for 
 an early marriage, and named the day — which 
 would be just two weeks after his meeting with 
 Denison. 
 
 Saunderson was horribly afraid of Denison visit- 
 ing his fiancee, and would have liked to have warned 
 her against him, as being a man who had been 
 fined for smuggling cartridges, but feared that 
 Denison would hear of it, and in revenge tell her 
 all about his own fearful misadventures, and that 
 then the match would be broken off. All he could 
 do was to hint to her that Denison was "rather 
 fast," whereupon the lady observed that it was all 
 the better that she saw him, as she could give him 
 a lecture which would do him good. 
 
 Two days later Denison called on the widow, 
 and charmed her by his polite, diffident manner. 
 He told her much of his interest in missionary 
 work in the South Seas, of his abhorrence of the 
 habitual and unnecessary use of bad language by 
 sailors, of his great liking for Saunderson, whom, 
 he was sure, ought to be — and he felt certain was —
 
 DENISON GETS EVEN 33 
 
 a very happy man. And he begged J\Irs. O'Do- 
 herty to give him her photograph for his cabin. 
 It would remind him, he said, of his old friend, her 
 late husband, and he would ask Saunderson for his, 
 and have them put in the same frame. 
 
 Then he rose to leave. "You must come again 
 next Monday, Mr. Denison," said the lady, "Alex- 
 ander will be here." 
 
 Denison became very grave, and pulled his 
 moustache meditatively. 
 
 " I should like to, very much indeed, dear Mrs. 
 O'Doherty. Your late husband liked me, and 
 
 twice offered me a berth as supercargo. But " 
 
 and here he paused. 
 
 "But what?" 
 
 "I am in a painful position, Mrs. O'Doherty. 
 I do not, for one moment, wish to say one word 
 against my friend Saunderson ; and yet I think it 
 will be best for me not to accept your kind invita- 
 tion." 
 
 Mrs. O'Doherty pushed him into a chair, took 
 one herself, set her fat, square jaws, and crossed 
 her arms across her half-a-fathom of bosom. 
 
 "Thomas Denison, what do you mean?" 
 
 Denison looked at her with a mournful air, and 
 for a moment covered his eyes with his hat. Then, 
 after an effort, he spoke. 
 
 "Mrs. O'Doherty. Much as I should like to 
 come again and see you, I cannot. I will be per-
 
 34 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 fectly frank. Alexander Saunderson — I regret to 
 say it, but for the sake of your future happiness I 
 now solemnly warn you — is an insanely jealous 
 man. And I fear that he, old friends as we are, 
 might do me some mortal injury; shoot me dead, 
 in fact." 
 
 The widow's face was a study of mingled joy, 
 pride, anger and coquetry. Pride was on top. 
 
 "I shall never be the slave of any man, Mr. 
 Denison. You must come. Alexander Saunder- 
 son is to be my husband; but my master — never !" 
 and she arose and stood erect. 
 
 And then Denison, murmuring something about 
 his being only a blunt sailor, who studied the truth 
 and had a holy reverence for women, pressed her 
 hand and withdrew. 
 
 And then Mrs. O'Doherty sent for Saunderson 
 and had him on the carpet, and Saunderson vowed 
 that he loved Denison like a brother, and had not 
 meant to insinuate anything against his character. 
 
 "Captain Denison has said nothing against you 
 that he should not have said. He is a most estim- 
 able young man. I desire you, Alexander, to go 
 to him, and beg him to come with you here to my 
 house on Monday. The poor young man believes 
 that you are so wickedly jealous of him that you 
 would not hesitate to murder him. Go, or else all 
 is over between us," and she raised her enormous 
 right arm tragically,
 
 DENISON GETS EVEN 35 
 
 Saunderson's jaw dropped, and he went. 
 
 * * * -x- * * 
 
 At six o'clock on the following evening, as 
 Denison was having his supper, Saunderson came 
 on board the Manaia. 
 
 "Look here, Denison," he said, "I've been think- 
 ing over that matter of the fine that you had to pay, 
 and now I really believe that, in a way, it was my 
 fault, and so here is a cheque for ;^ioo " 
 
 Denison laid down his knife and fork, and 
 ordered the steward to leave the cabin. 
 
 "Saunderson, you are seeking to bribe me by 
 paying me a sum of money that you ought to have 
 paid me two years ago. I will accept no bribe. 
 You are about to marry — at least you think you 
 are — a lady for whom I have the utmost respect, 
 and who, if I cared to tell her of what you have 
 done, of the awful name you have gained for your 
 disgraceful remarks to native women " 
 
 Saunderson groaned in anguish, and then Deni- 
 son laughed, but in a very grave manner. 
 
 "Saunderson, I'll forgive you, accept the money 
 you owe me, and say no more about my wounded 
 feelings. But if you had not interfered with that 
 pig, I would have made at least five hundred 
 dollars. So you see you made me lose a thousand 
 in all. Now let us shake hands, and I'll be best 
 man at the wedding, and tell your bride that 
 although you are a dangerous man when your 
 
 C2
 
 36 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 jealousy is aroused, you are a perfect saint other- 
 
 wise." 
 
 * 
 
 Saunderson, although supposed to be a strict 
 abstainer, had to be kept on board the Manaia until 
 dark, and then Denison conveyed him in a hansom 
 to his rooms in the Australia Hotel, put him into 
 bed, told him not to worry about anything, and 
 tipped the bedroom valet to attend to him — for 
 Saunderson was weeping — as his friend "had been 
 out in the sun, and had got a touch of it." 
 
 "Yes'r. Plenty of iced soda water, sir, to- 
 night, if he wakes, and a cold baby bottle of Perrier 
 in the morning." 
 
 "That's it. It will strengthen him. Good- 
 night."
 
 • III 
 
 THE DESERTER 
 
 Early one morning Her Majesty's ship Thalia 
 anchored in Safatu Harbour, in the Samoan Group, 
 and William Duke, the local trader, made prepara- 
 tions for the immediate absence of himself and his 
 family. The natives of the village of Sanaapu 
 rendered him every assistance, and within an hour 
 of the arrival of the warship Duke w-as on his way 
 in his w'haleboat to another village, named Vaiee, 
 situated some miles away on the eastern side of 
 Safatu Harbour. 
 
 Duke knew that he could depend upon the un- 
 swerving loyalty of his native friends, inasmuch 
 as although they were aware of the fact that the 
 commander of the Thalia would reward them for 
 handing their white man over to him as a deserter, 
 the perpetrators of such an act of treachery would 
 have to pay for it with their lives. For Mafa, who 
 had been a faithful wife to Duke for five years, 
 was sister to Tui-o-le-Vao, Chief of Safune — a man 
 who could put five hundred of the hardiest fighting 
 men in Samoa into the field. 
 
 37
 
 38 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 During his seven years' residence in Samoa, 
 Duke, now a man of past forty years of age, had, 
 whenever a man-of-war visited any port at which 
 he was residing, been compelled to absent himself 
 for a short time at some distant village or in the 
 mountains. For although six years had passed 
 since he, then captain of the fore-top of the Cock- 
 atrice, had settled a grudge with the gunner in 
 Panama by half-killing him and then bolting, he 
 had still a not unnatural aversion to needlessly 
 thrusting himself under the notice of any ship of 
 Her Majesty's Navy. Descriptions of deserters 
 never seem to become mislaid or lost, as many a 
 South Sea trader or beach-comber has found to his 
 cost, when dwelling in fancied security among the 
 brown people of the Polynesian Isles. 
 
 So, when, later on in the morning, the com- 
 mander of the Thalia with some of his officers came 
 on shore for a day's pigeon shooting, and casually 
 inquired if there were any white men living in any 
 of the villages of Safatu Harbour, they were in- 
 formed that one did live at Sanaapu, but that he 
 was then away on a trading cruise along the coast 
 and would not return for a week ; also, they added, 
 he would be smitten with a great grief to learn that 
 an English man-of-war had been at Safatu in his 
 absence, for, they asserted, whenever a man-of- 
 war came, Vili (Mr. William Duke) always dressed 
 himself in his best clothes and went on board to
 
 THE DESERTER 39 
 
 shake the hand of the captain, say — "Talofa," and 
 beg him to honour his house by passing through 
 the doorway. 
 
 From the wooded hills about Vaiee, Duke and 
 the villagers had an excellent view of the corvette 
 and of the boats and canoes passing to and fro 
 between the ship and the village of Sanaapu. 
 Vaiee, they knew, would not be visited by any of 
 the ship's company, for access to it by boat was 
 difficult owing to the water inside the reef being 
 so shallow that only at flood tide could the reef be 
 crossed, and by land the distance from Sanaapu 
 was over two leagues. So although two or three 
 natives kept watch on the hills, Duke, his wife, 
 and two little daughters remained in the house of 
 the Chief of Vaiee, quietly awaiting till a cloud 
 of black smoke pouring from the funnel of the old 
 paddle-wheel corvette, told them that she was put- 
 ting to sea again, and that they might return with 
 safety to their house under the waving palm-trees 
 on the white beach of Sanaapu. 
 
 Two days had passed, and the Thalia still lay 
 at anchor, for her boilers were in a bad state, 
 although only used when coming into or leaving 
 port, for in those days ships in the Navy used 
 their canvas almost exclusively when on long 
 cruises. But although Mafa began to fret, her 
 husband laughed at her fears and bade her rest con- 
 tent, for he had heard from the Chief of Sanaapu
 
 40 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 that the captain of the warship had said that it 
 might be another four days ere the ship would sail 
 away from Samoa to the islands of the west. 
 
 "So what need is there for us to fear," he said 
 to his wife as they sat, one evening, in front of 
 the Chief's house, attended by some of their native 
 friends; "even if the captain knew who I am, and 
 sought to find me here in Vaiee, is there not the 
 great cave of Se'uao but a league distant? And 
 who is to find us there — for who is there in Samoa 
 to betray me ? " 
 
 Mafa bent her dark, long-lashed eyes upon her 
 husband's bronzed and bearded face. 
 
 "Hoffman, the German," she said, "hast thou 
 forgotten him — that he knows, and swore he would 
 have his revenge ? " 
 
 Duke touched her hand with quiet affection. 
 "Have no fear of him. He is but a boaster. And 'tis 
 five years ago since that day, and he has forgotten." 
 
 Mafa shook her head. "With some men hate 
 never dies. And I know in my heart that if he 
 could, he would, kill thee or betray thee to a ship 
 of war. And I know, too, that he hateth me and 
 our children even as he hates thee. And last night 
 a dream came to me and I saw his evil face looking 
 at me with a mocking smile upon his lips — not 
 white with fear as it was when thou struck him to 
 the ground in face of all my brother's people in 
 Safune."
 
 THE DESERTER 41 
 
 Again Duke sought to reassure his gentle young 
 wife. Hoffman, he observed, lived at Apia on the 
 other side of the island, twenty miles across the 
 mountain range, and it was most unlikely that he 
 or any other person on the north side knew of the 
 presence of the warship in Safatu Harbour. And, 
 he added, Hoffman, though a vindictive man, 
 would not court certain death at the hands of her 
 brother Tui-o-le-Vao, Chief of Safune, by bringing 
 misfortune upon her and her children. Then, 
 bidding her retire with the two little girls to sleep, 
 he turned to his native friends and told them of his 
 wife's fears. They smiled, and one of them, a 
 stalwart young man named Pelu (The Sword), said, 
 to reassure her — 
 
 "If the captain of the fighting ship brought all 
 his men to find thy husband, they would seek in 
 vain for the cave of Se'uao. And even if they 
 found it could they enter? Six men can hold it 
 against six hundred. Did not Tasia, Chief of 
 Tuamasanga, with a hundred of his people stay 
 hidden therein in the olden days for three months 
 after they had been beaten in battle? So sleep 
 in content with thy babes, O IMafa." 
 
 Late that night there set in a steady gale from the 
 south, and when dawn came a fierce, raging surf 
 beat upon the reefs from Sanaapu to Vaiee, and 
 the Thalia rode to it with both anchors down. 
 
 Soon after the dawn came a messenger to Duke.
 
 42 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 He had travelled across the mountains in the night 
 and through the storm to Sanaapu, and from thence 
 along the coast to Vaiee, and was spent with 
 fatigue. 
 
 "Rouse thee, Vili," he cried as he entered the 
 chief's house. "I am Lio of Apia and come to 
 warn thee. Hoffman, the German, hath boasted 
 to many people that this day thou shalt be seized 
 and manacled and taken on board the fighting ship, 
 which will take thee to England to die the death 
 of a traitor. And he hath sent a messenger with 
 a letter to the captain of the ship, telling him not 
 to seek for thee at thy house in Sanaapu, but in 
 one of the four villages about. This said he openly 
 yesterday when he had drunken much grog, and 
 staggered about from one house to another saying 
 to white men and Samoans alike : ' To-morrow I 
 shall follow my messenger and see this dog Vili 
 bound in iron bands and chains on the deck of 
 the fighting ship. And I shall spurn him in the 
 face with my booted foot, and the pride of the 
 upstart Mafa shall be humbled.' So get thee away 
 into hiding, dear friend." 
 
 Duke listened with an unmoved face, then he 
 thanked the messenger and bade him take food and 
 then rest. Then, turning to his agitated wife and 
 the chief of Vaiee, he said quietly — 
 
 "Be not alarmed. No boat can leave the ship 
 whilst the storm holds its strength, so there is no
 
 THE DESERTER 43 
 
 need for haste. But, after we have eaten, my wife, 
 my children, my two servants, and I shall go into 
 hiding in the cave of Se'uao." 
 
 ****** 
 
 When, seven years before, William Duke had 
 landed in Samoa from a whaleship, he had placed 
 himself under the protection of Tui-o-le-Vao, Chief 
 of Safune, and in a few months he had become 
 such a favourite with the Chief and his people 
 that the former, in accordance with the Samoan 
 custom, exchanged names with him as a proof 
 of the high esteem in which the w^hite man was 
 held. 
 
 Duke was a steady, sober, and hard-working 
 man, and his knowledge of boat-building proved of 
 immense advantage to him ; for not only was he 
 quickly enabled to earn enough money to begin 
 life as a trader, but his skill as a workman brought 
 him honour and reputation as well. For the 
 Samoans hold in the highest respect a tufiiga — i.e. 
 a man who can work at such trades as that of boat- 
 building, carpentry, and blacksmithing. 
 
 Then, too, there was an additional factor towards 
 Duke gaining popularity with the natives. At 
 Safune there were but two white men living beside 
 himself. One was a missionary named Close, the 
 other a trader — Adolph Hoffman. With the 
 former Duke soon became on very friendly terms, 
 but almost from the day that he (Duke) had put
 
 44 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 foot on shore at Safune, Hoffman, a tall, power- 
 fully built young man, had displayed the utmost 
 anger and jealousy towards him. He resented 
 most bitterly Duke's intimacy with Tui-o-le-Vao 
 and the respect with which the new-comer was 
 treated by the natives generally. Yet, under the 
 guise of friendship, the treacherous German would 
 often call at Duke's house, where he was always 
 made welcome, until as the months went by the 
 Englishman learned from the natives that Hoffman 
 had put it about that he was a tagata soli (deserter) 
 from a man-of-war. Hoffman had based his asser- 
 tion upon a very simple fact. 
 
 One day he came across Duke bathing in a 
 stream and noticed on his broad chest the tattooed 
 device of a cockatrice in blue and vermilion under 
 the words 
 
 "Her Majesty's Ship." 
 
 And Hoffman, who had been in South America, 
 had seen the Cockatrice at Valparaiso, and came 
 to the conclusion that Duke was a deserter. So, 
 the venom in his heart made him talk, foolishly 
 imagining that he would damage Duke in the 
 estimation of Tui-o-le-Vao and his people. In a 
 roundabout way Close, the missionary, heard of 
 Hoffman's talk and warned Duke. 
 
 "The fellow is a scoundrel, Duke. Beware of 
 him. It does not matter to me whether you are
 
 THE DESERTER 45 
 
 or are not a deserter. I like you, my wife likes 
 you, and you have the respect and esteem of the 
 natives as an honest, straightTorward, and clean- 
 living man. And Hoffman, in your sailor's par- 
 lance, is ' the two ends and bight ' of a thorough 
 sneaking blackguard and ruffian." 
 
 Duke thanked the clergyman in his quiet way 
 but said nothing, although there came into his calm 
 grey eyes a sudden flash of fire. 
 
 Now it had so happened that Duke had confided 
 his secret to Tui-o-le-Vao and his sister Mafa, and 
 the Chief, greatly incensed with Hoffman, threat- 
 ened to expel him from the village and burn his 
 house; though, previous to the arrival of Duke, 
 Hoffman had been one of many suitors for Mafa's 
 hand in marriage, and Tui had somewhat favoured 
 the German's suit, although Mafa herself disliked 
 the man on account of his bullying manner and 
 dissolute habits. 
 
 On the strength of what he had been told by the 
 missionary, Duke went to Hoffman, and asked him 
 what he meant by talking about him. 
 
 " If I am a deserter, is it any business of yours ? " 
 he said, and then, in a sudden fury, he seized the 
 German by the throat, dragged him outside his 
 house, and threw him down upon the footpath in 
 the presence of some hundreds of natives, and the 
 bully's prestige had gone for ever. 
 
 Another year passed, and then the gentle Mafa,
 
 46 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 who had given her love to the stalwart English 
 sailor, was married to him by Mr. Close. As they 
 left the mission church, Hoffman, mad with 
 jealousy and hatred, burst through the surround- 
 ing natives and fired two shots from his pistol at 
 Duke, wounding him in the shoulder. In a few 
 seconds Duke had thrown him down, and then, 
 amidst the jeers and contemptuous laughter of the 
 people, put his foot upon his face — the most deadly 
 insult, to Samoan usage, that could be inflicted 
 upon an enemy. 
 
 After that Hoffman went away to Apia, nursing 
 his hatred and waiting for revenge. 
 
 * * * *- -x- * 
 
 Commander Binghampton of the Thalia was an 
 easy-going man and hated unpleasant duties such 
 as punishing his men for any dereliction of duty, 
 and to apprehend a deserter was something very 
 distasteful to him. But the Commodore was a 
 martinet, and one of his especial fads was the root- 
 ing out of deserters from the Navy in the South 
 Sea Islands. Nothing gave him more satisfaction 
 than the perusal of his "Deserters' List " from 1844 
 to i860, and certain crosses against certain names, 
 indicating that he, Commodore Crowley Tamberd, 
 had succeeded in capturing so many absconders 
 from the Navy. 
 
 "It's a beastly nuisance, Santley," said Com- 
 mander Binghampton to Cardew, his first lieu-
 
 THE DESERTER 47 
 
 tenant; "but we shall have to act upon this letter, 
 especially as the British Consul in Apia vouches 
 for the writer's respectability. Here is what this 
 man Hoffman says : ' I am certain that the man 
 William Duke is a deserter, and that the ship from 
 which he deserted was the Cockatrice.' Now, I 
 am afraid that it is all too true and that we shall 
 have to collar the poor fellow, for ' William Duke ' 
 is down in Tamberd's confounded List as having 
 deserted from the Cockatrice. I hate this police- 
 man's work, but there is no help for it. Send away 
 Mr. Towns in the second cutter and tell him to go 
 to the various villages in the bay and tell the local 
 chiefs that this man ' Vili,' as the natives call 
 him, must be given up to us. I wish I could get 
 out of it, especially as I think that personal spite 
 is at the bottom of the matter. Why does this 
 fellow Hoffman betray the man's secret? As for 
 the Consul, he appears to have played into Hoff- 
 man's hands. Here is what he writes : ' I have no 
 doubt but that Mr. Hoffman's statement is correct, 
 and I shall be glad to hear that the man has been 
 apprehended, as I know how very keen Commodore 
 Tamberd is upon arresting deserters. Personally, 
 I know nothing against the man — indeed, the Rev. 
 Mr. Close looks upon him as quite a respectable 
 person.' Bah ! the priggishness of the expression 
 disgusts me," and the officer tossed the letter aside 
 contemptuously. "Tell Mr. Towns to be careful
 
 48 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 — there is still a heavy sea running, and the wind 
 is increasing." 
 
 ****** 
 
 On the summit of a high, wooded hill, under 
 which the great cave of Se'uao was situated, Duke 
 and Pelu were seated, smoking their pipes and 
 watching the Thalia. Within the cave Mafa and 
 her servants were arranging the sleeping accom- 
 modation by spreading mats upon the gravelled 
 floor, whilst a number of native women were carry- 
 ing in baskets of cooked food, fruit, and gourds 
 of water. The entrance was concealed by a number 
 of wild mountain banana plants growing so closely 
 together that the cave would have been in darkness 
 were it not for the many narrow and tortuous open- 
 ings in the great dome-like roof, through which 
 long shafts of sunlight penetrated. 
 
 For some minutes the deserter and his native 
 friend smoked in silence, listening to the sway- 
 ing canopy of tree boughs above them, and the 
 thunder of the surf upon the barrier reef a league 
 and a half distant. 
 
 Suddenly Pelu placed his hand on the white 
 man's shoulder, and said in low tones — 
 
 "See, Vili ; a boat is leaving the ship." 
 
 Duke nodded. "Aye, I see it." And then he 
 sighed. 
 
 "Thou art sad, Vili. Hast thou fear?" 
 
 "Nay, friend. No fear have I of that boat and
 
 THE DESERTER 49 
 
 those who come to seek me, for they can never find 
 me in Se'uao. But my heart is filled with shame 
 and sorrow to think that I should have to hide 
 like a thief from my own countrymen. Would 
 that 1 had neither wife nor children, so that I might 
 yield myself to the captain of the ship. For as I 
 look upon her my heart is moved within me and 
 a great yearning is upon me to take the hand of 
 but even one of those men now in the boat, and 
 say to him : ' Talofa ' (friend), I, too, am an Eng- 
 lishman and have served my Queen in the Navy.' 
 But it cannot be. And yet I have become a broken 
 man and an outcast through no fault of mine own ; 
 for the man whom I beat had for two whole years 
 persecuted me. And then in an evil moment my 
 wrath overcame me and my crime was done. And 
 by the laws of my country I should die — for it is 
 death to soldiers or sailors to strike those in 
 authority above them." 
 
 "Think no more of what is past, Vili," began 
 Pelu, then he uttered an exclamation of astonish- 
 ment and pointed to the boat. 
 
 "See, the boat hath set her sail and is steering 
 straight for Vaiee, but before her lies the great 
 tide-rip of Tulotu, through which no boat nor canoe 
 can pass even in calm weather. In another league 
 she will be in the swirl of it, and all on board will 
 perish." 
 
 Duke sprang to his feet, and in an instant 
 
 D
 
 50 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 realized that the boat was indeed saihng to certain 
 destruction. 
 
 "We must warn them, Pelu," he cried; "come, 
 follow me," and, rushing down the hill, he set off 
 at a run towards the village. Many natives, as 
 he gained the path, sought to stay him, wonder- 
 ing what had occurred, but he thrust them aside 
 and continued on his course. 
 
 Breathless with his exertions, he at last rushed 
 through the village to the beach, crying out as he 
 passed — 
 
 "Four strong men to man my whaleboat ! Haste, 
 for a boat-load of men from the warship is like to 
 perish in the tide-rip of Tulotu." 
 
 His boat was lying hidden among the mangroves, 
 and as he, Pelu, and a dozen more natives reached 
 her, and five of them jumped in and seized the oars 
 and Duke seized the steer-oar and bade them give 
 way, the Chief of Vaiee sprang into the water and 
 seized hold of the gunwale. 
 
 "Art thou mad, Vili !" he cried. " Wouldst thou 
 give thyself into the hands of thy enemies ? Back 
 to the shore and let me steer the boat. Back to 
 the cave, to thy wife and children !" 
 
 "Let go thy hold," shouted the deserter, almost 
 fiercely, and, stooping down, he forced the old chief 
 to release the boat, and then under the steady sw-eep 
 of five oars, the light craft sped from out the shelter 
 of the mangroves into the wild boil of surf that
 
 THE DESERTER 51 
 
 was tumbling in upon the beach in long serried 
 lines of white. But this stretch of surf, though 
 dangerous enough, was yet greatly lessened in its 
 force by the barrier reef beyond, which broke the 
 first force of its strength, and outside of which 
 mountainous billows, angry-crested and swaying 
 madly together, threatened every moment to smother 
 the boat and dash her splintered fragments upon 
 the black, protruding pinnacles of reef. 
 
 Almost as much excited as their leader, and never 
 for one moment losing courage, the brave natives 
 bent to their oars with cries of encouragement, and 
 a shout of triumph burst from them as, mounting 
 upon a mighty roller, they spun down into the dark 
 trough, clear of the reef, and in a few minutes found 
 ihe seas becoming less irregular and "lumpy." 
 
 Dashing the spray from his eyes, Duke looked 
 ahead, and caught a brief glimpse of the cutter half- 
 a-mile away. She had capsized, and he could see 
 a number of dark figures clinging to her keel. 
 
 "yl/o, alo! (pull, pull), comrades," he cried to his 
 crew. "The boat hath capsized and is being swept 
 towards us." 
 
 Fifteen anxious minutes passed, and then as the 
 whaleboat mounted the crest of another great sea, 
 she dropped alongside of the cutter and her drown- 
 ing and exhausted crew. Seven men were at once 
 seized by the natives and dragged into the boat, 
 
 putting her dangerously deep in the water. 
 D 2
 
 52 -NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 "How many more are there?" cried Duke to 
 one of the blue-jackets as he sheered away from 
 the submerged cutter. , 
 
 "Five, with the officer and the coxswam. Ihe 
 coxswain went after the officer, and we saw the 
 whole five a few minutes ago chngmg to oars and 
 being swept in-shore. For God's sake sir, let us 
 try and save them. I think that Mr. Towns mus 
 have been hurt, for we never heard h.m call srnce 
 
 ^'^Z Pelu. and look out," cried Duke as 
 he swung the boat's head round. "Ha. there are 
 two of them." These were Lieutenant Towns and 
 the coxswain; the officer was all but "-onscous 
 and was being supported on the oar by h,s orn- 
 panion. They were quickly rescued, and scarcely 
 Ld they been taken in when the three rema.n.ng 
 men were seen, and all picked up in turn 
 
 Then three of Duke's crew, seeing that the boat 
 was in danger of swamping from being so over- 
 laden, leapt overboard to lighten her, and set off 
 to swim to the shore, heedless of the danger of 
 
 sharks. ^ ^ ^, i 
 
 An hour later when Lieutenant Towns was able 
 to sit up, he found himself with his boat's crew 
 in the house of the Chief of Vaiee. The men told 
 him that the natives were treating them most 
 kindly, but that the white man who had saved 
 them from death had quietly disappeared, and that
 
 THE DESERTER 53 
 
 the natives only gave evasive answers concern- 
 ing him. But he had sent word to the Thalia of 
 the mishap to her boat, "and, sir," added the cox- 
 swain, "the captain is sure to send another boat 
 for us, as the sea is going down fast." 
 
 Lieutenant Towns said nothing. He was think- 
 ing deeply. 
 
 When he returned on board the corvette and 
 made his report, Commander Binghampton also 
 did som.e thinking. 
 
 "I don't think, Towns, that he can possibly be 
 the man, do you ? " 
 
 "I should say, sir, that he most certainly is not 
 the man." 
 
 "Quite so, quite so. And as he has vanished so 
 mysteriously, I can't waste any more time in going 
 into the matter any further. And, oh, Mr. Towns, 
 tell the first engineer that he must raise enough 
 steam to take us out of this place in two hours. 
 I rather think that we are in a hurry to get to Fiji 
 — eh. Towns ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir," and the young officer knew the mean- 
 ing of the kindly light in the eyes of his superior. 
 
 And Duke and Mafa, as they watched the 
 corvette steam away from the island, took their 
 children in their arms and kissed them many times.
 
 IV 
 
 THE LONELINESS OF IT 
 
 I 
 
 The title of this article is the expression used in 
 a letter I recently received from a young Scotsman, 
 who, despite my urgent advice "not to do it," went 
 out to the Pacific Islands to begin life as a trader 
 with the utterly inadequate capital of ^250. He 
 had had two years' experience at farming in Mani- 
 toba, could not stand the severe winter and the 
 heavy work, and returned home about two years 
 ago very much pulled down, but eager to assail 
 the walls of the City of Fortune once more under 
 milder skies, and more genial conditions of exist- 
 ence. Unfortunately for him he came across a 
 series of articles written by a globe-trotting lady 
 who had been travelling among the Pacific Islands 
 in excursion steamers, and whose language, and 
 really remarkable power of descriptive writing, was 
 only excelled by her extraordinary receptiveness of 
 the absurd tales told to her of the ease with which 
 any energetic person, with one or two hundred 
 
 54
 
 THE LONELINESS OF IT 55 
 
 pounds, could acquire a fortune in less than a year 
 in the South Seas by any one of the following 
 pursuits: "digging out gold by the handful" by 
 grubbing for it among the roots of the mangroves 
 growing in the embouchures of the rivers in British 
 New Guinea and the Solomon Islands; hiring a 
 cutter "at a trifling cost," and cruising among the 
 atolls in search of the "innumerable" (sic) rich 
 beds of pearl shells which everywhere abounded; 
 starting a trading business, and "making a profit 
 of a thousand per cent " on nearly everything sold 
 to the simple-minded kanakas; buying a large area 
 of land (also for a trifle) from the natives and plant- 
 ing it with coconut trees, sugar-cane or cotton, 
 etc., etc. And all that the energetic person would 
 have to do would be to use his energy in looking 
 on whilst riches rolled in upon him. There was 
 much more egregious and similar nonsense to this 
 effect, and the writer of these present articles was 
 the recipient of some scores of letters from men, 
 who wrote from all parts of the British Isles, asking 
 his advice, and his opinion of the alluring state- 
 ments contained in the series of articles before- 
 mentioned, and in every case he was obliged to 
 condemn the lady's statements as unfortunate and 
 misleading. From many old trading friends and 
 acquaintances I also received letters, urging me, 
 out of my past and present knowledge of the con- 
 ditions of life in the Pacific Islands — especially
 
 56 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 business conditions, to make known through the 
 English Press the plain fact that, for years past, the 
 average trader in the British-ruled Pacific Islands 
 has barely been able to eke out a living. Those 
 who in former years had been making a fair annual 
 income as independent traders and copra buyers 
 have, as a class, almost ceased to exist, owing to 
 many causes — continuous bad seasons, hurricanes, 
 restrictions upon native labour, and, most dis- 
 astrous to them of all, the establishment of power- 
 ful trading, planting and pearl-shelling companies 
 with a large capital, numerous branches, plenty 
 of steamers and sailing vessels, and importing 
 their trade goods direct to the Pacific Islands from 
 Liverpool, Birmingham, etc. 
 
 My correspondent, however, was bent upon 
 "having a try at it," as he informed me in one of 
 his letters. By the time he reached Auckland he 
 had already made a considerable hole in his ;^25o 
 in buying what he thought was a modest outfit in 
 the way of light clothing, paying his passage out 
 to New Zealand, etc. At Auckland he was strongly 
 advised against proceeding to the Islands to start 
 as a trader, unless he had at least a capital of 
 ;^200o, and as for his ideas of obtaining employ- 
 ment as a trader, clerk, or supercargo, with one of 
 the large firms, he was told that his chances were 
 nil — there were too many experienced men, who 
 were "knocking about the beaches/' unable to
 
 THE LONELINESS OF IT 57 
 
 obtain work of any kind. Persisting in his inten- 
 tion, however, he at last found himself established 
 as a resident trader on one of the islands of the 
 Union or Tokelau Group, near Samoa, where he 
 was to act as the local agent for one of the minor 
 trading firms in Fiji, at a salary of £^ per month, 
 and five per cent commission on the value of the 
 goods he sold and the copra he bought. He was 
 so unfortunate as to offer to put his remaining 
 little capital into the venture. The results were 
 disastrous, for at the end of eleven months he 
 found himself credited with £^^ wages, but in 
 debt to the firm for provisions, house rent, cost of 
 boat, etc., to the extent of ^260. And then he 
 was discharged and turned adrift to shift for him- 
 self. 
 
 In writing me the story of his mishaps and dis- 
 enchantment of Island life, he feelingly described 
 his disappointment with not only the island itself 
 (Atafu), but with the natives, and I must admit 
 that he was correct in his delineation of the physical 
 characteristics of both island and people. 
 
 "It is only a miserable chain of coral reefs with 
 a pool of salt water in the middle, and covered with 
 sand, coconut trees and pandanue, to hide the 
 gross affront it gives to the intelligent mind by 
 being termed an ' island.' The natives were a 
 surly, cantankerous lot of brutes; those few who 
 were not offensive in this respect were crawling,
 
 58 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 servile, sponging and hypocritical to a degree. 
 Nine-tenths of them were afflicted with that dis- 
 gusting skin disease which you have so often men- 
 tioned . . . but the horror of which I never realized 
 until then. . . . They have a way of scratching 
 themselves with a flattened piece of stick . . . the 
 native ' padre ' used to do it in church . . . they 
 would use my table-knives for the purpose, if I left 
 any lying about. . . . But the worst of it all was 
 the loneliness — the utter loneliness — of the life. 
 No other white man to even nod a ' good-morning ' 
 to you. Some days not even a native came to the 
 house, for they had no copra to sell, and when the 
 spongers found that I was not too free-handed with 
 biscuits or tobacco they too left off coming. . . . 
 But the nights were most hideous. I used to read 
 as long as I could, perhaps till midnight, then turn 
 in, and be kept awake till dawn by the confounded 
 thumping and moaning of the surf of the reef, and 
 the eternal swish, swish, of the coconut and pan- 
 danus leaves in the trade-wind. There was ab- 
 solutely nothing to do next morning, but walk up 
 and down, and round and round about through the 
 groves of coconut trees . . . stare out at the 
 horizon and wonder whether one was alive, or only 
 having a — dream." 
 
 Now Atafu, in the Tokelaus, is not a cheerful 
 place, but yet my Scots correspondent, had he been 
 differently constituted, mentally and physically,
 
 THE LONELINESS OF IT 59 
 
 and not so keen on making a fortune by doing 
 nothing, could have made his time pass very 
 pleasantly, or at least, would never have felt triste. 
 For even a lonely, sandy banked atoll in the South 
 Seas is full of attractions and life, and of many 
 good things to delight the mind of even the most 
 timorous student who has the courage and good 
 intent to seek to learn something of the joy and 
 great wonders of Nature. And should the amateur 
 investigator — such as was the present writer in by- 
 gone years — have no native companions with him 
 to instruct him by their explanations of why such 
 and such fish or crustacean changed its colour and 
 mode of life at certain seasons of the year, or be 
 unaccompanied by a score of merry, but obstruc- 
 tive native children, who regard the proceedings 
 as a bit of fun for their own especial delecta- 
 tion, the amateur investigator, aforesaid, can spend 
 many delightful, enthralling hours, day after day, 
 week after week, and month after month, by "doing 
 for himself," watching, learning and wondering. 
 And in my own case I did watch, learn and wonder; 
 but I was under the heavy handicap of a scanty 
 education, had seen no books on Natural History 
 except those of the Early Victorian type (disem- 
 bowelled from the works of Cuvier, and made "fit " 
 for the young person of the Early Victorian period). 
 But in years to come I was happy in meeting 
 several naturalists engaged in making collections
 
 6o 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 in Polynesia and Micronesia, and frequently had 
 the pleasure of accompanying them on some of 
 their excursions, on shore and afloat. Two of 
 these gentlemen were Drs. Finsch and Kubary, 
 men of great scientific attainments, and bright and 
 genial natures. Little as I may have learned from 
 them, it proved a source of pleasure and delight 
 to me when, years later, I found myself living on 
 various islands in turn for long terms, usually the 
 only resident white man. Unlike most of the 
 traders, who found island life very monotonous 
 when business was slack, I scarcely ever experi- 
 enced a dull day, even when living on some low- 
 lying coral island, without the advantages of 
 forests, mountains and rivers or streams, such as 
 are to be found in Samoa, Fiji, and the great islands 
 of the Solomon and New Hebrides Groups, New 
 Britain and New Ireland, and Admiralty Island. 
 
 As showing the other side of the case, so dolefully 
 related by my young Scot's friend of his experience 
 on Atafu Island, let me give some details of my 
 every day life on an island that was no more at- 
 tractive to the eye than was that place. The name 
 of it is Nanomaga (or Hudson Island), it is the 
 smallest of the seven islands comprising the Ellice 
 Group, and possesses no lagoon (as do most of the 
 others), only a lake or rather pool in the centre of 
 the island. The pool is less than an acre in ex- 
 tent, and rises and falls with the tide, there being
 
 THE LONELINESS OF IT 6i 
 
 a subterranean passage through the coral strata to 
 the sea — half-a-mile distant at the nearest point. 
 
 A Httle digression here is necessary to explain 
 how I came to be living on Nanomaga, where I 
 remained eleven months. 
 
 My employers had established a large trading 
 business in the Pacific Islands, with head-quarters 
 in Liverpool, and main depots at Apia, Samoa. 
 Owing to bad management and the eccentric con- 
 duct of one of their captains, who later on became 
 insane, the firm had suffered heavy losses. Some 
 of the traders absconded, others were lazy, drunken 
 scallawags, who got into serious trouble with the 
 natives, and it was decided to make a clean sweep 
 of these latter, replace them by decent men, and 
 make a fresh start. With this object in view I 
 was despatched from Sydney in a barque of 400 tons 
 laden with trade goods. After visiting various 
 islands we cruised to the north-west, and then the 
 barque started a butt-end, began to leak so badly 
 that even with the aid of a windmill pump, which 
 was made to relieve the labours of the crew, we 
 could barely keep the water under. To add to our 
 troubles the captain, who was a very old man, died 
 suddenly from heart disease. This happened one 
 morning at daylight, when we were in sight of 
 Nanomaga, an island on which I was most anxious 
 to place a trader, had we an available man. I de- 
 cided to stay there myself and send the barque
 
 62 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 to Funafuti Lagoon, where she could be beached, 
 the leak stopped, and then send her to Sydney in 
 charge of the mate. At Funafuti we had a small 
 schooner, doing the inter-island work, and this 
 vessel was to be sent to Nanomaga to pick me up, 
 so that the Caroline Islands could be visited and 
 business carried on. 
 
 I landed on the island with trade goods to the 
 value of ;^2ooo, and the barque at once sailed for 
 Funafuti. The natives received me most hospit- 
 ably, and all my goods and personal effects were 
 quickly carried by willing hands to the fale kau- 
 pule, or town meeting-house, which was given to 
 me for temporary use, until a new house was built 
 for me. This was to be occupied by a trader — 
 when I came across a suitable man. I may mention 
 that the tender schooner never turned up. She had 
 dragged her anchors during a squall, gone ashore 
 on the reef, and bilged herself. The barque, mean- 
 while, went on to Sydney, and eleven months 
 passed before I was relieved by another of the 
 firm's vessels. 
 
 The Nanomaga people had only accepted Chris- 
 tianity three years previously, when they had, after 
 much internal discussion, consented to receive a 
 native teacher and his wife. They were Samoans, 
 and both personally known to me, though many 
 years had passed since I last saw them. The man 
 was a sturdy, well-built young fellow named loane
 
 THE LONELINESS OF IT 63 
 
 (John) and his wife Eline, an attractive-looking girl 
 of about eighteen. From the very first, these two 
 treated me with the utmost kindness, and their 
 example was followed by their "flock," who were 
 very fond of them. loane was of the muscular 
 Christian type, an ardent sportsman, and having 
 been tatooed in his boyhood in the orthodox 
 Samoan style (of course before he had been con- 
 verted) the Nanomagans thought him a remark- 
 ably fine man. 
 
 Before describing the people and their mode of 
 life, let me say something of the physical features 
 of the island itself. The extent of it may be 
 gathered from the fact that I could make the entire 
 circuit in three hours, even though there are 
 stretches of loose coral slabs thrown up by the 
 action of the sea, on which walking was difficult. 
 There is no barrier reef, except at the north end, 
 where a triangular spur, running from south-east 
 and north-west, meets in a sharply defined apex 
 two miles from the shore. On the western, or lee 
 side, the reef narrows into, and is consolidated with 
 the land, the sea-face of it never being more than 
 half-a-mile, and never less than a hundred yards 
 distant from the line of coco palms fringing the 
 beaches. At low water this "flat" reef was dry, 
 except for occasional deep pools in the solid body 
 of rock — pools that harboured not only large fishes 
 of diverse shapes and extraordinary colours, but
 
 64 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 hawkbill turtle, giant eels and crayfish. When 
 there was a full tide there would be about six feet 
 of water. 
 
 On the eastern or weather side the roof rises 
 steep to from its base at quite a short distance 
 from the shore — about fifty yards. Here the coral 
 formations are wild, irregular and fantastic in their 
 shape and appearance. Huge, jagged boulders 
 encompass small, but deep pools, placid enough at 
 low tide at night, when the lusty south-east trade 
 had gone to sleep, but seething, roaring cauldrons 
 when, during the day, the tide was at half-flood, 
 and the long, rolling ocean billows reared, curved 
 and burst with a thundering clamour against the 
 grim wall of coral that showed its black and jagged 
 teeth defiantly to the onrushing sweeping seas. 
 Here, at the ledge of the reef, if you stood on some 
 projecting spur of a thin layer of coral rock that 
 shot out sharply from the main body, you could 
 look down, at your feet, into forty fathoms of water 
 and almost imagine that through the wavering 
 lights and shadows you could see the bottom. And 
 then, as you looked, if it were a calm and the sea 
 was smooth, and the leaves of the cocos and pan- 
 danus palms were not flapping and thrashing and 
 soughing as they do when the lusty trade winds 
 sway their green arms wildly to and fro, you would 
 hear strange, mysterious sounds — gurglings, groan- 
 ings, and dull and muflled boomings, as the ocean
 
 THE LONELINESS OF IT 65 
 
 swell, gently heaving, forced the air upwards 
 through thousands of blow-holes in the crust of the 
 reef. Even in the calmest weather, and when the 
 sea seemed to be — as it was from a sailorman's 
 point of view — at peace, every long, lazy and 
 languorous swell would send up innumerable 
 vapoury jets of spray from the holes and crannies 
 of the reef. Some came up noiselessly in a white 
 feathery spray, curling like an ostrich feather in a 
 lady's hat; some, where the hole in the crust of 
 the reef was larger, shot up in a straight column, 
 subsiding as quickly as it had appeared, others 
 sent out squirts of filmy spray slantingly ; these 
 latter the native children called respectively — "por- 
 poise blows," "fin-back whale blows," and "sperm 
 whale blows." The children had great fun with 
 some of these vents in the crust of the reef, and, 
 indeed, grown people (myself included) would par- 
 ticipate. Choosing a suitable hole, they would 
 place a piece of planking over it, seat themselves 
 on the board and wait for an incoming roller, and 
 then, amidst loud laughter, they would be raised 
 several feet up on the top of the rush of water; if 
 the board filled over the orifice fairly closely, and 
 was well weighted down, the water would shoot out 
 horizontally in all directions. 
 
 On this, the weather side of the island, there are 
 no beaches, but a high bank of loose coral slabs 
 thrown up by the sea, and resembling a roughly-
 
 66 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 built terrace, out of which grow coconut and pan- 
 danus palms. Here robber crabs abounded — some 
 of them very large — and made their burrows and 
 storehouses under the stones. During daylight 
 they are seldom seen, but are easily captured at 
 night by the aid of torches, and a robber crab hunt 
 is both amusing and exciting. The natives told 
 me that years before a white man, then living on 
 Nanomaga, used to keep robber crabs in captivity, 
 and fatten them by placing them in an empty fifty- 
 pound biscuit tin. I tried the plan myself, and 
 after a time succeeded, but my first attempts were 
 failures owing to my placing two or three in the 
 same tin, the result was that they fought most 
 savagely, tearing off each other's claws and making 
 a horrible noise as they came in contact with the 
 sides of the tin. Although they preferred coco- 
 nut, or the sweet ripe drupes of the pandanus palm, 
 they were omnivorous feeders — biscuit, tinned 
 meat, fish, or indeed food of any kind. On one 
 occasion a predatory rat met his doom in one of my 
 tins. Jumping down in search of food, he had 
 been unable to get out again, and in the morning 
 my native cook found his corpse, or rather half of 
 it, the rest being torn to pieces by the powerful 
 nippers of Birgis latro. 
 
 Here and there along the margin of the bank 
 were small open-sided huts, which were frequently 
 used by the natives as sleeping places when mos-
 
 THE LONELINESS OF IT 67 
 
 quitoes were troublesome in the village, which was 
 on the lee side of the island, and not exposed to the 
 trade wind. During the rainy season it was im- 
 possible to sleep in the village, except under mos- 
 quito netting, and on steamy, hot nights we all 
 crossed over to the fale matagi (wind houses) to 
 escape the pest and get the benefit of whatever wind 
 there might be. 
 
 Behind the bank of coral stones there are a series 
 of deep depressions in the sandy soil, where the 
 natives grow a huge coarse species of taro called 
 ptiraka — the only vegetable the island produces. 
 The labour of making these beds was enormous, 
 every small stone being removed, and the pits filled 
 in with vegetable mould, dead leaves, etc., etc., 
 until a solid stratum of ten feet was attained, then 
 the plants were placed in and carefully tended. 
 Some of these tubers are as thick as a man's body, 
 three or four feet long and weighing up to 100 
 pounds. 
 
 In the centre of the island there are a good many 
 
 very large trees of the ficus family, which are the 
 
 breeding place of countless thousands of sooty 
 
 terns. The natives relish them greatly, as the flesh 
 
 has only a very slight fishy flavour, and the eggs 
 
 (about the size of a pigeon's) are quite free of any 
 
 fishy taste. The natives preserve these birds to a 
 
 great extent by not touching the eggs or the young 
 
 birds, but every year they kill and eat thousaj ds 
 £ 2
 
 68 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 of the parents. So tame are they that the hen bird 
 will allow herself to be lifted off her nest — or rather 
 the leaf on which she lays her one egg — and flutter 
 about the intruding hand until she is permitted to 
 return. It is a curious sight to see these birds, 
 sitting on their solitary eggs, being swayed to and 
 fro by the breeze. The eggs never, or seldom, fall 
 off, being secured to the leaf by a sticky gelatinous 
 substance, but the poor chicks are shaken down in 
 hundreds by a heavy squall, and devoured by the 
 robber crabs. The natives assured me that when- 
 ever a heavy rain squall came on at night time, 
 during the incubating season, the robber crabs 
 gathered under the trees to enjoy the feast that lay 
 awaiting them. 
 
 Besides the terns, there was a small rookery each 
 of other oceanic birds — a handsome blue-plumaged 
 species of booby, called kanapu, and the frigate 
 bird. Occasionally some of these latter were taken 
 when young and kept in semi-captivity by the 
 natives, who prized them greatly as pets, as do the 
 Samoans their tamed wild pigeons. The method 
 was to take two or three unfledged birds and feed 
 them by hand on fish until they were able to fly. 
 Then a perch — the trunk of a pandanus palm 
 stripped of its serrated leaves — was put up some- 
 where in the village, in an open spot, and each bird 
 secured by a cinnet cord tied to one leg. Here, for 
 a month or two, they were fed continuously by the
 
 THE LONELINESS OF IT 69 
 
 native children tossing them up fish. Then they 
 were Hberated to go a-hunting by themselves, and 
 they invariably returned at night time to roost, 
 sometimes attended by untamed companions. 
 Every care was taken not to alarm or disturb them, 
 and whenever any of them returned to its perch in 
 the day time a fish or two was always thrown to it. 
 During my stay on Nanomaga there were five 
 frigate birds located in the village, and when they 
 became accustomed to my strange appearance and 
 garments, they allowed me to approach near enough 
 to throw them fish, which they caught in mid-air in 
 a marvellous manner, never letting one fall to the 
 ground. 
 
 In addition to these ocean-haunting birds there 
 were white and blue cranes, a few pigeons, and vast 
 flocks of golden plover, and a tiny species of sand- 
 piper with brown back and snow-white chest. The 
 pigeons had once been plentiful, but for some 
 reason they deserted the island about 1870, and 
 settled on the island of Niutao, sixty miles to the 
 windward. During my stay I abstained from 
 shooting more than half-a-dozen, and succeeded in 
 "blarneying" the only two men on the island who 
 possessed guns, not to shoot a pigeon for twelve 
 months — so that there might be an increase of the 
 birds. Being intensely proud of their old Tower 
 muskets, with which they had succeeded in killing 
 a score or two of pigeons (with "shot " of carefully
 
 70 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 selected and graded pebbles), they at first demurred, 
 but were won over to rectitude by the gift of a good 
 rip saw, a set of gouges — invaluable to them for 
 canoe making — and a pound of tobacco each. This 
 magnificent present was worth to me something 
 under twenty shillings, but it bore good results, for, 
 when I re-visited Nanomaga four years later, I 
 found that pigeons were plentiful, and that the 
 kaupule (town council) had forbidden any one to 
 shoot more than four birds in a week ! But this 
 action was, I regret to say, not done out of personal 
 regard for me, nor for the preservation of the birds, 
 but because the astute head men had learned that 
 the captain and passengers of any ship touching 
 at the island were quite willing to pay a couple of 
 dollars for a few hours' pigeon shooting. These 
 birds were exactly similar in plumage, size and 
 appearance to those of Samoa and the Melanesian 
 Islands, and I often wondered how they came to be 
 on these low-lying, sandy atolls, where there were 
 neither fruits, nor even berries, such as the pigeon 
 family live upon in the fruitful and rich mountain 
 forests of Samoa — the nearest high land, and six 
 hundred miles distant. The natives assured me 
 that pigeons had been on the island since its fanau 
 (birth), and that they fed and fattened upon the 
 young buds of the coconut tree, as they burst out 
 from the enveloping spathe, and also ate the 
 blossom of the pandanus palm. And that their
 
 THE LONELINESS OF IT 71 
 
 statements were correct, I had ample proof, for on 
 many occasions I saw pigeons feeding on both 
 coconut and pandanus flowers. These contain 
 much saccharine matter, and, no doubt, are as 
 nutritious to the birds as the juicy fruits and berries 
 of the mountainous islands of the Pacific, which 
 were their original home. In a very dry season, 
 when there was no water to be had in the puraka 
 plantations, the pigeons would come to the village 
 and drink from the scanty supply conserved by the 
 natives in old canoes, and from small cisterns 
 hollowed out at the thick and bulging butts of the 
 coco palms. These tiny reservoirs were made in 
 a very ingenious manner. That side of the butt of 
 the palm, down which the greatest fall of rain- 
 water would run, was dug out, the cavity plastered 
 with a quickly-hardening gum obtained from a 
 tree which grew in the interior of the island, and 
 the coco palm was thus not injured to any degree 
 by its absorbent pores being cut into so deeply. 
 Experienta docet. Long years ago, before the 
 white men came to the Pacific, there had been a 
 cycle of drought, and some native genius had hit 
 upon this idea of catching all the rainwater that 
 fell upon the perishing coconut trees, which 
 yielded no fruit and had but a scanty foliage. 
 
 Nanomaga is famous among the island groups 
 of that part of the South Pacific for the profusion 
 of a species of the coconut palm, which produces
 
 72 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 a very large nut, almost as round as a ball, and 
 with an edible, or rather "chewable," husk. When 
 half-grown, the nut is husked very carefully, strip 
 by strip, and so rich is it in saccharine juice that it 
 literally drips out like water from a soddened 
 sponge. The natives call it uto ga'au (husk to 
 chew), and from this tree they obtain their sweet 
 toddy — or rather did so until the missionaries for- 
 bade the drinking of toddy on the ground that 
 occasional instances of drunkenness occurred 
 through the toddy being allowed to ferment, when 
 it becomes highly intoxicating. During my time, 
 however, loane the pastor, who was a liberal- 
 minded man, never interfered with their toddy 
 drinking, not only drank it himself, but his wife 
 used it for yeast in making bread. (loane, I may 
 here mention, was a splendid — and rare — type of 
 the average Polynesian, or Melanesian pastor, who 
 too often, when away from the supervision of his 
 white superiors, becomes a petty tyrant to his 
 flock, interdicts the most innocent forms of amuse- 
 ment or recreation — such as dances, trials of 
 strength, etc., as savouring of heathendom. loane 
 not only permitted his recently-converted charges 
 to indulge in their usual games and pastimes, but, 
 stripped to his waistcloth, took part in them him- 
 self, and entered into wrestling contests, spear- 
 throwing, etc., with all the zest of a Samoan 
 warrior.)
 
 THE LONELINESS OF IT 73 
 
 From the sweet juice of this particular species of 
 the coconut the natives make a sort of nougat, by 
 boiling it down to a paste. It will keep for years, 
 and is very nourishing. In former times a certain 
 quantity was always stored in case of famine or 
 war, each family contributing its quota for the 
 general use. It was enclosed in a plaited cane- 
 work cover, and then Seized tightly round with coir 
 cinnet. Old coconuts were also stored in special 
 houses, where they were left for a year or two until 
 the milk had been absorbed into the nut, and the 
 nut itself became detached from the shell. When, 
 by shaking, it was heard to rattle, it was considered 
 "cured," the husk was removed, and the nuts stored 
 in a smaller space. By this process the nut con- 
 tracted to the size of a cricket ball, and became so 
 hard that, when wanted for use, it had to be cut 
 with a hatchet or broken with a heavy stone. 
 These tak-a-tak, as they were called, were only 
 eaten in times of famine, and during my stay on 
 the island, I bought over two tons of them as copra, 
 paying double the price of the ordinary sun-dried 
 copra, for the tak-a-tak yields, under machinery, a 
 clear beautiful oil, and is largely used on the Con- 
 tinent as a base for "pure Italian olive oil." 
 
 The first thing that would strike a visitor to 
 Nanomaga are the coconut palms, nearly every 
 one of which is encircled by a neat, tight band, 
 composed of layers of the long, dried leaves of the
 
 74 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 pandanus palm. This is done to prevent the de- 
 predations of rats, which are the curse of the island, 
 for they swarm in incredible numbers and are 
 particularly fond of the young flowers of the coco 
 palm, as they burst out from the enveloping spathe, 
 and were it not for the protecting band the trees 
 would yield no fruit. Whoever the native genius 
 was who discovered this foil to the depredations of 
 the rats, his memory deserves to be honoured. 
 Very often have I w'atched the attempts of rats to 
 get up a coconut palm. Nimbly running up the 
 tree they would reach the encircling band of 
 smooth, glass-like leaves, which was placed about 
 six feet from the butt of the tree where it "thinned 
 off." Then the depredator found himself hopelessly 
 blocked. He would first make a jump to try and 
 clear the band, fall down to the ground, ascend 
 again, and then go round and round it, scratching 
 angrily at the lowermost portion, and no doubt 
 cursing such a diabolical invention. 
 
 Forty or fifty years ago a whaleship captain pre- 
 sented the islanders with a batch of cats — three 
 mothers, with many kittens. They ran wild and 
 increased prodigiously, but had no effect upon the 
 rats. 
 
 Every year or two the natives renew these pro- 
 tecting bands, and, by organizing great rat trap- 
 pings, used to diminish the pest.
 
 THE LONELINESS OF IT 75 
 
 II 
 
 Every Nanomagan is a born fisherman, and 
 although their canoes are very small, they do not 
 hesitate to tackle and kill the largest sharks. Some- 
 times the canoes are capsized, but even then the 
 shark does not escape — he is either disembowelled, 
 or his tail is slit up, which latter operation takes 
 "the kick" out of him very quickly. Hardwood 
 trees of any size being extremely scarce, the natives 
 value their canoes greatly, and one that was made 
 for me cost $30 in cash and trade goods. The 
 hulls are models of symmetry, and externally are 
 polished as smooth as glass by being rubbed with 
 the rough under-part of the wild fig leaf, or shark 
 skin. Each one is fitted with beautifully con- 
 structed whalebacks fore and aft, the for'ard one 
 being about four feet long, and designed to save 
 the canoe from swamping when facing a heavy 
 surf, the after one serving the same purpose when 
 running before it. From each end of the whale- 
 backs the gunwales are raised six inches by thin 
 planking sewn on to the hull with cinnet, and 
 flagged with rushes to make the joining water- 
 tight. 
 
 Before describing the Nanomagan methods of 
 deep-sea fishing, let me say something of the people
 
 76 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 themselves. Although the island is so small there 
 were living on it during my stay no less than seven 
 hundred people. Naturally, their skins were of a 
 light reddish-brown hue, but through constant 
 exposure to the sun, they became much darker. 
 Their hair was straight, and formerly, that of the 
 men was worn long, and tied up in a knot on the 
 top of the head, but the missionaries objected to 
 it as savouring of heathendom. Both the men 
 and women were much inclined to corpulency, but 
 were tall and well-formed, and as a w-hole they 
 were an extremely healthy race. I did not see a 
 single case of tinea desquamans or T. hnhricata — 
 the curse of the Gilbert and Kingsmill Islands — 
 and only two or three cases of elephantiasis. They 
 admit that in former days they were cannibals, 
 and indeed, only as far back as 1863 a missionary 
 who called there saw human limbs hanging up in 
 some of the houses. Their language was a curious 
 mixture of Maori, Samoan, and the Gilbert Island 
 dialect, but I found that if spoken slowly, they 
 understood Samoan. For Polynesians, I considered 
 them an extremely moral community, and their 
 family relations were most affectionate. Although 
 very good natured and laughter-loving, they w^ere 
 prone to sudden and violent bursts of anger, and 
 homicide formerly was prevalent. Theft of food 
 in those days was punished by death, and even 
 now it is looked upon as a serious matter. A
 
 THE LONELINESS OF IT 77 
 
 more honest people I never met, and never once 
 did I miss so much as a piece of tobacco — and to- 
 bacco they dearly love. After my new house was 
 built I arranged my store — a large room fitted with 
 rough shelves, on which were stacked all sorts of 
 articles, from shot guns, muskets, and loose 
 powder, to sardines and accordeons, tinned meats 
 to prints and muslins ; and although I would some- 
 times be away all day and all night, nothing was 
 ever stolen, despite the fact that my house and 
 store was the general lounge for the whole village, 
 and there was not a locked door or closed window 
 in the entire building. And in November of that 
 year, when the island was visited by a series of 
 tidal waves, and the front of my house burst in, 
 every man, woman and child rushed to my assist- 
 ance, neglecting their own dwellings, which were 
 being swept away, and carried all my effects to 
 higher ground, where for a week they remained 
 under mats to protect them from rain. Not a 
 single article was stolen, and when I offered them 
 payment to the extent of £20 for their services, 
 the kaupule (town council) refused to accept it, 
 because my friend loane (the missionary) said it 
 would be a disgraceful thing for them to accept 
 payment for doing what any one with a good loto 
 (heart) would do. However, after a protest from 
 me they agreed to accept a cask of salt meat, 
 100 lbs. of ship biscuit, a bag of sugar, and a
 
 78 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 small box of tea, and I had the honour of being 
 the principal guest at the resultant feast. 
 
 When I first landed on the island, and whilst 
 my house was being built, I lived with loane, who, 
 within a few hours after my arrival, called a public 
 meeting, and said some very pretty things about 
 me generally — especially exaggerating my Samoan 
 reputation as a deep-sea fisherman and wild pig 
 hunter. Then I was formally presented to the two 
 most notable men on the island as gentlemen with 
 whom I should take sweet counsel regarding all 
 future fishing matters. One was a remarkably hand- 
 some young man named Muli'ao (The Steersman), 
 and the other, a Herculean monster named Kino 
 (The Bad). Why he was so named I do not know, 
 for he was a good-natured, honest fellow, with a 
 thunderous laugh, and merry, smiling face. 
 Muli'ao was reputed to be facile princeps as a 
 bonito fisher and shark catcher, and Kino was the 
 one builder of canoes on the island, and really his 
 name and productions were known all through the 
 seven islands of the Ellice Group. I gave him a 
 commission there and then to begin me a canoe. 
 That canoe remained in my possession for many 
 years, and accompanied me on many voyages be- 
 tween the Pacific Islands, San Francisco and Syd- 
 ney, and was one of the greatest acquisitions I 
 ever made, for sometimes during a calm, when 
 bonito would be seen, some of the native crew and
 
 THE LONELINESS OF IT 79 
 
 I would drop it over the side, get in with our 
 bonito rods and pearl-shell hooks, and have glorious 
 sport. 
 
 My stock of fishing tackle at once attracted the 
 attention and won the approval of the natives, and 
 within forty-eight hours of my arrival Muli'ao had 
 taken possession of me body and soul by his de- 
 scriptions of the huge fish we should take together. 
 And, indeed, Nanomaga is noted for the extra- 
 ordinarily large fish that abound in the surrounding 
 waters. Although I had then never heard the 
 name "tuna," the fish — or a closely-allied species — 
 was well known to me by the native name of takuo, 
 and Muli'ao assured me that we should get them 
 up to such a size that "two strong men could 
 scarce lift one." Then, too, there were the pala — 
 a giant fish of the gar family, reaching seven feet 
 in length, and with a girth of thirty inches; the 
 pain (a species of Ruvettus), which was fished for 
 in from eighty to a hundred and fifty fathoms on 
 dark, calm nights, and greatly prized by the natives 
 of the Equatorial Pacific for its peculiarly oily 
 flesh ; and several kinds of blue groper which I had 
 never seen in the Pacific Islands so far, although 
 I had caught them on the east coast of Australia. 
 Muli'ao was a learned man in the matter of deep- 
 sea fishes, and, fortunately being able to speak 
 Samoan very well, he and I got on splendidly, and 
 on the first night of my arrival, we sat up till day-
 
 8o 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 light, arranging my tackle, and talking and con- 
 suming negrohead tobacco. 
 
 Four miles from Nanomaga there is a submerged 
 reef, known all over the Equatorial Pacific as a 
 wonderful fishing ground. On the charts it is 
 marked "Grand Cocal Reef, P. D.," and to the 
 natives is known as Tia Kau — "The Reef." It is 
 of circular form, about four miles in circumference, 
 and slopes gradually away from the centre, on 
 which there are four fathoms of water. During 
 heavy weather the sea breaks on it with violence, 
 but in the ordinary trades a vessel can sail across 
 it in safety, and when there was no wind at all, 
 the submerged summit and sloping sides presented 
 a wondrous and beautiful spectacle. Never before 
 had I seen such an extraordinary variety of the 
 shapes and colourings of coral, and such an in- 
 credible number of fish, large and small. The Tia 
 Kau always possessed a fascination for me, and I 
 visited it many scores of times, always in company 
 with some of the natives, who flatly refused to let 
 me go there alone in a canoe on account of the 
 great number of sharks. In a boat, they con- 
 tended, I would be safe enough in fishing, but not 
 so in a canoe, for it often happened that when a 
 large and powerful fish was hooked, and being 
 lifted into the canoe, a shark would make a rush 
 after it, and capsize or swamp the canoe — which 
 meant that the sharks would get a bigger and per-
 
 THE LONELINESS OF IT 8i 
 
 haps tastier meal than that which would be afforded 
 them by an ordinary fish. 
 
 On the second day after my arrival, Muli'ao, 
 Kino, two other men and myself, started off for 
 the Tia Kau in one of the largest canoes. In addi- 
 tion to my usual fishing tackle, I brought with me 
 a whale lance with a blade like that of a razor. 
 This Muli'ao had espied among my gear, and 
 asked me to bring it to enenene le malie (tickle the 
 sharks). We certainly did tickle very very many 
 sharks on other occasions with the weapon, and 
 found it most useful, especially when fishing at 
 night time, for sharks — particularly the short, thick 
 blue sharks, have an unpleasant way of hanging 
 about a fishing canoe, waiting to seize any fish 
 being hauled up, and, inter alia, by way of diver- 
 sion, seizing the outrigger in their jaws, and either 
 breaking it or capsizing the canoe. Yet it is but 
 very rarely that a native of the Ellice or Gilbert 
 Islands meets his death, or is injured by a shark. 
 Only once, whilst I was living on Nanomaga, was 
 any one bitten by a shark. This was in the case 
 of a boy, who, whilst swimming to secure a sleeping 
 turtle, was seized on the leg by a very small shark, 
 about four feet in length, and the calf of his leg 
 badly lacerated before the boy could get free of 
 it by seizing its tail and tearing it up lengthways 
 with his teeth. 
 
 It was a beautifully calm morning when we set
 
 82 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 off. It being low tide we had to carry the canoe 
 down from the beach across the reef, which was 
 bare, and then launch her over the edge into deep 
 water, for there are ten fathoms immediately under 
 the edge of the reef — fifty yards farther out you 
 will not touch bottom under a hundred fathoms. 
 On the slight, cane-work outrigger platform were 
 placed our fishing tackle, four bonito rods, the 
 lance, a coil of stout line, a heavy wooden shark 
 hook, a club for killing large fish or sharks, and 
 two baskets of cooked food — baked fowls and fish, 
 and bread and biscuits, and in the bottom of the 
 canoe were a score of young coconuts, husked and 
 ready for drinking, as well as three or four of these 
 called uto gau, the soft husk of which, as before 
 mentioned, is full of sweet juice almost as nutri- 
 tious as that of sugar cane. 
 
 As none of the Nanomaga canoes carry sails, we 
 used our paddles and were soon clear of the island, 
 sweeping over an almost imperceptible swell, only 
 ruffled by a gentle breeze. In half-an-hour my 
 companions ceased paddling, and Kino told me 
 to look down. I did so, and far, far down I 
 thought I could discern the bottom — it was the 
 beginning of Tia Kau. And then, as we paddled 
 slowly on, we seemed to be literally ascending the 
 great dome of the reef, as the water lessened in 
 depth fathom by fathom, and strange lights and
 
 THE LONELINESS OF IT 83 
 
 shadows wavered about beneath us. Now there 
 would come a great, ragged chasm in the crust of 
 this mighty structure, show'ing dark, blue-black 
 depths, W'hich perhaps were a hundred fathoms 
 deep; then would come a dazzlingly white object 
 that, like a cupola of purest marble, seemed to start 
 up from the limpid water to bar our progress, and 
 reach the surface, though in reality its summit was 
 half a hundred feet below — it was simply a coral 
 "mushroom," a perfect globe upreared upon a thick 
 and stunted column. And all about it swarmed 
 thousands of fish of manifold colours, markings 
 and shapes, some swimming swiftly to and fro, 
 others lazily, in undulating swarms, as if they were 
 being drilled to execute graceful movements under 
 the direction of some unseen marine drill master. 
 Then again would come a patch of marvellously 
 blue-hued coral "trees" encompassing the sides of 
 a deep pool, the bottom of which was composed of 
 smooth white coral pebbles, worn round by constant 
 attrition. And then, next to it, would be another 
 deep crevasse, and, next to that, a sudden blaze of 
 scarlet or golden yellow intermingled — coral 
 growths in strange and fantastic shapes, but yet 
 so wondrously beautiful in their colouring, that 
 all attempt to describe them would be futile. All 
 about these spots moved fish — some swimming 
 lazily to and fro, others darting about with light- 
 
 F 2
 
 84 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 ning-like rapidity. Now and then we would see a 
 shark of considerable size, and small green turtle 
 were very abundant. 
 
 At last we reached a space of water about an 
 acre in extent, and four to five fathoms deep. It 
 was literally alive with fish of all sorts — some of 
 them, of the gar species, swimming on the surface. 
 As these are excellent for bait, we quickly killed 
 half-a-dozen by hitting them across the back with 
 the edges of our paddles, as they swam within 
 reach. Then we lowered our small stone anchor, 
 and turned our attention to the food baskets before 
 beginning operations. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Looking over the side of the canoe we could see 
 numbers of fish of the trevally species, blueish- 
 grey in colour and very handsomely shaped. They 
 were about two pounds to three pounds in weight, 
 and bit very freely — so much so that the moment 
 the bait dropped on the water they rose to it. Like 
 all this species they are game fighters, the instant 
 one takes the hook he makes a downward rush, 
 and when turned runs from right to left. There is 
 one variety which attains an enormous size, 
 weighing up to a hundred pounds, and is caught
 
 THE LONELINESS OF IT 85 
 
 at night only, when it comes in close to the reef to 
 feed upon flying-fish. I caught several when out 
 flying-fish catching with the natives, and the largest 
 one nearly pulled me overboard with the violent 
 tug he gave. I was steering, my heavy line tow- 
 ing astern, baited with a live flying-fish. The 
 canoe was moving quickly at the time, and I had 
 just given the line a couple or three slack turns 
 round my right knee, when there came a tremend- 
 ous jerk that turned me over on my back, amidst a 
 chorus of laughter from the natives. Out flew the 
 rest of the line, and then came a fight of twenty 
 minutes, the light canoe being pulled about like a 
 feather. When my prize was lifted inboard, he 
 was too deep to lie on his side in the bottom of the 
 canoe, so we had to stand him up on his belly. 
 He weighed quite seventy pounds. I at first sug- 
 gested (after giving him his quietus with the fish- 
 ing club) that he should be laid upon the outrigger 
 platform, but the natives said it would mean the 
 canoe being capsized by a shark. This variety of 
 trevally is called la'heu, and is common to all the 
 Pacific Islands. In Fiji — where it is called sanka 
 — it attains gigantic proportions. 
 
 After we had caught some dozen of these small 
 trevally the leather-jackets arrived, great yellow 
 fellows, two feet in length, with bright blue mark- 
 ings on the fins and sides of the head. They 
 swarmed beneath the canoe, and we had to stop
 
 86 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 jfishing, lift killick and paddle swiftly to another 
 spot a good distance away. No more appropriate 
 name could be given to these pests than that be- 
 stowed upon them by the Samoans — isuumu moana, 
 "sea rat," for their powerful teeth are very like 
 those of a rat, and they have a vile and pernicious 
 trick of often nipping the line through above the 
 hook, especially if there is a tiny bit of bait, fish 
 skin, or even a scale adhering to it. Despite its 
 ugly appearance, however, the leather-jacket is ex- 
 cellent eating, and the jacket is easily stripped off 
 in the same manner as an eel is skinned. On the 
 coast of New Ireland I came across a species I had 
 never before seen — the jacket was of a brilliant 
 blue, and the ugly protruding teeth an equally 
 brilliant carmine. 
 
 We were now on a part of the reef where it was 
 too risky to anchor — thirty or forty fathoms — for 
 the anchor might have dropped into a crevasse and 
 become fast. So whilst one man kept the canoe in 
 position — as there was a slight current — the rest of 
 us fished for red rock cod, of which we soon caught 
 a dozen, ranging from fifty to twenty pounds each. 
 Then a number of small and pestilent sharks, about 
 two feet in length, found us out and we again had 
 to move back into shallow water. Here we fished 
 for a couple of hours, catching quite a dozen kinds 
 of fish, including several very large gars and one 
 large barracouta, which had recently lost most of
 
 THE LONELINESS OF IT 87 
 
 its taiL Then, soon after noon, the south-east 
 trade began to blow so strongly that it raised a 
 short choppy sea, and we decided to return home, 
 for we had over two hundredweight of fish — quite 
 enough for our small craft to carry if the sea be- 
 came more rough. This was my first experience 
 of Tia Kau, but after that I went there very 
 frequently. 
 
 A few years before I came to live on Nanomaga, 
 the Tia Kau was the scene of a terrible tragedy. 
 Atupa, the king of the island, wished to pay a visit 
 to the island of Nanomea, thirty-five miles to the 
 north-west. Both islands being very low, the one 
 is not visible from the other, but the natives signal 
 across by means of fires at night. A certain num- 
 ber of fires denote that a party of visitors will be 
 leaving in a certain time. The journey is always 
 begun at dusk, so as to avoid paddling in the heat 
 of the day. Atupa's party consisted of forty all 
 told, men, women and children, and when they 
 started the night was fine and calm. It was still 
 daylight when the canoes were half-way across Tia 
 Kau, and then quite suddenly a furious and heavy 
 rain squall came on. The canoes brought to, head 
 to wind, and waited for it to pass. Unfortunately 
 it was succeeded by another of greater violence, and 
 then came the horror of the thing. A little girl, 
 who was seated on the outrigger grating, in trying 
 to shield herself with a mat from the rain, pressed
 
 88 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 too heavily on part of the grating, which broke, 
 and her arm slipped through. Almost instantly it 
 was seized by a shark. Her mother sprang to her 
 help, the canoe broached to and filled, and every 
 one on board was quickly carried off. Maddened 
 with fear the occupants of the other canoes threw 
 their baskets of food, bundles of mats, etc., over- 
 board to lighten their frail crafts, but the sharks 
 tore their paddles out of their hands, and as the 
 canoes broached and swamped the wretched people 
 were seized and devoured. One canoe only, in 
 which were the only two survivors, was carried by 
 the force of the wind and sea away from the terrible 
 reef, and they succeeded in getting back to the 
 island. Said one of them afterwards, "Were I to 
 live as long as he whom the missionary tells us 
 lived to be nine hundred and sixty and nine, I shall 
 hear the groans and cries and shrieks of that po 
 malaia — that night of evil luck." 
 
 During the time my house was building I "ex- 
 plored " the island from end to end. My constant 
 companions on these occasions were a sturdy boy 
 of twelve and his sister, a pretty child of eight or 
 nine. They first took me to the tiny but curious 
 lake in the centre of the island. It was a charming 
 spot, encompassed by coco palms and a species of 
 ironwood trees. The water was as clear as crystal, 
 and, as before mentioned, rose and fell with the 
 tide. Swimming about were several shoals of
 
 THE LONELINESS OF IT 89 
 
 small mullet-shaped fish about ten inches long. 
 The natives told me that they were uneatable on 
 account of the myriad bones, would not take a bait, 
 and had never been seen to eat anything. Further- 
 more, there were no such similar fish in the sea 
 . about the island, and this I believe to be a fact, for 
 they had a special name — te ika se kai — "the fish 
 that do not eat." It was considered very unlucky 
 to attempt to catch or disturb them, the story being 
 that two women, who had been sent to "Coventry " 
 for misconduct, went to live by the pool, netted 
 some of the fish and cooked and ate them, with the 
 result that none of the ladies were ever seen again — 
 they vanished utterly. In former times the lake 
 was used as a place of punishment for those who 
 were doomed to death. The criminal's body and 
 limbs were wound round and round with coir rope, 
 a heavy stone tied to him and he was thrown in to 
 drown. After a certain time his relatives were 
 allowed to remove the skull, clean it and place it 
 among the family lares and penates. 
 
 Cray-fish of small size abound on the island reefs. 
 Never visible in daylight, they come in over the 
 reef with the flood tide at night and are caught in 
 scoop nets, by the light of torches made of dried 
 coconut leaf. The natives baked them, but I pre- 
 ferred mine boiled, and was never tired of them, 
 eating only the tail part. There was usually a cray- 
 fish excursion three or four nights every week
 
 90 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKTES 
 
 during the rainy and bad weather season, when 
 they were most plentiful and when but little sea 
 fishing could be done. In this the women and 
 children took part, carrying the torches and baskets, 
 and the blaze of torches, the background of palms, 
 and the dark sea, made quite a pretty picture, and I 
 always enjoyed these outings gready. It did not 
 take long to fill our baskets, then we would troop 
 back to our houses, cook the cray-fish in ground 
 ovens made ready, and then the young men would 
 usually come to my house, bringing their baskets 
 of food and drinking coconuts, and eat a late 
 supper with me. These were most enjoyable even- 
 ings, for the young fellows were good company. 
 My cook (under my eye) used to make a dish from 
 the following : chopped-up boiled cray-fish, with 
 bread or biscuit crumbs, mashed pimilia, and tinned 
 butter. This was pounded into a paste, salt, pepper 
 and vinegar added, and the whole placed in a 
 coconut shell, from which the water had been run 
 off; then, tightly wrapped up in leaves, it was 
 placed in a quick oven till it was steaming hot, then 
 the shell was cracked in halves and — well, it was 
 delicious. This bit of fancy cookery had been 
 taught me by one of the Marist brothers, living 
 on Wallis Island. He was a perfect genius in this 
 way, and lived very much better on limited means 
 than traders who were well off. 
 
 Eline, the missionary's wife, always made my
 
 THE LONELINESS OF IT 91 
 
 bread for me, in return for which I suppHed her 
 with tea, sugar and condensed milk and an occa- 
 sional tin of Danish butter. Although I had plenty 
 of salt meat and pork as well as tinned meats, I 
 seldom used any ; the natives, however, were good 
 customers. Curiously enough, with all the choice 
 of fish they have on the island, the people are 
 passionately fond of kegged and tinned meats, 
 tinned salmon and sardines. I frequently paid 
 them for their copra in cash, and the first thing that 
 the money was expended upon were salmon and 
 sardines, then perhaps a huge round of salt junk. 
 The women were continually pestering me to take 
 fowls from them in exchange for sardines — two 
 hens for a sixpenny tin of the fish — or else they 
 would offer five-and-twenty eggs, some of which 
 would be like that of the curate — good in parts. 
 Fowls were very plentiful on the island, and be- 
 ing fed on scraped coconut were, like the pigs, 
 usually very fat. I bought such a number that 
 they became a nuisance about the house, so one 
 day they were taken to the middle of the island 
 and turned loose, to be shot whenever one was 
 wanted. 
 
 One day I was told that in former years pump- 
 kins had been grown on the island by a white man 
 who had brought seed from Honolulu, but that the 
 plague of rats gave him great trouble. And then 
 a happy thought came to me. Amongst other
 
 92 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 goods I had brought on shore were a number of 
 cases of sheets of corrugated iron six feet by four 
 feet. They were intended for roofing a trading 
 station in the CaroHne Islands, but I had opened 
 several of the cases and lent the sheets to the 
 natives for the purpose of sun-drying their copra. 
 Taking forty of these sheets the natives stuck them 
 lengthways, but slanting outwards, in the ground, 
 making a sixty feet square, and then covered the 
 enclosed space with a thick layer of vegetable 
 mould. Among my trade goods were two boxes 
 of vegetable seeds from New Zealand, intended for 
 distribution to our various traders. We planted 
 pumpkins, maize and onions with a very satis- 
 factory result as regards the first and last, but the 
 maize was a failure. The rats were baulked, and 
 in a few months I had the pleasure of eating my 
 own pumpkins and onions. In after years I did 
 the same thing on Providence Atoll in the North 
 Pacific, where I was located with a shark-fishing 
 party, but with much greater success, for there 
 were no rats to contend with and the soil was very 
 good for that of a low-lying coral island. 
 
 About four months after my arrival, and whilst 
 loane and I were coopering a water-butt of mine, 
 we heard a loud clamour from the village, " Te vdka 
 motul tc vaka moUi!" — ("A ship! A ship!") 
 Throwing down our hoop drivers and hammers we 
 tore down to the beach to the canoes, and saw a
 
 THE LONELINESS OF IT 93 
 
 fine, full-rigged ship of about 1500 tons under full 
 sail, bowling along under every stitch of canvas 
 she could carry. She was about two miles distant, 
 and presented a beautiful picture as she sped along 
 the smooth sea with the wind well abeam. A 
 number of us jumped into canoes and pushed off, 
 hoping to intercept her, but she took no notice of 
 our frantic efforts, but kept on her course, and as 
 she was travelling at least ten or eleven knots she 
 soon left us hopelessly behind, and we returned to 
 the shore feeling very dejected and cross as well. 
 But, afterwards, loane and I laughed heartily at 
 his wife's sarcastic remark, which, rendered into 
 English, was to the effect that we were truly a 
 beautiful pair to board a ship in our then condition, 
 for loane and I, when at work on the water-butt, 
 were stripped to our waists and barefooted, he 
 wearing only a navy blue lava (waist cloth) and I 
 a pair of dungaree pants and a leather belt. Cer- 
 tainly we both had nice Panama hats. But in the 
 excitement of the moment, and imagining at first 
 that the ship was simply a trading vessel, where 
 our lack of sartorial adornment would not be com- 
 mented upon under the exigencies of the occasion, 
 we lost no time. I afterwards learned that the ship 
 was from Newcastle (N.S.W.) bound to Hongkong 
 by what was then known as the "outer route," and 
 carried a number of passengers. 
 
 In my next chapter I shall endeavour to interest
 
 94 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 the reader, if he is not already too wearied of the 
 subject, in some of my sea fishing and social experi- 
 ences with a people in whose welfare, for long years 
 after, my feelings were very keen. For, with them, 
 I never for one day experienced what my young 
 Scots correspondent so feelingly described to me as 
 "the utter loneliness of it," of his existence on Atafu 
 Island in the Tokelau Group. Sometimes, it is 
 true, my anxiety to be relieved by one of our firm's 
 vessels would cause a temporary depression of 
 spirits at night, but in the morning at sunrise, 
 when Pai, my cook, would bring me my coffee and 
 biscuit, and perhaps remark that it promised to be 
 a good day for bonito fishing, or that we ought to 
 kill a pig that morning, etc., I would cast aside all 
 thoughts of business and devote myself to pleasure. 
 For there is a certain pleasure — to some men — even 
 in cutting up a hog and doing it in butcher-like 
 fashion. 
 
 And then, after I had finished my coffee and 
 biscuit, my two child friends would come along 
 with my shell of sweet toddy, and say, with smiling, 
 eager faces — 
 
 "What is it to be to-day?" 
 
 "To-day I be cleaning guns and many packets 
 of chisels which have rusted. And you and all the 
 other children may help." 
 
 And off the two would go, to spread the news in 
 the village.
 
 THE LONELINESS OF IT 95 
 
 IV 
 
 Unlike some of the other islands of the Ellice 
 Group, there are no poisonous fish in the Nano- 
 maga waters, except a very small species of wrasse. 
 In the atoll of Nukufetau (De Peyster's Island) 
 many different kinds of fish are poisonous, especi- 
 ally those on the eastern side of the lagoon ; yet 
 curiously enough, the very same fish on the western 
 or lee side are quite safe, and still more curious is 
 the fact that the flying-fish (which do not come into 
 the lagoon) are at certain times highly poisonous 
 and remain in that condition for a couple of months, 
 then they are again safe to eat. The natives have a 
 sure way of discovering whether a fish is dangerous 
 or not by examining its mouth— there are certain red 
 and yellow streaks wliich denote that it is poison- 
 ous. Some years ago I was fishing from the shore 
 on the island of Jaluit (Marshall Group) and had 
 caught a dozen or two of bream-like fish about two 
 pounds each, when a native woman came by. She 
 stopped and examined the fish, and declared all 
 but two were kona (poisonous) and threw the others 
 back into the sea. Jaluit, it may be mentioned, is 
 notorious for its highly poisonous fish — even the 
 sharks are at time dangerous to eat. 
 
 In connection with the pest of leather-jackets,
 
 96 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 alluded to in the previous chapter, the natives have 
 an ingenious method of baffling them on certain 
 occasions. There is a small, round, fat-bodied and 
 coal-black fish which the people prize on account 
 of its oily flesh. It has a very small mouth, is diffi- 
 cult to catch on that account, and is also very shy, 
 so only a tiny hook and thin line are used. It 
 frequents holes in the coral in deep water, and 
 when they are seen the line has to be lowered very 
 slowly so as to get the bait exactly in front of its 
 habitation. But between there and the surface are 
 sure to be swarms of thieving leather-jackets, 
 which, however, never or seldom descend to the 
 bottom. In order, then, to pass the baited hook 
 through the marauders it is enclosed, together with 
 a pebble to sink it, in a leaf of the Barringtonia- 
 tree. Down goes the ball of green through the 
 disgusted leather-jackets, who see nothing edible 
 about the thing and let it pass through the danger 
 zone ; then a gentle jerk liberates the few turns of 
 the line around the leaf, the pebble falls out and 
 the bait is allowed to sink slowly to its appointed 
 place. 
 
 In fishing for the great Ruvettus a wooden hook 
 was used similar to that employed for shark-fishing, 
 though not of course anything like it in size. Al- 
 though I had plenty of seven-inch hooks and used 
 them with success for Ruvettus, the natives pre- 
 ferred their own to mine, saying that the palu^ as
 
 THE LONELINESS OF IT 97 
 
 they call the fish, had too soft a mouth for a thin 
 steel hook, which would be likely to tear its way 
 out. A dark, calm night is necessary for pain 
 fishing, and from eighty to a hundred and fifty 
 fathoms is the depth. A whole flying-fish is used 
 for bait, and the utmost patience is exercised, for 
 the fish is as scarce as it is highly prized, and, 
 furthermore, is of solitary habit. The largest I 
 have ever seen was nearly six feet in length, weight 
 about 130 pounds, and was caught off Oaitupu 
 Island (Ellice Group). The colour is a uniform 
 dull black, the scales (also black) are wide apart 
 and curl backward like the feathers of a certain 
 kind of French fowl. The flesh is extremely soft, 
 pappy and dull white, and when cut into during 
 the fish's life, appears as if it had been cooked. 
 It is full of oil — indeed, the whole body of the fish, 
 if left out in the sun for a few days, melts. The 
 natives prize the oil for its medicinal qualities, but 
 the flesh is eaten sparingly on account of its highly 
 laxative properties. The oil is a rich, yellow 
 colour, odourless and almost tasteless. The natives 
 sometimes use it as a sauce with fish, pork, etc. 
 (I have seen it stated that a species of the Ruvettiis 
 has been caught off the coast of Portugal and the 
 Azores by the Prince of Monaco at a depth of 400 
 fathoms.) The native lines used for palii were of 
 three-quarter inch coir, awkward and cumbersome, 
 and I often wondered how they could feel the fish 
 
 G
 
 98 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 bite, which it does in a very gentle manner. My 
 line was of white American cotton (twenty-seven 
 cord), and I was usually the first man to pull up a 
 fish. On one occasion four of us got five palu in 
 one night, breaking the local record. It is an ex- 
 tremely weak fish, and within a few minutes of 
 coming to the surface it expires, and the bladder is 
 always protruding from the mouth. 
 
 One Sunday morning, whilst loane was holding 
 service in the newly-constructed church (of which 
 I had the honour of being a reputable member, and 
 had helped to build), I set out for the north end of 
 the island for a walk. I was accompanied by an 
 enormous tom cat, who had attached himself to, 
 and persistently followed me about everywhere. 
 He was a detestable thief, but had his good points, 
 one of which was that he would not let a rat escape 
 him if the rodent came into my house. On very 
 hot days, when I was walking over sandy, lightly 
 timbered ground, the creature would get under the 
 shade of a tree, sit on his haunches, pant like a 
 dog, and almost ask me to let him rest to cool his 
 toes and give him a drink. There were a number 
 of similarly large "loose" cats on the island, and 
 the natives treated them very kindly. 
 
 A delightfully cool breeze was rustling the palm 
 from fronds overhead, and the air was filled with 
 the low croakings and pipings of thousands of 
 sooty terns. Taking a narrow winding path that
 
 THE LONELINESS OF IT 99 
 
 ran through the centre of the island, an hour's walk 
 brought me to the north end of it, where under a 
 clump of pandanus palms, which afforded good 
 shade from the sun, and whose pinnated leaves were 
 thrashing merrily in the breeze, I stopped. The 
 tide was low, and on the beaches just below me 
 many flocks of golden plover were feeding. I had 
 brought a book with me, and before sitting down 
 to read and smoke, by force of habit began scan- 
 ning the horizon in search of a sail, when my atten- 
 tion was arrested by something extraordinary at 
 the end of the north horn of the reef — about a mile 
 distant. In a small "bay" of the reef, where the 
 water should have been smooth, there was a 
 tremendous upheaval of surf and flying foam, about 
 what looked like the hull of a vessel bottom up, 
 and in a few seconds I knew what it was — some 
 "killers" (orca gladiator) were holding up a large 
 whale, and had cornered him in an angle of the 
 reef. Throwing down my book I ran to the beach, 
 and then along the reef as far as I could, to obtain 
 a nearer view of the struggle. Getting within a 
 hundred yards further progress was arrested by a 
 long, wide arm of deep water, running across the 
 reef; but, still, I was close enough to see that the 
 whale was a fin-back, and seven or eight killers 
 were at work upon him. He was then just about 
 done, and the ocean bull-dogs were evidently try- 
 ing to slew him round so as to tow him out to sea, 
 G 2
 
 100 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 but the "bay" was too narrow, and the mighty 
 creature had wedged his head and the fore part of 
 his body between some jagged coral boulders, from 
 which they could not dislodge him, although they 
 tugged and lugged at him most manfully. Anxious 
 as I was to witness their operations, I was unable 
 to remain any longer on account of the rising tide, 
 and my nervous horror of the pestilent savage 
 little sharks, about three feet in length, which in 
 shallow water come dodging about any swimmer. 
 As it was, it took me half-an-hour to regain the 
 shore, having to wade breast high, across pools 
 through which I had before run, and the old canvas 
 shoes I wore were so torn by the jagged coral that 
 my feet came off very badly. 
 
 Reaching the clump of pandanus trees I looked 
 to see how the killers had got on. There was not 
 a sign of either of them or of the fin-back — the 
 rising tide had enabled them to free the Cetacean 
 and tow him out into deep water, to sink and feed 
 upon. And then I found that in my excited rush 
 across the reef I had lost my valued meerschaum 
 pipe, tobacco pouch, silver match-box and pocket- 
 knife. Afterwards Eline, the missionary's wife, 
 placidly remarked that it would have been better 
 for me had I come to church. 
 
 The fish called palu, which, as before mentioned, 
 grows to such a great length, is as perfect in shape 
 as a mackerel, and is caught with a running bow-
 
 THE LONELINESS OF IT loi 
 
 line by enticing it to come alongside the canoe. 
 Its jaws are armed with one row each of sharply- 
 set teeth, like a saw blade, and it is a dangerous 
 customer for inexperienced men to handle, for its 
 strength is tremendous. It will sever the body of 
 a full-grown bonito in halves as cleanly as if done 
 with a carpenter's broad axe. The flesh is coarse 
 and dry, but before I left the island I salted and 
 dried several for the use of the expected ship's 
 company, and every one on board thought it better 
 than salt cod or ling. It is scaleless, blue-black on 
 back and sides, and silvery-white underneath from 
 throat to ventral fin. 
 
 But the best fish taken on Nanomaga is one 
 common to most of the equatorial islands. It is 
 called tau-tau, much like a salmon in shape, colour- 
 ing and general appearance, and never exceeds 
 fifteen or sixteen pounds. It is a nocturnal feeder, 
 and is only caught on dark, or at least moonless 
 nights, in deep water, and is a very game fighter. 
 One day, as I was paddling slowly over a very 
 smooth sea during a calm, I happened to look down 
 at the bottom — six fathoms — and there saw an 
 extraordinary spectacle. A few feet from the 
 bottom was a vast number of these fish, all lying 
 motionless and packed closely together, and all 
 facing the same way. Never before had I seen 
 such a thing, though the natives of the Gilbert 
 Islands had told me that tau-iau would gather to-
 
 102 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 gether in the daytime In great masses "to sleep." 
 For some minutes I gazed fascinated at the picture 
 below me — the swarm of beautiful fish, lying so 
 motionless in the crystal water, the strong sun- 
 light revealing them so perfectly. Hurriedly bait- 
 ing a line, and removing the sinker, I lowered it 
 down, and saw the bait, half of a flying-fish, 
 actually settle on one's back. Not the slightest 
 notice was taken of it at first, but presently, as I 
 moved it to and fro, and across the backs of others, 
 they quickly made a space and let it pass below 
 them. Then I drew it up a little and must have 
 touched one on the belly, for they at once became 
 alarmed, and the whole of them shot off into deeper 
 water and vanished. They must have numbered 
 many thousands, and the only thing of the kind 
 I had before seen resembling it was a series of 
 schools of "sea salmon" crossing over the bar of 
 an Australian tidal river, or when mullet were 
 ascending it to reach the quiet backwaters. 
 
 The Ellice Group of Islands possess no attractions 
 for the average tourist, who during the short stay of 
 an excursion steamer would find nothing to inter- 
 est him, as he would in the bold and romantic 
 beauties of mountain, forest, river and lake that 
 have given fame to Tahiti, Samoa and Fiji, and 
 where there are hotels, restaurants and billiard- 
 tables — of a kind. But to the man who is fond of 
 sea-fishing, takes some interest in the native
 
 THE LONELINESS OF IT 103 
 
 character, customs and mode of life, can accustom 
 himself to his environments, and is not afraid of 
 "the utter loneliness of it," a month or two on one 
 of these islands would be a delightful and long- 
 remembered experience. For me personally there 
 were no dull days, even during the stormy months 
 of the rainy season, when fishing beyond the reef 
 was impracticable except at intervals of a few days, 
 and it was impossible for the natives to cut coco- 
 nuts and make copra. But we had many other 
 things not only to occupy, but to amuse us, day and 
 night. Kino, the famous canoe maker, and I de- 
 cided to build a boat out of some Puget Sound 
 redwood timber planking, which I had landed from 
 the barque and which, with the corrugated iron 
 roofing before mentioned, were intended for a new 
 trading station on one of the Caroline Islands. 
 Every one assisted — in fact, too many assisted. 
 Kino and I made a steam box, and the way in 
 which we turned and curved and fitted the planks 
 of soft redwood into position, and clenched them 
 with copper boat nails and rivets into the some- 
 what crooked ribs of native wood, evoked the 
 greatest applause and admiration from the on- 
 lookers, especially the children, for whom my car- 
 penter's tools had a w^onderful fascination. A jack 
 and a rabbet plane were their especial fancies, and 
 the moment I laid either down some urchin would 
 take it and begin planing a piece of plank or a 
 stick.
 
 104 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 We made a very good boat — of a kind. She 
 certainly was a mighty weight — three-quarter inch 
 redwood planking and keel, stem and stern posts 
 and ribs of a heavy hardwood called toa; but never- 
 theless proved very useful in the following year, 
 when I shipped her to the Carolines in my reliev- 
 ing vessel, glorified with a coating of red-lead 
 paint within and dark green without. 
 
 I learned many useful things from the kindly- 
 hearted people of Nanomaga. They taught me 
 how to make coir cinnet, how to easily get an 
 octopus from a hole in a coral pool by attaching 
 a number of large shells of the cowrie kind to a 
 line, lowering them down and letting them knock 
 against each other, then the octopus emerges, inter- 
 twines his tentacles amongst them and is lifted up. 
 And, inter alia, I was shown how to climb the long 
 bole of a coconut palm when, during the rainy 
 season, it was wet and slippery, and the best way 
 of easily making extempore taka (sandals of coco- 
 nut fibre), for use when walking upon the rough 
 and jagged coral. In the matter of deep-sea fish- 
 ing I learnt vastly from Muli'ao, and when I had 
 to say farewell to him and his people I did so with 
 a feeling of keen regret.
 
 V 
 
 JULIUS ADOLPHUS JENKINS'S 
 CHRISTMAS ALLIGATOR 
 
 When Mr. Julius Adolphus Jenkins arrived at 
 the thriving little city of Townsville in North 
 Queensland, he was, at first, greatly flattered at the 
 amount of attention he attracted when he walked 
 up Flinders Street to introduce himself to the 
 manager of the Bank of North Australia, to which 
 institution he had been appointed ledger-keeper. 
 
 But, when, in addition to being stared at by 
 every passer by, he found that people ran to their 
 shop doors, and either gazed at him in open- 
 mouthed wonder, or laughed outright, he began 
 to feel annoyed and was glad to enter the Bank 
 to escape observation. 
 
 The manager of the Bank and his accountant 
 
 were at that moment discussing the expected arrival 
 
 of the " new chum " ledger-keeper, who was due 
 
 that morning by the English mail steamer, and 
 
 Mr. Jenkins thought it very strange and somewhat 
 
 rude that they should stare at him as if he were 
 
 105
 
 io6 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 some new species of animal. However, they were 
 both very poHte to him, inquired if he had had 
 a pleasant voyage from London, and asked him 
 what he would like to drink. This made Mr. 
 Jenkins in turn stare at them, and wonder if these 
 two disreputably-clad young men were really the 
 manager and accountant of a BANK, or a couple 
 of daring burglars who had taken possession of 
 the building. 
 
 "I — I — thank you — I don't know," he stam- 
 mered. 
 
 "Oh, but please do, Mr. Jenkins," said Alick 
 Macpherson, the manager, genially, "come into 
 the dining-room. Shut the door, Jimmy — if any 
 one comes, let 'em knock," and he led the way into 
 the dining-room, where Mrs. Flaherty, "cook and 
 general," was laying the table for lunch. 
 
 Without being told, she went to the deal dresser 
 that did duty as a sideboard and dinner waggon, 
 and brought a bottle of brandy, a bottle of whisky, 
 some bottles of soda, and three large tumblers, 
 and placed them on the table. Apologizing for the 
 want of ice — a rare commodity in Townsville in 
 those days — Mr. Macpherson, on learning that Mr. 
 Jenkins would take "just a very little brandy," 
 passed him the bottle, told him to help himself, 
 and opened a bottle of soda water for him. Then 
 he and the accountant, Jimmy Bathurst — locally 
 known as "Jimmy Badthirst " — helped themselves
 
 JENKINS'S CHRISTMAS ALLIGATOR 107 
 
 to what Mr. Jenkins thought an appalling and 
 disgraceful quantity of whisky. 
 
 "Well, Mr. Jenkins," said the manager, as he 
 cocked one leg over the arm of his chair, and began 
 cutting up a pipeful of black plug tobacco, "we 
 are glad to see you. Of course you'll have lunch 
 with us? That's right. Where are your traps? 
 Oh, at the Queen's Hotel — well, it is about the 
 decentest place in town to stay at. Bathurst and 
 I live here — bank rule, you know — and we manage 
 pretty well. Now then, Mrs. Flaherty, kindly 
 hurry up and give us a good lunch, please. Hope 
 you'll like Townsville, Mr. Jenkins. It's a beastly 
 hot hole, but there are a lot of good fellows here, 
 and you'll soon get into our ways." 
 
 Mr. Julius Adolphus Jenkins murmured, in a 
 dazed sort of a way, that he hoped so, and then 
 asked when he was to begin his duties. 
 
 "Oh, in about a week, if you like. There's no 
 hurry, and I am not going to rush you into work 
 at once. Don't you smoke? Of course your 
 salary begins from to-day, but Jimmy here and the 
 exchange clerk will attend to the ledgers for a week 
 or so more with pleasure. By the way, Jimmy, 
 when is Fletcher coming back ? " (Fletcher was the 
 youthful exchange clerk.) 
 
 Bathurst grinned. "When he does. You told him 
 he could go fishing for an hour or two this morning. 
 Dare say he'll turn up to-morrow to * call over.' "
 
 io8 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 At lunch Macpherson and his subordinate did 
 their best to put their guest at his ease, for they 
 both saw that he was not at all happy — in fact he 
 really was miserable, for he felt that he had come 
 to live among savages. Excusing himself as soon 
 as possible, he went off to his hotel ; and, once he 
 was out of hearing, the two young men burst out 
 into irrepressible laughter, in which Mrs. Flaherty, 
 unchecked, daringly joined, swaying, with her 
 hands on her hips, from side to side, whilst tears 
 rolled down her perspiring cheeks. 
 
 "Niver did I see such a thing like it in all me 
 loife !" she panted at last. "Sure the whole town 
 will be aifer followin' him up and down the strate." 
 
 "Get away out of this, Mrs. Flaherty," gasped 
 Bathurst, as, with the tears streaming down his 
 own cheeks, he pushed her out through the door 
 just as a big, bearded man in the uniform of an 
 inspector of mounted police, came in, and looked 
 at the two young men, wondering what was the 
 cause of their mirth. 
 
 "Clohesy, my boy, did you see IT?" said 
 Bathurst in a choky sort of whisper, as he sank 
 back in his seat. 
 
 "What is it? " asked the officer. 
 
 "Our new chum clerk from England, just turned 
 up. Oh, Clohesy, he's glorious — he's a wonderful 
 sight — a circus, a panorama isn't in it with him. 
 You must bring your nigger troopers to look at
 
 JENKINS'S CHRISTMAS ALLIGATOR lof 
 
 him. Such a rig-out for North Queensland you 
 never saw in your life — top hat, frock coat, collar 
 half-a-foot high, monocle, spats on his boots, kid 
 gloves and a beautiful cane." 
 
 "When will he be on show? " inquired the hairy 
 man, as he helped himself to a drink. 
 
 Now "Julius Adolphus," as he was henceforth 
 to be known, although a terribly conceited young 
 man, and an intense admirer of himself, had a cer- 
 tain amount of common-sense, and when he found 
 that his Piccadilly costume attracted such wide- 
 spread attention and amusement, he began to feel 
 uncomfortable. It was not pleasant, for instance, 
 when he showed himself in the street, to hear a lot 
 of rough diggers make such remarks as "Oh, strike 
 me, Dick, just look at it!" or for a great hulking 
 bushman to deliberately stand in front of him open- 
 mouthed, and then fall down in a pretended fit. 
 He stood it for a few days, and then Macpherson 
 came to his assistance and gave him advice. 
 
 "You see, Mr. Jenkins, your style of dress is so 
 — so very unusual in this part of the world that it 
 — well, it makes people stare. Now, I'm sure you 
 won't mind my advising you to discard it for some- 
 thing more suitable and less striking." 
 
 "Do you wish me to discard wearing a coat?" 
 inquired Julius Adolphus hotly — adding with 
 dignity that he would draw the line at that.
 
 no 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 Had Messrs. Macpherson and Bathurst seen the 
 very descriptive letter which the young man wrote 
 home to his parents, they would have at least been 
 interested, if not flattered at his remarks about the 
 society of Townsville in general, and themselves in 
 particular. 
 
 "The people are the roughest and dirtiest 
 imaginable. One half of them are diggers, 
 who are swarming in from the interior on their 
 way to the new gold fields on the Palmer 
 River. They all have horses, use the most 
 frightful language, and when not fighting or 
 intoxicated, are lying asleep in the shade on 
 public-house verandahs. . . . When I first 
 entered the door of the disgraceful building 
 called a Bank, I found therein two rough- 
 looking young men clad in shirts, trousers, and 
 boots (socks I presume they had). Round each 
 man's waist was a coarse leather belt, on which 
 was also a greasy leather watch pouch ; neither 
 had collar nor tie, and each was smoking a 
 pipe ! Imagine my disgust when I found that 
 these two disreputable-looking roughs were 
 respectively the Manager and Accountant ! 
 Certainly they were civil, and I presume have 
 been gentlemen . . . they address each other 
 as ' Jimmy ' and ' Alick,' and seem to be on 
 terms of the most shocking familiarity with
 
 JENKINS'S CHRISTMAS ALLIGATOR in 
 
 their customers, and go out and have drinks 
 with them at the low hotel opposite the Bank 
 at all times of the day, or invite them into their 
 own dining-room — and this in banking hours ! 
 And they keep a pack of savage kangaroo 
 dogs — which live in the Bank. 
 
 "The exchange clerk is an unmitigated 
 young ruffian of eighteen, named Fletcher. He 
 also smokes a pipe in the Bank, and out of it, 
 addresses me as ' Jenkins,' and is hail fellow 
 well met with the rough and dirty diggers and 
 bushmen who come into the Bank on business. 
 I wonder what these three beautiful creatures 
 would think of an English Bank and its tone?" 
 
 ***** * 
 
 Six months had passed, and Julius Adolphus had 
 become used to, and not entirely averse to, his 
 surroundings. One reason for this was, that being 
 very musical, his evenings were not dull, and 
 although Townsville was a new town, there was no 
 lack of ladies' society — for nearly all the Govern- 
 ment officials, merchants, doctors, and other pro- 
 fessional men were married, and some had families, 
 in which were some pretty girls. And as Mr. 
 Jenkins began to lose his provincial English stiff- 
 ness, and wear white ducks and unbend himself 
 generally, he actually found that he was begin- 
 ning to like some of the people who were always 
 so hospitable to him, and for a Miss Mary Bran-
 
 112 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 don, the pretty daughter of a leading merchant, 
 he had more than a Uking. Like himself, she was 
 very musical, and he visited her father's town house 
 on Melton Hill several evenings a week. Mary 
 was at first much inclined to make fun of her 
 admirer, and "chaffed" him a good deal, which 
 only made him the more devoted to her, and as 
 time went on, he gradually lost much of his "new- 
 chummishness," and mixed with young men of his 
 own age, attended an occasional race meeting, and 
 even went so far as to join in a kangaroo hunt. 
 But at the same time he always regarded himself 
 as an infinitely superior person. And he hated 
 Jimmy "Badthirst" — first because that irresponsible 
 young man openly expressed his admiration for 
 Mary Brandon, and secondly because he was noisy 
 in the Bank, smoked incessantly, even when cash- 
 ing cheques over the counter, and always spoke of 
 banking as "merely a pawnbroking business, with- 
 out the sign of the three balls over the door." 
 Julius Adolphus had a holy reverence for bank- 
 ing as a dignified and gentlemanly pursuit, and it 
 horrified him to hear loose talk like this. 
 
 When the rainy season came in there was a great 
 wild-goose shooting party on some swamps a few 
 hours' ride from the town, and he was induced to 
 take part in it, clad in a wonderful sporting get- 
 up, which caused great hilarity. Everything he 
 wore from head to foot was new, and as every
 
 JENKINS'S CHRISTMAS ALLIGATOR 113 
 
 article, except a huge green-lined solar topee, had 
 been made by local tailors and outfitters who had 
 never made the like before in their lives, but had 
 done their best (which was awful to look at), he 
 presented such a curious spectacle that numbers 
 of the townspeople cheered him, and almost every 
 fourth person he met inquired if he was "going 
 far?" Allusions to the solar topee were numer- 
 ous as being "just the thing to attract geese and 
 ducks," etc., but Julius Adolphus deigned no reply, 
 and trotted along the street in dignified silence and 
 chin in air. 
 
 On his way to join the party he called at Miss 
 Brandon's house. She told him (out of pity) that 
 he looked "so nice, and so different from !the 
 others," that he flushed with pleasure, and said he 
 would leave a goose at the house on his way home. 
 
 Arriving at the swamp at dusk, the party camped 
 for the night in tents, intending to begin the shoot 
 at dawn from three different sides of the great 
 swamp, and Julius Adolphus was instructed as to 
 the position he was to take up at a certain spot, 
 and not to fire till his turn came, or he would, as 
 young Fletcher observed, "spoil the blooming 
 show." But he was determined to get more geese 
 than any one. So long before dawn, he started 
 alone, got to his appointed post under a clump of 
 fi-trees, and waited impatiently ; for all around him 
 he could hear hundreds upon hundreds of geese — 
 
 H
 
 114 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 some on the banks, some on the water. And at the 
 first break of day he saw on a little islet less than 
 fifty yards away, thirty or forty birds standing at 
 the water's edge. In an instant he fired both 
 barrels, and uttered a shout of triumph as two birds 
 dropped, and gun in hand, he dashed into the 
 shallow water, and promptly sank up to his chin in 
 mud, as some thousands of geese, with a noise 
 of wings like a hurricane, rose in air from all parts 
 of the swamp, and made off to another spot two 
 miles away — amid the curses of the rest of the 
 shooting party. 
 
 Julius Adolphus was rescued just in time from 
 perishing miserably. Then his gun was found, 
 and he was brought back to camp, given some 
 coffee, threatened with murder if he left the tent 
 again, and the two geese he had shot thrown at 
 him — with much Queensland language. He waited 
 till the party had gone, then burning with anger 
 at his rude treatment, but proud of his skill, he 
 caught and saddled his horse, and w'ith the pair of 
 geese made his w^ay back to town to his hotel, 
 changed his clothes, and at lunch time carried the 
 geese to his divinity. Her sweet words of praise 
 filled his manly bosom with joy, and before an hour 
 had passed, inspired him to confess his love. And 
 whilst Mary did not actually say "yes," she did not 
 say "no"; but at the same time frankly told him 
 that he must try and be less English, especially
 
 JENKINS'S CHRISTMAS ALLIGATOR 115 
 
 in his assumption that colonials were an uncul- 
 tivated lot of beings, and quite inferior in intelli- 
 gence to the Englishman born. "And, Adolphus," 
 she added, "just show all these young fellows that 
 you are as good a sportsman as any one of them. 
 I know you can be — if you try." 
 
 And Julius Adolphus Jenkins went home on air, 
 blessing those two geese. 
 
 For some weeks he preserved a distinctly haughty 
 demeanour to Jimmy Bathurst and young Fletcher 
 — especially when the latter made rude allusions 
 to the awful sight he had presented when pulled 
 up out of the mud. He now paid the fair Mary 
 daily visits, and promised her to learn to ride like 
 a colonial, and not mind a little chaff. 
 
 "Every new chum gets teased at first, Julius," 
 she said. "Now Mr. Macpherson was such a 
 dandified young Scotsman when we first knew him 
 ten years ago, but look at him now ! Any one 
 would think he had been born and bred in the 
 bush, and lived among rough diggers and bush- 
 men all his life. I don't want you to be careless 
 or u«itidy in your dress, but would like you to be 
 just a little more colonial in your ways. And I 
 want you to go shooting and fishing and kangaroo- 
 ing as much as you can — like the other men here. 
 And oh, Julius, do try and shoot an alligator. 
 There were five killed in Ross River last week by 
 
 different people, and I should like you to shoot one. 
 H 2
 
 ii6 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 Could you not — it is not very dangerous — if you 
 are careful." 
 
 Julius bridled up. "What they can do, I can 
 do," he said loftily. 
 
 Mary's eyes sparkled. "Oh, Julius! Do try. 
 And if you do, I will marry you whenever you ask 
 me. The fact is, Julius dear, father laughs at you 
 and says you are an awful duffer and teases me 
 terribly about you. And that horrid little beast of 
 a Fletcher boy mimicks you so terribly, and you 
 know what father is — he laughs at every one. But 
 he won't let me marry a ' duffer.' No, not if he 
 were a duke or a bishop." 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 A mile or two from Townsville, near the mouth 
 of the Ross River, there was a small muddy- 
 banked and low mangrove island, in the centre of 
 which was a ramshackle hut raised on four piles. 
 It was used by the local Chinese shrimpers and 
 fishermen, and also by alligator shooters occasion- 
 ally, as a good and safe spot to get an easy shot 
 at close range at any saurian lying on the river 
 bank a few yards distant. 
 
 Here, one afternoon at four o'clock, two days 
 before Christmas Day, Julius Adolphus found him- 
 self — determined to kill an alligator before nine 
 on the following morning. (He was due at the 
 Bank at ten.) For the purpose he had borrowed 
 a heavy Terry police rifle, had had its mechanism
 
 JENKINS'S CHRISTMAS ALLIGATOR 117 
 
 explained, provided himself with twenty cartridges, 
 some rope, and also some refreshment in case he 
 had to remain the night. He had reached the islet 
 by a punt belonging to the Chinamen, who lent 
 it to him for the night for half-a-crown, under 
 promise of his not losing it. This he failed to do, 
 for immediately he jumped out of it, the thing shot 
 off stern first, and went whirling down the muddy 
 river and out to sea. This was disconcerting, for 
 there was not a soul about, it was raining, and 
 there were millions of mosquitoes stinging his face 
 and hands. However, he was not alarmed — rather 
 exhilarated, in fact, at spending the night alone, 
 though the loss of the punt and the rope (the latter 
 to secure the alligator after it was shot) was 
 annoying. 
 
 The floor of the hut was six feet above the 
 ground, and all around the four rough posts, and 
 also hanging from the floor beams, were folds upon 
 folds of a stout fishing-net put there to dry by the 
 Chinamen. Ascent to the hut was by means of a 
 notched pole, slanting upwards from the ground. 
 The interior was bare of any furniture, but there 
 were plenty of Chinese smells. The hut, although 
 such a ricketty-looking affair, was really strongly 
 built, and every part of it, including the posts, 
 were lashed together with cane, instead of being 
 fastened by nails. 
 
 For two hours — till darkness came on, Julius
 
 ii8 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 Adolphus, rifle in hand, scanned the muddy banks 
 opposite, but saw no sign of any alligators, 
 although he was several times inclined to fire at 
 some logs — which he had been told very much 
 resembled alligators when those reptiles were 
 asleep. 
 
 He passed a wretched night, it poured with rain 
 continuously — and as it wore on towards morn- 
 ing, he became conscious of an alarming fact : the 
 river was rising fast. Striking a match, he peered 
 down through an opening in the roughly boarded 
 floor, and his heart sank when he saw that the 
 yellow, rushing water was within two feet of the 
 boards. Then he went to the door, or rather 
 entrance hole, of the now trembling shanty, and 
 peered out. He could see nothing, for the blind- 
 ing rain obscured everything. For a moment or two 
 wild terror possessed him, and seizing his heavy 
 rifle, he fired shot after shot in quick succession 
 through the doorway, in the hope that it would 
 bring succour. No answer came — there was only 
 the hum, the low, droning hum of the rushing 
 flood, as it swept through the mangroves, and the 
 heavy plashing of the rain upon the pine-boarded 
 roof of the humpy. 
 
 Then Julius Adolphus Jenkins, the "dude," the 
 "howling new chum," and the "rank duffer," pulled 
 himself together, and became a Man. He lit his 
 pipe (Mary's doings — for he had abhorred smoking
 
 JENKINS'S CHRISTMAS ALLIGATOR 119 
 
 a pipe), sat down on the quivering floor of the 
 humpy, and waited for daybreak. 
 
 Dawn at last, and Julius heaved a sigh of relief, 
 when he saw that the water was lower by several 
 inches, but the ramshackle structure was canted 
 over to an alarming degree, although the posts 
 which upheld it had been planted several feet in 
 the ground. 
 
 Suddenly there arose a strange and violent com- 
 motion immediately beneath the floor of the hut, 
 which presently began to sway to and fro, then 
 came shakings, followed by a succession of thumps 
 and bumps against the posts, and the hut canted 
 over more than ever, and then began to move, 
 and the occupant realized that he was adrift, and 
 being carried down to the mouth of the river. 
 
 Most fortunately the posts did not become de- 
 tached, and dragging along the bottom, helped to 
 keep the hut in a fairly steady position, although 
 every now and then it would be shaken in a most 
 violent and extraordinary manner, and occasion- 
 ally turned completely round. 
 
 Knocking off some of the roofing, Julius thrust 
 his head through, and shouted with all his strength, 
 as he saw through the blinding rain a group of 
 wood-cutters' huts on the bank. But no one heard 
 him, and on went the humpy, shaking and bump- 
 ing and swaying to and fro. 
 
 As Julius continued to look about him, the rain
 
 120 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 suddenly ceased, and his heart leapt with joy when 
 he saw that right ahead was a long, low point of 
 land, and beyond that, and stretching across the 
 river, several mangrove islets close together, and 
 towards these the hut was drifting fast, and he 
 determined that if it did not ground upon one of 
 them, he would swim to the nearest to avoid being 
 taken out to sea. 
 
 Ten anxious minutes passed, and then the float- 
 ing hut crashed into the trees on one of the islands, 
 and stuck fast, but, curiously enough, now began 
 to shake and heave about more than ever. 
 
 Satisfied that he was now safe, and that he would 
 soon be seen, Julius clambered out on the roof and 
 looked about him. No habitation was visible, but 
 he could see some horses and cattle about a mile 
 away on the left-hand bank of the river, and as 
 the sudden flood was now subsiding very rapidly, 
 he decided to wait a few hours where he was, in- 
 stead of trying to swim across, whilst the current 
 was so strong, and perhaps be carried out over 
 the shallow bar, or be seized by an alligator. 
 
 In an hour the water had fallen quite two feet, 
 and Julius was eating some sandwiches when he 
 noticed that, although the hut did not shake as it 
 did before, the net, some loose folds of which he 
 could see beneath him, was every now and then 
 agitated in a peculiar manner — and that the folds 
 were being drawn in against — not flowing out with
 
 JENKINS'S CHRISTMAS ALLIGATOR 121 
 
 — the current. Clambering down the other side of 
 the roof, he looked beneath the flooring, which was 
 now many feet above the water, and noticed, 
 swathed round and round in the folds of the net, 
 a huge "something" which certainly moved, and 
 then a chill of horror passed through him as he saw 
 the protruding forearm of an alligator. For a 
 moment or two the sight unnerved him, and he 
 trembled. 
 
 Then, hardly knowing what he was doing, he 
 climbed the roof again, got his rifle, and descend- 
 ing to the ground, fired shot after shot into the 
 monster, and a savage delight filled his veins as 
 he saw it writhe and quiver, as each heavy bullet 
 ploughed its way into his carcass. In a few 
 minutes it lay quiet — and dead. 
 
 * * •)(■** * 
 
 Half-an-hour later a party of Chinese fishermen 
 appeared in a boat, and the exultant Julius 
 Adolphus struck a bargain with them for £1 los. 
 to bring the saurian to Townsville. He accom- 
 panied them, and a little after noon they landed 
 at the steamer wharf, and the giant reptile — one 
 of the largest ever seen in North Queensland — was 
 housted up by a steam winch amidst a scene of the 
 greatest excitement, and amongst the first to offer 
 their sincere congratulations were Macpherson and 
 Jimmy "Badthirst." 
 
 Followed by a cheering crowd they marched to
 
 122 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 the Queen's Hotel, and there Julius Adolphus be- 
 came the hero of the day, when, leaning his rifle 
 against the bar, he called out — 
 
 "Come in, gentlemen, every one of you, and 
 have as many drinks as you like. I am good for 
 five sovereigns." 
 
 A burst of applause greeted this welcome an- 
 nouncement, and the news spread like wildfire. 
 Then the dead alligator was dragged by a pair of 
 horses up to the hotel for exhibition, and Julius 
 Adolphus's cup of happiness was full. 
 
 Macpherson took him aside, "Go and change 
 your clothes, Jenkins," and added with a twinkle 
 in his eye, "and don't bother about the Bank to- 
 day." 
 
 Julius Adolphus, inwardly blessing him, took 
 himself off, and within an hour was with Mary 
 Brandon. 
 
 ****** 
 
 On the following morning the local Herald con- 
 tained an interesting item of news. 
 
 "We are happy to be in a position to state that 
 Mr. Julius Adolphus Jenkins, of the Bank of North 
 Australia, the hero of a thrilling adventure with 
 an alligator (narrated on page 3), will shortly lead 
 to the altar Miss Mary Brandon, daughter of W. S. 
 Brandon, Esq., J. P. of this city."
 
 VI 
 
 MY FRIEND GEORGE, THE 
 DOCKER 
 
 Every third Sunday afternoon for many months, 
 George would call upon me — a smile upon his sun- 
 tanned face, and his pockets bulging out with large 
 plugs of the best American leaf tobacco, boxes of 
 English wax matches, and four bottles of genuine 
 Dublin stout — all smuggled goods, and always very 
 acceptable to me. I encouraged him for many 
 reasons : one was that I could not smoke the filthy 
 Government-made stuff that French people call 
 tobacco, and for which you pay eighty centimes for 
 two ounces (and English or American tobacco is 
 15 francs per pound); secondly, he got me the 
 stout for forty centimes the bottle, and my thief 
 of an elicier charged me a franc; thirdly, he was 
 a hardworking docker at the Quai, had a sick wife, 
 and three children, and deserved sympathy and 
 encouragement, and I approve of smuggling when 
 I directly benefit by it; fourthly, George, who could 
 
 speak good English, was always willing and eager 
 
 123
 
 124 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 to teach me scarifyingly-wicked French expressions 
 to be used upon cabmen, hotel touts and such 
 people. George was an out and out Radical, a 
 follower of M. Combes, and hated the clergy with 
 a holy fervour that occasionally led him into 
 trouble, and an interview with a de -paix. And 
 then, he had many estimable qualities, he was a 
 good, honest fellow, a patriotic Frenchman, was 
 fairly well-educated, had a fat, hearty laugh that 
 did one good to hear, and only got reasonably 
 elevated on fete days, like most of his fellow- 
 workmen. 
 
 Georges Durand had not always been a labourer 
 on the Quai at six francs a day as he was now, 
 at the age of fifty-two. 
 
 ***** •}«• 
 
 One hot Sunday afternoon in August, as I was 
 half-dozing in my study chair and looking at the 
 shipping lying in Havre Roads, I heard George's 
 well-known footstep, and presently Rosalie, my 
 servant, came up-stairs, and told me that M'sieur 
 Durand was in the dining-room, also that M'sieur 
 Durand was beautifully dressed, and, here she 
 showed her white teeth in a large smile, he "was 
 very merry." 
 
 "Ask him to come up," I said. 
 
 George came up, beaming with smiles, and just 
 a little bit "rocky." He was wearing a new tailor- 
 made frock suit, a top hat and gloves, and carried
 
 GEORGE, THE DOCKER 125 
 
 a cane. I stared, then rising, made him a profound 
 bow. He laughed, slapped me on the shoulder, 
 then as he sat down, became suddenly grave. 
 
 "You are alone?" he asked in French. 
 
 "Yes, George," I replied in English, "every one 
 but Rosalie is out." 
 
 "Ah, well, we shall not be disturbed; but let me 
 close the door — that bonne Rosalie is a Bretonne, 
 and may hang about and listen, and then tell her 
 priest what she may hear. I trust no woman, and 
 least of all a woman of Brittany — who is priest- 
 ridden before she is born." 
 
 And then he added some strong expressions in 
 the English language concerning priests, abb^s and 
 bishops and cardinals individually and collectively 
 — and his grey eyes flashed, as he struck his 
 clenched fist upon the table, nearly upsetting the 
 two small glasses of cognac I had placed there. 
 
 "What is the matter, George?" I asked, as I 
 handed him a cigar, "have you been ' accidentally ' 
 bumping against a cleric again, and been fined 
 forty francs ? " 
 
 He laughed again. No, he had not. And he 
 had come to tell me news, great news. After four 
 years of waiting, the lawsuit had been decided in 
 his favour, and he and his wife and children would 
 now leave the two squalid rooms in the Rue Lamy, 
 and go away to his own native place — Savenay, 
 near St. Nazaire. Ah, he had wonderful luck this
 
 126 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 week. On the very day that the good news came 
 from Paris, he went as usual to the Quai Renaud, 
 and found that there was no work for him that 
 day. And he had had no breakfast, and there were 
 but ten sous in the house to buy food for four 
 people. 
 
 "Why did you not come to me, George?" 
 
 His brawny hand pressed my knee for a moment 
 or two as he turned his face away. Then he re- 
 sumed, speaking half in French, half in English 
 (some of his remarks in the latter language were so 
 vivid that I italicise them). 
 
 Well, he and his comrade, Michel, walked about 
 the docks looking for work, and presently saw a 
 crowd gathered round a small cargo steamer that 
 was going to Cherbourg, and there was much 
 shouting and excitement, and he heard English 
 
 voices crying out " Oh, d — n you for a pack of 
 
 idiots!'' 
 
 It was a motor-car — a grand, superb motor-car, 
 large, luxurious, but heavy — so heavy that it had 
 stuck in the middle of the gangboards, which had 
 sagged into a loop, and were cracking. In a few 
 minutes more the car would have been in the dock. 
 Every one was yelling out advice, and contrary 
 orders, and one of the Englishmen stamped with 
 rage and cried out, "Good Lord, there go eight 
 hundred pounds !" and no one knew what to do. 
 Then he (George) suddenly caught sight of a big,
 
 GEORGE, THE DOCKER 127 
 
 half-empty coal barge lying a little distance away, 
 and he and Michel jumped into the dock, swam 
 to the barge, cast off her moorings, and man- 
 aged to get her under the gangway just as it broke, 
 and the car dropped into the barge — almost un- 
 damaged. 
 
 "Were the Englishmen pleased?" I asked. 
 
 George's eyes twinkled, and leaning back in his 
 chair, he kicked his heels together. 
 
 "Monsieur! They give me one note for one 
 hundred francs, and Michel two twenty-franc 
 pieces, and shake hands, and oh, speak very nice 
 to me. They are rich. Father is colonel in army 
 English, India. Son is captain. Three lady — one 
 old, two young." 
 
 "I am glad you have been so lucky, George. I 
 am glad because of your wife. She is a good 
 woman, and has suffered long." 
 
 George bent his head. "Yes, she is a good 
 woman. ... I will tell you something presently. 
 . . . Monsieur, I go home with my hundred francs. I 
 stop not at any cafe, but Michel bought half-a-litre 
 of cognac, and we drank it in an allee off the street, 
 and ate some biscuits. Then, as I came to the 
 Rue Lamy, I met the postman. He gave me a 
 registered letter. Here, read it. Mon dieu ! It 
 is wonderful ! Monsieur Combes is a grand man ! 
 Only for him I should now be working on the Quai 
 for six francs a day. Read it. My mother willed
 
 128 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 all this 37,000 francs to the priests — the robbers, 
 the thieves ! because I, her only son, was accused 
 of killing one of the money-grubbers. Ah, Combes 
 is a great man. Only for him I should now be as 
 dirty, ill-clad, and down-hearted as I was two weeks 
 ago. The priests can no longer rob the people. 
 Combes is sweeping away the fat monks and the 
 nuns, and will spare only the Little Sisters of the 
 Poor. They are good women. But the bishops, 
 and the rich priests — and the Judas Jesuits — I wish 
 I could see them all strangled." 
 
 "George," I said with a smile, "the priests seem 
 to have treated you badly. Never mind. Your 
 good star has risen now. So we will have a bottle 
 of Sillery sec, and drink to the health of Monsieur 
 Combes and ourselves, and confusion to the 
 enemies of France." 
 
 Opening the Sillery, we repeated toasts amid 
 more laughter, my collie dog "Russ" joining in 
 with vociferous barking. George put his hand in 
 his breast pocket, and brought forth a box of 
 chocolates. 
 
 ''Voild! bon chien, four toi! '' and he emptied 
 the contents of the box upon the carpet. 
 
 ******* 
 
 "George," I asked presently, as we drew our 
 chairs nearer to the open window, "what is this 
 story about your killing a priest ? Did you really 
 do so?"
 
 GEORGE, THE DOCKER 129 
 
 He snapped his jaws together, and laughed 
 harshly. "No, but I beat him badly — savagely, 
 cruelly. And I lay in prison for it for a year and 
 eight months. He was a robber — he made a savage 
 of me. Lend me a pipe, monsieur — I will smoke 
 a pipe too. I have the day free. Berthe " (his 
 wife) "is happy with the children, and receiving 
 congratulations, and I am well out of the way. 
 And Berthe alone knows what I will now tell 
 you. For, before I married her, I told her what 
 I had done. And she has been a good woman to 
 me — as you know." 
 
 "She is a good woman, George. And to- 
 morrow, if I may, I will go and see her again. 
 Dr. Guilbert told me that only one lung is affected, 
 and that she will recover, if she had the open-air 
 treatment." 
 
 George nodded, as he puffed at his pipe. "She 
 shall have it. We shall go first to one of those 
 places for that in Switzerland, then to my home 
 in Savenay. Now I will tell you." 
 
 ****** 
 
 "I was mate of a Nantes barque trading to Brazil, 
 when I became engaged to Aurelie Ruze. She 
 was but twenty-one years of age, and the only 
 daughter of a retired cordage maker at Nantes. 
 He was a widower, and had always liked me. He 
 paid for my education up to the time I was six- 
 teen, and his house was always open to me. So
 
 130 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 Aurelie and I almost grew up together. That is 
 not the custom in France, but old Ruze did not 
 mind, and only laughed when people told him he 
 was acting foolishly. He said that I was a good 
 lad and would make Aurelie a good husband. And 
 as we had grown up together, so had we grown to 
 love each other. Her father was a rich man, and 
 cared nothing for people's talk. My mother, who 
 was very religious, did not like him, for he used 
 to boast that he had not been inside a church for 
 thirty years. And he disliked the priests and 
 nuns. Why, I never knew. I only know that he 
 thought badly of them all, and used to swear that 
 none of his money would ever go into the coffers 
 of the Church. And fond as he was of his daugh- 
 ter, she often angered him greatly by going to 
 mass and church festivals. All this brought him 
 trouble, and the clericals in Nantes showed their 
 dislike to him in many ways. 
 
 " My mother — my father died when I was a child 
 — was what you English people call ' well-to-do.' 
 She meant to be a good mother to me, but was hard 
 — hard and stern — and hated my going to the 
 Ruze's house. And so I was not happy at home, 
 and was glad when I went to sea. 
 
 "I did well. The shipowners who employed me 
 were pleased, and I rose step by step to be first 
 mate of a fine barque. 
 
 ■** When you become a captain, you shall marry
 
 GEORGE, THE DOCKER 131 
 
 Aurelie,' said her father to me. And I knew from 
 Aurelie that the owners had told him they would 
 give me a berth as captain when I returned from 
 my next voyage. So I went away happy. 
 
 "It was a year and a half before I returned, and 
 the first thing I did after I got on shore was to 
 go to see old Ruze, and my Aurelie. It was dark 
 when I reached the house. I found it shut up, and 
 A Louer notices in the windows. I felt dazed, 
 and I stared stupidly at the deserted house for some 
 minutes. Then I walked down the steps into the 
 street, and entered a cafe near by. It was kept by 
 an old friend of mine — Pol Vasse. He was at the 
 counter serving customers, and in the little room 
 at the back were his wife and daughter Berthe. 
 They drew me inside, and gave me a warm wel- 
 come, but they looked strangely at me. 
 
 " ' What is the matter? ' I said quickly. ' Where 
 is M. Ruze? The house is shut up.' 
 
 "Old Vasse pressed me into a seat, then he bade 
 his wife attend to the caf6, and closing the door 
 between, sat down beside me. 
 
 '"Georges, my friend, old M. Ruze died sud- 
 denly two months after you sailed.' 
 
 "'And Aurelie?' I said, and at my question 
 Berthe Vasse covered her face with her apron, and 
 wept. 
 
 "Old Pol placed his hand on my knee, comme 
 
 fa, monsieur, and it trembled, and I felt a great 
 I 2
 
 132 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 dread fill my heart. ' Tell, my friend,' I cried. 
 ' Is she ill ? Where is she ? ' 
 
 " ' She is with the Saints. She drowned herself 
 in the Loire eight months ago. She died broken- 
 hearted. Berthe was with her until a month before 
 she died — and then ' 
 
 '«' And then ' 
 
 " ' And then the two Ursuline Sisters, who were 
 constantly in the house, day and night, told her 
 to come no more. One day as she ventured to the 
 door to make inquiries, the Abb6 Gervais came 
 to her, and angrily bade her begone. And then we 
 heard about a month later, that Mademoiselle Ruze 
 was slowly getting better, and that by the doctor's 
 orders the Sisters were taking her to some place 
 in the country near Saumur to recover. That was 
 one Saturday, and on the following Monday morn- 
 ing early, she was missing, and her body was found 
 in the Loire the same day. It was discovered that 
 whilst the nurse who occupied the same room with 
 her was asleep, the girl must have got up, put on 
 a long cloak, and quietly opened the front door — 
 it was past midnight — and went to the river.' 
 
 "Little by little, monsieur— but not that night 
 — I got the whole story from Berthe Vasse. When 
 old Ruze died, Aurelie was left alone and helpless 
 — for the Ruzes had not a relation in. the world, 
 and no friends. And the greedy priests fastened 
 upon her like a hawk seizes upon a dove. The
 
 GEORGE, THE DOCKER 133 
 
 nuns came to the house and never left it, and she 
 told Berthe one day that unless I came back to her 
 soon I could never see her again, as she was to 
 go into a convent. And then lawyers came to the 
 house. Bah " 
 
 He stopped speaking, and looked at me steadily 
 for a moment or two. Then he went on quietly — 
 
 "Every sou of the old cordage maker's money 
 went to the Church, and the house and other pro- 
 perty to the Abbe Gervais personally. How the 
 matter was effected I cannot tell, but nine out of 
 ten people were satisfied that the law approved of 
 the will as a genuine testament made by Aurelie 
 Ruze of her own free will and consent, and out 
 of a desire to show her gratitude for the kindness 
 she had received during a long illness. 
 
 "I did not want a sou of the old man's fortune. 
 I only wanted my promised wife, and I was hot 
 for revenge. 
 
 "The abbe was a rich man, but was not liked by 
 many people on account of his arrogance, and had 
 few friends. For many weeks I waited for an 
 opportunity to meet him alone — and at last it came. 
 Late one night he came out from his study to walk 
 in the garden. I was watching, and sprang over 
 a low wall, and in a few seconds I had him by the 
 throat. He was a big, powerful man, but no match 
 for me. 
 
 "Well, I beat him with a stick — as a man would
 
 134 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 beat a savage dog — until he was senseless. Then 
 3 went to the police-station, told of what I had done, 
 and where they would find Monsieur I'Abbe. I 
 might have escaped had I tried, but I did not care 
 to try. 
 
 "I never saw my mother again. She never came 
 near me whilst I was in prison, but when she died 
 five years ago, and left her 37,000 francs to the 
 Church, I appealed to the court. And at last I 
 have got it, with interest as well. 
 
 "A year after I came out of prison I married 
 Berthe Vasse. She has been a good wife to me, 
 and I am well content."
 
 VII 
 
 TERESA STUART: 
 A REMINISCENCE OF THE BUSH 
 
 For four hot and weary days I had tramped 
 along lonely and disused dray-roads and bridle- 
 paths that led from a little mining township in the 
 northern part of New South Wales to the coast — 
 to a somnolent and decaying seaport at the mouth 
 of a tidal river, the slowly moving, muddy waters 
 of which met the white-crested rollers of the 
 Pacific on a wide and shallow bar, in whose ever- 
 changing and restless bed of shifting sand lay, 
 deep down, the hull of many a ship and the bones 
 of the men who had manned them. 
 
 ****** 
 
 After many years' wandering outside Australia, 
 I had gone to that mining township at the written 
 request of an old and dear comrade of mine, whom 
 I had met and with whom I had worked in the old, 
 glorious days of the Palmer River gold diggings, 
 in North Queensland. We had made money to- 
 gether, had lost it together ; and then one day we 
 
 i35
 
 i-,6 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 ^o 
 
 found ourselves in Cooktown "stony broke," as far 
 as money was concerned, and only our horses, 
 saddles, and unlimited hope for the future between 
 us and absolute want of food. We sold the horses 
 and our outfit to a Chinese restaurant-keeper for 
 ;^22, indulging in meals at five shillings per meal 
 for two days, and then parted — my mate to join a 
 prospecting party to the Coen River, and I to ship 
 as A. B. on a Sydney-owned schooner then at Cook- 
 town, and which had been chartered by a party of 
 diggers to take them to New Guinea, where the 
 discovery of payable gold had been reported. 
 
 Six years had passed since then, and I had just 
 returned to Sydney from a cruise in the South 
 Pacific as "recruiter" in the Kanaka labour traffic, 
 when my sister handed me a letter from my old 
 comrade, telling me that he had struck on what he 
 believed was "a good show," but had no money to 
 work it, and was "shepherding" it, in the hope 
 that I would again join him if I had any money to 
 put into the venture and would tackle mining 
 again. The letter was many months old. But it 
 appealed to me for many reasons. I was sick of 
 the sea and its hardships and worries, and my 
 health was broken down by malarial fever con- 
 tracted in Melanesia. And the place in which my 
 former mate's "good show " was located was in the 
 district in which I had been born and reared and 
 had run wild in my childhood, and I wanted to
 
 TERESA STUART 137 
 
 smell the bush again and hear the cheery call of 
 the man at the windlass above the shaft, " Look out 
 below," and to know the peacefulness at night, 
 when the day's hard work was done and honest 
 men gathered together under a shelter of bark and 
 talked happily of what the morrow might bring 
 forth. 
 
 The morrow, the morrow — ever it is the morrow 
 to the gold digger. Ever before him he sees the 
 open gate of the City of Fortune, and so often does 
 he lie at the gate — dead. 
 
 So, with two hundred pounds (a year's savings) 
 in my pocket, I left the sea behind me, and a few 
 days later found myself at Corella Creek with my 
 old mate. For two months we and two "wages" 
 men we employed worked at the reef, and our first 
 crushing raised our hopes, the second barely paid 
 the cost of raising and crushing, and the third ran 
 us into debt to the millowner, and, to make a long 
 story short, at the end of five months we were 
 again "stony broke." My mate got work at the 
 battery, and I bade him a sorrowful farewell, and 
 set my face towards the sea once more. 
 
 On the evening of the fourth day of my tramp I 
 came to a well-remembered spot, familiar to me in 
 the days of my youth, a great reed-fringed swamp, 
 encompassed by lofty grey-boled gums. It lay 
 between two spurs of the coastal range, and in the 
 "sixties" had been known as Lake Stuart, after
 
 138 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 the proprietor of a once thriving cattle station, who 
 had built a great house on the grassy rolHng downs 
 that stretched between the swamp and the foot of 
 the eastern spur. Financial misfortune fell upon 
 the owner, a Major Stuart, who was a retired East 
 Indian Army officer and a wealthy man. His 
 lavish expenditure and open-handed hospitality 
 were proverbial in all that part of the colony and 
 led to his downfall, and w^hen the crash came he 
 was unable to face the situation, and shot himself. 
 He left a widow and five children — three sons and 
 two daughters. 
 
 The youngest of the latter — Teresa — was about 
 fifteen years of age at the time of her father's death, 
 and I well remember seeing her at the funeral — a 
 slight, pale-faced girl, with the black hair and eye- 
 brows of her mother, who was either a Spanish or 
 Portuguese lady. For some years afterwards Mrs. 
 Stuart and her three grown-up sons carried on the 
 cattle station, and at last succeeded in freeing it 
 from the bank, which had foreclosed upon the pro- 
 perty when the Major shot himself. But to do 
 this they had to live in the utmost retirement; all 
 the servants, except one or two, were sent away, 
 and the three stalwart sons did the w^ork of ordin- 
 ary stockmen. With the exception of my own 
 parents, Mrs. Stuart received no visits from any of 
 the friends of the days of her prosperity. She was 
 an intensely proud and reserved woman, and her
 
 TERESA STUART 139 
 
 sons and daughters shared her spirit. To my 
 brothers and sister, and to me, however, she was 
 always sweet and kind, and the intimacy between 
 the two famiUes — although we lived nearly forty 
 miles from Lake Stuart — was never broken, until 
 there came a great and terrible tragedy. 
 
 When I was fourteen years of age, and on my 
 first voyage to sea, Mrs. Stuart, her eldest daughter 
 Frances, and two of her sons had occasion to visit 
 Sydney. Alick, the eldest son, and Teresa re- 
 mained at home at "The Lake." In those days 
 steamer communication on the coast was very 
 irregular, and one day Alick Stuart rode over to 
 
 our place at Port M and told my parents that 
 
 he had received a letter from his mother telling him 
 that she, Frances, and Alick's two brothers had 
 taken their passages in a steamer named the Pluto, 
 which was bound to Brisbane, but the captain had 
 agreed to land them on the coast at the nearest 
 point to Lake Stuart — a little bay called Red 
 Rocks, where a boat could easily land. It was 
 about five miles from Lake Stuart, and Alick Stuart 
 was to await them there with a trap and a bullock 
 dray to convey them and their luggage home. He, 
 driving a light cart, and a bullock driver with his 
 team left the cattle station and reached Red Rocks 
 in the evening, where they camped. Three days 
 later the bullocks came back to the station, one by 
 one, and Teresa Stuart and a black boy hurried to
 
 140 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 Red Rocks, and found her brother and the bullock- 
 driver dead. They had spread their blankets 
 underneath a great tree, which had been struck by 
 lightning, and a mighty branch had fallen upon 
 and killed them instantaneously. 
 
 For many weeks the agonized Teresa Stuart 
 awaited the arrival of the Pluto; but the Pluto 
 never came, and then m.y father, who was the 
 resident magistrate of the district, had to tell her 
 the dreadful truth. The steamer had left Sydney 
 carrying a heavy cargo, and on her deck was a 
 large Scotch boiler destined for a Queensland 
 sugar-plantation, and its enormous top-heavy 
 weight had, it was surmised, capsized and sunk the 
 Pluto during a north-easterly gale that she had 
 encountered a few days after leaving Sydney. 
 
 Teresa Stuart went to her mother's relatives in 
 Europe, and the station was broken up and aban- 
 doned, and the great house left to decay and go to 
 ruin, for no one in the district was in a position to 
 either buy or rent the place. 
 
 That was long, long years ago; and as I threw 
 down my swag and gun, and gazed across the 
 silent waters of "The Lake " at the roof of the old 
 house, which showed above the wild tangle of 
 lantana and other undergrowth, I wondered what 
 had become of the pale-faced, dark-eyed girl whom 
 I had last seen when I was a lad of fourteen years 
 of age. For after the Pluto tragedy Teresa Stuart
 
 TERESA STUART 141 
 
 had never written from Europe to any one in 
 Australia — not even to my mother, for whom she 
 had shown a deep regard from the day that her 
 dead brother had been found at Red Rocks. 
 ****** 
 
 Walking through the lines of grey-boled, ghostly 
 gums, I reached, as the sinking sun was purpling 
 the mountain-range, the ruins of the old brick- 
 built lodge; and then I started in surprise. The 
 graves of Alick Stuart and the bullock-driver Cole, 
 which I had expected to find overgrown with the 
 insidious creeping lantana, were enclosed in a neat, 
 white-painted picket-fence, and within the en- 
 closure, which was entered by a gate, was a mass 
 of white and scarlet geraniums and other flowers. 
 At one end a great wisteria vine, in full flower, was 
 trained over an arch of bent saplings, and under- 
 neath was a lounge-chair, in the seat of which were 
 some old, worn books and a lady's work-basket 
 containing sewing materials. It had evidently 
 been recently in use, and as I gazed around me, 
 wondering what woman could possibly be living 
 in such a deserted spot, I heard a footstep near me, 
 and an old man appeared, carrying two buckets of 
 water. In an instant I recognized him, though so 
 many, many years had passed since we had last 
 met. He was old Peter Hagan — Major Stuart's 
 soldier-servant. 
 
 "Don't you remember me, Peter?"
 
 142 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 He put down the buckets and peered at me 
 keenly under his white, bushy eyebrows. Then he 
 put out his hand. 
 
 "It's wan of the B boys, ye are?" 
 
 "Yes; I am the youngest. Are you living here, 
 Peter?" 
 
 He nodded. "I am. I'm up at th' ould house. 
 Will ye be for campin' here the night with 
 me?" 
 
 "Gladly, Peter. I am dog-tired. I've tramped 
 from Corella Creek Mine. Is your wife here, 
 Peter?" 
 
 He jerked his thumb in the direction of the big 
 house. "She's dead an' gone this sivinteen year, 
 an' buried in th' ould orchard. 'Tis on'y me and 
 Miss Tessa that's left now." 
 
 "Miss Stuart! Is she living here?" 
 
 "She is that. Come along — an' I'll tell ye. 
 'Tis nigh on five years back since she came. The 
 ould woman an' me was guardin' th' proputty fur 
 th' Bank at a pound a week. Twelve years afther 
 Kitty died, Miss Tessa came here in a buggy wid 
 her belongin's. Her hair was white as snow, and 
 th' moment I saw her I knew that her mind was 
 gone, though she spoke sinsibly enough, in a way. 
 ' Peter,' says she, ' I've come to th' Lake agin to 
 watch beside Alick, until mother, an' Frances, an' 
 Douglas, an' Kerr come back to me. . . .' An' 
 every day th' poor swate thing comes here an' sits
 
 TERESA STUART 143 
 
 an' sews, an' talks to herself, an' listens to the 
 callin' av the rollers on the bar." 
 
 " Do you think she will remember me, Peter ? 1 
 should so like to see her again." 
 
 The old man shook his head dubiously. "May- 
 be — maybe. Ye've got a bit av a luk av your 
 mother, and she spakes of her at toimes. Anny- 
 way, I'll tell her that ye are here wid me the night, 
 an' I'll ask her to see ye." 
 
 When Peter brought me to her she was sitting in 
 the old dining-room that I remembered so well. 
 She was, and yet was not, the same Teresa Stuart 
 whom I had known in the days of my youth, but 
 her face was drawn and thin, and of an unearthly 
 pallor, making a strange contrast to the dark, 
 liquid eyes. Her hair, snow-white, fell about her 
 shoulders in long curls in the fashion of the early 
 "sixties." Only one candle was lit in the room. 
 
 She smiled as she gave me her hand, and spoke. 
 
 "Will you sit here, please? I remember you 
 quite well. ... I often think of your mother. Do 
 you mind being in the half-darkness? I do not 
 like Peter to bring all the candles till it is my bed- 
 time." She leant forward and placed her thin hand 
 gently on mine — and looked at me through the 
 fast-gathering darkness. "You are a grown man 
 now." 
 
 I pressed her hand in return. "I am glad to
 
 144 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 see you again, Miss Stuart," I said, for want of 
 other words, and my eyes filled. 
 
 The sound of my voice seemed to electrify her, 
 for, with a quick movement, she rang a tiny bell 
 on the table, and old Hagan appeared. 
 
 "All the candles, please, Hagan. I have had a 
 most pleasant surprise." 
 
 She spoke so naturally and sanely that I could 
 not for the moment believe that she was mentally 
 afflicted. Quickly old Peter brought the candles, 
 and as he lit them one by one, with a warning 
 look at me, I saw that the dining-room, as far as 
 the walls were concerned, was almost as I had 
 known it in my childhood's days. Her father's 
 portrait in oils, in the uniform of a captain in a 
 Sikh Regiment, was in its old place; so also were 
 those of many other members of the family. But 
 the massive sideboard and all the silver plate were 
 missing, and the floor was bare except for some 
 opossum rugs and strips of faded carpet. 
 
 As the light of the candles illumined the room 
 she looked steadily at me for some moments, and 
 then her voice — so soft and sweet, and yet so low 
 — broke into the silence of the night. 
 
 " I know you now — so much better — since I 
 heard you speak. You have your mother's voice. 
 . . . You were the boy that Alick liked. ... I 
 remember when the pilot-boat capsized on the bar 
 at Port M and Alick saved you. , . . You
 
 TERESA STUART 145 
 
 were very freckled, and stammered, did you not ? 
 But, how brown you are. Have you come from 
 India?" 
 
 "No, Miss Stuart. But I am a sailor, and have 
 become sun-burnt." 
 
 "A sailor ! Oh, dear ! But you are not in naval 
 uniform. Are you on leave? You must stay and 
 have breakfast with me to-morrow before you rejoin 
 your ship. Is your mother still in Australia? . . . 
 I have been away so long, and fear I have lost all 
 my old friends through my own neglect. ... I 
 like to sit here in these warm summer evenings and 
 listen to the sob of the surf upon the bar. Did 
 you ever read a German story called Max? There 
 is a Russian peasant soldier in it, whose wife and 
 children — his wife was called Nada — died in the 
 snow after one of Napoleon's battles in Russia, 
 and he told Max that they used to come and talk 
 to him in the long, silent nights in his lonely hut 
 on the steppe. And I am quite sure that it was 
 true, for since I came here poor father and mother, 
 and Frances, and all my dear brothers come and 
 talk to me. And oh, I am very, very happy." 
 
 She passed her hand swiftly down one side of 
 her pale face, and then drew herself up with cold 
 gracefulness. 
 
 "But we are very, very poor now. Father has 
 met with some terrible reverses, as you know. . . . 
 And so we do not now receive." 
 
 K
 
 146 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 Through the open window I saw Peter Hagan, 
 watching. He made a gesture to me. to come 
 away. 
 
 I rose and offered my hand. "Good-night, Miss 
 Stuart; I must not tire you by remaining any 
 longer." 
 
 "Good-night. Peter, or some one, will show 
 you to your room. It is very quiet and peaceful 
 here to-night, is it not ? If you leave your window 
 open you will hear the sea calling on the bar. 
 Alick loves to hear it."
 
 VIII 
 
 CAPTAIN BOLTER'S ESCAPE 
 
 BoGGABiLLY is an Australian bush town fifty 
 miles from the coast. It has 400 inhabitants, four 
 "hotels," one church (with an itinerant parson), 
 and a tannery, and is one of the hottest, dustiest, 
 and most depressed-looking places on the island 
 continent. Due east of Boggabilly is the pretty 
 and somewhat thriving little seaport of Rocky Bar, 
 which, by reason of there being coach communica- 
 tion with it twice a week, the Boggabillyites called 
 "our port." Rocky Bar, in addition to three 
 hotels, a brick church with an organ and a choir, 
 and a resident clergyman, also possessed a bank, 
 a police magistrate, four mounted police troopers 
 and a court bailiff. It was a charming little town 
 with beautiful scenery, and the well-to-do residents 
 looked up the Boggabillyites as "country bump- 
 kins " — with a leaning towards cattle-stealing. 
 
 One of these residents was Mrs. Drake, the 
 
 widow of a Government official, and at the time 
 
 of this story she was rejoicing over the presence of 
 K 2 147
 
 148 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 her son, a mate in the merchant service, who had 
 just arrived and was spending a month with her. 
 She had two years' local gossip to tell him, the 
 marryings and buryings, the annual Race balls, 
 and the great fight between Sergeant Finnegan of 
 the Mounted Police and Rody Minogue the horse- 
 breaker, over the latter's attentions to pretty Mrs. 
 Julia Finnegan. Naturally the latter event excited 
 Tom Drake's interest most, for he knew both men 
 very well — and would have liked to have seen it. 
 
 "And now, Tom," said his mother, "I've another 
 piece of news. A nice old man who is a friend of 
 yours called to see me a few months ago — Captain 
 Sam Bolter." 
 
 The young man dropped his pipe in astonish- 
 ment. "Old Sammy Bolter! Dear old fellow! 
 What on earth brought him here ? " 
 
 "To talk to me about you, of course. I was 
 delighted to see him. He's a charmingly quaint, 
 outspoken old salt, and laughs like a boy." 
 
 "He's one of the best, mother. As you know, 
 I was two years second mate with him in the 
 Waratah. Did he stay long?" 
 
 "Half the day — but I haven't told you half my 
 news yet. Do you know that he has given up the 
 sea, and settled down at Boggabilly ? In a Sydney 
 paper he saw an advertisement that Duncan's busi- 
 ness — the hotel and general store — was for sale, and 
 he bought it. I was astonished when I heard of
 
 CAPTAIN BOLTER'S ESCAPE 149 
 
 it, and knowing how much you like him T sent him 
 a note." 
 
 "Mother, I must go and see him. How is he 
 doing?" 
 
 "Very well as far as business goes; but" — here 
 she paused — "not at all well in other matters." 
 
 " What is it ? " 
 
 "He is, I hear, going to be marriecl." 
 
 Drake laughed. "Well, it's about time, he's 
 over fifty-five." 
 
 "Ah, but, Tom, you'll be shocked when I tell you 
 ivho it is he is marrying." 
 
 "Some widow, I suppose, with a dozen children." 
 
 "That would not concern me if the widow were 
 a good woman ; but he is actually engaged to that 
 terrible girl Nina Cody — or Nina Cross, as she now 
 calls herself." 
 
 Drake sprang erect. "Good heavens, mother! 
 Does he know who and what she is — does he know 
 anything about her family ? Where on earth did 
 he meet her ? " 
 
 "One question at a time, Tom, and I will answer 
 your last first. I am convinced he knows abso- 
 lutely nothing about her or her family. Neither 
 does any one else in the whole district but myself 
 know who they are, and I have kept my know- 
 ledge to myself, as I thought it would be wrong 
 of me to reveal their identity when they are appar- 
 ently earning an honest living. They came to
 
 I50 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 Boggabilly five months ago — old Cody and his son 
 Jim (who was liberated two years ago), Mrs. Cody 
 and Nina, who is now five-and-twenty years of age, 
 and as handsome as she is wicked." 
 
 "What are they doing?" 
 
 "They have bought a selection ten miles from 
 Boggabilly; and it seems that old Cody — the 
 scoundrel — put up at Captain Bolter's hotel with 
 his wife and family for a few days before taking 
 over their selection from the former occupier. 
 Then visits began to be interchanged, and two 
 weeks ago both Captain Bolter and Nina Cody 
 told all their acquaintances that they were to be 
 married on the igth of this month — ten days from 
 now. 
 
 "Of course at that time I did not know who ' the 
 Cross's ' were, but one day when I was at the Bank 
 getting some money, Magnus Cody and his daugh- 
 ter rode up. I recognized them instantly, though 
 it is so many years since I saw them. And Cody 
 came inside, and paid in to his credit a cheque for 
 ^250. The cheque was drawn by your friend." 
 
 Drake whistled. "Ah, the gang have begun to 
 bleed old Sam already, have they ? " 
 
 Mrs. Drake nodded. "It looks like it. Well, I 
 was dreadfully, dreadfully upset. Only that I was 
 afraid of being murdered by either old Cody or 
 his son, I would have told my news to Inspector 
 Develin, who of course would know their record;
 
 CAPTAIN BOLTER'S ESCAPE 151 
 
 but he is not only indiscreet, but brutal, and 
 although he could perhaps have let every one know 
 who they were, it might not stop the marriage. 
 Then I thought of you, and I did something — ■ 
 something that I trust was not foolish or wrong. 
 
 "I wrote to your friend, and told him that you 
 were coming home on the 9th, and begged him to 
 come and see you as soon after as possible. Tom, 
 you are a man. Speak to him, if you really care 
 for him as a friend, and save him from marrying 
 into this wicked family. With you here, I am very 
 brave now." 
 
 "Indeed I will, mother. If he married this girl 
 and then discovered her antecedents, and those of 
 her infernal cut-throat relatives, it would break the 
 old man's heart. He is a rough old salt, but a 
 more honourable and upright man never trod deck. 
 Now, he may not be here for a day or two. Does 
 he ride ? " 
 
 "No, he told me he does not. He came here by 
 coach, and will do so again, I am certain." 
 "When is the next coach due?" 
 "On Sunday — three days from now." 
 "Then I'm off to Boggabilly at once, mother. 
 Send Jennie round to the ' Royal ' to tell Walsh 
 to have a buggy and pair ready for me in an hour, 
 with a man to drive, as I don't know the road, 
 and might get bushed if I took a wrong turn off."
 
 152 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 Captain Bolter was delighted to see his former 
 second mate, and wrung his hand again and again. 
 He was a short, squarely-built man with iron-grey 
 hair and beard, and dark kindly eyes, that seemed 
 always to be twinkling with merriment. And he 
 was indeed a genial-souled old fellow, ever ready 
 to do a friendly act to any one who was in need 
 of it. It was his proud boast that during the 
 forty years he had been at sea as mate and master 
 he had never had occasion to either hit a man or 
 send him to gaol for disobedience. 
 
 Supper was just ready when Drake arrived, and 
 after it was over the two men went out on the 
 verandah to smoke and talk, and Drake at once 
 went to work. 
 
 "Captain Bolter," he said, "I came to see you 
 on a matter of the most vital importance — so vital 
 that I did not care to wait until Sunday." 
 
 The old sailor turned in his chair, and placed 
 his hand on the young man's knee. 
 
 "What is it, Tommy ? " (Drake had always been 
 "Tommy " to him.) 
 
 "I am going to say something to you which may 
 make you very angry. If it does, I can only plead 
 that it is the deep esteem in which I hold you that 
 impels me to say it. And you know me pretty 
 well, don't you ? " 
 
 "I do, my boy. I know that you are a white 
 man. Now go ahead."
 
 CAPTAIN BOLTER'S ESCAPE 153 
 
 "My mother tells me that you are engaged to 
 be married to Miss Nina Cross." 
 
 "Yes. And I suppose you think I am an old 
 fool. I dare say I am. I should have looked out 
 for a middle-aged woman instead of a young one of 
 five-and-twenty. Go on, Tommy." 
 
 "Yes, I will. That is what I have come for. 
 But first of all let me ask you if you are very much 
 in love with Miss Cross." 
 
 The old man laughed. "No, Tommy, I am not 
 in love with her, and am not such an old donkey 
 as to think that she loves me. But I want a wife. 
 I have not a single relative in the world, and 
 this girl pleased me, and I asked her in a blunt 
 fashion if she would marry me, and she said 
 'Yes.'" 
 
 "Then you wouldn't break your heart if by some 
 chance the match was broken off." 
 
 "Not a bit. I am not altogether a fool." 
 
 "Well, then, Captain Bolter, you will not marry 
 Nina Cross when I tell you that she is not a 
 fit woman to be your wife. She is one of 
 a bad family, and her name is not Cross, but 
 Cody." 
 
 "Go on, Tommy," said the old sailor quietly. 
 
 "What I am now about to tell you I will say to 
 her, her father and her mother in your presence. 
 If you find that I have departed from the truth in 
 the slightest degree, or am speaking in malice,
 
 154 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 you can kick me all the way down the main street of 
 Boggabilly." 
 
 "That's straight. Go on." 
 
 "My mother and I know the family well. They 
 come from Gippsland in Victoria. Old Magnus 
 Cody is a bad lot, and his two sons were bush- 
 rangers. The elder son was hanged in Melbourne 
 Gaol five years ago for the murder of a police 
 trooper, who tried to arrest him for sticking up the 
 mail ; Jim Cody, the second brother, was with 
 Gardiner's gang of bushrangers, and received a 
 sentence of seven years' hard labour for robbery 
 under arms, and was only liberated two years ago. 
 Old Cody was sentenced by my uncle to five years' 
 imprisonment for cattle stealing, and Nina Cody 
 and her sister Kate each served a two years* 
 sentence for the same offence. They were the most 
 notorious family of cattle and horse stealers in 
 Gippsland, and Nina was for six months the com- 
 panion of a bushranger named Ward, and then 
 betrayed his hiding-place to the police for the 
 reward offered — ;^5oo. That was why the family 
 had to clear out of Gippsland; for their lives were 
 not safe. That is all I have to say." 
 
 The old man's face had turned very pale, and for 
 some moments he was unable to speak. Then he 
 put out his hand. 
 
 "I thank you, Tom Drake. I would put a bullet 
 through my head before I would marry a woman
 
 CAPTAIN BOLTER'S ESCAPE 155 
 
 with a stain on her name. God bless you, my boy, 
 for saving me." 
 
 ****** 
 
 Early next morning Drake drove up to Cody's 
 selection, and had an interesting interview with the 
 family. They were at breakfast when he entered 
 the house, and bade them "good-morning." 
 
 "Magnus Cody," he said, in very decided tones, 
 as unasked, he sat down near the door, "my name 
 is Drake, and my uncle is Judge Denton, who 
 sentenced you to five years for cattle duffing. I 
 have the whole record of your family's doings, and 
 have just been relating it to my friend Captain 
 Bolter. Now, I am in somewhat of a hurry, so 
 you must excuse me for coming to the point at once. 
 First of all, though, I must give you. Miss Cody, 
 this letter from Captain Bolter. It will be some- 
 thing for you to sleep upon. Now, Mr. Cody, 
 senior — ah, you needn't look ugly at me, Mr. Cody,, 
 junior " — and he opened his coat and showed the 
 butt of his Smith and Wesson's pistol — "if you try 
 on any nonsense with me, you will get a shock, 
 so just keep your seat, and listen to what I have 
 to say to your estimable parents." 
 
 Mrs. Cody sprang up, and levelled a torrent of 
 vituperation at him. Drake waited until she had 
 finished. 
 
 "As I was saying, Mr. Cody, senior, I have no 
 time to waste. Now, my friend Bolter gave you
 
 156 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 one cheque for ^loo and a second one for ;^25o, 
 both of which you paid in to the Bank of New 
 South Wales at Rocky Bar. I want you now to 
 give me your cheque in favour of Samuel Bolter 
 for ;^25o — the other ;^ioo your pretty, innocent 
 daughter can keep to soothe her injured pride. So 
 write me that cheque straight away, and no more 
 nonsense. If you don't, I'll be saying something 
 about you to Inspector Develin, and you wouldn't 
 like that, would you ? " 
 
 Old Cody, trembling with rage and fear, made 
 out the cheque, and Drake put it in his pocket, 
 and after asking Jim Cody if he felt inclined for 
 four rounds before he left — to see which was the 
 better man of the two — got into his buggy, and 
 drove off, well satisfied. 
 
 ****** 
 
 A week later, Captain Sam Bolter came to 
 see him at Rocky Bar. 
 
 "Tommy, my boy, I have had a narrer escape. 
 It's been a warnin' to me. I have sold out my 
 business at Boggabilly and have come to the con- 
 clusion that the bush is a dangerous place for an 
 old salt. I ain't safe to be trusted by myself on 
 shore. Am I?" 
 
 Drake laughed. "No more am I, captain. What 
 are you going to do?" 
 
 "Settle down in Sydney — and buy a tidy vessel 
 for the Island trade. And you shall be her skipper.
 
 CAPTAIN BOLTER'S ESCAPE 157 
 
 And it's more than likely I'll make a voyage or 
 
 two with you before I do settle down. Is it a deal, 
 
 Tommy Drake ? " 
 
 "It's a deal, Captain Bolter. I'm your man." 
 "Then let us go to the 'Royal' and wet the 
 
 agreement. Lord, what an escape I've had, 
 
 Tommy !"
 
 IX 
 
 SOME SKIPPERS WITH WHOM I 
 HAVE SAILED 
 
 In following such widely-different occupations as 
 that of a shore trader, shark catching, "recruiter" 
 for the Kanaka labour trade, and supercargo, I 
 have sailed with many captains — British, American 
 and foreign. Some were good fellows, some were 
 bad, some were neither, and some were so perfectly 
 colourless in their dispositions and characters that 
 I cannot even remember their names. For some, 
 dead and gone, I shall have ever the most grateful 
 and kindly memories — true comrades and good 
 sailormen. For others — was any one of them now 
 alive, and I was told that he was about to be 
 hanged, I should apply for a press ticket to witness 
 the execution. 
 
 Many of these mariners I met when I was free 
 from any duties — as passenger. And a passenger 
 who is also a seafaring man has plenty of time to 
 note and study the idiosyncrasies of the lord who 
 rules the ship. 
 
 158
 
 SKIPPERS I HAVE SAILED WITH 159 
 
 I shall first speak of one of the "capable" and 
 one of the "incapable" kind together. The latter 
 had been a lieutenant in the Navy, and had to leave 
 the Service for gross faults — intemperance princi- 
 pally. But having some money, and many friends, 
 he managed to obtain the command of a newly- 
 built, splendid brigantine (the Tuitoga) belonging 
 to King George of Tonga. 
 
 At this time I had taken passage in Sydney for 
 Samoa, via Tonga, in a smart little barque (the 
 Rimitara) commanded by a Captain Rosser, who 
 was regarded as the doyen of island skippers. He 
 was a "Bluenose," stood over six feet in his stock- 
 inged feet, was a man of the most determined 
 courage, unflinching resolution, and was widely 
 known and respected all over the South Pacific. 
 
 Both vessels sailed from Sydney at the same 
 hour on the same day, and both were bound for 
 Tonga. We were towed out, almost side by side, 
 and the flashy ex-naval skipper called out to 
 Rosser, offering to bet him ;^5o to ^5 that he 
 would be lying at anchor in Tonga two days before 
 the Riviitara. Rosser merely replied that he did 
 not make bets with strangers, and then sarcastically 
 added that he hoped the speaker had some sailors 
 on his new command. "You'll want 'em," he 
 said. 
 
 Then Rosser turned to me with a grim smile, 
 and observed that the King of Tonga was trying
 
 i6o 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 a risky experiment in putting such a man in com- 
 mand of his new brigantine. "All that flash 
 fellow knows about a sailing ship he learned on a 
 Service training brig, and he's going to make a 
 ' holy mess of things.' " 
 
 Lieutenant Raye (so I will call him) did make a 
 "holy mess of things." Five days later at day- 
 light Rosser called me to come and look at "some- 
 thing pretty." The something pretty was the 
 brigantine. She was in a terrible mess. Her fore 
 and main royal and top-gallant masts were gone, 
 and she was on her beam ends, and all her boats 
 gone. Rosser sent assistance, and we stood by 
 her for two days. We got into Nukualofa Har- 
 bour ten days ahead, and then, when the Tuitoga 
 came into port, she ran on a reef and our skipper 
 and crew floated her off. This "incapable" after- 
 wards shot himself in a fit of D.T.s— a sensible 
 
 act. 
 
 Another "incapable" with whom I sailed as a 
 passenger was a good seaman, but a hopeless 
 navigator. He was a conceited little ape — a Scots- 
 man—and took a rooted dislike to me when I 
 mendaciously told him that I had never heard of 
 "Bobbie Burns" and did not believe any other 
 person had heard of such a poet. I had with me 
 over ;^2000 worth of trade goods, and during the 
 voyage became alarmed at Captain Macpherson's 
 (so I will call him) rudimentary knowledge of
 
 SKIPPERS I HAVE SAILED WITH i6i 
 
 navigation, although he certainly was a thorough 
 sailorman. 
 
 Against the advice of the mate and myself he 
 anchored close in to the reef of Peru Island in the 
 Gilbert Group, during calm but unsettled weather, 
 and ten hours later the vessel was driven on to the 
 reef by a furious squall, became a total wreck, and 
 I lost everything I possessed except some nine 
 hundred dollars in American and Chile money. 
 This enabled me to take a passage for Sydney 
 with the good-natured skipper of the barque 
 George Noble. 
 
 Captain Evers (a German, but a naturalized 
 British subject) was a good navigator and a splen- 
 did seaman, but a most obstinate, pig-headed 
 fellow. Also he had a rooted idea that his officers 
 and crew had a contemptuous dislike for him, on 
 account of his being German born. This led him 
 to vacillate between two courses — sometimes he 
 w^ould be pompously silent and hardly speak, at 
 others stupidly overbearing, like most Teutons in 
 authority. 
 
 All ships in leaving Apaian Lagoon do so in the 
 morning, for the passage is on the west, is studded 
 with many coral boulders called, from their shape, 
 "mushrooms," and it would be almost impossible 
 to miss striking one with a bright afternoon sun 
 shining in one's eyes. At noon on the day we 
 were leaving there was a strong breeze blowing, 
 
 L
 
 i62 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 and I casually observed to Evers that if it were not 
 so we should be too late to get out of the passage 
 — .ten miles distant. In an instant he became 
 sulky, and reminded me that he, and not I, was 
 master of the ship, and that he would leave when 
 it suited him. I was snubbed. 
 
 We sailed at two o'clock — four hours too late, 
 and soon ran down to the passage. The barque 
 was then under all sail and making eleven knots, 
 but as soon as we entered the narrow passage, 
 through which a six-knot current was rushing, her 
 speed became terrific. The skipper was, with my- 
 self, on the fore-yard (he having sulkily given me 
 permission to come up), and every now and then 
 shouting out orders to the steersman, orders that 
 could hardly be heard owing to the roar of the 
 current. He had the blinding glare of the sun full 
 in his eyes, and I am sure he could not see where 
 he was going — I know that I could not see any- 
 thing ahead. 
 
 Suddenly he called out, "Starboard a little," and 
 in a few seconds there came a terrific crash, and 
 both he and I were jerked off the foot-rope, toppled 
 over the yard on to the bellying foresail, rolled 
 down, and landed almost in each other's arms, half- 
 dazed but unhurt. Every one on deck was thrown 
 down, and then the barque canted to port, swung 
 round with a fearful grinding and groaning, and 
 with our canvas all in disorder, was whirled out
 
 SKIPPERS I HAVE SAILED WITH 163 
 
 of the passage into clear water, where we brought 
 to and anchored, and lowering a boat examined the 
 ship for'ard. She had struck on a coral "mush- 
 room," carried away six feet of the stem from 
 below the water-line, and started so many timbers 
 that she was making ten inches of water an hour. 
 It cost ^700 to repair her after we reached Sydney, 
 and poor Evers was furious when, on his next visit 
 to Apaian, the local trader thanked him for clear- 
 ing the passage. "You ran smack agin a big 
 * mushroom ' standin' in the middle an' broke it 
 off short, twenty feet below. Hope you'll try and do 
 the same thing this time and knock down another." 
 One of the worst skippers with whom I ever 
 sailed, when I was a "recruiter" in the Kanaka 
 labour trade ("blackbirding" as it is generally 
 termed), had once been a chaplain and Naval In- 
 structor in the Navy. He was not only a good 
 navigator and sailor, but was one of the best Con- 
 tinental linguists I have ever come across. Soft 
 and sweet in his speech, he was at the same time 
 a savage despot, and had no more conscience than 
 a rat where his own interests were concerned. He 
 and I frequently came into collision over his treat- 
 ment of the native crew, for I, being Recruiter, 
 was the responsible man, and he merely the sailing 
 master. I objected to his conduct, pointing out 
 that if he interfered with the crew, except as re- 
 garded the actual working of the ship, the result 
 
 L2
 
 i64 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 would be disastrous, and that it was in my power 
 to suspend him and put the chief officer in his 
 place. He laughed in his soft way, and then in 
 the coolest and calmest manner made me a pro- 
 position — 
 
 "Now look here. I am talking plainly. You 
 are getting ^35 a month as Recruiter, and a bonus 
 of £2 for every Kanaka we land in good health 
 and condition in Fiji. That pays you. I get only 
 £20 a month. That doesn't suit me. Now we 
 have sixty ' blackbirds ' on board, worth ^100 
 each in Guatemala, where no questions will be 
 asked. The ship is worth another ;^6ooo, and can 
 be sold anywhere on the Central American coast 
 for at least ;^4000. I'll fake the papers so that 
 there will be no trouble. Are you a business man 
 or a fathead ? " 
 
 I treated his suggestion as a joke, but he per- 
 sisted, and then finally, finding I would not accede 
 to his villainous project, he dropped the subject. 
 A week or two later w^e reached Levuka, in Fiji, 
 where I paid him off at the Consulate. He went 
 away smilingly, and later on I found that with 
 him went twelve ;^5 notes belonging to me, which 
 he had taken from the bottom of the ship's cash 
 box. This he had opened, regarding the few 
 hundred dollars in silver money as too bulky to 
 take. I never saw him again. 
 
 One skipper with whom I sailecJ as supercargo
 
 SKIPPERS I HAVE SAILED WITH 165 
 
 was what would now be called a "Christian Scien- 
 tist." He was a thorough sailor and a good man, 
 but made me stare when one day he begged me 
 not to give chlorodyne to a sailor who was nearly 
 dying of dysentery. 
 
 "Prayer is the only thing that will cure him," 
 he said. "I shall now pray for him, direct to the 
 Almighty. In two hours he will be recovered." 
 
 He prayed, but I gave the sufferer the chloro- 
 dyne, together with some cold arrowroot and water. 
 And in two hours the man was certainly better. 
 He ultimately recovered, but the skipper took all 
 the credit upon himself, and said that a medicine 
 chest was not only a useless thing on board a ship, 
 but an affront to the Almighty. 
 
 A remarkable contrast to the last man was the 
 notorious Captain "Bully" Hayes, with whom it 
 was my fortune to sail for two years. Hayes was 
 an extraordinary character, brave and generous to 
 a fault. He was also a merciless tyrant, and some- 
 times acted more like a savage than a white man. 
 He was strikingly handsome, over six feet in 
 height, and with a pair of bright blue eyes, which 
 could shine with merriment, or blaze with fury. 
 During the two years I was with him we visited 
 many hundreds of islands, trading for coconut- 
 oil, pearl-shells, shark-fins, etc., and in all this 
 time Hayes never committed any act of piracy. I 
 need hardly say that had he attempted such a thing
 
 i66 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 I should have quickly severed my connection with 
 him. For me personally the man had a great 
 liking, and I was enabled to dissuade him from 
 many acts of violence and cruelty. He was a rigid 
 disciplinarian, and yet would often permit his crew 
 to indulge in the wildest orgies, both afloat and on 
 shore. Flogging was the usual punishment for 
 an offence. On one occasion I came on board and 
 found a young German A.B., who had deserted, 
 triced up, awaiting a flogging. I took Hayes 
 aside, and said, "If you flog that man it will be 
 murder. He has a very weak heart — that I know 
 for a fact." After some consideration Hayes 
 ordered the man to be untied, but put him in irons 
 for a week. 
 
 One extraordinary old man, with whom I was a 
 partner on a shark fishing cruise to Palmyra 
 Island, was a very heavy drinker, and when in his 
 cups would always dress in a frock suit and top 
 hat, gloves, etc. Once, after a long bout, he was 
 seized with delirium tremens^ and I and our native 
 crew had to strait-jacket him. I ran the schooner 
 into an uninhabited atoll, and stayed there for a 
 week, until the old fellow was better. He was 
 very grateful to me, and at the end of the cruise — 
 which was highly profitable — presented me with a 
 valuable gold watch. He always called me his 
 "doctor."
 
 X 
 
 DENISON GIVES A SUPPER 
 PARTY 
 
 Tom Denison, supercargo of the brig Vision, 
 was very hard up, when, with a fearful black eye, 
 he stepped on shore at Apia, in Samoa, on New 
 Year's Eve, carrying part of his worldly posses- 
 sions in a much-worn leather bag; the remainder 
 were in his sea-chest, then being borne before him 
 on the naked shoulders of his trusty native servant 
 boy (Jim). 
 
 Near the jetty was "Black Tom's" alleged 
 "hotel" — a place as notorious all over the South 
 Seas as "Black Tom" himself. At the doorway 
 Denison met the host — a herculean Galveston 
 nigger, so black that (so some of his enemies said) 
 a piece of black lead drawn across his face would 
 have made a snow-white mark. 
 
 "Hallo, Mas'r Denison, what's de matter with 
 yo eye? " inquired the negro, as they shook hands. 
 
 "Skipper," was the brief reply, "he came out on 
 
 top this time; so I've left the Vision for good now 
 
 167
 
 i68 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 — lost my prestige with the crew, you see, now that 
 the skipper knocked me out in the first round this 
 turn up. Now, Tom, give me a bottle of beer and 
 lend me ten dollars. I mean to spend the New 
 Year with you." 
 
 The big nigger gave a rich fruity laugh. 
 
 "All right, sah; yo' can hab de ten dollars, or 
 fifty if yo' like. Come inside. Fo' de Lord, dat's 
 an awful eye, and yo' nose is a bit twist too." 
 Then stepping to a door, he smote upon it with his 
 mighty fist. 
 
 "Here, Luisa gal, wha' yo' doin' dar, sleepin' 
 like a hog? Here am Mr. Denison. Bring a 
 bottle ob Foster, and den send away to de butcher 
 and get a bit ob steak for Mr. Denison. He been 
 done trip over a ring-bolt on de deck, arid black 
 his eye, and cut his lip." 
 
 Luisa, Black Tom's handsome daughter by a 
 Samoan mother, opened her door, kissed Denison 
 first on his battered nose, and then on -each cheek, 
 and flew to the bar for the beer — for nearly every 
 person in Apia, except the Germans there, liked 
 Denison for his gentle ways. 
 
 "Tom," said the supercargo, as he set down his 
 glass with a sigh of satisfaction, "I'm stony broke 
 just now, but I shall be flush soon after the New 
 Year — if you will help me. Now, look here. Six 
 months ago I promised Mason, the skipper of the 
 Levuka, Holt, his supercargo, Harry Todd the
 
 DENISON'S SUPPER PARTY 169 
 
 recruiter, and Leseman, the German skipper of the 
 Samoa (who is a decent Dutchman), that if we were 
 all in Samoa this Christmas, or at New Year, that 
 I'd stand them a supper, and that you would 
 cook it, and your wife and Luisa would wait. 
 See?" 
 
 Black Tom scratched his chin meditatively, 
 shuffled his feet uneasily, and then gazed in- 
 terestedly at the roof. 
 
 "Now, Tom, don't put on that sort of look. I'm 
 going to put money into your pocket — and into 
 mine, if you will do as I wish. If you don't fall 
 in with me I'll go to Charlie the Russian, and get 
 him to fix up the banquet. But you are the one 
 man in Samoa who knows just how to cook and lay 
 out a supper in tip-top style." 
 
 "Dat's all right 'nuff; but where am de dollars 
 comin' from? I know dat crowd mighty well. 
 Dey all sop up champagne at ten dollars a bottle 
 like as if dey was limekilns, and den start fightin' 
 and smashin' tings. And, in the end, I'se get 
 inter trouble with the Municipal Police and de 
 Consuls. No, sah, I guess I can't give that 
 supper." 
 
 "Tom, you must, or my good name is ruined. 
 Now, look here, Tom, I'll take you into my confi- 
 dence. Before New Year's Day I'll be skipper of 
 the Manaia, and I'll pay you back every cent I 
 owe you. I've spent a good many hundreds of
 
 I70 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 dollars in your house, Tom, during the past three 
 years." 
 
 "Dat's so, dat's so." 
 
 "Well now, look here. "I'llhelp. I'veheapsof 
 native friends, and in a few hours you shall have 
 all the poultry you want, sucking pigs and loads 
 of oranges, bananas, pineapples, and all that sort 
 of stuff. All you have to do is to cook and lay 
 out — and perhaps find some of the liquor. Now, 
 I'm off. Never mind the raw beef just now. Back 
 in a couple of hours, Tom. Oh, I have forgotten 
 something very important," and Denison shut his 
 uninjured eye and placed his hand on the negro's 
 arm, "an aunt of mine has died and left me a 
 pile — that's why I'm giving the supper. D'ye 
 tumble?" 
 
 Black Tom grinned. "Guess I do. Shall I put 
 it about ? " 
 
 "Yes, and so will I. Now I'm off." 
 
 Ten minutes later he was talking to the editor of 
 the Sartioan Tirnes, in that gentleman's office. 
 
 "Oh, I say, Colley, an aunt of mine has died and 
 left me all her money, and I am giving a little 
 supper to-night to some old friends. You know 
 them all" (he mentioned their names), "and I 
 thought you would perhaps join us." 
 
 "Thanks, I'll come with pleasure. And let me 
 congratulate you. Did the lady leave you much ? " 
 
 "Every cent."
 
 DENISON'S SUPPER PARTY 171 
 
 "May I say anything about it in to-morrow's 
 issue ? " 
 
 Denison put on a diffident air. "Oh, I don't 
 know. I don't want to swagger about the beach 
 because I've come into money, you know. But 
 perhaps you might just say something about it, 
 and that I have left the Vision, and am giving a 
 supper to some friends — no gush, you know. And 
 you might add that I mean to stay in Samoa — I 
 can't go to AustraHa and lead a life of idleness, it 
 would simply kill me." 
 
 Colley said that Denison was the kind of man 
 who was wanted in Samoa. Then he ventured to 
 inquire how his face became so disfigured. 
 
 "My own fault, Colley. Was standing on the 
 top-gallant foc'scle the other day when the brig was 
 going about, and got a smack in the eye from the 
 jib-sheet block." 
 
 ****** 
 
 Further down the street he came across a long, 
 thin man with a red beard, a brace of revolvers at 
 his hips, and a green-hide whip in his hand. This 
 was Jack O'Brien, chief of the Apia Municipal 
 Police. 
 
 " How are you, John ? I was looking for 
 you " 
 
 "What ivir is wrong wid your face, Mr. 
 Dinison ? " 
 
 "Fell over hatch coamings in the dark — now, as
 
 172 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 I was saying, John, I'm glad I've found you. I've 
 come in for a tidy fortune, and I am giving a supper 
 party to-night, and want you to come, or you'll put 
 me out. Black Tom is doing the cooking, and 
 Luisa and some other girls will wait. Just a nice, 
 quiet little party, you know. Will you come? " 
 
 "I will that, me boy." 
 
 "Right. And, I say, John, look here. The 
 Consuls have a down on that nigger, I know he's 
 no saint, but he's a flaming old cook, isn't he, eh? 
 Now, can't you tell those infernal meddling police 
 of yours to keep aw^ay from his place this evening. 
 We don't want the harmony broken up by a lot 
 of tattooed beasts of native policemen. Look here, 
 John — I'll leave ten dollars at Charlie the Russian's 
 saloon, and tell him to give your sergeant a case 
 of gin for your men, eh? " 
 
 "That'll do fine, Mr. Dinison. Sure ye always 
 was a thoughtful man f'yer years. I'll sind me 
 half-caste sargint for the stuff, and when the night 
 watch musters, I'll give them the liquor, and lock 
 'em up in the barracks for the night. It's better 
 than that they should be interferin' wid dacent 
 people atin' a bit av supper." 
 
 "Right. Good-bye, John. Seven o'clock is the 
 time. Come in at the back gate — front door will 
 be locked — and bring a thirst." 
 
 Then off he swung along the hot street to call 
 in at the French Mission to inquire how the good
 
 DENISON'S SUPPER PARTY 173 
 
 Marist Brothers were getting on with the building 
 of the new cathedral. 
 
 The long man looked at the retreating figure with 
 a kindly eye. "Well, well, well, Tom Dinison, 
 it's a great wee man ye are, wid no har-rum in ye. 
 But 'tis a bit thoughtless av ye to lave me here, 
 bakin' in the sun wid a dhry tongue sthuck to the 
 roof av me mouth." 
 
 As Denison ascended the steps of the French 
 Mission, two long-bearded Marist Brothers met 
 him with outstretched hands and smiling faces, for 
 he was a favourite with the French missionaries. 
 
 "Ah, c'est toi, mon cher ami, Denison! Tu es 
 le bien venu. Mais qu'est-ce que tu as a ta pauvre 
 figure — elle est tout-d-fait ahimee." 
 
 " Ce n'est rien, cher pere Serge. Dimanche 
 dernier au soir en sortant de Veglise anglicane, 
 j'ai trebuche, et je suis tonibe sur le perron.'^ 
 
 * -K- * -X- * * 
 
 Past through the semi-German suburb of Mata- 
 fele went Denison, only stopping at "Charlie the 
 Russian's" to pay for the gin, and invite Charlie 
 himself to come to the supper; then on to the native 
 village at Mulinu's Point, where he had many 
 Samoan friends. 
 
 They all made him welcome, and prepared a 
 bowl of kava for him to drink. To them he frankly 
 confided his troubles. He wanted, he said, to 
 entertain some dear friends that night, and any
 
 174 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 such things as fowls, ducks, pigeons, fish, etc., etc., 
 would be very acceptable. 
 
 "Tamu" (Tom), said a chief named Asi, "thou 
 shalt want for nothing." And then he (Asi) gave 
 certain orders to his people. 
 
 Denison said to him aside, "Asi, I want you to 
 come to my little fia fia (feast) and bring all your 
 dancing girls. And tell your young men that I 
 will order a case of gin for them at Charlie the 
 Russian's presently. And also tell them that the 
 police will be locked up in the barracks. Now, 
 good-bye, I am very busy. To fa!" (Good-bye.) 
 ****** 
 
 As he was coming back through the town he 
 met the meanest man in Samoa, a wealthy store- 
 keeper and shipowner, named MacBean, who bore 
 down on him with outstretched hand. He had just 
 seen the editor of the Samoan Times, who had 
 informed him that young Denison had come in 
 for the entire fortune of his aunt, who was enorm- 
 ously wealthy. 
 
 And Denison particularly wanted to see Mr. 
 MacBean, and had intended to call on him. 
 
 "Congratulations, my young friend, congratula- 
 tions," he said oilily, "but whither in such a hurry ? 
 Come in and see Mrs. MacBean, and May." 
 
 "No, thank you, Mr. MacBean," said Denison, 
 somewhat coldly, "I am busy making a few pur- 
 chases for a little supper I am giving. And I want
 
 DENISON'S SUPPER PARTY 175 
 
 my native friends to enjoy themselves also. I am 
 sending them a few hundredweight of ship biscuits, 
 a bag of sugar, a keg of beef, and — and well, a 
 case or two of spirits and a few cases of beer from 
 Charlie the Russian." 
 
 "You'll do no such thing, my dear young friend. 
 You must accept them from me. Now, who are 
 they for? I'll send them anywhere you like." 
 
 " For Asi and his people. But I would rather get 
 them from the Russian and pay for them, thank 
 you." 
 
 "If you do I shall be very much hurt — and so 
 will May." 
 
 "Oh well, as you will, Mr. MacBean. I am very 
 much obliged, and Asi will make your generosity 
 known. Now, good-bye. No, I won't come in 
 just now. Later on perhaps. Kind regards to 
 ^Irs. and Miss MacBean." 
 
 "May, you mean." 
 
 "May, then, if you will so permit me. Tell May 
 that I hope to call and see her to-morrow, if she will 
 overlook my temporary facial disfigurement. The 
 other night as I was lying asleep on deck, the 
 mate, who is a big heavy man, accidentally stepped 
 on my face with his clumsy sea-boots." 
 
 " Dear, dear me ! You sailormen have rough 
 experiences." Then Mr. MacBean added with 
 deeply sympathetic inquisitiveness, "I suppose it 
 is your poor Aunt Lydia who has gone ? "
 
 176 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 Denison turned aside to hide his emotion. 
 "Please do not speak of her, Mr. MacBean. I 
 feel very lonely now." 
 
 "Ah, May will cheer you up. Now, I won't 
 keep you. May your supper party be a merry 
 one." 
 
 "Mr. MacBean, six months ago you used very 
 harsh and improper language to me, and forbade 
 me to enter your house again — I felt it very much, 
 and " 
 
 "My^dear boy, it was all a mistake. I certainly 
 spoke hastily, and am sorry for it, but " 
 
 "Pardon my interrupting you, sir. That even- 
 ing when your niece and I were in the garden I 
 was telling her that I intended to ask you to give 
 me the command of the Manaia, and that I hoped, 
 by strict attention to my duties, good seaman- 
 ship, and devotedness to your interests, to some 
 day " 
 
 " My dear, dear boy ! Please do forget all about 
 it. I " 
 
 "But without allowing me one word of explana- 
 tion you ordered me to quit — ordered me to quit 
 in language that cut me to the quick. And every 
 one in Apia — white and native — knows the story." 
 
 "My dear boy ! Don't brood over my hasty and 
 unfortunate remarks. I withdraw, most unquali- 
 fiedly, whatever I said." 
 
 Denison put out his hand. "Then I am sorry
 
 DENISON'S SUPPER PARTY 177 
 
 for the expressions / used to you. Now, Mr. Mac- 
 Bean, will you give me the command of the Manaia, 
 or any other one of your vessels ? " 
 
 "With pleasure. But surely, now that you have 
 inherited your aunt's fortune " 
 
 "Mr. MacBean, I do not intend to lead an idle 
 life." 
 
 "Very noble of you ! Now, do you really want 
 to have the Manaia?" 
 
 "Yes, I do. I want to show you what I can 
 do with a vessel like that. I want no favours, Mr. 
 MacBean, no favours at all. I have business in- 
 stincts. Give me the command of the Manaia and 
 £^0 a month, on a two years' engagement, and 
 you will see the result of the first voyage. I won't 
 touch my aunt's money at present. I mean to 
 show people what I can do." 
 
 "You shall have her, my dear friend, you shall 
 have her. I'll write you — or you can write me 
 — a form of agreement and get it witnessed at the 
 Consulate." 
 
 " Very well, sir. You please write it, and bring 
 it to the Consulate at three o'clock. I'll be 
 there." 
 
 A few minutes later the Mean Man of Samoa was 
 
 talking to his niece May, a pretty, vivacious girl 
 
 of nineteen, who wondered what on earth her 
 
 admirer, Tom Denison, had been telling her uncle, 
 
 who a few months before had had a stormy inter- 
 in
 
 178 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 view with that young gentleman, and informed him 
 that he did not approve of his attentions to her, 
 and had forbidden him the house. 
 
 And Mr. Thomas Denison went on his way with 
 a twinkle in his sound eye. There was nothing 
 serious between himself and the merry May Mac- 
 Bean, and he knew that she regarded her close- 
 fisted uncle with almost a feeling of hatred. 
 
 "By thunder, it's going to be a bully supper," 
 he said aloud to himself. "I'll see if I can't get 
 a few more fellows to come." 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 On his way back to Black Tom's hotel he was 
 met by several European residents, who all greeted 
 him most effusively, and asked him to dinner, and 
 made sympathetic remarks about his eyes and face, 
 and inquired how it happened, and Denison told 
 a concise, but entirely different tale to every 
 one. 
 
 Just as he was going over in the ferry punt 
 across the Vaisigago River, he caught sight of Miss 
 May MacBean riding on the opposite bank, and 
 he shouted out to her to wait. The young lady 
 at once dismounted, and led her horse under a 
 shady orange tree, and awaited him. 
 
 "Oh, Tom, what an awful sight you are ! What- m 
 
 ever in the world " 
 
 "Don't look at my face, my sweet; have 
 you "
 
 DENISON'S SUPPER PARTY 179 
 
 "Thomas Denison, how did you get that fearful 
 black eye ? " 
 
 Denison paused (hurriedly), then said glibly that, 
 whilst he was shaving, the brig gave a sudden roll 
 and threw him across the cabin. 
 
 May laughed, as she gave him a little cut on 
 his arm with her whip. "You shameless, shocking 
 story-teller ! / know all about it. You and Cap- 
 tain Randall had a fight yesterday. And I'm not 
 a bit sorry that he's punished you." 
 
 "Yes, you are, my priceless I\Iay — I can already 
 see the tear of sympathy gathering on that dear 
 eye of yours on the port side. Now, May, have 
 you seen your uncle ? " 
 
 "I have, and I want to know what is all this 
 rubbish about your coming in for all your aunt's 
 money ? " 
 
 "It's true, my princess — absolutely true. She 
 actually did leave me all she had to leave when 
 she died— just ten pounds. Two years ago she 
 went into her dotage and gave ;^5o,ooo to the 
 Chinese Missions, and so defrauded your loving 
 Tom. Some one had been 'saying things' about 
 me, and she wrote me that I was a brand that she 
 hoped ' would yet be plucked from the burning.' " 
 And this time he laughed somewhat bitterly, and 
 May's eyes filled. 
 
 "Tom," she said softly, "I am sorry." 
 
 "Oh, I don't worry over it. May. Did your 
 
 M 2
 
 i8o 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 gentle uncle tell you that he has given me the 
 Manaia, at £40 a month on a two years' agree- 
 ment?" 
 
 May wiped away her tears and smiled. "Yes, 
 indeed. And it made me quite happy. Do you 
 know, Tom, that he has designs upon you, and 
 that I am the pawn ? " 
 
 ''Rather. But I have got him now; although, 
 my sweet May, I know I shall never have you. 
 I'm to meet him at the Consul's " 
 
 "I know, I know — with the agreement! He's 
 been so sweet to me ever since he saw you. Tom, 
 there's no one about, and if you like to kiss me, 
 I'll promise I won't scream." 
 
 ****** 
 
 At three o'clock Denison met Mr. MacBean at 
 the Consulate, and the Consul, after a kindly and 
 sympathetic allusion to Denison's face, witnessed 
 the agreement, and congratulated him upon his 
 new command and the fortune he had inherited. 
 And Mr. MacBean, when Denison's back was 
 turned, whispered something to the Consul, who 
 said he always thought so, and that the young man 
 would now steady down. 
 
 And then Denison asked Mr. MacBean to come 
 to the supper, and Mr. MacBean beamingly 
 assented, and the ex-supercargo with his black eye 
 — the lucky young man who had inherited his
 
 DENISON'S SUPPER PARTY i8i 
 
 aunt's colossal fortune— swung along the street to 
 Black Tom's hotel. 
 
 * 
 
 There never was such a supper given before in 
 all Samoa — not even in the island's palmiest days. 
 Long before seven o'clock the visitors — white, 
 brown, yellow^ and cream-coloured — began to arrive, 
 and when supper was served, Black Tom's long 
 dining-room was crowded to its utmost capacity. 
 Asi, the chief, had sent twenty or so pretty dancing 
 girls (w^ho were not shy), and who, bossed by 
 Luisa, assisted as waitresses — one young lady — 
 or two in some cases — to each guest. The noise 
 and laughter travelled across the calm waters of 
 Apia harbour, and the residents in German Town 
 wondered v.hat was happening. Then some one 
 said that Denison the supercargo w^as giving a 
 supper because he had come into a fortune of 
 500,000 marks. 
 
 To err is human, to forgive divine, and Deni- 
 son's was a noble nature, for among the invited 
 guests was Captain Randall, who sat on his left. 
 It was remarked by some of those who were present 
 that it was a curious coincidence that that mariner 
 also had, in addition to some facial contusions, a 
 black eye — though nothing so pronounced as that 
 of his host, who the moment Randall entered the 
 room, inquired in loud, but kindly tones, how he
 
 i82 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 had hurt his eye, and Randall replied that in com- 
 ing on shore in the whaleboat the previous day, the 
 haft of the steer oar had slipped from his grasp, 
 and struck him in the face. 
 
 Shortly after nine o'clock, Mr. Jacob MacBean 
 rose, somewhat unsteadily, to propose a toast, and 
 the moment he uttered the words "Mr. Thomas 
 Denison, our dear host and friend," there was a 
 prolonged outburst of cheering, and several gentle- 
 men, in endeavouring to stand up, fell down, and 
 Randall roared like a bull at Mr. MacBean, and 
 said that he, as master of the Vision, and Deni- 
 son's shipmate for two years, was the proper person 
 to give the toast. 
 
 And then Denison begged them both to sit down 
 for a minute whilst he said a few words, and Jack 
 O'Brien, who, as vice-chairman, was at the other 
 end of the table, rose and threatened to "lay out 
 in the flure the first man that interrupted the 
 harmony av the procheedin's." 
 
 Denison's speech was very simple — in fact, 
 modest to a degree. He was, he said, painfully 
 embarrassed, and hardly knew how to express his 
 gratitude for the kindly manner in which his friends 
 had honoured him by accepting his invitation to 
 his little supper. He would, first of all, like his 
 guests to give three cheers for his valued friend 
 Mr. Jacob MacBean (loud cheers and sound of 
 some one falling), who had, he was proud to say,
 
 DENISON'S SUPPER PARTY 183 
 
 that day given him the command of the smartest 
 vessel in the Pacific, the Mana'ia — a ship (here he 
 turned his sound eye upon Randall, and smiled 
 benignantly) — a ship that could sail rings round the 
 dear old Vision^ fast sailer and ably commanded 
 as she was by his valued friend of two years' 
 standing — Captain Sam Randall — one of Nature's 
 gentlemen, and a man with whom he had never 
 had an angry word, though usually supercargoes 
 had much to contend with in many cases with 
 obtuse captains. Now, he would like to inform his 
 guests, that to Mr. Jacob MacBean, and to their 
 noble native friend, the Chief Asi, they were in- 
 debted for the good things upon the table that 
 night. And he (Denison) was happy in the belief 
 that Mr. MacBean and his friend Asi, and all those 
 now gathered about him, had come there, not to 
 congratulate him upon the fact of his having come 
 into money, but out of personal regard to simple 
 "Tom Denison," the man whom they had known 
 for the past five years, and who had tried hard — 
 although he had sometimes gone wrong — to deserve 
 their good opinion. (Here Mr. MacBean became 
 visibly affected, and began to weep.) And he 
 would like to add a few words in praise of their 
 dear mutual friend — John O'Brien, Superintendent 
 of the Municipal Police of Apia (applause) — 
 a gentleman who deserved to have the control of 
 the police force of a great city like London or New
 
 184 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 York. Would they charge their glasses (tumult- 
 uous cheering) and drink to Mr. O'Brien's good 
 health. He would now tell them a little secret 
 which would still further endear Mr. O'Brien to 
 them, and promote the harmony of the evening — 
 their good friend had locked up his myrmidons in 
 the barracks for the night, and his esteemed new 
 employer (indicating Mr. MacBean, who was 
 swaying in his chair, and smiling glad tears at 
 nothing) had with himself provided the imprisoned 
 men with sufficient liquid refreshment to unfit them 
 for duty (roars of applause) for several days. 
 And now in conclusion, he would beg all and every 
 one to make themselves happy for the rest of the 
 night. (Loud cries of approval.) To-morrow he 
 would assume his new command with all its re- 
 sponsibilities and worries, but he would face them 
 in a cheerful spirit, and with Christian courage. 
 He was only a very young man yet, but he hoped 
 to be a unit in building up Britain Beyond the 
 Seas, and, if his dear friend now present, Cap- 
 tain Leseman, of the Fransiska, would pardon him 
 saying so, he would assist to rid Samoa and the 
 South Seas of the Germans by hanging them all 
 —except good old Schipper Herman Leseman, 
 whom he would like to see made Governor-General 
 of Oceania, with power to suppress Yankee com- 
 mercial travellers, missionaries, and other objec- 
 tionable persons, who were now turning this lovely
 
 DENISON'S SUPPER PARTY 185 
 
 garden of Nature — our beautiful Samoa — into an 
 abode of discord. (Frantic applause.) 
 
 ****** 
 
 Let a veil be drawn over the subsequent pro- 
 ceedings. It is sufficient to say that in the morn- 
 ing Denison received this letter, which he read on 
 the deck of his new command. 
 
 "Tom, — You ought to be ashamed of yourself. 
 It is true that I told you that I hated Uncle Jacob. 
 But I did not think that you could be so cruel as 
 to send him home on the back of a native. I am 
 sure that he will not be himself again for some 
 weeks. / don't like you, Tom Denison. — May."
 
 XI 
 
 CLARKSON'S LAST CHANCE 
 
 Norman Hardy, the artist, told me the story of 
 Clarkson — one of his memories of twelve months' 
 wanderings among the savage Solomon and New- 
 Hebrides Islands. ^ 
 
 * * -jf * * * 
 
 One day, whilst Hardy was talking to the 
 manager of the big trading firm at Vila Harbour 
 in the New Hebrides, a sun-burnt, unkempt and 
 hollow-eyed wreck of a man walked into the office, 
 and, standing in the middle of the room, holding 
 his ragged palm-leaf hat, said in a melancholy, 
 hopeless voice — 
 
 "My name is Clarkson. I have just come from 
 Liki Liki in New Ireland, where I was trading for 
 the Germans. They sent me away because I had 
 fever badly. I hear that you want a man for Male- 
 kula. I know that the natives are a hot lot, but 
 I'm willing to take it on." 
 
 The manager eyed him coldly. "I have heard 
 
 of you, Clarkson. You have never done any good 
 
 for any firm who has given you a berth as trader, 
 
 1 86
 
 CLARKSON'S LAST CHANCE 187 
 
 nor for yourself either. You don't get on with the 
 natives, you drink and appear to have been a rank 
 failure all round. And you are in debt to every 
 one who has given you a show." 
 
 "I know it. But give me a last chance. I'll do 
 better this time, and won't touch liquor again. 
 You won't get another man to tackle Malekula. 
 And I'm not scared." 
 
 The manager laughed somewhat contempt- 
 uously. He well knew that Clarkson's many 
 failures had been largely due to his terror of being 
 killed. He thought for a few minutes, then said — 
 
 "\\'ell, I will give you your ' last chance.' Go 
 to the storekeeper and get yourself a decent rig out, 
 and tell him I am sending you to Malekula. He 
 will pick out the necessary trade for you. The 
 steamer leaves to-night. Come back here this 
 afternoon and sign your agreement." 
 
 The man muttered his thanks and shambled off, 
 and the manager turned to Hardy. 
 
 "You would hardly think that ten years ago that 
 poor, broken-down object was a fine, stalwart, clean- 
 looking man. Been decently educated too. What 
 brought him to this murderous part of the South 
 Seas, I can't imagine. He never will be any good 
 as a trader. Can hardly make the natives under- 
 stand him, and as they know he is in mortal fear 
 of them, they despise and bully him." 
 
 "Then what is the use of sending the poor devil
 
 i88 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 to live among such a pack of howling cut-throats 
 as the Malekula niggers ? " 
 
 "Oh, they won't hurt him. The man I have 
 there at present — Jessop — is making a trip to 
 Sydney, and I'll send this fellow to act as a mere 
 caretaker of Jessop's station." 
 
 ****** 
 
 That night the little inter-island trading steamer 
 steamed away northward, and Hardy, who was 
 making the cruise through the group, got into con- 
 versation with the wastrel, who seemed to have 
 "bucked up " considerably. He had had his beard 
 trimmed, and was slightly disposed to swagger 
 and consider himself a hero in "tackling Male- 
 kula," as he expressed it. Also he began to boast 
 about his shooting abilities, and asked Lamont, 
 the supercargo, if he would provide him w^ith a 
 Winchester rifle, instead of a Winchester carbine, 
 and a Smith and Wesson's revolver, instead of a 
 Colt's. 
 
 Lamont looked at him out of the corner of his 
 eye. 
 
 "What do you want a rifle for?" he asked 
 quietly. 
 
 "Oh— well— er. It's the usual thing, of course, 
 for a trader to be well armed." 
 
 "No, it isn't!" snapped Lamont, "it is only 
 duffers who go around flashing that sort of hard- 
 ware. And let me tell you this— if the Malekula
 
 CLARKSON'S LAST CHANCE 189 
 
 niggers see you with a pistol at your hip it will 
 annoy them, and they'll have your head off your 
 shoulders in a jiffy." 
 
 " Hurricane " Williams, the skipper, nodded 
 acquiescence, "That's a fact. They can't stand 
 that sort of tomfoolery." 
 
 Clarkson made no further remarks during 
 supper. 
 
 Two days later the steamer dropped anchor off 
 Jessop's station at Malekula, and Jessop came on 
 board. 
 
 " Got a relief man for me, Mr. Lamont ? " 
 
 "Yes, there he is, that chap standing for'ard." 
 
 "Lord ! It's that waster, Clarkson ! What the 
 blazes made you bring him here ? He'll be scared 
 into blue fits as soon as he steps ashore." 
 
 "Oh, he'll do to look after your place until you 
 come back. Got any heads for the manager ? " 
 
 "Three beauties — two not very old, but beauti- 
 fully cured. But the third one is a jewel. It is 
 that of a white man. Who he was I don't know, 
 but I rather think he was one of the officers of a 
 Samoa labour vessel that was cut off here about six 
 years ago. The upper jaw has a set of gold-plated 
 artificial teeth. I had no end of trouble to get 'em. 
 Paid about £'^ each in trade goods for 'em. I've 
 brought them with me in the boat." He stepped 
 to the rail and called out to his native boat's crew. 
 They passed him up a box.
 
 190 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 "Hurricane" Williams, Lamont, Hardy and 
 Clarkson gathered around him on the after-deck as 
 he opened the padlock securing the lid of the box, 
 and then daintily lifted out his gruesome treasures, 
 one by one, and placed them on the top of the sky- 
 light, between the up-ended flaps. 
 
 "There, Mr. Lamont! Ain't they pictures I 
 Nothing better in any museum in Europe. Old 
 General Robley in London town would weep with 
 joy to even look at 'em. Fact is, Lamont, I was 
 half a mind to send 'em to him direct, and get back 
 a thumping big cheque, /'m not such a greeny 
 as you think. I know the General's address in Pall 
 Mall, and here I am, parting with these lovely 
 ' relicks ' of humanity for a mere song. What I 
 ought to do is to take 'em to London, get the 
 General's cheque for ^500, and then start off on a 
 trip to gay Paree. Holloa ! what the blazes is the 
 matter with you, waster ? " 
 
 Clarkson was holding on to one end of the sky- 
 light flap, trembling from head to foot. His sun- 
 burnt face had turned a curious greeny-grey, and 
 he pointed with a shaking hand to the head of the 
 white man. 
 
 "I — I — I knew him," he said gaspingly, "it is 
 Mortimer's head — Mortimer, the Recruiter of the 
 Samoa labour schooner Manono. I sailed two 
 voyages in her six years ago." 
 
 Jessop's contemptuous manner changed in an
 
 CLARKSON'S LAST CHANCE 191 
 
 instant, and, as he pulled his long moustache 
 meditatively, his bronzed face flushed deeply. 
 
 "I'm a beast, Lamont 1 So are you, and so is 
 every one else that can truckle in this blackguardly 
 business. By God ! we are beasts I A white 
 man's head ! No, Lamont, you are not a beast 
 like me. You are a gentleman. I'm not. I'm a 
 mere money-grubbing hog. Get the carpenter to 
 make a box, and we'll bury it decently. As for 
 the niggers' heads, I have no compunction what- 
 ever about them." 
 
 The carpenter made a box and weighted it with a 
 fire-bar, and half-an-hour later all that was left of 
 poor Mortimer was, with the ship's ensign at half- 
 mast, consigned in silence to the sea — in thirty 
 fathoms of water, too deep for the natives to at- 
 tempt to raise the treasure again. Had it been 
 taken on shore, Jessop explained, and buried, the 
 savages would "soon root it up again," and secretly 
 convey it to one of their gamal houses. 
 
 As Lamont was making out Jessop's trading 
 accounts, Clarkson came to his cabin door. 
 
 His lips and fingers were twitching nervously, 
 and for some moments he was unable to speak. 
 
 "Well, what is it?" inquired Lamont curtly. 
 "You ought to be ready to go on shore with Mr. 
 Jessop and take stock and delivery of the station." 
 
 "For God's sake, sir, don't send me on shore 
 here. The sight of poor Mr. Mortimer's head has
 
 i92 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 upset me ! I can't face Malekula, sir. Won't you 
 give me a last chance, and put me on some other 
 island?" 
 
 The supercargo swung round in his chair. 
 "Confound you for a nuisance ! How many more 
 Mast chances' do you want? I've arranged for 
 you to go on shore here, and now you funk at it !" 
 He stamped his foot angrily. 
 
 Clarkson made no answer. 
 
 "Very well, then," resumed Lamont, "I can see 
 that it would be folly to put a man like you in 
 Jessop's place. I will give you a show on Aoba. 
 There is a useless old scallywag of a fellow there 
 who wants to be taken away. He has made him- 
 self obnoxious to the natives, who have tabu'd him, 
 and won't go near him. I'll land you there with 
 a little trade and some provisions, and you must 
 try to get on with the natives. In the course of a 
 month or so I'll look you up, and see how you 
 are getting on. Mind you, it is a lonely place — 
 no other white man within thirty miles." 
 
 "I don't mind that, sir," exclaimed Clarkson 
 eagerly, "I'm ready to go anywhere — except at this 
 place." 
 
 A week later the steamer brought to off a deep 
 little bay on Aoba. It was almost encompassed 
 by lofty mountains, and on one of the headlands 
 stood a solitary and tumble-down native house — 
 this was the trading station. Not a single native
 
 CLARKSON'S LAST CHANCE 193 
 
 was visible anywhere, although there was a large 
 village at the back of the bay, and smoke was 
 arising from the houses. 
 
 The steamer sounded her whistle hoarsely, and 
 from the ruined house a ragged old man appeared. 
 For a moment he stared wildly at the steamer, then 
 began to run down the rocky path to meet the boat, 
 almost breaking his neck in his eagerness to get 
 to the beach. 
 
 The boat pulled in and brought him ofif, and 
 when he stepped on deck his filthy appearance 
 made every one recoil from him in disgust. His 
 dirty dungaree pants and jumper were in shreds, 
 and his bare feet were the hue of old pump leather. 
 First of all he begged the supercargo to give him 
 a "good square blow out." 
 
 "Dirty old pig," muttered Lamont; "steward, 
 give this man a meal." And then, turning to the 
 old fellow, he told him to hurry up. 
 
 "I'm taking you away from here, Joyce. This 
 man here, Clarkson, will take charge. Get what 
 you want to eat, and then Clarkson will go on shore 
 with you with his trade. You must lend him a 
 hand to fix up. The captain is anxious to get away 
 before dark, as it is coming on to blow. Are you 
 still under tapu? " 
 
 "Yes, sir," whined the old fellow. "Not a soul 
 has come near me for two months, and whenever I 
 try to get into the village to buy food they threaten 
 
 N
 
 194 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 to murder me. I've been livin' on tin beef and 
 biscuit all the time. But thank God I'm leavin' 
 this 'ell upon hearth, sir. They 'as treated me 
 cruel 'ard, sir, they 'as hindeed. I uster 'ave a 
 canoe and go fishin' in the bay, but they smashed 
 it before me heyes. The facks is, sir, they is dead 
 set agin white men ever since Captain Dabis come 
 here in the Royalist, and burned the village and 
 destroyed all the preserved 'eads they had in their 
 'ouses." 
 
 Clarkson, with the fingers of his hands inter- 
 twining nervously, was listening intently. 
 
 "Yes, sir. As crooel, crooel a lot o' 'owlin' 
 cannibals has ever wos born. One day, when I 
 was mad to get suthin' to eat in the way o' wege- 
 tables, an' p'raps a bit o' fish or fresh pork, I makes 
 a bold dash right inter the willage and asks for it. 
 N'banda, the head man, comes up to me and 
 twirled his club roun' an' roun' my 'ead, an' cursed 
 me right and lef, an' says he 'ad knocked me on 
 the 'ead long ago, and 'ad me a cookin' in the 
 cannibile hovens, if I 'ad any meat on me bones. 
 Then 'e says, says 'e, with a 'orrid grin, that 'e 
 would give me suthin' good to heat if hi was game 
 enuf to heat it. An' he drags me along by me arm 
 to a 'ouse where there was two 'uman arms 'angin' 
 hup to the cross beams. They was cooked, and 
 there was a wooden bowl hunderneath to catch the 
 hoil "
 
 CLARKSON'S LAST CHANCE 195 
 
 Lamont dealt the old waster an open-handed 
 smack on the ear, which tumbled hhn in a heap on 
 the cabin deck. 
 
 "Pick yourself up, you garrulous old ass, and 
 be ready to go on shore with Mr. Clarkson in half- 
 an-hour." 
 
 "Mr." Clarkson, with a deadly terror in his 
 heart, mechanically followed Lamont into the trade- 
 room, and in a dazed manner said "Yes" and 
 "No" to everything that the supercargo said. 
 Had he the courage to do so he would have asked 
 Lamont to let him remain on board the steamer as 
 deck-hand, stoker — anything. But he was afraid 
 of Lamont's contempt — and a sweeping blow from 
 that vigorous right hand. And "Hurry up there, 
 Lamont!" cried red-haired "Hurricane" Williams 
 from the bridge. "Get your man ashore. We 
 have no time to lose. We'll be smothered in a 
 blank, blanky gale before two hours, and there is 
 no holding ground in this cursed bay." (Then 
 followed much lurid language.) 
 
 ****** 
 
 As the sun set Clarkson w^atched the last boat 
 leaving for the steamer. Behind him, the purple 
 clouds of the approaching outburst of Nature were 
 looming down, lurid and fierce, upon the mountain 
 tops from the eastward. 
 
 He walked to the edge of the point, and as the 
 boat passed him beneath, and the first moaning 
 
 N 2
 
 196 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 hum of the coming cyclone surged through the 
 mountain forest and swept westward to the open 
 sea, he raised both arms high in air, and called out 
 to Hardy — 
 
 "A fitting end to a wasted life, Mr. Hardy! 
 Good-bye !" 
 
 The steamer's syren sounded a hoarse farewell, 
 and ten minutes later Clarkson put a pistol to his 
 head and shot himself. 
 
 It was his "last chance."
 
 XII 
 A COASTAL TRAMP 
 
 "Hi there, mister! Rouse up, or you'll get a 
 drenching. There's a heavy shower a-comin' on." 
 
 Sound asleep, with my head under my blanket, 
 I had heard no one approach, and sitting up, found 
 a horseman, with a packhorse, beside me. He was 
 the bush mailman, carrying the weekly mails be- 
 tween the scanty settlements on the Bellenger and 
 Nambucca Rivers (New South Wales), and seeing 
 me asleep, and heavy rain coming on, had pulled 
 rein to give me a friendly call. I was doing a 
 shooting and fishing tramp along the coast, and 
 had been out for some days. 
 
 Thanking my friend — who was quite a stranger 
 
 to me — I hurriedly rolled up my blanket and 
 
 macintosh sheet, telling him that I had a tent and 
 
 fly fixed less than a quarter of a mile back on the 
 
 edge of a scrub, but that the plague of savage 
 
 mosquitoes had driven me away to the open to get 
 
 the sea-breeze. 
 
 197
 
 198 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 "Right you are, mister. I'll tote you along 
 there. Put your blanket on the pack, and then 
 jump along o' me. Look slippy." 
 
 Hurriedly obeying the good-natured fellow's 
 behest, we started off at a trot, but half-way to the 
 tent, the rain was coming down in torrents, and 
 I got wet through ; the mailman had a macintosh 
 coat. Arriving at my camp, we quickly unsaddled 
 the horses and pitched everything inside, leaving 
 the two horses to make the acquaintance of my own 
 old pack-horse, which was feeding just outside the 
 belt of scrub. 
 
 Plenty of dead wood being handy, the mailman 
 soon started a fire, whilst I changed into dry 
 clothes, for although it was seven o'clock in the 
 morning and summer time, it was unusually chilly. 
 The mailman already had had his breakfast two 
 hours previously at a selector's house, but informed 
 me that he was quite "open" for a second. And 
 we had a good one — a couple of wonga pigeons 
 grilled, hardboiled eggs, damper, and the usual 
 billy can of tea. The rain kept up for over two 
 hours, then it cleared off as suddenly as it came 
 on, and the mailman saddled up again. He told 
 me that his next stopping-place would be ten miles 
 further on, where a party of three men, for whom 
 he had letters, were sawing timber — a mile or so 
 from the coast, and when he added that they spent 
 a lot of their time in fishing, and would be glad
 
 A COASTAL TRAMP 199 
 
 to see me, I told him I would certainly pay them 
 a visit. Why not come now ? he asked. I had 
 only my pack-horse, I replied, and would have 
 to walk, which would delay him. Not a bit, was 
 the cheerful response— we could put the two packs 
 on the one "moke," and he would ride the other 
 bareback. So it was done, and we started off 
 along the track, which for the first few miles ran 
 parallel with the coast, the sea beach at times being 
 within a stone's throw. The rain had freshened up 
 the foliage, and a sweet earthy smell came from the 
 soil, as we trotted along in single file. We both 
 had guns, and my companion assured me that at 
 a certain spot on our way (which I knew of old) 
 we would get plenty of wonga pigeons. Although 
 only occupying the humble position of a bush 
 mailman, he was a most intelligent young man, 
 and an excellent bushman. He added to his in- 
 come by executing commissions for the settlers on 
 his route, taking and bringing parcels to and from 
 the various small townships ; then he also broke 
 in horses, split shingles, and did other bush car- 
 penter's work when not on the road carrying the 
 mail; and later on, I was informed by the sawyers, 
 that "Tom the Mailman" had quite a big reputa- 
 tion for being "mighty smart with his mauleys" 
 when occasion demanded the settling of a dispute 
 by the rules of the P. R., and that no one had 
 "bested" him yet. This was high praise from
 
 200 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 colonial timber getters and sawyers, a class of men 
 extremely addicted to settling differences in that 
 manner, but Tom, to all appearances, was the most 
 gentle of creatures, and modesty kept him from 
 ever making the faintest allusion to his exploits. 
 
 We reached the sawyer's camp at one o'clock, 
 just as they were having dinner, at which we joined 
 them. They were rough, hearty fellows, and when 
 we gave them some pigeons we had shot, one of 
 them remarked that they would go well in a stew 
 with king parrots, pointing to a string of those 
 handsome birds, which they had shot early that 
 morning, only a few yards from their camp. 
 
 My friend the mailman, having gone on his way, 
 one of the sawyers took my pack-horse along the 
 creek to where their own were grazing. I accom- 
 panied him, and on the way he cautioned me about 
 snakes — the place, he said, was infested with them, 
 black, brown, and the equally deadly "bandy- 
 bandy," a small reptile with alternate black and 
 yellow bands. 
 
 The camp of these men was quite comfortable. 
 They had a slab living-hut with a bark roof, and 
 a smaller one which they used as a smoke house 
 for smoking fish. Some hundreds of very large 
 schnapper had been caught from the rocks near 
 the camp, and cured. These they sold to, or 
 exchanged, with the settlers inland for beef and 
 vegetables, so that what with beef, fish and game,
 
 A COASTAL TRAMP 201 
 
 they lived very well. Half-a-mile distant a party 
 of aboriginals were camped — half-a-dozen men, 
 with their "gins" and piccaninnies, and quite a 
 score of the usual mangy half-bred dingo dogs. 
 The men assisted the sawyers in getting the logs 
 to the sawpit, etc. Only two or three of them 
 possessed Government blankets, which were issued 
 to all the aboriginals once a year — one for each 
 adult male and female, and one for every two 
 children. This magnificent gift to the sons of the 
 soil, however, did not benefit the poor creatures 
 much ; there were always plenty of " mean whites " 
 who would buy the new blankets from them for a 
 bottle of rum, and risking the penalty of a fine of 
 £$y cut out a strip in the centre on which was 
 dyed in red a crown and the letters V.R., and 
 then sew the halves together. 
 
 At the invitation of the sawyers, I put up my 
 tent near their hut, and remained with them for a 
 couple of days, during which time we all went 
 fishing and shooting together. They had run out 
 of large hooks, of which I had an ample supply, 
 and gave them a dozen. Our first afternoon's fish- 
 ing was a failure, owing to the heavy sea which 
 was running, rendering it dangerous to stand on 
 the smooth, slippery rocks, so drenched through 
 with spray, and without a single fish, we returned 
 to the camp, got our guns, and went into the bush 
 after king parrots. We called at the blacks' camp
 
 202 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 on our way, and found two of the gins cooking an 
 immense carpet snake quite ten feet in length. 
 It was cut into four pieces. They told us that 
 some of the men were away at the head of the tidal 
 water getting fish (mullet), and some had gone to 
 cut out a bees' nest they had found a long way off, 
 and that they would bring us some honey that 
 evening in a bucket, which the sawyers had lent 
 them. Leaving the coloured ladies to attend to 
 their culinary duties, we went along the creek to 
 a clump of wattle trees, which were just coming 
 into their golden bloom of sweet-smelling flowers, 
 on which a few king parrots were feeding, and 
 executing their grotesque gymnastics. We shot 
 five, the rest flying off to some lofty grey gums. 
 Half-an-hour's walk brought us to a swamp about 
 two acres in extent, fringed with reeds and covered 
 with blue water-lilies. A few black duck rose as 
 soon as they caught sight of us, leaving the swamp 
 to a solitary Nankin crane, which was standing on 
 a stump surrounded by reeds, in the centre, appar- 
 ently meditating, for it took no notice of us. My 
 companions said that its mate's nest was some- 
 where near the swamp, for they had seen both birds 
 very often during the past two months. This 
 swamp, which I had visited four years previously, 
 was then of much larger extent, and the resort of 
 great numbers of aquatic birds during wet months, 
 and the margin was surrounded by immense gum 
 
 i
 
 A COASTAL TRAMP 203 
 
 trees. These had been felled for timber, with the 
 natural result of diminution of water. The sawyers 
 told me that the place was still visited by a con- 
 siderable number of ducks and teal during the 
 rains, but that it was impossible to get a shot 
 at them, owing to want of cover, and the presence 
 of spur-winged plover, the latter always giving a 
 kind note of alarm to the ducks, though if one of 
 their own number was shot, the remainder would 
 keep circling about it, falling victims to their affec- 
 tion — or perhaps curiosity in endeavouring to 
 ascertain what was the cause of their late comrade's 
 sudden fall. The vicinity of the swamp was in- 
 fested with small brown snakes. We saw at least 
 a dozen during the twenty minutes we remained 
 there. When the sawyers first began work they 
 were so much troubled by the intrusion of snakes, 
 that they had to cut down and burn off a clear 
 space around the camp and sawpit. One of their 
 horses and two kangaroo dogs had been bitten 
 and died, and the men themselves had had many 
 narrow escapes. 
 
 Continuing our way without getting anything 
 further beyond a few bronze-wing pigeons, we 
 reached the head of the tidal water, where the party 
 of blacks were netting small mullet and black 
 bream. They had taken some hundreds of both, 
 and also a large sting-ray, the liver of which they 
 were then cooking, or rather heating over a small
 
 204 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 fire. When they began eating the disgusting- 
 looking mass I had to turn away. 
 
 Returning to camp, we had our supper — on a 
 real table — and as the sea had now gone down, and 
 it was flood tide, got our small lines ready to fish 
 for bream from the beach. Just as we were start- 
 ing, the blacks brought us the bucket of honey. 
 Although there were a good number of dead bees 
 and chips of wood in it, it was fairly clean other- 
 wise, having been handled carefully, and we each 
 — like school-boys — cut out a piece of dripping 
 comb to eat, and then ma'de our way to the beach. 
 The moon was at its full, and was illumining a 
 now smooth and unruffled sea, for the wind had 
 died away at sunset, and only the faintest ripples 
 swished gently to the lip of the small, semi-circular, 
 but quickly shelving beach w^hich the sawyers said 
 was the best place to fish from, on account of the 
 depth of the water a few yards from the shore; 
 furthermore the bottom was free from rocks. We 
 baited with very small mullet, of which the green- 
 backed sea-bream are very fond, and within a few 
 minutes each of us was fast to a fish. They were 
 only small two-pounders, and had been feeding 
 on the bottom, but we could see many larger fish 
 — so clear was the water, and bright the moonlight 
 — swimming to and fro half-way between the sur- 
 face and bottom, and quite close in. We there- 
 upon discarded our sinkers, and soon one of my
 
 A COASTAL TRAMP 205 
 
 companions hooked a beauty of over four pounds, 
 and from then we had splendid sport, taking over 
 two dozen fine fish in an hour, when for some 
 reason they suddenly ceased biting, although they 
 were still in evidence. As we turned to walk up 
 the beach, we observed a large dingo lying on the 
 sand, not fifty yards away. He got up in a very 
 leisurely manner, and trotted up the bank, turning 
 his head to look at us every now and then. Wat- 
 son, one of the sawyers, told me that their two 
 kangaroo dogs once ran down a dingo slut with 
 two pups, and killed her, and that on the follow- 
 ing morning the blacks caught both the pups and 
 brought them to the camp. Watson took one and 
 kept it for several months, but one day seeing it 
 trying to tear open a canvas ration bag, he took 
 hold of it, when the animal seized his thumb, bit 
 it to the bone, and then bolted to the bush. 
 
 All that night the opossums in the gum trees 
 about the camp made a great noise — a sign of 
 coming rain, my companions said, and certainly at 
 dawn it did begin to pour. By nine in the morn- 
 ing the creek was in flood ; at noon it was at its 
 usual summer level again. Knowing from 
 previous experience that such a volume of water 
 would carry out great numbers of the creek fish to 
 the bar together with prawns, I took a bucket, and 
 went down to the mouth of the creek, and found 
 ridges of splendid prawns, some still alive, lining
 
 2o6 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 the beach. As they were carried out over the bar, 
 the incoming flood tide waves had washed them 
 back again. Whilst I was filling the bucket, all 
 the aboriginals appeared on the scene, carrying old 
 bags, buckets and baskets, which they filled with 
 small dead fish and prawns, jabbering with glee. 
 After washing the prawns I had picked up, we 
 boiled them in the bucket, throwing in some hand- 
 fuls of coarse salt, and had some for dinner. As 
 the afternoon turned out fine, the sawyers resumed 
 work, and being left to my own devices, spent the 
 rest of the day in mending my packsaddle, reading 
 a much-thumbed book belonging to one of the 
 sawyers, entitled Heiress to Ten Millions, and 
 sleeping, until I was awakened for supper. We 
 had quite a choice of good things — game soup 
 flavoured with bacon, prawns, fish, salt meat, 
 damper and tea. I was much interested at the able 
 manner in which one of my friends, who had a 
 thick, heavy beard, ate "bread and honey." Cut- 
 ting off a huge slice of damper he covered it with 
 solid slabs of honeycomb, then bit through the 
 mass as if it were a finnicking sandwich, and swal- 
 lowed it, comb and all together. As we were 
 finishing, a horseman appeared. He was a settler, 
 living ten miles inland, and brought my friends 
 the welcome gift of a small leg of mutton, and a 
 bag of cobs of green maize. He stayed the night, 
 and when I turned in, the four were deep in cards.
 
 A COASTAL TRAMP 207 
 
 On the following day, I bade my hospitable 
 friends good-bye, and resumed my tramp south- 
 ward, being bound for a deserted cattle station 
 situated five miles from the coast. I was told that 
 an old fellow named JMickey Day, whom I had 
 known in years past, was living there, and that 
 he was as keen a sportsman as he had been in my 
 boyhood's days, and would be delighted to see me. 
 So thither I went. 
 
 II 
 
 A BUSH BOY 
 
 The coast country in that part of New South 
 Wales extending from the Richmond River to the 
 Macleay River is semi-tropical in much of its 
 flora, and the traveller passes through many 
 stretches of delightfully picturesque woodland, 
 especially where the coast line is high, crowned 
 with dense scrub on the summit, and faced with 
 cliffs, rising sheer-to from the sea. At the back 
 of such high land there are dark, cool valleys 
 studded with groves of the graceful bangalow palm 
 and wild apple-trees. Underneath one's foot the 
 thick carpet of fallen leaves deadens the sound of 
 footsteps, and the pleasant solitude is broken only 
 by the cries of birds overhead in the lofty branches.
 
 2o8 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 or the quick, jumping thud of a scrub wallaby 
 fleeing towards the dense thicket scrub on the 
 cliffs. 
 
 Emerging from one of these secluded sun-shaded 
 valleys I came to open country — a series of lightly- 
 timbered downs— and at once felt the refreshing 
 sea-breeze. Here was an old cattle-track leading 
 to the abandoned cattle station whither I was 
 bound, and the moment my old pack-horse saw it 
 he stopped to let me tie up his halter round his 
 neck, and then went on ahead. He certainly was 
 a most intelligent creature. When going through 
 scrub, in which there was no path, he preferred 
 me to lead him, knowing that I should pick the 
 easiest way; but as soon as we struck a bridle or 
 cattle-track, or a road, he would bring to, wait for 
 his halter to be attended to, and then walk on 
 ahead. Then, too, whenever I fired at anything 
 he would stop and wait, turning his head to see 
 what it was that I had shot. His only fault was 
 that he was too fond of going into water— the 
 deeper it was the better he liked it— to rid himself 
 of the flies and sand-flies which so often tormented 
 the tender skin of his stomach. On several occa- 
 sions he jumped into deep water, wetting through 
 everything in the pack-bags. 
 
 At noon I came in sight of the spot where the 
 cattle-station homestead had once stood. There 
 was now nothing left but a mass of fallen timber
 
 A COASTAL TRAMP 209 
 
 beams — or rather their shells, for the white ants 
 had eaten out the interior — and piles of brickwork 
 covered with vines and creepers, and all around 
 were patches of a detestable flowering scrub called 
 lantana, growing on land which, thirty years be- 
 fore, had been an extensive orchard and maize 
 fields. At the rear of the house was a deep, lily- 
 covered water-hole, or rather miniature lake, fringed 
 with ti-trees, and swamp gums of enormous girth. 
 Although quite close I could not see it from where 
 I was, owing to the height of the intervening lan- 
 tana, and I could hear the faint but melodious 
 gabble of wild ducks. Feeling sure that the old 
 bushman whom I had come to visit would be living 
 near the water, I led the horse between the patches 
 of lantana, and soon saw his bark hut on the op- 
 posite side to me of the water. It was surrounded 
 by a rough, but close-set paling fence, within 
 which I could see a good crop of maize, all in 
 tassel. I gave a loud coo-o-o-e! and a boy came to 
 the open door, and cried "Hello," then came to 
 meet me. He was the brownest-skinned white boy 
 I had ever seen. He was hatless, and his rolled-up 
 pants showed legs the hue of old leather. I asked 
 him who he was. 
 
 "Solomon Day — Micky Day's grandson. Come 
 inside and have some grub and a drink o' tea. 
 Will you hobble your horse or let him loose? 
 He'll be all right — there's heaps o' grass down by
 
 210 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 the gums. Me grandfather's gone to Mother 
 Rickett's pub, at the crossin', ter kill a bullock for 
 her, an' won't be back till to-night." 
 
 His volubility staggered me, for the average 
 bush youth has to have his words dragged out of 
 him, as a rule. Telling him that I had come to 
 see his grandfather and would stay the night, he 
 nodded, and said, "Right yer are. Do yer wanter 
 have a wash ? There's a cask o' water an' a bucket 
 at the back, an' I'll get yer a tile (towel) an' a bit 
 o' soap." 
 
 After a wash we had dinner — salt meat, pump- 
 kin and potatoes. My young host was delightful 
 company, and we were soon exchanging confid- 
 ences and experiences — he telling me all the local 
 "news," and I giving him a description of the 
 various long coastal tramps I had done at inter- 
 vals, but when I told him tliat I had practically 
 walked along the entire coast of New South 
 Wales from the Tweed River in the north to 
 Green Cape on the south, he eyed me with distinct 
 suspicion. 
 
 "Matter o' a few hundred miles, ain't it?" 
 
 "About six hundred. But you see I didn't do 
 it in one tramp. Began when I was a boy, and did 
 a stretch ; then when I grew older, and had a few 
 weeks to spare, I would do another long stretch. 
 It is four years since my last one." 
 
 "Oh, I see! thought yer meant yer did it right
 
 A COASTAL TRAMP 211 
 
 off the reel. Ain't yer takin' any more beef an' 
 
 punken ? " 
 
 Solomon was full of bush lore, and recalled to 
 
 memory just such another boy whom I had come 
 
 across years before in the Camden Haven district. 
 
 Like his old grandfather he was a keen sportsman, 
 
 and his fund of information on the habits of birds 
 
 and animals did him credit, and he knew every bit 
 
 of the country around within a radius of perhaps 
 
 thirty miles. When I told him that I was a fellow 
 
 "cornstalk" and was born in that very district, I 
 
 went up immensely in his opinion. I spoke about 
 
 the duck I had just seen, and asked if he and his 
 
 grandfather ever shot any. No, neither he nor the 
 
 old man had ever fired a shot at them ever since 
 
 the two of them came there to live, "nigh on three 
 
 year ago." That was because they found the ducks 
 
 bred there. During the heavy rains, he added, 
 
 when the water-hole had risen right up to the butts 
 
 of the big trees, the place was alive with black 
 
 duck, wood-duck, teal, etc., and on moonlight 
 
 nights "they does kick up a row, quackin' and 
 
 flappin' an' skylarkin'. When we wants ter go 
 
 duck shootin' w^e goes to them shaller swamps 
 
 'bout five mile back from here. Ever bin there?" 
 
 No, I had not. "Fishin' ? " Yes, he did a bit of 
 
 fishing sometimes down on the rocks, but he had 
 
 no line strong enough now for schnapper and only 
 
 small hooks (I supplied the deficiency). Rut 
 o 2
 
 212 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 perch fishing "way up the river was something 
 grand. Crickets is the best kind o' bait, but grass- 
 hoppers or green locuses (locusts) is 'most as good. 
 My word, some o' them perch is whoppers — half 
 as big as a ten-pound schnapper. There's thunder- 
 in' big eels, too, in some o' the deep pools. I seed 
 a black fellow spear one that was 'bout five foot 
 long, an' as thick as a big man's calf. Me and 
 the nigger was perch fishin' when we seed the eel 
 coming along on the top o' the water, swimmin' 
 slow as if he was sick; an' he had a big lump o' 
 somethin' in his mouth. The nigger sent a spear 
 through him, an' then jumped in an' pulled him 
 ashore, and we found that the lump in his mouth 
 was a dead black duck which he couldn't swaller, 
 'cos it was too big, an' the feathers was all tangled 
 up in his teeth. That duck must ha' bin a looney 
 to go divin' anywhere where there is big eels. 
 Most ducks has plenty savee an' won't go divin' 
 in deep water, 'cos they knows they'll get collared 
 if they does." (This was not altogether new to 
 me, for the aboriginals in North Queensland had 
 told me that when the rivers are in flood, and the 
 water thick, eels will come into the backwaters and 
 seize ducks.) "Once when I w^as bogeying (bath- 
 ing), down there in the water-hole, when the ducks 
 was breedin', I hears a great splashin' and some 
 quackin' and seed all the ducks that was nestin' 
 in the grass and in holler logs was took to the
 
 A COASTAL TRAMP 213 
 
 water, and was swimmin' and tearin' about as if 
 thev was all gone crazy. After a while they went 
 back one by one; but the nex' day they did the 
 same thing, 'bout the same time. Grandfather 
 said it was a big carpet snake or a goanner, and 
 told me to go an' look. Whatever it was, he said, 
 I must shoot it, if I couldn't get at it with a stick. 
 So off I goes and searches all round the reeds and 
 logs where the nests was, but couldn't see nothin' 
 for a long time, until at last I spots the biggest 
 goanner I ever seed in my life. He was crawlin' 
 up the bank through the dead reeds and sticks — 
 the water was very low then — and his ugly mug 
 was smothered in blood and yoker (yolk) o' eggs 
 and ducks' down. I was just a-goin' ter give him 
 a charge o' shot when I noticed as he could hardly 
 crawl — he was that full o' eggs and young ducks 
 just a comin' outer their shells. So I waddied him 
 with a stick, and dragged him here, an' he was 
 six foot long, an' me grandfather said he was the 
 biggest he had ever seen anywheres." 
 
 After dinner Solomon "showed me around." 
 The garden was closely fenced to secure it from 
 the ravages of the "paddy-melons," and contained 
 maize, pumpkins, sweet potatoes and tomatoes of 
 a brobdingnagian size and fully ripe. Then to- 
 wards sunset, we took our guns and set out for 
 some small water-holes near the house, where he 
 assured me we should be certain to get some
 
 214 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 wongas. On our way we crossed through a patch 
 of country w-hich had been burned off the previous 
 year, and was now covered with Cape gooseberry 
 and raspberry plants, Hterally laden with ripe 
 fruit. This delayed us for half-an-hour, for the 
 fruit was very tempting, though rather too hot 
 from the sun. The way these fruits appear in the 
 coastal districts in January and February after a 
 bush fire is astonishing. The selectors usually 
 grow great numbers of what are called "pie 
 melons," for cattle food, and these melons and the 
 Cape gooseberries make an excellent jam when 
 flavoured with lemon juice and rind. Some of the 
 melons attain a great size and weight — up to sixty 
 pounds — the interior is quite white or yellow^, with 
 jet black or brown seeds. They cannot be eaten 
 raw, as they are hard and tasteless, even when 
 fully ripe. Another cheaply made jam used by 
 the settlers in the coastal regions is obtained from 
 pie melons and wild currants. The plant of the 
 latter is exactly like the English broom in appear- 
 ance and size, and the quantity of berries one plant 
 will yield is amazing. I have frequently seen over 
 thirty pounds taken from one plant. Even when 
 ripe, however, they cannot be eaten, for although 
 full of juice they are terribly sour. The settlers, 
 in my boyhood's day, made all their jams with 
 "ration" sugar — dark, sticky stuff, almost black, 
 but very sweet.
 
 A COASTAL TRAMP 215 
 
 After shooting a few pigeons we returned home. 
 On the way Solomon showed me a small, deep 
 pool, embowered in a clump of trees, the botanical 
 name of which I do not know, neither have they 
 a vulgar name. From their leaves a sort of green 
 pollen — if I may so call it — falls upon the water 
 and floats thereon, and, even in the very hottest 
 summers, the water is always quite cold, owing to 
 the thickness of the fallen pollen, which always 
 remains alive and green. I have seen similar 
 pools with the same trees in Samoa and the Mar- 
 quesas Islands; in the former islands they are 
 used as special bathing-places by the privileged 
 few. The Samoans call these pools to usi usi, 
 "green deeps." 
 
 Solomon asked me to " feel " the water with my 
 hand. Moving aside some of the thick green 
 coating I put in my hand; the water was almost 
 icy cold, or at least felt so when the perspiration 
 was streaming from every pore in the skin. 
 
 When we reached the hut, feeling hot and some- 
 what tired, Solomon the Wise suggested a 
 "bogey." So we "bogeyed" in the big water- 
 hole, and swam to and fro, and round and round, 
 and Solomon pointed out to me the spots favoured 
 by the ducks for nesting. Then we dressed, and 
 went home and cooked our supper, and at nine 
 o'clock old Micky Day rode up, carrying some 
 fresh meat, and slightly "jolly." Evidently the
 
 2i6 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 widow Ricketts "what kept the pub " had not been 
 inhospitable, as was further evidenced by two 
 bottles of whisky he had brought. 
 
 Right heartily the old man welcomed me, and a 
 right good time did I spend with him on the two 
 following days, roaming about the bush and the 
 sea-shore.
 
 XIII 
 
 THE MOST HATEFUL PLACE 
 I KNOW 
 
 A LITTLE over twenty-two degrees south of the 
 equator, and in longitude 172!° 10' E. there is an 
 island in the South Pacific on which I and a com- 
 panion in misfortune once spent four dreadful days 
 of loneliness and misery, after we had seen our 
 ship sink beneath the horizon. It is named on 
 the chart Hunter Island, after the ship that dis- 
 covered it over a hundred years ago. It is a 
 slumbering volcano, scantily wooded, waterless 
 and uninhabited, rising almost sheer from the 
 water's edge to over a thousand feet in height. 
 Several attempts to land on and examine it had 
 been made by the commanders of French and 
 English warships, but without success, owing to 
 the heavy swell which is usually heaving against 
 its steep and forbidding-looking base. 
 
 I had twice passed within half-a-mile of the place, 
 
 and had looked at it with interest from the ship's 
 
 deck, and noticed smoke issuing from many deep 
 
 217
 
 2i8 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 chasms and crevices on its rocky sides, and 
 although we saw no actual fire we did see many 
 huge patches of sulphur spreading from half way 
 down from the summit, to the overhanging ledges 
 of the cliffs. 
 
 On the third occasion we sighted the island we 
 were bound from Fiji to Noumea, in a labour 
 vessel, and were becalmed within a couple of miles 
 of it for an entire day. On the following morning 
 we found that we had made almost a complete 
 circuit of it, and it was then that we noticed a spot 
 whereon a landing could very easily be effected on 
 such a calm day, when there was no wind, and 
 only the gentlest laving of the sea at the base of 
 this giant, silent cone standing sentry in a lonely 
 sea. 
 
 We had on board a small light dinghy (my own 
 property) which I frequently used either for fish- 
 ing, or going on shore in alone, when it was not 
 necessary for me to take one of the ship's whale 
 boats. 
 
 The sight of the island, with its streams of pale 
 blue smoke, and jagged pinnacles of black rock 
 sticking out of the yellow patches of sulphur, 
 attracted me greatly, and I told the skipper I would 
 take my dinghy, land on the island, and make a 
 closer inspection of it, especially on the south or 
 verdured side. 
 
 "Just as you like," he said, "but I wouldn't put
 
 MOST HATEFUL PLACE I KNOW 219 
 
 foot on such a God-forsaken place for a ^10 note. 
 But keep the ship in sight after you land. We 
 may get a breeze at any time, though it doesn't 
 look like it." 
 
 The dinghy was put over the side, I chose to 
 accompany me a young native seaman named 
 Harry, and we took with us some food, my fishing 
 tackle, a gun and a dozen cartridges, a tomahawk 
 (always kept in the boat), and, most fortunately, a 
 full breaker of water. 
 
 The sun was already very hot when we pushed 
 off for our two-miles' pull over the glassy surface 
 of the water, and lightly clad as we were in 
 pyjamas, straw hats and canvas shoes, without 
 socks, the perspiration was literally pouring from 
 us when we reached the spot I had chosen for a 
 landing-place. The first thing we noticed as we 
 drew up alongside a flat rock, was the utter absence 
 of any form of marine life — not a fish, nor even 
 a bit of seaweed was to be seen along the barren 
 sides, which rose up steep-to from a great depth ; 
 the second was an unpleasant smell of burning 
 sulphur which loaded the air, and the third was the 
 strange sound of our own voices. 
 
 There being no projection of rock to which we 
 could make fast the boat's painter, we hauled her 
 up on top of the flat rock two feet above the water, 
 then carried her along to a still higher spot where 
 she would be perfectly safe, even if the sea should
 
 220 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 get up. Then we sat down, had a drink, Ht our 
 pipes, and looked about us, before starting on our 
 tramp around the rugged rocks to the south end. 
 
 From where we sat not a vestige of vegetation 
 was visible, and five hundred feet above us, from 
 long narrow fissures in the sides, ascended thin, 
 wavering clouds of sulphurous smoke. Not even 
 a wandering sea bird could we see, and the only 
 sign of life beside ourselves was the ship, motion- 
 less upon the lake-like surface of the ocean, with 
 her canvas hanging limply from her spars. 
 
 Filling my water-bottle from the breaker, and 
 putting some beef and biscuit in our pockets, we 
 started, Harry carrying my gun, for he said that 
 he was sure we should find among the thick scrub 
 on the south end the breeding-place of a large sea- 
 bird called Kanapu, whose flesh is not at all fishy 
 in taste. 
 
 After clambering over the rocks, and getting out 
 of the sulphur-smelling zone, we came to a deep 
 narrow bay, several hundred yards in length. The 
 beach was covered with hard black sand, and above 
 this, at high-water mark, was an immense bank of 
 pumice-stone, quite thirty feet in thickness. With 
 infinite difficulty we descended the steep side, 
 crossed the black sand beach, and struggled up the 
 other side, where we again rested, for the sulphur- 
 tainted air had got into our lungs, and breathing 
 was painful.
 
 MOST HATEFUL PLACE I KNOW 221 
 
 It took us quite two hours to reach the wooded 
 part of the island, from where, owing to the con- 
 figuration of the coast, we could not see the ship. 
 That, however, gave us no anxiety — we were com- 
 pletely fagged out, and crawling under some 
 thickly foliaged but stunted bushes, we again 
 spelled for half-an-hour. We could see that this 
 part of the island had not suffered so severely 
 from the volcanic outbursts which occasionally 
 shook it to its base, even of late years (since i860), 
 and, despite the showers of fine ash of pumice 
 and sulphur which must have fallen upon it, that 
 vegetation— revivified by the rainy months, extend- 
 ing from November to March — still kept alive and 
 flourishing as if the Almighty intended that here, 
 at least, some of His winged creatures should 
 gather together to perpetuate their species, and 
 absolve the smitten isle from the horror of utter 
 lifelessness. 
 
 Refreshed after our "spell " we rose and made an 
 examination of our surroundings, and a few 
 hundred yards further on, came across some fairly 
 good-sized trees, and found, as Harry had pro- 
 phesied, a small rookery of kanapu — about two 
 hundred birds. Some were nesting on the soil, 
 and they showed not the slightest fear, but when 
 touched bit most savagely, their eyes blazing with 
 fury, whilst some of the male birds fiew at our 
 faces, uttering hoarse croaks of rage. Their valour
 
 222 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 appealed to me so strongly that I would not shoot 
 any of them, but Harry had less compunction, 
 for he seized two and wrung their necks. 
 
 Following the belt of wood downward to the sea, 
 we found that it terminated about fifty yards from 
 a beach of black sand, composed of volcanic scoria, 
 which shelved so quickly that the water was quite 
 thirty fathoms deep, within a score of yards from 
 the margin of the beach. 
 
 "Look at that," cried my companion, pointing 
 seaward, "the sea is boiling ! " 
 
 A hundred yards away to the right was an extra- 
 ordinary sight — a vast volume of white steam was 
 rising in a thick cloud from the ocean. It was 
 some three or four hundred yards in circumference, 
 and as we gazed at it in astonishment, we became 
 sensible of a curious humming sound, now faint 
 and subdued, now rising to a peculiar droning roar, 
 like that made by a hurricane when at seventy miles 
 an hour it blows against the straining wire standing 
 rigging of a ship hove-to. It was the sea boiling. 
 
 We went to the water's edge, and put our hands 
 in ; it was quite hot, so hot as to be unbearable after 
 a few seconds, and Harry observed that it was good 
 for shaving, but bad for fishing. 
 
 As we were going back to the belt of timber to 
 get the two kanapu, and then return to the boat, 
 we noticed a dark line on the horizon, rapidly 
 extending, and at the same time the sky changed
 
 MOST HATEFUL PLACE I KNOW 223 
 
 with extraordinary rapidity from a cloudless blue 
 to a sombre grey, and then came a low growl of 
 thunder. 
 
 "We'll have to hurry, sir," cried Harry, "it is a 
 matagi afa " (a peculiar electrical storm which in 
 that part of the Pacific comes on so suddenly, and 
 rages with such violence that it sends many an 
 unprepared ship to the bottom). 
 
 Before w-e were half-way to the boat the storm 
 was upon us with a roar; and the violence of the 
 wind was such that for some minutes we had to 
 cling to the rocks to save ourselves from being 
 blown into the sea, which was rising with marvel- 
 lous rapidity, and already surf was breaking against 
 the cliffs. Struggling along yard by yard we 
 rounded a point, and came in sight of the ship. 
 She had not been taken unprepared, for she was 
 hove-to under close-reefed fore and main lower 
 top-sails. Signals to us were flying from her 
 gaff, but what they were we could not make 
 out. 
 
 At last, panting, tired, and parched with thirst, 
 we arrived within a few hundred yards of the boat, 
 just as a gust of wind caught her, and rolled her 
 over and over, till she brought up w'ith a bang 
 against a jagged rock — a hopeless wreck. We 
 clambered down to save what w^e could, and first 
 secured the water breaker, put it out of the wind, 
 and then picked up the beef and biscuit. Then
 
 224 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 after taking a long drink — thanking Heaven we had 
 saved the breaker — we filled our pipes, picked out 
 a nook, sat down, and looked at each other. To 
 speak was impossible, for the noise of the wind was 
 now something diabolical, and the huge seas were 
 thundering against the cliffs, and sending showers 
 of spray hundreds of feet up. 
 
 For the next five hours the wind continued to 
 blow with such fury that we were unable to stand 
 up. During this time the ship was blown out of 
 sight. As darkness was coming on, the wind 
 moderated a little, but the sea that was now lash- 
 ing the island was appalling to look at. 
 
 Harry touched my arm, and pointed upward 
 silently to the volcanic cone — streaks of red fire 
 were seaming its sides in tortuous lines, and what 
 in the daylight had appeared to be but narrow 
 cracks through which the pale blue smoke ascended, 
 now showed like fiery furnaces seven times heated, 
 and despite the violence of the long, slender 
 tongues of flame, every now and then shot up as 
 straight as a steel bar, died out, sprang up again, 
 and then executed a series of strange and terrify- 
 ing gymnastics, darting to port, then to starboard, 
 then downward in zigzag lines. It was a frightful 
 spectacle, and as it continued through the night, 
 I and my companion had an oppression and sink- 
 ing of the heart that is indescribable, for every now 
 and then we heard through the howling of the
 
 MOST HATEFUL PLACE I KNOW 225 
 
 wind a strange groaning sound, and felt a tremor 
 of the rocks upon which we lay. And all through 
 the night these nerve - breaking sounds con- 
 tinued. 
 
 Towards dawn the wind suddenly died away, and 
 Harry and I decided to make our way back to the 
 wooded part of the island, where we imagined we 
 should be safer. We could see nothing of the ship 
 at sunrise, and I felt sure that we were not likely 
 to, for that day at least, as there is a three-knot 
 current setting westwards from Hunter's Island. 
 The skipper, I knew, would not feel much alarmed 
 about us, knowing that we had water and food 
 enough to last us for a couple of days, and when 
 he saw the wrecked dinghy, would conclude we 
 had gone to the south end of the island, and taken 
 refuge there. 
 
 Carrying our precious water breaker, which we 
 slung from my gun, we set off, and in three or 
 four hours reached the kanapu rookery, shot a 
 bird, plucked and cooked it, and made ourselves 
 as comfortable as we could, and carefully examined 
 our stock of tobacco, which we reckoned would, 
 with economy, last us for three days, allowing that 
 we only smoked four pipes a day. 
 
 About nine o'clock the gale again sprang up, 
 this time coming away from the S.E., and all that 
 day it blew with savage violence, and the noise of 
 the surf was deafening. At sunset it again dropped
 
 226 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 for some hours, and then once more, as night fell, 
 the sides of the mountain burst out into flame, and 
 the roar of the breakers was mingled with the 
 muffled groanings and heavings of the forces of 
 Nature in the heart of the island — forces which a 
 hundred and twenty years before had found a vent, 
 and destroyed every living thing, man and beast, 
 in one dreadful outburst of flame, whose awful 
 reflection was seen one hundred leagues away. For 
 at that time, according to native tradition, Hunter's 
 Island (as it is now called) consisted of a group of 
 three lofty, well-wooded and fertile islands, in- 
 habited by some thousand or so of people, who 
 spoke a language analogous to Fijian. And then 
 came the great catastrophe, which sunk two of the 
 islands, and left one to remain — a place of horror 
 and desolation, set in a lonely sea, appalling to the 
 human eye. 
 
 On the afternoon of the fourth day, and when we 
 had but three pints of water left, we saw the ship 
 beating up to the island from the S.E., and a 
 little before sunset she hove-to off the south end, 
 and lowered a boat as soon as the captain saw the 
 smoke of a great fire we had made with dead and 
 green timber. The boat, owing to the surf, could 
 not approach within a couple of cable-lengths of 
 the shore, so Harry and I had to swim out to her. 
 And Harry almost wept when I bade him not to 
 attempt to take my gun with him.
 
 MOST HATEFUL PLACE I KNOW 227 
 
 After getting on board the skipper — one of the 
 best-natured men that ever trod on deck — sarcastic- 
 ally asked me how I had enjoyed myself, and I 
 frankly confess that so overwrought were my nerves 
 that I "swounded." 
 
 p 2
 
 XIV 
 
 AN INCIDENT OF MARRIAGE IN 
 THE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 The dawn was breaking, and low croakings of 
 thousands of dusky terns filled the island air, as 
 they left their rookeries and flew seaward to begin 
 their day's fishing on the blue water beyond the 
 barrier. Rising from his couch of mats Drake, 
 the supercargo, filled and lit his pipe, and stole 
 silently from the trader's house, so as not to dis- 
 turb the inmates, and took his way along a sandy 
 path that led through the forest of coco palms to 
 the lagoon. The morning air was cool, with a 
 little chill in it, and the grass was heavy with dew; 
 the trade wind had not yet awakened, and the 
 plumed crowns of the cocos were as motionless as 
 if they were carven from marble, and from the reef 
 on the weather side of the island came the sound of 
 the measured beat of the surf. 
 
 A walk of half-an-hour brought him to the inner 
 beach of the atoll- — a broad sheet of calm water ten 
 miles long, by four in width, encompassed by a 
 
 228
 
 AN INCIDENT OF MARRIAGE 229 
 
 chain of islands, not one of which was a mile in 
 width. On both sides were villages, from which 
 smoke was already rising as the brown-skinned 
 women lit fires in the open to cook the morning 
 meal, for the Gilbert islanders are early risers. 
 
 Drake walked down to the water's edge, and then 
 turned to the north. The tide was low, and the 
 sand hard and firm to the foot; swarms of mullet 
 and gar-fish swam close in, and cranes, blue and 
 snow-white, stalked gravely about on the margin, 
 rising when they saw the man and again settling 
 down a few hundred yards ahead, or with lazily 
 flapping wing, heading across the glassy waters of 
 the lagoon. 
 
 A mile on he came to a small village, of a dozen 
 houses, prettily situated in a little bay, and sur- 
 rounded by a grove of lofty jack-fruit trees. Three 
 canoes had just come in from catching flying-fish, 
 and the crews, surrounded by their women-folk, 
 were grilling some of the fish. Drake gave them 
 the usual greeting of " Tiakapo,^^ and was asked to 
 sit down and eat, one of the women bringing him 
 a coarse mat of coconut leaf. In a few minutes 
 two flying-fish were placed before him, with a piece 
 of baked puraka (a coarse species of the vegetable 
 known as taro) and a couple of young coconuts 
 to drink. The meal finished, the brown men and 
 the white man began to talk and smoke. Was 
 their night's fishing lucky? Drake asked. Yes.
 
 230 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 the three canoes had each taken over two hundred 
 fish. Would he eat another? He thanked them, 
 said he had eaten well, but would like a drink of 
 fresh toddy. 
 
 "E rai rai" ("Good"), and one of the savages 
 made a sign to a boy, who brought him a coconut 
 shell full of delicious toddy, just taken from the 
 coco palm and cold with the night dew. 
 
 They were a wild-eyed, fierce-looking lot, these 
 fellows, with their long, straight and jet black 
 hair, cut away in front from just above the eye- 
 brows, their pendulous ear-lobes, which, perforated 
 in infancy, are gradually enlarged by rolls of stiff 
 pandanus leaf, till the orifice is large enough to go 
 over a man's head, and the circle of flesh becomes 
 so stretched that it is no thicker than a quill. Their 
 only covering — men and women alike — was a girdle 
 of dried grasses, called airiiri, and stained a red- 
 dish brown. Like all the people of the Equatorial 
 Islands, they were well-built and muscular, and 
 their manner a sort of semi-defiance, mingled with 
 a rough hospitality, to the stranger. 
 
 A week before, a trading vessel on which Drake 
 was a passenger and which was bound to the Caro- 
 line Islands, had been lost on this atoll, the native 
 name of which is Peru ; on the chart it is called 
 Francis Island. Drake was a "relieving" super- 
 cargo, and had taken up his quarters with the 
 white trader at a village near the spot where the 
 
 ] 

 
 AN INCIDENT OF MARRIAGE 231 
 
 vessel was castaway, and he was beginning to 
 make himself acquainted with the island and its 
 people. There were four white traders living at 
 various villages, and he had met them all but one, 
 a man named Rock. The others had all visited the 
 ship-wrecked people in turn, but Rock had not 
 come near them. None of these traders, ow'ing to 
 business jealousy, were on speaking terms with 
 each other. Drake, however, was on friendly 
 terms with three of them, having frequently done 
 business with them in the past in his capacity of 
 supercargo. Rock was a new comer since his last 
 visit to the island — a year previously. 
 
 Presenting each of his hosts with a stick of 
 tobacco — which were at once twisted up in their 
 pendant ear-lobes, he asked them the way to the 
 white man's house. They told him it was on the 
 other side of the lagoon, and offered to take him 
 across in a canoe. As he was being paddled over, 
 he said — 
 
 "What manner of white man in this Rokka? " 
 
 "A sulky fellow, young and strong. He is a 
 matan kaibiike (sailor) and cannot speak our 
 tongue, neither can his wife. He makes friends 
 with no one, and cares not whether we trade with 
 him or not. But yet he is honest and fair in his 
 dealings." 
 
 Landing on the inner beach of the weather-side 
 of the atoll, Drake followed a path through the
 
 232 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 endless coco palms for over an hour, passing 
 several villages, and frequently having to walk or 
 wade across the reef connecting one island with 
 another. Then came a long straight stretch of 
 beach trending north, at the end of which was a 
 small, well-wooded island, rather higher than the 
 rest of the chain. Here, he was told, Rokka 
 (Rock) had built his house. 
 
 Presently he heard two gun-shots in quick suc- 
 cession quite near him, and looking over at some 
 sand-flats saw a man in European garb; he was 
 shooting golden plover. As he picked up some 
 birds Drake hailed him. He turned, and then 
 came slowly towards him. And when he was with- 
 in fifty yards, Drake recognized him as a man 
 he knew well and liked, but whom he had not 
 seen for three years — Walter Severn, master of 
 an inter-island trading schooner sailing out of 
 Samoa. 
 
 Laying his own gun down on the sand, Drake 
 ran to meet him with outstretched hand. 
 
 "Severn," he cried, "don't you know me?" 
 
 Severn's deep-set, quiet, grey eyes met his in a 
 searching glance, as he took his hand. "Yes, 
 Drake, I knew it was you the moment I saw you. 
 But how did you know — know that I was living 
 here?" 
 
 "I did not know it was you. I was told your 
 name was Rock. I only came for a tramp about the
 
 AN INCIDENT OF MARRIAGE 233 
 
 island, and thought I would look up the one white 
 man here whom I had not yet seen." 
 
 Severn nodded. "I am glad to see you, though 
 I should not care about any other white visitor. 
 Come to the house. And my name now is Rock." 
 
 At the doorway stood a tall, handsome young 
 woman, dressed in the long, flowing muslin gown 
 favoured by the wives of white men in Polynesia. 
 And in an instant as she smiled at the visitor he, 
 wath a badly-concealed start of surprise, recognized 
 her — Mrs. Weiss, the half-caste Samoan wife of an 
 Austrian, a prominent South Sea oflficial in the 
 employ of the big German trading firm ; a girl 
 who had been the show pupil of the Marist Mission 
 school in Samoa and whose marriage to the 
 wealthy Weiss had aroused wild jealousy among 
 the unmarried English and American traders. 
 But poor Marie Perreira, as she then was, had no 
 choice — her greedy old ruffian of a Portuguese 
 father simply sold her to the Austrian. Soon after 
 their marriage they left Samoa for Tonga, where 
 Weiss had the management of his firm's business. 
 About eighteen months after this Weiss, when on 
 a visit to Sydney, had died suddenly of apoplexy. 
 No one was sorry, for he was a great, coarse, 
 brutal fellow, and disliked by every one who came 
 in contact with him. What became of his wife 
 Drake could not learn, but supposed she had 
 returned to her people in Samoa.
 
 234 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 Now, however, as he entered Severn's house, he 
 thought he understood. Severn had been one of 
 Marie's most favoured admirers, and had married 
 his old love; but why on earth they had come to 
 live on a wretched sandy atoll like Peru puzzled 
 Drake, for Severn was a man of some means. 
 
 Whilst Marie and a young native girl set about 
 getting an early lunch, Severn brought out a bottle 
 of whisky and a seltzogene, and the two men talked 
 about old times, but never a word did Severn say 
 about Marie. At last Drake said — 
 
 "Severn, I must congratulate you. How long 
 have you been married ? " 
 
 He looked at his friend steadily for a few 
 seconds in his quiet searching way, then asked a 
 question. 
 
 "When were you last in Samoa?" 
 
 "Not since I last saw you there." 
 
 "Then you did not hear about Weiss." 
 
 "No, not in Samoa, but in Sydney, where he 
 died." 
 
 "In Sydney! Died in Sydney! Are you 
 sure? " 
 
 "Certain. He had an apoplectic seizure in Wil- 
 liams' Bros, ofiice, and died in twenty minutes." 
 
 Severn's hand shook as he placed it on Drake's 
 knee. 
 
 "The date ! Can you tell me the date ? " 
 
 "To within a month or so. I was in Sydney in
 
 AN INCIDENT OF MARRIAGE 235 
 
 June of last year, and Williams told me that Weiss 
 had died ' a few weeks ago ' and had been buried 
 in Waverley Cemetery." 
 
 Severn gave a heavy sigh of relief. "Thank 
 God ! then I did not kill him, for if he died about 
 the time you name it was over a year since I struck 
 him down and left him for dead in his house at 
 Vavau in Tonga. Wait till I call Marie and tell 
 her. You have brought us great happiness." 
 
 Marie came, and her dark eyes filled with wonder 
 as Severn drew her to him, and with one arm round 
 her waist, as she stood beside him, told his story. 
 ****** 
 
 "Marie's father forced her to marry Weiss — he 
 and the nuns terrified her into it. Weiss, you see, 
 was not only rich, but a Catholic — that alone put 
 me out of court. 
 
 " I was away on a cruise when the marriage took 
 place, and when I came back, found that Weiss 
 had taken Marie with him to Tonga. I was hit 
 pretty hard, for I knew Marie loved me, and would 
 never have been forced to marry the Austrian had 
 I been in Samoa. 
 
 "Three months afterwards I got orders to go to 
 Vavau in ballast, to load copra from Weiss's 
 station. Now, I don't know whether I was glad 
 or sorry. Of course I wanted to see Marie again, 
 but I did not want to bring misery upon her. But 
 one thing I did mean — and that was to take it out
 
 236 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 of Weiss if he had not been good to her, and you 
 know what a brute he was. Perhaps I had other 
 thoughts as well sometimes, but I clapped the 
 hatches on my soul, and wouldn't let myself peer 
 down into the hold — there was a devil looking up 
 at me. 
 
 "I got into Vavau harbour on a Sunday after- 
 noon, and anchored abreast of the town and close 
 to the Triton, whaleship of New Bedford. You 
 know Elkington, the skipper— as good a fellow as 
 ever stepped. He came on board, and we were 
 delighted to meet again. He told me that he was 
 leaving at daylight, bound to the northward 
 through the Tokelau and Gilbert Groups for a 
 cruise, and then hoped to point the Triton's nose 
 for the Horn — homeward bound and a full ship. 
 
 "Promising to come and have supper with me 
 in the evening, after I had seen Weiss and arranged 
 about my cargo, he went back to his own ship, and 
 I went on shore. Of course it being Sunday, and 
 in Holy Tonga, Weiss's store was closed, and I 
 had to go to his house, just as the bell had stopped 
 ringing for evening service. Not a native was to 
 be seen, they were all at church, and it was just 
 dark as I reached the gate of Weiss's house and 
 opened it. As I walked up the long path I heard 
 the sound of some one running towards me, and in 
 a few seconds more Marie was in my arms — half- 
 crying, half-laughing. She had seen the schooner
 
 AN INCIDENT OF MARRIAGE 237 
 
 come in, and had seen me pull on shore, and had 
 been waiting and watching. 
 
 " What she told me in the next few minutes 
 made my blood boil, and the hatches flew off again, 
 and the devil in the hold looked up at me again 
 and grinned. But I steadied myself, and told her 
 I had come to see her husband on business. 
 
 " ' He has gone out on the cliffs for a walk, and 
 won't be back for an hour,' she said, ' so come and 
 sit on the verandah until he returns. We shall 
 be in full view there of any passing natives, and I 
 can tell you of all that has happened.' Then she 
 dried her tears, and we went up to the high veran- 
 dah and sat down, one on each side of a little table. 
 There was a big lamp, or rather lantern, hanging 
 over the table, and any one from the road could 
 see us. You know what a sneaking Holy-Joe lot 
 the Tonga natives are, and Marie didn't want them 
 to say that we had been sitting together in the dark, 
 for her two servants were at church, and she was 
 alone in the house. 
 
 "But Weiss was only foxing. He had seen the 
 schooner come in, knew I was consigned to him, 
 and, instead of going for his usual Sunday walk, 
 must have planted somewhere — to watch what 
 might happen when I met his wife alone. 
 
 "We had not been talking for more than five 
 minutes when Marie sprang to her feet with a 
 scream, and the next instant Weiss, who had crept
 
 238 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 upon me from behind in his stockinged feet, 
 gripped my throat in both hands and had me down. 
 
 '"You English swine,' he growled, 'I'll teach 
 you not to come fooling after my wife. I'll 
 strangle you.' 
 
 "But big and heavy as he was, he had no chance 
 with me when I twisted and threw him over on his 
 back, though he held on to my throat like a vice 
 for nearly half-a-minute. As soon as I had freed 
 myself from him I let him lie there for a bit, whilst 
 I got my breath ; and then the pig drew a revolver 
 and fired three shots at me, and two out of the 
 three hit me — one in the leg, and one in the 
 shoulder. Then, as he rose to his feet, I grabbed 
 him by his fat throat, and held on until he was 
 black in the face, and when he was as limp as a 
 wet deck swab I lifted him up and threw him over 
 the verandah on to the stones below — a drop of 
 fourteen feet. 
 
 "I was bleeding pretty freely, but didn't feel it, 
 and had all my senses about me, when I took Marie 
 by the hand and led her down to the beach, blow- 
 ing my boat-call frequently, for I was afraid of 
 being stopped by the native leo leo (police) before 
 I could reach the boat. 
 
 "Just as my boat touched the beach, and Marie 
 and I tumbled in and the crew gave way, half-a- 
 dozen police came rushing down, and called to me 
 to come back. I guyed 'em and told them they
 
 AN INCIDENT OF MARRIAGE 239 
 
 could come on board and take me — if they were 
 game. 
 
 "Instead of going on board my own ship I went 
 to the Triton, told Elkington what had happened, 
 and that I must skip, for I had, I was sure, killed 
 Weiss. In five minutes we had fixed up what was to 
 be done ; and leaving Marie on board the whaler 
 I boarded my own ship, had a hurried talk with 
 the mate and placed him in charge ; then I wrote a 
 letter to the owners, telling them the whole truth, 
 packed up my gear and was back aboard the Triton 
 in half-an-hour. 
 
 "Elkington had mustered and armed all his 
 crew, ready for the native police boat, which after 
 boarding the schooner, and finding I was not there, 
 came alongside the whaleship. Elkington asked 
 them what they wanted. They said that Weiss 
 was dead, and they had come to arrest me and take 
 me on shore. He threatened to shoot dead the 
 first man of them that put foot on his deck, and the 
 police boat sheered ofif. 
 
 "At daylight the Triton got under weigh, al- 
 though the ship was surrounded by canoes full of 
 natives calling on him to give me up. He took 
 no notice of them beyond pointing his Winchester, 
 and so we got clear of Vavau. Believing Weiss 
 to be dead, I asked Elkington, on the following 
 day, if he was willing to marry Marie and me. 
 He agreed to do so, and we were married that
 
 240 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 morning in the presence of the ship's company. 
 Of course both he and I knew that these ' ship ' 
 marriages are not recognized by the English law ; 
 but they go as legal in the South Seas. And 
 Marie was well content. She knew no better, and 
 I was a law unto her. 
 
 "Three months after Elkington landed me here, 
 for he was homeward bound, and I thought that 
 if I stayed here awhile I might get a passage away 
 to China or Japan in a passing whaleship going 
 north. Elkington sold me enough trade goods to 
 keep me going, and I have a few hundred pounds 
 in cash. And that's the end of my yarn, and all 
 Marie and I want now is a parson." 
 
 Drake thought a few moments, and then said — 
 
 "Give me some more whisky, you inhospitable 
 owl, and have some with me. Then shall I 
 elucidate." 
 
 The two men clinked their glasses together, and 
 then Drake, who had known Marie Perreira from 
 her childhood, said — 
 
 "Run away, little girl, and get that lunch. I 
 want to talk to Walter." 
 
 "Now look here, Walter," he said, dropping his 
 bantering manner and speaking seriously, "there's 
 no need for you to go away further north. Your 
 proper place is your old beat — Samoa and Tonga, 
 where you and Marie have many friends. And 
 you can get another ship in Samoa almost the day
 
 AN INCIDENT OF MARRIAGE 241 
 
 you put foot ashore. Whilst I regret that you did 
 not kill Weiss — for the blackguard had lived too 
 long — you need now not have any fear of going 
 back to Samoa, or anywhere else where the law 
 reigns." 
 
 Severn nodded. 
 
 ''Now as to the parson. You have a boat?" 
 asked Drake. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well, get her put into the water, and I'll find 
 you a parson— a real Holy Joe, qualified to per- 
 form the marriage ceremony, though he wears a 
 lava lava (waist cloth) instead of the orthodox 
 nether garments." 
 
 "Where?" and Severn looked at him incredul- 
 ously. 
 
 "At Nukunau Island — thirty miles to windward 
 — there is a Samoan teacher. He is a right good 
 fellow. Get that boat out, and after we have had 
 something to eat we'll start. By sundown we'll be 
 in Nukunau Mission-house. And I'll give the 
 bride away."
 
 XV 
 
 AN ADVENTURE WITH 'GREY 
 NURSES' 
 
 The men who think that they know everything 
 are very widely dispersed all over the globe. Such 
 a one I knew in Samoa. He was a rich young 
 Englishman who came to the South Seas to buy 
 land for cotton-growing, and so irritated the natives 
 by his gross disregard of their manners and 
 customs that he not only got himself badly mauled 
 about, but involved a number of the white residents 
 in serious trouble as well. He was continually 
 making blunders, some of them of a highly divert- 
 ing character, and yet nothing could convince him 
 that he had done anything wrong or absurd. He 
 was wrapped, not in a mantle, but in a sheet of 
 chilled-steel self-conceit and arrogance. But at 
 the end of three months, through an act of un- 
 paralleled folly, he received such severe injuries 
 that for some time there were but faint hopes of 
 his surviving them. Briefly it was this : he pes- 
 tered me into lending him my whaleboat and crew 
 
 242
 
 'GREY NURSES' 243 
 
 to board a trading vessel hove-to outside the reef 
 in bad weather. Knowing him to be inexperienced 
 I at first flatly refused, then he blustered and 
 cajoled in turn, and finally I told him to take the 
 boat and "go hang." My crew of natives managed 
 to get the boat safely alongside the vessel, though 
 the "man who knew everything" twice let her 
 broach-to through his inability to handle the long 
 steer oar. Then, in coming back, he stormed and 
 bullied them into letting him discard the steer oar 
 and ship the rudder. Then under her lug-sail 
 the boat spun over the seas for the reef, on which 
 a very heavy and dangerous surf was breaking. 
 Result : the boat (worth ;^'5o) capsized and was 
 smashed, and so was the "man who knew every- 
 thing." He was very repentant after this, and 
 ended by becoming a general favourite in Samoa, 
 for at heart he was a good fellow. 
 
 But for crass pig-headedness and self-conceit I 
 never met a man whose exploits in idiotcy could 
 rival those of the hero of this tale, and the par- 
 ticular incident which I relate, though I can now 
 recall it with amusement, at the time quite unnerved 
 and filled me with terror — for I was only a boy 
 of twelve years of age. 
 
 Between the mouth of the Hastings River (New 
 South Wales) and the little port of Camden Haven 
 there are several conical-shaped hills, or rather 
 miniature mountains, which start sheer upward 
 
 Q2
 
 244 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 from the sea, and are connected with the mainland 
 by narrow necks of dense scrub-covered land. Two 
 of these hills are locally known as Big Nobby and 
 Little Nobby, and in fine weather my brothers and 
 I frequently went there to catch that most beauti- 
 ful of all Australian sea fish — the schnapper. The 
 sea face of Big Nobby was noted for a great cave 
 which penetrated some hundreds of feet into the 
 interior of the hill. Access to it could be gained 
 by a boat, which, in fine weather, could be taken 
 through two walls of rock which extended some 
 distance seaward, and on exceptionally fine days 
 when the tide was low, and no sea was running, we 
 boys had several times swum into the cave, lit a 
 fire with the drift-wood we found wedged in among 
 the crevices, and imagined ourselves pirates or 
 smugglers. But we never attempted this without 
 leaving one of our number behind on the northern 
 side to look out for sharks, for in the summer 
 months the coast was infested by the most ferocious 
 of all — the dreaded "grey nurse." And in fishing 
 from the wall of rock either for schnapper or the 
 monstrous brown groper, we took every precaution 
 against slipping, or being dragged over by a power- 
 ful fish. For whenever the bright-hued schnapper 
 were plentiful in the narrow passage, the sharks 
 were sure to follow, and one required to be very 
 quick indeed in hauling up a fighting schnapper of 
 ten or fifteen pounds before it was seized either
 
 •GREY NURSES' 245 
 
 by a "grey nurse" or its equally active companion 
 in sin, a "blue pointer," and to be dragged over 
 meant death, for the sides of the rock overhung 
 the water, and to climb up even on a calm day 
 was a matter of time and difficulty. Sometimes, 
 without wishing it, we would hook a groper, and 
 then there was nothing to be done but to cut the 
 line, or make it fast and let the fish break it, for 
 it would have been impossible for our united 
 strength to have hauled up a monster of perhaps 
 over 300 lbs. Occasionally, when we got fast to a 
 groper, and had made the line fast, a shark — or 
 several — would come along and relieve us of all 
 trouble by biting the huge fish in halves, or carry- 
 ing it off bodily — with part of the line as well. 
 
 The place was seldom visited by any one but our- 
 selves and a few wandering blacks. The people 
 of the town (Port Macquarie) believed it to be 
 haunted by the ghost of a poor convict, who in 
 185 1 escaped from his guards, secreted himself in 
 the cave, and perished miserably of starvation, for 
 bad weather came on, and he was unable to leave 
 his retreat. I well remember how, years after- 
 wards, his skeleton was one day found, and the 
 mouldy bones brought into the little township for 
 burial. 
 
 My brothers and I used to call the spot "the 
 Death Hole," and it now well deserves the name, 
 for since then (in 1886) a terrible tragedy occurred
 
 246 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 there on New Year's Day. The annual school- 
 treat was given at a little sandy beach near by, 
 and one of the school-teachers foolishly attempted 
 to swim into the cave in the presence of some scores 
 of his pupils, and his own wife and children. The 
 backwash carried him out, and a fellow-teacher 
 jumped in to his rescue. Both were drowned, and 
 their bodies were never recovered. 
 
 Now to my story. 
 
 A few hundred yards from the peninsula that 
 connected these two hills with the mainland a land- 
 slip had occurred, and revealed the presence of a 
 valuable copper lode. It was on the face of a lofty 
 well-wooded spur, which terminated almost at the 
 water's edge. My father and a gentleman named 
 Rudder decided to work the lode. A party of 
 miners came from Sydney, and operations were 
 begun by driving into the face of the spur, and the 
 drive had been timbered for about 400 feet, when 
 operations were suspended on account of the Christ- 
 mas holidays — the Cornish miners emphatically 
 insisting on their right to have a "spree." 
 
 The manager of the mine was a big Prussian 
 named Zaabe. He was, no doubt, a good manager 
 and knew all about copper and copper-mining, but 
 in other respects he was not a success. The rough 
 Cornish miners detested him for his haughty, 
 domineering manner. But, in a way, they re- 
 spected him, for he was always ready to fight,
 
 'GREY NURSES' 247 
 
 although he had no more idea of how to use his 
 hands than a cow of playing the flute. Conse- 
 quently he was generally knocked out in the first 
 round, and I really believe that the "cousin Jacks" 
 purposely gave him impudence so as to make him 
 assault one of their number, for the mere pleasure 
 of "layin' un out." He had never before been 
 placed in charge of British miners, and soon found 
 out that the hot-tempered Cornishmen were a very 
 different class of beings to the wretched, ignorant 
 creatures he had formerly bossed in his native 
 Prussia. Another reason why he was disliked by 
 the local people generally, was for his brutal treat- 
 ment of horses and other animals. He w-as a heavy 
 man, and never showed any horse he rode any 
 mercy. A poor rider, he would start off at a gallop, 
 and always brought his mount back to the camp in 
 a state of exhaustion, and when I add that he had 
 a most irritating and bullying manner of speaking, 
 even in ordinar}^ conversation, the reader will 
 readily conceive that he was the wrong sort of man 
 to come to Australia and be placed in a position 
 of authority over men who were not used to dicta- 
 tion from even their employers. 
 
 The miners (of whom there were fourteen) had 
 made their camp of four tents on the beach, just 
 above high-water mark. My brothers and I were 
 great favourites, for we would sometimes, after a 
 day's fishing, spend the night at the mine, and we
 
 248 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 not only gave the miners all the fish they wanted, 
 but used to provide them with game as well, and 
 every Saturday some of them would come with us 
 fishing or shooting. I shall always remember one 
 day when three of the Cornishmen and one of my 
 brothers hooked and almost landed with a bowline 
 a groper of 360 lbs. on the rocks above the Death 
 Hole, when a blue pointer shark leapt at the 
 struggling fish, seized it across the back, and hung 
 on. The weight of the shark added to that of the 
 groper was too much — the three "cousin Jacks" 
 and my brother all tumbled in together off the 
 slippery rocks, and away went the shark with the 
 groper, the bowline, and a hand-made fishing-line 
 and hook worth over £2. None of the Cornishmen 
 could swim, and it was a marvel that they were not 
 all drowned. 
 
 Before daylight on the day before Christmas Day 
 my brothers and I were sent by my father (who was 
 the Resident Police Magistrate for the District) 
 to the "Copper Mine" to see if any of the miners 
 were at the camp. Two days previously the whole 
 fourteen had come into town, and proceeded to 
 enjoy themselves at the low public-houses, and by 
 assaulting the mounted police, or any one else who 
 tried to restrain them. Eight of them, with the 
 assistance of the townspeople, had been locked up, 
 two others had been shut up in the priest's stable 
 to sleep off the effects of the poison they had swal-
 
 'GREY NURSES' 249 
 
 lowed, and the other four were missing, and so, 
 fearing that they might have met with a serious 
 accident on the dangerous track to the copper-mine, 
 my father was anxious about them. 
 
 On arriving at the mine we found the four men 
 in one of the tents — all in a stupefied condition, 
 and unable to rise. We made them some tea, and 
 hid away several bottles of rum we found in one of 
 the bunks, and were putting the tent in order when 
 Mr. Zaabe appeared. He swore freely at the men 
 in German for some minutes, and then sat down 
 and had some tea and damper with us (it was not 
 yet seven o'clock). He asked us how we were 
 going to spend the day, and we told him that we 
 intended to wait for low tide to catch some cray- 
 fish, then fish for schnapper in the Death Hole, and 
 spend the rest of the day shooting wallabies in the 
 scrub, returning home in the evening. He said he 
 should like to join us, and suggested that it would 
 give us more time for shooting if he tried to catch 
 some schnapper whilst we got the crayfish. Now 
 he had never caught a schnapper in his life, but 
 we did not know it, and so we cheerfully lent him 
 one of our best heavy lines — strong enough to hold 
 a porpoise — told him where to fish from, and 
 warned him of the danger of hooking a groper, 
 especially if sharks were about. Lighting his huge 
 meerschaum, off he went, round the north side of 
 Big Nobby, and we set out for the crayfish rocks,
 
 250 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 which were quite half-a-mile along the coast to the 
 south. 
 
 It was a glorious morning — the blue Pacific waS 
 sparkling in the bright sunshine, and a gentle 
 breeze was rustling the leaves of the trees that 
 clothed the mountain spurs from their summits to 
 the water's edge. 
 
 The tide was low when we began operations, and 
 in two hours we had all the crayfish we wanted — 
 six big fellows weighing from eight to twelve 
 pounds each. Then we went back to the camp, 
 had another drink of tea, and waited for Zaabe. 
 An hour passed, and then my eldest brother began 
 to feel slightly anxious. 
 
 "We had best go and see how he is getting on. 
 He is such a great, clumsy bullock, and is wearing 
 hobnailed boots — just the things he should not wear 
 when fishing off smooth, slippery rocks. Anyway 
 he must have caught quite enough schnapper by 
 now, unless he is a rank duffer." 
 
 The Death Hole could be reached in less than 
 ten minutes from the camp, and we were soon 
 clambering over the rocks on the north side of 
 Big Nobby. Although there the sea was fairly 
 smooth, the cave was making its usual rumbling, 
 as the seas rolled in through the walls of rock. 
 Suddenly we heard a cry — unmistakably the call 
 of a person in distress. In a few seconds we were 
 round the side — Zaabe was not in sight !
 
 'GREY NURSES' 251 
 
 But again we heard a cry. 
 
 "For God's sake, come here and save me." 
 
 Rushing to the edge of the wall we looked over 
 into the Hole, and there on the opposite side, half- 
 way up the rocks, was Zaabe, his feet planted on 
 a small square surface of rock about a foot out of 
 the water, and his body bent almost double. His 
 face, chest and hands were streaming with blood 
 from a terrible wound on the right side of his 
 face — which from the eye down to the jaw was 
 cut through to the bone. But what filled us with 
 horror was the presence of three huge "grey nurse " 
 sharks, which were swimming to and fro in the 
 clear water of the hole, passing every now and 
 then so close to the wretched Zaabe that he could 
 quite easily have touched them with his foot. 
 
 Wiping the blood from his mouth, the agonized 
 man huskily begged us to save him, and pointed 
 with a shaking hand to the terrors at his feet. 
 
 Shouting to him to keep quiet, we hurriedly con- 
 sulted as to what was to be done. To drive the 
 sharks away with stones was impossible — there was 
 not a loose stone anywhere near, and every moment 
 Zaabe's piteous appeals for help served to distract 
 us. We knew that if he fell in he would be 
 devoured instantly, for the sharks could not only 
 see him, but were literally tasting the stream of 
 blood that ran down the rocks and tinged the water 
 at their base.
 
 252 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 All this we saw in a few seconds — or at most a 
 minute — and then a happy inspiration came to my 
 eldest brother. 
 
 " Run to the camp and get the guns," he cried to 
 my brother Will and me, "and tell the men to bring 
 a rope. For God's sake make haste," and then, 
 as we rushed off, we heard him shouting encourage- 
 ment to poor Zaabe. 
 
 Tearing over the rocks, falling and cutting our- 
 selves, but taking no heed of such things, we 
 gained the camp, and panted out our news to the 
 miners, who were now sufficiently sober to be of 
 some help. Fortunately our three guns were 
 loaded, and seizing them, and our shot-belts and 
 powder-flasks, we tore pantingly back to the Death 
 Hole, followed by the four miners, one of them 
 carrying a coil of windlass rope, and the others 
 buckets, which they filled with heavy stones as 
 they staggered after us. 
 
 When we returned, Zaabe was in the same posi- 
 tion, but had somewhat recovered his nerve, and 
 had managed to partly stay the flow of blood from 
 his cheek by holding one hand against it. The 
 sharks were still there, and the miners were about 
 to begin to pelt them with the stones, when my 
 brother implored them to wait — he feared that ston- 
 ing would only cause the brutes to sheer off tem- 
 porarily, and Zaabe would be no better off. Zaabe 
 himself was not forty feet away from us — the sharks
 
 'GREY NURSES' 253 
 
 as they passed to and fro beneath us were still 
 nearer — so near in fact that we could have struck 
 them with a sixteen-feet oar. 
 
 Our guns were muzzle-loaders, and were charged 
 with heavy shot — No. i. 
 
 Waiting till one of the brutes came within ten 
 feet of us, we all fired together, and one charge 
 at least struck it, for it gave a mighty splash, 
 turned completely over, and then made a bee-line 
 seaward, followed by the other two. A few seconds 
 later there was a tremendous commotion in the 
 water about a hundred yards distant — the wounded 
 shark was being "wolfed" and devoured by its 
 mates. 
 
 No time was to be lost, Zaabe could not swim, 
 and none of us had courage enough to go to him 
 with the rope, and every time we cast it he failed 
 to catch it. At last he succeeded, passed the loop 
 over his shoulders and under his arms, and let him- 
 self fall. In less than two minutes we had dragged 
 him across, and up over the rocks. He was a 
 heavy man, and it took us all we could do to haul 
 up such a weight with such a slippery and danger- 
 ous foothold. Almost as soon as we had him in 
 safety he fainted — and I almost followed suit. 
 
 When he had recovered, we all returned to the 
 camp, and I showed the miners where I had planted 
 their bottles of rum. Zaabe was glad of a large 
 dose (and so too were the miners), and he told us
 
 254 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 that he had slipped over into the hole in trying to 
 haul up "a fish as pig as a cow" (a groper), that 
 he got tangled up with the line, and was dashed 
 against a rock, cutting his face open, and dislocat- 
 ing his thumb. He managed to climb up to where 
 we found him, and then for the first time noticed 
 the "grey nurses."
 
 XVI 
 
 'JACK SHARK"' 
 
 I HAVE quite frequently been asked by many 
 persons if it is true that in some parts of the North 
 Pacific Ocean sharks of the man-eating kind can 
 be seen in droves of thousands. It is quite true 
 that vast "schools" of sharks may be met with in 
 many of the great equatorial atolls of the North 
 and South Pacific, but these are not, as a rule, 
 "man-eaters," their principal food being fish and 
 turtle. The man-eating blue shark which frequents 
 the deep ocean may, however, be seen together in 
 droves of from 500 to 1,000, especially when a whale 
 has been killed. Yet it is of the rarest occurrence 
 for any one of a whaleship's crew to be either 
 seized or bitten by a blue shark, should a boat be 
 capsized or smashed by a whale, or should a man, 
 when engaged in "cutting in" a whale, happen to 
 slip from the staging or from the back of the 
 cetacean into the water. At such times the sharks 
 are too busily engaged in riving and tearing off 
 huge mouthfuls of the juicy blubber to give their 
 attention to a human being. 
 
 255
 
 256 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 Amongst my experiences in the South Seas I 
 was twice in charge of shark-catching expeditions 
 — once at Palmyra and Christmas Islands and once 
 at Arrecifos Atoll in the Western Caroline Archi- 
 pelago. Our company consisted of forty South 
 Sea Islanders — principally natives of the Hawaiian 
 and Gilbert Islands — our vessel was a schooner of 
 under a hundred tons, commanded by a white man 
 (who was my partner) and officered by two Euro- 
 pean mates and a boatswain. The industry was 
 a dangerous, but highly profitable one, for the 
 sharks' fins and tails, after being well dried, 
 brought from ;^6o to ;^ioo per ton at Hongkong, 
 Singapore, or other marts of the Far East. The 
 better class of fins are highly valued as a delicacy 
 by the rich Chinese, and the poorer kinds and the 
 tails are converted into isinglass and also form the 
 basis of painters' varnishes. Our usual take averaged 
 about two hundred sharks daily, their length 
 averaging about eight feet. As soon as one was 
 hooked it was hauled alongside the boat, stunned 
 with one blow from a heavy club, then the fins 
 were quickly "snicked" off with a large knife, the 
 tail also severed, and the carcass let drop into the 
 water, where it was at once devoured by its ever- 
 hungry companions. Wooden hooks (without 
 barbs) were used, and the ease and rapidity with 
 which two natives would hook and dispatch a 
 struggling shark weighing over a quarter of a ton
 
 'JACK SHARK' 257 
 
 was marvellous to witness. At the end of each 
 day's fishing the fins and tails were taken on shore, 
 strung on to stout lines of coconut cinnet and sus- 
 pended between coconut trees to dry. 
 
 Arrecifos Lagoon — commonly called Providence 
 Island — is noted by most traders for the immense 
 number of turtle, both of the valuable hawk-bill 
 variety and the common green turtle, which fre- 
 quent the lagoon waters, and during the laying 
 season we obtained their eggs in thousands. The 
 sharks know as well as possible when to look for 
 the young turtle to emerge from their eggs, and 
 make their way down the beaches into the lagoon, 
 and at night time the placid water would be dis- 
 turbed by an incredible number of small sharks 
 about three feet in length. These yielded fins of 
 a very high quality, and it was our practice to 
 surround a drove of these rangers of the seas by a 
 thick cordon of green plants and bushes, and then 
 await the ebbing of the tide when we would secure 
 four or five hundred at a time when they were left 
 stranded on the sand. These sharks were of a 
 bright, pearly grey colour, with fins tipped with 
 white, and their flesh was quite edible, being free 
 from the usual rank smell so common to nearly 
 all of the Squalus family. They were, however, 
 very savage little brutes, and when alive required 
 most careful handling. Once, when I was living 
 on Strong's Island in the Eastern Caroline Group, 
 
 R
 
 258 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 one of my native crew had his hand bitten off by a 
 shark under five and a half feet in length. He 
 was swimming in the harbour when, as he in- 
 formed me, "the shark very rudely swam across in 
 front of him," and he struck it a blow with his fist; 
 in an instant it turned and snapped at his left hand, 
 which was bitten off as cleanly as if it had been 
 severed by a knife or an axe. 
 
 Once during my stay on Strong's Island (where 
 I was shipwrecked in company of the famed, and 
 much maligned, Captain "Bully" Hayes, in 1873) 
 I had a very unpleasant experience with two enor- 
 mous sharks, called by the Samoans tarrifa. This 
 variety of the Squalas seldom exceed ten feet in 
 length, but are of enormous girth and their teeth 
 are something to look at and shudder, for they are 
 two inches long and more than that width at the 
 base. They are fond of haunting the mouths of 
 rivers and streams where the water is discoloured, 
 especially during the rainy season, and the natives 
 dread them greatly. On the occasion to which I 
 refer I was fishing on the barrier reef and was ac- 
 companied by a boy and girl of twelve and nine 
 years of age. We had filled our baskets with fish 
 and set out to return to the village by crossing the 
 strip of smooth water that lay between the reef and 
 the beach, when our canoe was observed by two 
 monstrous sharks. They at once gave chase, and 
 each in turn tried to upset our frail craft. Pad-
 
 'JACK SHARK' 259 
 
 dling as hard as we could we at last reached 
 shallow water, just as one of the brutes seized the 
 outrigger in his huge jaws and bit the stout pole 
 through as easily as a boy can bite a piece out of a 
 slice of bread. Throwing away our baskets of fish 
 we rushed through the shallow water and gained 
 the beach, exhausted and terrified, A party of 
 Samoans and I once killed one of these ferocious 
 creatures in Apia Harbour by shooting it with a 
 whaler's bomb gun. Its length was nine feet, and 
 the depth of its body from just behind the head 
 through to the outside of its fearful throat was 
 four feet four inches. 
 
 Of all seafaring men, whalemen run the greatest 
 risk from the jaws of Jack Shark, and yet, curiously 
 enough, not many of them go into his maws. 
 Once, when cruising through the Friendly Islands, 
 we saw from the deck of our vessel a boat belong- 
 ing to the General Grant, sperm whaler, "chawed " 
 by a bull whale which had been wounded badly. 
 As the crew clung to fragments of the crushed boat 
 they were surrounded by some scores of blue 
 sharks, which swam to and fro amongst them, but 
 did not attack them — they were evidently waiting 
 for the wounded whale, which had "sounded." As 
 soon as the cetacean reappeared, some ten minutes 
 later, the sharks instantly swam towards him, 
 leaving the boat's crew to be picked up by a 
 
 "loose" boat which was sent lo their rescue. The 
 R 2
 
 26o 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 whale was shortly afterwards killed by a bomb, and 
 then we saw a truly extraordinary scene, for his 
 huge carcass was surrounded by literally hundreds 
 upon hundreds of sharks, which would scarcely 
 allow it to be towed alongside the General Grant to 
 he cut-in. 
 
 Yet not always do these adventurous and daring 
 whalemen escape; for in 1862 a boat belonging to 
 a Hawaiian brig was stove in by a whale ofif the 
 Bonin Islands, in the North- West Pacific. Before 
 the "loose" boats could go to the rescue the officer 
 and his men were seized and carried away in the 
 full view of their shipmates. 
 
 The average native inhabitant of the South Sea 
 Islands spends nearly one-fifth of his or her exist- 
 ence upon the water, either for pleasure — surf- 
 swimming, etc. — or when engaged in fishing, and 
 yet but few of them lose their lives by sharks, ex- 
 cept when a canoe is capsized or swamped at night 
 time. Then, indeed, there is terrible danger, and 
 some awful tragedies have occurred within my own 
 experience. Many years ago, when our trading 
 vessel was lying off the Island of Ailuk, a low- 
 lying, sandy atoll of the Marshall Archipelago, we 
 were boarded by a canoe, the crew of which told 
 us of a fearful event that had occurred the previous 
 evening. Eight young children, boys and girls, 
 were standing on the edge of a reef, catching a fish 
 of nocturnal habit called malati, when they were
 
 •JACK SHARK' 261 
 
 swept over into deep water by the strong backwash. 
 Before they could regain the reef five of their 
 number were devoured by three sharks, and the 
 remaining three children were only saved by a 
 huge sea hurling them back bodily upon the coral 
 ledge. 
 
 The natives of the equatorial Pacific Islands 
 dread the smaller sharks far more than they do the 
 larger kind. These latter are comparatively easy 
 to avoid by such wonderful swimmers as the South 
 Sea Islanders; but a little six-foot shark can turn 
 about w^ith such lightning-like rapidity that he can 
 nip off an arm or a foot ere the swimmer is aware 
 of the creature's presence. A fifteen-foot or twenty- 
 foot shark cannot "go about" very quickly — it 
 takes him time, and the swimmer can dodge. 
 Generally, too, the small sharks have more devilry 
 in them than the big fellows. One bright moon- 
 light night ten years ago our vessel anchored in 
 the passage leading into Apian Lagoon, one of the 
 Gilbert Islands. Being very anxious to see the 
 local trader that night, I left the ship in a boat 
 manned by six Savage Island natives. The tide 
 was ebbing and rushing out through the narrow 
 passage at about five or six knots. So, to avoid 
 being swept out to sea, I stood in to the left, so as 
 to cross over the reef, which was covered by about 
 ten feet of water. Just as we were crossing, a per- 
 fect "drove " of small grey sharks rushed us, and
 
 262 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 every one of the six oars was seized. Two were 
 torn out of the rowers' hands and carried away 
 instantly, and we only saved the other four with 
 difficulty. In endeavouring to get the steer-oar 
 inboard, myself and a native were knocked down 
 twice. Finding it impossible to proceed, I 
 anchored the boat till a breeze came and we could 
 use our sail. But until the wind came the boat was 
 literally surrounded by two or three hundred of 
 these fierce brutes, not one of which was over eight 
 feet in length. My crew and myself then began 
 firing into them with our rifles. Every bullet 
 struck, and the wounded sharks were at once torn 
 to pieces by their fellows. The sight was a truly 
 horrible one, the water being lashed into a bloody 
 foam, and my hair stood on end like priming wires. 
 Had our boat been attacked in the passage itself 
 she most certainly would have broached-to and 
 capsized in the swift current, and the sharks would 
 have made short work of us. 
 
 Still, I would rather swim all day in a South 
 Sea lagoon, where one knows sharks are plentiful 
 and not always dangerous, than essay to swim 
 across one of the many bays of Sydney Harbour, 
 or one of the muddy reaches of backwater of the 
 Parramatta River, where the sneaking ground 
 sharks lie in wait for their prey. 
 
 Some of the largest sharks that I have ever seen 
 were on the coast of New South Wales, and were
 
 'JACK SHARK' 263 
 
 cruising in quite shallow water near the beaches, 
 playing havoc with the swarms of sea-salmon that 
 visit the coastal rivers during the months of 
 November and January. Sometimes these fish, 
 which range from six pounds to ten pounds in 
 weight, will make their appearance in such in- 
 credible numbers that they are barely able to make 
 any progress when crossing a river bar, and scores 
 of thousands of them are devoured by porpoises 
 and sharks. Some of these latter, known as 
 "tiger" sharks, attain eighteen to twenty feet, and 
 are ugly customers to deal wuth when a person is 
 alone, fishing from a small skiff.
 
 XVII 
 'LOTS O' TIME' 
 
 I 
 
 Lots o' Time is old — very old indeed from a 
 Colonial point of view — for it was founded just 
 eighty-five years ago in the month of November 1823, 
 when a company of one of the King's regiments, 
 red-tunicked, cross-belted and high shakoed, landed 
 on the shelving beach of a tiny bay situated at the 
 south side of the ever-restless bar; and under a 
 sweltering sun pitched their tents, whilst some 
 hundreds of grey-faced grimy men, clad in toil- 
 stained garments of black and yellow, proceeded 
 under the muskets of the sentries to clear the sur- 
 rounding scrub. Of them these lines were written 
 by one of their own number — 
 
 " From distant climes, o'er wide-spread seas we come, 
 Though not with much cclat^ or beat of drum ; 
 True patriots all ! For be it understood 
 We left our country for our country's good ; 
 No private views disgrac'd our generous zeal, 
 What urged our travels was our country's weal ; 
 And none will doubt but that our emigration 
 Has proved most useful to the British nation." 
 
 264
 
 ' LOTS O' TIME ' 265 
 
 Such was the sombre genesis of the town of Lots 
 o' Time, as it came to be afterwards named in 
 mockery. By and by there came more soldiers 
 and more convicts and some few settlers, and a 
 huge red-bricked gaol was built on a fair, sweet 
 grassy hill which overlooked the sunlit blue of the 
 wide Pacific, and a great square, squat and ugly 
 church reared its hideous form upon a knoll a 
 mile away ; and the silence of the forest primeval 
 was broken by the clank of fetters and the sighs 
 and groans of the fated beings who worked at 
 making roads and building culverts under the eyes 
 of the red-coated soldiers, who, with muskets 
 cocked, watched keenly lest one of the yellow and 
 black clad men should make a run and disappear 
 into the gloomy aisles of the surrounding forest. 
 And sometimes that would happen, and perhaps 
 long months after what had once been a man 
 would be found, with the bones gnawed bare by 
 native dogs, and a broken spear or two lying near, 
 to show that the wanderer's days of misery and 
 starvation had come to a sudden and merciful end 
 at the hands of the wild men of the woods. 
 
 But, as the years went on, a systematic weeding 
 out of the worst disposed of the prisoners was 
 begun, and the place began to be looked upon 
 with favour by the better class convicts, who were 
 not treated with the same savage brutality and 
 vindictiveness that had characterized the adminis-
 
 266 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 tration of the infamous Convict System in other 
 parts of the colony and Van Diemen's Land. They 
 were well fed and well housed in a great barracks 
 which had been built on the southern shore of the 
 port, and though there stood within the lofty- 
 walled quad the truculent triangle, it was seldom 
 used, and the green bag that held the dreaded cat- 
 o'-nine-tails hung, dust-covered, from its peg in 
 the warders' room. 
 
 Then came the time when extra well-conducted 
 prisoners were pardoned and became free men, 
 though the black stigma of convictism still en- 
 shrouded their daily existence with its never-dying 
 and cruel taint. Some of them bought or were 
 given grants of land about the township, and 
 earned an honest living by raising cattle, or as 
 hired men entering the service of the rich and 
 retired military officers who had settled in the 
 district — some as cattle squatters, and others as 
 sugar planters. 
 
 But with all the great natural advantages that 
 were offered to settlers in a vast area of rich 
 country, there were but very few of these people 
 who seemed to be able to do more than earn a bare 
 living. The curse of laziness and procrastination 
 appeared to be inborn, and the stain of transport- 
 ation no doubt provided another factor to their lack 
 of success in raising themselves to a better condi- 
 tion of existence. Their children grew up ignorant
 
 ' LOTS O' TIME ' 267 
 
 and "shiftless," and the moral atmosphere was 
 vicious and debasing in the extreme. 
 
 It was the proverbial inertia of the majority of 
 the poor settlers in the district, and in the township 
 as well, that led to the latter being termed "Lots 
 o' Time " by the military and civilian officers, who 
 had spent fortunes in endeavouring to open up the 
 country and make it yield some of its many un- 
 touched and undeveloped riches. 
 
 For me, however, "Lots o' Time" always pos- 
 sessed a strong and lasting interest, for I was a 
 native of the place, and my childhood's days there 
 were very happy. My grandfather had invested a 
 large sum of money in founding cattle stations in 
 that part of the colony, and in persistently search- 
 ing for copper and tin. He, like many others of 
 the early settlers, lost nearly all his fortune and 
 returned to Sydney in disgust. And then, long 
 years afterwards, my father was appointed Resi- 
 dent Magistrate of the sleepy old township, and 
 there my brothers and I were born in a quaint old 
 house of brick, built by convict hands, and over- 
 looking the blue waters of the sunlit Pacific Ocean. 
 
 One of my earliest recollections dates back to the 
 time when I was just turning ten years of age. I 
 was aroused from my slumbers at six o'clock in the 
 morning by one of the servants, who told me that 
 a ship had been lost somewhere near on the coast, 
 and that five boats, crowded with men, were at
 
 268 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 that moment pulling in across the bar. I was so 
 excited that, slipping on my shirt and short pants 
 only, I tore out of the house without hat or boots, 
 and in my eagerness to get to the landing-place 
 took a short cut down a soapstone cliff near the old 
 military prison, missed my footing and rolled down 
 upon the beach sixty feet below, where I was found 
 some hours later with a sprained ankle, a fractured 
 arm, and a face covered with cuts and bruises. 
 
 Nevertheless, that was one of the happiest days 
 of my life, for in the afternoon my father brought 
 to my bedside two strangers — the captain and chief 
 officer of the wrecked ship — and told me that they 
 were to be his guests for some considerable time ; 
 and although I was very literally suffering from 
 a swelled head at the time, it swelled still more 
 with pleasure when the captain told me that I was 
 "an almighty plucky youngster," and that he would 
 come and see me again in the morning and spin 
 me "a long yarn about the Adventurer, and killing 
 whales, and man-eating sharks as long as a whale- 
 boat, and with jaws big enough to swallow a man 
 whole without hurting him," etc. 
 
 My new friend was a Captain Devine, the master 
 of the American sperm whaler Adventurer, of Sag 
 Harbour, U.S.A. She had been cruising along 
 the coast of New South Wales, and meeting with a 
 fair amount of luck — having taken five large whales 
 in a few weeks — when, during a calm, she drifted
 
 ' LOTS O' TIME ' 269 
 
 in too close to the land at Smoky Cape, despite the 
 efforts of her five boats to tow her off, for the 
 inshore current was too strong. She let go her 
 anchors in eighty fathoms of water, just under the 
 steep-to cliffs of the cape (the " Smoaky Cape " of 
 Captain Cook), but in the night a strong "black 
 north-easter " came on ; she parted both cables and 
 went ashore, foundering at the base of the cliffs. 
 No lives were lost, for all the five boats were in 
 readiness to leave the moment that Captain Devine 
 saw that there was no hope of saving the ship. 
 
 He and his chief officer were my father's guests 
 for over two months, waiting for a passage to 
 Sydney by the steamer that visited "Lots o' Time " 
 every four weeks for her cargo of hides, tallow and 
 maize. That is to say, she was supposed to enter 
 the port at monthly intervals ; but, being a very 
 erratic craft, she would occasionally be overdue for 
 a few weeks — which mattered but little to the in- 
 habitants of "Lots o' Time." She was a paddle- 
 wheel vessel of 600 tons, had three masts, the fore 
 and main of which carried yards, and had a great 
 spread of canvas, and although under steam she 
 could not achieve more than six knots when under 
 high pressure, she was a picture of beauty w'hen, 
 under full sail, she would lie-to off the roaring 
 bar to await the pilot-boat. Her name was 
 William the Fourth, but locally she was known as 
 Puffing Billy, owing to her high-pressure engines
 
 270 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 and her exhaust steam-pipe, which every few 
 minutes emitted weird, snorting groans, accom- 
 panied by puffs of steam. 
 
 As soon as I recovered from my injuries I had 
 a deHghtful time in showing Captain Devine and 
 his chief officer all the places of interest in and 
 about the quaint old town, and when the time 
 came for them to say farewell to us I was unable to 
 control myself, and bursting into tears ran out 
 of the house and hid for the remainder of the day 
 under a ledge of rock that jutted out from one of 
 the headlands three miles distant from my home. 
 1 did not want to see the Willicun the Fovrth pass 
 out across the bar, and so waited until it was nearly 
 dusk before I returned to the house, quite expecting 
 that I should receive a whipping from my father. 
 But in this I was mistaken, for he did not even 
 reproach me. 
 
 "Get your supper, my boy, and then go to bed. 
 You may see Captain Devine again some day — 
 especially as you say that you mean to be a sailor," 
 and he placed his hand affectionately on my 
 shoulder. 
 
 I do not suppose that for one moment my father 
 ever thought that there was any possibility of my 
 ever meeting Captain Devine again ; neither did he 
 intend that I should go to sea, for he had other 
 views as to my future. Yet I did go to sea, and 
 I did meet Captain Devine,
 
 ' LOTS O' TIME ' 271 
 
 Thirteen years later, when I was twenty-three 
 years of age, and the supercargo of a South Sea 
 Island trading schooner, I was in Honolulu 
 (Hawaiian Islands) and had occasion to visit the 
 American Consulate in Fort Street on business. 
 There were then lying in Honolulu Harbour over 
 forty American whale-ships which, as was custom- 
 ary in those days, had put into the port to recruit 
 before sailing to the coast of Japan for the "bow- 
 head " whaling season, and every morning most of 
 the skippers of these ships would meet at the 
 American Consulate to gossip ; for the Consul was 
 a most genial man, and his office and house w^ere 
 literally an "open house" to all of his country- 
 men who visited Honolulu. (And inter aha he had 
 a charming wife — a Hawaiian princess — who was 
 one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen, 
 and who had equally lovely sisters, one of whom 
 jilted me in the cruelest manner, and put me off 
 my food, but not drink, for a week.) 
 
 I had just entered the office of the Consulate, 
 when I heard some one say — 
 
 "Well, Captain Devine, and how are you?" and 
 the next moment the door opened and I was face 
 to face again with my old friend. He was de- 
 lighted to see me, and told me that he had just 
 returned from a long and very successful cruise in 
 the East Indies. During the few days he and I 
 were in Honolulu we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves
 
 272 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 in visiting the country houses of some of the 
 American residents and — I regret to say — eating an 
 enormous quantity of fruit. Now I must return to 
 "Lotso' Time." 
 
 There was one place that always possessed a 
 strong fascination for me, and that was the old 
 cemetery. It was situated on the bank of a wide, 
 reed-margined creek, which was a tributary of the 
 river that debouched at the entrance to the port. 
 The water was very deep and teemed with splendid 
 perch and fresh-water mullet, which none of the 
 townspeople ever tried to catch, for nearly every 
 one of the local folk had a horror of passing 
 through that cemetery, and when they did go there 
 it was only to attend a funeral or to be themselves 
 buried. Why they so dreaded the place I will now 
 explain. 
 
 II 
 
 The cemetery was about a quarter of a mile dis- 
 tant from the church of which I have before spoken 
 — a hideous, square edifice of red brick with a 
 squat tower, which accentuated its ugliness, and 
 which, when I grew up and revisited my native 
 town, always filled me with a fervent desire to put 
 a ton of blasting powder under its foundations and 
 blow the whole ghastly excrescence upon Nature 
 sky high. To me that church, even as a child, was
 
 ' LOTS O' TIME ' 273 
 
 a thing of horror, with its high wooden pews of 
 dark oak, and musty, ill-smelling hassocks, and 
 lofty pulpit from which, in the black convict days, 
 the parson thundered and bawled at the wretched 
 prisoners who formed the majorit}^ of his congre- 
 gation, whilst the military guard in the gallery 
 yawned and slept (with their loaded "Brown Bess " 
 muskets in their hands), supposedly ready to "sup- 
 press " any demonstration of weariness or insub- 
 ordination on the part of the men clad in garments 
 of yellow and black. The clergyman himself, so 
 my mother said, was a man calculated to arouse 
 every feeling of bitterness and hatred in the bosoms 
 of the wretched convicts who had to listen to him, 
 and his vivid portrayal of their iniquities and the 
 undying terrors of the everlasting lires of Hell to 
 which they were, presumably, consigned, without 
 hope of redemption. No doubt many of the 
 wretched creatures would have been sincerely glad 
 to have been laid in the adjoining graveyard, if 
 only to escape the parson and those awful Sundays. 
 Yet the reverend gentleman was a good man in 
 many respects, and only acted according to his 
 spiritual lights. 
 
 One portion of the cemetery was mainly taken 
 up with the graves of military officers, and on the 
 heavy, flat tombstones one could read such names 
 as "Vimiera," "Fuentes d'Onor," "Ciudad Rodri- 
 go," "Badajoz," and other famous battles in the
 
 274 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 Peninsula, in which the dead men had taken part, 
 as well as the names of many an Indian field that 
 was fought in the days when the "raj" of John 
 Company was at its zenith. One of these inscrip- 
 tions had a strange fascination for me, and I 
 pictured the departed hero beneath it as a perfect 
 Paladin — a combined Bayard, Richard Coeur de 
 Lion, Cid Campeador, and a man of my acquaint- 
 ance named Jimmy Gaul, who had lost one leg in 
 the Maori war, and was always willing to show my 
 brothers and myself the stump of the amputated 
 limb if we gave him threepence. The inscription 
 set forth that the gentleman whose dust lay beneath 
 
 was a certain "Captain , of the Honourable 
 
 East Indian Company's Army, who, in the course 
 of a Glorious Military Career, received Twenty- 
 three Wounds, and Killed with his Own Hands 
 Five Enemies who Assailed him when Lying 
 Severely Wounded on the Field of Battle. He 
 was a Thoro' Gentleman, and Deserv'd his 
 Country's Praise." 
 
 The humour of the thing never struck my boyish 
 mind; but when, twenty years later, I revisited 
 the old cemetery and found that the tombstone 
 had crumbled almost to the same dust as that of 
 the valorous captain, that after all, the words 
 "Lying Severely" were distinctly applicable in a 
 certain sense. 
 
 The people of Lots o' Time firmly believed that
 
 ' LOTS O' TIME ' 275 
 
 the cemetery was haunted by three ghosts. Two 
 of these had been convicts who, whilst building a 
 wall near the church, had quarrelled, and one killed 
 the other with a spade, then went to the cemetery 
 and hanged himself from a wild honeysuckle tree; 
 the third was that of a young lady who was fre- 
 quently seen sitting on her husband's grave, read- 
 ing a book. Hers, indeed, was a tragic story. At 
 a very early age, her husband, who was a lieutenant 
 in the Navy, died and was buried near the bank of 
 the creek. It was her practice to visit his grave 
 nearly every day towards sunset. One warm after- 
 noon she fell asleep, and when she awakened she 
 found an enormous black snake was lying across 
 her knees. The shock was such that she lost her 
 reason and died a few days later. 
 
 In the hot summer months it was positively 
 dangerous for any one to walk about the cemetery 
 owing to the number of the deadly black and brown 
 snakes that infested the place, especially where the 
 tombstones were overgrown with scrub and vine. 
 I one day killed seven and saw at least twenty 
 more; like most country-bred colonial boys snakes 
 had no terrors for me, and I never missed killing 
 one if I had time to get a stick, though I liked best 
 to blow their heads off with a charge of small s^ot. 
 
 When I was twelve years of age we had a visitor 
 staying with us for a few days, a German natural- 
 ist named KrefTt, and he was much interested and 
 
 S2
 
 276 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 amused with the naturcil history collection that my 
 brothers and I possessed. It was contained in a 
 loft over the stables ; the walls were almost covered 
 with snake skins — the black, brown, diamond and 
 carpet species. Some of the latter were over ten 
 feet in length, and were really valuable — in fact, 
 the local saddler would give us from ten shillings 
 to a sovereign for an extra fine specimen. Then, 
 too, we had numbers of platypus and native bear, 
 opossum, kangaroo and wallaby furs, several 
 sharks' jaws, aboriginal weapons such as spears, 
 wuddies (club) and boomerangs, and a huge sting- 
 ray that we had harpooned in a tidal lagoon, to- 
 gether with a number of dried porcupine fish. 
 Our visitor was especially interested in the snake 
 skins, and asked us if we thought we could put 
 him in the way of procuring a few live snakes. 
 We took him to the cemetery and in a few hours 
 he had caught five black and two brown ones, seiz- 
 ing them in the most daring manner a few inches 
 below the head and putting them into a covered 
 box. He was collecting the dangerous reptiles for 
 the Sydney Museum.
 
 'LOTS O' TIME' 277 
 
 III 
 
 Not far from our house was a reef of rocks 
 which, at very low tides, would become exposed. 
 It was broken up by a number of small but deep 
 pools in which there was splendid fishing — sea 
 bream, schnapper and the handsome black and 
 white rock cod, the best of all Australian fishes. 
 Then, too, these pools were the home of hundreds 
 of great cray-fish, some of which weighed up to 
 fifteen pounds, and which we either caught with 
 hook and line or captured by diving. Long years 
 before, a large vessel had been wrecked on this reef, 
 and at low tides we would always find some relics — 
 principally copper bolts, etc. These we had been 
 collecting for over twelve months, when one da}' a 
 mean old rascal of a storekeeper, named Wilkins, 
 happened to come along and saw us engaged in 
 cleaning about fifty bolts. He at once offered to 
 buy them, saying he would give us threepence 
 each. 
 
 "I don't think you will, Mr. Wilkins," remarked 
 my brother Will, "the captain of the William the 
 Fourth will buy all we can find, and pay us four 
 times as much as you offer." 
 
 The old fellow snarled out something about our 
 being Godless and avaricious youths (he was a 
 local preacher) and went off, but a few days later
 
 278 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 we saw him and his son — a spindle-shanked youth 
 of nineteen — busily engaged in wading over the 
 reef searching for copper bolts. The spindle- 
 shanked one had stripped and was standing up to 
 his waist in water, when we heard him utter a 
 blood-curdling yell of terror, and a moment later 
 the old man also began to bawl and wave his hands 
 about in the most frantic manner. We had been 
 watching them from the beach with no friendly 
 eyes, but at once rushed to their assistance, imagin- 
 ing that the youth had been seized by a shark. 
 Running as hard as we could we reached the pair 
 and saw that the lad had been seized around both 
 legs by a very large octopus, the long tentacles of 
 which were spread up over his back as far as the 
 neck. My brother and I at once jumped into the 
 pool, and seizing the hideous thing by its loose, 
 baggy head, managed to tear it away from its 
 victim, who then immediately fainted. The 
 octopus, after ejecting the usual quantity of sepia 
 from its ink-bag, and blackening the water so as to 
 cover its retreat, at once made off, and we carried 
 the unconscious Wilkins junior to a dry place on 
 the reef and laid him down. The octopus had 
 bitten him most savagely on the calf of one leg, its 
 sharp, parrot-like beak having cut out the flesh as 
 cleanly as it would have been done by a carpenter's 
 gouge. There were three of these deep wounds 
 within a radius of a few inches, and my brother
 
 ' LOTS O' TIME ' 279 
 
 thought that the young fellow would bleed to death. 
 Fortunately two of the pilot-boat's crew, wondering 
 what had happened, hurried down to us, and they 
 quickly bandaged the leg above and below the 
 knee, and succeeded in staying the flow of blood. 
 Then, as soon as the youth was able to stand, we 
 helped him on shore — the old man doing nothing 
 but moan and groan as if he, and not his lovely 
 son, was the victim. But, as a proof of his grati- 
 tude, and whilst we were putting the injured lad 
 into a cart to be driven home, he quaveringly told 
 us that he was willing to pay us sixpence instead of 
 threepence each for all the copper bolts we found 
 in future ! 
 
 My brother Will had a great sense of humour, 
 and shook his head, as he replied — 
 
 "No, thank you, Mr. Wilkins. But I advise 
 you and your son to keep away from the reef. We 
 were watching you from the first, and felt pretty 
 sure that the big octopus would nab one of you. 
 He is an old friend of ours and is as good as a 
 watch-dog — in fact, we feed him." 
 
 Old Wilkins firmly believed this rubbish, and 
 stared at us open-mouthed, no doubt regarding us 
 as inhuman young wretches. However, he did no 
 more searching on our preserve. 
 
 About a week after this incident, one of the crew 
 of the pilot-boat and my brother succeeded in har- 
 pooning this same octopus. It was one of the
 
 28o 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 largest ever killed on that part of the coast, and 
 weighed over forty pounds. Young Wilkins re- 
 ceived such a shock to his system that he did not 
 recover for many months ; and, indeed, it was not 
 to be wondered at, for even when a small octopus 
 enwinds its tentacles on the bare skin of the 
 human body it gives one a powerful shock. In 
 my own case whenever I came in contact with one 
 of these nightmares of the seas, I was certain to be 
 seized with violent nausea. Yet we were con- 
 stantly capturing them for bait for deep-sea fishing, 
 and I have seen some persons coolly seize one by 
 the head and "bash" it to death on the rocks, 
 without feeling more than a slight electric shock. 
 Always shall I remember a lad named Alf Cum- 
 mins, the son of the local baker. He had a way 
 of catching "starfish" (Lots o' Time name for 
 octopus) that used to make my flesh creep. Roll- 
 ing up his shirt-sleeve as far as the shoulder he 
 would thrust his hand and arm into the retreat of 
 an octopus, let the horrid thing fasten its snaky 
 tentacles on his arm and then drag it forth in 
 triumph. So expert was he that he was never once 
 bitten. 
 
 We used octopus bait for deep-sea fishing, and 
 had to prepare it in the following manner. Mak- 
 ing a fire of dead leaves or grass we would suspend 
 the dead octopus over it for about five or ten 
 minutes, until the mottled outer skin became dry
 
 ' LOTS O' TIME ' 281 
 
 enough to be peeled off, revealing the marble-white 
 flesh beneath ; this we cut up into pieces of various 
 sizes, and then bruised it with a mallet to make it 
 tender. In the tidal rivers we also used this bait 
 for catching "jew-fish" — a species of silvery bass 
 that sometimes weighed up to a hundred pounds. 
 They were a fine, game fish, and always bit well 
 on dark nights, especially if rain happened to be 
 falling. Catching saw-fish was also a favourite 
 sport with my brothers and me, as well as the 
 people of Lots o' Time generally. These saw-fish 
 must not be confused v.ith the deep-sea "sword" 
 fish, which is a handsome as well as an edible 
 creature. The saw-fish is a species of shark, grows 
 to twenty feet in length, and is provided with a 
 broad saw or bill which is set on either side with 
 widely apart spikes or teeth. They are immensely 
 powerful, and when fishing for them we used a 
 stout clothes-line and a shark hook. 
 
 IV 
 
 I HAVE spoken of the inhabitants of Lots o' Time 
 as being almost too lazy to live; but there were 
 two practices in which they were marvellously dili- 
 gent — these were fishing from the town wharf 
 during warm drowsy weather, and satisfying their 
 chronic thirst at the bars of the local public-houses,
 
 282 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 of which there were four. The favourite beverages 
 were colonial-made beer, known by the distinctly 
 appropriate name of "tanglefoot," and new Queens- 
 land rum. Still, although they were such a bibu- 
 lous community, they were not quarrelsome, and 
 through inherited qualifications were able to carry 
 an abnormal quantity of liquor without calling the 
 latent energies of the police into any semblance of 
 activity. Cattle stealing, which had once been a 
 thriving industry in the district years before, had 
 quite gone out of fashion as an easy way of obtain- 
 ing a livelihood, owing to the heavy sentence of 
 seven years' hard labour. And then, also, beef was 
 cheap. There were no big meat-freezing establish- 
 ments in those days anywhere in the colony, and 
 the very best parts of beef only brought twopence 
 to threepence per pound. Mutton was equally as 
 cheap, although the district was not a good one 
 for raising sheep, on account of the prevalence of 
 grass seed — the thin needle-pointed seeds penetrat- 
 ing the animals' bodies in every direction, and 
 causing them to become very poor or else die. 
 
 Game — especially wild fowl — was wonderfully 
 plentiful in the district, the rivers abounded with 
 fish as did the sea, the soil was fertile to an extra- 
 ordinary degree, and would produce any fruit or 
 vegetable common to the temperate zone, and yet 
 the majority of the people in Lots o' Time lived 
 meanly. They were quite satisfied with an eternal
 
 ' LOTS O' TIME ' 283 
 
 round of fresh or salted beef, with pumpkin as a 
 vegetable, and I do not believe that one family in 
 ten possessed a vegetable garden — it meant work. 
 Yet there were plenty of examples for them to have 
 profited by had they cared to do so. Our own garden 
 and orchard, although only a few acres in extent, 
 yielded nearly all the ordinary European vege- 
 tables, and the orchard (apart from a splendid 
 vineyard of Black Isabella grape vines) gave us 
 oranges, lemons, plantains (not bananas), pears, 
 apples, peaches, passion fruit, figs of many kinds, 
 and half-a-dozen varieties of w-ater-melons, sugar- 
 melons and rock melons. And some of our well- 
 to-do neighbours (who owned cattle stations in the 
 district) had once had gardens, orchards and vine- 
 yards that filled one with pleasure to behold; but 
 when the price of cattle went down so low that 
 their owners were glad to sell them for £1 a-head 
 to the boiling-down works for the sake of their 
 tallow, these orchards and vineyards were left un- 
 tended, and were soon overgrown with the ever- 
 encroaching scrub and insidious vines and creepers 
 of the wild bush. 
 
 On some — indeed, on most — of the many tidal 
 lagoons, of which a network lay behind the beaches, 
 there were countless thousands of black duck, teal, 
 wood-duck (the maned goose), and black swans 
 and pelicans, and during the wet months any one 
 with an ordinary old-fashioned muzzle-loading
 
 284 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 double-barrel could shoot more duck or teal in an 
 hour than he could carry. All of us boys possessed 
 guns, but we preferred trapping the ducks to shoot- 
 ing them. There was a tribe of local aborigines 
 still existent in the district, wandering about from 
 one river to another, or camping on the coast for 
 fishing and hunting. They were a harmless, in- 
 offensive lot of beings, and from them my brothers 
 and I learnt much woodcraft and of the ways of 
 animals and birds. For instance, they showed us 
 how to find the cunningly-hidden nests of the white 
 cockatoos, placed high up in the hollow boles of 
 half-dead gum trees; and from them we learnt to 
 climb a lofty tree with a smooth bole, as only an 
 aboriginal can climb. The majority of the rough 
 settlers treated these wretched remnants of a fast- 
 vanishing race with great cruelty. Too lazy to 
 work hard themselves, they used the poor blacks 
 to do fencing work, timber felling, etc., etc., and 
 usually paid them for their toil with bad rum, 
 black ration sugar and worthless tea, and gave 
 them no shelter at night. There were, of course, 
 exceptions, but they were rare. Both my father 
 and mother felt very keenly for these wandering 
 descendants of Ham, and we generally had twenty 
 or thirty camped somewhere near our house — not 
 too near, however, for a blacks' camp can always be 
 located by the nose if not visible to the eye. 
 
 The reader may perhaps wonder how it came to
 
 ' LOTS O' TIME ' 285 
 
 be that my two brothers and I had so much time 
 in which to wander about the country, long dis- 
 tances from home, and remaining away occasion- 
 ally for a week at a time. But we had a tutor, a 
 man in whom my father had the most unbounded 
 confidence, and who usually accompanied us, for 
 he was a keen lover of Nature and a born sports- 
 m.an as well. 
 
 On long trips we would sometimes take with us 
 a tent, and one or two pack-horses to carry it and 
 our "swags" — blankets, guns, fishing tackle and 
 provisions. The latter, however, consisted only of 
 flour, tea, sugar, etc.; for we depended upon our 
 guns, fishing tackle and traps for most of our 
 food. It was what highly-refined people would 
 call "a gross existence," for when we were not 
 hunting or fishing we were eating or sleeping. 
 But it was a gloriously happy life nevertheless. 
 We learnt something of the ways and wonders of 
 Nature, and when night came to us after a day's 
 fishing or shooting, and we laid down upon our 
 blankets under the kindly light of myriad stars, 
 set in a dome of deepest blue, we were happy in- 
 deed, and slept the sleep of the just, looking for- 
 ward to the dawn and fresh adventures and 
 experiences.
 
 ETHNOGRAPHICAL
 
 XVIII 
 
 THE PALOLO WORM OF SAMOA 
 
 Nearly every chance visitor to the Samoan 
 Islands has heard of the palolo and of the extra- 
 ordinary excitement that ensues amongst the 
 natives when the worms make their expected annual 
 appearance upon the barrier reefs. Several per- 
 sons have written on the subject, some few correctly 
 enough from what they have actually seen, others 
 merely from hearsay. One writer described these 
 edible annelida as being "three feet in length, as 
 thick as a lead pencil, and much resembling an 
 European grass snake"; another, equally as well 
 informed, asserted that at a certain hour on a cer- 
 tain dav small balls of worms — each ball of a 
 different colour — shot up from the crevices of the 
 reef, and that after rolling and bobbing about for 
 a few minutes became disintegrated, and millions 
 upon millions of needle-like creatures covered the 
 surface of the water like a carpet of many colours. 
 The second description contained most fact, for, 
 although the palolo do not appear in balls and then 
 disintegrate, they certainly do cover the water like 
 
 a carpet, and can be scooped up in any vessel, 
 T 289
 
 290 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 one with a perforated bottom being the best, so as 
 to allow the water to drain through quickly. 
 
 For a long time it was supposed that these extra- 
 ordinary creatures were peculiar to certain islands 
 only in the South Pacific ; as a matter of fact, they 
 are widely distributed, but doubtless pre-eminence 
 was given to Samoa as being their favoured home 
 on account of the part they take in native life and 
 customs, the festivities indulged in during the brief 
 three days in which they swarm, and from many 
 ineradicable superstitions concerning them. As an 
 article of food the palolo takes first place in the 
 Samoan dietary. In the olden days savage and 
 bloody combats took place between neighbouring 
 clans through some infringement of the hard-and- 
 fast etiquette observed regarding the respective 
 areas of reef on which the fishing took place. 
 
 In Samoa the worm (Palolo viridis) usually pul- 
 lulates early in the dawn after the third quartering 
 of the moon in October, and generally the natives 
 can calculate the time to within an hour. On 
 meteorological and other conditions, however, 
 much depends. If in October the last quartering 
 of the moon is late, palolo will rise the day before, 
 the day of, and on the day after, that quarter. If, 
 however, the last quarter is early in October, it may 
 be depended upon with certainty that the worms 
 will not appear till the last quarter of the moon in 
 November.
 
 THE PALOLO WORM OF SAMOA 291 
 
 Some parts of the barrier reefs of the Samoan 
 group are more favoured than others as regards the 
 quantity and quahty of the much-prized anneHd. 
 The people of the Httle aristocratic island of Ma- 
 nono assured me that the palolo taken on their reefs 
 and on those of the lee end of the larger island of 
 Upolu surpassed in flavour any taken on the wind- 
 ward reefs of Upolu and Tutuila, and that the fact 
 was admitted throughout Samoa. If this is so, no 
 doubt it is owing to some peculiar qualities of the 
 coral in which they generate. The length, thick- 
 ness, and coloration are most varied — some are 
 mere threads, others as thick as whip-cord or a 
 good-sized porcupine quill, and when a heap of 
 them is pressed together ready for cooking they 
 present an anything but pleasant appearance. 
 Resident Europeans are, however, quite as fond of 
 them as the natives, and a friend of mine. Colonel 
 Steinberger, U.S.A., who was then military adviser 
 to the rebel party in Samoa, made himself quite ill 
 by indulging too heavily. He declared that the 
 preparation surpassed the best Russian caviare in 
 flavour. Personally, I loathed it, on account of the 
 unpleasant "headachy " smell of living coral which 
 emanated from it. Any one who has walked over 
 living coral at low tide after a hot sun has been 
 beating down upon it will understand the sickening 
 odour. 
 
 The middle day of the three is the one on which 
 
 T 2
 
 292 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 these creatures swarm most, when they can be lifted 
 out of the water in heavy masses. A few minutes 
 after sunrise the worms sink, and in ten minutes 
 not one will be visible. It is indeed a marine 
 phenomenon. So great a place has the palolo in 
 the estimation of the Samoans that July, which is 
 the first month of their half year, is called Palolo 
 mua, i. e. the first month of the half year of the 
 palolo. The word itself is compounded from pa, 
 to burst, and lolo, oily or fatty, for if a mass of 
 the worms is left in a heap exposed to the sun for 
 even a short time it rises and works like dough, and 
 oil exudes. 
 
 After its first baking, which is done in the usual 
 ground oven, small heaps of the w'orms being 
 wrapped in leaves, it can be kept for nearly a week 
 by rebaking, and gradually loses its disagreeable 
 smell — the which, however, the natives regard as 
 one of its charms. For some days after its first 
 appearances the people give themselves up to un- 
 restricted gluttony, and no work whatever is done, 
 no matter how important. 
 
 I have never seen these peculiar seaworms 
 "swarm " as they do at Samoa on any of the reefs 
 of the low-lying atoll islands of the Pacific, 
 although they may be found almost at any time of 
 the year by breaking in halves a piece of thick 
 living coral and carefully drawing the pieces apart, 
 when tiny red and blackish-green worms will be
 
 THE PALOLO WORM OF SAMOA 293 
 
 seen. The natives told me that occasionally small 
 patches of them would appear on the reefs during 
 November. It would seem that they favour the 
 barrier reefs of such lofty islands as Samoa, Fiji, 
 and other high lands further north. 
 
 Writing to the Governor of British New Guinea 
 last year, Mr. Moreton, the resident magistrate on 
 Woodlark Island, in the south-east division of the 
 possession, remarks: "In November 1905, I re- 
 ported that the fish or nereoid seaworm (Palolo 
 mridis) of Samoa and Fiji appears on the outside 
 beach of Vakuta Island, the most southern island 
 of the Trobriana Group, and for some fifteen miles 
 up the outside or eastern coast of the next island, 
 Kiriwina (Fergusson Island) ; they also appear at 
 the Amphlett Islands, some thirty miles further 
 south-west from the end of Vakuta, and also at 
 Sanaroa, Welle Island, some twenty miles from the 
 Amphletts. This worm is called at Vakuta ' Mila- 
 mala,' and appears at a certain stage of the moon 
 — during the last quarter of the October moon. 
 Their arrival or appearance happens only once a 
 year, and at exactly the same stage of the moon ; 
 a few appear the first day, and the next they are in 
 their thousands and can be scooped up with a 
 dish ; on the third day they are gone, not to appear 
 again until the next year. They are considered 
 a great luxury by the natives, but young people 
 are not allowed to eat them. Should they do
 
 294 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 so, they are not supposed ever to grow or get 
 fat." 
 
 In the Western Carolines I once saw a woman 
 bring in a small basketful of similar seaworms, and 
 begin washing them most carefully in fresh water, 
 then placing them on a leaf platter to dry in a 
 shady place, and I learned that they were used 
 to produce a jet black dye, with which the native 
 women dye their loin-belts of woven banana fibre.
 
 XIX 
 
 THE 'FISHING LIAR' AND HIS 
 VERIFICATION 
 
 FISHING-NETS OF SPIDERS' WEBS 
 
 Many years ago the writer was discussing with an 
 eminent German naturalist — the late Dr. J. S. 
 Kubary, of Ponape, in the Caroline Islands — the 
 habits and customs of some of the native tribes in 
 the Western Pacific Islands, and the extraordinar}^ 
 ingenuity they displayed in their manufactures. 
 At the time, the doctor and the writer were walking 
 along a narrow mountain-path leading to a native 
 village on the island of Ponap6. It was early 
 dawn, and every now and then our progress was 
 barred by spiders' webs stretching completely 
 across the path from branch to branch, and so 
 strong that we had to break them down with a 
 stout stick. I had never before seen webs of such 
 extraordinary strength and size, and of such won- 
 drously beautiful construction. My friend, how- 
 ever, assured me that they are nothing in com- 
 parison to what, he believed, were to be met with 
 
 295
 
 296 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 in Eastern New Guinea, in the vicinity of Astro- 
 labe Bay. He had, he told me, seen a published 
 statement or a letter (I forget which) from Baron 
 Maclay, a distinguished Russian naturalist, who 
 lived for many years among the cannibal tribes of 
 Astrolabe Bay, in which he affirmed that certain 
 mountaineer tribes used these spiders' webs for 
 catching fish in the mountain-streams. 
 
 Whether the Baron had actually seen the nets 
 or the operation Kubary did not know ; but that 
 Baron Maclay would never make such an assertion 
 without ample foundation he was certain. At the 
 same time, Kubary could not conceive how the 
 webs were utilized for fishing purposes. His one 
 theory, as he explained to me during our w'alk, was 
 that the natives, by some cunning contrivance, 
 were enabled to remove one of these gigantic webs 
 en hloc — perhaps by cutting away the branches of 
 the trees on which they were spread, and then 
 placing the entire w-eb across some narrow moun- 
 tain-stream, and driving the fish into it. "Some 
 day," he added, "Maclay's missing journals of his 
 discoveries and researches may be found, and we 
 shall get at the truth." 
 
 Baron Maclay, I must mention, died of fever in 
 New Guinea, and his extremely valuable ethno- 
 graphical collection, journals, etc., were never re- 
 covered — at least so far as the writer knows. His 
 wife was an Australian lady, a daughter of the
 
 THE 'FISHING LIAR' 297 
 
 well-knoAvn New South Wales premier, Sir Jolin 
 Robertson, who was one of my earliest friends. 
 
 Years after my meeting with Kubary, I one day 
 said to old Sir John that it was a great pity that 
 his son-in-law's scientific notes had been lost ; that 
 I for one, and Kubary for another, should like to 
 learn something about those wonderful fishing-nets 
 of spiders' webs. The old gentleman's eyes 
 twinkled as he stroked his long white beard. "My 
 boy, an ordinary Russian is always a good liar, 
 an educated one a better ; a scientist or a politician 
 must be as good as a Persian. Maclay, being a 
 Russian, and a very good fellow too, couldn't help 
 exercising his natural talent at the expense of a 
 German rival scientist. He was only taking a rise 
 out of the Dutchman." 
 
 Truth is stranger than fiction — how often we 
 hear and say it ! — and now after thirty years comes 
 an irresistible and undoubted confirmation of the 
 Baron's story in a book which is now before me. 
 It is entitled, Tivo Years among New Guinea 
 Cannibals: a Naturalist's Sojourn among the 
 Aborigines of Unexplored New Gtiinea, and is by 
 Mr. A. E. Pratt, Gill Memorialist, Royal Geogra- 
 phical Society. Mr. Pratt, accompanied by his 
 son, had most exciting adventures in New Guinea 
 during 1 901-3, and tells them in such a simple, 
 self-effacing manner that those who have been 
 similarly situated cannot withhold their admiration.
 
 298 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 The photographs taken by him are most excellent, 
 and I regret that those dealing with the especial 
 subject of this article cannot here be reproduced ; 
 for he gives us, on page 262, the picture of a 
 mountaineer native of New Guinea with his spider's 
 web net, and on page 268 a vivid photograph of 
 five of the mountain people engaged in fishing in 
 a pool with these nets. 
 
 Now, let me quote Mr. Pratt, and in quoting 
 him I can absolve Baron Maclay from the un- 
 deserved imputation accorded to him by Sir John 
 Robertson — 
 
 "One of the curiosities of Waley, and indeed one 
 of the greatest curiosities that I noted during my 
 stay in New Guinea, was the spider's web fishing- 
 net. In the forest at this point huge spiders' webs, 
 six feet in diameter, abounded. These are woven 
 in a large mesh, varying from one inch square at 
 the outside of the web to about one-eighth of an 
 inch at the centre. The web was most substantial, 
 and had great resisting power; a fact of which the 
 natives were not slow to avail themselves, for they 
 have pressed into the service of man this spider, 
 which is of about the size of a small hazel-nut, 
 with hairy, dark-brown legs, spreading to about 
 two inches. This diligent creature they have be- 
 guiled into weaving their fishing-nets. At the 
 place where the webs are thickest they set up long 
 bamboos bent over into a loop at the end. In a
 
 THE ' FISHING LIAR ' 299 
 
 very short time the spider weaves a web on this 
 most convenient frame, and the Papuan has his 
 fishing-net ready to his hand. He goes down to 
 the stream and uses it with great dexterity to catch 
 fish of about one pound weight, neither the water 
 nor the fish sufficing to break the mesh. The usual 
 practice is to stand on a rock in a backwater where 
 there is an eddy. There they watch for fish, and 
 then dexterously dip it up and throw it on to the 
 bank. Several men would set up bamboos so as 
 to have nets ready all together, and would then 
 arrange little fishing-parties. It seemed to me that 
 the substance of the web resisted water as readily 
 as a duck's back." 
 
 Dr. Kubary is dead ; but I can well imagine how 
 his eyes would have lighted up, and how he would 
 have clapped me on the shoulder with delight, had 
 he been spared to read this extract from Mr. 
 Pratt's volume. "Ah, mine dear friendt," he 
 would have exclaimed, "did I not tell you that 
 Maclay vas not delling a fairy dale aboud dose 
 spiders' fishing-nets ? "
 
 XX 
 
 ON THE WAYS OF SOME 
 TROPICAL BIRDS 
 
 Many years ago I was in charge of the "farthest 
 out" trading station on the island of New Britain. 
 My nearest European neighbour was twenty miles 
 distant, and we saw each other but seldom. Hav- 
 ing much spare time on my hands I devoted a 
 good deal of it to fishing and shooting, and learn- 
 ing all I could from the natives of the bird and 
 animal life of the district. Sometimes I would stay 
 a night at some mountain bush village of fairly 
 hospitable cannibals, and would frequently engage 
 one of them as a guide in my shooting excursions. 
 These "bushmen" would not, however, accompany 
 me anywhere out of their own strictly confined 
 territory, neither would the coastal people, among 
 whom I lived, venture with me inland beyond a 
 certain limit. 
 
 My neighbour was a German, and a lover of 
 
 Nature, so we had much in common to talk about 
 
 when we did meet. Unfortunately, although he 
 
 had been in New Britain for live years, he had not 
 
 300
 
 WAYS OF SOME TROPICAL BIRDS 301 
 
 succeeded in learning the language, except to a 
 limited extent. 
 
 One day, as we were walking along the beach 
 near Cape Luen, we saw some wild pigeons on 
 the edge of the water, drinking, and apparently 
 disporting themselves. My companion told me 
 that he had frequently observed the same thing — 
 not only pigeons, but cockatoos coming to the 
 beach and drinking salt water with a great zest. 
 
 But some weeks later I learnt the reason from a 
 native who was returning home with me to my 
 lonely trading station from a populous village 
 named Mutavat. As we were walking along the 
 beach of black sand, I was again surprised to see 
 numbers of wild pigeons standing at the margin 
 of, and drinking, the sea water. My native guide 
 told me that it was not at all uncommon : "This 
 is the time of the year for them to drink sea water. 
 They are now beginning to come down from the 
 mountains. Every day, for twenty or thirty days, 
 they drink a little salt water and wash themselves." 
 
 Why was it so, I asked ? All about that part of 
 New Britain were many running streams, and at 
 low tide fresh water could be seen bubbling up 
 from beneath the black sand of the beaches. 
 
 "It is for this," he answered, "their bodies are 
 now poor and covered with small, red lice. These 
 lice they get from the crowns of the betel-nut trees, 
 when they settle there to shelter from the hot sun.
 
 302 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 Then the pigeons drink the sea water, and the lice 
 fall out and die." 
 
 That he was correct I am certain, for I had not 
 only noticed these tiny pests on the bodies of 
 pigeons and cockatoos, but had seen them crawling 
 about the clusters of areca nuts brought to me for 
 sale by the natives. (The firm by whom I was 
 employed had at their head-quarters in Duke of 
 York Island a number of Solomon Island natives, 
 to whom betel-nut was a necessity, and I bought all 
 that I could.) 
 
 Another interesting feature in connection with 
 the habits of the wild pigeons of New Britain and 
 other islands of the North- West Pacific, is their 
 fondness for the small Chili-pepper berry. For 
 two or three months of the year the bird's flesh is 
 so pungent as to be quite uneatable — even by a 
 hot-curry-loving old Indian colonel. 
 
 ****** 
 
 The frigate-bird has been well described as the 
 Monarch of the Air, but he descends to very low- 
 down practices at times, and behaves in a very 
 undignified, but thoroughly piratical manner. At 
 Nassau, Palmerston's, Providence, and other atoll 
 islands of the South and North Pacific, I had the 
 time and a keen inclination to watch their habits, 
 especially of some birds which I kept in a state of 
 honourable captivity. 
 
 Some turtle came on shore to lay their eggs in
 
 WAYS OF SOME TROPICAL BIRDS 303 
 
 the sand of Palmerston Island. The ever-watchful 
 robber-crabs (the exploiters of the coconut) went 
 down in the night from their cosy retreats under 
 the roots of the ficus and pandanus trees, and, with 
 their terrible claws, dug up Mother Turtle's eggs, 
 and feasted thereon. 
 
 Then at daylight my native boat's crew and I 
 saw a curious sight. Seven frigate-birds swooped 
 down from the empyrean upon the gorged "rob- 
 bers " and the remainder of the uneaten tough- 
 skinned eggs. Several of them disdained to take 
 any of the eggs, but seized Birgus latro by his fat, 
 armoured and luscious tail, swept high in air 
 again, and then down came Birgus upon the sand, 
 minus his caudal appendage. 
 
 ****** 
 
 At Ujilong (Providence Lagoon, in the North- 
 Western Pacific) there were in 1870 only eighteen 
 natives left, out of a former population of 500 or 
 600 in 1850. These eighteen natives were dis- 
 covered in hiding by the notorious Captain Bully 
 Hayes— the alleged "South Sea Pirate." He 
 treated them most kindly, and told me (who after- 
 wards lived on Providence Island for six months) 
 some interesting facts concerning the remnants of 
 these poor people who had been smitten with small- 
 pox, communicated by some ship that had touched 
 there about 1856 to bury some of her crew. 
 
 Hayes told me — and I know it was true from my
 
 304 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 own subsequent experience — that vast flocks of 
 golden plover fed upon the sand flats of Providence 
 Lagoon at low tide, and that the few remaining 
 natives caught them in hundreds, in a very simple 
 manner, by spreading out upon the sand a certain 
 very small species of sand crab, which had been 
 allowed to slightly decay. The birds ate these 
 with such avidity that they became stupefied, and 
 were captured by hand with the greatest ease. But 
 the natives, before cooking them, carefully removed 
 every bit of viscera, and washed them thoroughly 
 in brackish water.
 
 XXI 
 
 VENOxMOUS SEA-SNAKES 
 
 Some years ago Sir James Hector, at a meeting 
 of the Philosophical Society of Wellington, New 
 Zealand, in exhibiting to the members some speci- 
 mens of hydridae (sea-serpents) surprised the mem- 
 bers by stating that there were no fewer than 
 seventy known species, which, without exception, 
 were fanged, and provided with glands secreting a 
 virulent poison. Sir James is undoubtedly the 
 highest authority on the subject, although other 
 savants have contested his statement that all these 
 hydridae are fanged and venomous, and a Dutch 
 medical man, long resident in Dutch New Guinea, 
 informed the writer that out of five or six of differ- 
 ent species, which he had captured and examined, 
 he had failed to discover poison sacs or glands, 
 although the fangs were pronounced. But un- 
 doubtedly Sir James Hector was correct, and since 
 the time of his lecture the number of the species of 
 these venomous sea-reptiles now known to science 
 has nearly reached one hundred, and it is a well- 
 u 305
 
 3o6 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 accepted fact that a bite from any one is fatal — the 
 most deadly of all being one of the commonest, 
 the yellow-bellied — Manava sama sama of the 
 Samoans — (Hydrus platurus). In this species the 
 tail is extremely prehensile, and enables it to make 
 its way to a ship's deck by working up a suspended 
 rope or the cable when at anchor. Nearly all the 
 others have a non-prehensile tail. 
 
 Before describing the species generally — from 
 personal knowledge derived from a long residence 
 in the North and South Pacific, and on the Austra- 
 lian coast — I may relate two instances in which I 
 witnessed fatal results attending bites from sea- 
 snakes. 
 
 In mooring ship in Singavi Harbour, Fotuna 
 (South Pacific), I was sent to take a stern mooring- 
 line to a rock in the middle of the little port. With 
 my boat's crew came several merry Fotuna boys, 
 for amusement. One of them, about nine or ten 
 years of age, sprang out of the boat, and fell on his 
 hands and knees on the rock, arousing a large black 
 and yellow and white-banded snake, which had 
 been sunning itself. The reptile bit him on the 
 thumb, near the wrist, causing the blood to flow 
 from two lines of tiny punctures. Twenty minutes 
 later he was seized with agonizing convulsions and 
 died a few hours afterwards. f 
 
 The second instance was that of a stalwart young 
 native seaman, belonging to a pearling lugger,
 
 VENOMOUS SEA-SNAKES 307 
 
 who was diving for clam shells in Torres Straits. 
 A small slender snake (yellow-bellied) suddenly- 
 shot up from below within a few inches of his face. 
 He struck at it, and in an instant the reptile coiled 
 itself round his forearm, and bit him on his fore- 
 finger. Convulsions quickly followed, and al- 
 though the finger was amputated an hour later, 
 death ensued from tetanus within forty-eight hours. 
 
 Generally, however, death from the bite of a sea- 
 snake follows as quickly as from that of the most 
 deadly land-snake — such as the cobra, green mam- 
 bre, or Australian death adder, though in the latter 
 instances there can be no doubt that the length of 
 the poison fangs, and their depth of penetration, is 
 the primary cause of the victim so soon succumbing, 
 the virus being so deeply injected that, unless the 
 bitten place is in a situation which favours im- 
 mediate amputation, no hope can be entertained 
 of recovery. 
 
 During a residence in the Caroline Islands a mis- 
 sionary (Mr. Snow) of the Boston Board of Mis- 
 sions, told me of several cases of death from sea- 
 snake bite, related to him by the natives of the 
 Marshall and Caroline Groups. In one instance a 
 woman, whilst walking along the reef at low water, 
 disturbed a snake which was apparently asleep, and 
 sunning itself upon a dry ledge of coral rock. In 
 trying to avoid passing near it she trod upon a 
 
 sharp shell, which inflicted a severe cut, and she 
 u 2
 
 3o8 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 fell almost upon the snake, which, as it glided 
 away, not only bit her on the hand, but coiling 
 itself around her right forearm, buried its needle- 
 like teeth into her left. From the shore she was 
 seen, and people hurried to her assistance, but 
 although she managed to reach the beach, she died 
 in strong convulsions an hour or two afterwards. 
 This snake was one of the flat-headed species, of a 
 mottled dull black and yellow colour, and was four 
 feet in length. 
 
 At Ailuk Lagoon, in the Marshall Islands, Mr. 
 Snow was told of two little native girls, who, in 
 company with many other children, were one night 
 cray-fishing on the reef. A small, slender sea- 
 snake coiled itself around the leg of one child. 
 With a cry of horror she seized it by the tail, and 
 tried to unwind its coils, and was bitten on the 
 back of the thumb ; her companion, coming to her 
 rescue, was also bitten on some part of her hand, 
 and in less than two hours both poor children died, 
 after excruciating agonies, followed by coma. Im- 
 mediately after death there was a peculiar contrac- 
 tion of the muscles. The fingers were tightly 
 clenched, the feet curved, and the jaws set as in 
 tetanus. 
 
 Som.e of these snakes attain a considerable size. 
 In Australian museums specimens of eight feet in 
 length may be seen; and beche-de-mer fishers on 
 the Great Barrier Reef have killed many of ten
 
 VENOMOUS SEA-SNAKES 309 
 
 feet. These latter were of a kind much akin to a 
 land-snake, and, indeed, is frequently found on the 
 land, especially after storms, when it is washed up 
 on the beaches where for many hours it will lie in 
 a comatose state. It can then be secured without 
 danger. The head is flatted, and the belly has 
 transverse plates similar to a land-snake. It has a 
 great variety of coloration and markings. 
 
 The seas about New Caledonia literally swarm 
 with these dangerous creatures, and the Canaques 
 fear them greatly. The natives of the Paumotu 
 Group, where there are at least a dozen species, 
 told me that although the sea-snake may be seen 
 catching fish in the day time, it is a nocturnal 
 feeder, and when the canoes are engaged in flying- 
 fish catching, by torches, they have often seen a 
 sea-snake dart up from beneath a dazed flying-fish, 
 seize it by the throat or belly, and disappear. A 
 snake under three feet in length can, they say, 
 easily swallow a stout flying-fish eight to ten inches 
 in length. That this is true I have no doubt, for 
 during a two years' residence in the Ellice Group I 
 frequently went out with the canoes at night, catch- 
 ing flying-fish. When, at a given signal, the 
 torches of coconut leaf would flash out and illumine 
 the calm surface of the ocean, and the dazed flying- 
 fish were revealed, one was certain to see scores of 
 sea-snakes swimming about in all directions — not 
 on, but under the surface, and generally keeping a
 
 310 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 semi-vertical position. On one occasion, when the 
 native in the bow swept up three or four large 
 flying-fish in his scoop net, and dropped them into 
 the canoe, he also brought in a long, thin orange 
 and black-banded snake, which at once succeeded 
 in concealing itself amongst the fishing cordage 
 lying on the bottom. So alarmed were my com- 
 panions that we at once returned to the beach, 
 turned the canoe over on the sand, and despatched 
 the enemy with a paddle. Our "take" was then 
 thrown away, although, of course, no possible harm 
 could have resulted to any one from eating a fish 
 that had been bitten by a sea-snake. My native 
 friends, however, thought otherwise, and I, of 
 course, would not contest their arguments. But 
 when I asked if I could not keep the flying-fish for 
 bait, they said, "Yes, if you like, but who will eat 
 the fish you catch ? " 
 
 In conclusion I may mention that that eminent 
 and ill-fated German savant, the late Dr. J. S. 
 Kubary, who has so enriched science by his labours 
 in the Caroline and Marshall Archipelagoes, was 
 one day asked by an English trading skipper what 
 would be "the best thing to get for it," if one were 
 bitten by the olive-backed and yellow-spotted sea- 
 snake, common to the Caroline Islands and 
 Micronesia generally. 
 
 "Your revolver," was the laconic reply.
 
 XXII 
 SUBMARINE DESERTS 
 
 Professor Alexander Agassiz has reported 
 that he has discovered an unknown submarine 
 desert, "3000 miles long, by 1200 miles wide, in 
 the Eastern Pacific, between the Galapagos Islands 
 and Easter Island." 
 
 That portion of the Pacific, from the Galapagos 
 — through which the equator passes on the one side 
 — to Easter Island, the barren rocks of Sala-y- 
 Gomez, Pitcairn, and Ducie Islands on the other, 
 has long been known as a sea unusually barren of 
 life, either on the surface or below. Sea birds, 
 though they abound on Pitcairn, Oeno and Ducie 
 Islands, and the Galapagos, are rarely seen in the 
 wide area between the equator and the tropic of 
 Capricorn, and from Pitcairn Island to Juan Fer- 
 nandez. Some times one may see, high in air, 
 above this desolate sea, the wide-spread wings of 
 a frigate bird, sweeping towards land that may be 
 a thousand miles away, but the ocean itself seems 
 devoid of life. 
 
 I well remember making a passage in a small 
 
 311
 
 312 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 schooner from Easter Island to Manga Reva in the 
 Gambier Group. Midway between Easter Island 
 and Pitcairn Island we met with what our American 
 captain described as a "blazing, furious calm." 
 For six days we lay baking under a torrid sun with 
 the pitch bubbling up in the deck seams, and 
 during that time we did not see a single living 
 thing of any kind— either bird, fish, or any of those 
 floating minor organisms usually met with when a 
 ship is becalmed in tropic seas. When we left 
 Easter Island we had been attended by several 
 pilot fish, which kept with us for four or five days. 
 Then, as the wind died away, they left us— a most 
 unusual thing, for as a rule these beautiful crea- 
 tures will attend a ship for many days— even weeks. 
 Evidently they knew that there was no food for 
 them in this desert part of the ocean, and so de- 
 clined to keep us company any further. 
 
 I have knowledge of two of these barren ocean 
 patches in the South Pacific. One is off the island 
 of Eua in the Tongan Archipelago, the other at 
 Nine (Savage Island), three hundred miles to the 
 eastward. One day, I, accompanied by a native 
 lad, was pigeon shooting on Eua, and stopped to 
 rest and lunch on the summit of the north-eastern 
 cliffs, which here start sheer up from the sea four 
 hundred feet below. My companion, although he 
 had undergone two years' tuition in the Wesleyan 
 College at Nukualofa (the capital of Tonga) in
 
 SUBMARINE DESERTS 313 
 
 view of his being turned into a "minister," was 
 still a highly intelligent and active lad, and had 
 not yet acquired the smug, Chadband-like expres- 
 sion of supreme piety and godliness that invariably 
 impresses itself upon the countenance of young 
 Tongans and Fijians destined to be parsons or 
 policemen. (To be a parson or a policeman is 
 the raison d'etre of the average Tongan or Fijian 
 youth — just as it is with the Jamaica nigger. To 
 avoid manual toil and to obtain authority, spiritual 
 or physical, over his fellows, is his delight and 
 his Parnassus. If he cannot, as a policeman, 
 club or blackmail the godless person who smokes 
 on Sundays, and hale him to prison, he, as a 
 parson, can, from the pulpit, condemn him to 
 torments eternal.) 
 
 Jaojai (George), however, was, unlike most 
 Tongans, an unassuming, good-natured young 
 fellow, an excellent shot, and, like myself, de- 
 votedly fond of deep-sea fishing. He had formerly 
 been employed on Messrs. Parker's sheep station 
 on Eua, and had learned to speak very good Eng- 
 lish. He showed me the written "character" he 
 had received; it was rather amusing : "Jaojai Kubu 
 has been in our employment as a shepherd for 
 three years, and has behaved well. He is neither 
 a thief nor a liar; is — for a Tongan — industrious 
 and moral, and we regret that he is now going 
 to the bad" {i.e. becoming a divinity student).
 
 314 'NEATH AUSTRAL SKIES 
 
 "Jaojai," I said, as we looked down at the smooth 
 blue sea, "the water is very deep here, the cliffs 
 come straight up from the sea. It should be a 
 good place for big fish." 
 
 "No indeed. It is no good at all. There is 
 nothing lives there; it is oge (literally, "hungry — 
 foodless"). You might fish all day, either close 
 into the clififs, or for half a league away from 
 them, and catch nothing except a few small rock 
 cod." 
 
 "Why is it so?" 
 
 " Because there is nothing there for the fish to 
 eat — no growing coral, no seaweed. It is because 
 of the strong current, I think, which sweeps 
 through the straits between this island and Tonga- 
 tabu, and then curves around this point. The 
 bottom is of hard, fiat rock, with here and there 
 great piles of smooth white stones. When there is 
 no wind you can look dow^n for twenty fathoms 
 and see the bottom and the stones, but naught else. 
 There are other places like it in Tonga, between 
 Kao and Tofoa, where fish cannot live. But there 
 it is oge because of the volcano, which sometimes 
 causes the sea to boil, and the water is poisoned 
 with sulphur and ashes from the great eruption 
 long since." 
 
 A day or so later I took a boat and sailed round 
 opposite to the cliffs, and anchored in fifty fathoms. 
 For an hour I fished without getting a bite, then
 
 SUBMARINE DESERTS 3^5 
 
 went in close under the grim cliffs, and with a 
 water glass examined the bottom at a depth of about 
 twelve fathoms ; I could see nothing alive — not even 
 a crab. 
 
 Sailing round the weather side of the island I 
 brought to again o& the south point, and here in 
 less than an hour, my crew of four and myself 
 caught several hundredweight of fine fish, princi- 
 pally great red rock cod, and a fish like the New- 
 Zealand "yellow tail." 
 
 The barren patch at Savage Island lies off a 
 point between the villages of Alofi and Avatela. 
 It is about five miles in circumference, and devoid 
 of life, the bottom covered with huge white 
 boulders, and not a living bit of coral to be 
 seen. There is another — and much more exten- 
 sive — sea desert near the volcanic island of 
 Ambrym in the New^ Hebrides; and a fourth be- 
 tween the islands of Manua and Tutuila in the 
 Samoan Group. This latter place is a patch of 
 rock, sixty fathoms below the surface, and of about 
 a mile in circumference. I discovered its existence 
 in 1875, during a calm by sounding, and at once 
 began to fish. In two hours I was satisfied it was 
 also oge. Almost anywhere else in the South 
 Pacific thousands of fish would frequent such a 
 comparatively shallow spot, and eagerly take the 
 hook.
 
 Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, 
 
 bread street hill, e.g., and 
 
 bungay, suffolk.
 
 THE GRAVEN IMAGE 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. C0UL50N KERNAHAN 
 
 PRICE SIX SHILLINGS 
 
 PRESS OPINIONS 
 
 "A thrilling tale." — Morning Post. 
 
 "The incidents in this briskly told tale grip the attention ; it has 
 vividness and strength. A frankly melodramatic story can deserve no 
 higher praise. Mrs. Kernahan tells a tale with unmistakable skill." — 
 Athenceum. 
 
 " Excitement is the keynote of the book from beginning to end. 
 The story is well told ; improbable incidents are developed with a 
 skill which makes them seem possible, and the book will not willingly 
 be laid down until the last page is turned." — World. 
 
 "There are no loose ends in 'The Graven Image,' by Mrs. 
 Coulson Kernahan. Incident is followed by incident with the utmost 
 neatness, and no thread of narrative is dropped. Lovers of dramatic 
 fiction will appreciate this book." — Manchester Courier. 
 
 "This is a novel that will hold the attention with thrilling adven- 
 tures, gently leavened with an interesting love-story. The plot never 
 lags, but unfolds itself quickly as it follows the career of Wilfred 
 Hilcraft, a master criminal." — Sheffield Daily Telegraph. 
 
 "Plenty oi thrills here — from the moment when the plain but 
 courageous Miss Heath arrives at the mysterious Crag House till the 
 lime when its villainous owner dies a horrible death. The secret is 
 well kept, and the whole series of sensations cleverly put together." — 
 Dailv Mirror.
 
 THOU SHALT NOT 
 
 BY 
 
 NEWMAN HARDING 
 
 PRICE SIX SHILLINGS 
 
 PRESS OPINIONS 
 
 " Conceived in a spirit of Zolaesque realism." — Times. 
 
 "Mr. Newman Harding is a new-comer. His 'Thou Shalt 
 Not ' is almost alarming in its power. He writes directly and 
 ruthlessly of the human passions of peasant folk and fisher folk. 
 He gives us some scenes which are most daring, but he handles 
 them with consummate skill. In this book there is a world ot 
 poignant anguish. Who can forget the agony of Jess? Or the 
 wonderful love of Liz for Steve ? Or that weird chapter headed 
 ' The Christ that Mother Believes ' 1 Mr. Harding has made a 
 notable contribution to the fiction of the hour. Since the days 
 when Thomas Hardy awakened England to the possibilities of 
 rustic passion no such novel as ' Thou Shalt Not' has come 
 into our hands." — Liverpool Post. 
 
 " This virile, gripping, and undoubtedly clever record of how 
 one man came near to spoiling five lives has in it the elements 
 of an epic. . . . For a first novel it holds out great promise." — 
 Yorkshire Observer.
 
 PRESS OPINIONS {Continued) 
 
 " On dipping into the volume, one's attention is at once 
 arrested by the vigorous, flowing style of the author. He goes 
 straight to the point, does not beat about the bush, but in plain 
 language calls a spade a spade. His first chapter is a striking 
 one, and the episodes of rural life into which we are introduced, 
 in varying phases, carry the reader along and sustain interest to 
 the end. It is in every sense of the word a realistic novel, 
 original in conception, daring in character, and skilful in 
 workmanship, and leads us to infer that the publisher's high 
 estimate of this new author is not misplaced." — Torquay Times. 
 
 " A book that bears the mark of a genius is ]\Ir. Newman 
 Harding's story of the primitive passions of a primitive people. 
 It opens dramatically with a fine scene between Silas Coles, 
 Jess (the girl who has jilted him), and Bob Doyle, the man she 
 has married. The interview takes place on the night of the 
 wedding-day, and has in it enough of force and passion to hold 
 the reader entranced. The book is clever and original." — 
 The Throne. 
 
 " The book is powerfully written, and the author has made a 
 study of ' love ' to considerable purpose. The reader will not 
 fail to be interested and moved by the force and the occasional 
 pathos and beauty which the book contains. There can be no 
 doubt that the author deserves some of his publisher's praise, 
 and that his future is full of promise." — Daily Telegraph.
 
 IMPORTANT NEW NOVEL 
 
 PINK PURITY 
 
 BY 
 
 GERTIE DE 5. WENTWORTH-JAMES 
 
 PRICE SIX SHILLIINQS 
 
 WHAT THE PRESS THINKS OF 
 GERTIE DE S. WENTWORTH-JAMES 
 
 "Full of shrewdness and insight. . . . Sufficient power and 
 romantic feeling to thrill the reader. Mrs. Wentworth-James has 
 good ideas and a lively way of expressing them." — Morning Post. 
 
 "... Enough spirit and vivacity ... to retain the interest from 
 start to finish . . . alertly up to date." — Daily Telegraph. 
 
 "... Clear perceptions and marked creative gifts. . . . She has 
 within her the seeds of greatness. ... A writer who so clearly 
 possesses the gift of seeing that which is in front of her." — Clarion. 
 
 "Mrs. Gertie de S. Wentworth-James is always very happy in 
 the construction of her plots . . . she is markedly original. Mrs. 
 G. de S. Wentworth-James, in her own particular line — which is a 
 particularly delightful line — is unrivalled." — Madame. 
 
 "... Very ingenious. . . . Undoubtedly Mrs. Wentworth-James 
 has the knack of plot-making." — Sunday Times, 
 
 J
 
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