I
At Goboto the traders come off their schooners and the planters drift
in from far, wild coasts, and one and all they assume shoes, white
duck trousers, and various other appearances of civilisation. At
Goboto mail is received, bills are paid, and newspapers, rarely more
than five weeks old, are accessible; for the little island, belted
with its coral reefs, affords safe anchorage, is the steamer port of
call, and serves as the distributing point for the whole
wide-scattered group.
Life at Goboto is heated, unhealthy, and lurid, and for its size it
asserts the distinction of more cases of acute alcoholism than any
other spot in the world. Guvutu, over in the Solomons, claims that
it drinks between drinks. Goboto does not deny this. It merely
states, in passing, that in the Goboton chronology no such interval
of time is known. It also points out its import statistics, which
show a far larger per capita consumption of spirituous liquors.
Guvutu explains this on the basis that Goboto does a larger business
and has more visitors. Goboto retorts that its resident population
is smaller and that its visitors are thirstier. And the discussion
goes on interminably, principally because of the fact that the
disputants do not live long enough to settle it.
Goboto is not large. The island is only a quarter of a mile in
diameter, and on it are situated an admiralty coal-shed (where a few
tons of coal have lain untouched for twenty years), the barracks for
a handful of black labourers, a big store and warehouse with
sheet-iron roofs, and a bungalow inhabited by the manager and his two
clerks. They are the white population. An average of one man out of
the three is always to be found down with fever. The job at Goboto
is a hard one. It is the policy of the company to treat its patrons
well, as invading companies have found out, and it is the task of the
manager and clerks to do the treating. Throughout the year traders
and recruiters arrive from far, dry cruises, and planters from
equally distant and dry shores, bringing with them magnificent
thirsts. Goboto is the Mecca of sprees, and when they have spreed
they go back to their schooners and plantations to recuperate.
Some of the less hardy require as much as six months between visits.
But for the manager and his assistants there are no such intervals.
They are on the spot, and week by week, blown in by monsoon or
southeast trade, the schooners come to anchor, cargoed with copra,
ivory nuts, pearl-shell, hawksbill turtle, and thirst.
It is a very hard job at Goboto. That is why the pay is twice that
on other stations, and that is why the company selects only
courageous and intrepid men for this particular station. They last
no more than a year or so, when the wreckage of them is shipped back
to Australia, or the remains of them are buried in the sand across on
the windward side of the islet. Johnny Bassett, almost the legendary
hero of Goboto, broke all records. He was a remittance man with a
remarkable constitution, and he lasted seven years. His dying
request was duly observed by his clerks, who pickled him in a cask of
trade-rum (paid for out of their own salaries) and shipped him back
to his people in England.
Nevertheless, at Goboto, they tried to be gentlemen. For that
matter, though something was wrong with them, they were gentlemen,
and had been gentlemen. That was why the great unwritten rule of
Goboto was that visitors should put on pants and shoes.
Breech-clouts, lava-lavas, and bare legs were not tolerated. When
Captain Jensen, the wildest of the Blackbirders though descended from
old New York Knickerbocker stock, surged in, clad in loin-cloth,
undershirt, two belted revolvers and a sheath-knife, he was stopped
at the beach. This was in the days of Johnny Bassett, ever a
stickler in matters of etiquette. Captain Jensen stood up in the
sternsheets of his whaleboat and denied the existence of pants on his
schooner. Also, he affirmed his intention of coming ashore. They of
Goboto nursed him back to health from a bullet-hole through his
shoulder, and in addition handsomely begged his pardon, for no pants
had they found on his schooner. And finally, on the first day he sat
up, Johnny Bassett kindly but firmly assisted his guest into a pair
of pants of his own. This was the great precedent. In all the
succeeding years it had never been violated. White men and pants
were undivorceable. Only niggers ran naked. Pants constituted caste.