The family of the Buccaneer in time increased to such an extent that it
began to overflow the narrow limits of his island home. His sons
therefore carried their zeal and energy and their manners and customs to
unknown countries. Under their hands forests disappeared, lands became
cultivated, and the aborigines changed their habits or cleared out. It
was no business of the young chips of this ancient block, that the soil
had already its owners, if not its tillers. If these people did not like
the new order of things, they had an alternative. Of course the young
chips would commit no act of flagrant injustice, for such would have
been against the teachings of their parent's Book, but it was generally
noticed that where they went they staid; and that they succeeded in the
long run in clearing the land of all rubbish, using for this purpose the
toes of their boots as well as their hands. Should the aborigines elect
to stay, they could; but then they were made clearly to understand that
they must live respectable lives. If they had anything to sell the
Buccaneers bought, putting upon the articles their own price, for it
could not be expected that the simple children of the soil could know
the value of things. They generally gave about half of what was asked,
and when the natives, to correct this, put on, to begin with, double the
price they intended to take, the Buccaneers were horrified at such
innate depravity, which could, as they thought, only come direct from
the devil himself. The antidote was their Book. This they immediately
presented to these vicious, ignorant, and immoral people, with many of
the pages turned down for reference.
Wherever the Buccaneer's sons went they always took a cargo of their
intoxicating drinks. These they sold to the gentle savage who showed his
readiness to be civilized by getting as drunk as he could, as often as
he could, thereby manifesting again his shocking depravity. The
Buccaneer at home, when he heard of all this, turned up his eyes to
heaven in pious horror, and immediately sent out a cargo of missionaries
to counteract the evil effects of his cargoes of drink. These good
people wrestled with the devil; prayed for the savages and preached to
them, gave them more Bibles and explained it to them; told them to fear
God; to shun the devil and all his works; begged them to give up their
wicked ways and to lead new lives; to be honest and just in all their
dealings; not to be extortionists; not to seek after riches, for that
heaven was for the poor. Begged them to do unto others as they would be
done by. In the meantime the Buccaneer's sons gave a practical
illustration of this beautiful doctrine by selling strong drink and
other merchandise at double and treble their value.
These missionaries were godly, self-sacrificing men, but their teachings
to the untutored mind must have sounded strange, supplemented as it was
by the actions of the Buccaneer's traders. Then again, they found that
rival sects, although they professed to follow the same great Master,
preached rival doctrines, and hated each other with a peculiar fervour.
At one time they painted God as the God of love, at another time they
implanted fear and horror in the heart by depicting Him as a revengeful
and malicious demon, full of the worst of human failings. They taught
these simple savages that life was a kind of tight rope, along which
they had to walk; holding in their hands the balancing pole of religion.
If they slipped, which likely as not they would, then there was God's
rival underneath ready with his net to catch them, and to throw them
into a fire that is never quenched.
It could not be expected that the ignorant savage would understand, all
at once, the many nice distinctions of modern civilization. No doubt it
must have seemed strange to him that the Buccaneer, in the face of what
he preached, seldom went away empty-handed--taking indeed at times a
goodly patch of land, just by way of recompense; for it was generally
found, that, wherever his sons placed their feet, some of the soil
always stuck to the soles of them.
Thus were the first seeds of civilization sown; but other and better
things were to follow. The nakedness of the savage had to be clothed,
and the long black coat and tall hat of respectability had to be
introduced. The result of all this was not far to find. It was a natural
consequence; for where the Buccaneer found simple human beings,
worshipping God after their own way, dark if you like, but at least
honest, he frequently left an accomplished lot of hypocrites, drunkards,
liars, thieves and rascals generally, who having cast off the few rags
of virtue which their own benighted religion had clothed them in, had
put on a garment made up of most of the vices of civilization, and only
stitched together with the thinnest threads of Christian virtues, which
threads were liable to snap at any time. Of course this was not the
fault of the Buccaneer's sons. It was entirely due to the wretched soil
they had to work upon; you cannot grow figs on thistles, nor can you
make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
What is civilization, do you ask? It is a veneer, sometimes thick and
sometimes thin, which is thrown over human nature by culture and what
not. From under this cloak the old Adam will from time to time peep out
and take a good look round. Did he not peep out to some purpose amongst
one of the Buccaneer's neighbours, and playing the part of Cain did he
not draw his knife, called the guillotine, across many a brother's
throat, kicking them unshriven into eternity? It is right to give every
one their due, and it must be owned that the Buccaneer's footsteps were
not always written in dust. He often found a people at war amongst
themselves, and tearing each other to pieces. These he brought under
subjection and gave them law and order, and if he could have kept his
sons from selling strong liquors to them, and teaching them some of the
pernicious principles of trade, he would have done very much good, but
with his Book he took his bottle, and the latter was more readily
received than the former.
It sometimes so happened that the ignorance of the heathen was so great,
and their minds so clouded by prejudice, that they misunderstood
altogether the nature of the missionary. Experience had taught them that
the Buccaneer's Bible was generally the harbinger of the Buccaneer's
sword, which he cleared the way for the Buccaneer's man of business,
who, it was found, generally got the advantage in any bargain that was
made. What wonder then, if the simple children of nature, the gentle
savage, mistook food that was meant for the mind, as food meant for the
body, and consumed the missionary instead of his teachings? This is an
expensive way of converting a people, but it might be expected that a
devoured missionary would not be without its effect upon the consumer.
The disposition is naturally affected by the state of the body, the
latter by the food that is taken in to nourish it. A violent fit of
indigestion might bring on a deep remorse, and then the body would be in
a proper state to receive the good seed, which taking root in the heart
of one man even, might spring up and spread amongst a whole people.
There is consolation here for those who have lost a friend or relation
in the above manner.
By the simple methods thus related the Buccaneer managed to get an
outlet for his surplus population, and he then increased his dominions,
until it was his boast that the sun never set upon them. There was not a
clime too inhospitable for him. He conquered not only the people but
every natural disadvantage. His sons too travelled into every land as
the bearers of the veneer called civilization. Their footprints could be
traced upon the desert sands of Arabia. The ring of their rifles was to
be heard in the remotest parts of India; on the wild prairies of
America, and on the untrodden plains of Africa. They loved to beard the
lion and the tiger in their native lairs; to shoot the alligator on the
banks of the Nile, and the wild goats high up on the slopes of the vast
snow-capped Himalayas. This to them was a pleasurable recreation, while
for pastime they loved to climb the highest ice-bound peaks, and the
mangled corpse of some adventurous comrade lying at the foot of some
precipice in no way damped their ardour. They recovered the body, sang a
pean in praise of his temerity, gently placed him in the tomb of
oblivion, where so many good people lie, and then commenced their
dangerous climb. They were a brave and adventurous lot were the sons of
this bold Buccaneer.