At the time of my story (except for the adventurous American whalemen

from Nantucket and New Bedford, and the sandal-wood cutters from New

South Wales, who sometimes touched there) white men were unknown to

the people of New Britain. Sometimes when the sperm-whaling fleet was

cruising northwards and westward to the Moluccas, a ship would sail

along the coast in the daytime, but always anchored at night, for it

was dreaded for the many dangerous reefs that surround it. And once the

anchor was down a strict watch was kept on board, for the natives were

known to be fierce and treacherous.

Between where is now the German settlement and the great native town at

Kabaira Bay there is an island called Mano, which stands five miles

off from the mainland. Early one morning, when the wild people of the

villages among the palm-groves which lined the long winding beach came

out of their thatched huts for their morning bathe they gave a great

cry, for a large full-rigged ship was standing in close under the lee of

Mano, and clewing up her sails before she came to an anchor.

Now the natives who lived on the mainland of New Britain were the

hereditary enemies of those who dwelt on Mano Island, and it was hateful

for them to see a ship anchor there, for then the Mano Islanders would

get axes and muskets and hoop-iron.

So, with Baringa, the chief, at their head, they all ran to the summit

of a high, grassy hill (known, by reason of a terrible deed once done

there in the olden times, as the Hill of Old Men's Groans), and sat down

to watch if the ship would send her boats ashore.

'Look!' said Baringa, fiercely, striking the ground with his heavy

jade-headed club, 'look, I see a boat putting out from the side. Who

among ye will come with me to the ship, so that I may sell my turtle

shell and pearl shell to the captain for muskets and powder and bullets?

Are these dogs of Mano to get such things from the ship, and then come

over here at night and slay and then cook us in their ovens? Hungry am I

for revenge; for 'tis now twelve moons since they stole my son from me,

and not one life have I had in return for his.'

But no one answered. Of what use was it, they thought, for Baringa to

think of his little son? He was but a boy after all, and had long since

gone down the throats of the men of Mano. Besides, the Mano people were

very strong and already had many guns.

So for an hour Baringa sat and chafed and watched; and then suddenly

he and those with him sprang up, for a sound like thunder came over to

them, and a cloud of white smoke curled up from the ship's side; she had

fired one of her big guns. Presently Baringa and his people saw that the

boat which had gone ashore was pulling back fast, and that some of the

crew who were sitting in the stern were firing their muskets at the Mano

people, who were pursuing the boat in six canoes. Twice again the ship

fired a big gun, and then the boat was safe, for the two twenty-four

pounders, loaded with grape-shot, smashed two of them to pieces when

they were less than a hundred yards from the ship.

Baringa shouted with savage joy. 'Come,' he cried, 'let us hasten to the

beach, and get quickly to the ship in our canoes; for now that the white

men have fought with these Mano dogs, the ship will come here to us and

anchor; for I, Baringa, am known to many white men.'

* * * * *

The name of the ship was the _Boadicea_. She was of about seven hundred

tons, and was bound to China from Port Jackson, but for four months had

remained among the islands of the New Hebrides group, where the crew had

been cutting sandal-wood, which in those days was very plentiful there.

Her captain, who was a very skilful navigator, instead of going through

Torres Straits, had sailed between New Ireland and New Britain, so that

he might learn the truth of some tales he had heard about the richness

of those islands in sandal-wood and pearl shell. So he had cruised

slowly along till he sighted Mano Island, and here he decided to water

the ship; for from the deck was visible a fine stream of water, running

from the forest-clad mountains down to the white sands of the quiet

beach.

As soon as possible a boat was lowered and manned and armed; for

although he could not see a native anywhere on the beach, nor any signs

of human occupation elsewhere on the island, the captain was a very

cautious man. A little further back from the beach was a very dense

grove of coco-nut trees laden with fruit, and at these the crew of the

Boadicea looked with longing eyes.

'We must water the ship first, my lads,' said Captain Williams, 'and

then we'll spend the rest of the day among the coco-nut trees, and fill

our boats with them.'

Just then as the bronze-faced captain was ascending to the poop from his

cabin; a small barefooted boy came aft, and, touching his hat, said,--

'Av ye plaze, sor, won't ye let me go in the boat, sor?'

'Why, Maurice, my boy, there's quite enough of us going in her as it

is,' said the captain, kindly, for the dirty-faced but bright-eyed

Maurice Kinane was a favourite with everyone on board.

'Ah, but shure, sor,' pleaded the boy, 'av yer honour would just let me

go, av it was only to pluck a blade av the foine green grass, and lave

me face in the swate clane wather I'll be beholden--'

'Well, well, my lad, jump in then,' said Captain Williams, with a smile,

and buckling his cutlass belt around his waist he sent the lad down the

ladder before him and the boat pushed off.

* * * * *

Ten months before, this poor Irish lad, who was but thirteen years of

age, had lost both his parents through the upsetting of a boat in Sydney

Harbour. His father was a sergeant in the 77th Regiment, and had only

arrived in the colony a few months previous to the accident, and the

boy was left without a relative in the world. But the captain of his

father's company and the other officers of the regiment were very kind

to him, and the colonel said he would get him enlisted as a drummer.

And so for a time Maurice lived in the barracks under the care of

Sergeant MacDougall, a crusty old warrior, who proved a hard master and

made the boy's life anything but a happy one. And Maurice, though he

was proud of the colonel's kind words and of serving with the regiment,

fretted greatly at the harsh manner of the old sergeant.

One morning he was reported as missing. Little did those who looked for

him all the next day think that the boy was far out at sea, for he had

stowed away on board the _Boadicea_; and although Captain Williams was

very angry with him when he was discovered and led aft, the lad's genial

temper and bright, honest face soon won him over, as, indeed, it did

everyone else on board.

For nearly an hour after the boat had landed at the mouth of the little

stream the seamen were busily-engaged in filling the water casks. Not a

sign of a native could be seen, and then, regardful of the longing looks

that the sailors cast at the grove of coco-nuts, the captain, taking

with him Maurice and four hands, set out along the beach for the purpose

of gathering a few score of the young nuts to give to his men to drink.

One of the four seamen was a Kanaka named 'Tommy Sandwich.' He was a

native of Sandwich or Vaté Island in the New Hebrides. In a very short

time this man had ascended a lofty palm-tree, and was throwing down the

coco-nuts to the others, who for some minutes were busily engaged tying

them together to carry them to the boat.

'That will do, Tommy,' cried the captain, presently. 'Come down now and

help the others to carry.' He did not see that Maurice, boy-like

and adventurous, had managed to ascend a less lofty tree some little

distance away, out of sight of his shipmates, and at that moment was

already ensconced in the leafy crown, gazing with rapture at the lovely

scene that lay before him.

It took the men but another ten minutes to tie up the coco-nuts into

bunches of ten, and then each of them drank copiously of the sweet milk

of half a dozen which Tommy had husked for them.

'Come, lads,' said Captain Williams, 'back to the boat now. By-and-by--'

A dreadful chorus of savage yells interrupted him, and he and the men

seized their muskets and sprang to their feet. The sounds seemed to

come from where the boat was watering; in a few seconds more four musket

shots rang out.

'Run, run for your lives,' cried the captain, drawing his pistol. 'The

savages are attacking the boat.' And the seamen, throwing down the

coco-nuts, rushed out of the palm grove to rescue their shipmates.

They were only just in time, for the banks of the little stream were

covered with naked savages, who had sprung out of the thick undergrowth

upon the watering party, and ere the boat could be pushed off two of the

poor sailors had been savagely slaughtered. Fortunately for the captain

and his party, they were nearer to the boat, when they made their

appearance, than were the natives, and, plunging into the water, and

holding their muskets over their heads, they reached her in safety, and

at once opened fire, whilst the rest of the crew bent to the oars.

But the danger was not yet over, for as soon as the boat was out of

reach of the showers of spears sent at her from the shore, a number

of canoes appeared round a bend of the mountainous coast. They had

evidently been sent to cut off the white men's retreat. And then began

the race for life to the ship which had been witnessed by Baringa and

his people from the mainland.

Maurice, from his tree, had heard the yells of the savages and the

gunshots, and was about to descend and follow the captain and his

shipmates, when he heard a rush of bodies through the palm grove, and

saw beneath him forty or fifty natives, all armed with clubs and spears.

They were a horrible-looking lot, for they were quite naked and the

lips of all were stained a deep red from the juice of the betel-nut, and

their dull reddish-brown bodies were daubed over with yellow and white

stripes. This party had perhaps meant to surprise the captain and his

men as they were getting the coco-nuts, for, finding them gone, they at

once rushed out of the grove in pursuit. Fortunately for Maurice they

were too excited to think of looking about them, else his end would have

come very quickly.

For nearly ten minutes the lad remained quiet, listening to the

sounds of the fighting, and in fearful doubt as to his best course of

action--whether to make a bold dash and try to find his way to the

boat, or remain in the tree till a rescue party was sent from the ship.

Suddenly the thundering report of one of the ship's guns made him peer

seaward through the branches of his retreat; and there, to his delight,

he caught a brief view of the boat. Again the report of another gun

pealed out, and a wild screaming cry from the natives told him that the

shot had done some execution.

'I must get out of this,' he thought, 'and make a bolt along the beach

in the other direction, till I get into the hills. I can see better from

there, and perhaps make a signal to the ship.' Maurice got quietly down

from the tree, and after looking cautiously about him, was about to set

off at a run, when he found himself face to face with a young native

boy, who, running quickly forward, grasped him by the hands, and began

to talk volubly, at the same time trying to drag him towards the beach.

The boy, save for a girdle of ti leaves, was naked, and Maurice, anxious

and alarmed as he was for his own safety, could not but notice that the

young savage seemed terribly excited.

'Let me go, ye black naygur,' said Maurice, freeing his hands and

striking him in the chest.

In an instant the native boy fell upon his knees, and held up his hands,

palms outward, in a supplicating gesture.

Puzzled at this, but still dreading treachery, Maurice turned away and

again sought to make his way to the hills; but again the boy caught his

hands, and with gentle force, and eyes filled with tears, tried to push

or lead him to the beach. At last, apparently as if in despair of making

the white lad understand him by words, he made signs of deadly combat,

and ended by pointing over to where the boat had been attacked. Then,

touching Maurice on the chest, and then himself, he pointed to the sea,

and lying on the ground worked his arms and legs as if swimming.

'Sure, perhaps he's a friend,' thought Maurice, 'an' wants me to swim

off to the ship. But perhaps he's a thraitor and only manes to entice me

away to be murdered. Anyway, it's not much of a choice I've got at all.

So come on, blackamoor, I'm wid ye.'

Although not understanding a word that Maurice said, the native boy

smiled when he saw that the white lad was willing to come with him at

last. Then, hand-in-hand, they ran quietly along till they reached the

beach; and here the native, motioning Maurice to keep out of view, crept

on his hands and knees till he reached a rock, and then slowly raised

his head above it and peered cautiously ahead.

Whatever it was he saw evidently satisfied him, for he crawled back

to Maurice, and again taking his hand broke into a run, but instead of

going in the direction of the river, he led the way along the beach

in the opposite direction. Feeling confident now that he had found a

friend, Maurice's spirits began to rise, and he went along with the boy

unhesitatingly.

At last they rounded a sandy point, covered with a dense growth of

coco-nut trees and pandanus palms; this point formed the southern horn

of a small deep bay, in the centre of which stood an island, warded by

a snow-white beach, and on the nearmost shore Maurice saw a canoe drawn

up.

The island beach was quite three hundred yards away, but Maurice was

a good swimmer, and although he shuddered at the thought of sharks, he

plunged in the water after his dark-skinned companion and soon reached

the islet, which was but a tiny spot, containing some two or three score

of coco-palms, and three untenanted native huts. It was used by the

natives as a fishing station, and the canoe, which was a very small one,

had evidently been in use that day. Close by were the marks in the sand

where a larger one had been carried down. In one of the huts smoke was

arising from a native ground-oven, which showed that the fishermen had

not long gone; doubtless they would return when the food was cooked, for

the native boy pointed out the oven to Maurice with a look of alarm.

The two boys soon launched the canoe, and each seizing a paddle, at once

struck out in the direction of the ship. The native lad sat aft, Maurice

for'ard, and clumsy as was the latter with the long and narrow canoe

paddle, he yet managed to keep his seat and not capsize the frail little

craft.

'Hurroo!' cried foolish Maurice, turning to his companion, 'we're all

right now, I'm thinkin'. There's the ship!'

There she was sure enough, and there also were four canoes, paddling

along close in-shore, returning from their chase of the captain's

boat. They heard Maurice's loud shout of triumph, at once altered their

course, and sped swiftly towards the two boys.

* * * * *

Scarcely had Captain Williams and his exhausted crew gained the ship

when the mate reported that a fleet of canoes was coming across from

the mainland of New Britain, and orders were at once given to load the

ship's eight guns with grape and canister. (In those days of Chinese

and Malay pirates and dangerous natives of the South Seas, all merchants

ships, particularly those engaged in the sandal-wood trade, were well

armed, and almost man-of-war discipline observed.)

'We'll give them something to remember us by, Hodgson,' said Captain

Williams, grimly. 'That poor lad! To think I never noticed he was not in

the boat till too late! I expect he's murdered by now; but I shall take

a bloody vengeance for the poor boy's death. Serve out some grog to the

hands, steward; and some of you fellows stand by with some shot to

dump into the canoes if we should miss them with the guns and they get

alongside.'

But just as he spoke the mate called out, 'The canoes have stopped

paddling, sir, all except one, which is coming right on.'

'All right, I see it. Let them come and have a look at us. As soon as it

gets close enough, I'll sink it.'

For some minutes the canoe, which contained seven men, continued

to advance with great swiftness; then she ceased paddling, and the

steersman stood up and called out something to the ship, just as she was

well covered by two of the guns on the port side. In another minute she

would have been blown out of the water, when Tommy Sandwich ran aft and

said,--

'I think, cap'n, that fellow he no want fight ship; I think he want talk

you.'

'Perhaps so, Tommy; so we'll let him come a bit closer.'

Again the native paddles sent the canoe inward till she was well within

easy hailing distance of the ship, and the same native again stood up

and called out,--

'Hi, cap'n. No you shoot me. Me Baringa. Me like come 'board.'

'All right,' answered Captain Williams, 'come alongside.'

The moment the canoe ranged alongside, Baringa clambered up the side,

and advanced fearlessly toward the poop. 'Where cap'n?' he asked,

pushing unceremoniously aside those who stood in his way; and mounting

the ladder at the break of the poop he walked up to the master of the

_Boadicea_ and held out his hand.

In a very short time, by the aid of Tommy Sandwich, whose language was

allied to that of the natives of New Britain, Captain Williams learnt

how matters stood. His visitor was anxious to help him, and volunteered

to join the white man in an attack on the treacherous people of Mano,

though he gave but little hope of their finding Maurice alive. They had,

he said, stolen his own son twelve months before, and eaten him, and he

wanted his revenge. Presently, as a proof of his integrity, he produced

from a dirty leather cartridge pouch, that was strapped around his

waist, a soiled piece of paper, and handed it to the captain. It read as

follows:--

'The bearer, Baringa, is the chief of Kabaira Coast. He is a

thorough old cannibal, but, as far as I know, may be trusted

by white men. He supplied my ship with fresh provisions, and

seems a friendly old cut-throat.

'Matthew Wallis,

'Master, ship _Algerine_ of New Bedford.

'October 2 st, 1839.'

'Well, that's satisfactory,' said Captain Williams, turning to Tommy.

'Tell him that I am going to land and try and find Maurice, and he can

help me with his people. Mr Hodgson, man and arm the boats again.'

In a moment all was bustle and excitement, in the midst of which a loud

'hurrah' came from aloft from a sailor who was on the fore-yard watching

the remaining canoes of Baringa's fleet. 'Hurrah! Here's Maurice, sir,

coming off in a canoe with a nigger, an' a lot of other niggers in four

canoes a-chasin' him.'

Springing to the taffrail, Captain Williams saw the canoe, which had

just rounded the point and was now well in view. The two boys were

paddling for their lives; behind them were the four canoes filled with

yelling savages.

'Into the boats, men, for God's sake!' roared the captain. Had a

greater distance separated Maurice from his pursuers the master of the

_Boadicea_ would have endeavoured to have sunk the four canoes with

the ship's guns; but the risk was too great to attempt it as they were.

However, the gunner and carpenter were sent into the fore-top to try and

pick off some of the natives by firing over Maurice's canoe.

Five minutes later the ship's three boats were pulling swiftly to the

rescue, and Baringa, jumping into his own canoe, beckoned to the rest

of his flotilla to follow him, and six natives urged the light craft

furiously along after the boats.

On, on, came the two poor boys, straining every nerve; but every moment

their pursuers gained on them; and on, on dashed the heavy, cumbersome

boats. Already the nearest canoe was within fifty feet of Maurice and

his black friend, the savage paddlers undaunted by the fire from the

muskets of the gunner and carpenter, when Captain Williams saw a native

rise up and hurl a club at the two boys. Quick as lightning the captain

picked up his musket and fired, and the savage fell forward with a

bullet through his chest. But quick as he was he was too late, for the

club whizzed through the air and struck the native boy on his right arm.

A savage yell of triumph came from the pursuing canoes as their

occupants saw the boy go down and the canoe broach-to, and then the

leading canoe dashed up alongside that of Maurice and his companion.

'Pull, men, pull, for God's sake!' cried the captain, frantically, as

he saw the Irish lad, paddle in hand, standing up over the body of the

fallen boy, and strike wildly at his murderous pursuers.

With heaving bosoms and set teeth the seamen urged the boats along, and

they and the four canoes crashed together in deadly conflict. But as

they met, a huge savage stood up and, poising a spear, darted it at

the prone figure of the native boy; it did not reach him, for Maurice,

wounded and bleeding as he was with a spear wound through his thigh,

flung himself in front of the weapon to save his friend. It struck him

in the shoulder and came out a full foot at his back.

'You dog,' said Williams, raising his pistol, and the native went down

with a crash.

And then ensued a scene of slaughter, as the seamen of the _Boadicea_

got to work with their cutlasses. It did not take long to end the fight,

and not one of the Mano men escaped, for now Baringa's canoes had come

up, and with their heavy jade clubs dashed out the brains of those

of their enemies who sought to swim ashore. It was in truth a hideous

sight, and even the hardy sailors shuddered when they saw the merciless

manner in which wounded and dying men were massacred by their naked

allies.

As quickly as possible, the two boys were lifted out of the little canoe

and placed in the captain's boat, where their wounds were examined. The

native boy's arm was broken, and his back badly hurt, but he was quite

conscious. As for Maurice, he was in a bad state, and Captain Williams

decided not to pull out the spear till the ship was reached.

Just as he had given orders to pull for the ship, Baringa's canoe

returned from the slaughter of the remaining fugitives, and drew up

alongside the captain's boat, and the moment the chief saw the native

boy lying in the stern sheets of the boat he sprang out of the canoe and

embraced him.

'It is my boy, my Lokolol--he whom I thought was dead.'

Little remains to be told. The two boys were carefully attended to as

soon as they reached the ship, and to the joy of everyone the spear,

when extracted from Maurice's body, was pronounced by Baringa not to

be a poisoned one. As for Lokolol, the chief's son, his arm was put in

splints, but during the time that was occupied in doing this his hand

was clasped around that of the brave young sailor lad who had saved his

life, and his big, black eyes never left Maurice's pallid face.

For three days the _Boadicea_ remained at anchor opposite the

village--she had sailed there the morning after the fight--and the chief

showed his gratitude by every possible means. On the morning of the day

on which the ship sailed he came on board, attended by thirty canoes,

every one of which was laden deep down with pearl shell. It was passed

up on deck, and stacked in a heap, and then Baringa asked for the

captain and the white boy who had saved his son. Beside him stood

Lokolol, his arm in a sling, and tears running down his cheeks, for he

knew he would see Maurice no more.

Then Captain Williams came on deck and showed the chief the little cabin

boy, lying in a hammock under the poop awning. The burly savage came

over to him, and taking Maurice's hand in his, placed it tenderly

upon his huge, hairy bosom in token of gratitude. Then he spoke to the

captain through Tommy Sandwich.

'Tell this good captain that I, Baringa, am for ever the white man's

friend. And tell him, too, that all this pearl shell here is my gift to

him and the boy who helped my son to escape from captivity. Half is for

the good captain; half is for the brave white boy.'

Then, after remaining on board till the ship was many miles away from

the land, the chief and his son bade the wounded boy farewell and went

back to the shore.

Maurice soon recovered, and when the _Boadicea_ arrived at Hong Kong,

and Captain Williams had sold the pearl shell, he said to his cabin

boy,--

'Maurice, my lad, I've sold the pearl shell, and what do you think I've

been paid for it? Well, just eight thousand dollars--£1600 in English

money. You're quite a rich boy now, Maurice. It's not every lad that

gets four thousand dollars for saving a nigger's life.'

Maurice's bright blue eyes filled with honest tears. 'Shure, sor, he

was a naygur, thrue enough. But thin, yere honour, he had a foine bould

heart to do what he did for Maurice Kinane.'

And, as I have said, this is a true story, and old Maurice Kinane, who

is alive now, himself told it to me.

THE 'KILLERS' OF TWOFOLD BAY

Enbosomed in the verdure-clad hills of the southern coast of sunny New

South Wales lies a fisherman's paradise, named Twofold Bay. Its fame

is but local, or known only to outsiders who may have spent a day there

when travelling from Sydney to Tasmania in the fine steamers of the

Union Company, which occasionally put in there to ship cattle from the

little township of Eden, which is situated upon the northern shore

of its deep and placid waters. But the chief point of interest about

Twofold Bay is that it is the rendezvous of the famous 'killers' (_Orca

gladiator_) the deadly foes of the whole race of cetaceans other than

themselves, and the most extraordinary and sagacious creatures that

inhabit the ocean's depths. From July to November two 'schools' of

killers may be seen every day, either cruising to and fro across the

entrance of the bay, or engaged in a Titanic combat with a whale--a

'right' whale, a 'humpback,' or the long, swift 'fin-back.' Never have

they been known to tackle the great sperm-whale, except when one of

those mighty creatures has been wounded by his human enemies. And

to witness one of these mighty struggles is worth travelling many a

thousand miles to see; it is terrible, awe-inspiring and wonderful. The

'killer' ranges in length from ten feet to twenty-five feet (whalemen

have told me that one was seen stranded on the Great Barrier Reef in

1862 which measured thirty feet). Their breathing apparatus and general

anatomy is much similar to that of the larger whales. They spout,

'breach.' and 'sound' like other cetaceans, and are of the same

migratory habit, as the two 'schools' which haunt Twofold Bay always

leave there at a certain time of the year to cruise in other seas,

returning to their headquarters when the humpback and fin-back whales

make their appearance on the coast of New South Wales, travelling

northwards to the feeding-grounds on the Bampton Shoals, the coast of

New Guinea and the Moluccas.

The head of the killer is of enormous strength. The mouth is armed in

both jaws with fearful teeth, from one and a half inches to two inches

long, and set rather widely apart. In colour they show an extraordinary

variation, some being all one hue--brown, black, or dull grey; others

are black, with large, irregular patches or streaks of pure white or

yellow; others are dark brown with black and yellow patches. One,

which I saw ashore on the reef at the island of Nukulaelae in the South

Pacific, was nearly black, except for a few irregular blotches of white

on the back and belly. This particular killer had died from starvation,

for nearly the entire lower jaw had decayed from a cancerous growth.

The whaling station at Twofold Bay is now, alas! the only one in the

colony--the last remnant of a once great and thriving industry, which,

in the early days of the then struggling colony, was the nursery of bold

and adventurous seamen. It is now carried on by a family named Davidson,

father and sons--in conjunction with the killers. And for more than

twenty years this business partnership has existed between the humans

and the cetaceans, and the utmost rectitude and solicitude for each

other's interests has always been maintained. _Orca gladiator_ seizes

the whale for the Davidsons and holds him until the deadly lance is

plunged into his 'life,' and the Davidssons let Orca carry the carcass

to the bottom, and take his tithe of luscious blubber. This is the

literal truth; and grizzled old Davidson, or any one of the stalwart

sons who man his two boats, will tell you that but for the killers, who

do half of the work, whaling would not pay with oil only worth from £18

to £24 a tun.

Let us imagine a warm, sunny day in August at Twofold Bay. The man

who is on the lookout at the old lighthouse, built by Ben Boyd on the

southern headland fifty years ago, paces to and fro on the grassy sward,

stopping now and then to scan the wide expanse of ocean with his glass,

for the spout of a whale is hard to discern at more than two miles

if the weather is not clear. If the creature is in a playful mood and

'breaches,' that is, springs bodily out of the water and sends up a

white volume of foam and spray, like the discharge of a submarine mine,

you can see it eight miles away.

The two boats are always in readiness at the trying-out works, a mile

or so up the harbour; so, too, are the killers; and the look-out man,

walking to the verge of the cliff, looks down. There they are, cruising

slowly up and down, close in-shore, spouting lazily and showing their

wet, gleaming backs as they rise, roll and dive again. There's 'Fatty,'

and 'Spot,' and 'Flukey,' and 'Little Jim,' and 'Paddy,' and 'Tom Tug.'

Nearly every one of them has a name, and each is well known to his human

friends.

Presently the watchman sees, away to the southward, a white, misty puff,

then another, and another. In an instant he brings his glass to bear,

'Humpbacks!' Quickly two flags flutter from the flagpole, and a fire is

lit; and as the flags and smoke are seen, the waiting boats' crews at

the trying-out station are galvanised into life by the cry of 'Rush, ho,

lads! Humpbacks in sight, steering north-west!' Rush and tumble into the

boats and away!

Round the south head sweeps the first boat, the second following more

leisurely, for she is only a 'pick-up' or relief, in case the first is

'fluked' and the crew are tossed high in air, with their boat crushed

into matchwood, or meets with some other disaster. And as the leading

boat rises to the long ocean swell of the offing, the killers close in

round her on either side, just keeping clear of the sweep of the oars,

and 'breaching' and leaping and spouting with the anticipative zest of

the coming bloody fray.

'Easy, lads, easy!' says the old boat-header; 'they're coming right down

on us. Billy was right. They're humpbacks, sure enough!'

The panting oarsmen pull a slower stroke, and then, as they watch

the great, savage creatures which swim alongside, they laugh in the

mirthless manner peculiar to most young native-born Australians, for

suddenly, with a last sharp spurt of vapour, the killers dive and

disappear into the dark blue beneath; for they have heard the whales,

and, as is their custom, have gone ahead of the boat, rushing swiftly

on below full fifty fathoms deep. Fifteen minutes later they rise to the

surface in the midst of the humpbacks, and half a square acre of ocean

is turned into a white, swirling cauldron of foam and leaping spray. The

bull-dogs of the sea have seized the largest whale of the school, and

are holding him for the boat and for the deadly lance of his human foes.

The rest of the humpbacks raise high their mighty flukes and 'sound,'

a hundred--two hundred--fathoms down, and, speeding seaward, leave the

unfortunate bull to his dreadful fate.

(And, in truth, it is a dreadful fate, and the writer of this sketch can

never forget how one day, as he and a little girl of six watched, from

a grassy headland on the coast of New South Wales, the slaughter of a

monstrous whale by a drove of killers, that the child wept and shuddered

and hid her face against his shoulder.)

Ranging swiftly alongside of him, from his great head down to the

'small' of his back, the fierce killers seize his body in their savage

jaws and tear great strips of skin and blubber from off his writhing

sides in huge mouthfuls, and then jerking the masses aside, take another

and another bite. In vain he sweeps his flukes with fearful strokes from

side to side--the bulldogs of the sea come not within their range; in

vain he tries to 'sound'--there is a devil on each side of his jaws,

their cruel teeth fixed firmly into his huge lips; perhaps two or three

are underneath him tearing and riving at the great tough corrugations of

his grey-ribbed belly; whilst others, with a few swift vertical strokes

of their flukes, draw back for fifty feet or so, charge him amidships,

and strike him fearful blows on the ribs with their bony heads. Round

and round, in ever-narrowing circles as his strength fails, the tortured

humpback swims, sometimes turning on his back or side, but failing,

failing fast.

'He's done for, lads. Pull up; stand up, Jim.'

The boat dashes up, and Jim, the man who is pulling bow oar, picks up

his harpoon. A minute later, it flies from his hand and is buried deep

into the body of the quivering animal, cutting through the thick blubber

as a razor would cut through the skin of a drum.

'Stern all!' and the harpooner tumbles aft and grips the steer oar,

and the steersman takes his place in the head of the boat with his

keen-edged lance. But 'humpy' is almost spent, and though by a mighty

effort he 'ups flukes,' and sounds, he soon rises, for the killers

thrust him upwards to the surface again. Then the flashing lance, two,

three swift blows into his 'life,' a gushing torrent of hot, dark blood,

he rolls over on his side, an agonised trembling quivers through his

vast frame, the battle is over and his life is gone.

And now comes the curious and yet absolutely truly described final part

that the killers play in this ocean tragedy. They, the moment the whale

is dead, close around him, and fastening their teeth into his body,

by main strength bear it to the bottom. Here--if they have not already

accomplished it--they tear out the tongue and eat about one-third of the

blubber. In from thirty-six to forty hours the carcass will again rise

to the surface, and as, before he was taken down, the whalemen have

attached a line and buoy to the body, its whereabouts is easily

discerned from the lookout on the headland; the boats again put off and

tow it ashore to the trying-out works. The killers, though they have had

their fill of blubber, accompany the boats to the head of the bay and

keep off the sharks, which would otherwise strip off all the remaining

blubber from the carcass before it had reached the shore. But once the

boats are in the shallow water the killers stop, and then with a final

'puff! puff!' of farewell to their human friends, turn and head seaward

to resume their ceaseless watch and patrol of the ocean.

The killers never hurt a man. Time after time have boats been stove-in

or smashed into splinters by a whale, either by an accidental blow from

his head or a sudden lateral sweep of his monstrous flukes, and the

crew left struggling in the water or clinging to the oars and pieces

of wreckage; and the killers have swum up to, looked at, and _smelt_

them--but never have they touched a man with intent to do him harm. And

wherever the killers are, the sharks are not, for Jack Shark dreads a

killer as the devil is said to dread holy water. Sometimes I have

seen 'Jack' make a rush in between the killers, and rip off a piece of

hanging blubber, but he will carefully watch his chance to do so.

On some occasions, when a pack of killers set out whale-hunting, they

will be joined by a thresher--the fox-shark (Alopias vulpes)--and then

while the killers bite and tear the unfortunate cetacean, the thresher

deals him fearful blows with his scythe-like tail. The master of a

whaling vessel told me that off the north end of New Caledonia, there

was, from 1868 till 1876, a pack of nine killers which were always

attended by two threshers and a sword-fish. Not only he, but many other

whaling skippers had seen this particular swordfish, year after year,

joining the killers in attacks upon whales. The cruising ground of this

pack extended for thirty miles, north and south, and the nine creatures

and their associates were well known to hundreds of New Bedford

whalemen. No doubt many of these combats, witnessed from merchant ships,

have led to many sea-serpent stories; for when a thresher stands his

twenty feet of slender body straight up on end like a pole, he presents

a strange sight, as his long body sways, and curves, and twists in air,

as he deals his cutting blows upon his victim. Then, too, the enormous

length of the pectoral fins of a humpback whale, which show dazzlingly

white as he rolls from side to side in his agony, and frantically beats

the water with them in his struggles, or upends one after the other like

a mast, might well be mistaken for the uprearing of a serpent's

body. But any South Sea whaleman will smile when he hears talk of the

sea-serpent, though he has not forgotten the awe and fascination with

which he was filled, when he first saw a whale in the agonies of

combat with _Alopias vulpes_ and _Orca gladiator_, and the serpentine

evolutions of the former creature.

The whaleman in the Pacific sees very strange and wondrous sights; and

never, since Herman Melville wrote his strangely exciting and weird

book, 'The Whale,' nearly fifty years ago, has any writer given us such

a vivid and true picture of whaling life and incident as Mr Frank T.

Bullen in his 'Cruise of the _Cachalot_ published this year.

DENISON'S SECOND BERTH ASHORE

I have already told how Tom Denison, the South Sea Island supercargo,

took a berth ashore as overseer of a Queensland duck farm, which

was mortgaged to a bank of which his brother was manager, and how he

resigned the post in great despondency, and humped his swag to Cooktown.

Over his meeting with his brother let a veil be drawn. Suffice it to say

that the banker told him that he had missed the one great chance of his

life, and quoted Scripture about the ways of the improvident man to such

an extent that Denison forgot himself, and said that the bank and its

infernal ducks could go and be damned. Thereupon his sister-in-law (who

was a clergyman's daughter, and revered the Bank as she did the Church)

swooned, and his brother told him he was a heartless and dissolute young

ruffian, who would come to a bad end. Feeling very hurt and indignant,

the ex-supercargo stumped out of the bank, and went down to the wharf to

look for a ship.

But there was only a dirty little coasting steamer in port, and Denison

hated steamers, for once he had had to go a voyage in one as supercargo,

and the continuous work involved by being constantly in port every few

days, instead of drifting about in a calm, all but broke his heart.

So he rented a room at a diggers' boarding-house kept by a Chinaman,

knowing that this would be a dagger in the heart of his sister-in-law,

who was the leading lady in Cooktown society; also, he walked about the

town without a coat, and then took a job on the wharf discharging coals

from a collier, and experienced a malevolent satisfaction when he one

evening met Mrs Aubrey Denison in the street. He was in company with

four other coal-heavers, all as black as himself; his sister-in-law was

walking with the wife of the newly-appointed Supreme Court judge. She

glanced shudderingly at the disgraceful sight her relative presented,

went home and hysterically suggested to Aubrey Denison, Esq., that his

brother Tom was a degraded criminal, and was on the way to well-deserved

penal servitude.

After the coal-heaving job was finished, Denison lay back and luxuriated

on the £5, 17s. 6d. he had earned for his week's toil. Then one morning

he saw an advertisement, in the _North Queensland Trumpet-Call_, for a

proof-reader. And being possessed of a certain amount of worldly wisdom,

he went down to the bank, saw his brother (who received him with a

gloomy brow) and said he should like to write a letter to the editor of

the _Trumpet-Call_. He wrote his letter--on bank paper--and then went

back to Sum Fat's to await developments. The following morning he

received a note from the editor telling him to call at the office. To

Susie Sum Fat, his landlord's pretty half-caste daughter, he showed

the missive, and asked her to lend him one of her father's best shirts.

Susie, who liked Denison for his nice ways, and the tender manner in

which he squeezed her hand when passing the bread, promptly brought him

her parent's entire stock of linen, and bade him, with a soft smile, to

take his pick. Also that night she brought him a blue silk kummerbund

streaked with scarlet, and laid it on his pillow, with a written

intimation that it was sent 'with fondiest love from Susie S. Fat.'

Arrayed in a clean shirt, and the swagger kummerbund, Denison presented

himself next morning to the editor of the _Trumpet-Call_. There were

seven other applicants for the billet, but Denison's white shirt and

new kummerbund were, he felt, a tower of strength to him, and even the

editor of the _Trumpet-Call_ seemed impressed--clean shirts being an

anomaly in Cooktown journalistic circles.

The editor was a tall, stately man, with red eyes and a distinctly

alcoholic breath. The other applicants went in first. Each one had a

bundle of very dirty testimonials, all of which recalled to Denison

Judge Norbury's remarks about the 'tender' letters of a certain breach

of promise case. One little man, with bandy legs and a lurching gait,

put his unclean hands on the editorial table, and said that his father

was 'select preacher to the University of Oxford.'

The red-eyed man said he was proud to know him. 'Your father, sir, was

a learned man and I reverence his name. But I never could forgive myself

did I permit a son of such a great teacher to accept such a laborious

position as proof-reader on the _Trumpet Call_. Go to Sydney or

Melbourne, my dear sir. The editors of all our leading colonial papers

were clergymen or are sons of clergymen. I should be doing your future

prospects a bitter injustice. A bright career awaits you in this new

country.'

He shook the hand of the select preacher's son and sent him out.

Among the other applicants was a man who had tried dugong fishing on

the Great Barrier Reef; a broken-down advance agent from a stranded

theatrical company; a local auctioneer with defective vision, but who

had once written a 'poem' for a ladies' journal; a baker's carter who

was secretary to the local debating society; and a man named Joss, who

had a terrific black eye and who told Denison, _sotto voce_, that if

the editor gave _him_ any sauce he would 'go for him' there and then

and 'knock his bloomin' eye out,' and the son of the local bellman and

bill-poster. The editor took their names and addresses, and said he

should write to them all in the morning and announce his decision. Then,

after they had gone, he turned to Denison with a pleasant smile and an

approving look at Sum Fat's shirt, and asked him if he had had previous

experience of proof-reading. Denison, in a diffident manner, said that

he had not exactly had much.

'Just so. But you'll try and do your best, Mr Denison? Well, come in

this evening at eight o'clock, and see Mr Pinkham, the sub-editor. He'll

show you what to do. Salary, £2, 15s. Strict sobriety, I trust?'

The successful one said he never got quite drunk, expressed his thanks

and withdrew. Once into the street he walked quickly into Sum Fat's, and

told the Celestial that he had taken a billet at 'thirty bob' a week on

a newspaper.

'Wha' paper?' inquired Sum Fat, who was squeezing a nasty-looking

adipocerous mass into fish-balls for his boarders.

'The _Trumpet-Call_.'

'That's a lotten lag, if you li.' It close on banklupt this long time.'

Denison assented cheerfully. It _was_ a rotten rag, he said, and

undoubtedly in a weak position financially; but the thirty bob would pay

his board bill.

Then Sum Fat, who knew that the ex-supercargo was lying as regarded

the amount of his salary, nodded indifferently and went on pounding his

awful hash.

* * * * *

'Where is Mr Pinkham?' asked Denison at eight p.m., when an exceedingly

dirty small boy brought him his first proof.

'He's tanked.{*} An' he says he ain't agoin' to help no blackguard

sailor feller to read no proofs. And most all the comps is tanked, too.'

* 'Tanked.' A colonialism which indicates that a person has

indulged in too much liquid refreshment.

However, with the intelligent assistance of the boy, Denison managed to

pull through that night, with the following result in the intercolonial

Telegrams' column:--

'Melbourne, August 13.--The body of an elderly boat was

foundd last night floating down the Yarra, down the Yarra,

with its throat cut. It wvs dressed in v grey tweed suit

with a flannel shirt, dressed in a grey tweed suit with a

flannel shirt. This mourning a girl said the deceased was

her father,' etc.

A few lines further down in the same column was the intelligence that

Chief Justice Higinbotham of Victoria had 'sentenced the man Power to

imprisonment for the term of his natural next.'

When Denison turned up next evening, the editor asked him in distinctly

cold tones if he 'had read the paper.'

Denison said he had not--he was too tired.

Then the editor pointed out twenty-nine hideous mistakes, all underlined

in blue pencil and on a par with the two above-mentioned. Denison

explained in regard to the word 'next' that he meant 'life,' but there

being a turned 'e' in 'life' he somehow deleted the entire word, and

just then in his zeal, calling out 'next proof,' he unthinkingly wrote

'next' on the proof instead of 'life.' As for the matter of the boat he

had no excuse to offer. The editor was not harsh, but said that a man

of Denison's intelligence ought to be employed in building up Britain

beyond the seas instead of reading proofs.

For the next two issues he pulled through fairly well. Sum Fat advanced

him ten shillings, with which he bought Susie a pair of canvas shoes,

and Susie kissed him seven times and said she loved him because he never

said horrid things to her like the other men. And when she laid her

innocent face upon his shoulder and wept, Denison was somewhat stirred,

and decided to get away from Susie as quickly as possible.

On the fourth evening a beery local politician sent in a paragraph,

written in an atrocious hand, stating that he (the beery man) had

'received a number of replies to the circulars he had sent out to

the supporters of the Government,' etc. In the morning the paragraph

appeared:--

'_Mr Ebenezer Thompson, the champion of Separation, for

North Queensland, has again received quite a large number of

reptiles,' _etc.

Of course Mr Thompson was terribly insulted--everyone in Cooktown knew

that he had periodical illnesses, during which he imagined he was chased

by large snakes joined to blue dogs with red eyes and crimson tails--and

demanded Denison's instant dismissal. The editor however, pleaded for

him on account of his inexperience, and the matter was passed over.

He worried along pretty well till the end of the week, and then fresh

trouble arose. Mr Pinkham the sub-editor, who did the foreign cables

and the local fire-brigade items, got exceedingly drunk--a weekly

occurrence--and, for his own safety, was locked up by the intelligent

police. The three reporters, who all hated Pinkham, declined to sub-edit

his cables, and consequently the editor was himself driven to take

refuge in drink. The business manager, however, took his place, and told

Denison that he relied on him to assist with the cables. Denison hinted

at increased emoluments, and the manager promptly threatened to sack him

and all the rest of the literary staff. He would do the cables himself,

he said. He abhorred Denison on account of Susie and the kummerbund.

Just then the Emperor Frederick was dying at San Remo, and cables were

coming through _via_ Sydney.

At one a.m. the business manager came in to Denison and said that they

should try to get along amicably. As both the editor and Mr Pinkham, he

said, were in a disgraceful condition, he relied upon the rest of the

staff to maintain the credit of the _Trumpet-Call_, etc. Then he showed

Denison a cable he had just received, and asked him if he could assist

him to make it out. It ran in this wise:

'London--Emperor Frederick condition very grave. German

physicians hamper Morell Mackenzie, but approve suggestion

operation trache Otomy esophagus without delay.'

Denison said (with secret joy) that he was afraid he couldn't help.

But he believed that there were two world-famous Italian doctors named

Tracchi and Tomy. 'Esophagus' was, he also remarked, no doubt meant for

'sarcophagus'--the Latin name for the gullet. And he suggested to his

enemy that it would be well to rush the cable through as quickly as

possible. The business manager said he should--he merely felt a little

doubt about the proper spelling of the Italian doctors' names, though

he, of course, knew that there was no such word as esophagus. As he went

out Denison smiled like a fiend. His anticipations of an ample revenge

upon the low, sordid creature who had refused him another sovereign a

week were gratified in the morning, for under a large heading he saw

this:--

'THE EMPEROR FREDERICK

'Serious Condition

'_San Remo.-- The Emperor Frederick's condition is causing

grave anxiety. The German physicians in attendance hinder

Morell Mackenzie in every possible way. They, however, agree

to his suggestion to send for the two celebrated Italian

specialists, Drs Tracchi and Tomy, and with them perform an

operation on the Emperor's sarcophagus. Wheat is 1d. firmer.

Hides are dull, bank rate unaltered. Tallow is

improving._'

The absolute beauty of the thing, however, to Denison's mind, was that

the business manager had sold a copy of his translation of the cablegram

to the other local paper--run by the Cooktown Labour Union--which had

used it word for word.

Nothing of moment occurred after this till a report of a sermon by Dr

Stanton, the first Bishop of North Queensland, appeared. His lordship,

alluding to certain conditions of the human mind which rendered one's

judgment 'subject to warp and bias,' the intelligent compositor made it

'wasps and bees,' and Denison, being very sleepy when he read the proof,

let it go. And Dr Stanton, good and generous man, laughed heartily when

Denison, with a contrite and broken heart called on him, and asked for

his forgiveness.

But Nemesis was coming along. There was a wealthy and atrociously vulgar

magnate in Cooktown, whose wife ran second to Mrs Aubrey Denison in

local society, and who had just lost her father. The death announcement

appeared as follows:--

'On June 18, at the Bungalow, Cooktown, Donald Dugald

M'Whannel, Government Inspector of Artesian Bores for North

Queensland, aged sixty-five.

'Also, at the same time and place, five trusses of

Victoria hay, some pigs and calves, and twenty-six bags of

onions and potatoes, all in prime order.'

Of course this was the last straw, and Denison was asked to resign. But

as Mrs Aubrey Denison wrote and said she should like to forgive him for

his disgraceful conduct before he went away, he sent the Scotch foreman

of the _Trumpet-Call_ to explain to her that the catch-line of an

auctioneer's advertisement had been 'dropped' on the same galley as the

mortuary notice, and overlooked when the forme was locked. And so, after

a tender farewell to little Susie Sum Fat, and with her kisses still

warm upon his lips, Denison went out into the world again to look for a

ship.

A FISH DRIVE ON A MICRONESIAN ATOLL

We were thrashing our way in a little brigantine, owned by Tom de Wolf,

of Liverpool, against the strong north-east trade wind, from the Western

Carolines to Milli in the Marshalls, when one day we sighted a low-lying

cluster of five small palm-clad islands that lay basking, white and

green, in the bright Pacific sun; and an hour before dark the _Lunalilo_

dropped her anchor just in front of the native village. In a few minutes

the resident white trader came off to us in his boat and made us welcome

to his island home.

We had heard that he had quite a considerable quantity of hawkbill

turtle shell and some coco-nut oil to sell, and came to ascertain

the truth of the report before we were anticipated by some German or

American trading vessel.

Less than a mile away from where the brigantine was anchored we saw a

noble white beach, trending east and west in many curves, and backed by

serried lines of palms and groves of bread-fruit trees, through whose

bright verdancy peeped out the thatch-covered and saddle-backed houses

of the natives. Apart from the village, and enclosed by a low fence of

growing hibiscus palings, stood the trader's house, a long, rambling

building with white coral-lime walls and a wide, shady verandah on all

four sides. In front of the fence was a tall, white-painted flagstaff,

and presently we saw a woman come out of the trader's house and walk up

to it. In another minute the Stars and Stripes went slowly up, and then

hung limp and motionless in the windless atmosphere.

'There,' said the trader, with a laugh, 'you see, my wife, native as she

is, is more polite than I am. But the fact is that I was so excited

when I saw your schooner that I never thought about hoisting the old

gridiron. Now, look here, gentlemen; before we do anything else, or talk

about business, I want you to promise to come ashore to night. There is

to be a big fish drive, and I can assure you that that is a sight worth

seeing.'

We made the promise, and half an hour later went ashore and walked up

to our friend's house. Here we found the entire population of the island

assembled to do us honour, and for quite ten minutes were embraced most

effusively by every one, male or female, who could get near us. The

men were naked to their waists--the missionaries had not then made

any headway in the Caroline Islands--around which they wore either

gaily-coloured girdles of bleached and then dyed strips of fine pandanus

leaf, or sashes of closely-woven banana fibre. The women, however,

somewhat ineffectually concealed the remarkable beauty of their figures

by wearing, in addition to their grass waist girdles, a crescent-shaped

garment of similar material, which was suspended from their necks, and

covered their bosoms.{*} Their glossy black hair hung in wavy curls down

their smooth brown backs. * Since the advent of the missionaries this

costume has been suppressed.

Nearly all the young unmarried girls wore narrow head circlets of white

pandanus leaf, profusely adorned and embroidered with red and yellow

beads, flat pieces of polished pearl shell, and edged with green and

gold and scarlet parrots' feathers. Their address and modest demeanour

was engaging in the extreme, and we noticed that they showed the utmost

deference and respect to an aged female who sat on a mat in the centre

of the room, surrounded by a number of young children. She was, we

learnt, the king's mother, and at her request the trader led us over to

where she sat, and gave us a formal introduction. She received us in a

pleasant but dignified manner, and the moment that she opened her lips

to speak the clatter of tongues around us ceased as if by magic, and the

most respectful silence prevailed.

As neither the captain nor myself were able to speak the local

dialect--which is similar to that of Ponapé--we were somewhat at a loss

to answer the questions she put to us, and etiquette forbade the trader

to volunteer his services as an interpreter, till the old dame asked

him. Presently, however, she desired him to tell us that she was very

pleased to see us; that the fish drive would, she hoped, interest us

greatly. Then, at a sign from her, a handsome young man who stood in the

doorway came forward and laid down a bundle of mats at our feet; this

was the old lady's formal present to the captain and myself. She then

rose, and bidding us to come and see her in her son's house before we

sailed, she walked over to the end of the room, attended by her retinue

of children, and sat down again on a finely-worked mat, which was spread

out before her. Then she made another and longer speech on behalf of her

son, who, she said, had desired her to say that he was very pleased

we had brought the ship to an anchor; that his stomach was filled with

friendship for white men; and that the trader would tell us that all

that he (the king) said was true; also that if any of her people stole

even the most trifling article from our ship they would be severely

punished, etc. Furthermore, she trusted that after we had spent one

night at the white man's house and seen the fish drive, we would spend

the following morning with her, when we should be feasted, and every

honour and attention shown us. Then the young man attendant produced

another present--from the king. This was a live sucking pig, a pair of

fat Muscovy ducks, and a huge green turtle. This latter was carried in

by four women, and placed in the centre of the room. We then, through

the trader, made return gifts of a bolt of white calico, a lamp and a

tin of kerosene. Touching these with her hand the old woman signed to

her attendants to take them away, and then, with another polite speech,

left the house.

The moment the king's mother retired, many more of the common people

swarmed into the house, and all seemed highly delighted to learn that we

intended to stay and see the great fish drive.

As every one of our native crew was very anxious to join in the

sport, the captain had asked the king's mother to 'tapu' the ship till

daylight, and shortly afterwards we were told by a messenger from the

king that this had been done, and that no native would attempt to board

the ship till we had returned. Although these people were honest enough,

our captain thought it hardly safe enough to leave the ship without a

white man on board, for all natives are very careless with the use of

fire, and, being great smokers, he felt nervous on that score.

At five o'clock we were taken to the king's house, where we found the

whole population assembled. A great feast was spread out, and King

Ralok, who advanced to meet us, took us by our hands and sat us down in

the midst of a vast collection of baked fish, bread fruit, turtle meat

and eggs, and roast fowls, pigeons and pork. Of course we had to eat;

but at the earliest opportunity the trader told the king that we were

anxious to see the preparations made for the drive before it got too

dark. Ralok at once agreed, and after drinking the milk of a young

coco-nut to wash down the repast, we made a start for the scene of

operations.

This was along the shore of the lagoon. At high water, for nearly two

or three miles, the white, sandy bottom would be covered by a depth of

about four feet of water; at low water, as it was now, it was dry. Here

and there were clumps of coral boulders, generally circular in shape,

and these, at high water, would be just flush with the surface. These

boulders were some two or three hundred yards apart, and as we came out

upon the lagoon beach we saw that they were connected by a vast number

of nets lying upon the sand, in readiness to rise, by means of their

light wooden floats of puka wood, as soon as the incoming tide swept in

from the ocean. Upon the top of each of these connecting boulders were

piled bundles or long torches made of dried coco-nut branches, which

were to be lighted when the drive began. The total length of the netting

was about two miles, but at one end, that facing the deep water of the

lagoon, there was a wide, unenclosed space. Here, however, were lying

half a dozen canoes, whose outrigger platforms were piled up with

strong nets, which were to be stretched across the opening at the proper

moment.

After looking at the preparations, we returned to the village, and as we

had no time to lose, and the tide was coming in at a great rate over the

reef, we began to dress, or rather undress, for the sport. To each of

us was given a spear, and a number of young women and children were

told off to accompany us with baskets, with half-a-dozen boys as

torch-bearers.

As soon as darkness had fallen the whole village was astir. From every

house men, women and very young children swarmed, these latter without

even the traditional leaf to hide their nakedness, while the grown girls

and women, possibly with the view of not shocking us too much, wore

short--very short--girdles around their loins.

The grown men and youths now launched a number of canoes, and, crowding

into them, paddled out into the lagoon, keeping well away, however,

from the line of nets, the floats of which were now appearing upon the

surface of the water. In each canoe was a large basket filled with a

nasty-looking mass. This was the crushed shells and bodies of _uga_, or

small land crabs, and was to be used as 'burley' to attract the fish to

the wake of the canoes.

Before going further I must mention that at a particular season of the

year--May--many of the Micronesian Islands are visited by vast shoals of

fish much resembling an English salmon. These enter the lagoons from

the ocean in pursuit of smaller fish. These smaller fish, which are a

species of sprat, assemble in incredible quantities, and at night-time

are wont to crowd together in prodigious numbers about the coral

boulders before mentioned, in the same manner that ocean-living fish

will sometimes attach themselves to a ship or other moving substance,

as some protection from pursuit by bonito, albicore, and the fish called

_tautau_. The latter are of nocturnal habit when seeking food, and

during the daytime lie almost motionless near the bottom, where they can

often be seen in serried masses. As soon as night falls they rise to the

surface and give chase to flying-fish and other surface-swimming ocean

fish. In shape they are very similar to a salmon, but do not possess

the same deepness of body and general fulness. Their heads consist of

a series of long plates, and their jaws are armed with rows of serrated

bone plates. In colour they are a very beautiful iridescent silver along

the sides and belly, the back and head being a deep, glossy blue. When

full grown their length is slightly over four feet, and weight about

twenty-five pounds. They are as voracious as the pike, swim with

extraordinary swiftness at night-time, and will take the hook eagerly

if baited with a whole flying-fish; their flesh is somewhat delicate in

flavour and greatly relished by the natives of Micronesia, who regard it

as second only to the universally esteemed flying-fish.

Two or three days before we made the little group of islands, immense

droves of these _tautau_, as the natives of Eastern Polynesia call them,

had been hovering about the reefs, and the people were now to endeavour

to tempt them into the trap set for them with such care and labour.

For about a quarter of an hour not a sound broke the silence of the

night. We were in the midst of some three or four hundred natives, who

only spoke in whispers for fear of alarming the fish. All round the

deeper portion of the chain of nets was a line of canoes, filled with

women and girls, who held torches in their hands ready to light up the

moment the signal was given. Further in towards the shore, where the

water was not too deep to prevent them keeping on their feet, were

numbers of girls and children standing close together, their bodies

almost touching, and the floats of the nets touching their bosoms;

we white men, with the trader, were standing together, with our

torch-bearers, upon a flat-topped coral boulder.

Suddenly a whisper ran along the line of watchers--the canoes were

coming. One by one we made them out, the paddlers dipping their paddles

into the water in silence, as one of their number in each canoe threw

out double handfuls of the crushed crab 'burley.' As they approached

nearer to us we became aware of a peculiar lapping, splashing noise, as

of hundreds of bare feet walking in water a few inches deep.

'That's the fish,' whispered the trader. 'Look at them--they are coming

in in thousands.'

And then even our unaccustomed eyes could see that the water behind the

canoes was churned into a white froth by the jumping, splashing fish,

which x were following the canoes in a solid wall, snapping up the food

so industriously thrown to them. In a few minutes the canoes had entered

the open end of the trap, and were paddling noiselessly past the inner

lines of nets, not a hundred yards from where we stood. At last, when

the whole inclosure was literally swarming with fish, the outside canoes

quickly closed up the gap by stretching the nets across it, and almost

at the same moment there was a tremendous splashing and churning up of

the water around each knoll and boulder of coral. The _tautau_ had left

off eating the bait thrown them from the canoes, and were attacking the

myriads of small fish that clustered round the boulders. And then, at

a signal given by one of the outside canoes, the torches sprang

into flame, and by the bright light that flooded the scene the most

extraordinary sight was revealed, for from one side to the other the

great inclosure was full of magnificent _tautau_ about three feet six in

length. They were all swimming on the surface; and as soon as the

blaze of the torches illumined the water they at once became almost

stationary; or, after the manner of flying-fish, when subjected to a

strong light, swam slowly about in a dazed, hesitating manner.

The work of capturing some very large turtle, that had come into the

fatal circle of nets, was now at once begun, lest in their endeavours to

escape the nets might be broken and the fish escape. There were six of

these creatures speared before they could do any damage; as well as two

or three small sharks, which, having gorged themselves to repletion,

were killed as they lazily swam along the circle of nets.

So well had the natives judged of the time it would take to carry out

their scheme, that within half an hour of the inclosure of the fish the

tide began to fall, and the imprisoned swarms showed signs of anxiety to

escape, but as fresh supplies of torches were brought from the village,

and kept continuously alight, their alarm seemed to disappear. Had a

heavy shower of rain fallen--so the trader told us--and extinguished the

torches, the fish would have rushed at the nets and carried them away by

sheer weight.

Meanwhile, as the tide continued to fall, many of the women and girls

amused themselves by stunning all the fish that came within reach

of them, and loading the canoes with them. Once some fifty or sixty

_tautau_ came right up to the boulder on which we stood, and were

so dazed by the glare of light that poured down on them, that some

permitted themselves to be captured by the hand.

Lower and lower fell the water, and as the shore end of the trap became

dry, the fish were gradually forced to come closer and closer together

as their swimming space diminished. By-and-by, as the receding tide

left the chain of coral rocks dry on their summits, women waded out with

firewood, and built fires on them; not that there was now any danger

of the fish breaking away, but to give a still better light. At last,

however, the word was passed along the line that the sea end of the

drive had been strengthened by additional nets in case a sudden rush

might occur; but, by this time, so rapidly was the water running out,

that even at the deepest end there was not perhaps two feet available

for the now terrified and struggling swarms of _tautau_. In another

twenty minutes there was heard a most extraordinary sound, caused by

thousands upon thousands of fish thrashing and jumping about on the

sand; while at the sea end of the drive, where the great body of all

were massed together, the scene was simply indescribable. What

little water was left was beaten into froth and foam by their violent

struggles, and the light from the torches showed that a space of

about five acres in extent was covered with a shining, silvery mass

of splendid _tautau_, intermixed with a small number of gorgeous-hued

rock-fish, cray-fish, and some hawk-bill turtle.

The work of picking up the prizes went on for at least two hours. Three

or four of the _tautau_ placed in a basket was as much as a woman could

carry, and, although everyone present worked hard, some thousands of

fish were not taken. Many of these, however, were not dead, and, with

the incoming tide, swam off again. All the young turtle, however,

were secured, the natives taking them up carefully and putting them in

walled-in pools where they would remain prisoners.

We tried to ascertain the number of fish taken, but gave it up. Every

house and canoe-shed appeared to have the floor covered with them, and

for the next day or two there were great fish dinners on the island.

Some thousands of _tautau_ were split open and dried upon platforms in

the same manner as the natives of Eastern Polynesia dry flying-fish, and

the Fraser River Indians their salmon.

We succeeded in buying a fine lot of turtle shell from the trader, as

well as some from the king and his mother. The old lady treated us right

royally, and, a few hours before we sailed, a canoe-load of fruit and

drinking coco-nuts were sent off to the ship, with her compliments.

BOBARAN

When our boat touched the beach in front of the trader's house just as

the dawn was breaking, I thought Kabaira Bay one of the loveliest places

in the Pacific, and said so to the man I had been sent to relieve. He

quite concurred in my opinion of the beauties of the scenery, but said

that he was very glad to get away. Then, being a cheerful man, though

given to unnecessary blasphemy, like most South Sea Island traders, he

took me out to the rich garden at the back of the station and showed

me the grave of his predecessor, who had died of fever a year before.

Further on, but outside the enclosing fence, were some more graves, he

said.

'Whose?' I asked.

'Captain Murray's, his mate's, and two of his cutter's crew.'

'Fever?'

'No,' he replied, with some slight surprise at my ignorance; 'the

natives killed 'em a couple o' years ago. An', see, just over there by

Point Luen, is the Hon. Mr Willington's house. He was a nephew of Lord

L------. I goes there sometimes and rips a board out o' the floor when I

wants one.' ^

'Mr Wellington gone away?' My friend _was_ surprised this time. 'Why,

you _must_ be a new chum in New Britain. Why, Willington ain't dead six

months.' 'Fev--'

'Fever be -------. No, he got speared when he was lying in his bunk

readin' a book one night. _I_ told him that the niggers would pay him

out for a-playin' crooked with em'; but he was too cock-a-hoopy to

listen to a feller like me.'

'Any more white men buried in Kabaira? 'I asked after a while, as we

walked back to the house to take stock of my host's trade goods.

'No, that's all that's planted here--at least, all I know of, and I've

been here, in New Britain, five years. There's been a good many Dutchmen

killed on the coast here, and over in New Ireland, but I didn't know

any of 'em. An' they're such a silly lot o' duffers, that they reg'lar

tempts these New Britain niggers to kill 'em; and then the beggars, not

knowing an Englishman from a Dutchman, are ready to murder anyone with

a white skin. So you look out, young feller. These niggers here are a

rotten bad lot. But I'll interdooce yer to Bobaran. He's the biggest

cut-throat of em' all; but he an' me is good pals, and onct you've

squared him you're pretty safe. Got plenty fever medicine?' 'Lots.'

'Liquor?' 'Case of gin.'

'That'll keep you clear o' fever as much as anything, as long as the

case lasts. Always drink some when it's raining.' (It usually rained

nine days out of ten in New Britain). 'Now we'll take stock. I can tell

you I'm mighty glad to clear out o' this place--an' so will you be in a

couple o' months, if--you're alive.'

Having thus, in cheerful converse, somewhat enlightened me as to the

peculiar characteristics of Kabaira Bay and its inhabitants, my friend

had breakfast cooked, and whilst we were eating it, sent a messenger for

his friend Bobaran to come and make the acquaintance of the new white

man. During breakfast the trader gave me much further information, all

of which, as a man new to the ropes, I was very glad to obtain. Kabaira,

I already knew (I had but just arrived in New Britain from Eastern

Polynesia), was the 'furthest out' trading station on the great island,

which, at that time, had barely thirty white men living on it; most of

these were settled on Gazelle Peninsula, and a few on the Duke of York

Island, midway between the northern point of New Britain and mountainous

New Ireland. My nearest neighbour lived at Kabakadà, a populous native

town ten miles away. My host told me that this man was 'a noisy, drunken

little swine,' the which assertion I subsequently found to be absolutely

correct. Further on, five miles from Kabakadà, was another trader named

Bruno Ran, a hard-working Swiss; then, after rounding Cape Stephens,

was the large German trading station of Matupi in Blanche Bay, where you

could buy anything from a needle to a chain cable. On the Duke of York

Island was another trading station, and also the Wesleyan Mission, which

as yet had made but few converts in New Britain; and over in New Ireland

were a few scattered English traders, who sometimes sailed over on a

visit to their dangerously-situated fellow-countrymen in the big island.

For dangerous indeed was the daily existence of traders in those then

little-known islands. But money was to be made, and men will dare much

to make money quickly, even though at the risk of their lives. As for

the natives of New Britain, a few words will suffice. They were the most

unmitigated savages, cowardly and treacherous, and with the exception of

the people of the villages in the vicinity of Blanche Bay, whose women

wore a scanty girdle of leaves of the plant _Cordyline terminalis_,

they passed their lives in a state of stark nudity. Their dwellings

and canoes were of the poorest description, but their plantations and

gardens were highly cultivated, and marvels of incessant and intelligent

labour. For human life they had no regard; in fact, a pig was worth more

than a man, except among those tribes where a man who weighed more than

a pig would be more valuable as food. At the present time things have

improved on the Gazelle Peninsula, but along the coast-line, which to

the westward stretches for over two hundred miles towards New Guinea,

matters have not changed. As for their personal appearance, it is simply

hideous. Take the biggest anthropoid ape, stain his teeth black and his

lips scarlet, stick a wig of matted greasy curls on his head, and put

half a dozen slender spears in his right paw, and you have an idea of

a New Britain nigger--a 'brand,' according to missionary ethics, who

should be plucked from the burning, but whom the Christian of ordinary

intelligence would cheerfully watch burning until he was reduced to a

cinder.

Just as we had finished breakfast, Bobaran came in and squatted on the

flour. Being a man of rank and influence, he was privileged, and allowed

to carry his arms with him inside the trader's house. These consisted

of five spears, one long-handled ebony-wood club, with a huge jade head,

and a horse-pistol, which was fastened to a leather belt around his

naked waist. His fuzzy wool was dyed a bright brick red colour and

twisted into countless little curls which, hanging over his beetling and

excessively dirty black forehead, almost concealed his savage eyes, and

harmonised with his thick, betel-stained lips and cavernous, grip-sack

mouth. Around his arms were two white circlets of shell, and depending

from his bull-like neck a little basket containing betel-nut and lime.

He certainly was a most truculent-looking scoundrel. Nevertheless,

I shook hands with him cordially, and he agreed, for certain

considerations, to look after me, find me in food, warn me of any danger

that might impend, and also to murder anyone with whom I might feel

annoyed, for a fixed but very small remuneration. In proof whereof of

this alliance, and as a token of amity and goodwill, Parker (the

trader) presented him with a small tin of ship biscuit, four dynamite

cartridges, a dozen boxes of matches and a bottle of a villainous German

liquor called 'Corn Schnapps.' Then the atrocity stood up and embraced

me, and asked me to show him my firearms. His fierce eyes gleamed

with pleasure as he turned them about in his filthy paws, and he was

especially pleased with the size of a Sharp's rifle cartridge and bullet

which would, he grinned, 'make big fellow hole in man.' Then, with

further expressions of goodwill on both sides, we parted.

At dusk Parker bade me good-bye, and urging me to put the utmost

confidence in Bobaran and drink plenty of gin whenever it rained--to

keep the fever from 'gettin' holt' of my system--he walked down to the

beach and stepped into the boat. For a few minutes I stood watching till

he was hidden from view by a point of land, and then, feeling somewhat

depressed at my future loneliness, I walked back to the house.

Bobaran, the Mesdames Bobaran (three), and the Masters and Misses

Bobaran were sitting on the verandah awaiting me. None of them were as

much dressed as their father, who had, as I have said, a leather belt

around his loins, and all were chewing betel-nut and expectorating the

scarlet juice thereof vigorously about the premises. Being aware of the

fact that a New Britain woman is never abroad at night, and a man but

seldom, I was surprised at such a family gathering, for the village was

some distance away. Bobaran, however, explained that as he and two

of his sons intended keeping guard for me that night, the rest of the

family had come with them--and that they should like some tobacco.

Leaving his wives and children outside to smoke, my protector came

into the sitting-room, and as he had acquired a considerable amount of

unpolished sailor man's English, I found him very entertaining and also

instructive. First he told me that the Kabaira people were perfectly

safe; it was a very peaceful village, and the people liked white men,

and he hoped I would not carry arms whenever I went out--it made them

frightened, and when people were frightened of a man they naturally

tried to kill him. Agreed to. Secondly, they were not cannibals--all

their neighbours were, however. (I said I was pleased to hear it, no

doubt someone had maligned them.) But they were all thieves, and I must

take prompt action to prevent myself from being robbed--(here one of his

wives crept to the door on all fours and asked her lord and master for

a match, but was struck with great violence in the mouth with an empty

salmon tin instead, for interrupting). To-morrow I should do as 'Parka'

did the day he came to Kabaira. I must go down to the beach with a

dynamite cartridge in my hand and seek for a place where there was

plenty of fish. And I must have another cartridge ready in my pocket.

As soon as the first shot went off hundreds of natives would jump in the

water and try to steal all the best fish. Then I was to light the fuse

of the second cartridge and throw it in. And it would be sure to hurt

_some_ of the people, and they would not follow me next time I went

fishing. But, of course, if I _should_ happen to kill anyone, I would

pay for it?

'Of course I would,' I said. 'How much?'

'Big feller man, one good musket; boy, one axix' (axe); 'old woman, old

feller, musket; young girl, one good musket.'

Then he approached me on a delicate subject, i.e., the taking over of

my predecessor's harem of three native women. I explained that I was

expecting my wife down soon from Samoa and couldn't do it. He said it

was a great pity, as one of 'Parka's' wives could make tea and

cook meat. Also, that I need be under no fear of her making any

unpleasantness when my wife turned up. Would I like to see the girl?

'Parka' had taught her a lot of things. She did not oil her hair with

pigeon fat, and cleaned her teeth every day just like a Samoan girl.

Also, she had ten coils of _dewarra_ (cowrie shells threaded on the

midribs of the coco-nut leaf, and used as the native currency). I said

I was very much tempted, but thought I had better not. He looked at me

steadily for a few seconds, as he thrust a fresh 'chaw' of betel-nut

and lime into his hideous mouth, and said that I was missing a great

chance--there were plenty of white men along the coast who would be glad

to get anyone of 'Parka's' wives, especially she who could make tea and

cook meat.

He seemed pleased that I was disposed to be as liberal-handed as Parker,

for whom he seemed to have a high regard; and then proceeded to tell me

of some of his own exploits among the inhabitants of Mutavât, a village

across the bay, which was at enmity with Kabaira. The infinite gusto

with which he related a series of atrocious murders gave me a chill, and

he looked like an evil spirit when his great red lips parted in a grin

and revealed his black teeth. Presently he asked me if I had shot

any people; and when I said I had not, he became regretful, but soon

brightened up again and said I would have plenty of chances yet.

There were some bush villages, to which he would take me some day, and

if we were careful we could knock over two or three people easily; they

were a bad lot these 'man-a-bush' (bush-men).

At ten o'clock I turned in, and Bobaran, after an animated conversation

with his family, lay down at my door with a Snider rifle and his

horse-pistol by his side.

And for many long, weary months, in the beautiful but fever-ridden

Kabaira Bay, he was the only person to whom I could talk; and in time I

began to take a liking to him, for I found him, as Parker had told me,

'a thunderin' old cut-throat, but as straight as a die to a white man

who acts straight to him.'

SEA FISHING IN AUSTRALIA

'Hi, mister, turn out, please, if you're a-comin' with us,' a gruff

voice called out to me one frosty morning in May, and then a hairy,

good-humoured-looking face flattened itself against my window pane as

the owner sought to peer into the room.

I jumped out of bed, opened the window, and shivered in my pyjamas as

the keen morning air rushed in to the warm room. Slaney, the coxswain

of the Port Macquarie pilot boat,{*} was standing below me on the grassy

side walk, muffled up in his great coat, and carrying a shin of beef in

his hand.

* Port Macquarie is a quaint 'old' seaport on the northern

coast of New South Wales.

'How does it look outside, Slaney?' I asked.

'Smooth as glass. Hurry up, please. I've just come from the butcher's,

couldn't get any fish bait last night, so bespoke a shin of beef.'

Five minuses later I had dressed, and was running up the hill to the

pilot station with my fishing tackle, together with some sandwiches,

some bottles of beer, and a tin pannikin, slung in a corn sack over my

shoulder--not a very elegant turn-out, but the correct thing for such

rough and tumble work as schnapper fishing. At the top of the hill I

stopped to give myself breath a minute. An impatient 'Hallo there, _do_

hurry,' ascended to me from beneath, where the smart pilot boat lay

rocking on the waters of a little cove, cut out of the solid rock by the

labour of convicts seventy years before, her crew of six men standing up

to their knees in the water, and holding her steady. Tumbling down the

grassy hill at the risk of breaking my neck, I waded out and clambered

over the side, and in another minute the crew were bending to their oars

and the boat sweeping round a clump of conical rocks that sheltered

the boat harbour from the long roll of the Pacific billows. Oh, what a

lovely morning, and how the blue ocean glinted and sparkled in the quick

warming sun. Away to the southward the high, thickly-timbered coast was

broken up by jutting headlands and little, irregularly shaped bays, with

steep, rocky shores; and northward a long sweep of beach trended in a

curving line for ten miles, till it ended at the purple sides of Point

Plomer, beyond which loomed the misty blue outline of Captain Cook's

'Smoaky' Cape.

The wind was from the westward; so we hoisted our lug sail, and headed

seaward to the sun. Behind us the noisy Hastings River bar clamoured and

moaned unceasingly; for though the sea was smooth, the tide was on the

ebb, and rushing fiercely out over the wide but shallow entrance to

the river, and short, angry waves reared, and tumbled, and fought the

roaring current. But in another ten minutes the noise of the waters

became lost in the distance, and we heard, naught but the gentle

_lip-lap, lip-lap_, of the boat's cut-water as she slipped over the

swelling seas. Three miles out we took our bearings from a mountain

called The Brothers, and Camden Haven Heads, and then dropped our anchor

in twenty-two fathoms on a rocky bottom.

There is not much 'finnicking' preparation for schnapper fishing, and

in five minutes every line was baited, and over the side, and at the

bottom, and before another two or three had passed we knew we had struck

the right spot, for nearly every one of us felt the unmistakable tug

of a lusty schnapper, and then the determined downward pull, strong and

steady, which he makes when once hooked. Slaney, who was using a line as

thick as signal-halliards, was the first to haul his fish over the side,

and drop him, kicking and thrashing like a young porpoise, into the

boat; the rest of us, whose tackle was much thinner, were a long way

behind him, and Slaney's line was over the side again before our fish

were laid beside the first arrival. What a beautiful fish is a ten-pound

schnapper--a brilliant pink back, sides and tail, dotted over with

tiny spots of a wonderful, gleaming blue that sparkle like miniature

diamonds; the bream-shaped head a deep reddish-purple, with nose and

lips of palish pink; the belly a pure, shining white. No wonder that

Phillip, the first Governor of New South Wales, spoke of the schnapper

as 'an exceedingly beautiful and palatable fish.'

For about an hour we continued to haul up fish after fish till our

arms ached. The smallest weighed about three pounds, the largest about

seventeen pounds, and the average weight of the lot was about eight

pounds. Then we knocked off for breakfast. That finished, we lit our

pipes and settled down to work again. Alas! a swarm of ugly brown and

yellow 'leather-jackets' had arrived on the scene, and before our lines

could touch bottom the brutes would either take the bait, or bite off

the hook snoozings with their keen, rat-like teeth. In a quarter of an

hour we had caught but four schnapper and lost a dozen or more hooks;

my own line was bitten through at about five fathoms from the surface--a

piece of meat skin had wound itself round it and had been discovered by

one of these predatory villains. No wonder that the Samoans and natives

of the Tokelau Islands term the leather-jacket _isumu moana_--the

sea-rat. However, as leather-jackets make excellent schnapper bait, two

of us were told off to fish for them with bream-lines and wire-snoozed

small hooks, and we soon had the satisfaction of catching a dozen of the

thieves. These were quickly skinned and cut up; then we lifted anchor

and pulled southward for about half a mile, knowing we should catch but

few schnapper where leather-jackets were.

Our new ground proved a lucky one, for we not only caught some seventy

schnapper--some of them truly noble fish--but two magnificent black

and white rock cod, a fish whose flavour is excelled by no other in

Australian waters. No leather-jackets appeared to disturb our pleasure,

and not even the usual murderous shark showed his ugly face, and played

the usual game of seizing every schnapper as it was hauled up, and

biting it in halves. Only the previous week half a dozen had followed us

about from ground to ground, breaking our lines, and taking five out

of every ten fish we hooked. Two at last we succeeded in harpooning and

killing, and casting their bodies to their friends, who made short work

of them and left us alone for the rest of the day.

Schnapper in the winter months, on the Australian coast, retire to the

deep water, and can be caught in from thirty to fifty fathoms. They

travel in droves like sheep, and prefer to frequent rocky or broken

ground. Sometimes, however, they will enter the bar harbours in great

numbers and ascend the tidal rivers. Twenty-five years ago they were

often taken in nets in the Parramatta River, near Sydney, and were

very plentiful in Sydney Harbour itself. Nowadays one is rarely

caught anywhere inside the Heads. Steamboat traffic and the foul water

resulting from sewerage has driven them to the deep waters of the ocean.

One peculiar feature of schnapper fishing on the northern coast of New

South Wales is that, be the fish ever so plentiful and hungry, they

invariably cease biting immediately, if the wind should change to the

east or north-east. Yet on the southern seaboard, from Twofold Bay to

Galo Island, they will take the hook during a black north-easter, as

freely as they do when the wind is blowing from any other quarter.

From one end to the other of the coast of New South Wales, there is

grand rock-fishing to be had by anyone who once is initiated into its

mysteries, and is not afraid of getting an occasional drenching from

an ocean roller when there is any sea running. Right from the southern

boundary of the colony to the Tweed River on the north, are breaks in

the long sandy beaches, of rocky coast, which in most places are easily

accessible to the fisherman; and the water in these spots being

deep close under the verge of the cliffs, the deep-sea fish, such

as schnapper, blue and brown groper, the gigantic mottled rock-cod,

trevally, king-fish, the great Jew-fish, sea salmon, etc., at certain

seasons of the year cruise to and fro about the rocks in extraordinary

numbers. But, strange as it may appear, rock-fishing is almost unknown

to the average colonial, except those living near the principal ports.

The greatest ignorance, too, prevails as to the edible qualities of the

many varieties of excellent rock-fish, except the well-known schnapper.

The generality of the coast settlers look upon most coloured fish as

'bad to eat,' if not 'poisonous,' and particularly so in the case of

the delicious blue groper or blue-fish, the 'leather jacket,' and the

scaleless bonito, which latter occasionally visit the shores of the

colony in large 'schools,' and take a bait eagerly.

My boyish experiences of rock-fishing in New South Wales are full of

delightful memories. Then, accompanied by one of the few surviving

members of the Hastings River (Port Macquarie) blacks, my brothers and

myself would set out for a week's camping-out on the wild and lonely

coast between Port Macquarie and Camden Haven--a stretch of twenty miles

or so. Our equipment consisted of some very heavy lines and hooks for

the big fish, some fine tackle for beach fishing--for bream, whiting,

flathead, etc.--a couple of spears for cray-fish, an old smooth-bore

army musket and ammunition (for shooting ducks on the tidal lagoons),

tea, sugar, as much bread as we could carry, and a tomahawk. As for

tents, such luxuries were unknown to us boys in those days; if it showed

signs of rain at night time we could soon put up a bark shelter, and,

with a pair of light blankets under us, sleep in peace.

One of our most favoured spots was at Tacking Point, a curious steep-to

bluff, clothed on its sides with a dense thicket scrub, the haunt of

hundreds of black wallabies and wonga pigeons, and also a large variety,

of brown and black snakes, with an occasional death adder. The summit,

however, was beautifully grassed, and clear of timber, except for a

clump or two of gnarled and knotted honeysuckle trees; and here, after

our day's fishing, we would camp, and, lying beside our fire, look out

upon the starlit Pacific two hundred feet below. Although only five

miles from the little town, we scarcely saw a human being during our

many trips. Sometimes, however, some of 'Tommy's' sooty relatives would

follow us up, in order to gorge themselves on fish and game, which we

shared with them cheerfully.

My first groper was an exciting experience. Descending to the rocky

shore very early in the morning with 'Tommy,' we clambered over some

huge jagged and wildly-jungled-together boulders at the foot of the

bluff, and reached the edge of a large, deep pool of blue water in the

rocks, with a narrow opening to the sea. The sides were covered with

long streaming kelp and many-coloured seaweed, which moved gently up and

down to the rise and fall of the ocean swell. Only in one part could we

see the white sand at the bottom of the pool, for the depth of water was

some six or seven fathoms. Both blue and brown groper are very fond of

crabs; in fact, when a big, wary fellow will not look at either a piece

of octopus or the flesh of the _aliotis_ shell, he cannot resist a crab.

We soon secured plenty of crabs of all sizes and colours, and, baiting

our lines with two of the largest, dismembered the others, and

flung portions of them into the pool. A number of small parrot-fish,

sea-bream, and mottled cod at once appeared and devoured the fragments.

The size and hardness of the shells of our crabs, however, were too much

for them, and although they snapped off a leg or two and 'worried'

the baits considerably, our hooks touched bottom safely (we were using

sinkers of stone). Suddenly, just as my companion had thrown another

handful of 'burley' into the water, three big blue groper rose to the

surface almost together, and, swallowing the crushed-up crab, began

swimming round and round the edges of the pool eagerly seeking for more.

This was my first view of this species of groper at close quarters, and

these three presented, a very beautiful sight, the very dark blue of the

whole of their closely-scaled, shining bodies, and the very light blue

of their fins and tails making a pretty contrast. Two were about 15 lb.

to 16 lb. each, the other about 35 lb. to 40 lb., and nearly four feet

in length. They swam but slowly, though every now and then they would

turn with some swiftness of motion as 'Tommy' continued to throw

in pieces of crab. Meanwhile, by my black companion's whispered

instructions, I had cut the sinker off a spare line, and baited the

four-inch hook with the two largest crabs left. Unreeving about six

fathoms of line, I handed the baited end to 'Tommy,' who deftly threw it

just before the nose of the big fellow. In an instant he had seized

the hook, and, diving, made for the opening between the rocks. 'Tommy,'

yelling to me to look to the other lines, held on like grim death and

managed to turn his prize's head in time; the two others sticking close

to their brother in misfortune. I had just hauled up one of the other

two lines, and was running round the jagged side of the pool holding the

other in my left hand (so as to keep clear of 'Tommy's' fish), when

I felt a terrific tug that nearly sent me over. 'Look out! Look out!'

shouted 'Tommy,' warningly; 'don't let that fella get underneath the

seaweed; keep him clear of dat, or you lose him!' For a 16-lb. fish he

pulled tremendously (for a boy of my size); but at last I managed to

get a steady strain on him, and then his big blue head, with its thick,

negro-like lips, soon appeared at the base of a slanting rock, up which

I hauled him, kicking and floundering. 'Tommy' meanwhile had already

landed his fish, and had cast his line for the last of the trio; but

without success; he had made off to the sea.

A few hours later, at low tide, we caught, in the same pool, seven

schnapper, averaging about 8 lb. each; a brown groper of 20 lb., a dozen

or more of deep sea bream, beautiful silvery-scaled fish, with a pale

greenish tinge on the head and back, and bright yellow fins and tail;

and several huge cray-fish, which clung to our hooks and did not let go

their hold in time.

This pool was only one of many along this picturesque and rocky coast,

along which, at the present time, fish are just as plentiful and as easy

to catch; but four years ago I, on visiting 'the' pool of my early days,

found it filled by a pile of soap-stone rocks, detached by the rains

from the sea face of the bluff above it. It was a bitter disappointment

to me, for the memory of that pool had remained with me since my

boyhood, and I felt as one who, after a long, long separation in foreign

climes from some dear friend of his youth, at last returns home, hoping

to meet his comrade once more, and is shown his grass-grown grave.

AN ADVENTURE IN THE NEW HEBRIDES

More than twenty years ago a fine young Polynesian half-caste, named

Alan, and the writer, were running a small trading cutter out of Samoa,

among the low-lying atolls of the Ellice and Tokelau groups, in the

South Pacific. We had hauled her up on the beach to clean and put a few

sheets of copper on her, when, one day, a big, bronze-faced man came

to us, and asked us if we were open to a charter to Santo in the New

Hebrides. After a few minutes' conversation we struck a bargain, the

terms of which were to take him, his native wife, three servants, and

twenty tons of trade goods to his trading station on Espiritu Santo in

the New Hebrides, for six hundred dollars. He was an ex-trading skipper,

but had given up the sea, married a Hervey Island half-caste, and, after

trading some years in the Caroline and Marshall groups, had made a

trip to the New Hebrides, where he had gone into partnership with a

Frenchman, who, like himself, was a sailor man, and had settled down on

Santo. Hannah--for that was his name--had then returned to the Carolines

for his family, and brought them to Samoa, from whence he thought he

could get a passage down to the New Hebrides in one of the two German

brigs then engaged in the Kanaka labour trade--'black-birding,' as it

was called. But one, the _Iserbrook_ had been burnt in Sydney Harbour,

and the other was away at Valparaiso.

But now arose a difficulty. I was not navigator enough to take the

vessel to Santo--a distance of thirteen hundred miles--let alone beat

her back to Samoa against the south-east trades. This, however, Captain

Hannah soon settled. He agreed to navigate us down, and his partner

would come back with me, as his wife, who was a Samoan woman, wanted to

pay a visit to her native country, and our vessel would afford her an

excellent opportunity; his own services in bringing the cutter back to

Samoa to be 'squared' by free passages for himself and wife.

My partner Alan was quite satisfied. The big man planked down two

hundred and fifty dollars on account, and we shook hands all round.

Hannah was a quiet, silent sort of fellow, but I knew we should get on

all right, for he came down to us next morning with his people, helped

us heave the cutter off the beach, and covered our decks with pigs and

poultry. That afternoon we got our wood and water aboard, and were ready

for sea at daylight.

Alan was a splendid type of a man. Brought up to the sea from his

childhood, he had served some years as a boat-steerer on American

whale-ships, then with 'Bully' Hayes as boatswain in the notorious

_Rona_ brig; and a finer seaman never walked a deck. He was very proud

of the English blood in his veins, and always talking of the exploits

of his father, who had served with the gallant Cochrane in the Chilian

navy. At sea he was a man for emergencies--quick, resolute, resourceful

and sober. On shore, with money in his pocket, he descended to the

level of the lowest beach-comber, and was always in trouble for thumping

somebody--generally another half-caste or a policeman. Peace to his

bones! He went to a sailor's death long ago; but the writer of this

narrative will never forget the dark, handsome face, laughter-filled

eyes, and cheery voice of the best shipmate with whom he ever sailed.

We put to sea with a fine breeze, and running between the islands of

Upolu and Savai'i, were out of sight of land by dusk. There were but

thirteen persons all told on board--our seven passengers, Alan, four

native sailors, and myself--but we were in no wise crowded for room, for

the hold was used as a sleeping-place by Captain Hannah's wife, her two

children and three servants. Mats had been spread over the cargo, and

the weather being fine, the hatch was left open from the time we left

Samoa nearly till we reached Santo.

The south-east trade wind held steadily, and the little vessel, being

clean and in fine trim, ran along at a great rate, till, on the sixth

day out, when we had just sighted Pentecost Island, one of the New

Hebrides group, it died away, and at sunset we were becalmed. All that

night the air was close and muggy, but towards dawn a faint air came

from the westward. During the night the strong current had carried us in

ten or twelve miles nearer to the shore, and at sunrise we were not

more than six miles from the land. Pentecost, from the treachery of its

savage inhabitants, had always borne a bad reputation; and so, as the

cutter still continued to drift shorewards, Alan, Captain Hannah and

myself thought it just as well to be prepared for any canoes that might

attempt to cut us off. (As-a matter of fact, however, we need not have

been under any alarm in this respect, for although the Pentecost natives

were, and are now, a thoroughly bad lot, as the surveying vessels of the

Australian Squadron know to their cost, they would never attempt to cut

off a vessel unless she were anchored. But no one of we white men

knew much of the New Hebrides.) So as we had plenty of arms on

board--Winchesters and Sharp's rifles--We got them in readiness; and

very fortunate it was that we did so.

We drifted steadily along the densely-wooded shores of Pentecost all

that day, the sea as smooth as glass, and the pitch bubbling up in the

decks from the intense heat. Towards sunset, Captain Hannah's wife, who

was lying on the skylight with her youngest child, called out to us that

she could see a boat or canoe on the starboard beam. Hannah and I at

once got our glasses, and soon made out a boat, pulling five oars,

coming towards us from the island, and not more than a couple of miles

away.

As she came nearer, and lifted now and then to the swell, we obtained a

better view, and saw there were six people in her--five pulling and one

steering. They came along very leisurely.

'Shipwrecked people, I imagine,' said Hannah; and then, turning to Alan

and myself, he added, with a laugh, 'Perhaps there's a fine big lump

of a ship ashore about here, and you fellows are bound to get some fine

pickings--might get the ship herself afloat.'

In ten minutes or so a bit of a light air came over the water, and

filled our sails, so we stood over towards the boat, which was now

drawing close. Presently one of our native sailors hailed us from aloft,

and said he could see four or five more men in the boat besides those

who were pulling; and at the same time she ceased rowing awhile, then

the oars dipped again, and she came on.

Suddenly Hannah, who was scanning the strange boat very closely, turned

to me quietly and said, 'I don't like the looks of that boat. We had

better not let them come alongside. Perhaps they're escapees from New

Caledonia. I thought so at first--they've got the regular “Ile Nou

stroke.” If they try to board we must beat them off, or we may lose the

ship.'

Realising the danger, we at once called the native hands aft, gave each

man a loaded Sharp's rifle and half a dozen cartridges, and told him to

lay it down handy on the deck, and be prepared to use it. Hannah's wife

at once began loading our five Winchester rifles. By this time the boat

was within a hundred yards of the cutter. Whether those in her saw what

we were doing or not I do not know, but they came on very confidently.

Then, getting up on the rail, I hailed, 'Boat ahoy, there! Don't come

any nearer, or we'll fire into you. What do you want?'

There was a sudden commotion among the rowers, and then Hannah and Alan,

coming to the rail, stood beside me with their Winchesters in their

hands. This display had a good effect, for they stopped pulling at once,

and the man steering stood up. The moment I got a full view of him and

heard him speak, I knew that Hannah was right about the identity of the

strangers.

'We are a ship-a-wreck men,' he called out; 'we wanta water and

provis'.'

'Well, pull abeam or us to windward, but don't come alongside just yet.'

'All right,' was the answer.

The wind was very light, and the boat could have soon overtaken us, but

we felt confident that, with the arms we possessed, we could easily beat

them off if they tried to board. At the same time we were willing to

give them some provisions, and such other assistance as lay in our

power.

After talking the matter over with Hannah, I again hailed the boat, and

told the steersman that he could come aboard, but that the rest of his

crowd must keep to the boat.

Hauling our jib to windward, we let them range alongside, and the

steersman jumped on deck. During the few minutes that the boat was

waiting, we had a good look at her and her occupants. The former,

I could see, was German-built, very long, narrow and heavy, and was

lumbered up with a quantity of fresh coco-nuts, yams, taro and

other native food. As for the crew, they were as suspicious and as

desperate-looking a lot of scarecrows as could be imagined.

Some of them were dressed in the heavy woollen garments usually worn

by German merchant seamen, but half a dozen of them were wearing the

yellow-grey canvas trousers of the New Caledonian convict. As I looked

down at them Alan pointed out to me the muzzles of three or four short

rifles showing from beneath the edge of a ragged native mat which was

spread over the bottom boards for'ard. They had evidently spent the

night on shore, for some of them, who were wearing cloth caps, had made

themselves peaked sunshades of plaited green coco-nut leaves, which were

tied round their heads, native-fashion. Lying amidships was a good-sized

water-breaker; and one of the gang, a little, hooknosed ruffian, with a

villainous face and wearing a filthy print shirt with the tails outside

his pants, kept tapping it with a piece of wood to show us by the hollow

sound that it was empty.

'Pass it up on deck, you monkey-faced swine,' said Alan. 'Why didn't you

fill it when you were ashore?'

'We no finda water,' said the leader; 'we looka two, tree day--no

finda, and too many -------- nigger on shore shoota us all the time

witha-bow-anda-arra.'

'Well, you've got some guns there, I see. Couldn't you keep the niggers

off while a couple of you filled the breaker?' I asked. 'And there's

plenty of water on Pentecost, I believe.'

He shrugged his shoulders. 'Of what-a good the gun? We no have the

cartridge. Perhaps you give some--feefty, twenty, ten, eh?'

Alan, who was a bit of a humorist, answered that we would give him as

many cartridges as he wanted, if he gave us all the rifles he had in the

boat in exchange.

A scowl--which he tried to twist into a smile--flitted across his face,

and he turned his head away.

Giving the crowd in the boat a long line, we veered them astern, and

as the breeze was now freshening, the cutter slipping through the

water pretty fast, and we felt safe, Hannah, Alan and myself turned our

undivided attention to our visitor. He was a tall, squarely-built fellow

of about fifty years of age, with a thick stubble of iron-grey beard

covering his cheeks and chin, and his forehead and neck were burnt to

the colour of dark leather by the rays of a tropic sun. He was dressed

in a pea-jacket and dungaree pants, but had no boots.

'Sit down,' I said, c and tell us what we can do for you. But take a

glass of grog first.'

He drank the liquor eagerly, first bowing to Mrs Hannah and then to us

all in turn, and at the same time taking a sweeping glance along the

deck at our crew, who were grouped for'ard. As he raised his hand to his

mouth I saw that the back of it was much tattooed.

'Where did you lose your ship?' I asked.

'Astrolaba Reefa,' he answered quickly, 'three hundreda mila to

south-a-ward.'

'What was her name?'

'The _Airdale_,' he replied glibly. 'Belonga to Liverpool--fine biga

ship. We bound to Pam in New Caledonia to load chroma ore, and run

ashore on dark night. Ship break up very quick'--and then he spun off

the rest of his yarn, and a very plausible one it was, too. The ship,

he said, was not injured much at first, and on the following morning

the captain, with the second mate and four hands, had left in one of the

boats for Pam to get assistance. The first mate, bos'un and three hands

were drowned. After waiting for ten days on the wreck the rest of the

crew took to the long boat, for bad weather came on, and the ship began

to pound on the reef.

'But what are you doing here so far to the northward?' asked Hannah, in

his slow, drawling tones. 'Why didn't you steer for New Caledonia? You

were only two days' sail to there from Astrolabe Reefs. Now you are

three hundred miles to the north.'

The man was a marvellous liar. Yes, he said, that was true, but 'Goda

help him,' he would 'speaka true.' He and the nine men with him did not

want to go to New Caledonia, and did not want to have anything more to

do with the captain, who was a very 'harda' man, and so they had stood

to the northward, meaning to land on one of the New Hebrides.

'What was the captain's name?'

'Smeeth--Captain Johna Smeeth. Belonga to Liverpool.'

'Are you one of the ship's officers?'

'I am carpenter,' he answered promptly. 'I all the time sail in Englisha

ship.'

'Just so; are you a Frenchman?' asked Hannah, casually.

'No; I come from Barcelon'.'

'Well,' I said, 'I hope you will get along all right in your boat,

wherever you go. I'll give you a 50-lb. tin of biscuits, some tinned

meats, and as much water as you can take.'

He thanked me effusively, and said he would remember me in his prayers

to the Virgin, etc.

'Have you a compass?' I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders despairingly. No, they had no compass; the

'gooda Goda must be compass' for them.

Mani, Hannah's wife, who was sitting near us, with her youngest child on

her lap, apparently taking no heed of our talk, held the infant up and

smiled; and, as if speaking to it, said in Samoan,--

'He lies. I saw a boat compass in the stern sheets of the boat.'

'Well, I'm sorry I can't give you a compass,' I said. 'Alan, pass up a

tin of biscuit and a case of meat. The breeze is freshening, and we must

get along.'

Then our visitor made an earnest appeal. His boat was leaky, his

comrades were worn out, yet if we would let them come aboard they would,

after a little rest, tow the cutter in a calm, and not trouble us in

any way. Then, when we sighted Santo, they would leave us and make for

Leper's Island, which was the place they wanted to reach. The natives

there were very friendly, and there were some white men there.

'No,' I said, 'our vessel is too small for so many people. If you follow

Pentecost along to the north, you will sight Leper's Island as soon as

you round the north point. Now, haul your boat alongside. And here are

a couple of bottles of brandy for yourself and crew, some matches, and a

small box of tobacco.'

The boat hauled alongside, and our visitor, again thanking us, got in.

In a few minutes we saw their leader serving them out a nip; then the

night blotted them from view.

At daylight we were again becalmed and drifting steadily to the

northward. The boat was not in sight, and the only signs of life visible

around us were some slender columns of smoke ascending from the native

villages along the coast, which was less than three miles away. The heat

at ten o'clock was intense, and, to add to our discomfort, a heavy

swell set in and caused us to roll incessantly. However, we lowered our

mainsail, tried to be philosophical, and waited for a breeze. Towards

four in the afternoon a sharp rain squall swept down upon us from the

land; it lasted barely ten minutes, and was followed by others at short

intervals, and then we knew we were in for a night of it. Whenever one

of these squalls came tearing over the water we made good use of the

wind by running before it to the east, so as to get away from the land;

but at midnight we found we were still a great deal too close; and that

the current was very strong, and now setting in-shore very rapidly, we

could tell by the sound of the surf. There was nothing for us but to tow

off, for the water was too deep to anchor, even within thirty fathoms of

the reef. Just as we got the boat over the side there came a tremendous

downpour of rain, and we could only make ourselves heard by shouting to

each other at the top of our voices. This continued for half an hour,

and through it all, the boat, with Alan and three hands, continued to

tow. Suddenly the rain ceased--for about five minutes--only to fall

again with a deafening uproar. At two o'clock it toned down to a misty

drizzle, and we called to Alan to come alongside, as Hannah, two of his

natives and myself would give him a spell. The rain had beaten the swell

down, but the current was terribly strong, and when the mist lifted a

bit we saw we were still too close to the reef. After taking a cast of

the lead, and finding no bottom, Hannah and his two natives and myself

tumbled into the boat. We had just about tautened the tow-line when

Alan's voice rang out.

'Boat ahoy! Come back, quick, for God's sake! Here's the Frenchmen

coming!'

We backed alongside and jumped on board, just in time; for almost at the

same moment the Frenchmen's boat came up with a rush, and half a dozen

men sprang on to our decks and instantly closed with us. The rest would

have followed, but the ever-ready Mani began firing into their boat

with a Winchester. This kept them off. Had they, too, gained the deck we

should probably have lost the ship. The struggle on board was short but

sharp. Hannah, who was possessed of enormous strength, had seized the

first man who jumped over the rail round his waist, and slung him clean

across the deck against the port bulwarks, were he lay stunned; and then

went for the next man, whom he knocked backward into the boat with a

terrific blow. Meanwhile, Alan, two native sailors and myself, where

tied up in a knot with three others on the port side. It was so dark

that it was impossible to tell friend from foe at first; and one of our

hands, a Savage Islander, named Puniola, was just about to put a knife

into me, as he, two of the boarders and myself were struggling together,

when by chance he felt the big square buckle of my leather belt and

recognised me. He quickly let go of me, seized one of the convicts by

the throat, and choked him into insensibility, and we soon quietened one

of the other two by the same method. The third man, who was as wiry as

an eel and as strong as a horse, fought desperately, knocked two of

us down, and was then himself laid out by Hannah, who had come to our

assistance. Poor Alan, however, had fared badly; for the leader of the

gang had half-stunned him with a weapon of some sort, and we found him

lying across the cutter's tiller, bleeding profusely from a cut on the

head. His assailant, seeing that the attempt to capture the ship had

failed, jumped overboard and swam to his boat, which was drifting near

to us in the darkness.

As quickly as possible we got lights and examined the gentry lying about

on the deck. One of them was still unconscious, the rest were pretty

badly mauled about in the tussle; and Manî suggested that we had better

drop them overboard to save further trouble. Her blood was up, and she

was full of fight; but Hannah merely laughed, and told her not to be

such a _pun fia ai_ (tiger cat).

Showing a light, we hailed the Frenchmen's boat, and told them to come

alongside again.

'If you don't look smart we'll drop these five men overboard. So hurry

up.'

The gentleman from 'Barcelon'--who was certainly possessed of inimitable

cheek--after telling us to go to Hades, added that he had but one oar

in the boat, the others had gone adrift. So we had to dump our prisoners

into our own boat, and pull out to the other. Then, while Alan and I

covered those in the Frenchmen's boat, Hannah and two hands flung our

prisoners out of our boat into their own. Their leader took matters very

coolly, cursed his returning comrades freely as cowards, and then had

the face to ask us for some oars.

Then Hannah, who, we now found, spoke French, boiled over. Jumping into

the other boat, he seized the gentleman from Barcelona by the throat

with his left hand and rapidly pounded his face into a pulp with his

right.

Whilst Hannah was taking his satisfaction out of the big man, we struck

some matches and examined the rest of the crowd in the boat. One man, we

saw, was badly wounded, Manï having sent two bullets through his right

shoulder and one through his thigh; another had his cheek cut open, but

whether this was caused by a bullet or not I could not tell. I, being

young and green, felt very pitiful and wanted Hannah to bring the

badly-wounded man on board; but he, like a sensible man, said he would

see me hanged first, and that we ought to shoot the lot of them.

But, anyway, we gave them three oars, and then pushed clear of their

boat just as another rain squall came seething along.

At dawn we saw them, about two miles abeam of us, pulling slowly in

towards Pentecost.

We heard afterwards that they were sighted by the Sydney steamer

_Ripple_ Captain Ferguson, off Torres Island, in the Banks Group. Most

probably they abandoned the idea of stopping at Leper's Island, where

they would not be safe from recapture by the French cruisers, and

were then making for the Solomons. But that they ever reached there is

doubtful; or, if they did, they were probably eaten by the natives. The

boat, we heard, they had captured from a German vessel loading nickel

ore at one of north-eastern ports of New Caledonia, and they had then

raided a small settlement on the coast and obtained some arms and

provisions. Long afterwards I was told that their leader was a sailor

who was serving a life sentence for killing his mistress at La Ciotat,

in the South of France.