colonies, declining to ship a foreigner,
even an English-speaking Dane or Scandinavian, who make good sailor-men,
and are quiet, sober, and hardworking. Nowadays it is difficult to find
any English deep-sea ship or steamer, in which half of the hands for'ard
are not foreigners of some sort. And now practically the whole coasting
mercantile marine of the Australian colonies is manned by Germans,
Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians.

When I was a young man I sailed in ships in the South Sea trade which
had carried the same crew, voyage after voyage, for years, and there
was a distinct feeling of comradeship existing between officers and
crew that does not now exist. I well remember one gallant ship, the
_All Serene_ (a happy name), which was for ten years in the
Sydney-China trade. She was about the first colonial vessel to adopt
double-top-gallant yards, and many wise-heads prophesied all sorts of
dire mishaps from the innovation. On this ship (she was full rigged) was
a crew of nineteen men, and the majority of them had sailed in her for
eight years, although her captain was a bit of a "driver". But they got
good wages, good food, and had a good ship under their feet--a ship with
a crack record as a fast sailer.

In contrast to the _All Serene_, was a handsome barque I once sailed
in as a passenger from Sydney to New Caledonia, where she was to load
nickel ore for Liverpool. Her captain and three mates were Britishers,
and smart sailor-men enough, the steward was a Chileno, the bos'un a
Swede; carpenter a Mecklenburger joiner (who, when told to repair the
fore-scuttle, which had been damaged by a heavy sea, did not know where
it was situated), the sailmaker a German, and of the twelve A.B.'s and
O.S.'s only one--a man of sixty-five years of age, was a Britisher; the
rest were of all nationalities. Three of them were Scandinavians and
were good sailor-men, the others were almost useless, and only fit to
scrub paint-work, and hardly one could be trusted at the wheel. The cook
was a Martinique nigger, and was not only a good cook, but a thorough
seaman, and he had the utmost contempt for what he called "dem mongrels
for'ard," especially those who were Dagoes. The captain and officers
certainly had reason to knock the crew about, for during an electrical
storm one night the ship was visited by St. Elmo's fire, and the Dagoes
to a man refused duty, and would not go aloft, being terrified out
of their wits at the dazzling globes of fire running along the yards,
hissing and dancing, and illuminating the ocean for miles. They bolted
below, rigged up an altar and cross with some stump ends of candles, and
began to pray. Exasperated beyond endurance, the captain, officers, two
Norwegians, the nigger cook and I, after having shortened canvas, "went"
for them, knocked the religious paraphernalia to smithereens, and drove
them on deck.

The nigger cook was really a devout Roman Catholic, but his seaman's
soul revolted at their cowardice, and he so far lost his temper as to
seize a Portuguese by his black curly hair, throw him down, tear open
his shirt, and seize a leaden effigy of St. Jago do Compostella, which
he wore round his neck, and thrust it into his mouth. In after years
I saw Captain "Bully" Hayes do the same thing, also with a Portuguese
sailor; but Hayes made the man actually swallow the little image--after
he had rolled it into a rough ball--saying that if St James was so
efficient to externally protect the wearer from dangers of the sea, that
he could do it still better in the stomach, where he (the saint) would
feel much warmer.

The barque, a month or so after I left her in Noumea, sailed from T'chio
in New Caledonia, and was never heard of again. She was overmasted, and
I have no doubt but that she capsized, and every one on board perished.
Had she been manned by English sailors, she would have reached her
destination in safety, for the captain and officers knew her faults and
that she was a tricky ship to sail with an unreliable crew.

In many ships in which I have sailed, in my younger days, no officer
considered it _infra dig_. for him, when not on watch, to go for'ard and
listen to some of the hands spinning yarns, especially when the subject
of their discourse turned upon matters of seamanship, the eccentricities
either of a ship herself or of her builders, etc. This unbending from
official dignity on the part of an officer was rarely abused by the
men--especially by the better-class sailor-man. He knew that "Mr.
Smith" the chief officer who was then listening to his yarns and perhaps
afterwards spinning one himself, would in a few hours become a different
man when it was his watch on deck, and probably ask Tom Jones, A.B.,
what the blazes he meant by crawling aft to relieve the wheel like
an old woman with palsy. And Jones, A.B., would grin with respectful
diffidence, hurry his steps and bear no malice towards his superior.

Such incidents never occur now. There is no feeling of comradeship
between officer and "Jack". Each distrusts the other.

I have not had much experience of steamers in the South Sea trade,
except as a passenger--most of my voyages having been made in sailing
craft, but on one occasion my firm had to charter a steamer for six
months, owing to the ship of which I was supercargo undergoing extensive
repairs.

The steamer, in addition to a general cargo, also carried 500 tons
of coal for the use of a British warship, engaged in "patrolling" the
Solomon Islands, and I was told to "hurry along". The ship's company
were all strangers to me, and I saw at once I should not have a pleasant
time as supercargo. The crew were mostly alleged Englishmen, with a
sprinkling of foreigners, and the latter were a useless, lazy lot of
scamps. The engine-room staff were worse, and the captain and mate
seemed too terrified of them to bring them to their bearings. They (the
crew) were a bad type of "wharf rats," and showed such insolence to the
captain and mate that I urged both to put some of them in irons for a
few days. The second mate was the only officer who showed any spirit,
and he and I naturally stood together, agreeing to assist each other
if matters became serious, for the skipper and mate were a thoroughly
white-livered pair.

Just off San Cristoval, the firemen came to me, and asked me to sell
them a case of Hollands gin. I refused, and said one bottle was enough
at a time. They threatened to break into the trade-room, and help
themselves. I said that they would do so at their own peril--the first
man that stepped through the doorway would get hurt. They retired,
cursing me as a "mean hound". The skipper said nothing. He, I am glad to
say, was not an Englishman, though he claimed to be. He was a Dane.

Arriving at a village on the coast of San Cristoval, where I had to
land stores for a trader, we found a rather heavy surf on, and the crew
refused to man a boat and take me on shore, on the plea that it was too
dangerous; a native boat's crew would have smiled at the idea of danger,
and so also would any white sailor-man who was used to surf work.

Two days later, through their incapacity, they capsized a boat by
letting her broach-to in crossing a reef, and a hundred pounds' worth of
trade goods were lost.

When we met the cruiser for whom the coals were destined, the second
mate and I told the commander in the presence of our own skipper that we
considered the latter unfit to have command of the steamer.

"Then put the mate in charge, if you consider your captain is
incapable," said the naval officer.

"The mate is no better," I said, "he is as incapable as the captain."

"Then the second mate is the man."

"I cannot navigate, sir," said the second mate.

The naval commander drew me aside, and we took "sweet counsel" together.
Then he called our ruffianly scallywags of a crew on to the main deck,
eyed them up and down, and ignoring our captain, asked me how many pairs
of handcuffs were on board.

"Two only," I replied.

"Then I'll send you half a dozen more. Clap 'em on to some of these
fellows for a week, until they come to their senses."

In half an hour the second mate and I had the satisfaction of seeing
four firemen and four A.B.'s in irons, which they wore for a week,
living on biscuit and water.

A few weeks later I engaged, on my own responsibility, ten good native
seamen, and for the rest of the voyage matters went fairly well, for the
captain plucked up courage, and became valorous when I told him that my
natives would make short work of their white shipmates, if the latter
again became mutinous.

Against this experience I have had many pleasant ones. In one dear old
brig, in which I sailed as supercargo for two years, we carried a double
crew--white men and natives of Rotumah Island, and a happier ship never
spread her canvas to the winds of the Pacific. This was purely because
the officers were good men, the hands--white and native--good seamen,
cheerful and obedient--not the lazy, dirty, paint-scrubbers one too
often meets with nowadays, especially on cheaply run big four-masted
sailing ships, flying the red ensign of Old England.




CHAPTER III ~ THE BLIND MAN OF ADMIRALTY ISLAND

We had had a stroke--or rather a series of strokes--of very bad luck.
Our vessel, the _Metaris_, had been for two months cruising among
the islands of what is now known as the Bismarck Archipelago, in the
Northwestern Pacific. We had twice been on shore, once on the coast
of New Ireland, and once on an unknown and uncharted reef between that
island and St. Matthias Island. Then, on calling at one of our trading
stations at New Hanover where we intended to beach the vessel for
repairs, we found that the trader had been killed, and of the station
house nothing remained but the charred centre-post--it had been reduced
to ashes. The place was situated on a little palm-clad islet not three
hundred acres in extent, and situated a mile or two from the mainland,
and abreast of a village containing about four hundred natives, under
whose protection our trader and his three Solomon Island labourers were
living, as the little island belonged to them, and we had placed the
trader there on account of its suitability, and also because the man
particularly wished to be quite apart from the village, fearing that his
Solomon Islanders would get themselves into trouble with the people.

From the excited natives, who boarded us even before we had dropped
anchor, we learned that about a month after we had left poor Chantrey
on his little island a large party of marauding St. Matthias Island
savages, in ten canoes, had suddenly appeared and swooped down upon
the unfortunate white man and his labourers and slaughtered all four of
them; then after loading their canoes with all the plunder they could
carry, they set fire to the house and Chantrey's boat, and made off
again within a few hours.

This was a serious blow to us; for not only had we to deplore the cruel
death of one of our best and most trusted traders, but Chantrey had a
large stock of trade goods, a valuable boat, and had bought over five
hundred pounds' worth of coconut oil and pearl-shell from the New
Hanover natives,--all this had been consumed. However, it was of no use
for us to grieve, we had work to do that was of pressing necessity,
for the _Metaris_ was leaking badly and had to be put on the beach
as quickly as possible whilst we had fine weather. This, with the
assistance of the natives, we at once set about and in the course of
a few days had effected all the necessary repairs, and then steered
westward for Admiralty Island, calling at various islands on our way,
trading with the wild natives for coco-nut oil, copra, ivory nuts,
pearl-shell and tortoise-shell, and doing very poorly; for a large
American schooner, engaged in the same business, had been ahead of us,
and at most of the islands we touched at we secured nothing more than
a few hundredweight of black-edged pearl-shell. Then, to add to our
troubles, two of our native crew were badly wounded in an attack made on
a boat's crew who were sent on shore to cut firewood on what the skipper
and I thought to be a chain of small uninhabited islands. This was a
rather serious matter, for not only were the captain and boatswain ill
with fever, but three of the crew as well.

For a week we worked along the southern coast of Admiralty Island,
calling at a number of villages and obtaining a considerable quantity of
very good pearl-shell from the natives. But it was a harassing time, for
having seven sick men on board we never dared to come to an anchor for
fear of the savage and treacherous natives attempting to capture the
ship. As it was, we had to keep a sharp look-out to prevent more than
two canoes coming alongside at once, and then only when there was a fair
breeze, so that we could shake them off if their occupants showed any
inclination for mischief. We several times heard some of these gentry
commenting on the ship being so short-handed, and this made us unusually
careful, for although those of us who were well never moved about
unarmed we could not have beaten back a sudden rush.

At last, however, both Manson and the boatswain, and one of the native
sailors became so ill that the former decided to make a break in the
cruise and let all hands--sick and well--have a week's spell at a place
he knew of, situated at the west end of the great island; and so one day
we sailed the _Metaris_ into a quiet little bay, encompassed by lofty
well-wooded hills, and at the head of which was a fine stream of fresh
water.

"We shall soon pull ourselves together in this place," said Manson to
Loring (the mate) and me. "I know this little bay well, though 'tis six
years since I was last here. There are no native villages within ten
miles at least, and we shall be quite safe, so we need only keep an
anchor watch at night. Man the boat, there. I must get on shore right
away. I am feeling better already for being here. Which of you fellows
will come with me for a bit of a look round?"

I, being the supercargo, was, for the time, an idle man, but made an
excuse of "wanting to overhaul" my trade-room--always a good standing
excuse with most supercargoes--as I wanted Loring to have a few hours
on shore; for although he was free of fever he was pretty well run down
with overwork. So, after some pressure, he consented, and a few minutes
later he and Manson were pulled on shore, and I watched them land on
the beach, just in front of a clump of wild mango trees in full bearing,
almost surrounded by groves of lofty coco-nut palms. A little farther on
was an open, grassy space on which grew some wide-branched white cedar
trees.

About an hour afterwards Loring returned on board, and told me that
Manson had gone on alone to what he described as "a sweet little lake".
It was only a mile away, and he thought of having a leaf house built
there for the sick men and himself, and wanted Loring to come and have a
look at it, but the mate declined, pleading his wish to get back to the
ship and unbend our canvas.

"As you will," said Manson to him. "I shall be all right. I'll shoot
some pigeons and cockatoos by-and-by, and bring them down to the beach.
And after you have unbent the canvas, you can take the seine to the
mouth of the creek and fill the boat with fish." Then, gun on shoulder,
he walked slowly away into the verdant and silent forest.

After unbending our canvas, we went to dinner; and then leaving Loring
in charge of the ship, the boatswain, two hands and myself went on
shore with the seine to the mouth of the creek, and in a very short time
netted some hundreds of fish much resembling the European shad.

Just as we were about to push off, I heard Manson's hail close to,
and looking round, nearly lost my balance and fell overboard in
astonishment--he was accompanied by a woman.

Springing out of the boat, I ran to meet them.

"Mrs. Hollister," said the captain, "this is my supercargo. As soon as
we get on board I will place you in his hands, and he will give you all
the clothing you want at present for yourself and your little girl," and
then as, after I had shaken hands with the lady, I stood staring at him
for an explanation, he smiled.

"I'll tell you Mrs. Hollister's strange story by-and-by, old man.
Briefly it is this--she, her husband, and their little girl have been
living here for over two years. Their vessel was castaway here. Now, get
into the boat, please, Mrs. Hollister."

The woman, who was weeping silently with excitement, smiled through her
tears, stepped into the boat, and in a few minutes we were alongside.

"Make all the haste you can," Manson said to me, "as Mrs. Hollister is
returning on shore as soon as you can give her some clothing and boots
or shoes. Then they are all coming on board to supper at eight o'clock."

The lady came with me to my trade-room, and we soon went to work
together, I forbearing to ask her any questions whatever, though I was
as full of curiosity as a woman. Like that of all trading vessels
whose "run" embraced the islands of Polynesia as well as Melanesia and
Micronesia, the trade-room of the _Metaris_ was a general store.
The shelves and cases were filled with all sorts of articles--tinned
provisions, wines and spirits, firearms and ammunition, hardware and
drapers' soft goods, "yellow-back" novels, ready-made clothing for men,
women and children, musical instruments and grindstones--in fact just
such a stock as one would find in a well-stocked general store in an
Australian country town.

In half an hour Mrs. Hollister had found all that she wanted, and
packing the articles in a "trade" chest, I had it passed on deck and
lowered into the boat. Then the lady, now smiling radiantly, shook hands
with every one, including the steward, and descended to the boat which
quickly cast off and made for the shore in charge of the boatswain.

Then I felt that I deserved a drink, and went below again where Manson
and Loring were awaiting me. They had anticipated my wishes, for the
steward had just placed the necessary liquids on the cabin table.

"Now, boys," said the skipper, as he opened some soda water, "after we
have had a first drink I'll spin my yarn--and a sad enough one it is,
too. By-the-way, steward, did you put that bottle of brandy and some
soda water in the boat?"

"Yes, sir."

"That's all right. Just fancy, you fellows--that poor chap on shore has
not had a glass of grog for more than two years. That is, I suppose so.
Anyway I am sending him some. And, I say, steward; I want you to spread
yourself this evening and give us _the_ very best supper you ever gave
us. There are three white persons coming at eight o'clock. And I daresay
they will sleep on board, so get ready three spare bunks."

Manson was usually a slow, drawling speaker--except when he had occasion
to admonish the crew; then he was quite brilliant in the rapidity of
his remarks--but now he was clearly a little excited and seemed to have
shaken the fever out of his bones, for he not only drank his brandy and
soda as if he enjoyed it, but asked the steward to bring him his pipe.
This latter request was a sure sign that he was getting better. Then he
began his story.

*****

Although six years had passed since he had visited this part of the
great island, Manson knew his way inland to the lake. The forest was
open, and consisted of teak and cedar with but little undergrowth.
Suddenly, as he was passing under the spreading branches of a great
cedar, he saw something that made him stare with astonishment--a little
white girl, driving before her a flock of goats! She was dressed in
a loose gown of blue print, and wore an old-fashioned white linen
sun-bonnet, and her bare legs and feet were tanned a deep brown. Only
for a moment did he see her face as she faced towards him to hurry up a
playful kid that had broken away from the flock, and then her back was
again turned, and she went on, quite unaware of his presence.

"Little girl,"