THE COLONIAL MORTUARY BARD; "'REO," THE FISHERMAN; and THE BLACK BREAM OF AUSTRALIA
By Louis Becke




_THE COLONIAL MORTUARY BARD_; "'REO," THE FISHERMAN; and THE BLACK BREAM OF AUSTRALIA

By Louis Becke

T. Fisher Unwin, 1901




_THE COLONIAL MORTUARY BARD_

A writer in the _Sydney Evening News_ last year gave that journal some
amusing extracts from the visitors' book at Longwood, St. Helena. If the
extracts are authentic copies of the original entries, they deserve to
be placed on the same high plane as the following, which appeared in a
Melbourne newspaper some years ago:--

     "Our Emily was so fair
     That the angels envied her,
     And whispered in her ear,
     'We will take you away on Tuesday night!'"

I once considered this to be the noblest bit of mortuary verse ever
written; but since reading the article in the Sydney paper I have
changed my opinion, and now think it poor. Bonaparte, however, was a
great subject, and even the most unintelligent mortuary verse-maker
could not fail to achieve distinction when the Longwood visitors' book
was given up unto him. Frenchmen, especially, figure largely. Here, for
instance:--

     "Malidiction. O grand homme!
     O grand Napoleon!
     Mais la France et toi aont venge--
     Hudson Lowe est mort!"

The last line is so truly heroic--French heroic. It instantly recalled
to me a tale told by an English journalist who, on a cycling tour in
France just after the Fashoda crisis, left his "bike" under the care
of the proprietor of an hotel in Normandy. In the morning he found the
tyres slashed to pieces, and on the saddle a gummed envelope, on which
was bravely written, "Fashoda." This was unintentional mortuary poetry.
The gallant Frenchman who did the daring deed when the owner of the
"bike" was asleep did not realise that the word itself was a splendid
mortuary epic for French aspirations generally.

Then comes something vigorous from one "Jack Lee-Cork," who writes:--

     "The tomb of Napoleon we visit to-day,
     And trod on the spot where the tyrant lay;
     That his equal again may never appear,
     'Twill be sincerely prayed for many a year."

The masters and officers of some of the whale-ships touching at St.
Helena seem to have made pilgrimages to Longwood. Mr. William Miller,
master of the barque _Hope_, of New Bedford, writes that he "visited the
remains of the greatest warrior of the day, interred for twenty years."
Then he breaks out into these noble lines:--

     "Here lies the warrior, bravest of the brave,
     Visited by Miller, God the Queen may save."

As a Britisher I shake your hand, William. When you wrote that, forty
years ago, American whaling or any other kind of skippers did not
particularly care about our nation; but you, William, were a white man.
How easily you might have said something nasty about us and made "brave"
rhyme with "grave"! But you were a real poet, and above hurting our
feelings.

Captain Miller was evidently accompanied by some of his crew, one of
whom contributes this gem of prose:--

"Louis F. Waldron, on bord the barke hope of nubedford, its boat steer,
has this day been to see honey's tomb; we are out 24 munts, with 13
hundred barils of sperm oil."

All greasy luck attend you, honest Louis, boatsteerer, in the shades
beyond. You wielded harpoon and lance better than the pen, and couldn't
write poetry. Your informing statement about the "ile" at once recalled
to memory an inscription upon the wooden head-board of the grave of
another boat-steerer which in 1873 was to be seen at Ponapк, in the
Caroline Islands:--

         "Sacred to Memory of Jno.
           Hollis of sagharbour
      boatsterer of ship Europa of new
           Bedford who by will of
   almity god died of four ribs stove in by a
      off pleasant island north pacific
                 4.17.69."


Sailors love the full-blooded, exhaustive mortuary poem as well as any
one, and generally like to describe in detail the particular complaint
or accident from which a shipmate died. Miners, too, like it. Many years
ago, in a small mining camp on the Kirk River, in North Queensland, I
saw the following inscription painted on the head-board of the grave of
a miner who had fallen down a shaft:--

     "Remember, men, when you pass by,
     What you are now, so once was I.
     Straight down the Ripper No. 3 shaft I fell;
     The Lord preserve my soul from hell."

On the Palmer River diggings (also in North Queensland) one William
Baker testified to his principles of temperance in the following,
written on the back of his "miner's right," which was nailed to a strip
of deal from a packing-case:--

     "Bill Baker is my name,
     A man of no faim,
     But I was I of the First
     In this great Land of thirst
     To warn a good mate
     Of the sad, dreadful fate,
     That will come to him from drink.
     --Wm. Baker of S. Shields, England."

But let me give some more quotations from the Longwood visitors' book.
Three midshipmen of the _Melville_ irreverent young dogs, write:--

"We three have endeavoured, by sundry potations of Mrs. T------'s
brandy, to arrive at a proper pitch of enthusiasm always felt, or
assumed to be, by pilgrims to this tomb. It has, however, been a
complete failure, which I fear our horses will rue when we arrive at the
end of our pilgrimage.--Three Mids. of the _Melville_."

That is another gross insult to France--an insult which, fortunately for
England, has escaped the notice of the French press. And now two more
extracts from the delicious article in the Sydney paper:--

"William Collins, master of the _Hawk_ of Glasgow, from Icaboe, bound
to Cork for orders. In hope never to have anything to do with the dung
trade! And God send us all a good passage home to old England. Amen! At
Longwood."

I sympathise with _you_, good William! You describe the guano-carrying
industry by a somewhat rude expression; but as a seafaring man who
has had the misfortune to be engaged in the transportation of the
distressful but highly useful product, I shake your hand even as I shake
the greasy hand of Mr. William Miller, the New Bedford blubber-hunter.
My benison on you both.

The last excerpt in the book is--

     "One murder makes a villain, millions a hero;"

and underneath a brave Frenchman writes--

     "You lie--you God-dam Englishman."





"'REO," THE FISHERMAN

'Reo was a short, squat Malayan, with a face like a skate, barring his
eyes, which were long, narrow slits, apparently expressing nothing but
supreme indifference to the world in general. But they would light up
sometimes with a merry twinkle when the old rogue would narrate some of
his past villainies.

He came to Samoa in the old, old days--long before Treaties, and
Imperial Commissioners, and other gilded vanities were dreamt of by us
poor, hard-working traders. He seemed to have dropped from the sky when
one afternoon, as Tom Denison, the supercargo, and some of his friends
sat on Charley the Russian's verandah, drinking lager, he marched up to
them, sat down on the steps, and said, "Good evening."

"Hallo," said Schlьter, the skipper of the _Anna Godeffrey_. "Who _are_
you? Where do you come from?"

'Reo waved a short, stumpy and black clay pipe to and fro, and replied
vaguely--

"Oh, from somewhere."

Some one laughed, surmising correctly enough that he had run away from a
ship; then they remembered that no vessel had even touched at Apia for
a month. (Later on he told Denison that he had jumped overboard from a
Baker's Island guano-man, as she was running down the coast, and swum
ashore, landing at a point twenty miles distant from Apia. The natives
in the various villages had given him food, so when he reached the town
he was not hungry.)

"What do you want, anyway?" asked Schlьter.

"Some tobacco, please. And a dollar or two. I can pay you back."

"When?" said Hamilton the pilot incredulously.

The pipe described a semicircle. "Oh, to-morrow night--before, perhaps."

They gave him some tobacco and matches, and four Bolivian "iron"
half-dollars. He got up and went across to Volkner's combined store and
grog shanty, over the way.

"He's gone to buy a bottle of square-face," said Hamilton.

"He deserves it," said Denison gloomily. "A man of his age who could
jump overboard and swim ashore to this rotten country should be
presented with a case of gin--and a knife to cut his throat with after
he has finished it."

In about ten minutes the old fellow came out of Volkner's store,
carrying two or three stout fishing-lines, several packets of hooks, and
half a dozen ship biscuits. He grinned as he passed the group on the
verandah, and then squatting down on the sward near by began to uncoil
the lines and bend on the hooks.

Denison was interested, went over to him, and watched the swift, skilful
manner in which the thin brown fingers worked.

"Where are you going to fish?" he inquired.

The broad, flat face lit up. "Outside in the dam deep water--sixty,
eighty fa'am."

Denison left him and went aboard the ancient, cockroach-infested craft
of which he was the heartbroken supercargo. Half an hour later 'Reo
paddled past the schooner in a wretched old canoe, whose outrigger was
so insecurely fastened that it threatened to come adrift every instant.
The old man grinned as he recognised Denison; then, pipe in mouth, he
went boldly out through the passage between the lines of roaring surf
into the tumbling blue beyond.

At ten o'clock, just as the supercargo and the skipper were taking their
last nip before turning in, the ancient slipped quietly alongside in
his canoe, and clambered on deck. In his right hand he carried a big
salmon-like fish, weighing about 20 lbs. Laying it down on the deck, he
pointed to it.

"Plenty more in canoe like that. You want some more?"

Denison went to the side and looked over. The canoe was loaded down to
the gunwale with the weight of fish--fish that the lazy, loafing Apian
natives caught but rarely. The old man passed up two or three more, took
a glass of grog, and paddled ashore.

Next morning he repaid the borrowed money and showed Denison
fifteen dollars--the result of his first night's work in Samoa. The
saloon-keepers and other white people said he was a treasure. Fish in
Apia were dear, and hard to get.

*****

On the following Sunday a marriage procession entered the Rarotongan
chapel in Matafele, and Tetarreo (otherwise *Reo) was united to one
of the prettiest and not _very_ disreputable native girls in the town,
whose parents recognised that 'Reo was likely to prove an eminently
lucrative and squeezable son-in-law. Denison was best man, and gave
the bride a five-dollar American gold piece (having previously made a
private arrangement with the bridegroom that he was to receive value for
it in fish).

'Reo's wife's relatives built the newly-married couple a house on
Matautu Point, and 'Reo spent thirty-five dollars in giving the bride's
local connections a feast. Then the news spread, and cousins and second
cousins and various breeds of aunts and half-uncles travelled up to
Matautu Point to partake of his hospitality. He did his best, but in a
day or so remarked sadly that he could not catch fish fast enough in
a poor canoe. If he had a boat he could make fifty dollars a week,
he said; and with fifty dollars a week he could entertain his wife's
honoured friends continuously and in a befitting manner. The relatives
consulted, and, thinking they had "a good thing," subscribed, and bought
a boat (on credit) from the German firm, giving a mortgage on a piece
of land as security. Then they presented 'Reo with the boat, with many
complimentary speeches, and sat down to chuckle at the way they would
"make the old fool work," and the "old fool" went straight away to
the American Consul and declared himself to be a citizen of the United
States and demanded his country's protection, as he feared his wife's
relatives wanted to jew him out of the boat they had given him.

The Consul wrote out something terrifying on a big sheet of paper, and
tacked it on to the boat, and warned the surprised relatives that an
American man-of-war would protect 'Reo with her guns, and then 'Reo went
inside his house and beat his wife with a canoe paddle, and chased her
violently out of the place, and threatened her male relatives with a
large knife and fearful language.

Then he took the boat round the other side of the island and sold it for
two hundred dollars to a trader, and came back to Apia to Denison and
asked for a passage to Tutuila, and the German firm entered into and
took possession of the mortgaged land, whilst the infuriated relatives
tore up and down the beach demanding 'Reo's blood in a loud voice.
'Reo, with his two hundred dollars in his trousers' pocket, sat on the
schooner's rail and looked at them stolidly and without ill-feeling.

* * * * *

Denison landed the ancient at Leone Bay on Tutuila, for he had taken
kindly to the old scoundrel, who had many virtues, and could give points
to any one, white or brown, in the noble art of deep-sea fishing. This
latter qualification endeared him greatly to young Tom, who, when he was
not employed in keeping the captain sober, or bringing him round after
an attack of "D.T.'s," spent all his spare time in fishing, either at
sea or in port.

'Reo settled at Leone, and made a good deal of money buying copra from
the natives. The natives got to like him--he was such a conscientious
old fellow. When he hung the baskets of copra on the iron hook of the
steelyard, which was marked to weigh up to 150 lbs., he would call their
attention to the marks as he moved the heavy "pea" along the yard. Then,
one day, some interfering Tongan visitor examined the pea and declared
that it had been taken from a steelyard designed to weigh up to 400 lbs.
'Reo was so hurt at the insinuation that he immediately took the whole
apparatus out beyond the reef in his boat and indignantly sunk it in
fifty fathoms of water. Then he returned to his house, and he and his
wife (he had married again) bade a sorrowful farewell to his friends,
and said his heart was broken by the slanders of a vile Tongan pig
from a mission school. He would, he said, go back to Apia, where he was
respected by all who knew him. Then he began to pack up. Some of the
natives sided with the Tongan, some with 'Reo, and in a few minutes
a free fight took place on the village green, and 'Reo stood in his
doorway and watched it from his narrow, pig-like eyes; then, being of a
magnanimous nature, he walked over and asked three stout youths, who had
beaten the Tongan into a state of unconsciousness, and were jumping on
his body, not to hurt him too much.

About midnight 'Reo's house was seen to be in flames, and the owner,
uttering wild, weird screams of "_Fia ola! Fia ola!_" ("Mercy! Mercy!")
fled down the beach to his boat, followed by his wife, a large, fat
woman, named appropriately enough Taumafa (Abundance). They dashed into
the water, clambered into the boat, and began pulling seaward for their
lives. The villagers, thinking they had both gone mad, gazed at them in
astonishment, and then went back and helped themselves to the few goods
saved from the burning house.

As soon as 'Reo and the good wife were out of sight of the village
they put about, ran the boat into a little bay further down the coast,
planted a bag containing seven hundred dollars, with the best of the
trade goods (salved _before_ the fire was discovered), and then set sail
for Apia to "get justice from the Consul."

The Consul said it was a shocking outrage, the captain of U.S.S.
Adirondack concurred, and so the cruiser, with the injured, stolid-faced
'Reo on board, steamed off to Leone Bay and gave the astounded natives
twelve hours to make up their minds as to which they would do--pay 'Reo
one thousand dollars in cash or have their town burnt. They paid six
hundred, all they could raise, and then, in a dazed sort of way, sat
down to meditate as they saw the _Adirondack_ steam off again.

'Reo gave his wife a small share of the plunder and sent her home to her
parents. When Tom Denison next saw him he was keeping a boarding house
at Levuka, in Fiji. He told Denison he was welcome to free board and
lodging for a year. 'Reo had his good points, as I have said.




THE BLACK BREAM OF AUSTRALIA

Next to the lordly and brilliant-hued schnapper, the big black bream
of the deep harbour waters of the east coast of Australia is the finest
fish of the bream species that have ever been caught. Thirty years ago,
in the hundreds of bays which indent the shores of Sydney harbour, and
along the Parramatta and Lane Cove Rivers, they were very plentiful and
of great size; now, one over 3 lbs. is seldom caught, for the greedy
and dirty Italian and Greek fishermen who infest the harbour with their
fine-meshed nets have practically exterminated them. In other harbours
of New South Wales, however--notably Jervis and Twofold Bays--these
handsome fish are still plentiful, and there I have caught them winter
and summer, during the day under a hot and blazing sun, and on dark,
calm nights.

In shape the black bream is exactly as his brighter-hued brother, but
his scales are of a dark colour, like partially tarnished silver; he is
broader and heavier about the head and shoulders, and he swims in a
more leisurely, though equally cautious, manner, always bringing-to
the instant anything unusual attracts his attention. Then, with gently
undulating tail and steady eye, he regards the object before him, or
watches a shadow above with the keenest scrutiny. If it is a small, dead
fish, or other food which is sinking, say ten yards in front, he will
gradually come up closer and closer, till he satisfies himself that
there is no line attached--then he makes a lightning-like dart, and
vanishes in an instant with the morsel between his strong, thick jaws.
If, however, he sees the most tempting bait--a young yellow-tail, a
piece of white and red octopus tentacle, or a small, silvery mullet--and
detects even a fine silk line attached to the cleverly hidden hook, he
makes a stern-board for a foot or two, still eyeing the descending
bait; then, with languid contempt, he slowly turns away, and swims off
elsewhere.

In my boyhood's days black-bream fishing was a never-ending source of
delight to my brothers and myself. We lived at Mosman's Bay, one of
the deepest and most picturesque of the many beautiful inlets of Sydney
Harbour. The place is now a populous marine suburb with terraces of
shoddy, jerry-built atrocities crowding closely around many beautiful
houses with spacious grounds surrounded by handsome trees. Threepenny
steamers, packed with people, run every half-hour from Sydney, and the
once beautiful dell at the head of the bay, into which a crystal stream
of water ran, is as squalid and detestable as a Twickenham lane in
summer, when the path is strewn with bits of greasy newspaper which have
held fried fish.

But in the days of which I speak, Mosman's Bay was truly a lovely spot,
dear to the soul of the true fisherman. Our house--a great quadrangular,
one-storied stone building, with a courtyard in the centre--was the only
one within a radius of three miles. It had been built by convict hands
for a wealthy man, and had cost, with its grounds and magnificent
carriage drives, vineyards, and gardens, many thousand pounds. Then
the owner died, bankrupt, and for years it remained untenanted, the
recrudescent bush slowly enveloping its once highly cultivated lands,
and the deadly black snake, iguana, and 'possum harbouring among the
deserted outbuildings. But to us boys (when our father rented the place,
and the family settled down in it for a two years' sojourn) the lonely
house was a palace of beautiful imagination--and solid, delightful
fact, when we began to explore the surrounding bush, the deep, clear,
undisturbed waters of the bay, and a shallow lagoon, dry at low water,
at its head.

Across this lagoon, at the end near the