11573	----	None 
23271	----	Sunk at Sea, by R.M. Ballantyne. ________________________________________________________________________ This story starts with the childhood of one of Ballantyne's perpetual heroes, Will Osten. Will would love to have a career at sea, but his father, a very successful businessman, thinks otherwise, so eventually Will agrees to study medicine. However, before his studies are over he decides that he really _must_ go to sea, and he joins a friend of his, Captain Dall, on his ship. They travel to the Pacific, where they encounter some very heavy weather as a result of which a plank is started in the ship's hull, and she starts to sink. All attempts to find and stop the leak fail, and she does indeed sink, with the crew taking to the boats. Eventually they reach a small coral island, but they have not been there long before a visiting native war-canoe perceives them and takes them to another much larger island, where preparations are made to kill and eat them. Luckily there is an old white man there who has long been accepted by the natives and who gets our heroes and his friends off this rather dire treatment, but was too late for some of the crew. A visiting sandalwood trader, who does not wish to pay for the cargo he has taken on board, fires on the natives, causing our heroes to flee for their lives. A hunt is set up for them. Luckily a missionary ship comes in a few days later, and manages to restore peace. Our heroes return to the village. A mission is set up, and a small church, complete with a spire, is built. Another vessel calls for water, and would have opened fire, just for spite, but they see the spire and restrain themselves. Our heroes persuade the captain to take them on board. Will has fallen in love with the missionary's daughter, but nevertheless joins the party leaving for the ship, the "Rover". For the sequel see "Lost in the Forest". ________________________________________________________________________ SUNK AT SEA, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE. CHAPTER ONE. TREATS OF OUR HERO'S EARLY LIFE, AND TOUCHES ON DOMESTIC MATTERS. William Osten was a wanderer by nature. He was born with a thirst for adventure that nothing could quench, and with a desire to rove that nothing could subdue. Even in babyhood, when his limbs were fat and feeble, and his visage was round and red, he displayed his tendency to wander in ways and under circumstances that other babies never dreamt of. He kept his poor mother in a chronic fever of alarm, and all but broke the heart of his nurse, long before he could walk, by making his escape from the nursery over and over again, on his hands and knees; which latter bore constant marks of being compelled to do the duty of feet in dirty places. Baby Will never cried. To have heard him yell would have rejoiced the hearts of mother and nurse, for that would have assured them of his being near at hand and out of mischief--at least not engaged in more than ordinary mischief. But Baby Will was a natural philosopher from his birth. He displayed his wisdom by holding his peace at all times, except when very hard pressed by hunger or pain, and appeared to regard life in general in a grave, earnest, inquiring spirit. Nevertheless, we would not have it understood that Will was a slow, phlegmatic baby. By no means. His silence was deep, his gravity profound, and his earnestness intense, so that, as a rule, his existence was unobtrusive. But his energy was tremendous. What he undertook to do he usually did with all his might and main--whether it was the rending of his pinafore or the smashing of his drum! We have said that he seldom or never cried, but he sometimes laughed, and that not unfrequently; and when he did so you could not choose but hear, for his whole soul gushed out in his laugh, which was rich, racy, and riotous. He usually lay down and rolled when he laughed, being quite incapable of standing to do it--at least during the early period of babyhood. But Will would not laugh at everything. You could not make him laugh by cooing and smirking and talking nonsense, and otherwise making an ass of yourself before him. Maryann, the nurse, had long tried that in vain, and had almost broken her heart about it. She was always breaking her heart, more or less, about her charge, yet, strange to say, she survived that dreadful operation, and ultimately lived to an extreme old age! "Only think," she was wont to say to Jemima Scrubbins, her bosom friend, the monthly nurse who had attended Will's mother, and whose body was so stiff, thin, and angular, that some of her most intimate friends thought and said she must have been born in her skeleton alone--"Only think, Jemimar, I give it as my morial opinion that that hinfant 'asn't larfed once--no, not once--durin' the last three days, although I've chirruped an' smiled an' made the most smudgin' faces to it, an' heaped all sorts o' blandishments upon it till--. Oh! you can't imagine; but nothink's of any use trying of w'en you can't do it; as my 'usband, as was in the mutton-pie line, said to the doctor the night afore he died--my 'art is quite broken about it, so it is." To which Jemima was wont to reply, with much earnestness--for she was a sympathetic soul, though stiff, thin, and angular--"You don't say so, Maryhann! P'raps it's pains." Whereupon Maryann would deny that pains had anything to do with it, and Jemima would opine that it was, "koorious, to say the least of it." No, as we have said, Baby Will would not laugh at everything. He required to see something really worth laughing at before he would give way, and when he did give way, his eyes invariably disappeared, for his face was too fat to admit of eyes and mouth being open at the same time. This was fortunate, for it prevented him for a little from seeing the object that tickled his fancy, and so gave him time to breathe and recruit for another burst. Had it been otherwise, he would certainly have suffocated himself in infancy, and this, his veracious biography, would have remained unwritten! To creep about the house into dangerous and forbidden places, at the risk of life and limb, was our hero's chief delight in early childhood. To fall out of his cradle and crib, to tumble down stairs, and to bruise his little body until it was black and blue, were among his most ordinary experiences. Such mishaps never drew tears, however, from his large blue eyes. After struggling violently to get over the rail of his crib, and falling heavily on the floor, he was wont to rise with a gasp, and gaze in bewilderment straight before him, as if he were rediscovering the law of gravitation. No phrenologist ever conceived half the number of bumps that were developed on his luckless cranium. We make no apology to the reader for entering thus minutely into the character and experiences of a baby. That baby is the hero of our tale. True, it is as a young man that he is to play his part; but a great philosopher has told us that he always felt constrained to look upon children with respect; and a proverb states that, "the child is the father of the man." Without either pinning our faith to the philosopher or the proverb, we think it both appropriate and interesting to note the budding genius of the wanderer whose footsteps we are about to follow. Baby Will's mother was a gentle and loving, but weak woman. His father, William Horace Osten by name, was a large, hearty, affectionate, but coarse man. He appreciated his wife's gentle, loving nature, but could not understand her weakness. She admired her husband's manly, energetic spirit, but could not understand his roughness. He loved the baby, and resolved to "make a man of him." She loved the baby, and wished to make him a "good boy." In the furtherance of their designs the one tried to make him a lion, the other sought to convert him into a lamb. Which of the two would have succeeded can never be known. It is probable that both would have failed by counteracting each other, as is no uncommon experience when fathers and mothers act separately in such a matter. If the one had succeeded, he would have made him a bear. The other, if successful, would have made him a nincompoop. Fortunately for our hero, a higher power saved him, and, by training him in the school of adversity, made him both a lion and a lamb. The training was very severe and prolonged, however. It was long before the lion would consent to lie down in the same breast with the lamb. Certainly it was not during the season of childhood. The lion appeared to have it all his own way during that interesting epoch, and the father was proportionately gratified, while the mother was dismayed. Boyhood came, and with it an increased desire to rove, and a more fervent thirst for adventure. At school our hero obtained the name that stuck to him through life--"Wandering Will." The seaport town in the west of England in which he dwelt had been explored by him in all its ramifications. There was not a retired court, a dark lane, or a blind alley, with which he was unfamiliar. Every height, crag, cliff, plantation, and moor within ten miles of his father's mansion had been thoroughly explored by Will before he was eight years of age, and his aspiring spirit longed to take a wider flight. "I want to go to sea, father," said he one evening after tea, looking in his father's face with much more of the leonine gaze than the father had bargained for. His training up to that point had been almost too successful! This was not the first time that the boy had stated the same wish; his gaze, therefore, did not quail when his father looked up from his newspaper and said sternly--"Fiddlesticks, boy! hold your tongue." "Father," repeated Will, in a tone that caused Mr Osten to lay down his paper, "I want to go to sea." "Then the sooner you give up the idea the better, for I won't let you." "Father," continued Will, "you remember the proverb that you've often told me has been your motto through life, `Never venture never win?'" "Certainly; you know that I have often urged you to act on that principle at school. Why do you ask the question?" "Because I mean to act on it now, and go to sea," replied Will firmly. "What? without permission, without clothes, and without money; for you shan't have a six-pence from me?" "Yes," replied Will. Mr Osten was one of those stern, despotic men who cannot bear to be thwarted. He was a rich merchant, and almost the king of the little town in which he dwelt. His greatest ambition was to make his only son a thorough man of business. To be spoken to in such a tone by that rebellious son was too much for him. He lost his temper, leaped up, and, seizing Will by the collar, thrust him out of the room. The boy ran to his own bedroom, and, seating himself in front of the dressing-table, hit that piece of furniture with his clenched fist so violently that all its contents leaped up and rattled. "Dear, dear Will," said a gentle voice at his side, while a loving hand fell on his shoulder, "why do you frown so fiercely?" "How can I help it, mother, when he treats me like that? He is harsh and unfair to me." "Not so unfair as you think, dear Will," said his mother. We will not detail the arguments by which the good lady sought to combat her son's desires. Suffice it to say that she succeeded--as only mothers know how--in lulling the lion to sleep at that time, and in awakening the lamb. Wandering Will went back to school with a good grace, and gave up all idea of going to sea. CHAPTER TWO. RECORDS A SUDDEN DEPARTURE, AND MARYANN'S OPINION THEREON. There is a fallacy into which men and women of mature years are apt to fall--namely, that the cares and sorrows of the young are light. How many fathers and mothers there are who reason thus--"Oh, the child will grow out of this folly. 'Tis a mere whim--a youthful fancy, not worthy of respect,"--forgetting or shutting their eyes to the fact, that, light though the whim or fancy may be in their eyes, it has positive weight to those who cherish it, and the thwarting of it is as destructive of peace and joy to the young as the heavier disappointments of life are to themselves. True, the cares and sorrows of the young are light in the sense that they are not usually permanent. Time generally blows them away, while the cares of later years often remain with us to the end. But they are not the less real, heavy, and momentous at the time on that account. Those troubles cannot with propriety be called light which drive so many young men and women to rebellion and to destruction. Well would it have been for Mr Osten if he had treated his son like a rational being, instead of calling him a "young fool," and commanding him to "obey." Will, however, was not an untractable young lion. He went through school and entered college, despite his unconquerable desire to go to sea, in obedience to his father's wishes. Then he resolved to study medicine. Mr Osten regarded the time thus spent as lost, inasmuch as his son might have been better employed in learning "the business" to which he was destined; still he had no great objection to his son taking the degree of MD, so he offered no opposition; but when Will, at the age of eighteen, spoke to him of his intention to take a run to the north or south seas, as surgeon in a whaler, he broke out on him. "So, it seems that your ridiculous old fancy still sticks to you," said Mr Osten, in great wrath, for the recurrence of the subject was like the lacerating of an old sore. "Yes, father; it has never left me. If you will listen for a few moments to my reasons--" "No, boy," interrupted his father, "I will _not_ listen to your reasons. I have heard them often enough--too often--and they are foolish, false, utterly inconclusive. You may go to Jericho as far as I am concerned; but if you do go, you shall never darken my doors again." "When I was a boy, father," said Will earnestly, "your speaking sharply to me was natural, for I was foolish, and acted on impulse. I am thankful now that I did not give way to rebellion, as I was tempted to do; but I am not now a boy, father. If you will talk calmly with me--" "Calmly!" interrupted Mr Osten, growing still more angry at the quiet demeanour of his son; "do you mean to insinuate that--that--. What do you mean, sir?" "I insinuate nothing, father; I mean that I wish you to hear me patiently." "I _won't_ hear you," cried Mr Osten, rising from his chair, "I've heard you till I'm tired of it. Go if you choose, if you dare. You know the result." Saying this he left the room hastily, shutting the door behind him with a bang. A grave, stern expression settled on the youth's countenance as he arose and followed him into the passage. Meeting his mother there, he seized her suddenly in his arms and held her in a long embrace; then, without explaining the cause of his strong emotion, he ran down stairs and left his father's house. In a dirty narrow street, near the harbour of the town, there stood a small public-house which was frequented chiefly by the sailors who chanced to be in the port, and by the squalid population in its immediate neighbourhood. Although small, the Red Lion Inn was superior in many respects to its surroundings. It was larger than the decayed buildings that propped it; cleaner than the locality that owned it; brighter and warmer than the homes of the lean crew on whom it fattened. It was a pretty, light, cheery, snug place of temptation, where men and women, and even children assembled at nights to waste their hard-earned cash and ruin their health. It was a place where the devil reigned, and where the work of murdering souls was carried on continually,-- nevertheless it was a "jolly" place. Many good songs were sung there, as well as bad ones; and many a rough grasp of hearty friendship was exchanged. Few people, going into the house for a few minutes, could have brought themselves to believe that it was such a _very_ broad part of the road leading to destruction: but the landlord had some hazy notion on that point. He sat there day and night, and saw the destruction going on. He saw the blear-eyed, fuddled men that came to drown conscience in his stalls, and the slatternly women who came and went. Nevertheless he was a rosy, jocund fellow who appeared to have a good deal of the milk of human kindness about him, and would have looked on you with great surprise, if not scorn, had you told him that he had a hand in murdering souls. Yes! the Red Lion might have been appropriately styled the Roaring Lion, for it drove a roaring trade among the poor in that dirty little street near the harbour. The gas was flaring with attractive brilliancy in the Red Lion when Will Osten entered it, and asked if Captain Dall was within. "No, sir," answered the landlord; "he won't be here for half-an-hour yet." "A pot of beer," said Will, entering one of the stalls, and sitting down opposite a tall, dark-countenanced man, who sat smoking moodily in a corner. It was evident that our hero had not gone there to drink, for the beer remained untouched at his elbow, as he sat with his face buried in his hands. The dark man in the corner eyed him steadily through the smoke which issued from his lips, but Will paid no attention to him. He was too deeply absorbed in his own reflections. "A fine night, stranger," he said at length, in a slightly nasal tone. Still Will remained absorbed, and it was not until the remark had been twice repeated that he looked up with a start. "I beg pardon; did you speak?" he said. "Well, yes," drawled the dark man, puffing a long white cloud from his lips, "I did make an observation regardin' the weather. It looks fine, don't it?" "It does," said Will. "You're waitin' for Captain Dall, ain't you?" "Why, how did _you_ come to know that?" said Will. "I didn't come to know it, I guessed it," said the dark man. At that moment the door opened, and a short thick-set man, in a glazed hat and pea-jacket, with huge whiskers meeting under his chin, entered. His eye at once fell upon the dark man, whom he saluted familiarly--"All ready, Mr Cupples?" "All ready, sir," replied the other; "it's now more than half-flood; in three hours we can drop down the river with the first of the ebb, and if this breeze holds we'll be in blue water before noon to-morrow." "Hallo, doctor, is that yourself?" said the captain, whose eye had for some moments rested on Will. "It is," said the youth, extending his hand, which the other grasped and shook warmly. "What! changed your mind--eh?" "Yes, I'm going with you." "The governor bein' agreeable?" inquired the captain. Will shook his head. "Hope there ain't bin a flare-up?" said the captain earnestly. "Not exactly," said Will; "but he is displeased, and will not give his consent, so I have come away without it." At this the jovial skipper, who was styled captain by courtesy, sat down and shook his head gravely, while he removed his hat and wiped the perspiration from his bald forehead. "It's a bad business to run agin the wishes of one's parents," he said; "it seldom turns out well; couldn't you come round him nohow?" "Impossible. He won't listen to reason." "Ah, then, it's of no manner of use," said the captain, with a pitying sigh, "when a man won't listen to reason, what's the consequence? why he's unreasonable, which means bein' destitoot of that which raises him above the brutes that perish. Such bein' the case, give it up for a bad job, that's my advice. Come, I'll have a bottle o' ginger-beer, not bein' given to strong drink, an' we'll talk over this matter." Accordingly the beer was ordered, and the three sat there talking for a couple of hours in reference to a long, long voyage to the southern seas. After that they rose, and, leaving the Red Lion, went down to the pier, where a boat was in waiting. It conveyed them to a large ship, whose sails were hanging in the loose condition peculiar to a vessel ready to set sail. An hour after that the anchor was raised, and wind and tide carried the ship gently down to the sea. There seemed to Will something very solemn and mysterious in the quiet way in which, during these still and dark hours of the night, the great ship was slowly moved towards her ocean cradle. At length she floated on the sea, and, soon after, the moon arose on the distant horizon, streaming across the rippling surface as if to kiss and welcome an old friend. The wind increased; the ship became submissive to the breeze, obedient to the helm, and ere long moved on the waters like "a thing of life," leaving Old England far behind her. It was then that young Osten, leaning over the taffrail and looking wistfully back at the point where he had seen the last glimpse of the chalk cliffs, began to experience the first feelings of regret. He tried to quiet his conscience by recalling the harsh and unjustifiable conduct of his father, but conscience would not be quieted thus, and faithful memory reminded him of the many acts of kindness he had experienced at his father's hands, while she pointed to his gentle mother, and bade him reflect what a tremendous blow this sudden departure would be to her. Starting up and shaking off such thoughts, sternly he went below and threw himself into his narrow cot, where conscience assailed him still more powerfully and vividly in dreams. Thus did Wandering Will leave his native land. Commenting on his sudden departure, two days afterwards, Maryann said, in strict confidence, to her bosom friend "Jemimar," that she "know'd it would 'appen--or somethink simular, for, even w'en a hinfant, he had refused to larf at her most smudgin' blandishments; and that she knew somethink strange would come of it, though she would willingly have given her last shilling to have prevented it, but nothink was of any use tryin' of w'en one couldn't do it, as her 'usband, as was in the mutton-pie line, said to the doctor the night afore he died,--and that her 'art was quite broken about it, so it was." Whereupon Jemima finished to the dregs her last cup of tea, and burst into a flood of tears. CHAPTER THREE. TELLS OF THE SEA, AND SOME OF THE MYSTERIES CONNECTED THEREWITH. For many days and nights the good ship _Foam_ sailed the wide ocean without encountering anything more than the ordinary vicissitudes and experiences of sea-life. Dolphins were seen and captured, sharks were fished for and caught, stiff breezes and calms succeeded each other, constellations in the far north began to disappear and new constellations arose in the southern skies. In fact, during many weeks the voyage was prosperous, and young Will Osten began to experience those peculiar feelings with which all travellers are more or less acquainted--he felt that the ship was "home"; that his cabin with its furniture, which had appeared so small and confined at first, was quite a large and roomy place; that all the things about him were positive realities, and that the home of his childhood was a shadow of the past-- a sort of dream. During all this time the young doctor led a busy life. He was one of those active, intelligent, inquiring spirits which cannot rest. To acquire information was with him not a duty, but a pleasure. Before he had been many days at sea he knew the name and use of every rope, sail, block, tackle, and spar in the ship, and made himself quite a favourite with the men by the earnestness with which he questioned them in regard to nautical matters and their own personal experiences. George Goff, the sail-maker, said he "was a fust-rate feller;" and Larry O'Hale, the cook, declared, "he was a trump intirely, an' ought to have been born an Irishman." Moreover, the affections of long Mr Cupples (as the first mate was styled by the men) were quite won by the way in which he laboured to understand the use of the sextant, and other matters connected with the mysteries of navigation; and stout Jonathan Dall, the captain, was overjoyed when he discovered that he was a good player on the violin, of which instrument he was passionately fond. In short, Will Osten became a general favourite on board the _Foam_, and the regard of all, from the cabin-boy to the captain, deepened into respect when they found that, although only an advanced student and, "not quite a doctor," he treated their few ailments with success, and acted his part with much self-possession, gentleness, and precision. Larry O'Hale was particularly eloquent in his praises of him ever after the drawing of a tooth which had been the source of much annoyance to the worthy cook. "Why, messmates," he was wont to say, "it bait everything the way he tuk it out. `Open yer mouth,' says he, an' sure I opened it, an' before I cud wink, off wint my head--so I thought--but faix it wor only my tuth--a real grinder wi' three fangs no less--och! he's a cliver lad intirely." But Will did not confine his inquiries to the objects contained within his wooden home. The various phases and phenomena of the weather, the aspects of the sky, and the wonders of the deep, claimed his earnest attention. To know the reason of everything was with him a species of mania, and in pursuit of this knowledge he stuck at nothing. "Never venture never win," became with him as favourite a motto as it had been with his father, and he acted on it more vigorously than his father had ever done. One calm evening, as he was leaning over the side of the ship near the bow, gazing contemplatively down into the unfathomable sea, he overheard a conversation between the cook and one of the sailors named Muggins. They were smoking their pipes seated on the heel of the bowsprit. "Larry," said Muggins, "I think we have got into the doldrums." "Ye're out there, boy," said Larry, "for I heerd the capting say we wos past 'em a long way." The men relapsed into silence for a time. Then Muggins removed his pipe and said-- "Wot ever caused the doldrums?" "That's more nor I can tell," said Larry; "all I know about them is, that it's aisy to git into them, but uncommon hard to git out again. If my ould grandmother was here, she'd be able to tell us, I make no doubt, but she's in Erin, poor thing, 'mong the pigs and the taties." "Wot could _she_ tell about the doldrums?" said Muggins, with a look of contempt. "More nor ye think, boy; sure there isn't nothin' in the univarse but she can spaik about, just like a book, an' though she niver was in the doldrums as far as I knows, she's been in the dumps often enough; maybe it's cousins they are. Anyhow she's not here, an' so we must be contint with spekilation." "What's that you say, Larry?" inquired the captain, who walked towards the bow at the moment. The cook explained his difficulty. "Why, there's no mystery about the doldrums," said Captain Dall. "I've read a book by an officer in the United States navy which explains it all, and the Gulf Stream, and the currents, an' everything. Come, I'll spin you a yarn about it." Saying this, the captain filled and lighted his pipe, and seating himself on the shank of the anchor, said-- "You know the cause of ocean currents, I dare say?" "Niver a taste," said Larry. "It's meself is as innocent about 'em as the babe unborn; an' as for Muggins there, _he_ don't know more about 'em than my ould shoes--" "Or your old grandmother," growled Muggins. "Don't be irriverent, ye spalpeen," said Larry. "I ax her reverence's pardon, but I didn't know she wos a priest," said Muggins.--"Go on, Cap'n Dall." "Well," continued the captain, "you know, at all events, that there's salt in the sea, and I may tell you that there is lime also, besides other things. At the equator, the heat bein' great, water is evaporated faster than anywhere else, so that there the sea is salter and has more lime in it than elsewhere. Besides that it is hotter. Of course, that being the case, its weight is different from the waters of the cold polar seas, so it is bound to move away an' get itself freshened and cooled. In like manner, the cold water round the poles feels obliged to flow to the equator to get itself salted and warmed. This state of things, as a natural consequence, causes commotion in the sea. The commotion is moreover increased by the millions of shell-fish that dwell there. These creatures, not satisfied with their natural skins, must needs have shells on their backs, and they extract lime from the sea-water for the purpose of makin' these shells. This process is called secretin' the lime; coral insects do the same, and, as many of the islands of the south seas are made by coral insects, you may guess that a considerable lot of lime is made away with. The commotion or disturbance thus created produces two great currents--from the equator to the poles and from the poles to the equator. But there are many little odds and ends about the world that affect and modify these currents, such as depth, and local heat and cold, and rivers and icebergs, but the chief modifiers are continents. The currents flowin' north from the Indian Ocean and southern seas rush up between Africa and America. The space bein' narrow--comparatively--they form one strong current, on doublin' the Cape of Good Hope, which flies right across to the Gulf of Mexico. Here it is turned aside and flows in a nor'-easterly direction, across the Atlantic towards England and Norway, under the name of the Gulf Stream, but the Gulf of Mexico has no more to do with it than the man in the moon, 'xcept in the way of turnin' it out of its nat'ral course. This Gulf Stream is a _river of warm water_ flowing through the cold waters of the Atlantic; it keeps separate, and wherever it flows the climate is softened. It embraces Ireland, and makes the climate there so mild that there is, as you know, scarcely any frost all the year round--" "Blissin's on it," broke in Larry, "sure that accounts for the purty green face of Erin, which bates all other lands in the world. Good luck to the Gulf Stream, say I!" "You're right, Larry, and England, Scotland, and Norway have reason to bless it too, for the same latitudes with these places in America have a rigorous winter extendin' over more than half the year. But what I was comin' to was this--there are, as you know, eddies and stagnant places in ornary rivers, where sticks, leaves, and other odds and ends collect and remain fixed. So, in this great ocean river, there are eddies where seaweed collects and stagnates, and where the air above also stagnates (for the air currents are very much like those of the sea). These eddies or stagnant parts are called sargasso seas. There are several of them, of various sizes, all over the ocean, but there is one big one in the Atlantic, which is known by the name of the `Doldrums.' It has bothered navigators in all ages. Columbus got into it on his way to America, and hundreds of ships have been becalmed for weeks in it since the days of that great discoverer. It is not very long since it was found out that, by keeping well out of their way, and sailing round 'em, navigators could escape the Doldrums altogether." The captain paused at this point, and Larry O'Hale took the opportunity to break in. "D'ye know, sir," said he, "that same Gulf Strame has rose a lot o' pecooliar spekilations in my mind, which, if I may make so bowld, I'll--" Here the mate's voice interrupted him gruffly with-- "Shake out a reef in that top-gall'n s'l; look alive, lads!" Larry and his comrades sprang to obey. When they returned to their former place in the bow, the captain had left it, so that the cook's "pecooliar spekilations" were not at that time made known. CHAPTER FOUR. A STORM AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. In course of time the _Foam_, proceeding prosperously on her voyage, reached the region of Cape Horn--the cape of storms. Here, in days of old, Magellan and the early voyagers were fiercely buffeted by winds and waves. In later days Cook and others met with the same reception. In fact, the Cape is infamous for its inhospitality, nevertheless it shone with bright smiles when the _Foam_ passed by, and a gentle fair-wind wafted her into the great Pacific Ocean. Never, since that eventful day when the adventurous Castilian, Vasco Nunez de Balboa, discovered this mighty sea, did the Pacific look more peaceful than it did during the first week in which the _Foam_ floated on its calm breast. But the calm was deceitful. It resembled the quiet of the tiger while crouching to make a fatal spring. Will Osten reclined against the top of the mainmast, to which he had ascended in order to enjoy, undisturbed, the quiet of a magnificent evening. The sun was setting in a world of clouds, which took the form of mountains fringed with glittering gold and with shadows of pearly grey. Oh what castles young Osten did build on these mountains, to be sure! Structures so magnificent that Eastern architects, had they seen them, would have hung their heads and confessed themselves outdone. But you must not imagine, reader, that the magnificence of all of these depended on their magnitude or richness. On the contrary, one of them was a mere cottage--but then, it was a pattern cottage. It stood in a palm-wood, on a coral island near the sea-shore, with a stream trickling at its side, and a lake full of wild fowl behind, and the most gorgeous tropical plants clustering round its open windows and door, while inside, seated on a couch, was a beautiful girl of fifteen (whom Will had often imagined, but had not yet seen), whose auburn hair shone like gold in the sun, contrasting well with her lovely complexion, and enhancing the sweetness of a smile which conveyed to the beholder only one idea--love. Many other castles were built in the clouds at that time by Will, but the cottage made the most lasting impression on his mind. "Sleepin'?" inquired Cupples, the mate, thrusting his head through that orifice in the main-top which is technically called the "lubber's hole." "No, meditating," answered Will; "I've been thinking of the coral islands." "Humph," ejaculated the mate contemptuously, for Cupples, although a kind-hearted man, was somewhat cynical and had not a particle of sentiment in his soul. Indeed he showed so little of this that Larry was wont to say he "didn't belave he had a sowl at all, but was only a koorious specimen of an animated body." "It's my opinion, doctor, that you'd as well come down, for it's goin' to blow hard." Will looked in the direction in which the mate pointed, and saw a bank of black clouds rising on the horizon. At the same moment the captain's voice was heard below shouting--"Stand by there to reef topsails!" This was followed by the command to close-reef. Then, as the squall drew rapidly nearer, a hurried order was giving to take in all sail. The squall was evidently a worse one than had at first been expected. On it came, hissing and curling up the sea before it. "Mind your helm!--port a little, port!" "Port it is, sir," answered the man at the wheel, in the deep quiet voice of a well-disciplined sailor, whose only concern is to do his duty. "Steady!" cried the captain. The words had barely left his lips, and the men who had been furling the sails had just gained the deck, when the squall struck them, and the _Foam_ was laid on her beam-ends, hurling all her crew into the scuppers. At the same time terrible darkness overspread the sky like a pall. When the men regained their footing, some of them stood bewildered, not knowing what to do; others, whose presence of mind never deserted them, sprang to where the axes were kept, in order to be ready to cut away the masts if necessary. But the order was not given. Captain Dall and Will, who had been standing near the binnacle, seized and clung to the wheel. "She will right herself," said the former, as he observed that the masts rose a little out of the sea. Fortunately the good ship did so, and then, although there was scarcely a rag of canvas upon her, she sprang away before the hurricane like a sea-gull. Terrible indeed is the situation of those who are compelled to "scud under bare poles," when He who formed the great deep, puts forth His mighty power, causing them to "stagger and be at their wits' end." For hours the _Foam_ rushed wildly over the sea, now rising like a cork on the crest of the billows, anon sinking like lead into the valleys between. She was exposed to double danger; that of being cast upon one of the numerous coral reefs with which the Pacific in some parts abounds, or being "pooped" and overwhelmed by the seas which followed her. During this anxious period little was said or done except in reference to the working of the ship. Men snatched sleep and food at intervals as they best might. At length, after two days, the gale began to abate, and the sea to go down. "It was sharp while it lasted, captain, but it seems to have done us little harm," said Will Osten, on the evening of the second day. "True," said the captain heartily; "we'll soon repair damages and make all snug.--Is there much water in the hold, Mr Cupples?" The mate answered gloomily that there was a good deal. It must not be supposed that Mr Cupples' gloominess arose from anxiety. Not at all. It was simply his nature to be gloomy. If it had been his duty to have proclaimed the approach of his own marriage, he would have done it as sadly as if it had been the announcement of his death. His thoughts were gloomy, and his tones were appropriate thereto. Even his jokes were grave, and his countenance was lugubrious. "It is gaining on us, sir," added Mr Cupples. "Then get all the spare hands to work with buckets immediately," said the captain, "and send the carpenter here; we must have the leak discovered." "Yes, sir," sighed Mr Cupples, as if he had given way to despair; nevertheless, he went off actively to obey the order. "A strange man that," said the captain, turning to Will; "he is a capital seaman, and a kind-hearted, honest fellow, yet he is melancholy enough to throw a man into the blues." "He and I get on famously notwithstanding," said Will, with a laugh. "See, he is running aft--with bad news I fear, for his face is longer if possible than--" "Leak's increasing, sir," said the mate hurriedly; "we must have started a plank." This seemed to be too true. All hands were now plying pumps and buckets vigorously, and every effort was being made to discover the leak, but in vain. Hour by hour, inch by inch, the water gained on them, and it soon became apparent that the ship must sink. It is difficult for those who have never been at sea to realise the feelings of men who are thus suddenly awakened to the awful fact that the vessel which has been their home for many weeks or months can no longer be counted on, and that, in a few hours, they shall be left in open boats, far from land, at the mercy of the wide and stormy sea. So terrible was the thought to those on board the _Foam_, that every man, from the captain to the cabin-boy, toiled for hours at the pumps in silent desperation. At last, when it was found that the water gained on them rapidly, and that there was no hope of saving the ship, the captain quietly left off working and put on his coat. "Avast pumping, my lads," said he, in a grave, earnest tone; the good ship is doomed, and now it behoves us to bow to the will of the Lord, and do the best we can to save our lives. Stand by to hoist out the boats. Get up bread and water, steward, and stow in them as much as you can with safety. Mr Cupples, see my orders carried out, and have the provisions properly divided among the boats. I want you, doctor, to come below, and help me to get up a few things that will be of use to us. The prompt energy of the captain infused confidence into the men, who soon executed the orders given them. Ere long the boats were ready to be launched over the side, but this was a matter of the greatest difficulty and danger, for the sea was still running high, and the ship rolled heavily. And now the great evil of not being provided with proper tackling to launch the boats became apparent. One of the quarter-boats was the first to be lowered; it was full of men. The order was given to lower, and it dropped on the water all right. Then the order to unhook the tackle was given. The man at the stern tackle succeeded in unhooking, but the man at the bow failed. The result was fatal and instantaneous. When the ship rose on the next wave, the boat was lifted by the bow out of the water until she hung from the davits, and a terrible cry was uttered as all the men were thrown out of her into the sea. Next moment the boat was plunged into the waves, the tackle snapt, and she was swept away. "Lower away the long-boat!" shouted the captain. This was eagerly and quickly done, and the mate with a number of men leaped into it. The lowering was successfully accomplished, but when they pulled to the spot where the quarter-boat had gone down, not one of those who had manned her could be found. All had perished. The remaining four boats were lowered in safety, and all of them pulled away from the sinking ship, for latterly she had been settling down so deep that it was feared every pitch would be her last, and had she sunk while the boats were alongside, their destruction would have been inevitable. They were rowed, therefore, to a safe distance, and there awaited the end. There was something inexpressibly sad in this. It seemed like standing at the death-bed of an old friend. The sea was still heaving violently; the gale, although moderated, was still pretty stiff, and the sun was setting in wild lurid clouds when the _Foam_ rose for the last time-- every spar and rope standing out sharply against the sky. Then she bent forward slowly, as she overtopped a huge billow. Into the hollow she rushed. Like an expert diver she went down head foremost into the deep, and, next moment, those who had so lately trod her deck saw nothing around them save the lowering sky and the angry waters of the Pacific Ocean. CHAPTER FIVE. ADRIFT ON THE WIDE OCEAN. For some time after the disappearance of the ship, the men in the boats continued to gaze, in a species of unbelief, at the place where she had gone down. They evidently felt it difficult to realise the truth of what they had seen. The suddenness of the change and the extreme danger of their position might have shaken the stoutest hearts, for the sea still ran high and none of the boats were fitted to live in rough weather. They were, as far as could be judged, many hundreds of miles from land, and, to add to the horror of their circumstances, night was coming on. "My lads," said Captain Dall, sitting down in the stern of his boat, and grasping the tiller, "it has pleased the Almighty to sink our ship and to spare our lives. Let us be thankful that we didn't go to the bottom along with her. To the best of my knowledge we're a long way from land, and all of us will have to take in a reef in our appetites for some time to come. I have taken care to have a good supply of salt junk, biscuit, water, and lime-juice put aboard, so that if the weather don't turn out uncommon bad, we may manage, with God's blessing, to make the land. In circumstances of this kind, men's endurance is sometimes tried pretty sharply, and men in distress are occasionally driven to forgetting their duty to their comrades. I tell you beforehand, lads, that I will do all that in me lies to steer you to the nearest port, and to make your lot as comfortable as may be in an open boat; but if any of you should take a fancy to having his own way, I've brought with me a little leaden pill-box (here the captain drew aside the breast of his coat and exposed the handle of a revolver) which will tend to keep up discipline and prevent discord. Now, lads, ship your oars and hoist the foresail close-reefed, and look alive, for it seems to me that we'll have a squally night." The effect of this speech was very striking. There is nothing that men dislike so much, in critical circumstances, where action is necessary, as uncertainty or want of decision on the part of their leader. The loss of their ship, and their forlorn, almost desperate condition, had sunk their spirits so much that an air of apathetic recklessness had, for a few minutes, crossed the countenances of some of the boldest among the sailors; but while the captain was speaking this expression passed away, and when he had finished they all gave one hearty cheer, and obeyed his orders with alacrity. In a few minutes the sails, closely reefed, were hoisted, and the long-boat rushed swiftly over the waves. At first the four boats kept company--the other three having also made sail--but as darkness set in they lost sight of each other. The first mate had charge of the jolly-boat, and the second mate and carpenter had the two others. In the captain's boat were Will Osten, Larry O'Hale, Goff, Muggins, and several of the best seamen. Soon after the sails were set, a heavy sea broke inboard and nearly filled the boat. "Bail her out, lads," shouted the captain. There was no occasion for the order, the men knew their danger well enough, and every one seized anything that came to hand and began to bail for life. There was only one bucket on board, and this was appropriated by the cook, who, being one of the strongest men in the boat, thought himself entitled to the post of honour, and, truly, the way in which Larry handled that bucket and showered the water over the side justified his opinion of himself. "We must rig up something to prevent that happening again," said Captain Dall; "set to work, Goff, and cut a slice out of the tarpaulin, and nail it over the bows." This was done without delay, and in less than an hour a sort of half-deck was made, which turned off the spray and rendered the task of bailing much lighter--a matter of considerable importance, for, in such a sea, there was no possibility of an open boat remaining afloat without constant bailing. At first the men talked a good deal in comparatively cheerful tones while they worked, and the irrepressible Larry O'Hale even ventured to cut one or two jokes; but when night began to cover the deep with thick darkness, one after another dropped out of the conversation, and at last all were perfectly silent, except when it became necessary to give an order or answer a question, and nothing was heard save the whistling of the wind and the gurgling of the waves as they rushed past, their white crests curling over the edge of the boat as if greedy to swallow her, and gleaming like lambent fire all around. "This is a terrible situation," said Will Osten, in a low tone, with an involuntary shudder. "Do you think there is much chance of our surviving, captain?" "That's not an easy question to answer, doctor," replied Captain Dall, in a tone so hearty that our hero was much cheered by it. "You see, there is much in our favour as well as much against us. In the first place, this is the Pacific, and according to its name we have a right to expect more fine weather than bad, especially at this time of the year. Then we have the trade winds to help us, and our boat is a good one, with at least two weeks' provisions aboard. But then, on the other hand, we're a terrible long way off land, and we must count upon a gale now and then, which an open boat, however good, is not calc'lated to weather easily. See that now," added the captain, looking back over the stern, where, from out of the darkness, Osten could just see a huge wave, like a black mountain with a snowy top, rolling towards them. "If we were only a little more down in the stern, that fellow would drop on board of us and send us to the bottom in half a minute." Will felt that, although the captain's tones were reassuring, his words were startling. He was ill at ease, and clutched the seat when the billow rolled under them, raising the stern of the boat so high that it seemed as if about to be thrown completely over, but the wave passed on, and they fell back into the trough of the sea. "Musha! but that was a wathery mountain no less," exclaimed Larry. "You've heard of Captain Bligh, Larry, I suppose?" said the captain, in a loud voice, with the intention of letting the men hear his remarks. "May be I have," replied Larry with caution, "but if so I misremimber." "He was the captain of the _Bounty_, whose crew mutinied and turned him adrift in an open boat in the middle of the Pacific. What I was goin' to tell ye was, that his circumstances were a trifle worse than ours, for he was full four thousand miles from the nearest land, and with short allowance of provisions on board." "An' did he make out the voyage, sur?" asked Larry. "He did, and did it nobly too, in the face of great trouble and danger, but it's too long a yarn to spin just now; some day when the weather's fine I'll spin it to 'ee. He weathered some heavy gales, too, and what one man has done another man may do; so we've no reason to get down-hearted, for we're nearer land than he was, and better off in every way. I wish I could say as much for the other boats." The captain's voice dropped a little in spite of himself as he concluded, for, despite the strength and buoyancy of his spirit, he could not help feeling deep anxiety as to the fate of his companions in misfortune. Thus, talking at intervals in hopeful tones, and relapsing into long periods of silence, they spent that stormy night without refreshment and without rest. The minutes seemed to float on leaden wings, and the weary watchers experienced in its highest degree that dreary feeling--so common in the sick room--that "morning would _never_ come." But morning came at length--a faint glimmer on the eastern horizon. It was hailed by Larry with a deep sigh, and the earnest exclamation-- "Ah, then, there's the blessed sun at last, good luck to it!" Gradually the glimmer increased into grey dawn, then a warm tint brightened up the sky, and golden clouds appeared. At last the glorious sun arose in all its splendour, sending rays of warmth to the exhausted frames of the seamen and hope to their hearts. They much needed both, for want of sleep, anxiety, and cold, had already stamped a haggard look of suffering on their faces. As the morning advanced, however, this passed away, and by degrees they began to cheer up and bestir themselves,--spreading out their clothes to dry, and scanning the horizon at intervals in search of the other boats. About eight o'clock, as nearly as he could guess, the captain said-- "Now, lads, let's have breakfast; get out the bread-can. Come, Larry, look alive! You've no cooking to do this morning, but I doubt not that your teeth are as sharp and your twist as strong as ever." "Stronger than iver, sur, av ye plaze." "I'm sorry to hear it, for you'll have to go on short allowance, I fear." "Ochone!" groaned the cook. "Never mind, Larry," said Will Osten, assisting to spread the sea-biscuit and salt junk on one of the thwarts; "there's a good time coming." "Sure, so's Christmas, doctor, but it's a long way off," said Larry. "Fetch me the scales; now then, doctor, hold 'em," said the captain, carefully weighing out a portion of biscuit and meat which he handed to one of the men. This process was continued until all had been supplied, after which a small quantity of water and lime-juice was also measured out to each. The breakfast was meagre, but it was much needed, and as the sea had gone down during the night and the morning was beautiful, it was eaten not only in comfort, but with some degree of cheerfulness. While they were thus engaged, Goff looked up and exclaimed suddenly, "Hallo! look here, boys!" Every one started up and gazed in the direction indicated, where they saw something black floating on the water. The captain, who had taken the precaution before leaving the ship to sling his telescope over his shoulder, applied it to his eye, and in a few seconds exclaimed, "It's the jolly-boat capsized! Out with the oars, boys--be smart! There's some of 'em clinging to the keel." It need scarcely be said that the men seized the oars and plied them with all their might. Under the influence of these and the sail together they soon drew near, and then it was distinctly seen that three men were clinging to the boat--it followed, of course, that all the rest must have been drowned. Silently and swiftly they pulled alongside, and in a few minutes had rescued Mr Cupples and the steward and one of the sailors, all of whom were so much exhausted that they could not speak for some time after being taken on board. When they could tell what had happened, their tale was brief and sad. They had kept in sight of the long-boat while light enabled them to do so. After that they had run before the gale, until a heavy sea capsized them, from which time they could remember nothing, except that they had managed to get on the bottom of the upturned boat, to which they had clung for many hours in a state of partial insensibility. CHAPTER SIX. DESCRIBES A BOAT VOYAGE, AND TOUCHES ON CORAL ISLANDS. The gale moderated to a fresh breeze, and all that day the long-boat of the ill-fated _Foam_ flew over the sea towards the west. "You see," said Captain Dall, in answer to a question put to him by Will Osten, "I don't know exactly whereabouts we are, because there was a longish spell of dirty weather afore the _Foam_ went down, and I hadn't got a sight o' the sun for more than a week; but it's my belief that we are nearer to some of the coral islands than to the coast of South America, though how near I cannot tell. Five hundred miles, more or less, perhaps." "A mere trifle, sure!" said Larry, filling his pipe carefully--for his was the only pipe that had been rescued from the sinking ship, and the supply of tobacco was very small. Small as it was, however, the captain had taken the precaution to collect it all together, causing every man to empty his pockets of every inch that he possessed, and doled it out in small equal quantities. The pipe, however, could not be treated thus, so it had to be passed round--each man possessing it in turn for a stated number of minutes, when, if he had not consumed his portion, he was obliged to empty the pipe and give it up. "It's my turn, Larry," cried Muggins, holding out his hand for the coveted implement of fumigation. "No, ye spalpeen, it's not," said Larry, continuing to press down the precious weed, "owld Bob had it last, an' ivery wan knows that I come after him." "It's the first time I ever heard ye admit that you comed after anybody," answered Muggins with a grin; "ye ginerally go before us all-- at least ye want to." "Not at all," retorted the cook; "whin there's dirty work to be done, I most usually kape modestly in the background, an' lets you go first, bekase it's your nat'ral callin'. Arrah! the sun's goin' to set, boys," he added with a sigh, as he commenced to smoke. This was true, and the knowledge that another long night of darkness was about to set in depressed the spirits which had begun to revive a little. Silence gradually ensued as they sat watching the waves or gazing wistfully towards the gorgeous mass of clouds in which the sun was setting. For a considerable time they sat thus, when suddenly Will Osten started up, and, pointing towards the horizon a little to the left of the sun, exclaimed-- "Look there, captain; what's that?" "Land ho!" shouted Larry O'Hale at that moment, springing up on the thwart and holding on to the foremast. All the rest leaped up in great excitement. "It's only a cloud," said one. "It's a fog-bank," cried another. "I never seed a fog-bank with an edge like that," observed old Bob, "an' I've sailed the salt sea long enough to know." "Land it is, thank God," said the captain earnestly, shutting up his telescope. "Get out the oars again, lads! We can't make it before dark, but the sooner we get there the better, for landing on these coral islands isn't always an easy job." The oars were got out at once, and the men pulled with a will, but it was late at night before they drew near to the land and heard the roar of the surf on the coral reef that stood as a sentinel to guard the island. "Captain," said Will Osten, "the wind has almost died away, yet it seems to me that the surf roars as violently as if a storm were raging." "That surf never goes down in those seas, doctor. Even in calm weather the swell of the big ocean gathers into a huge billow and bursts in foam upon the coral islands." "Surely, then," said Will, "it must make landing both difficult and dangerous." "It is, sometimes, but not always," replied the captain; "for a channel of safety has been provided, as you shall see, before long. Take the boat-hook, Goff, and look out in the bows." The man rose and stood up with the boat-hook ready to "fend off" if necessary. A word or two here about the coral islands--those wonderful productions of the coral insect--may perhaps render the position of the boat and her subsequent proceedings more intelligible. They are of all sizes and shapes. Some are small and low, like emeralds just rising out of the ocean, with a few cocoa-nut palms waving their tufted heads above the sandy soil. Others are many miles in extent, covered with large forest trees and rich vegetation. Some are inhabited, others are the abode only of sea-fowl. In many of them the natives are naked savages of the most depraved character. In a few, where the blessed gospel of Jesus Christ has been planted, the natives are to be seen, "clothed and in their right minds." Wherever the gospel has taken root, commerce has naturally sprung up, and the evils that invariably follow in her train have in too many cases been attributed to Christianity. Poor indeed must be that man's knowledge of the influence of Christianity, who would judge of its quality or value by the fruit of its _professors_. "By their fruits ye shall know _them_," truly--_them_, but not Christianity. The world is an hospital, and life the period of convalescence. Christianity is the one grand and all-sufficient medicine. Shall we, the afflicted and jaundiced patients, still suffering from the virulence and effect of sin, condemn the medicine because it does not turn us out cured in a single day? Still, even to fruits we can appeal, mingled and confounded with crab-apples though they be. Come, sceptic, make a trial of it. Go to the Fiji Islands; get yourself wrecked among them. Be cast into the stormy deep; buffet the waves manfully, and succeed in struggling exhausted to the shore. The savages there, if not Christianised, will haul you out of the sea, roast you, and eat you! They do this in compliance with a humane little law which maintains that all who are shipwrecked, and cast on shore, are thus to be disposed of. Ha! you need not smile. The record of this fact may be read, in unquestionable authorities, in every public library in the kingdom. Search and see. On the other hand, go and get cast on one of the Fiji group where Christianity holds sway, and there, despite the errors, inconsistencies, and sins of its professors and enemies, the same natives will haul you out of the sea, receive you into their houses, feed and clothe you, and send you on your way rejoicing. There is one peculiarity which applies to most of the coral islands-- each is partially surrounded by a coral reef which lies at a distance from the shore varying from less than one to two miles. Outside of this reef the sea may heave tumultuously, but the lagoon within remains calm. The great breakers may thunder on the reef, and even send their spray over, for it is little above the level of the sea, and nowhere much more than a few yards in breadth, but inside all is peaceful and motionless. In this reef there are several openings, by which a ship of the largest size may enter and find a safe, commodious harbour. It is found that these openings occur usually opposite to any part of the islands where a stream flows into the sea; and the openings have frequently a little herbage, sometimes a few cocoa-nut palms growing on either side, which form a good natural land-mark to the navigator. Towards one of these openings the long-boat of the _Foam_ was rowed with all speed. The night was dark, but there was light sufficient to enable them to see their way. As they drew near they came within the influence of the enormous breakers, which rose like long gigantic snakes and rolled in the form of perpendicular walls to the reef, where they fell with a thunderous roar in a flood of milky foam. Here it was necessary to exercise the utmost caution in steering, for if the boat had turned broadside on to one of these monstrous waves, it would have been rolled over and over like a cask. "Pull gently, lads," said the captain, as they began to get within the influence of the breakers. "I don't quite see my way yet. When I give the word, pull with a will till I tell ye to hold on. Your lives depend on it." This caution was necessary, for when a boat is fairly within the grasp of what we may term a shore-going wave, the only chance of safety lies in going quite as fast as it, if not faster. Presently the captain gave the word; the men bent to their oars and away they rushed on the crest of a billow, which launched them through the opening in the reef in the midst of a turmoil of seething foam. Next moment they were rowing quietly over the calm lagoon, and approaching what appeared to be a low-lying island covered with cocoa-nut trees; but the light rendered it difficult to distinguish objects clearly. A few minutes later the boat's keel grated on the sand, and the whole party leaped on shore. The first impulse of some of the men was to cheer, but the feelings of others were too deep for expression in this way. "Thanks be to God!" murmured Captain Dall as he landed. "Amen!" said Will Osten earnestly. Some of the men shook hands, and congratulated each other on their escape from what all had expected would prove to be a terrible death. As for Larry O'Hale, he fell on his knees, and, with characteristic enthusiasm, kissed the ground. "My best blissin's on ye," said he with emotion. "Och, whither ye be a coral island or a granite wan no matter; good luck to the insict that made ye, is the prayer of Larry O'Hale!" CHAPTER SEVEN. HOPES, FEARS, AND PROSPECTS ON THE CORAL ISLAND. Few conditions of life are more difficult to bear than that which is described in the proverb, "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick." Day after day, week after week passed by, and every morning the unfortunate men who had been cast on the coral island rose with revived hope to spend the day in anxiety, and to lie down in disappointment. The island proved to be a low one, not more than four miles in length by about half a mile in breadth, on which nothing grew except a few cocoa-nut palms. These afforded the wrecked crew a scanty supply of food, which, with the provisions they had brought, enabled them to live, but the prospect of a residence on such a spot was so hopeless, that they would have left it immediately had not an accident happened which deprived them of their boat. A few mornings after landing, several of the men rose early, and, without obtaining the captain's permission, went to fish in the lagoon, intending to surprise their comrades by bringing a supply of fresh fish. They were unsuccessful, but, supposing that their chance would be better in the open sea, they rowed through the opening in the reef. They had, however, miscalculated the size and power of the breakers that continually thundered there. The boat was heavy and unmanageable except by a strong crew. She turned broadside to the breakers, and, in a few seconds, was hurled upon the reef and dashed to pieces. The men were saved almost by a miracle. They succeeded in landing on the reef, and afterwards, with the aid of broken pieces of the wreck, swam across the lagoon to the island. The loss was irreparable, so that they had now no hope left except in the passing of a ship or a native canoe. This latter contingency they were led to hope for by the discovery, one very clear morning, of what appeared to be the mountain tops of a cluster of islands, barely visible on the horizon. But as day after day passed without the appearance of a canoe, they came to the conclusion that these islands were not inhabited. As weeks passed by and no sail appeared, their hearts began to fail them, for the small stock of provisions was rapidly diminishing. One morning Captain Dall ascended to the highest point on the island, where he was wont to spend the greater part of each day on the lookout. He found Will Osten there before him. "Good-morning doctor," said the captain, with a dash of the old hearty spirit in his voice, for he was not easily depressed; "anything in sight?" "Nothing," replied Will, with a degree of energy in his tone that caused the captain to look at him in surprise. "Hallo, doctor, have you made a discovery, or have you made up your mind to swim off the island, that you speak and look so resolute this morning?" "Yes, I have made a discovery. I have discovered that the provisions will not last us another week; that our vigour is not what it used to be; that a sort of apathy is stealing over us all; that the sands of life, in short, are running out while we are sitting idle here making no effort to help ourselves." "What can we do, lad?" said the captain sadly, supposing that the youth was merely giving vent to a spirit of desperation. "I'll tell you what we can do," said Will, rising; "we can cut down most of the trees and make a huge pile of them, which, with the broken pieces of the long-boat to kindle them, will create a blaze that will attract the attention of the people who live on yonder island--if there be any. I know the character of South Sea islanders, but it is better to live in captivity or die by the hand of savages than to perish of hunger and thirst. Come, Captain Dall, we _must_ stir the men up to make a last effort. Rather than die here, I will make a raft and hoist a sail on it, and commit myself to the winds and waves. What say you? Shall we try?" "There is something in what you say, doctor," replied the captain, pondering the subject; "at all events, no harm can come of making the attempt. I'll go speak to the men." In pursuance of this intention he left the place of outlook accompanied by Will, and the result of their consultation with the men was, that in a few minutes Larry O'Hale and Mr Cupples set to work with all the energy in their natures to fell trees with the two axes they possessed. When they were exhausted, Will Osten and Goff relieved them, and then the captain and old Bob took the axes. Thus the work went on all day, and in the evening a pile of logs was raised almost as large as a medium-sized cottage. There was something hopeful in the mere act of working with a view to deliverance that raised the spirits of the men, and when the sun began to sink towards the western horizon, they sat down to their slight meal of biscuit and cocoa-nut milk with more appetite and relish than they had experienced for many days. "I've bin thinkin'," said Larry, pausing in the midst of his supper. "Well, wot have 'ee bin thinkin', lad?" said Muggins, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his coat and wishing for more food--but wishing in vain, for he had finished his allowance--"you're a good deal given to thinkin', but there's not much ever comes on it, 'xcept wind in the shape o' words." "And what's words," retorted the cook, in supreme contempt, "but the expression o' sintiment, widout which there wouldn't have bin nuthin' wotsomediver in the univarse? Sintiment is the mother of all things, as owld Father O'Dowd used to say to my grandmother whin he wanted to come the blarney over her. It was a philosopher sintimentilisin' over a tay-kittle, I'm towld, as caused the diskivery o' the steam-ingine; it was a sintimintal love o' country as indooced Saint Patrick to banish the varmin from Ireland, an' it was religious sintiment as made Noah for to build the Ark, but for which nother you nor me would have bin born to git cast upon a coral island. Sintiment is iverything, Muggins, and of that same there isn't more in your whole body than I cud shove into the small end of a baccy-pipe. But to return to the pint: I've bin thinkin' as to whether it would be best to set a light to this here little pile in the daylight or in the dark, bekase, in the wan case it's the smoke that would call attintion, an' in the other case it's the flame." "That is true, Larry," said the captain; "I'm inclined to think it would be better seen at night, fire being more powerful than smoke." "But they're more likely to be asleep at night, and to miss seein' it," observed Cupples, in a hollow tone. It may be remarked in passing, that the mate's voice had become much more sepulchral and his aspect more cadaverous since his arrival on the island. "True for ye," chimed in Larry; "an' who knows, if they did see it, but they might take it for the moon in a fog--or for a volkainy?" "Wouldn't the best way to settle the matter be to kindle the fire just now, before it grows dark," suggested Will Osten, "so that they will have a chance of seeing the smoke, and then, when it grows dark, the fire will be getting brighter?" "Right, doctor, you're right. Come, we'll put the light to it at once," cried the captain, rising. "Hand me the match-box, Mr Cupples; it's in the head o' the bread cask." The whole party rose and went to the pile of timber, which was on the highest part of the islet and towered to a height of nearly twelve feet. Captain Dall applied a match to the tarry pieces of the long-boat, which had been placed at the foundation, and the flames at once leaped up and began to lick greedily round the timber, winding through the interstices and withering up the leaves. Soon a thick smoke began to ascend, for much of the timber in the pile was green, and before the sun had set a dense black cloud was rising straight up like a pillar and spreading out into the sky. As the fire gathered strength, a great tongue of flame flashed up ever and anon into the midst of the rolling cloud and rent it for a single instant; by degrees those tongues waged fierce war with the smoke. They shot through it more and more frequently, licked and twined round it--in and out--until they gained the mastery at last, and rose with a magnificent roar into the heavens. Then it was that Larry O'Hale gave vent to his excitement and admiration in an irrepressible shout, and his comrades burst into a mingled cheer and fit of laughter, as they moved actively round the blazing mass and stirred it into fiercer heat with boat-hooks and oars. When night had closed in, the brilliancy of the bonfire was intense, and the hopes of the party rose with the flames, for they felt certain that any human beings who chanced to be within fifty miles of them could not fail to see the signal of distress. So the greater part of the night was passed in wild excitement and energetic action. At last, exhausted yet hopeful, they left the bonfire to burn itself out and sat down to watch. During the first half-hour they gazed earnestly over the sea, and so powerfully had their hopes been raised, that they expected to see a ship or a boat approaching every minute. But ere long their hopes sank as quickly as they had been raised. They ceased to move about and talk of the prospect of speedy deliverance. The hearts of men who have been long exposed to the depressing influence of "hope deferred," and whose frames are somewhat weakened by suffering and insufficient food, are easily chilled. One after another they silently crept under the sail, which had been spread out in the form of a tent to shelter them, and with a sigh lay down to rest. Weariness and exposure soon closed their eyes in "kind Nature's sweet restorer--balmy sleep," and the coral island vanished utterly from their minds as they dreamed of home, and friends, and other days. So, starving men dream of sumptuous fare, and captives dream of freedom. Will Osten was last to give way to the feeling of disappointment, and last to lie down under the folds of the rude tent. He was young, and strong, and sanguine. It was hard for one in whose veins the hot blood careered so vigorously to believe in the possibility of a few days reducing him to the weakness of infancy--harder still for him to realise the approach of death; yet, when he lay meditating there in the silence of the calm night, a chill crept over his frame, for his judgment told him that if a merciful God did not send deliverance, "the end" was assuredly drawing very nigh. CHAPTER EIGHT. IN WHICH OUR HERO SUGGESTS A PLAN WHICH GETS THE PARTY OUT OF ONE DIFFICULTY BUT PLUNGES THEM INTO ANOTHER. How long Wandering Will would have lain in the midst of his slumbering comrades, indulging in gloomy reveries, it is impossible to say, for he was suddenly startled out of them by the appearance of a black object on the sea, at a considerable distance from the shore. Will's couch was near the open entrance to the tent, and from the spot where his head lay pillowed on his coat, he could see the lagoon, the opening in the reef, and the ocean beyond. He rose softly, but quickly, and went out to assure himself that his disturbed fancy had not misled him. No--there could be no doubt about it. Grey dawn was already breaking, and enabled him to see it distinctly--a dark moving speck on the sea far outside the reef. It could not be a gull or sea-bird, he felt persuaded; neither was it a ship, for his eye during the voyage had become a practised one in observing distant vessels. It might be a boat! Full of this idea, and trembling with hope and anxiety, he returned to the tent, and gently awoke the captain. "Sh! don't speak," he whispered, laying his hand on the captain's mouth. "I'm convinced it is a boat," continued Will, as he stood beside the now smouldering fire, while the captain gazed long and earnestly through his telescope at the object on the sea. "You're only half-right," said the other, with unusual seriousness, as he handed the glass to his companion; "it's a canoe--a large one, I think, and apparently full of men; but we shan't be left long in doubt as to that; our fire has evidently attracted them, and now we must prepare for their reception." "Do you then doubt their friendliness?" asked Will, returning the glass to the captain, who again examined the approaching canoe carefully. "Whether they shall turn out to be friends or foes, doctor, depends entirely on whether they are Christians or heathens. If the missionaries have got a footing amongst 'em, we are saved; if not--I wouldn't give much for our chance of seeing Old England again." The captain's voice dropped as he said this, and his face was overspread with an expression of profound gravity. "Do you _really_ believe in all the stories we have heard of the blood-thirstiness of these savages, and their taste for human flesh?" asked Will, with some anxiety. "Believe them!" exclaimed the captain, with a bitter, almost ferocious laugh; "of course I do. I have _seen_ them at their bloody work, lad. It's all very well for shore-goin' folk in the old country to make their jokes about `Cold missionary on the sideboard,' and to sing of the `King of the Cannibal Islands;' but, as sure as there is a sky over your head, and a coral island under your feet, so certainly do the South Sea savages kill, roast, and eat their enemies, and so fond are they of human flesh that, when they can't get hold of enemies, they kill and eat their slaves. Look, you can make out the canoe well enough now without the glass; she's makin' straight for the opening in the reef. The sun will be up in half an hour, and they'll arrive about the same time. Come, let us rouse the men." Hastening down to the tent, the captain raised the curtain, and shouted hoarsely-- "Hallo, lads, turn out there--turn out. Here's a canoe in sight--look alive!" Had a bomb-shell fallen into the midst of the sleepers, it could scarcely have produced more commotion among them. Every one sprang up violently. "Hooroo!" shouted Larry O'Hale, "didn't I say so? Sure it's mysilf was draimin' of ould Ireland, an' the cabin in the bog wi' that purty little crature--" He stopped abruptly, and added, "Och! captain dear, what's wrong?" "Hold you tongue, Larry, for a little, and keep your cheerin' till you have done fightin', for it's my opinion we may have something to do in that way ere long." "Faix, it's mysilf as can enjoy a taste o' that too," said Larry, buttoning his jacket and turning up his cuffs. By this time the canoe was approaching the passage in the reef, and the whole party hastened to the beach, where they held a hasty council of war, for it was now clear that the canoe was one of the largest size-- capable of holding nearly a hundred men--and that it was quite full of naked savages. In a few words the captain explained to the men the character of the islanders, as ascertained by himself on previous voyages, and showed how hopeless would be their case if they turned out to be heathens. "Now," said he, "we are fifteen in number, all told, with two muskets, one pistol, three or four cutlasses, and a small supply of ammunition. If these men prove to be enemies, shall we attack them, and try to take their canoe, or shall we at once lay down our arms and trust to their generosity? Peace or war, that's the question?" Larry at once declared for war, and several of the more fiery spirits joined him, among whom was Will Osten; for the young doctor shrank with horror from the idea of being roasted and eaten! "I vote for peace," said the mate gloomily. "Sure, Mr Cupples," exclaimed Larry, "I wonder at that, for it's little pace ye gave us aboord the _Foam_." "It's not possible," continued the mate--taking no notice of the cook's remark, nor of the short laugh which followed it--"it's not possible for fifteen men, armed as we are, to beat a hundred savages, well supplied with clubs and spears--as I make no doubt they are--so I think we should trust to their friendliness." "Bah!" whispered Larry to the man next him; "he knows that he's too tough and dry for any savage in his siven sinses to ait _him_, cooked or raw, and so he hopes to escape." "Mr Cupples is right, lads," said the captain; "we'd have no chance in a fair fight, an' though I make no doubt we should kill double our number in the scrimmage, what good would that do?" Some of the men here seconded the captain; the others began to waver, and it was finally decided that they should at least begin with pacific advances. When the council broke up, the sailors went down to the water's edge and awaited her arrival. As she came nearer, it became apparent that she was a war-canoe fill with warriors. Steadily and swiftly she advanced to within a short distance of the shore. Then the paddlers suddenly ceased, and she was allowed to drift slowly in, while a splendid looking savage stood up in the bow with a shield on his left arm and a javelin in his right hand. The chief, for such he evidently was, wore no clothing, except a piece of native cloth round his loins; but his whole body was elaborately tatooed with various devices; and this species of decoration, coupled with the darkness of his skin, did away very much with the appearance of nakedness. He seemed as if he had been clothed in a dark skin-tight dress. But the most conspicuous part about him was the top of his head, on which there seemed to be a large turban, which, on closer inspection, turned out to be his own hair curled and fizzed out artificially. Altogether he was an imposing and gigantic fellow. When about fifty yards from the shore, the savages checked the canoe's progress and stood up. Now was the time for action, so, according to previous arrangement, the sailors laid their weapons down on the beach, and held up their hands, at the same time making such signs of friendship as they thought would be understood. The savages, who were quick-witted fellows, at once ran the canoe ashore, leaped out, and hastened towards the white men. As they did so, Captain Dall put his telescope to his eye for a moment, wishing to scan closely the features of the chief. Instantly the whole band turned with a howl, and, making towards the canoe, jumped in and pushed off. "Ha!" exclaimed the captain, with a smile, "these fellows have been fired at by Europeans before now. They evidently mistook my telescope for a musket." The savages paused, and again faced about at a short distance from the beach, and the captain sought by every imaginable sign and gesticulation to remove the bad impression he had so innocently created. He succeeded. In a short time the natives again landed and advanced towards them. On drawing near, the chief stopped and made a short speech--which, of course, none of the white men understood. To this Captain Dall replied in a short speech--which, of course, none of the natives understood. Both parties looked very amiably, however, at each other, and by degrees drew closer together, when the natives began to manifest much curiosity in reference to the costume of the sailors. Soon they became more familiar, and the truth of the proverb, that, "familiarity breeds contempt," was quickly illustrated by one of the savages seizing hold of the musket which Larry O'Hale carried. The hot blood of the Irishman instantly fired. "Let go, ye dirty bit o' mahogany," he cried, holding the musket tight with his left hand, and clenching his right in a threatening manner. Captain Dall, foreseeing what would be the result of a blow, sought to create a diversion by raising his telescope to his eye. The quick-sighted savage observed the motion, let go his hold of the musket and shrank behind his comrades, who, however, did not appear disposed to screen him, for they all began to dodge behind each other until the telescope was lowered. The temporary distraction of attention which this incident caused emboldened another savage to pounce upon the other musket, which was carried by old Bob. He wrenched it out of the sailor's hand and bounded away with a shout, swinging it over his head. Unfortunately his fingers touched the trigger and the piece exploded, knocking down the man who held it, and sending the ball close past the chief's ear. Instantly there followed a loud yell, clubs were brandished, cutlasses gleamed, and blood would certainly have been spilt had not Captain Dall suddenly seized the chief by the shoulders and rubbed noses with him. He knew this to be the mode of salutation among some of the South Sea tribes, and sought to make a last effort at conciliation. The act was reciprocated by the chief, who signed to his men to forbear. Captain Dall now felt convinced that any undecided course of action would only render their case more desperate, so he turned to his men with a look of authority and said sternly-- "My lads, we have only one hope left to us, and that is, submission. Throw down your weapons, and put your trust in the Almighty." The men obeyed--some with hesitation and others sullenly; they flung their cutlasses on the sand and crossed their arms on their breasts. No sooner was this done than the savages rushed upon them in overwhelming numbers, and they were instantly overpowered. Larry O'Hale and Will Osten, with some of the younger men, struggled fiercely, and knocked down several of their opponents before they were subdued, but against such overwhelming odds they had no chance. It would have been better for them had they acted on the captain's advice. Whatever is worth doing is worth doing well, and this truth is not less applicable to the act of submission than to that of resistance. The only result of their ill-timed display of valour was the tighter fastening of the cords with which the savages bound them hand and foot, and somewhat rough handling when they, with their comrades, were tossed into the bottom of the canoe. After the sailors were secured, the natives collected the provisions that had been brought by them to the island, and stowed these also in the canoe. This occupied a considerable time, for they were so careful to avoid missing anything, that they ranged over the whole island, examining every part minutely, and leaving nothing behind that had the slightest appearance of value in their eyes. During all this time the white men were left lying in the water which had leaked into the canoe. Indeed, the valiant Larry would certainly have been drowned, but for the aid extended to him by our hero, for he chanced to have been thrown into the canoe with his face downwards near the stern, and as the water gradually settled down there from the prow, which was raised on the sand, it covered his mouth. Fortunately Will, who was near him, managed to assist the unfortunate man in his struggles so as to enable him to rest his head on the blade of a paddle! When everything belonging to the crew of the _Foam_ had been collected, the savages returned to their canoe, re-launched her, paddled out to sea, and ere long left the little coral island out of sight behind them. CHAPTER NINE. CONTAINS AN ACCOUNT OF THE DESPERATE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE PRISONERS. Five hours passed away, during which the savages continued to paddle almost without intermission, and our hero with his friends lay fast bound in the bottom of the canoe. They suffered great pain from the swelling of their limbs and the tightening of the cords that bound them; but although Larry O'Hale, in the exasperation of his spirit, gave vent to one or two howls, accompanied by expressions that were the reverse of complimentary, no attention was paid to them until the island towards which they steered was reached. The instant the canoe touched the sand the captives were lifted out-- their hands and feet were tied together in a bunch, and, each being slung on a stout pole as one might sling a bundle, they were carried up to a native village on the margin of a wood. On the way, Wandering Will could see that the beach swarmed with natives--a fact, however, of which his ears had already assured him, for the air was filled with yells of delight as the captives were successively lifted out of the canoe. He also observed that the island appeared to be a large one, for he got a glimpse of a huge mountain rising over the tree tops. Neither he nor any of his comrades, however, had time to make many observations, for they were hurried up the beach and into the village, where they were thrown down under a rudely built hut which was covered with broad leaves. Here the cords that fastened them were unloosed; but if this for a moment raised the hope that they were about to be set free, they were quickly undeceived by the savages, who rebound their hands behind them. Our hero, Captain Dall, Mr Cupples, Larry O'Hale, and Muggins, were then fastened with cords of cocoa-nut fibre to the several posts of the hut in such a manner that they could stand up or lie down at pleasure. George Goff, old Bob, and the others were led away. Seeing that they were about to be separated, Captain Dall suddenly called out, "Farewell, lads," in a tone so sad, that Goff looked back at him in surprise, but his captors forced him away before he could reply. "You think we won't see them again?" said Osten, when they were left alone. "I think not. From what I know of those savages, I fear they have taken our comrades away to be sacrificed, and that our own time will soon come." Something between a groan and a growl escaped from O'Hale when this was said. "Cudn't we break thim ropes, and run amuck amongst the murtherin' blackguards," he exclaimed, seizing the rope that bound him with his teeth and endeavouring to tear it--an effort which it is needless to say was futile, and nearly cost him a tooth. "It's of no use, Larry," said the captain; "we can't help ourselves. If the Lord don't help us, we're dead men." Although Will Osten was much depressed, not to say alarmed, by what he heard, he could not help wondering why the captain had so suddenly lost his buoyant spirit. At the time when a slow death by starvation had stared him in the face, he had not only retained his own heartiness of spirit, but had kept up wonderfully the spirits of his companions. Now, however--when, as Will thought, they had the chance of escaping by stratagem or by force from their captors, or, at the worst, of selling their lives dearly--his spirit seemed to have utterly forsaken him. Yet the captain was only despondent--not despairing. He had seen the deeds of savages in former years, and knew that with them there was seldom a long period between the resolve to kill and the accomplishment of the crime. He feared for the lives of his shipmates, and would have given his right hand at that moment to have been free to aid them, but the attempts of himself and his comrades to break their bonds were fruitless, so, after making one or two desperate efforts, they sat down doggedly to await their fate. It might have been a curious study to have noted the different spirit in which these unfortunate men submitted to their unavoidable doom on that occasion. The captain sat down on a log of wood that chanced to be near him, folded his hands quietly on his knees, allowed his head to sink forward on his chest, and remained for a long time quite motionless. Will Osten, on the other hand, stood up at first, and, leaning his head on his arm against the wall of the hut, appeared to be lost in reverie. Doubtless he was thinking of home; perhaps reproaching himself for the manner and spirit in which he had quitted it--as many a poor wanderer has done before when too late! He quickly changed his thoughts, however, and, with them, his position: sat down and got up frequently, frowned, clenched his hands, shook his head, stamped his foot, bit his lips, and altogether betrayed a spirit ill at ease. Mr Cupples, whose soul had from the moment of their capture given way to the deepest possible dejection, lay down, and, resting his elbow on the floor and his head on his hand, gazed at his comrades with a look so dreadfully dolorous that, despite their anxiety, they could hardly suppress a smile. As for Muggins and O'Hale, the former, being a phlegmatic man and a courageous, sat down with his back against the wall, his hands thrust into his pockets, and a quid in his cheek, and shook his head slowly from side to side, while he remarked that every one had to die once, an' when the time came no one couldn't escape and that was all about it! Poor Larry O'Hale could not thus calm his mercurial spirit. He twisted his hard features into every possible contortion, apostrophised his luck, and his grandmother, and ould Ireland in the most pathetic manner, bewailed his fate, and used improper language in reference to savages in general, and those of the South Seas in particular, while, at intervals, he leaped up and tried to tear his bonds asunder. Thus several hours were spent. Evening approached, and darkness set in; still no one came near the prisoners. During this period, however, they heard the continual shouting and singing of the savages, and sometimes caught a glimpse of them through crevices between the logs of which the hut was built. It was not possible for them to ascertain what they were about, however, until night set in, when several large fires were lighted, and then it could be seen that they were feasting and dancing. Suddenly, in the midst of the din, an appalling shriek was heard. It was quickly succeeded by another and another. Then the yells of the revellers increased in fury, and presently a procession of them was observed approaching the hut, headed by four men bearing a sort of stage on their shoulders. The shrieks had struck like a death-chill to the hearts of the prisoners. No one spoke, but each had recognised familiar tones in the terrible cries. For the first time some of them began to realise the fact that they were really in the hands of murderers, and that the bloody work had actually begun. Great drops of sweat rolled down the face of Muggins as he gazed in horror through one of the crevices, and his broad chest heaved convulsively as he exclaimed, "God be merciful to us, it's George Goff!" This was too true. On the stage, carried by four natives, sat the unfortunate seaman. It required no second glance to tell that his spirit had fled, and that nothing but a corpse sat swaying there, supported by means of a pole, in a sitting posture. The cannibals were conveying it to their temple, there to cut it up and prepare it for that dreadful feast which is regarded as inexpressibly repulsive by all the human race except these islanders of the South Seas, who, incredible though it may appear, absolutely relish human flesh as a dainty morsel. At sight of this, poor Will Osten, who had never quite believed in such terrible things, sank down on his knees with a deep groan, and, for the first time in his life, perhaps, prayed _earnestly_. O'Hale's spirit blazed up in ungovernable fury. Like a wild beast, he tore and wrenched at the rope which bound him, and then, finding his efforts unavailing, he flung himself on the ground, while deep sobs burst at intervals from his oppressed heart. A few minutes elapsed; then there was a rush of footsteps without, accompanied by fierce yells and the waving of torches. The prisoners leaped up, feeling almost instinctively that there hour had come. A moment later and the hut was filled with natives. All were naked, with the exception of a small piece of cloth round their loins. They were tatooed, however, and painted nearly from head to foot. The prisoners were instantly seized and overpowered, and preparations were being rapidly made to carry them away, when a shout was heard outside, and a remarkably tall, powerful, and thickly painted savage sprang in. He pushed the natives violently aside, and gave some stern orders to those who held the prisoners. The immediate result was, that the latter were released and allowed to rise, although their hands were still bound behind them. Meanwhile the tall savage, standing beside them, harangued his comrades with great energy of tone and action. While this was going on, Larry O'Hale whispered excitedly to his companions-- "Howld on, lads, a bit. Sure I've burst the ropes at last. The moment I git howld o' that blackguard's knife I'll cut yer lashin's. Stand by for a rush." As Larry spoke, the tall savage drew the knife referred to from his girdle, and, glancing over his shoulder, said in English-- "Keep quiet, lads. I'll do my best to save 'ee; but if you offer to fight, you're dead men all in five minutes." Amazement, if no other feeling had operated, would have rendered the prisoners perfectly quiet after that. They waited in deep anxiety and wonder, while the tall savage continued his harangue, at the conclusion of which his hearers uttered an expressive grunt or growl, as if of assent, and then they all filed out of the hut, leaving the prisoners alone with their deliverer. CHAPTER TEN. OUR HERO AND HIS COMRADES IN DISTRESS BECOME SAVAGE WARRIORS FOR THE NONCE. "Friend," said Captain Dall, taking the hand of the tall savage in his and speaking with some emotion, "you have been sent as our deliverer, I know, but how a South Sea islander should happen to befriend us, and how you should come to speak English as well as ye do, is more than I can understand." "Onderstand!" exclaimed Larry; "it's past belaif. It baits cock-fightin' intirely." A grim smile crossed the painted face of the savage, as he said somewhat hurriedly:-- "I'm no more a South Sea islander than you are, lads, but this is not the time for explanations. It's enough for you to know, in the meantime, that I'm an Englishman, and will befriend you if you agree to obey me." "Obey ye!" cried Larry with enthusiasm, "blissin's on yer painted mug, it's warship ye we will, av ye only git us out o' this scrape." "That's so," said Muggins, nodding his head emphatically, while Mr Cupples, in tones of the most awful solemnity, and with a look that cannot be described, vowed eternal friendship. "Well, then," said the tall man, "we have no time to waste, for you are in a greater fix just now than ye think for. About myself it's enough to know that I'm a runaway sailor; that I made my way among these fellers here by offering to join 'em and fight for 'em, and that I won their respect at first by knocking down, in fair stand-up fight, all the biggest men o' the tribe. I don't think they would have spared me even after that, but I curried favour with the chief and married one of his daughters. Now I'm a great man among them. I didn't hear of your having been brought here till half an hour ago, havin' bin away with a war party in canoes. I returned just too late to save your comrades." "What! are they all dead?" asked Will Osten. "Ay, all, and if you don't follow them it will only be by attending to what I tell you. My name is Buchanan, but the savages can only manage to make Bukawanga out o' that. The word means fire, and ain't a bad one after all!" The man smiled grimly as he said this, and then resumed, more rapidly and sternly than before:-- "You have but one chance, and that is to join us. I have come to the village with the news that a neighbouring tribe is about to attack us. If you agree to help us to fight, I may manage to save you; if not your case is hopeless. There is no time for consideration. Ay or no, that's the word." "Sure I'll jine ye, Mr Bukkie Whangy," said Larry O'Hale, "wid all the pleasure in life. It's always for fightin' I am, at laist whin--" "I don't like to shed human blood," said Captain Dall, interrupting, "where I've no quarrel." "Then your own must be shed," said Bukawanga firmly. "There's no help for it, captain," said Will Osten. "'Tis better to fight for these men than to be murdered by them. What say you, Mr Cupples?" "War," replied the mate emphatically. "Ditto," said Muggins, nodding his head and buttoning his jacket. "Then strip, and we'll paint you right off," said Bukawanga; "look alive, now!" He fastened the torch which he held in his hand to a beam of the hut, and cut the bonds of the prisoners; then, going to the door, he summoned two men, who came in with a basket made of leaves, in which were several cocoa-nut shells filled with red, white, and black earth, or paint. "What!" exclaimed Will Osten, "must we fight without clothing?" "An' wid painted skins?" said Larry. "Yes, unless you would be a special mark for the enemy," replied Bukawanga; "but you have no chance if you don't become in every way like one of us." Seeing that the man was in earnest, they were fain to submit. After removing their clothes, the natives began diligently to paint them from head to foot, laying on the colours so thickly, and in such bold effective strokes, that ere long all appearance of nudity was removed. Man is a strange being. Even in the midst of the most solemn scenes he cannot resist giving way at times to bursts of mirth. Philosophy may fail to account for it, and propriety may shudder at it, but the fact is undeniable. With death hovering, they knew not how near, over them, and the memory of the fearful things they had just witnessed strong upon them, they were compelled, now and then, to smile and even to laugh aloud, as the process of painting went on. There was some variety in the adornment of each, but let that of Larry O'Hale serve as an example. First of all his legs were rubbed all over with white earth, and his body with yellow. Then, down each lower limb, behind, a palm-tree was drawn in red--the roots beginning at his heels, and the branches above spreading out on his calves. Various fanciful devices were drawn on his breast and arms, and some striking circles on his back. Last of all, one-half of his face was painted red, and the other half black, with a stripe of white extending from the root of his hair down to the point of his nose. It is needless to say that during the process the enthusiastic Irishman commented freely on the work, and offered many pieces of advice to the operator. Indeed, his tendency to improve upon existing customs had well-nigh put an end to the friendly relations which now subsisted between the white men and the natives, for he took a fancy to have a red stripe down each of his legs. Either the native did not understand him, or would not agree to the proposal, whereupon Larry took the brush and continued the work himself. At this the savage indignantly seized him by the arm and pinched him so violently that he lost temper, and, thrusting the red brush into the native's face, hurled him to the ground. There was a yell and a rush at once, and it is probable that blood would have been shed had not Bukawanga interposed. When the painting was completed, their protector led the white men (now no longer white!) to the hut of the chief. Bukawanga was received somewhat coldly at first. The chief, a large, fine-looking old man, named Thackombau, with an enormous head of frizzled hair, looked askance at the newcomers, and was evidently disposed to be unfriendly. Observing this, and that the warriors around him scowled on them in a peculiarly savage manner, most of the prisoners felt that their lives hung, as it were, upon a thread. The aspect of things changed, however, when their friend stood up and addressed the assembly. Bukawanga had not yet said a word about the cause of his sudden return from the war expedition. It was, therefore, with much concern that the chief and his men learned that a neighbouring and powerful tribe, with which they had always been at enmity, were actually on the way to attack them; and when Bukawanga talked of the needful preparations for defence, and, pointing to the prisoners, said that they were his countrymen, able to fight well, and willing to help them, there was a perceptible improvement in the looks of the party. Finally, Thackombau condescended to rub noses with them all, and they were ordered off to another hut to have supper. This latter arrangement was brought about by their deliverer, who knew that if they remained to sup with the natives they would be shocked, and, perhaps, roused to some act of desperate violence, by the horrible sight of portions of the bodies of their poor comrades, which, he knew, were to be eaten that night. He therefore sought to divert their thoughts from the subject by sitting down and relating many anecdotes connected with his own adventurous history, while they partook of a meal of which they stood much in need. The dishes, although new to them, were by no means unpalatable. They consisted of baked pig and yams served on banana leaves, and soup in cocoa-nut shells. Also a dish made of taro-tops, and filled with a creamy preparation of cocoa-nut done in an oven. Bread-fruits were also served, and these tasted so like the crumb of wheaten loaf, that it was difficult to believe them to be the fruit of a tree. For drink they had the juice of the young cocoa--a liquid which resembles lemonade, and of which each nut contains about a tumblerful. There was also offered to them a beverage named ava, which is intoxicating in its nature, and very disgusting in its preparation. This, however, Bukawanga advised them not to touch. "Now, Mr Bukkie Whangy," said Larry, after having appeased his appetite, "if I may make so bowld as to ax--how came ye here?" "The story is short enough and sad enough," replied his new friend. "The fact is, I came here in a sandal-wood trader's ship; I was so disgusted with the captain and crew that I ran away from them when they touched at this island for water. 'Tis eight years ago now, and I have bin here ever since. I have regretted the step that I took, for the devilry that goes on here is ten times worse than I ever saw aboard ship. However, it's too late for regret now." "Ah! _too late_," murmured Will Osten, and his thoughts leaped back to England. "The worst of it is," continued the runaway sailor, "that I have no chance of gettin' away, for the cruelty of sailors to the natives of this island has rendered them desperate, and they murder every white man they can get hold of. Indeed there would have been no chance for you but for the breaking out of war, and the fact that they are somewhat short of fightin' men just now. Not long after I landed on the island, an American whaler sent her boats ashore for water. They quarrelled, somehow, with the natives, who drove them into their boats with tremendous hooting and yells and some hard blows, although no blood was spilt. Well, what did the scoundrels do but pulled aboard their ship, brought their big guns to bear on the people, and fired on several villages--killing and wounding a good many of 'em, women and children among the rest. That's the way these fellows set the natives against white men. It was all I could do to prevent them from knocking out my brains after the thing happened." While Bukawanga was speaking, a great commotion was heard outside. "They're gettin' ready for action," he said, springing up. "Now, lads, follow me. I'll get you weapons, and, hark-'ee," he added, with a somewhat peculiar smile, "I heerd some of 'ee say ye don't want to spill blood where ye have no quarrel. Well, there's no occasion to do so. Only act in self-defence, and that'll do well enough; d'ye understand?" The man gave vent to a short chuckle as he said this, and then, leading his countrymen from the hut, conducted them towards a temple, near to which a large band of warriors was busily engaged in making preparations for the approaching fight. CHAPTER ELEVEN. A FIGHT, WHICH RESULTS IN A MISTAKE AND A HASTY FLIGHT. The horrors of war are neither agreeable to write about nor to reflect upon. However much, therefore, it may disappoint those readers whose minds delight to wallow in the abominations of human cruelty, we will refrain from entering into the full particulars of the sanguinary fight that ensued just after the arrival of Wandering Will and his friends in the island. It is sufficient to say that many lives were lost. Of course the loss of life bore no proportion to that which occurs in civilised warfare. One roar from the throats of our terrific engines of destruction will sometimes send more souls into eternity in one moment than all the fierce fury of a hundred savages can accomplish in an hour. But what the savage lacks in power he more than makes up for in cruelty and brutality. During the few days in which the fight raged, the sights that met the eyes of the white men, and the appalling sounds that filled their ears, turned their hearts sick, and induced a longing desire to escape. The war was carried on chiefly in the way of bush fighting. Our sailors found this mode of warfare convenient, for it enabled them to act very much as spectators. Passing over the details of the brief campaign, we touch only on those points which affected the subsequent movements of the whites. Bukawanga, who virtually acted the part of commander-in-chief, although all the chiefs considered themselves above him, moved about actively at all times to make sure that the village was properly guarded at every point. While thus employed he had, on one occasion, to pass through a piece of scrub, or thick bush, in which he heard the shriek of a woman. Turning aside he came to an opening where a man was endeavouring to kill a little boy, whose mother was doing her best to defend him. He evidently wished to kill the child and to spare the woman, but she stooped over the child and warded off the blows with her arms so cleverly, that it was still uninjured, although the poor mother was bleeding profusely from many wounds. Bukawanga instantly rushed to the rescue, and raised his club to deal the savage a deadly blow. Unobserved by him, however, another savage had been attracted to the spot, and, seeing what was about to happen, he ran up behind Bukawanga and felled him with a blow of his club. During the scuffle the woman snatched up her boy and escaped. The two savages then began to dispute as to which had the best right to cut off the head of their fallen foe and carry it away in triumph. Both of them were much fatigued with fighting, so they sat down on the back of the prostrate seaman to conduct the discussion more comfortably. The point was still undecided when Bukawanga recovered consciousness, felt the heavy pressure on his back and loins, and heard part of the interesting dialogue! It chanced, at this point, that Will Osten and Larry O'Hale, who, from natural affinity or some other cause, always kept together, came to the spot and peeped through the bushes. Seeing two men sitting on the body of a third and engaged in an animated dispute, they did not see cause to interfere, but remained for a few minutes almost amused spectators of the scene, being utterly ignorant, of course, as to the purport of their dispute. Suddenly, to their great surprise, they beheld the two men leap into the air; the supposed dead body sprang up, and, before either savage could use his weapons, each received a strong British fist between his eyes and measured his length on the sward, while the conqueror sprang over them into the bush and disappeared. "Man alive!" exclaimed Larry, "if it isn't Bukkie Whangy himself! Och, the murtherin' daimons!" With that Larry leaped over the bushes flourishing his club and yelling like a very savage. But Will Osten was before him. Both savages had risen immediately after being knocked down, and now faced their new enemies. They were no match for them. Being expert in all athletic exercises, young Osten found no difficulty in felling the first of the men, while Larry disposed of the other with equal celerity. The Irishman's blood had fired at the thought of the narrow escape of his deliverer, and, still whirling his club round his head, he looked about eagerly as if desirous of finding another foe on whom to expend his fury. At that moment he caught sight of a pair of savage eyes gleaming at him from the bushes. "Hah! ye dirty polecat," he cried, throwing his club at the eyes with all his force. Never was there a worse aim or a better shot! The club flew high into the air and would have fallen some fifty yards or more wide of the mark, had it not touched the limb of a tree in passing. It glanced obliquely down, and, striking the owner of the eyes between the shoulders felled him to the earth. Larry sprang upon him with a yell of triumph, but the yell was changed into a howl of consternation when he made the discovery that he had knocked down, if not killed, one of the principal chiefs of the village! To say that poor O'Hale wrung his hands, and wished bad luck to fightin' in general, and to himself in particular, gives but a feeble idea of the distress of his mind at this untoward event. "D'ye think I've kilt him intirely, doctor dear?" he asked of Will Osten, who was on his knees beside the fallen chief examining his hurt. "No, not quite. See, he breathes a little. Come, Larry, the moment he shows symptoms of reviving we must bolt. Of course he knows who knocked him down, and will never forgive us." "That's true, O murther!" exclaimed Larry, with a mingled look of contrition and anxiety. "Depend upon it they'll kill us all," continued Osten. "And bake an' ait us," groaned Larry. "Come," said Will, rising hastily as the stunned chief began to move, "we'll go search for our comrades." They hurried away, but not before the chief had risen on one elbow and shaken his clenched fist at them, besides displaying a terrible double row of teeth, through which he hissed an unintelligible malediction. They soon found their comrades, and related what had occurred. A hurried council of war was held on the spot, and it was resolved that, as a return to the village would ensure their destruction, the only chance of life which remained to them was to take to the mountains. Indeed, so urgent was the necessity for flight, that they started off at once, naked though they were, and covered with blood, paint, and dust, as well as being destitute of provisions. All that night they travelled without halt, and penetrated into the wildest fastnesses of the mountains of the interior. Bukawanga had already told them, during intervals in the fight when they had met and eaten their hasty meals together, that the island was a large, well wooded, and fruitful one--nearly thirty miles in diameter; and that the highest mountain in the centre was an active volcano. There were several tribes of natives on it, all of whom were usually at war with each other, but these tribes dwelt chiefly on the coast, leaving the interior uninhabited. The fugitives, therefore, agreed that they should endeavour to find a retreat amongst some of the most secluded and inaccessible heights, and there hide themselves until a ship should chance to anchor off the coast, or some other mode of escape present itself. The difficulties of the way were greater than had been anticipated. There was no path; the rocks, cliffs, and gullies were precipitous; and the underwood was thick and tangled, insomuch that Mr Cupples sat down once or twice and begged to be left where he was, saying that he would take his chance of being caught, and could feed quite well on cocoa-nuts! This, however, was not listened to. Poor Cupples was dragged along, half by persuasion and half by force. Sailors, as a class, are not celebrated for pedestrian powers, and Cupples was a singularly bad specimen of his class. Muggins, although pretty well knocked up before morning, held on manfully without a murmur. The captain, too, albeit a heavy man, and fat, and addicted to panting and profuse perspiration, declared that he was game for anything, and would never be guilty of saying "die" as long as there was "a shot in the locker." As for Larry O'Hale, he was a man of iron mould, one of those giants who seem to be incapable of being worn out or crushed by any amount of physical exertion. So far was he from being exhausted, that he threatened to carry Mr Cupples if he should again talk of falling behind. We need scarcely say that Wandering Will was quite equal to the occasion. Besides being a powerful fellow for his age, he was lithe, active, and hopeful, and, having been accustomed to hill-climbing from boyhood, could have left the whole party behind with ease. Grey dawn found the fugitives far up the sides of the mountains--fairly lost, as Muggins said, in a waste howlin' wilderness. It was sunrise when they reached the top of a high cliff that commanded a magnificent view of land and sea. "A good place this for us," said the captain, wiping his forehead as he sat down on a piece of rock. "The pass up to it is narrow; two or three stout fellows could hold it against an army of savages." "Av there was only a cave now for to live in," said Larry, looking round him. "Wot's that?" exclaimed Muggins, pointing to a hole in the perpendicular cliff a short distance above the spot where they stood.--"Ain't _that_ a cave?" Will Osten clambered up and disappeared in the hole. Soon after he re-appeared with the gratifying intelligence that it _was_ a cave, and a capital dry one; whereupon they all ascended, with some difficulty, and took possession of their new home. CHAPTER TWELVE. SHOWS HOW SOUTH SEA MISSIONARIES DO THEIR WORK, AND THAT IF THE WHITES CAN SURPRISE THE NATIVES THE LATTER CAN SOMETIMES ASTONISH THE WHITES! For three months did Wandering Will and his friends remain concealed in the mountains. Of course they were pursued and diligently sought for by the natives, and undoubtedly they would have been discovered had the search been continued for any length of time, but to their great surprise, after the first week of their flight, the search was apparently given up. At all events, from that period they saw nothing more of the natives, and gradually became more fearless in venturing to ramble from the cave in search of food. They puzzled over the matter greatly, for, to say the least of it, there appeared to be something mysterious in the total indifference so suddenly manifested towards them by the savages; but although many were the guesses made, they were very far from hitting on the real cause. During this period they subsisted on the numerous fruits and vegetables which grew wild in great abundance on the island, and spent their days in gathering them and hunting wild pigs and snaring birds. As Larry was wont to observe with great satisfaction, and, usually, with his mouth full of victuals-- "Sure it's the hoith o' livin' we have--what with cocky-nuts, an' taros an' bananas, an' young pigs for the killin', an' ginger-beer for the drinkin', an' penny loaves growin' on the trees for nothin', wid no end o' birds, an' pots ready bilin', night an' day, to cook 'em in--och! it would be hiven intirely but for the dirty savages, bad luck to 'em!" There was more truth in Larry's remark than may be apparent at first sight. Vegetation was not only prolific and beautiful everywhere, but exceedingly fruitful. The bread-fruit tree in particular supplied them with more than they required of a substance that was nearly as palatable and nutritious as bread. Captain Dall fortunately knew the method of cooking it in an oven, for the uncooked fruit is not eatable. The milk of the young cocoa-nuts was what the facetious Irishman referred to under the name of ginger-beer; but his remark about boiling pots was literally correct. The summit of that mountainous island was, as we have already said, an active volcano, from which sulphurous fumes were constantly issuing--sometimes gently, and occasionally with violence. Several of the springs in the neighbourhood were hot--a few being almost at the boiling point, so that it was absolutely possible to boil the wild pigs and birds which they succeeded in capturing, without the use of a fire! Strange to say, they also found springs of clear _cold_ water not far from the hot springs. There is a species of thin tough bark round the upper part of the stem of the cocoa-nut palm--a sort of natural cloth--which is much used by the South Sea islanders. Of this they fashioned some rude but useful garments. "It seems curious, doesn't it," said Will Osten to Captain Dall, one day, referring to these things and the beauty of the island, "that the Almighty should make such a terrestrial paradise as this, and leave it to be used, or rather abused, by such devils in human shape?" "I'm not sure," answered the captain slowly, "that we are right in saying that _He_ has left it to be so abused. I'm afraid that it is _we_ who are to blame in the matter." "How so?" exclaimed Will, in surprise. "You believe the Bible to be the Word of God, don't you?" said Captain Dall somewhat abruptly, "and that its tendency is to improve men?" "Of _course_ I do; how can you ask such a question?" "Did you ever," continued the captain pointedly, "hear of a text that says something about going and teaching all nations, and have, you ever given anything to send missionaries with the Bible to these islands?" "I--I can't say I ever have," replied Will, with a smile and a slight blush. "No more have I, lad," said the captain, smiting his knee emphatically; "the thought has only entered my head for the first time, but I _do_ think that it is _we_ who leave islands such as this to be abused by the human devils you speak of, and who, moreover, are not a whit worse--nay, not so bad--as many _civilised_ human devils, who, in times not long past, and under the cloak of religion, have torn men and tender women limb from limb, and bound them at the stake, and tortured them on the rack, in order to make them swallow a false creed." This was the commencement of one of the numerous discussions on religion, philosophy, and politics, with which the echoes of that cavern were frequently awakened after the somewhat fatiguing labours of each day's chase were over, for a true Briton is the same everywhere. He is a reasoning (if you will, an argumentative) animal, and our little band of fugitives in those mountain fastnesses was no exception to the rule. Meanwhile, two events occurred at the native village which require notice. Their occurrence was not observed by our friends in hiding, because the summit of the mountain completely shut out their view in that direction, and they never wandered far from their place of retreat. The first event was very sad, and is soon told. One morning a schooner anchored off the village, and a party of armed seamen landed, the leader of whom, through the medium of an interpreter, had an interview with the chief. He wished to be permitted to cut sandal-wood, and an agreement was entered into. After a considerable quantity had been cut and sent on board, the chief wanted payment. This was refused on some trivial ground. The savages remonstrated. The white men threatened, and the result was that the latter were driven into their boats. They pulled off to their vessel, loaded a large brass gun that occupied the centre of the schooner's deck, and sent a shower of cannister shot among the savages, killing and wounding not only many of the men, but some of the women and children who chanced to be on the skirt of the wood. They then set sail, and, as they coasted along, fired into several villages, the people of which had nothing to do with their quarrel. Only a week after this event another little schooner anchored off the village. It was a missionary ship, sent by the London Missionary Society to spread the good news of salvation through Christ among the people. Some time before, a native teacher--one who, on another island, had embraced Christianity, and been carefully instructed in its leading truths--had been sent to this island, and was well received; but, war having broken out, the chief had compelled him to leave. A second attempt was now being made, and this time an English missionary with his wife and daughter were about to trust themselves in the hands of the savages. They could not have arrived at a worse time. The islanders, still smarting under a sense of the wrong and cruelty so recently done them, rushed upon the little boat of the schooner, brandishing clubs and spears, the instant it touched the land, and it was with the utmost difficulty that the missionary prevailed on them to stay their hands and give him a hearing. He soon explained the object of his visit, and, by distributing a few presents, so far mollified the people that he was allowed to land, but it was plain that they regarded him with distrust. The tide was turned in the missionary's favour, however, by the runaway sailor, Buchanan, or Bukawanga. That worthy happened at the time to be recovering slowly from the effects of the wound he had received in the fight, which had so nearly proved to be his last. On hearing of the arrival of strangers he feared that the savages would kill them out of revenge, and hastened, weak and ill though he was, to meet, and, if possible, protect them. His efforts were successful. He managed to convince the natives that among Christians there were two classes--those who merely called themselves by the name, and those who really did their best to practise Christianity; that the sandal-wood traders probably did not even pretend to the name, but that those who had just arrived would soon give proof that they were of a very different spirit. The result of this explanation was, that the chiefs agreed to receive the missionary, who accordingly landed with his family, and with all that was necessary for the establishment of a mission. Those who have not read of missionary enterprise in the South Seas can form no conception of the difficulties that missionaries have to contend with, and the dangers to which they are exposed on the one hand, and, on the other, the rapidity with which success is sometimes vouchsafed to them. In some instances, they have passed years in the midst of idolatry and bloody rites, the mere recital of which causes one to shudder, while their lives have hung on the caprice of a volatile chief; at other times God has so signally blessed their efforts that a whole tribe has adopted Christianity in the course of a few weeks. Misunderstand us not, reader. We do not say that they all became true Christians; nevertheless it is a glorious fact that such changes have occurred; that idolatry has been given up and Christianity embraced within that short period, and that the end has been the civilisation of the people; doubtless, also, the salvation of some immortal souls. In about two months after their arrival a marvellous change had taken place in the village. The natives, like very children, came with delight to be taught the use of the white man's tools, and to assist in clearing land and building a cottage. When this was finished, a small church was begun. It was this busy occupation that caused the savages to forget, for a time, the very existence of Wandering Will and his friends; and if Bukawanga thought of them, it was to conclude that they had taken refuge with one of the tribes on the other side of the island. That which seemed to amuse and delight the natives most in the new arrivals was the clothing which was distributed among them. They proved very untractable, however, in the matter of putting it on. One man insisted on putting the body of a dress which had been meant for his wife on his own nether limbs--thrusting his great feet through the sleeves, and thereby splitting them to the shoulder. Another tied a tippet round his waist, and a woman was found strutting about in a pair of fisherman's boots, and a straw bonnet with the back to the front! One of the chiefs thus absurdly arrayed was the means of letting the fugitive white men have an idea that something strange had occurred at the village. This man had appropriated a scarlet flannel petticoat which had been presented to his mother, and, putting it on with the waist-band tied round his neck, sallied forth to hunt in the mountains. He was suddenly met by Larry O'Hale and Will Osten. "Musha! 'tis a ow-rangy-tang!" cried the Irishman. His companion burst into a fit of loud laughter. The terrified native turned to flee, but Larry darted after him, tripped up his heels, and held him down. "Kape quiet, won't ye?" he said, giving the struggling man a severe punch on the chest. The savage thought it best to obey. Being allowed to get on his legs he was blindfolded, and then, with Will grasping him on one side, and the Irishman on the other, he was led up to the mountain-cave, and introduced to the family circle there, just as they were about to sit down to their mid-day meal. CHAPTER THIRTEEN. REMARKABLE CHANGES FOR THE BETTER. It will not surprise the reader to be told that the savage with the red flannel petticoat tied round his neck was received with shouts of laughter by the inmates of the cave, and that his costume filled them with mingled feelings of astonishment and curiosity. The information obtained from him by signs did not enlighten them much, but it was sufficient to convince them that something unusual had occurred at the native village, and to induce Will Osten to act in accordance with his favourite motto. "I tell you what, comrades," said he, after a few minutes' deliberation, "I have made up my mind to go back to the village with this red-coated gentleman, and see whether they are all decked out in the same fashion. To tell the truth, I have been thinking for some time back that we have been living here to no purpose--" "Only hear that, now," said Larry O'Hale, interrupting; "haven't we bin livin' like fightin' cocks, an' gettin' as fat as pigs? Why, Mr Cupples hisself begins to throw a shadow on the ground whin the sun's pretty strong; an' as for Muggins there--" "You let Muggins alone," growled the seaman; "if we _are_ fatterer, p'raps it'll only be for the good o' the niggers when they come to eat us." "Well, well," said Will; "at all events we shall never escape from this place by remaining here--(`True for ye,' said Larry)--therefore I shall go to the village, as I have said. If they receive me, well and good; I will return to you. If not--why, that's the end of me, and you'll have to look out for yourselves." As usual an energetic discussion followed this announcement. The captain said it was madness, Mr Cupples shook his head and groaned, Muggins thought that they should all go together and take their chance, and Larry protested that he would sooner be eaten alive than allow his comrade to go without him; but in time Will Osten convinced them all that his plan was best. What would be the good of the whole of them being killed together, he said--better that the risk should fall on one, and that the rest should have a chance of escape. Besides, he was the best runner of the party, and, if he should manage to wriggle out of the clutches of the savages, would be quite able to outrun them and regain the cave. At length the youth's arguments and determination prevailed, and in the afternoon he set off accompanied by his sable friend in female attire. On nearing the village, the first thing that greeted the eyes of our hero was a savage clothed in a yellow cotton vest and a blue jacket, both of which were much too small for him; he also had the leg of a chair hung round his neck by way of ornament. This turned out to be the principal chief of the village, Thackombau, and a very proud man he obviously was on that occasion. To refrain from smiling, and embrace this fellow by rubbing noses with him, was no easy matter, but Will Osten did it nevertheless. While they were endeavouring to converse by signs, Will was suddenly bereft of speech and motion by the unexpected appearance of a white man--a gentleman clothed in sombre costume--on whose arm leaned a pleasant-faced lady! The gentleman smiled on observing the young man's gaze of astonishment, and advancing, held out his hand. Will Osten grasped and shook it, but still remained speechless. "Doubtless you are one of the party who escaped into the hills lately?" said the gentleman. "Indeed I am, sir," replied Will, finding words at last, and bowing to the lady; "but from what star have _you_ dropt? for, when I left the village, there were none but savages in it!" "I dropt from the _Star of Hope_," answered the gentleman, laughing. "You have hit the mark, young sir, nearer than you think, for that is the name of the vessel that brought me here. I am a missionary; my name is Westwood; and I am thankful to say I have been successful in making a good commencement on this island. This is my wife--allow me to introduce you--and if you will come with me to my cottage--" "Cottage!" exclaimed Will. "Ay, 'tis a good and pretty one, too, notwithstanding the short time we took to build it. The islanders are smart fellows when they have a mind to labour, and it is wonderful what an amount can be done when the Lord prospers the work. These good fellows," added the missionary, casting a glance at the two natives, "who, as you see, are somewhat confused in their ideas about dress, have already done me much service in the building of the church--" "Church!" echoed Will. Again the missionary laughed, and, offering his arm to his wife, turned towards the village, saying-- "Come, Mr Osten--you see I know your name, having heard of you from your friend Buchanan--come, I will show you what we have been about while you were absent; but first--tell me--how fares it with your comrades?" Will Osten at once entered into a full account of the doings of himself and his friends, and had just concluded, when he was once more rendered speechless by the sight of the missionary's cottage. It was almost the realisation of the waking dream which had captivated him so much on the evening when the storm arose that proved fatal to the _Foam_. He was still gazing at it in silent admiration, listening to an enthusiastic account of the zeal and kindness of the natives who helped to build it, when a young girl, apparently bordering on seventeen or eighteen years of age, with nut-brown curls, rosy cheeks, and hazel eyes, sprang out and hastened to meet them. "Oh, father," she exclaimed, while the colour of her face came and went fitfully, "I'm so glad you have come! The natives have been so--so--" "Not rude to you, Flora, surely?" interrupted the missionary. "No, not exactly rude, but, but--" Flora could not explain! The fact turned out to be that, never having seen any woman so wonderfully and bewitchingly beautiful before, the natives had crowded uninvited into the cottage, and there, seated on their hams round the walls, quietly gazed at her to their hearts' content--utterly ignorant of the fact that they were violating the rules of polite society! Will Osten, to his disgrace be it said, violated the same rules in much the same way, for he continued to gaze at Flora in rapt admiration until Mr Westwood turned to introduce her to him. That same evening Bukawanga, accompanied by Thackombau, went to the mountain-cave, and, having explained to its occupants the altered state of things at the village, brought them down to the mission-house where they took up their abode. It need scarcely be said that they were hospitably received. Mr Westwood had not met with countrymen for many months, and the mere sight of white faces and the sound of English voices were pleasant to him. He entertained them with innumerable anecdotes of his experiences and adventures as a missionary, and on the following morning took them out to see the church, which had just been begun. "Already," said Mr Westwood, as they were about to set forth after breakfast, "my wife and Flora have got up a class of women and girls, to whom they teach needle-work, and we have a large attendance of natives at our meetings on the Sabbath. A school also has been started, which is managed by a native teacher who came with me from the island of Raratonga, and most of the boys in the village attend it." "But it does seem to me, sir," said Captain Dall, as they sauntered along, "that needle-work and book-learning can be of no use to such people." "Not of much just now, captain, but these are only means to a great end. Already, you see, they are beginning to be clothed--fantastically enough at present, no doubt--and I hope ere long to see them in their right mind, through the blessed influence of the Bible. Look there," he added, pointing to an open space in the forest, where the four walls of a large wooden building were beginning to rise; "there is evidence of what the gospel of Jesus Christ can do. The labourers at that building are, many of them, bitter enemies to each other. Only yesterday we succeeded in getting some of the men of the neighbouring village to come and help us. After much persuasion they agreed, but they work with their weapons in their hands, as you see." This was indeed the case. The men who had formerly been enemies were seen assisting to build the same church. They took care, however, to work as far from each other as possible, and were evidently distrustful, for clubs and spears were either carried in their hands, or placed within reach, while they laboured. Fortunately, however, they restrained their passions at that time, and it is due to them to add that before that church was finished their differences were made up, and they, with all the others, ultimately completed the work in perfect harmony, without thinking it necessary to bring their clubs or spears with them. The reader must not suppose that all missionary efforts in the South Seas have been as quickly successful as this one. The records of that interesting region tell a very different tale; nevertheless there are many islands in which the prejudices of the natives were overcome almost at the commencement, and where heathen practices seemed to melt away at once before the light of the glorious gospel. During two months, Wandering Will and the wrecked seamen remained here assisting the missionary in his building and other operations. Then an event occurred which sent them once more afloat, and broke the spell of their happy and busy life among the islanders. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. CONTAINS MORE THAN ONE SURPRISE, AND TOUCHES ON "LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM." One quiet and beautiful Sabbath morning, the inhabitants of the South Sea Island village wended their way to the House of God which they had so recently erected. Among them were Will Osten and his friends, with the clergyman's wife and daughter. Poor Wandering Will was very unhappy. The sunshine was bright, the natives were blithe, and the birds were joyous, but our hero was despondent! The fact was that he had fallen head and ears in love with Flora Westwood, and he felt that he might as well have fallen in love with the moon--as far as any chance of getting married to her was concerned. Will was therefore very miserable, and, like all ardent and very youthful lovers, he hugged his misery to his bosom--rather enjoyed it, in fact, than otherwise. In short, if truth must be told, he took pleasure in being miserable _for her sake_! When he allowed himself to take romantic views of the subject, and thought of the heights of bliss that _might_ be attained, he was, so to speak, miserably happy. When he looked the stern realities in the face, he was miserably sad. That Sabbath morning poor Will felt more impressed than ever with the hopelessness of his case, as he walked slowly and silently to church beside the modest Flora and her mother. He also became impressed with the ridiculousness of his position, and determined to "overcome his weakness." He therefore looked at Flora with the intention of cutting a joke of some sort, but, suddenly recollecting that it was Sunday, he checked himself. Then he thought of getting into a serious talk, and was about to begin, when his eye happened to fall on Thackombau, who, in honour of the day, had got himself up with unusual care, having covered his shoulders with a cotton jacket, his loins with a lady's shawl, and his head with a white night-cap--his dark tatooed legs forming a curious and striking contrast to the whole. Before Will could think of another mode of opening the conversation, they had arrived at the church, and here, in front of the open door, there lay the most singular contribution that ever was offered to the cause of Christianity. Many dozens of church-door plates rolled into one enormous trencher would have been insufficient to contain it, for it was given not in money (of course) but in kind. There were a number of lengths of hollow bamboo containing cocoa-nut oil, various fine mats and pieces of native cloth, and sundry articles of an ornamental character, besides a large supply of fruits and vegetables, with four or five baked pigs, cold and ready for table! The entire pile was several feet in diameter and height, and was a freewill offering of the natives to the church--the beginning of a liberality which was destined in future years to continue and extend--a species of liberality which is by no means uncommon among the South Sea Islanders, for there are some of those who were savage idolators not many years ago who now give annually and largely to the support of the missions with which their churches are connected. Larry O'Hale had just made a remark in reference to "the plate" which was not conducive to the gravity of his companions, when the echoes of the mountains were awakened by a cannon-shot, and a large ship was seen to round the point of land that stretched out to the westward of the island. Instantly the natives poured out of the church, rushed down to the shore, launched their canoes and paddled over the lagoon to meet the vessel, which, running before a stiff breeze, soon entered the natural gateway in the reef. The congregation having dispersed thus unceremoniously, the clergyman and his friends were compelled to postpone service for a time. The ship which had created such a sensation in the village, was also the means of causing great disturbance in sundry breasts, as shall be seen. She had called for water. Being in a hurry, her captain had resolved not to waste time by conciliating the natives, but, rather, to frighten them away by a cannonade of blank cartridge, land a strong party to procure water while they were panic-stricken, and then up anchor and away. His surprise was great, therefore, when the natives came fearlessly off to him (for he had been warned to beware of them), and he was about to give them a warm reception, when he caught a glimpse of the small spire of the new church, which at once explained the cause of the change. With rollicking good humour--for he was a strong healthy man with a sleeping conscience--Captain Blathers, on landing, swaggered up to the clergyman and shook him heartily and gratefully by the hand, exclaiming, with a characteristic oath, that he had not much opinion of religion in his own country, but he was bound to say it was "a first-rate institootion in the South Seas." Mr Westwood rebuked the oath and attempted to correct the erroneous opinion, but Captain Blathers laughed, and said he knew nothing about these matters, and had no time for anything but getting fresh water just then. He added that he had "a batch of noosepapers, which he'd send ashore for the use of all and sundry." Accordingly, off he went about his business, and left the clergyman and natives to return to church, which they all did without delay. That night the missionary went on board the ship to see the captain and preach to the crew. While he was thus engaged, our friends, Captain Dall, Mr Cupples, O'Hale, Muggins, and Wandering Will, in a retired part of the forest, held an earnest conversation as to whether they should avail themselves of the arrival of the ship to quit the island. Captain Dall had already spoken with Captain Blathers, who said he was quite willing to let them work their passage to England. "Now, you see, comrades," said Captain Dall, thrusting his right fist into his left palm, "the only trouble is, that he's not goin' direct home--got to visit the coast of South America and San Francisco first, an' that will make it a long voyage." "But, sure," said Larry, "it won't be so long as waitin' here till next year for the missionary schooner, and then goin' a viage among the islands before gettin' a chance of boording a homeward-bound ship?" "That's so," said Muggins, with a nod of approval. "I says go, ov coorse." Mr Cupples also signified that this was his opinion. "And what says the doctor?" asked Captain Dall, turning to Will Osten with an inquiring look. "Eh? well, ah!" exclaimed Will, who had been in a reverie, "I--I don't exactly see my way to--that is--if we only could find out if she is--is to remain here _always_, or hopes some day to return to England--" Poor Will stopped in sudden confusion and blushed, but as it was very dark that did not matter much. "What _does_ the man mean?" exclaimed Captain Dall. "How _can_ she remain here always when she's to be off at daybreak--?" "True, true," interrupted Will hurriedly, not sorry to find that his reference to Flora was supposed to be to the ship. "The fact is, I was thinking of other matters--of _course_ I agree with you. It's too good an opportunity to be missed, so, good-night, for I've enough to do to get ready for such an abrupt departure." Saying this, he started up and strode rapidly away. "Halloo!" shouted Larry after him; "don't be late--be on the baich at daybreak. Arrah he's gone mad intirely." "Ravin'," said Muggins, with a shake of his head as he turned the quid in his cheek. Meanwhile Wandering Will rushed he knew not whither, but a natural impulse led him, in the most natural way, to the quiet bay, which he knew to be Flora's favourite walk on moonlight nights! The poor youth's brain was whirling with conflicting emotions. As he reached the bay, the moon, strange to say, broke forth in great splendour, and revealed-- what!--could it be?--yes, the graceful figure of Flora! "Never venture," thought Will, "never--" In another moment he was by her side; he seized her hand; she started, suppressed a scream, and tried to free her hand, but Will held it fast. "Forgive me, Flora, dearest girl," he said in impassioned tones, "I would not dare to act thus, but at daybreak I leave this island, perhaps for ever! yet I _cannot_ go without telling you that I love you to distraction, that--that--oh! say tell me--" At that moment he observed that Flora blushed, smiled in a peculiar manner, and, instead of looking in his face, glanced over his shoulder, as if at some object behind him. Turning quickly round, he beheld Thackombau, still decked out in his Sunday clothes, gazing at them in open-mouthed amazement. Almost mad with rage, Will Osten rushed at him. The astonished savage fled to the woods, Will followed, and in a few minutes lost himself! How he passed that night he never could tell; all that he could be sure of was that he had wandered about in distraction, and emerged upon the shore about daybreak. His appointment suddenly recurring to him, he ran swiftly in the direction of the village. As he drew near he observed a boat pushing off from the shore. "Howld on!" shouted a well-known voice; "sure it's himself after all." "Come along, young sir, you're late, and had well-nigh lost your passage," growled Captain Blathers. Will jumped into the boat and in a few minutes found himself on board the _Rover_, which, by the time he reached it, was under weigh and making for the opening in the reef. Another hour, and the island was a mere speck on the horizon. Gradually it faded from view; and the good ship, bending over to the freshening breeze, bounded lightly away over the billows of the mighty sea. THE END. 
23384	----	Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader, by R.M. Ballantyne. ________________________________________________________________________ An exciting story set in the Pacific. Is Gascoyne a pirate, or isn't he? Quite a gripping tale, and well worth reading. ________________________________________________________________________ GASCOYNE, THE SANDAL-WOOD TRADER, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE. CHAPTER ONE. THE SCHOONER. The Great Pacific is the scene of our story. On a beautiful morning, many years ago, a little schooner might have been seen floating, light and graceful as a sea-mew, on the breast of the slumbering ocean. She was one of those low black-hulled vessels, with raking, taper masts, trimly cut sails, and elegant form, which we are accustomed to associate with the idea of a yacht or a pirate. She might have been the former, as far as appearance went, for the sails and decks were white as snow, and every portion of brass and copper above her water-line shone in the hot sun with dazzling brilliancy. But pleasure-seekers were not wont, in those days, to take such distant flights, or to venture into such dangerous seas--dangerous alike from the savage character of the islanders, and the numerous coral-reefs that lie hidden a few feet below the surface of the waves. Still less probable did it seem that the vessel in question could belong to the lawless class of craft to which we have referred; for, although she had what may be styled a wicked aspect, and was evidently adapted for swift sailing, neither large guns nor small arms of any kind were visible. Whatever her nature or her object, she was reduced, at the time we introduce her to the reader, to a state of inaction by the dead calm which prevailed. The sea resembled a sheet of clear glass. Not a cloud broke the softness of the sky, in which the sun glowed hotter and hotter as it rose towards the zenith. The sails of the schooner hung idly from the yards; her reflected image was distorted, but scarcely broken, by the long gentle swell; her crew, with the exception of the watch, were asleep either on deck or down below, and so deep was the universal silence, that, as the vessel rose and fell with a slow, quiet motion, the pattering of the reef points on her sails forcibly attracted the listener's attention, as does the ticking of a clock in the deep silence of night. A few sea-birds rested on the water, as if in the enjoyment of the profound peace that reigned around; and, far away on the horizon might be seen the tops of the palm-trees that grew on one of those coral islands which lie scattered in thousands, like beautiful gems, on the surface of that bright blue sea. Among the men who lay sleeping in various easy off-hand attitudes on the schooner's deck was one who merits special attention--not only because of the grotesque appearance of his person, but also because he is one of the principal actors in our tale. He was a large powerful man, of that rugged build and hairy aspect that might have suggested the idea that he would be difficult to kill. He was a fair man, with red hair and a deeply sun-burned face, on which jovial good-humour sat almost perpetually enthroned. At the moment when we introduce him to the reader, however, that expression happened to be modified in consequence of his having laid him down to sleep in a sprawling manner on his back--the place as well as the position being, apparently, one of studied discomfort. His legs lay over the heel of the bowsprit; his big body reposed on a confused heap of blocks and cordage, and his neck rested on the stock of an anchor, so that his head hung down over it, presenting the face to view, with the large mouth wide open, in an upside down position. The man was evidently on the verge of choking, but, being a strong man, and a rugged man, and a healthy man, he did not care. He seemed to prefer choking to the trouble of rousing himself and improving his position. How long he would have lain in this state of felicity it is impossible to say, for his slumbers were rudely interrupted by a slight lurch of the schooner, which caused the blocks and cordage attached to the sheet of the jib to sweep slowly, but with rasping asperity, across his face. Any ordinary man would have been seriously damaged--at least in appearance--by such an accident; but this particular sea-dog was tough in the skin--he was only awakened by it--nothing more. He yawned, raised himself lazily, and gazed round with that vacant stare of unreasonable surprise which is common to man on passing from a state of somnolence to that of wakefulness. Gradually the expression of habitual good-humour settled on his visage, as he looked from one to another of his sleeping comrades, and at last, with a bland smile, he broke forth into the following soliloquy:-- "Wot a goose, wot a grampus you've bin, John Bumpus: firstly, for goin' to sea; secondly, for remainin' at sea; thirdly, for not forsakin' the sea; fourthly, for bein' worried about it at all, now that you've made up your mind to retire from the sea, and, fifthly--" Here John Bumpus paused as if to meditate on the full depth and meaning of these polite remarks, or to invent some new and powerful expression wherewith to deliver his fifth head. His mental efforts seemed to fail, however, for instead of concluding the sentence, he hummed the following lines, which, we may suppose, were expressive of his feelings as well as his intentions:-- "So goodbye to the mighty ocean, And adoo to the rollin' sea, For it's nobody has no notion Wot a grief it has bin' to me." "Ease off the sheets and square the topsail yards," was at that moment said, or rather murmured, by a bass voice so deep and rich, that, although scarcely raised above a whisper, it was distinctly heard over the whole deck. John Bumpus raised his bulky form with a degree of lithe activity that proved him to be not less agile than athletic, and, with several others, sprang to obey the order. A few seconds later, the sails were swelled out by a light breeze, and the schooner moved through the water at a rate which seemed scarcely possible under the influence of so gentle a puff of air. Presently the breeze increased, the vessel cut through the blue water like a knife, leaving a long track of foam in her wake as she headed for the coral-island before referred to. The outer reef, or barrier of coral which guarded the island, was soon reached. The narrow opening in this natural bulwark was passed. The schooner stood across the belt of perfectly still water that lay between the reef and the shore, and entered a small bay, where the calm water reflected the strip of white sand, green palms, and tropical plants that skirted its margin, as well as the purple hills of the interior. Here she swept round in a sudden, but graceful curve, until all her canvas fluttered in the breeze, and then dropt anchor in about six fathoms water. CHAPTER TWO. BUMPUS IS FIERY AND PHILOSOPHICAL--MURDEROUS DESIGNS FRUSTRATED. The captain of the schooner, whose deep voice had so suddenly terminated the meditations of John Bumpus, was one of those men who seem to have been formed for the special purpose of leading and commanding their fellows. He was not only unusually tall and powerful--physical qualities which, in themselves, are by no means sufficient to command respect--but, as we have said, he possessed a deep full-toned bass voice in which there seemed to lie a species of fascination, for its softest tones riveted attention, and when it thundered forth commands in the fiercest storms it inspired confidence and a feeling of security in all who heard it. The countenance of the captain, however, was that which induced men to accord to him a position of superiority in whatever sphere of action he chanced to move. It was not so much a handsome as a manly and singularly grave face, in every line of which was written inflexible determination. His hair was short, black, and curly. A small moustache darkened his upper lip, but the rest of his face was closely shaven, so that his large chin and iron jaw were fully displayed. His eyes were of that indescribable blue colour which can exhibit the intensest passion, or the most melting tenderness. He wore a sombre but somewhat picturesque costume--a dark-coloured flannel shirt and trousers, which latter were gathered in close round his lower limbs by a species of drab gaiter that appeared somewhat incongruous with the profession of the man. The only bit of bright colour about him was a scarlet belt round his waist, from the side of which depended a long knife in a brown leather sheath. A pair of light shoes and a small round cap, resembling what is styled in these days a pork-pie, completed his costume. He was about forty years of age. Such was the commander, or captain, or skipper, of this suspicious-looking schooner--a man pre-eminently fitted for the accomplishment of much good or the perpetration of great evil. As soon as the anchor touched the ground, the captain ordered a small boat to be lowered, and, leaping into it with two men, one of whom was our friend John Bumpus, rowed towards the shore. "Have you brought your kit with you, John?" inquired the captain, as the little boat shot over the smooth waters of the bay. "Wot's of it, sir," replied our rugged seaman, holding up a small bundle tied in a red cotton handkerchief. "I s'pose our cruise ashore won't be a long one." "It will be long for you, my man, at least as far as the schooner is concerned, for I do not mean to take you aboard again." "Not take me aboard agin!" exclaimed the sailor, with a look of surprise which quickly degenerated into an angry frown, and thereafter gradually relaxed into a broad grin as he continued--"why, capting, wot _do_ you mean to do with me then, for I'm a heavy piece of goods, d'ye see, and can't be easily moved about without a small touch o' my own consent, you know." Jo Bumpus, as he was fond of styling himself, said this with a serio-comic air of sarcasm, for he was an exception to the general rule of his fellows. He had little respect for, and no fear of, his commander. Indeed, to say truth, (for truth must be told, even though the character of our rugged friend should suffer,) Jo entertained a most profound belief in the immense advantage of muscular strength and vigour in general, and of his own prowess in particular. Although not quite so gigantic a man as his captain, he was nearly so, and, being a bold self-reliant fellow, he felt persuaded in his own mind that he could thrash him, if need were. In fact, Jo was convinced that there was no living creature under the sun, human or otherwise, that walked upon two legs, that he could not pommel to death with more or less ease by means of his fists alone. And in this conviction he was not far wrong. Yet it must not be supposed that Jo Bumpus was a boastful man or a bully. Far from it. He was so thoroughly persuaded of his invincibility, that he felt there was no occasion to prove it. He therefore followed the natural bent of his inclinations, which led him at all times to exhibit a mild, amiable, and gentle aspect--except, of course, when he was roused. As occasion for being roused was not wanting in the South Seas in those days, Jo's amiability was frequently put to the test. He sojourned, while there, in a condition of alternate calm and storm; but riotous joviality ran, like a rich vein, through all his chequered life, and lit up its most sombre phases like gleams of light on an April day. "You entered my service with your own consent," replied the captain to Jo's last remark, "and you may leave it, with the same consent, whenever you choose; but you will please to remember that I did not engage you to serve on board the schooner. Back there you do not go either with or without your consent, my fine fellow, and if you are bent on going to sea on your own account--you've got a pair of good arms and legs--you can swim! Besides," continued the captain, dropping the tone of sarcasm in which this was said, and assuming a more careless and good-natured air, "you were singing something not long since, if I mistake not, about `farewell to the rolling sea,' which leads me to think you will not object to a short cruise on shore for a change, especially on such a beautiful island as this is." "I'm your man, capting," cried the impulsive seaman, at the same time giving his oar a pull that well-nigh spun the boat round. "And, to say wots the plain truth, d'ye see, I'm not sorry to ha done with your schooner, for, although she is as tight a little craft as any man could wish for to go to sea in, I can't say much for the crew,--saving your presence, Dick"--(he added, glancing over his shoulder at the surly-looking man who pulled the bow oar.) "Of all the rascally set I ever clapped eyes on, they seems to me the worst. If I didn't know you for a sandal-wood trader, I do believe I'd take ye for a pirate." "Don't speak ill of your messmates behind their backs, Jo," said the captain with a slight frown. "No good and true man ever does that." "No more I do," replied John Bumpus; while a deep red colour suffused his bronzed countenance. "No more I do; leastwise if they wos here I'd say it to their faces, for they're a set of as ill-tongued villains as I ever had the misfortune to--" "Silence!" exclaimed the captain, suddenly, in a voice of thunder. Few men would have ventured to disobey the command given by such a man, but John Bumpus was one of those few. He did indeed remain silent for two seconds, but it was the silence of astonishment. "Capting," said he, seriously, "I don't mean no offence, but I'd have you to know that I engaged to work for you, not to hold my tongue at your bidding, d'ye see. There aint the man living as'll make Jo Bumpus shut up w'en he's got a mind to--" The captain put an abrupt end to the remarks of his refractory seaman by starting up suddenly in fierce anger and seizing the tiller, apparently with the intent to fell him. He checked himself, however, as suddenly, and, breaking into a loud laugh, cried--"Come, Jo, you must admit that there is at least one living man who has made you `shut up' before you had finished what you'd got to say." John Bumpus, who had thrown up his left arm to ward off the anticipated blow, and dropped his oar in order to clench his right fist, quietly resumed his oar, and shook his head gravely for nearly a minute, after which he made the following observation:-- "Capting, I've seed, in my experience o' life, that there are some constitootions as don't agree with jokin'; an' yours is one on 'em. Now, if you'd take the advice of a plain man, you'd never try it on. You're a grave man by natur', and you're so bad at a joke that a feller can't quite tell w'en you're a-doin' of it. See, now, I do declare I wos as near drivin' you right over the stern o' your own boat as could be, only by good luck I seed the twinkle in your eye in time." "Pull away, my lad," said the captain, in the softest tones of his deep voice, at the same time looking his reprover straight in the face. There was something in the tone in which that simple command was given, and in the look by which it was accompanied; that effectually quelled John Bumpus in spite of himself. Violence had no effect on John, because in most cases he was able to meet it with superior violence, and in all cases he was willing to try. But to be put down in this mild way was perplexing. The words were familiar, the look straightforward and common enough. He could not understand it at all, and, being naturally of a philosophical turn of mind, he spent the next three minutes in a futile endeavour to analyse his own feelings. Before he had come to any satisfactory conclusion on the subject, the boat's keel grated on the white sand of the shore. Now, while all that we have been describing in the last and present chapters was going on, a very different series of events was taking place on the coral-island, for there, under the pleasant shade of the cocoa-nut palms, a tall, fair, and handsome youth was walking lightly down the green slopes towards the shore in anticipation of the arrival of the schooner, and a naked dark-skinned savage was dogging his steps, winding like a hideous snake among the bushes, and apparently seeking an opportunity to launch the short spear he carried in his hand at his unsuspecting victim. As the youth and the savage descended the mountain-side together, the former frequently paused when an opening in the rich foliage peculiar to these beautiful isles enabled him to obtain a clear view of the magnificent bay and its fringing coral reef, on which the swell of the great Pacific--so calm and undulating out beyond--fell in tremendous breakers, with a long, low, solemn roar like distant thunder. As yet no object broke the surface of the mirror-like bay within the reef. Each time the youth paused the savage stopped also, and more than once he poised his deadly spear, while his glaring eyeballs shone amid the green foliage like those of a tiger. Yet upon each occasion he exhibited signs of hesitation, and finally lowered the weapon, and crouched into the underwood. To any one ignorant of the actors in this scene, the indecision, of the savage would have appeared unaccountable; for there could be no doubt of his desire to slay the fair youth--still less doubt of his ability to dart his formidable spear with precision. Nevertheless, there was good reason for his hesitating, for young Henry Stuart was well known, alike by settlers and savages, as possessing the swiftest foot, the strongest arm, and the boldest heart in the island, and Keona was not celebrated for the possession of these qualities in any degree above the average of his fellows, although he did undoubtedly exceed them in revenge, hatred, and the like. On one occasion young Stuart had, while defending his mother's house against an attack of the savages, felled Keona with a well-directed blow of his fist. It was, doubtless, out of revenge for this that the latter now dogged the former through the lonely recesses of the mountain-pass by which he had crossed the island from the little settlement in which was his home, and gained the sequestered bay in which he expected to find the schooner. Up to this point, however, the savage had not summoned courage to make the attack, although, with the exception of a hunting-knife, his enemy was altogether unarmed, for he knew that in the event of missing his mark the young man's speed of foot would enable him to outstrip him, while his strength of frame would quickly terminate a single combat. As the youth gained the more open land near the beach, the possibility of making a successful cast of the spear became more and more doubtful. Finally the savage shrunk into the bushes and abandoned the pursuit. "Not here yet, Master Gascoyne," muttered Henry as he sat down on a rock to rest; for although the six miles of country he had crossed was a trifle, as regarded distance, to a lad of nineteen, the rugged mountain-path by which he had come would have tried the muscles of a Red Indian, and the nerve of a goat. "You were wont to keep to time better in days gone by. Truly it seems to me a strange thing that I should thus be made a sort of walking post between my mother's house and this bay, all for the benefit of a man who seems to me no better than he should be, and whom I don't like, and yet whom I _do_ like in some unaccountable fashion that I don't understand." Whatever the youth's thoughts were after giving vent to the foregoing soliloquy, he kept them to himself. They did not at first appear to be of an agreeable nature, for he frowned once or twice, and struck his thigh with his clenched hand, but gradually a pleasant expression lit up his manly face as he gazed out upon the sleeping sea, and watched the gorgeous clouds that soon began to rise and cluster round the sun. After an hour or so spent in wandering on the beach picking up shells, and gazing wistfully out to sea, Henry Stuart appeared to grow tired of waiting, for he laid himself down on the shore, turned his back on the ocean, pillowed his head on a tuft of grass, and deliberately went to sleep. Now was the time for the savage to wreak his vengeance on his enemy, but, fortunately, that villain, despite his subtlety and cunning, had not conceived the possibility of the youth indulging in such an unnatural recreation as a nap in the forenoon. He had, therefore, retired to his native jungle, and during the hour in which Henry was buried in repose, and in which he might have accomplished his end without danger or uncertainty, he was seated in a dark cave moodily resolving in his mind future plans of villany, and indulging the hope that on the youth's returning homewards he would be more successful in finding a favourable opportunity to take his life. During this same hour it was that our low-hulled little schooner hove in sight on the horizon, ran swiftly down before the breeze, cast anchor in the bay, and sent her boat ashore, as we have seen, with the captain, the surly man called Dick, and our friend John Bumpus. It happened that, just as the boat ran under the shelter of a rocky point and touched the strand, Keona left his cave for the purpose of observing what young Stuart was about. He knew that he could not have retraced his homeward way without passing within sight of his place of concealment. A glance of surprise crossed his dark visage as he crept to the edge of the underwood and saw the schooner at anchor in the bay. This was succeeded by a fiendish grin of exultation as his eye fell on the slumbering form of the youth. He instantly took advantage of the opportunity; and so deeply was he engrossed with his murderous intention, that he did not observe the captain of the schooner as he turned a projecting rock, and suddenly appeared upon the scene. The captain, however, saw the savage, and instantly drew back, signing, at the same time, to his two men to keep under cover. A second glance shewed him the sleeping form of Henry, and, almost before he had time to suspect that foul play was going on, he saw the savage glide from the bushes to the side of the sleeper, raise his spear, and poise it for one moment, as if to make sure of sending it straight to the youth's heart. There was not a moment to lose. The captain carried a short carbine in his hand, with which he took aim at the savage--going down on one knee to make a surer shot, for the carbine of those days was not to be depended on at a distance much beyond a hundred yards; and as the actors in this scene were separated by even more than that distance, there was a considerable chance of missing the savage and hitting the young man. This, however, was not a moment to calculate chances. The captain pulled the trigger, and the crash of the shot was followed by a howl from the savage, as his uplifted arm dropt to his side, and the spear fell across the face of the sleeper. Henry instantly awoke, and sprang up with the agility of a panther. Before he could observe what had occurred, Keona leapt into the bushes and disappeared. Henry at once bounded after him; and the captain, giving vent to a lusty cheer, rushed across the beach, and sprang into the forest, closely followed by surly Dick and John Bumpus, whose united cheers of excitement and shouts of defiance awoke the echoes of the place with clamorous discords. CHAPTER THREE. A ROUGH WALK ENLIVENED BY RAMBLING TALK--BUMPUS IS "AGREEABLE." It is said, in the proverbial philosophy of nautical men, that "a stern chase is a long one." The present instance was an exception to the general rule. Keona was wounded. Young Stuart was fleet as the antelope, and strong as a young lion. In these circumstances it is not surprising that, after a run of less than a quarter of a mile, he succeeded in laying his hands on the neck of the savage and hurling him to the ground, where he lay panting and helpless, looking up in the face of his conqueror with an expression of hopeless despair--for savages and wicked men generally are wont to judge of others by themselves, and to expect to receive such treatment from their enemies as they themselves would in similar circumstances accord. The fear of instant death was before his eyes, and the teeth of Keona chattered in his head, while his face grew more hideous than ever, by reason of its becoming livid. His fears were groundless. Henry Stuart was not a savage. He was humane by nature; and, in addition to this, he had been trained under the influence of that Book which teaches us that the most philosophical, because the most effective, method of procedure in this world, is to "overcome evil with good." "So, you scoundrel," said Henry, placing his knee on Keona's chest, and compressing his throat with his left hand, while, with his right, he drew forth a long glittering knife, and raised it in the air--"So you are not satisfied with what I gave you the last time we met, but you must needs take the trouble to cross my path a second time, and get a taste of cold steel, must you?" Although Keona could speak no English, he understood it sufficiently to appreciate the drift of the youth's words, even though he had failed to comprehend the meaning of the angry frown and the glittering knife. But, however much he might have wished to reply to the question, Henry took care to render the attempt impossible, by compressing his windpipe until he became blue in the face, and then black. At the same time, he let the sharp point of his knife touch the skin just over the region of the heart. Having thus convinced his vanquished foe that death was at the door, he suddenly relaxed his iron gripe; arose, sheathed his knife, and bade the savage get up. The miserable creature did so, with some difficulty, just as the captain and his men arrived on the scene. "Well met, Henry," cried the former, extending his hand to the youth, "had I been a moment later, my lads I fear that your life's blood would have been on the sea shore." "Then it was you who fired the shot, Captain Gascoyne? This is the second time I have to thank you for saving my life," said the young man, returning the grasp of the captain's hand. "Truly, it is but a small matter to have to thank me for. Doubtless, if my stout man, John Bumpus, had carried the carbine, he would have done you as good service. And methinks, Henry, that you would have preferred to owe your life to either of my men, rather than to me, if I may judge by your looks." "You should not judge by looks, captain," replied the youth quickly--"especially the looks of a man who has just had a hand to hand tussle with a savage. But, to tell the plain truth, Captain Gascoyne, I would indeed rather have had to thank your worthy man, John Bumpus, than yourself for coming to my aid, for although I owe you no grudge, and do not count you an enemy, I had rather see your back than your face--and you know the reason why." "You give me credit, boy, for more knowledge than I possess," replied Gascoyne, while an angry frown gathered for a moment on his brow; but passed away almost as quickly as it came; "I know not the cause of your unreasonable dislike to one who has never done you an injury." "Never done me an injury!" cried Henry, starting and turning with a look of passion on his companion; then, checking himself by a strong effort, he added in a milder tone--"But a truce to such talk, and I ask your forgiveness for my sharp words just after your rendering me such good service in the hour of need. You and I differ in our notions on one or two points--that is all; there is no need for quarrelling. See, here is a note from my mother, who sent me to the bay to meet you." During this colloquy, Dick and Bumpus had mounted guard over the wounded savage, just out of ear-shot of their captain. Neither of the sailors ventured to hold their prisoner, because they deemed it an unmanly advantage to take of one who was so completely (as they imagined) in their power. They kept a watchful eye on him, however; and while they affected an easy indifference of attitude, held themselves in readiness to pounce upon him if he should attempt to escape. But nothing seemed farther from the mind of Keona than such an attempt. He appeared to be thoroughly exhausted by his recent struggle and loss of blood, and his body was bent as if he were about to sink down to the ground. There was, however, a peculiar glance in his dark eyes that induced John Bumpus to be more on his guard than appearances seemed to warrant. While Gascoyne was reading the letter to which we have referred, Keona suddenly placed his left leg behind surly Dick, and, with his unwounded fist, hit that morose individual such a tremendous back-handed blow on the nose, that he instantly measured his length on the ground. John Bumpus made a sudden plunge at the savage on seeing this, but the latter ducked his head, passed like an eel under the very arms of the sailor, and went off into the forest like a deer. "Hold!" shouted Captain Gascoyne, as John turned in a state of mingled amazement and anger to pursue. "Hold on, Bumpus, let the miserable rascal go." John stopped, looked over his shoulder, hesitated, and finally came back with a rolling air of nautical indifference, and his hands thrust into his breeches pockets. "You know best, capting," said he, "but I think it a pity to let sich a dirty varmint go clear off, to dodge about in the bushes, and mayhap treat us to a pisoned arrow, or a spear-thrust on the sly. Howsomedever, it aint no consarn wotever to Jo Bumpus. How's your beak, Dick, my boy?" "None the better for your askin'," replied the surly mariner, who was tenderly stroking the injured member of his face with the fingers of both hands. "Come, Dick, it is none the worse of being inquired after," said Henry, laughing. "But 'tis as well to let the fellow go. He knows best how to cure his wound, by the application of a few simples, and by thus making off, has relieved us of the trouble and responsibility of trying our hands at civilised doctoring. Besides, John Bumpus, (if that's your name,--though I do think your father might have found you a better,) your long legs would never have brought you within a mile of the savage." "Young man," retorted Jo, gravely, "I'd have you to know that the family of the Bumpuses is an old and a honourable one. They comed over with the Conkerer to Ireland, where they picked up a deal o' their good manners, after which they settled at last on their own estates in Yorkshire. Though they _have_ comed down in the world, and the last of the Bumpuses--that's me--is takin' a pleasure trip round the world before the mast, I won't stand by and hear my name made game of, d'ye see; and I'd have ye to know, farther, my buck, that the Bumpuses has a pecooliar gift for fightin', and although you _are_ a strappin' young feller, you'd better not cause me for to prove that you're conkerable." Having delivered himself of this oration, the last of the Bumpuses frowned portentously on the youth who had dared to risk his anger, and turning with a bland smile to surly Dick, asked him "if his beak was any better _now_." "There seems to be bad news in the letter, I think," observed Henry, as Captain Gascoyne perused the epistle with evident signs of displeasure. "Bad enough in these times of war, boy," replied the other, folding the note and placing it in a pouch inside the breast of his flannel shirt. "It seems that that pestiferous British frigate the _Talisman_, lies at anchor in the bay, on the other side of the island." "Nothing in that to cause uneasiness to an honest trader," said Henry, leading the way up the steep path by which he had descended from the mountain region of the interior. "That speech only shews your ignorance of the usages of ships of war. Know you not that the nature of the trade in which I am engaged requires me to be strong-handed, and that the opinion of a commander in the British navy as to how many hands are sufficient for the navigation of a trading schooner does not accord with mine?--a difference of opinion which may possibly result in his relieving me of a few of my best men when I can ill afford to spare them. And, by the way," said Gascoyne, pausing as they gained the brow of an eminence that commanded a view of the rich woodland on one side and the sea on the other, "I had better take precautions against such a mischance. Here, Dick," (taking the man aside and whispering to him,) "go back to the schooner, my lad, and tell the mate to send ten of the best hands ashore with provisions and arms. Let them squat where they choose on land, only let them see to it that they keep well out of sight and hearing until I want them. And now, Master Henry, lead the way; John Bumpus and I will follow at your heel like a couple of faithful dogs." The scene through which young Henry Stuart now led his seafaring companions was of that rich, varied, and beautiful character which is strikingly characteristic of those islands of the Pacific which owe their origin to volcanic agency. Unlike the low coral islets, this island presented every variety of the boldest mountain scenery, and yet, like them, it displayed all the gorgeous beauty of a rich tropical vegetation. In some places the ground had been cracked and riven into great fissures and uncouth caverns of the wildest description, by volcanoes apparently long since extinct. In others the landscape presented the soft beauty of undulating grove-like scenery, in which, amid a profusion of bright green herbage, there rose conspicuous the tall stems and waving plumes of the cocoa-nut palm; the superb and umbrageous ko-a, with its laurel-green leaves and sweet blossoms; the _kukui_ or candle-nut tree, the fragrant sandal-wood, and a variety of other trees and shrubs for which there are no English names. Hundreds of green paroquets with blue heads and red breasts, turtle-doves, wood-pigeons, and other birds, enlivened the groves with sound, if not with melody, and the various lakelets and pools were alive with wild ducks and water-hens. The route by which the party travelled, led them first across a country of varied and beautiful aspect; then it conducted them into wild mountain fastnesses, among which they clambered, at times with considerable difficulty. Ere long they passed into a dreary region where the ancient fires that upheaved the island from the deep seemed to have scorched the land into a condition of perpetual desolation. Blackened and bare lava rocks, steep volcanic ridges and gorges, irregular truncated coves, deep-mouthed caves and fissures, overhanging arches, natural bridges, great tunnels and ravines, surrounded them on every side, and so concealed the softer features of the country that it was scarcely possible to believe in the reality of the verdant region out of which they had just passed. In another hour this chaotic scenery was left behind; the highest ridge of the mountains was crossed, and the travellers began to descend the green slopes on the other side of the island. These slopes terminated in a beach of white sand, while beyond lay the calm waters of the enclosed lagoon, the coral reef with its breakers, and the mighty sea. "'Tis a pretty spot?" said Henry, interrogatively, as the party halted on the edge of a precipice, whence they obtained an uninterrupted view of the whole of that side of the island. "Ay, pretty enough," replied Gascoyne in a somewhat sad tone of voice; "I had hoped to have led a quiet life here once,--but that was not to be. How say you, Bumpus; could you make up your mind to cast anchor here for a year or so?" "Wot's that you say, capting?" inquired honest John, who was evidently lost in admiration of the magnificent scene that lay spread out before him. "I ask if you have no objection to come to an anchor here for a time," repeated the captain. "Objection! I'll tell ye wot it is, capting, I never seed sich a place afore in all my born days. Why it's a slice out o' paradise. I do believe if Adam and Eve wos here they'd think they'd got back again into Eden. It's more beautifuller than the blue ocean, by a long chalk, an' if you wants a feller that's handy at a'most anything after a fashion--a jack of all trades and master of none (except seamanship, which aint o' no use here)--Jo Bumpus is your man!" "I'm glad to hear you say that, Jo," said Henry, laughing, "for we are greatly in need of white men of your stamp in these times, when the savages are so fierce against each other that they are like to eat us up altogether, merely by way of keeping their hands in practice." "_White_ men of my stamp!" remarked Bumpus, surveying complacently his deeply-bronzed hands, which were only a shade darker than his visage; "well, I would like to know what ye call black if I'm a white man." "Blood, and not skin, is what stamps the colour of the man, Jo. If it were agreeable to Captain Gascoyne to let you off your engagement to him, I think I could make it worth your while to engage with me, and would find you plenty of work of all kinds, including a little of that same fighting for which the Bumpuses are said to be so famous." "Gentlemen," said Jo, gravely, "I'm agreeable to become a good and chattel for this occasion only, as the playbills say, and hold myself up to the highest bidder." "Nay, you are sold to me, Bumpus," said Gascoyne, "and must do as I bid you." "Wery good, then bid away as fast as you like." "Come, captain, don't be hard," said Henry, "what will you take for him?" "I cannot afford to sell him at any price?" replied the other, "for I have brought him here expressly as a gift to a certain Mary Stuart, queen of women, if not of Scotland--a widow who dwells in Sandy Cove." "What, my mother?" interrupted Henry, while a shade of displeasure crossed his countenance at what he deemed the insolent familiarity with which Gascoyne mentioned her name. "The same. On my last visit I promised to get her a man-servant who could do her some service in keeping off the savages when they take a fancy to trouble the settlement; and if Bumpus is willing to try his luck on shore, I promise him he'll find her a good mistress, and her house pleasant quarters." "So," exclaimed the stout seaman, stopping short in his rolling walk, and gazing earnestly into his captain's face, "I'm to be sold to a woman?" "With your own consent entirely, Master Bumpus," said Gascoyne with a smile. "Come, Jo," cried Henry, gaily, "I see you like the prospect, and feel assured that you and I shall be good friends. Give us your flipper, my boy!" John Bumpus allowed the youth to seize and shake a "flipper," which would have done credit to a walrus, both in regard to shape and size. After a short pause he said, "Whether you and me shall be good friends, young man, depends entirely on the respect which you shew to the family of the Bumpuses--said family havin' comed over to Ireland with the Conkerer in the year, ah! I misremember the year, but that don't matter; bein' a subject of no consarn wotiver, 'xcept to schoolboys who'll get their licks if they can't tell, and sarve 'em right too. But if you're willin' I'm agreeable, and there's an end o' the whole affair." So saying, John Bumpus suffered a bland smile to light up his ruddy countenance, and resumed his march in the "wake," as he expressed it, of his companions. Half an hour later they arrived at Sandy Cove, a small native settlement and mission station, and were soon seated at the hospitable board of Widow Stuart. CHAPTER FOUR. THE MISSIONARY--SUSPICIONS, SURPRISES, AND SURMISES. Sandy Cove was a small settlement inhabited partly by native converts to Christianity, and partly by a few European traders, who, having found that the place was in the usual track of South Sea whalers, and frequently visited by that class of vessels as well as by other ships, had established several stores or trading houses, and had taken up their permanent abode there. The island was one of those the natives of which were early induced to agree to the introduction of the gospel. At the time of which we write, it was in that transition state which renders the work of the missionary one of anxiety, toil, and extreme danger, as well as one of love. But the Reverend Frederick Mason was a man eminently fitted to fill the post which he had selected as his sphere of labour. Bold and manly in the extreme, he was more like a soldier in outward aspect than a missionary. Yet the gentleness of the lamb dwelt in his breast and beamed in his eye; and to a naturally indomitable and enthusiastic disposition was added burning zeal in the cause of his beloved Master. Six years previous to the opening of our tale, he had come to Sandy Cove with his wife and child, the latter a girl of six years of age at that time. In one year death bereaved the missionary of his wife, and, about the same time, war broke out in the island between the chiefs who clung to the idolatrous rites and bloody practices peculiar to the inhabitants of the South Sea islands, and those chiefs who were inclined to favour Christianity. This war continued to rage more or less violently for several years, frequently slumbering, sometimes breaking out with sudden violence, like the fitful eruptions of the still unextinct volcanoes in those distant regions. During all this period of bloodshed and alarms, the missionary stuck to his post. The obstinacy of hatred was being gradually overcome by the superior pertinacity of zeal in a good cause, and the invariable practice--so incomprehensible to the savage mind--of returning good for evil; the result was, that the Sabbath bell still sent its tinkling sound over the verdant slopes above Sandy Cove, and the hymn of praise still arose, morning and evening, from the little church, which, composed partly of wood, partly of coral rock, had been erected under the eye, and, to a large extent, by the hands of the missionary. But false friends within the camp were more dangerous and troublesome to Mr Mason than avowed enemies without. Some of the European traders, especially, who settled on the island a few years after the missionary had made it habitable, were the worst foes he had to contend with. In the same vessel that brought the missionary to the island, there came a widow, Mrs Stuart, with her son Henry, then a stout lad of thirteen. The widow was not, however, a member of the missionary's household. She came there to settle with her son, who soon built her a rudely constructed but sufficiently habitable hut, which, in after years, was enclosed, and greatly improved; so that it at last assumed the dimensions of a rambling picturesque cottage, whitewashed, brilliant, and neat in its setting of bright green. The widow, although not an official assistant to the missionary, was nevertheless a most efficient one. She taught in his schools, being familiar with the native tongue; and, when the settlement grew in numbers, both of white and black, she became known as the good angel of the place--the one who was ever ready with sympathy for the sorrowful, and comfort for the dying. She was fair and fragile, and had been exceedingly beautiful; but care had stamped his mark deeply in her brow. Neither care nor time, however, could mar the noble outline of her fine features, or equal the love that beamed in her gentle eyes. The widow was a great mystery to the gossips of Sandy Cove; for there are gossips even in the most distant isles of the sea! Some men (we refer, of course, to white men) thought that she must have been the wife of an admiral at least, and had fallen into distressed circumstances, and gone to these islands to hide her poverty. Others said she was a female Jesuit in disguise, sent there to counteract the preaching of the gospel by the missionary. A few even ventured to hint their opinion that she was an outlaw, "or something of that sort" and shrewdly suspected that Mr Mason knew more about her than he was pleased to tell. But no one, either by word or look, had ever ventured to express an opinion of any kind to herself, or in the hearing of her son; the latter, indeed, displayed such uncommon breadth of shoulders, and such unusual development of muscle, that it was seldom necessary for him-- even in those savage regions and wild times--to display anything else, in order to make men respectful. While our three friends were doing justice to the bacon and breadfruit set before them by Widow Stuart, the widow herself was endeavouring to repress some strong feeling, which caused her breast to heave more than once, and induced her to turn to some trifling piece of household duty to conceal her emotion. These symptoms were not lost upon her son, whose suspicions and anger had been aroused by the familiarity of Gascoyne. Making some excuse for leaving the room, towards the conclusion of the meal, he followed his mother to an outhouse, whither she had gone to fetch some fresh milk. "Mother," said Henry, respectfully, yet with an unwonted touch of sternness in his voice; "there is some mystery connected with this man Gascoyne that I feel convinced, you can clear up--" "Dear Henry," interrupted the widow, and her cheek grew pale as she spoke, "do not, I beseech you, press me on this subject. I cannot clear it up." "Say you _will_ not, mother," answered Henry, in a tone of disappointment. "I would if I dared," continued the widow. "The time may come when I--" "But why not now," urged the youth, hastily. "I am old enough, surely, to be trusted. During the four visits this man has paid to us, I have observed a degree of familiarity on his part which no man has a right to exhibit towards you; and which, did I not see that you permit it, no man would _dare_ to shew. Why do you allow him to call you `Mary?' No one else in the settlement does so." "He is a very old friend," replied the widow, sadly. "I have known him from childhood. We were playmates long ago." "Humph! that's some sort of reason, no doubt; but you don't appear to like him, and his presence always seems to give you pain. Why do you suffer yourself to be annoyed by him? Only say the word, mother, and I'll kick him out of the house, neck and crop--" "Hush, boy; you are too violent." "Too violent! Why, it would make a coward violent, to see his mother tormented as you are by this fellow, and not be allowed to put a stop to it. I suspect--" "Henry," said the widow, again interrupting her exasperated son, "do you think your mother would do what is wrong?" "Mother," exclaimed the youth, seizing her hand, and kissing her brow almost violently, "I would as soon think that the angels above would do wrong; but I firmly believe that you are suffering wrong to be done _to you_; and--just listen to the fellow, I do believe he's howling for more bacon at this moment!" There could be no doubt whatever about the fact; for just then the deep tones of Gascoyne's voice rang through the cottage, as he reiterated the name of the widow, who hastened away, followed by her son. Henry scarcely took the trouble to conceal the frown that darkened his brow as he re-entered the apartment where his companions were seated. "Why, Mary, your bacon surpasses anything I have tasted for the last six months; let's have another rasher, like a good woman. That mountain air sharpens the appetite amazingly; especially of men who are more accustomed to mount the rigging of a ship than the hills on shore. What say you, John Bumpus?" John Bumpus could not at that moment say anything, in consequence of his mouth being so full of the bacon referred to, that there was no room for a single word to pass his lips. In the height of his good-humour, however, he did his best by signs to express his entire approval of the widow's provender, and even _attempted_ to speak. In so doing, he choked himself, and continued in convulsions for the next five minutes, to the immense delight of the captain, who vowed he had never before seen such a blue face in the whole course of his life. While this scene was enacting, and ere Jo Bumpus had effectually wiped away the tears from his eyes, and cleared the bacon out of his windpipe, the door opened, and the commander of H.M.S. _Talisman_ entered. Edmund Montague was a young man to hold such a responsible position in the navy; but he was a bold, vigorous little Englishman--a sort of gentlemanly and well-educated John Bull terrier; of frank address, agreeable manners, and an utterly reckless temperament, which was qualified and curbed, however, by good sense, and hard-earned experience. "Good day to you, Mrs Stuart; I trust you will forgive my abrupt intrusion, but urgent business must be my excuse. I have called to have a little further conversation with your son, respecting that rascally pirate who has given me so much trouble. If he will have the goodness to take a short walk with me, I shall be much indebted." "By all means," said Henry, rising and putting on his cap. "Perhaps," said Gascoyne, as they were about to leave the room, "if the commander of the _Talisman_ would condescend to take a little information from a stranger, he might learn something to the purpose regarding the pirate Durward; for he it is, I presume, of whom you are in search." "I shall be happy to gain information from any source," replied Montague, eyeing the captain narrowly. "Are you a resident in this island?" "No, I am not; my home is on the sea, and has been since I was a lad." "Ah! you have fallen in with this pirate then on your native ocean, I fancy, and have disagreeable cause to remember him, perchance," said Montague, smiling. "Has he given you much trouble?" "Ay, that he has," replied Gascoyne, with a sudden scowl of ferocity. "No one in these seas has received so much annoyance from him as I have. Any one who could rid them of his presence would do good service to the cause of humanity. But," he added, while a grim smile overspread his handsome face, "it is said that few vessels can cope with his schooner in speed, and I can answer for it that he is a bold man, fond of fighting, with plenty of reckless cut-throats to back him, and more likely to give chase to a sloop-of-war than to shew her his heels. I trust you are well manned and armed, Captain Montague, for this Durward is a desperate fellow, I assure you." The young commander's countenance flushed as he replied, "Your anxiety on my account, sir, is quite uncalled for. Had I nothing but my own longboat wherewith to attack this pirate, it would be my duty to do so. I had scarcely expected to find unmanly fears exhibited in one so stalwart in appearance as you are. Perhaps it may relieve you to know that I am both well manned and armed. It is not usual for a British man-of-war to cruise in distant seas in a less suitable condition to protect her flag. And yet, methinks, one who has spent so many years of his life on salt water might know the difference between a frigate and a sloop-of-war." "Be not so hasty, young man," answered Gascoyne, gravely; "you are not on your own quarter-deck just now. There ought to be civility between strangers. I may, indeed, be very ignorant of the cut and rig of British war vessels, seeing that I am but a plain trader in seas where ships of war are not often wont to unfurl their flags, but there can be no harm, and there was meant no offence, in warning you to be on your guard." A tinge of sarcasm still lingered in Captain Montague's tone as he replied, "Well, I thank you for the caution. But to come to the point, what know you of this pirate--this Durward, as he calls himself; though I have no doubt he has sailed under so many aliases that he may have forgotten his real name." "I know him to be a villain," replied Gascoyne. "That much I know as well as you," said Montague. "And yet it is said he takes fits of remorse at times, and would fain change his way of life if he could," continued Gascoyne. "That I might guess," returned the other; "most wicked men have their seasons of remorse. Can you tell me nothing of him more definite than this, friend?" "I can tell you that he is the very bane of my existence," said Gascoyne, the angry expression again flitting for a moment across his countenance. "He not only pursues and haunts me like my own shadow, but he gets me into scrapes by passing his schooner for mine when he is caught." The young officer glanced in surprise at the speaker as he uttered these words. "Indeed," said he, "that is a strange confusion of ideas. So then, the two schooners bear so strong a resemblance as to be easily mistaken for each other?" "They are twins. They were built at the same time, from the same moulds, and were intended for the sandal-wood trade between these islands and Calcutta, Manilla, and Australia. One of them, the _Avenger_, was seized on her first voyage, by this Durward, then mate of the schooner, and has ever since scoured the South Seas as a pirate; the other, named the _Foam_, which I have the misfortune to command, still continues the traffic for which she was originally built." "Ha!" exclaimed Montague, turning suddenly round with an inquiring gaze at the stalwart figure of the sandal-wood trader; "it is most fortunate that I have met with you, Mr Gascoyne. I doubt not that you can conduct me to this vessel of yours, so that I may know the pirate when I fall in with him. If the two vessels resemble each other so closely, a sight of the _Foam_ will be of great service to me in my search after the _Avenger_." "You are most welcome to a sight of my craft," replied Gascoyne. "The only difference between the two is, that the figurehead of the pirate is a griffin's head, painted scarlet, that of my schooner is a female, painted white. There is also a red streak round the sides of the pirate; the hull of the _Foam_ is entirely black." "Will you come on board my vessel, and accompany me in one of my boats to yours?" inquired Montague. "That is impossible," replied Gascoyne; "I came here on urgent business which will not brook delay; but my schooner lies on the other side of the island; if you pull round, my mate will receive you. You will find him a most intelligent and hospitable man. He will conduct you over the vessel, and give you all the information you may desire. Meanwhile," added the captain of the _Foam_, rising and putting on his cap, "I must bid you adieu." "Nay, but you have not yet told me when or where you last saw or heard of this remarkable pirate, who is so clever at representing other people, perhaps I should rather say misrepresenting them," said Montague, with a meaning smile. "I saw him no longer ago than this morning," replied Gascoyne gravely. "He is now in these waters, with what intent I know not, unless from his unnatural delight in persecuting me, or, perhaps, because fate has led him into the very jaws of the lion." "Humph! he will find that I bite before I roar, if he does get between my teeth," said the young officer. "Surely you are mistaken, Gascoyne," interposed Henry Stuart, who, along with John Bumpus, had hitherto been silent listeners to the foregoing conversation. "Several of our people have been out fishing among the islands, and have neither seen nor heard of this redoubted pirate." "That is possible enough, boy, but I have seen him, nevertheless, and I shall be much surprised if you do not see and hear more of him than you desire before many days are out. That villain does not sail the seas for pastime, you may depend on it." As Gascoyne said this, the outer door of the house was burst violently open, and the loud voice of a boy was heard in the porch or short passage that intervened between it and the principal apartment of the cottage, shouting wildly--"Ho! hallo! hurrah! I say, Widow Stuart! Henry! here's a business--sich fun! only think, the pirate's turned up at last, and murdered half the niggers in--" There was an abrupt stoppage both of the voice and the muscular action of this juvenile tornado as he threw open the door with a crash, and, instead of the widow or her son, met the gaze of so many strangers. The boy stood for a few seconds on the threshold, with his curly brown hair dishevelled, and his dark eyes staring in surprise, first at one, then at another of the party, until at length they alighted on John Bumpus. The mouth, which up to that moment had formed a round O of astonishment, relaxed into a broad grin, and, with sudden energy, exclaimed-- "_What_ a grampus!" Having uttered this complimentary remark, the urchin was about to retreat, when Henry made a sudden dart at him, and caught him by the collar. "Where got you the news, Will Corrie?" said Henry, giving the boy a squeeze with his strong hand. "Oh, please, be merciful, Henry, and I'll tell you all about it. But, pray, don't give me over to that grampus," cried the lad, pretending to whimper. "I got the news from a feller, that said he'd got it from a feller, that saw a feller, who said he'd heard a feller tell another feller, that he saw a _black_ feller in the bush, somewhere or other 'tween this and the other end o' the island, with a shot hole in his right arm, running like a cogolampus, with ten pirates in full chase. Ah! oh! have mercy, Henry; really my constitution will break down if you--" "Silence, you chatter-box, and give me a reasonable account of what you have heard or seen, if you can." The volatile urchin, who might have been about thirteen years of age, became preternaturally grave all of a sudden, and, looking up earnestly in his questioner's face, said, "Really, Henry, you are becoming unreasonable in your old age, to ask me to give you a reasonable account of a thing, and at the same time to be silent!" "I'll tell you what, Corrie, I'll throttle you if you don't speak," said Henry. "Ah! you _couldn't_," pleaded Corrie in a tone of deep pathos. "P'raps," observed John Bumpus, "p'raps if you hand over the young gen'l'm'n to the `grampus,' _he'll_ make him speak." On hearing this, the boy set up a howl of affected despair, and suffered Henry to lead him unresistingly to within a few feet of Bumpus, but, just as he was within an inch of the huge fist of that nautical monster, he suddenly wrenched his collar out of his captor's grasp, darted to the door, turned round on the threshold, hit the side of his own nose a sounding slap with the forefinger of his right hand, uttered an inexpressively savage yell, vanished from the scene, and,-- "Like the baseless fabric of a vision, Left not a wreck behind." Except the wreck of the milk-saucer of the household cat, which sagacious creature had wisely taken to flight at the first symptom of war. The boy was instantly followed by Henry, but so light was his foot, that the fastest runner in the settlement had to penetrate the woods immediately behind his mother's house for a quarter of a mile before he succeeded in again laying hold of the refractory lad's collar. "What do you mean, Corrie, by such conduct?" said his captor, shaking him vigorously. "I have half a mind to give you a wallopping." "Never do anything by halves, Henry," said the boy mildly. "_I_ never do. It's a bad habit; always go the whole length or none. Now that we are alone, I'll give you a reasonable account of what I know, if you'll remove your hand from my collar. You forget that I'm growing, and that, when I am big enough, the day of reckoning between us will surely come!" "But why would you not give me the information I want in the house. The people you saw there are as much interested in it as I am." "Oh! are they?" returned Corrie with a glance of peculiar meaning; "perhaps they are _more_ interested than you are." "How so?" "Why, how do I know, and how do you know, that these fellows are not pirates in disguise?" "Because," said Henry, "one of them is an old friend--that is, an acquaintance--at least a sort of intimate, who has been many and many a time at our house before, and my mother knows him well. I can't say I like him--that is to say, I don't exactly like some of his ways--though I don't dislike the man himself." "A most unsatisfactory style of reply, Henry, for a man--ah, beg pardon, a boy--of your straightforward character. Which o' the three are you speaking of--the grampus?" "No, the other big handsome-looking fellow." "And you're sure you've known him long?" continued the boy, while an expression of perplexity flitted over his face. "Quite sure; why?" "Because _I_ have seen you often enough, and your house and your mother, not to mention your cat and your pigs, and hens; but I've never seen _him_ before to-day." "That's because he usually comes at night, and seldom stays more than an hour or two." "A most uncomfortable style of acquaintance," said Corrie, trying to look wise, which was an utterly futile effort, seeing that his countenance was fat and round, and rosy, and very much the reverse of philosophical. "But how do you know that the grampus is not the pirate?" "Because he is one of Gascoyne's men." "Oh! his name is Gascoyne, is it?--a most piratical name it is. However, since he is your friend, Henry, it's all right; what's tother's name?" "Bumpus--John Bumpus." On hearing this, the boy clapped both hands to his sides, expanded his eyes and mouth, shewed his teeth, and finally gave vent to roars of uncontrollable laughter, swaying his body about the while as if in agony. "Oh, clear!" he cried, after a time, "John Bumpus, ha! ha! ha! what a name!--John Bumpus, ha! ha! the grampus--why, it's magnificent, ha! ha!" and again the boy gave free vent to his merriment, while his companion looked on with a quiet grin of amusement. Presently, Corrie became grave, and said, "But what of the third, the little chap, all over gold lace? P'r'aps he's the pirate. He looked bold enough a'most for anything." "Why, you goose, that's the commander of his Britannic Majesty's frigate _Talisman_." "Indeed? I hope his Britannic Majesty has many more like him." "Plenty more like him. But come, boy; what have you heard of this pirate, and what do you mean about a wounded nigger?" "I just mean this," answered the lad, suddenly becoming serious, "that when I was out on the mountain this morning, I thought I would cross the ridge, and when I did so, the first thing I saw was a schooner lying in the bay at the foot of the hill, where you and I have so often gone chasing pigs together; well, being curious to know what sort of a craft she was, I went down the hill, intendin' to go aboard; but before I'd got half way through the cocoanut grove, I heard a horrible yell of a savage; so, thinks I, here comes them blackguard pagans again, to attack the settlement; and before I could hide out of the way, a naked savage almost ran into my arms. He was sea-green in the face with fright, and blood was running over his right arm. "The moment he saw me, instead of splitting me up with his knife and eating me alive, as these fellers are so fond of doin', he gave a start, and another great cry, and doubled on his track like a hare. His cry was answered by a shout from half a dozen sailors, who burst out of the thicket at that moment, and I saw they were in pursuit of him. Down I went at once behind a thick bush, and the whole lot o' the blind bats passed right on in full cry, within half an inch of my nose. And I never saw sich a set o' piratical-looking villains since I was born. I felt quite sure that yon schooner is the pirate that has been doing so much mischief hereabouts, so I came back as fast as my legs could carry me, to tell you what I had seen. There, you have got all that I know of the matter now." "You are wrong, boy--the schooner you saw is not the pirate, it is the _Foam_. Strange, very strange!" muttered Henry. "What's strange," inquired the lad. "Not the appearance of the wounded nigger," answered the other; "I can explain all about him, but the sailors--that puzzles me." Henry then related the morning's adventure to his young companion. "But," continued he, after detailing all that the reader already knows, "I cannot comprehend how the pirates you speak of could have landed without their vessel being in sight; and that nothing is to be seen from the mountain tops except the _Talisman_ on the one side of the island and the _Foam_ on the other, I can vouch for. Boats might lie concealed among the rocks on the shore, no doubt. But no boats would venture to put ashore with hostile intentions, unless the ship to which they belonged were within sight. As for the crew of the _Foam_, they are ordinary seamen, and not likely to amuse themselves chasing wounded savages, even if they were allowed to go ashore, which I think is not likely, for Gascoyne knows well enough, that that side of the island is inhabited by the pagans, who would as soon kill and eat a man as they would a pig." "Sooner,--the monsters," exclaimed the boy indignantly, for he had, on more than one occasion, been an eye-witness, of the horrible practice of cannibalism which prevails, even at the present day, among some of the South Sea islanders. "There is mystery here," said Henry, starting up, "and the sooner we alarm the people of the settlement, the better. Come, Corrie, we shall return to the house and let the British officer hear what you have told me." When the lad had finished relating his adventure to the party, in Widow Stuart's cottage, Gascoyne said quietly, "I would advise you, Captain Montague, to return to your ship and make your preparations for capturing this pirate, for that he is even now almost within range of your guns, I have not the slightest doubt. As to the men appearing piratical-looking fellows to this boy, I don't wonder at that; most men are wild enough when their blood is up. Some of my own men are as savage to look at as one would desire. But I gave strict orders this morning, that only a few were to go ashore, and these were to keep well out of sight of the settlement of the savages. Doubtless, they are all aboard by this time. If you decide upon anything like a hunt among the mountains, I can lend you a few hands." "Thank you, I may perhaps require some of your hands," said Montague, with a dash of sarcasm in his tone; "meanwhile, since you will not favour me with your company on board, I shall bid you good afternoon." He bowed stiffly, and, leaving the cottage, hastened on board his ship, where the shrill notes of the boatswain's whistle, and the deep hoarse tones of that officer's gruff voice, quickly announced to the people on shore that orders had been promptly given, and were in course of being as promptly obeyed. During the hour that followed these events, the captain of the _Foam_ was closeted with Widow Stuart and her son, and the youthful Corrie was engaged in laying the foundations of a never-to-die friendship with John Bumpus, or, as that eccentric youngster preferred to style him, Jo Grampus. CHAPTER FIVE. THE PASTOR'S HOUSEHOLD--PREPARATIONS FOR WAR. When the conference in the widow's cottage closed, Henry Stuart and Gascoyne hastened into the woods together, and followed a narrow footpath which led towards the interior of the island. Arriving at a spot where this path branched into two, Henry took the one that ran round the outskirts of the settlement towards the residence of Mr Mason, while his companion pursued the other which struck into the recesses of the mountains. "Come in," cried the missionary, as Henry knocked at the door of his study. "Ah, Henry, I'm glad to see you. You were in my thoughts this moment. I have come to a difficulty in my drawings of the spire of our new church, and I want your fertile imagination to devise some plan whereby we may overcome it. But of that I shall speak presently. I see from your looks that more important matters have brought you hither. Nothing wrong at the cottage, I trust?" "No, nothing--that is to say, not exactly wrong, but things, I fear, are not altogether right in the settlement. I have had an unfortunate rencontre this morning with one of the savages, which is likely to lead to mischief, for blood was drawn, and I know the fellow to be revengeful. In addition to this, it is suspected that Durward, the pirate, is hovering among the islands, and meditates a descent on us. How much truth there may be in the report I cannot pretend to guess; but Gascoyne, the captain of the _Foam_, has been over at our cottage, and says he has seen the pirate, and that there is no saying what he may venture to attempt, for he is a bold fellow, and, as you know, cannot have a good-will to missionary settlements." "I'm not so sure of that," said the pastor, in answer to the last remark. "It is well known that wherever a Christian settlement is founded in these islands, that place becomes a safe port for vessels of all sorts--pirates as well as others, if they sail under false colours and pretend to be honest traders;--while in all the other islands, it is equally well known, the only safety one can count on, in landing, is superior force. But I am grieved to hear of your affray with the native. I hope that life will not be sacrificed." "No fear of that; the rascal got only a flesh wound." Here the young man related his adventure of the morning, and finished by asking what the pastor advised should be done in the way of precaution. "It seems to me," said Mr Mason, gravely, "that our chief difficulty will be to save ourselves from our friends--" "Would friends harm us, father?" asked a sweet soft voice at the pastor's elbow. Next moment Alice Mason was seated on her father's knee, gazing up in his face with an expression of undisguised amazement. Alice was a fair, delicate, gentle child. Twelve summers and winters had passed over her little head without a cloud to obscure the sunshine of her life save one--but that one was a terribly dark one, and its shadow lingered over her for many years. When Alice lost her mother, she lost the joy and delight of her existence; and although six years had passed since that awful day, and a fond Christian father had done his best to impress on her young mind that the beloved one was not lost for ever, but would one day be found sitting at the feet of Jesus in a bright and beautiful world, the poor child could not recover her former elasticity of spirits. Doubtless, her isolated position and the want of suitable companions, had something to do with the prolonged sadness of her little heart. It is almost unnecessary to say that her love for her father was boundless. This was natural, but it did not seem by any means so natural that the delicate child should give the next place in her heart to a wild little boy, a black girl, and a ragged little dog! Yet so it was, and it would have been difficult for the closest observer to tell which of these three Alice liked best. No one could so frequently draw forth the merry laugh that in former days had rung so sweetly over the hill-sides of the verdant isle, as our young friend Will Corrie. Nothing could delight the heart of the child so much as to witness the mad gambols, not to mention the mischievous deeds, of that ragged little piece of an old door-mat, which, in virtue of its being possessed of animal life, was named Toozle. And when Alice wished to talk quietly,--to pour out her heart, and sometimes her tears,--the bosom she sought on which to lay her head, next to her father's, was that of her youthful nursery-maid, a good, kind, and gentle, but an awfully stupid native girl named Kekupoopi. This name was, of course, reduced in its fair proportions by little Alice, who, however, retained the latter part thereof in preference to the former, and styled her maid Poopy. Young Master Corrie, on the other hand, called her Kickup or Puppy, indifferently, according to the humour he chanced to be in when he met her, or to the word that rose most readily to his lips. Mr Mason replied to the question put by Alice, at the beginning of this somewhat lengthy digression, "No, my lamb, friends would not willingly do us harm; but there are those who call themselves friends who do not deserve the name, who pretend to be such, but who are in reality secret enemies. But go, dearest, to your room; I am busy just now talking with Henry--he, at least, is a trusty friend. When I have done you shall come back to me." Alice kissed her father, and, getting off his knee, went at once in search of her friend Poopy. That dark-skinned and curly black-headed domestic was in the kitchen, seated on the bottom of an overturned iron pot, inside the dingy niche in which the domestic fire was wont to burn when anything of a culinary nature was going on. At the time when her mistress entered, nothing of the kind was in progress, and the fire had subsided to extinction. The girl, who might have been any age between twelve and sixteen--nearer the latter, perhaps, than the former--was gazing with expressionless eyes straight before her, and thinking, evidently, of nothing. She was clothed in a white tunic, from which her black legs, arms, neck, and head protruded--forming a startling contrast therewith. "Oh! Poopy, what a bad girl you are!" cried Alice, laughing, as she observed where her maid was seated. Poopy's visage at once beamed with a look of good humour, a wide gash suddenly appeared somewhere near her chin, displaying a double row of brilliant teeth surrounded by red gums; at the same time the whites of her eyes disappeared, because, being very plump, it was a physical impossibility that she should laugh and keep them uncovered. "Hee! hee!" exclaimed Poopy. We are really sorry to give the reader a false impression, as we feel that we have done, of our friend Kekupoopi, but a regard for truth compels us to shew the worst of her character first. She was not demonstrative; and the few words and signs by which she endeavoured to communicate the state of her feelings to the outward world were not easily interpreted except by those who knew her well. There is no doubt whatever that Poopy was--we scarcely like to use the expression, but we know of no other more appropriate--a donkey! We hasten to guard ourselves from misconstruction here. That word, if used in an ill-natured and passionate manner, is a bad one, and by no means to be countenanced; but, as surgeons may cut off legs at times, without thereby sanctioning the indiscriminate practice of amputation in a miscellaneous sort of way as a pastime, to this otherwise objectionable word may, we think, be used to bring out a certain trait of character in full force. Holding this opinion, and begging the reader to observe that we make the statement gravely and in an entirely philosophical way, we repeat that Poopy was--figuratively speaking--a donkey! Yet she was an amiable, affectionate: good girl for all that, with an amount of love in her heart for her young mistress which words cannot convey, and which it is no wonder, therefore, that Poopy herself could not adequately express either by word or look. "It's all very well for you to sit there and say `Hee! hee!'" cried Alice, advancing to the fire-place; "but you must have made a dreadful mark on your clean white frock. Get up and turn round." "Hee! hee!" exclaimed the girl, as she obeyed the mandate. The "Oh! oh!! oh!!!" that burst from Alice, on observing the pattern of the pot neatly printed off on Poopy's garment, was so emphatic, that the girl became impressed with the fact that she had done something wrong, and twisted her head and neck in a most alarming manner in a series of vain attempts to behold the extent of the damage. "_What_ a figure!" exclaimed Alice, on recovering from the first shock. "It vill vash," said Poopy, in a deprecatory tone. "I hope it will," replied Alice, shaking her head doubtfully, for her experience in the laundry had not yet been so extensive as to enable her to pronounce at once on the eradicability of such a frightfully deep impression. While she was still shaking her head in dubiety on this point, and while Poopy was still making futile attempts to obtain a view of the spot, the door of the kitchen opened, and Master Corrie swaggered in with his hands thrust into the outer pockets of his jacket, his shirt collar thrown very much open, and his round straw hat placed very much on the back of his head; for, having seen some of the crew of the _Talisman_, he had been smitten with a strong desire to imitate a man-of-war's-man in aspect and gait. At his heels came that scampering mass of ragged door-mat Toozle, who, feeling that a sensation of some kind or other was being got up for his amusement, joined heartily in the shout of delight that burst from the youthful Corrie when he beheld the extraordinary figure in the fireplace. "Well, I say, Kickup," cried the youth, picking up his hat, which had fallen off in the convulsion, and drying his tears, "you're a sweet lookin' creetur, you are! Is this a new frock you've got to go to church with? Come, I rather like that pattern, but there's not quite enough of 'em. Suppose I lend a hand and print a few more all over you. There's plenty of pots and pans here to do it; and if Alice will bring down her white frock I'll give it a touch up too." "How can you talk such nonsense, Corrie!" said Alice, laughing. "Down, Toozle; silence, sir. Go, my dear Poopy, and put on another frock, and make haste, for I've something to say to you." Thus admonished, the girl ran to a small apartment that opened off the kitchen, and speedily reappeared in another tunic. Meanwhile, Corrie had seated himself on the floor, with Toozle between his knees and Alice on a stool at his side. Poopy, in a fit of absence of mind, was about to resume her seat on the iron pot, when a simultaneous shriek, bark, and roar, recalled her scattered faculties, produced a "hee! hee!" varied with a faint "ho!" and induced her to sit down on the floor beside her mistress. "Now, tell me, Poopy," said Alice, "did you ever hear of friends who were not really friends, but enemies?" The girl stared with a vacant countenance at the bright intelligent face of the child, and shook her head slowly. "Why don't you ask _me_?" inquired Corrie. "_You_ might as well ask Toozle as that potato Kickup. Eh? Puppy, don't you confess that you are no better than a vegetable? Come, now, be honest." "Hee! hee!" replied Poopy. "Humph! I thought so. But that's an odd question of yours, Alice. What do you mean by it?" "I mean that my papa thinks there are friends in the settlement who are enemies." "Does he, though? Now, that's mysterious," said the boy, becoming suddenly grave. "That requires to be looked to. Come, Alice, tell me all the particulars. Don't omit anything--our lives may depend on it." The deeply serious manner in which Corrie said this, so impressed and solemnised the child, that she related, word for word, the brief conversation she had had with her father, and all that she had heard of the previous converse between him and Henry. When she had concluded, Master Corrie threw a still more grave and profoundly philosophical expression into his chubby face, and asked, in a hollow tone of voice, "Your father didn't say anything against the Grampus, did he?" "The what?" inquired Alice. "The Grampus--the man, at least, whom _I_ call the Grampus, and who calls hisself Jo Bumpus." "I did not hear such names mentioned, but Henry spoke of a wounded nigger." "Ay, they're all a set of false rascals together," said Corrie. "Niggers ob dis here settlement is good mans, ebery von," said Poopy, promptly. "Hallo! Kickup, wot's wrong? I never heard ye say so much at one time since I came to this place." "Niggers is good peepils," reiterated the girl. "So they are, Puppy, and you're the best of 'em; but I was speakin' of the fellers on the other side of the island, d'ye see?" "Hee! hee!" ejaculated the girl. "Well, but what makes you so anxious?" said Alice, looking earnestly into the boy's face. Corrie laid his hand on her head and stroked her fair hair as he replied-- "This is a serious matter, Alice; I must go at once and see your father about it." He rose with an air of importance, as if about to leave the kitchen. "Oh! but please don't go till you have told me what it is; I'm so frightened," said Alice; "do stay and tell me about it before you go to papa." "Well, I don't mind if I do," said the boy, sitting down again. "You must know, then, that it's reported there are pirates on the island." "Oh!" exclaimed Alice. "D'ye know what pirates are, Puppy?" "Hee! hee!" answered the girl. "I do believe she don't know nothin'," said the boy, looking at her with an air of compassion "wot a sad thing it is to belong to a lower species of human natur! Well, I s'pose it can't be helped. A pirate, Kickup, is a sea-robber. D'ye understand?" "Ho! ho!" "Ay, I thought so. Well, Alice, I am told that there's been a lot o' them landed on the island and took to chasin' and killin' the niggers, and Henry was all but killed by one o' the niggers this very morning, an' was saved by a big feller that's a mystery to me, and by the Grampus, who is the best feller I ever met--a regular trump he is; and there's all sorts o' doubts, and fears, and rumours, and things of that sort, with a captain of the British navy, that you and I have read so much about, trying to find this pirate out, and suspectin' everybody he meets is him. I only hope he won't take it into his stupid head to mistake _me_ for him--not so unlikely a thing after all." And the youthful Corrie shook his head with much gravity, as he surveyed his rotund little legs complacently. "What are you laughing at?" he added, suddenly, on observing that a bright smile had overspread Alice's face. "At the idea of you being taken for a pirate," said the child. "Hee! hee! ho! ho!" remarked Poopy. "Silence, you lump of black putty!" thundered the aspiring youth. "Come, don't be cross to my maid," said Alice, quickly. Corrie laughed, and was about to continue his discourse on the events and rumours of the day, when Mr Mason's voice was heard the other end of the house. "Ho! Corrie." "That's me," cried the boy, promptly springing up and rushing out of the room. "Here, my boy, I thought I heard your voice. I want you to go a message for me. Run down, like a good lad, to Ole Thorwald and tell him to come up here as soon as he conveniently can. There are matters to consult about which will not brook delay." "Ay, ay, sir," answered Corrie, sailor fashion, as he touched his forelock and bounded from the room. "Off on pressing business," cried the sanguine youth, as he dashed through the kitchen, frightening Alice, and throwing Toozle into convulsions of delight--"horribly important business that `won't brook delay;' but what _brook_ means is more than I can guess." Before the sentence was finished, Corrie was far down the hill, leaping over every obstacle like a deer. On passing through a small field he observed a native bending down, as if picking weeds, with his back towards him. Going softly up behind, he hit the semi-naked savage a sounding slap, and exclaimed, as he passed on, "Hallo! Jackolu, important business, my boy--hurrah!" The native to whom this rough salutation was given, was a tall stalwart young fellow who had for some years been one of the best behaved and most active members of Frederick Mason's dark-skinned congregation. He stood erect for some time, with a broad grin on his swarthy face, and a twinkle in his eye, as he gazed after the young hopeful, muttering to himself, "Ho! yes--bery wicked boy dat, bery; but hims capital chap for all dat." A few minutes later, Master Corrie burst in upon the sturdy middle-aged merchant, named Ole Thorwald, a Norwegian who had resided much in England, and spoke the English language well, and who prided himself on being entitled to claim descent from the old Norwegian sea-kings. This man was uncle and protector to Corrie. "Ho! uncle Ole; here's a business. Sich a to do--wounds, blood, and murder! or at least an attempt at it;--the whole settlement in arms, and the parson sends for you to take command!" "What means the boy?" exclaimed Ole Thorwald, who, in virtue of his having once been a private in a regiment of militia, had been appointed to the chief command of the military department of the settlement. This consisted of about thirty white men, armed with fourteen fowling-pieces, twenty daggers, fifteen swords, and eight cavalry pistols; and about two hundred native Christians, who, when the assaults of their unconverted brethren were made, armed themselves--as they were wont to do in days gone by--with formidable clubs, stone hatchets, and spears. "What means the boy!" exclaimed Ole, laying down a book which he had been reading, and thrusting his spectacles up on his broad bald forehead. "Exactly what the boy says," replied Master Corrie. "Then add something more to it, pray." Thorwald said this in a mild tone, but he suddenly seized the handle of an old pewter mug which the lad knew, from experience, would certainly reach his head before he could gain the door if he did not behave; so he became polite, and condescended to explain his errand more fully. "So, so," observed the descendant of the sea-kings, as he rose and slowly buckled on a huge old cavalry sabre, "there is double mischief brewing this time. Well, we shall see--we shall see. Go, Corrie, my boy, and rouse up Terrence and Hugh and--" "The whole army, in short," cried the boy, hastily--"you're so awfully slow, uncle, you should have been born in the last century, I think." Farther remark was cut short by the sudden discharge of the pewter mug, which, however, fell harmlessly on the panel of the closing door as the impertinent Corrie sped forth to call the settlement to arms. CHAPTER SIX. SUSPICIONS ALLAYED AND RE-AWAKENED. Gascoyne, followed by his man Jo Bumpus, sped over the rugged mountains and descended the slopes on the opposite side of the island soon after nightfall, and long before Captain Montague, in his large and well-manned boat, could pull half way round in the direction of the sequestered bay where the _Foam_ lay quietly at anchor. There was not a breath of wind to ruffle the surface of the glassy sea, as the captain of the sandal-wood trader reached the shore and uttered a low cry like the hoot of an owl. The cry was instantly replied to, and in a few minutes a boat crept noiselessly towards the shore, seeming, in the uncertain light, more like a shadow than a reality. It was rowed by a single man. When within a few yards of the shore, the oars ceased to move, and the deep stillness of the night was scarcely broken by the low voice of surly Dick demanding--"Who goes there?" "All right, pull in," replied Gascoyne, whose deep bass voice sounded sepulchral in the almost unearthly stillness. It was one of those dark oppressively quiet nights which make one feel a powerful sensation of loneliness, and a peculiar disinclination, by word or act, to disturb the prevailing quiescence of nature--such a night as suggests the idea of a coming storm to those who are at sea, or of impending evil to those on land. "Is the mate aboard?" inquired Gascoyne. "He is, sir." "Are any of the hands on shore?" "More than half of 'em, sir." Nothing more was said; and in a few minutes Gascoyne was slowly pacing the quarter-deck of his little vessel in earnest consultation with his first mate. There seemed to be some difference of opinion between the captain and his officer, for their words, which at first were low, at length became audible. "I tell you, Manton, it won't do," said Gascoyne, sternly. "I can only suggest what I believe to be for the good of the ship," replied the other, coldly. "Even if you succeed in your attempt, you will be certain to lose some of our hands; for although the best of them are on shore, the commander of the _Talisman_ will think those that remain too numerous for a sandal-wood trader, and you are aware that we are sufficiently short-handed in such dangerous seas." The latter part of this speech was uttered in a slightly sarcastic tone. "What would you have me do, then?" demanded Gascoyne, whose usual decision of character seemed to have deserted him under the influence of conflicting feelings, which, the first mate could plainly perceive, agitated the breast of his commander, but which he could by no means account for. Certainly he had no sympathy with them, for Manton's was a hard, stern nature--not given to the melting mood. "Do?" exclaimed the mate vehemently, "I would mount the red, and get out the sweeps. An hour's pull will place the schooner on the other side of the reef. A shot from Long Tom will sink the best boat in the service of his Britannic Majesty, and we could be off and away with the land breeze before morning." "What! sink a man-of-war's boat!" exclaimed Gascoyne; "why, that would make them set us down as pirates at once, and we should have to run the gauntlet of half the British navy before this time next year." Manton received this remark with a loud laugh, which harshly disturbed the silence of the night. "That is true," said he, "yet I scarcely expected to see Captain Gascoyne shew the white feather." "Possibly not," retorted the other, grimly; "yet methinks that he who counsels flight shews more of the white feather than he who would shove his head into the very jaws of the lion. It won't do, Manton; I have my own reasons for remaining here. The white lady must in the meantime smile on the British commander. Besides, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to do all this and get our fellows on board again before morning. The land-breeze will serve to fill the sails of the _Talisman_ just as well as those of the _Foam_; and they're sure to trip their anchor to-night, for, you'll scarcely believe it, this mad little fellow Montague actually suspects me to be the pirate Durward!" Again the harsh laugh of Manton disturbed the peaceful calm, and this time he was joined by Gascoyne, who seemed at length to have overcome the objections of his mate, for their tones again sank into inaudible whispers. Shortly after this conversation the moon broke out from behind a bank of clouds, and shone brightly down on land and sea, throwing into bold relief the precipices, pinnacles, and gorges of the one, and covering the other with rippling streaks of silver. About the same time the oars of the man-of-war's boat were heard, and in less than half an hour Captain Montague ascended the side of the _Foam_, where, to his great surprise, he was politely received by Gascoyne. "Captain Gascoyne has reason to be proud of his pedestrian powers," said the young commander; "he must have had urgent reason for making such good use of his legs since we last met." "To do the honours of his own ship, when he expects a visit from a British officer, is surely sufficient reason to induce a poor skipper to take an extra walk of a fine evening," replied Gascoyne, blandly. "Besides, I know that men-of-war are apt to take a fancy to the crews of merchantmen sometimes, and I thought my presence might be necessary here to-night." "How?" exclaimed Montague, quickly. "Do you fancy that your single arm, stout though it be, could avail to prevent this evil that you dread if I think proper to act according to established usage in time of war." "Nay, that were extreme vanity indeed," returned the other, "but I would fain hope that the explanations which I can give of the danger of our peculiar trade, and the necessity we have for a strong crew, will induce Captain Montague to forego his undoubted privilege and right on this occasion." "I'm not sure of that," replied Montague, "it will depend much on your explanations being satisfactory. How many men have you?" "Twenty-two." "So many! that is much more than enough to work so small a vessel." "But not more than enough to defend my vessel from a swarm of bloody savages." "Perhaps not," returned Montague, on whom the urbanity and candour of the captain of the _Foam_ were beginning to have a softening influence. "You have no objection to let me see your papers, and examine your ship, I suppose." "None in the world," replied Gascoyne, smiling, "and if I had, it would make little difference, I should imagine, to one who is so well able to insist on having his will obeyed."--(He glanced at the boat full of armed men as he spoke.)--"Pray, come below with me." In the examination that ensued Captain Montague was exceedingly strict, although the strength of his first suspicions had been somewhat abated by the truthful tone and aspect of Gascoyne, and the apparent reasonableness of all he said; but he failed to detect anything in the papers, or in the general arrangements of the _Foam_, that could warrant his treating her otherwise than as an honest trader. "So," said he, on returning to the deck; "this is the counterpart of the noted pirate, is it? You must pardon my having suspected you, sir, of being this same Durward, sailing under false colours. Come, let me see the points of difference between you, else if we happen to meet on the high seas I may chance to make an unfortunate hole in your timbers." "The sides of my schooner are altogether black, as you see," returned Gascoyne. "I have already explained that a narrow streak of red distinguishes the pirate, and this fair lady" (leading Montague to the bow) "guides the _Foam_ over the waves with smiling countenance, while a scarlet griffin is the more appropriate figurehead of Durward's vessel." As he spoke, the low boom of a far distant gun was heard. Montague started, and glanced inquiringly in the face of his companion, whose looks expressed a slight degree of surprise. "What was that, think you?" said Montague, after a momentary pause. "The commander of the _Talisman_ ought, I think, to be the best judge of the sound of his own guns." "True," returned the young officer, somewhat disconcerted; "but you forget that I am not familiar with the eruptions of those volcanic mountains of yours; and, at so great a distance from my ship, with such hills of rock and lava between us, I may well be excused feeling a little doubt as to the bark of my own bull-dogs. But that signal betokens something unusual. I must shorten my visit to you, I fear." "Pray do not mention it," said Gascoyne, with a peculiar smile; "under the circumstances I am bound to excuse you." "But," continued Montague, with emphasis, "I should be sorry indeed to part without some little memorial of my visit. Be so good as to order your men to come aft." "By all means," said Gascoyne, giving the requisite order promptly, for, having sent all his best men on shore, he did not much mind the loss one or two of those that remained. When they were mustered, the British commander inspected them carefully, and then he singled out surly Dick, and ordered him into the boat. A slight frown rested for a moment on Gascoyne's countenance, as he observed the look of ill-concealed triumph with which the man obeyed the order. The expression of surly Dick, however, was instantly exchanged for one of dismay as his captain strode up to him, and looked in his face for one moment with a piercing glance, at the same time thrusting his left hand into the breast of his red shirt. "Goodbye," he said, suddenly, in a cheerful tone, extending his right hand and grasping that of the sailor. "Goodbye, lad; if you serve the king as well as you have served me, he'll have reason to be proud of you." Gascoyne turned on his heel, and the man slunk into the boat with an aspect very unlike that of a bold British seaman. "Here is another man I want," said Montague, laying his hand on the shoulder of John Bumpus. "I trust, sir, that you will not take that man," said Gascoyne earnestly. "I cannot afford to lose him; I would rather you should take any three of the others." "Your liberality leads me to think that you could without much difficulty supply the place of the men I take--but three are too many. I shall be satisfied with this one. Go into the boat, my lad." Poor John Bumpus, whose heart had been captivated by the beauties of the island, obeyed the order with a rueful countenance; and Gascoyne bit his lip and turned aside to conceal his anger. In two minutes more the boat rowed away from the schooner's side. Not a word was spoken by any one in the boat until a mile had separated it from the schooner. They had just turned a point which shut the vessel out of view, when surly Dick suddenly recovered his self-possession and his tongue, and, starting up in an excited manner, exclaimed to Montague-- "The schooner you have just left, sir, is a pirate. I tell the truth, though I should swing for it." The crew of the boat ceased rowing, and glanced at each other in surprise on hearing this. "Ha! say you so," exclaimed Montague, quickly. "It's a fact, sir; ask my comrade there, and he'll tell you the same thing." "He'll do nothin' o' the sort," sharply returned honest Bumpus, who, having been only a short time previously engaged by Gascoyne, could perceive neither pleasure nor justice in the idea of being hanged for a pirate, and who attributed Dick's speech to an ill-natured desire to get his late commander into trouble. "Which of you am I to believe?" said Montague, hastily. "W'ich ever you please," observed Bumpus, with an air of indifference. "It's no business o' mine," said Dick, sulkily; "if you choose to let the blackguard escape, that's your own look out." "Silence, you scoundrel," cried Montague, who was as much nettled by a feeling of uncertainty how to act as by the impertinence of the man. Before he could decide as to the course he ought to pursue, the report of one of the guns of his own vessel boomed loud and distinct in the distance. It was almost immediately followed by another. "Ha! that settles the question; give way, my lads, give way." In another moment the boat was cleaving her way swiftly through the dark water in the direction of the _Talisman_. CHAPTER SEVEN. MASTER CORRIE CAUGHT NAPPING--SNAKES IN THE GRASS. The Sabbath morning which succeeded the events we have just narrated dawned on the settlement of Sandy Cove in unclouded splendour, and the deep repose of nature was still unbroken by the angry passions and the violent strife of man, although from the active preparations of the previous night it might have been expected that those who dwelt on the island would not have an opportunity of enjoying the rest of that day. Everything in and about the settlement was eminently suggestive of peace. The cattle lay sleepily in the shade of the trees; the sea was still calm like glass. Men had ceased from their daily toil; and the only sounds that broke the quiet of the morning were the chattering of the parrots and other birds in the cocoanut groves; and the cries of seafowl, as they circled in the air, or dropt on the surface of the sea in quest of fish. The British frigate lay at anchor in the same place which she had hitherto occupied, and the _Foam_ still floated in the sequestered bay on the other side of the island. In neither vessel was there the slightest symptom of preparation; and to one who knew not the true state of matters, the idea of war being about to break forth was the last that would have occurred. But this deceitful quiet was only the calm that precedes the storm. On every hand men were busily engaged in making preparation to break that Sabbath day in the most frightful manner, or were calmly, but resolutely, awaiting attack. On board the ship-of-war, indeed, there was little doing, for, her business being to fight, she was always in a state of readiness for action. Her signal guns, fired the previous night, had recalled Montague to tell him of the threatened attack by the savages. A few brief orders were given, and they were prepared for whatever might occur. In the village, too, the arrangements to repel attack having been made, white men and native converts alike rested with their arms placed in convenient proximity to their hands. In a wild and densely-wooded part of the island, far removed from those portions which we have yet had occasion to describe, a band of fiendish-looking men were making arrangements for one of those unprovoked assaults which savages are so prone to make on those who settle near them. They were all of them in a state of almost complete nudity, but the complicated tattooing on their dark skins gave them the appearance of being more clothed than they really were. Their arms consisted chiefly of enormous clubs of hardwood, spears, and bows; and, in order to facilitate their escape should they chance to be grasped in a hand-to-hand conflict, they had covered their bodies with oil, which glistened in the sunshine as they moved about their village. Conspicuous among these truly savage warriors was the form of Keona, with his right arm bound up in a sort of sling. Pain and disappointed revenge had rendered this man's face more than usually diabolical as he went about among his fellows, inciting them to revenge the insult and injury done to them through his person by the whites. There was some reluctance, however, on the part of a few of the chiefs to renew a war that had been terminated, or rather, been slumbering, only for a few months. Keona's influence, too, was not great among his kindred, and had it not been that one or two influential chiefs sided with him, his own efforts to relight the still smoking torch of war would have been unavailing. As it was, the natives soon worked themselves up into a sufficiently excited state to engage in any desperate expedition. It was while all this was doing in the native camp, that Keona, having gone to the nearest mountain top to observe what was going on in the settlement, had fallen in with and been chased by some of those men belonging to the _Foam_, who had been sent on shore to escape being pressed into the service of the king of England. The solitary exception to this general state of preparation for war was the household of Frederick Mason. Having taken such precautionary steps the night before as he deemed expedient, and having consulted with Ole Thorwald, the general commanding, who had posted scouts in all the mountain passes, and had seen the war-canoes drawn up in a row on the strand, the pastor retired to his study and spent the greater part of the night in preparing to preach the gospel of peace on the morrow, and in committing the care of his flock and his household to Him who is the "God of battles" as well as the "Prince of peace." It is not to be supposed that Mr Mason contemplated the probable renewal of hostilities without great anxiety. For himself, we need scarcely say, he had no fears, but his heart sank when he thought of his gentle Alice falling into the hands of savages. As the night passed away without any alarms, his anxiety began to subside, and when Sunday morning dawned, he lay down on a couch to snatch a few hours' repose before the labours of the day began. The first object that greeted the pastor's eyes on awaking in the morning was a black visage, and a pair of glittering eyes gazing at him through the half open door with an expression of the utmost astonishment. He leaped up with lightning, speed and darted towards the intruder, but checked himself suddenly and smiled, as poor Poopy uttered a scream, and, falling on her knees, implored for mercy. "My poor girl, I fear I have frightened you by my violence," said he, sitting down on his couch and yawning sleepily; "but I was dreaming, Poopy; and when I saw your black face peeping at me, I took you at first for one of the wild fellows on the other side of the mountains. You have come to sweep and arrange my study, I suppose." "Why, mass'r, you no hab go to bed yet," said Poopy, still feeling and expressing surprise at her master's unwonted irregularity. "Is you ill?" "Not at all, my good girl, only a little tired. It is not a time for me to take much rest when the savages are said to be about to attack us." "When is they coming?" inquired the girl, meekly. The pastor smiled as he replied,--"That is best known to themselves, Poopy. Do you think it likely that murderers or thieves would send to let us know when they were coming?" "Hee! hee!" laughed Poopy, with an immense display of teeth and gums. "Is Alice awake?" inquired Mr Mason. "No, her be sound 'sleep wid her two eye shut tight up, dis fashion, and her mout' wide open--so." The representations of Alice's condition, as given by her maid, although hideously unlike the beautiful object they were meant to call up to the father's mind, were sufficiently expressive and comprehensible. "Go wake her, my girl, and let us have breakfast as soon as you can. Has Will Corrie been here this morning?" "Hims bin here all night," replied the girl, with a broad grin--(and the breadth of Poopy's _broad_ grin was almost appalling!) "What mean you? has he slept in this house all night?" "Yes--eh! no," said Poopy. "Yes, no," exclaimed Mr Mason. "Come, Poopy, don't be stupid, explain yourself." "Hee! hee! hee! yes, ho! ho!" laughed Poopy, as if the idea of explaining herself was about the richest joke she had listened to since she was born. "Hee! hee! me no can 'splain, but you com here and see." So saying, she conducted her wondering master to the front door of the cottage, where, across the threshold, directly under the porch, lay the form of the redoubted Corrie, fast asleep, and armed to the teeth! In order to explain the cause of this remarkable apparition, we think it justifiable to state to the reader, in confidence, that young Master Corrie was deeply in love with the fair Alice. With all his reckless drollery of disposition, the boy was intensely romantic and enthusiastic; and, feeling that the unsettled condition of the times endangered the welfare of his lady-love, he resolved, like a true knight, to arm himself and guard the threshold of her door with his own body. In the deep silence of the night he buckled on a sabre, the blade of which, by reason of its having been broken, was barely eight inches long, and the hilt whereof was battered and rusty. He also stuck a huge brass-mounted cavalry pistol in his belt, in the virtue of which he had great faith, having only two days before shot with it a green-headed parrot at a distance of two yards. The distance was not great, to be sure, but it was enough for his purpose--intending, as he did, to meet his foe, when the moment of action should come, in close conflict, and thrust the muzzle of his weapon down the said foe's throat before condescending to draw the trigger. Thus prepared for the worst, he sallied out on tiptoe, intending to mount guard at the missionary's door, and return to his own proper couch before the break of day. But alas for poor Corrie's powers of endurance! no sooner had he extended his chubby form on the door-mat, earnestly wishing, but not expecting, that Alice would come out and find him there, than he fell fast asleep, while engaged in the hopeless task of counting the starry host--a duty which he had imposed on himself in the hope that he might thereby be kept awake. Once asleep he slept on, as a matter of course, with his broad little chest heaving gently; his round little visage beaming upwards like a terrestrial moon; his left arm under his head in lieu of a pillow, (by consequence of which _it_ was fast asleep also,) and his right hand grasping the hilt of the broken sabre. As for Corrie's prostrate body affording protection to Alice--the entire savage population might have stepped across it, one by one, and might have stepped back again, bearing away into slavery the fair maiden, with her father and all the household furniture to boot, without in the least disturbing the deep slumbers of the youthful knight. At least we may safely come to this conclusion from the fact that Mr Mason shook him, first gently and then violently, for full five minutes before he could get him to speak; and even then he only gave utterance, in very sleepy tones, and half-formed words, to the remark-- "Oh! don' borer me. It aint b'kfust-t'm' yet?" "Ho! Corrie, Corrie," shouted Mr Mason, giving the victim a shake that threatened to dislocate his neck, "get up, my boy--rouse up!" "Hallo! hy! murder! Come on you vill--eh! Mr Mason--I beg pardon, sir," stammered Corrie, as he at length became aware of his condition, and blushed deeply; "I--I really, Mr Mason, I merely came to watch while you were all asleep, as there are savages about, you know--and ha! ha! ha!--oh! dear me!" (Corrie exploded at this point, unable to contain himself at the sight of the missionary's gaze of astonishment,) "Wot a sight for a Sunday mornin' too!" The hilarity of the boy was catching, for at this point a vociferous "hee! hee!" burst from the sable Poopy; the clear laugh of Alice, too, came ringing through the passage, and Mr Mason himself finally joined in the chorus. "Come, sir knight," exclaimed the latter, on recovering his gravity, "this is no guise for a respectable man to be seen in on Sunday morning; come in and lay down your arms. You have done very well as a soldier for this occasion; let us see if you can do your duty equally well as a church-officer. Have you the keys." "No, they are at home." "Then run and get them, my boy, and leave your pistol behind you. I dare say the savages won't attack during the daytime." Corrie did as he was desired, and the pastor went, after breakfast, to spend a short time with Alice on a neighbouring eminence, from which could be obtained a fine view of the settlement, with its little church and the calm bay on which floated the frigate, sheltered by the encircling coral reef from the swell of the ocean. Here it was Mr Mason's wont to saunter with Alice every Sunday morning, to read a chapter of the Bible together, and converse about that happy land where one so dear to both of them now dwelt with their Saviour. Here, also, the child's maid was sometimes privileged to join them. On this particular morning, however, they were not the only spectators of the beautiful view from that hill, for, closely hidden in the bushes-- not fifty yards from the spot where they sat--lay a band of armed savages who had escaped the vigilance of the scouts, and had come by an unguarded pass to the settlement. They might easily have slain or secured the missionary and his household without alarming the people in the village, but their plan of attack forbade such a premature proceeding. The trio therefore finished their chapter and their morning prayer undisturbed, little dreaming of the number of glittering eyes that watched their proceedings. CHAPTER EIGHT. A SURPRISE--A BATTLE AND A FIRE. The sound of the Sabbath bell fell sweetly on the pastor's ear as he descended to his dwelling to make a few final preparations for the duties of the day, and from every hut in Sandy Cove trooped forth the native Christians--young and old--to assemble in the house of God. With great labour and much pains had this church been built, and pastor and people alike were not a little proud of their handiwork. The former had drawn the plans and given the measurements, leaving it to Henry Stuart to see them properly carried out in detail, while the latter did the work. They cut and squared the timbers, gathered the coral, burnt it for lime and plastered the building. The women and children carried the lime from the beach in baskets, and the men dragged the heavy logs from the mountains--in some cases for several miles--the timber in the immediate neighbourhood not being sufficiently large for their purpose. The poor natives worked with heart and soul--for love, and the desire to please and to be pleased, had been awakened within them. Besides this, the work had for them all the zest of novelty. They wrought at it with somewhat of the feelings of children at play,--pausing frequently in the midst of their toil to gaze in wonder and admiration at the growing edifice, which would have done no little credit to a professional architect and to more skilled workmen. The white men of the place also lent a willing hand; for although some of them were bad men, yet they were constrained to respect the consistent character and blameless life of the missionary, who not unfrequently experienced the fulfilment of that word: "When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him." Besides this, all of them, however unwilling they might be to accept Christianity for themselves, were fully alive to the advantages they derived from its introduction among the natives. With so many willing hands at work, the little church was soon finished; and, at the time when the events we are describing occurred, there was nothing to be done to it except some trifling arrangements connected with the steeple, and the glazing of the windows. This latter piece of work was, in such a climate, of little importance. Long before the bell had ceased to toll, the church was full of natives, whose dark, eager faces were turned towards the door, in expectation of the appearance of their pastor. The building was so full, that many of the people were content to cluster round the door, or the outside of the unglazed windows. On this particular Sunday, there were strangers there, who roused the curiosity and attracted the attention of the congregation. Before Mr Mason arrived, there was a slight bustle at the door as Captain Montague, with several of his officers and men, entered, and were shewn to the missionary's seat by Master Corrie, who, with his round visage elongated as much as possible, and his round eyes expressing a look of inhuman solemnity, in consequence of his attempt to affect a virtue which he did not possess, performed the duties of door-keeper. Montague had come on shore to ascertain from Mr Mason what likelihood there was of an early attack by the natives. "Where's Alice," whispered the boy to Poopy, as the girl entered the church, and seated herself beside a little midshipman, who looked at her with a mingled expression of disgust and contempt, and edged away. "Got a little headache, hee! hee!" "Don't laugh in church, you monster," said Corrie, with a frown. "I'se not larfin," retorted Poopy, with an injured look. Just then the boy caught sight of a gigantic figure entering the church, and darted away to usher the stranger into the pastor's seat; but Gascoyne (for it was he) took no notice of him. He passed steadily up the centre of the church, and sat down beside the Widow Stuart, whose face expressed anxiety and surprise the moment she observed who was seated there. The countenance of Henry, who sat on the other side of his mother, flushed, and he turned with an angry glance towards the captain of the _Foam_; but the look was thrown away, for Gascoyne had placed his arms on the back of the seat in front of him, and rested his head on them; in which position he continued to remain without motion while the service was going on. Mr Mason began with a short earnest prayer in English; then he read out a hymn in the native tongue, which was sung in good tune, and with great energy, by the whole congregation. This was followed by a chapter in the New Testament, and another prayer; but all the service, with the exception of the first prayer, was conducted in the native language. The text was then read out:--"Though thy sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Frederick Mason possessed the power of chaining the attention of an audience, and a deep breathless silence prevailed, as he laboured, with intense fervour, to convince his hearers of the love of God, and the willingness and ability of Jesus Christ to save even the chief of sinners. During one part of the service, a deep low groan startled the congregation; but no one could tell who had uttered it. As it was not repeated, it was soon forgotten by most of the people. While the pastor was thus engaged, a pistol-shot was heard, and immediately after, a loud fierce yell burst from the forest, causing the ears of those who heard it to tingle, and their hearts for a moment to quail. In less than ten minutes, the church was empty, and the males of the congregation were engaged in a desperate hand-to-hand conflict with the savages; who, having availed themselves of the one unguarded pass, had quietly eluded the vigilance of the scouts, and assembled in force on the outskirts of the settlement. Fortunately for the worshippers that morning, the anxiety of Master Corrie for the welfare of his fair Alice induced him to slip out of the church just after the sermon began. Hastening to the pastor's house, he found the child sound asleep on a sofa, and a savage standing over her with a spear in his hand. The boy had approached so stealthily, that the savage did not hear him. Remembering that he had left his pistol on the kitchen table, he darted round to the back door of the house, and secured it just as Alice awoke with a scream of surprise and terror, on beholding who was near her. Next moment Corrie was at her side, and before the savage could seize the child, he levelled the pistol at his head and fired. The aim was sufficiently true to cause the ball to graze the man's forehead, while the smoke and fire partially blinded him. It was this shot that first alarmed the natives in church, and it was the yell uttered by the wounded man, as he fell stunned on the floor, that called forth the answering yell from the savage host, and precipitated the attack. It was sufficiently premature to give the people of the settlement time to seize their arms; which, as has been said, they had placed so as to be available at a moment's notice. The fight that ensued was a desperate, and almost indiscriminate melee. The attacking party had been so sure of taking the people by surprise, that they formed no plan of attack; but simply arranged that, at a given signal from their chief, a united rush should be made upon the church, and a general massacre ensue. As we have seen, Corrie's pistol drew forth the signal sooner than had been intended. In the rush that immediately ensued, a party dashed through the house, the boy was overturned, and a savage gave him a passing blow with a club that would have scattered his brains on the floor had it taken full effect; but it was hastily delivered; it glanced off his head, and spent its force on the shoulder of the chief, who was thus unfortunate enough to be wounded by friends as well as foes. On the first alarm, Gascoyne sprang up, and darted through the door. He was closely followed by Henry. Stuart, and the captain of the _Talisman_, with his handful of officers and men, who were all armed, as a matter of course. "Sit where you are," cried Henry to his trembling mother, as he sprang after Gascoyne; "the church is the safest place you'll find." The widow fell on her knees and prayed to God, while the fight raged without. Among the first to leave the church was the pastor. The thought of his child having been left in the house unprotected, filled him with an agony of fear. He sought no weapon of war, but darted unarmed straight into the midst of the savage host that stood between him and the object of his affection. His rush was so impetuous, that he fairly overturned several of his opponents by dashing against them. The numbers that surrounded him, however, soon arrested his progress; but he had pressed so close in amongst them, that they were actually too closely packed, for a few seconds, to be able to use their heavy clubs and long spears with effect. It was well for the poor missionary, at that moment, that he had learned the art of boxing when a boy! The knowledge so acquired had never induced him to engage in dishonourable and vulgar strife; but it had taught him how and where to deliver a straightforward blow with effect; and he now struck out with tremendous energy, knocking down an adversary at every blow,--for the thought of Alice lent additional strength to his powerful arm. Success in such warfare, however, was not to be expected. Still, Mr Mason's activity and vigour averted his own destruction for a few minutes; and these minutes were precious, for they afforded time for Captain Montague and his officers to cut their way to the spot where he fought, just as a murderous club was about to descend on his head from behind. Montague's sword unstrung the arm that upheld it, and the next instant the pastor was surrounded by friends. Among their number was John Bumpus, who was one of the crew of Montague's boat, and who now rushed upon the savages with a howl peculiarly his own, felling one with a blow of his fist, and another with a slash of his cutlass. "You must retire," said Montague, hastily, to Frederick Mason, who stood panting and inactive for a few moments in order to recover breath. "You are unarmed, sir; besides, your profession forbids you taking part in such work as this. There are men of war enough here to keep these fellows in play." Montague spoke somewhat sharply, for he erroneously fancied that the missionary's love of fighting had led him into the fray. "My profession does not forbid me to save my child," exclaimed the pastor, wildly. He turned in the direction of his cottage, which was full in view; and, at that moment, smoke burst from the roof and windows. With a cry of despair, Mr Mason once more launched himself on the host of savages; but these were now so numerous that, instead of making head against them, the little knot of sailors who opposed them at that particular place found it was as much as they could do to keep them at bay. The issue of the conflict was still doubtful, when a large accession to their numbers gave the savages additional power and courage. They made a sudden onset, and bore back the small band of white men. In the rush the pastor was overthrown and rendered for a time insensible. While this was going on in one part of the field, in another, stout Ole Thorwald, with several of the white settlers and the greater part of the native force, was guarding the principal approach to the church against immensely superior numbers. And nobly did the descendant of the Norse sea-kings maintain the credit of his warlike ancestors that day. With a sword that might have matched that of Goliath of Gath, he swept the way before him wherever he went, and more than once by a furious onset turned the tide of war in favour of his party when it seemed about to overwhelm them. In a more distant part of the field, on the banks of a small stream, which was spanned by a bridge about fifty paces farther down, Gascoyne and Henry Stuart contended, almost alone; with about thirty savages. These two had rushed so impetuously forward at the first onset as to have been separated from their friends, and, with four Christian natives, had been surrounded. Henry was armed with a heavy claymore, the edge of which betokened that it had once seen much service in the wars of the youth's Scottish ancestors. Gascoyne, not anticipating this attack, had returned to the settlement armed only with his knife. He had seized the first weapon that came to hand, which chanced to be an enormous iron shovel, and with this terrific implement the giant carried all before him. It was quite unintentionally that he and Henry had come together. But the nature and power of the two men being somewhat similar, they had singled out the same point of danger, and had made their attack with the same overwhelming vehemence. The muscles of both seemed to be made of iron, for, as increasing numbers pressed upon them, they appeared to deliver their terrible blows with increasing rapidity and vigour, and the savages, despite their numbers, began to quail before them. Just then Keona--who, although wounded, hovered about doing as much mischief as he could with his left hand, (which, by the way, seemed to be almost as efficient as his right,)--caught sight of this group of combatants on the banks of the stream. He, with a party, had succeeded in forcing the bridge, and now, uttering a shout of wild delight at the sight of his two greatest enemies within his power--as he thought--he rushed towards them and darted his spear with unerring aim and terrible violence. The man's anger defeated his purpose, for the shout attracted the attention of Gascoyne, who saw the spear coming straight towards Henry's breast. He interposed the shovel instantly, and the spear fell harmless to the ground. At the same time, with a back-handed sweep he brained a gigantic savage who at the moment was engaging Henry's undivided attention. Bounding forward with a burst of anger, Gascoyne sought to close with Keona. He succeeded but too well, however, for he could not check himself sufficiently to deliver an effective blow, but went crashing against his enemy, and the two fell to the ground together. In an instant a rush was made on the fallen man; but Henry leaped forward, and sweeping down two opponents with one cut of his claymore, afforded his companion time to leap up. "Come, we are quits," said Henry, with a grim smile, as the two darted again on the foe. At that moment Ole Thorwald, having scattered the party he first engaged, came tearing down towards the bridge, whirling the great sword round his head, and shouting "victory" in the voice of a Stentor. "Hah! here is more work," he cried, as his eye fell on Gascoyne's figure. "Thorwald to the rescue! hurrah!" In another moment the savages were flying pellmell across the bridge with Gascoyne and Henry close on their heels, and the stout merchant panting after them, with his victorious band, as fast as his less agile limbs could carry him. It was at this moment that Gascoyne and Henry noticed the attack made on the small party of sailors, and observed the fall of Mr Mason. "Thorwald to the rescue!" shouted Gascoyne, in a voice that rolled deep and loud over the whole field like the roar of a lion. "Ay, ay, my noisy stranger; it's easy for your tough limbs to carry you up the hill," gasped Ole, "but the weight of ten or fifteen years will change your step. Hurrah!" The cry of the bold Norseman, coupled with that of Gascoyne, had the double effect of checking the onset of the enemy, and of collecting their own scattered forces around them. The battle was now drawing to a point. Men who were skirmishing in various places left off and hastened to the spot on which the closing scene was now evidently to be enacted; and for a few minutes the contending parties paused, as if by mutual consent, to breathe and scan each other before making the final attack. It must not be supposed that, during the light which we have described, the crew of the _Talisman_ were idle. At the first sign of disturbance on shore, the boats were lowered, and a well-armed force rowed for the landing-place as swiftly as the strong and willing arms of the men could pull. But the distance between the vessel and the shore was considerable, and the events we have recounted were quickly enacted, so that before the boats had proceeded half the distance the fight was nearly over, and the settlement seemed about to be overwhelmed. These facts were not lost upon the first lieutenant of the _Talisman_, Mr Mulroy, who, with telescope in hand, watched the progress of the fight with great anxiety. He saw that it was impossible for the boats to reach the shore in time to render efficient aid. He also observed that a fresh band of savages were hastening to reinforce their comrades, and that the united band would be so overpoweringly strong as to render the chances of a successful resistance on the part of the settlers very doubtful indeed almost hopeless. In these circumstances he adopted a course which was as bold as it was dangerous. Observing that the savages mustered for the final onset in a dense mass on an eminence which just raised their heads a little above those of the party they were about to attack, he at once loaded three of the largest guns with round shot and pointed them at the mass of human beings with the utmost possible care. There was the greatest danger of hitting friends instead of foes, but Mr Mulroy thought it his duty to incur the responsibility of running the risk. Montague, to whom the command of the united band of settlers had been given by general consent, had thrown them rapidly into some sort of order, and was about to give the word to charge, when the savage host suddenly began to pour down the hill with frantic yells. Mulroy did not hear the shouts, but he perceived the movement. Suddenly, as if a thunderstorm had burst over the island, the echoes of the hills were startled by the roar of heavy artillery, and, one after another, the three guns hurled their deadly contents into the centre of the rushing mass, through which three broad lanes were cut in quick succession. The horrible noise and the dreadful slaughter in their ranks, seemed to render the affrighted creatures incapable of action, for they came to a dead halt. "_Well_ done, Mulroy," shouted Montague, "forward, boys--charge!" A true British cheer burst from the tars and white settlers, which served farther to strike terror into the hearts of the enemy. In another moment they rushed up the hill, led on by Montague, Gascoyne, Henry, and Thorwald. But the savages did not await the shock. Seized with a complete panic, they turned and fled in utter confusion. Just as this occurred, Mr Mason began to recover consciousness. Recollecting suddenly what had occurred, he started up and followed his friends, who were now in hot pursuit of the foe in the direction of his own cottage. Quickly though they ran, the anxious father overtook and passed them, but he soon perceived that his dwelling was wrapt in flames, from end to end. Darting through the smoke and fire to his daughter's room he shouted her name, but no voice replied. He sprang to the bed--it was empty. With a cry of despair, and blinded by smoke, he dashed about the room, grasping wildly at objects in the hope that he might find his child. As he did so he stumbled over a prostrate form, which he instantly seized, raised in his arms, and bore out of the blazing house, round which a number of the people were now assembled. The form he had thus plucked from destruction was that of the poor boy, who would willingly have given his life to rescue Alice, and who still lay in the state of insensibility into which he had been thrown by the blow from the savage's heavy club. The missionary dropped his burden, turned wildly round, and was about to plunge once again into the heart of the blazing ruin, when he was seized in the strong arms of Henry Stuart, who, with the assistance of Ole Thorwald, forcibly prevented him from doing that which would have resulted in almost certain death. The pastor's head sunk on his breast; the excitement of action and hope no longer sustained him; with a deep groan he fell to the earth insensible. CHAPTER NINE. BAFFLED AND PERPLEXED--PLANS FOR A RESCUE. While the men assembled round the prostrate form of Mr Mason were attempting to rescue him from his state of stupor, poor Corrie began to shew symptoms of returning vitality. A can of water, poured over him by Henry, did much to restore him. But no sooner was he enabled to understand what was going on, and to recall what had happened, than he sprang up with a wild cry of despair, and rushed towards the blazing house. Again Henry's quick arm arrested a friend in his mad career. "Oh! she's there! Alice is _there_!" shrieked the boy, as he struggled passionately to free himself. "You can do nothing, Corrie," said Henry, trying to soothe him. "Coward!" gasped the boy in a paroxysm of rage, as he clenched his fist and struck his captor on the chest with all his force. "Hold him," said Henry, turning to John Bumpus, who at that moment came up. Bumpus nodded intelligently, and seized the boy, who uttered a groan of anguish as he ceased a struggle which he felt was hopeless in such an iron gripe. "Now, friends--all of you," shouted Henry, the moment he was relieved of his charge, "little Alice is in that house--we must pull it down! who will lend a hand?" He did not pause for an answer, but seizing an axe, rushed through the smoke and began to cut down the door-posts. The whole party there assembled, numbering about fifty, rushed forward, as one man, to aid in the effort. The attempt was a wild one. Had Henry considered for a moment, he would have seen that, in the event of their succeeding in pulling down the blazing pile, they should in all probability smother the child in the ruins. "The shell is in the out-house," said Corrie, eagerly, to the giant who held him. "Wot shell?" inquired Bumpus. "The shell that they blow like a horn to call the people to work with." "Ah! you're sane again," said the sailor, releasing him; "go, find it, lad, and blow till yer cheeks crack." Corrie was gone long before Jo had concluded even that short remark. In another second the harsh but loud sound of the shell rang over the hill-side. The settlers, black and white, immediately ceased their pursuit of the savages, and from every side they came trooping in by dozens. Without waiting to inquire the cause of what was being done, each man, as he arrived, fell to work on the blazing edifice, and, urged on by Henry's voice and example, toiled and moiled in the midst of fire and smoke, until the pastor's house was literally pulled to pieces. Fortunately for little Alice, she had been carried out of that house long before by Keona, who, being subtle as well as revengeful, knew well how to strike at the tenderest part of the white man's heart. While her friends were thus frantically endeavouring to deliver her from the burning house in which they supposed her to be, Alice was being hurried through the woods by a steep mountain path in the direction of the native village. Happily for the feelings of her father, the fact was made known, soon after the house had been pulled down, by the arrival of a small party of native settlers bearing one of the child's shoes. They had found it, they said, sticking in the mud, about a mile off, and had tracked the little footsteps a long way into the mountains by the side of the prints made by the naked feet of a savage. At length they had lost the tracks amid the hard lava rocks and had given up the chase. "We must follow them up instantly," said Mr Mason, who had by this time recovered; "no time is to be lost." "Ay, time is precious, who will go?" cried Henry, who, begrimed with fire and smoke, and panting vehemently from recent exertion, had just at that moment come towards the group. "Take me! Oh! take me, Henry!" cried Corrie, in a beseeching tone, as he sprang promptly to his friend's side. At any other time, Henry would have smiled at the enthusiastic offer of such a small arm to fight the savages; but fierce anger was in his breast at that moment;--he turned from the poor boy and looked round with a frown, as he observed that, although the natives crowded round him at once, neither Gascoyne, nor Thorwald, nor Captain Montague shewed any symptom of an intention to accompany him. "Nay, be not angry, lad," said Gascoyne, observing the frown; "your blood is young and hot, as it should be; but it behoves us to have a council of war before we set out on this expedition, which, believe me, will be no trifling one, if I know anything of savage ways and doings." "Mr Gascoyne is right," said Montague, turning to the missionary, who stood regarding the party with anxious looks, quite unable to offer advice on such an occasion, and clasping the little shoe firmly in both hands; "it seems to me that those who know the customs of savage warfare should give their advice first. You may depend on all the aid that it is in my power to give." "Ole Thorwald is our leader when we are compelled to fight in self-defence," said Mr Mason; "would God that it were less frequently we were obliged to demand his services. He knows what is best to be done." "I know what is best to do," said Thorwald, "when I have to lead men into action, or to shew them how to fight. But, to say truth, I don't plume myself on possessing more than an average share of the qualities of the terrier dog. When niggers are to be hunted out of holes in the mountains like rabbits, I will do what in me lies to aid in the work; but I would rather be led than lead if you can find a better man." Thorwald said this with a rueful countenance, for he had hoped to have settled this war in a pitched battle; and there were few things the worthy man seemed to enjoy more than a stand-up fight on level ground. A fair field and no favour was his delight, but climbing the hills was his mortal aversion. He was somewhat too corpulent and short of wind for that. "Come, Gascoyne," said Henry, "you know more about the savages than anybody here, and if I remember rightly, you have told me that you are acquainted with most of the mountain passes." "With all of them, lad," interposed Gascoyne; "I know every pass and cavern on the island." "What, then, would you advise?" asked Montague. "If a British officer can put himself under a simple trading skipper," said Gascoyne, "I may perhaps shew what ought to be done in this emergency." "I can co-operate with any one who proves himself worthy of confidence," retorted Montague, sharply. "Well, then," continued the other, "it is in vain to think of doing any good by a disorderly chase into mountains like these. I would advise that our forces be divided into three. One band under Mr Thorwald should go round by the Goat's Pass, to which I will guide him, and cut off the retreat of the savages there. Another party under my friend Henry Stuart should give chase in the direction in which little Alice seems to have been taken, and a third party, consisting of his Majesty's vessel the _Talisman_, and crew, should proceed round to the north side of the island and bombard the native village." "The Goat's Pass," growled Thorwald, "sounds unpleasantly rugged and steep in the ears of a man of my weight and years, Mister Gascoyne. But if there's no easier style of work to be done, I fancy I must be content with what falls to my lot?" "And, truly," added Montague, "methinks you might have assigned me a more useful, as well as more congenial occupation than the bombardment of a mud village full of women and children--for I doubt not that every able-bodied man has left it, to go on this expedition." "You will not find the Goat's Pass so bad as you think, good Thorwald," returned Gascoyne, "for I propose that the _Talisman_ or her boats should convey you and your men to the foot of it, after which your course will be indeed rugged, but it will be short;--merely to scale the face of a precipice that would frighten a goat to think of and then a plain descent into the valley where, I doubt not, these villains will be found in force; and where, certainly, they will not look for the appearance of a stout generalissimo of half savage troops. As for the bombarding of a mud village, Mr Montague, I should have expected a well-trained British officer ready to do his duty whether that duty were agreeable or otherwise." "My _duty_, certainly," interrupted the young captain, hotly, "but I have yet to learn that _your_ orders constitute _my_ duty." The bland smile with which Gascoyne listened to this tended rather to irritate than to soothe Montague's feelings; but he curbed the passion which stirred his breast, while the other went on-- "No doubt the bombarding of a defenceless village is not pleasant work, but the result will be important, for it will cause the whole army of savages to rush to the protection of their women and children; thereby disconcerting their plans--supposing them to have any--and enabling us to attack them while assembled in force. It is the nature of savages to scatter, and so to puzzle trained forces,--and no doubt those of his Majesty are well trained. But `one touch of nature makes the whole world kin,' says a great authority; and it is wonderful how useful a knowledge of the various touches of nature is in the art of war. It may not have occurred to Mr Montague that savages have a tendency to love and protect their wives and children as well as civilised men, and that--" "Pray, cease your irrelevant remarks; they are ill-timed," said Montague, impatiently. "Let us hear the remainder of your suggestions. I shall judge of their value and act accordingly. You have not yet told us what part you yourself intend to play in this game." "I mean to accompany Captain Montague, if he will permit me." "How! go with me in the _Talisman_," said Montague, surprised at the man's coolness, and puzzled by his impudence. "Even so," said Gascoyne. "Well, I have no objection, of course; but it seems to me that you would be more useful at the head of a party of your own men." "Perhaps I might," replied Gascoyne; "but the coral reefs are dangerous on the north side of the island, and it is important that one well acquainted with them should guide your vessel. Besides, I have a trusty mate, and if you will permit me to send my old shipmate, John Bumpus, across the hills, he will convey all needful instructions to the _Foam_." This was said in so quiet and straightforward a tone that Montague's wrath vanished. He felt ashamed of having shewn so much petulance at a time when affairs of so great importance ought to have been calmly discussed, so he at once agreed to allow Bumpus to go. Meanwhile Henry Stuart, who had been fretting with impatience at this conversation, suddenly exclaimed-- "It seems to me, sirs, that you are wasting precious time just now. I, at least, am quite satisfied with the duty assigned to me, so I'm off-- ho! who will join me?" "I'm your man," cried Corrie, starting up and flourishing the broken sabre above his head. At the same moment about a hundred natives ranged themselves round the youth, thus indicating that they, too, were his men. "Well, lad, away you go," said Gascoyne, smiling, "but Master Corrie must remain with me." "I'll do nothing of the sort," said Corrie, stoutly. "Oh! yes, you will, my boy. I want you to guide my man Bumpus over the mountains. You know the passes, and he don't. It's all for the good of the cause, you know,--the saving of little Alice." Corrie wavered. The idea of being appointed, as it were, to a separate command, and of going with his new friend, was a strong temptation, and the assurance that he would in some way or other be advancing the business in hand settled the matter. He consented to become obedient. In about half an hour all Gascoyne's plans were in course of being carried out. Ole Thorwald and his party proceeded on board the _Talisman_, which weighed anchor, and sailed, with a light breeze, towards the north end of the island--guided through the dangerous reefs by Gascoyne. Henry and his followers were toiling nimbly up the hills in the direction indicated by the little footprints of Alice; and John Bumpus, proceeding into the mountains in another direction, pushed, under the guidance of Corrie, towards the bay where the _Foam_ still lay quietly at anchor. It was evening when these different parties set out on their various expeditions. The sun was descending to the horizon in a blaze of lurid light. The slight breeze, which wafted his Britannic Majesty's ship slowly along the verdant shore, was scarcely strong enough to ruffle the surface of the sea. Huge banks of dark clouds were gathering in the sky, and a hot unnatural closeness seemed to pervade the atmosphere, as if a storm were about to burst upon the scene. Everything, above and below, seemed to presage war--alike elemental and human--and the various leaders of the several expeditions felt that the approaching night would tax their powers and resources to the uttermost. It was, then, natural that in such circumstances the bereaved father should be distracted with anxiety as to which party he should join, and it was also natural that one whose life had been so long devoted to the special service of his God should, before deciding on the point, ask, on his knees, his heavenly Father's guidance. He finally resolved to accompany the party under command of Henry Stuart. CHAPTER TEN. THE PURSUIT--POOPY, LED ON BY LOVE AND HATE, RUSHES TO THE RESCUE. The shades of night had begun to descend upon the island when Master Corrie reached the summit of the mountain ridge that divided the bay in which the _Foam_ was anchored from the settlement of Sandy Cove. Close on his heels followed the indomitable Jo Bumpus, who panted vehemently and perspired profusely from his unwonted exertions. "Wot an object you are," exclaimed Corrie, gazing at the hot giant with a look of mingled surprise and glee--for the boy's spirit was of that nature which cannot repress a dash of fun even in the midst of anxiety and sorrow. We would not have it understood that the boy ever deliberately mingled the two things--joy and sorrow--at one and the same time, but he was so irresistibly alive to the ludicrous, that a touch of it was sufficient at any time to cause him to forget, for a brief apace, his anxieties, whatever these might be. Jo Bumpus smiled benignantly, and said that he "was glad to hear it." For Jo had conceived for the boy that species of fondness which large dogs are frequently known to entertain for small ones--permitting them to take outrageous liberties with their persons which they would resent furiously were they attempted by other dogs. Presently the warm visage of Bumpus elongated, and his eyes opened uncommonly wide as he stared at a particular spot in the ground; insomuch that Corrie burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. "O Grampus, you'll kill me if you go on like that," said he; "I can't stand it. Indeed I can't. Sich a face! D'ye know what it's like?" Jo expressed no desire to become enlightened on this point, but continued to gaze so earnestly that Corrie started up and exclaimed--"What is it, Jo?" "A fut!" replied Jo. "A footprint, I declare!" shouted the boy, springing forward and examining the print, which was pretty clearly defined in a little patch of soft sand that lay on the bare rock. "Why, Jo, it's Poopy's. I'd know it anywhere by the bigness of the little toe. How _can_ she have come up here?" "I say, lad, hist!" said Bumpus, in a hoarse whisper, "here's another fut that don't belong to--what's her name--Puppy, did ye say?" "Why, it's Alice's," whispered the boy, his face becoming instantly grave, while an unwonted expression of anxiety crossed it, "and here's that of a savage beside it. He must have changed his intention, or, perhaps, he came this way to throw the people who were chasing them off the scent." Corrie was right. Finding that he was hotly pursued, Keona had taken advantage of the first rocky ground he reached to diverge abruptly from the route he had hitherto followed in his flight; and, the farther to confuse his pursuers, he had taken the almost exhausted child up in his arms and carried her a considerable distance, so that if his enemies should fall again on his track the absence of the little footprints might induce them to fancy they were following up a wrong scent. In this he was so far successful, for the native settlers, as we have seen, soon gave up the chase, and returned with one of the child's shoes, which had fallen off unobserved by the savage. But there was one of the pursuers who was far ahead of the others, and who was urged to continue the chase by the strongest of all motives-- love. Poor Kekupoopi had no sooner heard of the abduction of her young mistress, than she had set off at the top of her speed to a well-known height in the mountains, whence, from a great distance, she could observe all that went on below. On the wings of affection she had flown, rather than walked, to this point of observation, and, to her delight, saw not only the pursuers but the fugitives in the valley below. She kept her glowing eyes fixed on them, hastening from rock to rock and ridge to ridge, as intervening obstacles hid them from view, until she saw the stratagem, just referred to, practised by Keona. Then, feeling that she had no power of voice to let the pursuers know what had occurred, and seeing that they would certainly turn back on being baffled, she resolved to keep up the chase herself--trusting to accident to afford her an opportunity of rendering aid to Alice; or, rather, trusting to God to help her in her great difficulty, for the poor child had been well trained in the missionary's house, and love had been the teacher. Taking a short cut down into the valley,--for she was well acquainted with all the wild and rugged paths of the mountains in the immediate neighbourhood of the settlement,--she was so fortunate as to reach a narrow pass, through which Keona and Alice must needs go. Arriving there a short time before they did, she was able to take a few minutes rest before resuming the chase. Little did the wily savage think that a pair of eyes as dark and bright, though not so fierce as his own, were gazing at him from behind the bushes as he sped up that narrow gorge. Poor Alice was running and stumbling by his side; for the monster held her by the hand and dragged her along, although she was scarcely able to stand. The heart of the black girl well-nigh burst with anger when she observed that both her shoes and stockings had been torn off in the hasty flight, and that her tender feet were cut and bleeding. Just as they reached the spot near which Poopy was concealed, the child, sank with a low wail to the ground, unable to advance another step. Keona seized her in his arms, and, uttering a growl of anger as he threw her rudely over his shoulder, bore her swiftly away. But, quick though his step was, it could not outrun that of the poor little dark maiden who followed him like his shadow, carefully keeping out of view, however, while her mind was was busy with plans for the deliverance of her young mistress. The more she thought, the more she felt how utterly hopeless would be any attempt that she could make, either by force or stratagem, to pluck her from the grasp of one so strong and subtle as Keona. At length she resolved to give up thinking of plans altogether and take to prayer instead. On reaching the highest ridge of the mountains, Keona suddenly stopped, placed Alice on a flat rock and went to the top of a peak not more than fifty yards off. Here he lay down and gazed long and earnestly over the country through which they had just passed, evidently for the purpose of discovering, if possible, the position and motions of his enemies. Poopy, whose wits were sharpened by love, at once took advantage of her opportunity. She crept on all fours towards the rock on which Alice lay, in such a manner that it came between her person and the savage. "Missy Alice! Oh! missy Alice! quick, look up, it's me--Poopy," said the girl, raising her head cautiously above the edge of the rock. Alice started up on one elbow, and was about to utter a scream of delight and surprise, when her sable friend laid her black paw suddenly on the child's pretty mouth and effectually shut it up. "Hush! Alice; no cry. Savage hear and come back--kill Poopy bery much quick. Listen. Me all alone. You bery clibber. Dry up eyes, no cry any more. Look happy. God will save you. Poopy nebber leave you as long as got her body in her soul." Just at this point, Keona rose from his recumbent position, and the girl, who had not suffered her eyes to move from him for a single instant, at once sunk behind the rock and crept so silently away that Alice could scarcely persuade herself that she had not been dreaming. The savage returned, took the child's hand, led her over the brow of the mountain, and began to descend by a steep rugged path to the valleys lying on the other side of the island. But before going a hundred yards down the dark gorge--which was rendered all the darker by the approach of night--he turned abruptly aside; entered the mouth of a cavern and disappeared. Poopy was horrified at this unexpected and sudden change in the state of things. For a long time she lay closely hid among the rocks within twenty yards of the cave's mouth, expecting every moment to see the fugitives issue from its dark recesses. But they did not reappear. All at once it occurred to the girl that there might possibly be an exit from the cavern at the other end of it, and that, while she was idly waiting there, her little mistress and her savage captor might be hastening down the mountain far beyond her reach. Rendered desperate by this idea, she quitted her place of concealment, and ran recklessly into the cavern. But the place was dark as Erebus, and the ground was so rugged that she tripped and fell before she had advanced into it more than fifty yards. Bruised by the fall, and overawed by the gloom of her situation, the poor girl lay still for some time where she had fallen, with bated breath, and listening intently; but no sound struck her ear save the beating of her own heart, which appeared to her unnaturally loud. Under an impulse of terror, she rose and ran back into the open air. Here it occurred to her that she might perhaps find the other outlet to the cave--supposing that one really existed--by going round the hill and carefully examining the ground on the other side. This, however, was a matter requiring considerable time, and it was not until a full hour had expired that she returned to the mouth of the cave, and sat down to rest and consider what should be done next. To enter the dark recesses of the place without a light she knew would be impossible as well as useless, and she had no means of procuring a light. Besides, even if she had, what good could come of her exploration? The next impulse was to hasten back to the settlement at full speed and guide a party to the place; but, was it likely that the savage would remain long in the cave? This question suggested her former idea of the possible existence of another outlet; and as she thought upon Alice being now utterly beyond her reach, she covered her face with her hands and burst into tears. After a short time she began to pray. Then, as the minutes flew past, and her hopes sank lower and lower, she commenced--like many a child of Adam who thinks himself considerably wiser than a black girl--to murmur at her hard lot. This she did in an audible voice, having become forgetful of, as well as indifferent to, the chance of discovery. "Oh! w'at for was me born?" she inquired, somewhat viciously, and, not being able apparently to answer this question, she proceeded to comment in a wildly sarcastic tone on the impropriety of her having been brought into existence at all. "Me should be dead. W'at's de use o' life w'en ums nothin' to live for? Alice gone! Darling Alice! Oh! dear. Me wish I wasn't never had been born; yes me do. Don't care for meself! Wouldn't give nuffin for meself! Only fit to tend missy Alice! Not fit for nuffin else, and now Alice gone--whar' to, nobody nose an' nobody care, 'xcept Poopy, who's not worth a brass button!" Having given utterance to this last expression, which she had acquired from her friend Corrie, the poor girl began to howl in order to relieve her insupportable feelings. It was at this point in our story that Master Corrie, and his companion the Grampus, having traced the before-mentioned footprints for a considerable distance, became cognisant of sundry unearthly sounds, on hearing which, never having heard anything like them before, these wanderers stood still in attitudes of breathless attention and gazed at each other with looks of indescribable amazement, not altogether unmixed with a dash of consternation. CHAPTER ELEVEN. A GHOST--A TERRIBLE COMBAT ENDING IN A DREADFUL PLUNGE. "Corrie," said Jo Bumpus, solemnly, with a troubled expression on his grave face: "I've heer'd a-many a cry in this life, both ashore and afloat; but, since I was half as long as a marline-spike, I've never heer'd the likes o' that there screech nowhere." At any other time the boy would have expressed a doubt as to the possibility of the Grampus having, at any period of his existence, been so short as "half the length of a marline-spike;" but, being very imaginative by nature, and having been encouraged to believe in ghosts by education, he was too frightened to be funny. With a face that might very well have passed for that of a ghost, and a very pale ghost too, he said, in a tremulous voice-- "Oh! dear Bumpus, what _shall_ we do?" "Dun know," replied Jo, very sternly; for the stout mariner also believed in ghosts, as a matter of course, (although he would not admit it), and, being a man of iron mould and powerful will, there was at that moment going on within his capacious breast, a terrific struggle between natural courage and supernatural cowardice. "Let's go back," whispered Corrie. "I know another pass over the hills. It's a longer one, to be sure; but we can run, you know, to make for--" He was struck dumb and motionless at this point by the recurrence of the dreadful howling, louder than ever, as poor Poopy's despair deepened. "Don't speak to me, boy," said Bumpus, still more sternly, while a cold sweat stood in large beads on his pale forehead. "Here's wot I calls somethin' new, an' it becomes a man, specially a British seaman, d'ye see, to inquire into new things in a reasonable sort of way." Jo caught his breath, and clutched the rock beside him powerfully, as he continued-- "It ain't a ghost, in course; it _can't_ be that. Cause why? there's no sich a thing as a ghost--" "Ain't there?" whispered Corrie, hopefully. The hideous yell that Poopy here set up, seemed to give the lie direct to the sceptical seaman; but he went on deliberately, though with a glazed eye, and a death-like pallor on his face-- "No; there ain't no ghosts--never wos, an' never will be. All ghosts is sciencrific dolusions, nothing more; and it's only the hignorant an' supercilious as b'lieves in 'em. _I_ don't; an', wots more," added Jo, with tremendous decision, "I _won't_!" At this point, the "sciencrific dolusion" recurred to her former idea of alarming the settlement; and with this view began to retrace her steps, howling as she went. Of course, as Jo and his small companion had been guided by her footsteps, it followed that Poopy, in retracing them, gradually drew near to the terrified pair. The short twilight of those regions had already deepened into the shades of night; so that the poor girl's form was not at first visible, as she advanced from among the dark shadows of the overhanging cliffs and the large masses of spattered rock that lay strewn about that wild mountain pass. Now, although John Bumpus succeeded, by an almost supernatural effort, in calming the tumultuous agitation of his spirit, while the wild cries of the girl were at some distance, he found himself utterly bereft of speech when the dreadful sounds unmistakably approached him. Corrie, too, became livid, and both were rooted to the spot in unutterable horror; but when the ghost at length actually came into view, and, (owing to Poopy's body being dark, and her garments white), presented the appearance of a dimly luminous creature, without head, arms, or legs, the last spark of endurance of man and boy went out. The one gave a roar, the other a shriek, of horror, and both turned and fled like the wind over a stretch of country, which, in happier circumstances, they would have crossed with caution. Poopy helped to accelerate their flight by giving vent to a cry of fear, and thereafter to a yell of delight, as, from her point of view, she recognised the well-known outline of Corrie's figure clearly defined against the sky. She ran after them in frantic haste; but she might as well have chased a couple of wild cats. Either terror is gifted with better wings than hope, or males are better runners than females. Perhaps both propositions are true; but certain it is that Poopy soon began to perceive that the succour which had appeared so suddenly, was about to vanish almost as quickly. In this new dilemma, the girl once more availed herself of her slight knowledge of the place, and made a detour, which enabled her to shoot ahead of the fugitives and intercept them in one of the narrowest parts of the mountain-gorge. Here, instead of using her natural voice, she conceived that the likeliest way of making her terrified friends understand who she was, would be to shout with all the strength of her lungs. Accordingly, she planted herself suddenly in the centre of their path, just as the two came tearing blindly round a corner of rock, and set up a series of yells, the nature of which utterly beggars description. The result was, that with one short wild cry of renewed horror, Bumpus and Corrie turned sharp round and fled in the opposite direction. There is no doubt whatever that they would have succeeded in ultimately escaping from this pertinacious ghost, and poor Poopy would have had to make the best of her way to Sandy Cove alone, but for the fortunate circumstance that Corrie fell; and, being only a couple of paces in advance of his companion, Bumpus fell over him. The ghost took advantage of this to run forward, crying out, "Corrie! Corrie! Corrie!--it's me! _me_! ME!" with all her might. "Eh! I do believe it knows my name," cried the boy, scrambling to his feet, and preparing to renew his flight; but Bumpus laid his heavy hand on his collar, and held him fast. "Wot did it speak?" "Yes; listen! Oh dear! come, fly!" Instead of flying, the seaman heaved a deep sigh; and, sitting down on a rock, took out a reddish brown cotton handkerchief wherewith he wiped his forehead. "My boy," said he, still panting; "it ain't a ghost. No ghost wos ever known to _speak_. They looks, an' they runs, an' they yells, an' they vanishes, but they never speaks; d'ye see? I told ye it was a sciencrific dolusion; though, I'm bound for to confess, I never heer'd o' von o' them critters speakin', no more than the ghosts. Howsomedever, that's wot it is." Corrie, who still hesitated, and held himself in readiness to bolt at a moment's notice, suddenly cried-- "Why, I _do_ believe it's--No: it can't be--yes--I say, it's _Poopy_!" "Wot's Poopy?" inquired the seaman, in some anxiety. "What, don't you know Poopy, Alice's black maid, who keeps her company, and looks after her; besides `doin' her, and `undoin' her, (as she calls it), night and morning, and putting her to bed? Hooray! Poopy, my lovely black darling; where _have_ you come from? You've frightened Bumpus here nearly out of his wits. I do believe he'd have bin dead by this time, but for me!" So saying, Corrie, in the revulsion of his suddenly relieved feelings, actually threw his arms round Poopy, and hugged her. "O Corrie," exclaimed the girl, submitting to the embrace with as much indifference as if she had been a lamp-post, "w'at troble you hab give me! Why you run so? sure, you know me voice." "Know it, my sweet lump of charcoal; I'd know it among a thousand, if ye'd only use it in its own pretty natural tones; but, if you _will_ go and screech like a bottle-imp, you know," said Corrie, remonstratively, "how can you expect a stupid feller like me to recognise it?" "There ain't no sich things as bottle-imps, no more nor ghosts," observed Bumpus; "but hold your noise, you chatter-box, and let's hear wot the gal's got to say. Mayhap she knows summat about Alice?" At this, Poopy manufactured an expression on her sable countenance, which was meant to be intensely knowing and suggestive. "Don't I? Yes, me do," said she. "Out with it then at once, you pot of shoe-blacking," cried the impatient Corrie. The girl immediately related all that she knew regarding the fugitives, stammering very much from sheer anxiety to get it all out as fast as she could, and delaying her communication very much in consequence,--besides rendering her meaning rather obscure--sometimes unintelligible. Indeed, the worthy seaman could scarcely understand a word she said. He sat staring at the whites of her eyes, which, with her teeth, were the only visible parts of her countenance at that moment, and swayed his body to and fro, as if endeavouring by a mechanical effort to arrive at a philosophical conception of something exceedingly abstruse. But at the end of each period he turned to Corrie for a translation. At length, both man and boy became aware of the state of things, and Corrie started up, crying-- "Let's go into the cave at once." "Hold on, boy," cried Bumpus, "not quite so fast, (as the monkey said to the barrel-organ w'en it took to playin' Scotch reels), we must have a council of war, d'ye see? That black monster Keona may have gone right through the cave and comed out at t' other end of it, in w'ich case it's all up with our chance o' findin' 'em to-night. But if they've gone in to spend the night there, why we've nothin' to do but watch at the mouth of it till mornin' an' nab 'em as they comes out." "Yes; but how are we to know whether they're in the cave or not?" said Corrie, impatiently. "Ah! that's the puzzler," replied Bumpus, in a meditative way; "but, of course, we must look out for puzzlers ahead sometimes w'en we gets into a land storm, d'ye see; just as we looks out ahead for breakers in a storm at sea. Suppose now that I creeps into the cave and listens for 'em. They'd never hear me, 'cause I'd make no noise." "You might as well try to sail into it in a big ship without making noise, you Grampus." To this the Grampus observed, that if the cave had only three fathoms of water in the bottom of it he would have no objection whatever to try. "But," added he, "suppose _you_ go in." Corrie shook his head, and looked anxiously miserable. "Well then," said Bumpus, "suppose we light two torches. I'll take one in one hand, and this here cutlash in the other; and you'll take t'other torch in one hand and your pistol in the other, and clap that bit of a broken sword 'tween yer teeth, and we'll give a horrid screech, and rush in pell-mell--all of a heap like. You could fire yer pistol straight before you on chance, (it's wonderful wot a chance shot will do sometimes), an' if it don't do nothin', fling it right into the blackguard's face--a brass-mounted tool like that ketchin' him right on the end of his beak would lay him flat over, like a ship in a white squall." "And suppose," said Corrie, in a tone of withering sarcasm, "suppose all this happened to Alice, instead of the dirty nigger?" "Ah! to be sure. That's a puzzler--puzzler number two." Here Poopy, who had listened with great impatience to the foregoing conversation, broke in energetically. "An' s'pose," said she, "dat Keona and missy Alice comes out ob cave w'en you two be talkerin' sich a lot of stuff?" It may as well be remarked, in passing, that Poopy had acquired a considerable amount of her knowledge of English from Master Corrie. Her remark, although not politely made, was sufficiently striking to cause Bumpus to start up, and exclaim-- "That's true, gal; come shew us the way to this here cave." There was a fourth individual present at this council of war who apparently felt a deep interest in its results, although he took no part in its proceedings. This was no other than Keona himself, who lay extended at full length among the rocks, not two yards from the spot where Bumpus sat, listening intently and grinning from ear to ear with fiendish malice. The series of shrieks, howls, and yells, to which reference has been made, had naturally attracted the attention of that wily savage when he was in the cave. Following the sounds with quick noiseless step, he soon found himself within a few paces of the deliberating trio. The savage did not make much of the conversation, but he gathered sufficient to assure himself that his hiding-place had been discovered, and that plans were being laid for his capture. It would have been an easy matter for him to have leaped suddenly on the unsuspecting Bumpus, and driven a knife to his heart, after which, poor Corrie and the girl could have been easily dealt with; but fortunately, (at least for his enemies, if not for himself), indecision in the moment of action was one of Keona's besetting sins. He suspected that other enemies might be near at hand, and that the noise of the scuffle might draw them to the spot. He observed, moreover, that the boy had a pistol, which, besides being a weapon that acts quickly and surely, even in weak hands, would give a loud report and a bright flash that might be heard and seen at a great distance. Taking these things into consideration, he thrust back the knife which he had half unsheathed, and, retreating with the slow gliding motion of a serpent, got beyond the chance of being detected, just as Bumpus rose to follow Poopy to the cave. The savage entered its yawning mouth in a few seconds and glided noiselessly into its dark recesses like an evil spirit. Soon after, the trio reached the same spot and stood for some time silently gazing upon the thick darkness within. A feeling of awe crept over them as they stood thus, and a shudder passed through Corrie's frame as he thought of the innumerable ghosts that might--probably did--inhabit that dismal place. But the thought of Alice served partly to drive away his fears and to steel his heart. He felt that the presence of such a sweet and innocent child _must_, somehow or other, subdue and baffle the power of evil spirits, and it was with some show of firmness that he said-- "Come, Bumpus, let's go in; we are better without a torch, it would only show that we were coming; and as they don't expect us, the savage may perhaps kindle a light which will guide us." Bumpus, who was not sustained by any thoughts of the supposed power or influence of the little girl, and whose superstitious fears were again doing furious battle with his natural courage, heaved a deep sigh, ground his teeth together, and clenched his fists. Even in that dreadful hour the seaman's faith in his physical invincibility, and in the terrible power of his fists, did not altogether fail. Although he wore a cutlass, and had used it that day with tremendous effect, he did not now draw it. He preferred to engage supernatural enemies with the weapons that nature had given him, and entered the cave on tiptoe with slow cautious steps; his fists tightly clenched and ready for instant action, yet thrust into the pockets of his coatee in a deceptively peaceful way, as if he meant to take the ghosts by surprise. Corrie followed him, also on tiptoe, with the broken sabre in his right hand, and the cocked pistol in his left, his forefinger being on the trigger, and the muzzle pointing straight at the small of the seaman's back--if one may be permitted to talk of such an enormous back having any "small" about it! Poopy entered last, also on tiptoe, trembling violently, holding on with both hands to the waistband of Corrie's trousers, and only restrained from instant flight by her anxieties and her strong love for little Alice. Thus, step by step, with bated breath and loudly beating hearts, pausing often to listen, and gasping in a subdued way at times, the three friends advanced from the gloom without into the thick darkness within, until their gliding forms were swallowed up. Now it so happened that the shouts and yells, to which we have more than once made reference in this chapter, attracted a band of savages who had been put to flight by Henry Stuart's party. These rascals, not knowing what was the cause of so much noise up on the heights, and, being much too well acquainted with the human voice in all its modifications to fancy that ghosts had anything to do with it, cautiously ascended towards the cavern, just a few minutes after the disappearance of John Bumpus and his companions. Here they sat down to hold a palaver. While this was going on, Keona carried Alice in his unwounded arm to the other end of the cave, and, making his exit through a small opening at its inner extremity, bore his trembling captive to a rocky eminence, shaped somewhat like a sugar-loaf, on the summit of which he placed her. So steep were the sides of this cone of lava, that it seemed to Alice that she was surrounded by precipices over which she must certainly tumble if she dared to move. Here Keona left her, having first, however, said, in a low stern voice-- "If you moves, you dies!" The poor child was too much terrified to move, even had she dared, for she, too, had heard the unaccountable cries of Poopy, although, owing to distance and the wild nature of these cries, she had failed to recognise the voice. When, therefore, her jailer left her with this threat, she coiled herself up in the smallest possible space, and began to sob quietly. Meanwhile, Keona re-entered the cavern with a diabolical grin on his sable countenance, which, although it savoured more of evil than of any other quality, had in it, nevertheless, a strong dash of ferocious jovialty, as if he were aware that he had got his enemies into a trap, and could amuse himself by playing with them as a cat does with a mouse. Soon the savage began to step cautiously, partly because of the rugged nature of the ground, and the thick darkness that surrounded him, and partly in order to avoid alarming the three adventurers who were advancing towards him from the other extremity of the cavern. In a few minutes he halted, for the footsteps and the whispering voices of his pursuers became distinctly audible to him, although all three did their best to make as little noise as possible. "Wot a 'orrid place it is!" exclaimed Bumpus, in a hoarse angry whisper, as he struck his shins violently, for at least the tenth time, against a ledge of rock-- "I do b'lieve, boy, that there's nobody here, and that we'd as well 'bout ship and steer back the way we've comed; tho' it _is_ a 'orrible coast for rocks and shoals." To this, Corrie, not being in a talkative humour, made no reply. "D'ye hear me, boy?" said Jo, aloud, for he was somewhat shaken again by the dead silence that followed the close of his remark. "All right, I'm here," said Corrie, meekly. "Then why don't ye speak," said Jo, tartly. "I'd advise _you_ not to speak so loud," retorted the boy. "Is the dark 'un there?" inquired Bumpus. "What d'ye say?" "The dark 'un; the lump o' charcoal, you know." "Oh! she's all safe," replied Corrie, "I only hope she won't haul the clothes right off my body; she grips at my waistband like a--" Here he was cut short by Keona, who gave utterance to a low dismal wail that caused the blood and marrow of all three to freeze up, and their hearts for a moment to leap into their throats and all but choke them. "Poopy's gone," gasped Corrie, after a few seconds had elapsed. There was no doubt of the fact, for, besides the relief experienced by the boy, from the relaxing of her grip on his waistband the moment the wail was heard, the sound of the girl's footsteps as she flew back towards the entrance of the cave was distinctly heard. Keona waited a minute or two to ascertain the exact position of his enemies, then he repeated the wail and swelled it gradually out into a fiendish yell that awoke all the echoes of the place. At the same time, guessing his aim as well as he could, he threw a spear and discharged a shower of stones at the spot where he supposed they stood. There is no understanding the strange workings of the human mind! The very thing that most people would have expected to strike terror to the heart of Bumpus, was that which infused courage into his soul. The frightful tones of the savage's voice in such a place did indeed almost prostrate the superstitious spirit of the seaman, but when he heard the spear whiz past within an inch of his ear, and received a large stone full on his chest, and several small ones on other parts of his person, that instant his strength returned to him, like that of Samson, when the Philistines attempted to fall upon him. His curiously philosophical mind at once leaped to the conclusion that, although ghosts could yell, and look, and vanish, they could not throw spears or fling stones, and that, therefore, the man they were in search of was actually close beside them. Acting on this belief, with immense subtlety Bumpus uttered a cry of feigned terror, and fled, followed by the panting Corrie, who uttered a scream of real terror at what he supposed must be the veritable ghost of the place. But before he had run fifty yards, John Bumpus suddenly came to a dead halt; seized Corrie by the collar, dragged him down behind a rock, and laid his large hand upon his mouth, as being the shortest and easiest way of securing silence, without the trouble of explanation. As he had anticipated, the soft tread of the savage was heard almost immediately after, as he passed on in fall pursuit. He brushed close past the spot where Bumpus crouched, and received from that able-bodied seaman such a blow on the shoulder of his wounded arm, as, had it been delivered in daylight, would have certainly smashed his shoulder blade. As it was, it caused him to stagger and sent him howling with pain to the mouth of the cavern, whither he was followed by the triumphant Jo, who now made sure of catching him. But "there is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip." When Keona issued from the cave, he was received with a shout by the band of savages, who instantly recognised him as their friend by his voice. Poor Poopy was already in their hands, having been seized and gagged when she emerged before she had time to utter a cry. And now they stood in a semicircle ready to receive all who might come forth into their arms, or on their spear-points, as the case might be. Bumpus came out like an insane thunderbolt, and Corrie like a streak of lightning. Instantaneously the flash of the pistol, accompanied by its report and a deep growl from Bumpus, increased the resemblance to these meteorological phenomena, and three savages lay stunned upon the ground. "This way, Corrie!" cried the excited seaman, leaping to a perpendicular rock, against which he placed his back, and raised his fists in a pugilistic attitude. "Keep one or two in play with your broken toothpick, an' I'll floor 'em one after another as they comes up. Now, then, ye black baboons, come on--all at once if ye like--an' Jo Bumpus'll shew ye wot he's made of!" Not perceiving very clearly, in the dim light caused by a few stars that flickered among the black and gathering clouds, the immense size and power of the man with whom they had to deal, the savages were not slow to accept this free and generous invitation to "come on." They rushed forward in a body, intending, no doubt, to take the man and boy prisoners; for if they had wished to slay them, nothing would have been easier than to have thrown one or two of their spears at their defenceless breasts. Bumpus experienced a vague feeling that he had now a fair opportunity of testing and proving his invincibility; yet the desperate nature of the case did not induce him to draw his sword. He preferred his fists, as being superior and much more handy weapons. He received the first two savages who came within reach on the knuckles of his right and left hands, rendering them utterly insensible, and driving them against the two men immediately behind, with such tremendous violence, that they also were put _hors de combat_. This was just what Bumpus had intended and hoped for. The sudden fall of so many gave him time to launch out his great fists a second time. They fell with the weight of sledge-hammers on the faces of two more of his opponents, flattening their noses, and otherwise disfiguring their features, besides stretching them on the ground. At the same time, Corrie flung his empty pistol in the face of a man who attempted to assault his companion on the right flank unawares, and laid him prone on the earth. Another savage, who made the same effort on the left, received a gash on the thigh from the broken sabre that sent him howling from the scene of conflict. Thus were eight savages disposed of in about as many seconds. But there is a limit to the powers and the prowess of man. The savages, on seeing the fall of so many of their companions, rushed in on Bumpus before he could recover himself for another blow. That is to say, the savages behind pushed forward those in front whether they would or no, and falling _en masse_ on the unfortunate pair, well-nigh buried them alive in black human flesh. Bumpus's last cry before being smothered was, "Down with the black varmints!" and Corrie's last shout was, "Hooray!" Thus fell--despite the undignified manner of their fall--a couple of as great heroes as were ever heard of in the annals of war; not excepting even those of Homer himself! Now, good reader, this may be all very well for us to describe, and for you to read, but it was a terrible thing for Poopy to witness. Being bound hand and foot she was compelled to look on; and, to say truth, she did look on with uncommon interest. When her friends fell, however, she expressed her regrets and fears in a subdued shriek, for which she received a sounding slap on the cheek from a young savage who had chosen for himself the comparatively dangerous post of watching her, while his less courageous friends were fighting. Strange to say, Poopy did not shed more tears, (as one might have expected), on receiving such treatment. She had been used to that sort of thing, poor child. Before coming to the service of her little mistress, she had been brought up--(it would be more strictly correct to say that she had been kicked, and cuffed, and pinched, and battered up)--by a stepmother, whose chief delight was to pull out handfuls of her woolly hair, beat her nose flat, (which was adding insult to injury, for it was too flat by nature), and otherwise to maltreat her. When, therefore, Poopy received the slap referred to, she immediately dried her eyes and looked humble. But she did not by any means _feel_ humble. No; a regard for truth compels us to state, that on this particular occasion, Poopy acted the part of a hypocrite. If her hands had been loose, and she had possessed a knife just then--we are afraid to think of the dreadful use to which she would have put it! The natives spent a considerable time in securely binding their three captives, after which they bore them into the cavern. Here they kindled a torch and held a long palaver as to what was to be done with the prisoners. Some counselled instant death, others advised that they should be kept as hostages. The debate was so long and fierce, that the day had begun to break before it was concluded. It was at length arranged that they should be conveyed alive to their village, there to be disposed of according to the instructions of their chiefs. Feeling that they had already delayed too long, they placed the prisoners on their shoulders and bore them swiftly away. Poor Corrie and his sable friend were easily carried, coiled up like sacks, each on the shoulders of a stalwart savage; but Bumpus, who had required eight men to bind him, still remained unconvinced of his vincibility. He struggled so violently on the shoulders of the four men who bore him, that Keona, in a fit of passion, tinged no doubt with revenge, hit him such a blow on the head with the handle of an axe as caused his brains to sing, and a host of stars to dance before his eyes. These stars were, however, purely imaginary, for at that time the dawn had extinguished the lesser lights. Ere long, the bright beams of the rising sun suffused the eastern sky with a golden glow. On passing the place where Alice had been left, a couple of the party were sent by Keona to fetch her. They took the unnecessary precaution of binding the poor child, and speedily rejoined their comrades with her in their arms. The amazement of her friends on seeing Alice was only equalled by her surprise on beholding them. But they were not permitted to communicate with each other. Presently the whole party emerged from the wild mountain gorges, through which they had been passing for some time, and proceeded in single file along a narrow path that skirted the precipices of the coast. The cliffs here were nearly a hundred feet high. They descended sheer down into deep water; in some places even overhung the sea. Here John Bumpus, having recovered from the stunning effects of the blow dealt him by Keona, renewed his struggles, and rendered the passage of the place not only difficult, but dangerous to himself as well as to his enemies. Just as they reached a somewhat open space on the top of the cliffs, Jo succeeded, by almost superhuman exertion, in bursting his bonds. Keona, foaming with rage, gave an angry order to his followers, who rushed upon Bumpus in a body as he was endeavouring to clear himself of the cords. Although John struck out manfully, the savages were too quick for him. They raised him suddenly aloft in their arms and hurled him headlong over the cliff! The horror of his friends on witnessing this may easily be imagined, but every other feeling was swallowed up in terror when the savages, apparently rendered bloodthirsty by what they had done, ran towards Alice, and, raising her from the ground, hastened to the edge of the cliff, evidently with the intention of throwing her over also. Before they accomplished their fiendish purpose, however, a sound like thunder burst upon their ears and arrested their steps. This was immediately followed by another crash, and then came a series of single reports in rapid succession which were multiplied by the echoes of the heights until the whole region seemed to tremble with the reverberation. At first the natives seemed awe-stricken. Then, on becoming aware that the sounds which originated all this tumult came from the direction of their own village, they dropped Alice on the ground, fled precipitately down the rugged path that led from the heights to the valley and disappeared, leaving the three captives, bound and helpless, on the cliffs. CHAPTER TWELVE. DANGEROUS NAVIGATION AND DOUBTFUL PILOTAGE--MONTAGUE IS HOT, GASCOYNE SARCASTIC. We turn now to the _Talisman_, which, it will be remembered, we left making her way slowly through the reefs towards the northern end of the island, under the pilotage of Gascoyne. The storm, which had threatened to burst over the island at an earlier period of that evening, passed off far to the south. The light breeze which had tempted Captain Montague to weigh anchor soon died away, and before night a profound calm brooded over the deep. When the breeze fell, Gascoyne went forward, and, seating himself on a forecastle carronade, appeared to fall into a deep reverie. Montague paced the quarter-deck impatiently, glancing from time to time down the skylight at the barometer which hung in the cabin, and at the vane which drooped motionless from the mast-head. He acted with the air of a man who was deeply dissatisfied with the existing state of things, and who felt inclined to take the laws of nature into his own hands. Fortunately for nature and himself, he was unable to do this. Ole Thorwald exhibited a striking contrast to the active, impatient commander of the vessel. That portly individual, having just finished a cigar which the first lieutenant had presented to him on his arrival on board, threw the fag end of it into the sea, and proceeded leisurely to fill a large-headed German pipe, which was the constant companion of his waking hours, and the bowl of which seldom enjoyed a cool moment. Ole having filled the pipe, lighted it; then, leaning over the taffrail, he gazed placidly into the dark waters, which were so perfectly calm that every star in the vault above could be compared with its reflection in the abyss below. Ole Thorwald, excepting when engaged in actual battle, was phlegmatic, and constitutionally lazy and happy. When enjoying his German pipe he felt inexpressibly serene, and did not care to be disturbed. He therefore paid no attention to the angry manner of Montague, who brushed past him repeatedly in his hasty perambulations, but continued to gaze downwards and smoke calmly in a state of placid felicity. "You appear to take things coolly, Mister Thorwald," said Montague, half in jest, yet with a touch of asperity in his manner. "I always do" (puff) "when the weather's not warm." (Puff puff.) "Humph!" ejaculated Montague, "but the weather _is_ warm just now; at least it seems so to me--so warm that I should not be surprised if a thunder squall were to burst upon us ere long." "Not a pleasant place to be caught in a squall," returned the other, gazing through the voluminous clouds of smoke which he emitted at several coral reefs, whose ragged edges just rose to the level of the calm sea without breaking its mirror-like surface; "I've seen one or two fine vessels caught that way, just hereabouts, and go right down in the middle of the breakers." Montague smiled, and the commander-in-chief of the Sandy Cove army fired innumerable broadsides from his mouth with redoubled energy. "That is not a cheering piece of information," said he, "especially when one has reason to believe that a false man stands at the helm." Montague uttered the latter part of his speech in a subdued earnest voice, and the matter-of-fact Ole turned his eyes slowly towards the man at the wheel; but observing that he who presided there was a short, fat, commonplace, and uncommonly jolly-looking seaman, he merely uttered a grunt and looked at Montague inquiringly. "Nay, I mean not the man who actually holds the spokes of the wheel, but he who guides the ship." Thorwald glanced at Gascoyne, whose figure was dimly visible in the fore part of the ship, and then looking at Montague in surprise shook his head gravely, as if to say-- "I'm still in the dark--go on." "Can Mr Thorwald put out his pipe for a few minutes and accompany me to the cabin? I would have a little converse on this matter in private." Ole hesitated. "Well, then," said the other, smiling, "you may take the pipe with you, although it is against rules to smoke in my cabin--but I'll make an exception in your case." Ole smiled, bowed, and, thanking the captain for his courtesy, descended to the cabin along with him and sat down on a sofa in the darkest corner of it. Here he smoked vehemently, while his companion, assuming a rather mysterious air, said in an under tone-- "You have heard, of course, that the pirate Durward has been seen, or heard of, in those seas?" Ole nodded. "Has it ever struck you that this Gascoyne, as he calls himself, knows more about the pirate than he chooses to tell?" "Never," replied Ole. Indeed nothing ever did _strike_ the stout commander-in-chief of the forces. All new ideas came to him by slow degrees, and did not readily find admission to his perceptive faculties. But when they did gain an entrance into his thick head, nothing was ever known to drive them out again. As he did not seem inclined to comment on the hint thrown out by his companion, Montague continued, in a still more impressive tone-- "What would you say if this Gascoyne himself turned out to be the pirate?" The idea being a simple one, and the proper course to follow being rather obvious, Ole replied with unwonted promptitude--"Put him in irons, of course, and hang him as soon as possible." Montague laughed. "Truly that would be a vigorous way of proceeding; but as I have no proof of the truth of my suspicions, and as the man is my guest at present, as well as my pilot, it behoves me to act more cautiously." "Not at all; by no means; you're quite wrong, captain; (which is the natural result of being young--all young people go more or less;) it is clearly your duty to catch a pirate anyhow you can, as fast as you can, and kill him without delay." Here the sanguinary Thorwald paused to draw and puff into vitality the pipe which was beginning to die down, and Montague asked-- "But how d'you know he is the pirate?" "Because you said so," replied his friend. "Nay, I said that I _suspected_ him to be Durward--nothing more." "And what more would you have?" cried Ole, whose calm spirit was ruffled with unusual violence at the thought of the hated Durward being actually within his reach. "For my part I conceive that you are justified in taking him up on suspicion, trying him in a formal way (just to save appearances) on suspicion, and hanging him at once on suspicion. Quite time enough to inquire into the matter after the villain is comfortably sewed up in a hammock with a thirty-pound shot at his heels, and sent to the bottom of the sea for the sharks and crabs to devour. Suspicion is nine points of the law in these regions, Captain Montague, and we never allow the tenth point to interfere with the course of justice one way or another. Hang him, or shoot him if you prefer it, at once; _that_ is what I recommend." Just as Thorwald concluded this amiable piece of advice, the deep strong tones of Gascoyne's voice were heard addressing the first lieutenant. "You had better hoist your royals and skyscrapers, Mr Mulroy; we shall have a light air off the land presently, and it will require all your canvas to carry the ship round the north point, so as to bring her guns to bear on the village of the savages." "The distance seems to me very short," replied the lieutenant, "and the _Talisman_ sails faster than you may suppose with a light wind." "I doubt not the sailing qualities of your good ship, though I could name a small schooner that would beat them in light wind or storm; but you forget that we have to land our stout ally Mr Thorwald with his men at the Goat's Pass, and that will compel us to lose time, too much of which has been lost already." Without reply, the lieutenant turned on his heel and gave the necessary orders to hoist the additional sails, while the captain hastened on deck, leaving Thorwald to finish his pipe in peace, and ruminate on the suspicions which had been raised in his mind. In less than half an hour the light wind which Gascoyne had predicted came off the land, first in a series of what sailors term "cats' paws," and then in a steady breeze which lasted several hours, and caused the vessel to slip rapidly through the still water. As he looked anxiously over the bow, Captain Montague felt that he had placed himself completely in the power of the suspected skipper of the _Foam_, for coral reefs surrounded him on all sides, and many of them passed so close to the ship's side that he expected every moment to feel the shock that would wreck his vessel and his hopes at the same time. He blamed himself for trusting a man whom he supposed he had such good reason to doubt, but consoled himself by thrusting his hand into his bosom and grasping the handle of a pistol, with which, in the event of the ship striking, he had made up his mind to blow out Gascoyne's brains. About an hour later the _Talisman_ was hove-to off the Goat's Pass, and Ole Thorwald was landed with his party at the base of a cliff which rose sheer up from the sea like a wall. "Are we to go up there?" inquired Ole in a rueful tone of voice, as he surveyed a narrow chasm to which Gascoyne guided him. "That is the way. It's not so bad as it looks. When you get to the top, follow the little path that leads along the cliffs northward, and you will reach the brow of a hill from which the native village will be visible. Descend and attack it at once, if you find men to fight with-- if not, take possession quietly. Mind you don't take the wrong turn; it leads to places where a wild-cat would not venture even in daylight. If you attend to what I have said, you can't go wrong. Good night. Shove off." The oars splashed in the sea at the word, and Gascoyne retained to the ship, leaving Ole to lead his men up the Pass as he best might. It seemed as if the pilot had resolved to make sure of the destruction of the ship that night; for, not content with running her within a foot or two of innumerable reefs, he at last steered in so close to the shore that the beetling cliffs actually seemed to overhang the deck. When the sun rose, the breeze died away; but sufficient wind continued to fill the upper sails and to urge the vessel gently onward for some time after the surface of the sea was calm. Montague endeavoured to conceal and repress his anxiety as long as possible, but when at length a line of breakers without any apparent opening presented themselves right ahead, he went up to Gascoyne and said in a stern under tone-- "Are you aware that you forfeit your life if my vessel strikes?" "I know it," replied Gascoyne, coolly throwing away the stump of his cigar and lighting a fresh one, "but I have no desire either to destroy your vessel or to lose my life; although, to say truth, I should have no objection, in other circumstances, to attempt the one and to risk the other." "Say you so?" said Montague, with a sharp glance at the countenance of the other, where, however, he could perceive nothing but placid good humour "that speech sounds marvellously warlike, methinks, in the mouth of a sandal-wood trader." "Think you, then," said Gascoyne, with a smile of contempt, "that it is only your fire-eating men of war who experience bold impulses and heroic desires?" "Nay, but traders are not wont to aspire to the honour of fighting the ships that are commissioned to protect them." "Truly, if I had sought protection from the warships of the king of England, I must have sailed long and far to find it," returned Gascoyne. "It is no child's play to navigate these seas, where bloodthirsty savages swarm in their canoes like locusts. Moreover I sail, as I have told you before, in the China Seas where pirates are more common than honest traders. What would you say if I were to take it into my head to protect myself?" "That you were well able to do so," answered Montague, with a smile; "but when I examined the _Foam_ I found no arms save a few cutlasses and rusty muskets that did not seem to have been in recent use." "A few bold men can defend themselves with any kind of weapons. My men are stout fellows not used to flinch at the sound of a round shot passing over their heads." The conversation was interrupted here by the ship rounding a point and suddenly opening up a view of a fine bay, at the head of which, embosomed in trees and dense underwood, stood the native village of which they were in search. Just in front of this village lay a small but high and thickly wooded island, which, as it were, filled up the head of the bay, sheltering it completely from the ocean, and making the part of the sea which washed the shores in front of the houses resemble a deep and broad canal. This stripe of water was wide and deep enough to permit of a vessel of the largest size passing through it; but to any one approaching the place for the first time there seemed to be no passage for any sort of craft larger than a native canoe. The island itself was high enough to conceal the _Talisman_ completely from the natives until she was within half gunshot of the shore. Gascoyne still stood on the fore part of the ship as she neared this spot, which was so beset with reefs and rocks that her escape seemed miraculous. "I think we are near enough for the work that we have to do," suggested Montague in some anxiety. "Just about it, Mr Montague," said Gascoyne, as he turned towards the stern and shouted-- "Port your helm." "Port it is," answered the man at the wheel. "Steady." "Back the topsails, Mr Mulroy." The sails were backed at once, and the ship became motionless with her broadside to the village. "What are we to do now, Mr Gascoyne," inquired Montague, smiling in spite of himself at the strange position in which he found himself. "Fire away at the village as hard as you can," replied Gascoyne, returning the smile. "What! do you really advise me to bombard a defenceless place in which, as far as I can see, there are none but women and children?" "Even so!" returned the other, carelessly, "at the same time I would advise you to give it them with blank cartridge." "And to what purpose such waste of powder?" inquired Montague. "The furthering of the plans which I have been appointed to carry out," answered Gascoyne somewhat stiffly, as he turned on his heel and walked away. The young captain reddened and bit his lip, as he gave the order to load the guns with blank cartridge, and made preparation to fire this harmless broadside on the village. The word to "fire" had barely crossed his lips when the rocks around seemed to tremble with the crash of a shot that came apparently from the other side of the island, for its smoke was visible, although the vessel that discharged it was concealed behind the point. The _Talisman's_ broadside followed so quickly, that the two discharges were blended in one. CHAPTER THIRTEEN. DOINGS ON BOARD THE "FOAM." The nature of this part of our story requires that we should turn back, repeatedly, in order to trace the movements of the different parties which co-operated with each other. While the warlike demonstrations we have described were being made by the British cruiser, the crew of the _Foam_ were not idle. In consequence of the capture of Bumpus by the savages, Gascoyne's message was, of course, not delivered to Manton, and the first mate of the sandalwood trader would have known nothing about the fight that raged on the other side of the island on the Sunday, but for the three shots, fired by the first lieutenant of the _Talisman_, which decided the fate of the day. Being curious to know the cause of the firing, Manton climbed the mountains until he gained the dividing ridge--which, however, he did not succeed in doing till late in the afternoon, the way being rugged as well as long. Here he almost walked into the midst of a flying party of the beaten savages; but dropping suddenly behind a rock, he escaped their notice. The haste with which they ran, and the wounds visible on the persons of many of them, were sufficient to acquaint the mate of the _Foam_ with the fact that a fight had taken place in which the savages had been beaten; and his knowledge of the state of affairs on the island enabled him to jump at once to the correct conclusion that the Christian village had been attacked. A satanic smile played on the countenance of the mate as he watched the savages until they were out of sight; then, quitting his place of concealment, he hurried back to the schooner, which he reached some time after nightfall. Immediately on gaining the deck he gave orders to haul the chain of the anchor short, to shake out the sails, and to make other preparations to avail himself without delay of the light breeze off the land which his knowledge of the weather and the locality taught him to look for before morning. While his orders were being executed, a boat came alongside with that part of the crew which had been sent ashore by Gascoyne to escape the eye of the British commander. It was in charge of the second mate--a short, but thick-set and extremely powerful man, of the name of Scraggs--who walked up to his superior the moment he came on board, and, in a tone somewhat disrespectful, asked what was going to be done. "Don't you see," growled Manton; "we're getting ready to sail." "Of course I see that," retorted Scraggs, between whom and his superior officer there existed a feeling of jealousy as well as of mutual antipathy, for reasons which will be seen hereafter; "but I should like to know where we are going, and why we are going anywhere without the captain. I suppose I am entitled to ask that much." "It's your business to obey orders," said Manton, angrily. "Not if they are in opposition to the captain's orders," replied Scraggs, firmly, but in a more respectful tone; for in proportion as he became more mutinous, he felt that he could afford to become more deferential. "The captain's last orders to you were to remain where you are; I heard him give them, and I do not feel it my duty to disobey him at _your_ bidding. You'll find, too, that the crew are of my way of thinking." Manton's face flushed crimson, and, for a moment, he felt inclined to seize a handspike and fell the refractory second mate therewith; but the looks of a few of the men who were standing by and had overheard the conversation, convinced him that a violent course of procedure would do him injury. Swallowing his passion, therefore, as he best could, he said-- "Come, Mr Scraggs, I did not expect that _you_ would set a mutinous example to the men; and if it were not that you do so out of respect for the supposed orders of the captain, I would put you in irons at once." Scraggs smiled sarcastically at this threat, but made no reply, and the mate continued-- "The captain did indeed order me to remain where we are, but I have since discovered that the black dogs have attacked the Christian settlement, as it is called, and you know as well as I do, that Gascoyne would not let slip the chance to pitch into the undefended village of the niggers, and pay them off for the mischief they have done to us more than once. At any rate, I mean to go round and blow down their log huts with Long Tom; so you can go ashore if you don't like the work." Manton knew well, when he made this allusion to mischief formerly done to the crew of the _Foam_, that he touched a rankling sore in the breast of Scraggs, who in a skirmish with the natives some time before had lost an eye; and the idea of revenging himself on the defenceless women and children of his enemies was so congenial to the mind of the second mate, that his objections to act willingly under Manton's orders were at once removed. "Ha!" said he, commencing to pace to and fro on the quarter-deck with his superior officer, while the men made the necessary preparations for the intended assault, "that alters the case, Mr Manton. I don't think, however, that Gascoyne would have taken advantage of the chance to give the brutes what they deserve, for I must say he does seem to be unaccountably chicken-hearted; perhaps it's as well that he's out of the way. Do you happen to know where he is or what he's doing?" "Not I. No doubt he is playing some sly game with this British cruiser, and I dare say he may be lending a hand to the settlers, for he's got some strange interests to look after there, you know," (here both men laughed,) "and I shouldn't wonder if he was beforehand with us in pitching into the niggers. He is always ready enough to fight in self-defence, though we can never get him screwed up to the assaulting point." "Ay, we saw something of the fighting from the hill tops, but as it is no business of ours, I brought the men down in case they might be wanted aboard." "Quite right, Scraggs. You're a judicious fellow to send on a dangerous expedition. I'm not sure, however, that Gascoyne would thank you for leaving him to fight the savages alone." Manton chuckled as he said this, and Scraggs grinned maliciously as he replied-- "Well, it can't exactly be said that I've _left_ him, seeing that I have not been with him since we parted aboard of this schooner, and as to his fightin' the niggers alone,--hasn't he got ever so many hundred _Christian_ niggers to help him to lick the others?" "True," said Manton, while a smile of contempt curled his lip. "But here comes the breeze, and the sun won't be long behind it. All the better for the work we've got to do. Mind your helm there. Here, lads, take a pull at the topsail halyards; and some of you get the nightcap off Long Tom. I say, Mr Scraggs, should we shew them the _red_, by way of comforting their hearts?" Scraggs shook his head dubiously. "You forget the cruiser. She has eyes aboard, and may chance to set them on that same red, in which case it's likely she would shew us her teeth." "And what then?" demanded Manton, "are _you_ also growing chicken-hearted. Besides," he added in a milder tone, "the cruiser is quietly at anchor on the other side of the island, and there's not a captain in the British navy who could take a pinnace, much less a ship, through the reefs at the north end of the island without a pilot." "Well," returned Scraggs, carelessly, "do as you please. It's all one to me." While the two officers were conversing, the active crew of the _Foam_ were busily engaged in carrying out the orders of Manton, and the graceful schooner glided swiftly along the coast before the same breeze which urged the _Talisman_ to the north end of the island. The former, having few reefs to avoid, approached her destination much more rapidly than the latter, and there is no doubt that she would have arrived first on the scene of action had not the height and form of the cliffs prevented the wind from filling her sails on two or three occasions. Meanwhile, in obedience to Manton's orders, a great and very peculiar change was effected in the outward aspect of the _Foam_. To one unacquainted with the character of the schooner, the proceedings of her crew must have seemed unaccountable as well as surprising. The carpenter and his assistants were slung over the sides of the vessel, upon which they plied their screwdrivers for a considerable time with great energy, but, apparently, with very little result. In the course of a quarter of an hour, however, a long narrow plank was loosened, which, when stripped off, discovered a narrow line of bright scarlet running quite round the vessel, a little more than a foot above the water-line. This having been accomplished, they next proceeded to the figurehead, and, unscrewing the white lady who smiled there, fixed in her place a hideous griffin's head, which, like the ribbon, was also bright scarlet. While these changes were being effected, others of the crew removed the boat that lay on the deck, bottom up, between the masts, and uncovered a long brass pivot-gun of the largest calibre, which shone in the saffron light of morning like a mass of burnished gold. This gun was kept scrupulously clean and neat in all its arrangements; the rammers, sponges, screws, and other apparatus belonging to it, were neatly arranged beside it, and four or five of its enormous iron shot were piled under its muzzle. The traversing gear connected with it was well greased, and, in short, everything about the gun gave proof of the care that was bestowed on it. But these were not the only alterations made in the mysterious schooner. Round both masts were piled a number of muskets, boarding-pikes, cutlasses, and pistols, all of which were perfectly clean and bright, and the men--fierce enough and warlike in their aspect at all times--had now rendered themselves doubly so, by putting on broad belts with pistols therein, and tucking up their sleeves to the shoulders, thereby displaying their brawny arms as if they had dirty work before them. This strange metamorphosis was finally completed when Manton, with his own hands, ran up to the peak of the mainsail a bright scarlet flag with the single word "AVENGER" on it in large black letters. During one of those lulls in the breeze to which we have referred, and while the smooth ocean glowed in the mellow light that ushered in the day, the attention of those on board the _Avenger_ (as we shall call the double-faced schooner when under red colours) was attracted to one of the more distant cliffs, on the summit of which human beings appeared to be moving. "Hand me that glass," said Manton to one of the men beside him. "I shouldn't wonder if the niggers were up to some mischief there. Ah! just so," he exclaimed, adjusting the telescope a little more correctly, and again applying it to his eye. "They seem to be scuffling on the top of yonder precipice. Now there's one fellow down; but it's so far off that I can't make out clearly what they're about. I say, Mr Scraggs, get the other glass and take a squint at them--you are farther sighted than I am." "You're right; they are killin' one another up yonder," observed Scraggs, surveying the group on the cliffs with calm indifference. "Here comes the breeze," exclaimed Manton, with a look of satisfaction. "Now, look alive, lads; we shall be close on the nigger village in five minutes--it's just round the point of this small island close ahead. Come, Mr Scraggs, we've other business on hand just now than squinting at the scrimmages of these fellows." "Hold on," cried Scraggs with a grin; "I do believe they're going to pitch a feller over that cliff. What a crack he'll come down into the water with, to be sure. It's to be hoped the poor man is dead, for his own sake, before he takes that flight. Hallo!" added Scraggs with an energetic shout and a look of surprise, "I say, that's one of _our_ men; I know him by his striped flannel shirt. If he would only give up kicking for a second I'd make out his--humph! it's all up with him now, poor fellow, whoever he is." As he said the last words, the figure of a man was seen to shoot out from the cliff, and, descending with ever increasing rapidity, to strike the water with terrific violence, sending up a jet of white foam as it disappeared. "Stand by to lower the gig," shouted Manton. "Ay, ay, sir," was the hearty response of the men, as some of them sprang to obey. "Lower away!" The boat struck the water, and its crew were on the thwarts in a moment. At the same time the point of the island was passed, and the native village opened up to view. "Load Long Tom--double shot!" roared Manton, whose ire was raised not so much at the idea of a fellow-creature having been so barbarously murdered, as at the notion of one of the crew of his schooner having been so treated by contemptible niggers. "Away, lads, and pick up that man." "It's of no use," remonstrated Scraggs; "he's done for by this time." "I know it," said Manton, with a fierce oath, "bring him in, dead or alive; if the sharks leave an inch of him, bring it to me. I'll make the black villains eat it raw." This ferocious threat was interlarded with and followed by a series of terrible oaths which we think it inadvisable to repeat. "Starboard!" he shouted to the man at the helm, as soon as the boat shot away on its mission of mercy. "Starboard it is." "Steady!" While he gave these orders, Manton sighted the brass gun carefully, and, just as the schooner's head came up to the wind, he applied the match. Instantly a cloud of smoke obscured the centre of the little vessel as if her powder magazine had blown up, and a deafening roar went ringing and reverberating from cliff to cliff as two of the great iron shot were sent groaning through the air and pitched right into the heart of the village. It was this tremendous shot from Long Tom, followed almost instantaneously by the entire broadside of the _Talisman_, that saved the life of Alice, possibly the lives of her young companions also,-- that struck terror to the hearts of the savages, causing them to converge towards their defenceless homes from all directions, and that apprised Ole Thorwald and Henry Stuart that the assault on the village had commenced in earnest. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. GREATER MYSTERIES THAN EVER--A BOLD MOVE AND A CLEVER ESCAPE. We return now to the _Talisman_. The instant the broadside of the cruiser burst with such violence, and in such close proximity, on Manton's ears, he felt that he had run into the very jaws of the lion; and that escape was almost impossible. The bold heart of the pirate quailed at the thought of his impending fate, but the fear caused by conscious guilt was momentary; his constitutional courage returned so violently as to render him reckless. It was too late to put about and avoid being seen, for, before the shot was fired, the schooner had already almost run into the narrow channel between the island and the shore. A few seconds later, she sailed gracefully into view of the amazed Montague, who at once recognised the pirate vessel from Gascoyne's faithful description of her, and hurriedly gave orders to load with ball and grape, while a boat was lowered in order to slew the ship round more rapidly, so as to bring her broadside to bear on the schooner. To say that Gascoyne beheld all this unmoved would be to give a false impression of the man. He knew the ring of his great gun too well to require the schooner to come in sight in order to convince him that his vessel was near at hand. When, therefore, she appeared, and Montague turned to him with a hasty glance of suspicion and pointed to her, he had completely banished every trace of feeling from his countenance, and sat on the taffrail puffing his cigar with an air of calm satisfaction. Nodding to Montague's glance of inquiry, he said-- "Ay, that's the pirate. I told you he was a bold fellow, but I did not think he was quite so bold as to attempt _this_!" To do Gascoyne justice, he told the plain truth here; for, having sent a peremptory order to his mate by John Bumpus, not to move from his anchorage on any account whatever, he was not a little surprised as well as enraged at what he supposed was Manton's mutinous conduct. But, as we have said, his feelings were confined to his breast--they found no index in his grave face. Montague suspected, nevertheless, that his pilot was assuming a composure which he did not feel; for, from the manner of the meeting of the two vessels, he was persuaded that it was as little expected on the part of the pirates as of himself. It was with a feeling of curiosity, therefore, as to what reply he should receive, that he put the question-- "What would Mr Gascoyne advise me to do _now_?" "Blow the villains out of the water," was the quick answer; "I would have done so before now, had I been you." "Perhaps you might, but not _much_ sooner," retorted the other, pointing to the guns which were ready loaded, while the men stood at their stations matches in hand only waiting for the broadside to be brought to bear on the little vessel, when an iron shower would be sent against her which must, at such short range, have infallibly sent her to the bottom. The mate of the pirate schooner was quite alive to his danger, and had taken the only means in his power to prevent it. Close to where his vessel lay, a large rock rose between the shore of the large island and the islet in the bay which has been described as separating the two vessels from each other. Owing to the formation of the coast at this place, a powerful stream ran between the rock and this islet at low tide. It happened to be flowing out at that time like a mill-race. Manton saw that the schooner was being sucked into this stream. In other circumstances, he would have endeavoured to avoid the danger; for the channel was barely wide enough to allow even a small craft to pass between the rocks; but now he resolved to risk it. He knew that any attempt to put the schooner about, would only hasten the efforts of the cruiser to bring her broadside to bear on him. He also knew that, in the course of a few seconds, he would be carried through the stream into the shelter of the rocky point. He therefore ordered the men to lie down on the deck; while, in a careless manner, he slewed the big brass gun round, so as to point it at the man-of-war. Gascoyne at once understood the intended manoeuvre of his mate; and, in spite of himself, a gleam of triumph shot from his eyes. Montague himself suspected that his prize was not altogether so sure as he had deemed it; and he urged the men in the boat to put forth their utmost efforts. The _Talisman_ was almost slewed into position, when the pirate schooner was observed to move rapidly through the water, stern foremost, in the direction of the point. At first Montague could scarcely credit his eyes; but when he saw the end of the main-boom pass behind the point, he became painfully alive to the fact that the whole vessel would certainly follow in the course of a few seconds. Although the most of his guns were still not sufficiently well pointed, he gave the order to fire them in succession. The entire broadside burst in this manner from the side of the _Talisman_, with a prolonged and mighty crash or roar, and tore up the waters of the narrow channel. Most of the iron storm passed close by the head of the pirate. However, only one ball took effect; it touched the end of the bowsprit, and sent the jib-boom into the air in splinters. Manton applied the match to the brass gun almost at the same moment, and the heavy ringing roar of her explosion seemed like a prolonged echo of the broadside. The gun was well aimed; but the schooner had already passed so far behind the point, that the ball struck a projecting part of the cliff; dashed it into atoms, and, glancing upwards, passed through the cap of the _Talisman's_ mizzen-mast, and brought the lower yard, with all its gear, rattling down on the quarter-deck. When the smoke cleared away, the _Avenger_ had vanished from the scene. To put the ship about, and follow the pirate schooner, was the first impulse of Montague; but, on second thoughts, he felt that the risk of getting on the rocks in the narrow channel was too great to be lightly run. He therefore gave orders to warp the ship about, and steer round the islet, on the other side of which he fully expected to find the pirate. But time was lost in attempting to do this, in consequence of the wreck of the mizzen-mast having fouled the rudder. When the _Talisman_ at last got under way, and rounded the outside point of the islet, no vessel of any kind was to be seen. Amazed beyond measure, and deeply chagrined, the unfortunate captain of the man-of-war turned to Gascoyne, who still sat quietly on the taffrail smoking his cigar-- "Does this pirate schooner sport wings as well as sails?" said he; "for unless she does, and has flown over the mountains, I cannot see how she could disappear in so short a space of time." "I told you the pirate was a bold man; and now he has proved himself a clever fellow. Whether he sports wings or no is best known to himself. Perhaps he can dive. If so, we have only to watch until he comes to the surface, and shoot him leisurely." "Well, he is off; there is no doubt of that," returned Montague. "And now, Mr Gascoyne, since it is vain for me to chase a vessel possessed of such mysterious qualities, you will not object, I daresay, to guide my ship to the bay where your own little schooner lies. I have a fancy to anchor there." "By all means," said Gascoyne, coolly. "It will afford me much pleasure to do as you wish, and to have you alongside of my little craft." Montague was surprised at the perfect coolness with which the other received this proposal. He was persuaded that there must be some mysterious connexion between the pirate schooner and the sandal-wood trader, although his ideas on this point were somewhat undefined and confused; and he had expected that Gascoyne would have shewn some symptoms of perplexity, on being thus ordered to conduct the _Talisman_ to a spot where he suspected no schooner would be found; or, if found, would appear under such a changed aspect, as to warrant his seizing it on suspicion. As Gascoyne, however, shewed perfect willingness to obey the order, he turned away and left his strange pilot to conduct the ship through the reefs, having previously given him to understand that the touching of a rock, and the termination of his (Gascoyne's) life, would certainly be simultaneous events. Meanwhile the _Avenger_, alias the _Foam_, had steered direct for the shore, into which she apparently ran and disappeared like a phantom-ship. The coast of this part of the island, where the events we are narrating occurred, was peculiarly formed. There were several narrow inlets in the high cliffs which were exceedingly deep, but barely wide enough to admit of the passage of a large boat, or a small vessel. Many of these inlets or creeks, which in some respects resembled the narrow fjords of Norway, though on a miniature scale, were so thickly fringed with trees, and the luxuriant undergrowth peculiar to southern climes, that their existence could not be detected from the sea. Indeed, even after the entrance to any one of them was discovered, no one would have imagined it to extend so far inland. Two of those deep narrow inlets, opening from opposite sides of the cape which lay close to the islet above referred to, had approached so close to each other at their upper extremities? that they had at last met, in consequence of the sea undermining and throwing down the cliff that separated them. Thus the cape was in reality an island; and the two united inlets formed a narrow strait, through which the _Avenger_ passed to her former anchorage, by means of four pair of powerful sweeps or oars. This secret passage was well known to the pirates; and it was with a lurking feeling that it might some day prove of use to him, that Gascoyne invariably anchored near to it when he visited the island as a sandal-wood trader. During the transit, the carpenters of the schooner were not idle. The red streak and flag, and griffin's head, were removed; the big gun was covered with the long boat, and the vessel which entered the one end of the channel as the warlike _Avenger_, issued from the other side as the peaceful _Foam_; and, rowing to her former anchorage, dropt anchor. The shattered jib-boom had been replaced by a spare one, and part of the crew were stowed away under the cargo, in an empty space of the hold reserved for this special purpose, and for concealing arms. A few of them were also landed, not far from the cliff over which poor Bumpus had been thrown, with orders to remain concealed, and be ready to embark at a moment's notice. Soon after the schooner anchored, the boat which had been sent off in search of the body of our unfortunate seaman returned, having failed to discover the object for which it was sent out. The breeze had by this time died away almost entirely, so that three hours elapsed before the _Talisman_ rounded the point, stood into the bay, and dropt anchor at a distance of about two miles from the suspected schooner. CHAPTER FIFTEEN. REMARKABLE DOINGS OF POOPY--EXTRAORDINARY CASE OF RESUSCITATION. It is time now to return to our unfortunate friends, Corrie, Alice, and Poopy, who have been left long enough exposed on the summit of the cliffs, from which they had expected to be tossed by the savages, when the guns of the _Talisman_ so opportunely saved them. The reader will observe, that these incidents, which have taken so long to narrate, were enacted in a very brief space of time. Only a few hours elapsed between the firing of the broadside already referred to, and the anchoring of the _Talisman_ in the bay, where the _Foam_ had cast anchor some time before her; yet in this short space of time many things occurred on the island which are worthy of particular notice. As we have already remarked, Corrie and his two companions in misfortune had been bound; and, in this condition, were left by the savages to their fate. Their respective positions were by no means enviable. Poor Alice lay near the edge of the cliff, with her wrists and ankles so securely tied that no effort of which she was capable could set her free. Poopy lay about ten yards farther up the cliff, flat on her sable back, with her hands tied behind her, and her ankles also secured; so that she could by no means attain to a sitting position, although she made violent and extraordinary efforts to do so. We say extraordinary, because Poopy, being ingenious, hit upon many devices of an unheard of nature to accomplish her object. Among others, she attempted to turn heels over head, hoping thus to get upon her knees; and there is no doubt whatever that she would have succeeded in this, had not the formation of the ground been exceedingly unfavourable for such a manoeuvre. Corrie had shewn such an amount of desperate vindictiveness, in the way of kicking, hitting, biting, scratching, and pinching, when the savages were securing him, that they gave him five or six extra coils of the rope of cocoa-nut fibre with which they bound him. Consequently he could not move any of his limbs, and he now lay on his side between Alice and Poopy, gazing with much earnestness and no little astonishment at the peculiar contortions of the latter. "You'll never manage it, Poopy," he remarked in a sad tone of voice, on beholding the poor girl balanced on the small of her back, preparatory to making a spring that might have reminded one of the leaps of a trout when thrown from its native element upon the bank of a river. "And you'll break your neck if you go on like that," he added, on observing that, having failed in these attempts, she recurred to the heels-over-head process--but all in vain. "Oh, me!" sighed Poopy, as she fell back in a fit of exhaustion. "It's be all hup wid us." "Don't say that, you goose," whispered Corrie, "you'll frighten Alice, you will." "Will me?" whispered Poopy, in a tone of self-reproach; then in a loud voice, "Oh, no! it not all hup yet, Miss Alice. See, me go at it agin." And "go at it" she did in a way that actually alarmed her companions. At any other time Corrie would have exploded with laughter, but the poor boy was thoroughly overwhelmed by the suddenness and the extent of his misfortune. The image of Bumpus, disappearing headlong over that terrible cliff, had filled his heart with a feeling of horror which nothing could allay, and grave thoughts at the desperate case of poor little Alice (for he neither thought of nor cared for Poopy or himself) sank like a weight of lead upon his spirit. "Don't try it any more, dear Poopy," said Alice, entreatingly, "you'll only hurt yourself and tear your frock. I feel _sure_ that some one will be sent to deliver us. Don't _you_, Corrie?" The tone in which this question was put shewed that the poor child did not feel quite so certain of the arrival of succour as her words implied. Corrie perceived this at once, and, with the heroism of a true lover, he crushed back the feelings of anxiety and alarm which were creeping over his own stout little heart in spite of his brave words, and gave utterance to encouraging expressions and even to slightly jovial sentiments, which tended very much to comfort Alice, and Poopy too. "Sure?" he exclaimed, rolling on his other side to obtain a view of the child, (for, owing to his position and his fettered condition he had to turn on his right side when he wished to look at Poopy, and on his left when he addressed himself to Alice.) "Sure? why, of course I'm sure. D'ye think your father would leave you lying out in the cold all night?" "No, that I am certain he would not," cried Alice, enthusiastically; "but, then, he does not know we are here, and will never think of looking for us in such an unlikely place." "Humph! that only shews your ignorance," said Corrie. "Well, I dare say I _am_ very ignorant," replied Alice, meekly. "No, no! I don't mean _that_," cried Corrie, with a feeling of self-reproach. "I don't mean to say that you're ignorant in a general way, you know, but only about what men are likely to do, d'ye see, when they're hard put to it, you understand. _Our_ feelings are so different from yours, you know, and--and--" Here Corrie broke down, and in order to change the subject abruptly he rolled round towards Poopy, and cried with considerable asperity-- "What on earth d'ye mean, Kickup, by wriggling about your black body in that fashion? If you don't stop it you'll fetch way down the hill, and go slap over the precipice, carrying Alice and me along with you. Give it up now, d'ye hear?" "No, me won't," cried Poopy, with great passion, while tears sprang from her large eyes, and coursed over her sable cheeks. "Me _will_ bu'st dem ropes." "More likely to do that to yourself if you go on like that," returned Corrie. "But, I say, Alice, cheer up," (here he rolled round on his other side,) "I've been pondering a plan all this time to set us free, and now I'm going to try it. The only bother about it is that these rascally savages have dropt me beside a pool of half soft mud that I can't help sticking my head into if I try to move." "Oh! then, don't move, dear Corrie," said Alice, in an imploring tone of voice; "we can lie here quite comfortably till papa comes." "Ah! yes," said Corrie, "that reminds me that I was saying we men feel and act so different from you women. Now it strikes me that your father will go to all the most _unlikely_ parts of the island first; knowin' very well that niggers don't hide in _likely_ places. But as it may be a long time before he finds us"--(he sighed deeply here, not feeling much confidence in the success of the missionary's search)--"I shall tell you my plan, and then try to carry it out." (Here he sighed again, more deeply than before, not feeling by any means confident of the success of his own efforts.) "And what is your plan?" inquired Alice, eagerly, for the child had unbounded belief in Corrie's ability to do almost anything he chose to attempt, and Corrie knew this, and was proud as a peacock in consequence. "I'll get up on my knees," said he, "and then, once on them, I can easily rise to my feet and hop to you, and free you." On this explanation of his elaborate and difficult plan, Alice made no observation for some time, because even to _her_ faculties, (which were obtuse enough on mechanical matters,) it was abundantly evident that, the boy's hands being tied firmly behind his back, he could neither cut the ropes that bound her, nor untie them. "What d'ye think, Alice?" "I fear it won't do, your hands are tied, Corrie." "Oh! that's nothing. The only difficulty is how to get on my knees." "Surely that cannot be _very_ difficult, when you talk of getting on your feet." "Ha! that shews you're a--I mean, d'ye see, that the difficulty lies here, my elbows are lashed so fast to my side that I can't use them to prop me up, but if Poopy will roll down the hill to my side, and shove her pretty shoulder under my back when I raise it, perhaps I may succeed in getting up. What say you, Kickup?" "Hee! hee!" laughed the girl, "dat's fuss rate. Look out!" Poopy, although sluggish by nature, was rather abrupt and violent in her impulses at times. Without further warning than the above brief exclamation, she rolled herself towards Corrie with such good-will that she went quite over him, and would certainly have passed onward to where Alice lay--perhaps over the cliff altogether--had not the boy caught her sleeve with his teeth, and held her fast. The plan was eminently successful. By a series of jerks on the part of Corrie, and proppings on the part of Poopy, the former was enabled to attain to a kneeling position, not, however, without a few failures, in one of which he fell forward on his face, and left a deep impression of his fat little nose in the mud. Having risen to his feet, Corrie at once hopped towards Alice, after the fashion of those country wights who indulge in sack races, and, going down on his knees beside her, began diligently to gnaw the rope that bound her with his teeth. This was by no means an easy or a quick process. He gnawed and bit at it long before the tough rope gave way. At length Alice was freed, and she immediately set to work to undo the fastenings of the other two, but her delicate fingers were not well suited to such rough work, and a considerable time elapsed before the three were finally at large. The instant they were so, Corrie said, "Now we must go down to the foot of the cliff and look for poor Bumpus. Oh! dear me, I doubt he is killed." The look of horror which all three cast over the stupendous precipice shewed that they had little hope of ever again seeing their rugged friend alive. But, without wasting time in idle remarks, they at once hastened to the foot of the cliff by the shortest route they could find. Here, after a short time, they discovered the object of their solicitude lying, apparently dead, on his back among the rocks. When Bumpus struck the water, after being tossed over the cliff, his head was fortunately downward, and his skull, being the thickest and hardest bone in his body, had withstood the terrible shock to which it had been subjected without damage, though the brain within was, for a time, incapacitated from doing duty. When John rose again to the surface, after a descent into unfathomable water, he floated there in a state of insensibility. Fortunately the wind and tide combined to wash him to the shore, where a higher swell than usual launched him among the coral rocks, and left him there, with only his feet in the water. "Oh! here he is, hurrah!" shouted Corrie, on catching sight of the prostrate form of the seaman. But the boy's manner changed the instant he observed the colour of the man's face, from which all the blood had been driven, leaving it like a piece of brown leather. "He's dead," said Alice, wringing her hands in despair. "P'rhaps not," suggested Poopy, with a look of deep wisdom, as she gazed on the upturned face. "Anyhow, we must haul him out of the water," said Corrie, whose chest heaved with the effort he made to repress his tears. Catching up one of Bumpus's huge hands, the boy ordered Alice to grasp the other. Poopy, without waiting for orders, seized hold of the hair of his head, and all three began to haul with might and main. But they might as well have tried to pull a line-of-battle ship up on the shore. The man's bulky form was immovable. Seeing this, they changed their plan, and, all three grasping his legs, slewed him partially round, and thus drew his feet out of the water. "Now, we must warm him," said Corrie, eagerly, for, the first shock of the discovery of the supposed dead body of his friend being over, the sanguine boy began to entertain hopes of resuscitating him. "I've heard that the best thing for drowned people is to warm them; so, Alice, do you take one hand and arm, Poopy will take the other, and I will take his feet, and we'll all rub away till we bring him too--for we must, we _shall_ bring him round." Corrie said this with a fierce look and a hysterical sob. Without more words he drew out his clasp-knife, and, ripping up the cuffs of the man's coat, laid bare his muscular arm. Meanwhile Alice untied his neckcloth, and Poopy tore open his Guernsey frock and exposed his broad brown chest. "We must warm that at once," said Corrie, beginning to take off his jacket, which he meant to spread over the seaman's breast. "Stay, my petticoat is warmer," cried Alice, hastily divesting herself of a flannel garment of bright scarlet, the brilliant beauty of which had long been the admiration of the entire population of Sandy Cove. The child spread it over the seaman's chest, and tucked it carefully down at his sides, between his body and the wet garments. Then the three sat down beside him, and, each seizing a limb, began to rub and chafe with a degree of energy that nothing could resist! At any rate it put life into John Bumpus, for that hardy mariner gradually began to exhibit signs of returning vitality. "There he comes," cried Corrie, eagerly. "Eh!" exclaimed Poopy, in alarm. "Who? where?" inquired Alice, who thought that the boy referred to some one who had unexpectedly appeared on the scene. "I saw him wink with his left eye--look!" All three suspended their labour of love, and, stretching forward their heads, gazed with breathless anxiety at the clay-coloured face of Jo. "I must have been mistaken," said Corrie, shaking his head. "Go at him agin," cried Poopy, recommencing her work on the right arm with so much energy that it seemed marvellous how she escaped skinning that limb from fingers to shoulder. Poor Alice did her best, but her soft little hands had not much effect on the huge mass of brown flesh they manipulated. "There he comes again!" shouted Corrie. Once more there was an abrupt pause in the process, and the three heads were bent eagerly forward watching for symptoms of returning life. Corrie was right. The seaman's left eye quivered for a moment, causing the hearts of the three children to beat high with hope. Presently the other eye also quivered; then the broad chest rose almost imperceptibly, and a faint sigh came feebly and broken from the cold blue lips. To say that the three children were delighted at this would be to give but a feeble idea of the state of their feelings. Corrie had, even in the short time yet afforded him of knowing Bumpus, entertained for him feelings of the deepest admiration and love. Alice and Poopy, out of sheer sympathy, had fallen in love with him too, at first sight, so that his horrible death, (as they had supposed,) coupled with his unexpected restoration and revival through their unaided exertions, drew them still closer to him, and created within them a sort of feeling that he must, in common reason and justice, regard himself as their special property in all future time. When, therefore, they saw him wink and heard him sigh, the gush of emotion that filled their respective bosoms was quite overpowering. Corrie gasped in his effort not to break down; Alice wept with silent joy as she continued to chafe the man's limbs; and Poopy went off into a violent fit of hysterical laughter, in which her "hee, hees!" resounded with terrible shrillness among the surrounding cliffs. "Now, then, let's to work again with a will," said Corrie; "what d'ye say to try punching him?" This question he put gravely, and with the uncertain air of a man who feels that he is treading on new and possibly dangerous ground. "What is punching?" inquired Alice. "Why, _that_," replied the boy, giving a practical and by no means gentle illustration on his own fat thigh. "Wouldn't it hurt him?" said Alice, dubiously. "Hurt him! hurt the Grampus!" cried Corrie, with a look of surprise, "you might as well talk of hurting a hippopotamus. Come, I'll try." Accordingly, Corrie tried. He began to bake the seaman, as it were, with his fists. As the process went on he warmed to the work, and did it so energetically, in his mingled anxiety and hope, that it assumed the character of hitting rather than punching--to the dismay of Alice, who thought it impossible that any human being could stand such dreadful treatment. Whether it was to this process, or to the action of nature, or to the combined efforts of nature and his friends, that Bumpus owed his recovery, we cannot pretend to say; but certain it is that, on Corrie making a severer dab than usual into the pit of the seaman's stomach, he gave a gasp and a sneeze, the latter of which almost overturned Poopy, who chanced to be gazing wildly into his countenance at the moment. At the same time he involuntarily threw up his right arm, and fetched Corrie such a tremendous backhander on the chest that our young hero was laid flat on his back--half stunned by the violence of his fall, yet shouting with delight that his rugged friend still lived to strike another blow. Having achieved this easy though unintentional victory, Bumpus sighed again, shook his legs in the air, and sat up, gazing before him with a bewildered air, and gasping from time to time in a quiet way. "Wot's to do?" were the first words with which the restored seaman greeted his friends. "Hurrah!" screamed Corrie, his visage blazing with delight, as he danced in front of him. "Werry good," said Bumpus, whose intellects were not yet thoroughly restored, "try it again." "Oh! how cold your cheeks are," said Alice, placing her hands on them, and chafing them gently; then, perceiving that she did not communicate much warmth in that way, she placed her own fair soft cheek against that of the sailor. Suddenly throwing both arms round his neck, she hugged him, and burst into tears. Bumpus was somewhat taken aback by this unexpected explosion, but, being an affectionate man as well as a rugged one, he had no objection whatever to the peculiar treatment. He allowed the child to sob on his neck as long as she chose, while Corrie stood by with his hands in his pockets, sailor-fashion, and looked on admiringly. As for Poopy, she sat down on a rock a short way off, and began to smile and talk to herself in a manner so utterly idiotical that an ignorant observer would certainly have judged her to be insane. They were thus agreeably employed when an event occurred which changed the current of their thoughts, and led to consequences of a somewhat serious nature. This event, however, was in itself insignificant. It was nothing more than the sudden appearance of a wild-pig among the bushes close at hand. CHAPTER SIXTEEN. A WILD CHASE--HOPE, DISAPPOINTMENT, AND DESPAIR--THE SANDAL-WOOD TRADER OUTWITS THE MAN-OF-WAR. When the wild-pig, referred to in the last chapter, was first observed, it was standing on the margin of a thicket, from which it had just issued, gazing, with the profoundly philosophical aspect peculiar to that animal, at our four friends, and seeming to entertain doubts as to the propriety of beating an immediate retreat. Before it had made up its mind on this point, Corrie's eye alighted on it. "Hist!" exclaimed he, with a gesture of caution to his companions. "Look there! we've had nothing to eat for an awful time; nothing since breakfast on Sunday morning. I feel as if my interior had been amputated. Oh! what a jolly roast that fellow would make if we could only kill him." "Wot's in the pistol?" inquired Bumpus, pointing to the weapon which Corrie had stuck ostentatiously into his belt. "Nothin'," answered the boy. "I fired the last charge I had into the face of a savage." "Fling it at him," suggested Bumpus, getting cautiously up. "Here, hand it to me. I've seed a heavy horse-pistol like that do great execution when well aimed by a stout arm." The pig seemed to have an intuitive perception that danger was approaching, for it turned abruptly round just as the missile left the seaman's hand, and received the butt with full force close to the root of its tail. A pig's tendency to shriek on the receipt of the slightest injury is well known. It is therefore not to be wondered at, that this pig went off into the bushes under cover of a series of yells so terrific that they might have been heard for miles round. "I'll after him," cried Bumpus, catching up a large stone, and leaping forward a few paces almost as actively as if nothing had happened to him. "Hurrah!" shouted Corrie, "I'll go too." "Hold on," cried Bumpus, stopping suddenly. "Why?" inquired the boy. "'Cause you must stop an' take care of the gals. It won't do to leave 'em alone again, you know, Corrie." This remark was accompanied with an exceedingly huge wink full of deep meaning, which Corrie found it convenient not to notice, as he observed, gravely-- "Ah! true. One of us _must_ remain with 'em, poor helpless things--so-- so _you_ had better go after the squeaker." "All right," said Bumpus, with a broad grin--"Hallo! why, here's a spear that must ha' bin dropt by one o' them savages. That's a piece o' good luck anyhow, as the man said when he fund the fi' pun' note. Now, then, keep an eye on them gals, lad, and I'll be back as soon as ever I can; though I does feel rather stiffish. My old timbers ain't used to such deep divin', d'ye see." Bumpus entered the thicket as he spoke, and Corrie returned to console the girls, with the feeling and the air of a man whose bosom is filled with a stern resolve to die, if need be, in the discharge of an important duty. Now, the yell of this particular pig reached other ears besides those of the party whose doings we have attempted to describe. It rang in those of the pirates, who had been sent ashore to hide, like the scream of a steam-whistle, in consequence of their being close at hand, and it sounded like a faint cry in those of Henry Stuart and the missionary, who, with their party, were a long way off, slowly tracing the footsteps of the lost Alice, to which they had been guided by the keen scent of that animated scrap of door-mat, Toozle. The effect on both parties was powerful, but not similar. The pirates, supposing that a band of savages were near them, lay close and did not venture forth until a prolonged silence and strong curiosity tempted them to creep, with slow movements and extreme caution, towards the place whence the sounds had proceeded. Mr Mason and Henry, on the other hand, stopped and listened with intense earnestness, expecting, yet fearing, a recurrence of the cry, and then sprang forward with their party, under the belief that they had heard the voice of Alice calling for help. Meanwhile, Bumpus toiled up the slopes of the mountain, keeping the pig well in view, for that animal having been somewhat injured by the blow from the pistol, could not travel at its ordinary speed. Indeed, Jo would have speedily overtaken it, but for the shaky condition of his own body after such a long fast and such a series of violent shocks, as well mental as physical. Having gained the summit of a hill, the pig, much exhausted, sat down on its hams, and gazed pensively at the ground. Bumpus took advantage of the fact, and also sat down on a stone to rest. "Wot a brute it is," said he to himself, "I'll circumvent it yet, though." Presently, he rose and made as if he had abandoned the chase, and were about to return the way he had come; but, when he had effectually concealed himself from the view of the pig, he made a wide detour, and, coming out suddenly at a spot higher up the mountain, charged down upon the unsuspecting animal with a yell that would have done credit to itself. The pig echoed the yell, and rushed down the hill towards the cliffs, closely followed by the hardy seaman, who, in the ardour of the chase, forgot or ignored his aches and pains, and ran like a greyhound, his hair streaming in the wind, his eyes blazing with excitement, and the spear ready poised for a fatal dart. Altogether, he was so wild and strong in appearance, and so furious in his onset, that it was impossible to believe he had been half dead little more than an hour before, but then, as we have before remarked, Bumpus was hard to kill! For nearly half an hour did the hungry seaman keep up the chase--neither gaining nor losing distance, while the affrighted pig, having its attention fixed entirely on its pursuer, scrambled and plunged forward over every imaginable variety of ground, receiving one or two severe falls in consequence. Bumpus, being warned by its fate, escaped them. At last the two dashed into a gorge and out at the other end, scrambled through a thicket, plunged down a hill, and doubled a high rock, on the other side of which they were met in the teeth by Henry Stuart at the head of his band. The pig attempted to double. Failing to do so, it lost its footing and fell flat on its side. Jo Bumpus threw his spear with violent energy deep into the earth about two feet beyond it, tripped on a stump and fell headlong on the top of the pig, squeezing the life out of its body with the weight of his ponderous frame, and receiving its dying yell into his very bosom. "Hilloa! my stalwart chip of old Neptune," cried Henry, laughing, "you've bagged him this time effectually. Hast seen any of the niggers, or did you mistake this poor pig for one?" "Ay, truly, I have seen them, and given a few of 'em marks that will keep 'em in remembrance of me. As for this pig," said Jo, throwing the carcase over his shoulder, "I want a bit of summat to eat--that's the fact; an' the poor children will be--" "Children," cried Mr Mason, eagerly, "what do you mean, my man; have you seen any?" "In course I has, or I wouldn't speak of 'em," returned Jo, who did not at first recognise the missionary, and no wonder, for Mr Mason's clothes were torn and soiled, and his face was bruised, bloodstained, and haggard. "Tell me, friend, I entreat you," said the pastor earnestly, laying his hand on Jo's arm, "have you seen my child?" "Wot! are you the father o' the little gal? Why, I've seed her only half an hour since. But hold on, lads, come arter me an I'll steer you to where she is at this moment." "Thanks be to God," said Mr Mason, with a deep sigh of relief. "Lead on, my man, and, pray, go quickly." Bumpus at once led the way to the foot of the cliffs, and went over the ground at a pace that satisfied even the impatience of the bereaved father. While this was occurring on the mountain slopes, the pirates at the foot of the cliffs had discovered the three children, and, finding that no one else was near, had seized them and carried them off to a cave near to which their boat lay on the rocks. They hoped to have obtained some information from them as to what was going on at the other side of the island, but, while engaged in a fruitless attempt to screw something out of Corrie, who was peculiarly refractory, they were interrupted, first by the yells of Bumpus and his pig, and afterwards by the sudden appearance of Henry and his party on the edge of a cliff a short way above the spot where they were assembled. On seeing these, the pirates started to their feet and drew their cutlasses, while Henry uttered a shout and ran down the rocks like a deer. "Shall we have a stand-up fight with 'em, Bill?" said one of the pirates. "Not if I can help it--there's four to one," replied the other. "To the boat," cried several of the men, leading the way, "and let's take the brats with us." As Henry's party came pouring down the hill, the more combatively disposed of the pirates saw at a glance that it would be in vain to attempt a stand, they therefore discharged a scattering volley from their pistols, (happily without effect,) and, springing into their boat, pushed off from the shore, taking the children along with them. Mr Mason was the first to gain the beach. He had hit upon a shorter path by which to descend, and rushing forward, plunged into the sea. Poor little Alice, who at once recognised her father, stretched out her arms towards him, and would certainly have leaped into the sea had she not been forcibly detained by one of the pirates, whose special duty it was to hold her with one hand, while he restrained the violent demonstrations of Corrie with the other. The father was too late, however. Already the boat was several yards from the shore, and the frantic efforts he made in the madness of his despair to overtake it, only served to exhaust him. When Henry Stuart reached the beach, it was with difficulty he prevented those members of his band who carried muskets from firing on the boat. None of them thought for a moment, of course, of making the mad attempt to swim towards her. Indeed, Mr Mason himself would have hesitated to do so had he been capable of cool thought at the time; but the sudden rush of hope when he heard of his child being near, combined with the agony of disappointment on seeing her torn, as it were, out of his very grasp, was too much for him. His reasoning powers were completely overturned; he continued to buffet the waves with wild energy, and to strain every fibre of his being in the effort to propel himself through the water, long after the boat was hopelessly beyond reach. Henry understood his feelings well, and knew that the poor missionary would not cease his efforts until exhaustion should compel him to do so, in which case his being drowned would be a certainty, for there was neither boat nor canoe at hand in which to push off to his rescue. In these circumstances the youth took the only course that seemed left to him. He threw off his clothes and prepared to swim after his friend, in order to render the assistance of his stout arm when it should be needed. "Here, Jakolu!" he cried to one of the natives who stood near him. "Yes, mass'r," answered the sturdy young fellow, who has been introduced at an earlier part of this story as being one of the missionary's best behaved and most active church members. "I mean to swim after him, so I leave the charge of the party to Mr Bumpus there. You will act under his orders. Keep the men, together, and guard against surprise. We don't know how many more of these blackguards may be lurking among the rocks." To this speech Jakolu replied by shaking his head slowly and gravely, as if he doubted the propriety of his young commander's intentions. "You no can swim queek nuff to save him," said he. "That remains to be seen," retorted Henry, sharply, for the youth was one of the best swimmers on the island--at least the best among the whites, and better than many of the natives, although some of the latter could beat him. "At any rate," he continued, "you would not have me stand idly by while my friend is drowning, would you?" "Him's not drownin' yet," answered the matter-of-fact native. "Me 'vise you to let Jakolu go. Him's can sweem berer dan you. See, here am bit plank, too,--me take dat." "Ha! that's well thought of," cried Henry, who was now ready to plunge, "fetch it me, quick--and mind, Jakolu, keep your eye on me; when I hold up both hands you'll know that I'm dead beat, and that you must come off and help us both." So saying, he seized the small piece of drift-wood which the native brought to him, and, plunging into the sea, struck out vigorously in the direction in which the pastor was still perseveringly, though slowly, swimming. While Henry was stripping, his eye had quickly and intelligently taken in the facts that were presented to him on the bay. He had seen, on descending the hill, that the man-of-war had entered the bay and anchored there, a fact which surprised him greatly, and that the _Foam_ still lay where he had seen her cast anchor on the morning of her arrival. This surprised him even more--for, if the latter was really a pirate schooner, (as had been hinted more than once that day by various members of the settlement,) why did she remain so fearlessly and peacefully within range of the guns of so dangerous and powerful an enemy? He also observed that one of the large boats of the _Talisman_ was in the water alongside and full of armed men, as if about to put off on some warlike expedition, while his pocket telescope enabled him to perceive that Gascoyne, (who must needs be the pirate captain, if the suspicions of his friends were correct,) was smoking quietly on the quarterdeck, apparently holding amicable converse with the British commander. The youth knew not what to think, for it was preposterous to suppose that a pirate captain could by any possibility be the intimate friend of his own mother. These and many other conflicting thoughts kept rushing through his mind as he hastened forward, but the conclusions to which they led him--if, indeed, they led him to any--were altogether upset by the unaccountable and extremely piratical conduct of the seamen who carried off Alice and her companions, and whom he knew to be part of the crew of the _Foam_, both from their costume, and from the direction in which they rowed their little boat. The young man's perplexities were, however, neutralised for the time by his anxiety for his friend the pastor, and by the necessity of instant and vigorous effort for his rescue. He had just time, before plunging into the sea, to note with satisfaction that the man-of-war's boat had pushed off; and that if Alice really was in the hands of pirates, there was the certainty of her being speedily rescued. In this latter supposition, however, Henry was mistaken. The events on shore which we have just described, had been witnessed, of course, by the crews of both vessels, with, as may be easily conjectured, very different feelings. In the _Foam_, the few men who were lounging about the deck looked uneasily from the war vessel to the countenance of Manton, in whose hands they felt that their fate now lay. The object of their regard paced the deck slowly, with his hands in his pockets and a pipe in his mouth, in the most listless manner, in order to deceive the numerous eyes which he knew full well scanned his movements with deep curiosity. The frowning brow and the tightly compressed lips alone indicated the storm of anger which was in reality raging in the pirate's breast at what he deemed the obstinacy of his captain in running into such danger, and the folly of his men in having shewn fight on shore when there was no occasion for doing so. But Manton was too much alive to his own danger and interests to allow passion at such a critical moment to interfere with his judgment. He paced the deck slowly, as we have said, undecided as to what course he ought to pursue, but ready to act with the utmost energy and promptitude when the time for action should arrive. On board the _Talisman_, on the other hand, the young commander began to feel certain of his prize; and when he witnessed the scuffle on shore, the flight of the boat's crew with the three young people and the subsequent events, he could not conceal a smile of triumph as he turned to Gascoyne and said-- "Your men are strangely violent in their proceedings, sir, for the crew of a peaceable trader. If it were not that they are pulling straight for your schooner, where, no doubt, they will be received with open arms, I would have fancied they had been part of the crew of that wonderful pirate, who seems to be able to change _colour_ almost as quickly as he changes _position_." The allusion had no effect whatever on the imperturbable Gascoyne, on whose countenance good humour seemed to have been immovably enthroned, for the worse his case became the more amiable and satisfied was his aspect. "Surely Captain Montague does not hold me responsible for the doings of my men in my absence," said he, calmly. "I have already said that they are a wild set--not easily restrained even when I am present; and fond of getting into scrapes when they can. You see, we have not a choice of men in these out-of-the-way parts of the world." "Apparently not," returned Montague, "but I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you order your men to be punished for their misdeeds; for, if not, I shall be under the necessity of punishing them for you. Is the boat ready, Mr Mulroy?" "It is, sir." "Then, Mr Gascoyne, if you will do me the favour to step into this boat, I will have much pleasure in accompanying you on board your schooner." "By all means," replied Gascoyne, with a bland smile, as he rose and threw away the end of another cigar, after having lighted therewith the sixth or seventh in which he had indulged that day. "Your boat is well manned and your men are well armed, Captain Montague; do you go on some cutting-out expedition, or are you so much alarmed at the terrible aspect of the broadside of my small craft that--" Gascoyne here smiled with ineffable urbanity, and bowed slightly by way of finishing his sentence. Montague was saved the annoyance of having to reply, by a sudden exclamation from his lieutenant, who was observing the schooner's boat though his telescope. "There seems to be some one swimming after that boat," said he. "A man--evidently a European, for he is light-coloured. He must have been some time in the water, for he is already a long way from shore, and seems much exhausted." "Why, the man is drowning, I believe," cried Montague, quickly, as he looked through the glass. At that moment Frederick Mason's strength had given way; he made one or two manful efforts to struggle after the retreating boat, and then, tossing his arms in the air, uttered a loud cry of agony. "Ho! shove off and save him," shouted Montague, the moment he heard it. "Look alive, lads, give way! and when you have picked up the man, pull straight for yonder schooner." The oars at once fell into the water with a splash, and the boat, large and heavy though it was, shot from the ship's side like an arrow. "Lower the gig," cried the captain. "And now, Mr Gascoyne, since you seem disposed to go in a lighter boat, I will accommodate you. Pray follow me." In a few seconds they were seated in the little gig which seemed to fly over the sea under the vigorous strokes of her crew of eight stout men. So swift were her motions, that she reached the side of the schooner only a few minutes later than the _Foam's_ boat, and a considerable time before his own large boat had picked up Mr Mason, who was found in an almost insensible condition, supported by Henry Stuart. When the gig came within a short distance of the _Foam_, Gascoyne directed Montague's attention to the proceedings of the large boat, and at the same instant made a private signal with his right hand to Manton, who, still unmoved and inactive, stood at the schooner's bow awaiting and evidently expecting it. "Ha!" said he aloud, "I thought as much. Now lads, shew the red--make ready to slip--off with Long Tom's nightcap--let out the skulkers--take these children down below, and a dozen of you stand by to receive the captain and his _friends_." These somewhat peculiar orders, hurriedly given, were hastily obeyed, and in a few seconds more the gig of the _Talisman_ ranged up alongside of the _Foam_. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. THE ESCAPE. The instant that Captain Montague stepped over the side of the schooner, a handkerchief was pressed tightly over his mouth and nose. At the same time, he was seized by four strong men and rendered utterly powerless. The thing was done so promptly and silently, that the men who remained in the gig heard no unusual sound. "I'm sorry to treat a guest so roughly, Captain Montague," said Gascoyne, in a low tone, as the unfortunate officer was carried aft, "but the safety of my vessel requires it. They will carry you to my state-room, where you will find my steward exceedingly attentive and obliging, but, _let me warn you_, he is peculiarly ready with the butt end of his pistol at times, especially when men are inclined to make unnecessary noise." He turned on his heel as he said this and went forward, looking over the side in passing and telling the crew of the gig to remain where they were till their captain should call them. This order the men felt constrained to obey, although they were surprised that the captain himself had not given it on quitting the boat; their suspicions were farther awakened by the active operations going on upon deck. The sounds apprised them of these for the bulwarks hid everything from view. At length, when they heard the cable slipping through the hawse-hole, they could stand it no longer, but sprang up the side in a body. Of course they were met by men well prepared. As they were armed only with cutlasses, the pirates quickly overcame them and threw them into the sea. All further attempt at concealment was now abandoned. The man-of-war's boat, when it came up, was received with a shot from Long Tom, which grazed its side, carried away four of the starboard oars, and just missed dashing it to pieces by a mere hair's-breadth. At the same time the sails of the schooner were shaken out and filled by the light breeze, which, for nearly an hour, had been blowing off shore. As the coming up of the gig and the large boat had occurred on that side of the schooner that was farthest from the _Talisman_, those on board of the latter vessel could not make out clearly what had occurred. That the schooner was a pirate was now clearly evident, for the red griffin and stripe were suddenly displayed as well as the blood-red flag; but the first lieutenant did not dare to fire on her while the boats were so near. He slipped the cable, however, and made instant sail on the ship, and when he saw the large boat and the gig drop astern of the schooner-- the former in a disabled condition--he commenced firing as fast as he could load; not doubting that his captain was in his own boat. At such short range the shot flew around the pirate schooner like hail, but she appeared to bear a charmed existence, for, although they whistled between her spars and struck the sea all around her, very few indeed did her serious damage. The shots from Long Tom, on the other hand, were well aimed, and told with terrible effect on the hull and rigging of the frigate. Gascoyne himself pointed the gun, and his bright eye flashed, and a grim smile played on his lips as the shots whistled round his head. The pirate captain seemed to be possessed by a spirit of fierce and reckless jovialty that day. His usual calm self-possessed demeanour quite forsook him. He issued his orders in a voice of thunder and with an air of what, for want of a better expression, we may term ferocious heartiness. He generally executed these orders himself, hurling the men violently out of his way as if he were indignant at their tardiness, although they sprang to obey as actively as usual--indeed more so, for they were overawed and somewhat alarmed by this unwonted conduct on the part of their captain. The fact was, that Gascoyne had for a long time past desired to give up his course of life and amend his ways, but he discovered, as all wicked men discover sooner or later, that while it is easy to plunge into evil courses it is by no means easy--on the contrary it is extremely difficult--to give them up. He had formed his resolution and had laid his plans; but all his plans had miscarried. Being a man of high temper he had been driven almost to desperation, and sought relief to his feelings in physical exertion. Of all the men in the _Avenger_, however, no one was so much alarmed by the captain's conduct as the first mate, between whom and Gascoyne there had been a bitter feeling for some time past; and Manton knew (at least he believed) that it would be certain death to him if he should chance to thwart his superior in the mood in which he then was. "That was a good shot, Manton," said Gascoyne, with a wild laugh, as the fore-topsail yard of the _Talisman_ came rattling down on the deck, having been cut away by a shot from Long Tom. "It was, but _that_ was a better one," said Manton, pointing to the boom of the schooner's mainsail, which was cut in two by a round shot, just as the captain spoke. "Good, very good," observed the latter with an approving nod; "but that alters the game; down with the helm! steady!" "Get the wreck of that boom cleared away, Manton, we won't want the mainsail long. Here comes a squall. Look sharp. Close reef topsails." The boom was swaying to and fro so violently, that three of the men who sprang to obey the order were hurled by it into the lee scuppers. Gascoyne darted towards the broken spar and held it fast, while Manton quickly severed the ropes that fastened it to the sail and to the deck, then the former hurled it over the side with as much ease as if it had been an oar. "Let her away now." "Why, that will run us right into the Long Shoal!" exclaimed Manton, anxiously, as the squall which had been approaching struck the schooner and laid her almost on her beam ends. "I know it," replied Gascoyne, curtly, as he thrust aside the man at the wheel and took the spokes in his own hands. "It's all we can do to find our way through that place in fine weather," remonstrated the mate. "I know it," said Gascoyne, sternly. Scraggs, who chanced to be standing by, seemed to be immensely delighted with the alarmed expression on Manton's face. The worthy second mate hated the first mate so cordially, and attached so little value to his own life, that he would willingly have run the schooner on the rocks altogether, just to have the pleasure of laughing contemptuously at the wreck of Manton's hopes. "It's worth while trying it," suggested Scraggs, with a malicious grin. "I mean to try it," said Gascoyne, calmly. "But there's not a spot in the shoal except the Eel's Gate that we've a ghost of a chance of getting through," cried Manton, becoming excited as the schooner dashed towards the breakers like a furious charger rushing on destruction. "I know it." "And there's barely water on _that_ to float us over," he added, striding forward, and laying a hand on the wheel. "Half-a-foot too little," said Gascoyne, with forced calmness. Scraggs grinned. "You shan't run us aground if I can prevent it," cried Manton, fiercely, seizing the wheel with both hands and attempting to move it, in which attempt he utterly failed, and Scraggs grinned broader than ever. "Remove your hands," said Gascoyne, in a low calm voice, which surprised the men who were standing near and witnessed these proceedings. "I won't. Ho! lads, do you wish to be sent to the bottom by a--" The remainder of this speech was cut short by the sudden descent of Gascoyne's knuckles on the forehead of the mate, who dropped on the deck as if he had been felled with a sledge hammer. Scraggs laughed outright with satisfaction. "Remove him," said Gascoyne. "Overboard?" inquired Scraggs, with a bland smile. "Below," said the captain; and Scraggs was fain to content himself with carrying the insensible form of his superior officer to his berth, taking pains, however, to bump his head carefully against every spar and corner and otherwise convenient projection on the way down. In a few minutes more the schooner was rushing through the milk-white foam that covered the dangerous coral reef named the Long Shoals, and the _Talisman_ lay-to, not daring to venture into such a place, but pouring shot and shell into her bold little adversary with terrible effect, as her tattered sails and flying cordage shewed. The fire was steadily replied to by Long Tom, whose heavy shots, came crashing repeatedly through the hull of the man-of-war. The large boat, meanwhile, had been picked up by the _Talisman_, after having rescued Mr Mason and Henry, both of whom were placed in the gig. This light boat was now struggling to make the ship, but owing to the strength of the squall, her diminished crew were unable to effect this; they therefore ran ashore to await the issue of the fight and the storm. For some time the _Avenger_ stood on her wild course unharmed, passing close to huge rocks on either side of her, over which the sea burst in clouds of foam. Gascoyne still stood at the wheel, guiding the vessel with consummate skill and daring, while the men looked on in awe and in breathless expectation, quite regardless of the shot which flew around them and altogether absorbed by the superior danger by which they were menaced. The surface of the sea was so universally white, that there was no line of dark water to guide the pirate captain on his bold and desperate course. He was obliged to trust almost entirely to his intimate knowledge of the coast, and to the occasional patches in the surrounding waste where the comparative flatness of the boiling flood indicated less shallow water. As the danger increased, the smile left Gascoyne's lips, but the flashing of his bright eyes and his deepened colour shewed that the spirit boiled within, almost as wildly as the ocean raged around him. The centre of the shoal was gained, and a feeling of hope and exultation began to rise in the breasts of the crew when a terrific shock caused the little schooner to quiver from stem to stern, while an involuntary cry burst from the men, many of whom were thrown violently on the deck. At the same time a shot from the _Talisman_ came in through the stern bulwarks, struck the wheel and carried it away with part of the tackle attached to the tiller. "Another leap like that, lass, and you're over," cried Gascoyne, with a light smile, as he sprang to the iron tiller, and, seizing it with his strong hands, steered the schooner as if she had been a boat. "Get new tackle rove, Scraggs," said he, cheerfully, "I'll keep her straight for Eel's Gate with _this_. That was the first bar of the gate--there are only two altogether, and the second won't be so bad." As the captain spoke, the schooner seemed to recover from the shock and again rushed forward on her foaming course; but before the men had time to breathe, she struck again--this time less violently, as had been predicted--and the next wave, lifting her over the shoal, launched her into deep water. "There, that will do," said Gascoyne, resigning the helm to Scraggs. "You can keep her as she goes; there's plenty of water now and no fear of that big bully following us. Meanwhile, I will go below and see to the welfare of our passengers." Gascoyne was wrong in supposing that the _Talisman_ would not follow. She could not, indeed, follow in the same course, but the moment that Mulroy observed that the pirate had passed the shoals in safety, he stood inshore, and, without waiting to pick up the gig, traversed the channel by which they had entered the bay. Then, trusting to the lead and to his knowledge of the general appearance of shallows, he steered carefully along until he cleared the reefs and finally stood out to sea. In less than half-an-hour afterwards, the party on shore beheld the two vessels disappear among the black storm-clouds that gathered over the distant horizon. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. THE GOAT'S PASS--AN ATTACK, A BLOODLESS VICTORY, AND A SERMON. When Ole Thorwald was landed at the foot of that wild gorge in the cliffs, which has been designated the Goat's Pass, he felt himself to be an aggrieved man, and growled accordingly. "It's too bad o' that fire-eating fellow to fix on _me_ for this particular service," said he to one of the settlers named Hugh Barnes, a cooper, who acted as one of his captains; "and at night too, just as if a man of my years were a cross between a cat, (which everybody knows can see in the dark,) and a kangaroo, which is said to be a powerful leaper, though whether in the dark or the light I don't pretend to know--not being informed on the point. Have a care, Hugh. It seems to me you're going to step into a quarry hole, or over a precipice. How my old flesh quakes, to be sure! If it was only a fair flat field and open day, with any odds you like against me, it would be nothing; but this abominable Goat's--Hah! I knew it. Help! hold on there! murder!" Ole's sudden alarm was caused by his stumbling in the dark over the root of a shrub which grew on the edge of, and partly concealed, a precipice, over which he was precipitated, and at the foot of which his mangled and lifeless form would soon have reposed, had not his warlike forefathers, being impressed with the advantage of wearing strong sword-belts, furnished the sword which Ole wore with such a belt as was not only on all occasions sufficient to support the sword itself, but which, on this particular occasion, was strong enough to support its owner when he was suspended from, and entangled with, the shrubs of the cliff. A ray of light chanced to break into the dark chasm at the time, and revealed all its dangers to the pendulous Thorwald so powerfully that he positively howled with horror. The howl brought Hugh and several of his followers to his side, and they with much difficulty, for he was a heavy man, succeeded in dragging him from his dangerous position and placing him on his feet, in which position he remained for some time speechless and blowing. "Now, I'll tell ye what it is, boys," said he at length, "if ever you catch me going on an expedition of this sort again, flay me alive-- that's all--don't spare me. Pull off the cuticle as if it were a glove, and if I roar don't mind--that's what I say." Having said this, the veteran warrior smiled a ghastly smile, as if the idea of being so excruciatingly treated were rather pleasant than otherwise. "You're not hurt, I hope," inquired Hugh. "Hurt! yes, I _am_ hurt--hurt in my feelings--not in my body, thanks to my good sword and belt; but my feelings are injured. That villain, that rascal, that pirate--as I verily believe him to be--selected me specially for this service, I am persuaded, just because he knew me to be unfit for it. Bah! but I'll pay him off for it. Come, boys, forward--perhaps, in the circumstances, it would be more appropriate to say, upward! We must go through with it now for our retreat is cut off. Lead the way, Hugh, your eyes are younger and sharper than mine, and if you chance to fall over a cliff, pray give a yell, like a good fellow, so that I may escape your sad fate." In the course of half an hour's rough scramble, the party gained the crest of the Goat's Pass and descended in rear of the native village. The country over which they had to travel, however, was so broken and so beset with rugged masses of rock as to retard their progress considerably, besides causing them to lose their way more than once. It was thus daybreak before they reached the heights that overlooked the village, and the shot from the _Avenger_ with the broad side from the frigate was delivered just as they began to descend the hill. Ole, therefore, pushed on with enthusiasm to attack the village in rear, but he had not advanced half a mile when the peculiar, and to him inexplicable, movements of the two vessels which have been already described, took place, leaving the honest commander of the land forces in a state of great perplexity as to what was meant by his naval allies, and in much doubt as to what he ought to do. "It seems to me," said he to his chiefs in a hastily summoned council of war, "that we are all at sixes and sevens. I don't understand what manoeuvres these naval men are up to and I doubt if they know themselves. This being the case, and the fleet, (if I may so name it,) having run away, it behoves us, my friends, to shew these sailors how we soldiers do our duty. I would advise, therefore, that we should attack at once. But as we are not a strong party, and as we know not how strong the savages may be, I think it my duty before leading you on, to ask your opinions on the point." The officers whose opinions were thus asked were Hugh Barnes, already mentioned; Terence Rigg the blacksmith of the settlement, and John Thomson the carpenter. These, being strong of body, powerful of will, and intelligent withal, had been appointed to the command of companies, and when on duty were styled "captain" by their commanding officer, who was, when on duty, styled "general" by them. Ole Thorwald, be it remarked in passing, was a soldier at heart. Having gone through a moderate amount of military education, and possessing considerable talent in the matter of drill, he took special pride in training the natives and the white men of the settlement to act in concert and according to fixed principles. The consequence was that, although his men were poorly armed, he had them under perfect command, and could cause them to act unitedly at any moment. The captains having been requested to give their opinions, Captain Rigg, being senior, observed that his vote was for "goin' at 'em at wance, neck or nothing," to which warlike sentiment he gave peculiar emphasis by adding, "an' no mistake," in a very decided tone of voice. "That's wot I says, too, General," said Captain Thomson, the carpenter. Captain Barnes being of the same opinion, General Thorwald said-- "Well then, gentlemen, we shall attack without delay;" and proceeded to make the necessary arrangements. When the _Talisman_ fired her broadside of blank cartridge at the native village, there was not a solitary warrior in it--only aged men, women and children. These, filled with unutterable consternation on hearing the thunderous discharge, sent up one yell of terror and forthwith took to their heels and made for the hills _en masse_, never once looking behind them, and, therefore, remaining in ignorance of the ulterior proceedings of the ships. It was some time before they came in sight of Ole Thorwald and his men. The moment they did so Ole gave the word to charge, and, whirling his sword round his head, set the example. The men followed with a yell. The poor savages turned at once and fled--such of them at least as were not already exhausted by their run up hill--and the rest, consisting chiefly of old men and children, fell on their knees and faces and howled for mercy. As soon as the charging host became aware of the character of the enemy, they came came to a sudden halt. "Sure it's owld men and women we're about to kill!" cried Captain Rigg, lowering his formidable forehammer, with which, in default of a better weapon, he had armed himself, "but hooray! Gineral, there may be lots o' the warrior reptiles in among the huts, and them poor craturs have been sent out to decaive us." "That's true. Forward my lads!" shouted Ole--and again the army charged--nor did they stop short until they had taken possession of the village, when they found that all the fighting men were gone. This being happily accomplished without blood shed, Ole Thorwald, like a wise general, took the necessary steps to insure and complete his conquest. He seized all the women and children and shut them up in a huge temple built of palm-trees and roofed with broad leaves. This edifice was devoted to the horrible practice of cutting up human bodies that were intended to be eaten. Ole had often heard of the cannibalism that is practised by most of the South Sea islanders, though some tribes are worse than others, but he had never before this day come directly in contact with it. Here, however, there could be no doubt whatever of the fact. Portions of human bodies were strewn about this hideous temple--some parts in a raw and bloody condition, as if they had just been cut from a lately slain victim; others in a baked state as if ready to form part of some terrible banquet. Sick at heart, Ole Thorwald turned from this sight with loathing. Concluding that the natives who practised such things could not be very much distressed by being shut up for a time in a temple dedicated to the gratification of their own disgusting tastes, he barricaded the entrance securely, placed a guard over it, and hurried away to see that two other buildings, in which the remainder of the women and children had been imprisoned, were similarly secured and guarded. Meanwhile the stalwart knight of the forehammer, to whom the duty had been assigned, placed sentries at the various entrances to the village, and disposed his men in such a way as to prevent the possibility of being taken by surprise. These various arrangements were not made a moment too soon. The savages, as we have said in a former chapter, rushed towards their village from all quarters, on hearing the thunder of the great guns. They were now arriving in scores, and came rushing over the brow of the neighbouring hill, and down the slope that rose immediately in rear of their rude homes. On finding that the place was occupied by their enemies they set up a yell of despair, and retired to a neighbouring height, where Ole could see, by their wild gesticulations, that they were hotly debating what should be done. It soon became evident that an attack would be made, for, as their comrades came pouring in, the party from the settlement was soon greatly outnumbered. Seeing this, and knowing that the party under command of Henry Stuart would naturally hasten to his aid as soon as possible, Ole sought to cause delay by sending out a flag of truce. The natives had been so long acquainted with the customs of the Europeans that they understood the meaning of this, and the chief of the tribe, at once throwing down his club, advanced fearlessly to meet the Christian native sent out with the flag. The message was to the effect that if they, the enemy, should dare to make an attack, all the women and children then in the hands of the settlers should have their heads chopped off on the spot! This was a startling announcement, and one so directly in opposition to the known principles of the Christians, that the heathen chief was staggered and turned pale. He returned to his comrades with the horrifying message, which seemed to them all utterly unaccountable. It was quite natural for themselves to do such a deed, because they held that all sorts of cruelties were just in war. But their constant experience had been that, when a native became a follower of the Christian missionary, from that moment he became merciful, especially towards the weak and helpless. Counting upon this, they were stunned as well as astonished at Thorwald's message; for they believed implicitly that he meant to do what he threatened. They did not know that Ole, although a worthy man, was not so earnest a believer in all Mr Mason's principles, but that he could practise on their credulity in time of need. Like the missionary, he would rather have died than have sacrificed the life of a woman or child; but, unlike him, he had no objection to deceive in order to gain time. As it turned out, his threat was unnecessary, for Henry and his men were close at hand; and before the natives could make up their minds what to do, the whole band came pouring over the hill, with Jo Bumpus far ahead of the rest, leaping and howling like a maniac with excitement. This decided the natives. They were now outnumbered and surrounded. The principal chief, therefore, advanced towards Bumpus with a piece of native cloth tied to the end of his war-club, which he brandished furiously by way of making it plain that his object was not war, but peace! Naturally enough, the seaman misinterpreted the signal, and there is no doubt that he would have planted his knuckles on the bridge of the nose of that swarthy cannibal had not Henry Stuart made use of his extraordinary powers of speed. He darted forward, overtook Jo, and, grasping him round the neck with both arms, shouted-- "It's a flag of truce, man!" "You don't say so? well, who'd ha' thought it. It don't look like one, so it don't." With this remark, Jo subsided into a peaceable man. Pulling a quid out of his pocket, he thrust it into his cheek, and, crossing his arms on his breast, listened patiently--though not profitably, seeing that he did not understand a word--to the dialogue that followed. It will be remembered that poor Mr Mason, after being saved by Henry, was taken into the gig of the _Talisman_ and put ashore. After the two vessels had disappeared, as has been already described, Henry at once led his party towards the native village, knowing that Ole Thorwald would require support, all the more that the ship had failed to fulfil her part in the combined movement. As the almost heartbroken father had no power to render farther aid to his lost child, he suffered himself to be led, in a half-bewildered state, along with the attacking party under his young friend. He was now brought forward to parley with the native chief. The missionary's manner and aspect at once changed. In the hope of advancing the cause of his Master, he forgot, or at least restrained, his own grief for a time. "What would the chief say to the Christians?" he began, on being confronted with the savage and some of his warriors who crowded round him. "That he wishes to have done with war," replied the man. "That is a good wish, but why did the chief begin war?" "Keona began it!" said the savage, angrily. "We thought our wars with the Christians were going to stop. But Keona is bad. He put the war spirit into my people." Mr Mason knew this to be true. "Then," said he, "Keona deserves punishment." "Let him die," answered the chief, and an exclamation of assent broke from the other natives. Keona himself, happening to be there, became pale and looked anxious, but remained where he stood nevertheless, with his arms crossed on his dark breast. A bandage of native cloth was tied round his wounded arm. Without saying a word, he undid this, tore it off; and allowed the blood to ooze from the re-opened wound. It was a silent appeal to the feelings and the sense of justice of his comrades, and created a visible impression in his favour. "That wound was received by one who would have been a murderer!" said Mr Mason, observing the effect of this action. "He struck me!" cried Keona, fiercely. "He struck you in defending his own home against a cowardly attack," answered the missionary. At this point Ole Thorwald saw fit to interfere. Seeing that the natives were beginning to argue the case, and knowing that no good could come from such a course, he quietly observed:-- "There will be neither wife nor child in this place if I do but hold up my hand." The missionary and his party did not, of course, understand this allusion, but they understood the result, for the savages at once dropped their tones, and the chief sued earnestly for peace. "Chiefs and warriors," said Mr Mason, raising his hand impressively, "I am a man of peace, and I serve the Prince of peace. To stop this war is what I desire most earnestly, and I desire above all things that you and I might henceforth live in friendship, serving the same God and Saviour, whose name is Jesus Christ. But your ways are not like our ways. If I leave you now, I fear you will soon find another occasion to renew the war, as you have often done before. I have you in my power now. If you were to fight with us we could easily beat you, because we are stronger in numbers and well armed. Yes, I have you in my power, and, with the blessing of my God, I will keep you in my power _for ever_!" There was a visible fall in the countenances of the savages, who regarded this strange announcement as their death-warrant. Some of them even grasped their clubs and looked fiercely at their enemies, but a glance from Ole Thorwald quieted these restive spirits. "Now, chiefs and warriors, I have two intentions in regard to you," continued Mr Mason. "The one is that you shall take your clubs, spears, and other weapons, and lay them in a pile on this mound, after which I will make you march unarmed before us half way to our settlement. From that point you shall return to your homes. Thus you shall be deprived of the power of treacherously breaking that peace which you know in your hearts you would break if you could. "My second intention is that the whole of your tribe--men, women, and children--shall now assemble at the foot of this mound and hear what I have got to say to you. The first part of this plan I shall carry out by force, if need be.--But for the second part--_I must have your own consent_. I may not force you to listen if you are not willing to hear." At the mention of the women and children being required to assemble along with them, the natives pricked up their ears, and, as a matter of course, they willingly agreed to listen to all that the missionary had to say to them. This being settled, and the natives knowing, from former experience, that the Christians never broke faith with them, they advanced to the mound pointed out and threw down their arms. A strong guard was placed over these; the troops of the settlement were disposed in such a manner as to prevent the possibility of their being recovered, and then the women and children were set free. It was a noisy and remarkable meeting that which took place between the men and women of the tribe on this occasion; but soon surprise and expectation began to take the place of all other feelings as the strange intentions of the missionary were spoken of, and in a very short time Mr Mason had a large and most attentive congregation. Never before had the missionary secured such an opportunity! His eccentric method of obtaining a hearing had succeeded beyond his expectations. With a heart overflowing with gratitude to God he stood up and began to preach the Gospel. Mr Mason was not only eccentric, but able and wise. He made the most of his opportunity. He gave them a _very_ long sermon that day; but he knew that the savages were not used to sermons, and that they would not think it long! His text was a double one--"The soul that sinneth it shall die," and "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." He preached that day as a man might who speaks to his hearers for the first and last time, and, in telling of the goodness, the mercy, and the love of God, the bitter grief of his own heart was sensibly abated. After his discourse was over and prayer had been offered up, the savage warriors were silently formed into a band and marched off in front of the Christians to the spot where Mr Mason had promised to set them free. They shewed no disinclination to go. They believed in the good faith of their captors. The missionary had, indeed, got them into his power that day. Some of them he had secured _for ever_! CHAPTER NINETEEN. SORROW AND SYMPATHY--THE WIDOW BECOMES A PLEADER, AND HER SON ENGAGES IN A SINGLE COMBAT. There are times in the life of every one when the heart seems unable to bear the load of sorrow and suffering that is laid upon it;--times when the anguish of the soul is such that the fair world around seems enshrouded with gloom, when the bright sun itself appears to shine in mockery, and when the smitten heart refuses to be comforted. Such a time was it with poor Frederick Mason when, after his return to Sandy Cove, he stood alone, amid the blackened ruins of his former home, gazing at the spot which he knew, from the charred remnants as well as its position, was the site of the room which had once been occupied by his lost child. It was night when he stood there. The silence was profound, for the people of the settlement sympathised so deeply with their beloved pastor's grief that even the ordinary hum of life appeared to be hushed, except now and then when a low wail would break out and float away on the night wind. These sounds of woe were full of meaning. They told that there were other mourners there that night--that the recent battle had not been fought without producing some of the usual bitter fruits of war. Beloved, but dead and mangled forms, lay in more than one hut in Sandy Cove. Motionless--hopeless--the missionary stood amid the charred beams and ashes, until the words "Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me," descended on his soul like sunshine upon ice. A suppressed cry burst from his lips, and, falling on his knees, he poured forth his soul in prayer. While he was yet on his knees, a cry of anguish arose from one of the huts at the foot of the hill. It died away in a low, heart-broken wail. Mr Mason knew its meaning well. That cry had a special significance to him. It spoke reproachfully. It said, "There is comfort for _you_, for where life is there is hope; but here there is _death_." Again the word of God came to his memory, "Weep with them that weep." Starting up hastily, the missionary sprang over the black beams, and hurried down the hill, entered the village, and spent the greater part of the remainder of that night in comforting the bereaved and the wounded. The cause of the pastor's grief was not removed thereby, but the sorrow itself was lightened by sympathy, and when he returned at a late hour to his temporary home, hope had begun to arise within his breast. The widow's cottage afforded him shelter. When he entered it Harry and his mother were seated near a small table on which supper was spread for their expected guest. "Tom Armstrong will recover," said the missionary, seating himself opposite the widow and speaking in a hurried excited tone. "His wound is a bad one given by a war-club, but I think it is not dangerous. I wish I could say as much for poor Simon. If he had been attended to sooner he might have lived, but so much blood has been already lost that there is now no hope. Alas! for his little boy. He will be an orphan soon. Poor Harry's wife is distracted with grief. Her young husband's body is so disfigured with cuts and bruises that it is dreadful to look upon, yet she will not leave the room in which it lies, nor cease to embrace and cling to the mangled corpse. Poor, poor Lucy! she will have to be comforted. At present she must be left with God. No human sympathy can avail just now, but she must be comforted when she will permit any one to speak to her. You will go to her to-morrow, Mrs Stuart, won't you?" As this was Mr Mason's first meeting with the widow since the Sunday morning when the village was attacked, his words and manner shewed that he dreaded any allusion to his own loss. The widow saw and understood this, but she had consolation for him as well as for others, and would not allow him to have his way. "But what of Alice?" she said, earnestly. "You do not mention her. Henry has told me all. Have you nothing to say about yourself--about Alice?" "Oh! what can I say?" cried the pastor, clasping his hands, while a deep sob almost choked him. "Can you not say that she is in the hands of God--of a loving _Father_?" said Mrs Stuart, tenderly. "Yes, yes, I can say that--I--have said that, but--but--" "I know what you would say," interrupted the widow, "you would tell me that she is in the hands of pirates, ruthless villains who fear neither God nor man, and that, unless a miracle is wrought in her behalf, nothing can save her--" "Oh! spare me, Mary; why do you harrow my broken heart with such a picture?" cried Mr Mason, rising and pacing the room with quick unsteady steps, while with both hands on his head he seemed to attempt to crush down the thoughts that burned up his brain. "I speak thus," said the widow, with an earnestness of tone and manner that almost startled her hearers, "because I wish to comfort you. Alice, you tell me, is on board the _Foam_--" "On board the _pirate schooner_!" cried Henry almost fiercely, for the youth, although as much distressed as Mr Mason, was not so resigned as he, and his spirit chafed at the thought of having been deceived so terribly by the pirate. "She is on board the _Foam_," repeated the widow in a tone so stern that her hearers looked at her in surprise. "And is therefore in the hands of Gascoyne, who will not injure a hair of her head. I tell you, Mr Mason, that she is _perfectly safe_ in the hands of Gascoyne." "Of the pirate Durward!" said Henry, in a deep angry voice. "What ground have you for saying so?" asked the widow, quickly. "You only know him as Gascoyne the sandal-wood trader, the captain of the _Foam_. He has been suspected, it is true, but suspicion is not proof. His schooner has been fired into by a war vessel, he has returned the fire--any passionate man might be tempted to do that. His men have carried off some of our dear ones. That was _their_ doing--not his. He knew nothing of it." "Mother, mother," cried Henry, entreatingly, "don't stand up in that way for a pirate; I can't bear to hear it. Did he not himself describe the pirate schooner's appearance in this room, and when he was attacked by the _Talisman_ did he not shew out in his true colours, thereby proving that he is Durward the pirate?" The widow's face grew pale and her voice trembled as she replied, like one who sought to convince herself rather than her hearer, "That is not _positive_ proof, Henry. Gascoyne may have had some good reason for deceiving you all in this way. His description of the pirate may have been a false one. We cannot tell. You know he was anxious to prevent Captain Montague from impressing his men." "And would proclaiming himself a pirate be a good way of accomplishing that end, mother?" "Mary," said Mr Mason solemnly, as he seated himself at the table and looked earnestly in the widow's face. "Your knowledge of this man and your manner of speaking about him surprises me. I have long thought that you were not acting wisely in permitting Gascoyne to be so intimate; for, whatever he may in reality be, he is a suspicious character, to say the best of him; and although _I_ know that you think you are right in encouraging his visits, other people do not know that; they may judge you harshly. I do not wish to pry into secrets--but you have sought to comfort me by bidding me have perfect confidence in this man. I _must_ ask what knowledge you have of him. How far are you aware of his character and employment? How do you know that he is so trustworthy?" An expression of deep grief rested on the widow's countenance as she replied in a sad voice--"I _know_ that you may trust Gascoyne with your child. He is my oldest friend. I have known him since we were children. He saved my father's life long, long ago, and helped to support my mother in her last years. Would you have me to forget all this because men say that he is a pirate?" "Why, mother," cried Henry, "if you know so much about him you _must_ know that, whatever he was in time past, he is the pirate Durward now." "I do _not_ know that he is the pirate Durward!" said the widow in a voice and with a look so decided that Henry was silenced and sorely perplexed--yet much relieved, for he knew that his mother would rather die than tell a deliberate falsehood. The missionary was also comforted, for although his judgment told him that the grounds of hope thus held out to him were very insufficient, he was impressed by the thoroughly confident tone of the widow and felt relieved in spite of himself. Soon after this conversation was concluded the household retired to rest. Next morning Henry was awakened out of a deep sleep by the sound of subdued voices in the room underneath his own. At first he paid no attention to these, supposing that, as it was broad daylight, some of their native servants were moving about. But presently the sound of his mother's voice induced him to listen more attentively. Then a voice replied, so low that he could with difficulty hear it at all. Its strength increased, however, and at last it broke forth in deep bass tones. Henry sprang up and threw on his clothes. As he was thus engaged the front door of the house opened; and the speakers went out. A few seconds sufficed for the youth to finish dressing; then, seizing a pistol, he hurried out of the house. Looking quickly round he just caught sight of the skirts of a woman's dress as they disappeared through the doorway of a hut which had been formerly inhabited by a poor native who had subsisted on the widow's bounty until he died. The door was shut immediately after. Going swiftly but cautiously round by a back way, Henry approached the hut. Strange and conflicting feelings filled his breast. A blush of deep shame and self-abhorrence mantled on his cheek when it flashed across him that he was about to play the spy on his own mother. But there was no mistaking Gascoyne's voice. How the supposed pirate had got there, and wherefore he was there, were matters that he did not think of or care about at that moment. There he was, so the young man resolved to secure him and hand him over to justices. Henry was too honourable to listen secretly to a conversation, whatever it might be, that was not intended for his ears. He resolved merely to peep in at one of the many chinks in the log hut for one moment to satisfy himself that Gascoyne really was there, and to observe his position. But as the latter now thought himself beyond the hearing of any one, he spoke in unguarded tones, and Henry heard a few words in spite of himself. Looking through a chink in the wall at the end of the hut, he beheld the stalwart form of the sandalwood trader standing on the hearth of the hut, which was almost unfurnished--a stool, a bench, an old chest, a table, and a chair, being all that it contained. His mother was seated at the table with her hands clasped before her, looking up at her companion. "Oh! why run so great a risk as this?" said she, earnestly. "I was born to run risks, I believe," replied Gascoyne, in a sad low voice. "It matters not. My being on the island is the result of Manton's villainy--my being here is for poor Henry's sake and your own, as well as for the sake of Alice the missionary's child. You have been upright, Mary, and kind, and true as steel ever since I knew you. But for that I should have been lost long ago--" Henry heard no more. These words did indeed whet his curiosity to the utmost, but the shame of acting the part of an "eavesdropper" was so great that, by a strong effort of will, he drew back and pondered for a moment what he ought to do. The unexpected tone and tenor of Gascoyne's remark had softened him slightly; but, recalling the undoubted proofs that he had had of his really being a pirate, he soon steeled his heart against him. He argued that the mere fact of the man giving his mother credit for a character which everybody knew she possessed, was not sufficient to clear him of the suspicions which he had raised against himself. Besides, it was impertinence in any man to tell his mother his opinion of her to her face. And to call him "poor Henry," forsooth! This was not to be endured! Having thus wrought himself up to a sufficient degree of indignation, the young man went straight to the door, making considerable noise in order to prepare those within for his advent. He had expected to find it locked. In this he was mistaken. It yielded to a push. Throwing it wide open, Henry strode into the middle of the apartment, and, pointing the pistol at Gascoyne's breast, exclaimed--"Pirate Durward, I arrest you in the king's name!" At the first sound of her son's approach, Mrs Stuart bent forward over the table with a groan, buried her face in her hands. Gascoyne received Henry's speech at first with a frown and then with a smile. "You have taken a strange time and way to jest, Henry," said he, crossing his arms on his broad chest and gazing fixedly in the youth's face. "You will not throe me off my guard thus," said Henry, sternly. "You are my prisoner. I know you to be a pirate. At any rate you will have to prove yourself to be an honest man before you quit this hut a free man. Mother, leave this place that I may lock the door upon him." The widow did not move, but Gascoyne made a step towards her son. "Another step and I will fire. Your blood shall be on your own head, Gascoyne." As Gascoyne still advanced, Henry pointed the pistol straight at his breast and pulled the trigger, but no report followed--the priming, indeed, flashed in the pan but that was all! With a cry of rage and defiance, Henry leaped upon Gascoyne like a young lion. He struck at him with the pistol, but the latter caught the weapon in his powerful hand, wrenched it from the youth's grasp and flung it to the other end of the apartment. "You shall not escape me," cried Henry; aiming a tremendous blow with his fist at Gascoyne's face. It was parried, and the next moment the two closed in a deadly struggle. It was a terrible sight for the widow to witness, these two Herculean men exerting their great strength to the utmost in a hand-to-hand conflict in that small hut like two tigers in a cage. Henry, although nearly six feet in height, and proportionally broad and powerful, was much inferior to his gigantic antagonist; but to the superior size and physical force of the latter he opposed the lithe activity and the fervid energy of youth, so that to an unpractised eye it might have seemed doubtful at first which of the two men had the best chance. Straining his powers to the utmost, Henry attempted to lift his opponent off the ground and throw him. In this he was nearly successful. Gascoyne staggered, but recovered himself instantly. They did not move much from the centre of the room, nor was there much noise created during the conflict. It seemed too close--too full of concentrated energy--of heavy, prolonged straining--for much violent motion. The great veins in Gascoyne's forehead stood out like knotted cords; yet there was no scowl or frown on his face. Henry's brows, on the contrary, were gathered into a dark frown. His teeth were set, and his countenance flushed to deep red by exertion and passion. Strange to say, the widow made no effort to separate the combatants; neither did she attempt to move from her seat or give any alarm. She sat with her hands on the table clasped tightly together, gazing eagerly, anxiously, like a fascinated creature, at the wild struggle that was going on before her. Again and again Henry attempted, with all the fire of youth, to throw his adversary by one tremendous effort, but failed. Then he tried to fling him off, so as to have the power of using his fists or making an overwhelming rush. But Gascoyne held him in his strong arms like a vice. Several times he freed his right arm and attempted to plant a blow, but Gascoyne caught the blow in his hand, or seized the wrist and prevented its being delivered. In short, do what he would, Henry Stuart could neither free himself from the embrace of his enemy nor conquer him. Still he struggled on, for as this fact became more apparent the youth's blood became hotter from mingled shame and anger. Both men soon began to shew symptoms of fatigue. It was not in the nature of things that two such frames, animated by such spirits, could prolong so exhausting a struggle. It was not doubtful now which of the two would come off victorious. During the whole course of the fight Gascoyne had acted entirely on, the defensive. A small knife or stiletto hung at his left side, but he never attempted to use it, and he never once tried to throw his adversary. In fact it now became evident, even to the widow's perceptions, that the captain was actually playing with her son. All along, his countenance, though flushed and eager, exhibited no sign of passion. He seemed to act like a good-humoured man who had been foolishly assaulted by a headstrong boy, and who meant to keep him in play until he should tire him out. Just then the tinkling of a bell and other sounds of the people of the establishment beginning to move about were heard outside. Henry noticed this. "Hah!" he exclaimed, in a gasping voice, "I can at least hold you until help comes." Gascoyne heard the sounds also. He said nothing, but he brought the strife to a swift termination. For the first time he bent his back like a man who exerts himself in earnest and lifted Henry completely off the ground. Throwing him on his back, he pressed him down with both arms so as to break from his grasp. No human muscles could resist the force applied. Slowly but surely the iron sinews of Henry's arms straightened out, and the two were soon at arm's length. But even Gascoyne's strength could not unclasp the grip of the youth's hands, until he placed his knee upon his chest; then, indeed, they were torn away. Of course, all this was not done without some violence, but it was still plain to the widow that Gascoyne was careful not to hurt his antagonist more than he could help. "Now, Henry, my lad," said he, holding the youth down by the two arms, "I have given you a good deal of trouble this morning, and I mean to give you a little more. It does not just suit me at present to be tried for a pirate, so I mean to give you a race. You are reputed one of the best runners in the settlement. Well, I'll give you a chance after me. If you overtake me, boy, I'll give myself up to you without a struggle. But I suspect you'll find me rather hard to catch!" As he uttered the last words he permitted Henry to rise. Ere the youth had quite gained his footing, he gave him a violent push and sent him staggering back against the wall. When Henry recovered his balance, Gascoyne was standing in the open doorway. "Now, lad, are you ready?" said he, a sort of wild smile lighting up his face. Henry was so taken aback by this conduct, as well as by the rough handling which he had just received, that he could not collect his thoughts for a few seconds; but when Gascoyne nodded gravely to his mother and walked quietly away, saying, "Goodbye, Mary," the exasperated youth darted through the doorway like an arrow. If Henry Stuart's rush may be compared to the flight of an arrow from a bow, not less appropriately may Gascoyne's bound be likened to the leap of the bolt from a cross-bow. The two men sprang over the low fences that surrounded the cottage, leapt the rivulet that brawled down its steep course behind it, and coursed up the hill like mountain hares. The last that widow Stuart saw of them, as she gazed eagerly from the doorway of the hut, was, when Gascoyne's figure was clearly defined against the sky as he leaped over a great chasm in the lava high up the mountain side. Henry followed almost instantly, and then both were hidden from view in the chaos of rocks and gorges that rose above the upper line of vegetation. It was a long and a severe chase that Henry had undertaken, and ably did his fleet foot sustain the credit which he had already gained. But Gascoyne's foot was fleeter. Over every species of ground did the sandal-wood trader lead the youth that day. It seemed, in fact, as if a spirit of mischief had taken possession of Gascoyne, for his usually grave face was lighted up with a mingled expression of glee and ferocity. It changed, too, and wore a sad expression, at times, even when the man seemed to be running for his life. At last, after running until he had caused Henry to shew symptoms of fatigue, Gascoyne turned suddenly round, and, shouting "Good-bye, Henry, my lad!" went straight up the mountain and disappeared over the dividing ridge on the summit. Henry did not give in. The insult implied in the words renewed his strength. He tightened his belt as he ran, and rushed up the mountain almost as fast as Gascoyne had done, but when he leaped upon the ridge the fugitive had vanished! That he had secreted himself in one of the many gorges or caves with which the place abounded was quite clear, but it was equally clear that no one could track him out in such a place unless he were possessed of a dog's nose. The youth did indeed attempt it, but, being convinced that he was only searching for what could not by any possibility be found, he soon gave it up and returned, disconsolate and crest-fallen, to the cottage. CHAPTER TWENTY. MYSTERIOUS CONSULTATIONS AND PLANS--GASCOYNE ASTONISHES HIS FRIENDS, AND MAKES AN UNEXPECTED CONFESSION. "A pretty morning's work I have made of it, mother," said Henry, as he flung himself into a chair in the cottage parlour, on his return from the weary and fruitless chase which has just been recorded. The widow was pale and haggard, but she could not help smiling as she observed the look of extreme disappointment which rested on the countenance of her son. "True, Henry," she replied, busying herself in preparing breakfast, "you have not been very successful, but you made a noble effort." "Pshaw! a noble effort, indeed! Why, the man has foiled me in the two things in which I prided myself most--wrestling and running. I never saw such a greyhound in my life." "He is a giant, my boy; few men could hope to overcome him." "True, as regards wrestling, mother; I am not much ashamed of having been beaten by him at that; but running--that's the sore point. Such a weight he is, and yet he took the north gully like a wild cat, and you know, mother, there are only two of us in Sandy Cove who can go over that gully. Ay, and he went a full yard farther than ever I did. I measured the leap as I came down. Really it is too bad to have been beaten so completely by a man who must be nearly double my age. But, after all, the worst of the whole affair is, that a pirate has escaped me after I actually had him in my arms! the villain!" "You do not _know_ that he is a villain," said the widow in a subdued tone. "You are right, mother," said Henry, looking up from the plate of bacon, to which he had been devoting himself with much assiduity, and gazing earnestly into his mother's face; "you are right, and, do you know, I feel inclined to give the fellow the benefit of the doubt, for to tell you the truth I have a sort of liking for him. If it had not been for the way in which he has treated you, and the suspicious character that he bears, I do believe I should have made a friend of him." A look of evident pleasure crossed the widow's face while her son spoke, but as that son's eyes were once more riveted on the bacon, which his morning exercise rendered peculiarly attractive, he did not observe it. Just then the door opened, and Mr Mason entered. His face wore a dreadfully anxious expression. "Ha! I'm glad to see you, Henry," said he; "of course you have not caught your man. I have been waiting anxiously for you to consult about our future proceedings. It is quite evident that the pirate schooner cannot be far off. Gascoyne must either have swam ashore, or been landed in a boat. In either case the schooner must have been within the reef at the time, and there has been little wind since the squall blew itself out yesterday." "Quite enough, how ever, to blow such a light craft pretty far out to sea in a few hours," said Henry, shaking his head. "No matter," replied Mr Mason, with a sigh, "_something_ must be done at any rate, I have borrowed the carpenter's small cutter, which is being now put in order for a voyage. Provisions and water for a few days are already on board, and I have come to ask you to take command of her, as you know something of navigation. I will go, of course, but will not take any management of the little craft, as I know nothing about the working of vessels." "And where do you mean to go?" asked Henry. "That remains to be seen. I have some ideas running in my head, of course, but before letting you know them I wish to hear what you would advise." "I would advise, in the first place, that you should provide one or two thorough sailors to manage the craft. By the way, that reminds me of Bumpus. What of him? Where is he? In the midst of all this bustle I have not had time for much thought, and it has only just occurred to me that if this schooner is really a pirate, and if Gascoyne turns out to be Durward, it follows that Bumpus is a pirate too, and ought to be dealt with accordingly." "I have thought of that," said Mr Mason, with a perplexed look, "and intended to speak to you on the subject, but events have crowded so fast upon each other of late that it has been driven out of my mind. No doubt, if the _Foam_ and the _Avenger_ are one and the same vessel, as seems too evident to leave much room for doubt, then Bumpus is a pirate, for he does not deny that he was one of the crew. But he acts strangely for a pirate. He seems as much at his ease amongst us as if he were the most innocent of men. Moreover, his looks seem to stamp him a thoroughly honest fellow. But, alas! one cannot depend on looks." "But where is the man?" asked Henry. "He is asleep in the small closet off the kitchen," said Mrs Stuart, "where he has been lying ever since you returned from the heathen village. Poor fellow, he sleeps heavily, and looks as if he had been hurt during all this fighting." "Hurt! say you?" exclaimed Henry, laughing; "it is a miracle that he is now alive after the flight he took over the north cliff into the sea." "Flight! over the north cliff!" echoed Mrs Stuart in surprise. "Ay, and a fearful plunge he had." Here Henry detailed poor Jo's misadventure. "And now," said he, when he had finished, "I must lock his door and keep him in. The settlers have forgotten him in all this turmoil; but depend upon it if they see him they will string him up for a pirate to the first handy branch of a tree without giving him the benefit of a trial; and that would not be desirable." "Yet you would have shot Gascoyne on mere suspicion without a thought of trial or justice," said Mrs Stuart. "True, mother, but that was when I was seizing him, and in hot blood," said Henry, in a subdued voice. "I was hasty there, no doubt. Lucky for us both that the pistol missed fire." The widow looked as if she were about to reply, but checked herself. "Yes," said Mr Mason, recurring to the former subject, "as we shall be away a few days, we must lock Bumpus up to keep him out of harm's way. Meanwhile--" The missionary was interrupted here by the sudden opening of the door. An exclamation of surprise burst from the whole party as they sprang up, for Gascoyne strode into the room, locked the door, and taking out the key handed it to Henry, who stood staring at him in speechless amazement. "You are surprised to see me appear thus suddenly," said he, "but the fact is that I came here this morning to fulfil a duty; and although Master Henry there has hindered me somewhat in carrying out my good intentions, I do not intend to allow him to frustrate me altogether." "I do not mean to make a second attempt, Gascoyne, after what has occurred this morning," said Henry, seating himself doggedly on his chair. "But it would be as well that you should observe that Mr Mason is a stout man, and, as we have seen, can act vigorously when occasion offers. Remember that we are two to one now." "There will be no occasion for vigorous action, at least as regards me, if you will agree to forget your suspicions for a few minutes, and listen to what I have got to say. Meanwhile, in order to shew you how thoroughly in earnest I am, and how regardless of my personal safety, I render myself defenceless--thus." Gascoyne pulled a brace of small pistols from their place of concealment beneath the breast of his shirt, and, drawing the knife that hung at his girdle, hurled them all through the open window into the garden. He then took a chair, planted it in the middle of the room, and sat down. The sadness of his deep voice did not change during the remainder of that interview. The bold look which usually characterised this peculiar man had given place to a grave expression of humility, which was occasionally varied by a troubled look. "Before stating what I have come for," said Gascoyne, "I mean to make a confession. You have been right in your suspicions--_I am Durward the pirate_! Nay, do not shrink from me in that way, Mary. I have kept this secret from you long, because I feared to lose the old friendship that has existed between us since we were children. I have deceived you in _this thing only_. I have taken advantage of your ignorance to make you suppose that I was merely a smuggler, and that, in consequence of being an outlaw, it was necessary for me to conceal my name and my movements. You have kept my secret, Mary, and have tried to win me back to honest ways, but you little knew the strength of the net I had wrapped around me. You did not know that I was a pirate!" Gascoyne paused, and bent his head as if in thought. The widow sat with clasped hands, gazing at him with a look of despair on her pale face. But she did not move or speak. The three listeners sat in perfect silence until the pirate chose to continue his confession. "Yes, I have been a pirate," said he, "but I have not been the villain that men have painted me." He looked steadily in the widow's face as he said these words deliberately. "Do not try to palliate your conduct, Gascoyne," said Mr Mason, earnestly. "The blackness of your sin is too great to be deepened or lightened by what men may have said of you. You are a pirate. Every _pirate is a murderer_." "I am not a murderer," said Gascoyne, slowly, in reply, but still fixing his gaze on the widow's face, as if he addressed himself solely to her. "You may not have committed murder with your own hand," said Mr Mason, "but the man who leads on others to commit the crime is a murderer in the eye of God's law as well as in that of man." "I never led on men to commit murder," said Gascoyne, in the same tone and with the same steadfast gaze. "This hand is free from the stain of human blood. Do you believe me, Mary?" The widow did not answer. She sat like one bereft of all power of speech or motion. "I will explain," resumed the pirate captain, drawing a long breath, and directing his looks to Henry now. "For reasons which it is not necessary that you should know, I resolved some years ago to become a pirate. I had been deceived--shamefully deceived and wronged--by wealthy and powerful men. I had appealed to the law of my country, and the law refused to right me. No, not the law, but those who sat on the judgment-seat to pervert the law. It matters not now; I was driven mad at the time, for the wrong done was not done so much to me as to those whom I loved. I vowed that I should be avenged. "I soon found men as mad as myself who only wanted a leader to guide them in order to run full swing to destruction. I seized the _Foam_, of which schooner I was mate, called her the _Avenger_, and became a pirate. No blood was shed when I seized the schooner. Before an opportunity occurred of trying my hand at this new profession, my anger had cooled. I _repented_ of what I had done, but I was surrounded by men who were more bent on mischief than I was. I could not now draw back, but I modified my plan. I determined to become merely a _robber_ and use the proceeds of my trade to indemnify those to whom injustice had been done. I thought at the time that there was some justice in this. I called myself in jest, a tax-gatherer of the sea. I ordered the men aft one day and explained to them my views. I said that I abhorred the name and the deeds of pirates, that I would only consent to command them if they agreed never to shed human blood except in fair and open fight. "They liked the idea. There were men among them who had never heartily agreed to the seizing of the schooner, and who would have left her if I would have allowed them; these were much relieved to hear my proposal. It was fixed that we should _rob_, but not _murder_. Miserable fool that I was! I thought it was possible to go just so far and no farther into sin. I did not know at that time the strength of the fearful current into which I had plunged. "But we stuck to our principles. We never did commit murder. And as our appearance was always sufficient to cause the colours of any ship we ever came across to be hauled down at once, there has been no occasion for shedding blood, even in fair and open fight. Do you believe me, Mary?" said Gascoyne, pausing at this point. The widow was still silent, but a slight inclination of her head satisfied the pirate, who was about to resume, when Mr Mason said--"Gascoyne, do you call warfare in the cause of robbery by the name of `fair and open fight?'" "No, I do not. Yet there have been great generals and admirals in this world who have committed wholesale murder in this same cause, and whose names stand high in the roll of fame!" A look of scorn rested on the pirate's face as he said this, but it passed away quickly. "You tell me that there were some of the men in the schooner whom you kept aboard against their will?" said Mr Mason. "Did it never occur to you, Gascoyne, that you may have been the murderer of the _souls_ of these men?" The pirate made no reply for some time, and the troubled anxious look that had more than once crossed his face returned. "Yes," said he at length, "I have thought of that. But it is done now and cannot be undone. I can do no more now than give myself up to justice. You see, I have thrown away my arms and stand here defenceless. But I did not come here to plead for mercy. I come to make to you all the reparation I can for the wrong I have done you. When that last act is completed, you may do with me what you please. I deserve to die, and I care not to live." "O Gascoyne, speak not thus," exclaimed the widow, earnestly. "However much and deeply you have sinned against man, if you have not taken life you do not deserve to die. Besides, there is a way of pardon open to the very chief of sinners." "I know what you mean, Mary, I know what you mean; but--well, well, this is neither the time nor place to talk of such things. Your little girl, Mr Mason, is in the hands of the pirates." "I know that," said the missionary, wincing as if he had received a deep wound, "but she is not in _your_ power now." "More's the pity; she would have been safer with me than with my first mate, who is the greatest villain afloat on the high seas. He does not like our milk-and-water style of robbing. He is an out-and-out pirate in heart, and has long desired to cut my throat. I have to thank him for being here to-night. Some of the crew who are like himself seized me while I was asleep, bound and gagged me, put me into a boat and rowed me ashore;--for we had easily escaped the _Talisman_ in the squall, and doubling or our course came back here. The mate was anxious to clear off old scores by cutting my throat at once and pitching me into the sea. Luckily some of the men, not so bloodthirsty as he, objected to this, so I was landed and cast loose." "But what of Alice?" cried Mr Mason, anxiously. "How can we save her?" "By taking my advice," answered Gascoyne. "You have a small cutter at anchor off the creek at the foot of the hill. Put a few trusty men aboard of her, and I will guide you to the island where the _Avenger_ has been wont to fly when hard pressed." "But how do you know that Manton will go there?" inquired Henry, eagerly. "Because he is short of powder, and all our stores are concealed there, besides much of our ill-gotten wealth." "And how can you expect us to put ourselves so completely in your power?" said Mr Mason. "Because you _must_ do so if you would save your child. She is safe now, I know, and will be until the _Avenger_ leaves the island where our stores are concealed. If we do not save her before that happens, _she is lost to you for ever_!" "That no man can say. She is in the hands of God," cried Mr Mason, fervently. "True, true," said Gascoyne, musing. "But God does not work by miracles. We must be up and doing at once. I promise you that I shall be faithful, and that, after the work is done, I will give myself up to justice." "May we trust him, mother?" said Henry. "You may trust him, my son," replied the widow, in a tone of decision that satisfied Henry, while it called forth a look of gratitude from the pirate. The party now proceeded to arrange the details of their plan for the rescue of Alice and her companions. These were speedily settled, and Henry rose to go and put them in train. He turned the key of the door and was on the point of lifting the latch, when this was done for him by some one on the outside. He had just time to step back when the door flew open, and he stood face to face with Hugh Barnes the cooper. "Have you heard the news, Henry?--hallo!" This abrupt exclamation was caused by the sight of Gascoyne, who rose quietly the moment he heard the door open, and, turning his back towards it, walked slowly into a small apartment that opened off the widow's parlour, and shut the door. "I say, Henry, who's that big fellow?" said the cooper, casting a suspicious glance towards the little room into which he had disappeared. "He is a _friend_ of mine," replied Mrs Stuart, rising hastily, and welcoming her visitor. "Humph! it's well he's a _friend_," said the man as he took a chair, "I shouldn't like to have him for an enemy." "But what is the news you were so anxious to tell us?" inquired Henry. "That Gascoyne, the pirate captain, has been seen on the island by some of the women, and there's a regular hunt organising. Will you go with us?" "I have more important work to do, Hugh," replied Henry, "besides, I want you to go with me on a hunt which I'll tell you about if you'll come with me to the creek." "By all means, come along." Henry and the cooper at once left the cottage. The latter was let into the secret, and prevailed on to form one of the crew of the _Wasp_, as the little cutter was named. In the course of the afternoon everything was in readiness. Gascoyne waited till the dusk of the evening, and then embarked along with Ole Thorwald; that stout individual having insisted on being one of the party, despite the remonstrances of Mr Mason, who did not like to leave the settlement, even for a brief period, so completely deprived of all its leading men. But Ole entertained a suspicion that Gascoyne intended to give them the slip; and having privately made up his mind to prevent this he was not to be denied. The men who formed the crew--twelve in number--were selected from among those natives and settlers who were known never to have seen the pirate captain. They were chosen with a view to their fighting qualities, for Gascoyne and Henry were sufficient for the management of the little craft. There were no large guns on board, but all the men were well armed with cutlasses, muskets, and pistols. Thus equipped, the _Wasp_ stood out to sea with a light breeze, just as the moon rose on the coral reef and cast a shower of sparkling silver across the bay. CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. A TERRIBLE DOOM FOR AN INNOCENT MAN. "So, you're to be hanged for a pirate, Jo Bumpus, ye are--that's pleasant to think of anyhow." Such was the remark which our stout seaman addressed to himself when he awoke on the second morning after the departure of the _Wasp_. If the thought was really as pleasant as he asserted it to be, his visage must have been a bad index to the state of his mind; for at that particular moment Jo looked uncommonly miserable. The wonted good-humoured expression of his countenance had given place to a gaze of stereotyped surprise and solemnity. Indeed Bumpus seemed to have parted with much of his reason and all of his philosophy, for he could say nothing else during at least half-an-hour after awaking except the phrase--"So, you're going to be hanged for a pirate." His comments on the phrase were, however, a little varied, though always brief--such as--"Wot a sell! Who'd ha' thought it! It's a dream, it is, an 'orrible dream! _I_ don't believe it--who does? Wot'll your poor mother say?"--and the like. Bumpus had, unfortunately, good ground for making this statement. After the cutter sailed it was discovered that Bumpus was concealed in Mrs Stuart's cottage. This discovery had been the result of the seaman's own recklessness and indiscretion; for when he ascertained that he was to be kept a prisoner in the cottage until the return of the _Wasp_, he at once made up his mind to submit with a good grace to what could not be avoided. In order to prove that he was by no means cast down, as well as to lighten the tedium of his confinement, Jo entertained himself by singing snatches of sea songs--such as, "My tight little craft,"--"A life on the stormy sea,"--"Oh! for a draught of the howling blast," etcetera, all of which he delivered in a bass voice so powerful that it caused the rafters of the widow's cottage to ring again. These melodious not to say thunderous sounds, also caused the ears of a small native youth to tingle with curiosity. This urchin crept on his brown little knees under the window of Bumpus's apartment, got on his brown and dirty little tiptoes, placed his brown little hands on the sill, hauled his brown and half-naked little body up by sheer force of muscle, and peeped into the room with his large and staring brown eyes, the whites of which were displayed to their full extent. Jo was in the middle of an enthusiastic "oh!" when the urchin's head appeared. Instead of expressing his passionate desire for a "draught of the howling blast," he prolonged the "oh!" into a hideous yell, and thrust his blazing face close to the window so suddenly that the boy let go his hold, fell backwards, and rolled head over heels into a ditch, out of which he scrambled with violent haste, and ran with the utmost possible precipitancy to his native home on the sea-shore. Here he related what he had seen to his father. The father went and looked in upon Jo's solitude. He happened to have seen Bumpus during the great fight and knew him to be one of the pirates. The village rose _en masse_. Some of the worst characters in it stirred up the rest, went to the widow's cottage, and demanded that the person of the pirate should be delivered up. The widow objected. The settlers insisted. The widow protested. The settlers threatened force. Upon this the widow reasoned with them; besought them to remember that the missionary would be back in a day or two, and that it would be well to have his advice before they did anything, and finally agreed to give up her charge on receiving a promise that he should have a fair trial. Bumpus was accordingly bound with ropes, led in triumph through the village, and placed in a strong wooden building which was used as the jail of the place. The trial that followed was a mere mockery. The leading spirits of it were those who had been styled by Mr Mason, "enemies within the camp." They elected themselves to the offices of prosecutor and judge as well as taking the trouble to act the part of jurymen and witnesses. Poor John Bumpus's doom was sealed before the trial began. They had prejudged the case, and only went through the form to ease their own consciences and to fulfil their promise to the widow. It was in vain that Bumpus asserted, with a bold, honest countenance, that he was not a pirate; that he never had been, and never would be a pirate; that he did not believe the _Foam_ was a pirate--though he was free to confess its crew "_wos_ bad enough for anything a'most;" that he had been hired in South America (where he had been shipwrecked) by Captain Gascoyne, the sandal-wood trader; that he had made the voyage straight from that coast to this island without meeting a single sail; and that he had never seen a shot fired or a cutlass drawn aboard the schooner. To all this there was but one coarsely-expressed answer--"It is a lie!" Jo had no proof to give of the truth of what he said, so he was condemned to be hanged by the neck till he should be dead; and as his judges were afraid that the return of the _Wasp_ might interfere with their proceedings, it was arranged that he should be executed on the following day at noon! It must not be imagined that, in a Christian village such as we have described, there was no one who felt that this trial was too hastily gone into, and too violently conducted. But those who were inclined to take a merciful view of the case, and who pled for delay, were chiefly natives, while the violent party was composed of most of the ill-disposed European settlers. The natives had been so much accustomed to put confidence in the wisdom of the white men since their conversion to Christianity, that they felt unable to cope with them on this occasion, so that Bumpus, after being condemned, was led away to his prison, and left alone to his own reflections. It chanced that there was one friend left, unintentionally, in the cell with the condemned man. This was none other than our friend Toozle, the mass of ragged door-mat on which Alice doted so fondly. This little dog had, during the course of the events which have taken so long to recount, done nothing worthy of being recorded. He had, indeed, been much in every one's way, when no one had had time or inclination to take notice of him. He had, being an affectionate dog, and desirous of much sympathy, courted attention frequently, and had received many kicks and severe rebuffs for his pains, and he had also, being a tender-hearted dog, howled dreadfully when he lost his young mistress; but he had not in any way promoted the interests of humanity or advanced the ends of justice. Hence our long silence in regard to him. Recollecting that he had witnessed evidences of a friendly relation subsisting between Alice and Bumpus, Toozle straightway sought to pour the overflowing love and sorrow of his large little heart into the bosom of that supposed pirate. His advances were well received, and from that hour he followed the seaman like his shadow. He shared his prison with him, trotted behind him when he walked up and down his room in the widow's cottage; lay down at his feet when he rested; looked up inquiringly in his face when he paused to meditate; whined and wagged his stump of a tail when he was taken notice of, and lay down to sleep in deep humility when he was neglected. Thus it came to pass that Toozle attended the trial of Bumpus, entered his cell along with him, slept with him during the night, accompanied him to the gallows in the morning, and sat under him, when they were adjusting the noose, looking up with feelings of unutterable dismay, as was clearly indicated by the lugubrious and woe-begone cast of his ragged countenance,--but we are anticipating. It was on the morning of his execution that Bumpus sat on the edge of his hard pallet, gazed at his manacled wrists, and gave vent to the sentiments set down at the beginning of this chapter. Toozle sat at his feet looking up in his face sympathetically. "No, I _don't_ believe it's possible," said Bumpus, for at least the hundredth time that morning. "It's a joke, that's wot it is. Ain't it, Toozle, my boy?" Toozle whined, wagged his tail, and said, a's plainly as if he had spoken, "Yes, of course it is--an uncommonly bad joke, no doubt; but a joke, undoubtedly; so keep up your heart, my man." "Ah! you're a funny dog," continued Bumpus, "but you don't know wot it is to be hanged, my boy. Hanged! why it's agin all laws o' justice, moral an' otherwise, it is. But I'm dreamin', yes, it's dreamin' I am-- but I don't think I ever did dream that I thought I was dreamin' an' yet wasn't quite sure. Really it's perplexin', to say the least on it. Ain't it, Toozle?" Toozle wagged his tail. "Ah, here comes my imaginary jailer to let me out o' this here abominably real-lookin' imaginary lockup. Hang Jo Bumpus! why it's--" Before Jo could find words sufficiently strong to express his opinion of such a murderous intention, the door opened and a surly-looking man--a European settler--entered with his breakfast. This meal consisted of a baked breadfruit and a can of water. "Ha! you've come to let me out, have you?" cried Jo, in a tone of forced pleasantry, which was anything but cheerful. "Have I, though!" said the man, setting down the food on a small deal table that stood at the head of the bedstead; "don't think it, my man; your time's up in another two hours--hallo! where got ye the dog?" "It came in with me last night--to keep me company, I fancy, which is more than the human dogs o' this murderin' place had the civility to do." "If it had know'd you was a murderin' pirate," retorted the jailer, "it would ha' thought twice before it would ha' chose _you_ for a comrade." "Come, now," said Bumpus, in a remonstrative tone, "you don't really b'lieve I'm a pirate, do you?" "In coorse I do." "Well, now, that's xtraor'nary. Does everybody else think that too?" "Everybody." "An' am I _really_ goin' to be hanged?" "Till you're dead as mutton." "That's entertainin', ain't it, Toozle?" cried poor Bumpus with a laugh of desperation, for he found it utterly impossible to persuade himself to believe in the reality of his awful position. As he said nothing more, the jailer went away, and Bumpus, after heaving two or three very deep sighs, attempted to partake of his meagre breakfast. The effort was a vain one. The bite stuck in his throat, so he washed it down with a gulp of water, and, for the first time in his life, made up his mind to go without his breakfast. A little before twelve o'clock the door again opened, and the surly jailer entered bearing a halter, and accompanied by six stout men. The irons were now removed from Bumpus's wrists, and his arms pinioned behind his back. Being almost stupified with amazement at his position, he submitted without a struggle. "I say, friends," he at last exclaimed, "would any amount of oaths took before a maginstrate convince ye that I'm not a pirate, but a true-blue seaman?" "If you were to swear from this time till doomsday it would make no difference. You admit that you were one of the _Foam's_ crew. We now know that the _Foam_ and the _Avenger_ are the same schooner. Birds of a feather flock together. A pirate would swear anything to save his life. Come, time's up." Bumpus bent his head for a minute. The truth forced itself upon him now in all its dread reality. But no unmanly terrors filled his breast at that moment. The fear of man or of violent death was a sensation which the seaman never knew. The feeling of the huge injustice that was about to be done filled him with generous indignation; the blood rushed to his temples, and, with a bound like a tiger, he leaped out of the jailer's grasp, hurling him to the ground in the act. With the strength almost of a Samson he wrestled with his cords for a few seconds; but they were new and strong. He failed to burst them. In another moment he was overpowered by the six men who guarded him. True to his principles, he did his utmost to escape. Strong in the faith that while there is life there is hope, he did not cease to struggle, like a chained giant, until he was placed under the limb of the fatal tree which had been selected, and round which an immense crowd of natives and white settlers had gathered. During the previous night the widow Stuart had striven to save the man whom she knew to be honest, for Gascoyne had explained to her all about his being engaged in his service. But those to whom she appealed, even on her knees, were immovable. They considered the proof of the man's guilt quite conclusive, and regarded the widow's intercession as the mere weakness of a tender-hearted woman. On the following morning, and again beside the fatal tree itself, the widow pled for the man's life with all her powers of eloquence, but in vain. When all hope appeared to have passed away, she could not stand to witness so horrible a murder. She fled to her cottage, and, throwing herself on her bed, burst into an agony of tears and prayer. But there were some among the European settlers there who, now that things had come to a point, felt ill at ease, and would fain have washed their hands of the whole affair. Others there were who judged the man from his countenance and his acts, not from circumstances. These remonstrated even to the last, and advised delay. But the half dozen who were set upon the man's death--not to gratify a thirst for blood, but to execute due justice on a pirate whom they abhorred--were influential and violent, men. They silenced all opposition at last, and John Bumpus finally had the noose put round, his neck. "O Susan, Susan," cried the poor man in an agony of intense feeling, "it's little ye thought your Jo would come to such an end as this when ye last sot eyes on him--an' sweet blue eyes they wos, too!" There was something ludicrous as well as pathetic in this cry. It did more for him than the most eloquent pleading could have done. Man, in a crowd, is an unstable being. At any moment he will veer right round and run in an opposite direction. The idea that the condemned man had a Susan who would mourn over his untimely end, touched a cord in the hearts of many among the crowd. The reference to her sweet blue eyes at such a moment raised a smile, and an extremely dismal but opportune howl from poor Toozle raised a laugh. Bumpus started and looked sternly on the crowd. "You may think me a pirate," said he, "but I know enough of the feelin's of honest men to expect no mercy from those wot can laugh at a fellow-creetur in such an hour. You had better get the murder over as soon as ye can. I am ready--Stay! one moment more. I had a'most forgot it. There's a letter here that I want one o' you to take charge of. It's the last I ever got from my Susan, an' if I had taken her advice to let alone havin' to do with all sandalwood traders, I'd never ha' bin in such a fix as I am this day. I want it sent back to her with my blessin' and a lock o' my hair. Is there an honest man among ye who'll take in hand to do this for me?" As he spoke, a young man, in a costume somewhat resembling that of a sailor, pushed through the crowd, leaped upon the deal table on which Jo stood, and removed the noose from his neck. An exclamation of anger burst from those who surrounded the table, but a sound something like applause broke from the crowd, and restrained any attempt at violence. The young man at the same time held up his hand and asked leave to address them. "Ay! ay! let's hear what he has got to say. That's it; speak up, Dan!" The youth, whose dark olive complexion proclaimed him to be a half-caste, and whose language shewed that he had received at least the rudiments of education, stretched out his hand and said-- "Friends, I do not stand here to interfere with justice. Those who seek to give a pirate his just reward do well. But there has been doubt in the minds of some that this man may not be a pirate. His own word is of no value; but if I can bring forward anything to shew that perhaps his word is true, then we have no right to hang him till we have given him a longer trial." "Hear! hear!" from the white men in the crowd, and "Ho! ho!" from the natives. Meanwhile the young man, or Dan, as some one called him, turned to Bumpus and asked for the letter to which he had referred. Being informed that it was in the inside pocket of his jacket, the youth put his hand in and drew it forth. "May I read it? Your life may depend on what I find here." "Sartinly, by all manner of means," replied Jo, not a little surprised at the turn affairs were taking. Dan opened and perused the epistle for a few minutes, during which intense silence was maintained in the crowd, as if they expected to _hear_ the thoughts of the young man as they passed through his brain. "Ha! I thought so," exclaimed Dan, looking up and again addressing the crowd. "At the trial yesterday you heard this man say that he was engaged at San Francisco by Gascoyne on the 12th of April last, and that he believed the schooner to be a sandalwood trader when he shipped." "Yes, yes, ho!" from the crowd. "If this statement of his be true, then he was not a pirate when he shipped, and he has not had much time to become one between that time and this. The letter which I hold in my hand proves the truth of this statement. It is dated San Francisco, 11th _April_, and is written in a female hand. Listen, I will read it, and you shall judge for yourselves." The young man then read the following letter, which, being a peculiar as well as an interesting specimen of a love-letter, we give _verbatim et literatim_:-- "Peelers farm near Sanfransko Aprile 11. "For John bumpuss, aboord the Skooner fome "my darlin Jo, "ever sins you towld me yisterday that youd bin an gaged yerself into the fome, my mind has bin Onaisy. Ye no, darlint, from the our ye cald me yer own Susan--in clare county More betoken--iv bin onaisy about ye yer so bowld an Rekles, but this is wurst ov all. Iv no noshun o them sandlewood skooners. The Haf ov thems pirits an The other hafs no beter. Whats wus is that my owld master was drownded in wan, or out o wan, but shure its All the Saim. Down he wint an that wos the Endd. "now Deer jo don't go to say in that skooner i beseech ye, jo. Ye towld me that ye liked the looks o the cappen an haited the looks o the Krew. Now deer, take warnin, think ov me. Think ov the words in the coppie book weev writ so often together at owld makmahons skool, eevil emunishakens Krupt yer maners, i misrember it, but ye no wot id be sayin' to ye. "o jo Don't go, but cum an see me as soon as iver ye can "yours til deth. "SUSAN. "P.S. the piggs is quite livly but ther not so hansum heer as in the owld country. Don't forgit to rite to your susan." No one can conceive the indignation that swelled the broad chest of honest John Bumpus when he listened to the laughter with which some parts of this letter were received. "Now," said Dan, "could any man want better proof than this that John Bumpus _is not_ a pirate?" This question was answered by a perfect yell from the crowd. "Set him free; cut his cords!" cried a voice. "Stop, friends," cried a big coarse-looking man, leaping on the table and jostling Dan out of the way. "Not quite so fast. I don't pretend to be a learned feller, and I can't make a speech with a buttery tongue like Dan here. But wot I've got to say is--Justice for ever!" "Hurrah!" from some of the wild spirits of the crowd. "Go on, Burke," from others. "Yes, wot I say is--Justice for ever! Fair play an' no favour: _That's_ wot I say!" Another cheer greeted the bold assertion of these noble sentiments. "Now, here it is," continued Burke, becoming much excited, "wot's to hinder that there letter bein' a forgery?--ay, that's the word, a forgery? (Hear! hear!) got up a-purpose to bamboozle us chaps that ain't lawyers. D'ye see?" Burke glanced at Dan and smote his thigh triumphantly as he said this. "It does not _look_ like a forgery," said Dan, holding up the letter and pointing to the writing. "I leave it to yourselves to say if it _sounds_ like a forgery--" "I don't care a farthin' dip for yer _looks_ and _sounds_," cried Burke, interrupting the other. "No man is goin' for to tell me that anybody can trust to _looks_ and _sounds_. Why, I've know'd the greatest villain that ever chewed the end of a smuggled cigar _look_ as innocent as the babe unborn. An' is there a man here wot'll tell me he hasn't often an' over again mistook the crack of a big gun for a clap o' thunder?" This was received with much approval by the crowd, which had evidently more than half-forgotten the terrible purpose for which it had assembled there, and was now much interested in what bid fair to be a keen dispute. When the noise abated, Dan raised his voice and said--"If Burke had not interrupted me, I was going to have said that another thing which proves the letter to be no forgery is, that the post-mark of San Francisco is on the back of it, with the date all right." This statement delighted the crowd immensely, and caused Burke to look disconcerted for a few seconds; he rallied, however, and returned to the charge. "Post-marks! wot do I care for post-marks? Can't a man forge a post-mark as easy as any other mark?" "Ah! that's true," from a voice in the crowd. "No, not so easily as _any_ other mark," retorted Dan, "for it's made with a kind of ink that's not sold in shops. Everything goes to prove that the letter is no forgery. But, Mr Burke, will you answer me this--if it _was_ a forgery, got up for the purpose of saving this man's life, _at what time was it forged_? for Bumpus could not know that he would ever need such a letter until yesterday afternoon, and between that time and this there was but little time to forge a letter from San Francisco, post-mark and all, and make it soiled and worn at the edges like an old letter. (`Hear!' and sensation.) More than that," cried Dan, waxing eager and earnest, "if it was a forgery, got up for this purpose, _why was it not produced at the trial_? (`Hear! hear!' and cheers!) And, last of all, why, if this forgery was so important to him, did John Bumpus forget all about it until he stood on this table; ay, _until the rope was round his neck_?" A perfect storm of cheers and applause followed this last sentence, in the midst of which there were cries of "You're floored, Burke! Hurrah for Bumpus! Cut the ropes!" But although John's life was now safe, his indignation at Susan's letter having been laughed at was not altogether allayed. "I'll tell ye wot it is," said he, the instant there was a lull in the uproar of voices. "If you think that I'll stand here and see my Susan's letter insulted before my eyes, you're very far out o' your reckoning. Just cut them ropes an put any two o' ye'r biggest men, black or white, before _me_, an' if I don't shew them a lot o' new stars as hasn't been seed in no sky wotiver since Adam was a little boy, my name's--" Up to this point Jo was heard, but the conclusion of his defiance was drowned in roars of laughter. "Cut the ropes," shouted the crowd. Dan drew a clasp-knife from his pocket, and with one stroke set Bumpus free. "Shoulder high," yelled a voice; "hurrah!" A wild rush was made at the table. Jo's executioners were overturned and trampled under foot, and the table, with himself and his young advocate sprawling on it, was raised on the shoulders of the crowd and borne off in triumph. Half-an-hour later, Bumpus was set down at the widow's door. Mrs Stuart received him with a scream of surprise and joy, for she had given him up as a lost man. "Now, then, Mrs Stuart," said Jo, throwing himself on a chair and wiping the perspiration from his forehead, "don't make such a fuss about me, like a good creetur. But do get me a bit o' bacon, and let's be thankful that I'm here to eat it. Cut it fat, Mrs Stuart; cut it fat; for it's wonderful wot a appetite I've got after such a mornin's work as I've gone through. Well, well, after all that yer friends have said of ye, Jo Bumpus, I do believe that yer _not_ born to be hanged?" CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. THE RENDEZVOUS--AN EPISODE--PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES--AND OTHER MATTERS. About five or six days' sail from the scene of our tale there lies one of those small rocks or islets with which the breast of the Pacific is in many places thickly studded. It is a lonely coral isle, far removed from any of its fellows, and presenting none of those grand features which characterise the island on which the settlement of Sandy Cove was situated. In no part does it rise more than thirty feet above the level of the sea; in most places it is little more than a few feet above it. The coral reefs around it are numerous; and as many of them rise to within a few feet of the surface, the navigation in its neighbourhood is dangerous in the extreme. At the time of which we write, the vegetation of the isle was not very luxuriant. Only a few clusters of cocoa-nut palms grew here and there over its otherwise barren surface. In this respect it did not resemble most of the other islands of the Pacific. Owing partly to its being out of the usual course of ships, and partly to the dangerous reefs already referred to, the spot was never approached by vessels, or, if a ship happened to be driven towards it, she got out of its way as speedily as possible. This was the rendezvous of the pirates, and was named by them the Isle of Palms. Here, in caverns hollowed out of the coral rock, Gascoyne had been wont to secrete such goods and stores as were necessary for the maintenance of his piratical course of life, and to this lone spot did Manton convey his prisoners after getting rid of his former commander. Towards this spot, also, did Gascoyne turn the prow of the cutter _Wasp_ in pursuit of his mutinous first mate. Manton, for reasons best known to himself, (certainly not from goodness of heart,) was kind to his captives to the extent of simply letting them alone. He declined to hold any intercourse whatever with Captain Montague, and forbade him to speak with the men upon pain of being confined to his berth. The young people were allowed to do as they pleased, so long as they kept out of the way. On reaching the Isle of Palms the pirates at once proceeded to take in those stores of which they stood in need. The harbour into which the schooner ran was a narrow bay, on the shores of which the palm trees grew sufficiently high to prevent her masts from being seen from the other side of the island. Here the captives were landed, but as Manton did not wish them to witness his proceedings, he sent them across the islet under the escort of a party who conveyed them to the shores of a small bay. On the rocks in this bay lay the wreck of what once had been a noble ship. It was now completely dismantled. Her hull was stove in by the rocks. Her masts and yards were gone, with the exception of their stumps and the lower part of the main-mast, to which the main-yard still hung with a ragged portion of the mainsail attached to it. A feeling of depression filled the breast of Montague and his companions as they came in sight of this wreck, and the former attempted to obtain some information in regard to her from his conductors, but they sternly bade him ask no questions. Some time afterwards he heard the story of this vessel's fate. We shall record it here. Not many months prior to the date of our tale, the _Avenger_ happened to have occasion to run down to the Isle of Palms. Gascoyne was absent at the time. He had been landed at Sandy Cove, and had ordered Manton to go to the rendezvous for supplies. On nearing the isle a storm arose. The wind was fair, however, and the schooner ran for her destination under close reefed sails. Just before reaching it they fell in with a large full-rigged ship, which, on sighting the schooner, ran up her flag half-mast high as a signal of distress. She had sprung a leak and was sinking. Had the weather been calmer the pirates would have at once boarded the vessel and carried her as a prize into the harbour, but the sea ran so high that this was impossible. Manton therefore ran down as close to the side of the merchantman, (for such she seemed to be,) as enabled him to hail her through the speaking trumpet. When sufficiently near he demanded her name and destination. "The _Brilliant_, from Liverpool, bound for the Sandwich Islands. And you?" "The _Foam_--from the Feejees--for Calcutta. What's wrong with you?" "Sprung a leak; is there anchorage in the bay?" sang out the captain of the merchantman. "No, it's too shoal for a big ship. Bear away round to the other side of the island. You'll find good holding ground there--I will shew you the way." The pirate accordingly conducted the unsuspecting stranger away from the only safe harbour in the island, and led him through a complete labyrinth of reefs and rocks to the bay on the other side, in which he knew full well there was scarcely enough of water to float his own little schooner. With perfect confidence in his guide, the unfortunate captain of the merchantman followed until both vessels were in the comparatively still and sheltered water of the bay. Here Manton suddenly put down the helm, brought his vessel up to the wind and allowed the stranger to pass him. "Hold on about sixty fathoms farther and then let go your anchor," he shouted, as the ship went steadily on to her doom. "Ay, ay, and thank 'ee," cried the captain, who had already taken in nearly all sail and was quite prepared to anchor. But Manton knew that before twenty fathoms more should be passed over by the ship she would run straight on a coral reef, which rose to within about five feet of the surface of the sea. In an exposed place this reef would have formed a line of breakers, but in its sheltered position the water gave no indication of its existence. The gale, though not blowing direct into the bay, entered it in a sufficiently straight line to carry the ship onward with great speed, notwithstanding the reduction made in her canvas. "Stand by to let go the anchor," cried her captain. That was his last order. Scarcely had the words passed his lips when the ship struck with a shock that caused her to quiver like a leaf from stem to stern. All the top-masts with their yards and rigging went over the side, and, in one instant the fine vessel was a total wreck! The rest of the story is soon told. The pirates shewed their true colours, ran alongside and took possession without opposition, for the crew of the merchantman were so overwhelmed by the suddenness and appalling nature of the calamity that had befallen them that they had no heart to resist. Of course it was out of the question that the crew of the _Brilliant_ could be allowed to remain on the island. Some of the pirates suggested that they should be put on a raft, towed to leeward of the island, and, when out of sight of it, be cast adrift to float about until they should be picked up or get blown on one of the numerous islands that lay to the southward of the rendezvous. Manton and Scraggs advocated this plan, but the better-disposed among the men protested against such needless cruelty, and suggested that it would be better to put them into the long-boat of the ship, bandage their eyes, then tow them out of sight of land and cast them loose to steer where they pleased. This plan was adopted and carried into execution. Then the pirates returned, and at their leisure unloaded and secured the cargo of their prize. It was richer than they had anticipated, being a miscellaneous cargo of valuable commodities for the trading stores of some of the South Sea merchants and settlers. The joy felt by the pirates on making this discovery, was all the benefit that was ever derived from these ill-gotten gains by any one of those who had a hand in that dastardly deed. Long before they had an opportunity of removing the goods thus acquired, the career of the _Avenger_ had terminated. But we must not anticipate our story. On a green knoll near the margin of this bay, and in full view of the wreck, a rude tent or hut was constructed by the pirates out of part of an old sail which had been washed ashore from the wreck, and some broken spars. A small cask of biscuit and two or three blankets were placed in it, and here the captives were left to do as they pleased until such time as Manton chose to send for them. The only piece of advice that was given to them by their surly jailer was, that they should not on any pretence whatever cross the island to the bay in which the schooner lay at anchor. "If ye do," said the man who was the last of the party to quit them, "ye'll wish ye hadn't--that's all. Take my advice and keep yer kooriosity in yer breeches' pockets." With this caution they were left to their own devices and meditations. It was a lovely calm evening at sunset when our four unfortunate friends were thus left alone in these strange circumstances. The effect of their forlorn condition was very different on each. Poopy flung herself down on the ground, inside the tent, and began to sob; Alice sat down beside her, and wept silently; whilst Montague, forgetting his own sorrows in his pity for the poor young creatures who had been thus strangely linked to him in affliction, sat down opposite to Alice, and sought to comfort her. Will Corrie, feeling that he could do nothing to cheer his companions in the circumstances, and being unable to sit still, rose, and going out at the end of the tent, both sides of which were open, stood leaning on a pole, and contemplated the scene before him. In a small creek, or indentation of the shore, close to the knoll on which the tent stood, two of the pirates were working at a boat which lay there. Corrie could not at first understand what they were about, but he was soon enlightened, for, after hauling the boat as far out of the water as they could, they left her there, and followed their comrades to the other side of the island, carrying the oars along with them. The spirit that dwelt in Corrie's breast was a very peculiar one. Up to this point in his misfortunes the poor boy had been subdued--overwhelmed by the suddenness and the terrible nature of the calamity that had befallen him--or rather, that had befallen Alice, for, to do him justice, he only thought of her. Indeed, he carried this feeling so far that he had honestly confessed to himself, in a mental soliloquy, the night on which he had been captured, that he did not care one straw for himself, or Poopy, or Captain Montague--that his whole and sole distress of mind and body was owing to the grief into which Alice had been plunged. He had made an attempt to comfort her one night on the voyage to the Isle of Palms, when she and Poopy and he were left alone together; but he failed. After one or two efforts he ended by bursting into tears, and then, choking himself violently with his own hands, said that he was ashamed of himself, that he wasn't crying for himself but for her, (Alice,) and that he hoped she wouldn't think the worse of him for being so like a baby. Here he turned to Poopy, and in a most unreasonable manner began to scold her for being at the bottom of the whole mischief, in the middle of which he broke off, said that he believed himself to be mad, and vowed he would blow out his own brains first, and those of all the pirates afterwards. Whereupon he choked, sobbed again, and rushed out of the cabin as if he really meant to execute his last awful threat. But poor Corrie only rushed away to hide from Alice the irrepressible emotions that nearly burst his heart. Yes, Corrie was thoroughly subdued by grief. But the spring was not broken, it was only crushed flat by the weight of sorrow that lay like a millstone on his youthful bosom. The first thing that set his active brain a-going once more--thereby overturning the weight of sorrow and causing the spring of his peculiar spirit to rebound--was the sight of the two pirates hauling up the boat and carrying off the oars. "Ha! that's your game is it?" muttered the boy between his teeth, and grasping the pole with both hands as if he wished to squeeze his fingers into the wood. "You don't want to give us a chance of escaping, don't you, eh! is that it? You think that because we're a small party, and the half of us females, that we're cowed, and won't think of trying any other way of escaping, do you? Oh yes, that's what you think; you know it, you do, _but you're mistaken_," (he became terribly sarcastic and bitter at this point;) "you'll find that you have got _men_ to deal with, that you've not only caught a tartar, but _two_ tartars--one o' them being ten times tartarer than the other. Oh, if--" "What's all that you're saying, Corrie?" said Montague, stepping out of the tent at that moment. "O captain," said the boy, vehemently, "I wish I were a giant!" "Why so, lad?" "Because then I would wade out to that wreck, clap my shoulder to her bow, shove her into deep water, carry you, and Alice, and Poopy aboard, haul out the main-mast by the roots, make an oar of it, and scull out to sea, havin' previously fired off the biggest gun aboard of her, to let the pirates know what I was doing." Corrie's spirit was in a tumultuous and very rebellious state. He was half inclined to indulge in hysterical weeping, and more than half disposed to give way to a burst of savage glee. He spoke with the mantling blood blazing in his fat cheeks, and his two eyes glittering like those of a basilisk. Montague could not repress a smile and a look of admiration as he said to our little hero-- "Why, Corrie, if you were a giant it would be much easier to go to the other side of the island, wring off the heads of all the pirates, and, carrying me on your shoulders, and Alice and Poopy in your coat-pockets, get safely aboard of the _Foam_, and ho! for Sandy Cove." "So it would," said Corrie, gravely. "I did not think of that, and it would be a far pleasanter way than the other." "Ah! Corrie, I fear that you are a very bloodthirsty fellow." "Of course I am when I've pirates to deal with. I would kill them every man, without a thought." "No you wouldn't, my boy. You couldn't do it in cold blood, even although they are bad men." "I don't know that," said Corrie, dubiously. "I would do it without more feeling than I would have in killing a cat." "Did you ever kill a cat?" asked Montague. "Never," answered Corrie. "Then how can you tell what your feelings would be if you were to attempt to do it. I remember once, when I was a boy, going out to hunt cats." "O Captain Montague, surely _you_ never hunted cats," exclaimed Alice, who came out of the tent with a very pale face, and uncommonly red eyes. "Yes, indeed, I did _once_--but I never did it again. I caught one, a kitten, and set off with a number of boys to kill it; but as we went along it began to play with my neck-tie and to _purr_! Our hearts were softened, so we let it go. Ah! Corrie, my boy, never go hunting cats," said Montague, earnestly. "Did I say I was going to?" replied Corrie, indignantly. Montague laughed, and so did Alice, at the fierce look the boy put on. "Corrie," said the former, "I'm sure that you would not kill a pirate in cold blood, any more than you would kill a kitten--would you?" "I'm not sure o' that," said Corrie, half laughing, but still looking fierce. "In the first place, my blood is never cold when I've to do with pirates; and, in the second place, pirates are not innocent creatures covered with soft hair--and they don't purr!" This last remark set Alice into a fit of laughter, and drew a faint "Hee! hee!" from Poopy, who had been listening to the conversation behind the canvas of the tent. Montague took advantage of this improved state of things. "Now, Alice," said he, cheerfully, "do you and Poopy set about spreading our blanket-tablecloth and getting supper laid out. It is but a poor one,-- hard biscuit and water,--but there is plenty of it, and, after all, that is the main thing. Meanwhile Corrie and I will saunter along shore and talk over our plans. Cheer up, my little girl, we will manage to give these pirates the slip somehow or other, you may depend upon it." "Corrie," said Montague, when they were alone. "I have spoken cheeringly to Alice, because she is a little girl and needs comfort, but you and I know that our case is a desperate one, and it will require all our united wisdom and cleverness to effect our escape from these rascally pirates." The commander of the _Talisman_ paused, and smiled in spite of himself at the idea of being placed in circumstances that constrained him to hold a consultation, in matters that might involve life and death, with a mere boy! But there was no help for it; besides, to say truth, the extraordinary energy and courage that had been displayed by the lad, combined with a considerable amount of innate sharpness in his character, tended to create a feeling that the consultation might not be altogether without advantage. At all events, it was better to talk over their desperate position even with a boy, than to confine his anxieties to his own breast. But although Montague had seen enough of his young companion to convince him that he was an intelligent fellow, he was not prepared for the fertility of resource, the extremity of daring, and the ingenuity of device, that were exhibited by him in the course of that consultation. To creep over in the dead of night, knife in hand, and attack the pirates while asleep, was one of the least startling of his daring propositions; and to swim out to the wreck, set her on fire, and get quietly on board the _Avenger_ while all the amazed pirates should have rushed over to see what could have caused such a blaze, cut the cable and sail away, was among the least ingenious of his devices. These two talked long and earnestly while the shades of evening were descending on the Isle of Palms--and in the earnestness of their talk, and the pressing urgency of their case, the man almost forgot that his companion was a boy, and the boy never for a moment doubted that he himself, in everything but years, was a man. It was getting dark when they returned to the tent, where they found that Alice and Poopy had arranged their supper with the most scrupulous care and nicety. These too, with the happy buoyancy of extreme youth, had temporarily forgotten their position, and, when their male companions entered, were deeply engaged in a private game of a "tea party," in which hard biscuit figured as bun, and water was made to do duty for tea. In this latter part of the game, by the way, the children did but carry out in jest a practice which is not altogether unknown in happier circumstances and in civilised society. CHAPTER TWENTY THREE. PLANS PARTIALLY CARRIED OUT--THE CUTTER'S FATE--AND A SERIOUS MISFORTUNE. The cutter was a fast sailer, and although the pirate schooner had left Sandy Cove nearly two days before her, the _Wasp_, having had a fair wind, followed close on her heels. The _Avenger_ cast anchor in the harbour of the Isle of Palms on the morning of her fifth day out; the _Wasp_ sighted the island on the evening of the same day. It was not Gascoyne's purpose to run down at once and have a hand to hand fight with his own men. He felt that his party was too weak for such an attempt, and resolved to accomplish by stratagem what he could not hope to compass by force. He therefore hove-to the instant the tops of the palm-trees appeared on the horizon, and waited till night should set in and favour his designs. "What do you intend to do?" inquired Henry Stuart, who stood on the deck watching the sun as it sank into the ocean behind a mass of golden clouds, in which, however, there were some symptoms of stormy weather. "I mean to wait till it is dark," said Gascoyne, "and then run down and take possession of the schooner." Henry looked at the pirate captain in surprise, and not without distrust. Ole Thorwald, who was smoking his big German pipe with great energy, looked at him with undisguised uneasiness. "You speak as if you had no doubt whatever of succeeding in this enterprise, Mr Gascoyne," said the latter. "I _have_ no doubt," replied Gascoyne. "I do believe you're right," returned Thorwald, smoking furiously as he became more agitated. "I make no question but your villains will receive you with open arms. What guarantee have we, Mister Gascoyne, or Mister Durward, that we shall not be seized and made to walk the plank, or perform some similarly fantastic feat--in which, mayhap, our feet will have less to do with the performance than our necks--when you get into power?" "You have no guarantee whatever," returned Gascoyne, "except the word of a pirate!" "You say truth," cried Ole, springing up and pacing the deck with unwonted energy, while a troubled and somewhat fierce expression settled on his usually good-humoured countenance. "You say truth, and I think we have been ill-advised when we took this step--for my part, I regard myself as little better than a maniac for putting myself obstinately, not to say deliberately, into the very jaws of a lion, perhaps I should say a tiger. But mark my words, Gascoyne, _alias_ Durward," (here he stopped suddenly before the pirate, who was leaning in a careless attitude against the mast, and looked him full in the face,) "if you play us false, as I have no hesitation in saying I believe that you fully intend to do, your life will not be worth a pewter shilling." "I am yet in your power, Mr Thorwald," said Gascoyne; "if your friends agree to it, I cannot prevent your putting about and returning to Sandy Cove. But in that case the missionary's child _will be lost_!" "I do not believe that my child's safety is so entirely dependent on you," said Mr Mason, who had listened in silence to the foregoing dialogue; "she is in the hands of that God on whom you have turned your back, and with whom all things are possible. But I feel disposed to trust you, Gascoyne, and I feel thus, because of what was said of you by Mrs Stuart, in whose good sense I place implicit confidence. I would advise Mr Thorwald to wait patiently until he sees more cause than he does at present for distrust." Gascoyne had turned round and, during the greater part of this speech, had gazed intently towards the horizon. "We shall have rough weather to-night," said he; "but our work will be done before it comes, I hope. Up with the helm now, Henry, and slack off the sheets; it is dark enough to allow us to creep in without being observed. Manton will of course be in the only harbour in the island; we must therefore go round to the other side and take the risk of running on the reefs." "Risk!" exclaimed Henry; "I thought you knew all the passages about the island?" "So I do, lad--all the passages; but I don't profess to know every rock and reef in the bottom of the sea. Our only chance is to make the island on the south side, where there are no passages at all except one that leads into a bay; but if we run into that, our masts will be seen against the southern sky, even from the harbour where the schooner lies. If we are seen, they will be prepared for us, in which case we shall have a desperate fight with little chance of success and the certainty of much bloodshed. We must therefore run straight for another part of the shore, not far from the bay I have referred to, and take our chance of striking. I _think_ there is enough of water to float this little cutter over the reefs, but I am not sure." "Think! sure!" echoed Thorwald, in a tone of exasperated surprise; "and if we _do_ strike, Mr Gascoyne, do you mean us to go beg for mercy at the hands of your men, or to swim back to Sandy Cove?" "If we strike I shall take the boat, land with the men, and leave the cutter to her fate. The _Avenger_ will suffice to take us back to Sandy Cove." Ole was rendered speechless by the coolness of this remark, so he relieved himself by tightening his belt and spouting forth volcanoes of smoke. Meanwhile, the cutter had run to within a short distance of the island. The night was rendered doubly dark by the rapid spreading of those heavy clouds which indicated the approach of a squall, if not a storm. "This is well," said Gascoyne in a low tone to Henry Stuart, who stood near him; "the worse the storm is to-night the better for the success of our enterprise. Henry, lad, I'm sorry you think so badly of me." Henry was taken aback by this unexpected remark, which was made in a low sad tone. "Can I think too badly of one who confesses himself to be a _pirate_?" said Henry. "The confession is at least in my favour. I had no occasion to confess, nor to give myself up to you." "Give yourself up! It remains to be seen whether you mean to do that or not." "Do you not believe me, Henry? Do you not believe the account that I gave of myself to you and your mother?" "How can I?" said the young man, hesitatingly. "Your mother believed me." "Well, Gascoyne, to tell you the plain truth, I _do_ feel more than half inclined to believe you; and I'm sorry for you--I am, from my soul. You might have led a different life--you might even do so yet." "You forget," said Gascoyne, smiling sadly, "I have given myself up, and you are bound to prevent my escaping." Henry was perplexed by this reply. In the enthusiasm of his awakened pity he had for a moment forgotten the pirate in the penitent. Before he could reply, however, the cutter struck violently on a rock, and an exclamation of alarm and surprise burst from the crew, most of whom were assembled on deck. "Silence!" cried Gascoyne in a deep sonorous tone, that was wonderfully different from that in which he had just been speaking to Henry; "get out the boat. Arm yourselves and jump in. There is no time to lose." "The cutter is hard and fast," said Henry; "if this squall does not come on, or if it turns out to be a light one, we may get her off." "Perhaps we may, but I have little hope of that," returned Gascoyne. "Now, lads, are you all in the boat? Come, Henry, get in at once." "I will remain here," said Henry. "For what end?" said Gascoyne, in surprise. "The cutter belongs to a friend; I do not chose to forsake her in this off-hand manner." "But nothing can save her, Henry." "Perhaps not. Nevertheless, I will do what I can. She moves a little. If she is lifted over this reef while we are on shore, she will be carried out to sea and lost, and that must not be allowed. Leave me here till you land the men, and then send the boat back with two of them. We will put some of the cutter's ballast into it and try to tow her off. It won't take half-an-hour, and that will not interfere with your plans, I should think, for the whole night lies before us." Seeing that he was determined, Gascoyne agreed, and left the cutter, promising to send off the boat directly. But it took half-an-hour to row from the _Wasp_ to the shore, and before the half of that time had elapsed, the storm which had been impending burst over the island. It was much more violent than had been expected. The cutter was lifted over the reef by the first wave, and struck heavily as she slid into deep water. Then she rushed out to sea before the gale. Henry seized the helm and kept the little vessel right before the wind. He knew nothing of the sea around, and the intense darkness of the night prevented his seeing more than a dozen yards beyond the bow. It was perhaps as well that he was kept in ignorance of what awaited him, for he was thus spared at least the anticipation of what appeared certain destruction. He fancied that the rock over which he had been carried was the outer reef of the island. In this he was mistaken. The whole sea around and beyond him was beset with reefs, which at that moment were covered with foam. Had daylight revealed the scene, he would have been appalled. As it was, he stood stoutly and hopefully to the helm while the cutter rushed wildly on her doom. Suddenly she struck with terrific violence, and Henry was hurled to the deck. Leaping up, he sprang again to the helm and attempted to put about, but the shock had been so great that the whole framework of the little craft was dislocated. The fastenings of the rudder had been torn out, and she was unmanageable. The next wave lifted her over the reef and the gale swept her away. Even then the hopes of the young man did not quite fail him. He believed that the last reef had now been passed, and that he would be driven out to the open sea, clear at least of immediate danger. It was a vain hope. In another moment the vessel struck for the third time, and the mast went over the side. Again and again she rose and fell with all her weight on the rocks. The last blow burst out her sides, and she fell to pieces, a total wreck, leaving Henry struggling with the waves. He seized the first piece of wood that came in his way, and clung to it. For many hours he was driven about and tossed by the winds and waves until he began to feel utterly exhausted, but he clung to the spar with the tenacity of a drowning man. In those seas the water is not so cold as in our northern climes, so that men can remain in it for a great length of time without much injury. There are many instances of the South Sea Islanders having been wrecked in their canoes, and having spent not only hours but days in the water, clinging to broken pieces of wood, and swimming for many miles, pushing these before them. When, therefore, the morning broke, and the bright sun, shone out, and the gale had subsided, Henry found himself still clinging to the spar, and although much weakened, still able to make some exertion to save himself. On looking round he found that numerous pieces of the wreck floated near him, and that the portion to which he clung was the broken lower-mast. A large mass of the deck, with part of the gunwale attached to it, lay close beside, him, held to the mast by one of the shrouds. He at once swam to this, and found it sufficiently large to sustain his weight, though not large enough to enable him to get quite out of the water. While here, half-in and half-out of the water, his first act was to fall on his knees and thank God for sparing his life, and to pray for help in that hour of need. Feeling that it would be impossible to exist much longer unless he could get quite out of the water so as to allow the sun to warm his chilled frame, he used what strength remained in him to drag towards him several spars that lay within his reach. These he found to be some of the rough timbers that had lain on the deck of the cutter to serve as spare masts and yards. They were, therefore, destitute of cordage, so that it was not possible to form a secure raft. Nevertheless, by piling them together on the top of the broken portion of the deck, he succeeded in constructing a platform which raised him completely out of the water. The heat of the sun speedily dried his garments, and as the day wore on the sea went down sufficiently to render the keeping of his raft together a matter of less difficulty than it was at first. In trying to make some better arrangement of the spars on which he rested, he discovered the corner of a sail sticking between two of them. This he hauled out of the water, and found it to be a portion of the gaff. It was a fortunate discovery; because, in the event of long exposure, it would prove to be a most useful covering. Wringing it out, he spread it over the logs to dry. The doing of all this occupied the shipwrecked youth so long, that it was nearly mid-day before he could sit down on his raft and think calmly over his position. Hunger now began to remind him that he was destitute of food; but Henry had been accustomed, while roaming among the mountains of his island home, to go fasting for long periods of time. The want of breakfast, therefore, did not inconvenience him much; but before he had remained inactive more than ten minutes, the want of sleep began to tell upon him. Gradually he felt completely overpowered by it. He laid his head on one of the spars at last, and resigned himself to an influence he could no longer resist. It was evening before he awoke from that slumber. The sun had just disappeared below the horizon, and the red clouds that remained behind were beginning to deepen, as night prepared to throw her dark mantle over the sea. A gull wheeled over the youth's head and uttered a wild cry as he awoke, causing him to start up with a feeling of bewildered uncertainty as to where he was. The true nature of his position was quickly forced upon him. A dead calm now prevailed. Henry gazed eagerly, wistfully round the horizon. It was an unbroken line; not a speck that resembled a sail was to be seen. Remembering for the first time that his low raft would be quite invisible at a very short distance, he set about erecting a flag. This was easily done. Part of his red shirt was torn off and fastened to a light spar, the end of which he stuck between the logs. Having set up his signal of distress he sat down beside it, and, drawing part of the sail over his shoulders, leaned on the broken part of the bulwark, and pondered his forlorn condition. It was a long, sad reverie into which poor Henry Stuart fell that evening. Hope did not, indeed, forsake his breast--for hope is strong in youth; but he was too well acquainted with the details of a sailor's life and risks to be able to shut his eyes to the real dangers of his position. He knew full well that if he should be cast on any of the inhabited islands of the South Seas (unless it might be one of the very few that had at that time accepted the Gospel) he would certainly be killed by the savages, whose practice it is to slay and eat all unfortunates who chance to be wrecked and cast upon their shores. But no islands were in sight, and it was possible that he might be left to float on the boundless ocean until the slow and terrible process of starvation did its work, and wore away the life which he felt to be so fresh and strong within him. When he thought of this he shuddered, and reverted, almost with a feeling of pleasure, to the idea that another storm might spring up ere long, and by dashing his frail raft to pieces, bring his life to a speedy termination. His hopes were not very clear even to his own mind. He did indeed hope, because he could not help it; but what it was that he hoped for would have puzzled him to state. A passing ship finding him in a part of the Pacific where ships were not wont to pass was, perhaps, among the least animating of all his hopes. But the thoughts that coursed through the youth's brain that night were not centred alone upon the means or the prospects of deliverance. He thought of his mother,--her gentleness, her goodness, her unaccountable partiality for Gascoyne; but more than all, he thought of her love for himself. He thought, too, of his former life--his joys, his sorrows, and his sins. As he remembered these last, his soul was startled, and he thought of his God and his Saviour as he had never thought before. Despite his efforts to restrain them, tears, but not unmanly tears, _would_ flow down his cheeks as he sat that evening on his raft; meditated on the past, the present, and the future, and realised the terrible solemnity of his position--without water or food--almost without hope--alone on the deep. [See Frontispiece.] CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING--DOINGS ON THE ISLE OF PALMS--GASCOYNE'S DESPAIR. It was not without some difficulty that the boat reached the shore after the squall burst upon them. On landing, the party observed, dark though it was, that their leader's countenance wore an expression of the deepest anxiety; yet there were lines upon it that indicated the raging of conflicting passions which he found it difficult to restrain. "I fear me," said Ole Thorwald in a troubled voice, "that our young friend Henry Stuart is in danger." "Lost!" said Gascoyne, in a voice so low and grating that it startled his hearers. "Say not so," said Mr Mason, earnestly. "He is a brave and a clever youth, and knows how to manage the cutter until we can row back and fetch him ashore." "Row back!" exclaimed Gascoyne, almost fiercely. "Think you that I would stand here idle if our boat could live in such a sea as now rolls on the rocks? The _Wasp_ must have been washed over the reef by this time. She may pass the next without being dashed to pieces, but she is too rickety to stand the third. No, there is no hope!" While he spoke the missionary's eyes were closed, and his lips moved as if in silent prayer. Seizing Gascoyne nervously by the arm, he said--"You cannot tell that there is no hope. That is known only to One who has encouraged us to `hope against hope.' Henry is a stout youth and a good swimmer. He may succeed in clinging to some portion of the wreck." "True, true," cried Gascoyne, eagerly grasping at this hope, slight though it was. "Come, we waste time. There is but one chance. The schooner must be secured without delay. Lads, you will follow Mr Thorwald. Do whatever he bids you. And now," he added, leading the merchant aside, "the time for action has come. I will conduct you to a certain point on the island where you will remain concealed among the bushes until I return to you." "And suppose you never return to us, Mister Gascoyne?" said Ole, who regarded every act of the pirate captain with suspicion. "Then you will remain there till you are tired," answered Gascoyne, with some asperity, "and after that, do what you please." "Well, well, I am in your power," retorted the obdurate Norseman; "make what arrangements you please, I will carry them out until--" Here Ole thought fit to break off, and Gascoyne, without taking notice of the remark, went on in a few hurried sentences to explain as much of his plan as he thought necessary for the guidance of his suspicious ally. This done, he led the whole party to the highest part of the island, and made them lie in ambush there while he went forward alone to reconnoitre. The night was admirably suited to their purpose. It was so dark that it was extremely difficult to perceive objects more than a few yards off, and the wind howled so furiously among the palms that there was no danger of being overheard in the event of their speaking too loud or stumbling over fallen trees. Gascoyne, who knew every rock and tree on the Isle of Palms, went rapidly down the gentle slope that intervened between him and the harbour in which the _Foam_ lay at anchor. Dark though it was, he could see the taper masts and yards of his vessel traced dimly against the sky. The pirate's movements now became more cautious. He stepped slowly, and paused frequently to listen. At last he went down on his hands and knees and crept forward for a considerable distance in that position, until he reached a ledge of rocks that overhung the shore of the bay. Here he observed an object like a round lump of rock, lying a few yards before him, on a spot where he was well aware no such rock had previously existed. It moved after a moment or two. Gascoyne knew that there were no wild animals of any kind on the island, and, therefore, at once jumped to the conclusion that this must needs be a human being of some sort. Drawing his knife he put it between his teeth, and creeping noiselessly towards the object in question laid his strong hand on the neck of the horrified Will Corrie. That adventurous and desperate little hero having lain sleepless and miserable at the feet of Alice until the squall blew the tent over their heads, got up and assisted Montague to erect it anew in a more sheltered position, after which, saying that he meant to take a midnight ramble on the shore to cool his fevered brow, he made straight for the sea, stepped knee-deep into the raging surf, and bared his breast to the furious blast. This cooled him so effectually that he took to running along shore in order to warm himself. Then it occurred to him that the night was particularly favourable for a sly peep at the pirates. Without a moment's hesitation he walked and stumbled towards the high part of the island, at which he arrived just half-an-hour before Gascoyne reached it. He had seen nothing, however, and was on the point of advancing still further in his explorations, when he was discovered as we have seen. Gascoyne instantly turned the boy over on his back, and nipped a tremendous yell in the bud by grasping his wind-pipe. "Why, Corrie!" exclaimed Gascoyne in surprise, at the same time loosening his grip, though still holding the boy down. "Ah! you villain, you rascally pirate. _I_ know you, I--" The pipe was gently squeezed at this point, and the sentence abruptly cut short. "Come, boy, you must not speak so loud. Enemies are near. If you don't behave I'll have to throttle you. I have come from Sandy Cove with a party to save you and your friends." Corrie did not believe a word of this. He knew, or at least he supposed, that Gascoyne had left the schooner, not having seen him since they sailed from Sandy Cove; but he knew nothing of the manner in which he had been put ashore. "It won't do, Gascoyne," gasped poor Corrie, on being permitted again to use his wind-pipe. "You may kill me, but you'll never cow me. I don't believe you, you cowardly monster." "I'll have to convince you then," said Gascoyne, suddenly catching the boy in his arms, and bearing him swiftly away from the spot. Corrie struggled like a hero, as he was. He tried to shout, but Gascoyne's right hand again squeezed the wind-pipe; he attempted to bite, but the same hand easily kept the refractory head in order; he endeavoured to kick and hit, but Gascoyne's left hand encircled him in such a comprehensive embrace and pressed him so powerfully to his piratical bosom that he could only wriggle. This he did without ceasing, until Gascoyne suddenly planted him on his feet, panting and dishevelled, before the astonished faces of Frederick Mason and Ole Thorwald. It is not necessary to describe in detail the surprise of all then and there assembled, the hurried conversation, and the cry of joy with which the missionary received the information that Alice was safe and within five minutes' walk of the spot on which he stood. Suffice it to say, that Corrie was now convinced of the good faith of Gascoyne, whom he at once led, along with Mr Mason, to the tent where Alice and her friends slept--leaving Thorwald and his men where they were, to await further orders. The cry of wild delight with which Alice sprang into her father's arms might have been destructive of all Gascoyne's plans had not the wind carried it away from the side of the island where the pirate schooner lay. There was now no time to be lost. After the first embrace, and a few hurried words of blessing and thanksgiving, the missionary was summoned to a consultation. "I will join you in this enterprise, Mr Gascoyne," said Montague. "I believe what you say to be true, besides, the urgency of our present danger leaves me no room for choice. I am in your power. I believe that in your present penitent condition you are willing to enable us to escape from your former associates; but I tell you frankly that, if ever I have an opportunity to do so, I will consider it my duty to deliver you over to justice." "Time is too precious to trifle thus," said Gascoyne, hurriedly. "I have already said that I will deliver myself up--not however to _you_, but to Mr Mason--after I have rescued the party, so that I am not likely to claim any consideration from you on account of the obligation which you seem to think my present act will lay you under. But you must not accompany me just now." "Why not?" "Because your presence may be required here. You and Mr Mason will remain where you are to guard the girls, until I return. All that I have to ask is, that you be in readiness to follow me at a moment's notice when the time comes." "Of course what you arrange _must_ be agreed to," said Montague. "Come, Corrie, I will require your assistance. Follow me," said the pirate captain, as he turned and strode rapidly away. Corrie was now thoroughly convinced of the good intentions of Gascoyne, so he followed him without hesitation. Indeed, now that he had an opportunity of seeing a little more of his gigantic companion, he began to feel a strange kind of pity and liking for him, but he shuddered and felt repelled when he thought of the human blood in which his hands must have been imbrued, for as yet he had not heard of the defence of himself which Gascoyne had made in the widow's cottage. But he had not much time to think, for in a few minutes they came upon Ole Thorwald and his party. "Follow me quietly," said Gascoyne. "Keep in single file and close together, for if we are separated here we shall not easily get together again." Leading them over the same ground that he had formerly traversed, Gascoyne conducted his party to the shores of the bay where the _Foam_ lay at anchor. Here he made them keep close in the bushes, with directions to be ready to act the instant he should call on them to do so. "But it would comfort me mightily, Mister Gascoyne," said Thorwald in a somewhat troubled voice, "if you would give me some instructions or advice as to what I am to do in the event of your plans miscarrying. I care nought for a fair fight in open field, but I do confess to a dislike of being brought to the condition of _not knowing what to do_." "It won't matter much what you do, Mr Thorwald," said Gascoyne, gravely. "If my plans miscarry, you will be killed every soul of you. You'll not have the ghost of a chance of escaping." Ole opened his eyes uncommonly wide at this. "Well," said he at length, with a sigh of resignation, "it's some comfort to know that one can only be killed once." Gascoyne now proceeded leisurely to strip off his shirt, thereby displaying a chest, back, and arms in which the muscles were developed to an extent that might have made Hercules himself envious. Kicking off his boots, he reduced his clothing to a pair of loose knee-breeches. "'Tis a strange time to indulge in a cold bath!" murmured Thorwald, whose state of surprise was beginning to render him desperately ironical. Gascoyne took no notice of this remark, but calling Corrie to his side, said-- "Can you swim, boy?" "Yes, like a duck." "Can you distinguish the stern of the schooner?" "I can." "Listen, then. When you see a white sheet waved over the taffrail, throw off your jacket and shirt and swim out to the schooner. D'ye understand?" "Perfectly," replied the boy, whose decision of manner and action grew with the occasion. "And now, Mr Thorwald," said Gascoyne, "I shall swim off to the schooner. If, as I expect, the men are on shore in a place that I wot of and with which you have nothing to do, well and good, I will send a boat for you with muffled oars--but, mark you, let there be no noise in embarking or in getting aboard the schooner. If, on the other hand, the men are aboard, I will bring a boat to you myself, in which case silence will not be so necessary, and your fighting powers shall be put to the proof." Without waiting for a reply, the pirate captain walked down the sloping beach and waded slowly into the dark sea. His motions were so noiseless and stealthy that those who watched him with eager eyes could only discern a figure moving gradually away from them and melting into the thick gloom. Fierce though the storm was outside, the sheltered waters of the bay were almost calm, so that Gascoyne had no difficulty in swimming off to the _Foam_ without making any noise. As he drew near, a footstep on the deck apprised him that there was at least a watch left. A few seconds later a man leaned over the low bulwarks of the vessel on the side on which the swimmer approached. "Hist! what sort o' brute's that?" he exclaimed, seizing a handspike that chanced to be near him and hurling it at the head of the brute. The handspike fell within a yard of Gascoyne, who, keeping up his supposed character, made a wild splash with his arms and dived like a genuine monster of the deep. Swimming under water as vigorously as he could, he endeavoured to gain the other side of the vessel before he came up; but, finding that this was impossible, he turned on his back and allowed himself to rise gently until nothing but his face appeared above the surface. By this means he was enabled to draw a full breath, and then, causing himself to sink, he swam under water to the other side of the schooner and rose under her quarter. Here he paused a minute to breathe, then glided with noiseless strokes to the main chains, which he seized hold of, and, under their shelter, listened intently for at least five minutes. Not a sound was to be heard on board save the footstep of the solitary watchman who slowly paced the deck, and now and then beguiled the tedium of his vigil by humming a snatch of a sea song. Gascoyne now felt assured that the crew were ashore enjoying themselves, (as they were wont to do,) in one of the artificial caverns where their goods were concealed. He knew, from his own former experience, that they felt quite secure when once at anchor in the harbour of the Isle of Palms; it was therefore probable that all of them had gone ashore except this man who had been left to take care of the vessel. Gascoyne now drew himself slowly up into the chains, and remained there for a few seconds in a stooping position, keeping his head below the level of the bulwarks while he squeezed the water out of his lower garments. This done, he waited until the man on deck came close to where he stood, when he sprang on him with the agility of a tiger, threw him down, and placed his hand on his mouth. "It will be your wisest course to be still, my man," said Gascoyne, sternly. "You know who I am, and you know what I can do when occasion requires. If you shout when I remove my hand from your mouth you die." The man seemed to be quite aware of the hopelessness of his case, for he quietly submitted to have his mouth bound with a handkerchief and his hands and feet tied with cords. A few seconds sufficed to accomplish this, after which Gascoyne took him up in his arms as if he had been a child, carried him below, and laid him on one of the cabin lockers. Then, dragging a sheet off one of the beds, he sprang up on deck and waved it over the stern. "That's the signal for me," said Corrie, who had watched for it eagerly--"now, uncle Ole, mind you obey orders--you're rather inclined to be mutinous, and that won't pay to-night. If you don't look out, Gascoyne will pitch into you, old boy." Master Corrie indulged in these impertinent remarks while he was stripping off his jacket and shirt. The exasperated Thorwald attempted to seize him by the neck and shake him, but Corrie flung his jacket in his face, and sprang down the beach like a squirrel. He had wisdom enough, however, to say and do all this in the quietest possible manner, and when he entered the sea he did so with as much caution as Gascoyne himself had done, insomuch that he seemed to melt away like a mischievous sprite. In a few minutes he was alongside of the _Foam_; caught a rope that was thrown to him, and quickly stood on the deck. "Well done, Corrie. Clamber over the stern, and slide down by that rope into the little boat that floats there. Take one of the oars, which you will find muffled, and scull to the shore and bring off Thorwald and his men. And, hark 'ee, boy, bring off my shirt and boots. Now, look alive; your friend Henry Stuart's life may depend on it." "Henry's life!" exclaimed Corrie in amazement. "Come, no questions. His life may depend on your promptitude." Corrie wanted no stronger motive for speed. In a state of surprise mingled with anxious forebodings, he leaped over the stern and was gone in a moment. The distance between the shore and the schooner being very short, the boat was quickly alongside, and the party, under stout Ole Thorwald, took possession of their prize. Meanwhile Gascoyne had set the jib and fore-topsail, which latter had been left hanging loose from the yard, so that by hauling out the sheets slowly and with great care, the thing was done without noise. The cable was then cut, the boat manned, and the _Foam_ glided out of the bay like a phantom ship. The moment she got beyond the shelter of the palms her sails filled, and in a few minutes she was rushing through the water at the rate of ten or eleven knots an hour. Gascoyne stood at the helm and guided her through the intricacies of the dangerous coast with consummate skill, until he reached the bay where the wrecked ship lay. Here he lay to, and sent the boat ashore for the party that had been left at the tent. They were waiting anxiously for his return; great therefore was their astonishment when he sent a message inviting them to go on board the _Foam_. The instant they embarked Gascoyne put about, and, ordering the mainsail to be hoisted and one of the reefs to be shaken out of the topsail, ran round to windward of the island, with the foam flying in great masses on either side of the schooner, which lay over so much before the gale that it was scarcely possible to stand on the deck. The manner in which the pirate captain now acted was calculated to fill the hearts of those whose lives seemed to hang in his hands with alarm if not dismay. His spirit seemed to be stirred within him. There was indeed no anger either in his looks or tones, but there was a stern fixedness of purpose in his manner and aspect which aroused, yet repelled, the curiosity of those around him. Even Ole Thorwald and Montague agreed that it was best to let him alone, for although they might overcome his great physical force by the united strength of numbers, the result would certainly be disastrous, as he was the only one who knew the locality. On reaching the windward side of the island he threw the schooner up into the wind, and ordered the large boat to be hoisted out and put in the water, Gascoyne issued his commands in a quick loud voice, and Ole shook his head as if he felt that this overbearing manner proved what he had expected, namely, that when the pirate got aboard his own vessel he would come out in his true colours. Whatever men felt or thought, there was no hesitation in rendering prompt obedience to that voice. The large boat was hoisted off the brass pivot gun amidships and lowered into the water. Then Gascoyne gave the helm to one of the men, with directions to hold it exactly as it then lay, and, hurrying down below, speedily returned, to the astonishment of every one, with a man in his arms. "Now, Connway," said Gascoyne, as he cut the cords that bound the man and removed the handkerchief from his mouth, "I'm a man of few words, and to-night have less time than usual to speak. I set you free. Get into that boat--one oar will suffice to guide it--the wind will drive it to the island. I send it as a parting gift to Manton and my former associates. It is large enough to hold them all. Tell them that I repent of my sins, and the sooner they do the same the better. I cannot now undo the evil I have done them. I can only furnish the means of escape, so that they may have time and opportunity to mend their ways, and, hark 'ee, the sooner they leave this plane the better. It will no longer be a safe retreat. Farewell!" While he was speaking he led the man by the arm to the side of the schooner, and constrained him to get into the boat. As he uttered the last word he cut the rope that held it, and let it drop astern. Gascoyne immediately resumed his place at the helm, and once more the schooner was running through the water, almost gunwale under, towards the place where the _Wasp_ had been wrecked. Without uttering a word of explanation, and apparently forgetful of every one near him, the pirate continued during the remainder of that night to steer the _Foam_ out and in among the roaring breakers, as if he were trying how near he could venture to the jaws of destruction without actually plunging into them. As the night wore on the sky cleared up, and the scene of foaming desolation that was presented by the breakers in the midst of which they flew, was almost enough to appal the stoutest heart. The crew looked on in moody silence. They knew that their lives were imperilled, but they felt that they had no resource. No one dared to address the silent, stern man who stood like an iron statue at the helm the whole of that night. Towards morning, he steered out from among the dangerous coral reefs and ran south, straight before the wind. Then Corrie summoned up courage, and, going aft to Gascoyne, looked up in his face and said-- "You're searching for Henry, I think?" "Yes, boy. I am," answered the pirate, and a gleam of kindliness crossed his face for a moment, but it was quickly chased away by a look of deep anxiety, and Corrie retired. Now that the danger of the night was over, all the people on board became anxious to save Henry or ascertain his fate; but although they searched the ocean far and wide, they saw not a vestige of him or of the _Wasp_. During this period Gascoyne acted like a bewildered man. He never quitted the helm, night nor day. He only ate a biscuit now and then when it was brought to him, and he did not answer when he was spoken to. Every one felt sympathy with the man who seemed to mourn so deeply for the lost youth. At last Montague went up to him and said in a gentle voice-- "I fear that Henry is gone." Gascoyne started as if a sword had pierced him. For one moment he looked fiercely in the young captain's face; then an expression of the deepest sadness overspread his countenance as he said-- "Do you think there is no hope?" "None," said Montague. "I grieve to give pain to one who seems to have been an intimate friend of the lad." "He was the son of my oldest and best friend. What would you advise, Mr Montague?" "I think--that is to say, don't _you_ think--that it would be as well to put about now?" Gascoyne's head dropped on his chest, and for some moments he stood speechless, while his strong hands played nervously with the tiller that they had held so long and so firmly. At last he looked up and said, in a low voice--"I resign the schooner into your hands, Mr Montague." Then he went slowly below, and shut himself up in his cabin. Montague at once put down the helm, and, pointing the schooner's prow northward, steered for the harbour of Sandy Cove. CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE. SURLY DICK--THE RESCUE. We must turn aside here for a short time to follow the fortunes of the _Talisman_. When that vessel went in chase of the _Foam_, after her daring passage across the reefs, she managed to keep her in view until the island was out of sight astern. Then the increasing darkness caused by the squall hid the two vessels from each other, and before the storm passed away the superior sailing qualities of the _Foam_ carried her far beyond the reach of the cruiser. But Mr Mulroy was not a man to be easily baffled. He resolved to continue the chase, and, supposing that his commander must have got safely to the shore, he made up his mind to proceed southward for a short time, thinking it probable that the pirate would run for the shelter of those remote islands which he knew were seldom visited by merchant ships. The importance of keeping the chase in view as long as possible, and following it up without delay, he felt it would be accepted as a sufficient excuse by Montague for not putting back to take him on board. The squalls which happened to prevail at that time drove the _Talisman_ farther south than her first lieutenant had intended to go, and she failed to fall in with the pirate schooner. Mulroy cruised far and wide for fully a week; then he gave up the chase as hopeless. Two days after the breaking of the storm that wrecked the _Wasp_, the _Talisman's_ prow was turned northward towards Sandy Cove. It was the close of a calm beautiful evening when this was done. A gentle breeze fanned the topsails, although it failed to ruffle the sea. "I don't like to be baffled in this way," said Mulroy to the second lieutenant, as they paced the quarterdeck together. "It is very unfortunate," returned the other. "Would it not be as well to examine the man called Surly Dick before leaving these waters? You know he let out that there is some island hereabouts at which the pirates are wont to rendezvous. Perhaps by threats, if not by persuasion, he may be induced to tell us where it lies." "True. I had forgotten that fellow altogether. Let him be sent for." In a few minutes Surly Dick stepped on the quarter-deck and touched his cap. He did not appear to have grown less surly since his introduction on board the frigate. Discipline had evidently a souring effect on his temper. "Your late comrades have escaped me," said the first lieutenant, "but you may depend upon it I will catch the villains in the long run." "It'll be a pretty long run before you do," remarked the man, sulkily. Mulroy looked sternly at him. "You forget," said he, "that you are a prisoner. Let me advise you to be at least _civil_ in your manner and tone. Whether the run shall be a long or a short one remains to be seen. One thing is pretty certain, namely, that your own run of life will be a _very_ short one. You know the usual doom of a pirate when he is caught." Surly Dick moved uneasily. "I was made a pirate against my will," said he, in a still more sulky tone and disrespectful manner. "You will find it difficult to prove that," returned Mulroy. "Meanwhile I shall put you in irons and treat you as you deserve until I can place you in the hands of the civil authorities." Surly Dick stood first on one leg and then on the other; moved his fingers about nervously, and glanced in the lieutenant's face furtively. It was evident that he was ill at ease. "I never committed murder, sir," said he in an improved tone. "It wasn't allowed on board of the _Avenger_, sir. It's a hard case that a fellow should be made a pirate by force, and then be scragged for it, though he's done none o' the bloody work." "This may be true," rejoined the lieutenant, "but as I have said, you will find it difficult to convince your judges of it. But you will receive a fair trial. There is one thing, however, that will stand in your favour, and that is a full and free confession. If you make this, and give me all the information you can in order to bring your late comrades to justice, your judges will perhaps be disposed to view your case leniently." "Wot more _can_ I confess, sir," said Dick, beginning to look a little more interested. "I've already confessed that I wos made a pirate against my will, and that I've never done no murder--though I _have_ plundered a little, just like the rest. As for helpin' to bring my comrades to justice, I only wish as I know'd how, and I'd do it right off, I would." Surly Dick's expression of countenance when he said this, was a sufficient guarantee that he was in earnest. "There is an island somewhere hereabouts," said the lieutenant, "where the pirates are in the habit of hiding sometimes, is there not?" Surly Dick looked at his questioner slyly as he replied--"There is, sir." "Do you not think it very likely that they may have run there now--that they may be there at this moment?" "It's _oncommom_ likely," replied Dick with a grin. "Can you direct me how to steer, in order to reach that island?" Surly Dick's aspect changed. He became morose again, and looked silently at his feet for a few moments, as if he were debating something in his own mind. He was in truth perplexed; for, while he was extremely anxious to bring his hated comrades to justice, he was by no means so anxious to let the lieutenant into the secret of the treasures contained in the caverns of the Isle of Palms, all of which he knew would be at once swept hopelessly beyond his grasp if they should be discovered. He also reflected that if he could only manage to get his late companions comfortably hanged, and himself set free for having turned King's evidence against them, he could return to the island and abstract the wealth it contained by degrees. The brilliant prospect thus opened up to him was somewhat marred, however, by the consideration that some of the pirates might make a confession and let this secret be known, in which case his golden dreams would vanish. The difficulty of making up his mind was so great that he continued for some time to twist his fingers and move his feet uneasily in silence. Mulroy observed the pirate's indecision, and although he knew not its cause to the full extent, he was sufficiently acquainted with human nature to know that now was the moment to overcome the man, if he was to be overcome at all. "Well, well," he said, carelessly, "I'm sorry to see you throw away your only chance. As for the information you refuse to give, I can do without it. Perhaps I may find some of your late comrades when we make the island, who will stand witness against _you_. That will do, my man, you may go. Mr Geoffrey," (turning to a midshipman,) "will you accompany that pirate forward and see that he is put in irons." "But you don't know where the island is," said Surly Dick, anxiously, as the lieutenant was turning away. Mulroy turned back--"No," said he, "but you ought to know that when a seaman is aware of the existence of an island, and knows that he is near it, a short time will suffice to enable him to find it." Again he was about to turn away when Dick cried out--"Stay, sir, will you stand by me if I shew you the way?" "I will not deceive you," said Mulroy, bluntly. "If you shew me how to steer for this island, and assist me in every way that you can to catch these villains, I will report what you have done, and the judges at your trial will give what weight they please to the facts; but if you suppose that I will plead for such a rascal as you are, you very much mistake me." A look of deep hatred settled on the pirate's countenance as he said briefly--"Well, I'll shew you how to steer." Accordingly Surly Dick, after being shewn a chart, and being made aware of the exact position of the ship, ordered the course to be altered to "north-half-east." As this was almost dead in the eye of the light breeze that was blowing, the _Talisman_ had to proceed on her course by the slow process of tacking. While she was in the act of putting about on one of these tacks, the look-out reported "a boat on the lee bow." "Boat on the lee bow!" was passed from mouth to mouth, and the order was immediately given to let the frigate fall off. In another minute, instead of ploughing her way slowly and doggedly to windward, the _Talisman_ ran swiftly before the breeze towards a dark object which at a distance resembled a boat with a mast and a small flag flying from it. "It is a raft, I think," observed the second lieutenant, as he adjusted the telescope more perfectly. "You are right, and I think there is someone on it," said Mulroy. "I see something like a man lying on it, but whether he is dead or alive I cannot say. There is a flag, undoubtedly--but no one waves a handkerchief or a rag of any kind. Surely, if a _living_ being occupied the raft he would have seen the ship by this time. Stay, he moves! No; it must have been imagination. I fear that he is dead, poor fellow. Stand by to lower a boat." The lieutenant spoke in a sad voice, for he felt convinced that he had come too late to the aid of some unfortunate who had died in perhaps the most miserable manner in which man can perish. Henry Stuart did indeed lie on the raft a dead man to all appearance. Towards the evening of his third day, he had suffered very severely from the pangs of hunger. Long and earnestly had he gazed round the horizon, but no sail appeared. He felt that his end was approaching, and in a fit of despair and increasing weakness, he fell on his face in a state of half consciousness. Then he began to pray, and, gradually, he fell into a troubled slumber. It was while he was in this condition, that the _Talisman_ hove in sight. Henry had frequently fallen into this species of sleep during the last few hours, but he never continued in it long, for the pains of thirst as well as hunger now racked his frame. Nevertheless, he was not much reduced in strength or vigour. A long slow process of dying would have still lain before the poor youth, had it been his lot to perish on that raft. A delightful dream came over him as he lay. A rich banquet was spread before him. With wolfish desire he grasped the food, and ate as he never ate before. Oh! it was a rare feast that! Each morsel was delicious; each draught was nectar. But he could not devour enough. There was a strange feeling in him that he could by no means eat to satisfaction. While he was thus feasting in dreams the _Talisman_ drew near. Her bulwarks were crowded with faces gazing earnestly at the bit of red rag that fluttered in the breeze and the pile of loose spars on the man's form lay extended and motionless. Suddenly Henry awoke with a start, to find that his rich banquet was a terrible delusion! that he was starving to death--and that a large ship was hove-to within a few yards of him! Starting up on his knees, he uttered a wild shriek. Then, as the truth entered his soul, he raised his hand and gave a faint cheer. The revulsion of feeling in the crew of the _Talisman_ was overpowering--a long, loud, tremendous cheer burst from every heart! "Lower away!" was shouted to the men who stood at the fall-tackles of the boat! As the familiar sounds broke on Henry's ear, he leaped to his feet, and waving his hand above his head, again attempted to cheer; but his voice failed him. Staggering backwards, he fell fainting into the sea. Almost at the same instant, a man leaped from the bulwark of the frigate, and swam vigorously towards the raft. It was Richard Price, the boatswain of the frigate. He reached Henry before the boat did, and, grasping his inanimate form, supported him until it came up and rescued them both. A few minutes later Henry Stuart was restored to consciousness, and the surgeon of the frigate was ministering to him such restoratives as his condition seemed to require. CHAPTER TWENTY SIX. THE CAPTURE AND THE FIRE. Eight days after the rescue of Henry Stuart from a horrible death, as related in the last chapter, the _Talisman_ found herself, late in the afternoon, within about forty hours' sail of Sandy Cove. Mulroy had visited the Isle of Palms, and found that the pirates had flown. The mate of the _Avenger_ and his companions had taken advantage of the opportunity of escape afforded them by Gascoyne, and had hastily quitted their rendezvous with as much of the most valuable portion of their booty as the boat could carry. As this is their last appearance in these pages, it may be as well to say that they were never again heard of. Whether they perished in a storm, or gained some distant land, and followed their former leader's advice--to repent of their sins,--or again took to piracy, and continued the practice of their terrible trade under a more bloody minded captain, we cannot tell. They disappeared as many a band of wicked men has disappeared before, and never turned up again. With these remarks we dismiss them from our tale. Surly Dick now began to entertain sanguine hopes that he would be pardoned, and that he would yet live to enjoy the undivided booty which he alone knew lay concealed in the Isle of Palms--for, now that he had heard Henry's account of the landing of Gascoyne on the island, he never doubted that the pirates would fly in haste from a spot that was no longer unknown to others, and that they would be too much afraid of being captured to venture to return to it. It was, then, with a feeling of no small concern that the pirate heard the look-out shout on the afternoon referred to, "Sail ho!" "Where away?" "On the lee beam." The course of the frigate was at once changed, and she ran down towards the strange sail. "A schooner, sir," observed the second lieutenant to Mr Mulroy. "It looks marvellously like the _Foam_, alias the _Avenger_," observed the latter. "Beat to quarters. If this rascally pirate has indeed been thrown in our way again, we will give him a warm reception. Why, the villain has actually altered his course, and is standing towards us." "Don't you think it is just possible," suggested Henry Stuart, "that Gascoyne may have captured the vessel from his mate, and now comes to meet us as a friend?" "I don't know that," said Mulroy, in an excited tone, for he could not easily forget the rough usage his vessel had received at the hands of the bold pirate. "I don't know that. No doubt Gascoyne's mate was against him; but the greater part of the crew were evidently in his favour, else why the secret manner in which he was deprived of his command? No, no. Depend upon it the villain has got hold of his schooner and will keep it. By a fortunate chance we have again met; I will see to it that we do not part without a close acquaintance. Yet why he should throw himself into my very arms in this way, puzzles me. Ha! I see his big gun amidships. It is uncovered. No doubt he counts on his superior sailing powers, and means to give us a shot and shew us his heels. Well, we shall see." "There goes his flag," observed the second lieutenant. "What! eh! It's the _Union Jack_!" exclaimed Mulroy. "I doubt not that your own captain commands the schooner," said Henry, who had of course, long before this time, made the first lieutenant of the _Talisman_ acquainted with Montague's capture by the pirate, along with Alice and her companions. "You naturally mistrust Gascoyne, but I have reason to believe that, on this occasion at least, he is a true man." Mulroy returned no answer, for the two vessels were now almost near enough to enable those on board to distinguish faces with the telescope. A very few minutes sufficed to remove all doubts; and, a quarter of an hour later, Montague stood on his own quarterdeck, receiving the congratulations of his officers, while Henry Stuart was seized upon and surrounded by his friends Corrie, Alice, Poopy, the missionary, and Ole Thorwald. In the midst of a volley of excited conversation Henry suddenly exclaimed, "But what of Gascoyne? Where is the pirate captain?" "Why, we've forgotten him," exclaimed Thorwald, whose pipe was doing duty like a factory chimney. "I shouldn't wonder if he took advantage of us just now to give us the slip!" "No fear of that," said Mr Mason. "Poor fellow, he has felt your loss terribly, Henry, for we all believed that you were lost; but I am bound to confess that none of us have shewn a depth of sorrow equal to that of Gascoyne. It seems unaccountable to me. He has not shewn his face on deck since the day he gave up all hope of rescuing you, and has eaten nothing but a biscuit now and then, which he would suffer no one but Corrie to take to him." "Poor Gascoyne, I will go and relieve his mind," said Henry, turning to quit the quarterdeck. Now, the noise created by the meeting of the two vessels had aroused Gascoyne from the lethargic state of mind and body to which he had given way. Coming on deck, he was amazed to find himself close to the _Talisman_. A boat lay alongside the _Foam_, into which he jumped, and, sculling towards the frigate, he stepped over the bulwarks just as Henry turned to go in search of him. The pirate captain's face wore a haggard, careworn, humbled look, that was very different from its usual bold, lion-like expression. No one can tell what a storm had passed through the strong man's breast while he lay alone on the floor of his cabin. The deep, deep sorrow--the remorse for sin--the bitterness of soul when he reflected that his present misery was chargeable only to himself. A few nights had given him the aspect of a much older man. For a few seconds he stood glancing round the quarterdeck of the _Talisman_ with a look of mingled curiosity and sadness. But when his eye fell on the form of Henry he turned deadly pale, and trembled like an aspen leaf. "Well, Gascoyne, my--my--_friend_," said the youth with some hesitation as he advanced. The shout that Gascoyne uttered on hearing the young man's voice was almost superhuman. It was something like a mingled cheer and cry of agony. In another moment he sprang forward, and seizing Henry in his arms, pressed him to his breast with a grasp that rendered the youth utterly powerless. Almost instantly he released him from his embrace, and seizing his hand, said, in a wild, gay, almost fierce manner-- "Come, Henry, lad, I have somewhat to say to you. Come with me." He forced rather than led the amazed youth into the boat, sculled to the schooner, hurried him into the cabin, and shut and locked the door. We need scarcely say that all this was a matter of the deepest curiosity and interest to those who witnessed it; but they were destined to remain with their curiosity unsatisfied for some time after that. When Henry Stuart issued from the cabin of the _Avenger_ after that mysterious interview, his countenance wore a surprised and troubled expression. Gascoyne's, on the contrary, was grave and calm, yet cheerful. He was more like his former self. The young man was, of course, eagerly questioned as to what had been said to him, and why the pirate had shewn such fondness for him; but the only reply that could be got from him was, "I must not tell. It is a private matter. You shall know time enough." With this answer they were fain to be content--even Corrie failed to extract anything more definite from his friend. A prize crew was put on board the _Foam_, and the two vessels proceeded towards the harbour of Sandy Cove in company. Henry and his friends went in the _Foam_, but Gascoyne was detained a prisoner on board the _Talisman_. Montague felt that it was his duty to put him in irons, but he could not prevail on himself to heap unnecessary indignity on the head of one who had rendered him such good service, so he left him at large, intending to put him in irons only when duty compelled him to do so. During the night a stiff breeze amounting almost to a gale of fair wind sprang up, and the two vessels flew towards their destination, but the _Foam_ left her bulky companion far behind. That night a dark and savage mind was engaged on board the _Talisman_ in working out a black and desperate plot. Surly Dick saw, in the capture of Gascoyne and the _Foam_, the end of all his cherished hopes, and in a fit of despair and rage he resolved to be avenged. This man, when he first came on board the frigate, had not been known as a pirate, and afterwards, as we have seen, he had been treated with leniency on account of his offer to turn informant against his former associates. In the stirring events that followed he had been overlooked, and, on the night of which we are writing he found himself free to retire to his hammock with the rest of the watch. In the night, when the wind was howling mournfully through the rigging, and the greater part of the crew were buried in repose, this man rose stealthily from his hammock, and with noiseless tread found his way to a dark corner of the ship where the eyes of the sentries were not likely to observe him. Here he had made preparations for his diabolical purpose. Drawing a flint and steel from his pocket, he proceeded to strike a light. This was procured in a few seconds, and as the match flared up in his face it revealed the workings of a countenance in which all the strongest and worst passions of human nature had stamped deep and terrible lines. The pirate had taken the utmost care, by arranging an old sail over the spot, to prevent the reflection of the light being seen. It revealed a large mass of oakum and tar. Into the heart of this he thrust the match, and instantly glided away, as he had come, stealthily and without noise. For a few seconds the fire smouldered, for the sail that covered it kept it down, as well as hid it from view. But such combustible material could not be smothered long. The smell of burning soon reached one of the marines stationed on the lower-deck, who instantly gave the alarm; but almost before the words had passed his lips the flames burst forth. "Fire! fire! fire!" What a scene ensued! There was confusion at first, for no sound at sea rings so terribly in the ear as the shout of "Fire!" But speedily the stern discipline on board a man-of-war prevailed. Men were stationed in rows; the usual appliances for the extinction of fire were brought into play; buckets of water were passed down below as fast as they could be drawn. No miscellaneous shouting took place; but the orders that were necessary, and the noise of action, together with the excitement and the dense smoke that rolled up the hatchway, produced a scene of the wildest and most stirring description. In the midst of this the pirate captain, as might have been expected, performed a prominent part. His great physical strength enabled him to act with a degree of vigour that rendered his aid most valuable. He wrought with the energy of a huge mechanical power, and with a quick promptitude of perception and a ready change of action which is denied to mere, mechanism. He tore down the bulk-heads that rendered it difficult to get at the place where the fire was; he hurled bucket after bucket of water on the glowing mass, and rushed, amid clouds of hot steam and suffocating smoke, with piles of wet blankets to smother it out. Montague and he wrought together. The young captain issued his orders as calmly as if there were no danger, yet with a promptitude and vigour that inspired his men with confidence. Gascoyne's voice was never heard. He obeyed orders and acted as circumstances required, but he did not presume, as men are too apt to do on such occasions, to give orders and advice when there was a legitimate commander. Only once or twice were the deep tones of his bass voice heard, when he called for more water, or warned the more daring among the men when danger from falling timber threatened them. But all this availed not to check the flames. The men were quickly driven upon deck, and it soon became evident that the vessel must perish. The fire burst through the hatchways, and in a short time began to leap up the rigging. It now became necessary to make arrangements for the saving of the crew. "Nothing more can be done, Mr Mulroy," said Montague, in a calm voice that accorded ill with the state of his mind. "Get the boats ready, and order the men to assemble on the quarter-deck." "If we were only nearer the island," said Gascoyne in a low tone, as if he were talking to himself, "we might run her on the reef, and the breakers would soon put out the fire." "That would be little consolation to me," said Montague, with a bitter smile. "Lower the boats, Mr Mulroy. The _Foam_ has observed our condition, I see; let them row to it. I will go in the gig." The first lieutenant hastened to obey the order, and the men embarked in the boats, lighted by the flames, which were now roaring high up the masts. Meanwhile, the man who had been the cause of all this was rushing about the deck, a furious maniac. He had wrought at the fire almost as fiercely as Gascoyne himself, and now that all hope was past, he continued, despite the orders of Montague to the contrary, to draw water and rush with bucket after bucket into the midst of the roaring flames. At last he disappeared, no one knew where, and no one cared, for in such a scene he was soon forgotten. The last man left the ship when the heat on the poop became so great that it was scarcely possible to stand there. Still Montague and Gascoyne stood side by side near the taffrail, and the gig with her crew floated just below them. The last boatful of men pulled away from the burning vessel, and then Montague turned with a deep sigh and said-- "Now, Mr Gascoyne, get into the boat. I must be the last man to quit the ship." Without a word Gascoyne swung himself over the stern, and, sliding down by a rope, dropped into the boat. Montague followed, and they rowed away. Just at that moment Surly Dick sprang on the bulwarks, and holding on by the mizzen-shrouds took off his hat and cheered. "Ha! ha!" he shrieked, with a fiendish laugh, "I've escaped you, have I? escaped you--hurrah!" and with another wild shriek he leaped on the hot deck, and, seizing a bucket, resumed his self-imposed duty of deluging the fire with water. "Pull, pull, lads! we can't leave the miserable man to perish," cried Montague, starting up, while the men rowed after the frigate with their utmost might. But in vain. Already she was far from them, and ever increased the distance as she ran before the gale. As long as the ship lasted the poor maniac was seen diligently pursuing his work--stopping now and then to spring on the bulwarks and give another cheer. At last the blazing vessel left boats and schooner far behind, and the flames rose in great flakes and tongues above her top-masts, while the smoke rolled in dense black volumes away to leeward. While the awe-stricken crew watched her there came a sudden flash of bright white flame, as if a volcano had leaped out of the ocean. The powder-magazine had caught. It was followed by a roaring crash that seemed to rend the very heavens. A thick darkness settled over the scene--and the vessel that a few hours before had been a noble frigate, was scattered on the ocean a mass of blackened ruins. CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN. The Pacific is not always calm, but neither is it always stormy. We think it necessary to make this latter observation, because the succession of short-lived gales and squalls which have been prominently and unavoidably brought forward in our tale might lead the reader to deem the name of this ocean inappropriate. Although the sea was not quite so still now, owing to the swell caused by the recent gale, it was quite as glassy as it was then. The sun, too, was as hot and the sky as brilliant, but the aspect of the _Foam_ was much changed. The deep quiet was gone. Crowded on every part of the deck, and even down in her hold, were the crew of the man-of-war, lolling about listlessly and sadly, or conversing with grave looks about the catastrophe which had deprived them so suddenly of their floating home. Gascoyne and Henry leaned over the stern in order to avoid being overheard by those around them, and conversed in low tones. "But why not attempt to escape?" said the latter, in reply to some observation made by his companion. "Because I am pledged to give myself up to justice." "No; not to justice," replied the youth, quickly. "You said you would give yourself up to me and Mr Mason. I for one won't act the part of a--a--" "Thief-catcher," suggested Gascoyne. "Well, put it so if you will; and I am certain that the missionary will not have anything to do with your capture. He will say that the officers of justice are bound to attend to such matters. It would be perfectly right in you to try to escape." "Ah! Henry, your feelings have warped your judgment," said Gascoyne, shaking his head. "It is strange how men will prevaricate and deceive themselves when they want to reason themselves into a wrong course or out of a right one. But what you or Mr Mason think or will do has nothing to do with my course of action." "But the law holds, if I mistake not, that a man is not bound to criminate himself," said Henry. "I know not and care not what the law of man holds," replied the other, sadly. "I have forfeited my life to my country, and I am willing to lay it down." "Nay, not your life," said Henry; "you have done no murder." "Well, then, at least my liberty is forfeited. I shall leave it to those who judge me whether my life shall be taken or no. I sometimes wish that I could get away to some distant part of the world, and there, by living the life of an honest man, try to undo, if possible, a little of what I have done. But, woe's me, wishes and regrets come too late. No, I must be content to reap what I have sown." "They will be certain to hang you," said the youth, bitterly. "I think it likely they will," replied his companion. "And would you call that justice?" asked Henry, sharply. "Whatever punishment you may deserve, you do not deserve to die. You know well enough that your own word will go for nothing, and no one else can bear witness in your favour. You will be regarded simply as a notorious pirate. Even if some of the people whose lives you have spared while taking their goods should turn up, their testimony could not prove that you had not murdered others; so your fate is certain if you go to trial. Have you any right, then, to compass your own death by thus giving yourself up?" "Ah! boy, your logic is not sound." "But answer my question," said the youth, testily, "Henry, plead with me no longer," said Gascoyne, in a deep, stern tone. "My mind is made up. I have spent many years in dishonesty and self-deception. It is perhaps possible that by a life devoted to doing good, I might in the long run benefit men more than I have damaged them. This is just possible, I say, though I doubt it; but I have _promised_ to give myself up whenever this cruise is at an end, and I won't break the last promise I am likely to give in this world; so do not attempt to turn me, boy." Henry made no reply, but his knitted brows and compressed lips shewed that a struggle was going on within him. Suddenly he stood erect, and said firmly-- "Be it so, Gascoyne. I will hold you to your promise. You shall _not_ escape me!" With this somewhat singular reply, Henry left his surprised companion and mingled with the crowd of men who stood on the quarter-deck. A light breeze had now sprung up, and the _Foam_ was gliding rapidly towards the island. Gascoyne's deep voice was still heard at intervals issuing a word of command; for, as he knew the reefs better than any one else on board, Montague had intrusted him with the pilotage of the vessel into harbour. When they had passed the barrier-reef, and were sailing over the calm waters of the enclosed lagoon in the direction of Sandy Cove, the young officer went up to the pirate captain with a perplexed air and a degree of hesitation that was very foreign to his character. Gascoyne flushed deeply when he observed him. "I know what you would say to me," he said, quickly. "You have a duty to perform. I am ready." "Gascoyne," said Montague, with deep earnestness of tone and manner, "I would willingly spare you this, but, as you say, I have a duty to perform. I would, with all my heart, that it had fallen to other hands. Believe me, I appreciate what you have done within the last few days, and I believe what you have said in regard to yourself and your career. All this, you may depend upon it, will operate powerfully with your judges. But you know I cannot permit you to quit this vessel a _free man_." "I know it," said Gascoyne, calmly. "And--and--" (here Montague stammered and came to an abrupt pause.) "Say on, Captain Montague. I appreciate your generosity in feeling for me thus; but I am prepared to meet whatever awaits me." "It is necessary," resumed Montague, "that you should be manacled before I take you on shore." Gascoyne started. He had not thought of this. He had not fully realised the fact that he was to be deprived of his liberty so soon. In the merited indignity which was now to be put upon him, he recognised the opening act of the tragedy which was to terminate with his life. "Be it so," he said, lowering his head and sitting down on a carronade, in order to avoid the gaze of those who surrounded him. While this was being done, the youthful Corrie was in the fore-part of the schooner whispering eagerly to Alice and Poopy. "O Alice, I've seen him!" exclaimed the lad. "Seen who?" inquired Alice, raising her pretty little eyebrows just the smallest morsel. "Why, the boatswain of the _Talisman_, Dick Price, you know, who jumped overboard to save Henry when he fell off the raft. Come, I'll point him out." So saying, Corrie edged his way through the crowd until he could see the windlass. Here, seated on a mass of chain cable, sat a remarkably rugged specimen of the British boatswain. He was extremely short, excessively broad, uncommonly jovial, and remarkably hairy. He wore his round hat so far on the back of his head that it was a marvel how it managed to hang there, and smoked a pipe so black that the most powerful imagination could hardly conceive of its ever having been white, and so short that it seemed all head and no stem. "That's him!" said Corrie, eagerly. "Oh! is it?" replied Alice, with much interest. "Hee! hee!" observed Poopy. "Stand by to let go the anchor," shouted Montague. Instantly bustle and noise prevailed everywhere. The crew of the lost frigate had started up on hearing the order, but having no stations to run to, they expended the energy that had been awakened in shuffling about and opening an animated conversation in under tones. Soon the schooner swept round the point that had hitherto shut out the view of Sandy Cove, and a few minutes later the rattling of the chain announced that the voyage of the _Foam_ had terminated. Immediately after, a boat was lowered, and Gascoyne was conveyed by a party of marines to the shore, and lodged in the prison which had been but recently occupied by our friend John Bumpus. Mrs Stuart had purposely kept out of the way when she heard of the arrival of the _Foam_. She knew Gascoyne so well that she felt sure he would succeed in recapturing his schooner. But she also knew that in doing this he would necessarily release Montague from his captivity, in which case it was certain that the pirate captain, having promised to give himself up, would be led on shore a prisoner. She could not bear to witness this; but no sooner did she hear of his being lodged in jail than she prepared to visit him. As she was about to issue from her cottage, Henry met her and clasped her in his arms. The meeting would have doubtless been a warmer one had the mother known what a narrow escape her son had so recently had. But Mrs Stuart was accustomed to part from Henry for weeks at a time, and regarded this return in much the same light as former homecomings, except in so far as he had news of their lost friends to give her. She welcomed him therefore with a kiss and a glad smile, and then hurried him into the house to inquire about the result of the voyage. "I have already heard of your success in finding Alice and our friends. Come, tell me more." "Have you heard how nearly I was lost, mother?" "Lost!" exclaimed the widow in surprise; "no, I have heard nothing of that." Henry rapidly narrated his escape from the wreck of the _Wasp_, and then, looking earnestly in his mother's anxious face he said, slowly-- "But you do not ask for Gascoyne, mother. Do you know that he is now in the jail?" The widow looked perplexed. "I know it," said she. "I was just going to see him when you came in." "Ah! mother," said Henry, reproachfully, "why did you not tell me sooner about Gascoyne? I--" He was interrupted here by Corrie and Alice rushing into the room, the latter of whom threw herself into the widow's arms and burst into tears, while Master Corrie indulged in some eccentric bounds and cheers by way of relieving his feelings. For some time Henry allowed them to talk eagerly to each other; then he told Corrie and Alice that he had something of importance to say to his mother, and led her into an adjoining room. Corrie had overheard the words spoken by Henry just as he entered, and great was his curiosity to know what was the mystery connected with the pirate captain. This curiosity was intensified when he heard a half-suppressed shriek in the room where mother and son were closeted. For one moment he was tempted to place his ear to the key-hole! But a blush covered his fat cheeks at the very thought of acting such a disgraceful part. Like a wise fellow he did not give the tempter a second opportunity, but, seizing the hand of his companion, said-- "Come along, Alice, we'll go seek for Bumpus." Half-an-hour afterwards the widow stood at the jail door. The jailer was an intimate friend, and considerately retired during the interview. "O Gascoyne, has it come to this?" She sat down beside the pirate, and grasped one of his manacled hands in both of hers. "Even so, Mary, my hour has come. I do not complain of my doom. I have brought it on myself." "But why not try to escape?" said Mrs Stuart, earnestly. "There are some here who could aid you." Here the widow attempted to reason with Gascoyne, as her son had done before, but with similar want of success. Gascoyne remained immovable. He did indeed betray deep emotion while the woman reasoned with him, in tones of intense earnestness; but he would not change his mind. He said that if Montague, as the representative of the law, would set him free in consideration of what he had recently done, he would accept of liberty; but nothing would induce him to attempt to escape. Leaving him in this mood, Mrs Stuart hurried to the cottage where Montague had taken up his abode. The young captain received her kindly. Having learned from Corrie all about the friendship that existed between the widow and Gascoyne, he listened with the utmost consideration to her. "It is impossible," said he, shaking his head; "I _cannot_ set him free." "Do his late services weigh nothing with you?" pleaded the widow. "My dear madam," replied Montague, sorrowfully, "you forget that I am not his judge. I have no right to weigh the circumstances of his case. He is a convicted and self-acknowledged pirate. My only duty is to convey him to England and hand him over to the officers of justice. I sympathise with you, indeed I do, for you seem to take his case to heart very much, but I cannot help you. I _must_ do my duty. The _Foam_ will be ready for sea in a few days, in it I shall convey Gascoyne to England." "O Mr Montague, I do take his case to heart, as you say, and no one on this earth has more cause to do so. Will it interest you more in Gascoyne, and induce you to use your influence in his favour, if I tell you that--that--_he is my husband_?" "Your husband!" cried Montague, springing up and pacing the apartment with rapid strides. "Ay," said Mrs Stuart, mournfully, covering her face with her hands; "I had hoped that this secret would die with me and him, but in the hope that it may help, ever so little, to save his life, I have revealed it to you." "Believe me, the secret shall be safe in my keeping," said Montague, tenderly, as he sat down again and drew his chair near to that of Mrs Stuart. "But, alas! I do not see how it is possible for me to help your husband. I will use my utmost influence to mitigate his sentence, but I cannot, I _dare_ not set him free." The poor woman sat pale and motionless while the captain said this. She began to perceive that all hope was gone, and felt despair settling down on her heart. "What will be his doom," said she, in a husky voice, "if his life is spared?" "I do not know. At least I am not certain. My knowledge of criminal law is very slight, but I should suppose it would be transportation for--" Montague hesitated, and could not find it in his heart to add the word "life." Without uttering a word Mrs Stuart rose, and, staggering from the room, hastened with a quick unsteady step towards her own cottage. CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT. A PECULIAR CONFIDANT--MORE DIFFICULTIES, AND VARIOUS PLANS TO OVERCOME THEM. When Alice Mason was a little child, there was a certain tree near her father's house to which, in her hours of sorrow, she was wont to run and tell it all the grief of her overflowing heart. She firmly believed that this tree heard and understood and sympathised with all that she said. There was a hole in the stem into which she was wont to pour her complaints, and when she had thus unburthened her heart to her silent confidant she felt comforted, as one feels when a human friend has shared one's sorrows. When the child became older, and her sorrows were heavier and, perhaps, more real, her well-nurtured mind began to rise to a higher source for comfort. Habit and inclination led her indeed to the same tree, but when she kneeled upon its roots and leaned against its stem, she poured out her heart into the bosom of Him who is ever present, and who can be touched with a feeling of our infirmities. Almost immediately after landing on the island Alice sought the umbrageous shelter of her old friend and favourite, and on her knees thanked God for restoring her to her father and her home. To the same place the missionary directed his steps, for he knew it well, and doubtless expected to find his daughter there. "Alice, dear, I have good news to tell you," said the missionary, sitting down beside her. "I know what it is!" cried Alice, eagerly. "What do you think it is, my pet?" "Gascoyne is to be forgiven! am I right?" Mr Mason shook his head sadly--"No, that is not what I have to tell you. Poor fellow, I would that I had some good news to give you about him; but I fear there is no hope for him--I mean as regards his being pardoned by man." Alice sighed, and her face expressed the deepest tenderness and sympathy. "Why do you take so great an interest in this man, dear?" said her father. "Because Mary Stuart loves him, and I love Mary Stuart. And Corrie seemed to like him, too, since he has come to know him better. Besides, has he not saved my life, and Captain Montague's, and Corrie's? Corrie tells me that he is very sorry for the wicked things he has done, and he thinks that if his life is spared he will become a good man. Has he been very wicked, papa?" "Yes, very wicked. He has robbed many people of their goods, and has burnt and sunk their vessels." Alice looked horrified. "But," continued her father, "I am convinced of the truth of his statement--that he has never shed human blood. Nevertheless, he has been very wicked, and the fact that he has such a powerful will, such commanding and agreeable manners, only makes his guilt the greater, for there is less excuse for his having devoted such powers and qualities to the service of Satan. I fear that his judges will not take into account his recent good deeds and his penitence. They will not pardon him." "Father," said Alice, earnestly, "God pardons the chief of sinners--why will not man do so?" The missionary was somewhat perplexed as to how he should reply to such a difficult question. "My child," said he, "the law of God and the law of man must be obeyed, or the punishment must be inflicted on the disobedient--both laws are alike in this respect. In the case of God's law, Jesus Christ our Lord obeyed it, bore the punishment for us, and set our souls free. But in the case of man's law, who is to bear Gascoyne's punishment and set _him_ free?" As poor Alice could not answer this, she cast down her tearful eyes, sighed again, and looked more miserable than ever. "But come, my pet," resumed Mr Mason, "you must guess again. It is really good news--try." "I can't," said Alice, looking up in her father's face with animation and shaking her head; "I never could guess anything rightly." "What would you think the best thing that could happen?" said her father. The child looked intently at the ground for a few seconds and pursed her rosy little mouth, while the smallest possible frown--the result of intellectual exertion--knitted her fair brow. "The best thing that could happen," said she, slowly, "would be that all the whole world should become good." "Well done, Alice!" exclaimed her father, laughing; "you have certainly taken the widest possible view of the subject. But you have soared a little too high; yet you have not altogether missed the mark. What would you say if the chiefs of the heathen village were to cast their idols into the fire, and ask me to come over and teach them how to become Christians?" "Oh! have they _really_ done this?" cried Alice in eager surprise. "Indeed they have. I have just seen and had a talk with some of their chief men, and have promised to go over to their village to-morrow. I came up here just to tell you this, and to say that your friend the widow will take care of you while I am away." "And shall we have no more wars--no more of these terrible deeds of blood?" inquired the child, while a shudder passed through her frame at the recollection of what she had heard and seen during her short life on that island. "I trust not, my lamb. I believe that God has heard our prayers, and that the Prince of Peace will henceforth rule in this place. But I must go and prepare for this work. Come, will you go with me?" "Leave me here for a little, papa; I wish to think it over all alone." Kissing her forehead, the missionary left her. When he was out of sight the little girl sat down, and, nestling between two great roots of her favourite tree, laid her head against the stem and shut her eyes. But poor Alice was not left long to her solitary meditations. There was a peculiarly attractive power about her which drew other creatures around her wherever she might chance to be. The first individual who broke in upon her was that animated piece of ragged door-mat, Toozle. This imbecile little dog was not possessed of much delicacy of feeling, having been absent on a private excursion of his own into the mountain when the schooner arrived, he only became aware of the return of his lost, loved, and deeply-regretted mistress, when he came back from his trip. The first thing that told him of her presence was his own nose, the black point of which protruded with difficulty a quarter of an inch beyond the mass of matting which totally extinguished his eyes, and, indeed, every other portion of his head. Coming down the hill immediately behind Sandy Cove at a breakneck scramble, Toozle happened to cross the path by which his mistress had ascended to her tree. The instant he did so, he came to a halt so sudden that one might have fancied he had been shot. In another moment he was rushing up the hill in wild excitement, giving an occasional yelp of mingled surprise and joy as he went along. The footsteps led him a little beyond the tree and then turned down towards it, so that he had the benefit of the descent in making the final onset. The moment he came in sight of Alice he began to bark and yelp in such an eager way that the sounds produced might be described as an intermittent scream. He charged at once with characteristic want of consideration, and, plunging headlong into Alice's bosom, sought to cover her face with kisses--i.e., with _licks_, that being the well-known canine method of doing the thing. "O Toozle, how glad, glad, glad, I am to see you, my own darling Toozle!" cried Alice, actually shedding tears. Toozle screamed with delight. It was almost too much for him. Again and again he attempted to lick her face, a familiarity which Alice gently declined to permit, so he was obliged to content himself with her hand. It has often struck us as surprising, that little dogs--usually so intelligent and apt to learn in other matters--should be so dull of apprehension in this. Toozle had the experience of a lifetime to convince him that Alice objected to have her face licked, and would on no account permit it, although she was extremely liberal in regard to her hands; but Toozle ignored the authority of experience. He was at this time a dog of mature years, but his determination to kiss Alice was as strong as it had been when, in the tender years of infancy, he had entertained the mistaken belief that she was his own mother. He watched every unguarded moment to thrust forward his black, not to say impertinent, little snout; and, although often reproved, he still remained unconvinced, resolutely returned to the charge, and was not a bit ashamed of himself. On the present occasion Toozle behaved like a canine lunatic, and Alice was beginning to think of exercising a little tender violence in order to restrain his superabundant glee, when another individual appeared on the scene, and for a time, at least, relieved her. The second comer was our dark friend, Kekupoopi. She by some mischance had got separated from her young mistress, and immediately went in search of her. She found her at once of course, for, as water finds its level, so love finds its object without much loss of time. "O Toozle; hee! hee! am dat you?" exclaimed Poopy, who was as much delighted in her way to see the dog as Alice had been. Toozle was, in _his_ way, as much delighted to see Poopy as he had been to see Alice--no, we are wrong, not quite so much as that, but still extremely glad to see her, and evinced his joy by extravagant sounds and actions. He also evinced his scorn for the opinion that some foolish persons hold, namely, that black people are not as good as white, by rushing into Poopy's arms and attempting to lick her black face as he had tried to do to Alice. As the dark-skinned girl had no objection, (for tastes differ, you see,) and received the caresses with a quiet "Hee! hee!" Toozle was extremely gratified. Now it happened that Jo Bumpus, oppressed with a feeling of concern for his former captain, and with a feeling of doubt as to the stirring events in which he was an actor being waking realities, had wandered up the mountain-side in order to indulge in profound philosophical reflections. Happening to hear the noise caused by the joyful meeting which we have just described, he turned aside to see what all the "row" could be about, and thus came unexpectedly on Alice and her friends. About the same time it chanced, (for things sometimes do happen by chance in a very remarkable way,) it chanced that Will Corrie, being also much depressed about Gascoyne, resolved to take into his confidence Dick Price the boatswain, with whom during their short voyage together he had become intimate. He found that worthy seated on a cask at the end of the rude pile of coral rocks that formed the quay of Sandy Cove, surrounded by some of his shipmates, all of whom, as well as himself, were smoking their pipes and discussing things in general. Corrie went forward and pulled Dick by the sleeve. "Hallo! boy, what d'ye want with me?" said the boatswain. "I want to speak to you." "Well, lad, fire away." "Yes, but I want you to come with me," said the boy, with an anxious and rather mysterious look. "Very good!--heave ahead," said the boatswain, getting up, and following Corrie with a peculiarly nautical roll. After he had been led through the settlement and a considerable way up the mountain in silence, the boatswain suddenly stopped, and said--"Hallo! hold on; my timbers won't stand much more o' this sort o' thing. I was built for navigatin' the seas,--I was not for cruisin' on the land. We're far enough out of ear-shot, I s'pose, in this here bit of a plantation. Come, what have ye got to say to me? You ain't a-goin' to tell me the Freemasons' word, are ye? For, if so, don't trouble yourself, I wouldn't listen to it on no account w'atever. It's too mysterious that is for me." "Dick Price," said Corrie, looking up in the face of the seaman, with a serious expression that was not often seen on his round countenance, "you're a man." The boatswain looked down at the youthful visage in some surprise. "Well, I s'pose I am," said he, stroking his beard complacently. "And you know what it is to be misunderstood, misjudged, don't you?" "Well, now I come to think on it, I believe I _have_ had that misfortune--specially w'en I've ordered the powder-monkies to make less noise, for them younkers never do seem to understand me. As for misjudgin', I've often an' over again heard 'em say I was the crossest feller they ever did meet with, but they _never_ was more out in their reckoning." Corrie did not smile; he did not betray the smallest symptom of power either to appreciate or to indulge in jocularity at that moment. But feeling that it was useless to appeal to the former experience of the boatswain, he changed his plan of attack. "Dick Price," said he, "it's a hard case for an innocent man to be hanged." "So it is, boy,--oncommon hard. I once know'd a poor feller as was hanged for murderin' his old grandmother. It was afterwards found out that he'd never done the deed; but he was the most incorrigible thief and poacher in the whole place, so it warn't such a mistake after all." "Dick Price," said Corrie, gravely, at the same time laying his hand impressively on his companion's arm, "I'm a _tremendous_ joker--_awful_ fond o' fun and skylarkin'." "'Pon my word, lad, if you hadn't said so yourself, I'd scarce have believed it. You don't look like it just now, by no manner o' means." "But I am though," continued Corrie; "and I tell you that in order to shew you that I am very, _very_ much in earnest at this moment; and that you _must_ give your mind to what I've got to say." The boatswain was impressed by the fervour of the boy. He looked at him in surprise for a few seconds, then nodded his head, and said, "Fire away!" "You know that Gascoyne is in prison!" said Corrie. "In course I does. That's one rascally pirate less on the seas, anyhow." "He's not so bad as you think, Dick." "Whew!" whistled the boatswain. "You're a friend of his, are ye?" "No; not a friend, but neither am I an enemy. You know he saved my life, and the lives of two of my friends, and of your own captain, too." "Well, there's no denying that; but he must have been the means of takin' away more lives than what he has saved." "No, he hasn't," cried Corrie, eagerly. "That's it, that's just the point; he has saved more than he ever took away, and he's sorry for what he has done; yet they're going to hang him. Now, I say, that's sinful-- it's not just. It shan't be done if I can prevent it; and you must help me to get him out of this scrape--you must indeed, Dick Price." The boatswain was quite taken aback. He opened his eyes wide with surprise, and putting his head to one side, gazed earnestly and long at the boy as if he had been a rare old painting. Before he could reply, the furious barking of a dog attracted Corrie's attention. He knew it to be the voice of Toozle. Being well acquainted with the locality of Alice's tree, he at once concluded that she was there, and knowing that she would certainly side with him, and that the side she took _must_ necessarily be the winning side, he resolved to bring Dick Price within the fascination of her influence. "Come, follow me," said he; "we'll talk it over with a friend of mine." The seaman followed the boy obediently, and in a few minutes stood beside Alice. Corrie had expected to find her there, but he had not counted on meeting with Poopy and Jo Bumpus. "Hallo! Grampus, is that you?" "Wot! Corrie, my boy, is it yourself? Give us your flipper, small though it be. I didn't think I'd niver see ye agin, lad." "No more did I, Grampus; it was very nearly all up with us." "Ah! my boy," said Bumpus, becoming suddenly very grave, "you've no notion how near it was all up with _me_. Why, you won't believe it--I was all but scragged." "Dear me! what is scragged?" inquired Alice. "You don't mean for to say you don't know?" exclaimed Bumpus. "No, indeed, I don't." "Why, it means bein' hanged. I was so near hanged, just a day or two back, that I've had an 'orrible pain in my neck ever since at the bare thought of it! But who's your friend?" said Bumpus, turning to the boatswain. "Oh! I forgot him--he's the boatswain of the _Talisman_. Dick Price, this is my friend, John Bumpus." "Glad to know you, Dick Price." "Same to you, and luck, John Bumpus." The two sea-dogs joined their enormous palms, and shook hands cordially. After these two had indulged in a little desultory conversation, Will Corrie, who, meanwhile, consulted with Alice in an undertone, brought them back to the point that was uppermost in his mind. "Now," said he, "it comes to this,--we must not let Gascoyne be hanged." "Why, Corrie," cried Bumpus, in surprise, "that's the very thing I was a-thinkin' of w'en I comed up here and found Miss Alice under the tree." "I am glad to hear that, Jo; it's what has been on my own mind all the morning. But Dick Price here is not convinced that he deserves to escape. Now; you tell him all _you_ know about Gascoyne, and I'll tell him all _I_ know, and if he don't believe _us_, Alice and Poopy will tell him all _they_ know, and if that won't do, you and I will take him up by the legs and pitch him into the sea!" "That bein' how the case stands--fire away," said Dick Price with a grin, sitting down on the grass and busily filling his pipe. Dick was not so hard to be convinced as Corrie had feared. The glowing eulogiums of Bumpus, and the earnest pleadings of Alice, won him over very soon. He finally agreed to become one of the conspirators. "But how is the thing to be done?" asked Corrie in some perplexity. "Ah! that's the pint," observed Dick, looking profoundly wise. "Nothin' easier," said Bumpus, whose pipe was by this time keeping pace with that of his new friend. "The case is as clear as mud. Here's how it is. Gascoyne is in limbo; well, we are out of limbo. Good. Then, all we've got for to do is to break into limbo and shove Gascoyne out of limbo, and help him to escape. It's all square, you see, lads." "Not so square as you seem to think," said Henry Stuart, who at that moment stepped from behind the stem of the tree, which had prevented the party from observing his approach. "Why not?" said Bumpus, making room for the young man to sit beside Alice, on the grass. "Because," said Henry, "Gascoyne won't agree to escape." "Not agree for to escape!" "No. If the prison door were opened at this moment, he would not walk out." Bumpus became very grave, and shook his head. "Are ye sartin sure o' this?" said he. "Quite sure," replied Henry, who now detailed part of his recent conversation with the pirate captain. "Then it's all up with him!" said Bumpus; "and the pirate will meet his doom, as I once hear'd a feller say in a play--though I little thought to see it acted in reality." "So he will," added Dick Price. Corrie's countenance fell, and Alice grew pale. Even Poopy and Toozle looked a little depressed. "No, it is _not_ all up with him," cried Henry Stuart, energetically. "I have a plan in my head which I think will succeed, but I must have assistance. It won't do, however, to discuss this before our young friends. I must beg of Alice and Poopy to leave us. I do not mean to say I could not trust you, Alice, but the plan must be made known only to those who have to act in this matter. Rest assured, dear child, that I shall do my best to make it successful." Alice sprang up at once. "My father told me to follow him some time ago," said she. "I have been too long of doing so already. I _do_ hope that you will succeed." So saying, and with a cheerful "Good-bye!" the little girl ran down the mountain-side, closely followed by Toozle and Poopy. As soon as she was gone, Henry turned to his companions and unfolded to them his plan--the details and carrying out of which, however, we must reserve for another chapter. CHAPTER TWENTY NINE. BUMPUS IS PERPLEXED--MYSTERIOUS COMMUNINGS AND A CURIOUS LEAVE-TAKING. "It's a puzzler," said Jo Bumpus to himself--for Jo was much in the habit of conversing with himself; and a very good habit it is, one that is often attended with much profit to the individual, when the conversation is held upon right topics and in a proper spirit--"it's a puzzler, it is; that's a fact." Having relieved his mind of this observation, the seaman proceeded to cut down some tobacco, and looked remarkably grave and solemn as if "it" were not only a puzzler but an alarmingly serious puzzler. "Yes, it's the biggest puzzler as ever I comed across," said he, filling his pipe--for John, when not roused, got on both mentally and physically by slow stages. "Niver know'd its equal," he continued, beginning to smoke, which operation, as the pipe did not "draw" well at first, prevented him from saying anything more. It was early morning when Bumpus said all this, and the mariner was enjoying his morning pipe in a reclining attitude on the grass beneath Alice Mason's favourite tree, from which commanding position he gazed approvingly on the magnificent prospect of land and sea which lay before him, bathed in the light of the rising sun. "It _is_ wery koorious," continued John, taking his pipe out of his mouth and addressing himself to _it_ with much gravity--"_wery_ koorious. Things _always_ seems wot they isn't, and turns out to be wot they didn't appear as if they wasn't; werry odd indeed, it is! Only to think that this here sandal-wood trader should turn out for to be Henry's father and the widow's mother--no, I mean the widow's husband,-- an' a pirate, an' a deliverer o' little boys and gals out o' pirates' hands--his own hands, so to speak--not to mention captings in the Royal Navy, an' not sich a bad feller after all, as won't have his liberty on no account wotiver, even if it was gived to him for nothin', and yet wot can't git it if he wanted it iver so much; and to think that Jo Bumpus should come for to lend hisself to--Hallo! Jo, back yer tops'ls! Didn't Henry tell ye that ye wasn't to convarse upon that there last matter even with yerself, for fear o' bein' overheard and sp'ilin' the whole affair? Come, I'll refresh myself." The refreshment in which Jo proposed to indulge was of a peculiar kind which never failed him--it was the perusal of Susan's love-letter. He now sat up, drew forth the precious and much soiled epistle, unfolded and spread it out carefully on his knees, placed his pipe very much on one side of his mouth, in order that the smoke might not interfere with his vision, and began to read. "`_Peeler's Farm_,' ah! Susan darlin', it's Jo Bumpus as would give all he has in the world, includin' his Sunday clo'se, to be anchored alongside o' ye at that same farm! `_Sanfransko_.' I misdoubt the spellin' o' that word, Susan dear; it seems to me raither short, as if ye'd docked off its tail. Howsomever--`_For John bumpuss_'--O Susan, Susan! if ye'd only remember the big B, and there ain't two esses. I'm sure it's not for want o' tellin' ye, but ye was never great in the way ov memry or spellin'. Pr'aps it's as well. Ye'd ha' bin too perfect, an' that's not desirable, by no means--`_my darlin' Jo_'--ay, _them's_ the words. It's that as sets my 'art a b'ilin'-over like." Here Jo raised his eyes from the letter and revelled silently in the thought for at least two minutes, during which his pipe did double duty in half its usual time. Then he recurred to his theme, but some parts he read in silence, and without audible comment. "Ay," said he, "`_sandle-wood skooners, the Haf ov thems pirits_'--so they is, Susan. It's yer powers o' prophecy as amazes me--`_an' The other hafs no beter_'--a deal wus, Susan, if ye only know'd it. Ah! my sweet gal, if ye knew wot a grief that word `_beter_' wos to me before I diskivered wot it wos, ye'd try to improve yer hand o' write, an' make fewer blots!" At this point Jo was arrested by the sound of footsteps behind him. He folded up his letter precipitately, thrust it into his left breast-pocket, and jumped up with a guilty air about him. "Why, Bumpus, we have startled you out of a morning nap, I fear," said Henry Stuart, who, accompanied by his mother, came up at that moment. "We are on our way to say good-bye to Mr Mason. As we passed this knoll I caught sight of you and came up to ask about the boat." "It's all right," said Bumpus, who quickly recovered his composure-- indeed he had never lost much of it. "I've bin down to Saunder's store and got the ropes for your--" "Hush! man, there is no need of telling me what they are for," said Henry, with a mysterious look at his mother. "Why not tell me all, Henry?" said Mrs Stuart; "surely you can trust me?" "Trust you, mother?" replied the youth with a smile, "I should think so; but there are reasons for my not telling you everything just now. Surely you can trust _me_? I have told you as much as I think advisable in the meantime. Ere long I will tell you all." The widow sighed and was fain to rest content. She sat down beside the tree while her companions talked together apart in low tones. "Now Jo, my man," continued Henry, "_one_ of our friends must be got out of the way." "Wery good; I'm the man as'll do it." "Of course I don't mean that he's to be killed!" "In coorse not. Who is he?" "Ole Thorwald." "Wot! the descendant o' the Sea Kings, as he calls himself?" "The same," said Henry, laughing at the look of surprise with which Bumpus received this information. "What has _he_ bin an' done?" "He has done nothing as yet," said Henry; "but he will, certainly thwart our schemes if he hears of them. He has an inveterate ill-will to my poor father;" (Henry lowered his voice as he proceeded,) "and I know has suspicions that we are concocting some plan to enable him to escape, and watches us accordingly. I find him constantly hanging about the jail. Alas! if he knew how thoroughly determined Gascoyne is to refuse deliverance unless it comes from the proper source, he would keep his mind more at ease." "Don't you think if you wos to tell him that Gascoyne _is_ yer father he would side with us?" suggested Bumpus. "Perhaps he would. I _think_ he would; but I dare not risk it. The easier method will be to outwit him." "Not an easy thing for to do, I'm afraid, for he's a cute old feller. How's it to be done?" asked Bumpus. "By telling him the truth," said Henry; "and _you_ must tell it to him." "Well, that _is_ a koorious way," said Bumpus with a broad grin. "But not the whole truth," continued Henry. "You must just tell him as much as it is good for him to know, and nothing more; and as the thing must be done at once, I'll tell you what you have got to say." Here the young man explained to the attentive Bumpus the course that he was to follow, and having got him thoroughly to understand his part, he sent him away to execute it. Meanwhile he and his mother went in search of Mr Mason, who at the time was holding a consultation with the chiefs of the native village, near the site of his burnt cottage. The consultation had just been concluded when they reached the spot, and the missionary was conversing with the native carpenter who superintended the erection of his new home. After the morning greeting, and a few words of general conversation, Mrs Stuart said-- "We have come to have a talk with you in private; will you walk to Alice's tree with us?" "Certainly, my friend; I hope no new evils are about to befall us," said the missionary, who was startled by the serious countenances of the mother and son, for he was ignorant of the close relation in which they stood to Gascoyne, as, indeed, was every one else in the settlement, excepting Montague and his boatswain, and Corrie, all of whom were enjoined to maintain the strictest secrecy on the point. "No, I thank God, all is well," replied Mrs Stuart; "but we have come to say that we are going away." "Going away!" echoed the missionary in surprise. "When?--where to?-- why? You amaze me, Mary." "Henry will explain." "The fact is, Mr Mason," said Henry, "circumstances require my absence from Sandy Cove on a longer trip than usual, and I mean to take my mother with me. Indeed, to be plain with you, I do not think it likely that we shall return for a long time--perhaps not at all, and it is absolutely necessary that we should go secretly. But we could not go without saying good-bye to you." "We owe much to you, dear Mr Mason," cried the widow, grasping the missionary's hand and kissing it. "We can never, never forget you; and will always pray for God's best blessings to descend on you and yours." "This is overwhelming news!" exclaimed Mr Mason, who had stood hitherto gazing from the one to the other in mute astonishment. "But tell me, Mary," (here he spoke in earnest tones,) "is not Gascoyne at the bottom of this?" "Mr Mason," said Henry, "we never did, and never will deceive you. There is a good reason for neither asking nor answering questions on this subject _just now_. I am sure you know us too well to believe that we think of doing what is wrong, and you can trust us--at least my mother--that we will not do what is foolish." "I have perfect confidence in your hearts, my dear friends," replied Mr Mason; "but you will forgive me if I express some doubt as to your ability to judge between right and wrong when your feelings are deeply moved, as they evidently are from some cause or other, just now. Can you not put confidence in me? I can keep a secret, and may perhaps give good counsel." "No, no," said Henry, emphatically; "it will not do to involve you in our affairs. It would not be right in us _just now_ to confide even in you. I cannot explain why--you must accept the simple assurance in the meantime. Wherever we go, we can communicate by letter, and I promise, ere long, to reveal all." "Well, I will not press you farther, but I will commend you in prayer to God. I do not like to part thus hurriedly, however. Can we not meet again before you go?" "We shall be in the cottage at four this afternoon, and will be very glad if you will come to us for a short time," said the widow. "That is settled, then; I will go and explain to the natives that I cannot accompany them to the village till to-morrow. When do you leave?" "To-night." "So soon! Surely it is not. But I forbear to say more on a subject which is forbidden. God bless you, my friends; we shall meet at four. Good-bye!" The missionary turned from them with a sad countenance, and went in search of the native chiefs; while Henry and his mother separated from each other, the former taking the path that led to the little quay of Sandy Cove, the latter that which conducted to her own cottage. CHAPTER THIRTY. MORE LEAVE-TAKING--DEEP DESIGNS--BUMPUS IN A NEW CAPACITY. On the particular day of which we are writing, Alice Mason felt an unusual depression of spirits. She had been told by her father of the intended departure of the widow and her son, and had been warned not to mention it to any one. In consequence of this, the poor child was debarred her usual consolation of pouring her grief into the black bosom of Poopy. It naturally followed, therefore, that she sought her next favourite--the tree. Here, to her surprise and comfort, she found Corrie seated on one of its roots, with his head resting on the stem, and his hands clasped before him. His general appearance was that of a human being in the depths of woe. On observing Alice, he started up, and assuming a cheerful look, ran to meet her. "Oh! I'm so glad to find you here, Corrie," cried Alice, hastening forward, "I'm in such distress! Do you know that--Oh!--I forgot; papa said I was to tell nobody about it!" "Don't let that trouble you, Alice," said Corrie, as they sat down together under the tree. "I know what you were about to say--Henry and his mother are going away." "How do you know that? I thought it was a great secret!" "So it is, a _tremendous_ secret," rejoined Corrie, with a look that was intended to be very mysterious; "and I know it, because I've been let into the secret for reasons which I cannot tell even to you. But there is another secret which you don't know yet, and which will surprise you perhaps. _I_ am going away, too!" "You," exclaimed the little girl, her eyes dilating to their full size. "Ay, me!" "You're jesting, Corrie." "Am I? I wish I was; but it's a fact." "But where are you going to?" said Alice, her eyes filling with tears. "I don't know." "Corrie!" "I tell you, I don't know; and if I did know, I couldn't tell. Listen, Alice, I will tell you as much as I am permitted to let out." The boy became extremely solemn at this point, took the little girl's hand, and gazed into her face as he spoke. "You must know," he began, "that Henry and his mother and I go away to-night--" "To-night?" cried Alice, quickly. "To-night," repeated the boy. "Bumpus and Jakolu go with us. I have said that I don't know where we are going to, but I am pretty safe in assuring you that we are going somewhere. Why we are going, I am forbidden to tell--divulge, I think Henry called it, but what that means I don't know. I can only guess it's another word for tell, and yet it can't be that either, for you can speak of _telling_ lies, but you can't speak of _divulging_ them. However, that don't matter. But I'm not forbidden to tell you why _I_ am going away. In the first place, then, I'm going to seek my fortune! Where I'm to find it remains to be seen. The only thing I know is, that I mean to find it somewhere or other, and then," (here Corrie became very impressive,) "come back and live beside you and your father, not to speak of Poopy and Toozle." Alice smiled sadly at this. Corrie looked graver than ever, and went on-- "Meanwhile, during my absence, I will write letters to you, and you'll write ditto to me. I am going away because I ought to go and be doing something for myself. You know quite well that I would rather stop beside you than go anywhere in this wide world, Alice; but that would be stupid. I'm getting to be a man now, and mustn't go on shewin' the weaknesses of a boy. In the second, or third, place--I forget which, but no matter--I am going with Henry because I could not go with a better man; and in the fourth--if it's not the fifth--place, I'm going because Uncle Ole Thorwald has long wished me to go to sea, and, to tell you the truth, I would have gone long ago had it not been for you, Alice. There's only one thing that bothers me." Here Corrie looked at his fair companion with a perplexed air. "What is that?" asked Alice, sympathetically. "It is that I must go without saying good-bye to Uncle Ole. I'm _very_ sorry about it. It will look so ungrateful to him; but it _can't_ be helped." "Why not?" inquired Alice. "If he has often said he wished you to go to sea, would he not be delighted to hear that you are going?" "Yes; but he must not know that I am going to-night, and with Henry Stuart." "Why not?" "Ah! that's the point. Mystery! Alice--mystery! What a world of mystery this is!" observed the precocious Corrie, shaking his head with profound solemnity. "I've been involved, (I think that's the word,) rolled up, drowned, and buried in mystery for more than three weeks, and I'm beginning to fear that I'll never again git into the unmysteriously happy state in which I lived before this abominable man-of-war came to the island. No Alice, I dare not say anything more on that point even to you _just now_. But _won't_ I give it you all in my first letter? and _won't_ you open your eyes just until they look like two blue saucers?" Further conversation between the friends was interrupted at this point by the inrushing of Toozle, followed up by Poopy, and, a short time after, by Mr Mason, who took Alice away with him, and left poor Corrie disconsolate. While this was going on, John Bumpus was fulfilling his mission to Ole Thorwald. He found that obstinate individual in his own parlour, deep in the investigation of the state of his books of business, which had been allowed to fall into arrear during his absence. "Come in, Bumpus. So I hear you were half-hanged when we were away." Ole wheeled round on his stool and hooked his thumbs into the arm-holes of his vest as he said this, leaned his back against his desk, and regarded the seaman with a facetious look. "Half-hanged, indeed," said Bumpus, indignantly. "I was more than half--three-quarters at least. Why, the worst of it's over w'en the rope's round your neck." "That is a matter which you can't speak to, John Bumpus, seeing that you've never gone beyond the putting of the rope round your neck." "Well, I'm content with wot I does happen to know about it," remarked Jo, making a wry face; "an' I hope that I'll never git the chance of knowin' more. But I comed here on business, Mr Thorwald," (here John became mysterious and put his finger to his lips.) "I've comed here, Mr Thorwald, to--_split_." As Ole did not quite understand the meaning of this word, and did not believe that the seaman actually meant to rend himself from head to foot, he said--"Why, Bumpus, what d'ye mean?" "I mean as how that I've comed to split on my comrades--w'ich means, I'm goin' to tell upon 'em." "Oh!" exclaimed Ole, eyeing the man with a look of distrust. "Yes," pursued Bumpus, "I'm willin' to tell ye all about it, and prevent his escape, if you'll only promise, on yer word as a gin'lmun, that ye won't tell nobody else, but six niggers, who are more than enough to sarve your turn." "Prevent whose escape?" said Thorwald with an excited look. "Gascoyne's." Ole jumped off his stool and hit his left palm a sounding blow with his right fist. "I knew it!" he exclaimed, staring into the face of the seaman. "I was sure of it! I said it! But how d'ye know, my man?" "Ah! I'll not say another word if ye don't promise to let me go free, and only take six niggers with ye." "Well, Bumpus, I do promise, on the word of a true Norseman, which is much better than that of a gentleman, that no harm shall come to you if you tell me all you know of this matter. But I will promise nothing more; because if you won't tell me, you have told me enough to enable me to take such measures as will prevent Gascoyne from escaping." "No, ye can't prevent it," said Bumpus, with an air of indifference. "If ye don't choose to come to my way o' thinkin', ye can take yer own coorse. But, let me tell you, there's more people on the island that will take Gascoyne's part than ye think of. There's the whole crew of the _Talisman_, whose cap'n he saved, and a lot besides; an' if ye do come to a fight about it, ye'll have a pretty tough scrimmage. Ther'll be blood spilt, Mr Thorwald, an' it was partly to prevent that as I comed here for. But you know best. You better take yer own way, an I'll take mine." The cool impudence, of manner with which John Bumpus said this had its effect on Ole, who, although fond enough of fighting against enemies, had no sort of desire to fight against friends, especially for the sake of a pirate. "Come, Bumpus," said he, "you and I understand each other. Let us talk the thing over calmly. I've quite as much objection to see unnecessary bloodshed as you have. We have had enough of that lately. Tell me what you know, and I promise to do what you recommend as far as I can in reason." "Do you promise to let no one else know wot I tell ye?" "I do." "An' d'ye promise to take no more than six niggers to prewent this escape?" "Will six be enough?" "Plenty; but, if that bothers ye, say twelve; I'm not partic'lar--say twelve. That's more than enough, for they'll only have four to fight with." "Well, I promise that too." "Good. Now I'll tell ye all about it," said Bumpus. "You see, although I'm splittin', I don't want to get my friends into trouble, and so I got you to promise; an' I trust to yer word, Mr Thorwald--you bein' a gen'lmun. This is how it is. Young Henry Stuart thinks that although Gascoyne is a pirate, or, rather, _was_ a pirate, he don't deserve to be hanged. 'Cause why? Firstly, he never committed no murder; secondly, he saved the lives o' some of your people--Alice Mason among the rest; and, thirdly, he's an old friend o' the family as has done 'em good sarvice long ago. So Henry's made up his mind that, as Gascoyne's sure to be hanged if he's tried, it's his duty to prewent that there from happenin' of. Now, ye see, Gascoyne is quite willin' to escape--" "Hah! the villain!" exclaimed Ole; "I was sure of that. I knew well enough that all his smooth-tongued humility was hypocrisy. I'm sorry for Henry, and don't wish to thwart him; but it's clearly my duty to prevent this escape if I can." "So I think, sir," said Bumpus; "so I think. That's just w'at I said to myself w'en I made up my mind for to split. Gascoyne bein' willin' then, Henry has bribed the jailer, and he intends to open the jail door for him at twelve o'clock this night, and he'll know w'at to do with his legs w'en he's got 'em free." "But how am I to prevent his escape if I do not set a strong guard over the prison?" exclaimed Ole, in an excited manner. "If he once gets into the mountains I might as well try to catch a hare." "All fair and softly, Mr Thorwald. Don't take on so. It ain't two o'clock yet; we've lots o' time. Henry has arranged to get a boat ready for him. At twelve o'clock to-night the doors will be opened and he'll start for the boat. It will lie concealed among the rocks off the Long Point. There's no mistakin' the spot, just west of the village; an' if you place your niggers there you'll have as good a chance as need be to nab 'em. Indeed, there's _two_ boats to be in waitin' for the pirate captain and his friends--set 'em up!" "And where is the second boat to be hidden?" asked Ole. "I'm not sure of the exact spot, but it can't be very far off from the tother, cer'nly not a hundred miles," said Bumpus with a grin. "Now, wot I want is, that if ye get hold of the pirate ye'll be content, an' not go an' peach on Henry an' his comrades. They'll be so ashamed o' themselves at bein' nabbed in the wery act that they'll give it up as a bad job. Besides, ye can then go an' give him in charge of Capting Montague. But if ye try to _prewent_ the escape bein' attempted, Henry will take the bloody way of it--for I tell _you_ his birse is up, an' no mistake." "How many men are to be with Gascoyne?" asked Thorwald, who, had he not been naturally a stupid man, must have easily seen through this clumsy attempt to blind him. "Just four," answered Bumpus; "an' I'm to be one of 'em." "Well, Bumpus, I'll take your advice. I shall be at the Long Point before twelve, with a dozen niggers, and I'll count on you lending us a hand." "No, ye mustn't count on that, Mr Thorwald. Surely it's enough if I run away and leave the others to fight." "Very well, do as you please," said Thorwald, with a look of contempt. "Good day, Mr Thorwald. You'll be sure to be there?" "Trust me." "An' you'll not say a word about it to nobody?" "Not a syllable." "That's all square. You'll see the boat w'en ye git there, and as long as ye see that boat yer all right. Good day, sir." John Bumpus left Thorwald's house chuckling, and wended his way to the widow's cottage, whistling the "Groves of Blarney." CHAPTER THIRTY ONE. THE AMBUSH--THE ESCAPE--RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE--AND CONCLUSION. An hour before the appointed time Ole Thorwald, under cover of a dark night, stole out of his own dwelling with slow and wary step, and crossed the little plot of ground that lay in front of it with the sly and mysterious air of a burglar, rather than that of an honest man. Outside his gate he was met in the same cautious manner by a dark-skinned human being, the character of whose garments was something between those of a sailor and a West India planter. This was Sambo, Thorwald's major-domo, clerk, overseer, and right-hand man. Sambo was not his proper name, but his master, regarding him as being the embodiment of all the excellent qualities that could by any possibility exist in the person of a South Sea islander, had bestowed upon him the generic name of the dark race, in addition to that wherewith Mr Mason had gifted him on the day of his baptism. Sambo and his master exchanged a few words in low whispers, and then gliding down the path that led from the stout merchant's house to the south side of the village, they entered the woods that lined the shore, like two men bent on a purpose which might or might not be of the blackest possible kind. "I don't half like this sort of work, Sambo," observed Thorwald, speaking and treading with less caution as they left the settlement behind them. "Ambushments, and surprises, and night forages, especially when they include Goats' Passes, don't suit me at all. I have a strong antipathy to everything in the way of warfare, save a fair field and no favour under the satisfactory light of the sun." "Ho!" said Sambo quietly, as much as to say--I hear and appreciate, but having no observation to make in reply, I wait for more from your honoured lips. "Now, you see," pursued Thorwald, "if I were to follow my own tastes-- which it seems to me I am destined not to be allowed to do any more in the affairs of this world, if I may judge by the events of the past month--if I were to follow my own tastes, I say I would go boldly to the prison where this pestiferous pirate captain lies, put double irons on him, and place a strong guard round the building. In this case I would be ready to defend it against any odds, and would have the satisfaction of standing up for the rights of the settlement like a man, and of hurling defiance at the entire British navy (at least such portion of it as happens to be on the island at this time) if they were to attempt a rescue--as this Bumpus hints they are likely to do. Yet it seems to me strange and unaccountable that they should thus interest themselves in a vile pirate. I verily believe that I have been deceived, but it is too late now to alter my plans or to hesitate. Truly, it seemeth to me that I might style myself an ass without impropriety." "Ho!" remarked Sambo, and the grin with which the remark was accompanied seemed to imply that he not only appreciated his master's sentiment, but agreed with it entirely. "You've got eleven men, I trust, Sambo?" "Yes, mass'r." "All good and true, I hope? men who can be trusted both in regard to their fighting qualities, and their ability to hold their tongues?" "Dumb as owls, ebery von," returned Sambo. "Good! You see, my man, I _must_ not permit that fellow to escape; at the same time I do not wish to blazon abroad that it is my friend Henry Stuart who is helping him. Neither do I wish to run the risk of killing my friends in a scrimmage, if they are so foolish as to resist me; therefore I am particular about the men you have told off for this duty. Where did you say they are to meet us?" "Close by de point, mass'r." A few minutes' walk brought them to the point where the men were awaiting them. As far as Ole could judge, by the dim light of a few stars that struggled through the cloudy sky, they were eleven as stout fellows as any warrior could desire to have at his back in a hand to hand conflict. They were all natives, clothed much in the same manner as Sambo, and armed with heavy clubs, for, as we have seen, Thorwald was resolved that this should be a bloodless victory. "Whereabout is the boat?" whispered Ole to his henchman, as he groped his way down the rocky slopes towards the shore. "'Bout two hondr'd yards more farder in front," said Sambo. "Then I'll place the men here," said Ole, turning to the natives who were following close at his heels. "Now, boys, remain under cover of this rock till I lead you on to the attack; and mind what I say to you--_no killing_! Some of party are my friends, d'ye understand? I don't want to do them a damage, but I do want to prevent their letting off as great a villain, I believe, as ever sailed the ocean under a black flag--only his was a red one; because of his extreme bloody-mindedness, no doubt, which led, him to adopt the colour of blood. We will attack them in the rear, which means, of course, by surprise, though I must confess that style of warfare goes much against the grain with me. There are just four men, I am told, besides the pirate. Our first onset will secure the fall of at least two of the party by my own cudgel--and mark me, lads, I don't say this in the spirit of boasting. He would indeed be but a poor warrior who could not fell two men when he took them unawares and in the dark. No, I feel half ashamed o' the work, but I suppose it is my duty. So you see there will be just two men and the pirate left for us to deal with. Four of you ought to be able to overcome the two men without drawing blood, except, it may be, a little surface-fluid. The remaining nine of us will fall on the pirate captain in a body. You will easily know him by his great size, and I have no manner of doubt but that he will make himself further known by the weight of his blows. If I happen to fall, don't look after me till you have overcome and bound the pirate. The ropes are all ready, and my man Sambo will carry them." Having delivered this address to his followers, who by their "Ho's" and grins indicated their perfect readiness to do as they were bid, Ole Thorwald left them in ambush, and groped his way down to the beach, accompanied by Sambo. "Did you bring the chain and padlock, Sambo?" "Yis, mass'r. But you no tink it am berer to take boat away--pull him out ob sight?" "No, Sambo, I have thought on that subject already, and have come to the conclusion that it is better to let the boat remain. You see they have placed it in such a way that as long as daylight lasted it could be seen from the settlement, and even now it is visible at some distance, as you see. If we were to remove it they would at once observe that it was gone, and thus be put on their guard. No, no, Sambo. I may not be fond of ambushments, but I flatter myself that I have some talent for such matters." The master and servant had reached the beach by this time, where they found the boat in the exact position that had been indicated by John Bumpus. It lay behind a low piece of coral rock, fastened to an iron ring by means of a rope, while the oars lay in readiness on the thwarts. Sambo now produced a heavy iron chain with which the boat was speedily fastened to the ring. It was secured with a large padlock, the key of which Ole placed in his pocket. This being satisfactorily accomplished, they returned to the place of ambush. "Now, Mister Gascoyne," observed Thorwald with a grim smile, as he sat down beside his men and pulled out his watch, "I will await your pleasure. It is just half-past eleven; if you are a punctual man, as Jo Bumpus led me to believe, I will try your metal in half-an-hour, and have you back in your cage before one o'clock! What say you to that, Sambo?" The faithful native opened his huge mouth wide and shut his eyes, thereby indicating that he laughed, but he said nothing, bad, good, or indifferent, to his master's facetious observation. The other natives also grinned in a quiet but particularly knowing manner, after which the whole party relapsed into profound silence and kept their midnight watch with exemplary patience and eager expectation. At this same hour the pirate captain was seated in his cell on the edge of the low bedstead, with his elbows resting on his knees and his face buried in his hands. The cell was profoundly dark--so dark that the figure of the prisoner could scarcely be distinguished. Gascoyne did not move for many minutes, but once or twice a deep sigh escaped him, shewing that although his body was at rest, his thoughts were busy. At last he moved and clasped his hands together violently as if under a strong impulse. In doing so, the clank of his chains echoed harshly through the cell. This seemed to change the current of his thoughts, for he again covered his face with both hands and began to mutter to himself. "Ay," said he, "it has come at last. How often I have dreamed of this when I was free and roaming over the wide ocean. I would say that I have been a fool did I not feel that I have more cause to bow my head and confess that I am a sinner. Ah! what a thing pride is. How little do men know what it has cost me to humble myself before them as I have done; yet I feel no shame in confessing it here, when I am all alone. Alone! am I alone?" For a long time Gascoyne sat in deep silence as if he were following out the train of thought which had been suggested by the last words. Presently his ideas again found vent in muttered speech. "In my pride I have said that there is no God. I don't think I ever believed that; but I tried to believe it, for I knew that my deeds were evil. Surely my own words will condemn me, for I have said that I think myself a fool, and does not the Bible say that `the fool hath said in his heart there is no God?' Ay, I remember it well. The words were printed in my brain when I learnt the Psalms of David at my mother's knee, long, long ago. My mother! what bitter years have passed since that day! How little did ye dream, mother, that your child would come to _this_. God help me!" The pirate relapsed into silence, and a low groan escaped him. But his thoughts seemed too powerful to be restrained within his breast, for they soon broke forth again in words. "Your two texts have come true, pastor Mason. You did not mean them for me, but _they were sent_ to me. `There is no rest, saith my God, to the wicked.' No rest! I have not known rest since I was a boy. `Be sure your sin shall find you out.' I laughed at these words once; they laugh at _me_ now. I have found them out to be true--and found it out too late. Too late! _Is_ it too late? If these words be true, are not all the words of God equally true? `The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from _all_ sin.' That was what you said, pastor Mason, on that Sunday morning when the savages were stealing down on us. It gave me comfort then, but, ah me! it seems to give me no comfort now. Oh! that I had resisted the tempter when he _first_ came to me! Strange! I often heard this said long, long ago; but I laughed at it--not in scorn, no, it was in easy indifference. I did not believe it had anything to do with me. And now, I suppose, if I were to stand in the public streets and cry that I had been mistaken, with all the fervour of a bursting heart, men would laugh at me in an easy way--as I did then. "I don't fear death. I have often faced it, and I don't remember ever feeling afraid of death. Yet I shrink from death _now_. Why is this? What a mystery my thoughts and feelings are to me. I know not what to think. But it will soon be over, for I feel certain that I shall be doomed to die. God help me!" Gascoyne again became silent. When he had remained thus a few minutes his attention was roused by the sound of footsteps and of whispering voices close under his window. Presently the key was put in the lock, the heavy bolt shot back, and the door creaked on its hinges as it opened slowly. Gascoyne knew by the sound that several men entered the cell, but as they carried no light he could not tell how many there were. He was of course surprised at a visit at such an unusual hour, as well as at the stealthy manner in which his visitors entered; but having made up his mind to submit quietly to whatever was in store for him, and knowing that he could not hope for much tenderness at the hands of the inhabitants of Sandy Cove, he was not greatly disturbed. Still, he would not have been human had not his pulse quickened under the influence of a strong desire to spring up and defend himself. The door of the cell was shut and locked as quietly as it had been opened; then followed the sound of footsteps crossing the floor. "Is that you, jailer?" demanded Gascoyne. "Ye'll know that time enough," answered a gruff voice that was not unfamiliar to the prisoner's ear. The others who had entered along with this man did not move from the door--at least, if they did so, there was no sound of footsteps. The man who had spoken went to the window and spread a thick cloth over it. Gascoyne could see this, because there was sufficient light outside to make the arms of the man dimly visible as he raised them up to accomplish his object. The cell was thus rendered, if possible, more impenetrably dark than before. "Now, pirate," said the man, turning round, and suddenly flashing a dark lantern full on the stern face of the prisoner, "you and I will have a little convarse together--by yer leave or without yer leave. In case there might be pryin' eyes about, I've closed the porthole, d'ye see." Gascoyne listened to this familiar style of address in surprise, but did not suffer his features to betray any emotion whatever. The lantern which the seaman (for such he evidently was) carried in his hand threw a strong light wherever its front was turned, but left every other part of the cell in partial darkness. The reflected light was, however, quite sufficient to enable the prisoner to see that his visitor was a short, thick-set man, of great physical strength, and that three men of unusual size and strength stood against the wall, in the deep shadow of a recess, with their straw hats pulled very much over their eyes. "Now, Mister Gascoyne," began the seaman, sitting down on the edge of the small table beside the low pallet, and raising the lantern a little, while he gazed earnestly into the prisoner's face, "I've reason to believe--" "Ha! you are the boatswain of the _Talisman_," exclaimed Gascoyne, as the light reflected from his own countenance irradiated that of Dick Price, whom, of course, he had seen frequently while they were on board the frigate together. "No, mister pirate," said Dick; "I am _not_ the bo's'n of the _Talisman_, else I shouldn't be here this night. I _wos_ the bo's'n of that unfortunate frigate, but I is so no longer." Dick said this in a melancholy tone, and thereafter meditated for a few moments in silence. "No," he resumed with a heavy sigh, "the _Talisman's_ blow'd up, an' her bo's'n's out on the spree--so to speak,--though it ain't a cheerful spree by no means. But to come back to the pint, (w'ich wos wot the clergyman said w'en he'd got so far away from the pint that he never _did_ get back to it,) as I wos sayin', or was agoin' to say w'en you prewented me, I've reason to b'lieve you're agoin' to try for to make yer escape." "You are mistaken, my man," said Gascoyne, with a sad smile; "nothing is farther from my thoughts." "I don't know how far it's from yer thoughts," said Dick, sternly, "but it's pretty close to your intentions, so I'm told." "Indeed you are mistaken," replied Gascoyne. "If Captain Montague has sent you here to mount guard he has only deprived you of a night's rest needlessly. If I had intended to make my escape I would not have given myself up." "I don't know that--I'm not so sure o' that," rejoined the boatswain stoutly. "You're said to be a obstinate feller, and there's no sayin' what a obstinate feller won't do or will do. But I didn't come here for to argify the question with _you_, Mister Gascoyne. Wot I com'd here for wos to do my duty, so, now, I'm agoing to do it." Gascoyne, who was amused in spite of himself by the manner of the man, merely smiled and awaited in silence the pleasure of his eccentric visitor. Dick now set down the lantern, went to the door and returned with a coil of stout rope. "You see," observed the boatswain, as he busied himself in uncoiling and making a running noose on the rope, "I'm ordered to prewent you from carryin' out your intentions--wotiver these may be--by puttin' a coil or two o' this here rope round you. Now, wot I've got to ask of you is-- Will ye submit peaceable like to have it done?" "Surely this is heaping unnecessary indignity upon me?" exclaimed Gascoyne, flushing crimson with anger. "It _may_ be unnecessary, but it's got to be done," returned Dick, with cool decision, as he placed the end of a knot between his powerful teeth, and drew it tight. "Besides, Mister Gascoyne, a pirate must expect indignities to be heaped upon him. However, I'll heap as few as possible on ye in the discharge of my duty." Gascoyne had started to his feet, but he sat down abashed on being thus reminded of his deserts. "True," said he; "true. I will submit." He added in his mind, "I deserve this;" but nothing more escaped his lips, while he stood up and permitted the boatswain to pass the cord round his arms, and lash them firmly to his sides. Having bound him in a peculiarly tight and nautical manner, Dick once more went to his accomplices at the door, and returned with a hammer and chisel, and a large stone. The latter he placed on the table, and, directing Gascoyne to raise his arms--which were not secured below the elbows--and place his manacles on the stone, he cut them asunder with a few powerful blows, and removed them. "The darbies ain't o' no use, you see, as we ye got you all safe with the ropes. Now, Mister Gascoyne, I'm agoin' to heap one more indignity on ye. I'm sorry to do it, d'ye see; but I'm bound for to obey orders. You'll be so good as to sit down on the bed, for I ain't quite so long as you--though I won't say that I'm not about as broad--and let me tie this napkin over yer mouth." "Why?" exclaimed Gascoyne, again starting and looking fiercely at the boatswain; "this, at least, must be unnecessary. I have said that I am willing to submit quietly to whatever the law condemns me. You don't take me for a woman or a child, that will be apt to cry out when hurt?" "Certainly not; but as I'm goin' to take ye away out o' this here limbo, it is needful that I should prewent you from lettin' people know that yer goin' on your travels; for I've heerd say there's some o' yer friends as is plottin' to help you to escape." "Have I not said already that I do not wish to escape, and therefore will not take advantage of any opportunity afforded me by my friends?-- Friends! I have no friends! Even those whom I thought were my friends have not been near my prison all this day." Gascoyne said this bitterly, and in great anger. "Hush!" exclaimed Dick; "not quite so loud, mister pirate. You see there _is_ some reason in my puttin' this on your mouth. It'll be as well to let me do it quietly, else I'll have to get a little help." He pointed to the three stout men who stood motionless and silent in the dark recess. "Oh, it was cowardly of you to bind my arms before you told me this," said Gascoyne, with flashing eyes. "If my hands were free now--" He checked himself by a powerful effort, and crushed back the boastful defiance which rose to his lips. "Now, I'll tell ye wot it is, Mister Gascoyne," said Dick Price, "I do believe yer not such a bad feller as they say ye are, an' I'm disposed to be marciful to ye. If ye'll give me your word of honour that you'll not holler out, and that you'll go with us peaceably, and do wot yer bid, I'll not trouble you with the napkin, nor bind ye up more than I've done already. But," (here Dick spoke in tones that could not be misunderstood,) "if ye won't give me that promise, I'll gag ye and bind ye neck and heels, and we'll carry ye out o' this shoulder high. Now, wot say ye to that?" Gascoyne had calmed his feelings while the boatswain was speaking. He even smiled when he replied--"How can you ask me to give my word of honour? What honour has a pirate to boast of, think you?" "Not much, pr'aps," said Dick; "howsomdever, I'll be content with wot's left of it; and if there ain't none, why, then, give us yer word. It'll do as well." "After all, it matters little what is done with me," said Gascoyne, in a resigned voice. "I am a fool to resist thus. You need not fear that I will offer any further resistance, my man. Do your duty, whitever that may be." "That won't do," said Dick, stoutly; "ye must promise not to holler out." "I promise," said Gascoyne, sternly. "Pray cease this trifling, and if it is not inconsistent with your duty, let me know where I am to be taken to." "That's just wot I'm not allowed for to tell. But you'll find it out in the coorse of time. Now, all that you've got to do is to walk by my side, and do wot I tell ye." The prisoner made no answer. He was evidently weary of the conversation, and his thoughts were already wandering on other subjects. The door was now unlocked by one of the three men who stood near it. As its hinges creaked, Dick shut the lantern, and threw the cell at once into total darkness. Taking hold of Gascoyne's wrist gently, as if to guide, not to force him away, he conducted him along the short passage that led to the outer door of the prison. This was opened, and the whole party stood in the open air. Gascoyne looked with feelings of curiosity at the men who surrounded him, but the night was so intensely dark that their features were invisible. He could just discern the outlines of their figures, which were enveloped in large cloaks. He was on the point of speaking to them, when he remembered his promise to make no noise, so he restrained himself, and followed his guard in silence. Dick and another man walked at his side--the rest followed in rear. Leading him round the out-skirts of the village, towards its northern extremity, Gascoyne's conductors soon brought him to the beach, at a retired spot, where was a small bay. Here they were met by one whose stature proved him to be a boy. He glided up to Dick, who said in a low whisper-- "Is all ready?" "All right," replied the boy. "The ooman aboard?" "Ay." "Now, Mr Gascoyne," said Dick, pointing to a large boat floating beside the rocks on which they stood, "you'll be so good as to step into that 'ere boat, and sit down beside the individual you see a-sittin' there in the stern-sheets." "Have you authority for what you do?" asked Gascoyne, hesitating. "I have power to enforce wot I command," said Dick, quietly. "Remember yer promise, mister pirate, else--" Dick finished his sentence by pointing to the three men who stood near-- still maintaining a silence worthy of Eastern mutes; and Gascoyne, feeling that he was completely in their power, stepped quickly into the boat, and sat down beside the "individual" referred to by Dick, who was so completely enveloped in the folds of a large cloak as to defy recognition. But the pirate captain was too much occupied with his own conflicting thoughts and feelings to bestow more than a passing glance on the person who sat at his side. Indeed it was not surprising that Gascoyne was greatly perplexed by all that was going on at that time; for he could not satisfactorily account to himself for the mystery and secrecy which his guards chose to maintain. If they were legitimate agents of the law, why these muffled oars with which they swept the boat across the lagoon, through the gap in the coral reef and out to sea? And if they were _not_ agents of the law, who were they, and where were they conveying him? The boat was a large one, half-decked, and fitted to stand a heavy sea and rough weather. It would have moved sluggishly through the water had not the four men who pulled the oars been possessed of more than average strength. As soon as they passed the barrier reef, the sails were hoisted, and Dick took the helm. The breeze was blowing fresh off the land, and the water rushed past the boat as she cut swiftly out to sea, leaving a track of white foam behind her. For a few minutes the mass of the island was dimly seen rising like a huge shade on the dark sky, but soon it melted away and nothing remained for the straining eyes to rest upon save the boat with its silent crew and the curling foam on the black sea. "We've got him safe now, lads," said Dick Price, speaking, for the first time that night, in unguarded tones, "you'd better do the deed. The sooner it's done the better." While he was speaking one of the three men opened a large clasp knife and advanced towards Gascoyne. "Father," said Henry, cutting the rope that bound him, "you are free at last!" Gascoyne started, but before he had time to utter the exclamation of surprise that sprang to his lips, his hand was seized by the muffled figure that sat at his side. "Oh! Gascoyne, forgive us--forgive _me_!" said Mary Stuart in a trembling voice. "I did, indeed, know something of what they meant to do, but I knew nothing of the cruel violence that these bonds--" "Violence!" cried Dick Price, "I put it to yourself, Mister Gascoyne, if I didn't treat ye as if ye wos a lamb?" "Wot a blissin' it is for a man to git his mouth open agin, and let his breath go free," cried Jo Bumpus, with a deep sigh. "Come, Corrie, give us a cheer--hip! hip! hip!--" The cheer that followed was stirring and wonderfully harmonious, for it was given in a deep bass, and a shrill treble, with an intermediate baritone "Ho!" from Jakolu. "I know it, Mary, I know it;" said Gascoyne, and there was a slight tremor in his deep voice as he drew his wife towards him, and laid her head upon his breast. "You have never done me an evil turn--you have done me nothing but good--since you were a little child. Heaven bless you, Mary!" "Now, father," said Henry, "I suppose you have no objection to make your escape?" "No need to raise that question, lad," said Gascoyne, with a perplexed smile. "I am not quite clear as to what my duty is now that I am free to go back and again give myself up." "Go back!--free!" exclaimed John Bumpus in a tone of withering sarcasm. "So, Mister Gascoyne, ye've got sich an oncommon cargo o' conceit in ye yet, that you actually think ye could go back without so much as `By your leave!'" While Jo was speaking he bared to the shoulder an arm that was the reverse of infantine, and, holding it up, said slowly-- "I've often had a sort o' desire, d'ye see, to try whether this bit of a limb or the one that's round Mrs Stuart's waist is the strongest. Now if _you_ have any desire to settle this question, just try to shove this boat's head up into the wind--that's all!" This was said so emphatically by the pugnacious Bumpus that his companions laughed, and Corrie cheered in admiration. "You see," observed Henry, "you need not give yourself any concern as to this point, you have no option in the matter." "No, not a bit o' poption in it wotiver--though wot that means I ain't rightly sure," said Dick Price. "Perhaps I ought to exercise my parental authority over you, Henry," said Gascoyne, "and _command_ you to steer back to Sandy Cove." "But we wouldn't let him, mister pirate," said Dick Price, who, now that his difficult duties were over, was preparing to solace himself with a pipe; an example that was immediately followed by Bumpus, who backed his friend by adding-- "No more we would." "Nay, then, if Henry joins me," said Gascoyne, "I think that we two will not have a bad chance against you three." "Come, that's good! so _I_ count for nothing," exclaimed Corrie. "Ha! stick up, lad," observed Bumpus. "The niggers wot you pitched into at the mouth o' yon cave didn't think that--eh! didn't they not?" "Well, well, if Corrie sides with you I feel that my wisest course is to submit. And now, Henry," said Gascoyne, resuming his wonted gravity of tone and demeanour, "sit down here and let me know where we are going to and what you mean to do. It is natural that I should feel curious on these points even although I _have_ perfect confidence in you all." Henry obeyed, and their voices sank into low tones as they mingled in earnest converse about their future plans. Thus did Gascoyne, with his family and friends, leave Sandy Cove in the dead of that dark night, and sail away over the wide waste of the great Pacific Ocean. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Reader, our tale is nearly told. Like a picture, it contains but a small portion of the career of those who have so long engaged your attention, and, I would fain hope, your sympathy. The life of man may be comprehensively epitomised almost to a point, or expanded out _ad infinitum_. He was born, he died, is its lowest term. Its highest is not definable. Innumerable tomes, of encyclopaedic dimensions, could not contain, much less exhaust, an account of all that was said and done (and all that might be said about what was said and done) by our _ci-devant_ sandal-wood trader and his friends. Yet there are main points, amid the little details of their career, which it would be unpardonable to pass over in silence. To these we shall briefly refer before letting the curtain fall. There is a distant isle of the sea, a beautiful spot, an oceanic gem, which has been reclaimed by the Word of God, from those regions that have been justly styled "the dark places of the earth." We will not mention its name; we will not even indicate its whereabout, lest we should furnish a clue to the unromantic myrmidons of the law, whose inflexible justice is only equalled by their pertinacity in tracking the criminal--to his lair! On this beautiful isle, at the time of our tale, the churches and houses of Christian men had begun to rise. The natives had begun to cultivate the arts of civilisation, and to appreciate, in some degree, the inestimable blessings of Christianity. The plough had torn up the virgin soil, and the anchors of merchant-ships had begun to kiss the strand. The crimes peculiar to civilised men had not yet been developed. The place had all the romance and freshness of a flourishing infant colony. Early one fine morning, a half-decked boat rowed into the harbour of this isle, and ran alongside the little quay, where the few natives who chanced to be lounging there were filled with admiration at the sight of five stalwart men who leaped upon the rocks, an active lad who held the boat steady, and a handsome middle-aged woman, who was assisted to land with much care by the tallest of her five companions. There were a few small bales of merchandise in the boat. These being quickly tossed ashore, one of the natives was asked to shew the way to the nearest store, where they might be placed in safe keeping. This done; the largest man of the party, who was clad in the rough garments of a merchant captain, offered his arm to the female, who was evidently his wife, and went off in search of the chief magistrate of the settlement, leaving his companions to look after the boat and smoke their pipes. The handsome stranger introduced himself to the magistrate as Mr Stuart; stated that he intended to settle on the island as a general merchant, having brought a few bales of merchandise with him; that he had been bred an engineer and a shipwright, and meant also to work at his old trade, and concluded by asking for advice and general information in regard to the state of trade on the island. After having obtained all the information on these subjects that the magistrate could give, insomuch that that functionary deemed him a perfect marvel of catechetical wisdom and agreeable address,--the stalwart stranger proceeded to inquire minutely into the state of religion and education among the natives and settlers, and finally left the charmed magistrate rejoicing in the belief that he was a most intelligent philanthropist, and would be an inestimable acquisition to the settlement. A small trading store was soon built. The stranger was not a rich man. He began in a humble way, and sought to eke out his subsistence by doing the ordinary work of a wright. In this latter occupation he was ably assisted by his stout son, Henry; for the duties of the store were attended to chiefly by the lad Corrie, superintended by Mr Stuart. The mysterious strangers were a source of much gossip and great speculation, of course, to the good people of Green Isle, (as we shall style this gem of the Pacific, in order to thwart the myrmidons of the law!) They found them so reserved and uncommunicative, however, on the subject of their personal affairs, that the most curious gossip in the settlement at last gave up speculating in despair. In other respects, the new family were noted for kindliness and urbanity. Mrs Stuart, especially, became an intimate friend of the missionary who dwelt there, and one of his hardest-working parishioners. Mr Stuart also became his friend; but the stern gravity of countenance, and reserved, though perfectly well-bred and even kindly manner of the stranger forbade close intimacy. He was a most regular attender at church, not only on Sundays but at the weekly prayer-meetings and occasional festivals, and the missionary noticed that his Bible looked as if it were a well-thumbed one. At first the two seamen, whom people soon found out, were named respectively Jo and Dick, wrought in the wright's workshop, and at all kinds of miscellaneous jobs; besides making frequent and sometimes long voyages in their boat to the neighbouring islands. As time flew by things seemed to prosper with the merchant. The keel of a little schooner was laid. Father, and son, and seamen (as well as the native servant, who was called Jako) toiled at this vessel incessantly until she was finished--then, Henry was placed in command of her, Jo and Dick were appointed first and second mates, two or three natives completed the crew, and she went to sea under the somewhat peculiar name of the _Avenger_. This seemed to be the first decided advance in the fortunes of the new family. Business increased in a wonderful way. The _Avenger_ returned again and again to the Green Isle laden with rich and varied commodities for the successful merchant. In course of time the old store was taken down, and a new one built; the _Avenger_ was sold, and a large brig purchased, the rather pretty name of which--"_Evening Star_"--was erased, and the mysterious word _Avenger_ put in its place. Everything, in short, betokened that Mr Stuart was on the high road to fortune. But there were some mysteries connected with the merchant which sorely puzzled the wisest heads in the place, and which would have puzzled still wiser heads had they been there. Although it soon became quite evident to the meanest capacity that Mr Stuart was the richest man on the island; yet he and his family continued to occupy the poor, shabby, little, ill-furnished cottage which they had erected with their own hands when they first landed, and although they sold the finest silks and brocades to the wives and daughters of the other wealthy settlers, they themselves wore only the plainest and most sombre fabrics that consisted with respectability. People would have called them a family of misers, but for their goodness of character in other respects, and for the undeniable fact that they were by far the most liberal contributors to the church and to the poor--not only in their own island, but in all the other islands around them. Another thing that puzzled the mercantile men of the place extremely was the manner in which Mr Stuart kept his books of business. They soon began to take note that he kept two ledgers and two distinct sets of books--the one set small, the other set very bulky. Some of the more audacious among his customers ventured to peep over his shoulder, and discovered that the small set contained nothing but entries of boats made, and repairs to shipping executed, and work connected exclusively with the shipwright department of his business--while the large books contained entries of those silks, and sugars, and teas, and spices, etcetera, which turned so much gold into his coffers. It thus became evident to these men of business that the merchant kept the two departments quite separate, in order to ascertain the distinct profits on each. They were the more amazed at this when they considered that the shipwright work must necessarily be a mere driblet, altogether unworthy the attention of one so wealthy. But that which amazed them most of all was, that such a man, in such circumstances, could waste his time in doing with his own hands the work of an ordinary mechanic--thus (as they concluded) entailing on himself the necessity of devoting much of the night to his more lucrative concern. These long-headed men of business little knew the man. They did not know that he was _great_ in the highest sense of the term, and that, among other elements of his greatness, he possessed the power of seizing the little things--the little opportunities--of life, and turning them to the best account; that he not only knew what should be done, and how to do it, but was gifted with that inflexible determination of purpose to carry out a design, without which knowledge and talent can never accomplish great things. The merchant did not, as they supposed, work late at night. He measured his time, and measured his work. In this he was like many other men in this struggling world; but he _stuck_ to his time and to his work, in which respect he resembled the great few whose names stand prominent on the page of history. In consequence of this, Mr Stuart wrought with success at both departments of his business, and while in the one he coined thousands, in the other he earned more than the average wages of a working man. The _Avenger_ was erratic and uncertain in her voyages. She evidently sailed to the principal islands of the South Seas, and did business with them all. From one of these voyages, Henry, her captain, returned with a wife--a dark-haired, dark-eyed, ladylike girl--for whom he built a small cottage beside his father's, and left her there while he was away at sea. It was observed by the clerks in Mr Stuart's counting-room, that their chief accountant, Mr Corrie, was a great letter writer--that when one letter was finished, he invariably began another, and kept it by him, adding sheet after sheet to it until the _Avenger_ returned and carried it off. Once Mr Corrie was called hurriedly away while in the act of addressing one of these epistles. He left it lying on his desk, and a small, contemptible, little apprentice allowed his curiosity so far to get the better of him, that he looked at the address, and informed his companions that Mr Corrie's correspondent was a certain Miss Alice Mason! Of course, Mr Corrie received voluminous replies from this mysterious Alice; and, if one might judge from his expression on reading these epistles, (as that contemptible little apprentice _did_ judge,) the course of _his_ love ran smoother than usual; thus, by its exceptionality, proving the truth of the rule. Years passed away. The merchant's head became grey, but his gigantic frame was as straight and his step as firm as ever. His wife, strange to say, looked younger as she grew older! It seemed as if she were recovering from some terrible illness that had made her prematurely old, and were now renewing her youth. The business prospered to such an extent that, by becoming altogether too wonderful, it ceased to be a matter of wonder altogether to the merchants of the Green Isle. They regarded it as semi-miraculous--the most unprecedented case of "luck" that had ever been heard of in the annals of mercantile history. But the rich merchant still dwelt in the humble, almost mean, cottage, and still wrought as an engineer and shipwright with his own hands. In the little cottage beside his own there were soon seen (and _heard_) three stout children, two boys and a girl, the former being named respectively Gascoyne and Henry, the latter, Mary. It is needless to say that these were immense favourites with the eccentric merchant. During all this time there was a firm in Liverpool which received periodical remittances of money from an unknown source. The cashier of that firm, a fat little man, with a face like a dumpling and a nose like a cherry, lived, as it were, in a state of perpetual amazement in regard to these remittances. They came regularly, from apparently nowhere, were acknowledged to nobody, and amounted, in the course of time, to many thousands. This firm had, some years previously, lost a fine vessel. She was named the _Brilliant_; had sailed for the South Sea islands with a rich cargo, and was never more heard of. The fat cashier knew the loss sustained by this vessel to a penny. He had prepared and calculated all the papers and sent duplicates on board, and as he had a stake in the venture he never forgot the amount of the loss sustained. One day the firm received a remittance from the Unknown, with a note to the following effect at the foot of it:--"This is the last remittance on account of the _Brilliant_. The value of the cargo, including compound interest, and the estimated value of the vessel, have now been repaid to the owners." The fat cashier was thunderstruck! He rushed to his ledger, examined the account, calculated the interest, summed up the whole, and found it correct. He went home to bed and fell sound asleep in amazement; awoke in amazement; went back to the office in amazement; worked on day after day in amazement; lived, and eventually died, in a state of unrelieved amazement in regard to this incomprehensible transaction! About the same time that this occurred Mr Stuart entered his poor cottage, and finding his wife there, said-- "Mary, I have sent off the last remittance to-day. I have made amends for that evil deed. It has cost me a long and hard struggle to realise the thousands of pounds that were requisite; for some of the goods had got damaged by damp in the cavern of the Isle of Palms, but the profits of my engineering and shipwright business have increased of late, and I have managed to square it all off with interest. And now, Mary, I can do no more. If I knew of any others who have suffered at my hands I would restore what I took tenfold--but I know of none. It therefore remains that I should work this business for the good of mankind. Of all the thousands that have passed through my hands I have not used one penny. You know that I have always kept the business that has grown out of the labour of my own hands distinct from that which has been reared on the stolen goods. I have lived and supported you by it, and now, through God's blessing, it has increased to such an extent that I think we may afford to build a somewhat more commodious house and furnish it a little better." "As for the mercantile business--it _must_ go on. It has prospered and still prospers. Many mouths are dependent on it for daily bread. I will continue to manage it, but every penny of profit shall go in charity as long as I live. After that, Henry may do with it as he pleases. He has contributed largely to make it what it is, and deserves to reap where he has sown so diligently. Do you think I am right in all this, Mary?" We need scarcely remark that Mary did think it all right, for she and Gascoyne had no differences of opinion _now_. Soon after this, Corrie went off on a long voyage in the _Avenger_. The vessel touched at San Francisco, and, while there, some remarkable scenes took place between Jo Bumpus and a good-looking woman whom he called Susan. This female ultimately went on board the _Avenger_, and sailed in her for Green Isle. On the way thither they touched at one of the first of the South Sea islands that they came in sight of, where scenes of the most unprecedented description took place between Corrie and a bluff old gentleman named Ole Thorwald, and a sweet, blue-eyed, fair-haired, maiden named Alice Mason! Strange to say this fair girl agreed to become a passenger in the _Avenger_; and, still more strange to say, her father and Ole Thorwald agreed to accompany her, also an ancient piece of animated door-matting called Toozle and a black woman named Poopy, whose single observation in regard to every event in sublunary history was, "Hee! hee!" On reaching Green Isle, Corrie and Alice were married, and on the same day Bumpus and Susan were also united. There was great rejoicing on the occasion; Ole Thorwald and Dick Price distinguished themselves by dancing an impromptu and maniacal _pas de deux_ at the double wedding! Of Captain Montague's future career we know nothing. He may have been killed in the wars of his country, or he may have become an admiral in the British navy, for all we know to the contrary. One thing only we are certain of, and that is, that he sailed for England in the pirate schooner, and seemed by no means to regret the escape of the pirate captain! Years rolled away. The head of Gascoyne became silvery white, but Time seemed impotent to subdue the vigour of his stalwart frame, or destroy the music of his deep bass voice. He was the idol of numerous grandchildren as well as of a large circle of juveniles, who, without regard to whether they had or had not a right to do so, styled him "Grandfather." Little did these youngsters think, as they clambered over his huge frame, and listened with breathless attention to his wild stories of the sea, that "grandfather" had once been the celebrated and much-dreaded Durward, the pirate! Nothing would induce Gascoyne to take a prominent part in the public affairs of his chosen home; but he did attempt to teach a class of the very smallest boys and girls in the missionary's Sunday school, and he came, in time, to take special delight in this work. He was never so happy as when telling to these little ones the story of redeeming love. In the choice of subjects for his class, he was somewhat peculiar as well as in his manner of treating them. He was particularly emphatic and earnest, used to fill his little hearers with awe, when he spoke of the danger of sin and the importance of resisting its beginnings. But his two favourite themes of all--and those which dwelt most frequently on his lips--were, "God is Love," and, "Love is the fulfilling of the law." THE END. 
4222	----	Laperouse by Ernest Scott DEDICATION To my friend T.B.E. CONTENTS I. FAMILY, YOUTH and INFLUENCES. II. THE FRENCH NAVAL OFFICER. III. THE LOVE STORY OF LAPEROUSE. IV. THE VOYAGE OF EXPLORATION. V. THE EARLY PART OF THE VOYAGE. VI. LAPEROUSE IN THE PACIFIC. VII. AT BOTANY BAY. VIII. THE MYSTERY, AND THE SECRET OF THE SEA. IX. CAPTAIN DILLON'S DISCOVERY. X. THE FAME OF LAPEROUSE. FOREWORD All Sydney people, and most of those who have visited the city, have seen the tall monument to Laperouse overlooking Botany Bay. Many have perhaps read a little about him, and know the story of his surprising appearance in this harbour six days after the arrival of Governor Phillip with the First Fleet. One can hardy look at the obelisk, and at the tomb of Pere Receveur near by, without picturing the departure of the French ships after bidding farewell to the English officers and colonists. Sitting at the edge of the cliff, one can follow Laperouse out to sea, with the eye of imagination, until sails, poops and hulls diminish to the view and disappear below the hazy-blue horizon. We may be sure that some of Governor Phillip's people watched the sailing, and the lessening, and the melting away of the vessels, from just about the same place, one hundred and twenty four years ago. What they saw, and what we can imagine, was really the end of a romantic career, and the beginning of a mystery of the sea which even yet has not lost its fascination. The story of that life is surely worth telling, and, we trust, worth reading; for it is that of a good, brave and high-minded man, a great sailor, and a true gentleman. The author has put into these few pages what he has gleaned from many volumes, some of them stout, heavy and dingy tomes, though delightful enough to "those who like that sort of thing." He hopes that the book may for many readers touch with new meaning those old weatherworn stones at Botany Bay, and make the personality of Laperouse live again for such as nourish an interest in Australian history. ILLUSTRATIONS. (Not included in etext) Portrait of Laperouse, with Autograph Laperouse's Coat of Arms The Laperouse Family Comte de Fleurieu Louis XVI Giving Instructions to Laperouse Australia as known at the time of Laperouse's visit The BOUSSOLE and ASTROLABE Chart of Laperouse's Voyage in the Pacific Massacre of Captain de Langle's Party Tomb of Pere Receveur Monument to Laperouse at Botany Bay Admiral Dentrecasteaux Map of Vanikoro Island Relics of Laperouse Life of Laperouse Chapter I. FAMILY, YOUTH and INFLUENCES Jean-Francois Galaup, Comte De Laperouse, was born at Albi, on August 23, 1741. His birthplace is the chief town in the Department of Tarn, lying at the centre of the fruitful province of Languedoc, in the south of France. It boasts a fine old Gothic cathedral, enriched with much noble carving and brilliant fresco painting; and its history gives it some importance in the lurid and exciting annals of France. From its name was derived that of a religious sect, the Albigeois, who professed doctrines condemned as heretical and endured severe persecution during the thirteenth century. But among all the many thousands of men who have been born, and have lived, and died in the old houses of the venerable city, none, not even among its bishops and counts, has borne a name which lives in the memory of mankind as does that of the navigator, Laperouse. The sturdy farmers of the fat and fertile plain which is the granary of France, who drive in to Albi on market days, the patient peasants of the fields, and the simple artisans who ply their primitive trades under the shadow of the dark-red walls of St. Cecile, know few details, perhaps, about the sailor who sank beneath the waters of the Pacific so many years ago. Yet very many of them have heard of Laperouse, and are familiar with his monument cast in bronze in the public square of Albi. They speak his name respectfully as that of one who grew up among their ancestors, who trod their streets, sat in their cathedral, won great fame, and met his death under the strange, distant, southern stars. His family had for five hundred years been settled, prominent and prosperous, on estates in the valley of the Tarn. In the middle of the fifteenth century a Galaup held distinguished office among the citizens of Albi, and several later ancestors are mentioned honourably in its records. The father of the navigator, Victor Joseph de Galaup, succeeded to property which maintained him in a position of influence and affluence among his neighbours. He married Marguerite de Resseguier, a woman long remembered in the district for her qualities of manner and mind. She exercised a strong influence over her adventurous but affectionate son; and a letter written to her by him at an interesting crisis of his life, testifies to his eager desire to conform to his mother's wishes even in a matter that wrenched his heart, and after years of service in the Navy had taken him far and kept him long from her kind, concerning eyes. Jean-Francois derived the name by which he is known in history from the estate of Peyrouse, one of the possessions of his family. But he dropped the "y" when assuming the designation, and invariably spelt the name "Laperouse," as one word. Inasmuch as the final authority on the spelling of a personal name is that of the individual who owns it, there can be no doubt that we ought always to spell this name "Laperouse," as, in fact, successors in the family who have borne it have done; though in nearly all books, French as well as English, it is spelt "La Perouse." In the little volume now in the reader's hands, the example of Laperouse himself has been followed. On this point it may be remarked concerning another navigator who was engaged in Australian exploration, that we may lose touch with an interesting historical fact by not observing the correct form of a name. On maps of Tasmania appears "D'Entrecasteaux Channel." It was named by and after Admiral Bruny Dentrecasteaux, who as commander of the RECHERCHE and ESPERANCE visited Australian waters. We shall have something to say about his expedition towards the close of the book. Now, Dentrecasteaux sailed from France in 1791, while the Revolution was raging. All titles had been abolished by a decree of the National Assembly on July 19th, 1790. When he made this voyage, therefore, the Admiral was not Bruny D'Entrecasteaux, a form which implied a territorial titular distinction; but simply Citizen Dentrecasteaux. The name is so spelt in the contemporary histories of his expedition written by Rossel and Labillardiere. It would not have been likely to be spelt in any other way by a French officer at the time. Thus, the Marquis de la Fayette became simply Lafayette, and so with all other bearers of titles in France. Consequently we should, by observing this little difference, remind ourselves of Dentrecasteaux' period and circumstances. That, however, is by the way, and our main concern for the present is with Laperouse. As a boy, Jean-Francois developed a love for books of voyages, and dreamt, as a boy will, of adventures that he would enjoy when he grew to manhood. A relative tells us that his imagination was enkindled by reading of the recent discoveries of Anson. As he grew up, and himself sailed the ocean in command of great ships, he continued to read all the voyaging literature he could procure. The writings of Byron, Carteret, Wallis, Louis de Bougainville, "and above all Cook," are mentioned as those of his heroes. He "burned to follow in their footsteps." It will be observed that, with one exception, the navigators who are especially described by one of his own family as having influenced the bent of Laperouse were Englishmen. He did not, of course, read all of their works in his boyhood, because some of them were published after he had embraced a naval career. But we note them in this place, as the guiding stars by which he shaped his course. He must have been a young man, already on the way to distinction as an officer, when he came under the spell of Cook. "And above all Cook," says his relative. To the end of his life, down to the final days of his very last voyage, Laperouse revered the name of Cook. Every Australian reader will like him the better for that. Not many months before his own life ended in tragedy and mystery, he visited the island where the great English sailor was slain. When he reflected on the achievements of that wonderful career, he sat down in his cabin and wrote in his Journal the passage of which the following is a translation. It is given here out of its chronological order, but we are dealing with the influences that made Laperouse what he was, and we can see from these sincere and feeling words, what Cook meant to him: "Full of admiration and of respect as I am for the memory of that great man, he will always be in my eyes the first of navigators. It is he who has determined the precise position of these islands, who has explored their shores, who has made known the manners, customs and religion of the inhabitants, and who has paid with his blood for all the light which we have to-day concerning these peoples. I would call him the Christopher Columbus of these countries, of the coast of Alaska, and of nearly all the isles of the South Seas. Chance might enable the most ignorant man to discover islands, but it belongs only to great men like him to leave nothing more to be done regarding the coasts they have found. Navigators, philosophers, physicians, all find in his Voyages interesting and useful things which were the object of his concern. All men, especially all navigators, owe a tribute of praise to his memory. How could one neglect to pay it at the moment of coming upon the group of islands where he finished so unfortunately his career?" We can well understand that a lad whose head was full of thoughts of voyaging and adventure, was not, as a schoolboy, very tame and easy to manage. He is described as having been ardent, impetuous, and rather stubborn. But there is more than one kind of stubbornness. There is the stupid stubbornness of the mule, and the fixed, firm will of the intelligent being. We can perceive quite well what is meant in this case. On the other hand, he was affectionate, quick and clever. He longed for the sea; and his father, observing his decided inclination, allowed him to choose the profession he desired. It may well have seemed to the parents of Laperouse at this time that fine prospects lay before a gallant young gentleman who should enter the Marine. There was for the moment peace between France and England. A truce had been made by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. But everybody knew that there would be war again soon. Both countries were struggling for the mastery in India and in North America. The sense of rivalry was strong. Jealousies were fierce on both sides. In India, the French power was wielded, and ever more and more extended, by the brilliant Governor Dupleix; whilst in the British possessions the rising influence was that of the dashing, audacious Clive. In North America the French were scheming to push their dominion down the Ohio-Mississippi Valley from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, in the rear of the line of British colonies planted on the seaboard from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Florida. The colonists were determined to prevent them; and a young man named George Washington, who afterwards became very famous, first rose into prominence in a series of tough struggles to thwart the French designs. The points of collision between the two nations were so sharp, feeling on either side was so bitter, the contending interests were so incapable of being reconciled, that it was plain to all that another great war was bound to break out, and that sea power would play a very important part in the issue. The young Laperouse wanted to go to sea, and his father wanted him to distinguish himself and confer lustre on his name. The choice of a calling for him, therefore, suited all the parties concerned. He was a boy of fifteen when, in November, 1756, he entered the Marine service as a royal cadet. He had not long to wait before tasting "delight of battle," for the expected war was declared in May, and before he was much older he was in the thick of it. Chapter II. THE FRENCH NAVAL OFFICER. Laperouse first obtained employment in the French navy in the CELEBRE, from March to November, 1757. From this date until his death, thirty-one years later, he was almost continuously engaged, during peace and war, in the maritime service of his country. The official list of his appointments contains only one blank year, 1764. He had then experienced close upon seven years of continuous sea fighting and had served in as many ships: the CELEBRE, the POMONE, the ZEPHIR, the CERF, the FORMIDABLE, the ROBUSTE, and the SIX CORPS. But the peace of Paris was signed in the early part of 1763. After that, having been promoted to the rank of ensign, he had a rest. It was not a popular peace on either side. In Paris there was a current phrase, "BETE COMME LA PAIX," stupid as the peace. In England, the great Pitt was so indignant on account of its conditions that, all swollen and pinched with gout as he was, he had himself carried to the House of Commons, his limbs blanketted in bandages and his face contorted with pain, and, leaning upon a crutch, denounced it in a speech lasting three hours and forty minutes. The people cheered him to the echo when he came out to his carriage, and the vote favourable to the terms of the treaty was carried by wholesale corruption. But all the same, Great Britain did very well out of it, and both countries--though neither was satisfied--were for the time being tired of war. For Laperouse the seven years had been full of excitement. The most memorable engagement in which he took part was a very celebrated one, in November, 1759. A stirring ballad has been written about it by Henry Newbolt:-- "In seventeen hundred and fifty-nine When Hawke came swooping from the West, The French King's admiral with twenty of the line Came sailing forth to sack us out of Brest." Laperouse's ship, the FORMIDABLE, was one of the French fleet of twenty-one sail. What happened was this. The French foreign minister, Choiseul, had hatched a crafty plan for the invasion of England, but before it could be executed the British fleet had to be cleared out of the way. There was always that tough wooden wall with the hearts of oak behind it, standing solidly in the path. It baffled Napoleon in the same fashion when he thought out an invasion plan in the next century. The French Admiral, Conflans, schemed to lure Sir Edward Hawke into Quiberon Bay, on the coast of Brittany. A strong westerly gale was blowing and was rapidly swelling into a raging tempest. Conflans, piloted by a reliable guide who knew the Bay thoroughly, intended to take up a fairly safe, sheltered position on the lee side, and hoped that the wind would force Hawke, who was not familiar with the ground, on to the reefs and shoals, where his fleet would be destroyed by the storm and the French guns together. But Hawke, whose name signally represents the bold, swift, sure character of the man, understood the design, took the risk, avoided the danger, and clutched the prey. Following the French as rapidly as wind and canvas could take him, he caught their rearmost vessels, smashed them up, battered the whole fleet successively into flight or splinters, and himself lost only two vessels, which ran upon a shoal. Plodding prose does scant justice to the extraordinary brilliancy of Hawke's victory, described by Admiral Mahan as "the Trafalgar of this war." We cannot pass on without quoting one of Mr. Newbolt's graphic verses:-- "'Twas long past the noon of a wild November day When Hawke came swooping from the west; He heard the breakers thundering in Quiberon Bay, But he flew the flag for battle, line abreast. Down upon the quicksands, roaring out of sight, Fiercely blew the storm wind, darkly fell the night, For they took the foe for pilot and the cannon's glare for light, When Hawke came swooping from the West." "They took the foe for pilot:" that is a most excellent touch, both poetical and true. The FORMIDABLE was the first to be disposed of in the fight. She was an 80-gun line-of-battle ship, carrying the flag of Admiral du Verger. Her position being in the rear of the squadron, she was early engaged by the RESOLUTION, and in addition received the full broadside of every other British ship that passed her. The Admiral fell mortally wounded, and two hundred on board were killed. She struck her colours at four o'clock after receiving a terrible battering, and was the only French ship captured by Hawke's fleet. All the others were sunk, burnt, or beached, or else escaped. The young Laperouse was amongst the wounded, though his hurts were not dangerous; and, after a brief period spent in England as a prisoner of war, he returned to service. An amusing rhyme in connection with this engagement is worth recalling. Supplies for Hawke's fleet did not come to hand for a considerable time after they were due, and in consequence the victorious crews had to be put on "short commons." Some wag--it is the way of the British sailor to do his grumbling with a spice of humour--put the case thus:-- "Ere Hawke did bang Monsieur Conflans, You sent us beef and beer; Now Monsieur's beat We've nought to eat, Since you have nought to fear." An interesting coincidence must also be noted. Thirty-five years later, only a few leagues from the place where Laperouse first learnt what it meant to fight the British on the sea, another young officer who was afterwards greatly concerned with Australasian exploration had his introduction to naval warfare. It was in 1794 that Midshipman Matthew Flinders, on the BELLEROPHON, Captain Pasley, played his valiant little part in a great fleet action off Brest. Both of these youths, whose longing was for exploration and discovery, and who are remembered by mankind in that connection, were cradled on the sea amidst the smoke and flame of battle, both in the same waters. During the next twenty-five years Laperouse saw a considerable amount of fighting in the East and West Indies, and in Canadian waters. He was commander of the AMAZON, under D'Estaing, during a period when events did not shape themselves very gloriously for British arms, not because our admirals had lost their skill and nerve, or our seamen their grit and courage, but because Governments at home muddled, squabbled, starved the navy, misunderstood the problem, and generally made a mess of things. We need not follow him through the details of these years, but simply note that Laperouse's dash and good seamanship won him a high reputation among French naval officers, and brought him under the eye of the authorities who afterwards chose him to command an expedition of discovery. One incident must be recorded, because it throws a light on the character of Laperouse. In 1782, whilst serving under Admiral Latouche-Treville in the West, he was ordered to destroy the British forts on the Hudson River. He attacked them with the SCEPTRE, 74 guns. The British had been engaged in their most unfortunate war with the American Colonies, and in 1781, in consequence of wretchedly bad strategy, had lost command of the sea. The French had been helping the revolted Americans, not for love of them, but from enmity to their rivals. After the capitulation of the British troops at Yorktown, a number of loyalists still held out under discouraging conditions in Canada, and the French desired to dislodge them from the important waterway of the Hudson. Laperouse found little difficulty in fulfilling his mission, for the defence was weak and the garrisons of the forts, after a brief resistance, fled to the woods. It was then that he did a thing described in our principal naval history as an act of "kindness and humanity, rare in the annals of war." Laperouse knew that if he totally destroyed the stores as well as the forts, the unfortunate British, after he had left, would perish either from hunger or under the tomahawks of the Red Indians. So he was careful to see that the food and clothing, and a quantity of powder and small arms, were left untouched, for, as he nobly said, "An enemy conquered should have nothing more to fear from a civilised foe; he then becomes a friend." Some readers may like to see the verses in which a French poet has enshrined this incident. For their benefit they are appended:-- "Un jour ayant appris que les Anglais en fuite Se cachaient dans un bois redoutant la poursuite, Tu laissas sur la plage aux soldats affames, Par la peur affoles, en haillons, desarmes, Des vivres abondantes, des habits et des armes; Tu t'eloignas apres pour calmer leurs alarmes, Et quand on s'etonnait: 'Sachez qu' un ennemi Vaincu n'a rien a craindre, et devient un ami.'" The passage may be rendered in English thus: "One day, having heard that the fleeing English were hidden in a forest dreading pursuit, you left upon the shore for those soldiers--famished, ragged, disarmed, and paralysed by fear--abundance of food, clothes and arms; then, to calm their fears, you removed your forces to a distance; and, when astonishment was expressed, you said: 'Understand that a beaten enemy has nothing to fear from us, and becomes a friend.'" Chapter III. THE LOVE STORY OF LAPEROUSE. "My story is a romance"--"Mon histoire est un roman"--wrote Laperouse in relating the events with which this chapter will deal. We have seen him as a boy; we have watched him in war; we shall presently follow him as a navigator. But it is just as necessary to read his charming love story, if we are to understand his character. We should have no true idea of him unless we knew how he bore himself amid perplexities that might have led him to quote, as peculiarly appropriate to his own case, the lines of Shakespeare:-- "Ay me! for ought that ever I could read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth," During the period of his service in the East Indies, Laperouse frequently visited Ile-de-France (which is now a British possession, called Mauritius). Then it was the principal naval station of the French in the Indian Ocean. There he met a beautiful girl, the daughter of one of the subordinate officials at Port Louis. Louise Eleonore Broudou is said to have been "more than pretty"; she was distinguished by grace of manner, charm of disposition, and fine, cultivated character. The young officer saw her often, admired her much, fell in love with her, and asked her to marry him. Mademoiselle loved him too; and if they two only had had to be consulted, the happy union of a well-matched pair might have followed soon. It signified little to Laperouse, in love, that the lady had neither rank nor fortune. But his family in France took quite a different view. He wrote to a favourite sister, telling her about it, and she lost no time in conveying the news to his parents. This was in 1775. Then the trouble began. Inasmuch as he was over thirty years of age at this time, it may be thought that he might have been left to choose a wife for himself. But a young officer of rank in France, under the Old Regime, was not so free in these matters as he would be nowadays. Marriage was much more than a personal affair. It was even more than a family affair. People of rank did not so much marry as "make alliances"--or rather, submit to having them made for them. It was quite a regular thing for a marriage to be arranged by the families of two young people who had never even seen each other. An example of that kind will appear presently. The idea that the Comte de Laperouse, one of the smartest officers in the French King's navy, should marry out of his rank and station, shocked his relatives and friends as much as it would have done if he had been detected picking pockets. He could not, without grave risk of social and professional ruin, marry until he had obtained the consent of his father, and--so naval regulations required--of his official superiors. Both were firmly refused. Monsieur de Ternay, who commanded on the Ile-de-France station, shook his wise head, and told the lover "that his love fit would pass, and that people did not console themselves for being poor with the fact that they were married." (This M. de Ternay, it may be noted, had commanded a French squadron in Canada in 1762, and James Cook was a junior officer on the British squadron which blockaded him in St. John's Harbour. He managed to slip out one night, much to the disgust of Colville, the British Admiral, who commented scathingly on his "shameful flight.") The father of Laperouse poured out his forbidding warnings in a long letter. Listen to the "tut-tut" of the old gentleman at Albi:-- "You make me tremble, my son. How can you face with coolness the consequences of a marriage which would bring you into disgrace with the Minister and would lose you the assistance of powerful friends? You would forfeit the sympathies of your colleagues and would sacrifice the fruit of your work during twenty years. In disgracing yourself you would humiliate your family and your parents. You would prepare for yourself nothing but remorse; you would sacrifice your fortune and position to a frivolous fancy for beauty and to pretended charms which perhaps exist only in your own imagination. Neither honour nor probity compels you to meet ill-considered engagements that you may have made with that person or with her parents. Do they or you know that you are not free, that you are under my authority?" He went on to draw a picture of the embarrassments that would follow such a marriage, and then there is a passage revealing the cash-basis aspect of the old gentleman's objection: "You say that there are forty officers in the Marine who have contracted marriages similar to that which you propose to make. You have better models to follow, and in any case what was lacking on the side of birth, in these instances, was compensated by fortune. Without that balance they would not have had the baseness and imprudence to marry thus." Poor Eleonore had no compensating balance of that kind in her favour. She was only beautiful, charming and sweet-natured. Therefore, "tut-tut, my son!" In the course of the next few months Laperouse covered himself with glory by his services on the AMAZON, the ASTREE, and the SCEPTRE, and he hoped that these exploits would incline his father to accede to his ardent wish. But no; the old gentleman was as hard as a rock. He "tut-tutted" with as much vigour as ever. The lovers had to wait. Then his mother, full of love for her son and of pride in his achievements, took a hand, and tried to arrange a more suitable match for him. An old friend of the family, Madame de Vesian had a marriageable daughter. She was rich and beautiful, and her lineage was noble. She had never seen Laperouse, and he had never seen her, but that was an insignificant detail in France under the old Regime. If the parents on each side thought the marriage suitable, that was enough. The wishes of the younger people concerned were, it is true, consulted before the betrothal, but it was often a consultation merely in form, and under pressure. We should think that way of making marriages most unsatisfactory; but then, a French family of position in the old days would have thought our freer system very shocking and loose. It is largely a matter of usage; and that the old plan, which seems so faulty to us, produced very many happy and lasting unions, there is much delightful French family history to prove. Laperouse had now been many months away from Ile-de-France and the bright eyes of Eleonore. He was extremely fond of his mother, and anxious to meet her wishes. Moreover, he held Madame de Vesian in high esteem, and wrote that he "had always admired her, and felt sure that her daughter resembled her." These influences swayed him, and he gave way; but, being frank and honest by disposition, insisted that no secret should be made of his affair of the heart with the lady across the sea. He wrote to Madame de Vesian a candid letter, in which he said:-- "Being extremely sensitive, I should be the most unfortunate of men if I were not beloved by my wife, if I had not her complete confidence, if her life amongst her friends and children did not render her perfectly happy. I desire one day to regard you as a mother, and to-day I open my heart to you as my best friend. I authorise my mother to relate to you my old love affair. My heart has always been a romance (MON COEUR A TOUJOURS ETE UN ROMAN); and the more I sacrificed prudence to those whom I loved the happier I was. But I cannot forget the respect that I owe to my parents and to their wishes. I hope that in a little while I shall be free. If then I have a favourable reply from you, and if I can make your daughter happy and my character is approved, I shall fly to Albi and embrace you a thousand times. I shall not distinguish you from my mother and my sisters." He also wrote to Monsieur de Vesian, begging him not to interfere with the free inclinations of his daughter, and to remember that "in order to be happy there must be no repugnance to conquer. I have, however," he added, "an affair to terminate which does not permit me to dispose of myself entirely. My mother will tell you the details. I hope to be free in six weeks or two months. My happiness will then be inexpressible if I obtain your consent and that of Madame de Vesian, with the certainty of not having opposed the wishes of Mademoiselle, your daughter." "I hope to be free"--did he "hope"? That was his polite way of putting the matter. Or he may have believed that he had conquered his love for Eleonore Broudou, and that she, as a French girl who understood his obligations to his family, would--perhaps after making a few handkerchiefs damp with her tears--acquiesce. So the negotiations went on, and at length, in May, 1783, the de Vesian family accepted Laperouse as the fiance of their daughter. "My project is to live with my family and yours," he wrote. "I hope that my wife will love my mother and my sisters, as I feel that I shall love you and yours. Any other manner of existence is frightful to me, and I have sufficient knowledge of the world and of myself to know that I can only be happy in living thus." But in the very month that he wrote contracting himself--that is precisely the word--to marry the girl he had never seen, Eleonore, the girl whom he had seen, whom he had loved, and whom he still loved in his heart, came to Paris with her parents. Laperouse saw her again. He told her what had occurred. Of course she wept; what girl would not? She said, between her sobs, that if it was to be all over between them she would go into a convent. She could never marry anyone else. "Mon histoire est un roman," and here beginneth the new chapter of this real love story. Why, we wonder, has not some novelist discovered these Laperouse letters and founded a tale upon them? Is it not a better story even told in bare outline in these few pages, than nine-tenths of the concoctions of the novelists, which are sold in thousands? Think of the wooing of these two delightful people, the beautiful girl and the gallant sailor, in the ocean isle, with its tropical perfumes and colours, its superb mountain and valley scenery, bathed in eternal sunshine by day and kissed by cool ocean breezes by night--the isle of Paul and Virginia, the isle which to Alexandre Dumas was the Paradise of the World, an enchanted oasis of the ocean, "all carpeted with greenery and refreshed with cooling streams, where, no matter what the season, you may gently sink asleep beneath the shade of palms and jamrosades, soothed by the babbling of a crystal spring." Think of how he must have entertained and thrilled her with accounts of his adventures: of storms, of fights with the terrible English, of the chasing of corsairs and the battering of the fleets of Indian princes. Think of her open-eyed wonder, and of the awakening of love in her heart; and then of her dread, lest after all, despite his consoling words and soft assurances, he, the Comte, the officer, should be forbidden to marry her, the maiden who had only her youth, her beauty, and her character, but no rank, no fortune, to win favour from the proud people who did not know her. The author is at all events certain of this: that if the letters had seen the light before old Alexandre Dumas died, he would have pounced upon them with glee, and would have written around them a romance that all the world would have rejoiced to read. But while we think of what the novelists have missed, we are neglecting the real story, the crisis of which we have now reached. Seeing Eleonore again, his sensitive heart deeply moved by her sorrow, Laperouse took a manly resolution. He would marry her despite all obstacles. He had promised her at her home in Ile-de-France. He would keep his promise. He would not spoil her beautiful young life even for his family. But there was the contract concerning Mademoiselle de Vesian. What of that? Clearly Laperouse was in a fix. Well, a man who has been over twenty-five years at sea has been in a fix many times, and learns that a bold face and tact are good allies. Remembering the nature of his situation, it will be agreed that the letter he wrote to his mother, announcing his resolve, was a model of good taste and fine feeling: "I have seen Eleonore, and I have not been able to resist the remorse by which I am devoured. My excessive attachment to you had made me violate all that which is most sacred among men. I forgot the vows of my heart, the cries of my conscience. I was in Paris for twenty days, and, faithful to my promise to you, I did not go to see her. But I received a letter from her. She made no reproach against me, but the most profound sentiment of sadness was expressed in it. At the instant of reading it the veil fell from my eyes. My situation filled me with horror. I am no better in my own eyes than a perjurer, unworthy of Mademoiselle de Vesian, to whom I brought a heart devoured by remorse and by a passion that nothing could extinguish. I was equally unworthy of Mademoiselle Broudou, and wished to leave her. My only excuse, my dear mother, is the extreme desire I have always had to please you. It is for you alone, and for my father, that I wished to marry. Desiring to live with you for the remainder of my life, I consented to your finding me a wife with whom I could abide. The choice of Mademoiselle de Vesian had overwhelmed me, because her mother is a woman for whom I have a true attachment; and Heaven is my witness to-day that I should have preferred her daughter to the most brilliant match in the universe. It is only four days since I wrote to her on the subject. How can I reconcile my letter with my present situation? But, my dear mother, it would be feebleness in me to go further with the engagement. I have doubtless been imprudent in contracting an engagement without your consent, but I should be a monster if I violated my oaths and married Mademoiselle de Vesian. I do not doubt that you tremble at the abyss over which you fear that I am about to fall, but I feel that I can only live with Eleonore, and I hope that you will give your consent to our union. My fortune will suffice for our wants, and we shall live near you. But I shall only come to Albi when Mademoiselle de Vesian shall be married, and when I can be sure that another, a thousand times more worthy than I am, shall have sworn to her an attachment deeper than that which it was in my power to offer. I shall write neither to Madame nor Monsieur de Vesian. Join to your other kindnesses that of undertaking this painful commission." There was no mistaking the firm, if regretful tone, of that letter; and Laperouse married his Eleonore at Paris. Did Mademoiselle de Vesian break her heart because her sailor fiance had wed another? Not at all! She at once became engaged to the Baron de Senegas--had she seen him beforehand, one wonders?--and married him in August! Laperouse was prompt to write his congratulations to her parents, and it is diverting to find him saying, concerning the lady to whom he himself had been engaged only a few weeks before, that he regretted "never having had the honour of seeing her!" But there was still another difficulty to be overcome before Laperouse and his happy young bride could feel secure. He had broken a regulation of the service by marrying without official sanction. True, he had talked of settling down at Albi, but that was when he thought he was going to marry a young lady whom he did not know. Now he had married the girl of his heart; and love, as a rule, does not stifle ambition. Rather are the two mutually co-operative. Eleonore had fallen in love with him as a gallant sailor, and a sailor she wanted him still to be. Perhaps, in her dreams, she saw him a great Admiral, commanding powerful navies and winning glorious victories for France. Madame la Comtesse did not wish her husband to end his career because he had married her, be sure of that. Here Laperouse did a wise and tactful thing, which showed that he understood something of human nature. Nothing interests old ladies so much as the love affairs of young people; and old ladies in France at that time exercised remarkable influence in affairs of government. The Minister of Marine was the Marquis de Castries. Instead of making a clean breast of matters to him, Laperouse wrote a long and delightful letter to Madame la Marquise. "Madame," he said, "mon histoire est un roman," and he begged her to read it. Of course she did. What old lady would not? She was a very grand lady indeed, was Madame la Marquise; but this officer who wrote his heart's story to her, was a dashing hero. He told her how he had fallen in love in Ile-de-France; how consent to his marriage had been officially and paternally refused; how he had tried "to stifle the sentiments which were nevertheless remaining at the bottom of my heart." Would she intercede with the Minister for him and excuse him? Of course she would! She was a dear old lady, was Madame la Marquise. Within a few days Laperouse received from the Minister a most paternal, good natured letter, which assured him that his romantic affair should not interfere with his prospects, and concluded: "Enjoy the pleasure of having made someone happy, and the marks of honour and distinction that you have received from your fellow citizens." Such is the love story of Laperouse. Alas! the marriage did not bring many years of happiness to poor Eleonore, much as she deserved them. Two years afterwards, her hero sailed away on that expedition from which he never returned. She dwelt at Albi, hoping until hope gave way to despair, and at last she died, of sheer grief they said, nine years after the waters of the Pacific had closed over him who had wooed her and wedded her for herself alone. Chapter IV. THE VOYAGE OF EXPLORATION. King Louis XVI of France was as unfortunate a monarch as was ever born to a throne. Had it been his happier lot to be the son of a farmer, a shopkeeper, or a merchant, he would have passed for an excellent man of business and a good, solid, sober, intelligent citizen. But he inherited with his crown a system of government too antiquated for the times, too repressive for the popular temper to endure, and was not statesman enough to remodel it to suit the requirements of his people. It was not his fault that he was not a great man; and a great man--a man of large grasp, wide vision, keen sympathies, and penetrating imagination--was needed in France if the social forces at work, the result of new ideas fermenting in the minds of men and impelling them, were to be directed towards wise and wholesome reform. Failing such direction, those forces burst through the restraints of law, custom, authority, loyalty and respect, and produced the most startling upheaval in modern history, the Great French Revolution. Louis lost both his crown and his head, the whole system of government was overturned, and the way was left open for the masterful mind and strong arm needed to restore discipline and order to the nation: Napoleon Bonaparte. Louis was very fond of literature. During the sad last months of his imprisonment, before the guillotine took his life, he read over 230 volumes. He especially liked books of travel and geography, and one of his favourite works was the VOYAGES of Cook. He had the volumes near him in the last phase of his existence. There is a pleasant drawing representing the King in his prison, with the little Dauphin seated on his knee, pointing out the countries and oceans on a large geographical globe; and he took a pride in having had prepared "for the education of Monsieur le Dauphin," a History of the Exploration of the South Seas. It was published in Paris, in three small volumes, in 1791. The study of Cook made a deep impression on the King's mind. Why, he asked himself, should not France share in the glory of discovering new lands, and penetrating untraversed seas? There was a large amount of exploratory work still to be done. English navigators were always busy sailing to unknown parts, but the entire world was by no means revealed yet. There were, particularly, big blank spaces at the bottom of the globe. That country called by the Dutch New Holland, the eastern part of which Cook had found--there was evidently much to be done there. What were the southern coasts like? Was it one big island-continent, or was it divided into two by a strait running south from the head of the Gulf of Carpentaria? Then there was that piece of country discovered by the Dutchman Tasman, and named Van Diemen's Land. Was it an island, or did it join on to New Holland? There were also many islands of the Pacific still to be explored and correctly charted, the map of Eastern Asia was imperfect, and the whole of the coastline of North-Western America was not accurately known. The more Louis turned the matter over in his mind, the more he studied his globes, maps and books of voyages, the more convinced he was that France, as a maritime nation and a naval Power, ought to play an important part in this grand work of unveiling to mankind the full extent, form, nature and resources of our planet. He sent for a man whose name the Australian reader should particularly note, because he had much to do with three important discovery voyages affecting our history. Charles Claret, Comte de Fleurieu, was the principal geographer in France. He was at this time director of ports and arsenals. He had throughout his life been a keen student of navigation, was a practical sailor, invented a marine chronometer which was a great improvement on clocks hitherto existing, devised a method of applying the metric system to the construction of marine charts, and wrote several works on his favourite subject. A large book of his on discoveries in Papua and the Solomon Islands is still of much importance. As a French writer--an expert in this field of knowledge--has written of Fleurieu, "he it was who prepared nearly all the plans for naval operations during the war of 1778, and the instructions for the voyages of discovery--those of Laperouse and Dentrecasteaux--for which Louis XVI had given general directions; and to whose wise and well-informed advice is due in large part the utility derived from them." It was chiefly because of Fleurieu's knowledge of geography that the King chose him to be the tutor of the Dauphin; and in 1790 he became Minister of Marine. Louis XVI and Fleurieu talked the subject over together; and the latter, at the King's command, drew up a long memorandum indicating the parts of the globe where an expedition of discovery might most profitably apply itself. The King decided (1785) that a voyage should be undertaken; two ships of the navy, LA BOUSSOLE and L'ASTROLABE, were selected for the purpose; and, on the recommendation of the Marquis de Castries--remember Madame la Marquise!--Laperouse was chosen for the command. All three of the men who ordered, planned and executed the voyage, the King, the scholar, and the officer, were devoted students of the work and writings of Cook; and copies of his VOYAGES, in French and English, were placed in the library of navigation carried on board the ships for the edification of the officers and crews. Over and over again in the instructions prepared--several times on a page in some places--appear references to what Cook had done, and to what Cook had left to be done; showing that both King Louis and Fleurieu knew his voyages and charts, not merely as casual readers, but intimately. As for Laperouse himself, his admiration of Cook has already been mentioned; here it may be added that when, before he sailed, Sir Joseph Banks presented him with two magnetic needles that had been used by Cook, he wrote that he "received them with feelings bordering almost upon religious veneration for the memory of that great and incomparable navigator." So that, we see, the extent of our great sailor's influence is not to be measured even by his discoveries and the effect of his writings upon his own countrymen. He radiated a magnetic force which penetrated far; down to our own day it has by no means lost its stimulating energy. In the picture gallery at the Palace of Versailles, there is an oil painting by Mansiau, a copy of which may be seen in the Mitchell Library, Sydney. It is called "Louis XVI giving instructions to Monsieur de Laperouse for his voyage around the world." An Australian statesman who saw it during a visit to Paris a few years ago, confessed publicly on his return to his own country that he gazed long upon it, and recognised it as being "of the deepest interest to Australians." So indeed it is. A photograph of the picture is given here. The instructions were of course prepared by Fleurieu: anyone familiar with his writings can see plenty of internal evidence of that. But Louis was not a little vain of his own geographical knowledge, and he gave a special audience to Laperouse, explaining the instructions verbally before handing them to him in writing. They are admirably clear instructions, indicating a full knowledge of the work of preceding navigators and of the parts of the earth where discovery needed to be pursued. Their defect was that they expected too much to be done on one voyage. Let us glance over them, devoting particular attention to the portions affecting Australasia. The ships were directed to sail across the Atlantic and round Cape Horn, visiting certain specified places on the way. In the Pacific they were to visit Easter Island, Tahiti, the Society Islands, the Friendly and Navigator groups, and New Caledonia. "He will pass Endeavour Strait and in this passage will try to ascertain whether the land of Louisiade (the Louisiade Archipelago), be contiguous to that of New Guinea, and will reconnoitre all this part of the coast from Cape Deliverance to the Island of St. Barthelomew, east-northeast of Cape Walsh, of which at present we have a very imperfect knowledge. It is much to be wished that he may be able to examine the Gulf of Carpentaria." He was then to explore the western shores of New Holland. "He will run down the western coast and take a closer view of the southern, the greater part of which has never been visited, finishing his survey at Van Diemen's Land, at Adventure Bay or Prince Frederick Henry's, whence he will make sail for Cook's Strait, and anchor in Queen Charlotte's Sound, in that Strait, between the two islands which constitute New Zealand." That direction is especially important, because if Laperouse had not perished, but had lived to carry out his programme, it is evident that he would have forestalled the later discoveries of Bass and Flinders in southern Australia. What a vast difference to the later course of history that might have made! After leaving New Zealand he was to cross the Pacific to the north-west coast of America. The programme included explorations in the China Sea, at the Philippines, the Moluccas and Timor, and contemplated a return to France in July or August, 1789, after a voyage of about three years. But although his course was mapped out in such detail, discretion was left to Laperouse to vary it if he thought fit. "All the calculations of which a sketch is given here must be governed by the circumstances of the voyage, the condition of the crews, ships and provisions, the events that may occur in the expedition and accidents which it is impossible to foresee. His Majesty, therefore, relying on the experience and judgment of the sieur de Laperouse, authorises him to make any deviation that he may deem necessary, in unforeseen cases, pursuing, however, as far as possible, the plan traced out, and conforming to the directions given in the other parts of the present instructions." A separate set of instructions had regard to observations to be made by Laperouse upon the political conditions, possibilities of commerce, and suitability for settlement, of the lands visited by him. In the Pacific, he was to inquire "whether the cattle, fowls, and other animals which Captain Cook left on some of the islands have bred." He was to examine attentively "the north and west coasts of New Holland, and particularly that part of the coast which, being situated in the torrid zone, may enjoy some of the productions peculiar to countries in similar latitudes." In New Zealand he was to ascertain "whether the English have formed or entertain the project of forming any settlement on these islands; and if he should hear that they have actually formed a settlement, he will endeavour to repair thither in order to learn the condition, strength and object of the settlement." It is singular that the instructions contain no reference to Botany Bay. It was the visit paid by Laperouse to this port that brought him into touch with Australian history. Yet his call there was made purely in the exercise of his discretion. He was not directed to pay any attention to eastern Australia. When he sailed the French Government knew nothing of the contemplated settlement of New South Wales by the British; and he only heard of it in the course of his voyage. Indeed, it is amazing how little was known of Australia at the time. "We have nothing authentic or sufficiently minute respecting this part of the largest island on the globe," said the instructions concerning the northern and western coasts; but there was not a word about the eastern shores. The reader who reflects upon the facts set forth in this chapter will realise that the French Revolution, surprising as the statement may seem, affected Australian history in a remarkable way. If Louis XVI had not been dethroned and beheaded, but had remained King of France, there cannot be any doubt that he would have persisted in the investigation of the South Seas. He was deeply interested in the subject, very well informed about it, and ambitious that his country should be a great maritime and colonising Power. But the Revolution slew Louis, plunged France in long and disastrous wars, and brought Napoleon to the front. The whole course of history was diverted. It was as if a great river had been turned into a fresh channel. If the navigator of the French King had discovered southern Australia, and settlement had followed, it is not to be supposed that Great Britain would have opposed the plans of France; for Australia then was not the Australia that we know, and England had very little use even for the bit she secured. Unthinking people might suppose that the French Revolution meant very little to us. Indeed, unthinking people are very apt to suppose that we can go our own way without regarding what takes place elsewhere. They do not realise that the world is one, and that the policies of nations interact upon each other. In point of fact, the Revolution meant a great deal to Australia. This country is, indeed, an island far from Europe, but the threads of her history are entwined with those of European history in a very curious and often intricate fashion. The French Revolution and the era of Napoleon, if we understand their consequences, really concern us quite as much as, say, the gold discoveries and the accomplishment of Federation. Chapter V. THE EARLY PART OF THE VOYAGE. The expedition sailed from Brest rather sooner than had at first been contemplated, on August 1, 1785, and doubled Cape Horn in January of the following year. Some weeks were spent on the coast of Chili; and the remarks of Laperouse concerning the manners of the Spanish rulers of the country cover some of his most entertaining pages. He has an eye for the picturesque, a kindly feeling for all well-disposed people, a pleasant touch in describing customs, and shrewd judgment in estimating character. These qualities make him an agreeable writer of travels. They are fairly illustrated by the passages in which he describes the people of the city of Concepcion. Take his account of the ladies: "The dress of these ladies, extremely different from what we have been accustomed to see, consists of a plaited petticoat, tied considerably below the waist; stockings striped red, blue and white; and shoes so short that the toes are bent under the ball of the foot so as to make it appear nearly round. Their hair is without powder and is divided into small braids behind, hanging over the shoulders. Their bodice is generally of gold or silver stuff, over which there are two short cloaks, that underneath of muslin and the other of wool of different colours, blue, yellow and pink. The upper one is drawn over the head when they are in the streets and the weather is cold; but within doors it is usual to place it on their knees; and there is a game played with the muslin cloak by continually shifting it about, in which the ladies of Concepcion display considerable grace. They are for the most part handsome, and of so polite and pleasing manners that there is certainly no maritime town in Europe where strangers are received with so much attention and kindness." At this city Laperouse met the adventurous Irishman, Ambrose O'Higgins, who by reason of his conspicuous military abilities became commander of the Spanish forces in Chili, and afterwards Viceroy of Peru. His name originally was simply Higgins, but he prefixed the "O" when he blossomed into a Spanish Don, "as being more aristocratic." He was the father of the still more famous Bernardo O'Higgins, "the Washington of Chili," who led the revolt against Spanish rule and became first president of the Chilian Republic in 1818. Laperouse at once conceived an attachment for O'Higgins, "a man of extraordinary activity," and one "adored in the country." In April, 1786, the expedition was at Easter Island, where the inhabitants appeared to be a set of cunning and hypocritical thieves, who "robbed us of everything which it was possible for them to carry off." Steering north, the Sandwich Islands were reached early in May. Here Laperouse liked the people, "though my prejudices were strong against them on account of the death of Captain Cook." A passage in the commander's narrative gives his opinion on the annexation of the countries of native races by Europeans, and shows that, in common with very many of his countrymen, he was much influenced by the ideas of Rousseau, then an intellectual force in France-- "Though the French were the first who, in modern times, had landed on the island of Mowee, I did not think it my duty to take possession in the name of the King. The customs of Europeans on such occasions are completely ridiculous. Philosophers must lament to see that men, for no better reason than because they are in possession of firearms and bayonets, should have no regard for the rights of sixty thousand of their fellow creatures, and should consider as an object of conquest a land fertilised by the painful exertions of its inhabitants, and for many ages the tomb of their ancestors. These islands have fortunately been discovered at a period when religion no longer serves as a pretext for violence and rapine. Modern navigators have no other object in describing the manners of remote nations than that of completing the history of man; and the knowledge they endeavour to diffuse has for its sole aim to render the people they visit more happy, and to augment their means of subsistence." If Laperouse could see the map of the Pacific to-day he would find its groups of islands all enclosed within coloured rings, indicating possession by the great Powers of the world. He would be puzzled and pained by the change. But the history of the political movements leading to the parcelling out of seas and lands among strong States would interest him, and he would realise that the day of feeble isolation has gone. Nothing would make him marvel more than the floating of the Stars and Stripes over Hawaii, for he knew that flag during the American War of Independence. It was adopted as the flag of the United States in 1777, and during the campaign the golden lilies of the standard of France fluttered from many masts in co-operation with it. Truly a century and a quarter has brought about a wonderful change, not only in the face of the globe and in the management of its affairs, but still more radically in the ideas of men and in the motives that sway their activities! The geographical work done by Laperouse in this part of the Pacific was of much importance. It removed from the chart five or six islands which had no existence, having been marked down erroneously by previous navigators. From this region the expedition sailed to Alaska, on the north-west coast of North America. Cook had explored here "with that courage and perseverance of which all Europe knows him to have been capable," wrote Laperouse, never failing to use an opportunity of expressing admiration for his illustrious predecessor. But there was still useful work to do, and the French occupied their time very profitably with it from June to August. Then their ships sailed down the western coast of America to California, struck east across the Pacific to the Ladrones, and made for Macao in China--then as now a Portugese possession--reaching that port in January, 1787. The Philippines were next visited, and Laperouse formed pleasant impressions of Manilla. It is clear from his way of alluding to the customs of the Spanish inhabitants that the French captain was not a tobacco smoker. It was surprising to him that "their passion for smoking this narcotic is so immoderate that there is not an instant of the day in which either a man or woman is without a cigar;" and it is equally surprising to us that the French editor of the history of the voyage found it necessary to explain in a footnote that a cigar is "a small roll of tobacco which is smoked without the assistance of a pipe." But cigars were then little known in Europe, except among sailors and travellers who had visited the Spanish colonies; and the very spelling of the word was not fixed. In English voyages it appears as "seegar," "segar," and "sagar." Formosa was visited in April, northern Japan in May, and the investigation of the north-eastern coasts of Asia occupied until October. A passage in a letter from Laperouse to Fleurieu is worth quoting for two reasons. It throws some light on the difficulties of navigation in unknown seas, and upon the commander's severe application to duty; and it also serves to remind us that Japan, now so potent a factor in the politics of the East and of the whole Pacific, had not then emerged from the barbarian exclusiveness towards foreigners, which she had maintained since Europe commenced to exploit Asia. In the middle of the seventeenth century she had expelled the Spaniards and the Portugese with much bloodshed, and had closed her ports to all traders except the Chinese and the Dutch, who were confined to a prescribed area at Nagasaki. Intercourse with all other foreign peoples was strictly forbidden. Even as late as 1842 it was commanded that if any foreign vessel were driven by distress or tempestuous weather into a Japanese port, she might only remain so long as was necessary to meet her wants, and must then depart. Laperouse knew of this jealous Japanese antipathy to foreign visitors, and, as he explains in the letter, meant to keep away from the country because of it. He wrote:-- "The part of our voyage between Manilla and Kamchatka will afford you, I hope, complete satisfaction. It was the newest, the most interesting, and certainly, from the everlasting fogs which enveloped the land in the latitudes we traversed, the most difficult. These fogs are such that it has taken one hundred and fifty days to explore a part of the coast which Captain King, in the third volume of Cook's last voyage, supposes might be examined in the course of two months. During this period I rested only ten days, three in the Bay of Ternai, two in the Bay de Langle, and five in the Bay de Castries. Thus I wasted no time; I even forebore to circumnavigate the island of Chicha (Yezo) by traversing the Strait of Sangaar (Tsugaru). I should have wished to anchor, if possible, at the northern point of Japan, and would perhaps have ventured to send a boat ashore, though such a proceeding would have required the most serious deliberation, as the boat would probably have been stopped. Where a merchant ship is concerned an event of this kind might be considered as of little importance, but the seizure of a boat belonging to a ship of war could scarcely be otherwise regarded than as a national insult; and the taking and burning of a few sampans would be a very sorry compensation as against the people who would not exchange a single European of whom they were desirous of making an example, for one hundred Japanese. I was, however, too far from the coast to include such an intention, and it is impossible for me to judge at present what I should have done had the contrary been the case. "It would be difficult for me to find words to express to you the fatigue attending this part of my voyage, during which I did not once undress myself, nor did a single night pass without my being obliged to spend several hours upon deck. Imagine to yourself six days of fog with only two or three hours of clear weather, in seas extremely confined, absolutely unknown, and where fancy, in consequence of the information we had received, pictured to us shoals and currents that did not always exist. From the place where we made the land on the eastern coast of Tartary, to the strait which we discovered between Tchoka (Saghalien) and Chicha, we did not fail to take the bearing of every point, and you may rest assured that neither creek, port, nor river escaped our attention, and that many charts, even of the coasts of Europe, are less exact than those which we shall bring with us on our return." "The strait which we discovered" is still called Laperouse Strait on most modern maps, though the Japanese usually call it Soya Strait. It runs between Yezo, the large northerly island of Japan, and Saghalien. Current maps also show the name Boussole Strait, after Laperouse's ship, between Urup and Simusir, two of the Kurile chain of small islands curving from Yezo to the thumblike extremity of Kamchatka. At Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka the drawings of the artists and the journals of the commander up to date were packed up, and sent to France overland across Asiatic Russia, in charge of a young member of the staff, J. B. B. de Lesseps. He was the only one of the expedition who ever returned to Europe. By not coming to Australia he saved his life. He published a book about his journey, a remarkable feat of land travel in those days. He was the uncle of a man whose remarkable engineering work has made Australia's relations with Europe much easier and more speedy than they were in earlier years: that Ferdinand de Lesseps who (1859-69) planned and carried out the construction of the Suez Canal. The ships, after replenishing, sailed for the south Pacific, where we shall follow the proceedings of Laperouse in rather closer detail than has been considered necessary in regard to the American and Asiatic phases of the voyage. Chapter VI. LAPEROUSE IN THE PACIFIC. On the 6th December, 1787, the expedition made the eastern end of the Navigator Islands, that is, the Samoan Group. As the ships approached, a party of natives were observed squatting under cocoanut trees. Presently sixteen canoes put off from the land, and their occupants, after paddling round the vessels distrustfully, ventured to approach and proffer cocoanuts in exchange for strings of beads and strips of red cloth. The natives got the better of the bargain, for, when they had received their price, they hurried off without delivering their own goods. Further on, an old chief delivered an harangue from the shore, holding a branch of Kava in his hand. "We knew from what we had read of several voyages that it was a token of peace; and throwing him some pieces of cloth we answered by the word 'TAYO,' which signified 'friend' in the dialect of the South Sea Islands; but we were not sufficiently experienced to understand and pronounce distinctly the words of the vocabularies we had extracted from Cook." Nearly all the early navigators made a feature of compiling vocabularies of native words, and Cook devoted particular care to this task. Dr. Walter Roth, formerly protector of Queensland aboriginals a trained observer, has borne testimony as recently as last year (in THE TIMES, December 29, 1911) that a list of words collected from Endeavour Strait blacks, and "given by Captain Cook, are all more or less recognisable at the present day." But Cook's spellings were intended to be pronounced in the English mode. Laperouse and his companions by giving the vowels French values would hardly be likely to make the English navigator's vocabularies intelligible. The native canoes amused the French captain. They "could be of use only to people who are expert swimmers, for they are constantly turned over. This is an accident, however, at which they feel less surprise and anxiety than we should at a hat's blowing off. They lift the canoe on their shoulders, and after they have emptied it of the water, get into it again, well assured that they will have the same operation to perform within half an hour, for it is as difficult to preserve a balance in these ticklish things as to dance upon a rope." At Mauna Island (now called Tutuila) some successful bargaining was done with glass beads in exchange for pork and fruits. It surprised Laperouse that the natives chose these paltry ornaments rather than hatchets and tools. "They preferred a few beads which could be of no utility, to anything we could offer them in iron or cloth." Two days later a tragedy occurred at this island, when Captain de Langle, the commander of the ASTROLABE, and eleven of the crew were murdered. He made an excursion inland to look for fresh water, and found a clear, cool spring in the vicinity of a village. The ships were not urgently in need of water, but de Langle "had embraced the system of Cook, and thought fresh water a hundred times preferable to what had been some time in the hold. As some of his crew had slight symptoms of scurvy, he thought, with justice, that we owed them every means of alleviation in our power. Besides, no island could be compared with this for abundance of provisions. The two ships had already procured upwards of 500 hogs, with a large quantity of fowls, pigeons and fruits; and all these had cost us only a few beads." Laperouse himself doubted the prudence of sending a party inland, as he had observed signs of a turbulent spirit among the islanders. But de Langle insisted on the desirableness of obtaining fresh water where it was abundant, and "replied to me that my refusal would render me responsible for the progress of the scurvy, which began to appear with some violence." He undertook to go at the head of the party, and, relying on his judgment, the commander consented. Two boats left the ship at about noon, and landed their casks undisturbed. But when the party returned they found a crowd of over a thousand natives assembled, and a dangerous disposition soon revealed itself amongst them. It is possible that the Frenchmen had, unconsciously, offended against some of their superstitious rites. Certainly they had not knowingly been provoked. They had peacefully bartered their fruits and nuts for beads, and had been treated in a friendly fashion throughout. But the currents of passion that sweep through the minds of savage peoples baffle analysis. Something had disturbed them; what it was can hardly be surmised. One of the officers believed that the gift of some beads to a few, excited the envy of the others. It may be so; mere envy plays such a large part in the affairs even of civilised peoples, that we need not wonder to find it arousing the anger of savages. Laperouse tells what occurred in these terms:-- "Several canoes, after having sold their ladings of provisions on board our ships, had returned ashore, and all landed in this bay, so that it was gradually filled. Instead of two hundred persons, including women and children, whom M. de Langle found when he arrived at half past one, there were ten or twelve hundred by three o'clock. He succeeded in embarking his water; but the bay was by this time nearly dry, and he could not hope to get his boats afloat before four o'clock, when the tide would have risen. He stepped into them, however, with his detachment, and posted himself in the bow, with his musket and his marines, forbidding them to fire unless he gave orders. "This, he began to realise, he would soon be forced to do. Stones flew about, and the natives, only up to the knees in water, surrounded the boats within less than three yards. The marines who were in the boats, attempted in vain to keep them off. If the fear of commencing hostilities and being accused of barbarity had not checked M. de Langle, he would unquestionably have ordered a general discharge of his swivels and musketry, which no doubt would have dispersed the mob, but he flattered himself that he could check them without shedding blood, and he fell a victim to his humanity. "Presently a shower of stones thrown from a short distance with as much force as if they had come from a sling, struck almost every man in the boat. M. de Langle had only time to discharge the two barrels of his piece before he was knocked down; and unfortunately he fell over the larboard bow of the boat, where upwards of two hundred natives instantly massacred him with clubs and stones. When he was dead, they made him fast by the arm to one of the tholes of the long boat, no doubt to secure his spoil. The BOUSSOLE'S long-boat, commanded by M. Boutin, was aground within four yards of the ASTROLABE'S, and parallel with her, so as to leave a little channel between them, which was unoccupied by the natives. Through this all the wounded men, who were so fortunate as not to fall on the other side of the boats, escaped by swimming to the barges, which, happily remaining afloat, were enabled to save forty-nine men out of the sixty-one." Amongst the wounded was Pere Receveur, priest, naturalist and shoemaker, who later on died of his injuries at Botany Bay, and whose tomb there is as familiar as the Laperouse monument. The anger of the Frenchmen at the treachery of the islanders was not less than their grief at the loss of their companions. Laperouse, on the first impulse, was inclined to send a strongly-armed party ashore to avenge the massacre. But two of the officers who had escaped pointed out that in the cove where the incident occurred the trees came down almost to the sea, affording shelter to the natives, who would be able to shower stones upon the party, whilst themselves remaining beyond reach of musket balls. "It was not without difficulty," he wrote, "that I could tear myself away from this fatal place, and leave behind the bodies of our murdered companions. I had lost an old friend; a man of great understanding, judgment, and knowledge; and one of the best officers in the French navy. His humanity had occasioned his death. Had he but allowed himself to fire on the first natives who entered into the water to surround the boats, he would have prevented his own death as well as those of eleven other victims of savage ferocity. Twenty persons more were severely wounded; and this event deprived us for the time of thirty men, and the only two boats we had large enough to carry a sufficient number of men, armed, to attempt a descent. These considerations determined my subsequent conduct. The slightest loss would have compelled me to burn one of my ships in order to man the other. If my anger had required only the death of a few natives, I had had an opportunity after the massacre of sinking and destroying a hundred canoes containing upwards of five hundred persons, but I was afraid of being mistaken in my victims, and the voice of my conscience saved their lives." It was then that Laperouse resolved to sail to Botany Bay, of which he had read a description in Cook's Voyages. His long-boats had been destroyed by the natives, but he had on board the frames of two new ones, and a safe anchorage was required where they could be put together. His crews were exasperated; and lest there should be a collision between them and other natives he resolved that, while reconnoitring other groups of islands to determine their correct latitude, he would not permit his sailors to land till he reached Botany Bay. There he knew that he could obtain wood and water. On December 14 Oyolava (now called Upolu) was reached. Here again the ships were surrounded by canoes, and the angry French sailors would have fired upon them except for the positive orders of their commander. Throughout this unfortunate affair the strict sense of justice, which forbade taking general vengeance for the misdeeds of particular people, stands out strongly in the conduct of Laperouse. He acknowledged in letters written from Botany Bay, that in future relations with uncivilised folk he would adopt more repressive measures, as experience taught him that lack of firm handling was by them regarded as weakness. But his tone in all his writings is humane and kindly. The speculations of Laperouse concerning the origin of these peoples, are interesting, and deserve consideration by those who speak and write upon the South Seas. He was convinced that they are all derived from an ancient common stock, and that the race of woolly-haired men to be found in the interior of Formosa were the far-off parents of the natives of the Philippines, Papua, New Britain, the New Hebrides, the Friendly Islands, the Carolines, Ladrones, and Sandwich Groups. He believed that in those islands the interior of which did not afford complete shelter the original inhabitants were conquered by Malays, after which aboriginals and invaders mingled together, producing modifications of the original types. But in Papua, the Solomons and the New Hebrides, the Malays made little impression. He accounted for differences in appearance amongst the people of the islands he visited by the different degrees of Malay intermixture, and believed that the very black people found on some islands, "whose complexion still remains a few shades deeper than that of certain families in the same islands" were to be accounted for by certain families making it "a point of honour not to contaminate their blood." The theory is at all events striking. We have a "White Australia policy" on the mainland to-day; this speculation assumes a kind of "Black Australasia policy" on the part of certain families of islanders from time immemorial. The Friendly Islands were reached in December, but the commander had few and unimportant relations with them. On the 13th January, 1788, the ships made for Norfolk Island, and came to anchor opposite the place where Cook was believed to have landed. The sea was running high at the time, breaking violently on the rocky shores of the north east. The naturalists desired to land to collect specimens, but the heavy breakers prevented them. The commander permitted them to coast along the shore in boats for about half a league but then recalled them. "Had it been possible to land, there was no way of getting into the interior part of the island but by ascending for thirty or forty yards the rapid stream of some torrents, which had formed gullies. Beyond these natural barriers the island was covered with pines and carpeted with the most beautiful verdure. It is probable that we should then have met with some culinary vegetables, and this hope increased our desire of visiting a land where Captain Cook had landed with the greatest facility. He, it is true, was here in fine weather, that had continued for several days; whilst we had been sailing in such heavy seas that for eight day, our ports had been shut and our dead-lights in. From the ship I watched the motions of the boats with my glass; and seeing, as night approached, that they had found no convenient place for landing, I made the signal to recall them, and soon after gave orders for getting under way. Perhaps I should have lost much time had I waited for a more favourable opportunity: and the exploring of this island was not worth such a sacrifice." At eight in the evening the ships got under way, and at day-break on the following morning sail was crowded for Botany Bay. Chapter VII. AT BOTANY BAY. When, in 1787, the British Government entrusted Captain Arthur Phillip with a commission to establish a colony at Botany Bay, New South Wales, they gave him explicit directions as to where he should locate the settlement. "According to the best information which we have obtained," his instructions read, "Botany Bay appears to be the most eligible situation upon the said coast for the first establishment, possessing a commodious harbour and other advantages which no part of the said coast hitherto discovered affords." But Phillip was a trustworthy man who, in so serious a matter as the choice of a site for a town, did not follow blindly the commands of respectable elderly gentlemen thousands of miles away. It was his business to found a settlement successfully. To do that he must select the best site. After examining Botany Bay, he decided to take a trip up the coast and see if a better situation could not be found. On the 21st January, 1788, he entered Port Jackson with three boats, and found there "the finest harbour in the world, in which a thousand sail of the line may ride in the most perfect security." He fixed upon a cove "which I honoured with the name of Sydney." and decided that that was there he would "plant." Every writer of mediaeval history who has had occasion to refer to the choice by Constantine the Great of Byzantium, afterwards Constantinople, as his capital, has extolled his judgment and prescience. Constantine was an Emperor, and could do as he would. Arthur Phillip was an official acting under orders. We can never sufficiently admire the wisdom he displayed when, exercising his own discretion, he decided upon Port Jackson. True, he had a great opportunity, but his signal merit is that he grasped it when it was presented, that he gave more regard to the success of his task than to the letter of his instructions. While he was making the search, the eleven vessels composing the First Fleet lay in Botany Bay. He returned on the evening of the 23rd, and immediately gave orders that the whole company should as soon as possible sail for Port Jackson, declaring it to be, in King's quaint words, "a very proper place to form an establisht. in." To the great astonishment of the Fleet, on the 24th, two strange ships made their appearance to the south of Solander Point, a projection from the peninsula on which now stands the obelisk in memory of Cook's landing. What could they be? Some guessed that they were English vessels with additional stores. Some supposed that they were Dutch, "coming after us to oppose our landing." Nobody expected to see any ships in these untraversed waters, and we can easily picture the amazement of officers, crews, and convicts when the white sails appeared. The more timid speculated on the possibility of attack, and there were "temporary apprehensions, accompanied by a multiplicity of conjectures, many of them sufficiently ridiculous." Phillip, however, remembered hearing that the French had an expedition of discovery either in progress or contemplation. He was the first to form a right opinion about them, but, wishing to be certain, sent the SUPPLY out of the bay to get a nearer view and hoist the British colours. Lieutenant Ball, in command of that brig, after reconnoitring, reported that the ships were certainly not English. They were either French, Spanish or Portuguese. He could distinctly see the white field of the flag they flew, "but they were at too great a distance to discover if there was anything else on it." The flag, of course, showed the golden lilies of France on a white ground. One of the ships, King records, "wore a CHEF D'ESCADRE'S pennant," that is, a commodore's. This information satisfied Phillip, who was anxious to lose no time in getting his people ashore at Sydney Cove. He, therefore, determined to sail in the SUPPLY on the 25th, to make preliminary arrangements, leaving Captain Hunter of the SIRIUS to convoy the Fleet round as soon as possible. The wind, just then, was blowing too strong for them to work out of the Bay. Meanwhile, Laperouse, with the BOUSSOLE and the ASTROLABE, was meeting with heavy weather in his attempt to double Point Solander. The wind blew hard from that quarter, and his ships were too heavy sailers to force their passage against wind and current combined. The whole of the 24th was spent in full sight of Botany Bay, which they could not enter. But their hearts were cheered by the spectacle of the pennants and ensigns on the eleven British vessels, plainly seen at intervals within, and the prospect of meeting Europeans again made them impatient to fetch their anchorage. The SIRIUS was just about to sail when the French vessels entered the Bay at nine in the morning of January 26, but Captain Hunter courteously sent over a lieutenant and midshipman, with his compliments and offers of such assistance as it was in his power to give. "I despatched an officer," records Laperouse, "to return my thanks to Captain Hunter, who by this time had his anchor a-peak and his topsails hoisted, telling him that my wants were confined to wood and water, of which we could not fail in this Bay; and I was sensible that vessels intended to settle a colony at such a distance from Europe could not be of any assistance to navigators." The English lieutenant, according to Laperouse, "appeared to make a great mystery of Commodore Phillip's plan, and we did not take the liberty of putting any questions to him on the subject." It was not the business of a junior officer to give unauthorised information, but perhaps his manner made a greater mystery of the Governor's plans than the circumstances required. It was at Kamchatka that the French had learnt that the British were establishing a settlement in New South Wales; but Laperouse, when he arrived at Botany Bay, had no definite idea as to the progress they had made. According to Lieutenant-Colonel Paterson, he expected to find a town built and a market established. Instead of that he found the first colonists abandoning the site where it was originally intended that they should settle, and preparing to fix their abode at another spot. But after he had seen something of Botany Bay he expressed himself as "convinced of the propriety and absolute necessity of the measure." The later relations between the English and French were of the most pleasant kind. It does not appear from the writings of those who have left records that Phillip and Laperouse ever met, or that the latter ever saw the beginnings of Sydney. His ships certainly never entered Port Jackson. But we learn from Captain Tench that "during their stay in the port" (i.e. in Botany Bay) "the officers of the two nations had frequent opportunities of testifying their mutual regard by visits and other interchanges of friendship and esteem;" and Laperouse gratified the English especially "by the feeling manner in which he always mentioned the name and talents of Captain Cook." Not only in what he wrote with an eye to publication, but in his private correspondence, Laperouse expressed his gratification at the friendly relations established. He spoke of "frequent intercourse" with the English, and said that "to the most polite attentions they have added every offer of service in their power; and it was not without regret that we saw them depart, almost immediately upon our arrival, for Port Jackson, fifteen miles to the northward of this place. Commodore Phillip had good reason to prefer that port, and he has left us sole masters of this bay, where our long-boats are already on the stocks." The fullest account is given in the journal of Lieutenant King, afterwards (1800-6) Governor of New South Wales. On February 1 Phillip sent him in a cutter, in company with Lieutenant Dawes of the Marines, to visit Laperouse, "and to offer him whatever he might have occasion for." King relates that they were "received with the greatest politeness and attention by Monsieur de Laperouse and his officers." He accepted an invitation to remain during the day with the French, to dine with the Commodore, and to return to Port Jackson next morning. The complete history of the voyage was narrated to him, including of course the tragic story of the massacre of de Langle and his companions. After dinner on the BOUSSOLE, King was taken ashore, where he found the French "quite established, having thrown round their tents a stockade, guarded by two small guns." This defence was needed to protect the frames of the two new longboats, which were being put together, from the natives; and also, it would appear, from a few escaped convicts, "whom he had dismissed with threats, giving them a day's provision to carry them back to ye settlement." Laperouse himself, in his history--in the very last words of it, in fact--complains that "we had but too frequent opportunities of hearing news of the English settlement, the deserters from which gave us a great deal of trouble and embarrassment." We learn from King a little about the Pere Receveur--a very little, truly, but sufficient to make us wish to know more. From the circumstance that his quarters were on the ASTROLABE, and that, therefore, he was not brought very much under the notice of Laperouse, we read scarcely anything about him in the commander's book. Once during the voyage some acids used by him for scientific purposes ignited, and set fire to the ship, but the danger was quickly suppressed. This incident, and that of the wounding of Receveur at Manua, are nearly all we are told about him from the commander. But he struck King as being "a man of letters and genius." He was a collector of natural curiosities, having under his care "a great number of philosophical instruments." King's few lines, giving the impression derived from a necessarily brief conversation, seem to bring the Abbe before us in a flash. "A man of letters and genius": how gladly we would know more of one of whom those words could be written! Receveur died shortly before Laperouse sailed away, and was buried at the foot of a tree, to which were nailed a couple of boards bearing an inscription. Governor Phillip, when the boards fell down, had the inscription engraved on a copper plate. The tomb, which is now so prominent an object at Botany Bay, was erected by the Baron de Bougainville in 1825. The memorials to the celebrated navigator and the simple scholar stand together. King, in common with Tench, records the admiring way in which Laperouse spoke of Cook. He "informed me that every place where he has touched or been near, he found all the astronomical and nautical works of Captain Cook to be very exact and true, and concluded by saying, 'Enfin, Monsieur Cook a tant fait qu'il ne m'a rien laisse a faire que d' admirer ses oeuvres.'" (In short, Mr. Cook has done so much that he has left me nothing to do but to admire his works). There is very little more to tell about those few weeks spent at Botany Bay before the navigator and his companions "vanished trackless into blue immensity," as Carlyle puts it. A fragment of conversation is preserved by Tench. A musket was fired one day, and the natives marvelled less at the noise than at the fact that the bullet made a hole in a piece of bark at which it was aimed. To calm them, "an officer whistled the air of 'Malbrook,' which they appeared highly charmed with, and greeted him with equal pleasure and readiness. I may remark here," adds the Captain of Marines, "what I was afterwards told by Monsieur de Perousse" (so he mis-spells the name) "that the natives of California, as throughout all the isles of the Pacific Ocean, and in short wherever he had been, seemed equally touched and delighted with this little plaintive air." It is gratifying to be able to record Captain Tench's high opinion of the efficacy of the tune, which is popularly known nowadays as "We won't go home till morning." One has often heard of telling things "to the Marines." This gallant officer, doubtless, used to whistle them, to a "little plaintive air." It was the practice of Laperouse to sow seeds at places visited by his ships, with the object of experimenting with useful European plants that might be cultivated in other parts of the world. His own letters and journal do not show that he did so at Botany Bay; but we have other evidence that he did, and that the signs of cultivation had not vanished at least ten years later. When George Bass was returning to Sydney in February, 1798, at the end of that wonderful cruise in a whaleboat which had led to the discovery of Westernport, he was becalmed off Botany Bay. He was disposed to enter and remain there for the night, but his journal records that his people--the six picked British sailors who were the companions of his enterprise--"seemed inclined to push for home rather than go up to the Frenchman's Garden." Therefore, the wind failing, they took to the oars and rowed to Port Jackson, reaching home at ten o'clock at night. That is a very interesting allusion. The Frenchman's Garden must have been somewhere within the enclosed area where the Cable Station now stands, and it would be well if so pleasant a name, and one so full of historical suggestion, were still applied to that reserve. It may be well to quote in full the passage in which Laperouse relates his experience of Botany Bay. He was not able to write his journal up to the date of his departure before despatching it to Europe, but the final paragraphs in it sufficiently describe what occurred, and what he thought. Very loose and foolish statements have occasionally been published as to his object in visiting the port. In one of the geographical journals a few years ago the author saw it stated that there was "a race for a Continent" between the English and the French, in which the former won by less than a week! Nonsense of that sort, even though it appears in sober publications, issued with a scientific purpose, can emanate only from those who have no real acquaintance with the subject. There was no race, no struggle for priority, no thought of territorial acquisition on the part of the French. The reader of this little book knows by this time that the visit to Botany Bay was not originally contemplated. It was not in the programme. What would have happened if Laperouse had safely returned home, and if the French Revolution had not destroyed Louis XVI and blown his exploration and colonisation schemes into thin air, is quite another question; but "ifs" are not history. You can entirely reconstruct the history of the human race by using enough "ifs," but with that sort of thing, which an ironist has termed "Iftory," and is often more amusing than enlightening, more speculative than sound, we have at present nothing to do. Here is the version of the visit given by Laperouse himself:-- "We made the land on the 23rd January. It has little elevation, and is scarcely possible to be seen at a greater distance than twelve leagues. The wind then became very variable; and, like Captain Cook, we met with currents, which carried us every day fifteen minutes south of our reckoning; so that we spent the whole of the 24th in plying in sight of Botany Bay, without being able to double Point Solander, which bore from us a league north. The wind blew strong from that quarter, and our ships were too heavy sailers to surmount the force of the wind and the currents combined; but that day we had a spectacle to which we had been altogether unaccustomed since our departure from Manilla. This was a British squadron, at anchor in Botany Bay, the pennants and ensigns of which we could plainly distinguish. All Europeans are countrymen at such a distance from home, and we had the most eager impatience to fetch the anchorage; but the next day the weather was so foggy that it was impossible to discern the land, and we did not get in till the 26th, at nine in the morning, when we let go our anchor a mile from the north shore, in seven fathoms of water, on a good bottom of grey sand, abreast of the second bay. "The moment I made my appearance in the entrance of the Bay, a lieutenant and midshipman were sent aboard my vessel by Captain Hunter, commanding the British frigate SIRIUS. They offered from him all the services in his power; adding, however, that, as he was just getting under way to proceed to the northward, circumstances would not allow him to furnish us with provision, ammunition or sails; so that his offers of service were reduced to good wishes for the future success of our voyage. "I despatched an officer to return my thanks to Captain Hunter, who by this time had his anchor a-peak, and his topsails hoisted; telling him that my wants were confined to wood and water, of which we could not fail in this Bay; and I was sensible that vessels intended to settle a colony at such a distance from Europe, could not be of any assistance to navigators. "From the lieutenant we learnt that the English squadron was commanded by Commodore Phillip, who had sailed from Botany Bay the previous evening in the SUPPLY, sloop, with four transports, in search of a more commodious place for a settlement further north. The lieutenant appeared to make a great mystery of Commodore Phillip's plan, and we did not take the liberty of putting any questions to him on the subject; but we had no doubt that the intended settlement must be very near Botany Bay, since several boats were under sail for the place, and the passage certainly must be very short, as it was thought unnecessary to hoist them on board. The crew of the English boat, less discreet than their officer, soon informed our people that they were only going to Port Jackson, sixteen miles north of Point Banks, where Commander Phillip had himself reconnoitred a very good harbour, which ran ten miles into the land, to the south-west, and in which the ships might anchor within pistol-shot of the shore, in water as smooth as that of a basin. We had, afterwards, but too frequent opportunities of hearing news of the English settlement, the deserters from which gave us a great deal of trouble and embarrassment." Pieced together thus is nearly all we know about Laperouse during his visit to Botany Bay. It is not much. We would gladly have many more details. What has become of the letter he wrote to Phillip recommending (according to King) the Pacific Islands as worthy of the attention of the new colony, "for the great quantity of stock with which they abound"? Apparently it is lost. The grave and the deep have swallowed up the rest of this "strange eventful history," and we interrogate in vain. We should know even less than we do were it not that Laperouse obtained from Phillip permission to send home, by the next British ship leaving Port Jackson, his journal, some charts, and the drawings of his artists. This material, added to private letters and a few miscellaneous papers, was placed in charge of Lieutenant Shortland to be delivered to the French Ambassador in London, and formed part of the substance of the two volumes and atlas published in Paris. * * * * * It may be well to cite, as a note to this chapter, the books in which contemporary accounts of the visit of Laperouse and his ships to Botany Bay are to be found. Some readers may thereby be tempted to look into the original authorities. Laperouse's own narrative is contained in the third and fourth volumes of his "Voyage autour du Monde," edited by Milet-Mureau (Paris, 1797). There are English translations. A few letters at the end of the work give a little additional information. Governor Phillip's "Voyage to Botany Bay" (London, 1789) contains a good but brief account. Phillip's despatch to the Secretary of State, Lord Sydney, printed in the "Historical Records of New South Wales," Vol. I., part 2, p. 121, devotes a paragraph to the subject. King's Journal in Vol. II. of the "Records," p. 543-7, gives his story. Surgeon Bowes' Journal, on page 391 of the same volume, contains a rather picturesque allusion. Hunter's "Voyage to Botany Bay" (London, 1793) substantially repeats King's version. Captain Watkin Tench, of the Marines, has a good account in his "Narrative of an Expedition to Botany Bay" (London, 1789), and Paterson's "History of New South Wales" (Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1811) makes an allusion to the French expedition. Chapter VIII. THE MYSTERY, AND THE SECRET OF THE SEA. The BOUSSOLE and the ASTROLABE sailed from Botany Bay on March 10, 1788. After recording that fact we might well inscribe the pathetic last words of Hamlet, "the rest is silence." We know what Laperouse intended to do. He wrote two letters to friends in France, explaining the programme to be followed after sailing from Botany Bay. They do not agree in every particular, but we may take the last letter written to express his final determination. According to this, his plan was to sail north, passing between Papua ( New Guinea) and Australia by another channel than Endeavour Strait, if he could find one. During September and October he intended to visit the Gulf of Carpentaria, and thence sail down the west and along the south of Australia, to Tasmania, "but in such a manner that it may be possible for me to stretch northward in time to arrive at Ile-de-France in the beginning of December, 1788." That was the programme which he was not destined to complete--hardly, indeed, to enter upon. Had he succeeded, his name would have been inscribed amongst the memorable company of the world's great maritime explorers. As it is, the glint on his brow, as he stands in the light of history, is less that of achievement than of high promise, noble aims, romance and mystery. One of the letters sent from Sydney concluded with these words: "Adieu! I shall depart in good health, as are all my ship's company. We would undertake six voyages round the world if it could afford to our country either profit or pleasure." They were not the last words he wrote, but we may appropriately take them as being, not merely his adieu to a friend, but to the world. Time sped on; the date given for the arrival at Ile-de-France was passed; the year 1789 dawned and ticked off the tally of its days. But nothing was heard of Laperouse. People in France grew anxious, one especially we may be sure--she who knew so well where the ships would anchor in Port Louis if they emerged out of the ocean brume, and who longed so ardently that renewed acquaintance with scenes once sweetly familiar would awaken memories meet to give wings to speed and spurs to delay. Not a word came to sustain or cheer, and the faint flush of hope faded to the wan hue of despair on the cheek of love. By 1791 all expectation of seeing the expedition return was abandoned. But could not some news of its fate be ascertained? Had it faded out of being like a summer cloud, leaving not a trace behind? Might not some inkling be had, some small relics obtained, some whisper caught, in those distant isles, "Where the sea egg flames on the coral, and the long-backed breakers croon Their endless ocean legend to the lazy, locked lagoon." France was then in the throes of her great social earthquake; but it stands to the credit of the National Assembly that, amidst many turbulent projects and boiling passions, they found time and had the disposition to cause the fitting out of a new expedition to search for tidings of those whose disappearance weighed heavily on the heart of the nation. The decree was passed on February 9, 1791. Two ships, the RECHERCHE and the ESPERANCE, were selected and placed under the command of Dentrecasteaux. He had already had some experience in a part of the region to be searched, had been a governor of Ile-de-France, and during a South Sea voyage had named the cluster of islands east of Papua now called the D'Entrecasteaux Group. The second ship was placed under the command of Captain Huon Kermadec. The Huon River in Tasmania, and the Kermadec Islands, N.E. of New Zealand, are named after him. Fleurieu again drew up the instructions, and based them largely upon the letter from Laperouse quoted above, pointing out that remains of him would most probably be found in the neighbourhood of coasts which he had intended to explore. It was especially indicated that there was, south of New Holland, an immense stretch of coastline so far utterly unknown. "No navigator has penetrated in that part of the sea; the reconnaissances and discoveries of the Dutch, the English and the French commenced at the south of Van Diemen's Land." Thus, for the second time, was a French navigator directed to explore the southern coasts of Australia; and had Dentrecasteaux followed the plan laid down for him he would have forestalled the discoveries of Grant, Bass and Flinders, just as Laperouse would have done had his work not been cut short by disaster. It has to be remembered that the instructions impressed upon Dentrecasteaux that his business primarily was not geographical discovery, but to get news of his lost compatriots. But even so, is it not curious that the French should have been concerned with the exploration of Southern Australia before the English thought about it; that they should have had two shots at the task, planned with knowledge and care, officially directed, and in charge of eminently competent navigators; but that nevertheless their schemes should have gone awry? They made a third attempt by means of Baudin's expedition, during the Napoleonic Consulate, and again were unsuccessful, except in a very small measure. It almost seems as if some power behind human endeavours had intended these coasts for British finding--and keeping. The full story of Dentrecasteaux' expedition has not yet been told. Two thick books were written about it, but a mass of unpublished papers contain details that were judiciously kept out of those volumes. When the whole truth is made known, it will be seen that the bitter strife which plunged France in an agony of blood and tears was not confined to the land. The ships did not visit Sydney. Why not? It might have been expected that an expedition sent to discover traces of Laperouse would have been careful to make Botany Bay in the first instance, and, after collecting whatever evidence was available there, would have carefully followed the route that he had proposed to pursue. But it would seem that an European settlement was avoided. Why? The unpublished papers may furnish an answer to that question. Neither was the south coast of Australia explored. That great chance was missed. Some excellent charting--which ten years later commanded the cordial admiration of Flinders--was done by Beautemps-Beaupre, who was Dentrecasteaux' cartographer, especially round about the S.W. corner of the continent. Esperance Bay, in Western Australia, is named after one of the ships of this expedition. But from that corner, his ships being short of fresh water, Dentrecasteaux sailed on a direct line to Southern Tasmania, and thence to New Zealand, New Caledonia, and New Guinea. Touch with the only European centre in these parts was--apparently with deliberation--not obtained. Dentrecasteaux died while his ships were in the waters to the north of New Guinea. He fell violently ill, raving at first, then subsiding into unconsciousness, a death terrible to read about in the published narrative, where the full extent of his troubles is not revealed. Kermadec, commander of the ESPERANCE, also died at New Caledonia. After their decease the ships returned to France as rapidly as they could. They were detained by the Dutch at Sourabaya for several months, as prisoners of war, and did not reach Europe till March, 1796. Their mission had been abortive. Five French Captains who brought expeditions to Australia at this period all ended in misfortune. Laperouse was drowned; de Langle was murdered; Dentrecasteaux died miserably at sea; Kermadec, the fourth, had expired shortly before; and Baudin, the fifth, died at Port Louis on the homeward voyage. Nor is even that the last touch of melancholy to the tale of tragedy. There was a young poet who was touched by the fate of Laperouse. Andre Chenier is now recognised as one of the finest masters of song who have enriched French literature, and his poems are more and more studied and admired both by his own countrymen and abroad. He planned and partly finished a long poem, "L'Amerique," which contains a mournful passage about the mystery of the sea which had not then been solved. A translation of the lines will not be attempted here; they are mentioned because the poet himself had an end as tragic, though in a different mode, as that of the hero of whom he sang. He came under the displeasure of the tyrants of the Red Terror through his friends and his writings, and in March, 1794, the guillotine took this brilliant young genius as a victim. J'accuserai les vents et cette mer jalouse Qui retient, qui peut-etre a ravi Laperouse so the poem begins. How strangely the shadow of Tragedy hangs over this ill-starred expedition; Louis XVI the projector, Laperouse and de Langle the commanders, Dentrecasteaux and Kermadec the searchers, Andre Chenier the laureate: the breath of the black-robed Fury was upon them all! Chapter IX. CAPTAIN DILLON'S DISCOVERY. The navigators of all nations were fascinated by the mystery attaching to the fate of Laperouse. Every ship that sailed the Pacific hoped to obtain tidings or remains. From time to time rumours arose of the discovery of relics. One reported the sight of wreckage; another that islanders had been seen dressed in French uniforms; another that a cross of St. Louis had been found. But the element of probability in the various stories evaporated on investigation. Flinders, sailing north from Port Jackson in the INVESTIGATOR in 1802, kept a sharp lookout on the Barrier Reef, the possibility of finding some trace being "always present to my mind." But no definite news came. A new French voyage of exploration came down to the Pacific in 1817, under the command of Louis de Freycinet, who had been a lieutenant in Baudin's expedition in 1800-4. The purpose was not chiefly to look for evidence concerning Laperouse, though naturally a keen scrutiny was maintained with this object in view. An extremely queer fact may be mentioned in connection with this voyage. The URANIE carried a woman among the crew, the only one of her sex amidst one hundred men. Madame de Freycinet, the wife of the commandant, joined at Toulon, dressed as a ship's boy, and it was given out in the newspapers that her husband was very much surprised when he found that his wife had managed to get aboard in disguise. But Arago, one of the scientific staff, tells us in his Memoirs, published in 1837, that--as we can well believe--Freycinet knew perfectly who the "young and pretty" boy was, and had connived at her joining the ship as a lad, because she wanted to accompany her husband, and the authorities would have prevented her had they known. She continued to wear her boy's dress until after the ships visited Gibraltar, for Arago informs us that the solemn British Lieutenant-Governor there, when he saw her, broke into a smile, "the first perhaps that his features had worn for ten years." If that be true, the little lady surely did a little good by her saucy escapade. But official society regarded the lady in trousers with a frigid stare, so that henceforth she deemed it discreet to resume feminine garments. It does not appear that she passed for a boy when the expedition visited Sydney, and of course no hint of Madame's presence is given in the official history of the voyage. We now reach the stage when the veil was lifted and the mystery explained. In 1813 the East India Company's ship HUNTER, voyaging from Calcutta to Sydney, called at the Fiji Islands. They discovered that several Europeans were living on one of the group. Some had been shipwrecked; some had deserted from vessels; but they had become accustomed to the life and preferred it. The HUNTER employed a party of them to collect sandal wood and beche-de-mer, one of her junior officers, Peter Dillon, being in charge. A quarrel with natives occurred, and all the Europeans were murdered, except Dillon, a Prussian named Martin Bushart, and a seaman, William Wilson. After the affray Bushart would certainly have been slain had he remained, so he induced the captain of the HUNTER to give him a passage to the first land reached. Accordingly Bushart, a Fiji woman who was his wife, and a Lascar companion, were landed on Barwell Island, or Tucopia. Thirteen years later Peter Dillon was sailing in command of his own ship, the ST. PATRICK, from Valparaiso to Pondicherry, when he sighted Tucopia. Curiosity prompted him to stop to enquire whether his old friend Martin Bushart was still alive. He hove to, and shortly after two canoes put off from the land, bringing Bushart and the Lascar, both in excellent health. Now, Dillon observed that the Lascar sold an old silver sword guard to one of the ST. PATRICK'S crew in return for a few fish hooks. This made him inquisitive. He asked the Prussian where it came from. Bushart informed him that when he first arrived at the island he saw in possession of the natives, not only this sword guard, but also several chain plates, iron bolts, axes, the handle of a silver fork, some knives, tea cups, beads, bottles, a silver spoon bearing a crest and monogram, and a sword. He asked where these articles were obtained, and the natives told him that they got them from the Mannicolo (or Vanikoro) cluster of islands, two days' canoe voyage from Tucopia, in the Santa Cruz group. "Upon examining the sword minutely" wrote Dillon, "I discovered, or thought I discovered, the initials of Perouse stamped on it, which excited my suspicion and made me more exact in my inquiries. I then, by means of Bushart and the Lascar, questioned some of the islanders respecting the way in which their neighbours procured the silver and iron articles. They told me that the natives of Mannicolo stated that many years ago two large ships arrived at their islands; one anchored at the island of Whanoo, and the other at the island of Paiou, a little distance from each other. Some time after they anchored, and before they had any communication with the natives, a heavy gale arose and both vessels were driven ashore. The ship that was anchored off Whanoo grounded upon the rocks. "The natives came in crowds to the seaside, armed with clubs, spears, and bows and arrows, and shot some arrows into the ship, and the crew in return fired the guns and some musketry on them and killed several. The vessel, continuing to beat violently against the rocks, shortly afterwards went to pieces. Some of the crew took to their boats, and were driven on shore, where they were to a man murdered on landing by the infuriated natives. Others threw themselves into the sea; but if they reached the shore it was only to share the fate of their wretched comrades, so that not a single soul escaped out of this vessel." The ship wrecked on Paiou, according to the natives' story, was driven on a sandy beach. Some arrows were fired into her, but the crew did not fire. They were restrained, and held up beads, axes, and toys, making a demonstration of friendliness. As soon as the wind abated, an old chief came aboard the wrecked ship, where he was received in friendly fashion, and, going ashore, pacified his people. The crew of the vessel, compelled to abandon her, carried the greater part of their stores ashore, where they built a small boat from the remains of the wreck. As soon as this craft was ready to sail, as many as could conveniently be taken embarked and sailed away. They were never heard of again. The remainder of the crew remained on the island until they died. Such was the information collected by Captain Peter Dillon in 1826. He took away with him the sword guard, but regretted to learn that the silver spoon had been beaten into wire by Bushart for making rings and ornaments for female islanders. When he reached Calcutta, Dillon wrote an account of his discovery in a letter to the government of Bengal, and suggested that he should be sent in command of an expedition to search the Vanikoro cluster in the hope of finding some old survivor of Laperouse's unhappy company, or at all events further remains of the ships. He had prevailed upon Martin Bushart to accompany him to India, and hoped, through this man's knowledge of the native tongue, to elicit all that was to be known. The Government of British India became interested in Dillon's discovery, and resolved to send him in command of a ship to search for further information. At the end of 1826 he sailed in the RESEARCH, and in September of the following year came within sight of the high-peaked island Tucopia. The enquiries made on this voyage fully confirmed and completed the story, and left no room for doubt that the ships of Laperouse had been wrecked and his whole company massacred or drowned on or near Vanikoro. Many natives still living remembered the arrival of the French. Some of them related that they thought those who came on the big ships to be not men but spirits; and such a grotesque bit of description as was given of the peaks of cocked hats exactly expressed the way in which the appearance of the strangers would be likely to appeal to the native imagination:--"There was a projection from their foreheads or noses a foot long." Furthermore, Dillon's officers were able to purchase from the islands such relics as an old sword blade, a rusted razor, a silver sauce-boat with fleur-de-lis upon it, a brass mortar, a few small bells, a silver sword-handle bearing a cypher, apparently a "P" with a crown, part of a blacksmith's vice, the crown of a small anchor, and many other articles. An examination of natives brought out a few further details, as for example, a description of the chief of the strangers, "who used always to be looking at the stars and the sun and beckoning to them," which is how a native would be likely to regard a man making astronomical observations. Dillon, in short had solved the forty years' mystery. The Pacific had revealed her long-held secret. It happened that a new French expedition in the ASTROLABE, under the command of Dumont-D'Urville, was in the southern hemisphere at this time. While he lay at Hobart on his way to New Zealand, the captain heard of Dillon's discoveries, and, at once changing his plans, sailed for the Santa Cruz Islands. He arrived there in February, 1828, and made some valuable finds to supplement those of the English captain. At the bottom of the sea, in perfectly clear water, he saw lying, encrusted with coral, some remains of anchors, chains, guns, bullets, and other objects which had clearly belonged to the ships of Laperouse. One of his artists made a drawing of them on the spot. They were recovered, and, together with Dillon's collection, are now exhibited in a pyramid at the Marine Museum at the Louvre in Paris, in memory of the ill-fated commander and crew who perished, martyrs in the great cause of discovery, a century and a quarter ago. It is interesting to note that descendants of Captain Dillon are residents of Sydney to this day. Chapter X. THE FAME OF LAPEROUSE. Intellectually, and as a navigator, Laperouse was a son of James Cook, and he himself would have rejoiced to be so described. The allusions to his predecessor in his writings are to be numbered by scores, and the note of reverent admiration is frequently sounded. He followed Cook's guidance in the management of his ships, paying particular attention to the diet of his crews. He did not succeed in keeping scurvy at bay altogether, but when the disease made its appearance he met it promptly by securing fresh vegetable food for the sufferers, and was so far successful that when he arrived in Botany Bay his whole company was in good health. The influence of the example and experience of Cook may be illustrated in many ways, some of them curious. We may take a point as to which he really had little to fear; but he knew what had occurred in Cook's case and he was anxious that the same should not happen to him. The published story of Cook's first South Sea Voyage, as is well known, was not his own. His journal was handed over to Dr. Hawkesworth, a gentleman who tried to model his literary style on that of Dr. Johnson, and evolved a pompous, big-drum product in consequence. Hawkesworth garnished the manly, straightforward navigator's simple and direct English with embellishments of his own. Where Cook was plain Hawkesworth was ornate; where Cook was sensible Hawkesworth was silly; where Cook was accurate, Hawkesworth by stuffing in his own precious observations made the narrative unreliable, and even ridiculous. In fact, the gingerbread Johnson simply spoiled Cook. Dr. Johnson was by no means gratified by the ponderous prancings of his imitator. We learn from Boswell that when the great man met Captain Cook at a dinner given by the President of the Royal Society, he said that he "was much pleased with the conscientious accuracy of that celebrated circumnavigator, who set me right as to many of the exaggerated accounts given by Dr. Hawkesworth of his voyages." Cook himself was annoyed by the decorating of his story, and resented the treatment strongly. Laperouse knew this, and was very anxious that nobody in France should Hawkesworthify him. He did not object to being carefully edited, but he did not want to be decorated. He wrote excellent French narrative prose, and his work may be read with delight. Its qualities of clarity, picturesqueness and smoothness, are quite in accord with the fine traditions of the language. But, as it was likely that part of the history of his voyage might be published before his return, he did not want it to be handed over to anybody who would trick it out in finery, and he therefore wrote the following letter: "If my journal be published before my return, let the editing of it by no means be entrusted to a man of letters; for either he will sacrifice to the turn of a phrase the proper terms which the seaman and man of learning would prefer, but which to him will appear harsh and barbarous; or, rejecting all the nautical and astronomical details, and endeavouring to make a pleasing romance, he will for want of the knowledge his education has not allowed him to acquire, commit mistakes which may prove fatal to those who shall follow me. But choose an editor versed in the mathematical sciences, who is capable of calculating and comparing my data with those of other investigators, of rectifying errors which may have escaped me, and of guarding himself against the commission of others. Such an editor will preserve the substance of the work; will omit nothing that is essential; will give technical details the harsh and rude, but concise style of a seaman; and will well perform his task in supplying my place and publishing the work as I would have done it myself." That letter is a rather singular effect of Laperouse's study of Cook, which might be illustrated by further examples. The influence of the great English sailor is the more remarkable when we remember that there had been early French navigators to the South Seas before Laperouse. There was the elder Bougainville, the discoverer of the Navigator Islands; there was Marion-Dufresne, who was killed and eaten by Maoris in 1772; there was Surville--to mention only three. Laperouse knew of them, and mentioned them. But they had little to teach him. In short and in truth, he belonged to the school of Cook, and that is an excellent reason why English and especially Australian people should have an especial regard for him. The disastrous end of Laperouse's expedition before he had completed his task prevented him from adequately realising his possibilities as a discoverer. As pointed out in the preceding pages, if he had completed his voyage, he would in all probability have found the southern coasts of Australia in 1788. But the work that he actually did is not without importance; and he unquestionably possessed the true spirit of the explorer. When he entered upon this phase of his career he was a thoroughly experienced seaman. He was widely read in voyaging literature, intellectually well endowed, alert-minded, eager, courageous, and vigorous. The French nation has had no greater sailor than Laperouse. De Lesseps, the companion of his voyage as far as Kamchatka, has left a brief but striking characterisation of him. "He was," says this witness, "an accomplished gentleman, perfectly urbane and full of wit, and possessed of those charming manners which pertained to the eighteenth century. He was always agreeable in his relations with subordinates and officers alike." The same writer tells us that when Louis XVI gave him the command of the expedition he had the reputation of being the ablest seaman in the French navy. Certainly he was no common man to whose memory stands that tall monument at Botany Bay. It was erected at the cost of the French Government by the Baron de Bougainville, in 1825, and serves not only as a reminder of a fine character and a full, rich and manly life, but of a series of historical events that are of capital consequence in the exploration and occupation of Australia. It will be appropriate to conclude this brief biography with a tribute to the French navigator from the pen of an English poet. Thomas Campbell is best remembered by such vigorous poems as "Ye Mariners of England," and "The Battle of the Baltic," which express a tense and elevated British patriotism. All the more impressive for that very reason is his elegy in honour of a sailor of another nation, whose merits as a man and whose charm as a writer Campbell had recognised from his boyhood. The following are his. LINES WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF LAPEROUSE'S "VOYAGES" Loved Voyager! whose pages had a zest More sweet than fiction to my wondering breast, When, rapt in fancy, many a boyish day I tracked his wanderings o'er the watery way, Roamed round the Aleutian isles in waking dreams, Or plucked the fleur-de-lys by Jesso's streams, Or gladly leaped on that far Tartar strand, Where Europe's anchor ne'er had bit the sand, Where scarce a roving wild tribe crossed the plain, Or human voice broke nature's silent reign,-- But vast and grassy deserts feed the bear, And sweeping deer-herds dread no hunter's snare. Such young delight his real records brought, His truth so touched romantic springs of thought, That, all my after life, his fate and fame Entwined romance with Laperouse's name. Fair were his ships, expert his gallant crews, And glorious was the emprise of Laperouse-- Humanely glorious! Men will weep for him, When many a guilty martial fame is dim: He ploughed the deep to bind no captive's chain-- Pursued no rapine--strewed no wreck with slain; And, save that in the deep themselves lie low, His heroes plucked no wreath from human woe. 'Twas his the earth's remotest bounds to scan, Conciliating with gifts barbaric man-- Enrich the world's contemporaneous mind, And amplify the picture of mankind. Far on the vast Pacific, 'midst those isles O'er which the earliest morn of Asia smiles, He sounded and gave charts to many a shore And gulf of ocean new to nautic lore; Yet he that led discovery o'er the wave, Still finds himself an undiscovered grave. He came not back! Conjecture's cheek grew pale, Year after year; in no propitious gale His lilied banner held its homeward way, And Science saddened at her martyr's stay. An age elapsed: no wreck told where or when The chief went down with all his gallant men, Or whether by the storm and wild sea flood He perished, or by wilder men of blood. The shuddering fancy only guess'd his doom, And doubt to sorrow gave but deeper gloom. An age elapsed: when men were dead or gray, Whose hearts had mourned him in their youthful day, Fame traced on Vanikoro's shore at last, The boiling surge had mounted o'er his mast. The islesmen told of some surviving men, But Christian eyes beheld them ne'er again. Sad bourne of all his toils--with all his band To sleep, wrecked, shroudless, on a savage strand! Yet what is all that fires a hero's scorn Of death?--the hope to live in hearts unborn. Life to the brave is not its fleeting breath, But worth--foretasting fame that follows death. That worth had Laperouse, that meed he won. He sleeps--his life's long stormy watch is done. In the great deep, whose boundaries and space He measured, fate ordained his resting place; But bade his fame, like th' ocean rolling o'er His relics, visit every earthly shore. Fair Science on that ocean's azure robe Still writes his name in picturing the globe, And paints (what fairer wreath could glory twine?) His watery course--a world-encircling line. 
19765	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 19765-h.htm or 19765-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/9/7/6/19765/19765-h/19765-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/9/7/6/19765/19765-h.zip) Transcriber's note: Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed in curly braces, e.g. {vi} or {99}. They have been located where page breaks occurred in the original book, in accordance with Project Gutenberg's FAQ-V-99. For its Index, page numbers have been placed only at the start of that section. VIKINGS OF THE PACIFIC The Adventures of the Explorers Who Came from the West, Eastward Bering, the Dane; the Outlaw Hunters of Russia; Benyowsky, the Polish Pirate; Cook and Vancouver, the English Navigators; Gray of Boston, the Discoverer of the Columbia; Drake, Ledyard, and Other Soldiers of Fortune on the West Coast of America by A. C. LAUT Author of "Pathfinders of the West," Etc. [Frontispiece: Seal Rookery, Commander Islands.] New York The MacMillan Company London: MacMillan & Co., Ltd. 1905 All rights reserved Copyright, 1905, by the MacMillan Company. Set up and electrotyped. Published December, 1905. {vii} Foreword At the very time the early explorers of New France were pressing from the east, westward, a tide of adventure had set across Siberia and the Pacific from the west, eastward. Carrier and Champlain of New France in the east have their counterparts and contemporaries on the Pacific coast of America in Francis Drake, the English pirate on the coast of California, and in Staduchin and Deshneff and other Cossack plunderers of the North Pacific, whose rickety keels first ploughed a furrow over the trackless sea out from Asia. Marquette, Jolliet and La Salle--backed by the prestige of the French government are not unlike the English navigators, Cook and Vancouver, sent out by the English Admiralty. Radisson, privateer and adventurer, might find counterpart on the Pacific coast in either Gray, the discoverer of the Columbia, or Ledyard, whose ill-fated, wildcat plans resulted in the Lewis and Clark expedition. Bering was contemporaneous with La Vérendrye; and so the comparison might be carried on between Benyowsky, the Polish pirate of the Pacific, or the Outlaw Hunters of Russia, and the famous buccaneers of the eastern Spanish Main. The main point is--that both tides {viii} of adventure, from the east, westward, from the west, eastward, met, and clashed, and finally coalesced in the great fur trade, that won the West. The Spaniards of the Southwest--even when they extended their explorations into the Northwest--have not been included in this volume, for the simple reason they would require a volume by themselves. Also, their aims as explorers were always secondary to their aims as treasure hunters; and their main exploits were confined to the Southwest. Other Pacific coast explorers, like La Pérouse, are not included here because they were not, in the truest sense, discoverers, and their exploits really belong to the story of the fights among the different fur companies, who came on the ground after the first adventurers. In every case, reference has been to first sources, to the records left by the doers of the acts themselves, or their contemporaries--some of the data in manuscript, some in print; but it may as well be frankly acknowledged that _all_ first sources have _not_ been exhausted. To do so in the case of a single explorer, say either Drake or Bering--would require a lifetime. For instance, there are in St. Petersburg some thirty thousand folios on the Bering expedition to America. Probably only one person--a Danish professor--has ever examined all of these; and the results of his investigations I have consulted. Also, there are in the State Department, Washington, some hundred old log-books of the Russian hunters which {ix} have--as far as I know--never been turned by a single hand, though I understand their outsides were looked at during the fur seal controversy. The data on this era of adventure I have chiefly obtained from the works of Russian archivists, published in French and English. To give a list of all authorities quoted would be impossible. On Alaska alone, the least-known section of the Pacific coast, there is a bibliographical list of four thousand. The better-known coast southward has equally voluminous records. Nor is such a list necessary. Nine-tenths of it are made up of either descriptive works or purely scientific pamphlets; and of the remaining tenth, the contents are obtained in undiluted condition by going directly to the first sources. A few of these first sources are indicated in each section. It is somewhat remarkable that Gray--as true a naval hero as ever trod the quarter-deck, who did the same for the West as Carrier for the St. Lawrence, and Hudson for the river named after him--is the one man of the Pacific coast discoverers of whom there are scantiest records. Authentic histories are still written, that cast doubt on his achievement. Certainly a century ago Gray was lionized in Boston; but it may be his feat was overshadowed by the world-history of the new American republic and the Napoleonic wars at the opening of the nineteenth century; or the world may have taken him at his own valuation; and Gray was a hero of the non-shouting sort. The data on {x} Gray's discovery have been obtained from the descendants of the Boston men who outfitted him, and from his own great-grandchildren. Though he died a poor man, the red blood of his courage and ability seems to have come down to his descendants; for their names are among the best known in contemporary American life. To them my thanks are tendered. Since the contents of this volume appeared serially in _Leslie's Monthly_, _Outing_, and _Harper's Magazine_, fresh data have been sent to me on minor points from descendants of the explorers and from collectors. I take this opportunity to thank these contributors. Among many others, special thanks are due Dr. George Davidson, President of San Francisco Geographical Society, for facts relating to the topography of the coast, and to Dr. Leo Stejneger of the Smithsonian, Washington, for facts gathered on the very spot where Bering perished. WASSAIC, New York, July 15, 1905. CONTENTS PART I DEALING WITH THE RUSSIANS ON THE PACIFIC COAST OF AMERICA--BERING, THE DANE, THE SEA-OTTER HUNTERS, THE OUTLAWS, AND BENYOWSKY, THE POLISH PIRATE CHAPTER I 1700-1743 VITUS BERING, THE DANE Peter the Great sends Bering on Two Voyages: First, to discover whether America and Asia are united; Second, to find what lies north of New Spain--Terrible Hardships of Caravans crossing Siberia for Seven Thousand Miles--Ships lost in the Mist--Bering's Crew cast away on a Barren Isle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 CHAPTER II 1741-1743 CONTINUATION OF BERING, THE DANE Frightful Sufferings of the Castaways on the Commander Islands--The Vessel smashed in a Winter Gale, the Sick are dragged for Refuge into Pits of Sand--Here, Bering perishes, and the Crew Winter--The Consort Ship under Chirikoff Ambushed--How the Castaways reach Home . . . . . 37 CHAPTER III 1741-1760 THE SEA-OTTER HUNTERS How the Sea-otter Pelts brought back by Bering's Crew led to the Exploitation of the Northwest Coast of America--Difference of Sea-otter from Other Fur-bearing Animals of the West--Perils of the Hunt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 CHAPTER IV 1760-1770 THE OUTLAW HUNTERS The American Coast becomes the Great Rendezvous for Siberian Criminals and Political Exiles--Beyond Reach of Law, Cossacks and Criminals perpetrate Outrages on the Indians--The Indians' Revenge wipes out Russian Forts in America--The Pursuit of Four Refugee Russians from Cave to Cave over the Sea at Night--How they escape after a Year's Chase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 CHAPTER V 1768-1772 COUNT MAURITIUS BENYOWSKY, THE POLISH PIRATE Siberian Exiles under Polish Soldier of Fortune plot to overthrow Garrison of Kamchatka and escape to West Coast of America as Fur Traders--A Bloody Melodrama enacted at Bolcheresk--The Count and his Criminal Crew sail to America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 PART II AMERICAN AND ENGLISH ADVENTURERS ON THE WEST COAST OF AMERICA--FRANCIS DRAKE IN CALIFORNIA--COOK, FROM BRITISH COLUMBIA TO ALASKA--LEDYARD, THE FORERUNNER OF LEWIS AND CLARK--GRAY, THE DISCOVERER OF THE COLUMBIA--VANCOUVER, THE LAST OF THE WEST COAST NAVIGATORS CHAPTER VI 1562-1595 FRANCIS DRAKE IN CALIFORNIA How the Sea Rover was attacked and ruined as a Boy on the Spanish Main off Mexico--His Revenge in sacking Spanish Treasure Houses and crossing Panama--The Richest Man in England, he sails to the Forbidden Sea, scuttles all the Spanish Ports up the West Coast of South America and takes Possession of New Albion (California) for England . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 CHAPTER VII 1728-1779 CAPTAIN COOK IN AMERICA The English Navigator sent Two Hundred Years later to find the New Albion of Drake's Discoveries--He misses both the Straits of Fuca and the Mouth of the Columbia, but anchors at Nootka, the Rendezvous of Future Traders--No Northeast Passage found through Alaska--The True Cause of Cook's Murder in Hawaii told by Ledyard--Russia becomes Jealous of his Explorations . . . . . . . . . . . 172 CHAPTER VIII 1785-1792 ROBERT GRAY, THE AMERICAN DISCOVERER OF THE COLUMBIA Boston Merchants, inspired by Cook's Voyages, outfit Two Vessels under Kendrick and Gray for Discovery and Trade on the Pacific--Adventures of the First Ship to carry the American Flag around the World--Gray attacked by Indians at Tillamook Bay--His Discovery of the Columbia River on the Second Voyage--Fort Defence and the First American Ship built on the Pacific . . . . . . . . . 210 CHAPTER IX 1778-1790 JOHN LEDYARD, THE FORERUNNER OF LEWIS AND CLARK A New England Ne'er-do-well, turned from the Door of Rich Relatives, joins Cook's Expedition to America--Adventure among the Russians of Oonalaska--Useless Endeavor to interest New England Merchants in Fur Trade--A Soldier of Fortune in Paris, he meets Jefferson and Paul Jones and outlines Exploration of Western America--Succeeds in crossing Siberia alone on the Way to America, but is thwarted by Russian Fur Traders . . . . . . . . . . . . 242 CHAPTER X 1779-1794 GEORGE VANCOUVER, LAST OF PACIFIC COAST EXPLORERS Activities of Americans, Spanish, and Russians on the West Coast of America arouse England--Vancouver is sent out ostensibly to settle the Quarrel between Fur Traders and Spanish Governors at Nootka--Incidentally, he is to complete the Exploration of America's West Coast and take Possession for England of Unclaimed Territory--The Myth of a Northeast Passage dispelled Forever . . . . . . . . . . . 263 PART III EXPLORATION GIVES PLACE TO FUR TRADE--THE EXPLOITATION OF THE PACIFIC COAST UNDER THE RUSSIAN AMERICAN FUR COMPANY, AND THE RENOWNED LEADER BARANOF CHAPTER XI 1579-1867 THE RUSSIAN AMERICAN FUR COMPANY The Pursuit of the Sable leads Cossacks across Siberia; of the Sea-otter, across the Pacific as far south as California--Caravans of Four Thousand Horses on the Long Trail--Seven Thousand Miles across Europe and Asia--Banditti of the Sea--The Union of All Traders in One Monopoly--Siege and Slaughter of Sitka--How Monroe Doctrine grew out of Russian Fur Trade--Aims of Russia to dominate North Pacific . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293 CHAPTER XII 1747-1818 BARANOF, THE LITTLE CZAR OF THE PACIFIC Baranof lays the Foundations of Russian Empire on the Pacific Coast of America--Shipwrecked on his Way to Alaska, he yet holds his Men in Hand and turns the Ill-hap to Advantage--How he bluffs the Rival Fur Companies in Line--First Russian Ship built in America--Adventures leading the Sea-otter Hunters--Ambushed by the Indians--The Founding of Sitka--Baranof, cast off in his Old Age, dies of Broken Heart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316 INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339 ILLUSTRATIONS Seal Rookery, Commander Islands . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ Peter the Great . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Map of Course followed by Bering . . . . . . . . . . . . 20-21 The _St. Peter_ and _St. Paul_, from a rough sketch by Bering's comrade, Steller, the scientist . . . . . . . 29 Steller's Arch on Bering Island, named after the scientist Steller, of Bering's Expedition . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 A Glacier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Sea Cows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Seals in a Rookery on Bering Island . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Mauritius Augustus, Count Benyowsky . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Sir John Hawkins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Queen Elizabeth knighting Drake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 The _Golden Hind_ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 Francis Drake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 The Crowning of Drake in California . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 The Silver Map of the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 Captain James Cook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 The Ice Islands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194 The Death of Cook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Departure of the _Columbia_ and the _Lady Washington_ . . . 211 Charles Bulfinch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212 Medals commemorating _Columbia_ and _Lady Washington_ Cruise 215 Building the First American Ship on the Pacific Coast . . . 223 Feather Cloak worn by a son of a Hawaiian Chief, at the celebration in honor of Gray's return . . . . . . . . . . 226 John Derby . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 Map of Gray's two voyages, resulting in the discovery of the Columbia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 A View of the Columbia River . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 At the Mouth of the Columbia River . . . . . . . . . . . . 239 Ledyard in his Dugout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244 Captain George Vancouver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265 The _Columbia_ in a Squall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269 The _Discovery_ on the Rocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274 Indian Settlement at Nootka . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276 Reindeer Herd in Siberia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288 Raised Reindeer Sledges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294 John Jacob Astor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303 Sitka from the Sea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314 Alexander Baranof . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317 {1} PART I DEALING WITH THE RUSSIANS ON THE PACIFIC COAST OF AMERICA--BERING, THE DANE, THE SEA-OTTER HUNTERS, THE OUTLAWS, AND BENYOWSKY, THE POLISH PIRATE {3} Vikings of the Pacific CHAPTER I 1700-1743 VITUS BERING, THE DANE Peter the Great sends Bering on Two Voyages: First, to discover whether America and Asia are united; Second, to find what lies north of New Spain--Terrible Hardships of Caravans crossing Siberia for Seven Thousand Miles--Ships lost in the Mist--Bering's Crew cast away on a Barren Isle We have become such slaves of shallow science in these days, such firm believers in the fatalism which declares man the creature of circumstance, that we have almost forgotten the supremest spectacle in life is when man becomes the Creator of Circumstance. We forget that man can rise to be master of his destiny, fighting, unmaking, re-creating, not only his own environment, but the environment of multitudinous lesser men. There is something titanic in such lives. They are the hero myths of every nation's legends. We {4} somehow feel that the man who flings off the handicaps of birth and station lifts the whole human race to a higher plane and has a bit of the God in him, though the hero may have feet of clay and body of beast. Such were the old Vikings of the North, who spent their lives in elemental warfare, and rode out to meet death in tempest, lashed to the spar of their craft. And such, too, were the New World Vikings of the Pacific, who coasted the seas of two continents in cockle-shell ships,--planks lashed with deer thongs, calked with moss,--rapacious in their deep-sea plunderings as beasts of prey, fearless as the very spirit of the storm itself. The adventures of the North Pacific Vikings read more like some old legend of the sea than sober truth; and the wild strain had its fountain-head in the most tempestuous hero and beastlike man that ever ascended the throne of the Russias. [Illustration: Peter the Great.] When Peter the Great of Russia worked as a ship's carpenter at the docks of the East India Company in Amsterdam, the sailors' tales of vast, undiscovered lands beyond the seas of Japan must have acted on his imagination like a match to gunpowder.[1] Already he was dreaming those imperial conquests which Russia still dreams: of pushing his realm to the southernmost edge of Europe, to the easternmost verge of Asia, to the doorway of the Arctic, to the very threshold of the {5} Chinese capital. Already his Cossacks had scoured the two Siberias like birds of prey, exacting tribute from the wandering tribes of Tartary, of Kamchatka, of the Pacific, of the Siberian races in the northeasternmost corner of Asia. And these Chukchee Indians of the Asiatic Pacific told the Russians of a land beyond the sea, of driftwood floating across the ocean unlike any trees growing in Asia, of dead whales washed ashore with the harpoons of strange hunters, {6} and--most comical of all in the light of our modern knowledge about the Eskimo's tail-shaped fur coats--of men wrecked on the shores of Asia who might have qualified for Darwin's missing link, inasmuch as they wore "tails." And now the sailors added yet more fabulous things to Peter's knowledge. There was an unknown continent east of Asia, west of America, called on the maps "Gamaland." [2] Now, Peter's consuming ambition was for new worlds to conquer. What of this "Gamaland"? But, as the world knows, Peter was called home to suppress an insurrection. War, domestic broils, massacres that left a bloody stain on his glory, busied his hands for the remaining years of his life; and January of 1725 found the palaces of all the Russias hushed, for the Hercules who had scrunched all opposition like a giant lay dying, ashamed to consult a physician, vanquished of his own vices, calling on Heaven for pity with screams of pain that drove physicians and attendants from the room. Perhaps remorse for those seven thousand wretches executed at one fell swoop after the revolt; perhaps memories of those twenty kneeling supplicants whose heads he had struck off with his own hand, drinking a bumper of quass to each stroke; perhaps reproaches {7} of the highway robbers whom he used to torture to slow death, two hundred at a time, by suspending them from hooks in their sides; perhaps the first wife, whom he repudiated, the first son whom he had done to death either by poison or convulsions of fright, came to haunt the darkness of his deathbed. Catherine, the peasant girl, elevated to be empress of all the Russias, could avail nothing. Physicians and scientists and navigators, Dane and English and Dutch, whom he had brought to Russia from all parts of Europe, were powerless. Vows to Heaven, in all the long hours he lay convulsed battling with Death, were useless. The sins of a lifetime could not be undone by the repentance of an hour. Then, as if the dauntless Spirit of the man must rise finally triumphant over Flesh, the dying Hercules roused himself to one last supreme effort. Radisson, Marquette, La Salle, Vérendrye, were reaching across America to win the undiscovered regions of the Western Sea for France. New Spain was pushing her ships northward from Mexico; and now, the dying Peter of Russia with his own hand wrote instructions for an expedition to search the boundaries between Asia and America. In a word, he set in motion that forward march of the Russians across the Orient, which was to go on unchecked for two hundred years till arrested by the Japanese. The Czar's instructions were always laconic. They were written five weeks before his death. "(1) At {8} Kamchatka . . . two boats are to be built. (2) With these you are to sail northward along the coast. . . . (3) You are to enquire where the American coast begins. . . . Write it down . . . obtain reliable information . . . then, having charted the coast, return." [3] From the time that Peter the Great began to break down the Oriental isolation of Russia from the rest of Europe, it was his policy to draw to St. Petersburg--the city of his own creation--leaders of thought from every capital in Europe. And as his aim was to establish a navy, he especially endeavored to attract foreign navigators to his kingdom. Among these were many Norse and Danes. The acquaintance may have dated from the apprenticeship on the docks of the East India Company; but at any rate, among the foreign navigators was one Vitus Ivanovich Bering, a Dane of humble origin from Horsens,[4] who had been an East India Company sailor till he joined the Russian fleet as sub-lieutenant at the age of twenty-two, and fought his way up in the Baltic service through Peter's wars till in 1720 he was appointed captain of second rank. To Vitus Bering, the Dane, Peter gave the commission for the exploration of the waters between Asia and America. As a sailor, Bering had, of course, been on the borders of the Pacific.[5] {9} The scientists of every city in Europe were in a fret over the mythical Straits of Anian, supposed to be between Asia and America, and over the yet more mythical Gamaland, supposed to be visible on the way to New Spain. To all this jangling of words without knowledge Peter paid no heed. "You will go and obtain some reliable information," he commands Bering. Neither did he pay any heed to the fact that the ports of Kamchatka on the Pacific were six thousand miles by river and mountain and tundra and desert through an unknown country from St. Petersburg. It would take from three to five years to transport material across two continents by caravan and flatboat and dog sled. Tribute of food and fur would be required from Kurd and Tartar and wild Siberian tribe. More than a thousand horses must be requisitioned for the caravans; more than two thousand leathern sacks made for the flour. Twenty or thirty boats must be constructed to raft down the inland rivers. There were forests to be traversed for hundreds of miles, where only the keenest vigilance could keep the wolf packs off the heels of the travellers. And when the expedition should reach the tundras of eastern Siberia, there was the double danger of the Chukchee tribes on the north, hostile as the American Indians, and of the Siberian exile population on the south, branded criminals, political malcontents, banditti of {10} the wilderness, outcasts of nameless crimes beyond the pale of law. It needed no prophet to foresee such people would thwart, not help, the expedition. And when the shores of Okhotsk were reached, a fort must be built to winter there. And a vessel for inland seas must be constructed to cross to the Kamchatka peninsula of the North Pacific. And the peninsula which sticks out from Asia as Norway projects from Europe, must be crossed with provisions--a distance of some two hundred miles by dog trains over mountains higher than the American Rockies. And once on the shores of the Pacific itself, another fort must be built on the east side of the Kamchatka peninsula. And the two double-decker vessels must be constructed to voyage over the sleepy swell of the North Pacific to that mythical realm of mist like a blanket, and strange, unearthly rumblings smoking up from the cold Arctic sea, with the red light of a flame through the gray haze, and weird voices, as if the fog wraith were luring seamen to destruction. These were mere details. Peter took no heed of impossibles. Neither did Bering; for he was in the prime of his honor, forty-four years of age. "You will go," commanded the Czar, and Bering obeyed. Barely had the spirit of Peter the Great passed from this life, in 1725, when Bering's forces were travelling in midwinter from St. Petersburg to cross Siberia to the Pacific, on what is known as the First Expedition.[6] {11} Three years it took him to go from the west coast of Europe to the east coast of Asia, crossing from Okhotsk to Kamchatka, whence he sailed on the 9th of July, 1728, with forty-four men and three lieutenants for the Arctic seas.[7] This voyage is unimportant, except as the kernel out of which grew the most famous expedition on the Pacific coast. Martin Spanberg, another Danish navigator, huge of frame, vehement, passionate, tyrannical out dauntless, always followed by a giant hound ready to tear any one who approached to pieces, and Alexei Chirikoff, an able Russian, were seconds in command. They encountered all the difficulties to be expected transporting ships, rigging, and provisions across two continents. Spanberg and his men, winter-bound in East Siberia, were reduced to eating their dog harness and shoe-straps for food before they came to the trail of dead horses that marked Bering's path to the sea, and guided them to the fort at Okhotsk. Bering did exactly as Czar Peter had ordered. He built the two-deckers at Kamchatka. Then he followed the coast northward past St. Lawrence Island, which he named, to a point where the shore seemed to turn back on itself northwestward at 67 degrees 18 minutes, which proved to Bering that Asia and America were _not_ {12} united.[8] And they had found no "Gamaland," no new world wedged in between Asia and America, Twice they were within only forty miles of America, touching at St. Lawrence Island, but the fog hung like a blanket over the sea as they passed through the waters now known as Bering Straits. They saw no continent eastward; and Bering was compelled to return with no knowledge but that Russia did _not_ extend into America. And yet, there were definite signs of land eastward of Kamchatka--driftwood, seaweed, sea-birds. Before setting out for St. Petersburg in 1729, he had again tried to sail eastward to the Gamaland of the maps, but again foul weather had driven him back. It was the old story of the savants and Christopher Columbus in an earlier day. Bering's conclusions were different from the moonshine of the schools. There was no "Gamaland" in the sea. There was in the maps. The learned men of St. Petersburg ridiculed the Danish sailor. The fog was supposed to have concealed "Gamaland." There was nothing for Bering but to retire in ignominy or prove his conclusions. He had arrived in St. Petersburg in March, 1730. He had induced the court to undertake a second expedition by April of the same year.[9] {13} And for this second expedition, the court, the senate the admiralty, and the academy of sciences decided to provide with a lavish profusion that would dazzle the world with the brilliancy of Russian exploits. Russia was in the mood to do things. The young savants who thronged her capital were heady with visionary theories that were to astonish the rest of mortals. Scientists, artisans, physicians, monks, Cossacks, historians, made up the motley roll of conflicting influences under Bering's command; but because Bering was a Dane, this command was not supreme. He must convene a council of the Russian officers under him, submit all his plans to their vote, then abide by their decision. Yet he alone must carry responsibility for blunders. And as the days went on, details of instructions rolling out from admiralty, senate, and academy were like an avalanche gathering impetus to destruction from its weight. He was to establish new industries in Siberia. He was to chart the whole Arctic coast line of Asia. He was to Christianize the natives. He was to provide the travelling academicians with luxurious equipment, though some of them had forty wagon-loads of instruments and carried a peripatetic library. Early in 1733, the Second Expedition set out from St. Petersburg in detachments to cross Siberia. There were Vitus Bering, the commander, Chirikoff and Spanberg, his two seconds, eight lieutenants, sixteen mates, twelve physicians, seven priests, carpenters, {14} bakers, Cossacks, sailors,--in all, five hundred and eighty men.[10] Now, if it was difficult to transport a handful of attendants across Siberia for the first simple voyage, what was it to convoy this rabble composed of self-important scientists bent on proving impossible theories, of underling officers each of whom considered himself a czar, of wives and children unused to such travel, of priests whose piety took the extraordinary form of knouting subordinates to death, of Cossacks who drank and gambled and brawled at every stopping place till half the lieutenants in the company had crossed swords in duels, of workmen who looked on the venture as a mad banishment, and only watched for a chance to desert? Scouts went scurrying ahead with orders for the Siberian Cossacks to prepare wintering quarters for the on-coming host, and to levy tribute on the inhabitants for provision; but in Siberia, as the Russians say, "_God is high in the Heaven, and the Czar is far away_;" and the Siberian governors raised not a finger to prepare for Bering. Spanberg left St. Petersburg in February, 1733. Bering followed in March; and all summer the long caravans of slow-moving pack horses--as many as four thousand in a line--wound across the desert wastes of West Siberia. {15} Only the academists dallied in St. Petersburg, kissing Majesty's hand farewell, basking in the sudden sunburst of short notoriety, driving Bering almost mad by their exorbitant demands for luxuriously appointed barges to carry them down the Volga. Winter was passed at Tobolsk; but May of 1734 witnessed a firing of cannon, a blaring of trumpets, a clinking of merry glasses among merry gentlemen; for the caravans were setting out once more to the swearing of the Cossacks, the complaining of the scientists, the brawling of the underling officers, the silent chagrin of the endlessly patient Bering. One can easily believe that the God-speed from the Siberians was sincere; for the local governors used the orders for tribute to enrich themselves; and the country-side groaned under a heavy burden of extortion. The second winter was passed at Yakutsk, where the ships that were to chart the Arctic coast of Siberia were built and launched with crews of some hundred men. It was the end of June, 1735, before the main forces were under way again for the Pacific. From Yakutsk to Okhotsk on the Pacific, the course was down the Lena, up the Aldan River, up the Maya, up the Yudoma, across the Stanovoi Mountains, down the Urak river to the sea. A thousand Siberian exiles were compelled to convoy these boats.[11] Not a roof had been prepared to house the forces in the mountains. Men and horses were torn to pieces by the timber {16} wolves. Often, for days at a time, the only rations were carcasses of dead horses, roots, flour, and rice. Winter barracks had to be built between the rivers, for the navigable season was short. In May the rivers broke up in spring flood. Then, the course was against a boiling torrent. Thirty men could not tug a boat up the Yudoma. They stood in ice-water up to their waists lifting the barges over the turbulent places. Sores broke out on the feet of horses and men. Three years it took to transport all the supplies and ships' rigging from the Lena to the Pacific, with wintering barracks constructed at each stopping place. At Okhotsk on the Pacific, Major-General Pissarjeff was harbor master. This old reprobate, once a favorite of Peter the Great, had been knouted, branded and exiled for conspiracy, forbidden even to conceal his brand; and now, he let loose all his seventy years of bitterness on Bering. He not only had _not_ made preparation to house the explorers; but he refused to permit them inside the stockades of the miserable huts at Okhotsk, which he called his fort. When they built a fort of their own outside, he set himself to tantalize the two Danes, Bering and Spanberg, knouting their men, sending coureurs with false accusations against Bering to St. Petersburg, actually countermanding their orders for supplies from the Cossacks. Spanberg would have finished the matter neatly with a sharp sword; but Bering forbore, and Pissarjeff {17} was ultimately replaced by a better harbor master. The men set to work cutting the timber for the ships that were to cross from Okhotsk to the east shore of Kamchatka; for Bering's ships of the first voyage could now be used only as packet boats. Not till the fourth of June, 1741, had all preparations ripened for the fulfilment of Czar Peter's dying wishes to extend his empire into America. Two vessels, the _St. Peter_ and the _St. Paul_, rode at anchor at Petropaulovsk in the Bay of Avacha on the east coast of Kamchatka. On the shore was a little palisaded fort of some fifty huts, a barrack, a chapel, a powder magazine. Early that morning, solemn religious services had been held to invoke the blessing of Heaven on the voyagers. Now, the chapel bell was set ringing. Monks came singing down to the water's edge. Cannon were fired. Cheer on cheer set the echoes rolling among the white domed mountains. There was a rattling of anchor chains, a creaking of masts and yard-arms. The sails fluttered out bellying full; and with a last, long shout, the ships glided out before the wind to the lazy swell of the Pacific for the discovery of new worlds. And why not new worlds? That was the question the officers accompanying Bering asked themselves as the white peaks of Kamchatka faded on the offing. Certainly, in the history of the world, no expedition had set out with greater prestige. Eight years had it {18} taken to cross Siberia from St. Petersburg to the Pacific. A line of forts across two continents had been built for winter quarters. Rivers had been bridged; as many as forty boats knocked together in a single year to raft down the Siberian torrents. Two hundred thousand dollars in modern money had been spent before the Pacific was reached. In all, nine ships had been built on the Pacific to freight supplies across from Okhotsk to the eastern side of Kamchatka, two to carry Bering to the new continent of "Gamaland" which the savants persisted in putting on the maps, three to explore the region between Russia and Japan. Now, Bering knew there was _no_ "Gamaland" except in the ignorant, heady imaginings of the foolish geographers. So did Alexei Chirikoff, the Russian second assistant. So did Spanberg, the Dane, third in command, who had coasted the Pacific in charting Japan. Roughly speaking, the expedition had gradually focussed to three points: (1) the charting of the Arctic coast; (2) the exploration of Japan; (3) the finding of what lay between Asia and America. Some two hundred men, of whom a score had already perished of scurvy, had gone down the Siberian rivers to the Arctic coast. Spanberg, the Dane, with a hundred others, had thoroughly charted Japan, and had seen his results vetoed by the authorities at St. Petersburg because there was no Gamaland. Bering, himself, undertook the voyage to America. All the month of {19} May, council after council had been held at Avacha Bay to determine which way Bering's two ships should sail. By the vote of this council, Bering, the commander, was compelled to abide; and the mythical Gamaland proved his evil star. The maps of the D'Isles, the famous geographers, contained a Gamaland; and Louis la Croyére d'Isle, relative of the great map maker, who had knocked about in Canada and was thought to be an authority on American matters, was to accompany Chirikoff, Bering's first lieutenant. At the councils, these maps were hauled out. It was a matter of family pride with the D'Isles to find that Gamaland. Bering and Chirikoff may have cursed all scientists, as Cook, the great navigator, cursed savants at a later day; but they must bow to the decision of the council; and the decision was to sail south-southeast for Gamaland. And yet, there could have been no bitterness in Bering's feelings; for he knew that the truth must triumph. He would be vindicated, whatever came; and the spell of the North was upon him with its magic beckoning on--on--on to the unknown, to the unexplored, to the undreamed. All that the discoveries of Columbus gave to the world, Bering's voyage might give to Russia; for he did _not_ know that the La Vérendryes of New France had already penetrated west as far as the Rockies; and he did know that half a continent yet lay unexplored, unclaimed, on the other side of the Pacific. {20} [Illustration: Map of Course followed by Bering.] But with boats that carried only one hundred casks of water, and provisions for but five months, the decision to sail south-southeast was a deplorable waste of precious time. It would lead to the Spanish possessions, not to the unknown North. On Bering's boat, the _St. Peter_, was a crew of seventy-seven, Lieutenant Waxel, second in command, George William Steller, the famous scientist, Bering's friend, on board. On the _St. Paul_, under the stanch, level-headed Russian lieutenant, Alexei Chirikoff, were seventy-six men, with La Croyére d'Isle as astronomer. Not the least {21} complicating feature of the case was the personnel of the crews. For the most part, they were branded criminals and malcontents. From the first they had regarded the Bering expedition with horror. They had joined it under compulsion for only six years; and the exploration was now in its eleventh year. Spanberg, the other Dane, with his brutal tongue and constant recourse to the knout, who had gone to St. Petersburg to report on Japan, they cordially hated. Chirikoff, the Russian, was a universal favorite, and Bering, the supreme commander, was loved for his {22} kindness; but Bering's commands were subject to veto by the Russian underlings; and the Russian underling officers kept up a constant brawl of duels and gaming and drink. No wonder the bluff Dane sailed out from the snow-rimmed peaks of Avacha Bay with dark forebodings. He had carried a load of petty instructions issued by ignoramus savants for eight years. He had borne eight years of nagging from court and senate and academy. He had been criticised for blunders of others' making. He had been set to accomplish a Herculean task with tied hands. He had been threatened with fines and court martial for the delay caused by the quarrels of his under officers to whom he was subject. He had been deprived of salary for three years and accused of pilfering from public funds. His wife, who had by this time returned with the wives of the other officers to Russia, had actually been searched for hidden booty.[12] And now, after toils and hardships untold, only five months' provisions were left for the ships sailing from Kamchatka; and the blockhead underlings were compelling a waste of those provisions by sailing in the wrong direction. If the worst came, could Bering hold his men with those tied hands of his? The commander shrugged his shoulders and signalled Chirikoff, the Russian, on the _St. Paul_, to lead the way. They must find out there was no Gamaland {23} for themselves, those obstinate Russians! The long swell of the Pacific meets them as they sheer out from the mountain-girt harbor. A dip of the sails to the swell of the rising wind, and the snowy heights of Avacha Bay are left on the offing. The thunder of the surf against the rocky caves of Kamchatka coast fades fainter. The myriad birds become fewer. Steller, the scientist, leans over the rail to listen if the huge sperm whale, there, "hums" as it "blows." The white rollers come from the north, rolling--rolling down to the tropics. A gray thing hangs over the northern offing, a grayish brown thing called "fog" of which they will know more anon. The grayish brown thing means storm; and the "porps" tumbling, floundering, somerseting round the ships in circles, mean storm; and Chirikoff, far ahead there, signals back doubtfully to know if they shouldn't keep together to avoid being lost in the gathering fog. The Dane shrugs his shoulders and looks to the north. The grayish brown thing has darkened, thickened, spread out impalpably, and by the third day, a northling wind is whistling through the riggings with a rip. Sails are furled. The white rollers roll no longer. They lash with chopped-off tops flying backward; and the _St. Peter_ is churning about, shipping sea after sea with the crash of thunder. That was what the fog meant; and it is all about them, in a hurricane now, stinging cold, thick to the touch, washing out every outline but sea--sea! {24} Never mind! They are nine days out. It is the twelfth of June. They are down to 46 degrees and no Gamaland! The blockheads have stopped spreading their maps in the captain's cabin. One can see a smile wreathing in the whiskers of the Dane. Six hundred miles south of Kamchatka and no Gamaland! The council convenes again. It is decided to turn about, head north, and say no more of Gamaland. But when the fog, that has turned hurricane, lifts, the consort ship, the _St. Paul_, is lost. Chirikoff's vessel has disappeared. Up to 49 degrees, they go; but still no Chirikoff, and no Gamaland! Then the blunder-makers, as usual, blunder more. It is dangerous to go on without the sister ship. The council convenes. Bering must hark back to 46 degrees and hunt for Chirikoff. So passes the whole month of June. Out of five months' provisions, one wasted, the odium on Bering, the Dane. It was noticed that after the ship turned south, the commander looked ill and depressed. He became intolerant of opposition or approach. Possibly to avoid irritation, he kept to his cabin; but he issued peremptory orders for the _St. Peter_ to head back north. In a few days, Bering was confined to bed with that overwhelming physical depression and fear, that precede the scourge most dreaded by seamen--scurvy. Lieutenant Waxel now took command. Waxel had all a sailor's contempt for the bookful blockheads, who wrench fact to fit theory; and deadly enmity arose {25} between him and Steller, the scientist. By the middle of July, the fetid drinking water was so reduced that the crew was put on half allowance; but on the sleepy, fog-blanketed swell of the Pacific slipping past Bering's wearied eyes, there were so many signs of land--birds, driftwood, seaweed--that the commander ordered the ship hove to each night for fear of grounding. On the thirteenth of July, the council of underlings had so far relinquished all idea of a Gamaland, that it was decided to steer continuously north. Sometime between the 16th and 20th, the fog lifted like a curtain. Such a vision met the gaze of the stolid seamen as stirred the blood of those phlegmatic Russians. It was the consummation of all their labor, what they had toiled across Siberia to see, what they had hoped against hope in spite of the learned jargon of the geographers. There loomed above the far horizon of the north sea what might have been an immense opal dome suspended in mid-heaven. One can guess how the lookout strained keen eyes at this grand, crumpled apex of snow jagged through the clouds like the celestial tent peak of some giant race; how the shout of "land" went up, how officers and underlings flocked round Bering with cries and congratulations. "We knew it was land beyond a doubt on the sixteenth," says Steller. "Though I have been in Kamchatka, I have never seen more lofty mountains." The shore was broken everywhere, showing inlets and harbors. {26} Everybody congratulated the commander, but he only shrugged shoulders, saying: "We think we've done big things, eh? but who knows? Nobody realizes where this is, or the distance we must sail back. Winds may be contrary. We don't know this land; and we haven't provisions to winter." The truth is--the maps having failed, Bering was good enough seaman to know these uncharted signs of a continent indicated that the _St. Peter_ was hopelessly lost. Sixteen years of nagging care, harder to face than a line of cannon, had sucked Bering's capacity of resistance like a vampire. That buoyancy, which lifts man above Anxious Fright, had been sapped. The shadowy elemental powers--physical weakness, disease, despair--were closing round the explorer like the waves of an eternal sea. The boat found itself in a wonder world, that beggared romance. The great peak, which they named St. Elias, hung above a snowy row of lesser ridges in a dome of alabaster. Icebergs, like floating palaces, came washing down from the long line of precipitous shore. As they neared anchorage at an island now known as Kyak, they could see billows of ferns, grasses, lady's slippers, rhododendrons, bluebells, forget-me-nots, rippling in the wind. Perhaps they saw those palisades of ice, that stretch like a rampart northward along the main shore west of St. Elias. The _St. Peter_ moved slowly landward against a head wind. Khitroff and Steller put off in the small {27} boats with fifteen men to reconnoitre. Both found traces of inhabitants--timbered huts, fire holes, shells, smoked fish, footprints in the grass. Steller left some kettles, knives, glass beads, and trinkets in the huts to replace the possessions of the natives, which the Russians took. Many years later, another voyager met an old Indian, who told of seeing Bering's ship anchor at Kyak Island when he was a boy; but the terrified Indians had fled, only returning to find the presents in the huts, when the Russians had gone.[13] Steller was as wild as a child out of school, and accompanied by only one Cossack went bounding over the island collecting specimens and botanizing. Khitroff, meanwhile, filled water-casks; but on July 21, the day after the anchorage, a storm-wind began whistling through the rigging. The rollers came washing down from the ice wall of the coast and the far offing showed the dirty fog that portended storm. Only half the water-casks had been filled; but there was a brisk seaward breeze. Without warning, contrary to his custom of consulting the other officers, Bering appeared on deck pallid and ashen from disease, and peremptorily ordered anchors up. In vain Steller stormed and swore, accusing the chief of pusillanimous homesickness, "of reducing his explorations to a six hours' anchorage on an island shore," "of coming from Asia to carry home American water." The commander had had enough of {28} vacillation, delay, interference. One-third of the crew was ailing. Provisions for only three months were in the hold. The ship was off any known course more than two thousand miles from any known port; and contrary winds might cause delay or drive the vessel on the countless reefs that lined this strange coast, like a ploughed field. Dense clouds and a sleety rain settled over the sea, washing out every outline, as the _St. Peter_ began her westward course. But what baffled both Bering and the officers was the fact that the coast trended, not north, but south. They were coasting that long peninsula of Alaska that projects an arm for a thousand miles southwestward into the Pacific. The roar of the rollers came from the reefs. Through the blanketing fog they could discern, on the north, island after island, ghostlike through the mist, rocky, towering, majestic, with a thunder of surf among the caves, a dim outline of mountains above, like Loki, Spirit of Evil, smiling stonily at the dark forces closing round these puny men. All along Kadiak, the roily waters told of reefs. The air was heavy with fogs thick to the touch; and violent winds constantly threatened a sudden shift that might drive the vessel on the rocks. At midnight on August 1, they suddenly found themselves with only three feet of water below the keel. Fortunately there was no wind, but the fog was like ink. By swinging into a current, that ran a mill-race, they were carried out to eighteen fathoms {29} of water, where they anchored till daybreak. They called this place Foggy Island. To-day it is known as Ukamok. [Illustration: The _St. Peter_ and _St. Paul_, from a rough sketch by Bering's comrade, Steller, the scientist.] The underlings now came sharply to their senses and, at the repeatedly convened and distracted councils between July 25 and August 10, decided that there was only one thing to do--sail at once for the home port of Kamchatka. The _St. Peter_ was tossing about in frightful winds among reefs and hurricane fog like a cork. Half the crew lay ill and helpless of scurvy, {30} and only two months' provisions remained for a voyage of two thousand miles. The whole crew signed the resolution to go home. Only twenty-five casks of water remained. On August 30 the _St. Peter_ anchored off a group of thirteen bald, bare, treeless rocks. It was thought that if some of the scurvy-stricken sailors could be carried ashore, they might recover. One, Shumagin, died as he was lifted ashore. This was the first death, and his name was given to the islands. Bering himself was so ill he could not stand. Twenty emaciated men were laid along the shore. Steller hurried off to hunt anti-scorbutic plants, while Waxel, who had taken command, and Khitroff ordered the water-casks filled. Unfortunately the only pool they could find was connected with an arm of the sea. The water was brackish, and this afterward increased disease. A fatality seemed to hang over the wonder world where they wandered. Voices were heard in the storm, rumblings from the sea. Fire could be seen through the fog. Was this fire from volcanoes or Indians? And such a tide-rip thundered along the rocks as shook the earth and set the ship trembling. Waxel knew they must not risk delay by going to explore, but by applying to Bering, who lay in his berth unconscious of the dangers on this coast, Khitroff gained permission to go from the vessel on a yawl with five sailors; but by the time he had rowed against head winds to the scene of the fire, the Indians had {31} fled, and such beach combers were crashing ashore, Khitroff dare not risk going back to the ship. In vain Waxel ground his teeth with rage, signalled, and waited. "The wind seemed to issue from a flue," says Steller, "with such a whistling and roaring and rumbling that we expected to lose mast and rudder, or be crushed among the breakers. The dashings of the sea sounded like a cannon." The fact was, Khitroff's yawl had been smashed to kindling wood against the rocks; and the six half-drowned Russians were huddling together waiting for help when Waxel took the other small boat and went to the rescue. Barely had this been effected at the cost of four days' delay, in which the ship might have made five hundred miles toward home, when natives were seen paddling out in canoes, gesticulating for the white men to come ashore. Waxel lowered away in the small boat with nine armed men to pay the savages a visit. Close ashore, he beckoned the Indians to wade out; but they signalled him in turn to land, and he ordered three men out to moor the boat to a rock. All went well between Russians and Indians, presents being exchanged, till a chief screwed up his courage to paddle out to Waxel in the boat. With characteristic hospitality, Waxel at once proffered some Russian brandy, which, by courtesy among all Western sailors, is always known as "chain lightning." The chief took but one gulp of the liquid fire, when with a wild yell he spat it out, shouted that he had been poisoned, and dashed ashore. {32} The three Russians succeeded in gaining Waxel's boat, but the Indians grabbed the mooring ropes and seized the Chukchee interpreter, whom Waxel had brought from Siberia. Waxel ordered the rope cut, but the Chukchee interpreter called out pitifully to be saved. Quick as flash, the Russians fired two muskets in midair. At the crash that echoed among the cliffs, the Indians fell prostrate with fear, and the interpreter escaped; but six days had been wasted in this futile visit to the natives. Scarcely had they escaped this island, when such a hurricane broke over the _St. Peter_ for seventeen days that the ship could only scud under bare poles before a tornado wind that seemed to be driving north-northwest. The ship was a chip in a maelstrom. There were only fifteen casks of water fit to drink. All food was exhausted but mouldy sea-biscuits. One sailor a day was now dying of scurvy, and those left were so weak that they had no power to man the ship. The sailors were so emaciated they had to be carried back and forward to the rudder, and the underling officers were quarrelling among themselves. The crew dared not hoist sails, because not a man of the _St. Peter_ had the physical strength to climb and lower canvas.[14] {33} The rain turned to sleet. The sleet froze to the rotting sails, to the ice-logged hull, to the wan yardarms frost-white like ghosts. At every lurch of the sea slush slithered down from the rigging on the shivering seamen. The roar of the breakers told of a shallow sea, yet mist veiled the sky, and they were above waters whose shallows drop to sudden abysmal depths of three thousand fathoms. Sheets of smoking vapor rose from the sea, sheets of flame-tinged smoke from the crevasses of land volcanoes which the fogs hid. Out of the sea came the hoarse, strident cry of the sea-lion, and the walrus, and the hairy seal. It was as if the poor Russians had sailed into some under-world. The decks were slippery as glass, the vessel shrouded in ice. Over all settled that unspeakable dread of impending disaster, which is a symptom of scurvy, and saps the fight that makes a man fit to survive. Waxel, alone, held the vessel up to the wind. Where were they? Why did this coasting along unknown northern islands not lead to Kamchatka? The councils were no longer the orderly conferences of savants over cut-and-dried maps. They were bedlam. Panic was in the marrow of every man, even the passionate Steller, who thought all the while they were on the coast of Kamchatka and made loud complaint that the expedition had been misled by "unscrupulous leaders." At eight o'clock on the morning of October 30 it was seen that the ice-clogged ropes on the starboard {34} side had been snapped by the wind like dry sticks. Offerings, vows, prayers went up from the stricken crew. Piety became a very real thing. The men prayed aloud and conferred on ways to win the favor of God. The colder weather brought one relief. The fog lifted and the air was clear. The wind veered northeast, and on November 4, to their inexpressible joy, a dim outline sharpened to hard, clear horizon; and the gazing crew gradually saw a high, mountainous coast become clear beyond doubt directly ahead sixteen miles. Surely, this was Kamchatka? Surely, God had heard their vows? The sick crawled on hands and knees above the hatchway to see land once more, and with streaming eyes thanked Heaven for the escape from doom. Grief became joy; gruff, happy, hilarious laughter; for a few hidden casks of brandy were brought out to celebrate the end of their miseries, and each man began pointing out certain headlands that he thought he recognized. But this ecstasy was fool joy born of desperation. As the ship rounded northeastward, a strangeness came over the scene; a chill over the good cheer--a numbing, silent, unspeakable dread over the crew. These turbulent waters running a mill-race between reefs looked more like a channel between two islands than open coast. The men could not utter a word. They hoped against hope. They dare not voice their fears. That night, the _St. Peter_ stood off from land in case of storm. Topsails were furled, and the wind had ripped the other {35} sails to tatters, that flared and beat dismally all night against the cordage. One can imagine the anxiety of that long night with the roar of the breakers echoing angrily from shore, the whistle of the wind through the rotten rigging, the creaking of the timbers to the crash and growl and rebound of the tide. Clear, refulgent with sunshine like the light of creation's first day, the sting of ozone in the air, and the freshness of a scene never before witnessed by human eyes--dawned the morning of November 5. The shore was of black, adamant rock rising sheer from the sea in a rampart wall. Reefs, serried, rank on rank, like sentinels, guarded approach to the coast in jagged masses, that would rip the bottom from any keel like the teeth of a saw; and over these rolled the roaring breakers with a clutch to the back-wash that bade the gazing sailors beware. Birds, birds in myriads upon myriads, screamed and circled over the eerie heights of the beetling cliffs. This did not look like Kamchatka. These birds were not birds of the Asiatic home port. These cliffs were not like the snow-rimmed mountains of Avacha Bay. Waxel called a council. Officers and men dragged themselves to Bering's cabin. Waxel had already canvassed all hands to vote for a landing to winter on these shores. This, the dying Bering opposed with all his might. "We roust be almost home," he said. "We still have six casks of water, and the _foremast_. Having risked so {36} much, let us risk three days more, let us risk everything to reach Avacha Bay." Poor Bering! Had his advice been followed, the saddest disaster of northern seas might have been averted; for they were less than ten days' run from the home harbor; but inspired by fool hopes born of fear, like the old marsh lights that used to lure men to the quicksands--Waxel and Khitroff actually persuaded themselves this _was_ Kamchatka, and when one lieutenant, Ofzyn, who knew the north well from charting the Arctic coast, would have spoken in favor of Bering's view, he was actually clubbed and thrown from the cabin. The crew voted as a man to land and winter on this coast. Little did they know that vote was their own death warrant. [1] See _Life of Peter the Great_, by Orlando Williams, 1859; _Peter the Great_, by John Lothrop Motley, 1877; _History of Peter I_, by John Mottley, 1740; _Journal of Peter the Great_, 1698; Voltaire's _Pierre le Grand_; Ségur's _Histoire de Russie et de Pierre le Grand_. [2] Who this man _Gama_, supposed to have seen the unknown continent of Gamaland, was, no one knew. The Portuguese followed the myth blindly; and the other geographers followed the Portuguese. Texeira, court geographer in Portugal, in 1649 issued a map with a vague coast marked at latitude 45 degrees north, with the words "Land seen by John de Gama, Indian, going from China to New Spain." [3] These instructions were handed to Peter's admiral--Count Apraxin. [4] Born 1681, son of Jonas and Anna Bering, whom a petition describes, in 1719, as "old, miserable, decrepit people, no way able to help ourselves." [5] He fought in Black Sea wars of 1711; and from lieutenant-captain became captain of the second rank by 1717, when Russians, jealous of the foreigner, blocked his promotion. He demanded promotion or discharge, and withdrew to Finland, where the Czar's Kamchatkan expedition called him from retirement. [6] The expedition left St. Petersburg February 5th. [7] The midshipman of this voyage was Peter Chaplin, whose journal was deposited in the Naval College of the Admiralty, St. Petersburg. Berg gives a summary of this journal. A translation by Dall is to be found in _Appendix 19, Coast Survey, Washington, 1890_. [8] A great dispute has waged among the finical academists, where the Serdze Kamen of this trip really was; the Russian observations varying greatly owing to fog and rude instruments. _Lauridsen_ quarrels with _Müller_ on this score. _Müller_ was one of the theorists whose wrongheadedness misled Bering. [9] It was in 1730 that Gvozdef's report of a strange land between 65 degrees and 66 degrees became current. Whether this land was America, Gamaland, or Asia, the savants could not know. [10] It is from the works of _Gmelin_, _Müller_, and _Steller_, scientists named to accompany the expedition, that the most connected accounts are obtained. The "menagerie," some one has called this collection of scientists. [11] Many of the workmen died of their hardships at this stage of the journey. [12] Berg says Bering's two sons, Thomas and Unos, were also with him in Siberia. [13] _Sauer_ relates this incident. [14] See _Müller_, p. 93, 1764 edition: "The men, notwithstanding want, misery, sickness, were obliged to work continually in the cold and wet, and the sickness was so dreadful that the sailors who governed the rudder were obliged to be led to it by others, who could hardly walk. They durst not carry much sail, because there was nobody to lower them in case of need, and they were so thin a violent wind would have torn them to pieces. The rain now changed to hail and snow." {37} CHAPTER II 1741-1743 CONTINUATION OF BERING, THE DANE Frightful Sufferings of the Castaways on the Commander Islands--The Vessel smashed in a Winter Gale, the Sick are dragged for Refuge into Pits of Sand--Here, Bering perishes, and the Crew Winter--The Consort Ship under Chirikoff Ambushed--How the Castaways reach Home Without pilot or captain, the _St. Peter_ drifted to the swirling current of the sea along a high, rocky, forbidding coast where beetling precipices towered sheer two thousand feet above a white fret of reefs, that gave the ocean the appearance of a ploughed field. The sick crawled mutely back to their berths. Bering was past caring what came and only semiconscious. Waxel, who had compelled the crew to vote for landing here under the impression born of his own despair,--that this was the coast of Avacha Bay, Kamchatka,--saw with dismay in the shores gliding past the keel momentary proofs that he was wrong. Poor Waxel had fought desperately against the depression that precedes scurvy; but now, with a dumb hopelessness settling over the ship, the invisible hand of the scourge {38} was laid on him, too. He went below decks completely fordone. The underling officers still upon their feet, whose false theories had led Bering into all this disaster, were now quarrelling furiously among themselves, blaming one another. Only Ofzyn, the lieutenant, who had opposed the landing, and Steller, the scientist, remained on the lookout with eyes alert for the impending destruction threatened from the white fret of the endless reefs. Rocks rose in wild, jagged masses out of the sea. Deep V-shaped ravines, shadowy in the rising moonlight, seemed to recede into the rock wall of the coast, and only where a river poured out from one of these ravines did there appear to be any gap through the long lines of reefs where the surf boomed like thunder. The coast seemed to trend from northwest to southeast, and might have been from thirty to fifty miles long, with strange bizarre arches of rock overhanging endless fields of kelp and seaweed. The land was absolutely treeless except for willow brushwood the size of one's finger. Lichens, moss, sphagnum, coated the rocks. Inland appeared nothing but billowing reaches of sedges and shingle and grass. [Illustration: Steller's Arch on Bering Island, named after the scientist Steller, of Bering's Expedition.] Suddenly Steller noticed that the ebb-tide was causing huge combing rollers that might dash the ship against the rocks. Rushing below decks he besought Bering's permission to sound and anchor. The early darkness of those northern latitudes had been followed by moon-light bright as day. Within a mile of the east shore, {39} Steller ordered the anchor dropped, but by this time, the rollers were smashing over decks with a quaking that seemed to tear the ship asunder. The sick were hurled from their berths. Officers rushed on deck to be swept from their feet by blasts of salt spray, and just ahead, through the moonlight, could be seen the sharp edge of a long reef where the beach combers ran with the tide-rip of a whirlpool. There is something inexpressibly terrifying even from a point of safety in these beach combers, clutching their long arms hungrily for prey. The confusion of orders and {40} counter-orders, which no man had strength to carry out, of terrified cries and prayers and oaths--was indescribable. The numb hopelessness was succeeded by sheer panic terror. Ofzyn threw out a second anchor that raked bottom. Then, another mountain roller thundering over the ship with a crash--and the first cable snapped like a pistol shot. The ship rebounded; then drove before the back-wash of the angry sea. With no fate possible but the wall of rocks ahead, the terrorized crew began heaving the dead overboard in the moonlight; but another roaring billow smashed the _St. Peter_ squarely broadside. The second hawser ripped back with the whistling rebound of a whip-lash, and Ofzyn was in the very act of dropping the third and last anchor, when straight as a bullet to the mark, as if hag-ridden by the northern demons of sailor fear, hurled the _St. Peter_ for the reef! A third time the beach combers crashed down like a falling mountain. When the booming sheets of blinding spray had cleared and the panic-stricken sailors could again see, the _St. Peter_ was staggering stern foremost, shore ahead, like a drunken ship. Quick as shot, Ofzyn and Steller between them heaved over the last anchor. The flukes gripped--raked--then caught--and held. The ship lay rocking inside a reef in the very centre of a sheltered cove not six hundred yards from land. The beach comber had either swept her through a gap in the reef, or hurled her clear above the reefs into shelter. {41} For seven hours the ship had battled against tide and counter-current. Now, at midnight, with the air clear as day, Steller had the small boat lowered and with another--some say Waxel, others Pleneser, the artist, or Ofzyn, of the Arctic expedition--rowed ashore to reconnoitre. Sometime between the evening of November 5 and the morning of November 6, their eyes met such a view as might have been witnessed by an Alexander Selkirk, or Robinson Crusoe. The exact landing was four or five miles north of what is now known as Cape Khitroff, below the centre of the east coast of Bering Island.[1] Poor Waxel would have it, they were on the coast of Kamchatka, and spoke of sending messengers for help to Petropaulovsk on Avacha Bay; but, as they were to learn soon enough, the nearest point in Kamchatka was one hundred miles across the sea. Avacha Bay was two hundred miles away. And the Spanish possessions of America, three thousand. They found the landing place literally swarming with animal life unknown to the world before. An enormous mammal, more than three tons in weight, with hind quarters like a whale, snout and fore fins resembling a cow, grazed in herds on the fields of sea-kelp and gazed languidly without fear on the newcomer--Man. This was the famous sea-cow described by the enthusiastic Steller, but long since extinct. Blue foxes swarmed round the very feet of the {42} men with such hungry boldness that half a dozen could be clubbed to death before the others scampered. Later, Steller was to see the seal rookeries, that were to bring so much wealth to the world, the sea-lions that roared along the rocks till the surf shook, the sea-otter whose rare pelt, more priceless than beaver or sable, was to cause the exploration and devastation of the northern half of the Pacific coast. The land was as it had appeared to the ship--utterly treeless except for trailing willows. The brooks were not yet frozen, and snow had barely powdered the mountains; but where the coves ran in back between the mountains from the sea were gullies or ditches of sand and sedge. When Steller presently found a broken window casing of Kamchatka half buried in the sand, it gave Waxel some confidence about being on the mainland of Asia; but before Steller had finished his two days' reconnoitre, there was no mistaking the fact--this was an island, and a barren one at the best, without tree or shelter; and here the castaways must winter. The only provisions now remaining to the crew were grease and mouldy flour. Steller at once went to work. Digging pits in the narrow gullies of sand, he covered these over with driftwood, the rotten sail-cloth, moss, mud, and foxskins. Cracks were then chinked up with clay and more foxskins. By the 8th of November he was ready to have the crew landed; but the ship rolled helpless as a log to the tide, and the few well {43} men of the staff, without distinction of officers from sailors, had to stand waist-deep in ice-slush to steady the stretchers made of mast poles and sail-cloth, that received the sick lowered over decks. Many of the scurvy stricken had not been out of their berths for six weeks. The fearful depression and weakness, that forewarn scurvy, had been followed by the pains, the swollen limbs, the blue spots that presage death. A spongy excrescence covered the gums. The teeth loosened. The slightest noise was enough to throw the patient into a paroxysm of anguished fright; and some died on the decks immediately on contact with the cuttingly cold air. Others expired as they were lowered to the stretchers; others, as they were laid along the strip of sandy shore, where the bold foxes were already devouring the dead and could scarcely be driven off by the dying. In this way perished nine of the _St. Peter's_ crew during the week of the landing. By November 10, all was in readiness for Bering's removal from the ship. As the end approached, his irritability subsided to a quieted cheerfulness; and he could be heard mumbling over thanks to God for the great success of his early life. Wrapped in furs, fastened to a stretcher, the Dane was lowered over the ship, carried ashore, and laid in a sand pit. All that day it had been dull and leaden; and just as Bering was being carried, it began to snow heavily. Steller occupied the sand pit next to the commander; and in {44} addition to acting as cook and physician to the entire crew, became Bering's devoted attendant. By the 13th of November, a long sand pit had been roofed over as a sort of hospital with rug floor; and here Steller had the stricken sailors carried in from the shore. Poor Waxel, who had fought so bravely, was himself carried ashore on November 21. Daily, officers tramped inland exploring; and daily, the different reconnoitring parties returned with word that not a trace of human habitation, of wood, or the way to Kamchatka had been discovered. Another island there was to the east--now known as Copper Island--and two little islets of rock; but beyond these, nothing could be descried from the highest mountains but sea--sea. Bering Island, itself, is some fifty miles long by ten wide, very high at the south, very swampy at the north; but the Commander Group is as completely cut off from both Asia and America as if it were in another world. The climate was not intensely cold; but it was so damp, the very clothing rotted; and the gales were so terrific that the men could only leave the mud huts or _yurts_ by crawling on all fours; and for the first three weeks after the landing, blast on blast of northern hurricane swept over the islands. The poor old ship rode her best at anchor through the violent storms; but on November 28 she was seen to snap her cable and go staggering drunkenly to open sea. The terror of the castaways at this spectacle {45} was unspeakable. Their one chance of escape in spring seemed lost; but the beach combers began rolling landward through the howling storm; and when next the spectators looked, the _St. Peter_ was driving ashore like a hurricane ship, and rushed full force, nine feet deep with her prow into the sands not a pistol shot away from the crew. The next beach comber could not budge her. Wind and tide left her high and dry, fast in the sand. But what had become of Chirikoff, on board the _St. Paul_, from the 20th of June, when the vessels were separated by storm? Would it have been any easier for Bering if he had known that the consort ship had been zigzagging all the while less than a week's cruise from the _St. Peter_? When the storm, which had separated the vessels, subsided, Chirikoff let the _St. Paul_ drift in the hope that Bering might sight the missing vessel. Then he steered southeast to latitude 48 degrees in search of the commander; but on June 23 a council of officers decided it was a waste of time to search longer, and ordered the vessel to be headed northeastward. The wind was light; the water, clear; and Chirikoff knew, from the pilot-birds following the vessel, from the water-logged trees churning past, from the herds of seal floundering in the sea, that land must lie in this direction. A bright lookout was kept for the first two weeks of July. Two hundred and forty miles were traversed; and on a calm, {46} clear night between the 13th and 15th of July, there loomed above the horizon the dusky heights of a wooded mountainous land in latitude 55 degrees 21 minutes. Chirikoff was in the Alexander Archipelago. Daybreak came with the _St. Paul_ only four miles off the conspicuous heights of Cape Addington. Chirikoff had discovered land some thirty-six hours before Bering. The new world of mountains and forests roused the wildest enthusiasm among the Russians. A small boat was lowered; but it failed to find a landing. A light wind sprang up, and the vessel stood out under shortened sails for the night. By morning the wind had increased, and fog had blurred out all outlines of the new-found land. Here the ocean currents ran northward; and by morning of the 17th, when the sun pierced the washed air and the mountains began to appear again through jagged rifts of cloud-wraith, Chirikoff found himself at the entrance of a great bay, girt by forested mountains to the water's edge, beneath the high cone of what is now known as Mount Edgecumbe, {47} in Sitka Sound. Sitka Sound is an indentation about fifteen miles from north to south, with such depths of water that there is no anchorage except south and southwestward of Mount Edgecumbe. Impenetrable woods lined the mountains to the very shore. Great trunks of uprooted trees swept past the ship continually. Even as the clouds cleared, leaving vast forests and mountain torrents and snowy peaks visible, a hazy film of intangible gloom seemed to settle over the shadowy harbor.[2] [Illustration: A Glacier] Chirikoff wished to refill his water-casks. Also, he was ambitious to do what the scientists cursed Bering for not doing off St. Elias--explore thoroughly the land newly found. The long-boat was lowered with Abraham Dementieff and ten armed men. The crew was supplied with muskets, a brass cannon, and provisions for several days. Chirikoff arranged a simple code of signals with the men--probably a column of smoke, or sunlight thrown back by a tin mirror--by which he could know if all went well. Then, with a cheer, the first Russians to put foot on the soil of America bent to the oar and paddled swiftly away from the _St. Paul_ for the shadow of the forested mountains etched from the inland shore. The long-boat seemed smaller as the distance from the _St. Paul_ increased. Then men and boat disappeared behind an {48} elbow of land. A flash of reflected light from the hidden shore; and Chirikoff knew the little band of explorers had safely landed. The rest of the crew went to work putting things shipshape on the _St. Paul_. The day passed with more safety signals from the shore. The crew of the _St. Paul_ slept sound out in mid-harbor unsuspicious of danger. Another day passed, and another night. Not so many signals! Had the little band of Russians gone far inland for water, and the signals been hidden by the forest gloom? A wind was singing in the rigging--threatening a landward gale that might carry the _St. Paul_ somewhat nearer those rocky shores than the Russians could wish. Chirikoff sent a sailor spying from the lookout of the highest yard-arm. No signals at all this day; nor the next day; nor the next! The _St. Paul_ had only one other small boat. Fearing the jolly-boat had come to grief among the rocks and counter-currents, Chirikoff bade Sidor Savelief, the bo'swain, and six armed sailors, including carpenters to repair damages, take the remaining boat and go to Dementieff's rescue. The strictest orders were given that both boats return at once. Barely had the second boat rounded the elbow of shore where the first boat had disappeared when a great column of smoke burst from the tree-tops of the hidden shore. To Chirikoff's amazement, the second crew made no signal. The night passed uneasily. Sailors were on the watch. Ship's rigging was put in shape. Dawn was witnessed {49} by eager eyes gazing shoreward. The relief was inexpressible when two boats--a long and a short one like those used by the two crews--were seen rounding the elbow of land. The landward breeze was now straining the _St. Paul's_ hawsers. Glad to put for open sea to weather the coming gale, Chirikoff ordered all hands on deck and anchors up. The small boats came on with a bounce over the ocean swell; but suddenly one of Chirikoff's Russians pointed to the approaching crafts. There was a pause in the rattle of anchor chains. There was a pause in the bouncing of the small boats, too. They were _not_ the Russian jolly-boats. They were canoes; and the canoes were filled with savages as dumb with astonishment at the apparition of the _St. Paul_ as the Russians were at the canoes. Before the Russians had come to their senses, or Chirikoff had time to display presents to allure the savages on board as hostages, the Indians rose in their places, uttered a war-whoop that set the rocks echoing, and beating their paddles on the gun'els, scudded for shore. Gradually the meaning dawned on Chirikoff. His two crews had been destroyed. His small boats were lost. His supply of fresh water was running low. The fire that he had observed had been a fire of orgies over mutilated men. The _St. Paul_ was on a hostile shore with such a gale blowing as threatened destruction on the rocks. There Was nothing to do but scud for open sea. When the gale abated, Chirikoff returned to Sitka and cruised {50} the shore for some sign of the sailors: but not a trace of the lost men could be descried. By this time water was so scarce, the men were wringing rain moisture out of the sails and distilling sea-water. A council was called. All agreed it would be worse than folly to risk the entire crew for the twelve men, who were probably already dead. There was no small boat to land for more water; and the _St. Paul_ was headed about with all speed for the northwest.[3] Slant rain settled over the sea. The wind increased and grew more violent. The _St. Paul_ drove ahead like a ghost form pursued through a realm of mist. Toward the end of July, when the weather cleared, stupendous mountains covered with snow were seen on the northwestward horizon like walls of ice with the base awash in thundering sea. Thousands of cataracts, clear as crystal, flashed against the mountain sides; and in places the rock wall rose sheer two thousand feet from the roaring tide. Inlets, gloomy with forested mountain walls where impetuous streams laden with the milky silt of countless glaciers tore their way through the rocks to the sea, could be seen receding inland through the fog. Then the foul weather settled over the sea again; and by the first {51} week of August, with baffling winds and choppy sea, the _St. Paul_ was veering southwestward where Alaska projects a long arm into the Pacific. Chirikoff had passed the line where forests dwarf to willows, and willows to sedges, and sedges to endless leagues of rolling tundras. Somewhere near Kadiak, land was again sighted. When the fog lifted, the vapor of far volcanoes could be seen hanging lurid over the mountain tops. Wind was followed by dead calm, when the sails literally fell to pieces with rain-rot in the fog; and on the evening of September 8 the becalmed crew were suddenly aroused by the tide-rip of roaring breakers. Heaving out all anchors at once, Chirikoff with difficulty made fast to rocky bottom. In the morning, when the fog lifted, he found himself in the centre of a shallow bay surrounded by the towering cliffs of what is now known as Adakh Island. While waiting for a breeze, he saw seven canoe loads of savages put out from shore chanting some invocation. The Russians threw out presents, but the savages took no notice, gradually surrounding the _St. Paul_. All this time Chirikoff had been without any water but the stale casks brought from Kamchatka; and he now signalled his desperate need to the Indians. They responded by bringing bladders full of fresh water; but they refused to mount the decks. And by evening fourteen canoe loads of the taciturn savages were circling threateningly round the Russians. Luckily, {52} at nightfall a wind sprang up. Chirikoff at once slipped anchor and put to sea. By the third week of August, the rations of rye meal had been reduced to once a day instead of twice in order to economize water. Only twelve casks of water remained; and Chirikoff was fifteen hundred miles from Kamchatka. Cold, hunger, thirst, then did the rest. Chirikoff himself was stricken with scurvy by the middle of September, and one sailor died of the scourge. From the 26th, one death a day followed in succession. Though down, Chirikoff was not beaten. Discipline was maintained among the hungry crew; and each day Chirikoff issued exact orders. Without any attempt at steering, the ship drifted westward. No more land was seen by the crew; but on the 2d of October, the weather clearing, an observation was taken of the sun that showed them they were nearing Kamchatka. On the 8th, land was sighted; but one man alone, the pilot, Yelagin, had strength to stay at the helm till Avacha Bay was approached, when distress signals were fired from the ship's cannon to bring help from land. Poor Croyére de l'Isle, kinsman to the map makers whose mistakes had caused disaster, sick unto death of the scurvy, had kept himself alive with liquor and now insisted on being carried ashore. The first breath of clear air above decks was enough. The scientist fell dead within the home harbor. Chirikoff was landed the same day, all unaware that at times in the mist and {53} rain he had been within from fifteen to forty miles of poor Bering, zigzagging across the very trail of the afflicted sister ship. [Illustration: Sea Cows.] By December the entire crew of Bering's castaways, prisoners on the sea-girt islands of the North Pacific, were lodged in five underground huts on the bank of a stream. In 1885, when these mud huts or _yurts_ were examined, they were seen to have walls of peat three feet thick. To each man was given a pound of flour. For the rest, their food must be what they caught or clubbed--mainly, at first, the sea-otter, whose flesh was unpalatable to the taste and tough as leather. Later, Steller discovered that the huge sea-cow--often thirty-five feet long--seen pasturing on the fields of sea-kelp at low tide, afforded food of almost the same quality as the land cow. Seaweed grew in miniature forests on the island; and on this pastured the monster bovine of the sea--true fish in its hind quarters but oxlike in its head and its habits--herding together like cattle, snorting like a horse, moving the neck from side to side as it grazed, with the hind leg a fin, the fore fin a leg, udder between the fore legs, and in place of teeth, plates. Nine hundred or more sea-otter--whose pelts afterward brought a fortune to the crew--were killed for food by Steller and his companions; but two sea-cows provided the castaways with food for six weeks. On November 22d died the old mate, who had weathered northern seas for fifty {54} years. In all, out of a crew of seventy-seven, there had perished by January 6, 1742, when the last death occurred, thirty-one men. Steller's hut was next to Bering's. From that November day when he was carried from the ship through the snow to the sand pit, the commander sank without rallying. Foxskins had been spread on the ground as a bed; but the sand loosened from the sides of the pit and kept rolling down on the dying man. Toward the last he begged Steller to let the sand rest, as it kept in the warmth; so that he was soon covered with sand to his waist. White billows and a gray sky followed the hurricane gale that had hurled the ship in on the beach. All night between the evening of the 7th and the morning of the 8th of December, the moaning of the south wind could be heard through the tattered rigging of the wrecked ship; and all night the dying Dane was communing with his God. He was now over sixty years of age. To a constitution already broken by the nagging cares of eight years and by hardships indescribable, by scurvy and by exposure, was added an acute inflammation. Bering's power of resistance was sapped. Two hours before daybreak on December 8, 1741, the brave Dane breathed his last. He was interred on the 9th of December between the graves of the mate and the steward on the hillside; and the bearded Russians came down from the new-made grave that day bowed and hopeless. A plain Greek cross was placed above {55} his grave; and a copy of that cross marks the same grave to-day. The question arises--where does Bering stand among the world heroes? The world loves success better than defeat; and spectacular success better than duty plainly done. If success means accomplishing what one sets out to do in spite of almost insuperable difficulties--Bering won success. He set out to discover the northwest coast of America; and he perished doing it. But if heroism means a something more than tangible success; if it means that divine quality of fighting for the truth independent of reward, whether one is to be beaten or not; if it means setting to one's self the task of perishing for a truth, without the slightest hope of establishing that truth--then, Bering stands very high indeed among the world's heroes. Steller, who had cursed him for not remaining longer at Mount St. Elias, bore the highest testimony to his integrity and worth. It may be said that a stronger type of hero would have scrunched into nothingness the vampire blunderers who misled the ship; but it must be remembered that stronger types of heroes usually save their own skins and let the underlings suffer. While Bering _might_ have averted the disaster that attended the expedition, it must not be forgotten that when he perished, there perished the very soul of the great enterprise, which at once crumbled to pieces. On a purely material plane, what did Bering accomplish? {56} He dispelled forever the myth of the Northeast Passage if the world would have but accepted his conclusions. The coast of Japan was charted under his direction. The Arctic coast of Asia was charted under his direction. A country as large as from Maine to Florida, or Baltimore to Texas, with a river comparable only to the Mississippi, was discovered by him. The furs of this country for a single year more than paid all that Russia spent to discover it; all that the United States later paid to Russia for it. A dead whale thrown up on the shore proved a godsend to the weak and famishing castaways. As their bodies grew stronger, the spirit of merriment that gilds life's darkest clouds began to come back, and the whale was jocularly known among the Russians as "our magazine of provisions." Then parties of hunters began going out for the sea-otter, which hid its head during storm under the kelp of the sea fields. Steller knew the Chinese would pay what in modern money is from one hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars for each of these sea-otter skins; and between nine hundred and one thousand were taken by the wrecked crew. The same skin of prime quality sells in a London auction room to-day for one thousand dollars. And in spring, when the sea-otter disappeared, there came herds--herds in millions upon millions--of another visitant to the shores of the Commander Islands--the fur seal, {57} which afforded new hunting to the crew, and new wealth to the world. [Illustration: Seals in a Rookery on Bering Island.] The terrible danger now was not from starvation, but mutiny, murder, or massacre among the branded criminals of the discontented crew. Waxel, as he recovered, was afraid of tempting revolt with orders, and convened the crew by vote to determine all that should be done. Officers and men--there was no distinction. By March of 1742 the ground had cleared of snow. Waxel called a meeting to suggest breaking up the packet vessel to build a smaller craft. A vote {58} was asked. The resolution was called, written out, and signed by every survivor, but afterward, when officers and men set themselves to the well-nigh impossible task of untackling the ship without implements of iron, revolt appeared among the workers. Again Waxel avoided mutiny. A meeting was called, another vote taken, the recalcitrants shamed down. The crew lacked more than tools. There was no ship's carpenter. Finally a Cossack, who was afterward raised to the nobility for his work, consented to act as director of the building, and on the 6th of May a vessel forty feet long, thirteen beam, and six deep, was on the stocks. All June, the noise of the planking went on till the mast raised its yard-arms, and an eight-oared single-master, such as the old Vikings of the North Sea used, was well under way. The difficulties of such shipbuilding can hardly be realized. There was no wood but the wood of the old ship, no rigging but the old hemp, no tar but such as could be melted out of the old hemp in earth pits; and very few axes. The upper part was calked with tallow of the sea-cow, the under with tar from the old hull. The men also constructed a second small boat or canoe. On the 10th of August, with such cheers as the island never heard before or since, the single-master was launched from the skids and named the _St. Peter_. Cannon balls and cartridges were thrown in bottom as ballast. Luckily, eight hundred pounds of {59} meal had been reserved for the return voyage, and Steller had salted down steaks of whale meat and sea-cow. On the evening of August 16, after solemn prayer and devotions, with one last look to the lonely crosses on the hillside where lay the dead, the castaways went on board. A sharp breeze was blowing from the north. Hoisting sail, they glided out to sea. The old jolly-boat bobbled behind in tow. Late at night, when the wind fell, the eager mariners bent to the oar. By noon next day they had rounded the southeast corner of the island. Two days afterward, rough weather set the old jolly-boat bumping her nose so violently on the heels of the _St. Peter_, that the cable had to be cut and the small boat set adrift. That night the poor tallow-calked planks leaked so badly, pumps and buckets were worked at fever heat, and all the ballast was thrown overboard. Sometime during the 25th, there shone above the silver rim where sea and sky met, the opal dome of far mountains, Kamchatka! The bearded men could control themselves no longer. Shout on shout made the welkin ring. Tears streamed down the rough, unwashed faces. The Cossacks wept like children. Men vied with each other to seize the oars and row like mad. The tide-rip bounding--lifting--falling--racing over seas for the shores of Kamchatka never ran so mad and swift a course as the crazy craft there bouncing forward over the waves. And when they saw the home harbor {60} of Petropaulovsk, Avacha Bay, on August 27, exultation knew no bounds. The men fired off guns, beat oars on the deck rail, shouted--shouted--shouted till the mountains echoed and every living soul of Avacha dashed to the waterside scarcely believing the evidence of his eyes--that the castaways of Bering's ship had returned. Then one may well believe that the monks set the chapel bells ringing and the cannon roared a welcome from Avacha Bay. Chirikoff had in May sailed in search of Bering, passing close to the island where the castaways were prisoners of the sea, but he did not see the Commander Islands; and all hope had been given up for any word of the _St. Peter_. Waxel wintered that year at Avacha Bay, crossing the mainland in the spring of 1743. In September of the same year, an imperial decree put an end to the Northern Expedition, and Waxel set out across Siberia to take the crew back to St. Petersburg. Poor Steller died on the way from exposure. So ended the greatest naval exploration known to the world. Beside it, other expeditions to explore America pale to insignificance. La Salle and La Vérendrye ascended the St. Lawrence, crossed inland plains, rafted down the mighty tide of the great inland rivers; but La Salle stopped at the mouth of the Mississippi, and La Vérendrye was checked by the barrier of the Rockies. Lewis and Clark accomplished yet more. After ascending the Missouri and crossing the plains, they traversed the Rockies; but they were {61} stopped at the Pacific. When Bering had crossed the rivers and mountains of the two continents--first Europe, then Asia--and reached the Pacific, his expedition had _only begun_. Little remains to Russia of what he accomplished but the group of rocky islets where he perished. But judged by the difficulties which he overcame; by the duties desperately impossible, done plainly and doggedly, by death heroic in defeat--Bering's expedition to northwestern America is without a peer in the annals of the New World discovery.[4] [1] I adopt the views of Dr. Stejneger, of the National Museum, Washington, on this point, as he has personally gone over every foot of the ground. [2] Dr. George Davidson, President of the Geographical Society of the Pacific, has written an irrefutable pamphlet on why Kyak Island and Sitka Sound must be accepted as the landfalls of Bering and Chirikoff. [3] Thus the terrible Sitkan massacre of a later day was preceded by the slaughter of the first Russians to reach America. The Russian government of a later day originated a comical claim to more territory on the ground that descendants of these lost Russians had formed settlements farther down the coast, alleging in proof that subsequent explorers had found red-headed and light-complexioned people as far south as the Chinook tribes. To such means will statecraft stoop. [4] Coxe's _Discoveries of the Russians between Asia and America_ (Paris, 1781) supplies local data on Siberia in the time of Bering. _Voyages from Asia to America_, by S. Müller of the Royal Academy, St. Petersburg, 1764, is simply excellent in that part of the voyage dealing with the wreck. _Peter Lauridsen's Vitus Bering translated from the Danish by Olson_ covers all three aims of the expedition, Japanese and Arctic voyages as well as American. {62} CHAPTER III 1741-1760 THE SEA-OTTER HUNTERS How the Sea-otter Pelts brought back by Bering's Crew led to the Exploitation of the Northwest Coast of America--Difference of Sea-otter from Other Fur-bearing Animals of the West--Perils of the Hunt When the castaway crew of Vitus Bering looked about for means to exist on the barren islands where they were wrecked, they found the kelp beds and seaweed fields of the North Pacific literally alive with a little animal, which the Russians called "the sea-beaver." Sailors of Kamchatka and eastern Siberia knew the sea-beaver well, for it had been found on the Asiatic side of the Pacific, and its pelt was regarded as priceless by Chinese and Tartar merchants. But where did this strange denizen of northern waters live? Only in rare seasons did the herds assemble on the rocky islets of Kamchatka and Japan. And when spring came, the sea-beaver disappeared. Asia was not its home. Where did it go? Russian adventurers who rafted the coast of Siberia {63} in crazy skiffs, related that the sea-beaver always disappeared northeastward, whence the spruce driftwood and dead whales with harpoons of strange hunters and occasionally wrecks of walrus-skin boats came washing from an unknown land. It was only when Bering's crew were left prisoners of the sea on an island barren as a billiard ball that the hunger-desperate men found the habitat of the sea-beaver to be the kelp beds of the Aleutian Islands and northwestern America. But what use were priceless pelts where neither money nor merchant was, and men mad with hunger were thrown back on the primal necessities without thought of gain? The hungry Russian sailors fell on the kelp beds, clubbing right and left regardless of pelts. What matter if the flesh was tough as leather and rank as musk? It filled the empty stomachs of fifty desperate men; and the skins were used on the treeless isle as rugs, as coats, as walls, as stuff to chink the cracks of earth pits, where the sailors huddled like animals in underground caves with no ceiling but the tattered sails. So passed a year--the most desolate year in the annals of ocean voyaging, and when the castaways rafted back to Asia on a skiff made of their wrecked ship, they were clad in the raw skins of the sea-otter, which they had eaten. In all, nearly a thousand skins were carried back; and for those skins, which the Russian sailors had scarcely valued, Chinese merchants paid what in modern money would be from {64} one hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars a pelt.[1] After that, the Russians of Siberia needed no incentive to hunt the sea-beaver. Its habitat was known, and all the riffraff adventurers of Siberian exile, Tartars, Kamchatkans, Russians, criminals, and officers of royal lineage, engaged in the fur trade of western America. Danger made no difference. All that was needed was a boat; and the boat was usually rough-hewn out of the green timbers of Kamchatka. If iron bolts were lacking so far from Europe as the width of two continents, the boat builders used deer sinew, or thongs of walrus hide. Tallow took the place of tar, deerskin the place of hemp, and courage the place of caution. A Siberian merchant then chanced an outfit of supplies for half what the returns might be. The commander--officer or exile--then enlisted sailors among landsmen. Landsmen were preferable for this kind of voyaging. Either in the sublime courage of ignorance, or with the audacity of desperation, the poor landsmen dared dangers which no sailors would risk on such crazy craft, two thousand miles from a home port on an outrageous sea. England and the United States became involved in the exploitation of the Pacific coast in almost the same way. When Captain Cook was at Nootka Sound thirty years after Bering's death, his crews traded {65} trinkets over the taffrail netting for any kind of furs the natives of the west coast chose to exchange. In the long voyaging to Arctic waters afterward, these furs went to waste with rain-rot. More than two-thirds were thrown or given away. The remaining third sold in China on the home voyage of the ships for what would be more than ten thousand dollars of modern money. News of that fact was enough. Boston, New York, London, rubbed their eyes to possibilities of fur trade on the Pacific coast. As the world knows, Boston's efforts resulted in the chance discovery of the Columbia; New York's efforts, in the foundation of the Astor fortunes. East India, France, England, Spain, the United States, vied with each other for the prize of America's west coast. Just as the beaver led French voyagers westward from Quebec to the Rocky Mountains, south to Texas, north to the Athabasca, so the hunt of the sea-beaver led to the exploration of the North Pacific coast. "Sea-beaver" the Russians called the owner of the rare pelt. "Sea-otter" it was known to the English and American hunters. But it is like neither the otter nor beaver, though its habits are akin to both. Its nearest relative is probably the fur seal. Like the seal, its pelt has an ebony shimmer, showing silver when blown open, soft black tipped with white, when examined hair by hair. Six feet, the full-grown sea-otter measures from nose to stumpy tail, with a {66} beaver-shaped face, teeth like a cat, and short webbed feet. Some hunters say the sea-otter is literally born on the tumbling waves--a single pup at a time; others, that the sea-otter retire to some solitary rocky islet to bring forth their young. Certain it is they are rocked on the deep from their birth, "cradled" in the sea, sleeping on their backs in the water, clasping the young in their arms like a human being, tossing up seaweed in play by the hour like mischievous monkeys, or crawling out on some safe, sea-girt rocklet, where they shake the water from their fur and make their toilet, stretching and arranging and rearranging hair like a cat. Only the fiercest gales drive the sea-otter ashore, for it must come above water to breathe; and it must come ashore to sleep where it _can_ breathe; for the ocean wash in a storm would smother the sleeper. And its favorite sleeping grounds are in the forests of kelp and seaweed, where it can bury its head, and like the ostrich think itself hidden. A sound, a whiff--the faintest tinge--of smoke from miles away is enough to frighten the sleeper, who leaps up with a fierce courage unequalled in the animal world, and makes for sea in lightning-flash bounds. When Bering found the northwest coast of America, the sea-otter frequented all the way from what is now California to the Commander Islands, the last link of the chain from America to Asia. Sea-otter were found and taken in thousands at Sitka Sound, in Yakutat Bay, Prince William Sound, Cook's Inlet, and all {67} along the chain of eleven hundred Aleutian Islands to the Commander Group, off Kamchatka. Where they were found in thousands then, they are seen only in tens and hundreds to-day. Where they are in hundreds one year, they may not come at all the next, having been too hard hunted. This explains why there used to be returns of five thousand in a single year at Kadiak or Oonalaska or Cook's Inlet; and the next year, less than a hundred from the same places. Japan long ago moved for laws to protect the sea-otter as vigorously as the seal; but Japan was only snubbed by England and the United States for her pains, and to-day the only adequate protection afforded the diminishing sea-otter is in the tiny remnant of Russia's once vast American possessions--on the Commander Islands where by law only two hundred sea-otter may be taken a year, and the sea-otter rookeries are more jealously guarded than diamond mines. The decreasing hunt has brought back primitive methods. Instead of firearms, the primitive club and net and spear are again used, giving the sea-otter a fair chance against his antagonist--Man. Except that the hunters are few and now dress in San Francisco clothes, they go to the hunt in the same old way as when Baranof, head of the Russian Fur Company, led his battalions out in companies of a thousand and two thousand "bidarkies"--walrus-skin skiffs taut as a drumhead, with seams tallowed and an oilskin wound round each of the manholes, so that the boat {68} could turn a somerset in the water, or be pitched off a rock into the surf, and come right side up without taking water, paddler erect. The first thing the hunter had to look to was boat and hunting gear. Westward of Cook's Inlet and Kadiak was no timber but driftwood, and the tide wash of wrecks; so the hunter, who set out on the trail of the pathless sea, framed his boat on the bones of the whale. There were two kinds of boats--the long ones, for from twelve to twenty men, the little skiffs which Eskimos of the Atlantic call kyacks--with two or three, seldom more, manholes. Over the whalebone frame was stretched the wet elastic hide of walrus or sea-lion. The big boat was open on top like a Newfoundland fisherman's dory or Frenchman's bateau, the little boat covered over the top except for the manholes round which were wound oilskins to keep the water out when the paddler had seated himself inside. Then the wet skin was allowed to dry in sunshine and wind. Hot seal oil and tallow poured over the seams and cracks, calked the leaks. More sunshine and wind, double-bladed paddles for the little boats, strong oars and a sail for the big ones, and the skiffs were ready for water. Eastward of Kadiak, particularly south of Sitka, the boats might be hollowed trees, carved wooden canoes, or dugouts--not half so light to ride shallow, tempestuous seas as the skin skiff of the Aleut hunter. We supercilious civilized folk laugh at the odd dress {69} of the savage; but it was exactly adapted to the need. The otter hunter wore the fur in, because that was warmer; and the skin out, because cured in oil, that was waterproof; and the chimney-pot capote, because that tied tight enough around his neck kept the ice-water from going down his back when the bidarka turned heels up; and the skin boots, because they, too, were waterproof; and the sedge grass padding in place of stockings, because it protected the feet from the jar of rocks in wild runs through surf and kelp after the game. On land, the skin side of the coats could be turned in and the fur out. Oonalaska, westward of the Aleutian chain of islands and Kadiak, just south of the great Alaskan peninsula, were the two main points whence radiated the hunting flotillas for the sea-otter grounds. Formerly, a single Russian schooner or packet boat would lead the way with a procession of a thousand bidarkas. Later, schooners, thirty or forty of them, gathered the hunters at some main fur post, stowed the light skin kyacks in piles on the decks, and carried the Aleuts to the otter grounds. This might be at Atka, where the finest otter hunters in the world lived, or on the south shore of Oonalaska, or in Cook's Inlet where the rip of the tide runs a mill-race, or just off Kadiak on the Saanach coast, where twenty miles of beach boulders and surf waters and little islets of sea-kelp provide ideal fields for the sea-otter. Here the sweeping tides and {70} booming back-wash keep up such a roar of tumbling seas, the shy, wary otter, alert as an eagle, do not easily get scent or sound of human intruder. Surf washes out the scent of the man track. Surf out-sounds noise of the man killer; and no fires are lighted, be it winter or summer, unless the wind is straight from the southward; for the sea-otter always frequent the south shores. The only provisions on the carrying schooner are hams, rancid butter or grease, some rye bread and flour; the only clothing, what the Aleut hunters wear. No sooner has the schooner sheered off the hunting-grounds, than the Aleuts are over decks with the agility of performing monkeys, the schooner captain wishing each good luck, the eager hunters leaping into their bidarkas following the lead of a chief. The schooner then returns to the home harbor, leaving the hunters on islands bare as a planed board for two, three, four months. On the Commander Group, otter hunters are now restricted to the use of the net alone, but formerly the nature of the hunting was determined entirely by the weather. If a tide ran with heavy surf and wind landward to conceal sound and sight, the hunters lined alongshore of the kelp beds and engaged in the hunt known as surf-shooting. Their rifles would carry a thousand yards. Whoever saw the little round black head bob above the surface of the water, shot, and the surf wash carried in the dead body. If the weather was dead calm, fog or clear, bands of twenty {71} and thirty men deployed in a circle to spear their quarry. This was the spearing-surround. Or if such a hurricane gale was churning the sea so that gusty spray and sleet storm washed out every outline, sweeping the kelp beds naked one minute, inundating them with mountainous rollers that thundered up the rocks the next, the Aleut hunters risked life, scudded out on the back of the raging storm, now riding the rollers, now dipping to the trough of the sea, now scooting with lightning paddle-strokes right through the blasts of spray athwart wave wash and trough--straight for the kelp beds or rocky boulders, where the sea-otter must have been driven for refuge by the storm. This hunting is the very incarnation of the storm spirit itself, for the wilder the gale, the more sea-otter have come ashore; the less likely they will be to see or hear or smell the hunter. Gaff or paddle in hand, the Aleut leaps from rock to rock, or dashes among the tumbling beds of tossed kelp. A quick blow of the bludgeon; the otter never knows how death came. This is the club hunt. But where the shore is honeycombed with caves and narrow inlets of kelp fields, is a safer kind of hunting. Huge nets now made of twine, formerly of sinew, with wooden floaters above, iron sinkers below, are spread athwart the kelp fields. The tide sweeps in, washing the net flat. And the sea-otter swim in with the tide. The tide sweeps out, washing the net up, but the otter are enmeshed in a tangle that holds neck and feet. This is, perhaps, the {72} best kind of otter hunting, for the females and young can be thrown back in the sea. Barely has the supply schooner dipped over the offing, when the cockle-shell bidarkas skimming over the sea make for the shore of the hunting-grounds. Camping is a simple matter, for no fires are to be lighted, and the tenting place is chosen if possible on the north side of some knoll. If it is warm weather, the Aleut will turn his skin skiff upside down, crawl into the hole head first and sleep there. Or he may erect the V-shaped tent such as the prairie tepee. But if it is cold, he has a better plan yet. He will dig a hole in the ground and cover over the top with sail-cloth. Let the wind roar above and the ice bang the shore rocks, the Aleut swathed in furs sleeps sound close to earth. If driftwood lines the shore, he is in luck; for he props up the poles, covers them with furs, and has what might be mistaken for a wigwam, except that these Indians construct their tents round-topped and always turn the skin side of the fur out. For provisions, he has brought very little from the ship. He will depend on the winds driving in a dead whale, or on the fish of the shore, or on the eggs of the sea-birds that nest on these rocks millions upon millions--such myriads of birds they seem to crowd each other for foot room, and the noise of their wings is like a great wind.[2] The Aleut himself is what any race of men {73} would become in generations of such a life. His skin is more like bronze than leather. His chest is like a bellows, but his legs are ill developed from the cramped posture of knees in the manhole. Indeed, more than knees go under the manhole. When pressed for room, the Aleut has been known to crawl head foremost, body whole, right under the manhole and lie there prone between the feet of the paddlers with nothing between him and the abysmal depths of a hissing sea but the parchment keel of the bidarka, thin as paper. How do these thin skin boats escape wreckage on a sea where tide-rip washes over the reefs all summer and ice hummocks sweep out from the shore in winter tempest? To begin with, the frost that creates the ice clears the air of fog, and the steel-shod pole either sheers the bidarka off from the ice, or the ice off from the bidarka. Then, when the fog lies knife-thick over the dangerous rocks in summer time, there is a certain signal to these deep-sea plunderers. The huge Pacific walrus--the largest species of walrus in the world--lie in herds of hundreds on these danger rocks, and the walrus snorts through the gray mist like a continual fog-horn. No better danger signal exists among the rocks of the North Pacific than this same snorting walrus, who for all his noise and size is a floundering coward. The great danger to the nutshell skin's is from becoming ice-logged when the sleet storms fall and freeze; and for the rest, the sea makes small matter of a hunter more or less. {74} No landsman's still-hunt affords the thrilling excitement of the otter hunter's spearing-surrounds. Fifteen or twenty-five little skin skiffs, with two or three men in each, paddle out under a chief elected by common consent. Whether fog or clear, the spearing is done only in calm weather. The long line of bidarkas circles silently over the silver sea. Not a word is spoken, not a paddle blade allowed to click against the bone gun'els of the skiff. Double-bladed paddles are frequently used, so shift of paddle is made from side to side of the canoe without a change of hands. The skin shallops take to the water as noiselessly as the glide of a duck. Yonder, where the boulders lie mile on mile awash in the surf, kelp rafts--forests of seaweed--lift and fall with the rhythmical wash of the tide. Hither the otter hunters steer, silent as shadows. The circle widens, deploys, forms a cordon round the outermost rim of the kelp fields. Suddenly a black object is seen floating on the surface of the waters--a sea-otter asleep. Quick as flash, the steersman lifts his paddle. Not a word is spoken, but so keen is the hearing of the sleeping otter, the drip of the lifted paddle has not splashed into the sea before the otter has awakened, looked and dived like lightning to the bottom of the sea before one of the Aleut hunters can hurl his spear. Silently, not a whisper, the steersman signals again. The hunters deploy in a circle half a mile broad round the place where the sea-otter disappeared; for they know that in fifteen or twenty {75} minutes the animal must come up for breath, and it cannot run farther than half a mile under sea before it reappears. Suddenly somebody sees a round black-red head poke above water, perhaps close to the line of watchers. With a wild shout, the nearest bidarkas dart forward. Whether the spear-throw has hit or missed, the shout has done enough. The terrified otter dives before it has breath. Over the second diving spot a hunter is stationed, and the circle narrows, for the otter must come up quicker this time. It must have breath. Again and again, the little round head peeps up. Again the shout greets it. Again the lightning dive. Sometimes only a bubble gurgling to the top of the water guides the watchers. Presently the body is so full of gases from suppressed breathing, it can no longer sink, and a quick spear-throw secures the quarry. One animal against, perhaps, sixty men. Is the quest fair? Yonder thunders the surf below beetling precipices. Then the tide wash comes in with a rip like a whirlpool, or the ebb sets the beach combers rolling--lashing billows of tumbling waters that crash together and set the sheets of blinding spray shattering. Or the fog comes down over a choppy sea with a whizzing wind that sets the whitecaps flying backward like a horse's mane. The chase may have led farther and farther from land. As long as the little black head comes up, as long as the gurgling bubble tells of a struggling breather below, the hunters follow, be it {76} near or far, till, at the end of two or three hours, the exhausted sea-otter is taken. Perhaps forty men have risked their lives for a single pelt for which the trader cannot pay more than forty dollars; for he must have his profit, and the skin must be dressed, and the middlemen must have their profit; so that if it sells even for eleven hundred dollars in London--though the average is nearer one hundred and fifty dollars--the Aleut is lucky to receive forty or fifty dollars. Day after day, three months at a time, warm or cold, not daring to light fires on the island, the Aleut hunters go out to the spearing-surround, till the schooner returns for them from the main post; and whether the hunt is harder on man or beast may be judged from the fact that where the hunting battalions used to rally out in companies of thousands, they to-day go forth only in twenties and forties. True, the sea-otter has decreased and is almost extinct in places; but then, where game laws protect it, as in the Commander Islands, it is on the increase, and as for the Aleut hunters--their thousands lie in the bottom of the sea; and of the thousands who rallied forth long ago, often only a few hundred returned. But while the spearing-surround was chiefly followed in battalions under the direction of a trading company, the clubbing was done by the individuals--the dauntless hunters, who scudded out in twos and threes in the wake of the blast, lost themselves in the shattering sheets of spray, with the wind screaming mad riot in their ears {77} and the roily rollers running a mill-race against tide and wind. How did they steer their cockle-shell skiffs--these Vikings of the North Pacific; or did they steer at all, or only fly before the gale on the wings of the mad north winds? Who can tell? The feet of man leave earth sometimes when the spirit rides out reckless of land or sea, or heaven or hell, and these plunderers of the deep took no reckoning of life or death when they rode out on the gale, where the beach combers shattered up the rocks, and the creatures of the sea came huddling landward to take refuge among the kelp rafts. Tossing the skin skiffs high and dry on some rock, with perhaps the weight of a boulder to keep them from blowing away, the hunters rushed off to the surf wash armed only with a stout stick. The otters must be approached away from the wind, and the noise of the surf will deaden the hunter's approach; so beating their way against hurricane gales--winds that throw them from their feet at times--scrambling over rocks slippery as glass with ice, running out on long reefs where the crash of spray confuses earth and air, wading waist-deep in ice slush, the hunters dash out for the kelp beds and rocks where the otter are asleep. Clubbing sounds brutal, but this kind of hunting is, perhaps, the most merciful of all--to the animal, not the man. The otter is asleep. The gale conceals the approaching danger. One blow of the gaff, and the otter never awakes. In this way have three hunters killed as many as a hundred otter {78} in two hours; and in this way have the thousands of Aleutian otter hunters, who used to throng the inlets of the northern islands, perished and dwindled to a population of poverty stricken, scattered men. What were the rewards for all this risk of life? A glance at the records of the old fur companies tells why the Russian and American and English traders preferred sea-otter to the gold mines of the Spaniards in Mexico. Less than ten years after Cook's crew had sold their sea-otter for ten thousand dollars, the East India Company sold six hundred sea-otter for from sixty to one hundred dollars each. Two years later, Portlock and Dixon sold their cargo for fifty-five thousand dollars; and when it is remembered that two hundred sea-otter--twelve thousand dollars' worth at the lowest average--were sometimes got from the Nootka tribes for a few dollars' worth of old chisel iron--the profit can be estimated. In 1785 five thousand sea-otter were sold in China for one hundred and sixty thousand dollars. A capital of fifty thousand usually yielded three hundred thousand dollars; that is--if the ships escaped the dangers of hostile Indians and treacherous seas. What the Russians made from sea-otter will probably never be known; for so many different companies were engaged in the trade; and a hundred years ago, as many as fifteen thousand Indian hunters went out for the Russians yearly. One ship, the year after Bering's wreck, {79} is known to have made half a million dollars from its cargo. By definite figures--not including returns not tabulated in the fur companies--two hundred thousand sea-otter were taken for the Russians in half a century. Just before the United States took over Alaska, Russia was content with four hundred sea-otter a year; but by 1875 the Americans were getting three thousand a year. Those gathered at Kadiak have totalled as many as six thousand in a year during the heyday of the hunt, at Oonalaska three thousand, on the Prybilofs now noted for their seal, five thousand. In 1785 Cook's Inlet yielded three thousand; in 1812, only one hundred. Yakutat gave two thousand in 1794, only three hundred, six years later. Fifteen thousand were gathered at Sitka in 1804, only one hundred and fifty thirty years later. Of course the Russians obtained such results only by a system of musket, bludgeon, and outrage, that are repellent to the modern mind. Women were seized as hostages for a big hunt. Women were even murdered as a punishment for small returns. Men were sacrificed like dogs by the "promyshleniki"--riffraff blackguard Russian hunters from the Siberian exile population; but this is a story of outrageous wrong followed by its own terrible and unshunnable Nemesis which shall be told by itself. [1] The price of the sea-otter varied, falling in seasons when the market was glutted to $40 a pelt, selling as high, in cases of rare beauty, as $1000 a pelt. [2] See John Burroughs's account of birds observed during the Harriman Expedition. Elliott and Stejenger have remarked on the same phenomenon. {80} CHAPTER IV 1760-1770 THE OUTLAW HUNTERS The American Coast becomes the Great Rendezvous for Siberian Criminals and Political Exiles--Beyond Reach of Law, Cossacks and Criminals perpetrate Outrages on the Indians--The Indians' Revenge wipes out Russian Forts in America--The Pursuit of Four Refugee Russians from Cave to Cave over the Sea at Night--How they escape after a Year's Chase "_God was high in the Heavens, and the Czar was far away_," as the Russians say, and the Siberian exiles--coureurs of the sea--who flocked to the west coast of America to hunt the sea-otter after Bering's discoveries in 1741 took small thought and recked no consequences of God or the Czar. They timbered their crazy craft from green wood in Kamchatka, or on the Okhotsk Sea, or among the forests of Siberian rivers. They lashed the rude planks together, hoisted a sail of deer hide above a deck of, perhaps, sixty feet, and steering by instinct across seas as chartless as the forests where French coureurs ran, struck out from Asia for America with wilder {81} dreams of plunder than ever Spanish galleon or English freebooter hoped coasting the high seas. The crews were criminals with the brands of their crimes worn uncovered, banded together by some Siberian merchant who had provided goods for trade, and set adrift under charge of half a dozen Cossacks supposed to keep order and collect tribute of one-tenth as homage from American Indians for the Czar. English buccaneers didn't scruple as to blood when they sacked Spanish cities for Spanish gold. These Russian outlaws scrupled less, when their only hope of bettering a desperate exile was the booty of precious furs plundered, or bludgeoned, or exacted as tribute from the Indians of Northwest America. The plunder, when successful, or trade, if the crazy planks did not go to pieces above some of the reefs that cut up the North Pacific, was halved between outfitter and crew. If the cargo amounted to half a million dollars in modern money--as one of Drusenin's first trips did--then a quarter of a million was a tidy sum to be divided among a crew of, say, thirty or forty. Often as not, the long-planked single-master fell to pieces in a gale, when the Russians went to the bottom of the sea, or stranded among the Aleutian Islands westward of Alaska, when the castaways took up comfortable quarters among the Indians, who knew no other code of existence than the _rights of the strong_; and the Russians with their firearms seemed strong, indeed, to the Aleuts. As long as the newcomer demanded only furs, {82} on his own terms of trade--the Indians acquiesced. Their one hope was to become strong as the Russians by getting iron in "toes"--bands two inches thick, two feet long. It was that ideal state, which finical philosophers describe as the "survival of the fit," and it worked well till the other party to the arrangement resolved he would play the same game and become fit, too, when there resulted a cataclysm of bloodshed. The Indians bowed the neck submissively before oppression. Abuse, cruelty, outrage, accumulated on the heads of the poor Aleuts. They had reached the fine point where it is better for the weak to die trying to overthrow strength, than to live under the iron heel of brute oppression. The immediate cause of revolt is a type of all that preceded it.[1] Running out for a thousand miles from the coast of Alaska is the long chain of Aleutian Islands linking across the Pacific toward Asia. Oonalaska, the most important and middle of these, is as far from Oregon as Oregon is from New York. Near Oonalaska were the finest sea-otter fields in the world; and the Aleutians numbered twenty thousand hunters--men, women, children--born to the light skin boat as plainsmen were born to the saddle. On Oonalaska and its next-door neighbor westward were at least ten thousand of these Indian otter hunters, when Russia first sent her ships to America. Bassof came soonest after Bering's discovery; and he carried back {83} on each of three trips to the Commander Islands a cargo of furs worth from seventy-five thousand to one hundred thousand dollars in modern money. The effect on the Siberian mind was the same as a gold find. All the riffraff adventurers of Siberia swarmed to the west coast of America. We have only the Russian version of the story--not the Indians'--and may infer that we have the side most favorable to Russia. When booty of half a million was to be had for the taking, what Siberian exiles would permit an Indian village to stand between them and wealth? At first only children were seized as hostages of good conduct on the part of the Indians while the white hunters coasted the islands. Then daughters and wives were lured and held on the ships, only to be returned when the husbands and fathers came back with a big hunt for the white masters. Then the men were shot down; safer dead, thought the Russians; no fear of ambush or surprise; and the women were held as slaves to be knouted and done to death at their masters' pleasure. In 1745--four years after Russia's discovery of western America--a whole village in Attoo was destroyed so that the Russians could seize the women and children fleeing for hiding to the hills. The next year Russians were caught putting poison in the food of another village: the men ate first among the Indians. The women would be left as slaves to the Russians; and these same Russians carried a pagan boy home to {84} be baptized in the Christian faith; for the little convert could come back to the Aleutian Islands as interpreter. It was as thorough a scheme of subjugation as the wolf code of existence could have entailed. The culmination came with the crew of Betshevin, a Siberian merchant, in 1760. There were forty Russians, including Cossacks, and twenty other Asiatic hunters and sailors. Four of the merchant's agents went along to enforce honest returns. Sergeant Pushkareff of the Cossacks was there to collect tribute from Russia's Indian subjects on the west coast of America. The ship was evidently better than the general run, with ample room in the hold for cargo, and wide deck room where the crew slept in hammocks without cover--usually a gruff, bearded, ragged, vermin-infested horde. The vessel touched at Oomnak, after having met a sister ship, perhaps with an increase of aggressiveness toward the natives owing to the presence of these other Russians under Alixei Drusenin; and passed on eastward to the next otter resort, Oonalaska Island. Oonalaska is like a human hand spread out, with the fingers northeast, the arm end down seventy miles long toward Oomnak Island. The entire broken coast probably reaches a circuit of over two hundred miles. Down the centre and out each spur are high volcanic mountains, two of them smoking volcanoes, all pitted with caves and hot springs whose course can be traced in winter by the runnels of steam {85} down the mountain side. On the south side, reefs line all approach. North, east, and west are countless abrupt inlets opening directly into the heart of the mountains down whose black cliffs shatter plumes of spray and cataract. Not a tree grows on the island. From base to summit the hills are a velvet sward, willow shrubs the size of one's finger, grass waist high, and such a wealth of flowers--poppy fields, anemones, snowdrops, rhododendrons--that one might be in a southern climate instead of close proximity to frozen zones. Fogs wreathe the island three-quarters of the time; and though snow lies five feet deep in winter, and such blizzards riot in from the north as would tear trees up by the roots, and drive all human beings to their underground dwellings, it is never cold, never below zero, and the harbors are always open. Whaling, fishing, fur hunting--those were the occupations of the islanders then, as now. Here, then, came Pushkareff in 1762 after two years' cruising about the Aleutian Islands. The natives are friendly, thinking to obtain iron, and knives, and firearms like the other islanders who have traded with the Russians. Children are given as hostages of good conduct for the Oonalaskan men, who lead the Russians off to the hunt, coasting from point to point. Pushkareff, the Cossack, himself goes off with twenty men to explore; but somehow things go wrong at the native villages on this trip. The hostages find they are not guests, but slaves. Anyway, Betshevin's {86} agent is set upon and murdered. Two more Russians are speared to death under Pushkareff's eyes, two wounded, and the Cossack himself, with his fourteen men, forced to beat a hasty retreat back to ships and huts on the coast. Here, strange enough, things have gone wrong, too! More women and children objecting to their masters' pleasure--slavery, the knout, the branding iron, death by starvation and abuse. Two Russians have been slain bathing in the hot springs near Makushin Volcano, four murdered at the huts, four wounded; and the barrack is burned to the ground. Promptly the Cossack wreaks vengeance by slaughtering seven of the hostages on the spot; but he deems it wise to take refuge on his ship, weigh anchor and slip out to sea carrying with him by way of a lesson to the natives, two interpreters, three boys, and twenty-five women, two of whom die of cruelty before the ship is well out of Oonalaskan waters. He may have intended dropping the captives at some near island on his way westward; for only blind rage could have rendered him so indifferent to their fate as to carry such a cargo of human beings back to the home harbor of Kamchatka. Meanwhile a hurricane caught Pushkareff's ship, chopping the wave tops off and driving her ahead under bare poles. When the gale abated, the ship was off Kamchatka's shore and the Cossack in a quandary about entering the home port with proofs of his cruelty in the cowering group of Indian women huddled above the deck. {87} On pretence of gathering berries, six sailors were landed with fourteen women. Two watched their chance and dashed for liberty in the hills. On the way back to the ship, one woman was brained to death by a sailor, Gorelin; seeing which, the others on board the jolly-boat took advantage of the confusion, sprang overboard, and suicided. But there were still a dozen hostages on the ship. These might relate the crime of their companions' murder. It was an old trick out of an ugly predicament--destroy the victim in order to dodge retribution, or torture it so it would destroy itself. Fourteen had been tortured into suicide. The rest Pushkareff seized, bound, and threw into the sea. To be sure, on official investigation, Betshevin, the Siberian merchant, was subjected to penal tortures for this crime on his ship; and an imperial decree put an end to free trade among the fur hunters to America. Henceforth a government permit must be obtained; but that did not undo the wrong to the Aleutian Islanders. Primal instincts, unhampered by law, have a swift, sure, short-cut to justice; to the fine equipoise between weak and strong. It was two years before punishment was meted out by the Russian government for this crime. What did the Aleut Indian care for the law's slow jargon? His only law was self-preservation. His furs had been plundered from him; his hunting-fields overrun by brigands from he knew not where; his home outraged; his warriors poisoned, bludgeoned, done to death; his women and children {88} kidnapped to lifelong slavery; the very basic, brute instincts of his nature tantalized, baited, tortured to dare! It was from January to September of 1762, that Pushkareff had run his mad course of outrage on Oonalaska Island. It was in September of the same year, that four other Russian ships, all unconscious of the reception Pushkareff's evil doings had prepared for them, left Kamchatka for the Aleutian Islands. Each of the ships was under a commander who had been to the islands before and dealt fairly by the Indians. Betshevin's ship with Pushkareff, the Cossack, reached Kamchatka September 25. On the 6th there had come to winter at the harbor a ship under the same Alexei Drusenin, who had met Pushkareff the year before on the way to Oonalaska. Drusenin was outward bound and must have heard the tales told of Pushkareff's crew; but the latter had brought back in all nearly two thousand otter,--half sent by Drusenin, half brought by himself,--and Oonalaska became the lodestar of the otter hunters. The spring of '63 found Drusenin coasting the Aleutians. Sure enough, others had heard news of the great find of the new hunting-grounds. Three other Russian vessels were on the grounds before him, Glottoff and Medvedeff at Oomnak, Korovin halfway up Oonalaska. No time for Drusenin to lose! A spy sent out came back with the report that every part of Oomnak and {89} Oonalaska was being thoroughly hunted except the extreme northeast, where the mountain spurs of Oonalaska stretch out in the sea like a hand. Up to the northeast end, then, where the tide-rip thunders up the rock wall like an inverted cataract, posts Drusenin where he anchors his ship in Captain Harbor, and has winter quarters built before snow-fall of '63. An odd thing was--the Indian chiefs became so very friendly they voluntarily brought hostages of good conduct to Drusenin. Surely Drusenin was in luck! The best otter-hunting grounds in the world! A harbor as smooth as glass, mountain-girt, sheltered as a hole in a wall, right in the centre of the hunting-grounds, yet shut off from the rioting north winds that shook the rickety vessels to pieces! And best of all, along the sandy shore between the ship and the mountains that receded inland tier on tier into the clouds--the dome-roofed, underground dwellings of two or three thousand native hunters ready to risk the surf of the otter hunt at Drusenin's beck! Just to make sure of safety after Pushkareff's losses of ten men on this island, Drusenin exchanges a letter or two with the commanders of those other three Russian vessels. Then he laid his plans for the winter's hunt. But so did the Aleut Indians; and their plans were for a man-hunt of every Russian within the limits of Oonalaska. A curious story is told of how the Aleuts arranged to have the uprising simultaneous and certain. A bunch of sticks was carried to the chief of every tribe. {90} These were burned one a day, like the skin wick in the seal oil of the Aleut's stone lamp. When the last stick had burned, the Aleuts were to rise. Now, the northeast coast was like the fingers of a hand. Drusenin had anchored between two mountain spurs like fingers. Eastward, across the next mountain spur was another village--Kalekhta, of some forty houses; eastward of Kalekhta, again, ten miles across, another village of seventy families on the island of Inalook. Drusenin decided to divide his crew into three hunting parties: one of nine men to guard the ship and trade with the main village of Captain Harbor; a second of eleven, to cross to the native huts at Kalekhta; a third of eleven, to cross the hills, and paddle out to the little island of Inalook. To the island ten miles off shore, Drusenin went himself, with Korelin, a wrecked Russian whom he had picked up on the voyage. On the way they must have passed all three mountains, that guard the harbor of Oonalaska, the waterfalls that pour over the cliffs near Kalekhta, and the little village itself where eleven men remained to build huts for the winter. From the village to the easternmost point was over quaking moss ankle-deep, or through long, rank grass, waist-high and water-rotted with sea-fog. Here they launched their boat of sea-lion skin on a bone frame, and pulled across a bay of ten miles to the farthermost hunting-grounds. Again, the natives overwhelm Drusenin with kindness. The Russian keeps his sentinels as {91} vigilant as ever pacing before the doors of the hut; but he goes unguarded and unharmed among the native dwellings. Perhaps, poor Drusenin was not above swaggering a little, belted in the gay uniform Russian officers loved to wear, to the confounding of the poor Aleut who looked on the pistols in belt, the cutlass dangling at heel, the bright shoulder straps and colored cuffs, as insignia of a power almighty. Anyway, after Drusenin had sent five hunters out in the fields to lay fox-traps, early in the morning of December 4, he set out with a couple of Cossack friends to visit a native house. Korelin, the rescued castaway, and two other men kept guard at the huts.[2] At that time, and until very recently, the Aleuts' winter dwelling was a domed, thatched roof over a cellar excavation three or four feet deep, circular and big enough to lodge a dozen families. The entrance to this was a low-roofed, hall-like annex, dark as night, leading with a sudden pitch downward into the main circle. Now, whether the Aleut had counted burning fagots, or kept tally some other way, the count was up. Barely had Drusenin stepped into the dark of the inner circle, when a blow clubbed down on his skull that felled him to earth. The Cossack, coming second, had stumbled over the prostrate body before either had any suspicion of danger; and in a {92} second, both were cut to pieces by knives traded to the Indians the day before for otter skins. Shevyrin, the third man, happened to be carrying an axe. One against a score, he yet kept his face to the enemy, beat a retreat backward striking right and left with the axe, then turned and fled for very life, with a shower of arrows and lances falling about him, that drenched him in his own blood. Already a crash of muskets told of battle at the huts. More dead than alive, the pursued Russian turned but to strike his assailants back. Then, he was at the huts almost stumbling over the man who had probably been doing sentinel duty but was now under the spears of the crowd--when the hut door opened; and Korelin, the Russian, dashed out flourishing a yard-long bear knife under protection of the other guard's musket fire from the window, slashed to death two of the nearest Indians, cut a swath that sent the others scattering, seized the two wounded men, dragged them inside the hut, and slammed the door to the enraged yells of the baffled warriors. Some one has said that Oonalaska and Oomnak are the smelting furnaces of America. Certainly, the volcanic caves supplied sulphur that the natives knew how to use as match lighters. The savages were without firearms, but might have burned out the Russians had it not been for the constant fusillade of musketry from door and roof and parchment windows of the hut. Two of the Russians were wounded and weak {93} from loss of blood. The other two never remitted their guard day or night for four days, neither sleeping nor eating, till the wounded pair, having recovered somewhat, seized pistols and cutlasses, waited till a quelling of the musketry tempted the Indians near, then sallied out with a flare of their pistols, that dropped three Aleuts on the spot, wounded others, and drove the rest to a distance. But in the sortie, there had been flaunted in their very faces, the coats and caps and daggers of the five hunters Drusenin had sent fox trapping. Plainly, the fox hunters had been massacred. The four men were alone surrounded by hundreds of hostiles, ten miles from the shores of Oonalaska, twenty from the other hunting detachments and the ship. But water was becoming a desperate need. To stay cooped up in the hut was to be forced into surrender. Their only chance was to risk all by a dash from the island. Dark was gathering. Through the shadowy dusk watched the Aleuts; but the pointed muskets of the two wounded men kept hostiles beyond distance of spear-tossing, while the other two Russians destroyed what they could not carry away, hauled down their skin boat to the water loaded with provisions, ammunition, and firearms, then under guard of levelled pistols, pulled off in the darkness across the sea, heaving and thundering to the night tide. But the sea was the lesser danger. Once away from the enemy, the four fugitives pulled for dear life {94} across the tumbling waves--ten miles the way they went, one account says--to the main shore of Oonalaska. It was pitch dark. When they reached the shore, they could neither hear nor see a sign of life; but the moss trail through the snows had probably become well beaten to the ship by this time--four months from Drusenin's landing--or else the fugitives found their way by a kind of desperation; for before daybreak they had run within shouting distance of the second detachment of hunters stationed at Kalekhta. Not a sound! Not a light! Perhaps they had missed their way! Perhaps the Indians on the main island are still friendly! Shevyrin or Korelin utters a shout, followed by the signal of a musket shot for that second party of hunters to come out and help. Scarcely had the crash died over the snows, when out of the dark leaped a hundred lances, a hundred faces, a hundred shrieking, bloodthirsty savages. Now they realize the mistake of having landed, of having abandoned the skin boat back on the beach there! But no time to retrace steps! Only a wild dash through the dark, catching by each other to keep together, up to a high precipitous rock they know is somewhere here, with the sea behind, sheer drop on each side, and but one narrow approach! Here they make their stand, muskets and sword in hand, beating the assailants back, wherever a stealthy form comes climbing up the rock to hurl spear or lance! Presently, a well-directed fusillade drives the savages off! While night still hid {95} them, the four fugitives scrambled down the side of the rock farthest from the savages, and ran for the roadstead where the ship had anchored. As dawn comes up over the harbor something catches the attention of the runners. It is the main hatch, the planking, the mast poles of the ship, drawn up and scattered on the beach. Drusenin's ship has been destroyed. The crew is massacred; they, alone, have escaped; and the nearest help is one of those three other Russian ships anchored somewhere seventy miles west. Without waiting to look more, the three men ran for the mountains of the interior, found hiding in one of the deep-grassed ravines, scooped out a hole in the sand, covered this with a sail white as snow, and crawled under in hiding for the day. The next night they came down to the shore, in the hope, perhaps, of finding refugees like themselves. They discovered only the mangled bodies of their comrades, literally hacked to pieces. A saint's image and a book of prayers lay along the sand. Scattered everywhere were flour sacks, provisions, ships' planking. These they carried back as well as they could three miles in the mountains. A pretty legend is told of a native hunter following their tracks to this retreat, and not only refusing to betray them but secretly carrying provisions; and some such explanation is needed to know how the four men lived hidden in the mountains from December 9 to February 2, 1764. If they had known where those other Russian ships {96} were anchored, they might have struck across country to them, or followed the coast by night; but rival hunters did not tell each other where they anchored, and tracks across country could have been followed. The trackless sea was safer. There is another story of how the men hid in mountain caves all those weeks, kept alive by the warmth of hot springs, feeding on clams and shell-fish gathered at night. This, too, may be true; for the mountains inland of Oonalaska Harbor are honeycombed with caves, and there are well-known hot springs. By February they had succeeded in making a skin skiff of the leather sacks. They launched this on the harbor and, stealing away unseen, rounded the northwest coast of Oonalaska's hand projecting into the sea, travelling at night southwestward, seeking the ships of Korovin, or Medvedeff, or Glottoff. Now the majority of voyagers don't care to coast this part of Oonalaska at night during the winter in a safe ship; and these men had nothing between them and the abyss of the sea but the thickness of a leather sack badly oiled to keep out water. Their one hope was--a trader's vessel. All night, for a week, they coasted within the shadow of the shore rocks, hiding by day, passing three Indian villages undiscovered. Distance gave them courage. They now paddled by day, and just as they rounded Makushin Volcano, lying like a great white corpse five thousand feet above Bering Sea, they came on five {97} Indians, who at once landed and running alongshore gave the alarm. The refugees for the second time sought safety on a rock; but the rising tide drove them off. Seizing the light boat, they ran for shelter in a famous cave of the volcanic mountain. Here, for five weeks, they resisted constant siege, not a Russian of the four daring to appear within twenty yards of the cave entrance before a shower of arrows fell inside. Their only food now was the shell-fish gathered at night; their only water, snow scooped from gutters of the cave. Each night one watched by turn while the others slept; and each night one must make a dash to gather the shell-fish. Five weeks at last tired the Indians' vigilance out. One dark night the Russians succeeded in launching out undetected. That day they hid, but daybreak of the next long pull showed them a ship in the folds of the mountain coast--Korovin's vessel. They reached the ship on the 30th of March. Poor Shevyrin soon after died from his wounds in the underground hut, but Korovin's troubles had only begun. Ivan Korovin's vessel had sailed out of Avacha Bay, Kamchatka, just two weeks before Pushkareff's crew of criminals came home. It had become customary for the hunting vessels to sail to the Commander Islands--Bering and Copper--nearest Kamchatka, and winter there, laying up a store of sea-cow meat, the huge bovine of the sea, which was soon to be exterminated by the hunters. Here Korovin met Denis Medvedeff's {98} crew, also securing a year's supply of meat for the hunt of the sea-otter. The two leaders must have had some inkling of trouble ahead, for Medvedeff gave Korovin ten more sailors, and the two signed a written contract to help each other in time of need. In spring (1763) both sailed for the best sea-otter fields then known--Oonalaska and Oomnak, Korovin with thirty-seven men, Medvedeff, forty-nine. In order not to interfere with each other's hunt, Medvedeff stopped at Oomnak, Korovin went on to Oonalaska. Anchoring sixty yards from shore, not very far from the volcano caves, where Drusenin's four fugitives were to fight for their lives the following spring, Korovin landed with fourteen men to reconnoitre. Deserted houses he saw, but never a living soul. Going back to the ship for more men, he set out again and went inland five miles where he found a village of three hundred souls. Three chiefs welcomed him, showed receipts for tribute of furs given by the Cossack collector of a previous ship, and gave over three boys as hostages of good conduct--one, called Alexis, the son of a chief. Meanwhile, letters were exchanged with Medvedeff down a hundred miles at Oomnak. All was well. The time had not come. It was only September--about the same time that Drusenin up north was sending out his hunters in three detachments. Korovin was so thoroughly satisfied all was safe, that he landed his entire cargo and crew, and while the carpenters were building wintering huts out of {99} driftwood, set out himself, with two skin boats, to coast northeast. For four days he followed the very shore that the four escaping men were to cruise in an opposite direction. About forty miles from the anchorage he met Drusenin himself, leading twenty-five Russian hunters out from Captain Harbor. Surely, if ever hunters were safe, Korovin's were, with Medvedeff's forty-nine men southwest a hundred miles, and Drusenin's thirty sailors forty miles northeast. Korovin decided to hunt midway between Drusenin's crew and Medvedeff's. It is likely that the letters exchanged among the different commanders from September to December were arranging that Drusenin should keep to the east of Oonalaska, Korovin to the west of the island, while Medvedeff hunted exclusively on the other island--Oomnak. By December Korovin had scattered twenty-three hunters southwest, keeping a guard of only sixteen for the huts and boat. Among the sixteen was little Alexis, the hostage Indian boy. The warning of danger was from the mother of the little Aleut, who reported that sixty hostiles were advancing on the ship under pretence of trading sea-otter. Between the barracks and the sea front flowed a stream. Here the Cossack guard took their stand, armed head to foot, permitting only ten Indians at a time to enter the huts for trade. The Aleuts exchanged their sea-otter for what iron they could get, and departed without any sign. Korovin had almost concluded it was a false {100} alarm, when three Indian servants of Drusenin's ship came dashing breathless across country with news that the ship and all the Russians on the east end of Oonalaska had been destroyed. Including the three newcomers, Korovin had only nineteen men; and his hostages numbered almost as strong. The panic-stricken sailors were for burning huts and ship, and escaping overland to the twenty-three hunters somewhere southwest. It was the 10th of December--the very night when Drusenin's fugitives had taken to hiding in the north mountains. While Korovin was still debating what to do, an alarm came from beneath the keel of the ship. In the darkness, the sea was suddenly alive with hundreds of skin skiffs each carrying from eight to twenty Indian warriors. One can well believe that lanterns swinging from bow and stern, and lights behind the talc windows of the huts, were put suddenly out to avoid giving targets for the hurricane of lances and darts and javelins that came hurtling through the air. Two Russians fell dead, reducing Korovin's defence to fourteen; but a quick swing of musketry exacted five Indian lives for the two dead whites. At the end of four days, the Russians were completely exhausted. The besiegers withdrew to a cave on the mountain side, perhaps to tempt Korovin on land. Quick as thought, Korovin buried his iron deep under the barracks, set fire to the huts, and concentrated all his forces on the vessel, where he wisely carried the {101} hostages with him and sheered fifty yards farther off shore. Had the riot of winter winds not been driving mountain billows along the outer coast, he might have put to sea; but he had no proof the twenty-three men gone inland hunting to the south might not be yet alive, and a winter gale would have dashed his ship to kindling wood outside the sheltered harbor. Food was short, water was short, and the ship over-crowded with hostages. To make matters worse, scurvy broke out among the crew; and the hostiles renewed the attack, surrounding the Russian ship in forty canoes with ten to twenty warriors in each. An ocean vessel of the time, or even a pirate ship, could have scattered the assailants in a few minutes; but the Russian hunting vessels were long, low, flat-bottomed, rickety-planked craft, of perhaps sixty feet in length, with no living accommodation below decks, and very poor hammock space above. Hostages and scurvy-stricken Russians were packed in the hold with the meat stores and furs like dying rats in a garbage barrel. It was as much as a Russian's life was worth, to show his head above the hatchway; and the siege lasted from the middle of December to the 30th of March, when Drusenin's four refugees, led by Korelin, made a final dash from Makushin Volcano, and gained Korovin's ship. With the addition of the fugitives, Korovin now had eighteen Russians. The Indian father of the hostage, {102} Alexis, had come to demand back his son. Korovin freed the boy at once. By the end of April, the spring gales had subsided, and though half his men were prostrate with scurvy, there was nothing for Korovin to do but dare the sea. They sailed out from Oonalaska on April 26 heading back toward Oomnak, where Medvedeff had anchored. In the straits between the different Aleutian Islands runs a terrific tide-rip. Crossing from Oonalaska to Oomnak, Korovin's ship was caught by the counter-currents and cross winds. Not more than five men were well enough to stand upon their feet. The ship drifted without pilot or oarsmen, and driving the full force of wind and tide foundered on the end of Oomnak Island. Ammunition, sails, and skins for fresh rowboats were all that could be saved of the wreck. One scurvy-stricken sailor was drowned trying to reach land; another died on being lifted from the stiflingly close hold to fresh air. Eight hostages sprang overboard and escaped. Of the sixteen white men and four hostages left, three were powerless from scurvy. This last blow on top of a winter's siege was too much for the Russians. Their enfeebled bodies were totally exhausted. Stretching sails round as a tent and stationing ten men at a time as sentinels, they slept the first unbroken sleep they had known in five months. The tired-out sentinels must have fallen asleep at their places; for just as day dawned came a hundred savages, stealthy and silent, seeking the ship that had slipped {103} out from Oonalaska. Landing without a sound, they crept up within ten yards of the tents, stabbed the sleeping sentinels to death, and let go such a whiz of arrows and lances at the tent walls, that three of the Indian hostages inside were killed and every Russian wounded. Korovin had not even time to seize his firearms. Cutlass in hand, followed by four men--all wounded and bleeding like himself--he dashed out, slashed two savages to death, and scattered the rest at the sword point. A shower of spears was the Indians' answer to this. Wounded anew, the five Russians could scarcely drag themselves back to the tent where by this time the others had seized the firearms. All that day and night, a tempest lashed the shore. The stranded ship fell to pieces like a boat of paper; and the attacking islanders strewed the provisions to the winds with shrieks of laughter. On the 30th of April, the assailants began firing muskets, which they had captured from Korovin's massacred hunters; but the shots fell wide of the mark. Then they brought sulphur from the volcanic caves, and set fire to the long grass on the windward side of the tents. Again, Korovin sallied out, drove them off, and extinguished the fire. May, June, and half July he lay stranded here, waiting for his men to recover, and when they recovered, setting them to build a boat of skin and driftwood. Toward the third week of July, a skin boat twenty-four feet long was finished. In this were laid the wounded; and the well men took to the paddles. All {104} night they paddled westward and still westward, night after night, seeking the third vessel--that of Denis Medvedeff, who had come with them the year before from Bering Island. On the tenth day, Russian huts and a stone bath-house were seen on the shore of a broad inlet. Not a soul was stirring. As Korovin's boat approached, bits of sail, ships' wreckage, and provisions were seen scattered on the shore. Fearing the worst, Korovin landed. Signs of a struggle were on every hand; and in the bath-house, still clothed but with thongs round their necks as if they had been strangled to death, lay twenty of Medvedeff's crew. Closer examination showed Medvedeff himself among the slain. Not a soul was left to tell the story of the massacre, not a word ever heard about the fate of the others in the crew. Korovin's last hope was gone. There was no third ship to carry him home. He was in the very act of ordering his men to construct winter quarters, when Stephen Glottoff, a famous hunter on the way back from Kadiak westward, appeared marching across the sands followed by eight men. Glottoff had heard of the massacres from natives on the north shore with whom he was friendly; and had sent out rescue parties to seek the survivors on the south coast of whom the Indian spies told. The poor fugitives embraced Glottoff, and went almost mad with joy. But like the prospector, who suffers untold hardships seeking the wealth of gold, these seekers of wealth in furs could not relinquish the {105} wild freedom of the perilous life. They signed contracts to hunt with Glottoff for the year. It is no part of this story to tell how the Cossack, Solovieff, entered on a campaign of punishment for the Aleuts when he came. Whole villages were blown up by mines of powder in birch bark. Fugitives dashing from the conflagration were sabred by the Russians, as many as a hundred Aleuts butchered at a time, villages of three hundred scattered to the winds, warriors bound hand and foot in line, and shot down. Suffice it to say, scurvy slaked Solovieff's vengeance. Both Aleuts and Russians had learned the one all-important lesson--the Christian's doctrine of retribution, the scientist's law of equilibrium--that brute force met by brute force ends only in mutual destruction, in anarchy, in death. Thirty years later, Vancouver visiting the Russians could report that their influence on the Indians was of the sort that springs from deep-rooted kindness and identity of interests. Both sides had learned there was a better way than the wolf code.[3] [1] See Coxe's _Discoveries of the Russians_. [2] Some of the old records spell the name of this wrecked Russian "Korelin," as if it were "Gorelin," the sailor, of Pushkareff's crew, who brained the Indian girl; I am unable to determine whether "Korelin" and "Gorelin" are the same man or not. If so, then the punishment came home indeed. [3] It would be almost impossible to quote all the authorities on this massacre of the Russians, and every one who has written on Russian fur trade in America gives different scraps of the tragedy; but nearly all can be traced back to the detailed account in Coxe's _Discoveries of the Russians between Asia and America_, and on this I have relied, the French edition of 1781. The Census Report, Vol. VIII, 1880, by Ivan Petroff, is invaluable for topography and ethnology of this period and region. It was from Korelin, one of the four refugees, that the Russian archivists took the first account of the massacre; and Coxe's narrative is based on Korelin's story, though the tradition of the massacre has been handed down from father to child among Oonalaskans to this day, so that certain caves near Captain Harbor, and Makushin Volcano are still pointed out as the refuge of the four pursued Russians. {106} CHAPTER V 1768-1772 COUNT MAURITIUS BENYOWSKY, THE POLISH PIRATE Siberian Exiles under Polish Soldier of Fortune plot to overthrow Garrison of Kamchatka and escape to West Coast of America as Fur Traders--A Bloody Melodrama enacted at Bolcheresk--The Count and his Criminal Crew sail to America Fur hunters, world over, live much the same life. It was the beaver led French voyageurs westward to the Rocky Mountains. It was the sea-otter brought Russian coasters cruising southward from Alaska to California; and it was the little sable set the mad pace of the Cossacks' wild rush clear across Siberia to the shores of the Pacific. The tribute that the riotous Cossacks collected, whether from Siberia or America, was tribute in furs. The farther the hunters wandered, the harder it was to obtain supplies from the cities. In each case--in New France, on the Missouri, in Siberia--this compelled resort to the same plan; a grand rallying place, a yearly rendezvous, a stamping-ground for hunters and traders. Here merchants brought their goods; {107} hunters, their furs; light-fingered gentry, offscourings from everywhere, horses to sell, or smuggled whiskey, or plunder that had been picked up in ways untold. The great meeting place for Russian fur traders was on a plain east of the Lena River, not far from Yakutsk, a thousand miles in a crow line from the Pacific. In the fall of 1770 there had gathered here as lawless birds of a feather as ever scoured earth for prey. Merchants from the inland cities had floated down supplies to the plain on white and black and lemon-painted river barges. Long caravans of pack horses and mules and tented wagons came rumbling dust-covered across the fields, bells ajingle, driven by Cossacks all the way from St. Petersburg, six thousand miles. Through snow-padded forests, over wind-swept plains, across the heaving mountains of two continents, along deserts and Siberian rivers, almost a year had the caravans travelled. These, for the most part, carried ship supplies--cordage, tackling, iron--for vessels to be built on the Pacific to sail for America. Then there rode in at furious pace, from the northern steppes of Siberia, the Cossack tribute collectors--four hundred of them centred here--who gathered one-tenth of the furs for the Czar, nine-tenths for themselves: drunken brawlers they were, lawless as Arabs; and the only law they knew was the law they wielded. Tartar hordes came with horses to sell, freebooters of the boundless desert, banditti in league with the Cossacks to smuggle across the {108} borders of the Chinese. And Chinese smugglers, splendid in silk attire, hobnobbed with exiles, who included every class from courtiers banished for political offences to criminals with ears cut off and faces slit open. What with drink and play and free fights--if the Czar did not hear, it was because he was far away. On this August night half a dozen new exiles had come in with the St. Petersburg cavalcade. The prisoners were set free on parole to see the sights, while their Cossack guard went on a spree. The new-comers seemed above the common run of criminals sent to Siberia, better clothed, of the air born to command, and in possession of money. The leading spirit among them was a young Pole, twenty-eight years or thereabouts, of noble rank, Mauritius Benyowsky, very lame from a battle wound, but plainly a soldier of fortune who could trump every trick fate played him, and give as good knocks as he got. Four others were officers of the army in St. Petersburg, exiled for political reasons. Only one, Hippolite Stephanow, was a criminal in the sense of having broken law. Hoffman, a German surgeon, welcomed them to his quarters at Yakutsk. Where were they going?--To the Pacific?--"Ah; a long journey from St. Petersburg; seven thousand miles!" That was where he was to go when he had finished surgical duties on the Lena. By that they knew he, too, was an exile, practising his profession on parole. He would advise {109} them--cautiously feeling his ground--to get transferred as soon as they could from the Pacific coast to the Peninsula of Kamchatka; that was safer for an exile--fewer guards, farther from the Cossacks of the mainland; in fact, nearer America, where exiles might make a fortune in the fur trade. Had they heard of schemes in the air among Russians for ships to plunder furs in America "with powder and hatchets and the help of God," as the Russians say? [Illustration: Mauritius Augustus, Count Benyowsky.] Benyowsky, the Pole, jumped to the bait like a trout to the fly. If "powder and hatchets and the help of God"--_and an exile crew_--could capture wealth in the fur trade of western America, why not a break for freedom? They didn't scruple as to means, these men. Why should they? They had been penned in festering dungeons, where the dead lay, corrupting the air till living and dead became a diseased mass. They had been knouted for differences of political opinion. They {110} had been whisked off at midnight from St. Petersburg--mile after mile, week after week, month after month, across the snows, with never a word of explanation, knowing only from the jingle of many bells that other prisoners were in the long procession. Now their hopes took fire from Hoffman's tales of Russian plans for fur trade. The path of the trackless sea seems always to lead to a boundless freedom. In a word, before they had left Hoffman, they had bound themselves by oath to try to seize a fur-trading ship to escape across the Pacific. Stephanow, the common convict, was the one danger. He might play spy and obtain freedom by betraying all. To prevent this, each man was required to sign his name to an avowal of the conspirators' aim. Hoffman was to follow as soon as he could. Meanwhile he kept the documents, which were written in German; and Benyowsky, the Pole, was elected chief. The Cossack guards came sulkily back from their gambling bout. The exiles were placed in elk-team sleds, and the remaining thousand miles to the Pacific resumed. But the spree had left the soldiers with sore heads. At the first camping place they were gambling again. On the sixth day out luck turned so heavily against one soldier that he lost his entire belongings to the captain of the troops, flew in a towering rage, and called his officer some blackguard name. The officer nonchalantly took over the {111} gains, swallowed the insult, and commanded the other Cossacks to tie the fellow up and give him a hundred lashes. For a moment consternation reigned. There are some unwritten laws even among the Cossacks. To play the equal, when there was money to win, then act the despot when offended, was not according to the laws of good fellows among Cossacks. Before the officer knew where he was, he had been seized, bundled out of the tent, stripped naked and flogged on the bare back three hundred strokes. He was still roaring with rage and pain and fear when a coureur came thundering over the path from Yakutsk with word that Hoffman had died suddenly, leaving certain papers suspected of conspiracy, which were being forwarded for examination to the commander on the Pacific. The coureur handed the paper to the officer of the guards. Not a man of the Cossacks could read German. What the papers were the terrified exiles knew. If word of the plot reached the Pacific, they might expect knouting, perhaps mutilation, or lifelong, hopeless servitude in the chain-gangs of the mines. One chance of frustrating detection remained--the Cossack officer looked to the exiles for protection against his men. For a week the cavalcade moved sullenly on, the soldiers jeering in open revolt at the officer, the officer in terror for his life, the exiles quaking with fear. The road led to a swift, somewhat {112} dangerous river. The Cossacks were ordered to swim the elk teams across. The officer went on the raft to guard the prisoners, on whose safe delivery his own life depended. With hoots of laughter, that could not be reported as disobedience, the Cossacks hustled the snorting elk teams against the raft. A deft hoist from the pole of some unseen diver below, and the raft load was turned helter-skelter upside down in the middle of the river, the commander going under heels up! When officer and exiles came scrambling up the bank wet as water-rats, they were welcomed with shouts by the Cossacks. Officer and prisoners lighted a fire to dry clothes. Soldiers rummaged out the brandy casks, and were presently so deep in drunken sleep not a man of the guard was on his feet. Benyowsky waited till the commander, too, slept. Then the Pole limped, careful as a cat over cut glass, to the coat drying before the fire, drew out the packet of documents, and found what the exiles had feared--Hoffman's papers in German, with orders to the commander on the Pacific to keep the conspirators fettered till instructions came the next year from St. Petersburg. The prisoners realized that all must be risked in one desperate cast of the dice. "I and time against all men," says the proverb. No fresh caravan would be likely to come till spring. Meanwhile they must play against time. Burning the packet to ashes, they replaced it with a forged order instructing the commander on the Pacific to treat the exiles with all {113} freedom and liberality, and to forward them by the first boat outward bound for Kamchatka. The governor at Okhotsk did precisely as the packet instructed. He allowed them out on parole. He supplied them with clothing and money. He forwarded them to Kamchatka on the first boat outward bound, the _St. Peter and Paul_, with forty-three of a crew and ten cannon, which had just come back from punishing American Indians for massacring the Russians. A year less two days from the night they had been whisked out of St. Petersburg, the exiles reached their destination--the little log fort or _ostrog_ of Bolcheresk, about twenty miles up from the sea on the inner side of Kamchatka, one hundred and fifty miles overland from the Pacific. The rowboat conducting the exiles up-stream met rafts of workmen gliding down the current. Rafts and rowboat paused within call. The raftsmen wanted news from Europe. Benyowsky answered that exiles had no news. "Who are you?" an officer demanded bluntly. Always and unconsciously playing the hero part of melodrama, Benyowsky replied--"Once a soldier and a general, now a slave." Shouts of laughter broke from the raftsmen. The enraged Pole was for leaping overboard and thrashing them to a man for their mockery; but they called out, "no offence had been meant": they, too, were exiles; their laughter was welcome; they had suffered enough in Kamchatka to know that when men must laugh or weep, better, much better, laugh! Even as they {114} laughed came the tears. With a rear sweep, the rafts headed about and escorted the newcomers to the fortress, where they were locked for the night. After all, a welcome to exile was a sardonic sort of mirth. Kamchatka occupies very much the same position on the Pacific as Italy to the Mediterranean, or Norway to the North Sea. Its people were nomads, wild as American Indians, but Russia had established garrisons of Cossacks--collectors of tribute in furs--all over the peninsula, of whom four hundred were usually moving from place to place, three hundred stationed at Bolcheresk, the seat of government, on the inner coast of the peninsula. The capital itself was a curious conglomeration of log huts stuck away at the back of beyond, with all the gold lace and court satins and regimental formalities of St. Petersburg in miniature. On one side of a deep ravine, was the fort or _ostrog_--a palisaded courtyard of some two or three hundred houses, joined together like the face of a street, with assembly rooms, living apartments, and mess rooms on one side of a passageway, kitchens, servants' quarters, and barracks for the Cossacks on the other side of the aisle. Two or three streets of these double-rowed houses made up the fort. Few of the houses contained more than three rooms, but the rooms were large as halls, one hundred by eighty feet, some of them, with whip-sawed floors, clay-chinked log walls, parchment {115} windows, and furniture hewed out of the green fir trees of the mountains. But the luxurious living made up for the bareness of furnishings. Shining samovars sung in every room. Rugs of priceless fur concealed the rough flooring. Chinese silks, Japanese damasks,--Oriental tapestries smuggled in by the fur traders,--covered the walls; and richest of silk attired the Russian officers and their ladies, compelled to beguile time here, where the only break in monotony was the arrival of fresh ships from America, or exiles from St. Petersburg, or gambling or drinking or dancing or feasting the long winter nights through, with, perhaps, a duel in the morning to settle midnight debts. Just across a deep ravine from the fort was another kind of settlement--ten or a dozen _yurts_, thatch-roofed, circular houses half underground like cellars, grouped about a square hall or barracks in the centre. In this village dwelt the exiles, earning their living by hunting or acting as servants for the officers of the Cossacks. Here, then, came Benyowsky and his companions, well received because of forged letters sent on, but with no time to lose; for the first spring packet overland might reveal their conspiracy. The raftsmen, who had welcomed them, now turned hosts and housed the newcomers. The Pole was assigned to an educated Russian, who had been eight years in exile. "How can you stand it? Do you fear death too much to dare one blow for liberty?" Benyowsky asked the other, as they sat over their tea that first night. {116} But a spy might ask the same question. The Russian evaded answer, and a few hours later showed the Pole books of travel, among which were maps of the Philippines, where twenty or thirty exiles might go _if they had a leader_. Leader? Benyowsky leaped to his feet with hands on pistol and cutlass with which he had been armed that morning when Governor Nilow liberated them to hunt on parole. Leader? Were they men? Was this settlement, too, ready to rise if they had a leader? No time to lose! Within a month, cautious as a man living over a volcano, the Polish nobleman had enlisted twenty recruits from the exile settlement, bound to secrecy by oath, and a score more from a crew of sailor exiles back from America, mutinous over brutal treatment by their captain. In addition to secrecy, each conspirator bound himself to implicit and instant obedience to Benyowsky, their chief, and to slay each with his own hand any member of the band found guilty of betrayal. But what gave the Pole his greatest power was his relation to the governor. The coming of the young nobleman had caused a flutter in the social life of the dull little fort. He had been appointed secretary to Governor Nilow, and tutor to his children. The governor's lady was the widow of a Swedish exile; and it took the Pole but a few interviews to discover that wife and family favored the exiles rather than their Russian lord. In fact, the good woman suggested to the Pole that he {117} should prevent her sixteen-year-old daughter becoming wife to a Cossack by marrying her himself. The Pole's first move was to ask the governor's permission to establish a colony of exile farmers in the south of the peninsula. The request was granted. This created a good excuse for the gathering of the provisions that would be needed for the voyage on the Pacific; but when the exiles further requested a fur-trading vessel to transport the provisions to the new colony, their design was balked by the unsuspecting governor granting them half a hundred row boats, too frail to go a mile from the coast. There seemed no other course but to seize a vessel by force and escape, but Benyowsky again played for time. The governor's daughter discovered his plot through her servant planning to follow one of the exiles to sea; but instead of betraying him to her Russian father, she promised to send him red clippings of thread as danger signals if the governor or his chancellor got wind of the treason. Their one aim was to get away from Asia before fresh orders could come overland from Yakutsk. Ice still blocked the harbor in April, but the _St. Peter and Paul_, the armed vessel that had brought the exiles across the sea from the mainland, lay in port and was already enlisting a crew for the summer voyage to America. The Pole sent twelve of his men to enlist among the crew, and nightly store provisions in the hold. The rest of the band were set to manufacturing cartridges, and buying or borrowing all the firearms {118} they could obtain on the pretence of hunting. Word was secretly carried from man to man that, when a light was hoisted on the end of a flagstaff above the Benyowsky hut, all were to rally for the settlement across the ravine from the fort. The crisis came before the harbor had opened. Benyowsky was on a sled journey inland with the governor, when an exile came to him by night with word that one of the conspirators had lost his nerve and determined to save his own neck by confessing all to the governor. The traitor was even now hard on the trail to overtake the governor. Without a moment's wavering, Benyowsky sent the messenger with a flask of poisoned brandy back to meet the man. The Pole had scarcely returned to his hut in the exile village, when the governor's daughter came to him in tears. Ismyloff, a young Russian trader, who had all winter tried to join the conspirators as a spy, had been on the trail when the traitor was poisoned and was even now closeted with Governor Nilow. It was the night of April 23. No sooner had the daughter gone than the light was run up on the flagstaff, the bridge across the ravine broken down, arms dragged from hiding in the cellars, windows and doors barricaded, sentinels placed in hiding along the ditch between village and fort. For a whole day, no word came. Governor and chancellor were still busy examining witnesses. In the morning came a maid {119} from the governor's daughter with a red thread of warning, and none too soon, for at ten o'clock, a Cossack sergeant brought a polite invitation from the governor for the pleasure of M. Benyowsky's company at breakfast. M. Benyowsky returns polite regrets that he is slightly indisposed, but hopes to give himself the pleasure later. The sergeant winked his eyes and opined it was wiser to go by fair means than to be dragged by main force. The Pole advised the sergeant to make his will before repeating that threat. Noon saw two Cossacks and an officer thundering at the Pole's door. The door opened wide. In marched the soldiers, armed to the teeth; but before their clicking heels had ceased to mark time, the door was shut again. Benyowsky had whistled. A dozen exiles rose out of the floor. Cossacks and captors rolled in a heap. The soldiers were bound head to feet, and bundled into the cellar. Meanwhile the sentinels hidden in the ravine had captured Ismyloff, the nephew of the chancellor, and two other Russians, who were added to the captives in the cellar; and the governor changed his tactics. A letter was received from the governor's daughter pleading with her lover to come and be reconciled with her father, who had now no prejudice against the exiles; but in the letter were two or three tiny red threads such as might have {120} been pulled out of a dress sleeve. The letter had been written under force. Benyowsky's answer was to marshal his fifty-seven men in three divisions round the village; one round the house, the largest hidden in the dark on the fort side of the ravine, a decoy group stationed in the ditch to draw an attack. By midnight, the sentinels sent word that the main guard of Cossacks had reached the ravine. The decoy had made a feint of resistance. The Cossacks sent back to the fort for reinforcements. The Pole waited only till nearly all the Cossacks were on the ditch bank, then instructing the little band of decoys to keep up a sham fight, poured his main forces through the dark, across the plain at a run, for the fort. Palisades were scaled, gates broken down, guards stabbed where they stood! Benyowsky's men had the fort and the gates barricaded again before the governor could collect his senses. As Benyowsky entered the main rooms, the enraged commander seized a pistol, which missed fire, and sprang at the Pole's throat, roaring out he would see the exiles dead before he would surrender. The Pole, being lame, had swayed back under the onslaught, when the circular slash of a cutlass in the hand of an exile officer severed the governor's head from his body. Twenty-eight Cossacks were put to the sword inside the fort; but the exiles were not yet out of their troubles. Though they had seized the armed vessel at once and {121} transferred to the hold the entire loot of the fort,--furs, silks, supplies, gold,--it would be two weeks before the ice would leave the port. Meanwhile the two hundred defeated Cossacks had retreated to a hill, and sent coureurs scurrying for help to the other forts of Kamchatka. Within two weeks seven hundred Cossacks would be on the hills; and the exiles, whose supplies were on board the vessel, would be cut off in the fort and starved into surrender. No time to waste, Benyowsky! Not a woman or child was harmed, but every family in the fort was quickly rounded up in the chapel. Round this, outside, were piled chairs, furniture, pitch, tar, powder, whale-oil. Promptly at nine in the morning, three women and twelve young girls--wives and daughters of the Cossack officers--were despatched to the Cossack besiegers on the hill with word that unless the Cossacks surrendered their arms to the exiles and sent down fifty soldiers as hostages of safety for the exiles till the ship could sail--precisely at ten o'clock the church would be set on fire. The women were seen to ascend the hill. No signal came from the Cossacks. At a quarter past nine Benyowsky kindled fires at each of the four angles of the church. As the flames began to mount a forest of handkerchiefs and white sheets waved above the hill, and a host of men came spurring to the fort with all the Cossacks' arms and fifty-two hostages. {122} The exiles now togged themselves out in all the gay regimentals of the Russian officers. Salutes of triumph were fired from the cannon. A _Te Deum_ was sung. Feast and mad wassail filled both day and night till the harbor cleared. Even the Cossacks caught the madcap spirit of the escapade, and helped to load ammunition on the _St. Peter and Paul_. Nor were old wrongs forgiven. Ismyloff was bundled on the vessel in irons. The chancellor's secretary was seized and compelled to act as cook. Men, who had played the spy and tyrant, now felt the merciless knout. Witnesses, who had tried to pry into the exiles' plot, were hanged at the yard-arm. Nine women, relatives of exiles, who had been compelled to become the wives of Cossacks, now threw off the yoke of slavery, donned the costly Chinese silks, and joined the pirates. Among these was the governor's daughter, who was to have married a Cossack. On May 11, 1771, the Polish flag was run up on the _St. Peter and Paul_. The fort fired a God-speed--a heartily sincere one, no doubt--of twenty-one guns. Again the _Te Deum_ was chanted; again, the oath of obedience taken by kissing Benyowsky's sword; and at five o'clock in the evening the ship dropped down the river for the sea, with ninety-six exiles on board, of whom nine were women; one, an archdeacon; half a dozen, officers of the imperial army; one, a gentleman in waiting to the Empress; at least a dozen, convicts of the blackest dye. {123} The rest of Benyowsky's adventures read more like a page from some pirate romance than sober record of events on the west coast of America. Barely had the vessel rounded the southern cape of the peninsula into the Pacific, when Ismyloff, the young Russian trader, who had been carried on board in irons, rallied round Benyowsky such a clamor of mutineers, duels were fought on the quarter-deck, the malcontents clapped in handcuffs again, and the ringleaders tied to the masts, where knouting enough was laid on to make them sue for peace. The middle of May saw the vessel anchoring on the west coast of Bering Island, where a sharp lookout was kept for Russian fur traders, and armed men must go ashore to reconnoitre before Benyowsky dared venture from the ship. The Pole's position was chancy enough to satisfy even his melodramatic soul. Apart from four or five Swedes, the entire crew of ninety-six was Russian. Benyowsky was for sailing south at once to take up quarters on some South Sea island, or to claim the protection of some European power. The Russian exiles, of whom half were criminals, were for coasting the Pacific on pirate venture, and compelled the Pole to steer his vessel for the fur hunters' islands of Alaska. The men sent to reconnoitre Bering Island came back with word that while they were gathering driftwood on the south shore, they had heard shots and met five Russians belonging to a Saxon exile, who had {124} turned fur hunter, deposed the master of his ships, gathered one hundred exiles around him, and become a trader on his own account. The Saxon requested an interview with Benyowsky. What was the Pole to do? Was this a decoy to test his strength? Was the Saxon planning to scuttle the Pole's vessel, too? Benyowsky's answer was that he would be pleased to meet his Saxon comrade in arms on the south shore, each side to approach with four men only, laying down arms instantly on sight of each other. The two exile pirates met. Each side laid down arms as agreed. Ochotyn, the Saxon, was a man of thirty-six years, who had come an exile on fur trading vessels, gathered a crew of one hundred and thirty-four around him, and, like the Pole, become a pirate. His plan in meeting Benyowsky was to propose vengeance on Russia: let the two ships unite, go back to Siberia, and sack the Russian ports on the Pacific. But the Pole had had enough of Russia. He contented himself with presenting his brother pirate with one hundred pounds of ammunition; and the two exiles sat round a campfire of driftwood far into the night, spinning yarns of blasted hopes back in Europe, and desperate venture here on the Pacific. The Saxon's headquarters were on Kadiak, where he had formed alliance with the Indians. Hither he advised the Pole to sail for a cargo of furs. Ismyloff, the mutineer, was marooned on Bering Island. Ice-drift had seemed to bar the way {125} northward through Bering Straits. June saw Benyowsky far eastward at Kadiak on the south shore of Alaska, gathering in a cargo of furs; and from the sea-otter fields of Kadiak and Oonalaska, Benyowsky sailed southwest, past the smoking volcanoes of the Aleutians, vaguely heading for some of those South Sea islands of which he used to read in the exile village of Kamchatka. Not a man of the crew knew as much about navigation as a schoolboy. They had no idea where they were going, or where the ship was. As day after day slipped past with no sight but the heaving sea, the Russian landsmen became restive. Provisions had dwindled to one fish a day; and scarcely a pint of water for each man was left in the hold. In flying from Siberian exile, were they courting a worse fate? Stephanow, the criminal convict, who had crossed Siberia with the Pole, dashed on deck demanding a better allowance of water as the ship entered warmer and warmer zones. The next thing the Pole knew, Stephanow had burst open the barrel hoops of the water kegs to quench his thirst. By the time the guard had gone down the main hatch to intercept him, Stephanow and a band of Russian mutineers had trundled the brandy casks to the deck and were in a wild debauch. The main hatch was clapped down, leaving the mutineers in possession of the deck, till all fell in drunken torpor, when Benyowsky rushed his soldiers up the fore scuttle, snapped handcuffs on {126} the rebels, and tied them to the masts. In the midst of this disorder, such a hurricane broke over the ocean that the tossing yard-arms alternately touched water. To be sure, Benyowsky had escaped exile; but his ship was a hornets' nest. After the storm all hands were busy sewing new sails. The old sails were distributed as trousers for the ragamuffin crew. For ten days no food was tasted but soup made from sea-otter skins. Then birds were seen, and seaweed drifted past the vessel; and a wild hope mounted every heart of reaching some part of Japan. On sunset of July 15, the Pole's watch-dog was noticed standing at the bow, sniffing and barking. Two or three of the ship's hands dashed up to the masthead, vowing they would not come down till they saw land. Suddenly the lookout shouted, Land! The exiles forgot their woes. Even the mutineers tied to the masts cheered. Darker and darker grew the cloud on the horizon. By daybreak the cloud had resolved itself to a shore before the eager eyes of the watching crew. The ship had scarcely anchored before every man was overboard in a wild rush for the fresh water to be found on land. Tents were pitched on the island; and the wanderers of the sea rested. It is no part of this narrative to tell of Benyowsky's adventures on Luzon of the Philippines, or the Ladrones,--whichever it was,--how he scuttled {127} Japanese sampans of gold and pearls, fought a campaign in Formosa, and wound up at Macao, China, where all the rich cargo of sea-otter brought from America was found to be water rotted; and Stephanow, the criminal convict, left the Pole destitute by stealing and selling all the Japanese loot. This part of the story does not concern America; and the Pole's whole life has been told by Jokai, the Hungarian novelist, and Kotzebue, the Russian dramatist. Benyowsky got passage to Europe from China on one of the East India Company ships, whose captain was uneasy enough at having so many pirates on board. In France he obtained an appointment to look after French forts in Madagascar; but this was too tame an undertaking for the adventure-loving Pole. He threw up his appointment, returned to Europe, interested English merchants in a new venture, sailed to Baltimore in the _Robert Anne_ of twenty cannon and four hundred and fifty tons, interested merchants there in his schemes, and departed from Baltimore October 25, 1784, to conquer Madagascar and set up an independent commercial government. Here he was slain by the French troops on the 23d of May, 1786--to the ruin of those Baltimore and London merchants who had advanced him capital. His own account of his adventures is full of gross exaggerations; but even the Russians were so impressed with the prowess of his valor that a few years later, when Cook sailed to Alaska, Ismyloff could not be brought to mention his name; {128} and when the English ships went on to Kamchatka, they found the inhabitants hidden in the cellars, for fear the Polish pirate had returned. But like many heroes of misfortune, Benyowsky could not stand success. It turned his head. He entered Macao with the airs of an emperor, that at once discredited him with the solid people. If he had returned to the west coast of America, as a fur trader, he might have wrested more honors from Russia; but his scheme to capture an island of which he was to be king, ended in ruin for himself and his friends.[1] [1] It may as well be acknowledged that Mauritius Augustus, Count Benyowsky (pronounced by himself Be-nyov-sky), is a liar without a peer among the adventurers of early American history. If it were not that his life was known to the famous men of his time, his entire memoirs from 1741 to 1771 might be rejected as fiction of the yellow order; but the comical thing is, the mendacious fellow cut a tremendous swath in his day. The garrisons of Kamchatka trembled at his name twenty-five years after his escapades. Ismyloff, who became a famous trader in the Russian Fur Company, could not be induced to open his mouth about the Pole to Cook, and actually made use of the universal fear of Benyowsky among Russians, to keep Cook from learning Russian fur trade secrets, when the Englishman went to Kamchatka, by representing that Cook was a pirate, too. The _Gentleman's Magazine_ for June, 1772, contained a letter from Canton, dated November 19, 1771, giving a full account of the pirate's arrival there with his mutineers and women refugees. The Bishop Le Bon of Macao writes, September 24, 1771: "Out of his equipage, there remain no more than eight men in health. All the rest are confined to their beds. For two months they suffered hunger and thirst." Captain King of Cook's staff writes of Kamchatka: "We were informed that an exiled Polish officer named Beniowski had seized upon a galliott, lying at the entrance of the harbor, and had forced on board a number of Russian sailors, sufficient to navigate her; that he had put on shore a part of the crew . . . among the rest, Ismyloff." In Paris he met and interested Benjamin Franklin. Hyacinth de Magellan, a descendant of the great discoverer, advanced Benyowsky money for the Madagascar filibustering expedition. So did certain merchants of Baltimore in 1785. On leaving England, Benyowsky gave his memoirs to Magellan, who passed their editing over to William Nicholson of the Royal Society, by {129} whom they were given to the world in 1790. German, French, and Russian translations followed. This called forth Russia's account of the matter, written by Ivan Ryumin, edited by Berg, St. Petersburg, 1822. These accounts, with the facts as cited from contemporaries, enable one to check the preposterous exaggerations of the Pole. Of late years, between drama and novels, quite a Benyowsky literature has sprung up about this Cagliostro of the sea. His record in the continental armies preceding his exile would fill a book by itself; and throughout all, Benyowsky appears in the same light, an unscrupulous braggart lying gloriously, but withal as courageous as he was mendacious. [Transcriber's note: the "e" and "o" in the above "Be-nyov-sky" are actually e-macron (Unicode U+0113) and o-macron (Unicode U+014D).] {131} PART II AMERICAN AND ENGLISH ADVENTURERS ON THE WEST COAST OF AMERICA--FRANCIS DRAKE IN CALIFORNIA--COOK, FROM BRITISH COLUMBIA TO ALASKA--LEDYARD, THE FORERUNNER OF LEWIS AND CLARK--GRAY, THE DISCOVERER OF THE COLUMBIA--VANCOUVER, THE LAST OF THE WEST COAST NAVIGATORS {133} CHAPTER VI 1562-1595 FRANCIS DRAKE IN CALIFORNIA How the Sea Rover was attacked and ruined as a Boy on the Spanish Main off Mexico--His Revenge in sacking Spanish Treasure Houses and crossing Panama--The Richest Man in England, he sails to the Forbidden Sea, scuttles all the Spanish Ports up the West Coast of South America and takes Possession of New Albion (California) for England If a region were discovered where gold was valued less than cartloads of clay, and ropes of pearls could be obtained in barter for strings of glass beads, the modern mind would have some idea of the frenzy that prevailed in Spain after the discovery of America by Columbus. Native temples were found in Chile, in Peru, in Central America, in Mexico, where gold literally lined the walls, silver paved the floors, and handfuls of pearls were as thoughtlessly thrown in the laps of the conquerors as shells might be tossed at a modern clam-bake. Within half a century from the time Spain first learned of America, Cortés not only penetrated Mexico, but sent his corsairs up the west coast of the {134} continent. Pizarro conquered Peru. Spanish ships plied a trade rich beyond dreams of avarice between the gold realms of Peru and the spice islands of the Philippines. The chivalry of the Spanish nobility suddenly became a chivalry of the high seas. Religious zeal burned to a flame against those gold-lined pagan temples. It was easy to believe that the transfer of wedges of pure gold from heathen hands to Spain was a veritable despoiling of the devil's treasure boxes, glorious in the sight of God. The trackless sea became the path to fortune. Balboa had deeper motives than loyalty, when, in 1513, on his march across Panama and discovery of the Pacific, he rushed mid-deep into the water, shouting out in swelling words that he took possession of earth, air, and water for Spain "for all time, past, present, or to come, without contradiction, . . . north and south, with all the seas from the Pole Arctic to the Pole Antarctic, . . . both now, and as long as the world endures, until the final day of judgment." [1] Shorn of noise, the motive was simply to shut out the rest of the world from Spain's treasure box. The Monroe Doctrine was not yet born. _The whole Pacific was to be a closed sea_! To be sure, Vasco da Gama had found the way round the Cape of Good Hope to the Indian Ocean; and Magellan soon after passed through the strait of his name below South America {135} right into the Pacific Ocean; but round the world by the Indian Ocean was a far cry for tiny craft of a few hundred tons; and the Straits of Magellan were so storm-bound, it soon became a common saying that they were a closed door. Spain sent her sailors across Panama to build ships for the Pacific. The sea that bore her treasure craft--millions upon millions of pounds sterling in pure gold, silver, emeralds, pearls--was as closed to the rest of the world as if walled round with only one chain-gate; and that at Panama, where Spain kept the key. That is, the sea _was_ shut till Drake came coursing round the world; and his coming was so utterly impossible to the Spanish mind that half the treasure ships scuttled by the English pirate mistook him for a visiting Spaniard till the rallying cry, "God and Saint George!" wakened them from their dream. It was by accident the English first found themselves in the waters of the Spanish Main. John Hawkins had been cruising the West Indies exchanging slaves for gold, when an ominous stillness fell on the sea. The palm trees took on the hard glister of metal leaves. The sunless sky turned yellow, the sea to brass; and before the six English ships could find shelter, a hurricane broke that flailed the fleet under sails torn to tatters clear across the Gulf of Mexico to Vera Cruz, the stronghold of Spanish power. [Illustration: Sir John Hawkins.] But Hawkins feared neither man nor devil. He {136} reefed his storm-torn sails, had the stoppers pulled out of his cannon in readiness, his gunners alert, ran up the English ensign, and boldly towed his fleet into port directly under Spanish guns. Sending a messenger ashore, he explained that he was sorry to intrude on forbidden waters, but that he needed to careen his ships for the repair of leakages, and now asked permission from the viceroy to refit. Perhaps, in his heart, the English adventurer wasn't sorry to get an inner glimpse of Mexico's defences. As he waited for permission, there sailed into the harbor the Spanish fleet itself, twelve merchantmen rigged as frigates, loaded with treasure to the value of one million eight hundred thousand pounds. The viceroy of Mexico, Don Martin Henriquez himself, commanded the fleet. English and Spanish ships dipped colors to each other as courteous hidalgoes might have doffed hats; and the guns roared each other salutes, that set the seas churning. Master John Hawkins quaffed mug after mug of foaming beer with a boisterous boast that if the Spaniards thought to frighten _him_ with a waste of powder and smoke, he could play the same game, and "singe the don's beard." Came a messenger, then, clad in mail to his teeth, very pompous, very gracious, very profuse of welcome, with a guarantee in writing from the viceroy of security for Hawkins while dismantling the English ships. In order to avoid clashes among the common soldiers, the fortified island was assigned for the English to {137} disembark. It was the 12th of August, 1568. Darkness fell with the warm velvet caress of a tropic sea. Half the crew had landed, half the cannon been trundled ashore for the vessels to be beached next day, when Hawkins noticed torches--a thousand torches--glistening above the mailed armor of a thousand Spanish soldiers marching down from the fort and being swiftly transferred to the frigates. A blare of Spanish trumpets blew to arms! The waters were suddenly alight with the flare of five fire-rafts drifting straight where the disarmed English fleet lay moored. Hawkins had just called his page to hand round mugs of beer, when a cannon-shot splintering through the mast arms overhead ripped the tankard out of his hand.[2] "God and Saint George," thundered the enraged Englishman, "down with the traitorous devils!" No time to save sailors ashore! The blazing rafts had already bumped keels with the moored fleet. No chance to raise anchors! The Spanish frigates were already abreast in a life-and-death grapple, soldiers boarding the English decks, sabring the crews, hurling hand grenades down the hatches to blow up the powder magazines. Hawkins roared "to cut the cables." It was a hand-to-hand slaughter on decks slippery with blood. No light but the musketry fire and glare of burning masts! The little English company were fighting like a wild beast trapped, when with a {138} thunderclap that tore bottom out of hull--Hawkins's ship flew into mid-air, a flaring, fiery wreck--then sank in the heaving trough of the sea, carrying down five hundred Spaniards to a watery grave. Cutlass in hand, head over heels went Hawkins into the sea. The hell of smoke, of flaming mast poles, of blazing musketry, of churning waters--hid him. Then a rope's end flung out by some friend gave handhold. He was up the sides of a ship, that had cut hawsers and off before the fire-rafts came! Sails were hoisted to the seaward breeze. In the carnage of fire and blood, the Spaniards did not see the two smallest English vessels scudding before the wind as if fiend-chased. Every light on the decks was put out. Then the dark of the tropic night hid them. Without food, without arms, with scarcely a remnant of their crews--the two ships drifted to sea. Not a man of the sailors ashore escaped. All were butchered, or taken prisoners for a fate worse than butchery--to be torn apart in the market-place of Vera Cruz, baited in the streets to the yells of on-lookers, hung by the arms to out-of-doors scaffolding to die by inches, or be torn by vultures. The two ships at sea were in terrible plight. North, west, south was the Spanish foe. Food there was none. The crews ate the dogs, monkeys, parrots on board. Then they set traps for the rats of the hold. The starving seamen begged to be marooned. They would risk Spanish cruelty to escape starvation. Hawkins landed {139} three-quarters of the remnant crews either in Yucatan or Florida. Then he crept lamely back to England, where he moored in January, 1569. Of the six splendid ships that had spread their sails from Plymouth, only the _Minion_ and _Judith_ came back; and those two had been under command of a thick-set, stocky, red-haired English boy about twenty-four years of age--Francis Drake of Devon, one of twelve sons of a poor clergyman, who eked out a living by reading prayers for the Queen's Navy Sundays, playing sailor week days. Francis, the eldest son, was born in the hull of an old vessel where the family had taken refuge in time of religious persecution. In spite of his humble origin, Sir Francis Russell had stood his godfather at baptism. The Earl of Bedford had been his patron. John Hawkins, a relative, supplied money for his education. Apprenticed before the mast from his twelfth year, Drake became purser to Biscay at eighteen; and so faithfully had he worked his way, when the master of the sloop died, it was bequeathed to young Drake. Emulous of becoming a great sailor like Hawkins, Drake sold the sloop and invested everything he owned in Hawkins's venture to the West Indies. He was ruined to his last penny by Spanish treachery. It was almost a religion for England to hate Spain at that time. Drake hated tenfold more now. Spain had taught the world to keep off her treasure box. Would Drake accept the lesson, or challenge it? {140} Men who master destiny rise, like the Phenix, from the ashes of their own ruin. In the language of the street, when they fall--these men of destiny--they make a point of falling _up_stairs. Amid the ruin of massacre in Mexico, Drake brought away one fact--memory of Spanish gold to the value of one million eight hundred thousand pounds. Where did it come from? Was the secret of that gold the true reason for Spain's resentment against all intruders? Drake had coasted Florida and the West Indies. He knew they yielded no such harvest. Then it must come from one of three other regions--South America, Central America, Mexico. For two years Drake prospected for the sources of that golden wealth. In the _Dragon_ and _Swan_, he cruised the Spanish Main during 1570. In 1571 he was out again in the _Swan_. By 1572 he knew the secret of that gold--gold in ship-loads, in caravans of one thousand mules, in masses that filled from cellar to attic of the King's Treasure House, where tribute of one-fifth was collected for royalty. It came from the subjugated Kingdom of Peru, by boat up the Pacific to the Port of Panama, by pack-train across the isthmus--mountainous, rugged, forests of mangroves tangled with vines, bogs that were bottomless--to Nombre de Dios, the Spanish fort on the Atlantic side, which had become the storehouse of all New Spain. Drake took counsel of no one. Next year he was back on the Spanish Main, in the {141} _Pacha_, forty-seven men; his brother John commanding the _Swan_ with twenty-six of a crew, only one man older than fifty, the rest mere boys with hate in their hearts for Spanish blood, love in their hearts for Spanish gold. Touching at a hidden cove for provisions left the year before, Drake found this warning from a former comrade, stuck to the bark of a tree by a hunting knife:-- "_Captain Drake--if you do fortune into this port, haste away; for the Spaniards have betrayed this place, and taken all away that you left here--your loving friend--John Garret._" Heeding the warning, Drake hastened away to the Isle of Pinos, off the isthmus, left the ships at a concealed cove here, armed fifty-three of his boldest fellows with muskets, crossbows, pikes, and spontoons. Then he called for drummers and trumpeters, and rowed in a small boat for Nombre de Dios, the treasure house of New Spain. The small boat kept on the offing till dark, then sent ashore for some Indians--half-breeds whom Spanish cruelty had driven to revolt. This increased Drake's force to one hundred and fifty men. Silently, just as the moon emerged from clouds lighting up harbor and town, the long-boat glided into Nombre de Dios. A high platform, mounted with brass cannon, fronted the water. Behind were thirty houses, thatch-roofed, whitewashed, palisaded, surrounded by courtyards with an almost European pomp. The King's Treasure House stood at one end of the market. Near it was a chapel with high wooden steeple. {142} A Spanish ship lay furled in port. From this glided out a punt poled like mad by a Spaniard racing to reach the platform first. Drake got athwart the fellow's path, knocked him over, gagged his yells, and was up the platform before the sleepy gunner on guard was well awake. The sentry only paused to make sure that the men scrambling up the fort were not ghosts. Then he tore at the top of his speed for the alarm-bell of the chapel and, clapping down the hatch door of the steeple stairs in the faces of the pursuing Englishmen, rang the bells like a demon possessed. Leaving twelve men to hold the platform as a retreat, Drake sent sixteen to attack the King's Treasure just at the moment he himself, with his hundred men, should succeed in drawing the entire Spanish garrison to a sham battle on the market-place. The cannon on the platform were spiked and overturned. Drums beating, trumpets blowing, torches aflare, the English freebooter marched straight to the market. Up at the Treasure House, John Drake and Oxenham had burst open the doors of the store-room just as the saddled mules came galloping to carry the booty beyond danger. A lighted candle on the cellar stair showed silver piled bar on bar to the value of one million pounds. Down on the market, the English trumpeter lay dead. Drake had fallen from a sword slash and, snatched up by comrades, the wound stanched by a scarf, was carried back to the boat, where the raiders made good their escape, richer by a million pounds with the loss of only one man. {143} Drake cruised the Spanish Main for six more months. From the Indians he learned that the mule trains with the yearly output of Peruvian gold would leave the Pacific in midwinter to cross overland to Nombre de Dios. No use trying to raid the fort again! Spain would not be caught napping a second time. But Pedro, a Panama Indian, had volunteered to guide a small band of lightly equipped English inland behind Nombre de Dios, to the halfway house where the gold caravans stopped. The audacity of the project is unparalleled. Eighteen boys led by a man not yet in his thirtieth year accompanied by Indians were to invade a tangled thicket of hostile country, cut off from retreat, the forts of the enemy--the cruelest enemy in Christendom--on each side, no provisions but what each carried in his haversack! Led by the Indian Pedro, the freebooters struck across country, picked up the trail behind Nombre de Dios, marched by night, hid by day, Indian scouts sending back word when a Spaniard was seen, the English scudding to ambush in the tangled woods. Twelve days and nights they marched. At ten in the morning of February 11, they were on the Great Divide. Pedro led Drake to the top of the hill. Up the trunk of an enormous tree, the Indians had cut steps to a kind of bower, or lookout. Up clambered Francis Drake. Then he looked westward. Mountains, hills, forested valleys, rolled from his feet westward. Beyond--what? The shining {144} expanse of the fabled South Sea! The Pacific silver in the morning light! A New World of Waters, where the sun's track seemed to pave a new path, a path of gold, to the mystic Orient! Never before had English eyes seen these waters! Never yet English prow cut these waves! Where did they lead--the endlessly rolling billows? For Drake, they seemed to lead to a New World of Dreams--dreams of gold, of glory, of immortal fame. He came down from the lookout so overcome with a great inspiration that he could not speak. Then, as with Balboa, the fire of a splendid enthusiasm lighted up the mean purposes of the adventurer to a higher manhood. Before his followers, he fell on his knees and prayed Almighty God to grant him the supreme honor of sailing an English ship on that sea! That night the Indian came back with word that the mule train laden with gold was close on the trail. Drake scattered his men on each side of the road flat on their faces in high grass. Wealth was almost in their grasp. Hope beat riotous in the young bloods. No sound but the whir of wings as great tropic insects flitted through the dark with flashes of fire; or the clank of a soldier unstrapping haversack to steel courage by a drink of grog! An hour passed! Two hours before the eager ears pressed to earth detected a padded hoof-beat over grass. Then a bell tinkled, as the leader of the pack came in sight. Drunk with the glory of the day, or too much grog, some fool sailor leaped in {145} mid-air with an exultant yell! In a second the mule train had stampeded. By the time Drake came to the halfway house,[3] the gold was hidden in the woods, and the Spaniards fleeing for their lives; though an old chronicle declares "the general" went from house to house assuring the Spanish ladies they were safe. The Spaniards of Tierra Firme were simply paralyzed with fright at the apparition of pirates in the centre of the kingdom. Then scouts brought word of double danger: on the Atlantic side, Spanish frigates were searching for Drake's ships; from the Pacific, two hundred horsemen were advancing in hot pursuit. Between the two--was he trapped?--Not he! Overland went a scout to the ships--Drake's own gold toothpick as token--bidding them keep offshore; he would find means to come out to them. Then he retreated over the trail at lightning pace, sleeping only in ambush, eating in snatches, coming out on the coast far distant from Nombre de Dios and Spanish frigates. Binding driftwood into a raft, Drake hoisted sail of flour sacks. Saying good-by to the Indian, the freebooter noticed Pedro's eyes wander to the gold-embossed Turkish cimeter in his own hand, and at once presented scabbard and blade to the astonished savage. In gratitude the Indian tossed three wedges of gold to the raft now sheering out with the tide to sea. These Drake gave {146} to his men. Six hours the raft was drifting to the sails on the offing, and such seas were slopping across the water-logged driftwood, the men were to their waists in water when the sail-boats came to the rescue. On Sunday morning, August 9, 1573, the ships were once more in Plymouth. Whispers ran through the assembled congregations of the churches that Drake, the bold sea-rover, was entering port loaded with foreign treasure; and out rushed every man, woman, and child, leaving the scandalized preachers thundering to empty pews. Drake was now one of the richest men in England. At his own cost he equipped three frigates for service under Essex in Ireland, and through the young Earl was introduced to the circle of Elizabeth's advisers. To the Queen he told his plans for sailing an English ship on the South Sea. To her, no doubt, he related the tales of Spanish gold freighting that sea, closed to the rest of the world. Good reason for England--Spain's enemy--to prove that the ocean, like air, was free to all nations! The Pope's Bull dividing off the southern hemisphere between Portugal and Spain mattered little to a nation belligerently Protestant, and less to a seaman whose dauntless daring had raised him from a wharf-rat to Queen's adviser. Elizabeth could not yet wound Spain openly; but she received Drake in audience, and presented him a magnificent sword with the words--"Who striketh thee, Drake, striketh us!" [Illustration: Queen Elizabeth knighting Drake.] {147} Five ships, this time, he led out from Plymouth in November of 1577. Gales drove him back. It was December before his fleet was at sea--the _Pelican_ of one hundred tons and twenty or thirty cannon under Drake, Thomas Doughty, a courtier second to Drake, the _Elizabeth_ of eighty tons, the _Swan_, _Christopher_, and _Marygold_ no larger than fishing schooners; manned in all by one hundred and sixty sailors, mostly boys. Outward bound for trade in Egypt, the world was told, but as merchantmen, the ships were regally equipped--Drake in velvets and gold braid, served by ten young gentlemen of noble birth, who never sat or covered in his presence without permission; service of gold plate at the mess table, where Drake dined alone like a king to the music of viols and harps; military drill at every port, and provisions enough aboard to go round the world, not just to Egypt. January saw the fleet far enough from Egypt, at the islands off the west coast of Africa, where three vessels were scuttled, the crews all put ashore but one Portuguese pilot carried along to Brazil as guide. Thomas Doughty now fell in disfavor by openly acting as equal in command with Drake. Not in Egypt, but at Port St. Julian--a southern harbor of South America--anchored Drake's fleet. The scaffold where Magellan had executed mutineers half a century before still stood in the sands. The _Christopher_ had already been sent adrift as useless. The _Swan_ was now broken up as unseaworthy, {148} leaving only the _Pelican_, the _Elizabeth_, and the _Marygold_. One thing more remained to be done--the greatest blot across the glory of Drake. Doughty was defiant, a party growing in his favor. When sent as prisoner to the _Marygold_, he had angered every man of the crew by high-handed authority. Drake dared not go on to unknown, hostile seas with a mutiny, or the chance of a mutiny brewing. Whether justly or unjustly, Doughty was tried at Port St. Julian under the shadow of Magellan's old scaffold, for disrespect to his commander and mutiny; and was pronounced guilty by a jury of twelve. A council of forty voted his death. The witnesses had contradicted themselves as if in terror of Drake's displeasure; and some plainly pleaded that the jealous crew of the _Marygold_ were doing an innocent gentleman to death. The one thing Drake would not do, was carry the trouble maker along on the voyage. Like dominant spirits world over, he did not permit a life more or less to obstruct his purpose. He granted Doughty a choice of fates--to be marooned in Patagonia, or suffer death on the spot. Protesting his innocence, Doughty spurned the least favor from his rival. He refused the choice. Solemnly the two, accuser and accused, took Holy Communion together. Solemnly each called on God as witness to the truth. A day each spent in prayer, these pirate fellows, who mixed their religion with their robbery, perhaps using piety as sugar-coating for their ill-deeds. Then they dined together in the {149} commander's tent,--Fletcher, the horrified chaplain, looking on,--drank hilariously to each other's healths, to each other's voyage whatever the end might be, looked each in the eye of the other without quailing, talking nonchalantly, never flinching courage nor balking at the grim shadow of their own stubborn temper. Doughty then rose to his feet, drank his last bumper, thanked Drake graciously for former kindness, walked calmly out to the old scaffold, laid his head on the block, and suffered death. Horror fell on the crew. Even Drake was shaken from his wonted calm; for he sat apart, his velvet cloak thrown back, slapping his crossed knees, and railing at the defenders of the dead man.[4] To rouse the men, he had solemn service held for the crew, and for the first time revealed to them his project for the voyage on the Pacific. After painting the glories of a campaign against Spanish ports of the South Seas, he wound up an inspiriting address with the rousing assurance that after this voyage, "_the worst boy aboard would never nede to goe agayne to sea, but be able to lyve in England like a right good gentleman_." Fletcher, the chaplain, who secretly advocated the dead man's cause, was tied to a mast pole in bilboes, with the inscription hung to his neck--"_Falsest knave that liveth_." On August 17 they departed from "the port {150} accursed," for the Straits of Magellan, that were to lead to Spanish wealth on the Pacific.[5] The superstitious crews' fears of disaster for the death of Doughty seemed to become very real in the terrific tempests that assailed the three ships as they entered the straits. Gales lashed the cross tides to a height of thirty feet, threatening to swamp the little craft. Mountains emerged shadowy through the mists on the south. Roiling waters met the prows from end to end of the straits. Topsails were dipped, psalms of thanks chanted, and prayers held as the ships came out on the west side into the Pacific on the 6th of September. In honor of the first English vessel to enter this ocean, Drake renamed his ship "_Golden Hind_." {151} The gales continued so furiously, Drake jocosely called the sea, _Mare Furiosum_, instead of Pacific. The first week of October storms compelled the vessels to anchor. In the raging darkness that night, the explosive rip of a snapping hawser was heard behind the stern of the _Golden Hind_. Fearful cries rose from the waves for help. The dark form of a phantom ship lurched past in the running seas--the _Marygold_ adrift, loose from her anchor, driving to the open storm; fearful judgment--as the listeners thought--for the crew's false testimony against Doughty; for, as one old record states, "they could by no means help {152} spooming along before the sea;" and the _Marygold_ was never more seen. [Illustration: The Golden Hind.] Meanwhile like disaster had befallen the _Golden Hind_, the cable snapping weak as thread against the drive of tide and wind. Only the _Elizabeth_ kept her anchor grip, and her crew became so panic-stricken, they only waited till the storm abated, then turned back through the straits, swift heels to the stormy, ill-fated sea, and steered straight for England, where they moored in June. Towed by the _Golden Hind_, now driving southward before the tempest, was a jolly-boat with eight men. The mountain seas finally wrenched the tow-rope from the big ship, and the men were adrift in the open boat. Their fortunes are a story in itself. Only one of the eight survived to reach England after nine years' wandering in Brazil.[6] Onward, sails furled, bare poles straining to the storm, drifted Drake in the _Golden Hind_. Luck, that so often favors daring, or the courage, that is its own talisman, kept him from the rocks. With battened hatches he drove before what he could not {153} stem, southward and south, clear down where Atlantic and Pacific met at Cape Horn, now for the first time seen by navigator. Here at last, on October 30, came a lull. Drake landed, and took possession of this earth's end for the Queen. Then he headed his prow northward for the forbidden waters of the Pacific bordering New Spain. Not a Spaniard was seen up to the Bay of San Filipe off Chile, where by the end of November Drake came on an Indian fisherman. Thinking the ship Spanish, the fellow offered to pilot her back eighteen miles to the harbor of Valparaiso. Spanish vessels lay rocking to the tide as Drake glided into the port. So utterly impossible was it deemed for any foreign ship to enter the Pacific, that the Spanish commander of the fleet at anchor dipped colors in salute to the pirate heretic, thinking him a messenger from Spain, and beat him a rattling welcome on the drum as the _Golden Hind_ knocked keels with the Spanish bark. Drake, doubtless, smiled as he returned the salute by a wave of his plumed hat. The Spaniards actually had wine jars out to drown the newcomers ashore, when a quick clamping of iron hooks locked the Spanish vessel in death grapple to the _Golden Hind_. An English sailor leaped over decks to the Spanish galleon with a yell of "_Downe, Spanish dogges_!" The crew of sixty English pirates had swarmed across the vessel like hornets before the poor hidalgo knew what had happened. Head over heels, down the hatchway, reeled the astonished dons. Drake clapped down {154} hatches, and had the Spaniards trapped while his men went ashore to sack the town. One Spaniard had succeeded in swimming across to warn the port.[7] When Drake landed, the entire population had fled to the hills. Rich plunder in wedges of pure gold, and gems, was carried off from the fort. Not a drop of blood was shed. Crews of the scuttled vessels were set ashore, the dismantled ships sent drifting to open sea. The whole fiasco was conducted as harmlessly as a melodrama, with a moral thrown in; for were not these zealous Protestants despoiling these zealous Catholics, whose zeal, in turn, had led them to despoil the Indian? There was a moral; but it wore a coat of many colors. [Illustration: Francis Drake.] The Indian was rewarded, and a Greek pilot forced on board to steer to Lima, the great treasury of Peruvian gold. Giving up all hope of the other English vessels joining him, Drake had paused at Coquimbo to put together a small sloop, when down swooped five hundred Spanish soldiers. In the wild scramble for the _Golden Hind_, one sailor was left behind. He was torn to pieces by the Spaniards before the eyes of Drake's crew. Northling again sailed Drake, piloted inshore by the Greek to Tarapaca, where Spanish treasure was sent out over the hills to await the call of ship; and sure enough, sound asleep in the sunlight, fatigued from his trip lay a Spanish carrier, {155} thirteen bars of silver piled beside him on the sand. When that carrier wakened, the ship had called! Farther on the English moored and went inland to see if more treasure might be coming over the hills. Along the sheep trails came a lad whistling as he drove eight Peruvian sheep laden with black leather sacks full of gold. Drake's men were intoxicated with their success. It was impossible to attack Panama with only the _Golden Hind_; but what if the _Golden Hind_ could catch the _Glory of the South Seas_--the splendid Spanish galleon that yearly carried Peruvian gold up to Panama? Drake gained first news of the treasure ship being afloat while he was rifling three barks at Aricara below Lima; but he knew coureurs were already speeding overland to warn the capital against the _Golden Hind_. Drake pressed sail to outstrip the land messenger, and glided into Callao, the port of Lima, before the thirty ships lying dismantled had the slightest inkling of his presence. Viceroy Don Francisco de Toledo of Lima thought the overland coureur mad. A pirate heretic in the South Seas! Preposterous! Some Spanish rascal had turned pirate; so the governor gathered up two thousand soldiers to march with all speed for Callao, with hot wrath and swift punishment for the culprit. Drake had already sacked Callao, but he had missed the treasure ship. She had just left for Panama. The _Golden Hind_ was lying outside the port becalmed {156} when Don Toledo came pouring his two thousand soldiers down to the wharves. The Spaniards dashed to embark on the rifled ships with a wild halloo! He was becalmed, the blackguard pirate,--whoever he was,--they would tow out! Divine Providence had surely given him into their hands; but just as they began rowing might and main, a fresh wind ruffled the water. The _Golden Hind_ spread her wings to the wind and was off like a bird! Drake knew no ship afloat could outsail his swift little craft; and the Spaniards had embarked in such haste, they had come without provisions. Famine turned the pursuers back near the equator, the disgusted viceroy hastening to equip frigates that would catch the English pirate when famine must compel him to head southward. Drake slackened sail to capture another gold cargo. The crew of this caravel were so grateful to be put ashore instead of having their throats cut, that they revealed to Drake the stimulating fact that the _Glory of the South Seas_, the treasure ship, was only two days ahead laden with golden wealth untold. It was now a wild race for gold--for gold enough to enrich every man of the crew; for treasure that might buy up half a dozen European kingdoms and leave the buyer rich; for gold in huge slabs the shape of the legendary wedges long ago given the rulers of the Incas by the descendants of the gods; gold to be had for the taking by the striking of one sure blow at England's enemy! Drake called on the crew to acquit {157} themselves like men. The sailors answered with a shout. Every inch of sail was spread. Old muskets and cutlasses were scoured till they shone like the sun. Men scrambled up the mast poles to gaze seaward for sight of sail to the fore. Every nerve was braced. They were now across the equator. A few hundred miles more, and the _Glory of the South Seas_ would lie safe inside the strong harbor of Panama. Drake ordered the thirty cannon ready for action, and in a loud voice offered the present of his own golden chain to the man who should first descry the sails of the Spanish treasure. For once his luck failed him. The wind suddenly fell. Before Drake needed to issue the order, his "brave boys" were over decks and out in the small boats rowing for dear life, towing the _Golden Hind_. Day or night from February twenty-fourth, they did not slack, scarcely pausing to eat or sleep. Not to lose the tremendous prize by seeing the _Glory of the South Seas_ sail into Panama Bay at the last lap of the desperate race, had these bold pirates ploughed a furrow round the world, daring death or devil! At three in the afternoon of March the 1st, John Drake, the commander's brother, shouted out from the mast top where he clung, "Sail ho!" and the blood of every Englishman aboard jumped to the words! At six in the evening, just off Cape Francisco, they were so close to the _Glory of the South Seas_, they could see that she was compelled to sail slowly, owing to the weight of her cargo. So unaware of danger was {158} the captain that he thought Drake some messenger sent by the viceroy, and instead of getting arms in readiness and pressing sail, he lowered canvas, came to anchor, and waited![8] Drake's announcement was a roaring cannonade that blew the mast poles off the Spanish ship, crippling her like a bird with wings broken. For the rest, the scene was what has been enacted wherever pirates have played their game--a furious fusillade from the cannon mouths belching from decks and port-holes, the unscathed ship riding down on the staggering victim like a beast on its prey, the clapping of the grappling hooks that bound the captive to the sides of her victor, the rush over decks, the flash of naked sword, the decks swimming in blood, and the quick surrender. The booty from this treasure ship was roughly estimated at twenty-six tons of pure silver, thirteen chests of gold plate, eighty pounds of pure gold, and precious jewels--emeralds and pearls--to the value in modern money of seven hundred and twenty thousand dollars. Drake realized now that he dared not return to England by the Straits of Magellan. All the Spanish frigates of the Pacific were on the watch. The _Golden Hind_ was so heavily freighted with treasure, it was actually necessary to lighten ballast by throwing spices and silks overboard. One can guess that the orchestra played a stirring refrain off Cape Francisco that night. The Northeast Passage from Asia to Europe was {159} still a myth of the geographers. Drake's friend, Frobisher, had thought he found it on the Atlantic side. After taking counsel with his ten chosen advisers, Drake decided to give the Spanish frigates the slip by returning through the mythical Northeast Passage. Stop was made at Guatalco, off the west coast of New Spain, for repairs. Here, the poor Portuguese pilot brought all the way from the islands off the west coast of Africa, was put ashore.[9] He was tortured by the Spaniards for piloting Drake to the South Seas. In the course of rifling port and ship at Guatalco, charts to the Philippines and Indian Ocean were found; so that even if the voyage to England by the Northeast Passage proved impossible, the _Golden Hind_ could follow these charts home round the world by the Indian Ocean and Good Hope up Africa. It was needless for Drake to sack more Spanish floats. He had all the plunder he could carry. From the charts he learned that the Spaniards always struck north for favorable winds. Heading north, month after month, the _Golden Hind_ sailed for the shore that should have led northeast, and that puzzled the mariners by sheering west and yet west; fourteen hundred leagues she sailed along a leafy wilderness of tangled trees and ropy mosses, beauty and decay, the froth of the beach combers aripple on the very roots of the {160} trees; dolphins coursing round the hull like greyhounds; flying fish with mica for wings flitting over the decks; forests of seaweed warning out to deeper water. Then, a sudden cold fell, cold and fogs that chilled the mariners of tropic seas to the bone. The veering coast pushed them out farther westward, far north of what the Spanish charts showed. Instead of flying fish now, were whales, whales in schools of thousands that gambolled round the _Golden Hind_. As the north winds--"frozen nimphes," the record calls them--blew down the cold Arctic fogs, Drake's men thought they were certainly nearing the Arctic regions. Where were they? Plainly lost, lost somewhere along what are now known as Mendocino, and Blanco, and Flattery. In a word, perhaps up as far as Oregon, and Washington. One record says they went to latitude 43. Another record, purporting to be more correct, says 48. The Spaniards had been north as far as California, but beyond this, however far he may have gone, Drake was a discoverer in the true sense of the word. Mountains covered with snow they saw, and white cliffs, and low shelving shores, which is more descriptive of Oregon and Washington than California; but only the sudden transition from tropic heat to chilling northern fogs can explain the crew's exaggerated idea of cold along the Pacific coast. Land was sighted at 42, north of Mendocino, and an effort made to anchor farther north; but contrary winds and a rock bottom gave insecure mooring. {161} This was not surprising, as it was on this coast that Cook and Vancouver failed to find good harborage. The coast still seemed to trend westward, dispelling hopes of a Northeast Passage, and if the world could have accepted Drake's conclusions on the matter, a deal of expenditure in human life and effort might have been saved. Two centuries before the deaths of Bering and Cook, trying to find that Passage, Drake's chronicler wrote: "_The cause of this extreme cold we conceive to be the large spreading of the Asian and American continent, if they be not fully joined, yet seem they to come very neere, from whose high and snow-covered mountains, the north and north-west winds send abroad their frozen nimphes to the infecting of the whole air--hence comes it that in the middest of their summer, the snow hardly departeth from these hills at all; hence come those thicke mists and most stinking fogges, . . . for these reasons we coniecture that either there is no passage at all through these Northerne coasts, which is most likely, or if there be, that it is unnavigable. . . . Adde there unto, that though we searched the coast diligently even unto the 48 degree, yet found we not the land to trend in any place towards the East, but rather running continually North-west, as if it went directly to meet with Asia. . . . of which we infallibly concluded rather than coniectured, that there was none._" Giving up all idea of a Northeast Passage, Drake turned south, and on June 17 anchored in a bay now {162} thoroughly identified as Drake's Bay, north of San Francisco. The next morning, while the English were yet on the _Golden Hind_, came an Indian in a canoe, shouting out oration of welcome, blowing feather down on the air as a sign of dovelike peace, and finally after three times essaying courage, coming near enough the English to toss a rush basket full of tobacco into the ship. In vain Drake threw out presents to allure the Indian on board. The terrified fellow scampered ashore, refusing everything but a gorgeous hat, that floated out on the water. For years the legend of Drake's ship was handed down as a tradition among the Indians of this bay.[10] By the 21st tents were erected, and a rude fortification of stone thrown round in protection where the precious cargo of gold could be stored while the ship was to be careened and scraped. At the foot of the hill, the poor Indians gathered and gazed spellbound at the sight of this great winged bird of the ocean, sending thirty cannon trundling ashore, and herself beginning to rise up from the tide on piles and scaffolding. As Drake sent the assembled tribe presents, the Indians laid down their bows and spears. So marvellously did the wonders of the white men grow--sticks that emitted puffs of fire (muskets), a ship so large it could have carried their tribe, clothing in velvet and gold braid gorgeous as the plumage of a {163} bird, cutlasses of steel--that by the 23d great assemblages of Indians were on their knees at the foot of the hill, offering sacrifices to the wonderful beings in the fort. Whatever the English pirate's faults, he deserves credit for treating the Indians with an honor that puts later navigators to shame. When he saw them gashing bodies in sacrifice, his superstition took fire with fear of Divine displeasure for the sacrilege; and the man who did not scruple to treat black slaves picked up among the Spaniards baser than he would have treated dogs, now fell "to prayers," as the old chronicle says, reading the Bible aloud, and setting his crew to singing psalms, and pointing to the sky, at which the Indians grunted approvals of "ho--ho!" Three days later came coureurs from the "King of the Indians"--the chief--bidding the strangers prepare for the great sachem's visit. The coureurs advanced gyrating and singing; so that the English saw in this strange people nomads like the races of Scripture, whose ceremony was one of song and dance. The warriors preceding the chief carried what the English thought "a sceptre," but what we moderns would call a peace-pipe. The chains in their hands were probably strings of bears' claws, or something like wampum; the "crowns of feathers," plumed head-dresses; the gifts in the rush baskets borne by the women to the rear, maize and tobacco. Drake drew his soldiers up in line, and with trumpets sounding and armor at gleam marched out to {164} welcome the Indian chief. Then the whole company of savages broke out in singing and dancing. Drake was signalled to sit down in the centre. Barely had he obeyed when to the shouting and dancing of the multitude, "a chain" was thrown over his neck, "a crown" placed on his head, and "the sceptre" put in his hand. According to Indian custom, Drake was welcomed by the ceremony of adoption in the tribe, "the sceptre" being a peace-pipe; "the crown," an Indian warrior's head-dress. Far otherwise the ceremony appeared to the romantic treasure hunters. "_In the name and to the use of Her Most Excellent Majesty_," records the chaplain, "_he (Drake) tooke the sceptre, crowne, and dignity of the sayd countrie into his hand;_" though, added the pious chaplain of pirates, when he witnessed the Indians bringing the sick to be healed by the master pirate's touch,--"_we groane in spirit to see the power of Sathan so farre prevails_." [Illustration: The Crowning of Drake in California.] To avert disaster for the sacrilege of the sacred touch of healing, Drake added to his prayers strong lotions and good ginger plasters. Sometime in the next five weeks, Drake travelled inland with the Indians, and because of patriotism to his native land and the resemblance of the white sand cliffs to that land, called the region "New Albion." "New Albion" would be an offset to "New Spain." Drake saw himself a second Cortés, and nailed to a tree a brass plate on which was graven the Queen's name, the year, the free surrender of the country to the {165} Queen, and Drake's own name; for, says the chaplain, quite ignorant of Spanish voyages, "_the Spaniards never had any dealing, or so much as set a foot in this country, the utmost of their discoveries reaching only many degrees Southward of this place_." Drake's misunderstanding of the Indian ceremony would be comical if it were not that later historians have solemnly argued whether an act of possession by a pirate should hold good in international law. On the 23d of July the English pirate bade farewell to the Indians. As he looked back from the sea, they were running along the hilltops burning more of the fires which he thought were sacrifices. Following the chart taken from the Spanish ship, Drake steered for the Philippines, thence southward through the East Indies to the Indian Ocean, and past Good Hope, back to Plymouth, where he came to anchor on September 26, 1580. Bells were set ringing. Post went spurring to London with word that Drake, the corsair, who had turned the Spanish world upside down, had come home. For a week the little world of England gave itself up to feasting. Ballads rang with the fame of Drake. His name was on every tongue. One of his first acts was to visit his old parents. Then he took the _Golden Hind_ round the Channel to be dry-docked in Deptford. For the once, the tactful Queen was in a quandary. Complaints were pouring in from Spain. The {166} Spanish ambassador was furious, and presented bills of sequestration against Drake, but as the amount sequestered, pending investigation, was only fifty-six thousand pounds, one may suspect that Elizabeth let Drake protect in his own way what he had taken in his own way. For six months, while the world resounded with his fame, the court withheld approval. Jealous courtiers "deemed Drake the master thief of the unknown world," till Elizabeth cut the Gordian knot by one of her defiant strokes. On April 4 she went in state to dine on the _Golden Hind_, to the music of those stringed instruments that had harped away Drake's fear of death or devil as he ploughed an English keel round the world. After the dinner, she bade him fall to his knees and with a light touch of the sword gave him the title that was seal of the court's approval. The _Golden Hind_ was kept as a public relic till it fell to pieces on the Thames, and the wood was made into a memorial chair for Oxford. [Illustration: The Silver Map of the World. Both sides of a medal struck off at the time of Drake's return to England, commemorating his voyage around the world. The faint dotted line shows the course sailed by him in the _Golden Hind_.] After all the perils Drake saw in the subsequent war--Cadiz and the Armada--it seems strange that he should return to the scene of his past exploits to die. He was with Hawkins in the campaign of 1595 against Spain in the New World. Things had not gone well. He had not approved of Hawkins's plans of attack, and the venture was being bungled. Sick of the equatorial fever, or of chagrin from failure, Drake died off Porto Bello in the fifty-first year of his age. His body {167} was placed in a leaden coffin, and solemnly committed to that sea where he had won his first glory.[11] [1] This is but a brief epitome of the Spaniard's swelling words. Only the Heavens above were omitted from Spain's claim. [2] The exact position of the English towards the port is hard to give, at the site of Vera Cruz has been changed three times. [3] This halfway station was known as Venta Cruz. Seven of the traders lost their lives in Drake's attack. [4] The _Hakluyt Society Proceedings_, 1854, give all details of this terrible crime. Fletcher, the chaplain, thought Doughty innocent; but Drake considered the chaplain "the falsest knave that liveth." [5] Don Francisco de Zarate, commander of a Spanish ship scuttled by Drake off Guatalco, gives this description to the Spanish government of the Englishman's equipage: "The general of the Englishmen is the same who five years ago took Nombre de Dios, about thirty-five years old, short, with a ruddy beard, one of the greatest mariners there are on the sea, alike for his skill and power of command. His ship is a galleon of four hundred tons, a very fast sailer, and there are aboard her, one hundred men, all skilled hands and of warlike age, and all so well trained that they might be old soldiers--they keep their harquebusses clean. He treats them with affection, they him with respect. He carries with him nine or ten gentlemen cadets of high families in England. These are his council. He calls them together, tho' he takes counsel of no one. He has no favorite. These are admitted to his table, as well as a Portuguese pilot whom he brought from England. (?) He is served with much plate with gilt borders engraved with his arms and has all possible kinds of delicacies and scents, which . . . the Queen gave him. (?) None of the gentlemen sit or cover in his presence without first being ordered once or even several times. The galleon carries thirty pieces of heavy ordnance, fireworks and ammunition. They dine and sup to the music of violins. He carries carpenters, caulkers, careeners. The ship is sheathed. The men are paid and not regular pirates. No one takes plunder and the slightest fault is punished." The don goes on to say that what troubled him most was that Drake captured Spanish charts of the Pacific, which would guide other intruders on the Pacific. [6] The eight castaways in the shallop succeeded in passing back through the straits. At Plata they were attacked by the Indians; four, wounded, succeeded in escaping. The others were captured. Reaching islands off the coast of Patagonia, two of the wounded died. The remaining two suffered shipwreck on a barren island, where the only food was fruit; the only drink, the juice of the fruits. Making a raft of floating planks ten feet long, the two committed themselves to God and steered for the mainland. Here Pilcher died two hours after they had landed from drinking too much water. The survivor, Peter Carder, lived among the savages of Brazil for eight years before he escaped and got passage to England, where he related his adventures to Queen Elizabeth. The Queen gave him twenty-two angels and sent him to Admiral Howard for employment. _Purchas' Pilgrims_, Vol. IV. [7] The plunder of this port was 60,000 pesos of gold, jewels, and goods (pesos about 8 shillings, $2); 1770 jars of wine, together with the silver of the chapel altar, which was given to Fletcher. [8] The captain was a Biscayan, one Juan de Anton. [9] Nuno Silva is the name of this pilot. It is from his story that many of the details of this part of the voyage are obtained. [10] See Professor George Davidson's pamphlet on _Drake_. [11] To give even a brief account of Drake's life would fill a small encyclopaedia. The story of his first ruin off Vera Cruz, of his campaign of vengeance, of his piratical voyage to the Pacific, of his doings with the California Indians, of his fight in the Armada--any one of these would fill an ordinary volume. Only that part of his life bearing on American exploration has been given here, and that sacrificed in detail to keep from cumbering the sweep of his adventure. No attempt has been made to pass judgment on Drake's character. Like Baranof of a later day, he was a curious mixture of the supremely selfish egoist, and of the religious enthusiast, alternately using his egoism as a support for his religion, and his religion as a support for his egoism; and each reader will probably pass judgment on Drake according as the reader's ideal of manhood is the altruist or the egoist, the Christ-type or "the great blond beast" of modern philosophic thought, the man supremely indifferent to all but self, glorying in triumph though it be knee-deep in blood. Nor must we moderns pass too hypocritical judgment on the hero of the Drake type. Drake had invested capital in his venture. He had the blessing of Church and State on what he was about to do, and what he did was _to take_ what he had strength and dexterity to take independent of the Ten Commandments, which is not so far different from many commercial methods of to-day. We may appear as unmoral in our methods to future judges as Drake appears to us. Just as no attempt has been made to analyze Drake's character--to balance his lack of morals with his courage--so minor details, that would have led off from the main current of events, have been omitted. For instance, Drake spilled very little Spanish blood and was Christian in his treatment of the Indians; but are these credit marks offset by his brutality toward the black servants whom the pirates picked up among the Spaniards, of whom one poor colored girl was marooned on a Pacific island to live or die or rot? To be sure, the Portuguese pilot taken from a scuttled caravel off the west coast of Africa on the way out, and forced to pilot Drake to the Pacific, was well treated on the voyage. At least, there is no mention to the contrary; but when Drake had finished with the fellow, though the English might have known very well what terrible vengeance Spain would take, the pilot was dumped off on the coast of New Spain, where, one old record states, he was tortured, almost torn to pieces, for having guided Drake. The great, indeed, primary and only authorities for Drake's adventures are, of course, Hakluyt, Vol. III; for the fate of the lost crews, _Purchas' Pilgrims_, Vol. III and Vol. I, Book II, and Vol. IV; and the _Hakluyt Society Proceedings_, 1854, which are really a reprint of _The World Encompassed_, by Francis Fletcher, the chaplain, in 1628, with the addition of documents contemporary with Fletcher's by unknown writers. The title-page of _The World Encompassed_ reads almost like an old ballad--"_for the stirring up of heroick spirits to benefit their countries, and eternize their names by like {168} attempts_." Kohl and Davidson's _Reports of the Coast and Geodetic Survey_, 1884 and 1886, are also invaluable as establishing Drake's land-fall in California. Miller Christy's Silver Map of the World gives a splendid facsimile of the medal issued to commemorate Drake's return, of which the original is in the British Museum. Among biographers, Corbett's _Drake_, and Barrow's _Life of Sir Francis Drake_, give full details of his early and personal life, including, of course, his great services in the Armada. Furious controversy has waged over Drake on two points: Did he murder Doughty? Did he go as far north on the west coast of America as 48 degrees? Hakluyt's account says 43 degrees; _The World Encompassed_, by Fletcher, the chaplain, says 48 degrees, though all accounts agree it was at 38 degrees he made harbor. I have not dealt with either dispute, stating the bare facts, leaving each reader to draw his own conclusions, though it seems to me a little foolish to contend that the claim of the 48th degree was an afterthought interpolated by the writer to stretch British possessions over a broader swath; for even two hundred years after the issue of the Silver Map of the World, when Cook was on this coast, so little was known of the west shores of America by Englishmen that men were still looking out for a Gamaland, or imaginary continent in the middle of the Pacific. The words of the narrative bearing on America are: "We came to 42 degree of North latitude, where on the night following (June 3) we found such alterations of heat, into extreme and nipping cold, that our men in general did grievously complain thereof, some of them feeling their health much impaired thereby; neither was it that this chanced in the night alone, but the day following carried with it not only the markes, but the stings and force of the night. . .; besides that the pinching and biting air was nothing altered, the very ropes of our ship were stiffe, and the rain which fell was an unnatural congealed and frozen substance so that we seemed to be rather in the frozen Zone than any where so neere unto the sun or these hotter climates . . . it came to that extremity in sayling but two degrees farther to the northward in our course, that though seamen lack not good stomachs . . . it was a question whether hands should feed their mouths, or rather keepe from the pinching cold that did benumme them . . . our meate as soone as it was remooved from the fire, would presently in a manner be frozen up, and our ropes and tackling in a few days were growne to that stiffnesse . . . yet would not our general be discouraged but as well by comfortable speeches, of the divine providence, and of God's loving care over his children, out of the Scriptures . . . the land in that part of America, beares farther out into the West than we before imagined, we were neerer on it than we were aware; yet the neerer still we came unto it, the more extremity of cold did sease upon us. The fifth day of June, we were forced by contrary windes to runne in with the shoare, which we then first descried, and to cast anchor in a bad bay, the best roade we could for the present meete with, where we were not without some danger by reason of the many extreme gusts and flawes that beate upon us, which if they ceased, and were still at any time . . . there followed most vile, thicke and stinking fogges against which the sea prevailed nothing {169} . . . to go further North, the extremity of the cold would not permit us and the winds directly bent against us, having once gotten us under sayle againe, commanded us to the Southward whether we would or no. "From the height of 48 degrees in which now we were to 38, we found the land by coasting alongst it, to be but low and plaine--every hill whereof we saw many but none were high, though it were in June, and the sunne in his nearest approach . . . being covered with snow. . . . In 38 deg. 30 min. we fell with a convenient and fit harborough and June 17 came to anchor therein, where we continued till the 23rd day of July following . . . neither could we at any time in whole fourteen days together find the aire so cleare as to be able to take the height of sunne or starre . . . after our departure from the heate we always found our bodies, not as sponges, but strong and hardened, more able to beare out cold, though we came out of the excesse of heate, then chamber champions could hae beene, who lye in their feather beds till they go to sea. ". . . Trees without leaves, and the ground without greennes in these months of June and July . . . as for the cause of this extremity, they seem . . . chiefest we conceive to be the large spreading of the Asian and American continent, which (somewhat Northward of these parts) if they be not fully joyned, yet seeme they to come very neere one to the other. From whose high and snow-covered mountains, the North and Northwest winds (the constant visitants of those coasts) send abroad their frozen nimphes, to the infecting of the whole aire with this insufferable sharpnesse. . . . Hence comes the generall squalidnesse and barrennesse of the countrie, hence comes it that in the midst of their summer, the snow hardly departeth . . . from their hils at all, hence come those thicke mists and most stinking fogges, which increase so much the more, by how much higher the pole is raised . . . also from these reasons we coniecture that either there is no passage at all through these Northern coasts which is most likely or if there be, that yet it is unnavigable. . . . Add here unto, that though we searched the coast diligently, even unto the 48 degree, yet found we not the land to trend so much as one point in any place towards the East, but rather running on continually Northwest, as if it went directly to meet with Asia; and even in that height, when we had a franke winde to have carried us through, had there been a passage, yet we had a smoothe and calme sea, with ordinary flowing and renewing, which could not have beene had there been a frete; of which we rather infallibly concluded, then coniectured, that there was none. "The next day, after coming to anchor in the aforesaid harbour, the people of the countrey showed themselves, sending off a man with great expedition to us in a canow, who being yet but a little from the shoare, and a great way from our ship, spake to us continually as he came rowing in. And at last at a reasonable distance, staying himself, he began more solemnly a long and tedious oration, after his manner, using in the deliverie thereof, many gestures and signes, mouing his hands, turning his head and body many wayes, and after his oration ended, with great show and reverence and submission returned backe to shoare again. He shortly came againe the second time in like manner, {170} and so the third time, when he brought with him (as a present from the rest) a bunch of feathers, much like the feathers of a blacke crowe, very neatly and artificially gathered upon a string, and drawne together into a round bundle, being verie cleane and finely cut, and bearing in length an equall proportion one with another a special cognizance (as we afterwards observed) which they . . . weare on their heads. With this also he brought a little basket made of rushes, and filled with an herbe which they called Tobah. Both which being tyed to a short rodde, he cast into our boate. Our generall intended to have recompenced him immediately with many good things he would have bestowed on him; but entering into the boate to deliver the same, he could not be drawne to receive them by any meanes, save one hat, which being cast into the water out of the ship, he took up (refusing utterly to meddle with any other thing) though it were upon a board put off unto him, and so presently made his returne. After which time our boate could row no way, but wondering at us as at gods, they would follow the same with admiration. . . . "The third day following, viz., the 21, our ship having received a leake at sea, was brought to anchor neerer the shoare, that her goods being landed she might be repaired; but for that we were to prevent any danger that might chance against our safety, our Generall first of all landed his men, with all necessary provision, to build tents and make a fort for the defence of ourselves and our goods . . . which when the people of the country perceived us doing, as men set on fire to war in defence of their countrie, in great hast and companee, with such weapons as they had, they came down unto us, and yet with no hostile meaning or intent to hurt us: standing when they drew neerer, as men ravished in their mindes, with the sight of such things, as they never had scene or heard of before that time: their errand being rather with submission and feare to worship us as Gods, than to have warre with us as mortall men: which thing, as it did partly show itselfe at that instant, so did it more and more manifest itself afterwards, during the whole time of our abode amongst them. At this time, being veilled by signs to lay from them their bowes and arrowes, they did as they were directed and so did all the rest, as they came more and more by companies unto him, growing in a little while to a great number, both of men and women. ". . . Our Generall, with all his company, used all meanes possible gently to intreate them, bestowing upon each of them liberally good and necessary things to cover their nakedness, withall signifying unto them we were no Gods but men, and had need of such things to cover our owne shame, teaching them to use them to the same ends, for which cause also we did eate and drinke in their presence, . . . they bestowed upon our Generall and diverse of our company, diverse things as feathers, cawles of networke, the quivers of their arrowes, made of faune skins, and the very skins of beasts that their women wore upon their bodies . . . they departed with joy to their houses, which houses are digged round within the earth, and have from the uppermost brimmes of the circle, clefts of wood set up, and joyned close together at the top, like our spires on the steeple of a church, which being covered with earth, . . . are very warme; the doore {171} in the most of them performs the office also of a chimney to let out the smoake; it's made in bignesse and fashion like to an ordinary scuttle in a ship, and standing slope-wise; the beds are the hard ground, onely with rushes strewed upon it and lying round about the house, have their fire in the middest, . . . with all expedition we set up our tents, and intrenched ourselves with walls of stone. . . . Against the end of two daies, there was gathered together a great assembly of men, women and children, bringing with them as they had before done, feathers and bagges of Tobah for present, or rather for sacrifices upon this persuasion that we were Gods. "When they came to the top of the hill at the bottom whereof we had built our fort, they made a stand;" . . . "this bloodie sacrifice (against our wils) being thus performed, our generall, with his companie, in the presence of those strangers, fell to prayers; and by signes in lifting up our eyes and hands to heaven, signified unto them that that God whom we did serve and whom they ought to worship, was above: beseeching God, if it were his good pleasure, to open by some meanes their blinded eyes, that they might in due time be called to the knowledge of Him, the true and everliving God, and of Jesus Christ, whom he hath sent, the salvation of the Gentiles. In the time of which prayers, singing of Psalmes, and reading of certaine Chapters in the Bible, they sate very attentively, and observing the end of every pause, with one voice still cried 'oh' greatly rejoicing in our exercises." * * * * * * "Our generall caused to be set up a monument of our being there, as also of her majesties and successors right and title to that kingdom, namely a plate of brasse, fast nailed to a great and firme poste; whereon is engraven her graces' name, and the day and year of our arrival there, and of the free giving up of the province and kingdom, both by the king and people, unto her majesties' hands: together with her highnesse picture and arms, in a piece of sixpence current English monie, shewing itselfe by a hole made of purpose through the plate; underneath was likewise engraven the name of our Generall. . . . "The Spaniards never had any dealings, or so much as set a foote in this country, the utmost of their discoveries reaching onely to many degrees Southward of this place." The Spanish version of Drake's burial is, that the body was weighted with shot at the heels and heaved over into the sea, without coffin or ceremony. {172} CHAPTER VII 1728-1779 CAPTAIN COOK IN AMERICA The English Navigator sent Two Hundred Years later to find the New Albion of Drake's Discoveries--He misses both the Straits of Fuca and the Mouth of the Columbia, but anchors at Nootka, the Rendezvous of Future Traders--No Northeast Passage found through Alaska--The True Cause of Cook's Murder in Hawaii told by Ledyard--Russia becomes Jealous of his Explorations It seems impossible that after all his arduous labors and death, to prove his convictions, Bering's conclusions should have been rejected by the world of learning. Surely his coasting westward, southwestward, abreast the long arm of Alaska's peninsula for a thousand miles, should have proved that no open sea--no Northeast Passage--was here, between Asia and America. But no! the world of learning said fog had obscured Bering's observations. What he took for the mainland of America had been only a chain of islands. Northward of those islands was open sea between Asia and Europe, which might afford direct passage between East and West without circumnavigating the globe. In fact, said Dr. Campbell, {173} one of the most learned English writers of the day, "Nothing is plainer than that his (Bering's) discovery does not warrant any such supposition as that he touched the great continent making part of North America." The moonshine of the learned men in France and Russia was even wilder. They had definitely proved, _even if there were no Gamaland_--as Bering's voyage had shown--then there must be a southern continent somewhere, to keep the balance between the northern and southern hemispheres; else the world would turn upside down. And there must also be an ocean between northern Europe and northern Asia, else the world would be top-heavy and turn upside down. It was an age when the world accepted creeds for piety, and learned moonshine instead of scientific data; when, in a word, men refused to bow to fact! All sorts of wild rumors were current. There was a vast continent in the south. There was a vast sea in the north. Somewhere was the New Albion, which Francis Drake had found north of New Spain. Just north of the Spanish possessions in America was a wide inlet leading straight through from the Pacific to the Atlantic, which an old Greek pilot--named Juan de Fuca--said he had traversed for the viceroy of New Spain. Even stolid-going England was infected by the rage for imaginary oceans and continents. The Hudson's Bay Fur Company was threatened with a withdrawal {174} of its charter because it had failed to find a Northwest Passage from Atlantic to Pacific. Only four years after the death of Bering, an act of Parliament offered a reward of twenty thousand pounds to the officers and crew of any ships discovering a passage between Atlantic and Pacific north of 52 degrees. There were even ingenious fellows with the letters of the Royal Society behind their names, who affected to think that the great Athabasca Lake, which Hearne had found, when he tramped inland from the Arctic and Coppermine River, was a strait leading to the Pacific. Athabasca Lake might be the imaginary strait of the Greek pilot, Juan de Fuca. To be sure, two Hudson's Bay Company ships' crews--those under Knight and Barlow--had been totally lost fifty years before Hearne's tramp inland in 1771, trying to find that same mythical strait of Juan de Fuca westward of Hudson Bay. But so furious did public opinion wax over a Northwest Passage at the very time poor Bering was dying in the North Pacific, that Captain Middleton was sent to Hudson Bay in 1741-1742 to find a way to the Pacific. And when Middleton failed to find water where the Creator had placed land, Dobbs, the patron of the expedition and champion of a Northwest Passage at once roused the public to send out two more ships--the _Dobbs_ and _California_. Failure again! Theories never yet made Fact, never so much as added a hair's weight to Fact! Ellis, who was on board, affected to think that Chesterfield Inlet--a great arm of the sea, {175} westward of Hudson Bay--might lead to the Pacific. This supposition was promptly exploded by the Hudson's Bay Fur Company sending Captain Christopher and Moses Norton, the local governor of the company, up Chesterfield inlet for two hundred miles, where they found, not the Pacific, but a narrow river. Then the hue and cry of the learned theorists was--the Northwest Passage lay northward of Hudson Bay. Hearne was sent tramping inland to find--not sea, but land; and when he returned with the report of the great Athabasca Lake of Mackenzie River region, the lake was actually seized on as proof that there was a waterway to the Pacific. Then the brilliant plan was conceived to send ships by both the Atlantic and the Pacific to find this mythical passage from Europe to Asia. Pickersgill, who had been on the Pacific, was to go out north of Hudson Bay and work westward. To work eastward from the Pacific to the Atlantic was chosen a man who had already proved there was no great continental mass on the south, and that the world did not turn upside down, and who was destined to prove there was no great open ocean on the north, and still the world did not turn upside down. He was a man whose whole life had been based and built upon Fact, not Theory. He was a man who accepted Truth as God gave it to him, not as he had theorized it _ought_ to be; a man who had climbed from a mud cottage to the position of the greatest navigator in the world--had climbed on top of facts mastered, not {176} of schoolgirl moonshine, or study-closet theories. That man was Captain James Cook. Cook's life presents all the contrasts of true greatness world over. Like Peter the Great, of Russia, whose word had set in motion the exploration of the northwest coast of America, Cook's character consisted of elements that invariably lead to glory or ruin; often, both. The word "impossible" was not in his vocabulary. He simply did not recognize any limitations to what a man _might_ do, could do, would do, if he tried; and that means, that under stress of risk or temptation, or opposition, a man's caution goes to the winds. With Cook, it was risk that caused ruin. With the Czar of Russia, it was temptation. Born at Marton, a small parish of a north riding in the county of York, October 27, 1728, James Cook was the son of a day-laborer in an age when manual toil was paid at the rate of a few pennies a day. There were nine of a family. The home was a thatch-roofed mud cottage. Two years after Cook's birth, the father was appointed bailiff, which slightly improved family finances; but James was thirteen years of age before it was possible to send him to school. There, the progress of his learning was a gallop. He had a wizard-genius for figures. In three short years he had mastered all the Ayton school could teach him. At sixteen, his schooling was over. The father's highest ambition seems to have been for the son to become a successful shopkeeper in one of the small towns. The future {177} navigator was apprenticed to the village shop; but Cook's ambitions were not to be caged behind a counter. Eastward rolled the North Sea. Down at Hull were heard seamen's yarns to make the blood of a boy jump. It was 1746. The world was ringing with tales of Bering on the Pacific, of a southern continent, which didn't exist, of the Hudson's Bay Fur Company's illimitable domain in the north, of La Vérendrye's wonderful discoveries of an almost boundless region westward of New France toward the uncharted Western Sea. In a year and a half, Cook had his fill of shopkeeping. Whether he ran away, or had served his master so well that the latter willingly remitted the three years' articles of apprenticeship, Cook now followed his destiny to the sea. According to the world's standards, the change seemed progress backward. He was articled to a ship-owner of Whitby as a common seaman on a coaler sailing between Newcastle and London. One can see such coalers any day--black as smut, grimed from prow to stern, with workmen almost black shovelling coal or hoisting tackling--pushing in and out among the statelier craft of any seaport. It is this stage in a great man's career which is the test. Is the man sure enough of himself to leave everything behind, and jump over the precipice into the unknown? If ever he wishes to return to what he has left, he will have just the height of this jump to climb back to the old place. The old place is a certainty. The unknown may engulf in failure. He {178} must chance that, and all for the sake of a faith in himself, which has not yet been justified; for the sake of a vague star leading into the misty unknown. He knows that he could have been successful in the old place. He does not know that he may not be a failure in the new place. Art, literature, science, commerce--in all--it is the men and women who have dared to risk being failures that have proved the mainspring of progress. Cook was sure enough of himself to exchange shopkeeper's linen for the coal-heaver's blue jeans, to risk following the star of his destiny to the sea. Presently, the commonplace, grimy duties which he must fulfil are taking him to Dublin, to Liverpool, to Norway; and by the time he is twenty-two, he knows the Baltic trade well, and has heard all the pros and cons of the furious cackle which the schools have raised over that expedition of Bering's to the west coast of America. By the time he is twenty-four he is a first mate on the coal boats. Comes another vital change! When he left the shop, he felt all that he had to do to follow his destiny was to go to sea. Now the star has led him up to a blank wall. The only promotion he can obtain on these merchantmen is to a captainship; and the captaincy on a small merchantman will mean pretty much a monotonous flying back and forward like a shuttle between the ports of Europe and England. Cook took a resolution that would have cost any {179} man but one with absolute singleness of purpose a poignant effort. At the age of twenty-seven, he decided to enter the Royal Navy. Now, in a democratic age, we don't talk about such things; but there are unwritten laws and invisible lines just the same. Standing on the captain's deck of an American warship not long ago, watching the deck hands below putting things shipshape, I asked an officer--"Is there any chance for those men to rise?" "Yes, some," he answered tentatively, "but then, there is a difference between the men who have been trained for a position, and those who have worked up the line to it." If that difference exists in a democratic country and age, what was it for Cook in a country and at a time when lines of caste were hard and fast drawn? But he entered the navy on the _Eagle_ under Sir Hugh Palliser, who, almost at once, transferred him from the forecastle to the quarterdeck. What was the explanation of such quick recognition? Therein lies the difference between the man who tries and succeeds, and the man who tries and fails. Cook had qualified himself for promotion. He was so fitted for the higher position, that the higher position could not do without him. Whether rocking on the Baltic, or waiting for the stokers to heave out coal at Liverpool, every moment not occupied by seaman's duties, Cook had filled by improving himself, by increasing his usefulness, by sharpening his brain, so that his brain could better direct his hands, by {180} studying mathematics and astronomy and geography and science and navigation. As some one has said--there are lots of people with hands and no brain; and there are lots of people with brains and no hands; but the kind who will command the highest reward for their services to the world are those who have the finest combination of brains _and_ hands. [Illustration: Captain James Cook.] Four years after Cook had joined the navy, he was master on the _Mercury_ with the fleet before Quebec, making a chart of the St. Lawrence for Wolfe to take the troops up to the Heights of Abraham, piloting the boats to the attack on Montmorency, and conducting the embarkation of the troops, who were to win the famous battle, that changed the face of America. Now the Royal Society wished to send some one to the South Seas, whose reliability was of such a recognized and steady-going sort, that his conclusions would be accepted by the public. Just twenty years from the time that he had left the shop, Cook was chosen for this important mission. What manner of man was he, who in that time had risen from life in a mud hut to the rank of a commander in the Royal Navy? In manner, he was plain and simple and direct, no flourish, no unnecessary palaver of showy words, not a word he did not mean. In form, he was six feet tall, in perfect proportion, with brown hair and eyes, alertly penetrating, with features sharp rather from habit or thought than from natural shape. On this mission he left England in 1768, anchored at {181} the Society Islands of the South Seas in the spring of 1769, explored New Zealand in the fall of the same year, rounded Australia in 1770 and returned to England in 1771, the very year Hearne was trying to tramp it overland in search of a Northwest Passage. And he brought back no proof of that vast southern world which geographers had put on their maps. Promptly he was sent out on a second voyage to find or demolish that mythical continent of the southern hemisphere; and he demolished the myth of a southern continent altogether, returning from circumnavigating the globe just at the time when the furor of a Northwest Passage northward of Hudson Bay, northward even of Bering's course on the Pacific, was at its height. The third voyage was to determine finally the bounds of western America, the possibilities of a passage between Europe and Asia by way of the Pacific. Two ships--the _Resolution_, four hundred and sixty tons, one hundred and twelve men, which Cook had used before, and the _Discovery_, three hundred tons, eighty men--were purchased at Hull, the old port of Cook's boyhood dreams. To secure the good will of the crews, two months' wages were paid in advance. Captain Clerke commanded the _Discovery_; and the two crews numbered men of whom the world was to hear more in connection with the northwest coast of America--a young midshipman, Vancouver, whose doings were yet to checkmate Spain; a young American, corporal {182} of marines, Ledyard, who was to have his brush with Russia; and other ambitious young seamen destined to become famous traders on the west coast of America. The two ships left England in midsummer of 1776, crossed the equator in September when every man fresh to the episode was caught and ducked overrails in equatorial waters, rounded Good Hope, touched at the Society Islands of the first voyage, and by spring of 1778 had explored and anchored at the Sandwich Islands. Once on the Pacific, Cook mustered his crews and took them into his confidence; he was going to try for that reward of twenty thousand pounds to the crew that discovered a Northeast Passage; and even if he missed the reward, he was going to have a shy at the most northern latitude ever attempted by navigator--89 degrees; would they do it? The crew cheered. Whether they reached 89 degrees or not, they decided to preserve their grog for the intense cold to be encountered in the north; so that the daily allowance was now cut to half. By March, the ships were off from the Sandwich Islands to the long swell of the Pacific, the slimy medusa lights covering the waters with a phosphorescent trail of fire all night, the rockweed and sea leek floating past by day telling their tale of some far land. Cook's secret commission had been very explicit: "You are to proceed on as direct a course as you can to the coast of New Albion, endeavoring to fall in with it in latitude 45 degrees north . . . and are strictly enjoined {183} not to touch on any part of the Spanish dominions . . . unless driven by accident . . . and to be very careful not to give any umbrage to the subjects of his Catholic Majesty . . . and if in further progress northward . . . you find any subjects of a European prince . . . you are not to give any cause of offence . . . proceed northward to 65 degrees, carefully search for such inlets as appear pointing to Hudson Bay . . . use your utmost endeavors to pass through." The commission shows that England was unaware Spain had pushed north of 45 degrees, and Russia north of 65 degrees; for Spain jealously kept her explorations secret, and Russia's were not accepted. The commission also offered a reward for any one going within 1 degree of the Pole. It may be added--the offer is still open. For days after leaving the Sandwich Islands, not a bird was to be seen. That was a bad omen for land. Land must be far, indeed; and Cook began to fear there might be as much ocean in that northern hemisphere as the geographers of Russia and France--who actually tabulated Bering's discoveries as an island--had placed on the maps. But in the first week of March, a sea-gull came swimming over the crest of a wave. Where did she come from? Then an albatross was seen wheeling above the sea. Then, on March 6, two lonely land seals went plying past; and whales were noticed. Surely they were nearing the region that Drake, the English freebooter, had seen and named New Albion two hundred years before. {184} Suddenly, on the morning of March 7, the dim offing ahead showed thin, sharp, clear lines. The lines rose higher as the ship approached. They cut themselves against the sky in the form of mountains and hills with purple mist lying in the valleys. It was the New Albion at latitude 44 degrees 33 minutes, which Drake had discovered. The day was hazy and warm. Cook's crews wondered why Drake had complained of such cold. By night they found out. A roaring hurricane burst from the northern darkness with squalls of hail and snow and sleet, that turned the shore to one long reach of whitened cliffs straight up and down out of the sea. In commemoration, they called the first landfall, Cape Foulweather; and, in spite of the commission to sail north, drove under bare poles before the storm to 43 degrees, naming the two capes passed Perpetua and Gregory. Only by the third week of March had the storm abated enough for them to turn north again.[1] Now, whether the old Greek pilot, Juan de Fuca, lied or dreamed, or only told a yarn of what some Indian had told him, it was along this coast that he had said the straits leading to the east side of America lay; and Cook's two ships hugged the coast as close as they dared for fear of roaring breakers and a landward wind. On March 23 rocks were seen lying off a high point capped with trees, behind which might be a {185} strait; but a gale ashore and a lashing tide thundering over the rocks sent the ships scudding for the offing through fog and rain; and never a glimpse of a passage eastward could the crews obtain. Cook called the delusive point Cape Flattery and added: "It is in this very latitude (48 degrees 15 minutes) that geographers have placed the pretended Straits of Juan de Fuca; but we saw nothing like it; nor is there the least possibility that any such thing ever existed." But Cook was too far out to descry the narrow opening--but thirteen miles wide--of Juan de Fuca, where the steamers of three continents ply to-day; though the strait by no means led to Europe, as geographers thought. All night a hard gale drove them northward. When the weather cleared, permitting them to approach the coast again, high mountains, covered with snow and forests, jagged through the clouds like tent peaks. Tremendous breakers roared over sunken rocks. Point Breakers, Cook called them. Then the wind suddenly fell; and the ships were becalmed directly opposite the narrow entrance of a two-horned cove sheltered by the mountains. The small boats had all been mustered out to tow the two ships in, when a slight breeze sprang up. The flotilla drifted inland just as three canoes, carved in bizarre shapes of birds' heads and eagle claws, came paddling across the inlet. Three savages were in one, six in the other, ten in the third. They came slowly over the water, singing some song of welcome, beating time with their paddles, {186} scattering downy white feathers on the air, at intervals standing up to harangue a welcome to the newcomers. Soon thirty canoes were around the ships with some ten warriors in each. Still they came, shoals of them, like fish, with savages almost naked, the harbor smooth as glass, the grand _tyee_, or great chief of the tribes, standing erect shouting a welcome, with long elf-locks streaming down his back. Women and children now appeared in the canoes. That meant peace. The women were chattering like magpies; the men gurgling and spluttering their surprise at the white visitors. For safety's sake the guns of the two ships were pointed ready; but the natives did not know the fear of a gun. It was the end of March when Cook first anchored off what he thought was the mainland of America. It was not mainland, but an island, and the harbor was one to become famous as the rendezvous of Pacific traders--Nootka! Three armed boats commanded by Mr. King, and one under Cook, at once proceeded from the ships to explore and sound the inlet. The entrance had been between two rocky points four miles apart past a chain of sunken rocks. Except in a northwest corner of the inlet, since known as Snug Cove, the water was too deep for anchorage; so the two ships were moored to trees, the masts unrigged, the iron forge set to work on the shore; and the men began cutting timber for the new masts. And still the tiny specks dancing over the waves carrying canoe loads of savages to the English ships, {187} continued to multiply till the harbor seemed alive with warriors--two thousand at least there must have been by the first week of April after Cook's arrival. Some of the savages wore brightly painted wooden masks as part of their gala attire. Others carried totems--pieces of wood carved in the likeness of bird or beast to typify manitou of family or clan. By way of showing their prowess, some even offered the white men human skulls from which the flesh had not yet been taken. By this Cook knew the people were cannibals. Some were observed to be wearing spoons of European make as ornaments round their necks. What we desire to believe we easily accept. The white men did not ascribe the spoons to traders from New Spain on the south, or the Russian settlements to the north; but thought this place must be within trading distance of Hudson Bay, whence the Indians must have obtained the spoons. And so they cherished the hope of a Northeast Passage from this slim sign. In a few days fifteen hundred beaver and sea-otter had been obtained in trade, sixty-nine sea-otter--each of which was worth at that time one hundred dollars in modern money--for a handful of old nails. To these deep-sea wanderers of Cook's crews, the harbor was as a fairy-land. Snow still covered the mountain tops; but a tangled forest of dank growth with roots awash in the ripple of the sea, stretched down the hillsides. Red cedar, spruce, fir,--of enormous growth, broader in girth than a cart and {188} wagon in length,--cypress with twisted and gnarled knots red against the rank green; mosses swinging from branch to branch in snaky coils wherever the clouds settled and rested; islands studding the sea like emerald gems; grouse drumming their spring song through the dark underbrush; sea-mew and Mother Carey's chickens screaming and clacking overhead; the snowy summits red as wine in the sunset glow--all made up an April scene long cherished by these adventurers of the North. Early one morning in April the men cutting timber inland were startled to notice the underbrush alive with warriors armed. The first fear was of an ambush. Cook ordered the men to an isolated rock ready for defence; but the grand _tyee_ or chief explained by signs that his tribe was only keeping off another tribe that wanted to trade with the white men. The worst trouble was from the inordinate thieving propensities of the natives. Iron, nails, belaying pins, rudders, anchors, bits of sail, a spike that could be pulled from the rotten wood of the outer keel by the teeth of a thief paddling below--anything, everything was snatched by the light-fingered gentry. Nor can we condemn them for it. Their moral standard was the Wolf Code of Existence--which the white man has elaborated in his evolution--to take whatever they had the dexterity and strength to take and to keep. When caught in theft, they did not betray as much sense of guilt as a dog stealing a bone. Why should they? Their {189} code was to take. The chief of the Nootkas presented Cook with a sea-otter cloak. Cook reciprocated with a brass-hilted sword. By the end of April the ships had been overhauled, and Cook was ready to sail. Porpoise were coursing the sea like greyhounds, and the stormy petrels in a clatter; but Cook was not to be delayed by storm. Barely had the two ships cleared the harbor, when such a squall broke loose, they could do nothing but scud for open sea, turn tails to the wind, and lie helpless as logs, heads south. If it had not been for this storm, Cook would certainly have discovered that Nootka was on an island, not the coast of the mainland; but by the time the weather permitted an approach to land again, Friday, May 1, the ships were abreast that cluster of islands below the snowy cone of Mt. Edgecumbe, Sitka, where Chirikoff's Russians had first put foot on American soil. Cook was now at the northernmost limit of Spanish voyaging. By the 4th of May Cook had sighted and passed the Fairweather Range, swung round westward on the old course followed by Bering, and passed under the shadow of St. Elias towering through the clouds in a dome of snow. On the 6th the ships were at Kyak, where Bering had anchored, and amid myriad ducks and gulls were approaching a broad inlet northward. Now, just as Bering had missed exploring this part of the coast owing to fog, so Cook had failed to trace that long archipelago of islands from Sitka Sound {190} northward; but here, where the coast trends straight westward, was an opening that roused hopes of a Northeast Passage. The _Resolution_ had sprung a leak; and in the second week of May, the inlet was entered in the hope of a shelter to repair the leak and a way northeast to the Atlantic. Barely had the ships passed up the sound, when they were enshrouded in a fog that wiped out every outline; otherwise, the high coast of glacial palisades--two hundred feet in places and four miles broad--might have been seen landlocked by mountains; but Mr. Gore launched out in a small boat steering north through haze and tide-rip. Twenty natives were seen clad in sea-otter skins, by which--the white men judged--no Russians could have come to this sound; for the Russians would not have permitted the Indians to keep such valuable sea-otter clothing. The glass beads possessed by the natives were supposed to attest proximity to traders of Hudson Bay. With an almost animal innocence of wrong, the Indians tried to steal the small boat of the _Discovery_, flourishing their spears till the white crew mustered. At another time, when the _Discovery_ lay anchored, few lanterns happened to be on deck. No sailors were visible. It was early in the morning and everybody was asleep, the boat dark. The natives swarmed up the ship's sides like ants invading a sugar canister. Looking down the hatches without seeing any whites, they at once drew their knives and began to plunder. The whites dashed up the hatchway and drove the {191} plunderers over the rails at sword point. East and north the small boats skirted the mist-draped shores, returning at midnight with word the inlet was a closed shore. There was no Northeast Passage. They called the spider-shaped bay Prince William Sound; and at ten in the morning headed out for sea. Here a fresh disappointment awaited them. The natives of Prince William Sound had resembled the Eskimos of Greenland so much that the explorers were prepared to find themselves at the westward end of the American continent ready to round north into the Atlantic. A long ledge of land projected into the sea. They called this Cape Elizabeth, passed it, noted the reef of sunken rocks lying directly athwart a terrific tidal bore, and behold! not the end of the continent--no, not by a thousand miles--but straight across westward, beneath a smoking volcano that tinged the fog ruby-red, a lofty, naked spur three miles out into the sea, with crest hidden among the clouds and rock-base awash in thundering breakers. This was called Cape Douglas. Between these two capes was a tidal flood of perhaps sixty miles' breadth. Where did it come from? Up went hopes again for the Northeast Passage, and the twenty thousand pounds! Spite of driftwood, and roily waters, and a flood that ran ten miles an hour, and a tidal bore that rose twenty feet, up the passage they tacked, east to west, west to east, plying up half the month of June in rain and sleet, with the heavy pall of black smoke {192} rolling from the volcano left far on the offing! At last the opening was seen to turn abruptly straight east. Out rattled the small boats. Up the muddy waters they ran for nine miles till salt water became fresh water, and the explorers found themselves on a river. In irony, this point was called Turn-Again. The whole bay is now known as Cook's Inlet. Mr. King was sent ashore on the south side of Turn-Again to take possession. Twenty natives in sea-otter skins stood by watching the ceremony of flag unfurled and the land of their fathers being declared the possession of England. These natives were plainly acquainted with the use of iron; but "I will be bold to say," relates Cook, "they do not know the Russians, or they would not be wearing these valuable sea-otter skins." No Northeast Passage here! So out they ply again for open sea through misty weather; and when it clears, they are in the green treeless region west of Cook's Inlet. Past Kadiak, past Bering's Foggy Island, past the Shumagins where Bering's first sailor to die of scurvy had been buried, past volcanoes throwing up immense quantities of blood-red smoke, past pinnacled rocks, through mists so thick the roar of the breakers is their only guide, they glide, or drift, or move by inches feeling the way cautiously, fearful of wreck. Toward the end of June a great hollow green swell swings them through the straits past Oonalaska, northward at last! Natives are seen in green trousers {193} and European shirts; natives who take off their hats and make a bow after the pompous fashion of the Russians. Twice natives bring word to Cook by letter and sign that the Russians of Oonalaska wish to see him. But Captain Cook is not anxious to see the Russians just now. He wants to forestall their explorations northward and take possession of the Polar realm for England. In August they are in Bristol Bay, north of the Aleutians, directly opposite Asia. Here Dr. Anderson, the surgeon, dies of consumption. Not so much fog now. They can follow the mainland. Far ahead there projects straight out in the sea a long spit of land backed by high hills, the westernmost point of North America--Cape Prince of Wales! Bering is vindicated! Just fifty years from Bering's exploration of 1728, the English navigator finds what Bering found: that America and Asia are _not_ united; that no Northeast Passage exists; that no great oceanic body lies north of New Spain; that Alaska--as the Russian maps had it after Bering's death--is not an island. Wind, rain, roily, shoaly seas breaking clear over the ship across decks drove Cook out from land to deeper water. With an Englishman's thoroughness for doing things and to make deadly sure just how the two continents lay to each other, Cook now scuds across Bering Strait thirty-nine miles to the Chukchee land of Siberia in Asia. How he praises the accuracy of poor {194} Bering's work along this coast: Bering, whose name had been a target for ridicule and contempt from the time of his death; whose death was declared a blunder; whose voyage was considered a failure; whose charts had been rejected and distorted by the learned men of the world. [Illustration: The Ice Islands.] From the Chukchee villages of Asia, Cook sailed back to the American coast, passing north of Bering Straits directly in mid-channel. It is an odd thing, while very little ice-drift is met in Bering Sea, you have no sooner passed north of the straits than a white world surrounds you. Fog, ice, ice, fog--endlessly, with palisades of ice twelve feet high, east and west, far as the eye can see! The crew amuse themselves alternately gathering driftwood for fuel, and hunting {195} walrus over the ice. It is in the North Pacific that the walrus attains its great size--nine feet in length, broader across its back than any animal known to the civilized world. These piebald yellow monsters lay wallowing in herds of hundreds on the ice-fields. At the edge lay always one on the watch; and no matter how dense the fog, these walrus herds on the ice, braying and roaring till the surf shook, acted as a fog-horn to Cook's ships, and kept them from being jammed in the ice-drift. Soon two-thirds of the furs got at Nootka had spoiled of rain-rot. The vessels were iced like ghost ships. Tack back and forward as they might, no passage opened through the ice. Suddenly Cook found himself in shoal water, on a lee shore, long and low and shelving, with the ice drifting on his ships. He called the place Icy Cape. It was their farthest point north; and the third week of August they were compelled to scud south to escape the ice. Backing away toward Asia, he reached the North Cape there. It was almost September. In accordance with the secret instructions, Cook turned south to winter at the Sandwich Islands, passing Serdze Kamen, where Bering had turned back in 1728, East Cape on the Straits of Bering just opposite the American Prince of Wales, and St. Lawrence islands where the ships anchored. Norton Sound was explored on the way back; and October saw Cook down at Oonalaska, where Ledyard was sent overland across the island to conduct the {196} Russian traders to the English ships. Three Russians came to visit Cook. One averred that he had been with Bering on the expedition of 1741, and the rough adventurers seemed almost to worship the Dane's memory. Later came Ismyloff, chief factor of the Russian fur posts in Oonalaska, attended by a retinue of thirty native canoes, very suave as to manners, very polished and pompous when he was not too convivial, but very chary of any information to the English, whose charts he examined with keenest interest, giving them to understand that the Empress of Russia had first claim to all those parts of the country, rising, quaffing a glass and bowing profoundly as he mentioned the august name. "Friends and fellow-countrymen glorious," the English were to the smooth-tongued Russian, as they drank each other's health. Learning that Cook was to visit Avacha Bay, Ismyloff proffered a letter of introduction to Major Behm, Russian commander of Kamchatka. Cook thought the letter one of commendation. It turned out otherwise. Fur traders, world over, always resented the coming of the explorer. Ismyloff was neither better nor worse than his kind.[2] Heavy squalls pursued the ships all the way from Oonalaska, left on October 26, to the Sandwich Islands, reached in the new year 1779. A thousand canoes of enthusiastic natives welcomed Cook back to the sunny islands of the Pacific. Before the explorer {197} could anchor, natives were swimming round the ship like shoals of fish. When Cook landed, the whole population prostrated itself at his feet as if he had been a god. It was a welcome change from the desolate cold of the inhospitable north. Situated midway in the Pacific, the Sandwich Islands were like an oasis in a watery waste to Cook's mariners. The ships had dropped anchor in the centre of a horn-shaped bay called Karakakooa, in Hawaii, about two miles from horn to horn. On the sandy flats of the north horn was the native village of Kowrowa: amid the cocoanut grove of the other horn, the village of Kakooa, with a well and Morai, or sacred burying-ground, close by. Between the two villages alongshore ran a high ledge of black coral rocks. In all there were, perhaps, four hundred houses in the two villages, with a population of from two to three thousand warriors; but the bay was the rallying place for the entire group of islands; and the islands numbered in all several hundred thousand warriors. Picture, then, the scene to these wanderers of the northern seas: the long coral reef, wave-washed by bluest of seas; the little village and burying-ground and priests' houses nestling under the cocoanut grove at one end of the semicircular bay, the village where Terreeoboo, king of the island, dwelt on the long sand beach at the other end; and swimming through the water like shoals of fish, climbing over the ships' rigging like monkeys, crowding the decks of the _Discovery_ {198} so that the ship heeled over till young chief Pareea began tossing the intruders by the scuff of the neck back into the sea--hundreds, thousands, of half-naked, tawny-skinned savages welcoming the white men back to the islands discovered by them. Chief among the visitors to the ship was Koah, a little, old, emaciated, shifty-eyed priest with a wry neck and a scaly, leprous skin, who at once led the small boats ashore, driving the throngs back with a magic wand and drawing a mystic circle with his wizard stick round a piece of ground near the Morai, or burying-place, where the white men could erect their tents beside the cocoanut groves. The magic line was called a _taboo_. Past the tabooed line of the magic wand not a native would dare to go. Here Captain King, assisted by the young midshipman, Vancouver, landed with a guard of eight or ten mariners to overhaul the ships' masts, while the rest of the two crews obtained provisions by trade. Cook was carried off to the very centre of the Morai--a circular enclosure of solid stone with images and priests' houses at one end, the skulls of slain captives at the other. Here priests and people did the white explorer homage as to a god, sacrificing to him their most sacred animal--a strangled pig. All went well for the first few days. A white gunner, who died, was buried within the sacred enclosure of the Morai. The natives loaded the white men's boats with provisions. In ten days the wan, gaunt {199} sailors were so sleek and fat that even the generous entertainers had to laugh at the transformation. Old King Terreeoboo came clothed in a cloak of gaudy feathers with spears and daggers at his belt and a train of priestly retainers at his heels to pay a visit of state to Cook; and a guard of mariners was drawn up at arms under the cocoanut grove to receive the visitor with fitting honor. When the king learned that Cook was to leave the bay early in February, a royal proclamation gathered presents for the ships; and Cook responded by a public display of fireworks. Now it is a sad fact that when a highly civilized people meet an uncivilized people, each race celebrates the occasion by appropriating all the evil qualities of the other. Vices, not virtues, are the first to fraternize. It was as unfair of Cook's crew to judge the islanders by the rabble swarming out to steal from the ships, as it would be for a newcomer to judge the people of New York by the pickpockets and under-world of the water front. And it must not be forgotten that the very quality that had made Cook successful--the quality to dare--was a danger to him here. The natives did not violate the sacred _taboo_, which the priest had drawn round the white men's quarters of the grove. It was the white men who violated it by going outside the limit; and the conduct of the white sailors for the sixteen days in port was neither better nor worse than the conduct of sailors to-day who go on a wild spree with the lowest elements of the harbor. {200} The savages were quick to find out that the white gods were after all only men. The true story of what happened could hardly be written by Captain King, who finished Cook's journal; though one can read between the lines King's fear of his commander's rashness. The facts of the case are given by the young American, John Ledyard, of Connecticut, who was corporal of marines and in the very thick of the fight. At the end of two weeks the white seamen were, perhaps, satiated of their own vices, or suffering from the sore head that results from prolonged spreeing. At all events the thieving, which had been condoned at first, was now punished by soundly flogging the natives. The old king courteously hinted it was time for the white men to go. The mate, who was loading masts and rudder back on board the _Resolution_, asked the savages to give him a hand. The islanders had lost respect for the white men of such flagrant vices. They pretended to give a helping hand, but only jostled the mate about in the crowd. The Englishman lost his temper, struck out, and blustered. The shore rang with the shrill laughter of the throngs. In vain the chiefs of authority interposed. The commands to help the white men were answered by showers of stones directly inside the _taboo_. Ledyard was ordered out with a guard of sailors to protect the white men loading the _Resolution_. The guard was pelted black and blue. "There was nothing to do," relates Ledyard, "but move to new lands where our vices {201} were not known." At last all was in readiness to sail--one thing alone lacking--wood; and the white men dare not go inland for the needed wood. So far the entire blame rested on the sailors. Now Cook committed his cardinal error. With that very dare and quickness to utilize every available means to an end--whether the end justified the means--Cook ordered his men ashore to seize the rail fence round the top of the stone burying-ground--the sacred Morai--as fuel for his ships. Out rushed the priests from the enclosure in dire distress. Was this their reward for protecting Cook with the wand of the sacred _taboo_? Two hatchets were offered the leading priest as pay. He spurned them as too loathsome to be touched. Leading the way, Cook ordered his men to break the fence down, and proffered three hatchets, thrusting them into the folds of the priest's garment. Pale and quivering with rage, the priest bade a slave remove the profaning iron. Down tumbled the fence! Down the images on poles! Down the skulls of the dead sacred to the savage as the sepulchre to the white man! It may be said to the credit of the crew, that the men were thoroughly frightened at what they were ordered to do; but they were not too frightened to carry away the images as relics. Cook alone was blind to risk. As if to add the last straw to the Hawaiians' endurance, when the ships unmoored and sailed out from the bay, where but two weeks before they had been so royally welcomed, they carried {202} eloping wives and children from the lower classes of the two villages. It was one of the cases where retribution came so swift it was like a living Nemesis. If the weather had continued fair, doubtless wives and children would have been dumped off at some near harbor, the incident considered a joke, and the Englishmen gone merrily on their way; but a violent gale arose. Women and children were seized with a seasickness that was no joke. The decks resounded with such wails that Cook had to lie to in the storm, put off the pinnace, and send the visitors ashore. What sort of a tale they carried back, we may guess. Meanwhile the storm had snapped the foremast of the _Resolution_. As if rushing on his ruin, Cook steered back for the bay and anchored midway between the two villages. Again the tents were pitched beside the Morai under the cocoanut groves. Again the wand was drawn round the tenting place; but the white men had taught the savages that the _taboo_ was no longer sacred. Where thousands had welcomed the ships before, not a soul now appeared. Not a canoe cut the waters. Not a voice broke the silence of the bay. The sailors were sour; Cook, angry. When the men rowed to the villages for fresh provisions, they were pelted with stones. When at night-time the savages came to the ships with fresh food, they asked higher prices and would take only daggers and knives in pay. Only by firing its great guns could the {203} _Discovery_ prevent forcible theft by the savages offering provisions; and in the scuffle of pursuit after one thief, Pareea--a chief most friendly to the whites--was knocked down by a white man's oar. "I am afraid," remarked Cook, "these people will compel me to use violent measures." As if to test the mettle of the tacit threat, Sunday, daybreak, February 14, revealed that the large rowboat of the _Discovery_ had been stolen. When Captain King, who had charge of the guard repairing the masts over under the cocoanut grove came on board Sunday morning, he found Cook loading his gun, with a line of soldiers drawn up to go ashore in order to allure the ruler of the islands on board, and hold him as hostage for the restitution of the lost boat. Clerke, of the _Discovery_, was too far gone in consumption to take any part. Cook led the way on the pinnace with Ledyard and six marines. Captain King followed in the launch with as many more. All the other small boats of the two ships were strung across the harbor from Kakooa, where the grove was, to Kowrowa, where the king dwelt, with orders to fire on any canoe trying to escape. Before the fearless leader, the savages prostrated themselves in the streets. Cook strode like a conqueror straight to the door of the king's abode. It was about nine in the morning. Old Terreeoboo--peace lover and lazy--was just awake and only too willing to go aboard with Cook as the easiest way out {204} of the trouble about the stolen boat. But just here the high-handedness of Cook frustrated itself. That line of small boats stretched across the harbor began firing at an escaping canoe. A favorite chief was killed. Word of the killing came as the old king was at the water's edge to follow Cook; and a wife caught him by the arm to drag him back. Suddenly a throng of a thousand surrounded the white men. Some one stabs at Phillips of the marines. Phillips's musket comes down butt-end on the head of the assailant. A spear is thrust in Cook's very face. He fires blank shot. The harmlessness of the shot only emboldens the savages. Women are seen hurrying off to the hills; men don their war mats. There is a rush of the white men to get positions along the water edge free for striking room; of the savages to prevent the whites' escape. A stone hits Cook. "What man did that?" thunders Cook; and he shoots the culprit dead. Then the men in the boats lose their heads, and are pouring volleys of musketry into the crowds. "It is hopeless," mutters Cook to Phillips; but amid a shower of stones above the whooping of the savages, he turns with his back to the crowd, and shouts for the two small boats to cease firing and pull in for the marines. His caution came too late. His back is to his assailants. An arm reached out--a hand with a dagger; and the dagger rips quick as a flash under Cook's shoulder-blade. He fell without a groan, face in the water, and was hacked to pieces {205} before the eyes of his men. Four marines had already fallen. Phillips and Ledyard and the rest jumped into the sea and swam for their lives. The small boats were twenty yards out. Scarcely was Phillips in the nearest, when a wounded sailor, swimming for refuge, fainted and sank to the bottom. Though half stunned from a stone blow on his head and bleeding from a stab in the back, Phillips leaped to the rescue, dived to bottom, caught the exhausted sailor by the hair of the head and so snatched him into the boat. The dead and the arms of the fugitives had been deserted in the wild scramble for life. [Illustration: The Death of Cook.] Meanwhile the masts of the _Resolution_, guarded by {206} only six marines, were exposed to the warriors of the other village at the cocoanut grove. Protected by the guns of the two ships under the direction of Clerke, who now became commander, masts and men were got aboard by noon. At four that afternoon, Captain King rowed toward shore for Cook's body. He was met by the little leprous priest Koah, swimming halfway out. Though tears of sorrow were in Koah's treacherous red-rimmed eyes as he begged that Clerke and King might come ashore to parley. King judged it prudent to hold tightly on the priest's spear handle while the two embraced. Night after night for a week, the conch-shells blew their challenge of defiance to the white men. Fires rallying to war danced on the hillsides. Howls and shouts of derision echoed from the shore. The stealthy paddle of treacherous spies could be heard through the dark under the keel of the white men's ships. Cook's clothing, sword, hat, were waved in scorn under the sailors' faces. The women had hurried to the hills. The old king was hidden in a cave, where he could be reached only by a rope ladder; and emissary after emissary tried to lure the whites ashore. One pitch-dark night, paddles were heard under the keels. The sentinels fired; but by lantern light two terrified faces appeared above the rail of the _Resolution_. Two frightened, trembling savages crawled over the deck, prostrated themselves at Clerke's feet, and slowly unrolled a small wrapping of cloth that revealed a small {207} piece of human flesh--the remains of Cook. Dead silence fell on the horrified crew. Then Clerke's stern answer was that unless the bones of Cook were brought to the ships, both native villages would be destroyed. The two savages were former friends of Cook's and warned the whites not to be allured on land, nor to trust Koah, the leper priest, on the ships. Again the conch-shells blew their challenge all night through the darkness. Again the war fires danced; but next morning the guns of the _Discovery_ were trained on Koah, when he tried to come on board. That day sailors were landed for water and set fire to the village of the cocoanut groves to drive assailants back. How quickly human nature may revert to the beast type! When the white sailors returned from this skirmish, they carried back to the ships with them, the heads of two Hawaiians they had slain. By Saturday, the 20th, masts were in place and the boats ready to sail. Between ten and eleven o'clock in the morning, a long procession of people was seen filing slowly down the hills preceded by drummers and a white flag. Word was signalled that Cook's bones were on shore to be delivered. Clerke put out in a small boat to receive the dead commander's remains--from which all flesh had been burned. On Sunday, the 21st, the entire bay was tabooed. Not a native came out of the houses. Silence lay over the waters. The funeral service was read on board the _Resolution_, and the coffin committed to the deep. {208} A curious reception awaited the ships at Avacha Bay, Kamchatka, whence they now sailed. Ismyloff's letter commending the explorers to the governor of Avacha Bay brought thirty Cossack soldiers floundering through the shore ice of Petropaulovsk under the protection of pointed cannon. Ismyloff, with fur trader's jealousy of intrusion, had warned the Russian commander that the English ships were pirates like Benyowsky, the Polish exile, who had lately sacked the garrisons of Kamchatka, stolen the ships, and sailed to America. However, when Cook's letters were carried overland to Bolcheresk, to Major Behm, the commander, all went well. The little log-thatched fort with its windows of talc opened wide doors to the far-travelled English. The Russian ladies of the fort donned their China silks. The samovars were set singing. English sailors gave presents of their grog to the Russians. Russian Cossacks presented their tobacco to the English, adding three such cheers as only Cossacks can give and a farewell song. In 1779 Clerke made one more attempt to pass through the northern ice-fields from Pacific to Atlantic; but he accomplished nothing but to go over the ground explored the year before under Cook. On the 5th of July at ten P.M. in the lingering sunlight of northern latitudes, just as the boats were halfway through the Straits of Bering, the fog lifted, and for the first time in history--as far as known--the westernmost part of America, Cape Prince of Wales, and the {209} eastern-most part of Asia, East Cape, were simultaneously seen by white men. Finding it impossible to advance eastward, Clerke decided there was no Northeast Passage by way of the Pacific to the Atlantic; and on the 21st of July, to the cheers of his sailors, announced that the ships would turn back for England.[3] Poor Clerke died of consumption on the way, August 22, 1779, only thirty-eight years of age, and was buried at Petropaulovsk beside La Croyére de l'Isle, who perished on the Bering expedition. The boats did not reach England till October of 1780. They had not won the reward of twenty thousand pounds; but they had charted a strange coast for a distance of three thousand five hundred miles, and paved the way for the vast commerce that now plies between Occident and Orient.[4] [1] The question may occur, why in the account of Cook's and Bering's voyage, the latitude is not oftener given. The answer is, the latitudes as given by Cook and Bering vary so much from the modern, it would only confuse the reader trying to follow a modern map. [2] This is the Ismyloff who was marooned by Benyowsky. [3] The authority for Cook's adventures is, of course, his own journal, _Voyage to the Pacific Ocean_, London, 1784, supplemented by the letters and journals of men who were with him, like Ledyard, Vancouver, Portlock, and Dixon, and others. [4] In reiterating the impossibility of finding a passage from ocean to ocean, either northeast or northwest, no disparagement is cast on such feats as that of Nordenskjöld along the north of Asia, in the _Vega_ in 1882. By "passage" is meant a waterway practicable for ocean vessels, not for the ocean freak of a specially constructed Arctic vessel that dodges for a year or more among the ice-floes in an endeavor to pass from Atlantic to Pacific, or _vice versa_. {210} CHAPTER VIII 1785-1792 ROBERT GRAY, THE AMERICAN DISCOVERER OF THE COLUMBIA Boston Merchants, inspired by Cook's Voyages, outfit two Vessels under Kendrick and Gray for Discovery and Trade on the Pacific--Adventures of the First Ship to carry the American Flag around the World--Gray attacked by Indians at Tillamook Bay--His Discovery of the Columbia River on the Second Voyage--Fort Defence and the First American Ship built on the Pacific It is an odd thing that wherever French or British fur traders went to a new territory, they found the Indians referred to American traders, not as "Americans," but "Bostons" or "_Bostonnais_." The reason was plain. Boston merchants won a reputation as first to act. It was they who began a certain memorable "Boston Tea Party"; and before the rest of the world had recovered the shock of that event, these same merchants were planning to capture the trade of the Pacific Ocean, get possession of all the Pacific coast not already preëmpted by Spain, Russia, or England, and push American commerce across the Pacific to Asia. {211} What with slow printing-presses and slow travel, the account of Cook's voyages on the Pacific did not become generally known in the United States till 1785 or 1786. Sitting round the library of Dr. Bulfinch's residence on Bowdoin Square in Boston one night in 1787, were half a dozen adventurous spirits for whom Cook's account of the fur trade on the Pacific had an irresistible fascination. There was the doctor himself. There was his son, Charles, of Harvard, just back from Europe and destined to become famous as an architect. There was Joseph Barrell, a prosperous merchant. There was John Derby, a shipmaster of Salem, a young man still, but who, nevertheless, had carried news of Lexington to England. Captain Crowell Hatch of Cambridge, Samuel Brown, a trader of Boston, and John Marden Pintard of the New York firm of Lewis Pintard Company were also of the little coterie. [Illustration: Departure of the _Columbia_ and the _Lady Washington_. Drawn by George Davidson, a member of the Expedition. Photographed by courtesy of the present owner, Mrs. Abigail Quincy Twombly.] If Captain Cook's crew had sold one-third of a water-rotted cargo of otter furs in China for ten thousand dollars, why, these Boston men asked themselves, could not ships fitted expressly for the fur trade capture a fortune in trade on that unoccupied strip of coast between Russian Alaska, on the north, and New Spain, on the south? "There is a rich harvest to be reaped by those who are on the ground first out there," remarked Joseph Barrell. Then the thing was to be on the ground first--that {212} was the unanimous decision of the shrewd-headed men gathered in Bulfinch's study. [Illustration: Charles Bulfinch.] The sequence was that Charles Bulfinch and the other five at once formed a partnership with a capital of fifty thousand dollars, divided into fourteen shares, for trade on the Pacific. This was ten years before Lewis and Clark reached the Columbia, almost twenty years before Astor had thought of his Pacific Company. The Columbia, a full-rigged two-decker, two hundred and twelve tons and eighty-three feet long, mounting {213} ten guns, which had been built fourteen years before on Hobart's Landing, North River, was immediately purchased. But a smaller ship to cruise about inland waters and collect furs was also needed; and for this purpose the partners bought the _Lady Washington_, a little sloop of ninety tons. Captain John Kendrick of the merchant marine was chosen to command the _Columbia_, Robert Gray, a native of Rhode Island, who had served in the revolutionary navy, a friend of Kendrick's, to be master of the _Lady Washington_. Kendrick was of middle age, cautious almost to indecision; but Gray was younger with the daring characteristic of youth. In order to insure a good reception for the ships, letters were obtained from the federal government to foreign powers. Massachusetts furnished passports; and the Spanish minister to the United States gave letters to the viceroy of New Spain. Just how the information of Boston plans to intrude on the Pacific coast was received by New Spain may be judged by the confidential commands at once issued from Santa Barbara to the Spanish officer at San Francisco: "_Whenever there may arrive at the Port of San Francisco, a ship named the Columbia said to belong to General Wanghington (Washington) of the American States, under command of John Kendrick which sailed from Boston in September 1787 bound on a voyage of Discovery and of Examination of the Russian Establishments on the Northern Coast of this Peninsula, you {214} will cause said vessel to be secured together with her officers and crew._" Orders were also given Kendrick and Gray to avoid offence to any foreign power, to treat the natives with kindness and Christianity, to obtain a cargo of furs on the American coast, to proceed with the same to China to be exchanged for a cargo of tea, and to return to Boston with the tea. The holds of the vessels were then stowed with every trinket that could appeal to the savage heart, beads, brass buttons, ear-rings, calico, tin mirrors, blankets, hunting-knives, copper kettles, iron chisels, snuff, tobacco. The crews were made up of the very best class of self-respecting sea-faring men. Woodruff, Kendrick's first mate, had been with Cook. Joseph Ingraham, the second mate, rose to become a captain. Robert Haswell, the third mate, was the son of a British naval officer. Richard Howe went as accountant; Dr. Roberts, as surgeon; Nutting, formerly a teacher, as astronomer; and Treat, as fur trader. Davis Coolidge was the first mate under Gray on the _Lady Washington_. Some heroes blunder into glory. These didn't. They deliberately set out with the full glory of their venture in view. Whatever the profit and loss account might show when they came back, they were well aware that they were attempting the very biggest and most venturesome thing the newly federated states had essayed in the way of exploration and trade. To {215} commemorate the event, Joseph Barrell had medals struck in bronze and silver showing the two vessels on one side, the names of the outfitters on the other. All Saturday afternoon sailors and officers came trundling down to the wharf, carpet bags and seamen's chests in tow, to be rowed out where the Columbia and Lady Washington lay at anchor. Boston was a Sabbath-observing city in those days; but even Boston could not keep away from the two ships heaving to the tide, which for the first time in American history were to sail around an unknown world. All Saturday night and Sunday morning the sailors scoured the decks and put berths shipshape; and all Sunday afternoon the visitors thronged the decks. By night outfitters and relatives were still on board. The medals of commemoration were handed round. Health and good luck and God speed were drunk unto the heel taps. Songs resounded over the festive board. It was all "mirth and glee" writes one of the men on {216} board. But by daybreak the ships had slipped cables. The tide, that runs from round the underworld, raced bounding to meet them. A last dip of land behind; and on Monday, October 1, 1787, the ships' prows were cleaving the waters of their fate. [Illustration: Medals commemorating _Columbia_ and _Lady Washington_ cruise.] The course lay from Boston to Cape Verde Islands, from Verde Islands to the Falklands north of Cape Horn, round Cape Horn, up the west coast of South America, touching at Masafuera and Juan Fernandez, and thence, without pause, to the west coast of North America. At Cape Verde, Gray hired a valet, a colored boy, Marcus Lopez, destined to play an important part later. Crossing the equator, the sailors became hilarious, playing the usual pranks of ducking the men fresh to equatorial waters. So long did the ships rest at the Verde Islands, taking in fresh provisions, that it was January before the Falkland Islands were reached. Here Kendrick's caution became almost fear. He was averse to rounding the stormy Horn in winter. Roberts, the surgeon, and Woodruff, who had been with Cook, had become disgusted with Kendrick's indecision at Cape Verde, and left, presumably taking passage back on some foreign cruiser. Haswell, then, went over as first mate to Gray. Mountain seas and smashing gales assailed the ships from the time they headed for the Horn in April of 1788. The _Columbia_ was tossed clear up on her beam ends, and sea after sea crashed over the little {217} _Lady Washington_, drenching everything below decks like soap-suds in a rickety tub. Then came a hurricane of cold winds coating the ship in ice like glass, till the yard-arms looked like ghosts. Between scurvy and cold, there was not a sailor fit to man the decks. Somewhere down at 57 degrees south, westward of the Horn, the smashing seas and driving winds separated the two ships; but as they headed north, bright skies and warm winds welcomed them to the Pacific. At Masafuera, off Chile, the ships would have landed for fresh water; but a tremendous backwash of surf forewarned reefs; and the _Lady Washington_ stretched her sails for the welcome warm winds, and tacked with all speed to the north. A few weeks later, Kendrick was compelled to put in for Juan Fernandez to repair the _Columbia_ and rest his scurvy-stricken crew. They were given all aid by the governor of the island, who was afterward reprimanded by the viceroy of Chile and degraded from office for helping these invaders of the South Seas. Meantime the little sloop, guided by the masterful and enthusiastic Gray, showed her heels to the sea. Soon a world of deep-sea, tropical wonders was about the American adventurers. The slime of medusa lights lined the long foam trail of the _Lady Washington_ each night. Dolphins raced the ship, herd upon herd, their silver-white bodies aglisten in the sun. Schools of spermaceti-whales to the number of twenty at a time gambolled lazily around the prow. Stormy petrels, {218} flying-fish, sea-lions, began to be seen as the boat passed north of the seas bordering New Spain. Gentle winds and clear sunlight favored the ship all June. The long, hard voyage began to be a summer holiday on warm, silver seas. The _Lady Washington_ headed inland, or where land should be, where Francis Drake two centuries before had reported that he had found New Albion. On August 2, somewhere near what is now Cape Mendocino, daylight revealed a rim of green forested hills above the silver sea. It was New Albion, north of New Spain, the strip of coast they had come round the world to find. Birds in myriads on myriads screamed the joy that the crew felt over their find; but a frothy ripple told of reefs; and the _Lady Washington_ coasted parallel with the shore-line northward. On August 4, while the surf still broke with too great violence for a landing, a tiny speck was seen dancing over the waves like a bird. As the distance lessened, the speck grew and resolved itself to a dugout, or long canoe, carved with bizarre design stem and stern, painted gayly on the keel, carrying ten Indians, who blew birds' down of friendship in midair, threw open their arms without weapons, and made every sign of friendship. Captain Gray tossed them presents over the deck rail; but the whistle of a gale through the riggings warned to keep off the rock shore; and the sloop's prow cut waves for the offing. All night camp-fires and columns of smoke could be seen on shore, showing that the coast was inhabited. Under {219} clouds of sail, the sloop beat north for ten days, passing many savages, some of whom held up sea-otter to trade, others running along the shore brandishing their spears and shouting their war-cry. Two or three at a time were admitted on board to trade; but they evinced such treacherous distrust, holding knives ready to strike in their right hand, that Gray was cautious. During the adverse wind they had passed one opening on the coast that resembled the entrance to a river. Was this the fabled river of the West, that Indians said ran to the setting sun? Away up in the Athabasca Country of Canadian wilds was another man, Alexander Mackenzie, setting to himself that same task of finding the great river of the West. Besides, in 1775, Heceta, the Spanish navigator from Monterey, had drifted close to this coast with a crew so stricken with scurvy not a man could hoist anchor or reef sails. Heceta thought he saw the entrance to a river; but was unable to come within twenty miles of the opening to verify his supposition. And now Gray's crew were on the watch for that supposed river; but more mundane things than glory had become pressing needs. Water was needed for drinking. The ship was out of firewood. The live stock must have hay; and in the crew of twelve, three-quarters were ill of the scurvy. These men must be taken ashore. Somewhere near what is now Cape Lookout, or Tillamook Bay, the rowboat was launched to sound, safe anchorage found, and the _Lady Washington_ towed in harbor. {220} The _Lady Washington_ had anchored about half a mile from shore, but the curiously carved canoes came dancing over the waves in myriads. Gray noticed the natives were all armed with spears and knives, but they evinced great friendliness, bringing the crew baskets of berries and boiled crabs and salmon, in exchange for brass buttons. They had anchored at ten on the night of August 14, and by the afternoon of the 15th the Indians were about the sloop in great numbers, trading otter skins for knives, axes, and other arms--which, in itself, ought to have put the crew on guard. When the white men went ashore for wood and water, the Indians stood silently by, weapons in hand, but offered no hostility. On the third day in harbor an old chief came on board followed by a great number of warriors, all armed. Gray kept careful guard, and the old Indian departed in possession of the stimulating fact that only a dozen hands manned the _Lady Washington_. Waiting for the tide the next afternoon, Haswell and Coolidge, the two mates, were digging clams on shore. Lopez, the black man, and seven of the crew were gathering grass for the stock. Only three men remained on the sloop with Captain Gray. Only two muskets and three or four cutlasses had been brought ashore. Haswell and Coolidge had their belt pistols and swords. The two mates approached the native village. The Indians began tossing spears, as Haswell thought, to amuse their visitors. That failing to inspire these white men, {221} rash as children, with fear, the Indians formed a ring, clubbed down their weapons in pantomime, and executed all the significant passes of the famous war-dance. "It chilled my veins," says Haswell; and the two mates had gone back to their clam digging, when there was a loud, angry shout. Glancing just where the rowboat lay rocking abreast the hay cutters, Haswell saw an Indian snatch at the cutlass of Lopez, the black, who had carelessly stuck it in the sand. With a wild halloo, the thief dashed for the woods, the black in pursuit, mad as a hornet. Haswell went straight to the chief and offered a reward for the return of the sword, or the black man. The old chief taciturnly signalled for Haswell to do his own rescuing. Theft and flight had both been part of a design to scatter the white men. "They see we are ill armed," remarked Haswell to the other. Bidding the boat row abreast with six of the hay cutters, the two mates and a third man ran along the beach in the direction Lopez had disappeared. A sudden turn into a grove of trees showed Lopez squirming mid a group of Indians, holding the thief by the neck and shouting for "help! help!" No sooner had the three whites come on the scene, than the Indians plunged their knives in the boy's back. He stumbled, rose, staggered forward, then fell pierced by a flight of barbed arrows. Haswell had only time to see the hostiles fall on his body like a pack of wolves on prey, when more Indians {222} emerged from the rear, and the whites were between two war parties under a shower of spears. A wild dash was made to head the fugitives off from shore. Haswell and Coolidge turned, pistols in hand, while the rowboat drew in. Another flight of arrows, when the mates let go a charge of pistol shot that dropped the foremost three Indians. Shouting for the rowers to fire, Haswell, Coolidge, and the sailor plunged into the water. To make matters worse, the sailor fainted from loss of blood, and the pursuers threw themselves into the water with a whoop. Hauling the wounded man in the boat, the whites rowed for dear life. The Indians then launched their canoes to pursue, but by this time Gray had the cannon of the _Lady Washington_ trained ashore, and three shots drove the hostiles scampering. For two days tide and wind and a thundering surf imprisoned Gray in Murderers' Harbor, where he had hoped to find the River of the West, but met only danger. All night the savages kept up their howling; but on the third day the wind veered. All sails set, the sloop scudded for the offing, glad to keep some distance between herself and such a dangerous coast. The advantage of a small boat now became apparent. In the same quarter, Cook was compelled to keep out from the coast, and so reported there were no Straits of Fuca. By August 21 the sloop was again close enough to the rocky shore to sight the snowy, opal {223} ranges of the Olympus Mountains. By August 26 they had passed the wave-lashed rocks of Cape Flattery, and the mate records; "I am of opinion that the Straits of Fuca exist; for in the very latitude they are said to lie, the coast takes a bend, probably the entrance." [Illustration: Building the first American Ship on the Pacific Coast. Photographed by courtesy of Mrs. Abigail Quincy Twombly, a descendant of Gray.] By September, after frequent stops to trade with the Indians, they were well abreast of Nootka, where Cook had been ten years before. A terrible ground-swell of surf and back-wash raged over projecting reefs. The Indians, here, knew English words enough to tell Gray that Nootka lay farther east, and that a Captain Meares was there with two vessels. A strange sail appeared inside the harbor. Gray thought it was the belated _Columbia_ under Kendrick; but a rowboat came out bearing Captain Meares himself, who breakfasted with the Americans on September 17, and had his long-boats tow the _Lady Washington_ inside Nootka, where Gray was surprised to see two English snows under Portuguese colors, with a cannon-mounted garrison on shore, and a schooner of thirty tons, the _Northwest-America_, all ready to be launched. This was the first ship built on the northwest coast. Gray himself later built the second. Amid salvos of cannon from the _Lady Washington_, the new fur vessel was launched from her skids; and in her honor September 19 was observed as a holiday, Meares and Douglas, the two English captains, entertaining Gray and his officers. Meares had come from China in {224} January, and during the summer had been up the Straits of Fuca, where another English captain, Barclay, had preceded him. Then Meares had gone south past Flattery, seeking in vain for the River of the West. Gales and breakers had driven him off the coast, and the very headland which hid the mouth of the Columbia, he had named Cape Disappointment, because he was so sure--in his own words--"that the river on the Spanish charts did not exist." He had also been down the coast to that Tillamook, or Cape Meares, where Gray's valet had been murdered. This was in July, a month before the assault on Gray; and if Haswell's report of Meares's cruelty be accepted--taking furs by force of arms--that may have explained the hostility to the Americans. Meares was short of provisions to go to China, and Gray supplied them. In return Meares set his workmen to help clean the keel of the _Lady Washington_ from barnacles; but the Englishman was a true fur trader to the core. In after-dinner talks, on the day of the launch, he tried to frighten the Americans away from the coast. Not fifty skins in a year were to be had, he said. Only the palisades and cannon protected him from the Indians, of whom there were more than two thousand hostiles at Nootka, he reported. They could have his fort for firewood after he left. He had purchased the right to build it from the Indians. (Whether he acknowledged that he paid the Indians only two old pistols for this privilege, is not recorded.) At all events, it {225} would not be worth while for the Americans to remain on the coast. The Americans listened and smiled. Meares offered to carry any mail to China, and on the 2d was towed out of port by Gray and the other English captain, Douglas; but what was Gray's astonishment to receive the packet of mail back from Douglas. Meares had only pretended to carry it out in order that none of his crew might be bribed to take it, and then had sent it back by his partner, Douglas--true fur trader in checkmating the moves of rivals. Later on, when Meares's men were in desperate straits in this same port, they wondered that the Americans stood apart from the quarrel, if not actually siding with Spain. On September 23 appeared a strange sail on the offing--the _Columbia_, under Kendrick, sails down and draggled, spars storm-torn, two men dead of scurvy, and the crew all ill. October 1 celebrated a grand anniversary of the departure from Boston the previous year. At precisely midday the _Columbia_ boomed out thirteen guns. The sloop set the echoes rocketing with another thirteen. Douglas's ship roared out a salute of seven cannon shots, the fort on land six more, and the day was given up to hilarity, all hands dining on board the _Columbia_ with such wild fowl as the best game woods in the world afforded, and copious supply of Spanish wines. Toasts were drunk to the first United States ship on the Pacific coast of America. On October 26 {226} Douglas's ship and the fur trader, _Northwest-America_, were towed out, bound for the Sandwich Islands, and the Americans were left alone on the northwest coast, the fort having been demolished, and the logs turned over to Kendrick for firewood. [Illustration: Feather Cloak worn by a son of an Hawaiian Chief, at the celebration in honor of Gray's return. Photographed by courtesy of Mrs. Joy, the present owner.] The winter of 1788-1789 passed uneventfully except that the English were no sooner out of the harbor, than the Indians, who had kept askance of the Americans, came in flocks to trade. Inasmuch as Cook's name is a household word, world over, for what he did on the Pacific coast, and Gray's name barely known outside the city of Boston and the state of {227} Oregon, it is well to follow Gray's movements on the _Lady Washington_. March found him trading south of Nootka at Clayoquot, named Hancock, after the governor of Massachusetts. April saw him fifty miles up the Straits of Fuca, which Cook had said did not exist. Then he headed north again, touching at Nootka, where he found Douglas, the Englishman, had come back from the Sandwich Islands with the two ships. Passing out of Nootka at four in the afternoon of May 1, he met a stately ship, all sails set, twenty guns pointed, under Spanish colors, gliding into the harbor. It was the flag-ship of Don Joseph Martinez, sent out to Bering Sea on a voyage of discovery, with a consort, and now entering Nootka to take possession in the name of Spain. Martinez examined Gray's passports, learned that the Americans had no thought of laying claim to Nootka and, finding out about Douglas's ship inside the harbor, seemed to conclude that it would be wise to make friends of the Americans; and he presented Gray with wines, brandy, hams, and spices. "She will make a good prize," was his sententious remark to Gray about the English ship. Rounding northward, Gray met the companion ship of the Spanish commander. It will be remembered Cook missed proving that the west coast was a chain of islands. Since Cook's time, Barclay, an Englishman, and Meares had been in the Straits of Fuca. Dixon had discovered Queen Charlotte Island; but {228} the cruising of the little sloop, _Lady Washington_, covered a greater area than Meares's, Barclay's and Dixon's ships together. First it rounded the north end of Vancouver, proving this was island, not continent. These northern waters Gray called Derby Sound, after the outfitter. He then passed up between Queen Charlotte Island and the continent for two hundred miles, calling this island Washington. It was northward of Portland Canal, somewhere near what is now Wrangel, that the brave little sloop was caught in a terrific gale that raged over her for two hours, damaging masts and timbers so that Gray was compelled to turn back from what he called Distress Cove, for repairs at Nootka. At one point off Prince of Wales Island, the Indians willingly traded two hundred otter skins, worth eight thousand dollars, for an old iron chisel. In the second week of June the sloop was back at Nootka, where Gray was not a little surprised to find the Spanish had erected a fort on Hog Island, seized Douglas's vessel, and only released her on condition that the little fur trader _Northwest-America_ should become Spanish property on entering Nootka. Gray and Kendrick now exchanged ships, Gray, who had proved himself the swifter navigator, going on the _Columbia_, taking Haswell with him as mate. In return for one hundred otter skins, Gray was to carry the captured crew of the _Northwest-America_ to China for the Spaniards. On July 30, 1789, he left Vancouver Island. Stop was made at Hawaii for {229} provisions, and Atto, the son of a chief, boarded the _Columbia_ to visit America. On December 6 the _Columbia_ delivered her cargo of furs to Shaw & Randall of Canton, receiving in exchange tea for Samuel Parkman, of Boston. It was February, 1790, before the Columbia was ready to sail for Boston, and dropping down the river she passed the _Lady Washington_, under Kendrick, in a cove where the gale hid her from Gray. [Illustration: John Derby, from the portrait by Gilbert Stuart, by courtesy of the owner, Dr. George B. Shattuck.] On August 11, 1790, after rounding Good Hope and touching at St. Helena, Gray entered Boston. It was the first time an American ship had gone round the world, almost fifty thousand miles, her log-book showed, and salvos of artillery thundered a welcome. General Lincoln, the port collector, was first on board to shake Gray's hand. The whole city of Boston was on the wharf to cheer him home, and the explorer walked up the streets side by side with Atto, the Hawaiian boy, gorgeous in helmet and cloak of yellow plumage. Governor Hancock gave a public reception to Gray. The _Columbia_ went to the shipyards to be overhauled, and the shareholders met. Owing to the glutting of the market at Canton, the sea-otter had not sold well. Practically the venture of these glory seekers had not ended profitably. The voyage had been at a loss. Derby and Pintard sold out to Barrell and Brown. But the lure of glory, or the wilds, or the venture of the unknown, was on the others. They decided to send the _Columbia_ back at {230} once on a second voyage. Perhaps, this time, she would find that great River of the West, which was to be to the Pacific coast what the Hudson was to the East. [Illustration: Map of Gray's two voyages, resulting in the discovery of the Columbia.] Coolidge and Ingraham now left the _Columbia_ for ventures of their own to the Pacific. Haswell, whose diary, with Gray's log-book, gives all details of the voyage, went as first mate. George Davidson, an artist, Samuel Yendell, a carpenter, Haskins, an accountant of Barrell's Company, Joshua Caswell of Maiden, Abraham Waters, and John Boit were the new men to enlist for the venturesome voyage. The _Columbia_ left Boston for a second voyage September 28, 1790, and reached Clayoquot on the west coast of Vancouver Island on June 5, 1791. True to his nature, Gray lost not a day, but was off for the sea-otter harvest of the north, up Portland Canal near what is now Alaska. The dangers of the first voyage proved a holiday compared to this trip. Formerly, Gray had treated the Indians with kindness. Now, he found kindness was mistaken only for fear. Joshua Caswell, Barnes, and Folger had been sent up Portland Canal to reconnoitre. Whether ambushed or openly assaulted, they never returned. Only Caswell's body was found, and buried on the beach. Later, when the grave was revisited, the body had been stolen, in all likelihood for cannibal rites, as no more degraded savages exist than those of this archipelago. Over on Queen Charlotte Island, Kendrick, who had returned from China on the _Lady Washington_, {232} was having his own time. One day, when all had gone below decks to rest, a taunting laugh was heard from the hatchway. Kendrick rushed above to find Indians scrambling over the decks of the _Lady Washington_ like a nest of disgruntled hornets. A warrior flourished the key of the ammunition chest, which stood by the hatchway, in Kendrick's face with the words: "Key is mine! So is the ship!" If Kendrick had hesitated for the fraction of a second, all would have been lost, as on Astor's ship a few years later; but before the savages had time for any concerted signal, he had seized the speaker by the scruff of the neck, and tossed him into the sea. In a second every savage had scuttled over decks; but the scalp of Kendrick's son Solomon was found on the beach. Henceforth neither Kendrick nor Gray allowed more than ten savages on board at a time, and Kendrick at once headed south to take the harvest of furs to China. At Nootka things had gone from bad to worse between the English and the Spaniards. Though Kendrick bought great tracts of land from the Indian chiefs at Nootka for the price of a copper kettle, he judged it prudent to keep away from a Spanish commander, whose mission it was to capture the ships of rival traders; so the American sloop moored in Clayoquot, south of Nootka, where Gray found Kendrick ready to sail for China by September. At Clayoquot was built the first American fort on the Pacific coast. Here Gray erected winter quarters. {233} The _Columbia_ was unrigged and beached. The dense forest rang with the sound of the choppers. The enormous spruce, cedar, and fir trees were hewn into logs for several cabins and a barracks, the bark slabs being used as a palisade. Inside the main house were quarters for ten men. Loopholes punctured all sides of the house. Two cannon were mounted outside the window embrasures, one inside the gate or door. The post was named Fort Defence. Sentinels kept guard night and day. Military discipline was maintained, and divine service held each Sunday. On October 3 timbers were laid for a new ship, to be called the _Adventure_, to collect furs for the _Columbia_. All the winter of 1791-1792, Gray visited the Indians, sent medicines to their sick, allowed his men to go shooting with them, and even nursed one ill chief inside the barracks; but he was most careful not to allow women or more than a few warriors inside the fort. What was his horror, then, on February 18, when Atto, the Hawaiian boy, came to him with news that the Indians, gathered to the number of two thousand, and armed with at least two hundred muskets got in trade, had planned the entire extermination of the whites. They had offered to make the Hawaiian boy a great chief among them if he would steal more ammunition for the Indians, wet all the priming of the white men's arms, and join the conspiracy to let the savages get possession of fort and ship. In the history of American pathfinding, no explorer was ever in greater {234} danger. Less than a score of whites against two thousand armed warriors! Scarcely any ammunition had been brought in from the _Columbia_. All the swivels of the dismantled ship were lying on the bank. Gray instantly took advantage of high tide to get the ship on her sea legs, and out from the bank. Swivels were trundled with all speed back to the decks. For that night a guard watched the fort; but the next night, when the assault was expected, all hands were on board, provisions had been stowed in the hold, and small arms were loaded. The men were still to mid-waist in water, scraping barnacles from the keel, when a whoop sounded from the shore; but the change in the ship's position evidently upset the plans of the savages, for they withdrew. On the morning of the 20th the woods were seen to be alive with ambushed men; and Haswell had the cannon loaded with canister fired into the woods. At eleven that very morning, the chief, at the head of the plot, came to sell otter skins, and ask if some of the crew would not visit the village. Gray jerked the skins from his arms, and the rascal was over decks in terror of his life. That was the end of the plot. On the 23d the _Adventure_ was launched, the second vessel built on the Pacific, the first American vessel built there at all; and by April 2 Haswell was ready to go north on her. Gray on the _Columbia_ was going south to have another try at that great River of the West, which Spanish charts represented. {235} Without a doubt, if the river existed at all, it was down behind that Cape Disappointment where Meares had failed to go in, and Heceta been driven back. Just what Gray did between April 2 and May 7 is a matter of guessing. Anyway, Captain George Vancouver sent out from England to settle the dispute about Nootka, at six o'clock on the morning of April 29, just off the wave-lashed rocks of Cape Flattery, and within sight of Olympus's snowy sky-line, noticed a ship on the offing carrying American colors. He sent Mr. Puget and Mr. Menzies to inquire. They brought back word that Gray "had been off the mouth of a river in 46 degrees 10 minutes where the outset and reflux was so strong as to prevent entering for nine days," and that Gray had been fifty miles up the Straits of Fuca. Both facts were distasteful to Vancouver. He had wished to be the first to explore the Straits of Fuca, and on only April 27, had passed an opening which he pronounced inaccessible and not a river, certainly not a river worthy of his attention. Yet the exact words of Captain Bruno Heceta, the Spaniard, in 1775 were: "These currents . . . cause me to believe that the place is the mouth of some great river. . . . I did not enter and anchor there because . . . if we let go the anchor, we had not enough men to get it up. (Thirty-five were down with scurvy.) . . . At the distance of three or four leagues, I lay too. I experienced heavy currents, which made it impossible to enter the {236} bay, as I was far to leeward. . . . These currents, however, convince me that a great quantity of water rushed from this bay on the ebb of the tide." So the Spaniard failed to enter, and now the great English navigator went on his way, convinced there was no River of the West; but Robert Gray headed back south determined to find what lay behind the tremendous crash of breakers and sand bar. On the 7th of May, the rowboat towed the _Columbia_ into what is now known as Gray's Harbor, where he opened trade with the Indians, and was presently so boldly overrun by them, that he was compelled to fire into their canoes, killing seven. Putting out from this harbor on the 10th, he steered south, keeping close ashore, and was rewarded at four o'clock on the morning of the 11th by hearing a tide-rip like thunder and seeing an ocean of waters crashing sheer over sand bar and reef with a cataract of foam in midair from the drive of colliding waves. Milky waters tinged the sea as of inland streams. Gray had found the river, but could he enter? A gentle wind, straight as a die, was driving direct ashore. Gray waited till the tide seemed to lift or deepen the waters of the reef, then at eight in the morning, all sails set like a bird on wing, drove straight for the narrow entrance between reefs and sand. Once across the bar, he saw the mouth of a magnificent river of fresh water. He had found the River of the West. Gray describes the memorable event in these simple {237} words: "May 11th . . . at four A.M. saw the entrance of our desired port bearing east-southeast, distance six leagues . . . at eight A.M. being a little to windward of the entrance of the harbor, bore away, and ran in east-southeast between the breakers. . . . When we were over the bar, we found this to be a large river of fresh water, up which we steered. Many canoes came alongside. At one P.M. came to (anchor). . . ." [Illustration: A View of the Columbia River.] By the 14th, Gray had ascended the river twenty or thirty miles from the sea, but was compelled to turn, as he had taken a shallow channel. Dropping down with the tide, he anchored on the 19th and went ashore, where he planted coins under a tree, took {238} possession in the name of the United States, and named the river "Columbia." On the 20th, he crossed the bar and was out again on the Pacific. The most of men would have rested, satisfied with half he had done. Not so Gray. He headed the _Columbia_ north again for the summer's trade in what is now known as southern Alaska. Only damages to the _Columbia_ drove her down to Nootka in July, where Don Quadra, the new Spanish commander, and Captain Vancouver were in conference over those English ships seized by Martinez. To Quadra, Gray sold the little _Adventure_, pioneer of American shipbuilding on the Pacific, for seventy-five otter skins. From Spanish sources it is learned Gray's cargo had over three thousand otter skins, and fifteen thousand other peltries; so the second voyage may have made up for the loss of the first. [Illustration: At the Mouth of the Columbia River.] On October 3 the _Columbia_ left America for China; and on July 29, 1793, came to the home harbor of Boston. Sometime between 1806 and 1809, Gray died in South Carolina, a poor man. It is doubtful if his widow's petition to Congress ever materialized in a reward for any of his descendants. Kendrick, eclipsed by his brilliant assistant, was accidentally killed in Hawaii by the wad of a gun fired by a British vessel to salute the _Lady Washington_. From the date 1793 or 1795 the little sloop drops out of sea-faring annals. What is Gray's place among pathfinders and naval {239} heroes? Where does his life's record leave him? It was not spectacular work. It was not work backed by a government, like Bering's or Cook's. It was the work of an individual adventurer, like Radisson east of the Rockies. Gray was a man who did much and said little. He was not accompanied by a host of scientists to herald his fame to the world. Judged solely by results, what did he accomplish? The same for the United States that Cook did for England. He led the way for the American flag around the world. Measuring purely by distance, his ship's log would compare well with Cook's or Vancouver's. The same part of the Pacific coast which they {240} explored, he explored, except that he did not go to northern Alaska; and he compensated for that by discovering the great river, which they both said had no existence. And yet, who that knows of Cook and Vancouver, knows as much of Gray? Authentic histories are still written that speak of Gray's discovery doubtfully. Gray did much, but said little; and the world is prone to take a man at his own valuation. Yet if the world places Cook and Vancouver in the niches of naval heroes, Gray must be placed between them. There is a curious human side to the story of these glory seekers, too. Bulfinch was so delighted over the discovery of the Columbia, that he had his daughter christened "Columbia," to which the young lady objected in later years, so that the name was dropped. In commemoration of Don Quadra's kindness in repairing the ship _Columbia_, Gray named one of his children Quadra. The curios brought back by Ingraham on the first voyage were donated to Harvard. Descendants of Gray still have the pictures drawn by Davidson and Haswell on the second voyage. The sea chest carried round the world by Gray now rests in the keeping of an historical society in Portland; and the feather cloak worn up the street by the boy Atto, when he marched in the procession with Gray, is treasured in Boston.[1] [1] Much concerning Gray's voyages can be found in the accounts of contemporary navigators like Meares and Vancouver; but the essential facts of the voyages are obtainable from the records of Gray's log-book, and of diaries kept by his officers. {241} Gray's log-book itself seems to have passed into the hands of the Bulfinch family. From a copy of the original, Thomas Bulfinch reprinted the exact entry of the discovery on May 11, 1792, in his _Oregon and Eldorado, a Romance of the Rivers_, Boston, 1866. The log-book is now on file in the Department of State, Washington; but that part from which Bulfinch made his extract is missing; nor is it known where this section was lost as it was in 1816 that Mr. Charles Bulfinch made a copy of this section from the original. Greenhow's _Oregon and California_, Boston, 1844, issued under the auspices of Congress, gives the log-book in full from May 7th to May 21st. Hubert Howe Bancroft in his _Northwest Coast_, Volume I, 1890, reproduces the diary in full of Haswell for both voyages. It is from Haswell that the fullest account of the Indian plots are obtained; but at the time of the discovery of the Columbia, Haswell was on the little sloop _Adventure_, and what he reports is from hearsay. His words in the entry of June 14 are; "They (the _Columbia_) had very disagreeable weather but . . . good success. . . They discovered a harbor in latitude 46 degrees 53 minutes north. . . . This is Gray's Harbor. Here they were attacked by the natives, and the savages had a considerable slaughter made among them. They next entered Columbia River, and went up it about thirty miles, and doubted not it was navigable upwards of a hundred miles. . . . The ship (_Columbia_) during the cruise had collected upwards of seven hundred sea-otter skins and fifteen thousand skins of other species." The pictures made by Davidson, the artist, on the second voyage, owned by collectors in Boston, tell their own story. From all these sources, and from the descendants of Gray, the Rev. Edward G. Porter collected data for his lecture before the Massachusetts Historical Society, afterward published in the _New England Magazine_ of June, 1892. The _Massachusetts Historical Proceedings_ for 1892 have, by all odds, the most complete collection of data bearing on Gray. The archives include the medal and three of Davidson's drawings, also papers relating to the _Columbia_ presented by Barrell. The Salem Institute has also some data on the ships. The _Massachusetts Proceedings_ for 1869-1870 also give, from the Archives of California, the letter of Governor Don Pedro Fages of Santa Barbara to Don Josef Arguello of San Francisco, warning the latter against the American navigators. Greenhow obtained from the Hydrographical Office at Madrid the report of Captain Bruno Heceta's voyage in 1775, when he sighted the mouth of a river supposed to be the Columbia. {242} CHAPTER IX 1778-1790 JOHN LEDYARD, THE FORERUNNER OF LEWIS AND CLARK A New England Ne'er-do-well, turned from the Door of Rich Relatives, joins Cook's Expedition to America--Adventure among the Russians of Oonalaska--Useless Endeavor to interest New England Merchants in Fur Trade--A Soldier of Fortune in Paris, he meets Jefferson and Paul Jones and outlines Exploration of Western America--Succeeds in crossing Siberia alone on the Way to America, but is thwarted by Russian Fur Traders When his relatives banged the door in his face, turning him destitute in the streets of London, if John Ledyard could have foreseen that the act would indirectly lead to the Lewis and Clark exploration of the great region between the Mississippi and the Pacific, he would doubtless have regarded the unkindness as Dick Whittington did the cat, that led on to fortune. He had been a dreamer from the time he was born in Groton, opposite New London, Connecticut--the kind of a dreamer whose moonshine lights the path of other men to success; but his wildest dreams never dared the bigness of an empire many times greater than the original states of the Union. {243} Instead he had landed at Plymouth, ragged, not a farthing in the bottom of his pockets, not a farthing's possession on earth but his hopes. Those hopes were to reach rich relatives in London, who might give him a lift to the first rung of the world's climbers. He was twenty-five years old. He had burned his ships behind him. That is, he had disappointed all his relatives in America so thoroughly that he could never again turn for help to the home hands. They had designed him for a profession, these New England friends. If Nature had designed him for the same thing, it would have been all right; but she hadn't. The son of a widowed mother, the love of the sea, of pathless places, of what is just out of sight over the dip of the horizon, was in his blood from his father's side. Friends thought he should be well satisfied when he was sent to live with his grandfather at Hartford and apprenticed to the law; but John Ledyard hated the pettifogging of the law, hated roofed-over, walled-in life, wanted the kind of life where men do things, not just dicker, and philosophize, and compromise over the fag-ends of things other men have done. At twenty-one years of age, without any of the prospects that lure the prudent soul, he threw over all idea of law.[1] Friends were aghast. Manifestly, the boy had {244} brains. He devoured information, absorbed facts like an encyclopaedia, and observed everything. The Greek Testament and Ovid were his companions; yet he rebelled at the immured existence of the scholar. At that time (1772), Dartmouth was the rendezvous of {245} missionaries to the Indians. The college itself held lectures to the singing of the winds through the forests around it. The blowing of a conch-shell called to lessons; and a sort of wildwood piety pervaded the atmosphere. Urged by his mother, Ledyard made one more honest attempt to fit his life to a stereotyped form, and came to study at Dartmouth for the missionary's career. It was not a success. When he thought to get a foretaste of the missionary vocation by making a dugout and floating down the whole length of Connecticut River, one hundred and forty miles, the scholarly professors were shocked. And when he disappeared for four months to make a farther test by living among the Mohawks, the faculty was furious. His friends gave him up as hopeless, a ne'er-do-well; and Ledyard gave over the farce of trying to live according to other men's patterns. [Illustration: Ledyard in his dugout, from a contemporaneous print.] What now determined him was what directs the most of lives--need for bread and butter. He became a common sailor on the ship of a friend in New London, and at twenty-five landed in Plymouth, light of heart as he was light of purse. The world was an oyster to be opened by his own free lance; and up he tramped from Plymouth to London in company with an Irishman penniless as himself, gay as a lark, to the world's great capital with the world's great prizes for those with the wits to win them. A carriage with driver {246} and footman in livery wearing the armorial design of his own Ledyard ancestors rolled past in the street. He ran to the coachman, asked the address, and presented himself at the door of the ancestral Ledyards, hope beating high. The relationship was to be the key to open all doors. And the door of the ancestral Ledyards was shut in his face. The father was out. The son put no stock in the story of the ragged stranger. He did not even know that Ledyards existed in America. What was to hinder any common tramp trumping up such a story? Where were the tattered fellow's proofs? Ledyard came away with just enough wholesome human rage to keep him from sinking to despair, or to what is more unmanning, self-pity. He had failed before, through trying to frame his life to other men's plans. He had failed now, through trying to win success through other men's efforts--a barnacle clinging to the hull of some craft freighted with fortune. Perhaps, too, he fairly and squarely faced the fact that if he was to be one whit different from the beggar for whom he had been mistaken, he must build his own life solely and wholly on his own efforts. On he wandered, the roar of the great city's activities rolling past him in a tide. His rage had time to cool. Afternoon, twilight, dark; and still the tide rolled past him; _past him_ because like a stranded hull rotting for lack of use, he had put himself _outside_ the tide of human effort. He must build up his own career. That was the fact he had wrested out of his {247} rage; but unless his abilities were to rot in some stagnant pool, he must launch out on the great tide of human work. Before he had taken that resolution, the roar of the city had been terrifying--a tide that might swamp. Now, the thunder of the world's traffic was a shout of triumph. He would launch out, let the tide carry him where it might. All London was resounding with the project of Cook's third voyage round the world--the voyage that was to settle forever how far America projected into the Pacific. Recruits were being mustered for the voyage. It came to Ledyard in an inspiration--the new field for his efforts, the call of the sea that paved a golden path around the world, the freedom for shoulder-swing to do all that a man was worth. Quick as flash, he was off--going _with_ the tide now, not a derelict, not a stranded hull--off to shave, and wash, and respectable-ize, in order to apply as a recruit with Cook. In the dark, somewhere near the sailors' mean lodgings, a hand touched him. He turned; it was the rich man's son, come profuse of apologies: his father had returned; father and son begged to proffer both financial aid and hospitality--Ledyard cut him short with a terse but forcible invitation to go his own way. That the unknown colonial at once received a berth with Cook as corporal of marines, when half the young men of England with influence to back their applications were eager to join the voyage, speaks well for the sincerity of the new enthusiasm. {248} Cook left England in midsummer of 1776. He sighted the Pacific coast, northward of what is now San Francisco, in the spring of 1778. Ledyard was the first American to see the land that lay beyond the Rockies. It was not a narrow strip as men had thought, but a broad belt a thousand miles long by a thousand broad, an unclaimed world; for storms drove Cook offshore here; and the English discoverer did not land till abreast of British America. At Nootka thousands of Indians flocked round the two vessels to trade. For some trinkets of glass beads and iron, Ledyard obtained one thousand five hundred skins for Cook. Among the Indians, too, he saw brass trinkets, that must have come all the way from New Spain on the south, or from the Hudson's Bay Fur Company on the east. What were the merchants of New York and Philadelphia doing, that their ships were not here reaping a harvest of wealth in furs? If this were the outermost bound of Louisiana, Louisiana might some day be a part of the colonies now struggling for their liberties; and Ledyard's imagination took one of those leaps that win a man the reputation of a fool among his contemporaries, a hero to future generations. "If it was necessary that a European should discover the existence of the continent," he afterward wrote, "in the name of Amor Patriae let a native explore its resources and boundaries. . . It is my wish to be the man." Cook's ships passed north to Oonalaska. Only {249} twenty-five years before, the Indians of Oonalaska had massacred every white settlement on the island. Cook wished to send a message to the Russian fur traders. Not many men could be risked from the ship. Fired with the ambition to know more of the coast which he had determined to explore, Ledyard volunteered to go for the Russians with two Indian guides. The pace was set at an ambling run over rocks that had cut Ledyard's boots to tatters before nightfall. He was quite unarmed; and just at dark the way seemed to end at a sandy shore, where the waves were already chopping over on the rising tide, and spiral columns of smoke betrayed the underground mud huts of those very Indian villages that had massacred the Russians a quarter of a century before. The guides had dived somewhere underground and, while Ledyard stood nonplussed, came running back carrying a light skin boat which they launched. It was made of oiled walrus hide stretched like a drum completely round whalebones, except for two manholes in the top for the rowers. Perpheela, the guide, signalled Ledyard to embark; and before the white man could solve the problem of how three men were to sit in two manholes, he was seized head and heels, and bundled clear through a manhole, lying full length imprisoned like Jonah in the whale. Then the swish of dipping paddles, of the cold waves above and beneath, shut out by parchment thin as tissue paper, told Ledyard that he was being carried out to sea, spite of dark and storm, {250} in a craft light as an air-blown bladder, that bounced forward, through, under, over the waves, undrownable as a fish. There was nothing to do but lie still. The slightest motion might have ruptured the thin skin keel. On he was borne through the dark, the first American in history to travel by a submarine. At the end of what seemed ages--it could not have been more than two hours--after a deal of bouncing to the rising storm with no sound but the whistling of wind and rush of mountain seas, the keel suddenly grated pebbles. Starlight came through the vacated manholes; but before Ledyard could jump out, the boat was hoisted on the shoulders of four men, and carried on a run overland. The creak of a door slammed open. A bump as the boat dumped down to soft floor; and Ledyard was dazzled by a glare of light to find himself in the mess room of the Russian barracks on Captain Harbor, in the presence of two bearded Russian hunters gasping speechless with surprise to see a man emerging from the manhole like a newly hatched chicken from an egg. Fur rugs covered the floor, the walls, the benches, the berth beds lining the sides of the barnlike Russian barracks. The windows were of oiled bladder skin; the lamps, whale-oil in stone basins with skin for wick. Arms were stacked in the corner. The two Russians had been sitting down to a supper of boiled salmon, when Ledyard made his unannounced {251} entrance. By signs he explained that Captain Cook's ships were at a near harbor and that the English commander desired to confer with Ismyloff, chief factor of the Russians. Rising, kissing their hands ceremoniously as they mentioned the august name and taking off their fur caps, the Russians made solemn answer that all these parts, with a circumambient wave, belonged to the Empress of Russia; that they were her subjects--with more kissing of the hands. Russia did not want foreigners spying on her hunting-grounds. Nevertheless, Ledyard was given a present of fresh Chinese silk underwear, treated to the hottest Russian brandy in the barracks, and put comfortably to bed on a couch of otter skins. From his bed, he saw the Indians crowd in for evening services before a little Russian crucifix, the two traders leading prayers. These were the tribes, whom the Russians had hunted with dogs fifty years before; and who in turn had slain all Russians on the Island. A better understanding now prevailed. In the morning Ledyard looked over the fur establishment; galliots, cannon-mounted in the harbor for refuge in case of attack; the huge lemon-yellow, red-roofed store-room that might serve as barracks or fort for a hundred men; the brigades of eight, of nine, of eleven hundred Indian hunters sailing the surfs under the leadership of Ismyloff, the chief factor. Oonalaska was the very centre of the sea-otter hunt. Here, eighteen thousand otter a year were taken. At once, {252} Ledyard realized how he could pay the cost of exploring that unclaimed world between New Spain and Alaska: by turning fur trader as Radisson, and La Salle, and the other explorers had done. Ismyloff himself, who had been out with his brigade when Ledyard came, went to visit the Englishman; but Ismyloff had little to say, little of Benyowsky, the Polish pirate, who had marooned him; less of Alaska; and the reason for taciturnity was plain. The Russian fur traders were forming a monopoly. They told no secrets to the world. They wanted no intruders on their hunting-ground. Could Ledyard have known that the surly, bearded Russian was to blast his new-born ambitions; could Ismyloff have guessed that the eager, young, beardless corporal of marines was indirectly to be the means of wresting the Pacific coast from Russia--each might have smiled at the tricks of destiny. Ledyard had two more years to serve in the British navy when he returned from Cook's voyage. By another trick of destiny he was sent out on a battle ship to fight against his native country in the Revolutionary War. It was a time when men wore patriotic coats of many colors. His ship lay at anchor off Long Island. He had not seen his mother for seven years, but knew that the war had reduced her to opening a lodging house for British officers. Asking for a week's furlough, Ledyard went ashore, proceeded to his mother's {253} house, knocked at the door, and was taken as a lodger by her without being recognized, which was, perhaps, as well; for the house was full of British spies. Ledyard waited till night. Then he went to her private apartments and found her reading with the broad-rimmed, horn-framed spectacles of those days. He took her hands. "Look at me," he said. One glance was enough. Then he shut the door; and the door remains shut to the world on what happened there. That was the end of British soldiering for Ledyard. He never returned to the marines. He betook himself to Hartford, where he wrote an account of Cook's voyage. Then he set himself to move heaven and earth for a ship to explore that unknown coast from New Spain to Alaska. This was ten years before Robert Gray of Boston had discovered the Columbia; twenty years before the United States thought of buying Louisiana, twenty-five years before Lewis and Clark reached the Pacific. Many influences worked against him. Times were troublous. The country had not recovered sufficiently from the throes of the Revolution to think of expanding territory. Individually and collectively, the nation was desperately poor. As for private sailing masters, they smiled at Ledyard's enthusiasm. An unclaimed world? What did they care? Where was the money in a venture to the Pacific? When Ledyard told how Russia was reaping a yearly harvest of millions in furs, even his old friend, Captain Deshon, whose boat had {254} carried him to Plymouth, grew chary of such roseate prospects. It was characteristic of Ledyard that the harder the difficulties proved, the harder grew his determination to overcome. He was up against the impossible, and instead of desisting, gritted his teeth, determined to smash a breach through the wall of the impossible, or smash himself trying. For six months he besieged leading men in New York and Philadelphia, outlining his plans, meeting arguments, giving proofs for all he said of Pacific wealth, holding conference after conference. Robert Morris entered enthusiastically into the scheme; but what with shipmasters' reluctance to embark on such a dangerous voyage and the general scarcity of funds, the patience of both Ledyard and Morris became exhausted. Ledyard's savings had meanwhile dwindled down to $4.27. In Europe, Cook's voyage was beginning to create a stir. The Russian government had projected an expedition to the Pacific under Joseph Billings, Cook's assistant astronomer. These Russian plans aimed at no less than dominance on the Pacific. Forts were to be built in California and Hawaii. In England and India, private adventurers, Portlock, Dixon, Meares, Barclay, were fitting out ships for Pacific trade. Some one advised Ledyard to attempt his venture in the country that had helped America in the Revolution, France; and to France he sailed with money loaned by Mr. Sands of New York, in 1784. {255} In Paris Ledyard met two of the most remarkable men in American history, Paul Jones, the naval hero, and Jefferson. To them both he told the marvels of Pacific wealth, and both were far-sighted enough to share his dreams. It was now that Jefferson began to formulate those plans that Lewis and Clark afterward carried out. The season was too late for a voyage this year, but Paul Jones loaned Ledyard money and arranged to take out a ship of four hundred tons the following year. The two actually went over every detail together. Jones was to carry the furs to China, Ledyard with assistants, surgeon, and twenty soldiers to remain at the fur post and explore. But Paul Jones was counting on the support of the American government; and when he found that the government considered Ledyard's promises visionary, he threw the venture over in a pique. Was Ledyard beaten? Jefferson and he talked over the project day after day. Ledyard was willing to tramp it across the two Siberias on foot, and to chance over the Pacific Ocean in a Russian fur-trading vessel, if Jefferson could obtain permission from the Russian Empress. Meanwhile, true soldier of fortune, without money, or influence, he lived on terms of intimacy with the fashion of Paris. "I have but five French crowns," he wrote a friend. "The Fitzhughes (fellow-roomers) haven't money for tobacco. Such a set of moneyless rascals never {256} appeared since the days of Falstaff." Again--"Sir James Hall, on his way from Paris to Cherbourg, stopped his coach at our door. I was in bed, but having flung on my robe de chambre, met him at the door. . . . In walking across the chamber, he laughingly put his hand on a six livre piece and a louis d'or on my table, and with a blush asked me how I was in the money way. Blushes beget blushes. 'If fifteen guineas,' said he, 'will be of any service to you, here they are. You have my address in London.'" While waiting the passports from the Empress of Russia, he was invited by Sir James Hall to try his luck in England. The very daring of the wild attempt to cross Siberia and America alone appealed to the English. Half a dozen men, friends of Cook, took the venture up, and Ledyard found himself in the odd position of being offered a boat by the country whose navy he had deserted. Perhaps because of that desertion all news of the project was kept very quiet. A small ship had slipped down the Thames for equipments, when the government got wind of it. Whether the great Hudson's Bay Company of England opposed the expedition as intrusion on its fur preserve, or the English government objected to an American conducting the exploration for the expansion of American territory, the ship was ordered back, and Ledyard was in no position to confront the English authorities. Again he was checkmated, and fell back on Jefferson's plan to cross the two Siberias on foot, and chance it over {257} the Pacific. His friends in London gathered enough money to pay his way to St. Petersburg. January of 1787 saw him in Sweden seeking passage across the Baltic. Usually the trip to St. Petersburg was made by dog sleighs across the ice. This year the season had been so open, neither boats nor dog trains could be hired to make the trip. Ledyard was now thirty-six years old, and the sum of his efforts totalled to a zero. The first twenty-five years of his life he had wasted trying to fit his life to other men's patterns. The last five years he had wasted waiting for other men to act, men in New York, in Philadelphia, in Paris, in London, to give him a ship. He had done with waiting, with dependence on others. When boats and dog trains failed him now, he muffled himself in wolfskins to his neck, flung a knapsack on his back, and set out in midwinter to tramp overland six hundred miles north to Tornea at the head of the Baltic, six hundred miles south from Tornea, through Finland to St. Petersburg. Snow fell continually. Storms raged in from the sea. The little villages of northern Sweden and Finland were buried in snow to the chimney-tops. Wherever he happened to be at nightfall, he knocked at the door of a fisherman's hut. Wherever he was taken in, he slept, whether on the bare floor before the hearth, or among the dogs of the outhouses, or in the hay-lofts of the cattle sheds. No more waiting for Ledyard! Storm or shine, early and late, he {258} tramped two hundred miles a week for seven weeks from the time he left Stockholm. When he marched into St. Petersburg on the 19th of March, men hardly knew whether to regard him as a madman or a wonder. Using the names of Jefferson and Lafayette, he jogged up the Russian authorities by another application for the passport. The passport was long in coming. How was Ledyard to know that Ismyloff, the Russian fur trader, whom he had met in Oonalaska, had written letters stirring up the Russian government to jealous resentment against all comers to the Pacific? Ledyard was mad with impatience. Days slipped into weeks, weeks into months, and no passport came. He was out of clothes, out of money, out of food. A draft on his English friends kept him from destitution. Just a year before, Billings, the astronomer of Cook's vessel, had gone across Siberia on the way to America for the Russian government. If Ledyard could only catch up to Billings's expedition, that might be a chance to cross the Pacific. As if to exasperate his impatience still more, he met a Scotch physician, a Dr. William Brown, now setting out for Siberia on imperial business, who offered to carry him along free for three thousand of the seven thousand miles to the Pacific. Perhaps the proceeds of that English draft helped him with the slow Russian authorities, but at last, on June 1, he had his passport, and was off with Dr. Brown. His entire earthly possessions at this time consisted of a few guineas, a suit of {259} clothes, and large debts. What was the crack-brained enthusiast aiming at anyway? An empire half the present size of the United States. From St. Petersburg to Moscow in six days, drawn by three horses at breakneck pace, from Moscow to Kazan through the endless forests, on to the Volga, Brown and Ledyard hastened. By the autumn they were across the Barbary Desert, three thousand miles from St. Petersburg. Here Brown remained, and Ledyard went on with the Cossack mail carriers. All along the endless trail of two continents, the trail of East and West, he passed the caravans of the Russian fur traders, and learned the astonishing news that more than two thousand Russians were on the west coast of America. Down the Lena next, to Yakutsk, the great rendezvous of the fur traders, only one thousand miles more to the Pacific; and on the great plain of the fur traders near Yakutsk he at last overtook the Billings explorers on their way to America. Only one guinea was left in his pocket, and the Cossack commandant reported that the season was too far advanced for him to cross the Pacific. What did it matter? He would cross the Pacific with Billings in spring. He was nearer the realization of his hopes than ever before in his life; and surely his success in tramping twice the length of Sweden, and in crossing two continents when almost destitute augured well for his success in crossing from the Pacific to the Missouri. Not for a moment was his almost childlike confidence {260} disturbed by a suspicion of bad faith, of intentional delay in issuing the passports, of excuses to hold him back at Yakutsk till the jealous fur traders could send secret complaints to St. Petersburg. Much less was he suspicious when Billings, his old friend of Cook's voyage, himself arrived, and invited him on a sled journey of exploration up the Lena while waiting.[2] On sledges he went up the Lena River with a party of explorers. On the night of February 24 two or three of the officers and Ledyard were sitting in the mess room of Irkutsk playing cards. They might laugh _at_ Ledyard. They also laughed _with_ him. Wherever he went, went gayety. Gales of boisterous laughter were on the wind. Hopes as tenuous as the wind were in the air. One of the great Bering's sons was there, no doubt telling tales of discovery that set each man's veins jumping. Suddenly a tremendous jingling of bells announced some midnight arrival post-haste at the barracks' door. Before the card players had risen from their places, two Cossacks had burst into the room stamping snow from their feet. Marching straight over to Ledyard, they seized him roughly by the arms and arrested him for a French spy, displaying the Empress's written orders, brought all the way from St. Petersburg. To say that Ledyard was dumfounded is putting it mildly. Every man in the room knew that he was not a French spy. Every man {261} in the room knew that the arrest was a farce, instigated by the jealous fur traders whom Ismyloff's lying letters had aroused. For just a second Ledyard lost his head and called on Billings as a man of honor to confute the charge. However Ledyard might lose his head, Billings was not willing to lose his. He advised Ledyard not to provoke conflict with the Russian authorities, but to go back to St. Petersburg and disprove the charge. Was it a case of one explorer being jealous of another, or had Billings played Ledyard into the fur traders' trap? That will never be known. Certain it is, Billings made mess enough of his own expedition to go down to posterity as a failure. Some of the officers ran to get Ledyard a present of clothes and money. As he jumped into the waiting sledge and looked back over his shoulder at the group of faces smiling in the lighted doorway, he burst into a laugh, but it was the laugh of an embittered man, whose life had crumbled to ruin at one blow. The Cossacks whipped up the horses, and he was off on the long trail back, five thousand miles, every mile a sign post of blasted hopes. Without a word of explanation or the semblance of a trial on the false charge, he was banished out of St. Petersburg on pain of death if he returned. Ragged, destitute, the best years of his life gone, he reached London, heartbroken. "I give up," he told the English friends, who had backed him with money, and what was better than money--faith. "I give up," {262} he wrote Jefferson, who afterward had Lewis and Clark carry out Ledyard's plans. The men of the African Geographical Society in London tried to cheer him. When could he set out to explore the source of the Nile for them? "To-morrow," answered Ledyard, with the heedlessness of one who has lost grip on life. The salary advanced paid off the moss-grown debts of his disappointed past, but he never reached the scene of his new venture. He died on the way at Cairo, in November, 1788, for all hope had already died in his heart. The world that has entered into the heritage of his aims has forgotten Ledyard; for the public acclaims only the heroes of success, and he was a hero of defeat. All that Lewis and Clark succeeded in doing for the West, backed by the prestige of government, Ledyard, the penniless soldier of fortune, had foreseen and planned with Jefferson in the attic apartments of Paris.[3] [1] The world owes all knowledge of Ledyard's intimate life to Jared Sparks, who compiled his life of Ledyard from journals and correspondence collected by Dr. Ledyard and Henry Seymour of Hartford. [2] In Sauer's account of the Billings Expedition, some excuse is given for the conduct of Billings on the ground that Ledyard had been insolent to the Russians. [3] Ledyard's _Journal of Cook's Last Voyage_, Hartford, 1783, and Sparks's _Life of Ledyard_, Cambridge, 1829. {263} CHAPTER X 1779-1794 GEORGE VANCOUVER, LAST OF PACIFIC COAST EXPLORERS Activities of Americans, Spanish, and Russians on the West Coast of America arouse England--Vancouver is sent out ostensibly to settle the Quarrel between Fur Traders and Spanish Governors at Nootka--Incidentally, he is to complete the Exploration of America's West Coast and take Possession for England of Unclaimed Territory--The Myth of a Northeast Passage dispelled forever With Gray's entrance of the Columbia, the great drama of discovery on the northwest coast of America was drawing to a close. After the death of Bering on the Commander Islands, and of Cook at Hawaii, while on voyages to prove there was no Northeast Passage, no open waterway between Pacific and Atlantic, it seems impossible that the myth of an open sea from Asia to Europe could still delude men; but it was in hunting for China that Columbus found America; and it was in hunting for a something that had no existence except in the foolish theories of the schoolmen that the whole northwest coast of America was exploited. {264} Bering had been called "coward" for not sailing through a solid continent. Cook was accused of fur trading, "pottering in peltries," to the neglect of discovery, because his crews sold their sea-otter at profit. To be sure, the combined results of Bering's and Cook's voyages proved there was no waterway through Alaska to the Atlantic; but in addition to blackening the reputations of the two great navigators in order to throw discredit on their conclusions, the schoolmen bellicosely demanded--Might there not be a passage south of Alaska, between Russia's claim on the north and Spain's on the south? Both Bering and Cook had been driven out from this section of the coast by gales. This left a thousand miles of American coast unexplored. Cook had said there were no Straits of Fuca, of which the old Greek pilot in the service of New Spain had told legends of fictitious voyages two centuries before; yet Barclay, an East India English trader, had been up those very straits. So had Meares, another trader. So had Kendrick and Gray, the two Americans. This was the very section which Bering and Cook had left untouched; and who could tell where these straits might lead? They were like a second Mediterranean. Meares argued they might connect with Hudson Bay. Then Spain had forced matters to a climax by seizing Meares's vessels and fort at Nootka as contraband. That had only one meaning: Spain was trying to lay hands on everything from New Spain to Russian {265} territory on the north. If Spain claimed all north to the Straits of Fuca, and Russia claimed all south to the Straits of Fuca, where was England's claim of New Albion discovered by Sir Francis Drake, and of all that coast which Cook had sighted round Nootka? Captain George Vancouver, formerly midshipman with Cook, was summoned post-haste by the British Admiralty. Ostensibly, his mission was to receive back at Nootka all the lands which the Spaniards had taken from Meares, the trader. Really, he was to explore the coast from New Spain on the south, to Russian America on the north, and to hold that coast for England. That Spain had already explored the islands of this coast was a mere detail. There remained the continental shore still to be explored. Besides, Spain had not followed up her explorations by possession. She had kept her navigations secret. In many cases her navigators had not even landed. [Illustration: Captain George Vancouver.] Vancouver was still in his prime, under forty. Serving in the navy from boyhood, he had all a practical seaman's contempt for theories. This contempt was given point by the world's attitude toward Cook. Vancouver had been on the spot with Cook. He knew there was no Northeast Passage. Cook had proved that. Yet the world refused credence. For the practical navigator there remained only one course, and that course became the one aim, the consuming ambition of Vancouver's life--to destroy the {266} last vestige of the myth of a Northeast Passage; to explore the northwest coast of America so thoroughly there would not remain a single unknown inlet that could be used as a possible prop for the schoolmen's theories, to penetrate every inlet from California to Alaska--mainland and island; to demonstrate that not one possible opening led to the Atlantic. This was to be the object of Vancouver's life, and he carried it out with a thoroughness that left nothing for subsequent explorers to do; but he died before the record of his voyages had been given to the world. The two ships, _Discovery_ and _Chatham_, with a supply ship, the _Daedalus_, to follow later, were fitted out for long and thorough work. Vancouver's vessel, the _Discovery_, carried twenty guns with a crew of a hundred men. The tender, _Chatham_, under Broughton, had ten guns and forty-five men. With Vancouver went Menzies, and Puget, and Baker, and Johnstone--names that were to become place marks on the Pacific. The _Discovery_ and _Chatham_ left England in the spring of 1791. A year later found them cutting the waves from Hawaii for America, the New Albion of Drake's discovery, forgotten by England until Spain's activity stimulated memory of the pirate voyage. A swashing swell met the ships as they neared America. Phosphorescent lights blue as sulphur flame slimed the sea in a trail of rippling fire; and a land bird, washed out by the waves, told of New Albion's shore. {267} For the first two weeks of April, the _Discovery_ and _Chatham_ had driven under cloud of sail and sunny skies; but on the 16th, just when the white fret of reefs ahead forewarned land, heavy weather settled over the ships. To the fore, bare, majestic, compact as a wall, the coast of New Albion towered out of the surf near Mendocino. Cheers went up from the lookout for the landfall of Francis Drake's discovery. Then torrents of rain washed out surf and shore. The hurricane gales, that had driven all other navigators out to sea from this coast, now lashed Vancouver. Such smashing seas swept over decks, that masts, sails, railings, were wrenched away. Was it ill-luck or destiny, that caught Vancouver in this gale? If he had not been driven offshore here, he might have been just two weeks before Gray on the _Columbia_, and made good England's claim of all territory between New Spain and Alaska. When the weather cleared on April 27, the ocean was turgid, plainly tinged river-color by inland waters; but ground swell of storm and tide rolled across the shelving sandbars. Not a notch nor an opening breached through the flaw of the horizon from the ocean to the source of the shallow green. Vancouver was too far offshore to see that there really was a break in the surf wash. He thought--and thought rightly--this was the place where the trader, Meares, had hoped to find the great River of the West, only to be disappointed and to name the point Cape Disappointment. Vancouver was {268} not to be fooled by any such fanciful theories. "Not considering this opening worthy of more attention," he writes, "I continued to the northwest." He had missed the greatest honor that yet remained for any discoverer on the Pacific. Within two weeks Gray, the American, heading back to these baffling tides with a dogged persistence that won its own glory, was to succeed in passing the breakers and discovering the Columbia. As the calm permitted approach to the shore again, forests appeared through the haze--that soft, velvet, caressing haze of the dreamy, lazily swelling Pacific--forests of fir and spruce and pine and cypress, in all the riot of dank spring growth, a dense tangle of windfall and underbrush and great vines below, festooned with the light green stringy mosses of cloud line overhead and almost impervious to sunlight. Myriad wild fowl covered the sea. The coast became beetling precipice, that rolled inland forest-clad to mountains jagging ragged peaks through the clouds. This was the Olympus Range, first noticed by Meares, and to-day seen for miles out at sea like a ridge of opalescent domes suspended in mid-heaven. Vancouver was gliding into the Straits of Fuca when the slender colors of a far ship floated above the blue horizon outward bound. Another wave-roll, and the flag was seen to be above full-blown sails and a square-hulled, trim little trader of America. At six in the morning of April 29, the American saluted with a {269} cannon-shot. Vancouver answered with a charge from his decks, rightly guessing this was Robert Gray on the _Columbia_. [Illustration: The _Columbia_ in a Squall.] Puget and Menzies were sent to inquire about Gray's cruise. They brought back word that Gray had been fifty miles up the Straits of Fuca; and--most astounding to Vancouver's ambitions--that the American had been off the mouth of a river south of the straits at 46 degrees 10 minutes, where the tide prevented entrance for nine days. "The river Mr. Gray mentioned," says Vancouver, "should be south of Cape Disappointment. This we passed on the forenoon of the 27th; and if any inlet or river be found, it must be a {270} very intricate one, inaccessible . . . owing to reefs and broken water. . . . I was thoroughly convinced, as were most persons on board, that we could not possibly have passed any cape . . . from Mendocino to Classet (Flattery)." Keen to prove that no Northeast Passage existed by way of the Straits of Fuca, Vancouver headed inland, close to the south shore, where craggy heights offered some guidance through the labyrinth of islands and fog. Eight miles inside the straits he anchored for the night. The next morning the sun rose over one of the fairest scenes of the Pacific coast--an arm of the sea placid as a lake, gemmed by countless craggy islands. On the land side were the forested valleys rolling in to the purple folds of the mountains; and beyond, eastward, dazzling as a huge shield of fire in the sunrise, a white mass whiter than the whitest clouds, swimming aerially in mid-heaven. Lieutenant Baker was the first to catch a glimpse of the vision for which every western traveller now watches, the famous peak seen by land or sea for hundreds of miles, the playground of the jagged green lightnings on the hot summer nights; and the peak was named after him.--Mount Baker. For the first time in history white men's boats plied the waters of the great inland sea now variously known as Admiralty Inlet, Puget Sound, Hood Canal. There must be no myth of a Northeast Passage left lurking in any of the many inlets of this spider-shaped sea. {271} Vancouver, Menzies, Puget, and Johnstone set out in the small boats to penetrate every trace of water passage. Instead of leading northeast, the tangled maze of forest-hidden channels meandered southward. Savages swarmed over the water, paddling round and round the white men, for all the world like birds of prey circling for a chance to swoop at the first unguarded moment. Tying trinkets to pieces of wood, Puget let the gifts float back as peace-offerings to woo good will. The effect was what softness always is to an Indian spoiling for a fight, an incentive to boldness. When Puget landed for noon meal, a score of redskins lined up ashore and began stringing their bows for action. Puget drew a line along the sand with his cutlass and signalled the warriors to keep back. They scrambled out of his reach with a great clatter. It only needed some fellow bolder than the rest to push across the line, and massacre would begin. Puget did not wait. By way of putting the fear of the Lord and respect for the white man in the heart of the Indian, he trained the swivel of the small boat landward, and fired in midair. The result was instant. Weapons were dropped. On Monday, midday, June 4, Vancouver and Broughton landed at Point Possession. Officers drew up in line. The English flag was unfurled, a royal salute fired, and possession taken of all the coast of New Albion from latitude 39 to the Straits of Fuca, which Vancouver named Gulf of Georgia. Just a month before, Gray, the American, had preceded this act of {272} possession by a similar ceremony for the United States on the banks of the Columbia. The sum total of Vancouver's work so far had been the exploration of Puget Sound, which is to the West what the Gulf of St. Lawrence is to the East. For Puget Sound and its allied waters he had done exactly what Carrier accomplished for the Atlantic side of America. His next step was to learn if the Straits of Fuca leading northward penetrated America and came out on the Atlantic side. That is what the old Greek pilot in the service of New Spain, Juan de Fuca, had said some few years after Drake and Cavendish had been out on the coast of California. Though Vancouver explored the Pacific coast more thoroughly than all the other navigators who had preceded him,--so thoroughly, indeed, that nothing was left to be done by the explorers who came after him, and modern surveys have been unable to improve upon his charts,--it seemed his ill-luck to miss by just a hair's breadth the prizes he coveted. He had missed the discovery of the Columbia. He was now to miss the second largest river of the Northwest, the Fraser. He had hoped to be the first to round the Straits of Fuca, disproving the assumption that they led to the Atlantic; and he came on the spot only to learn that the two English traders, Meares and Barclay, the two Americans, Kendrick and Gray, and two Spaniards, Don Galiano and Don Valdes, had already proved {273} practically that this part of the coast was a large island, and the Straits of Fuca an arm of the Pacific Ocean. Fifty Indians, in the long dugouts, of grotesquely carved prows and gaudy paint common among Pacific tribes, escorted Vancouver's boats northward the second week in June through the labyrinthine passageways of cypress-grown islets to Burrard Inlet. To Peter Puget was assigned the work of coasting the mainland side and tracing every inlet to its head waters. Johnstone went ahead in a small boat to reconnoitre the way out of the Pacific. On both sides the shores now rose in beetling precipice and steep mountains, down which foamed cataracts setting the echo of myriad bells tinkling through the wilds. The sea was tinged with milky sediment; but fog hung thick as a blanket; and Vancouver passed on north without seeing Fraser River. A little farther on, toward the end of June, he was astonished to meet a Spanish brig and schooner exploring the straits. Don Galiano and Don Valdes told him of the Fraser, which he had missed, and how the Straits of Fuca led out to the North Pacific. They had also been off Puget Sound, but had not gone inland, and brought Vancouver word that Don Quadra, the Spanish emissary, sent to restore to England the fort from which Meares, the trader, had been ousted, had arrived at Nootka on the other side of the island, and was waiting. The explorers all proceeded up the straits together; but the little Spanish crafts were unable {274} to keep abreast of the big English vessels, so with a friendly cheer from both sides, the English went on alone. Strange Indian villages lined the beetling heights of the straits. The houses, square built and of log slabs, row on row, like the streets of the white man, were situated high on isolated rocks, inaccessible to approach except by narrow planking forming a causeway from rock walls across the sea to the branches of a tree. In other places rope ladders formed the only path to the aerial dwellings, or the zigzag trail up the steep face of a rock down which defenders could hurl stones. Howe's Sound, Jervis Canal, Bute Inlet, were passed; {275} and in July Johnstone came back with news he had found a narrow channel out to the Pacific. [Illustration: The Discovery on the Rocks.] The straits narrowed to less than half a mile with such a terrific tide wash that on Sunday, July 29, the ships failed to answer to the helm and waves seventeen feet high dashed over decks. Progress was made by hauling the boats alongshore with ropes braced round trees. By the first of August a dense fog swept in from the sea. The _Discovery_ crashed on a sunken rock, heeling over till her sails were within three inches of water. Ballast was thrown overboard, and the next tide-rush lifted her. By August 19 Vancouver had proved--if any doubt remained--that no Northeast Passage was to be found by way of the Straits of Fuca.[1] Then, veering out to sea at midnight through squalls {276} of rain, he steered to Nootka for the conference with Spain. Vancouver came to Nootka on the 28th of August. Nootka was the grand rallying place of fur traders on the Pacific. It was a triangular sound extending into the shores of Vancouver Island. On an island at the mouth of the sound the Spaniards had built their fort. This part of the bay was known as Friendly Cove. To the north was Snug Cove, where Cook had anchored; to the south the roadstead of the fur traders. Mountains rose from the water-line; and on a terrace of hills above the Spanish fort was the native village of Maquinna, the Indian chief. {277} Here, then, came Vancouver, met at the harbor mouth by a Spanish officer with pilot to conduct the _Discovery_ to the Spanish fort of Nootka. The _Chatham_, the _Daedalus_, Vancouver's store ship, two or three English fur-trading ships, Spanish frigates bristling with cannon, were already at anchor; and the bright Spanish pennant, red and yellow, waved to the wind above the cannon-mounted, palisaded log fort of Nootka. [Illustration: Indian Settlement at Nootka.] Donning regimentals, Lieutenant Puget marched solemnly up to the fort to inform Don Juan de la Bodega y Quadra, representative of Spain, that Captain George Vancouver, representative of England, had arrived at Nootka to await the pleasure of New Spain's commander. It was New Spain's pleasure to receive England's salute; and Vancouver's guns roared out a volley of thirteen shots to the amaze of two thousand or more savages watching from the shores. Formally accompanied by his officers, Vancouver then paid his respects to New Spain. Don Quadra returned the compliment by breakfasting next morning on board the _Discovery_, while his frigates in turn saluted England by a volley of thirteen guns. In all this solemn parade of formality, Maquinna, lord of the wild domain, began to wonder what part he was to play, and ventured to board the _Discovery_, clad in a garb of nature, to join the breakfast of the leaders; when he was summarily cuffed overboard by the guard, who failed to recognize the Indian's quality. Don Quadra then gave a grand dinner to the English, to which the irate Maquinna {278} was invited. Five courses the dinner had, with royal salutes setting the echoes rolling in the hills. Seventeen guns were fired to the success of Vancouver's explorations. Toasts were drunk, foaming toasts to glory, and the navigators of the Pacific, and Maquinna, grand chief of the Nootkas, who responded by rising in his place, glass in hand, to express regret that Spain should withdraw from the North Pacific. It was then the brilliant thought flashed on Don Quadra to win the friendship of the Indians for all the white traders on the Pacific coast through a ceremonious visit by Vancouver and himself to Maquinna's home village, twenty miles up the sound. Cutter and yawl left Friendly Cove at eight in the morning of September 4, coming to Maquinna's home village at two in the afternoon. Don Quadra supplied the dinner, served in style by his own Spanish lackeys; and the gallant Spaniard led Maquinna's only daughter to the seat at the head of the spread, where the young squaw did the honors with all the hauteur of the Indian race. Maquinna then entertained his visitors with a sham battle of painted warriors, followed by a mask dance. Not to be outdone, the whites struck up fife and drum, and gave a wild display of Spanish fandangoes and Scotch reels. In honor of the day's outing, it was decided to name the large island which Vancouver had almost circumnavigated, Quadra and Vancouver. When Maquinna returned this visit, there were fireworks, and more toasts, and more salutes. All this {279} was very pleasant; but it was not business. Then Vancouver requested Don Quadra to ratify the international agreement between England and Spain; but there proved to be a wide difference of opinion as to what that agreement meant. Vancouver held that it entailed the surrender of Spain's sovereignty from San Francisco northward. Don Quadra maintained that it only surrendered Spanish rights north of Juan de Fuca, leaving the northwest coast free to all nations for trade. With Vancouver it was all or nothing. Don Quadra then suggested that letters be sent to Spain and England for more specific instructions. For this purpose Lieutenant Broughton was to be despatched overland across Mexico to Europe. It was at this stage that Robert Gray came down from the north on the damaged _Columbia_, to receive assistance from Quadra. Within three weeks Gray had sailed for Boston, Don Quadra for New Spain, and Vancouver to the south, to examine that Columbia River of Gray's before proceeding to winter on the Sandwich Islands. The three English ships hauled out of Nootka in the middle of October, steering for that new river of Gray's, of which Vancouver had expressed such doubt. The foaming reefs of Cape Disappointment were sighted and the north entrance seen just as Gray had described it. The _Chatham_ rode safely inside the heavy cross swell, though her small boat smashed to chips among the breakers; but on Sunday, October {280} 21, such mountainous seas were running that Vancouver dared not risk his big ship, the _Discovery_, across the bar. Broughton was intrusted to examine the _Columbia_ before setting out to England for fresh orders. The _Chatham_ had anchored just inside Cape Disappointment on the north, then passed south to Cape Adams, using Gray's chart as guide. Seven miles up the north coast, a deep bay was named after Gray. Nine or ten Indian dugouts with one hundred and fifty warriors now escorted Broughton's rowboat upstream. The lofty peak ahead covered with snow was named Mt. Hood. For seven days Broughton followed the river till his provision ran out, and the old Indian chief with him explained by the signs of pointing in the direction of the sunrise and letting water trickle through his fingers that water-falls ahead would stop passage. Somehow, Broughton seemed to think because Gray, a private trader, had not been clad in the gold-braid regimentals of authority, his act of discovery was void; for Broughton landed, and with the old chief assisting at the ceremony by drinking healths, took possession of all the region for England, "having" as the record of the trip explains, "every reason to believe that the subjects of no other civilized nation or state had ever entered this river before; in this opinion he was confirmed by Mr. Gray's sketch, in which it does not appear that Mr. Gray either saw or was ever within five leagues of the entrance." {281} Any comment on this proceeding is superfluous. It was evidently in the hope that the achievement of Gray--an unassuming fur trader, backed by nothing but his own dauntless courage--would be forgotten, which it certainly was for fifty years by nearly all Americans. Three days later, on November 3, Broughton was back down-stream at the _Chatham_, noting the deserted Indian village of Chinook as he passed to the harbor mouth. On November 6, in heavy rain, the ship stood out for sea, passing the _Jenny_ of Bristol, imprisoned inside the cape by surf. Broughton landed to reconnoitre the passage out. The wind calmed next day, and a breach was descried through the surf. The little trading ship led the way, Broughton following, hard put to keep the _Chatham_ headed for the sea, breakers rolling over her from stem to stern, snapping the tow-rope of the launch and washing a sailor overboard; and we cannot but have a higher respect for Gray's feat, knowing the difficulties that Broughton weathered. Meanwhile Vancouver on the _Discovery_ had coasted on down from the mouth of the Columbia to Drake's Bay, just outside the Golden Gate of San Francisco, where the bold English pirate had anchored in 1579. By nightfall of November 14 he was inside the spacious harbor of San Francisco. Two men on horseback rode out from the Spanish settlement, a mile back from the water front, firing muskets as a salute to Vancouver. The next morning, a Spanish friar and {282} ensign came aboard the _Discovery_ for breakfast, pointing out to Vancouver the best anchorage for both wood and water. While the sailors went shooting quail on the hills, or amused themselves watching the Indians floating over the harbor on rafts made of dry rushes and grass, the good Spanish padre conducted Vancouver ashore to the presidio, or house of the commandant, back from the landing on a little knoll surrounded by hills. The fort was a square area of adobe walls fourteen feet high and five deep, the outer beams filled in between with a plaster of solid mortar, houses and walls whitewashed from lime made of sea-shells. A small brass cannon gathered rust above one dilapidated carriage, and another old gun was mounted by being lashed to a rotten log. A single gate led into the fort, which was inhabited by the commandant, the guard of thirty-five soldiers, and their families. The windows of the houses were very small and without glass, the commandant's house being a rude structure thirty by fourteen feet, whitewashed inside and out, the floor sand and rushes, the furnishings of the roughest handicraft. The mission proper was three miles from the fort, with a guard of five soldiers and a corporal. Such was the beginning of the largest city on the Pacific coast to-day. Broughton was now sent overland to England for instructions about the transfer of Nootka. Puget became commander of the _Chatham_. The store ship _Daedalus_ was sent to the South Seas, and touching only {283} at Monterey, Vancouver sailed to winter in the Sandwich Islands. Here two duties awaited the explorer, which he carried out in a way that left a streak both of glory and of shame across his escutcheon. The Sandwich Islands had become the halfway house of the Pacific for the fur traders. How fur traders--riff-raff adventurers from earth's ends beyond the reach of law--may have acted among these simple people may be guessed from the conduct of Cook's crews; and Cook was a strict disciplinarian. Those who sow to the wind, need not be surprised if they reap the whirlwind. White men, welcomed by these Indians as gods, repaid the native hospitality by impressing natives as crews to a northern climate where the transition from semitropics meant almost certain death. For a fur trader to slip into Hawaii, entice women aboard, then scud off to America where the victims might rot unburied for all the traders cared--was considered a joke. How the joke caused Captain Cook's death the world knows; and the joke was becoming a little frequent, a little bold, a little too grim for the white traders' sense of security. The Sandwich Islanders had actually formed the plot of capturing every vessel that came into their harbors and holding the crews for extortionate ransom. How many white men were victims of this plot--to die by the assassin's knife or waiting for the ransom that never came--is not a part of this record. It was becoming a common thing to find white men living in a state of quasi-slavery among the {284} islanders, each white held as hostage for the security of the others not escaping. Within three years three ships had been attacked, one Spanish, one American, one English--the store ship _Daedalus_ on the way out to Nootka with supplies for Vancouver. Two officers, Hergest and Gooch of the _Daedalus_, had been seized, stripped naked, forced at the point of spears up a hill to the native village, and cut to pieces. Vancouver determined to put a stop to such attacks. Arriving at the islands, he trained his cannon ashore, demanded that the murderers of the _Daedalus's_ officers be surrendered, tried the culprits with all the solemnity and speed of English court-martial, sentenced them to death, had them tied up to the mast poles and executed. That is the blot against Vancouver; for the islanders had put up a trick. The real murderers had been leading chiefs. Not wishing to surrender these, the islanders had given Vancouver poor slaves quite guiltless of the crime. In contrast to this wrong-headed demonstration of justice was Vancouver's other act. At Nootka he had found among the traders two young Hawaiian girls not more than fifteen and nineteen years of age, whom some blackguard trader had forcibly carried off. The most of great voyagers would not have soiled their gloves interfering with such a case. Cook had winked at such crimes. Drake, two hundred years before, had laughed. The Russians outdid either Drake or Cook. They dumped the victims overboard where the {285} sea told no tales. Vancouver might have been strict enough disciplinarian to execute the wrong men by way of a lesson; but he was consistent in his strictness. Round these two friendless savages he wrapped all the chivalry and the might of the English flag. He received them on board the _Discovery_, treated them as he might have treated his own sisters, prevented the possibility of insult from the common sailors by having them at his own table on the ship, taught them the customs of Europeans toward women and the reasons for those customs, so that the young girls presently had the respect and friendship of every sailor on board the _Discovery_. In New Spain he had obtained clothing and delicacies for them that white women have; and in the Sandwich Islands took precautions against their death at the hands of Hawaiians for having been on the ship with strange men, by securing from the Sandwich Island chief the promise of his protection for them and the gifts of a home inside the royal enclosure. April of 1793 saw Vancouver back again on the west coast of America. In results this year's exploring was largely negative; but the object of Vancouver's life was a negative one--to prove there was no passage between Pacific and Atlantic. He had missed the Columbia the previous year by standing off the coast north of Mendocino. So this year, he again plied up the same shore to Nootka. No fresh instructions had {286} come from England or Spain to Nootka; and Vancouver took up the trail of the sea where he had stopped the year before, carrying forward survey of island and mainland from Vancouver Island northward to the modern Sitka or Norfolk Sound. Gray, the American, had been attacked by Indians here the year before; and Vancouver did not escape the hostility of these notoriously treacherous tribes. Up Behm Canal the ships were visited by warriors wearing death-masks, who refused everything in exchange for their sea-otter except firearms. The canal here narrowed to a dark canyon overhung by beetling cliffs. Four large war canoes manned by several hundred savages daubed with war paint succeeded in surrounding the small launch, and while half the warriors held the boat to prevent it escaping, the rest had rifled it of everything they could take, from belaying-pins and sail rope to firearms, before Vancouver lost patience and gave orders to fire. At the shot the Indians were over decks and into the sea like water-rats, while forces ambushed on land began rolling rocks and stones down the precipices. One gains some idea of Vancouver's thoroughness by his work up Portland Canal, which was to become famous a hundred years later as the scene of boundary disputes. Here, so determined was he to prove none of the passages led to the Atlantic that his small boat actually cruised seven hundred miles without going more than sixty miles from ocean front. By October of 1793 Vancouver had demolished the myth of {287} a possible passage between New Spain and Russian America; for he had examined every inlet from San Francisco to what is now Sitka. While the results were negative to himself, far different were they to Russia. It was Vancouver's voyage northward that stirred the Russians up to move southward. In a word, if Vancouver had not gone up as far as Norfolk Sound or Sitka, the Russian fur traders would have drowsed on with Kadiak as headquarters, and Canada to-day might have included the entire gold-fields of Alaska. Again Vancouver wintered in the Sandwich Islands. In the year 1794 he changed the direction of his exploring. Instead of beginning at New Spain and working north, he began at Russian America and worked south. Kadiak and Cook's Inlet were regarded as the eastern bounds of Russian settlement at this time, though the hunting brigades of the Russians scoured far and wide; so Vancouver began his survey eastward at Cook's Inlet. Terrific floods of ice banged the ships' bows as they plied up Cook's Inlet; and the pistol-shot reports of the vast icebergs breaking from the walls of the solid glacier coast forewarned danger; but Vancouver was not to be deterred. Again the dogged ill-luck of always coming in second for the prize he coveted marked each stage of his trip. Russian forts were seen on Cook's Inlet, Russian settlements on Prince William Sound, Russian flotillas of nine hundred {288} Aleutian hunters steering by instinct like the gulls spreading over the sea as far east as Bering Bay, or where the coast of Alaska dips southward. Everywhere he heard the language of Russia, everywhere saw that Russia regarded his explorations with jealousy as intrusion; everywhere observed that Russian and savage had come to an understanding and now lived as friends, if not brothers. Twice Baranof, the little Czar of the North, sent word for Vancouver to await a conference; but Vancouver was not keen to meet the little Russian potentate. One row at a time was enough; and the quarrel with Spain was still unsettled. The waters of to-day plied by the craft of gold seekers, Bering Bay, Lynn Canal, named after his birthplace, were now so thoroughly surveyed by Vancouver that his charts may still be used. [Illustration: Reindeer Herd in Siberia.] Only once did the maze of waterways seem to promise a northeast passage. It was up Lynn Canal, where so many gold seekers have rushed to have their hopes dashed, like Vancouver. Two officers had gone up the channel in a small boat to see if any opening led to the Atlantic. Boisterous weather and tremendous tide had lashed the sea to foam. The long daylight was so delusive that the men did not realize it was nearly midnight. At ten o'clock they had rowed ashore, to rest from their fight with wave and wind, when armed Indians suddenly rushed down to the water's edge in battle array, spears couched. The exhausted rowers bent to the oars all night. At one place in their {289} retreat to open sea, the fog lifted to reveal the passage between precipices only a few feet wide with warriors' canoes on every side. A crash of musketry drove the assailants off. Two or three men kept guard with pointed muskets, while the oarsmen pulled through a rolling cross swell back to the protection of the big ships outside. On August 19, as the ships drove south to Norfolk or Sitka Sound, the men suddenly recognized headlands where they had cruised the summer before. For a second they scarcely realized. Then they knew that their explorations from Alaska southward had come to the meeting place of their voyage from New Spain northward. Just a little more than fifty years from Bering's discoveries, the exploration of the northwest coast of America had been completed. Some one emitted an incoherent shout that the work was finished! The cheer was caught up by every man on board. Some one else recalled that it had been April when they set out on the fool-quest of the Northeast Passage; and a true April's fool the quest had proved! Then flags were run up; the wine casks brought out, the marines drawn up in line, and three such volleys of joy fired as those sailors alone could feel. For four years they had followed the foolish quest of the learned world's error. That night Vancouver gave a gala dinner to his crews. They deserved it. Their four years' cruise marked the close of the most heroic epoch on the Pacific coast. Vancouver had accomplished his life-work--there {290} was no northeast passage through the west coast of America.[2] [1] The legend of Juan de Fuca became current about 1592, as issued in _Samuel Purchas' Pilgrims_ in 1625, Vol. III: "A note made by Michael Lok, the elder, touching the strait of sea commonly called _Fretum Anian_ in the South Sea through the North-West Passage of Meta Incognita." Lok met in Venice, in April, 1596, an old man called Juan de Fuca, a Greek mariner and pilot, of the crew of the galleon _Santa Anna_ taken by Cavendish near southern California in 1587. The pilot narrated after his return to Mexico, he was sent by the viceroy with three vessels to discover the Strait of Anian. This expedition failing, he was again sent in 1592, with a small caravel in which "he followed the course west and northwest to latitude 47 north, there finding a broad inlet between 47 and 48, he entered, sailing therein more than twenty days . . . and found very much broader sea than was at the said entrance . . . a great island with a high pinnacle. . . . Being come into the North Sea . . . he returned to Acapulco." According to the story the old pilot tried to find his way to England in the hope of the Queen recouping him for goods taken by Cavendish, and furnishing him with a ship to essay the Northeast Passage again. The old man died before Raleigh and other Englishmen could forward money for him to come to England. Whether the story is purely a sailor's yarn, or the pilot really entered the straits named after him, and losing his bearings when he came out in the Pacific imagined he was on the Atlantic, is a dispute among savants. [2] The data of Vancouver's voyage come chiefly, of course, from the volume by himself, issued after his death, _Voyage of Discovery to the Pacific Ocean_, London, 1798. Supplementary data may be found in the records of predecessors and contemporaries like Meares's _Voyages_, London, 1790, Portlock's _Voyage_, London, 1789; Dixon's _Voyage_, London, 1789, and others, from whom nearly all modern writers, like Greenhow, Hubert Howe Bancroft, draw their information. The reports of Dr. Davidson in his Coast and Survey work, and his _Alaska Boundary_, identify many of Vancouver's landfalls, and illustrate the tremendous difficulties overcome in local topography. It is hardly necessary to refer to Begg and Mayne, and other purely local sketches of British Columbian coast lines; as Begg's _History_ simply draws from the old voyages. Of modern works, Dr. Davidson's Survey works, and the official reports of the Canadian Geological Survey (Dawson), are the only ones that add any facts to what Vancouver has recorded. {291} PART III EXPLORATION GIVES PLACE TO FUR TRADE--THE EXPLOITATION OF THE PACIFIC COAST UNDER THE RUSSIAN AMERICAN FUR COMPANY, AND THE RENOWNED LEADER BARANOF {293} CHAPTER XI 1579-1867 THE RUSSIAN AMERICAN FUR COMPANY The Pursuit of the Sable leads Cossacks across Siberia, of the Sea-Otter, across the Pacific as far South as California--Caravans of Four Thousand Horses on the Long Trail Seven Thousand Miles across Europe and Asia--Banditti of the Sea--The Union of All Traders in One Monopoly--Siege and Slaughter of Sitka--How Monroe Doctrine grew out of Russian Fur Trade--Aims of Russia to dominate North Pacific "_Sea Voyagers of the Northern Ocean_" they styled themselves, the Cossack banditti--robber knights, pirates, plunderers--who pursued the little sable across Europe and Asia eastward, just as the French _coureurs des bois_ followed the beaver across America westward. And these two great tides of adventurers--the French voyager, threading the labyrinthine waterways of American wilds westward; the Russian voyager exchanging his reindeer sled and desert caravans for crazy rafts of green timbers to cruise across the Pacific eastward--were directed both to the same region, animated by the same impulse, the capture of the Pacific coast of America. {294} [Illustration: Raised Reindeer Sledges.] The tide of adventure set eastward across Siberia at the very time (1579) Francis Drake, the English freebooter, was sacking the ports of New Spain on his way to California. Yermac, robber knight and leader of a thousand Cossack banditti, had long levied tribute of loot on the caravans bound from Russia to Persia. Then came the avenging army of the Czar. Yermac fled to Siberia, wrested the country from the Tartars, and obtained forgiveness from the Czar by laying a new realm at his feet. But these Cossack plunderers did not stop with Siberia. Northward were the ivory tusks of the frozen tundras. Eastward were precious furs of the snow-padded forests and mountains toward Kamchatka. For both ivory and furs the smugglers of the Chinese borderlands would pay a price. On pretence of collecting one-tenth tribute for the Czar, forward pressed the Cossacks; now on horseback,--wild {295} brutes got in trade from Tartars,--now behind reindeer teams through snowy forests where the spreading hoofs carried over drifts; now on rude-planked rafts hewn from green firs on the banks of Siberian rivers; on and on pushed the plunderers till the Arctic rolled before them on the north, and the Pacific on the east.[1] Nor did the seas of these strange shores bar the Cossacks. Long before Peter the Great had sent Vitus Bering to America in 1741, Russian voyagers had launched out east and north with a daredevil recklessness that would have done honor to prehistoric man. That part of their adventures is a record that exceeds the wildest darings of fiction. Their boats were called _kotches_. They were some sixty feet long, flat bottomed, planked with green timber. Not a nail was used. Where were nails to come from six thousand miles across the frozen tundras? Indeed, iron was so scarce that at a later day when ships with nails ventured on {296} these seas natives were detected diving below to pull the nails from the timbers with their teeth. Instead of nails, the Cossack used reindeer thongs to bind the planking together. Instead of tar, moss and clay and the tallow of sea animals calked the seams. Needless to say, there was neither canvas nor rope. Reindeer thongs supplied the cordage, reindeer hides the sails. On such rickety craft, "with the help of God and a little powder," the Russian voyagers hoisted sail and put to sea. On just such vessels did Deshneff and Staduchin attempt to round Asia from the Arctic into Bering Sea (1647-1650). To be sure, the first bang of the ice-floes against the prow of these rickety boats knocked them into kindling-wood. Two-thirds of the Cossack voyagers were lost every year; and often all news that came of the crew was a mast pole washed in by the tide with a dead man lashed to the crosstrees. Small store of fresh water could be carried. Pine needles were the only antidote for scurvy; and many a time the boat came tumbling back to the home port, not a man well enough to stand before the mast. Always it is what lies just beyond that lures. It is the unknown that beckons like the arms of the old sea sirens. Groping through the mists that hang like a shroud over these northern seas, hoar frosts clinging to masts and decks till the boat might have been some ghost ship in a fog world, the Cossack plunderers {297} sometimes caught glimpses far ahead--twenty, thirty, forty miles eastward--of a black line along the sea. Was it land or fog, ice or deep water? And when the wind blew from the east, strange land birds alighted on the yard-arms. Dead whales with the harpoons of strange hunters washed past the ship; and driftwood of a kind that did not grow in Asia tossed up on the tide wrack. It was the word brought back by these free-lances of the sea that induced Peter the Great to send Vitus Bering on a voyage of discovery to the west coast of America; and when the castaways of Bering's wreck returned with a new fur that was neither beaver nor otter, but larger than either and of a finer sheen than sable, selling the pelts to Chinese merchants for what would be from one hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars each in modern money, the effect was the same as the discovery of a gold mine. The new fur was the sea-otter, as peculiar to the Pacific as the seal and destined to lead the Cossacks on a century's wild hunt from Alaska to California. Cossacks, Siberian merchants, exiled criminals, banded together in as wild a stampede to the west coast of America as ever a gold mine caused among civilized men of a later day. The little _kotches_ that used to cruise out from Siberian rivers no longer served. Siberian merchants advanced the capital for the building of large sloops. Cargo of trinkets for trade with American Indians was supplied in the same way. What would be fifty thousand dollars in modern money, it took to build and {298} equip one of these sloops; but a cargo of sea-otter was to be had for the taking--barring storms that yearly engulfed two-thirds of the hunters, and hostile Indians that twice wiped Russian settlements from the coast of America--and if these pelts sold for one hundred and fifty dollars each, the returns were ample to compensate risk and outlay. Provisions, cordage, iron, ammunition, firearms, all had to be brought from St. Petersburg, seven thousand miles to the Pacific coast. From St. Petersburg to Moscow, Kasan, the Tartar desert and Siberia, pack horses were used. It was a common thing for caravans of four or even five thousand pack horses employed by the Russian fur traders of America to file into Irkutsk of a night. At the head waters of the Lena, rafts and flatboats, similar to the old Mackinaw boats of American fur traders on the Missouri, were built and the cargo floated down to Yakutsk, the great rendezvous of Siberian fur traders. Here exiles acting as packers and Cossacks as overseers usually went on a wild ten days' spree. From Yakutsk pack horses, dog trains, and reindeer teams were employed for the remaining thousand miles to the Pacific; and this was the hardest part of the journey. Mountains higher than the Rockies had to be traversed. Mountain torrents tempestuous with the spring thaw had to be forded--ice cold and to the armpits of the drivers; and in winter time, the packs of timber wolves following on the heels of the cavalcade could only be driven off by the hounds kept to course down grouse and hare {299} for the evening meal. If an exile forced to act as transport packer fell behind, that was the last of him. The Russian fur traders of America never paused in their plans for a life more or less. Ordinarily it took three years for goods sent from St. Petersburg to reach the Pacific; and this was only a beginning of the hardships. The Pacific had to be crossed, and a coast lined with reefs like a ploughed field traversed for two thousand miles among Indians notorious for their treachery. The vessels were usually crammed with traps and firearms and trinkets to the water-line. The crews of forty, or seventy, or one hundred were relegated to vermin-infested hammocks above decks, with short rations of rye bread and salt fish, and such scant supply of fresh water that scurvy invariably ravaged the ship whenever foul weather lengthened the passage. Having equipped the vessel, the Siberian merchants passed over the management to the Cossacks, whose pretence of conquering new realms and collecting tribute for the Czar was only another excuse for the same plunder in gathering sea-otter as their predecessors had practised in hunting the sable. Landsmen among Siberian exiles were enlisted as crew of their own free will at first, but afterward, when the horrors of wreck and scurvy and massacre became known, both exiles and Indians were impressed by force as fur hunters for the Cossacks. If the voyage were successful, half the {300} proceeds went to the outfitter, the remaining half to Cossacks and crew. The boats usually sailed in the fall, and wintered on Bering Island. Here stores of salted meat, sea-lion and sea-cow, were laid up, and the following spring the ship steered for the Aleutians, or the main coast of Alaska, or the archipelago round the modern Sitka. Sloops were anchored offshore fully armed for refuge in case of attack. Huts were then constructed of driftwood on land. Toward the east and south, where the Indians were treacherous and made doubly so by the rum and firearms of rival traders, palisades were thrown up round the fort, a sort of balcony erected inside with brass cannon mounted where a sentry paraded day and night, ringing a bell every hour in proof that he was not asleep. Westward toward the Aleutians, where driftwood was scarce, the Russians built their forts in one of two places: either a sandy spit where the sea protected them on three sides, as at Captain Harbor, Oonalaska, and St. Paul, Kadiak, or on a high, rocky eminence only approachable by a zigzag path at the top of which stood cannon and sentry, as at Cook's Inlet. Chapel and barracks for the hunters might be outside the palisade; but the main house was inside, a single story with thatch roof, a door at one end, a rough table at the other. Sleeping berths with fur bedding were on the side walls, and every other available piece of wall space bristled with daggers and firearms ready {301} for use. If the house was a double-decker, as Baranof Castle at Sitka, powder was stored in the cellar. Counting-rooms, mess room, and fur stores occupied the first floor. Sleeping quarters were upstairs, and, above all, a powerful light hung in the cupola, to guide ships into port at night. But these arrangements concerned only the Cossack officers of the early era, or the governors like Baranof, of a later day. The rank and file of the crews were off on the hunting-grounds with the Indians; and the hunting-grounds of the sea-otter were the storm-beaten kelp beds of the rockiest coast in the world. Going out in parties of five or six, the _promyshleniki_, as the hunters were called, promised implicit obedience to their foreman. Store of venison would be taken in a preliminary hunt. Indian women and children would be left at the Russian fort as hostages of good conduct, and at the head of as many as four, five hundred, a thousand Aleut Indian hunters who had been bludgeoned, impressed, bribed by the promise of firearms to hunt for the Cossacks, six Russians would set out to coast a tempestuous sea for a thousand miles in frail boats made of parchment stretched on whalebone. Sometimes a counter-tide would sweep a whole flotilla out to sea, when never a man of the hunting crew would be heard of more. Sometimes, when the hunters were daring a gale, riding in on the back of a storm to catch the sea-otter driven ashore to the kelp beds for a rest, the back-wash of a billow, or a sudden {302} hurricane of wind raising mountain seas, would crash down on the brigade. When the spray cleared, the few panic-stricken survivors were washing ashore too exhausted to be conscious that half their comrades had gone under. Absurd as it seems that these plunderers of the deep always held prayers before going off on a hunt--is it any wonder they prayed? It was in such brigades that the Russian hunters cruised the west coast of America from Bering Sea to the Gulf of California, and the whole northwest coast of America is punctuated with saints' names from the Russian calendar; for, like Drake's freebooters, they had need to pray. Fur companies world over have run the same course. No sooner has game become scarce on the hunting-grounds, than rivals begin the merry game of slitting one another's throats, or instigating savages to do the butchering for them. That was the record of the Hudson's Bay Company and Nor'westers in Canada, and the Rocky Mountain men and American Company on the Missouri. Four years after Bering's crew had brought back word of the sea-otter in 1742, there were seventy-seven different private Russian concerns hunting sea-otter off the islands of Alaska. Fifty years later, after Cook, the English navigator, had spread authentic news of the wealth in furs to be had on the west coast of America, there were sixty different fur companies on the Pacific coast carrying {303} almost as many different flags. John Jacob Astor's ships had come round the Horn from New York and, sailing right into the Russian hunting-grounds, were endeavoring to make arrangements to furnish supplies to the Russians in exchange for cargoes of the fur-seals, whose rookeries had been discovered about the time sea-otter began to be scarce. Kendrick, Gray, Ingraham, Coolidge, a dozen Boston men were threading the shadowy, forested waterways between New Spain and Alaska.[2] Ships from Spain, from France, from London, from Canton, from Bengal, from Austria, were on the west coast of America. The effect was twofold: sea-otter were becoming scarce from being slaughtered indiscriminately, male and female, young and old; the fur trade was becoming bedevilled from rival traders using rum among the savages. The life of a fur trader on the Pacific coast was not worth a pin's purchase fifty yards away from the cannon mouths pointed through the netting fastened round the deck rails to keep savages off ships. Just as Lord Selkirk indirectly brought about the consolidation of the Hudson's Bay fur traders with Nor'westers, and John Jacob Astor attempted the same ends between the St. Louis and New York companies, so a master mind arose among the Russians, grasping the situation, and ready to cope with its difficulties. [Illustration: John Jacob Astor.] This was Gregory Ivanovich Shelikoff, a fur trader {304} of Siberia, accompanied to America and seconded by his wife, Natalie, who succeeded in carrying out many of his plans after his death. Shelikoff owned shares in two of the principal Russian companies. When he came to America accompanied by his wife, Baranof, another trader, and two hundred men in 1784, the Russian headquarters were still at Oonalaska in the Aleutians. Only desultory expeditions had gone eastward. Foreign ships had already come among the Russian hunting-grounds of the north. These Shelikoff at once checkmated by moving Russian headquarters east to Three Saints, Kadiak. Savages warned him from the island, threatening death to the Aleut Indian hunters he had brought. Shelikoff's answer was a load of presents to the hostile messenger. That failing, he took advantage of an eclipse of the sun as a sign to the superstitious Indians that the coming of the Russians was noted and blessed of Heaven. The unconvinced Kadiak savages responded by ambushing the first Russians to leave camp, and showering arrows on the Russian boats. Shelikoff gathered up his men, sallied forth, whipped the Indians off their feet, took four hundred prisoners, treated them well, and so won the friendship of the islanders. From the new quarters hunters were despatched eastward under Baranof and others as far as what is now Sitka. These yearly came back with cargoes of sea-otter worth two hundred thousand dollars. Shelikoff at once saw that if the Russian traders were to hold their own against {305} the foreign adventurers of all nations flocking to the Pacific, headquarters must be moved still farther eastward, and the prestige of the Russian government invoked to exclude foreigners. There were, in fact, no limits to the far-sighted ambitions of the man. Ships were to be despatched to California setting up signs of Russian possession. Forts in Hawaii could be used as a mid-Pacific arsenal and halfway house for the Russian fleet that was to dominate the North Pacific. A second Siberia on the west coast of America, with limits eastward as vague as the Hudson's Bay Company's claims westward, was to be added to the domains of the Czar. Whether the idea of declaring the North Pacific a _closed sea_ as Spain had declared the South Pacific a _closed sea_ till Francis Drake opened it, originated in the brain of Shelikoff, or his successors, is immaterial. It was the aggrandizement of the Russian American Fur Company as planned by Shelikoff from 1784 to 1796, that led to the Russian government trying to exclude foreign traders from the North Pacific twenty-five years later, and which in turn led to the declaration of the famous Monroe Doctrine by the United States in 1823--that the New World was no longer to be the happy hunting-ground of Old World nations bent on conquest and colonization. Like many who dream greatly, Shelikoff did not live to see his plans carried out. He died in Irkutsk in 1795; but in St. Petersburg, when pressing upon {306} the government the necessity of uniting all the independent traders in one all-powerful company to be given exclusive monopoly on the west coast of America, he had met and allied himself with a young courtier, Nikolai Rezanoff.[3] When Shelikoff died, Rezanoff it was who obtained from the Czar in 1799 a charter for the Russian American Fur Company, giving it exclusive monopoly for hunting, trading, and exploring north of 55 degrees in the Pacific. Other companies were compelled either to withdraw or join. Royalty took shares in the venture. Shareholders of St. Petersburg were to direct affairs, and Baranof, the governor, resident in America, to have power of life and death, despotic as a czar. By 1800 the capital of Russian America had been moved down to the modern Sitka, called Archangel Michael in the trust of the Lord's anointed protecting these plunderers of the sea. Shelikoff's dreams were coming true. Russia was checkmating the advances of England and the United States and New Spain. Schemes were in the air with Baranof for the impressment of Siberian exiles as peasant farmers among the icebergs of Prince William Sound, for the remission of one-tenth tribute in furs from the Aleuts on condition of free service as hunters with the company, and for the employment of Astor's ships as purveyors of provisions to Sitka, when there fell a bolt {307} from the blue that well-nigh wiped Russian possession from the face of America. It was a sleepy summer afternoon toward the end of June in 1802. Baranof had left a guard of twenty or thirty Russians at Sitka and, confident that all was well, had gone north to Kadiak. Aleut Indians, impressed as hunters, were about the fort, for the fiery Kolosh or Sitkans of this region would not bow the neck to Russian tyranny. Safe in the mountain fastnesses behind the fort, they refused to act as slaves. How they regarded this invasion of their hunting-ground by alien Indians--Indians acting as slaves--may be guessed.[4] Whether rival traders, deserters from an American ship, living with the Sitkan Indians, instigated the conspiracy cannot be known. I have before me letters written by a fur trader of a rival company at that time, declaring if a certain trader did not cease his methods, that "pills would be bought at Montreal with as good poison as pills from London;" and the sentiment of the writer gives a true idea of the code that prevailed among American fur traders. The fort at that time occupied a narrow strip between a dense forest and the rocky water front a few miles north of the present site. Whether the renegade American sailors living in the forests with the Kolosh betrayed all the inner plans of the fort, or the squaws daily passing in and out with berries kept their {308} countrymen informed of Russian movements, the blow was struck when the whites were off guard. It was a holiday. Half the Russians were outside the palisades unarmed, fishing. The remaining fifteen men seem to have been upstairs about midday in the rooms of the commander, Medvednikoff. Suddenly the sleepy sentry parading the balcony noticed Michael, chief of the Kolosh, standing on the shore shouting at sixty canoes to land quickly. Simultaneously the patter of moccasined feet came from the dense forest to the rear--a thousand Kolosh warriors, every Indian armed and wearing the death-mask of battle. Before the astounded sentry could sound an alarm, such a hideous uproar of shouts arose as might have come from bedlam let loose. The Indian always imitates the cries of the wild beast when he fights--imitates or sets free the wild beast in his own nature. For a moment the Russians were too dumfounded to collect their senses. Then women and children dashed for refuge upstairs in the main building, huddling over the trapdoor in a frenzy of fright. Russians outside the palisades ran for the woods, some to fall lanced through the back as they raced, others to reach shelter of the dense forest, where they lay for eight days under hiding of bark and moss before rescue came. Medvednikoff, the commander, and a dozen others, seem to have hurled themselves downstairs at the first alarm, but already the outer doors had been rammed. The panels of the inner door were slashed out. A flare of {309} musketry met the Russians full in the face. The defenders dropped to a man, fearless in death as in life, though one wounded fellow seems to have dragged himself to the balcony where he succeeded in firing off the cannon before he was thrown over the palisades, to be received on the hostiles' upturned spears. Meanwhile wads of burning birch bark and moss had been tossed into the fort on the powder magazines. A high wind fanned the flames. A terrific explosion shook the fort. The trap-door where the women huddled upstairs gave way. Half the refugees fell through, where they were either butchered or perished in the flames. The others plunged from the burning building through the windows. A few escaped to the woods. The rest--Aleut women, wives of the Russians--were taken captive by the Kolosh. Ships, houses, fortress, all were in flames. By nightfall nothing remained of Sitka but the brass and iron of the melted cannon. The hostiles had saved loot of some two thousand sea-otter skins. All that night, and for eight days and nights, the refugees of the forest lay hidden under bark and moss. Under cover of darkness, one, a herdsman, ventured down to the charred ruins of Sitka. The mangled, headless bodies of the Russians lay in the ashes. At noon of the eighth day the mountains suddenly rocked to the echo of two cannon-shots from the bay. A ship had come. Three times one Russian ventured to the shore, and three times was chased back to the woods; {310} but he had seen enough. The ship was an English trader under Captain Barber, who finally heard the shouts of the pursued man, put off a small boat and rescued him. Three others were saved from the woods in the same way, but had been only a few days on the ship, when Michael, the Kolosh chief, emboldened by success, rowed out with a young warrior and asked the English captain to give up the Russians. Barber affected not to understand, lured both Indians on board, seized them, put them in irons, and tied them across a cannon mouth, when he demanded the restoration of all captives and loot; but the Sitkan chief probably had his own account of who suggested the massacre. Also it was to the English captain's interests to remain on good terms with the Indians. Anyway, the twenty captives were not restored till two other ships had entered port, and sent some Kolosh canoes to bottom with grape-shot. The savages were then set free, and hastening up to Kadiak, Barber levelled his cannon at the Russian fort and demanded thirty-seven thousand five hundred dollars' salvage for the rescue of the captives and loot. Baranof haggled the Englishman tired, and compromised for one-fifth the demand. Two years passed, and the fur company was powerless to strike an avenging blow. Wherever the Russians led Aleuts into the Kolosh hunting-grounds, there had been ambush and massacre; but Baranof {311} bided his time. The Aleut Indian hunters, who had become panic-stricken, gradually regained sufficient courage again to follow the Russians eastward. By the spring of 1804 Baranof's men had gathered up eight hundred Aleut Indians, one hundred and twenty Russian hunters, four small schooners, and two sloops. The Indians in their light boats of sea-lion skin on whalebone, the Russians in their sail-boats, Baranof set out in April from St. Paul, Kadiak, with his thousand followers to wreak vengeance on the tribes of Sitka. Sea-otter were hunted on the way, so that it was well on in September before the brigades entered Sitka waters. Meanwhile aid from an unexpected quarter had come to the fur company. Lieutenant Krusenstern had prevailed on the Russian government to send supplies to the Russian American Company by two vessels around the world instead of caravans across Siberia. With Krusenstern went Rezanoff, who had helped the fur traders to obtain their charter, and was now commissioned to open an embassy to Japan. The second vessel under Captain Lisiansky proceeded at once to Baranof's aid at Sitka. Baranof was hunting when Lisiansky's man-of-war entered the gloomy wilds of Sitka Sound. The fur company's two sloops lay at anchor with lanterns swinging bow and stern to guide the hunters home. The eight hundred hostiles had fortified themselves behind the site of the modern Sitka. Palisades the depth of two spruce logs ran across the front of the {312} rough barricade, loopholed for musketry, and protected by a sort of cheval-de-frise of brushwood and spines. At the rear of the enemy's fort ran sally ports leading to the ambush of the woods, and inside were huts enough to house a small town. By the 28th of September Baranof's Aleut Indian hunters had come in and camped alongshore under protection of cannon sent close inland on a small boat. It was a weird scene that the Russian officers witnessed, the enemy's fort, unlighted and silent as death, the Aleut hunters alongshore dancing themselves into a frenzy of bravado, the spruce torches of the coast against the impenetrable forest like fireflies in a thicket; an occasional fugitive canoe from the enemy attempting to steal through the darkness out of the harbor, only to be blown to bits by a cannon-shot. The ships began to line up and land field-pieces for action, when a Sitkan came out with overtures of peace. Baranof gave him the present of a gay coat, told him the fort must be surrendered, and chiefs sent to the Russians as hostages of good conduct. Thirty warriors came the next day, but the whites insisted on chiefs as hostages, and the braves retired. On October the first a white flag was run up on the ship of war. No signal answered from the barricade. The Russian ships let blaze all the cannon simultaneously, only to find that the double logs of the barricade could not be penetrated. No return fire came from the Sitkans. Two small boats were then landed to destroy the enemy's {313} stores. Still not a sign from the barricade. Raging with impatience, Baranof went ashore supported by one hundred and fifty men, and with a wild halloo led the way to rush the fort. The hostile Sitkans husbanded their strength with a coolness equal to the famous thin red line of British fame. Not a signal, not a sound, not the faintest betrayal of their strength or weakness till in the dusk Baranof was within gunshot of the logs, when his men were met with a solid wall of fire. The Aleuts stopped, turned, stampeded. Out sallied the Sitkans pursuing Russians and Aleuts to the water's edge, where the body of one dead Russian was brandished on spear ends. In the sortie fourteen of the Russian forces were killed, twenty-six wounded, among whom was Baranof, shot through the shoulder. The guns of the war ship were all that saved the retreat from a panic. Lisiansky then undertook the campaign, letting drive such a brisk fire the next day that the Sitkans came suing for peace by the afternoon. Three days the cunning savages stayed the Russian attack on pretence of arranging hostages. Hailing the fort on the morning of the 6th and securing no answer, Lisiansky again played his cannon on the barricade. That night a curious sound, that was neither chant nor war-cry, came from the thick woods. At daylight carrion crows were seen circling above the barricade. Three hundred Russians landed. Approaching cautiously for fear of ambuscade, they clambered over the {314} palisades and looked. The fort was deserted. Naught of the Sitkans remained but thirty dead warriors and all their children, murdered during the night to prevent their cries betraying the retreat. New Archangel, as it was called, was built on the site of the present Sitka. Sixteen short and forty-two long cannon mounted the walls. As many as seven hundred officers and men were sometimes on garrison duty. Twelve officers frequently dined at the governor's table; and here, in spite of bishops and priests and deacons who later came on the ground, the revellers of the Russian fur hunters held high carnival. Thirty-six forts and twelve vessels the Russian American fur hunters owned twenty years after the loss of Sitka. New Archangel became more important to the Pacific than San Francisco. Nor was it a mistake to move the capital so far south. Within a few years Russian traders and their Indians were north as far as the Yukon, south hunting sea-otter as far as Santa Barbara. To enumerate but a few of the American vessels that yearly hunted sea-otter for the Russians southward of Oregon and California, taking in pay skins of the seal islands, would fill a coasting list. Rezanoff, who had failed to open the embassy to Japan and so came across to America, spent two months in Monterey and San Francisco trying to arrange with the Spaniards to supply the Russians with provisions. He was received coldly by the Spanish governor till {315} a love affair sprang up with the daughter of the don, so ardent that the Russian must depart post-haste across Siberia for the Czar's sanction to the marriage. Worn out by the midwinter journey, he died on his way across Siberia. [Illustration: Sitka from the Sea.] Later, in 1812, when the Russian coasters were refused watering privileges at San Francisco, the Russian American Company bought land near Bodega, and settled their famous Ross, or California colony, with cannon, barracks, arsenal, church, workshops, and sometimes a population of eight hundred Kadiak Indians. Here provisions were gathered for Sitka, and hunters despatched for sea-otter of the south. The massacres on the Yukon and the clashes with the Hudson's Bay traders are a story by themselves. The other doings of these "Sea Voyagers" became matters of international history when they tried to exclude American and British traders from the Pacific. The fur hunters in the main were only carrying out the far-reaching plans of Shelikoff, who originated the charter for the company; but even Shelikoff could hardly foresee that the country which the Russian government was willing to sell to the United States in 1867 for seven million dollars, would produce more than twice that during a single year in gold. To-day all that remains to Russia of these sea voyagers' plundering are two small islands, Copper and Bering in Bering Sea. [1] Coxe and Müller are the two great authorities on the early Russian fur trade. Data on later days can be found in abundance in Krusenstern's _Voyage_, London, 1813; Kohl's _History_, London, 1862; Langsdorff's _Travels_, London, 1813; Stejneger's _Contributions to Smithsonian_, 1884, and _Report on Commander Islands_; Elliott's _Our Arctic Province_; Dall's _Alaska_; Veniaminof's _Letters on Aleutians_; Cleveland's _Voyages_, 1842, Nordenskjöld's _Voyage of the Vega_; Macfie's _Vancouver Island_; Ivan Petroff's _Report on Alaska_, 1880; Lisiansky's _Voyage Round the World_; Sauer's _Geographical Account of Expedition to Northern Parts_; Kotzebue's _Voyages of Discovery_, 1819, and _New Voyage_, 1831; Chappe d'Auteroche's _Siberia_ and Kracheninnikof's _Kamchatka_, 1764; Simpson's _Voyage Round World_, 1847; Burney's _Voyages_; Gmelin's _Siberia_, Paris, 1767; Greenhow's _Oregon_; Pallas's _Northern Settlements_; Broughton's _Voyage_, 1804; Berg's _Aleutian Islands_; Bancroft's _Alaska_; _Massa. Hist. Coll._, 1793-1795; _U. S. Congressional Reports_ from 1867; Martin's _Hudson's Bay Territories_, London, 1849. [2] Over one hundred American ships had been on the Pacific coast of America before 1812. [3] Rezanoff married the fur trader's daughter. The bride did not live long, nor does the union seem to have been a love affair; as Rezanoff's infatuation with the daughter of a Spanish don later seemed to indicate a heart-free lover. [4] See Chapter XII. {316} CHAPTER XII 1747-1818 BARANOF, THE LITTLE CZAR OF THE PACIFIC Baranof lays the Foundations of Russian Empire on the Pacific Coast of America--Shipwrecked on his Way to Alaska, he yet holds his Men in Hand and turns the Ill-hap to Advantage--How he bluffs the Rival Fur Companies in Line--First Russian Ship built in America--Adventures leading the Sea-otter Hunters--Ambushed by the Indians--The Founding of Sitka--Baranof, cast off in his Old Age, dies of Broken Heart No wilder lord of the wild northland ever existed than that old madcap Viking of the Pacific, Alexander Baranof, governor of the Russian fur traders. For thirty years he ruled over the west coast of America from Alaska to southern California despotic as a czar. And he played the game single-handed, no retinue but convicts from Siberia, no subjects but hostile Indians. Whether leading the hunting brigades of a thousand men over the sea in skin canoes light as cork, or rallying his followers ambushed by hostiles repelling invasion of their hunting-ground, or drowning hardships with seas of fiery Russian brandy in midnight carousals, Baranof was supreme autocrat. Drunk or {317} sober, he was master of whatever came, mutineers or foreign traders planning to oust Russians from the coast of America. Baranof stood for all that was best and all that was worst in that heroic period of Pacific coast history when adventurers from all corners of the earth roamed the otter-hunting grounds in quest of fortune. Each man was a law unto himself. There was fear of neither man nor devil. The whole era might have been a page from the hero epic of prehistoric days when earth was young, and men ranged the seas unhampered by conscience or custom, magnificent beasts of prey, glorying in freedom and bloodshed and the warring elements. [Illustration: Alexander Baranof.] Yet in person Baranof was far from a hero. He was wizened, sallow, small, a margin of red hair round a head bald as a bowl, grotesque under a black wig tied on with a handkerchief. And he had gone up in life much the way a monkey climbs, by shifts and scrambles and prehensile hoists with frequent falls. It was an ill turn of fortune that sent him to America in the first place. He had been managing a glass factory at Irkutsk, Siberia, where the endless caravans of fur traders passed. Born at Kargopol, East Russia, in 1747, he had drifted to Moscow, set up in a shop for himself at twenty-four, failed in business, and emigrated to Siberia at thirty-five. Tales of profit in the fur trade were current at Irkutsk. Tired of stagnating in what was an absolutely safe but unutterably monotonous life, Baranof left the factory and invested all his {318} savings in the fur trade to the Indians of northern Siberia and Kamchatka. For some years all went well. Baranof invested deeper, borrowing for his ventures. Then the Chukchee Indians swooped down on his caravans, stampeded the pack horses, scuttled the goods, and Baranof was a bankrupt. The rival fur companies on the west coast of America were now engaged in the merry game of cutting each other's throats--literally and without restraint. A strong hand was needed--a hand that could weld the warring elements into one, and push Russian trade far down from Alaska to New Spain, driving off the field those foreigners whose relentless methods--liquor, bludgeon, musket--were demoralizing the Indian sea-otter hunters. Destitute and bankrupt, Baranof was offered one-sixth of the profits to become governor of the chief Russian company. On August 10, 1790, about the same time that John Jacob Astor also embarked in the fur trade that was to bring him in contact with the Russians, Baranof sailed to America. Fifty-two men the ragamuffin crew numbered, exiles, convicts, branded criminals, raggedly clad and ill-fed, sleeping wherever they could on the littered and vermin-infested decks; for what did the lives of a convict crew matter? Below decks was crammed to the waterline with goods for trade. All thought for furs, small care for men; and a few days out from port, the water-casks were found to be leaking so badly that allowance {319} of drinking water was reduced; and before the equinoctial gales, scurvy had already disabled the crew. Baranof did not turn back, nor allow the strong hand of authority to relax over his men as poor Bering had. He ordered all press of sail, and with the winds whistling through the rigging and the little ship straining to the smashing seas, did his best to outspeed disease, sighting the long line of surf-washed Aleutian Islands in September, coasting from headland to headland, keeping well offshore for fear of reefs till the end of the month, when compelled to turn in to the mid-bay of Oonalaska for water. There was no ignoring the danger of the landing. A shore like the walls of a giant rampart with reefs in the teeth of a saw, lashed to a fury by beach combers, offered poor escape from death by scurvy. Nevertheless, Baranof effected anchorage at Koshigin Bay, sent the small boats ashore for water, watched his chance of a seaward breeze, and ran out to sea again in one desperate effort to reach Kadiak, the headquarters of the fur traders, before winter. Outside the shelter of the harbor, wind and seas met the ship. She was driven helpless as a chip in a whirlpool straight for the granite rocks of the shore, where she smashed to pieces like the broken staves of a dry water-barrel. Led by the indomitable Baranof, who seemed to meet the challenge of the very elements, the half-drowned crew crawled ashore only to be ordered to save the cargo now rolling up in the wave wash. {320} When darkness settled over the sea on the last night of September, Baranof was in the same predicament as Bering--a castaway for the winter on a barren island. Instead of sinking under the redoubled blows of an adverse fate, the little Russian rebounded like a rubber ball. A messenger and some Indians were at once despatched in a skin boat to coast from island to island in an effort to get help from Kadiak. Meanwhile Baranof did not sit lamenting with folded hands; and well that he did not; for his messengers never reached Kadiak. Holes were at once scooped out of the sand, and the caves roofed over with the remnants of the wreck. These underground huts on an island destitute of wood were warmer than surface cabins, and better withstood the terrible north winds that swept down from the Arctic with such force that for two months at a time the men could go outside only by crawling under shelter of the boulders. Ammunition was distributed to the fifty castaways; salmon bought from the Indians, whom Baranof's fair treatment won from the first; once a week, rye meal was given out for soup; and for the rest, the men had to depend on the eggs of sea-birds, that flocked over the precipitous shores in myriads, or on the sea-lions roaring till the surf shook on the rocky islets along the shore. If there is one characteristic more than another that proves a man master of destiny, it is ability not only to meet misfortune but to turn it to advantage when it {321} comes. While waiting for the rescue that never came, Baranof studied the language of the Aleuts, sent his men among them to learn to hunt, rode out to sea in their frail skin boats lashed abreast to keep from swamping during storm, slept at night on the beach with no covering but the overturned canoes, and, sharing every hardship, set traps with his own hands. When the weather was too boisterous for hunting, he set his people boiling salt from sea-water to dry supplies of fish for the summer, or replenishing their ragged clothes by making coats of birds' skin. The last week before Easter, provisions were so low the whole crew were compelled to indulge in a Lenten fast; but on Easter Monday, behold a putrid whale thrown ashore by the storm! The fast was followed by a feast. The winds subsided, and hunters brought in sea-lions. It was quite apparent now no help was coming from Kadiak. Baranof had three large boats made of skin and wreckage. One he left with the men, who were to guard the remnants of the cargo. A second he despatched with twenty-six men. In the third he himself embarked, now in a raging fever from the exposure of the winter. A year all but a month from the time he had left Asia, Baranof reached Three Saints, Kadiak, on June 27, 1791. Things were black enough when Baranof landed at Kadiak. The settlement of Three Saints had been depending on the supplies of his wrecked ship; and {322} when he arrived, himself in need, discontent flared to open mutiny. Five different rival companies had demoralized the Indians by supplying them with liquor, and egging them on to raid other traders. Southward, toward Nootka, were hosts of foreign ships--Gray and Kendrick and Ingraham from Boston, Vancouver from England, Meares from East India, Quadra from New Spain, private ventures outfitted by Astor from New York. If Russia were to preserve her hunting-grounds, no time should be lost. Baranof met the difficulties like a commander of guerilla warfare. Brigades were sent eastward to the fishing-ground of Cook's Inlet for supplies. Incipient mutiny was quelled by sending more hunters off with Ismyloff to explore new sea-otter fields in Prince William Sound. As for the foreign fur traders, he conceived the brilliant plan of buying food from them in exchange for Russian furs and of supplying them with brigades of Aleut Island hunters to scour the Pacific for sea-otter from Nootka and the Columbia to southern California. This would not only add to stores of Russian furs, but push Russian dominion southward, and keep other nations off the field. That it was not all plain sailing on a summer day may be inferred from one incident. He had led out a brigade of several hundred canoes, Indians and Russians, to Nuchek Island, off Prince William Sound. Though he had tried to win the friendship of the coast Indians by gifts, it was necessary to steal from point {323} to point at night, and to hide at many places as he coasted the mainland. Throwing up some sort of rough barricade at Nuchek Island, he sent the most of his men off to fish and remained with only sixteen Aleuts and Russians. It was perfectly natural that the Alaskan Indians should resent the Aleuts intruding on the hunting-grounds of the main coast, one thousand miles from the Aleutian Islands. Besides, the mainland Indians had now learned unscrupulous brutality from foreign traders. Baranof knew his danger and never relaxed vigilance. Of the sixteen men, five always stood sentry at night. The night of June 20 was pitch dark. Terrific seas were running, and a tempest raged through the woods of the mainland. For safety, Ismyloff's ship had scudded to the offing. Baranof had undressed, thrown himself down in his cabin, and was in the deep sleep of outdoor exhaustion, when above the howling of the gale, not five steps away, so close it was impossible to distinguish friend from foe in the darkness, arose the shrill war-cry of hostiles. Leaping to his feet, Baranof rushed out undressed. His shirt was torn to shreds by a shower of flint and copper-head arrows. In the dark, the Russians could only fire blindly. The panic-stricken Aleuts dashed for their canoes to escape to Ismyloff's ship. Ismyloff sent armed Russians through the surf wash and storm to Baranof's aid. Baranof kept his small cannon pounding hot shot where the shouts sounded till daylight. Of the sixteen men, two {324} Russians and nine Aleuts were dead. Of the men who came to his aid, fifteen were wounded. The corpses of twelve hostiles lay on the beach; and as gray dawn came over the tempestuous sea, six large war canoes vanished into the morning mist, a long trail of blood over the waves showing that the hostiles were carrying off their wounded. Well might Baranof write, "I will vanquish a cruel fate; or fall under its repeated blows." The most of men would have thought they had sufficient excuse to justify backing out of their difficulties. Baranof locked grapples with the worst that destiny could do; and never once let go. Sometimes the absolute futility of so much striving, so much hardship, so much peril, all for the sake of the crust of bread that represents mere existence, sent him down to black depths of rayless despondency, when he asked himself, was life worth while? But he never let go his grip, his sense of resistance, his impulse to fight the worst, the unshunnable obligation of being alive and going on with the game, succeed or fail. Such fits of despair might end in wild carousals, when he drank every Russian under the table, outshouted the loudest singer, and perhaps wound up by throwing the roomful of revellers out of doors. But he rose from the depths of debauch and despair, and went on with the game. That was the main point. The terrible position to which loss of supplies had reduced the traders of Kadiak when his own vessel {325} was wrecked at Oonalaska on the way out, demonstrated to Baranof the need of more ships; so when orders came from his company in 1793 to construct a sailing boat on the timberless island of Kadiak without iron, without axes, without saw, without tar, without canvas, he was eager to attempt the impossible. Shields, an Englishman, in the employment of Russia, was to act as shipbuilder; and Baranof sent the men assigned for the work up to Sunday Harbor on the west side of Prince William Sound, where heavy forests would supply timber and the tide-rush help to launch the vessel from the skids. There were no saws in the settlement. Planks had to be hewn out of logs. Iron, there was none. The rusty remnants of old wrecks were gathered together for bolts and joints and axes. Spruce gum mixed with blubber oil took the place of oakum and tar below the water-line. Moss and clay were used as calking above water. For sail cloth, there was nothing but shreds and rags and tatters of canvas patched together so that each mast-arm looked like Joseph's coat of many colors. Seventy-nine feet from stem to stern, the crazy craft measured, of twenty-three feet beam, thirteen draught, one hundred tons, two decks, and three masts. All the winter of 1792-1793, just a year after Robert Gray, the American, had built his sloop down at Fort Defence off Vancouver Island, the Russian shipbuilding went on. Then in April, lest the poverty of the Russians should become known to foreign traders, Baranof sent Shields, the English {326} shipbuilder, off out of the way, on an otter-hunting venture. It was August of the next summer before the clumsy craft slipped from the skids into the rising tide. She was so badly ballasted that she bobbled like cork; and her sails so frail they flew to tatters in the gentlest wind; but Russia had accomplished her first ship in America. Bells were set ringing when the _Phoenix_ was towed into the harbor of Kadiak; and when she reached Okhotsk laden with furs to the water-line in April of 1794, enthusiasm knew no bounds. Salvos of artillery thundered over her sails, and mass was chanted, and a polish of paint given to her piebald, rickety sides that transformed her into what the fur company proudly regarded as a frigate. Before the year was out, Baranof had his men at work on two more vessels. There was to be no more crippling of trade for lack of ships. But a more serious matter than shipbuilding demanded Baranof's attention. Rival fur companies were on the ground. Did one party of traders establish a fort on Cook's Inlet? Forthwith came another to a point higher up the inlet, where Indians could be intercepted. There followed warlike raids, the pillaging of each other's forts, the capture of each other's Indian hunters, the utter demoralization of the Indians by each fort forbidding the savages to trade at the other, the flogging and bludgeoning and butchering of those who disobeyed the order--and finally, the forcible abduction of whole villages of women and children to compel the alliance of the hunters. All Baranof's work to {327} pacify the hostiles of the mainland was being undone; and what complicated matters hopelessly for him was the fact that the shareholders of his own company were also shareholders in the rival ventures. Baranof wrote to Siberia for instructions, urging the amalgamation of all the companies in one; but instructions were so long in coming that the fur trade was being utterly bedevilled and the passions of the savages inflamed to a point of danger for every white man on the North Pacific. Affairs were at this pass when Konovalof, the dashing leader of the plunderers, planned to capture Baranof himself, and seize the shipyard at Sunday Harbor, on Prince William Sound. Baranof had one hundred and fifty fighting Russians in his brigades. Should he wait for the delayed instructions from Siberia? While he hesitated, some of the shipbuilders were ambushed in the woods, robbed, beaten, and left half dead. Baranof could not afford to wait. He had no more legal justification for his act than the plunderers had for theirs; but it was a case where a man must step outside law, or be exterminated. Rallying his men round him and taking no one into his confidence, the doughty little Russian sent a formal messenger to Konovalof, the bandit, at his redoubt on Cook's Inlet, pompously summoning him in the name of the governor of Siberia to appear and answer for his misdeeds. To the brigand, the summons was a bolt out of the blue. How was he to know not a word had come from the governor of Siberia, and the summons {328} was sheer bluff? He was so terrorized at the long hand of power reaching across the Pacific to clutch him back to perhaps branding or penal service in Siberia, that he did not even ask to see Baranof's documents. Coming post-haste, he offered explanations, excuses, frightened pleadings. Baranof would have none of him. He clapped the culprit and associates in irons, put them on Ismyloff's vessel, and despatched them for trial to Siberia. That he also seized the furs of his rivals for safe keeping, was a mere detail. The prisoners were, of course, discharged; for Baranof's conduct could no more bear scrutiny than their own; but it was one way to get rid of rivals; and the fur companies at war in the Canadian northwest practised the same method twenty years later. The effect of the bandit outrages on the hostile Indians of the mainland was quickly evident. Baranof realized that if he was to hold the Pacific coast for his company, he must push his hunting brigades east and south toward New Spain. A convict colony, that was to be the nucleus of a second St. Petersburg, was planned to be built under the very shadow of Mount St. Elias. Shields, the Englishman employed by Russia, after bringing back two thousand sea-otter from Bering Bay in 1793, had pushed on down south-eastward to Norfolk Sound or the modern Sitka, where he loaded a second cargo of two thousand sea-otter. A dozen foreign traders had already coasted Alaskan shores, and southward of Norfolk Sound was a flotilla {329} of American fur traders, yearly encroaching closer and closer on the Russian field. All fear of rivalry among the Russians had been removed by the union of the different companies in 1799. Baranof pulled his forces together for the master stroke that was to establish Russian dominion on the Pacific. This was the removal of the capital of Russian America farther south. On the second week of April, 1799, with two vessels, twenty-two Russians, and three hundred and fifty canoes of Aleut fur hunters, Baranof sailed from Prince William Sound for the southeast. Pause was made early in May opposite Kyak--Bering's old landfall--to hunt sea-otter. The sloops hung on the offing, the hunting brigades, led by Baranof in one of the big skin canoes, paddling for the surf wash and kelp fields of the boisterous, rocky coast, which sea-otter frequent in rough weather. Dangers of the hunt never deterred Baranof. The wilder the turmoil of spray and billows, the more sea-otter would be driven to refuge on the kelp fields. Cross tides like a whirlpool ran on this coast when whipped by the winds. Not a sound from the sea-otter hunters! Silently, like sea-birds glorying in the tempest, the canoes bounded from crest to crest of the rolling seas, always taking care not to be caught broadsides by the smashing combers, or swamped between waves in the churning seas. How it happened is not known, but somehow between wind and tide-rip, thirty of the canoes {330} that rode over a billow and swept down to the trough never came up. A flaw of wind had caught the mountain billows; the sixty hunters went under. From where he was, Baranof saw the disaster, saw the terror of the other two hundred men, saw the rising storm, and at a glance measured that it was farther back to the sloops than on towards the dangerous shore. The sea-otter hunt was forgotten in the impending catastrophe to the entire brigade. Signal and shout confused in the thunder of the surf ordered the men to paddle for their lives inshore. Night was coming on. The distance was longer than Baranof had thought, and it was dark before the brigades landed, and the men flung themselves down, totally exhausted, to sleep on the drenched sands. Barely were the hunters asleep when the shout of Kolosh Indians from the forests behind told of ambush. The mainland hostiles resenting this invasion of their hunting-fields, had watched the storm drive the canoes to land. On one side was the tempest, on the other the forest thronged with warriors. The Aleuts lost their heads and dashed for hiding in the woods, only to find certain death. Baranof and the Russians with him fired off their muskets till all powder was used. Then they shouted in the Aleut dialect for the hunters to embark. The sea was the lesser danger. By morning the brigades had joined the sloops on the offing. Thirteen more canoes had been lost in the ambush. {331} Such was the inauspicious introduction for Baranof to the founding of the new Russian fort at Sitka or Norfolk Sound. It was the end of May before the brigades glided into the sheltered, shadowy harbor, where Chirikoff's men had been lost fifty years before. A furious storm of snow and sleet raged over the harbor. When the storm cleared, impenetrable forests were seen to the water-line, and great trunks of trees swirled out to sea. On the ocean side to the west, Mount Edgecumbe towered up a dome of snow. Eastward were the bare heights of Verstovoi; and countless tiny islets gilded by the sun dotted the harbor. Baranof would have selected the site of the present Sitka, high, rocky and secure from attack, but the old Sitkan chief refused to sell it, bartering for glass beads and trinkets a site some miles north of the present town. Half the men were set to hunting and fishing, half to chopping logs for the new fort built in the usual fashion, with high palisades, a main barracks a hundred feet long in the centre, three stories high, with trap-doors connecting each story, cabins and hutches all round the inside of the palisades. Lanterns hung at the masthead of the sloops to recall the brigades each night; for Captain Cleveland, a Boston trader anchored in the harbor, forewarned Baranof of the Indians' treacherous character, more dangerous now when demoralized by the rivalry of white traders, and in possession of the civilized man's weapons. Free distribution of liquor by unscrupulous sea-captains did not mend {332} matters. Cleveland reported that the savages had so often threatened to attack his ship that he no longer permitted them on board; concealing the small number of his crew by screens of hides round the decks, trading only at a wicket with cannon primed and muskets bristling through the hides above the taffrail. He warned Baranof's hunters not to be led off inland bear hunting, for the bear hunt might be a Sitkan Indian in decoy to trap the hunters into an ambush. Such a decoy had almost trapped Cleveland's crew, when other Indians were noticed in ambush. The new fort was christened Archangel. All went well as long as Baranof was on the ground. Sea-otter were obtained for worthless trinkets. Sentries paraded the gateway; so Baranof sailed back to Kadiak. The Kolosh or Sitkan tribes had only bided their time. That sleepy summer day of June, 1802, when the slouchy Siberian convicts were off guard and Baranof two thousand miles away, the Indians fell on the fort and at one fell swoop wiped it out.[1] Up at Kadiak honors were showering on the little governor. Two decorations of nobility he had been given by 1804; but his grief over the loss of Sitka was inconsolable. "I will either die or restore the fort!" he vowed, and with the help of a Russian man-of-war sent round the world, he sailed that summer into Sitka Sound. The Indians scuttled their barricade erected on the site of the present Sitka. Here {333} the fort was rebuilt and renamed New Archangel--a fort worthy in its palmy days of Baranof's most daring ambitions. Sixty Russian officers and eight hundred white families lived within the walls, with a retinue of two or three thousand Indian otter hunters cabined along the beach. There was a shipyard. There was a foundry for the manufacture of the great brass bells sold for chapels in New Spain. There were archbishops, priests, deacons, schools. At the hot springs twenty miles away, hospitals and baths were built. A library and gallery of famous paintings were added to the fort, though Baranof complained it would have been wiser to have physicians for his men. For the rest of Baranof's rule, Sitka became the great rendezvous of vessels trading on the Pacific. Here Baranof held sway like a potentate, serving regal feasts to all visitors with the pomp of a little court, and the barbarity of a wassailing mediaeval lord. But all this was not so much fireworks for display. Baranof had his motive. To the sea-captains who feasted with him and drank themselves torpid under his table, he proposed a plan--he would supply the Aleut hunters for them to hunt on shares as far south as southern California. Always, too, he was an eager buyer of their goods, giving them in exchange seal-skins from the Seal Islands. Boston vessels were the first to enter partnership with Baranof. Later came Astor's captains from New York, taking sealskins in trade for goods supplied to the Russians. {334} How did Baranof, surrounded by hostile Indians, with no servants but Siberian convicts, hold his own single-handed in American wilds? Simply by the power of his fitness, by vigilance that never relaxed, by despotism that was by turns savage and gentle, but always paternal, by the fact that his brain and his brawn were always more than a match for the brain and brawn of all the men under him. To be sure, the liberal measure of seventy-nine lashes was laid on the back of any subordinate showing signs of mutiny, but that did not prevent many such attempts. The most serious was in 1809. From the time that Benyowsky, the Polish adventurer, had sacked the garrison of Kamchatka, Siberian convicts serving in America dreamed of similar exploits. Peasants and officers, a score in number, all convicts from Siberia, had plotted to rise in New Archangel or Sitka, assassinate the governor, seize ships and provisions, and sailing to some of the South Sea Islands, set up an independent government. The signal was to be given when Naplavkof, an officer who was master plotter, happened to be on duty. On such good terms was the despot, Baranof, with his men, that the plot was betrayed to him from half a dozen sources. It did not trouble Baranof. He sent the betrayers a keg of brandy, bade one of them give a signal by breaking out in drunken song, and at the sound himself burst into the roomful of conspirators, sword in hand, {335} followed by half a hundred armed soldiers. The plotters were handcuffed and sent back to Siberia. There was something inexcusably cruel in the termination of Baranof's services with the fur company. He was now over seventy years of age. He was tortured by rheumatism from the long years of exposure in a damp climate. Because he was not of noble birth, though he had received title of nobility, he was subject to insults at the hands of any petty martinet who came out as officer on the Russian vessels. Against these Baranof usually held his own at Sitka, but they carried back to St. Petersburg slanderous charges against his honesty. Twice he had asked to be allowed to resign. Twice successors had been sent from Russia; but one died on the way, and the other was shipwrecked. It was easy for malignant tongues to rouse suspicion that Baranof's desire to resign sprang from interested motives, perhaps from a wish to conceal his own peculations. Though Baranof had annually handled millions of dollars' worth of furs for the Russian Company, at a distance from oversight that might have defied detection in wrong-doing, it was afterwards proved that he had not misused or misappropriated one dime's worth of property; but who was to believe his honesty in the face of false charges? In the fall of 1817 Lieutenant Hagemeister arrived at Sitka to audit the books of the company. Concealing from Baranof the fact that he was to be deposed, {336} Hagemeister spent a year investigating the records. Not a discrepancy was discovered. Baranof, with the opportunity to have made millions, was a poor man. Without explanation, Hagemeister then announced the fact--Baranof was to be retired. Between voluntarily retiring and being retired was all the difference between honor and insult. The news was a blow that crushed Baranof almost to senility. He was found doddering and constantly in tears. Again and again he bade good-by to his old comrades, comrades of revel with noble blood in their veins, comrades of the hunt, pure-blooded Indians, who loved him as a brother, comrades of his idleness, Indian children with whom he had frolicked--but he could not bear to tear himself from the land that was the child of his lifelong efforts. The blow had fallen when he was least able to bear it. His nerve was gone. Of all the Russian wreckages in this cruel new land, surely this wreck was the most pitiable--the maker deposed by the thing he had made, cast out by his child, driven to seek some hidden place where he might die out of sight. An old sea-captain offered him passage round the world to Russia, where his knowledge might still be of service. Service? That was the word! The old war-horse pricked up his ears! Baranof sailed in the fall of 1818. By spring the ship homeward-bound stopped at Batavia. There was some delay. Delay was not good for Baranof. He was ill, deadly ill, of that most deadly of all ailments, heartbreak, {337} consciousness that he was of no more use, what the Indians call "the long sickness of too much thinking." When the vessel put out to sea again, Baranof, too, put to sea, but it was to the boundless sea of eternity. He died on April 16, 1819, and was laid to rest in the arms of the great ocean that had cradled his hopes from the time he left Siberia. To pass judgment on Baranof's life would be a piece of futility. His life, like the lives of all those Pacific coast adventurers, stands or falls by what it was, not what it meant to be; by what it did, not what it left undone; and what Baranof left was an empire half the size of Russia. That his country afterward lost that empire was no fault of his. Like all those Vikings of the North Pacific, he was essentially a man _who did things_, not a theorizer on how things ought to be done, not a slug battening on the things other men have done. They were not anaemic, these old "sea voyagers" of the Pacific, daring death or devil, with the red blood of courage in their veins, and the red blood of a lawless manhood, too. They were not men of milk and water type, with little good and less bad. Neither their virtues nor their vices were lukewarm; but _they did things_, these men; added to the sum total of human effort, human knowledge, human progress. Sordid their motives may have been, sordid as the blacksmith's when he smashes his sledge on the anvil; but from the anvil of their hardships, from the clash of the {338} primordial warfare between the Spirit of the Elements and the Spirit of Man, struck out some sparks of the Divine. There was the courage as dauntless in the teeth of the gale as in the face of death. There was the yearning to know More, to seek it, to follow it over earth's ends, though the quest led to the abyss of a watery grave. What did they want, these fool fellows, following the rushlight of their own desires? That is just it. They didn't know what they sought, but they knew there was something just beyond to be sought, something new to be known; and because Man is Man, they set out on the quest of the unknown, chancing life and death for the sake of a little gain to human progress. It is the spirit of the heroic ages, and to that era belongs the history of the Vikings on the North Pacific. [1] See Chapter XI. INDEX A Adakh Island, Chirikoff at, 51. Admiralty Inlet, explored, 270-271. _Adventure_, first American ship built on Pacific, 233, 234, 238, 325. Alaska, Bering's expedition on coast of, 26 ff.; Chirikoff's arrival at, 50-51; Benyowsky's visit to, 125; Cook explores coast of, 189-194; Gray's trip to, 238; Vancouver's survey of southern coast of, 286-290; Baranof's career in, 318-337. _See_ Sitka. Aleutian Islands, Bering's voyage of discovery among, 26-41; sea-otter's habitat on, 42, 53, 56, 63, 66-67, 69-70, 82-83; fur hunters of the, 67-78, 81-84, 321-323, 328-330. Aleut Indians, as otter-hunters, 69-78; harsh treatment of, by Russians, 79, 8l-88; Russian hunters massacred by, 91-95, 100-104; punishment of, 105; in Sitka massacre, 307-310, 332; accompany Baranof on voyage of vengeance, 311-314; with Baranof in Prince William Sound, 322 ff. Alexander Archipelago, Chirikoff in the, 46-52. Alexis, Aleut Indian boy hostage, 98, 99, 102. Anderson, Dr., with Cook, 193. Anian, Straits of, 9, 279 n. Anton, Juan de, captain of _Glory of the South Seas_, 158 n. Apraxin, Count, 8 n. Archangel Michael, modern Sitka once named, 306; founding of, by Baranof, 306, 331-332; massacre at, 307-310, 332. Arguello, Don Joseph, 241. Aricara, Drake at, 155. Astor, John Jacob, 65, 212, 303, 318, 322, 333. Athabasca Lake, attempt to identify, with Northwest Passage, 174, 175. Atka, otter grounds at, 69. Atto, Hawaiian boy, 229, 233, 240. Attoo, village in, destroyed by Russian fur hunters, 83. Auteroche, Chappe d', cited, 295. Avacha Bay, Bering at, 17, 19, 23; survivors of Bering expedition return to, 59-60; vessels of Cook's expedition at, 208. B Baker, lieutenant in Vancouver's expedition, 266, 270. Baker, Mount, 270. Balboa, 134, 144. Baltimore, Benyowsky visits, 127. Bancroft, Hubert Howe, cited, 241, 290, 295. Baranof, Alexander, governor of Russian American Fur Company, 67, 167 n., 288, 301, 304, 306, 310; character of, 316-317; personal appearance of, 317; early career of, 317-318; sails to America (1790), 318; wrecked on Oonalaska, 319-320; builds boat and reaches Kadiak, 321; defeats hostile Indians at Nuchek Island, 323-324; establishes fort at Sitka, 331; loses fort by Sitka massacre, but rebuilds and founds New Archangel (modern Sitka), 332-333; in old age deposed from governorship, 335-336; death of, 337. Baranof Castle, Sitka, 301. Barber, Captain, at Sitka, 310. Barclay, English sea-captain, 224, 227, 254, 264, 272. Barnes, sailor with Gray, 230. Barrell, Joseph, 211, 215, 229, 241. Bassof, otter hunter, 82-83. Begg, cited, 290 n. Behm, Major, 196, 208. Behm Canal, 286. Benyowsky, Mauritius, Polish exile to Kamchatka, 108-110; career of, at Bolcheresk, 113-122; escapes to sea on pirate cruise, 122; meets Ochotyn at Bering Island, 123-124; visits Alaska, 125; adventures of, in Luzon, Formosa, and China, 126-127; holds French commission in Madagascar, 137; returns to Europe, goes to Baltimore, and is sent on filibustering expedition to Madagascar, 127; death of, 127-128; authorities for, 128 n. Berg, cited, 11 n., 22 n., 129, 295. Bering, Anna, 8 n. Bering, Jonas, 8 n. Bering, Thomas, 22 n. Bering, Unos, 22. Bering, Vitus Ivanovich, birth and early history of, 8; commissioned by Peter the Great to explore waters between Russia and America, 8-10; first expedition of (1725-1730), 10-12; second expedition undertaken by, 12; difficulties of, with scientists about "Gamaland," 13-15, 19, 22, 24; arrival of expedition of, at Okhotsk, 16; start of, from Avacha Bay, Kamchatka (1741), 17; cruise of, in _St. Peter_, 22-45; landfall at Kyak Island, 26-27, 47 n.; Mt. St. Elias discovered by, 26; exploration of coast of Alaskan peninsula by, 28-36; forced to winter at Commander Islands, 35-36; death of, 54; summary of work of, 55-56, 61; conclusions of, rejected by scientists, 172-173; mentioned in connection with other explorers, 183, 184 n., 239, 263, 264; Cook verifies conclusions of, 189-194. Bering Bay, 288. Bering Island, 37-45, 97, 123-124, 300, 315. Betshevin, Siberian merchant, 84, 87. Bidarkas, fur hunters' boats, 67. Billings, Joseph, 254, 258, 259-261. Boit, John, 230. Bolcheresk, capital of Kamchatka, 113-114; description of, 114; Benyowsky's career at, 114-122. Boston, interest at, in Gray's expeditions, 215-216, 229-230, 240-241. "Bostons" (_Bostonnais_), Indians call all Americans, 210. Brazil, Drake's lost sailors in, 152. Bristol Bay, 193. Broughton, Lieutenant, 266, 271, 279, 280, 281; _Voyage_ by, cited, 295 n. Brown, Samuel, of Boston, 211, 229. Brown, Dr. William, Ledyard travels with, 258-259. Bulfinch, Charles, 211, 212; daughter of, named "Columbia," 240. Bulfinch, Dr., of Boston, 211, 241. Burney, _Voyages_ by, 295 n. Burrard Inlet, 273. Burroughs, John, cited, 72 n. Bute Inlet, 274. C California, Drake's visit to, 160-165, 169-171; Vancouver's visit to, 281-282; Russian American Fur Company in, 315. _California_, vessel for exploration, 174. Callao, Drake sacks, 155-156. Campbell, Dr., quoted, 172-173. Cannibals, Cook's stay among, 187; on Portland Canal, 230. Cape Adams, 280. Cape Addington, 46. Cape Disappointment, 224, 235, 267, 269, 279, 280. Cape Douglas, 191. Cape Elizabeth, 191. Cape Flattery, 185, 223, 224, 235, 270. Cape Foulweather, 184. Cape Gregory, 184. Cape Horn, Drake discovers, 153; Gray expedition rounds, 216-217. Cape Khitroff, 41. Cape Lookout, 219. Cape Meares, 224. Cape Perpetua, 184. Cape Prince of Wales, 193, 208. Captain Harbor, 300; Drusenin at, 89; Ledyard's arrival at, 250. Carder, Peter, 152 n. Cartier, Jacques, 272. Caswell, Joshua, 230. Catherine, Empress, 7. Chaplin, Peter, 11 n. _Chatham_, Lieutenant Broughton commands, in Vancouver cruise, 266. Chesterfield Inlet, 174-175. Chinook, Indian village, 281. Chirikoff, Alexei, Bering's second in command, 11, 13, 18, 19, 20, 60; cruise of, in the _St. Paul_, 45-53. Christopher, Captain, 175. _Christopher_, Drake's vessel, 147. Christy, Silver Map of, 168. Chukchee Indians, 5, 9, 193, 194, 318. Clayoquot, Gray at, 227, 232-234. Clerke, Captain, 181, 203, 206, 207, 208; death of, 209. Cleveland, Captain, Boston trader, 295, 331-332. Collectors of tribute, Cossack, 5, 107, 294-296, 299. _Columbia_, vessel commanded by Captain Kendrick, on cruise to Pacific, 212-213, 215; Gray in command of, 228, 268-269. Columbia River, Meares searches for, 224; Vancouver misses, 235, 267-268; Heceta quoted regarding, 235-236; Gray discovers and names, 236-238, 241, 268, 269; Broughton's trip up, 280. Commander Islands, Bering expedition at, 37-45, 61; sea-otter found on, 67, 76. Cook, Captain James, 19, 64 n., 78, 127, 128 n., 161, 168, 222, 226, 263, 264, 265; boyhood and youth of, 176-177; seaman on Newcastle coaler, 177; enters Royal Navy, 178-180; before Quebec with Wolfe, 180; sent by Royal Society on voyage to South Seas (1768-1771), 180-181; makes voyage round the world, 181; starts on historic voyage of discovery and exploration, 181; John Ledyard's connection with expedition of, 181-182, 247; terms of secret commission of, 182-183; Drake's "New Albion" sighted by, 184; misses Straits of Fuca, 184-185; anchors at Nootka, 186; visits Kyak Island, 189; in Prince William Sound, 190-191; explores Cook's Inlet, 191-192; sails along coast of Alaska to Cape Prince of Wales, and crosses Bering Strait to Siberia, 193; verifies Bering's conclusions, 193-194; explores Norton Sound, 195; stops at Oonalaska, 195-196; returns to Sandwich Islands to winter, 196-197; friendly reception of, by Hawaiians, 197-199; sailors of, abuse hospitality of natives, 199-200; difficulties of, over boat stolen by natives, 203; brave stand taken by, and death of, 203-205; authorities for, 209 n.; account of voyage of, leads to sending out of Robert Gray, 211; Gray's work and its results compared with those of, 239-240. Cook's Inlet, sea-otter in, 66-67, 68, 69, 79; explored by Cook, 189-192; Vancouver's survey of, 287-288; Russian fur traders' doings in, 326-327. Coolidge, Davis, 214, 230. Copper Island, 44, 97, 315. Coquimbo, Drake at, 154. Cortés, 133-134. Coxe, William, cited, 61, 82, 105, 295. Crowning of Drake by Indians, 164. D _Daedalus_, Vancouver's supply ship, 266, 282; seized by Sandwich Islanders and two officers murdered, 284. Da Gama, Vasco, 134. Dall, cited, 11 n., 295. Dartmouth College, courses for missionaries at, 244-245. Davidson, Dr. George, x, 47 n., 162 n., 168, 290 n. Davidson, George, member of Gray's second expedition, 230, 240, 241. Dawson, cited, 290 n. Dementieff, Abraham, 47-48. Derby, John, 211, 229. Derby Sound, 228. Deshneff, explorer, vii, 296. Deshon, Captain, 253-254. _Discovery_, Vancouver's ship, 266; on rocks in Straits of Fuca, 275; Hawaiian girls onboard of, 284-285. _Discovery_, vessel commanded by Captain Clerke, in Cook's voyage, 181. D'Isles, the, geographers, 19, 20, 52. Distress Cove, 228. Dixon, George, 78, 209, 227, 254, 290 n. Dobbs, patron of exploration, 174. _Dobbs_, vessel for exploration, 174. Doughty, Thomas, 147; trial and execution of, 148-149, 168. Douglas, Captain, 223-226. _Dragon_, Drake's vessel, 140. Drake, Francis, family and boyhood of, 139; with Hawkins in West Indies, 139; cruises Spanish Main (1570-1573), 140-141; seizes one million pounds in silver from Spanish at Nombre de Dios, 141-142; first views Pacific Ocean, 143-144; attacks gold train at Venta Cruz, 144-145; returns to England, 146; Queen Elizabeth and, 146; starts on historic cruise (1577), 147; Doughty's trial and execution, 148-149, 168; enters Pacific through Straits of Magellan, 150; driven south by storm, 151-153; discovers Cape Horn, 153; piratical voyage of, up South American coast, 153-155; captures _Glory of the South Seas_, 158; plans to return home by Northeast Passage, 158-159; landfall north of California, 159-161, 168; gives up idea of Northeast Passage, 161; visits California, 161-162, 169; welcomed by Indians, 162-163, 169-170; crowning of, 164; calls region "New Albion," 164; returns to England around Cape of Good Hope (1580), 165; subsequent career of, 166; death and burial of, 166-167, 171; authorities for, 167 n. Drake, John, 141, 142, 157. Drake's Bay, 162, 281. Drusenin, Alexei, otter hunter, 81, 84; winters at Oonalaska, 88-91; murdered by natives, 91-92. E East Cape, 195, 208-209. _Elizabeth_, Drake's vessel, 147, 148; returns to England, 152. Elizabeth, Queen, and Drake, 146. Elliott, cited, 72 n., 295. Ellis, explorer, 174-175. Equator, rites on crossing, 182, 216. Eskimo Indians, Russian explorers hear about, 6. _See_ Aleut _and_ Kolosh Indians. F Fages, Don Pedro, cited, 241. Fairweather Mountains, 189. Fletcher, Francis, Drake's chaplain, 149, 154 n., 167; chronicle of, quoted, 161, 165, 167 n.-171 n. Foggy Island (Ukamok), 29, 192. Folger, sailor with Gray, 230. Formosa, Benyowsky in, 127. Fort Defence, 233, 325. Franklin, Benjamin, Benyowsky's meeting with, 128 n. Fraser River, Vancouver misses discovering, 272-273. Friendly Cove, 276, 278. Frobisher, Martin, 159. Fuca, Juan de, 173, 174, 184, 264, 272; account of legend of, concerning Northeast Passage, 275 n. Fuca Straits. _See_ Straits of Fuca. G Galiano, Don, 272-273. Gama, John de, 6 n. Gamaland, mythical continent, 6, 9, 168, 173; Bering's conclusion concerning non-existence of, 12, 18; on D'Isles' map, 19; Bering's second voyage in search of, 22-23; search for, relinquished, 24-25; Cook demolishes myth of, 181. Garret, John, 141. _Glory of the South Seas_, Spanish galleon, 155, 156, 157; captured by Drake, 158. Glottoff, Stephen, 88, 96; Korovin rescued by, 104. Gmelin, scientist, 14 n., 295 n. _Golden Hind_, Drake renames the _Pelican_ the, 150; cruise on the Pacific in, 151-165; end of, 166. Gore, Cook's lieutenant, 190. Gorelin, Russian sailor, 87, 91 n. Gray, Robert, character of, 213; sent by Boston merchants on fur-trading voyage to the Pacific coast, 213-214; departure of, from Boston (October, 1787), 215-216; rounds Cape Horn and reaches Drake's "New Albion," 216-218; adventures of, in Tillamook Bay, 219-222; sails to Nootka, 222-223; meets Captains Meares and Douglas, 223-225; in spring explores Straits of Fuca, 227, 235; takes cargo of furs to China and returns to Boston (August, 1790), 228-229; leaves Boston on second voyage (September, 1790), 230; winters at Clayoquot (1791-1792), 232-234; builds sloop _Adventure_, 233, 234, 325; meets Vancouver expedition, 235, 268-270; discovers and names Columbia River (May, 1792), 236-238, 241, 268, 269; goes to China and returns to Boston (July, 1793), 238; death of, 238; place of, among discoverers, 238-240; authorities for, 240 n.; later mention of, 264, 272, 286, 322; Lieutenant Broughton's view of explorations of, 280. Gray's Harbor, 236, 241. Greenhow, cited, 241, 290, 295. Guatalco, Drake stops at, 159. Gulf of Georgia, 271. Gvozdef, discoverer, 12 n. H Hagemeister, Lieutenant, 335-336. Hall, Sir James, and Ledyard, 256. Hancock, Clayoquot renamed, 227. Hancock, Governor, 229. Harriman Expedition, the, 72 n. Haskins, member of Gray's second expedition, 230. Haswell, Robert, in Gray's expeditions, 214, 216, 220-222, 228, 230, 234, 240, 241. Hatch, Captain Crowell, 211. Hawkins, Sir John, 135-139, 166. Hearne, Samuel, 174, 175, 181. Heceta, Captain Bruno, 219, 241; quoted regarding Columbia River, 235-236. Henriquez, Don Martin, 136. Hoffman, German exile, 108-111. Hood Canal, explored, 270-271. Howe, Richard, accountant in Gray's expedition, 214. Howe's Sound, 274. I Icy Cape, Cook names, 195. Inalook Island, 90. Indians, Californian, and Drake, 162-165, 169-171. Ingraham, Joseph, 214, 230, 240, 322. Isle, Louis la Croyére de l', 19, 20, 209; death of, 52. Isle of Pinos, 141. Ismyloff, Russian trader-spy, 118, 119, 122, 123, 124, 127, 128 n.; Cook meets, 196; treacherous letters of, 208; Ledyard's encounters with, 251, 253, 258, 260-261; in service of Russian American Fur Company, under Baranof, 322, 323. J Japan, charted by Martin Spanberg, 18; laws to protect the sea-otter moved by, 67; Benyowsky's adventures in, 126-127. Jefferson, Thomas, Ledyard and, 255, 261-262. Jervis Canal, 274. Johnstone, with Vancouver, 266, 271, 273, 275. Jokai, Maurus, Benyowsky's life told by, 127. Jones, Paul, and Ledyard, 255. Juan Fernandez, _Columbia_ repaired at, 217. K Kadiak Indians in California, 315. Kadiak Island, otter-hunting headquarters, 69, 79; Ochotyn at, 124; Benyowsky visits, 125; Baranof at, 321-329. Kakooa, Sandwich Islands, 203, 206. Kalekhta, Aleutian village, 90, 94. Kamchatka, Bering sails from, 11; Benyowsky in, 113-122. Karakakooa Bay, Cook at, 197-205. Kendrick, Captain John, 213, 214, 216, 217, 225, 226, 228, 229, 264, 272, 322; adventures of, on Queen Charlotte Island, 230-232; death of, 238. Kendrick, Solomon, murdered, 232. Khitroff, in Bering expedition, 26-27, 30-31, 36. King, Captain, with Cook, 128 n., 186, 192, 198, 200, 203, 206. Koah, Hawaiian priest, 198, 206, 207. Kohl, J. G., cited, 168, 295. Kolosh Indians, massacre by, 307-310, 332; Baranof's encounter with, 330. Konovalof, bandit, 327-328. Korelin, companion of Drusenin, 90-91, 92, 94. Korovin, Ivan, 88, 96; experiences of, at Oonalaska, 97-105. Koshigin Bay, 319. Kotches, Russian boats, 295-296, 297. Kotzebue, dramatist, takes Benyowsky for a subject, 127. Kotzebue, Otto von, works by, 295. Kowrowa, Sandwich Islands, 197, 203. Kracheninnikof, cited, 295. Krusenstern, Lieutenant, 295, 311. Kyacks, Eskimo boats, 68. Kyak Island, Bering's landfall, 26-27, 47 n.; Cook at, 189; Baranof at, 329-330. L _Lady Washington_, the, Gray sails on, to Pacific coast, 213-219; Captain Kendrick in command of, 228; last mention of, 238. Langsdorff, cited, 295. La Salle, vii, 60. Lauridsen, Peter, authority on Bering, 12 n., 61 n. La Vérendrye, vii, 7, 19, 60, 177. Ledyard, Dr., 243 n. Ledyard, John, corporal of marines with Cook, 181-182, 195-196, 200, 203, 205, 247-252; authority for Cook's voyage, 209 n.; early career of, 242-244; authorities for life of, 243 n., 262 n.; student at Dartmouth College, 245; works his way to England, 245-246; experiences of, in London, 246-247; on return of Cook expedition sent to fight against United States, 252; returns to Groton and deserts from British navy, 252-253; borrows money, goes to Paris, and meets Paul Jones and Thomas Jefferson, 254-255; in England, 256; walks fourteen hundred miles from Stockholm around Baltic Sea to St. Petersburg, 257-258; accompanies Dr. Brown three thousand miles into Siberia, 258-259; joins Joseph Billings' expedition and reaches Lena River, 260; arrested as a French spy, carried back to St. Petersburg, and expelled from the country, 260-261; reaches London and is sent to discover source of Nile, 261-262; dies at Cairo, 262. Lewis and Clark expedition, 60-61; John Ledyard's influence on, 242, 255, 262. Lincoln, General, of Boston, 229. Lisiansky, Captain, 295, 311, 313. Lok, Michael, 275 n. Lopez, Marcus, 216, 220; murder of, by Indians, 221. Lynn Canal, Vancouver's survey of, 288. M Macao, Benyowsky in, 127, 128. Macfie, _Vancouver Island_ by, 295 n. Mackenzie, Alexander, 219. Madagascar, Benyowsky's adventures and death in, 127. Magellan, explorer, 134-135. Magellan, Hyacinth de, 128 n. Makushin Volcano, 86, 96-97, 105 n. Maquinna, Indian chief, 276, 277-278. Marquette, Père, vii, 7. Martin, _Hudson's Bay Territories_ by, 295 n. Martinez, Don Joseph, 227. _Marygold_, Drake's vessel, 147, 148; loss of, 151-152. Massacre, of Russians at Oonalaska and Oomnak, 100-105; the Sitka, 307-310, 332. Mayne, cited, 290 n. Meares, English sea-captain, 223-226, 227, 235, 254, 264, 267, 272, 273, 322. _Meares' Voyages_, cited, 290 n. Medals, the Drake, 168; of Gray expedition, 215, 241. Medvedeff, Denis, 88, 96, 97-98; murder of, 104. Medvednikoff, commander at Sitka, 308. Menzies, 235, 266, 269, 271. _Mercury_, Cook on the, 180. Michael, Kolosh chief, 308, 310. Middleton, Captain, 174. Morai, the, Hawaiian burying-place, 198, 201, 202. Morris, Robert, and Ledyard, 254. Motley, John Lothrop, cited, 4 n. Mottley, John, cited, 4 n. Mount Baker, 270. Mount Edgecumbe, 46-47, 189, 331. Mount Hood, 280. Mount Olympus, 235. Mount St. Elias, 26, 189. Müller, S., scientist, 12 n., 14 n.; cited, 32, 61, 295. Murderers' Harbor, 222. N Naplavkof, conspirator, 334-335. New Albion, Drake's, 164, 173, 182, 183, 184; Gray expedition off, 218; Vancouver's expedition sights, 267; Vancouver takes possession of, 271. New Archangel, modern Sitka, 314, 333. New Zealand, explored by Cook, 181. Nicholson, William, edits Benyowsky's memoirs, 128 n. Nilow, governor of Kamchatka, 116-120. Nombre de Dios, storehouse of New Spain, 140; Drake's raid, 141-142. Nootka, Cook's vessels at, 186-189, 248; Gray at, 223-227, 232, 238; Vancouver's conference with Spanish at, 276-279. Nootka Indians, Cook visits, 185-189. Nordenskjöld, explorer, 209 n., 295 n. Norfolk Sound. _See_ Sitka Sound. Northeast Passage, the, 158-159, 172; Drake's conclusions regarding, 161; Parliament offers reward for discovery of, 174; English agitation over, 174-175, 181; Cook's efforts to discover, 182-196; Captain Clerke decides there is no, 209; Vancouver's attitude on question of, 265-266; Vancouver proves the non-existence of, 275, 286-290; the Fuca legend concerning, 275 n. _Northwest-America_, launching of, 223; seized by Spanish, 228. Norton, Moses, 175. Norton Sound, Cook explores, 195. Nuchek Island, Baranof at, 322-324. Nutting, Gray's astronomer, 214. O Ochotyn, Saxon exile, 123-124. Ofzyn, Bering's lieutenant, 36, 38, 40. Okhotsk, Bering's expedition at, 16. Olympus, Mount, 235. Olympus Range, 222-223, 268. Oomnak Island, 84-85; sulphur at, 92; sea-otter on, 98; Korovin's adventures at, 102-103; Medvedeff and crew massacred at, 104. Oonalaska, otter-hunting headquarters, 69, 79, 82, 98; sulphur at, 92, 103; Korovin's experiences at, 98-101; Cook at, 195-196; Ledyard's visit to, with Cook, 250-253. _Oregon and California_, Greenhow's, 241. _Oregon and Eldorado_, Bulfinch's, 241. Oxenham, with Drake, 142. P _Pacha_, Drake's vessel, 141. Pacific Company, 212. _See_ Astor. Pallas, _Northern Settlements_ by, 295 n. Palliser, Sir Hugh, 179. Pareea, Hawaiian chief, 198, 203. _Pelican_, Drake's vessel, 147, 148; renamed _Golden Hind_, 150. Perpheela, Ledyard's guide, 249. "Peso," defined, 154 n. Peter the Great, 4-10; analogy between Cook and, 176. Petroff, Ivan, cited, 105 n., 295. Philippine Islands, Benyowsky's visit to, 126; Drake passes by, 165. Phillips, marine with Cook, 204-205. _Phoenix_, Baranof builds, 326. Pickersgill, explorer, 175. Pilcher, sailor with Drake, 152 n. Pintard, John Marden, 211, 229. Pissarjeff, Major-General, 16. Pizarro, Francisco, 134. Pleneser, artist, 41. Point Breakers, 185. Point Possession, 271. Point Turn-Again, 192. Porter, Rev. E. G., lecture by, 241. Portland Canal, 228; Gray sails up, 230; Vancouver's exploration of, 286. Portlock, J. E., 78, 209 n., 254, 290 n. Port St. Julian, Doughty executed at, 147-149. Prince of Wales, Cape, 193, 208. Prince of Wales Island, 228. Prince William Sound, sea-otter in, 66; named by Cook, 191; Russian settlements on, 287, 306, 322-329. Prybiloff Islands, otter and seal found on, 79. Puget, Peter, 235, 266, 269, 271, 273, 277, 282. Puget Sound, explored, 270-271, 273. _Purchas' Pilgrims_, cited, 152, 167, 275. Pushkareff, Sergeant, 84-88. Q Quadra, Don, 238, 240, 273, 322; Vancouver's conference with, 277-279. Quebec, Cook with Wolfe at, 180. Queen Charlotte Island, discovered, 227; Captain Kendrick at, 230-232. R Radisson, vii, 7, 239. _Resolution_, Cook's ship, 181-209. Reward offered by Parliament for discovery of Northeast Passage, 174. Rezanoff, Nikolai, 306, 311, 314-315. _Robert Anne_, Benyowsky's vessel, 127. Roberts, Gray's surgeon, 214, 216. Ross, Russian California colony, 315. Russian American Fur Company, 67, 128 n.; chartered, 306; early vicissitudes of, 307-314; at New Archangel (Sitka), 314; in California, 315. _See_ Baranof. Ryumin, Ivan, Russian account of Benyowsky by, 129. S Saanach coast, sea-otter on, 69. St. Lawrence Island, 11, 12. _St. Paul_, Bering's vessel, 17; Chirikoff in command of, 20, 22, 24 ff., 60; voyage of, 45-53. _St. Peter_, Bering's vessel, 17, 20, 23 ff.; wreck of, 44-45. _St. Peter_, the second, 58-59. _St. Peter and Paul_, the, 113, 117; Benyowsky's cruise in, 122-126. Sands, Mr., of New York, 254. Sandwich Islands, Cook's visit to and death at, 196-205; Gray stops at, 228-229; conduct of fur traders who visited, 283-284; Vancouver's actions at, 284-285. San Francisco, Vancouver at, 281-282. Sauer, cited, 27, 260, 295. Savelief, Sidor, 48. Sea cows, 41, 53. Seals, 42, 56-57, 67. Sea-otter, 42, 53, 56; habitat of, on Aleutian Islands, 63, 66-67, 82-83; Bering's men reap a fortune from, 63-64, 79; influence of, on exploration of North Pacific, 65; description of, 65-66; methods of hunting the, 67-78; prices commanded for fur of, 76; figures of numbers killed, 79; the early hunters of, 80-105; Cook's trade in, 187; Gray's bargain, 228. Selkirk, Lord, 303. Serdze Kamen, 12 n., 195. Seymour, Henry, 243. Shelikoff, Gregory Ivanovich, 303-306, 315. Shelikoff, Natalie, 304. Shevyrin, with Drusenin, 92-97. Shields, English shipbuilder with Baranof, 325-326, 328. Shumagin Islands, 30, 192. Silva, Nuno, Drake's pilot, 159, 167 n. Silver Map of the World, 168. Simpson, _Voyage Round World_ by, 295 n. Sitka, Indians massacre Russians at, 50 n., 307-310, 332; as capital of Russian America, called Archangel Michael, 306; Russian American Fur Company founds New Archangel on site of, 314, 333; Baranof's career at, 330-336. Sitka Sound, Chirikoff in, 46-52; sea-otter in, 66, 79; Vancouver ends his explorations at, 289. Snug Cove, 186, 276. Society Islands, Cook's first visit to, 180-181; second visit, 182. Solovieff, Cossack hunter, 105. South Seas, Cook's voyage to, 180-181. Spanberg, Martin, 11, 13, 14, 16, 18, 21. Sparks, Jared, _Life of Ledyard_ by, 243 n., 262 n. Staduchin, explorer, 296. Stejneger, Dr. Leo, x, 41 n., 72 n., 295 n. Steller, George William, 14 n., 20, 23, 25, 26-27, 30, 33, 38-40, 41, 42, 53-55, 60. Steller's Arch, 39. Stephanow, Hippolite, 108, 110, 125, 127. Straits of Fuca, Cook's conclusion as to non-existence of, 185, 222, 264; Gray sails near, 223; Gray explores, 227, 235, 269; Vancouver's arrival at and exploration of, 268-270, 273-275. Straits of Magellan, 135; Drake's passage of, 150. Sulphur at Oonalaska, 92, 103. Sunday Harbor, 325. _Swan_, Drake's vessel, 140, 141, 147. T _Taboo_, the, 198. Tarapaca, Drake calls at, 154-155. Terreeoboo, King, 197-206. Texeira, map-maker, 6 n. Three Saints, Kadiak, Baranof's arrival at, 321-322. Tillamook Bay, _Lady Washington_ in, 219-222. Toledo, Don Francisco de, 155-156. Treat, fur trader in Gray's expedition, 214. Tribute collectors, Cossack, 5, 107, 114, 294-296, 299. U Ukamok (Foggy Island), 29. V Valdes, Don, 272-273. Valparaiso, Drake's raid on, 153-154. Vancouver, George, vii, 105, 161; midshipman with Cook, 181, 198; authority on Cook's voyage, 209 n.; meeting with Gray, 235, 268-270; Gray contrasted with, 239-240; as captain in British navy, sent to explore Pacific coast of America, 265; ideas on Northeast Passage question, 265-266; sights Drake's "New Albion," 267; misses Columbia River, 267-268, 235; explores Puget Sound, 270-272; misses Fraser River, 272; explores Straits of Fuca, 272-275; arrives at Nootka, 276; confers with Spanish representative, 277-279; sails to Columbia River, 279-280; visits California, 281-282; winters at Sandwich Islands (1792-1793), 283-285; acts of injustice and justice at, 284-285; returns to American coast and surveys Portland Canal, 286-287; in 1794 surveys Cook's Inlet, 287-289; work of, results in explosion of theory of Northeast Passage, 289-290; authorities for, 290 n. Vancouver Island, 228, 278. _Vega_, the, 209 n., 295 n. Veniaminof, _Letters on Aleutians_ by, 295 n. Venta Cruz, Drake at, 141-145. Vera Cruz, Hawkins and Drake _vs_. the Spanish at, 135-138. Vérendrye. _See_ La Vérendrye. _Voyage to the Pacific Ocean_, Cook's, 209 n. W Walrus, the Pacific, 73; Cook's men hunt, 194-195. Waters, Abraham, 230. Waxel, Lieutenant, 20, 24-25, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35-36, 37-38, 41, 42, 57-58, 60. Williams, Orlando, cited, 4 n. Woodruff, mate in Gray's expedition, 214, 216. _World Encompassed, The_, by Francis Fletcher, 167 n.-171 n. Y Yakutat Bay, sea-otter in, 66, 79. Yakutsk, Bering's second expedition winters at, 15; fur traders' rendezvous near, 107, 259; Ledyard's arrival at, 259. Yelagin, Chirikoff's pilot, 52. Yendell, Samuel, 230. Yermac, Cossack robber, 294. Yukon, Russian traders on the, 314, 315. Z Zarate, Don Francisco de, quoted regarding Drake, 150 n. 
15685	----	provided by canadiana.org (http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/mtq?doc=34674) A CONTINUATION OF A VOYAGE TO NEW HOLLAND, ETC. IN THE YEAR 1699. Wherein are described, The Islands Timor, Roti and Anabao. A passage between the islands Timor and Anabao. Kupang and Laphao Bays. The islands Omba, Fetter, Banda and Bird. A description of the coast of New Guinea. The islands Pulo Sabuda, Cockle, King William's, Providence, Gerrit Denis, Anthony Cave's and St. John's. Also a new passage between New Guinea and New Britain. The islands Ceram, Bonao, Bouro, and several islands before unknown. The coast of Java, and Straits of Sunda. Author's arrival at Batavia, Cape of Good Hope, St. Helena, island of Ascension, etc. Their inhabitants, customs, trade, etc. Harbours, soil, birds, fish, etc. Trees, plants, fruits, etc. ... Illustrated with maps and draughts: also divers birds, fishes, etc. not found in this part of the world, engraven on eighteen copper plates. ... BY CAPTAIN WILLIAM DAMPIER. ... LONDON, Printed for James and John Knapton, at The Crown in St. Paul's Churchyard. 1729. ... CONTENTS. CHAPTER 1. The Author's departure from the coast of New Holland, with the reasons of it. Watersnakes. The Author's arrival at the island Timor. Search for fresh water on the south side of the island, in vain. Fault of the charts. The island Roti. A passage between the islands Timor and Anabao. Fault of the charts. A Dutch fort, called Concordia. Their suspicion of the Author. The island Anabao described. The Author's parley with the Governor of the Dutch fort. They, with great difficulty, obtain leave to water. Kupang Bay. Coasting along the north side of Timor. They find water and an anchoring-place. A description of a small island, seven leagues east from the watering-bay. Laphao Bay. How the Author was treated by the Portuguese there. Designs of making further searches upon and about the island. Port Sesial. Return to Babao in Kupang Bay. The Author's entertainment at the fort of Concordia. His stay seven weeks at Babao. CHAPTER 2. A particular description of the island Timor. Its coast. The island Anabao. Fault of the charts. The channel between Timor and Anabao. Kupang Bay. Fort Concordia. A particular description of the bay. The anchoring-place, called Babao. The Malayans here kill all the Europeans they can. Laphao, a Portuguese settlement, described. Port Ciccale. The hills, water, lowlands, soil, woods, metals, in the island Timor. Its trees. Cana-fistula-tree described. Wild figtrees described. Two new sorts of palmtrees described. The fruits of the island. The herbs. Its land animals. Fowls. The ringing-bird. Its fish. Cockle merchants and oysters. Cockles as big as a man's head. Its original natives described. The Portuguese and Dutch settlements. The Malayan language generally spoken here. L'Orantuca on the island Ende. The seasons, winds, and weather at Timor. CHAPTER 3. Departure from Timor. The islands Omba and Fetter. A burning island. Their missing the Turtle Isles. Banda Isles. Bird Island. They descry the coast of New Guinea. They anchor on the coast of New Guinea. A description of the place, and of a strange fowl found there. Great quantities of mackerel. A white island. They anchor at an island called by the inhabitants Pulo Sabuda. A description of it and its inhabitants and product. The Indians' manner of fishing there. Arrival at Mabo, the north-west cape of New Guinea. A description of it. Cockle Island. Cockles of seventy-eight pound weight. Pigeon Island. The wind hereabouts. An empty cockleshell weighing two hundred fifty-eight pound. King William's Island. A description of it. Plying on the coast of New Guinea. Fault of the charts. Providence Island. They cross the Line. A snake pursued by fish. Squally Island. The main of New Guinea. CHAPTER 4. The mainland of New Guinea. Its inhabitants. Slingers Bay. Small islands. Gerrit Dennis Isle described. Its inhabitants. Their proas. Anthony Cave's Island. Its inhabitants. Trees full of worms found in the sea. St. John's Island. The mainland of New Guinea. Its inhabitants. The coast described. Cape and Bay St. George. Cape Orford. Another bay. The inhabitants there. A large account of the author's attempts to trade with them. He names the place Port Montague. The country thereabouts described, and its produce. A burning island described. A new passage found. New Britain. Sir George Rook's Island. Long Island and Crown Island, discovered and described. Sir R. Rich's Island. A burning island. A strange spout. A conjecture concerning a new passage southward. King William's Island. Strange whirlpools. Distance between Cape Mabo and Cape St. George computed. CHAPTER 5. The Author's return from the coast of New Guinea. A deep channel. Strange tides. The island Ceram described. Strange fowls. The islands Bonao, Bouro, Misacombi, Pentare, Laubana, and Potoro. The passage between Pentare and Laubana. The island Timor. Babao Bay. The island Roti. More islands than are commonly laid down in the charts. Great currents. Whales. Coast of New Holland. The Trial Rocks. The coast of Java. Princes Isle. Straits of Sunda. Thwart-the-way Island. Indian proas, and their traffic. Passage through the Strait. Arrival at Batavia. CHAPTER 6. The Author continues in Batavia Road to refit, to get provisions. English ships then in the road. Departure from Batavia. Touch at the Cape of Good Hope. And at St. Helena. Arrival at the island of Ascension. A leak sprung. Which being impossible to be stopped, the ship is lost, but the men saved. They find water upon the island. And are brought back to England. MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. MAP. A VIEW OF THE COURSE OF CAPTAIN WILLIAM DAMPIER'S VOYAGE FROM TIMOR ROUND NEW BRITAIN ETC. TABLE 5. TIMOR. TABLE 6. TIMOR. TABLE 7. TIMOR AND OTHER ISLANDS BETWEEN IT AND NEW GUINEA. TABLE 8. NEW GUINEA. FISH, BAT AND BIRD OF NEW GUINEA: THIS FISH IS OF A PALE RED ALL PARTS OF IT EXCEPT THE EYE TAKEN ON THE COAST OF NEW GUINEA. STRANGE AND LARGE BATS ON THE ISLAND PULO SABUDA IN NEW GUINEA. THIS BIRD'S EYE IS OF A BRIGHT RED. TABLE 9. NEW GUINEA. TABLE 10. NEW GUINEA ETC. TABLE 11. SQUALLY AND OTHER ISLANDS ON THE COAST OF NEW BRITAIN. FISHES TAKEN ON THE COAST OF NEW GUINEA: THIS FISH FINS AND TAIL ARE BLUE ON THE EDGES AND RED IN THE MIDDLE WITH BLUE SPOTS ALL OVER THE BODY BUT THE BELLY WHITE. A PIKE-FISH CONGER ON THE COAST OF NEW GUINEA. THIS FISH IS A PALE RED WITH BLUE SPOTS ON THE BODY, THE LONG TAIL BLUE IN THE MIDDLE AND WHITE ON THE SIDE. A FISH. TABLE 12. NEW BRITAIN. FISHES TAKEN ON THE COAST OF NEW GUINEA: THIS FISH HIS FINS AND TAIL IS BLUE WITH BLUE SPOTS ALL OVER THE BODY. FOUR FISH AND A CRUSTACEAN. TABLE 13. DAMPIER'S PASSAGE AND ISLANDS ON THE COAST OF NEW GUINEA. TABLE 14. ISLANDS ON THE COAST OF NEW GUINEA. TABLE 15. GILOLO AND OTHER ISLANDS BETWEEN IT AND BOURO. BIRDS OF NEW GUINEA: THIS BIRD WAS TAKEN ON THE COAST OF NEW GUINEA. A STATELY LAND-FOWL ON THE COAST OF NEW GUINEA DESCRIBED. A STRANGE LAND-FOWL ON THE ISLAND CERAM. TABLE 16. BOURO AND OTHER ISLANDS BETWEEN IT AND AMBO. ... CHAPTER 1. NORTH FROM NEW HOLLAND FOR WATER. THE AUTHOR'S DEPARTURE FROM THE COAST OF NEW HOLLAND, WITH THE REASONS OF IT. I had spent about 5 weeks in ranging off and on the coast of New Holland, a length of about 300 leagues: and had put in at 3 several places to see what there might be thereabouts worth discovering; and at the same time to recruit my stock of fresh water and provisions for the further discoveries I purposed to attempt on the Terra Australis. This large and hitherto almost unknown tract of land is situated so very advantageously in the richest climates of the world, the torrid and temperate zones; having in it especially all the advantages of the torrid zone, as being known to reach from the equator itself (within a degree) to the Tropic of Capricorn, and beyond it; that in coasting round it, which I designed by this voyage, if possible, I could not but hope to meet with some fruitful lands, continent or islands, or both, productive of any of the rich fruits, drugs, or spices (perhaps minerals also, etc.) that are in the other parts of the torrid zone, under equal parallels of latitude; at least a soil and air capable of such, upon transplanting them hither, and cultivation. I meant also to make as diligent a survey as I could of the several smaller islands, shores, capes, bays, creeks, and harbours, fit as well for shelter as defence, upon fortifying them; and of the rocks and shoals, the soundings, tides, and currents, winds and weather, variation, etc., whatever might be beneficial for navigation, trade or settlement; or be of use to any who should prosecute the same designs hereafter; to whom it might be serviceable to have so much of their work done to their hands; which they might advance and perfect by their own repeated experiences. As there is no work of this kind brought to perfection at once I intended especially to observe what inhabitants I should meet with, and to try to win them over to somewhat of traffic and useful intercourse, as there might be commodities among any of them that might be fit for trade or manufacture, or any found in which they might be employed. Though as to the New Hollanders hereabouts, by the experience I had had of their neighbours formerly, I expected no great matters from them. With such views as these I set out at first from England; and would, according to the method I proposed formerly, have gone westward through the Magellanic Strait, or round Tierra del Fuego rather, that I might have begun my discoveries upon the eastern and least known side of the Terra Australis. But that way it was not possible for me to go by reason of the time of year in which I came out; for I must have been compassing the south of America in a very high latitude in the depth of the winter there. I was therefore necessitated to go eastward by the Cape of Good Hope; and when I should be past it it was requisite I should keep in a pretty high latitude, to avoid the general tradewinds that would be against me, and to have the benefit of the variable winds: by all which I was in a manner unavoidably determined to fall in first with those parts of New Holland I have hitherto been describing. For should it be asked why at my first making that shore I did not coast it to the southward, and that way try to get round to the east of New Holland and New Guinea; I confess I was not for spending my time more than was necessary in the higher latitudes; as knowing that the land there could not be so well worth the discovering as the parts that lay nearer the Line and more directly under the sun. Besides, at the time when I should come first on New Holland, which was early in the spring, I must, had I stood southward, have had for some time a great deal of winter weather, increasing in severity, though not in time, and in a place altogether unknown; which my men, who were heartless enough to the voyage at best, would never have borne after so long a run as from Brazil hither. For these reasons therefore I chose to coast along to the northward, and so to the east, and so thought to come round by the south of Terra Australis in my return back, which should be in the summer season there: and this passage back also I now thought I might possibly be able to shorten, should it appear, at my getting to the east coast of New Guinea, that there is a channel there coming out into these seas, as I now suspected, near Rosemary Island: unless the high tides and great indraught thereabout should be occasioned by the mouth of some large river; which has often low lands on each side of its outlet, and many islands and shoals lying at its entrance. But I rather thought it a channel or strait than a river: and I was afterwards confirmed in this opinion when, by coasting New Guinea, I found that other parts of this great tract of Terra Australis, which had hitherto been represented as the shore of a continent, were certainly islands; and it is probably the same with New Holland: though, for reasons I shall afterwards show, I could not return by the way I proposed to myself to fix the discovery. All that I had now seen from the latitude of 27 degrees south to 25, which is Shark's Bay; and again from thence to Rosemary Islands and about the latitude of 20; seems to be nothing but ranges of pretty large islands against the sea, whatever might be behind them to the eastward, whether sea or land, continent or islands. But to proceed with my voyage. Though the land I had seen as yet was not very inviting, being but barren towards the sea, and affording me neither fresh water nor any great store of other refreshments, nor so much as a fit place for careening; yet I stood out to sea again with thoughts of coasting still alongshore (as near as I could) to the north-eastward, for the further discovery of it: persuading myself that at least the place I anchored at in my voyage round the world, in the latitude of 16 degrees 15 minutes, from which I was not now far distant, would not fail to afford me sweet water upon digging, as it did then; for the brackish water I had taken in here, though it served tolerably well for boiling, was yet not very wholesome. With these intentions I put to sea on the 5th of September 1699, with a gentle gale, sounding all the way; but was quickly induced to alter my design. For I had not been out above a day but I found that the shoals among which I was engaged all the while on the coast, and was like to be engaged in, would make it a very tedious thing to sail along by the shore, or to put in where I might have occasion. I therefore edged farther off to sea, and so deepened the water from 11 to 32 fathom. The next day, being September the 6th, we could but just discern the land, though we had then no more than about 30 fathom, uncertain soundings; for even while we were out of sight of land we had once but 7 fathom, and had also great and uncertain tides whirling about, that made me afraid to go near a coast so shallow, where we might be soon aground and yet have but little wind to bring us off: for should a ship be near a shoal she might be hurled upon it unavoidably by a strong tide, unless there should be a good wind to work her and keep her off. Thus also on the 7th day we saw no land, though our water decreased again to 26 fathom; for we had deepened it, as I said, to 30. WATERSNAKES. This day we saw two water-snakes, different in shape from such as we had formerly seen. The one was very small, though long; the other long and as big as a man's leg, having a red head; which I never saw any have, before or since. We had this day latitude 16 degrees 9 minutes by observation. I was by this time got to the north of the place I had thought to have put in at where I dug wells in my former voyage; and though I knew, by the experience I had of it then, that there was a deep entrance in thither from the eastward; yet by the shoals I had hitherto found so far stretched on this coast, I was afraid I should have the same trouble to coast all along afterwards beyond that place: and besides the danger of running almost continually amongst shoals on a strange shore, and where the tides were strong and high; I began to bethink myself that a great part of my time must have been spent in being about a shore I was already almost weary of, which I might employ with greater satisfaction to my mind, and better hopes of success, in going forward to New Guinea. Add to this the particular danger I should have been in upon a lee shore, such as is here described, when the north-west monsoon should once come in; the ordinary season of which was not now far off, though this year it stayed beyond the common season; and it comes on storming at first, with tornadoes, violent gusts, etc. Wherefore quitting the thoughts of putting in again at New Holland, I resolved to steer away for the island Timor; where, besides getting fresh water, I might probably expect to be furnished with fruits and other refreshments to recruit my men, who began to droop; some of them being already to my great grief afflicted with the scurvy, which was likely to increase upon them and disable them, and was promoted by the brackish water they took in last for boiling their oatmeal. It was now also towards the latter end of the dry season; when I might not probably have found water so plentifully upon digging at that part of New Holland as when I was there before in the wet season. And then, considering the time also that I must necessarily spend in getting in to the shore through such shoals as I expected to meet with; or in going about to avoid them; and in digging of wells when I should come hither: I might very well hope to get to Timor and find fresh water there as soon as I could expect to get it at New Holland; and with less trouble and danger. On the 8th of September therefore, shaping our course for Timor, we were in latitude 15 degrees 37 minutes. We had 26 fathom coarse sand; and we saw one whale. We found them lying most commonly near the shore or in shoal water. This day we also saw some small white clouds; the first that we had seen since we came out of Shark's Bay. This was one sign of the approach of the north-north-west monsoon. Another sign was the shifting of the winds; for from the time of our coming to our last anchoring place, the seabreezes which before were easterly and very strong had been whiffling about and changing gradually from the east to the north, and thence to the west, blowing but faintly, and now hanging mostly in some point of the west. This day the winds were at south-west by west, blowing very faint; and the 9th day we had the wind at north-west by north, but then pretty fresh; and we saw the clouds rising more and thicker in the north-west. This night at 12 we lay by for a small low sandy island which I reckoned myself not far from. The next morning at sun-rising we saw it from the top-masthead, right ahead of us; and at noon were up within a mile of it: when by a good observation I found it to lie in 13 degrees 55 minutes. I have mentioned it in my first volume, but my account then made it to lie in 13 degrees 50 minutes. We had abundance of boobies and man-of-war-birds flying about us all the day; especially when we came near the island; which had also abundance of them upon it; though it was but a little spot of sand, scarce a mile round. I did not anchor here nor send my boat ashore; there being no appearance of getting anything on that spot of sand besides birds that were good for little: though had I not been in haste I would have taken some of them. So I made the best of my way to Timor; and on the 11th in the afternoon we saw 10 small land-birds, about the bigness of larks, that flew away north-west. The 13th we saw a great many sea-snakes. One of these, of which I saw great numbers and variety in this voyage, was large, and all black: I never saw such another for his colour. THE AUTHOR'S ARRIVAL AT THE ISLAND TIMOR. We had now for some days small gales from the south-south-west to the north-north-west, and the sky still more cloudy especially in the mornings and evenings. The 14th it looked very black in the north-west all the day; and a little before sunset we saw, to our great joy, the tops of the high mountains of Timor, peeping out of the clouds which had before covered them as they did still the lower parts. We were now running directly towards the middle of the island on the south side: but I was in some doubt whether I should run down alongshore on this south side towards the east end; or pass about the west end, and so range along on the north side, and go that way towards the east end: but as the winds were now westerly I thought it best to keep on the south side, till I should see how the weather would prove; for, as the island lies, if the westerly winds continued and grew tempestuous I should be under the lee of it and have smooth water, and so could go alongshore more safely and easily on this south side: I could sooner also run to the east end where there is the best shelter, as being still more under the lee of the island when those winds blow. Or if, on the other side, the winds should come about again to the eastward, I could but turn back again (as I did afterwards) and passing about the west end, could there prosecute my search on the north side of the island for water, or inhabitants, or a good harbour, or whatever might be useful to me. For both sides of the island were hitherto alike to me, being wholly unacquainted here; only as I had seen it at a distance in my former voyage. SEARCH FOR FRESH WATER ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE ISLAND, IN VAIN. I had heard also that there were both Dutch and Portuguese settlements on this island; but whereabouts I knew not: however I was resolved to search about till I found either one of these settlements, or water in some other place. It was now almost night and I did not care to run near the land in the dark, but clapped on a wind and stood off and on till the next morning, being September 15th, when I steered in for the island, which now appeared very plain, being high, double and treble land, very remarkable, on whatever side you view it. See a sight of it in 2 parts, Table 5 Number 1. At 3 in the afternoon we anchored in 14 fathom, soft black oasy ground, about a mile from the shore. See 2 sights more of the coast in Table 5 Numbers 2 and 3, and the island itself in the particular map; which I have here inserted to show the course of the voyage from hence to the eastward; as the general map shows the course of the whole voyage. But in making the particular map I chose to begin only with Timor, that I might not, by extending it too far, be forced to contract the scale too much among the islands, etc., of the New Guinea coast, which I chiefly designed it for. The land by the sea on this south side is low and sandy, and full of tall straight-bodied trees like pines, for about 200 yards inwards from the shore. Beyond that, further in towards the mountains, for a breadth of about 3 miles more or less, there is a tract of swampy mangrove land which runs all along between the sandy land of the shore on one side of it, and the feet of the mountains on the other. And this low mangrove land is overflown every tide of flood by the water that flows into it through several mouths or openings in the outer sandy skirt against the sea. We came to an anchor right against one of these openings; and presently I went in my boat to search for fresh water, or get speech of the natives; for we saw smokes, houses, and plantations against the sides of the mountains, not far from us. It was ebbing water before we got ashore, though the water was still high enough to float us in without any great trouble. After we were within the mouth we found a large salt-water lake which we hoped might bring us up through the mangroves to the fast land: but before we went further I went ashore on the sandy land by the seaside, and looked about me; but saw there no sign of fresh water. Within the sandy bank the water forms a large lake: going therefore into the boat again we rowed up the lake towards the firm land, where no doubt there was fresh water, could we come at it. We found many branches of the lake entering within the mangrove land but not beyond it. Of these we left some on the right hand and some on the left, still keeping in the biggest channel; with still grew smaller, and at last so narrow that we could go no farther, ending among the swamps and mangroves. We were then within a mile of some houses of the Indian inhabitants and the firm land by the sides of the hills: but the mangroves thus stopping our way, we returned as we came: but it was almost dark before we reached the mouth of the creek. It was with much ado that we got out of it again; for it was now low-water, and there went a rough short sea on the bar; which however we passed over without any damage and went aboard. The next morning at five we weighed and stood alongshore to the eastward, making use of the sea and land-breezes. We found the seabreezes here from the south-south-east to the south-south-west, the land-breezes from the north to the north-east. We coasted along about 20 leagues and found it all a straight, bold, even shore, without points, creeks or inlets for a ship: and there is no anchoring till within a mile or a mile and a half of the shore. We saw scarce any opening fit for our boats; and the fast land was still barricaded with mangroves; so that here was no hope to get water; nor was it likely that there should be hereabouts any European settlement, since there was no sign of a harbour. FAULT OF THE CHARTS. The land appeared pleasant enough to the eye: for the sides and tops of the mountains were clothed with woods mixed with savannahs; and there was a plantation of the Indian natives, where we saw the coconuts growing, and could have been glad to have come at some of them. In the chart I had with me a shoal was laid down hereabouts; but I saw nothing of it, going, or coming; and so have taken no notice of it in my map. Weary of running thus fruitlessly along the south side of the island to the eastward I resolved to return the way I came; and compassing the west end of the island, make a search along the north side of it. The rather, because the north-north-west monsoon, which I had designed to be sheltered from by coming the way I did, did not seem to be near at hand, as the ordinary season of them required; but on the contrary I found the winds returning again to the south-eastward; and the weather was fair, and seemed likely to hold so; and consequently the north-north-west monsoon was not like to come in yet. I considered therefore that by going to the north side of the island I should there have the smooth water, as being the lee side as the winds now were; and hoped to have better riding at anchor or landing on that side, than I could expect here, where the shore was so lined with mangroves. Accordingly the 18th about noon I altered my course and steered back again towards the south-west end of the island. This day we struck a dolphin; and the next day saw two more but struck none: we also saw a whale. THE ISLAND ROTI. In the evening we saw the island Roti, and another island to the south of it, not seen in my map; both lying near the south-west end of Timor. On both these islands we saw smokes by day, and fires by night, as we had seen on Timor ever since we fell in with it. I was told afterwards by the Portuguese that they had sugar-works on the island Roti; but I knew nothing of that now; and the coast appearing generally dry and barren, only here and there a spot of trees, I did not attempt anchoring there but stood over again to the Timor coast. A PASSAGE BETWEEN THE ISLANDS TIMOR AND ANABAO. FAULT OF THE CHARTS. September the 21st in the morning, being near Timor, I saw a pretty large opening which immediately I entered with my ship, sounding as I went in: but had no ground till I came within the east point of the mouth of the opening, where I anchored in 9 fathom, a league from the shore. The distance from the east side to the west side of this opening was about 5 leagues. But, whereas I thought this was only an inlet or large sound that ran a great way into the island Timor, I found afterwards that it was a passage between the west end of Timor and another small island called Anamabao or Anabao: into which mistake I was led by my sea-chart, which represented both sides of the opening as parts of the same coast, and called all of it Timor: see all this rectified, and a view of the whole passage as I found it, in a small map I have made of it. Table 6 Number 1. I designed to sail into this opening till I should come to firm land, for the shore was all set thick with mangroves here by the sea, on each side; which were very green, as were also other trees more within-land. We had now but little wind; therefore I sent my boat away, to sound and to let me know by signs what depth of water they met with, if under 8 fathom; but if more I ordered them to go on and make no signs. At 11 that morning, having a pretty fresh gale, I weighed and made sail after my boat; but edged over more to the west shore, because I saw many smaller openings there, and was in hopes to find a good harbour where I might secure the ship; for then I could with more safety send my boats to seek for fresh water. I had not sailed far before the wind came to the south-east and blew so strong that I could not with safety venture nearer that side, it being a lee shore. Besides, my boat was on the east side of the Timor coast; for the other was, as I found afterwards, the Anabao shore; and the great opening I was now in was the strait between that island and Timor; towards which I now tacked and stood over. Taking up my boat therefore I ran under the Timor side, and at 3 o'clock anchored in 29 fathom, half a mile from the shore. That part of the south-west point of Timor where we anchored in the morning bore now south by west, distance 3 leagues: and another point of the island bore north-north-east, distance 2 leagues. A DUTCH FORT, CALLED CONCORDIA. THEIR SUSPICION OF THE AUTHOR. Not long after, we saw a sloop coming about the point last mentioned, with Dutch colours; which I found, upon sending my boat aboard, belonged to a Dutch fort (the only one they have in Timor) about 5 leagues from hence, called Concordia. The governor of the fort was in the sloop, and about 40 soldiers with him. He appeared to be somewhat surprised at our coming this way; which it seems is a passage scarce known to any but themselves; as he told the men I sent to him in my boat. Neither did he seem willing that we should come near their fort for water. He said also that he did not know of any water on all that part of the island, but only at the fort; and that the natives would kill us if they met us ashore. By the small arms my men carried with them in the boat they took us to be pirates, and would not easily believe the account my men gave them of what we were and whence we came. They said that about 2 years before this there had been a stout ship of French pirates here; and that after having been suffered to water, and to refresh themselves, and been kindly used, they had on a sudden gone among the Indians, subjects of the fort, and plundered them and burnt their houses. And the Portuguese here told us afterwards that those pirates, whom they also had entertained, had burnt their houses and had taken the Dutch fort (though the Dutch cared not to own so much) and had driven the governor and factory among the wild Indians their enemies. The Dutch told my men further that they could not but think we had of several nations (as is usual with pirate vessels) in our ship and particularly some Dutchmen, though all the discourse was in French (for I had not one who could speak Dutch) or else, since the common charts make no passage between Timor and Anabao, but lay down both as one island; they said they suspected we had plundered some Dutch ship of their particular charts, which they are forbid to part with. With these jealousies the sloop returned towards their fort, and my boat came back with this news to me: but I was not discouraged at this news; not doubting but I should persuade them better when I should come to talk with them. So the next morning I weighed and stood towards the fort. The winds were somewhat against us so that we could not go very fast, being obliged to tack 2 or 3 times: and, coming near the farther end of the passage between Timor and Anabao, we saw many houses on each side not far from the sea, and several boats lying by the shore. The land on both sides was pretty high, appearing very dry and of a reddish colour, but highest on the Timor side. The trees on either side were but small, the woods thin, and in many places the trees were dry and withered. THE ISLAND ANABAO DESCRIBED. The island Anamabao, or Anabao, is not very big, not exceeding 10 leagues in length and 4 in breadth; yet it has 2 kingdoms in it, namely that of Anamabao on the east side towards Timor and the north-east end; and that of Anabao, which contains the south-west end and the west side of the island; but I known not which of them is biggest. The natives of both are of the Indian kind, of a swarthy copper-colour, with black lank hair. Those of Anamabao are in league with the Dutch, as these afterwards told me, and with the natives of the kingdom of Kupang in Timor, over against them, in which the Dutch fort Concordia stands: but they are said to be inveterate enemies to their neighbours of Anabao. Those of Anabao, besides managing their small plantations of roots and a few coconuts, do fish, strike turtle, and hunt buffaloes, killing them with swords, darts, or lances. But I know not how they get their iron; I suppose by traffic with the Dutch or Portuguese, who send now and then a sloop and trade thither, but well armed; for the natives would kill them, could they surprise them. They go always armed themselves; and when they go a-fishing or a-hunting they spend 4 or 5 days or more in ranging about before they return to their habitation. We often saw them after this at these employments; but they would not come near us. The fish or flesh that they take, besides what serves for present spending, they dry on a barbecue or wooden grate, standing pretty high over the fire, and so carry it home when they return. We came sometimes afterwards to the places where they had meat thus a-drying, but did not touch any of it. But to proceed: I did not think to stop anywhere till I came near the fort; which yet I did not see: but, coming to the end of this passage, I found that if I went any farther I should be open again to the sea. I therefore stood in close to the shore on the east side, and anchored in 4 fathom water, sandy ground; a point of land still hindering me from seeing the fort. But I sent my boat to look about for it; and in a short time she returned, and my men told me they saw the fort, but did not go near it; and that it was not above 4 or 5 miles from hence. It being now late I would not send my boat thither till the next morning: meanwhile about 2 or 300 Indians, neighbours of the fort, and sent probably from thence, came to the sandy bay just against the ship; where they stayed all night, and made good fires. They were armed with lances, swords and targets, and made a great noise all the night: we thought it was to scare us from landing, should we attempt it: but we took little notice of them. THE AUTHOR'S PARLEY WITH THE GOVERNOR OF THE DUTCH FORT. THEY, WITH GREAT DIFFICULTY, OBTAIN LEAVE TO WATER. The next morning, being September the 23rd, I sent my clerk ashore in my pinnace to the governor to satisfy him that we were Englishmen: and in the King's ship, and to ask water of him; sending a young man with him who spoke French. My clerk was with the governor pretty early; and in answer to his queries about me, and my business in these parts, told him that I had the King of England's commission, and desired to speak with him. He beckoned to my clerk to come ashore; but as soon as he saw some small arms in the stern-sheets of the boat he commanded him into the boat again, and would have him be gone. My clerk solicited him that he would allow him to speak with him; and at last the governor consented that he should come ashore, and sent his lieutenant and 3 merchants with a guard of about a hundred of the native Indians to receive him. My clerk said that we were in much want of water, and hoped they would allow us to come to their watering-place and fill. But the governor replied that he had orders not to supply any ships but their own East India Company; neither must they allow any Europeans to come the way that we came; and wondered how we durst come near their fort. My clerk answered him that, had we been enemies, we must have come ashore among them for water: but, said the governor, you are come to inspect into our trade and strength; and I will have you therefore be gone with all speed. My clerk answered him that I had no such design but, without coming nearer them, would be contented if the governor would send water on board where we lay, about 2 leagues from the fort; and that I would make any reasonable satisfaction for it. The governor said that we should have what water we wanted, provided we came no nearer with the ship: and ordered that as soon as we pleased we should send our boat full of empty casks, and come to an anchor with it off the fort, till he sent slaves to bring the casks ashore and fill them; for that none of our men must come ashore. The same afternoon I sent up my boat as he had directed with an officer and a present of some beer for the governor; which he would not accept of, but sent me off about a ton of water. On the 24th in the morning I sent the same officer again in my boat; and about noon the boat returned again with the two principal merchants of the factory and the lieutenant of the fort; for whose security they had kept my officer and one of my boat's crew as hostages, confining them to the governor's garden all the time: for they were very shy of trusting any of them to go into their fort, as my officer said: yet afterwards they were not shy of our company; and I found that my officer maliciously endeavoured to make them shy of me. In the evening I gave the Dutch officers that came aboard the best entertainment I could; and, bestowing some presents on them, sent them back very well pleased; and my officer and the other man were returned to me. Next morning I sent my boat ashore again with the same officer; who brought me word from the governor that we must pay 4 Spanish dollars for every boat-load of water: but in this he spoke falsely, as I understood afterwards from the governor himself and all his officers, who protested to me that no such price was demanded, but left me to give the slaves what I pleased for their labour: the governor being already better satisfied about me than when my clerk spoke to him, or than that officer I sent last would have caused him to be: for the governor being a civil, genteel, and sensible man, was offended at the officer for his being so industrious to misrepresent me. I received from the governor a little lamb, very fat; and I sent him 2 of the guinea-hens that I brought from St. Jago, of which there were none here. I had now 11 buts of water on board, having taken in 7 here, which I would have paid for but that at present I was afraid to send my boat ashore again; for my officer told me, among other of his inventions, that there were more guns mounted in the fort than when we first came; and that he did not see the gentlemen that were aboard the day before; intimating as if they were shy of us; and that the governor was very rough with him; and I, not knowing to the contrary at present, consulted with my other officers what was best to be done; for by this the governor should seem to design to quarrel with us. All my other officers thought it natural to infer so much, and that it was not safe to send the boat ashore any more, lest it should be seized on; but that it was best to go away and seek more water where we could find it. For having now (as I said) 11 buts aboard; and the land being promising this way, I did not doubt finding water in a short time. But my officer who occasioned these fears in us by his own forgeries was himself for going no further; having a mind, as far as I could perceive, to make everything in the voyage, to which he showed himself averse, seem as cross and discouraging to my men as possible, that he might hasten our return; being very negligent and backward in most businesses I had occasion to employ him in; doing nothing well or willingly, though I did all I could to win him to it. He was also industrious to stir up the seamen to mutiny; telling them, among other things, that any Dutch ship might lawfully take us in these seas; but I knew better, and avoided everything that could give just offence. KUPANG BAY. The rest of my officers therefore being resolved to go from hence, and having bought some fish of some Anamabeans who, seeing our ship, came purposely to sell some, passing to and fro every day, I sailed away on the 26th about 5 in the afternoon. We passed along between a small low sandy island (over against the fort) full of bays and pretty high trees; sounding as we went along, and had from 25 to 35 fathom, oasy ground. See the little map of this passage Table 6 Number 1. The 27th in the morning we anchored in the middle of the bay, called Kupang Bay, in 12 fathom, soft oaze, about 4 leagues above the Dutch fort. Their sloop was riding by the fort, and in the night fired a gun; but for what reason I know not, and the governor said afterwards it was the skipper's own doing, without his order. Presently after we had anchored I went in the pinnace to search about the bay for water but found none. Then, returning aboard, I weighed, and ran down to the north entrance of the bay, and at 7 in the evening anchored again in 37 fathom, soft oaze, close by the sandy island, and about 4 leagues from the Dutch fort. The 28th I sent both my boats ashore on the sandy island to cut wood; and by noon they both came back laden. In the afternoon I sent my pinnace ashore on the north coast or point of Kupang Bay, which is called Babao. Late in the night they returned, and told me that they saw great tracks of buffaloes there, but none of the buffaloes themselves; neither did they find any fresh water. They also saw some green-turtle in the sea and one alligator. COASTING ALONG THE NORTH SIDE OF TIMOR. The 29th I went out of Kupang Bay, designing to coast it alongshore on the north side of Timor to the eastward; as well to seek for water, as also to acquaint myself with the island, and to search for the Portuguese settlements; which we were informed were about forty leagues to the eastward of this place. We coasted alongshore with land and seabreezes. The land by the shore was of a moderate height, with high and very remarkable hills farther within the country; their sides all spotted with woods and savannahs. But these on the mountains' sides appeared of a rusty colour, not so pleasant and flourishing as those that we saw on the south side of the island; for the trees seemed to be small and withering; and the grass in the savannahs also looked dry, as if it wanted moisture. But in the valleys, and by the sea side, the trees looked here also more green. Yet we saw no good anchoring-place, or opening, that gave us any encouragement to put in; till the 30th day in the afternoon. We were then running alongshore, at about 4 leagues distance, with a moderate seabreeze; when we opened a pretty deep bay which appeared to be a good road to anchor in. There were two large valleys and one smaller one which, descending from the mountains, came all into one valley by the seaside against this bay, which was full of tall green trees. I presently stood in with the ship till within two leagues of the shore; and then sent in my pinnace, commanded by my chief mate, whose great care, fidelity, and diligence I was well assured of; ordering him to seek for fresh water; and if he found any to sound the bay and bring me word what anchoring there was, and to make haste aboard. As soon as they were gone I stood off a little and lay by. The day was now far spent; and therefore it was late before they got ashore with the boat; so that they did not come aboard again that night. Which I was much concerned at; because in the evening, when the seabreeze was done and the weather calm, I perceived the ship to drive back again to the westward. I was not yet acquainted with the tides here; for I had hitherto met with no strong tides about the island, and scarce any running in a stream, to set me alongshore either way. But after this time I had pretty much of them; and found at present the flood set to the eastward, and the ebb to the westward. The ebb (with which I was now carried) sets very strong and runs 8 or 9 hours. The flood runs but weak, and at most lasts not above 4 hours; and this too is perceived only near the shore; where, checking the ebb, it swells the seas and makes the water rise in the bays and rivers 8 or 9 foot. I was afterwards credibly informed by some Portuguese that the current runs always to the westward in the mid-channel between this island and those that face it in a range to the north of it, namely Misicomba (or Omba) Pintare, Laubana, Ende, etc. THEY FIND WATER AND AN ANCHORING-PLACE. We were driven 4 leagues back again, and took particular notice of a point of land that looked like Flamborough Head, when we were either to the east or west of it; and near the shore it appeared like an island. Four or five leagues to the east of this point is another very remarkable bluff point which is on the west side of the bay that my boat was in. See two sights of this land, Table 6 Numbers 2 and 3. We could not stem the tide till about 3 o'clock in the afternoon; when, the tide running with us, we soon got abreast of the bay, and then saw a small island to the eastward of us. See a sight of it Table 6 Number 4. About 6 we anchored in the bottom of the bay in 25 fathom, soft oaze, half a mile from the shore. I made many false fires in the night, and now and then fired a gun that my boat might find me; but to no purpose. In the morning I found myself driven again by the tide of ebb 3 or 4 leagues to the westward of the place where I left my boat. I had several men looking out for her; but could not get sight of her: besides I continued still driving to the westward; for we had but little wind, and that against us. But by 10 o'clock in the morning we had the comfort of seeing the boat; and at 11 she came aboard, bringing 2 barrecoes of very good water. A DESCRIPTION OF A SMALL ISLAND, SEVEN LEAGUES EAST FROM THE WATERING BAY. The mate told me there was good anchoring close by the watering-place; but that there ran a very strong tide, which near the shore made several races, so that they found much danger in getting ashore, and were afraid to come off again in the night because of the ripplings the tide made. We had now the seabreeze, and steered away for this bay; but could hardly stem the tide till about 3 in the afternoon; when, the tide being turned with us, we went along briskly, and about 6 anchored in the bay, in 25 fathom, soft oaze, half a mile from the shore. The next morning I went ashore to fill water, and before night sent aboard 8 tons. We filled it out of a large pond within 50 paces of the sea. It looked pale but was very good, and boiled peas well. I saw the track of an alligator here. Not far from the pond we found the rudder of a Malayan proa, 3 great jars in a small shed set up against a tree, and a barbecue whereon there had been fish and flesh of buffaloes dressed, the bones lying but a little from it. In 3 days we filled about twenty-six tun of water, and then had on board about 30 tun in all. The 2 following days we spent in fishing with the seine, and the first morning caught as many as served all my ship's company: but afterwards we had not so good success. The rest of my men which could be spared from the ship I sent out; some with the carpenter's mate to cut timber for my boats, etc. These went always guarded with 3 or 4 armed men to secure them: I showed them what wood was fitting to cut for our use, especially the calabash and maho; I showed them always the manner of stripping the maho-bark, and of making therewith thread, twine, ropes, etc. Others were sent out a-fowling; who brought home pigeons, parrots, cockatoos, etc. I was always with one party or other myself; especially with the carpenters, to hasten them to get what they could, that we might be gone from hence. Our water being full, I sailed from hence October the 6th about 4 in the afternoon, designing to coast alongshore to the eastward, till I came to the Portuguese settlements. By the next morning we were driven 3 or 4 leagues to the west of the bay; but in the afternoon, having a faint seabreeze, we got again abreast of it. It was the 11th day at noon before we got as far as the small island before mentioned, which lies about 7 leagues to the east of the watering-bay: for what we gained in the afternoon by the benefit of the seabreezes we lost again in the evenings and mornings, while it was calm, in the interval of the breezes. But this day, the seabreeze blowing fresher than ordinary, we passed by the island and run before night about 7 leagues to the east of it. This island is not half a mile long, and not above 100 yards in breadth, and looked just like a barn when we were by it: it is pretty high, and may be seen from a ship's topmast-head about 10 leagues. The top, and part of the sides, are covered with trees, and it is about 3 leagues from Timor; it is about midway between the watering-place and the Portuguese first and main settlement by the shore. LAPHAO BAY. HOW THE AUTHOR WAS TREATED BY THE PORTUGUESE THERE. In the night we were again driven back toward the island, 3 leagues: but the 12th day, having a pretty brisk seabreeze, we coasted alongshore; and, seeing a great many houses by the sea, I stood in with my ship till I was within 2 miles of them, and then sent in my boat and lay by till it returned. I sent an officer to command the boat; and a Portuguese seaman, that I brought from Brazil, to speak with the men that we saw on the bay; there being a great many of them, both foot and horse. I could not tell what officer there might be amongst them; but I ordered my officer to tell the chief of them that we were English, and came hither for refreshment. As soon as the boat came ashore and the inhabitants were informed who we were they were very glad, and sent me word that I was welcome, and should have anything that the island afforded; and that I must run a little farther about a small point, where I should see more houses; and that the men would stand on the bay, right against the place where I must anchor. With this news the boat immediately returned; adding withal that the governor lived about 7 miles up in the country; and that the chief person here was a lieutenant, who desired me, as soon as the ship was at anchor, to send ashore one of my officers to go to the governor and certify him of our arrival. I presently made sail towards the anchoring-place, and at 5 o'clock anchored in Laphao Bay in 20 fathom, soft oaze, over against the town. A description of which, and of the Portuguese settlement there, shall be given in the following chapter. As soon as I came to anchor I sent my boat ashore with my second mate, to go to the governor. The lieutenant that lived here had provided horses and guides for him, and sent 4 soldiers with him for his guard, and, while he was absent, treated my men with arack at his own house, where he and some others of the townsmen showed them many broad thin pieces of gold; telling them that they had plenty of that metal and would willingly traffic with them for any sort of European commodities. About 11 o'clock my mate returned on board and told me he had been in the country, and was kindly received by the gentleman he went to wait upon; who said we were welcome, and should have anything the island afforded; and that he was not himself the governor, but only a deputy. He asked why we did not salute their fort when we anchored; my mate answered that we saw no colours flying, and therefore did not know there was any fort till he came ashore and saw the guns; and if we had known that there was a fort yet that we could not have given any salute till we knew that they would answer it with the like number of guns. The deputy said it was very well; and that he had but little powder; and therefore would gladly buy some of us, if we had any to spare; which my mate told him we had not. The 13th the deputy sent me aboard a present of 2 young buffaloes, 6 goats, 4 kids, 140 coconuts, 300 ripe mangoes, and 6 ripe jacks. This was all very acceptable; and all the time we lay here we had fresh provision, and plenty of fruits; so that those of my men that were sick of the scurvy soon recovered and grew lusty. I stayed here till the 22nd, went ashore several times, and once purposely to see the deputy, who came out of the country also on purpose to see and talk with me. And then indeed there were guns fired for salutes, both aboard my ship and at the fort. Our interview was in a small church which was filled with the better sort of people; her poorer sort thronging on the outside, and looking in upon us: for the church had no wall but at the east end; the sides and the west end being open, saving only that it had boards about 3 or 4 foot high from the ground. I saw but 2 white men among them all; one was a padre that came along with the lieutenant; the other was an inhabitant of the town. The rest were all copper-coloured, with black lank hair. I stayed there about 2 hours, and we spoke to each other by an interpreter. I asked particularly about the seasons of the year, and when they expected the north-north-west monsoon. The deputy told me that they expected the wind to shift every moment; and that some years the north-north-west monsoon set in in September, but never failed to come in October; and for that reason desired me to make what haste I could from hence; for it was impossible to ride here when those winds came. DESIGNS OF MAKING FURTHER SEARCHES UPON AND ABOUT THE ISLAND. PORT SESIAL. I asked him if there was no harbour hereabouts where I might be secured from the fury of these winds at their first coming. He told me that the best harbour in the island was at a place called Babao on the north side of Kupang Bay; that there were no inhabitants there, but plenty of buffaloes in the woods, and abundance of fish in the sea; that there was also fresh water: that there was another place, called port Sesial, about 20 leagues to the eastward of Laphao; that there was a river of fresh water there, and plenty of fish, but no inhabitants: yet that if I would go thither he would send people with hogs, goats and buffaloes, to truck with me for such commodities as I had to dispose of. I was afterwards told that on the east end of the island Ende there was also a very good harbour, and a Portuguese town; that there was great plenty of refreshments for my men, and dammer for my ship; that the governor or chief of that place was called Captain More; that he was a very courteous gentleman, and would be very glad to entertain an English ship there; and if I designed to go thither, I might have pilots here that would be willing to carry me, if I could get the lieutenant's consent. That it was dangerous going thither without a pilot, by reason of the violent tides that run between the islands Ende and Solor. I was told also that at the island Solor there were a great many Dutchmen banished from other places for certain crimes. I was willing enough to go thither, as well to secure my ship in a good harbour, where I might careen her (there being dammer also, which I could not get here, to make use of instead of pitch, which I now wanted) and where I might still be refreshing my men and supporting them in order to my further discoveries; as also to inform myself more particularly concerning these places as yet so little known to us. Accordingly I accepted the offer of a pilot and two gentlemen of the town, to go with me to Larentuca on the island Ende: and they were to come on board my ship the night before I sailed. But I was hindered of this design by some of my officers who had here also been very busy in doing me all the injury they could underhand. But to proceed. While I stayed here I went ashore every day and my men took there turns to go ashore and traffic for what they had occasion for; and were now all very well again: and to keep themselves in heart every man bought some rice, more or less, to recruit them after our former fatigues. Besides, I ordered the purser to buy some for them, to serve them instead of peas which were now almost spent. I filled up my water-casks again here, and cut more wood; and sent a present to the lieutenant, Alexis Mendosa, designing to be gone; for while I lay here we had some tornadoes and rain, and the sky in the north-west looked very black mornings and evenings, with lightning all night from that quarter, which made me very uneasy and desirous to depart hence; because this road lay exposed to the north-north-west and north winds, which were now daily expected and which are commonly so violent that it is impossible for any ship to ride them out: yet on the other hand it was absolutely necessary for me to spend about 2 months time longer in some place hereabouts before I could prosecute my voyage farther to the eastward; for reasons which I shall give hereafter in its proper place in the ensuing discourse. When therefore I sent the present to the governor I desired to have a pilot to Larentuca on the island Ende; where I desired to spend the time I had to spare. He now sent me word that he could not well do it, but would send me a letter to Port Sesial for the natives, who would come to me there and supply me with what provision they had. I stayed 3 days in hopes yet to get a pilot for Larentuca, or at least the letter from the governor to Port Sesial. But seeing neither I sailed from hence the 22nd of October, coasting to the eastward, designing for Sesial; and before night was about 10 leagues to the east of Laphao. I kept about 3 leagues offshore and my boat ranged along close by the shore, looking into every bay and cove; and at night returned on board. The next morning, being 3 or 4 leagues farther to the eastward, I sent my boat ashore again to find Sesial. At noon they returned and told me they had been at Sesial, as they guessed; that there were two Portuguese barks in the port who threatened to fire at them but did not; telling them this was Porto del Roy de Portugal. They saw also another bark which ran and anchored close by the shore, and the men ran all away for fear: but our men calling to them in Portuguese, they at last came to them, and told them that Sesial was the place which they came from, where the 2 barks lay: had not these men told them they could not have known it to be a port, it being only a little bad cove, lying open to the north; having 2 ledges of rocks at its entrance, one on each side; and a channel between, which was so narrow that it would not be safe for us to go in. However I stood in with the ship, to be better satisfied; and when I came near it found it answer my men's description. I lay by a while to consider what I had best do; for my design was to lie in a place where I might get fresh provisions if I could: for, though my men were again pretty well recruited, and those that had been sick of the scurvy were well again, yet I designed if possible to refresh them as much and as long as I could before I went farther. Besides my ship wanted cleaning; and I was resolved to clean her if possible. RETURN TO BABAO IN KUPANG BAY. At last after much consideration I thought it safer to go away again for Babao; and accordingly stood to the westward. We were now about 60 leagues to the east of Babao. The coast is bold all the way, having no shoals, and but one island which I saw and described coming to the eastward. The land in the country is very mountainous; but there are some large valleys towards the east end. Both the mountains and valleys on this side are barren; some wholly so; and none of them appear so pleasant as the place where I watered. It was the 23rd day in the evening when I stood back again for Babao. We had but small sea and land-breezes. On the 27th we came into Kupang Bay; and the next day, having sounded Babao road, I ran in and came to an anchor there, in 20 fathom, soft oaze, 3 mile from the shore. One reason, as I said before, of my coming hither, was to ride secure and to clean my ship's bottom; as also to endeavour by fishing and hunting of buffaloes to refresh my men and save my salt provision. It was like to be some time before I could clean my ship because I wanted a great many necessaries, especially a vessel to careen by. I had a long-boat in a frame that I brought out of England, by which I might have made a shift to do it; but my carpenter was uncapable to set her up. Besides, by the time the ship's sides were caulked, my pitch was almost spent; which was all owing to the carpenter's wilful waste and ignorance; so that I had nothing to lay on upon the ship's bottom. But instead of this I intended to make lime here, which with oil would have made a good coat for her. Indeed had it been advisable I would have gone in between Cross Island and Timor, and have hauled my ship ashore; for there was a very convenient place to do it in; but, my ship being sharp, I did not dare to do it: besides, I must have taken everything out of her; and I had neither boats to get my things ashore nor hands to look after them when they were there; for my men would have been all employed; and, though here are no Indians living near, yet they come hither in companies when ships are here, on purpose to do any mischief they can to them; and it was not above 2 years since a Portuguese ship riding here, and sending her boat for water to one of the galleys, the men were all killed by the Indians. But to secure my men I never suffered them to go ashore unarmed; and while some were at work others stood to guard them. We lay in this place from October the 28th till December the 12th. In which time we made very good lime with shells, of which here are plenty. We cut palmetto leaves to burn the ship's sides; and, giving her as good a heel as we could, we burned her sides and paid them with lime and water for want of oil to mix with it. This stuck on about 2 months where it was well burned. We did not want fresh provisions all the time we lay here, either of fish or flesh. For there were fair sandy bays on the point of Babao, where in 2 or 3 hours in a morning we used with our seine to drag ashore as much fish as we could eat all the day; and for a change of diet when we were weary of fish I sent 10 or 11 men a-hunting for buffaloes; who never came empty home. They went ashore in the evening or early in the morning, and before noon always returned with their burdens of buffalo, enough to suffice us 2 days; by which time we began to long for fish again. THE AUTHOR'S ENTERTAINMENT AT THE FORT OF CONCORDIA. On the 11th of November the governor of Concordia sent one of his officers to us to know who we were. For I had not sent thither since I came to anchor last here. When the officer came aboard he asked me why we fired so many guns the 4th and 5th days (which we had done in honour of King William and in memory of the deliverance from the powder plot) I told him the occasion of it; and he replied that they were in some fear at the fort that we had been Portuguese, and that we were coming with soldiers to take their fort; he asked me also why I did not stay and fill my water at their fort before I went away from thence? I told him the reason of it and withal offered him money; bidding him take what he thought reasonable: he took none and said he was sorry there had been such a misunderstanding between us; and knew that the governor would be much concerned at it. After a short stay he went ashore; and the next morning came aboard again, and told me the governor desired me to come ashore to the fort and dine with him; and if I doubted anything he would stay aboard till I returned. I told him I had no reason to mistrust anything against me, and would go ashore with him; so I took my clerk and my gunner and went ashore in my pinnace: the gunner spoke very good French, and therefore I took him to be my interpreter because the governor speaks French: he was an honest man, and I found him always diligent and obedient. It was pretty late in the afternoon before we came ashore; so that we had but little time with the governor. He seemed to be much dissatisfied at the report my officer had made to me (of which I have before given an account) and said it was false, neither would he now take any money of me; but told me I was welcome; as indeed I found by what he provided. For there was plenty of very good victuals, and well dressed; and the linen was white and clean; and all the dishes and plates of silver or fine china. I did not meet anywhere with a better entertainment while I was abroad; nor with so much decency and order. Our liquor was wine, beer, toddy, or water, which we liked best after dinner. He showed me some drawers full of shells which were the strangest and most curious that I had ever seen. He told me before I went away that he could not supply me with any naval stores, but if I wanted any fresh provision he would supply me with what I had occasion for. I thanked him and told him I would send my boat for some goats and hogs, though afterwards on second thoughts I did not do it: for it was a great way from the place where we lay to the fort; and I could not tell what mischief might befall any of my men when there from the natives; especially if encouraged by the Dutch, who are enemies to all Europeans but such as are under their own government. Therefore I chose rather to fish and hunt for provisions than to be beholden to the Dutch and pay dearly for it too. HIS STAY SEVEN WEEKS AT BABAO. We found here, as I said before, plenty of game; so that all the time we lay at this place we spent none or very little of our salt provisions; having fish or fresh buffalo every day. We lay here 7 weeks; and, although the north-north-west monsoon was every day expected when I was at Laphao, yet it was not come, so that if I had prosecuted my voyage to the eastward without staying here it had been but to little advantage. For if I had gone out and beaten against the wind a whole month I should not have got far; it may be 40, 50 or 60 leagues; which was but 24 hours run for us with a large wind; besides the trouble and discontent which might have arisen among my men in beating to windward to so little purpose, there being nothing to be got at sea; but here we lived and did eat plentifully every day without trouble. The greatest inconveniency of this place was want of water; this being the latter part of the dry season, because the monsoon was very late this year. About 4 days before we came away we had tornadoes with thunder, lightning and rain, and much wind; but of no long continuance; at which time we filled some water. We saw very black clouds, and heard it thunder every day for near a month before in the mountains; and saw it rain, but none came near us: and even where we hunted we saw great trees torn up by the roots, and great havoc made among the woods by the wind; yet none touched us. CHAPTER 2. A DESCRIPTION OF TIMOR. A PARTICULAR DESCRIPTION OF THE ISLAND TIMOR. The island Timor, as I have said in my Voyage round the World, is about seventy leagues long and fourteen or sixteen broad. It lies nearly north-east and south-west. The middle of it lies in about 9 degrees south latitude. It has no navigable rivers nor many harbours; but abundance of bays for ships to ride in at some seasons of the year. The shore is very bold, free from rocks, shoals or islands, excepting a few which are visible and therefore easily avoided. On the south side there is a shoal laid down in our charts about thirty leagues from the south-west end; I was fifteen or twenty leagues further to the east than that distance, but saw nothing of the shoal; neither could I find any harbour. It is a pretty even shore, with sandy bays and low land for about three or four miles up; and then it is mountainous. There is no anchoring but with half a league or a league at farthest from the shore; and the low land that bounds the sea has nothing but red mangroves, even from the foot of the mountains till you come within a hundred and fifty or two hundred paces of the sea; and then you have sandbanks clothed with a sort of pine; so that there is no getting water on this side because of the mangroves. THE ISLAND ANABAO. FAULT OF THE CHARTS. THE CHANNEL BETWEEN TIMOR AND ANABAO. At the south-west end of Timor is a pretty high island called Anabao. It is about ten or twelve leagues long and about four broad; near which the Dutch are settled. It lies so near Timor that it is laid down in our charts as part of that island; yet we found a narrow deep channel fit for any ships to pass between them. This channel is about ten leagues long and in some places not above a league wide. It runs north-east and south-west, so deep that there is no anchoring but very nigh the shore. There is but little tide; the flood setting north and the ebb to the southward. At the north-east end of this channel are two points of land not above a league asunder; one on the south side upon Timor, called Kupang; the other on the north side, upon the island Anabao. From this last point the land trends away northerly two or three leagues, opens to the sea, and then bends in again to the westward. KUPANG BAY. FORT CONCORDIA. Being past these points you open a bay of about eight leagues long and four wide. This bay trends in on the south side north-east by east from the south point before mentioned; making many small points or little coves. About a league to the east of the said south point the Dutch have a small stone fort, situated on a firm rock close by the sea: this fort they call Concordia. On the east side of the fort there is a small river of fresh water which has a broad boarded bridge over it, near to the entry into the fort. Beyond this river is a small sandy bay where the boats and barks land and convey their traffic in or out of the fort. About a hundred yards from the seaside, and as many from the fort, and forty yards from the bridge on the east side, the Company have a fine garden, surrounded with a good stone wall; in it is plenty of all sorts of salads, cabbages, roots for the kitchen; in some parts of it are fruit-trees, as jacas, pumplenose, oranges, sweet lemons, etc. And by the walls are coconut and toddy-trees in great plenty. Besides these they have musk and watermelons, pineapples, pomecitrons, pomegranates, and other sorts of fruits. Between this garden and the river there is a pen for black cattle, whereof they have plenty. Beyond the Company's ground the natives have their houses, in number about fifty or sixty. There are forty or fifty soldiers belonging to this fort, but I know not how many guns they have; for I had only opportunity to see one bastion, which had in it four guns. Within the walls there is a neat little church or chapel. A PARTICULAR DESCRIPTION OF THE BAY. Beyond Concordia the land runs about seven leagues to the bottom of the bay; then it is not above a league and a half from side to side, and the land trends away northerly to the north shore, then turns about again to the westward, making the south side of the bay. About three leagues and a half from the bottom of the bay on this side there is a small island about a musket-shot from the shore; and a reef of rocks that runs from it to the eastward about a mile. On the west side of the island is a channel of three fathom at low-water, of which depth it is also within, where ships may haul in and careen. West from this island the land rounds away in a bight or elbow, and at last ends in a low point of land which shoots forth a ledge of rocks a mile into the sea, which is dry at low water. Just against the low point of land and to the west of the ledge of rocks is another pretty high and rocky yet woody island, about half a mile from the low point; which island has a ledge of corally rocks running from it all along to the other small island, only leaving one channel between them. Many of these rocks are to be seen at low-water, and there seldom is water enough for a boat to go over them till quarter flood or more. Within this ledge there is two or three fathom water, and without it no less than ten or twelve fathom close to the rocks. A league without this last rocky island is another small low sandy island, about four miles from the low point, three leagues from the Dutch fort Concordia and three leagues and a half from the south-west point of the bay. Ships that come in this way must pass between this low isle and the low point, keeping near the isle. THE ANCHORING-PLACE, CALLED BABAO. In this bay there is any depth of water from thirty to three fathom, very good oazy holding ground. This affords the best shelter against all winds of any place about the island Timor. But from March to October, while either the southerly winds or only land and seabreezes hold, the Concordia side is best to ride in; but when the more violent northerly winds come then the best riding is between the two rocky islands in nineteen or twenty fathom. If you bring the westernmost island to bear south-west by west about a league distance, and the low point west by south; then the body of the sandy island will bear south-west half west, distance two leagues; and the ledges of rocks shooting from each make such a bar that no sea can come in. Then you have the land from west by south to east-north-east to defend you on that side: and other winds do not here blow violently. But if they did yet you are so land-locked that there can be no sea to hurt you. This anchoring-place is called Babao, about five leagues from Concordia. The greatest inconveniency in it is the multitude of worms. Here is fresh water enough to be had in the wet season; every little gulley discharging fresh water into the sea. THE MALAYANS HERE KILL ALL THE EUROPEANS THEY CAN. In the dry season you must search for it in standing ponds or gulleys, where the wild buffaloes, hogs, etc. resort every morning and evening to drink; where you may lie and shoot them, taking care that you go strong enough and well-armed against the natives upon all occasions. For though there are no inhabitants near this place yet the Malayans come in great companies when ships are here; and if they meet with any Europeans they kill them, of what nation soever they be, not excepting the Portuguese themselves. It is but two years since a Portuguese ship riding here had all the boat's crew cut off as they were watering; as I was informed by the Dutch. Here likewise is plenty of fish of several sorts, which may be caught with a seine; also tortoise and oysters. From the north-east point of this bay, on the north side of the island, the land trends away north-north-east for four or five leagues; afterward north-east or more easterly; and when you are fourteen or fifteen leagues to the eastward of Babao you come up with a point that makes like Flamborough Head, if you are pretty nigh the land; but if at a distance from it on either side it appears like an island. This point is very remarkable, there being none other like it in all this island. When you are abreast of this point you will see another point about four leagues to the eastward; and when you are abreast of this latter point you will see a small island bearing east or east by north (according to your distance from the land) just rising out of the water: when you see it plain you will be abreast of a pretty deep sandy bay, which has a point in the middle that comes sloping from the mountains with a curious valley on each side: the sandy bay runs from one valley to the other. You may sail into this bay, and anchor a little to the eastward of the point in twenty fathom water, half a mile from the shore, soft oaze. Then you will be about two leagues from the west point of the bay, and about eight leagues from the small island before mentioned, which you can see pretty plain bearing east-north-east a little northwardly. Some other marks are set down in the foregoing chapter. In this sandy bay you will find fresh water in two or three places. At spring tides you will see many ripplings, like shoals; but they are only eddies caused by the two points of the bay. We saw smokes all day up in the mountains, and fires by night, at certain places where we supposed the natives lived, but saw none of them. The tides ran between the two points of the bay, very strong and uncertain: yet it did not rise and fall above nine foot upon a spring tide: but it made great ripplings and a roaring noise, whirling about like whirlpools. We had constantly eddy tides under the shore, made by the points on each side of the bay. LAPHAO, A PORTUGUESE SETTLEMENT, DESCRIBED. When you go hence to the eastward you may pass between the small island and Timor; and when you are five or six leagues to the eastward of the small island you will see a large valley to the eastward of you; then, running a little further, you may see houses on the bay: you may luff in, but anchor not till you go about the next point. Then you will see more houses where you may run in to twenty or thirty fathom, and anchor right against the houses, nearest the west end of them. This place is called Laphao. It is a Portuguese settlement, about sixteen leagues from the watering-bay. There are in it about forty or fifty houses and one church. The houses are mean and low, the walls generally made of mud or wattled, and their sides made up with boards: they are all thatched with palm or palmetto leaves. The church also is very small: the east end of it is boarded up to the top; but the sides and the west end are only boarded three or four foot high; the rest is all open: there is a small altar in it, with two steps to go up to it, and an image or two; but all very mean. It is also thatched with palm or palmetto leaves. Each house has a yard belonging to it, fenced about with wild canes nine or ten foot high. There is a well in each yard, and a little bucket with a string to it to draw water withal. There is a trunk of a tree made hollow, placed in each well, to keep the earth from falling in. Round the yards there are many fruit-trees planted; as coconuts, tamarinds and toddy-trees. They have a small hovel by the sea side where there are six small old iron guns standing on a decayed platform, in rotten carriages. Their vents are so big that when they are fired, the strength of the powder flying out there, they give but a small report like that of a musket. This is their court of guard; and here were a few armed men watching all the time we lay here. The inhabitants of the town are chiefly a sort of Indians of a copper-colour, with black lank hair: they speak Portuguese and are of the Romish religion; but they take the liberty to eat flesh when they please. They value themselves on the account of their religion and descent from the Portuguese; and would be very angry if a man should say they are not Portuguese; yet I saw but three white men here, two of which were padres. There are also a few Chinese living here. It is a place of pretty good trade and strength, the best on this island, Porta Nova excepted. They have three or four small barks belonging to the place; with which they trade chiefly about the island with the natives for wax, gold, and sandalwood. Sometimes they go to Batavia and fetch European commodities, rice, etc. The Chinese trade hither from Macao; and I was informed that about twenty sail of small vessels come from thence hither every year. They bring coarse rice, adulterated gold, tea, iron, and iron tools, porcelain, silks, etc. They take in exchange pure gold, as it is gathered in the mountains, beeswax, sandalwood, slaves, etc. Sometimes also here comes a ship from Goa. Ships that trade here began to come hither the latter end of March; and none stay here longer than the latter end of August. For should they be here while the north-north-west monsoon blows no cables nor anchors would hold them; but they would be driven ashore and dashed in pieces presently. But from March till September, while the south-south-east monsoon blows, ships ride here very secure; for then, though the wind often blows hard, yet it is offshore; so that there is very smooth water, and no fear of being driven ashore; and yet even then they moor with three cables; two towards the land, eastward and westward; and the third right off to seaward. As this is the second place of traffic so it is in strength the second place the Portuguese have here, though not capable of resisting a hundred men: for the pirates that were at the Dutch fort came hither also; and after they had filled their water and cut firewood and refreshed themselves, they plundered the houses, set them on fire, and went away. Yet I was told that the Portuguese can draw together five or six hundred men in twenty-four hours time, all armed with hand-guns, swords and pistols; but powder and bullets are scarce and dear. The chief person they have on the island is named Antonio Henriquez; they call him usually by the title of Captain More or Maior. They say he is a white man, and that he was sent hither by the viceroy of Goa. I did not see him; for he lives, as I was informed, a great way from hence, at a place called Porta Nova, which is at the east end of the island, and by report is a good harbour; but they say that this Captain More goes frequently to wars in company with the Indians that are his neighbours and friends, against other Indians that are their enemies. The next man to him is Alexis Mendosa; he is a lieutenant, and lives six or seven miles from hence, and rules this part of the country. He is a little man of the Indian race, copper-coloured, with black lank hair. He speaks both the Indian and Portuguese languages; is a Roman Catholic, and seems to be a civil brisk man. There is another lieutenant at Laphao; who is also an Indian; speaks both his own and the Portuguese language very well; is old and infirm, but was very courteous to me. They boast very much of their strength here, and say they are able at any time to drive the Dutch away from the island, had they permission from the king of Portugal so to do. But though they boast thus of their strength yet really they are very weak; for they have but a few small arms and but little powder: they have no fort, nor magazine of arms; nor does the viceroy of Goa send them any now: for though they pretend to be under the king of Portugal they are a sort of lawless people, and are under no government. It was not long since the viceroy of Goa sent a ship hither, and a land-officer to remain here: but Captain More put him in irons, and sent him aboard the ship again; telling the commander that he had no occasion for any officers; and that he could make better officers here than any that could be sent him from Goa: and I know not whether there has been any other ship sent from Goa since: so that they have no supplies from thence: yet they need not want arms and ammunition, seeing they trade to Batavia. However they have swords and lances as other Indians have; and though they are ambitious to be called Portuguese, and value themselves on their religion, yet most of the men and all the women that live here are Indians; and there are very few right Portuguese in any part of the island. However of those that call themselves Portuguese I was told there are some thousands; and I think their strength consists more in their numbers than in good arms or discipline. The land from hence trends away east by north about 14 leagues, making many points and sandy bays, where vessels may anchor. PORT CICCALE. Fourteen leagues east from Laphao there is a small harbour called Ciccale by the Portuguese, and commended by them for an excellent port; but it is very small, has a narrow entrance, and lies open to northerly winds: though indeed there are two ledges of rocks, one shooting out from the west point and the other from the east point, which break off the sea; for the rocks are dry at low water. This place is about 60 leagues from the south-west end of the island. THE HILLS, WATER, LOWLANDS, SOIL, WOODS, METALS, IN THE ISLAND TIMOR. The whole of this island Timor is a very uneven rough country, full of hills and small valleys. In the middle of it there runs a chain of high mountains, almost from one end to the other. It is indifferently well watered (even in the dry times) with small brooks and springs, but no great rivers; the island being but narrow, and such a chain of mountains in the middle that no water can run far; but, as the springs break out on one side or other of the hills, they make their nearest course to the sea. In the wet season the valleys and low lands by the sea are overflown with water; and then the small drills that run into the sea are great rivers; and the gullies, which are dry for 3 or 4 months before, now discharge an impetuous torrent. The low land by the seaside is for the most part friable, loose, sandy soil; yet indifferently fertile and clothed with woods. The mountains are chequered with woods and some spots of savannahs: some of the hills are wholly covered with tall, flourishing trees; others but thinly; and these few trees that are on them, look very small, rusty and withered; and the spots of savannahs among them appear rocky and barren. Many of the mountains are rich in gold, copper, or both: the rains wash the gold out of mountains, which the natives pick up in the adjacent brooks, as the Spaniards do in America: how they get the copper I know not. ITS TREES. The trees that grow naturally here are of divers sorts; many of them wholly unknown to me; but such as I have seen in America or other places, and grow here likewise, are these, namely mangrove, white, red and black; maho, calabash, several sorts of the palm kind: the cotton-trees are not large, but tougher than those in America: here are also locust-trees of 2 or 3 sorts, bearing fruit, but not like those I have formerly seen; these bear a large white blossom, and yield much fruit but, it is not sweet. CANA-FISTULA-TREE DESCRIBED. Cana-fistula-trees are very common here; the tree is about the bigness of our ordinary apple-trees; their branches not thick, nor full of leaves. These and the before-mentioned blossom in October and November; the blossoms are much like our apple-tree blossoms, and about that bigness: at first they are red; but before they fall off, when spread abroad, they are white; so that these trees in their season appear extraordinarily pleasant, and yield a very fragrant smell. When the fruit is ripe it is round, and about the bigness of a man's thumb; of a dark brown colour, inclining to red, and about 2 foot or 2 foot and a half long. We found many of them under the trees, but they had no pulp in them. The partitions in the middle are much at the same distance with those brought to England, of the same substance, and such small flat seed in them: but whether they be the true cana-fistula or no I cannot tell, because I found no black pulp in them. The calabashes here are very prickly: the trees grow tall and tapering; whereas in the West Indies they are low and spread much abroad. Here are also wild tamarind-trees, not as large as the true; though much resembling them both in the bark and leaf. WILD FIGTREES DESCRIBED. Wild fig trees here are many, but not so large as those in America. The fruit grows not on the branches singly like those in America, but in strings and clusters, 40 or 50 in a cluster, about the body and great branches of the tree, from the very root up to the top. These figs are about the bigness of a crab-apple, of a greenish colour, and full of small white seeds; they smell pretty well, but have no juice or taste; they are ripe in November. Here likewise grows sandalwood, and many more sorts of trees fit for any uses. The tallest among them resemble our pines; they are straight and clear-bodied, but not very thick; the inside is reddish near the heart and hard and ponderous. TWO NEW SORTS OF PALMTREES DESCRIBED. Of the palm kind there are 3 or 4 sorts; two of which kinds I have not seen anywhere but here. Both sorts are very large and tall. The first sort had trunks of about 7 or eight foot in circumference and about 80 or 90 foot high. These had branches at the top like coconut-trees, and their fruit like coconuts, but smaller: the nut was of an oval form, and about the bigness of a duck's egg: the shell black and very hard. It was almost full of kernel, having only a small empty space in the middle, but no water as coconuts have. The kernel is too hard to be eaten. The fruit somewhat resembles that in Brazil formerly mentioned. The husk or outside of the fruit was very yellow, soft and pulpy when ripe; and full of small fibres; and when it fell down from the trees would mash and smell unsavoury. The other sort was as big and tall as the former; the body growing straight up without limbs, as all trees of the palm kind do: but, instead of a great many long green branches growing from the head of the tree, these had short branches about the bigness of a man's arm, and about a foot long; each of which spread itself into a great many small tough twigs, that hung full of fruit like so many ropes of onions. The fruit was as big as a large plum; and every tree had several bushels of fruit. The branches that bore this fruit sprouted out at about 50 or 60 foot height from the ground. The trunk of the tree was all of one bigness from the ground to that height; but from thence it went tapering smaller and smaller to the top, where it was no bigger than a man's leg, ending in a stump: and there was no green about the tree but the fruit; so that it appeared like a dead trunk. Besides fruit trees here were many sorts of tall straight-bodied timber-trees; one sort of which was like pine. These grow plentifully all round the island by the seaside, but not far within land. It is hard wood, of a reddish colour, and very ponderous. THE FRUITS OF THE ISLAND. The fruits of this island are guavas, mangoes, jacas, coconuts, plantains, bananas, pineapples, citrons, pomegranates, oranges, lemons, limes, musk-melons, watermelons, pumpkins, etc. Many of these have been brought hither by the Dutch and Portuguese; and most of them are ripe in September and October. There were many other excellent fruits, but not now in season; as I was informed both by the Dutch and Portuguese. THE HERBS. Here I met with an herb which in the West Indies we call calalaloo. It grows wild here. I ate of it several times and found it as pleasant and wholesome as spinach. Here are also parsley, samphire, etc. Indian corn thrives very well here, and is the common food of the islanders; though the Portuguese and their friends sow some rice, but not half enough for their subsistence. ITS LAND ANIMALS. The land animals are buffaloes, beeves, horses, hogs, goats, sheep, monkeys, iguanas, lizards, snakes, scorpions, centumpees, etc. Beside the tame hogs and buffaloes, there are many wild all over the country, which any may freely kill. As for the beeves, horses, goats, and sheep, it is probable they were brought in by the Portuguese or Dutch; especially the beeves; for I saw none but at the Dutch fort Concordia. We also saw monkeys and some snakes. One sort yellow, and as big as a man's arm, and about 4 foot long: another sort no bigger than the stem of a tobacco pipe, about 5 foot long, green all over his body, and with a flat red head as big as a man's thumb. FOWLS. THE RINGING-BIRD. The fowls are wild cocks and hens, eagles, hawks, crows, 2 sorts of pigeons, turtledoves, 3 or 4 sorts of parrots, parakeets, cockatoos, blackbirds; besides a multitude of smaller birds of divers colours, whose charming music makes the woods very pleasant. One sort of these pretty little birds my men called the ringing-bird; because it had 6 notes, and always repeated all his notes twice one after another; beginning high and shrill and ending low. This bird was about the bigness of a lark, having a small sharp black bill and blue wings; the head and breast were of a pale red, and there was a blue streak about its neck. Here are also sea- or waterfowls, as men-of-war-birds, boobies, fishing-hawks, herons, galdens, crab-catchers, etc. The tame fowl are cocks, hens, ducks, geese; the 2 last sorts I only saw at the Dutch fort, of the other sort there are not many but among the Portuguese: the woods abound with bees, which make much honey and wax. ITS FISH. COCKLE MERCHANTS AND OYSTERS. COCKLES AS BIG AS A MAN'S HEAD. The sea is very well stocked with fish of divers sorts, namely mullet, bass, bream, snook, mackerel, parracoots, garfish, ten-pounders, scuttle-fish, stingrays, whiprays, rasperages, cockle-merchants, or oyster-crackers, cavallies, conger-eels, rock-fish, dog-fish, etc. The rays are so plentiful that I never drew the seine but I caught some of them; which we salted and dried. I caught one whose tail was 13 foot long. The cockle-merchants are shaped like cavallies, and about their bigness. They feed on shellfish, having 2 very hard, thick, flat bones in their throat, with which they break in pieces the shells of the fish they swallow. We always find a great many shells in their maws, crushed in pieces. The shellfish are oysters of 3 sorts, namely long-oysters, common oysters, growing upon rocks in great abundance and very flat; and another sort of large oysters, fat and crooked; the shell of this not easily to be distinguished from a stone. Three or four of these roasted will suffice a man for one meal. Cockles, as big as a man's head; of which 2 or 3 are enough for a meal; they are very fat and sweet. Crawfish, shrimps, etc. Here are also many green-turtle, some alligators and grandpisces, etc. ITS ORIGINAL NATIVES DESCRIBED. The original natives of this island are Indians, they are of a middle stature, straight-bodied, slender-limbed, long-visaged; their hair black and lank; their skins very swarthy. They are very dexterous and nimble, but withal lazy in the high degree. They are said to be dull in everything but treachery and barbarity. Their houses are but low and mean, their clothing only a small cloth about their middle; but some of them for ornament have frontlets of mother-of-pearl, or thin pieces of silver or gold, made of an oval form of the breadth of a crown-piece, curiously notched round the edges; five of these placed one by another a little above the eyebrows making a sufficient guard and ornament for their forehead. They are so thin and placed on their foreheads so artificially that they seem reverted thereon: and indeed the pearl-oyster shells make a more splendid show than either silver or gold. Others of them have palmetto-caps made in divers forms. As to their marriages they take as many wives as they can maintain; and sometimes they sell their children to purchase more wives. I enquired about their religion and was told they had none. Their common subsistence is by Indian corn, which every man plants for himself. They take but little pains to clear their land for in the dry time they set fire to the withered grass and shrubs, and that burns them out a plantation for the next wet season. What other grain they have beside Indian corn I know not. Their plantations are very mean; for they delight most in hunting; and here are wild buffaloes and hogs enough, though very shy because of their so frequent hunting. They have a few boats and some fishermen. Their arms are lances, thick round short truncheons and targets; with these they hunt and kill their game and their enemies too; for this island is now divided into many kingdoms, and all of different languages; though in their customs and manner of living, as well as shape and colour, they seem to be of one stock. THE PORTUGUESE AND DUTCH SETTLEMENTS. The chiefest kingdoms are Kupang, Amabia, Lortribie, Pobumbie, Namquimal; the island also of Anamabao, or Anabao, is a kingdom. Each of these has a sultan who is supreme in his province and kingdom, and has under him several rajas and other inferior officers. The sultans for the most part are enemies to each other, which enmities are fomented and kept up by the Dutch, whose fort and factory is in the kingdom of Kupang; and therefore the bay near which they are settled, is commonly called Kupang Bay. They have only as much ground as they can keep within reach of their guns; yet this whole kingdom is at peace with them; and they freely trade together; as also with the islanders on Anabao, who are in amity as well with the natives of Kupang as with the Dutch residing there; but they are implacable enemies to those of Amabie, who are their next neighbours, and in amity with the Portuguese: as are also the kingdoms of Pobumbie, Namquimal and Lortribie. It is very probable that these 2 European settlements on this island are the greatest occasion of their continued wars. The Portuguese vaunt highly of their strength here and that they are able at pleasure to rout the Dutch, if they had authority so to do from the king of Portugal; and they have written to the viceroy of Goa about it: and though their request is not yet granted, yet (as they say) they live in expectation of it. These have no forts but depend on their alliance with the natives: and indeed they are already so mixed that it is hard to distinguish whether they are Portuguese or Indians. Their language is Portuguese; and the religion they have is Romish. They seem in words to acknowledge the king of Portugal for their sovereign; yet they will not accept of any officers sent by him. They speak indifferently the Malayan and their own native languages, as well as Portuguese; and the chiefest officers that I saw were of this sort; neither did I see above 3 or 4 white men among them; and of these 2 were priests. Of this mixed breed there are some thousands; of whom some have small arms of their own, and know how to use them. The chiefest person (as I before said) is called Captain More or Maior: he is a white man, sent hither by the viceroy of Goa, and seems to have great command here. I did not see him; for he seldom comes down. His residence is at a place called Porta Nova; which the people at Laphao told me was a great way off; but I could not get any more particular account. Some told me that he is most commonly in the mountains, with an army of Indians, to guard the passes between them and the Kupangayans, especially in the dry times. The next man to him is Alexis Mendosa: he is a right Indian, speaks very good Portuguese, and is of the Romish religion. He lives 5 or 6 miles from the sea, and is called the lieutenant. (This is he whom I called governor, when at Laphao.) He commands next to Captain More, and has under him another at this fort (at the seaside) if it may be so-called. He also is called lieutenant and is an Indian Portuguese. Besides this mongrel breed of Indians and Portuguese here are also some Chinamen, merchants from Macao: they bring hither coarse rice, gold, tea, iron-work, porcelain, and silk both wrought and raw: they get in exchange pure gold as it is here gathered, beeswax, sandalwood, coir, etc. It is said there are about 20 small China vessels come hither every year from Macao; and commonly one vessel a year from Goa, which brings European commodities and calicos, muslins, etc. Here are likewise some small barks belonging to this place, that trade to Batavia, and bring from thence both European and Indian goods and rice. The vessels generally come here in March and stay till September. The Dutch as I before said are settled in the kingdom of Kupang, where they have a small neat stone fort. It seems to be pretty strong; yet, as I was informed, had been taken by a French pirate about 2 years ago: the Dutch were used very barbarously, and ever since are very jealous of any strangers that come this way; which I myself experienced. These depend more on their own strength than on the natives their friends; having good guns, powder, and shot enough on all occasions, and soldiers sufficient to manage the business here, all well disciplined and in good order; which is a thing the Portuguese their neighbours are altogether destitute of, they having no European soldiers, few arms, less ammunition, and their fort consisting of no more than 6 bad guns planted against the sea, whose touch-holes (as was before observed) are so enlarged by time that a great part of the strength of the powder flies away there; and, having soldiers in pay, the natives on all occasions are hired; and their government now is so loose that they will admit of no more officers from Portugal or Goa. They have also little or no supply of arms or ammunition from thence, but buy it as often as they can of the Dutch, Chinese, etc., so that upon the whole it seems improbable that they should ever attempt to drive out the Dutch for fear of loosing themselves, notwithstanding their bosomed prowess and alliance with the natives: and indeed, as far as I could hear, they have business enough to keep their own present territories from the incursions of the Kupangayans; who are friends to the Dutch, and whom doubtless the Dutch have ways enough to preserve in their friendship; besides that they have an inveterate malice to their neighbours, insomuch that they kill all they meet, and bring away their heads in triumph. The great men of Kupang stick the heads of those they have killed on poles; and set them on the tops of their houses; and these they esteem above all their other riches. The inferior sort bring the heads of those they kill into houses made for that purpose; of which there was one at the Indian village near the fort Concordia, almost full of heads, as I was told. I know not what encouragement they have for their inhumanity. THE MALAYAN LANGUAGE GENERALLY SPOKEN HERE. The Dutch have always 2 sloops belonging to their fort; in these they go about the island and trade with the natives and, as far as I could learn, they trade indifferently with them all. For though the inland people are at war with each other, yet those by the seaside seem to be little concerned; and, generally speaking the Malayan language, are very sociable and easily induced to trade with those that speak that language; which the Dutch here always learn; besides, being well acquainted with the treachery of these people, they go well armed among them, and are very vigilant never to give them an opportunity to hurt them; and it is very probable that they supply them with such goods as the Portuguese cannot. LORANTUCA ON THE ISLAND ENDE. The Malayan language, as I have before said, is generally spoken amongst all the islands hereabouts. The greater the trade is the more this language is spoken: in some it is become their only language; in others it is but little spoken, and that by the seaside only. With this language the Mahomedan religion did spread itself, and was got hither before any European Christians came: but now, though the language is still used, the Mahomedan religion falls, wherever the Portuguese or Dutch are settled; unless they be very weak, as at Solor and Ende, where the chief language is Malayan, and the religion Mahomedanism; though the Dutch are settled at Solor, and the Portuguese at the east end of the island Ende, at a place called Lorantuca; which, as I was informed, is a large town, has a pretty strong fort and safe harbour. The chief man there (as at Timor) is called Captain More, and is as absolute as the other. These 2 principal men are enemies to each other; and by their letters and messages to Goa inveigh bitterly against each other; and are ready to do all the ill offices they can; yet neither of them much regards the viceroy of Goa, as I was informed. Lorantuca is said to be more populous than any town on Timor; the island Ende affording greater plenty of all manner of fruit, and being much better supplied with all necessaries than Laphao; especially with sheep, goats, hogs, poultry, etc. But it is very dangerous getting into this harbour because of the violent tides between the islands Ende and Solor. In the middle channel between Timor and the range of islands to the northward of it, whereof Ende and Solor are 2, there runs a constant current all the year to the westward; though near either shore there are tides indeed; but the tide of flood, which sets west, running 8 or 9 hours, and the ebb not exceeding 3 or 4 hours, the tide in some places rises 9 or 10 foot on a spring. THE SEASONS, WINDS, AND WEATHER AT TIMOR. The seasons of the year here at Timor are much the same as in other places in south latitude. The fair weather begins in April or May and continues to October, then the tornadoes begin to come, but no violent bad weather till the middle of December. Then there are violent west or north-west winds, with rain, till towards the middle of February. In May the southerly winds set in and blow very strong on the north side of the island, but fair. There is great difference of winds on the 2 sides of the island: for the southerly winds are but very faint on the south side, and very hard on the north side; and the bad weather on the south side comes in very violent in October, which on the north side comes not till December. You have very good sea and land breezes, when the weather is fair; and may run indifferently to the east or west, as your business lies. We found from September to December the winds veering all round the compass gradually in 24 hours time; but such a constant western current that it is much harder getting to the east than west at or near spring tides: which I have more than once made trial of. For weighing from Babao at 6 o'clock in the morning on the 12 instant we kept plying under the shore till the 20th, meeting with such a western current that we gained very little. We had land and seabreezes; but so faint that we could hardly stem the current; and when it was calm between the breezes we drove a-stern faster than ever we sailed ahead. CHAPTER 3. PLYING ON THE NEW GUINEA COAST. DEPARTURE FROM TIMOR. On the 12th of December 1699 we sailed from Babao, coasting along the island Timor to the eastward towards New Guinea. It was the 20th before we got as far as Laphao, which is but forty leagues. We saw black clouds in the north-west and expected the wind from that quarter above a month sooner. THE ISLANDS OMBA AND FETTER. That afternoon we saw the opening between the islands Omba and Fetter, but feared to pass through in the night. At two o'clock in the morning it fell calm; and continued so till noon, in which time we drove with the current back again south-west six or seven leagues. On the 22nd, steering to the eastward to get through between Omba and Fetter, we met a very strong tide against us, so that we, although we had a very fresh gale, yet made way very slowly; yet before night got through. By a good observation we found that the south-east point of Omba lies in latitude 8 degrees 25 minutes. In my charts it is laid down in 8 degrees 10 minutes. My true course from Babao is east 25 degrees north, distance one hundred and eighty-three miles. We sounded several times when near Omba, but had no ground. On the north-east point of Omba we saw four or five men, and a little further three pretty houses on a low point, but did not go ashore. At five this afternoon we had a tornado which yielded much rain, thunder and lightning; yet we had but little wind. The 24th in the morning we caught a large shark, which gave all the ship's company a plentiful meal. A BURNING ISLAND. The 27th we saw the burning island, it lies in latitude 6 degrees 36 minutes south; it is high and but small. It runs from the sea a little sloping towards the top; which is divided in the middle into two peaks, between which issued out much smoke: I have not seen more from any volcano. I saw no trees; but the north side appeared green, and the rest looked very barren. THEIR MISSING THE TURTLE ISLES. Having passed the burning island I shaped my course for two islands called Turtle Isles which lie north-east by east a little easterly, and distant about fifty leagues from the burning isle. I, fearing the wind might veer to the eastward of the north, steered 20 leagues north-east, then north-east by east. On the 28th we saw two small low islands called Luca Paros, to the north of us. At noon I accounted myself 20 leagues short of the Turtle Isles. BANDA ISLES. The next morning, being in the latitude of the Turtle Islands, we looked out sharp for them but saw no appearance of any island till 11 o'clock; when we saw an island at a great distance. At first we supposed it might be one of the Turtle Isles: but it was not laid down true, neither in latitude nor longitude from the burning isle, nor from the Luca Paros, which last I took to be a great help to guide me, they being laid down very well from the burning isle, and that likewise in true latitude and distance from Omba: so that I could not tell what to think of the island now in sight; we having had fair weather, so that we could not pass by the Turtle Isles without seeing them; and this in sight was much too far off for them. We found variation 1 degree 2 minutes east. In the afternoon I steered north-east by east for the islands that we saw. At 2 o'clock I went and looked over the fore-yard, and saw 2 islands at much greater distance than the Turtle Islands are laid down in my charts; one of them was a very high peaked mountain, cleft at top, and much like the burning island that we passed by, but bigger and higher; the other was a pretty long high flat island. Now I was certain that these were not the Turtle Islands, and that they could be no other than the Banda Isles; yet we steered in to make them plainer. At 3 o'clock we discovered another small flat island to the north-west of the others, and saw a great deal of smoke rise from the top of the high island; at 4 we saw other small islands, by which I was now assured that these were the Banda Isles there. At 5 I altered my course and steered east, and at 8 east-south-east; because I would not be seen by the inhabitants of those islands in the morning. BIRD ISLAND. We had little wind all night: and in the morning as soon as it was light we saw another high peaked island: at 8 it bore south-south-east half east, distance 8 leagues. And this I knew to be Bird Isle. It is laid down in our charts in latitude 5 degrees 9 minutes south, which is too far southerly by 27 miles according to our observation; and the like error in laying down the Turtle Islands might be the occasion of our missing them. At night I shortened sail for fear of coming too nigh some islands that stretch away bending like a half moon from Ceram towards Timor, and which in my course I must of necessity pass through. The next morning betimes I saw them; and found them to be at a farther distance from Bird Island than I expected. In the afternoon it fell quite calm; and when we had a little wind it was so unconstant, flying from one point to another, that I could not without difficulty get through the islands where I designed: besides I found a current setting to the southward; so that it was betwixt 5 and 6 in the evening before I passed through the islands; and then just weathered little Waiela, whereas I thought to have been 2 or 3 leagues more northerly. We saw the day before, betwixt 2 and 3, a spout but a small distance from us. It fell down out of a black cloud that yielded great store of rain, thunder, and lightning: this cloud hovered to the southward of us for the space of three hours, and then drew to the westward a great pace; at which time it was that we saw the spout, which hung fast to the cloud till it broke; and then the cloud whirled about to the south-east, then to east-north-east; where, meeting with an island, it spent itself and so dispersed; and immediately we had a little of the tail of it, having had none before. Afterward we saw a smoke on the island Kosiway, which continued all night. 1700. THEY DESCRY THE COAST OF NEW GUINEA. On New Year's Day we first descried the land of New Guinea, which appeared to be high land; and the next day we saw several high islands on the coast of New Guinea, and ran in with the mainland. The shore here lies along east-south-east and west-north-west. It is high even land, very well clothed with tall flourishing trees, which appeared very green and gave us a very pleasant prospect. We ran to the westward of four mountainous islands; and in the night had a small tornado, which brought with it some rain and a fair wind. We had fair weather for a long time; only when near any land we had some tornadoes; but off at sea commonly clear weather; though if in sight of land we usually saw many black clouds hovering about it. THEY ANCHOR ON THE COAST OF NEW GUINEA. On the 5th and 6th of January we plied to get in with the land; designing to anchor, fill water, and spend a little time in searching the country, till after the change of the moon; for I found a strong current setting against us. We anchored in 38 fathom water, good oazie ground. We had an island of a league long without us, about 3 miles distant; and we rode from the main about a mile. The easternmost point of land seen bore east by south half south, distance 3 leagues: and the westernmost west-south-west half south, distance 2 leagues. So soon as we anchored we sent the pinnace to look for water, and try if they could catch any fish. Afterwards we sent the yawl another way to see for water. Before night the pinnace brought on board several sorts of fruits that they found in the woods, such as I never saw before. A DESCRIPTION OF THE PLACE, AND OF A STRANGE FOWL FOUND THERE. One of my men killed a stately land-fowl, as big as the largest dunghill-cock. It was of a sky-colour; only in the middle of the wings was a white spot, about which were some reddish spots: on the crown it had a large bunch of long feathers, which appeared very pretty. His bill was like a pigeon's; he had strong legs and feet, like dunghill-fowls; only the claws were reddish. His crop was full of small berries. It lays an egg as big as a large hen's egg; for our men climbed the tree where it nested and brought off one egg. They found water; and reported that the trees were large, tall and very thick; and that they saw no sign of people. At night the yawl came aboard and brought a wooden fishgig, very ingeniously made; the matter of it was a small cane; they found it by a small barbecue, where they also saw a shattered canoe. GREAT QUANTITIES OF MACKEREL. The next morning I sent the boatswain ashore a-fishing and at one haul he caught 352 mackerels and about 20 other fishes; which I caused to be equally divided among all my company. I sent also the gunner and chief mate to search about if they could find convenient anchoring nearer a watering-place: by night they brought word that they had found a fine stream of good water, where the boat could come close to and it was very easy to be filled; and that the ship might anchor as near to it as I pleased: so I went thither. The next morning therefore we anchored in 25 fathom water, soft oazie ground, about a mile from the river: we got on board 3 tun of water that night; and caught 2 or 3 pike-fish, in shape much like a parracota, but with a longer snout, something resembling a gar, yet not so long. The next day I sent the boat again for water and before night all my casks were full. A WHITE ISLAND. Having filled here about 15 tuns of water, seeing we could catch but little fish, and had no other refreshments, I intended to sail next day; but finding that we wanted wood I sent to cut some; and going ashore to hasten it, at some distance from the place where our men were, I found a small cove where I saw two barbecues, which appeared not to be above 2 months standing: the spars were cut with some sharp instrument; so that, if done by the natives, it seems that they have iron. On the 10th, a little after 12 o'clock, we weighed and stood over to the north side of the bay; and at 1 o'clock stood out with the wind at north and north-north-west. At 4 we passed out by a White Island, which I so named from its many white cliffs, having no name in our charts. It is about a league long, pretty high, and very woody: it is about 5 miles from the main, only at the west end it reaches within 3 miles of it. At some distance off at sea the west point appears like a cape land; the north side trends away north-north-west, and the east side east-south-east. This island lies in latitude 3 degrees 4 minutes south; and the meridian distance from Babao, 500 and 12 miles east. After we were out to sea we plied to get to the northward; but met with such a strong current against us that we got but little. For if the wind favoured us in the night, that we got 3 or 4 leagues; we lost it again and were driven as far astern next morning, so that we plied here several days. The 14th, being past a point of land that we had been 3 days getting about, we found little or no current; so that, having the wind at north-west by west and west-north-west, we stood to the northward, and had several soundings: at 3 o'clock, 38 fathom; the nearest part of New Guinea being about 3 leagues distance: at 4, 37; at 5, 36; at 6, 36; at 8, 33 fathom; then the cape was about 4 leagues distant; so that as we ran off we found our water shallower. We had then some islands to the westward of us, at about four leagues distance. THEY ANCHOR AT AN ISLAND CALLED BY THE INHABITANTS PULO SABUDA. A DESCRIPTION OF IT AND ITS INHABITANTS AND PRODUCT. A little after noon we saw smokes on the islands to the west of us; and, having a fine gale of wind, I steered away for them: at 7 o'clock in the evening we anchored in 35 fathom, about two leagues from an island, good soft oazie ground. We lay still all night, and saw fires ashore. In the morning we weighed again, and ran farther in, thinking to have shallower water; but we ran within a mile of the shore, and came to in 38 fathom, good soft holding ground. While we were under sail 2 canoes came off within call of us: they spoke to us, but we did not understand their language, nor signs. We waved to them to come aboard, and I called to them in the Malayan language to do the same; but they would not; yet they came so nigh us that we could show them such things as we had to truck with them; yet neither would this entice them to come aboard; but they made signs for us to come ashore, and away they went. Then I went after them in my pinnace, carrying with me knives, beads, glasses, hatchets, etc. When we came near the shore I called to them in the Malayan language: I saw but 2 men at first, the rest lying in ambush behind the bushes; but as soon as I threw ashore some knives and other toys they came out, flung down their weapons, and came into the water by the boat's side, making signs of friendship by pouring water on their heads with one hand which they dipped into the sea. The next day in the afternoon several other canoes came aboard and brought many roots and fruits, which we purchased. This island has no name in our charts but the natives call it Pulo Sabuda. It is about 3 leagues long and 2 miles wide, more or less. It is of a good height so as to be seen 11 or 12 leagues. It is very rocky; yet above the rocks there is good yellow and black mould; not deep yet producing plenty of good tall trees, and bearing any fruits or roots which the inhabitants plant. I do not know all its produce; but what we saw were plantains, coconuts, pineapples, oranges, papaws, potatoes, and other large roots. Here are also another sort of wild jacas, about the bigness of a man's two fists, full of stones or kernels, which eat pleasant enough when roasted. The libby-tree grows here in the swampy valleys, of which they make sago cakes: I did not see them make any but was told by the inhabitants that it was made of the pith of the tree in the same manner I have described in my Voyage round the World. They showed me the tree whereof it was made, and I bought about 40 of the cakes. I bought also 3 or 4 nutmegs in their shell, which did not seem to have been long gathered; but, whether they be the growth of this island or not, the natives would not tell whence they had them, and seemed to prize them very much. What beasts the island affords I know not: but here are both sea- and land-fowl. Of the first boobies and men-of-war-birds are the chief; some galdens, and small milk-white crab-catchers. The land-fowls are pigeons, about the bigness of mountain-pigeons in Jamaica; and crows about the bigness of those in England, and much like them; but the inner part of their feathers are white, and the outside black; so that they appear all black, unless you extend the feathers. Here are large sky-coloured birds, such as we lately killed on New Guinea; and many other small birds unknown to us. Here are likewise abundance of bats, as big as young coneys; their necks, head, ears and noses, like foxes; their hair rough; that about their necks is of a whitish yellow, that on their heads and shoulders black; their wings are 4 foot over from tip to tip: they smell like foxes. The fish are bass, rock-fish, and a sort of fish like mullet, old-wives, whip-rays, and some other sorts that I know not, but no great plenty of any; for it is deep water till within less than a mile of the shore; then there is a bank of coral rocks within which you have shoal water, white clean sand: so there is no good fishing with the seine. This island lies in latitude 2 degrees 43 minutes south and meridian distance from Port Babao on the island Timor 486 miles. Besides this island here are 9 or 10 other small islands, as they are laid down in the charts. The inhabitants of this island are a sort of very tawny Indians, with long black hair; who in their manners differ but little from the Mindanayans, and others of these eastern islands. These seem to be the chief; for besides them we saw also shock curl-pated New Guinea negroes; many of which are slaves to the others, but I think not all. They are very poor, wear no clothes, but have a clout about their middle, made of the rinds of the tops of palmetto-trees; but the women had a sort of calico cloths. Their chief ornaments are blue and yellow beads, worn about their wrists. The men arm themselves with bows and arrows, lances, broad swords like those of Mindanao; their lances are pointed with bone. THE INDIANS' MANNER OF FISHING THERE. They strike fish very ingeniously with wooden fishgigs, and have a very ingenious way of making the fish rise: for they have a piece of wood, curiously carved and painted much like a dolphin (and perhaps other figures) these they let down into the water by a line with a small weight to sink it; when they think it low enough they haul the line into their boats very fast, and the fish rise up after this figure; and they stand ready to strike them when they are near the surface of the water. But their chief livelihood is from their plantations. Yet they have large boats, and go over to New Guinea where they get slaves, fine parrots, etc., which they carry to Goram and exchange for calicos. One boat came from thence a little before I arrived here; of whom I bought some parrots; and would have bought a slave but they would not barter for anything but calicos, which I had not. Their houses on this side were very small, and seemed only to be for necessity; but on the other side of the island we saw good large houses. Their proas are narrow with outlagers on each side, like other Malayans. I cannot tell of what religion these are; but I think they are not Mahomedans, by their drinking brandy out of the same cup with us without any scruple. At this island we continued till the 20th instant, having laid in store of such roots and fruits as the island afforded. On the 20th at half hour after 6 in the morning I weighed and, standing out, we saw a large boat full of men lying at the north point of the island. As we passed by they rowed towards their habitations, where we supposed they had withdrawn themselves for fear of us (though we gave them no cause of terror) or for some differences among themselves. We stood to the northward till 7 in the evening; then saw a rippling; and, the water being discoloured, we sounded, and had but 22 fathom. I went about and stood to the westward till 2 next morning, then tacked again and had these several soundings: at 8 in the evening, 22; at 10, 25; at 11, 27; at 12, 28 fathom; at 2 in the morning 26; at 4, 24; at 6, 23; at 8, 28; at 12, 22. ARRIVAL AT MABO, THE NORTH-WEST CAPE OF NEW GUINEA. A DESCRIPTION OF IT. We passed by many small islands and among many dangerous shoals without any remarkable occurrence till the 4th of February, when we got within 3 leagues of the north-west cape of New Guinea, called by the Dutch Cape Mabo. Off this cape there lies a small woody island, and many islands of different sizes to the north and north-east of it. This part of New Guinea is high land, adorned with tall trees that appeared very green and flourishing. The cape itself is not very high, but ends in a low sharp point; and on either side there appears another such point at equal distances, which makes it resemble a diamond. This only appears when you are abreast of the middle point; and then you have no ground within 3 leagues of the shore. COCKLE ISLAND. In the afternoon we passed by the cape and stood over for the islands. Before it was dark we were got within a league of the westermost; but had no ground with 50 fathom of line. However, fearing to stand nearer in the dark, we tacked and stood to the east, and plied all night. The next morning we were got 5 or 6 leagues to the eastward of that island; and, having the wind easterly, we stood in to the northward among the islands, sounded, and had no ground. Then I sent in my boat to sound, and they had ground with 50 fathom near a mile from the shore. We tacked before the boat came aboard again for fear of a shoal that was about a mile to the east of that island the boat went to; from whence also a shoal point stretched out itself till it met the other: they brought with them such a cockle as I have mentioned in my Voyage round the World, found near Celebes; and they saw many more, some bigger than that which they brought aboard, as they said; and for this reason I named it Cockle Island. I sent them to sound again, ordering them to fire a musket if they found good anchoring; we were then standing to the southward, with a fine breeze. As soon as they fired I tacked and stood in: they told me they had 50 fathom when they fired. I tacked again, and made all the sail I could to get out, being near some rocky islands and shoals to leeward of us. The breeze increased, and I thought we were out of danger; but, having a shoal just by us, and the wind falling again, I ordered the boat to tow us, and by their help we got clear from it. We had a strong tide setting to the westward. COCKLES OF SEVENTY-EIGHT POUND WEIGHT. At 1 o'clock, being past the shoal and finding the tide setting to the westward, I anchored in 35 fathom, coarse sand with small coral and shells. Being nearest to Cockle Island I immediately sent both the boats thither; one to cut wood, and the other to fish. At 4 in the afternoon, having a small breeze at south-south-west, I made a sign for my boats to come aboard. They brought some wood and a few small cockles, none of them exceeding 10 pound weight; whereas the shell of the great one weighed 78 pound; but it was now high-water and therefore they could get no bigger. They also brought on board some pigeons, of which we found plenty on all the islands where we touched in these seas. Also in many places we saw many large bats, but killed none, except those I mentioned at Pulo Sabuda. As our boats came aboard we weighed and made sail, steering east-south-east as long as the wind held; in the morning we found we had got 4 or 5 leagues to the east of the place where we weighed. We stood to and fro till 11; and, finding that we lost ground, anchored in 42 fathom, coarse gravelly sand with some coral. This morning we thought we saw a sail. PIGEON ISLAND. In the afternoon I went ashore on a small woody island about 2 leagues from us. Here I found the greatest number of pigeons that ever I saw either in the east or West Indies, and small cockles in the sea round the island in such quantities that we might have laden the boat in an hour's time: these were not above 10 or 12 pound weight. We cut some wood and brought off cockles enough for all the ship's company; but having no small shot we could kill no pigeons. I returned about 4 o'clock; and then my gunner and both mates went thither, and in less than three-quarters of an hour they killed and brought off 10 pigeons. Here is a tide: the flood sets west and the ebb east; but the latter is very faint and but of small continuance. And so we found it ever since we came from Timor. THE WIND HEREABOUTS. The winds we found easterly, between north-east and east-south-east; so that, if these continue, it is impossible to beat farther to the eastward on this coast against wind and current. These easterly winds increased from the time we were in the latitude of about 2 degrees south; and as we drew nigher the Line they hung more easterly. And now, being to the north of the continent of New Guinea where the coast lies east and west, I find the tradewind here at east; which yet in higher latitudes is usually at north-north-west and north-west; and so I did expect them here, it being to the south of the Line. AN EMPTY COCKLESHELL WEIGHING TWO HUNDRED FIFTY-EIGHT POUND. The 7th in the morning I sent my boat ashore on Pigeon Island and stayed till noon. In the afternoon my men returned, brought 22 pigeons, and many cockles, some very large, some small: they also brought one empty shell that weighed 258 pound. KING WILLIAM'S ISLAND. A DESCRIPTION OF IT. At 4 o'clock we weighed, having a small westerly wind and a tide with us; at 7 in the evening we anchored in 42 fathom, near King William's Island, where I went ashore the next morning, drank His Majesty's health, and honoured it with his name. It is about 2 leagues and a half in length, very high, and extraordinarily well clothed with woods. The trees are of divers sorts, most unknown to us, but all very green and flourishing; many of them had flowers, some white, some purple, others yellow; all which smelt very fragrantly. The trees are generally tall and straight-bodied, and may be fit for any uses. I saw one of a clean body, without knot or limb, 60 are 70 foot high by estimation. It was 3 of my fathoms about, and kept its bigness without any sensible decrease even to the top. The mould of the island is black but not deep; it being very rocky. On the sides and top of the island are many palmetto-trees whose heads we could discern over all the other trees, but their bodies we could not see. About 1 in the afternoon we weighed and stood to the eastward, between the main and King William's Island; leaving the island on our larboard side and sounding till we were past the island; and then we had no ground. Here we found the flood setting east by north, and the ebb west by south. There were shoals and small islands between us and the main, which caused the tide to set very inconstantly, and make many whirlings in the water; yet we did not find the tide to set strong any way, nor the water to rise much. PLYING ON THE COAST OF NEW GUINEA. On the 9th, being to the eastward of King William's Island, we plied all day between the main and other islands, having easterly winds and fair weather till 7 the next morning. Then we had very hard rain till 8 and saw many shoals of fish. We lay becalmed off a pretty deep bay on New Guinea, about 12 or 14 leagues wide and 7 or 8 leagues deep, having low land near its bottom, but high land without. The eastermost part of New Guinea seen bore east by south, distant 12 leagues: Cape Mabo west-south-west half south, distant 7 leagues. At 1 in the afternoon it began to rain and continued till 6 in the evening; so that, having but little wind and most calms, we lay still off the forementioned bay, having King William's Island still in sight, though distant by judgment 15 or 16 leagues west. We saw many shoals of small fish, some sharks, and 7 or 8 dolphins; but caught none. In the afternoon, being about 4 leagues from the shore, we saw an opening in the land which seemed to afford good harbour: in the evening we saw a large fire there; and I intended to go in (if winds and weather would permit) to get some acquaintance with the natives. Since the 4th instant that we passed Cape Mabo to the 12th we had small easterly winds and calms, so that we anchored several times; where I made my men cut wood, that we might have a good stock when a westerly wind should present; and so we plied to the eastward, as winds and currents would permit; having not got in all above 30 leagues to the eastward of Cape Mabo. But on the 12th, at 4 in the afternoon, a small gale sprang up at north-east by north with rain: at 5 it shuffled about to north-west, from thence to the south-west, and continued between those 2 points a pretty brisk gale; so that we made sail and steered away north-east, till the 13th in the morning, to get about the Cape of Good Hope. When it was day we steered north-east half east, then north-east by east till 7 o'clock; and being then 7 or 8 leagues off shore we steered away east; the shore trending east by south. We had very much rain all night, so that we could not carry much sail; yet we had a very steady gale. At 8 this morning the weather cleared up and the wind decreased to a fine top-gallant gale, and settled at west by south. We had more rain these 3 days past than all the voyage in so short time. We were now about 6 leagues from the land of New Guinea, which appeared very high; and we saw 2 headlands, about 20 leagues asunder; the one to the east, and the other to the west, which last is called the Cape of Good Hope. We found variation east 4 degrees. FAULT OF THE CHARTS. The 15th in the morning between 12 and 2 o'clock it blew a very brisk gale at north-west and looked very black in the south-west. At 2 it flew about at once to the south-south-west and rained very hard. The wind settled some time at west-south-west, and we steered east-north-east till 3 in the morning: then, the wind and rain abating, we steered east half north for fear of coming near the land. Presently after, it being a little clear, the man at the bowsprit-end called out, "Land on our starboard bow." We looked out and saw it plain. I presently sounded and had but 10 fathom soft ground. The master, being somewhat scared, came running in haste with this news, and said it was best to anchor: I told him no, but sound again; then we had 12 fathom; the next cast, 13 and a half; the 4th, 17 fathom; and then no ground with 50 fathom line. However we kept off the island and did not go so fast but that we could see any other danger before we came nigh it. For here might have been more islands not laid down in my charts besides this. For I searched all the charts I had, if perchance I might find any island in the one which was not in the others; but I could find none near us. When it was day we were about 5 leagues off the land we saw; but, I believe, not above 5 mile, or at most 2 leagues, off it when we first saw it in the night. PROVIDENCE ISLAND. This is a small island but pretty high; I named it Providence. About 5 leagues to the southward of this there is another island which is called William Schouten's Island and laid down in our charts: it is a high island and about 20 leagues long. It was by mere Providence that we missed the small island. For had not the wind come to west-south-west and blown hard, so that we steered east-north-east, we had been upon it by our course that we steered before, if we could not have seen it. This morning we saw many great trees and logs swim by us; which it is probable came out of some great rivers on the main. THEY CROSS THE LINE. On the 16th we crossed the Line, and found variation 6 degrees 26 minutes east. The 18th by my observation at noon we found that we had had a current setting to the southward, and probably that drew us in so nigh Schouten's Island. For this 24 hours we steered east by north with a large wind, yet made but an east by south half south course; though the variation was not above 7 degrees east. The 21st we had a current setting to the northward, which is against the true trade monsoon, it being now near the full moon. I did expect it here, as in all other places. We had variation 8 degrees 45 minutes east. The 22nd we found but little current; if any, it set to the southward. A SNAKE PURSUED BY FISH. On the 23rd in the afternoon we saw 2 snakes; and the next morning another, passing by us, which was furiously assaulted by 2 fishes that had kept us company 5 or 6 days. They were shaped like mackerel and were about that bigness and length, and of a yellow-greenish colour. The snake swam away from them very fast, keeping his head above water; the fish snapped at his tail; but when he turned himself that fish would withdraw, and another would snap; so that by turns they kept him employed; yet he still defended himself and swam away a great pace till they were out of sight. The 25th betimes in the morning we saw an island to the southward of us at about 15 leagues distance. We steered away for it, supposing it to be that which the Dutch call Wishart's Island; but, finding it otherwise, I called it Matthias; it being that saint's day. This island is about 9 or 10 leagues long, mountainous and woody, with many savannahs, and some spots of land which seemed to be cleared. SQUALLY ISLAND. At 8 in the evening we lay by, intending, if I could, to anchor under Matthias Isle. But the next morning, seeing another island about 7 or 8 leagues to the eastward of it, we steered away for it; at noon we came up fair with its south-west end, intending to run along by it and anchor on the south-east side: but the tornadoes came in so thick and hard that I could not venture in. This island is pretty low and plain, and clothed with wood; the trees were very green, and appeared to be large and tall, as thick as they could stand one by another. It is about 2 or 3 leagues long, and at the south-west point there is another small low woody island about a mile round, and about a mile from the other. Between them there runs a reef of rocks which joins them. (The biggest I named Squally Island.) THE MAIN OF NEW GUINEA. Seeing we could not anchor here I stood away to the southward to make the main. But, having many hard squalls and tornadoes, we were often forced to hand all our sails and steer more easterly to go before it. On the 26th at 4 o'clock it cleared up to a hard sky, and a brisk settled gale; then we made as much sail as we could. At 5 it cleared up over the land and we saw, as we thought, Cape Solomaswer bearing south-south-east distance 10 leagues. We had many great logs and trees swimming by us all this afternoon, and much grass; we steered in south-south-east till 6, then the wind slackened and we stood off till 7, having little wind; then we lay by till 10, at which time we made sail and steered away east all night. The next morning, as soon as it was light, we made all the sail we could, and steered away east-south-east, as the land lay; being fair in sight of it, and not above 7 leagues distance. We passed by many small low woody islands which lay between us and the main, not laid down in our charts. We found variation 9 degrees 50 minutes east. The 28th we had many violent tornadoes, wind, rain, and some spouts; and in the tornadoes the wind shifted. In the night we had fair weather, but more lightning than we had seen at any time this voyage. This morning we left a large high island on our larboard side, called in the Dutch charts Wishart's Isle, about 6 leagues from the main; and, seeing many smokes upon the main, I therefore steered towards it. CHAPTER 4. NEW BRITAIN DISCOVERED. THE MAINLAND OF NEW GUINEA. ITS INHABITANTS. SLINGERS BAY. The mainland at this place is high and mountainous, adorned with tall flourishing trees; the sides of the hills had many large plantations and patches of cleared land; which, together with the smokes we saw, were certain signs of its being well inhabited; and I was desirous to have some commerce with the inhabitants. Being nigh the shore we saw first one proa; a little after, 2 or 3 more; and at last a great many boats came from all the adjacent bays. When they were 46 in number they approached so near us that we could see each other's signs, and hear each other speak; though we could not understand them, nor they us. They made signs for us to go in towards the shore, pointing that way; it was squally weather, which at first made me cautious of going too near; but, the weather beginning to look pretty well, I endeavoured to get into a bay ahead of us, which we could have got into well enough at first; but while we lay by we were driven so far to leeward that now it was more difficult to get in. The natives lay in their proas round us; to whom I showed beads, knives, glasses, to allure them to come nearer; but they would come so nigh as to receive anything from us. Therefore I threw out some things to them, namely a knife fastened to a piece of board, and a glass bottle corked up with some beads in it, which they took up and seemed well pleased. They often struck their left breast with their right hand, and as often held up a black truncheon over their heads, which we thought was a token of friendship; wherefore we did the like. And when we stood in towards their shore they seemed to rejoice; but when we stood off they frowned, yet kept us company in their proas, still pointing to the shore. About 5 o'clock we got within the mouth of the bay and sounded several times, but had no ground though within a mile of the shore. The basin of this bay was above 2 miles within us, into which we might have gone; but, as I was not assured of anchorage there, so I thought it not prudence to run in at this time; it being near night and seeing a black tornado rising in the west, which I most feared: besides we had near 200 men in proas close by us. And the bays on the shore were lined with men from one end to the other, where there could not be less than 3 or 400 more. What weapons they had we know not, nor yet their design. Therefore I had, at their first coming near us, got up all our small arms, and made several put on cartouch boxes to prevent treachery. At last I resolved to go out again: which, when the natives in their proas perceived, they began to fling stones at us as fast as they could, being provided with engines for that purpose (wherefore I named this place Slingers Bay). But at the firing of one gun they were all amazed, drew off and flung no more stones. They got together as if consulting what to do; for they did not make in towards the shore, but lay still, though some of them were killed or wounded; and many of them had paid for their boldness, but that it was unwilling to cut off any of them; which, if I had done, I could not hope afterwards to bring them to treat with me. SMALL ISLANDS. The next day we sailed close by an island where we saw many smokes, and men in the bays; out of which came 2 canoes, taking much pains to overtake us, but they could not, though we went with an easy sail; and I could not now stay for them. As I passed by the south-east point I sounded several times within a mile of the sandy bays, but had no ground: about 3 leagues to the northward of the south-east point we opened a large deep bay, secured from west-north-west and south-west winds. There were 2 other islands that lay to the north-east of it which secured the bay from north-east winds; one was but small, yet woody; the other was a league long, inhabited and full of coconut-trees. I endeavoured to get into this bay; but there came such flaws off from the high land over it that I could not; besides we had many hard squalls which deterred me from it; and, night coming on, I would not run any hazard, but bore away to the small inhabited island to see if we could get anchoring on the east side of it. When we came there we found the island so narrow that there could be no shelter; therefore I tacked and stood towards the greater island again: and, being more than midway between both, I lay by, designing to endeavour for anchorage next morning. Between 7 and 8 at night we spied a canoe close by us; and, seeing no more, suffered her to come aboard. She had 3 men in her who brought off 5 coconuts, for which I gave each of them a knife and a string of beads to encourage them to come off again in the morning: but before these went away we saw 2 more canoes coming; therefore we stood away to the northward from them and then lay by again till day. We saw no more boats this night; neither designed to suffer any to come aboard in the dark. By nine o'clock the next morning we were got within a league of the great island, but were kept off by violent gusts of wind. These squalls gave us warning of their approach by the clouds which hung over the mountains, and afterwards descended to the foot of them; and then it is we expect them speedily. GERRIT DENNIS ISLE DESCRIBED. On the 3rd of March, being about 5 leagues to leeward of the great island, we saw the mainland ahead; and another great high island to leeward of us, distance about 7 leagues; which we bore away for. It is called in the Dutch charts Gerrit Denis Isle. It is about 14 or 15 leagues round; high and mountainous, and very woody: some trees appeared very large and tall; and the bays by the seaside are well stored with coconut-trees; where we also saw some small houses. The sides of the mountains are thick set with plantations; and the mould in the new cleared land seemed to be of a brown-reddish colour. This island is of no regular figure, but is full of points shooting forth into the sea; between which are many sandy bays, full of coconut-trees. The middle of the isle lies in 3 degrees 10 minutes south latitude. ITS INHABITANTS. It is very populous; the natives are very black, strong, and well-limbed people; having great round heads, their hair naturally curled and short, which they shave into several forms, and dye it also of divers colours, namely red, white and yellow. They have broad round faces with great bottle noses, yet agreeable enough, till they disfigure them by painting, and by wearing great things through their noses as big as a man's thumb and about four inches long; these are run clear through both nostrils, one end coming out by one cheek-bone, and the other end against the other; and their noses so stretched that only a small slip of them appears about the ornament. They have also great holes in their ears, wherein they wear such stuff as in their noses. THEIR PROAS. They are very dexterous active fellows in their proas, which are very ingeniously built. They are narrow and long with outlagers on one side; the head and stern higher than the rest, and carved into many devices, namely some fowl, fish, or a man's head, painted or carved: and though it is but rudely done, yet the resemblance appears plainly, and shows an ingenious fancy. But with what instruments they make their proas or carved work I know not; for they seem to be utterly ignorant of iron. They have very neat paddles with which they manage their proas dexterously and make great way through the water. Their weapons are chiefly lances, swords and slings, and some bows and arrows: they have also wooden fishgigs for striking fish. Those that came to assault us in Slingers Bay on the main are in all respects like these; and I believe these are alike treacherous. Their speech is clear and distinct; the words they used most when near us were "vacousee allamais," and then they pointed to the shore. Their signs of friendship are either a great truncheon, or bough of a tree full of leaves put on their heads; often striking their heads with their hands. ANTHONY CAVE'S ISLAND. The next day, having a fresh gale of wind, we got under a high island, about 4 or 5 leagues round, very woody, and full of plantations upon the sides of the hills; and in the bays by the waterside are abundance of coconut-trees. It lies in the latitude of 3 degrees 25 minutes south, and meridian distance from Cape Mabo 1316 miles. On the south-east part of it or 3 or 4 other small woody islands; one high and peaked, the other low and flat; all bedecked with coconut-trees and other wood. On the north there is another island of an indifferent height, and of a somewhat larger circumference than the great high island last mentioned. We passed between this and the high island. The high island is called in the Dutch charts Anthony Cave's Island. As for the flat low island and the other small one, it is probable they were never seen by the Dutch; nor the islands to the north of Gerrit Dennis Island. ITS INHABITANTS. As soon as we came near Cave's Island some canoes came about us and made signs for us to come ashore, as all the rest had done before; probably thinking we could run the ship aground anywhere, as they did their proas; for we saw neither sail nor anchor among any of them, though most eastern Indians have both. These had proas made of one tree, well dug, with outlagers on one side: they were but small yet well shaped. We endeavoured to anchor but found no ground within a mile of the shore: we kept close along the north side, still sounding till we came to the north-east end, but found no ground; the canoes still accompanying us; and the bays were covered with men going along as we sailed: many of them strove to swim off to us but we left them astern. Being at the north-east point we found a strong current setting to the north-west; so that though we had steered to keep under the high island, yet we were driven towards the flat one. At this time 3 of the natives came aboard: I gave each of them a knife, a looking-glass, and a string of beads. I showed them pumpkins and coconut-shells, and made signs to them to bring some aboard, and had presently 3 coconuts out of one of the canoes. I showed them nutmegs, and by their signs I guessed they had some on the island. I also showed them some gold-dust, which they seemed to know, and called out "manneel, manneel," and pointed towards the land. A while after these men were gone 2 or 3 canoes came from the flat island, and by signs invited us to their island; at which the others seemed displeased, and used very menacing gestures and (I believe) speeches to each other. Night coming on we stood off to sea; and, having but little wind all night, were driven away to the north-west. We saw many great fires on the flat island. These last men that came off to us were all black, as those we had seen before with frizzled hair: they were very tall, lusty, well-shaped men; they wear great things in their noses, and paint as the others, but not much; they make the same signs of friendship, and their language seems to be one: but the others had proas, and these canoes. On the sides of some of these we saw the figures of several fish neatly cut; and these last were not so shy as the others. TREES FULL OF WORMS FOUND IN THE SEA. Steering away from Cave's Island south-south-east we found a strong current against us, which set only in some places in streams; and in them we saw many trees and logs of wood which drove by us. We had but little wood aboard; wherefore I hoisted out the pinnace and sent her to take up some of this driftwood. In a little time she came aboard with a great tree in a tow, which we could hardly hoist in with all our tackles. We cut up the tree and split it for firewood. It was much worm-eaten and had in it some live worms above an inch long, and about the bigness of a goose-quill, and having their heads crusted over with a thin shell. ST. JOHN'S ISLAND. After this we passed by an island called by the Dutch St. John's Island, leaving it to the north of us. It is about 9 or 10 leagues round and very well adorned with lofty trees. We saw many plantations on the sides of the hills, and abundance of coconut-trees about them; as also thick groves on the bays by the seaside. As we came near it 3 canoes came off to us but would not come aboard. They were such as we had seen about the other islands: they spoke the same language, and made the same signs of peace; and their canoes were such as at Cave's Island. THE MAINLAND OF NEW GUINEA. We stood along by St. John's Island till we came almost to the south-east point; and then, seeing no more islands to the eastward of us, nor any likelihood of anchoring under this, I steered away for the main of New Guinea; we being now (as I supposed) to the east of it, on this north side. My design of seeing these islands as I passed along was to get wood and water, but could find no anchor-ground, and therefore could not do as I purposed. Besides, these islands are all so populous that I dared not send my boat ashore unless I could have anchored pretty nigh. Wherefore I rather chose to prosecute my design on the main, the season of the year being now at hand; for I judged the westerly winds were nigh spent. ITS INHABITANTS. On the 8th of March we saw some smokes on the main, being distant from it 4 or 5 leagues. It is very high, woody land, with some spots of savannah. About 10 in the morning 6 or 7 canoes came off to us: most of them had no more than one man in them; they were all black, with short curled hair; having the same ornaments in their noses, and their heads so shaved and painted, and speaking the same words, as the inhabitants of Cave's Island before mentioned. THE COAST DESCRIBED. There was a headland to the southward of us beyond which, seeing no land, I supposed that from thence the land trends away more westerly. This headland lies in the latitude of 5 degrees 2 minutes south, and meridian distance from Cape Mabo 1290 miles. In the night we lay by for fear of over-shooting this headland. Between which and Cape St. Maries the land is high, mountainous and woody; having many points of land shooting out into the sea, which make so many fine bays. The coast lies north-north-east and south-south-west. The 9th in the morning a huge black man came off to us in a canoe but would not come aboard. He made the same signs of friendship to us as the rest we had met with; yet seemed to differ in his language, not using any of those words which the others did. We saw neither smokes nor plantations near this headland. We found here variation 1 degree east. CAPE AND BAY ST. GEORGE. In the afternoon, as we plied near the shore, 3 canoes came off to us; one had 4 men in her, the others 2 apiece. That with the 4 men came pretty nigh us, and showed us a coconut and water in a bamboo, making signs that there was enough ashore where they lived; they pointed to the place where they would have us go, and so went away. We saw a small round pretty high island, about a league to the north of this headland, within which there was a large deep bay, whither the canoes went; and we strove to get thither before night, but could not; wherefore we stood off, and saw land to the westward of this headland, bearing west by south half south, distance about 10 leagues; and, as we thought, still more land bearing south-west by south, distance 12 or 14 leagues: but, being clouded, it disappeared and we thought we had been deceived. Before night we opened the headland fair and I named it Cape St. George. The land from hence trends away west-north-west about 10 leagues, which is as far as we could see it; and the land that we saw to the westward of it in the evening, which bore west by south half south, was another point about 10 leagues from Cape St. George; between which there runs in a deep bay for 20 leagues or more. We saw some high land in spots like islands down in that bay at a great distance; but whether they are islands or the main closing there we know not. The next morning we saw other land to the south-east of the westermost point, which till then was clouded; it was very high land, and the same that we saw the day before, that disappeared in a cloud. This Cape St. George lies in the latitude of 5 degrees 5 minutes south; and meridian distance from Cape Mabo 1290 miles. The island off this cape I called St. George's Isle; and the bay between it and the west point I named St. George's Bay. Note: no Dutch charts go so far as this cape, by 10 leagues. On the 10th in the evening we got within a league of the westermost land seen, which is pretty high and very woody, but no appearance of anchoring. I stood off again, designing (if possible) to ply to and fro in this bay till I found a conveniency to wood and water. We saw no more plantations, nor coconut-trees; yet in the night we discerned a small fire right against us. The next morning we saw a burning mountain in the country. It was round, high, and peaked at top (as most volcanoes are) and sent forth a great quantity of smoke. We took up a log of driftwood and split it for firing; in which we found some small fish. CAPE ORFORD. The day after we passed by the south-west cape of this bay, leaving it to the north of us: when we were abreast of it I called my officers together, and named it Cape Orford, in honour of my noble patron; drinking his lordship's health. This cape bears from Cape St. George south-west about 18 leagues. Between them there is a bay about 25 leagues deep, having pretty high land all round it, especially near the capes, though they themselves are not high. Cape Orford lies in the latitude of 5 degrees 24 minutes south by my observation; and meridian distance from Cape St. George 44 miles west. The land trends from this cape north-west by west into the bay, and on the other side south-west per compass, which is south-west 9 degrees west, allowing the variation which is here 9 degrees east. The land on each side of the cape is more savannah than woodland, and is highest on the north-west side. The cape itself is a bluff point of an indifferent height with a flat tableland at top. When we were to the south-west of the cape it appeared to be a low point shooting out; which you cannot see when abreast of it. This morning we struck a log of driftwood with our turtle-irons, hoisted it in, and split it for firewood. Afterwards we struck another but could not get it in. There were many fish about it. We steered along south-west as the land lies, keeping about 6 leagues off the shore; and, being desirous to cut wood and fill water if I saw any conveniency, I lay by in the night, because I would not miss any place proper for those ends, for fear of wanting such necessaries as we could not live without. This coast is high and mountainous, and not so thick with trees as that on the other side of Cape Orford. ANOTHER BAY. THE INHABITANTS THERE. On the 14th, seeing a pretty deep bay ahead, and some islands where I thought we might ride secure, we ran in towards the shore and saw some smokes. At 10 o'clock we saw a point which shot out pretty well into the sea, with a bay within it which promised fair for water; and we stood in with a moderate gale. Being got into the bay within the point we saw many coconut-trees, plantations, and houses. When I came within 4 or 5 mile of the shore 6 small boats came off to view us, with about 40 men in them all. Perceiving that they only came to view us and would not come aboard, I made signs and waved to them to go ashore; but they did not or would not understand me; therefore I whistled a shot over their heads out of my fowling-piece, and then they pulled away for the shore as hard as they could. These were no sooner ashore but we saw 3 boats coming from the islands to leeward of us, and they soon came within call; for we lay becalmed. One of the boats had about 40 men in her, and was a large well-built boat; the other 2 were but small. Not long after I saw another boat coming out of that bay where I intended to go: she likewise was a large boat, with a high head and stern painted and full of men; this I thought came off to fight us, as it is probable they all did; therefore I fired another small shot over the great boat that was nigh us, which made them leave their babbling and take to their paddles. We still lay becalmed; and therefore they, rowing wide of us, directed their course toward the other great boat that was coming off: when they were pretty near each other I caused the gunner to fire a gun between them which he did very dexterously; it was loaded with round and partridge-shot; the last dropped in the water somewhat short of them, but the round shot went between both boats and grazed about 100 yards beyond them; this so affrighted them that they rowed away for the shore as fast as they could, without coming near each other; and the little boats made the best of their way after them: and now, having a gentle breeze at south-south-east, we bore in to the bay after them. When we came by the point I saw a great number of men peeping from under the rocks: I ordered a shot to be fired close by to scare them. The shot grazed between us and the point; and, mounting again, flew over the point, and grazed a second time just by them. We were obliged to sail along close by the bays; and, seeing multitudes setting under the trees, I ordered a third gun to be fired among the coconut-trees to scare them; for, my business being to wood and water, I thought it necessary to strike some terror into the inhabitants, who were very numerous, and (by what I saw now and had formerly experienced) treacherous. After this I sent my boat to sound; they had first 40, then 30, and at last 20 fathom water. We followed the boat and came to anchor about a quarter of a mile from the shore in 26 fathom water, fine black sand and oaze. We rode right against the mouth of a small river where I hoped to find fresh water. Some of the natives standing on a small point at the river's mouth, I sent a small shot over their heads to fright them; which it did effectually. A LARGE ACCOUNT OF THE AUTHOR'S ATTEMPTS TO TRADE WITH THEM. In the afternoon I sent my boat ashore to the natives who stood upon the point by the river's mouth with a present of coconuts; when the boat was come near the shore they came running into the water, and put their nuts into the boat. Then I made a signal for the boat to come aboard, and sent both it and the yawl into the river to look for fresh water, ordering the pinnace to lie near the river's mouth while the yawl went up to search. In an hour's time they returned aboard with some barrecoes full of fresh water, which they had taken up about half a mile up the river. After which I sent them again with casks; ordering one of them to fill water, and the other to watch the motion of the natives, lest they should make any opposition; but they did not, and so the boats returned a little before sunset with a tun and a half of water; and the next day by noon brought aboard about 6 tun of water. I sent ashore commodities to purchase hogs, etc., being informed that the natives have plenty of them, as also of yams and other good roots; but my men returned without getting anything that I sent them for; the natives being unwilling to trade with us: yet they admired our hatchets and axes; but would part with nothing but coconuts; which they used to climb the trees for; and so soon as they gave them our men they beckoned to them to be gone; for they were much afraid of us. The 18th I sent both boats again for water, and before noon they had filled all my casks. In the afternoon I sent them both to cut wood; but, seeing about 40 natives standing on the bay at a small distance from our men, I made a signal for them to come aboard again; which they did, and brought me word that the men which we saw on the bay were passing that way, but were afraid to come nigh them. At 4 o'clock I sent both the boats again for more wood, and they returned in the evening. Then I called my officers to consult whether it were convenient to stay here longer, and endeavour a better acquaintance with these people or go to sea. My design of tarrying here longer was, if possible, to get some hogs, goats, yams and other roots; as also to get some knowledge of the country and its product. My officers unanimously gave their opinions for staying longer here. So the next day I sent both boats ashore again to fish and to cut more wood. While they were ashore about 30 or 40 men and women passed by them; they were a little afraid of our people at first; but upon their making signs of friendship they passed by quietly; the men finely bedecked with feathers of divers colours about their heads, and lances in their hands; the women had no ornament about them, nor anything to cover their nakedness but a bunch of small green boughs before and behind, stuck under a string which came round their waists. They carried large baskets on their heads, full of yams. And this I have observed amongst all the wild natives I have known that they make their women carry the burdens, while the men walk before without any other load than their arms and ornaments. At noon our men came aboard with the wood they had cut, and had caught but 6 fishes at 4 or 5 hauls of the seine, though we saw abundance of fish leaping in the bay all the day long. In the afternoon I sent the boats ashore for more wood; and some of our men went to the natives' houses, and found they were now more shy than they used to be; had taken down all the coconuts from the trees and driven away their hogs. Our people made signs to them to know what was become of their hogs, etc. The natives, pointing to some houses in the bottom of the bay, and imitating the noise of those creatures, seemed to intimate that there were both hogs and goats of several sizes, which they expressed by holding their hands abroad at several distances from the ground. At night our boats came aboard with wood, and the next morning I went myself with both boats up the river to the watering-place, carrying with me all such trifles and iron-work as I thought most proper to induce them to a commerce with us; but I found them very shy and roguish. I saw but 2 men and a boy: one of the men by some signs was persuaded to come to the boat's side, where I was; to him I gave a knife, a string of beads, and a glass bottle; the fellow called out, "cocos, cocos," pointing to a village hard by, and signified to us that he would go for some; but he never returned to us. And thus they had frequently of late served our men. I took 8 or 9 men with me and marched to their houses, which I found very mean; and their doors made fast with withes. I visited 3 of their villages; and, finding all the houses thus abandoned by the inhabitants, who carried with them all their hogs etc., I brought out of their houses some small fishing-nets in recompense for those things they had received of us. As we were coming away we saw 2 of the natives; I showed them the things that we carried with us and called to them "cocos, cocos," to let them know that I took these things because they had not made good what they had promised by their signs, and by their calling out "cocos." While I was thus employed the men in the yawl filled 2 hogsheads of water and all the barrecoes. About 1 in the afternoon I came aboard and found all my officers and men very importunate to go to that bay where the hogs were said to be. I was loth to yield to it, fearing they would deal too roughly with the natives. By 2 o'clock in the afternoon many black clouds gathered over the land, which I thought would deter them from their enterprise; but they solicited me the more to let them go. At last I consented, sending those commodities I had ashore with me in the morning, and giving them a strict charge to deal by fair means, and to act cautiously for their own security. The bay I sent them to was about 2 miles from the ship. As soon as they were gone I got all things ready that, if I saw occasion, I might assist them with my great guns. When they came to land the natives in great companies stood to resist them; shaking their lances and threatening them; and some were so daring as to wade into the sea, holding a target in one hand and a lance in the other. Our men held up to them such commodities as I had sent, and made signs of friendship; but to no purpose; for the natives waved them off. Seeing therefore they could not be prevailed upon to a friendly commerce, my men, being resolved to have some provision among them, fired some muskets to scare them away; which had the desired effect upon all but 2 or 3, who stood still in a menacing posture till the boldest dropped his target and ran away; they supposed he was shot in the arm: he and some others felt the smart of our bullets but none were killed; our design being rather to fright than to kill them. Our men landed and found abundance of tame hogs running among the houses. They shot down 9, which they brought away, besides many that ran away wounded. They had but little time; for in less than an hour after they went from the ship it began to rain: wherefore they got what they could into the boats; for I had charged them to come away if it rained. By that time the boat was aboard and the hogs taken in it cleared up; and my men desired to make another trip thither before night; this was about 5 in the evening; and I consented, giving them order to repair on board before night. In the close of the evening they returned accordingly with 8 hogs more, and a little live pig; and by this time the other hogs were jerked and salted. These that came last we only dressed and corned till morning; and then sent both boats ashore for more refreshments, either of hogs or roots: but in the night the natives had conveyed away their provisions of all sorts. Many of them were now about the houses, and none offered to resist our boats landing, but on the contrary were so amicable that one man brought 10 or 12 coconuts, left them on the shore after he had showed them to our men, and went out of sight. Our people finding nothing but nets and images brought some of them away; which 2 of my men brought aboard in a small canoe; and presently after, my boats came off. I ordered the boatswain to take care of the nets, till we came at some place where they might be disposed of for some refreshment for the use of all the company: the images I took into my own custody. In the afternoon I sent the canoe the place from whence she had been brought; and in her, 2 axes, 2 hatchets (one of them helved) 6 knives, 6 looking-glasses, a large bunch of beads, and 4 glass bottles. Our men drew the canoe ashore, placed the things to the best advantage in her; and came off in the pinnace which I sent to guard them. And now, being well stocked with wood and all my water-casks full, I resolved to sail the next morning. All the time of our stay here we had very fair weather; only sometimes in the afternoon we had a shower of rain which lasted not above an hour at most: also some thunder and lightning with very little wind. We had sea- and land-breezes; the former between the south-south-east, and the latter from north-east to north-west. HE NAMES THE PLACE PORT MONTAGUE. THE COUNTRY THEREABOUTS DESCRIBED, AND ITS PRODUCE. This place I named port Montague in honour of my noble patron. It lies in the latitude of 6 degrees 10 minutes south, and meridian distance from Cape St. George 151 miles west. The country hereabouts is mountainous and woody, full of rich valleys and pleasant fresh-water brooks. The mould in the valleys is deep and yellowish; that on the sides of the hills of a very brown colour, and not very deep, but rocky underneath; yet excellent planting land. The trees in general are neither very straight, thick, nor tall; yet appear green and pleasant enough: some of them bore flowers, some berries, and others big fruits; but all unknown to any of us. Coconut-trees thrive very well here; as well on the bays by the seaside, as more remote among the plantations. The nuts are of an indifferent size, the milk and kernel very thick and pleasant. Here is ginger, yams, and other very good roots for the pot, that our men saw and tasted. What other fruits or roots the country affords I know not. Here are hogs and dogs; other land-animals we saw none. The fowls we saw and knew were pigeons, parrots, cockadores, and crows like those in England; a sort of birds about the bigness of a blackbird, and smaller birds many. The sea and rivers have plenty of fish; we saw abundance, though we caught but few, and these were cavallies, yellow-tails and whip-rays. A BURNING ISLAND DESCRIBED. We departed from hence on the 22nd of March, and on the 24th in the evening we saw some high land bearing north-west half west; to the west of which we could see no land, though there appeared something like land bearing west a little southerly; but, not being sure of it, I steered west-north-west all night, and kept going on with an easy sail, intending to coast along the shore at a distance. At 10 o'clock I saw a great fire bearing north-west by west, blazing up in a pillar, sometimes very high for 3 or 4 minutes, then falling quite down for an equal space of time; sometimes hardly visible, till it blazed up again. I had laid me down having been indisposed this 3 days: but upon a sight of this my chief mate called me; I got up and viewed it for about half an hour and knew it to be a burning hill by its intervals: I charged them to look well out, having bright moonlight. In the morning I found that the fire we had seen the night before was a burning island; and steered for it. We saw many other islands, one large high island, and another smaller, but pretty high. I stood near the volcano and many small low islands with some shoals. A NEW PASSAGE FOUND. March the 25th 1700 in the evening we came within 3 leagues of this burning hill, being at the same time 2 leagues from the main. I found a good channel to pass between them, and kept nearer the main than the island. At 7 in the evening I sounded, and had 52 fathom fine sand and oaze. I stood to the northward to get clear of this strait, having but little wind and fair weather. The island all night vomited fire and smoke very amazingly; and at every belch we heard a dreadful noise like thunder, and saw a flame of fire after it, the most terrifying that ever I saw. The intervals between its belches were about half a minute, some more, others less: neither were these pulses or eruptions alike; for some were but faint convulsions in comparison of the more vigorous; yet even the weakest vented a great deal of fire; but the largest made a roaring noise, and sent up a large flame 20 or 30 yards high; and then might be seen a great stream of fire running down to the foot of the island, even to the shore. From the furrows made by this descending fire we could in the daytime see great smokes arise, which probably were made by the sulphureous matter thrown out of the funnel at the top which, tumbling down to the bottom and there lying in a heap, burned till either consumed or extinguished; and as long as it burned and kept its heat so long the smoke ascended from it; which we perceived to increase or decrease, according to the quantity of matter discharged from the funnel. But the next night, being shot to the westward of the burning island, and the funnel of it lying on the south side, we could not discern the fire there as we did the smoke in the day when we were to the southward of it. This volcano lies in the latitude of 5 degrees 33 minutes south, and meridian distance from Cape St. George 332 miles west. NEW BRITAIN. The eastermost part of New Guinea lies 40 miles to the westward of this tract of land, and by hydrographers they are made joining together: but here I found an opening and passage between, with many islands; the largest of which lie on the north side of this passage or strait. The channel is very good, between the islands and the land to the eastward. The east part of New Guinea is high and mountainous, ending on the north-east with a large promontory, which I named King William's Cape in honour of his present majesty. We saw some smokes on it; and, leaving it on our larboard side, steered away near the east land which ends with two remarkable capes or heads distant from each other about 6 or 7 leagues. Within each head were two very remarkable mountains, ascending very gradually from the seaside; which afforded a very pleasant and agreeable prospect. The mountains and lower land were pleasantly mixed with woodland and savannahs. The trees appeared very green and flourishing; and the savannahs seemed to be very smooth and even; no meadow in England appears more green in the spring than these. We saw smokes but did not strive to anchor here; but rather chose to get under one of the islands (where I thought I should find few or no inhabitants) that I might repair my pinnace, which was so crazy that I could not venture ashore anywhere with her. As we stood over to the islands we looked out very well to the north, but could see no land that way; by which I was well assured that we were got through, and that this east land does not join to New Guinea; therefore I named it New Britain. The north-west cape I called Cape Gloucester, and the south-west point Cape Anne; and the north-west mountain, which is very remarkable, I called Mount Gloucester. This island which I called New Britain has about 4 degrees of latitude: the body of it lying in 4 degrees and the northermost part in 2 degrees 30 minutes and the southermost in 6 degrees 30 minutes south. It has about 5 degrees 18 minutes longitude from east to west. It is generally high, mountainous land, mixed with large valleys; which as well as the mountains appeared very fertile; and in most places that we saw the trees are very large, tall and thick. It is also very well inhabited with strong well-limbed negroes, whom we found very daring and bold at several places. As to the product of it I know no more than what I have said in my account of Port Montague: but it is very probable this island may afford as many rich commodities as any in the world; and the natives may be easily brought to commerce, though I could not pretend to it under my present circumstances. SIR GEORGE ROOK'S ISLAND. Being near the island to the northward of the volcano I sent my boat to sound, thinking to anchor here; but she returned and brought me word that they had no ground, till they met with a reef of coral rocks about a mile from the shore. Then I bore away to the north side of the island where we found no anchoring neither. We saw several people, and some coconut-trees, but could not send ashore for want of my pinnace which was out of order. In the evening I stood off to sea to be at such a distance that I might not be driven by any current upon the shoals of this island if it should prove calm. We had but little wind, especially the beginning of the night; but in the morning I found myself so far to the west of the island that, the wind being at east-south-east, I could not fetch it; wherefore I kept on to the southward and stemmed with the body of a high island about 11 or 12 leagues long, lying to the southward of that which I before designed for. I named this island Sir George Rook's Island. LONG ISLAND AND CROWN ISLAND, DISCOVERED AND DESCRIBED. We also saw some other islands to the westward; which may be better seen in my chart of these lands than here described. But, seeing a very small island lying to the north-west of the long island which was before us, and not far from it, I steered away for that; hoping to find anchoring there: and, having but little wind, I sent my boat before to sound; which, when we were about 2 miles distance from the shore, came on board and brought me word that there was good anchoring in 30 or 40 fathom water, a mile from the isle and within a reef of the rocks which lay in a half-moon, reaching from the north part of the island to the south-east: so at noon we got in and anchored in 36 fathom a mile from the isle. In the afternoon I sent my boat ashore to the island to see what convenience there was to haul our vessel ashore in order to be mended, and whether we could catch any fish. My men in the boat rowed about the island, but could not land by reason of the rocks and a great surge running in upon the shore. We found variation here 8 degrees 25 minutes west. I designed to have stayed among these islands till I had got my pinnace refitted; but, having no more than one man who had skill to work upon her, I saw she would be a long time in repairing (which was one great reason why I could not prosecute my discoveries further) and, the easterly winds being set in, I found I should scarce be able to hold my ground. The 31st in the forenoon we shot in between 2 islands lying about 4 leagues asunder; with intention to pass between them. The southermost is a long island with a high hill at each end; this I named Long island. The northermost is a round high island towering up with several heads or tops, something resembling a crown; this I named Crown Isle from its form. Both these islands appeared very pleasant, having spots of green savannahs mixed among the woodland: the trees appeared very green and flourishing, and some of them looked white and full of blossoms. We passed close by Crown Isle; saw many coconut-trees on the bays and the sides of the hills; and one boat was coming off from the shore but returned again. We saw no smokes on either of the islands, neither did we see any plantations; and it is probable they are not very well peopled. We saw many shoals near Crown Island, and reefs of rocks running off from the points a mile or more into the sea. My boat was once overboard with design to have sent her ashore; but, having little wind and seeing some shoals, I hoisted her in again and stood off out of danger. SIR R. RICH'S ISLAND. In the afternoon, seeing an island bearing north-west by west, we steered away north-west by north, to be to the northward of it. The next morning, being about midway from the islands we left yesterday, and having this to the westward of us; the land of the main of New Guinea within us to the southward appeared very high. When we came within 4 or 5 leagues of this island to the west of us, 4 boats came off to view us: one came within call, but returned with the other 3 without speaking to us: so we kept on for the island which I named Sir R. Rich's Island. It was pretty high, woody, and mixed with savannahs like those formerly mentioned. Being to the north of it we saw an opening between it and another island 2 leagues to the west of it, which before appeared all in one. The main seemed to be high land, trending to the westward. A BURNING ISLAND. On Tuesday the 2nd of April about 8 in the morning we discovered a high peaked island to the westward which seemed to smoke at its top. The next day we passed by the north side of the burning island and saw a smoke again at its top; but, the vent lying on the south side of the peak, we could not observe it distinctly, nor see the fire. We afterwards opened 3 more islands and some land to the southward, which we could not well tell whether it were islands or part of the main. These islands are all high, full of fair trees and spots of green savannahs; as well the burning isle as the rest; but the burning isle was more round and peaked at top, very fine land near the sea, and for two-thirds up it. We also saw another isle sending forth a great smoke at once; but it soon vanished, and we saw it no more. We saw also among these islands 3 small vessels with sails, which the people on New Britain seem wholly ignorant of. A STRANGE SPOUT. The 11th at noon, having a very good observation, I found myself to the northward of my reckoning; and thence concluded that we had a current setting north-west, or rather more westerly, as the land lies. From that time to the next morning we had fair clear weather and a fine moderate gale from south-east to east by north: but at daybreak the clouds began to fly, and it lightned very much in the east, south-east and north-east. At sun-rising the sky looked very red in the east near the horizon; and there were many black clouds both to the south and north of it. About a quarter of an hour after the sun was up there was a squall to the windward of us; when on a sudden one of our men on the forecastle called out that he saw something astern, but could not tell what: I looked out for it and immediately saw a spout beginning to work within a quarter of a mile of us, exactly in the wind. We presently put right before it. It came very swiftly, whirling the water up in a pillar about 6 or 7 yards high. As yet I could not see any pendulous cloud from whence it might come; and was in hopes it would soon lose its force. In 4 or 5 minutes time it came within a cable's length of us and passed away to leeward; and then I saw a long pale stream coming down to the whirling water. This stream was about the bigness of a rainbow: the upper end seemed vastly high, not descending from any dark cloud and therefore the most strange to me; I never having seen the like before. It passed about a mile to leeward of us and then broke. This was but a small spout, not strong nor lasting; yet I perceived much wind in it as it passed by us. The current still continued at north-west a little westerly, which I allowed to run a mile per hour. A CONJECTURE CONCERNING A NEW PASSAGE SOUTHWARD. By an observation the 13th at noon I found myself 25 minutes to the northward of my reckoning; whether occasioned by bad steerage, a bad account, or a current, I could not determine; but was apt to judge it might be a complication of all; for I could not think it was wholly the current, the land here lying east by south, and west by north, or a little more northerly and southerly. We had kept so nigh as to see it, and at farthest had not been above 20 leagues from it, but sometimes much nearer; and it is not probable that any current should set directly off from a land. A tide indeed may; but then the flood has the same force to strike in upon the shore as the ebb to strike off from it: but a current must have set nearly alongshore either easterly or westerly; and if anything northerly or southerly, it could be but very little in comparison of its east or west course, on a coast lying as this doth; which yet we did not perceive. If therefore we were deceived by a current it is very probable that the land is here disjoined, and that there is a passage through to the southward, and that the land from King William's Cape to this place is an island, separated from New Guinea by some strait as New Britain is by that which we came through. But this being at best but a probable conjecture I shall insist no farther upon it. KING WILLIAM'S ISLAND. The 14th we passed by Schouten's Island and Providence Island, and found still a very strong current setting to the north-west. On the 17th the we saw a high mountain on the main that sent forth great quantities of smoke from its top: this volcano we did not see in our voyage out. In the afternoon we discovered King William's Island, and crowded all the sail we could to get near it before night; thinking to lie to the eastward of it till day, for fear of some shoals that lie at the west end of it. Before night we got within 2 leagues of it and, having a fine gale of wind and a light moon, I resolved to pass through in the night; which I hoped to do before 12 o'clock if the gale continued; but when we came within 2 miles of it it fell calm; yet afterwards, by the help of the current, a small gale, and our boat, we got through before day. In the night we had a very fragrant smell from the island. STRANGE WHIRLPOOLS. By morning-light we were got 2 leagues to the westward of it; and then were becalmed all the morning; and met such whirling tides that when we came into them the ship turned quite round; and though sometimes we had a small gale of wind yet she could not feel the helm when she came into these whirlpools: neither could we get from amongst them till a brisk gale sprang up; yet we drove not much any way, but whirled round like a top. And those whirlpools were not constant to one place, but drove about strangely; and sometimes we saw among them large ripplings of the water, like great overfalls, making a fearful noise. I sent my boat to sound but found no ground. DISTANCE BETWEEN CAPE MABO AND CAPE ST. GEORGE COMPUTED. The 18th Cape Mabo bore south distance 9 leagues. By which account it lies in the latitude of 50 minutes south and meridian distance from Cape St. George 1243 miles. St. John's Isle lies 48 miles to the east of Cape St. George; which, being added to the distance between Cape St. George and Cape Mabo, makes 1291 meridional parts; which was the furthest that I was to the east. In my outward-bound voyage I made meridian distance between Cape Mabo and Cape St. George 1290 miles; and now in my return but 1243; which is 47 short of my distance going out. This difference may probably be occasioned by the strong western current which we found in our return, which I allowed for after I perceived it; and though we did not discern any current when we went to the eastward, except when near the islands, yet it is probable we had one against us, though we did not take notice of it because of the strong westerly winds. King William's Island lies in the latitude of 21 minutes south, and may be seen distinctly off of Cape Mabo. In the evening we passed by Cape Mabo; and afterwards steered away south-east half east, keeping along the shore which here trends south-easterly. The next morning, seeing a large opening in the land with an island near the south side, I stood in, thinking to anchor there. When we were shot in within 2 leagues of the island the wind came to the west, which blows right into the opening. I stood to the north shore; intending, when I came pretty nigh, to send my boat into the opening, and sound before I would adventure in. We found several deep bays, but no soundings within 2 miles of the shore; therefore I stood off again. Then, seeing a rippling under our lee, I sent my boat to sound on it; which returned in half an hour and brought me word that the rippling we saw was only a tide, and that they had no ground there. CHAPTER 5. NAVIGATION AMONG THE ISLANDS. THE AUTHOR'S RETURN FROM THE COAST OF NEW GUINEA. The wind seeming to incline to east, as might be expected according to the season of the year, I rather chose to shape my course as these winds would best permit than strive to return the same way we came; which, for many leagues, must have been against this monsoon: though indeed, on the other hand, the dangers in that way we already knew; but what might be in this by which we now proposed to return we could not tell. A DEEP CHANNEL. We were now in a channel about 8 on 9 leagues wide, having a range of islands on the north side, and another on the south side, and very deep water between, so that we had no ground. The 22nd of April in the morning I sent my boat ashore to an island on the north side, and stood that way with the ship. They found no ground till within a cable's length of the shore, and then had coral rocks; so that they could not catch any fish, though they saw a great many. They brought aboard a small canoe, which they found adrift. They met with no game ashore save only one party-coloured parakeet. The land is of an indifferent height; very rocky, yet clothed with tall trees, whose bare roots run along upon the rocks. Our people saw a pond of salt-water but found no fresh. Near this island we met a pretty strong tide but found neither tide nor current off at some distance. On the 24th, being about 2 leagues from an island to the southward of us, we came over a shoal on which we had but 5 fathom and a half. We did not descry it till we saw the ground under us. In less than half an hour before the boat had been sounding in discoloured water, but had no ground. We manned the boat presently and towed the ship about; and then sounding had 12, 15, and 17 fathom, and then no ground with our hand-lead. The shoal was rocky; but in 12 and 15 fathom we had oazy ground. STRANGE TIDES. We found here very strange tides that ran in streams, making a great sea; and roaring so loud that we could hear them before they came within a mile of us. The sea round about them seemed all broken, and tossed the ship so that she would not answer her helm. These ripplings commonly lasted 10 or 12 minutes, and then the sea became as still and smooth as a mill-pond. We sounded often when in the midst of them, and afterwards in the smooth water; but found no ground, neither could we perceive that they drove us any way. We had in one night several of these tides that came most of them from the west; and, the wind being from that quarter, we commonly heard them a long time before they came; and sometimes lowered our topsails, thinking it was a gust of wind. They were of great length from north to south, but their breadth not exceeding 200 yards, and they drove a great pace: for though we had little wind to move us, yet these would soon pass away and leave the water very smooth, and just before we encountered them we met a great swell but it did not break. THE ISLAND CERAM DESCRIBED. The 26th we saw the island Ceram; and still met some ripplings, but much fainter than those we had the 2 preceding days. We sailed along the island Ceram to the westward, edging in withal, to see if peradventure we might find a harbour to anchor in where we might water, trim the ship, and refresh our men. In the morning we saw a sail to the north of us, steering in for the west end of Ceram, as we likewise were. In the evening, being near the shore on the north side of the island, I stood off to sea with an easy sail; intending to stand in for the shore in the morning, and try to find anchoring to fill water, and get a little fish for refreshment. Accordingly in the morning early I stood in with the north-west point of Ceram; leaving a small island, called Bonao, to the west. The sail we saw the day before was now come pretty nigh us, steering in also (as we did) between Ceram and Bonao. I shortened sail a little for him; and when he got abreast of us not above 2 miles off I sent my boat aboard. It was a Dutch sloop, come from Ternate, and bound for Amboina: my men whom I sent in the boat bought 5 bags of new rice, each containing about 130 pounds, for 6 Spanish dollars. The sloop had many rare parrots aboard for sale which did not want price. A Malayan merchant aboard told our men that about 6 months ago he was at Bencola, and at that time the governor either died or was killed, and that the commander of an English ship then in that road succeeded to that government. In the afternoon, having a breeze at north and north-north-east, I sent my boat to sound and, standing after her with the ship, anchored in 30 fathom water oazy sand, half a mile from the shore, right against a small river of fresh water. The next morning I sent both the boats ashore to fish; they returned about 10 o'clock with a few mullets and 3 or 4 cavallies, and some pan-fish. We found variation here 2 degrees 15 minutes east. When the sea was smooth by the land-winds we sent our boats ashore for water; who, in a few turns, filled all our casks. The land here is low, swampy and woody; the mould is a dark grey, friable earth. Two rivers came out within a bow-shot of each other, just opposite to the place where we rode: one comes right down out of the country; and the other from the south, running along by the shore, not musket-shot from the seaside. The northernmost river is biggest, and out of it we filled our water; our boats went in and out at any time of tide. In some places the land is overflown with fresh water, at full sea. The land hereabouts is full of trees unknown to us, but none of them very large or high; the woods yield many wild fruits and berries, such as I never saw elsewhere. We met with no land animals. STRANGE FOWLS. The fowls we found were pigeons, parrots, cockadores, and a great number of small birds unknown to me. One of the master's mates killed 2 fowls as big as crows; of a black colour, excepting that the tails were all white. Their necks were pretty long, one of which was of a saffron-colour, the other black. They had very large bills much like a ram's horn; their legs were strong and short, and their claws like a pigeon's; their wings of an ordinary length: yet they make a great noise when they fly, which they do very heavily. They feed on berries, and perch on the highest trees. Their flesh is sweet; I saw some of the same species at New Guinea, but nowhere else. THE ISLANDS BONAO, BOURO, MISACOMBI, PENTARE, LAUBANA, AND POTORO. May the 3rd at 6 in the morning we weighed, intending to pass between Bonao and Ceram; but presently after we got under sail we saw a pretty large proa coming about the north-west point of Ceram. Wherefore I stood to the north to speak with her, putting aboard our ensign. She, seeing us coming that way, went into a small creek and skulked behind a point a while: at last discovering her again I sent my boat to speak with her; but the proa rowed away and would not come nigh it. After this, finding I could not pass between Bonao and Ceram as I purposed, I steered away to the north of it. This Bonao is a small island lying about 4 leagues from the north-west point of Ceram. I was informed by the Dutch sloop before mentioned that, notwithstanding its smallness, it has one fine river, and that the Dutch are there settled. Whether there be any natives on it or not I know not, nor what its produce is. They further said that the Ceramers were their mortal enemies; yet that they were settled on the westermost point of Ceram in spite of the natives. The next day as we approached the island Bouro there came off from it a very fragrant scent, much like that from King William's Island; and we found so strong a current setting to the westward that we could scarce stem it. We plied to get to the southward, intending to pass between Bouro and Keelang. In the evening, being near the west end of Bouro, we saw a brigantine to the north-west of us, on the north side of Bouro, standing to the eastward. I would not stand east or west for fear of coming nigh the land which was on each side of us, namely Bouro on the west, and Keelang on the east. The next morning we found ourselves in mid-channel between both islands; and having the wind at south-west we steered south-south-east, which is right through between both. At 11 o'clock it fell calm; and so continued till noon; by that time the brigantine which we saw astern the night before was got 2 or 3 leagues ahead of us. It is probable she met a strong land-wind in the evening which continued all night; she keeping nearer the shore than I could safely do. She might likewise have a tide or current setting easterly, where she was; though we had a tide setting northwardly against us, we being in mid-channel. About 8 at night the brigantine which we saw in the day came close along by us on our weather-side: our guns were all ready before night, matches lighted, and small arms on the quarter-deck ready loaded. She standing one way and we another; we soon got further asunder. But I kept good watch all the night and in the morning saw her astern of us, standing as we did. At 10 o'clock, having little wind, I sent the yawl aboard of her. She was a Chinese vessel laden with rice, arrack, tea, porcelain, and other commodities, bound for Amboina. The commander said that his boat was gone ashore for water, and asked our men if they saw her; for she had been wanting for 2 or 3 days, and they knew not what was become of her. They had their wives and children aboard, and probably came to settle at some new Dutch factory. The commander also informed us that the Dutch had lately settled at Ampoulo, Menippe, Bonao, and on a point of Ceram. The next day we passed out to the southward between Keelang and Bouro. After this we had for several days a current setting southerly, and a great tumbling sea, occasioned more by the strong current than by winds, as was apparent by the jumping of its waves against each other; and by observation I found 25 miles more southing than our course gave us. On the 14th we discovered the island Misacomba, and the next day sailed along to the west on the north side of the island. In some charts it is called Omba; it is a mountainous island, spotted with woods and savannahs; about 20 leagues long and 5 or 6 broad. We saw no signs of inhabitants on it. We fell in nearest to the west end of it; and therefore I chose to pass on to the westward, intending to get through to the southward between this and the next isle to the west of it, or between any other 2 islands to the west, where I should meet with the clearest passage; because the winds were now at north-east and east-north-east, and the isle lies nearly east and west; so that if the winds continued I might be a long time in getting to the east end of it, which yet I knew to be the best passage. In the night, being at the west end and seeing no clear passage, I stood off with an easy sail, and in the morning had a fine land-wind, which would have carried us 5 or 6 leagues to the east if we had made the best of it; but we kept on only with a gentle gale for fear of a westerly current. In the morning, finding we had not met with any current as we expected, as soon as it was light we made sail to the westward again. After noon, being near the end of the isle Pentare which lies west from Misacomba, we saw many houses and plantations in the country, and many coconut-trees growing by the seaside. We also saw several boats sailing across a bay or channel at the west end of Misacomba, between it and Pentare. We had but little wind, and that at north, which blows right in with a swell rolling in withal; wherefore I was afraid to venture in, though probably there might be good anchoring and a commerce with the natives. I continued steering to the west, because, the night before at sun-setting, I saw a small round high island to the west of Pentare, where I expected a good passage. THE PASSAGE BETWEEN PENTARE AND LAUBANA. We could not that day reach the west end of Pentare, but saw a deep bay to the west of us, where I thought might be a passage through, between Pentare and Laubana. But as yet the lands were shut one within another, that we could not see any passage. Therefore I ordered to sail 7 leagues more westerly, and lie by till next day. In the morning we looked out for an opening but could see none; yet by the distance and bearing of a high round island called Potoro, we were got to the west of the opening, but not far from it. Wherefore I tacked and stood to the east, and the rather, because I had reason to suppose this to be the passage we came through in the Cygnet mentioned in my Voyage round the World; but I was not yet sure of it because we had rainy weather, so that we could not now see the land so well as we did then. We then accidentally saw the opening at our first falling in with the islands; which now was a work of some time and difficul to discover. However before 10 o'clock we saw the opening plain; and I was the more confirmed in my knowledge of this passage by a spit of sand and 2 islands at the north-east part of its entrance. The wind was at south-south-west and we plied to get through before night; for we found a good tide helping us to the south. About 7 or 8 leagues to the west of us we saw a high round peaked mountain, from whose top a smoke seemed to ascend as from a volcano. There were 3 other very high peaked mountains, 2 on the east and one on the west of that which smoked. In our plying to get through between Pentare and Laubana we had (as I said) a good tide or current setting us to the southward. And it is to be observed that near the shores in these parts we commonly find a tide setting northwardly or southwardly as the land lies; but the northwardly tide sets not above 3 hours in 12, having little strength; and sometimes it only checks the contrary current which runs with great violence, especially in narrow passes such as this between 2 islands. It was 12 at night before we got clear of 2 other small islands that lay on the south side of the passage; and there we had a very violent tide setting us through against a brisk gale of wind. Notwithstanding which I kept the pinnace out, for fear we should be becalmed. For this is the same place through which I passed in the year 1687, mentioned in my Voyage round the World, only then we came out between the western small island and Laubana, and now we came through between the two small islands. We sounded frequently but had no ground. I said there that we came through between Omba and Pentare: for we did not then see the opening between those 2 islands; which made me take the west side of Pentare for the west end of Omba, and Laubana for Pentare. But now we saw the opening between Omba and Pentare; which was so narrow that I would not venture through: besides I had now discovered my mistake, and hoped to meet with the other passage again, as indeed we did, and found it to be bold from side to side, which in the former voyage I did not know. THE ISLAND TIMOR. After we were through we made the best of our way to Timor, and on May the 18th in the morning we saw it plain, and made the high land over Laphao the Portuguese factory, as also the high peak over our first watering-place, and a small round island about midway between them. We coasted along the island Timor, intending to touch at Babao, to get a little water and refreshments. I would not go into the bay where we first watered, because of the currents which there whirl about very strangely, especially at spring tides which were now setting in; besides, the south-east winds come down in flaws from the mountains, so that it would have been very dangerous for us. BABAO BAY. Wherefore we crowded all the sail we could to get to Babao before night, or at least to get sight of the sandy island at the entrance of the bay; but could not. So we plied all night; and the next morning entered the bay. There being good ground all over this bay we anchored at 2 o'clock in 30 fathom water, soft oazy ground. And the morning after I sent my boat ashore with the seine to fish. At noon she returned and brought enough for all the ship's company. They saw an Indian boat at a round rocky island about a mile from them. On the 22nd I sent my boat ashore again to fish: at noon she returned with a few fish, which served me and my officers. They caught one whiting, the first I had seen in these seas. Our people went over to the rocky island and there found several jars of turtle, and some hanging up a-drying, and some cloths; their boat was about a mile off, striking turtle. Our men left all as they found. In the afternoon a very large shark came under our stern; I never had seen any near so big before. I put a piece of meat on a hook for him but he went astern and returned no more. About midnight, the wind being pretty moderate, I weighed and stood into the bottom of the bay, and ran over nearer the south shore, where I thought to lie and water, and at convenient times get fish for our refreshment. The next morning I sent my pinnace with 2 hogsheads and 10 barrecoes for water; they returned at noon with the casks full of water; very thick and muddy, but sweet and good. We found variation 15 minutes west. THE ISLAND ROTI. This afternoon, finding that the breezes were set in here, and that it blew so hard that I could neither fish nor fill water without much difficulty and hazard of the boat; I resolved to be gone, having good quantity of water aboard. Accordingly at half an hour after 2 in the morning we weighed with the wind at east by south, and stood to sea. We coasted along by the island Roti which is high land, spotted with woods and savannahs. The trees appeared small and shrubby, and the savannahs dry and rusty. All the north side has sandy bays by the sea. We saw no houses nor plantations. MORE ISLANDS THAN ARE COMMONLY LAID DOWN IN THE CHARTS. GREAT CURRENTS. The next day we crowded all the sail we could to get to the west of all the isles before night but could not; for at 6 in the evening we saw land bearing south-west by west. For here are more islands than are laid down in any charts that I have seen. Wherefore I was obliged to make a more westerly course than I intended till I judged we might be clear of the land. And when we were so I could easily perceive by the ship's motion. For till then, being under the lee of the shore, we had smooth water; but now we had a troubled sea which made us dance lustily. This turbulent sea was occasioned in part by the current; which, setting out slanting against the wind, was by it raised into short cockling seas. I did indeed expect a south-west current here but not so very strong as we found it. On the 26th we continued to have a very strong current setting southwardly; but on what point exactly I know not. Our whole distance by log was but 82 miles, and our difference of latitude since yesterday noon by observation 100 miles, which is 18 miles more than the whole distance; and our course, allowing no leeway at all, was south 17 degrees west, which gives but 76 miles difference of latitude, 24 less than we found by observation. I did expect (as has been said) we might meet a great current setting to the south yesterday, because there is a constant current setting out from among those islands we passed through between Timor and the isles to the west of it, and it is probable, in all the other openings between the islands, even from the east end of Java to the end of all that range that runs from thence, both to the east and west of Timor; but, being got so far out to sea as we were, though there may be a very great current, yet it does not seem probable to me that it should be of so great strength as we now found: for both currents and tides lose their force in the open sea where they have room to spread; and it is only in narrow places or near headlands that their force is chiefly felt. Besides, in my opinion, it should here rather set to the west than south; being open to the narrow sea that divides New Holland from the range of islands before mentioned. The 27th we found that in the last 24 hours we had gone 9 miles less south than the log gave: so that it is probable we were then out of the southern current which we felt so much before. We saw many tropic-birds about us. And found variation 1 degree 25 minutes west. WHALES. On June the 1st we saw several whales, the first we had at this time seen on the coast: but when we were here before we saw many; at which time we were nearer the shore than now. The variation now was 5 degrees 38 minutes west. COAST OF NEW HOLLAND. I designed to have made New Holland in about the latitude of 20 degrees, and steered courses by day to make it, but in the night could not be so bold; especially since we had sounding. This afternoon I steered in south-west till 6 o'clock; then, it blowing fresh and night coming on, I steered west-south-west till we had 40 fathom; and then stood west, which course carries alongshore. In the morning again from 6 to 12 I steered west-south-west to have made the land but, not seeing it, I judged we were to the west of it. Here is very good soundings on this coast. When we passed this way to the eastward we had, near this latitude of 19 degrees 50 minutes 38 fathom, about 18 leagues from the land: but this time we saw not the land. The next morning I saw a great many scuttle-fish bones which was a sign that we were not far from the land. Also a great many weeds continually floating by us. We found the variation increase considerably as we went westward. For on the 3rd it was 6 degrees 10 minutes west; on the 4th, 6 degrees 20 minutes, and on the 6th, 7 degrees 20 minutes. That evening we saw some fowls like men-of-war-birds flying north-east, as I was told; for I did not see them, having been indisposed these 3 or 4 days. THE TRYAL ROCKS. On the 11th we found the variation 8 degrees 1 minute west; on the 12th, 6 degrees 0 minutes. I kept on my course to the westward till the 15th, and then altered it. My design was to seek for the Tryal Rocks; but, having been sick 5 or 6 days without any fresh provision or other good nourishment aboard, and seeing no likelihood of my recovery, I rather chose to go to some port in time than to beat here any longer; my people being very negligent when I was not upon deck myself; I found the winds variable, so that I might go any way, east, west, north, or south; wherefore it is probable I might have found the said rocks had not sickness prevented me; which discovery (whenever made) will be of great use to merchants trading to these parts. THE COAST OF JAVA. PRINCES ISLE. STRAITS OF SUNDA. THWART-THE-WAY ISLAND. From hence nothing material happened till we came upon the coast of Java. On the 23rd we saw Princes Isle plain, and the mouth of the Straits of Sunda. By my computation the distance between Timor and Princes Isle is 14 degrees 22 minutes. The next day in the afternoon, being abreast of Crockadore Island, I steered away east-north-east for an island that lies near midway between Sumatra and Java but nearest the Java shore; which is by Englishmen called Thwart-the-way. We had but small winds till about 3 o'clock when it freshened, and I was in good hopes to pass through before day: but at 9 o'clock the wind fell and we got but little. I was then abreast of Thwart-the-way, which is a pretty high long island; but before 11 the wind turned, and presently afterward it fell calm. I was then about 2 leagues from the said island; and, having a strong current against us, before day we were driven astern 4 or 5 leagues. In the morning we had the wind at north-north-west; it looked black and the wind unsettled: so that I could not expect to get through. I therefore stood toward the Java shore, and at 10 anchored in 24 fathom water, black oazy ground, 3 leagues from the shore. I sounded in the night when it was calm, and had 54 fathom, coarse sand and coral. INDIAN PROAS, AND THEIR TRAFFIC. In the afternoon before we had seen many proas; but none came off to us; and in the night we saw many fires ashore. This day a large proa came aboard of us, and lay by our side an hour. There were only 4 men in her, all Javians, who spoke the Malayan language. They asked if we were English; I answered we were; and presently one of them came aboard and presented me with a small hen, some eggs and coconuts; for which I gave some beads and a small looking-glass, and some glass bottles. They also gave me some sugarcane, which I distributed to such of my men as were scorbutic. They told me there were 3 English ships at Batavia. The 28th at 2 in the afternoon we anchored in 26 fathom water; presently it fell calm and began to rain very violently and so continued from 3 till 9 in the evening. At 1 in the morning we weighed with a fine land-wind at south-south-east; but presently, the wind coming about at east, we anchored; for we commonly found the current setting west. If at any time it turned it was so weak that it did us little good; and I did not think it safe to venture through without a pretty brisk leading gale; for the passage is but narrow, and I knew not what dangers might be in the way, nor how the tide sets in the narrow, having not been this way these 28 years, and all my people wholly strangers: we had the opening fair before us. PASSAGE THROUGH THE STRAIT. While we lay here 4 Malayan proas came from the shore, laden with coconuts, plantains, bananas, fowls, ducks, tobacco, sugar, etc. These were very welcome, and we purchased much refreshment of them. At 10 o'clock I dismissed all the boats, and weighed with the wind at north-west. At half an hour past 6 in the evening we anchored in 32 fathom water in a coarse sort of oaze. We were now past the island Thwart-the-way, but had still one of the small islands to pass. The tide began to run strong to the west; which obliged me to anchor while I had soundings, for fear of being driven back again or on some unknown sand. I lay still all night. At 5 o'clock the next morning the tide began to slacken: at 6 I weighed with the wind at south-east by east, a handsome breeze. We just weathered the Button; and, sounding several times, had still between 30 and 40 fathom. When we were abreast of the Button, and about 2 leagues from the westermost point of Java, we had 34 fathom, small peppery sand. You may either come between this island and Java, or, if the wind is northerly, run out between the island Thwart-the-way and this last small island. The wind for the most part being at east and east by south I was obliged to run over towards the Sumatra shore, sounding as I went, and had from 34 to 23 fathom. In the evening I sounded pretty quick, being got near the Sumatra shore; and, finding a current setting to the west between 8 and 9 o'clock, we anchored in 34 fathom. The tide set to the west from 7 in the evening to 7 this morning; and then, having a small gale at west-south-west, I weighed and stood over to the Java shore. In the evening, having the wind between east-north-east and south-east by east, we could not keep off the Java shore. Wherefore I anchored in 27 fathom water, about a league and a half off shore. At the same time we saw a ship at anchor near the shore, about 2 mile to leeward of us. We found the tide setting to the westward, and presently after we anchored it fell calm. We lay still all night and saw many fires ashore. At 5 the next morning, being July the 1st, we weighed and stood to the north for a seabreeze: at 10, the wind coming out, I tacked and had a fine brisk gale. The ship we saw at anchor weighed also and stood after us. While we passed by Pulo Baby I kept sounding and had no less than 14 fathom. The other ship, coming after us with all the sail she could make, I shortened sail on purpose that she might overtake us but she did not. A little after 5 I anchored in 13 fathom good oazy ground. About 7 in the evening the ship that followed us passed by close under our stern; she was a Dutch fly-boat; they told us they came directly from Holland, and had been in their passage six months. It was now dark, and the Dutch ship anchored within a mile of us. I ordered to look out sharp in the morning; that so soon as the Dutchman began to move we might be ready to follow him; for I intended to make him my pilot. In the morning at half an hour after 5 we weighed, the Dutchman being under sail before; and we stood directly after him. At 8, having but little wind, I sent my boat aboard of him to see what news he had brought from Europe. Soon after we spied a ship coming from the east, plying on a wind to speak with us, and showing English colours. I made a signal for my boat, and presently bore away towards her; and, being pretty nigh, the commander and supercargo came aboard, supposing we had been the Tuscany galley which was expected then at Batavia. This was a country ship belonging to Fort St. George, having come out from Batavia the day before, and bound to Bencola. The commander told me that the Fleet frigate was at anchor in Batavia Road, but would not stay there long: he told me also that His Majesty's ships commanded by Captain Warren were still in India, but he had been a great while from the coast and had not seen them. He gave me a chart of these straits from the Button and Cap to Batavia, and showed me the best way in thither. At 11 o'clock, it being calm, I anchored in 14 fathom good oazy ground. ARRIVAL AT BATAVIA. At 2 o'clock we weighed again; the Dutch ship being under sail before, standing close to Mansheters Island; but, finding he could not weather it, he tacked and stood off a little while, and then tacked again. In the meantime I stood pretty nigh the said island, sounding, but could not weather it. Then I tacked and stood off, and the Dutch stood in towards the island; and weathered it. I, being desirous to have room enough, stood off longer and then went about, having the Dutch ship 4 points under my lee. I kept after him; but as I came nearer the island I found a tide setting to the west, so that I could not weather it. Wherefore at 6 in the evening I anchored in 7 fathom oazy ground, about a mile from the island: the Dutch ship went about 2 miles further, and anchored also; and we both lay still all night. At 5 the next morning we weighed again, and the Dutch ship stood away between the island Cambusses and the main; but I could not follow because we had a land-wind. Wherefore I went without the Cambusses, and by noon we saw the ships that lay at the careening island near Batavia. After the land-wind was spent, which we had at south-east and south-south-east, the seabreeze came up at east. Then we went about; and, the wind coming afterward at east-north-east, we had a large wind to run us into Batavia Road: and at 4 in the afternoon we anchored in 6 fathom soft oaze. CHAPTER 6. HOME VOYAGE AND LOSS OF SHIP. THE AUTHOR CONTINUES IN BATAVIA ROAD TO REFIT, TO GET PROVISIONS. We found in Batavia Road a great many ships at anchor, most Dutch, and but one English ship named the Fleet frigate, commanded by one Merry. We rode a little without them all. Near the shore lay a stout China junk, and a great many small vessels, namely brigantines, sloops and Malayan proas in abundance. As soon as I anchored I sent my boat aboard the Fleet frigate with orders to make them strike their pennant, which was done soon after the boat went aboard. Then my clerk, whom I sent in the boat, went for the shore, as I had directed him, to see if the government would answer my salute: but it was now near night, and he had only time to speak with the ship-bander, who told him that the government would have answered my salute with the same number of guns if I had fired as soon as I anchored; but that now it was too late. In the evening my boat came aboard and the next morning I myself went ashore, visited the Dutch general, and desired the privilege of buying such provision and stores as I now wanted; which he granted me. I lay here till the 17th of October following, all which time we had very fair weather, some tornadoes excepted. In the meantime I supplied the carpenter with such stores as were necessary for refitting the ship; which proved more leaky after he had caulked her than she was before: so that I was obliged to careen her, for which purpose I hired vessels to take in our guns, ballast, provision and stores. ENGLISH SHIPS THEN IN THE ROAD. The English ships that arrived here from England were first the Liampo, commanded by Captain Monk, bound for China; next the Panther commanded by Captain Robinson; then the Mancel frigate, commanded by Captain Clerk. All these brought good tidings from England. Most of them had been unfortunate in their officers; especially Captain Robinson, who said that some of them had been conspiring to ruin him and his voyage. There came in also several English country vessels; first a sloop from Benjarr, commanded by one Russel, bound to Bengal, next the Monsoon, belonging to Bengal: she had been at Malacca at the same time that His Majesty's ship the Harwich was there: afterwards came in also another small ship from Bengal. While we stayed here all the forenamed English ships sailed hence; the 2 Bengal ships excepted. Many Dutch ships also came in here, and departed again before us. We had several reports concerning our men-of-war in India, and much talk concerning rovers who had committed several spoils upon the coast and in the Straits of Malacca. I did not hear of any ships sent out to quash them. At my first coming in I was told that 2 ships had been sent from Amboina in quest of me; which was lately confirmed by one of the skippers, whom I by accident met with here. He told me they had 3 protests against me; that they came to Pulo Sabuda on the coast of New Guinea 28 days after my departure thence, and went as far as Schouten's Island and, hearing no further news of me, returned. Something likewise to this purpose Mr. Merry, commander of the Fleet frigate, told me at my first arrival here; and that the general at Batavia had a copy of my commission and instructions; but I looked upon it as a very improbable thing. While we lay here the Dutch held several consultations about sending some ships for Europe sooner than ordinary: at last the 16th of October was agreed upon for the day of sailing, which is 2 months sooner than usual. They lay ready 2 or 3 days before, and went out on the 10th. Their names were the Ostresteen, bound to Zealand; the Vanheusen, for Enchiehoust; and the 3 Crowns, for Amsterdam, commanded by skipper Jacob Uncright, who was commodore over all the rest. I had by this time finished my business here, namely fitted the ship, recruited myself with provision, filled all my water; and, the time of the year to be going for Europe being now at hand, I prepared to be gone also. DEPARTURE FROM BATAVIA. Accordingly on the 17th of October, at half an hour after 6 in the morning, I weighed anchor from Batavia, having a good land-wind at south, and fair weather: and by the 19th at noon came up with the 3 Dutch ships before mentioned. The 29th of November in the morning we saw a small hawk flying about the ship till she was quite tired. Then she rested on the mizzen-topsail-yard, where we caught her. It is probable she was blown off from Madagascar by the violent northerly winds; that being the nighest land to us, though distance near 150 leagues. 1701. TOUCH AT THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. The 30th December we arrived at the Cape of Good Hope and departed again on the 11th of January, 1701. About the end of the month we saw abundance of weeds or blubber swim by us, for I cannot determine which. It was all of one shape and colour. As they floated on the water they seemed to be of the breadth of the palm of a man's hand, spread out round into many branches about the bigness of a man's finger. They had in the middle a little knob, no bigger than the top of a man's thumb. They were of a smoke-colour; and the branches, by their pliantness in the water, seemed to be more simple than jellies, I have not seen the like before. AND AT ST. HELENA. The 2nd of February we anchored in St. Helena Road and set sail again from thence on the 13th. ARRIVAL AT THE ISLAND OF ASCENSION. A LEAK SPRUNG. On the 21st we made the island of Ascension and stood in towards it. The 22nd between 8 and 9 o'clock we sprung a leak which increased so that the chain-pump could not keep the ship free. Whereupon I set the hand-pump to work also, and by 10 o'clock sucked her: then wore the ship, and stood to the southward to try if that would ease her; and then the chain-pump just kept her free. At 5 the next morning we made sail and stood in for the bay; and at 9 anchored in 10 and a half fathom, sandy ground. The south point bore south-south-west distance 2 miles, and the north point of the bay north-east half north, distance 2 miles. As soon as we anchored I ordered the gunner to clear his powder-room that we might there search for the leak and endeavour to stop it within board if possible; for we could not heel the ship so low, it being within 4 streaks of the keel; neither was there any convenient place to haul her ashore. I ordered the boatswain to assist the gunner; and by 10 o'clock the powder-room was clear. The carpenter's mate, gunner, and boatswain went down; and soon after I followed them myself and asked them whether they could come at the leak: they said they believed they might, but cutting the ceiling; I told the carpenter's mate (who was the only person in the ship that understood anything of carpenter's work) that if he thought he could come at the leak by cutting the ceiling without weakening the ship he might do it, for he had stopped one leak so before; which though not so big as this, yet, having seen them both, I thought he might as well do this as the other. Wherefore I left him to do his best. The ceiling being cut, they could not come at the leak; for it was against one of the foot-hook-timbers which the carpenter's mate said he must first cut before it could be stopped. I went down again to see it, and found the water to come in very violently. I told them I never had known any such thing as cutting timbers to stop leaks; but if they who ought to be best judges in such cases thought they could do any good I bid them use their utmost care and diligence, promising the carpenter's mate that I would always be a friend to him if he could and would stop it: he said by 4 o'clock in the afternoon he would make all well, it being then about 11 in the forenoon. In the afternoon my men were all employed, pumping with both pumps; except such as assisted the carpenter's mate. About one in the afternoon I went down again and the carpenter's mate was cutting the after-part of the timber over the leak. Some said it was best to cut the timber away at once; I bid them hold their tongue and let the carpenter's mate alone; for he knew best and I hoped he would do his utmost to stop the leak. I desired him to get everything ready for stopping the violence of the water, before he cut any further; for fear it should overpower us at once. I had already ordered the carpenter to bring all the oakum he had, and the boatswain to bring all the waste cloths to stuff in upon occasion; and had for the same purpose sent down my own bedclothes. The carpenter's mate said he should want short stanchions to be placed so that the upper end should touch the deck, and the under-part rest on what was laid over the leak; and presently took a length for them. I asked the master-carpenter what he thought best to be done: he replied till the leak was all open, he could not tell. Then he went away to make a stanchion, but it was too long: I ordered him to make many of several lengths, that we might not want of any size. So once more desiring the carpenter's mate to use his utmost endeavours I went up, leaving the boatswain and some others there. About 5 o'clock the boatswain came to me and told me the leak was increased, and that it was impossible to keep the ship above water; when on the contrary I expected to have had the news of the leak's being stopped. I presently went down and found the timber cut away, but nothing in readiness to stop the force of the water from coming in. I asked them why they would cut the timber before they had got all things in readiness: the carpenter's mate answered they could do nothing till the timber was cut that he might take the dimensions of the place; and that there was a caulk which he had lined out, preparing by the carpenter's boy. I ordered them in the meantime to stop in oakum, and some pieces of beef; which accordingly was done, but all to little purpose: for now the water gashed in with such violence, notwithstanding all our endeavours to check it, that it flew in over the ceiling; and for want of passage out of the room overflowed it above 2 foot deep. I ordered the bulkhead be cut open, to give passage to the water that it might drain out of the room; and withal ordered to clear away abaft the bulkhead, that we might bail: so now we had both pumps going and as many bailing as could; and by this means the water began to decrease; which gave me some hope of saving the ship. I asked the carpenter's mate what he thought of it; he said "Fear not; for by 10 o'clock at night I'll engage to stop the leak." I went from him with a heavy heart; but, putting a good countenance upon the matter, encouraged my men, who pumped and bailed very briskly; and when I saw occasion I gave them some drams to comfort them. About 11 o'clock at night the boatswain came to me and told me that the leak still increased; and that the plank was so rotten it broke away like dirt; and that now it was impossible to save the ship; for they could not come at the leak because the water in the room was got above it. The rest of the night we spent in pumping and bailing. I worked myself to encourage my men, who were very diligent; but the water still increased, and we now thought of nothing but saving our lives. Wherefore I hoisted out the boat that, if the ship should sink, yet we might be saved: and in the morning we weighed our anchor and warped in nearer the shore; yet did but little good. WHICH BEING IMPOSSIBLE TO BE STOPPED, THE SHIP IS LOST, BUT THE MEN SAVED. In the afternoon with the help of a seabreeze I ran into 7 fathom and anchored; then carried a small anchor ashore and warped in till I came into 3 fathom and a half. Where having fastened her I made a raft to carry the men's chests and bedding ashore; and before 8 at night most of them were ashore. In the morning I ordered the sails to be unbent, to make tents; and then myself and officers went ashore. I had sent ashore a puncheon and a 36 gallon cask of water with one bag of rice for our common use: but great part of it was stolen away before I came ashore, and many of my books and papers lost. THEY FIND WATER UPON THE ISLAND. On the 26th following we, to our great comfort, found a spring of fresh water about 8 miles from our tents, beyond a very high mountain which we must pass over: so that now we were, by God's Providence, in a condition of subsisting some time; having plenty of very good turtle by our tents, and water for the fetching. The next day I went up to see the watering-place, accompanied with most of my officers. We lay by the way all night and next morning early got thither; where we found a very fine spring on the south-east side of the high mountain, about half a mile from its top: but the continual fogs make it so cold here that it is very unwholesome living by the water. Near this place are abundance of goats and land-crabs. About 2 mile south-east from the spring we found 3 or 4 shrubby trees, upon one of which was cut an anchor and cable, and the year 1642. About half a furlong from these we found a convenient place for sheltering men in any weather. Hither many of our men resorted; the hollow rocks affording convenient lodging; the goats, land-crabs, men-of-war-birds and boobies good food; and the air was here exceeding wholesome. AND ARE BROUGHT BACK TO ENGLAND. About a week after our coming ashore our men that lived at this new habitation saw two ships making towards the island. Before night they brought me the news; and I ordered them to turn about a score of turtle to be in readiness for their ships if they should touch here: but before morning they were out of sight, and the turtle were released again. Here we continued without seeing any other ship till the second of April; when we saw 11 sail to windward of the island: but they likewise passed by. The day after appeared 4 sail, which came to anchor in this bay. They were His Majesty's ships the Anglesey, Hastings and Lizard; and the Canterbury East India ship. I went on board the Anglesey with about 35 of my men; and the rest were disposed of into the other 2 men-of-war. We sailed from Ascension the 8th; and continued aboard till the 8th of May: at which time the men-of-war, having missed St. Jago, where they designed to water, bore away for Barbados: but I being desirous to get to England as soon as possible took my passage in the ship Canterbury, accompanied with my master, purser, gunner, and 3 of my superior officers. ... INDEX. Anabao Island: its inhabitants. Ascension Island: water found there. Babao in Timor. Batavia: arrival there. its road. English ships there. departure from thence. Bird Island. Birds, strange. Bonao Island. Bouro Island. Britain, New. Bird (strange) killed on the coast of New Guinea. Burning island. Burning island, another described. Calabash-trees. Calalaloo, herb. Cana-fistula-tree described. Cape Orford in New Guinea. Cape of Good Hope in New Guinea. Cave's, Anthony, Island. Cape, King William's. Cape and Port Gloucester. Cape Anne. Ceram Island described. Channel, a deep one. Ciccale, Port. Cockles, very big. Cockle-merchant, a fish. Cockle Island on the coast of New Guinea. Cupang Bay in Timor (see Kupang). Cross Island, discovered and described. Currents (see Tides). Distance between Cape Mabo and Cape St. George computed. Dutch: the author's parley with them. their suspicion of the author. Charts (Dutch), their falseness. Dutch fort called Concordia. Ende Island. Fetter Island. Figtrees of Timor described. Fish, strange. Fowls, strange. Gerrit Denis (Garret Dennis) Island, inhabitants described. Jelly found in the sea. George, St.: Cape and Bay in New Guinea. another bay. the inhabitants there. a large account of the author's attempt to trade with them. New Guinea coast: inhabitants. their manner of fishing. the author departs from New Guinea. Java Island. Indian plantation on the island Timor. Indian proas and their traffic. John's, St., Island. King William's Island. Laphao in Timor. Laubana Island. Leak sprung, incurable. Long Island described. Lorantuca. Mabo, Cape. Man-of-war-birds. Mansheter's Island. Matthias Island. Misacomba Island. Montague: Port in New Guinea. the country thereabouts described and its produce. New Guinea. Nova Britannia, (see New Britain). Omba Island. Palmtrees: a new one conjectured. a new one discovered. two sorts described. Parley with the Portuguese at Timor. Pentare Island. Pigeons, great numbers of them on the coast of New Guinea. Porta Nova. Providence Island. Princes Isle. Pulo Subada Isle. Pulo Baby. Return (the author's) to England. Rich's (Sir R.) Island. Ringing-bird. Rook's (Sir George) Island. Roti (Rotee) Island. Rosemary Island. Sago, how made. Sandal-tree. Schouten's Island. Sesial Port in Timor. Shark's Bay. Ship lost. Slingers Bay. Snakes: land-snakes. Spout. Squally Island. Sunda Straits. Terra Australis Incognita, what to be expected there. Thwart-the-way Island. Tides strange and uncertain, see Currents. Timor Island: described. the Dutch settlement. the Portuguese settlement. its inhabitants. its fruits and animals. trade. weather. the author's departure from it. Trees full of worms found in the sea. Tryal Rocks. Turtle Isles. Variation. Volcanoes. Watersnakes. Whales. Whirlpools. Wishart's Island. 
41716	----	THE PACIFIC TRIANGLE [Illustration: ERUPTION OF VOLCANO ON THE ISLAND OF KYUSHU, JAPAN To the world a symbol: to Japan a fact] THE PACIFIC TRIANGLE BY SYDNEY GREENBIE AUTHOR OF "JAPAN: REAL AND IMAGINARY" ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS [Illustration] NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1921 Copyright, 1921, by THE CENTURY CO. Printed in U. S. A. TO BARRIE WHO DID HIS BEST TO PREVENT THE WRITING OF THIS BOOK, IN THE HOPE THAT HE MAY SOME DAY READ IT AND REPENT OF HIS SINS. PREFACE This book is an attempt to bring within focus the most outstanding factors in the Pacific. With the exception of Chapter II, which deals with the origin of the Polynesian people, there is hardly an incident in the whole book that has not come within the scope of my own personal experience. Hence this is essentially a travel narrative. I have confined myself to the task of interpreting the problems of the Pacific in the light of the episodes of everyday life. Wherever possible, I have tried to let the incident speak for itself, and to include in the picture the average ideals of the various races, together with my own impressions of them and my own reflections. The field is a tremendous one. It encompasses the most important regions that lie along the great avenues of commerce and general intercourse. The Pacific is a great combination of geographical, ethnological, and political factors that is extremely diverse in its sources. I have tried to discern within them a unit of human commonality, as the seeker after truth is bound to do if his discoveries are to be of any value. But the result has been an unconventional book. For I have sometimes been compelled to make unity of time and place subservient to that of subject matter. Hence the reader may on occasion feel that the book returns to the same field more than once. That has been unavoidable. The problems that are found in Hawaii are essentially the same as those in Samoa, though differing in degree. It has therefore been necessary, after surveying the whole field in one continuous narrative of my own journey, to assemble stories, types, and descriptions which illustrate certain problems, in separate chapters, regardless of their geographical settings. If the reader bears this in mind he will not be surprised in Book Two to find himself in Fiji, Samoa, Hawaii, or New Zealand all at once--for issues are always more important than boundaries. The plan of the book has been to give the historical approach to the Pacific and its native races; then to take the reader upon a journey of over twenty thousand miles around the Pacific. I hope that he will come away with a clear impression of the immensity of the Ocean, of the diversity of its natural and human elements, and the splendor and picturesqueness of its make-up. Out of this review certain problems emerge, the problems of the relations of native and alien races, of marriages and divorces, of markets and ideals--problems that affect the primitive races in their own new place in the world. But over and above and about these come the issues that involve the more advanced races of Asia, Australasia, and America--where they impinge upon each other and where their interests in these minor races center. This is the logic of the Pacific. Though the importance of these problems is now obvious to the world, I feel grateful to those who encouraged me while I still felt myself almost like a voice crying in the wilderness, on the subject. I therefore feel specially indebted to the editors of _North American Review_, _World's Work_ and the _Outlook_, who first published some of the material here incorporated. But so rapid has been the movement of events that in no case has it been possible for me to use more than the essence of the ideas there published. In order to bring them up to date, they have been completely re-written and made an integral part of this book. Two or three of the descriptive chapters have also appeared in _Century Magazine_ and _Harper's Monthly_, for permission to reprint which I am indebted to them. There is a further indebtedness which is much more difficult of acknowledgment. To my wife, Marjorie Barstow, I am under obligation not only for her steadfast encouragement, but for her judgment, understanding, and untiring patience, without which my career of authorship would have been trying indeed. SYDNEY GREENBIE. Greensboro, Vermont, August 4, 1921. CONTENTS BOOK ONE HISTORICAL AND TRAVEL MATERIAL CHAPTER PAGE I THE HEART OF THE PACIFIC 3 II THE MYSTERY OF MYSTERIES 15 III OUR FRONTIER IN THE PACIFIC 30 IV THE SUBLIMATED, SAVAGE FIJIANS 52 V THE SENTIMENTAL SAMOANS 79 VI THE APHELION OF BRITAIN 108 VII ASTRIDE THE EQUATOR 128 VIII THE AUSTRALIAN OUTLANDS 143 IX OUR PEG IN ASIA 158 X BRITAIN'S ROCK IN ASIA 168 XI CHINA'S EUROPEAN CAPITAL 179 XII WORLD CONSCIOUSNESS 192 BOOK TWO DISCUSSION OF NATIVE PROBLEMS--PERSONAL AND SOCIAL XIII EXIT THE NOBLE SAVAGE 205 XIV GIVE US OUR VU GODS AGAIN! 222 XV HIS TATTOOED WIFE 237 XVI GIVING HEARTS A NEW CHANCE 254 XVII "THIS LITTLE PIG WENT TO MARKET" 265 BOOK THREE DISCUSSION OF THE POLITICAL PROBLEMS INVOLVING AUSTRALASIA, ASIA AND AMERICA XVIII AUSTRALASIA 281 XIX JAPAN AND ASIA 297 XX AMERICA 312 XXI WHERE THE PROBLEM DOVETAILS 330 XXII AUSTRALIA AND THE ANGLO-JAPANESE ALLIANCE 347 XXIII POLITICAL ALLIES AND FINANCIAL CONSORTS 364 XXIV UNCHARTED SEAS 384 APPENDIX 395 INDEX 397 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Eruption of volcano on the island of Kyushu, Japan _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE Map of the Pacific 16 Diamond head near Honolulu 20 The hulk of the German man-of-war, the _Adler_ 20 After seven days of sea--this emerged 21 Hilo, Hawaii 21 Even Fijians are loath to forget the arts of their forefathers 28 In giant canoes Heliolithic immigrants roamed the South Seas 29 There are only a few Chinese women in Hawaii 36 A sage in a china shop at Honolulu 36 Feminine propriety 37 Whoa! Let's have our picture taken 37 Miles away rose the fumes of Kilauea 44 The largest cauldron of molten rock on earth 44 A river of rock pouring out into the sea 45 Whirling eddies of lava undermining frozen lava projections 45 Where the tides turn to stone 48 A blizzard of fuming heat 48 The lake of spouting molten lava 49 A corner of Suva, Fiji 64 Food for a day's gossip 64 The long and the short of it 65 A Hindu patriarch 65 The scowl indicates a complex 68 Instructor of the Fijian constabulary 68 A Fijian Main Street 69 Little Fijians 69 One of the most gifted of Fijian chiefs 76 Cacarini (Katherine), the chief's daughter 76 Fijians dance from the hip up 77 A Fijian wedding 77 The street along the waterfront of Apia, Samoa 96 I thought the village back of Apia, Samoa, was deserted, but it was only the noon hour 96 Tattooing of the legs is an essential in Samoa 97 Contact with California created this combination of scowl, bracelets and boy's boots--but Fulaanu beside her was incorruptible 97 Dunedin, New Zealand 112 Bridges are still luxuries in many places in New Zealand 112 The fiords and sounds of New Zealand 113 Lake Wanaka, New Zealand 113 The S. S. _Aurora_ 128 Mount Cook of the New Zealand Alps in summer 128 Circular quay, Sydney, Australia 129 Monument to Captain Cook 129 One of the oldest Australian residences is now a public domain 144 The interior of a wealthy sheep station owner's home in Melbourne 144 Australian blacks in their native element 145 An Australian black in Melbourne 145 Filipino lighters drowsing in the evening shadows 160 The docile water buffalo is used to walking in mud 160 One can throw a brick and hit seven cathedrals in Manila 161 Cool and silent are the mossy streets of the walled city of Manila 161 In China drinking-water, soap-suds, soup and sewers all find their source in the same stream 176 Shanghai youngsters putting their heads together to make us out 176 This old woman is laying down the law to the wild young things of China 177 China could turn these mud houses into palaces if she wished--she is rich enough 177 Fujiyama 192 Sea, earth and sky 193 This Hindu has usurped the job of the chieftains' daughters 224 An Indian coolie village 224 A Maori Haka in New Zealand 225 A Maori canoe hurdling race 225 Three views of a Maori woman 240 A group of whites and half-castes in Samoa 241 A ship-load of "picture-brides" arriving at Seattle 241 A Maori woman with her children 241 Beauty is more than skin-deep 256 A half-caste Fijian maiden 257 A full-blooded Fijian maiden 257 Fijian village 272 Little fish went to this market 272 Good luck must attend these traders at the doors of the cathedrals in Manila 273 A Fijian bazar is a red letter day 273 The mountains are called the Remarkables 284 The Blue Mountains of Australia 284 Australia denuding herself 285 Australia is not all desert and plain 288 People are small amidst Australia's giant tree ferns 289 Japan's first reaction to foreign influence 304 Second stage in Westernization 304 Third stage in Westernization 305 Fourth stage in Westernization 305 Lord Lansdowne and Baron Tadasu Hayashi 352 Prince Ito 352 Dr. Sun Yat-Sen 352 Thomas W. Lamont 353 Wellington Koo 353 Yukio Osaki, M.P. and Ex-Minister of Justice 353 BOOK ONE HISTORICAL AND TRAVEL MATERIAL CHAPTER I THE HEART OF THE PACIFIC _The First Side of The Triangle_ 1 ... stared at the Pacific--and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise-- Silent, upon a peak in Darien. Exactly four centuries after the event immortalized by Keats, I outstripped Balboa's most fantastic dreams by setting out upon the Pacific and traversing the length and breadth of it. "It is a sight," we are told, "in beholding which for the first time any man would wish to be alone." I was. But whereas Balboa's desires were accomplished in having obtained sight of the Pacific, that achievement only whetted mine. He said: You see here, gentlemen and children mine, how our desires are being accomplished, and the end of our labors. Of that we ought to be certain, for, as it has turned out true what King Comogre's son told of this sea to us, who never thought to see it, so I hold for certain that what he told us of there being incomparable treasures in it will be fulfilled. God and His blessed Mother who have assisted us, so that we should arrive here and behold this sea, will favor us that we may enjoy all that there is in it. The story of how far he was so assisted is part of the tale of this book, for in all the wanderings which are the substance of my accomplishment I can recall having met with but a half-dozen of Balboa's kinsmen. Instead there are streaming backward and forward across the Pacific descendants of men Balboa hated and of others of whom he knew nothing. Balboa was the first to see the ocean. He had left his men behind just as they were about to reach the peak from which he viewed it. But he was not the first to step upon its shores. He sent some of his men down, and of them one, Alonso Martin, was the first to have that pleasure. Martin dipped his sword dramatically into the brine and took possession of it all as far as his mind's eye could reach. Yet to none of the men was this vast hidden world more than a vision and a hope, and the accidental name with which Magellan later christened it seems, by virtue of the motives of gain which dominated these adventurers, anything but descriptive. To be pacific was not the way of the kings of Castile; nor, sad to say, is it the way of most of their followers. What was it that Balboa took possession of in the name of his Castilian kings? Rather a courageous gamble, to say the least. The dramatic and fictional possibilities of such wholesale acquisition are illimitable. In the mid-Pacific were a million or more savage cannibals; in the far-Pacific, races with civilizations superior to his own. At that very time China was extending the Great Wall and keeping in repair the Grand Canal which had been built before Balboa's kings were chiefs. Japan was already a nation with arts and crafts, and a social state sufficiently developed to be an aggressive influence in the Oriental world, making inroads on Korea through piracy. Korea was powerful enough to force Japan to make amends. Four years after Balboa's discovery the Portuguese arrived in Canton and opened China for the first time to the European world. The Dutch were beginning to think of Java. It was hardly Balboa's plan to make of all these a little gift for his king: his act was but the customary flourish of discoverers in those days. Men who loved romance more than they loved reality were ready to wander over the unknown seas and rake in their discoveries for hire. Balboa, Magellan, Drake, roamed the seas out of sheer love of wind and sail. Many a man set forth in search of treasure never to be heard from again; some only to have their passage guessed by virtue of the signs of white blood in the faces of some of the natives. For two hundred years haphazard discoveries and national jealousies confused rather than enlightened the European world. But late in the eighteenth century, after a considerable lessening of interest in exploration, Captain James Cook began that memorable series of voyages which added more definite knowledge to the geographical and racial make-up of the South Seas than nearly all the other explorers put together. The growth of the scientific spirit and the improvement in navigation gave him the necessary impetus. Imbued with scientific interest, he went to observe the transit of Venus and to make close researches in the geography of the Pacific. But to George Vancouver falls the praise due to a constructive interest in the people whose lands he uncovered. Wherever he went he left fruits and domestic animals which contributed much to the happiness of the primitives, and probably laid the foundation for the future colonization of these scattered islands by Europeans. Backward and forward across the Pacific through four centuries have moved the makers of this new Atlantis. First from round Cape Horn, steering for the setting sun, then from the Australian continent to the regions of Alaska, these shuttles of the ages have woven their fabric of the nations. Now the problem is, what is going to be done with it? I suppose I was really no worse than most people in the matter of geography when I set forth on my venture. Though the Pacific had lain at my feet for two years, I seem to have had no definite notions of the "incomparable treasures" that lay therein. Japan was stored away in my mind as something to play with. Typee, the cannibal Marquesas--ah! there was something real and vigorous! Then the South Sea maidens! Ideal labor conditions in New Zealand! Australia was Botany Bay; the Philippines, the water cure. Confucius was confusion to me, but Lao-tsze, the great sage of China--in his philosophy I had found a meeting-ground for East and West. But I was sizzling with curiosity. I wanted to bring within my own range of experience that "unplumbed, salt estranging sea" with its area of seventy million square miles, equivalent to "three Atlantics, seventy Mediterraneans," and--aside from the hundreds of millions of people round its shore--the seventy-odd millions within its bosom. Yet of the myths, the beliefs, the aspirations of these peoples, even the most knowing gave contradictory accounts, and curiosity was perforce my compass. 2 Something in a voyage westward across the Pacific gives one the sense of a great reunion; it is not a personal experience, but an historic sensation. One may have few incidents to relate, there may be only an occasional squall. But in place of events is an abstraction from world strife, a heading for the beginning of a cycle of existence--for Asia, the birthplace of the human race. The feeling is that of one making a tour of the universe which has lasted ten thousand centuries and is but at the moment nearing completion. For eons the movement has been a westward one. Races have succumbed to races in this westward reach for room. Pursuing the retreating glaciers, mankind snatched up each inch of land released, rushing wildly outward. After the birth of man there was a split, in which some men went westward and became Europeans, some eastward and became Asiatics. The Amerindians were the kick of that human explosion eastward which occurred some time during the Wurm ice age. One cannot grasp the significance of the Pacific who crosses it too swiftly. Every mapped-out route, every guide-book must be laid aside, and schedules must cease to count. With half a world of water to traverse, its immensity becomes a reality only when one permits oneself to be wayward, with every whim a goal. A fellow-passenger said to me, "My boss has given me two weeks' vacation." "Mine has given me a lifetime," I answered. In that mood I watched the _Lurline_ push its way into the San Francisco fogs and out through the fog-choked Golden Gate. The fogs stayed with us a space beyond and were gone, and the wide ocean lay in every direction roundabout us. I was bound for Japan by relays. Unable to secure through passage to the Land of the Rising Sun, I did the next best thing and booked for Honolulu. There I planned to wait for some steamer with an unused berth that would take me to Kyoto, Japan, in time to attend the coronation of the Tenno, the crownless Emperor. After all, Honolulu was not such an unfavorable spot in which to prepare my soul for the august sight of emperor-worship on a grand scale, I thought. And at last I was out upon the bosom of the Pacific, sailing without time limit or fixed plan, sailing where did Cook and Drake and Vancouver, and knowing virtually as little of what was about me as did they. Our ship became the axis round which wheeled the universe, and progress "a succession of days which is like one day." We went on and on, and still the circle was true. We moved, yet altered nothing. When the sky was overcast, the ocean paled in sympathy; when it was bright, the whitecapped, cool blue surface of the sea abandoned itself to the light. At night the cleavage between sea and sky was lost. Then we lost distance, altitude, depth, and even speed. All became illusive--a time for strong reason. Then came a storm. The vast disk, the never-shifting circle shrank in the gathering mist. From the prow of the ship, where I loved most to be, the world became more lonely. The iron nose of the vessel burrowed into the blue-green water, thrusting it back out of the way, curling it over upon a volume of wind which struggled noisily for release. The blue became deeper, the strangled air assumed a thick gray color and emerged in a fit of sputtering querulousness. But the ship lunged on, as unperturbed as the Bhodistava before Mara, the Evil One, sure that he was becoming Buddha. We were dipping southward and soon tasted the full flavor of the luscious tropical air. The ship never more than swayed with the swells. During the days that followed there was never more than the most elemental squall. The nights were as clear and balmy as the days. For seven days we danced and made merry to Hawaiian melodies thrummed by an Hawaiian orchestra, or screeched by an American talking-machine, or hammered by a piano-player. The warm air began to play the devil with our feelings. Thus seven days passed. I had taken to sleeping out on deck, under the open sky. The moon was brilliant, the sea as smooth as a pond. I was awakened by whispered conversation at five o'clock of that last day and found a group of women huddling close on the forward deck. Their hair was streaming down their backs, their feet were bare, and their bodies wrapped in loose kimonos. Some of the officers were pointing to the southwestern horizon, where a barely perceptible streak of smoke was rising over the rim of the sea. It was from Kilauea, the volcano on the island of Hawaii, two hundred miles away. The air was fresh and balmy as on the day the earth was born. Rolling cumulous clouds sought to postpone the day by retarding the rising sun. Lighthouse lights blinked their warnings. Molokai, the leper island, emerged from the darkness. A blaze of sunlight broke through the clouds and day was in full swing. And as we neared the island of Oahu, a full-masted wind-jammer, every strip of sail spread to the breeze, came gliding toward us from Honolulu. By noon we were in the open harbor,--a fan-spread of still water. The _Lurline_ glided on and turned to the right and we were before the little city of Honolulu. I can still see the young captain on the bridge, pacing from left to right, watching the water, issuing quiet directions to the sailor who transmitted them, by indicator, to the engine-room. We edged up to the piers amid a profusion of greetings from shore and appeals for coins from brown-skinned youngsters who could a moment later be seen chasing them in the water far below the surface. This, then, is progress. In 1778, Captain Cook was murdered by these islanders. To-day they "grovel" in the seas for petty cash. One hundred and forty years! Seven days! 3 But Hawaii was only my half-way house. I was still reaching out for Japan. According to the advice of steamship agencies I might have waited seven years before any opportunity for getting there would come my way. At twelve o'clock one day I learned that the _Niagara_ was in port. She was to sail for the Antipodes at two. By two I was one of her passengers. Hadn't "my boss" given me a lifetime's vacation? The world before me was an unknown quantity, as it doubtless is to at least all but one in a million of the inhabitants of our globe. My ticket said Sydney, Australia. How long would it take us? Two weeks? What should we see en route? Two worlds? Here, in one single journey I should cut a straight line across the routes of Magellan, Drake, Cook, and into those of Tasman,--all the great navigators of the last four hundred years. Here, then, I was to trace the steps of Melville, of Stevenson, of Jack London,--largely with the personal recommendations of Jack,--and of one then still unfamed, Frederick O'Brien. All the courage in the face of the unknown, all the conflicts between the world civilizations in their various stages of development, all the dreams of romance, of future welfare and achievement, would unfold in my progress southward and fall into two much-talked-of and little-understood divisions--East and West. I was to discover for myself what it was that Balboa and his like had taken possession of in their grandiloquent fashion and were ready to defend against all comers. Yet the flag at the mast was not Balboa's flag, nor Tasman's, and the passengers among whom fate had wheeled me were, with one exception, neither Spanish nor Dutch, but British. As long as I moved from San Francisco westward and as long as I remained in Honolulu, I was, as far as customs and people were concerned, in America. But from the moment I considered striking off diagonally across the South Seas in the direction of the Antarctic I was thrown among Britons. The clerk in the steamship office was Canadian, the steamer was British, the passengers were British, and the cool, casual way in which the _Niagara_ kicked herself off from the pier and slipped out into the harbor was confirmation of a certain cleavage. For there was none of the gaiety which accompanies the arrival and departure of American vessels,--no music, no serpentines, no cheering. We just took to our screws and the open sea as though glad to get away from an uncordial "week-end." This was a British liner that was to cut across the equator, to climb over the vast ridge of earth and dip down into the Antipodes. We were to leave America far behind. Henceforward, with but the single exception of tiny Pago Pago, Samoa, we could not enter an American owned port,--and on this route would miss even that one. And now that mandates have become the vogue, there is in all that world of water hardly an important spot that does not fly the Union Jack. The sense of private ownership in all that could be surveyed gave to the bearing of the passengers an air of dignity which was not always latent in the individual. Meanwhile the ship pressed steadily on, coldly indifferent, fearless and emotionless. We were nearing the equator, and the days in its neighborhood steeped us all in drooping feebleness. Climate gets us all, ultimately. We forgot one another beneath the heavy weight of nothingness which hangs over that equatorial world. Sleep within my cabin was impossible, so I had the steward bring me a mattress out on deck. At midnight a heavy wind turned the air suddenly so cold that I had to secure a blanket. The wind howling round the mast and the flapping of the canvas sounded like a tragedy without human agency. The night was pitch-black and the blackness was intensified by intermittent streaks of lightning. But there was no rain. It was Tuesday, yet the next day was Thursday. Where Wednesday went I have never been able to find out. We had arrived at the point in the Pacific where one day swallows up another and leaves none. The European world, measuring the earth from its own vantage-point, had allotted no day for the mid-Pacific, so that instead of arriving at Suva, Fiji, in proper sequence of time, we were both a day late and a day ahead. We had cut across the 180th meridian, where time is dovetailed. That afternoon we sighted land for the first time in seven days. Alofa Islands, pale blue, smooth-edged, were a living lie to reality. A peculiar feeling came over me in passing without touching terra firma. It was like the longing for the sun after days and days of gray, the longing for rain in the desert. It was the longing for the return to the actualities of life after days on the unvariable sea. And presently I was in Fiji, and the _Niagara_ sailed on without me. Once again I changed my course to wander among the South Seas and leave Sydney for the future. Yet even on land he who has been brought up on a continent cannot escape a feeling of isolation, the consciousness of being completely surrounded by water. After you have had the deep beneath you for seven days, and again seven days, you begin to feel that even the islands are but floating in the same fluid. The fact that you cannot go anywhere without riding the waves, and that it takes two whole days by steamer to get from Fiji to Samoa, and four from Fiji to New Zealand, and then four again between New Zealand and Australia, a water-consciousness takes possession of you, and the islands become mere ledges upon which you rest occasionally. Something of the joy of being a bird on the wing is the experience of the traveler in the Pacific seas. Imagine, then, my delight and surprise, early one morning on my return trip from Samoa to Fiji, to find the _Talune_ sidling up to an unknown isle considerably off our course. It was, we were told, the island of Niuafoou, and was visited every month or so to deliver and take off the mails. It was a chill morning. Everything was blue with morning cold. The waves dashed in desperation against the cliffs. Glad was I that we were not run ashore, for I have never yet been able to see the virtue in ice-cold sea-water. Fancy our consternation when down slid a native, head first, from the bluff half a mile away into the water, as we slide into a swimming-pool. For a moment he was lost behind the tossing crests. Then we saw him coming slowly toward us, resting on a plank and paddling with his free hand, seeming like a tremendous water-spider. Tied to a stick like to a mast was a tightly wrapped bundle of mail. The _Talune_ kept swerving like an impatient horse, waiting for the arrival of that amphibian. When he came alongside he dropped the little bundle into a bucket let down to him at the end of a rope, and kicked himself away. A second man arrived with a packet,--the parcels-post man of Niuafoou. A third came merely as an inspector. Meanwhile, on the bluff the whole community had gathered for the irregular lunar event. Or, days later, after my second call at Fiji as the ship pressed steadily on toward Auckland, New Zealand, we passed the island of Mbenga where dwell the mystic fire-walkers so vividly portrayed by Basil Thomson in his "South Sea Yarns." I wished that I had had a "callous" on my habits in cleanliness to protect me from the unpleasantnesses of the vessel, as have those Fijian fire-walkers on their soles, then I should have been happier. Their soles are half an inch thick. I should have needed a callous at least two inches thick to endure the _Talune_ more than the six days it took us to get from Samoa to Auckland. Early in the morning of the fourth day of our journey from Suva, Fiji, we passed the Great Barrier Island, which stands fifty miles from Auckland. We crept down the Hauraki Gulf, passed Little Barrier Island, and entered Waitemata Harbor, where we dropped anchor, awaiting the doctor's examination. Just from the tropics, I was taken by surprise to find the wind biting and chill as we went farther south, and here at the gates of Auckland the coat I had unnecessarily carried on my arm for months became most welcome. Before I could adjust myself to the new landing-place, I had to readjust my mind to another fact which had never been any vital part of my psychology,--that henceforth the farther south I should go the colder it would feel, and that though it was the sixth of November, the longer I remained the warmer it would become. In the presence of such phenomena, losing a thirteenth day of one's month while crossing the 180th meridian was a commonplace. The habits of a short lifetime told me to put on my coat, for winter was coming. But here I had come amongst queer New Zealanders who told me to unbutton it, even to shed it, for spring, they assured me, was not far behind. And then for the first time in months I felt the spirit of the landlubber work its way into my consciousness again. I had cut a diagonal line of 6,000 miles across a mysterious, immeasurable sea, and my reason, my heart and my body longed for respite from its benumbing influence. I had seen enough to last me a long time. I fairly ached for retirement inland, for sight of a cool, still lake, for contact with snow-capped mountain peaks. More than all else, I yearned for the cold, for the scent of snow, for the snug satisfaction of self-generated warmth. My soul and my body seemed seared and scorched by the blazing tropical sun under the wide, unsheltered seas. Later, when I should be "well" again, I thought, I would risk the climb up over the equator, the curve of the world that lies so close to the sun. And now that I was settled I had time to reflect on all I had seen. I had cut a diagonal line through the heart of the Pacific, and had seen in succession the various types of native races--the Hawaiians, the Fijians, the Samoans--while all about me were the Maories. So I reviewed and classified my memories before I started north on another diagonal course which led me among the transplanted white peoples of Australia and Asia. Yet one question preceded all others: whence came these Pacific peoples and when? The answer to that must be given before specific descriptions of the South Sea Islanders can be clear. CHAPTER II THE MYSTERY OF MYSTERIES 1 Not even the speed of the fastest steamer afloat can transport the white man from his sky-scraper and subway civilization over the hump of the earth and down into the South Seas without his undergoing a psychological metamorphosis that is enchanting. He cannot take his hard-and-fast materialistic illusions along with him. Were he a passenger on the magic carpet itself, and both time and space eliminated, the instant he found himself among the tawny ones he would forget enough of square streets and square buildings, square meals and square deals, to become another person. Upon that cool dewdrop of the universe, the Pacific, the giant steamer chugs one rhythmically to rest and one dreams as only one in a new life can dream, without being disturbed by past or future. One slumbers through this adolescent experience with the smile and the conceit of youth. At last one arrives. The enormous ship, upon whose deck have shuffled the games of children too busy to play, slips away from the pier and is swallowed up in the evening twilight. Left thus detached from iron and certainty, one wonders what would happen if there never should be iron and certainty again in life. What if that ship should never return, nor any other, and the months and years should lose track of themselves, and memory become feeble as to facts and fumble about in hyperbolic aspirations? What if the actualities that knotted and gnarled one's emotions, or flattened them out in precise conventions, should cease to affect one's daily doings? What if, for you, never again were there to be factories and dimensions of purse, or ambitions that ramble about in theories and ethics, but only the need of filling one's being with food and converting it into energy for the further procuring of food, and the satisfaction of impulses that lead only to the further vent of impulse,--and in that way a thousand years went by? What would the white man be when the lure of adventure and discovery suddenly revealed him to a world phenomenally different from the one he left behind in the bourn of his forgotten past? As I let myself loose from such moorings as still held me in touch with my world, the wonder grew by inversion. When the _Niagara_, wingless dinosaur of the deep, slid out into the lagoon beyond, I felt overcome with a sense of drooping loneliness, like one going off into a trance, like one for whom amazement is too intoxicating. It had not been that way in Hawaii, for there already the grip of the girder has made rigid the life of nature and the people. But down beneath the line one could still look over the corrugated iron roofs of sheds and forget. Everywhere in the Fiji or the Samoan islands something of antiquity cools one's senses with unheard questionings. Instantly one wants to know how it happens that these people came to be here, what accident or lure of paleolithic life led them into this isolation. One cannot get away from the feeling--however far inland one may go--that the outer casings of this little lump of solid earth beneath us is a fluent sea, a sea endless to unaided longing. Homesickness never was like that, for ordinary homesickness is too immediate, too personal. But this longing for contact which comes over one in the mid-Pacific islands is universal; it is a sudden consciousness of eternity, and of the atom. One begins to conceive of days and events and conditions as absolutely incompatible with former experience. One's mind is set aglow with inquiry, and over and over again, as one looks into the face of some shy native or some spoiled flapper, one wonders whence and how. And a slight fear: what if I, too, were now unable ever to return, should I soon revert to these customs, to the feeling of distance between men and women, to the nakedness, not so much of body as of mind? That was what happened to Tahiti, to Maoriland, to Hawaii, to the popping peaks of illusive worlds which to ante-medieval isolated Europe could not exist because it did not know of them. For thousands of years these innumerable islands in the Pacific had been the habitation of passionate men, of men who had come out in their vessels from over _Kim's_ way with decks that carried a hundred or more persons; persons who doubtless also entertained themselves with games because too busy to play; persons with hopes and aspirations. A thousand and more years ago the present inhabitants of Polynesia may have dreamed of rearing a new India, a wider Caucasia, just as the Pilgrims and the persecuted of Europe dreamed, or the ambitious Englanders of New Zealand. Welcomed here and ejected there, they passed on and on and on, as far as Samoa and Tahiti. And slowly the film of forgetfulness fixed their experiences. The big ships and the giant canoes rotted in the harbors. They had come to stay. The sun was burning their bridges behind them. What need for means of going farther? Eden had been found. And the soft, sweet flesh of young maidens began, generation after generation, to be covered with the tattooings of time, the records of the number of times the race had been reborn. So, while the nakedness of youth was being clothed, mind after mind stored up unforgettable tales of exploit and of passion, till fancy sang with triumph over things transitory, and tawny men felt that never would they have to wander more. Is not this the history of every race on earth? Has not every nation gloated over its antiquity and its security? Was not permanence a surety, and pride the father of ease? And have not song and story been handed down from generation to generation, or, with the more skilled and the more proud races, been graved in stone or wax or wood? And have not the more mighty and the more venturesome come over the pass, or over the crest and invaded and conquered and changed? So it was when Polynesia awoke to see that which could only be a god, because fashioned in the form of its own imaginings, swept by its gorgeous sails into view,--the ship of Captain Cook. Thus the racial memories that had lain dormant in the Polynesians for centuries were revived by Europeans. Narrative renders vividly their surprise and wonder, especially on seeing the vessel girt in iron such as had drifted in on fragments from the unknown wrecks and had become to these natives more precious than gold. It seems to me that in the hearts and minds of heliolithic man when he ventured eastward across the chain of islands which links, or rather separates, Polynesia and Melanesia from its home in Asia, he must have felt just as Cook and Vancouver and Magellan felt. Bit by bit I picked up those outer resemblances which give to men the world over their basic brotherliness. They may hate one another justly, but they cannot get away from that fraternity. And they generally reveal relationship when they least expect it. Thus, as we kicked our way up the smooth waters of the Rewa River, Fiji, in a launch laden with black faces and proud shocks of curly hair, mixed with sleek people of slightly lighter-hued India, a suggestion of the origin of these people came to me. As these alien Indians, so must have come these native negroids. I should have felt successful in my method of inquiry, hopeful of feeling my way into a solution of this wondering, had not an outrigger canoe dragged itself across our course with a dilapidated sail of bark-cloth. "Where did they learn to sail?" I asked the white skipper. "They have always known it," he answered. "But you seldom see these sails nowadays." I wanted to take a snap-shot of it, but the lights of evening, as those of tradition, were against me, and we were clipping along too rapidly. The last example of an art which brought the whole race eastward was being carelessly retained. A few days later I caught another glimpse of a past that was working my sun-baked brain too much. We were going up the river in a comfortable launch, some missionaries and I, their unknown guest. We were about twenty or thirty miles up the Rewa. With us was a young native who spoke English rather well. I plied him with questions, but his shyness and reticence, so characteristic of isolated human beings, inhibited him. At last he spoke, with an eye to my reactions, of the methods of warfare along the palisades of the river. "In my boyhood days," he said, "nobody knew anything of his neighbor. People lived just a mile apart, but you white people were not much stranger to us than they were to one another. There was constant war. We children were afraid to venture very far from our village." "Has that always been the way?" "I suppose so, but I don't know," and that was all I could get out of him. Yet it has not always been so, for nothing is always so among people, and the Melanesian-Fijians in many cases have welcomed and received among them Samoans and Tongans, races distinctly different from them. There is a definite separation, however, between ourselves and the Fijians that is obvious even to the casual tourist, and affords no easy solution of the whence and why. Not so among the Polynesians as in Samoa, where one instantly feels at home. That which attracted me to the Fijian was his incompatibility, his unconscious aloofness, his detachment. There is, however, not much greater difference between some of the races in the Pacific and the white men than there is between any two of the European peoples themselves. There is less difference between an Hawaiian and a Maori, though they are separated by nearly four thousand miles of unbroken sea, than there is between an Englishman and a Frenchman with only a narrow channel between them. In the Pacific, the chain of relationship between races from New Zealand to Hawaii is somewhat similar to that running north and south in Europe. The variation becomes similarly more pronounced in the latitudinal direction. In other words, the diversity existing between European and Turk is something akin to that between Samoan and Fijian,--from the point of view of appearances. Something of the kinship of peoples scattered over the millions of square miles of Pacific seas becomes evident, not so much in their own features and customs as in the way in which they lend themselves to fusion with the modern incoming nomads of the West. Something of the possible migrations said to have taken place in that unromantic age of man somewhere back in Pleistocene days may be grasped from the streams that now flow in and become part of the life of the South Pacific. Scientists detect in the Melanesian-Fijian slight traces of Aryan blood without being definite as to how it got there. When I ran into a little fruit shop in Suva, just before sailing, to taste for the last time the joys of mummy-apple, I glimpsed for a second the how. For the proprietor was a stout, gray-haired, dark-complexioned individual from the island of St. Helena. In a vivid way he described to me the tomb of Napoleon, spicing his account with a few incidents of the emperor's life on the island. Should no great flood of Europeans come to dilute the present slight infusions, the centuries that lie in waiting will perhaps augment this accidental European strain into some romantic story. In a thousand years it would not at all be impossible for this story of Napoleon to become part of Fijian legend, and for children to refer to that unknown god of war as their god and the father of their ideals. This genial islander from St. Helena will puzzle anthropologists and afford them opportunities for conjecture, fully as much as the evidence of Aryan and Iberian races in Asia and the islands east of it does to-day. [Illustration: DIAMOND HEAD, NEAR HONOLULU Once a volcano, now a fortress] [Illustration: THE HULK OF THE GERMAN MAN-OF-WAR, THE _ADLER_ Wrecked in the hurricane of 1889 at Samoa] [Illustration: AFTER SEVEN DAYS OF SEA--THIS EMERGED] [Illustration: HILO, HAWAII An oasis in the desert of the Pacific] Or the wail of the Indian, into whose shop I strayed to get out of the sun, at the downfall of "his" empire, may be the little seed of thought out of which the aspirations of a Fiji reborn will spring. 2 According to the traditions of almost every race on earth, the place of its nativity is the cradle of mankind. Nor does mere accident satisfy. In nearly every instance not only is the belief extant among natives that their race was born there, but that, be the birthplace island or continent, it came into existence by some form of special creation as an abiding-place for a chosen people. The Japanese _kami_, Izanagi and Izanami, were commissioned by the other gods to "make, consolidate, and give birth to the drifting land." "According to the Samoan cosmogony, first there was Leai, nothing; thence sprung Nanamu, fragrance; then Efuefu, dust; then Iloa, perceivable; then Maua, obtainable; then Eleele, earth; then Papatu, high rocks; then Maataanoa, small stones; then Maunga, mountains. Then Maunga married Malaeliua, or changeable meeting-place, and had a daughter called Fasiefu, piece of dust." The more primitive Melanesians, the Fijians, and the Australoids are less definite in their conceptions of whence they came, having in many cases no traditions or myths to offer. With all our scientific inquiry, we are to-day still lost in the maze of probable origins of various races. The birthplace of man is as much of a mystery as it ever was. Ninety years ago, Darwin said of the South Pacific: "Hence, both in space and time, we seem to be brought somewhat near to that great fact--that mystery of mysteries--the first appearance of new beings on this earth." And in 1921 Roy Chapman Andrews set out upon a third expedition to Mongolia in search of relics and fossils of the oldest man. He writes: With the exception of the Java specimen, all fossil human fragments have been discovered in Europe or England. Nevertheless, the leading scientists of the day believe that Asia was the early home of the human race and that whatever light may be thrown upon the origin of man will come from the great central Asian plateau north of the Himalaya Mountains. Thus his antiquity will doubtless interest man to his dying day. Slogans epitomizing the spirit of races fan the flames of human conflict. Conflict wears down the differences between them, or shatters them and scatters them to the whirling winds. Doubtless the records which seem to us so lucid and so permanent will vanish from the earth in the next half-million years, and our descendants will mumble in terms of vague tradition expressions of their beginning. Or perhaps their linguistics will make ours vulgar and primitive by comparison. Possibly, if our progress and development are not impeded, the hundreds of tongues now spoken on this globe will seem childishly incomplete, and in their stead will be one extremely simple but flexible language spoken in every islet in the seas. What our present world will seem to the man of the future, the world of the Pacific, wreathed in races of every hue--Asia, Australasia, the Americas--seems to us now. In the wide spaces of the Pacific we have several thousands of islands, anchored at various distances from one another in about seventy million square miles of sea. Grouped with a healthy regard for the freedom of individual needs there are enough separate races, speaking separate languages and abiding by separate customs, to make the many-colored map of Europe seem one primary hue by comparison. Yet all the romance which brightens the pages of European history and its intake of Asiatic culture is ordinary beside the mysterious silence that steeps the origin and age of the cultures of the Pacific. There, beneath the heavy curtain of unknown antiquity, dwell innumerable people who, if they are not the Adams and Eves of creation, have wandered very little from the birthplace of the human race. It seems as though the overflow of living creatures from the heart of Asia had found an underground channel back into the Garden of Eden, like some streamlet lost in the sands of the seashore, but worming its way into the very depths below. Polynesia, Micronesia, Melanesia, are the names by which we know them. The drawer of water, as he lets his bucket down to the farthest reaches of the wells of antiquity, finds in his vessel evidence of kinship with races now covering the whole of Europe. Romance has it that the Amerindians are descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel and Mormon missionaries are carrying that charm among the Polynesians. They are very successful in New Zealand among the Maories. Like a great current of warm water in the sea, the Polynesian races have run from Hawaii to Samoa, the Marquesas, Tahiti, and Maoriland. How they got there is still part of conjecture. To most of us, the South Seas mean simply cannibals and naked girls. Dark skins and giant bodies are synonymous with Polynesians. The grouping of these peoples into Poly-Mela-Micronesian has some scientific meaning which, if not esoteric and awe-inspiring, slips by our consciousness as altogether too highbrow to deserve consideration. Or we are satisfied with pictures such as Melville and O'Brien have given us, pictures that as long as the world is young will thrill us as do those of Kinglake and Marco Polo. But, those of us who have gone beyond our boyhood rhymes of "Wild man from Borneo just come to town" and have been White Shadows ourselves, are keenly interested in the whence and the why of these people. Can it be that Darwin was right? Have we approached the spot whereon man made his first appearance on the earth? Or are others right whose soundings divulge a hidden course that gives these people a birthplace ten thousand miles away, in central Asia? Is it that all the people of the world were first made men on land that is now beneath the waters of the Pacific,--men who, because of geological changes, fell back across Asia, leaving scattered remnants in the numerous island peaks now standing alone in that sun-baked world? "There is ground for the belief," says Griffith Taylor,[1] "that the Pacific Ocean was smaller in the Pleistocene period, being reduced by a belt of land varying in width from 100 to 700 miles." Or are the further calculations more accurate,--that there have been constant migrations of people from Asia? [1] Griffith Taylor: _Geographical Review_, January, 1912, p. 61. Slowly scientists are groping their way through legend. No one who has been among the South Sea people, and those of the western Pacific islands, can help being impressed with certain remarkable likenesses between them and European people. Present-day anthropologists are at variance with the old evolutionary school which believed in "a general, uniform evolution of culture in which all parts of mankind participated." "At present," according to Franz Boas, "at least among certain groups of investigators in England and also in Germany, ethnological research is based on the concept of migration and dissemination rather than upon that of evolution." In connection with Polynesia and the Pacific peoples, it seems to be fairly well known that they drifted from island to island in giant canoes. They had no sails nor compass, but, guided by stars and directed by the will of the winds, they roved the high seas and landed wherever the shores were hospitable. During ages when Europe dreaded the sea and hugged the land, when the European universe consisted of a flat table-like earth and a dome-like heaven of stars,--even before the vikings ventured on their wild marauding excursions, the Polynesians made of the length and breadth of the Pacific a highway for their canoes. "Somewhat before this (450 A. D.) one bold Polynesian had reached polar ice in his huge war canoe."[1] Our Amerindians dared the swiftest rapids in their frail bark canoes; but what was that compared with the courage and love of freedom which sent this lone Polynesian out upon the endless waters of the Pacific? Some day a poet will give him his deserving place among the great heroes. [1] Griffith Taylor: _Geographical Review_, January, 1912, p. 61. Dr. Macmillan Brown tells us that the Easter Islands were once the center of a great Pacific empire. Here men came from far and wide to pay tribute to one ruling monarch. He builded himself a Venice amid the coral reefs, with canals walled in by thirty feet of stone. Fear of the control over the winds which this monarch was said to possess, and superstitious dread of his ire brought the vassal islanders to him with their choicest possessions, though he had no military means of compelling respect. This monarch, like the Pharaohs who built the pyramids, must have had thousands of laborers to have been able to cut, shape, and build the giant platforms of stone or the great canals which are referred to as the Venice of the Pacific. It must have taken no little engineering skill so to adjust them to one another as to require no mortar to keep them together. In the Caroline Islands, now under Japanese mandate, there still stand remains of stone buildings of a forgotten day's requirements. These relics of unknown days make it reasonably certain that after having been "shot" out from the mainland, the early people of the Pacific reached all the way across to the island of Savaii, in the Samoan group, and later as far as Tahiti. Why they did not go on to the Americas is hard to say. Perhaps the virginity of the islands and the congenial climate offered these artless savages all they desired. Beyond were cold and drudgery. Here, though labor and war were not wanting, still there was balmy weather. Probably they were the tail-end of the great migration of the Wurm ice age. More venturesome than most, and having arrived at lands roomy enough for their small numbers, they must have called themselves blessed in that much good luck and decided to take no further chances with the generosity of the gods. Linguistic and ethnological data link the Polynesians with the Koreans, Japanese, Formosans, Indonesians, and Javanese. Legends and genealogies show that about the dawn of our era the early Polynesians were among the Malay Islands. By 450 A. D. they had reached Samoa and by 850 A. D., Tahiti.... In 1175 A. D. the primitive Maoriori were driven out of New Zealand to the Chatham Isles. No doubt New Zealand was first reached several hundred years before this. Tahiti seems to have been a center of dispersal, as Percy Smith has pointed out in his interesting book "Hawaiki." We must, however, remember that Melanesians preceded the Polynesians to many of these islands at a much earlier date.[1] [1] Griffith Taylor: _Geographical Review,_ January, 1921. However, mutation is the law of life. Even these small groups split into smaller factions. Some went south to the islands of the Antipodes and called themselves Maories; others went north of the equator and called themselves Hawaiians. The physical distribution of all the races in the Pacific, rooting, as we have seen, in Asia, represents a virile plant the stem of which runs eastward and is known as Micronesia and Melanesia, with the flowers, in all their diversified loveliness, Hawaii, Samoa, Tahiti, the Marquesas, and Maoriland. What made them what they are? How is it that being, as it seems, people of extraction similar to that of Europeans, they have remained in such a state of arrested development? How is it that they became cannibals, eaters of men's flesh? Again the answer is not far to seek. Just like the Europeans, they followed the line of least resistance, having as yet developed no artificial or brain-designed weapons against the stress of nature. Europeans, in time of great famine, have not themselves been above cannibalism. In our Southern States we have isolated mountaineers to show us what men can revert to. And in northern China to-day, essentially Buddhist and non-flesh-eating, cannibalism was reported during the famine last year. But Europe had what Polynesia did not have. Driven by the force of necessity out of continental Asia, Polynesia hid itself away in the cracks and crannies of the Pacific; Europeans spread over a small continent and broke up into innumerable warring and learning tribes. Backward and forward along peninsular Europe, men communicated to one another their emotional and objective experiences. The result has been a culture amazing only in its diversity,--amazing because, with contact and interchange of racial experiences, the coursing and recoursing of the same blood, stirred and dissolved, it is amazing that such diversity should persist. But in Polynesia, Melanesia, Micronesia,--in all the distant land-specks of the Pacific,--contact was impossible in the larger sense. Though canoes did slide into strange harbors or drift or row in and about the atolls, they afforded at most romantic stimuli to these isolated groups. Infusion of culture was very difficult. At most, these causal meetings added to or confused the stories of their origin. And in a little time the different island groups forgot their beginnings. Presently, the pressure upon their small areas with the limited food supply began to make itself felt. Some method had to be devised for the limitation of population and to keep in food what few numbers there were. There seem to have been no indigenous animals anywhere in the islands. Darwin found only a mouse, and of this he was uncertain as to whether it really was indigenous. Except for a few birds, and the giant Moa which roamed the islands of New Zealand, animal life was everywhere insufficient to the needs of so vital a people as were these. But much less is heard to-day of the cannibalism said to have run rampant among them. It is even disputed. The fruits of the tropics, doubtless rich in vitamines, are peculiarly suited to the sustenance of so spirited a race. 3 The Polynesians found in the various islands they approached, during that slow, age-long migration eastward, tribes and islanders inferior to themselves. So did the Europeans in their movement westward. The primitive Caucasians remained and mixed slightly along the way, leaving here and there traces of their contact. And their ancestors in Asia forgot their exiled offspring. With the landing of Cook at Tahiti, at Poverty Bay, at Hawaii, the counter invasion of the Pacific began. For over a hundred years now the European has been injecting his culture, his vices, his iron exactitude into the so-called primitive races. These hundred years make the second phase of civilization in the Pacific. It might have been the last. It might have meant the reunion of Caucasic peoples, their blending and their amalgamation, and the world would have lived happily ever after. But the eternal triangle plays its part in politics no less than in love, and the third period, the period of rivalry and jealousy, of suspicion and scandal, of still-born accomplishment in many fields has set in. And tragedy, which men love because it is closest to truth, is on the stage. [Illustration: EVEN FIJIANS ARE LOATH TO FORGET THE ARTS OF THEIR FOREFATHERS F. W. Caine, Photo] [Illustration: IN GIANT CANOES HELIOLITHIC IMMIGRANTS ROAMED THE SOUTH SEAS Photo, H. Winkelmann] The third period dates largely from the discovery and the awakening of Japan. It is the blocking of the European invasion of the Pacific, and the institution of a counter move,--that of the expansion of Asia into the Pacific,--which will be treated in the last section of this book. To-day, Polynesia is barely holding its own. Its sons have studied "abroad," they have been in our schools and universities, they have fought in "our" war. Rapidly they are putting aside the uncultured simplicity of adolescence. For long they treasured drifts of iron-girded flotsam which the waves in their impartiality cast upon their shores; to-day iron is supplanting thatch, and a belated iron age is reviving their imaginations, just as iron guns and leaden bullets shattered them a century ago. In the light of their astonishment, _Rip Van Winkle_ is a crude conception; Wells has had to revise and enlarge "When the Sleeper Wakes" into "The Outline of History." No man knows what is pregnant in the Pacific; nor will the next nine eons reveal the possibilities. Chapter III OUR FRONTIER IN THE PACIFIC 1 Honolulu marks our frontier in the Pacific. Honolulu has been conquered. If the conquest is that of love, then the offspring will be lovely; if of mere force, or intrigue, then Heaven help Honolulu! As far as outward signs go, we are in a city American in most details. The numerous trolleys, the modern buildings, the motor-cars, the undaunted Western efficiency which no people is able to withstand has gripped Hawaii in an iron grip. True that the foreign (that is, Hawaiian, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese) districts are steeped in squalor, but this is old Honolulu. The new is a little Los Angeles with all its soullessness, and it has taken all the illusions of modern civilization to accomplish it. The first illusion was that the natives would be better off as Americans than as Hawaiians; the second, that Hawaiians were lazy and Japanese and Chinese were necessary; the third, that cleanliness is next to godliness. How have these things worked out? The Hawaiians are in the ever-receding minority, the Japanese in the unhappy majority, and enjoyment of cleanliness has made most men forget that it is only _next_ to something else. If the invited are coming to Honolulu expecting money-grabbers to turn to poetry and petty politicians to philosophy, they had better save their fares. If readers of magazines expect to find a melting-pot in which all the ingredients are dancing about with their arms round one another's neck, they had better remain at home. For the first and foremost effect of the tropics is to individualize things. In colder climes people huddle together to conserve warmth; here they give one another plenty of space. Virtually one of the first things the new-comer does is to name and separate things from the mass. Every little thing has its personality. Plants grow in profusion, but each opens out to its utmost. One is much more inclined to ask what this flower is called in Honolulu than in America, for each stands out, and one stands out to each. Honolulu exudes moisture and fragrance, stirring the passions as does the scent of a clean woman. It limbers up one's reasoning faculties and arouses one's curiosity. On the street every Chinese and every Japanese comes in for his share of attention. One begins to single out types as it has never occurred to one to do in New York. In Honolulu all intermingle, flower in a sort of unity, but in the very mass they retain their natural variations. The white people are ordinarily good, they have mastered the technique of life sufficiently and play tolerably well to an uncritical audience. While the Hawaiian policeman in charge of the traffic stands out in bold relief because the dignity and importance of his position have stiffened the easy tendencies of his race,--he is self-conscious. Monarch of Confusion, arrayed in uniform, tall and with the manner of one always looking from beneath heavy eyebrows, it is said that he causes as much trouble as he allays. But that is mere prejudice. Who would dare ignore his arm and hand as he directs the passing vehicle? He fascinates. He commands. His austere silence is awe-inspiring. When he permits a driver to pass, there is a touch of the contemptuous in that relinquishment. Nor dare the driver turn the corner till, in like manner, this human indicator points the direction for him. The finger follows now almost mockingly, until another car demands its attention, and it becomes threatening again. One hears of the all-inclusive South Seas as though it were something totally without variation. The average tourist and scribe soon acquires the South-Sea style. But the more discriminating know full well that the expressions which describe one of the South Sea islands fall flat when applied to another. "Liquid sunshine" is a term peculiarly Hawaiian. It would never apply to Fiji, for instance, for there the words "atmospheric secretion" are more accurate. Hence, it is more than mere political chance that has made Hawaii so utterly different from the Philippines and the litter of South Seas. Honolulu is essentially an American city. The hundreds of motor-cars that dash in and about the streets do so just as they would in "sunny California." The shops that attract the Americans are just like any in America,--clean, attractive, with their best foot forward. So meticulous, so spotless, so untouchable are they that the soul of the seeker nearly sickens for want of spice and flavor. To have to live on Honolulu's Main Street would be like drinking boiled water. One imagines that when the white men came thither, finding disease and uncleanliness rampant, they determined that if they were to have nothing else they would have things clean. All newcomers to Oriental and primitive countries cling to that phase of civilization with something akin to terror. Generally they get used to the dirt. They have not done so in Honolulu. It may be that mere distance has something to do with the different results, but certain it is that Manila, under American control just as is Honolulu, has none of these prim, not primitive, drawbacks. Twenty years of American rule have done little really to Americanize Manila, while they have utterly metamorphosed Honolulu. The man-made machine has now outlived the vituperation of idealists. The man-made machine is running, and even the most romantic enjoys life the better for it. Clean hotels, swimming-pools within-doors, motor-cars that bring nature to man with the least loss of time and cost of fatigue,--these are things which only a fool would despise. But one longs for some show of the human touch, none the less, and cities that are built by machine processes are, despite all their virtues, not attractive. At least, they are not different enough from any other city in the modern world to justify a week's journey for the seeing. One hears that steamers and trains and airplanes are killing romance. That is so, but not because they in themselves conduce to satiety, but because they destroy indigenous creations and substitute importations and iron exactitude. Within the next few generations there will, indeed, be a South Seas, indistinguishable and without variety. Honolulu is an example. But Honolulu is not Hawaii! It is only a bit of decoration. So we shall leave this phase of Hawaii for consideration at a time when, having seen the things native to the Pacific, we reflect upon the meaning and purport of things alien. In Hawaii, we are told,--and without exaggeration,--one can stand in the full sunshine and watch the rain across the street. So, too, can one enjoy some of the material blessings of modern life, yet be within touch of nature incomparably exquisite. 2 He was only a street-car conductor. Every day he journeyed from the heart of Honolulu, like a little blood corpuscle, through arteries of trade hardened by over-feeding, in a jerking, rocking old trolley car, to the very edge of Manoa Valley. His way lay along the fan-shaped plane behind the sea, and was lined with semi-palatial residences and Oahu College. Palms swayed in the breeze, and the night-blooming cereus slept in the glittering sunlight upon the stone walls. He was only a street-car conductor, furnished with his three spare meals a day and his bed, but he fed along the way on sweets that no street-car conductor in any other place in the world has by way of compensation. He was carved with wrinkles and his frail frame bent slightly forward, but his heart was young within him, and he acted like a plutocrat whose hobby was gardening and whose gardens were rich with the finest flowers on earth. The delight he took in the open country, barely the edge of which he reached so many times a day, was pathetic. When I asked him to let me off where I could wander on the open road, he beamed with pleasure and delight, and told me where I should have to go really to reach the wild. There may be other places in the world as beautiful and even more so, but no place ever had such a street-car conductor to recommend it. And no recommendation was ever more poetic and inspiring than this,--not even that of the Promotion Committee of Honolulu. And, strange to say, I have never been guided more honestly and more truthfully than when that street-car conductor advised me to go to Manoa Valley. I lived an eternity of joy in the few hours I spent there. I knew that not many miles beyond I should again be blocked by the sea. I could not see it because of the hills which spend three hundred and sixty-five days of every year dressing themselves in their very best and posing before the mirror of the sky. Not more than one or two natives passed me, nor did any other living creature appear. I could only romance with myself, refusing to be fooled by the talk about fair maidens with leis round their necks. I was certain that back home there were maidens whose beauty could not be equaled here; whose soft, white skins and shapely forms were never excelled by tropical loveliness. But I was just as certain that there was nothing at home that compared to nature as it is lavished upon man here in Hawaii, and especially in Manoa Valley. We all have our compensations, and I have even shown preference for a return to the joys of genuine human beauty which the maker of worlds gave to America, and to leave to the mid-Pacific verdure and altitudes whose combination stirs my mind with passionate adoration to this very day. Still, I shall ever be grateful to that wizened street-car conductor for having suggested that I visit his little valley, which he himself can enter only after paying a penalty of sixteen journeys between Heaven and Honolulu every day, carrying the money-makers backward and forward. Perhaps he does not regard it as a penalty. Perhaps he feels himself fully compensated if one or two of his human parcels asks him where may be found the Open Road. 3 Sullen and less concerned with emotional or spiritual values was the driver of the motor-bus whom we exhumed one day from the heart of Honolulu's "foreign" section. He evidently regarded nature on his route as too great a strain on his brakes, though he, too, must have felt that compensation was meted out to him manifold. For few people come to Hawaii and leave without contributing some small share to his support, as he is the shuttle between Honolulu and Kaneohe, and carries the thread of sheer joy through the eye of that wondrous needle, the Pali. At the Pali one senses the youth and vigor of our earth. Its peak, piercing the sky, seems on the point of emerging from the sea. It has raised its head above the waters and stands with an air of contempt for loneliness, wrapped in mist, defying the winds. The world seems to fall away from it. It has triumphed. There is none of that withdrawing dignity of Fujiyama, the great man who looks on. The Pali imposes itself upon your consciousness with spectacular gusto, like the villain stamping his way into the very center of the stage and gazing roundabout over a protruding chin. The palm-trees bow solemnly before changeless winds, in the direction of Honolulu, which lies like an open fan at the foot of the valley near the sea. Color is in action everywhere,--spots of metallic green, of volcanic red, filtered through a screen of marine gray. Honolulu lies below to the rear; Kaneohe, beyond vast fields of pineapple, before us; the sea, wide, open, limitless except for the reaches of the heavens, binding all. And then there is an upward, circular motion,--that of the rising mists drawn by the burning rays of the sun pressing landward and dashing themselves into the valley and falling in sheets of rain upon the earth. Wedged into a gully, as though caught and unable to break away, was a heavy cloud,--but it was being drained of every drop of moisture as a traveler held up by a gang of highway-men. This circular motion is found not only in inanimate nature. Once, at least, it has whirled the Hawaiians into tragedy. Here, history tells us, Kamehameha I (the fifth from the last of Hawaii's kings) hurled an army of native Oahu islanders over this bluff, back into the source of their being. Without quarter he pressed them on, over this pass; while they, unwilling to yield to capture, chose gladly to dash themselves into the valley below. One is impressed by the striking interplay of emotion with sheer nature. The controlling element which directs both man and mountain seems the same. States and stars alike emerge, crash, and crumble. We rolled rapidly down into the valley past miles and miles of pineapple fields. Then we came, as it were, to the land's end. Nothing sheer now before us, nothing precipitate. A bit of freshness, of coolness, and an imperceptible tapering off. The sea. [Illustration: A SAGE IN A CHINA SHOP AT HONOLULU] [Illustration: THERE ARE ONLY A FEW CHINESE WOMEN IN HAWAII] [Illustration: WHOA! LET'S HAVE OUR PICTURE TAKEN We don't know whether we're Hawaiian, Chinese or American, but who cares. Giddap!] [Illustration: FEMININE PROPRIETY Oriental and Occidental versions] Here at Kaneohe dwelt Arthur Mackaye, brother of the poet, whose name was vaguely known to me. He was slender, bearded, loosely clad, with open collar but not without consciousness and conventionality,--a conventionality in accordance with prescribed notions of freedom. Refreshing, cool as the atmosphere roundabout, distinct from the tropical lusciousness which is the general state of both men and nature in and about Honolulu, the personality of this lone man--this man who had flung everything aside--was a fit complement to the experience of Manoa Valley and the Pali. He conducted a small sight-seeing expedition on his own. The proprietor of a number of glass-bottomed launches, he took me over the quiet waters of the reefs. Throwing a black cloth over my head to shield me from the brilliant sky, I gazed down into the still world within the coral reefs. There lay unimaginable peace. What the Pali affords in panorama, the bay at Kaneohe offers in concentrated form. Pink-and-white forests twenty to forty feet deep, with immense cavities and ledges of delicate coral, fringe the shore. Fish of exquisite color move in and out of these giant chambers, as much at home in one as in another. Droll, sleepy sponges, like lumps of porous mud, lie flat against the reefs, waiting for something edible to come their way. Long green sea-worms extend and contract like the tentacles of an octopus in an insatiable search for food. An unusual silence hangs over the memory of that trip. I cannot recall that the unexpected companion I picked up in Honolulu said anything; the lonely one who furnished the glass-bottomed boat certainly said nothing; the fish and sponges emphasized the tone of silence associated with the experience. But the Pali shrieked; it was the one imposing element that defied stillness. And below it is Honolulu, where silence is not to be found. 4 For the Honolulu spirit is averse to silence. Honolulu is the most talkative city in the world. The people seem to talk with their eyes, with their gait, with their postures. Night and day there stirs the confusion of people attending to one another's wants. One is in a ceaseless whirl of extraverted emotions. One cannot get away from it. The man who could be lonely in Honolulu would have to have his ears closed with cement. If New York were as talkative as Honolulu, not all of America's Main Streets together would drown it out. For Honolulu teems with good-fellowship. It is the religion of Honolulu to have a good time, and every one feels impelled before God and Patria to live up to its precepts. Everybody not only has a good time but talks having a good time. Not that there are no undercurrents of jealousy and gossip. By no means. The stranger is let into these with the same gusto that swirls him into pleasurable activities. It is a busy, whirligig world. Even the Y.M.C.A. spirit prevails without restraint. I had found the building of the association very convenient, and stopped there. That put the stamp of goodness on me, but it did not exclude me from being drawn into a roisterous crowd that danced and drank and dissipated dollars, and heaved a sigh of relief that I did not preach to it. Its members were glad that I was just "stopping" at the Y. They didn't see how I could do it, but that was my affair. If I still managed to be a good fellow,--well, I belonged to Honolulu. Charmian London had given me a note of introduction to a friend, Wright, of the "Bulletin." Wright was a bachelor and had a little bungalow across from the Waikiki Hotel on the beach. There we met one evening. It had every indication of the touch of a woman's hand. It was neatly furnished, cozy, restful. Two nonchalant young men came in, but after a delightful meal hurried away to some party. Wright and I were left. What should we do? Something must be done. He ordered a touring-car. We whirled along under the open sky with a most disporting moon, and it seemed a pity we had none with us over whom to romanticize. Quietly, as though we were on a moving stage, the world slipped by,--palms, rice-fields ashimmer with silver light. Through luxuriant avenues, we passed up the road toward the Pali. Somewhere half-way we stopped. The Country Club. A few introductions, a moment's stay, and off we went again, this time to avoid the dance that was to take place there. Slipping along under the moonlight, we made our way back to Waikiki beach, dismissed the car, and took a table at Heinie's which is now, I understand, no more. But we had only jumped from the frying-pan into the fire. Others, bored with the club dance, had come to Heinie's for more fling than dancing afforded. The hall was not crowded, so we were soon noticed. Mr. Wright was known. "They want us to come over," he said. "Just excuse me a moment." Presently he returned. I had been specifically invited over with him. I accepted the invitation. Then, till there were no more minutes left of that day, we indulged in one continuous passing of wits and wets. Before half the evening was over, I was one of the crowd in genuine Honolulu fashion, and nothing was too personal for expression. But one there was in the group to whom all her indulgences were obviously strange, though she seemed well practised. She was a romantic soul, and sought to counteract the teasing of the others. Her deprecation of whisky and soda was almost like poor Satan's hatred of hell. She vibrated to romantic memories like a cello G string. When she learned that I was westward bound, she fairly moaned with regret. "China!--oh, dear, beloved China! I would give anything in the world to get back there!" she exclaimed, and whatever notions I had of the Orient became exalted a thousandfold. But my own conviction is that she missed the cheap servants which Honolulu lacks. In other words, there were still not enough leisure and Bubbling Well Roads in Honolulu, nor the international atmosphere that is Shanghai's. But that is mere conjecture, and she was a romantic soul, and good to look at. But there were two others in the crowd who did not, in their hilarious spirits, whirl into my ken until some time afterward. Their speed was that of the comet's, and what was a plodding little planet like myself to do trying to move into their orbit? They were not native daughters of Honolulu; most of their lives they had spent in California, which in the light of Hawaii is a raw, chill land. There they carried on the drab existence of trying to earn a living,--just work and no play. But evidently they had never given up hope. They were tall, thin, fair, and jolly. They invested. They won. It was only two thousand dollars. They earned as much every year, no doubt, but it came to them in instalments. Now they had a real roll. _Bang_ went the job! American industry, all that depended on their being stable, honest producers, the smoothness of organization, was banished from their minds. Let the country go to the dogs; they were heading for Honolulu for a good time. And when they got there they did not find the cupboard bare, nor excommunication for being jobless. For as long as two thousand dollars will last where money flows freely (and there are plenty of men ready to help stretch it with generous entertainment) these two escaped toilers from the American deep ran the gamut of Honolulu's conviviality. Night after night they whispered amorous compliments in the ears of the favorite dancers; day after day they flitted from party to party. I had met them just as their two thousand dollars were drawing to a close, but the only thing one could hear was regret that they could not possibly be extended. Honolulu was richer by two thousand; they were poorer to the extent of perpetual restlessness and rebellion against the necessity of holding down a job. Yet the "Primer" published by the Promotion Committee tells us that Hawaii is "not a paradise for the jobless." These folk had no jobs, yet they certainly felt and acted and spoke as though they were in Paradise. Witness the arrivals and departures of steamers. The crowds gather as for a fête or a carnival. Bands play, serpentines stream over the ship's side, and turn its dull color into a careless rainbow. Hawaiian women sell leis, necklaces of the most luscious flowers whose scent is enough to empassion the most passionless. But as to jobs,--why, even the longshoremen seem to be celebrating and the steamer moves as by spirit-power. Visit Waikiki beach, and every day it is littered with people who enjoy the afternoon hours on the tireless breakers. Go to the hotels, and hardly an hour finds them deserted. The motor-cars are constantly carrying men and women about as though there was nothing in the wide world to do. Even those who are unlucky enough to have jobs attend to them in a leisurely sort of way. Yet these jobless people hold up their hands in warning to possible immigrants that there is no room for them, that "Hawaii is not a paradise for the jobless." 5 Who, then, does the work of the island? It is obvious that it is being done. There isn't another island in the whole Pacific so modernized, so thoroughly equipped, so American in every detail, so progressive and well-to-do. It is the most sublimated of the sublime South Seas. One wonders how white men could have remained so energetic in the tropics, but one is not long left uninformed. Honolulu is an example of a most ideal combination of peoples, the inventive, progressive, constructive white man with the energetic, persistent, plodding Oriental. Without the one or the other, Honolulu would not be what it is; both have contributed to the welfare of the islands in ways immeasurable. It is not surprising, therefore, to find the Oriental elements as much in evidence as the Occidental. One hardly knows where one begins and the other ends. As spacious and individualized as are the European sections, so the Asiatic are a perfect jumble of details. The buildings are drab, the streets are littered, the smells are insinuating, the sounds excruciating. A most painful noise upon an upper balcony of an overhanging Chinese building made me come to with a sudden clapping of my hands against my ears. As noise goes, it was perfect,--without theme or harmony. It could not have been more uncontrolled. What consolation was it that in China there was more of it! Gratitude awakened in me for the limitations a wise joss had placed upon the capacities of the individual. Yet men are never satisfied. These Chinese weren't, and combined their energies. What one man couldn't accomplish, several could at least approach. So we had a band. I should certainly never have thought it possible, myself. However, they were trying to achieve something. It was neither gay nor mournful; nor was it sentimental. What purpose could it possibly have served? Surely they had no racial regrets or aspirations, they who played it! The bird sings to his mate, but what mate would listen to such tin-canning and howling, and not die? To me there was something charming in this shamelessness of the Chinese, something childlike and naïve. I had never realized the meaning of that little rhyme, I would not give the weakest of my song For all the boasted strength of all the strong If but the million weak ones of the world Would realize their number and their wrong. The thought is almost terrifying when applied to the teeming hordes of the world, whether of Asia, Europe, or the South Seas. If sheer numbers are any justification of supremacy, God had better take His old world back and reshape it nearer something rational. One becomes conscious of this welling up of the world in Hawaii. Not that the Chinese and the Japanese haven't the same right to life and to its fulfilment in accordance with latent instinct and ability, with all its special racial traits and customs, but one doesn't just exactly see how numbers have anything to do with it. Yet here are the Chinese and Japanese slowly, quietly, persistently out-distancing the white by a process of doubling in numbers, where mentality and ingenuity would doubtless fail. One hears much about the progress of the Orient. That is, white folk talk much about the way in which the East is taking to Western ways, and call that progress. One would not expect that sort of progress to proceed with any great velocity in the East itself, but it is only necessary to observe the ingrowing tendencies of life in Hawaii, however superficially, to see how foolishly optimistic is the expectation of such progress. For even in Hawaii, where everything has had to be built afresh, where everybody is an alien--with very few exceptions--and where the dominant element is European, the East is still the East, and the West the West. There is a slight overlapping, but not enough to make one lose one's way,--to make a white man walk into a Chinese restaurant and not know it. The fastidious white man whose curiosity gets the better of him, moves about the Chinese and Japanese districts fully conscious of his own shortcomings. He is less able to feel at home there than the Oriental on the main street; but why doesn't the Oriental build for himself a main street? I was abroad early one Sunday morning, headed for the Chinese section. Lost in thought, I went along, gazing on the ground. Had Charlie Chaplin's feet suddenly come into my range of vision I should not have been more surprised than I was when two tiny shoes, hardly bigger than those of a large-sized doll, and with some of that stiff, automatic movement of the _species mechanicus_, dissipated my reflections. I raised my eyes slowly, as when waking, up, up, up,--hem of skirt, knees, waist-line, flat bosom, narrow shoulders, sallow face, and slit eyes! A Chinese woman! She was as big as a fourteen-year-old girl, but her feet were a third of their due proportion. How many thousands of years of natural selection went into the making of those little feet? Yet she was a rare enough exception to astound my abstracted mind. About her strolled hundreds of others of her race, who would have given much of life to possess those two little feet. Differences abound in Hawaii. The Chinese is no twin brother of the Japanese. In fact, there is probably as much relationship between the Hawaiian and the Japanese as there is between these two "Oriental" races. The major part of the Japanese being Malay and the Polynesian Hawaiians having at least lived with the Malays some hundreds of years ago and infused some of their Caucasic ingredients into them, there is more of "home-coming" when "Jap" meets "Poly," than when he meets "Chink." But notwithstanding proximity and propinquity, over which diplomatic letter-writers labor hard, when the Chinese and the Japanese and the Hawaiian come together, the Hawaiian "vanishes like dewdrops by the roadside," the Chinese jogs along, and the Japanese runs motor-cars and raises children. The Japanese obtrudes himself much more upon the life of the community than the other two races, but with no more relinquishment of his own ways. He drives the cars and he drives white men to more activity than they really enjoy. And the Hawaiian sells necklaces of luscious flowers under the shaded porticoes of the buildings along the waterfront. [Illustration: MILES AWAY ROSE THE FUMES OF KILAUEA During the day they were ashen and at night like rose dawn] [Illustration: THE LARGEST CAULDRON OF MOLTEN ROCK ON EARTH Eight hundred feet below it seethed] [Illustration: A RIVER OF ROCK POURING OUT INTO THE SEA Photo, Otto C. Gilmore] [Illustration: WHIRLING EDDIES OF LAVA UNDERMINING FROZEN LAVA PROJECTIONS Photo, Otto C. Gilmore] Aside from the adoption of our trousers and coat and hat, and a few other unimportant aspects of our civilization, the observer on the streets of Honolulu sees no mingling of races. The only outward sign of this mixing is the Salvation Army. There, large as life, with the usual circular crowd about them, stood these soldiers of misfortune, praising the Lord in English. A row of unlimited Oriental offspring upon the curb; a few grown-ups on the walk; a converted Japanese who looked as though his Shinto father had disowned him; a self-conscious white boy who confessed to having been converted just recently; two indifferent-looking soldiers; a distrustful-looking leader and a hopeless-visaged white woman. Twenty feet away, a saloon. I wonder what the Salvation Army is going to do now that that object of attraction is no more. As far as Honolulu was concerned, it seemed to me that barter and trade were more intoxicating to the majority than was drink. The world everywhere about seemed a-litter with boxes and bales and shops and indulgences. How much of all the things exchanged, how many of the things for which these people toil endlessly, are worth while or essential, or even truly satisfying? The dingy stores, their only worth their damp coolness; the huddling and the innocent dirt; the inextricable mesh of little things to be done,--only the Chinese sage who posed for my camera in front of his wee stock of yarns was able to tell their value to life. His long, thin, pointed beard, his lack of vanity in accepting my interest in him, his genial smile and fatherly disinterestedness symbolized more than anything I saw in Honolulu the virtue and endurance of race. Beside the eager, grasping Japanese and the rolling, expanding white men, he looked like the overtowering palm-tree that seems to grow out of the monkey-pod in the park. 6 To a creature from another world, hovering over us in the unseen ether, watching us move about beneath the sea of air which is life to us, Honolulu would seem like a little glass aquarium. The human beings move about as though on the best of terms with one another. Some look more gorgeous than others, but from outward appearances they are as innocent of ill intentions against one another as the aquatic creatures for which Hawaii is famous, out in the cool, moist aquarium at Waikiki. Kihikihi, the Hawaiians call one of them, and his friends the white folk have christened him Moorish Idol. I don't know what Kihikihi means, but as to his being an idol, I can't accept that for a moment, except in so far as he deserves to be idolized. For about him there is no more of that static, woodeny thing which idols generally are than there is about Pavlowa. Yet he is only a fish, and not so very large at that. He is moon-shaped, but rainbow-hued. He is perhaps three-quarters of an inch across the shoulders, but six inches up and down, and perhaps eight from nose to the ends of his two tails. And so he looks like a three-quarter moon. Soft, vertical bands of black, white, and egg-yellow run into one another on both sides, and a long white plume trails downward in a semicircle. He is the last word in form, translucent harmony of color and of motion. He moves about with rhythmic dignity and grace. At times his eyes bulge with an eagerness and self-importance as though the world depended on him for its security. Though he is constantly searching for food, he does not seem avaricious; and while he admits his importance, he is not proud. Kihikihi has a rival in Nainai, who has been given an alias,--Surgeon Fish, light brown with an orange band on his sides. Nainai is heavier than Kihikihi, more plump. His color, too, is heavier and therefore seems more restrained. It is richer and hence stimulates envy and desire. Lauwiliwili Unkunukuoeoe has no aliases, thank you, but he has a snout on which his Hawaiian name could be stamped in fourteen-point type and still leave room for half a dozen aliases. Only a water-creature could possess such a title as this and keep from dragging it in the mud. Knowing that he would be called by that appellation in life, his Creator must have compensated him with plenty of snout. But it is better to have one long snout than eight. And though no one would give preference to any devil-fish, this long-snouted creature is the rival by an inverse ratio of that eight-snouted glutton. The octopus, the devil of the deep, is an insult to fishdom. The Moorish Idol and this Medusa-like monster in the same aquarium make a worse combination than Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This ugly, flabby, boneless body, just thick skin and muscle, with a large bag for a head,--eight sea-worms extending and contracting in an insatiable search for food is the paramount example of gross materialism. If only the high cost of living would drive to suicide this beast with hundreds of mouths to feed, the world might be rid of a perfidious-looking monster. But his looks do him great injustice, and were the Hawaiian variety--which is, after all, only squid--to disappear, the natives would be deprived of one of their chief delicacies. At the markets--that half-way house between aquaria and museums--numerous dried octopus, like moth-eaten skins, lie about waiting for the housewife's art to camouflage them. But I shall have something to say elsewhere about markets and museums, and now shall turn, for a moment, to more startling wonders still. 7 An artist is delighted if he finds a study with a perfect hand or a beautiful neck; or, in nature, if a simple charm is left undisturbed by the confusion of human creation. Yet at night as our ship passed the island of Maui, it seemed to me that all the sweet simplicities that make life worth while had been assembled here in the beginning of the world and left untouched. The moon rose on the peak of the cone-shaped mountain, and for a time stood set, like a moonstone in a ring. The pyramid of night-blue earth was necklaced in street lights, which stretched their frilled reflections across the surface of the sea; and just back of it all lay the crater of Haleakala, the House of the Sun. At sunrise next morning we were docked at Hilo on the island of Hawaii, two hundred miles from Honolulu. There was nothing here impressive to me, despite the waterfalls. For two and a half hours we drove by motor over the turtle-back surface of Hawaii toward Kilauea. Tree-ferns, palms, and plantations stretched in unending recession far and wide. A sense of mystery and awe crept slowly over me as we neared the region of the volcano. At eleven we arrived at the Volcano House. Yet, in a mood of strange indifference I gazed across the five miles of flat, dark-brown frozen lava which is the roof of the crater. Ash-colored fumes rose from the field of fissures, like smoke from an underground village. Sullen, sallow vapors, these. Sulphur banks, tree molds cast in frozen lava, empty holes! Nothing within left to rot, but fringed with forests and brush, sulphur-stained or rooted in frozen lava. Everywhere promise of volcanic fury, prophecy of the end of the world. The road lay like a border round the rim of an antique bowl which had been baked, cracked, chipped, but shaped to a usefulness that is beauty. All day long we waited, watching the clouds of gray fumes rise steadily, silently, and with a sad disinterestedness out of the mouth of the crater. Frozen, the lava was the great bed of assurance, a rock of fearlessness. It seemed to say to the volcano: "I can be indifferent. Down there, deep down, is your limitation. Rise out of the pit and you become, like me, congealed. There, down in that deep, is your only hope of life. This great field of lifeless lava is proof of your effort to reach beyond your sphere. So why fear?" And there was no fear. [Illustration: A BLIZZARD OF FUMING HEAT Photo, Otto C. Gilmore] [Illustration: WHERE THE TIDES TURN TO STONE Photo, Otto C. Gilmore] [Illustration: THE LAKE OF SPOUTING MOLTEN LAVA In the volcano of Kilauea. At night the white here shown is pink and terrifying Photo, Otto C. Gilmore] As night came on the gray fumes began to flush pink with the reflection of the heart of the crater. We set out in cars for the edge. Extinct craters yawned on every side, their walls deep and upright. Some were overgrown with green young trees, but as we came nearer to the living crater, life ceased. Great rolls of cloud-fumes rose from the gulch to wander away in silence. What a strange journey to take! From out a boiling pit where place is paid for by furious fighting, where pressure is father of fountains of boiling rock, out from struggle and howling fury, these gases rose into the world of living matter, into the world of wind and water. Out of the pit of destruction into the air, never ceasing, always stirring down there, rising to where life to us is death to it. The lava, seething, red, shoots aimlessly upward, only to quell its own futile striving in intermittent exhaustion. We stood within a foot of the edge. Eight hundred feet below us the lava roared and spit. In the night, the entire volcano turned a pink glow, and before us lay three-quarters of a mile of Inferno come true. The red liquid heaves and hisses. Some of it shoots fully fifty feet into the air; some is still-born and forms a pillar of black stone in the midst of molten lava. From the other corner a steady stream of lava issues into the main pool, and the whole thumps and thuds and sputters and spouts, restless, toiling eternally. On our way to the crater we were talkative. We joked, burnt paper over the cracks, discussed volcanic action, and expressed opinions about death and the probability of animal consciousness after death. But as we turned away from the pit we fell silent. It was as though we had looked into the unknown and had seen that which was not meant for man to see. And the clouds of fumes continued to issue calmly, unperturbed, with a dreadful persistence. Just as our car groped its way through the mists to the bend in the road, a Japanese stepped before us with his hands outstretched. "Help!" he shouted. "Man killed." We rushed to his assistance and found that a party of Japanese in a Ford had run off the road and dropped into a shallow crater. Down on the frozen bed below huddled a group of men, women, and children, terrified. As we crawled down we found one Japanese sitting with the body of his dead companion in his arms, pressing his hot face against the cold cheek of his comrade. A chill drizzle swept down into the dark pit. It was a scene to horrify a stoic. To the wretched group our coming was a comfort the richness of which one could no more describe than one could the torture of lava in that pit over yonder. Japanese are said to be fatalists. They hover about Kilauea year in and year out. One man sat with a baby in his arms, his feet dangling over the volcano. Playfully he pretended to toss the child in, and it accepted all as play. The same confidence the dead man had had in the driver whose carelessness had overturned the car. And now it seemed that his body belonged in the larger pit at which he had marveled not more than half an hour earlier. As I look back into the pit of memory where the molten material, experience, has its ebb and flow, I can still see the seething of rock within a cup of stone, the boiling of nature within its own bosom. Where can one draw the line between experience past and present? Wherever I am, the shooting of that fountain of lava is as real as it was to me then; nor can conglomerate noises drown out the sound of lava pouring back into lava, of undermined rock projections crashing with a hissing sound back upon themselves. It is to me like the sound of voices when King Kamehameha I forced the natives of the island of Oahu over the Pali, and the group of terrified Japanese were like the fish in the coral caves at Kaneohe when aware of the approach of a fish that feeds upon them. Yet there is a sound rising clear in memory, perhaps more wonderful even than the shrieking of tortured human beings or the hissing of molten lava. As I stood upon the rim of Halemaumau there arose the vision of Kapiolani, the Hawaiian girl who, defying superstition, ventured down into the jaws of the crater and by her courage exorcised Kilauea of its devils. What in all the world is more wonderful than frailty imbued with passion mothering achievement? Kapiolani may be called Hawaii's Joan of Arc. Unable to measure her strength with men, she defied their gods. A world of prejudice, all the world to her, stood between her and Kilauea. Courage triumphant had conquered fear. In defiance of her clan and of her own terror, she was the first native to approach the crater, and in that she made herself the equal of Kilauea. As she cast away the Hawaiian idols, herself emerged an idol. CHAPTER IV THE SUBLIMATED, SAVAGE FIJIANS 1 Fiji is to the Pacific what the eye is to the needle. Swift as are the vessels which thread the largest ocean on earth, travelers who do more than pass through Fiji on their way between America and the Antipodes are few. Yet the years have woven more than a mere patchwork of romance round these islands. In climate they are considered the most healthful of the South Sea groups, though socially and from the point of view of our civilization they do not occupy the same place in our sentiments as do Samoa, Tahiti, the Marquesas, and the Sandwich Islands. Largely, I suppose, because of the ethnological accident that planted there a race of people that is farther from Europeans than the Polynesians. The Fijians are Melanesians, a negroid people said by some to be a "sub-branch" of the Polynesians. They have been slightly mixed through their contact with the Tongans and the Samoans, but they are not definitely related to either and full mixture is unlikely. A century ago a number of Australian convicts escaped to Fiji. They brought to these savage cannibal islanders all the viciousness and arrogance of their type, and imposed themselves upon the primitive natives. The effect was not conducive of the best relations between white people and natives, nor did it have an elevating influence upon the latter. However, despite their cannibalism and their unwillingness to yield to the influence of our benign civilization, the Fijians are a people in many ways superior to both the Polynesians east of them and the true Melanesians or Papuans to the west. They are more moral; they are cleanly; their women occupy a better position in relation to their men; and in character and skill they are superior to their neighbors. I was impressed with this dignity of the Fijians, conscious and unconscious, from the time I first laid eyes on them. I felt that, notwithstanding all that was said about them, here was a people that stood aloof from mere imitation. Yet such is the nature of reputation that when I announced my intention of breaking my journey from Honolulu to Australia at Fiji, my fellow-passengers were inclined to commiserate with me. They wondered how one with no special purposes--that is, without a job--could risk cutting loose from his iron moorings in these savage isles. Had they not read in their school geographies of jungles and savages all mixed and wild, with mocking natives grinning at you from behind bamboo-trees, living expectations of a juicy dinner? They warned me about dengue fever; they extolled the virtues of the Fijian maidens, and exaggerated the vices of the Fijian men. The word "cannibals" howled round my head as the impersonal wind had howled round the masts of the steamer one night. But the adventurer soon learns that there is none so unknowing as the average globe-trotters (the people who have been there); so he listens politely and goes his own way. When, therefore, I got the first real whiff of tropical sweetness, mixed though it was with copra and mold, all other considerations vanished. From the cool heights the hills looked down in pity upon the little village of Suva as it lay prostrate beneath the sun. If there was any movement to be seen, it was upon the lapping waters of the harbor, where numerous boats swarmed with black-bodied, glossy-skinned natives in that universal pursuit of life and happiness. As the _Niagara_ sidled up to the pier and made fast her hawsers, these black fellows rushed upon her decks and into the holds like so many ants, and what had till then been inanimate became as though possessed. 2 I had been under the impression that the natives were all lazy, but the manner of their handling of cargo soon dissipated that notion. Further to discredit the rumor-mongers, three Fijians staged an attempt to lead a donkey ashore which would have shamed the most enthusiastic believer in the practice of counting ten before getting angry and trying three times before giving up. The Fijian is as indifferent to big as to little tasks, and seems to be alone, of all the dwellers in the tropics, in this apathetic attitude toward life. There is none in all the world more lazy, indolent, and do-nothing than the white man. As soon as he comes within sight of a native anywhere, that native does his labor for him; you may count on it. So it was that with fear and trembling I announced to the stewards that I had a steamer trunk which I wanted ashore with me. They grunted and growled as the two of them struggled with it along the gang-plank and dropped it as Atlas might have been expected to drop the earth, and stood there with a contemptuous look of expectation. I took out two half-dollars and handed one to each. The sneer that formed under their noses was well practised, I could see, and they took great pains to inform me that they were no niggers, they would not take the trunk another foot. There it was. I was lost, scorned, and humiliated. Why did I have so much worldly goods to worry about? Just then a portly Fijian stepped up. Beside him I felt puny, doubly humble now. Before I had time to decide whether or not he was going to pick me up by the nape of the neck and carry me off to a feast, he took my trunk instead. Though it weighed fully a hundred and sixty-five pounds, it rose to his shoulders--up there a foot and a half above me--and the giant strode along the pier with as little concern as though it were empty. The two stewards stood looking on with an air of superiority typical of the white men among colored. I cannot say that mere brawn ever entitles any man to rank, and that the white generally substitutes brain for brawn is obvious. But I failed to see wherein they justified their conceit, for to men of their type the fist is still the symbol of their ideal, as it is to the majority of white men. And as I came away from the ship again that afternoon I found a young steward, a mere lad, standing in a corner crying, his cheek swollen and red. I asked him what happened. "The steward hit me," he said, trying to restrain himself from crying. "I thought I was through and went for my supper so as to get ashore a bit. He came up and asked me what I was doing. I told him, and he struck me with his fist." Yet the stewards thought themselves too good to do any labor with black men about. No ship in a tropical port is manned by the sailors; there they take a vacation, as it were. From the customs shed to my hotel the selfsame Fijian carried my trunk majestically. I felt hopeful that for a time at least I should see the last of stewards and their ilk. But before I was two days in Suva I learned that shore stewards are often not any better, and was happy to get farther inland away from the port for the short time I could afford to spend in the tropics. Meanwhile, some of the younger of my fellow-passengers came on shore and began doing the rounds, into which they inveigled me. From one store to the other we went, examining the moldy, withered, incomplete stocks of the traders. Magazines stained brown with age, cheap paper-covered novels, native strings of beads formed part of the stock in trade. We soon exhausted Suva. At the corner of the right angle made by Victoria Parade and the pier stood a Victoria coach. A horse slept on three legs, in front of it, and a Hindu sat upon the seat like a hump on an elongated camel. We roused them from their dozing and began to bargain for their hire. Six of us climbed into the coach and slowly, as though it were fastened to the ground, the horse began to move, followed by the driver, the carriage, and the six of us. For an hour we continued in the direction in which the three had been standing, along the beach, up a little knoll, past corrugated-iron-roofed shacks, and down into Suva again; the horse stopped with the carriage behind him in exactly the same position in which we had found them, and driver and beast went to sleep again. Much is heard these days about the effects of the railroad and the steamer and the wireless telegraph on the unity of the world, but to those travelers and that Hindu and to the Fijians whom we passed en route, not even the insertion of our six shillings in the driver's pocket has, I am sure, as much as left the faintest impression on any of us except myself. And on me it has left the impression of the utter inconsequence of most traveling. Thus Suva, the eye of Fiji and of the needle of the Pacific, is threaded, but there is nothing to sew. The unexpected never happens. There are no poets or philosophers, no theaters or cabarets in Suva, as far as mere eye can see,--nothing but smell of mold and copra (cocoanut oil). In Suva one cannot long remain alert. The sun is stupefying. The person just arrived finds himself stifled by the sharp smells all about him as though the air were poisoned with too much life. The shaggy green hills, rugged and wild in the extreme, show even at a distance the struggle between life and death which moment by moment takes place. Luxuriant as on the morning of creation, the vegetation seems to be rotting as after a period of death. In Suva everything smells damp and moldy. You cannot get away from it. The stores you buy in, the bed you sleep in, the room you eat in,--all have the same odor. The books in the little library are eaten full of holes through which the flat bookworms wander as by right of eminent domain. Offensive to the uninitiated is the smell of copra. The swarms of Fijians who attack the cargo smell of it and glisten with it. The boats smell of it and the air is heavy with it. If copra and mold could be banished from the islands, the impression of loveliness which is the essence of the South Seas would remain untainted. Yet to-day, let me but get a whiff of cocoanut-oil from a drug store and I am immediately transported to the South Seas and my being goes a-wandering. 3 I seldom dream, but at the moment of waking in strange surroundings after an unusual run of events my mind rehearses as in a dream the experiences gained during consciousness. When the knuckles of the Fijian--and he has knuckles--sounded on my door at seven to announce my morning tea, I woke with a sense of heaviness, as though submerged in a world from which I could never again escape. At seven-fifteen another Fijian came for my laundry; at seven-thirty a third came for my shoes. Seeing that it was useless to remain in bed longer, I got up. I was not many minutes on the street before I realized the urgency in those several early visits. Daylight-saving is an absolute necessity in the tropics, for by eight or nine one has to endure our noonday sun, and unless something is accomplished before that time one must perforce wait till late afternoon for another opportunity. To keep an ordinary coat on an ordinary back in Suva is like trying to live in a fireless cooker while angry. Even in the shade one is grateful for white duck instead of woolens, so before long I had acquired an Irish poplin coat. Yet Fiji is one of the most healthful of the South Sea islands. Owing to the heat, most likely--to give the white devils their due--procrastination is the order of life. "Everything here is 'malua,'" explained the manager of "The Fiji Times" to me. "No matter what you want or whom you ask for it, 'wait a bit' will be the process." And he forthwith demonstrated, quite unconsciously, that he knew whereof he spoke. I wanted to get some information about the interior which he might just as easily have given me off-hand, but he asked me to wait a bit. I did. He left his office, walked all the way up the street with me to show me a photographer's place where I should be able to get what I was after, and stood about with me waiting for the photographer to make up his mind whether he had the time to see me or not. There's no use rushing anybody. The authorities have been several years trying to get one of the off streets of Suva paved. It has been "worked on," but the task, turned to every now and then for half an hour, requires numerous rest periods. In Fiji, every one moves adagio. The white man looks on and commands; the Indian coolie slinks about and slaves; the Fijian works on occasion but generally passes tasks by with sporty indifference. Yet there is no absence of life. Beginning with the noise and confusion at the pier, there is a steady stream of individuals on whom shadows are lost, though they have nothing on them but their skins and their sulus. The Fijian idles, allows the Indian to work, happy to be left alone, happy if he can add a shilling to his possessions,--an old vest, a torn pair of trousers of any shape, an old coat, or a stiff-bosomed shirt sans coat or vest or trousers. Tall, mighty, and picturesque, his coiffure the pride of his life, he watches with a confidence well suited to his origin and his race the changes going on about him. Thus, while his island's fruits are being crated and carted off by the ship-load for foreign consumption, he helps in the process for the mere privilege of subsidized loafing. All the fun he gets out of trade in the tropics seems to be the opportunity of swearing at his fellows in fiji-ized versions of curses taught him by the white man. Or he stands erect on the flat punt as it comes in from regions unknown, bearing bananas green from the tree, the very picture of ease and contentment. Yet one little tug with foreign impertinence tows half a dozen punts, depriving him even of this element of romance in his life. Still, there is nothing sullen in his make-up. A dozen mummy-apples--better than bread to him--tied together with a string, suffice to make his primitive heart glad. Primitive these people are; their instincts, never led astray very far by such frills and trappings as keep us jogging along are none the less human. Unfold your camera and suggest taking a picture of any one of them and forthwith he straightens up, transforms his features, and adjusts his loin-cloth; nor will he forget to brush his hair with his hand. What a strange thing is this instinct in human nature anywhere in the world which substitutes so much starch for a slouch the moment one sees a one-eyed box pointing in his direction! None ever hoped to see a print of himself, but all posed as though the click of that little shutter were the recipe for perpetual youth. The motive is not always one of vanity. Generally, at the sound of the shutter, a hand shoots out in anticipation of reward. In the tropics it is no little task to bring oneself together so suddenly, and the effort should be fully compensated. The expenditure of energy involved in posing is worthy of remuneration. Nevertheless, vanity is inherent in this response. The Fijian is a handsome creature, and he knows it. He knows how to make his hair the envy of the world. "Permanent-wave" establishments would go out of business here in America if some skilled Fijian could endure our climate. He would give such permanence to blondes and brunettes as would cost only twenty-five cents and would really last. He would not plaster the hair down and cover it with a net against the least ruffle of the wind. When he got through with it it would stand straight up in the air, four to six inches long, and would serve as an insulator against the burning rays of the sun unrivaled anywhere in the world. While I squinted and slunk in the shade, the native chose the open highway. Give him a cluster of breadfruit to carry and a bank messenger with a bag of bullion could not seem more important. The Fijians, notwithstanding the fact that they take less to the sentimental in our civilization than the Samoans, are a fine race. Their softness of nature is a surprising inversion of their former ferocity. What one sees of them in Suva helps to fortify one in this conclusion; a visit farther inland leaves not a shadow of doubt. And pretty as the harbor is, it is as nothing compared with the loveliness of river and hills in the interior. I was making my way to the pier in search of the launch that would take me up the Rewa River, when a giant Fijian approached me. He spoke English as few foreign to the tongue can speak it. A coat, a watch, and a cane--a lordly biped--he did not hesitate to refer to his virtues proudly. He answered my unspoken question as to his inches by assuring me he was six feet three in his stocking feet (he wore no stockings) and was forty-five years old. For a few minutes we chatted amicably about Fiji and its places of interest. There was never a smug reference to anything even suggestive of the lascivious--as would have been the case with a guide in Japan, or Europe--yet he cordially offered to conduct and protect me through Fijiland. Had I had a billion dollars in gold upon me I felt that I might have put myself in his care anywhere in the world. But I was already engaged to go up the Rewa River and could not hire him. Cordially and generously, as an old friend might have done, he told me what to look for and bid me have a good time. 4 I took the launch which makes daily trips up the Rewa. The little vessel was black with natives--outside, inside, everywhere, streaming over to the pier. It was owned and operated by an Englishman named Message. Even in the traffic on this river combination threatens individual enterprise. "The company has several launches. It runs them on schedule time, stopping only at special stations, regardless of the convenience to the Fijians. It is trying to force me out of business," said Mr. Message, a look of troubled defiance in his face. "But I am just as determined to beat it." So he operates his launch to suit the natives, winning their good-will and patronage. It was interesting to see how his method worked. No better lesson in the instinctive tendency toward coöperation and mutual aid could be found. He had no white assistant, but every Fijian who could find room on the launch constituted himself a longshoreman. They enjoyed playing with the launch. They helped in the work of loading and unloading one another's petty cargo, such as kerosene, corrugated iron for roofing (which is everywhere replacing thatch), and odd sticks of wood. And the jollity that electrified them was a delightful commentary on this one white man's humanity. Delight rides at a spirited pace on this river Rewa. The banks are seldom more than a couple of feet above the water. The launch makes straight for the shore wherever a Fijian recognizes his hut, and he scrambles off as best he can. Here and there round the bends natives in _takias_ (somewhat like outrigger canoes with mat sails, now seldom used), punts, or rowboats slip by in the twilight. The sun had set by the time all the little stops had been made between Suva and Davuilevu, the last stopping-place. Each man, as he stepped from this little float of modernism, clambered up the bank and disappeared amid the sugar-cane. What a world of romance and change he took into the dark-brown hut he calls his own! What news of the world must he not have brought back with him! A commuter, he had probably gone in by that morning's launch, in which case he spent three full hours in "toil" or in the purchase of a sheet of corrugated iron or a tin of oil. He may have helped himself to a shirt from somebody's clothes-line in the spare time left him. One thing was certain, there were no chocolates in his pockets, for he had no pockets, and I saw no young woman holding a baby in her arms for daddy to greet. Yet even from a distance one recognized something of family affection. To enter and examine closely would perhaps have made a difference in my impressions. I was content with these hazy pictures, to see these dark-skinned people merge with their brown-thatched huts curtained by shadows within the cane-fields. When night came on all was dissolved in shadow, and voices in song rose on the cool air. 5 The Rewa River runs between two antagonistic institutions. At Davuilevu (the Great Conch-Shell) there is a mission station on one side and a sugar-mill on the other. Both are deeply affecting the character and environment of the Fijians, yet the contrast in the results is too obvious to be overlooked by even the most casual observer. As I stepped off the boat a young New Zealander whose cousin had come down with us on the _Niagara_ and whom I had met the day of our arrival in Suva, came out of a building across the road. He was conducting a class in carpentry composed of young Fijian students of the mission. They were so absorbed in their work that they barely noticed me, and the atmosphere of sober earnestness about the place was thrilling. From time out of mind the Fijians have been good carpenters, the craft being passed down from generation to generation within a special caste. Their shipbuilding has always been superior to that of their neighbors, the Tongans. It was not to be wondered at, therefore, that the main department here should be that of wood-turning, and some of the work the students were doing at the time was exceptionally fine. The buildings of the mission had all been constructed with native labor under the direction of the missionaries. They were simply but firmly built, the absence of architectural richness being due fully as much to the spirit of the missionaries as to the lack of decorativeness in the character of the natives. However, there was something to be found at the mission which was harshly lacking at the sugar-mill. The students moved about in a leisurely manner, cleanly and thoughtful; whereas across the river not only were the buildings of the very crudest possible, but the Hindus and the Fijians roamed around like sullen, hungry curs always expecting a kick. Those who were not sullen, were obviously tired, spiritless, and repressed. Their huts were set close to one another in rows, whereas the mission buildings range over the hills. The crowding at the mill, upon such vast open spaces, gave the little village all the faults of a tenement district. Racial clannishness seems to require even closer touch where space is wide. The very expanse of the world seems to intensify the fear of loneliness, so men huddle closer to sense somewhat of the gregarious delights of over-populated India. But there is also the squeezing of plantation-owners here at fault, and the total disregard of the needs of individual employees. The mill is worked day and night, in season, but it is at night that one's reactions to it are most impressive. The street lamps, assisted by a dim glow from within the shacks, the monotonous invocation of prayer by Indians squatting before the wide-open doors, the tiny kava "saloons," and the great, giant, grinding, grating sugar-mills crushing the juice out of the cane and precipitating it (after a chain of processes) in white dust for sweetening the world, are something never to be forgotten. The deep, pulsating breath of the mill sounded like the snore of a sleeping monster. Yet that monstrous mill never sleeps. The sound did not cease, but rather, became more pronounced after I returned that night. Deeply imprinted on my memory was the figure of a sullen-looking Indian at his post--small, wiry, persistent--with the whirring of machinery all about him, the steaming vats, the broken sticks of cane being crunched in the maw of the machine. The toilers sometimes dozed at their tasks. I was told that once an Indian fell into one of the vats in a moment of dizzy slumber. The cynical informer insisted that the management would not even stop the process of turning cane into sugar, and that into the tea-cups of the world was mixed the substance of that man. My reflection was along different lines,--that into the sweets of the world we were constantly mixing the souls of men. 6 But unfortunately those who look after the souls of these men at the mission are apt to forget that they have bodies, too, and that body is the materialization of desire. There is something wonderful, indeed, in the sight of men known to have been of the most ferocious of human creatures going about their daily affairs in an attitude of great reverence to the things of life. And reverence added to the extreme shyness of the Fijian is writ large in the manner of every native across the way from the mill. Sometimes I felt that there was altogether too much restraint, too much checking of wholesome and healthy impulses among them for it to be true reverence. That was especially marked on Sunday morning, when from all the corners of the mission fields gathered the sturdy black men in the center of the grounds where stood the little church. [Illustration: A CORNER OF SUVA, FIJI The unexpected happened--the cab moved] [Illustration: FOOD FOR A DAY'S GOSSIP] [Illustration: THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT My Fijian guides] [Illustration: A HINDU PATRIARCH On board the launch going up the Rewa River, with shy Fijians all about] They were a sight to behold, altogether too seriously concerned to be amusing, and to the unbiased the acme of gentleness. There they were--muscular, huge, erect, and black, their bushy crops of coarse hair adding six inches to their heads; dressed in sulus neatly tucked away, and stiff-bosomed white shirts over their bodies. Starched white shirts in the tropics! And the Bible in Fijian in their hands. In absolute silence they made their way into the church, the shuffle of their unshod feet adding intensity to that silence. When they raised their voices in the hymns it seemed to me that nothing more sincere had ever been sung in life. But then something occurred which made me wonder. From the Solomon Islands had come on furlough the Rev. Mr. Ryecroft and his delicate wife. He was a man of very gentle bearing and great fervor. He and his plucky wife had suffered much for their convictions. All men who really believe anything suffer. The missionary is as much anathema in his field as the anarchist is in America, and is generally as violent an agent for the disruption of custom. Mr. Ryecroft rose to speak before the congregation. He spoke in English and was interpreted by the missionary in charge. He told of his trials in the Solomon Islands, and appealed for Fijian missionaries to go back with him and save the blood-thirsty Solomons. I watched the faces of these converted Fijians. Some of them were intent upon the speaker, repugnance at the cruelties rehearsed coming over them as at something of which they were more afraid as a possible revival in themselves than as an objective danger. Some, however, fell fast asleep, their languid heads drooping to one side. I am no mind-reader, nor is my observation to be taken for more than mere guess-work, but I felt that there were two conflicting thoughts in the minds of the listeners, for while Mr. Ryecroft was urging them to come arrest brutality in the Solomons there were other recruiters at work in Fiji for service in Europe. While one told that the savage Solomon Islanders swooped down upon the missionary compound and left sixteen dead behind them, in Europe they were leaving a thousand times as many every day, worse than dead. To whom were they to listen! That afternoon Mr. Waterhouse, one of the missionaries, asked me to give the young men a little talk on my travels, he to interpret for me. I asked him what he would like to have me tell them and he urged me to advise them not to give up their lands. I complied, pointing out to them how quickly they would go under as a race if they did so. The response was more than compensating. The outlook is all the more reassuring when you sit of an evening as I did in the large, carefully woven native house, elliptical in shape, with thatched roof and soft-matted floors, which serves as a sort of night school for little tots. The children, who were then rehearsing some dances for the coming festival, sat on tiers of benches so built that one child's feet were on a level with the shoulders of the one in front. Like a palisade of stars their bright eyes glistened with the reflections of the light from the kerosene lamps hanging on wires from the rafters. Lolohea Ratu, a girl of twenty, educated in Sydney, Australia, spoke to them in a plaintive, modulated voice, soft and low. All Fijian voices are sad, but hers was slightly sadder than most of them, tinged, it seemed, with knowledge of the world. She had studied the Montessori method and was trying to train her little brothers and sisters thereby. But she was not forgetful of what is lovely in her own race, primitive as it is, and was preparing these children in something of a compromise between native and foreign dances. Round and round the room they marched, the overhanging lamps playing pranks with their shadows. Others sat upon the mats, legs crossed, beating time and clapping hands in the native fashion. Their glistening bodies and sparkling, mischievous eyes, their response to the enchanting rhythm and melody borrowed from a world as strange to them as theirs is to us, showed their delight. I wondered what strange images--ghostly pale folk--they were seeing through our songs. Perhaps the music was merely another kind of "savage" song to them, even a wee bit wilder than their own. On the following day they were to sing and dance to the amazement of their skeptical elders. Thus does Fijian "civilization" steer its uncertain course between the two contending influences from the West--the planters and the missionaries--just as the river Rewa runs between them over the jungle plains, struggling to supplant wild entangling growths with earth culture. 7 And that "civilization" leans at one time toward the mill and at another toward the mission. Frankly, Fiji grows more interesting as one gets away from these two guy-wires and floats on the sluggish river. My opportunity of seeing that Fiji which is least confused by either influence came unexpectedly. The missionaries generously invited me to go with them up the river in their launch early Monday morning. Everywhere along the banks of the broad, deep stream stood groups of huts and villages amid the sugar-cane fields. I gazed up the wide way of the river toward the hazy blue mountains which stood fifty miles away. They seemed to be a thousand miles and farther still from reality. The Himalayas which lured the Lama priest and _Kim_ could not have been more enticing. Because of the cloying atmosphere of the day, this distant coolness was like an oasis in the desert, and I longed for some phantom ship to bear me away on the breeze. For twenty miles we glided on through cane plantations, banana- and cocoanut-trees, and miniature palisades here and there rising to the dignity of hills. We landed, toward noon, at a village which stood on a little plateau,--quiet, self-satisfied, though in no way elaborate. The best of the huts stood against the hill across the "street" formed by two rows of thatch-roofed and leaf-walled huts. It belonged to the native Christian teacher. He turned it over to us, himself and his wife and baby disappearing while we lunched. Much of our repast remaining, the missionary offered it to the teacher, but I noticed that he looked displeased and turned the platter over to the flock of children which had gathered outside,--a brood of little fellows, their bellies bulging out before them, not even the shadow of a garment covering their nakedness. I returned to the hut a little later for my camera, not knowing that any one was there. Inside, in one corner, lay the teacher's wife, stretched face downward, nursing her baby, which lay on its back upon the soft mats. She smiled, slightly embarrassed, and I withdrew. Here, then, was the place where civilization and savagery met. There were few Fijians in the village, mostly children and several old women. A Solomon Islander, who had got there during the days when blackbirding or kidnapping was common, moved among them. He had quite forgotten his own language and could not understand Mr. Ryecroft when the missionary spoke to him. An elderly man beckoned to me from his hut and there offered to sell me a heavy, ebony carved club that could kill an ox, swearing by all the taboos that it was a sacred club and had killed many a man in his father's time. [Illustration: INSTRUCTOR OF THE FIJIAN CONSTABULARY At Suva] [Illustration: THE SCOWL INDICATES A COMPLEX For he is not quite certain that the missionaries are right about that club not being a god] [Illustration: A FIJIAN MAIN STREET The corrugated iron-roofed shack is the one we ate our lunch in] [Illustration: LITTLE FIJIANS The only things some of these had on were sores on the tops of their heads] A narrow path climbing the hill close behind the village led us to a view over the long sweep of the river and its valley. The utmost of peace and tranquillity hung, without a tremor, below us. Twenty huts fringed the plateau, forming a vague ellipse, interwoven with lovely salvias, coleuses, and begonias. The village seemed to have been caught in the crook of the river, while a field of sugar-cane filled the plain across the stream, the shaggy mountains quartering it from the rear. Distant, reaching toward the sun, ranged the mountains from which the river is daily born anew. As our launch chugged steadily, easily down-stream, and the evening shadows overstepped the sun, Fiji emerged fresh and sweet as I had not seen it before. The missionaries, till then sober and reserved, relaxed, the men's heads in the laps of their wives. Sentimental songs of long ago, like a stream of soft desire through the years, supplanted precept in their minds, and I realized for the first time why some men chose to be missionaries. It was to them no hardship. The trials and sufferings were romance to their natures, and the giving up of everything for Christ was after all only living out that world-old truism that in order to have life one must be ready to surrender it. 8 Next day Mr. Waterhouse and I wandered about the village of the sugar factory. At the bidding of several minor chiefs who had described a circle on the mats, we entered one of the dark huts by way of a low door. In a corner a woman tended the open fire, and near an opening a girl sat munching. The room was thick with smoke, the thin reeds supporting the roof glistening with soot. Everything was in order and according to form. They were making _kava_ (or _ava_ or _yangana_), the native drink. This used to be the work of the chieftain's daughter, who ground the ava root with her teeth and then mixed it with water. The law doesn't permit this now; so it is crushed in a mortar (_tonoa_). Specialization has reached out its tentacles even to this place, so that now the captain of this industry is an Indian. The ava mixed, it was passed round in a well-scraped cocoanut-shell cut in half. As guests we were offered the first drink. Extremely bitter, it is nevertheless refreshing. After I made a pretense of drinking, the bowl was passed to the most respected chief. With gracious self-restraint he declined it. "This is too full. You have given me altogether too much." A little bit of it was poured back, and he drank it with one gulp. He would really have liked twice as much, not half, but there is more modesty and decorum among savages than we imagine. In fact, our conventions are often only atrophied taboos. But the women, not so handsome nor so elegantly coifed as the men, were excluded from a share in the toast. They were not even part of the entertainment. The sexes seldom meet in any form of social intercourse. The boys never flirt with the girls, nor do they ever seem to notice them. In public there is a never-diminishing distance between them. A world without love-making, primitive life is outwardly not so romantic as is ours. The "romance" is generally that of the foreigner with the native women, not among the natives themselves. The daughter of the biggest living Fijian chief wandered about like an outcast. She wore a red Mother-Hubbard gown, and nothing else. Her hair hung down to her shoulders. Having gone through the process of discoloration by the application of lime, according to the custom among the natives in the tropics, it was reddish and stiff, but, being long, had none of the leonine quality of the men's hair. Andi Cacarini (Fijian for Katherine), daughter of a modern chief, spoke fairly good English. She wasn't exactly ashamed, but just shy. The better class of Fijians, they who have come in contact with white people, all manifest a timid reticence. Andi Cacarini was shy, but hardly what one could call bashful or fastidious. She posed for me as though an artist's model, not at all ungraceful in her carriage or her walk. The male Fijian is extremely timid, but none the less fastidious. The care with which he trains and curls his hair would serve as an object-lesson to the impatient husband of the vainest of white women. This doesn't mean that the Fijian man is effeminate in his ways, but he is particular about his hair. The process of discoloring it is exact. A mixture of burnt coral with water makes a fine substitute for soap. When washed out and dried, the hair is curled and combed and anointed. From the point of view of sanitation, the treatment is excellent, and from that of art--just watch the proud male pass down the road! No matter where one goes in Fiji--or any of the South Sea Islands--the dance goes with one. Here at Davuilevu one afternoon in the hot, scorching sun, the natives gathered on the turf for merrymaking. It was no special holiday, no unusual event. To our way of thinking it is a tame sort of dance they do. We hear much of the freedom between the sexes in the tropics, and one gains the impression that there are absolutely no taboos. But just as there is nothing in all Japan--however delightful--to compensate the child, or even grown-ups, for the lack of the kiss, so none of the Fijian dances fill that same emotional requirement which with us is secured through the embrace of men and women in the dance. From the Fijian point of view, the whirling of couples about together must be extremely immodest, if not immoral. Sitting in a double row, one in front of the other, were oiled and garlanded Fijians. Behind them and in a circle sat a number of singers and lali-players. As they began beating time, the oiled natives began to move from side to side rhythmically. Their arms and bodies jerked in a most fascinating and interpretative manner. No voices in the wide world are lovelier than the voices of Fijians in chorus; no other music issues so purely as the Fijian music from the depths of racial experience. Sometimes the dancers swung half-way round from side to side, with arms akimbo, or extended their arms in all directions, clapping their hands while chanting in soothing, melodious deep tones. Judging from what I heard of the music of the Tongans, the Samoans, and the Fijians, I give the prize to the Fijians for richness of tone. More primitive than the plaintive Tongans, the Fijian music is a weird combination of the intellectual, the martial, and the industrial,--more fascinating than the passionate, voluptuous tunes and dances of the Samoans and the Hawaiians. The Polynesians, probably because of their close kinship with the Europeans, are much more sentimental in their music. The Fijian is more vigorous and to me more truly artistic. No study, it seems to me, would throw more light on the history and unity of the human race than that of the dance and music. Why two races so far apart as the Japanese and the Maories of New Zealand should be so strikingly alike in their cruder dances, is hard to say. And the Fijians seem in some way the link between these two. The Fijian doubtless inherits some of his musical qualities from his negroid mixture, but he has certainly improved upon it if that is so. He has no regrets, no sentimental longings, and in consequence his songs are free from racial affectation. The Fijians always sing. The instant the day's work is done and groups form they begin to sing. Half a dozen of them sit down and cross their legs before them, each places a stick so that one end rests lightly on one toe, the other on the ground; and while they tap upon these sticks, others sing and clap hands, swaying in an enchantment of loveliness. One carries the melody in a strained tenor, the others support him with a bass drawl. Once in a while an instrument is secured, as a flute, and the ensemble is complete. Even the tapping on the stick becomes instrumental in its quality. As the day draws to a close, from the cane-fields smoke rises in all directions. The plantation workers have gathered piles of cane refuse for destruction. Like miniature volcanoes, these, with the coming of darkness, shine in the lightless night. It makes one slightly sad, this clearing away of the remnants of daily toil, this purification by fire. Then the sound of that other lali (the hollow tree-trunk), once the war-alarum or call to a cannibal feast, now at Davuilevu the invitation to prayer, the dampness, and the sense of crowding things in growth,--this is what will ever remain vivid to me. 9 Poor untroubled Fijians! This simple love of harmony, a majestic sense of force and brutality,--yet, withal, so naïve, withal so easily satisfied, so easily led. Once a foreigner met a native who seemed in great haste and trembling. The native inquired the time, in dread lest he miss the launch for Suva. In his hand he carried a warrant for his own arrest, with instructions to present himself at jail. When the foreigner told him that it was up to the jailer to worry about it, he seemed greatly shocked. One of the missionaries had been asked to keep his eye on a friend's house. In the absence of the owner, the missionary found a Fijian in the act of burglarizing. When questioned it was found that the native wanted to get into jail, where he was sure of three meals and shade, without worry. This is almost worthy of civilized man, by whom it is perhaps more commonly practised. But the kind of jail in which men were at that time incarcerated was not enough to frighten the most liberty-loving individual. Because of the humidity and dampness, the structure was left open on one side, only three substantial walls and a roof being practical. Before the white man got full control and the native had some iron injected into his nature, it was not an arduous life the prisoners led. The missionary told me that once the head jailer was found sitting out of sight, with the officer in charge of the prisoners, tilting his chair against the wall of the jail. The prisoners had been ordered to labor. The officer in charge was to execute the command. Between puffs of tobacco, he would shout: "Up shot!" and rest a while; then "Down shot!"--more rest. Not a prisoner moved a muscle, the weights never rose from the ground. The men were deep within the shadows. The period of punishment over, they were ordered into their heaven of still more rest and more shade. From our way of thinking, these are flagrant deceptions. But to the Fijian (and to most South Sea races) the inducements for greater exertion are simply non-existent. His revelries have been tabooed, his wars have been stopped, his native arts are in constant competition with cheap importations from our commercialized, industrialized world. What is there, then, for him to do? Little wonder that his native indifference to life is growing upon him. His conception of life after death never held many horrors. Even in the fierce old days it was easy for a Fijian to announce most casually that he would die at eight o'clock the following day. He would be oiled and made ready, and at the stated time he died. Most likely a state of catalepsy, but he was buried and none thought a second time about it. One boy was recently roused from such a condition and still lives. The only means of counteracting this apathy are education and the awakening of ambition through manual training and the teaching of trades. This, the head of the mission told me, was his main object. Missionary efforts, according to one man, were directed more to this purpose than to the inculcation of any special religious precepts. And there is no question that that will work. The will to live may yet spring afresh in the Fijian. From the nucleus formed by the mission is growing a more elaborate educational system. Recently the several existing schools have been amalgamated under a new ordinance. A proposal in reference to a more efficient system of vernacular or sub-primary schools was embodied in a bill put before the legislative council. A more satisfactory method of training teachers was deliberated upon. The Fijians are, it is seen, outgrowing the kindergarten stage, but the grown-ups are largely children still. 10 A fortnight after I landed in Suva I was steaming for Levuka, the former capital of the islands, situated on a much smaller land-drop not many hours' journey away. These are the only two important ports in the group, and inter-island vessels seldom go to one without visiting the other. Levuka is a much prettier place than Suva. Its little clusters of homes and buildings seem to have dug their heels into the hillside to keep from sliding into the sea. Along the shore to the left stood a group of Fijian huts,--a suburb of Levuka, no doubt. Only a few old women were at home, and one old man. Nothing in the wide world is more restful to one's spirit than to arrive at a village which is deserted of toilers. Nothing is more symbolic of the true nature of home, the village being more than an isolated home, but a composite of the home spirit which is not tainted by any evidence of barter and trade. On the other side of Levuka, however, was an altogether different kind of village, that of the shipwrights. Upon dry-docks stood the skeletons of ships, fashioned with hands of love and ambition. In such vessels these ancient rovers of the sea wandered from island to island, learning, teaching, mixing, and disturbing the sweetness of nature, with which no race on earth was more blessed. The _Atua_, on which I had sailed from Suva, was a fairly large inter-island steamer that made the rounds of all the important groups. She was bound for Samoa, whither I had determined to go. There is no better opportunity of getting a glimpse of the contrast between the natives of the various South Sea islands than on board one of these inter-island vessels. They are generally manned by the natives of one of the groups,--in this case, the Fijians. These men handle the cargo at all ports, and remain on board until the vessel returns to Fiji en route to the Antipodes. They feed and sleep on the open deck and make themselves as happy and as noisy as they can. A gasoline tin of tea, baked potatoes, hard biscuit, and a chunk of fat meat, which is all placed before them on the dirty deck (they are given no napkins),--that is Fijian joy. After their work, which in port sometimes keeps them up till the morning hours, these strange creatures, untroubled by thought, stretch themselves on the wooden hatchway and sleep. There I found them at half-past five in the morning, all covered with the one large sheet of canvas and never a nose poking out. Air! Perhaps they got some through a little hole in the great sheet. Some stood and slept like tired, overworked horses. One queer Fijian with turbaned head grinned in imitation of none other than himself, a vague, undefined curiosity rolling about in his skull. He followed me everywhere, his white eyes staring and his mouth wide open. Here was a future Fijian statesman in the process of formation. His nebular, chaotic mentality was taking note of a creature as far removed from his understanding as a star from his reach. [Illustration: ONE OF THE MOST GIFTED OF FIJIAN CHIEFS But who said that the wearing of hats causes baldness (?)] [Illustration: CACARINI (KATHERINE), THE CHIEF'S DAUGHTER In her filet gown of Parisian simplicity] [Illustration: FIJIANS DANCE FROM THE HIP UP] [Illustration: A FIJIAN WEDDING Puzzle: find the bride. No, not the one with the hoop-skirt; that's the groom] One white soldier, an elderly man, wished to protect himself from the wind, and asked a Fijian to haul over a piece of canvas. The black man did so, but when the boatswain saw it, he was enraged. The Fijian took all the scolding, said never a word, and quickly replaced the sheet. As the boatswain moved away, the soldier handed the native a cigarette, saying: "Have one of these, old sport. One must expect reverses in war." The native grinned and felt the row was worth while. There were Tongans, Indians, Samoans, and whites on board, and though these are nearer kin to us, I liked the Fijians most. Yet the Tongans are an attractive lot, refined in feature, in manner, and in person. Perhaps that is why they have the distinction of being the only South Sea people with their own kingdom, a cabinet, and a parliament. The noise the Fijians make while in port is excruciating. It is something unclassifiable. They roll their r's, shout as though mad with anger, and then burst out in childish laughter at nothing. These boyish barbarians enjoy themselves much more in yelling than they would in chorus with a Caruso. How torrential is the stream of invective which issues against some fellow-laborer! With what a terrific crash it falls upon its victim! But how utter the disappointment when, after one has expectantly waited for a scrap, a gurgle of hilarity breaks from the throats which the moment before seemed such sirens of hate and malice! And so they toil, happy to appear important, busy, honestly busy, loading the thousands of crates of green bananas, the cargo which passes to and fro. Happier than the happiest, sharing the scraps of a meal without the growl so common among our sailors, each always seems to get just what he wants and helps in the distribution of the portions to the others. The missus never bothers him, no matter how long he is away, and instantly labor ceases the group is "spiritualized" into a singing society and the racial opera is in full swing. I had anticipated relief at their absence when the steamer set off for the colder regions south. Yet something pleasant was gone out of life the moment the ship steamed out. The sailors moved about like pale ghosts who had mechanically wandered back to a joyless life. The white man's virtues are his burdens. His tasks are done so that he may purchase pleasure. The ship was orderly, everything took its place, even the cursing and yelling came within control. We were heading again for civilization. I felt somewhat like the old folks after their wish had rid the town of all mischievous little boys, and my heart strained back for an inward glimpse of the life behind. The smell of mold and copra returned; the damp beds; the cool, clear night air; the moonlight upon the shallow reefs; dappled gray breakers, playing upon the shore as upon a child's ocean; in the dark, along Victoria Parade, the shuffle of bare feet in the dust, the dim figures of tall, bushy-haired men and slim, wiry Hindus; the thud of heeled boots on the dry earth. And far off there, the sound of the lali, the singing of deep voices, the vision of an earthly paradise,--shattered by the sighting of land ahead. CHAPTER V THE SENTIMENTAL SAMOANS 1 On the _Niagara_ was a troupe of Samoan men and women who had been to San Francisco demonstrating their arts at the Panama-Pacific Exhibition. This, our meeting on the wide, syrup-like tropical sea seemed to me almost a welcome, a coming out to greet me and to lead me to the portals of their home. They were en route to Suva, Fiji, where they were to await an inter-island vessel to take them to Samoa. They were traveling third class, and the way I discovered them is not to their discredit. We were becoming more or less bored with life on deck, the games of ship tennis and quoits being too obviously make-believe to be entertaining. At times I would get as far away from the gregarious passengers as possible, and again a number of us would gather upon the hatchway and read or chatter. It was a thick latticed covering, and the warm air from below none too agreeable. But with it rose strains of strange melodies, as from Neptune's regions of the deep. Peering down, we espied a number of Samoan men and women, lounging upon the floor of the hold. We took our reputations in our hands and made the descent. There were big, burly men and broad, sprawling women, half-naked and asleep. One could see at a glance that they had been spoiled by the attention they had received while on exhibition at the fair, but the freedom of life among third-class passengers somewhat softened the acquired stiffness, and they relaxed again into native ways. Hour by hour, as the vessel moved southward, they seemed to come back to life, to thaw out as it were, while we were wilting by degrees. The scene was one which could have been found only in tropical waters under the burning sun. Smoke, bare feet, nakedness, people fat with the sprawly fatness which is the style of the South Seas, unwashed sailors,--a medley of people and cargo and steamer stench. But also of the sweetly monotonous song of the Samoan girl, the swishing of the water against the nose of the ship in the twilight without, and the steady push of the vessel toward the equator. I whiled away many a pleasant hour, learning a few of the native words in song and gossip. It is hard to distinguish one native from the other at first, but Fulaanu stood out above the rest like a creature over-imbued with good-nature. She was flat, flabby, with a drawl in speech that had the effect not only in her voice but her entire bearing of a leaning Tower of Pisa. Her body bent backward, her head was tilted up, and her long, prominent nose also slanted almost with pride. She was an enormous girl, plain, soft, with absolutely no fighting-spirit in her, but she stood her ground against all masculine advances with a charm that was in itself teasingly alluring. She was always flanked on each side by a sailor. They pretended to teach her the ukulele, they proffered English lessons, they found one excuse after another for being near her, and she never shooed them away; but I'd swear by all the gods that not one of them ever more than held her hand or leaned lovingly against her. Yet Fulaanu was as sentimental a maiden as I have ever laid eyes on. She was constantly drawling some sentimental song she had learned in California, the ukulele was seldom out of her hands, she never joined in any of the card games going on constantly roundabout her, and she was always ready to swap songs with any one willing to teach her. "I teach you my language," she said to me, and slowly, with twinkling eyes, she pronounced certain words which I repeated. We had often taught French to our boys at our little school in California in that way,--the Marseillaise, for instance,--and the method was not strange to me. She used the song method, too, an old English song that was just then the rage in Samoa. The English words run somewhat like this: And you will take my hand As you did when you took my name; But it's only a beautiful picture, In a beautiful golden frame. I'm sure I have them all muddled, but let me hum this tune to myself and immediately Fulaanu, the hold, Fiji, Samoa, and all the scents and sounds of savagedom come instantly to my mind. For everywhere I went they were singing this song, through their noses but with all the sentimental ardor of the young flapper; as at a summer resort in America when a new song hit has been made, the sound of it is heard from delivery boy to housemaid and as many different renderings of it as individual temperament demands. There was Setu, too,--tall, straight, with that easy grace known only among people free of clothes. Setu spoke English very well, and was as companionable a chap as one could pick up in many a mile. But Setu's heart was not his own; he stood guardian over a treasure he had found in San Francisco. Not an American girl, no, sir! These savage boys did not play the devil in our land as our savages do in theirs. But Setu was the personification of chivalry, and, what was more, he was in love. To look at him and then at her was to despair of human instinct of natural selection. How an Apollo of his excellence should have been unable to find a more handsome objet d'amour, I cannot imagine. She was short, well rounded, with a head as square as Fulaanu's was oblong, and a nose as snubby as Fulaanu's was romanesque. She was evidently committed, body and soul, to Setu for she was as devoid of charm for the others as Fulaanu was full of it. And so all day long, Setu and his sweetheart hugged each other in a corner, as oblivious of the presence of a ship-load of people as though they had been ensconced in a hut of their own. They were evidently taking advantage of proximity to civilization, for such immodest behavior is not frequent in the tropics. Civilization had taught the savages some things at least. Whenever Setu was free from love-making, he would spare a moment to me, and on those rare occasions he stirred my spirit with promises of guidance in his native island that threatened to exhaust my funds. The romantic associations we have with the South Seas were in this group reversed, for to these primitive people the greatest romance imaginable came with their journey to America. There young people from different islands met and fell in love with one another; there, under the benign influence of American spooning, one couple was married, and there their first baby was born,--an American subject, brought back to Pago Pago (American Samoa) to resume his citizenship. There they learned true modesty, which comprised stockings and heavy boys' shoes; the art of playing solitaire, in which one fat, matronly-looking woman indulged all day as though she had been brought along as chaperon and felt herself considerably out of it; and even en route for home they were learning the art of striking by calculation and without passion or frenzy. I was sitting on the hatch with Fulaanu, who was strumming away on her ukulele, when a ring was formed in the middle of the hold and a young white man began boxing with a Samoan. The white boxer was obviously an amateur, bearing himself with all the unpleasant mannerisms of his profession,--a haughty, pugnacious, overbearing self-conceit. He had every advantage in training over his antagonist, whom he peppered vigorously. He kept it up when it was evident that the young Samoan was going under. One last blow and the fellow doubled over, bleeding from nose and mouth. It took ten minutes to bring him round. In the meanwhile, the victor of the unfair bout strutted around as though he had accomplished something remarkable. It was interesting to see the effect this had on the "primitive" Samoans. There was consternation among them; a hush came over the hold. The vibration of the steamer and the splashing of the water against its iron side alone broke the stillness. The Samoan girls, though they did not grow hysterical, were most decidedly displeased, turning in disgust from the sight of blood. Yet according to our notions they are primitive, and the fact is that a few generations ago they were savages. But they were not long in distress. The spell of the equatorial sun was upon them, and they soon relaxed. There upon mats, as in their own huts, lay rows of fat, large, voluptuous men and women; nor was there even a rope to separate the sexes as in an up-to-date Japanese bath. They seemed to sleep all day, in shifts governed by impulse only. A woman would rise and move about a while, then go back to lounge again. Enormous, broad-shouldered and black mustached men would snore gently, rise and inspect life, and decide that slumber was better for one's soul. But Fulaanu lounged with her ukulele, surrounded by amorous sailors who gazed longingly into her eyes. One night we arranged for a meeting of the "classes." We promised the Samoans a good collection if they would come and dance for us on deck. We invited the first-class folk to come, too. They stood as far to one side of us as was consonant with first-class dignity represented by an extra few pounds sterling in the price of the ticket. But for a moment we forgot that there were class and race in the world. It was not one of those interminable revelries one reads about, that begin with twilight and end with twilight. On the contrary, it was a little squall of entertainment, one that breaks out of a clear sky and leaves the sky just as clear in a trice. There was no occasion for self-expression here. They had been asked to dance for our entertainment, not for theirs. There we stood, ready to applaud; there they were, ready to be applauded, to receive the collection promised. It was another little thing they had picked up in our world, from our civilization,--the commercialization of art. Our artists, scribes, and entertainers have been considerably raised above prostitution of their talents by a certain commercialization, by the translation of their worth in dollars and cents; and we need a little more of it to free art from bondage to patronage. But in the tropics, where the dance and jollity are no private matters, there is something sterile in commercialization. No doubt to the natives there is little difference between a woman giving herself for gain and a man dancing for the money there is in it without the whole group becoming part of the performance: the dancer feels that his purchaser, his public, is cold and unresponsive. And so it seemed to me at this dance. They finished, they expected their money, they got it and departed, and there seemed something immoral to me in the exploitation of their emotions. What a different lot they were one night when I visited the little house they rented in Suva while waiting for the _Atua_ to arrive from New Zealand and take them on to Samoa. There it was song and dance out of sheer ecstasy: life was so full. They were again in their home atmosphere, and their voices only helped swell the volume of song which issued forth everywhere about,--an electrification of humanity all along the line, in village after village. They hung about the pier before sailing for Samoa till after midnight, singing sentimental songs and hobnobbing with the Fijians. The Fijian constable joined them with a flute, and the lot of them tried to drown out the voices of the natives loading and unloading cargo. Not until notice was given that the ship was about to get under steam did they think of going aboard. They looked as though ready for rest, but by no means dissipated, by no means weary. The spell of song was still upon them. When we woke next morning, we were tied up to a pier at the foot of the hills of Levuka. But I have already dwelt upon the features of this former capital, and am only concerned with it here as it was reflected in the eyes of the Samoans. Levuka to me was one thing; to them it was quite another. The moldy little stores afforded them more interest than the village to the left, or the shipyards to the right which were to my Western notions commendable. I followed in the wake of these gliding natives as we left the steamer. They looked neither to the right nor to the left, but wended their ways, like cattle in the pasture, straight toward the shops. Into one and out the other they went, bargaining, pricing, buying little trinkets and simple cloths, chatting with the Fijians as though friends of old. Setu's sweetheart and the pretty mother of the young American citizen, who was left in the care of the fat "chaperon," set off by themselves through the one and only street of Levuka. It was obvious that they were quite aware of whither they were going,--so direct was their journey. My curiosity was roused and I wandered along with them. They said never a word to me, nor objected to my presence. We turned to the left, off into a side street that began to insinuate its way along the bed of a stream lined with wooden huts and shacks. Some of these were fairly well constructed, with verandas, like the houses of a miniature American town, garlanded in flowers. Just above the village, where the stream began to emerge from behind a rocky little gorge, the two women turned in at a gate to a private cottage. A bridge led across the stream to the little house, the veranda of which extended slightly over the stream. Beneath, in a corner formed by a projecting boulder, lay a quiet little pool of water--clear, cool, fresh and deep. Without asking permission from the owners, the women began slowly, cautiously to wade into the pool. Seeing that I had no thought of going, they put modesty aside, slipped the loose garments down to their waists and immersed themselves up to their necks. One of them was tattooed from below her breasts to her hips; the other's breasts alone bore these designs. They dipped and rose, splashed and spluttered, but there was none of that intimacy with their own flesh which is the essence of cleanliness and passion in our world. There was no soap, no scrubbing. It was something objective, almost, a contact with nature like looking at a landscape or listening to a storm. Presently some of the inmates of the cottage, evidently well-to-do Fijians, came out to greet them. I could not tell whether they were friends or not, but the women were invited in,--and I turned into town through back roads and alleys that were just like the back roads and alleys anywhere in the world. That afternoon we steamed out again for Apia, Samoa. The sea was disturbed somewhat and gave us various sensations; but the vile odors that threatened my nautical pride never changed. Most of the Samoans were under the weather. They did not look cheerful, and all song was gone out of them. Setu and his sweetheart were here even more inseparable than on the _Niagara_. She was not very well and stretched out on the bench on the edge of which he took his seat. In her squeamish condition she could hardly be expected to pay much attention to proprieties she had acquired in less than a year's residence in America. Her sprawly bare feet on several occasions made too bold an exit from beneath the loose Mother-Hubbard gown she wore, and each time Setu would draw the skirt farther over them, affectionately pressing them with his hand. This one instance, exceptional as it was, made me notice more consciously the absence of that public intimacy which is the bane of the prude with us. Not all the charm of the tropics which is so real to me can take the place of the cleanliness of the West, the tenderness of clean men and women in public, to be observed even on our crowded subways, the loveliness of white skin tinged with pink and scented with the essence of flowers. I did not see them again before we arrived at Samoa the next day; the sea was too choppy. But in the afternoon Setu came out with a pillow held aloft over his head, and declared he would take a nap. There was childish glee in his face at the prospect, and he stretched out on the hard deck in perfect ease. And long after I ceased to figure in his fancies, the beaming, sparkling eyes and merry grin seemed to light up the soul within him. Toward sundown we passed the first island of the group,--Savaii, the largest. It lay at our left, Mua Peak emitting a sluggish smoke from reaches beyond the depth of the waters which had nearly submerged it, and as the sea made furious charges into blow-holes or half-submerged caverns, the earth spit back the invading waters with an easy contempt. At our right lay the island of Manono, much smaller, and nearer our course. Shy Samoan villages hid in little ravines, almost afraid to show their faces. Shortly after eight o'clock we neared the island of Upolu. The troupe of Samoans came out on deck with the eagerness in their eyes that marks such arrivals at every port of the world. The lights of the village of Apia pricked the delicate evening haze. One strong, steady lamp, like a planet, shone from above the others. Setu called to me eagerly, his right hand pointing toward it. "That is from Vailima, Stevenson's home," he said, with some pride. When at last we anchored just outside the reefs before Apia, these natives, who had grown close to one another during the year of their pilgrimage, began bidding one another farewell before slipping back to the little separate grooves they called home. The women kissed one another, cheek touching cheek at an angle, a practice common both at meeting (_talofa_) and at parting (_tofa_). But with the men they only shook hands. Then, clambering over into canoes, they were borne across the reefs to their homes. And as long as Polynesia is Polynesia there will echo the stories of this journey to the land of the white man and all children will know that what the white man said about his lands is true. 2 The reader who has never entered a strange port nor come home from foreign lands will not be able to imagine the psychological effect of my entry of Samoa. Not only did the thousands of eyes of the natives seem to turn their gaze upon me, but it seemed, and I was quite sure, that at least two thousand pale faces with as many bayonets were fixed upon me. Samoa was under occupation. I asked the captain of the forces what I could do to avoid trouble. "See that you don't get shot," he said. I assured him there was nothing nearer my heart's desire, and, seeing that I looked harmless, he ventured to reassure me: "Oh, just keep away from the wireless. That's all." I had come to see the natives, not electric gymnastics, so I found it very easy to keep away from the wireless. What there was of Apia was essentially European and lay along the waterfront. Here stood the three-story hotel, built and until then managed by Germans. Diagonally across from it and nearer the water's edge, was a two-story ramshackle building even then run by Germans. The little barber to whom I had been directed spoke with a most decided German accent. He cut and shampooed my hair, but let me walk out with as much of a souse on top of my head as I ever had in a shower-bath. Wherever I went were Germans,--and yet they said the islands were under occupation. Turn to the right and there, back off the street within a small compound that seemed to lie flat and low, was a German school still being conducted by black-bearded German priests. But to the left, within the dark-red fence, stood the dark-red buildings of the German Plantation Company, closed, and the little building that once was the German Club had become the British Club; while at the other end of the street were the office buildings of the military staff, where once ruled the German militarists. In between, in a little building a block or two behind the waterfront, was the printing-office,--where, strange to say, the daily paper was still being printed in both German and English. With the few structures that filled in the gaps between these outposts we had small concern. They were the nests of traders, the haven of so-called beach-combers and the barracks and missionary compounds. And alien Samoa is at an end. Mindful of the mild instructions not to get myself shot, I took as little interest in the details of occupation as was compatible with my sense of freedom; but this course was precarious, for at the time any one who was not with us was against us. However, details of such differences must be reserved for a later chapter. Here we are interested in Samoa itself. But in my very interest in the place I struck a snag, for every other day Germans were being deported or coraled for attempting to stir up a native uprising. Still, inasmuch as I could not acquire the language in so short a time, I felt secure, and took to the paths that led to the Stone Age as a Dante without a love-affair to guide him. The island is hemmed in by coral reefs on the edge of which the waves break, spreading in foam and gliding quietly toward shore. As they sport in the brilliant sunlight, it seems as though the sea were calling back the life lost to it through evolution. The tall, gaunt palms which lean toward the sea, bow in a humble helplessness. There, a quarter of a mile out, upon the unseen reefs, lies the iron skeleton of the _Adler_, the German man-of-war which was wrecked on the memorable day in 1889. Such seems to be the fate of the Germans: even their skeletons outlive disaster. But the sea has been the protector of the natives. It would be interesting to speculate as to what course events about the South Seas would have taken had not that hurricane intervened. The natives are indifferent to such speculations; for, as far as they were concerned, one turn was as good as another. Borne over the swelling waves from island drift to island drift, the ups and downs of eternity seem to leave no great changes in their lives. Roaming along the waterfront to the left of Apia with the sun near high noon, all by myself, I met with nothing to disturb the utter sweetness and glory of life about. I wavered between moods of exquisite exhilaration and deep depression. Bound by the encircling consciousness of the occupation, the sense of wrong done these natives who had neither asked for our civilization nor invited us to squabble over their "bones," I felt that but for the presence of the white man this would have been the loveliest land in the world. For here one becomes aware of nature as something altogether different from nature anywhere else. That distant pleading of the sea; the gentle yielding of the palms to the landborn breezes,--there was much more than peace and ease; there was absolute harmony. But where was man? I became restless. Nature was not sufficient. I went to seek out man, for at that hour there was none of him anywhere about. I was, for all intents and purposes, absolutely the only human being on that island. Every one else had taken to cool retreats. But where should I go? I wondered. I knew no one, and the sense of loneliness I had for a while forgotten came back to me with a rush. For a moment I was again in civilization, again in a world of fences and locked doors. "I will go and look up Setu," I thought. "He promised to guide me about Samoa. I have his address. I'll look up Setu." So I turned back toward the hills and in among the palm groves, where I could see the huts of the village of Mulinuu, where Setu lived. When I arrived I realized why I had suddenly become conscious of my loneliness. Throughout the village there wasn't a soul abroad. The domes of thatch resting on circles of smooth pillars were deserted, it seemed, and the fresh coolness that coursed freely within their shade was untasted. Nowhere upon the broad, grassy fields beneath the palms was there a walking thing; and I was a total stranger. It was slightly bewildering, as though I were in a graveyard, or a village from which the inhabitants had all gone. I approached one of the huts and found, to my satisfaction, that there was a human being there. It was a woman, attending to her household duties. She was just under the eaves on the outside, beside the floor of the hut, which was like a circular stage raised a foot or two above the ground, and paved with loose shingles from the shore. I hardly knew how to approach her, not thinking she might know my language. "Good afternoon," she said in perfect English. "Sit down." The shock was pleasant. So there were no fences or doors to social intercourse in Samoa, after all. Still, I must find Setu. I asked her where I could locate his home. Before directing me, she chatted a while and assured me that I could go to any one of the huts about and make myself comfortable. I was not to hesitate, as it was the custom of the country and in no way unusual. She was a fine-looking woman, robust and tall, genial and attentive, as housewifely a person as could be found anywhere. I have since had occasion to talk with many a housewife in New Zealand and Australia when searching for private quarters and cannot say that their manners, their dress, their regard for a stranger's welfare in any way exceeded those of this woman who had nothing to offer me but rest and no wish for reward but my content. Taking her directions, I turned across the village to where she said Setu could be found. Beneath the shade of a palm squatted a group of men who when they spied me called for me to come over to them. Had I not been on curiosity bent, I should have regarded their request as sheer impudence, for when I arrived they wanted me to employ them as guides. It was amusing. Instead of running after hire, they commanded the stranger to come to them. It was too comfortable under the spreading palm branches. I told them that I had arranged with Setu to guide me and was in search of him. They began running Setu down. He was untrustworthy, they assured me, and would charge me too high a price. Then they asked me what my business was, what Setu had said, when he was going,--everything imaginable. But never an inch would they move to show me the way to Setu's house. I wandered about for a while, inquiring of one stray individual and another, but no one had seen Setu, and at last I learned that he had left the village early that morning for his father's place, far inland, and would not return. Setu had gone back on me. He had promised to call for me with his horse and buggy and convey me over the island. But Setu had forsaken me, and there was nothing to do but to make the best of the day right there. Taking the word of the well-spoken woman, I approached the most attractive-looking hut, where sat a number of people roundabout the pillars. It was a mansion-like establishment even to my inexperienced judgment of huts. It was roofed with corrugated iron instead of thatch, and the pillars were unusually straight and smooth. The raised floor was very neatly spread with selected, smooth, flat stones four to five inches in diameter, and framed with a rim of concrete. Fine straw mats lay like rugs over a polished parquet floor at all angles to one another, and straw drop curtains hung rolled up under the eaves, to be lowered in case of rain or hurricane. The floor space must have been at least thirty-five feet in diameter, and it was plain that each inhabitant occupied his own section of the hut round the outer circle. I was cordially greeted and invited to rest, which I did by sitting on the ground with my legs out, and my back to a pillar for support. From the quiet and decorum it was evident that the householders were entertaining guests. Each couple or family sat upon its own mats. There were twelve adults and three children. It happened that the man who greeted me and bade me be seated was the guest of honor, a gentleman from Rarotanga, passing through Samoa on his way to Fiji. He was a very refined-looking individual, and made me feel that the Rarotangans were a superior race, but the contrary is true. However, his regular features and courtly manners were a distinction which might well have led to such a supposition. His handsome wife, who sat with him, was as retiring as a Japanese woman, and as considerate of his comfort. The others were set in pairs all round the hut. At the extreme left were two women, sewing; opposite us, a man and woman apportioning the victuals; to my right, a man and a woman grinding the ava root preparatory to the making of the drink. Farther way squatted a very fat woman, with barely a covering over her breasts, which were full as though she were in the nursing-stage. The children moved about freely neither disturbing nor being curbed. In the center of the company sat two men, one evidently the head of the family, with his back up against a pillar, the other his equal in some relationship. The dinner was being served by a portly individual, a man who could not have been exactly a servant, yet who did not act as though he were a member of the family. He passed round the ample supply of fish, meats, and vegetables on enamel plates, his services always being acknowledged graciously. No one looked at or noticed his neighbor, but indulged with the aid of spoon or finger as he saw fit, and had any made a _faux pas_ there would have been none the wiser. That, I thought, was true politeness. Dinner over, the remains were removed and each person leaned back against the nearest pillar. After a slight pause, the eldest man, he in the center of the hut, clapped his hands, and uttered a gentle sound, as one satisfied would say: "Well! Let's get down to business." But it was nothing so serious or so material as that. It was ava-drinking time. The polished cocoanut bowl was passed round, by the same old waiter, to the man whose name was called aloud by the head of the household, and each time all the rest clapped hands two or three times to cheer his cup. It was like the Japanese method of "ringing" for a servant, not like our applause. Then fruits were passed around. Cocoanuts, soft and ripe, the outer shell like the skin of an alligator pear and easily cut with an ordinary knife, were first in order, after which the companion of the man in the middle of the hut, like a magician on the stage, drew out of mysterious regions an enormous pineapple which may have been thirty inches in circumference. It might have had elephantiasis, for all I knew, but it was the cause of the only bit of disharmony I had noticed during the entire time I rested with them. The man to whom it fell to dispense its juicy contents--he who had sat unobtrusively beside the head of the house now found it necessary to stretch his legs in order the better to carve the fruity porcupine. The shock to my sense of form the moment I caught sight of those legs was enough to dissipate my greediest interest in the pineapple. They were twice the size of the fruit, and as knotty. He was suffering from elephantiasis of the legs, poor man,--a disease, according to the encyclopædia, "dependent on chronic lymphatic obstruction, and characterized by hypertrophy of the skin and subcutaneous tissue." Morbid persons seem to enjoy taking away with them photographs of people affected by this hideous disease in various parts of the body, but it was enough for me that I saw this one case; and sorry enough was I that I saw it at that quiet, peaceful hut, from which I should otherwise have carried away the loveliest of memories. For as soon as the meal was over, and the ava-drinking at an end, pleasures more intellectual were in order. Neighbors began to arrive, including the fine woman who had urged me to rest wherever I wished. As each new guest appeared, he passed round on the outside and shook hands with those to whom he was introduced, finally finding a quiet corner. When the interruptions ceased, the head of the house began to speak in a low, reflective tone of voice. All the others relaxed, as do men and women over their cigarettes. My Tongan neighbor acted as interpreter for me, being the only person present who could speak English. The head of the house was telling some family legend, the point of which was the friendship between his forefathers and the fathers of this Tongan guest. Then one at a time, quietly, in a subdued tone, each one present expressed his gratitude for the hospitality extended, or recited some family reminiscence. There wasn't the slightest affectation, nor the semblance of an argument. Here, then, was Thoreau's principle of hospitality actually being practised. As each one spoke he gazed out upon the open sky decorated with the broad green leaves of the palm. Sometimes the listeners smiled at some witticism, but most of the time they were interested in a sober way. Last of all arose the companion of the head of the house, upon his heavy, elephantine legs, and in a dramatic manner--probably made to seem more so by the tragic distortion of his limbs--related a story, several times emphasizing a generalization by a sweep of the hands toward the open world about. A gentle breeze crept down from the hills and swept its way among the pillars of this peaceful hut and skipped on through the palms out to sea. As far as the eye could reach through the village there was no sign of uncleanliness, no stifling enclosures, no frills to catch the unwary. The afternoon was well-nigh gone when I moved reluctantly away from this charmed spot. Slowly life was becoming more discontented with ease and bestirred itself to the satisfaction of wants. A few hours of toil, in the gathering of fruits, and one phase of tropical life was rounded out. It might be more pleasant to believe that that is the only side, but such faith is treacherous. The life of the average South Sea islander is as arduous as any. Fruits there are usually a-plenty, but they must be gathered and stored against famine and storm. Be that as it may, the open life, the things one has which require only wishing to make them one's own, the uncramped open world,--by that much every man is millionaire in the tropics, and it is pleasant to forget if one can that there is exploitation, despoliation, and oppression as well, both of native and of alien origin. But for the time at least we may as well enjoy that which is lovely. 3 That night I witnessed the usual events at the British Club. The substance of the evening's conversation, every word of which was in my own language, was quite foreign to me. It comprised "Dr. Funk" and his special services in counteracting dengue fever. The aim and object of every man there seemed to be to make me drink, quite against my will. A visiting doctor added the weight of his learning to induce me to turn from heedlessly falling a victim to fever by engaging "Dr. Funk." I was inclined to dub him "Dr. Bunk," but why arouse animosity in the tropics? there is enough of it. [Illustration: THE STREET ALONG THE WATERFRONT OF APIA, SAMOA] [Illustration: I THOUGHT THE VILLAGE BACK OF APIA, SAMOA, WAS DESERTED, BUT IT WAS ONLY THE NOON HOUR] [Illustration: CONTACT WITH CALIFORNIA CREATED THIS COMBINATION OF SCOWL, BRACELETS AND BOY'S BOOTS--BUT FULAANU BESIDE HER WAS UNCORRUPTIBLE] [Illustration: TATTOOING OF THE LEGS IS AN ESSENTIAL IN SAMOA] But I couldn't help contrasting in my own mind the little gathering on the shingle-paved floor of that corrugated iron hut with the more elaborate club that changed its name from German to British with no little hauteur. More than once I wished that I had had command of the language of those people in the hut where allegory, mixed with superstition but seasoned with gentle hospitality--and not rum--was the order of the day. Weary of refusing booze and more booze, I set off for the shore. Though military order forbade either natives or Germans or any one else without a permit to be out after ten o'clock, I had had no difficulty in securing a permit to roam about at will, day or night. The new military Inspector of Police strolled out with me and we took to the road that led out of Apia to the left, past the barracks, past the school, and the church, past all the crude replicas of our civilization. "Oh, how I loathe it all!" said Heasley to me. "God, what wouldn't I give to be back with my wife and kiddies! This everlasting boozing, this mingling with people whom I wouldn't recognize in Wellington, being herded with the riffraff of the world. They talk of the lovely maidens. Tell me, Greenbie, have you seen any here you'd care to mess about with? The tropics!--rot!" I saw that I had to deal with a frightfully homesick man, and there was no point in running counter to him. The fact that to me the tropics were lovely only when seen as an objective thing, not as something to feel a part of, would have made little impression on his mind. He was condemned to an indefinite sojourn, whereas I was foot-loose, had come of my own free will, and was going as soon as I had had enough of it. To him the daily round of drink and cheap disputes, the longing for his wife and kiddies, the heat, the mosquitos, the mold, the cheap beds and unvaried fare, the weeks during which the British troops had virtually camped on the beach in the steady downpouring tropical rains; the inability to dream his way into appreciation of South Sea life; the necessity of looking upon the natives as possible rebels; suspicions of the few Germans there, suspicions of every new-comer, suspicions of even the death-dealing sun,--no wonder there was nothing romantic about it to him! But as we wandered along, chatting in an intimate way, as only men gone astray from home will chat when they meet on the highways of the world, he seemed to grow more cheerful. Time and again he told me what a relief I was to him, how being able really to talk freely with me was balm to his troubled spirit. I knew that an hour after my departure he would forget all about me, that there was nothing permanent in his regard, that I really meant nothing to him beyond an immediate release for his pent-up mind,--but I felt that he was sincere. As we kicked our way along the dusty road we came to a stretch where the palm-trees stood wide apart. The smooth waters covered the reefs, and a million moonbeams danced over them. Within the palm groves camp-fires blazed beneath domes of moon-splattered thatch, and from all directions deep, clear voices quickened the night air. We of the Northern lands do not know what communal life is. We move in throngs, we crowd the theaters, we crowd the summer resorts,--but still we do not know what communal life is. We are separate icicles compared with the people of the tropics. Only to one adrift at night within a little South Sea village is the meaning of human commonalty revealed. It seemed to touch Heasley as nothing had done before. After our little conversation he appeared relieved and receptive. We wandered about till long after midnight, long after the village had sung itself to sleep, even then reluctant to take to our musty beds. Thus did one day pass in Samoa, and every day is like the other, and my tale is told. 4 I tapped one man after another in Samoa for some personal recollections of Stevenson, but without success. At last I heard of an American trader who had been an intimate friend of R. L. S. and knew more about him than any other. So to him I went. He was a round-headed, red-faced, bald individual in the late fifties, deeply engrossed in the sumptuous accumulations he had made during more than a quarter-century of residence in Samoa. His reactions to my declaration of interest in Stevenson made me think he was turning to lock his safe and order his guard, but instead he really opened the safe and dismissed all pretense. In other words, he realized, it seemed to me, that he had another chance of adding luster not to Stevenson, but to himself. Stevenson he dismissed with, "Well, you know, after all he was just like other men. Often he was disagreeable, ill-tempered," etc. The thing worth while was the fact that _he_ had written a book about Stevenson, in which _he_ had exhausted all he knew of the man, so why did I not read that and not bother him about it! I felt apologetic, almost inclined to bow myself out, backward, when he announced that he too had written stories of the South Seas. My interest was whetted. I asked to be shown. He drew from among his bills and invoices a packet of manuscripts, and handed one to me to read. I thought of Setu and his enthusiasm at the recognition at sea of the light from Vailima, and felt that, as far as Stevenson's own life went, Setu was, to me at least, more important. Notwithstanding all the cynics who laugh at those who come to Samoa to climb to Stevenson's grave, I was determined to make the ascent. I could get no one to make it with me. At five o'clock in the morning I mustered what energy I had left from the North, ready to spend it all for the sake of seeing Stevenson's grave. By six, the wind was already warm and dragged behind it heavy rain-clouds. Hot and brain-fagged, I pressed on, my body pushing listlessly forward while my mind battled with the temptation to turn back. Near the end of European Apia I turned toward the hills, into a wide avenue cut through the growths of shaggy palms. Suddenly opening out from the main street, it as suddenly closes up, an oblong that dissipates in a narrow, irregular roadway farther on. It was too overgrown to indicate any great usefulness, yet in the history of roads, none, I believe, is more unique. In the days when Samoa was the scene of cheap international squabbles among England, France, Germany, and America, Stevenson, the Scotsman, mindful of the fate of Scotland and of the similarity between his adopted and his native land, stood by the natives as against the foreign powers (Germany in particular). He took up the challenge for Mataafa, courageously cuddled these children while in prison, and won their everlasting good-will. Later, as a mark of gratitude, they decided voluntarily to build a wide road to Vailima, Stevenson's home. Their ambitions did not live long. The road was never finished. But this is indicative not of diminished gratitude, but of the overwhelming hopelessness of their situation in face of foreign pressure and native temperature. For everything in the tropics seems on the verge of exhaustion, a keen enthusiasm in life which finds its ebb before it has reached high tide. Only a supreme endeavor, a will sharper than nature, can overcome the spirit of non-resistance which condemns native life from very birth. And it was the remnant of determination bred in another climate that carried me on toward the remains of the object of that gratitude which this road symbolized. Vailima was four miles from Apia, hidden within a rich tropical growth well up the mountain side. Half the time I rested in the shade, taking my cue from my idol that it was better to travel than to arrive. No one was about, except here and there a child in search of fruit dropped from the tall trees. Presently I came to a set of wooden buildings on the road which upon investigation turned out to be the temporary barracks for the guard of Colonel Logan, commander of the forces of occupation. The soldiers directed me most cordially to a path near the barracks, and there a board sign announced the way to "STEVENSON'S GRAVE." Crossing a creek and turning to the right, I found myself immediately at the foot of Mount Vaea. At this juncture lay a small concrete pool obviously belonging to the cottage, well-preserved and clean. So was the path upward. Strange contrasts here, for both pool and path were the result of the private interest of the German Governor of Samoa who, despite Stevenson's bitter opposition to German possession of the islands, had generously had the path cleared and widened so that lovers of the great man might visit his tomb with ease. It had been neglected for ten years until this German reclaimed it. For a decade the grave lay untended. At the moment of death, the silence is deep. The pain is too fresh. Out of very love neglect is justifiable, for it is the train of dejected mourners who cannot think of niceties. But then come the "knockers at the gate," they who know nothing of the frailties of men and revel in an immortality that is memory. I paused frequently during that half-hour climb. Cooing doves called to one another understandingly across the death-like stillness which filled the valley below. From the direction of Apia came the sound of the lali, which seemed only to quicken mystery into being. I breathed more heavily. There, alone on the slopes of that peak, with the only thing that makes it memorable beneath the sod on the summit, I felt strangely in touch with the dead. The isolation gave distinction to him who had been laid there, which no monument, however superb, can give in the crowded graveyard. The personality of the departed hovers round in the silence. Still, the thought of death itself is alien here. Fear is barren. One climbs on with an easy, smiling recognition of the summit of all things,--not as death, but as life. Oh, the sweet silence that muffles all! A strange relapse into the ordinary came to me as I reached the top. I took a picture of the tomb, gazed out across the hazy blue world about,--and thought of nothing. I was not disappointed, nor sad. Had I found myself sinking, dying, I believe that it would not have ruffled my emotions any more than the flight of a bird leaves ripples in the air. Below, five miles away, the waves broke upon the reefs and spread in smooth foam which reached endlessly toward the shore. "It is better to travel than to arrive," they seemed to say to me across the void. The red hibiscus was in bloom around the tomb. A sweet-scented yellow flower made the air heavy with its rich perfume. The trees speckled the simple concrete casing over the grave with their restless little shadow leaves. The spot was cool and free from growths. And it was, then, a symbol of a quarter of a century made real. Glad did I live and gladly die And I laid me down with a will. Savage, child, romancer, literary stylist,--all have been under the influence of this wandering Scotsman, and the manner of showing him love and gratitude has been not in imitation only. At Monterey in California he was nursed by an old Frenchman through a long period of illness; in semi-savage Samoa men untutored in our codes of affection beat not a path but a road to his door, and carried his body up the steep slope of Mount Vaea. And the month before I stood beside his tomb, the ashes of his wife and devoted helpmate were deposited beside him by his stepdaughter, who had journeyed all the way from California to unite their remains. Tusitala, the tale-teller, the natives called him, and in the sheer music of that strange word one senses something of the regard it was meant to convey. And in the years to come, when Samoans become a nation in the Pacific, part of the Polynesian group, Tusitala will doubtless be one of the heroes, tales of whose beneficence will light the way for little Polynesians growing to manhood. It was becoming too hot up there on the peak for me before breakfast-time was over, so I slipped down into the valley. At the barracks the soldiers invited me to have a bite with them. The simple porridge, the crude utensils, the bare benches would elsewhere after so long a walk and so steep a climb have been a Godsend; but here, in the tropics, it seemed that more would have been a waste of human life. The sergeant-at-arms asked me if I should like to have some breadfruit. He stepped out into the yard and gathered a round, luscious melon-like fruit which, when cut, opened the doors of alimentary bliss to me. The trees grow in bisexual pairs, male and female, the female tree bearing the fruit. The sergeant then took me to Vailima, Stevenson's last home, now the residence of the governor-general. It was, of course, stripped of everything which once was Stevenson's, and had acquired wings and porticos, gaunt and disproportioned. I could not work up any sentimental regret at this change, for that is what Stevenson himself would have wished. The best way to preserve a thing is to keep it growing. Stevenson worked here for four years; others may tamper with it for four hundred years without completely obliterating the character given it by its first maker. When I entered I was somewhat surprised at the hangings on the walls. Pictures of the kaiser, pretty scenes along the Rhine, German castles,--what had they to do with Stevenson? what with Colonel Logan and British occupation? The chambers are so large and the woodwork is so somber that these pictures fairly shrieked out at one, like a flock of eagles in high altitudes. I felt almost guilty, myself, simply for being in the presence of such enemy decorations, and remarked about them to my guide. "The colonel won't touch them," he said, respectfully. "They are the property of the German Governor, and till the disposition of the islands is finally settled, the colonel won't move them. He's a soldier, y'know." We came out again upon the veranda just in time to see Colonel and Mrs. Logan arrive in their trap. He was tall, straight, an icy chill of reserve in his bearing. Mrs. Logan was a pretty young woman, as warm and cordial as he was stiff. He preceded her up the steps and was saluted by the sergeant with the explanation of my presence. "Am showing this gentleman round a bit," he said. "Has he had a look round?" said the colonel, perfunctorily, saluted stiffly, and passed by as though I didn't exist. As Mrs. Logan came up behind she suppressed a smile that threatened to make her face still more charming, and the two passed within. I smiled to myself. How should I have been received had Stevenson come up those steps that day? To the colonel there was nothing in my journey to the tomb. Nor was there anything in it to the soldiers at the barracks. Yet the fact that I had been there made me one of them. "How'd ye like it?" asked a soldier on my return, with the same manner as though I had gone to see a cock-fight. "Blaim me if Oi'd climb that yer 'ill on a day as 'ot as this to see a dead man's grave." They asked me if I'd like to take a swim in the stream Stevenson liked so well, and on the strength of my great interest three of them got leave to accompany me. They winked to me when the sergeant agreed. We wandered along, jumping fences, crossing a grassy slope, and cutting through a spare woods. The bamboo-trees creaked like rusty hinges. Cocoa plantations stood ripe for picking. The luscious mango kept high above our reach, so that we were compelled to devise means of getting at it. The soldiers seemed concerned about my seeing everything, tasting everything, learning everything the place afforded. We chatted sociably, plunging about in the stream, with only a few stray natives looking on. Then we made our way back as leisurely as possible, they being in no hurry to return to the barracks. How I got back to Apia I haven't the faintest recollection. 5 I had set out to see the world without any definite notion of whither I was drifting. I had bartered the liquid sunshine of Hawaii for Fiji's humid shade, and twisted a day in a knot between Suva and Apia so that I hardly knew whether or not Fiji was more devilishly hot than Samoa. And then for four days I endured the stench of ripening bananas in the hold of a resurrected vessel which, if ships are feminine, as sailors seem to believe, was decidedly beyond the age of spinsterhood. I was headed for New Zealand. Little wonder, then, that when I found that we had finally arrived with our olfactory senses still sane and were about to land in a real country with real cities and a social life dangerously near perfection, I felt as though I were coming to after ether. When I suddenly found myself alone on the streets of Auckland, a sense of the icy chill of reserve in civilization came over me. The weeks in the tropics were of the past. There, though the faces were more than strange to me and the speech quite unintelligible, there was a sense of human kinship which stole from man to man through the still air. There was the lali thumping its way across the valley; the chatter of voices by day, the mutter of voices by night when the people gathered beneath their thatched roofs; the gradual infusion of native melody with the swish of palms and the hiss of the sea; call answering call across the village; songs with that deep, primitive harmony which effects a ferment of emotion not in one's heart, but in the pit of the stomach. In such a place, the word _alone_ has no meaning. One cannot be a stark outsider. Everything is done so freely and sociably that even the stranger, despite thousands of years of restraint in civilization, merges into an at-one-ment known to no group in our world. Social life in New Zealand (as in all white communities) contained no such admixture. Not even on Sunday, on which day I landed, did the crowds that sauntered up and down the street, present any kindred closeness. People just sauntered back and forth across the three or four business blocks known as Queens Street. The sweeps and curves and windings which were its offshoots made a short thoroughfare look picturesque, but they were just flourishes. They did not lead to anything. And one immediately returned to Queens Street. There, the wheeled traffic having been withdrawn, the people leaving church flooded the wide way, coursing up and down in what seemed to me an utterly aimless journey between the monument at the upper fork in the street and the piers at its foot. As a white man's city goes, in the three-story structures and spacious business fronts, and the massing of architecture tapering in an occasional turret, there was stability enough in the appearance of things. There were jolly flirtations, girls singly and in pairs, some mere children in short skirts, gadding about with eyes on young men whom they doubtless knew, and of whom they seemed in eternal pursuit. Groups gathered for political or religious argument; platitudes and pleasantries were exchanged, some interesting, some dull, seldom truly cordial. A vague suspicion one of another was manifest in every relationship. Suddenly the crowd vanished. A few persistent ones hung about the lower extremity of the street or lurked about the piers, spooning. The street became deserted. Not a sound from anywhere. No joyous singing under the eaves, no flickering lamp-lights beneath thatched roofs. Blinds drawn, doors locked. Sunday evening in civilization! I had returned. CHAPTER VI THE APHELION OF BRITAIN 1 There are no holy places in New Zealand, none of the worn and curious trappings of forgotten civilizations to search out and to revere. There are no signposts which lead the wanderer along, despite himself, in search of sacred spots; no names which make life worth while. Whom shall he try to see? Is there a Romain Rolland or a Shaw, or an Emerson to whom he could bow in that reverence which invites the soul rather than bends the knee? There are only boiling fountains and snow-packed ranges and wild-waste places to which neither man nor beast go willingly. Yet an unknown urge pushes one on, that urge which from time immemorial has impelled saint in search of salvation, and age in search of youth, as well as youth in search of adventure, to the most inaccessible reaches of the world. All of us bring back accounts of what we've seen, but which of us can answer why we went? First impressions in older countries are generally confusing. Ages of accumulations pile up, covered with the dust of centuries which has gone through innumerable processes of sifting. But the stranger in the Antipodes is plunged into a bath of youth. Every aspect of the country is young. The volcanoes are mostly extinct, but about them lurks the warmth of the camp fire just died down. In mountain, bush, and plain something of the childhood of Mother Earth is still felt; at most, an adolescence, rich in possibilities. One almost feels that the very rivers are only the remnants of the receding floods after the rising of the land from beneath the sea. There is nothing old anywhere. Instead of being disappointed at the apparent paucity of man-made products, one is greatly surprised that so little and young a country should have so much. There is room, much room, ample acres which lie fallow, the winds of opportunity blowing over them, wild with abandon. New Zealand, as I said, was a kind of resting-place. It was the point where the lines of interest in the native peoples of the Pacific, and those of the efforts of the white men, intersected, just as later I was to find a point of intersection between the white men and the Orientals at Hongkong. For here the new social life of the South Pacific, and the remnants of the old races of the Pacific equally divide the attention. I had some little difficulty locating Auckland from the steamer, so many suburbs littered the forty miles of irregular bluff which surrounds the harbor. The homes upon the hills seemed reserved and unambitious. There were no streams of smoke from factory and mill. One felt, at the moment of arrival, that were it morning, noon, or night, whatever the season, Auckland would still be the same, and New Zealand would continue to be proud of the resemblance the youngest of its cities has for its parent. All seemed quiet, restful and inactive. If all these were inactive, not so the human elements. Their rumblings on localisms were to be heard even before we landed. As a new-comer, I was made aware of Wellington, the capital, and its winds; of the city of Christchurch and its plains; of prides and jealousies which provincial patriots acclaimed in good-natured playfulness. Dunedin's raininess was said to have been a special providence for the benefit of the Scotch who have isolated themselves there. The wonders of this place and the beauty of that broke through the mists of my imagination like tiny star-holes through the night. 2 I had returned to civilization, and though all my instincts settled into an assurance which was comforting, a feeling that dengue fever was no more, that damp and moldy beds and smell of copra would not again be mingled with my food and slumber, still, I knew I was not a part of it. Almost immediately my mind began moving spiral-like, outward and upward, to escape. I was to do it all in a month. I was to see Auckland, with its neighbor, Mt. Eden, an extinct volcano; I was to visit the other large cities,--vaguely their existence was becoming real to me,--I was to penetrate at least some of New Zealand's dangerous bush, to see the primitive-civilized lives of the native Maories. But, strange to say, return to civilization had the identical effect on me that return to primitive life is said to have on the white man. It entered my being in the form of indolence. I did not want to move. I wanted to rest. To stay a while in that place, to make myself part of the life of the city, to remain fixed, became a burning desire with me. And days went by without my being able to stir myself on again. The life in the Dominion was conducive to ease and dreaming. Nobody seemed in any hurry about anything, least of all about taking you in. Every one went upon a way long worn down by the tread of familiar feet. The conflicts of pioneer aggressiveness were over. The differences between the aboriginal and the foreign elements were lost in the overpowering crowding in of the alien. The stone and wooden structures, the railways and the piers, the homes wandering along over the hills as far as the eye could see, completely concealed that which originally was New Zealand. I spent one month wandering up and down Auckland's one main street, and I can assure you it was like no other main street in the world, except those of every other city in New Zealand. There were the carts and the cars by day, and the clearing of the pavement of every vehicle for pedestrian parades by night. There were the carnivals and the fêtes on Queens Street, and on every other royal highway during the summer months; and during the two hours which New Zealanders require for lunch, there was nothing to be done but to lunch too. And then on Sunday nights there was the confusion of cults and isms each with its panacea for spiritual and social ills. Nobody was expected to do anything but go to church; hence the street cars didn't run during church hours, and the bathing-places were closed. And after ten o'clock it was as impossible to get a cup of tea outside one's own home as it is to get whisky in an open saloon in New York to-day. On the _Niagara_ I had been assured by a young lady from New Zealand that we Americans didn't know what home life was and that she would show me the genuine thing when I got to her little country. She did, and I have been most grateful to her for it. It was sober and clean and quiet, and I accepted with great satisfaction every invitation offered me, because it was a thousand times better than being alone on the deserted streets. But the good Lord was wise when He made provision for one Sunday a week, as His human creation could hardly endure it more frequently; and that is what one might say of New Zealand home life. It is all that is good and wholesome, all that is necessary for the rearing of unobstreperous young, but red blood should not be made to run like syrup, though I quite agree with my New Zealand friend that it should not be kept at the boiling-point, either. Our evenings were usually spent in quiet chatting on safe generalities interspersed with home songs and nice cocoa; and at ten o'clock we would separate. I hope that my New Zealand friends will not feel hurt at what I say. Let them put it down to my wild-Americanism. But home life on a Sunday evening was not worth going all the way diagonally across the Pacific to taste. Hence, a month in Auckland was quite enough for me. By that time the call of the mountains and lakes had come to me, and in natural beauty New Zealand can rival any other country of its size I have ever been to, except Japan. In answering that call I accepted the swagger's account of how life should be lived and took to the open road. In the year that followed I filled my memory with treasures that cannot be classified in any summary. From Auckland in the North Island to Dunedin in the South Island I journeyed on foot through three long months, zigzagging my way virtually from coast to coast, dreaming away night after night along the great Waikato River, holding taut my soul in the face of the mysteries of the hot-springs districts, and quenching feverish experiences upon the shores of placid cold lakes and beneath snow-covered peaks of mountain ranges thirteen thousand feet high; gripping my reason during long night tramps in the uninhabited bush (forests) or in Desolation Gully, forty miles from nowhere. I know what wild life in New Zealand is, as well as tame. It is not all that it used to be when men left their home lands for that new start in life which Heaven knows every man is entitled to, considering what our notions of childhood are and the eagerness of man to pounce upon any one who has not reached insurmountable success. [Illustration: DUNEDIN, NEW ZEALAND From the belt of wild wood that girdles the city] [Illustration: BRIDGES ARE STILL LUXURIES IN MANY PLACES IN NEW ZEALAND] [Illustration: THE FIORDS AND SOUNDS OF NEW ZEALAND The pride of the Dominion Post Card. J. B. Series No. 205] [Illustration: LAKE WANAKA, NEW ZEALAND] In between I saw the courageous struggles these selfsame men have gone through and are still enduring in order to make of the whole of New Zealand what it is as yet only in parts. Those parts are rich farm lands, with swiftly scouting motor-cars used by great capitalist-farmers who have more than one station to look after. It is a strange phenomenon of New Zealand life that the small farm towns are generally much more alert and progressive than the big cities. The New Zealanders build houses that look like transplanted suburbs from around New York, and bring to their villages some of the love of plant life that the city-dweller is soon too sophisticated to share. They draw out to themselves the moving-picture theaters, which are now the all-possessing rage in the Dominion as elsewhere, and read the latest periodicals with the interest of the townsman. There are over a thousand newspapers in the Dominion, which for a population of a million is a goodly number, though one cannot regard this as too great an indication of the intellectual advancement of the people. Yet literacy is the possession of the farmer as much as and frequently more than the city-dweller in New Zealand. His children go to school even if they have to use the trains to get there; free railway passes on these are accorded by the Government. And on the whole the farmer's life in New Zealand is richer than that of most rural communities. But the struggle is still great. I have seen some who do not feel that the promise is worth it. Though each of the big cities in the Dominion has its own special characteristics, they are all considerably alike. The three chief ones are all port cities of about 80,000 inhabitants each, and except for the fact that Dunedin in the far south is essentially Scotch and somewhat more stolid than the rest, and Wellington in the center is the capital of the Dominion and therefore suspicious, one may go up and down their steep hills without any change in one's social gears. The colonial atmosphere is at once charming and chilling. There is a certain sobriety throughout which makes up for lack of the luxuries of modern life. But one cannot escape the conviction that regularity is not all that man needs. Everything moves along at the pace of a river at low level,--broad, spacious, serene, but without hidden places to explore or sparkling peaks of human achievement to emulate. One paddles down the stream of New Zealand life without the prospect of thrills. One might be transported from Auckland in the north to Wellington or Dunedin in the south during sleep, and after waking set about one's tasks without realizing that a change had been made. Every city is well lighted; good trams (trolley-cars) convey one in all directions, but at an excessively high fare; the water and sewerage systems are never complained of; the theaters are good and the shops full of things from England and America. There are even many fine motor-cars. But there are few signs of great wealth, though comparatively big fortunes are not unknown. It is rumored that ostentation is never indulged in, as the attitude of the people as a whole is averse to it. On the other hand, neither are there any signs of extreme poverty, though it exists; and slums to harbor it. While the usual evils of social life obtain, the small community life makes it impossible for them to become rampant. Every one knows every one else and that which is taboo, if indulged in, must be carried out with such extreme secrecy as to make it impossible for any blemish to appear upon the face of things. In these circumstances, one is immediately classified and accepted or rejected, according as one is or is not acceptable. Having recognized certain outstanding features of the gentleman in you, the New Zealander is Briton enough to accept you without further ado. There is in a sense a certain naïveté in his measurement of the stranger. He is frank in questioning your position and your integrity, but shrinks from carrying his suspicions too far. He will ask you bluntly: "Are you what you say you are?" "Of course I am," you say. "Then come along, mate." But he does not take you very far, not because he is niggardly, but because he is thrifty. As a result of this New Zealand spirit I found myself befriended from one end of New Zealand to the other by a single family, the elder brother having given me letters of introduction to every one of his kin,--in Hamilton, Palmerston North, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin. And with but two or three exceptions I have always found New Zealanders generous and open-hearted. Wherever I went, once I broke through a certain shyness and reserve, I found myself part of the group, though generally I did not remain long, because I felt that new sensations could not be expected. My one great difficulty was in keeping from falling in love with the New Zealand girls. Rosy-cheeked, sturdy, silently game and rebellious, they know what it is to be flirtatious. For them there is seldom any other way out of their loneliness. Only here and there do parents think it necessary to give their daughters any social life outside the home. In these days of the movies, New Zealand girls are breaking away from knitting and home ties. But even then few girls care to preside at representations of others' love-affairs without the opportunity of going home and practising, themselves. Hence the streets are filled with flirtatious maidens strolling four abreast, hoping for a chance to break into the couples and quartets of young men who choose their own manly society in preference to that of expensive girls. I have seen these groups pass one another, up and down the streets, frequent the tea-houses and soda fountains, carry on their flirtations from separate tables, pay for their own refreshments or their own theater tickets; but real commingling of the sexes in public life is not pronounced. At the beaches! That is different. There the dunes and bracken are alive with couples all hours of the day or night during the holiday and summer seasons. Thence emerge engagements and hasty marriages, nor can parental watchfulness guard against it. 3 The most difficult thing in all my New Zealand experiences was to reconcile the latent conservatism of the people with their outstanding progressiveness. It would be easy to assert without much fear of contradiction that notwithstanding all the talk of radicalism in the matter of labor legislation there is little of it in practice in the Dominion. The reason for this is twofold. First, New Zealand, unlike Australia and America, was not a rebellious offshoot of England, not a protest against Old-World curtailment. Quite the contrary, it was made in the image of the mother country, and natural selection for the time being was dormant. Furthermore, it was simple for labor to dominate in a country where labor was to be had only at that premium. Nowhere in the whole Dominion did I come across concrete evidence of awakened consciousness on the part of the masses to their opportunities. None of that feverish haste to raise monuments of achievement to accompany the legislative enactments which have given New Zealand an illustrious place among the nations. True, the country is young; true, there are not enough people there to pile creation on creation. But that is not it. It is that they are not keyed up to any great notions of what they ought to expect of themselves, but are content with what freedom and leisure of life they possess. Throughout the length and breadth of the two islands, islands more than two thirds the size of Japan, there isn't an outstanding structure of any great architectural value; there isn't a statue or a monument of artistic importance; there is hardly a painting of exceptional quality; nor, with all the remarkable beauty of nature which is New Zealand's, is there any poetic outpouring of love of nature that one would expect from a people heirs to some of the finest poetry in the world. Even British India has its Kipling and its Tagore. With all the excellence of their efforts to solve the problem of the welfare of the masses, New Zealanders show no excessive largeness of heart in the sort of welcome they extend to labor of other lands. Here, it would seem, is a land where the world may well be reborn, where there is every opportunity for the correction of age-long wrongs that have become too much a part of Europe for Europeans to resent them too heartily. Yet what is New Zealand doing and what has it done in seventy-five years to approximate Utopia? This is not meant as a criticism of New Zealand; rather is it meant to let New Zealand know that the eyes of the world are upon it and expect much from it. Possession may be nine points of the law; but the utilization of opportunity which possession entails is the tenth point toward the retention of that which one has. Babies are cared for better in New Zealand than any other place in the world, yet boys and girls still receive that antiquated form of correction, corporal punishment, and thought of letting the youth find his own salvation, with guidance only, not coercion, is still alien to the New Zealand pedagogic mind. Women have had the vote for over twenty-five years, but the freedom of woman to seek her own development, to become a factor in the social life of the community apart from the man's, is still a neglected dream. And young women are dying of ennui because they aren't given enough to do. The country is fairly rich, with its enormous droves of sheep, great pastures full of cattle, its coöperative capitalistic farming-schemes; but the human genius for beauty and self-expression must find opportunity in Britain or America. And even the old romance of pioneer life is virtually of the past. In all my wanderings I came across only one home that made me throw out my emotional chest to contain the spirit of the pioneer life of which we all love to hear. It was a house as rough as it was old, laden with shelving and hung with guns, horns, and lithographs, and cheered by a blazing open fire,--an early virility New Zealand has now completely outgrown. The house must have been fifty years old, to judge from the Scotsman living there. He was keen, alert, and quick, a most interesting opponent in discussion, most firm in his beliefs without being offensive. Here, in the very heart of one of the earliest of New Zealand's settlement districts in the South Island, he lived with his family; and something of the old sweetness of life, the atmosphere of successful conquest, obtained. And ever as I dug down into New Zealand's past, I found it charming. The present is too steeped in cheap machine processes to be either durable or really satisfying. Discouraging as this may sound, he who has lived in the little Dominion and has learned to love its people and their ways, hastens to contradict his own charges. For in time, as one becomes better acquainted, one finds a healthy discontent brewing beneath that apathetic exterior. Just as the Chinese will do anything to "save face" so the Briton will do anything not to "lose face." He loses much of his latent charm in so restricting himself, but when assured that a new convention is afoot and that it is safe for him to venture forth with it, he will do so with a zest that is itself worth much. Furthermore, there is in the atmosphere of staid New Zealand life a passion for the out-of-doors which is worth more than all the Greenwich Village sentiment twice over. Girls are always just as happy in the open and more interesting than when indulging in cigarettes and exposing shapely legs in intellectual parlors. Given twenty million people instead of one New Zealand would blossom forth into one of the loveliest flowers of the Pacific. 4 In the Auckland (New Zealand) Art Gallery hangs a picture representing the coming of the Maories to New Zealand. Their long canoe is filled with emaciated people vividly suggesting the suffering and privation they must have undergone in coming across the mainland some four hundred years ago. Venturing without sail or compass, these daring Polynesians must have possessed intrepid and courageous natures. Yet at the time I was in that gallery the place was full of stifled boyish laughter. A half-dozen little tots, with spectacles and school-bags, one with blazing red hair, had come to see the pictures. They were not Maori children, but the offspring of the white race, which less than a hundred years ago came in their sailing-vessels and steamers, with powder and lead, and took with comparative ease a land won by such daring travail. I had heard much of these natives,--idyllic tales of their charm and the lure of their maidens. Those lovely Maori girls! I expected to see them crowding the streets of Auckland. But they were conspicuous by their absence. Occasionally a few could be seen squatting on the sidewalks, more strangers to the city than I, more outstanding from the display of color and manner which thronged Queens Street than any American could be in so ultra a British community as dominates New Zealand. Where are the Maories? I wondered. Upon their "reservations" like our own Amerinds, or lost to their own costumes and even to their own blood and color? I had returned to Auckland from a visit with a friend whose wife was Maori, in the company of her nephew. He carried with him a basket of eels as a gift to his mother, and walked up the street with me. At a corner he was hailed by a dark-skinned man in a well-cut business suit, and said, "There is my father. I must leave you." In another moment he was in a large touring car and was whizzed away by his Maori father at the wheel. No wonder I hadn't been able to see any Maories. I visited a school where Maori boys are being encouraged to artificial exercises,--sports, hurdle-jumping, running. I watched them make ready, eager for the petty prizes offered. Off went their shoes, out went their chests, expanded with ancestral joy. In their bare feet, still as tough as in former days before they were induced to buy cowhides, they skipped over the ground, filled for the moment with the glory of being alive. Their faces broke out in fantastic, native grimaces and contortions as though an imaginary enemy confronted them. But alas, they were seeking him in the wrong direction! The enemy comes with no spears, and no clang, but he is more deadly. He is not without but within. He makes them cough. They fall behind. "They do not last long," said the Briton who was instructing them. "They are dying rapidly of consumption. As long as we keep them here in school they are all right. Finer specimens of human physique could not be found anywhere. But as soon as they return to their _pas_, and live in the squalor of the native villages, they return to all the old methods of life and soon go under." I set out on my tramp through New Zealand. At Bombey, a few days' jaunt from Auckland, I met an old settler, whose accounts of the great and last war of the redcoats with the fierce fighters of Maoriland dated back to our own Civil War, 1861-64. Until that time both Maories and Britons said, with few exceptions, "Our races cannot mix. One or the other of us must give away." Naturally, the Maories had the prior claim, but they finally yielded, surrendering their lands to the aliens at Ngaruawahia, "The Meeting of the Waters," that little hamlet lying in the crotch between the beautiful Waikato River and one of its tributaries. And henceforward, the two races were constrained to meet, and rush down together into that green sea of human commonalty, albeit one of them contributes the dominant volume. Maori legend has it that the Maories are the descendants of the great _Rangatira_ (chief) who was the offspring of a similarly great _Tanewa_ (shark). He was born in the dark southern caves of the Tongariro Mountains, and the spirits of their ancestors have always dwelt along the broad Waikato. Along this river I wandered for many days, but I found few of the Rangatira's descendants. If one is quiet and alone the voice of the great Tanewa will call softly through the marsh rushes from out of the heart of the quivering flax. It is peaceful and encompassing, modest and almost afraid. I heard it and I am sure those Maories hear it who are not too engrossed in the scramble after foreign trinkets. It said: "The last mortal or man descendant of mine will be the offspring of a Pakeha-Maori (a white man who lives among the Maories) who will live in the cities and rush about in motor-cars, but I shall remain in the marshes, the calm rivers, and near the glittering leaves of flax." A few miles farther on I came to Huntley, and hearing that there was a native village across the Waikato River, I turned thither by way of the bridge. I overtook two _wahines_, slovenly, indolent, careless in their manners. They spoke to me flippantly. They wanted to know if I was bound for the missionaries' place. This led to questions from me: Why were they turning Mormon? Which sect did they prefer? But I could obtain answers only by innuendo. I left these two women behind and found three others chasing a pig in an open field, three boys bathing a horse in the deep river. All about the village was strewn refuse; vicious dogs slunk hungrily about,--neglect, neglect, on every hand. But instead of flimsy native huts there were wooden shacks with corrugated iron roofs, the longer to remain unregenerate, breeders of disease and wasters of human energy. But the more elaborate native village at Rotorua, at the other end of the island, where visitors are frequent, was more up-to-date and cleaner. And on a little knoll was a model of an old Maori _pah_, such as was used in the days before guns made it possible to fight in ambush and in the valleys, and brought the sturdy savages down not only from their more wholesome heights but from their position of vantage as a race. Here I met an odd sort of article in the way of human ware. Only seventeen, he was twice my size, and lazy and pliable in proportion. He would come into my room and just stay. With a steady, piercing, yet stolid and almost epileptic stare, cunning, yet not shrewd, not steady, nor guided by any evident train of thought, he would watch me write. I was a mystery to him, and he frankly doubted the truth of things I told him. First he said I had the build of a prize-fighter; then, perhaps on thinking it over, he doubted that I had ever done any hard work in my life. As to himself, he said he loved to break in wild horses. His father, according to one tale, was wealthy; two of his brothers were engineers on boats. But he hated study. He was altogether lacking in any notion of time, but he was not lazy. He was even ready to do work that was not his to do. One afternoon he was in a most jovial mood. He was about to have a tent raised in which he would spend the summer, instead of the hotel room allotted to the help. He was full of glee at the prospect. Primitive instincts seemed to waken in him. But there was a sudden reaction,--whimsical. We had stepped upon the lawn which afforded an open view across Lake Rotorua. "Strange, isn't it," he said without any preamble, "how money goes from one man to another, from here to Auckland and to Sydney? So much money." He became reminiscent: "Maories didn't know a thing about money. They were rich. See, across this lake,--that little island,--the whole was once a battle-field. The Maories went out in their canoes and fought with their battle-axes. What for? Oh, to gain lands. But now they are poor. Things are so dead here now. Nothing doing." A moment later he was called and disappeared. It was the only time he was ever communicative. The tent had roused in him racial regrets. One evening he came up to my door and told me there was a dance at the hall, and that he was going to it. Again that strange revival of racial memories, but these of hope and prospect, came into his face, "I'm going to take my 'tart' (girl) with me," he announced. And later in the evening, as I sat alone, watching the moon rise over the lake, the laughter of those Maories rang out across the hills. Though I wandered for many miles, running into the hundreds, the number of Maori villages and people I came across were few and far between. Yet records show that once these regions were alive with more than a hundred thousand fighting natives. At Rotorua, the hot-springs district in the North Island, the _pah_ was in exceptionally good condition, but it was so largely because the New Zealand Government has made of the place one of its most attractive tourist resorts and the natives are permitted to exact a tax from every visitor who wishes to see the geysers. Elsewhere the villages are dull, dreary, and neglected: the farther away from civilization, the worse they get. The consequence is not surprising. According to the census of 1896, there were 39,854 people of the Maori race: 21,673 males, 18,181 females, of which 3,503 were half-castes who lived as Maories, and 229 Maori women married to Europeans. The Maori population fell from 41,993 in 1891 to 39,854 in 1896, a decrease in five years of 2,139. But in 1901 it had risen to 43,143, going steadily up to 49,844 in 1911, and dropping to 49,776 in 1916 on account of the European war. There was considerable discussion in the New Zealand Parliament on the question of whether the Maories should be included in the Draft Act, most white men declaring that a race which was dying, despite this seeming increase, should not be taxed for its sturdiest young men in a war that was in truth none of its concern. But the Maories--that is, their representatives--objected, saying they did not wish to be discriminated against. Among the young men, however, I found not a few who were inclined to reason otherwise. So it was that while I was talking to the young fellows who were washing their horse in the Waikato, one of them said to me: "Yes. Years ago the white men came to us with guns and cannon and powder and compelled us to give up our warfare, which kept us in good condition individually and as a race. We put aside our weapons. Now they come to us and tell us we must go to Europe and fight for them." And he became silent and thoughtful. As I came back into Huntly from my visit to the _pah_ I passed the little court-house, before which was a crowd of Maories. Some of the _wahines_ sat with shawls over their heads smoking their pipes as though they were in trousers, not skirts. I chatted with the British Bobby who stood at the door, asking him what was bestirring Maoriland so much. "Oh, that bally old king of theirs has been subpoenaed to answer for his brother. The blighter has been keeping him out of sight so that he won't be taken in the draft." "But," I protested--democrat though I was, my heart went out to the old "monarch"--"can't the king get his brother, the archduke and possible successor to the throne, out of performing a task that might hazard the foundation of the imperial line?" "King be damned! Wait till we get the blighter in here," said the servant of the law, pressing his heels into the soft, oozy tar pavement as he turned scornfully from me. 5 A few days later I was cutting my way through a luxuriant mountain forest above Te Horoto in the North Island, listening to the melodious _tui_, the bell-bird, and to the song of the parson-bird in his black frock of feathers with a small tuft of white under his beak, like the reversed collar of a cleric. No sound of bird in any of the many countries I have been to has ever filled me with greater rapture than did this. There are thousands of skylarks in New Zealand, brought from England, but had Shelley heard the _tui_ he might have written an ode more beautiful even than that to the "blithe spirit" he has immortalized. Yet, like the human natives, these feathery folk have vastly decreased since the coming of the white man. No wonder Pehi Hetan Turoa, great chief of a far country on the other side of the island, in complaining of the decay of his race, said: "Formerly, when we went into a forest, and stood under a tree, we could not hear ourselves speak for the noise of the birds--every tree was full of them.... Now, many of the birds have died out." Enraptured with the loveliness of the native bush and the clear, sweet air, I pressed up the mountain side with great strides. Presently I passed a simple Maori habitation. It was about noon. Seeing smoke rise out of an opening in the roof, indicating that the owners were at home, I entered the yard. My eyes, full of the bright, clear sunlight, could not discern any living thing as I poked my head in at the door, but I could hear a voice bidding me enter. I stepped into a sort of antechamber, a large section of the hut with a floor of beaten earth and a single pillar slightly off the center supporting the roof. Gradually, as my eyes became accustomed to the subdued light, I saw an aged couple within a small alcove on the farther side. An open fire crackled in the center of its floor. The old woman sitting on her bed-space, was bending over the flame, fanning it to life. The old man, who was very tall, lay on a mat-bed to the right, his legs stretched in my direction. The two beds, the fire, and the old couple took up the entire space of the alcove,--a sort of kitchenette-bedroom affair like our modern "studio" apartments. "Where are you from?" asked the old man, after I had seated myself before the fire. "America," I said. My reply evoked no great surprise in him. "The village is quiet," I said. "Where are the people?" "Oh, down in the valley, working in the fields." "Don't you go out, too?" I asked. "Oh, I'm too old now. My legs ache with rheumatism. I go no more. Let the young fellows work. Stay and have tea with us," he urged. I looked at their stock. They did not seem to have any too much themselves, and the old woman seemed a little worried. I knew that the heart of the hostess was the same the world over, so I assured them I had had my meal, and only wished to rest a while away from the sun. The old woman showed relief. We chatted as cordially as it is possible where tongues cannot fully make themselves understood. I learned that the man was an old chief. He could not fall in with the times, acknowledged his inability to direct the affairs of this strange world, and only asked for rest and quiet, and the respect due one of his position. He did not expect to live long, nor did he much care. "These are not days for me," he said with a smile. He did not speak of the former glories of his race. Doubtless he could not exactly make up his mind whether to look before or after: if there were great chiefs before, are there not big M.P.'s now? The fire was burning low, and I knew that the old woman would have to go for more wood unless she hurried with the preparation of her meal, and that as long as I was there I was delaying her. So I rose to go. The old man excused himself for not rising by pointing to his lame legs. She saw me to the gate, and as I struck down the road she waved her hand after me in farewell, and remained behind the screen of trees round which I veered. Down in the valley lying almost precipitately below me were a number of natives working in their fields; but my road led me on to the cities, and it is there that the future of this race hangs in the balance. Some months later, while I was living in Dunedin in the far south of the South Island, the newspapers came out in a way almost American, so exciting was the bit of news. The editorial world forgot all decorum and dignity and pulled out the largest type it had on hand. It was announced that the Maori priest, Rua, was caught. Several persons were wounded and one, I believe, was killed in the process. The priest was treated with no respect and little consideration and thrown into prison,--all because he believed in having several wives as his men-folk always had, if they were chiefs and priests, and was trying to put a little life into his race, trying to stir it up to casting out these "foreign devils." He had built himself a temple that was an interesting work of art, but it holds worshipers no more, even though the priest has since been released. His efforts to rouse his people failed. Such efforts are only the reflex action of a dying race. CHAPTER VII ASTRIDE THE EQUATOR _The Second Side of The Triangle_ Dark is the way of the Eternal as mirrored in this world of Time: God's way is in the sea, and His path in the great deep.--Carlyle. 1 More than a year went by before I began drawing in the radial thread that held me suspended from the North Star under the Southern Cross,--a year replete with lone wanderings and searching reflections. During all those months not a single day had passed without my surveying in my mind's eye the reaches of the Pacific that lay between me and the Orient. Roundabout New Zealand I had become familiar with the Tasman Sea looking toward Australia, on the shores of which I had spent some of the most mysterious nights of my life; on Hawkes Bay looking out toward South America; and across the surging waters of Otago Harbor at Dunedin, looking in the direction of the frozen reaches of Antarctica. Once staid Dunedin was thrilled by a wireless S.O.S. from the direction of the South Pole. The _Aurora_, Shackleton's ship which had gone down to the polar regions, was calling for help. She had snapped the cables which tied her to land when the ice-packs gave way and had drifted out to sea. Fortunately, most of the officers and crew were at the moment on board, but sixteen men were left marooned. To add to the prospect of tragedy, the ice smashed the rudder, and a jury-rudder, worked by hand from the stern deck, had to be improvised. With these handicaps the vessel made her way slowly till within five hundred miles of New Zealand, the reach of her wireless. Here she was rescued by a Dunedin tug and brought to Port Chalmers. [Illustration: THE S. S. _AURORA_ Just arrived at Port Chalmers, N. Z., from the South Pole] [Illustration: MOUNT COOK OF THE NEW ZEALAND ALPS IN SUMMER] [Illustration: CIRCULAR QUAY, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA A whirl of pleasure-seeking and business] [Illustration: MONUMENT TO CAPTAIN COOK At Botany Bay, Australia] I made friends with the mate and the chief engineer and gained access to their superb collection of Emperor Penguin skins and an unusual number of photographs. Months afterward they wanted four men to complete the crew necessary for another journey south and I was tempted to join them, but tallow and bladder and a repressed pen were the negatives, while China and Japan were the positives. So I sailed away with the rising sun in the direction of the great West that is the Far East. Crisp and clear in the bright morning air shone the towering peaks of the New Zealand Alps as I sailed toward Australia and to Botany Bay,--not, however, without being nearly wrecked in the fog which had gathered in Foveaux Strait, which separates Steward Island from the South Island in New Zealand. Bluff, the last little town in New Zealand, is said to have the most southerly hotel in the world. I saw it. 2 Four days from Bluff to Melbourne on a sea that seemed on the verge of congealing into ice. It was not cold, yet autumn-like. And the passengers seemed the fallen leaves. The stewards maintained the reputation for impudence and unmannerliness of the Union Steamship Company crews, but I had grown used to that, and thanked my stars that this was the last coupon in the ticket I had purchased in Honolulu more than a year before. Of human incidents there was therefore none to relate. But chill and melancholy as that Southern sea was, there hovered over it a creature whose call upon one's interest was more than compensating. Swooping with giant wings in careless ease, the albatross followed us day in and day out. Always on the wing, awake or asleep, in sunshine or in storm, the air his home as the water is to fish, and earth to mammal. Even the ship was no lure for him by way of support. He followed it, accepted whatever was thrown from it, but as for dependence upon it,--no such weakness, you may be sure. His sixteen feet of wing-spread moved like a ship upon the waves, like a combination of a ship and sails. Swift, huge, glorious, unconsciously majestic, he is indeed a bird of good omen. How he floats with never a sign of effort! How he glides atop the waves, skims them, yet is never reached by their flame-like leapings; simulates their motion without the exhaustion into which they sink incessantly. The albatross had left us, and now the swarming is his artistry, so refined his "table manners." He does not gorge himself as does the sea-gull, nor is he ever heard to screech that selfish, hungry, insatiable screech. Silent, sadly voiceless, rhythmic and symbolic without being restrained by pride of art, he exemplifies right living. He is our link between shores, the one dream of reality on an ocean of opiate loveliness wherein there is little of earth's confusion and pain. For the traveler he keeps the balance between the deadly stability of land life and the dream-like mystery of the sea. But for him it were impossible to come so easily out of an experience of a long voyage. Away down there he is the only reminder of reality. Which explains the reverence sailors have for him and their superstitious dread of killing him. It is like the dread of the physician that his knife may too sharply stir the numbed senses of his patient under anæsthesia. Land may be said to begin where the albatross is seen to depart. He knows, and off he swoops, ship or no ship to follow and to guide; back over the thousand miles of watery waste, to measure the infinite with his sixteen-foot wings, glide by glide, with the speed of a twin-screw turbine. Only when the female enters the breeding season does she seek out a lost island to rear her young. Independent of the sea, these birds are utterly confined to it, a mystery floating within mystery. The albatross have left us, and now the swarming gulls abound. Why they are dignified with the Christian name "Sea" when they are such homely land-lubbers, is a question that I cannot answer. Pilots, rather, they come to see us into the harbor, or, with their harsh screeching, to frighten us away. But something within me would not know Australia, nor any lands, just then. Perhaps it was that my unconscious self was still with the albatross; for strange as it may seem I could not sense any forward direction at all that day, but only one that pointed backward,--toward home. Try as I would to realize myself on my way to Australia, still my mind persisted in pointing toward America. Not until we got the first sight of land ahead was my soul set right. Then it was the Sister Islands, Wilson's Promontory, the Bass Straits, with Tasmania barely in sight, Cape Liptrap, and finally Port Phillip. And Australia was on all fours, veiled in blue,--a thin rind of earth steeped in summer splendor. Flag signals were exchanged with the lonely pilot-ship that hung about the entrance. All being well, we passed on, crossing that point at the entrance where five strong water-currents meet and vanquish one another, turning into a smooth, glassy coat of treachery. The _Wimmera_ hugged the right shore of the largest harbor I have ever seen. In places the other shore could not be seen with the naked eye. But it is very shallow and innumerable lights float in double file to guard all ships from being stranded. Just as we entered, the sun set. A stream of color unconstrained obliterated all detail as it poured over the point of the harbor, filling the spacious port. Clots of amber and orange gathered and were dissipated, softened, diffused, till slowly all died down and were gone. Darkness and the blinking lights of the buoys remained. Two big ships, brilliantly lighted, flinging their manes of smoke to the winds, passed, one on its way to Sydney, the other to Tasmania and Adelaide in the south. Far in the distance ahead we could see the string of shore lights at Port Williamson. It took us three hours to overtake them, and we arrived too late to receive pratique. For half an hour the captain and the customs carried on a conversation with blinking lights. The winches suddenly began their rasping sound, and the anchor dropped to the bottom. We did not debark that night. 3 I spent nearly six months in Melbourne and Sydney, those two eastern eyes of that wild old continent, and for the first time in a twelvemonth the sense of security from the sea obtained. For a fortnight I occupied a little shack on Manly Beach, near Sydney, but oh, how different it was there from the sand-dunes on the shores at Dunedin, in New Zealand! In the Dominion one had to hide within the interior to get away from the sea: on the beach one felt about to slip into Neptune's maw. But at Manly, Bondi, Botany Bay, the sea might hammer away for another eternity without putting a landlubber off his ease. But we shall return to Australia in another section. The sea is still much in the blood, there is still a vast length that lies close to Asia and marks off another line of our imaginary triangle. Here are no landless reaches, but all the way to Japan one passes strip after strip, as though some giant earthquake had shattered part of the main. Months afterward I took passage once more, this time on the _Eastern_, bound for Japan. There was no mistaking the side of the world I was on and the direction of my journey from the moment I stepped upon the pier to which the _Eastern_ was made fast. Hundreds of Chinese, with thousands of boxes and bundles, scurried to and fro in an ant-like attention to little details. Then as the steamer was about to depart, mobilization for the counting of noses took place, and veritable regiments of emaciated yellow men lined the decks. Here and there a fat, successful-looking Chinese moved round the crowd, an altogether different-looking species, more as one who lives on them than as one who lives with them. On the dock stood several groups waiting to wave farewell to their Oriental kin. One of these groups was composed of a stout white woman with two very pretty Eurasian daughters,--as handsome a pair of girls as I saw in Australia. Their father was a well-to-do Chinese merchant taking one of his regular trips to China. In Australian fashion they were ready for a mild flirtation, spoke Australian English with Australian slang, and, aside from their pater, they were native to all intents and purposes. And in Australia they remained. Of those who departed, the major number likewise remained native--though to China--despite years and years of residence in Australia. It is a one-sided argument to maintain that because of that the Chinese are unassimilable. There is no ground for such a deduction, because they arrived mainly after maturity, and the Chinese could challenge any white man to become one of them after he has fully acquired his habits and prejudices. But we had not been many minutes at sea before it was our misfortune to find that we had among us a Chinese boy who was born and brought up in New Zealand and was just then going to China for the first time. Here I had ample opportunity of observing the assimilability of the Oriental. And here I bow before the inevitable. He had assimilated every obnoxious characteristic of our civilization, the passion for slang, the impertinence, the false pride, the bluff which is the basis of Western crowd psychology. He was not a Chinese,--that he denied most vehemently,--he was a New Zealander, and by virtue of his birth he assumed the right to impose his boyish larrikinism upon all the ship's unfortunate passengers. He banged the piano morning, noon, and night; he affected long, straight black hair, which was constantly getting in his way and being brushed carefully back over his head; and he took great pains to make himself as generally obnoxious as possible. He was not that serious, struggling Chinese student who comes to America afire with hope for the regeneration of his race. He was a New Zealander, knew no other affiliations, had no aspirations, and lorded it over "those Chinese" who occupied every bit of available space on the steamer. In his way he was also a Don Juan, for he hovered over the young half-Australian wife of a middle-aged Chinese merchant who was taking her back to China for her confinement. She was morose, sullen, as unhappy a spirit as I have seen in an Oriental body. Obviously, China held few fine prospects for her. She was seldom seen in her husband's company, for he was generally below playing fan-tan or gambling in some other fashion. And the Australian half of her was longing for home. It seemed to devolve upon our young Don Juan to court this unhappy creature, and court her he did. But she had no resilience, no flash, her Chinese half-self offering him as little reward for his pains as a cow would offer the sun for a brilliant setting. I expected any hour of the day to see that woman throw herself into the sea, or that husband stick a knife into the bold, bad boy, but nothing happened; the husband and the wife were seemingly oblivious of the love-making, and all went well. Besides the Chinese crew and passengers there were perhaps a dozen white people, including the officers. An old English army captain whose passport confirmed his declaration that he was seventy-three years old, was taking a little run up to Japan. His only reason was that Japan was an ally, hence he wanted to see it. Such is the nature of British provincialism. Otherwise, there were but two or three young Australians bound for Townsville, and the stewardess. Somewhere along the coast we picked up a Russian peasant, who with his wife had been induced to emigrate to Australia, but who was now going home to enlist. As though there weren't already enough men in Russia armed with sticks and stones! At still another port we commandeered a veritable regiment of Australian children, colloquially called larrikins. These were bound for the Philippines, where their father had preceded them some months before. Their exploits deserve an exclusive paragraph. Suddenly, out of a clear sky, there would be a shriek like the howl of a dingo on the Australian plains. There would be a rush to the defenses by an excited female,--the mother. There would follow such a slapping as would delight the English Corporal Correction League, except that it wasn't done cold-bloodedly enough. And thereafter for half an hour there was bedlam all around. After exhaustion, a new series of pranks set in. This time they were playing a "back-blocks" game which entailed a hanging. One of them needs must be hanged, and was rescued just in time by an ever-swooping mother. After hours of hunger-stimulating escapades on deck, the dinner-bell sent them scurrying down into the saloon. Before any of us had time to be seated all the fruit on the table was divided according to the best principles of individual enterprise. Beginning with the first thing on the menu, they went down the sheet, leaving nothing untasted; nor did it matter much whether it was breakfast or dinner,--steak enough for a meal in itself comprised the entrée. And the littlest kept pace with the biggest. Nor did afternoon and morning tea escape them. Fully stoked up, they were ready for another beating and another hanging on deck. In contrast were the little Chinese children,--quiet, shy, never spanked; and though they put away enough within their Oriental bread-baskets, one never saw that same wild struggle for existence which told the tale of life on an Australian station better than anything I wot of. We had now reached Brisbane, 519 miles from Sydney, a distance which took the _Eastern_ from noon of the 8th to sunrise of the 10th of October to negotiate. And from the outer channel to the docks on the Brisbane River we steamed till half-past one in the afternoon. Here we were "beached" in the mud when the tide went out and had to wait twenty-four hours before floating out again. In the meantime we picked up two more gems,--mature larrikin this time. One of them was so drunk he couldn't see straight, the other was sober enough to bring him on board. Unfortunately for me, they were placed in my cabin, and from then on, after the youngsters had turned the day into chaos, these two would come in to sleep, and the cursing, the spitting, the reference to women with which they consoled their souls, would have shocked the most hardened beach-comber, I am sure. To avoid annoyances I explored every nook and corner of the vessel. At last I discovered a sanctuary on the roof of the unused hospital. It could not be called a model of order and comfort, for various air-tanks and stores of sprouting potatoes belittered it. But it was like the holy of holies to me, for there I might just as well have been on a lone craft of my own. No sound reached me from any living thing,--except an occasional extra-loud shriek from the youngsters. Above and about me there was nothing to obstruct my view, and within, absolute peace. On the following day we were on the Great Barrier Reef, grayish green in color, languid in temperament, shallow and therefore dangerous in make-up. Numerous islands, neutral in color and sterile of vegetation, seemed to stare at us and at one another in mute indifference. For the first time the storied reality of being stranded on a desolate island came home to me. As I sat watching this filmy show, I became conscious of a familiar something in the world about me, be it warmth or color, a something which immediately brought the picture of Santa Anna Valley in California back to mind. Sometimes we come across a face we feel certain we have seen before: that was the case with the atmosphere along the Great Barrier Reef. The setting is that of the island home of _Paul and Virginia_. Near and far, lowly and majestic, in generous succession on each side, were islands and continent,--an avenue wide, spacious, and clear. Occasional peaks along the mainland recalled old-fashioned etchings,--dense clouds, heaven-reaching streaks and shafts of twice-blended astral blue; rain-driven mountain fiords. Early one day, an hour before dawn, the _Eastern_ moored before Magneta Isle with her stern toward Townsville, as though ready for instant flight, if necessary. With an early-morning shower of filthy words, one of my cabin-mates pulled himself together and dressed. Shortly afterward he slipped over the side of the ship into a tossing and pitching launch and was rushed to Townsville. His rousing me at that hour was the only thing I had reason to be grateful to him for in our short acquaintance. For the world was exquisitely beautiful in its delicate gown of night. Dawn was but waking. Four-o'clock stupor superintended the easy activities. A few lights in a corner, a bolder and more purposeful flash from a search-light, and all set in twilight. A ring of islands--the Palm Isles--stones set in a placid bay. That was all I saw of Townsville. And perhaps it is just as well. It may have been "ordained" that my ignorance obtain, be the city's virtues and its right to fame what they may. What if I had gathered closer impressions, added meaningless statistics or announced the prevalence of diphtheria throughout Queensland, or discovered the leading citizen of Townsville to an apathetic world? But it may be of interest to hear that Townsville claims one distinction. It is the Episcopal See of Australia and the seat of the Anglican Bishop and possesses a cathedral. 4 On the afternoon of the following day a heavy wind or squall came up. This time the ship did not defy it. No foolhardy resistance here. The reefs are too near and they stretch for thirty miles seaward. Again we anchored. The horizon contracted like a noose of mist; it stifled one. The ship seemed to crouch beneath the winds. An hour, and the anchor was heard being lifted and the propellers were slowly revived to action. A little later we anchored again. A light was hoisted to the stern mast and twilight lowered on a calm gray sea. Distant little flat islands loomed through the mist. Two sailing-vessels at anchor, moored in companionship, rested within an inlet. A gentle swish, a murmur of human voices, and our little world was swaying gently upon a curious world. And there we remained all night. As the sun gave notice of day, we moved off, and all day the sea was so still that but for the vibration of the screws it would have been hard to realize that the ship was in motion. Here we came to where the jagged coastline has run down. Tiny islets, flat and low, most of them but a landing-place for a few tropical trees. Summer calm, with barely a ripple of the sea. That night we anchored again, having come, it was said, to the most dangerous pass on the reefs. Ten days after having left Sydney we arrived at the last port in Australia, Thursday Island. A cloudy morning had turned clear for us, but on ahead to the northwest hung heavy mists. Because of these, I was later told by two soldiers on guard atop the mountain fortification, they could not see us coming. They saw our smoke, but the steamer was hidden from them by mist. Then suddenly we shot into view. All the while we had been in the clearest sunshine, the sea glassy and the flying-fish darting about. It was no place for speed. We moved just fast enough to leave the scene undisturbed. And thus we stole into Torres Straits. Of all the numerous harbors I have entered in the Pacific, none, with the exception of the Inland Sea in Japan, is more picturesque than that at Thursday Island. Shelter, space, and depth, and stillness! One's eyes sweep round this pearly promise with greed for its beauty. Seventy-five sail-boats, their sailless masts swaying with the swells, are anchored on the reefs. It is Sunday and they are at rest, but what enchantment lies hid in those folded sails! I wish for the power to utter some word which could put them to flight; but that remains for Monday, when "the word" is spoken. And on Monday, too, immediately upon leaving port at ten o'clock, the ship's time was returned to standard time, leaving Australia and its "bunkum" daylight-saving time behind. Thence we lived again by "dinkum" time. The ship about-faced and left the channel the same way it had entered, and shortly afterward we struck across the Arafua Sea. 5 From that day until I reached Japan it was all I could do to keep track of the seas we passed through,--Arafua, Banda, Molucca, Celebes, Sulu, China, and the Inland Sea. As we neared the equator again, there was nothing to disturb the peaceful splendor of life, except the little hoodlums on board. About sixty miles south of it a tiny creature, like a turtle, sailed along the still surface; the flying-fish blistered the water, the scars broadened and healed again just as the sportive amphibians pierced it and disappeared. What a contrast to the albatross! Then the miracle occurred. From the west, hidden from me by the ship, the sun reached to the eastern clouds, dashing them with pink and bronze and blue. I could not tell where the horizon went to, and was roused to curiosity as to what kind of sunset could effect such lovely tints. It wasn't a sunset, but a sunfall, a revelation. Where suggestion through imitation glistened on the eastern side, daring prodigality of color swept away emotion on the western side. It was neither saddening nor joyous. It was a vision of a consciousness in nature as full of character, as definitely meaningful and emotional as a human face. There was something almost terrifying in the expression of that sunset face. One could read into it what one felt in one's own soul. And a little later a crescent moon peeped over the horizon. At about midnight of the seventeenth day after leaving Sydney we crawled over the equator, and no home-coming ever meant more to me than seeing the dipper again and the Northern stars. During all those days nothing wildly exciting had happened at sea; but just after we left the equator we passed a series of water-spouts--six in all--which formed a semi-circle east, south, and west. The spout to the east seemed to me to be at least two or three hundred feet high, and tremendous in circumference. It drew a solid column of water from the sea far into a heavy black cloud. On the sea beneath it rose a flutter of water fully fifty feet high, black as the smoke produced by a magician's wand. Weird and illusive, the giants beggared description as they stalked away to the southeast, like animated sky-scrapers. Then we reached Zamboanga, the little town on the island of Mindanao of the Philippines. From there, for twelve hours, we crept long the coast till we entered Manila Harbor. There remained but two days' voyage before I would reach Asia, the object of my interest for years, and of all my efforts for two. But it was not so easy as all that, for two days upon the China Sea are worth a year upon the Atlantic. Riding a cyclone would be riding a hobby-horse or a camel compared with the Yellow Sea, and though I was the only passenger who missed only one meal during the whole period, I was beaten by the seventy-three-year-old English captain,--who managed all but half a meal. The sea would roll skyward as though it were striving to stand on end and for a moment the ship would lurch downward as though on a loop-the-loop. Sometimes it seemed as though the world were turning completely over. Yet I was told this was only normal, and that typhoons visit it with stated regularity. The China Sea is "the very metropolis of typhoons." A month had well-nigh gone before we reached Hong-Kong, the British portal to Cathay, a month of dreamy weather. Only one thing more,--a thing more like a scene in the Arabian Nights. Toward the end of the journey I discovered where the five hundred Chinese whose noses had been counted when we left Sydney had gone. Going forward, I looked over into an open hatchway, down into the hold, and there was a sight I shall never forget. These hundreds of deck passengers were all in a muddle amid cargo, parcels, hundreds of birds in cages, parrots, a kangaroo,--yet oblivious of everything. For the entire voyage nothing that I tell of could possibly have come within their ken, as during those days their minds were bent on one thing and one alone,--on playing fan-tan. There in the bottom of the hold hundreds of gold sovereigns passed from hand to hand in a game of chance. And at last they were to be released, to spread, a handful of sand thrown back upon the beach. As for myself, with my arrival at Hong-Kong and a visit to Shanghai ended the longest continuous voyage I had made upon the Pacific, and the second side of that great Pacific Triangle was drawn. But meanwhile let me review in detail the outposts of the white man in the far Pacific--the lands I had passed on the white man's side of the triangle, ending in Hong-Kong, where white man and Oriental meet. CHAPTER VIII THE AUSTRALIAN OUTLANDS 1 In the normal course of human variation, there should have been virtually no change of experience for me in going from New Zealand to Australia, notwithstanding the twelve hundred miles of sea that separate them. And though the sea is hardly responsible, there was a difference between these two offshoots of the "same" race for which distance offers little explanation. To me it seemed that regardless of the pride of race which encourages people to vaunt their homogeneity, the way these two counterparts of Britain have developed proves that homogeneity exists in wish more than in fact. It seems to me that the New Zealander has developed as though he were more closely related to the insular Anglo-Saxon, and the Australian as though he were the continental strain in the Englishman cropping out in a new and vast continent. However, this is sheer conjecture. All I can do is to offer in the form of my own observations reasons for the faith that is in me. From the moment that I set foot in Australia I felt once again on a continent. Melbourne is low, flat, and gave me the impression of roominess which New Zealand cities never gave. They, with the exception of Christchurch on the Canterbury plains, always clambered up bare brown hills and hardly kept from slipping down into the sea. But in Australia I felt certain that if I set out in any direction except east I could walk until my hair grew gray without ever coming across a mountain. It was a great satisfaction to me that first day, for it was intensely hot and I had a heavy coat on my arm and two cameras and no helmet. Added to my difficulties was the cordiality of an Australian fellow-passenger who was determined that I should share with him his delight at home-coming. He was a short, stout, olive-skinned young man of about twenty-three who had a slightly German swing in his gait and accentuated his every statement with a diagonal cut outward of his right hand, palm down. He lured me from one end of Melbourne to the other, made me lunch with him at a vegetarian restaurant,--which is a very popular resort in Melbourne,--introduced me to Cole's Book Arcade, to the Blue-bird Tea Rooms, where fine orchestral music flavors one's refreshments, to the latest bank building and even to the station of the railway, which "carries the largest suburban passenger traffic of any in the world." "Meet me under the clock," is the Melbournian motto. How they can all do so is beyond me, for the half-dozen stone steps that lead to the narrow doors at the corner of the station could not, I am sure, afford a rendezvous for more than thirty people at one time; yet the old clock ticks away in patience,--the most popular and most persistent thing in Melbourne. [Illustration: ONE OF THE OLDEST AUSTRALIAN RESIDENCES IS NOW A PUBLIC DOMAIN] [Illustration: THE INTERIOR OF A WEALTHY SHEEP STATION OWNER'S HOME IN MELBOURNE] [Illustration: AUSTRALIAN BLACKS IN THEIR NATIVE ELEMENT A. A. White, Brisbane] [Illustration: AN AUSTRALIAN BLACK IN MELBOURNE Out of his element but happy none the less] I had so much trouble keeping pace with this Australian, who seemed to grow more energetic the hotter it became, that I was grateful when he said he would have to leave me, and I was alone again. Then I realized for the first time that I could really like Melbourne; that it had long, broad, spacious streets with clean, fresh-looking office and department-store buildings, that even the narrower side streets were clean and inviting, and that the street cars were propelled by cables and not by trolley wires. So easy were these cars and so low that no one ever waited for them to stop, but hopped aboard anywhere along the street. Melbourne was to me a perfect bath in cleanliness and orderliness,--just what a city ought to be. Even in the very heart of the city the homes had a suburban gentility about them, and there were no unnecessary noises, no smoke, and no end of pretty girls. The people were a joy to look at. Something of the tropical looseness in both dress and flesh, as though their skins were always being fully ventilated, made them attractive. The New Zealanders made me feel as though I were in a bushel of apples; the Australians, carefully packed yellow plums. I have never enjoyed just being on the street more than I did in Melbourne. On Bourke Street, in the very midst of the pushing crowd, a soft-voiced lad approached me for some information and strutted off, tall in his self-confidence. Victorian belles, tall, graceful, russet-skinned, plump but not flabby, moved with a fine air of self-reliance. On closer acquaintance, I found that these girls were not silent and opinionless as were most of the New Zealand girls. Whatever the issue before the public, they had their defined opinions concerning it, and they were not sneered at by the men. Then, too, there was a companionship between the boys and girls, without reserve, that was balm to my soul after the year in New Zealand. Melbourne was the home of Madame Melba, and in consequence the city is the most musical of any I lived in in the Antipodes. Even the babies sing operatically on the streets, and the voices one hears from open windows are not the head-voices of prayer-meetings, but those of people who seem to know the value of the human larynx. During the two weeks that I was in Melbourne, I was, whenever I chose, a guest of the Master of the Mint, Mr. Bagg, who was the uncle of a New Zealand girl of my acquaintance; lunched, dined and afternoon tea-ed with his family whenever I felt like it; was rushed to the theater to see an old pioneer play; and went to attend public meetings at which the mayor and the prime minister spoke; visited the beaches, and knew the joy of the most refreshing companionship it was my good-fortune to meet with in all my wanderings,--though there were others. And it was so with whomever I met in Melbourne, from the clerk in the haberdashery, who acquainted me with the jealousy that exists between Sydney and Melbourne, to the woman in whose home I roomed on Fitzroy Park, or the young couple with the toddling baby and the glorious sheep-dog, who engaged me in conversation on the lawn near the beach at St. Kilda. And so I still see Melbourne in memory as a place I should enjoy living in. I was often alone, but never lonely in it. And I see it from its Botanic Gardens, with the broad Yarra Yarra River slowly cleaving it in two, its soft, semi-tropical mists hanging over it, its temperate climate, its cleanliness and its low, rolling hills where it hides its suburbs. I didn't go to see Adelaide, in South Australia, because I was destined to live in Sydney, in New South Wales. 2 It is more than mere accident that Victoria has broader-gaged railways than New South Wales, and that travelers from one state to the other must get off at Albury and change, or between New South Wales and Queensland to the north of it. It is not mere accident, I am sure, for there is a like difference in the width of streets between Melbourne and Sydney. Sydney is hilly, exposed, bricky, and crowded, and though it is the premier city of Australia, it grows without changing. There is a conservatism about it which, in view of the activity of Australians, is inexplicable. Sydney is almost an old city. Its streets wind as though the settlers had been uncertain of the prevailing winds; and the hills tend to give it an appearance of huddling. The red roofs of the cottage-like houses, and their architectural style give it a European tone, slightly like an English city. It has none of the fresh, "hand-me-down" regularity of the American, nor the sober coziness of the English, village. Every street leads one to the center of the city, and wind as it will there is hardly any relief from commonplaceness. The thoroughfares are crowded with street cars which cross and circumambulate, some of the main streets are too narrow for more than single-track lines. Yet instead of seeing the earlier error and trying to correct it by prohibiting the erection of buildings on the present curb lines, the authorities have permitted one of the finest office buildings in the city--the Commonwealth Bank Building, to be placed on the same line as the rest of the old structures. It is hardly to be expected that such methods will ever broaden the streets. There are no tenements in Sydney, in the New York sense of the term, but the average home as I saw it on my usual rounds in search of quarters, was ordinary. The rooms were small, and there were few conveniences. But this is Sydney proper. Newer Sydney, with its suburbs and homes along the numerous peninsulas projecting into the waters of Port Jackson, is modern, clean, and airy, and really convenient. Man is a lazy animal and prone to dote on nature's beauties, neglecting his responsibilities to nature. Sydney, proud of its harbor, builds there and forgets its city-self. There are no fine structures to speak of, no monuments, no art, and even the library has to borrow a roof for itself in a building essentially excellent but neglected as a municipal white elephant. But there is a municipal organ in the Town Hall, and that makes up for much that is wanting in Sydney. I took up my quarters across the water from Sydney, and from there I could see the city through the glory-lens, its harbor. Little peninsulas, crossed in but a few minutes, project into the waters of the harbor, making it look like an oak-leaf and affording sites for the splendid homes that have been built there. Crowding is impossible; views of the water may be had from all angles. And here, in a borrowed nest, I sat for hours perched above the water, noting and gloating over its moods and character. What charm it works, when in the blood-red streaks of sunset the tidal floods cool the peaceful turquoise; when the busy little ferries of day become fairy transports with streaks of shimmering light as escort, moving across the still waters; when on Sunday morning Sydney across the way relaxes, amazing with revelations. With street and sky-line clear, quiet hangs in the air; or on more windy days, myriad whitecaps royne at the numerous ships which cross and recross one another's paths. In one direction, industry is idealized; in others, nature and beauty lie naked, above idealization. For two weeks I lived out at Manly Beach, nine miles by ferry from Sydney, and went in and out every day. The Heads lie to the right, and as we made our way across, the swells from the sea beyond rolled the little ferry teasingly. At times, when the swells were heavier and the crowds excessive, a sort of panic would spread over them, but some of the inevitable minstrels that swarm the streets and by-ways of Sydney, would counteract contagion with music and song. The beaches are always crowded. Annette Kellerman is Australian, and somehow, whether as cause or effect, Sydney people are the most amphibious folk in the world. They seem to live in the water. Every spare hour is spent on the wide stretches of sand that lie warm and white in the blazing sun. But nothing takes precedence over the harbor in the adoration of Sydneyites. Sydney is known for its gaiety, yet I was lonely in Sydney,--bitterly so. Perhaps people are too gay to think of others, perhaps their gaiety made me exaggerate my loneliness. "Nothing like the Australian larrikin when he gets going," you will be told. But what struck me was the latent distemper that lurked beneath much of the hilarity that I saw in Sydney. Australia is not very different from any of us,--a little more imitative, a little more outspoken, a little more gruff, a little more youthful. But wildness is not specially Australian; nor is bluntness; nor yet youthfulness. The Australian is perhaps a little more reckless, individually or _en masse_, than the people of other lands, but he puts up with the same social inconveniences; he reasons falsely at times and gets fooled; he gloats over the spectacular, becomes intensely excited over nothing,--and suddenly relapses. In a crowd he sometimes becomes belligerent, yet is easily led and easily relinquishes. But, above all else, he is gregarious. And it is because of this that he takes you in in Sydney,--and drops you out before you have known what has happened to you. Hence he is an inveterate sportsman, a heavy drinker, a perpetual gambler at the races,--faithful to his whimsicalities. Intellectually he is a fanatic, but tolerates all sorts of fanaticisms. A Sunday morning on the beautiful grounds of the Public Domain is enough to convince you that Sydney would welcome the most freakish freak in the world, imprison him for the fun of it, then sympathize with him if he dies in prison, as did the famous naked man, Chidley. I have seen Sydney men who seemed to me men without hearts, as soft and gentle as women in the face of another man's hurt. Yet when a well-known army officer stole funds that belonged to wounded soldiers and their needy families, I heard respectable Sydney men say they were glad he got away with it. I have seen girls at carnivals, who at ten o'clock went about tickling strange men under the chin, snarl at them at eleven and order them to "Trot along, now." I have heard Australians say harsh things of themselves in criticism, but true loyalty is widely prevalent among Australians. An Australian always wants a mate, "some one who would stick like lead" if he were up against it. The self-criticism comes rather from the more thoughtful Australians, who, looking out upon the future, want to see their country hold on to the prize it has won, and grow and become a leader in the affairs of the Pacific. But though Sydney and Melbourne are the leading cities of the commonwealth, he who has to judge of the nation by them wonders where that leadership is to come from. The love of pleasure is a sign of health in any people; and Australia is in that sense most healthful. Material progress is the next best indication of the state of a nation; and Australia is universally prosperous. But it is in the outlook on life that a country justifies its existence and insures itself against decay. Until the war, all reports of Australia on that score were negative. Provincialism, of the most ingrowing kind, obtained. Every state thought chiefly of itself; every city of itself only; every district of none other than itself. But with the war Australia took a tremendous leap forward. For the first time in her history, her men had a chance to leave the land which intellectually was little more than a sublimated prison to them. Half a million men left Australia for Europe and other sections of the globe. And if Australia knew what she was about she would now send the rest of her men and women abroad with the same end in view,--the education of the people for the place they occupy in the world. Much criticism is flung at Australia because her young men and women are inclined to enjoy life rather than burden themselves with a succeeding generation. If the beginning and end of life is reproduction, then that is a just criticism. But the welfare of the living is as important as the welfare of civilization. The greatest criticism is not that people will not bear children in the face of trying economic conditions, but that, having exceptionally favorable circumstances, they show no special inclination to become parents, and that nothing is being done to create conditions under which the bearing of young would be no handicap. But that requires an intellectual outlook which is at present wanting in the cities of Melbourne and Sydney. There is an over-emphasis of pleasure _per se_, a lack of seriousness in the concerns of life. Sydney lures men and women from the back-blocks and makes them feel human again, makes them forget the plains are sear, and that manliness is next to cleanliness. It affords dull station-owners a chance to mix with folk where sweetness and refinement, and not crudeness, is the order of the day and of life. It takes men and women who have been told that to increase and multiply is the only contribution they can make to the welfare of the community and shows them that there is something in life besides that. So when I think of what Sydney means to the world that lies behind it I cannot refrain from offering my contribution of praise. But then I ask myself and Sydney what it has done to make the back-blocks better, what it is doing to build up the country, and the fact becomes evident that it is only draining it. Fully 51 per cent of the inhabitants of Australia live in cities. It is for these cities to lay railroads and highways and to open the vast continent; and that can be done only by putting prejudices aside, by adding to recreation real creation and a soberness in the affairs of life which alone will win for Australia its place in the affairs of the Pacific. What, socially and individually, then, is the contribution of Australia to the civilization of the Pacific? Is her position to be one of eminent leadership commensurate with the welfare of the individual members of the Commonwealth, or is their joyousness going to make her citizens forget ambition and their ruling destiny? This much must not be forgotten,--that born as a convict colony, Australia has more than justified itself; that the term "convict colony" is now no more applicable to Australia than it is to Virginia. That handicap notwithstanding, Australia to-day is as far advanced as any nation in the world. The people do not generally take to higher mathematics, to philosophical thinking, or to science, but illiteracy is rare in Australia. Given a continent wherein nothing of civilization was to be found, Australia has made of it, in a little more than a century, a land productive, healthful, and promising. Much praise is due Japan for what she has accomplished along material lines in seventy years; how much more praise is due Australia for what she has done in about the same time! 3 As one journeys north along the Australian coast, life begins to thin out. Fate must have been in a comic mood when it apportioned me my experiences as I was leaving that island continent, for in Brisbane it allotted me an august funeral, and in Thursday Island it sent a missionary out to "attack me." Thereby hang two tales. I had walked what seemed to me fully two miles from the pier in the Brisbane River to the heart of town and was rather overheated. My septuagenarian Englishman trudged along by my side. When we arrived in the central thoroughfare I took note of the fact that things looked fresh and clean, that there was a tendency toward pink paint, but that otherwise I might have saved myself the journey. Alas, it was Saturday afternoon, and a half-holiday! Leaving my venerable comrade behind, I strode along at my own pace in search of adventure, my camera across my shoulder. I had taken to a hilly side street, and must have looked like a professional tourist. Absorbed in seeking, I was startled by an appealing voice behind me. Turning, I found the owner of that voice gazing intently at my camera. "That's a camera you have there, sir." I admitted my guilt, wondering what crime lurked in the possession of a camera. "I've been trotting all over town trying to find a photographer, sir, but their shops are all closed. Would you mind coming along with me, sir, and taking a picture of a funeral as the mourners come out of church. Lady ---- is so anxious to have a picture of them just leaving church. The deceased, sir, her husband, was a very much beloved gentleman, a prominent official, and devoted to the church in which now lie his remains, and she would be so pleased if you would come and taik a fouto for her." In his excitement, he slipped into the use of cockney, so prevalent in Australia. I threw out my chest and thought to myself: "See here, old man, do you think I've lived in New York and London and Paris, and Sydney, and ---- to be sold a gold brick in Brisbane? But I'll show you I'm game." And I followed him up the street. But sure enough, there at the top of the hill, from an imposing church, emerged a funeral, posing to be taken. It did not matter to this man that I told him my ship was in port only for the day and that before I could possibly make a print I should be either in China or Japan. But just then Fate thought she was carrying the joke too far and sent along a native son with a camera, and I was released. I set out for the ship. In the little gullies that lie along the way were shacks or cottages, raised on piles, with inverted pans between them and the floor beams. White ants were eating to pulp these supports. We were in the tropics again. Fate must have chuckled. She is fond of practical jokes. The next time she tried one on me, I was in Cairns. Having entered Australia on the ground floor, Melbourne, I suppose Cairns might be said to be the fifth-story window. I left the ship the moment she was made fast, keyed up with expectation of seeing the tropics again. Ashore, the spirit hovering about tropical villages took me in hand. No better guide can be found on earth. With a voice subdued, it urged me to pass quickly through the town, which was still asleep except for the saloons and their keepers. The spirit leading me complained of that other spirit which leads and captures most men in the tropics. My spirit, happy to have a patron, offered me luxurious scenes, melodious sounds, and mellow colors,--happy in receiving a grateful stranger. While pressing through the little village, I noticed the mission type of architecture of the post-office; the concrete columns guarding the entrance of the newspaper office; the arched balconies of a hotel; the delicate, dainty cottages raised on wooden piles, the verdure hiding defects, and the main building lost in a massive growth of yellow flowers overgrowing roof and all. A small opening for entrance and a pugnacious corner were the only indications of its nature as a residence. Then there were a "School of Arts" and a double-winged girls' school. The whole town was pretty and in concord with the scenes about. But I was not held. I pressed on toward the hills, to the open road. _Allons!_ But alas! I betrayed myself by doubting the "spirit of the tropics" which was guiding me. I resorted to a tiny mortal for information, and in that way angered the spirit, which instantly deserted me. Not content with whisperings, I had sought definition, asked for distance,--Where? Whence? How? And I lost! He was a little man, with worn shoes from the holes of which peeped stockingless feet. In the early morning he had slipped on shoes which would not deprive him of the dew. He had covered his little legs with a dark pair of dirty trousers, his body with a soiled white coat, and his mind with misunderstood scripture. His bulging eyes betrayed his inward confusion. Upon inquiring, he informed me that the road led to the hospital and would take me fifteen minutes to negotiate. Then he wanted to know if I came off the _Eastern_. "Any missionaries on board?" he asked. "I don't know," I answered. "I suppose that is something you don't trouble much about." I agreed. "Ah, that's just it. Don't you know the Bible says, 'Be prepared to meet thy Maker?' How do you know but what any moment you may be called?" "Well, if I am, I have lived well enough to have no fear." "Yes, that is just it. You live in carnal sin. You have no doubt looked upon some woman with lustful eyes this very morning. I sin, too, every moment." Heaven knows I had not been tempted. I hadn't seen any woman to look at, and nothing was further from my mind just then. And so it was,--sin, assumption and condemnation. I talked with him a few minutes, asserted my fearlessness, the consciousness of a reasonably good life. But nothing would do. The poison of fear with which he contrived to wound me I now had to fight off. I had come out all joy and happiness in the new day, the loveliness of life. If worship was not on my lips it was in my heart, and he had tarnished it. He brought thoughts of sin and death to my mind, which, at that moment, if at any time in my life, was free from selfishness and from unworthy desires. I cut across to the sea,--not even an open avenue being fresh enough for me now. It was as though I had suddenly inhaled two lungfuls of poison gas and struggled for pure air. I turned back to the boat, not caring to go too far lest she leave port. A tropical shower poured its warm water over me as though the spirit of the tropics felt sorry, and forgave me. I returned to the ship, and quarter of an hour later we were moving out into the open sea again. 4 The next and last time that I landed on Australian soil was at Thursday Island, one of the smallest of the Prince of Wales group, north of Cape York Peninsula, in the Torres Strait. German New Guinea (now a British mandatory) lies not far away. There is not much of a village and most of the buildings are made of corrugated iron. But there was not at that time that stuffy, damp odor which pervades Suva; nor, in fact, was there much of that mugginess that is Fiji. Yet it is only eleven degrees from the equator, whereas Fiji is thirteen. The street is only a country road, and dozens of goats and kids pasture upon it. The few stores (closed on Sunday) were not overstocked. There are two large churches. One was built from the wreckage of a ship that had some romantic story about it which I cannot recall. There was also another institution, the purpose of which I could not discern. It was musty, dirty, dilapidated, with shaky chairs and shelves of worm-eaten books. I suppose it was a library. Hotels there were galore, and though bars were supposed to be closed on Sunday, a small party of passengers succeeded in striking a "spring." I wandered off by myself. Slowly the great leveler, night, crept into the heart of things, and they seemed glad. Orientals and natives from New Guinea lounged about their little corrugated iron houses, obedient to law and impulse for rest. Japanese kept off nakedness with loose kimonos. One of them lay stretched upon the mats before the open door, reading. Others squatted on the highway. Tiny Japanese women walked stiffly on their wooden _geta_ as they do in Japan. Tiny babies wandered about alone like wobbling pups. Upon the sea-abandoned beach groups of New Guinea natives gathered to search for crabs or other sea-food. A cow waded into the water to cool herself. And the sail-boats, beached with the receding tides, lunged landward. Peace and evening. Nay, more. There is not only indolent forgetfulness here; there is more than mere ease in the tropics: there is affluence in ease. A something enters the bone and sinew of moving creatures which awakens and yet satisfies all the dearest desires. And nothing remains when night comes on but lamplight and wandering white shadows. Late that night I returned to the ship. Deep, familiar sounds revived my memory of Fiji, on the other line of my triangle. A chorus of New Guinea voices,--rich, deep, harmonious, and rhythmic--rose from a little boat beside us. In it were a half-dozen natives, squatting round a lantern, reading and singing hymns in their own tongue. Such mingled sadness with gladness,--one does not know where one begins and the other ends. Shiny black bodies crouching and chanting. Hymns never seemed more sincere, more earnest. They were waiting there for midnight to come, when Sunday ends for them, and toil begins. The ship must be loaded. Then voices will rattle with words and curses. All night long they labored with good things for other men. When I came out in the morning they breakfasted on boiled yams and turtle, a mixture that looked like dough. Instead of using their fingers, they employed sharp pointed sticks, doubtless in imitation of Japanese chop-sticks. Progress! Shortly afterward we struck across the Arafua Sea, and saw Australia no more. CHAPTER IX OUR PEG IN ASIA 1 Venturing round the Pacific is like reincarnation. One lives as an Hawaiian for a spell, enters a state of non-existence and turns up as a Fijian; then another period of selflessness, and so on from one isle to another. From such a period of transmigration I woke one morning to the sight of Zamboanga, and knew myself for a moment as a dual personality,--a Filipino and an American in one. All day long we hugged the coast of the islands of the group--Mindanao, Negros, Panay, Mindoro, Luzon--the cool blue surface of the choppy sea between us and reality. After so many days' journey along the coast of Australia, through sea after sea, it seemed unreasonable to require a turn of the sun in which to outstrip a few Oriental islands. Then we swung to the right. Ahead of us, we were told, lay Manila, but even the short run to that city seemed interminable. At last the unknown became the known. A red trolley-car emerged from behind the Manila Hotel. Life became real again. Our ship had hardly more than buoyed when a fleet of lighters surrounded her,--flat, blunt, ordinary skiffs; long, narrow, peculiar ones. The former I thought represented American efficiency; the latter, Filipino whimsicality. The Filipino craft were decorated in black, with flourishes and letters in red and white. Over their holds low hoods of matting formed an arch upon which swarmed the native owners. How business-like, yet withal attractive. And business became the order of the night. From beneath the matted hoods of the lighters flickered glimmers of faint firelight. Life there was alert, though quiet. It hid in the shadows of night; confined in the holds, dim candles and lanterns quivered: peace reigned before performance. A quiet harbor; moon and stars and mast-lights above; a cool, refreshing breeze. That was my first night in Manila Harbor. Morning. Not really having stretched my legs in nearly three weeks, since sailing from Sydney, Australia, I naturally felt in high spirits upon landing. The mists which hung over Manila quickened my pace, for I knew that before I could see much of that ancient town they would be gone, dissipated by the intense heat of the tropical sun. I was eager to put on my seven-leagued boots to see all that I had selected years before as the things I wanted to stride the seas to see. But I soon discovered that I was only a clumsy iron-weighted deep-sea diver. All round the Pacific I had traveled alone. I wanted no mate but freedom. But the three weeks _en route_ from the Antipodes, on board a small liner whose major passenger list was made up of monosyllabic Oriental names drove me, willy-nilly, into the companionship of the septuagenarian English captain. 2 On account of the keying down of my reactions to the tempo of seventy-three plus British sedateness, I wrote many things in my book of vistas that seem to me now mere aberrations. Just to indicate what the effect was I shall confess that as I approached the Walled City I conceived of myself as almost a full-fledged Don Quixote storming the citadel of ancient aggression. But my elderly Sancho Panza held me back lest the shafts of burning sunlight strike me down. Standing before the gates of antiquity, even the most haughty of human beings moves by instinct back along the line of the ages, like a spider pulling himself up to his nest on his web. Round the black stone wall which encircles the old Spanish city, that which was once a moat is now a pleasant grass-grown lawn. The wall itself, still well preserved, has been overreached by two-story stone houses with heavy balconies which seem to mock the pretenses of their "protector." Outwardly, things look old; within change has kept things new. Mixed with surprised curiosity at two Antipodes so close together comes a feeling of contact with eternity, the present of yesterday linking itself with the antiquity which is to be. A long, narrow street stretched across the city. Spanish buildings tinted pink and delicately ornamented, lined the sides. White stone buildings, chipped and seamed with use and age, lined the way. Broad entrances permitted glimpses of sumptuous patios, refreshed by tropical plants; low stone steps leading up to dark vault-like chambers; windows barred but without glass,--spacious retreats built by caballeros who thought they knew the value of life. Indeed, they knew how to build against invasion of the sun and the Oriental pirate, but not against the invasion of time. Perhaps they live better as Spaniards to-day than they lived as conquerors yesterday. Here, within the walled city, everything looks as though change were not the order of eternity. Everything is as it was, yet nothing is so. Trolley-cars clank, motor-cars of the latest models throb quietly, pony-traps and bullock-carts stir the ancient quiet. One wonders how so much new life can find room to move about in such narrow streets with their still narrower sidewalks that permit men to pass in single file only, and angular corners and low buildings. But there they are, and there they bid fair to remain. Even the unused cathedrals, whose doors are here and there nailed shut, stand their ground. Some of them even close the street with their imposing fronts, the courage of fervent human passion in their crumbling façades. [Illustration: FILIPINO LIGHTERS DROWSING IN THE EVENING SHADOWS] [Illustration: THE DOCILE WATER BUFFALO IS USED TO WALKING IN MUD] [Illustration: ONE CAN THROW A BRICK AND HIT SEVEN CATHEDRALS IN MANILA] [Illustration: COOL AND SILENT ARE THE MOSSY STREETS OF THE WALLED CITY OF MANILA] At that early hour there was little sign of human life. Into some of the cathedrals native women crept for prayer. Here and there a confined human being passed across the glassless windows; here and there a tourist flitted by in search of sights. And I soon realized that within the walls, intramuros, there was nothing. Across the park, across the Pasig River, there one finds life. Yet within that ancient crust there is new life. Some old buildings have been turned into government offices, high schools, a public library fully equipped, an agricultural institute, everything standing as in days of old, but new flowers and plants growing in those crude pots,--old surroundings with a new spirit. Something mechanical in that spirit,--typewriters clicking everywhere under native fingers; still, typewriters don't click without thoughts. Here, then, is the conflict in growth between the ends of time, heredity struggling with environment, the fountains of youth washing the bones of old ambitions. They may not become young bones, but may we not hope they will at least be clean? May not time and patience remold antiquity, absorb its bad blood and rejuvenate it? Typewriters clicking everywhere; tongues born to Filipino, then turned to Spanish, now twisting themselves with English. The trough has been brought to the horse. Will he drink? The library was full of intelligent-looking young Filipinos, the cut of their clothes as obviously American as the typewriters clicking behind doors. Both typewriters and garments indicated efficiency, but I could no more say what was the impulse in the being within those clothes than what thoughts were being fixed in permanence to the sound of an American typewriter. The most symbolical thing of all was the aquarium built beneath one wing of the great wall round this little village. If in the hard shell of American possession arrangement can still be made for the freedom, natural and unconfining, of the native Filipinos, we shall not lay ourselves open to censure. The natives may not be satisfied, they may prefer the open sea; but that is up to them to achieve. As long as we keep the water fresh and the food supplies free, they can complain only of their own crustaceous natures and nothing else. 3 All Manila does not live within the walls, however,--not even a goodly portion of it,--and the exits are numerous. Passing through the eastern gate, one comes into a park which lies between the walled city and the Pasig River. Beyond the river and on its very banks is Manila proper. As I got my first glimpse of the crowded, dirty waterway, I could not say much in reply to my companion, whose patriotic fervor found expression in criticism of American colonization. It was like looking into a neglected back yard. The Englishman did not seem to see, however, that to have done better in so short a time would have been to inflict hardships on the natives which no amount of progress ever justifies. Still, with memories of Honolulu as a basis for judgment I was not a little disappointed. How to change people without destroying their souls,--that is the problem for future social workers for world betterment to solve. Meanwhile I had succeeded in eluding my burden of seventy-three years and opened my eyes to the life round about me. There was still a bridge to cross. It was narrow, wooden and crowded. It was only a temporary structure, built to replace the magnificent Bridge of Spain which was washed away in the great flood of September, 1914. During the few minutes it took me to saunter across it, the traffic was twice blocked. Perhaps to show me how full the traffic was, for in that moment there lined up as many vehicles and people and of sufficient variety to illustrate the stepping-stones in transportation progress. There were traps, motor-cars, carts drawn by carabao, or water-buffalo, bicycles, and trolley-cars. Everybody seems to ride in some fashion. Yet everybody seems to walk, and in single file at that. Gauze-winged Filipino women,--tawdry, small and ill-shod, or, rather, dragging slippers along the pavement--insist on keeping to the middle of the narrow walks. Frequently they are balancing great burdens on their heads, with or without which they are not over-graceful or comely. Their stiff, transparent gauze sleeves stand away from them like airy wings. One hasn't the heart to brush against them lest these angelic extensions be demolished, and so one keeps behind them all the way. The men also shuffle along. They wear embroidered gauze coats which veil their shirts and belts and trousers. There is something in this lace-curtain-like costume that seems the acme of laziness. Neither stark nakedness nor the durability of heavy fabrics seem so prohibitive of labor as does this thin garment. No inquiry into the problem of the Philippines would seem to me complete without full consideration of the origin of this costume. But one is swept along over the bridge, and is dropped down into Manila proper by way of a set of steps, through a short alley. The main street opens to the right and to the left. It is brought to a sudden turn one block to the left and then runs on into the farther reaches of the city; to the right it winds its way along till it encompasses the market-place and confusion. This chiseling out of streets in such abrupt fashion is puzzling to the person with notions of how tropical people behave. Why such timidity in the pursuance of direction and desire? The obstruction of the bridge promenade by the main street and of the main street by a side street have a tendency to shoot the seer of sights about in a fashion comparable to one of those games in which a ball is shot through criss-cross sections so that the players never know in what little groove it will fall or whether the number will be a lucky one or not. I first fell into a bank, and the amount of money one can lose in exchanging Australian silver notes into American dollars is sufficient to dishearten one. The shops were too damp and insignificant to attract me much, however, so I ventured on into the outer by-ways of the city. There the dungeon-like stores and homes and Chinese combinations had at least the virtue of ordinary Oriental manner in contrast to our own. The Chinese cupboard-like stores, that seem to hang on the outside of the buildings like Italian fruit-stands, held few attractions. There was an obvious utilitarianism about them which, strange as it may seem, is the last thing the man with no fortune to spend enjoys. Shops and museums afford the unpossessing compensation for his penury. As I made my way ahead to a small open square, my attention was arrested by a performance the full significance of which did not at first appear to me. At the gateway of a large cigar-factory from which came strolling male and female workers, sat two individuals--two women at the women's gate, two men at the men's--and each worker was examined before leaving. As a woman came along, the inspector passed her hands down the side of the skirts, up the thighs, over the bosom,--then slapped her genially and off she went. Through it all, the girls assumed a most dignified manner, absolutely without self-consciousness and oblivious of the gaze of the passers-by. What is more certain to break down a man's or a woman's self-respect than becoming indifferent to the opinion of the public as to the method of being searched? A Freudian complex formed to the point of one's believing oneself capable of theft, the next thing is to live out that unconscious thought of theft and to care nothing for the censure of the world. When at work, these girls possessed a sort of sixth sense. The cigarettes are handed over to them at their benches to be wrapped in bundles of thirty. They never stop to count them--just place the required number in their left hands encircling them with thumb and fingers, reject an odd one if it creeps in, and tie the bundle. I counted a dozen packets, but did not find one either short or over, and the overseers are so certain of this accuracy that they never count them either. But what a different world is found at the public school not very far from the factory! The building was not much of a building,--just an old-fashioned wooden structure with a court. Its sole purpose seemed to be to furnish four thousand children with training in the use of a new tongue. "Speak English," stared every one in the face from sign-boards nailed to pillars. I listened. The command was honored more in the breach than in the observance, yet where it was respected strange English sounds tripped along tongues that were doubtless more accustomed to Tagalog and Spanish. There was nothing shy in the behavior of these boys and girls. They moved about with a certain monastic self-assurance, less gay than our children, more free than most Oriental youngsters. In a few years they will be advocating Filipino independence, in no mistaken terms,--if they have not been caught by the factory process. I went straight ahead and found myself on my way back into the city,--but from a side opposite that from which I had left it. The squalor and the dungeon-like atmosphere were indeed nothing for American efficiency to be proud of. Slums in the tropics fester rapidly. One cannot say these places were slums; but they certainly were not native villages. One felt that here in Manila America's heart was not in her work. Why build up something that would in the end revert to the natives, to be laid open to possible aggression and conquest! One felt further that the Filipinos did not exactly rejoice in being Americans. What they actually are they have long since forgotten. Once foster-children of Philip of Spain. To-day the adopted sons of America. To-morrow? How much more fortunate their Siamese cousins or relatives by an ancient marriage! Yet all who know Manila as it was ten years ago agree that there have been vast improvements in a decade. One does not include in this generalization the residences and hotels of the foreigners, for obvious reasons; still, the welfare of a community is raised by good example. That afternoon I stretched in the shade of one of the walls of the old walled citadel with its fine gateways. I pondered the significance of those stones against which I was resting. One gains strength from such structures as one does from the sea,--not only in the actual contact, but in the thought that that which human effort accomplished human effort can do again. My septuagenarian had returned to the ship for rest. I thought of his criticisms of the American occupation of Manila, of his suggestions that England would have made of it a fine city. I wondered what drove the Spanish to build this wall. To protect themselves against Chinese pirates? There is not a country in the world that has not tried to safeguard itself against invasion by the process of invasion. Yet any attempt to do otherwise is decried as impractical. All the while, decay weakens the arm of the conqueror. But more luring scenes distracted my thoughts. The sinking sun stretched the lengthening shadows of the wall as a fisherman, at sunset, spreads his serviceable nets. Filipinos passed quietly to and fro; cars, motor-cars, and electric cars cut a St. Andrew's cross before me. The scent of mellow summer weighted the air. Slowly everything drew closer in the net of night. Two days later I was in Hong-Kong, where the Oriental dominates the scene. I was at the third angle of the triangle, and hereafter the subject is Asia. CHAPTER X BRITAIN'S ROCK IN ASIA 1 To one who had received his most vivid impressions of China from her noblest philosopher, Lao-tsze, it was somewhat disconcerting to peep through the porthole just after dawn and find oneself the center of a confusion indescribable. The sleepy, heaving sea was more in tune with the mystic "Way" of the great sage. I had not anticipated being thrust so suddenly among the masses and the babel on which Lao-tsze, that gray-beard child, had tried to pour some intellectual oil. Yet, I had been living on the top floor of a Chinese "den" for twenty-six days between Sydney and Hong-Kong. On board I was ready to blame the steamship company for the crowding and the uncleanliness. Had there been a dozen murders, I should not have regarded it as unnatural. Had I been compelled to spend three weeks in such circumstances, I should either have committed hara-kiri or killed off at least four hundred and fifty-five to make the decent amount of room necessary for the remaining fifty. So I was prepared to exonerate them, to praise them for their pacifism and their orderliness in such conditions. But when I peeped out of the porthole that morning and saw the swarming thousands struggling with one another to secure a pittance of privilege, which these five hundred had to offer by way of baggage, my heart went out to the great sage of 650 B. C. He must have been courageous indeed. Full families of them on their shallow sampans cooperating with one another against odds which would sicken the stoutest-hearted white folk. Yet in that Oriental mass there was the ever-present exultation of spirit. Laughter and good-natured bullying, full recognition of the other man's right to rob and be robbed. No smug morality teaching you to be shy and generous in the face of an obviously bad world, a world ordered so as to make goodness the most expensive instead of the least expensive quality. But I soon discovered that beneath that external jollity only too frequently fluttered a fearful heart, filled with dread of the slightest change of circumstances. The distance between the ship and the shore was not like Charon's river Styx, but it was a way between the Elysium of an alien metropolis and a Hades of hopeless nativity, none the less. Beyond stood the towering hills of Hong-Kong with its massive palaces in marble at the very summit. Chinese will to live had builded these, but the people had not, it seems, enough will left to build for themselves. From the very foot of the hills upward rose a steady series of buildings which looked surprisingly familiar, yet somewhat alien to my expectations. It was something of a shock to me to find that Hong-Kong was Chinese in name and character only, while being European-owned and ordered. I felt fooled. I had gone to see China, but found only another outpost of Great Britain. My American passport had had most fascinating Chinese characters on the back of it. But the "Emergency Permit" issued to me in Sydney, had none. Between British ports one can always expect British courtesy and that largeness of heart which comes from having taken pretty nearly all there is worth while in the world without being afraid of losing it. So I made some hurried mental adjustments as we chugged our way across, amidst bobbing sampans, and convinced myself that it might have been worse. In that great future which will put modern civilization somewhere half-way between the Stone Age and itself, the stones of Hong-Kong will give investigators much to think about. Everything in Hong-Kong is concrete and stone. From the spacious office buildings that stand along the waterfront, to the palaces upon the peak, stone is the material out of which everything is built. What achievement! What a monument to Britain! But as the stones become harder beneath one's feet, one senses the toil embodied in them. Male and female coolies still trudge over these stony paths, carrying baskets of gravel, tar, or sand higher and higher. These structures seemed to me like human bridges which great leaders of men sometimes lay for their armies to pass over. Where do they lead to? Perhaps to England's greatness; perhaps to the world's shame. At first one is prone to be rigid in one's judgment. There seems too much evidence of desire to build securely, rather than humanely or beautifully. The Orient, one hears, builds more daintily, more softly, more picturesquely; America builds more comfortably and more thoroughly. One might add, apologetically, that had not the masters driven these coolies to such stony tasks, the poor creatures would simply have built another Chinese wall at the behest of one of their own tyrants. Cheap labor makes pyramids and walls, and palaces on the peaks of Hong-Kong. But it also makes an unsightly slough of humanity about itself. Considering how costly pyramids and palaces such as those at Hong-Kong are, considering the plodding toil it took to build them, for the sake of humanity it is better that they were built of stone, so that rebuilding may never be necessary. Everywhere as we climb we pass rest stations, coolies buying a few cents' worth of food, coolies carrying cement. While far beneath lies murky, moldy Hong-Kong with its worm-like streets, its misty harbor waters, its hundreds of steamers, sail-boats, sampans, piers, and dry-docks, and all around stand the peaks of earth and the inverted peaks of air. Returning by another route, down more winding and more precipitous paths, one passes great concrete reservoirs, tennis-courts, an incline railway, water-sheds,--and the city again. 2 The days draw on even here, and sunlight is curtained by dim night. The din of human voices loses its shrill tone of bargaining, the rickshaw men trot regularly but more slowly. Carriers of sedan-chairs lag beneath their loads; their steps slow down to a walk. Women by the dozen slip by, still with their burdens, but their voices have a note of softness, pleasing sadness. And now comes the time of day when no matter in what station one's life may be cast, spirit and body shift to better adjustment. And through the dim blue mist the shuffling of feet is heard, or the sounding of loose wooden slippers like drops of water in a well. Whatever revived activities may follow this twilight hour, now, for the world entire, is rest,--even in toil-worn, grubbing, groveling China, which seems not to have been born to rest. "Business" is not yet gone from the streets of Hong-Kong, though it is now wholly dark. Every one is working as though the day were but just beginning and it were not Sunday night. It is impossible to select "important" things from out this heap of human debris. Filth, odors, activity, jewelry, dirty little heaps and packets of food,--all are handled over and over again, and each one is content with a lick of the fingers for the handling. Then when quite worn out one may rest his bones on the pavement covered with straw or mat, or if more fortunate, may have a hovel or a house in which to breed. The number of homeless wretches sleeping on the inclined stone pavements of Hong-Kong was simply appalling. And Hong-Kong is British made. Hong-Kong was a barren island twenty-nine miles in area when seventy-five years or so ago Britain demanded it from China; to-day its population is nearly a tenth of that of the whole continent of Australia. But what a difference in the status of that population! Certainly no man who sees the result of over-population in proportion to a people's industrial ingenuity can blame Australia for keeping herself under reproductive self-control. A few of the things one sees as a matter of course in Hong-Kong will illustrate. As I was coming down Pottinger Street I was horror-struck at the sight of a small boy on his knees groaning and wailing as though he were in unendurable agony. I thought at first he was having a fit, but it became obvious that there was method in his madness. He was repeating some incantation, bowing his head to the ground, tapping frantically with a tin can on the stones, and chanting or shrieking out his blessings or his curses, which ever the case may have been. He was a blind beggar, and though he must have received more money than many a coolie does (for even Chinese have coins to give) and in a way certainly earned it, I could not but smile at his wisdom,--for at its worst it was no worse than the labor of the coolie. Yet from many passers-by he evoked only slight amusement. Upon some steps in an unlighted thoroughfare stood a Chinese haranguing a crowd. His voice was not unpleasant, his manner was persuasive. But what to? Had he been urging China to stop breeding, to cease this worm-like living and reproducing, I should have regarded him as a public benefactor. For it made me creepy, this proximity to such squirming numbers. Beside a dirty wall around the corner was a medicine man selling a miraculous bundle of herbs. He screeched its powers, gave each a smell, which each one took since it cost nothing, and then he went into frightful contortions to demonstrate that which these herbs could allay. But from the expression on his face it was obvious they could not allay his disappointment that the purchasers were few. At an open store was a crowd. I edged my way up to see the excitement. It was a "doctor's operating-room." Upon a bench sat an old man, gray-haired and almost toothless. The "doctor" stood astride the patients' knees and with a steel instrument, somewhat rusty, calmly and carelessly stirred about in the old man's eyeless socket. All the sufferer did was to mutter "Ta, ta, ta," pausing slightly between the ta's, but never stirring. No guarding against infection out on the open, dusty, dirty thoroughfare. The crowd looked on without any sign of emotion. A few women sat on a bench inside, but seemed quite indifferent. There was one exception. A little mother with a boy of about six contemplated the performance with a pained expression. Her boy's eyes were crossed and turned upward. He had to be treated, too. Finally even these things end. It is nine o'clock. Shops are closing, the crowds on the streets die down. And for one brief spell the world will rest. Here we have four examples of life in China. When we examine them closely, haphazardly chosen as they have been, there is a strange uniformity and contradiction in their basic situations. The blind beggar-boy, the charlatan advocate and medicine man, the careless surgeon,--at bottom all charlatans, yet all essentially sincere. That ranting little beggar howled his lying appeals, but at home, no doubt, were other mouths to be fed for which he--blind head of the family--was responsible. The herb-specialist seemed, from the tone of his voice, sincere in the belief in his remedies; the surgeon, certain of his operation. Yet that is what China is suffering from most, and because of the faith in their crude panaceas and the conviction that five thousand years of tradition gives folk, the Rockefeller Foundation will have to work for many generations before it will make China prophylactic. 3 There was another incident that illustrated, to me at least, China's ailment. Hong-Kong seemed possessed one night. I thought a riot or a revolution had broken out, but it was only a house on fire. Thousands of Chinese scurried about like rats looking for ways of escape. From the littered roof and balcony of a five-story tenement a flame leaped skyward as though itself trying to escape from the unpleasant task of consuming so dirty a structure. The curious collected in hordes from everywhere. I made my way into this mass not unaware of being quite alone in the world. It was interesting to be in this sort of mob. The reason for China's subjugation showed itself in the ease with which it was controlled. One single white policeman, running back and forth along the length of a block, kept the whole mob well along the curb. It was amazing to watch the crowd retreat at the officer's approach and then bulge out as soon as he passed by. One young Chinese stood out a little too far. The officer came up on his rear, yanked him by the ear, and sent him scurrying back into the mob. They who dared rushed timidly across the street. I remarked this to the policeman. He was pleased. "If you want to get closer up, just walk straight ahead," he said. And so I did, as did other white men who arrived, without being stopped. That was it: we were quite different; we could go. Later a host of special police, Chinese and Indian regulars, arrived and relieved this lone white officer. This incident seemed to me to symbolize China's present state. No leader, no cohesion, no common thinking. Had the mob been resentful,--what then! It was a mob the like of which I had never seen before. A dull murmur sounded through all the confusion. It seemed to be of one tone, as though all the notes of the scale were sung at once and they blended into one another like the colors of the spectrum. The people seemed wonderfully alert. Their hearing was keen. Two tram-car conductors conversed forty feet away from each other, with dozens of yapping Chinese between. Thus, China enjoys a oneness like that of water. Easily separated, lightly invaded, rapidly reunited, her masses flow on together when directed into any channel, and it matters little where or why. And the white policeman assured me that when the Chinese still wore queues a policeman raided a den and tied the queues of fifteen Chinese together and with these as reins drove them to prison. 4 Yet, what nation or race in the world has maintained such indivisibility against so much separation! Think of what the family is and has been to China,--its creeds, its government, its entire existence. Yet the family and concubinage obtain side by side. There was evidence of this in British Hong-Kong. Upon the street one day I saw another crowd. It was waiting for the appearance of the Governor of Canton. When the worthy governor emerged from a very unworthy-looking building, the crowd cheered and gathered close around the automobile. A well-dressed young Chinese in European clothes emerged from the hall. I asked him what was toward, surmising his understanding. He spoke English fluently and seemed pleased to inform me. So we strolled down the street together. He was not very hopeful about Chinese democracy as yet, but believed in it and expressed great admiration for America. Britain, he said, was not well liked. He spoke of his religion, his belief in Confucianism. He regretted that Hong-Kong had no temples and that he and his friends were compelled to meet at the club for prayer. Yet though he was a Confucianist, he decried the family system. "Chinese cling too much to family," he said. "One man goes to America, then he sends for a brother simply because he is a relative. The brother may be a very bad character, but that doesn't matter. So it is in official circles in China to-day. Graft goes on, jobs are dispensed to relatives worthy or unworthy, efficient or inefficient. And the country is getting deeper and deeper into difficulties." As though to prove the truth of his assertions, he told me of his own experiences as a child. "Chinese obey," he said. "My father paid for my education, therefore my duty toward him should know no bounds." His father had had ten children, only two of whom survived,--he and an elder sister. When his father died, he became the head of the family. Therefore he had to marry, even though then only fifteen years of age. He had been married for sixteen years. I should never have believed it, to judge from his appearance. He seemed no more than a student himself, but he assured me he had five children,--one daughter fifteen years old. Birth-control! Limitation of offspring! Why bother? If his father could "raise" a family of ten on "nothing" and then just let them die off,--why not he? So does duty keep the race alive. And duty tolerates that which is sapping the very foundation of the race,--not only the enslavement of the wife in such circumstances, but the entertainment of the concubine. I saw the way that works. At the opposite end of the city is the quarter where the concubines abound. Life there does not begin till eight o'clock in the evening, if as early. The clanging of cans and the effort at music is terrifying. Hotels of from four to five stories, with all their balconies illuminated, gave an effect of festive cheerfulness which the rest of the city lacked utterly. [Illustration: IN CHINA DRINKING-WATER, SOAP-SUDS, SOUP AND SEWERS ALL FIND THEIR SOURCE IN THE SAME STREAM] [Illustration: SHANGHAI YOUNGSTERS PUTTING THEIR HEADS TOGETHER TO MAKE US OUT] [Illustration: THIS OLD WOMAN IS LAYING DOWN THE LAW TO THE WILD YOUNG THINGS OF CHINA] [Illustration: CHINA COULD TURN THESE MUD HOUSES INTO PALACES IF SHE WISHED--SHE IS RICH ENOUGH] Upon the ground floors, which opened directly upon the street, the women could be seen dressing for the evening. Nothing in their behavior or dress would indicate their profession,--so unlike the licensed districts of Japan. The women never as much as noticed any stranger on the street. At the appointed time each little woman emerged, dainty, clean and sober, and passed from her own quarters to the hotels and restaurants where she was to meet her chartered libertine. Her decorum approximated saintly modesty, and she moved with a childlike innocence. There was throughout the district no rowdyism, no disorderliness. Everything was businesslike and according to regulation. Strange, that with so much self-control should go so much licentiousness. But it is part of the mystery of the Orient. 5 Yet, this is no stranger than that with so much of excellence in Hong-Kong, there should also go the perpetuation of coolieism; to paraphrase, that with so much dignity and honesty in trade should go so much inhumanity in the treatment of men. That is the mystery of Britannia,--and her success. America went into the Orient and immediately began educating it. In answer to a German criticism of British educational work in Hong-Kong, the "Japan Chronicle" (British) says: Considering how much greater British interests in China have hitherto been than American, the Americans are far more guilty of the abominable crime of educating the Chinese than the British, having spent a great deal of money, and induced young Chinese to come to America and get Americanized. Most people, including impartial British subjects, would find fault rather with the narrow limits of English education in China than with its intentions. Hongkong has been for many years the center of an enormously profitable trade, and had things been done with the altruism that one would like to see in international relations, there would be ten universities instead of only one and a hundred students sent to England for college or technical training where only one is sent to-day. Hitherto, it has been Britain's success that she has not interfered with the habits of the races she has ruled. In Hong-Kong she has built a modern city out of nothing, but has permitted Asiatic defects to find their place within it. For instance, there was no sewerage system in Hong-Kong,--a fact than which no greater criticism could be made of Britain, or of any other nation pretending to be civilized. In this no question of altruism is involved, but purely one of self-interest. And if greater concern for such matters were manifest, doubtless it would work its way back through concubinage, ancestor worship, charlatanism in public and private life. Having taken my chances with criticism, I shall risk praise. Englishmen have never, to my knowledge, been given credit for the possession of romantic souls; yet nothing but a deep love of romance could be responsible for the manner in which Britain has preserved Hong-Kong's Chinese face. Despite the fact that it is entirely Western in its structure, I never felt the Oriental flavor more in all Japan than I did at Hong-Kong. The sedan-chairs that take one up the steeps and remind one of the swells on the China Sea in their motion, the thousands of rickishaws that roll swiftly, quietly over smoothly paved streets, the particularly attractive Chinese signs that lure one into dazzling shops with unmistakable Eastern atmosphere, the money-changers and the markets dripping with Oriental messes, left an impression on my mind that none of my later experiences can dispel. CHAPTER XI CHINA'S EUROPEAN CAPITAL 1 Under the benign influence of a Salvation Army captain, my feet were guided safely through some of the lesser evils of Shanghai. The greater could not be fathomed in the short time allotted to me in the European capital of China. Miss Smythe, who resented being called Smith, in a manner that revealed she had long since ceased to be shy of mere man, belonged to New Zealand by birth and heaven by adoption. She chose Hong-Kong, Shanghai, and Tokyo as temporary resting-places. It was her task, every five years or so, to make a complete tour of the Orient to collect funds for the Salvation Army. Hence her captaincy. I was walking along Queens Street, Hong-Kong, somewhat lone in spirit, when a rickshaw passed quickly by. The occupant, a fair lady, bowed pleasantly to me and disappeared in the mêlée. I could not recall ever having seen her face and wondered who in Hong-Kong she could be. Then it struck me that she wore a hat with bright red on it. Later that day, as I stepped into the launch to be taken across to the _Tamba Maru_, who should appear but this selfsame lady. We greeted each other, both surprised at the second meeting and at the coincidence of our joining the same ship. "I thought I had met you when I greeted you on the street this morning," she said. All the way from Hong-Kong to Shanghai she was as busy going from class to class as she was on shore, spreading the faith, placing literature where it could be found and read, organizing hymn parties and discouraging booze. The Japanese on board took her good-naturedly. She spoke their language fluently, but I could not see that they drank one little cup of saké the less for her. When we arrived at Shanghai she would have nothing else but that I should go with her to some friends of hers for dinner. Into one rickshaw she loaded her bags, into another me, with the manner of one handling cargo, and then deposited herself in a third. The train made its way along the Bund and out of confusion. And that was the way I was shanghaied. Somewhere in a street that might for all the world have been in Chicago, our train drew up. It was quiet, had a little open park in it, where two streets seemed to have got mixed and, scared at losing their identity like the Siamese twins, ran off in an angle of directions. Here at a brick-red building with balconies and porticoes, and a dark, damp door, we made our announcement and were received. Now what would the world have thought if a Salvation Army man had picked up a strange young woman on a steamer and haled her into a strange house? None but a Salvation Army Lassie could have done what Miss Smythe,--not Smith, mind you!--dared to do. We were welcomed as though the appearance of a stranger were in the usual course of events, and I was asked to stay for dinner. The hostess, a quiet woman, with her pretty young daughter, kept a boarding-house, and was always prepared for extra folk. It was a boarding-house like any I should have expected to find in America. The rooms were spacious, hung with framed prints, and dark and slightly damp, according to Shanghai climate. There was something haunting about the house, but to a homeless vagabond like myself it seemed the acme of comfort. And to one who had had no real home meal in five weeks or more, but only ship's food, the spread we sat down to was delicious. Miss Smythe did not enjoy her dinner as much as I did, for she feared all along that she would not be able to get to church on time. Then it was too late for me to regain my ship, so I was invited to spend the night under a roof instead of a deck. The next day I wandered off by myself, but not till I had promised to return for Chinese "chow." In the meantime Miss Smythe had spread my fame among others of her profession, and made a date for me to go to a "rescue house" or some such place that evening. It was a mission home for Japanese, run by a woman who, if she wasn't from Boston, I'm sure must have come from Brookline. The only thing Oriental about that mission was its Japanese. A sumptuous dinner was served which, despite the fact that I had had "chow" only twenty minutes before, I was compelled to eat. With two heavy meals where one is accustomed to berth, accommodations were somewhat crowded. Everything would have gone well if I hadn't promised to give the residents a talk on my travels. I began. Miss Smythe felt that I wasn't emphasizing the presence of God in the numerous regions I had visited. I took His omnipresence for granted, but she kept breaking into my talk at every turn. Two meals inside of two people who both tried to lecture at once didn't go very well, especially at a mission in China run by Europeans and attended by Japanese. It seemed that there was not over-much love lost on the part of the sons of Tenno for those of the Son of Heaven, nor did the European missionaries at this place encourage the intermarriage of these illustrious spirits. The Bostonian in exile on more than one occasion spoke disparagingly of the cleanliness of the Chinese, much to the satisfaction of the Japanese. But then, she was winning and holding them to the Son of God, and when they reached heaven they would all be one. Miss Smythe afterward apologized to me for interrupting me during my talk, and we parted as cordially as we had met. Some months later I found her roaming the streets of Kobe, Japan, as active as ever in the militant cause. Her insinuations about what goes on in Japanese inns seemed to me unjustifiable. So I asked her whether it was fair to the Japanese and Chinese for her to be forever repeating hearsay when she would resent it were I to repeat what I had heard about the morality of the Australians. It took her aback, but I am sure that she is still pursuing vice and drink and irreverence, aided and abetted by the dollars which she extracts from foreign business men and reprobates throughout the East. 2 But I must get back to Shanghai, even though Miss Smythe is so attractive. As long as I remained under her wing I had taken virtually no notice of China. So it is in Shanghai; one cannot see the Orient for the Occidentals. For if Hong-Kong is an example of adulterated British imperialism, Shanghai is one of European internationalism grafted upon China. At Shanghai the forces of two contending racial streams meet, like the waters at the entrance of Port Philip, and here, though the surface is smooth and glassy, there are eddies and whirlpools within, which are a menace to any small craft that may attempt to cross. How strange to wander about streets and buildings quite European but to see only here and there a white face! It is an ultra-modern city built upon a flat plain. The streams of Chinese that come wandering in from regions unknown to the transient, give him a sense of contact with a vast, endless world beyond. They might be coming from just round the corner, but their manner is of plainsmen bringing their goods and chattels to market. In comparison with the Southern Chinese, these are giants, but still dirty and most of them chestless. In constant turmoil and travail, beggars pleading for a pittance with which to sustain their empty lives, limousines making way for themselves between rickshaws and one-wheeled barrows, coolies pulling and carrying loads, some grunting as they jig their way along, others chanting in chorus,--yet all in the "foreign" settlement, amid buildings that are alien to them, and largely for men who see only the gain they here secure. I wonder if the Chinese say of the Europeans as Americans are often heard to say of Italians and Orientals,--that they come only to make money and return to spend it? Yet the white have built Shanghai. Shanghai is not Chinese. Had it not been for the white men, the plain would still be swampy, would still be a litter of hovels with here and there a mansion flowering in the mud. The mud still messes up the edge of things in Shanghai. The creek is an example. There are the sampans and barges, some loaded with pyramid-like stacks of hay, some with heavy, thick-walled mahogany coffins, the myriads of families huddling within the holds, and the murky tides washing in and washing out beneath them. Here the sexes live in greater intimacy, it seemed to me, than in Hong-Kong. I actually saw one woman place her hand in what I was sure was an affectionate way on the shoulder of a man: and some were mutually helpful. But otherwise, despite the great conglomeration and greater coöperation, in the entire mass one cannot see how ancestor-worshipers can show so little regard for one another. In the market-place the confusion is more orderly. Here even white women come to stock up their kitchens, and here Japanese women move about, sober by nature and by virtue of the superiority they possess as conquerors in their husbands' rights. Two girls are quarreling vociferously and the more self-controlled look on both sympathetically and antipathetically. The washed-down pavement of the market floor is no place, however, for a serious bout. Through the long hours of early evening I wandered into one street and out the other. I had become more or less reconciled to the alien aspects of Shanghai, to good stores selling good goods, to fashionable hotels and spacious residences, but one thing was inalienably alien to it, and that was a second-hand book-shop. It had not occurred to me that foreigners in China would part with their books if they ever got hold of them. And for a moment I was altogether transported, and my magic carpet lay in San Francisco, in Chicago, in New York all at once. But it was chilly and the rain made the city worse than a washed-down market, for it depopulated the streets, leaving me as dreary in heart as in body. I was glad when the hour came for me to make my appearance at the kind woman's house for chow. Though I was sorry to hear the missionary at the mission decry the Chinese to the satisfaction of her Japanese patrons, and felt that it turned me slightly against both, still both Japanese and missionaries were kind and attentive to me. In the evening, a young Japanese business man called for a motor-car and took us out in the bleak, wet night to see the great white way of Shanghai. The rain deflected the strange glimmers of electric light through the isinglassed curtains of the car. For a time we skidded along over slushy streets, turning into the theater district as the attraction supreme. Here the gonfalons drooped in the watery air, while Chinese mess merchants stood in out of the rain with their little wagonettes of steaming portions. In a whirl we were through the cluttering crowds and making for the residential districts. Then wide avenues opened out in serpentine ways, shaggy trees dripping overhead, the slippery pavement swinging us from side to side as our dare-devil Chinese driver sped on to Bubbling Well. For an hour we rode, I did not know whither, but everywhere at my right and left were palatial Chinese and foreign residences. Without knowing it we had turned and were back in Shanghai, and presently within doors again,--and asleep. 3 Next day, this same Japanese business man volunteered to escort me to Chinese City. I would have gone by myself, but every one looked horrified at the idea; so I accepted this knightly guide. At the appointed time I presented myself at his office. He had asked his Chinese clerk to accompany us for protection, and ordered three rickshaws. Though he had lived in Shanghai for years, he had never gone to see Chinese City, and was glad to avail himself of an excuse for doing so now. The Japanese is a natural-born cicerone. In a few minutes we had left the international section of the settlement--that jointly occupied by Britain and America--and wobbled into the French district. Suddenly we stopped, and our carriers lowered their shafts to the ground. We were at a narrow opening three or four feet wide, and I could not understand why we should pay our respects to it. "From here we have to walk," said the Chinese, and in single file we entered, dropping out of Shanghai as into a bog. That was real China, but only as little Italy in New York is real Italy. The whole of Chinese City can be summed up hastily and in but a few words. Narrow, dirty little thoroughfares laid out in broken stone paving, tiny shops where luxuries, necessities, and coolie requisites are sold,--dark, dirty, open to the damp! What destitution is the inheritance of these thousands of years of civilization! The first thing to greet us, standing out against the general wretchedness, was not beautiful. To one accustomed to hard sights and scenes, to one not easily perturbed by human degradation, that which passed as we entered was sufficient to unnerve him. Upon the wet, filthy street rolled a legless boy. He had no crutches; his business required none. He was begging: howling, chanting, and rolling all at the same time. I could not say "Poor child!" Rather, poor China, that it should come to this! Immediately after, though having no business connections, came an old man. Came? Walked crouching, bowing his gray head till it touched the filthy pathway. He was kotowing before the menials of China, not its empress. The third was the worst of all. One old, ragged, broken beggar was carrying on his back what might have been a corpse, but was another beggar; the two--one on top of the other--were not more than four feet above the ground. I felt as though Mara, the Evil One, was trying to frighten me by an exhibition of his pet horrors so that I might not go farther. I was not being perturbed, the horrors ceased. But what beauties or treasures were they meant to guard? What was there that I was not to see? What ogre dwelt within? Nothing but a bit of business, so to speak, in a social bog. Beside a tideless creek, advertised as a lake, stood a pagoda-like structure, just a broken reflection imaged in the mud. As we approached we were immediately taken in charge by a Chinese guide and led along a path crudely paved with cobblestones into an "ancient" tea-garden. The wall around it was topped with a vicious-looking dragon that stretched around it. A tremendous monster of wood, it lay there; and perhaps it will continue to lie there long after China shall have forsaken the dragon. Then from chamber to chamber we strolled, past tables of stone and shrines and effigies, and into the heart of China's superstitious soul. Though in itself not ancient, what a peep it afforded into antiquity,--dull, dead, yet powerful! For within these secret chambers there were displayed endless numbers of emperors and their dynastic celebrities. In one chamber, blue with smoke and stifling incense, lighted with red candles, burning joss-sticks, behung with lanterns, and crowded with lazy Chinese, we found several "emperors" with red-painted wooden effigies of their wives. To me the smoke was choking; not so to them. The incense was sweet in their nostrils, and nourishing. And in payment for the sacrificial generosity and the prayers of fat, wealthy Chinese women who fell upon their knees, rose, and fell again, bowing and repeating incantations, they were to make the husbands of these women--too busy to come themselves--meet with success in business. Seriousness and earnestness marked the features of these women, and who can say their faith was ignored? We emerged from this underground chamber upon another thoroughfare, pursuing which we came upon an open, unused plot. Here a circus had attracted a crowd. A three-year-old baby, a pretty little sister, a feminine father, and a masculine mother were the entertainers. They were acrobats. A family row--which, it would seem, is not unknown in China--was enacted without any of the details being omitted; nor did they stop at coarse and vulgar acts which would have brought the police down upon them in America. Yet the audience seemed highly amused, while some of the spectators might easily have posed for paintings of Chinese bearded saints, or have been models for some of the sacred effigies which, not more than a block away, were idols in the temple. These are the high spots in Chinese City, a city into which I was urged not to venture alone. That human life should be considered of little worth here is not marvelous; but that any one there should consider the prolongation of his own a bit worth the taking of mine, is one of the inexplicable marvels of the world. Is this China? By no means. It is merely the back-wash of the contact with European life which has been imposed on China without sufficient chance for its absorption. It is no more typical of China than our metropolitan slums are really typical of American life. True, they are the result of it, but where the rounding out of relationships and conditions have been accomplished there follows a graduation of elements to where good and evil obtain side by side. And Chinese City is but the worst phase of Chinese slums plastered upon Shanghai. 4 Poverty in Chinese City is one thing; in Shanghai it is another. It is all a matter of the background. Buddha the beggar is still Buddha the Prince. After I came out of Chinese City I took much greater note of the details of the life of the coolie, the toiler in Shanghai proper. I was out on the Bund. The stone walls hemming in the river Whang-po rise at a level round the city. For five feet more the human wall of coolies shuts out the tide of poverty and despair from a world as foreign to China as water is alien to stone. From both walls a murmur reaches the outer world: the swish of the tide, the hum of coolie consolation. I let myself believe that they chant beneath their burdens to disguise their groans. Up and down the Bund they course, here at exporting, there at importing. Their gathering-places are at the godowns, and in and out they pass up and down inclined planks, each with a sack, or in couples with two or more sacks hanging from their shoulders, never resting from these rounds. At another point they are delivering mail to the ship's launch. Two cart-loads arrive. Coolies swarm about the carts, waiting for orders. Some are mere boys, but already inured to the tread. As each lifts a bag of mail he passes a Japanese, who hands him a stiletto-shaped piece of wood with some inscription on it,--painted green to the hilt. He takes two steps and is on the gang-plank, two more, and he has burdened himself with three bags of mail, and returns; he received and returns three sticks. That is the way count is kept of the mail. I couldn't understand this close precaution. Could the coolie possibly abscond with a bag of mail under the very eyes of an officer? Two small boys eagerly rushed a distance on, to pick up some bags that had been left there. They were acting without order,--spontaneously. They would have saved themselves some labor in that way. But the officer in charge shrieked his reprimand at them. One, in his enthusiasm, ignored the command. The officer rushed after him and boxed his ears. The boy received the punishment, but went right ahead with his burden. Hardened little sinner! calloused little soul! poor little ant! One youngster came up, chanting the sale of some sweet-cakes. Looking into his face, I wondered what he was thinking just then. He must think! No one could be so young and have such a cramped neck, such sad eyes, such furrowed brows without hard thoughts to make them so. In the slush and rain, under semi-poverty and destitution, barefoot, ragged, and in infinite numbers,--still they toil. Yet against the background of sturdy Shanghai, their labor and their travail does not hurt as much as it does in Chinese City. The perplexities of life--national, racial, of caste--pervaded my thoughts. Why has China remained dormant so long? Why is she now waking? How will she tackle the problem of poverty? To me it seems that nations rise and fall not because fluctuation is the inherent law of life, but simply because universally accepted glory and prestige are positions generally paid for by accompanying poverty and disease. No nation can dominate for a long time with such coolieism as that in China. China has standards all her own. We come with our ways and claim superiority. China grants it, yet goes her own way. And when we see her sons we like them, though we may criticize, condemn, and try to change them. This is the oneness of China and the consensus of opinion is that it is lovable. People come, employ Chinese as servants, and try to train them. They may take that which they think you do not need, carry out their own and not your ideas. You in turn rave and roar, but in the end they are still there as servants and you as master. But they have educated you, you have not changed them. And when you leave China you long for them as did that American woman I met in Honolulu who fairly wailed her longing aloud to me. China has done this with whole nations, and, to the very end of time, whatever nation sets out to rule and conquer that new republic must make up its mind to be lost. And so behind Shanghai is Chinese City, and behind that there is China, out upon the flat plains. There is another China yet beyond, and still another and as many as there are billows on the sea. Build modern buildings and cities, and the Chinese take them and turn them inside out, and they are what he wants them to be. This plastic people,--what is their destiny? And what, still, is there awaiting the world as they fulfil that destiny? How strange it feels to call her republic! Yet China has taken to republicanism as though it had been brewing in her these thousands of years. From outward appearances one would never know that she is a republic to-day. Some say she really isn't. Coolies still are coolies, and Chinese, Chinese. And I dare say she is both empire and republic, two in one. For centuries China has lain dormant as though stung by a paralyzing wasp. Centuries have been lost in sleep. But what are centuries, when waking is so simple and is always possible? China has wakened. She is rising. An hour's work has been accomplished in the first fresh flush of the new dawn. Perhaps that is all that will be done that day, the house put in a little better order. To-morrow is time enough for real work. A Chinese junk comes out of its night-mist retreat with its own dim lights. A shrill whistle of a passing launch echoes across the flat plains about Shanghai. The rain of yesterday remains only as a sorry mist. A vision of clearer day shimmers through, but soon grows dull again. China seems to have shaped her climate in her own image. A two-days' steam to Moji, Japan, on the bosom of that heaving mistress the China Sea, and my journey was over for a long while. The sea was black, the sky somber; even the sun was sad as it stooped that evening to kiss the cheek of Japan good night. I did not know just then that I was to say farewell to the sea for two and a half years,--a farewell that resulted in _Japan: Real and Imaginary_. CHAPTER XII WORLD CONSCIOUSNESS _The Third Side of the Triangle_ ... For surely once, they feel, we were Parts of a single continent. Now round us spreads the watery plain-- Oh, might our marges meet again! 1 I had gone out to the _Katori-maru_ to inspect my quarters. I always loved to get away from shore, even if only in a launch or sampan; it was so much cleaner and fresher on the bay. That afternoon it was altogether too attractive out there, and the city of Kobe lay so snugly below the hills that I decided to remain on board till late in the evening, and missed the last launch. I hailed a sampan. In this, with the wind splashing the single sail and the spray scattering all about us, we slipped romantically back to the American Hatoba. It was my last entrance to Kobe. All of the next day I kept changing trains and creeping over Japanese hills and rice-fields in my devious and indirect route to Yokohama by way of Japan's national shrine, Yamada Ise. A few days later I was on board the _Katori-maru_, the newest type of Japanese shrine, the modern commercial floating shrine, named after one of the most ancient of shrines in Japan. The Katori shrine is said to have been founded some twenty-five hundred years ago during the reign of the mythical first emperor, Jimmu Tenno. It was dedicated to deities who possessed great military skill and has always been patronized mainly by soldiers. Transferring shrines from land to sea is a hazardous procedure. For me, however, I was ready to give my offering most willingly as long as it brought me to Seattle. There were too many people willing to patronize floating shrines at that time for me to be too particular about deities. [Illustration: FUJIYAMA Japanese roofs may be monotonous--but never so is Fujiyama Photo from Brown Bros.] [Illustration: SEA, EARTH AND SKY All are one in this glorious Pacific World Photo from Brown Bros.] For a moment, as we slipped away from the pier, I felt what a dying man is said to feel when the flash-like review of life's experiences course through his sinking consciousness. I saw Japan and all its valleys, its dirt and its sublimity; and with all its past confusions I loved it. Waiting for a final glimpse of Fuji left me idle enough to observe the little things about me. There was, for instance, the two-by-two-by-five sailor who was showing two Japanese girls through the "shrine" he was serving. I followed them about the ship. He was explaining to them various mysteries. The Sailor: "Kore wa otoko no bath. [This is the men's bath.]" To the minds of these Japanese maidens such a distinction was surprising. The Sailor: "Kore wa second class. [This is second class.]" This was like treading on sacred ground to these lowly born mites. The Sailor: "Kore wa kitsu en shitsu. [This is the smoking-room.]" Why a special room for so simple a service--and why men only? He led them above to the hospital. He never made any comments, they asked him no questions, but followed, single file, as is proper for Japanese girls, agape with curiosity. They passed the life-saving equipment. A tiny voice ventured a question. An amazed member of the Japanese Government (it was a government subsidized vessel) said, with semi-scorn: "Kore wa? _Boat._ [This? _Boat._]" And they went below. 2 All of that forenoon, waiting for the _Katori-maru_ to slip away from the pier, I watched for Fujiyama, that exquisite pyramid (to the summit of which I had climbed twice), but it was veiled in mist. I wanted to see what it looked like from the sea, just as I had seen what the sea and the universe looked like from its peak. All afternoon, as Japan was receding into the past, I tried to distinguish old Fuji, but there was only a glittering edge, like a sword, beneath the low, bright sun. After dinner I went on deck and there in all that simple splendor which has made it the wonder of the world, stood Fujiyama, with a soft, sunset glow beneath its peak. The symbolic sword had vanished. And I felt that in all those years and miles and space which gather in my memory as that single thing--the Pacific Ocean--nothing transcends in loveliness the last view of Fuji from the sea. Then for two days the world seemed to swoon in mist. The fog-horn kept blowing drearily every two minutes; yet the steamer never slackened its speed for a moment; in fact, we made more miles those two days than during the clear days that followed. We had taken the extreme northern route and were soon in a cold latitude. The fog became crisp, as though threatening to crystallize, and when I stood on the forward deck it was almost like being out in a blizzard. The siren continued to emit its melancholy wail across a wilderness of waves lost in mist. One could not see the length of the ship. At midnight I woke, startled by the sudden cessation of the propellers. For three hours we were stationary, owing to engine trouble. The steamer barely rocked, giving me the sensation of the deep as nothing ever did before. It was at once weird and lovely, and in the darkness I could imagine our vessel as lone and isolated, a thing lost in an open wilderness of space. The siren continued moaning like the wail of a child in the night, and once I thought I heard another siren off in the distance. We started off again and from then on didn't once slacken our speed in the least, so large, so spacious, so unfrequented is the Pacific in these days. The fog hung close for so many days that a rumor went round that the captain was unable to get his bearings. With neither sun nor stars to rely on men's best instruments are altogether inadequate. At half-past nine o'clock one evening, however, the steel blinds were closed over the port-holes. The ship began to pitch and roll. The waves rushed at us and broke against the iron cheek of the vessel. The fittings on deck rolled back and forth, and those passengers unused to the sea clung to their berths. Only when we were within three days of the American coast did the sun come out. For over a week we had been in a dull-gray world which was becoming terribly depressing. We were considerably farther north than I had expected to be. Five days after our departure, I was again at the 180th meridian, and enjoyed what only a very eager, active person could enjoy,--a forty-eight-hour day. This time, going eastward, we gained a day. I also had the pleasure of being within fifty degrees of the north pole just as three years before I had been within fifty degrees of the south pole. In other words, I had touched two points along the 180th meridian which were six thousand miles away from each other, or twice the distance from New York to San Francisco. Calculations are somewhat misleading at times. For instance, when we were near the Aleutian Islands, I chanced to compare the records of that day's run as posted in the first saloon with those posted in the second saloon. The first read 4,240 miles from Yokohama; the second, 4,235 miles. Japanese handling of figures made the prow of the ship five miles nearer its destination than the stern. Japanese historians also have a tendency to make such innocent mistakes in their imperialistic calculations. Japan's feet do not seem to be able to keep pace with her desires. As though to investigate this phenomenon, a little bird,--slightly larger than a sparrow, with the same kind of feathered back, but with a white breast, flitted down upon the deck before me,--and began hopping about. It approached to within two feet of me, then sneaked into a warm place out of sight. A stowaway from birdland, stealing a ride and planning, most likely, to enter America without a passport. Perhaps it thought that being near the stern of the boat, according to the calculations above quoted, it could still remain beyond the three-mile limit. Then the homeward-bound spirit took possession of me,--that selfsame realization of my direction which had come over me upon sight of the Australian coast three years previously, a psychological twisting which baffled me for a time. Another day and we were within the last square marked off by the latitudinal and longitudinal lines,--the nearest I had been to America in nearly five years. To remind me of my wanderings, the flags of the nations hung in the dining-saloon: under nearly every one of them I had at some time found hospitality. 3 The reader who has followed me thus far has been with me about three months on the sea. What to the Greeks and the Romans was the Mediterranean, the Pacific will be to us seventy times over. Already there is a wealth of literature and of science which has come to us through the inspiration of that great waterway. For Darwin and Stevenson and O'Brien the Pacific has been mother of their finest passions. In the near future, our argosies will cross and recross those tens of thousands of miles as numerously as those of the Phoenicians on the Mediterranean in antiquity. They will bring us back the teas and spices and silks of the Orient. But there are those of us who have watched the "White Shadows" of the Pacific who would wish that something were brought away besides the ephemeral materials. For there is in the sea a kinship with the infinite and the absolute, and who studies its moods comes nearer understanding life. I wandered along one night with a New Zealand man, without knowing where he was leading me. Suddenly we came, by way of a narrow pathway, against a wall of darkness. We were at the seashore. It was as though we had come to the world's end and the white glistening breakers arrived as messengers from eternity, warning us against venturing farther. I strained my eyes to see into that pitch-black gulch, but I might just as well have shut my eyes and let the persistent breakers tell the story of the sea in their own way. Afterward I often made my way out to that beach and sat for hours, or trod the sands till night left of the sea nothing but mournful whisperings. One day in August, when the first snow fell over our little winter world in the far South, I had climbed the hills up to the belt of wildwood that girds the city of Dunedin. The very joy of life was in the air. Keenly I sensed the larger season,--that of human kinship merged in the centuries. I looked across the hills to mountains I had known; but it was then not the Alps I saw, not the Rockies, the Aeta Roa under the Southern Cross, nor yet the Himalayas nor the snow-packed barriers of the Uriankhai, the unrenowned Turgan group. In truth, I was not seeing impassable peaks at all, but imprisoned ranges which were themselves trying to outreach their altitudinal limitations. It was a world consciousness which was mine, and I towered far above the highest peaks, above the world itself. I saw no single group, no political sections nor geographical divisions, the conquest of ridges, the commingling of noises, the concord of peoples. And when men come to this world consciousness they will recognize and accept all, include the barrier and the plain. They will see these great, sheer rugged peaks knifing the floating clouds, yielding to the creeping glaciers, yet one and all, when released sweeping down the valleys as impassioned rivers, filling the lowest depths of earth, depths deeper than the sea, lower than the deserts. In such moments of world consciousness men will have to step downward from the bottom of the sea and upward from the summit of McKinley. Then barriers will become beacons. Mankind lives at sea-level. We care little about our neighbors over the ranges. That mental attitude makes barriers real and valleys dark. But when we turn them into beacons we shall climb the barriers in order to look into the valleys of our neighbors and they will become the ladders of heaven and the light unto nations. That is the lesson of the sea. At present we live at a sea-level, but beneath and behind the barriers, are the peaks of earth. Hence walls of houses are as great barriers as mountains. Hence even thoughts are barriers and ideals become terrible, cold, insurmountable prominences. But in world consciousness, which is the lesson of the sea, we do not reject anything,--the religions, the political parties, the anti-religions, and the negations,--but we bring them to the level of human understanding by absorption, by taking them in. That is the story of the sea. The ocean breaks incessantly before us, but only the one majestic wave thrills as it rises and overleaps the rocky barrier. A forest is densely grown, yet only the stately, beautiful tree stirs the forest-lover. The street swarms with human beings all of whom are material for the friend-maker, yet only one of the mass, in passing, steeps the day's experience in the essence of love. But loving that one wave, or tree, or being does not shut us against the source of its becoming; rather does it teach us the possibilities latent in the mass. That is the moral of the sea. But what is the sea? How can we know the sea? Is it water, space, depth? Can we measure it in miles, in the days required to traverse it, in steamship lines, by the turning of the screws, or by the system of the fourth dimension? To me who have been round the greatest sea on earth comes the realization that I have seen only a narrow line of it, and that I can only believe that the rest is what it has been said to be. Yet my faith is founded on my knowledge of the faithfulness of the sea. The sea, we sometimes say, has its moods, but rather should they be called enthusiasms. It is really not the sea at all to which we refer, but to something which in the vague world of infinitude is in itself a sea whipping the surface of an unfathomable wonder. The sea's moods are not in its breakers, any more than is the surface phenomenon which floors the region between our atmosphere and ether, the story of our earth. We cannot reach down beneath the breakers and learn the secret of the heart of the sea. In ourselves, as in the sea, we obtain a record of that tremendous silence which is the harbinger of all sound, as the heavens are of all color. One day in New Zealand I witnessed a conflict between the earth and the sea. A tremendous wind swept north-westward, and pressed heavily down upon the shore. It sent the sand scurrying back into the sea. Even the breakers, like the sand, fell back in furious spray like the waves of sea-horses,--back into the ocean. The entire length of the beach for three miles was alive with retreating spray, mingled with the bewildered sand-legions scurrying at my ankles. One night, on the shores of Otago Harbor, the moon, blasted and blunted by heavy clouds, had started on its journey. In a little cave huddled a cloud of black night. We had spread the faithful embers of our camp fire so they could not touch one another, and wanting touch they died in the darkness. We had put the curse of loneliness upon each of them. The little cave had become only a darker spot on a dark landscape,--a landscape so rough, so rare and rugged, reaching the sea and the western sky of night. So rough, so unformed, so uncompleted. The maker of lands was beating against it impatiently, rushing it, forming it. What uncanny projections, what sandy cliffs! For ages the wind and sea have been whipping them into shape. Yet man could remove them with a blast or two. For thousands of miles, all round the rim of the great Pacific, the same process is going on, day and night. While upon land, man has continued working out his mission in the same persistent, unconscious manner. O Maker of lands' ends, O Sea, when will man be formed? When will the conflicts among men cease? They have tried to curb one another and to subject one another to slavish uses, even and kempt. But still, after ages of whipping and lashing, they are still unfinished as though never to be formed. Are the various little groups which lie so far apart, scattered by some ancient camper, to die for want of the touch of comrade, like those embers in the darkness of that empty cavelet? Here round the Pacific we dwell, each in his own little hollow. May not this vast, generous ocean become the great experiment station for human commonalty, for distinction without extinction? The dreams that centered in the other great seas--the Mediterranean, the Atlantic--were only partially fulfilled. But here at the point where East is West, it ought to be possible, because of the very obvious differences, to maintain relations without irritating encroachment. There was a time when passionate desire justified a man taking a woman from another with the aid of a club. To-day the decent man knows that however much he may love, only mutual consent makes relationship possible. And from the frenzy of untutored souls let those who feel repugnance withdraw till the force of a higher morality makes the rest of the world follow in its wake. ... now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating to the breath Of the night-wind down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world. Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain: And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night. BOOK TWO DISCUSSION OF NATIVE PROBLEMS--PERSONAL AND SOCIAL CHAPTER XIII EXIT THE NOBLE SAVAGE 1 To the primitive or simple races of the world marriage, divorce, and supply of only the elemental wants are the most intense problems. Nourishment and reproduction make up the rounds of life. While the highly developed nations around the Pacific are concerned with the exploitation of the resources of the islands, and with political problems growing out of their reciprocal interests, the natives are struggling with matters that lie nearer the real foundations of life. For them the question of survival is an immediate and pressing one. Extinction is facing many of them, absorption by inflowing races is creating altogether new difficulties and relationships, such as marriage and divorce, while newer conceptions of exchange and trade, the buying and selling of meats and vegetables, are introducing social and moral factors they could not as yet be expected to understand. Nor can we who have thrust ourselves upon them or accepted responsibility for their well-being understand our obligations unless we think of them as human beings, or without visualizing their problems by human examples. Nor can we escape these responsibilities or shirk them. Out of the stuff their lives are made of grow the larger problems, those of the relationship of the great civilizations that touch each other on the Pacific--Asia, Australasia, America. Threnodies and elegies a-plenty have mourned the passing of the Polynesians of the South Seas. The noble savage whose average height often measured six feet--plus thick callouses--has stalked among us, as a mythical figure, maidens unabashed in their naked loveliness have lured men to the tropics oblivious of home ties. Leisure and unlimited harems in prospect have afforded many a civilized man salacious joys the like of which the white race has not altogether abandoned, but which few have the courage to pursue in the open. The passing of these Pacific peoples has in some quarters been hailed as an indication of the viciousness of civilization; their yielding to virtue has been deplored by others. The sentimentalist has clothed them in romance; the cynic has stuck horns in their brows. But whether the romancer is wrong or the missionary devoid of appreciation of nature unadorned, the passing of the Polynesian is an admitted danger. Whether it was the vice of the drunken sailor or the clothes of the devout disciple that brought about this downfall shall not here be determined. It will be mine merely to depict in living examples the episodes that indicate their evanescence, and to point to the silent forces of regeneration that are at work,--forces that, having accomplished the virtual decease of some of the finest races in the world, and yet are bringing about their rebirth. One cannot live in the tropics without romancing. The simplicity, the earnestness of life, devoid of many of the outer signs of avarice so consonant with the individualism of our civilization; the slovenliness unhampered by too many clothes,--these take one by a storm of pleasure. One forgets the natives once were cannibals; or rather, one delights in saying to oneself "they were," and forgets to thank the missionary and the trader for having altered these tastes before one arrived; one exalts every sprawling female into a symbol of naturalness, though Heaven knows the soft white skins and hidden bosoms of the North come as welcome reminders in face of native temptations. And with Professor Brown of New Zealand, one deplores that the selfsame missionaries and traders "in spite of their antipodal purposes and methods, alike force the race to decay." Their contract with the white race is demoralizing even where it aims to be most just and helpful. Their lands, made secure to them by legislation (as in New Zealand), often become the means of gratifying wild tastes for motor-cars and fineries which leave them bankrupt physically and morally. 2 It was a steaming day. I had been up from before dawn in order to make my pilgrimage to Vailima. Half the morning was not yet gone when I returned to the little hotel in Apia, situated beside the reefs, to hide myself away from the burning sun. Even within the shade of the upper veranda my flesh squirmed beneath my shirt and the shoes upon my feet became unbearable. So off went my shoes. Nothing merely romantic could have induced me to crawl from under the shadows. There I was content to listen to the lapping of the broken waves as they washed shoreward over the reefs. There I inhaled the scent of tropical vegetation as it reached me, tempered and sifted to the satisfaction of one who dreads the sun and its overweening brilliance. Suddenly a wail lanced the silence. It sounded for all the world like the melancholy "extra" which New York newsboys cry through the side streets when they wish to make a fire the concern of the world. I sprang up and, leaning over the veranda rail, strained my neck in the direction of the crier, who was still behind the bend in the road which is Apia's Main Street. It seemed to take him an unconscionable time to come into view, his voice approaching and receding, and being battologized as though by a hundred megaphones. Prancing, crouching, and shading his eyes in the manner of an Amerindian scout, he finally made his appearance,--a grotesque fiend, one to strike terror to the heart of a god. His oiled body glistened in the sun; his charcoal-blackened jaw resembled that of a gorilla; while a scarlet turban of cheese-cloth wound after the fashion of the Hindu gave flaming finish to this frightful impersonation of the devil. Nothing but the presence of the army of occupation and the _Encounter_ out in the harbor could have allayed my apprehension, not even the vanity of racial superiority or the oft-repeated prophecies about this vanishing race. For he seemed savagery come to life. Presently four others, similar personifications of deviltry, came on behind him. In addition to make-up, each brandished a long knife used for cutting sugar-cane, or a clumsy ax. They squatted, they jumped, whirling their weapons in heavy blows at imagined enemies. Never was make-believe played with greater conviction, never was the wish father to the act with more pathetic earnestness. The pitcher of a chosen nine never hurled his ball across an empty field with greater determination to win the coming game than did these warless warriors wield their weapons. Slowly from the rear came the army, four abreast, in stately procession. There were seventy-five Samoans, each over six feet tall, men of girth and bone and pride. Their glistening bodies reflected the sun like a heaving sea. Their loins were draped in leaves in place of the every-day sulu, with girdles of pink tissue paper round them. Their faces, too, were blackened with charcoal, and turbans of red cheese-cloth capped them. Those of them who could not secure knives or axes, wielded sticks with threatening realism. In an instant I was in my shoes again and out upon the road, a bit of flotsam in the wake of a great pageant. I fell in with a Samoan policeman, dressed like an English Bobby, trailing along in the rear. "What's the trouble?" I asked. "Is this a preliminary uprising?" There was much talk of the Germans stirring the natives to rebellion against British occupation, but evidently the natives had had enough of alien squabbles, and it seemed to matter little to them by which of the white invaders they were ruled. A strange expression came into the policeman's face, a mixture of awe and contempt. He could speak only a very scant amount of English, but enough to unlock this awe-inspiring secret. "Tamasese, the king he dead," he said. I fumbled about in my memory for coincidences. The policeman was old enough to have been an understanding boy at the time Stevenson took up the cause of Mataafa as opposed to the German interests and antagonistic even to the British and American attitude. It must have been strange to him, therefore, to find himself a British policeman in a uniform of blue, with a heavy helmet, timidly following a funeral procession in honor of the son of a king disfavored of Stevenson,--while all about were the soldiers of New Zealand. I got nothing from him of any political significance, but much in the way of the spirit of his race. For though an officer of "the" law, perhaps the only one of his kind in Samoa, he dared not go too close to the ranks of these stalwarts. They had come from every islet of the Samoan group, the pick of the race, representatives declaring before the whole world: Our race is not dead; long live our race! So, all along the way for over a mile into the country behind Apia, continued the procession. Not for a moment did the antics cease; not for a moment did the wail of the warriors subside. Every time the advance scouts called out, "O-o-o-o-s-o-o-o" [The king is dead], the four behind him thundered their denial, "E sa" [Long live the king], and the entire regiment droned the confession "O so." For the king was truly no more. Not only the king but his kingdom. For not only was there now no struggle of aliens over its precincts, but the second conqueror, Britain, who once did not think Samoa worthy as spoils, had stepped in and taken possession. The procession filled the native population with awe. No one ventured near. A dog ran across the road and was immediately cut down by the sugar-cane knife in a warrior's hand. A Chinese, with the contempt of the fanatic for the fanaticism of others, drove his cart indifferently into their line. Knives, axes, and other borrowed, stolen, or improvised weapons found their way into the chariot of the Celestial. Half-way along, a limping old man whose leg was swollen with elephantiasis advanced against them. He challenged their approach. They cut the air with furious blows aimed in his direction. He pretended to fall, in the manner of a Russian dancer, picked himself up and started on a wild retreat. The army had routed an enemy. Here the roadside spread in open land dotted everywhere with native huts. Presently the army arrived at the king's grounds, where a simple hut sat back about two hundred feet from the road, with a bit of green before it. The army broke "rank," and squatted in a double row just at the side of the road. For a few minutes there was silence. Then out of the group rose Maii, the leader. Silently he strode the full width of the space in front of the thirty seated men, leaning lightly upon the long rough stick in his hand. His giant-like figure was the personification of dignity; his roughened face the acme of sobriety; he seemed lost in thought. Facing about, he started to retrace his steps in front of the seated men, then, as though suddenly recollecting himself, turned his head in the direction of the king's hut and in a subdued tone no higher than that in ordinary conversation, addressed the house of Tamasese, which stood fully half a block away. Quietly, but not without emotion, he spoke and paused; and every time he paused the leading four men would shout "O-o-o-s-o-o," and the entire group would answer "O sa." Convincing and convinced, the leader proceeded with his oration. An hour later, to the minute, he finished. At the king's house appeared an old man in a snow-white sulu, leaning heavily on a stick. I could see his lips moving, but could not hear a word. He was speaking to the leader, who could not hear any more than I. They kept up the pretense at conversation for a few minutes and all was agreed upon. A servant, who had followed the old man with a soft mat in his hand which to me looked like silk, advanced cautiously toward the warriors. Two of them jumped instantly to their feet, brandishing their knife and ax furiously as though to protect the leader or to drive away evil spirits, I knew not which. But certain it was the cautious servant became still more cautious, timidly arriving with his offering and presenting it to the chief. The manner in which the gift was accepted, though solemn enough, was full of admonition, much as to say: "Now, don't you do that again." The mat-bearer's heart seemed relieved of a great terror, and he started back to the house of the king. On his way he passed a mango-tree, stopped, looked up as though he had spied an evil spirit, picked up a mango, stepped back, and dramatically hurled it at the tree as a boy would who was playing make-believe. At that the whole army of stalwarts rose and departed to the right. As soon as they left the grounds, eleven girls, in single file, each with a mat of the loveliest texture imaginable flung to the breeze, came out upon the road from the other side of the grounds and followed round the front to the right after the way of the warriors. And the ceremony was over. I had squatted on the ground, close to the warriors. They treated me as though I were an innocent child who did not know the dangers of evil things, nor enough to respect my superiors. Not so the natives. Even the policeman with whom I had arrived had retreated to the protection of a hut some three hundred feet away from the road. All the people in the neighborhood--men, women and children--kept within their own huts, their solemn faces full of awe and respect. Nor did the tension slacken until the last of the maidens had made her way out of sight. Thus was the son of the last Samoan king escorted in safety along the other way,--a way which to the native mind seemed as vivid and real as heaven and hell were to Dante and Swedenborg. 3 Exit the Noble Savage. "Think," says Bancroft, spokesman of the arrogant "Blond Beast," "what it would mean to civilization if all these worthless primitives were to pass away before us." The beginning of this end was witnessed and told by Stevenson in 1892, but the natives' version of it has yet to be related. Against those who mourn his loss as the Hellenist the Greeks, are some of our most practical men. The Samoans are not vanishing as rapidly as are the Hawaiians and the Maories, for two very simple reasons: their climate is not so suitable to the white man as is that of New Zealand and of Hawaii. Nor, like Fiji, has Samoa been hampered by indentured coolieism, though Chinese do come. Racially there seems no immediate prospect of Samoa being submerged, though politically it fell before Hawaii did. Socially, however, it is going, as are the native features of most of the more progressive and more assimilable peoples of the Pacific. Simple naturalness is fast fading even from Samoa. I do not mean to say that because Samoans are drifting farther and farther from their primitive customs they are losing their "charm." With progress, one expects not oddity, but simplicity; not shiftlessness, but a certain tightening up of the finer fibers of the race. It is satisfying to see the contrast between the loosely built native hut and that whose pillars are set in concrete and roofed with durable materials. But it is disheartening when the change is only from thatch, which needs to be replaced every so often, to corrugated iron, without any other signs of durability. In other words, the corrugated iron roof is no proof that the race is becoming more thrifty, less lazy,--but the reverse. It indicates that indolence has found an easier way, a more permanent manner. My presence at the ceremony in honor of the royal demise gave me an opportunity to see at once some of the best specimens of Samoan manhood. It left me with the impression that no race capable of mustering so many men of such build was on the decline. There was nothing in their manner to indicate servility or despair. And some day Setu, with his knowledge of Western civilization gained at first hand, may be the means of arousing his fellow-Samoans to great things. 4 The process of assimilation and decline is taking place with far more rapidity in Hawaii. Hawaii crashed like a meteor into America and was comminuted and absorbed. The finer dust of its primitive civilization is giving more color to our atmosphere than any other American possession. But the real Hawaii is rapidly receding into the past. On the beach at Waikiki there is a thatch-roofed hut, but like most of the Hawaiians themselves, it bears too obviously the ear-marks of the West, the imprint of invasion. What there is left of the Hawaiians still possesses a measure of strength and calmness. Big, burly, self-satisfied, they wend their way unashamed of having been conquered. Only a few thousand can now claim any racial purity. The mixture of Hawaiians with the various peoples now in occupation of their lands is growing greater every year; those of pure Hawaiian blood, fewer. And after all, is it any reflection upon any race that it has been assimilated by its conquerors? And assimilated to the point of extinction Hawaii has been. It has become an integral part of a continental nation of whose existence it had hardly known a hundred years ago. When Captain Cook discovered Hawaii he estimated its population at 400,000. Fifty years later there were only 130,000. To-day there may not be more than 30,000. The white race has had its revenge on these natives for the death of this intrepid captain. And the last of the great Hawaiian rulers, Queen Liliuokalani, shorn of her power, passed away on November 11, 1917. She, the descendant of great warriors and remarkable political leaders, had turned to the only thing left her--expressing the sentiments of her people in music. The submersion is nearly complete. Politically, there isn't a son among them who would feel any happier for a revival. So little fear is there of such a hope ever rising even for a moment in the Hawaiian breast that the key to the former throne-room hangs indifferently on a nail in the outer office of the present government. I believe that that is the only throne-room under the American flag. It is a small room, modern and finished in every detail. On its walls hang paintings of kings and queens and ministers of state. There is a musty odor about it, which could easily be removed. All one need do is open the windows and an inrush of sensuous air would sweeten every corner of it. This would be doing only what the race is doing with every intake of alien blood. A broad-shouldered, broad-nosed, broad-faced--and seemingly broad-hearted--Hawaiian clerk took me into the room. As we wandered about he told who the worthies were, enframed in gilt and under glass. Interspersed with some facts was inherited fancy. His enthusiasm rose appreciably when he recited the deeds of Kamehameha I, their most renowned king. "Once he saw an enemy spy approach," said my guide. "He threw his spear with such force that it penetrated the trunk of the cocoa-palm behind which the traitor was hiding, and pierced the man's heart." A merry twinkle lit up the cicerone's eyes. That twinkle was something almost foreign to the man: it must have been the white blood in him that was mocking the tales of his native ancestry. Aside from these few portraits there was nothing in the throne-room which gave evidence of Hawaii's former prestige. Here that king's descendants planned to lead his race to glory among nations. And here they were outwitted. The guide had recounted among the king's exploits his ability to break the back of his strongest enemy with his naked hands. Yet the white man came along and broke the Hawaiian back. And to-day he who wishes to learn the habits, the arts, and the exploits of these people has to go to the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. A primer got up for children, to be learned parrot-like, and distributed to tourists, tells us "the Hawaiians never were savages." We are also assured they "never were cannibals," and "speedily embraced religion." The first is an obvious misstatement; the second is an apology of uncertain value; as to the third, the son of one of Hawaii's best missionaries, who just died in his eighty-fifth year, said: "Not until the world shall learn how to limit the quantity and how to improve the quality of races will future ages see any renewal of such idyllic life and charm as that of the ancient Polynesians." Dr. Titus Munson Coan, whose father converted some fifteen thousand Hawaiians to Christianity, deplored the effect on the native of the high-handed suppression of native taboos and attributes their extinction--which seems inevitable--to the imposition of clothes which they put on and off according to whim, and to customs unsuited to their natures. Dr. Coan said that though his father had a powerful voice he remembered that often he could not hear him preach because of the coughing and sneezing of the natives. Be that as it may, a visit to the Bishop Museum would quickly contradict the primer. There the array of weapons shows that the natives were not only barbarous but savage. This is no serious condemnation, for none of Europe's races can show any cleaner record. Arts, indeed, the Hawaiians had, and sense of form and color. An apron of feathers worn by the king required a tax of a feather apiece on hundreds of birds. After this feather was extracted, the bird was set free, an indication of thrift if not kindliness. Yet they did not hesitate to strip the flesh off every bone of Captain Cook and distribute portions among the native chiefs. No one has proved that they ate it; but cannibalism is, after all, a relative vice and was not unknown in northwestern Europe. 5 The passing of the Hawaiians, like that of many other races in the Pacific, is due to a cannibalism and a barbarism which are less emphasized in the ordinary discussions of the problem. There are more ways than one of eating your neighbor. However harrowing that savage diet was, it did not work for the destruction of any of these South Sea islanders as ruthlessly as did the practice among the Hawaiians of infanticide. Mothers were in the habit of disposing of their impetuous children by the simple method of burying them alive, frequently under the very shelter of their roofs, lying down upon the selfsame floor and sleeping the sleep of the just with the tiny infant squirming in its grave beside them. Parents were not allowed to have more than a given number of children because of the strain on the available food supply. This more than anything else depleted the number of natives most disastrously. But in addition came the white man with his diseases, contagious and infectious,--a form of destruction that, from the native point of view, is quite as dastardly as eating the flesh of the vanquished. Certainly, whatever the viciousness of the occasional or annual outbursts of passion among these primitive folk, there was no example of regulated, insistent pandering to vice such as has been set them by the Europeans, especially in Hawaii. There one evening I wandered through the very depths of degradation; there I witnessed a process of fusion of races which had only one possible end,--extinction. Its Hawaiian name had a strange similarity to the word evil: it is _Iwilei_. McDuffie, Chief of Detectives of Honolulu, was making his inspection of medical certificates, which was part of the work of "restriction," and took me with him. Mr. McDuffie had been standing near the window of the outer office, with one foot upon a chair, talking to another detective, when I called out his name. Tall, massive, with hair almost gray, a rather kindly face, he looked me up and down without moving. I explained my mission. "Who are you?" he asked bluntly. A mean question, always asked by the white man in the tropics. Well, now, who in thunder was I, anyway? I murmured that I was a "writer." "Be round at seven-thirty, and you can come along," he said dryly. On his office walls hung hatchets, daggers, pistols, sabers, and many other such toys of a barbarous world hacking away against or toward perfection. On the floor were dozens of opium pipes, taken in a raid upon Chinese dens,--toys of another kind of world trying to forget its progress away from barbarism. One Japanese continued his game of cards nonchalantly. Flash-lights were in evidence, fearlessly protruding from hip pockets. At half-past seven I was there again. As we were about to enter the motor-car, I ventured some remark, thinking to make conversation. "Get in there," said the chief, abruptly. For an instant he must have thought he was taking a criminal to confinement. Zigzagging our way through the streets and across the river, we entered an unlighted thoroughfare, hardly to be called a street. A steady stream of straggling shadows moved along like spirits upon the banks of the river Styx. Our way opened out upon a lighted section, crowded with negro soldiers and civilians of all nationalities. Here, then, and not only beyond the grave, class and distinction and race dissolve. A perfect hubbub of conversation, soda fountains and plain noise, and reeling of drunkies. A futurist conception of confusion would do it justice. We were at the gates of Babylon. A closely boarded fence surrounded this city of dreadful night. Hundreds of men crowded the passageway. Within were rows and rows of shacks and cottages. Men stood gazing in at open doors and windows. Outside one shack a negro soldier remained fixed with his foot upon the door-step, but ventured no farther. Within, on a bed in full view, sat a Portuguese female, smoking, an Hawaiian woman companion lounging beside her. Both ignored the male at the door. But he remained, silent. Hope fading from his mind, and some interest elsewhere creeping in, he moved away. The Hawaiian woman smiled contemptuously. Then for three-quarters of an hour we made strange calls. Our card was a club which the assistant to the detective--a massive Hawaiian--rapped on every porch step, announcing the expected visitor. He was not unwelcome. From every door emerged a woman, covered with a light kimono, and neatly shod. At cottage after cottage, door after door, they appeared, showed their "health" certificates, and retreated. Japanese, Hawaiian, white, brown, and yellow. Some extremely pretty and not altogether unrefined in manner; some ugly and coarse. The inspection was done hastily. Where appearance of the inmate was delayed, a stamp of the foot brought the tardy one scurrying out. Some greeted the detective familiarly; others showed their certificates and retreated. One Japanese woman called after us when we had passed her door without stopping. Wherever there was any transgression against the proprieties, the inspector commanded the guilty to desist, and went on. One woman complained that a negro had just attacked her with a knife. She whistled and called, she said, "But I might have been killed for all the assistance I got." The inspector spoke kindly to her, assured her he would order the guard to come round. But nothing was done. Two or three doors farther on a fat and playful woman entertained a number of men who stood outside her porch. The inspector told her to keep still. "Just such remarks as that cause trouble. You get inside and stay there." She shrugged her shoulders, made faces at him, and danced playfully within-doors. We came upon two groups of negroes, gambling. The inspector slapped one of them upon the shoulder in a kindly way and told them to get out of sight. "You know it's not allowed here." They moved away. It was a network of streets. Not an underworld but a hinterland, a dark swamp-land, full of scum and squirming creatures. A dreadful city, full of "joy" and abandon. A city in which women are the monarchs, the business factors, the independent, fearless beings, needing no protection. Protection from what could they need? Surely not from poverty, for wealth seemed to favor these. From loss of reputation? They had no reputations to lose. Protection they needed, but rather from themselves than from outside dangers. For this was a restricted district which harbored no restrictions. This was the crater of human passion, of animal passion. The well-ordered universe without; within, the toils of voluptuousness. In this pit the lava of lust kept stirring, the weight of unbalanced emotion overturned within itself. The crater was thought to be deep and secure against overflow. But if it did boil over, was it far from the city? In the city the sound of pianos playing, people reading, swimming-pools full, streets crowded with racing automobiles, soda fountains crowded, theaters agog, gathering of folks in homes and cafés,--a great world with allotted places to keep men and women and children happy; that is, away from themselves. A heavy curtain of order protects one section. The most disgusting polyandry shrieks from out the other. Yet no savage community needed such an outlet for its emotions. From various sources I learn that that little crater has overflowed. The Chamber of Commerce, backed by the missionaries and others, secured legislation against the "regulation" of the district in 1917. From another source I got it that it was not the forces for good that banished it, but that two contending and competing forces for evil had mutually eliminated themselves. But still another source gives it out that certain "slum" sections where housing facilities are inadequate are now the center of evil, and that Filipino panderers are the most guilty. And a year after _Iwilei_ was "done away with"--in April, 1918--the Chief of Detectives asked for "thirty days" in which to show what he could do to clean up the place so as to make it fit for the soldiers to come to Honolulu. Little wonder that, with such examples of "self-respect" and shamefulness, lovers of the Hawaiians are throwing themselves into the work of saving the few remaining natives from demoralization. Before Cook's time these people did not know what prostitution was. Now they have lost hope and confidence in themselves. The less pessimistic say that another hundred years will see the last of the Hawaiians, as we have seen the last of the Tasmanians. Others fear it will come sooner. The Hawaiian Protective Association is stimulating racial pride in them so that they may take courage anew, and, with what sturdy men and women there still are, rejuvenate the race. But the odds are against them, for besides disease and demoralization we have introduced Japanese, Chinese, and all sorts of other coolies who have completely undermined the Hawaiian status in the islands, and are rapidly outnumbering them in the birth-rate and survival rate. What factors are at work for possible regeneration will be discussed in a later chapter. CHAPTER XIV GIVE US OUR VU GODS AGAIN! 1 Some of the gravest mistakes the white man has made in his efforts to regenerate the Pacific peoples have been indirect rather than direct. This fact is best illustrated by the method Australia and New Zealand resorted to in order to exterminate certain pests. To eliminate the rabbit they introduced the ferret. The ferret then began to reproduce so rapidly that it, too, soon became a pest. So the cat was let loose upon the ferret. Forthwith the cat ran wild and is now one of the most serious problems in Australia. So has it been in the matter of many of the native races. Commercial greed, which was not satisfied to use what native labor was extant because it is never the manner of natives to be willing serfs to their conquerors, looked everywhere about for people who might be imported under crushing conditions and then cast out. It was that which created the Japanese and Chinese situation in Hawaii; and it is that which has created a similar situation in Fiji. One would have to be an unadulterated sentimentalist to contend that the passing of the natives is not justified by the present development of the Antipodes. None of the native elements--the Australoids or the Tasmanians or the Maories--would, of their own accord, even with years of Caucasian example and precedent, have made of these dominions the healthful, productive lands they now are. As long as the problem remains one of the ascendancy of the fittest over the fit, it is simple, and the present solution justifiable. But the introduction of other races who have only their servility to recommend them is a poor practice and soon turns into a more serious problem still. In most cases, a little patience and foresight would have obviated such contingencies. Had the white folk who tried to exploit Hawaii contented themselves with a slower development, the Hawaiians would to-day be as secure as are the Samoans and the Maories. In all cases such as these and that of the Philippines, the native, when given a chance, soon justifies his existence and our faith in him. In Fiji we have an example of the introduction of the Hindu to the extinction of the Fijian for the sake of the enrichment of the white man. The indentured Indian, small and wiry, who seems too delicate for any task and is stopped by none, acts as a reinforcement in the South Sea labor market. He glides along in purposeful indifference. As coolie, he may be seen at any time wending his way along Victoria Parade, bareheaded, a thin sulu of colored gauze wound about his loins. As freed man, he is the tailor, the jeweler, the grocer, and the gardener. As proprietor he is buying up the lands and becoming plantation-owner. Then he bewails the woes of his native land, India, far off in the distance. Here in Fiji, where the coolie has a chance to start life anew, the longing for rebirth in this world, still fresh, bursts into being. But no sooner does it see the sunlight than it turns to crush the Fijian, in whose lands the Hindu is as much of an invader as ever Briton was in India. The introduction of the Indian into Fiji was not accomplished without considerable protest from small planters, who saw in it and the taxation scheme introduced over thirty years ago, great danger to the Fijian laborer. Aside from the burdens imposed upon the people by a law which compelled them to work for their chiefs without wages, for the same length of time that they worked for some plantation-owner with wages, there was the equally bad law being "experimented" with which compelled the people to pay in kind instead of in money. So serious had the situation become that the "Saturday Review" of June 19, 1886, declared: "As the Natives must eat something to live, it is perhaps not unnatural that many people who know Fiji entertain distinct fears that the combination of over-taxation and want of food will drive the Fijians to return to cannibalism." The charge of cannibalism was denied by the Rev. Mr. Calvert, though further evidence is not at hand, as I have seen only the Government's side of the case. However, with the admission of some 3,800 Indians as indentured laborers in 1884 (or thereabouts) among a population of 115,000 natives, the vital statistics of the islands have changed so that there were only 87,096 Fijians against 40,286 Indians in 1911, and 91,013 Fijians against 61,153 Indians in 1917. This would seem to indicate a healthier state of affairs for the Fijians as well as for the Indians, were not the comparison of births with deaths for the last year named taken into consideration. This shows that to 3,267 births there were 2,583 deaths among the Fijians; while among the Indians the births were 2,196 as against only 588 deaths. This proportion obtained also in 1911. The struggle between the Fijians and the indentured Indians, even if the former were not to become extinct within the century, would place the Fijians in the minority in no time; and what were their lands would be theirs no more. This, briefly, is the story of the submersion of the Fijians. [Illustration: AN INDIAN COOLIE VILLAGE Near the sugar factory, Fiji Western Pacific-Herald Post Card Series] [Illustration: THIS HINDU HAS USURPED THE JOB OF THE CHIEFTAINS' DAUGHTERS He is grinding the Kava root in a mortar. What the girls are doing with their teeth now no one knows] [Illustration: A MAORI HAKA IN NEW ZEALAND It is a procession of gesticulating, grimacing savages whose protruding tongues are not the least attraction] [Illustration: A MAORI CANOE HURDLING RACE At Ngaruawahia, North Island, N. Z.] In itself, the situation is not very serious. What if the Fijian passes, or gives way to the Indian? The contribution of the Fijian to the culture or the romance of the Pacific is small compared with that of other races, such as the Samoans or the Marquesans. Of that more anon. But there are problems involved that are of more immediate import. Two races like these cannot live together without creating a situation of strength or of weakness that is very far-reaching. We are concerned with the attitude they assume toward each other, or in the substitution of a race like the Indians, with their fixed traditions and destructive castes, which will introduce Hindu problems into the very heart of the Pacific. India is no longer within bounds, and sooner or later we shall be face to face with new conditions. In eliminating the Fijian or the Hawaiian, or any other Pacific islander, by the Indian or the Japanese coolie process, we are only intensifying the difficulty, unless we are ready completely to overlook the questions of likes and dislikes. 2 In Fiji one is not yet compelled to ask, "Where are the Fijians?" As long as one's gaze is fixed slightly upward, the Fijian face with the bushy head of coarse, curly hair stands out against the green of the hills. But let the eye fall earthward and the resultant confusion of forms and manners forthwith raises the problem of the survival of the fittest. For among these towering negroids there now dwell over sixty thousand Telugus, Madrasis, Sardars, Hindustanis, and a host of other such strange-sounding peoples from India, and "Sahib" greets one's ears more frequently than the native salutation. In the smaller hotels the bushy head bows acknowledgment of your commands; in the one fashionable and Grand Hotel the turban does it. In the course of the day's demands for casual service, the assistant is the stalwart one; for the more permanent work--as, for instance, the making of a pongee silk suit--the artisan is the slender one. If your mood is for sight of sprawling indolence, you wander along the little pier and open places among the Fijians; if it is for the damp, cool, darkly kind to help you visualize the dreams of the Arabian Nights, you enter some little shop in an alley with an unexpected curve, in the district of transplanted India. Feeling venturesome, I let fancy be my guide, though, to tell truth, I was escaping from the burning sun. Life on the highway was alluring, but, large as the Fijian is, his shadow is no protection. I hoped for some sight of him within-doors. The row of shops which walls in the highway, links without friction the various elements of Suva's humanity. In a dirty little shop I ran into an unusual medley of folk. A blind Indian woman in one corner; a Fijian chatting with an Indian in another; a boy whistling "Chin-chin"; boys and girls fooling with one another; while in the little balcony, like a studio bedroom hung in the deeper shadows of the rafters, slept one whose snoring did not lend distinction to his paternity. The place was evidently a saloon, but minus all the glitter so requisite in colder regions. Here the essential was dampness and coolness and improvised night. Hence the walls had no windows and the floors no boarding. Hence the brew had need of being cool and cutting, regardless of its name; and whether one called it _yagona_, _kava_, _buza_ or beer, it had the effect of making a dirty little dungeon in hiding not one whit worse than the Grand Hotel in the beach breezes. Better yet, where in all Fiji was fraternization more simple? Still, too much love is not lost between the sleepy Fijian dog and his Indian flea. Does the Fijian not hear the white man--whom he respects, after a fashion--call his slim competitor "coolie?" And is not _kuli_ the word with which he calls his dog? Infuriated, conscious of his centuries of superiority, the Indian retorts with _jungli_, and feels satisfied. His indentured dignity shall not decay. At any rate, he knows and proves himself to be the cleverer. The future is his. While the Fijian, seeing that the importation the white man calls "dog" gets on in life none the less, seeks to steep himself in the Indian's immorality and trickery in the hope that he may thereby acquire some of that shrewdness, as when he devoured a valiant enemy he hoped to absorb that enemy's strength. Thus in that dark little underworld the Fijian Adonis vegetates in anticipation of the future Fiji some day to spring into being. Though the Indians are said to despise the Fijians, I saw representatives of the two races sitting sociably together upon the launch up the Rewa River, smoking and chatting quite without any signs of friction. Indian women, all dressed in colored-gauze raiment and laden with trinkets, huddled behind their men. They seemed a bit of India sublimated, cured of the ills of overcrowding. One woman had twelve heavy silver bracelets on each wrist, a number on her ankles, several necklaces and chains around her neck, and many rings on each of her fingers and toes, with ornaments hanging from her nose and ears. But there was more than vanity in this, for, pretty as she was, she refused to permit me to photograph her. Not so the men. One Indian had his flutes with him and began to play. His eyes rolled as he forced out the monotonous tones, over and over again. His heart and his soul must have had a hard time trying to emerge simultaneously from these two tiny reeds. One bearded patriarch smiled and rose with a jerk when I asked if he would pose for me. A young Indian woman crouched on the floor, all covered with her brilliantly colored veil. She shared a cigarette with a Fijian boy in a most Oriental fashion. But those who know distrust this fraternization. It is the subtle demoralization of the Fijian. For the type of Indian men and women who now accept the terms of indenture are even worse than those who did so formerly, and the conditions under which they are compelled to carry out their "contracts" are such as to develop only the worst traits of Indian nature. In consequence, the Fijian is being ground between the upper (white) and nether (Indian coolie) mill-stones. His primitive taboos which worked so well are taboos no longer. The missionary has destroyed them well-meaningly; the plantation-owner has preyed upon them knowingly, has turned the predatory native chiefs upon them; and now the riffraff of India is loose upon them, too. I am convinced, from what I saw in the missionary settlements, that had the missionaries alone been left to lead these people away from barbarism, they would have accomplished it,--as they partially have. But unfortunately, the one weakness in their civilizing process, the overestimation of minor conventions, such as the wearing of clothing, only left an opening for the intake of diseases and defects of our civilization. The insistence on monogamy is another weakness, for to that the steady decline of the native can be traced. This dual process of degradation going on in Fiji is a great disappointment to the adventurous. Though the natives number 91,000, their ancient rites and festivities are without newer expression, without newer form. And though one hears much of Fiji as another India, because nearly half the population is Indian, still, as C. F. Andrews has pointed out, the utter absence of anything Indian in the architecture, the religious practices, or the other expressions of Indian ideals leaves one wondering what is wrong with that newer world. Everywhere one hears the appeal, "Give the man a chance," and democracy and the advocates of self-determination for nations repeat and repeat the plea. One believes that somehow if India were partially depopulated and the remaining Indians were given a chance, the soul which is India would blossom with renewed life and glory. One believes that here in Fiji such a miracle might occur. But no promise of regeneration greets the seeker, go where he may. Then, too, there is something lacking in the native. One is led to conclude that the inhibitions upon the mind and the soul of all the Fijians, through the preaching of doctrines strange to them, or through the practices of foreigners over them, has put the seal upon their lips. Trying to approximate the ruling religions and to live in their ways must create emotional complexes in the natives that are clogging the wells of their beings. From Suva for forty miles up the Rewa River, the only manifestation of life is in labor. Aside from the crude ornaments on the limbs of the women of India there is virtually nothing of art or higher expression to be seen. Nothing but the tropical loveliness, which cannot be denied. 3 The regeneration of the Fijian seemed more possible after I had spent a few moments in the hut of the chief of the district. In the middle of the village stood one plain, unpainted wooden house, distinctive if not palatial. It was altogether wanting in decoration and with us might have passed as a respectable shed. But here, surrounded by thatched huts, picturesque when not too closely scrutinized, it assumed exceeding importance through contrast. The door, reached by a flight of four or five steps, stood wide open. The interior was not partitioned into rooms. Half of it was a raised platform-like divan or sleeping-section, spread with native mats. Upon this elevation sat a fine-looking man,--clean-shaven, with a head as bald as those of his brethren are bushy, dressed in clean and not inexpensive materials, and wearing a gold watch on his left wrist. On my being introduced, he greeted me in English so fluent and pure that I was considerably taken aback. He was as self-possessed as most Fijians are shy. This was Ratu Joni, Mandraiwiwi, chief of eighty thousand Fijians, one of the only two native members of the Legislative Council, highly respected, and the most powerful living chief of his race. He remained seated in native fashion, legs crossed before him, and after a few general remarks indicated a desire to resume his confab with the half-dozen natives--all big, powerful men--facing him on the lower section of the chamber. His reception of me was cordial, yet his was the reserve of a prime minister. His bearing gave the impression of a man intelligent, calm, just, and not without vision. He knew his rank. Had I been a native and dared to cross his door-step--plebeian that I am--I should most likely have seen dignity in anger. But, though an insignificant white man, I still bore the mark of "rank" sufficient to gain admission unceremoniously and was given a place beside him on the divan. But he had an uncanny way of making me feel suddenly extremely shy. I was aware of intruding, of having been presumptuous,--an uninvited guest. So I withdrew. The district over which he rules, though inferior to many another in productivity, has always had the reputation for being well kept up and in healthful condition and was pointed out as an example to the other chiefs as early as 1885. At Bau, five miles the other side of the river, Ratu Joni has a home European in every detail. It forms an interesting background for his European entertainments. His income is enough to make a white man envious. One son, an Oxford man, was wounded in Flanders at the outbreak of the war; another was at the time attending college in Australia. Ratu Joni is _Roko_ (native governor) of the province of Tailevu (Greater Fiji). Mr. Waterhouse, the missionary who kindly went about with me and made it possible for me to meet this chief and to understand some of the native problems, gave me a brief story of this impressive man's life. Though his father had been hanged or strangled for plotting against the life of the chief who ruled then, Ratu Joni succeeded in making his way to the fore in Fijian politics. He set himself the task of cleaning up his country. Of him it could not be said that he ever had reason to be ashamed of his rule. Of him none could say as did a British governor in a speech say of another Fijian: "What! has this chief been indolent? Perhaps he limes his head, paints his face, and stalks about, thinking only of himself; or is it that he squabbles with his neighbors about some border town, and lets his people starve?" One cannot judge a people by the conditions of its chiefs or rulers; but with regard to the natives of the Pacific, as in the case of other people accustomed to the rigorous life of battle, their safety lies in the uses to which they have been put by their conquerors. The British Government has utilized the Sikhs, its most difficult Indians, by making them the constabulary throughout the length and breadth of its Asiatic empire. This has been done in Fiji, too. But the most hopeful sign to me in these islands on the 180th meridian was the Fijian constabulary. A finer lot of men could not be found anywhere in the world. Not only their physique but their intelligent faces and their alacrity suggest great promise. One of them came on board our ship with his clean, tidy, sturdy wife--a public companionship rare for these people--and was received by the officers. His white sulu, serrated on the edge like some of the latest fashions on Broadway, hung only to his knees. His massive legs and broad shoulders were a delight to look upon. His wife was as handsome a woman as I have seen in the tropics. The two gladly posed for me, and asked me to send them a print. 4 Generally the thought and feeling of the natives in the South Seas come to the outer world through the works of white men,--missionaries and scientists. But rare indeed is the revelation of the mind of a strange people brought to us pure and clear without the white man's bias or reaction. Here and there I have run across snatches of native thinking that were revelations, but no others so full and vivid as the essay by a native Fijian on the decline of his race, which appeared in the "Hibbert Journal" (Volume XI). The translator opens the door to the Fijian mind as by magic. After reading that, I felt that personal contact with these natives akin to contact with any other human being, for I looked behind dark skin and bushy head, and saw the spirit of hope within. The translator says: It shows exactly how an intelligent Fijian may conceive Christianity. That is a point we need to know badly, for most missionaries see the bare surface. It also contains hints how the best intentions of a government may be misconstrued, and suspicion engendered on one side, impatience and reproaches of ingratitude on the other, which a more intimate knowledge of native thought might remove. The argument of the essay is that "The decline of native population is due to our abandoning the native deities, who are God's deputies in earthly matters. God is concerned only with matters spiritual and will not harken to our prayers for earthly benefits. A return to our native deities is our only salvation." The native reflects: Concerning this great matter, to wit the continual decline of us natives at this time, it is a great and weighty matter. For my part I am ill at ease on that account; I eat ill and sleep ill through my continual pondering of this matter day after day. Three full months has my soul been tossed about as I pondered this great matter, and in those three months there were three nights when pondering of this matter in my bed lasted even till day, and something then emerged in my mind, and these my reflections touch upon religion and touch upon the law, and the things that my mind saw stand here written below. He then takes up the points that have disturbed him: Well, if the very first thing that lived in the world is Adam, whence did he come, he who came to tell Eve to eat the fruit? From this fact it is plain that there is a Prince whom God created first to be Prince of the World, perchance it is he who is called the Vu God [Noble Vu].... Consider this: It is written in the Bible that there were only two children of Adam, to wit Cain and Abel. But whence did the woman come who was Cain's wife?... It seems to me as though the introducers of Christianity were slightly wrong in so far as they have turned into devils the Vu Gods of the various parts of Fiji; and since the Vu Gods have suddenly been abandoned in Fiji, it is as though we changed the decision of the Great God, Jehovah, since that very Vu God is a great leader of the Fijians. That is why it seems to me a possible cause for the Decline of Population lies in the rule of the Church henceforth to treat altogether as devil work the ghosts and the manner of worshiping the Vu Gods of the Fijians, who are their leaders in the life in the flesh, whom the Great God gave, and chose, and sent hither to be man's leader. But now that the Vu Gods whom Jehovah gave us have been to a certain extent rudely set aside, and we go to pray directly to the God of Spirit for things concerning the flesh [life in the flesh], it appears as if the leader of men resents it and he sets himself to crush our little children and women with child. Consider this: If you have a daughter, and she loves a youth and is loved of him, and you dislike this match, but in the end they none the less follow their mutual love and elope forthwith and go to be married, how is it generally with the first and the second child of such a union, does it live or does it die? The children of Fijians so married are as a rule already smitten from their mother's womb. Wherefore? Does the woman's father make witchcraft? No. Why then does the child die thus? Simply that your Vu sees your anger and carries out his crushing even in its mother's womb; that is the only reason of the child's death. Or what do you think in the matter? Is it by the power of the devil that such wonders are wrought? No, that is only the power that originates from the God of Spirit, who has granted to the Prince of men, Vu God, that his will and his power should come to pass in the earthly life. He develops this theme with ever-increasing emotion, until his poor mind can think no more. Alas! Fiji! Alas! Fiji is gone astray, and the road to the salvation of its people is obstructed by the laws of the Church and the State. Alas! you, our countrymen, if perchance you know, or have found the path which my thoughts have explored and join exertions to attain it, then will Fiji increase. But Fijians have prayed to God, yet they have not increased, he exclaims, faced with the unalterable facts. Why not? Christianity has been with them many years. Does God hear their prayer! He proceeds to give his own observations of life, and asks: "Is this true, reverend sirs? Yes, it is most true." After making some comparisons between his land and others, neglected of God in that they have no Vu Gods, he expostulates: And if the Vu were placed at our head ... there would be no still births and Fiji would then be indeed a people increasing rapidly, since our conforming to our native customs would combine with progress in cleanly living at the present time. Now, in the past when the ancients only worshiped Vu Gods and there was no commandment about cleanly living, yet they kept increasing. Then if ... this were also combined with the precept of cleanly living, I think the villages would then be full of men. Or what, sir, is your conclusion? A few more excerpts, taken here and there, will reveal the interesting mind of this Fijian: If this is right, then it is plain how far removed we are from certain big countries. How wretched they are and weak, whose medicines are constantly being imported and brought here in bottles.[1] As for me, I simply do my duty in saying what appears in my mind when I think of my country and my friends who are its inhabitants; for since it wants only a few years to the extinction of the people it is right that I reveal what has appeared in my soul, for it may be God's will to reveal in my soul this matter. Now it is not expedient for me to suppress what has been revealed to me, and if I do not declare what has appeared from forth my soul, I have sinned thereby in the eyes of the Spirit God: I shall be questioned regarding it on the day of judgment of souls; nor is it fitting that one of the missionaries should be angry with me by reason of my words; it is right that they should consider everything that I have here said, and judge accordingly. It is no use being ashamed to change the rules of the Church, if the country and its inhabitants will thereby be saved. [1] The translator says in a footnote: "Whites pity Fijians, but they find reasons to pity us. That is what white men generally fail to realize; they put down to laziness or stupidity their reluctance to assimilate our civilization, whereas it arises from a different point of view; and that point of view is not always wrong or devoid of common sense. Is Fijian medicine more absurd than our patent medicines, or as expensive?" There is great hope for a people with such thinkers among them. And if there are such hopes for the Fijians, there are still greater possibilities for the Maories, Samoans, Tahitians, and Hawaiians. 5 Politically, as separate island races, they are no more. The little Kingdom of Rarotonga is one of the last to remain independent. The European war, oddly enough, in which Maories and Fijians fought for "the rights of little nations," has sold them out completely, just as it did Shantung in China. No one thought that a war in a continent fifteen thousand miles away would play such havoc with the destinies of these people. The "mandates," yielded with such cynical generosity, put the seal upon their fate, and opened new international sores. Pessimistic as this may sound, there are evidences of resuscitation in the working out of these mandates, as will appear in the chapter on Australasia. The Polynesians are becoming conscious of unity, and talk of leadership under the New Zealand mandate is rife in Parliament. "Nothing would hasten the depletion of the race more than the loss of hope and confidence in themselves," says the Hawaiian "Friend." That hope seems to be flickering into new life. No people have suffered more, directly, from contact with the "civilized" white races than the Polynesians. Morally undermined, politically deprived of powers, physically subjected to scourge after scourge of epidemic introduced by white men, their own standards of living brushed aside as vulgar and infantile,--these heliolithic people with their neolithic culture approached the very verge of extinction. Then the white race began to sentimentalize over them, and sincere scientific people to deplore their evanescence. Some of these latter have earned the eternal gratitude not only of the natives but of the whole world. Some of them I have mentioned in other connections. Two others decidedly deserve recognition. Mr. Elsdon Best, the curator of the Wellington Museum, is a tall, thin individual who has roamed all over the Pacific. He has worked his way for years in the interests of the Amerindians, Hawaiians, and Maories. Now he has one of the finest museums in the South Seas--excepting that, of course, in Honolulu--in which he treasures anything and everything that will help throw light on the history of these interesting people. The other is Mrs. Bernice Bishop, a part-Hawaiian woman, who established the museum in Honolulu which bears her name. These are the centers round which we white folk shall be able to gather for the preservation of this other type of the human species. In the summer of 1921 a Scientific Congress under the auspices of the Pan-Pacific Union and the immediate directorship of Professor Gregory of Yale was held to devise ways and means of furthering the study of these races, and its work is proceeding apace. Museums and "models" of native architecture are the modern white man's diaries, recalling the acts of ravishment and destruction which his development and expansion entailed. Let us hope that out of the efforts of scientists will spring a new consciousness of worth, which early missionaries and scheming traders did everything to destroy. Yet it must not be forgotten that much of our knowledge of these races comes from those missionaries who were broad-minded enough to recognize the value of recording customs and beliefs, even if their purpose was the more effectively to counteract them. CHAPTER XV HIS TATTOOED WIFE 1 Something there is in the very bearing of the people in the Pacific which, despite the obvious differences between us, strikes a note of kinship in the mind of the white man least conscious of his true relationship to these brown folk. A certain chemical affinity, as it were, makes the problem of intermarriage with the Polynesians an altogether different matter from that among Eurasians. For in the marriage of an Occidental and a true Oriental there is the clashing of two antagonistic cultures each equally complex and tenacious, while "here there is evidence in the physique of the people that three great divisions of mankind have intermixed." But in the Pacific islands the white man feels himself among his kind. The reason is hard to explain. Certainly it is not the loose and ungainly Mother-Hubbard gowns which are still the style of the native maiden. Yet the stoutish, portly individual who is introduced to you as a chief and who parades the street along the waterfront in a suit of silk pajamas might easily be a continental sleep-walker who has no remembrance of the thousands of years that lie between him and the men among whom he is waking. And the white man just arrived drops off under the anæsthetic influence of the tropics, forgetful of the thousands of years in which he has been busy laying up his treasures on earth. Under this narcotic influence I wandered along the shores of Apia, Samoa, toward sundown, the day before my departure. Within me was a melancholy satisfaction, an unwillingness to admit even to myself the truth that I was glad to go, like one conscious of being cured of a delightful vice. I had had my fill of association with men whose main theme of conversation when together was the virtues of whisky and soda as an antidote for dengue fever, and when apart, the faults of one another. I had watched the process of acclimatization as it attacks the souls of men, and pitied some of them. Many would have scorned my pity. Some did not deserve it. Others did not need it. The story of one is worth while, though it has no solution. He had been stationed in Samoa as a member of the military staff with police duties. Behind him he had left a wife and kiddies. He longed for them as only a man struggling against tropic odds to remain faithful to his promise needs must long. He was faithful, but she was fearful. She was writing to him daily not to forget. No woman forgets easily the ill-repute of her fellow-women, and all Northern women distrust their sisters of the warmer worlds. Women hear and believe that there is none of their kind of virtue in the tropics, and they do not trust the best of their men. They do not seem to be at all aware of the fact that faithfulness and devotion are as strong impulses in the breasts of the dark maidens as among themselves, and that semi-savage girls have hearts, too, which can be broken. So this man whose friendship I had won urged that I write to his wife and, in my own way, assure her of his loyalty. I have never heard the end. But if ever she reads this account, I hope she will believe in him. For there are women in the tropics, just like her, who pray that their men will be faithful. I was walking along, thinking of him and of her. The evening glow, full to overflowing of tropic loveliness, was all about. The white foam of the breakers dashing themselves against the reefs out there, a quarter of a mile away, came softly in, over the smooth water, to land. The laughter of little children on the beach seemed to tease, the hiss of the sea, a combination of elemental things utterly without tragedy. Just then I came upon a group of people gathered at the little pier. Strewn about their feet were trunks and bags and kits, indicating departure in haste, while the presence of a handful of soldiers, standing at attention, was an unspoken explanation of what was toward. The civilians clustered in a little group, quiet, communicating with one another in whispers. They comprised seventeen Germans, erstwhile the wealthiest plantation-owners, now prisoners of war, and their wives and children, from whom they were to be parted. The cause of their departure is not pertinent here. The human equation is. As the officer issued his order for embarkation, there was a momentary commotion. Soldiers, by no means unfriendly to their prisoners, assisted them in the placing of luggage on the boat. The men, turning to their women and children with warm embraces, called in forced cheerfulness that they would soon be back. All the men stepped into the rowboats and with full, powerful strokes of Samoan oarsmen they were borne out across the reefs toward the steamer anchored beyond. Upon the beach remained bewildered native women and their half-caste children, some of them in an agony of grief now run wild. One family lingered, weeping silently. A group of two middle-aged women, a girl of about twenty, two small girls, and two boys stood gazing out toward the ship. They brushed away tears absent-mindedly. A little girl and boy cried quietly. And like that white wife in the temperate world, these dark-skinned women of the tropics were left to wonder whether their husbands would remain faithful to them in a world of which they had vague if not altogether wrong notions. A full, mellow afterglow threw the ship for a moment into relief, and twilight lowered. Upon the end pile of the pier sat a young Samoan in a halo of dim light. From this modern scene which may some day be the theme for a South Sea "Evangeline" I moved away wondering what this cleavage of people would mean to the Polynesians. An unconscious curiosity led me into the village. It was night. From the various huts rang the voices of happy natives. Fires flamed under their evening meals. Dim lamps revealed shadow-figures of men and women. A slight drizzle brushed over the valley and disappeared. Then the firm tread of feet sounded in the dusty road. About twenty girls, two abreast, stamping their naked feet, passed by and on into the darkness to drop, matrice-like, each into her own home. Earlier that evening they had escorted to the ship the white woman who was their missionary teacher. One long skiff had held them all. Each had a single oar in hand, short and spear-headed, with which she struck the gunwale of the boat after every stroke, thus beating time to a native song. Here was another case of contact and cleavage. Their teacher was returning to her land, leaving them with the glimmer of her ideals, her notions of life and loyalty. How much of it would hold them? Coming and going, the fusion of races, once of a common stock, is taking place. 2 I cannot recall having received any definite invitation from any of the principals responsible for the party I attended one evening in Apia, but in the islands the respectable stranger does not find himself lonely. It was sufficient that I was a friend of one of the guests. Four young men who were leaving were given a send-off; and the celebrations were to take place in the little Sunday-school shack. [Illustration: THREE VIEWS OF A MAORI WOMAN In European clothes With her New Zealand husband at home In her native costume] [Illustration: A GROUP OF WHITES AND HALF-CASTES IN SAMOA The father of the two girls was a lawyer and the son of a Sydney (Australia) clergyman] [Illustration: A SHIP-LOAD OF "PICTURE-BRIDES" ARRIVING AT SEATTLE Japanese seldom marry other than Japanese women] [Illustration: A MAORI WOMAN WITH HER CHILDREN The father is a white man--a New Zealand shepherd] That evening the little structure was metamorphosed from crude solemnity by a generous trimming in palm branches and flowers, as though it had been turned outside in. Oil-lamps hung from the rafters by stiff wires, unyielding even to the weight of the light-giving vessels. The awkwardness of some of the natives in their relations with the whites could not be overcome even by their obvious inclination. But the music stirred us all into a whirl of equality. It was furnished by an old crone of a native woman. She was dressed in a shabby Mother-Hubbard gown and her feet were bare. Her stiff fingers worked upon the keys of an accordion in a sluggish fashion, as she confused old-fashioned barn-dances with sentimental melodies. She was stirred on to greater sentiment by the teasing approaches of one white man fully three-quarters drunk. As for the dancers,--what to them were half-expressed notes? Their own fresh blood more than overcame any lack. Pretty young flappers, eager for the arms of the white chaps, moved about among stolid dames whose purity of race revealed itself in russet skins and slightly flattened noses. They had finer features than the matrons. The white "impurities" shone out of them. But they were not quite free, not quite absolved from the weight of their primitive forebears. They were shy and had little to say for themselves, and it seemed they wished they could just cast off the high-heeled shoes and tight garments and be that which at least half of themselves wished to be. Yet they were erect and proud,--and gay. Behind the curtain which hung across the little rostrum stood tables fairly littered with bananas, mangos, and watermelons, mingled with the fruits of the Northern kitchen stove,--cakes, pies, and meats enough to satisfy a harvesting-gang. And when the call to supper came, the invasion of this hidden treasure island and its despoliation proved that however much mankind may be differentiated socially and intellectually, gastronomically there is universal equality. There is another basis upon which the wide world is one, and that is in its affections. Long after midnight the party would have still been in progress but for the threat of the ferry-men. They wished to retire and announced that the last boat was soon to start across the moon-splattered reefs. There was a hurried meeting of lips in farewell. The silver light revealed more than one sweet face crumpled before separation. Then with the first dip of their oars into the sea the swarthy oarsmen began the song which, exotic and sentimental as it was, left every heart as aching for the shore as it did those of the simple half-caste maidens for their casual lovers of the colder Antipodes. "Oh, I neva wi' fo-ge-et chu," drawled the oarsmen, and they on shore joined in with the softer voices of that gentler world. 3 I had been an unknown and unknowing guest, paying my rates for keep at the hotel. For most of an hour I had been in a small upper room with three or four white men whose sole object seemed to be to get as drunk as they could and to induce me to join them. In those clear moments that flash across leary hours, they gave voice to their disapproval of intermarriage with the natives. Then I learned of the wedding taking place below. My curiosity led me downstairs, and though an utter stranger, I made my way into the company. Not for a moment did I feel myself out of place. Such is the nature of life in the tropics. Among those present were pretty half-caste maidens, slovenly full-blooded native matrons, men and women of all ages and conditions of attire. There were German-Samoans, English, English-Samoans, American and American-Samoans, with a salting of no (or forgotten) nationality. Some were in Mother-Hubbard gowns, some in pongee silks, some in canvas and white duck, cut either for street or evening wear. One young chap, the clerk at the customs, came dressed in the latest tuxedo. And a half-caste chief appeared in a suit of silk pajamas. The marriage-feast was as sumptuous as any that ever tempted the palate of man. It was spread not on acres, as in the olden days, but on a long table which stretched the length of the thirty-foot room. Photographs are everywhere sold displaying so-called cannibal feasts, with huge turtles and hundreds of tropical vegetables. However it may have been in those days, at this feast the guests were cannibal in manners only. They stood round the table and helped themselves with that disregard of to-morrow's headache and the hunger of the day after which is said to be primitive lack of economy. As the guests were led out into the dance-hall, one young stalwart took the remnant of the watermelon rind he had been gnawing and slung it straight at the pretty back of a Euro-Polynesian girl in evening frock. She tittered at him. The jollity was running too high for any one to be disturbed by anything like that. Soon the dance was in full swing. Not the tango, which we regard as primitive and wild, but sober editions of dances with us long out of date. The need is more pressing in the tropics among folk of part-white parentage than an appearance of real civilization. And though it is not so long in the history of the Pacific since the coming of the first white man, there is already an intermediate race growing up which, beginning with Samoa, spreads northward and southward and all around as far as the reaches of the sea. Nor is the mixture always to be deprecated. The night wore on. The dancing ceased. Flushed faces and perspiring forms slipped out into the moonlight. The white collar which had adorned the tuxedo of the clerk was now brother to the pajamas. The white men who had tried to drown their objections to intermarriage had yielded to the lure of the pretty half-caste maidens. One of them now disappeared with his "tart." A traveling-salesman from Suva, thin and wiry, had been in dispute with a new civil officer. They contradicted each other just to be contrary. The officer had a wife at home to whom he was bound to be faithful in matters of sex; in the matter of spirits he could not be unfaithful, since in that all the world is one. When the two of them and I left the party, they were still disputing the question of intermarriage, in which neither believed but on which both had pronounced complexes. To change the subject, which was bordering on a fight, I asked: "Why do the palms bend out toward the sea?" "Now, what difference does it make to you?" said the salesman. "You're always asking why this, why that?" "Why shouldn't he?" grumbled the officer, more sober and more intelligent. We rambled along. The salesman soon slipped into his hotel. The officer and I wandered toward the native village. "Strange," he said, somewhat sobered by the sea air. "If I met him in Auckland I wouldn't speak to him. He's beneath me." Free and easy as the relationship of marriage seems to be here, one not infrequently runs across descendants of very happy and desirable unions. I had gone on a little motor jaunt with some of the men of the British Club. Our way was along the road the natives had built in gratitude to R. L. S., and our destination the home of a friend of his, who had married a native woman. The house was of European construction, solid and comfortable, with a veranda affording a view of the open sea. The interior was in every way as typical of British colonial life as any I later saw in New Zealand. There were photographs on the wall, hanging shelves, bric-á-brac, a piano,--all importations of crude Western manufactories. The hosts were Euro-Polynesians; the father a lawyer and son of a clergyman of Sydney, Australia, who had settled in the islands years ago. I do not recall whether, like his closest friend, Stevenson, he was buried on the island, but certainly he left by no means unworthy offspring, whatever prejudice may say. Thus, in the mixture of emotions often sterile, and in the bones of white devotees is the reunion of the races of these regions being slowly effected. And at the two extremities of the Pacific--New Zealand and Hawaii--we find the process nearer completion. 4 In the journeys to and fro across the vast spaces of the South Pacific one rarely meets a white man who takes his native wife with him. One such I did meet when slipping down from Hawaii to the Fiji Islands. There were two couples on board who always kept more or less to themselves, two rough-looking white men, a white woman, and one who for all I could tell was a middle-class Southern European woman. She wore simple clothes,--a blouse hanging over her skirt and comfortable shoes. She was in no sense shy, laughed heartily, moved about with a self-conscious air of importance, but with ease, and made no effort to hide the curving blue lines of tattooing that decorated her chin. She was a Maori princess, and all the vigor of her race disported itself in the supple lines of her figure. Her husband, Mr. Webb, however, was not a British prince. Blunt in his manners, he was ultra-radical in his opinions,--a proud member of New Zealand's working class. Domineering in his temperament he was, but she was a match for him. It was obvious that she had missed in her native training any lessons in subservience to a mere husband. She spoke a clear, broad, fluent English without the slightest accent, and when her extremely argumentative husband made a strong point, she gave her assent in no mistaken terms. At table she was more mannerly than her spouse, though laboring under no difficulties whatever in the acquisition of food. I have never seen a person more self-possessed. Her royal lineage was writ large in her every expression. Though out on deck they both seemed somewhat out of place among the white folk and preferred a corner apart, in the dining-room they were kin to all men. I found them both extremely interesting, and when the usual invitations were passed round for a continuance of the acquaintanceship after landing, I accepted theirs more readily than any other. Blunt and without finesse as they were, there was an obvious cordiality and virility in their manner, and no man alert to adventure turns so promising an offer aside. Months afterward I was in Auckland, New Zealand, and made myself known to them. Most cordial was the reception they gave me when I stepped upon the well-built pier that jutted out into the inlet from the little launch that brought me there. Back upon the knoll stood Madame, her heavy head of curly hair loose about her shoulders. Her very being greeted me with welcome, firmness of foot and arm and calmness of poise proclaiming her nativity. When I approached, her strong hand grasped mine, her face beamed, and she led the way over the grass-grown path to the porch with even more self-confidence than when she had gone to her seat in the saloon, on shipboard. Yet it was no saloon they led me into, but a simple hollow-tile structure with slate roofing and plain plastered walls. Just an ordinary four-roomed house, the haven of the rising pioneer. There were no decorations on the walls, no modern equipment of any kind, not even a stove. The table was machine-turned, the chairs ordinary, and on the mantelpiece stood some bleached photographs. My hosts went about in their bare feet, and otherwise as loosely clad as the early November spring permitted. They prepared their meals on the open fire, and the menu was as simple as anything ever offered me; and for the first time in my life I ate boiled eels, the great Maori staple and delicacy. Had it not been for the emanation of her genial personality and his vigorous, breezy, almost hard pleasure in my presence, I should have felt chilled in that habitation. But in place of things was sincere welcome. I had proof of that that night, for I was placed in the guest-room, upon a soft, comfortable bed, while my hosts themselves spread a mattress on the floor in the living-room. Lest I misunderstand, they explained that it was their custom, Maori fashion, to sleep on the floor, as they preferred the hard support to that of the yielding spring. I woke next morning just as the sun peeped over the hill directly into my window. It was a sober dawn,--just a healthy flush of life, with crisp, invigorating air. One branch of a young kauri pine-tree stretched across the rising orb like nature rousing itself from sleep. And in the other room I could hear my hosts moving quietly about, preparing breakfast. Without word of warning or any apparent welcome, the wife's brother and his young bride arrived. It was obvious that the visit was no unusual occurrence. They made themselves as much a part of the place as possible, and were ignored by the white man and his Maori wife as though they were servants. Yet they were both, to me at least, delightful. He was broad-shouldered, erect, rounded of limb but muscular,--as handsome a boy of twenty as I have ever seen, and it gave one joy to see him mated to so fine a girl. Their beings vibrated to each other with the joy of their union. And she was as fine a mate for him. Though she accentuated every feature of her sex, it was with the joy of fitness for him, not with any effort to be alluring. She wore a very close fitting middy-blouse, which made more firm the rounded breasts of her young maidenhood. She was supple and plump and moved with litheness and grace, full of animal spirits. With an affected air she swung about to the step of an American rag, and every once in a while she would throw herself into her lover's arms, and take a turn about out of sheer happiness. It had never occurred to me how extremely civilized and not primitive our rag-time music is until I saw these young "savages" affect it. But however ill-fitting the tune to their emotions, there was something absolutely natural in their adoration and their rushing into each other's arms which no amount of civilization could tarnish. In the afternoon they went digging for eels in the mud of the inlet. While they were gone, my host and his wife cleared the yard of overgrown weeds and rubbish. "That's the way they are," said he. "All day long they dance and fool away their time. They think they've done a lot if they dig for eels all afternoon. When we went away to Hawaii we left them to look after our house without charging them any rent. This is what we found when we returned. The whole place was overgrown with weeds, the fences were broken down, the gates were off, and the place was strewn with rubbish. They don't know what it is to be careful." And he struck a match to the heap of weeds he and his wife had gathered. Presently the two lovers returned with a basket full of eels. The young "housewife" hung her catch by the tails on the clothes-line to dry, and in a pail of clear water washed the mud-suckers they had gathered as by-product. Then they felt they were entitled to rest. All afternoon until late evening they lay upon the spring of an unused matressless bedstead, which stood upon the veranda. Their heads were at the opposite ends of the bed. He kicked his feet in the air, but every time a move of hers showed more of her legs than he thought proper, he pulled down her tight skirt. He held an accordion over him upon which he played a medley of airs, while she whirled a soft hat with her fingers. From their throats issued a fountain of song, harmonious only in the spirit of joy which inspired it. So far they might just as well have been guests at a hotel for all the attention their elders paid to them. We had had our meals by ourselves. They were simply tolerated. But after nightfall, they joined their relatives in a game of cards. Every move provoked a burst of laughter, whether successful or unsuccessful to the hilarious one, and never a suggestion of strife or thought of gain was manifest. The Maories are more sober than their kinsmen of the upper South Seas. Life was never to them less than a serious struggle. I daresay they are happier to-day than they were in their own time, with peace and prosperity guaranteed them. But that is problematical. Laughter and play are to-day urgent necessities. The dances and games that were native to them--when not stimulated by some social event--do not come to them with the same old spontaneity. It took considerable begging on my part and nudging from Mr. Webb to persuade the women to show me a native dance. Donning her skirt of rushes, Mrs. Webb stepped into the center of the room, giggling all the while, and insisting that her sister-in-law dance with her. The latter took a stick in her hand and they began. But after two or three movements they doubled over with laughter, and faltered. I kept urging them on. At last they caught the spirit of it, and for a few minutes they were as though possessed. Their movements, mainly of the hands and hips, were not unlike those of the geisha dances of Japan. They kept them up for fifteen minutes. Suddenly they stopped, as though struck self-conscious, almost as a modest girl who had wakened from a somnambulant journey in her nightgown. They slipped into chairs, and were silent. Then for about half an hour they sat "yarning" soberly before the hearth fire. And something sad seemed to creep away up the chimney. The two young lovers decided they would take a bath, and went into another chamber to heat the water. My bed was spread for me; the hosts unrolled the mattress which had been lying in the corner on the floor all day. We retired. Then from the other room came sounds of hilarious laughter, the splashing of water in the tub, and the slapping of naked wet flesh. It kept up for hours, long after midnight. When silence finally reigned over the household, an adorably cool moon peeped in at our windows, and I knew that the two lovers in the room next mine were at last overcome by the conspiracy of moonlight and fatigue. "Did you hear those mad Maories?" said Mr. Webb to me the first thing in the morning. "Such mad things! To keep the whole house awake till long after midnight!" Then he, too, seemed to become self-conscious. Wasn't he passing reflections on the tribe of his wife? We strolled out into the fields. He seemed to feel the necessity of an explanation. Among his people, the white folk, though he was not ostracized for having taken a native wife (for it is common enough), still it did lower one in the social scale. I steered the conversation round till he himself spoke of it. He referred to his wife, somewhat soberly. "I like her and am satisfied with her. She's a good woman." And during the whole of my visit I saw nothing to indicate that their marriage was not a success. She was tidy, thrifty, and companionable. He always treated her with respect and affection, though once or twice with undue firmness. But she always stood her ground with dignity and good-nature. When he poked kindly fun at some photographs of her, she smiled and winked at me. Then she said of a picture taken of him on the beach: "I wouldn't lose it for all the world, just for his sake." By way of apology for the absence of more furnishings, they explained that they had sold out; they were tired of labor conditions in New Zealand, of the too great closeness to the "tribe" and in consequence had paid a visit to Hawaii, where they bought a plantation. Thither they went shortly afterward, the Briton and his Maori wife, he to mix with his European cousins, she with her Polynesian kinsfolk, and a more general reunion, after centuries of separation, consummated. Not the least lovable among the fifty-seven blends of humanity that make up the inhabitants of the South Seas and the Pacific are these Maories and their half-brothers and sisters. 5 From a Member of Parliament I had received several letters of introduction, one of which was to the famous Dr. Pomare, the native M. P. who represented native interests in the Dominion's parliament. When I arrived at Wellington, the capital, I presented myself at his office and was received by a most genial, well-spoken, widely read individual whose tongue would have entertained the most sophisticated of European gatherings. There was hardly a subject we touched in which he was not well versed, and his native qualities rang out in intermittent bursts of laughter such as only a healthy-minded and healthy-bodied individual could indulge in. When we began to discuss the question of the virtues and vices of his native race, the Maories, he assured me: "Oh, we're just like any people. There are good and bad amongst us. Some of our people will sell their lands, if they can, and buy an automobile which they run madly about and then leave in an open plot in ruin. On the other hand, one of our women has been very clever with her property, has sold it off, and invested her money in stocks so that to-day she owns the greatest number of shares in the Wellington tram lines. So you see we are just like other people." And so it is. But there is a slight exception, for I have heard from every one that the tendency to revert to type is very great, and that one of the wealthiest native woman in the Dominion will frequently leave her mansion, her jewels, her limousine, her fine clothes, and spend a time in a Maori _pah_, eating eels in the good old native way. But such reversions cannot last long. Despite that drift, there are indications of a racial recrudescence through the half-castes, a tendency noticed by students of the primitive peoples throughout the Pacific. Hope for the Maories is in the younger elements who have that happy mixture in them, called Pakeha-Maori. Visiting a class of young women in a commercial school in Dunedin I noticed among them one whose dark face and black eyes were full of a certain wicked fascination. She was as bright and alert as any member of the class. And when I spoke of her to the head of the school, he said, "Oh, that little half-caste girl." I should not have known it. One does not like to be too enthusiastic, but if these savage Polynesians can in the course of three generations, and with the aid of a slight mixture, change from fierce cannibalism to something as sweet and lovable as this, there is indeed great hope for them. What though the prejudiced assure you that, however far the mixture may have gone, it reveals itself in a tendency to squat when least expected? There is in the most civilized of us still enough of the savage strain to make us wary of carrying our aversions too far. Doubtless the Britons of New Zealand would enter any debate with the Americans of Hawaii as to which is the superior people, the Maories or the Hawaiians. For our own peace of mind let us accept their Polynesian kinship at the outset. Both are worth saving as separate races or in mixture with others. The Maori M.P., the rebellious priest, Rua, later released from prison, the Hawaiian clerk in the throne-room, the Fijian chief turned governor, the Samoan chief in pajamas who, with the customs officials, boarded the steamer anchored beyond the reefs, and Mrs. Webb, the princess,--all these are natives playing the new part allotted to them in this strange new world. Thus slowly, into the life and fabric of the South Seas, is coming this consciousness of rebirth. It is a new class, a new race. Not the Eurasians, scorned by the white and the superior Asiatics,--but the reverse. Half-caste, but the proud possessors of the virtues of the natives, with the strength and superiority of the white; half-caste in blood but not always so in spirit. CHAPTER XVI GIVING HEARTS A NEW CHANCE 1 Casual, impermanent, or broken as these unions hitherto have been, their cyclonic process of attraction and repulsion has created a suction drawing in both good and evil. The white sailor and vagabond who ravished the brown maiden never intended to father the consequences. But gradually, as communication increased and mutual interests developed, greater stability entered into the relations of the races. Marital contracts became necessary and, from the point of view of property and other acquisitions, even desirable. Readjustment of conceptions of sex grew urgent. This entailed the complement, divorce. From all corners of the world came people whose notions of man's relations with woman were as divergent as the seas. The Japanese and Chinese brought their Oriental attitude toward women; the American his Occidental. Besides, with the passing of native control, European nations superimposed European regulations upon the islands. We have, then, the introduction of legalism into the casual affairs of the tropics, and the vanishing of primitive license. We have the Japanese woman, subject to the control of her husband, finding herself protected by the laws of another race. These raise her status and her self-respect. She rebels against unpleasant sex-unions. Divorce in these conglomerate regions, therefore, means the idealization of sex, raising it above the stage of animal possession and material interest; based upon the sense of justice to woman, it recreates marriage, makes decent unions possible. Hence, in the wake of queer marriages we see even more queer divorces, as though hearts, having become self-conscious, seek a new chance. As age mellows racial associations, we find that men's hearts the world over beat as one, and relationships which are at all compatible seek permanency, if not "normalcy." It was easy enough for a wanderer or a few hundred traders and romancers to leave their imprint on the native races. It is another matter when the native races are overwhelmed by a hundred thousand aliens of twenty-odd races, and the work of amalgamation falls to the lot of the white man. An altogether new problem manifests itself,--not only that of bringing them together in a legal and permanent manner, but of separating such types and individuals as cannot work for the betterment of the new race. Throughout the Pacific already reviewed, the mixture is as yet essentially accidental and occasional. But in no spot in the Pacific has the problem assumed such serious proportions as in Hawaii, where, added to the great diversity of conglomerations, comes the factor of white and Asiatic superiority in number. As we have seen, the infusion of this flood of foreign blood into the thin native element has fairly swamped it. This jungle of humanity seems at first sight utterly beyond cultural purification. The streets throb with such multiplicity of little ways that one feels bewildered. One has to snatch a sample of the life and place it beneath the magnifying-glass of tradition and code to be able to separate it from the whole. And that I did one day in Honolulu. The sun was pouring down in veritable splutters of softness and mellowness. It was warm in an all-embracing tenderness of warmth. To be in the shade with another human being was here as unifying in spirit as sitting before an open fire is on a blizzardy day in the North. And on such a day I entered the court-room of Honolulu. The dusty tread of people from every land has sounded across this court-house floor and all the simple tragedies of life with their hoarse warnings have been enacted within its walls. Hundreds of disappointed men and women have come into that room hoping to have their lives straightened out, their affections given a new chance. When I entered, the court-room was empty. A massive Hawaiian looked in, and walked away. Then a thin white man approached and, when he learned what brought me, he sat down on one of the wooden benches to talk to me. It was Judge William L. Whitney, who died in New York just recently. Presently, an emaciated-looking Chinese entered and sat down to wait. A small, wrinkled, sallow little woman from the Celestial Republic, accompanied by a compatriot, came in after him, and seated herself a little distance away. Then came the fat Hawaiian again who had peered in earlier, and with that everything seemed in order. Judge Whitney left me, approached the bench, and, though he wore only his ordinary street clothes, he was forthwith crowned with the halo of his office. The proceedings began. Proceedings in this case meant great round eyes rolling in tremendous sockets, a tongue free with the dialects and linguistics of every mixture, and a temperament free from ambition or guile. The judge could speak no Chinese, the respondents could speak no English, the witnesses (of whom two strayed in later) could speak neither English nor Chinese,--and so among them the Hawaiian interpreter had all the fun to himself. He was in reality the dispenser of justice. The case was rehearsed. The Chinese was suing his wife for divorce. "Where were you when you saw this man kiss your wife?" asked the judge. The interpreter took up the question in Chinese as though the language were part of his inheritance, and after the Chinese spoke, back came the reply through the lips of the Hawaiian, but in the first person. "I was in the garden. When I looked up into our bedroom I saw this man kiss my wife." The evidence was vague. To John Chinaman it meant more than a few facts, for his wife had borne him no offspring. What a timid-daring attempt to reach out for new life! At home he would just have dismissed her, but here it was different. Yet from their appearance it was doubtful that either of them would ever have the courage to try to live life over. This was only one of the many entangled lives that came to be straightened out in Hawaii. There are more than forty-seven different combinations of races there, such as American and American, German and German, Korean and Korean, Russian and Russian, Spanish-Marshall and English, Half-Hawaiian and Chinese-Hawaiian, Hawaiian and Chinese-Hawaiian, Hawaiian and Hawaiian-Portuguese, Chinese and Chinese, Hawaiian and Hawaiian, Portuguese and Portuguese, Spanish and Spanish, Spanish-Hawaiian and Spanish-Hawaiian, Portuguese and Creole-Spanish-Portuguese, Chinese and Irish, American and Half-Hawaiian, Portuguese and Pole, Half-Hawaiian and Half-Hawaiian, American and Hawaiian-Chinese, English and Half-Hawaiian, Japanese and American, American-Japanese and Japanese, Half-Hawaiian and German, Portuguese and Hawaiian, German and Irish, Hawaiian-Chinese and Spanish-Italian, Portuguese and Hawaiian-Chinese, Half-Hawaiian and Spanish, Porto-Rican and Porto-Rican, Oginawa and Oginawa, French-Porto-Rican and Porto-Rican, Swede and Portuguese, English and English, Hawaiian and Chinese, American and French-Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese, American-Portuguese and German-Irish, Portuguese-Hawaiian and Portuguese, Portuguese and German-Irish, Portuguese-Hawaiian and Portuguese, Portuguese-Irish and Hawaiian, Hawaiian and American-Negro, Portuguese-Hawaiian-Chinese and Chinese. And I am certain that I can add another, that of my New Zealand acquaintance and his Maori wife. They are but one phase of the whole problem of the mixture of races and the melting of their silvers and bronzes down to the human essence within them. For there were in Judge Whitney's time on an average of two hundred and thirty couples divorced under that ceiling every year. Figures make human facts seem so remote that I hate to use them. As soon as figures are quoted the individuals lose their identity. That which is living and real becomes, as it were, an astronomical calculation and one might as well talk of stars. But the figures of the divorces in Hawaii are in themselves a living thing, as they interpret the life there more than words could do; so I'll risk giving a few of the figures Judge Whitney published while I was in Honolulu. The Japanese contributed 49% of the divorces in Hawaii, though they comprise only 34% of the population; the Americans, 7%, though they were 8% of the population. The rest were distributed among the other nationalities. This is how those statistics compared with divorce statistics in other countries. There were in England out of every hundred thousand inhabitants, two divorces per year; in Austria, one; in Norway, six; in Sweden, eight; in Italy, three; in Denmark, seventeen; in Germany, twenty-three; and in France, the same; in the United States, seventy-three; and in the island of Oahu (Honolulu), four hundred. Hundreds of little folk, a host of children, have passed out of that room either fatherless or motherless. Back in the lands which they might have called home it would not have happened in just this way, or having happened so, it would not have had the same tragic meaning. For in Oriental countries fathers frequently put the mothers of their children aside. Yet, somehow the tragedies do not fret and strut in such distorted ways in lands where distortion is much more common, as in the East. In most Oriental countries it is enough for a man to say his wife talks too much and declare her divorced, but when he comes to the half-way house, Hawaii, he must be cruel, extremely cruel to his wife before the law will grant him a divorce. So he is "cruel" in a way he may be sure will secure his freedom. 2 What the results of all these mixtures will be, no one can as yet tell, but the consensus of opinion gives the Chinese-Hawaiian the prize for superiority. However promiscuous other races may be, the Japanese seldom stoops to conquer in that way. The maiden of Japan shares with the white woman an aversion for these strangers in Hawaii, though the number of Japanese women who marry white men is far greater than that of white women marrying into any of the races in the Pacific. One of the most prolific causes of divorce in Hawaii has been the so-called "picture bride." Because of the exclusion of Asiatic laborers, few Japanese and Chinese women have been born in the island. But because of their preference for their own women, Japanese sent home for wives. To get round the exclusion laws, they stretched the home process a bit, selected by photograph the girls they wished, had themselves married by proxy (a method recognized in Japan as legal), and then simply sent for their "wives." Aside from the subsequent divorces which very frequently ensued, there have been cases not without their humorous sides. One story was told that must be accepted with caution. Mr. Goto, who just a short while ago was Goto San, wants a wife. He sees a go-between who secures for him the pictures of some girls of his own district. He makes his selection and the process of marriage is accomplished. With something little short of glee, he waits the maid's arrival. She comes. But alas, not alone! Mr. Goto waits with others at the pier. Everybody is blessed but him. Chagrin and impatience battle in his heart. Nearly everybody has been supplied with a wife. There are only two women left. Neither seems to be the one he married. Goto thinks,--thinks rapidly. Who will ever know the difference? He claims the prettier; she accepts him, and off they dash on their honeymoon, à la Occident, a two-day trip round the island of Oahu in a motor-car. And never were nuptials more satisfactory. In the meantime Fujimoto San comes rushing up pell-mell. His garage business has kept him. He finds a lone girl, but she does not tally with the reproduction he married. "Not so nice," is the first thought that flashes across his brain. "Little too broad in the nose, lips thicker than those on the photograph. Can I mistake?" But she is the only one left. He bows at least a half-dozen times, bows clean over, half-way to the ground, but alas! every time his head bobs up he sees the same disheartening face, a face he never ordered, a face he cannot accept. He must clear up the mystery. He calls the agent. Investigations reveal that Goto was there ahead of him; so Fujimoto sets out on a chase after the honeymoon pair. It ends in Honolulu two days later, and another divorce case comes up in court. The "picture bride" is now a thing of the past, as the Japanese Government has agreed to deny her a passport in accordance with the spirit of our treaty with Japan. From the point of view of immigration, this may be a solution; but there is a phase of the problem of the mixture of races in Hawaii I have never yet seen discussed,--that is, the woman. In the case of the Japanese woman, much more than in that of the man, entrance to Hawaii or America is freedom such as has never been known before. At home she has been taught obedience and deference to her husband. There are many others ready to accept that burden if she is unwilling. But in Hawaii, where there are so many Japanese seeking wives and where she moves among peoples whose standards are an inversion of everything she has been taught to regard as virtuous and feminine, she finds herself in an altogether different position. On the streets she sees many white women treated with courtesy; in the courts women receive even more sympathy than men,--to her an unheard-of thing. And so we find that when all the divorces in the Hawaiian Islands have been tabulated, these little timid creatures of Japan have been emboldened to the extent of deserting their husbands in veritable shoals, making up 90% of the entire number of Japanese divorces. It is a scramble for readjustment of conjugal relations based on something nearer emotional equality. But where do the Hawaiians come in? will be asked in all reason. They are virtually no more. Of the entire race which at the time of their discovery by Captain Cook numbered some 130,000 to 300,000, only a few thousand are left. At the time of the annexation of Hawaii by America (1898) there were some 31,000 Hawaiians of pure blood, or about 28% of the population. Of Orientals there was about 42% of the population, with 24,400 Japanese and 21,600 Chinese. Then there were 15,191 Portuguese, 2,250 Britons, 1,437 Germans, 8,400 Americans, 1,479 Norwegians, French and others combined. Already there were 8,400 part-Hawaiian. From the rulers down there was a free mixture, even the queen had a white spouse. Some of the best types of Hawaiian women had been married by men of fine caliber, unlike almost any other place in the Pacific. The relationships were of a permanent nature, for, as the governmental report in connection with annexation stated: The Hawaiians are not Africans, but Polynesians. They are brown, not black. There has never been and there is not any color line in Hawaii as against native Hawaiian, and they participate fully and on an equality with the white people in affairs, political, social, religious, and charitable. The two races freely intermarry one with the other, the results being shown in a population of some 7,000 of mixed blood. They are a race which will in the future, as they have in the past, easily and rapidly assimilate with and adopt American ways and methods. 3 In defiance of prejudice, intermarriage between the races in the Pacific is taking place. What the result is to be, no one as yet knows definitely. The number of white men legalizing their relations with native women is large. The tropics are veritable whispering-galleries sounding the stories of men who have returned to keep their promises even after they have been despatched from the islands under the influence of the cup so as to prevent their marrying. In the mid-Pacific, in the South Seas, in the Far East, white men are marrying native women, even in cases where these have been their mistresses for years. In Japan, many leading white men have married Japanese women, among whom the most celebrated has been Lafcadio Hearn. The list is long. In the ports, many foreigners have married Japanese women, and though there is a strong feeling against it socially, discrimination is not universal. The French and the British are not nearly so fastidious in these matters as are the Americans and the Japanese. Wherever there is outward opposition, it comes from the Japanese side as well as from the white. Japanese complain against discrimination here, but we are received with no more open arms by them in Japan. The girl from Japan coming to the West is by virtue of her immigration alone to some extent emancipated; but to the white woman turning her steps east there is only the emancipation, in part, from drudgery by means of ample servants. To the white woman who goes a step farther and links herself in marriage with a Japanese or Chinese there is in the majority of cases only sorrow, soreness of heart, isolation, and regret. It is not that she might not be happy with the individual Oriental, but in the East she becomes part of a vicious family system that strangles her individuality. Though the maid of Japan is not over-welcome in the West, as the wife of a white man she comes into a higher plane of life. By no means is that true in the case of the white woman in the East. There are too many cases, still warm with regret, to be named in proof of the statement. I have come across several cases of American girls who had married Japanese and returned with them to Japan. They were content enough with their husbands, but their position in the Japanese home was intolerable. I remember the loneliness of a New York girl who had gone to live in Kyoto. The contemptuous way in which some notable Japanese looked at their countryman's white wife was only comparable to the treatment she would have received here. The children, born in the same labor, are not respected as are either "pure" Japanese or white. The Eurasian is frequently disqualified. The white father regrets that his children are not Aryan as did Lafcadio Hearn. This is no attempt to make out a case for the mixture of natives and white in the Pacific. There are not enough facts at hand. Unfortunately, for the next few hundred years the differences between the peoples living on the borders of the Pacific will continue to irritate, and experiments in blood-mixture will probably be tried externally. I have only mobilized such incidents as have come within my own personal observation that will take the problem out of the cold, statistical plane. It is with human flesh and blood, human hearts and affections, human gropings and aspirations that we are dealing,--not with the conflicts of imaginary hordes and with terrifying invasions. To me, the human elements in Honolulu and throughout the Pacific remain a memory of one perpetual stirring of sounds, colors, and desires. The whole is not confusing, for it is outside one's consciousness. In a sense it is an inverted world consciousness. Instead of nationals thinking outward, they have come together and are thinking inward, recognizing themselves as part of some whole. Eventually, after all the races in the Pacific have been mixed more or less, or have proved mixture impossible, they will find some way in which they can dwell at one another's elbows without nudging. The mixture may even assume an appearance of unity. The color scheme, like a thorough blending of all the colors of the spectrum, may yet become white. CHAPTER XVII "THIS LITTLE PIG WENT TO MARKET" 1 The basket was growing heavier and heavier, and his stomach weaker and weaker. How to convert his burden into a meal was a problem, written as large upon his face as the delight in the bargains he was making shone in the face of the marketer beside him. He was a young chap just emerging from boyhood. He had been employed by this restaurant-keeper because he said he needed a meal. It was not to be a real job. He was to get his meal all right, but not till he earned it by going with the boss to market and carrying his basket for him. The basket was soon full to overflowing, and the young man bearing it was nigh exhaustion. They were now going home. At the corner of the open square that had been assigned to garden-truck venders the old man stopped to buy a rose. He disputed the price with the flower-girl, got it at a reduction, and went on. "I always bring my wife a rose from market," he remarked in semi-soliloquy, and they disappeared, the young fellow with his burden, the old man with his rose. Thus does the European little pig go to market, and he's the most civilized little pig in the world. For hundreds of years he has been learning to market, and that most essential of social functions is the progenitor of communal life. The way in which it is performed is a test of the civilization of a people. The first democrats and artists of Europe, the Greeks, knew this, and made the agora a market-place, a focus of public art, and the scene of their political gatherings. Wretched, indeed, was the little pig that stayed home when the agora was convoked, for he it was whom the Greeks had determined to ostracize. Despite their efforts as democrats, there were only too many who had to stay home when the affairs of that world were being decided; but as a market, with all the architectural genius concentrated on making it attractive and beautiful, and Socrates leading his classes through it, it was a certain success. In the ruder parts of Europe, owing to the absence of means of communication and the dangers of carrying one's possessions abroad, definite market-places became an imperative necessity, and charters for their existence were granted by decree. They became an important means of securing revenue. Even the Church recognized the value of festivals as means of enriching itself in a combination of barter with merrymaking and adoration. Festivals and fairs alike enhanced the material and the artistic life of medieval Europe, and marked, as it were, the embryonic element out of which grew all the later laws and ethics of trade. The legitimacy of piracy at sea and robbery on land had to be counteracted in some way, and the dignity and decency of exchange established. The evolutionary process by which civilization has achieved some sort of business morality may yet be traced in various countries, especially among the primitive peoples of the South Seas, the more advanced Filipinos, the recently awakened Japanese, the Mexicans, and the accomplished New Zealanders. Beneath the surface of the market-place, the wide world over, one finds the source of civilization, and at its level, the level of human commonalty. For as men hunt to cover up their love of wild life and nature, so women market as an excuse for mingling with people. There is in the behavior of the marketer all the cunning of the animal in search of prey, and the degree to which these instincts are developed gives in a sense the measure of a man's civilization. Even outside the bonds of law and order the mere process of exchange tends to establish social ethics. This is nowhere better exemplified than at the thieves' market in Mexico or in the hidden reaches of the Orient. Thither all robbers bring their stolen wares for sale. Thither all the robbed hasten, to recover their lost property. The instinct within each and all of them is the gambling spirit. The despoiler is eager to sell as quickly and as successfully as possible lest the rightful owner arrive and claim the booty. The general public is anxious to buy, for the prices naturally are low, and many a bargain may be secured. The despoiled, chagrined though they may be at their loss, are in part compensated by the hope of a purchase made at somebody else's expense. 2 I had not known that buying and selling was ever part of the scheme of things among people whose needs were as few as those of the South-Sea islanders. Saints and philosophers are always teaching us that the most desirable state is that in which wants are few, and their indulgence is still more limited. But it seems to me that where that condition holds, the few necessaries of life become so much more desirable and so much more difficult to obtain that, instead of a release from slavery, slavery is even more rigorous. Our pictured impressions of the tropics are full of breadfruit-trees and fruits growing in abundance without labor. But quite the contrary is the case. The fear of famine and the insecurity of life have dampened the joys of many a wild man, and the pressure of population has only too frequently resulted in infanticide and cannibalism. When, therefore, I heard that there was to be a native bazaar across the Rewa River, in Vita Levu, the largest island of the Fiji group, I defied the yellow sun that hung overhead, secured a complement of guides in two Fijian boys who were more afraid of me than they were of their chief, and set out for real primitive excitement. We were pulled across the river on a punt secured to each shore by a cable, and made our way up the banks in the direction of the sugar-mill. It was noon when we arrived at the fair-grounds. Aside from long wooden tables that stood beneath arbors of palms, there was nothing completed by way of preparation. A few straggling natives wended their ways from hut to hut of slab-board and thatch, their quiet manners reminding me of the monks in monasteries, absorbed in their duties. Gradually, venders arrived; the tables began to sprout with banana-leaves and flowers. Strings of berry beads were displayed, like fish out of water,--appealing eyes of the plant world asking why, with nature so near at hand, they needed to be torn from life. Bottles of liquid fats, like capsules of the castor-plant, stood ensconced in green-leaved packages containing sweet messes that left the eager natives, old and young, literally web-handed. The goods displayed, the crowds from the surrounding huts arrived, drawn by an irresistible charm. A Fijian never came with his mate; maiden never approached on her lover's arm. Though they all appeared indiscriminately, there was no obvious grouping of friends with friends. They moved like shoals of fish that had got the scent or the sight of food. It was a crowd with every evidence of cohesiveness except that of companionship. To me there was something pathetic in that crowd. An outsider by all the laws of centuries of contrary development, I had no means of entering their emotional lives, of guessing the promptings which made them leave privacy for herding. I had only the most outward signs to go by, and I thought what spiritless, barren lives they must lead who could be brought together on such an occasion in so casual a mood. For aside from the bottles of oil, the strings of beads, and the wrappings of stuff in banana-leaves, there was nothing from my view to make a hundred or two hundred thousand pounds of sluggish flesh rise from its mats and dare the piercing sun. Yet the women, who did most of the selling, with their unkempt hair and their crude alien costumes, awoke to something universal under the game of barter they were here called upon to play crudely. Rummage-sales and carnivals, dog-shows and dances, likewise change the glitter of blue eyes and pink cheeks; and I smiled at the thought of Lao-tsze and Tolstoy, who between 650 B. C. and A. D. 1910 preached the ugliness of trade. When the play of barter and exchange had stirred these primitive folk to a little more life, they quite naturally sought a way of giving it off again; but so foreign did a real bazaar seem to them that they entered the recreations with little zest. In these days of savage sedateness, with trade becoming more and more a feature and a pastime of life, it is not surprising that the natives attend with spirits in abeyance. Following the great exchange of beads and oils and edible messes, the crowds moved out to a more open space, under the clear sun. There, with the aid of a native band, under the conductorship of a Catholic priest, they made merry, with strange sounds and more familiar dances. But it all seemed perfunctory and not without a touch of sadness. The Fijian voice at its best is rich, deep, and stately. One cannot imagine it attuned to singing jazz or rag-time. It seems exclusively made for hymns. In consequence, the crowds could not rise to the occasion, and stood behind the entertainers like so many solemn Japanese in the presence of royalty. 3 But lest the little pig who stays at home may really starve to death, the world sometimes indulges him a little by letting the market go to him, and never have I seen a market more picturesque and more self-possessed than one of this sort that visited our steamer as she lay anchored in the harbor of Manila. All about us during the night had crept Filipino lighters, their gunwales capped with low-arched mats. They hugged the steamer like a brood of younglings waiting for their food. They were to receive the cargo of boxes and canned goods from New York and other markets of the world. It was still cool. A native Filipino woman squatted on the ridge of a lighter top between two men. She was enjoying her morning cigarette. As she caught my gaze her face beamed flirtatiously. Then and there I tried my tongue for the first time in the real use of Spanish, and failed. As the morning advanced, children crept from the darkness of the covered lighters; charcoal pails were fanned into a glow like that of the dawn; and roosters, tied to the boats by one leg with a string, crowed, their contempt, protest, or indifference to a gluttonous and unjust world. As the hour of breakfast's needs arrived, a thin, long canoe came up, insinuating its way among the many more capacious crafts, quietly, slowly, like a thing just stirring with the new day. On its narrow bottom flopped dozens of little fish in agony, dying of too much air. They looked like so many bars of silver when they lay dead. A basket of bananas and a few simple vegetables comprised the rest of the stock of these aquatic tradespeople, this man and his woman. She squatted comfortably, looking from side to side for customers, while he pushed the canoe along with easy strokes. They did not cry their wares, and handed their stores out as though known to all for fair dealing and fearless of competition. Thus with the freshness of morning air they stimulated this little world to action. By noon that day I was slipping through narrow streets, avoiding the moldy shops of the main street, seeking out the men and women who make life interesting. The coolness of the morning was gone, crowded out by steaming noon. The casual, gift-like manners of those two aquatic traders was now a thing not even to expect, for I was in the midst of civilized trade. Unexpectedly, I came upon the public market. What a different world! The hand of the law was in evidence. Here, despite the general confused appearance, the concrete drains and stone tables gave an assurance of at least periodical cleansing. Here the laws of barter held men tied to fair dealing, as the roosters were tied to those lighters. Venders make a mad dash for freedom through cheating, but were jerked back to honesty by the bargain-hunter who watches the scales and knows the laws. Values are measured by the size of the pupil or the intensity of the gaze; if eagerness is manifest, up goes the price. A Buddhist, looking upon a market like this, if he were unaccustomed to pagan ways, would shrink from the sight as we would at a cannibal feast. Here the world was calmly cruel. All the things we eat lay in their naked ghastliness,--the thin streams of blood, the bulging eyes of little creatures, the stiff inflexibility of limbs once quick and supple. And the men and women were unconsciously affected by the scene. For nothing stimulates the snarling quarrelsomeness of human beings more than the sight of food or the fear of imposition. The appeals of the sellers were mingled with the bargainings and bickerings of the buyers, a competition among both to best one another. Two women stood over a fish-bin engaged in a matching of wits that might well have been envied by filibustering senators. The debate was over a tray of tiny fish. A white woman, firmly knit in body and in character, made her way through the many aisles, purchasing with a precision as clearly civilized as it was silent. A Spanish woman, dark and dashing, swung through the same aisles like a little whirlwind. There was brilliance in her eyes, and brilliancy in the gems on her fingers and in her ears. She was exceedingly well dressed, buxom, and attractive, but every purchase was made with a gust of austerity and command quite uncalled for. She bullied the fisherwoman, she bullied her hackman, she bullied the servant who had come to carry her purchases for her; and then she sat down at one of the little restaurant tables and ate the strange concoctions with a dexterity obviously native to her. She was a half-caste, but the Spanish vein was strong in her blood, and Spanish passion actuated her. She got into her ancient-looking hackney-coach with flash and gusto; but not, however, before she had gained her point in the matter of an extra piece of fat upon which she was insisting. She was the little pig who had roast beef because she knew how to market economically. 4 But the little pig that has none, and the one who cries, _wee! wee! wee!_ all the way home, in the Far East, is like the Greek about to be ostracized by the community in the agora. Indeed, he has been ostracized in Japan for hundreds of years, and even modernization and imperial edict have changed his status but little. He is known as the _eta_. To him has been allotted the task of attending to dead animals, whether edible or not, and though his touch profanes the lowest classes of Japan, his labor keeps the country clean after a fashion. Much more. Not only do these outcasts remove dead carcasses from a careless Oriental world, but in one place at least they have been given the sweetest of all professions,--that of selling flowers with which to decorate the _tokonoma_, the most honorable place in the Japanese home. And all through the day, if one is not too much engrossed in the marts of the foreign settlement, one will hear the voice of these flower-girls calling plaintively, "_Hana! hana-i! hana-iro!_" Flowers are the things that stand between her and the degradation of her class, because for years the shrine of a loyal servant of the neglected emperor who was struggling against a greater and more powerful group of disloyal Japanese had been kept fresh with flowers by these _eta_, or outcasts, who did not know whose grave they cherished. [Illustration: FIJIAN VILLAGE One is content with its peaceful aspects] [Illustration: LITTLE FISH WENT TO THIS MARKET Before Japan woke up © Harper Brothers] [Illustration: A FIJIAN BAZAR IS A RED LETTER DAY] [Illustration: GOOD LUCK MUST ATTEND THESE TRADERS AT THE DOORS OF THE CATHEDRALS IN MANILA] Otherwise the market in Japan is in the hands of Japanese now in good social standing, men who before the opening of the country numbered among those not much above the outcasts. To be in trade was worse in Japan than in England, and when one watches the behavior of men at markets, one is not surprised. One who takes the average trader at his word in Japan--not the big concerns, to be sure--deserves to cry, _wee! wee! wee!_ all the way home. While all over the world woman goes to market, in Japan the market goes to her. She has had to have most of her daily supplies brought to her door by the cobbler, the bean-curd-maker, or the fisherman. In consequence, except when she has servants, she has been deprived of the educational advantages of market gossip, and has been kept in her sphere more easily. She will be the last to come forward to freedom. Not so the men. All the social advantages of barter and exchange are theirs. They communicate their experiences to one another at four o'clock in the morning over the fish-tub. They test their wits and their eyes with the auctioneer who starts them running in competition with one another over an attractive specimen from the sea. Or the more imaginative resist confusion in the pit of the stock-market, where they keep in touch with their entire country and with the world. They are becoming, in consequence, more efficient and more practised in world-wide ethics of business. Yet within the last few years public markets have sprung into vogue in Japan, and I look toward a revolution in the relations of the sexes, for no woman who goes to market remains long an obedient and submissive little soul. This is obvious to any one who wanders into the market of Shanghai. There one can see the status of the various women who replenish their household supplies and the most humble, it seemed to me, was the woman of Japan. She moved about like _Priscilla_ suddenly brought back to life and sent to compete with the modern American woman. 5 In ancient Greece, of course, no woman of refinement went marketing herself. She sent her slaves. But in modern New Zealand not only are there no slaves, but there is no one to do any personal service of that nature. In the old days, in Europe, the market was the general rendezvous where life played its pranks at all levels. The religious festivals also afforded dramatic pageantry, and sometimes the two interplayed with each other. But in our modern times, when the public market is largely supplanted by the great department store, shielded, protected, organized into a minimum of human interest and a maximum of efficiency, the charm of the market is no more. So, too, our festivals have surrendered much of their artistry. This was somewhat revived during the war. New Zealand, because of the still evident atmosphere of pioneer life, the lack of interlocking systems of communication, and its distance from the most advanced places in the world, still affords some of that simple charm of a life one reads about. The streets of the main cities nightly resemble something one has dimly heard of and never hoped to see. The people have laid aside all thought of business or barter. There is in their attitude something of that suppressed amazement that revealed the thoughts of the South-Sea islanders when asked to thrill to an alien band conducted by the Catholic priest. Both the whites and the primitives seemed to recall that once they knew how to celebrate. Queens Street of Auckland was decorated one day, and booths were erected on which simple products were offered for sale. A parade of two fire-department machines, a number of men in Chinese costumes, others painted and foolscapped, boys with enormous masks, and girls in dominoes, marched through the city, and in their wake was a rush of just plain pedestrians. Other than that nothing happened. From five to ten thousand people jammed the street. The crowd was essentially like every other crowd in the world,--the same in gregariousness, the same in hunting after pleasure that abideth but a moment. One evening the events were more thrilling. Sulky races, men driven by girls, and May-pole dances round the street lamps that stand between the tram-lines gave a suggestion of antiquity to the city. The only difference between these performances and those in the upper regions of the tropics was in the absence of palms and green arbors. In place of wide spaces were narrow streets, lined with brick buildings and studded with iron poles whose only blossoms were glowing electric lights, and whose only branches were pairs of stiff arms holding the trolley wires. So, too, the market side of this carnival was a sharp contrast to the fairs and markets in more modernized communities. Britons are essentially traders, but they trade by rule. Even when they play trading, as at this carnival, they are more constrained. What little was done to allay the sober spirit was revived by the element of barter. The gambling spirit, checked in normal times, was stimulated. Raffles, wheels, and rings were employed to extract coins from the under-zealous. The only abandon was in the confetti, which was scattered generously about in the throngs. In the booths conservation was the key-note. Everything, from motor-cars to potatoes, was auctioned and raffled. A man from Coney Island, accustomed to that hysterical release of emotion, would have felt that he was attending not a carnival, but an open market in which only the basic necessities of life were in demand. Not so in Napier, New Zealand, or in Sydney, Australia. There they seem as different from their British ancestry as Hottentots are from Polynesians. There men and women know how to make merry in ways almost unforgettable, and to ripple the smooth surface of sedate civilization with lovely flirtations that would weaken the most stoic of mortals and paragons of propriety. Otherwise, in all New Zealand, life goes along in its leisurely, businesslike way. Men attend horse-sales with great zest; salesmen rush across the country in their little motor-cars, bringing the wares of the world's elaborate markets to the doors of stations or ranches; auctioneers dash hither and thither to confuse, if they can, farmers into the exchange of sheep or cattle. While tramping along the road to Wellington, I was overtaken by a touring-car. "Want a ride?" asked the driver. And when I mounted, he asked: "Seeing our little country, are you? Nothing like it in the world. Ever been to a sheep auction? Want to come along?" And the next thing I knew we were rushing over the dirt road toward Onga Onga. We drew up at the accommodation house with a sudden jolt. The guest-room was filled with farmers. Sallow, hollow-cheeked, with voices that seemed to plow through their brains for thoughts, their conversation was labored. Dinner was devoured in semi-silence. But when they got to the stockyards, they became more alert. The auctioneer mounted the fence like an orator. He began cackling like a bewitched hen. The farmers moved about, feeling sheep offered for sale, the more expert glancing at them with pride in judgment. One sleek farmer, whose elaborate motor-car stood by the roadside, scrutinized the yards as one who might buy the entire lot as a whim. The psychology of the auction-sale crowd is distinct from that of the bargain-hunter. The latter believes himself to be the winner because of the confessed misjudgment of the trader. But the auction-buyer moves about quietly, makes his own judgments of values, exchanges opinions only with his associates, and waits his chances. At a bargain-counter every one rushes for the thing he wants; here the very thing most wanted is ignored, as though to lead other hunters off the scent. As soon as the sale was over, men fell apart, like boiling rice in a pot when suddenly douched with cold water. So far has civilized man made certain the processes by which he secures the satisfaction of his wants that one begins to wonder why men like to buy and sell at all. They are like the artisans and the mechanists who have become specialized and divorced from contact with the living, finished product. So much so is this true that much of New Zealand's real marketing is done in London. Once the manager of a station wired his London principals: SNOWING DURING LAMBING The principals, according to New Zealand's version, replied: STOP LAMBING AT ONCE 6 Wander where one may this wide world over, one finds that the places to which tourists are drawn mostly are the markets. There one finds the richest reward for curiosity. The traveler in foreign lands, especially if he is alone and somewhat homesick, knows no pleasanter thrill than the sight upon the pier, amid cargoes from every known quarter of the globe, of a box of canned goods stamped in black-stenciled letters with the seven signs of bliss, "NEW YORK." When lost in that good old town, it had never occurred to him that ships trail the seven seas carrying canned soups and fruits and vegetables to black-faced, sprawling-toed savages. But out there in the wide spaces of the globe he realizes how strikingly alike are the alimentary failings of mankind. Lost in reminiscences, when on Broadway again, he thinks himself forever cut off from romance, until he happens to turn into a side street, a public market, or even a small chain-store grocery. There he finds that in a way romance is not dead. The sedate housewife permits herself on occasion to flirt with the butcher or the baker; incidents the on-looker has not thought possible prevail here as well as in the markets of the Orient. And packages with the imprint of Japan, of China, coffee from South America, awaken in him memories irresistible. He goes away wishing he were again off there where New York seems like romance to him. The day will never come when silks and spices and marts will not conjure up in the minds of the most prosaic the very essence of romance. BOOK THREE DISCUSSION OF THE POLITICAL PROBLEMS INVOLVING AUSTRALASIA, ASIA AND AMERICA CHAPTER XVIII AUSTRALASIA New Zealand and Australia are to-day the only spots in the world wherein the white race may expand without encroaching upon already existing and developed races. The extent to which they are taking advantage of their opportunities, the extent to which they are enlarging the scope and the quality of progressive civilization is the measure of their right to the maintenance of their exclusive "White-Australasia" policy. I confess at the outset that I am at a loss for an adequate argument against this policy. Narrow, selfish, dog-in-the-manger-like as it may be, we are faced with the other question: From time out of mind China and India have had two of the largest slices of the world's surface. What have they done with them? How can India and Asia, having littered up their domains with human beings, ask that more of the world be turned over to them for a repetition of the same ghastly reproduction? They have made it impossible, with their degradation of womanhood and their exaltation of caste and ancestry, for new life to start with anything like a decent chance. Is there not every reason to believe that permitted to take up quarters in the open spaces of the white man's world, they will do the same? True that the white man, in both of these cases, has wrested his lands from existing native tribes. But it was also true that, in New Zealand at least, and through Polynesia, the natives were immigrants who in their turn imposed on yet more primitive natives, as did the Japanese. Furthermore, no race on earth has been given a better opportunity to make good than has the Maori in New Zealand. The Australoid seems on the whole not equipped for the effort. There have been cases of Australian blacks making good. There is the case of the savage who after receiving an education became a Shakespearean scholar. But the exception only proves the rule. Furthermore, though there is bitter opposition to any white man marrying a native black woman in Australia--an opposition that is calling for legal action from some quarters so that such marriage will be in future impossible--still, the White-Australia policy is not aimed against the blacks. These will either take hold of themselves and make good, in time, or will die out. Be that as it may, there is no answer to the Asiatic demand for admission based on the argument about the white man's plunder. The only other argument is that, if this is the case, the white man must get out of Asia. There too, it seems to me, is a weak spot. The white man in Asia--as man to man--does not lower the standard of the civilization of the native; nor is he ever likely to migrate in numbers large enough to create a problem. Only politically, where a leeching-process exists, where native industries are destroyed by cheap foreign products (like that of cotton goods, which were forced upon the Indians by the British, to the utter ruination of the Indian textiles) has the havoc been serious. That is a real argument, and it is up to the Asiatics so to adjust their own affairs and to come together as to "oust" the white man,--a problem for the natives to solve for themselves. There is still another consideration. What of Japan? Japan has national unity, she is advancing. Is she, then, to be made an exception in the White-Australia policy? The answer is, Japan must do as she would be done by, an answer which will be enlarged upon in the chapter dealing with Japan. Having thus focused on the negative phases of this discussion, let us see what is written on the inner side of the Australasian shield. Before we can at all understand the motives that move Australasia in the direction she is going, and foresee the future, we shall have to know by what channels she came to be what she is, what ideals are parents to her being, and what ideals are her offspring. Strange as it may seem, Britain's interest in her south Pacific possessions have always been more or less mild. When the question of annexing New Zealand came up in 1839, the Duke of Wellington said in Parliament that Great Britain already had too many colonies. It is common knowledge that she gave them as much rope as they would take, that when she had the opportunity of acquiring the Samoan group in 1889 she let it slip, and that she took the Fiji Islands only after their chief, Thakambau, offered them in liquidation of unjust debts to America. In other words, it was New Zealand and Australia that held on to the mother country, instead of the reverse. And in order to understand the spirit of the Dominion and the Commonwealth, we must consider the reasons for their clinging to "home." Australia was first settled by men convicted of offences against Britain's then crude sense of justice; but New Zealand was devised as a colonial scheme under which every feature of British life was to be transplanted. When Europeans came to America, political and religious freedom was sought. When Great Britain went to New Zealand, eighty-five years ago, society was politically and religiously free, but industrial organization was awaiting an ambitious hand. In New Zealand it was not, as Havelock Ellis puts it so vividly, "the roving of a race with piratical and poetic instincts invading old England where few stocks arrived save by stringent selection of the sea." They did not come because of romantic longing, nor to escape oppression and restriction. The story of the development of New Zealand, from settlement and conquest of the Maories to the beginning of that legislation which has made it famous, is the story of conservatism. When the first shipload of colonists set out from England, their prospectus was a document of conservatism. The aim of the projectors was to transplant every phase and station and class of English life, to build in the other end of the world another England. Doubtless the fathers of this scheme were seeking to overcome the fear of forced transplantation which had made of Australia a land of horror in anticipation, and hence they spread broadcast accounts of the sort of colony New Zealand was to be, which made it alluring. But such are the erring tendencies of human nature that Australia, intended to be the land of one of the worst forms of indentured and penal servitude and the perpetuation of unprogressiveness, set the pace for the entire world in untried liberalism in industry, while New Zealand, likewise advanced, has developed her latent conservatism in regard to imperialism to a marked degree. [Illustration: THE MOUNTAINS ARE CALLED THE REMARKABLES Farmer M---- had the reputation for being the worst boss in the Wakatipu (New Zealand)] [Illustration: THE BLUE MOUNTAINS OF AUSTRALIA Seen from this side they look more like gorges] [Illustration: AUSTRALIA DENUDING HERSELF Photo from Brown Bros.] For apart from the experiments in labor legislation, New Zealand has never lost any of the dependence on England. She seems to be afraid of her isolation, lest, deprived of communication with the world, she should be forced into a condition such as that in which the white man found the heliolithic Maories. Canada might become a nation separate from Britain; so might Australia. But New Zealand has not even that proximity to a continent which made England what she is, for she is twelve hundred miles from her nearest neighbor. In consequence, the New Zealanders have always maintained a strong leaning toward the homeland, whereas in Australia early resentment alienated the settlers. The New Zealander to-day is the exact replica of the Englishman as we knew him; the Australian is a compromise between an Englishman and an American. The modern Australian on the east coast of the continent is as little an Englishman as possible. I have heard any number of Australians resent being called English. The last "convict" was brought to Australia in 1840; yet the Australians are very conscious of this stigma on them. The other day an English engineer told me that in Subiaco, one of the suburbs of Perth, it was impossible for one to join the tennis-club whose grandfather was born in Australia--lest that ignoble ancestor should have passed on some of the "taint" to his unfortunate offspring. Yet in the eyes of enlightened legislation, the taint involved is of course questionable. It is therefore not to be wondered at that Australia kept growing farther and farther from England. In the early days each settlement maintained its own government, and so great was the jealousy among the settlements that they sought to bar one another even in the construction of railroads. Victoria built a broad-gage line, New South Wales, a narrower, and Queensland the narrowest,--not mere engineering accident due to any notion of superiority of the special line, but clearly and openly to make communication of one with another difficult. But by 1900 the settlements had outgrown their childish squabbling, and they became federated into the Commonwealth of Australia. Though this brought them together within Australia, it awoke New Zealand to the danger of being drawn into that union against her will. "The Melbourne Age" prophesied that in a quarter of a century they would be federated. "The fate and destiny of Australia and New Zealand were the same and they should be united in the defense of these distant lands that were held by people of the same thought and same political system." But there never has been much love lost between them. New Zealanders have been anathema in Australia, and Australians hadn't a ghost of a chance of getting a job in New Zealand. Nor was this a matter of different standards of living, except that they both discriminated against the Englishman. And not without reason, for the type of Englishman who set out for the Antipodes was one who generally had nothing to sustain him at home. To the Australasians he was virtually a foreigner, and foreigners of any sort are few in the far South, and are encouraged still less. Yet there is excessive pride in the fact that something like 98 per cent. of the inhabitants are British. In view of the economic departures they have taken from European conceptions, this would seem a paradox. But even among the workers, the psychological effect of "home" is apparent to the most casual observer. Though material security has been assured by the State, the result of much of the legislation in the Antipodes seems to me to have been something akin to the class system in England. The worker has become legally recognized as a worker, he has been given a minimum wage and protection against imposition, but any effort on the part of labor to crystallize its ideals is still obnoxious to the masses. There is not even any of the impulse found among American workers toward that rise in the social scale which is essentially bourgeois. There is a most decided tendency to accept the status of worker in the good old English fashion. Working-people do not regard themselves as "gentlemen" or as "ladies," these terms in New Zealand having the same significance they have in the old country. Deference to one who does not look like a laborer is pronounced, and the average workman is more ambitious for the "gentleman" than he is for himself. This spirit obtains much more in New Zealand than in Australia. Than dignity in labor nothing in the world could be more worthy. But if that dignity spells merely content, it lays society open to a renewal of the very class divisions industrial progress has sought to remove. The laborer is too content to remain a laborer actively to enter the lists against injustice. And in a short time you have those who refused to be doped by the talk of virtue in labor on the top, and the laborer at the bottom. Yet, socially and outwardly, there are not the gaps between the classes in New Zealand that are found in Australia. There are no great restaurants and pleasure places for the rich. All people visit the dainty little tea-rooms, and often workingmen come dressed in their working-clothes, with unwashed hands. In Dunedin the proprietor of one of the best tea-rooms handed out little cards to laborers with "Your Patronage is Undesirable" on them, but the public howled his practice out of existence. This is largely because the level of life in New Zealand is more even. The wealthy do not display themselves over-much, and the most obvious club life is that among the workers. Workingmen's clubs are equipped with very good libraries and reading-rooms, but also with tremendous circular bars fully as much frequented as the book-shelves. The result is that though, from a progressive point of view, New Zealand is outwardly tame and sober, from a consideration of health, the standard of life is universally good. Any great influx of peoples with standards of living that would of necessity demoralize this normality, would give the country a setback which might take generations to overcome. On the other hand, though the present state of affairs might continue indefinitely, unless New Zealand gains in numbers, her place among the influential members of the Pacific Ocean nations is certain to be strained, if not jeopardized. Torn between these economic enthusiasms of a small country and the restraining influences of a tradition that is essentially imperialistic, New Zealand has a pretty hard time of it. Naturally enough, she is holding on to her beloved mother country with an excessive amount of talk, while at the same time nibbling away at the ties that bind her. She is in the hardest position of any of the Pacific countries. By tradition adoring England and scorning Australia, emulating the one and trying to keep peace with the other, realizing that proximity makes her more than a brother of her continental kin, looking toward America for applause and assistance, New Zealand is shaping a policy that will probably become a patchwork of colors,--and most interesting to look at. But Australia is cutting the waters with the force of a triple-screw turbine. And toward Australia we shall have to look for the leadership of British policy in the Pacific. Canada is too close to Europe and America ever to become the real leader in the destinies of the Pacific. The truth of this statement becomes manifest when one watches the inner workings of the island continent. Though New Zealand is more widely known for its great liberalism, there is really more freedom of thought in Australia, more freedom from traditional thinking, more boldness of expression. That was manifest during the war when the conscription issue came up. The New Zealand Legislature simply enacted a conscription measure. In Australia, the Government tried twice to force it through by way of a referendum, and twice it failed. William Morris Hughes, the Prime Minister, had gone to England to attend a conference, promising that conscription would never be proposed. He was wedded to voluntaryism. When he returned, Australians suspected him of having conscription up his sleeve. There was an outburst of indignation. Australians charged him with having had his head turned by fawning lords and ladies at "home" and with sidling up to a title himself. Australians are not very keen about rank; in that matter they are more like Americans. Hughes nearly committed political suicide by declaring himself in favor of conscription. It is said that he was warned by labor not to try to put it through without a referendum. What happened then illuminates the Australian character. [Illustration: AUSTRALIA IS NOT ALL DESERT AND PLAIN South Australian Government Photo] [Illustration: PEOPLE ARE SMALL AMIDST AUSTRALIA'S GIANT TREE FERNS See the group on the rocks at lower right-hand corner Photo from Brown Bros.] For weeks the country was in as wild a state as pending civil war could produce anywhere. The feeling was tense. Conflicts and wrangling occurred everywhere. Up to the last night of the discussion it seemed as though there would be war. Then came the day of the vote. The quiet and the orderliness was one of the greatest boosts for democracy ever staged. Everything was bathed in sunny restfulness. Workingmen lay upon the grass of the public domain like seals. When they talked it was about anything but conscription. Conscription lost. It lost a second time the year after. Two main factors stood out against the sending of more men to Europe,--labor and Asia. Almost immediately after the referendum the coal strike occurred. The situation became grave. To conserve fuel for industrial purposes, the Government prohibited the use of electricity and gas except during specified hours. Places of business on the main streets were lit with kerosene lamps, movies were closed, the ferry stations stood in semi-darkness. People conversed as though certain doom were impending. Things looked forlorn indeed. Shops and factories were closing down, throwing thousands out of work. One heard remarks about things heading for a revolution. Australia is reputed to have done wonders in the way of solving the problems of capital and labor, but there are as many strikes in that Commonwealth as in any other state. The country is crystallizing quickly and is bound to become more and more conservative. Despite the worthy democracy to be found there, every public utterance seemed to bear itself as though made by a lord. One is constantly aware of the presence of the crown, even though it has been removed, like the sense of pressure behind one's ears after having taken off one's spectacles. For notwithstanding its democracy, Australia is bound up in the monarchy. Revolution was hinted at every now and then, but at its mention one also heard the creaking of the bones of empire. It was evident and clear, though hardly spoken. One felt the security which comes from the accumulation of tradition and custom, but it was not comfortable. Even in Australia change seems to be regarded as synonymous with destruction. A marvelous structure, this British Empire, and fit for the residence of any human being,--but not an American. He is too dynamic, too restless, too eager for creation. And here is where we arrive at the point of meeting and of parting in our relations with Australia. America has determined upon keeping the country "white" against the invasion of Asia. So has Australia. But America has the inclusive tendencies of an empire; Australia the exclusive. America is heterogeneous; Australia is homogeneous. American strikes are regarded as importations, but what about the strikes in Australia? America has a population of 110,000,000 in an area but a little larger than Australia, while Australia has only a paltry 4,500,000. America is trying to amalgamate the diverse races it already has without taking in such people as the Asiatics, whose racial characters are so unyielding. But Australia is herself unyielding. Homogeneous as her population is, she has great difficulty in keeping it from disagreement. With a vast region not likely to be touched by labor in generations, Australia uses the same arguments against outsiders coming in as does America in regions already well developed. Keeping Australia "white" is the keynote of all Australian politics. For this reason half of the leaders waged war against Germany; while to keep Australia white, the other half stayed conscription. Labor is at the bottom of the "white" Australia policy. The most serious problem the country has to face is her insufficient population. Yet what labor is to be found there receives no more consideration than anywhere else in the world. It is no better off than elsewhere. There is less poverty simply because poverty is synonymous with over-population. To protect itself against invasion of cheap (not necessarily Asiatic) labor, Australia passed the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901. To speak of restricting immigration into a country containing only four and a half million seems suicidal, but Australia went at it without any trepidation and declared for the exclusion from "immigration into the Commonwealth ... any person who fails to pass the dictation test; that is to say, who, when an officer dictates to him not less than fifty words in any prescribed language in the presence of the officer" fails to pass in the judgment of the immigration officer. This is the crux of the Act; other than that, restriction is placed only on those diseased or incapable. In other words, this restriction places a person failing in the test on a level with the criminal, lunatic, and the leper. It is obviously a snare, for it means that an officer may spring any language he may choose on an immigrant. He may ask a Frenchman to write Greek, or a Greek Spanish, failure to comply giving the officer the power to exclude the applicant. The law has kept Australia white, but with pallor rather than purity. Veiled and unveiled, this White-Australia policy was at the bottom of the failure of conscription. The spirit which dominated both camps was fear of invasion. Argued the pro-conscriptionist: "If we do not stand behind the empire and the Allies in this war, Prussia or whoever may become her ally in future will swoop down upon us." Argued the anti-conscriptionist: "If that is the danger, then let us keep our men at home to protect us against this possible peril." The antis were more open. They pictured an invasion following the sending of men to Europe, and pointed to the importation of coolies for labor in Europe. One member of Parliament was fined a thousand dollars and made to enter into "cognizance and comply with the provisions of the Regulation" because he specified whom they were afraid of,--Japan. And to add grist to their mill, a hundred natives of the island of Malta (British subjects, mind you) appeared at the beautiful front door of Australia, Sydney Harbor, and asked for admission. They did not land. Even Indians are excluded, a deposit of five hundred dollars being required of any admitted, to guarantee his return. A transport has been fitted out in Java with native labor, but Australian workers refused to load it till the fittings were torn out and done over by Australian labor. Now, the White-Australia policy is, if you care to stretch a point, a humane attempt to avoid conflict. The Australians say to themselves and to the world: "We would rather call you names across the sea than scratch your eyes or pull your ears over a wooden fence." They point to the American Civil War and the present problem in the South as an example. They wish to save themselves future operations by avoiding the cancer and are willing to bear the burden of retarded development for this promised peace. Let us see how it worked out. It is interesting to note that in 1915, 890 Germans were admitted to Australia, and only 423 Japanese; in 1914, 3,395 Germans and 387 Japanese. The number of Germans for the two years previous was virtually the same, whereas that of Japanese fluctuated from 698 in 1912 to 822 in 1913, and 387 in 1914. From 1908 to 1915 the Germans entered in increasing numbers, while the Japanese decreased. Chinese gained admission in vastly greater number than the Japanese, exceeding them by 1,500 and 2,000 yearly. On the whole the preponderance of arrivals over the departure was seldom excessive, most of the steamers from the south bound for the Orient being taken up by returning Asiatics. With the vast regions of the island continent uninhabited and untouched, this movement of Orientals is only evidence of the check the Government keeps on invasion. The fallacy in the White-Australia policy is obvious. Its psychological significance was pointed to above,--a tendency on the part of Australians, though politically democrats, to revert to habits of thought inherited from England. England is an island kingdom, but the Englishman cannot forget this even when he has taken up his home on a vast continent like Australia. In this day and age of steel ships and submarines, with possibilities of the airship clear before us, for any one to think in an insular way is to lack the common sense of a King Canute. Australia has shown that even with an enemy recognized and fought she has been unable to remain unified in thought, yet she thinks that merely by excluding the Asiatic she will be able to maintain her integrity. Capital in Australia would be willing to admit the Oriental in order to reduce the cost of labor; but as soon as he becomes a factor in commerce--as in the case of the Chinese furniture-makers who exploit Chinese laborers and undersell Australian furniture manufacturers--Capital becomes wroth and shouts for the exclusion of the coolie. Labor, on the other hand, swaggering about the brotherhood of man and the common cause of labor throughout the world, becomes just as nationalistic when "foreign" labor threatens to undersell it. True that it would be easy enough to establish a minimum wage by law, so that no Chinese would be allowed to receive less than that wage for his work, but the principle doesn't work out so easily. Even with a minimum wage and an eight-hour day, the Chinese with his intense application to his job and his manner of living would threaten the white man. But have we not the same difficulty even among a given number of white men, where some are ready to undersell others? Australia, the experiment-station for labor legislation, is the last country where one would expect to find the exclusiveness which she condemns so vigorously. She has shown herself exclusive in her discrimination against the English workingman; she has even been exclusive in her attitude toward her neighbor, New Zealand (an exclusiveness, which is reciprocated, of course); and finally and foremost, she is exclusive of Asiatic and colored people. This exclusiveness has left a continent with barely the fringe of it scratched. To people like the Japanese, Chinese and Indians, this must indeed seem the height of selfishness. True, that sparse as her population is, Australia has done more to better the condition of her people than has Japan or China; and there is the rub. That mere excessive breeding gives a nation a right to invade other lands is a principle that no decent-minded man could tolerate for a moment. Only people to whom woman is merely a breeding-machine would advance such an argument. And in the chapter on Japan and the Far East I shall elucidate the basic facts in that contention for the elimination of a White-Australia policy. From the Australian point of view, though admitting that hardships are bound to result, admitting that ethically discrimination is unprogressive, the country is faced by the danger of sheer numbers. Idealistically the Australian policy is wrong. Individually, those of us who know the Japanese and the Chinese would just as soon live next door to them as to any other human beings. But as long as numbers are the racial ideal of the East, there is no solution that would not undermine quality if quality did not defend itself against quantity. I am ready to admit that there are many Australians who are as inferior to the Chinese as the coolie is to us. But the Australasian has one virtue: he does not breed like the Oriental. The problem of assimilation and Australianization is intricate and sometimes extremely unjust. There is the case of the young Chinese boy born and brought up in Port Darwin, North Australia. In every way he is an Australian citizen. To further his education and westernization, he came to America to study at Harvard, and here fell in love with a Chinese student born in Boston. Now, she is an American citizen. They are to be married. He has every reason for wishing to return to Port Darwin with his wife. But, says the Australian Immigration Law, you can't come in because you're a Chinese. "But I'm an American Citizen, and the wife of an Australian," she argues. "That doesn't matter. We exclude Indians, who are British subjects, from entering Australia, and we intend to exclude you. Australia is the only country in the world in which the white race is still free to expand, and we intend to keep it free for them." "What is America going to do about it?" I asked my informer. "What can she do? The only thing she could do would be to come to a clash of arms with us, and we intend to let the Chinese do their own fighting if they want to. We won't let Japanese who are American-born citizens enter Australia; we may seem a bit piggish about it, but we intend to hold to our own nevertheless." This question was up for the British Minister to decide upon, but at the time of writing no decision has yet been arrived at. That injustice such as the above is bound to result is obvious. But for generations to come the onus rests on the Orientals, and on those white men who would profit by either cheap or untiring laborers whose minds ask for nothing, and whose bodies are content with little. Though Australia's contribution to the intellectual welfare of the world has as yet been slim, the advance in political and economic thought has been exceedingly worth while. The freedom of the individual to go his way in life, to develop the best that is in him, the standard of general welfare and the quality of life as a whole so far excels the average of Oriental social life that Australasia is justified in trying to prevent the dilution of its concentrated comfort. We all know and admit that both China and Japan have civilizations, intellectual and artistic, the like of which might well be emulated in the West. But beneath it all is the dreadful waste of human life for which China and Japan must give answer before demanding of the West certain physical and material advantages which we have. CHAPTER XIX JAPAN AND ASIA When I completed the final section of my book "Japan: Real and Imaginary," last year, and sent it to the publisher, I was not a little worried lest the movement of events in the Far East proceed so rapidly that the cart upon which I was riding slip from under me and leave me to rejoin the earth as best I could. So fast did things run that I thought surely there would be a revolution in Japan, or at least universal manhood suffrage, and that without doubt Japan would withdraw from Shantung. I am afraid I shall have to confess that the wish was father to the thought. So far nothing has happened in that intricate island empire seriously to affect any of the generalizations in that book. Nor have any criticisms from my Japanese friends come forward so that I might now be able to alter my position in any way. However, enough has happened to make it necessary for me to extend and enlarge upon some of the phases of the Japanese situation as they now obtain. In my former book I handled Japan as an integer, avoiding implications. Here I shall attempt to show how the Japanese phase of the problem of the Pacific affects the three important elements round the Pacific,--America, Australasia, and Asia. Under that head I shall have to begin where I left off in "Japan: Real and Imaginary," with the question of emperor-worship and its natural offspring, Pan-Asianism and the so-called Monroe Doctrine of Asia; with the ingrowing phases of it, democracy in Japan, and the Open Door without; with Japan's new mandates and what she is doing with them; with the fortification of the Bonin Islands and the Pescadores. At the very outset, let me crystallize in one short paragraph the essence of the whole situation. We have in Japan now a heterogeneous nation whose ideals are essentially those of imperialism, the political grip on the people being based on the worship of the emperor. The outward consequence of this is that the entire nation is fairly united upon the questions that affect the nation as a whole, such as Pan-Asianism, the leadership of Asia. But if that were all, Japanese rulers would have things pretty much their own way. This strange consequence results, however,--that having been stimulated to feeling that a Japanese is the most superior person on earth, the populace, in this pride, is demanding greater recognition for themselves as individuals. Hence that which the military and naval parties in Japan win in their hold upon the people through increased pride of race, they lose in the enhanced difficulty which comes from a restive population. Added to which are the numerous alien elements that aggression has inherited,--a rebellious Korea and Formosa, a boycotting China, and a native element that sees itself being flaunted by world powers and unable to obtain recognition of racial equality. It is Japan's misfortune that she is still unable to live down her reputation. With all her might she is trying to stand up to the world as a man, and not as a pretty boy such as she has been regarded heretofore. Hence, it is necessary, that after having paragraphed the make-up of Japan, I do the same with the attitude of the world toward Japan. Wherever I have gone I have been asked a certain type of question that seems to me to hold the mirror up to Japan. The questions are generally these: What business is it of ours, after all, what Japan does in Asia? Isn't it only the conceit of the white man that makes him regard himself as superior to the Japanese? Isn't it true that the Japanese haven't any room for their surplus population? Or, the more knowing, those who have read up on the subject--like the man who signed a contract with a publisher to produce four boys' books at once, one of which was on Shintoism in Japan--assume this attitude: "Let them adore their emperors; it's a charming little peculiarity." There is still a third group. It belongs to the adolescent class, to the age of boys who threaten to lick other boys with their little finger, or "I'll fight you with my right hand tied behind my back," and has been fed by the romancers who portrayed everything Japanese as petite and charming. The _Miles Gloriosus_, suffering from political second childhood, asserts: "America could wipe the floor with Japan with one hand, just as she could Ecuador." This statement was made by an Englishman with remarkably wide international experience. Now, until Japan lives down this reputation she will be forced to make as big a showing of her might as is safe, and until then we shall doubtless have ample reason for shouting for an increased navy and an increased army. In other words, as long as we continue to publish the impression that Japan need not be regarded seriously, so long will Japan have to continue to convey the impression that she might become a menace. To deny that Japan is a disconcerting problem is to stick one's head in the sand. But Japan is no more of a menace to us than we are to her. Japan is not simply going to walk across the Pacific and slap us in the face. If any such catastrophe takes place over there, it will be a conflict. "A conflict supposes a violent collision, a meeting of force against force; the unpremeditated meeting of one or more persons in a violent or hostile manner" with another, according to Crabb. On the other hand, it is equally true that those who urge and stimulate war talk with Japan are playing into the hands of special interests that are too narrow in their thinking and too broad in their avarice, and make war inevitable. There is only one solution, and that is the presentation of facts. But facts alone are sometimes worse than figures. They lie like a trooper. Hence we are in the habit of saying: It is an honest fact. Facts are the most irresponsible things in the world, and without the motives and the spirit that underlie every circumstantial thing in life, they are the source of all conflict and all sorrow. Therefore, let us consider the questions that appear to be typical enough to clarify the situation, but with the motives and spiritual factors included in the answer. First of all, then, is it really any of our business what Japan does in Asia? I shall have to split this question in two. The "our" side of the matter will have to be answered in the succeeding chapter on America in this Pacific Triangle. Here I shall handle it by inverting it. Is it any of Japan's business what interest we take in Asia? This may sound like a pugnacious question, but it is asked with all due respect to Japan. It raises the question of the Open Door in China, of Pan-Asianism, of the misnamed Monroe Doctrine of Asia. We have come to a new stage in the history of the world. People with a developed sense of justice no longer admit that a man may declare himself monarch of all he surveys without consideration of the rights of the inhabitants of the "surveyed" areas. When, during the war, everything was being done to placate Japan, a certain "understanding" was reached between Secretary Lansing and Viscount Ishii. While declaring for the Open Door it acknowledged the precedence of propinquity over distance, of time, place, and relationship. That is, it admitted that Japan was nearer the continent of Asia geographically than was America. A very remarkable observation it was. Certainly had that not been put in black and white, "understanding" would never have been possible. But what was the result of that "understanding"? Japan immediately translated it into a "Monroe Doctrine of Asia." Here, then, was a fact. Japan most decidedly is nearer Asia than are we. Ergo, Japan has the right to set herself up as the god and little Father of China, to declare the Mikado Doctrine of Asia. But is there any parallel whatsoever? Not only no parallel, but an apparent contradiction in the use of the Monroe Doctrine from the American angle; for that pronouncement involved non-interference in European or foreign affairs. If we adhere strictly to the Monroe Doctrine we have no right to set any limitations for Japan. Our concern is only with the Americas. Even the amount of understanding involved in the Ishii-Lansing agreement is in violation of our doctrine of isolation. On the other hand, we virtually pledged ourselves to keep our own hands off South America, Hence, the Monroe Doctrine, if applied to Asia by Japan, would mean the denouncement of the Twenty-one Demands made on China in 1915, the withdrawal of Japanese troops from Shantung and Siberia, the return of independence to Korea,--and then the demand on the part of Japan that all European powers abstain from further extension of their influence on the continent of Asia. If ever a Monroe Doctrine of Asia was really declared, it was in the principles of Hay in his Open-Door policy. If Japan should set herself up as the guardian of Asia in this wise, she would never raise the question of whether we have any business in Asia or not. It would not be necessary. And Japan would be able to enjoy the fruits of propinquity to her heart's content. Then Japan would truly be the sponsor for a doctrine that could be called the Mikado's Doctrine of Asia and its worth would recommend itself to the respect and admiration of the world. But this, of course, is a dream, and in the words of a worthy Japanese author who "deplored" in his book "the gross diplomatic blunder which Japan made in 1915 in her dealings with China" and the "atrocities perpetrated in the attempt to crush the Korean uprising": "Manifestly, the dawn of the millennium is still far away. We have to make the best of the world as it is." Into these criticisms of Japan's foreign policies one could read the usual white man's conceit,--asking that a yellow man make such sacrifices as no white man has ever made. There is nothing further from my mind. There is only a groping down into the depths of Japanese practices to discover, if possible, a real basis for the justification of her Pan-Asiatic pretensions. To me, Oriental civilization is something to conjure with. There is in the Far East more art and beauty than there is in America. When Europe was so poor as to make the Grand Moguls laugh at the simple presents which Englishmen brought them, to remark with scorn and truth that nothing in Europe compared with the silks and gold and silver of the East, the white man was humble. He wandered all over the world in search of riches which were unknown to him except by hearsay. His dominions never extended over such vast spaces as seemed mere checker-boards to Oriental monarchs. But the white man had his ships, his latent genius, and these he has developed to where his realms now so far outstrip the realms of old as thought outstrips creation. With these the white man has secured for himself a place in the world which the brown and the yellow man now greatly envy. But the Asiatics have much to look back upon and be proud of. How much of this splendor is Japan's? A great deal! But not as much as the splendor of China, nor as much as that of India. Japan is to the East what England is to Europe. Japan is building up her ships and her material arts to such an extent that she is destined to wield and does now partly wield the same influence in Asia that England wields in Europe. But is that to be her sole contribution? Is that to justify her place as leader of Asia? Let us see. In Europe to-day there is no crowned head who really rules. The monarch, where he does exist, is the memorial symbol of the nation's past. But the basis of rule is the people. The extent to which democracy exists in fact is not for this chapter to discuss. The slogan of rulership is democracy. Even China calls itself a republic. Round the Pacific alone are three great republican or democratic countries--Australia, New Zealand, America--whose people are reaching for greater and greater independence in the working out of their own destinies. But what have we in Japan? We have a monarchy with a "constitutional" form of government. The monarch is said to have held his power from the beginning of time. He is literally regarded as a descendant of the gods who created Japan,--which was then the world entire. The myth of his origin would not be very different from any other myth of the origins of rulers, were it not for the recent developments in the history of Japan. At the time of the restoration of the previous emperor to power, it was decided by the rebellious daimyo that the long-neglected mikado, he who for hundreds of years had had absolutely no say in the government of his lands, should be restored to power. That is to say, because there was no one daimyo who could himself take the leadership and become shogun, they determined to rule with the tenno as nominal leader, but themselves as the real rulers. Other than in the superstitious reverence of the ignorant masses for the symbol of the tenno--whose person they had never seen--that lowly illustrious one might just as well have been non-existent for all the say he had in his country's affairs. So far, the situation might not be different from that in England, but England's Parliament is in the control of the Commons, while Japan's Diet--both upper and lower houses--is at the mercy of the cabinet, which, though ostensibly responsible to the emperor, is actually in the control of the genro and the military and naval clans. The worship of the emperor, on the other hand, is made part of the political function, the better to cow the masses into reverential obedience to the wishes of the actual rulers. The basis for this theocratical grip on the people is Shintoism. With the Restoration in 1868, Shintoism, that ancestor-worshiping cult, was revived as the spiritual core of the new empire; Buddhism was sent packing, and all the cunning of pseudo-historians was resorted to to bolster up this effete and primitive national ideal. "Let them worship their old emperor," say some, largely those with a love of pageantry in their unconscious. And no one could raise an argument against this if that was where it ended. If it merely meant the binding together in a communal nationalism the thought and devotion of the people, it would be a desirable performance. But the natural result of an artificially stimulated nationalism based on a myth and a deception is that it becomes proselytic in its tendencies. It is not satisfied with its native influence, but begins to reach out. In other words, it takes upon itself the duty of making the entire world one, just as religion and democracy seek to convert the world. And Shintoism is a short step to Pan-Asianism. Pan-Asianism is the logical consequence of Shintoism. What is Shintoism? In this connection, none is more authoritative than Basil Hall Chamberlain, Emeritus Professor of Japanese and Philology at the Imperial University of Tokyo, and author of numerous scientific works on Japan. In "The Invention of a New Religion" he says (page 6): Agnostic Japan is teaching us at this very hour how religions are sometimes manufactured for a special end--to observe practical worldly purposes. Mikado-worship and Japan-worship--for that is the new Japanese religion--is, of course, no spontaneously generated phenomenon. Every manufacture presupposes a material out of which it is made, every present a past on which it rests. But the twentieth-century Japanese religion of loyalty and patriotism is quite new, for in it pre-existing ideas have been sifted, altered, freshly compounded, turned to new uses, and have found a new center of gravity.... Shinto, a primitive nature cult, which had fallen into discredit, was taken out of its cupboard and dusted. Thus Shintoism, a cult without any code of morals, in which nature was worshiped in primitive fashion, was made the basis of the national ideal. There is nothing in Shintoism that might with the greatest possible stretch of imagination become the ideal of any other nation in the world. However much Japan might assume the economic leadership of Asia, it would never be because she could obtain a following for her Shinotistic ideals. "Democracy" has become a rallying cry even to the Japanese, but there is nothing in Shintoism that might counteract that appeal. [Illustration: JAPAN'S FIRST REACTION TO FOREIGN INFLUENCE] [Illustration: SECOND STAGE IN WESTERNIZATION Some of my students leaving Kobe for a cross-country hike] [Illustration: THIRD STAGE IN WESTERNIZATION This is not England, but Shioya, Japan] [Illustration: FOURTH STAGE IN WESTERNIZATION This is not Manchester, but Osaka, Japan] "What about Bushido?" Japanese will ask. Regarding this, it is also well to read what Professor Chamberlain has to say: As to Bushido, so modern a thing is it that neither Kaempfer, Siebold, Satow, nor Rein--all men knowing their Japan by heart--ever once allude to it in their voluminous writings. The cause of their silence is not far to seek: Bushido was unknown until a decade or two ago! _The very word appears in no dictionary, native or foreign, before the year 1900._ Chivalrous individuals of course existed in Japan, as in all countries at every period; but Bushido as an institution or a code of rules, has never existed. The accounts given of it have been fabricated out of whole cloth, chiefly for foreign consumption. An analysis of medieval Japanese history shows that the great feudal houses, so far from displaying an excessive idealism in the matter of fealty to one emperor, one lord, or one party, had evolved the eminently practical plan of letting different members take different sides, so that the family as a whole might come out as winner in any event, and thus avoid the confiscation of its lands. Cases, no doubt, occurred of devotion to losing causes--for example, to Mikados in disgrace; but they were less common than in the more romantic West. And when it is further taken into consideration that Bushido, or the so-called code of the samurai, was the ideal of a special class, a class that held itself aloof from contact with the _heimin_, or common people, whom it at at all times treated with contempt, and cut down even for no other reason than that of trying the edge of a new sword, one sees how utterly unacceptable it would be to peoples of other races and nations asked to come to the support of its standards. And according to one Japanese spokesman in America, only by methods that "had the appearance of browbeating her to submission by brandishing the sword" was China brought to accept the infamous Twenty-one Demands. I search my memory and experience earnestly trying to find a basis for Japan's leadership in Asia that is not materialistic, and I cannot find any. Energy and intellectual capacity Japan has. Her present leadership in practical affairs is a great credit to her. In time, when greater leisure will become the possession of her teeming millions, there is doubtless going to appear much more that is fine and valuable in the fabric of the race. For Japan has fire. Her people are an excitable, flaming people who may burst out in a spasmodic revulsion against their commercialization. But for the time being, her only right to a voice in the destinies of Asia is found in her industrial leadership of the East, but that is a leadership which is fraught with more menace to Japan than to the world. Let us review hastily the results of this preëminence. From being one of the most admired nations in the world, Japan has suddenly become the object of almost universal suspicion. To a very great extent, commercial jealousy is playing its part in this change. But that is not all, by any means. There is as much enmity between British and American traders in the Far East as there is between Japanese and American, or any other two groups of nationals. But the animosity toward Japan is deeper than that of mere trade. It lies at the bottom of much of the seeming equivocation of Japan's best foreign friends. I was talking recently to one of the leading members of the Japan Society in New York, and said of myself that I deplored being regarded as anti-Japanese in some quarters, because I was not. "But," spoke up this Japanophile, "the majority of the members of the Japan Society are anti-Japanese, or pro-Chinese, if you will." They are trying their best to defend Japan, it would seem, and to cement bad relations with good, but the result is that the ground of many sympathizers of Japan is constantly shifting, though perhaps unconsciously. It is due, I presume, to the disappointment of people in that, having regarded Japan as worthy of their sympathy and adoration, they are now finding that all is not as well as it might be. Then there is that peculiar twist to Japanese psychology that somewhat unnerves the Westerner. This is not a language difficulty, though it is best illustrated by a linguistic example. A Canadian in Kobe told me that he felt a strange shifting in his own mentality as a result of the study of Japanese, something queer entered his thinking processes. This is of course absurd as a concrete argument, but it indicates that which I am striving to uncover in the Japanese mind and method which works upon the Western mind, and puzzles and perplexes the white man in his relations with the Japanese. And in the wider fields of Japanese life, it makes us tighten our muscles when we survey and weigh the expressions of the best Japanese minds, expressions by which they hope, earnestly no doubt, to better our relations with them. Take, for instance, the growth of democracy. As I have said, when I left Japan it was with a sense of revolution impending. Agitation had got so far out of bonds that it seemed nothing but complete collapse of the Government could follow. The agitation has gone on, violent expressions are often used, democracy is hailed and Japanese "propagandists" abroad assert with a boldness that is inexplicable their faith in democracy and their hatred of militarism and bureaucracy. But democracy in Japan is virtually non-existent. Japan is to-day no nearer liberalism than Russia was in 1905. One dreads to make parallels, when one thinks how it was that Russia got rid of her czars, that the dreadful war in Europe alone made it possible for a change in the Russian Government. Is it going to take such a war to accomplish this in Japan? Some of the most ardent Japanese in America boldly answer, "Yes." Again, China! Many Japanophiles will say that our love of China is based on our trade with her, and her own weakness to resist it, while at the same time pointing to our enormous trade with Japan as proof of friendship. That is false. True, that, compared with Japan, China is no "menace" to America. But though China is the root of our problem, there is something in the nature of the true Oriental that makes him charming, jovial, childlike and lovable. Japan is, of course, not truly Oriental. Japan is essentially Malay, mixed with some Oriental and a little Caucasian. But in the two and a half years of my residence in Japan I did not once come across a white person who had that same unexplainable admiration for the native that is the outstanding characteristic of white men in China. Be that as it may--and that is, after all, a personal matter--that which enters into the Sino-Japanese problem is the attitude of the Japanese to the Chinese. None was so ready to exalt the Japanese as were the foreigners after the Boxer uprising in 1900. Then the Japanese were hailed for their helpfulness and their dexterity. But the manner of Japanese in China to-day goes against the grain of people. They ask themselves constantly: For nearly seven years Japan has promised faithfully to withdraw from Shantung, and her promises are as earnestly being expressed to-day. Is it, then, so hard to remove troops? Not so hard to move them in, it seems. Those of us who listen to Japanese promises are from Missouri. Japan in conjunction with the Allies sent troops to Siberia to "protect" Vladivostok. Each of the Allies were supposed to send seven thousand troops. Japan sent close to one hundred thousand. She has earnestly promised to withdraw them ever since. Why are they not withdrawn? Then comes the hardest thing of all to reconcile with her promises,--Japan's actions in Korea. It is easy to sentimentalize over the fate of nations. Korea's independence is a slogan that doesn't mean much, though Korea claims four thousand years of civilized existence. An independent Korea doesn't offer very great promise, even if one is constrained to sympathize with her aspiration for independence. Korea might just as well be an integer of the Japanese Empire. She had ample time in which to expel foreign intriguers and denounce her own grafters, for the sake of independence, years ago. But what has that to do with Japanese atrocities in Korea? What has that to do with the action of Japanese merchants who, according to Japan's own envoy to Korea, Count Inouye, acted worse than conquerors. Count Inouye said: All the Japanese are overbearing and rude in their dealings with the Koreans.... The Japanese are not only overbearing but violent in their attitude towards the Koreans. When there is the slightest misunderstanding, they do not hesitate to employ their fists. Indeed, it is not uncommon for them to pitch Koreans into the river, or to cut them down with swords. If merchants commit these acts of violence, the conduct of those who are not merchants may well be imagined. They say: "We have made you an independent nation, we have saved you from the Tonghaks, whoever dares to reject our advice or oppose our actions is an ungrateful traitor." Even military coolies use language like that towards the Koreans.[1] [1] In _Nichi, Nichi Shimnun_, quoted by Professor Longford in _The Story of Korea_, pp. 137-338. The atrocities in Korea committed by the Japanese in the uprising of 1919 would parallel the most exaggerated reports of what happened to Belgium. Yet America's treaty with the Kingdom of Korea, ignored when Japan annexed the empire in 1910, has never been abrogated. Where is Bushido in Japan, that it does not rise in indignation at these atrocities? It has done so, but so faintly that it might just as well have saved itself the effort. Apology after apology, but atrocity following each apology with the same inexorable ruthlessness of fate. Likewise, the massacres in Nikolajevks, and Chien-tao are still unanswered. They require a public apology of some sort. If I am charged with deliberately selecting things derogatory to Japan, I can only say that nothing, in my mind, that Japan may have done for the good of Korea and of the world, none of the virtues which Japan possesses can ever counterbalance these crimes. Yet intelligent Japanese write: Fortunately, a change of heart has come to the Mikado's Government ... there will be established ... a School Council to discuss matters relating to education. [No mention is made of the up-rooting of the native language.] The step may be slow, but the goal is sure. Korea's union with Japan was consummated after the bitter experience of two sanguinary wars and _the mature deliberation of the best minds of the two peoples_. The italics are mine. Who were these minds? No mention is made of the assassination of the Korean Queen by Japanese, later "exonerated." In other words, now that the lion has eaten the lamb he is going to tell the lamb the best way in which he can be digested, for they are "discussing matters" to their mutual advantage. One is inclined to become bitter in the rehearsal of such facts, the feeling being induced by the evasive apologies of rhetoricians. But these outstanding facts must be faced if any true judgment can be formed of Japan's position in the Far East: If it is her aim merely to dominate in Asia, then Japan has set out to do it masterfully. But if the leadership of the yellow race is her aim, if Pan-Asianism means the uplifting of all Oriental races now under the heel of the white race, then Japan has chosen the most unfortunate line of action. She is running an obstacle race in which the silken garments of Bushido are likely to suffer considerable wear and tear. Credit Japan deserves for her administrative ability. Certain it is that no country in the Orient to-day has the same capacity to rule that Japan has. In international affairs, Japan has proved herself a match for the shrewdest diplomats of the Western world. It is not to be marveled at that the yellow races should be willing to yield her her position and her prestige. Thousands of Chinese who could not afford a Western education are now being educated in the universities of Japan; many Indians are doing likewise. In the simple matter of road-building, Japan has done what few Oriental countries seem to have the capacity to do. It is natural that the Orient should look to Japan for leadership in government and industry, in direction and help. But is Japan giving it? The experiences of Tagore in Japan are not reassuring. He turned from Japan as from a gross imitator of the West from which he had escaped. He expressed keen disappointment at what he saw in modern Japan. In the "New York Times," recently, there was an article by a Chinese called "The Uncivilized United States," the thesis of the writer being that the Americans lacked the gentlemanliness of the English. The Chinese was obviously a great admirer of the Japanese and repeated over and over again that the Tokugawas were great rulers because they advocated the rule by "tenderness of heart"; but he, too, despaired of the modern Japan, of its great industries and little heart. That, of course, has been the oft-repeated criticism of America from older countries, and need not discourage Japan. But Japan is making that greater error of believing that a world which has won civil liberty and enlightenment after so many centuries of strife, has builded for the masses at least a semblance of economic freedom and democracy, is going to yield all this blithely to an antiquated ideal of Oriental imperialism that has not even the virtues of Oriental mysticism to recommend it. CHAPTER XX AMERICA 1 Johnny Appleseed, whose real name was John Chapman, ended his career at Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1847. Step by step he made his way over the wilderness, winning the good-will of the pioneers and the devotion of the Indians, and planting apple-seeds which time nourished into orchards. Johnnie Appleseed has been glorified by Vachel Lindsay,--and with him, not a little of the richness of life that went into the make-up of America. Unfortunately, Johnny Appleseed died in Indiana, at the early age of seventy-two. Had he lived twice as long he would most likely have reached the coast. By most he was regarded as rather a queer character, but there were men who felt the current of greatness in his being, and to-day Johnny Appleseed might well be hailed as the symbol of America. For if the virtue of England lay in that process of selection which was the result of "the roving of a race with piratical and poetic instincts invading old England where few stocks arrived save by stringent selection of the sea," how much more is the hardihood of pioneering the very bone and marrow of America. For the sifting process here did not end merely by the crossing of the Atlantic. To those who broke through the fears of the Atlantic, lanced the gathering ills of Europe, that Eastern ocean was only the symbol of a tradition. The way has been kept open by the passage of millions of men and women and children who, year after year, for four centuries, have been invading young America. But what is that coming compared with the arduous reaching out across the wilderness of this vast continent itself, a reaching that left its mile-stones in the form of log cabins, graves, and roaring cities. Following the trade-winds or beating up against the billows of the Northern seas was a joyous pastime compared with the windless waiting and tireless pressing on of the prairie schooner. The conquest of the mountains, of the Mississippi, of the treeless plains, of the desert, and of the rocky barriers in the farthest West is a story replete with tragic episodes, and it is destined to become the dominating tradition of America. It is a strange story, and because it was essentially so lowly in its early impulse, because it was seemingly a secondary phenomenon, snobs and cynics dispose of it with indifference. The movement westward was undertaken by men of small means and little culture. Pathetic in its simple requirements, seeking fortunes that always lay on the fringe of fortune, moving on with a restlessness that seemed to despise rest and ease, it still left in its wake sorrows that approached tragedy but never felt it. If "Main Street" is a necessary corrective, "The Son of the Middle Border" is the crystallization of an unconscious ideal. This westward movement is a vivid rehearsal of a belated migration that tells the tale of man's first yielding to the mobile impulse in his nature, an impulse that has made of him the conqueror of the globe. These thousands of Johnny Appleseeds were not utilitarian seekers after wealth alone; in them was the unconscious mother principle yielding to the forces that were fathering a new race. And that new race has come. Centuries of arduous trial and tribulation have molded it. Go where you will, except for some slight differences in tonal expression, there is one people. Beneath their Americanism are the crude complexes resulting from a war between refinement and the unkind forces of nature. The pioneers had all known what civilization meant, but circumstances thwarted their inclinations. They brought with them a respect for woman which no other people had known so well. Primitive and Oriental people--and many European races of to-day--do not have the same exalted notion of woman, simply because they have developed along with women whose functions of life were determined by the savage circumstances. But Americans found themselves in the continent with few women, and those in danger of savage ruthlessness. Hence they became doubly concerned for their welfare, even to the point of sentimentalism. So, too, with regard to personal liberty. The pioneer knew what his freedom meant to him, and fought for it as a lion or a tiger fights for his. Too frequently his own freedom could be bought only at the expense of others around him. The word itself became a magic with esoteric properties. Hence we find throughout our West a fanatical regard for the term "freedom" that sometimes works itself into a frenzy of intolerance. So fine are the achievements of our coast states, on so high a level is the standard of life, that men cannot see the exceptions. When such are pointed out to them there arises in their unconscious a fear of those horrible days, a something which terrified their childhood and which must be downed as the ghost of a crime one imagines himself to have committed. Hence, not to be "with" certain people in the West in the shouting adulation of their state or their city or their orchards is a worse sacrilege than counteracting one prayer by another ritual. The winning of the West was the aim of all the pioneers. For years and years they were faced with the most obvious threats to its consummation. Mountains, climate, savages, European jealousies, lack of population,--everything that spelled despair stood before them. But an uncomprehended passion drove them on. Perhaps it was the recrudescence of intolerance which marked the early settlers in the East. Perhaps it was the lack of opportunity resulting from overcrowding after the advertisement of the desirability of life in America. It may have been any one of a dozen possibilities that kept men and women moving on and on and on,--nor always, by any means, the yielding to ideals. But on it was and on it continued till the Pacific was reached. This, superficially, is the accepted story of the development of our West. I have attempted neither criticism nor laudation. It is an unavoidable approach to the discussion of America's place in the Pacific, an approach which even the most Western of our Westerners is not always prone to take cognizance of. But within it lies the kernel of future American life. To some, like the founders of the State of Oregon, it was more defined. Some as early as 1844 realized that to the nation which developed the coast lands belonged the spoils of the Pacific and in its hands would lie the destinies of the largest ocean on the globe. The opening of the Panama Canal has placed the Pacific at the door-step of New York, and fulfilled the dream. But to the vast majority of people on the coast to-day, occupation and development of those enormous areas seem to carry with them opportunity, but little responsibility. They have one concern which is akin to fear, and that is of the Japanese. They only vaguely grasp the significance of their fate. They do not see that they have hauled in a whale along with their catch and that unless they are skilful they will drag the whole nation into the sea with them. But if they have forgotten the vision for the appearance of the catch, what about the East? The East is as indifferent to matters pertaining to the Pacific and the West. Its face is turned toward Europe. We think that America is a nation, but the utter ignorance of one section with regard to another, the lounging in local ease, is appalling. Easterners are like the philosopher who when told that his house was on fire, said it was none of his business, for hadn't he a wife to look after such things! These are strange phenomena in a democracy. People think that they discharge their duty by voting, but how many people are in the least concerned with the problems that will some day light up the country like a prairie fire? Westerners are generally much more acquainted with Eastern affairs. As unpleasant as is the promotion publicity of Los Angeles, it is a much more healthful condition than the seeming ignorance of New York in matters pertaining to Los Angeles. Yet while the East is aflame over affairs in Europe--the Irish Republic, for instance--it probably thinks that Korea is the name of a Chinese joss over which no civilized man should bother to yap about. This indifference is not to be found in the man on the street alone. That man is often uninformed simply because the dispensers of information are uninformed. There is much he would want if he knew its value to him. And so while we are becoming embroiled in European affairs another and henceforward more sinister problem is threatening to back-wash over us. It was while in such an apathetic state that America changed her status from a continental republic to a colonial empire. Few Americans have ever taken any interest in their insular possessions. Hawaii and the rest had fallen to the lot of the Government, and would sooner or later be returned; that was the sum and substance of their outlook on the whole affair. That the Monroe Doctrine ceased to be a real factor with the acquisition of these outlying possessions, that we virtually abrogated it, did not seem to matter much. At large, the notion was that American altruism would never involve the country in any difficulty. But whatever a man's motives, once he has stuck his tongue against a frozen pipe only a tremendous outpouring of altruism will ever detach it. America began her adventures in the Pacific when she urged young men to go West. Now we have the whole continent, we have Hawaii, the Philippines, Pago Pago, Samoa, and Alaska,--a hefty armful. Are we going to let these things go, or are we simply going to drift to where they drag us into conflict with others who want them and want them badly? We cannot merely blow them full of democracy and then wait for any one who wishes to to prick the bubbles. For it must be borne in mind that the issues are clear. The Pacific cannot remain half-citizen and half-subject. Every time we stir up within a small island the self-respect of individuals, we destroy the balance of power between an expression of the wills of people and the wills of autocracies. Is America going to set out to make the world safe for democracy in Europe and then withdraw just when Europe needs her help most? Is she going to continue to make treaties with small nations like Korea and then when Korea is devoured body and soul simply overlook the little fellow as though he had never existed. Let me make the case of Korea clearer by a parallel. We had a treaty with the Kingdom under which we had assured her that in the event of any other power interfering with her independence we would exert our good offices toward an amicable solution. Then came the Russo-Japanese war. Korea received a pledge from Japan that her sovereignty would be protected if she permitted Japanese troops to pass over her territory. Korea, at the risk of being devoured by Russia for violating neutrality, acceded to Japan's request. Five years after the Russo-Japanese War, Korea was annexed by Japan, and we said never a word in her favor. Nor have we ever denounced our treaty with Korea. But here is the parallel. Belgium refused to let Germany cross her territory. Because of Germany's invasion of Belgium, Great Britain entered the war. What if Great Britain now decided to annex Belgium? What if America did so? Yet Colonel Roosevelt, who was so vociferous in his denouncement of the Wilson Administration for its early neutrality in the face of the rape of Belgium, himself condoned the annexation of Korea by saying that inasmuch as Korea was unable to defend herself it was not up to us to rush to her assistance. In other words, our treaty was only a scrap of paper which was to be in force if the other high contracting party was strong enough to have no need for our aid. Is America going to drag China into world wars with promises of friendship, and then concede Shantungs whenever diplomatic shrewdness shows her to be beaten? Is she going to promise the Philippines independence, allow her governor-generals to withhold their veto power for years so that the natives may the better handle their own affairs, and then simply let any who will come and undermine or explode the thing entire? This is not meant to imply by any manner of means that America is to display force and employ it for the sake of democracy. It is not navies nor armies that will count, but principles. It is America's duty as a free country to encourage freedom and discourage autocracy. And in that spirit, and that alone, can she justify her place in the sun. On several occasions she has done so, though only those in which the Pacific are involved need reference here. 2 Apropos of the Philippines: Two factors and two alone are involved. It is not a question of whether America shall or shall not hold on to the islands. In that America has given her word. The Philippines will become, must become, free. There, as elsewhere, it is not our concern whether one group or another gains the upper hand. It is not our concern that the Filipinos, being Malay-Orientals, will evolve a democracy that is not compatible with our notions of democracy. Our concern is, and has been repeatedly stated to be, only the welfare and happiness of the Filipinos. McKinley, Taft, Roosevelt, Wilson,--all have considerably discoursed upon Filipino independence and Filipino welfare. We have recently been on the very verge of granting independence, but, unfortunately, oil has been discovered by the Standard Oil Company, and the question will doubtless now depend on the amount of oil there is. If a great deal, then fare thee well Filipino independence! However, the real reason for our being in the islands is neither the altruistic concern for the democratization of the people, nor to protect the immediate interests of sugar, tobacco, or oil-handling capitalists. The one and only basis for our action should be the extent to which Filipino independence or our protectorate ministers to the peace of the Pacific. If an independent Philippines will allay the suspicions of Japan, then they should be independent. But Japan would have to give more than the usual promise of her word that she would keep her hands off the Philippines. The extent to which her word may be relied upon can easily be determined. One need only mention Korea, Shantung, Siberia, the Marshall Islands. We say to Japan: "As soon as you live up to the promises in your treaty and other relations with these Orientals, we shall be able to accept your further promises in regard to the Philippines." Yet it must not be overlooked that Japan saw our coming to the Philippines with apprehension. Japan is an Oriental nation and cannot understand any one doing anything out of pure goodness of heart. Fact is, neither can we. Let the most honest man in the world offer any other a solid-gold watch and that other would suspect something was wrong. We declared to the world that we had only the best intentions toward the Philippines--to democratize them. To Japan that was like holding up a red flag to a bull. What, you are going to create a democratic sore right in my neighborhood? That will never do. It might be catching. And Japan is not interested in contracting democracy as yet,--that is, official Japan. Even liberal Japanese are doubtful. When in Japan, I interviewed the democratic M.P., Yukio Ozaki. He turned, without question from me, to the subject of the fortification of the Philippines. He pleaded that the forts be dismantled. In the event of that plea failing, what could Japan do, he asked, other than proceed to fortify the Marshall Islands? Yet at that time Japan had not even been granted a mandate over these islands. The logic of his appeal is irrefutable. But this is a sort of vicious circle. Who is to begin, and whom shall we trust? One thing is certain,--that in that whole problem of the control of the islands of the Pacific, whether by annexation, protection, or mandate, lies the seed of the future peace of the Pacific. And unless in each and every case the natives are given the best opportunities of self-development, that nation responsible for their arrested condition is going to be the nation upon whose conscience will rest the sorrows of the world. In regard to the Philippines, this must be remembered,--that we are dealing with human beings, not problems and principles. The stuff one generally reads about foreign places might be just as descriptive of the inhabitants of Mars. Little wonder that those for or against independence or protection fail to win their case! We must remember that for twenty years we have been building up the hopes of children whom we taught in our schools, with our money and our ideals. They are now, many of them, active men attending to the work of the Filipino world. They are our foster-children and would be fools not to want to live their own lives in their own way. Our policy in regard to them must be a negative one; from now on it cannot be positive. All we can say to them is what we cannot and will not permit them to do; we have no right henceforth to say what they must do. We can say that we will not permit them to invite any other nation whose governmental ideals are likely to threaten ours. The world must continue on its road toward the greater and greater liberation of peoples, hence we cannot permit them to step back toward any form of imperialism. We cannot permit them to invite unlimited numbers of Orientals who might swamp them. They must maintain the Philippines for the Filipinos, with as much generosity thrown in as will not endanger that. We must remember that our effort in the Philippines is the first in which any government has attempted to treat its subject natives with any degree of equality,--legally, if not socially. If the world is to move on toward greater freedom--which is needed, Heaven knows!--we must not let the Philippines be an example of the failure of democratic management of natives. 3 In all this some may discover implications that our hold on the Philippines should be maintained purely for strategic reasons. That may be the purpose of the imperialistically minded. There may be some who will read into this fear of Japan or a bellicose attitude irritable to her. Neither interpretation would be accurate, for behind all this are certain historical factors which prove that whatever use statesmen may make of world situations, evil designs will be frustrated so long as the circumstances which created the primary conditions were not evil. Specifically, because the earlier relations between Japan and America were brought about through essentially good motives, these later developments can be kept to a sane path. And severe as may be our present criticisms of Japan, so long as the purposes behind them are good, they can have only a desirable result. When Commodore Perry went to Japan in 1853, his only desire was to open that country to trade. It may seem now that for the sake of peace in the Pacific it would have been better had he been guided by the spirit of conquest. Had Japan been conquered in the early days, she would never have come to the fore as a possible menace. But she was not. It does not follow, however, that that was unfortunate, for the earliest relations between Japan and America were amicable and basically altruistic. The relations between us have continued to be amicable, but altruism has slowly given way to envy and jealousy. But the point that is missed in all this reference to these cordial relations of the past is that inasmuch as America was a great moral influence upon Japan in the early days, she might continue to be that to-day. Cock-sure as Japanese statesmen have become, and pugnacious as some Americans seem toward Japan, a strong moral attitude will still do more to check hostility than all the shaking of sabers and manoeuvering of dreadnaughts. We need the Philippines more as a base for democratic experiment than as a fortified zone. We need them as one needs a medical laboratory for the manufacture of serums in the time of plague,--for the manufacture of the serum of political freedom, of the rights of people to develop and to learn to be free. And this experimental station should stand right there at the door of Japan--and of British and French concessionists, if you please, in China--and of China itself, for none of them has any faith in this educating of natives and making them your equals. Only down below the line, in New Zealand and Australia, far from where it can really affect Japan, is that experiment being carried on. And more than all else, when Japanese imperialism is spreading its wings, when Japanese bureaucracy is throwing out its chest in pride and telling its poor, impoverished people, "See what I am doing for YOU," we need that serum station in the Philippines where a solution of democracy and freedom may continue to be made,--be it ever so weak. And it needs to be injected into Japan. Some of it is already working in that empire. Japan needs more, it needs to be reinforced. Democracy in Japan is struggling for a foothold. Let the germs of democracy persist in the Philippines and be rushed to the island empire. And let America stand as a great moral force, impressing upon Japan that the rights of the people shall not be suppressed. But that will never be unless the people in America who stand for liberalism, for true democracy, for all that America has hitherto meant wake up to the seriousness of the situation in the Far East and cease to turn from it with sentimental notions about Lafcadio Hearn's Japan. There are two Japans. Both of these Japans are watching America closely. They are watching the actions of America in the Philippines, they are following in the footsteps of America in China. That need not be taken too literally, for there are two meanings to it. One example points in one direction, another in another. But one or two by way of illustration will do. When America returned the Boxer Indemnity Funds to China for educational purposes a new precedent was established in international affairs. No other nation had the moral courage to follow suit. But just at the close of the war, Japan, having replenished her exchequer considerably, unloosened her purse-strings and returned the balance of the indemnity funds to China. It was a case of thrifty self-denial, a tardy giving back of gold that none of the powers were really entitled to. As misguided and foolish as the Boxer Uprising was, still had it been a little better organized, none of the evils from which China is suffering to-day would obtain. China should have been as wise in her method as she was in impulse. However, it is good to see Japan doing so much. She should be encouraged. Again, seeing that American missionaries--and others--are influencing China in the direction of Occidental culture, Japan is following suit. Here it is likewise a tardy giving back to China what Japan took from her centuries ago, for Japanese Buddhism is only the sifting of the Buddhism that made its way from India by way of China and Korea. Still, it is worth noting that intellectual and moral precedents are often as forceful as more materialistic weapons. Observing the influence that doctors and hospitals wield in China,--the Rockefeller Foundation, for instance,--the Japanese are following suit and establishing hospitals in the interior. Educational and industrial work likewise will lead the way for educational and industrial work by Japanese in China. Witnessing the force of friendship in America's relations with China, the public in Japan is protesting against the antagonizing of this gigantic neighbor to whom the Japanese bureaucratic wolf has been making such grandmotherly pretentions. And indeed there is much good reason for the protest, for the Japanese merchant who expected so much juice in that Chinese plum found that because of antagonism, because of the rape of Shantung, the plum momentarily became a lemon, to use a vulgar expression. Japan, after the "peace" Conference contemptuously handed over what didn't belong to it but a duped assistant in the prosecution of the war against Germany learned that there are more ways than one of killing a cat. And China proceeded to gnaw at the vitals of the Japanese bureaucratic wolf in a most telling fashion. China declared a boycott of Japanese goods that was so effective that it brought about a financial slump in Japan from which she is not yet fully recovered. China was of course forced to yield. One cannot live on sentiment, and when Japanese goods are the nearest and cheapest at hand, what could China do? If only Japan could see the real significance of this she would at once withdraw all her nefarious demands on China, proceed sincerely and honestly to win the friendship of China, and then undermine the very ground of every foreign trader because of her propinquity. But bureaucrats are blind. They are moles that move underground. The ground of China is all broken up on that account. One of these days the Chinese giant will clumsily step, not in the wake of the mole, but on the mole itself. Inadvertently, of course; giants are such clumsy things! 4 These, then, are some of the ways in which Japan has and has not followed in the footsteps of America. Let us follow the Chinese giant a bit, and see what blundering paths he has pursued. Unfortunately, he has had his mind too much on the American colossus to observe the mole. And so he blundered into accepting a republican form of government. A vain _Malvolio_, he thought he was being honored with blue and yellow ribbons on his enormous legs, but to stretch the metaphor a little farther, it turns out that these alien Lilliputians are strapping him securely down to earth. The ribbons and the Lilliputian bands are the foreign-built and foreign-controlled and operated railroads which have been talked of with sanctimonious metaphors to make them palatable. And now China parades herself before the world as a republic. That is some of the influence of America. The Republic of China is our own handiwork. Is it anything to be proud of? Poor China is a battered republic, with hands outstretched, appealing to us for help. As I write the newspapers tell of the appeal of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, recently elected President of the South China Republic. After surveying what he regards as the situation, exposing the Peking government, declaring that but for its intriguing with Japan there would have been unity between North and South, and that the Northern militarists were profiteering in food during the recent famine, and charging them with a string of other crimes, he adds: Such is the state of affairs in China that unless America, her traditional friend and supporter, comes forward to lend a helping hand in this critical period, we would be compelled against our will to submit to the twenty-one demands of Japan. I make this special appeal, therefore, through Your Excellency, to the Government of the United States to save China once more, for it is through America's genuine friendship, as exemplified by the John Hay doctrine, that China owes her existence as a nation. Now let us listen to the word from Japan on American diplomacy in China. The "Asahi Shimbun" said: Of all the foreign representatives in Peking the American was the least known previous to the revolution. A lawyer by profession, he was not credited with any diplomatic ability or resource. Yet he will reap more credit than any of the others on account of the ability and energy which he has displayed. But what have our Government and our diplomacy done to counteract the American influence? Our interests in China far exceed those of any other country, and yet our officials have allowed themselves to be outplayed by a diplomatically untrained lawyer. China, which ought to look to Japan for help and guidance, does not do so, but looks to America. The inertia of the Kasumigaseki has given Mr. Calhoun an opportunity to restore American prestige in the neighbouring country. Japan has done nothing to gain the good-will of China, and America is constantly veering her ship with its treasury of Chinese good-will more and more in the direction of Japan. We had in Japan a man of unusual gifts and sagacity. Mr. Roland S. Morris, American Ambassador under the Wilson administration, though avowedly a friend of Japan, certainly had a most unenviable position to maintain. He seemed peculiarly fitted for his post, for during his years in Japan, notwithstanding the innumerable missions that moved like settings on a circular stage, and the infinite number of dinners that fall to the lot of distinguished foreigners in Japan, he never seems to have got political indigestion. And doubtless he is to-day a friend of China. With an eye to the "special interests" of Japan, Dr. Paul S. Reinsch was permitted to throw up his hands in despair. We were not doing much to save China from being Shantung-ed. Because Mr. Crane once undiplomatically expressed himself in ways unwelcome to Japan, he was recalled before he got beyond Chicago. Several years later, Mr. Crane succeeded in smuggling himself through to China as American Minister, and as far as may be seen, he did noble work in connection with the Famine Relief last winter. Now we have dispatched a Japanophile to China. Dr. Jacob Gould Shurman was so strongly impressed with the schools of Japan that he gave up Cornell University to go to China and help Japanize the Celestial. At least, that is the mood in which he left America. A man who knows him well and is close to the inner circle of American financial affairs in China assured me the other day that Shurman would not be in China six months before he would completely reverse his sentiments, and regard Japan's work in China as it is regarded by every one there who is not a Japanese official. Poor deluded, short-sighted Japan! She could have China as a plaything if she only went about it properly. Propinquity could put special interests in last year's list of bad debts if Japan sincerely, honestly, firmly made a friend of China, threw the doors wide open,--and then laughed a hearty, healthy laugh at the efforts of white men to outwit her in Asia. Propinquity has made Japan Oriental, it has given Japan a script that opens the doors for her more than for any other alien: Oriental methods, Oriental concepts, Oriental customs and requirements give Japan a better chance in China than all her millions of soldiers and dreadnaughts ever will. Yet the little mole loves it underground. 5 Thus we are blindly following the Japanese mole. We are catering to Japanese "sensitiveness" by sending diplomats with a list in the direction of Japan now. Presently, I presume, we shall withdraw our diplomats from China as we did from Korea, and forget about it. But, then, of course, we sha'n't. Things in the Far East are not going to pan out so easily, not in the matter of China and Japan. Ever since the first American clipper flirted with Chinese trade, American interests have been involved in the interests of China, and they will continue to be so involved. Without ordinary, decent, honest trade among nations, the relationship of peoples ceases to have its reason for existence. Just imagine a world of nothing but tourists! But decent trade is not the forcing of opium on a country against its will, as Britain forced it on China in the early days and as Japan forces it to-day. Decent trade is not the impoverishing of native industries by the introduction of cheap products from Japanese, European, and American factories. Neither is decent trade altruism. The spirit of really decent trade may be found, though not yet fully defined, in the motives behind the consortium; but, then, that scheme has not yet been proved workable. Its future remains to be seen, and I shall later describe it as far as it has gone. It has been admitted, even by the most prejudiced--and by Japanese--that America's practices in the Far East, and China in particular, have been essentially well-principled. The Philippines are restively seeking independence, but they cannot claim that America's protectorate has been discreditable. One could go on all the way through to the return of the Boxer Indemnity, and the only serious charge that can be made with truth is that altruism has often been accompanied by indecision and inefficiency. The question that now faces the world is whether the effect of Western democratic governmental methods, which seem to have made a sudden, yet vital, impression on the minds of the Chinese, shall become effective with time, or shall be uprooted by another Oriental country for whom we have expressed constantly the most affectionate regard. We do not love a child less because it needs correction; correction, we realize, is the necessary accompaniment of growth. Japan needs to be shown the error of her ways; not in high-flown moral terms, but in just plain, everyday examples of the impracticability of her doings in China. Thus, having been instrumental in the opening of Japan to the world; having acquired possessions in the Pacific which must remain the outposts of democratic management of native peoples; having set an example of disinterested, generous treatment of unwieldy China; having stood by as her friend, as her preceptor, her sponsor; having, in a word, made that inexplicable journey from the Atlantic to the farthest reaches of the Pacific, let the robin say of Johnny Appleseed: To the farthest West he has followed the sun, His life and his empire just begun.... CHAPTER XXI WHERE THE PROBLEM DOVETAILS 1 I have come now to the most delicate and most difficult task in the whole problem, that of the dovetailing of nations. Twice has this phase of the subject come before us: once when we met it in that welter of racial experiments, Hawaii and the South Seas in general; and again in that great outpost of the white race, Australasia. But in the one it is too localized, and the other too much in anticipation. In Hawaii it is hard to say which race has justly a prior right to possession; in Australia the problem is only imminent. But in California and the entire West the impact of the two races of the Pacific has taken place. Nothing but a just solution can possibly be any solution at all. Let me therefore define the problem at the very outset, lest that which is really irrelevant be expected, or insinuate itself into the discussion. Primarily, the problem of Japan in America is not a racial one. Primarily it is political, and hinges upon the rights of nations. Secondarily, it is economic, and only in so far as the political and economic factors are unsolvable can the problem become a racial one, and terminate in conflict. All attempts at handling the situation which do not take into consideration these two factors would be like crossing the stream to get a bucket of water. For nothing can be done without reciprocity, and reciprocity is the last thing that Japan would ever consent to, as it involves a transformation in her political philosophy and the relinquishment of her own position from the very outset. Hence, before we can even approach the consideration of facts in California, we must get clearly in mind exactly what Japan is doing within her own territories. Japan is the appellant. Japan demands that her people be given free entry the world over. We are not asking her to let our people enter Japan and her possessions as laborers and agriculturists. Hence, before she can make her plea at all rational, she must show that she herself is not discriminating in the identical manner as the one she objects to. Now, in only one or two instances have I seen that question emphasized. In all the literature I have read emanating from Japanese sources, in the lectures of its propagandists here, I have never seen it faced fairly and squarely. The actions of Japan are ignored or glossed over. The protagonists of Japan in California--Americans, mind you--make of it purely an American issue, as though discrimination were a fault peculiar to ourselves. Two blacks don't make a white, but neither do two blacks quarrel with each other for being black. The questions in the order of their importance then are: Does Japan permit the free entrance of alien labor? Does Japan permit the ready purchase by aliens of agricultural land? Does Japan make the naturalization of aliens easy? Does Japan permit the denaturalization of its people abroad? Now, these are all political problems, for the simple reason that the very economic conditions of Japan make them unnecessary. That is, Japanese labor is essentially cheap labor, and owing to the great crowding there would be little likelihood of any great influx of Korean or Chinese labor were the bars not raised fairly high. And the bars are high. The number of Koreans admitted is greater largely because Koreans are now subjects of the mikado, but even they are kept in check by Japanese objections to their entrance, and conflicts between Japanese and Koreans are not unknown. Chinese are permitted to enter Japan only by special permission from the local authorities, as provided for in a regulation in force since 1899. Forgetting the two hundred and fifty years during which the doors of Japan were sealed; forgetting that even after the opening of Japan a foreigner had to obtain a special passport to travel from Kobe to Kyoto, a distance of forty miles inland; forgetting all the psychological factors that have by no means broken down the crust that still closes most of Japan to alien possession or acquisition, one is still amazed at this discrimination against fellow-subjects and Chinese, to whom the Japanese are in some essential way, at least, related. But let us see what happens to these people when they do get in. Let me quote a statement in the bulletin of the East and West News Bureau, a Japanese propaganda agency located in New York. In Japan proper the Korean laborers are estimated to number about 20,000. Compared with Japanese laborers they are perhaps superior in point of physical strength, but in practical efficiency they are no rivals of the latter. They feel that they are handicapped by strange environments and different customs, which partly account for their low efficiency. But experienced employers assert that the Koreans are markedly lazy, and that their work requires overseers, which naturally results of curtailment of their wages. According to inquiries by the Osaka police on conditions among Korean laborers in the city, many of them have been thrown out of employment on account of the economic depression; that they are mostly engaged in rough work, such as carrying goods around or digging holes, etc., as unskilled laborers. It states that they are indolent and have no interest in work which requires skill and attention; they are simply contented as cheap laborers. This quotation is illuminating in many ways. First, it strikes me as being anything but fair play on the part of Japanese in America to send out such discriminating and unkind accounts of a people whom they have now taken in as fellows in an empire, and whom they are "trying to assimilate." Secondly, it is not quite true, for Japanese manufacturers are going to Korea with their factories. If Korean laborers are efficient in Korea, why not in Japan? But the fact of the matter is that the Japanese, quite naturally, are not going to give the best jobs to Koreans with their own men round about. Now let us see what the British Vice-Consul at Osaka has to say of Japanese labor, in a report to Parliament. Admitting that external conditions have much to do with the poor quality of the Japanese workman, and that in time and under better conditions he will improve, the vice-consul says: "The standard [of intelligence] shown by the average workman is admittedly low," while some of his sub-captions are: "Docility," "Apathy," "Cheerfulness," "Lack of Concentration," "Scarcity of Skilled Labor," and under the caption "Why Wages are Low" he says: "Labor is plentiful and inefficient." It is seen, therefore, that the opinion of the vice-consul in the matter of the Japanese is similar to that of the Japanese in regard to the Korean; and so it goes. The point in the whole question, to my mind is, that Japanese discriminate as much against other races as they are discriminated against. Not until Japan lays low the chauvinistic notions about the superiority of the most inferior Japanese to the best foreigner can we expect that other nations will set to work to remove the obstacles toward a clear understanding. In America the very reverse is true. No one ever asserts that the Japanese is inferior to a white man. What is said is that the white man is essentially an individualist who at maturity starts off in life by himself, whereas the Japanese is bound by all sorts of notions of ancestor-worship which submerge him completely in the group. Furthermore, as a group the Japanese are able to overcome the greatest odds that any individual can raise against them. The nature of that group-consciousness will be analyzed in the answer to some of the other questions. 2 But to return to Japan: That Japan has no occasion for fear of a serious invasion of aliens is evident from recent figures that show that there are only 19,500 foreigners there, of whom 12,139 are Chinese, 2,404 Britons, 1,837 Americans, 687 Russians, 641 Germans, and 445 French. These figures are, however, unreliable, and antedate the Russian Revolution. However, the question here pertinent is whether any of these would be permitted to engage in such industries as the Japanese engage in here; for instance, agriculture. That can be answered in the negative. The Japanese land law, however generous it may seem from mere reading of the statutes, does not extend that privilege to foreigners. The first proviso of the law is that the person desiring to own land in Japan shall be from a country wherein Japanese are permitted to own land. In other words, if America does not allow a Japanese to acquire land, no American can do so in Japan. As it stands, therefore, no Japanese can complain if American laws make a similar ruling. The second provision excludes from any and all ownership, in any and all circumstances, the Hokkaido, Formosa, Karafuto (Sakhalin), or districts necessary for national defense. Considering that every other inch of ground is held in plots of two and a half acres per farmer, to whom they are the beginning and end of subsistence, the privileges innocently extended are mighty short. The law virtually excludes all right to any agricultural lands that any foreigner might be able to avail himself of. There is one kind of real property foreigners do wish to own, and that is property for business purposes. But they cannot own that, even; they may only lease it on long leases under conditions that are frequently a hardship and often enough insecure. They may lease land under the so-called superficies lease, but that means virtually evading the law, and is always expensive. Even ordinary leases are frequently encroached upon, as foreigners in the ports are only too well aware. While I was in Kobe, Japanese were forcing foreign business firms out of the former foreign settlement, which fully fifty years of white men's toil had converted from a worthless bit of beach land into one of the most up-to-date "suburbs" in the Orient, and which is now the best part of Kobe. This was done by calling in leases, by making the rents prohibitive, and by "buying out" foreign lease-holders at almost exorbitant rates, just as the Japanese buy out white men in California. One British druggist, Dr. Richardson, sold for $225,000 a corner plot for which he had paid $12,500. He made a great profit in the deal, but the process by which he, and others, were bought out is indicative of the methods of the Japanese. For behind many of the real-estate dealers was the Government, making loans at most favorable rates of interest with the sole object of getting back into Japanese control as much of the port plots as possible,--cost what it might. Even men of lifelong residence in Japan must form themselves into corporations with their wives and some Japanese as members, in order to own the land upon which their residences are built. Some of these cases I investigated for the "Japan Chronicle" and learned from the priest of the Catholic Church that pressure was constantly being exerted upon him to make him relinquish his hold upon the ground on which the church stands, because it is in the heart of the business section. He said he did not know how long he would be able to hold out against them. How corrupt landlords may overstep the bounds is illustrated by a case reported in the "Chronicle" of February 10, 1921. The editor says: The notorious Clarke lease suit is a case in point. This was a lease for twenty-five years, renewable for a further term of similar duration. A syndicate of Japanese was organized which purchased the land, knowing of the burdens upon it, with the hope of worrying the lease-holder either into paying more rent or into selling the lease for an inadequate sum. Suit after suit was brought in various names, until at last a court was found to give judgment raising the rent on the ground that taxes had increased and the value of surrounding properties had expanded since the lease was made. In justification of a judgment upholding this decision, the Osaka Appeal Court declared that there was a local custom in Kobe which permitted a landlord to raise the rent in certain circumstances. No evidence was produced in support of this contention, which was clearly against all contract law and rendered lease agreements meaningless. The result was that the gang of speculators who had banded themselves together to despoil a foreigner were successful. The holder of the lease was forced to sell and the syndicate profited greatly. If the argument is raised that you will find bad people everywhere, and that one cannot take the poorest type of person and set him up as the example, let us recall the case of the Doshisha University. There, because of these selfsame land and property laws, The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions placed the million dollars' worth of property in the hands of Christian Japanese directors. Presently the Government brought pressure to bear upon these directors, and they yielded to their Government. In February, 1898, they virtually ousted the foreign owners, turned the institution into a secular college, and saw nothing dishonest nor immoral in the action. Japanese have of course come to a better understanding of the rights in such cases, nor am I trying to impugn the integrity of the "better-class" of Japanese. I am merely bringing evidence to prove that not only are Japanese laws with regard to the ownership of land by foreigners as discriminatory as those of California, but their interpretation is a serious handicap to aliens in Japan. In America the fight is not to prevent Japanese from taking hold of land for business purposes, but to prevent them from monopolizing farming-lands, which, as Mr. Walter Pitkin has shown so clearly in his book, "Must We Fight Japan?" are rapidly passing out of American hands because of our vicious shallowness in agrarian matters. I am not as yet bringing up the question of fairness, justice, generosity, or the rights of over-crowded Japan. I am merely making parallels which seem to me telling. 3 Does Japan make the naturalization of aliens easy? As far as the letter of the law goes, there appears nothing in the eyes of a layman that might stand in the way of a man, already married and with children, from becoming a Japanese subject. There is no legal discrimination against any race or color. But notwithstanding that there now are 20,000 foreigners in Japan, and that the number throughout the years must have been much greater, there are on record only nine cases of foreigners having been naturalized between 1904 and 1913; two English, two American, five French; and ten cases of adoptions by marriage into Japanese families. These, to my knowledge, do not include men previously married. They are all cases of men who have married Japanese women, or of women who have married Japanese men. There have been 158 Chinese who became naturalized. This does not indicate that naturalization is easy--except by marriage--and the general consensus of opinion is that it would take a man fully fifteen years to become naturalized in the due process of law. Furthermore, the restrictions attached to the acquisition of Japanese nationality take all the sweetness out of the plum, for even after you have gone through the regular processes and have been permitted to sit "amongst these gods on sainted seats," there are still exalted pedestals beyond your reach. You may not become a Minister of State, President, or Vice-President, or a member of the Privy Council; an official of _chokunin_ (imperial-appointment) rank in the Imperial Household Department; an Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary; a general officer in the army and navy; president of the Supreme Court, of the Board of Audit, or of the Court of Administrative Litigation; or member of the Imperial Diet. Nor are the professions in all cases open to you. However, this is a minor matter compared with that of the inability on the part of any Japanese to accept another nationality without official consent. If he resides abroad after his seventeenth birthday he cannot in any circumstances become a citizen of that other country unless he has completed his military service. Women may freely relinquish their nationality through marriage; not so men. If men are born abroad, they must make a voluntary request for denaturalization between the ages of fifteen and seventeen, but such other factors are involved that only a negligible number of American-born Japanese have ever attempted to rid themselves of their ancestral connections; and there is one case on record in which the Government refused on a technicality, for the child had applied for denationalization according to Western reckoning, whereas Japanese count the child's age as from the day of conception, not birth. In view of this, then, there seems no point whatever in the fuss made about Japanese being barred from citizenship. Again, I am not discussing the advisability of this restriction, but merely trying to brush aside many of the webs that have been spun for the netting of sympathy. The relations between Japan and America are thus involved in an infinite number of petty political regulations on each side, and nothing but a complete sweeping away of all restrictions on both sides would ever assume even the semblance of justice. But how far is Japan ready and willing to go in this denationalization of herself? The most casual study of her nationalistic aims and aspirations answers that question. That the problem is essentially a problem for Japan to solve is self-evident. That it is political and not racial, and that this political problem is rooted in Japan's economic condition, is likewise clear. For no nation loses its nationals except when the conditions at home are worse than those abroad, worse than those of the country to which her people wish to emigrate. Australia and New Zealand find it almost impossible to lure out British laborers, while Germany's desire for room was largely for the utilization of her mechanics and scientists and others whom she had trained in such large numbers that she hadn't enough work for them at home. Two changes in the structure of world economics have accentuated a condition of racial conflict which have hitherto been virtually non-existent. Religious and political conflicts have always obtained, but the color line has been drawn only in very recent times. As long as black and yellow people have been of a lower order and have been willing to serve the white, there was never any serious disorder between them. The color line is not marked even in Europe to-day, for the same reason that it is not marked in Japan. Europe is herself too crowded to be a desirable immigration station. Whatever the causes of conflict may have been, to-day it is clear that they lie in the endeavor on the part of white labor to maintain a better standard of living than Oriental labor has yet attained. And in exactly the degree to which certain Oriental labor groups have risen above others, the conflict becomes manifest,--to wit, the objection on the part of Japanese labor to Korean and Chinese coolies. No serious conflicts take place between Fijian laborers and Indian coolies, because the Fijian maintains his standard under competition, that being lower than the Indian's. We have therefore to study the problem of Japanese in America, the so-called race conflict, not so much as it develops here but at its source, Japan. And there, if I read Japanese conditions aright, the problem is political and psychological in the main. Japan has come very far along material modernization; she has virtually stepped up to the front rank of nations. But the most casual observation reveals that that is only so in part, that the advance is made as a government, not as a people. That government is rooted in antiquated notions, is vicious in many of its aspects, and is opposed to even the most conservative developments of Western countries. That government refuses to recognize the social forces that are at work within Japan for the leveling upward of classes. And there is the rub. 4 Glancing over the history of the nineteenth century, we realize that all nations have passed through a continuous struggle of the masses for betterment of their conditions, political and social as well as economic. During the greater part of that century Japan lay dormant, its masses mentally mesmerized. The sudden impact of the West has stunned the people more than awakened them. Only part of the social body is coming to life,--a limb, an essential organ. To be generous, I might say the brain is working, though from many of the actions of Nippon that would seem doubtful. But certain it is that whether it is the brain or merely the spinal column, instead of limbering up the rest of the body as rapidly as possible, it is trying to retard it. Hence, the feverish condition of the country. This is not mere speculation. As I have said, only such countries as have an inferior economic condition suffer from the exodus of their laboring people. That exodus takes place for several reasons. From Europe it has come because of the hunger for religious freedom, to escape political oppression, or merely to get a new start in life. And though we have few political or religious exiles in America from the Land of the Rising Sun, they come because of an unconscious desire for relief from Japanese social domination. I am convinced that that which most Japanese so prefer in America is that sense of individual freshness, that desire for individual expression, for freedom from the clutch of family and oligarchy. It is unconscious, and without doubt few Japanese when brought face to face with the issues would admit it, so deeply ingrained is the education and training at the hands of the political administrators. Only here and there is some such statement made, with an eye to the press and the galleries. Were Japan to extend to the masses greater freedom, there would be plenty of work for them at home. There is scientific advancement to be made. Japanese are frightfully behind in the scientific habit. I have been told by a friend at one of our greatest institutions of medical experimentation that with but one exception the Japanese who come there have to be constantly dismissed for their incompetence. There was no anti-Japanese sentiment in the mind of the person who made this statement. Japanese still need generations of training to acquire the scientific spirit. Their historians prove this. In the business of life Japanese have plenty of work at home which could easily absorb all the man-power, both masculine and feminine, at their command, without the necessity of shipping any of it abroad. But the vulgar acquisition of wealth, the vulgar acquisition of political prestige in the world, the vulgar appeal for equality which no man or nation with true dignity and self-respect would mouth to the extent that Japanese officialdom has mouthed it, the vulgar wearing of its sensitiveness on its sleeve,--it is these with which bureaucratic Japan is preoccupied. While, at home, every effort on the part of Japanese to secure manhood suffrage, to arise to the dignity of true men, of which the masses are as capable as any race on earth, is discouraged. On the one hand pleading, in mendicant fashion, for racial equality abroad; on the other, refusal to give the people at home racial equality. On one hand it is asserted loudly that "The Japanese do not like to be regarded as inferior to any other people. In no country will they be content with discriminatory treatment";[1] on the other, Prime Minister Hara answers the demand for the franchise with the maudlin fear that it would break down "distinction." [1] From the _Kokumin_, a leading newspaper. So that the problem of Japan and the world is largely a political problem which she must face at home. Raising the standard of living; increasing the economic welfare of the masses; extending the rights of the people who are clamoring for it in sections, not only to the intelligent elements but down to the very _eta_; cleansing the social pores of the empire,--these will in themselves automatically solve the problem for the world. The people don't want conquest. They are not aggressive. But the misguided leaders,--there's the rub. 5 As to Japan in America--or, more specifically, the Japanese in California--the problem is for us to solve. I once heard an American sentimentalist who practises law, and hence assured an audience he ought to know what he was talking about, say that the trouble in California was that the Japanese will work and the American is an idler and won't work. Why he wasn't howled out of the auditorium I don't know. That America has reared this vast continent and made it one of the most productive countries in the world did not seem to enter the head of this lawyer. Yet the Japanese problem will not be solved by exclusion alone. We hear constantly that the reason for the conflict is that Japanese as groups and as tireless workers are able to outwork Americans; and, in certain special types of industry, that is proved. But were the conditions made more acceptable to Americans in those industries, and were we to devise mechanical means of production suited to them, it would not be long before Japanese labor would find it extremely unprofitable to come here, just as it finds it unprofitable to go to Manchuria and Korea, where it has to compete with the cheaper Chinese and Korean labor. Laws and restrictions can always be evaded, and the price of vigilance is more costly than the gain. But those laws that are basic in the condition of life no man can evade. The Gentlemen's Agreement has not worked because gentlemen themselves seldom work. It has not worked because it has denied America the right, as all nations claim it, to determine who shall or shall not come in. Gentlemen never exact such agreements from their friends. They realize that a man's home is his domain, to be entered only on invitation. Furthermore, the agreement is not mutually retroactive. It says that Japan has a right to decide the issue, and promises not to permit coolie labor to enter America. I shall not enter the statistical controversy as to whether flocks of Japanese have or have not evaded the agreement. An agreement such as that should be evaded, and was loose enough to make evasion simple. That is enough of an argument. Japan pleads for room on account of the tremendous increase in her population every year. When a great appeal is made, the number is stated as 700,000 or 800,000, according to the emotional condition of the appellant. Professor Dewey contends that the Japanese Government, in its own records, admits to only some 300,000 or 400,000 a year. Whether the increase in California is or is not as stated, on one side or the other, matters little. Japan's grounds for appealing for room are sufficient. If the increase is so disgustingly large in Japan, it stands to reason that it would be as large, if not larger here, where economic opportunity makes increase possible and desirable. Every child born in America is a handle worth getting hold of. But on the other hand, it is also true that wherever Japanese better their standard of living their birth-rate falls, as with every race. In which case there is only one answer to Japan's appeal for more room: Better your standard of living and you will not need to invade our house. That disgusting process of breeding which aggressive nations indulge in should be decried from the house-tops. It is no great mark of civilization to breed like mosquitos. Mosquitos need to reproduce by the millions because their eggs are consumed by the millions by preying creatures. Civilization makes it possible for those born to survive. (See Appendix D.) Some students of Far Eastern affairs, like J. O. P. Bland, urge that Japan has a right to the occupation of Siberia; and none will gainsay that. But the fact is that though free to go both to Korea and Manchuria, Japanese have not gone to these regions even to the extent of one year's increase in population during the last ten years. Where, then, is the argument? As has been shown, they do not go as settlers because cheap continental labor makes it unprofitable. They go as business-men, as the advance-guard of the empire, as the rear-guard of the army. No one has ever raised a voice against the migration of Japanese to these unpopulated regions--with the exception, perhaps, of the natives. But ever and always one feels the hand of imperial Japan behind each little man from the empire, and that hold on her nationals is the thing that vigorous nations resent, because it threatens to impair their status. That is what California and the sixteen other states who share her views feel. They are conscious of some subsidy behind every extensive purchase of land. From somewhere Japanese get enough money to buy anything they want. It is always the paternalistic arm of the Government round every little son of Nippon, or the embrace of his family. That is where the problem begins and that is where it ends. If only some chemical substance could be discovered that, when poured over the Oriental, would separate him from the mass, he would be as good a fellow as can be found anywhere in the world. But that was what always irritated me in my relations with Japanese in Japan. I never met a man I liked but that in order to enjoy association with him I had to tolerate his group. If I started off anywhere with one, I soon had a retinue. That racial clannishness is to be found everywhere, but nowhere is it more sticky than in ancestor-worshiping Japan. Consequently, in whatever manner the problem is finally solved here in America, one thing is agreed upon by both Japanese and anti-Japanese,--that those here will have to be redistributed over the country, their clannishness broken up. That is a problem which affects not only the Japanese. However, nothing that is now done should in any way be retroactive so as to deprive any single Japanese of the fruits of his labor. Whatever solution is found for the Japanese problem in America, one thing is certain,--that no war will ever be fought because of Japanese immigration to America. Japan, as has been shown, would have to readjust her own political thinking to such an extent as virtually to revolutionize conditions in Japan in order to make an issue of the citizenship problem and the matter of alien landownership here. Such a revolution would considerably reduce the scope of the issues, they would fall apart and virtually cease to exist. If we are looking for the causes of a possible conflict in the Pacific, they must be sought not in California but in China. The dovetailing of the angle of our triangle in America is contingent upon the dovetailing of the angle of the triangle in Asia. The one in America can be dislodged only by a wrenching apart of the angle in Asia. Japan's hegemony in Asia is a serious matter. Japan is an industrial nation now. She is entitled to access to unused resources in China. Propinquity accedes this, but propinquity precludes the necessity of submerging China in the process. The Open Door in China means peace in the Pacific. We leave it to time to determine what the walling up of that door would mean. CHAPTER XXII AUSTRALIA AND THE ANGLO-JAPANESE ALLIANCE 1 The tempest in the European teapot has become a tornado in the Pacific. Small as the Balkans are, they were the stumbling-block in the way of the downward expansion of the European powers. The tragedy in Europe has left Europe in the background. Civilization is rapidly veering round in the direction of the Pacific. There are little nations to-day whose possession is as fraught with unhappy consequences as anything in southern Europe ever was. Yet we hear innocent dispensers of information assure us that Yap is only a little speck in the Pacific over which no one would think of going to war. They forget that America nearly went to war with Germany in 1889 over the Samoan Islands, which then meant much less to her. And the settlement in Europe at the Peace Conference has greatly enhanced the position of the present powers in the Pacific. Until very recently two developments in Pacific affairs had not been given as much prominence in the press as they deserved. One, the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, and the other the British Imperial Conferences, held every other year since 1907. Just in proportion as the Imperial Conferences have become, as it were, a super-Parliament to Great Britain, so has the Anglo-Japanese Alliance waned. And just as the so-called mandates over the various island groups in the mid-Pacific congeal from lofty aspirations to concrete management there are emerging in the Pacific the identical antagonisms that made of the little group of states in Southern Europe the cause of the conflict. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance was formed in 1902. Its aim was to oust Russia, and to guarantee British interests in China. Later on it was revised to include Japanese protection over India. But consonant with that agreement there blossomed in the British Empire a new thing to be reckoned with,--an independent Australian navy. That navy has by no means matured, it is not and cannot for years to come be a great consideration in the Pacific, but it has been from the start prophetic and explanatory of much that is taking place to-day. It is at the bottom of the problem, because it is the beginning of Australian independence, of her rise to nationhood. Let me rehearse the historical incidents in connection with this development. Now, until the advent of that navy all the colonies had been paying certain sums yearly toward the maintenance of the British Navy,--Canada, Australia, New Zealand alike. But with the federation of the Commonwealth, Australia began to agitate in no mistaken terms for a navy of her own, to be built and manned by Australians, and kept in Australian waters, rushing only in an emergency to the support of the empire. Canada decided otherwise,--i.e., to build her own ships, but to merge them with the home fleet; New Zealand continued the old scheme. Being twelve hundred miles away from Australia, her isolation and her inadequate resources and population made her more timorous. With Australia the construction of a separate little fleet was the beginning of a straining at the leash. Then came the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, which, while it allayed the fears of the Australians somewhat, intensified certain other phases of the problem, such as the White-Australia policy. The Russo-Japanese War did nothing to allay apprehension on the part of the Australasians. For years both the Dominion and the Commonwealth were absolutely obsessed by the naval question. Sir Joseph Ward, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, championed a single, undivided imperial navy; the late Mr. Alfred Deakin of Australia stood out strongly in favor of an independent navy. Seeing little hope of a very strong concession from England, Deakin extended and urged an invitation, in 1908, to the American fleet to visit Australia. He admitted that his object was to arouse Britain to fear an Australian-American "alliance." The thrust went home. The English "felt that it was using strong measures for an Australian statesman to use a foreign fleet as a means of forwarding a project which was not approved by the Admiralty." But even Sir Joseph Ward let himself go to the extent of declaring that they welcomed America as "natural allies in the coming struggle against Japanese domination." And when at last the American fleet came to Australia, it received an ovation such as still rings in the conversation of any Australian with an American. For an entire week Sydney celebrated. Melbourne followed suit; New Zealand could not but take up the cue. Every one pointed with pride to the similarity between the Australian and the American. Australian girls virtually threw themselves into the arms of American sailors. It is even said that many a sailor remained behind with an Australian wife. Not even the Prince of Wales (now King George) was given such an ovation. After that visit, so cordial was the attitude of Australians that everywhere they talked of floating the Stars and Stripes in the event of--what? In the event of pressure from Downing Street or from Tokyo. The Australian temperament is not one which buries its grievances or harbors ill-feeling. The Australian speaks right out that which is on his mind. And though much must be discounted because of this bubbling personality, almost primitive in its extremes, nothing that affects Australia can long be ignored by us. Frankly, the situation is this: Australia is set on her so-called White-Australia policy. Australia made it clear to England that, alliance or no alliance, she would never swerve from her policy of excluding Japanese and Chinese. When the American fleet appeared, knowing the exclusion of Orientals practised in America, Australia felt that bond of fellowship which comes from common danger. And everything was done to develop friendship; America became the pattern for everything Australian. Never particularly fond of the Englishman, at times discriminating against him as much as against the Oriental, advertising that "No Englishman Need Apply" when looking for labor, afraid of the little yellow man up there,--Australia naturally looked to America as a possible defender. But along came the European war. Great Britain was in danger. America held aloof. Then everything changed. The wave of anti-American sentiment in Australia was much more pronounced than in New Zealand. This was a strange anomaly, for inherently New Zealand is much more imperialistic. But it was characteristic of the Australian. There was almost a boycott against American goods. One firm published a scurrilous advertisement which the American Consul-General at Melbourne showed me and said he had sent to Washington. For a time it looked rather serious, but in view of the Australian character, its importance was not very great. It was the impetuosity of a little boy, disgruntled because his opinion was not feared. Many said openly: "We were so fond of America and thought you were our friend. From now on we don't want anything from you. We don't want your protection." Yet, as late as December 8, 1916, the Sydney "Morning Herald" said editorially: "And _those of us who think of a possible run under America's wings_ forget that her strength at present is proportionately no greater than our own [Australia's]. She is not ready for either offence or defence and she knows it. This being so, can we ask Great Britain," etc. The feeling toward America at that time was only commensurate with the petty jealousies that now rankle somewhat because of fear that America has taken to herself too much credit for the accomplishment of victory. But then it gave that stimulus to navalism in the South that the Australians wanted; further, it gave birth to the movement for greater independence in imperial affairs, which for twenty-five years had determined the policies of the several states. Just recently a New Zealand navalist, writing in the "Auckland Weekly News" (New Zealand), brought up the dread specter "balance of power" again, calling attention to the fact that inasmuch as Japan is a great naval power and America is increasing her naval strength, it is for democratic Australasia to see to it that Great Britain does not lag behind with its fleet in the Pacific,--to maintain the balance of power. And the further sad fact was revealed that Australasia (seen in the expression of this one individual at least) did not care particularly whether, in the event of conflict, they were on the side of America or Japan. Feeling did not take the same turn in New Zealand. That little country continued in its more imperialistic tendencies, was content to be a finger in the great hand of empire. In 1909, at the Imperial Conference, Mr. Joseph Ward sprung a surprise by offering a battle-cruiser to the Government without consulting his constituents at home. For this he was knighted. But the New Zealanders were in a mood to make him pay for it himself when he returned. Mr. (now Sir Joseph) Ward was severely criticized for what he did. He was ridiculed even by the university lads during their "Capping Carnival." They took him off in effigy and carried a little boat with a sign saying: "This is the toy he bought his crown with." Upon his return from the conference he lost his Prime Ministership and a "conservative" government came into power. Later developments so justified him that he became a sort of political idol for a while. When the cruiser visited New Zealand, in 1913, the excitement knew no bounds. Germany was always regarded as a potential enemy. The colonies had always arched their backs at the proximity of German possessions in the South Seas. When in 1889 Samoa was the bone of contention, the colonies were rather eager to have America take it, in preference to the Germans. Then, as Japan came to the fore, America as a potential protection became more and more obvious to Australasians. The Panama Canal intensified their conviction. They looked forward to a combination of British and American power for the furtherance of peace as they conceived it should be maintained, and consciousness of their own destiny in the Pacific was stimulated. Suddenly they were brought close to the United States. The anti-Japanese riots in California, the annexation of Hawaii, the protectorate over the Philippines all pointed to the Australasians lessons for their own guidance. They could not expect from England the same keen interest in racial questions which manifested itself in America. America demonstrated the dangers of having two unmixable races like the white and the black together; Hawaii showed them that Asiatic immigration is a breeder of trouble. They do not seem to see that circumstances are not the same, that the pressure of population has become much more keen, that industrial conditions in the world to-day are altogether different from what they were when Great Britain refused to have her American colonies put down the kidnapping of Africans; that America to-day has 110,000,000 people and has encouraged them to come from every country in Europe, as Australia does not. Australia looks only at the most obvious phase of the problem,--that certain people are not happy together. Whether or not she over-estimates her own strength against the pressure of changed conditions, remains to be seen, but she is pursuing her own course with a certain steadfastness that is at once a pathetic blindness and a courageous self-assertion. In a country whose political outlook is essentially generous, whose labor experiments have been extremely costly to her, it strikes one as a great contradiction of principle. How can a labor government be so utterly opposed to the extension of ideal opportunities to laborers from other lands seeking to enjoy them? How can she be so utterly capitalistic on a national scale when nearly everything within her own ken is laboristic? The explanation of this enigma lies in a certain measure in the manner in which Australia has set about making herself independent of her mother country and, while working indirectly for the break-up of the empire, is becoming imperial in her own small way. All these counter currents must be seen clearly before understanding can follow. They whirl about the pillar of imperialism--England--and have come out clearly since the war. They hinge upon the mandates over the South Sea Islands. 2 While, as has been shown, Australia has for twenty years pursued a course that threatens to lead toward separation from England, New Zealand has bound herself closer and closer. Australia, however, has been extremely shy of any semblance of rupture. She does not want to break away. She feels her isolation too much. But what she wants is in a sense the rights that American states have within the Union. She wants to be independent, to be able to develop in her own way, to expand, if necessary, without danger of attack. This spirit is inherent in the Australian temperament. When I told any Australian that I was traveling and tramping on "me own," he could not understand it. He could not go without a mate. He wanted to be sure that if he got into any scrape and was with his back to the wall, his mate was there to help him. Still, he wanted to fight alone. It did not seem to occur to any of these people that a civilized man might go the wild world over and not have occasion to fight. And this trait comes out in Australian international relations. She wants to pursue the White-Australia policy contrary to sentiment in England, to develop her own navy, to hold the whole continent against the time when full nationhood will have become a reality. But for the time at least she will not declare her independence of Great Britain. She will not even give Britain the imperial preference in trade which would compensate her for her trouble. But she did show in the last war that she realized her responsibilities. In the Boer War it was said that her assistance was merely for the sake of giving her men adventure and practice for possible later use in her own defense. And in this war conscription was defeated because, as it was openly declared, it was not certain what the turn of affairs in Europe might be. It was felt imperative that the men be not all gone and the continent left undefended. And that contingency was voiced by the Premier of Queensland as involving--Japan. To the outsider, Australia's attitude seems extremely selfish, but to enthusiastic young Australia, with the wide world before her, with a future that looks as promising as that of America, it seems the only logical one. And as long as her potential enemies do not take the trouble to show by deeds that they are not enemies, her reasoning is not unjustifiable. But a strange thing has happened to Australia. She has got what she was after, and now she hardly wants it. She fought for the imperial conference method of settling imperial affairs. Australians have time and again declared that though an empire, they are a nation first and foremost. That the empire represented too heterogeneous a list of peoples for them to forget that an Indian, though part of the empire, is still an inferior as far as they are concerned. And Australia realized that the mother country could not see eye to eye with her on that score. Yet she insists on the Anglo-Japanese Alliance remaining in some form acceptable to her and to America. How is that to be? What has happened since peace was declared? Australia and New Zealand were loudest in the protest against the return of the South Sea Islands to the Germans. New Zealand soldiers had taken Samoa; the Australian navy--what there was of it--had cleared the neighboring seas of German raiders. But though they asked that Germany be deprived of the possessions, and though the leaders thundered for a New Zealand mandate over Samoa and an Australian mandate over New Guinea, the people realized that they did not particularly care for the burden of looking after these lands. Mr. Hughes of Australia urged annexation. The people as a whole preferred that Great Britain should annex them and guarantee the dominions against possible dangers from enemy control. They felt they could not stand the cost of governing them. They were even not averse to their being turned over to America. They have come to realize that they were much better off before the war, when they merely contributed their small quota to the support of the navy; now Great Britain has intimated that she can no longer maintain that navy without their full share in its costs. Besides, the mandate over the islands is not going to be simple. 3 Before giving consideration to the developments which not even the Australasians had anticipated, let us look upon the gains they have made. They have acquired some new possessions which make of them an empire within the empire, as it were. The islands of the south Pacific are to be ruled as though they were an integral part of New Zealand and Australia, yet they have their own facets just as the Dominions had their own problems within the empire. They afford them certain commercial advantages: copra and cocoa from Samoa, phosphate from Nauru, which alone has an estimated deposit amounting to forty-two million tons. Nauru is of utmost importance to them because they are extensive agricultural countries. It has been agreed that Great Britain take 42%, Australia 42%, and New Zealand 16% of the export. The South Seas as a whole supply 14.7% of the world's copra supply, and this may yet be greatly increased. But this is nothing compared with the advantages they afford as ports of call. Further, if the plan of linking the islands together by wireless is effected, they will become an outer frontier for the Antipodes of inestimable value. There is even a faint suggestion of binding them together into one separate governmental entity,--a buffer state, as it were, between the big powers in the Pacific. But what are these few assets compared with the greatly extended line of defense now left to the Dominion to keep up? What is that to the great problem of how to develop the native races? Australia is interested in developing Queensland, a tropical region, not the distant island beyond. The question of labor is bad enough for themselves, without having added regions to worry about. Throughout the Pacific the problem of where to secure man-power is pressing. Hawaii cries for labor; Samoa is in a similar state; Fiji is troubled with the indentured Indians now there. Go where one will, the islands would yield readily enough if cheap labor were available. But Australia and New Zealand are not willing to exploit these islands at the expense of cheap Asiatic labor which evolves into a racial problem as soon as its returns become adequate. As for the mandates both labor and capital in the South Seas are not keen about these war orphans. A further problem is, what will happen when the policy applied to island possessions conflicts with the course permitted by the law of the mandate? What is worse yet, the mandate over the South Seas has brought Japan closer by hundreds of miles to both New Zealand and Australia, and has thrown open the question of admission of Asiatic people to these islands. The Australasians feel that they are obliged to protect not only themselves from Asiatic competition, but the native races as well. If they are to carry out the provisions of the mandate to rule the islands for the good of the natives, they feel that they cannot introduce Asiatic labor, which undermines the natives economically and morally every time it is attempted. These are some of the problems Australasia inherited from the Peace Conference. How have they affected the relations of New Zealand and the Commonwealth of Australia with Great Britain? They have put a new strain upon the empire as such; they have put an added strain upon the relations between Japan and Great Britain; they have driven a wedge into the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. Further, the whole question of mandates as it pertains to the Pacific has completely opened new sores. The island of Yap, which has been in the press so much of late, is an example. A blow at so vital a factor in world relations as cables would be like a blow on the medulla oblongata. Yet under that new and misleading term, "mandate," Yap became Japanese, and the near future is not likely to know just what was done when Germany's colonies were apportioned under its ruling. Yet what is fair for Great Britain and the Dominions should be fair for Japan, and if mandate means possession for one it ought to mean it for the other. But where do we come in and where the peace of the Pacific? Already, as stated elsewhere, Japan has had in mind the fortification of the Marshall Islands. She is proceeding to fortify the Bonin Islands and the Pescadores. She is, according to a very recent rumor,--and rumors are really the only things one can secure in such matters,--establishing an airship station on the southeast coast of Formosa,--not on the west, which would shorten her distance to China, but on the east, cutting down mileage to the Philippines. And we? Well, we know what we are about, too. Hence, the sooner such matters as mandates are defined, the better for the world. 4 How would these things work out with the new British arrangement as to the control of the Dominions? We have seen that behind the whole struggle for the development of an Australian navy was the desire for greater independence. As long as the war lasted, no troublesome topics were broached. Now that the war is over, one may expect the feathers to begin to fly. The Dominions are not stifling their desire for greater and greater freedom. They were involved in a colossal war without ever having been consulted. They feel that now they have earned their right to express judgment on international affairs. They realize that nothing could be done effectively if Downing Street were hampered by several wills at work at the same time. Yet it is obvious that the people of the Dominions are concerned first with their own affairs, as nations, and are devoted to Britain only in a secondary manner. They are now conscious of their power, and are determined to wield it. They have made and are doing everything to continue to make friends on their own, by whom they mean to stand through thick and thin. At the Peace Conference they were not inferior to any of the deliberators, and signed the Peace Treaty as virtual members of the League of Nations. "But," asks the Wellington "Evening Post," "are the Dominions ever to cast an international vote against the Mother Country on a question relating, say, to the future of the Pacific regarding which their interests and wishes might rather harmonize with those of the United States?" Mr. Massey, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, on the other hand, held "that the Dominions had signed the Treaty not as independent nations in the ordinary sense, but as nations within the Empire or partners in the Empire." But to show how complicated the whole position was, a Mr. W. Downie Stewart, M.P., pointed out that When New Zealand signed the Peace Treaty ... she took upon herself the status of a power involving herself in all the rights and obligations of one of the signatories.... That means that she may have created for herself a new status altogether in the world of foreign affairs, and instead of being an act to bring together more closely the component parts of the Empire, it may be that it was the first and most serious step toward obtaining our independence and treating ourselves as a sovereign power. And in connection with Samoa he says the time may come when, having been recognized as an independent power, they will be told "we look to you in future, whenever a question of internal affairs arises, to act as an independent power, making peace or war on your own initiative." Prime Minister Hughes, of Australia, however, has been steering a middle course. He points to the dangers lying ahead, and to the absolute necessity of keeping close to Britain. He urges that the alliance with Japan be renewed, but in such a way as to leave no danger of losing America's friendship. But he shows that the spirit of independence is still uppermost in Australia. Declaring that "The June Conference has not been called to even consider Constitutional changes," he adds: "It it is painfully evident from articles which have appeared in the press and in magazines ... that to a certain type of mind, the Constitution of the British Empire is far from what it should be." But though Hughes is to-day the leader of Australia, it is not because he has the country back of him. It is rather because there is unfortunately no better man on hand. He has never cared much for consistency, and even in the matter of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance there is a suggestion of yielding that makes one feel uncertain. He has declared that at the present conference the question of a reorganization of the Government so as to give the Dominions a direct share in the control of imperial affairs is not even being thought of, but it is evident in his speech that that question is going to be delayed only because more pressing matters, such as the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and Imperial Naval Defense, must be dealt with first. In other words, as spokesman he realizes that "little" Australia, with its five million people and its vast continent has asked too much of its parent to be allowed to stand alone. So he is pouring oil on the troubled waters by trying to devise an Anglo-Japanese Treaty "in such form, modified, if that should be deemed proper, as will be acceptable to Britain, to America, to Japan, and to ourselves." But there is a third consideration in this whole question, and that is Japan. What is Japan going to say about it all? For some time Japanese have been rather cool in their enthusiasm over the alliance, because it seems to them to have outlived its usefulness and because Article 4 absolves Great Britain from assisting Japan in the event of war with America. The "Osaka Asahi," one of the most influential of Japanese journals, has boldly advocated its abrogation. The reason for both British and Japanese indifference is obvious. Russia and Germany are out of the way. British mercantile interests are not at all satisfied with Japanese methods in China. The alliance has been disregarded twice,--when the Sino-Japanese Military Agreement was signed, and when the Twenty-one Demands were made. Furthermore, the alliance never protected Japanese interests when they came in conflict with the interests of the colonies, nor has it prevented British interests from suffering in the Far East. As a protective alliance it has little more to do except to guarantee Great Britain against Japan and Japan against Great Britain. China is extremely antagonistic, because she deems herself to be the worst sufferer. She is the main point under consideration, yet she has not been consulted. Hence she has done everything in her power to arouse public opinion against its renewal. Nevertheless, Japan has been concerned enough for the renewal of the alliance to make a departure from her age-long attitude toward the imperial family that is extremely interesting if not illuminating. The recent visit to England of Prince Hirohito, heir to the throne, while meant to widen his grasp of world affairs, was certainly intended also to arouse public feeling there in favor of Japan and the alliance. This was the first time that any Japanese prince of the blood had left Japan. He hobnobbed with the common people, a thing unheard of in Japan. But if he succeeded in winning popular approval for the alliance, it was doubtless worth while from the Japanese point of view. Otherwise the risk would not have been justified, for such visits are not without their dangers. It is interesting to recall that when Nicholas, Czarevitch of Russia, made a tour of the world upon the completion of the Siberian Railway, in 1891, he passed through Japan. An attack upon his person by a Japanese policeman nearly brought down the wrath of the czar upon Japan, and there was much explanation. While Japan was anxious to have the alliance renewed, she argued that England was more in need of it than she. America, she said, had somewhat eclipsed England. Japanese feel that England must now lean on Japan as never before. They felt this when the alliance was formed. Count Hayashi, in his "Secret Memoirs," quotes a statement attributed to Marquis Ito, as follows: It is difficult to understand why England has broken her record in foreign politics and has decided to enter into an alliance with us; the mere fact that England has adopted this attitude shows that she is in dire need, and she therefore wants to use us in order to make us bear some of her burdens. Ito was then playing Russia against England. To-day England is being played against America, and the colonies are eager to utilize the feelings of Japan and America for a greater Pacific fleet and for their own augmented freedom within the empire. There is much talk of a secret agreement existing between Japan and Great Britain. Even if there were, Great Britain would be able to live up to it, in the event of war between Japan and America, only at the risk of losing her colonies. However, that need not be taken as a serious check, for though Great Britain wants her colonies, she does not want them enough to forego all other considerations. On the other hand, a good deal of the pro-American feeling in the colonies cannot be accepted too easily, for, as we have seen, when America remained neutral they forgot blood relationship in their criticism. To-day there are interpretations of the alliance which would put Great Britain in exactly the same position toward her younger "daughters" for which Australasia condemned America in 1914-17. But both the psychological and material elements in the situation point to an absolutely united front in Australasia for America in event of all the talk about war with Japan coming to a head. That is best illustrated by a statement in the "Japan Chronicle." The editor says: "As we have repeatedly pointed out, it is unthinkable that Britain should join Japan in actual warfare with America. No Ministry in England which deliberately adopted such a policy would live for a single day." And the colonies, from Canada to Australia, will echo that sentiment, as they did boldly at the Conference. But it seems that with so much of the world vitally interested in maintaining peace in the Pacific there should be no difficulty at all in so doing. The colonies are sincere in their desire for amity with America; nor is it merely a matter of common language. No one who has taken the trouble to inquire into Far Eastern affairs finds the handicap of language even the remotest cause of misunderstanding. Actions speak louder than words, and none but the ignorant can now misread what is going on in Asia. Let but those actions coincide with the promises made, with the spirit of the alliance and with the constant expression of amity and good-will, and we shall see the mist of war in the Pacific clear as before the glories of the morning sun. There seems, therefore, no justification for the renewal of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. It is to all intents and purposes virtually dead. Alliances on the whole have proved themselves treacherous safeguards. Is there not something which can be substituted for them? Cannot coöperation among nations replace intriguing misalliances, with their vicious secret diplomacy? One way has been launched, and in the succeeding chapter its character will be analyzed. CHAPTER XXIII THE CONSORTIUM FOR FINANCING CHINA 1 If all goes well, the open shop in international finance is a thing of the past; at least so far as China goes. On May 11, 1920, exactly eighteen months after the signing of the armistice, Japan formally declared her willingness to enter the new consortium for lending money to China, and on October 15, following, representatives of the British, French, Japanese, and American banking-groups met in New York and there signed the provisions by which they are for the next five years going to finance China under what is known as the Consortium Agreement. For a full year after the signing of the armistice, Great Britain, France, and America had been ready to act in consort in the matter of future loans to China, but Japan insisted on excluding from the terms of the agreement international activity in Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia. These two provinces have virtually become Japanese territory. Into these she has extended her railroads or added to those built by Russia, and over these she watched as a hen over ducklings. And because she strenuously sought to manoeuver the Allies into admitting her prior rights to these regions, the consummation of the Consortium Agreement was delayed and delayed. Japan finally yielded, at the same time claiming that the powers conceded her special interests; while they, through their chief representative, Mr. Thomas W. Lamont, claimed that Japan waived these interests. We shall presently see what happened, but in the meantime it is obvious that both yielded and both won out,--and that no nation is to-day sufficiently powerful and self-contained to be able to stand apart from the rest of the world. The closed shop in international finance has been ushered in, and the union of world bankers is now known as the Consortium. In a chapter it is hardly possible to make more than a hasty survey of so intricate a stretch of history. China before the war with Japan was free from debt, but in order to meet the indemnity demanded by Japan she was compelled to raise money abroad. The scramble among the foreign powers to advance this money gave China certain advantages. Her own capitalists had money enough to pay off this indemnity immediately, but they did not trust their government and hoarded their funds. They knew that with the Oriental system of "squeeze" only a fraction of it would succeed in freeing their country. Another factor conspired to introduce alien domination over China,--her lack of railroads and modern industries. She had wealth, man-power, everything that an isolated nation could possibly desire, but she was no longer an isolated nation, and she had nothing that an active nation among nations needed for its very existence. Instantly, along with the loans, came concessions for railroad-building, and the development of China began. So deeply was China getting embroiled in alien machinations that five years later, seeing that the young emperor himself, Huang-Hsu, was head-over-heels in love with Western ways, the reactionaries precipitated the Boxer Uprising in 1900. This only resulted in another overwhelming indemnity, which China has not yet succeeded in paying off. Consequently, more loans had to be made, and more urgent still became the necessity for means of transportation and for the modernization of industry. The Russo-Japanese War, which ordinarily might have meant a modicum of relief to China, only succeeded in entrenching her enemy much more securely at her very door, and another period of alien scrambling over Chinese loans set in. Coöperation among various groups of foreign bankers regardless of nationality was not unknown, for absolute competition would most likely have been fatal. But thoroughly thought-out getting together was, in view of the existing jealousy among nations, inconceivable. Still, to such a pass had this suicidal competition come that by 1909 a consortium was proposed which aimed to include Russia, Japan, Germany, France, England, and America. It began to work, but Secretary of State Knox made a proposal for the neutralization and internationalization of the Manchurian railway system which met with a cold no from Japan. Shortly afterward Japan made an agreement with Russia which completely frustrated Knox's proposals, and the thing virtually fell through. In 1913, President Wilson took the matter in hand. He refused to become a party to a scheme which, in his estimation, instead of working for the rehabilitation of China and the Open Door bound her helplessly. And ever since China has been getting "the crumby side" of every deal. For the plan as it then existed had no provisions against the pernicious practice of marrying China to one power after another with concessions, without giving any guaranty of the preservation of her dower rights,--freedom in her industrial and political affairs. Russia then was Japan's "natural" enemy. Russia was threatening the "very existence" of Japan. Yet when Knox's proposal came up, Japan was ready to unite with Russia in order to keep the others out of Manchuria. She had to use that argument to save her face. Bear this in mind, for we shall presently see that a second time Japan used this argument in order to keep the consummation of the consortium in abeyance. It was more than a plea for special interests because of propinquity; it was a plea that the peace and safety of the empire demanded it. Propinquity! The pin in that word has pricked nearly every one who has shown any interest in China, no matter where. Japan used propinquity as a justification of her annexation of Korea, breaking her word to that kingdom in so doing. Yet Japan contends that she never has broken her word. Japan is a nation true to her word, but, like many another nation, is loose in her wording. She has guaranteed the Open Door in Manchuria and Mongolia,--and Korea. In Korea the door is shut, and Japan has made entrance to the other spheres of little advantage. Ill-content with penetration of these regions, she has, by means of her railroads there, sought to divert the course of Chinese trade from Shanghai through Manchuria and Korea and Japan. In this there is nothing intrinsically wrong. But she goes farther and tries to exclude consortium activity in other fields in these two provinces. But that these are not the only slices of China she is after,--that they are, in fact, only stepping-stones for the final domination of the great republic,--is attested to by certain well-known facts in Far Eastern affairs. Japan and her friends assert she never has broken her word; her enemies declare she is sinister and not to be trusted. Neither statement is correct. Her methods may sometimes be sinister, but no one who follows events in the Far East is unaware of them, and Japan has taken no pains to conceal them. Actions speak louder than words. But has Japan actually never broken her word? We have already referred to Korea, whose independence Japan has guaranteed by published treaty. During the war Japan carried out the requirements of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, but Article V reads: The High Contracting Parties agree that neither of them will, without consulting the other, enter into separate arrangements with another Power to the prejudice of the objects described in the Preamble of this Agreement. Notwithstanding this clear stipulation, Japan immediately after capturing Kiao-chau from Germany, without consulting Great Britain as herein provided, issued the Twenty-one Demands on China. Of these Group V alone would have made a vassal state of China had she accepted them. Knowledge of these were kept from Britain completely, but when they finally leaked out, Japan vociferously denied them. Downing Street was not pleased, but there was much to be done in Europe just then. In 1918, Japan a second time made an arrangement with China without consulting her ally, Great Britain. This time it was the Sino-Japanese Military Agreement. At the moment Russia withdrew from the war and released the German prisoners, and that was the excuse for imposing combined military action under Japanese officers. As though this were not enough, when the success of Germany on the western front was at its height, Count Terauchi, Prime Minister and arch-plotter in China, came out with a statement published by Mr. Gregory Mason of the "Outlook" to the effect that it was not unlikely that some understanding, if not alliance, might be effected between Japan, Russia and Germany. And the rumors of such an understanding having been actually arrived at, have since been shown to have had just foundation. Furthermore, since 1917, according to "Millard's Review" for April, 1920, Japan has lent China about 281,543,762 yen or thereabouts, privately, for political and industrial purposes, for reorganization, railway construction, munitions, canal improvements, flood relief, wireless, forestry, war participation, and other undertakings. These things must be recalled in considering the new consortium, as they show what led up to its final consummation. These actions of Japan indicate encroachment upon China to the extent of virtually closing the Open Door. In this regard, the alliance has had a dual effect: while it makes possible for Japan to go as far as Britain would dare go, and even farther, on the other hand it tends to keep Japan in check. Hence, the state of mind of the Japanese on the subject of the treaty has been contradictory. They have regarded its renewal and its abrogation with about equal anxiety. From a moral point of view, they dare not stand alone in the world, being the only great autocracy remaining. Conscious of their power and twitching under the restraint which the alliance imposes, yet needing its support, they are trying to make it appear that Great Britain needs it fully as much. As far as Great Britain goes, the alliance was formed chiefly to guarantee the interests of the empire, but also the Open Door and China's integrity. That is, that Japanese Yen and British Sovereigns should have full freedom to go to China to earn a living. Let us see what the various treaties and understandings purport to accomplish. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance assures "The preservation of the common interests of all Powers in China by insuring the independence and integrity of the Chinese Empire and the principle of equal opportunities for the commerce and industry of all nations in China." The Root-Takahira Understanding declares: "The Policy of both Governments [Japanese and American], uninfluenced by any aggressive tendencies, is directed to the maintenance of the existing _status quo_ in the region above mentioned and to the defense of the principle of equal opportunity for commerce and industry in China." In other words, without an alliance, America has secured from Japan an understanding guaranteeing the integrity of China and the Open Door for her pet, the Dollar. Hence, except for the fact that it made no promises to the effect, "My Ally, right or wrong, but still my ally," this agreement says that the American Dollar has as much right to earn a living in China as the Yen has. But in the meantime the Yen has been having it all his own way, for the Sovereign and the Franc and the Dollar were very busy doing things in Europe. And in good Oriental fashion the Yen has been breeding, and breeding rapidly. He was going to China, as we have seen, by the million and keeping China's interests and integrity, which all had guaranteed, in a very feverish state, notwithstanding alliances and agreements born and in embryo. This, at bottom, is what the whole Far Eastern problem is,--all of the governments seeking opportunities in China and mutually binding and barring one another from aggression and concessions. They have all guaranteed China's "integrity," but none, except America, has actually lived up to the agreement, and China's integrity is rapidly ceasing to be an integer. Now, if that were all there was to it, debate would be childish, but integers, like the atom, are not easily divided without creating something new. The atom becomes an electron; and the integer, when a nation, becomes a source of international conflict. Hence, it is of the utmost importance that China remain an integer. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance has failed to maintain China's integrity. The Root-Takahira Agreement seemed to cover the ground well enough, but that it was not sufficient is proved by the later necessity on the part of Mr. Lansing to supplement it by his so-called "understanding" with Viscount Ishii. However, that the Ishii-Lansing Agreement is loose and inadequate was obvious on the face of it and it was shown to be absurd when the Consortium Agreement was being negotiated. It seems that Secretary-of-State Lansing, realizing that his "agreement" with Ishii was being translated into a Monroe Doctrine of Asia, as it was never intended to be, fostered the new Consortium Agreement in order to throw a ring round the Ishii-Lansing Agreement and define its limitations. With the very first approach the promoters of the consortium made to Japan, Japan, as we have seen, began eliminating from its scope everything that propinquity permitted, threatening not only the consortium but the various previous agreements. I state these facts not to condemn Japan, but to delve into the psychology of the powers who, at the Peace Conference at Versailles, came to the conclusion that the only solution for the situation in the Far East was a coöperative scheme. They must be borne in mind in order to understand why Japan withheld from concurring, and finally yielded. 2 America was viewing all this with no little apprehension. Matters in the Far East were extremely precarious at the time she entered the war. It was in order to reassure Japan and merely as a restatement of issues that the Ishii-Lansing Agreement was made. Japan's propinquity was recognized. But it was also recognized that the Open Door was being walled up. Hence, the American Government, which had withdrawn from the Sextuple Consortium, suggested that a new consortium agreement be made in which the four leading powers take equal part. These powers had been drawn closer together during the war, and that concord was to be taken advantage of before it had a chance to dissipate. At the time that I wrote the article on "Lending Money to China" for the "World's Work," August, 1920, the whole consortium scheme was shrouded in mystery. Since then the correspondence that took place between the powers has in part been published. The way it developed is worthy of being outlined. The American bankers had been asked by the Government to enter the proposed consortium. They were not over-enthusiastic about it, for at the time they felt they had enough demand at home and in Europe for such funds as they could command. They realized that at that time (July, 1918) they would be expected to carry, with Japan, both England and France, but they agreed that "such carrying should not diminish the vitality of the membership in the four-Power group." But they did stipulate that "One of the conditions of membership in such a four-Power group should be that there should be a relinquishment by the members of the group either to China or to the group of any options to make loans which they now hold, and all loans to China by any of them should be considered as a four-Power group business." Lansing replied to the bankers, accepting their stipulations, obviously his main intention in working for the consortium being, as I have said, to encircle the problem with a view to defining its limitations so as to make it impossible for Japan to interpret his agreement with Ishii too broadly. These communications were transmitted to the British Foreign Office, prompting a reply from Mr. Balfour on August 14, 1918, wherein he inquired whether it was the intention of the American Government to enter the $100,000,000 loan to China for currency reform which was then under consideration and toward which Japan had already made two separate advancements; and whether it was the intention of the United States to confine activities to administrative loans or to include industrial and railway enterprises as well. Lord Reading made inquiry of the State Department and determined that both types of loans had been considered. It is obvious from these communications that both Japan and Great Britain wished to retain their special interests in regard to the existing railway and industrial loans, and balked at their being pooled with those of the consortium. But England was ready enough from the beginning to forego these. The United States held "that industrial as well as administrative loans should be included in the new arrangement, for the reason that, in practice, the line of demarcation between those various classes of loans often is not easy to draw." Everything went along smoothly until Japan was consulted, and then it was found that while she was willing enough to enter into a consortium for the whole of China, she was emphatically unwilling to have Manchuria and Mongolia included. From the very beginning, the American, British, and French banking-groups and governments most decidedly refused to accede to Japan's demands in this matter, declaring that such a rendering would simply open up the sores of spheres-of-interests and concession-hunting, and completely nullify the purposes and intentions of the consortium. The Japanese argument is amusing. When Japan first encroached upon Manchuria and Mongolia, it was because of danger to her safety from Czarist Russia. Now she was face to face with Bolshevist Russia, and she trembled for her safety in these terms: Furthermore, the recent development of the Russian situation, exercising as it does an unwholesome influence upon the Far East, is a matter of grave concern to Japan; in fact, the conditions in Siberia, which have been developing with such alarming precipitancy of late, are by no means far from giving rise to a most serious situation, which may at any time take a turn threatening the safety of Japan and the peace of the Far East, and ultimately place the entire Eastern Asia at the mercy of the dangerous activities of extremist forces. Having regard to these signals of the imminent character of the situation, the Japanese Government all the more keenly feel the need of adopting measures calculated to avert any such danger in the interest of the Far East as well as of Japan. Now, South Manchuria and Mongolia are the gate by which this direful influence may effect its penetration into Japan and the Far East to the instant menace of their security. The Japanese Government are convinced that, having regard to the vital interests which Japan, as distinct from the other Powers, has in the regions of South Manchuria and Mongolia, the British Government will appreciate the circumstances which compelled the Japanese Government to make a special and legitimate reservation indispensable to the existence of the state and its people.... The utter fallacy of this is obvious. The consortium was not a miracle-worker. Its efforts would necessarily extend over a series of years; its principals were as opposed to Bolshevism as Japan was. But there was Japan,--bureaucratic, imperialistic Japan,--shedding tears over the prospect of what might happen to her people from Bolshevism if the consortium were permitted to take a share in the development of Manchuria and Mongolia,--to which she has no right other than that of her might. No pressure such as could be said to be in the nature of an ultimatum to join the consortium was exerted, of course, but it was obvious that unless Japan withdrew her objections the consortium would not materialize. Japan made an effort to get the other powers to make some written statement or accept her formula securing to her these special rights; but the others were adamant. Japan specified just what she feared,--the construction of other railroads. The United States replied: The American Government cannot but acknowledge, however, its grave disappointment that the formula proffered by the Japanese Government is in terms so exceedingly ambiguous and in character so irrevocable that it might be held to indicate a continued desire on the part of the Japanese Government to exclude the American, British, and French banking groups from participation in the development, for the benefit of China, of important parts of that republic, a construction which could not be reconciled with the principle of the independence and territorial integrity of China. It is interesting to note that in all these communications, the Japanese Government is constantly referring to its own special interests and dangers, whereas the others repeat and repeat their concern for the integrity of China. It may be, after all, that the Japanese Government is the more honest, though America's stand is unchallengeable. I have dwelt sufficiently, I believe, with the emanations from behind departmental doors. The human elements are much more interesting. Suffice it to say that Japan held out for a long, long time, and things seemed hopeless. At last, after an understanding with all those concerned outside Japan, Mr. Thomas W. Lamont went to the Far East as spokesman for the other powers, to carry on negotiations with Japan. Unfortunately--whether by design or not I have no way of telling--an American business mission also went to Japan at that time, upon the invitation of Baron Shibusawa, popularly known as the "Schwab of Japan." Everybody got these two parties mixed, but I have since been very earnestly assured that Mr. Frank A. Vanderlip, who headed the business mission, had nothing whatever to do with Mr. Lamont's mission. Be that as it may, it was certain even from the twin-reports that while the business mission was being lavishly entertained, Mr. Lamont was seeing all that he wanted to see, and saying all that he wanted to say. The mission was discussing with Junnosuke Inouye, Governor of the Bank of Japan, and Baron Shibusawa, and others such questions as Japanese immigration, the Shantung situation, the invasion of Siberia, and the submarine cables. All that the world at large got as to the decisions arrived at was the fact that views were exchanged in a friendly manner, and some delightfully amusing articles from the pen of Julian Street who was the scribe of the occasion. In the meantime, Lamont, who seems to be a man for whom a dinner has little attraction, left the impression on the Japanese Government that Japan and Japan alone would lose by holding back. When he left Japan, to go to China, the Japanese Government was still determined on securing from the powers exemption for Manchuria and Mongolia. But a series of subsequent events helped Japan to make up her mind. First and foremost among these was the financial slump in Japan, which was seriously embarrassing. This was followed by financial stringency in Manchuria and the eagerness of the directors of the South Manchurian Railway,--who are at present involved in a far-reaching scandal for a loan which could not be floated in Japan and which was sought in America. Third, as either cause or effect, was the situation in China. China, on account of Japan's courtship of the Peking militarists and the rape of Shantung, had instituted a boycott of Japanese goods the bitterness and force of which Japan had learned to respect. These circumstances alone might have been enough to drive a nation to desperation; but a sensitive nation like Japan would suffer these things a thousand times over in silence. One thing Japan cannot stand, and that is the distrust of the world. And the Lamont party found from the moment it left Nagasaki for China until the moment it set foot again in Shimonoseki on its return that there was not a white man nor a yellow man who had a good word to say for Japan. Japan was an isolated country socially,--isolated a thousand times more definitely than she is geographically. And the good sense of the Japanese has brought them to a realization that that does not pay. Japan wants the good-will of the world, and she wants it sorely. When Mr. Lamont arrived in China he did not find the same atmosphere he had found in Japan. The fact that he had been in Japan first added to the suspicions of the Chinese. They had many things to ponder over and be suspicious about. China remembered the processes of westernization which she had had to answer with the Boxer Uprising in 1900. But China has never forgotten the return of the Boxer indemnity by the United States. In Peking some students threatened to stone the hotel at which Mr. Lamont stopped. A few came as special representatives of the student body, according to one report, and quizzed Mr. Lamont for two hours. They left apparently satisfied. Their strong plea was that no loans be made to the Government until peace between North and South was established. The press of China and the people of China were divided. Some of the Japanese, who owned papers in China, sought to alienate the sympathy of the Chinese for America; some tried other tactics. The Chinese militarists in Peking who had tasted of the flesh-pots of Nippon were not over-anxious to put themselves on a diet. Chinese patriots saw in the new consortium a rope of a different fiber. The consortium party found itself double-crossed by obvious agencies. In a measure this was justified all the way round, for the undertaking was shrouded in secrecy on many points which could not but discredit it in the eyes of many. Perhaps this was unavoidable, but it was none the less natural that China should be wary. In her own sort of way, China was taking inventory. The last loan of $125,000,000 only arrived in China as $104,851,840 after deductions for underwriting had been paid. And before the sum can be paid off, it will have cost China $235,768,105 by way of interest and commissions. And China knows that only a small part of this tremendous sum had gone into actual constructive work. Yet China needs assistance. Railroads are the world's salvation and China's crying need. But for lack of railroads, China would to-day be the most powerful nation on earth, financially and politically. And the fact that her railroads are short while those of other countries are long makes of her a prey to those tentacles of trade against which she is helpless. China has to-day only about 6,500 miles of railroad: she needs 100,000. She who built the rambling wall has still only foot-paths. She needs 100,000 miles of highway. Her canals, which a thousand years ago kept the country open to trade and partially free from famine, have fallen into disrepair. She needs telegraphs, telephones, wireless. If only the money she borrowed went into such enterprises China would repay the world a thousandfold. It was therefore natural that China should be suspicious, and likewise natural that she should be willing to be convinced. What young China wanted most was definite and outspoken assurance that her integrity as a nation would not be jeopardized. The leading Chinese newspapers expressed their gratitude at repeated, assurances of due respect being given to Chinese public opinion and promises to refrain from interfering in her internal affairs. But others, like the China "Times," said: The British plan to control our railroads jointly, and the American plan is to monopolize our industries jointly, while the Japanese plan to monopolize all our railroads, mines, forestry, and industries. Any one of these plans will put our destiny in their hands. It also declared: "Although it has been reported that Japan will make certain compromises, it is hard to say to what extent these will go." To this Mr. Lamont said: "It now remains for the Japanese Government formally to confirm this desire [of the bankers to join]. If they fail to do so and if Japan remains outside the consortium, I should think that Japan might prove to be the chief loser." He next made it clear to China that she would first have to establish peace if she is to be helped. Aside from the reorganization of the currency, the consortium is going to see to it that a sufficiently safe audit system is established, so that it will be sure that all loan expenditures go as far as they should into the properties themselves. Further, the Chinese Government, in order to save some cash, refused to pay on certain bearer bonds which had come back rather curiously. These were formerly German property bonds on the Hukuan Railway loan which Germany had evidently sold off before the war. They had now come back by way of England and America. The Chinese Government wanted proof of transference on bearer bonds. Mr. Lamont pointed out to them that this action would totally discredit them and that the ability to secure further investments would be very slim unless these were redeemed. Mr. Lamont then returned to Japan. Then it became known that the Japanese Government had finally given its consent. In Japan, opinion ranged from imperialistic chauvinism to liberal recognition of the consortium as a way out of the mess. On May 11 things came to a head. Mr. Lamont stated on his return to America that: The fact that Japan has come into the Consortium for China without reservations should be made clear. The agreement that the Japanese banking group with the approval of its government, signed at Tokio, leaves nothing to be desired on this point; but in Japan, while there was perfect readiness by all authorities to announce that an understanding had been reached, there seems to be some reluctance to make public any statement that the Japanese Government had withdrawn its reservations as to Manchuria and Mongolia. It is only fair, therefore, that every member of the American banking group and American investors generally should clearly understand the facts. Still Viscount Uchida, the Foreign Minister, insisted: While other powers can afford to regard the new Consortium solely as a business matter Japan is otherwise situated, since her vital national interests, such as national defense and economic existence, are apt to be involved in enterprises near her border. When the three other governments expressly declared to Japan that they not only did not contemplate acts inimical to her vital interests but were ready to give assurance sufficiently safeguarding them, the Japanese Government decided to confirm the Paris agreement. What Japan expected the powers to say other than just that is a matter for diplomats to play with. To the common person this statement is absolutely meaningless. It is a generalization which leaves the door open for Japan to object to loans for any work which she feels will jeopardize her national life or vitally affect her "sovereignty." Any railroad scheme which might become a competitor by diverting freight from Manchurian lines owned by Japan would be a menace to Japan's sovereignty. For instance, it seems understood that among these vital interests are certain loans to Chinese capitalists and corporations. And doubtless Japan would right now much rather have the millions which she has sunk in China in her own hands. But if these loans are recognized, what guarantee is there that even under the nose of the consortium further "loans" will not be made? Is it likely that Japan will relinquish her hold on the South Manchurian Railroad, which in her opinion is of strategic importance? If the consortium is to have no say in such vested interests, obtained before its conclusion, how is it going to secure itself against these very interests being used as a means of breaking up the unity of the cooperative enterprises? How is so sweeping a clause going to be kept within bonds? If Japan is left in full control of the Manchurian railways, if the consortium has not really dissolved the Sino-Japanese Military Agreement, if Japan is to control the German-built railways in Shantung, how is the consortium going to better things in the Far East? There is altogether too much silence on many points in the consortium project for the world to have any real assurance. Secret diplomacy having been discredited, it seems that bankers have themselves broken into diplomacy. Of course, individuals have a perfect right in this modern world to discuss whatever matters they like,--and governments, too, for that matter,--but it should seem that the people as a whole whose money, whose happiness, and whose lives are involved have a right to know to the last detail what has been traded off in the making of the consortium. China evidently was placated by Lamont with full explanations of what the consortium intended. In brief it was this: The agreement calls for the pooling of all such interests of the several powers in China as had not been already developed separately, in a "full and free partnership." In this way it is hoped that future spheres of influence will be eliminated, jealousies between the powers be done away with, and Chinese grafters be prevented from pitting one power against the other for their own selfish ends. Chinese complain that now they will not be able to secure loans on a competitive basis and that therefore they are being more surely strangled. That is partially true. But it is also true that corrupt Chinese officials have been keeping China and the world in turmoil for their own greedy ends. Both of these things must be stopped if peace is to obtain in the Pacific. The guarantees given to China were to the effect that in no circumstances would the consortium undertake such private enterprises as banking, manufacturing, or commerce, but would devote itself entirely to the construction of railroads, the laying of highways, and the reorganization of China's currency. The consortium was to make loans to the central or provincial government only, but as a condition of their advancement, peace between the North and South was urged. The consortium was not to interfere in the domestic affairs of China. Loans were to be made only with the approval of the governments behind the bankers. Nor, of course, can you compel any one to borrow money from you, wherein China has the whip hand. Herein lies a very important possibility. China has plenty of money. Its bankers hoard enough to clean up the country's debts in no time. But they cannot trust their governmental officials; they never have trusted them. But just lately these bankers have been awakening to the wisdom of foreign financial methods, and are adopting them. This may be the first good result of the consortium. On the other hand, should the terms of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance displease China, she may refuse to recognize the consortium. What then? China has set out to strangle the alliance, which was formed without consulting her. But we speculated enough in the last chapter to show that should the consortium really work, the Anglo-Japanese Alliance would cease to have any functional value. But there are dangers in the consortium,--and even in the coöperative development of China. If Japan joins whole-heartedly in the consortium, she may be the greatest gainer. For here are all the powers mutually developing China, laying railways, and opening up the resources of the country. Who, more than Japan, is going to tap China's unlimited raw supplies,--the coal in Shansi, for instance, which is enough to supply the world's needs for a thousand years? And should Japan in the end still seek the hegemony of the East, she could utilize these railroads and resources for her own aggrandizement. Who could stop her? Have not the separate governments given Japan their assurance that she "need have no reason to apprehend that the consortium would direct any activities affecting the security of the economic life and national defense of Japan?" There is, it is said, only little left to be told, but that little may be more than enough. But if China is really helped to strength and independence, then the greatest menace that has ever faced mankind will have been averted, and China, a country with the oldest culture in the world, will have been won back to civilization. Not in emasculated alliances but in a healthy cooperation will the peace of the Pacific be preserved. And the consortium, as things are in the world, is the first example of international good sense known to modern history. Now, the Consortium Agreement is not an idealistic scheme. The powers recognize that the future peace of the world depends on how they manage their affairs in China. If the consortium throws all secrecy to the winds and comes out openly and at all times for the principles on which it was formed and for which the several governments have guaranteed their protection to these banking-groups, what use is there going to be for the alliance? Perhaps, to paraphrase President Wilson's statement when he went across the Atlantic with his challenge for the freedom of the seas, Great Britain and Japan may now have to say to the world: "Gentlemen, the joke's on us. Why, if the consortium works in China there is going to be no need of an alliance!" CHAPTER XXIV UNCHARTED SEAS We have taken a long journey together. The main routes along the Pacific which are the highways of our past and future intercourse have been inspected. But the great Pacific basin is not yet everywhere safe for navigation. There is, I understand, a scientific expedition now at work thoroughly charting every inch of that wonderful watery waste. There is, I know, a scientific body under the directorship of Professor Gregory of Yale for the thorough research of ethnological materials among the races of the Pacific. But aside from the efforts of individuals, politically and socially and hygienically, there is nothing going on to bind the peoples together. I had nearly forgotten that a year ago we did send out a political expedition to the Far East, a Congressional expedition which spent four days in Japan and, I daresay, a week in China. Otherwise, we are still at the mercy of individual scribes, who, like myself, have their own points of view, their own motives, and their own reactions. For years I have read religiously every interview reported in the press, with spokesmen for one country or the other on the Pacific. The mass of clippings I have accumulated I have time and again sifted carefully for some word or sign that might indicate the real problem. But I have failed to find any. I cannot lay the responsibility on the press. It rests with the individuals who have been asked to give their opinions. But as far as substance goes, they may all best be illustrated by a sentence from the speech of Viscount Uchida, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, delivered before the Imperial Diet. I have the speech as it came to me from the East and West News Bureau. The sentence I have selected, for the translation of which the Viscount is of course not responsible, is this: "It is true that this friendly relationship is not without an occasional mingling of incidents; that is almost inevitable in any international relations." All speeches such as these are remarkably free from definition. Speech after speech is reported, all plead for understanding, but in none of these is any basis for understanding given. Sentiment will not dissolve international suspicion. Right here I should like to make it clear that Japan is not the only nation that is being maligned, as some would have us believe. Exclusion is practised not against Japan alone, though in other cases it is practised in a different manner. The Honolulu Chamber of Commerce excludes white men from entering its sacred sanctums nearly as much. Unless you are approved by the chamber, you will find it very difficult to take up a profession. As I look back over my years of wandering in the farthermost reaches of the Pacific I recall incident after incident that is indicative of what is toward. Wherever competition is rife, the competitors lay themselves out to be courteous and friendly, but in the long runs that dissect the waters of that ocean, so secure have many of the steamship companies felt that decency has frequently been forgotten. The carelessness of the rights of the unhappy voyager who merely pays for a privilege on the Union Steamship Company is not conducive to international good feeling. The lack of common courtesy on the part of many of the employees of this company is proverbial even among the Britons in Australasia. Peoples in the goings and comings gain their impressions of countries very often from such samples as are forced upon their attention en route. And over the bars in the distant lands compatriots give vent to recriminations of the compatriots of other nations in a manner not flattering to either. One of the most unfortunate features of the whole problem of the Pacific is that only too often the men who are accountable for the most serious sources of dislike are men who at home would be kept in check by a healthy fear of social ostracism. But once a white man enters trade in an Oriental port as a clerk or salesman, he seems to consider it his bounden duty as a representative of his country to run down the natives as viciously as he dare. I have seen white men who at home would hold their tongues lest they offend some decent woman's ears with their vile language assume an air of superiority toward the men amongst whom they are living that is certainly not conducive to international amity. I have heard them express a longing for a chance some day to come back and "lick" these natives that, considering the human sufferings involved, is at the very depths of unrighteousness. Nor is this feeling directed against Orientals only. I have heard serious statements from Americans against the British that are not only unjustifiable but astounding. And the British themselves maintain a lordly superiority to all others. The boast that "the sun never sets on English soil" is illustrative of a certain provincialism among Britons that is not healthful from an international outlook. Britons generally take such routes hither and thither as leave them always within the British Empire, and the result is a dull point of view with regard to foreign lands. To be regarded as a foreigner is a source of great irritation to a Briton; he cannot stand this "slur" when passing through America. Even within the British dominions themselves there are childish prides that make understanding impossible,--the New Zealander being against the Australian and both against everybody else. These antagonisms more than all else are at the bottom of the confusion obtaining to-day in the Pacific. Their utter folly and futility are simply suicidal. Were it not better that we study carefully the social and political ideals of every race on the Pacific and see in what manner such changes may be effected as will preclude conflict? Is not America's preëminence in the Pacific to-day due to her return of the Boxer indemnity, to her attempt at winning the sympathy of the Filipino, to her friendship for China? Cannot the sympathy and the emulation of races supplant their enmity and jealousy? In the manner in which the various peoples of the Pacific turn to their problems lies permanent peace. There is already a considerable veering round of national conceptions toward the recognition of our common welfare being dependent on mutual development, as in the case of the consortium. One gets tired of the perennial expressions of felicitation of the "leaders" of states, of the sentimental balderdash which emanates from international "functions" of the world's "best" people, who don one another's garments and pledge one another eternal affection, of those who assure us that the fact that one nation has placed with "us" an order for the latest type of electrically driven super-dreadnaught indicates the love and fellowship obtaining between us. Only four years ago, Viscount Bryce admitted that "Most of us, however, know so little about the island groups of the Pacific, except from missionary narratives and from romances, like those of Robert Louis Stevenson, that the recent action of the white peoples in the islands is practically a new subject, and one which well deserves to be dealt with." And despite all those speeches, despite all the international societies--that exist, it seems, only to entertain celebrities, not to uncover misunderstandings that they may truly be corrected--real irritation comes from the average man's notions, and to him should attention be directed. Those vast spaces to which Viscount Bryce referred, once regarded with such awe, are now criss-crossed with a veritable network of steamers. They have made short shrift of the distances between the East and the West. We may invite one another across for week-ends, but not necessarily for life, and the impressions each brings away with him will go toward making up the sum total of what is going to be the thought of the Pacific. Are we to navalize the Pacific or to civilize it? Are we to convert every projecting rock into a menace, or are we to be honest navigators exposing every treacherous island for the safety of all races? Are we to scramble for interests in the Pacific, or are we to help races there to rise to strength and independence, so that each will be a healthy buffer against aggression? The "Valor of Ignorance" is not to be met with the blindness of force. I sought to obtain a bit of information once from a dispenser of "understanding" located in New York, but he tried to lead me off the scent. It was not, he feared, to his country's credit that such and such facts be known. He was very sensitive, and gave me no assistance. This covering up of our weaknesses before the eyes of our neighbors is certain to lead to disaster. This putting our best foot forward, only to have the other ready for a nasty kick, is not going to bring about amity. If there is an ideal worthy of emulation in any race in the Pacific, we ought to know and honor it. If there is a sore which needs scientific political treatment, let us attend to it. Our problems are well defined, if we will but look for them; our obligations are clear, if we will but undertake them courageously. We are not going to solve our problems as we did with the coming of Japan into the range of the world,--by adulation. To-day we are suffering from the effects of having made the Japanese feel that they are perfect and to be adored. The problem is one of unadulterated education, of education in the simple arts of self-support among the primitive people, and self-government among the more advanced. But if our efforts are to be fruitful we must avoid abstract education which leads to hair-splitting. It is to be education in the fundamentals,--education in the use of hands and brain for self-support and mutual happiness founded on justice. It is to be education of ourselves as well as of those we wish to elevate. But the problem is even deeper than that. Merely elevating other races will not preclude conflict. Germany was well educated and on a level with, if not in many ways superior to the nations roundabout her. Her very development created friction. And the talk of Japan as a menace is largely due to the fact that Japan has grown out of the lowly state in which her exclusionists had placed her for two hundred and fifty years. As yet China is no "menace," for China has still her teeming hordes who curtail one another's usefulness. Nor, as I have said in the chapter on Australasia, will the problem of our relationship with the people of the Pacific be solved by the effort of labor to keep up its own high standards by the exclusion of those of lower standard. Nor will the problem be solved by our assuming more and more protectorates over simple nations unused to the tricks of diplomacy. Our problem will be solved only by working assiduously for international coöperation. Our problem will clear away when all nations establish departments open to civil-service appointments of people who will enter the field of education and uplift work without other compensation possible than that of an honest salary. There should be a Department of Education for the Pacific in which the people of the United States do out of their own funds what we did in China out of the moneys paid in the Boxer indemnity. This department would study the races of the Pacific with a view to finding what are the special requirements of each particular people and how they can be supplied. There should be a Bureau of Social Hygiene and Sanitary Engineering recruited from the American student body with luring pay, drawing thousands of young physicians and engineers out into the various Pacific islands to study the questions of the eradication of disease and the care of body and mind. There should be a Bureau of Civics and International Law carrying to the peoples of the Pacific whose simplicity lays them open to the chicanery of political parasites the simple truths of human relationships as we understand them. So the entire fabric of civilization might be spread over the waters of the Pacific. But to guard against the possibility of some sword piercing it and rending it must come the voice of civilization calling shame upon the present practices of any nation now operating in the Pacific in other than pacific ways. All this must be done not by America alone, but by all the people now in a position to coöperate. Just as Japan codified her laws and changed them in conformity with those of the West, so as to regain full rights over foreigners in her own territory, so must all the nations reorganize their laws in conformity with the best interests of all. There must be judges in all lands who know the laws of other lands as well as their own and an attempt be made to bring them all in greater conformity to a universal standard of justice, of right and wrong. There must be educators set to work studying the educational systems of nations on the Pacific so as to bring the methods more and more in line with one another. There must be departments of health advising one another how so to remedy conditions as to eliminate the danger of spread of plague. It is not enough that we have an excellent department of health vigilant in the exclusion of plague; our department of health should co-operate with that of Japan and of Australasia, and of every island in the Pacific. In other words, we must realize that the problems of every group anywhere in the world affect for good or ill our own welfare. Our problem in the Pacific is therefore ten times more complicated than that which faced the powers in Morocco, Africa and Persia. While the diversity of nations was great in Europe, in the Pacific it is greater. But while the relationship in the Balkans was in some cases close, not only in sheer propinquity, but in development, in the Pacific not only is the blood running in the veins of the races in many cases extremely alien, one to the other, but the distances separating them in space and in development make coöperation and getting together difficult. This makes it easier for selfish nations to place themselves as wedges between them. The scramble after mandates in the Pacific indicates the recognition of their importance. But in inverse ratio,--in so far as the races of the Pacific have none of the irritating intimacy which obtained in Europe, the problem is clearer. The repetition of the intrigues which Germany, through her daughter on the Russian throne, could carry out, is here impossible. Only once in my knowledge has royal intermarriage been attempted and it proved a failure. The Japanese changed their law against the marriage of their royalty with royalty of another race in favor of Korea--and to forestall a Japanese-Korean union we are told, the Ex-Emperor of Korea committed suicide. Insurrection followed. The marriage has since taken place, but Korea is no longer an independent empire. The more pronounced differences of race should perhaps be recognized, but recognized with sympathy. Each race then presents its own problems. But over all must come recognition of the commonalty of man. This does not mean international fawning and flattering of one another. Racial equality must be admitted, but not as Japan sponsored it,--with the existence of her own castes and classes, and the oppression of Korea,--but in full recognition of the latent possibilities in all peoples. Japan regards herself as infinitely superior to all mankind. So do we. But that must be replaced by realization of the historical worthiness of Orientals as well as Caucasians. We have in the Pacific, as has been seen, a great number of races in varying degrees of development. Most of them know little of one another and hate one another less. They have never been close enough for serious conflict, and they need never be. We can instil into them through educational channels a regard for one another which all the love-potions in the world could not pour into the races of Europe, inured to war and slaughter and religious bigotry. There is still one great obstacle in the way of a peaceful solution of the problems of the Pacific, an obstacle that can be overcome only by a rapid evolution or revolution. Even as the forces for the greater liberation of the people are at work in China, now bound no more by her own swaddling-clothes of imperialism, so must they be encouraged in Japan, whose bureaucracy is to-day entangling not only her own liberal elements, but a greater number of nations in the Pacific. Jingoists speak of the yellow peril as though it were a single thing, elemental and simply conquerable. But it is not very different from the peril of imperialism everywhere. In the working out of the problems of the Pacific, Japan is the farthest from our ken. Our relations with Australia and New Zealand and with Canada--apart from Great Britain--are already more or less intimate. Just as Japan is beginning to realize that she must make China her friend, so must we four Western nations on the Pacific realize the fullness of the possibilities in coöperation. There should be an exchange of opinion, a greater supply of news from one to the other,--news of personal, educational and geographical value, in the nature of local news. With these four countries as a nucleus and the same thing going on between China and Japan, the problem of the East understanding the West will be simplified. But we must show that we appreciate the fine points in the Oriental civilizations, while the Orient will have to remove from its conscience the hatred of the foreigner. The millennium? Not in the least. Just the beginning of our groping toward human commonalty. APPENDIX A Mr. Sydney Greenbie, New York, U.S.A. DEAR SIR: Your letter of 26th March has been forwarded to me from Samoa. I relinquished the Administration when Civil Government was established there. The Chief whose funeral you saw was TAMASESE, a son of the late King Tamasese.... MATAAFA, the son of King Mataafa, died in the influenza epidemic in 1918 and I dug his grave with my own hands, everyone working hard to avoid a pestilence. The Chief TAMASESE was made much of by the Germans when they were in Samoa, was taken a trip to Berlin but was not allowed to visit England. He remained pro-German to the end; one of the few Samoans who did so. On his death-bed Tamasese remembered a promise made to his deceased father (he said the spirit of his father appeared to him and reproached him) that he would bring the late King's bones to the family burying place and he could not die in peace until this was done. I was approached in the matter and at once sent a Government launch with the family party to get the bones, and they were put in a coffin and buried in the family ground. This done, Tamasese passed away in peace in a very short time. You are probably aware that when Tamasese's body was lying in state the hair was sprinkled with gold dust and a German crown made of white flowers was placed on the coffin. The widow had a Samoan house built alongside the tomb on the Mulinuu peninsula and lived in it for some months in spite of the stench which came from the tomb. She died in the influenza epidemic in 1918, having in the meantime named one of the native Samoan judges. I am sorry the information I can give you is so meagre, but I have not my records here as yet. Yours faithfully, ROBERT LOGAN, Colonel. Weycroft, Axminster, Devon, England, 13th July, 1921. B DEAR MR. GREENBIE: Your letter of Feb. 20th was forwarded on to me here, and reached me yesterday. I regret that I cannot tell you definitely as to the celebration held in Samoa in 1915, in honor of the late "King"; I returned to Samoa in 1917 after an absence of some years, and heard nothing of it. I think, however, that the celebration must have been for Mataafa, as the natives told you that the deceased Chief had been the favorite of Mataafa. Stevenson rather despised Laupepa who although an amiable man and the rightful King, was of feeble character, and when broken up by the suffering and indignity of his deportation by the Germans, weakly ceded the throne to Mataafa out of gratitude for the stand taken by the latter on his behalf during the years of his exile. My own conviction is that, had R. L. S. lived a few years longer, he would have realized that his championship of Mataafa was a mistake, and precipitated the very event he wished to avoid--the German rule in Samoa. Very sincerely yours, ---------- C Apia, Samoa, October 5th, 1904. A. M. Sutherland, Esq., San Francisco, U.S.A. DEAR SIR: The kind invitation extended to me by the members of the "Stevenson Fellowship" through your welcome letter or the 17th August, 1904, has been received by me with great delight. I thank you and the Committee from the bottom of my heart for remembering me, and for including my name in the long list of friends whom Tusitala has left behind to mourn his irreparable loss. I would have very much liked to be present and meet you all on this fitting occasion, but the fact is, my health and old age will not permit me to cross the vast waters over to America. So I send you many greetings wishing the "Stevenson Fellowship" every success on the 13th November next. And whilst you are celebrating this memorable day in America, we shall even celebrate it in Samoa. It is true that I, like yourselves, revere the memory of Tusitala. Though the strong hand of Death has removed him from our midst, yet the remembrance of his many humane acts, let alone his literary career, will never be forgotten. That household name, Tusitala, is as euphonious to our Samoan ears as much as the name Stevenson is pleasing to all other European friends and admirers. Tusitala was born a hero, and he died a hero among men. He was a man of his word, but a man of deeds not words. When first I saw Tusitala he addressed me and said: "Samoa is a beautiful country. I like its people and clime, and shall write in my books accordingly. The Samoan Chiefs may be compared to our Scotch Chiefs at home in regard to their clans." "Then stay here with me," I said, "and make Samoa your home altogether." "That I will, and even if the Lord calls me," was the reply. Tusitala--story-writer--spoke the truth, for even now he is still with me in Samoa. Truth is great and must endure. Tusitala's religion and motto was: "Do ye to others as ye would have them do unto you." Hence this noble, illustrious man has won my love and admiration, as well as the esteem and respect of all who knew him. My God is the same God who called away Tusitala, and when it has pleased Him for my appointed time to come, then I will gladly join T. in that eternal home where we meet to part no more. With perfect assurance of my best wishes for your progress and prosperity,--I remain, dear sir, cordially yours, M. I. C. C. MATAAFA High Chief of Samoa. D April 24, 1921 DEAR MADAM: Thank you very much for the letter which came some four months ago. I read it over, over and over again to memorise every word of the letter, and it was a glad toil. I thought of you and Mr. ... I thought of Messrs. F.... D.... and R.... and Miss G...., every body to-gether and every body separate that gave me untold happiness, and I heard the throbs of my heart. I told to my wife who is very glad to hear from me. As you know I got married in the year of 1913. And we have five children now. Please don't be scared! Two boys and three daughters. Takako oldest daughter six year, seven months old. Takashige, William (boy) four years; Fuziko Elsie two years and nearly four months; Chiyeko, Lucie eight months old. And this made me perfect papa, which is my joy and my pride! Beside this I have thirty acres of orange orchard (four years old) all is my own, and my wife's now which brought me four (boxes-horses) (?) poor fruit year before last, and seventy two boxes better fruit last year. I am expecting greater crop this fall. I read Mr. ---- article about June drop in California Cultivator, and irrigated my orchards last December and this year I started to wet from February which no body does this in this visinity (orchardists of here keep orchards with weeds and wild oats as high as my shoulder all winter and they wait irrigation until orchards perfectly dry and cracke.) I am taking care our orchards after Mr. ---- idea mostly with some of my own, as I feel as it mine but all of them are a collection of idea of other people's experiences. I have debt of five thousand five hundreds dollars which need not to pay interest except one thousand five hundred dollars. This is my joy and my pride too, is it not? Five children and five thousand five hundreds dollars debt are not big job to carry on, for me, but they make me very busy indeed. For this reason, I do not write to my friends, as often as I wish, of course I can, if I do, like this one, but it is great strain for me now. Therefore please will kindly excuse, I shall not write you again until next Christmas probably. Please remember me to Mr. ---- and All your family. When you will come to Terra Bella to see Mr. ----. When you have spare time, and when you thought of old servant, please stop a moment at my humble dwelling place and give me chance to hear your voice directly. That will be my honor, that which will encourage me, if it is possible with Mr. F. P. It will be a greater honor for us. Befor I ask you to come to see us, we should go to see you first, but just excuse for the reasons as above written. I shall leave the pen with prare of your sound health, and happiness. God be with you. From your old servant -------- INDEX Adelaide, 132, 146 Adler, 90 Africa, 391 Alaska, 5, 317 Albatross, 129 _et seq._ America: 10, 22, 100; pioneer, problems of, 312, 314; insular possessions of, 316 _et seq._; adventures of, in Pacific, 317 _et seq._; diplomacy of, in China, 326; Japan in, 342 _et seq._; Japanese immigration to, 345; attitude of, toward Eastern affairs, 371 _et seq._ Ameridians, 6, 23, 25, 119 Andrews, C. F., cited on self-determination, 228 Andrews, Roy Chapman, quoted, 22 Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 355, 357, 359-360, 363, 367, 381 Antarctic, 10 Anthropologists, 24 Antipodes: 9, 26, 76; legislation in, 285 _et seq._ Apia: 87, 88, 100, 101, 105, 207; a party in, 240 _et seq._ Arafua Sea, 139, 157 Aryans, 20 "Asahi Shimbun," quoted on American diplomacy, 326 Asia: relation of, to human existence, 6 _et seq._, 14, 18, 22; culture of, 23; Britain's rock in, 168-178 Atlantic, 141 _Atua_, 76 Auckland: 13, 110, 114; market, 272; Art Gallery, 118 "Auckland Daily News," 351 _Aurora_, Shackleton's ship, 128 Australasia: political problems affecting, 281-296; intermarriage in, 355 _et seq._ Australasians: games of, 355 _et seq._ Australia: 5, 6, 9, 14, 22, 53; population of, 150, 158; and the labor problem, 289 _et seq._; and immigration, 292; and labor legislation, 293, 294; attitude of, toward independence, 353; and the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 347-363 Australian Immigration Law, 295 Australoids, 21 Ava: 93, 94; making of, 69, 70 Balboa: discovery of the Pacific by, 3 _et seq._; quoted, 3, 10 Balkans, 391 Bancroft, quoted, 212 Banda Sea, 139 Bagg, Mr., 145 Ban, 230 Bass Straits, 131 Beach-combers, 89 Belgium, 317 Best, Mr. Elsdon, 235 Birds of New Zealand, 124, 125 Bishop, Mrs. Bernice, 235 Black-birding, 68 Bland, J. O. P., 344 Bluff, 129 Boas, Franz, quoted, 24 Boer War, 354 Bondy, 132 Bonin Islands, 357 Botany Bay, 6, 132 Boxer Indemnity Fund, 323, 328, 389 Boxer Uprising, 308, 365 Brisbane, 136, 152 Britain, outpost of, in Asia, 168-178. _See also_ England, Great Britain British Club, 96 Brown, Dr. McMillan, 25 Bryce, Viscount, quoted on Pacific Islands group, 387 Buddha, 8 "Bulletin," Honolulu, 38 Bushido, 305, 309 Calhoun, 326 California, 40, 103, 104, 343, 345 Cannibalism, 27, 28, 216 Canoes, 25 Canton, 4 Cape Horn, 5 Cape Liptrap, 131 Caroline Islands, 125 Caucasia, 17, 28 Celebes Sea, 139 Chamberlain, Professor Basil Hall, quoted on Shintoism, 304, 305 Chaplin, Charlie, 43 Chapman, John, 312 Chatham Islands, 26 Chidley, 149 Chicago, 184 China: Great Wall of, 4; effect of famine in, 27, 39, 129; licentiousness in, 176, 177; coolieism in, 177; waking of, 189; standards of, 189, 190; and the Twenty-one Demands, 306; American trade with, 308; bureaucracy and, 324 _et seq._; development of, 365; consortium for financing, 364 _et seq._, 373; need of constructive work in, 377; latest loan to, 377 China Sea, 139, 141 Chinese: 30, 132, 133; gambling, 141; music, 176; superstition of, 186 Chosen People, 21 Christchurch, New Zealand, 109, 143 Civil War, 120 Coan, Dr. Titus Munson, cited, 215, 216 Cocoa plantations, 105 Compasses, 25 Confucius, 6 Consortium: Agreement, 370; function of the, 381, 382, 383 Consumption, 120 Cook, Captain James, 5, 7, 18, 28, 216, 261 Coolieism, 177, 212, 343 Copra, 53, 56, 57 Coral reefs, 37 Cradle of Mankind, 21 Culture, 27 Customs, 23 Dante, 89 Darwin: quoted on South Pacific, 22, 24, 28 Davuilevu, 61, 62 Deakin, Mr. Alfred, 349 Dengue fever, 110 Desolation Gully, 112 Dewey, Professor: cited on Japanese birth rate, 343 Divorce, 254 _et seq._ Draft Act: in relation to the Maories, 123 Drake, Sir Francis, 4, 7, 9 Dunedin, New Zealand, 109, 112, 113, 127 Dutch, 4, 10 East and West News Bureau: statement of on alien labor in Japan, 332, 385 Easter Islands, 25 _Eastern_, the, 132, 133, 136 Eden, 17, 23 Elephantiasis, 94, 95 Ellis, Havelock, quoted, 283 Emerson, 108 England, 19, 20, 22, 24. _See also_ Great Britain English, 19, 20 English Corporal Correction League, 135 Episcopal See of Australia, 138 Equator: astride the, 128-142 Europe, 17, 20, 22 Europeans: 18; effect of famine on, 27, 52 "Evening Post," Wellington, New Zealand, quoted, 358, 359 Extinction: danger of, of primitive races, 205 _et seq._ Famine: effect of upon civilized nations, 27 Fan-tan, 141 Fiji: 11, 12, 13, 18, 21, 32; relation of, to the Pacific, 52 _et seq._, 81, 105, 356 "Fiji Times," Manager of, quoted, 58 Fijians: 14; characteristics of, 19, 20, 21; study of, 52-78; personal appearance of, 59, 60; characteristics of, 64 _et seq._; dances of, 67; women, 70 _et seq._; tastes of, 71 _et seq._; music and dances of, 71, 72; schools for, 76, 84, 85, 86; jail of the, 73; submersion of, 223 _et seq._ Filipinos: habits and customs of, 162 _et seq._ Fire-walkers of Mbenga, 13 Food, 27 Formosa, 298 Four-River Group, 372 France, 100 Frenchmen, 20 Fujiyama, 35, 193 German New Guinea, 156 German Plantation Company, 89 Germans: in Samoa, 88, 89, 90 Germany, 24, 100, 389, 391 Golden Gate, 7 Governor of Samoa, 101 Great Barrier Island, 13 Great Barrier Reef, 136, 137 Great Britain: attitude of, toward Pacific possessions, 283 _et seq._, 360, 361; attitude of toward her colonies, 362 Great Wall of China, 4 Gregory, Professor, 384 Haleakala, 48 Halemaumau, 51 Hauraki Gulf, 13 Hawaii: music of, 8, 9, 16, 17, 23, 32; aspirations of, 42; birth-rate, 43; assimilation in, 43; foot-binding in, 44; kinship, 44; racial evanescence, 44; dances of, 72, 105; divorce in, 255 _et seq._; census of, 261, 317, 356 Hawaiians: 14, 20, 30; racial purity percentage of the, 213 _et seq._ "Hawaiki," by Percy Smith, cited, 26 Hearn, Lafcadio: cited on fruit of intermarriage, 263 Heasley, Inspector, 97 Heinie's, 39 Heliolithic man, 18 "Hibbert Journal," quoted on Fijian mind, 232-234 Hilo, 48 Hindus, 78 Himalaya Mountains, 22 Hong-Kong: 109, 141, 167, 169 _et seq._; slums of, 171; poverty in, 172; surgery in, 176; birth-rate in, 176; music in, 176 Honolulu: 7, 9; our frontier in the Pacific, 30-51; the spirit, 37 _et seq._, 235. _See also_ Hawaii Huang-Hsu, 365 Hughes, Premier William Morris: attitude of, toward conscription, 288, 355, 359, 360 Hukuan Railway, 378 Imperial Conferences, 347 _et seq._ Imperial Diet, 384 India, 17, 18, 21, 63, 117 Indians, 77 Infanticide, 216 Inouye, Count: quoted on Japanese merchants in Korea, 309 "Invention of a New Religion," by Basil Hall Chamberlain, quoted, 304, 305 Ishii-Lansing Agreement, 370, 371 Izanagi, 21 Izanami, 21 Japan: 4, 5, 7, 9; awakening of, 28, 29, 132, 135, 282; in relation to the Pacific problem, 297 _et seq._; foreign policies of, 299 _et seq._; race-pride of, 302; government of, 303; Democracy in, 305; attitude of, toward commercialization, 306; American trade with, 308; in Siberia, 308; Buddhism in, 324; relations of, 326 _et seq._; and alien labor, 331; foreign population statistics of, 334; naturalization in, 337 _et seq._; science in, 341 _et seq._; in America, 342 _et seq._; birth-rate, 343; attitude of, toward financiering China, 373, 374; attitude of the Orient toward, 376; and the Pacific problem, 379; and Manchurian railways, 380 "Japan Chronicle," quoted in British educational work in Hong-Kong, 177; quoted on English policy, 362 "Japan: Real and Imaginary," by Sydney Greenbie, 297 Japanese: 21, 25, 30, 31; races, 72, 94. _See also_ Japan Java, 4, 22 Joan of Arc, 51 Junnosuke Inouye, 375 Kaiser, the, 104 Kamehamea, 36, 50, 215 Kaneohe, 35, 36, 51 Kapiolani, 51 _Katori-maru_, 192 Keats, quoted, 3 Kellerman, Annette, 148 Kiao-chau, 368 Kilauea, 8, 50 Kinglake, 24 Kinship of Pacific peoples, 20 _et seq._ Kipling, 116 Knox, Secretary, 366 Kobe: business situation in, 335 Korea: 4, 298; Japan's actions in, 309; the case of, 317, 324, 391 Kyoto, 7 Labor: conditions in New Zealand, 6; in Fiji, 13 _et seq._; legislation in New Zealand, 116; indentured, 222 Lake Rotorua, 122 Lali, 71, 73, 78 Lamont, Mr. Thomas W.: 364; negotiations with Japan by, 375; mission of, to China, 376, 377; statement of, 379, 380 Language, 22, 23 Lansing, Mr.: 370; attitude of, toward loans to China, 372 Lao-Tsze, 269 Laupepa, 395 League of Nations, 358 Legend: and the Pacific, 24 _et seq._ "Lending Money to China," by Sydney Greenbie, 371 Leper Island, Molokai, 8 Levuka, 75, 85 Lindsay, Vachell, 312 Little Barrier Island, 13 Logan, Colonel Robert: 101, 104; letter of, 395 London, Charmian, 38 London, Jack, 10 Longford, Professor, "The Story of Korea," quoted, 309 Los Angeles, 30 Lost Tribes of Israel, 23 _Lurline_, 7, 9 Luzon, 158 Mackaye, Arthur, 36 _et seq._ Magellan, 4, 9, 18 Magneta Island, 137 "Main Street," 313 Malays, 308 Manchuria, 344, 373 Mangoes, 105 Manila: 32, 141, 158 _et seq._; description of, 163 _et seq._, 271 Manoa Valley, 33, 34, 37 Manono, 87 Maories: 20, 23, 26; dances of the, 72, 110, 118 _et seq._; vital statistics of, 123; racial discrimination against, 250 Maoriland, 17 Marital contracts, 240-253 Markets, 265-278 Marquesas, 5, 26, 52 Marshall Islands, 319, 357 Martin, Alonso, 4 Mason, Mr. Gregory, 368 Mataafa, 396; letter, 395, 396 Mbenga: mystic fire-walkers of, 13 McDuffie, Mr., 217, 218 Melanesia, 18, 19, 23, 26, 27 Melanesian-Fijians, 20, 21 Melba, Madame, 145 Melbourne, 129, 143, 144, 349 Melville, 10, 24 Message, Mr., quoted, 61 Micronesia, 23, 26, 27 Migrations, 20 "Millard's Review," 368 Mindanao, 140, 158 Mindoro, 158 Missionaries: 19; Fijian, 65 _et seq._, 68, 69, 73, 121, 231, 236 Moa, 28 Moji, 191 Molokai, the leper island, 8 Molucca Sea, 139 Mongolia, 373 Monroe Doctrine, 316 Monroe Doctrine of Asia, 297 _et seq._, 320 Monterey, 103 Montessori Method: in Fiji, 67 Mormon missionaries, 23 "Morning Herald," Sydney, quoted on America's War policy, 350, 351 Morocco, 390 Mt. Eden, 110 Mount Vaea, 103 Mua Peak, 87 Mulinuu, 91 Mummy-apples, 20, 59 Nagasaki, 376 Napier, New Zealand, 276 Napoleon: 20; in relation to Fijian legend, 21 Negros, 158 New South Wales, 146 New York, 111, 113, 184, 270, 364 "New York Times," on Japanese, 311 New Zealand: labor conditions in, 6, 13, 14, 17, 20, 23, 26, 72, 84, 105; study of, 108-127; home life in, 111; the bush of, 111; farmers, 112 _et seq._; newspapers, 113; population, 113; characteristics, 114, 115; girls, 115; progressiveness, 116; development, 117 _et seq._; Parliament, in relation to the Draft Act, 123, 133, 145; and the class system, 286 _et seq._; policy toward England, 353 _Niagara_, the, 9, 10, 11, 16, 53, 62, 79, 86, 111 Nichi Nichi Shummun, 309, note Nicholas of Russia, 361 Night-blooming cereus, 33 Niuafoou, 12, 13 North Island, 112 Oahu: 40; College, 63 O'Brien, Frederick, 10, 24 One hundred and eightieth meridian, 11, 13, 195 Open Door, 367, 369, 371 Origins of races, 22 "Osaka Asahi," 360 "Outlines of History," Wells, 29 Pacific: discovery of, 3 _et seq._; significance of, 7; effect of the mid-, on time, 11; kinship of Pacific peoples, 20 _et seq._; Darwin quoted on South, 22; origin of, cultures, 23; Griffith Taylor quoted on size of, 24; counter-invasion of, 28 _et seq._; our frontier in the, 30 _et seq._; relation of Fiji to the, 52; outposts of the white man in the far, 143 _et seq._; our peg in the far, 158-167; ideals that dwell around the, 199-201; Hindu problems and the, 225; political problems of the, 281 _et seq._; adventures of America in the, 317 _et seq._; causes of confusion obtaining in the, 386, 387 Pago Pago, 10, 82, 317 Paleolithic life, 16 Pali, the, 35, 37, 50 Panama Canal, 315 Panama-Pacific Exposition, 79 Panay, 158 Pan-Pacific Union, 236 Papuans, 53 Pasig River, 161 "_Paul and Virginia_," 137 Pavlova, 46 Peace Conference, 357, 358, 371 Peace Treaty, 358 Persia, 390 Pescadores, 357 Pharaohs, 25 Philippines: 6, 32, 140, 317; problem of the, 318 _et seq._; and independence, 328 Pilgrims, 17 Pleistonic period, 20 Polyandry, 220 Polynesia: 17, 18, 23, 27; present status of, 29 Polynesians: 19; origin of the, 20, 23, 24, 25, 28, 52; dances of the, 72, 88, 206; character of the ancient, 215; and the problem of intermarriage, 237 _et seq._ Population: limitation of, 27, 28; decline of, 30 _et seq._ Port Chalmers, 129 Port Williamson, 132 Portuguese, 4, 30 Poverty Bay, 28 Prisoners: Fiji, 73, 74 Promotion Committee: of Honolulu, 34; "Primer" of the, 41 Queensland, 138, 146 Race-blending, 28 _et seq._ Rangatora, 120, 121 Rarotanga, 93 Ratu Joni, 230 Reading, Lord: on loans, 372 Reinsch, Dr. Paul S., 326, 327 Rewa River, Fiji, 18, 19, 60, 62, 67 Rickshaws, 171, 178 Rockefeller Foundation, 173, 174, 324 Rolland, 108 Roosevelt, Colonel, and Korea, 318 Root-Takahira Agreement, quoted, 369, 370 Rua, Maori priest, 127 Russia, 308, 391 Russo-Japanese War, 317, 348, 365 Ryecroft, Reverend Mr., 65 _et seq._, 68 Salvation Army, 44, 45, 179 Samoa: 10, 11, 13, 19; cosmogony, 21, 23, 26, 52, 84, 238, 317, 356 Samoans: 14; dances of the, 72; study of the, 79 _et seq._; songs of the, 80; dances of the, 83; hospitality of the, 93 _et seq._, 208 Samurai, 305 San Francisco, 7, 10, 184 Santa Anna Valley, 137 Savii, 26, 87 Scientific, 236 Scientists, 231 Seattle, 193 Sedan chairs, 171 Shackleton, Sir E., 128 Shanghai: China's European capital, 179-191; description of, 192 _et seq._; slums of, 185; the Chinese city, 185 _et seq._; market, 274 Shantung: 297; rape of, 324 Shaw, 108 Shibusawa, 375 Shimonoseki, 376 Shintoism: 299; defined, 304, 305 Shurman, Dr. Jacob Gould, 327 Siberia, 344 Siberian Railway, 361 Sikhs, 231 Sino-Japanese Military Agreement, 380 Sino-Japanese War, 365 Slums; tropical, 165; Hong-Kong, 171 Smith, Percy, cited, 26 Smythe, Miss: 179; work of, 180-182 Solomon Islands, 65 "Son of the Middle Border," 313 South Manchurian Railway, 375, 380 South Pole, 128 South Seas: 5 _et seq._, 10, 12 _et seq._, 14, 30 _et seq._; style, 32, 57, 74, 80, 82 Spanish, 10 Sponges, 37 St. Helena, 20 Stevenson, R. L.: 10, 88, 100; pilgrimage to tomb of, 100-105; home of, 103, 387, 395 Stevenson Fellowship, 395 Stewart, Mr. W. Downie: quoted on status of New Zealand, 359 Stone Age, 89 Street, Julian, 375 Sulu Sea, 139 Sulus, 65 Sun Yat-sen, Dr., 325; quoted, 326 Superstition, 25 Suva, Fiji, 11, 13, 20, 55, 56, 57, 58, 61, 73, 75, 76, 84, 105 Sydney, 9, 12, 132, 139, 146 _et seq._ Tagalog, 165 Tagore: 116; experiences of in Japan, 311 Tahiti, 17, 26, 28, 52 Talume, 12 Tamasese, 395 Tamba Maru, 179 Tasman, 9, 10 Tasman Sea, 128 Tasmania, 132 Tattooings of Time, 17 Taylor, Griffith: quoted on size of Pacific, 24 Te Noroto, 124 Terauchi, Count, 368 Thomson, Basil, cited, 13 Thursday Island, 155 "Times," China: quoted on foreign control of industries, 378 Thoreau, 95 Tokyo, 349 Tolstoy, 269 Tongans, 19, 77 Torres Straits, 139 Townsville, 137 Traders: in the Far East, 55, 89, 236, 306 Tradition, 22 Tulane, 13 Turks, 20 Tusitala, the tale teller (Stevenson), 103, 395 Typee, 5 Typhoons, 141 Uchida, Viscount: quoted on Consortium, 379, 384 Union Steamship Company, 129 Upolu, 87 Vailima, Stevenson's home, 88, 100, 101, 103 Vancouver, George, 5, 7, 18 Venice of the Pacific, 25 Vice: among the primitive races, 217 Victoria, 146 Vikings, 25 Virginia, 151 Vladivostok, 308 Waikato, 124 Waikiki, 39 Waitemata Harbor, 13 Ward, Sir Joseph, 349, 351 Waterhouse, Mr., 69 Waterspouts, 140 Webb, Mr., 245 Wellington: 97, 109, 113; Museum, 235 Wellington, Duke of: cited on Britain's colonies, 283 Wells, H. G., 29 "When the Sleeper Wakes," Wells, 29 White Australia policy, 291, 292, 294, 348, 350 Whitney, Judge William L., 256-258 Wilson Administration, 318 Wilson, President, 382, 383 _Wimmera_, 131 World War, 234, 350 "World's Work," 371 Wright, Mr., of the "Bulletin," 38 _et seq._ Wurm ice age, 26 Yamada Ise, 192 Yokohama, 192 Y. M. C. A., 38 Zamboanga, 140, 158 
29667	----	ADRIFT ON THE PACIFIC A Boys Story of the Sea and its Perils By EDWARD S. ELLIS Author of "The Young Pioneers," "Fighting to Win," "Adrift in the Wilds," "The Boy Patriot," Etc. A. L. BURT COMPANY; PUBLISHERS NEW YORK Copyright, 1911 By A. L. BURT COMPANY Adrift on the Pacific ADRIFT ON THE PACIFIC CHAPTER I CAPTAIN STRATHMORE'S PASSENGER A few hours before the sailing of the steamer _Polynesia_, from San Francisco to Japan, and while Captain Strathmore stood on deck watching the bustle and hurry, he was approached by a nervous, well-dressed gentleman, who was leading a little girl by the hand. "I wish you to take a passenger to Tokio for me, Captain Strathmore," said the stranger. The honest, bluff old captain, although tender of the feelings of others, never forgot the dignity and respect due to his position, and, looking sternly at the stranger, said: "You should know, sir, that it is the purser and not the captain whom you should see." "I have seen him, and cannot make a satisfactory arrangement." "And that is no reason, sir, why you should approach me." The captain was about moving away, when the stranger placed his hand on his arm, and said, in a hurried, anxious voice: "It is not I who wish to go--it is this little girl. It is a case of life and death; she must go! You, as captain, can take her in your own cabin, and no one will be inconvenienced." For the first time Captain Strathmore looked down at the little girl, who was staring around her with the wondering curiosity of childhood. She was apparently about six years of age, and the picture of infantile innocence and loveliness. She was dressed with good taste, her little feet being incased in Cinderella-like slippers, while the pretty stockings and dress set off the figure to perfection. She wore a fashionable straw hat, with a gay ribbon, and indeed looked like a child of wealthy parents, who had let her out for a little jaunt along some shady avenue. When Captain Strathmore looked down upon this sweet child, a great pang went through his heart, for she was the picture of the little girl that once called him father. Her mother died while little Inez was an infant, and, as soon as the cherished one could dispense with the care of a nurse, she joined her father, the captain, and henceforth was not separated from him. She was always on ship or steamer, sharing his room and becoming the pet of every one who met her, no less from her loveliness than from her childish, winning ways. But there came one awful dark day, away out in the Pacific, when the sweet voice was hushed forever, and the rugged old captain was bowed by a grief such as that which smites the mountain-oak to the earth. The little girl who now looked up in the face of Captain Strathmore was the image of Inez, who years before had sunk to the bottom of the sea, carrying with her all the sunshine, music and loveliness that cheered her father's heart. With an impulse he could not resist, the captain reached out his arms and the little stranger instantly ran into them. Then she was lifted up, and the captain kissed her, saying: "You look so much like the little girl I buried at sea that I could not help kissing you." The child was not afraid of him, for her fairy-like fingers began playing with the grizzled whiskers, while the honest blue eyes of the old sailor grew dim and misty for the moment. The gentleman who had brought the child to the steamer saw that this was a favorable time for him to urge his plea. "That is the little girl whom I wished to send to Tokio by you." "Have you no friend or acquaintance on board in whose care you can place her?" "I do not know a soul." "Is she any relative of yours?" "She is my niece. Her father and mother are missionaries in Japan, and have been notified of her coming on this steamer." "If that were so, why then were not preparations made for sending her in the care of some one, instead of waiting until the last minute, and then rushing down here and making application in such an irregular manner?" "Her uncle, the brother of my wife, expected to make the voyage with her, and came to San Francisco for that purpose. He was taken dangerously ill at the hotel, and when I reached there, a few hours ago, he was dead, and my niece was in the care of the landlord's family. My wife, who is out yonder in a carriage, had prepared to accompany me East to-morrow. Her brother had made no arrangements for taking the little one on the steamer, so I was forced into this unusual application." While the gentleman was making this explanation, the captain was holding the child in his arms, and admiring the beautiful countenance and loveliness of face and manner. "She does look exactly like my poor little Inez," was his thought, as he gently placed her on her feet again. "If we take her to Japan, what then?" "Her parents will be in Tokio, waiting for her. You, as captain, have the right, which no one would dare question, of taking her into your cabin with you, and I will compensate you in any manner you may wish." "What is her name?" asked Captain Strathmore. "Inez." "She shall go," said the sailor, in a husky voice. CHAPTER II THE CAPTAIN AND INEZ The steamer _Polynesia_ was steaming swiftly across the Pacific, in the direction of Japan--bravely plunging out into the mightiest expanse of water which spans the globe, and heading for the port that loomed up from the ocean almost ten thousand miles away. Although but a few days out, little Inez had become the pet of the whole ship. She was full of high spirits, bounding health--a laughing, merry sprite, who made every portion of the steamer her home, and who was welcome wherever she went. To the bronzed and rugged Captain Strathmore she was such a reminder of his own lost Inez that she became a second daughter to him, and something like a pang stirred his heart when he reflected upon his arrival at his destination and his parting from the little one. Inez, as nearly as the captain could gather, had been living for several years with her uncle and aunt in San Francisco, from which port her parents had sailed a considerable time before. The stranger gave a very common name as his own--George Smith--and said he would await the return of the _Polynesia_ with great anxiety, in order to learn the particulars of the arrival of his niece in Japan. However, the captain did not allow his mind to be annoyed by any speculations as to the past of the little girl; but he could not avoid a strong yearning which was growing in his heart that something would turn up--something possibly in the shape of a social revolution or earthquake--that would place the little girl in his possession again. And yet he trembled as he muttered the wish. "How long would I keep her? I had such a girl once--her very counterpart--the sweet Inez, my own; and yet she is gone, and who shall say how long this one shall be mine?" The weather remained all that could be wished for a number of days after steaming out of the Golden Gate. It was in the month of September, when a mild, dreamy languor seemed to rest upon everything, and the passage across the Pacific was like one long-continued dream of the Orient--excepting, perhaps, when the cyclone or hurricane, roused from its sleep, swept over the deep with a fury such as strews the shores with wrecks and the bottom with multitudes of bodies. What more beautiful than a moonlight night on the Pacific? The _Polynesia_ was plowing the vast waste of waters which separates the two worlds, bearing upon her decks and in her cabins passengers from the four quarters of the globe. They came from, and were going to, every portion of the wide world. Some were speeding toward their homes in Asia or Africa or the islands of the sea; and others living in Europe or America, or the remote corners of the earth, would finally return, after wandering over strange places, seeing singular sights, and treading in the footsteps of the armies who had gone before them in the dim ages of the past. Now and then the great ship rose from some mighty swell, and then, settling down, drove ahead, cleaving the calm water and leaving a wide wake of foam behind. The black smoke poured out of the broad funnels, and sifted upward through the scant rigging, and was dissipated in the clear air above. The throbbing of the engine made its pulsations felt through the ponderous craft from stem to stern, as a giant breathes more powerfully when gathering his energy for the final effort of the race. A few drifting clouds moved along the sky, while, now and then, a starlike point of light, far away against the horizon, showed where some other caravansary of the sea was moving toward its destination, thousands of leagues away. Although Captain Strathmore was on duty, and it was against the rules for any passenger to approach or address him, yet there was one who was unrestrained by rules or regulations, no matter how sternly they were enforced in other cases. The captain was standing on the bridge, when he felt some one tugging at his coat, and he looked down. There was Inez demanding his attention. "Take me up, pop," said she. "Bless your heart!" laughed the captain as he obeyed the little empress; "you would ruin the discipline of a man-of-war in a month." While speaking, he perched her on his shoulder, as was a favorite custom with him. The day had been unusually warm, and the night was so mild that the steady breeze made by the motion of the steamer was scarcely sufficient to keep one cool. Little Inez had thrown aside her hat with the setting of the sun, and now her wealth of golden hair streamed and fluttered in fleecy masses about her shoulders. The steamer was plowing straight to the westward, cutting the waves so keenly that a thin parabola of water continually curved over in front of her from the knife-like prow. Perched aloft on the shoulder of the captain, Inez naturally gazed ahead, and the figure was a striking one of innocence and infancy peering forward through the mists and clouds toward the unknown future. But Inez was too young to have any such poetical thoughts, and the captain was too practical to be troubled by "æsthetic meditations." He chatted with her about their arrival in Japan, saying that she would be glad to see no more of him, when she replied: "If you talk that way, I'll cry. You must go home and live with us. Uncle Con says papa has a big dog, and if we haven't room in the house, you can sleep with him, and I'll feed you each morning--oh, look!" CHAPTER III AN ACCIDENT That which arrested the attention of the little girl in the arms of Captain Strathmore, was a sight--unique, rare and impressively beautiful. All around the steamer stretched the vast Pacific, melting away into darkness, with here and there a star-like twinkle, showing where some ship was moving over the waste of waters. Overhead, the sky was clear, with a few stars faintly gleaming, while the round, full moon, for whose rising so many on the steamer had been watching, had just come up, its disk looking unusually large, as it always does when so close to the horizon. Just when the moon was half above the ocean, and when the narrowing path of the illumination stretched from the ship to the outer edge of the world, a vessel under full sail slowly passed over the face of the moon. The partial eclipse was so singular that it arrested the attention of Inez, who uttered the exclamation we have recorded. It was seen by nearly all the passengers, too, most of whom were looking toward the horizon for the rising of the orb, and expressions of delight were heard from every quarter, for such a sight, we say, is rare. When observed by the passengers on board the _Polynesia_, the moon had barely cleared the horizon, as we have stated, and the top of the mainmast just reached the uppermost portion of the periphery, while spars, rigging and hull were marked against the yellow disk as distinctly as if painted in India ink. Such an obscuration, like a total one of the sun, could last but a few seconds, for the _Polynesia_ and the other ship were moving in opposite directions, while the moon itself was creeping upward toward the zenith. Slowly the black ship glided toward its destination--hull, masts and rigging gradually mingled with the gloom beyond, until the moon, as if shaking off the eclipse, mounted upward with its face unmarred, excepting by the peculiar figures stamped there when it was first launched into space. When the wonderful exhibition was over there were murmurs of admiration from the passengers, who, grouped here and there, or promenading back and forth, had stood spellbound, as may be said, while it was in progress. Captain Strathmore and two of his officers had seen the same thing once or twice before, but they had been favored in this respect above others, and could hardly expect anything of the kind again. The captain now prepared for an interesting and novel ceremony, which he had announced would take place that evening by moonlight. Descending to the deck, and approaching the stern, where the expectant passengers had gathered together, the group were silent a minute, while he stood among them holding little Inez by the hand. A few minutes later the purser came aft, carrying a parcel in his hand, which he carefully placed upon the taffrail. Then he spoke in a sepulchral voice. "Ladies and gentlemen, we all have lost minutes and hours, but it is seldom that we deliberately throw away a day. But we are to do so now. We are about to bury a day. To-day is the Twentieth, to-morrow will be the Twenty-second, and where, then, is the Twenty-first? There it lies" (pointing to the parcel on the taffrail). "Life is short enough, without deliberately casting an entire day into the sea; but there is the consolation of knowing, on your return, that it shall be restored to you, and thus beautifully does nature preserve the equilibrium throughout the world. What more fitting than that the day should be buried by the hands of one whose life is as spotless as the snow upon the peaks of the Sierras we have left behind us?" All now uncovered their heads--that is, the gentlemen did--and the captain advanced, leading Inez Hawthorne by the hand. Holding her up a short distance from the deck, she called out: "Good-by, Twenty-first of September!" She repeated the words correctly, for the captain whispered them in her ear, and as she spoke she gave the parcel a slight shove, and overboard it went, striking the water with a splash, and instantly sinking out of sight. The package was nothing but some old iron, wrapped about with coarse brown paper. The ceremony of burying a day, as the reader knows, is a common, and it may be said, a necessary, one with vessels sailing westward over the Pacific, as the picking up of a day is necessary on the return. At first sight it seems incongruous, but it is in fact the only way in which the reckoning of time can be kept correctly. The little ceremony naturally caused the matter itself to become one of discussion, and probably a goodly number of young ladies and gentlemen picked up more knowledge of the matter than they had ever dreamed of before. Two curious things happened within a half hour of this novel ceremony. The _Polynesia_ was driving along with that steady motion in which the throbbing of the vessel can only be detected by carefully standing still and watching for it, when every passenger, and especially the captain and his officers, suddenly felt an alarming jar, which shook the steamer from stem to stern. It was noticed that the engine instantly stopped and the enormous ship gradually came to rest upon the long, heaving swell of the Pacific. In a few minutes it was ascertained that the steamer had broken the shaft of her propeller, thus rendering the all-important screw useless. This necessitated the hoisting of her sails, and a monotonous voyage to her destination, a return to San Francisco, or a long deviation to Honolulu for repairs. While the necessary investigation was going on, a sail had been sighted bearing down upon them, and in half an hour it came-to, a short distance off, in the hope of being able to afford some assistance--as the sight of a steamer lying motionless on the water meant that something was amiss. This new craft was the schooner _Coral_, a stanchly-built, sharp-bowed little vessel of forty tons burden, built for the Honolulu trade. She was about seven years old, very fast, and constructed as strongly as iron and wood could make her. The forecastle, cook's quarters and cabin were all under deck, so that in heavy weather there was no danger of being washed from one's bunk whenever a big sea came thundering over the rail. The skipper or captain of this trim little craft was Jack Bergen, of Boston, and he with his mate, Abram Storms, had made the trip across the continent by rail to San Francisco--thus saving the long, dangerous and expensive voyage around Cape Horn. In the Golden Gate City they--for the mate and captain were joint partners--bought the _Coral_ at auction, paying just two-thirds the sum they expected to give for the vessel they needed. However, when she was fitted up and provisioned, they found very little of their funds left, and they could but feel some anxiety as to the result of the extraordinary enterprise upon which they were engaged. The crew of the little schooner consisted of the two sailors, Hyde Brazzier, Alfredo Redvignez, and a huge African, Pomp Cooper, who shipped as cook and steward, with the liability of being called upon to do duty in an emergency. But of these, more hereafter. Captain Bergen, after his craft came-to, was rowed across the short, intervening distance with his mate, and they were assisted upon deck, where they were received most courteously. "Is there anything I can do to help you?" he asked after he and his brother officer were received by Captain Strathmore. "I'm obliged to you, but I'm afraid not," was the courteous response. "You know, there's no way of telling when a piece of iron is going to fracture, and so there is no way of providing against such an accident." "Is the shaft broke?" "Yes; broken clean off." "Where?" The captain of the steamer smiled, for he saw no need of such a question, since he considered the damage irremediable. "Quite a distance from the screw, and it's a curious fracture. Would you like to look at it?" "I would, indeed. You see, we have got considerable out of our course--being too far west--and we shall make a pretty sharp turn to the south, toward Honolulu." "I am debating whether to go there, turn back to San Francisco, or keep on under sail to Tokio." "This is my mate, Abram Storms, from Enfield, Connecticut," said Captain Bergen, introducing the two. "I bring him along because he is the most ingenious man ever turned out by that home of ingenuity; and when I saw that something was the matter with you, I came alongside, more because I believed he could help you, than in the expectation that I could be of any service." "Captain Bergen does me too much honor," protested the stoop-shouldered New Englander, who, had there been more of daylight, would have been seen to blush under the compliment. "I have no doubt he speaks the truth," replied Captain Strathmore, leading the way below to where the broken shaft rested motionless; "but this trouble is too much like a broken neck for any surgery to help." A minute later, a group of half a dozen stood about and stooped over the broken shaft, and examined it by the aid of lanterns, the chief engineer showing a more courteous spirit than is usual under such circumstances. As one looked at the huge cylinder of solid iron, gleaming with a silvery whiteness all over the jagged face where it had been twisted off, the wonder was how it could be possible for any force to be tremendous enough to do such damage. The peculiarity about the breakage, however, was that, instead of snapping nearly squarely off, the fracture extended longitudinally for fully eighteen inches, so that the face of each part was a great deal broader and longer than is generally the case in such accidents. The group surveyed it a minute or two in silence, stooping down and feeling of the innumerable jagged protuberances, the indentations, and the exceedingly rough surface, the minute particles gleaming in the lamp-light like a mass of silver ore split apart. The first remark came from the New Englander, Abe Storms. "That is curious, for there are no signs of crystallization, nor can I detect a flaw." "Nevertheless, it must be there, for perfect iron would not have broken in that manner," said the chief engineer. "I beg your pardon," said the mate, courteously, "but it frequently happens. There has been some peculiar combination of the movement of the steamer on the swell of the sea, with the position of the screw at that moment--a convergence of a hundred conditions--some almost infinitesimal, but necessary, and which convergence is not likely to take place in a million revolutions of the screw--that has brought an irresistible strain upon the shaft--one that would have wrenched it off, had the diameter been twice what it is." The group looked wonderingly at the speaker, for every intelligent man felt that the theory of the New Englander had a stratum of truth beneath it. It was hard to make clear what the mate meant, but all to a certain extent understood, and no one ventured to gainsay it. "However," added Abe Storms, "there's one good thing about this; it will be easy to mend it." Captain Bergen smiled, for he expected something of the kind, and he knew that that wonderful Yankee mate of his never boasted, and would demonstrate every assertion he made. But the others stared at the speaker with something like consternation, and seemed to be debating whether he was crazy or a natural born idiot. CHAPTER IV MISSING "Mend a broken shaft?" repeated the chief engineer, in amazement. "How do you expect to do that?" "I will show you," replied the mate of the little schooner, who immediately proceeded to business. The first thing he asked for was several coils of wire, which were immediately furnished him. Then, with great labor, the two parts of the shaft were fitted together and the wire was twisted tightly around the fractured portion over and over again. As the tenacity of iron is tremendous, the shaft was securely fastened, but this was not enough. Ropes and chains were bound around the iron in turn, until there was really no room to bandage the broken shaft further. "There, sir!" exclaimed Storms, as he stepped back and viewed his work. "That is as secure as before, though, if you can possibly do so, you should avoid reversing the screw until you reach Tokio, for you can understand that to reverse and start will wrench the shaft to a dangerous degree." The captain now told the engineer, who had been assisting in the operation, to start the engine slowly and with great care. Captain Bergen ran on deck to see that the _Coral_ was in position to receive no harm from the forward motion, while the rest of the group watched the movements with intense interest, standing away from the shaft so as to escape the "splinters," that more than one thought might be flying about their heads the next minute. There came the sound of steam, of plunging rods and cylinders from ahead, then there was heard a furious splash at the stern, and all saw that the shaft in its entirety was revolving. The keen eyes of Abe Storms, who had leaned directly over his handiwork, lamp in hand, his nose almost touching the gleaming chains, detected the very yielding which he had prophesied. He heard the creaking of the chains, the faint gasping, as it may be called, of the rope, and the soft grinding of the fine wire beneath. All this showed what an enormous strain was brought upon them, and almost any other person detecting the rasping of the ragged edges of iron against each other would have started back appalled, believing that everything was about to fly apart. But it was precisely what the mate expected, and what was inevitable under the circumstances. Then, at his request, the engineer was ordered to put on a full head of steam, and the _Polynesia_ plowed forward, cleaving the water before her. Abe Storms knelt down and bent almost lovingly over the round mass revolving on its axis. Then he beckoned to the engineer to approach and do the same. He obeyed, as did several others, and placing their ears close, they listened intently to the revolution of the shaft. Not even the faintest noise could be detected to show that there was anything but a normal movement of the shaft. Every one saw, too, that the revolutions were not only going on regularly, but would continue so for an indefinite time. The shaft was practically whole again, with the exception that a reverse movement would be likely to undo everything, and by scraping the corrugated surfaces of the fractures, render it impossible to do anything of the kind again. Captain Strathmore and his officers stood for a full hour more steadily watching the revolving shaft, and at the end of that time they were satisfied. Then the new acquaintances saluted and bade each other good-by, the officers of the _Coral_ passing over the rail, and were rowed back to their own vessel, which had followed in the wake of the steamer, as may be said. By this time it was midnight, and the captain returned to his station on the bridge, reflecting to himself that some of the most insurmountable difficulties, apparently, are overcome by the simplest means, and that there are some persons in the world who really seem capable of inventing anything. The hour was so late that all the passengers had retired, and little Inez, as a matter of course, had become invisible long before. She had declared several times that she was going to sit up with the captain, and she tried it, but, like most children under such circumstances, she dropped off into slumber by the time it was fairly dark, and was carried below to the cabin. The child was like so much sunshine flitting hither and thither upon the steamer, and whose presence would be sorely missed when the hour came for her to go. But Captain Strathmore was a disciplinarian, who could never forget his duty, and he remained at his post until the time came for him to go below to gain the few hours' sleep which cannot be safely dispensed with by any one, no matter how rugged his frame. Tumbling into his berth, he stretched out with a sigh of comfort, and went to sleep. "Inez will be in here bright and early to wake me," was his conclusion, as he closed his eyes in slumber. But he was disappointed, for when he was called from his couch, it was not by the little one whom he expected to see. At the breakfast-table she did not appear, and then Captain Strathmore, fearing that she was ill, made inquiries. He heard nothing, and filled with a growing alarm, he instituted a thorough search of the vessel from stem to stern and high and low. Not a spot or corner was omitted where a cat could have been concealed, but she was not found. And then the startling truth was established that little Inez Hawthorne was not on board the steamer. "Oh!" groaned poor Captain Strathmore, "she became my own child! Now I have lost her a second time!" CHAPTER V THE NEW PASSENGER Captain Strathmore rewarded Abe Storms liberally for the service he had rendered them, and the mate and captain of the schooner, as we have said, were rowed back to the boat by Hyde Brazzier. Reaching the deck of the _Coral_, they watched the progress of the great steamer until she vanished from sight in the moonlight, and then the two friends went into the cabin to "study the chart," as they expressed it. It may be said that this had been the principal business of the two since leaving the States, though the statement is not strictly correct. The hum of conversation went on for hours; the night gradually wore away, but still the two men sat talking in low tones, and looking at the roll of paper spread out between them, and which was covered with numerous curious drawings. The theme must have been an absorbing one, since it banished all thought of the passage of time from their minds. "I tell you," said the captain, as he leaned back in his chair, "there isn't the remotest doubt that a colossal fortune is awaiting us, and unless some extraordinary accident intervenes, we shall gather it up." "So it would seem," replied the mate, with a weary look, "and yet I sometimes feel certain that it will never be ours--Good gracious!" The two men almost leaped out of their chairs, and their hair fairly rose on end. They were absolutely certain that no one else was in the cabin besides themselves. Redvignez was at the wheel, and Brazzier awaited his call in turn at the end of the watch. But just then both heard a rustling, and saw a movement in the berth of Captain Bergen, which showed something was there. It couldn't be a dog or cat, for there was nothing of the kind on board. Besides which, just then, the two men caught sight of the little white hand which clearly belonged to some one of their own species. Then the covering was thrown back; a mass of tangled golden hair was observed, and instantly after, the fair face of a young child peered wonderingly out, as if seeking to learn where she was. Of course the little one was Inez Hawthorne, though neither of the two men had ever seen or heard of her before, and it is, therefore, idle to attempt to picture their overwhelming astonishment when they became aware so suddenly of her presence in the cabin. Neither of the two men was superstitious; but there was good excuse for their being wonder-struck. If an individual in the middle of a desert should suddenly become aware of the appearance of a strange person at his elbow, a situation apparently in which he could only be placed by supernatural means, it would be a very mild word to say he would be surprised. Flinging the coverlet from her shoulders and throwing back her mass of rich golden hair, Inez assumed the sitting position, with her dimpled legs swinging over the side, and her little hands resting on the rail, as if to steady herself during the long swells of the sea, while she looked at the two men as if trying to recollect where she was and who they were. "Well, if that doesn't beat anything that was ever heard or read of before!" exclaimed the captain, turning about and staring at her. "Where in the name of the seven wonders did you come from?" Abe Storms, the mate, did not speak, but seemed to be waiting to see whether the child had a voice, and thus settle the question in his mind as to whether it was mortal or not. The problem was quickly solved, for Inez was never backward in asserting her individuality. "How did I come here? That's a great question to ask! I got tired and lay down to sleep, and have just woke up. I think this is a real nice boat. Are you the captain? My name is Inez Hawthorne--what is yours?" These questions, uttered with childish rapidity and ingenuousness, threw some light upon the apparent mystery. "She belongs to the steamer," said Abe Storms, with his eyes fixed wonderingly upon her. "She has managed to get in our boat in some way, and we have carried her off. Did you ever see anything so pretty?" As the reader has learned, there was good cause for this admiring question. Both of the men were bachelors, but they possessed natural refinement, and they could reverence the innocence and loveliness of childhood. With the discovery that she was an actual human being, the awe-struck wonder of the two men vanished, though their curiosity was great to learn how it was she was carried away from the steamer. "Won't you come here and talk with me?" asked Storms, reaching out his arms invitingly, but a little doubtful whether she would respond, though the stoop-shouldered inventor was always popular with children. The answer of Inez was a sudden spring, which landed her plump into the lap of the mate, while she flung her arms around his neck with a merry laugh, and then wheeled about on his knee, so that she could look in the face of either of the men, who, not unnaturally, felt a strange and strong attraction toward the beautiful child. Then the two began a series of questions that were answered in the characteristic fashion of childhood, but from which the friends succeeded in extracting something like a clear explanation of her presence on board the _Coral_--so many miles from the steamer on which she had set sail at San Francisco. They learned that Inez--who was such a pet on the _Polynesia_ that she was allowed to do as she chose--was invited by one of the crew to visit the _Coral_, while she lay so close to the disabled steamer. The one who gave this invitation was Hyde Brazzier, and he was struck with the wonderful loveliness of the child, when she questioned him about the schooner. There is no nature, however steeped in crime, in which there is not a divine spark which may be fanned into a flame--which, perchance, may illumine the whole soul; and but for the subsequent strange events, little Inez Hawthorne might have proved, in the most literal sense, a heaven-sent messenger upon that craft, which carried so much wickedness in the forecastle. Brazzier rowed the short intervening distance, and then took the child by the hand and showed her through the schooner, there being little to exhibit. Finally she was led into the cabin, where she said she was tired and wished to lie down. Thereupon Brazzier lifted her upon the captain's berth and drew the coverlet over her. A minute later the weary eyes closed in slumber and he left the cabin. Brazzier had no intention, up to this time, of using any deception in the matter; but, under the persuasion of Redvignez, he gave way to the innate wickedness of his nature, and chuckled over the lamentable occurrence. They felt pleasure in the certainty that what they were doing was sure to make other hearts ache. CHAPTER VI "PORT YOUR HELM!" When a thorough search of the steamer _Polynesia_ made known the truth that little Inez Hawthorne was nowhere upon it, the sorrowful conclusion was that she had fallen overboard in some manner and been drowned. But the belief was scarcely formed, when the discovery was made that such was not the case; that in fact she had been taken away by the schooner _Coral_, whose mate performed such good service in mending the broken shaft of the _Polynesia_. The story as told Captain Strathmore was as follows: The two officers of the schooner were rowed to the steamer by one of the crew, who climbed up the ladder at the side of the _Polynesia_, and spent a few minutes in inspecting the broken shaft. He then came back. His attention was attracted to little Inez, whose childish curiosity was excited by the appearance of a stranger who had but one eye, and who looked so different from the trim-looking members of the steamer's crew. The two fell into conversation, and Inez asked so many questions about the schooner that the stranger invited her to take a look at it. He was heard to say that the captain and mate would be engaged for two or three hours, and there would be plenty of time to row the child over the intervening distance, explore the _Coral_, and come back before Captain Bergen and his mate would be ready to leave. Naturally, Inez gladly accepted the invitation, and the sinister-looking man, picking her up, carefully descended the ladder to his small boat, and rowed away to the schooner. This story, it will be observed, corresponded with that told by Brazzier himself. No one thought anything of the proceeding, which was one of the most natural in the world, and there was nothing to arouse misgiving on the part of those who witnessed it. Inez was almost a spoiled child from the indulgence shown her by every one with whom she came in contact. She distrusted no one, because she had never had any reason to do so. It was night when the officers of the schooner were rowed back, and those who had seen Inez taken away did not observe that the boat returned without her. Holding no thought of anything wrong, they gave no further attention to the strange sailor. The moment Captain Strathmore learned these facts, he caused an abrupt change to be made in the course of the _Polynesia_. For he was determined that no effort should be spared to recover the lost child, who had so endeared herself to every one on board the steamer. The precise point where the accident had befallen the shaft was recorded on the log, as a matter of course, and it was within the power of the chief officer to return wonderfully close to that spot. If the schooner _Coral_ should remain anywhere in that latitude and longitude, she could be found and Inez recovered. "But it is not likely the schooner is near there," reflected Captain Strathmore, as he swept the horizon with his glass and failed to catch sight of a sail. "They could not have taken away the child ignorantly, and instead of remaining there or attempting to find us, the captain has headed in some direction which is not the one he named, as if by accident, when he was aboard." The captain was in that mood that it would have been dangerous for him to come upon the daring thieves. He could conceive of no explanation that would relieve them from his wrath, and as the steamer described a huge curve in the sea and headed toward the point where he hoped to gain sight of the sail, full steam was put on, and she ran at a rate of speed which, in the condition of her shaft, was certainly dangerous to a high degree. It may be said there was not a heart on board the _Polynesia_ that did not share in the general anxiety, and there was scarcely an eye that did not scan the broad ocean again and again in the hope of catching sight of the schooner. Several sails were descried in the course of the day, but not one was that of the _Coral_, and when the night descended not only had there been a complete failure, but the captain was convinced that it was useless for him to delay the steamer by hunting further. With an angry and sad heart he gave over the search, and the _Polynesia_ was headed once more toward the far-off imperial Japanese city of Tokio. "I would give a thousand dollars to know what it all means," said Captain Strathmore, as he stood on the bridge debating the matter with himself. "There is something about the whole business which I don't understand. In the first place, Inez came under my charge in an extraordinary way. I don't believe that that man who brought her down to the wharf told the truth, and I very much doubt whether the parents of the little one have ever been in Japan. She may have been stolen from some one, and this means has been resorted to in order to get her out of the way. I wish I had questioned her more closely," continued the perplexed captain, following up the train of thought, "for she let drop an expression or two now and then that showed she had some remembrances which it would have been interesting to call up. It's too late now," added the old sailor, with a sigh, "and probably I shall never see her again. She had nestled down into that spot in my heart which was left vacant many weary years ago, when my own Inez died and my only boy became as one dead, and there is no sacrifice I would not make would it but bring this one back to me. It is curious, but the feeling is strong upon me that somewhere at some time we shall meet again." "Port your helm!" This was the startling order which the quartermaster sent to the wheel-house at that moment, and which was obeyed with as much promptness as is possible on such a gigantic craft as an ocean steamer. The night, for a rarity, was dark and misty, a peculiar fog resting upon the water, and shutting out the view in every direction. It would seem that there could be little danger of a collision on the broad bosom of the mightiest ocean of the globe, but there must always be a certain ratio of danger, and none realized this more than Captain Strathmore. The _Polynesia_ had been running at half speed ever since the sun went down, and her whistle blew at irregular intervals. At the moment the startling order was communicated to the man at the wheel, the lights of another steamer were discerned directly ahead. And these were scarcely observed when the mountainous hull loomed up to view in appalling proximity, and a cold shudder ran through every officer and sailor at the sight, for there was just a single second or two when it seemed certain that the two crafts would come together with an earthquake shock and such an irresistible momentum as would crash the two prodigious hulls to splinters, and send the crews and passengers to join the multitudes who have gone before them to the bottom of the sea. Signals and commands were rapidly exchanged, and the slight misunderstanding which existed between the two steamers at first was quickly removed. The shouts and orders, the tinkling of the engineer's bell, and even the sound of hurrying feet, were heard on one ship as distinctly as on the other. Most fortunately the officers of each were sensible men, who enforced discipline, and who, therefore, did not lose their heads when sudden peril came upon them. There was desperate need of haste on the part of all, but the haste was intelligent, and something was accomplished. The stranger instantly reversed her screw, while the _Polynesia_ was equally prompt in her backward movement. They escaped by a chance so narrow that it was terrifying. The bow of the _Polynesia_ grazed the side of the stranger as they passed upon their diagonal courses, and every one on the two ships who understood the dreadful peril drew a deep breath and uttered a prayer of thankfulness when it swept by, and the two steamers vanished from each other's sight in the misty darkness. The engineer of the _Polynesia_ was signaled to go forward again, and the screw was started; but, if the one who uttered the order had forgotten the contingency against which they had been warned, the one who executed that order had not, and he gave the engine just enough steam to start the shaft. As he did so, listening intently the meanwhile, he heard an ominous crunching, grinding and jarring in the after hold, and he knew too well what it meant. He instantly shut off steam, and with the captain hastened to make the investigation. As they feared, the broken shaft had been wrenched apart again, and it looked as if it were injured beyond repair. But what man has done, man can do, and the ingenious recourse of Abe Storms was resorted to again. With great care the fractured pieces were reunited and bound, but the task was, in reality, harder than before, since the terrific grinding and wrenching to which it had been subjected broke off much of the corrugated surface. The work was completed after many long hours of hard work, and once more the _Polynesia_ started slowly under steam for the strange island-empire of Asia. This unexpected delay, as the reader will see, doubtless had much to do with the failure of the schooner to find the steamer, since it threw out all possibility of calculating where the larger craft could be. "Now, if we have no more vessels trying to run into us," muttered the captain, as he resumed his place on the bridge, "we stand a chance of reaching Japan after all, without calling on our sails to help us." But, standing at his post, with everything going well, his thoughts naturally reverted to the strange mischance by which little Inez Hawthorne was lost to him. "I don't believe Captain Bergen or his mate, Abe Storms, would knowingly take off the child in that fashion, though the girl was enough to tempt any one to steal her. There is something about the whole business which I don't understand. We ought to have found each other, though, if he is still hunting for me. This second breakage of the shaft will tend to keep us apart." The long voyage of the steamer to Japan terminated without any incident worth the recording, and Captain Strathmore naturally became anxious to meet the parents of Inez, though sorrowing very much over the story he would be forced to tell them. But no one appeared at Tokio to claim the child, and the wondering captain proceeded to make inquiries. It was easy to obtain from the church authorities a list of the names of the Christian missionaries in Japan, and they were scanned carefully by the captain, who was given such assistance by the officials themselves that there could be no mistake. Among them was no one by the name of Hawthorne. It was plain then that deception had been used when the man in San Francisco declared that the parents of Inez were missionaries in Japan. As day after day passed and the steamer _Polynesia_ was gradually prepared for her return voyage to California, there was one strong, harrowing conviction which forced itself upon the distressed captain: "Had Inez not been stolen from the steamer, no one would have come to claim her, and she would have been mine." His heart thrilled at the thought of how close he had come to obtaining such a priceless prize for his possession, and then he added, as if to cheer himself: "Never mind; the earth is far and wide. She is alive somewhere upon its face, and at some time, at heaven's own pleasure, she and I shall meet again." Brave and rugged Captain Strathmore! Was the spirit of prophecy upon you when you muttered the cheering words? CHAPTER VII THE REASON WHY THE VOYAGE WAS UNDERTAKEN At this point it is necessary that the reader should be made acquainted with what has been only hinted up to this point. We mean the reason why it was that the little schooner _Coral_, under the charge of Captain Bergen and Abram Storms, the mate, was on the Pacific Ocean, voyaging toward the South Seas. The skipper was fond of telling the strange story, and the mate heard it many times, as repeated to him one stormy night, around the roaring fire of Captain Bergen's hearthstone in New England. It ran thus: "You see, Abe, I was going down Washington Street, in Boston, one day, when I came upon a drunken sailor, who was suffering a terrible beating at the hands of a couple of land-sharks, that were were evidently determined to rob him, if they had not already done so. "It r'iled my blood to see such scandalous proceedings going on, and I sailed in. "Then I helped pick up Jack tar, and he was taken to the hospital, where his wounds were found to be of a dangerous nature. His assailants were so badly hurt that they went to the hospital, and when they came out they were shifted to the penitentiary, where they're likely to stay for a good many years to come. "Having taken the part of Bill Grebbens, as he told me his name was, I called at the hospital to see him every day, for I wasn't busy just then. The poor fellow was very grateful for the service I had done him, though sad to say I was too late. "Bill had been on such a terrible spree that his system wasn't in condition to resist disease, and before long it was plain he was going to make a die of it. He was a plucky fellow, and when the doctor told him he had to go, he didn't weaken. "Just before he died, he took me by the hand, and told me he hadn't a living relative in the world, nor one who had been such a friend to him as I had proved to be. By that time my own eyes were getting misty, and I begged him to say nothing about it. "I told him I would see that he had a decent burial, and would attend to anything he wanted me to do. He said there wasn't anything, for it could make no difference to him what became of his body after his death, and for his part he would as lief the doctors should have it. "However, he took this paper from under his pillow and showed it to me, and told me all about it. I thought at first his mind was wandering, but I soon saw that his head was level, and he knew what he was talking about." The paper which Captain Bergen produced at this point of his narrative was covered with some well-executed drawings, which, having been done by the sailor himself, showed that he was a man of education. "Those dots there represent the King George Islands of the South Pacific, lying in about fifteen degrees south latitude and one hundred and forty-three degrees west longitude. To the north here is Mendina Archipelago, and here to the east are the Paumotu Islands, sometimes known as the Pearl Islands. There are a good many of them, and away to the northeast of the group is another island, which, although much the larger on the map, is really a small coral island, with a lagoon, and so unimportant that it has no name, and cannot be found on any map I ever saw. "You will observe the figure and directions marked on this paper," added Captain Bergen, who invariably became excited at this point in his narration, "which, with his explanations, are so easily understood that no one can go astray. "Well, Bill Grebbens once belonged to a party of mutineers of a British vessel, who found it growing so hot for them that they put in to this island, scuttled and sunk their ship, and lived there two years. It was uninhabited, and they led a lazy, vagabond life in that charming climate till a strange sort of sickness broke out among them and carried off eight, leaving only Grebbens and a single shipmate. "These two spent several months longer in wandering about the island looking for and yet dreading to see a sail, when one day they discovered a bed of pearl-oysters, which they examined and found to be of surpassing richness. The majority of the shells contained pearls, many of them of great size, and the two men saw that an immense fortune lay only a few fathoms under the surface. "They instantly set to work with great eagerness; but it is seldom that a man obtains wealth in this world by walking over a path of roses. "Within the first half-hour, a huge man-eating shark glided into the clear water, and with one snap of his enormous jaws actually bit the body of the other sailor in two. The horrified Grebbens managed to get out just in time to save himself. "He had enough of pearl-diving, and he shudderingly turned his back upon the spot, and began looking out to sea again for a sail, determined now to leave, no matter if he should be carried to England and executed. "He managed to set up the topmast of the wreck, and to catch the attention of a whaler a few days later, and was taken off. Before going, however, he made a careful drawing of the place, and by studying other charts on the American whaler which took him away he was able to locate the island with such correctness that he could return to it at any time, his intention, of course, being to do so at some period when he could go provided with means to prosecute his search without such frightful risk. "But Bill never saw the time, for he was too fond of liquor when ashore. He met his death just as I told you, and he gave me this chart or map of the locality, telling me that a fortune lay at that point where my finger is resting to whosoever should go after it." Such was the story of Captain Bergen, as he related it to his friend, Abe Storms, to whom he proposed that they should fit out an expedition to go to the South Seas in quest of the fortune that awaited them in the shape of pearls. Abe was slower and more deliberate, but he finally fell in with the scheme, and the two, as we have already stated, became joint partners in the grand enterprise. Both were frugal men, and they now decided to invest all their funds in the scheme, which promised to make or break them. Instead of sailing from the port of Boston, they took an important cut "across lots" by going by rail to San Francisco, thus saving the longest and most dangerous portion of the voyage, which otherwise would be necessary. In San Francisco, at a sale of bankrupt property, they bought the schooner, which has already been described, and shipped their crew. The wonder was that two men possessing the shrewdness of Storms and Bergen should have been so deceived respecting their men. Hyde Brazzier was an American sailor, with blotched, bleared face, with one eye gone, while over the sunken, sightless cavity he wore a green patch, his face covered by a scraggly beard, and his single eye, small and deep-set, added to the sinister expression of his countenance. He had the reputation of being a good seaman, and undoubtedly he was, and being strong and vigorous, in the prime of life, he was considered an especially valuable man to Captain Bergen, who paid him five dollars more per month than he expected. Since Captain Bergen had pursued a rather original course from the beginning, he continued to do so. He engaged his men without any help from the shipping-master, and had hardly reached an understanding with the American when Alfredo Redvignez put in an appearance and applied for a berth, saying that he had heard the best kinds of accounts of the captain's seamanship and humanity--even in far-away Boston. Redvig--so called for convenience--said that he had been employed in the East India trade, and was a sailor of nearly twenty years' experience. It struck both Captain Bergen and Mate Storms that, as they were going to the tropics, he was likely to prove a useful man, and he was engaged. The captain ventured to ask Brazzier's opinion of the other sailor, but the American said he had never heard of him before--though he liked the cut of his jib, and was glad he had been hired. But had any one been watching the faces of the American and Spaniard, he would have detected several suspicious signals which passed between them; and this, added to the fact that, in a very short time, they became intimately acquainted, as may be said, looked as if there had been deception on that point. The fact was, the two had arranged the matter beforehand, so as to go together in this business--somewhat on the same principle that their employers entered into partnership. They were both serving under assumed names, and were obliged to take no little precaution to keep their identity concealed, for they were "wanted" for serious crimes in more than one port. Redvig was a small, swarthy, muscular man, with coal-black, curling hair, short, curly beard and mustache, black eyes, with an aquiline nose, and both he and Brazzier had a fashion of wearing small gold ear-rings. Their arms and breast were plentifully tattooed, so that but for the great exception of their evil dispositions, they might well have passed for good specimens of the proverbial Jack tar. It was different with the huge colored man, Pomp Cooper, who had been known about the wharves of San Francisco for a number of years. He was jolly and good-natured, possessed of prodigious strength, and had been on shipboard enough to acquire a fair knowledge of navigating a coasting vessel. While many believed he possessed the proverbial loyalty of his race, and could not be induced to commit any grave crime, yet it must be admitted that there were ugly rumors afloat concerning him. It was asserted by more than one that he was a river and harbor pirate, and belonged to one of the worst gangs that ever infested the harbor of San Francisco. While Captain Bergen was not ignorant of these rumors, yet he placed no credence in them, and believed Pomp to be one of the most valuable men he could obtain. Such in brief was the crew of the _Coral_, when she sailed on her long voyage to the South Seas, in quest of pearls--the location of which had been given by the dying sailor in the Boston hospital. CHAPTER VIII VOYAGING SOUTHWARD It was certainly very wonderful that little Inez Hawthorne should have been transferred from the steamer to the schooner, and that many hours should have passed before the discovery was made by the respective captains of the craft. Yet such was the fact, and Captain Bergen and Mate Storms had no sooner learned the real situation than Hyde Brazzier was sent for to tell how it occurred. As he was the one who rowed the small boat, there could be no doubt that he knew. The story he told was the true one, with the exception of the supplement--that he actually forgot about the little girl after she went into the cabin and fell asleep. It was impossible, it may be said, that such could be the fact, and the officers looked knowingly at each other. They knew he was falsifying, but they made no comment, except to declare that she must be taken back to the steamer without an hour's delay. Captain Bergen learned from Inez that she had no relatives on board the steamer, and she did not show any special distress over being where she was. But, for all that, the honest New Englander felt that she should be restored, and he immediately took every means for doing so. His supposition was that she would be speedily missed from the _Polynesia_, which would at once make search for the schooner. Accordingly, the _Coral_ was headed northwest, under all sail, the sun just rising at the time this change of course was made. "The steamer will go so much faster than we," said the captain, "that there is no possibility of overhauling her, unless her shaft should give out again." "There's no danger of that. More likely she'll turn about and look for us." As the sun climbed the heavens, the horizon was anxiously scanned for some point where the black column of a steamer's smokestack could be seen staining the clear sky. Far away to the northward, a vapor was observed, which at first was set down as the sight for which they were searching; but it was soon learned that it was a peculiarly-formed cloud, resting almost upon the water. The upper rigging and sails of possibly an American whaler were descried a long distance to the northward, and a full-rigged ship was detected closer in, and further to the eastward. But no sign of the _Polynesia_ was discovered through the powerful binocular glasses with which Captain Bergen swept the horizon. There was strong hope, in spite of this, that she would be seen before sunset, and the _Coral_ held to her course toward the southwest, not only for that day and night, but for the two succeeding ones. But it is useless to dwell upon the search made by the smaller vessel, which was without the faintest glimmer of success. Captain Bergen and Mate Storms did their utmost to undo the wrong act of their sailors, but at the end of the third day they held an anxious consultation as to what was the right course left to pursue. They had given up hope of meeting the _Polynesia_ except by chasing her all the way to Japan, they having learned that Tokio was her destination. Should the _Coral_ follow her there, or first fulfil its own destiny in the Paumotu Islands? This was the all-important matter to be settled. When a man makes a great invention or discovery, his first dread is that some one else will anticipate him and gather to himself all the glory and profit. This had been a constant fear in the case of the captain and mate of the schooner _Coral_ ever since they began their preparations for the journey to the South Seas. It cost them a pang of dread when, therefore, they headed the schooner about in the hunt for the steamer, for, as will be readily understood, the apprehension of which we have spoken intensifies the nearer one gets to the goal. There were other considerations which entered into the question as to whether they should go on or turn about. Inez Hawthorne had, as might have been expected, adapted herself to her new position as passenger on the schooner, and ran hither and thither at will, just as she did on the _Polynesia_, and she climbed all over the captain and mate, as if they were Captain Strathmore and his officer, or some of the passengers. She occasionally expressed a longing to see the grizzled old sea-captain, whom she called her second, or new "papa," but there was no one else for whom she particularly longed. Her affection was distributed so equally and spontaneously that among several hundred it could not be very profound. Only in the case of the brave old Captain Strathmore was it deep and steadfast. It would delay the voyage to the Pearl Islands not for weeks, but for months, to sail away to Asia, and then turn about and put back to the southern seas, and during that interval what might not take place? What assurance could there be that the precious pearl-bed would not be devastated? With the plans which Abe Storms had perfected on the way from home, it was believed that a week's time after their arrival at their destination would be sufficient to make them enormously wealthy, and thus the voyage which they would afterward take to Japan would be delayed only a month or two, perhaps. Furthermore, the parents and friends of Inez would have every reason to believe she was in safe hands, and would soon be restored to them. All these were weighty considerations, it must be confessed, and they decided the question. "We have done all that can be done," said Captain Bergen, standing at the stern with his hand upon the wheel, while Abe Storms, thoughtfully smoking his pipe, was at his elbow, with his arms folded and his eyes gazing dreamily toward the western horizon, where the sun was about to dip into the ocean. "I agree with you," was the reply of his mate, who was as conscientious in everything he did as was the captain. "I consider that the chance is as one in a thousand that we shall meet the steamer this side of Tokio, and if we undertake to follow, we shall lose several months of most precious time, without accomplishing any commensurate good. The child is contented and happy here." As if to emphasize this assertion, the laugh of Inez was heard at that moment as she came bounding up the steps of the cabin, and ran toward the bow, where the giant negro, Pomp, was leaning against the gunwale, his arms also folded, and an expression of contentment upon his broad, shiny countenance. The instant he caught sight of Inez his face lighted up and his white, even teeth were displayed with pleasure, as she ran toward him. It was singular, indeed, that, ever since her first awaking on board the _Coral_, Inez had shown not a positive dislike of Redvig and Brazzier, but what may be called a lack of friendship toward them. She was trusting and loving to Pomp and the two officers, but it was evident that she avoided the others. Possibly she could not have told the reason had she tried, and it is equally possible that she was not aware of it herself. But every one else on board saw it plainly. When two men in authority talk as did the captain and mate of the schooner _Coral_, the conclusion is inevitable. The decision was made to go on to the Paumotu Islands, after which the voyage would be made to Japan, and, alas! that it was so. CHAPTER IX GROPING IN THE DARK Life on board the schooner _Coral_, bound for the South Seas, now became like one delightful dream. The sails, fanned by the steady trade-wind, hardly ever required attention, since the course of the craft never varied more than a few points for days at a time, and whoever it was at the wheel, he might as well have lashed it fast and gone to sleep, for all the necessity there was of keeping awake. There had been some elemental disturbances which required seamanship to weather, but nothing like that usually encountered in the Atlantic. But there came a long spell of weather, faultless in every respect, and whose only drawback was the dread that each day would be the last of such delight. The sun rose clear and bright, and at high noon, as they approached the equator, it was sometimes hot, but the breeze which continually swept the deck tempered it to the crew and passenger. Had they been caught in a calm the heat would have been suffocating; but Providence favored them, and they sped along like a seagull toward their destination. There seemed to be times when the green surface of the sea was at perfect rest; but the regular rising and sinking of the _Coral_ showed that the bosom of the great deep was heaving as it always does, though the long swells came only at extended intervals. The water was of crystalline clearness, and, looking over the gunwale, one could see far into the depths, where strange-looking fish were sporting, sometimes coming to the surface and then shooting far down beyond the reach of human vision. Now and then, too, as little Inez leaned over the side of the vessel and peered downward, she caught sight of something like a shadow, gliding hither and thither, apparently without the slightest effort to keep pace with the schooner, which was bowling along at a rapid rate. It was one of those monstrous sharks, that will snap a man in two as quickly as if he were but an apple, should he fall overboard. Not a day passed without descrying one or more sails at varying distances, but our friends did not hail or approach any. Both Captain Bergen and Mate Storms were in a nervous condition, and were morbidly apprehensive of being anticipated by some one in dredging for the invaluable pearl-oysters. They were afraid their errand would be suspected, or they would be attacked after they should secure their prize. One day, under the pretense of wanting medicine, Hyde Brazzier suddenly appeared at the cabin door. The mate and captain were, as usual, studying the chart, and while the mate was ransacking the medicine chest for the drug, that single eye of the sailor secured five minutes' sharp scrutiny of the all-important map. Redvignez and Brazzier were not much together, as a matter of course, for one was in the captain's watch and the other in the mate's, but during the long, pleasant days and nights when they were voyaging toward the South Seas, they obtained many opportunities for confidential talks. All this might have been in the natural order of things on board the schooner, where the discipline was not strict, but Abe Storms had become pretty well satisfied that harm was meant, and mischief was brewing. He saw it in the looks and manner of these two men, who, while they were watching others, did not suspect they were watched in turn. About Pomp he was not so certain. The steward and cook seemed to be on good terms with the two sailors, and he frequently sat with them as they formed a little group forward, on the bright moonlight nights, when they preferred to sit thus and smoke and spin yarns to going below and catching slumber, when it was their privilege to do so. "I believe he is in with them," was the conclusion which Storms, the mate, finally reached, after watching and listening as best he could for several days. "They're hatching some conspiracy--most likely a mutiny to take possession of the ship. Captain Bergen doesn't suspect it--he is so absorbed in the pearl business; and I'll let him alone for the present, though it may be best to give him a hint or two to keep him on his guard." It never can be known what the restraining power of little Inez Hawthorne was on board that vessel on her extraordinary voyage to the Paumotu Islands, in the South Seas. She lived over again the same life that was hers during the few days spent on the _Polynesia_. She ran hither and thither, climbing into dangerous places at times, but with such grace and command of her limbs that she never once fell or even lost her balance. She chatted and laughed with Brazzier and Redvig, but she preferred the others, and showed it so plainly in her manner, that, unfortunately, the two could not avoid noticing it. "See here," said Captain Bergen, one evening while sitting in the cabin with the child on his knee, "I want you to try and think hard and answer me all the questions I ask you. Will you?" "Of course I will, if you don't ask too hard ones." "Well, I will be easy as I can. You have told me all about the big steamer that you were on when we found you, and you said that you lived with your Uncle Con in San Francisco, and that it was he and your Aunt Jemima that put you on board." "I didn't say any such thing!" indignantly protested Inez. "I haven't got any Aunt Jemima--it was my Aunt Letitia." The captain and mate smiled, for a little piece of strategy had succeeded. They had never before got the girl to give the name of her aunt, though she mentioned that of her uncle. But she now spoke it, her memory refreshed by the slight teasing to which she was subjected. "That's very good. I'm glad to learn that your uncle and aunt had two such pretty names as Con and Letitia Bumblebee." "Ain't you ashamed of yourself?" demanded Inez, turning upon him with flashing eyes. "I never heard of such a funny name as that." "I beg pardon. What, then, is their name?" The little head was bent and the fair brow wrinkled with thought. She had tried the same thing before, though it must be believed that she could not have tried very hard, or she would not have failed to remember the name of those with whom she lived but a short time before. But she used her brain to its utmost now, and it did not take her long to solve the question. In a few seconds she looked up and laughed. "Of course I know their name. It was Hermann, though he sometimes called himself George Smith." "The other sounds German," remarked Storms, in a lower voice. "Go ahead and get all you can from her." "How long did you live with them?" "Let me see," said Inez, as she turned her lustrous blue eyes toward the roof of the cabin, as if she expected to read the answer there. "I guess it was about two--three hundred years." She was in earnest, and Storms observed: "She must be a little off on that; but take another tack." The captain did so. "Do you remember living with any one excepting your Uncle George and Aunt Letitia?" Inez thought hard again, and replied, after a few seconds: "I don't know. Sometimes he was Uncle George and sometimes Uncle Con. We lived in the city a good while, where there were, oh, such lots of houses! but there was a time before that when we come such a long, long way in the cars. We rode and rode, and I guess we must have come from the moon, for we was ten years on the road." "Do you remember what sort of looking place the moon was?" "It was just like San Francisco--that is, it was full of houses." The officers looked at each other with a smile, and the mate said: "It's plain enough what that means. She has come from New York, over the Union Pacific, and her trip was probably the longest of her life." "Do you remember your father and mother?" "I don't know," said Inez, with a look of perplexity on her young face which it was not pleasant to see. "Sometimes I remember or dream of them, before we took such a long ride on the cars. My mother used to hold me on her lap and kiss me, and so did my father, and then there was crying, and something dreadful happened in the house, and then I can't remember anything more until I was on the cars." "It may be all right," said Captain Bergen to his mate, "for this could occur without anything being amiss." "It is possible; but I have a conviction that there is something wrong about the whole business. I believe, in short, that the person who placed her on board the steamer _Polynesia_ had no claim upon her at all." "That, in fact, the man stole her?" "That's it, exactly; and still further, I don't believe she has any father or mother in Japan, and that if we had gone thither we should have lost all the time and accomplished nothing." "It may be, Abe, that you are right," said the captain, who held a great admiration for his mate, "but I must say you can build a fraud and conspiracy on the smallest foundation of any man I ever knew. But, Abe, you may be right, I say, and if you are, it's just as well that we didn't go on a fool's errand to Tokio, after all." "The truth will soon be known, captain." CHAPTER X THE MUTINEERS A few degrees south of the equator, the schooner _Coral_ ran into a tempest of such fury that with all the skilful seamanship of her captain and crew, and the admirable qualities of the schooner itself, she narrowly escaped foundering. There were two days when she was in such imminent peril that not an eye was closed in slumber, excepting in the case of little Inez Hawthorne, who felt the situation only to the extent that it compelled her to stay close in the cabin, while the vessel pitched and tossed from the crest of one tremendous billow, down, seemingly, into the fathomless depths between, and then laboriously climbed the mountain in front, with the spray and mist whirling about the deck and rigging like millions of fine shot. But the gallant _Coral_ rode it out safely, and the steady breeze caught her and she sped swiftly in the direction of the Pearl Islands. The little girl had run hither and thither, until, tired out, she had flung herself upon the berth in the cabin, where she was sleeping soundly, while the captain was doing the same; Abe Storms, the mate, being on deck at the wheel. It was yet early in the evening, and Hyde Brazzier and Alfredo Redvignez were sitting close together, forward, smoking their pipes and conversing in low tones. The breeze was almost directly abeam, so that the sails carried the craft along at a rapid rate, the water foaming and curling from the bow, while the rising and sinking of the schooner on the enormous swells were at such long intervals as almost to be imperceptible. As far as the eye could extend in every direction, no glimpse of a sail or light could be perceived, nor had any been observed through the day, which confirmed what Bill Grebbens, the sailor in the Boston hospital, said, to the effect that, despite the location of the Paumotu Islands, the approach to them from the direction of California took one in a section where the sails of commerce were rarely seen. The captain and mate had been consulting their chart, and had taken their reckoning more frequently and with greater care than ever before. The conclusion at which they arrived was that they were already south of the northernmost island of the Paumotu group, and were close to the Coral Island, along whose shore were to be found the precious pearls which were to make them all, or rather the two, wealthy. "It's a curious business," reflected Abe Storms, while holding the wheel motionless. "When I consider the matter fairly, I don't see why the expedition should not succeed. But it is so different from the coasting business, in which the captain and I have been engaged for years, that it is hard to believe we're going to make anything out of it." He listened a minute to the murmur of the voices forward, and then he added, pursuing the same train of thought: "What an extraordinary thing it is that we should have this little girl for a passenger! Suppose we carry her back to Tokio after this pearl hunt, and fail to find her parents?" He took but a minute to consider the question, when he answered: "It can never make any difference to Inez herself, for her sweet face and winning ways will secure her a welcome and a home in a hundred different places." While the mate was indulging in these fancies and reveries, Brazzier and Redvignez were holding an important conference forward. "I'm sure we won't have much further to sail," observed the Spaniard, with a slightly broken accent. "We're in the latitude of the Paumotus." "Have you ever been there?" asked his companion. "No; but I know something about them, and then you had a glimpse of the chart, which they're continually looking at, and I'm certain from what you said that the particular spot we're after isn't far off." "I conclude you're right, more from the way they're acting than anything else. I wish I could get hold of that chart." "What would you do?" asked Redvignez, with a significant side-glance at his companion. "What would I do? Why, I wouldn't wait--that's all." "I don't see as it will make much difference," said the other, in the most matter-of-fact voice, as he coolly puffed his pipe. "We might as well take them there and make sure of the spot, before we knock them in the head." Brazzier gave a contemptuous sniff and a vicious puff of his pipe, and remarked: "Did you ever see two such fools, Redvig?" He continued, with mock solemnity: "Beware of the temptations of wealth. Behold those two specimens, who have come all the way from Boston to fish for pearls in the Paumotu Islands. Some old sailor had the secret, and told the captain about it, and he has told his friend, and they have formed a partnership and hired us to go with them to dredge up the oysters." "What is there so foolish in all that?" asked the Spaniard, with a grin, which showed his white teeth in the moonlight. "Nothing; for you or I would have done the same had we been placed in their shoes. But we would have shown more sense than they. They believe we do not suspect what their business is; and yet we both understand the whole thing. Here we are within a few hours' sail of the spot, and what's to be done?" The Spaniard indulged in a light laugh, and replied: "To think that we should consent to take twenty-five dollars a month, while they scooped in their thousands--their millions--it strikes me sometimes as the greatest joke I ever heard. But, Brazzier, the best plan is for us to be good boys, and go on to the island and help take up the pearls; for then we shall be sure of the right spot, and there shall be no mistake; whereas, if we should take possession now, we might miss the place, even with the help of the chart." "I don't know but what you're right, Redvig, though it galls me to wait. You know a lot of us took charge of the _Spitfire_, and set the captain and first-mate adrift, off Valparaiso. You were in favor of waiting, and it was well if we had done so, for we came nearer running our necks into the halter that time than we ever did since, and there wasn't anything aboard the old hulk that was worth the saving." "But what about Pomp?" asked Redvig, in a half-whisper, and with an accent which showed that he considered the question of the highest importance. "Is he all right?" "You needn't have any fear about him. I had a long talk with him last night, and we shook hands on the question." The negro was an important factor in this business, for, a giant in stature and strength, whichever side he precipitated himself and his prowess upon was sure to win--judging from the ordinary human standpoint. Pomp, as we have hinted further back, was not an African with a perfectly clear record. The rumors about his belonging to a gang of river pirates in San Francisco were correct, and he had been engaged in some deeds which were of a character that the law puts the severest ban upon. He was known to be daring, and possessed such prodigious power, united to activity, that, beyond a doubt, if he were placed upon an even footing, he could have conquered the captain, mate and the two sailors, without any special effort upon his own part. The importance of his declaring himself can therefore be understood. He was a far better man than either of the two Caucasians, who hesitated about approaching him. As it had to be done, however, the matter was skilfully broached, after they had left San Francisco and were sailing southward. It was agreed by the two mutineers that, if the negro held off, he was to be gotten rid of by some treachery, though it was such a serious matter that they hesitated long as to how it could be safely accomplished. To their surprise and delight, however, Pomp listened eagerly to the project and expressed his willingness to go into it, though he insisted there should be no murdering done, as he was not base enough at heart to wish the death of either of the officers. Brazzier consented; but in doing so he deceived the negro. A mutiny, such as he contemplated, could never be carried to a successful conclusion without disposing finally and forever of the two officers themselves. If they should be spared, the mutineers would never be safe. But Pomp was misled from the first, because it was believed he could be won over before the time came to strike the blow. Redvignez set himself very skilfully to do so, for Pomp was ignorant and exceedingly greedy for wealth. Redvignez began by telling him of a large number of fictitious mutinies, in which the mutineers had made their fortunes and lived happy and respected afterwards, and the narrator made certain to impress upon the African the fact that the job was rendered a perfect one by following out the proverb that dead men tell no tales. Then he incidentally mentioned others in which the mutineers came to grief, all from the fact that they allowed themselves to be controlled by a foolish sentiment of mercy. The evil seed thus sown did not fail to take root and bring forth its fruit, just as the sower intended. These little incidents were multiplied, and by-and-by Pomp was told that there was but one way in which to secure the enormous riches that lay in the little bay in the South Seas, awaiting their coming, and that was by making themselves complete masters of the situation. The negro could not mistake the meaning of this, and, after a feeble opposition, he gave his assent, and said he would help carry out the terrible programme, as it had been arranged from the first. It was certainly very curious how the coming of little Inez Hawthorne upon the ship threatened for awhile to disarrange every plan; but so it was. There was a time when the better nature of the two evil men asserted itself, and they began to consider the question in the light of their awakened consciences; but these divine monitors were only roused into temporary wakefulness and speedily dropped asleep again. The manifest distrust which Inez showed toward them seemed to fill their hearts with the most atrocious feelings, and neither of them would have hesitated to fling her overboard, had the opportunity been given. Incredible as it may seem, it is the fact that they would have preferred to do so, being restrained by the simple question of policy. They saw that Pomp had grown very fond of her, and any such action on their part might alienate him--a catastrophe which they were anxious to avert above everything else. "You say he shook hands with you upon it?" repeated Redvignez. "What does all that mean?" "It means that he is with us heart and soul. He sees the necessity of putting the captain and mate out of the way, and he will help do it." "But what about the little girl--the viper?" "It was a bad thing for us, Redvig, when we played that little trick, for I have been ready to despair more than once, but the remedy is so simple that I wonder we have not thought of it before." "How is that?" "We will spare her, for Pomp gave me to understand that on no other conditions would he go into it. She will be a pleasant playmate for him, and will help keep him true to us. She is so young and simple-hearted that we can make her believe that some accident has befallen the other two, by which they came to their death, so there will be no danger from anything she ever can tell. When we have gathered in all the pearls we will set sail for South America. At Valparaiso or some of the ports we will place the girl in some convent or school, with enough money to take care of her, and then we will land at another port, sell the schooner, divide up the proceeds and separate, each taking a different route home, if we choose to go there, and then all we'll have to do, Redvig, is to enjoy the wealth which shall be ours." "How much do you think it will be?" asked the Spaniard, with sparkling eyes. "There is no telling," was the reply. "I hardly dare think, but I know it runs into the hundreds of thousands, and it is not at all impossible that it touches the millions." Redvignez drew a deep breath and his heart gave a great throb, as would be the case with the most phlegmatic being who contemplated the near possession of such vast wealth. Visions of the wild round of dissipation and excesses in which they would indulge came up before the two evil men, and it was no wonder that they were impatient for the hour to come when they should strike the blow for the prize. Like the officers, they were so full of the scheme that they had no desire to sleep; and while the figure of Mr. Storms was visible at the wheel, and the _Coral_ sped on to the southward over the calm, moonlit sea, these two men talked about and agreed upon the particulars of the frightful crime which had been in their hearts, as may be said, from the moment they hoisted sail and passed out of San Francisco harbor. CHAPTER XI CAPTAIN BERGEN MAKES TWO IMPORTANT DISCOVERIES Before the faintest streak of light appeared in the eastern horizon, Captain Bergen was awake and in the rigging, with the binocular glasses in his hand. The most careful computation showed they were in latitude about 19 south and longitude 140 west. They had passed to the eastward of the Mendina Archipelago, catching a glimpse of one of the islands, where the mate proposed they should touch and obtain some supplies. But the captain was too eager to push ahead, and Grebbens had told him that one peculiarity about the little island which was their destination was that it contained fresh water, with some tropical fruit, while there could be no difficulty in catching all the fish they wished. Since the island was altogether uninhabited, and very rarely visited, it would have been a good thing for the party could the suggestion of the mate have been carried out. But it was the conviction of Captain Bergen that they would not spend more than two weeks at the fishery--if such it might be called--and, under the circumstances, it cannot be said he was imprudent. Steadying himself with one arm about the mast, the captain stood firmly in his elevated position, and, as the sun came slowly up and the golden radiance spread over the sky and sea, he swept the arch of the horizon to the south, east and west, straining his keen vision for the first sight of the eagerly-wished-for land. "Water, water," he murmured, despondingly. "Water everywhere, and no sight of the haven! Hello!" His heart gave a great bound, for, just in the edge of the horizon--at the very point where ocean and sky met--he saw a dark substance, like a fleecy vapor, no bigger than a man's hand. "It may be a cloud," said the captain to himself, as he carefully scrutinized it, "and it may be land; and, by the great horn spoon, it is land! Land ho!" "Where away?" called back Storms, from below, quite confident what the answer would be. "Two points on the weather-bow." The mate headed toward the point indicated, and then silence reigned for awhile on board, excepting in the case of Inez, who bounded up on deck, and was here, there and everywhere. The captain was left to himself, for Abe Storms knew he would come down and report as soon as he had anything definite; and, in the nature of things, he could know nothing positive for a considerable time to come. As the _Coral_ sped forward--sometimes on the long, sloping crest of an immense swell, and then again in the valley between--the captain saw and thought of nothing else but the little island ahead, which was slowly rising out of the ocean. He had discovered that it was circular in shape, quite small, and fringed with vegetation. This corresponded, in a general way, with the description given by the sailor in the hospital; but there are hundreds of other islands in the South Seas to which the same description will apply, and it was not impossible that the _Coral_ was many a long league astray. "When I was on the island, ten years ago," said Grebbens, "I found remains of a ship that had been wrecked there but a short time before. There was a portion of the mast, which we managed to erect by scooping a deep hole in the beach and then packing the sand about the base. On the top of this we kept our signal of distress flying, in the hope of catching the notice of some passing vessel, as was the case after a long while. It was my jacket which fluttered from the top of that mast, and the old garment has been blown away long ago; but I don't know any reason why the pole itself shouldn't be standing, and if it is, you will find it on the right of the entrance to the lagoon." The island, it will be understood, was an atoll--that is, a circular fringe of coral, with a lagoon of the sea inside which was entered through a comparatively narrow passage from the ocean. The atoll to which the old sailor referred was extensive enough to furnish fresh water and fruit, while at the entrance, and in other places, there was a sufficient depth of sand to afford secure "anchorage" for the pole which they erected. Peering through the spy-glass, Captain Bergen could see the white line where the sea beat against the coral shores and was rolled back again in foam. And while he was gazing, his practiced eye detected a gap in the line of breakers--that is, a spot where the white foam did not show itself. This must necessarily be the opening through which the ocean flowed into the lagoon within the island. Since it met with no opposition, it swept inward with a smooth, grand sweep, which proved that the water was deep and without any obstruction. "Suppose he deceived me?" Captain Bergen asked himself the question while he was scanning the island. It was the first time the thought suggested that maybe the sailor, dying in the Boston hospital, had told him an untruth, and such a shuddering, overwhelming feeling of disappointment came over the poor fellow at that moment that he grew dizzy and sick at heart, and came nigh losing his balance. "No, it cannot be," he repeated, rallying himself, with a great effort. "I have a better opinion of human nature than that." His glasses were still pointed in the direction of the island, and he was peering with an intensity that was painful at the spot where the dark break in the foamy breakers showed the entrance to the atoll, when he detected a black, needle-like column which rose from the beach at one side of the entrance. It was so thin that he could not make sure it was not some trick of his straining vision, and in doubt as to its reality, he relieved his aching eye by removing the glass for a moment and looking down on the deck beneath him. He saw Redvignez and Brazzier standing at the bow, also gazing toward the island, which was plainly visible from the deck. They occasionally spoke, but their tones were so low that no word could be distinguished by any ears excepting those for which they were intended. Mr. Storms was at his post, and as Pomp and Inez were invisible, the conclusion was inevitable that they were in the cabin, whence issued the appetizing odor of cooking fish, and where no doubt the young lady was receiving the attention which she expected as her right. At this instant a peculiar experience came to the captain of the yacht _Coral_. A slight flaw in the breeze, which was bearing the vessel forward, caused the sails to flap, and must have made a sort of funnel of one of them for the moment; or rather, as may be said, it made a temporary whispering gallery of the deck and rigging of the craft. And being such, it bore the following ominous words to Captain Bergen, uttered, as they were, by Hyde Brazzier in a most guarded undertone: "We shall be the two richest men in America!" Captain Bergen was in that state of intense nervous sensibility in which his perceptions were unnaturally acute, and he felt, on the instant the words struck his ear, that they had a frightful meaning. The two continued their cautious conference, but the sail favored acoustics no longer, and the listener did not catch another syllable. "They mean to kill Abe and me," he said to himself, "and run away with the pearls. If they had determined to be honest men, and we had secured any particular amount of wealth, they would have been rewarded liberally. Forewarned is forearmed." Captain Bergen was a brave man, and there was no fear of his displaying any shrinking in the crisis which was evidently close at hand. Once more he raised the glass to his eye and gazed toward the inlet of the atoll. During the few minutes that he had spent in looking down upon the deck and listening, the schooner had made good speed, and the island was less than a half mile distant. When the instrument was pointed toward the place, he saw clearly and unmistakably the figure of the mast standing beside the inlet, where it had been placed years before by Grebbens and his companions. This, then, was Pearl Island, as the New Englanders had named it; and here it was that the bed of pearl oysters of fabulous richness was to be found. Something like a feeling of depression came over the captain when he realized that the land of promise had risen on his vision at last. For days, weeks and months this had been the one absorbing theme of his mind. He had dreamed of it until he was almost, if not quite, a monomaniac, and he had built air-castles until the whole sky of his vision was filled with gorgeous structures. And it should be added, in justice to both Bergen and Storms, that these structures were creditable to the builders; for, realizing in the fullest sense that about all they could extract personally from riches was their own board and lodging, they had perfected a number of colossal schemes for benefiting humanity; indeed, charity was the foundation-stone of all these castles. And now, after these long months of waiting, he seemed to see the wealth lying within his grasp, and something like a reaction came to him. "Is it worth all this?" he asked himself. "Is the gain likely to pay for the peril in which we have placed ourselves?" Still further, the ominous words which he had overheard impressed him vividly with the impending danger in which he and his mate were placed. He saw now that in taking Brazzier and Redvignez he had taken two mutineers aboard, and two who, in all probability, had won the giant African, Pomp, over to their side. What was to be the outcome of all this? CHAPTER XII IN THE HAVEN AT LAST As Captain Bergen descended the rigging to the deck of the schooner he was greatly depressed, for the conviction was strong upon him that in entering this promised land--as he had sometimes termed the little circle of coral and earth which he had named Pearl Island--he would never leave it. The immense wealth which lay hidden along its coast, awaiting the coming of some one to gather it, would never be carried away by those who had already come more than half-way round the globe to garner it. As the captain stepped upon deck, Redvignez and Brazzier respectfully saluted him, and looked as if they were the most loyal of sailors. Captain Bergen forced himself to respond to their salute, and then he walked quietly over to where Abe stood at the wheel. "Well, what do you make of it?" asked the mate, in a low voice. "It's the island!" replied Bergen. "Are you sure of it?" "Yes; there can be no doubt. I made out the landmark that Grebbens told me would identify it beyond all question. That's the mast which they erected on the shore, close to the inlet. You can see it without the glass," added the captain, turning about and looking in that direction. Such was the case, and Storms observed it plainly. "What's the matter, captain?" asked the mate, bringing his gaze back to the face of his friend, and scrutinizing him keenly. "You look pale and agitated. Have your nerves given out after this strain?" "Abe," said the captain, in a carefully-guarded voice, and glancing over his shoulder, "I learned, a few minutes ago, that those two men forward intend to mutiny and run away with the pearls." "Is that all? Why, I knew that weeks ago!" "You did?" demanded the astounded captain. "Why, then, didn't you tell me?" "I thought it was better to wait till we reached the island, by which time their plans were likely to be more fully developed." "That sort of reasoning I don't understand," said the captain, anything but pleased with his mate. "But never mind about it now. Tell me what you have learned." "Not a great deal more than you have told. Those two men, I am satisfied, are old acquaintances, who have been partners in more than one crime, though we supposed them strangers at the time we shipped them; and I have no doubt they began planning our deaths from the day we sailed out of San Francisco harbor." "What about Pomp?" "They had a hard time, but they have won him over, and he is pledged to go with them." "And you have tried to gain the good will of Pomp?" "I have done my utmost, and have treated him with unusual leniency, making him many presents, some of which I gave him to understand came from you. But they've got him, for all that. There's our greatest safeguard." As the mate spoke, he pointed to Inez, who, at that moment, came bounding up the steps of the cabin and ran laughing forward. "Pomp thinks all the world of her, and she will be the peacemaker, perhaps." "But don't they like her as well?" "No; they wouldn't hesitate any more over killing her than they would in killing us." "The villains!" muttered the horrified captain. "I never conceived it possible that any human being could fail to love such beauty and innocence as hers." "There is no immediate danger," said the mate, somewhat surprised to observe how completely the discovery had taken possession of the mind of the captain. "Let's give our attention now to the business upon which we came, and there will be time enough to think of the other matter between now and nightfall." Captain Bergen was sorely perplexed, but the circumstances were such that he was able to follow the suggestion of his faithful mate. They were now close to the island, which was of that singular formation so frequently seen in the Pacific. Countless millions of tiny insects, toiling through many years, had gradually lifted the foundations of coral from the depths of the ocean, until the mass, in the form of a gigantic ring or horse-shoe, was above the surface. Upon this had gradually gathered sand, seeds and vegetable matter, in the usual way, until beneath the tropical sun and the balmy climate the "desert blossomed like the rose." This took a long while, but the process it went through was similar to that of hundreds of much larger islands which to-day rest like nosegays upon the bosom of the vast Pacific. Among these fruits were the banana, plantain, breadfruit, and a sort of mango, found in Farther India, and which, at first disliked, becomes in time a great favorite with every one. Most singular of all was the fact that at two widely-separated points burst forth a spring of clear, fresh water. One might well wonder where the supply for this came from, since the whole island had its foundation in salt water--but there are many strange distillations going on at all times in nature's laboratory beyond the power of man to fathom. These were probably stored away in some of the hidden vaults of the island, and bubbled forth, the fountain being renewed before the precious contents were exhausted. The entrance to the interior was through a deep passage, toward which Mr. Storms directed the vessel. As the _Coral_ glided into this "inland sea," Captain Bergen took the helm, being as familiar with the contour of the atoll as if he had spent a dozen years upon it. He knew where the best anchorage was to be found, and he headed over toward the eastern shore, where it was safe to run close enough in to spring from the deck to the land. He was a good seaman, and he brought his craft to with as much skill as a stage-driver brings his team to a halt before the door of an inn. The anchor was let go at the proper moment, and the _Coral_ slowly swung at her mooring in the very position her master desired, both bow and stern being so close to shore that there would be no occasion to use the small boat which is generally called into requisition on such occasions. The scenery and situation were peculiar and novel in the highest degree. These atolls are the natural harbors of the ocean, and if any vessel can run through the openings into the calm waters within, she may ride in safety from the severest tempest. The water within the lagoon was as calm as the surface of a mill-pond. On every hand rose the trees and vegetation so dense that the only portion where a glimpse of the ocean could be caught was at the entrance, which, it would seem, the builders of the island had left on purpose for the ingress and exit of endangered shipping. Despite the alarming discovery which Captain Bergen had made but a short time previous, he carried out the purpose formed weeks before, and which the mate urged him to fulfil. The schooner having been secured in position and everything put in ship-shape order, he addressed the three men who composed the crew: "My friends, when I engaged you to go upon this voyage, I did not tell you whither, and you may think it is late in the day to give you such information, now that we have reached our destination. Some time ago, before I sailed, I received information that a bed of oysters existed at a certain portion of this island unusually rich in pearls. It is to obtain them I have come, and now I wish to say, what I determined to say from the first, that if you work faithfully, and give me all the assistance you can, each of you three shall receive enough to make you rich for life. In an enterprise of this kind the business is a partnership, and you shall be liberally treated, provided you prove worthy." During the utterance of these words, both the captain and the mate carefully watched the faces of the three men to see the effect produced. Had the African been alone he would have been won over, and as it was he turned about in an inquiring way, and looked toward the two men as if seeking to see how they took it. Their countenances were so immobile that he gained no information from the looks there; but both the officers did. Abe Storms, especially, was a skilful physiognomist, and that which he saw convinced him that the speech, coming as it did, was a mistake. As is frequently the case, it was accepted as an evidence of timidity on the part of the officers, and the conspirators were given a confidence which otherwise would not have been theirs. "It was a blunder," whispered Storms, when the captain stepped beside him. "Those wretches mean mischief, and it is coming within twenty-four hours." CHAPTER XIII THE OYSTER BED Little Inez Hawthorne was overrunning with delight at the prospect of a romp on shore, after having been confined so long in the cramped quarters of the schooner, and she was darting hither and thither, eager to start upon her frolic. "I say, captain," said Hyde Brazzier, bowing profoundly and with great humility, "we be greatly surprised by what you tell us about the pearls, and we are very much obliged for your kindness, which the same is a great deal more than we expected; but it has set us all topsy-turvy, as we may say. If it's all the same, we would like to go and take a look at that same pearl-oyster bed, if it isn't inconvenient." The captain and mate both understood the meaning of this, for it showed only too clearly how impatient the men were to commit the crime which they had in mind. Still, there was no excuse for refusal, and the officers were anxious enough to see the place for themselves. Each had his revolver carefully shoved into his pocket, and each knew that the six chambers were fully charged, when they sprang over the vessel's side and started toward the northernmost part of the island. The captain and mate led the way, for they were sure they were in no personal danger so long as the oyster-bed remained undiscovered. The fringe of coral trees was quite broad, but, as the little party made their way through them, they could catch the gleam of the water on each side, while the roar and boom of the breakers never ceased. The sun seemed to linger in the horizon to their left, as if to guide them in the search they were making. As they advanced, all observed that the outer rim of this fringe was very irregular, as if it had been broken up and changed by the action of fierce tempests for many decades. This peculiarity, if such it may be termed, left many places where the ocean was as calm as within the atoll, and it was in one of these that the oyster-bed for which they were searching was to be found. Mate and captain advanced quite spiritedly for some distance, until they were close to the northernmost portion, when they hesitated, slackened their gait, looked to the right and left, conferred in low tones, and then the captain suddenly exclaimed: "This looks like the spot!" The words were scarcely out of his mouth when the two men dashed down the slight slope, ran a short distance, and then abruptly halted close to the water's edge, at a point where the sea was locked in so that it was only slightly disturbed by the ordinary swell. Close behind them were Redvignez and Brazzier, while Pomp brought up the rear. The three men exchanged only a word or two while following, and those were heard by the leaders, because they were of no significance, but it is safe to conclude they did a great deal of thinking. The five grouped themselves along the water, standing side by side and peering down into the depths before them. This perhaps averaged three fathoms, and the water itself was as clear as crystal, without even the tinge of green generally seen in the ocean. The bottom was quite even and flat, resting upon a substratum of coral. The glinting rays of the sun helped, so that a marble could have been distinguished many fathoms down. And looking downward, the quintette saw the bottom strewn with oysters of unusual size, lying so close together that in many places they seemed to touch each other. For a full minute the five stood motionless and speechless. It was Pomp who was the first to recover his voice: "My gracious! am dem 'isters full of pearls?" "That can only be told by examination," was the quiet reply of Mr. Storms. "Dat's ruther deep to dive down, an' how 'bout sharks?" The mate smiled. "We thought of all that before we left home, Pomp." "Well, what good did all de thinkin' do? Dat won't drive away de shark, dat would as lief bite a man in two as to swaller a fish." "If you and Redvig will return to the vessel and get that coat of mail on deck, I will agree to go down there and take all the risks." The three mutineers, as they may be called, exchanged glances, but said nothing. The captain and mate noted this telegraphy of the eyes, and they, too, were silent, but it was a little test which they had determined upon before leaving the _Coral_, lying some distance away, safely moored close inshore. Evidently the three could think of no valid excuse, and Brazzier said, in a low voice, which was heard by all: "Go, men, and hurry back." Pomp started off at once, Redvignez following close behind him. The mate and captain saw they were speaking together; but, of course, it could only be conjectured what they were talking about. The three who remained behind were in an embarrassing situation, for there could be no doubt that Brazzier, the leader in the plot, had had his suspicions aroused by this little incident, and it was hard work for him to conceal a certain uneasiness at the thought that he had lost the confidence of the two officers of the _Coral_. With a view of strengthening his position, Captain Bergen took out his revolver, looked at it in an inquiring way, and then shoved it back into his hip-pocket. Abe Storms did precisely the same thing, excepting that he perhaps made a little more display about it. Not one of the three as yet had spoken a word; but Brazzier, as if to conceal his uneasiness, advanced to the edge of the water and peered down into the crystal depths at the supposed wealth which lay scattered over the bottom, awaiting the hour when some one should draw it forth from the hiding-place it had occupied for so many years. "If they've got pearls in 'em," observed Brazzier, "it'll make a good haul for us." "There is reason to think so," replied the captain, holding his peace, for he began to suspect that too much deference had already been paid to the crew. Since Pomp and Redvignez were making good time, they soon reappeared, bearing between them the coat of armor which Abe Storms had constructed before leaving his New England home. This, it may be said, was an invention peculiarly his own, containing some conveniences not generally attributed to diving-bells or armor, and which, if they withstood the test to which they were sure to be subjected, would be a great step forward in the rapid improvements that have been made in submarine armor during the last few years. A superficial examination would not discover anything out of the usual order in the make of the armor, with its bulging glass eyes and general resemblance to the coats of mail such as were used by the crusaders and knights of the middle ages. There were the two pipes, one of which went in at the top of the helmet, as if the man were going to breathe through the crown of his head, while the other was adjusted so as to come nearer the front of the face. One of these was for the admission of fresh air, and the other for the expulsion of that which was exhaled. Besides this, there was the rope, fastened around the waist of the diver, to assist him to the surface should a sudden necessity arise. But, without going into any detailed description, we may say that the ingenious New Englander had so constructed it that he required the assistance of no second person at any portion of the work. Storms immediately began adjusting the apparatus, the others standing off and looking on, for he had declined their proffers of service. The armor had never been tested, and the man might well pause, now that he was going to stake his life upon the issue, as may be said. But it was not that fact which caused the mate the most uneasiness, for his confidence in his own invention was so strong that he would not have hesitated a moment to trust himself in water of twice the depth. Indeed, the pearls were so near at hand that a very ordinary diver would have found no difficulty in bringing them up without the help of any armor at all--the latter being required by other considerations. "Now, all I want done is to allow the two upper ends of the pipes to be kept clear," said Storms, when he had adjusted the "harness" about him. "I will do the breathing for myself, provided I am not interfered with." The two ends were secured among the coral in such a way that there was no danger of their being drawn in by any action of the armor itself, and then Storms, taking an immense sheath-knife in his hand, promptly stepped off from the shore, and as promptly sank under water. It was a singular sight the four companions whom he left behind saw, when they approached to the edge of the water and looked over. The mate, incased in his armor, looked like some huge, curiously-shaped shellfish or monster, whose weight was such that he went as straight down as an arrow, and, a few seconds later, was seen bent over and moving about the bottom, loosening up the oysters. This first venture of Storms' was more in the nature of an experiment or preliminary reconnoissance. He wished to find how the land lay, as the expression goes. If everything should prove to be in good shape, he would venture down again, with a basket, and the real work of gathering the pearl-oysters would begin. As we have intimated, Abe Storms felt no misgivings concerning his armor when he moved off from solid land and was submerged in the edge of the Pacific, for he had constructed so many contrivances and machines that he had learned to understand fully what they would do before they were put to work. He carried the enormous sheath-knife in his right hand, and when his feet lightly touched the shells on the bottom, he began turning them over with the point of his knife. The depth of the water being so moderate, he found no difficulty in breathing, and indeed the conditions were such that whoever chose to collect the oysters in this armor was not likely to experience the slightest difficulty. Down where he was at work the water seemed to be of a light-yellowish tint, caused by the refraction of the sunlight as it made its way to him. He noticed the mild glow, which, of course, would steadily diminish as the sun went down, when all at once it was eclipsed so suddenly by a dark shadow that he instantly suspected the true cause. Looking upward, he saw an immense shark, certainly a dozen feet in length, that had halted and was evidently surveying with some curiosity this intruder upon his domains. The man-eater being directly over the diver, was not in the best position to use his fearful jaws with effect, but he was evidently reconnoitering with a view to hostilities. Abe observed that this shadowy figure was motionless, its fins slightly moving back and forth as if it were using them like a balancing-pole, to maintain itself motionless in position, and he marked the horridly-shaped mouth which yawned over his head. Reaching upward with his long-bladed knife, he touched it against the white belly of the monster, and then gave it a strong push. It was so keen and sharp that it entered deep into the yielding flesh and inflicted a severe wound. Just then the gigantic man-eater suspected he had committed a blunder, and with a lightning-like whirl of his huge body, he dashed out to sea, leaving a crimson trail after him. Indeed, his charge was so sudden that the huge knife was wrenched from the grasp of Abe Storms, and he was drawn forward off his balance. Had it been in the open air, he would have been hurled to the ground with great force. But he managed to recover himself, and caught a shadowy glimpse of the great shark darting off, as the knife dropped from the wound and sank to the bottom. Not wishing to lose the valuable weapon, Storms walked forward, and seeing it lying on the bottom, at a point which seemed to be the edge of the oyster-bed, he stooped over and recovered it. He had now been down a considerable while, and muttered: "The captain promised to signal me if trouble came, and he hasn't done so. But, for all that, I don't believe it will be safe for me to stay down here much longer. I may as well----" The sentence was never finished, for it received a startling interruption. The rubber pipes by which he breathed were suddenly closed, and Abe Storms knew it had been done purposely by some one above. CHAPTER XIV THE REVOLT For a brief while after the descent of the mate of the _Coral_, incased in his new diving armor, the four men above did nothing more than merely wait for his coming up. But all the time the parties were watching each other, for Captain Bergen was convinced that the crisis was at hand. The mutineers had learned where the oyster-bed was, and therefore could be no longer restrained by that consideration. They could get on without the diving-armor, though they saw how convenient it might be to have it; but, since it was connected with the shore, it could be drawn in and recovered if they should need it. The mate was down in the ocean, and the captain was standing on terra firma. What more favorable separation was likely to present itself? Here were three men against one, and the three had gained the secret which had restrained them so long. "I say," said Hyde Brazzier, "does the mate down there find things as he expected?" "We can tell that better after he comes up," was the reply of the captain, who kept his hand at his hip, where it could rest on the butt of his revolver. "But there is reason to believe that he isn't disappointed." "And he breathes through these pipes that lie here?" pursued Brazzier, while the expression on the face of Pomp and Redvignez convinced Skipper Bergen that serious mischief was coming. "You can see that without asking me," replied he, stepping back a pace or two so as to keep the men before him. "Well, if a man can't get what air he wants, what is likely to happen?" continued Brazzier, with an insolent swagger that was exasperating, following upon his fawning sycophancy. "Any fool would know that he would die." "Well, now that we've landed, I don't see as there is any need of a mate or a captain neither, with this crew--do you, boys?" And he turned toward his companions with a laugh. "Of course not. The best place for him is in Davy Jones' locker!" said Redvignez. "Now you is talkin' right!" was the characteristic comment of the negro, Pomp, who seemed the most eager of the three, when the mutiny had come to a head. It was evident that Brazzier had determined to drown the mate while he was below the surface. "The first man who interferes with those pipes I will shoot dead!" Captain Bergen spoke the words in a low voice, but there could be no mistaking his deadly earnestness. Feeling that the crisis had come, the captain determined to give the signal agreed upon with Abe Storms, which was a sudden jerk of the rope fastened to the one around the waist of the mate. The latter would understand that his presence above was needed at once. The captain was in the act of stooping over, when Redvignez sprang behind him with the stealth and agility of a cat, and struck his arm a violent blow. His purpose was to knock the revolver out of the captain's hand, so that he and his friends could secure the use of it. But he overdid the matter, for the revolver went spinning out of the captain's hand and dropped into the water, where it sank out of sight. Startled and shocked, he straightened up without giving the signal to Abe Storms below the surface. None of the party had any firearms, but Captain Bergen saw it would be madness for him to make any resistance. Without a moment's hesitation, therefore, he wheeled about and ran with all the speed of which he was capable. His flight was not altogether an aimless one, for he hoped to reach the schooner, lying an eighth of a mile away, far enough in advance of his pursuers to seize one of the rifles carefully concealed there, and to make defense against his foes. The instant he broke into a run, his pursuers did the same, uttering loud shouts, as if they were American Indians who were certain of their prey. For the time, it was a question of speed between pursuers and pursued. If the latter could reach the craft considerably ahead of the others, there was a chance of his making a successful defense against the three who were seeking his life. If he failed to attain the goal, he felt it would be all over with him, for they were not the men to show any mercy. Darting among the palm-trees, therefore, he strained every nerve to draw away from his enemies, while they strove, with equal desperation, to overtake him. It was a straight run, and comparatively an unobstructed one, for the palm-trees were far enough apart to give him a pretty fair course, which was of equal advantage to all parties. Perhaps it is possible, therefore, to imagine the anxiety with which, after running a short distance, Captain Bergen glanced over his shoulder to see how his pursuers were making out. But it is not possible to appreciate his consternation when he saw that two of them were outrunning him, and, as he had striven to his very utmost, the frightful truth was manifest that he was sure to be overtaken before he could reach the _Coral_. Those who were gaining upon him were Pomp, the negro, and Brazzier himself. But the fact that they were gaining upon him was no cause for the fugitive falling down and yielding without a struggle. He still had his sheath-knife, which he grasped with a despairing feeling as he realized, during those awful seconds, that complete, disastrous failure, instead of the brilliant success he had counted upon, had overtaken him at last. The pursuers gained rapidly, and not one-half the distance was passed, when all three of the men were almost within striking distance, for Redvignez was at the elbow of his companions. Captain Bergen looked over his shoulder, and was about to throw his back against a palm-tree, with the view of turning at bay and fighting to the last, when, like the historical John Smith of our own earlier times, his lack of attention to his feet precipitated the very fate against which he was struggling. His feet struck some obstruction, and being exhausted from his extraordinary exertion, he pitched forward and fell on his face. As he went down he was conscious of hearing two widely different sounds--one the exultant cries of the pursuers, and the other the terrified scream of a little girl. Captain Bergen attempted to rise, but Redvignez and Brazzier were upon him, and the knife of the latter was upraised with the purpose of ending the matter then and there forever, when the cry of the child was heard the second time, and little Inez sprang, like Pocahontas, between the uplifted arm and the intended victim. "Oh, don't hurt him! Please don't hurt him! Please, please don't hurt him, 'cause I love him!" pleaded the agonized child, with all the earnestness of her nature. The position of the prostrate captain attempting to rise, and the little one interceding for him, was such that the mutineer hesitated for the moment, for he could not strike without endangering her life. Seeing this, with the wonderful quickness which sometimes comes over the youngest child in such a crisis, Inez persistently forced her body with amazing quickness in the way of the poised knife as it started to descend more than once--the other two holding back for their leader to finish the work. Brazzier was a man of tigerish temper, and he became infuriated in a few seconds at this repeated baffling of his purpose. "Confound you!" he suddenly exclaimed, with a fierce execration. "If you will keep in the way, then you must take it!" The arm was drawn still further back, with the intention of carrying out this dreadful threat, when the wrist was seized in the iron grip of Black Pomp, who said: "Hold on, dere! None ob dat! De man dat hurts a ha'r ob dat little gal's head will got sot down on by me, an' mashed so flat dat he'll neber rose ag'in. Does you hear me, sah?" CHAPTER XV THE FRIEND IN NEED There was no excuse for not hearing this warning, for it was uttered in a voice loud enough to reach over the whole extent of the atoll. Both Redvignez and Brazzier were enraged at the interference, and there was an instant of time when the two were on the point of attacking him. But he was a terrible foe for any one to assail, and he would have made warm work, as they well knew, for he was not afraid of the two together. Brazzier was quick to comprehend the situation, and he refrained. "Take away the girl, then," he commanded, "so I can get at him." "I will not leave him," declared Inez, throwing her arms about the neck of the captain, who was rising to his feet. "You mean to hurt him, and you shan't hurt him without hurting me. He has been kind, and he's a good man." "Take her away," commanded Brazzier, with difficulty repressing his anger at the repeated delay. "Oh, Pomp! You won't let him hurt the captain?" pleaded Inez, turning toward him, and ready to throw her arms about his dusky neck, were it not that she was afraid to leave the captain for the moment--he having risen to his feet, while he held her hand and looked at his enemies, panting from his own great exertion, though he did not speak a word. Even in the dreadful peril which enveloped him, he was too proud to ask for mercy from such wretches. But the appeal of Inez to Pomp had produced its effect. When she turned her misty eyes upon him, and pleaded in such piteous tones for mercy, the mouth of the huge African twitched, and any one could see that a hard struggle was going on within. "If you don't keep those bad men from hurting Captain Bergen," she added, in the same impassioned manner, "I'll never speak to you--never, never, never--there!" This was accompanied by a stamp of her tiny foot, and then she burst into weeping--sobbing as if her heart would break. Hyde Brazzier stood irresolute, and seemed on the point of leaping, knife in hand, upon the captain. But the prayer of the innocent child had settled the question, and the sable Hercules sprang in front of the endangered man. "Dis 'ere thing hab gone fur 'nough; let de cap'in alone. If dere's any killin' to be done, why I'm de one dat's gwine to do it." The two mutineers were wild with fury, for this unexpected show of mercy promised to upset the whole scheme they had been hatching for weeks. Both Redvignez and Brazzier protested vehemently, seeking to show that it was imperatively necessary that both the officers should be put out of the way, and that since the mate was gone, it was the sheerest folly to allow the captain to remain. But the words were thrown away. The prayer of little Inez Hawthorne had reached the heart of the gigantic African, and the sight of the child standing there weeping was more than he could bear, although it but served to add to the exasperation of the other two savages. Captain Bergen did not stand mute and motionless during all this rush of events, which really occupied but a few seconds. As soon as he saw the way open, he took the hand of little Inez and began moving in the direction of the schooner, his purpose being to secure refuge upon that if possible. As he moved away he saw Pomp and the two mutineers in conference, for Brazzier and Redvignez at that moment would have given a large share of their prospective wealth for the purpose of disposing finally and forever of the captain. "We have been in mutinies before, Pomp, and the only safe course--and that ain't safe by any means--is to follow the rule that dead men tell no tales." "Dat may be de rule, but it ain't gwine to work in dis case; an' de reason am 'cause de little gal dere don't want it done. You can talk an' argufy fo' fourteen years, but it won't do no good. De only way you can finish up de job am by killin' me fust." The foregoing is the substance of the protests and replies of the two parties to the angry discussion. It so happened, as we have shown, that the African held the balance of power. He was strong and courageous, and he was armed and ready to fight, and they knew it. They did not dare to attack him openly, where the result was so likely to be disastrous to both, and they were compelled to fall in with his scheme of saving the captain, though it can well be understood that it was the most distasteful thing to which they could consent. This discussion lasted but a few minutes; but, as we have said, it was improved by Captain Bergen, who saw that the wisest course for him to pursue was to remove the cause as far as practical. He walked backward a few steps until he was some way off, when he turned about, still holding the hand of Inez in his, and they continued until a number of palm-trees intervened, when he sped so rapidly that the child was kept on a run to maintain her place at his side. She had ceased her crying, but her face and eyes were red, and she was in an apprehensive, nervous and almost hysterical condition from the terrible scene she had witnessed--a scene such as should never be looked upon by one of her tender years. A minute later Captain Bergen caught sight of the trimly-built schooner lying at rest in the lagoon, close to the shore, and his heart gave a throb of hope, that, if he could once secure position on her deck, he would be able to hold his own against the mutineers. During the next few hurried minutes occupied in the passage to the schooner, the conviction had grown upon him that this mercy which had spared his life for a brief while would not be continued. Pomp Cooper would not continue to be his friend after his spasm of affection for Inez should spend itself, and devoid as the African was of intellect, he was likely to understand that the true course of the party who had entered upon the villainy was to make thorough work of it. The captain saw the three men still talking and gesticulating angrily when he reached the schooner. In a twinkling he had lifted Inez upon the deck, and then he sprang after her. He ran into the cabin, reappearing in an instant with the three loaded rifles. "Now," said he, with a sigh of relief, "let them come! I am ready." CHAPTER XVI A STRANGE VISITOR But the mutineers took good care not to show themselves just then; and the captain, deeming such a course prudent, tugged at the anchor until it was lifted, when he managed to shove the craft off, and reaching the middle of the lagoon, the anchor was dropped. "Now they won't be likely to approach without my seeing them," was his conclusion; "and so long as I can keep awake, I can hold them at bay. I hate to shoot a man, but if ever a person had justification for doing so, I have. I am rather inclined to think that if either Brazzier or Redvignez should wander into range, one of these rifles would be likely to go off!" Seeing no immediate danger, Captain Bergen descended into the cabin for a few minutes. Poor, tired Inez had thrown herself on the hammock and was sound asleep. "Sleep, little one," murmured the captain, as he lingered for a minute to look at the sweet, infantile face, in the gathering twilight. "It is a sad fate which orders you to witness so much violence, and sorry I am that it is so; but where would I have been excepting for you?" Then he softly left the cabin and took his position on deck. The moon was full, which was gratefully noticed by the captain, for he could easily keep awake all night, and thus detect the approach of his enemies. In fact, his nerves were so unstrung that he would not be able to sleep for many hours to come. "But what is to be done hereafter?" This was the question he put to himself, and which had to be answered. The mutineers kept carefully out of sight, and, as night settled over the scene, the captain remained wide awake and vigilant. There was ample food for thought and reflection--the cutting of the hose-pipes of the diving apparatus, the attack by the mutineers, the terrible flight and pursuit, the interference of Inez--all these and more surged through the brain of the captain, while he slowly paced back and forth, with eyes and ears wide open. Inez still slumbered, and all was silent, excepting the boom of the ocean against the coral-reef; while, as the night wore on, the captain maintained his lonely watch. Captain Bergen scanned the fringe of shore which circled about him, like a great wall thrown up between the lagoon and the Pacific, that steadily broke on the outside. But turn his keen eyes wheresoever he chose, he could detect not the slightest sign of the mutineers. He thought it likely they would start a fire somewhere, but no starlike point of light twinkled from beneath the palm-trees, and he was left to conjecture where they were and what they were doing. "They will probably wait till they think I am asleep," was his thought, "and then they will swim quietly out and try to board." He believed it would be either that way or they would construct a raft and paddle themselves out to the schooner. Knowing the captain was on the Coral, and knowing how important it was that he should not be allowed to run away and leave them there, they would neglect no precaution to prevent his going off. They, too, would understand what it was he was waiting for, and they were seamen enough to know the hour when he would be able to sail, and, consequently, what they were to do to prevent it. "They have no way of closing the channel, or they would do so, and it remains----Hello!" He was standing at the prow, looking carefully about him, and with all his senses alert, and he stood thus fully twenty minutes, expecting something whose precise nature he had already conjectured. "That splash meant something, and I think----" Just then he heard a commotion in the water directly under the prow, and, looking over, he saw a strange-looking object, like one of the uncouth monsters of the deep, come to the surface and begin climbing up by aid of the fore-chains. "I say, cap'n, can't you give a fellow a lift?" It was the mate, Abe Storms, who asked the question, and, as the captain extended his hand, he said, in a low, fervent voice: "Thank heaven! I was about giving you up for lost!" CHAPTER XVII ON THE CORAL Captain Bergen and Abe Storms, as may be supposed, greeted each other ardently when the latter stepped upon the deck of the schooner, clad in his diving-suit. "I was growing very anxious about you," said the captain, "for I could not understand what kept you away so long." The eccentric New Englander, removing his headgear, but leaving the rest of his armor on, laughed and asked: "Tell me what took place after I went down." The captain hurriedly related his experience, which has been already told the reader. "We took a good deal of risk, as you know," said the mate, "and when I went down in the water, I was a great deal more uneasy than I seemed to be. I was expecting a signal from you, and when it did not come I started for the surface. The shore is rough and craggy, you know, so that it was something like climbing up stairs. "Well, I had got pretty well up when the pipes were cut. I understood what it meant, and, holding my breath, with the water rushing down the two hose-pipes, I scrambled for the top. "It may have been a perilous thing for you that the rascals pursued you with such enthusiasm, but it was fortunate for me, for, although I had a dry revolver under my armor, it was several minutes before I was in a condition to use it. "As soon as possible, however, I made ready, believing you were in sore need of help. Crawling forward on my hands and knees, I took a quick look over the bank, and saw you and Inez walking off in the direction of the schooner, with the three scamps sullenly watching you. "I suspected what you tell me was the truth, and I was on the point of rushing forward and making short work of them with my revolver, but it flashed upon me that they possessed a fearful advantage over us. Redvignez and Brazzier are as cunning as serpents, and one of them, more than likely, would have caught up the little girl and held her in front of him as a screen. "Inez would have proved an effectual armor, indeed, and, with her in their possession, they would have been masters of the situation, and could have dictated whatever terms they chose to us. Pomp would have been transformed into a bitter enemy at once, and the chances of disaster to us all were so great that I remained quiet, but watchful, ready to dash forward to your assistance should it become necessary. "I lay down in a secluded place to rest, when--shall I confess it?--I fell asleep, and did not wake up until half an hour ago. After thinking the matter over, I decided still to deceive the rascals. I was quite certain that the water in the lagoon was not very deep, so I fastened the upper ends of the hose to floats, and walked out here on the bottom." "Did you see anything of them?" "No; I don't know where they are; but you can feel sure they'll never take their eyes off the schooner." After further discussing the exciting events of the day, they considered the all-important question as to what should be their own line of action. The decision which they reached was a most remarkable one, being no less than to make a direct proposition to the mutineers to turn over the schooner to them, with a portion of the oysters, and to allow them to depart, while the captain, mate and little girl were left upon the island. The captain was not convinced that this was altogether wise, and he said: "Since your plan is for us to stay on the island, and allow them to leave with the schooner, will you tell me how we are to depart, when ready?" The mate indicated the inlet, where the mast was still pointing toward the sky. "We've got to run our chances. We may be taken off in a week, and possibly not for years; but, with all these probabilities before us, I am in favor of surrendering the schooner, and allowing them to leave us forever, if they will agree to do so." "But, if we make the proposition, will they not suspect our purpose, or take it as a confession of weakness on our part?" "We must prevent that. But, captain, I've had all the sleep I want, and you are in need of it. Better secure it, therefore, while you can. Go below in the cabin and take your rest. I will stand guard here, and you need have no fear of my dropping into slumber again." The captain remained some time longer, and even then was loth to leave, but he consented to do so, and finally descended into the cabin, where he threw himself upon his hammock without removing his clothes. The incidents of the day were exciting enough to keep him awake, and, despite the exhaustion of his body, he lay a long time before he closed his eyes in slumber. Even then his sleep was haunted by horrible dreams, in which he lived over again the scenes through which he had passed, when, but for the piteous pleadings of little Inez, he would have fallen a victim to the ferocity of the mutineers, and he awoke more than once with a gasp and a start, which showed how disturbed his mind was. He had not slept long when he suddenly awoke again, and looked around in the gloom. The lamp overhead had been extinguished, and he was in utter darkness, though the silvery glow of the moonlight outside was perceptible through the windows and partly-open door. He could hear the dull booming of the breakers on the outside of the atoll, but all else was quiet, except the gentle breathing of Inez, in the berth beneath his. "God protect her and us all!" he prayed, his heart, in the solemn stillness and solitude, ascending to the only being who could assist him and his friend in their dire extremity; for Captain Bergen was sure that no one could be placed in greater peril than were he and Abe Storms, so long as they remained among the Pearl Islands. CHAPTER XVIII A VISIT FROM SHORE In the meantime Abram Storms was acting the part of a vigilant sentinel at his station on deck. There was no doubt in his mind that the mutineers were fearful the schooner would sail away and leave them on the lonely coral island, and they were certain, as he viewed it, to make some effort to prevent such a disaster to them. But precisely how this was to be done was a serious question. They knew that the captain, having reached the _Coral_, had several rifles at command, and would not hesitate to shoot them the instant any attempt was made against him or little Inez, under his charge. Nothing was more certain than that an unremitting watch would be kept upon the _Coral_, and, though they might believe there was but the single man there, yet unquestionably he commanded the situation. "They will try some trick," muttered the mate; "but I shall have a very small opinion of myself if they win. Pomp Cooper's affection for Inez led him to interfere, when his interference accomplished a good deal more than he imagined. Ah!" At that moment the mate heard a ghostly "Halloo!" from the shore, and he recognized the voice as belonging to Pomp. "Just as I suspected," said Storms, to himself; "they're using the negro as a cat's-paw. Well, I'll see what they are driving at." Imitating the tones of Captain Bergen as closely as possible, the mate shouted: "What do you want?" "Am you dere?" was the rather superfluous question. "Yes." "Won't you let me come on board?" "What for?" "I'm sick ob dis business. I hab quarreled wid Redvig an' Brazzier, an' I want to jine you an' git away from dis place." Abe Storms was not deceived for a moment by this transparent story. He knew there had been no quarrel, but that the mutineers had planned to get the negro on the schooner with the hope of deceiving the captain and gaining a chance to overpower him when off his guard. "Come on out here, then," replied the mate, who quickly determined his course of action. Almost at the same instant a loud splash was heard, and the head of Pomp was descried in the moonlight, swimming toward the boat. The mate kept himself concealed as much as he could, stepping back when the negro began clambering up the fore-chains. Panting from his exertion, he speedily came over the gunwale upon the deck. "Yes, cap'in, I's tired ob dem willains, an' I'm gwine----Oh! oh! oh!" At that instant his eyes fell upon the figure of the mate, clad in his diving-armor, with the exception of his face, which was so clearly revealed in the moonlight that there could be no mistaking his identity. Worse than that, the mate, standing as rigid as iron, had a gleaming revolver pointed straight at him. Pomp sank on his knees in the most abject terror. "Oh, my heben!" he chattered, clasping his hands, "I t'ought dat you was drowned. Am you sartin dat you ain't?" "I am quite well satisfied on that point. But, Pomp, get up; I've got a word or two to say to you." "I will, I will; but please p'int dat weepon some oder way." The mate complied, and the African, somewhat reassured, though still considerably frightened, listened to the words of the man who he supposed was drowned hours before. "I am alive and well, Pomp, as you can see, and so is the captain, who is taking a short nap in the cabin. We are well armed, as you know----" "Yas! yas! yas!" chattered the negro. "And we can sail away in the morning, at the turning of the tide, and leave you here----" "Dat's what I want you to do, an' I'll go wid you." "You can't go! I know well enough what you came out here for. You thought you would find a chance to get the upper hand of the captain, and would let the other villains on board. There! you needn't deny it. I understand the matter too well to be deceived." "Didn't I sabe de cap'in's life?" quavered Pomp, still fearful of the cold, measured tones of the mate. "You befriended him at a critical moment, and therefore I won't shoot you, when I have such a good chance to do so. But you have regretted your interference more than once, and you are seeking now to undo all the good you have done. We have it in our power not only to go away, but to bring back a force which shall hang every one of you three, as you deserve to be, but----" "Oh! oh-o-o-o!" "But we don't propose to do it. We are not going away to leave you here. To-morrow we shall have a proposal to offer to your mates, which they will be glad to accept. That is about all I have to say to you." CHAPTER XIX THE DEPARTURE As Mate Storms said, he had but little more communication to make with the negro. "You may now swim back to your friends and say that we will be ready to negotiate to-morrow morning. If they will come down to the shore, we will have a talk and arrange the whole business. Now, perhaps, you had better go back." Pomp Cooper was quick-witted enough to understand that this utterance was in the nature of a hint for him to depart, and he stood not on the order of his going. "Good-by, sah," he called out. "Much obleege fo' your kindness, dat I shall remember a good while." Mate Storms stood motionless, watching him until he was perhaps a hundred feet from the craft, when he said, just loud enough to be heard: "Sharks are mighty plenty hereabout, and I saw a big one yesterday. Shouldn't wonder if he has a leg bit off before he gets back." Pomp heard the words, and they "disturbed" him, to put it mildly. Evidently he had forgotten the peril to which all persons are exposed in tropical waters, and, as the truth was impressed upon him with such suddenness, he uttered a "whiff" like a porpoise and began swimming with fierce energy toward the shore. In fact, he never put forth so much effort in all his life. The expectation of feeling a huge man-eating monster gliding beneath you when in the water is enough to shake the nerves of the strongest swimmer. He kept diving and swimming as far as he could below the surface, and then came up and continued his desperate efforts until he reached the land, where he joined his companions. Abe Storms stood looking and listening, his face expanded in a broad smile, when he heard a light laugh at his elbow. Turning his head, he found the captain there. "I heard your summons to him," said the captain, by way of explanation, "and I came up to hear what it meant. I must admit, you managed the case well." "It might have been worse. My only fear is that the imps won't believe we honestly intend to hold the conference with them, and offer a compromise." "They will find it out at daylight, and meanwhile they can't help themselves. It is useless for me to stay below, Abe," added the nervous captain. "There's too much on my mind to sleep." Therefore, the two remained on watch until the sun rose, at which time there was nothing to be seen of the mutineers. "They're suspicious," concluded the mate, who called out, in a loud voice that reached every portion of the island: "Hello, men! come and show yourselves. We want to have a talk with you!" A few minutes later Hyde Brazzier appeared on the shore and answered back again. It was deemed best to give the mutineers a proof of their sincerity, and instead, therefore, of holding the conversation from the deck of the schooner, the small boat was lowered, and both the captain and mate entered it and rowed ashore, where all three awaited them, as may be supposed, with some degree of astonishment. Storms and Captain Bergen were not without some misgivings, and they did not venture unprepared into the lion's den. Both carried a loaded revolver at command, and in case of an attack the business would have been lively. But it was unreasonable to suppose that our friends would be assailed under the peculiar circumstances. Furthermore, as the parties understood each other, there was no time wasted in reproaches or recriminations, but Captain Bergen came directly to the point. "This state of things can't last," said he; "we are deadly enemies, and we would kill each other on the slightest pretext. The island is too small to contain us all. Either you three or we two must leave before the sun reaches meridian, or we shall go to fighting like caged tigers. Neither can we go away together, for I would not trust any of you again, nor would you trust either of us; therefore, one party must go, and the other must stay--which shall it be? We were prepared to leave, when we reflected that if we should be caught in some of the storms which sweep over this region, the mate and I would hardly be able to manage the schooner, and we are anxious to take care of the little girl, to whom we are greatly attached. There are three of you, all able-bodied seamen, and in case of a tempest you would be able to navigate the _Coral_. It would be safer, therefore, for you to take the vessel and go to some of the ports, secure assistance and send them after us. We make, therefore, this proposition: We will turn over the schooner to you, on condition that you leave with us such stores as we may choose to take, and that you proceed at once to the nearest of the inhabited Paumotu Islands and send assistance to us. Furthermore, as you know all about the pearl-oysters, we will agree to divide with you. You can take up half of what are on the bed out yonder, and you may carry them away with you, leaving a moiety to us. You are to sail just as soon as the oysters are placed on board. That's our proposition--what do you say?" There could be no doubt that the mutineers were astonished by the generosity of the offer, coming, as it did, from those who were in reality masters of the situation. Had they been a little more cunning, they might have suspected there was something behind it all, which was kept carefully out of sight; but the terms were so good that Brazzier answered, the instant the question was put to him: "We'll do it, and carry out our part fair and square." "Very well; there's no need of delay. We'll bring the schooner inshore and take out what we want, and then turn the craft over to you." This amazing programme was carried out to the letter. Captain and mate, accompanied by Pomp, rowed back in the small boat, and the schooner was carefully worked toward the shore. Abe Storms and Captain Bergen saw that among the possibilities of the future was a long stay on the lonely island, and they therefore prepared for such a contingency, having an eye mainly to securing that which little Inez would be likely to need. Pomp informed the officers that there was a small cabin a short distance away, which had no doubt been put up by the sailors of whom Grebbens had told the captain. It was made of planking that had come ashore from the wreck, and the fact that it had stood so long proved that it must have been built with much skill as well as strength. It was found just as represented by Pomp--there being two compartments, each a dozen feet or so square, and one of these was so well put together that it seemed to be waterproof. Our friends were greatly surprised and pleased over the discovery, for Grebbens had never said anything about the structure. The goods from the _Coral_ were carried to this building and deposited in the rear room, which was so tight that one would have almost suffocated had he remained in it during the tropical weather which prevails among the Paumotu Islands most of the time. The goods stowed there were of a varied assortment, including the three breech-loading rifles, ammunition, tool-chest and contents, a portion of the medicine-chest, some biscuits, cooking utensils, and a trunk of calicoes, linens and materials such as are used in the making of feminine costumes. It was a singular coincidence that Abe Storms had provided a considerable quantity of this before leaving San Francisco, knowing as he did the fondness of savages for such finery, and having a suspicion that it might be turned to good account in the way of barter in some of the South Sea islands. Little did he suspect the use to which it would be put, and thankful indeed was he that it was at his command, when it was so likely to be needed for Inez Hawthorne. There was a goodly amount of stock, which was transferred to the cabin, the mutineers assisting with the rest, for all felt there was no time to lose. There was mistrust at first, each party seeming to be suspicious of the other, but it soon wore off, and any one looking upon them could not have been made to believe they were deadly enemies. When the transfer was completed, it was evident that the current was close upon its turn, and unless they should leave the island soon, they would be compelled to wait perhaps twelve or twenty-four hours longer. Since the sea was very calm, Hyde Brazzier proposed that the schooner should be taken outside and anchored directly over the pearl-oyster bed, so that sail could be hoisted as soon as they were ready. There was a slight risk in the action, but it was done, and after some careful maneuvering the _Coral_ was secured in position. It looked very magnanimous and somewhat stupid for Abe Storms to volunteer to go down in his coat of armor and scoop the oysters into a huge basket, for the very parties who had tried so hard to drown him when similarly engaged the day before. Nothing, it would seem, could be more absurd, and yet the reader is requested to suspend judgment until he shall have read the following chapter. All this was done, and in the course of the succeeding two hours fully three-fourths of the oysters scattered over that particular bed were dumped upon the deck of the _Coral_, and Abe Storms, pretty well exhausted, was pulled to the surface. The captain and mate, with the armor, rowed themselves the short distance ashore in the small boat. The _Coral_ hoisted sail, and, heading out to sea, rapidly sped away over the Pacific. And all this time the three mutineers felicitated themselves upon the manner in which they had gotten the best of the bargain. And yet, never in all their lives had they been so completely outwitted as they were by Abe Storms and Captain Jack Bergen, as we shall now proceed to show. CHAPTER XX HOW DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND The three mutineers on board the schooner Coral had sailed away and disappeared from view on the face of the vast Pacific, and the captain and mate were left with little Inez alone upon a small, lonely member of the Paumotu Group, in the distant South Seas. Inez was too young to realize the gravity of the situation, and she ran hither and thither, delighted with her new home, though she found the cabin too warm inside to be comfortable, and she made frequent draughts upon the spring of cool, clear water near which the former residents of the atoll had built the cabin. Then, too, she had found that there was considerable tropical fruit growing in the place, and she made such havoc among it that Captain Bergen felt impelled to caution her, if she should become sick on their hands, she would be apt to fare ill, for they had little medicine at command. While she was thus engaged, captain and mate were reclining on the ground, in the shade of the palm-trees. They spoke only now and then, but there was a peculiar expression on their faces as they watched the schooner gradually disappearing in the distance, for it was a long while in sight. The time came at last, however, when even their straining vision could not detect the faintest resemblance to a sail in the horizon, though it was still visible, as a matter of course, through their glasses. "I believe she is gone," said Storms, looking toward the captain. "Yes; I see nothing of her." "Then it's about time to shake." The two brawny hands clasped, and the friends greeted each other with remarkable cordiality; and, as they did so, they laughed heartily, and the mate almost shouted: "Captain, but it was a good trick!" "So it was; and I give you the credit of inventing it. I never would have thought of it." "Shake again; and now to work." The mate had deposited some of the oysters brought up on the bank, and they were carefully opened. They were eight in number, and there was not found a single pearl among them. In all probability the entire lot which were carried away upon the schooner were not worth as much as the same quantity of bivalves from Chesapeake Bay. In short, this was not the pearl-oyster bed which had brought the two friends the greater part of the way around the globe. Suspecting--or, rather, knowing--the evil intentions of the mutineers, Abe Storms proposed the ruse, by which the visit was made to the wrong place. The mutineers themselves were outwitted, and, under the belief that they were carrying away a cargo of fabulous wealth, they did not wait to make an examination of the mollusks until they were well out to sea. When they should open and examine them they were not likely to suspect the trick, but would think that the whole journey was a failure, and the three left on the island were, in reality, worse off than themselves. And yet the true bed of oyster-pearls remained to be visited. "It is possible they may suspect something and come back again," said the mate, "but it is hardly probable." "Are they likely to send any friends to take us off?" asked the captain, with a quizzical look. "Not to any great extent. They will be sure to give us as wide a berth hereafter as possible. In the meantime, I propose that we investigate." The two rose to their feet, and, lugging the armor between them, moved off toward a point whose location was as well known to them as if they had spent years upon the atoll. While they were thus walking, the mate, who was much the better-educated man, said: "This pearl-hunting is a curious business. Those specimens that I brought up were the genuine species, and yet they have very few or no pearls among them. It must be because the conditions are not favorable for their creation or development, while, at the place we are about to visit, the mollusks are the same, and yet there are conditions existing there which cause an abnormal growth of the precious jewels." "Did you make a careful examination of those other oysters?" "Yes. As I told you, they are genuine, but they have no pearls of any account, the conditions being unfavorable for their formation. You know the pearls grow within the oysters, being composed of slimy secretions deposited around some foreign substance that enters them. It may be that a peculiar action of the tide drives a grain of sand into the mollusks, where we are to visit--though that is all conjecture." But Mate Storms, who was only fairly launched out in the discourse upon pearls, was here interrupted by the captain exclaiming: "This must be the spot." The particular bank had been designated so clearly that there could be no mistake, and had the chart, or map, fallen into the hands of the mutineers, they would have discovered the trick played on them in an instant. The spot was a peculiar one where the two friends stopped. Instead of being partly landlocked like the other, it opened out fairly upon the sea, and appeared to be entirely unprotected from the force of the breakers, which boomed against the beach. It would have been supposed naturally that the true course was for the fishermen to go out in a small boat, and make their explorations from that, but Grebbens had instructed the captain that the formation was so peculiar that nothing would be gained by this course. The shore sank like the side of a wall to a considerable depth, and the oysters lay on the bottom, with some clusters clinging to the rocks, where they could be torn off like sponges. It can be understood that the work of removing these would be almost impossible for any one excepting a professional diver, unless, as was the case with our friends, he should have some artificial assistance. But for the diving-armor, it is hardly possible that Abe Storms would have made a serious attempt to secure anything, knowing the danger from sharks, and the difficulty of retaining his breath for any extended time below the surface of the water. It was near the middle of the afternoon when this spot was reached. The sea was calm, but there were signs in the sky ominous of a coming storm, so that the two were anxious to make a beginning without any unnecessary delay. Stooping almost upon their faces, when the swell had receded enough to permit them, they peered down into the crystal depths, and caught shadowy glimpses of the prizes. They saw the craggy clusters, big and brown, clinging to the rocks, while others were outlined on the floor of the bank. "They're there, beyond a doubt," said Storms, "and it now remains to see whether they are worth the gathering. Help me get on this suit." Both worked deftly, and it was soon adjusted. The main thing was the breathing apparatus, Storms having some fear that at such a depth the pressure would be so great as to close the pipes, and thus shut out the air. However, the only way to learn was by experiment, and he did not wait. Carefully coiling his pipe, he took the rope in his hand and began descending, the two having arranged the signals so that with ordinary care no accident need result. Captain Bergen held one end of the rope in his hand, ready to draw his friend to the surface the instant he should receive notice that it was necessary. "It is a long way to the bottom!" exclaimed the captain, standing like the harpooner in a whale-boat, and saw the line steadily paying out. "It won't do for him to go much further," was his conclusion, noticing, with some alarm, that but little more of the hose was left on the ground. "I wish those pearls had fixed themselves not quite----Hello!" He knew from the instant cessation of the weight on the rope, and the motionless condition of the hose, that the bottom had been reached by Abe Storms, and none too soon, either. Peering carefully into the clear depths, Captain Bergen saw, too, that his mate was attending to business. CHAPTER XXI AT LAST Mate Storms, so far as could be seen, looked like an immense crab at work on the bottom of the pearl bank and along the rough rocks. He was so far below the surface that he was insensible to the long, heavy swells, which at intervals broke upon the beach with a thunderous boom, and so long as the breathing apparatus kept right he could pursue his labor without difficulty. As he anticipated, he had not been long at work when several sharks made their appearance and reconnoitered the mysterious intruder upon their domains. They were evidently puzzled over the appearance of the strange visitor, and when Storms gave one of them an ugly prod with the point of his knife, he darted out of sight, instantly followed by the others, who seemed to suspect they were in danger from the monster, whose slightest touch was so emphatic. It did not take long for the diver to fill his basket, and when he gave the signal, Captain Bergen pulled with might and main, and, a few minutes after, the man in his armor scrambled upon shore, tumbled over by a huge swell, which broke at that moment. The basket was full, and catching it up, Captain Bergen left his friend to himself and began hurriedly prying open the mollusks with his sheath-knife. His heart throbbed, for they were the largest oysters he had ever seen, and he was full of high hope. The first bivalve opened disclosed a pearl almost as large as a robin's egg. It possessed the faint yellowish tinge which is recognized in the East as belonging to the most valuable species. With trembling, eager hands, Captain Bergen opened the second, and discovered another, nearly as large as the first. Half beside himself, he snatched up the largest oyster in the heap, and forced it apart with such precipitancy that he cut his hand. There lay a pearl before him fully a third larger than the first, with the purest tint, oval in form, and worth thousands of dollars. Captain Bergen could contain himself no longer, but springing to his feet he threw his hat in the air, and shouted, and danced about like a madman. Mr. Storms did not remove his armor, for he intended to go down again. His laugh, muffled and sounding strangely from within the visor, was heard as he joined in the demonstrations of his companion. When, encumbered as he was with his awkward armor, he began executing a double shuffle on the beach, the sight was so grotesque that the captain came near going into convulsions. But the exercise was too exhausting, and the mate speedily sat down on the shore and also began opening oysters. His ardor was somewhat dampened when he failed to discover anything in the first, and he became quite solemn when the second was equally barren of results; but the third yielded a beautiful pearl, fully equal to the first which the captain brought forth. There could be no doubt now that the men had struck a pearl bank of marvelous richness. "There are plenty more down there," said the mate, preparing to descend with his knife and basket again. Captain Bergen allowed him to go, while he took the rope in hand, restraining his excitement with difficulty, for he was now sure that the wildest dreams in which he had indulged promised to be more than realized, and he considered the fortune of himself and friend assured. "The fools," he muttered, referring to the mutineers; "if they had acted the part of honest men they might have shared this, but they chose to be scoundrels, and truly they have had their reward." He noticed this time that the mate drew more upon the hose than before--so much so, indeed, that he threatened to draw the upper ends under water--and the captain gave a warning tug at the rope, to apprise him that he must venture no further. The warning was heeded, and when, a few minutes later, the diver was helped to terra firma again, his basket was filled heaping full. This was dumped out, and he prepared to descend once more. Captain Bergen was so occupied in attending to his friend that he gained little time to open the oysters, and could only look longingly at them. Now and then, while the diver was cautiously working below, the captain snatched one up and pried the shells apart, and the success he met with was enough to turn the head of the coolest and most unconcerned of men. Beyond question, as we have said, the bank contained oysters of astonishing richness, fully three-fourths possessing pearls of extraordinary size and value. Abe Storms went down and came up with the basket heaped to the top six separate times, and then doffed his armor. "What's the matter?" asked the captain, in surprise. "That's all!" "What! are there no more?" "Not another one, so far as I can see." "That's too bad," observed the captain, in a tone of disappointment. "I supposed there was enough to keep us employed several days." "Ah, Jack," replied the mate, in a reproving tone, "see the emptiness of riches, and how little they can do to satisfy the cravings of the human heart. There is enough wealth there at your feet to make you and me independently rich for life, and yet you complain because you have so little." "It was wrong," said the captain, meekly. "I am in such a nervous condition that I'm hardly myself. I am truly grateful for what we have here, and glad that we made the long voyage to secure them. We have enough--to crave more is wicked." They now set to work opening the shells between which were nestling the pearls, and the result was simply astonishing. It was hard work to get some of the thick, ridgy bivalves apart, but when they succeeded they rarely failed to be rewarded munificently. Some of the pearls were small, the majority large, and about twenty of enormous size and clearness. When the entire lot was placed in a little pile, there were found to be one hundred and twenty-odd; and, although it was impossible to estimate their value, Mate Storms--who was the better informed--believed they were worth at least a quarter of a million of dollars. All these had been taken in a few hours, though the preparations and the voyage thither had occupied many long, long months. "I think I will go down and take a farewell look," said Abe, when the task was finished. "I have a suspicion that I may have missed something." "I am quite sure you have," replied the captain, assisting him with his armor; "and you have but a short time at your disposal, either, for I think a storm is brewing." This time the mate meant to proceed differently. In descending along the rocks the first time, he paused to break off some of the clusters, and he thought he caught the shadowy glimpse of an enormous oyster, further in; but there were so many closer at hand, and he was so excited--despite his natural coolness--that he forgot about it until now, when he determined to look further, half hoping, more than believing, that it might possess a still larger pearl than any he had seen. He was confident that this was the only one he had missed, for the search he made during his last descent, in other respects, was thorough and left nothing to be done over again. Carefully he sank into the depths of the ocean, with one hand grasping the rope, ready to give the signal to stop lowering the instant it should become necessary. He passed several yawning crevices in the rocks, which, of course, were of coral formation, and all at once he tugged smartly at the rope. He recognized the spot, and his feet were still about three yards from the bank upon which he had walked back and forth so many times. Captain Bergen responded at once, and held him suspended where he was, which was anything but a comfortable position, inasmuch as he could find no support for his feet, and his left hand was of little use. Immediately before his face the rock made an inward sweep, showing an abrupt ledge, a yard in width and depth. Scanning this as closely as he could in the dim twilight of the ocean-cavern, Storms thought he saw something resembling an oyster, which was fully a foot in length. Uncertain as to its identity, he shoved his hand in and found it was suspended to the rock above, and after two or three violent wrenches, and by using his knife as well as he could, he broke it loose and drew it out. It was an oyster, indeed, of prodigious size, and he instantly signaled to the captain to draw him up. The latter did so with a vigor that threatened to dislocate the armor itself. "Here it is," he exclaimed, the moment he reached the air. "But I don't know whether there is anything in it or not." "My stars! Is that an oyster?" asked the captain, picking it up and turning it over like a huge stone, with inquiring eyes. Little Inez Hawthorne had come to the spot while the mate was down the last time, and she danced with delight at the sight of the beautiful pearls piled upon the ground like a heap of tiny cannon balls. "What are you going to do with that?" she asked, surveying the big bivalve, with an expression of disgust on her pretty face. "That is yours," said the captain, earnestly. The mate looked at him and said: "Do you mean that, captain?" "I do. Whatever we find inside of that shall be consecrated to the use of Inez Hawthorne--to be hers absolutely. There may be nothing at all, but if there be a pearl, it will possess a value which we cannot estimate." The mate reached out his hand. "The proposition does credit to your heart, captain, and I join it without reservation. Now do you open it." The captain hesitated a moment and looked at the big shell curiously, as if afraid to make the investigation. While thus employed, Storms called attention to the fact that the two shells were already slightly separated, as if the mollusk were gasping for air, which could not be the case. Captain Bergen held up the huge shell and peeped inside. He did so but an instant, when he dropped it upon the sand, and exclaimed, with a pale face and trembling voice: "It's there!" Mate Storms knew what it meant, and he in turn raised the oyster, ran his knife in carefully, worked hard for a minute, and then managed to get the two shells apart. CHAPTER XXII THE PEARL OF THE PACIFIC There, at the front of the oyster, and slightly to one side, was the most marvelous pearl upon which the eyes of the men had ever rested. It was the size of an ordinary hen's egg, clear and pure, and worth a sum of money which neither of the astounded men dared attempt to guess. For a few seconds they were speechless, and then Inez clapped her hands with delight, and asked: "Is that for me?" "Yes, that is yours," replied Captain Bergen. "The mate and I give it to you, to be yours and no one's else." "Isn't it splendid?" cried Inez, catching it up, passing it from one hand to the other, holding it up in the sunlight, and showing as much genuine pleasure as if she were a veritable South Sea Islander, presented with some new trinket. "That," said Mate Storms, "may be called The Pearl of the Pacific!" "No," objected the captain, "it is she who is the pearl of this great ocean, for it was upon its surface that we first saw her, and she has proved herself far above the worth of pearls or diamonds or rubies. To her, under heaven, my life, and not impossibly yours, is owing. The greatest pleasure of this voyage has come from her companionship, and all that I ask now is that we shall be able to preserve this wealth for her, and that the opportunity may be ours to do our full duty toward her." Mate Storms looked admiringly at the captain, who had so eloquently expressed his own sentiments. "You are right, Jack," said he, speaking in his familiar way. "It is she who is the Pearl of the Pacific!" The men surveyed, with the greatest pleasure, the frolicsome delight of the little one, who was all unmindful of the immense treasure which had fallen to her lot, and of the title of honor which her friends had given her. Naturally, the entire party were so absorbed that for a time they hardly glanced beyond their immediate surroundings; but when Abe Storms came up for the last time, he glanced, by the merest accident, out to sea, and exclaimed: "Oh, my goodness! Just look there, Jack!" No more than half a mile distant, a flying proa was seen, speeding with great swiftness over the water, while a number of dark figures were discovered on the deck, evidently looking with no little curiosity at the white men. The singular craft, however, came no nearer, and soon vanished in the distance. Its appearance caused some apprehension and uneasiness on the part of our friends, and after discussing the matter they decided, as a matter of precaution, to bury the pearls. Inez was persuaded, without difficulty, to trust hers to the keeping of her friends, who dug a small well in the sand, and inclosing the entire number of pearls in strong canvas bags, made for that purpose, buried them out of sight, there to remain until one or both of the men should choose to dig them up again, and it was agreed that that should not be done until the way opened for them to leave the island. The long afternoon was well advanced when this task was completed, they fixing the precise spot so clearly in their minds that there was no necessity of landmarks, either being sure of finding it whenever it should become necessary. "It seems to me the swells are larger than usual, and they make more noise when they break upon the beach," observed Mr. Storms, looking curiously at the sky. They had just dumped back the remains of the pearl-oysters into the sea, so as to leave no trace of their work, and Captain Bergen straightened up and surveyed the sky. "There's a storm coming--a regular screamer! Look, by the great horn spoon!" he added, in no little excitement. There was good cause for the emotion of the captain, for the light of the sun was obscured by a thick, yellow haze, which was fast overspreading the sky, and, far out to sea, the long line of mist seemed to be churning the water into foam, and to be advancing rapidly toward the island, where stood the two men contemplating the coming fury of the elements. The light of the sun was obscured, and there was a perceptible chilliness in the air, and the barometer--which they had brought from the _Coral_--showed a most startling change. One of the fiercest of the tropical tempests was gathering, and was sure to break upon the island in a few minutes. This was alarming to contemplate, for the men knew well what kind of elemental disturbances spring up on the shortest notice in the South Seas. But it was not this alone which startled them. Looking directly out to sea, toward the yeasty waters, they saw a schooner sinking and rising upon the long swells, and certain to be caught, in the very vortex, as may be said, of the hurricane, or tornado, or typhoon, or whatever it should be termed. The craft was not an unfamiliar one--both knew it well--for it was the _Coral_, with the mutineers on board. Unarmed as they were, they would not dare place themselves in the power of those toward whom they had shown such enmity, but that they were literally forced to do so to escape almost certain destruction from the impending tempest. If they should run into the lagoon to wait until the storm should subside, neither the captain nor mate would disturb them--provided they took their departure as soon as it became safe. Still, knowing their treacherous character so well, Bergen and Storms did not mean to trust them at all. Inez was therefore placed within the cabin, while her protectors made certain they were armed and ready for any contingency. Now that the sun was shut out from sight, a darkness like that of night overspread land and water, while the strong gale howled among the palms, which swayed and bent as if they would soon be uprooted and flung out into the boiling sea. The swells were topped with foam, and large drops of rain, sweeping almost horizontally across the island, struck against the face like pebbles. The mutineers were heading, so far as was possible, towards the opening in the atoll, but they were not in position to strike it, and, with the deepening darkness and increasing tempest, the task was becoming more difficult every minute. Suddenly a vivid flash of lightning illumined the gloom, and the schooner _Coral_ was observed on the crest of a high wave, heading toward the island; but the two men who saw her, saw also, that she missed the opening and was too close in to make it. The rumble of thunder continued for some minutes, when once more a blinding flash swept across the murky sky, lighting up sea and island for the instant, as if with the glare of the noonday sun. Captain Bergen and Mate Storms were straining their eyes to catch sight of the little schooner and its crew, but it was invisible. In that single searching glance, they could not have failed to see her had she been afloat. The conclusion, therefore, was inevitable. She and her crew had gone to the bottom of the sea. Such was the fact. The mutineers had met a frightful though merited fate, and could trouble our friends no more. CHAPTER XXIII A DISMAL HOME Captain Bergen and his mate were not certain that one or more of the mutineers had not survived the foundering of the schooner _Coral_, and had managed to reach the island. If such were the case, they considered it important that it should be known as soon as possible, and on the morrow, therefore, they made careful search, but none of the three men was ever seen again. A few fragments of spars, floating here and there, were all the signs that such a craft had ever sailed over the Pacific. Since the captain and mate were now given the opportunity to think of their own situation, they did so like men of gravity and sense. They were safely upon Pearl Island, as they had named it. They had secured the prize for which they had come so many thousand miles, and they were, as the world goes, wealthy men. More than that, they had found a pearl of such marvelous size and purity that, being dedicated to little Inez Hawthorne, it was a great fortune indeed to her. And yet, in one sense, the little party were paupers; that is, so long as they were held prisoners upon the atoll, for the treasure of pearls could not purchase them food, clothing, friends, happiness--nor, in fact, were they anything more than so many valueless pebbles. They must reach civilization again to realize anything from the riches which had come into their possession. But how were they to leave the island? This was the one great question which faced them, and which they were called upon to solve, for now that there was no further cause for staying, the homesickness of the men increased, and it was not long before they felt they would give half their wealth for the means of getting back to Boston. Since they were absolutely without this means, it was evident they could do nothing but rely upon Providence to send some vessel to their relief. It was not impossible that Abe Storms, gifted as he was with so much wonderful ingenuity, might have attempted to construct some sort of craft from the palm trees, and it is quite likely he would have succeeded in making something that could be utilized. But the awful blotting out of the _Coral_, before their eyes, had alarmed both, and made them more timid than they otherwise would have been. It was a good many miles to the nearest inhabited island, as laid down on their chart, and they might succeed in reaching it, provided they could be assured of a week of good weather. But there could be no such assurance, and a disturbance meant the same fate that overtook the mutineers. It is not at all unlikely, too, that the presence of little Inez Hawthorne increased this timidity. Had they been without her, they would not have hesitated to take great risks, but, somehow or other, her life was inestimably precious in their eyes, and they would never have forgiven themselves had any ill befallen her through their dereliction of duty. "There is a mystery about her life which shall yet be cleared up," Abe Storms frequently remarked; "and we must not do aught that shall endanger or delay the solution of the question." There were comparatively few stores which the schooner had left them before its final departure, and the survivors were forced to rely mainly upon what the island afforded. Of course there were fish in abundance, and they frequently rowed out in the lagoon in the tender, or small boat, or cast out their lines from shore, and never failed in a short time to catch all they wanted. The spring of clear, cool water bubbled and trickled steadily, and never failed them. And the several species of tropical fruits about them were used sparingly, the men having the prudence to seek to prevent the supply giving out. It was a great relief to Storms and Bergen to find, after the most thorough exploration they could make, that there were no poisonous reptiles upon the island. "We may as well face the situation," said Captain Bergen, after they had held frequent consultations; "we have been here five weeks now, and we haven't caught sight of the first sail, with the exception of our own, which has gone to the bottom, and it may be that weeks and months more may pass before we shall see another." "It is not unlikely that it may be years," added Storms, gravely; "for, according to the narrative of Grebbens himself, he was here a long time before he was taken away. The wisest thing we can do is to prepare ourselves for an indefinite stay." A long time before, the captain had laboriously climbed the mast which was erected in the sand by the inlet, and had securely fastened an old garment to the highest point. There it was still, fluttering in the wind, when there was enough breeze to raise the irregular folds, but, alas! it had not brought the friendly sail which they longed for, and they had been forced at last to look upon an extended residence upon the island as not only possible, but very probable. Like philosophers, they governed themselves accordingly. The signal was kept flying and they busied themselves fishing, talking or doing odd things which were done simply to pass away time. But the two felt that a most urgent duty was upon them, respecting Inez Hawthorne. "We must do what we can for her," said Storms. "With the material which I have on hand we can construct garments that will keep her clad with comeliness, though she may not be in the fashion; and yet I don't know but what she will," he added, with a smile, "for we may strike some of the vagaries without knowing it. Then, too, she must be educated." "I'm not well up in the line of an education," said the captain, with some embarrassment, "being as I never attended any other than a district school, but I believe you graduated, didn't you, Abe?" "Yes, I went through Harvard three years ago, and stood second in my class. I haven't any fear that I won't be able to teach her, for she is a child of unusual brightness." And, as may be supposed, the mate went to work thoroughly in the instruction of Inez Hawthorne, who proved herself one of the most apt of pupils, and advanced with a rapidity which delighted her teacher. CHAPTER XXIV THREE YEARS Three years have passed, and still Captain Bergen, Mate Storms and Inez Hawthorne are upon the lonely Pearl Island in the South Sea. Could they have believed when they left Boston that they would be doomed to such an imprisonment, it may well be doubted whether they would have made the voyage, even if assured of the vast fortune which thereby came into their hands. The three years had been dismally monotonous to them, and their courage had been tried to the utmost, for there had been times when both agreed that they would probably stay there until released by death, and then they fell to speculating as to which would be the last one to survive. According to human logic, it would seem that that lot would fall to Inez, and their hearts sank at the thought of her being left to perish in the lonely spot. When the coat fluttering from the top of the mast was blown away by the gale, Captain Bergen climbed up and nailed another in its place, grimly remarking that it looked as if they were going down with their colors flying. It was surprising what was done by Mate Storms, whose ingenuity was almost incredible. With the material at his command, he kept Inez clothed in a tasteful manner. She wore dresses and shoes which fitted her well, and her hat was renewed with extraordinary skill, from material obtained from the palm-trees. Those three years, although of indescribable weariness at times, were marked by some startling incidents, and by many worthy of record. The great object of Storms was to educate Inez, and he did his utmost in that direction, assisted by the bright intellect of the girl and her own ardent desire to explore the wonders of knowledge. There were few facilities in the way of furniture, considered so indispensable in these later days. He had no pens or ink, and only a Bible in the way of books. He had some blank paper and a single lead pencil, which were utilized to their fullest extent. For a slate or blackboard, he used the beach, as did Archimedes of the olden time. Selecting a place where the water had left it hard and smooth, Storms, with a sharp-pointed stick, made his characters and gave his instruction in the mysteries of mathematics. It would sound incredible were we to say that, during those three years, the dwellers on the lonely atoll had never descried a sail; and such was not a fact, for there are few shores on this globe where a human being can bury himself so long from sight of the white-winged birds of commerce. They had seen many ships, but it looked very much as if they themselves had not been seen, nor had their presence been suspected by any of them. "The idea of our being so nervous lest some one should get here ahead of us," remarked Storms, more than once, "when we might have delayed our coming a dozen years without any danger from that cause." They had discovered the cloud-like picture of the canvas sail as it came up over the horizon, and their hearts swelled as it expanded and came closer. But all hope faded again when it grew less in the distance and finally passed from view altogether. This had happened repeatedly, and more than once Captain Bergen had laboriously made his way up the smooth mast to the very top, where he swung his hat wildly; but it must have been that the little island in the South Seas possessed slight interest in the eyes of the navigators who occasionally drifted in that direction, for had they seen the signal of distress, or caught sight of the man frantically waving his hat from the top, they would have learned what its meaning was. The greatest dejection which took possession of the couple was when they, through the glass, saw the Stars and Stripes fluttering from the mizzen of the ship which came the nearest and then made off again. The sight of that most beautiful banner in the world was like a glimpse of their distant New England home, and they seemed to feel the cool breeze fanning their hot brows as it bore steadily toward them. When it went over the convex sea out of sight, Captain Bergen covered his face with his hands and wept, and when, after awhile, he looked up again, he saw the tears on the cheeks of Abe Storms, who stood motionless and gazing silently off upon the deep, as if he expected the vessel would come back to them. It was a severe blow, and it was a long time before they recovered from it. The exact age of Inez Hawthorne when she became, by an extraordinary turn of the wheel of fortune, the protégée of the two sailors, was, as given by herself, six years, but both the captain and mate were confident that she was fully one, if not two years older. Now, at the termination of the period named, she was a girl as fully developed mentally and physically as one of a dozen years, and she was growing into a woman of striking beauty. She was still a child, with all the innocence and simplicity which distinguished her at the time she was taken from the deck of the steamer _Polynesia_, but in a few years more, should she be spared, she would become a woman. Captain Bergen and Mate Storms were honest, conscientious men, and Christians, and they performed their full duty in that most important respect to Inez Hawthorne. Never passed a day in which Storms did not read, in an impressive voice, from the great Book of all books, and the sublime passages, the wonderful precepts, the divine truths and the sacred instruction from that volume were seed which fell upon good ground and bore its fruit in due season. If ever there was a good, pure, devout Christian, Inez Hawthorne became one, and her greatest desire, as she repeatedly expressed it, was that she might go out in the great world among all people, and do her utmost to carry the glad tidings to them. "The time will come," replied Abe Storms, when he listened to these glowing wishes. "God never intended you should live and die upon this lonely island when there is such need for missionaries like you. I don't see that we are of much account, but I believe He has something for us, too, and we shall be given the opportunity to do it." "Ah," said the skipper, with a sigh, "you have been saying that for three years, and the sails that come go again and care nothing for us. I am beginning to believe we are to stay here for the rest of our lives, and that I am to be the first one to take the long, last sleep that awaits us all." CHAPTER XXV AN ARRIVAL When Captain Bergen was inclined to become pessimistic, the mate treated it lightly, for he feared the strong sailor would break before long from sheer homesickness. It was fortunate that neither had any family, the mate being one of those who are without any close living relative, while the captain had a sister in New England, and his aged mother was in San Francisco, living with a nephew, of whom she was very fond. Thus the three years passed away, and the second era in their lives approached. There was something curious in the fact that all the inhabitants of the lonely Pearl Island had lost their reckoning. No two could agree on the day of the week, and when they compromised on one, which was called Sunday, and observed as such, they were much in doubt whether they were right, and, as it afterward proved, they were not. One afternoon, when the sun had hardly passed the meridian, the mate and captain were stretched upon the beach under the shade of a palm-tree, and looking out upon the sea, over which they had come to this desolate spot so long before. The day was cooler than usual, and a steady breeze blew, rendering the position of the friends in that respect as pleasant as they could wish, though their weary, homesick feeling was telling upon them. Both the ragged sailors were thinner, and there was a yearning, far-away look in their eyes, especially in those of the captain, which presaged the approach of insanity or death at no distant day, unless a change were made in their condition and surroundings. This lamentable state was partly due, no doubt, to the diet to which they had been subjected for many months. Inez, who seemed happy everywhere and at all times, was busying herself in the cabin, where she could find plenty to do; and ever and anon the sound of her voice could be heard, as she sang some snatch of song, which came through the mist of memory from her infancy. "I tell you what it is," said Captain Bergen, in his low, determined voice, "this thing cannot continue much longer." "You are no more weary of it than I, Jack; but show me the way in which it can be ended." "We've got to take the risk. The tender there is large enough to carry us and a good supply of provisions--that is, enough water, to last several days. We can rig some sort of sail, and, in less than a week, by keeping to the northwest, we shall reach some inhabited island, unless we should be picked up before that time, which I consider quite likely." "I've thought a good deal of it, Jack," said the mate, in a voice of equal seriousness. "We have been restrained heretofore by the fear that it would endanger too greatly the safety of Inez, and mainly by the feeling that we couldn't stay here long without assistance being summoned by that signal fluttering up there. And yet, three years have come and gone," continued the mate, "and not a living soul has come to us. There have been hundreds of days within this long period when we might have embarked on board the little boat and safely made our way to some other port, but we could not know it, and the result is--here we are." "And the situation is very different from what it was when we first landed, for it is now a choice between staying here with the certainty of miserably perishing--every one of us--and of starting boldly out upon an unknown sea, as it may be called, with the chances between life and death about even." "You have stated the case correctly," assented Mr. Storms; "and though it is your place to command, yet as you have deferred to me, I give you my promise that to-morrow we shall begin rigging the best sort of sail we can, and at daylight on the next day we will start for whatever port Providence directs us." "That has put new life into me, Abe. I feel now as I did three years ago, when we first caught sight of those pearls. I am ten years younger. I prefer a bold stroke for life to a weak submission to fate, with this dismal waiting for help to come to us. By the great horn spoon! a thousand such pearl banks as we cleaned out wouldn't tempt me to spend another year on this hated island----" At this instant the voice of Inez was heard, excitedly calling to them, and while they rose to the sitting position and looked inquiringly in that direction, she was seen to spring through the open door of the cabin, and to come running toward them on the beach, bareheaded and with her long, yellow hair streaming in the wind. "What can be the matter with her?" exclaimed the captain, rising to his feet. "What is she saying?" "Hark!" The distance was so short that the girl was at their side a second or two later. She was laughing, and uttering something in her excitement, which, until that moment, they did not understand. "Who ever saw any one so stupid?" she called out, cheerily. "What are your eyes for? Why don't you look out to sea?" The two obeyed, and an exclamation of amazement escaped both, for there, while they had lain on the beach talking in such disconsolate tones, and looking dreamily out upon the ocean, a craft had been steadily approaching, and neither of the two saw it. At the furthest, it was no more than a mile distant, and, since it was heading straight in toward the atoll, the chances were a hundred to one that the signal of distress had been seen, and the lonely island at last was going to have a visitor. Captain Bergen muttered something about the "great horn spoon," under his breath, while Storms said nothing, but gazed steadily at the craft, upon which his hopes were so suddenly and strongly fixed. It might be that the hearts of all three bounded with hope at this sight of a vessel, but the hope was mixed with apprehension, for the sailors saw it was not the sort of vessel for which they had been praying so long. Instead of a gallant ship, with the Stars and Stripes streaming from the fore, it was what is termed a flying proa, which is the name applied to the narrow canoes used principally in the Ladrone Islands. They are about thirty feet long, three feet wide, and are steered by a paddle at either end. The sail is lateen, with a boom upon one mast; the prow and stern curve to a high point, and the depth being considerably greater than the width, the proa would, if unsupported, capsize instantly, but a hollow log or heavy-pointed spar rests on the water, parallel with the windward side, and, being secured in place, acts as an outrigger and removes the danger of overturning. The same name is applied to the boats used by the Malays, and which are propelled by both oars and sails. But the one which greeted the astonished eyes of Storms and Bergen had its huge lateen sail spread, and was moving with great velocity, for the proas of the Indian and Pacific oceans are probably the fastest boats in the world. It rode the waters like a bird, and would soon enter the lagoon within the island, for there could be no doubt that the men on board had seen not only the signal, but the persons themselves who were waiting for them. Inasmuch as a couple of men were discernible with the naked eye on the proa, it followed that the latter must descry the three individuals who were standing out in full view upon the shore of the island. "How about this?" asked Captain Bergen, stepping to the side of his mate, and speaking in an undertone. "Shall we rejoice or not?" "It's uncertain," was the dubious reply. "Those boats generally carry the vagabonds of the ocean, and the last motive which, as a rule, brings them to a spot like this is humanity." "Where's your glass?" "I declare, I never thought of that--I was so surprised!" Storms carried it with him always, and he now brought it to bear upon the singular-looking craft approaching. It was so close inshore that, with the aid of the instrument, he was able to see everything distinctly, especially as the boat at that moment bore off a little and then headed toward the entrance again. So far as could be ascertained, there were three persons on the boat, and the captain reached the same conclusion after using the glass. "If that's the case," said Captain Bergen, "we haven't anything to fear from them, for, with our guns and ammunition, we can hold our own against a dozen South Sea Islanders." "There may be others concealed about the craft, but I incline to think not. However, it's best to be prepared. So let's get to the house and make ready to receive them--whether they come as enemies or friends." The suggestion was a prudent one, and the two men hurried up the beach in the direction of the cabin, while Inez remained to watch the proa. The men examined their rifles and saw they were loaded and ready for instant use, and then, bearing one apiece, they came forth again. As they did so, something like a shadow seemed to shoot through the trees, and, looking toward the lagoon, they saw the cause. The proa had entered the quiet waters within, and was coming to rest as gracefully as a sea gull stops in its flight. CHAPTER XXVI THE FLYING PROA AND ITS COMMANDER The lateen sail of the proa descended with a rattle and bang, the man at the oar gave it several vigorous sweeps, and the strange-looking but astonishingly swift craft came to rest almost in the same position that the schooner _Coral_ occupied three years before. "Helloa, there! How are you? How long have you been here?" When it is stated that this hail came from aboard the proa, it is unnecessary to say that our two friends were surprised, for they supposed that the visitors were natives, who at the best could not speak more than a few words of broken English. This astonishment was turned to literal amazement when they saw that the speaker was a Caucasian like themselves, one of the two standing at the prow, and looking out upon them with a smiling countenance. There was no mistaking the ruddy, sunburned face, the curling hair, and the regular, European features of the young man, whose expanded smile showed a set of white, even teeth, and he seemed to enjoy their astonishment after hearing his words. It was curious that they had failed to notice him before, inasmuch as his dress was dissimilar from the others, he having the usual tarpaulin hat and the broad trowsers of the American and English sailor. It was plain, too, that he was scarcely a man, being, in fact, a boy, who by some strange means was adrift in this part of the world. As soon as the proa was within reach of land, the youth sprang ashore, and, walking straight up to Captain Bergen, extended his right hand to him and his left to Mr. Storms, shaking both warmly, while, as he spoke, he looked from the face of one to the other. "How long have you been in this place? Judging from your clothes and looks, I should say about twenty years? Do you want to emigrate? Where are you from? What are your names? How came you here? My name is Fred Sanders, and I've been knocking about among the South Sea Islands for the last five years." There was no resisting the jolly good-nature of the young man, who had a habit of laughing heartily, when no one else could see anything to laugh at, and whose high spirits always infected others with whom he came in contact. But it would not have required much study for any one to discover that he was a wild, reckless youth, who had probably run away from home, and taken to bad ways from a natural inclination in that direction. While this interview was going on, Inez Hawthorne was absent, she having withdrawn at the suggestion of her friends, though of course the visitors knew of her presence, from having seen her on the beach. Captain Bergen replied to the greeting of his friend: "We have been here full three years. If I'm not mistaken, it is three years and two weeks this very Thursday." "Then that's just where you _are_ mistaken!" broke in Fred Sanders, with his ringing laugh, "for it so happens that to-day isn't Thursday, by a long shot!" "Of course not," Mr. Storms hastened to say. "I don't know how many arguments I have had with the captain to prove he was wrong, and that this is Friday----" And Fred threw back his head and roared louder than ever. "It's a toss up between you. I don't wonder that you got muddled when you were forced to stay in such an outlandish place as this so long. I think I would have got mixed myself." "Pray tell me what day of the week it is." "This is Tuesday afternoon, with a half-dozen hours of daylight left to you yet." While this brief conversation was going on, the two natives were upon the boat, waiting as if for permission to land. They sat as meekly as children, in a partly crouching position, intently watching, with their glittering black eyes, the three figures before them. They appeared to listen with absorbing attention to the words, as if they understood them--which they did not, excepting so far as they were interpreted by the vigorous gestures. Inez Hawthorne, as we have stated, had withdrawn to the house, when requested to do so by her teacher, but her curiosity led her to step forth and look upon the parties and listen to the conversation--the distance being so short that she could hear all that was said. The natives saw her, and so did Fred Sanders, who occasionally glanced over the shoulders of the two men with whom he was talking, in a way which they understood. The visitors could not fail to be greatly interested in her, but Fred refrained for a time from referring to the girl. Mate Storms explained that the craft in which they came to this portion of the world was wrecked, and that three of the crew were lost, and the captain, mate and a single passenger saved. Since then they had looked in vain for the coming of some friendly sail; plenty enough, however, having appeared, only to depart again and leave them in greater depths of gloom than before. "Where are you from?" asked the captain, putting the question directly to the young man. "I'm an American, born in New England, and am seventeen years old, and it is a long time since I have seen my home." "How came you in this part of the world?" "Why not here as well as anywhere else?" asked Fred Sanders, in reply. "I left home when I was only ten years of age, and have knocked about the world ever since." "But you are now among the Paumotu Islands." "Where I have been for a good while. Some time, perhaps, I will give you the whole history, but it is too long to tell now." It was apparent, from the manner of the boy, that he wished to conceal some facts of his previous life, and neither the captain nor mate pressed him--for, in truth, it was of no special interest to them, their all-absorbing subject of mental anxiety being as to how they were to get away from the hated place. "Where are you directly from?" asked Mr. Storms. "From an island, the name of which I have never heard in English, though its native name is something like Wauparmur." "Inhabited, of course?" "Yes. There are four or five hundred natives and their families. The island is a dozen miles in extent, is very fertile, and has several native towns. At one place is a good harbor, and nearly always some foreign vessel is there. Sometimes I have seen three or more, and when I left, four days ago, a trading-ship from Boston had arrived." "Oh!" exclaimed Abe Storms. "So near and yet so far!" "I think it will probably stay a week longer, for they are doing a good trade with the islanders." "You have awakened a hope that is really painful," said Captain Bergen, while the pale face of Mr. Storms showed he was affected fully as profoundly. "I don't know why it need be painful," said the young man, in his off-hand manner, which was so captivating; "for we were going on a little cruise, when we caught sight of your signal flying, and we put in to find out what the trouble was." "And are you willing to take us off?" asked Storms, who, while he felt the question was unnecessary, was still trembling with anxiety lest something should prevent their going. "Will we take you off?" asked Fred, with a ringing laugh. "That's a pretty question to ask us, when we came for the express purpose of doing so. Of course, we'll take you straight away to the island we came from, and, of course, we'll put you in the way of getting back to Boston as soon as possible, and we only regret that we hadn't the chance to get here three years sooner, so as to save you this dreary waste of time." Tears came to the eyes of both the men, and, as Captain Bergen took the hand of the youth, he said: "We will thank you forever, and will pay you well." It was an unfortunate speech, and the cooler-headed mate would never have uttered it. It might result in no harm; but why let the reckless youth know that they possessed the ability to pay him well? It would be time enough to present him with some of their valuable pearls after reaching Wauparmur, when no possible complication could result from Sanders knowing that these two ragged sailors were very wealthy men. But the words had been said, and could not be recalled, though a vague uneasiness shot through the mind of Abe Storms when he saw a sudden flash of the dark eyes of the youth, who said, in the cheeriest of voices, slapping the captain on the shoulder with a vigor that staggered him: "Who talks of paying one for doing his simple duty? If you or your friend repeats that insult, there will be war between us; and then--excuse me, but ain't you joking when you talk of paying well? For, begging pardon again, you don't look like millionaires with a very heavy bank account." Storms trembled, but he could not restrain the captain. "Of course, we wouldn't insult you, but you will be remembered; and though we are not very extravagant in the way of dress, and don't look like very wealthy men, yet I can promise you you shall be well recompensed, and, what is more, we can carry out the promise, too, in a way that will open your eyes." Having uttered these compromising words, Captain Bergen laughed in a way which alarmed the mate still more; for there was a peculiarity in his friend's actions which he had never noticed before. "I know we are dressed very poorly," added the captain, "and we wouldn't be very popular in a drawing-room, but if you set us down as poor men you will make a great mistake. Won't he, Abe--eh, boy?" And he facetiously punched the astonished and grieved mate in the side, and danced about as if he had perpetrated the best joke of his life. Just then Storms caught the eye of Fred Sanders, and he significantly tapped his own forehead to signify that the captain was not exactly right, mentally. And, when he did so, the kind-hearted mate spoke the truth. CHAPTER XXVII FRED SANDERS Captain Bergen was so affected by the joyful awakening to the fact that his long, dismal sojourn on the lonely island in the Pacific had reached the end at last, and by the belief that now he would be carried as rapidly as wind and sail could take him to his beloved New England again, that his mind was unsettled and he behaved in a way that pained, as much as it astonished, his companion. Inasmuch as such was the fact, Mr. Storms hoped that it would be accepted as an explanation of the strange utterances in which he had indulged, for he believed that the cupidity of the young man had already been excited, and a most unfortunate complication threatened. "You will excuse the excitement of my friend," said he to Sanders, "though mine is nearly as great; but he had almost settled into the belief that we were doomed to perish in this desolate spot, and the reaction caused by your joyous tidings is too much for him." "Oh, that's all right!" was the cheery response. "I understand how that is. But, begging pardon, I believe you have another companion?" Fred looked so earnestly at the figure of Inez Hawthorne, standing a short distance off, that his meaning could not be mistaken. "It is I who should beg your pardon," said Storms, in turn, beckoning to Inez to approach; "but we were so much interested in you that we forgot her for the time." While the girl was approaching the group, Captain Bergen turned about, and without a word, walked slowly away in the direction of the cabin, his manner showing still more clearly than ever that his mind was unbalanced--a fact which caused Storms great discomfort. Aside from his love for the good, honest man, he saw that he had already imperiled, and was likely still further to imperil, their great possessions by his rambling, and yet significant, talk. The pearls still lay some distance away, buried in the sand in their canvas bags, and must be procured before leaving the island. Since the captain had already awakened suspicion respecting the truth, the difficulty of getting the prizes away without detection was immeasurably increased, while the likelihood of his making still further disclosures remained. Storms was fearful that this sudden movement on the part of Bergen meant something of the kind, but the situation was such that he could not interfere, and all he could do during the few minutes remaining of the trying interview, was to keep a furtive watch, so far as possible, upon the movements of the captain. "Mr. Sanders," said the mate, "this is Inez Hawthorne--a little girl who became a companion of ours through no fault of hers or of either of us. She has been here during the three years we have spent on the island, and though she has stood it so much better than we, she is fully as anxious to get away. Inez, this is Mr. Fred Sanders, who has come to take us off." The handsome young fellow doffed his hat and bowed with a certain grace and deferential regard in his manner, which led Storms, who was narrowly watching him, to suspect that he was of high birth and had moved in good circles before he had made his début in this strange part of the world. Inez possessed the same charming simplicity which had distinguished her in her earlier years, though she was more reserved, as was natural with her. She extended her hand to Sanders, who gave it a gentle pressure, while he said: "When I saw the signal fluttering up there I suspected there were persons here who wanted help, but I never dreamed that we should find you." "And why not me as well as any one else?" asked Inez, with a smile. "Is there any reason why I shouldn't have misfortune the same as other persons? If there is any such rule, I have never heard of it." "I know of none; but shipwreck, as a general thing--and certainly in the case of your companions--has been a great injury to them. They look emaciated and ill, and the captain is surely injured in the mind. But you--why--well, never mind." Fred laughed and broke down, for he really meant to say nothing that could be construed into flattery or impertinence. There was an air of goodness and refinement about the girl which compelled the respect, for the time at least, of the wild youth. "I am so glad you have come," said Inez, without commenting upon his last words; "for though I have been as cheerful as I could, it has been mainly on account of the captain and Mr. Storms. I saw how dejected they were, and tried to cheer them as best I could." "Which was very kind in you. But, thank heaven! it is all over now, and I hope we shall soon bear you away from this place, that no doubt has become so detestable in your eyes that you never want to see it again." "I cannot say how dreadful it is and how much I dislike it. The ship which ought to have taken us away as it brought us, was broken to pieces on the beach, and the mutineers, who thirsted for our lives, were drowned when almost in reach, as may be said, of the shore." Here was some more unexpected information that greatly interested Fred Sanders, who began to think he would get at all the facts by interviewing each member of the little company. Mr. Storms heard the remark of Inez; but, while he regretted it--on the ground that it might raise some more uncomfortable suspicions--he did not care particularly, for the sad story was one that could easily be told, and upon which he was ready for cross-examination. But what more interested him at that moment was the fact that Captain Bergen just then reached the cabin, and, instead of stopping within, passed on beyond. The conclusion of Storms was natural that he had gone to the upper part of the island to dig up the pearls; in which case, in his peculiar mental condition, he would, most likely, lose them all. This would never do, and the mate excused himself, saying: "I am a little uneasy respecting the captain, and I will leave you two here while I look after him." Fred Sanders saluted him, and told the truth when he said he would forgive his departure with pleasure; with which the ragged mate went hurrying after the ragged captain. "Won't you step on board the proa for a little while?" asked Fred, who was rather tired of standing on the sand under the palm-trees. "As it is to be your dwelling-place for a few days, you may like to select your apartments." Inez said she would be glad to do so, and Fred uttered some sharp exclamation, which caused both of the dusky natives to spring to their feet and hasten to the side of the proa nearest the shore, where they waited the chance to help her aboard. Inez noticed that the islanders were muscular, athletic fellows, with such a peculiar appearance that she could not avoid staring at them for a few seconds. Each was fully six feet in height--an unusual stature among the South Sea Islanders--and their breasts, arms and legs were tattooed with all sorts of figures and representations. Since these portions of their anatomy were uncovered, the singular ornamentation was very prominent. They had the curious tattooing on their cheeks, noses and foreheads, so that their appearance was repellent. Besides this, their teeth were black, their noses large and flat, and their mouths wider than there was any necessity for. Their heads were bare, and, indeed, were furnished by nature with all the covering they could need. The hair was very long, but frizzly, so that as it curled up about their ears and crowns, it formed an immense bushy screen, which gave their heads prodigious size. Their hands and feet were very large, and it would have been hard, in short, to discover anything in their looks that could attract a person toward them. Surveying them dispassionately, one could not help suspecting they belonged to a tribe of cannibals. However, Inez did not show any repulsion which she might have felt, but stepping close to the proa took the extended hand, and sprang lightly aboard of the strange craft. The natives immediately withdrew, leaving the young captain, as he appeared to be, to conduct the fair visitor around the "ship," whose dimensions did not require much time to investigate. Fred explained that the proa was a vessel peculiar to the Indian and Central Pacific oceans, and that it could sail with great swiftness, going either forward or backward with equal readiness. It is a favorite boat used for inter-communication between hundreds of the islands of the South Seas, and the Malays employ them in a different form for their piratical expeditions. They owe their swiftness mainly to the fact that they stand so high out of the water, are very narrow, and present such a large surface to the wind. "They are good for short voyages," said Fred, "but I shouldn't want to start for New York or Liverpool in one of them." "How long will it take us to reach the island from which you came?" asked Inez. "If we start early to-morrow morning, with a good wind, we ought to be there at the end of two days." This was shorter time than he had given Mate Storms, but he was now striving to speak the truth. "And suppose we are overtaken by one of those terrible tempests which sometimes visit this part of the world?" "We cannot escape the risk, no matter where we are. The storm that would sink a proa might cause a seventy-four to founder, and the only way you can shun danger is to stay here all your life. I hardly think that such is your wish, Miss Inez." "No; I am as anxious to leave as are Mr. Storms and the captain. Indeed, I think I am more so, for I understand that they expect to wait until to-morrow morning, while if I had my wish I would start this very hour." "We are at the disposal of yourself and friends," Sanders courteously responded; "but the reason for delay is that thereby we expect to be compelled to spend but a single night on the voyage, while if we started now we should have two." CHAPTER XXVIII THE MATE BECOMES CAPTAIN "Poor Jack!" murmured Abe Storms, hastening after him. "I have been fearing this very thing. He has taken the matter more to heart than I, and there has been a look in his eye in the last few weeks which showed he was not right; but I thought, when he found he was going back to his home again, he would almost instantly regain his mental equipoise. "But it has operated the other way, and I shouldn't wonder if he is as wild as a loon. When we get him away, dress him up, change his food, and give him a sight of a Boston vessel, he will be sure to come around; but, he has said too much already. "I wonder what sort of a fellow that Fred Sanders is?" added Storms, whose intellect seemed to be sharpened by the same cause which overturned that of the captain. "I would be glad to trust him fully, but somehow, I can't. While he is courteous and kind--and, no doubt, means to carry us all to the inhabited island, where we shall be able to take care of ourselves--there is something about him that awakens distrust. The fact of his having been five years, as he says, in these South Sea Islands, shows that all is not right, which is confirmed by his dislike of saying anything about his earlier history. "The best thing in his favor is his youth, and yet," continued Storms, thoughtfully, "that, after all, may be the worst. It would seem that he is too young to have done a great deal of evil; and yet, if he has committed many transgressions, it is a woful record for such a lad. It was too bad that the captain hinted that we have so much means, and he wouldn't have done it had he been in his right mind; but it has produced an effect upon Sanders, as I could see by the flash of his eyes, and the apparently indifferent questions he asked afterwards. "But we have saved our ammunition," muttered Storms, a minute later, compressing his lips; "and I know how to use my revolver, and it is only for a short time that I shall have to maintain watch." While Abe Storms was talking to himself in this fashion, he had his eye on the captain, who was walking slowly toward that portion of the island where the pearls had been concealed so carefully, and there could be no doubt of his errand. He did not hear the soft footstep behind him, which was so regulated that it came up with him just as the latter paused at the all-important spot. The captain first looked out to sea, and then behind him, catching sight, as he did so, of the smiling countenance of his mate--so far as his countenance could be seen through the wealth of beard. "Hello! What are you doing here?" asked the captain, in a voice which showed some perplexity, if not displeasure. "What are you doing here?" asked Storms, in turn, slapping him familiarly on the shoulder. "I suppose we came upon the same errand, as we are so soon to leave for home. The pearls are buried here, and we must carry them away with us." "How do you know that's what I came for, Abe?" "I'm only saying I suspect it's your business. I know it's mine." Captain Bergen was a little bewildered by the sharp manner in which the good-natured mate caught him up, and, while he seemed to be debating with himself what to say, Storms took his arm and led him a short distance off, and, seating him on the beach, said: "There's no hurry about the business, Jack, for we won't start until to-morrow morning at daylight, so as to have as few nights on the voyage as possible, and we had better decide on the proper course for us to take." "That is correct," replied the captain, assenting so quietly that his friend hoped he would remain easily manageable. "You remember, Jack, that when we buried the pearls there, we divided them--your half is in a strong canvas bag, so packed that they won't rub together, or make any noise; and mine are in another sack. The single pearl which belongs to Inez is also carefully covered; and now we must manage to get away with them, without letting Sanders know they are in our possession." "What do you want to do that for?" demanded the captain, turning fiercely upon the mate. "I like that fellow. He's going to put me on a ship and send me back to Boston; and any one who does that does me a service worth more than all the pearls in the world. I am going to give him all mine, and I hope Inez will do the same. I shall do my best to persuade her, and if you don't, Abe, you and I are deadly enemies, and I'll kill you the first chance!" Storms showed his shrewdness by the manner in which he managed the poor fellow. "That's all right, Jack," he replied, assuming a look and expression of anger, as he glared upon the lunatic, well aware that he must make him afraid of him. "If it's any fun for you to talk in that style, I'll let you do it once, but don't you try it again. Did I ever tell you about those sixteen persons that I killed up in New Hampshire before we started out with the _Coral?_" "No!" gasped the captain, looking at him with awe. "Well, I won't tell you now," said the mate, with the same frightful earnestness, "for it would make you feel too bad. If they hadn't made me mad, I wouldn't have killed them, and I'll let up on you if you do not say anything of the kind again. If you do, I'll get mad, Jack." "By the great horn spoon!" exclaimed the alarmed captain, "I'll let the matter drop, if you will." "All right," said the mate, relenting somewhat. "And, mind you, don't you go to talking to Sanders about it. Don't you tell him another thing, and never mention the word pearls." "I won't--I won't!" was the meek rejoinder of poor Captain Bergen, who had been completely cowed by the fierceness of his mate. "I'm an awful man when my wrath is roused!" Abe Storms thought it best to add; "and it was just rising to the boiling-point when you were lucky enough to take back your foolish expression." "What are we going to do now?" asked the captain, apparently anxious to turn the current of conversation into a more agreeable channel. "We'll go back and make ready to leave on the proa. We have considerable to do before we depart. There are a number of things in the cabin that we must carry with us." "Yes, that's so; I forgot that. But, Abe--don't you get mad!--what about them?" "Just never you mind," replied the mate with an important wave of the hand. "I'll attend to them." "All right. I was afraid you would forget 'em!" It pained Storms to tyrannize over his superior officer in this fashion, but stern necessity compelled him to become the real captain. The intention of the mate when he first followed his friend was to dig up the pearls and give him his share, but he saw that that would never do. It would precipitate a tragedy to allow the lunatic any option in the matter. So, without any further reference to the pearls, the two rose to their feet and walked slowly back in the direction of the proa, talking on no particular subject, since the mate was desirous of diverting the mind of the captain as much as possible. The discoveries of the next few minutes did not serve to lighten the apprehension of Storms, for when he reached the proa the two islanders seemed to be enjoying a siesta, while neither Fred Sanders nor Inez was in sight. Suspecting what was wanted, one of the natives roused up and pointed toward the sea, jabbering some odd words, which could not be understood, but which Storms concluded were meant to indicate the direction taken by the couple. "That's almost the path to the spot where we were," he thought, as he turned and walked away, holding the arm of the captain within his own. Sure enough, they had not gone far when they caught sight of Fred and Inez sitting on the beach, just as if they were at some fashionable seaside resort in summer time, and were chattering no particular sense at all. Storms noticed that the place was such as to command a view of that where he and the captain had held their conversation, and where their precious possessions were buried. "I wonder whether that was done on purpose?" he thought. "It may be he meant nothing, but I fear he took Inez along merely to hide the fact that he was playing the spy upon us." It was not pleasant to believe this, and yet the suspicion was rooted pretty firmly in the mind of the mate, who, perhaps, was becoming over-suspicious. "Ah, how are you?" asked Sanders, with a laugh, changing his lounging to the sitting position. "I conducted Miss Inez over the proa, so as to make her acquainted with the craft, as you may say, and since that didn't take long, we thought we would try a little stroll down here, where we could have a talk without those natives staring at us. How is your friend?" asked the young man, suddenly lowering his voice to such a sympathetic key that Storms felt guilty for the moment for ever having suspected him capable of wrong. "I'm a little uneasy about him," was the reply, as both glanced at the captain, who sat down beside Inez and began talking to her, "for he seems to have broken up all at once. He was such a strong man, just in the prime of vigorous manhood, that it would hardly be supposed he would give away so suddenly." "I think he will soon recover, for the change will be so radical, and the awakened hope so strong, that he will be sure to rally in the course of a few days." "I hope so," was the response, "but he must be watched very carefully." CHAPTER XXIX FAREWELL TO THE ISLAND The weather remained enchanting. The tropical heat was tempered by the ocean breeze, which stole among the palms, and across the island, and where the crew, and those who had lived there so long, lounged in the shadow, or sauntered in the sunshine, when the orb sank low in the western sky. It was curious that now, after the coming of the proa, when no other help was needed, the signal at the masthead, as it may be called, seemed to have acquired an unusual potency; for, on two separate occasions during the afternoon, the island was approached by vessels, who were given to understand that the parties on shore were provided for. Mate Storms, now the captain, very much doubted whether he did a wise thing in declining this proffered assistance, but the main reason for doing so was the fact that the pearls were still buried, and he knew of no way of getting them without discovery. One of the ships was a Dutch one, from Java, and the other was British, bound for Ceylon--neither very desirable, as they would have compelled a long, roundabout voyage home. But Storms would have accepted the offer of one on account of his distrust of the young man, Fred Sanders, but for the reason given. Captain Bergen, after the "setting back" given him by Storms, became quiet and tractable, and stayed almost entirely with Inez, for whom he showed the greatest affection. Since she was tenderly attached to him, and sympathized in his affliction, this kept the two together almost continually--an arrangement which it was plain to see was not agreeable to Fred Sanders, though he was too courteous to make any mention of it. During the afternoon such goods as were deemed necessary were transferred to the proa, which lay at anchor in the lagoon. These were not very numerous or valuable, and consisted mostly of garments which Storms had manufactured for Inez. When night came, after a meal had been eaten on shore close to where the proa lay, it was arranged that Sanders should sleep on board with his crew--if two men might be termed such--while the others should stay in their cabin, as was their wont. Storms contrived this on the plea that his companion, the captain, would be more tractable. His real purpose was to gain a chance to secure the pearls unnoticed. The young man made not the slightest objection to the plan, for he had too good sense to do so; nor did his silence in that respect lull the suspicions of Storms himself. "I wish there was not such a bright moon," said the mate to himself, not far from midnight, "for I need all the quiet and darkness I can get; and I don't see any use of waiting longer," he added. Captain Bergen had been sleeping quietly for several hours, while the silence in the apartment of Inez showed that she, too, was wrapped in slumber, and possibly dreaming of far-away scenes, of which her memory was so misty and indistinct. As to those upon the proa, everything must necessarily be conjecture; but, in the middle of the night, with his senses on the alert, and his imagination excited, Abe Storms conjured up all sorts of fancies and suspicions. There were many times when he believed that these men, including the boyish leader, were the worst kind of pirates, who were only waiting the chance to secure the pearls, when they would either desert or treacherously slay them. But, since meditation and idleness could avail nothing, he rose from his couch upon the floor, and, making sure that his loaded revolver was in place, he stole out from among the palm trees, and began moving in the direction of the spot where his treasures lay hid. He did this with the utmost precaution, glancing in every direction at each step, frequently pausing and changing the course he was pursuing, and, in short, doing everything he could think of to prevent detection. The full moon rode high in an almost unclouded sky, and the air was as charming as that of Italy. The solemn roar of the ocean and the irregular boom of the long, immense swells breaking against the shore and sending the thin sheets of foam sliding swiftly up the bank, were the only sounds that greeted his ears. "That is wonderful!" exclaimed the searcher, for all at once he descried a ship, under full sail, seemingly within two hundred yards of shore. "If these parties hadn't arrived to-day this craft wouldn't have come within a score of miles of us." The ship looked like a vast bird, when with all sail set and her black hull careening to one side under the wind, she drove the foaming water away from her bows, and sped forward as if pursuing or fleeing from some enemy. Whether the watch saw the signal of distress in the moonlight, cannot be known, but the vessel speedily passed on, and vanished in the night, while Mate Storms, recalling his thoughts, and seeing no one near him, moved directly to where he had deposited his riches such a long time before, and to which he only made an occasional visit. He had advanced too far to retreat, whether he was seen or not, and he stooped down and began digging with his hands and sheath-knife. It was only a short distance, when he struck something, and a moment after drew up a small, strong canvas bag. Soon came another, and then a smaller one, which contained the wonderful pearl that belonged to Inez Hawthorne. They were all there, and had not been disturbed. "Now, it only remains to keep these in my possession," was his thought, as he straightened up and started to return. "I would give half of them if they were at home and safe in the bank--Hello!" Perhaps the vision of the sailor was unusually keen just then, for when he paused with a start he caught sight of a shadowy figure, which seemed to glide, without any effort of its own, over the sand, and immediately disappeared among the palm trees. There was something so peculiar in its movements that Abe was chilled with awe as he stood still and watched it for the few seconds it remained in view. But there could be no doubt of its identity. It was Fred Sanders, who had been on the watch, and who must have seen the mate dig up the treasures, and knew they were now in his possession. Storms was in anything but a comfortable frame of mind while walking thoughtfully back to the cabin, which he entered. "What more likely than that he will steal up here in the night, believing I am asleep, and try to shoot me? Well, if he does so, he shall find me prepared for him, anyway." The first proceeding of the mate was to deposit the pearls contained in the three diminutive canvas sacks in a small valise, which he had carefully preserved all through the years, and which now held a few necessities that he meant to take away with him. The addition of these precious contents taxed the receptacle to its fullest capacity, but, after all, this was the best thing to do, and he believed he would be able to keep it under his eye during the comparatively short time they would be on the voyage to Wauparmur Island. It may be said, indeed, that there was nothing else to be done, which rendered it unfortunate that he could not secure a few hours' sleep before venturing away in the proa. But the nerves of the mate were too unstrung by his position to feel easy, and he placed himself by the opening of the cabin, with his hand upon the weapon, prepared to watch until daylight. As might have been supposed, in spite of his uneasiness, he gradually became drowsy, and it was not long before his head sank on his breast, and he, too, was asleep. It was well he did so, for he gained the rest so necessary, and as it was, he might have slept longer had he not been awakened by outside causes. Captain Bergen slept on, but Inez was on her feet at an early hour, and seeing that Storms was unconscious, she passed out without disturbing him, and made her way to the spring, where she always performed her morning ablutions. It was natural that the mate, going to sleep as he did, with his mind filled with the most dismal of fancies, should find his slumbers visited by horrible phantasies. He was struggling with the figure of a man, who had the face of Fred Sanders, and they were bearing each other over an immense cliff, when his opponent got the upper hand, and, holding him suspended for the moment, began to laugh at his calamity. The laugh grew louder, until it awoke the startled sleeper, who, opening wide his eyes, saw the veritable figure of Fred Sanders before him, laughing as heartily as he had been doing in the struggle in sleep. "Mercy! where's the valise?" gasped the bewildered Storms, clutching at the receptacle which lay at his side. "I thought you had stolen it----" Just then the quick-witted sailor recalled his situation, and he, too, broke into mirth, in which there was not much heartiness. "What a curious dream I had, Sanders! I really believe I have been asleep!" "And what is strange about that, since a full night has passed since we last met? I hope you have had a good rest, even though your awaking was not so pleasant." Abe Storms was excessively chagrined, for his very action, when aroused so unexpectedly, would, of itself, have turned suspicion to the satchel, which he snatched up like a startled miser. This action, united with what Captain Bergen had said, and with what the young man himself had witnessed the preceding night, could not have failed to tell him that that rusty-looking valise--about which the owner was so careful--contained a great amount of wealth in some form. But what of it? This was the question Storms put to himself as he sprang up and called to Inez--who immediately appeared--and began the preparation for the last meal they expected to eat upon the detested island. Captain Bergen was quiet and thoughtful, but the others were in high spirits. The two natives made their meal on board the proa, where they stolidly awaited the coming of the passengers, the "baggage" having been transferred the day before. And the sun was no more than fairly above the horizon when the proa started on her eventful voyage to Wauparmur Island--a voyage destined to be marked by events of which no one on board dreamed. CHAPTER XXX ON THE FLYING PROA At last the friends who had been left on Pearl Island three years before, and whose hearts had been bowed with despair more than once, saw the atoll gradually fade from view, until the top of the tallest palm-tree dipped out of sight in the blue Pacific and vanished from view forever. "It seems hardly possible," said Abe Storms, when at last his straining vision could detect no shadow of the spot, "that we have been rescued. I'm so full of joy and hope at the prospect before me that it is hard work to restrain myself from shouting and jumping overboard." "What is your idea in jumping overboard?" asked Sanders, with a laugh, in which Inez Hawthorne joined. "Merely to give expression to my exuberance of joy; after I should cool off, I would be cooler, of course." Captain Bergen, to the grief of his friends, showed no signs of mental improvement, though his hallucination took a different form. Instead of being talkative, like he was the day before, he became reserved, saying nothing to any one, not even to answer a simple question when it was put to him. He ensconced himself at the stern in such a position that he was out of the way of the man with the steering oar, where he curled up like one who wished neither to be seen nor heard. "Humor his fancies," said Sanders, "for it will only aggravate him to notice them. It was the same with Redvignez and Brazzier that I was speaking about last night." "Redvignez and Brazzier?" repeated Inez; "where did you ever see them?" "I sailed a voyage with them once from Liverpool, and I was telling Mr. Storms last night that I saw them both so frightened without cause that their minds were upset for a while. And may I ask whether you know them?" asked the young man, with a flush of surprise, addressing the girl. "Why, they and a negro, Pomp, were the three mutineers who were the means of our staying on the island. They tried to kill the captain and mate, but----" "She saved us," broke in Storms, who thereupon gave the narrative told long ago to the reader, omitting the attempt that was made upon his own life by cutting the hose-pipes which let the air down to him, inasmuch as that would have caused the telling of the pearl fishing also. Fred Sanders listened with great interest, for he had known the men well, and it may as well be stated that the danger to which the scoundrels were exposed, as referred to by him, was that of being executed for mutiny; and, as it was, the part of Sanders himself was such that he would have been strung up at the yard-arm in short order had it not been his extreme youth, which pleaded in his favor. Since Storms and his companions had revealed some things that might have been better concealed, so Fred Sanders himself felt he had hinted at a little story which was likely to injure his standing in the eyes of those toward whom he was playing the part of the good Samaritan. The proa was arranged as comfortably as possible, Inez Hawthorne being given a place in front, where a sort of compartment was made for her, by means of stretching awnings of cocoa-matting and a portion of the reserve fund of lateen on hand. The others disposed themselves so that she was left undisturbed whenever she chose to withdraw to her "state room," as Captain Fred Sanders facetiously termed it. The two natives had little to say, and they obeyed orders like the veritable slaves they were. There could be no doubt they understood the management of the proa to perfection, and the strange craft spun through the water with astonishing speed. Mr. Storms deposited his valise, with its valuable contents, forward, where he seemed to bestow little attention on it, though, as may well be supposed, it was ever present in his thoughts, and quite often in his eye. Several times in the course of the day they caught sight of sails in the distance, but approached none; for, as Sanders said, the all-important thing now was to make the most speed possible, while the opportunity remained to them. There was a freshening of the breeze and a haziness which spread through the northern horizon that caused some misgiving on the part of all, for the proa would be a poor shelter in case they were overtaken by one of those terrific tempests they had seen more than once. Toward the middle of the afternoon something like a low bank of clouds appeared to the left, or in the west, which, being scrutinized through the glasses, proved to be a low-lying island. Sanders knew of it, and said they passed it still closer on their way to the atoll. It was also an atoll like that, but much smaller in size, and, of course, uninhabited. It might do for a refuge in case of the coming of a violent storm, while in the vicinity; but otherwise it would only be a loss of time to pause at it. The fact that such a place existed so near them caused something like a feeling of security upon the part of Mate Storms, such as comes over one on learning he has a good friend at his elbow in face of some coming trouble. As the afternoon advanced, and the proa bounded forward before a strong, steady breeze, Storms thought the occasion a good one to obtain some sleep, with a view of keeping awake during the coming night, and he assumed an easy position, where, his mind being comparatively free from apprehension, he soon sank into slumber. This left Inez Hawthorne with no one to talk to excepting Fred Sanders, who seemed in better spirits than usual. When they had discussed the voyage, and he had given her as good an account as he could of the island toward which they were hastening, and after she had answered all his questions as best she could, she turned upon him and asked: "How long did you say you had spent in these islands?" "As nearly as I can recollect, it is about five years." "And, as you are now seventeen, you must have been only twelve years old when you first came here." "That agrees with my figuring," said Sanders, with a nod of his head. "You can't be far out of the way." "Where did you live before that?" "Well, I lived in a good many places--that is, for two years. I was on the Atlantic and on the Pacific and--well, it would take me a good long while to tell of all that I passed through. I may as well own up to you, Inez, that it was a wild, rough life for a man, even without taking into account the fact that I was a boy." "Then you went to sea when you were only ten years old?" "That also coincides with my mathematical calculations," replied Sanders, somewhat embarrassed, for he saw they were approaching delicate ground. "Then before you were ten years of age?" "I lived at home, of course." "And where was that?" "You will excuse me, Inez, from answering that question. I have reasons for doing so. Let me say that I stayed at home for the first ten years of my existence, and was as bad a boy as can be imagined. I fell into the worst kind of habits, and it was through the two men--Redvignez and Brazzier--whom I've heard you speak of, that I was persuaded to go to sea with them, when I ought to have been at home with my father." "Is your mother living, Mr. Sanders?" The youth turned his head away, so she could not see his face, and when he moved it back and spoke again there was a tear on his cheek, and he replied, in a voice of sadness: "My mother is in heaven, where her son will never be." Inez was inexpressibly shocked. "Why, Mr. Sanders, what do you mean by that?" "A better woman than she never lived, nor a worse boy than I. You can't understand, Inez. You are too young and too good yourself to realize what a wretch I was. I deliberately ran away from home seven years ago, and have never been within a thousand miles of it since, and I never expected to do so, until within the last day or so; somehow or other, I've fallen to thinking more than before." "Have you a father?" "I don't know. I think he is dead, too, for I was enough to break his heart, and I have never heard of him since. I hadn't any brothers or sisters when I came away. I'm all that's left, and now there is a longing coming over me to hunt up my father again before he dies, that is--if--he--isn't--already--gone!" It was no use. Fred Sanders, the wild, reckless youth, who had passed through many a scene that would have made a man shudder, suddenly put his hands to his face, and his whole frame shook with emotion. The memories of his early childhood came back to him, and he saw again the forms of those who loved him so fondly, and whose affection he returned with such piercing ingratitude. Conscience had slept for many years, but the gentle words of Inez had awakened its voice again. The goodness of the girl, who was already like a loved sister to Sanders, had stirred up the better part of his nature, and he looked upon himself with a shudder, that one so young as he should have committed his many transgressions. No wonder that he felt so pressed down that he cried out in the bitterness of his spirit that heaven was shut from him. It was hard for Inez to keep back the sympathizing tears herself when she witnessed the overwhelming grief of the strong youth. The latter sat silent for some minutes, holding his face partly averted, as if ashamed of this evidence of weakness--an evidence which it is safe to say he had not shown for years, young as he was. Ah, there were memories that had slumbered long which came crowding upon the boy--memories whose import no one on board that strange craft could suspect but himself, and whose work was soon to appear in a form and with a force that neither Inez Hawthorne nor Mate Storms so much as dreamed of. CHAPTER XXXI A STRANGE CRAFT "I tell you a boy who uses his mother bad is sure to suffer for it some time. I've seen so many cases that I know there's such a law that governs the whole world. I thank heaven that I never brought a tear to my mother's eyes." The speaker was Captain Bergen, who was talking to Fred Sanders while the two sat together on the proa, near midnight succeeding the conversation mentioned between Inez and the youth Fred. The latter might have believed, as he had jocosely remarked, that he had captured a small party of missionaries, who were making a dead set at him; but his feelings had been touched in a most tender manner, and he had done more thinking during the last few hours than in all his previous life. The only one on the proa who was on duty was Fred, who held the steering-oar in place, while the curiously-shaped vessel sped through the water. The sea was very calm and the wind so slight that they were in reality going slower than at any previous time, and the task of guiding the boat was hardly a task at all. Fred sat looking up at the stars half the time, with his memory and conscience doing their work. His two men had lain down, and were asleep, for they were regular in all their habits, and he had seen nothing of Inez since she had withdrawn to her "apartment." Mate Storms kept up a fragmentary conversation with the young captain until quite late, when he withdrew, and Fred was left with himself for fully two hours, when Mr. Bergen crept softly forth and took a seat near him, even getting in such a position that he would have been very much in the way had any emergency arisen. The captain was disposed to talk--somewhat to Fred's dislike--for he was in that mood when he desired to be alone; but he was also in a more gracious and charitable temper than usual, and he answered the old captain quite kindly. "You've a good deal to be thankful for," said he, in reply to the remark above given. "But my mother has been in heaven for many a year." "She is fortunate, after all," said the captain, with a sigh, and a far-away look over the moonlit sea. "Yes, a great deal more fortunate than her son will ever be." "It all depends on you, young man," said the captain, severely. "Heaven is reached step by step, and there's no one who cannot make it. If you haven't started in the right direction, now's the time to do so." Fred Sanders may have assented to this, but he was silent, and he, too, looked off over the sea as if his thoughts were running in a new and unaccustomed channel. "My mother must be a very old woman by this time," added the captain, after a minute or more of silence, during which nothing but the rushing of the water was heard. "How old is she?" asked Fred. "She must be close on to eighty; and I think she's dead, for she was very feeble when I saw her, three years ago, in San Francisco. But I'm going to see her very soon; yes, very soon--very soon." "It's a long way to 'Frisco," ventured Fred, mildly; "but I hope you will have a quick voyage." "I am not going to wait till we get there." "How are you going to manage it, then?" "This way. I'm coming, mother!" And Captain Jack Bergen sprang overboard and went out of sight. "Heavens! what was that?" exclaimed Mate Storms, leaping forward from where he had been dozing upon his couch. "The captain has jumped overboard!" was the horrified reply of Fred Sanders, who was bringing the proa around as fast as he could. Without another word, Mate Storms made a bounding plunge after him, leaving the young captain to manage the craft as best he could. The latter uttered a sharp command which brought the crew to their feet in an instant, and, in an incredibly short space of time, the proa came around, and, scarcely losing any headway, moved back toward the spot where the demented man had sprung into the sea, which was now a long distance astern. It was a startling awaking for Abram Storms, who did his utmost for his unfortunate captain. The mate was a splendid swimmer, and, plunging forward with a powerful stroke, he called to his friend again and again, frequently lifting himself far out of the water, when on the crest of a swell, and straining his eyes to pierce the moonlight about him, hoping to catch sight of the figure of the captain, who was also a strong swimmer. But if he had jumped overboard with the intention of suicide, it was not to be supposed he would continue swimming. The mate, however, was hopeful that in that awful minute when he went beneath the waters, something like a realizing sense of what he had done would come to him and he would struggle to save himself. But, alas, for poor Captain Jack Bergen, who had journeyed so many thousand miles, and had endured such a long imprisonment upon a lonely island! He sent back no answering shout to the repeated calls of his mate, whose eyes failed to catch sight of his gray head as he rose and sank for a brief while on the water. When Fred Sanders got the proa about he guided its movements by the sound of the mate's voice, and, in a short while, he ran alongside and assisted him on board. Nothing had been seen nor heard of the captain, and there could be no doubt now that he was gone forever. Nevertheless, the proa continued cruising around the place for fully an hour, in widening circles, until all were convinced that not a particle of hope remained, when they filled away again, and a long, last farewell was uttered to Captain Jack Bergen. He had procured a fortune in a comparatively easy manner, and it looked for a time as if the payment was small; but the price demanded now was his life, and what more can a man give, excepting his soul?--which, most happily, was not the case with him. During these minutes of excitement, Inez Hawthorne slept soundly, and she never knew anything of the sad occurrence until the morrow was well advanced. Her grief prostrated her for many hours, for she was a child unusually affectionate by nature, and she had been tenderly attached to the captain, who had been such a father to her. It spread a gloom over the boat, as may be said, the only ones who showed no sorrow in their countenances being the dusky islanders, who seemed to take everything as it came along as a matter of course, and who obeyed the Caucasian captain like so many machines under the control of an engineer. Fred Sanders was thoughtful, and, what was rather curious, had little to say to Inez during the first portion of the day. He uttered a few words of sympathy when she sought to restrain her tears, but after that he kept very much to himself, as if there was some new and important matter on his mind, as was indeed the case. It will be remembered that the expectation was that the voyage of the proa would terminate that night by their arrival at their destination, but the delay caused by the moderate wind and the search for the lost captain led Mate Storms to feel some doubt, and he asked Captain Sanders his view of the matter. "I can't tell you anything about it!" It was not these words alone, so much as the abrupt manner, which set the mate somewhat back. He had received nothing of the kind from the youth since their meeting, and it astonished him. A hot reply rose to the lips of Abe Storms, but he suppressed it and moved away. "I wonder whether he doesn't feel soured at the thought that the death of the captain will prevent his getting such a large reward for his services?" said the mate to himself, who, after thinking over the matter for a few minutes longer, reached a conclusion. "We expected to reach Wauparmur Island to-night, before dark. We shall be late, but, as it is, I shall have no trouble in keeping awake the rest of the voyage, and I've little fear that I will not be able to protect my property as well as myself." With this, he moved back to the youth, and said, in a cheery voice: "You recall, sir, that poor Captain Bergen made some promises to you about rewarding you liberally for your services. My friend was a little wild in what he said, but he was right when he declared we had the means, and I wish simply to say that his wishes and intentions in that respect, which accorded with my own from the start, shall be carried out to the letter." Mr. Storms immediately joined Inez, while the captain made no reply, much to the discomfiture of the mate, who said to Inez: "What's the matter with Sanders?" "He is watching an object over the sea yonder. He has been expecting to discover something, and he has caught sight of it at last." The mate instantly produced his glasses, and leveled them in the direction the young captain was looking. There was something, indeed. As revealed by the instrument, it was what might be termed a double canoe, or proa--that is, two narrow canoes were joined together, side by side, and connected by a sort of framework, while an enormous lateen sail towered above them, and carried it forward with remarkable speed. The surprised mate carefully scrutinized the strange craft, and saw that it contained a large crew, there being, as he estimated, fully twenty men on board. It was to the westward of the smaller proa, and like that was pursuing almost a northerly course, though the experienced eyes of the sailor told him that the paths of the two were converging, and that, unless changed, they undoubtedly would meet before nightfall. The double canoe was about two miles distant, and as it rose on the crest of a swell the glass revealed the white foam which curled away from the bows, and there could be no doubt of its remarkable swiftness. After watching this strange craft for a few minutes, Mr. Storms devoted some time to a furtive but careful study of the face of Fred Sanders, who was on the most elevated portion of the proa, and was carefully noting the course of the two vessels. The alarming conclusion reached by Abram Storms was that the other craft contained a gang of pirates; that Fred Sanders knew them, and he was guiding his own proa by an understanding previously had with them. And Abram Storms was right. CHAPTER XXXII A FRIEND AMONG ENEMIES The double canoe, with its cumbersome lateen sail and its crew of twenty-odd pirates, had stolen down from somewhere among the Paumotu Islands, and was now gradually approaching the proa which contained Abram Storms and Inez Hawthorne. The experience of the preceding few years, and especially of the last day or two, had given Mr. Storms an astonishing acuteness, which enabled him often to detect the truth without difficulty. The strong suspicion he now formed was that Fred Sanders was expecting the appearance of the craft, and that he was guiding his own proa in accordance with some prearranged plan. This was an alarming conclusion to reach, but Storms felt hardly a particle of doubt that he was right. "He intends to betray us, and has intended to do so from the first." The New Englander took another look at the double canoe, and he saw, even in the few minutes that had passed, that they were closer together. And now that his suspicions were aroused, he detected several other little things which only confirmed all that had entered his mind. The two islanders who composed the crew were continually glancing off at their brothers, and frequently spoke in low tones, and showed by the gleam of their swarthy faces that they were on the tip-toe of expectation. From one corner of the lateen sail, Storms now noticed that a large crimson handkerchief was fluttering in the wind. "It is put there as a signal," was the decision respecting that, "and doubtless signifies that they have us on board and all is going right." Fred Sanders was so occupied with this business that he never once suspected that he himself was being watched in turn. "Inez," said the mate, "go to the captain and speak a few words to him." "But he is so occupied that he will not wish to be disturbed." "Never mind about that; I wish you to go and say a few pleasant words to him. Let them be sympathetic." "What shall I say?" "I can give you no further directions." "I am loth to do so, but if you wish it----" "I wish it very much." That was enough, and the girl, with some natural hesitation of manner, advanced to the young captain, who did not notice her until she was at his elbow. "Good-day, Captain Fred," she said; "you have been busy so long that you must be tired, for you slept none last night." He looked toward her with a quick, curious expression. There was a half-smile on his face, while his forehead was wrinkled with displeasure. Inez noticed this, and would have withdrawn had she not recalled the strange earnestness with which Storms made the request for her to utter a few pleasant words to the youth. She therefore determined to carry out his wishes. "Can't we relieve you of your work?" continued she. Sanders was in reality doing nothing in the way of physical labor, since the steering oar was in the hands of one of the crew, but he was absorbed in "watching things," as the expression goes. "I am sure there is no way in which you can relieve me," said Fred, unbending somewhat from his reserve. "We are in such deep water, and the wind is so fair, that there can be no danger, I suppose. But tell me, what sort of a boat is that yonder which is pursuing nearly the same course with us?" "That--I presume," was the hesitating response, as the young man glanced in that direction, "is one of the double canoes or proas which are often seen among these islands." "And who are the crew?" "Islanders, like my own." "Are we going to meet them?" "I hardly know what to answer to that," said Fred, looking inquiringly toward the large proa again, as if he had not seen it before. "Well, Captain Sanders, they must be pirates," said Inez, stepping close to him, and speaking in a low, tremulous voice; "but whether they are or not, my faith in God and in you cannot be changed. I know you will do all you can for us----" "There! there!" protested the young captain, with an expression of pain on his face, "say no more. Please go away, Inez, and leave me alone." "Of course I will leave you, if you do not wish me here, but gratitude would not let me keep silent. I know, from what you said last night, that you have a good heart, and henceforth conscience is to be your master and guide." And without looking to see the effect of her words, Inez left the captain to his own thoughts. Abram Storms, with folded arms, was intently watching him, and he carefully studied his countenance. He was still doing so, when Inez turned her back upon Sanders. Mr. Storms noted the strange expression on the handsome countenance, and just then Sanders turned and looked straight at the man before the latter could withdraw his gaze. As their eyes met, he signaled to Storms to approach, and the latter, with no little wonderment and some misgiving, did so. "Mr. Storms," said he, "that double canoe off yonder has twenty-three pirates on board." "I suspected as much," coolly replied the other. "And a set of worse villains cannot be found in the South Seas." "I am sure you are quite right." "These two men that I have on board belong to the same crew." "Indeed! I hadn't thought of that." "I belong to the same gang." "I suspected that!" "You did, eh? Did you suspect that I was in the plot to obtain possession of your pearls?" "I did not suspect it; I was sure of it, which is why I have carried my loaded revolver with me." "That wouldn't have defeated the plan we had laid, for when twenty-three odd savages, with their spears, war-clubs and a few muskets, had stolen up to the island in the darkness, and crept silently into your cabin, what good would your guns and revolvers have done you?" "Was that the plan?" "That was it precisely. By some means or other, which I never could understand, rumors reached Wauparmur, months ago, that two men and a child were on an island to the south of us, and that they had an immense lot of the most valuable pearls. I cannot comprehend how it was the natives gained such knowledge, for it must have had some basis of truth, inasmuch as it proved to be true." "There was a proa which passed close to the island while we were opening the pearl-oysters," said Storms. "We all saw it." "The rumor came from them, then," continued Sanders, "and a party was formed to go down there, and find out whether it was true, and, in case it was, the white men were to be overcome by treachery, and their possessions in the shape of pearls taken. Since there is no more desperate and wicked member of the gang than am I, of course I was one of the first chosen. "We started in two boats, and, as we went along, I could see difficulties in the way which never occurred to them. It was not likely you carried the pearls about with you, as a person wears his jewelry; but most likely they were buried, so that if we came down upon you and made an overwhelming attack, as was first intended, we might put you all to death, and then be unable to find where you had hidden your treasures. Besides that, I saw that it was more than probable you had firearms, with which you could successfully hold out against a large force, and it would prove no easy thing to subdue you." "You were correct in both your surmises," said Storms. "We were always prepared to make a fight, and, with our guns against your spears, we would have beaten you off. The pearls, too, were carefully concealed where you never would have found them." "I was well convinced of that, so we resorted to strategy. I was to go with a couple of the men and bring you away, trying all the time if I could to secure the pearls, which, of course, were afterwards to be disposed of and the proceeds divided among us--the intention being that when we got you on the proa, you would be pitched overboard, for then the situation would be so changed that we could manage it without trouble. If I thought it unsafe to make the attempt, I had only to wait until reinforcements should come up; for the larger boat, knowing the course I was to take on my return, had only to be on the lookout for us, and we would be sure to descry each other." "And that was to be your signal that you had us aboard?" said Storms, pointing to the fluttering handkerchief. "That's it precisely," assented Sanders. "But there was one force which we did not think to provide against," added the young man, in a low voice, in which Storms detected a slight tremor. "What was that?" "An awakened conscience," was the impressive answer. "And it was she who aroused the sleeper. There was something in the goodness of the girl--the faith which she showed not only in heaven but in me as well--that upset all my calculations. Then, too, she seemed to say the right words just at the right time; and you saw how I suffered." "Yes; and it gave me great hope; for, Fred, I distrusted you from the beginning. I saw many little things which you never supposed I nor any one else would notice. And I may add," said the mate, with a sly twinkle, "that I endeavored always to be prepared for you." The face of Sanders flushed, but he added, with the same seriousness: "Matters now are going in accordance with the program arranged days ago. The large proa yonder has been waiting for us, and we are now to keep on converging lines until we meet to-night." "Do you intend to follow out your agreement?" "No; I had an awful struggle with my conscience last night, after my talk with Inez and with the poor captain, but the evil triumphed in me, despite all I could do. The fight was still going on, being renewed this morning, and I had about yielded to Satan, when she came and spoke to me. That," said Fred Sanders, with a compression of the lips, "has settled it forever. I am now your friend, and I am ready to give up my life for the safety of you and her, hoping that heaven will take it, with my repentance, as some atonement for the many sins I have committed." CHAPTER XXXIII THE PURSUIT There are two angels within us forever struggling for the mastery: One is the angel of darkness, and the other of light--of evil and of good. They had waged their battle in the heart of Fred Sanders for a long time, and too often did the restraining spirit fold her hands over her face and withdraw in sorrow at the triumph of the other. But the final struggle--the decisive warfare--was now ended, and the beauteous countenance of the good angel was radiant with hope and courage, for a soul had been saved. Abram Storms smiled with pleasure as he looked upon the manly young fellow, and he was filled with delight at the resolution shown by him. "There is no shrinking or trembling there," said Storms to himself. "He means every word he says, and he will stick to the end." The man tried to look calm and self-possessed, when he moved forward and extended his hand, but there were tears in his eyes, and he could only murmur: "God bless you, my boy! You have chosen the better part." They were silent for a minute or so, each one's thoughts active, when Fred said: "If you please, I would rather that Inez should know nothing of this." "She never shall know a word of it from me." "One of these days, perhaps, I will tell her what a villain she was the means of saving from destruction." Fred appreciated the skill, seamanship and shrewdness of Storms, and consulted fully with him, saying that, as he himself was captain, he would appoint the other to his old position--that of mate. The whole scheme had already been made clear by the youth. The large proa was in sight, by appointment, having been cruising back and forth for several days, on the lookout for the smaller boat with the party who it was expected would be robbed and killed for the valuable pearls in their possession. The signal of the fluttering handkerchief from the triangular sail meant that the party were on board, and the original program was to be carried out. That is, the pursuing boat was to hold off until after dark. She was to keep on a converging course, so as not to lose sight of the small proa, and gradually approaching, overhaul and attack her at the time when the chances of success were at the best. The plan decided upon by Captain Sanders was simply to keep away from the larger craft, and to do his utmost to prevent being overhauled; and he showed his earnestness in this respect by taking the steering oar and bearing away from the other, so that, instead of being converging, they became parallel. The two natives displayed some surprise when they observed this action, but they said nothing, and most likely felt no suspicion as yet of their captain, whose desperation and heartlessness on more than one previous occasion had won the confidence of the islanders. It was not long before the change was noticed on board the pursuer, where, most likely, it was accepted as the proper thing, possibly on account of the fear from the passengers. "I have no revolver like you," said Captain Fred, after they had kept this up for a couple of hours, "but I have a double-barreled pistol which is loaded to the muzzle. You have your six-chambered weapon, and you must keep it ready, for, when the two islanders here become certain of the truth, it is more than probable they will make a savage attack on us, for two more desperate demons never lived." "I should hardly think so," said the mate, glancing furtively at them. "No; they are as meek looking as lambs, but they were sent with me on account of their fierce courage. Why, they were ready and eager, when we visited you upon the island, to make an open attack, where the chances of their defeat were about even. They would rather fight and kill any moment than eat, and I had to be pretty sharp to restrain them." "I shan't forget your warning." "It won't do for either of us to sleep to-night, for they are as treacherous as cobras. They would feign slumber on purpose to put us off our guard, and then stab us to death in our sleep." "Will we not reach Wauparmur to-night?" "It is doubtful, for the change we have made in the course is taking us away from the true direction and gives the advantage to them, as they are closer in than we. We have lost some good ground from the lightness of the wind, and we shall be fortunate if we catch sight of the place before to-morrow's sunrise." "After all, Captain Fred, it must be a question of speed between us and our pursuer. Which, therefore, is the faster, the double canoe yonder or ourselves?" A troubled expression came over the face of the young captain, as he answered: "I don't know, for there has never been a test. We kept company most of the way out, but we rattled along without any thought of speed, sometimes together and sometimes apart; but my opinion is that in moderate weather like the present there is little difference between us, or if there is any it is in our favor. In a strong wind, the other would he apt to outspeed us." "We are going to have more wind," said the mate, looking anxiously about him. "I think I perceive it freshening already." "I fear the same thing," said Fred, who was manifestly very uneasy. "We are now about two miles apart, and the prospect is that that will be cut down one-half by sunset." "And then?" Fred shrugged his shoulders. "All is not lost. When the sun goes down, with us a mile apart, we shall be invisible; but they will crowd all speed, and stand a good chance of coming up with us again." "But we gain a chance to maneuver." "There is hope and yet great risk in that, for if we can throw them off the track we shall be safe, for we can easily get beyond their range of vision long before sunrise; but at the same time, in making these sharp turns, we shall lose a great deal of ground, provided we don't succeed, and if they once get in sight of us after the moon rises, the race will be ended, for we won't gain a chance to dodge them again." "And then?" "There will be the worst fight you ever saw. We shall have to begin by shooting these two, or pitching them overboard, if they don't happen to get their work in ahead of us, and then we shall have more than twenty savage islanders to keep off--if we can." "We are pretty well armed, Captain Fred." "Yes, we have our pistols, and there is a musket apiece for you, me and Inez--for she will have to take a hand in the fight." "And there will be no braver than she. Have they any firearms on board?" "I'm sorry to say they have, and that's what makes me more anxious than anything else. There are spears, knives, battle-axes and at least six loaded muskets, and what is more, the men who have them in hand know how to use them." Mate Storms looked anxious, as well he might, for this was a phase of the question which had not presented itself to him. The case being as it was, the pursuers would be likely to begin firing as soon as they came within range, and when close in, the matter would be entirely within their hands. Everything seemed to augur ill for the fugitives. The wind was steadily increasing and the flying proa was dashing through the water at a tremendous rate. The pursuing one had already shifted its course, so that this early in the afternoon the struggle had begun and settled down to a virtual test of speed. "What do you suppose they think of the whole business?" asked Mate Storms, looking back at the double canoe as it rose on a huge swell at the same moment that they themselves sank in the vast, watery waste. "I don't know whether they think anything is wrong yet or not, but imagine I am trying to keep off until after dark." "Why, then, don't they respect your purpose and work with you?" "The leader of that company is an islander who is somewhat jealous of me. He believes he knows more about such business than I do, and he has made up his mind to keep this in hand, no matter what my wishes are. So, though he may think I mean all right, yet he is sure he knows better, and governs himself accordingly." "These two men here on board try to look indifferent, but they act suspiciously to me." "And they are suspicious, too." Fred Sanders might have added further that they were not only suspicious, but had actually discovered the truth. They understood the purpose which had brought all three to the lonely island, and they knew that that purpose had been changed. Inez Hawthorne, the girl of his own race, had caused this wonderful transformation in the heart of the young captain, and instead of being her enemy, he had become the devoted friend of herself and companion. While they could not understand the English tongue as they heard it spoken, they could read the meaning of looks and gestures and the confidential talks which they saw going on around them. They were convinced that their captain intended to betray them, and prevent the wealth from falling into their hands. Would they submit? Far from it. They would not only refuse to give their assent to any such perfidy, but they would use their utmost endeavors to defeat it. Such was their purpose, and Fred Sanders knew it, for he understood the character of the wretches; well, therefore, was it that he whispered the warning in the ear of Mate Abram Storms. Inez Hawthorne sat at the front of the proa, in the place that had been assigned her, for something seemed to tell her that the men were so occupied with their duties that it would be better for her to keep away from them. It was with much reluctance that she consented to exchange the few words with Captain Fred Sanders, and little did she dream that it was those same few words which turned the young man from a deadly enemy into the most devoted ally, and gave some promise of life to herself and her companion. Yet, as we have shown, such was the fact. CHAPTER XXXIV CLOSING IN When the sun sank in the western horizon, the situation of the two craft had not materially changed. The larger had perceptibly gained upon the smaller; but a good distance still separated them, and both parties were doing their utmost. The wind was blowing stronger than at mid-day, but it was not such a gale as had been feared, and our friends were not without hope of eluding the natives, who were endeavoring to overtake them. Inez Hawthorne could not avoid seeing how matters stood, though she was far from suspecting the whole truth. Mr. Storms told her that the other boat contained pirates, who were doing their utmost to overtake them, and they were striving their hardest to prevent it. As it stood, there was a prospect of a fight, in which she would likely be called upon to take part. She smiled, looked reverently upward, and said she was ready whenever needed, and then she remained as cool and watchful as either of her friends. Mr. Storms advised her not to go to sleep, as the coming night must decide the case one way or the other for them. "No fear of my sleeping," she said. "I realize our position too well to do that." "And Inez," whispered Storms, "these two savages on board are the worst sort of men. Keep watch, and do not place yourself in too dangerous a position respecting them." "I have been alarmed more than once at their looks and mutterings." As the sun went down, it was a curious sight when the double canoe rose on a swell and was outlined against the flaming disc behind, as we have described the ship and the moon more than three years before. The sight was a strange one, though it lasted but a moment, when the craft went down, and the smaller proa swiftly climbed the long slope of the watery mountain in front. The round moon speedily rose in the sky, and it was so bright that it was hard to tell when twilight ended and its light began. Never did Storms and Sanders long for utter darkness more than on the present occasion. Had the moon been obscured, they would have made a sharp turn in their flight, with every prospect of throwing the others completely off their trail, and with every reason to hope for a clean escape before sunrise. But the flood of moon light prevented either proa losing sight of the other. "There's only one thing left to us now," said the young captain. "And that's to fight." Fred nodded his head. "Well, we can do that. But I wish we were well rid of these fellows with us. It puts us between two fires, and there can be no doubt they suspect the truth." "I am sure of that. Hello!" Mr. Storms had hold of the steering-oar, and Fred was sitting close to him when he uttered the last exclamation, and, springing forward, hastily drew his pistol, took a quick aim and fired. A frenzied howl followed, and one of the crew made a furious plunge far out into the sea, and, going down like a log, never came up again. "Over with you, too!" shouted Sanders, in their native tongue, his eyes flashing; "not an instant, or I'll shoot!" The savage did not hesitate, with his knife clenched in his hand, and the young captain leveled his pistol at him. The sight of the muzzle so close to his skull, and the finger resolutely pressing the trigger, were too much, and the savage made a tremendous leap, like a tiger springing from his hiding-place, went far out into the sea, and, quickly coming to the surface, blew the water from his mouth, and began swimming with a swift, powerful stroke in the direction of the pursuing boat. "Did you see that?" inquired Sanders, beginning coolly to reload his pistol. "What do you mean?" "Did you know why I fired as quickly as I did?" "No." "That wretch had drawn his knife, and was moving in the direction of the unsuspecting Inez, sitting there. I overheard him say something which aroused my suspicion, and he was in the very act of raising his knife when I fired." "Is it possible? He deserved death, then, and you finished him. But what purpose could they have in killing an innocent girl like her?" "Pure fiendishness--that's all. Then they meant to make their attack upon us, and they would have made things lively." "But how much better it would have been had they waited until the others attacked, when they could have made a fatal diversion?" "Most certainly; but their course shows the nature of the wretches. They are so fiendish and so eager to fight that they have no judgment." "Are we heading toward Wauparmur, Fred?" "No; we are steering wide of it." "Since, then, we are engaged in a regular chase for that port, why not head straight for the island, so as to have that advantage, at least?" "You are right, for there is nothing to be gained by maneuvering to throw them off the track." Fred Sanders took a small compass from his pocket, and studied it carefully for a minute or two by the light of the moon. Then he gave directions to Storms to bear more to the left, or the westward, until finally he informed him that they were heading directly for the port where all their hopes were now centered. The wind fell slightly, but the pursuing boat steadily gained, and it was impossible to see how our friends could escape a hand-to-hand fight with the pirates, and there could be but one issue to such an encounter. The islanders were thoughtful enough to lower their immense sail, and stand by until they could pick up their comrade struggling in the water, actuated probably as much by curiosity to know the facts as by humanity. This gave our friends a show once more, and they drew away from their pursuers; but, alas! not to an extent to leave them out of sight, and until they could do so, they could not hope to accomplish anything. Mr. Storms was not without a strong hope of seeing some friendly sail, to which they could hasten for assistance, and he continually searched the horizon, telling Inez to do the same. Captain Fred did not expect anything of that nature, and, since the glasses were in his hands, he kept them turned most of the time in the direction of the double canoe, and called out his information and orders to his mate at the helm. Of course the distance was much less than a mile, or the proa would scarcely have been discernible, but the moonlight was strong, such as those who live in temperate zones can hardly realize, and the illumination of the sea was wonderfully brilliant. Both Fred and Storms, who had spent years in the South Seas, agreed that they had never seen anything like it before, and, for all purposes, it might as well have been broad day. The finest print could have been read with ease, and the glasses leveled at the approaching boat showed the crowds of swarthy pirates on board, all as eager as wolves to come up with the craft, which they were gaining so steadily upon. And the fugitives knew well enough what the sequel would be. The rival of Captain Fred would want no better excuse for cutting him and his companions to pieces, and the wealth in their possession would be more "loot" than the same parties could obtain in a dozen piratical expeditions. "But they shall never get a pennyworth of it!" said Abe Storms to Fred. The latter lowered his glass and looked inquiringly at him. "When it becomes absolutely certain that they have got us, I shall throw all the pearls overboard, so that they shall gain nothing more than our lives." "That's right; only," said the young captain, with a smile, "I advise you not to be in too much of a hurry about it, for you will feel somewhat mortified if we reach Wauparmur, after all, and you find you have cast your whole wealth into the sea." "I shan't lose my head," said the mate, with a laugh, "unless one of them takes it off." Inez Hawthorne was silent at the prow of the proa, where she was looking for the longed-for sail, which, alas! was never to appear, for she, too, had come to believe there was no other hope for her and her friends. Mate Storms and Captain Fred happened to turn their heads at the same moment, and were looking at the double proa coming up with them very rapidly, when each uttered an exclamation, for they suddenly saw a red flash at the prow of the boat, a puff of smoke, and then the report of a musket reached them almost at the same instant that the whistle of the bullet through the rigging was heard. "By George, they are firing at us!" said Fred, as if it was not the most natural thing in the world for them to do. "Yes, and they're aiming pretty well, too, for that shot went through the sail!" "I hardly supposed they were near enough to do that, but they are in earnest. Wouldn't it be a good idea to reply to their hail?" "It would, most undoubtedly!" Putting up his glass, Captain Fred dived forward, brought out one of the muskets, and taking deliberate aim, fired at the approaching craft. His shot was a fortunate one, too, for the cry which instantly followed showed that some one was struck. The others did not fire again for some time, but seemed to concentrate all their energies and attention upon the pursuit, which was turning more and more every minute in their favor. "I don't see any escaping a fight," said Fred Sanders. "Inez says she hasn't caught a glimpse of a sail, and I am sure she won't. We may as well bring our guns here and be ready to repel boarders." CHAPTER XXXV WAUPARMUR Oftener than we suppose does heaven interfere directly in the affairs of men. Minutes had passed since Sanders and Storms had agreed that no earthly occurrence could avert a fight with the dusky demons, with scarcely a grain of hope for escape from them, when Inez uttered the astounding exclamation: "We are gaining on them!" It was inconceivable, and the two looked again to the rear to learn the cause of her unaccountable delusion. Five minutes later Sanders added in a husky gasp: "She is right; we are not only gaining, but we are gaining fast." "How do you account for it?" "I can't account for it." "I can." "How?" asked the amazed youth. "God interposes many times when mortals do not see it," said the New Englander reverently; "there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth. You have repented, and He has extended his hand to help you." "Perhaps you are right," replied Sanders, much impressed. "I _know_ I am right." "And I hope to prove worthy of such undeserved kindness. All I ask is the opportunity." "It shall be granted you. But, humanly speaking, there has been some accident on board that craft yonder." "It must be that; as a sailor, you know any one of a half dozen things would be sufficient to throw them out of the race. A ripping of the sail, a fracture of the mast, the breaking of the steering gear, or some sudden quarrel would do the trick. Sufficient for us is it to know that it has been done." "God helps them that helps themselves," added Storms, "and we must improve to the utmost the chance thrown in our way." Naturally the fear of the two was that their pursuers might repair the accident which was throwing them to the rear for the time, and regain what was lost. They steadily fell behind, and, as soon as invisible, the proa made an abrupt change in her course, with the view of defeating the calamity that they feared threatened them. When this had lasted for an hour, another change was effected, with the result, as Sanders announced, that they were now heading directly for Wauparmur. The eyes peering backward through the vivid moonlight failed to bring the dreaded craft to view, and it was not yet midnight when Sanders announced the thrilling fact that the twinkling lights, which appeared in front like a constellation in the horizon, were made by the dwellings in the native South Sea town of Wauparmur. All danger was past, and about an hour later the proa glided in among the shipping in that excellent harbor, made fast to the wharf, and the three disembarked. Fred led the way to a house of entertainment near the harbor, in which he found good lodging for his friends. Abram Storms carried all the precious pearls to his room and carefully secured the door, after which he threw himself upon the bed and slept as soundly as an infant. Inez Hawthorne, in the solitude of her apartment, devoutly thanked her Heavenly Father for His care, and then she, too, slept the sleep of exhaustion and perfect health. It was near noon on the succeeding day when both rose and found Fred Sanders awaiting them. The young man had not slept at all, and was uneasy. "It won't do to stay here another night," said he, in explanation, as soon as the meal was concluded. "I am sure we have no wish to do so," replied Storms. "But wherein lies the particular peril?" "That whole crew of the double canoe are scattered through town, and they only await the chance to kill us. They will find the chance, too, to-night, if we remain here." "But what is the prospect of getting away?" "I was in despair nearly all the forenoon; but a little while ago I came upon a schooner which sails for San Francisco at three o'clock this afternoon. I have engaged passage on it for us three, for you know I go with you." "How can we ever repay you for your kindness?" said Inez, her lustrous eyes speaking eloquently her gratitude to the youth. "There's no service on earth that I can render you which will compare with what you have done for me," was the reply of Captain Fred, whose manner showed his sincerity. Inez Hawthorne did not understand what all this meant, but the speaker ventured upon no explanation at the time. As the three were about to start upon a long voyage, it was decided that some indispensable articles should be procured, and, since they had little spare time at command, the three set out immediately after dinner. Wauparmur, as we have already intimated, is a town numbering several hundreds--perhaps more than a thousand--in population. Among these are a number of foreign shopkeepers, whose places are close along shore, so as to be the more readily accessible to their customers, who are almost exclusively confined to those on board the vessels which stop at the island. Back from the town the land rises into hills, and the settlement becomes straggling and scattered. In these portions it is composed entirely of rude huts and cabins, in which none but natives live, and they are a bad lot. It was from among those who lived in the "suburbs" that the wretches were gathered with which to attempt to capture and murder the little party of Europeans for the sake of the invaluable pearls they had in their possession. Fred Sanders shuddered when he thought of the risk he and his friends ran by going straight to the inn and taking quarters for the night, for these miscreants must, after all, have reached Wauparmur only a few hours after the proa, and the wonder was that they did not manage to slay the fugitives in their beds. The first thing Fred did in the morning was to slip out and buy a revolver, and his second act was to load it. While engaged in hunting a vessel upon which to take passage, he encountered his own acquaintances continually, and he needed not their black faces and scowling eyes to tell how they thirsted to kill him for his treachery. It was only by his bold front and constant watchfulness that he kept the dusky demons at a distance. Some of them were seen when the three ventured out, and though the pirates dared not attack them in open daylight, they were on the verge of doing so more than once. But their fury was directed principally against Captain Fred Sanders, and there can be no doubt the youth spoke the truth when he declared that if he attempted to stay on land until morning, he would not live till midnight. Mr. Storms laid in a good supply of clothing, shoes and knick-knacks for himself and Inez, and with as little delay as possible. When they reached the wharf and approached the plank leading to the deck of the schooner, Mr. Storms noticed a small man standing a few feet off, with a blanket drawn up about his shoulders and neck like an Indian. His legs, feet and head were bare, but a huge bandage was bound around his forehead, giving him a grotesque appearance. His position was like a statue, and he held the blanket so high that little could be seen except his black, glittering eyes. Some distance off, on the street close to the shop-houses, was a group of other natives, who looked as if they were expecting some important event. So they were, indeed! CHAPTER XXXVI HOMEWARD BOUND "Storms, do you notice that fellow?" asked Fred Sanders, as they approached the plank. "Yes; it looks odd to see him standing there so motionless, and yet with his eyes fixed upon us." "He's Weroo, the man who led that gang of pirates last night, and he hates me with such a consuming hate that he sent out his men to kill me, and in case they fail to do so, he has stationed himself there with the determination to assassinate me, for he is ready to run any risk rather than allow me to get away." "Are you prepared?" asked Storms, with no little anxiety. "I rather guess so! Walk ahead with Inez and leave him to me." With some hesitation, Storms did as requested, though he placed his hand on his revolver, so as to be ready for any emergency, the crew of the _Albatross_, who were busying themselves around, seeming to hold no suspicion of the situation. Just as Captain Fred put his foot on the plank, the islander took a short step forward, like a panther gathering himself for the leap upon its victim. At that very instant, as if by intuition, Captain Fred turned about and leveled his revolver at the muffled figure, which paused. Every one who was looking on supposed, of course, the boy was going to fire, but, though his finger pressed the trigger, he did not discharge his weapon. With the pistol pointed straight at the savage, Fred slowly backed up the plank, keeping his foe covered until he himself was on the deck of the schooner. The barbarian seemed paralyzed. After taking the slight step forward, he paused and stood motionless, staring and transfixed, until his victim was beyond his reach. Then, without a word or exclamation, he turned about, and strode away to where his infuriated and discomfited comrades were watching him with not the slightest doubt he would prevent the escape of the white boy. Within the succeeding hour the _Albatross_ was standing down the bay, with all sail spread; and her long voyage to distant California was begun. Ah, that journey from the South Seas across the equator and northward into the stern climate of the Temperate Zone! Not one of those who participated in it can forget it to his dying day. They had many hours of fierce, wild weather, in which the _Albatross_ was more than once in danger, but Captain Hardy was a good sailor, he had a good crew, and he safely rode through it all. Then came those delightful nights which seem peculiar to the Pacific, when the moonlight takes on a witchery of its own, and the calm sea becomes like an enchanted lake as the vessel glides over it. Captain Hardy was a kind man as well as a skilful sailor, and, since he received a most liberal price for the passage of the three persons who joined him at Wauparmur, the best treatment was given them. It was on this homeward voyage that Captain Fred Sanders told to Mate Storms and Inez Hawthorne the story of his life, the main points of which have already been hinted to the reader. He ran away from his home in San Francisco when but a mere boy, scarcely ten years old. He was led into all sorts of evil, and was so deeply implicated in a fierce mutiny that, as we have said, he would have been strung up at the yard-arm, excepting for his extreme youth. He then joined a trading vessel in the South Seas, but the crew were attacked and massacred by a band of pirates, and he was taken off a prisoner. These pirates belonged to the Wauparmur settlement, and they were so pleased with the bravery displayed by the boy that they adopted him among them. There was something in the life which was attractive to the wild American lad, and he embraced it eagerly, and spent five years among them. His bravery, skill, and natural "smartness," advanced him rapidly along the line of promotion, until, while yet a boy, he became an acknowledged leader. Captain Fred spent a portion of his time in the settlement, where he showed his good sense, in one respect at least, by picking up all the education he could from the instructors who were to be found there. He succeeded well--which will explain the intelligence he displayed in this respect while conversing with his friends. He confessed all this, and said further that his mother died before he ran away, and he had no idea where his father was; but, if he were alive, the son determined to find him, no matter where he might be on the broad earth. Now that his conscience had been awakened, his affection came back with it, and his great fear was that he would not see his parent alive. It was a source of never-ending wonder to Fred Sanders how it was he could have been so wicked a lad, and how it was that his moral sense could have been so totally eclipsed for years. The gentle, winning words of Inez Hawthorne had first aroused his conscience, until finally it would not allow him to rest until he had made his peace with it. CHAPTER XXXVII CONCLUSION Many a long hour did the two--Fred and Inez--spend in talking together of the past and their future. They were as brother and sister to each other, and their prospects were discussed as if it were fixed that they should never lose sight of each other again. It was on this voyage, too, that Abram Storms disclosed the plan of action he had decided upon. "The pearls which I have in my possession I shall dispose of in San Francisco--or at least a portion of them. Those which were my share, according to the original agreement, I shall keep. The single pearl, which will doubtless bring a large price in New York, is the property of Inez, and shall be devoted to her benefit. I intend to place her in a school and make a systematic effort to trace her parentage. The pearls left by Captain Bergen go to you, Fred." But here occurred the first stumbling-block. Fred Sanders refused pointedly, but firmly, to accept a single one of them. He declared he had no claim upon any one of that little party, and he would not suffer himself to be dissuaded from his position. He was yet young, vigorous and ambitious, and with the help of heaven he would carve out his own fortune. Seeing it was useless to argue the question, Storms fell back upon the original intention of Captain Bergen, which was to devote the greater portion of his wealth to charity. In due time, the _Albatross_ glided through the Golden Gate, and our friends found themselves in San Francisco, whose streets all had trod years before. The first thing Storms did after establishing Inez in pleasant quarters was to hunt up the mother of Captain Bergen, and he prosecuted his search with a heavy heart, bearing the bad news which he did. He was relieved to find that she had been dead fully two years, and the nearest relative of the captain remaining was his cousin, who was in such affluent circumstances that Storms decided not to give him any portion of the wealth left by the deceased captain. While Abe Storms was engaged upon his duty, young Fred Sanders was busy. Although he had revealed a great deal of his past life, there remained one great secret, which he had reserved as a final surprise, especially to Inez Hawthorne, who, as yet, had not formed the slightest idea of what was coming. And what this secret was, and the particulars of not one but two astounding discoveries, we will now proceed to relate. The grim old sailor, Captain Strathmore, of the steamer _Polynesia_, has made many voyages between San Francisco and the Imperial Japanese city of Tokio since we last saw him, more than three years ago. There is little change, however, in his appearance, and the same kindly heart, tempered in the furnace of affliction and sorrow, throbs beneath his rough exterior. There are few officers holding such a responsible position as he who are greater favorites with the multitudes that go down to the sea in ships, and he promises to perform many valuable years of service to his employers, who appreciate the sterling worth of the brave, noble man. The steamer has been at the dock several days, and soon is to leave for her long voyage across the Pacific. The captain is sitting in his cabin, reading and writing some letters. By-and-by he lays down his pen, and wheeling his chair around, gives utterance to his thoughts, as he has grown in the habit of doing of late. "I shall keep in harness till I die, for idleness would take me off in a short time. I have striven to do my duty to God and my fellow-man--and though much sorrow has come to me, yet I shall never murmur nor complain, when I see so much around me and know that no race and no place in society is exempt from it. "Years ago I placed away my beloved wife in the distant New England hills, and then when the fair bud which she left behind blossomed, that, too, was gathered by the angels and I was left alone. "The darling son upon whom I centered all my hopes was a wild, wayward boy, and he left my roof and has never come back again. Whether he is or is not, I cannot tell, but I fear that, if he still treads the earth, he is sowing the wind and will reap the whirlwind. I have striven to forget that I was ever afflicted in being the parent of such a child. But alas, the roots of affection are planted so deep that it is hard to withdraw them. "Then there came to me a second Inez, and I loved her as I did the first. Just as she nestled around my heart, she was taken away in the most surprising manner. I believed then that I should see and clasp her again in my arms. But the years have come and gone, and still she comes not to me. Ah! could I but hear the music of that voice--could I but feel those dimpled arms about my neck as I used to do----Helloa!" Just then Fred Sanders walked briskly into the cabin, doffed his hat, made a bow, laughed and said: "Helloa, pop! how are you?" Captain Strathmore gasped, stared and replied: "No--no--no--Fred. Is that you, my own boy?" And Fred laughed, and then, with tears in his eyes, leaped forward and threw his arms about the old captain's neck and cried like a child, while the parent, fondly caressing him, cried too, and for a minute neither could speak an intelligible word. "Pop," finally said the youth, raising his head and sitting upon the strong knee, "I have been a bad boy. I have brought trouble to you, but I have come thousands of miles to ask your forgiveness and to try to cheer your declining years." "What are you talking about declining years for, you young rascal? I never was so strong and hearty in my life. You have made me twenty years younger! Ah, if your mother could but see this! But she is smiling in heaven over it, and so is our darling Inez, who joined her long ago. God be thanked! my boy is dead but is alive again!" And, laughing and crying, they shook hands, and talked and talked. "Tell me everything that has befallen you, my dear son." And Fred did so, as we have already told the reader, adding that he never so far forgot himself as to dishonor his father by bearing his name. He was known everywhere as Frederic Sanders, whereas his full name was Frederic Sanders Strathmore--which he was now proud to assume, and which, with God's help, he meant to honor. They sat a long time in loving converse, and, finally, Captain Strathmore told the story of Inez Hawthorne, who came to and went from him in such an extraordinary manner, and for whom he sighed and longed as he had for his own child, taken from him years before. Fred smiled in an odd way, while this story was being told, and then asked his father to walk down to the Occidental Hotel with him. "I have some very particular business," he added, "and will take it as a great favor if you will so so." "Of course I will," responded the cheery old captain, springing to his feet. "I will walk if I can, but I feel more like flying; and if there's any more good news, I'll set up a dancing and yelling carnival." "Well, there is good news awaiting you, so you had better get ready to put on the brakes." "What do you mean, Fred?" "Wait, and you will see." A few minutes later there was a gentle tap on the door of Inez Hawthorne's room at the Occidental. She was busy sewing, and she called out in a somewhat startled voice: "Come in!" Fred Strathmore threw the door wide open, and, taking hold of his father's arm, gave him such a vigorous shove that he was forced several steps into the apartment before he could stop himself. He caught sight of a beautiful, scared face, which stared with something like terror at him for a moment; and then there was a scream, and she made one bound forward. "Oh, father, father! my own dear father! I am so glad!" Again the arms were about the neck of the weather-beaten sea-dog; again the kisses were showered upon his bronzed face; again his own lost Inez was in his arms. Poor Captain Strathmore broke down completely. Instead of shouting and dancing, as he threatened to do, he sat in his chair, and, with Inez on his knee, overrunning with joy, delight and supreme happiness, he could do nothing but cry, cry, cry, and murmur his gratitude and thankfulness. But, after a time, he did recover himself; and then he became aware for the first time, as did the others, that a fourth party was present. This was Mate Storms, who suspected the situation before he was introduced to the happy captain of the _Polynesia_. Since they all had such an extraordinary story to relate, the captain had an equally remarkable one to tell them. The persistent and never-ending investigation which he set on foot concerning the lost Inez had resulted, not in finding her, but in unearthing her entire history. She was a native of the city of New York, and her father died there before she was a year old. A former suitor of her mother, angered because she would not become his wife, even after her husband was deceased, resorted to the atrocious revenge of stealing Inez when she was but an infant, and he hastened across the continent with her. When he had kept her there a brief time, he sought to open negotiations with the mother, with a view of delivering back her child on condition that the parent should become his wife; but he was shocked to learn that the poor, heartbroken mother had died from grief, and the child was upon his hands. This man finally married a woman in San Francisco, but neither of them could ever feel any affection for the little girl (whom, however, they treated quite fairly), and the wife insisted that she should be gotten rid of in some way. Through some whim or other, the abductor had always called her by her right name--Inez Hawthorne--and, seeing some mention of it in the newspapers, he resorted to the means which we described, at the opening of this story, for ridding himself forever of her. As soon as Inez was safely placed on the steamer, this wicked couple disappeared, and no further trace of them could be found. Captain Strathmore, who was anxious to punish them, believed they had left the country. Inez, therefore, was an orphan, and while a gentle sadness filled her affectionate heart--as she heard the particulars of her own history for the first time, and reflected upon that poor, heartbroken mother, who had gone to her rest long ago--she could not feel any poignant grief, for her memory of the lost one was too shadowy and faint. But she had found a home and friends for life. Abram Storms explained that he had met three English gentlemen who were making a tour of the world in a large steam yacht; and, since they possessed abundant means, and were very social, he had shown them the pearls in his possession and offered to dispose of them all. They were delighted with the specimens, and especially with the enormous one belonging to Inez. They offered twenty-five thousand dollars for the single one, and just one hundred thousand for the rest. This was less than Storms had counted upon--and doubtless less than he could have secured by consulting leading lapidaries in other parts of the world--but he was inclined to end the transaction by accepting it, and he asked the advice of his friends. After fully discussing the matter, it was agreed to close with the offer, and the exchange was completed that afternoon, and the money belonging to Inez was placed in the bank the next morning. Since Storms was anxious to return to his home, and since there was no call for his remaining longer in San Francisco, it was arranged that Inez should enter an excellent school in the Golden Gate City, where she should spend several years, while Captain Strathmore was to act as her guardian until she should attain her legal majority. The captain's position enabled him to find a berth under him for Fred on the steamer _Polynesia_, and the boy sailed with him on the next voyage to Tokio, and on many a subsequent one. Abe Storms is as poor as he was before he made his voyage to the South Seas, for, having dedicated the wealth left by Captain Bergen to charitable purposes, he felt it his duty to do the same with his own, and, since he has no one besides himself dependent upon him, he is not troubled by fears of not being able to make a comfortable living. THE END A. L. BURT'S CATALOGUE OF BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE BY POPULAR WRITERS 52-58 Duane Street, New York BOOKS FOR BOYS. Joe's Luck: A Boy's Adventures in California. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. The story is chock full of stirring incidents, while the amusing situations are furnished by Joshua Bickford, from Pumpkin Hollow, and the fellow who modestly styles himself the "Rip-tail Roarer, from Pike Co., Missouri." Mr. Alger never writes a poor book, and "Joe's Luck" is certainly one of his best. Tom the Bootblack; or, The Road to Success. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. A bright, enterprising lad was Tom the Bootblack. He was not at all ashamed of his humble calling, though always on the lookout to better himself. The lad started for Cincinnati to look up his heritage. Mr. Grey, the uncle, did not hesitate to employ a ruffian to kill the lad. The plan failed, and Gilbert Grey, once Tom the bootblack, came into a comfortable fortune. This is one of Mr. Alger's best stories. Dan the Newsboy. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. Dan Mordaunt and his mother live in a poor tenement, and the lad is pluckily trying to make ends meet by selling papers in the streets of New York. A little heiress of six years is confided to the care of the Mordaunts. The child is kidnapped and Dan tracks the child to the house where she is hidden, and rescues her. The wealthy aunt of the little heiress is so delighted with Dan's courage and many good qualities that she adopts him as her heir. Tony the Hero: A Brave Boy's Adventure with a Tramp. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. Tony, a sturdy bright-eyed boy of fourteen, is under the control of Rudolph Rugg, a thorough rascal. After much abuse Tony runs away and gets a job as stable boy in a country hotel. Tony is heir to a large estate. Rudolph for a consideration hunts up Tony and throws him down a deep well. Of course Tony escapes from the fate provided for him, and by a brave act, a rich friend secures his rights and Tony is prosperous. A very entertaining book. The Errand Boy; or, How Phil Brent Won Success. By HORATIO ALGER, JR. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. The career of "The Errand Boy" embraces the city adventures of a smart country lad. Philip was brought up by a kind-hearted innkeeper named Brent. The death of Mrs. Brent paved the way for the hero's subsequent troubles. A retired merchant in New York secures him the situation of errand boy, and thereafter stands as his friend. Tom Temple's Career. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. Tom Temple is a bright, self-reliant lad. He leaves Plympton village to seek work in New York, whence he undertakes an important mission to California. Some of his adventures in the far west are so startling that the reader will scarcely close the book until the last page shall have been reached. The tale is written in Mr. Alger's most fascinating style. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. BOOKS FOR BOYS Frank Fowler, the Cash Boy. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. Frank Fowler, a poor boy, bravely determines to make a living for himself and his foster-sister Grace. Going to New York he obtains a situation as cash boy in a dry goods store. He renders a service to a wealthy old gentleman who takes a fancy to the lad, and thereafter helps the lad to gain success and fortune. Tom Thatcher's Fortune. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. Tom Thatcher is a brave, ambitious, unselfish boy. He supports his mother and sister on meagre wages earned as a shoe-pegger in John Simpson's factory. Tom is discharged from the factory and starts overland for California. He meets with many adventures. The story is told in a way which has made Mr. Alger's name a household word in so many homes. The Train Boy. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. Paul Palmer was a wide-awake boy of sixteen who supported his mother and sister by selling books and papers on the Chicago and Milwaukee Railroad. He detects a young man in the act of picking the pocket of a young lady. In a railway accident many passengers are killed, but Paul is fortunate enough to assist a Chicago merchant, who out of gratitude takes him into his employ. Paul succeeds with tact and judgment and is well started on the road to business prominence. Mark Mason's Victory. The Trials and Triumphs of a Telegraph Boy. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. Mark Mason, the telegraph boy, was a sturdy, honest lad, who pluckily won his way to success by his honest manly efforts under many difficulties. This story will please the very large class of boys who regard Mr. Alger as a favorite author. A Debt of Honor. The Story of Gerald Lane's Success in the Far West. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. The story of Gerald Lane and the account of the many trials and disappointments which he passed through before he attained success, will interest all boys who have read the previous stories of this delightful author. Ben Bruce. Scenes in the Life of a Bowery Newsboy. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. Ben Bruce was a brave, manly, generous boy. The story of his efforts, and many seeming failures and disappointments, and his final success, are most interesting to all readers. The tale is written in Mr. Alger's most fascinating style. The Castaways; or, On the Florida Reefs. By James Otis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. This tale smacks of the salt sea. From the moment that the Sea Queen leaves lower New York bay till the breeze leaves her becalmed off the coast of Florida, one can almost hear the whistle of the wind through her rigging, the creak of her straining cordage as she heels to the leeward. The adventures of Ben Clark, the hero of the story and Jake the cook, cannot fail to charm the reader. As a writer for young people Mr. Otis is a prime favorite. BOOKS FOR BOYS Wrecked on Spider Island; or, How Ned Rogers Found the Treasure. By James Otis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. Ned Rogers, a "down-east" plucky lad ships as cabin boy to earn a livelihood. Ned is marooned on Spider Island, and while there discovers a wreck submerged in the sand, and finds a considerable amount of treasure. The capture of the treasure and the incidents of the voyage serve to make as entertaining a story of sea-life as the most captious boy could desire. The Search for the Silver City: A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan. By James Otis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. Two lads, Teddy Wright and Neal Emery, embark on the steam yacht Day Dream for a cruise to the tropics. The yacht is destroyed by fire, and then the boat is cast upon the coast of Yucatan. They bear of the wonderful Silver City, of the Chan Santa Cruz Indians, and with the help of a faithful Indian ally carry off a number of the golden images from the temples. Pursued with relentless vigor at last their escape is effected in an astonishing manner. The story is so full of exciting incidents that the reader is quite carried away with the novelty and realism of the narrative. A Runaway Brig; or, An Accidental Cruise. By James Otis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. This is a sea tale, and the reader can look out upon the wide shimmering sea as it flashes back the sunlight, and imagine himself afloat with Harry Vandyne, Walter Morse, Jim Libby and that old shell-back, Bob Brace, on the brig Bonita. The boys discover a mysterious document which enables them to find a buried treasure. They are stranded on an island and at last are rescued with the treasure. The boys are sure to be fascinated with this entertaining story. The Treasure Finders: A Boy's Adventures in Nicaragua. By James Otis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. Roy and Dean Coloney, with their guide Tongla, leave their father's indigo plantation to visit the wonderful ruins of an ancient city. The boys eagerly explore the temples of an extinct race and discover three golden images cunningly hidden away. They escape with the greatest difficulty. Eventually they reach safety with their golden prizes. We doubt if there ever was written a more entertaining story than "The Treasure Finders." Jack, the Hunchback. A Story of the Coast of Maine. By James Otis. Price $1.00. This is the story of a little hunchback who lived on Cape Elizabeth, on the coast of Maine. His trials and successes are most interesting. From first to last nothing stays the interest of the narrative. It bears us along as on a stream whose current varies in direction, but never loses its force. With Washington at Monmouth: A Story of Three Philadelphia Boys. By James Otis. 12mo, ornamental cloth, olivine edges, illustrated, price $1.50. Three Philadelphia lads assist the American spies and make regular and frequent visits to Valley Forge in the Winter while the British occupied the city. The story abounds with pictures of Colonial life skillfully drawn, and the glimpses of Washington's soldiers which are given show that the work has not been hastily done, or without considerable study. The story is wholesome and patriotic in tone, as are all of Mr. Otis' works. BOOKS FOR BOYS With Lafayette at Yorktown: A Story of How Two Boys Joined the Continental Army. By James Otis. 12mo, ornamental cloth, olivine edges, illustrated, price $1.50. Two lads from Portsmouth, N. H., attempt to enlist in the Colonial Army, and are given employment as spies. There is no lack of exciting incidents which the youthful reader craves, but it is healthful excitement brimming with facts which every boy should be familiar with, and while the reader is following the adventures of Ben Jaffrays and Ned Allen he is acquiring a fund of historical lore which will remain in his memory long after that which he has memorized from textbooks has been forgotten. At the Siege of Havana. Being the Experiences of Three Boys Serving under Israel Putnam in 1762. By James Otis. 12mo, ornamental cloth, olivine edges, illustrated, price $1.50. "At the Siege of Havana" deals with that portion of the island's history when the English king captured the capital, thanks to the assistance given by the troops from New England, led in part by Col. Israel Putnam. The principal characters are Darius Lunt, the lad who, represented as telling the story, and his comrades, Robert Clement and Nicholas Vallet. Colonel Putnam also figures to considerable extent, necessarily, in the tale, and the whole forms one of the most readable stories founded on historical facts. The Defense of Fort Henry. A Story of Wheeling Creek in 1777. By James Otis. 12mo, ornamental cloth, olivine edges, illustrated, price $1.50. Nowhere in the history of our country can be found more heroic or thrilling incidents than in the story of those brave men and women who founded the settlement of Wheeling in the Colony of Virginia. The recital of what Elizabeth Zane did is in itself as heroic a story as can be imagined. The wondrous bravery displayed by Major McCulloch and his gallant comrades, the sufferings of the colonists and their sacrifice of blood and life, stir the blood of old as well as young readers. The Capture of the Laughing Mary. A Story of Three New York Boys in 1776. By James Otis. 12mo, ornamental cloth, olivine edges, price $1.50. "During the British occupancy of New York, at the outbreak of the Revolution, a Yankee lad hears of the plot to take General Washington's person, and calls in two companions to assist the patriot cause. They do some astonishing things, and, incidentally, lay the way for an American navy later, by the exploit which gives its name to the work. Mr. Otis' books are too well known to require any particular commendation to the young."--Evening Post. With Warren at Bunker Hill. A Story of the Siege of Boston. By James Otis. 12mo, ornamental cloth, olivine edges, illustrated, price $1.50. "This is a tale of the siege of Boston, which opens on the day after the doings at Lexington and Concord, with a description of home life in Boston, introduces the reader to the British camp at Charlestown, shows Gen. Warren at home, describes what a boy thought of the battle of Bunker Hill, and closes with the raising of the siege. The three heroes, George Wentworth, Ben Scarlett and an old ropemaker, incur the enmity of a young Tory, who causes them many adventures the boys will like to read."--Detroit Free Press. BOOKS FOR BOYS With the Swamp Fox. The Story of General Marion's Spies. By James Otis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. This story deals with General Francis Marion's heroic struggle in the Carolinas. General Marion's arrival to take command of these brave men and rough riders is pictured as a boy might have seen it, and although the story is devoted to what the lads did, the Swamp Fox is ever present in the mind of the reader. On the Kentucky Frontier. A Story of the Fighting Pioneers of the West. By James Otis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. In the history of our country there is no more thrilling story than that of the work done on the Mississippi river by a handful of frontiersmen. Mr. Otis takes the reader on that famous expedition from the arrival of Major Clarke's force at Corn Island, until Kaskaskia was captured. He relates that part of Simon Kenton's life history which is not usually touched upon either by the historian or the story teller. This is one of the most entertaining books for young people which has been published. Sarah Dillard's Ride. A Story of South Carolina in 1780. By James Otis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "This book deals with the Carolinas in 1780, giving a wealth of detail of the Mountain Men who struggled so valiantly against the king's troops. Major Ferguson is the prominent British officer of the story, which is told as though coming from a youth who experienced these adventures. In this way the famous ride of Sarah Dillard is brought out as an incident of the plot."--Boston Journal. A Tory Plot. A Story of the Attempt to Kill General Washington. By James Otis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "'A Tory Plot' is the story of two lads who overhear something of the plot originated during the Revolution by Gov. Tryon to capture or murder Washington. They communicate their knowledge to Gen. Putnam and are commissioned by him to play the role of detectives in the matter. They do so, and meet with many adventures and hairbreadth escapes. The boys are, of course, mythical, but they serve to enable the author to put into very attractive shape much valuable knowledge concerning one phase of the Revolution."--Pittsburgh Times. A Traitor's Escape. A Story of the Attempt to Seize Benedict Arnold. By James Otis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "This is a tale with stirring scenes depicted in each chapter, bringing clearly before the mind the glorious deeds of the early settlers in this country. In an historical work dealing with this country's past, no plot can hold the attention closer than this one, which describes the attempt and partial success of Benedict Arnold's escape to New York, where he remained as the guest of Sir Henry Clinton. All those who actually figured in the arrest of the traitor, as well as Gen. Washington, are included as characters."--Albany Union. A Cruise with Paul Jones. A Story of Naval Warfare in 1776. By James Otis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "This story takes up that portion of Paul Jones' adventurous life when he was hovering off the British coast, watching for an opportunity to strike the enemy a blow. It deals more particularly with his descent upon Whitehaven, the seizure of Lady Selkirk's plate, and the famous battle with the Drake. The boy who figures in the tale is one who was taken from a derelict by Paul Jones shortly after this particular cruise was begun."--Chicago Inter-Ocean. BOOKS FOR BOYS Corporal Lige's Recruit. A Story of Crown Point and Ticonderoga. By James Otis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "In 'Corporal Lige's Recruit,' Mr. Otis tells the amusing story of an old soldier, proud of his record, who had served the king in '58, and who takes the lad, Isaac Rice, as his 'personal recruit.' The lad acquits himself superbly. Col. Ethan Allen 'in the name of God and the continental congress,' infuses much martial spirit into the narrative, which will arouse the keenest interest as it proceeds. Crown Point, Ticonderoga, Benedict Arnold and numerous other famous historical names appear in this dramatic tale."--Boston Globe. Morgan, the Jersey Spy. A Story of the Siege of Yorktown in 1781. By James Otis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "The two lads who are utilized by the author to emphasize the details of the work done during that memorable time were real boys who lived on the banks of the York river, and who aided the Jersey spy in his dangerous occupation. In the guise of fishermen the lads visit Yorktown, are suspected of being spies, and put under arrest. Morgan risks his life to save them. The final escape, the thrilling encounter with a squad of red coats, when they are exposed equally to the bullets of friends and foes, told in a masterly fashion, makes of this volume one of the most entertaining books of the year."--Inter-Ocean. The Young Scout: The Story of a West Point Lieutenant. By Edward S. Ellis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. The crafty Apache chief Geronimo but a few years ago was the most terrible scourge of the southwest border. The author has woven, in a tale of thrilling interest, all the incidents of Geronimo's last raid. The hero is Lieutenant James Decker, a recent graduate of West Point. Ambitious to distinguish himself the young man takes many a desperate chance against the enemy and on more than one occasion narrowly escapes with his life. In our opinion Mr. Ellis is the best writer of Indian stories now before the public. Adrift in the Wilds: The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys. By Edward S. Ellis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. Elwood Brandon and Howard Lawrence are en route for San Francisco. Off the coast of California the steamer takes fire. The two boys reach the shore with several of the passengers. Young Brandon becomes separated from his party and is captured by hostile Indians, but is afterwards rescued. This is a very entertaining narrative of Southern California. A Young Hero; or, Fighting to Win. By Edward S. Ellis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. This story tells how a valuable solid silver service was stolen from the Misses Perkinpine, two very old and simple minded ladies. Fred Sheldon, the hero of this story, undertakes to discover the thieves and have them arrested. After much time spent in detective work, he succeeds in discovering the silver plate and winning the reward. The story is told in Mr. Ellis' most fascinating style. Every boy will be glad to read this delightful book. Lost in the Rockies. A Story of Adventure in the Rocky Mountains. By Edward S. Ellis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. Incident succeeds incident, and adventure is piled upon adventure, and at the end the reader, be he boy or man, will have experienced breathless enjoyment in this romantic story describing many adventures in the Rockies and among the Indians. BOOKS FOR BOYS A Jaunt Through Java: The Story of a Journey to the Sacred Mountain. By Edward S. Ellis. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. The interest of this story is found in the thrilling adventures of two cousins, Hermon and Eustace Hadley, on their trip across the island of Java, from Samarang to the Sacred Mountain. In a land where the Royal Bengal tiger, the rhinoceros, and other fierce beasts are to be met with, it is but natural that the heroes of this book should have a lively experience. There is not a dull page in the book. The Boy Patriot. A Story of Jack, the Young Friend of Washington. By Edward S. Ellis. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, illustrated, price $1.50. "There are adventures of all kinds for the hero and his friends, whose pluck and ingenuity in extricating themselves from awkward fixes are always equal to the occasion. It is an excellent story full of honest, manly, patriotic efforts on the part of the hero. A very vivid description of the battle of Trenton is also found in this story."--Journal of Education. A Yankee Lad's Pluck. How Bert Larkin Saved his Father's Ranch in Porto Rico. By Wm. P. Chipman. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. "Bert Larkin, the hero of the story, early excites our admiration, and is altogether a fine character such as boys will delight in, whilst the story of his numerous adventures is very graphically told. This will, we think, prove one of the most popular boys' books this season."--Gazette. A Brave Defense. A Story of the Massacre at Fort Griswold in 1781. By William P. Chipman. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. Perhaps no more gallant fight against fearful odds took place during the Revolutionary War than that at Fort Griswold, Groton Heights, Conn., in 1781. The boys are real boys who were actually on the muster rolls, either at Fort Trumbull on the New London side, or of Fort Griswold on the Groton side of the Thames. The youthful reader who follows Halsey Sanford and Levi Dart and Tom Malleson, and their equally brave comrades, through their thrilling adventures will be learning something more than historical facts; they will be imbibing lessons of fidelity, of bravery, of heroism, and of manliness, which must prove serviceable in the arena of life. The Young Minuteman. A Story of the Capture of General Prescott in 1777. By William P. Chipman. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. This story is based upon actual events which occurred during the British occupation of the waters of Narragansett Bay. Darius Wale and William Northrop belong to "the coast patrol." The story is a strong one, dealing only with actual events. There is, however, no lack of thrilling adventure, and every lad who is fortunate enough to obtain the book will find not only that his historical knowledge is increased, but that his own patriotism and love of country are deepened. For the Temple: A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem. By G. A. HENTY. With illustrations by S. J. Solomon. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Mr. Henty's graphic prose picture of the hopeless Jewish resistance to Roman sway adds another leaf to his record of the famous wars of the world. The book is one of Mr. Henty's cleverest efforts."--Graphic. BOOKS FOR BOYS Roy Gilbert's Search: A Tale of the Great Lakes. By Wm. P. Chipman. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. A deep mystery hangs over the parentage of Roy Gilbert. He arranges with two schoolmates to make a tour of the Great Lakes on a steam launch. The three boys visit many points of interest on the lakes. Afterwards the lads rescue an elderly gentleman and a lady from a sinking yacht. Later on the boys narrowly escape with their lives. The hero is a manly, self-reliant boy, whose adventures will be followed with interest. The Slate Picker: The Story of a Boy's Life in the Coal Mines. By Harry Prentice. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. This is a story of a boy's life in the coal mines of Pennsylvania. Ben Burton, the hero, had a hard road to travel, but by grit and energy he advanced step by step until he found himself called upon to fill the position of chief engineer of the Kohinoor Coal Company. This is a book of extreme interest to every boy reader. The Boy Cruisers; or, Paddling in Florida. By St. George Rathborne. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. Andrew George and Rowland Carter start on a canoe trip along the Gulf coast, from Key West to Tampa, Florida. Their first adventure is with a pair of rascals who steal their boats. Next they run into a gale in the Gulf. After that they have a lively time with alligators and Andrew gets into trouble with a band of Seminole Indians. Mr. Rathborne knows just how to interest the boys, and lads who are in search of a rare treat will do well to read this entertaining story. Captured by Zulus: A Story of Trapping in Africa. By Harry Prentice. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. This story details the adventures of two lads, Dick Elsworth and Bob Harvey, in the wilds of South Africa. By stratagem the Zulus capture Dick and Bob and take them to their principal kraal or village. The lads escape death by digging their way out of the prison hut by night. They are pursued, but the Zulus finally give up pursuit. Mr. Prentice tells exactly how wild-beast collectors secure specimens on their native stamping grounds, and these descriptions make very entertaining reading. Tom the Ready; or, Up from the Lowest. By Randolph Hill. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. This is a dramatic narrative of the unaided rise of a fearless, ambitious boy from the lowest round of fortune's ladder to wealth and the governorship of his native State. Tom Seacomb begins life with a purpose, and eventually overcomes those who oppose him. How he manages to win the battle is told by Mr. Hill in a masterful way that thrills the reader and holds his attention and sympathy to the end. Captain Kidd's Gold: The True Story of an Adventurous Sailor Boy. By James Franklin Fitts. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. There is something fascinating to the average youth in the very idea of buried treasure. A vision arises before his eyes of swarthy Portuguese and Spanish rascals, with black beards and gleaming eyes. There were many famous sea rovers, but none more celebrated than Capt. Kidd. Paul Jones Garry inherits a document which locates a considerable treasure buried by two of Kidd's crew. The hero of this book is an ambitious, persevering lad, of salt-water New England ancestry, and his efforts to reach the island and secure the money form one of the most absorbing tales for our youth that has come from the press. BOOKS FOR BOYS The Boy Explorers: The Adventures of Two Boys in Alaska. By Harry Prentice. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. Two boys, Raymond and Spencer Manning, travel to Alaska to join their father in search of their uncle. On their arrival at Sitka the boys with an Indian guide set off across the mountains. The trip is fraught with perils that test the lads' courage to the utmost. All through their exciting adventures the lads demonstrate what can be accomplished by pluck and resolution, and their experience makes one of the most interesting tales ever written. The Island Treasure; or, Harry Darrel's Fortune. By Frank H. Converse. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. Harry Darrel, having received a nautical training on a school-ship, is bent on going to sea. A runaway horse changes his prospects. Harry saves Dr. Gregg from drowning and afterward becomes sailing-master of a sloop yacht. Mr. Converse's stories possess a charm of their own which is appreciated by lads who delight in good healthy tales that smack of salt water. Guy Harris: The Runaway. By Harry Castlemon. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. Guy Harris lived in a small city on the shore of one of the Great Lakes. He is persuaded to go to sea, and gets a glimpse of the rough side of life in a sailor's boarding house. He ships on a vessel and for five months leads a hard life. The book will interest boys generally on account of its graphic style. This is one of Castlemon's most attractive stories. Julian Mortimer: A Brave Boy's Struggle for Home and Fortune. By Harry Castlemon. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. The scene of the story lies west of the Mississippi River, in the days when emigrants made their perilous way across the great plains to the land of gold. There is an attack upon the wagon train by a large party of Indians. Our hero is a lad of uncommon nerve and pluck. Befriended by a stalwart trapper, a real rough diamond, our hero achieves the most happy results. By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Maynard Brown. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Boys with a turn for historical research will be enchanted with the book, while the rest who only care for adventure will be students in spite of themselves."--St. James's Gazette. St. George for England: A Tale of Cressy and Poitiers. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "A story of very great interest for boys. In his own forcible style the author has endeavored to show that determination and enthusiasm can accomplish marvellous results; and that courage is generally accompanied by magnanimity and gentleness."--Pall Mall Gazette. Captain Bayley's Heir: A Tale of the Gold Fields of California. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by H. M. Paget. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Mr. Henty is careful to mingle instruction with entertainment; and the humorous touches, especially in the sketch of John Holl, the Westminster dustman, Dickens himself could hardly have excelled."--Christian Leader. BOOKS FOR BOYS Budd Boyd's Triumph; or, The Boy Firm of Fox Island. By William P. Chipman. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. The scene of this story is laid on the upper part of Narragansett Bay, and the leading incidents have a strong salt-water flavor. The two boys, Budd Boyd and Judd Floyd, being ambitious and clear sighted, form a partnership to catch and sell fish. Budd's pluck and good sense carry him through many troubles. In following the career of the boy firm of Boyd & Floyd, the youthful reader will find a useful lesson--that industry and perseverance are bound to lead to ultimate success. Lost in the Canyon: Sam Willett's Adventures on the Great Colorado. By Alfred R. Calhoun. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. This story hinges on a fortune left to Sam Willett, the hero, and the fact that it will pass to a disreputable relative if the lad dies before he shall have reached his majority. The story of his father's peril and of Sam's desperate trip down the great canyon on a raft, and how the party finally escape from their perils is described in a graphic style that stamps Mr. Calhoun as a master of his art. Captured by Apes: The Wonderful Adventures of a Young Animal Trainer. By Harry Prentice. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.00. Philip Garland, a young animal collector and trainer, sets sail for Eastern seas in quest of a new stock of living curiosities. The vessel is wrecked off the coast of Borneo, and young Garland is cast ashore on a small island, and captured by the apes that overrun the place. Very novel indeed is the way by which the young man escapes death. Mr. Prentice is a writer of undoubted skill. Under Drake's Flag: A Tale of the Spanish Main. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "There is not a dull chapter, nor, indeed, a dull page in the book; but the author has so carefully worked up his subject that the exciting deeds of his heroes are never incongruous nor absurd."--Observer. By Sheer Pluck: A Tale of the Ashanti War. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. The author has woven, in a tale of thrilling interest, all the details of the Ashanti campaign, of which he was himself a witness. "Mr. Henty keeps up his reputation as a writer of boys' stories. 'By Sheer Pluck' will be eagerly read."--Athenæum. With Lee in Virginia: A Story of the American Civil War. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "One of the best stories for lads which Mr. Henty has yet written. The picture is full of life and color, and the stirring and romantic incidents are skillfully blended with the personal interest and charm of the story."--Standard. By England's Aid; or, The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604). By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Alfred Pearse. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "It is an admirable book for youngsters. It overflows with stirring incident and exciting adventure, and the color of the era and of the scene are finely reproduced. The illustrations add to its attractiveness."--Boston Gazette. BOOKS FOR BOYS By Right of Conquest; or, With Cortez in Mexico. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by W. S. Stacey. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.50. "The conquest of Mexico by a small band of resolute men under the magnificent leadership of Cortez is always rightfully ranked among the most romantic and daring exploits in history. 'By Right of Conquest' is the nearest approach to a perfectly successful historical tale that Mr. Henty has yet published."--Academy. For Name and Fame; or, Through Afghan Passes. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Not only a rousing story, replete with all the varied forms of excitement of a campaign, but, what is still more useful, an account of a territory and its inhabitants which must for a long time possess a supreme interest for Englishmen, as being the key to our Indian Empire."--Glasgow Herald. The Bravest of the Brave; or, With Peterborough in Spain. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by H. M. Paget. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Mr. Henty never loses sight of the moral purpose of his work--to enforce the doctrine of courage and truth, mercy and loving kindness, as indispensable to the making of a gentleman. Boys will read 'The Bravest of the Brave' with pleasure and profit; of that we are quite sure."--Daily Telegraph. The Cat of Bubastes: A Story of Ancient Egypt. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "The story, from the critical moment of the killing of the sacred cat to the perilous exodus into Asia with which it closes, is very skillfully constructed and full of exciting adventures. It is admirably illustrated."--Saturday Review. Bonnie Prince Charlie: A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Ronald, the hero, is very like the hero of 'Quentin Durward.' The lad's journey across France, and his hairbreadth escapes, makes up as good a narrative of the kind as we have ever read. For freshness of treatment and variety of incident Mr. Henty has surpassed himself."--Spectator. With Clive in India; or, The Beginnings of an Empire. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "He has taken a period of Indian history of the most vital importance, and he has embroidered on the historical facts a story which of itself is deeply interesting. Young people assuredly will be delighted with the volume."--Scotsman. In the Reign of Terror: The Adventures of a Westminster Boy. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by J. Schönberg. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Harry Sandwith, the Westminster boy, may fairly be said to beat Mr. Henty's record. His adventures will delight boys by the audacity and peril they depict. The story is one of Mr. Henty's best."--Saturday Review. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. BOOKS FOR BOYS The Lion of the North: A Tale of Gustavus Adolphus and the Wars of Religion. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by John Schönberg. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "A praiseworthy attempt to interest British youth in the great deeds of the Scotch Brigade in the wars of Gustavus Adolphus. Mackey, Hepburn, and Munro live again in Mr. Henty's pages, as those deserve to live whose disciplined bands formed really the germ of the modern British army."--Athenæum. The Dragon and the Raven; or, The Days of King Alfred. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by C. J. Staniland. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "In this story the author gives an account of the fierce struggle between Saxon and Dane for supremacy in England, and presents a vivid picture of the misery and ruin to which the country was reduced by the ravages of the sea-wolves. The story is treated in a manner most attractive to the boyish reader."--Athenæum. The Young Carthaginian. A Story of the Times of Hannibal. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by C. J. Staniland. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Well constructed and vividly told. From first to last nothing stays the interest of the narrative. It bears us along as on a stream whose current varies in direction, but never loses its force."--Saturday Review. In Freedom's Cause: A Story of Wallace and Bruce. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "It is written in the author's best style. Full of the wildest and most remarkable achievements, it is a tale of great interest, which a boy, once he has begun it, will not willingly put one side."--The Schoolmaster. With Wolfe in Canada; or, The Winning of a Continent. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "A model of what a boys' story-book should be. Mr. Henty has a great power of infusing into the dead facts of history new life, and as no pains are spared by him to ensure accuracy in historic details, his books supply useful aids to study as well as amusement."--School Guardian. True to the Old Flag: A Tale of the American War of Independence. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by Gordon Browne. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "Does justice to the pluck and determination of the British soldiers during the unfortunate struggle against American emancipation. The son of an American loyalist, who remains true to our flag, falls among the hostile red-skins in that very Huron country which has been endeared to us by the exploits of Hawkeye and Chingachgook."--The Times. A Final Reckoning: A Tale of Bush Life in Australia. By G. A. Henty. With illustrations by W. B. Wollen. 12mo, cloth, olivine edges, price $1.00. "All boys will read this story with eager and unflagging interest. The episodes are in Mr. Henty's very best vein--graphic, exciting, realistic; and, as in all Mr. Henty's books, the tendency is to the formation of an honorable, manly, and even heroic character."--Birmingham Post. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher, A. L. BURT, 52-58 Duane Street, New York. 
42901	----	Creatures of the Abyss By Murray Leinster [Transcriber Note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] A BERKLEY MEDALLION BOOK published by THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING CORPORATION COPYRIGHT © 1961, BY MURRAY LEINSTER _Published by arrangement with the author_ BERKLEY EDITION, AUGUST, 1961 _BERKLEY MEDALLION BOOKS are published by Berkley Publishing Corporation 101 Fifth Avenue, New York 3, N. Y._ Printed in the United States of America _One_ The moment arrived when Terry Holt realized that he was simply holding the bag for Jimenez y Cía.--Jimenez and Company--in the city of Manila. He wasn't getting anywhere, himself. So, painfully, he prepared to wind up the company's affairs and his own, and start over. It seemed appropriate to take inventory, consult the police--they'd been both amiable and co-operative--and then make new plans. But first it would be a good idea to go somewhere else for a while, until the problem presented by _La Rubia_ and radar and fish and _orejas de ellos_ had been settled. He was at work on the inventory when the door opened, the warning-bell tinkled, and the girl came into the shop. He looked up with a wary eye, glancing over the partition separating the workshop area in which the merchandise sold by Jimenez y Cía. was assembled. There were certain people he felt should not come into the shop. The police agreed with him. He was prepared to throw out anybody who came either to demand that he build something or else, or to demand that he not build it or else. In such forcible ejections he would be backed by the authorities of the city and the Philippine Republic. But this customer was a girl. She was a pretty girl. She was pleasantly tanned. Her make-up, if she wore any, looked natural, and she carried a sizable parcel under her arm. She turned to close the door behind her. She was definitely from the United States. So Terry said in English, "Good afternoon. Can I do something for you?" She looked relieved. "Ah! We can talk English," she said gratefully. "I was afraid I'd have trouble. I do have trouble with Spanish." Terry came out from behind the partition marking off the workshop. The shop was seventeen feet wide and its larger expanse of plate glass said, "_Jimenez y Cía._" in large letters. Terry's now-vanished partner Jimenez had liked to see his name in large print. Under the name was the line "_Especialidades Electrónicas y Físicas._" This was Terry's angle. He assembled specialties in the line of electronics and modern physics. Jimenez had sold them, not wisely but too well. At the bottom corner of the window there was a modest statement: "_Orejas de Ellos_," which meant nothing to anybody but certain commercial fishermen, all of whom would deny it. The girl looked dubiously about her. The front of the shop displayed two glaringly white electric washing machines, four electric refrigerators, and two deep-freeze cabinets. "But I'm not sure this is the right shop," she said. "I'm not looking for iceboxes." "They're window-dressing," said Terry. "My former business associate tried to run an appliance shop. But the people who buy such things in Manila only want the latest models. He got stuck with these from last year. So we do--I did do--_especialidades electrónicas y físicas_. But I'm shutting up shop. What are you looking for?" The shop was in an appropriate place for its former products. Outside on the Calle Enero there were places where one could buy sea food in quantity, mother-of-pearl, pitch, coir rope, bêche-de-mer, copra, fuel oil, Diesel repair-parts and edible birds' nests. _Especialidades_ fitted in. But though it was certainly respectable enough, this neighborhood wasn't exactly where one would have expected to find a girl like this shopping for what a girl like this would shop for. "I'm looking," she explained, "for somebody to make up a special device, probably electronic, for my father's boat." "Ah!" said Terry regretfully. "That's my line exactly, as is evidenced in Spanish on the window and in Tagalog, Malay and Chinese on cards you can read through the glass. But I'm suspending operations for a while. What kind of special device? Radar--No. I doubt you'd want _orejas de ellos_...." "What are they?" "Submarine ears," said Terry. "For fishing boats. The name is no clue at all. They pick up underwater sounds, enabling one to hear surf a long way off. Which may be useful. And some fish make noises and the fishermen use these ears to eavesdrop on them and catch them. You wouldn't be interested in anything of that sort!" The girl brightened visibly. "But I am! Something very much like it, at any rate. Take a look at this and see what my father wants to have made." She put her parcel on a deep-freeze unit and pulled off its paper covering. The object inside was a sort of curved paddle with a handle at one end. It was about three feet long, made of a light-colored fibrous wood, and on the convex part of its curvature it was deeply carved in peculiar transverse ridges. "A fish-driving paddle," she explained. "From Alua." He looked it over. He knew vaguely that Alua was an island somewhere near Bohol. "Naturally a fish-driving paddle is used to drive fish," she said. "To--herd them, you might say. People go out in shallow water and form a line. Then they whack paddles like these on the surface of the water. Fish try to get away from the sound and the people herd them where they want them--into fish-traps, usually. I've tried this, while wearing a bathing suit. It makes your skin tingle--smart, rather. It's a sort of pins-and-needles sensation. Fish would swim away from an underwater noise like that!" Terry examined the carving. "Well?" "Of course we think there's something special about the noise these paddles make. Maybe a special wave-form?" "Possibly," he admitted. "But--" "We want something else to do the same trick on a bigger scale. Directional, if possible. Not a paddle, of course. Better. Bigger. Stronger. Continuous. We want to drive fish and this paddle's limited in its effect." "Why drive fish?" asked Terry. "Why not?" asked the girl. She watched his face. He frowned a little, considering the problem the girl posed. "Oh, _ellos_ might object," he said absently. "Who?" "_Ellos_," he repeated. "It's a superstition. The word means 'they' or 'them.' Things under the ocean who listen to the fish and the fishermen." "You're not serious." It was a statement. "No," he admitted, still eying the paddle. "But the modern, businesslike fishermen who buy submarine ears for sound business reasons call them _orejas de ellos_ and everybody knows what they mean, even in the modernized fishing fleet." "Which," said the girl, "Jimenez y Cía. has had a big hand in modernizing. That's why I came to you. Your name is Terry Holt, I think. An American Navy Captain said you could make what my father wants." Terry nodded suddenly to himself. "What you want," he said abruptly, "might be done with a tape-recorder, a submarine ear, and an underwater horn. You'd make a tape-recording of what these whackings sound like under water, edit the tape to make the whackings practically continuous, and then play the tape through an underwater horn to reproduce the sounds at will. That should do the trick." "Good! How soon can you do it?" she asked. "I'm afraid not at all," said Terry. "I find I've been a little too efficient in updating the fishing fleet. I'm leaving the city for the city's good." She looked at him inquiringly. "No," he assured her. "The police haven't asked me to leave. They're glad I'm going, but they're cordial enough and it's agreed that I'll come back when somebody else finds out how _La Rubia_ catches her fish." "_La Rubia?_" "_The Redhead_," he told her. "It's the name of a fishing boat. She's found some place where fish practically fight to get into her nets. For months, now, she's come back from every trip loaded down gunwale-deep. And she makes her trips fast! Naturally the other fishermen want to get in on the party." "So?" "The bonanza voyages," Terry explained, "started immediately after _La Rubia_ had submarine ears installed. Immediately all the other boats installed them. My former partner sold them faster than I could assemble them. And nobody regrets them. They do increase the catches. But they don't match _La Rubia_. She's making a mint of money! She's found some place or she has some trick that loads her down deep every time she puts out to sea." The girl made an interrogative sound. "The other fishermen think it's a place," Terry added, "so they ganged up on her. Two months back, when she sailed, the entire fishing fleet trailed her. They stuck to her closer than brothers. So she sailed around for a solid week and never put a net overboard. Then she came back to Manila--empty. They were furious. The price of fish had gone sky-high in their absence. They went to sea to make some money regardless. When they got back they found _La Rubia_ had sailed after they left, got back before they returned--and she was just loaded with fish, and the market was back to normal. There was bad feeling. There were fights. Some fishermen landed in the hospital and some in jail." A motor truck rolled by on the street outside the shop of the now moribund Jimenez y Cía. The girl automatically turned her eyes to the source of the noise. Then she looked back at Terry. "And then my erstwhile associate Jimenez had a brainstorm," said Terry ruefully. "He sold the skipper of _La Rubia_ on the idea of short-range radar. I built a set for him. It was good for possibly twenty miles. So _La Rubia_ sailed in the dark of the moon with fifty fishing boats swearing violent oaths that they'd follow her to hell-and-gone. When night fell _La Rubia_ put out her lights, used her radar to locate the other boats who couldn't see her, and sneaked out from their midst. She came back loaded down with fish. There were more fights and more men in the hospital and in jail. Some of _La Rubia's_ men boasted that they'd used radar to dodge their rivals. And that's how the police got interested in me." The girl had listened interestedly. "Why?" "Oh, Jimenez began to take orders for radar from other fishing boat owners. If _La Rubia_ could dodge them by radar, they could trail her by radar even in the dark. So the skipper and crew of _La Rubia_ promised blood-curdling things as Jimenez's fate if he delivered a radar set to anybody else. Then the skippers and crews of other boats made even more blood-curdling threats if he didn't deliver radar to them. So Jimenez ran away, leaving me to hold the bag." The girl nodded. "And therefore," said Terry, "I'm shutting up shop. I'll turn the inventory over to the police and go off somewhere until someone learns where _La Rubia_ gets her fish. When things calm down again, I'll come back and start up business once more--without Jimenez. I'll probably stick to electric-eye doors, burglar alarms, closed-circuit television systems and things like that. Then I might make this underwater broadcasting device, if your father still wants it. I'd better not now." "We heard about your problem," said the girl. "Almost exactly the way you just explained it." Terry stared. Then he said politely, "Oh. You did?" "Yes, I thought--" "Then you knew," said Terry more politely still, "that I was leaving town and couldn't make the gadget you want? You knew it before you came here?" "Why," said the girl, "your plans seemed to fit in very nicely with ours. We've got a sixty-five-foot schooner and we're sailing around. My father wants something like--what you described. So since you want to--well--travel around for a time, why not come on board our boat and make the thing we want there? We'll land you anywhere you like when it's finished." "Thanks," said Terry with very great politeness indeed. "I think I made a fool of myself, explaining. You knew it all beforehand. I'm afraid I bored you horribly. You probably even know that Jimenez took all the funds when he ran away." She hesitated, and then said, "Y-yes. We thought--" "That I should have trouble raising steamer-fare to any place at all," he said without cordiality. "And I will. You had that information too, didn't you?" "Please!" she said with distress. "You make it sound--" "Did you have any idea what I'd charge to assemble the device you want?" "If you'll name a price." Terry named one. He was angry. The sum was far from a small one. It was, in fact, exorbitant. But he felt that he'd made a fool of himself, responding to her encouragement by telling her things she already knew. She opened her purse and peeled off bills. She put them down. "I'll leave the paddle with you," she said crisply. "Our boat is the _Esperance_. You'll find it...." She named the anchorage, which was that of Manila's most expensive yacht club. "There's a launch which will bring you out whenever you're ready to sail. It would be nice if you could sail tomorrow--and nicer if you could come aboard today." She nodded in friendly fashion, opened the door--the bell jangled--and went out. Terry blinked. Then he swore and snatched up the pile of bills. Two fluttered to the floor and he lost time picking them up. He went out after her, the money in his hand. He saw a taxicab door close behind her, three or four doors down the street. Instantly the cab was in mad career away. The taxicabs of Manila are driven by a special breed of chauffeurs. It is said that they are all escaped lunatics with homicidal tendencies. The cab went roaring down the Calle Enero's cluttered length and turned the corner. Terry went back to the shop. He swore again. He looked at the money in his hand. It totalled exactly the excessive amount he'd named as the price of an electronic fish-driving unit, including an underwater horn. "The devil!" he said angrily. He felt the special indignation some men feel when they are in difficulties which their pride requires them to surmount by themselves, and somebody tries to help. The indignation is the greater as they see less chance of success on their own. Terry's situation was offensive to him because he shouldn't be in this kind of situation at all, or rather, his troubles were not foreseeable by the most competent of graduate electronic engineers. He'd trained for the work he'd undertaken. He'd prepared himself for competence. At graduation he'd encountered the representatives of at least three large corporations who were snapping up engineers as soon as they left the cloistered halls of learning. Terry'd asked how many men were employed in the category he'd fit in. When one representative boasted that ten thousand such engineers were on his company's payroll, Terry declined at once. He wanted to accomplish something himself, not as part of a team of some thousands of members. The smaller the organization, the better one's chance for personal satisfaction. He wouldn't make as much money, but-- It was a matter of simple logic. If he was better off with a really small company, he'd be best off on his own. And he'd nearly managed it. He'd worked only with Jimenez. Jimenez was the sales organization. Terry was the production staff. In Manila there was certainly room for special electronic equipment--_especialidades electrónicas y físicas_. He should have had an excellent chance to build up a good business. Starting small, even without capital, he'd confidently expected to be going strong within months. There were taxi fleets to be equipped with short-wave radio. There were burglar alarms to be designed and installed, and all sorts of setups to be engineered. And these things were still in demand. His expectations had a solid foundation. Nobody could have anticipated the disaster caused by _La Rubia's_ phenomenal success in commercial fishery. It was even irrational for it to be a disaster to Terry. But it was. More immediately, though, he was indignant because this girl had known all about him when she came into the shop. She'd probably even known about his gimmicking a standard-design submarine listening device so it was really good and really directional. But she'd let him talk, asking seemingly interested questions, when she knew the whole business beforehand. And at the end she'd done a most infuriating thing by paying him in advance for something he'd refused to do, thereby forcing him into the obligation to do it. He fretted. He needed the money. But he objected to being tricked. He went back to the probably senseless business of taking an inventory. Time passed. Nothing happened. Nobody came to the shop. The police had been firm about _La Rubia_ crewmen calling on Terry to make threats. They'd been equally firm about other people calling to make counterthreats. No casual customers entered. Two hours went by. At four o'clock the door opened--with the sound of its tinkling bell--and Police Captain Felicio Horta came in. "_Buenas tardes_," he said cordially. Terry grunted at him. "I hear," said Horta, "that you leave Manila." Terry asked evenly, "Is that a way of asking me to hurry up and do it?" "_Pero no! Por supuesto no!_" protested Horta. "But it is said that you have new and definite plans." "What do you know about them?" demanded Terry. Police Captain Horta said pleasantly, "Officially, nothing. Privately, that you will aid some _ricos americanos_ to do experiments in--_oceanografía_? Some study of oceanic things. That you regret having agreed to do so. That you consider changing your mind. That you are angry." The girl, of course, could have inferred all this from his angry charge out of the shop with the money in his hand, too late to stop her taxicab. But Terry snapped, "Now, who the devil told you that?" Police Captain Horta shrugged. "One hears. I hope it is not true." "That what's not true? That I leave? Or that I don't?" "I hope," said Horta benignly, "that you do as you please. I am not on duty at the moment. I have my car. I offer myself to chauffeur you if there is any place you wish to go--to a steamer or anywhere else. If you do not wish to go anywhere, I will take my leave. With no pre ... prejudice," he finished. "We have been friendly. I hope we remain so." Terry stared at him estimatingly. Police Captain Horta was a reasonable and honest man. He knew that Terry had contributed to matters giving the police some trouble, but he knew it was accidental on Terry's part. He would hold no grudge. "Just why," asked Terry measuredly, "did you come here to offer to drive me somewhere? Is there any special reason to want me to get out of town?" "That is not it," said Horta. "It could be wished that you would--take a certain course of action. Yes. But not because you would be absent from here. It is because you would be present at a special other place. The matter connects with _La Rubia_, but in a manner you could not possibly guess. Yet you are wholly a free agent. You will do as you please. I would like to make it--convenient. That is all." He paused. Terry stared at him, frowning. Horta tried again. "Let us say that I have much interest in _oceanografía_. I would like to see certain research carried on." "Being, I'm sure, especially interested in fish-driving," said Terry skeptically. "You sound as if you were acting unofficially to get something done that officially you can't talk about." Horta smiled warmly at him. "That," he pronounced, "is a logical conclusion." "What's the object of the--research, if that's what it is? And why pick me?" Horta shrugged and did not answer. "Why not tell me?" "_Amigo_," said Horta, "I would like nothing better than to tell you. I would be interested to see your reception of the idea. But it would be fatal. You would think me cr-azy. And also more important persons. But especially me." It was Terry's turn to shrug his shoulders. He hesitated for a long moment. If Horta had tried to apply pressure, he'd have turned obstinate on the instant. But there was no pressure. First the girl and now Horta tried to lure him with mystery and assurance of interest in high places. "And _La Rubia's_ involved in the secret?" demanded Terry. "Innocently," said Horta promptly. "As you are." "Thank you for faith in my innocence," said Terry with irony. "All right. If I'm involved, I'm involved. I'll try to devolve out of being involved by playing along." He turned to the workshop space at the back of the store. He found boxes to pack his working tools and the considerable stock of small parts needed to make such things as burglar alarms, submarine ears and the assorted electronic devices modern business finds increasingly necessary. He began to pack them. Surprisingly, Horta helped. Any man of Spanish blood is apt to be sensitive about manual labor. If he has an official position his sensitiveness is apt to be extreme. But Horta not only helped pack the boxes with Terry's stock of parts; he helped carry them to his car outside. He helped to load them. Terry turned the key in the door and handed it to him, with the nearly complete inventory of the shop's contents. "Jimenez having run away, I leave the shop in your hands," he observed. Horta put the key and document away. He started the motor of his car and drove along the Calle Enero. He drove with surprising moderation for a police officer authorized to ignore traffic rules on occasion. Presently the dock-area of Manila was left behind, and then the rest of the commercial district, and then for a time the car tooled along wide streets past the impressive residences of the wealthy. Some of the architecture was remarkable. A little further, and the harbor--the bay--appeared again. The car entered the grounds of Manila's swankiest yacht club. The design of the clubhouse was astounding. The car stopped by the small-boat pier. There were two men waiting there. Without being given any orders, they accepted the parcels Horta handed out. Also without orders, they carried them out to the float. They loaded them into the brass-trimmed motor tender which waited there. "They knew we were coming," said Terry shortly. "Would I have been brought anyhow?" "_Pero no_," said Horta. "But there are telephones. When we left the shop, one was used." The men who'd carried out the parcels vanished. Terry and Horta stepped aboard. The tender cast off and headed out into the harbor. There was a Philippine gunboat and a mine-layer and an American flattop in plain view. There were tankers and tramp steamers and a vast array of smaller craft at anchor. A seemingly top-heavy steamer ploughed across oily water two miles distant. The tender headed for a trim sixty-five-foot schooner anchored a mile from shore. It grew larger and seemed more trim as the tender approached it. The smaller boat passed under the larger one's stern, and the name _Esperance_ showed plainly. On the starboard side a boat boom projected. The tender ran deftly up and a man in a sweat shirt and duck trousers snubbed the line. He said cheerfully, "How do you do, Mr. Holt?" Then he nodded to Horta. "Good to see you, Captain." He offered his hand as Terry straightened up on deck. "My name's Davis. We'll have your stuff aboard right away." Two young men in dungarees and with crew cuts appeared and took over the motley lot of cartons that Terry and Horta had made ready. "Have you everything you need?" asked Davis anxiously. "Would some extra stuff be useful?" "I could do with a few items," said Terry, stiffly. He had quickly developed an acute dislike for the patent attempt to induce him to join the _Esperance_. He had no reason for his objection, save that he had not been informed about the task he was urged to undertake. "Also," he added abruptly, "Captain Horta didn't think to stop at my hotel so I could get my baggage." "Write a list of what you want," suggested Davis. "I'm sure something can be done about your baggage. Make the list complete. If something's left over, it won't matter. There's a desk in the cabin for you to write at." He turned to Horta. "Captain, what's the news about _La Rubia_?" "She sailed again yesterday," said Horta ruefully. "She was followed by many other boats. And now there is a moon. It rises late, but it rises. Many sailors will be watching her from mastheads. It is said that all the night glasses in Manila have been bought by fishermen...." His voice died away as Terry went down the companion ladder. Belowdecks was attractive. There was no ostentation, but the décor was obviously expensive. There were armchairs, electric lamps, a desk, and shelves filled with books--two or three on electronics and a highly controversial one on marine monsters and sea serpents. There were some on anthropology. On skin diving. On astronomy. Two thick volumes on abyssal fish. There was a shelf of fiction and other shelves of reference books for navigation, radio and Diesel maintenance and repair. There were obvious reasons for these last, but no reason that could be imagined for two books on the solar planets. Terry sat at the desk and compiled a list of electronic parts that he was sure wouldn't be available in Manila. He was annoyed as he realized afresh the smoothness of the operation that had brought him to the _Esperance_. He found satisfaction in asking for some multi-element vacuum tubes that simply couldn't be had except on special order from the manufacturers back in the United States. But it took time to think of them. When he went abovedecks, half an hour later, he had listed just six electronic components. The tender was gone, and Horta with it. Davis greeted Terry as cordially as before. "The tender's left," said Terry with restraint. "Here's my list." Davis did not even glance at it, but beckoned to one of the crew-cut young men who'd unloaded the tender. "This is Nick Alden," he said to Terry. "He's one of the gang. See about this list, Nick." The crew-cut young man put out his hand and Terry shook it. It seemed expected. He went forward with the list and vanished down the forecastle ladder. Davis looked at his watch. "Five-thirty," he observed. "A drink might not be a bad thing." He went below, and Terry surveyed the _Esperance_. She had the look of a pleasure craft, but was built along the lines of something more reliable. There was an unusual power winch amidships, with an extraordinarily large reel. Next to it there was a heavy spar by which to swing something outboard. There were two boats, well stowed against heavy weather, and a number of often-omitted bits of equipment, so that the schooner was not convincing as the hobby of a mere yachtsman. Then Terry saw the brass-trimmed tender heading out from the yacht-club float again. Foam spread out from its bow. A figure in it waved. Terry recognized the girl who'd come into the shop of Jimenez y Cía. She was smiling, and as the launch came nearer it seemed to Terry that there was triumph in her smile. He bristled. Then he saw some parcels in the bow of the tender. Next to the parcels--and he unbelievingly suspected what they were--he suddenly recognized something else: his suitcases and steamer-trunk. In order to sail with the _Esperance_ he need not go ashore to get his belongings. They were brought to him. He became totally convinced that these people had assumed he'd do what they wanted him to, without consulting him. He rebelled. Immediately. Any time other people took for granted that they could make plans for him, he would become obstinate. When he was in a fix--and now he was practically stranded in Manila with a need to go elsewhere for a time and no money with which to do it--he was especially touchy. He found himself scowling and angry, and the more angry because what was required of him would have been very convenient if there'd been no attempt to inveigle him into it. The launch came around the _Esperance's_ stern. Davis came from below with two glasses. The girl said cheerfully, "Howdo! We've got your extra items. All of them. And your baggage." Terry said curtly, "How did my list get ashore?" "Nick phoned it," said Davis. "By short-wave." "And where the devil did you find the stuff I named?" "That," said Davis, "is part of the mystery you don't like." "Right!" said Terry grimly. "I don't like it. I don't think I'll play. I'll go ashore in the tender." "Hold it!" said Davis. But he was speaking to the operator of the tender. The crew-cut Nick was in the act of handing up the first piece of baggage. Davis waved it back. "I'm sorry," he said to Terry. "We'll stay at anchor here. If you change your mind, the tender will bring you out any time." Terry brought out the sheaf of bills the girl had left in the shop of the vanished Jimenez. He held them out to the girl. She put her hands behind her back and shook her head. "We put you to trouble," she said pleasantly, "and we haven't been frank with you. That's to make up for it." "I won't accept it," said Terry stiffly. "I insist." "We won't have it back," said Davis. "And we insist!" Terry felt idiotic. There was enough of a breeze to make it impractical simply to put the batch of bank notes down. They'd blow away. The girl looked at him regretfully. "I'm truly sorry," she said. "I planned the way we went after you. You are exactly the person we're sure to need. We decided to try to get you to join us. We couldn't explain. So we asked what you were like. And you're not the sort of person who can be hired to do what he's told and no questions asked. Captain Horta said you were a gentleman. So since we couldn't ask you to volunteer blindly--though I think you would volunteer if you knew what we're about to do--we tried to make you come for the adventure of it. It didn't work. I'm sorry." Terry had the singular conviction that she told the exact truth. And she was a very pretty girl, but she wasn't using her looks to persuade him. She spoke as one person to another. He unwillingly found himself mollified. "Look!" he said vexedly. "I was leaving Manila. I need to be away for a while. I am coming back. I can do any crazy thing I want for some weeks, or even a couple of months. But I don't like to be pushed around! I don't like--" The girl smiled suddenly. "All right, I'll keep the money." The girl smiled more widely and said, "Mr. Holt, we are off on a cruise. We'll put in at various ports from time to time. We think you would fit into our party. We invite you to come on this cruise as our guest. You can be helpful or not, as you please. And we will _not_ try to pay you for anything!" Davis nodded. Terry frowned. Then he spoke painfully. "I have a gift for making a fool of myself," he said ruefully. "When it's put that way, fine! I'll come along. But I reserve the right to make guesses." "That's good!" said Davis warmly. "If you do find out what we won't tell you, you'll see why we didn't." He waved to Nick and the tender operator. The parcels came onto the _Esperance's_ deck. His baggage followed. He picked up one of the new cardboard parcels and examined its markings. "This," he said more ruefully still, "has me stymied. I'd have sworn you couldn't get one of these special tubes nearer than Schenectady, New York. But you found one in Manila in minutes! How did you do it?" The girl laughed. "Terribly simple!" she said. "We'll tell you. But not until we're under way, or you might be so disgusted with the simplicity of it that you'd want to go ashore again." _Two_ The edge of the sun touched the horizon and sank below it, out of sight. There were magnificent tints in the sky, and the gently rippling harbor water reflected them in innumerable swirlings of color. The _Esperance_ swayed very slightly and very gracefully on the low swells. In minutes two of the dungareed members of the ship's company got the anchor up with professional efficiency. One of them went below, and the _Esperance's_ engine began to rumble. Davis casually took the wheel, and the small yacht began to move toward the open sea while Nick played a salt-water hose on the anchor before lashing it fast. The brief twilight of the tropics transformed itself swiftly into night. Lights winked and glittered ashore and on the water. Terry felt more than a little absurd. The girl said pleasantly, at his side, "My name's Deirdre, in case you don't know." "Mine's Terry, but you do know." "Naturally!" she said briskly. "I should explain that I'm the ship's cook, and the boys forward aren't professional sailors, and my father isn't--" "Isn't in this business for money," said Terry. "It's strictly for something else. And I don't think it's buried treasure or anything like that." "Nothing so sensible," she agreed. "Now, if you want to join a watch, you'll do it. If you don't, you won't. The port cabin, the little one, is yours. You are our guest. If you want anything, ask for it. I'm going below to cook dinner." She left him. He surveyed the deck again, and presently went back to where Davis sat nonchalantly by the _Esperance's_ wheel. Davis nodded. "Now that you've, well, joined up," he said meditatively, "I've been trying to think how to, well, justify all the mystery. Part of it was Deirdre's idea. She thought it would make our proposition more interesting, so you'd be more likely to take it up. But when I think about explaining, I bog down immediately." Terry sat down. The _Esperance_ drove on. Her bow lifted and dipped and lifted and dipped. The water was no longer nearly smooth. There was the beginning of a land breeze. "There's _La Rubia_," said Davis uncomfortably. "You outfitted her with underwater ears and a radar, at least. Was there anything else?" "No," said Terry curtly. "Nothing else." "She catches the devil of a lot of fish," said Davis. He frowned. "Some of them you might call very queer fish. You haven't heard anything about that?" "No," said Terry. "Nothing." "I think, then," said Davis, "that I'd better not expose myself to scorn. I'd like to be able to read her skipper's mind, though. But it's possible he simply thinks he's lucky. And it's possible he's right." Terry waited. Davis puffed on his pipe. Then he said abruptly, "Anyhow you're a good man at making gadgets. We'll let it go at that, for the time being." The sea became less and less smooth. There were little slapping sounds of waves against the yacht's bow. The muted rumble of her engine was not intrusive. The breeze increased. Davis gave a definite impression of having said all he intended to say for the time being. Terry stirred. "You want me to build a gadget," he said. "To drive fish. Would you want to give me some details?" Davis considered. A few drops of spray came over the _Esperance's_ side. "N-o-o-o," said Davis. "Not just yet. There's a possibility it will fit in. I'd like you to make one, and maybe it will fit in somewhere. But _La Rubia's_ the best angle we've got so far. There is one gadget I'd give a lot to have! You know, a depth-finder. It sends a pulse of sound down to the bottom and times the echo coming back. Very much like radar, in a way. Both send out a pulse and time its return." Terry nodded. There was no mystery about depth-finders or radars. "We've got a depth-finder on board," said Davis. "If I sail a straight course and keep the depth-finder running, I can make a profile of the sea bottom under me. If I had a row of ships doing the same thing, we could get profiles and have a relief map of the bottom." "That's right," agreed Terry. "What I'd give a lot for," said Davis, "would be a depth-finder that would send spot-pulses, like radar does. Aimed sound-pulses. And an arrangement made so it could scan the ocean bottom like radar scans the sky. One boat could make a graph of the bottom in depths and heights, mapping even hummocks and hills underwater. Could something like that be done?" "Probably," Terry told him. "It might take a good deal of doing, though." "I wish you'd think about it," said Davis. "I know a place where I'd like to use such a thing. It's in the Luzon Deep. I really would like to have a detailed picture of the bottom at a certain spot there!" Terry said nothing. He'd been made angry, then mollified, and now he felt tempted to grow angry again. There was nothing definite in what was wanted of him, after elaborate machinations to get him aboard the _Esperance_. He was disappointed. "Good breeze," said Davis in a different voice. "We might as well hoist sail and cut off the engine. Take the wheel?" Terry took the wheel. Davis went forward. Four dungareed figures came up out of the forecastle. The sails went up and filled. The engine stopped. The motion of the boat changed. More spray came aboard, but the movement was steadier. Davis came back and took the wheel once more. "I think," he said, "that we're acting in a way to--hm--be annoying. I ought to lay my cards on the table. But I can't. For one thing, I haven't drawn a full hand yet. For another, there are some things you'll have to find out for yourself, in a situation like this." "Such as--" "Well," said Davis with a sudden dogged air, "take those _orejas de ellos_, for an example. _Ellos_ are supposed to be some sort of beings at the bottom of the sea who listen to fish and fishermen. It's a superstition pure and simple. Suppose I said I was investigating the possibility that there were such--beings. You'd think I was crazy, wouldn't you?" Terry shrugged. "What I am interested in," said Davis, "has enough credit behind it for me to get some pretty rare electronic parts from the flattop in harbor back yonder. Nick called them by short-wave, they sent the parts ashore and gave them to Deirdre, and she brought them out to you." Terry blinked. Then he realized. Of course, that was where just about any imaginable component for electronic devices would be found--in the electronics stores of a flattop! They needed to have such things at hand. They'd carry them in store. Davis said drily, "They wouldn't supply parts to a civilian who was investigating imaginary gods or devils. So what I'm bothered with isn't a superstition. Right?" "Y-yes," agreed Terry. It was true. The Navy would not stretch regulations for a crackpot civilian. It was not likely, either, that Horta would have implied so definitely that the Philippine Government wanted somebody with Terry's qualifications to go for a cruise on the _Esperance_. Deirdre put her head up through the after-cabin hatch. "Dinner is served," she said cheerfully. "The wheel," said Davis to Terry. He went forward. All four of the non-professional seamen came with him when he returned. "This is the rest of the gang," said Davis. "You met Nick. The others are Tony Drake, Jug Bell, and Doug Holmes." He made an embracing gesture as they shook hands in turn. "Harvard, Princeton, Yale--and Nick's M.I.T. It's your turn at the wheel, Tony." One of the four took over. The others filed below after Davis and Terry. Terry was silent. Davis had wanted to show that he was being informative, and yet he'd said exactly nothing about the interests or the purpose of the _Esperance's_ complement. Dinner in the after-cabin was almost as confusing to Terry. Seen at close range across a table, the four dungareed young men could not possibly be anything but college undergraduates. They were respectful to Davis as an older man and they tended to be a little cagey about Terry, because he was slightly older than themselves but not an honorary contemporary. They plainly regarded Deirdre with the warmest possible approval. Conversation began, at first cryptic but suddenly only preposterous. There was an argument about the supposed intelligence of porpoises, based on recent studies of their brain structure. Tony observed profoundly that without an opposable thumb intelligence could not lead to artefacts, and hence no culture and no great effective intelligence was possible. Jug denied the meaningfulness of brain structure as an indication of intellect. Intellect would be useless to a creature which could neither make nor use a tool. Doug argued hotly that the point was absurd. He pointed to spastic children once rated as morons but actually having high I.Q.'s. They had intellects, though they had been useless because of their inability to communicate. But Nick asserted that without tools they'd have nothing to talk about but food, danger, and who went where with whom for what. All of which, he observed, needed no brains. Davis listened amusedly. Deirdre threw in the suggestion that without hands or tools an intelligent creature could compose poetry, and Jug protested that that was nothing to use a brain for--and the talk turned into a violent argument about poetry. Doug insisted vehemently that the finest possible intellects were required for the composition and appreciation of true poetry. Then Davis said, "Tony's still at the wheel." The argument died down and the crew-cuts devoted themselves to eating, so one of them could get through and relieve him. Afterward, Davis settled down below to a delicate short-wave tuning process to get music from an improbable distance. Deirdre served Tony his meal and talked with him while he ate it. Terry went abovedecks and paced back and forth as the _Esperance_ sailed on through the night. He couldn't make out anything at all about the crew or the purpose behind the _Esperance's_ chosen task and purpose. He felt dubious about the whole business. Like most technically-minded men, he could become absorbed in a problem, especially if it was a device difficult to design or a design that somehow didn't work. Such things fascinated him. But the _Esperance's_ crew was not concerned with a problem like that. There was no pattern in their talk or behavior to match the way a technical mind would go about finding a solution. The problem was bafflingly vague, yet there _was_ one. _La Rubia_ was an element in it. Possibly Davis' wistful mention of a partial map of the bottom of the Luzon Deep fitted in somewhere. Davis had spoken of _orejas de ellos_ with some familiarity, but certainly no Navy ship would cooperate in the investigation of a fisherman's superstition in which even fishermen didn't believe any longer. The Philippine fishing fleet was modern and efficient. Fishermen used submarine ears without superstitious fears, and if they referred to imaginary _ellos_ it was as an American would say "knock on wood," with no actual belief that it meant anything. Whatever the _Esperance's_ purpose was, there was nothing mystical about it--not if a flattop parted with rare and expensive specialized vacuum tubes to try to help, and the police department of Manila urged Terry tactfully--through Horta--to join the yacht, and no less than a Navy Captain had named him as someone to be recruited. Deirdre came abovedecks and replaced Tony at the wheel. The _Esperance_ sailed on. A last-quarter moon was now shining low on the eastern horizon. It seemed larger and nearer to the earth than when seen from more temperate climes. The wake of the yacht glowed in the moonlight. The wide expanse of canvas made stark contrast between its moonlit top and its shadow on the deck. The only illumination on the ship was the binnacle lights and the red and green running lights. Deirdre kept the _Esperance_ on course. Terry went up to where she sat, beside the wheel. "I've been making guesses," he told her. "Your father.... I believe that his curiosity has been aroused by something, and he's resolved to track it down. I strongly suspect that at some time or another he's gotten bored with making money and decided to have some fun." Deirdre nodded. "Very good! Almost completely true. But what he's interested in is a good deal more important than fun." Terry nodded in his turn. "I suspected that too. And it's rather likely that you've got a volunteer crew instead of a professional one because these young men consider it a fascinating adventure into the absurd, and because they'll keep their mouths shut if something turns out to be classified information." "My father's doing this strictly on his own!" said Deirdre quickly. "There's nothing official about it. There isn't any classified information about it. This is a private affair from the beginning!" "But in the end it may turn out to be something else," said Terry. "Y-yes. We don't know, though. It's impossible to know! It's--ridiculous!" "And my explanation for your being so mysterious with me is that you and your father insist that I find out everything for myself because I'd think it foolish if you told me." Deirdre did not answer for a moment. There was a movement behind Terry, and Davis came on deck. "That was good music!" he said pleasedly. "You missed some very interesting sounds, Deirdre! You too, Holt." "He's decided," said Deirdre, "that we're a little bit ashamed of our enterprise and won't tell him about it for fear he'll simply laugh at us." Terry protested, "Not at all! Nothing like that!" "When some forty-odd people have been killed by something inexplicable at one time that we know of," said Davis, "--and we don't know how many others have been killed at other times, or may be killed by it in the future--I don't think that's a laughing matter." He surveyed what should be the direction of the land. A light showed there and vanished, then came on again and vanished. A minute later it showed and disappeared, then came on again twice. It was very far away. Davis said in a different tone, "We can change course now, Deirdre. You know the new one." The _Esperance's_ bowsprit forsook the star at which it had been aiming. It swung to another. Davis moved about, adjusting the sheets alone. On the new heading the yacht heeled over a little more and the water rushing past her hull had a different sound. The sky seemed larger and more remote than it ever appears from a city. The yacht's wake streamed behind her in a trail of bluish brightness. Even the moon was strange. It had the cold enormousness of something very near and menacing. It looked as close as when seen through a telescope of moderate power. The _Esperance_ seemed very lonely on the immense waste of waters. Next morning, of course, the sense of loneliness was gone. There was neither land nor any ship in sight, but gulls fluttered and squawked overhead, and the waves seemed to leap and gambol in the sunshine. Just before the foremast a metal plate in the decking had been lifted up, and a new, stubby, extensible mast rose almost as high as the crosstrees. A tiny basket-like object rotated monotonously at its upper end. It was a radar-bowl, and somehow it was not unusual, except in the manner in which it was mounted. Yet, such a collapsible radar mast was reasonable on a sailing yacht with many lines aloft that could be fouled. Anyhow, the radar was concerned with human affairs, and so it was company. The housekeeping work on the boat was in progress. Doug and Jug scrubbed the deck. The other crew-cuts gave signs of industry from time to time, appearing and vanishing. Davis smoked tranquilly at the wheel. Terry felt useless, as well as puzzled. "Can I do anything?" he asked awkwardly. "You're your own boss," said Davis. "Then I might as well see what can be done about that submarine noisemaker." "If you feel like it," said Davis, "fine!" But he did not urge. Terry waited a moment. There was a sort of contagion of purposefulness in this eccentric small group on the _Esperance_. They had something they were trying to do, and it seemed important to them. But Terry was an outsider and would remain one until he became active in their joint effort. He got out his equipment and materials and spread them out. There was no need to build a recorder, since there was one among the supplies. The rest wouldn't be unduly difficult. He established a working space and set systematically to work. The task he'd accepted was essentially simple. A submarine ear was to pick up underwater sounds. He had to modify a microphone and enclose it in a water-tight housing, with certain special features that would make it highly directional. The recorder would take the pick-up and register it on magnetic tape, while playing it for simultaneous listening. Then he had to assemble a machine for playing back the taped sounds under water. That required a unit for a submarine horn, to broadcast the amplified sound. It isn't difficult to make a sound under water. One can knock two stones together under the surface and a swimmer can hear it a mile or more away. But a horn to reproduce specific sounds is more difficult to build. It needs extra power. A sound-truck in a city, competing with all the traffic noises, will turn no more than fifteen watts of electricity into noise. But much more power would be needed to produce a similar volume under water. Terry modified the mike into a submarine ear--an _orejas de ellos_. Then he began to assemble an audio amplifier to build up the volume of the sounds already taped for re-use under the sea. He had the parts. It was mostly just finicky labor. He sat cross-legged in the sunshine, not far from the _Esperance's_ unusual winch. Nick came up from below and went aft. He spoke to Davis. Terry couldn't hear what was said, but Davis gave orders. The _Esperance_ heeled over; away, away over. The four crew-cuts adjusted the sheets for maximum effect of the sails on the new direction of motion. The yacht seemed to tear through the water like a racing boat. Terry had to rescue some of his smaller parts which started for the scuppers. He looked up. Deirdre said cheerfully, "Our radar picked up a boat that's probably _La Rubia_ on the way back to Manila. We don't want her to see us." Terry blinked. "Why?" "We're going to take a look at the spot where we think she catches her fish," said Deirdre. "It's strange enough that she catches so many, but what's even stranger is the kind of fish she catches at times." "How?" Deirdre shrugged. Then she said irrelevantly, "_La Rubia's_ skipper would like to have the only radar in the world, as you've reason to know, and he doesn't think of radars, except his own and possible competitors. But there are lots of others. We're probably a blip on somebody's radar-screen right now. In fact, we're supposed to be. So when my father got interested in _La Rubia_ and her--catches, he was able to have somebody notice where she goes every time she slips away from the fishing fleet. And so he was told. It was all quite unofficial, of course." Terry bent over his task again while the _Esperance_ sped along over the off-shore swells. There was no land in sight anywhere. An albatross glided overhead for a time, as if inspecting the _Esperance_ as a possible source of food. When Terry looked for it later it was gone. Once there was a flurry in many wave-flanks, and a small school of flying fish darted out of the sea with hazy, beating fins, and dived back into the sea many yards from where they started. But nothing of any consequence happened anywhere. Terry fitted and soldered and tested. By noon he had a rather powerful audio amplifying unit, set up to magnify any sound the tape-recorder fed into it. Deirdre prepared a meal. The galley of the _Esperance_ was admirably supplied with all kinds of food. After the noon meal the yacht changed course again to a line which would intersect her original morning course at some point. Terry found himself fuming. He'd set to work to make something that Davis apparently wanted, but his most elementary questions still ran against a blank refusal to answer. Both Davis and Deirdre had spoken of oddities in the catches of _La Rubia_. There could not possibly be any reason for them to refuse to tell him what they were. Terry worked himself into irritability, recalling how he volunteered to come on the _Esperance_ but not thinking that he would be treated as someone who wasn't allowed to know what everybody else aboard most certainly did. In the afternoon there was guitar music down in the forecastle, and Doug came out and settled himself on the bowsprit with a book of poetry. Presently Nick sat down close by Terry and watched interestedly as he put mysterious-looking electronic elements together into incomprehensible groups. When he had finished, Terry did not admire his handiwork. The noisemaking unit came last. The electrical part had to be enclosed, water-tight, with a diaphragm exposed to the water on one side and its working parts protected from all moisture on the other. The device looked cobbled, but it worked, and made monstrous sounds in the air. Now he plugged the submarine ear into the recorder. He dropped it overside and taped the random noises of the sea: the washings of sea water against the _Esperance's_ hull, frequent splashings, and very faint, chirping noises from who-knew-what. "Watch the volume, will you?" Terry pointed out the Indication that should not be exceeded. Nick nodded. "I'm going to whack the paddle overside and see what we get in the way of noise." Nick hesitated. Then he said uneasily, "Wait a minute." He went aft to Davis, apparently somnolent at the wheel. Deirdre joined the two of them in a seemingly very serious discussion. Then she walked over to Terry. "I hate to say it," she told him with evident concern, "but my father thinks it would be wiser to try out the paddle in shallow water. Do you mind?" "Yes," snapped Terry. "I do mind, since I'm not allowed to know the reason for that or anything else." He put away his tools and the unused parts. He pointed to the machines he had already built. "This is what your father wanted, I think. After it's tested I'll ask you to put me ashore." He went below, where he fretted to himself. But no one came, either to inform him of Davis' reasons, or to tell him to do as he pleased. He felt like a child who isn't allowed to play with other children; who is arbitrarily excluded from the purpose and the excitement of his fellows. Thinking in such terms did not make him feel any better. His irritation increased. The _Esperance_ was engaged in an enterprise that these people considered very much worth doing. He'd joined them to accomplish it, and they wouldn't tell him what it was. He hadn't the temperament to be content with just following blindly. And somehow the fact that Deirdre was aboard and a participant in the secret made his exclusion an insult. He felt about Deirdre that urgent concern that a man may feel about one or two, or at most three girls during his whole lifetime. It wasn't a romantic interest, at this stage, but he wanted to look well in her eyes, and he was enormously interested in anything she said and did. If he left the _Esperance_ and ceased to know her, he knew he'd be nagged at by the feeling that he'd made a very bad mistake. He didn't want to stop knowing her. But he refused to be patronized. He saw an open book on the after-cabin table and glanced restlessly at it. There were three or four photographs and a newspaper clipping stuck into its pages. The book itself dealt with physics at post-graduate levels--which meant that it included a good deal about electronics. Still fuming, Terry glanced at the pictures. The first was of a spherical object made of transparent plastic and probably of small size. It had a number of metallic elements clearly visible through the transparent case. It looked as if it might be an electronic device itself, but there was no sign of lead-in contacts, and the parts inside made no sense at all. The second and third photographs were of a similar yet slightly different object. The fourth photograph was a picture of what looked like ocean water, taken from a plane. The horizon showed in one corner. The center of the picture was an irregularly-shaped mass of white. On close examination it appeared to be foam. But it looked as if it were piled up in masses above the surface. If the water around it was ocean--and it was--and the visible crest-lines were of waves--and they were--that heap of foam must have been hundreds of yards in diameter and piled many feet high on the surface. Foam does not form in such masses in the open sea. It would not last if it did. On the margin of this picture a date had been inked--three days before--and a position in degrees of latitude and longitude. Terry turned to the chart rack. He pulled out a chart and looked up the position. Someone had made a pencil-dot there. It was close to Thrawn Island, on the very brink of the Luzon Deep, that incredible submarine chasm in which the entire Himalayan chain could be sunk without showing a single pinnacle above the surface. He went back to the clipping. It was dated Manila, two years earlier. It was an obviously skeptical article on a report made by the crewmen of a sailing ship that stopped by Manila. Sailing ships are rare enough in modern times. This ship reported that she had sighted another of her own kind at sea. The two ships altered course to speak to each other. And the one which came into Manila declared that when the other vessel was no more than two miles away, white foam suddenly appeared on the sea just in front of her. A geyser of unsubstantial white stuff spouted up and spread, shooting up about thirty feet on the water. The bow of the other sailing ship entered the foam patch. And suddenly her bow tilted downward, her masts swayed forward, and the entire ship vanished into the white stuff, exactly as if she had sailed over a precipice. She did not sink. She dropped. She "fell" under water--under the foam--her sails still spread. One instant she sailed proudly. The next instant she was gone. The position of such an incredible happening was roughly given. It was almost exactly the same as the position written on the photograph of foam taken from the air. At the margin of the Luzon Deep. Terry found that his indignation had evaporated. The reason for it still remained, but now he wanted to know more about this happening and about the spheres of plastic with those deftly designed but enigmatic inclusions. The plastic objects had a purpose. He wanted to know what. And the news clipping.... Having announced crossly that he would ask to be set ashore as soon as the fish-driving unit was tested, he was ashamed to take it back. He stayed below, now angry at himself again. Nobody came below. Deirdre did not descend to cook. Night fell. Well after nightfall he heard movements on deck, and presently a voice which sounded oddly distant. The _Esperance's_ course changed abruptly. The quality of her motion altered once more. He went abovedecks. Twilight was long over, but the moon was not yet up. Here and there a wave-tip frothed, and blue luminescence appeared. Here and there a streak of dim blue light could be seen under water, where some fish darted. But those dartings were rare. Despite the yacht's shining wake and the curling wave-tips, the sea was darker than usual. Nick's voice came from aloft, faint and eerie and seeming to come from the stars. "... farther to port.... Two points ..." Terry could see the masthead weaving and swaying against the stars, with a small dark silhouette clinging to it: Nick. The yacht began to swing. On one bearing she pounded heavily. The seas could hit her squarely, and they did. Figures moved swiftly about the deck, loosening sheets or tightening them. Nick's voice again, from overhead. "Stea-a-a-dy!" The _Esperance_ ceased to turn. Rushing, pounding water sprayed in the air. The waves splashed upon the hull of the yacht, which was sweeping along on a quartering wind. For a while no one talked. Tony stood at the wheel, with Davis nearby, by the binnacle light. Terry could see Davis glancing into the binnacle, then gazing at the horizon ahead, and then aloft, where Nick seemed to swing among low-hanging stars. "Ri-i-i-ght!" he called from high overhead. "Steady as she goes." The _Esperance_ sailed on, over the surging seas. Waves came out of nowhere, leaped beside the yacht and then went by--to nowhere. It was hard to believe that the yacht actually moved forward. She seemed to stay perpetually in the one spot. But there was a winding, sinuous wake, and there was froth under her forefoot. Then a vague brightness appeared on the sea, at the limit of vision. It spread out more widely as the _Esperance_ approached. Presently it was clearly visible. Dead ahead, the beam of the headlight suddenly revealed an incredible spectacle. Until then there had been just a few flashes in the water, where some fish darted away from the yacht's bulk. But here the entire surface of the water shone with thousands and thousands of fish. They were packed in a sharply delimited circle about a mile wide. When the _Esperance_ got close enough, she hauled up into the wind to look. From a spot fifty yards ahead, the sea was alive with a million frantic dartings of swimming things. They were crowded, packed almost fin-to-fin. And it was not a surface phenomenon only. From the yacht's deck the streaks of light were visible deep down, as far as the clear water would let them be seen. They formed a column of glittering chaos. The vast circle, to an indefinite depth, was packed solid with agitated fish. At that edge of brightness the thronging creatures were splashing in a mad frenzy. Solid shining shapes leaped crazily from the water. Some leaped again and again, until they reached the spot where the flashes were thickest, and got lost in the multitude of their fellows. A few escaped to the darker surrounding sea. They seemed to run away in stark terror. But those were only a few. The greatest mass of fish milled crazily inside the circle. There were even porpoises, darting about as if frightened beyond all normal behavior, not even trying to feed on the equally fear-maddened creatures all about them. _Three_ Terry stared incredulously. Someone moved beside him. It was Davis. He spoke in a dry voice. "I would think," he said detachedly, "that _La Rubia_ could catch a boatload of fish in that water with a single haul of her nets. Certainly with two." Terry turned his head. "But what is it? What makes these fish gather like this?" "An interesting question," said Davis. "We'll try to find out how it happens. Even more interesting, I'd like to know why." He moved away along the deck. Terry went close to the side rail. A few minutes later the startling glare of one of the side searchlights smote upon the water away from the incredible scene. It moved slowly back and forth. Where the light struck, the sea seemed totally commonplace. No fish could be seen. Then the white beam swept here and there in jerky leapings. There was nothing unusual on the surface, nothing beyond the limit of brightness, where the sea turned dark. Deirdre said at Terry's side, "We didn't really expect this! I'm going to get a sample of the water, Terry. Want to help?" She ignored his haughty withdrawal of the afternoon, and he could not stand on his dignity in the presence of such an incredible phenomenon. She got a water bucket from the nearby rack. A wave sprung up as she tried to fill the bucket overside. It touched her hand and she cried out. Terry jerked her back by the shoulder. The bucket bumped against the _Esperance's_ side, hanging on the line attached to the rail. "What's the matter?" "It stung! The water stung! Like a nettle!" Shaking a little, Deirdre rubbed her wet hand with the other. "It doesn't hurt now, but it was like a stinging nettle--or an electric shock!" Terry hauled in the bucket and set it down. He leaned far over the rail. He plunged his hand into a lifting pinnacle of the sea. Instantly, his skin felt as if pricked by ten thousand needles. But his muscles did not contract as they would in an electric shock. The sensation was on the surface of his skin alone. He shook his head impatiently. He put his finger in the bucket he'd lifted to the deck. There was no unusual sensation. He dipped overside again. Again acute and startling hurt, from the mere contact with the water. Deirdre still rubbed her hand. She said in a queer, surprised voice, "Like pins and needles. It's like--like the fish-driving paddle! But worse! Much worse!" Terry looked again at the sea glittering with the swarms of fish in hopeless, panicked agitation, confined in a specific narrow compass by something unguessable. The searchlight continued to flick here and there. The _Esperance_ drifted away from the edge of brightness. Terry put his hand overside once more, and once more he felt the stinging, nettle-like sensation. He got a fresh bucket of water from overside. On deck, there was no strange sensation when he dipped his hand in it. The searchlight went out abruptly and only a faint and quickly dimming reddish glow came from it. That too died. Davis' voice gave orders. Terry said sharply, "Wait a minute!" He began to explain about the stinging of the water. But then he said, "Deirdre, you tell him! I'm going to put a submarine ear overboard. At the least we'll get fish noises on a new scale. But I've got an idea ... don't sail into the bright circle yet." He got out the submarine ear and the recorder he'd made ready that afternoon. He started the recorder. Then he trailed the microphone overside. The sounds would be heard live through the speaker and they would be taped at the same time. At first, a blaring, confused sound came through. Terry turned down the volume. He heard gruntings and chirpings and rustlings. Fish made those noises--not all fish, but certain species. These shrill, squeaking noises were the protests of frightened porpoises. But under and through all other sounds, a steady, unvarying hum could be easily detected. Terry had never heard anything quite like it. Its pitch was the same as that of a sixty-cycle frequency, but its tone quality was somehow sardonic and snarling. The word that came into Terry's mind was "nasty." Yes, it was a nasty sound. One didn't like it. One would want to get away from it. In the air the same unpleasant sensation is produced by noises that make one's flesh crawl. Terry straightened up from where the recorder played upon the wet deck. Davis and Deirdre had come to listen, in the strange darkness under the sails of the _Esperance_. "I've got a sort of hunch," said Terry slowly. "Let's sail across the bright patch. I'll record the sea noises all the way. I've a feeling that that hum means something." "It's not what you'd call an ordinary sound," said Davis. He raised his voice. One of the crew-cuts was at the schooner's wheel. He spun it. The sails filled, and the rattling of flapping canvas died away. The _Esperance_ gathered way and moved swiftly from the glittering circle, came about, and sailed again toward the shining area. She got closer and closer to the boundary. The recorder continued to give out the confused and frightened noises of the sea creatures, but under and through their sounds there remained the nasty and sardonic hum. It grew louder and more unpleasant--much louder in proportion to the fish sounds. At the very boundary of the bright space it was loudest of all. But as the yacht went on, the hum dimmed. At the very center of the circle where the glitterings were brightest, the humming sound was overwhelmed by the submarine tumult of senseless fish voices. Terry dipped his hand here. The tingling was almost tolerable, but not quite. Davis hauled more buckets of water to the deck. In two of them he found some fish, so dense was the finny multitude. Then the yacht neared the farthest limit of the bright circle. The hum from the recording instrument grew progressively louder. Again, at the very edge of the shining water, it was loudest. The _Esperance_ sailed across the live boundary and into the dark sea. As the boat went on, the sound dimmed.... "Definitely loudest," said Terry absorbedly, "at the edge of the circle of fish. At the line the fish couldn't cross to escape. It is if there were an electric fence in the sea. It felt like that, too. But there isn't any fence." Davis asked evenly, "Question: what holds them crowded?" Terry said again, groping in his mind, "They act like fish in a closing net. I've seen something like this once, when a purse-seine was hauled. Those fish were frantic because they couldn't get away. Just like these." "Why can't they get away?" asked Davis grimly. "We haven't seen anything holding them." "But we heard something," pointed out Deirdre. "The hum. That may be what closes them in." Her father made a grunting noise. "We'll see about that." He moved away, back to the stern. In moments, the _Esperance_ was beating upwind. Presently, she headed back toward her previous position, but outside the brightness. Terry could see dark silhouettes moving about near the yacht's wheel. Then he saw another brightness at the eastern horizon, but that was in the sky. Almost as soon as he noticed it, the moon peered over the edge of the world, and climbed slowly to full view, and then swam up among the lower-hanging stars. Immediately, the look of the sea was different. The waves no longer seemed to race the darkness with only star glitters on their flanks. The figures at the _Esperance's_ stern were now quite distinct in the moonlight. "You said a very sensible thing, Deirdre," said Terry. "I thought of the fish-driving paddle and its effects, but I was ashamed to mention it. I thought it would sound foolish. But when you said it, it didn't." "I have a talent," said Deirdre, "for making foolish things sound sensible. Or perhaps the reverse. I'm going to say a sensible thing now. We haven't had dinner. I'm going to fix something to eat." "You won't get anybody to go belowdecks right now!" said Terry. "I thought of that," she told him. "Sandwiches." She went below. Terry continued to watch, while figures at the stern of the schooner went through an involved process of visual measurement. It was not simple to determine the dimensions of a patch of shimmering light flashes from a boat in motion. But presently, Davis came toward him. "It's thirteen hundred yards across," he told Terry. "Plus or minus twenty." "I didn't expect all this," Davis said, frowning. "I've been making guesses and hoping fervently that I was wrong. And I have been, but each time the proof that I was wrong has led to new guesses, and I'm afraid to think those guesses may be right." "I can't begin to guess yet," said Terry. "You will!" Davis assured him. "You will! You try to add up things.... A half-mile-wide patch of foam that piles up thirty feet above the sea...." "And into which," Terry interrupted, "a sailing ship does not sink but drops out of sight as if there were a hole in the sea." Davis turned sharply toward him. "There were some photographs and a newspaper clipping on the cabin table," explained Terry. "I suspected they might have been put there for me to see." "Deirdre, perhaps," said Davis. "She's resolved to involve you in this. You've got scruples, so she suspects you of having brains. Yes. You'll add those things up. You'll include the remarkable success of a fishing boat named _La Rubia_ and the fact that she sometimes brings in very strange fish ... And then you'll add ..." His eyes flickered aloft. A shooting star streaked across one-third of the sky leaving a trail of light behind it. Then it went out. "You'll even be tempted," said Davis, "to include something like that in your guesses! And then you'll try to come up with a total for the lot. Then you'll be as troubled as I am." He paused a moment. "You said you wanted to be put ashore as soon as the gadget you made today was tested. I hope you've changed your mind, or will. That tape-recording may mean something to somebody. We wouldn't have heard that very singular noise but for you." "I withdraw the business of going ashore," said Terry uncomfortably. "I'm going to ask another question. What are those little spheres that I saw in the photographs on the cabin table? Were they found fastened to the fish?" "So I'm told," said Davis. "They are made of plastic. One was on a fish caught by a chief petty officer of the United States Navy. Four have been found on fish brought into the market by _La Rubia_. They could conceivably be a joke, but it's very elaborate! Somebody tried to cut one open and it burst to hell-and-gone. Terrific pressure inside. The metal parts inside were iridium. The others haven't been cut open. They're--" Davis' tone was dry. "They're being studied." A figure came out of the forecastle and walked aft. It was Nick. He stopped to say, "I called Manila and got a loran fix on us. We're right at the place _La Rubia_ heads for every time she sneaks away from the rest of the fishing fleet. It seems that she hauls her nets yonder." He nodded toward the circular area of luminosity on the sea. "It looks smaller than when I went below deck." Davis stared. He seemed to stiffen. "It does. We'll make sure." He went aft. Deirdre came up with sandwiches. Terry took the tray from her and followed her toward the others. "Cigars, cigarettes, candy, sandwiches?" she asked cheerfully. Davis was back at the task of measuring the angle subtended by the patch of shining sea, and then closely estimating its distance from the _Esperance_. He said, "It _is_ smaller. Eleven hundred yards, now." "When _La Rubia_ was here today," said Terry, "it might have been a couple of miles across. Even that would be a terrific concentration of fish! They're not all at the surface." Davis said with impatience, seemingly directed against himself, "It's narrowed two hundred yards in the past half-hour. It must be tending toward something! There has to be a conclusion to it! Something must be about to happen!" Deirdre said slowly, "If it's the equivalent of a seine being hauled, with a hum instead of a net, what's going to happen when it's time for the fish to be boated?" Davis ignored her for a moment. Then he said irritably, "Everyone seems to have more brains than I do! Tony, break out those gun-cameras. Nick, get back and report if the bright spot's getting any smaller. I wish you weren't here, Deirdre!" The two crew-cuts moved to obey. Terry, alone, had no specific duty assigned to him on the yacht, unless tending to the recorder was it. He bent over the instrument which was playing in the air anything that a trailing microphone picked up under water. He raised the volume a trifle. He could still hear the singular noises of the agitated fish mixed in with the thin, strangely offensive humming sound. He heard small thumpings, and realized that they were the footfalls of his companions on the deck of the _Esperance_, transmitted to the water. He heard ... Tony came abovedecks with an armful of mysterious-looking objects which could not be seen quite clearly in the slanting moonlight. He put two of them down by the wheel and passed out the others. He silently left one for Terry and another for Deirdre, while Terry adjusted tone and volume on the recorder for maximum clarity. "What are those?" asked Terry. "Cameras," said Deirdre. "Mounted on rifle stocks, with flashbulbs in the reflectors. You aim, pull the trigger, and the shutter opens as the flashbulb goes off. So you get a picture of whatever you aim at, night or day." "Why ..." "There was a time when my father thought they might be useful," said Deirdre. "Then it looked like they wouldn't. Now it looks like they may." Terry was tempted to say, "Useful for what?" But Davis' vague talk of unpleasant wrong guesses which led to even less pleasant ones had already been an admission that no convincing answer could be given him. Davis came over to him. "This has me worried," he said in a frustrated tone of indecision. "We must be near the end of some process that I didn't suspect, and the conclusion of which I can't guess. I don't know what it is, and I don't know what it's for. I only know what it's tied in with." Terry said absorbedly, "Two or three times I've picked up some new kinds of sounds. You might call them mooing noises. They're very faint, as if they were far away, and there are long intervals between them. I don't think they come from the surface." Davis made an irresolute gesture. He seemed to hesitate over something he was inclined to accept. Deirdre protested before he could speak. "I don't think what you're thinking is right!" she said firmly. "Not a bit of it! Whatever happens will be connected with the fish. _La Rubia_ has been around this sort of thing over and over again! We haven't been running the engine and we haven't been making any specific noises in the water to arouse curiosity! If anything were going to happen to us, it would have happened to _La Rubia_ before now! It would be ridiculous to run away just because I'm on board!" Terry, bent intently over the recorder, suddenly felt a cold chill run up and down his spine. His mind told him it was ridiculous to associate distant mooing sounds, underwater, with a completely unprecedented, frantic gathering of fish into one small area, and come up with the thought that something monstrous and plaintive was coming blindly to feed upon fellow creatures of the sea. There was nothing to justify the thought. It was out of all reason. But his spine crawled, just the same. "The circle's only eight hundred yards across, now," said Davis, uneasily. "The fish can't crowd together any closer! But Doug went overboard with diving goggles, and he says there's a column of brightness as far down as he can make out." Terry looked up. "He went overboard? Didn't he tingle?" "He said it was like baby nettles all over," Davis protested, as if it were someone's fault. "But he didn't sting after he came out. It must be ..." A mooing sound came out of the recorder. It was fainter than the other sounds and very far away. It must have been of terrific volume where it originated. It lasted for many seconds, then stopped. "I should have been recording," said Terry. "That sound comes up about every five minutes. I'll catch it next time." Davis went away, as if he wanted to miss the noise and the decision it would force upon him. Yet Terry told himself obstinately that there was no reason to connect the mooing sound with the crazed fish herd half a mile away. But somehow he couldn't help thinking there might be a connection. The ship's clock sounded seven bells. Deirdre said, "The brightness is really smaller now!" The patch of flashes was no more than half its original size. Terry pressed the recording button and straightened up to look more closely. Right then Deirdre said sharply, "Listen!" Something new and quite unlike the mooing noise now came out of the recorder. "Get your father," commanded Terry. "Something's coming from somewhere!" Deirdre ran across the heaving deck. Terry shifted position so he could manipulate the microphone hanging over the yacht's side into the water. Davis arrived. His voice was suddenly strained and grim. "Something's coming?" he demanded. "Can you hear any engine noise?" "Listen to it," said Terry. "I'm trying to get its bearing." He turned the wire by which the submarine ear hung from the rail. The chirpings and squealings and squeakings changed volume as the microphone turned. But the new sound, of something rushing at high speed through the water--that did not change. Terry rotated the mike through a full circle. The fish noises dwindled to almost nothing, and then increased again. The volume of the steady hum changed with them. But the rushing sound remained steady. Rather, it grew in loudness, as if approaching. But the directional microphone didn't register any difference, whether it received sound from the north, east, south, or west. It was a booming sound. It was a rushing sound. It was the sound of an object moving at terrific speed through the water. There was no engine noise, but something thrust furiously through the sea, and the sound grew louder and louder. "It's not coming from any compass course," said Terry shortly. "How deep is the water here?" "We're just over the edge of the Luzon Deep," said Davis. "Four thousand fathoms. Five. Maybe six." "Then it can only be coming from one direction," said Terry. "It's coming from below. And it's coming up." For three heartbeats Davis stood perfectly still. Then he said, with extreme grimness, "Since you mention it, that would be where it's coming from." He turned away and shouted a few orders. The crewmen scurried swiftly. The yacht's head fell away from the wind. Terry listened again to the rushing sound. There seemed to be regular throbbings in it, but still no engine noise. It was a steady drone. "Bazooka shells ought to discourage anything," Davis said in an icy voice. "If it attacks, let go at it. But try to use the gun-cameras first." The _Esperance_ rolled and wallowed. Her bows lifted and fell. Her sails were black against the starry sky overhead. Two of the crew-cuts settled themselves at the starboard rail. They had long tubes in their hands, tubes whose details could not be seen. The wind hummed and thuttered in the rigging. Reef-points pattered. Near the port rail the recorder poured out the amplified sounds its microphone picked up from the sea. The sound of the coming thing became louder than all the other noises combined. It was literally a booming noise. The water started to bubble furiously as it parted to let something rise to the surface from unthinkable depths. Doug put two magazine-rifles beside Terry and Deirdre, then he moved away. Deirdre had a clumsy object in her hands. It had a rifle-stock and a trigger. What should have been the barrel was huge--six inches or more in diameter--but very short. That was the flashbulb reflector. The actual camera was small and on top, like a sight. "We'll aim these at anything we see," said Deirdre composedly, "and pull the trigger. Then we'll pick up the real rifles and see if we must shoot. Is that all right?" She faced the shining patch of ocean. Davis and the crew-cut at the wheel faced that way. Tony and Jug stood with the clumsy tubes of bazookas facing the same direction. Doug had taken a post forward, with a camera-gun and a magazine rifle. He had the camera in hand, to use first. It seemed that hours passed, but it must have been just a few minutes. Nothing out of the ordinary seemed to be taking place anywhere. The moon now shone down from a sky in which a few thin wisps of cloud glowed among the stars. Sharp-peaked waves came from one horizon and sped busily toward the other. The yacht pitched and rolled, its company strangely armed and expectant. The recorder gave out a droning, booming, rushing sound which grew louder with ever-increasing rapidity. Now the sound reached a climax. From the very center of the glinting circle of sea, there was a monstrous splashing sound. A phosphorescent column rose furiously from the waves. It leaped. Water fell back and ... something soared into the air. Sharp, stabbing flashes of almost intolerably white light flared up. The gun-cameras fired their flashbulbs without a sound. It was then that Terry saw it--in mid-air. He swung the gun-camera, and a flash from another gun showed him that he would miss. He jerked the gun to bear and pulled the trigger. The flash illuminated _it_ vividly. Then night again. It was torpedo-shaped and excessively slender but very long. It could have been a living thing, frozen by the instantaneous flash. It could have been something made of metal. It leaped a full fifty feet clear of the waves and then tumbled back into the ocean with a colossal splash. Then there was silence, except for the sounds of the sea. Terry had the magazine-rifle still in his hands. Tony and Jug waited with their bazookas ready. It occurred to Terry that yachts are not customarily armed with bazookas. "That--wasn't a whale," said Deirdre unsteadily. The recorder bellowed suddenly. It was the hum that had been heard before: the nasty, sixty-cycle hum that surrounded the captive fish. But it was ten, twenty, fifty times as loud as before. The fish in the bright-sea area went mad. The entire surface whipped itself to spray, as fish leaped frenziedly to get out of the water, which stung and burned where it touched. Then, very strangely, the splashing stopped. The brightness of the sea decreased. A while later the enormous snarling sound was noticeably less loud than it had been at that first horrible moment. The wind blew. The waves raced. The _Esperance's_ bow lifted and dipped. The noise from the loudspeaker system--the noise from the sea--decreased even more. One could hear the squeakings and chitterings of fish again. But they were very much fainter. Presently the humming was no louder than before the strange apparition. By that time the fish-sound had died away altogether. The nearer normal noises remained. The hum was receding. Downward. Davis came to Terry, where he stood by the recording instrument. "The fish have gone," he said in a flat voice, "they've gone away. They didn't scatter. We'd have seen it. Do you realize where they went?" Terry nodded. "Straight down. Do you want to hear an impossible explanation?" "I've thought of several," said Davis. Doug came and picked up the gun-cameras that Terry and Deirdre had used and went away with them. "There's a kind of sound," said Terry, "that fish don't like. They won't go where it is. They try to get away from it." Deirdre said quietly, "I would too, if I were swimming." "Sound," said Terry, "in water as in air, can be reflected and directed, just as light can be. A megaphone turns out one's voice in a cone of noise, like a reflector on a light. It should be possible to project it. One can project a hollow cone of light. Why not a hollow cone of sound, in water?" Davis said with an unconvincingly ironic and skeptical air, "Indeed, why not?" "If such a thing were done," said Terry, "then when the cone of sound was turned on, the fish inside it would be captured as if by a conical net. They couldn't swim through the walls of sound. And then one can imagine the cone made smaller; the walls drawn closer together. The fish would be crowded together in what was increasingly like a vertical, conical net, but with walls of unbearable noise instead of cord. It would be as if the sea were electrified and the fish were shocked when they tried to pass a given spot." "Preposterous, of course," said Davis. But his tone was not at all unbelieving. "Then suppose something were sent up to the top of the cone, and it projected some kind of a cover of sound on the top of the cone and imprisoned the fish with a lid of sound they couldn't endure. And then suppose that thing sank into the water again. The fish couldn't swim through the walls of noise around them. They couldn't swim through the lid of sound above them. They'd have to swim downward, just as if a hood were closing on them from above." "Very neat," said Davis. "But of course you don't believe anything of the sort." "I can't imagine what would produce that sound in that way and send up a cork of sound to take the fish below. And I can't imagine why it would be done. So I can't say I believe it." Davis said slowly, "I think we begin to understand each other. We'll stay as close to this place as we can until dawn, when we will find nothing to show that anything out of the ordinary happened here." "Still less," said Terry, "to hint at its meaning. I've been doing sums in my head. That bright water was almost solid with fish. I'd say there was at least a pound of fish to every cubic foot of sea." "An underestimate," said Davis judicially. "When the bright patch was a thousand yards across--and it was even more--there'd have been four hundred tons of fish in the top three-foot layer." Davis seemed to start. But it was true. Terry added, "The water was clear. We could see that the packing went on down a long way. Say fifty yards at least." "Y-yes," agreed Davis. "All of that." "So in the top fifty yards, at one time, there were at least twenty thousand tons of fish gathered together. Probably very much more. What _La Rubia_ carried away couldn't be noticed. All those thousands of tons of fish were pushed straight down. Tell me," said Terry, "what would be the point in all those fish being dragged to the bottom? I can't ask who or what did it, or even why. I'm asking, what results from it?" Davis grunted. "My mind stalls on who or what and why. And I'd rather not mention my guesses. I.... No!" He moved abruptly away. The _Esperance_ remained under sail near the patch of sea that had glittered earlier and now looked exactly like any other square mile of ocean. The recorder verified the position by giving out, faintly, the same unpleasant humming noise, either louder or fainter. A soft warm wind blew across the waters. The land was somewhere below the horizon. The reel of recorder-tape ran out. It was notable that there were very few fish sounds to be heard, now. Very few. But the hum continued. Toward morning it stopped abruptly. Then there was nothing out of the ordinary to be observed anywhere. The sun rose in magnificent colorings. The sky was clear of clouds. Again the waves looked like living, leaping, joyous things. Gulls were squawking. Doug came up from belowdecks. He carried some photographic prints in his hand. He'd developed and printed what the gun-cameras had photographed when the mysterious object, or beast, leaped clear of the sea. There were seven different pictures. Four showed flashbulb-lighted sections of empty ocean. One showed a column of sea water rising at fantastic height from the sea. Another one showed the edge of something at the very edge of the film. The seventh picture Terry recognized. It was what he'd seen when the flashbulb of his gun-camera went off. The focus was not sharp. But it was neither a whale nor a blackfish--not even a small one--nor was it a shark. It was not a squid. It was not even a giant manta. The picture was a blurry representation of something unreal made for an unimaginable purpose, under abnormal conditions. Deirdre looked at it over his shoulder. It could be a living creature. It could be ... anything. "You said you didn't like mysteries," commented Deirdre. "Are you sorry you came?" _Four_ The next morning the _Esperance_ headed southeast over a sunlit sea. First, of course, the crew examined the sea's surface for miles around. As expected, there was nothing remarkable to be observed. Davis did point out that there were no fish jumping, which was an indication that there were not as many fish as usual in this part of the ocean. But it was hard to be sure. There is no normal number of times when fish will be seen to jump. They usually jump to escape larger fish that want to eat them. The number is pure chance. But there seemed to be almost no jumps at all this morning. It was not discussed at length, however. All the ship's company was curiously reluctant to refer to the events of the previous night. In broad daylight, a detached review was simply impractical. With gulls squawking all about, with seas glinting in the sunshine, with decks to be washed and breakfast to be eaten, and commonplace, routine ship-keeping to be done, the adventure of the patch of shining sea seemed highly improbable. Terry felt that it couldn't really have happened. To discuss it seriously would be like a daylight ghost tale. One was unable to believe it in daylight. It was better ignored. Terry, though, did get out his tools to make a minor modification in the underwater microphone. It had been designed to be directional, so that the sound of surf or fish could be located by turning the mike, but he hadn't been able to point it vertically downward, and last night that had been the key direction--right under the yacht's keel. So now he improvised gimbals for the microphone, and a mounting for it similar to that of a compass, so it could tilt in any desired direction, as well as turn. Which, of course, was a tacit admission that something peculiar had happened. Presently, Deirdre came and watched him. "What's that for?" she asked, when he fitted the gimbals in place. He told her. She said hesitantly, "Yesterday, when I asked you not to try the paddle until we got to shallow water, you got angry and said you'd ask to be put ashore. We're headed for Barca now. Someone there is building something for my father, the same thing I had asked you to build--a fish-driving instrument. If you still want to go, you can get a bus from there to Manila. But I hope you have changed your mind." "I have," said Terry dourly. "I told your father so. I was irritated because I couldn't get any answers to the questions I asked. Now I've got some questions your father wants answers to. And I'm going to try to find them out." Deirdre sighed, perhaps in relief. "I put some pictures and a clipping in a book on the cabin table," she said. "Did you see them?" He nodded. "What did you think?" "That you put them for me to see," he said. "It was to make you realize that we can't answer every question, which you know now." "I still think you could answer a few more than you have," he observed. "But let it go. Is the Barca harbor shallow?" "Ten, fifteen feet at low tide," she informed him. "We're having a sort of dredge made there. Something to go down into the sea, take pictures, get samples of the bottom, and then come up again. There's an oceanographic ship due in Manila shortly, by the way. It will have a bathyscaphe on board. Maybe that will help find out some answers." Then she said uncomfortably, "I have a feeling the bathyscaphe isn't ... safe." He glanced up. "_Ellos?_" He grinned as she looked sharply at him. Then he said, "This dredge: isn't it pretty ambitious for a boat this size to try to dredge some thousands of fathoms down?" "It's a free dredge," she said. "It will sink by itself and come up by itself. There's no cable. What are you doing now?" He'd put away the submarine microphone he'd just altered and was now taking out the still untested underwater horn. "I'm going to try to make this directional, too," he said. "In fact, I'm going to try to make it project sound in a beam shaped like a fan. A hollow cone may come later." She was silent. The _Esperance_ sailed on. "Ever talk to the skipper of _La Rubia_?" he asked presently. She shook her head. "You should. He's a stupendous, self-confident liar," said Terry. "He lies automatically. Gratuitously. A completely amiable man, but he can't tell the truth without stopping to think." "We found that out," said Deirdre. "I didn't. Someone else." "Is this another censored subject, or can I ask what happened?" "I'd better see about lunch," said Deirdre quickly. She got up and left. Terry shrugged. The day before yesterday, or even yesterday, he'd have been indignant. But then he'd known these people had secrets in which he had no share. Today he was beginning to share those secrets, and he had fabulously nonsensical material on which to work on his own. He had strange ideas about the event of last night. He did not quite believe them, but he thought he had devised some ways to see how much of truth they contained, if any. Deirdre could keep her secrets, so long as he did not have to disclose his own wildly imaginative ideas. The routine of the yacht went on. It was in a way a very casual routine. Davis gave orders when the need arose, but there was no formal discipline; there was co-operation. Terry heard one of the crew-cuts ask Deirdre a question using her first name. It would have been highly improbable in a paid crew, but it was reasonable enough in a volunteer expedition. He heard Deirdre say, "Why don't you ask him?" The crew-cut, Tony, came to the part of the deck where Terry worked. "We got into an argument," he said without preface. "We were talking about that ... 'whale' last night." Terry nodded. The use of the term "whale" was a deliberate pretense that the previous night's events were natural and normal. "How fast do you think it was traveling when it broached?" asked Tony. "I know a whale can jump clear of the water. I've seen it in the movies. But that one jumped awfully high!" "I hadn't tried to estimate it," said Terry. "You've got a tape of the noise," said Tony. "Could you time the interval between the sound when it left the water, and the splash when it fell back?" "Mmm. Yes," said Terry. He looked up. "Of course." "It would be interesting to do it," said Tony, semicasually. Then he added hastily, "I've read somewhere that whales have been clocked at pretty high speeds. If we can find out how long its leap lasted, we could know how fast it was going." Terry considered for a moment, and then got out the recorder. He played the tape for a moment, and skipped forward to later parts of the record until he came to the place where the unpleasant humming sound was loud, and finally reached the beginning of the rushing noise. That, in turn, had preceded the leap of the object photographed by the gun-cameras. Terry glanced at his watch when the rushing started. He timed the period of ascent of the noise, while it grew louder and louder and became a booming sound, which was at its loudest the instant before it ceased. At that moment the mysterious object had leaped out of the sea. The splash of its re-entry came long seconds later. Tony timed the leap. When the splash came he made his calculations absorbedly, while Terry switched off the recorder. "It would take the same amount of time going up as it does coming down," said Tony, scribbling numbers. "Since we know how fast things fall, when we know how long they fall we can tell how fast they were traveling when they landed, and therefore when they leaped." He multiplied and divided. "Sixty miles an hour, roughly," he pronounced. "The whale was going sixty miles an hour straight up when it left the water! What can swim that fast?" "That's your question," said Terry. "Here's one of mine. We heard it coming for five minutes ten seconds. How deep is the water where we were?" "About forty-five hundred fathoms." "If we assume that it came from the bottom, it must have been traveling at least sixty miles an hour when it broke surface," said Terry. "But can a whale swim sixty miles an hour?" "No," said Terry. Tony hesitated, opened his mouth, closed it, and went away. Terry returned to the changing of the submarine horn. Sound has its own tricks underwater. If you know something about them you can produce some remarkable results. A deliberately made underwater signal can be heard through an unbelievable number of thousands of miles of seawater. But, except through a yet untested fish-driving paddle, Terry had never heard of fish being herded by sound. Still, fish can be stunned or killed by concussions. They have been known to be made unconscious by the noise of a very near submarine bell. It wasn't unreasonable that a specific loud noise could make a barrier no fish would try to cross. But there were still some parts of last night's events that did not fit into any rational explanation. Davis came over to Terry. "I think," he said, "that we may have missed a lot of information by not having submarine ears before. There may have been all sorts of noises we could have heard." "Possibly," agreed Terry. "We're more or less in the position of savages faced with phenomena they don't understand," said Davis vexedly. "The simple problems of savages range from what produces thunder to what makes people die of disease. Savages come up with ideas of gods or devils doing such things for reasons of their own. We can't accept ideas of that sort, of course!" "No," agreed Terry, "we can't." "But what happened last night," said Davis, "is almost as mysterious to us as thunder to a savage. A savage would blame it on devils or whatnot." "Or on _ellos_," said Terry. "He'd imagine a personality behind it, yes," said Davis. "He does things because he wants to, so he thinks all natural phenomena occur because somebody wants them to. He has no idea of natural law, so he tries to imagine what kind of person--what kind of god or devil--does the things he notices. It's a natural way to think." "Very likely," admitted Terry. "But the point?" "Is that we mustn't fall into a savage's way of thinking about last night's affair." Terry said, "I couldn't agree with you more. But just what are you driving at?" "There's a dredge being made for me in Barca. I'm afraid you may suspect that I'm trying to--stir up something with it. To poke something we _know_ is somewhere but can't identify. I didn't want you to try the fish-paddle in deep water, that's true. But...." "You're explaining," said Terry, "that you didn't want me to whack a fish-driving paddle overside in deep water." Davis hesitated, and then nodded. "The phenomena you're interested in are under water?" "Yes," said Davis. "They are in the Luzon Deep area." "Then, to be co-operative, I'll test this contrivance in ten to fifteen feet of water in the Barca harbor. And I will not get temperamental about your suggestions that I should not mess up your deep-water inquiries." "Thanks," said Davis. He went forward to meet Nick, just coming abovedecks with a slip of paper in his hand. It occurred to Terry, suddenly, that somebody went below down the forecastle hatch just about every hour on the hour. They must be in short-wave communication with Manila. It had been mentioned last night--a loran fix on the _Esperance's_ position. There were apparently frequent reports to somebody somewhere. The afternoon went by. A tree-lined shore appeared to the eastward just when the gaudy colorings of a beautiful sunset filled all the western sky. The _Esperance_ changed course and followed the coast line, some miles out. Night fell. The yacht sailed with a fine smooth motion over the ocean swells. After dinner Davis was below, fiddling with the knobs to pick up short-wave music from San Francisco, and the muted sound of an argument came occasionally from the forecastle where the four crew-cuts resided. Terry and Deirdre went on deck. "My father," said Deirdre, "says you understand each other better, now. He doesn't think you're going to feel offended with us, and he's really pleased. He says your mind doesn't work like his, but you come to more or less the same conclusions, which makes it likely the conclusions are right." Terry grimaced. "My conclusion," he observed, "is that I haven't enough facts yet to come to any conclusion." "Of course!" said Deirdre. "Just like my father!" They sat in silence. It was not exactly a tranquil stillness. It was pleasant enough to be here on the slanting deck of a beautiful yacht, driving competently through dark seas under a canopy of stars. But now Terry realized he was constantly aware of Deirdre. He liked her. But he'd liked other people, male and female, without being continually conscious of their existence. Girls are usually more conscious of such things than men. At least ninety-nine per cent of the time, a man does not modify his behavior because of the age, sex, and marital status of the people he comes in contact with. It isn't relevant to most of what he says and does. But a girl frequently modifies her actions in just such circumstances. Deirdre was well aware of the slightly uneasy, extremely interested state of Terry's mind. There was silence for a long time. Then a shooting star went across the sky. It went out. "Would you like to hear something really wild?" asked Deirdre, ruefully. "That shooting star, just then. It used to be true that more meteorites--shooting stars--had fallen and been recovered in Kansas than any other place in the world. But it would be ridiculous to think they aimed for Kansas, wouldn't it?" Terry nodded, not following at all. "At Thrawn Island," said Deirdre, "since the satellite-tracking station has been built, space-radars have picked up more bolides--big meteors--coming in to fall in the Luzon Deep than ever in Kansas or anywhere else. I think my father frets over that, simply because he's so concerned about the Luzon Deep." Terry heard himself saying irrelevantly, "I'd like to ask you a few strictly personal questions, Deirdre. What's your favorite food? What music do you like? Where would you like best to live? When...." Deirdre turned her head to smile at him. "I've been wondering," she said, "if you thought of me only as a fellow researcher or whether you'd noticed that I'm a person, too. Hmmmmm. There's a restaurant in Manila where they still cut their steaks along the muscle instead of across it, but where they make some unheard-of dishes. That place has some of my favorite foods. And...." "Next time we're in Manila we'll try it," said Terry. "Now, I know a place...." The _Esperance_ went on. Presently, the moon rose and moonlight glinted on the waves while the stars looked cynically down on the small yacht upon the sea. And two people talked comfortably and absorbedly about things nobody else would have thought very interesting. When Terry turned in for the night he realized pleasantly that he was very glad he'd let himself be persuaded to join the _Esperance's_ company. Dawn came. Terry was already on deck when the _Esperance_ threaded her way into a small harbor. There were palm trees along the shore, and there was a Philippine town with edifices ranging from burnt brick to stucco to mere nipa huts on its outskirts. Two-man fishing boats were making their way out from the shore on which they'd been beached. From somewhere came the staccato, back-firing noise of an old automobile-engine being warmed up for the day's work. It would undoubtedly be the bus for Manila. But it was not thinkable that Terry should take it, now. The yacht dropped anchor and lay indolently at rest while her crew breakfasted and the morning deck routine was being performed. Then Deirdre appeared in shore-going clothes of extreme femininity. Davis too was dressed otherwise than as usual. "We're going ashore to the shipyard," he told Terry. "If you'd like to come--" "I've something to do here," said Terry. Two of the crew-cuts got a boat overside and headed it for the shore. Terry got out the recorder and the submarine ear and horn. He set up his apparatus for a test. Tony came from belowdecks and watched. Then he came closer. "If I can help," he said tentatively. "You can," Terry told him. "But let's listen to what the fish are saying, first." He dropped over the submarine ear and started the recorder to play what it picked up, but without recording it. Sounds from underwater came out of the speakers. The slappings of tiny harbor-waves against the yacht's planking; the chunking, rhythmic sound of oars from a fishing boat which was rowing after the half-dozen that had gone out earlier; grunting sounds. Those were fish. Terry listened critically, and Tony with interest. Then Terry brought out the fish-driving paddle. He turned on the tape, now, to have a record of the sound the paddle made. "Whack this on the water," he suggested, "and we'll hear how it sounds." Tony went down the ladder and gave the water surface a few resounding whacks. There were tiny, violent swirlings. For thirty or forty feet from the _Esperance's_ side there were isolated, minute turmoils in the water. Three or four fish actually leaped clear of the surface. "Not bad!" said Tony. "Shall I whack some more?" Terry reeled back a few feet of the tape which contained the whacking sounds. He re-played them, listening critically as before. Tony had returned to the deck. The whackings, as heard underwater, were not merely impacts. There was a resonance to them. Almost a hum. Rather grimly, Terry substituted this tape-reel with the recording he'd made the night before. He started the instrument and found the exact spot where the object from the depths had fallen back into the sea. He stopped the recorder right there. He hauled up the submarine ear and plugged in the horn to the audio-amplifier, as yet untested, which should multiply the volume of sound from the tape. Then he put the horn overside. He switched on the recorder again. The tape-reel began to spin. The sound went out underwater from the horn. Underwater it was much louder than when it had been received by the _Esperance's_ microphone. Here it was confined by the surface above and the harbor-bottom beneath. It must have been the equivalent of a loud shout in a closed room--only worse. The fish in the harbor of Barca went mad. All the harbor-surface turned to spray. Creatures of all sizes leaped crazily above the surface, their fins flapping, only to leap again, more frantically still, when they fell back. A totally unsuspected school of very small flying fish flashed upward in such frenzied haste that some tried to climb too steeply and fell back and instantly flung themselves into the air again. Terry turned off the playing recorder. The disorder at the top of the water ceased immediately. But he heard shrill outcries. Children had been wading at the edge of the shore. They stampeded for solid ground, shrieking. Where their feet and legs had been underwater they felt as if a million pins and needles had pricked them. Something flapped heavily on the _Esperance's_ deck. Tony went to see. It was a three-pound fish which had leaped clear of the water and over the yacht's rail to the deck. Tony threw it back into the water. "I guess there's not much doubt," he said painfully. "Of what?" demanded Terry. "Of what ... I had guessed," said Tony. "And what did you guess?" Tony hesitated. "I guess," he said unhappily, "that I'd better not say." He watched with a startled, uneasy expression on his face as Tony put the apparatus away. Time passed. Davis and Deirdre had been ashore over an hour. Then Terry saw the small boat leave the shore and approach. It came deftly alongside, the two passengers climbed up to the deck, and all four crew-cuts hauled the boat back inboard and lashed it fast. "Our dredge isn't ready yet," said Davis. "It looks good, but there'll be a delay of a few days." Deirdre examined Terry's expression. "Something's happened. What?" Terry told her. Davis listened. Tony added what he'd seen, including the fish that had leaped high enough out of the water to land on the _Esperance's_ deck. "After the fact," said Davis, "I can see how it could happen. But...." He hesitated for a long time and then said, "This is another case where I've been making guesses and hoping I was wrong. And like the others, proof that my early guess was wrong makes another guess necessary. And I dislike the later guess much more than the first." He moved restlessly. "I'm glad you only tried it once, here," he said unhappily. "We're due up at Thrawn Island anyhow. You can work this trick out in the lagoon up there. If there's no reaction to the dredge when we try it, we can try this. But it might be a very violent poke at something we don't quite believe in. I'd rather try a gentle poke first." He turned away. In minutes Nick was belowdecks starting the yacht's engine, two others of the crew-cuts were hauling up the anchor, and the fourth was at the wheel. Without haste, but with celerity, the _Esperance_ headed for the harbor-mouth and the open sea. They had their midday meal heading north by west. Late in the afternoon Deirdre found occasion to talk to Terry about Thrawn Island. "It's the China Sea tracking station for satellites," she told him. "Some of the staff are friends of my father's. It's right on the edge of the Luzon Deep, and the island's actually an underwater mountain that just barely protrudes above the surface. There are some hills, a coral reef and a lagoon. It's also terrifically steep, and you can use the fish-driving device as much as you please without startling any Filipino fishermen." "You've been there before," said Terry. "Oh, yes! I told you a fish wearing a plastic object was caught in the lagoon there. That was when the station was being built. The men at the tracking station fish in the lagoon for fun, and now they're naturally watching out for more ... oddities." The _Esperance_ sailed on. The crew-cuts went about their various chores and talked endlessly, among themselves and with Deirdre, when she joined in. Terry felt useless. He trailed the submarine ear overboard and set the recorder to work as an amplifier only. At low volume it played the sounds of things below. He kept half an ear cocked toward it for the mooing sound he'd picked up at the place where the ocean glittered. He heard it again now, and again found it difficult to imagine any cause for it. The sounds uttered by noisemaking fish are usually produced in their swim-bladders. The purpose of fish cries is as obscure as the reason for some insect stridulations, or the song of many birds. But a long-continued fish noise would involve a swim-bladder of large size. At great depths, if a considerable cavity were filled with gas, under pressures running into tons to the square inch.... Terry could not quite believe it. He did not hear the mooing sound any more, as the yacht went on its way. Other underwater sounds became commonplace, and he tended not to hear them. From the deck around him, though, he heard arguments about wave mechanics, prospects in the World Series, the virtues of Dixieland jazz, ichthyology, Copeland's contribution to modern music, the possibility of life on other planets, and kindred topics. The crew-cuts were taking their summer vacations as able seamen on board the _Esperance_, but they had as many and as voluble opinions as any other undergraduates. They aired them on each other. The afternoon passed. Night fell, and dinner was a session of learned discussion of different subjects, always vehemently argued. Later Terry took the yacht's wheel, Deirdre sat comfortably nearby, and they discussed matters suitable to their more mature status. They were much less intellectual than the crew-cuts. In a few days they developed an interest in each other, but each of them believed this was just a very pleasant friendship. Eventually, the moon rose. It was close to midnight when Nick bobbed belowdecks and came up with a report that they'd been picked up by the Thrawn Island radar and were proceeding exactly on course. Half an hour later a tiny light appeared at the edge of the sea. The _Esperance_ headed for it, and presently there were breakers to port and starboard, the engine rumbled, down below, and the yacht lifted and fell more violently than ordinary. Then once more she was in glassy-smooth water; the air was very heavy with the smell of green vegetation. Certain rectangles of light became visible. They were the windows of the Thrawn Island satellite-tracking installation. The _Esperance's_ sails were lowered and she moved toward the lights on engine power only. There was no movement ashore, though Nick had talked with the island on short-wave. After a little while the searchlight was put in operation and began to reach out like a pencil of brilliant white light. It darted here and there and found a wharf reaching out from the shore to deep water. The _Esperance_ floated toward it, her engine barely turning over. There was still no sign of activity, except for the lighted windows. The engine stopped, then reversed, and the yacht drifted gently until it contacted the wharfs snubber-pilings. Jug and Tony jumped ashore with lines to fasten the yacht. Still no sign of life. "Queer," said Davis, staring ashore. "They knew we were coming!" A moving light suddenly appeared in the sky. A fireball, which is an unusually lurid type of shooting star. It came over the tree-tops and crossed the zenith, leaving a trail of light behind it. It went on and on, seemingly slowing down, which meant that it was descending from a very high altitude. Its brilliance became more and more intense, then it dimmed. At this point the fireball seemed to plunge downward. Then its flame went out and only a faint, dull-red speck in motion could be seen. It plunged down beyond the trees on the far side of the lagoon. Or so it seemed. Actually, it might have plunged into the sea, miles away. Then there was a faint noise which was something between a rumble and a hiss. The sound went back across the sky along the path the fireball had followed. It died away. There was silence. Shooting stars as bright as this one are rare. Most meteors are very small, but they are visible because of the attrition produced by their falling bodies in the atmosphere that sets them on fire. They usually appear at around a seventy-mile height, but frequently they are vaporized before they have descended more than thirty miles. Sometimes they explode in mid-air and strew the earth with fragments. Sometimes they strike ground, leaving monstrous craters where they have fallen. Most meteors fall in the sea. But a meteor has to be at least down to twenty miles from sea level before its sound can be heard. Someone came out of a building and moved toward the wharf, an electric lantern bobbing in his hand. Halfway out to the yacht he called, "Davis?" "Yes," said Davis. "What's happened?" "Nothing," said the man ashore. "We were watching for that bolide. It was picked up by space radar a couple of hours ago, but then we figured it to land farther on than it did." It was an educated voice, a scholarly voice. "Big?" asked Davis as the light drew nearer. "We've seen them bigger, but not much." The man with the lantern reached the end of the wharf. "Glad to see you. We've got some fish for you, by the way. We caught them in the lagoon. They're waiting for you in the deep-freeze. There's a _Macrourus violaceus_, if we read the books right, and a _Gonostoma polypus_. They match the pictures, anyhow. What do you make of that?" "You haven't got them!" said Davis incredulously. "You can't have them! I'm no fish specialist, but those are abyssal fish! They can only be caught at a depth of two or more miles!" "We caught 'em," said the man cheerfully, "on a hook and line, in the lagoon, at night. Come ashore! Everybody'll be glad to see you." Davis protested, "I won't believe you've got that kind of fish until I see them!" The man with the lantern stepped down to the yacht's deck. "All you've got to do is look in the mess hall deep-freeze. The cook's complaining that they take up space. Nobody wants to find out if they're good to eat. Most unwholesome-looking creatures! And how are you, young lady?" he asked Deirdre. "We've missed you. Tony, Nick, Jug...." Deirdre introduced Terry. "Ha!" said the man. "They got you enlisted, eh? They were talking about it a month ago. You've solved the problem by now, I daresay. Including how these very queer fish happen to be in our lagoon instead of miles down in the Luzon Deep. When you find time, tell me!" "I'll try," said Terry reservedly. The man went down into the after-cabin and Davis followed him. Deirdre said amusedly: "Dr. Morton's a dear! Don't take him seriously, Terry! He loves to tease. He'll hound you to tell him how deep-sea fish got up here and into a shallow lagoon. Please don't mind!" "I won't," said Terry. "I'll tell him tomorrow, I think. I believe now I know how it happened, but I want to check it first." _Five_ When Terry awoke, next morning, the reflections of sunlight on water came in through the porthole of his cabin. He watched the shimmering contortions of the light spots on the wall. His thoughts went instantly back to the subject they'd dwelt on before he went to sleep. The man with the spectacles--Dr. Morton, but his doctorate was in astronomy instead of medicine--had said that Deirdre and his father had discussed enlisting him in the _Esperance's_ company a month ago. Deirdre'd come into the shop of Jimenez y Cía. only four days before. Some of the delay could have been caused by time spent in simple sailing from one place to another, mostly on wholly futile errands. They'd gotten a fish-driving paddle at Alua. That'd take some days of sailing each way. Apparently, they'd been fumbling at some vague idea of trying to find out what would produce the facts they'd noted. 'Very queer fish,' Davis had said of some of the catches _La Rubia_ had made. The abyssal fish mentioned last night would be very queer fish to catch in a lagoon. Yes.... He lay still, surveying other aspects of the situation. Davis had called on an aircraft carrier for electronic items, and the _Esperance_ was in constant touch with somebody by short-wave radio. It might be the same carrier. The Manila police department was on very cordial terms with Davis, and the staff of a satellite-tracking installation saved odd specimens of fish for him. The _Esperance's_ enterprise was plainly not a brand-new adventure. It had been carried on for some time. They had had technical aid of the very highest caliber, but they hadn't gotten anywhere yet. It did appear that Terry had added a minor specialty to the arsenal of investigative techniques. Without the data gathered on recorder-tape, their idea of the events of two nights before would be very different. The sea would have seemed very bright, then the glowing area would have been noted to have grown smaller, and something resembling a whale would have been seen leaping high above the water. Then the brightness would have faded out. It would have been mysterious enough, but an entire aspect of the phenomenon would have gone unnoticed. There was still no answer to any of the far-reaching questions Terry had asked himself, but most of them had never been asked before. Sea noises had proved to be closely connected to whatever had to be found out. What was known about them was due to his findings. He'd established a new frame of reference. And he'd discovered the solution of a minor problem before the problem was even stated. He had only to prove it. Then, of course, there would be other problems arising from it. He got up, put on swimming trunks, and duck trousers over them. He slipped into a sweat shirt and went upon deck. Deirdre hailed him. "Good morning! Everybody's over at the tracking station, arguing about the bolide that went over last night. According to the radar, it plunged into the sea, miles and miles away." "What should it have done?" asked Terry. "I'm not familiar with meteorites. Are they planning to dive for it?" "Hardly!" Deirdre laughed. "It landed in the Luzon Deep." She waved a hand in an inclusive gesture. "This island's on the brink of it. A bathyscaphe might go down there--in fact, I think it's scheduled; you know, the one I said was coming to Manila on the oceanographic ship? A bathyscaphe can go that deep, but it's not likely to hunt for meteorites." "Ah," said Terry judicially. "Then what difference does it make where it hit?" "It didn't fall the way it should have," said Deirdre. "It was spotted by space radar away out, and they tried to compute its path, but they figured it wrong. Now they're trying to make it come out right by allowing for the effect of the earth's magnetic field on a metal meteorite. They're arguing and waving equations at each other." "Let them," said Terry. "I have trouble enough with fish. Do you think I could borrow a boat?" "We've always been able to," said Deirdre. Then she added, "I've kept your breakfast hot. While you eat it I'll get a boat." She went below, and instants later was up again. "I have a feeling," she said, "that something interesting is going to happen. I'll be back." She swung lightly to the wharf and headed for land. Terry went below, to find his breakfast laid out on the cabin table. He settled down to it, but first pulled a book from the shelves. It was a volume on oceanography, and its pages showed that it had often been referred to. He found the Luzon Deep described. Its area was relatively small, a mere ninety-mile-long chasm in the sea-bed. But it was second only to the Mindanao Deep in its soundings, and a close second at that. Its maximum depth was measured at twenty-seven thousand feet. Over five miles. There was a mention of Thrawn Island as being on the very edge of the Deep. According to the book, the island was the peak of one of the most precipitous and tallest submarine mountains in the world. Three miles from where Thrawn Island lay, there were soundings of twenty-eight thousand feet and upward. This depth extended as a trench.... The staccato roaring of an outboard motor sounded some distance away. It bellowed toward the yacht, swung about, and cut off. Terry gulped down his coffee and went abovedecks, just as Deirdre was fastening the small craft alongside the yacht. "Taxi?" she asked amiably. "I got the boat. Where to?" Terry swung down and took the steering grip. He headed the boat away. There was a box for bait, a few fishing lines, and even two highly professional fish-spears on board. Fishing was not necessarily a sedentary pastime here. "We try the lagoon entrance," he said. "I've an idea. I noticed something last night, when we came in." "Do you want to brief me?" "I'd rather not," he admitted. Deirdre shrugged without resentment. The little craft went sturdily toward the passageway to the open sea. She formed an arrowhead of waves as she moved. She neared the points of land at the ends of the coral formation enclosing the lagoon. Thrawn Island was not an atoll. But the beaches were made of snow-white coral sand. Outside there was clear water for a space and then a reef on which the seas broke. Terry headed the boat toward the open sea. Almost immediately after, there was nothing but the reef and the sea between the boat and the horizon. He slowed the boat almost to a stop, well within the reef's tumult. She swayed and rolled on the surging water. "Stay here," he commanded. "I want to swim out and back." He pulled the sweat shirt over his head. He jumped overboard, leaving Deirdre in charge of the boat. The world looked strange to him when waves rolled by higher than his head. A few times the sky narrowed to the space between wave-crests. Other times he was lifted upon a wave-peak, and the sky was illimitably high and large, and the breaking seas on the nearby reef merely roared and grumbled to themselves. He swam out, away from the land. Suddenly his body began to tingle. He stopped and paddled, analyzing the sensation. One side of his body felt as if the most minute of electric currents entered his skin. It was not an unpleasant sensation. Deirdre, in the small boat, was fifty yards behind, watching him. As he swam on, the tingling grew stronger. He dived. The tingling did not vary with depth. He came up, and he was farther out than he'd realized. He suddenly knew that he'd been incautious. There are currents which flow in and out of lagoons. A barrier of reef affects them, too. Terry found himself swimming in an outward-bound current, which pushed him out and away from the island. Within seconds the sensation in his body changed from a mere tingling to torment. For a moment it was just very much stronger and slightly painful, but a moment later it felt as if he swam among flames. It was unbearable. His muscles were not contracted, as if by an electric shock, but he couldn't control their reflexes. He found himself splashing crazily, trying to fight his way out of the anguish which engulfed him. He went under. His body had taken complete control over his mind, and he found himself swimming frantically, underwater. He couldn't reach the surface. His body tried to escape the intolerable agony in which it was immersed but couldn't. He heard a roaring sound, but it meant nothing. The roaring grew louder. Finally, he did break surface for a few seconds, and he gasped horribly, but then he went under. The roaring grew thunderous, and he broke surface again.... Something seized his flailing arm and pulled him up. The arm ceased to experience the horrible sensation of being in boiling oil. His hand recognized a gunwale. He swarmed up the solid object with hands helping him, and found himself in the boat, gasping and shivering, and cringing at the bare memory of the suffering he'd undergone. Deirdre stared at him, frightened. She swung the boat's bow shoreward. The outboard motor roared, and the boat raced past the gap in the reef and rushed toward the lagoon opening. "Are you all right? What happened? You were swimming and suddenly...." He swallowed. His hands quivered. He shook his head and then said unsteadily, "I meant to ... check the reason those queer fish stay in the lagoon. I thought that if they belonged in the depths and were somehow carried out of them, they would try to get back. I found out!" He felt an unreasonable relief when the lagoon entrance was behind the boat. The glassy water was reassuring. The _Esperance_ looked like safety itself. "I think I know how they got here, now," he added. "We underestimated what we're trying to understand. I'll be all right in a minute." It was less than a minute before he shook himself and managed to grin wryly at Deirdre. "Was there a hum in the water?" asked Deirdre, still staring at him. "I thought I heard it on the bottom of the boat. Was that the trouble?" "Yes. I wouldn't call it a hum," Terry admitted. "Not any longer. Now I know what a slow fire feels like." "You frightened me," said Deirdre, "the way you splashed...." "I heard the humming sound," said Terry, "last night when the yacht came up to the island. We were perhaps a half-mile off-shore. It was very faint, but I had the amplifier turned down low. The hum was at its loudest just before we passed the reef, but nobody else noticed. When Dr. Morton said there were abyssal fish in the lagoon, I knew why they'd be there. I made a guess at what might drive them there. I went to find out if I was right. I found out!" "The hum?" asked Deirdre again. When he nodded, she said: "What are you going to do now? What do you think makes the hum?" "I'm trying hard not to guess what makes the hum," Terry told her. "Insufficient data. I need more. I think I'll ask what other odd phenomena have turned up in this neighborhood. Foam-patches on the sea? I can't imagine a connection, but still...." He swung the little boat alongside the docked _Esperance_ and held out his hand to help Deirdre to the dock. His hand was wholly steady again. She accepted the help. "We'll go to the tracking station?" "Yes. Everybody seems to be there," said Terry. They heard a babble of voices coming from the satellite-tracking station. As they approached the buildings, Terry looked around. Off at one side there was the very peculiar aerial system by which tiny artificial moons circling the earth could be detected by their own signals. Minute spheres and cylinders and spiky objects and foolish-looking paddle-wheels, whirling in their man-appointed rounds, sent down signals with powers of mere fractions of a watt. This system of aerials picked up those miniature broadcasts and extracted remarkable amounts of information from them. It was possible to determine the satellites' distance more accurately, by a comparison of phase-changes in their signals, than if steel tape measures were stretched up to make physical contact with them. The accuracy was of the order of inches at hundreds of miles. Floating where the stars were bright and unwinking lights against blackness and the sun was a disk with writhing arms of fire, the small objects sent back information that men had never possessed before and did not wholly know what to do with now that they did. And there were other objects in the heavens, too. There were satellites which no longer signaled back to earth. Some had their equipment worn out. Some objects were satellites which had failed to function from the beginning. Some were mysteries. The bolide of the night before was a mystery. As Terry and Deirdre entered the wide verandah of the recreation building for the station's personnel, they heard Dr. Morton protesting, "But that's out of the question! I agree that we never know any more about what the Russians throw out to space than what we find out for ourselves. That's true! But this wasn't a terrestrial object! If it was a satellite that wasn't launched right, it had to be sent up from Russian territory. It wasn't. That's positive! If we assume it was a satellite that had already made several orbital turns, we must admit it would be an impossible shift in apogee for it to come down at the angle it did!" Deirdre and Terry sat down as someone else said hotly, "Our observations were wrong. They had to be! The earth's magnetic field couldn't affect the speed of an object _outside_ the atmosphere! Our observations say it slowed down. It couldn't!" Davis lifted a hand in greeting. The argument stopped for a moment. Deirdre was known, but Terry had to be introduced. He was sitting beside a bald young man who explained in a low tone, as the argument resumed. "They're having fun. They argued for days when our radar picked up an empty second stage in orbit. They're still ready to dispute for hours about a supposed retrograde satellite that was spotted last year, was watched for four turns, and then disappeared. Beer?" "Too early," said Terry. "Thanks just the same." Davis said earnestly, at the other side of the room, "I'd feel a lot better if that thing last night hadn't splashed where it did." "The bolide," said a voice humorously, "is a free animal." The discussion went on. Terry saw Deirdre talking to a middle-aged woman with a splendid sun-tan and a placid expression on her face. Doug and Tony sat watchfully on the side lines, listening. Doug had been offered, and had accepted, a sandwich. He ate it methodically. Terry had a sudden feeling of unreality. Less than half an hour before he'd been in torment and, but for Deirdre, on his way to death. On the _Esperance_ there'd been so much that was absorbing in the way of fish behavior that he'd forgotten some people were interested in other things. Here a dozen people squabbled over the behavior of a meteorite. Nothing could be of less consequence to the outside world. But in the outside world, people argued about baseball, or golf, or politics.... Doug excused himself and slipped outside. Terry joined him there a little later. Doug was smoking a cigarette, looking at the sky and the palms. "Pretty heavy discussion," said Terry. "It's over my head," said Doug. "I got lonesome. It made me think of my girl. She likes to talk like this. That's why ..." He stopped. "Is there an aqualung outfit on the _Esperance_?" asked Terry. "Sure! Two or three of them. Mr. Davis had an idea they'd be useful. Used one of them last week to look at the _Esperance's_ bottom-planks. Why?" "I'd like to poke around the bottom of the lagoon a little," said Terry, with unconscious grimness. "Would you help?" "Sure!" said Doug. They went back to the _Esperance_. Doug got out two aqualung outfits. They checked the valves and tanks and connections. Doug brought out two spring guns. In half an hour they were in the outboard, headed for what Doug said was the deepest part of the lagoon. Arrived there, Terry tested the water with his finger and then went overside. Instead of a spring gun, he used one of the fish spears that seemed to be standard equipment for fishing, here. Doug stayed in the boat to watch. Terry'd guessed that what he looked for would be in the deepest part of the lagoon. He was right. Within half an hour he'd speared five fish of types that had no business being within two thousand fathoms of the surface. He ignored the lagoon's normal inhabitants. He picked on fish of a dark-red color, which is predominant in the depths but not elsewhere. When the fish had extremely small eyes or extremely large ones, he hunted them determinedly, knowing they were deep-sea fish. He caught five, which was a good haul, even considering his previous suspicions. Doug inspected the catch as the outboard went back to the yacht. Terry replaced his spear under the gunwale. "They're queer fish," observed Doug. "I wouldn't want to eat them." "Neither would I," agreed Terry. "But I feel a certain sympathy for them. I think we've shared an experience." He did. Fish so far from their normal environment would not have migrated unless they'd been forced to. So these fish must have been driven up from the blissful utter blackness of the abyss, which was their habitat. He had a vivid memory of the kind of urging they'd received, because of his recent swim outside the reef opening. That was the experience he believed they shared. He got his catch onto the _Esperance's_ deck and found some sharp knives in the galley, while Doug put the aqualungs away. When Doug came abovedecks again, he looked distastefully at the work Terry had undertaken. "Do you like to do that sort of thing?" he asked. "Hardly!" said Terry. "But I want to get it done." Doug watched for a moment or two. "I'm pretty keen about poetry. Sometimes I feel I've got to sweat over a poem that I need to get written. It's hard work. There's no real sense to it. But I feel it's got to be done. I guess that's the way you feel now." "Perhaps," said Terry. It wouldn't have occurred to him to liken the writing of verses to the dissection of dead deep-sea fish, but Doug had a point. He went away presently, and Terry completed the highly unpleasant task. He had just finished flushing the deck clean when Deirdre came back from the tracking station. He was already at work on the recorder when she stepped onto the deck. "You didn't stay," said Deirdre. "I was waiting for a chance to tell my father about the hum outside the lagoon, but he was as deep in the meteor argument as any of them. I still haven't told him." "There's something else to tell him now," Terry remarked. "I went down with an aqualung. Doug was standing by," he added at her gesture of protest, "and speared some fish that don't belong here. I've dissected them. Their swim bladders had been very skillfully punctured, so if they went or were driven into lesser pressure, they'd leak instead of bursting. That's how they survived coming up from the depths. But the main thing is this." He held out a small plastic object in his hand. It was about an inch in diameter and two in length, and there were inclusions in the clear material. There were plates and threads of metal. They had that look of mysterious purpose that highly-developed technical devices have. "This was fastened to the fin of a fish that belongs as far down as a fish can go," he said. "I've found out one of its purposes. When it is in the water, it makes a sound more acute than a whistle every time another sound strikes it. Try that on your piano!" Deirdre stared. "I'm saying," he repeated, "that it takes in one sound and gives out another. It's ... it could be a relay. What is that for? What's it all about? What does it mean? And I ask just those questions because I don't dare ask who and why!" "What ... what will you do?" asked Deirdre absurdly. "I've no idea," Terry told her. "I've got a feeling that the wise thing to do would be to settle down somewhere and buy a shop, and forget all this. If I don't think about it, maybe it'll go away." "I'll get my father and see what he says." "Tell him," commanded Terry, "that I want to try out my fish-driving horn. I'd like to have witnesses. If this foolishness has to be reported to somebody, we need evidence of the facts. I want to drive fish and see how many deep-sea ones there are in this lagoon, and how many of them have spy-devices on them." Deirdre turned away. Then she turned back. "Spy-dev--" "I slipped," said Terry. "I shouldn't have said that. Forget it. Just tell your father I have an extremely urgent impulse to drive fish, and would he come and help." Deirdre looked at him strangely, and went onto the wharf to search for her father. Terry paced back and forth on the _Esperance's_ deck. In a few minutes Davis and the crew-cuts appeared with Deirdre. But they were not alone. Straggling behind them came nearly all the personnel of the tracking station. There would be somebody on official duty, of course. But here was the bespectacled Dr. Morton; the bald young man who'd offered Terry beer; and the installation cook; a typist, and specialists in radar and other abstruse subjects. Deirdre said, "I told them about the fish-driving business and they want to see. They stopped arguing about last night's bolide to take ringside seats. All right?" Terry shrugged. He had the recorder already set up. He'd taken a section of the tape made where the sea was bright, at the place where the loudest of the unpleasant humming noise was recorded. He'd made a loop of it so it would play over and over. He played the much-amplified sound through the underwater horn held in the air. The result was a raucous bellowing noise. He lowered it into the water. The horn touched the surface and went under. Instantly, the fish of the lagoon seemed to go crazy. All the surface broke and writhed and splashed. There was an incredible number of fish. Terry turned the horn on one side. In this way, not all the water was filled with the intolerable noise, but only a net-like beam of it raced across the water. Within that line the fish continued to leap frenziedly. The rest of the lagoon suddenly quieted down. In a little while the beam's space, also, grew quiet. But that was because the fish that had been previously caught in it had escaped. "I'm afraid," said Terry, "that this isn't going to be very entertaining. I'm going to sweep the beam across the lagoon, pushing the fish ahead of it, until I should have them all in one small area." It was curious that he felt uncomfortable as he set about his task. But he'd experienced the sensation this sound produced. And it was not very pleasant. He turned the beam around, slightly. Again, there were sudden splashings. They died away. He turned the beam again. It was a nasty, snarling vibration in the water. So far as fish were concerned, it was more like a wall than a net, because not even the tiniest living creature could penetrate it. Not only fish fled before it. Shrimps and crabs and all types of crustaceans jerked and crawled and swam ahead of its motion. Jellyfish writhed when it touched them. Sea cucumbers contorted themselves. Everything that lived in the lagoon and could swim or crawl or writhe moved before the invisible barrier. Presently, the effect of crowding could be seen, and fish began to leap out of water. "This is a great advance in civilization," said Dr. Morton. "Men invented guns and destroyed the buffalo and the passenger pigeon! You may have made it possible to depopulate the sea!" Terry did not answer. The morning sun shone brightly, a gentle breeze made ripplings on the lagoon, the palms waved their fronds in languid gestures, and the surf could be heard booming and splashing on the outer reef. And about two dozen people stood on the wharf or on the _Esperance's_ deck and watched a spliced section of recorder-tape go through and through a recorder, which was set to make a sound underwater that could not be heard by the people above. The fish of the lagoon had crowded themselves into a minor embayment of the shore. There were innumerable leapings there. "There should be plenty of fish collected now," said Terry distastefully. "I certainly can't herd them ashore." The outboard boat pushed away from the yacht, its motor roaring. It reached the area in which the water seemed to seethe and surge with the motion of densely-crowded swimming creatures. The people in the boat examined the surrounding water, then the boat came back at top speed. "They're there!" called Davis. "And thick enough to walk on! I clearly saw some freaks that must come up from the bottom! We want to collect them!" "I speared five just now," Terry told him, "and one of them was wearing this." He held up the plastic object he'd found. There was silence for a moment. Then Dr. Morton said briskly, "We'll want fish spears. We'll take all the boats and go after some more of these piscatory oddities. Who's best with a spear?" Davis would go. He could use the two fish spears that were standard equipment for the outboard. The staff of the tracking station scattered to launch other boats. Only Terry and Deirdre remained on the _Esperance_. It was necessary for someone to stand by the recorder. Boats moved away across the water. One stout member of the island's staff trudged along the shore. "You're driving them," said Deirdre. "You are right." "I wish I weren't," said Terry. "Why?" "You know how these weird fish got here," he said impatiently. "They were driven here. You know how they've been kept here. I experienced that! I told you why they didn't die when they came up from thousands of fathoms! Now, what's the only possible purpose for their being here? Put it more scientifically! What is the consequence of these happenings, so that to some biological entity it would be a favorable happening?" His tone was sardonic, at the end. "I don't know." "I hope I don't either," said Terry dourly. He was in no amiable mood. He'd made too many guesses like those Davis had mentioned. He was beginning to have less and less hope that they were untrue. Each new development made any imaginable cause of these events just so much more appalling to think about. In an hour, three boats came back from the small bay into which all the fish of the lagoon had been crowded. Terry turned off the underwater horn. A stout man walked slowly along the shore with a heavy burden of known edible fish. He was the island's cook, and he had speared them from the beach. The boats, altogether, had speared and captured not less than sixty specimens of fish normally found only many thousand feet below the ocean's surface. Upon inspection, all of them were found to have deftly punctured swim bladders, punctured with so slender a barb that the opening would close by itself, except when serving for the release of intolerably expanding gas. Before noon, seven more plastic objects had been found among the deep-sea fish. Three seemed identical to the one Terry had found. Two others were identical to each other but of a different kind, and the last two were of two different types altogether. Only those like the one tested by Terry seemed sensitive to sounds, which they changed into other sounds at a twenty-thousand-cycle frequency, or higher. The rest did nothing that could be detected. During the afternoon, news came to distract the absorption of the tracking station staff in the lagoon's fish. The short-wave operator came running to the wharf, waving a written message. The deck of the _Esperance_ was not a pretty sight, just then, with the dissection that had been taking place on it. Jug was beginning to flush the debris overside. The short-wave operator arrived. Dr. Morton read the message. He raised his voice. "Here's a fancy one!" he told the assembled company. "Space-radar's picked up a new object coming in from nowhere. It will probably orbit once before it hits the air and burns. By the line of motion it should pass nearly overhead here. We're alerted to get it under observation and watch it!" He waved the message in a large gesture. "We've got to get ourselves set up! The argument on the path of last night's bolide and why it fell where it did is again in order. We'll see what we can do about computing the fall-point of this!" He headed for the shore. The staff followed, babbling. Somebody's mathematics would be verified, and with it his views on the possible effects of terrestrial magnetism on objects approaching the earth. "We ought to get these plastic things to Manila," Davis said slowly. "They need to be compared to others. But I think we'll wait and see this bolide first." A heated argument started in the tracking station staff. From Dr. Morton downward, almost to the station's cook, the most varied predictions were made. The official computation from Washington, made from the observed course and height and speed, predicted that the bolide would land somewhere in the South Pacific. Dr. Morton predicted a fall in the China Sea, within a certain precisely stated number of miles from Thrawn Island. Other predictions varied. At exactly fourteen minutes after eight--a time way ahead of the official schedule but exactly as Dr. Morton had predicted--the bolide passed overhead. It was an amazing spectacle. It left a trail of flame behind, across thirty degrees of sky. It went on and on.... Less than ten minutes later the short-wave radio informed the island that the shooting star had been seen to fall in the sea. It had been observed by a plane which was then circling over the area in which the _Esperance_ had encountered the circle of shining sea. The plane was there to see if the phenomenon would occur again. It didn't. But the plane saw the bolide as it struck the sea, and huge masses of steam and spray arose. The bolide was not white-hot, then, as when it passed over Thrawn Island. It was barely of dull-red brightness. It hit the sea and sank, leaving steam behind. The water was forty-five hundred fathoms deep at that point. _Six_ Fourteen hours later the _Esperance_ made ready to sail from Thrawn Island. Her purpose was to carry the plastic objects to Manila, where they would be turned over to specialized laboratories to be studied. Five such objects had been found before: one in the Thrawn Island lagoon, while the satellite-tracking station was under construction, and four attached to exotic fish brought to market by the commercial fishing boat _La Rubia_. Now there were eight more, of four different kinds. To the laboratories would go Terry's observation that one kind of these objects absorbed sound at audible frequencies and retransmitted it at much higher ones, but only under water. All this was very interesting and very puzzling. But a serious disturbance had arisen at the tracking station. Dr. Morton came to the _Esperance_ before her departure. He had a problem. He'd predicted to the minute, and almost to the mile, the landing of the bolide of the night before. That was the first accurate prediction of the kind in history. But his forecast stood alone in its precision. Nobody else had even come near being right. Now he was being insistently queried by astronomers the world over. They wanted to know how he'd done it. In particular, they wanted to know how he'd figured that the bolide would lose just so many feet per second velocity, neither more nor less, in a three-quarter orbit around the world. Nobody else had such a figure in his equation for the landing spot. Dr. Morton had. His prediction had been exact. Where did he get that necessary but inexplicable figure? He beckoned Davis and Terry to go below with him, in the _Esperance's_ after cabin. Terry hesitated. "You may as well hear my troubles," said Morton vexedly. "You're largely responsible for them." Terry followed uneasily. He didn't see how Dr. Morton could hold them responsible. He had guarded his own guesses about the _Esperance's_ discoveries against even the slightest expression. He couldn't let himself believe in their correctness, but he was appalled at the inadequacy of all other explanations of past events. "In sixteen months," said Morton annoyedly, down below, "we've spotted six bolides coming in to land in the Luzon Deep. That's out of all reason! Of course, it could be a mathematical series of wildly unlikely coincidences, such as probability says may happen sometimes. Up to last night that seemed to be a possible explanation." Davis nodded. His expression was odd. "But now," said Morton somehow indignantly, "that's ruled out! It's ruled out by last night's bolide, and yesterday's fishing experiment, and that business of the shining sea, plus those damned plastic gadgets and deep sea fish thriving in shallow water! There's no reasonable explanation for such things, and they're not mere coincidences!" "I'm afraid," admitted Davis, "that they're not." "The obvious explanation," said Morton doggedly, "I refuse to name or consider. But nevertheless the question is not whether a theory or an explanation is unlikely or not. The question is whether it's true!" Davis nodded. Terry had to agree. But the way people are trained in modern times puts a great emphasis on reason, often at the expense of fact. Terry felt the customary civilized reluctance to accept a statistically improbable idea. "I'm on a spot," fumed Morton. "I calculated that the damned bolide would slow after it went into orbit around the earth. I calculated that it would slow exactly so much. Do you want to know how I figured how much it should slow down? I'll tell you! I calculated exactly how much it would have to slow to be able to fall into the Luzon Deep! It did slow. It did fall there. But how am I going to explain that to Washington?" Terry suddenly felt a warm sympathy for Morton. It is bad enough to dispute with oneself when something incredible happens. But Dr. Morton had gone out on a limb. He'd been caught psychologically naked telling the truth, and now he was asked to explain it. And he couldn't. "This thing has got to come to a head!" he said angrily. "Sooner or later they'll find out that I don't calculate where it'll land by its behavior in space but by its landing spot! Davis, you've talked about stirring something up. For Heaven's sake, do it! You may save my reputation! And you...." "I'll try to think of something," said Davis reservedly. "I've got to have proof that my suspicions are right or wrong before I'm ruined. I know what you're planning to do. Do it! Is there anything that can be done here to help?" Davis spread out his hands helplessly. But Terry said, "Yes. Send a boat every so often to listen at the gap in the reef. Put an oar overboard and put your ear to the handle. You should hear the underwater hum, if it's still there. It was there this morning." Morton looked at him suspiciously. "Why check on it? Should it change?" "Perhaps," said Terry. "We've speared most of the deep-sea fish in the lagoon. Maybe we've interfered with ... the reports from the plastic objects, telling what was happening up here. There may be a reaction. If so, most likely the humming will stop, and after a longer or shorter time begin again. And then, if my guess is right, there'll be more deep-sea creatures in the lagoon." "Ha," said Morton. "I think you and I have the same kind of delusions! All right. I'll see that that's done. You two do the rest." He went abovedecks. When Terry got on deck, Dr. Morton's angular figure was already marching along the wharf to the shore. There was no ceremony of departure. The _Esperance_ cast off and her engine started. She moved toward the lagoon entrance under power only, but her sails were hoisted as she floated on, and Jug Bell was trimming the jib when she cleared the opening to the sea. The humming in the water was still audible to the submarine ear, close to the land. It occurred to Terry to take a bearing on the source of the sound, noting both the compass direction and the vertical angle from the reef. If his vertical-angle reading was accurate, a line from the reef to the source of the sound would touch the bottom at twenty-seven thousand feet down, between four and five miles away. The _Esperance_ sailed on. The humming duly faded away. Terry left the recorder picking up undersea sounds, without recording them. It relayed the underwater sounds to the people on deck. It was in Terry's mind to keep at least half an ear cocked to it, in case the mooing sounds, heard and recorded elsewhere, should come again. They did not. The _Esperance_ went methodically on her way, headed south by east, under sail. A slowly swaying horizon of unbroken sea was all about. There was nothing in the least unusual or mysterious to be seen anywhere. Presently, Terry found himself in conversation with Deirdre, and the world seemed so blatantly normal that their talk dodged all unusual trends. They talked about their childhoods, about things they had done and places they had seen. At about four in the afternoon Nick bellowed, "_Thar she blows!_" in a fine attempt at proper whaling ship style, and all the _Esperance's_ company joined to watch a spouting far ahead. The yacht changed course a little, and presently reached a pod of sperm whales at the surface. The huge dark bodies moved leisurely through the water. Jud displayed great erudition on the subject and explained in detail how their spouting proved them to be sperm whales. Deirdre pointed out a baby whale close beside a larger one. They sailed on, leaving the whales behind. The crew-cuts, inevitably, argued about them. They canvassed all the information and misinformation they possessed and came up with a heated discussion about whales, how they can swim down to the enormous depths without suffering from the bends on rising again. Then the conversation turned to the food they eat. Whalers, in the old days, had found snouts of squids and undigested sections of squids' tentacles in the stomachs of harpooned sperm whales. There were reports of sections of tentacles four feet thick, implying a startling total size, all of which proved that the whales had been at the bottom of the ocean, where such gigantic squids can be found. These were the reports of reliable whaling skippers. Certainly the scars made by the tentacular arms of huge squids, indicating battle, have been found on the skin of sperm whales, and there have been reports of battles on the surface between whales and squids of sizes most naturalists would be unwilling to certify. In such cases it was assumed that the squids had been attacked at the bottom of the sea and had followed the whale to the surface when it came up in need of air. Certainly only an enormous squid would be able to sustain a battle with a whale. Terry listened to the discussion. Everybody had his own opinion. "You'd never settle the argument, unless you could put a camera and a flash gun on a whale and get an instrument-report from it." Which was not a new idea, of course. But it was curious that the thought of sending self-reporting instruments down to the bottom of the sea had been suggested by his own suspicion that similar instruments had been sent up from below. Sounding lines had been lowered with thermometers and nets and sampling machines. Core-takers had been dropped to get samplings of abyssal mud. But tethered instrumentation is never more than so useful. Deirdre said something. Terry realized that she'd repeated it. He'd become absorbed in the possibilities of instrument-reporting from the surface to the depths and back again. "You're not listening," protested Deirdre. "I'm talking about the bathyscaphe that ought to be in Manila any day now." "I'm trying to picture myself going down in a bathyscaphe," said Terry hastily. "I don't think I'd like it." A bathyscaphe is a metal sphere with walls and windows of enormous thickness, hung from a metal balloon filled with gasoline for flotation. It is lowered to appalling depths with the help of heavy ballast, and is equipped with electric motors for independent motion. It carries powerful electric reflectors which allow as much as thirty or forty feet of visibility. It rises to the surface again when its ballast is dumped. There are only three such undersea exploring devices in the whole world. "I'm not at all sure you wouldn't like it," said Deirdre. Terry scowled at his own thoughts. There are opinions a man holds firmly without ever being aware of them, unless they are challenged, and if that happens, he is deeply suspicious of the challenge because it suggests that his opinion needs to be re-examined. Terry had been gathering scraps of information here, and unquestionable items there, resisting a conclusion all the while. It seemed fantastic to think that the plastic objects carried by deep-sea fish out of their natural environment were actually man-made instruments--telemetering apparatus closely comparable to the devices used to transmit information from outer space. It was wildly imaginative to suppose that they transmitted information from the water surface to the depths of the ocean; that fish had been driven up from the abyss in order to report what went on at the surface. Report to whom? It was the most fantastic of fantasies to think that there was curiosity, in the Luzon Deep, about the manners and customs of the inhabitants of the surface waters and of those areas not covered by the sea. But Terry stopped short. There were limits to the ideas he would allow his brain to think about. Deirdre walked away, and he assured himself he never thought of anything so ridiculous as the conclusions he had just reached. Presently, dinner was served, and Terry painstakingly acted like a perfectly rational person. After dinner Davis, as usual, settled himself down to enjoy a program of symphonic music from San Francisco, many thousands of miles away. And Deirdre vanished from sight again. Later on Terry found himself alone on the _Esperance's_ deck, except for Nick at the wheel--a mere dark figure seen only by the light of the binnacle lamp. There was a diffused, faint glow coming from the after-cabin hatch. Up forward, one of the crew-cuts plucked a guitar, and Terry could imagine Doug dourly trying to read poetry despite the noise. The sails were black against the sky. The deck was darker than the sea. Terry's guesses haunted him. He assured himself that he did not entertain them even for an instant. They were absurd! A part of his mind argued speciously that if they were absurd there was no reason not to test them. If he was afraid to try, it would imply that at least part of him believed them. He picked up one of the plastic objects, and moved the recorder close to the lee rail. It still transmitted faithfully, at minimum volume, the washing of the waves as heard from beneath, and occasional small sounds from living creatures, generally far away in the sea. Heeled over as the _Esperance_ was, his hand could reach down into the rushing waters overside. He came to a resolution. He felt foolish, but by now he was determined to try an experiment. Tiny light-blue sparks flashed where the water raced past the yacht's planking. When he dipped his hand, water piled up against his wrist and a streak of brightness trailed away behind. He tapped the plastic object against the hull. One tap, two taps, three taps, four taps. Then five, six, seven, eight. He went back to one. One tap, two, and three and four. Five and six and seven and eight. The recorder gave out the tappings the underwater microphone had picked up. It seemed to Terry that the loudspeaker struggled to emit the shrillest imaginable sounds in strict synchrony with the tappings. Then Deirdre's voice came quietly, very near. "I don't think," she said evenly, "that that's a fair thing to do." He'd been bent over the rail in an awkward position. He straightened up, guiltily. "I know it's nonsense, but I was ... ashamed to admit ..." "To admit," Deirdre concluded for him, "that by tapping numbers with a plastic spy-device, you hoped to say to whom it might concern that we've found a communicator, and we know what it is, and we're trying to get in touch with the intelligent creatures who made it." To hear his own self-denied guesses spoken aloud was appalling. Terry instantly disbelieved them entirely. "It's ridiculous, of course," he protested. "It's childish...." "But it could be true," said Deirdre. "And, if true, it could be dangerous. Suppose whatever put those plastic gadgets on the fish doesn't want to be communicated with? Suppose it feels that it should defend the secret of its existence by killing those who suspect it? I wasn't spying on you," she added. "I heard the tappings down below." Then she was gone. He saw the interruption in the light from the after-cabin hatch as she went below. He was suddenly filled with horror at the idea that if his guesses did prove to be right, he might have endangered Deirdre. And then he ceased to feel foolish. He felt like a criminal instead. For a long, long time he listened with desperate intensity to the recorder, lest he hear some reply to his signals. But no answer came. The sounds from undersea remained utterly commonplace. When morning arrived he was in a state of desperate gloom. At breakfast Deirdre acted as if she considered the incident closed. And, such being the nature of men, Terry felt worse than before. He was not wholly at ease again, even when that afternoon the _Esperance_ sailed in past Cavite and Corregidor and into Manila Bay. A new ship was at anchor in the harbor. It was a stubby, stocky ship which Davis regarded with interest. "That's the _Pelorus_," he told Terry as the yacht passed within a mile, on the way to her former anchorage. "She's the hydrographic ship with the bathyscaphe on board. We'll visit her. I'll get Nick to call her on short-wave." He went forward, where Nick was making ready to drop the anchor. Davis took over the chore, and Nick went below. "Are you going ashore?" asked Deirdre. Terry shrugged. "I've no reason to." She looked relieved. "Then you'll stay with the _Esperance_ until--things are settled one way or another? I mean, you're really enlisted?" "Until there are no more ways left for me to blunder," said Terry distastefully. "I'm about through the list, though." "Not at all!" protested Deirdre. "Tapping numbers was really a very good idea. I was horrible! I scolded because you'd kept it a secret from me. I'd have been proud if I'd thought of it first!" Nick came back and spoke to Davis. Davis came aft. "The _Pelorus_ will send a boat as soon as we've anchored," he told them. "They've heard something and want to see the plastic objects." "I'd like the long end of a bet that they don't believe in them, or us," Terry said abruptly. "They're established authorities on the ocean bottom. They know a lot. They probably know so much they can't really believe there's anything more to know than what they're busy finding out now." Davis shook his head. He was confident. The _Esperance_ anchored, almost exactly where she'd been when Terry first came on board. Within half an hour a boat arrived from the _Pelorus_. Terry repeated his refusal to go along. Deirdre went along with her father. They came back a little over an hour later. At first Davis was almost speechless with fury. Then he told Terry, choking on his rage, "According to them, the plastic objects are a hoax. The hum is a school of fish. We aren't trained observers. At Thrawn Island they're astronomers and they simply don't know anything about biology. And we should realize that it's starkly impossible for intelligence to develop where the oxygen supply is limited. It's unthinkable that abyssal fish should have their swim bladders punctured so they won't explode from release of pressure when they come to the surface. Those in the lagoon aren't abyssal fish, just unfamiliar species!" "Well?" Terry asked. "Oh, they're going to make a bathyscaphe dive!" said Davis as angrily as before. "As a matter of courtesy to somebody--not us. They'll make it where we found fish packed in a circle. That happens to be the deepest part of the Luzon Deep, in any case. They don't object to our sending our dredge down first. They will be politely interested if it comes back up." "I," announced Deirdre, "I am so mad I could spit!" "There's no use in our staying here," said Davis, seething. "Our dredge should be ready. We'll go up to Barca and tow it to the point we want to send it down." He ordered Nick to get ready to lift anchor. "One question," Terry said finally. "Did you mention the bolides?" "No!" snapped Davis. "Would I want them to think I was crazy?" He stamped away. The _Esperance_ put to sea again. She sailed north along the coast. At dinner everybody was quiet. It was the only meal, since Terry's joining, that had not been enlivened by an elaborate argument on some subject or other. Davis was still in an abominable mood. He knew it, and held himself to silence. Later, Terry and Deirdre talked together. They refrained tacitly from speaking of marine biology or any reasons for tapping plastic objects against the _Esperance's_ hull. They discussed only trivia, but somehow Terry found any subject absorbing, when he was with Deirdre. After a while she went below, and he stayed abovedecks, smoking. The moon had not yet risen when he turned in. They sailed into the small harbor of Barca at ten in the morning. By twelve, local boatmen had towed out an ungainly object some thirty-two feet long. They tethered it to bitts at the _Esperance's_ stern. By one o'clock they had loaded on her deck a large, folded sack of sailcloth and half a dozen specially-cast concrete blocks with eyed iron rods cemented in them. At half-past one Deirdre, who had gone ashore in one of the yacht's own boats, came back with innumerable supplies she'd bought. At two o'clock the _Esperance_ went out to sea again. The towed object was a construction around a central wooden spar with an iron tube at its top end and half a dozen lesser spars linked loosely to its bottom. A mass of fishnet was fastened to the smaller spars and heavy ropes were holding the spars and the net in place during its tow. There was a hook for attaching the main spar to the concrete sinkers. "It opens like an umbrella," explained Deirdre. "We'll hoist it upright barely out of the water, and fasten on the weights. The canvas bag fits on that iron pipe. When you let it go, it sinks like an umbrella that's tightly closed, but when it touches bottom the weights spread it out and an explosive charge automatically goes off in that iron tube. It's special explosive. The gas it makes inflates the canvas bag, which can't burn underwater, and that floats the whole thing back up with the ribs of the umbrella stretched out and spreading the net between them. It should catch anything it encounters as it rises. As the pressure lowers, the excess gas can escape through a relief-valve. This dredge is experimental. If it works, it can be modified to do lots of things." "Such as poking at things we don't believe in," said Terry drily. "That explosion ought to stir up anything in its neighborhood. It'll be much more disturbing and audible than a few light taps against the _Esperance's_ hull!" Deirdre grinned ruefully and did not answer. The bulky tow slowed the yacht. She did not reach the position of the fish-filled circle until after nightfall, and it was necessary to have plenty of light by which to locate the inflated bag when it came to the surface, so nothing could be tried until the following morning. A short while before daybreak, lights appeared at the horizon. Red and green sidelights, and white central lights. It was a steamer. It came closer and closer. Presently, it turned and headed upwind and went dead slow, barely keeping steerage. It was the _Pelorus_. Dawn arrived in a golden radiance which thrust aside the night. The _Pelorus_ shone brightly in the first rays of the sun. A large object was hoisted out of her hold. Its shape was that of a gravid goldfish, with a smaller sphere hanging beneath it. It went overside, slowly, and there it floated, rolling wildly on the waves. For a very long time nothing seemed to happen. Then the water-level of the float sank a little. It was being filled with gasoline, which is lighter than water and practically incompressible. On the _Esperance_, the tow had been pulled alongside and the yacht's powerful winch hauled it upright. The yacht heeled over from the weight. The crew-cuts fastened the canvas sack in place, and Davis loaded the explosive charge into the iron tube. The crew-cuts cleared the nets. This preliminary operation seemed promising, and it was quite likely that the dredge would operate as it was designed to do. The _Pelorus_ whistled impatiently. Nick abandoned his job and went below to the short-wave set. He returned shortly after. "The _Pelorus_ says she'll be ready to send the bathyscaphe down for a test dive in two hours," he reported. "She says she will object if our gadget is floating free at the time, on the chance that it might interfere with the bathyscaphe. She asks if you can send our dredge down right away and get it over with." "Tell them yes," said Davis. "In five minutes." He compressed his lips. The _Esperance's_ device, though clumsy, was fundamentally simple. Five minutes later the top of the central spar was level with the water. "Cut away," said Davis. Doug slashed the single rope holding the dredge. It sank immediately. The recorder gave off the sound of waves. Occasionally, very occasionally, a chirping or a grunt could be heard. Twenty minutes. Thirty. There was a "crump!" from the loudspeaker which reported underwater events. The sound seemed to come from very far below. Even a small amount of explosive makes a very considerable concussion when it goes off so far down, and the shock travels in all directions instead of merely upward. The recorder picked up that concussion as a deep-bass sound. The sun shone. The wind increased. Waves marched in serried ranks from here to there. A long, long time later the inflated canvas bag came up and was floating on top of the waves. The _Pelorus_ whistled. Nick went below. A few minutes later he came up again to report. "The _Pelorus_ says not to cast our dredge adrift. They're sending the bathyscaphe down unmanned, to test all apparatus before a manned dive. They don't want any debris in the sea." "Tell them we send them a kiss," snapped Davis, "and they needn't worry!" The _Esperance_ approached the floating bag. Jug swung out on the lifting boom and hooked it. The winch hauled it out of the water. The concrete weights were gone. What the nets had captured was not pretty to see. A dead fish with foliated appendages had come up from far below, to judge by what its unpunctured swim bladder had done to it in uncontrolled expansion. Davis said curtly it was _Linophrine arborifer_, belonging two thousand fathoms below. An angry-looking creature, similarly dead, was _Opisthoproctus grimaldi_. It belonged deeper than the other. There were other specimens. A _genostoma_ of a species the books didn't picture; a _Myctophum_; and various other creatures, mostly as grotesque as their scientific names. All were abyssal fish. They had died while rising from a pressure of several tons per square inch to surface-pressure only. "It worked," said Davis curtly. "I almost wish it hadn't. Let it down into the water again. We'll jettison it when the _Pelorus_ gives us permission." Time passed. More time. Still more. The bathyscaphe was now in the water, practically awash. Only a small conning tower showed above the waves. Men swarmed around it. There came a query from the _Pelorus_. The _Esperance_ gave assurance that the deep-sea dredge had returned to the surface and would be kept there. The bathyscaphe was allowed to sink. The recorder on the yacht began to pick up deep-toned mooing sounds from the depths. Presently, the mooing sounds ceased. Two hours later, waves broke over an object completely awash on the ocean. The _Pelorus_ steamed cautiously toward it. Boats went down from her sides and surrounded the float. After a long time the _Pelorus_ got alongside and men quickly fastened the huge buoy to the ship. Then the down-wind sea changed its appearance. A reek of gasoline reached the _Esperance_. "Something happened," said Davis dourly. "They're dumping the gasoline--not even pumping it aboard. Let's get out of the stink." The _Esperance_ beat to windward. The _Pelorus_ began to lift something large and ungainly out of the water. The _Esperance_ went down-wind to take a look at it. The yacht went past no more than fifty yards away, just as the bathyscaphe left the water and swung clear. The bathyscaphe's conning-tower was gone. It had been torn away by brute force. The three-inch-thick steel globe.... Half of it was gone. The rest was crushed. The sphere, which had been designed to resist a crushing pressure of ten tons per square inch, had been ripped in half! It had been bitten through. Bitten! There was no comment by anybody on the _Esperance_. Half a mile from the oceanographic ship, Davis said in a peculiarly flat voice, "Cut away the dredge. We won't try to use it again." Someone slashed the inflated canvas bag. It collapsed. Somebody cut away a rope. The free dredge sank, slowly. It would never come up again. The _Esperance_ changed course. She headed north by west. There was still no conversation at all. The yacht seemed to tiptoe away from the scene of the bathyscaphe's destruction. A long time later, Deirdre said tentatively, "Have you been making guesses, Terry?" "Guesses, yes," he admitted. "Such as?" "Your father denied that the dredge was designed to stir up whatever gathered the fish together and then carried them down to the bottom of the sea. I was right there with him in the denial, but that's what we intended, just the same. We said we didn't believe there was anything there, so it couldn't do any harm to poke it. We poked, all right! Our dredge, and then the bathyscaphe...." "But what ..." "And a bolide fell right there a couple of nights ago," said Terry irrelevantly. "I wonder what the entity on the ocean-bottom thought of the bolide. Hm." He paused. "I wonder, too, what the bolide thought of what it found down there. Is that too crazy for a sane man to think, Deirdre?" She shook her head. "Why is my father working on this business?" she asked. "And why are the boys helping, and why do radar stations tell us what they find out, and why did the Philippine Government ask the _Pelorus_ to make a bathyscaphe dive at just that spot?" Terry blinked at her. "Too crazy for official notice, eh?" he said, "but too dangerous not to check up on! Is it absolutely certain that the bolides are bolides?" "No." "Thanks," said Terry. He pursed his lips as if to whistle. "I've been thinking of this thing as a puzzle. But it isn't. I'm very much afraid it's a threat!" He paused. "Y-y-es. I've just made a new guess. It adds everything together. I do hope it's wrong, Deirdre! I've got cold chills running up and down my spine!" _Seven_ As the _Esperance_ sailed northward, she looked almost unreal. From a distance she might have been an artist's picture of an imaginary yacht heeled over in the wind, sailing splendidly over a non-existent ocean. The sky was a speckless blue, the sun was high. But she was real enough, and the China Sea around her was genuine, and what had taken place where the _Pelorus_ lay now hull-down, stowing a ruined bathyscaphe in her hold, had unquestionably taken place. Something monstrous and terrible was hidden in the dark abyss below the yacht. The ferocity of its attack on the bathyscaphe was daunting. And ferocity has always, somehow, a suggestion of madness about it. But the humming sound in the sea was not the product of madness. It was a technical achievement. And plastic objects with metal inclusions.... Davis joined Deirdre and Terry. Before Davis could speak she said, "I can't imagine any guess that will add everything together, Terry." Davis made a jerky gesture. "Today's business is beyond all reason," he said unhappily, "and if there ever was an understatement, that's it! If there can be any conceivable motive for the plastic objects, which the _Pelorus dismisses as hoaxes, the motive is to use them to find out_ something about surface conditions; that is, for surface conditions to be reported back. And that's not easy to imagine. But try to think of something easier! And yet, such mindless ferocity as attacked the bathyscaphe ... that wouldn't be curious about the surface!" "No-o-o-o," agreed Terry. "It wouldn't. But we'd set off a bomb down below to stir things up. A couple of hours later the bathyscaphe went down. A stupid and merely ferocious thing of the depths wouldn't associate a bomb that exploded with a bathyscaphe that came down two hours later. It took intelligence to make the association of two falling objects with danger." Deirdre beamed suddenly. "Of course! That's it! Go on!" "Curiosity implies intelligence," said Terry carefully, "and intelligence is a substitute for teeth or claws. We don't assume that the fish that carry the plastic gadgets made them. Why assume that whatever attacked the bathyscaphe did it of its own accord? We believe that something else makes the deep-sea fish come up into the Thrawn Island lagoon, don't we? Or do we?" "We pretend we don't," said Deirdre. Davis nodded reluctantly. "Yes, we pretend we don't," he agreed. "But if intelligence is involved, I find myself getting frightened! We humans are always terrified of strange types of intelligence, anyhow. If it's intelligence that isn't human ..." Nick came up from below. "Thrawn Island calling," he reported. "They say the hum at the lagoon opening stopped for some forty-odd hours and then started again. They ask if we're coming. I said we were on the way. They're standing by. Anything we should tell them?" "We'll get there some time after sunset," said Davis. "And maybe you should tell them about the _Pelorus_ and the bathyscaphe." Nick grinned briefly. "I did. And the guy on Thrawn Island said 'Hooray' and then explained that he said that because he couldn't think of anything that fitted the idea of something biting holes in three-inch steel." He added, "I can't think of a proper comment, either." "We'll get to Thrawn Island after sunset," repeated Davis. "Then we'll see what we find in the lagoon--if anything." Nick started back toward the bow. He stopped. "Oh, yes! It wasn't a scientific guy talking, just the short-wave operator. The science staff is all busy. He said they heard an hour ago that another possible bolide's been spotted by a space-radar back in the US. It was picked up farther out than one's ever been spotted before. Five thousand miles high." Davis nodded without comment. Nick went forward and disappeared below. A school of porpoises appeared astern. They caught up with the _Esperance_. They went rocketing past, leaping exuberantly for no reason whatever. They cut across the yacht's bow and zestfully played around her two or three times, then went on, toward a faraway horizon. They managed somehow to give the impression of creatures who have done something they consider important. "It's said," said Terry, "that porpoises have brains as good as men's. I wish I could get one or two to talk! They might answer everything! I'm getting obsessed by this infernal business!" "I've been at it for months," said Davis. "In the past week, though, with you on board, I have found out more things I don't understand than I believed existed!" He walked away. Deirdre smiled at Terry. "My father paid you a tribute," she said. "I think we've been wasting time, you and I. We do a lot of talking to each other, but we haven't been applying our massive brains to matters of real importance." "Such as what?" asked Terry dourly. "Foam," said Deirdre. "Big masses of foam seen to be floating on the sea. Always over the Luzon Deep. Photographed by a plane less than a month ago. Reported by fishermen much more often than you'd suspect. At least once a ship sailed into a foam-patch and dropped out of sight, exactly as if there were a hole in the sea there. Let's talk about that." They settled down on the after-cabin roof and began a discussion on the foam-patches, for which there was no hint of an explanation. Then Deirdre mentioned that when she was a little girl she'd always been fascinated by the sight of her father shaving. The foam--the lather--entranced her. And somehow that led to something else, and that to something else still. A full hour later they were talking enjoyably about matters of no conceivable relationship to large patches of foam seen floating on the ocean's surface where the water was forty-five hundred fathoms deep. Davis came to a halt beside them. "Morton's just been talking to me from Thrawn Island," he said abruptly. "He's very much upset. It's about that prospective bolide that was spotted from Palomar. It's been right there for two hours." Terry waited. "Morton," said Davis, "would like us to try to photograph it when it comes in, back where the _Pelorus_ was this morning." Terry stared. Shooting stars are not rare. On an average summer night anybody can see at least three in an hour's watch of any one quarter of the sky. Bolides are a rare kind of shooting star. Still, many people have seen one or two in their lifetime. But nobody plans ahead of time to observe a bolide, and still less does anybody ever plan in advance to watch a meteorite arrive on the earth's surface, whether on land or sea. It is simply not thinkable. "We'll go back and try," said Davis. He seemed embarrassed. "Morton says there's no sense to it at all, and that if we do get photographs they'll be considered fakes. He's really wrought up. But he asked if I thought I could get a plane out from Manila to watch it fall--if it comes. I'm going to try that too." He added, more embarrassed still, "Of course nobody'd pay attention if I explained why the plane should go there. I'll have to say that I'm just looking for something else peculiar to happen at that spot. The _Pelorus_ must have already reported that one peculiar thing has happened." Terry opened his mouth, and closed it again. Davis went away. "You had an idea," said Deirdre accusingly. "What?" "I was thinking of Horta," said Terry. "Police Captain Horta. A very honest man with no scientific knowledge at all. Nobody with a scientific education would pay any attention, but I could get him to tell a few others who know as little as he does, and if the damned thing does turn up, there'll be proof it was foretold. If it doesn't arrive--" Terry shrugged, "I've no scientific reputation to lose." "Wonderful!" said Deirdre warmly. "But you wouldn't have proposed it but for me! I'll put things in motion!" She vanished. Within minutes the _Esperance_ came about in a wide semicircle and headed in the direction from which she had just come. Deirdre stayed out of sight for a long while. When she came up it was to tell Terry that Nick was calling on the short-wave set. He'd raised the flattop in Manila Bay. The flattop had raised the shore. Telephone calls were being made to here and there and everywhere to get Horta to a short-wave station to take a call from Terry. It was near sunset when the complicated call was ready and Horta's voice came into a pair of headphones Terry was wearing in the _Esperance's_ radio room. "I need," said Terry slowly, "to have a number of people in Manila know now of something that's going to happen out at sea tonight. They'll be needed to testify that they knew of the prediction before the event. Can you arrange it?" "_Por supuesto_," said Horta's voice cheerfully. "Are we not _amigos_? What is the prediction and who should know?" "The prediction," said Terry doggedly, anticipating disbelief and protest, "is that at twelve minutes after nine o'clock tonight a large meteorite will fall into the sea where--hmm--where _La Rubia_ catches her fish. No, you'd better not locate it that way. I'll give you the position." Davis, standing by, wrote the position in latitude and longitude and handed it to him. He read it into the transmitter. "Have you got it?" he demanded. "Is it written down?" "Ah, yes," said Horta tranquilly. "I will see that they make a memorandum of the matter. Shall I tell three or four persons, or more? I have news for you also. Jimenez...." "Look here!" said Terry sharply. "I want this thing to be past all doubt! Everybody who's ever been worried about _La Rubia_ should know about this! There should be no possible doubt about it! But there should be disbelief, so people who don't believe will try to verify that it didn't happen, so they can crow over the people who thought it would, or might." "Ah!" said Horta. "You wish you stick out the neck! It is serious! Now tell me again!" "At twelve minutes after nine tonight," said Terry doggedly, "A shooting star will fall into the sea at...." He named the latitude and longitude Davis had given him. "That is where _La Rubia_ catches her fish." "A shooting star will fall there?" protested Horta. "But who knows where they fall?" "You do," said Terry. "This one, anyhow. Now, will you see that a number of people know about it?" "It is cr-azy!" objected Horta. Then he said, "I will do it." The short-wave call ended, with Horta too much disturbed to refer again to Jimenez. By sunset Doug had gotten out the gun-cameras. Doug held an impromptu class on deck, showing the other crew-cuts exactly how to aim the cameras and expose the films, and what button to press to change film automatically between shots. He was unhappy because he did not know how bright the object to be photographed would be, for his lens-settings. He was even more unhappy because the bolide might travel at practically any angular velocity, so he didn't know how to set the shutters. But the focus would be infinity, and if he used the fastest possible film, he could stop most motion with a hundredth second exposure. Instead of reaching Thrawn Island shortly after sunset, then, the _Esperance_ was back above the place where the dredge had been dropped and the bathyscaphe wrecked. The _Pelorus_ was gone. The people on board that ship must have been very upset. The bathyscaphe had cost more money than is usually allotted to most scientific researchers, and now it was smashed. How would they justify themselves? They could hardly blame the _Esperance_. The yacht sailed in a closed pattern over this area of the Luzon Deep. Deirdre served dinner on deck. Stars shone down almost instantly after a sunset of unusual magnificence, even for the China Sea. Tony brought his guitar aft, and a contagious feeling of exhilaration spread about the _Esperance_ and an improvised party took place on deck. Maybe the mood for festivity arose from the realization that at least nine-tenths of the world's population would have graded them as lunatics, had it known their project for the evening. It would have been unjust, of course. Terry reflected that it had not been their idea to make an appointment with a shooting star. They were doing it out of some sort of professional courtesy, "from one set of crackpots to another," Terry phrased it in his own mind. It was a wild attempt to secure proof of the starkly impossible. So there was chatter, singing, and some dancing. The high spot was perhaps the time when Jug bashfully serenaded the rigging and the stars above it with howling melodies he'd learned in college. Eventually, Nick went down to the short-wave set. Doug passed out the gun-cameras again, after checking each one. Nick popped his head out of the hatch. "Dr. Morton's been calling like crazy," he reported. "The bolide's made four orbital turns, coming in all the while. It ought to touch the atmosphere next time around. ETO is nine-twelve-seventeen-seconds. I told him we're all set." His head disappeared. "Don't forget!" Doug said anxiously. "The cameras will feel like shotguns but don't lead your target! And don't forget to press the film-changer!" Terry lifted his gun-camera experimentally. It did feel like a shotgun. And then, suddenly, he disbelieved everything: the purpose of the _Esperance's_ original investigation; the phenomena that had been observed; the guesses that had been made. It was pure insanity! He felt a quick impatience with himself for becoming entangled in anything so ridiculous. Deirdre leaned toward him and whispered forlornly, "Terry! It's dreadful! I've just had an attack of common sense! What are we doing here? We're crazy!" He put his hand consolingly over hers. The act was unpremeditated and the sensation was startling. He found that they were staring at each other intently in the starlight. "I think ..." said Terry, unsteadily, "that it's very sensible to be crazy. We've got to ... talk this over." Deirdre smiled at him shakily. "Y-yes, we will." Then Davis pointed out positions for the camera operators. The bolide's course should be three hundred fifty degrees, not quite on a north-south line. It might land short of, or beyond, the _Esperance_. Or it might pass many miles to the east or west. Dr. Morton needed as many pictures of it against recognizable stars as could possibly be secured. Suddenly, there was a faint, dull rumbling in the heavens. It grew louder. Presently, cruising lights appeared in the sky. They maintained a fixed relationship to each other. They looked like moving stars, flying in formation from star-cluster to star-cluster. Nick popped abovedecks again. "The planes just called us," he reported. "They've just had a Loran position-check and they're on the mark. They've got orders to observe any unusual phenomena occurring around nine-twelve P.M., Manila time. Using civilian terminology, it sounds like they're saying the Philippine Government asked them to come out and take a look." "It's five after nine now," said Davis. The _Esperance_ headed into the wind. Her bow rose and fell. Waves washed past, and roarings trundled about under the stars overhead, and very tiny lights moved in a compact group across the firmament. Time passed. At twenty-two seconds after nine-twelve--which is to say at twenty-one hours, twelve minutes, twenty-two seconds--a light appeared in the sky from the north. It grew steadily brighter. It suddenly flared very brightly indeed, then dimmed, and continued to rise above the horizon. Seconds later it flared again, very briefly. Terry found himself aiming the gun-camera. He pulled trigger and changed film and pulled trigger and changed film. The bright light ceased to climb. It grew steadily brighter and brighter, and then it flared for the third time--Terry's mind asked skeptically, 'Braking rockets?'--and the light was so intense that the cracks in the yacht's deck-planking could be seen. Then the extra brilliance vanished, and suddenly the moving light was no longer white, but reddish. Terry aimed again and fired the gun-camera. The light passed almost directly overhead. Terry had the impression that he felt its heat upon his skin. It plunged into the sea two miles beyond the _Esperance_. The shock-wave caused by the impact tapped on the yacht's side-planking a few seconds later. Starlight shone upon a plume of steam. Then there was nothing but the noise of the circling planes above. Then a sound, as of thunder. It disappeared northward. It was the sound of the bolide's passage, arriving after the object itself had dived into the sea. The people on the _Esperance_ were dumfounded. Nick went below and came up again a few minutes latter. "The planes were calling," he reported. "They say they noted the unusual phenomenon. They ask if they should stay around for something else." "I think," said Davis caustically, "that that's all that's scheduled just now. Tell them so." The _Esperance_ went on steadily again, a trifle west of north. Davis was below, talking via radio to Dr. Morton at the satellite tracking base. Terry and Deirdre went to look for a place where they could talk over something privately. It was of enormous importance to them, but it was not connected with fish or meteorites or plastic objects or anything at all but the two of them. And to them the yacht seemed crowded with people, even though there was nobody else abovedecks but one of the crew-cuts at the wheel. When the _Esperance_ entered the lagoon the next morning, though, their private talk had evidently come to a satisfactory conclusion. Deirdre smiled at Terry without any reason whatever, and he looked at once smug and embarrassed and uneasy, as if he possessed a new status to which he was still unaccustomed. The recorder, trailing a submarine ear overboard, had duly reported the presence of the hum in the water, just outside the lagoon. It had not been operating for forty hours or thereabouts. During that time the fish inside could go out of the lagoon, if they chose. And other fish could come in. Terry said suddenly, as the yacht went under power toward the tracking station wharf, "Suppose there was a cone of noise just outside the lagoon, and the flanks of the submarine mountain under us were included in the cone? And suppose the cone grew smaller, like the other one. What would happen?" Deirdre shook her head, smiling at him. "The fish," said Terry, "could escape into the lagoon." "Probably," agreed Deirdre. "And if fish could be driven downward along a certain path," said Terry, "the way we saw it happen, why, fish could be driven up in a certain path, too." "Obviously," said Deirdre. "So if something wanted to replace the fish in the lagoon, or to add to their number, why, it would puncture their swim bladders far, far down, and then drive them up to the surface and into the lagoon, and then keep the noise going to keep them inside." "Is this a new idea?" asked Deirdre. "N-n-o," admitted Terry. "I've had it for some time." "So," said Deirdre, "have I." The _Esperance's_ engine stopped, and she floated to gentle contact with the wharf. Members of the tracking station staff made the yacht fast. With others, Dr. Morton came on board. His expression was the picture of unrelieved gloom. "I'm in a nice spot!" he told Davis. "I predicted a second bolide correctly! I had to use a different retardation factor to make the math come out right. Now I'm asked to explain that! How can I tell them I knew where it would fall, and only had to compute when?" "Come below and look at the pictures we got," said Davis. They disappeared down the after-cabin hatch. Terry knew about the pictures. Doug had developed them with sweating care, developing each negative separately and adjusting the development-time to the varying exposures of the bright object. There was a total of twenty reasonably good pictures of the bolide, from its first appearance to its plunge into the ocean, two miles from the _Esperance_. Doug had enlarged some of them. There were distinct star-patterns in most. In nearly all, though, the object was more or less blurred by its own motion. In those taken when it flared most brightly, the blurriness was especially marked. There was only one picture of professional, if accidental, quality, and it was the least convincing of all. It showed the fore-part of a conical shape traveling point-first. Nobody would conceivably believe that it was a meteorite. It looked artificial. Terry and Deirdre, as it happened, stayed on deck. The people of the tracking station made a babbling uproar. It appeared that the most important event in history, as history was viewed on Thrawn Island, had taken place the night before. It was revealed--Terry had not suspected his own success--that in asking Horta to see that there was foreknowledge of a meteoric fall, Terry had arranged for the matter to be taken immediately to high Philippine Government officials. The American flattop, at their request, had sent planes to the place of the fall, with orders which were enigmatic only until the descending object appeared. Then every man in every plane knew that he'd been sent there to see it. So there could be no question but that Dr. Morton had predicted it. That meant that he knew more about meteoric objects than anybody else in the world. What he had to say was of vast importance, and Thrawn Island shared in his achievement. But it was a strictly professional triumph. The news would not break in the newspapers. No ordinary reader would believe in it. And nobody anywhere would believe in Morton's knowledge of the place of the fall before he began to calculate. Terry observed that the people of Thrawn Island were definitely no longer interested in fish. They'd kept their eyes open for oddities because a deep-sea fish with a plastic object attached had been caught in the lagoon a long while before. They'd been intensely interested when Terry herded all the lagoon fish into one small inner bay, and they speared sixty fish that had no business being at the surface. They'd found eight more plastic objects. Such things had been interesting, if not important. But now the head of the Thrawn Island staff had computed the place and time of arrival of a meteoric mass from space! And he did it when that mass was five thousand miles out! From a professional standpoint, this was stupendous! They tried to make Terry see how important it was. Davis and Morton came up from below. They headed for the shore. The crew-cuts trailed off to the land with most of the visitors. Only Deirdre and Terry remained on the yacht, with a mere short-wave operator from the island. "We're going to have a fancy lunch, with champagne and speeches," the operator said hopefully. "You'll come?" "Naturally!" said Terry. "But first we're going swimming. We haven't had a chance to be overboard since the last time we were here." "We'll be back in time for lunch," Deirdre assured the operator, "but swimming here is so wonderful! We've been talking about it for days!" She went below to change. The operator shrugged. After a further attempt to interest Terry in the celebration of an astronomical first, he went ashore. Terry went with him to get the outboard motorboat he and Deirdre had used before. He was already wearing swimming trunks. A little later the small boat putt-putted away from the _Esperance_ upon the glassy-rippled waters of the lagoon. There was a very great tranquillity everywhere. The booming roar of the surf came from unseen rollers on the reef outside. Seabirds squawked. Palms along the edge of the lagoon waved their fronds very, very gently. "How far will you go before we swim?" asked Deirdre. "All the lagoon's perfect. One place is as good as another." He cut off the motor. "Hmmm. There's a deep place yonder," he observed. "That's where I went with the aqualung and speared the freak fish. Stay away from it." She jumped over in a clean dive. He joined her in the water. She came up, blowing bubbles. "All right, Terry. What are your troubles?" "That bolide bothers me," he told her. "It had a specific destination! It was meant to hit the water over the Luzon Deep!" She dived again. This time Terry followed her. The underwater world was beautifully bright, with ripplings making everything seem to shimmer because of the changing light. When they came up again Deirdre said, "Funny!" "It had a purpose!" insisted Terry. "There were others before it, and they had a purpose too! That's not funny!" "I didn't mean that," said Deirdre. "I meant ... just now, under the water.... What's that?" There was a swirling at the surface, some tens of yards away. It was not the curling eddy made by a fish about to break surface. It was too big a disturbance for that. It looked as if something stirred, barely submerged, but something very large. Terry, staring, thought of a porpoise cavorting just below the ripples. Or perhaps a shark. But sharks and porpoises are too small to have made this eddying. It reappeared. "Get in the boat!" snapped Terry. "Quick!" While she climbed in he let himself sink, his eyes open. There was a clouding of the water underneath, where the surface-disturbance had been. It was mud from the bottom which had been stirred up. He could see nothing clearly through it, though nearby and around him he could easily see the colorings of coral and fan sponges, and he could see small fish darting here and there. He broke surface. Deirdre bent anxiously over the gunwale. "What is it?" "I don't know," he said curtly. "But give me a fish spear." "You won't...." "I just want to have something in my hand," he told her impatiently, "while I look." He took the spear she handed him, and sank once more. Again something moved in the deeper part of the lagoon. It was a fretful motion, as if a creature or creatures tried to burrow away from the light shining through the water. Whatever moved, a thick cloud of debris from the bottom floated all the way up to the surface. Terry came up for air. "There's something queer there," he said shortly. "I don't know what." He went under and swam cautiously nearer to the disturbance. He was within a few feet of the curling cloud of obscurity when something like a gigantic worm came out of it. Or maybe it was like an elephant's trunk, only no elephant ever had a trunk so huge. It was a dull and glistening writhing object. Its end was rounded. The tip of the worm-like thing must have been a foot in diameter, and it came out of the mud cloud for four feet, then six, then, fifteen feet. It thickened only slightly in that length. It groped blindly in the brightness. Terry swam back quickly, and the object reared up and made a groping sweep through the clear water. Some peculiar white disks suddenly appeared on the underside of the long tentacle. They looked like sucker-disks, able to grip anything at all. The monstrous tentacle fumbled for Terry, as if guided by the pressure-waves his movements generated. Terry froze. Deirdre moved in the boat almost directly overhead. Something clanked in the boat and he heard it. The boat was probably rocking, making the pressure-waves that a creature from the abyss would depend upon for guidance where eyes would not serve at all. The thick, bulging tentacle reached toward the sound at the surface, now ignoring Terry, though he was nearer. He was still. The white sucker-disks on its under side had several rings of a horny, tooth-like substance at their rims. The smallest were about four inches wide. The fumbling object felt blindly in the water. Deirdre stirred again in the boat. The visible portion of the groping monstrosity was already longer than the boat. The whole creature would be enormous! If this groping arm rested upon the gunwale of the boat, it could easily swamp it. It groped for the boat, coming horribly out of a cloud of mud. It reached out. In another instant it would touch.... Terry plunged his fish spear into the worm. It jerked violently. There were enormous thrashings. Other similar white-disked arms thrust into view, fumbling somehow angrily for the creature--Terry--which had dared to attack it. He darted for the surface. Something unspeakably horrible touched him, but it was the smooth and not the suckered side of the groping worm. Terry's head was now above water. He grasped the gunwale to pull himself in, in a fever of haste. But the thing that had touched him before came back. It grazed his leg, for just a second. Where it touched, his flesh burned like fire. "Start ... motor!" gasped Terry. "Get away!" Something touched the stern-board of the boat. Deirdre pulled the starter of the motor. "Get in!" she said tensely. "Quickly!" She saw him, straining every muscle by pure, agonized instinct against the irresistible force of whatever clung to his skin. The horrible tentacle stretched, and part of its length took a new grip. It crawled upon him.... Deirdre saw the look on his face. She snatched up the second spear and stabbed past him, into the crawling beast. There was a most violent jerking. She stabbed again. She panted. She gasped. She stabbed and stabbed, sobbing with fear and horror. And Terry tumbled in over the gunwale, released. As soon as he fell onto the floor-boards he painfully dragged himself toward the motor at the stern. Something bumped the boat underneath. Terry pulled the starter and the motor suddenly roared. But the boat didn't start immediately, and it jerked once more. The whirling propeller-blades had touched one of the groping tentacles and cut it. Tumult arose. The boat surged into motion and Terry, with clenched teeth, sent it into a crazy, skidding turn to avoid a surface swirl, and then another frantic swerve when something showed momentarily above the surface. The boat zig-zagged along. A grisly, writhing object rose above the water, flailing, a fish-spear sticking in it. The small, skimming boat dodged and twisted at its topmost speed.... It suddenly straightened out and almost flew across the water toward the land. _Eight_ Echoes of the outboard's roaring motor came back from the trunks of palm trees that lined the lagoon's shore as the tiny boat raced across the water. Deirdre was ashen-white. She turned her eyes from the water, and they fell on the round raw places on Terry's leg where the sucker-disks had bruised it horribly. She shuddered. She still had the sensation of being pursued by the monster. Back where Deirdre's spear had finally liberated Terry, startled and convulsive motions continued, followed by a final gigantic splash. Terry drove the boat on at top speed. The monster sank again in the spot where the lagoon was deepest. It had come from depths where there was no light; from an abyss where blackness was absolute. Now, having lost its victim, it returned peevishly to such darkness as it could secure. Terry said curtly, as the small boat raced for the _Esperance_ and the wharf, "That creature was driven up from the Luzon Deep into the lagoon to replace the gadget-carrying fish we speared!" Deirdre stammered a little. "Your l-leg.... You're bleeding...." "I'm pretty well skinned in a couple of places," he said shortly. "That's all." "Could it be poisonous?" "Poison," said Terry, "is a weapon for the weak. This thing's not weak! I'm all right. And I'm lucky!" "I'd have jumped over with my spear, if ..." "Idiot!" said Terry gently. "Never think of such a thing! Never! Never!" "I wouldn't want to l-live--" A new reverberating quality came into the echoes from the shore. The pilings of the wharf were nearby, now. They multiplied the sounds they returned. The _Esperance_ loomed up. Terry cut off the motor, the little boat drifted to contact, and Deirdre scrambled to the yacht's deck, and then took the bow line and fastened it. This was absurdly commonplace. It was exactly what would have been done on the return from any usual ride. "Go tell the others what we found," said Terry. "I'm going to see if there's more than one of those things around." "Not ..." "No," he assured her. "I'm only going to use the fish-driving horn." Deirdre looked at him in distress. "Be careful! Please!" She kissed him suddenly, scrambled to the wharf, and set off at a run toward the shore. Terry stared hungrily after her. They'd come to a highly personal decision the night before on the _Esperance_, but it still seemed unbelievable to him that Deirdre felt about him the way he felt about her. He went forward to set up the fish-driving combination. One part of him thought vividly of Deirdre. The other faced the consequences that might follow if the bolides were not bolides, and if the plastic gadgets and the nasty-sounding underwater hums were products of an intelligence which could make bolides change their velocity in space; which made them fall in the Luzon Deep in the China Sea and nowhere else. He set up the recorder with its loop of fish-driving hum. He put the horn overboard, carefully oriented to spread its sound through all the enclosed shallow water of the lagoon. He turned the extra amplifier to maximum output, to increase the effectiveness of the noise, and turned on the apparatus. The glassy look of the lagoon-water vanished immediately. Fish leaped crazily everywhere, from half-inch midgets to lean-flanked predators a yard and more in length. There was no square foot in all the shallows where a creature didn't struggle to escape the sensation of pins and needles all over its body. And these pins and needles pricked deep. Flying-fish soared crazily, and they were the most fortunate because so long as they flew, the tormenting water-sound did not reach them. But many of them landed on the beach, and even among the palms. In the spot where blind and snakelike arms had tried to destroy Terry and Deirdre, the lashing and swirling was of a different kind. Something there used enormous strength to offer battle to a noise. The water was whipped to froth. Twice Terry saw those rope-like arms rise above the water and flail it. This particular sort of tumult, however, appeared only in one spot. So there was only one such creature in the lagoon. When Davis and the others came down from the tracking station, Terry turned off the horn. He was applying soothing ointment to the raw flesh of his leg. "There's a monstrous creature out there," he said evenly when a white-faced Davis demanded information. "Heaven knows how big it is, but it's something like a huge squid. It may be the kind that sperm whales feed on, down in the depths." Others from the tracking station arrived, panting. "Oh! I'm tired of being conservative!" added Terry fiercely. "I'm going to say what all of us think! There's something intelligent down at the bottom of the sea, five miles down!" He glared challengingly around him. "Who doesn't believe that?" he demanded. "Well, the reporting gadgets don't report any more. We killed the fish that carried them. So that whatever-it-is down on the sea-bed has very cleverly sent up something we ignorant savages wouldn't dare to meddle with! We would be terrified. But we'll show _it_ what men are like!" Dr. Morton said gently, "Perhaps we should notify the _Pelorus_. The biologists on board there...." "No!" said Terry grimly. "I have a private quarrel with this monster. It might have killed Deirdre! And Davis already tried to tell those biologists something! Tell them about this, and they'll want proofs they wouldn't look at anyhow. We'll handle this ourselves! It's too important for them!" "Much too important," said Deirdre firmly. "The shooting stars aren't shooting stars and there's something down in the depths just like Terry says. He's right that we can't consider sharing our world with--beings that come down from the sky, even if they only want our oceans and don't care about the land. He says that we wouldn't get along with creatures that know more than we do, and we would especially resent any space ships coming uninvited to start colonies on our world while we're not advanced enough to stop them! If that's what they're doing, they have to be fought from the very first instant to the very last moment there's one of them hiding in our seas! Terry's right!" "I haven't heard him say any of those things, young lady," said Morton drily, "but they're true. And I don't like the idea of a sea monster being in the lagoon anyhow. Especially one that tries to kill people. Still, fighting it...." "There are a couple of bazookas on the _Esperance_," said Terry sharply. He looked at Davis. "If you're willing to risk the yacht, we can drive the beast aground, or at least to shallow water, with the submarine horn. Then the bazookas should be able to destroy it. Will you take the risk?" "Of course you'll use the _Esperance_," said Davis. "Of course!" "Then I'll want," said Terry, unconsciously taking command, "somebody at the engine and somebody at the wheel. I'll run the horn. But, frankly, if that monster lays one sucker-arm on the _Esperance_, it may be good-bye. Any volunteers?" In minutes the _Esperance_, her engine rumbling, pulled away from the dock. She had on board all her original company except Deirdre--firmly left ashore by her father and Terry--and in addition she carried Dr. Morton and the most enthusiastic amateur photographer of the tracking station staff. He was shaky but resolute, and was hanging about with an imposing array of cameras, for both still and motion pictures. The _Esperance's_ sails were furled and she went into battle under bare poles. Davis was busy manufacturing improvised hand grenades for himself and Morton. The sun was nearly overhead. Terry asked Morton questions about the lagoon. They finally chose a minor inlet as the place to which the creature must be driven, if possible. There it could be immobilized by the intolerable sound from the recorder. There it could be destroyed. "I wonder," said Morton wryly, "if I can present a dead giant squid as part of the explanation for my computed orbits for the last two bolides!" The _Esperance_ moved steadily toward the place where Terry had nearly been killed. The enterprise was risky. The _Esperance_ was sixty-five feet long. The creature it was to attack was much larger, and if one of its kind had crushed the bathyscaphe, it had sufficient strength and ferocity to make a battle cruiser a much more suitable antagonist. But the true folly of the effort was its purpose. It all started when a fishing boat--_La Rubia_--went to sea and caught remarkable quantities of fish, of which four specimens had had plastic artefacts fastened to them. Then Terry began checking on certain noises he heard in the sea which provoked an incomprehensible crowding of millions of fish into a small area, from which they swam down to depths where they could not survive. Now the killing of this squid was supposed to cast a light on the mystery of the nine bolides which had fallen into a particular part of the ocean. Terry had the undersea horn turned vertically so that it would transmit a blade of sound wherever he aimed it, instead of spreading all through the lagoon. He turned it on. The water before the _Esperance_ suddenly speckled and splashed from the maddened leaps of fish of every possible size. He turned it off. He aimed it where the ripples showed the presence of something huge beneath the surface. He turned it on again. There were convulsive writhings. A long tentacle emerged briefly and then splashed under again. The writhings continued. Terry adjusted his aim. Crazy leapings of smaller creatures showed the line of the sound-beam, as tracer-bullets show the paths of bullets from a machine gun. He cut off the sound for an instant and turned it on again at full volume, pointed where the monster must be. There was explosive tumult underwater. Huge arms flailed above the surface. But once again the creature fled. The _Esperance_ followed slowly, now. The monster had reacted to the stinging sound-beam as if cowed. But it was a deep-sea creature. It did not know how to move when squeezed into a shallow water which hampered its movements. It seemed frightened to discover itself trapped between the lagoon-bottom and the surface. And it was dazzled by the brightness to which it had been driven. Left unattacked, even for an instant, it tried to burrow away from the light, and again it made a dense cloud of mud from the bottom. Then it became quiet, as if hiding. Grimly, Terry lanced it with the painful noise. The water frothed. Monstrous tentacles appeared and disappeared, and once part of the creature's body itself emerged. It was cornered into a minor inlet, and there the water grew more shallow and the monster did not want to go to where its motions would be even more confined. It seemed to flow into the deepest part of the miniature bay. It was as if it felt certain of a haven there. When the tormenting noise-beam struck again, the abyssal monster flung itself about crazily. A terrible, frustrated rage filled it. Its arms fumbled here and there, above water and below. It hauled itself upright so that a part of its torpedo-shaped body broke through the surface. The monster was mad with fury. It plunged toward the _Esperance_, not swimming now, but crawling with all its eight legs in water too shallow to submerge it. Its effort was desperate. It lifted everything from the water, and splashed everything down again, all the while crawling toward its enemy. Terry saw Nick and Jug steady the aim of their bazookas. Davis ran toward the bow with hand grenades. The huge squid came crawling, and with every foot of advance the pain-noise grew more unendurable. Suddenly the creature uttered a mooing cry and retreated. The cry was like the mooing noise Terry had picked up from the depths. It went aground. It struggled to climb ashore, to do anything to escape its tormentors. It foamed and splashed.... Despairing, it turned to face its tormentors. Its body reared almost entirely out of the water, now. It sagged flabbily. It reeled as its arms strained. Its eyes rose above the surface, blinded by the light. They were huge eyes. Squids alone, among the invertebrates, have eyes like those of land beasts. They flamed demoniac hatred. A beak appeared, not unlike a parrot's, but capable of rending steel plates. The beak opened and closed with clicking sounds that were singularly horrifying. It snapped at the yacht, which was beyond reach. One of the tentacles wrenched violently at something. It gave. The arm rose above the water. A thorny mass of branched coral flew through the air and splashed close beside the _Esperance_. "Shoot!" said Terry, somehow sickened. "Dammit, shoot!" Nick and Tony aimed closely. The bazookas made their peculiar, inadequate sounds. The bazooka-shells, like small rocket-missiles, sped through the short distance. They struck. Their shaped charges detonated, again with inadequate loudness. They did not explode in a fashion to tear the creature to bits. Instead, they sent lancing flames a thousand times more deadly than bullets into the squid's flesh. It fought insanely. It uttered shrill cries. Its arms tore at its own wounds, at the water, at the lagoon-bed as if it would rend and shatter all the universe in its rage. The bazookas fired again and again. It was the eighth missile from the bazooka which ended the battle. Then the enormous body went limp. Its horny beak ceased to try to crush all creation. But the long, thick, sucker-disked arms thrashed aimlessly for a long time. Even when they ceased to throw themselves about, they quivered and rippled for a considerable period more. And when it seemed that all life had left the gigantic beast, and the men from the satellite-tracking station stepped on the monstrous body, it suddenly jerked once more, in a last attempt to murder. The squid's body, without the tentacles, was thirty-five feet long. The largest squid, the Atlantic variety, captured before had a mantle no longer than twenty feet. That relatively familiar creature, _Architeuthis princeps_, came to a maximum total length of fifty-two feet. Counting the two longest arms of this one, it reached eighty. It could not possibly swim in water less than six yards deep. It did not belong in a coral lagoon, but it was there. It was close to sunset when the last tremors of the great mass of flesh were stilled. Terry was in no mood for eating, afterward. He skipped the evening meal altogether, and paced up and down the veranda of the dining hall, at the satellite-tracking station. Inside, there was a clatter of dishes and a humming of voices. Outside, there was a soft, warm, starlit night. The surf boomed on the reef outside the lagoon. Deirdre came out and walked quickly into Terry's arms. She kissed him and then drew back. "Darling!" she said softly. Her voice changed. "How is your leg? Does it still hurt?" "It's nothing to worry about," said Terry. "I'm worried about something else. Two things, in fact." "Name one!" said Deirdre, smiling. "I'd like to get married soon," said Terry ruefully. "To whom?" she asked, jokingly. "But I have to have a business or an income first. I think, though, that with a little hard work I can start up my _especialidades electrónicas y físicas_ again, and if you don't mind skimping a little ..." "I'll adore it," said Deirdre enthusiastically. "What else would I want? What's the other thing you worry about?" "That monster," said Terry with some grimness. "Pouf!" said Deirdre. "You've killed it!" "I don't mean that one," said Terry more grimly. "I mean the one that sent it. I wish I knew what it is and what it intends to do!" "You've already found out more than anybody else even dared to guess!" she protested. "But not enough. We've stirred it up. It sent small fish in the lagoon here and elsewhere to report back to it. We can't guess what the fish reported, but we know some of it was about human beings. Whatever is down at the bottom of the sea must be interested in men. Remember? It made a patch of foam that swallowed up one ship and all its crew. It's interested in men, all right!" "True, but...." "We dropped the dredge, which implied that we were interested in it. The bathyscaphe indicated more interest on our part. To discourage that interest--or perhaps in self-defense--it wrecked the bathyscaphe." "It, Terry?" asked Deirdre. "Or _ellos_, they?" "They," he corrected himself coldly. "We killed the fish that were reporting men's doings from here. That was insolence on our part. So the hum at the lagoon entrance went off and, after two nights, started again--and then this huge squid was found in the lagoon. It should have been able to defend itself against us. It was sent up here because it was capable of defending itself! But we've killed it just the same. So now what will come up out of the depths? And what will it do?" Deirdre said firmly, "You'll be ready for it when it comes!" "Maybe," said Terry. "Your father once mentioned an instrument he'd like to have to take a relief map of the ocean bottom. Changed around a little, it might be something we need very badly indeed. The horn we've got is good, but not good enough. I'll talk to the electronics men here." There was a noise of scraping chairs, inside the dining hall. People came out, talking cheerfully. There was much to talk about on Thrawn Island today. The killing of a giant squid had been preceded by a specific guess that linked it to meteoric falls in the Luzon Deep. Logically, the excitement had grown. Terry found his electronics specialists, and explained to them the type of apparatus he was interested in. He asked if it was included in the island's technical stores. He wanted to assemble something capable of emitting underwater noises of special quality and unprecedented power. There is not much power involved in sound through the air. A cornet player manages with much effort to convert four-tenths of a watt of power into music. A public-address system for a large area may give out fifteen watts of noise. Terry described a device which could use a small amount of power, serving as a sonar or a depth-finding unit, and then, with the throw of a switch, turn kilowatts into vibrations underneath the sea. If powerful and shrill enough, such vibrations could be lethal. A technical argument ensued. Terry's demands were toned down to fit the equipment at hand. Then three men went with him to the island's workshop. They took off their coats and set to work. Three hours later someone noticed an unknown vessel making its way into the lagoon. She was stubby and small, and had short thick masts with heavy booms tilted up at steep angles. Her Diesel engines boomed hollowly, louder than the surf. As she entered the lagoon, a searchlight winked on and flicked here and there. It finally found the wharf where the _Esperance_ was moored. Men of the tracking station staff went down to the wharf to meet the small row boat that was now coming ashore. A short, stout, irate fishing boat skipper waved his arms and shouted angrily. What had _los americanos_ done to keep _La Rubia_ from catching fish? Why had they changed the arrangement by which the starving wives and children of _La Rubia's_ crew were fed? He would protest to the Philippine Government! He would expose the villainy of _los americanos_ to the world! He demanded that now, instantly, the original state of affairs be restored! A fish leaped out of the water nearby. Where it leaped, and where it fell back, bright specks of luminosity appeared. Even the ripples of the splashes glowed faintly as they spread outward. The skipper of _La Rubia_ stared. And now the people of the island realized that the look of the water was not altogether commonplace. Little bluish flames under the surface showed that many fish darted there. There were more fish than usual in the lagoon. Many more. The lagoon had suddenly become a fine place to catch fish. Some care would be needed, of course. There were doubtless coral heads in plenty. But still ... The skipper of _La Rubia_ abruptly returned to his fury and his protests. _La Rubia_ had gone to the place where she always found fish. Always! There was a humming in the water there, and fish were to be found in quantity. But yesterday the American ship had been there, and also this very yacht! _La Rubia_ stayed out of sight lest the _americanos_ learn her fishing secrets. But it was useless. When the two American ships were gone, there was no longer a humming in the sea and no more fish for the crew of _La Rubia_ to capture for their hungry wives and children. And therefore he, Capitán Saavedra, demanded that the _americanos_ restore the previous state of affairs. Davis would have intervened, but the chubby skipper erupted into wilder and more theatrical accusations still. Let them not deny what they had done! Fish were always to be found where there was a humming in the sea that _las orejas de ellos_ heard and reported to him. But that humming was not in its former place. It was here! At the entrance of the lagoon! The fish were here, also! _Los americanos_ had moved the fish so the crewmen of _La Rubia_ could not feed their wives and children. _Los americanos_ wished to take all the fish for themselves! But fish were the property of all men, especially fishermen with starving wives and children. So he, Capitán Saavedra, would fish in this lagoon, and he defied anyone to stop him. "Certainly," said Terry. "_Seguramente!_" He added in Spanish: "We'll lend you a short-wave contact with Manila to make any complaints you please. I'm sure all the other fishing boats will be glad to hear where you've been catching fish, and where you've found the fish have moved to! Calm yourself, Capitán, and help yourself to the fish of the lagoon, and any time you want to call Manila we'll arrange it!" He moved away. He went back to the electronics shop, while Morton and Davis and the others talked encouragingly to Capitán Saavedra. Presently they suggested that he accept their hospitality, and the Capitán and his oarsmen went up to the dining hall, where they were served dinner, and a more friendly mood developed. In time the Capitán said happily that he would wait till sunrise to lower his nets, because he didn't want to risk losing them on the coral heads. A few drinks later the Capitán boasted about his own system of fishing, as practised by _La Rubia_. The starving condition of his crew's wives and children ceased to be mentioned. In the presence of so accomplished a liar, nobody of the tracking station staff mentioned a giant squid hauled partly, but only partly, out of the water. They suspected that he would not believe it. They were sure that he would top their real feat by an imaginary one. So the four crew-cuts listened politely, and fed him more drinks, and learned much. In the workshop the most unlikely device Terry'd described took form. In effect, it was an underwater horn which was much more powerful than it looked. Submerged, and with power from a group of amplifiers in parallel, it would create a tremendous volume of underwater noise. That sound would run through a tube shaped like a gun-barrel. It would travel in a straight line, spreading only a little. The same projection tube could also send out the tentative beep-beep-beep of sonar gear, or the peculiar noise a depth-finder makes. So the instrument could search out a distance or find a target, and then fling at it a beam of humming torment equal to bullets from a machine gun. It would have taken Terry, alone, a long time to build. But he had three assistants, two of whom were very competent. By dawn, they had it ready to be mounted upon the _Esperance_. It was placed hanging from the bow, mounted on gimbals, so that it could point in any direction. It was firmly fixed to the yacht's planking. There was plenty of activity on _La Rubia_, too, at daybreak. That squat and capable fishing boat prepared to harvest the fish in the lagoon. She got her nets over. She essayed to haul them. Some got caught on the coral heads rising from the lagoon's bottom toward the surface. Capitán Saavedra swore, and untangled them. He tried again. Again coral heads baulked the enterprise. The nets tore. A helicopter came rattling into view from the south. It grew in size and loudness, and presently hovered over the tracking station. Then it made a wide, deliberate circuit of the lagoon. At the inlet where the squid lay almost entirely in the water--but fastened by ropes lest it drift away--above that spot, the helicopter hovered for a long time. It must have been taking photographs. Presently, it lowered one man by a line to the ground. Obviously, the man could not endure any delay in getting at so desirable a biological specimen. Then the helicopter went droning and rattling to the tracking station, and landed with an air of weariness. _La Rubia_ continued to try to catch fish. They were here in plenty. But the coral heads were everywhere. Nets tore. Ropes parted. Capitán Saavedra waved his arms and swore. The _Esperance_ rumbled and circled away from the wharf, and headed for the lagoon entrance. The singular contrivance built during the night was in place at her bow. She passed _La Rubia_, on whose deck men frantically mended nets. The _Esperance_ passed between the small capes and the first of the ocean swells raised her bow and rocked her. She proceeded beyond the reef. The bottom of the sea dropped out of sight. Terry switched on the submarine ear and listened. The humming sound was to be expected here. It had stopped. It was present yesterday, and even during the night, when _La Rubia_ came into the lagoon. But now the sea held no sound other than the multitudinous random noises of fish and the washing, roaring, booming of the surf. Deirdre was aboard, of course. She watched Terry's face. He turned to the new instrument, and then dropped his hand. "I think," he said carefully to Davis, "that I'd like to make a sort of sweep out to sea. It's just possible we'll find the hum farther out." Deirdre said quickly, "I think I know what you're up to. You want to survey a large area of the ocean while something comes up. Then you can direct that "something" to the lagoon mouth by using your sound device, so the ... whatever-it-is has to take refuge in the lagoon. Since we've killed the squid...." "That's it," said Terry. "Something like that happened when we speared the fish. The squid took their place. Now we've killed the squid. Just possibly...." They found the humming sound in the water four miles off-shore. They traced it through part of a circle. If something were being driven upward, it could not pass through that wall of humming sound. "That proves your point," Davis said. "Now what?" Without realizing it, he'd yielded direction of the enterprise to Terry, who had unconsciously assumed it. "Let's go back to the island," said Terry thoughtfully. "I've got a crazy idea--really crazy! I want to be where we can duck into shallow water when we try the new projector." The _Esperance_ swung about and headed back toward the island. The sea and the distant island looked comfortingly normal and beautiful in the sunshine. Under so blue a sky it did not seem reasonable to worry about anything. Events or schemes at the bottom of the sea seemed certainly the last things to be likely to matter to anyone. Terry had the _Esperance_ almost between the reefs before he tried the new contrivance. If it worked, it should be possible to make a relief map of the ocean bottom with every height and depth on the sea-bed plotted with precision. He started to operate the new instrument. First he traced the steep descent from the flanks of the submarine mountain whose tip was Thrawn Island. He traced them down to the abyss which was the Luzon Deep. Then he began to trace the ocean bottom at its extreme depth, on what should have been submarine plains at the foot of the submerged mountain. The instrument began to give extraordinary readings. The bottom, in a certain spot, read forty-five hundred fathoms down. But suddenly there was a reading of twenty-five hundred. There was a huge obstruction, twelve thousand feet above the bottom of the sea, more than twenty thousand feet below the surface. The instrument scanned the area. Something else was found eighteen hundred fathoms up. These were objects of enormous size, floating, or perhaps swimming in the blackness. They were not whales. Whales are air-breathers. They cannot stay too long in deep waters, motionless between the top and the bottom of the sea. The instrument picked up more and more such objects. Some were twenty-five hundred fathoms from the bottom, and two thousand from the surface. Some were twenty-two hundred up, and twenty-three hundred down. There were eighteen hundred-fathom readings, and twenty-one, and twenty-four, and nineteen. The readings were of objects bigger than whales. They rose very slowly, and appeared to rest, then rose some more, and rested.... Blank faces turned to Terry. He licked his lips and looked for Deirdre. Then he said evenly, "We go into the lagoon. And if we come out again--if!--we leave Deirdre ashore, unless these readings have been cleared up. There are chances I'm not willing to take." The _Esperance_ headed in. It was not possible for the new instrument to tell what the large objects were. They could be monstrous living creatures, perhaps squids, and one could only guess that their errand was to deal with the surface-creatures--men--who speared fish and giant squids and set off explosions in the Luzon Deep. Or the rising objects could be, say, bolides which had dived into the Deep from outer space and were now coming to the surface to make sure that the natives of the earth did not again disturb the depths taken over by beings from another planet. _Nine_ The sun rose high in the sky as the _Esperance_ returned to the wharf. Davis went ashore and held lengthy conversations with Manila by short-wave radio. The biologists essayed to investigate the squid. _La Rubia_ still attempted to catch fish. All efforts seemed to tend toward frustration. When Terry walked over to see his victim at close range, he found the biologists balked by the mere huge size of the squid. There were literally tens of tons of flesh to be handled. Squid have no backbone, but a modified internal shell is important to biologists for study. The biologists wanted it. The gills needed to be examined, and their position under the mantle noted, and their filaments counted. The nervous system of the huge creature must have its oddities. But the actual preservation of the squid was out of the question. The mere handling of so large an object was an engineering problem. Terry consulted the frenziedly swearing Capitán Saavedra, who was ready to weep with sheer rage as he contemplated torn nets, and fish he could not capture. Squids were an article of commerce. Terry took the Capitán to view this one. His crew would help the biologists get at the scientifically important items, and for reward they would have the rest of the giant--more than they could load upon _La Rubia_. This would make their voyage profitable, and the Capitán would have the opportunity to tell the most stupendous story of his capture and killing of the giant. With the evidence he'd have, people might believe him. Presently, the crewmen of _La Rubia_ clambered over the monster, huge knives at work under the direction of the men from Manila. There was bitter dispute with the tracking station cook, who objected to the use of his refrigeration space to freeze biological material before it was sent to Manila by helicopter. In mid-afternoon the _Esperance_ left the lagoon again. The sonar-depth-finder probed the depths delicately. The objects in mid-sea, it appeared, had been rising steadily. Their previous position had averaged twenty-five hundred fathoms deep. They were now less than two thousand fathoms down, and there were many of them. Unfortunately, the _Esperance_ was not a steady enough platform for the instrument. But a fairly accurate calculation was made, and if the unidentified objects continued their ascent at their present rate, they would surface not long after sunrise. Then what? Increasingly urgent queries came by short-wave, asking for Dr. Morton's explanation of how he had computed the landing place and time of the latest bolide. His accuracy was not disputed. But astronomers and physicists wanted to be able to do it themselves. How had he done it? Terry came upon him sitting gloomily before a cup of coffee in the tracking station. Davis was there too. "I wish I hadn't done it," Morton confided. "It's one of those things that shouldn't happen. It's bad enough to have a giant squid to account for. They tell me it's a new species, by the way. Never found or even described before. One of the _Pelorus_ men tells me it's an immature specimen, too. It's not full-grown! What will a grown-up one be like?" "I have a hunch we'll find out when those submerged giants reach the surface," said Davis unhappily. Terry said, "The one we killed couldn't get out of the water. I wonder if the adult forms can walk over the land!" Davis stared. "Should we send Deirdre to safety on the _Esperance_?" "Safety?" asked Terry. "On a boat? When a mass of bubbles from undersea could provoke such a turmoil in the water that no ship could stay afloat? That's how one ship disappeared. It might be the _Esperance's_ turn next. Who knows?" Then he added, "There's no limit to the size of a swimming creature!" A bald-headed member of the tracking station staff walked in. He carried an object of clear plastic. It was a foot and a half long, about six inches in diameter. There was an infinite complexity of metallic parts enclosed in the plastic. "I caught one of the fishermen making off with this," he said in a flat voice. "It was fastened to one of the squid's shorter arms. The fishermen didn't want to give it up. The skipper claimed it as treasure-trove." He put it down on the table. Davis, Terry and Morton looked at it. Then Morton shrugged his shoulders, almost up to his ears. "The intelligent being that made it," said Davis, "apparently came down from the sky in a bolide. That's easier to believe than that a submarine civilization of earthly origin lives down in the depths. But why would anybody prefer the bottom of the sea to--anywhere else on earth? Where would such a creature come from?" Deirdre walked in and stood by the table, watching Terry's face. The bald-headed man said, "I could believe some pretty strange things, but you can't make me believe that a creature can develop intelligence without plenty of oxygen. There's not much free oxygen at the bottom of the sea." "But there's something intelligent down there," said Davis doggedly. "If it has to have free oxygen, you've only raised the question of where it gets it. Maybe it brings it." Deirdre shook her head. "Foam," she said. The four men stared at her. Then Terry said sharply, "That's it! On the _Esperance_ there's a picture of a huge mass of foam on the sea. A ship dropped right out of sight right into it. Deirdre found the answer! Something down below needs free oxygen. In quantity. Why not get it from the water? What to do with the hydrogen that is left? Let it loose! It'll come to the surface, make a foam-patch...." Dr. Morton said with a sort of mirthless geniality, "I add a stroke of pure genius! Davis just asked what would be the origin of a creature which preferred the depths of the sea to any other place on earth. What's to be found down there that's missing everywhere else? Cold? No. Moisture? No. Just two things! Darkness and pressure! At the bottom of the Luzon Deep the pressure is over seven tons to the square inch. There's no light--I repeat, none--below three hundred fathoms. Down at the sea-bottom it's black, black, black! Now, where in the universe could there be creatures capable of riding down here in a bolide, and in need of an environment like that?" Terry shook his head. He remembered seeing a book on the solar planets, in the after-cabin of the _Esperance_. He hadn't read it. The others on the yacht must have. "How about Jupiter?" asked Deirdre. "The gravity's four times the earth's, and the atmosphere is thousands of miles thick. The pressure at the surface should be tons to the square inch." Morton nodded. With the same false geniality he added, "And there'll be no light. Sunlight will never get through that muggy thick atmosphere! So we consider ourselves to be rational beings and guess that the bolides come from Jupiter! But I must admit that the last bolide was headed inward toward the sun, and from the general direction of Jupiter. So-o-o-o, do we warn the world that creatures from Jupiter are descending in space ships and are settling down under water, at a depth of forty-five hundred fathoms? Like hell we do!" He got up and walked abruptly away. "I ..." said the bald-headed man, shaking his head incredulously, "will put this gadget away and go back to carve some more squid." "I'll talk to Manila," said Davis drearily. "Something is coming up from below. There shouldn't be any ships allowed to come this way until we find out what's happening." Deirdre smiled at Terry, now that they were alone. "Have you anything very important to do just now?" He shook his head. "If the things that are coming up are--space ships, we can't fight them. If they're anything else, they can't very well fight us. If we wanted to attack something at the bottom of the sea we'd have to fumble at the job. We wouldn't know where to begin. So maybe, if a submarine power wants to attack at the surface of the sea, it may find it difficult, too." He frowned. Deirdre said, "Let's go look at the sea and think things over!" She very formally took his arm and they walked out. Presently, they stood on the white coral beach on the outer shore, and talked. Terry's mind came back, now and then, to how inadequate his previous guesses about the impending menace had been. It seemed now that the menace must be much worse than he had imagined. But there were many things he wanted to say to Deirdre. As they talked, they were disturbed. The helicopter, which had left before noon loaded down with biological material for Manila, was approaching again. It landed by the tracking station. Then they were alone again. When night fell, they were astonished at how quickly time had passed. They went back to the station. The helicopter was on the ground. The biologists had stopped their work, exhausted but very excited by their discovery of a new species of squid, of which an immature specimen measured eighty feet. It had offered extremely interesting phylogenic material for the Cephalopoda in general. The photographs they'd taken were invaluable, from a scientific viewpoint. The crew of _La Rubia_ had returned to their boat. The _Esperance_ had been out beyond the reef once more. The unidentified objects were still rising. They had risen to less than a thousand fathoms from the surface, well before sundown. At this same rate of rise, they should reach the surface some time after midnight. What would happen after that? "What will happen depends," said Terry, "on how accurate their information about us is. It depends on their instruments, really. I suspect their ideas about us are weird. I find I haven't any ideas about them." At dinner, Davis said worriedly, "I talked to Manila. The mine layer that was in the Bay left harbor yesterday. The flattop picked it up by radio and they're both going to come on here tomorrow. I had to talk about the foam. They weren't impressed. The squid does impress them, but the foam--no. I hate," he said indignantly, "to try to convince people of things I couldn't possibly be convinced of myself!" They talked leisurely. Somebody mentioned _La Rubia_. It had been more or less expected that her skipper would turn up for drinks and conversation again. But he hadn't. The conversation turned to the plastic objects. They might or might not pick up sounds. It was not likely they'd respond to light. Certainly, complete images would be meaningless to creatures who had evolved in blackness and without a sense of sight. They might respond to pressure-waves, such as are known to be picked up by fish when something struggles in the water, even though man-made instruments have not yet detected them. They might furnish data of a sensory kind that is meaningless to humans, as pictures would be to Jovians. _If_ there were such things.... "Why argue only for Jupiter?" asked Deirdre. "Venus is supposed to be mostly ocean. There could be abyssal life there." The crew-cuts joined in the argument, but tentatively, because there were many experts present. Midnight came. The open sea outside the reef showed nothing unusual. The waves glittered palely at their tips. There were little flashings in the water where an occasional surface fish darted. The stars shone. The moon was not yet risen. Two o'clock came. The _Esperance_ people were divided. Terry and Davis were too apprehensive to sleep. Deirdre'd gone confidently to the yacht to turn in. The crew-cuts slept peacefully, too. Davis said uneasily, "I've got a feeling that the ... objects are at the surface, or very close to it, but that they simply aren't showing themselves. I think they're lying in ambush. The squid that was killed must have had trouble getting into the lagoon. They probably won't try to get the big ones in. They'll wait...." Terry shook his head. "We killed that little one--save the mark!--and its death was probably reported in some fashion. So maybe they'll use the big ones on the surface as bait for another kind of weapon. Foam, for example. We know how a ship simply dropped out of sight, as if into a hole." "I know!" said Davis drearily. "I told the flattop about that. But I don't think they really believe it." At two-thirty Davis and Terry went down to the yacht. They stood on the deck. They kept watch by mere instinct. There was no activity anywhere. Faint noises were coming from _La Rubia_. Maybe her crew was repacking the hastily loaded masses of squid-flesh. The last-quarter moon rose at long last, and shone upon the glassy-rippled water of the lagoon. Star-images danced beside its reflection. A little after three, quite abruptly, the Diesels of _La Rubia_ rumbled and boomed. The dark silhouette of the ship headed across the lagoon toward its opening. Terry swore. "She lifted her anchor without making a noise," he said angrily. "Her skipper wants to get to Manila with his catch before it spoils! Damnation! I told him not to leave without warning. Anything could be waiting outside!" He raced for the shore and the outboard motorboat. Davis shouted down the forecastle and pelted after him. Terry had the outboard in the water by the time Davis arrived. He jumped in and pulled the starter. The motor caught. The outboard went rushing across the water. Its wake was a brilliant bluish luminescence. The booming of the Diesels grew louder. Capitán Saavedra thought he had put over a fast one on _los americanos_, who had moved the fish from where he regularly captured them in vast quantities and gathered them in a lagoon where his nets tore. They had given him most of a monster squid, true, but they had reserved certain parts for themselves. They were undoubtedly the most valuable parts. So when labor officially ceased at sundown, _La Rubia's_ skipper only pretended to accept the idea. In the last hour his crew had quietly completed loading _La Rubia_ with squid. They'd been carefully silent. They'd lifted anchor without noise. Now _La Rubia_ headed for the lagoon entrance, heavy in the water but with precise information about what coral heads needed to be dodged. She had on board a cargo history had no parallel for. Her skipper expected to be rewarded with fame, as well as cash. When the outboard motor rushed toward _La Rubia_, Capitán Saavedra zestfully gave his engines full throttle. When the racketing, roaring motorboat arrived beside his ship, and Terry shouted to him to stop, he chuckled and drove on. In fact, he left _La Rubia's_ pilot-house to wave cheerfully at the two men. They frantically ran close and shouted to him above the rat-tat-tatting of their own motor and the rumble of his Diesels. _La Rubia_ reached the lagoon entrance with the smaller boat close at her side, and Terry still shouting. But Capitán Saavedra did not believe. Maybe he did not understand. Certainly he did not obey. Ocean swells lifted and tossed the motorboat. It became necessary to slow down, for safety. But _La Rubia_ went grandly on, into the open sea. "We can't force him to stop," said Davis in a despairing voice. "He won't. I only hope we're wrong, and he gets through!" The outboard stayed where it was, and swells tossed it haphazardly. _La Rubia_ switched on her navigation lights. She drove zestfully to the southward. She sailed on, dwindling in size, as the drone of her Diesels diminished in volume. Looking back, Terry saw the _Esperance_ approaching from the lagoon, dark figures on her deck. Terry shouted, cries answered him, and the _Esperance_ came to a stop as the motorboat drew alongside. Terry and Davis scrambled to her deck while one of the crew-cuts led the smaller boat astern and tethered it. "We're safe enough here," Terry said bitterly, "and since you've come, we can stay and watch if anything happens. If only she keeps on going...." But _La Rubia_ did not. Her lights showed that she had changed course. She changed course again. Her masthead light began to waver from side to side. She wallowed in such a way that it was clear she was neither on course nor in motion any longer. Nobody gave orders, but the _Esperance's_ engine roared. The action from this point on became an automatic and quick response to an emergency. The schooner-yacht plunged ahead at top speed. Terry switched on the recorder and the ultrapowerful sound projector. Davis bent over the searchlight. Two of the crew-cuts readied the bazookas. Suddenly, a flare went off on _La Rubia's_ deck. Her stubby masts and spars became startlingly bright. Screams came across the waves, even above the growling of the surf and above the noise of the _Esperance's_ engine. The flare shot through the air. It arched in a high parabola, bright in the sky, and fell into the sea. Another flare was ignited. The _Esperance's_ searchlight flicked on. A long pencil of light reached across the waves as she raced on. More screamings were heard. Another flare burned. It arched overside. The _Esperance_ plunged on, shouldering aside the heavier waves of open water. A half-mile. A quarter-mile. _La Rubia_ wallowed crazily, and more shrieks came from her deck. Then the fishing boat seemed to swing. Beyond her, a conical, glistening and utterly horrifying monster emerged, a mere few yards from her rail. Enormous eyes glittered in the searchlight rays. A monstrous tentacle with a row of innumerable sucker-disks reached over the stern of _La Rubia_. Another flare swept from the fishing boat's deck in the direction of the giant squid. It fell upon wetted, shining flesh. The monster jerked, and _La Rubia_ was shaken from stem to stern. Hurriedly, Terry pressed the power-feed button, and the sound projector was on. Its effect was instantaneous. The monster began to writhe convulsively. It was gigantic. It was twice, three times the size of the squid captured in the lagoon. Terry heard his own voice cry out, "Bazookas! Use 'em! Use 'em!" Flaring rocket missiles sped toward the giant. Davis flung one of the hand grenades he'd manufactured. The yacht plunged on toward the clutched, half-sunk fishing boat. The hand grenade exploded against the monster's flesh. Simultaneously, the bazooka-missiles hit their target and flung living, incandescent flame deep into the creature's body. Those flames would melt steel. They bored deeply into the squid, and they were infinitely more damaging than bullets. The creature leaped from the water, as chunks of its flesh exploded. It was a mountainous horror risen from the sea. As it leaped, it had squirted the inky substance which is the squid's ultimate weapon of defense. But, unlike small squid, this beast of the depths squirted phosphorescent ink. The beast splashed back into the sea, and the wave of its descent swept over the deck of _La Rubia_. The fishing boat nearly capsized. But the monster had not escaped the anguish of its wounds. It fought the injured spots as though an enemy still gnawed there. It was a struggling madness in the sea. The _Esperance_ swung to approach the half-sunken trawler, and Terry kept the searchlight on the turmoil. The beast knew panic. It was wounded, and the abyss is not a place where the weak or wounded can long survive. Its fellows would be coming.... They did. Something enormous moved swiftly under the sea toward the wounded monster. It could be seen by the phosphorescence its motion created, as it approached the surface. There was a jar, a jolt. Some part of it actually touched the _Esperance's_ keel. The huge monster moved ahead, but a trailing tentacle flicked up to what it had touched a moment before. The ugly tentacle trailed over the yacht's rail. The rail shattered. The forecastle hatch was wiped out. The bowsprit became mere debris which dangled foolishly from the standing rigging. The _Esperance_ bucked wildly at this fleeting contact. Nick fired a bazooka-shell, but it missed. Holding fast, Davis flung a grenade. It detonated uselessly. It was then that Deirdre screamed. Terry froze for an instant. There had simply been no time for him to think that Deirdre might be aboard. It was inexcusable, but nothing could be done now. Tony had been knocked overside by the shock of the contact with the giant, and was swimming desperately trying to follow the yacht and climb back on board. Terry flashed the searchlight about. He found Tony, splashing. The _Esperance_ swung in her own length while Terry kept the searchlight beam focused. More shrieks came from _La Rubia_. Davis threw a rope and Tony caught it. They hauled him aboard, and the _Esperance_ turned again to pluck away the trawler's crewmen. There were unbelievable splashings off to port. Terry flung the lightbeam in that direction. It fell upon unimaginable conflict. The monster that had passed under the yacht now battled the wounded squid. They fought on the surface, horribly. A maze of intertwining tentacles glistened in the light, and their revolting bodies appeared now and again as the battered creature fought to protect itself, and the other to devour. Other enormous squids came hurrying to the scene. They flung themselves into the gruesome fight, tearing at the dying monster and at each other. There were still others on the way.... The sea resounded with desperate mooing sounds. The _Esperance_ bumped against _La Rubia_. Frantic, hysterically frightened men clambered up from the deck of the sinking trawler to the yacht. As soon as they were aboard they implored their rescuers to head for land, immediately. "Get 'em all off!" bellowed Terry, in command by simple virtue of having clear ideas of what had to be done. "Get 'em all off!" The stout skipper of _La Rubia_ jumped over the yacht's rail. Without orders, the yacht's engine bellowed. The _Esperance_ turned toward the shore, which now seemed very far away. Something splashed to starboard. The sea glowed all around it. Terry poured the pain-sound exactly in that direction. The monster went into convulsions. The yacht swerved away to keep its distance. She raced on, past the spot where the giant flailed its tentacles insanely about. It mooed. The _Esperance_ raced at full speed toward the island. About a mile ahead, the surf roared and foamed on the coral reef almost awash. Back at the scene of the battle of monsters, there was a sudden break in the conflict. One of the wounded giants broke free. It may have been the one the _Esperance_ had first attacked; perhaps it was another, which might have been partly devoured while still fighting. In any case, one of them broke loose and fled, with the hellish pack after it. It is the instinct of squids, if injured, to try to find some submarine cavern in which to hide. The monster dived, and the others pursued it. There was no opening in the reef barrier--not underwater. But there was an opening on the surface. The crippled beast had to find a refuge, or be torn to bits. It may have been guided by instinct, or perhaps the current flowing into or out of the lagoon furnished the clue. In any case, the fleeing creature darted crazily into the channel used by the _Esperance_ for passage. For a little way, it proceeded underwater. Then it grounded itself. Hopelessly. And the pursuing pack arrived. The sight from the _Esperance's_ deck was straight out of the worst possible nightmare. Glistening serpentine tentacles writhed and flailed the seas. They tore the swells to froth. The pursuers had flung themselves savagely upon the helpless one. The gap in the reef was closed by the battling giants. They slavered. They gripped. They tore. They rent each other.... Terry saw a tentacle as thick as a barrel which had been haggled half through and dangled futilely as its stump still tried to fight. And more giants came. Terry shouted, and the _Esperance_ turned. He could see large patches of phosphorescence under the surface. And suddenly, he noticed that a few of them had swerved toward the _Esperance_. As they approached the sound-horn stung them. They went into convulsive struggling, as the sound played upon them, and they passed the _Esperance_ by. Davis found Terry beside the sound-weapon's controls watching the sea with desperate intensity. "Listen," said Davis fiercely, "we're out at sea and we can't get back into the lagoon! We'd better get away from here!" "Across deep water?" demanded Terry. "That dangerous foam can come up from deep water, but maybe not from shallow water. We've got to stay close to the reef until the flattop comes and bombs these creatures--if it will ever come!" Davis made a helpless gesture. Terry said crisply, "Get the 'copter to hang over the reef and report on the fighting there. Tell it to report to the flattop. They may not believe us, but they may send a plane anyway. And if the ships come, they'll have to believe about the foam! Tell them to listen for it underwater. They've got sonar gear." Davis stumbled away. Presently, the dark figure of Nick lowered himself through what had been the forecastle hatch. Davis followed him. Deirdre came over to Terry. "Terry ..." "I'm going to beat in the heads," said Terry, "of those idiots who came after your father and me without throwing you on the wharf first!" "They'd have wasted precious time," said Deirdre calmly. "I wouldn't have let them. Do you think I want to be ashore when you ..." There was the faintest of palings of the horizon to the east. Terry said grimly, "I'm going to try to find a passage through the surf, to get you ashore. I'm keeping the _Esperance_ in shallow water--inside the hundred-fathom line--but I don't trust it. Certainly I don't trust a ship to make you safer!" "It's going to be daybreak soon," she protested. "Then...." "Then we won't be able to see what goes on underwater," he told her. "Those ... creatures down below are smart!" There was a racketing, rumbling roar from the island. A light rose above the tree-tops. Presently a parachute-flare lit up. Then there was another, as if the men in the helicopter did not believe what they saw the first time. "Terry," said Deirdre shakily, "I'm ... glad we found each other, no matter what happens...." Davis came up from below. "The flattop's only a few miles away. They're now proceeding at top speed. The mine layer's following. They'll be here by sunrise." * * * * * Far away to the east, some brightness entered into the paling of the sky. A drab, colorless light spread over the sea. The ocean was a dark, slate blue. Swells flattened abruptly about a quarter-mile away. Terry aimed the sound-weapon and pressed the button. Something gigantic started up, and the top of a huge squid's mantle pierced the surface. The giant leaped convulsively, high above the water, save for trailing tentacles. It was larger than a whale. It fell back into the sea with a loud splash, and moved away quickly. Color came into the sky. The sun's upper rim appeared. Flecks of gold spread upon the sea. Far, far away at the horizon a dark speck appeared. As the sun climbed up over the edge of the world, the speck turned golden. There was a mist of smoke above it. A plane took off from the ship. Another plane followed. Fighter planes flashed toward the island. One of them zoomed sharply, like a bird astonished at something it has seen below. It whirled and came back over that spot. There was the rasping whine of a machine gun. Something like a giant snake reared up and fell back again. And now more planes appeared. Sunrise was suddenly complete. Terry stared out over the sea. And he could not believe his eyes, accustomed as he was to the highly unlikely, now. Giant squids were afloat at the surface. He saw one here, and another there, and another, and another.... They were emerging by tens, by scores. "They've been sent up," said Terry very grimly, "by an entity that didn't evolve on the earth. They're ... domesticated, in a way. They're watchdogs for whatever arrives in bolides that fall in the Luzon Deep. They are the reason for the shining circle of sea from which thousands of tons of living fish were drawn down into the abyss. The creatures--the ... _ellos_ who listen to what fish and fishermen say--they keep these things as domestic animals. And they have to feed them. Those mooings were the ... cries of these things waiting to be fed. Try to imagine that, Deirdre! In the blackness of the pit, in the abyss at the bottom of the sea...." A tentacle broke surface. Terry swung the sound-beam. A mantle reared above the waves. A bazooka-shell hit it. Something huge and stupid and monstrous fought the impalpable thing that hurt it.... Davis approached. "These," he said absurdly, "aren't the creatures who made the plastic objects. Maybe we ought to try to open communication with their masters. Why should we fight? If we prove we can defend ourselves...." "I suspect," said Terry, "that all intelligent beings think the same way, intelligently. If we landed on another planet, on some part of that planet that the natives didn't use but we could, it wouldn't be sensible for those natives to welcome us! Trade with us, perhaps. But let us settle down, no!" There was a bomb explosion out at sea. A plane had dropped a hundred-pound bomb on a monster at the surface. The flattop was now distinct. Golden, almost horizontal sunlight struck upon it. Off to the west a plane dived steeply, something dropped from it, and the plane levelled off. A three-hundred-foot fountain erupted from the surface. Then there came absolute proof that intelligence lay behind all this. It was not human intelligence, to be sure. Men are tool-using creatures nowadays. They imagine robots for fighting, and nowadays they make them, but many centuries ago men ceased to try to use animals as combatants in war. The creatures under the sea had not. They'd send up giant squids to do battle with men, as men once sent elephants against the Macedonian army. It was naïve. But the generals, the tacticians, the strategists of the Deep did not remain wedded to the one weapon. Already, they saw that beasts could be fought by men. So their instruments of battle changed. Doubtless, orders were given, and five miles under the sea something--something men could not have duplicated--began the transformation of seawater into gas, in quantities past imagining. Tiny, tiny bubbles were produced by some unguessable engine, and rose toward the surface, in a steady stream. At the bottom they were under a pressure of tons to the square inch. But the pressure lessened as they rose, and as they rose they swelled. A bubble which was pinhead-size at the sea-bed grew to be the size of a basketball a half-mile up, and would have been the size of a house a mile up, except that then it separated into smaller ones. They rose and rose and expanded and separated. Five miles up from their origin, at little more than atmospheric pressure, they made a rising column of insubstantiality. At the surface they became foam. But under the foam there was more foam, and under that still more. A ship sailing from normal ocean water into such airy stuff would drop like a stone into the miles-long cone of semi-nothingness. Nothing solid could float there. Nothing substantial could rest its weight upon such rushing thistledown. And the first of the bubble-weapons appeared at the surface in the form of a patch of foam. Its source--and hence the place of its appearance--could be moved. It could be shifted under any ship, though there would be a time-interval, always, before the foam at the surface was exactly above the gas-generating engine below. It could be moved to anticipate the movements of a ship. But there was always that time-lag. The _Esperance_ headed back toward the heap of monsters at the break in the reef. Other giant squids emerged and joined the pack. A plane came over and bombed it. The _Esperance_ turned away. The mine layer from Manila appeared at the horizon. The flattop made a sudden violent turn, and more foam appeared upon the water. It curled and writhed and piled up to be ten--twenty--thirty yards in height. The flattop fired a shell into it. There was a gigantic flash and flame, and for an instant there was no foam, but only peculiarly pock-marked ocean surface, instantly covered by more foam which piled up as before. "Gas," said Terry grimly. "Hydrogen. You guessed right, Deirdre!" Now the flattop shot off plane after plane, as if they were projectiles. They swung in the air and flew low to drop bombs in the now wabbling, moving, sweeping patch of white stuff. It was a huge discoloration of the ocean surface. It was almost in diameter as the flattop's length. Now the carrier dodged it warily. There were dull concussions everywhere. Giant squids writhed in death-agonies. White foam-patches appeared here and there--but somehow haphazardly--as if fumbling for the ships. One patch swept close to _La Rubia_, and that small derelict seemed to tremble. And then the fishing boat touched the very edge of the white stuff, and was engulfed in it. She vanished instantly, as if she had fallen into a hole in the sea. When the foam-patch passed on, the sea was empty. The effect of the foam, actually, was that of a gigantic, slavering, blind gullet straining to devour. It moved erratically over the surface. Terry called to Deirdre, "Have Nick tell the flattop that the foam only comes up from deep water. If they can get inside the hundred-fathom curve they're safe! Maybe even five hundred. Maybe more. But the foam only comes up from deep water!" The mine layer came on from the horizon at topmost speed. Apparently, they had received warning from the carrier, because the ship suddenly began to zig-zag. The carrier itself adopted the unpredictable change-of-course system which had been originally designed to frustrate submarines lying in wait. Both ships adopted it just in time. A ravening area of foam appeared directly before the mine layer's bow just as she turned aside. The mine layer dumped a mine. Terry saw it go overboard. But it would have five miles to sink before it hit bottom. Terry called Davis and jerkily explained that the mines would have to be armed when they went overboard--set so that they would explode when they hit bottom. He explained that depth-bombs might be useful against squids, but if they went off at a fixed depth they would be harmless against the enemy which deployed the squids. The carrier, in the middle of a ninety-degree zig-zag turn, found her bow projecting into a foam-patch. The bow sank deep. The carrier's propellers were out of the water as her bow pointed downward. Had the foam stayed still for two seconds, the carrier would have slid into the column of gigantic ascending bubbles and plunged to destruction. But the foam swerved sidewise. The carrier escaped, and was infinitely cautious after that. She made short, swift, unpredictable dashes this way and that.... Her anti-aircraft guns rumbled and rattled at things upon the surface. Presently, her depth-finder discovered an underwater extension of the island's mountain-foundation, and the ship took refuge where the water was less than a hundred fathoms deep. There she lay, shooting off planes and retrieving them, her guns flashing at whatever targets appeared. Twice, as it happened, snaky, monstrous arms flung themselves up and heaved at the flattop as if the giant squids hoped to overturn even an aircraft carrier by their weight. But those arms were blasted to nothingness. The only damage they did was that a twenty-foot section of tentacle--writhing independently on the flight-deck--broke the landing-gear of a returning plane which collided with it. The mine layer ploughed across the sea. From time to time she heaved something overboard. Nothing seemed to happen. But each mine was, nevertheless, so adjusted that it could explode any time it touched something underwater. They did not allow the usual time so that the mine layer could get away. The mine layer had ample time, because the mines had to go slowly spinning down five long miles to the bottom of the Luzon Deep. Twenty mines went down before the first one detonated. The concussion was felt on the _Esperance_, twenty-seven thousand feet up and in shallow water. Then another, and another, and another. The mine layer continued to sow her destructive seed. Far behind her, a monstrous spouting of gas and spume rose up hundreds of feet. There was another concussion, and another.... The _Esperance_ quivered, and Terry said grimly to Deirdre, "We set off five pounds of explosive down the Deep, and the bathyscaphe returned all smashed. What will the creature do now? I wish we could get some mines down to the bottom there!" Davis came up, beaming--but shaking. "The carrier's sending some planes down to drop eggs at the spot where the fish were dragged down!" he said zestfully. Gigantic, terrifying masses of gas leaped skyward where the gases released by the exploding mines finally reached the surface. The mine layer zig-zagged, and dropped a mine. She zig-zagged again, and dropped another. Presently, she took refuge beside the carrier. The _Esperance_ drove over and came to a stop between the two armed vessels. Someone shouted down by megaphone from the carrier's deck, "What happened to you? What hit your bowsprit?" Terry shouted back, "You shot those beasts. We've been wrestling with 'em!" An enormous eruption of gas.... Then the underwater ear began to emit an unprecedented sound. It was a rushing sound, but it was only vaguely like the noise of whatever had come up from the depths last Tuesday night. This was powerful beyond imagining. "Something's coming up!" roared Terry. "Better alert for a real fight now!" Deirdre said with a little gasp, "The real creatures are coming up! Terry! The ... things that come in the bolides...." He said savagely, "They've been shaken up badly by the concussions underwater. They resented five pounds of explosive! There's been four hundred pounds in every mine! If they try to fight after what they've taken down below...." The rushing sound from underwater was a loud, throbbing hum which had no relationship with the humming sound that drove fish. Two spoutings of gas from mine-explosions shot up. There were more concussions in the water. Then something broke surface. It was huge, and looked like a rocket. It leaped. No, it dashed upward, toward the sky. It flashed skyward, accelerating as it rose. Something else broke the surface and headed for the heavens. This one was globular. There were dull concussions coming from far underwater, and more rockets broke surface and shot skyward. Anti-aircraft guns were fired. Shell-bursts came close, but not close enough. Not less than twenty enormous rockets leaped out of the water and shot up toward the sky. Some observers claimed there were more than thirty. Down to southward, where the bathyscaphe had been crushed, the planes that were dropping mines reported that four other objects broke loose from the ocean and fled for empty space at speeds too great to be estimated. Terry looked suddenly astonished. "But ... of course!" he told Deirdre. "When you need high pressure, of course you've got a weakness. You can't take concussions! Anything underwater is completely vulnerable to bombs! Whatever was down there has found out that the natives--we aborigines--have a weapon they can't face. Primitive stuff. Explosives! Chemical explosives! And creatures that can travel between planets and undoubtedly have atomic power and--who knows what else--can't fight back if we drop submarine mines on them!" A last object broke surface and hurtled skyward. Behind it, deep, deep down, there was a titanic explosion. "Ah!" said Terry. "That was a time-bomb! They've gone home for good!" * * * * * A task force of a private yacht, a fishing boat, a satellite-tracking station, an airplane carrier and a mine layer had driven off an invasion of earth. But the public could not be told that the earth had been invaded. The people who had been involved in this secret adventure had to be satisfied with the realization that they had saved mankind. After a jubilant dinner Terry and Deirdre sat in the veranda. Davis came out. He blinked at the night. "Deirdre? Terry?" "Here," said Terry. Davis joined them. They had drawn apart a little. "Good news by short-wave," said Davis. "Those rockets were picked up by radar. They divided into two groups. One headed sunward. The other headed for deep space. My guess is Venus for one group and Jupiter for the other. They couldn't have come from Mars. But they've gone home. Both groups." Terry paused, and then said wryly, "Two races! Some of the bolides were bullet-shaped and some were globular. That figures. But two races capable of space travel and both in our own solar system!" Davis grimaced. "We've been talking about it. Our guess is that the Venus race developed in deep water, and therefore at high pressure. And anything that developed on the solid surface of Jupiter would also be accustomed to extremely high pressure." Terry nodded. He was not exactly absorbed in what Davis had to say. But he said suddenly, "I make a guess. They didn't want to start a colony here. The sea-bottom here is too cold to be comfortable for the beings from Venus, and far too hot to suit those from Jupiter. But both needed terrific pressure. In order to keep contact with each other, in order to do business, they could have set up a trading post here. To meet and trade. Neither one could take over the earth. When you think of it, we couldn't take over Venus or Jupiter! Maybe that's the answer!" "Eh?" said Davis. "We won't have to fight as planets," said Terry, "when we have space-ships like they do. We couldn't gain anything by fighting. All we can gain by is trade. They'll be pleased. It must have been horribly inconvenient to have to set up a trading post here on earth. There were always the natives, you know. Lately, they've noticed that we've been getting restless. We have been. I imagine that now they'll wait for us to make space-ships and start up interplanetary trade." Davis said, "Very true. There's going to be the devil of a mess, though. Morton will still have to explain the accuracy of his prediction about the bolides' landings. I suspect he'll be censured for assuming anything as unlikely as the truth has turned out to be." Terry did not answer. Deirdre was saying something, and he did not hear at all. "There are still loose ends," added Davis. "For instance, how do you suppose they controlled those squids down below? What did they use for eyesight? How the devil would Jovians and Venusians agree on a meeting place in our oceans?" Terry answered what Deirdre'd said. She smiled at him. They'd forgotten that Davis was there. 
40305	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original map. See 40305-h.htm or 40305-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40305/40305-h/40305-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40305/40305-h.zip) PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC by FRANK FOX Author of "Ramparts of Empire" London Williams & Norgate 14 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden 1912 CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE 1. THE OCEAN OF THE FUTURE 1 2. RUSSIA IN THE PACIFIC 16 3. THE RISE OF JAPAN 31 4. CHINA AND THE TEEMING MILLIONS OF ASIA 47 5. THE UNITED STATES--AN IMPERIAL POWER 66 6. GREAT BRITAIN'S ENTRY INTO THE PACIFIC 85 7. THE BRITISH CONTINENT IN THE PACIFIC 100 8. NEW ZEALAND AND THE SMALLER BRITISH PACIFIC COLONIES 120 9. THE NATIVE RACES 136 10. LATIN AMERICA 147 11. CANADA AND THE PACIFIC 165 12. THE NAVIES OF THE PACIFIC 176 13. THE ARMIES OF THE PACIFIC 186 14. TREATIES IN THE PACIFIC 199 15. THE PANAMA CANAL 216 16. THE INDUSTRIAL POSITION IN THE PACIFIC 228 17. SOME STRATEGICAL CONSIDERATIONS 245 18. THE RIVALS 263 [Illustration] PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC CHAPTER I THE OCEAN OF THE FUTURE The Pacific is the ocean of the future. As civilisation grows and distances dwindle, man demands a larger and yet larger stage for the fighting-out of the ambitions of races. The Mediterranean sufficed for the settlement of the issues between the Turks and the Christians, between the Romans and the Carthaginians, between the Greeks and the Persians, and who knows what other remote and unrecorded struggles of the older peoples of its littoral. Then the world became too great to be kept in by the Pillars of Hercules, and Fleets--in the service alike of peace and war--ranged over the Atlantic. The Mediterranean lost its paramount importance, and dominance of the Atlantic became the test of world supremacy. Now greater issues and greater peoples demand an even greater stage. On the bosom of the Pacific will be decided, in peace or in war, the next great struggle of civilisation, which will give as its prize the supremacy of the world. Shall it go to the White Race or the Yellow Race? If to the White Race, will it be under the British Flag, or the flag of the United States, or of some other nation? That is the problem of the Pacific. Since Cortes first looked on the waters of the ocean from a peak in Darien, since Balboa of Castile waded into its waters and claimed them for the dominion of the King of Castile, events have rushed forward with bewildering haste to transfer the centre of the world's interest to the Pacific. Cortes in his day looked to a North Pacific coast inhabited by a few wandering Indians. (The powerful national organisation of Mexico had not extended its influence as far as the Pacific coast.) Now there stretch along that coast the Latin-American Power of Mexico, doomed, probably, to be absorbed before the great issue of Pacific dominance is decided, but having proved under Diaz some capacity for organisation; the gigantic Power of the United States with the greatest resources of wealth and material force ever possessed by a single nation of the world; and the sturdy young Power of Canada. To the South, Cortes looked to a collection of Indian States, of which Peru was the chief, boasting a gracious but unwarlike civilisation, doomed to utter destruction at the hands of Spain. Now that stretch of Pacific littoral is held by a group of Latin-American nations, the possibilities of which it is difficult accurately to forecast, but which are in some measure formidable if Chili is accepted as a standard by which to judge, though, on the whole, they have shown so far but little capacity for effective national organisation. Looking westward, Cortes in his day could see nothing but darkness. It was surmised rather than known that there lay the Indies, the kingdoms of the Cham of Tartary and the great Mogul, lands which showed on the horizon of the imagination, half real, half like the fantasy of a mirage. To-day the west coast of the Pacific is held by the European Power of Russia; by the aspiring Asiatic Power of Japan, which within half a century has forgotten the use of the bow and the fan in warfare and hammered its way with modern weapons into the circle of the world's great Powers; by China, stirring uneasily and grasping at the same weapons which won greatness for Japan; by a far-flung advance guard of the great Power of the United States in the Philippines, won accidentally, held grimly; by England's lonely outposts, Australia and New Zealand, where less than five millions of the British race hold a territory almost as large as Europe. Sprinkled over the surface of the ocean, between East and West, are various fortresses or trading stations, defending interests or arousing cupidities. Germany and France are represented. The United States holds Hawaii, the key to the Pacific coast of North America, either for offence or defence. Great Britain has Fiji and various islets. The Japanese Power stretches down towards the Philippines with the recent acquisition of Formosa. Here are seen all the great actors in European rivalry. Added to them are the new actors in world-politics, who represent the antagonism of the Yellow Race to the White Race. Before all is dangled the greatest temptation to ambition and cupidity. Who is master of the Pacific, who has the control of its trade, the industrial leadership of its peoples, the disposal of its warrior forces, will be master of the world. It is a problem not only of navies and armies (though with our present defective civilisation these are the most important factors): it is a problem also of populations and their growth, of industries, of the development of natural resources, of trade and commerce. The Pacific littoral is in part unpeopled, in part undeveloped, unorganised, unappropriated. Its Asiatic portion must change, it is changing, from a position which may be compared with that of Japan fifty years ago to a position such as Japan's to-day. Its American and Australian portion must develop power and wealth surpassing that of Europe. Under whose leadership will the change be made? To discuss that question is the purpose of this book: and at the outset the lines on which the discussion will proceed and the conclusions which seem to be inevitable may be foreshadowed. At one time Russia seemed destined to the hegemony of the Pacific. Yet she was brought to the Pacific coast by accident rather than by design. Her natural destiny was westward and southward rather than eastward, though it was natural that she should slowly permeate the Siberian region. As far back as the reign of Ivan the Terrible (the Elizabethan epoch in Anglo-Saxon history), the curious celibate military organisation of the Cossacks had won much of Siberia for the Czars. But there was no dream then, nor at a very much later period, of penetration to the Pacific. European jealousy of Russia, a jealousy which is explainable only with the reflection that vast size naturally fills with awe the human mind, stopped her advance towards the Mediterranean. In the north her ports were useless in winter. In the south she was refused a development of her territory which was to her mind natural and just. Thus thwarted, Russia groped in a blind way from the Siberian provinces which had been won by the Cossacks towards a warm-water port in Asia. At first the movement was southward and filled England with alarm as to the fate of India. Then it turned eastward, and in Manchuria and Corea this European Power seemed to find its destiny. But Japan was able to impose an effective check upon Russian ambitions in the Far East. At the present moment Russia has been supplanted in control of the Asiatic seaboard by Japan. Japan has everything but money to equip her for a bold bid for the mastery of the Pacific before the completion of the Panama Canal. Europe has taught to Japan, in addition to the material arts of warfare, a cynical faith in the moral value, indeed, the necessity, of war to national welfare. She considers that respect is only to be gained by war: that war with a European nation is an enterprise of small risk: that in short her experience with the Russian Fleet was fairly typical of war with any European Power. She believes that she has the most thoroughly efficient army and navy, considering their size, in the world; and has much to justify the belief. This ambition and the warlike confidence of Japan constitute to-day a more important factor in the problem of the Pacific than her actual fighting strength. But the check to prompt decisive action on her part is that of poverty. Japan is very poor. The last war, in spite of great gain of prestige, brought no gain of money. Its cost bled her veins white, and there was no subsequent transfusion in the shape of a Russian indemnity. Nor are the natural resources of Japan such as to hold out much hope of a quick industrial prosperity. She has few minerals. Her soil is in the bulk wretchedly poor. From the territories control of which she has won in battle--Manchuria and Corea--she will reap some advantage by steadily ignoring the "open door" obligation in trade, and by dispossessing the native peasantry. But it cannot be very great. There is no vast natural wealth to be exploited. The native peasantry can be despoiled and evicted, but the booty is trifling and the cost of the process not inconsiderable since even the Corean will shoot from his last ditch. Japan is now seeking desperately a material prosperity by industrial expansion. A tariff and bounty system, the most rigid and scientific the world knows, aims to make the country a great textile-weaving, ship-building, iron-making country. The smallest scrap of an industry is sedulously nurtured, and Japanese matches, Japanese soap, Japanese beer, penetrate to the markets of the outer world as evidence of the ambition of the people to be manufacturers. But when one explores down to bedrock, the only real bases for industrial prosperity in Japan are a supply of rather poor coal and a great volume of cheap labour. The second is of some value in cheap production, but it is yet to be found possible to build up national prosperity on the sole basis of cheap labour. Further, with the growth of modernity in Japan, there is naturally a labour movement. Doctrines of Socialism are finding followers: strikes are heard of occasionally. The Japanese artisan and coolie may not be content to slave unceasingly on wages which deny life all comfort, to help a method of national aggrandisement the purport of which they can hardly understand. The position of Japan in the Pacific has to be considered, therefore, in the light of the future rather than of the present. At the time of the conclusion of the war with Russia it seemed supreme. Since then it has steadily deteriorated. If she had succeeded in the realisation of her ambition to undertake the direction of China's military and industrial reorganisation, the Japanese Power would have been firmly established for some generations at least. But the defects in her national character prevented that. Inspiring no confidence among the Chinese, the Japanese found all attempts at peaceful assumption of a controlling influence in China checked by sullen antipathy; and a forced assumption would not have been tolerated by Europe. It will not be found possible, on a full survey of the facts, to credit Japan with the power to hold a supreme place in the Pacific. She is, even now, among the dwindling Powers. China, on the other hand, has the possibilities of a mighty future. To-day she is in the throes of nation-birth. To-morrow she may unbind her feet and prepare to join in the race for supremacy. The bringing of China into the current of modern life will not be an easy task, but it is clearly not an impossible one. Before the outbreak of the present Revolution (which may place China among the democratic Republics of the world), the people of the Celestial Empire had begun to reconsider seriously their old attitude of intolerance towards European civilisation. To understand fully the position of China it is necessary to keep in mind the fact that the actual Chinese nation, some 400,000,000 of people, enervated as were the Peruvians of South America, by a system of theocratic and pacific Socialism, were subjected about 250 years ago to the sovereignty of the Manchus, a warrior race from the Steppes. Since then the Manchus have governed China, tyrannously, incompetently, on the strength of a tradition of military superiority stronger far than the _Raj_ by which the British have held India. But the Manchus--in numbers and in intellect far inferior to the Chinese--forgot in time their military enterprise and skill. The tradition of it, however, remained until the events of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries showed that the Manchu military power was contemptible not only against the white foreigner, but also against the Japanese _parvenu_. Patient China, finding her tyrant to be a weak despot, revolts now, not only against the Manchu dynasty, but also against the Conservatism which has kept her from emulating Japan's success in the world. At present the power of China in the Pacific is negligible. In the future it may be the greatest single force in that ocean. Almost certainly it may be reckoned to take the place of Japan as the chief Asiatic factor. Japan and China having been considered, the rest of Asia is negligible as affecting the destiny of the Pacific except in so far as India can serve as basis of action for British power. An independent Indian nation is hardly one of the possibilities of the future. Religious, racial, and caste distinctions make a united, independent India at present impossible. Unless the British Power carries too far a tendency to conciliate the talking tribes of the Hindoo peninsula at the expense of the fighting tribes, it should hold India by right of a system of government which is good though not perfect, and by reason of the impossibility of suggesting any substitute. In the event of a failure of the British Power, India would still, in all probability, fail to take a place among the great nations of the earth. Either she would fall a victim to some other nation or relapse into the condition, near to anarchy, which was hers before the coming of the Europeans. It is not possible to imagine to-day any European Power other than Great Britain--with the possible exception of Russia--becoming strongly established in the Pacific. France and Germany have footholds certainly. But in neither case is the territory held by them possible of great development, and in neither case is there a chain of strategic stations to connect the Pacific colony with the Mother Country. The despatch of the German "mailed fist" to Kiao-Chou in China some years ago is still remembered as one of the comic rather than the serious episodes of history. The squadron bearing to the Chinese the martial threat of the German Emperor had to beg its way from one British coaling station to another because of the lack of German ports. The influence of South America in the Pacific need not yet be calculated. It is a possible far-future factor in the problem; and the completion of Trans-Andine railways may quickly enhance the importance of Chili and Peru. But for the present South America can take no great part in the Pacific struggle. It is when British influence and American influence in the Pacific come to be considered that the most important factors in the contest for its supremacy enter upon the stage. Let us consider, for the nonce, the two Powers separately. The British Empire--holding Australia and New Zealand with an audacious but thin garrison; having a long chain of strategic stations such as Hong Kong and Singapore; having in India a powerful rear base for supplies; holding a great part of the North-West Coast of America with a population as yet scanty but beginning to develop on the same lines as the Australasian people--is clearly well situated to win and to hold the mastery of the Pacific. Such mastery would have to be inspired with peaceful ideals; it could not survive as an aggressive force. It is indeed the main strength of the British position in the Pacific that it is naturally anxious, not for a disturbance but for a preservation of the present state of things, which gives to the British Empire all that a reasonable ambition could require. It is wise and easy to be peaceable when one has all the best of the spoils. For a secure British mastery of the Pacific, India would need to be held with the military assistance of South Africa and Australia, and made a great naval base; Australia and New Zealand would need to be populated seriously; Canada would need to be guarded against absorption by the United States and its new population kept as far as possible to the British type; the friendship and co-operation of the United States would need to be sought. Turning next to the United States it will be recognised that she has in a realised form all the force and wealth possible to an organised China or a fully developed Australia. She has one hundred million people, who have reached the highest stage of civilised organisation. Their material wealth--and wealth counts for much in modern war--is almost incalculable. Their national ambition has never been checked by defeat. Lately it has been fed with foreign war and territorial conquest and it has found the taste good. The American people face the future possessed of all the material for a policy of aggressive Imperialism and with a splendidly youthful faith in their own good motives, a faith which can justify an action better than any degree of cynicism. There is as much of the "old Adam" in them as in the peoples of any of the "effete monarchies," and many circumstances seem to point to them as anxious to take the lead among the White Races in the future. As regards the Pacific, American ambition is clear. The United States holds the Philippines at great expense of treasure and blood. She is fortifying Honolulu, with the idea of making it a naval base "stronger than Gibraltar."[1] She is cutting the Panama Canal and fortifying the entrances with the probable purpose of giving to the United States a monopoly of that gateway in time of war. With splendid audacity the American despises secrecy in regard to his future plans. In New York Naval Yard three years ago I was informed, with an amplitude of detail that was convincing, of the United States' scheme for patrolling the whole Pacific with her warships when the Canal had been finished. Supposing, then, the United States to continue her present industrial and commercial progress; supposing her to gradually tighten her hold on the rest of the American continent; supposing her to overcome certain centrifugal forces now at work, the problem of the Pacific, should the United States decide to play a "lone hand," will be solved. It will become an American lake, probably after a terrible struggle in which the pretensions of the Yellow Races will be shattered, possibly after another fratricidal struggle in which the British possessions in the Pacific, Australia, and New Zealand, equally with Canada, will be forced to obedience. But is there any necessity to consider the United States and the British Empire as playing mutually hostile parts in the Pacific? They have been the best of friends there in the past. They have many good reasons to remain friends in the future. A discussion as to whether the Pacific Ocean is destined to be controlled by the American or by the British Power could be reasonably ended with the query: Why not by an Anglo-Celtic union representing both? An Anglo-Celtic alliance embracing Great Britain, the United States and the British Dominions, would settle in the best way the problem of the Pacific. No possible combination, Asiatic, European, or Asia-European, could threaten its position. But there are certain difficulties in the way, which will be discussed later. For the present, it has only to be insisted that both Powers are potential rather than actual masters of the Pacific. Neither in the case of Great Britain nor of the United States is a great Pacific force at the moment established. After her treaty with Japan, Great Britain abandoned for a while the idea of maintaining any serious naval strength in the Pacific. The warships she maintained there, on the Australian station and elsewhere, had no fighting value against modern armaments, and were kept in the Pacific as a step towards the scrap-heap. That policy has since been reversed, and the joint efforts of Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand directed towards re-establishing British Pacific naval strength. At the moment, however, the actual British naval force in the Pacific is inconsiderable, if obsolete or obsolescent vessels are ruled out of consideration. The United States also has no present naval force in the Pacific that could contest the issue with even a fraction of the Japanese navy. Clearly, too, she has no intention of attempting the organisation of a powerful Pacific Fleet separate from her Atlantic Fleet, but aims at the bolder policy of holding her interests in both oceans by one great Fleet which will use the Panama Canal to mobilise at an emergency in either. If the resources of the present with their probable growth in the future are taken into account, Great Britain and the United States will appear as massing enormous naval and military forces in the Pacific. The preponderance of naval force will be probably on the side of the United States for very many years--since it is improbable that Great Britain will ever be able to detach any great proportion of her Fleet from European waters and her Pacific naval force will be comprised mainly of levies from Australia and New Zealand, and possibly Canada, India, and South Africa. The preponderance of military force will be probably on the side of Great Britain, taking into count the citizen armies of Australia and New Zealand (and possibly of Canada) and the great forces available in India. Complete harmony between Great Britain and the United States in the Pacific would thus give the hegemony of the ocean to the Anglo-Saxon race. Rivalry between them might lead to another result. In the natural course of events that "other result" might be Asiatic dominion in one form or another. These factors in Pacific rivalry will be discussed in detail in the following chapters. FOOTNOTES: [1] Since the above was written it is reported that the United States has taken possession of Palmyra Island--once a British possession--to the south of Honolulu, obviously for strategic purposes. CHAPTER II RUSSIA IN THE PACIFIC Russia, for generations the victim of Asia, when at last she had won to national greatness, was impelled by pressure from the West rather than by a sense of requital to turn back the tide of invasion. That pressure from the West was due to a misunderstanding in which Great Britain led the way, and which the late Lord Salisbury happily described when he stated that England "had backed the wrong horse" in opposing Russia and in aiding Turkey against her. Russia, because she broke Napoleon's career of victory by her power of resistance, a power which was founded on a formlessness of national life rather than a great military strength, was credited by Europe with a fabulous might. Properly understood, the successful Russian resistance to the greatest of modern captains was akin to that of an earthwork which absorbs the sharpest blows of artillery and remains unmoved, almost unharmed. But it was misinterpreted, and a mental conception formed of the Russian earthwork as a mobile, aggressive force eager to move forward and to overwhelm Europe. Russia's feat of beating back the tide of Napoleonic invasion was merely the triumph of a low biological type of national organism. Yet it inspired Europe with a mighty fear. The "Colossus of the North" came into being to haunt every Chancellery. Nowhere was the fear felt more acutely than in Great Britain. It is a necessary consequence of the British Imperial expansion of the past, an expansion that came about very often in spite of the Mother Country's reluctance and even hostility, that Great Britain must now always view with distrust, with suspicion, that country which is the greatest of the European Continental Powers for the time being, whether it be France, Russia, or Germany. If British foreign policy is examined carefully it will be found to have been based on that guiding principle for many generations. Whatever nation appears to aim at a supreme position in Europe must be confronted by Great Britain. Sometimes British statesmen, following instinctively a course which was set for them by force of circumstances, have not recognised the real reason of their actions. They have imagined that there was some ethical warrant for the desire for a European "balance of power." They have seen in the malignant disposition of whatever nation was the greatest Power in Europe for the time being a just prompting to arrange restraining coalitions, to wage crippling wars. But the truth is that the British race, with so much that is desirable of the earth under its flag, with indeed almost all the good empty lands in its keeping, must be jealous of the next European Power. On the other hand, every growing Power in Europe must look with envy on the rich claim which one prospector, and that one not the earliest, has pegged out in the open fields of the world. Thus between Great Britain and the next European Power in rank there is always a mutual jealousy. The growing Power is credited with a desire to seize the rich lands of the British Empire; and generally has the desire. The holding Power is apprehensive of every step forward of any rival, seeing in it a threat to her Empire's security. There is such a thing in this world as being too rich to be comfortable. That is Great Britain's national position. Thus when the power of France was broken and Napoleon was safely shut up in St Helena, the British nation, relieved of one dread, promptly found another. Russia was credited with designs on India. She was supposed to be moving south towards the Mediterranean, and her object in seeking to be established there was obviously to challenge British naval supremacy, and to capture British overseas colonies. British diplomacy devoted itself sternly to the task of checkmating Russia. Russia, the big blundering amorphous nation, to whom England had given, some generations before, early promptings to national organisation, and who now sprawled clumsily across Europe groping for a way out of her ice-chains towards a warm-water port, became the traditional enemy of the British Empire. This idea of Russian rivalry grew to be an obsession. The melodramas of the British people had for their favourite topic the odious cruelty of Russian tyranny. If a submarine cable to a British colony were interrupted, or a quarry explosion startled the air, the colonists at once turned their thoughts to a Russian invasion, and mobilised their volunteers. Colonists of this generation can remember the thrills of early childhood, when more than once they "prepared for the Russians," and the whole force of some hundreds of volunteers and cadets determined to sell their lives dearly on the battlefield to keep Russian knouts from the backs of their womenfolk, it being seriously considered that the Russian always celebrated a victory by a general knouting. Not until the idea of Russia establishing a hegemony over Europe had been dissipated by the Russo-Japanese War did British statesmanship really discover qualities of good neighbourliness in the Russian. But by that time the main direction of Russian expansion had been definitely settled as eastward instead of southward. Perhaps this was to the ultimate advantage of civilisation, even though the decision left the Hellenic peninsula in the grip of the Turk, for it pushed the buffer territory between Europe and Asia far forward into Asia. Should an Asiatic Power, with revived militancy, ever seek again the conquest of Europe, as Asiatic Powers have done before this, the war must commence in Manchuria, and not on the plains below the Ural Mountains. The position which Russia has occupied as a buffer state between Asia and Europe has kept her back in the ranks of the army of civilisation. Not only has she had to suffer the first of the savage blows which Asian hordes have from time to time aimed at Europe, but also she has had to endure Asiatic additions to her population, reducing the standard of her race. The instinct against race-mixture which Nature has implanted in man is the great safeguard of the work of evolution to a higher type. The White Race, having developed on certain lines to a position which promises, if it does not fulfil, the evolution of a yet higher type, has an instinctive repugnance to mixing its blood with peoples in other stages of evolution. It is this instinct, this transcendental instinct, which is responsible for the objection to miscegenation in the United States, and for the lynchings by which that objection is impressed upon the negro mind. The same instinct is at the back of the "White Australia" laws, forbidding coloured people any right of entry into Australia. It is not difficult to argue from a point of view of Christian religion and humanity against an instinct which finds its extreme, but yet its logical, expression in the burning of some negro offender at the stake. But all the arguments in the world will not prevail against Nature. Once a type has won a step up it must be jealous and "selfish," and even brutal in its scorn of lower types; or must climb down again. This may not be good ethics, but it is Nature. Russian backwardness in civilisation to-day is a living proof that the scorn of the coloured man is a necessary condition of the progress of the White Man's civilisation. But the race-mixture which was of evil to Russia has been of benefit to the rest of Europe. To borrow a metaphor from modern preventive medicine, the Russian marches between Europe and Asia have had their power of resistance to Yellow invasion strengthened by the infusion of some Yellow blood. A land of high steppes, very cold in winter, very hot in summer, and of great forests, which were difficult to traverse except where the rivers had cut highways, Russia was never so tempting to the early European civilisations as to lead to her area being definitely occupied and held as a province. Neither Greek nor Roman attempted much colonisation in Russia. By general consent the country was left to be a No-Man's-Land between Asia and Europe. Alexander, whose army penetrated through to India and actually brought back news of the existence of Australia, never marched far north into the interior of Russia. There the mixed tribes of Finns, Aryans, Semites, Mongols held a great gloomy country influenced little by civilisation, but often temporarily submerged by waves of barbarians from the Asiatic steppes. Still Western Europe in time made some little impression on the Russian mass. Byzantine culture impressed its mark on the Southern Slavs; Roman culture, after filtering through Germany, reached the Lithuanians of the north. In the twelfth century we hear of Arabian caravans making their way as far as the Baltic in search of amber. But more important to the Russian civilisation was the advent of the Normans in the ninth century. They consolidated White Russia during the ninth to the thirteenth centuries, appeared as warriors before the walls of Byzantium, and learned the Christian faith from the priests of the Eastern communion. (Russia has since been faithful always to the Greek Church.) That period was rich in national heroes, such as Rurik, Simeon and Truvor, and definitely set the current of Russian national life towards a place in the European family of nations. By the thirteenth century the White Russians, with their capital established at Moscow, were able to withstand for a while a new Mongol invasion. But they could not prevent Gengis Khan's lieutenants establishing themselves on the lower Volga, and the Grand Prince of Moscow had to be content to become a suzerain of the Grand Khan of Tartary. For three centuries Russia now, amid many troubles, prepared herself to take a place amongst European Powers. She was still more or less subject to the Asiatic. But she was not Asiatic, and her vast area stood between Europe and Asia and allowed the more Western nations to grow up free from interference from any Eastern people, except in the case of the great invasion of the Turks coming up from the south-east. How great was the service that Russia unconsciously did to civilisation during those centuries! If the Tartar had come with the Turk, or had followed him, the White Races and their civilisation might have been swept away. After being the bulwark of Europe for centuries Russia at last found her strength and became the avenger of the White Races. By the sixteenth century the Russian power had been consolidated under the Muscovite Czars, and a great nation, of which the governing class was altogether European, began to push back the Asiatic. From the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries the Russian Power grew. The natural direction of expansion was southward. The new nation wanted a place in the sun, and looked longingly towards the Mediterranean. Only the Turk stood in the path, and for the Russian Czars war with the Turk had something of a religious attraction. It was the Cross against the Crescent. It was the champion of the Greek Church winning back the Byzantine Empire to Christian domination. For Russia to march south, driving the infidel from Europe, freeing the Greeks, establishing herself in Constantinople, winning warm-water ports and warm-climate fields, seemed to the Russian mind a national policy which served both God and Mammon. That it served God was no slight thing to the Russian people. They, then as now, cherished a simplicity and a strenuousness of faith which may be called "superstitious" or "beautiful and childlike" as the observer may wish, but which is undoubtedly sincere. "There has been only one Christian," wrote Heine. If he had known the Russians he would have qualified the gibe. They have a real faith, and it is an important factor in the making of their national policy which has to be taken into account. How much there was of religious impulse and how much of mere materialistic national ambition in Russia's move southward did not in the least concern other European Powers. Whatever its motive they considered the development dangerous. It threatened to give the Russian an overwhelming power, a paramountcy in Europe, and that could not be tolerated even if it had the most worthy of motives. Above all, Great Britain was alarmed. In the days of Elizabeth Great Britain had been a very good friend to Russia. But Russia was then no possible rival either on land or on the high seas. In the days of Victoria the position had changed. Russia still wore the laurels of her "victories" over Napoleon. She was credited with being the greatest military Power in the world, and credited also with a relentless and Machiavellian diplomacy that added vastly to the material resources of her armies and fleets. The Crimean War, with its resulting humiliating restrictions on Russian power in the Black Sea, taught Russia that Europe was determined to block her path south and preferred to buttress Turkish misrule than to permit Russian expansion. Baffled but still restless, Russia turned east and marched steadily towards the Pacific, with a side glance at the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, which caused Great Britain fresh apprehension as to the fate of India. The progress of the Russian Power in Asia throughout the nineteenth century and its sudden check at the dawn of the twentieth century make one of the most dramatic chapters of the world's history. European rivalry had followed Russia on her march across Siberia, and the British Power in particular was alarmed to see the "Colossus of the North" with a naval base in the Pacific. Alarm was deepened when, after reaching the waters of the Pacific, Russia turned south, again eager for a warm-water port. At the time China seemed to be on the verge of dissolution as a national entity, and it seemed as though Russia were destined to win a great Asiatic Empire beside which even India would be a poor prize. In 1885 Great Britain nearly went to war with Russia in the defence of the integrity of Corea. But the decisive check to Russia was to come from another source. The time had arrived for Asia to reassert some of her old warlike might. The island power of Japan, having shaken off the cumbrous and useless armour of medievalism, set herself sturdily in the path of modern progress and aspired to a place among the great nations of the earth. Japan saw clearly that Russia was the immediate enemy and prepared for a decisive war, with an uncanny determinedness and a scrupulous attention to every detail. Vast military and naval armaments had to be prepared. The necessary money had to be wrung from a bitterly poor population or borrowed at usurious rates. The political art with which that was done was not the least wonderful part of a great national achievement. Then--the weapons of war forged--it seemed good to Japanese statesmanship to flesh them on an easy victim. It fell to China's lot to teach the Japanese confidence in their new warlike arts, and to pay in the shape of an indemnity something towards the cost of the great struggle which Japan contemplated. Had Russia had that relentless and Machiavellian diplomacy with which she used to be credited, she would never have permitted the Japanese attack upon China. Constituting herself the champion of China, she would at one stroke have pushed back the growing power of Japan and established a claim to some suzerainty over the Celestial Empire. In carrying out her plans Japan had to take this chance, of Russia coming on top of her when she attacked China. She took the chance and won. Russia would have had to take the chance of a great European upheaval if she had interfered in the Japo-Chinese struggle. She did not take the chance, and allowed her rival to arm at China's expense to meet her. The Chinese war finished, Japan, equipped with a full war-chest, a veteran army and navy, was now ready to meet Russia. But she was faced by the difficulty that in meeting Russia she might also have to meet a European coalition, or the almost equally dangerous eventuality of a veto on the war on the part of the United States. Japan was convinced of her ability to fight Russia single-handed. Probably she would, in the last event, have decided to take the risks of any coalition and enter upon the war, since she had to fight Russia or perish as an expanding Power. But she determined in the first instance to attempt to obtain a safeguarding alliance. There are indications that Japan had in the first instance thoughts of the United States, of Germany and of Great Britain, as alternative allies. She thought of the United States because of her great financial strength, her appreciable naval power in the Pacific, and her likely value in keeping Great Britain out of the ring: of Germany because of her military power on the Russian frontier; of Great Britain because of her overwhelming naval power. Some held that Great Britain was only approached in the second place. Whether that were so or not, the British Power proved favourable. Japan was lucky in the moment of her approach. It had become obvious at that time to British statesmanship that the old ideal of "splendid isolation" was no longer tenable. The British Empire needed alliances, or at least safeguarding understandings with other nations. But it almost seemed as though the knowledge had come too late. Apparently there were no European friendships offering. Japan thus found Great Britain in a somewhat anxious mood, and an alliance was concluded between the Power which had hitherto followed a policy of splendid isolation and the _parvenu_ Power of the Far East. Japan was now all ready, and Russia was doomed to be ousted from her position as a great Power in the Pacific. A great deal of nonsense has been written and accepted as true concerning the war between Japan and Russia. Throughout the course of that war the Japanese took the best of care to put their own view of the case before the world. The "wonderful heroism," "the marvellous strategical and tactical skill," "the perfect medical and transport arrangements" of the Japanese forces received something more than their fair share of praise, because of the intelligent and perspicuous industry of the Japanese publicity agencies. The Japanese conducted a fine campaign. Their generals and admirals followed the best models in their dispositions. Both in the movements and in the sanitary regulation of the troops, the commanders were much helped by the habit of discipline of a nation inured to yield blind obedience to a god-born ruler. Still there was no inspired genius for war shown by the Japanese. Their movements were copied from the books. A well-led White army of much less strength would, I believe, have driven them ultimately from Corea into the sea. Their seeming want of power of original thought and their reliance on routine made their movements slow and flabby. They won by the inferiority of the enemy rather than by a great genius for warfare. The Russians on their side fought under the dispiriting conditions of having a well-trained enemy in front and a revolution behind. The heart of the nation was not with them, and the Russian autocracy was hampered at every turn by the internal disorders of European Russia. It seems probable that the autocracy hoped to solve in part a double problem by the mischievous ingenuity of drafting as many as possible of the discontented at home to the war abroad. That helped things in Russia, but added to the difficulties of the generals in Manchuria. Withal, the Russians put up a good fight. The early engagements were but rearguard actions, the Japanese having an enormous superiority of force, and the Russians striving to delay rather than to arrest their advance. It was not until Mukden that the single line of railway to Russia had brought General Kouropatkin a fair equality of force: and he had to contend then with the tradition of retreat which had been perforce established in his army, and with the growing paralysis of his home government confronted by a great revolutionary movement. Even so, Mukden was a defeat and not a rout. It is necessary to keep in mind these facts in order to arrive at a sound conclusion as to the future position of Russia in the Pacific. It is not safe to rule her out of the reckoning altogether. A second war, waged by a united Russia against Japan, would probably have a far different result, and would drive Japan off the Asiatic mainland were the ring to be kept clear. For the present, however, Russia is a Power with a great territory washed by the Pacific Ocean, but with no decisive voice in its destinies. CHAPTER III THE RISE OF JAPAN The misfortune of success has never been better exemplified in the world's history than in the results which have followed from the White Man's attempt to arouse Japan to an appreciation of the blessings of European civilisation. Our fathers and grandfathers of the middle nineteenth century battered at the barred and picturesque doors of the land of the Mikado with a vague idea that there was plunder, trade or some other tangible benefit to be got from dragging the quaint Yellow Recluse out of his retirement. Without a foreboding, every civilised Power that had a fighting ship and the time to spare, took some part in urging Japan to awake and be modern. A great deal of gunpowder was burned before the little Asiatic nation stirred. Then she seemed in a flash to learn the whole lesson of our combative civilisation. Naval strategy; the forging of trade-marks; military organisation; appreciation of the value of cheap labour and of machinery in industry; aseptic surgery; resolute and cunning diplomacy--all these were suddenly added to the mental equipment of an Asiatic people, and all used in reprisal against Europe. To-day Japan is the greatest warrior Power in the Pacific, and is also a powerful factor in that war for markets which is not the least important manifestation of race rivalry. As sailors, soldiers, merchants and factory hands, the Japanese are unmistakably awake. With a discipline impossible of achievement by a European race, the Japanese people pursued the methods of eclectic philosophy in their nation-making. They copied the best from the army systems of Germany and France: duplicated the British naval discipline: adopted what they thought most efficient of the industrial machinery of Europe and America, including a scientific tariff. Nothing that seemed likely to be of advantage was neglected. Even the question of religion was seriously considered, and these awakened people were at one time on the point of a simultaneous national adoption of some form of Christianity. But they were convinced on reflection that nothing of Europe's success in this world was due to religion; and, unconcerned for the moment with anything that was not of this world, decided to forbear from "scrapping" Shintoism and sending it to the rubbish heap where reposed the two-handled sword of the Sumarai.[10] This miracle of the complete transformation of a race has been accomplished in half a century. Within the memory of some living people the Japanese were content with a secluded life on their hungry islands, where they painted dainty pictures, wove quaint and beautiful fabrics, cultivated children and flowers in a spirit of happy artistry, and pursued war among themselves as a sport, with enthusiasm certainly, but without any excessive cruelty, if consideration be given to Asiatic ideas of death and the Asiatic degree of sensitiveness to torture. They were without any ideas of foreign conquest. The world had no respect for Japan then. Specimens of Japanese painting and pottery were admired by a few connoisseurs in little corners of the world (such as Bond Street, London), and that was all. Now, Japan having learned the art of modern warfare, we know also that the Japanese are great artists, great philosophers, great poets. Of a sudden a nation has jumped from being naturally chosen as the most absurd and harmless vehicle for a Gilbert satire to that of being "the honoured ally" of Great Britain, in respect to whose susceptibilities that satire should be suppressed. But our belated respect for the artistry of the Japanese gives little, if any, explanation of the miracle of their sudden transformation. The Chinese are greater artists, greater philosophers, superior intellectually and physically. They heard at an even earlier date the same harsh summons from Europe to wake up. But it was neglected, and, whatever the outcome of the revolutionary movement now progressing, the Chinese are not yet a Power to be taken into present consideration as regards the Pacific Ocean or world-politics generally. The most patient search gives no certain guidance as to the causes of Japan's sudden advance to a position amongst the world's great nations. If we could accurately determine those causes it would probably give a valuable clue to the study of the psychology of races. But the effort is in vain. An analogy is often drawn between the Japanese and the British. Except that both were island races, there are few points of resemblance. The British islands, inhabited originally by the Gauls, had their human stock enriched from time to time by the Romans, the Danes, the Teutons, the Normans. The British type, in part Celtic, in part Roman, in part Danish, in part Anglo-Saxon, in part Norman, was naturally a hard-fighting, stubborn, adventurous race fitted for the work of exploration and colonisation. But the Japanese had, so far as can be ascertained, little advantage from cross-breeding. Probably they were originally a Tartar race. The primitive inhabitants of the islands were ancestors of the Hairy Ainus, who still survive in small numbers. Like the aboriginals of Australia, the Ainus were a primitive rather than a degraded type, closely allied to the ancestors of the European races. Probably the Tartar invaders who colonised Japan came by way of Corea. But after their advent there was no new element introduced to give the human race in Japan a fresh stimulus; and that original Tartar stock, though vigorous and warlike, has never proved elsewhere any great capacity for organisation. In the sixth century of the Christian Era, Chinese civilisation and the Buddhistic religion came to the Japanese, who at the time had about the same standard of culture as the Red Indians of the American continent when the _Mayflower_ sailed. For some four centuries the Japanese island race was tributary to China, and during that time there was evolved a national religion, Shintoism, which probably represented the old Tartar faith modified by Chinese philosophy. In the eighth and subsequent centuries, Japan in its national organisation very closely resembled feudal Europe. As in Europe, there was a service tenure for the land; a system by which organised groups, or KO's, became answerable collectively for the deeds of each member of the group; and, as in feudal Europe, Church and State made rival claims to supreme power. Indiscriminate fighting between rival feudal lords, a constant strife between the Shoguns, representing the priestly power, and the Mikados, representing the civil power, make up the islands' history for century after century. Through it all there is no gleam of light on the evolution of the latent powers which were to come to maturity, as in an hour, during the nineteenth century. Japan appeared to be an average example of a semi-civilised country which would never evolve to a much higher state because of the undisciplined quarrelsomeness of its people. In the sixteenth century Europe first made the acquaintance of Japan. Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, British traders and explorers visited the country. St Francis Xavier established missions there and baptized many in the Christian faith. After two centuries of general toleration, with intervals of welcome and yet other intervals of resolute massacre, in 1741 the last of the Europeans were ordered out of the islands, the Japanese having decided that they wanted neither the religion, the trade, nor the friendship of the White Man. The same prohibitions were applied at the same time to Chinese traders. A resolute policy of exclusiveness was adopted. Japan seems to have learned absolutely nothing from her first contact with European civilisation. She settled down to the old policy of rigorous exclusiveness, and to a renewal of her tribal and religious warfare, in the midst of which, like a strange flower in a rocky cleft, flourished a dainty æstheticism. The nineteenth century thus dawned on Japan, a bitterly poor country, made poorer by the devotion of much of her energies to internal warfare and by the devotion of some of her scanty supply of good land to the cultivation of flowers instead of grain. The observer of the day could hardly have imagined more unpromising material for the making of the modern Japanese nation, organised with Spartan thoroughness for naval, military and industrial warfare. The United States in 1853 led the way in the successful attempt of White civilisation to open up trade relations with Japan. The method was rude; and it was followed by resolute offers of "friendship," backed by armed threats, from Great Britain, France, Russia and Portugal. The Japanese wanted none of them. The feeling of the people was distinctly anti-foreign. They wished to be left to their flowers and their family feuds. But the White Man insisted. In 1864 a combination of Powers forced the Straits of Shimonoseki. The Japanese were compelled by these and other outrages to a feeling of national unity. In the face of a foreign danger domestic feuds were forgotten. By 1869 Japan had organised her policy on a basis which has kept internal peace ever since (with the exception of the revolt of the Satsuma in 1884), and she had resolved on fighting out with Russia the issue of supremacy in the Pacific. Within a quarter of a century the new nation had established herself as a Power by the sensational defeat, on land and sea, of China. The Peace of Shimonoseki extended her territory to Formosa and the Pescadores, and filled her treasury with the great war indemnity of £57,000,000. She then won, too, a footing on the Asiatic mainland, but was for the time being cheated of that by the interference of Europe, an interference which was not repeated when, later, having defeated Russia in war and having won an alliance with Great Britain, she finally annexed Corea. From the Peace of Shimonoseki in 1895 the progress of Japan has been marvellous. In 1900 she appeared as one of the civilised Powers which invaded China with a view to impress upon that Empire the duty a semi-civilised Power owed to the world of maintaining internal order. In 1902 she entered into a defensive and offensive alliance with Great Britain, by which she was guaranteed a ring clear from interference on the part of a European combination in the struggle with Russia which she contemplated. The treaty was a triumph of diplomatic wisdom. Appearing to get little, Japan in real truth got all that her circumstances required. A treaty binding Great Britain to come to her aid in any war would have been hopeless to ask for, and not very useful when obtained, for the Japanese attack on Russia might then have been the signal for a general European war in which possibly a European combination would have crippled Great Britain and then turned its united attention to the destruction of Japan's nascent power. A treaty which kept the ring clear for a single-handed struggle with Russia was better than that risk. In return Japan gave nothing in effect except a pledge to make war on her own immediate enemy, Russia, for the assistance of Great Britain if necessity arose. The conditions created by the Anglo-Japanese treaty of 1902 developed naturally to the Battle of Mukden, the culminating point of a campaign in which for the first time for many years the Yellow Race vanquished the White Race in war. That Battle of Mukden not only established Japan's position in the world. It made the warlike awakening of China inevitable, and restored to the daylight again the long-hidden yet always existing arrogance of Asia. Asia has ever nurtured an insolence beside which any White Race pride is insignificant. That fact is made patent during recurring epochs of history. The Persian Darius sent to the Greeks for earth and water, symbols to acknowledge that "Persia ruled the land and the oceans." The Huns later looked upon the White Men whom they conquered as something lower than animals. The Turks, another great Asiatic race to war against Europe, could compare the White Man only to that unclean beast, the dog. The first European ambassadors who went to China were forced to crawl with abject humility to the feet of the Chinese dignitaries. In his secret heart--of which the European mind knows so little--the Asiatic, whether he be Japanese, Chinese, or Indian, holds a deep disdain for the White. The contempt we feel for them is returned more than one hundredfold. Mukden brought that disdain out of its slumber. The battle was therefore an event of history more important than any since the fall of Constantinople. For very many years the European hegemony had been unquestioned. True, as late as 1795, Napoleon is credited with having believed that the power of the Grand Turk might be revived and an Ottoman suzerainty of Europe secured. But it was only a dream; more than half a century before that the doom of the Turk, who had been the most serious foe to Christian Europe, was sealed. From 1711 to 1905, whatever questions of supremacy arose among the different European Powers, there was never any doubt as to the superiority of the European race over all coloured races. The White Man moved from one easy conquest to another. In Asia, India, China, Persia and Japan were in turn humbled. Africa was made the slave-farm of the White Race. Now in the twentieth century at Mukden the White Race supremacy was again challenged. It was a long-dormant though not a new issue which was thus raised. From the times beyond which the memory of man does not stretch, Asia had repeatedly threatened Europe. The struggle of the Persian Empire to smother the Greek republics is the first of the invasions which has been accurately recorded by historians; but probably it had been preceded by many others. The waves of war that followed were many. The last was the Ottoman invasion in the fourteenth century, which brought the banners of Asia right up to the walls of Vienna, swept the Levant of Christian ships, and threatened even the Adriatic; and which has left the Turk still in the possession of Constantinople. But by the beginning of the eighteenth century the fear of the Turks gaining the mastery of Europe had practically disappeared, and after then the Europeans treated the coloured races as subject to them, and their territories as liable to partition whenever the method of division among rival White nations could be agreed upon. Mukden made a new situation. The European Powers were prompt to recognise the fact. Doubt even came to Great Britain whether the part she had played as foster-mother to this Asiatic infant of wonderful growth had been a wise one. A peace was practically forced upon Japan, a peace which secured for her at the moment nothing in the way of indemnity, but little in the way of territorial rights, and not even the positive elimination of her enemy from the Asiatic coast. True, she has since won Corea on the basis of that peace and has made secure certain suzerain rights in Manchuria, but this harvest had to be garnered by resolute diplomacy and by maintaining a naval and military expenditure after the war which called for an extreme degree of self-abnegation from her people. If the present position of affairs could be accepted as permanent, there would be no "problem of the Pacific." That ocean would be Japan's home-water. Holding her rugged islands with a veteran army and navy; so established on the mainland of Asia as to be able to make a flank movement on China; she is the one "Power in being" of the Pacific littoral. But as already stated, the verdict of the war with Russia cannot be taken as final. And soon the United States will come into the Pacific with overwhelming force on the completion of the Panama Canal--an event which is already foreshadowed in a modification of the Anglo-Japanese treaty to relieve Great Britain of the possible responsibility of going to war with America on behalf of Japan. The permanence of the Japanese position as the chief Power of the Pacific cannot therefore be presumed. The very suddenness with which her greatness has been won is in itself a prompting to the suspicion that it will not last. It has been a mushroom growth, and there are many indications that the forcing process by which a Power has been so quickly raised has exhausted the culture bed. In the character of her population Japan is in some respects exceedingly rich. The events of the past few years have shown them to possess great qualities of heroism, patience and discipline. But they have yet to prove that they possess powers of initiative, without which they must fail ultimately in competition with peoples who make one conquest over Nature a stepping-stone to another. And it is not wholly a matter of race prejudice that makes many observers view with suspicion the "staying power" of the character of a nation which thinks so differently from the average European in matters of sex, in commercial honesty, and in the obligations of good faith. Many of those who have travelled in the East, or have done business with Japan, profess a doubt that an enduring greatness can be built upon a national character which runs contrary in most matters to our accepted ideas of ethics. They profess to see in the present greatness of achievement marking Japanese national life a "flash in the pan"--the astonishing precocity and quickness of progress of that type of doomed infant which quickly flowers and quickly fades in the European slums and which is known as "The Mongol" to medical science because of a facial peculiarity which identifies it infallibly. "The Mongol" of European child-life comes to an astonishingly early maturity of brain: its smartness is marvellous. But it is destined always to an early end from an ineradicable internal weakness which is, in some strange way, the cause of its precocious cleverness. Whether the Japanese cleverness and progressiveness will last or not, the nation has to be credited with them now as a live asset. But apart from the national character the nation possesses little of "natural capital." There is practically no store of precious metals; a poor supply of the useful minerals; small area of good land; and the local fisheries have been exploited with such energy for many generations that they cannot possibly be expanded in productivity now. The statesmen of New Japan have certainly won some overseas Empire as an addition to the resources available for a sound fabric of national greatness. But what has been won is quite insufficient to weigh in the scale against the "natural capital" of almost any of Japan's rivals in the Pacific. For want of territory to colonise under her own flag, Japan has lost many subjects to alien flags. Japanese settlements of some strength exist on the Pacific coast of America, in the Hawaiian Islands, and in parts of China. There is little doubt that Japanese policy has hoped that in some cases at least her flag would follow her nationals. Talk, not all of it quite irresponsible, has credited Japan with definite designs on many Pacific settlements, especially the Hawaiian Group where her nationals to-day outnumber any other single element of the population. But there are now no islands or territories without a protecting flag. Even when, as was said to be the case with Mexico and another Latin-American country, a weak and friendly nation seems to offer the chance of annexation of territory following a peaceable penetration, there is the power of the United States to interpose a veto. Japan thus cannot add to her natural resources without a war; and she has not, it would seem, sufficient natural resources to back up a war with the enemies she would have to meet now in the Pacific. If she were to put aside dreams of conquest and Empire, has Japan a sound future in the Pacific as a thriving minor manufacturing and trading power? I must say that it seems to me doubtful. The nation has drunk of the wine of life and could hardly settle down to a humdrum existence. No peaceable policy could allow of a great prosperity, for the reasons of natural poverty already stated. It would be a life of drudgery without the present dream of glory. To study the Japanese emigrant away from his own country is to understand that he has not the patience for such a life. In British Columbia, in California, in Hawaii, the same conclusion is come to by European fellow-residents, that the Japanese worker is arrogant, unruly, unreliable. In Japan itself there are signs that the industrial population will not tolerate for ever a life of very poor living and very hard working if there is not a definite and immediate benefit of national glory promised. The position of Japan in the Pacific seems to me, then, that she cannot reasonably expect to win in a struggle for its mastery: and yet that she will inevitably be forced to enter into that struggle. A recent report in a Tokio paper stated: "At a secret session of the Budget Commission on February 3, Baron Saito, Minister of Marine, declared that the irreducible minimum of naval expansion was eight battleships of the super-Dreadnought class, and eight armoured cruisers of the same class, which must be completed by 1920, construction being begun in 1913. The cost is estimated at £35,000,000." And the paper (_Asahi Shimbun_) went on to hint at the United States as the Power which had to be confronted. That is only one of very many indications of Japanese national feeling. She has gone too far on the path to greatness to be able to retire safely into obscurity. She must "see it through." Feats of strength far nearer to the miraculous than those which marked her astonishing victory over Russia would be necessary to give Japan the slightest chance of success in the next struggle for the hegemony of the Pacific. FOOTNOTES: [10] Since writing the above, the Japanese Government has revived in a modified form the proposal for a State adoption, in part at least, of the Christian religion. A communication to the Japanese Press on 20th January 1912 from the Minister for Home Affairs stated:--"In order to bring about an affiliation of the three religions, it is necessary to connect religion with the State more closely, so as to give it (religion) added dignity, and thus impress upon the public the necessity of attaching greater importance to religious matters. The culture of national ethics can be perfected by education combined with religion. At present moral doctrines are inculcated by education alone, but it is impossible to inculcate firmly fair and upright ideas in the minds of the nation unless the people are brought into touch with the fundamental conception known as God, Buddha, or Heaven, as taught in the religions. It is necessary, therefore, that education and religion should go hand in hand to build up the basis of the national ethics, and it is, therefore, desirable that a scheme should be devised to bring education and religion into closer relations to enable them to promote the national welfare. All religions agree in their fundamental principles, but the present-day conceptions of morals differ according to the time and place and according to the different points of view. It is ever evolving. It may, therefore, be necessary for Shintoism and Buddhism to carry their steps towards Western countries. Christianity ought also to step out of the narrow circle within which it is confined, and endeavour to adapt itself to the national sentiments and customs, and to conform to the national polity in order to ensure greater achievements. Japan has adopted a progressive policy in politics and economics in order to share in the blessings of Western civilisation. It is desirable to bring Western thought and faith into harmonious relationship with Japanese thought and faith in the spiritual world." This proposal to change in one act the religion of a nation "to ensure greater achievements" will perhaps do something to support the contention, which will be put forward later, that a nation which takes such a curious view of life is not capable of a real and lasting greatness, however wonderful may be its feats of imitation. CHAPTER IV CHINA AND THE TEEMING MILLIONS OF ASIA China is potentially the greatest Power on the western littoral of the Pacific. Her enormous territory has vast agricultural and mineral resources. Great rivers give easy access to some of the best of her lands. A huge population has gifts of patient labour and craftsmanship that make the Chinaman a feared competitor by every White worker in the world. In courage he is not inferior to the Japanese, as General Gordon found. In intelligence, in fidelity and in that common sense which teaches "honesty to be the best policy," the Chinaman is far superior to the Japanese. The Chinaman has been outstripped up to the present by the Japanese in the acquirement of the arts of Western civilisation, not because of his inferior mind, but because of his deeper disdain. He has stood aside from the race for world supremacy on modern lines, not as one who is too exhausted for effort, but as one who is too experienced to try. China has in the past experimented with many of the vaunted ideas and methods of the new civilisation, from gunpowder to a peerage chosen by competitive examination, and long ago came to the conclusion that all was vanity and vexation of spirit. The Chinaman is not humble; not content to take an inferior place in the world. He has all the arrogance of Asia. The name of "Heavenly Kingdom" given to the land by its inhabitants, the grandiose titles assumed by its rulers, the degrading ceremonies which used to be exacted from foreigners visiting China as confessions of their inferiority to the Celestial race, show an extravagant pride of birth. In the thirteenth century, when Confucian China, alike with Christian Europe, had to fear the growing power of the fanatical Mohammedans, a treaty of alliance was suggested between France and China: and the negotiations were broken off because of the claim of China that France should submit to her as a vassal, by way of preliminary. The Chinaman's idea of his own importance has not abated since then. His attitude towards the "foreign devils" is still one of utter contempt. But at present that contempt has not the backing of naval and military strength, and so in practice counts for nothing. China cherishes the oldest of living civilisations. Her legendary history dates back to 2404 B.C., her actual history to 875 B.C., when a high state of mental culture had been reached, and a very advanced material civilisation also; though some caution is necessary in accepting the statements that at that time China made use of gunpowder, of the mariner's compass, and of printing type. But certainly weaving, pottery, metal-working, and pictorial art flourished. The noble height to which philosophy had reached centuries before the Christian Era is shown by the records of Confucianism and Taoism. Political science had been also cultivated, and there were then Chinese Socialists to claim that "everyone should sow and reap his own harvest." There seem to have been at least two great parent races of the present population of the Chinese Empire--a race dwelling in the valleys and turning its thoughts to peace and the arts, and a race dwelling on the Steppes and seeking joy in war. It was the Tartar and Mongol tribes of the Steppes which sent wave after wave of attack westward towards Europe, under chiefs the greatest of whom was Gengis Khan. But it was the race of the valleys, the typical Chinese, stolid, patient, laborious, who established ultimate supremacy in the nation, gradually absorbing the more unruly elements and producing modern China with its contempt for military glory. But the Mongols by their wars left a deep impression on the Middle Ages, founding kingdoms which were tributary to China, in Persia, Turkestan and as far west as the Russian Volga. The earliest record of European relations with China was in the seventh century, when the Emperor Theodosius sent an embassy to the Chinese Emperor. In the thirteenth century Marco Polo visited the Court of the Grand Khan at Pekin, and for a while fairly constant communication between Europe and China seems to have been maintained, the route followed being by caravan across Asia. Christian missionaries settled in China, and in 1248 there is a record of the Pope and the Grand Khan exchanging greetings. When towards the end of the fourteenth century the Ming dynasty supplanted the Mongol dynasty, communication with Europe was broken off for more than a century. But in 1581 Jesuit missionaries again entered China, and the Manchu dynasty of the seventeenth century at first protected the Christian faith and seemed somewhat to favour Western ideas. But in the next century the Christian missions were persecuted and almost extirpated, to be revived in 1846. Since that date "the mailed fist" of Europe has exacted from the Chinese a forced tolerance of European trade and missions. But Chinese prejudice against foreign intrusion was given no reason for abatement by the conduct of the European Powers, as shown, for example, in the Opium War of 1840. That prejudice, smouldering for long, broke out in the savage fanaticism of the Boxer outbreak of 1900, which led to a joint punitive expedition by the European Powers, in conjunction with Japan. China had the mortification then of being scourged not only by the "white devils" but also by an upstart Yellow Man, who was her near and her despised neighbour. All China that knew of the expedition to Pekin of 1900 and understood its significance, seems to have resolved then on some change of national policy involving the acceptance of European methods, in warfare at least. Responding to the stimulus of Japan's flaunting of her success in acquiring the ways of the European, China began to consider whether there was not after all something useful to be learned from the Western barbarians. The older Asiatic country has a deep contempt for the younger: but proof of Japan's superior position in the world's estimation had become too convincing to be disregarded. China saw Japan treated with respect, herself with contumely. She found herself humiliated in war and in diplomacy by the upstart relative. The reason was plain, the conclusion equally plain. China began to arm and lay the foundations of a modern naval and military system. The national spirit began to show, too, in industry. Chinese capital claimed its right and its duty to develop the resources of China. Early in the twentieth century "modern ideas" had so far established themselves in China that Grand Councillor Chang Chih-tung was able, without the step being equivalent to suicide, to memorialise the Throne with these suggestions for reform:-- 1. That the Government supply funds for free education. 2. That the Army and Navy be reorganised without delay. 3. That able and competent officials be secured for Government services. 4. That Princes of the blood be sent abroad to study. 5. That arsenals for manufacturing arms, ammunition, and other weapons of war, and docks and shipbuilding yards for constructing warships, be established without delay. 6. That only Chinese capital be invested in railway and mining enterprises. 7. That a date be given for the granting of a Constitution. Chang Chih-tung may be taken as the representative of the new school of Chinese thought. His book _Chuen Hsueh Pien_ (China's Only Hope) is the Bible of the moderate reformers. He states in that book:-- "In order to render China powerful, and at the same time preserve our own institutions, it is absolutely necessary that we should utilise Western knowledge. But unless Chinese learning is made the basis of education, and a Chinese direction given to thought, the strong will become anarchists, and the weak slaves. Thus the latter end will be worse than the former.... Travel abroad for one year is more profitable than study at home for five years. It has been well said that seeing is a hundred times better than hearing. One year's study in a foreign institution is better than three years in a Chinese. Mencius remarks that a man can learn foreign things best abroad; but much more benefit can be derived from travel by older and experienced men than by the young, and high mandarins can learn more than petty officials.... Cannot China follow the _viam mediam_, and learn a lesson from Japan? As the case stands to-day, study by travel can be better done in that country than in Europe, for the following reasons.... If it were deemed advisable, some students could afterwards be sent to Europe for a fuller course." After the Russian-Japanese War Chinese students went to Japan in thousands, and these students laid the foundation of the Republican school of reformers which is the greatest of the forces striving for mastery in China to-day. The flow of students to Japan was soon checked by the then Chinese Government, for the reason that Republican sentiments seemed to be absorbed in the atmosphere of Japan, despite the absolutism of the Government there. In the United States and in Europe the Chinese scholar was able, however, to absorb Western knowledge without acquiring Republican opinions! There is some suggestion of a grim jest on the part of the Chinese in holding to this view. It recalls Boccaccio's story of the Christian who despaired of the conversion of his Jewish friend when he knew that he contemplated a visit to Rome. The Chinese seemed to argue that a safe precaution against acquiring Republican views is to live in a Republican country. Chinese confidence in the educational advantages offered by the United States has been justified by results. American-educated Chinese are prominent in every phase of the Reform movement in China, except Republican agitation. The first Reform Foreign Minister in China, the first great native Chinese railway builder, the first Chinese women doctors, the greatest native Chinese banker, are examples of American training. It would be outside the scope of this work to attempt to deal in any way exhaustively with the present position in China. What the ultimate outcome will be, it is impossible to forecast. At present a Republic is in process of formation, after the baby Emperor through the Dowager Empress had promulgated an edict stating: "We, the Emperor, have respectfully received the following Edict from her Majesty the Dowager: "In consequence of the uprising of the Republican Army, to which the people in the Provinces have responded, the Empire seethed liked a boiling cauldron, and the people were plunged in misery. Yuan Shih-kai, therefore, commanded the despatch of Commissioners to confer with the Republicans with a view to a National Assembly deciding the form of government. Months elapsed without any settlement being reached. It is now evident that the majority of the people favour a Republic, and, from the preference of the people's hearts, the will of Heaven is discernible. How could we oppose the desires of millions for the glory of one family? Therefore, the Dowager Empress and the Emperor hereby vest the sovereignty in the people. Let Yuan Shih-kai organise with full powers a provisional Republican Government, and let him confer with the Republicans on the methods of establishing a union which shall assure the peace of the Empire, and of forming a great Republic, uniting Manchus, Chinese, Mongols, Mohammedans, and Tibetans." But all men whom I have met who have had chances of studying Chinese conditions at first hand, agree that the Chinese national character is not favourable to the permanent acceptance of Republican ideas. If there is one thing which seems fixed in the Chinese character it is ancestor-worship, and that is essentially incompatible with Republicanism.[3] But what seems absolutely certain is that a new China is coming to birth. Slowly the great mass is being leavened with a new spirit. Now a new China, armed with modern weapons, would be a terrible engine of war. A new China organised to take the field in modern industry would be a formidable rival in neutral markets to any existing nation. The power of such a new China put at the disposal of Japan could at least secure all Asia for the Asiatics and hold the dominant position in the Northern Pacific. Possibly it could establish a world supremacy, unless such a Yellow union forced White Races to disregard smaller issues and unite against a common foe. Fortunately a Chinese-Japanese alliance is not at present in the least likely. The Chinese hatred of the Japanese is of long standing and resolute, though it is sometimes dissembled. The Japanese have an ill-concealed contempt for the Chinese. Conflict is more likely than alliance between the two kindred races. Further, the Chinese will probably move far more slowly on any path of aggression than did the Japanese, for they are intensely pacific. For many generations they have been taught to regard the soldier as contemptible, the recluse scholar as admirable. Ideas of overseas Empire on their part are tempered by the fanatic wish of every Chinaman that his bones should rest in his native land. It will only be in response to enormous pressure that China will undertake a policy of adventure. That pressure is now being engendered from within and without. From without it is being engendered by insolent robberies of territory and other outrages on the part of foreign Powers. More particularly of late has the modern arrogance of Japan impressed upon the old-fashioned arrogance of China the fact that the grave scholar, skilled in all the lore of Confucius, is a worthless atom beside a drilled coolie who can shoot straight. From within the pressure is being engendered by the great growth of population. For some time past infanticide has been common in China as a Malthusian check. Now European missionaries seek to discourage that. European medicine further sets itself to teach the Yellow Man to cope with plague, smallpox, and cholera, while European engineering abates the terrors of flood and of crop failure. Machiavelli would have found prompting for some grim aphorism in this curious eagerness of Europe to teach the teeming millions of Asia to rid themselves of checks on their greater growth, and thus to increase the pressure of the Asiatic surplus seeking an outlet at the expense of Europe. It is in respect to the urgent demand for room for an overcrowding population that there exists alike to China and Japan the strongest stimulus to warlike action in the Pacific. China in particular wants colonies, even if they be only such colonies as provide opportunities for her coolies to amass enough wealth to return in old age to China. From the fertile basin of China there have been overflow waves of humanity ever since there has been any record of history. Before the era of White settlement in the Pacific the Chinese population had pushed down the coast of Asia and penetrated through a great part of the Malay Archipelago, an expansion not without its difficulties, for the fierce Malay objected to the patient Chinaman and often the Chinaman remained to fertilise but not to colonise the alien soil. By some Providential chance neither the Chinaman nor the Japanese ever reached to Australia in the early days of the Pacific, though there are records of Japanese fishermen getting as far as the Hawaiian Group, a much more hazardous journey. If the Asiatics had reached Australia the great island would doubtless have become the southern province of Asia, for its native population could have offered no resistance to the feeblest invader. In the past, however, the great natural checks kept the Asiatic populations within some limits. Internal wars, famines, pestilences, infanticide--all claimed their toll. Nature exercised on man the checks which exist throughout the whole animal kingdom, and which in some regions of biology are so stern that it is said that only one adult survives of 5,000,000 spawn of a kind of oyster. Now European influence is steadily directed in Asia to removing all obstacles to the growth of population. When the Asiatics wish to fight among themselves Europe is inclined to interfere (as at the time of the Boxer outbreak in China), on the ground that a state of disorder cannot be tolerated. In India internecine warfare is strictly prohibited by the paramount Power. In Japan all local feuds have been healed by pressure from Europe and America, and the fighting power of the people concentrated for external warfare. Not alone by checking internal warfare does Europe insist on encouraging the growth of the Asiatic myriads. European science suggests railways, which make famine less terrible; flood prevention works which save millions of lives. European moralists make war on such customs as the suicide of young widows and the exposure for death of female children. But, far more efficacious than all, European scientists come forward to teach to the Asiatics aseptic surgery, inoculation, and the rest of the wisdom of preventive and curative medicine. Sometimes Nature is stronger than science. The Plague, for instance, still claims its millions. But even the Plague diminishes before modern medical science. In his _Health and Empire_ (1911), Dr Francis Fremantle tells of the campaign against plague in India. He writes: "The death-rate from plague in 1904 in the Lahore and Amritsar districts in which I worked was 25 per 1000. Over 1,000,000 Indians died of plague in 1904, over 1,000,000 in 1905; in 1906, 332,000, and it was thought the end was in sight. But 640,000 died in the first four months of 1907; in 1908, 321,000 died; in 1909 only 175,000, but in 1910 again very nearly 500,000, and this year more than ever. The United Provinces had barely been reached by the epidemic in 1904; now with a population equal to that of the United Kingdom, they have been losing 20,000 every week; and the Punjab 34,000 in one week, 39,000, 47,000, 54,000, 60,000 and so on--over 430,000 in the first four months of this year in a population of 25,000,000. Imagine Great Britain and Ireland losing the same proportion--over 1,000,000 from plague in half a year. And India as a whole has in fifteen years lost over 7,000,000 from plague. Why wonder at her unrest? "What, then, can the Government do? Extermination of rats is impossible; disinfection on a large scale is impracticable; evacuation of villages cannot be done voluntarily on any universal scale; the Government will not apply compulsion, and such evacuation is quite useless without a rigid cordon of police or military that will prevent communication between one infected village and others not yet infected. A cordon, it has been proved over and over again, cannot be maintained; the native who wishes to pass it has only to present some official with a cautious rupee. Extermination of rats in an Asiatic country has often failed; but here is without a shadow of doubt the key to the problem. The methods formerly adopted had been to give a capitation grant for every rat brought to the appointed place, and before long it was found, for instance in Bombay, that an extensive trade had grown up in the breeding of rats, whereby, at a few annas apiece from the Government, many families were able to sustain a comfortable existence.... But since sentence on the rat-flea has been pronounced for the murder of 7,000,000 persons and over, the best method for his extermination will not be far off. "It is often debated whether even half-measures are worth being continued. Professor W. J. Simpson, in his exhaustive monograph on the plague, and in 1907 in his _Croonian Lectures_, has shown how in history epidemics of plague have come and gone in different countries with long intervals between them, often of one hundred and thirty to one hundred and fifty years. In the eighteenth century, for instance, India seems to have been almost free of the plague, but early in the seventeenth century it suffered severely. The present epidemic is assuming, as far as we can trust previous records, unprecedented proportions; probably after a few years it will die out again. "An occasional cynic may argue that, since we have saved so many thousands of lives annually from famine and wars, it may be just as well to let the plague take their place. To such a pessimistic and inhuman conclusion it is impossible for one moment to submit. It may be that for economic reasons some parts of the Indian Empire would be happier if their population were less dense; but it does not follow that we should allow Death to stalk uninterrupted, unopposed, and apparently without limit, throughout the country. Economics apart, we may yet be absolutely convinced, whether as doctors or as statesmen, that it is our mission, our duty, to protect the populations included under British rule to the best of our ability against every scourge as it may arise; and therefore it is urgent that such measures as we have be pushed forward with the utmost vigour." That tells (in a more convincing way, because of the impatience of the doctor, accustomed to European conditions, at the slow result of work in India) how resolute is the White Man's campaign against the Yellow Man's death-rate in one part of Asia. Such a campaign in time must succeed in destroying the disease against which it is directed and thus adding further to the fecundity of Asia. Nor is the fight against diseases confined to those parts of Asia under direct White rule. The cult of White medicine spreads everywhere, carried by Japanese as well as by European doctors and missionaries. Its effects already show in the enormous increase of Asiatic population, proved wherever definite figures are available. That growth adds year by year to the danger that the Yellow Man will overrun the Pacific and force the White Man to a second place in the ocean's affairs, perhaps not even leaving him that. An older and sterner school of thought would have condemned as fatuous the White Races' humanitarian nurture of the Yellow Races. But the gentler thought of to-day will probably agree with Dr Fremantle that the White Man cannot "allow Death to stalk uninterrupted, unopposed" even through the territory of our racial rivals. But we must give serious thought to the position which is thus created, especially in view of the "levelling" racial tendency of modern weapons of warfare. China has a population to-day, according to Chinese estimates, of 433,000,000; according to an American diplomatist's conclusions, of not much more than half that total. But it is, without a doubt, growing as it never grew before; and modern reform ideas will continue to make it grow and render the menace of its overflow more imminent. At present the trend of thought in China is pacific. But it is not possible to be sure that there will not be a change in that regard with the ferment of new ideas. The discussion to-day of a Republic in China, of womanhood suffrage in China, of democratic socialism in China, suggests that the vast Empire, which has been for so long the example of conservative immobility most favoured by rhetoricians anxious to illustrate a political argument, may plunge into unexpected adventures. China has in the past provided great invaders of the world's peace. She may in the near future turn again to the thoughts of military adventure. The chance of this would be increased if in the settlement of her constitutional troubles a long resort to arms were necessary. Then the victorious army, whether monarchical or Republican, might aspire to win for a new China recognition abroad. It is a fortunate fact that supposing a revival of militancy in China, a revival which is possible but not probable, the first brunt of the trouble would probably fall upon Japan. At the present moment Japan is the most serious offender against China's national pride. As the conqueror of Corea and the occupier of Manchuria, she trespasses most of all foreign Powers on the territories and the rights of China. After Japan, Russia would have to expect a demand for a reckoning; Great Britain would come third and might come into collision with an aggressive China, either because of the existence of such settlements as Hong Kong or because of the Thibetan boundary. A China in search of enemies, however, would find no lack of good pretexts for quarrelling. There are, for instance, the offensive and humiliating restrictions on Chinese immigration of the United States, of Canada, New Zealand and Australia. I find it necessary, however, to conclude that so far as the near future is concerned, China will not take a great warrior part in the determining of Pacific issues. She may be able to enforce a more wholesome respect for her territorial integrity: she may push away some intruders: she may even insist on a less injurious and contemptuous attitude towards her nationals abroad. But she will not, I think, seek greatness by a policy of aggression. There is no analogy between her conditions and those of Japan at the time of the Japanese acceptance of European arts and crafts. Japan at the time was a bitterly quarrelsome country: she turned from civil to foreign war. China has been essentially pacific for some centuries. Japan was faced at the outset of her national career with the fact that she had to expand her territory or else she could not hope to exist as a great Power. China has within her own borders all that is necessary for national greatness. If at a later date the Chinese, either from a too-thorough study of the lore of European civilisation, or from the pressure of a population deprived of all Malthusian checks and thus finding an outlet absolutely necessary, should decide to put armies and navies to work for the obtaining of new territory, the peril will be great to the White Man. Such a Chinese movement could secure Asia for the Asiatics, and might not stop at that point. But that danger is not of this decade, though it may have to be faced later by the White Power which wins the supremacy of the Pacific. FOOTNOTES: [3] A very clear statement as to the position in China was that given in London during January of 1912 by Mr Kwei Chih, a secretary of the Chinese Legation. "None of the dynasties in China," he said, "has ever maintained a tyrannical _régime_ for any length of time, least of all the Manchu dynasty, the policy of which has consisted rather of a mixture of paternalism and obscurantism than of hard repression of the people.... The present unanimous desire of the Chinese to remove the Manchu dynasty arises solely from the fact that the Chinese have fully awakened to the realisation that only a policy of thoroughgoing Westernisation can save China from disruption and partition. The removal of the Manchu dynasty is of no greater national moment to China than would be the fall of a Cabinet to any European country. Personal animus enters, indeed, so little into the determination of the new Chinese _régime_ that the question of setting apart lands for the deposed dynasty, and even of granting it ex-territorial privileges, may eventually be accepted in the way of a solution. In regard to the adoption of Republican ideas, it may be said that the Chinese statesman does not understand the meaning of the Republican principle, and if a new _régime_ should declare itself Republican, its Republicanism will be of a much more strongly democratic type than any known to Europe. It will even be more popular in its constitution than the American, and will far more fully seek the development of the common weal than most bureaucratic systems bearing the name. The suggested application of Christian principles to the new _régime_ may be regarded as wholly impossible. Confucianism, by which China stands or falls, is a secular philosophy, the only semblance of a spiritual or religious tenet in which is the principle of ancestor-worship, and though a theocratic idea is admitted in the creation of the universe, the question of a life hereafter is wholly excluded from its teachings." CHAPTER V THE UNITED STATES--AN IMPERIAL POWER Following the map of the North-Western Pacific littoral, the eye encounters, on leaving the coast of China, the Philippine Islands, proof of the ambition of the United States to hold a place in the Pacific. It is a common fallacy to ascribe to the United States a Quakerish temperament in foreign affairs. Certain catch-words of American local politics have been given a fictitious value, both at home and abroad. "Republican Simplicity," "The Rights of Man," "European Tyranny," "Imperial Aggression," "The Vortex of Militarism"--from these and similar texts some United State publicists are wont to preach of the tyranny of European kings and emperors; of their greed to swallow up weak neighbours; and of the evils of the military and naval systems maintained to gratify such greed. By much grandiose assertion, or by that quiet implication which is more complete proof of a convinced mind than the most grandiose of assertion, the American nation has been pictured in happy contrast to others, pursuing a simple and peaceful life; with no desire for more territory; no wish to interfere with the affairs of others; in the world, but not of the world. Astonishment that such professions should carry any weight at all in the face of the great mass of facts showing that the American national temper is exactly the reverse of Quakerish, is modified in the political student by the fact that it is the rule for nations as well as individuals to be judged in the popular estimation by phrases rather than by facts. Ignoring the phrases of politicians and considering only the facts, it will be found that the American people have Imperial ambitions worthy of their ancestry and inseparable from the responsibility towards civilisation which their national greatness involves. It was in the middle of the eighteenth century that the United States began national housekeeping within a small territory on the seaboard of the Atlantic. By the nineteenth century that area had extended over a section of the continent of America as large almost as Europe. By the twentieth century this Power, still represented as incurably "peaceful and stay-at-home" by its leaders, was established in the Caribbean Sea, on the Isthmus of Panama, in the North and South Pacific, along the coast of Asia, and had set up firmly the principle that whatever affair of the world demanded international attention, from a loan to China, to the fate of an Atlantic port of Morocco, the United States had "interests" which must be considered, and advice which must be regarded. The only circumstance that genuinely suggests a Quaker spirit in United States foreign diplomacy is her quaint directness of language. More effete peoples may wrap every stage of a negotiation up to an ultimatum in honeyed phrases of respect. America "tutoyers" all courts and is mercilessly blunt in claim and warning. It would be very strange if the United States were otherwise than Imperial in spirit. Nations, like individuals, are affected by biological laws; a young, strong nation is as naturally aggressive and ambitious as a young, strong boy. Contentment with things as they are, a disposition to make anxious sacrifices to the gods who grant peace, are the signs of old age. If a boy is quite good his parents have a reasonable right to suspect some constitutional weakness. A new nation which really resembled what a great many of the American people think the United States to be, would show as a morbid anomaly. No; the course of the world's future history will never be correctly forecasted except on the assumption that the United States is an aggressively Imperial nation, having an influence at least equal to that of any European Power in the settlement of international issues; and determined to use that influence and to extend its scope year by year. In the Problem of the Pacific particularly, the United States must be counted, not merely as a great factor but the greatest factor. If the American citizen of to-day is considered as though he were a British citizen of some generations back, with a healthy young appetite for conquest still uncloyed, some idea near to the truth will have been reached. But since the deference exacted by public opinion nowadays compels some degree of pretence and does not permit us to parade our souls naked, it is improbable that the United States citizen of this century will adopt the frank freebooting attitude of the Elizabethan Englishman when he was laying the foundations of his Empire by methods inspired somewhat by piracy as well as by patriotism. The American will have to make some concession to the times and seek always a moral sanction for the extension of his boundaries. Such a search, however, is rarely made in vain when it is backed by a resolved purpose. It was sufficient for Francis Drake to know that a settlement was Spanish and rich. The attack followed. The United States needs to know that a possession is foreign, is desirable, and is grossly ill-governed before she will move to a remonstrance in the sacred name of Liberty. Since good government is an ideal which seldom comes at all close to realisation, and the reputation of no form of administration can survive the ordeal of resolute foreign criticism, the practical difference is slight. The American Empire will grow with the benediction always of a high moral purpose; but it will grow. It is interesting to recall the fact that at its very birth the United States was invested by a writer of prophetic insight with the purple of Empire. Said the _London Gazette_ of 1765:--"Little doubt can be entertained that America will in time be the greatest and most prosperous Empire that perhaps the world has ever seen." But the early founders of the new nation, then as now, deceived themselves and others with the view that a pacific little Republic, not a mighty Empire, was their aim. The Imperial instinct showed, however, in the fact that the baby nation had in its youngest days set up a formidable navy. It was ostensibly "for the local defence of its shores," but naval power and overseas Empire are inseparably linked. The austere Republic began to grow in territory and influence at a rate putting to shame the early feats of the Roman power. By 1893 the United States had made it clear that she would not allow her independence to be fettered in the slightest degree by any claims of gratitude from France: and her Declaration of Neutrality in the European War then raging was a clear statement of claim to be considered as a Power. The war with the Barbary States in 1802 to suppress piracy was a claim to police rights on the high seas, police rights which custom gives only to a paramount sea Power. By the next year Spain and France had been more or less politely relieved of all responsibilities in North America, and the United States stretched from ocean to ocean, and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. It is upon the early eloquence of her founders as to the duty of the United States to confine her attention strictly to America, that the common misconception of America's place in foreign policy has been built up. That talk, however, was in the first instance dictated largely by prudence. Alexander Hamilton, who controlled the foreign policy of the infant Republic at the outset, was particularly anxious that she should find her feet before attempting any deeds of enterprise. In particular, he was anxious that the United States should not, through considerations of sentiment, be drawn into the position of a mere appanage of France. He set the foundations of what was known afterwards as the "Monroe doctrine," with the one thought that, at the time, a policy of non-interference with European affairs was a necessary condition of free growth for the young nation. The same idea governed Washington's farewell address in 1796 with its warning against "foreign entanglements." Afterwards the "Monroe doctrine"--deriving its name from a message by President Monroe in 1823--was given the meaning that the United States would not tolerate any interference with the affairs of the American continent by Europe. Finally the "Monroe doctrine," which had begun with an affirmation of America's non-participation in European affairs, and had developed into a declaration against European interference with American affairs, took its present form, which is, in effect, that over all America the United States has a paramount interest which must not be questioned, and that as regards the rest of the world she claims an equal voice with other Powers. Yet, though that is the actual position, there is still an idea in some minds that the Monroe doctrine is an instrument of humbleness by which the United States claims the immunity of America from foreign interference and guarantees foreign countries from American interference. It will be of value to recall, in illustration of the rapid growth of an aggressive national pride in the United States, the circumstances which led up to Mr. President Monroe's formal message in 1823. The dawn of the nineteenth century found the young American nation, after about a quarter of a century's existence, fairly on her feet; able to vindicate her rights abroad by a war against the Barbary pirates: given by the cession of Louisiana from France, a magnificent accession of territory. The Empire of Spain was crumbling to pieces, and between 1803 and 1825 the Latin-American Republics in South and Central America were being established on the ruins of that Empire. Spain, her attention engaged in European wars, was able to do little or nothing to assert herself against the rebellious colonies. But in 1815, Napoleon having been vanquished, the Holy Alliance in Europe attempted to reassert the old power of the European monarchies. The terror of Napoleon's army had forced the kings of the earth into a union which forgot national differences and was anxious only to preserve the Divine Right of Kings. The formation of this Holy Alliance was viewed with suspicion and dislike in the United States, and when in 1823 the Alliance raised the question of joint action by European monarchies to restore Spanish rule in South America, the United States responded with Monroe's famous message forbidding any European interference on the continent of America. Such European colonies as already existed would be tolerated, and that was all. The message stated: "The American continents by the free and independent conditions which they have assumed are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonisation by any European Power. "We could not view any interposition for purpose of oppressing them or controlling in any other manner their destiny by any European Power in any other way than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States." That "Monroe doctrine" was destined to be extended greatly in scope. In 1845 Mr. President Polk declared that no future European colony should be planted on any part of the North American continent, and laid it down as the duty of the United States "to annex American territory lest it be annexed by European countries." True to that faith, he was responsible for the annexation of Texas, Oregon and California. The United States claim to overlordship of North America was still more remarkably extended in 1867, when a protest was entered against the Federation of the Canadian Provinces. The protest was not insisted upon then, though in 1870 Mr. President Grant revived the spirit of the protest with his forecast of "the end of European political connection with this continent." The Venezuela controversy between Great Britain and the United States in 1895 was responsible for another extension of the Monroe doctrine. It was then claimed that "foreign colonies ought to cease in this hemisphere." Insistence on that would, however, have led to a war in which Great Britain probably would have had the assistance of other European Powers affected; and the Monroe doctrine receded a little. Exactly how this chief article of the United States foreign policy stands to-day one cannot say. Certainly the Monroe doctrine does not mean, as it was once supposed to mean, that the United States in return for foreign abstention from interference in American affairs pledges herself to keep apart from all extra-American affairs. In world politics she claims and exercises the privileges to which her vast resources and her high state of civilisation are the warrants. In regard to American affairs the Monroe doctrine clearly forbids any further European colonisation in North or South America, and constitutes the United States as the Suzerain Power of all the Latin-American Republics (whether they are willing or not). What else it will be found to mean will depend on the circumstances of the moment and the feelings of the newspaper proprietors who exercise so great an influence on the American man-in-the-street, the governing factor in shaping his country's foreign policy. In European countries, however democratic, the man-in-the-street has rarely any immediate authority over Foreign Affairs. In Great Britain, for example, the questions of the relations of the Government with other countries are not canvassed before the voters. The close oligarchy of the Cabinet (acting often with the Opposition Front Bench) comes to decisions of peace and war, of treaty and _entente_, and, after decision, allows Parliament and the electorate to acquiesce. But in the United States foreign policy is actually dictated by the voters; and that means, in effect, by the newspapers. On occasion the Monroe doctrine has already been interpreted into a notice to quit to all European Powers holding settlements on the American continent. It may in the near future revive that claim to paramount and exclusive authority, and it may cover a declaration of direct suzerainty over Mexico, and over the smaller republics intervening between the United States border and the Panama Canal. In most Latin-American republics disorder is the rule rather than the exception; and it may become at any moment the honest opinion of the man-in-the-street of the United States that the Panama Canal is too important to civilisation to be left to the chances of interference from less stable governments than his own. These conclusions are inevitable to anyone making any study of American history and the American character. They are not hostile criticisms. They are rather appreciations. A great nation with a belief in its destiny must be "Imperialist" in spirit, because it has a natural desire to spread the blessings of its rule. The people of the United States believe as strongly in themselves as did the ancient Hebrews, and all must have a genuine respect for that fierce spirit of elect nationality which made the Hebrews found a great nation on a goat-patch. In Elizabethan England the same spirit flourished and was responsible for the founding of the British Empire. (It survives still in the British Isles, though somewhat spasmodically.) There is no ground at all either for wonder or for complaint in the fact that Imperialism has been born to vigorous life in the United States, where the people of "God's own country" are firm in these two articles of faith: that any interference in the affairs of the United States is unjust, unnecessary, tyrannical and impious; that any United States interference with another nation is a necessary and salutary effort on behalf of civilisation. Let no man of British blood complain. But let no one in making calculations of world policy be deceived into any other conclusion than that the United States is the great Imperial force of this century, and also the one Power that has enough of the splendid illusions of youth to indulge in crusading wars, for which Europe nowadays is too old and cautious. In the countries of Europe other than Great Britain that which I have stated is coming to be generally recognised, and if at any time a combination could be proposed with any hope of success "to put America in her place," the combination would be formed and the Old World would grapple with the New to try conclusions. Without Great Britain, however, such an alliance would have at present no chance of success, and British adherence is not within the realm of practical thought to-day. The Imperialist tendency of United States policy is shown with particular clarity in the history of the Pacific Ocean. Very early in her life the vigorous young nation saw the Fates beckoning her across the Pacific. The downfall of the Spanish power in North America left the United States heir to a great stretch of rich coast line, including the noble province of California. Russia was ousted from the north-west coast of the Continent by a wise purchase. Before then, American whalers sailing out of Boston had begun to exploit the Southern Pacific. Their whaling trips brought back knowledge of the Hawaiian or Sandwich Group, and, following exactly the methods of British colonisation, American missionaries were the pioneers of American nationalisation. As far back as 1820 Hiram Bingham preached his first sermon at Honolulu from the text, "Fear not, for, behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy." A handsome church now marks the gratitude of his native converts. With equal justice Bingham's American compatriots might have set up a great statue to him as the first warden of the Marches of the Pacific for the United States. For from that day the annexation of Hawaii was inevitable. The process took the familiar course. First the United States Republic exercised a benevolent suzerainty over the Hawaiian kingdom. Then the blessing of free institutions was bestowed on the natives by the foundation of an Hawaiian Republic. The next step was definite annexation. Following that, came steps for the formation of a great naval base at Honolulu. When I visited the Hawaiian Group in the spring of 1909 the work of fortifying Honolulu was being pushed on with great vigour, and the American military and civil authorities boasted of their intention to make it the Gibraltar of the Pacific. The city of Honolulu has at present a very small harbour, a little bay to which access is given by an opening in the coral reefs which surround the island. This port would hardly afford shelter to a squadron of cruisers. But to the left as one enters is Pearl Harbour, a magnificent stretch of land-locked water sufficient to float a great Fleet. But Pearl Harbour basin in its natural state is too well protected, there being no means of access except for very small boats. American energy is now remedying that, and a deep-water channel is being cut from Honolulu Harbour to Pearl Harbour to take vessels of the largest draught at all tides. When that channel is completed, Pearl Harbour will be at once commodious and easily protected. The single narrow entrance will be dominated by the guns of Malakiki Hill, a great eminence, somewhat like Gibraltar in shape, to the right of the town, which commands the sea-front east and west: and within Pearl Harbour the American Pacific Fleet will find a safe haven. It will be absolutely impregnable from the sea. Hostile ships approaching Honolulu would have to steer straight for Malakiki and then defile amid the coral reefs past its guns before the entrance to Pearl Harbour would open before them. But land defence has also to be taken into account. The chief male element of the Hawaiian population is not American, not native Hawaiian. It is Japanese. The Mikado's subjects represent now the largest fighting element in the population, outnumbering even the natives. These Japanese, imported as coolies for the sugar-fields, are mostly men of military training. Further influx of them has now been stopped, not under an Immigration Restriction Act, but by private treaty with Japan; and, as a measure of precaution, an Arms Registration Ordinance provides that no citizen shall have in his possession firearms unless he is licensed by the Government. But this precaution would be in vain if Japan ever seriously thought of using her 50,000 soldier-citizens in the Hawaiian Group against the United States; for the whole of the fishing industry is in the hands of the Japanese, and their sampans could land arms at various places on the islands with ease. Such a contingency has been foreseen in the laying out of Honolulu as a naval base, and the land fortifications are designed with the same thoroughness as those designed to beat off a sea attack. A glance at the map will show that the Power which holds Hawaii with a powerful Fleet can dominate the whole of the Northern Pacific, threatening every point east and west. The American position there is weakened by only one circumstance, the great Japanese population. This, though it may not be recruited with further drafts of males from its native source, will always be a very considerable, if not the most considerable, element of the Hawaiian population, for most of the coolies are married, and the Japanese abroad as well as at home fills the cradle industriously. I remember on the morning of April 1, 1909, coming into Honolulu city from the Moana Hotel on the sea-beach, I found the tram rushed by Japanese at all the stopping places. Two cruisers of their navy had entered the harbour--cruisers which were once upon a time the Russian _Variag_ and _Koreitz_. All Japan in Honolulu was making holiday. A fleet of sampans (the Japanese fishing-vessel) surrounded the ships, which commemorated so signally a great and successful war. The water front was lined with Japanese, the women and children mostly in their national costume. One Japanese father came on to the tram with seven boys, the eldest of whom did not seem more than ten years of age. Asked, he said that they were all his own children. There will never be a lack of a big Japanese population in Hawaii. The definite acquisition of Hawaii may be fairly dated from 1851. Before then there had been a significant proof of America's gaze turning westward by the appointment in 1844 of Mr Caleb Cushing as the United States Ambassador to the Court of China. A little later (1854) the American Power found the Japanese policy of exclusiveness intolerable, and United States warships broke a way into Japanese ports. It had also been decided by then that the task, originally undertaken by a French Company, of cutting a waterway across the Panama Isthmus should be the responsibility of the United States. British susceptibilities on the point were soothed by the Clayton-Bulwer treaty guaranteeing the neutrality of the canal, a treaty which was subsequently abrogated in response to the increasing deference which the growing power of the American Republic could exact. That abrogation created the present position which gives the United States sole control of that canal, and the right to fortify its entrances. By the middle of the nineteenth century, therefore, the United States, a Power which some people still insist on regarding as an essentially domestic character interested only in purely American affairs, had established herself in a commanding strategical position in the North Pacific, had constituted herself the arbiter of Japanese national manners, and had obtained the control of the future waterway from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The second half of the same century was destined to see an even more remarkable Imperial expansion. The misgovernment of Cuba by Spain became intolerable to American public opinion, and in 1898 war was declared with the avowed purpose of conferring the blessings of freedom on the people of Cuba. If one accepted the nonsensical view that the United States is a Power lifted above ordinary human nature by some mysterious racial alchemy, it would be difficult to understand why a war to free Cuba should also have been waged in another ocean to acquire the Philippines. But, looking at the matter in a sane light, it was natural that, being engaged in a war with Spain, the United States should strike at Spain wherever a blow was possible and should destroy the Spanish power in the Pacific Ocean as well as in the Caribbean Sea. Besides, the opportunity offered of stretching the arm of America right across the Pacific to the very coast of Asia. The Filipinos did not relish the substitution for the weak rule of Spain of the strong rule of the United States, and American Imperialism had the experience of having to force, by stern warfare on the liberated, acceptance of its rôle of liberator. Perhaps the experience taught it some sympathy with older players at the game of Empire-making: certainly it did not abate its ardour in the good work. So much for the past history of the United States in the Pacific. A forecast of her influence on the future of the ocean is clearly indicated by the past. The United States spread from the east of the North American continent to the west, because there is no method known to prevent the extension of a highly civilised, a young, an ardent nation at the expense of backward, effete and tired peoples. It was impossible that either the Red Indian tribes or the picturesque old settlements of the Californian Spanish should stand in the way of the American Republic stretching from ocean to ocean. Once the United States was established on the Pacific coast, it was equally inevitable that the arm of her power should stretch across the ocean. The acquisition of the Hawaiian Group was necessary for the sound defence of the coast. The American trading ships which sought the coast of Asia and found barbaric barriers against commerce being battered down by European venturers, had to do as the other White Men did. The flag thus had to follow in the wake of the trade. It was all natural, necessary and ultimately beneficial to civilisation. Equally inevitable will be the future expansion of the United States in the Pacific. The overwhelming strength of her industrial organisation will give her a first call on the neutral markets of the ocean--_i.e._ those markets to which she has the same right of access as her trade rivals. As the tendency shows for the area of those neutral markets to narrow through coming under the domination of various Powers, the United States will seek to extend her domination too. The protection of what she has will enforce the need of acquiring other strategical points. So her Pacific possessions will grow, almost unconsciously, just as the British Empire grew. CHAPTER VI GREAT BRITAIN'S ENTRY INTO THE PACIFIC Off the coast of China at a point where, in a strategical map the "spheres of influence" of Japan and the United States and Germany would impinge, is the island of Hong Kong, the Far East station of the British Empire. Further south, in the Malay Peninsula, is Singapore, standing guard over the entrance to the Indian Ocean. On these two coaling stations British naval power in the North Pacific is based. The abandonment of either of them is unthinkable to-day, yet neither was taken possession of until the nineteenth century--Singapore in 1819, Hong Kong in 1841. In the South Pacific there was shown an even stronger hesitation in acquiring territory. Why Great Britain entered so reluctantly into the Pacific as a colonising Power may probably be explained by the fact that at the time the ocean came to be exploited British earth hunger had been satiated. The unsuccessful war which attempted to hold the American colonies to the Mother Country, had made her doubtful whether overseas dominions were altogether a blessing and whether the advantage to be gained from them outweighed the responsibilities which their holding entailed. It seemed to be the natural conclusion from the American War of Independence, that once a colony or a group of colonies arrived at the stage of growth which allowed it to be of some use to the Mother Country, the inevitable next development was for it to throw off the bonds of kinship and enter upon a career of independence at the price of an expensive and humiliating war to its parent. Thus, whilst British sailors were to the front in the exploration of the Pacific, British statesmen showed a great reluctance to take any advantage of their discoveries; and it was a series of accidents rather than any settled purpose which planted the Anglo-Saxon race so firmly in this ocean. India, it must be noted, a century ago was a country having very little direct concern with the Pacific. The holding of the Indian Empire did not depend on any position in the Pacific. That situation has since changed, and Great Britain would be forced to an interest in the Pacific by her Indian Empire if she had no other possessions in the ocean. In an earlier chapter on Japan, something has been written concerning the reasons which would argue for the absence of an Imperial impulse in the Japanese islands and its presence in the British islands. The inquiry then suggested as to the instincts of expansion and dominion which were primarily responsible for the growth of the British Empire is full of fascination for the historian. If it comes to be considered carefully, the Empire-making of the British people was throughout the result of a racial impulse working instinctively, spasmodically, though unerringly, towards an unseen goal, rather than of a designed and purposeful statesmanship. The racial origin of the British people dictated peremptorily a policy of oversea adventure, and that adventure led inevitably to colonisation. In the beginning Britain was a part of Gaul, a temperate and fertile peninsula which by right of latitude should have had the temperature of Labrador, but which, because of the Gulf Stream, enjoyed a climate singularly mild and promotive of fecundity. When the separation from the mainland came because of the North Sea cutting the English Channel, the Gallic tribes left in Britain began to acquire, as the fruits of their gracious environment and their insular position, an exclusive patriotism and a comparative immunity from invasion. These made the Briton at once very proud of his country and not very fitted to defend its shores. With the Roman invasion there came to the future British race a benefit from both those causes. The comparative ease of the conquest by the Roman Power, holding as it did the mastery of the seas, freed the ensuing settlement by the conquerors from a good deal of the bitterness which would have followed a desperate resistance. The Romans were generous winners and good colonists. Once their power was established firmly, they treated a subject race with kindly consideration. Soon, too, the local pride of the Britons affected their victors. The Roman garrison came to take an interest in their new home, an interest which was aided by the singular beauty and fertility of the country. It was not long before Carausius, a Roman general in Britain, had set himself up as independent of Italy, and with the aid of sea-power he maintained his position for some years. The Romans and the Britons, too, freely intermarried, and at the time when the failing power of the Empire compelled the withdrawal of the Roman garrison, the south of Britain was as much Romanised as, say, northern Africa or Spain. Thus from the very dawn of known history natural position and climate marked out Britain as the vat for the brewing of a strenuous blood. The sea served her "in the office of a wall or of a moat defensive to a house" to keep away all but the most vigorous of invaders. The charm and fertility of the land made it certain that a bold and vigorous invader would be tempted to become a colonist and not be satisfied with robbing and passing on. With the decay of the Roman Empire, and the withdrawal of the Roman legions to the defence of Rome, the Romanised Britons were left helpless. Civilisation and the growth of riches had made them at once more desirable objects of prey, and less able to resist attack. The province which Rome abandoned was worried on all sides by the incursion of the fierce clans of the north and the west. A decision, ultimately wise, judged by its happy results, but at the moment disastrous, induced some of the harried Britons to call in to their aid the Norsemen pirates, who at the time, taking advantage of the failing authority of Rome, were swarming out from Scandinavia and from the shores of the Baltic in search of booty. The Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes, were willing enough to come to Britain as mercenaries, even more willing to stay as colonists. An Anglo-Saxon wave swept over the greater part of England, and was stopped only by the mountains of Wales or of Scotland. That was the end of the Britons as the chief power in Britain, but they mingled with their conquerors to modify the Anglo-Saxon type with an infusion of Celtic blood. In the mountainous districts the Celtic blood continued to predominate, and does to this day. The Anglo-Saxons would have been very content to settle down peacefully on the fat lands which had fallen to them, but the piratical nests from which they themselves had issued still sent forth broods of hungry adventurers, and the invasions of the Danes taught the Anglo-Saxons that what steel had won must be guarded by steel. They learned, too, that any race holding England must rely upon sea-power for peaceful existence. After the Danish, the last great element in the making of the present British race, was the Norman. The Normans were not so much foreigners as might be supposed. The Anglo-Saxons of the day were descendants of sea-pirates who had settled in Britain and mingled their blood with the British. The Normans were descendants of kindred sea-pirates who had settled in Gaul, and mingled their blood with that of the Gauls and Franks. The two races, Anglo-Saxon and Normans, after a while combined amicably enough, the Anglo-Saxon blood predominating, and the British type was evolved, in part Celtic, in part Danish, in part Anglo-Saxon, in part Norman--a hard-fighting, stubborn adventurous race, which in its making from such varied elements had learned the value of compromise, and of the common-sense principle of give-and-take. One can see that it was just the race for the work of exploration and colonisation. When this British people, thus constituted, were driven back to a sea-frontier by the French nation, it was natural that they should turn their energies overseas. To this their Anglo-Saxon blood, their Danish blood, their Norman blood prompted. The Elizabethan era, which was the era of the foundation of the British Empire overseas, was marked by a form of patriotism which was hard to distinguish in some of its manifestations from plain robbery. The fact calls for no particular condemnation. It was according to the habit of thought of the time. But it is necessary to bear in mind that the hunt for loot and not the desire for territory was the chief motive of the flashing glories of the Elizabethan era of seamanship; for that is the explanation why there was left as the fruit of many victories few permanent settlements. Drake was the first English naval leader to penetrate to the Pacific. His famous circumnavigation of the world is one of the boldest exploits of history. Drake's log entry on entering the Pacific stirs the blood: "Now, as we were fallen to the uttermost parts of these islands on October 28, 1578, our troubles did make an end, the storm ceased, and all our calamities (only the absence of our friends excepted) were removed, as if God all this while by His secret Providence had led us to make this discovery, which being had according to His will, He stayed His hand." On this voyage Drake put in at San Francisco, which he named New Albion. He went back to Europe through the East Indies and around Africa. But Drake made no attempt at colonisation. Looting of the Spanish treasure ships was the first and last object of his cruise. What was, according to our present lights, a more honourable descent upon the Pacific was that of Admiral Anson in the eighteenth century. He, in 1740, took a Fleet round the stormy Horn to subdue the Philippines and break the power of Spain in the Pacific. The force thought fitting for such an enterprise in those days was 961 men! Anson did not subdue the Philippines; but they were guarded by the scurvy, which attacked the English Fleet, rather than by the Spanish might, and the little disease-racked English squadron was able to cripple the Spanish power in the Pacific by the mere dread of its presence. Anson took prizes and made them masquerade before the enemy's coast as hostile warships, and paralysed the Spanish commerce in those seas. He returned to England with only 335 men out of his original complement of 961. Practically all the deaths had been from disease. But again the idea of the Pacific expedition was not to colonise but to strike a blow at a rival European Power. It was not until the nineteenth century that Great Britain established herself on the western flank of the North Pacific. So far as the South Pacific was concerned British indifference was complete, and it was shared by other nations. In the days when the fabled wealth of the Indies was the magnet to draw men of courage and worth to perilous undertakings by sea and land, there was nothing in the South Pacific to attract their greed, and nothing, therefore, to stimulate their enterprise. The Spaniard, blundering on America in his quest for a western sea-passage to the ivory, the gold, and the spices of India, found there a land with more possibilities of plunder than that which he had originally sought. He was content to remain, looting the treasuries of the Mexicans and of the Peruvians for metals, and laying the forests of Central America under contribution for precious woods. He ventured but little westward, and the Hawaiian Islands represented for a time the extreme western limit of his adventures. Following him for plunder came the English, and they too were content to sweep along the western coast of South America without venturing further towards the unknown west. From another direction the sea-route to India was sought by Portuguese, and Dutch, and English and French. Groping round the African coast, they came in time to the land of their desires, and found besides India and Cathay, Java, the Spice Islands, and other rich groups of the Malay Archipelago. But they, just as the Spaniards, did not venture west from South America; and neither Portuguese, Dutch, French nor English set the course of their vessels south from the East Indies. It was thus Australia remained for many years an unknown continent. And when at last navigators, more bold or less bound to an immediate greed, touched upon the shores of Australia, or called at the South Sea Islands, they found little that was attractive. In no case had the simple natives won to a greed for gold and silver, and so they had no accumulations of wealth to tempt cupidity. In the case of Australia the coast-line was dour and forbidding, and promised nothing but sterility. The exploring period in which the desire for plunder was the chief motive passed away, having spared the South Pacific. It was therefore the fate of Australia, of New Zealand, and of most of the islands of Polynesia and Melanesia, to be settled under happier conditions, and to be spared the excesses of cruelty which marked the European invasion of the West Indies and the Americas. The Newest World began its acquaintance with civilisation under fairly happy auspices. It was not until the middle of the seventeenth century that a scientific expedition brought the South Pacific before the attention of Britain. A transit of Venus across the sun promised to yield valuable knowledge as to the nature of solar phenomena. To observe the transit under the best conditions, astronomers knew that a station in the South Seas was necessary, and Lieutenant Cook, R.N., an officer who had already distinguished himself in the work of exploration, was promoted to be Captain and entrusted to lead a scientific expedition to Otaheite. Added to his commission was an injunction to explore the South Seas if time and opportunity offered. Captain Cook was of the type which makes time and opportunity. Certainly there was little in the equipment of his expedition to justify an extension of its duties after the transit of Venus had been duly observed. But he took it that his duty was to explore the South Seas, and explore them he did, incidentally annexing for the British Empire the Continent of Australia. That was in 1770. But still there was so little inviting in the prospect of settlement in the South Seas that it was some eighteen years before any effort was made to follow up by colonisation this annexation by Captain Cook. When the effort was made it was not on very dignified lines. The American colonies had at one time served as an outlet for the overflow of the British prisons. The War of Independence had closed that channel. The overcrowding of the British prisons became desperate, and, because it was necessary to find some relief for this--not because it was considered advantageous to populate the new possession--the First Fleet sailed for the foundation of Australia in 1788. We shall see in subsequent chapters how the reluctance of the governing Power of the British race in the Home Country to establish an Empire in the South Pacific found a curious response in the stubborn resoluteness of the colonists who settled in Australia and New Zealand to be more English than the English themselves, to be as aggressively Imperialistic almost as the men of the Elizabethan era. (What might almost be called the "Jingoism" of the British nations in the South Pacific must have a very important effect in settling the mastery of that ocean.) In the present chapter the establishment of the British Power in the North Pacific chiefly will be considered. Singapore is to-day the capital of the three Straits Settlements-- Singapore, Penang, and Malacca, but it is the youngest of the three settlements. Malacca is the oldest. It was taken possession of by the Portuguese under Albuquerque in 1511, and held by them until 1641, when the Dutch were successful in driving them out. The settlement remained under the Government of the Dutch till 1795, when it was captured by the English, and held by them till 1818, at which date it was restored to the Dutch, and finally passed into British hands in pursuance of the treaty with Holland of 1824. By that treaty it was arranged that the Dutch should leave the Malay Peninsula, the British Government agreeing at the same time to leave Sumatra to the Dutch. When Malacca was taken possession of by the Portuguese in 1511, it was one of the great centres for the commerce of the East; but under Dutch rule it dwindled, and Penang acquired a monopoly of the trade of the Malayan Peninsula and Sumatra, together with a large traffic with China, Siam, Borneo, the Celebes, and other places in the Archipelago. When Singapore was established Penang in its turn had to yield the first place to the new city. Singapore was acquired for Britain by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819, by virtue of a treaty with the Johore princes. It was at first subordinate to Bencoolen in Sumatra, but in 1823 it was placed under the Government of Bengal; it was afterwards incorporated in 1826, with Penang and Malacca, and placed under the Governor and Council of the Incorporated Settlements. Singapore is now one of the great shipping ports of the world, served by some fifty lines of steamers, and with a trade of over 20,000,000 tons a year. The harbour of Singapore is fortified, and the port is indicated by one advanced school of British Imperialists as the future chief base of a Fleet, contributed to by India, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada, and kept to a standard of strength equal to that available to any other two Powers in the Pacific. Captain Macaulay, in a strategical scheme for Imperial Defence which has been received with deep attention in Great Britain, suggests:-- "The influence which an Indian Ocean Fleet, based on Colombo and Singapore, would have on Imperial Defence can hardly be exaggerated. The Indian Ocean--a British Mediterranean to the Pacific--with its openings east and west in our hands, is a position of readiness for naval action in the Western Pacific, the South Atlantic, or the Mediterranean. In the first case it influences the defence of Canada and the Australasian States; in the second, that of South Africa. An Indian Ocean Fleet can reinforce, or be reinforced by the Fleets in European waters, if the storm centre be confined to Europe or to the Pacific. As regards the direct naval defence of the Australasian Provinces, no better position could be chosen than that of a Fleet based on Singapore, with an advanced base at Hong Kong, because it flanks all possible attack on them. An advanced flank defence is better than any direct defence of so large a coast-line as that of Australia from any point within it. Moreover, Singapore and Hong Kong are much nearer to the naval bases of any Powers in the Western Pacific than those countries are to Australia or to Canada. Hence, in operations for the defence of any Province, they favour offensive-defensive action on our part. And offensive-defensive is the great characteristic of naval power. Any East Asian Power contemplating aggression against Australasian or North American territory must evidently first deal with the Indian Ocean Fleet. "It is impossible to ignore the strategical and political significance of the Imperial triangle of India based on South Africa and the Australasian States, and its influence in the solution of the new problems of Imperial Defence. The effective naval defence of the self-governing Provinces is best secured by a Fleet maintained in the North Indian Ocean; and the reinforcement of the British garrison in India is best secured by units of the Imperial Army maintained in the self-governing Provinces. If these two conditions are satisfied, the problem of the defence of the Mother Country is capable of easy solution." Hong Kong is of less strategical importance than Singapore. But it is marked out as the advanced base of British naval power in the North Pacific. It has one of the most magnificent harbours in the world, with an area of ten square miles. The granite hills which surround it rise between 2000 and 3000 feet high. The city of Victoria extends for four miles at the base of the hills which protect the south side of the harbour, and contains, with its suburbs, 326,961 inhabitants. It is the present base of the China squadron, and is fortified and garrisoned. As already stated, the conditions which some years ago made the mastery of the Pacific unimportant to India no longer exist, and the safety of the Indian Empire depends almost as closely on the position in the Pacific as the safety of England does on the position in the Atlantic. But, except by making some references in future chapters on strategy and on trade to her resources and possibilities, I do not propose to attempt any consideration of India in this volume. That would unduly enlarge its scope. In these days of quick communication, both power and trade are very fluid, and there is really not any country of the earth which has not in some way an influence on the Pacific. But so far as possible I have sought to deal only with the direct factors. Having noted the British possessions in the North Pacific, it is necessary to turn south and study the young "nations of the blood" below the Equator before estimating British Power in the Pacific. CHAPTER VII THE BRITISH CONTINENT IN THE PACIFIC Those who seek to find in history the evidence of an all-wise purpose might gather from the fantastic history of Australasia facts to confirm their faith. Far back in prehistoric ages, this great island was cut adrift from the rest of the world and left lonely and apart in the Southern Pacific. A few prehistoric marsupials wandered over its territory and were hunted by poor nomads of men, without art or architecture, condemned by the conditions of their life to step aside from the great onward current of human evolution. Over this land the winds swept and the rains fell, and, volcanic action having ceased, the mountains were denuded and their deep stores of minerals bared until gold lay about on the surface. Coal, copper, silver, tin, and iron too, were made plentifully accessible. At the same time enormous agricultural plains were formed in the interior, but under climatic conditions which allowed no development of vegetable or animal types without organised culture by a civilised people. Nature thus seemed to work consciously for the making of a country uniquely fitted for civilisation by a White Race, whilst at the same time ensuring that its aboriginal inhabitants should not be able to profit by its betterment, and thus raise themselves to a degree of social organisation which would allow them to resist an invading White Race. In the year when Captain Cook acquired the Continent of Australia for Great Britain, it was ripe for development by civilised effort in a way which no other territory of the earth then was; and yet was so hopelessly sterile to man without machinery and the other apparatus of human science, that its aboriginal inhabitants were the most forlorn of the world's peoples, living a starveling life dependent on poor hunting, scanty fisheries and a few roots for existence. It needs no great stretch of fancy to see a mysterious design in the world-history of Australia. Here was a great area of land stuffed with precious and useful minerals, hidden away from the advancing civilisation of man as effectually as if it had been in the planet Mars. In other parts of the globe great civilisations rose and fell--the Assyrian, the Egyptian, the Chinese, the Greek, the Roman,--all drawing from the bowels of the earth her hidden treasures, and drawing on her surface riches with successive harvests. In America, the Mexican, Peruvian and other civilisations learned to gather from the great stocks of Nature, and built up fabrics of greatness from her rifled treasures. In Australia alone, amid dim, mysterious forests, the same prehistoric animals roamed, the same poor nomads of men lived and died, neither tilling nor mining the earth--tenants in occupation, content with a bare and accidental livelihood in the midst of mighty riches. Australia too was not discovered by the White Man until the moment when a young nation could be founded on the discovered principles of Justice. To complete the marvel, as it would seem, Providence ordained that its occupation and development should be by the one people most eminently fitted for the founding of a new nation on the virgin soil. The fostering care of Nature did not end there. The early settlers coming to Australia not only found that nothing had been drawn from the soil or reef, that an absolutely virgin country was theirs to exploit, but also were greeted by a singularly happy climate, free of all the diseases which afflicted older lands. Prolific Australia, with all its marvellous potentialities, lay open to them, with no warlike tribes to enforce a bloody beginning to history, no epidemics to war against, no savage beasts to encounter. And they were greeted by an energising climate which seemed to encourage the best faculties of man, just as it gave to harvests a wonderful richness and to herds a marvellous fecundity. How it came to be that such a vast area of the earth's surface, so near to the great Indian and Chinese civilisations, should have so long remained unknown, it is difficult to understand. There is faint evidence that the existence of the great Southern continent was guessed at in very early days, but no attempt at exploration or settlement was made by the Hindoos or the Chinese. When the Greeks, who had penetrated to India under Alexander the Great, returned to their homes, they brought back some talk of a continent south from India, and the later Greek literature and some Latin writers have allusions to the tale. Marco Polo (thirteenth century), during his voyages to the East Indies, seems to have heard of a Southern continent, for he speaks of a Java Major, a land much greater than the isle of Java (which he knew), and which was probably either New Guinea or Australia. On a fifteenth-century map of the world now in the British Museum there are indications of a knowledge of the existence of Australia; and it is undoubtedly included in a map of the world of the sixteenth century. But there was evidently no curiosity as to the suspected new continent. Australia to-day contains not the slightest trace of contact with ancient or Middle Ages civilisation. Exploration was attracted to the East Indies and to Cathay by the tales of spices, scents, gold, silver, and ivory. No such tales came from Australia. It was to prove the greatest gold-producing country of the world, but its natives had no hunger for the precious metal, though it was strewn about the ground in great lumps in some places. Nor did sugar, spice, and ivory come from the land; nor, indeed, any product of man's industry or Nature's bounty. Wrapped in its mysterious grey-green forests, protected by a coast-line which appeared always barren and inhospitable, Australia remained unknown until comparatively modern times. In 1581 the Spaniards, under Magalhaes, reached the Philippine Islands by sailing west from the South American coast. In the nature of things their ships would have touched the coast of Australia. In 1606 De Quiros and De Torres reached some of the Oceanian islands, and named one _Terra Austrialia del Espiritu Santo_ (the Southern Land of the Holy Spirit). As was the case with Columbus in his voyage of discovery to America, De Quiros had not touched the mainland, but his voyage gave the name "Australia" to the new continent. The English were late in the work of exploring the coast of Australia, though as far back as 1624 there is a record of Sir William Courteen petitioning King James I. for leave to plant colonies in "Terra Australis." In 1688, William Dampier, in the _Cygnet_, touched at the north-western coast of Australia. The next year, in H.M.S. _Roebuck_, he paid a visit to the new land, and, on returning to England, put on record his impressions of its fauna and flora. It was in 1770 that Captain Cook made the first landing at Botany Bay. The British nation at the time could find no use for Australia. Annexed in 1770 it was not colonised until 1787, when the idea was adopted of using the apparently sterile and miserable Southern continent as a depôt for enforced exiles. It was a happy chance that sent a "racketty" element of British social life to be the first basis of the new Australian population. The poachers, English Chartists, Irish Fenians, Scottish land rebels (who formed the majority of the convicts sent to Australia) were good as nation-building material. There was work to do there in the Pacific, there is further work in the future, which calls for elements of audacity, of contempt for convention, which are being worked out of the average British type. There could be no greater contrast between, say, a London suburbanite, whose life travels along an endless maze of little gravel paths between fences and trimly-kept hedges, and the Australian of the "back country," who any day may ride out solitary on a week's journey into a great sun-baked wilderness, his life and that of his dog and his two horses dependent on the accurate finding of a series of water-holes: his joy in existence coming from the solitude and the desert, the companionship of his three animals, his tobacco, and the thought of his "mate" somewhere, whom he would meet after six months' absence with a handshake and a monosyllable by way of greeting, and yet with the love of a fond brother. That London suburbanite gives the key to his kindly and softly sentimental character in his subscription to a society which devotes itself to seeing that the suburban house cat is not left shut up without food when a family goes away on holidays. That Australian shows how far he has reverted to the older human type of relentless purpose when, in the pursuit of his calling, he puts ten thousand sheep to the chance of death from thirst. It is not that he is needlessly cruel, but that he is sternly resolute. The same man would share his last water with his dog in the desert to give both an equal chance of life. He feels the misery of beasts but says nothing, and allows it to interfere nothing with his purpose. There is a story of a clergyman coming to a back-country station in Australia during the agony of a great drought. He asked of the squatter permission to hold prayers for rain in the woolshed. The squatter turned on him, fiercely gripping him by the arm. "Listen!" he cried. From all around came the hoarse, pitiful lowing and bleating of thousands of animals dying of thirst and hunger. "Listen! If the Almighty does not hear _that_, will he hear us?" That is the type of man, bred from the wilder types of the British race, who is the backbone of the Australian population, and who will be the backbone of the resistance which the White Man will make to any overflow of Asia along the Pacific littoral. The Australian took instinctively to his task in the work of White civilisation--that of keeping the Asiatic out of Australia. In the early days of the goldfields, the Chinese began to crowd to the continent, and some squatters of those days designed to introduce them as cheap and reliable shepherds. The mass of the White population protested, with riot and rebellion in some cases. At one time it seemed as though the guns of British warships would fire on Australian citizens in vindication of the right of Chinese to enter Australia. But maternal affection was stronger than logic. The cause of "White Australia" had its way; and by poll taxes and other restrictive legislation any great influx of Asiatics was stopped. At a later date the laws regarding alien immigration were so strengthened that it is now almost impossible for a coloured man to enter Australia as a colonist, even though he be a British subject and a graduate of Oxford University. Around the ethics of the "White Australia" policy there has raged a fierce controversy. But it is certain that, without that policy, without an instinctive revolt on the part of the Australian colonists against any intrusion of coloured races, Australia would be to-day an Asiatic colony, still nominally held, perhaps, by a small band of White suzerains, but ripe to fall at any moment into the hands of its 10,000,000 or 20,000,000 Asiatic inhabitants. Instead of that, Australia is at once the fortress which the White Race has thinly garrisoned against an Asiatic advance southward, and the most tempting prize to inspire the Asiatic to that advance. There is not the least doubt that, given Australia, Japan could establish a power threatening the very greatest in Europe. Her fecund people within a couple of generations would people the coast-line and prepare for the colonisation of the interior. Rich fields and rich mines put at the disposal of a frugal and industrious people would yield enormous material wealth. An organised China would put the island continent to even greater use. But there Australia is, held by a tiny White population, which increases very slowly (for men and women have the ideas of comfort and luxury which lead to small families), but which is now fairly awake to the fact that on the bosom of the Pacific and along its shores will be fought the great race battles of the future. It is curious for the peoples of Europe, accustomed to associate extreme democracy and socialistic leanings with ideals of pacificism and "international brotherhood," to observe the warlike spirit of the Australian peoples. There are no folk more "advanced" in politics. Their ideal is frankly stated to be to make a "working man's Paradise" of the continent. Yet they are entering cheerfully on a great naval expenditure, and their adoption of a system of universal training for military service provides the only instance, except that of Switzerland, where the responsibility of national defence is freely accepted by the citizen manhood of the nation. Universal training for military service in Australia, legally enforced in 1909, was made inevitable in 1903, when in taking over the administration of the defences the first Commonwealth Government provided in its Defence Act for the levying of the whole male population for service in case of war. That provision was evidence of the wholesome and natural view taken by Australians of the citizen's duty to his nation. It was also evidence of an ignorance of, or a blindness to, the conditions of modern campaigning. Raw levies, if equipped with courage and hardihood, could be of almost immediate usefulness in the warfare of a century ago. To-day they would be worse than useless, a burden on the commissariat, no support in the field. The logical Australian mind was quick to recognise this. Within five years it was established that, admitting a universal duty to serve, a necessary sequence was universal training for service. One argument the Australian advocates of universal service had not to meet. In that pioneer country the feeling which is responsible for a kind of benevolent cosmopolitanism, and finds expression in Peace Societies, had little chance of growth. The direct conflict with Nature had brought a sense of the reality of life's struggle, of its reality and of its essential beauty. There is no maundering horror of the natural facts of existence. Australian veins when scratched bleed red blood, not a pale ichor of Olympus. The combative instinct is recognised as a part of human nature, a necessary and valuable part. That defencelessness is the best means of defence would never occur to the Australian as being anything but an absurd idea. He recognises the part which the combative instinct has played, the part it still must play in civilisation: how in its various phases it has assisted man in his upward path; how it has still some part to play in the preservation and further evolution of civilisation. The original fighting instinct was purely brutal--a rough deadly scramble for food. But it undoubtedly had its value in securing the survival of the best types for the propagation of the species. With its first great refinement, in becoming the fight for mateship, the combative instinct was still more valuable to evolution. The next step, when fights came to be for ideas, marked a rapid growth of civilisation. Exclude chivalry, patriotism, Imperialism, from the motives of the world, and there would never have been a great civilisation. A distinguished British statesman spoke the other day of the expenditure on armaments as possibly a sign of "relapsing into barbarism." He might more truly have described it as an insurance against barbarism--at once a sign of the continued existence of the forces which made civilisation, and a proof that the advanced races are prepared to guard with the sword what they have won by the sword. The Pacific has seen the tragedy of one nation which, having won to a suave and graceful civilisation, came to utter ruin through the elimination of the combative instinct from its people. The Peruvians had apparently everything to make life happy: but because they had eliminated the fighting instinct their civilisation was shattered to fragments in a year by the irruption of a handful of Spaniards. The Australian feels that safety and independence must be paid for with strength, and not with abjectness. He does not wish to be another Peruvian: and he builds up his socialistic Utopia with a sword in one hand as was built a temple of Jerusalem. Some doubt having arisen in the Australian mind, after a system of universal training had been adopted, whether the scheme of training was sufficient, the greatest organiser of the British Army, Field Marshal Lord Kitchener, was asked to visit the Commonwealth and report on that point. His report suggested some slight changes, which were promptly adopted, but on the whole he approved thoroughly of the proposed scheme, though it provided periods of training which seem startlingly small to the European soldier. But Lord Kitchener agreed, as every other competent observer has agreed, that the Australian is so much of a natural soldier owing to his pioneering habit of life, that it takes but little special military discipline to make him an effective fighting unit. Committed to a military system which will, in a short time, make some 200,000 citizens soldiers available in case of need, Australia's martial enthusiasm finds expression also in a naval programme which is of great magnitude for so small a people. In July 1909, an Imperial Conference on Defence met in London, and the British Admiralty brought down certain proposals for Imperial naval co-operation. _Inter alia_, the British Admiralty memorandum stated:-- "In the opinion of the Admiralty, a Dominion Government desirous of creating a Navy should aim at forming a distinct Fleet unit; and the smallest unit is one which, while manageable in time of peace, is capable of being used in its component parts in the time of war. "Under certain conditions the establishment of local defence flotillas, consisting of torpedo craft and submarines, might be of assistance in time of war to the operations of the Fleet, but such flotillas cannot co-operate on the high seas in the wider duties of protection of trade and preventing attacks from hostile cruisers and squadrons. The operations of Destroyers and torpedo-boats are necessarily limited to the waters near the coast or to a radius of action not far distant from a base, while there are great difficulties in manning such a force and keeping it always thoroughly efficient. "A scheme limited to torpedo craft would not in itself, moreover, be a good means of gradually developing a self-contained Fleet capable of both offence and defence. Unless a naval force--whatever its size--complies with this condition, it can never take its proper place in the organisation of an Imperial Navy distributed strategically over the whole area of British interests. "The Fleet unit to be aimed at should, therefore, in the opinion of the Admiralty, consist at least of the following: one armoured cruiser (new _Indomitable_ class, which is of the _Dreadnought_ type), three unarmoured cruisers (_Bristol_ class), six destroyers, three submarines, with the necessary auxiliaries such as depôt and store ships, etc., which are not here specified. "Such a Fleet unit would be capable of action not only in the defence of coasts, but also of the trade routes, and would be sufficiently powerful to deal with small hostile squadrons, should such ever attempt to act in its waters. "Simply to man such a squadron, omitting auxiliary requirements and any margin for reliefs, sickness, etc., the minimum numbers required would be about 2300 officers and men, according to the Admiralty scheme of complements. "The estimated first cost of building and arming such a complete Fleet unit would be approximately £3,700,000, and the cost of maintenance, including upkeep of vessels, pay, and interest and sinking fund, at British rates, approximately £600,000 per annum. "The estimated cost of the officers and men required to man the ships does not comprise the whole cost. There would be other charges to be provided for, such as the pay of persons employed in subsidiary services, those undergoing training, sick, in reserve, etc. "As the armoured cruiser is the essential part of the Fleet unit, it is important that an _Indomitable_ of the _Dreadnought_ type should be the first vessel to be built in commencing the formation of a Fleet unit. She should be officered and manned, as far as possible, by Colonial officers and men, supplemented by the loan of Imperial officers and men who might volunteer for the service. While on the station the ship would be under the exclusive control of the Dominion Government as regards her movements and general administration, but officers and men would be governed by regulations similar to the King's Regulations, and be under naval discipline. The question of pay and allowances would have to be settled on lines the most suitable to each Dominion Government concerned. The other vessels, when built, would be treated in the same manner. "It is recognised that, to carry out completely such a scheme as that indicated, would ultimately mean a greater charge for naval defence than that which the Dominions have hitherto borne; but, on the other hand, the building of a _Dreadnought_ (or its equivalent), which certain Governments have offered to undertake, would form part of the scheme, and therefore, as regards the most expensive item of the shipbuilding programme suggested, no additional cost to those Governments would be involved. "_Pari passu_ with the creation of the Fleet unit, it would be necessary to consider the development of local resources in everything which relates to the maintenance of a Fleet. A careful inquiry should be made into the shipbuilding and repairing establishments, with a view to their general adaptation to the needs of the local squadron. Training schools for officers and men would have to be established; arrangements would have to be made for the manufacture, supply, and replenishment of the various naval, ordnance, and victualling stores required by the squadron. "All these requirements might be met according to the views of the Dominion Governments, in so far as the form and manner of the provision made are concerned. But as regards shipbuilding, armaments, and warlike stores, etc., on the one hand, and training and discipline in peace and war, on the other, there should be one common standard. If the Fleet unit maintained by a Dominion is to be treated as an integral part of the Imperial forces, with a wide range of interchangeability among its component parts with those forces, its general efficiency should be the same, and the facilities for refitting and replenishing His Majesty's ships, whether belonging to a Dominion Fleet or to the Fleet of the United Kingdom, should be the same. Further, as it is a _sine quâ non_ that successful action in time of war depends upon unity of command and direction, the general discipline must be the same throughout the whole Imperial service, and without this it would not be possible to arrange for that mutual co-operation and assistance which would be indispensable in the building up and establishing of a local naval force in close connection with the Royal Navy. It has been recognised by the Colonial Governments that, in time of war, the local naval forces should come under the general directions of the Admiralty." The Commonwealth of Australia representatives accepted in full the proposals as set forth in the Admiralty memorandum. It was agreed that the Australian Fleet unit thus constituted should form part of the Eastern Fleet of the Empire, to be composed of similar units of the Royal Navy, to be known as the China and the East Indies units respectively, and the Australian unit. The initial cost was estimated to be approximately: 1 armoured cruiser (new _Indomitable_ class). £2,000,000 3 unarmoured cruisers (_Bristols_) at £350,000. 1,050,000 6 destroyers (_River_ class) at £80,000 480,000 3 submarines (_C_ class) at £55,000 165,000 ---------- Total £3,695,000 The annual expenditure in connection with the maintenance of the Fleet unit, pay of personnel, and interest on first cost and sinking fund, was estimated to be about £600,000, to which amount a further additional sum would have to be added in view of the higher rates of pay in Australia and the cost of training and subsidiary establishments, making an estimated total of £750,000 a year. The Imperial Government, until such time as the Commonwealth could take over the whole cost, offered to assist the Commonwealth Government by an annual contribution of £250,000 towards the maintenance of the complete Fleet unit; but the offer was refused, and the Australian taxpayer took on the whole burden at once. Still not content, the Australian Government arranged for a British Admiral of standing to visit the Commonwealth and report on its naval needs. His report suggested the quick construction of a Fleet and of docks, etc., involving an expenditure, within a very short time, of £28,000,000. There was no grumbling at this from the Labour Party Government then in power. "We have called in a doctor. We must take his prescription," said one of the Australian Cabinet philosophically. The Australian, so aggressive in his patriotism, so determined in his warlike preparations, so fitted by heredity and environment for martial exploits, is to-day the greatest factor in the Southern Pacific. His aggressiveness, which is almost truculence, is a guarantee that the British Empire will never be allowed to withdraw from a sphere into which it entered reluctantly. It will be necessary to point out in a future chapter how the failure, so far, of the Australian colonists to people their continent adequately constitutes one of the grave dangers to the British Power in the Pacific. That failure has been the prompting for much criticism. It has led to some extraordinary proposals being put forward in Great Britain, one of the latest being that half of Australia should be made over to Germany as a peace offering! But, apart from all failures and neglect of the past (which may be remedied for the future: indeed are now in process of remedy), Australia is probably potentially the greatest asset of the British race. Her capacity as a varied food producer in particular gives her value. There is much talk in the world to-day of "places in the sun." Claims founded on national pride are put forward for the right to expand. Very soon there must be a far more weighty and dangerous clamour for "places at table," for the right to share in the food lands of the Earth. Populations begin to press against their boundaries. Modern science has helped the race of man to reach numbers once considered impossible. Machinery, preventive medicine, surgery, sanitation, all have helped to raise vastly his numbers. The feeding of these increasing numbers becomes with each year a more difficult problem. Territories do not stretch with populations. Even the comparatively new nation of the United States finds her food supply and raw material supply tightening, and has just been checked in an attempt to obtain a lien on the natural resources of the British Dominion of Canada. Now, excluding manufactures, the 4½ million people of Australia produce wealth from farm and field and mine to the total of £134,500,000 a year. Those 4½ millions could be raised to 40 millions without much lessening of the average rate of production (only mining and forestry would be affected). The food production possibilities of Australia make her of enormous future importance. They make her, too, the object of the bitterest envy on the part of the overcrowded, hungry peoples of the Asiatic littoral. The Continent must be held by the British race. It would appear to be almost as certain that it must be attacked one day by an Asiatic race. CHAPTER VIII NEW ZEALAND AND THE SMALLER BRITISH PACIFIC COLONIES A thousand miles east of Australia is another aggressive young democracy preparing to arm to the teeth for the conflict of the Pacific, and eager to embark upon a policy of forward Imperialism on its own account: with aspirations, indeed, to be made overlord of all the Pacific islands under the British Flag. New Zealand had a softer beginning than Australia, and did not win, therefore, the advantages and disadvantages springing from the wild type of colonists who gave to the Australian Commonwealth a sturdy foundation. Nor has New Zealand the "Bush" conditions which make the back-country Australian quite a distinct type of white man. On those hot plains of Australia, cruel to a first knowledge, very rich in profit and welcome to the man who learns their secrets, most potent of attraction with familiarity and mastery, Nature exacts from man a resolute wooing before she grants a smile of favour. But, once conquered, she responds with most generous lavishness. In return, however, she sets her stamp on the men who come to her favour, and they show that stamp on their faces. Thin, wiry, with deep-set peering eyes, they suggest sun-dried men. But whilst leaching out the fat and softness from them, Nature has compensated the "Bush" Australians with an enduring vitality. No other men, probably, of the world's peoples could stand such strain of work, of hunger, of thirst. No men have finer nerves, greater courage. They must dice with Death for their lives, time and again staking all on their endurance, and on the chance of the next water-hole being still unparched. This gives them a contempt of danger, and some contempt of life, which shows in a cruel touch in their character. Imagine a white man who, keeping all his education and maintaining his sympathy with modern science and modern thought, withal reverts in some characteristics to the type of the Bedouin of the desert, and you have the typical Australian Bushman. He is fierce in his friendships, stern in his enmities, passionately fond of his horse, so contemptuous of dwellings that he will often refuse to sleep in them, Arabian in his hospitality, fatalistic in his philosophy. He has been known to inflict torture on a native whom he suspects of concealing the whereabouts of a water-hole, and yet will almost kill himself to get help for a mate in need. He is so independent that he hates working for a "boss," and will rarely take work on wages, preferring to live as his own master, by hunting or fossicking, or by undertaking contract work for forest clearing. There is material for a great warrior nation in these Bushmen, with their capacity for living anyhow, their deadliness as shots, their perfect command of the horse, their Stoic cruelty which would enable them to face any hardship without flinching, and to inflict any revenge without remorse. New Zealand has not the "Bushman" type. But as some compensation, the early New Zealand settlers had the advantage of meeting at the very outset an effective savage. The Australian learned all his hardihood from Nature; the New Zealand colonist had the Maori to teach him, not only self-reliance but community reliance. Whilst Nature was very kind to him, sparing the infliction of the drought, giving always a reasonable surety of food, he was obliged to walk warily in fear of the powerful and warlike Maori tribes. The phenomenon, so frequent in Australia, of a squatter leading his family, his flocks, and his herds out into the wilderness and fighting out there, alone, a battle with Nature was rare in New Zealand. There the White settlers were forced into groups by the fear of and respect for the Maoris. From the first they knew the value of a fortified post. Until a very late period of their history they saw frequently the uniforms of troops from Great Britain helping them to garrison the towns against the natives. As was the case with Australia, the British Empire was very reluctant to assume control of New Zealand. Captain Cook, who annexed Australia in 1770, had visited New Zealand in 1769, but had not acquired it formally for the British Crown. The same explorer returned to New Zealand several years after. But from the date of his last departure, 1776, three decades passed before any White settlement was attempted. In 1788 the colonisation of Australia was begun, but it was not until 1814 that a small body of Europeans left Sydney and settled in New Zealand. The Rev. Samuel Marsden, who had been Chaplain to the Convict Colony of New South Wales, was the leader of the band, and its mission was to Christianise the natives. A little later the Wesleyan Church founded a Mission in the same neighbourhood. In 1825 a Company was formed in London to colonise New Zealand, and it sent away a band of pioneers in the ship _Rosanna_. The wild mien of the natives so thoroughly frightened these colonists that almost all of them returned to England. Desultory efforts at settlement followed, small bands of British subjects forming tiny stations at various points of the New Zealand coast, and getting on as well as they might with the natives, for they had no direct protection from the British Government, which was entirely opposed to any idea of annexing the group. There was no fever for expansion in England at the time. The United States had broken away. Canada seemed to be on the point of secession. The new settlement in Australia promised little. But the hand of the British Government was destined to be forced in the matter, and, willy-nilly, Britain had to take over a country which is now one of her most valued possessions. Mr Edward Gibbon Wakefield was responsible for forcing on the British Government the acquisition of New Zealand. The era was one of philanthropy and keen thought for social reform in Great Britain. The doctrines of the French Revolution still reverberated through Europe, and the rights of humanity were everywhere preached to men confronted with the existence of great social misery, which seemed to deny to the majority of mankind even the degree of comfort enjoyed by animals. Wakefield's remedy was the emigration of the surplus population of the British islands--well, the British islands except Ireland, to which country and its inhabitants Wakefield had an invincible antipathy. The prospectus of the Company to colonise New Zealand stated: "The aim of this Company is not confined to mere emigration, but is directed to colonisation in its ancient and systematic form. Its object is to transplant English society with its various graduations in due proportions, carrying out our laws, customs, associations, habits, manners, feelings--everything of England, in short, but the soil. We desire so now to cast the foundations of the colony that in a few generations New Zealand shall offer to the world a counterpart of our country in all the most cherished peculiarities of our own social system and national character, as well as in wealth and power." In due time twelve ships carrying 1125 people sailed for New Zealand. That was the beginning of a steady flow of emigrants mostly recruited by various Churches, and settled in groups in different parts of the New Zealand islands--members of the Free Church of Scotland at Otago, of the Church of England at Canterbury, men of Devon and Cornwall men at New Plymouth. The British Government could hardly shake off all responsibility for these exiles. But it did its best to avoid annexation, and even adopted the remarkable expedient of recognising the Maoris as a nation, and encouraging them to choose a national standard. The Maori Flag was actually flown on the high seas for a while, and at least on one occasion received a salute from a British warship. But no standard could give a settled polity to a group of savage tribes. The experiment of setting up "The Independent Tribes of New Zealand" as a nation failed. In 1840, Great Britain formally took over the New Zealand islands from the natives under the treaty of Waitangi, which is said to be the only treaty on record between a white race and a coloured race which has been faithfully kept to this day. "This famous instrument," writes a New Zealand critic, "by which the Maoris, at a time when they were apparently unconquerable, voluntarily ceded sovereign rights over their country to Queen Victoria, is practically the only compact between a civilised and an uncivilised race which has been regarded and honoured through generations of difficulties, distrust, and even warfare. By guaranteeing to the Maori the absolute ownership of their patrimonial lands and the enjoyment of their ancestral rights and customs, it enabled them to take their place as fully enfranchised citizens of the British Empire, and to present the solitary example of a dark race surviving contact with a white, and associating with it on terms of mutual regard, equality and unquestioned loyalty. The measure of this relationship is evident from the fact that Maori interests are represented by educated natives in both houses of the New Zealand Parliament and in the Ministry. The strict observance of the Treaty of Waitangi is part and parcel of the national faith of the New Zealanders, and a glorious monument to the high qualities of one of the finest races of aboriginal peoples the world has ever seen." The New Zealand colonists, having won the blessing of the British Flag, were not well content. Very shortly afterwards we find Mr James Edward FitzGerald writing to Wakefield, who was contemplating a trip to New Zealand. "After all, this place is but a village. Its politics are not large enough for you. But there are politics on this side the world which would be so. It seems unquestionable that in the course of a very few years--sometimes I think months--the Australian colonies will declare their independence. We shall live to see an Australasian Empire rivalling the United States in greatness, wealth and power. There is a field for great statesmen. Only yesterday I was saying, talking about you, that if you come across the world it must be to Australia; just in time to draw up the Declaration of Independence." But that phase passed. New Zealand to-day emulates Australia in a fervent Imperial patriotism, and at the 1911 Imperial Conference her Prime Minister, Sir Joseph Ward, was responsible for the following proposal which was too forward in its Imperialism to be immediately acceptable to his fellow delegates: "That the Empire has now reached a stage of Imperial development which renders it expedient that there should be an Imperial Council of State, with representatives from all the self-governing parts of the Empire, in theory and in fact advisory to the Imperial Government on all questions affecting the interests of his Majesty's Dominions oversea." He urged the resolution on the following grounds: (1) Imperial unity; (2) organised Imperial defence; (3) the equal distribution of the burden of defence throughout the Empire; (4) the representation of self-governing oversea Dominions in an Imperial Parliament of defence for the purpose of determining peace or war, the contributions to Imperial defence, foreign policy as far as it affects the Empire, international treaties so far as they affect the Empire, and such other Imperial matters as might by agreement be transferred to such Parliament. In advocating his resolution Sir Joseph Ward made an interesting forecast of the future of the British nations whose shores were washed by the Pacific. He estimated that if the present rate of increase were maintained, Canada would have in twenty-five years from now between 30,000,000 and 40,000,000 inhabitants. In Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand the proportionate increase could not be expected to be so great, but he believed that in twenty-five years' time the combined population of those oversea Dominions would be much greater than that of the United Kingdom. Those who controlled the destinies of the British Empire would have to consider before many years had passed the expansion of these oversea countries into powerful nations, all preserving their own local autonomy, all being governed to suit the requirements of the people within their own territory, but all deeply concerned in keeping together in some loose form of federation to serve the general interests of all parts of the Empire. At a later stage, in reply to Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Prime Minister of Canada, Sir Joseph Ward indulged in an even more optimistic prophecy. The United States, he said, had something like 100,000,000 people. The prospective possibility of Canada for settlement purposes was not less than that of the United States, and the Dominion was capable of holding a population of 100,000,000 in the future. Australia also was capable of holding a similar number, although it would necessarily be a great number of years before that position was reached. South Africa, too, could hold 100,000,000 people. It was no exaggeration to suggest that those three Dominions were capable of holding 300,000,000 of people with great comfort as compared with certain overcrowded countries. New Zealand, in the opinion of many well-qualified men, could carry upwards of 40,000,000 people with comparative ease and comfort. But these figures are hardly scientific. Climatic and other considerations will prevent Canada from reaching quite the same degree of greatness as the United States. British South Africa could "hold" 100,000,000 people, but it could not support them on present appearances. The possibilities of Australian settlement are difficult to be exaggerated in view of the steady dwindling of the "desert" area in the light of recent research and exploration, and of the fact that all her area is blessed with a genial climate. New Zealand, to keep 40,000,000 people, would need, however, to have a density of 400 people per square mile, a density surpassed to-day in Belgium and Holland but not reached by Great Britain. A fairly conservative estimate of the possibilities of the British Empire would allow it for the future a white population of 200,000,000, of whom at least half would be grouped near the shores of the Pacific. Presuming a British Imperial Federation on Sir Joseph Ward's lines with such a population, and the mastery of the Pacific would be settled. But that is for the future, the far future. Sir Joseph Ward, in the event, was not able to carry the Imperial Conference with him, the majority of the delegates considering that the time had not yet come for the organisation of an Imperial Federal system. But it is possible that with the passing of time and the growth of the population of the Dominions overseas, some such system may evolve: and a British Empire Parliament may sit one day at Westminster, at Vancouver or at Sydney. Certainly the likelihood is that the numerical balance of the British race will shift one day from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Following Australia's example, New Zealand has adopted a system of universal training for military service, but there are indications that she will not enforce it quite so rigorously as her neighbour. In the matter of naval defence, at the Conference of 1909 the New Zealand attitude was thus defined by her Prime Minister:-- "I favour one great Imperial Navy with all the Overseas Dominions contributing, either in ships or money, and with naval stations at the self-governing Dominions supplied with ships by and under the control of the Admiralty. I, however, realise the difficulties, and recognise that Australia and Canada in this important matter are doing that which their respective Governments consider to be best; but the fact remains that the alterations that will be brought about upon the establishment of an Australian unit will alter the present position with New Zealand. "New Zealand's maritime interests in her own waters, and her dependent islands in the Pacific would, under the altered arrangements, be almost entirely represented by the Australian Fleet unit, and not, as at present, by the Imperial Fleet. This important fact, I consider, necessitates some suitable provision being made for New Zealand, which country has the most friendly feeling in every respect for Australia and her people, and I am anxious that in the initiation of new arrangements with the Imperial Government under the altered conditions, the interests of New Zealand should not be over-looked. I consider it my duty to point this out, and to have the direct connection between New Zealand and the Royal Navy maintained in some concrete form. "New Zealand will supply a _Dreadnought_ for the British Navy as already offered, the ship to be under the control of and stationed wherever the Admiralty considers advisable. "I fully realise that the creation of specific units, one in the East, one in Australia, and, if possible, one in Canada, would be a great improvement upon the existing condition of affairs, and the fact that the New Zealand _Dreadnought_ was to be the flag-ship of the China-Pacific unit is, in my opinion, satisfactory. I, however, consider it is desirable that a portion of the China-Pacific unit should remain in New Zealand waters, and I would suggest that two of the new "Bristol" cruisers, together with three destroyers and two submarines, should be detached from the China station in time of peace and stationed in New Zealand waters; that these vessels should come under the flag of the Admiral of the China unit; that the flagship should make periodical visits to New Zealand waters; and that there should be an interchange in the service of the cruisers between New Zealand and China, under conditions to be laid down. "The ships should be manned, as far as possible, by New Zealand officers and men, and, in order that New Zealanders might be attracted to serve in the Fleet, local rates should be paid to those New Zealanders who enter, in the same manner as under the present Australian and New Zealand agreement, such local rates being treated as deferred pay. "The determination of the agreement with Australia has, of necessity, brought up the position of New Zealand under that joint agreement. I therefore suggest that on completion of the China unit, the present agreement with New Zealand should cease, that its contribution of £100,000 per annum should continue and be used to pay the difference in the rates of pay to New Zealanders above what would be paid under the ordinary British rate. If the contribution for the advanced rate of pay did not amount to £100,000 per annum, any balance to be at the disposal of the Admiralty. "The whole of this Fleet unit to be taken in hand and completed before the end of 1912, and I should be glad if the squadron as a whole would then visit New Zealand on the way to China, leaving the New Zealand detachment there under its senior officer." From the difference between the naval arrangements of Australia and New Zealand can be gathered some hints of the difference between the national characteristics of the two young nations. Australia is aggressively independent in all her arrangements: loyal to the British Empire and determined to help its aims in every way, but to help after her own fashion and with armies and navies recruited and trained by herself. New Zealand, with an equal Imperial zeal, has not the same national self-consciousness and is willing to allow her share of naval defence to take the form of a cash payment. Probably the most effective naval policy of New Zealand would be founded on a close partnership with Australia, the two nations combining to maintain one Fleet. But that New Zealand does not seem to desire. She is, however, content to be a partner with Australia in one detail of military administration. The military college for the training of officers at the Australian Federal capital is shared with New Zealand. The present Prime Minister of Australia, Mr Fisher, is taking steps towards securing a closer defence bond with New Zealand.[4] In an aspiration towards forward Imperialism, New Zealand is fully at one with Australia. But she has the idea that the control of the Southern Pacific, outside of the continent of Australia, is the right of New Zealand, and dreams of a New Zealand Empire embracing the island groups of Polynesia. It will be one of the problems of the future for the British Power to restrain the exuberant racial pride of these South Pacific nations, who see nothing in the European situation which should interfere with a full British control of the South Pacific. In addition to Australia and New Zealand, the British Empire has a number of minor possessions in the South Pacific. In regard to almost all of them, the same tale of reluctant acceptance has to be told. New Guinea was annexed by the Colony of Queensland, anxious to set on foot a foreign policy of her own, in 1883. The British Government repudiated the annexation, and in the following year reluctantly consented to take over for the Empire a third of the great island on condition that the Australian States agreed to guarantee the cost of the administration of the new possession. The Fiji Group was offered to Great Britain by King Thakombau in 1859, and was refused. Some English settlers then began to administer the group on a system of constitutional government under Thakombau. It was not until 1874 that the British Government accepted these rich islands, and then somewhat ungraciously and reluctantly, influenced to the decision by the fact that the alternative was German acquisition. It was no affectation of coyness on the part of the successive British Governments which dictated a refusal when South Pacific annexations were mooted. Time after time it was made clear that the Home Country wanted no responsibilities there. Yet to-day, as the result mainly of the impulse of Empire and adventure in individual British men, the British Flag flies over the whole continent of Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, a part of New Guinea, Fiji, and the Ellice, Gilbert, Kermadec, Friendly, Chatham, Cook, and many other groups. It is a strange instance of greatness thrust upon a people. FOOTNOTES: [4] Since writing, in March 1912, there has been an attempt on the part of the Australian Prime Minister to come to some closer naval arrangement with New Zealand; and the attempt seems to promise to be successful. CHAPTER IX THE NATIVE RACES The native races of the South Pacific, with the possible exception of the Maori, will have no influence in settling the destiny of the ocean. Neither the Australian aboriginal nor the Kanaka--under which last general title may be grouped all the tribes of Papua, the Solomons, the New Hebrides and other Oceanic islands--will provide the foundation of a nation. It is one of the curiosities of world-history that no great race has ever survived which had its origin in a land south of the Equator. From the earliest civilisations to the latest, there is not a single instance of a people of the southern hemisphere exercising any notable effect on the world's destinies. Sometimes there seems no adequate reason for this. That Africa north of the Equator should have produced a great civilisation, which was the early guide and instructor of the European civilisations, may be explained in part by the curious phenomenon of the Nile delta, a tract of land the irrigation of which at regular intervals by mysterious natural forces prompted inquiry, and suggested that all the asperities of Nature could be softened by effort. (The spirit of inquiry and the desire for artificial comfort are the great promptings to civilisation.) But it is difficult to understand why in America the aboriginal Mexicans should have been so much more warlike than the Peruvians or any other people in South America; and why the West Pacific should wash with its northern waters the lands of two great races, and with its southern waters flow past lands which, though of greater fertility, remained almost empty, or else were peopled by childlike races, careless of progress and keen only to enjoy the simple happiness offered by Nature's bounty. The Australian aboriginal race is rapidly dwindling: one of its branches, that which populated the fertile and temperate island of Tasmania, is already extinct. In Tasmania, reacting to the influence of a mild and yet stimulating climate, a climate comparable with that of Devon in England, but more sunny, the Australasian native had won to his highest point of development. Apparently, too, he had won to his highest possible point, for there is evidence that for many generations no progress at all had been made towards civilisation. Yet that point was so low in the stage of evolution that it was impossible for the poor natives to take any part, either as a separate race, or by mingling their blood with another race, in the future of the Pacific. The black Australian is a primitive rather than a degraded man. Most ethnologists have concluded that this black Australian is a Caucasian. Wallace ascribes to him kinship with the Veddas and the Ainus of Asia. Stratz takes the Australian as the prototype of all the races of man. Schoetensack contends that the human race had its origin in the Australian continent. But, however dignified by ancestry, the Australian aboriginal was pathetically out of touch with modern civilisation. He broke down utterly at its advent, not so much because of his bad qualities as because of his childishness. Not only were alcohol, opium and greed strange to him, but also weapons of steel and horses and clothing. He had never learnt to dig, to build, to weave. War organisation had not been thought of, and his tribal fights were prodigal of noise but sparing of slaughter. When the White Man came, it was inevitable that this simple primitive should dwindle from the face of the earth. It is not possible to hold out any hope for the future of the Australian blacks. They can never emulate the Maoris of New Zealand, who will take a small share in the building up of a nation. All that may be hoped for is that their certain end will be kept back as long as is humanly possible, and that their declining days will be softened by all kindness. A great reserve in the Northern Territory--a reserve from which the White population would be jealously excluded, and almost as jealously the White fashions of clothing and house-building--holds out the best hope for their future. It is comforting to think that the Australian Government is now resolved to do all in its power for the aboriginals. Indeed, to be just, authority has rarely lacked in kindness of intention; it has been the cruelty of individuals acting in defiance of authority, but aided by the supineness of authority, that has been responsible for most of the cruelty. The Maori or native New Zealander was of a different type. The Maori was an immigrant to New Zealand. Some time back there was an overflow of population from the fertile sub-tropical islands of Malaysia. A tribe which had already learned some of the arts of life, which was of a proud and warlike character, took to the sea, as the Norsemen did in Europe, and sought fresh lands for colonisation. Not one wave, but several, of this outflow of colonists struck New Zealand. The primitive people there, the Morioris, could offer but little resistance to the warlike Malaysians, and speedily were vanquished, a few remnants finding refuge in the outlying islets of the New Zealand group. Probably much the same type of emigrant occupied Hawaii at one time, for the Hawaiian and the Maori have much in common. But whilst the perpetual summer of Hawaii softened and enervated its colonists, the bracing and vigorous climate of New Zealand had a precisely opposite effect. The dark race of the Pacific reached there a very high state of development. The Maori system of government was tribal, and there does not seem to have been, up to the time of the coming of the White Man, any attempt on the part of one chief to seize supreme power and become king. Land was held on a communal system, and cultivated fairly well. Art existed, and was applied to boat-building, to architecture, to the embroidering of fabrics, to the carving of stone and wood. War was the great pastime, and cannibalism was customary. Probably this practice was brought by the Maoris from their old home. If it had not been, it might well have sprung up under the strange conditions of life in the new country, for New Zealand naturally possessed not a single mammal, not a beast whose flesh might be eaten. There were birds and lizards, and that was all. The Maoris brought with them dogs, which were bred for eating, but were too few in number to provide a satisfactory food-supply; and rats, which were also eaten. With these exceptions there was no flesh food, and the invitation to cannibalism was clear. A more pleasant feature of the national life of the Maori was a high degree of chivalry. In war and in love he seems to have had very much the same ideas of conduct as the European of the Age of Chivalry. He liked the combat for the combat's own sake, and it is recorded as one of the incidents of the Maori War that when a besieged British force ran short of ammunition, the Maori enemy halved with them their supply, "so as to have a fair fight." In his love affairs the Maori was romantic and poetic. His legends and his native poetry suggest a state of society in which there was a high respect for women, who had to be wooed and won, and were not the mere chattels of the men-warriors. Since this respect for womenkind is a great force for civilisation, there is but little doubt that, if the Maoris had been left undisturbed for a few more centuries, they would have evolved a state of civilisation comparable with that of the Japanese or the Mexicans. When Captain Cook visited New Zealand in 1769 the Maori race probably numbered some 100,000. The results of coming into contact with civilisation quickly reduced that number to about 50,000. But there was then a stay in the process of extinction. The Maori began to learn the virtues as well as the vices of civilisation. "Pakeha" medicine and sanitation were adopted, and the Maori birth-rate began to creep up, the Maori death-rate to decrease. It is not probable that the Maori race will ever come to such numbers as to be a factor of importance in the Pacific. But it will have some indirect influence. Having established the right to grow up side by side with the White colonists, possessing full political and social rights, the Maoris will probably modify somewhat the New Zealand national type. We shall see in New Zealand, within a reasonable time, a population of at least 10,000,000 of people, of whom perhaps 1,000,000 will be Maoris. The effect of this mixture of the British colonising type with a type somewhat akin to the Japanese will be interesting to watch. In all probability New Zealand will shelter a highly aggressive and a fiercely patriotic nation in the future (as indeed she does at present). The Malay States bred a vigorous and courageous race of seamen, and Malay blood has been dispersed over many parts of the Pacific, Malays probably providing the chief parent stock both for the Hawaiians and the Maoris. But the Malay Power has been broken up to such an extent that a Malay nation is now impossible. Since the British overlordship of the Malay Peninsula, the Chinese have been allowed free access to the land and free trading rights; and they have ousted the original inhabitants to a large extent. The Maori excepted, no race of Polynesia or Melanesia will survive to affect the destinies of the Pacific Ocean. Nature was cruelly kind to the Kanaka peoples in the past, and they must pay for their happiness now. In the South Pacific islands, until White civilisation intruded, the curse of Adam, which is that with the sweat of the brow bread must be won, had not fallen. Nature provided a Garden of Eden where rich food came without digging and raiment was not needed. Laughing nations of happy children grew up. True, wars they had, and war brought woe. But the great trouble, and also the great incentive to progress of life, they had not. There was no toiling for leave to live. Civilisation, alas! intrudes now, more urgent each year, to bring its "blessings" of toil, disease, and drabness of fettered life; and the Paradise of the South Sea yields to its advance--here with the sullen and passionate resentment of the angry child, there with the pathetic listlessness of the child too afraid to be angry. But, still, there survives in tree and flower, bird and beast, and in aboriginal man, much that has the suggestion rather of the Garden of Eden than of this curious world which man has made for himself--a world of exacting tasks and harsh taskmasters, of ugly houses and smoke-stained skies, of machinery and of enslaving conventions. With the White Man came sugar plantations and cotton fields. The Kanaka heard the words "work" and "wages." He laughed brightly, and went on chasing the butterfly happiness. To work a little while, for the fun of the thing, he was willing enough. Indeed, any new sort of task had a fascination for his childish nature. But steady toil he abhorred, and for wages he had no use. Some three years ago I watched for an hour or two, from the veranda of a house at Suva, a Fijian garden-boy at work. This was a "good" garden-boy, noted in the town for his industry. And he played with his work with an elegant naïveté that was altogether charming to one who had not to be his paymaster. Almost bare of clothing, his fine bronzed muscles rippled and glanced to show that he had the strength for any task if he had but the will. Perhaps the gentleness of his energy was inspired by the æsthetic idea of just keeping his bronze skin a little moist, so as to bring out to the full its satin grace without blurring the fine anatomical lines with drops of visible sweat. His languid grace deserved that it should have had some such prompting. If a bird alighted on a tree, the Fijian quickly dropped his hoe and pursued it with stones, which--his bright smile said--were not maliciously meant, but had a purpose of greeting. An insect, a passing wayfarer, the fall of a leaf, a cloud in the sky, all provided equally good reasons for stopping work. Finally, at three a little shower came, and the "model boy" of Fijian industry thankfully ceased work for the day. A gracious, sweet, well-fed idleness was Nature's dower to the Pacific Islander, until the White Man came with his work, as an angel with a flaming sword, and Paradise ended. Now the fruit of that idleness is that the Kanaka can take no part in the bustling life of modern civilisation. In one British settlement, Papua, a part of New Guinea, the Australian Government is endeavouring to lead a Kanaka race along the path of modern progress. "Papua for the Papuans," is the keynote of the administration, and all kinds of devices are adopted to tempt the coloured man to industry. His Excellency, Colonel Murray, the Administrator of Papua, told me in London (where he was on leave) last year (1911) that he had some hopes that the cupidity of the Papuans would in time tempt them to some settled industry. They had a great liking for the White Man's adornments and tools, and, to gratify that liking, were showing some inclination for work. The effort is well meant, but probably vain. "Civilisation is impossible where the banana grows," declared an American philosopher: and the generalisation was sound. The banana tree provides food without tillage: and an organic law of this civilisation of ours is that man must be driven, by hunger and thirst and the desire for shelter, to plan, to organise, to make machines, to store. Every nation in the Pacific has the same experience. In the Hawaiian Group, the American Power finds the native race helpless material for nation-making. The Hawaiian takes on a veneer of civilisation, but nothing can shake him from his habits of indolence. He adopts American clothes, lives in American houses, learns to eat pie and to enjoy ice-cream soda. He plays at the game of politics with voluble zeal. But he is still a Kanaka, and takes no real part in the progress of the flourishing territory of Hawaii. Americans do the work of administration. Imported Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese and others, are the coolies and the traders. The Hawaiian talks, basks in the sun, adorns himself with wreaths of odorous flowers, and occasionally declaims with the pathetic bleat of an enraged sheep at "American tyranny." When White civilisation came to the South Pacific, the various islands held several millions of coloured peoples, very many of them enjoying an idyllically happy system of existence. To-day, 50,000 Maoris, beginning to hold their own in the islands of New Zealand, represent the sole hope of all those peoples to have any voice at all in the Pacific. Humanitarian effort may secure the survival for a time of other groups of islanders, but the ultimate prospects are not bright. Probably what is happening at Fiji, where the Fijian fades away in the face of a more strenuous coolie type imported from India, and at Hawaii, will happen everywhere in the South Pacific. CHAPTER X LATIN AMERICA Latin America is the world's great example of race-mixture. Europeans and Indians have intermixed from Terra del Fuego to the northern boundary of Mexico, and the resultant race, with some differences due to climate, has general points of resemblance over all that vast territory. There is prompting to speculation as to the reasons why in Spanish and Portuguese America race mixture was the rule, in Anglo-Saxon America the exception. It was not the superior kindness of the Latin people which paved the way to confidence and inter-marriage. No one can doubt that, badly stained as are the records of the Anglo-Saxons in America, the records of the Latins are far, far worse. Yet the Latin, between intervals of massacre, prepared the nuptial couch, and a Latin-Indian race survives to-day whilst there is no Teutonic-Indian race. Probably it is a superior sense of racial responsibility and racial superiority which has kept the Anglo-Saxon colonist from mingling his blood with that of the races he made subject to him. He shows a reproduction in a modern people of the old Hebraic spirit of elect nationality. In truth; there may be advanced some excuse for those fantastic theorists who write large volumes to prove that ten tribes were once lost from Israel and might have been found soon after in Britain. If there were no other circumstances on which to found the theory (which, I believe, has not the slightest historical basis), the translation of the Old Testament into the English language would amply serve. It is the one great successful translation of the world's literary history: it makes any other version of the Bible in a European language--including that pseudo-English one done at Douai--seem pallid and feeble; it rescues the Hebrew sentiment and the Hebrew poetry from out the morass of the dull Greek translation. And it does all this seemingly because the Elizabethan Englishman resembled in temperament, in outlook, in thought, the Chosen People of the time of David. The Elizabethan Anglo-Saxon wandering out on the Empire trail treated with cruelty and contempt the Gentile races which he encountered. He has since learned to treat them with kindness and contempt. But he has never sunk the contempt, and the contempt saves him from any general practice of miscegenation. In ruling the blind heathen, more fussy peoples fail because they wish to set the heathen right: to induce the barbarian to become as they are. The Anglo-Saxon does not particularly wish to set the heathen right. He is right: that suffices. It is not possible for inferior races ever to be like him. It is wise, therefore, to let them wallow. So long as they give to him the proper reverence, he is satisfied. Thus the superb, imperturbable Anglo-Saxon holds aloof from inferior races: governs them coolly, on the whole justly; but never attempts to share their life. His plan is to enforce strictly from a subject people the one thing that he wants of them, and to leave the rest of their lives without interference. They may fill the interval with hoodoo rites, caste divisions or Mumbo-Jumbo worship, as they please. So long as such diversions have no seditious tendencies they are viewed, if not with approval, at least with tolerance. Indeed, if that be suitable to his purpose, the Anglo-Saxon governor of the heathen will subsidise the Dark Races' High Priest of Mumbo-Jumbo. Thus a favourite British remedy for the sorcerer, who is the great evil of the South Sea Islands, is not a crusade against sorcery, which would be very troublesome and rather useless, but to purchase over the chief sorcerers--who come very cheap when translated into English currency--and make them do their incantations on behalf of orderly government (insisting, by the way, on more faithful service than Balaam gave). It is his race arrogance, equally with his robust common-sense, that makes the Anglo-Saxon the ideal coloniser and governor of Coloured Races: and there is no room for miscegenation in an ideal system. America, considered in its two sections, Latin America and Anglo-Saxon America, gives a good opportunity for comparison of colonising methods. To-day North of the 30th parallel the Republic of the United States shows as the greatest White nation of the world, greatest in population and material prosperity; and the young nation of Canada enters buoyantly upon the path of a big career. South of that parallel there are great populations, but they are poor in resources, and as a rule poorly governed, poorly educated. Some of the Latin-American races show promise--Chili and the Argentine Republic most of all,--yet none is comparable or ever likely to be comparable with the Republic of North America. Yet before Columbus sailed from Europe the position was exactly reversed. North of the 30th parallel of northern latitude there was but a vagabond beginning of civilisation. South of that parallel two fine nations had built up polities comparable in many respects with those of the European peoples of to-day. What Peru and Mexico would have become under conditions of Anglo-Saxon conquest, it is, of course, impossible to say. But there is an obvious conclusion to be drawn from the fact that the Anglo-Saxon colonists found a wilderness and built up two great nations: the Latin colonists found two highly organised civilisations, and left a wilderness from which there now emerges a hope, faint and not yet certain, of a Latin-American Power. The story of Peru is one of the great tragedies of history. The Peruvian Empire at the time of the Spanish invasion stretched along the Pacific Ocean over the territory which now comprises Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Chili. Natural conditions along that coastal belt had been favourable to the growth of civilisation. A strip of land about twenty leagues wide runs along the coast, hemmed in by the Andes on one side, by the sea on the other. This strip of coast land is fed by a few scanty streams. Above, the steppes of the Sierra, of granite and porphyry, have their heights wrapped in eternal snows. Here was the call for work, which is the main essential of civilisation. The Peruvians constructed a system of canals and subterranean aqueducts, wrought with extraordinary skill by instruments and tools made of stone and copper (though iron was plentiful its use had not been learned). Thus they cultivated the waste places. In some respects their life conditions were similar to those of the Egyptians. Their agriculture was highly advanced and comprehensive. Their religion was sun-worship, and on it was based a highly organised theocracy. Tradition said that a son and daughter of the Sun, who were also man and wife, were sent by their father to teach the secrets of life to the Peruvians. These divinities were the first Incas. The civil and military systems of the Peruvians were admirable in theory, though doomed to break down utterly under the savage test of the Spanish invasion. The Empire was divided into four parts; into each ran one of the great roads which diverged from Cuzco ("the navel"), the capital. The provinces were ruled by viceroys, assisted by councils; all magistrates and governors were selected from the nobility. By law, the Peruvian was forced to marry at a certain age. Sufficient land was allotted him to maintain himself and his wife, and an additional grant was made for each child. There was a yearly adjustment and renewal of land grants. Conditions of theocratic and despotic socialism marked most departments of civil life. In what may be called "foreign politics" the Incas pursued conquest by a Florentine policy of negotiation and intrigue. In dealing with neighbouring foes they acted so that when they at last came into the Peruvian Empire, they should have uncrippled resources and amicable sentiments. The Spaniards have described the Peruvians as "lazy, luxurious and sensual." It would have been equally correct to have said that they were contented, refined and amiable. Their very virtues made it impossible for them to defend themselves against the Spaniards. The Spanish adventurers who were destined to destroy the elegant and happy civilisation of the Peruvians--a civilisation which had solved the problem of poverty, and gave to every citizen a comfortable existence--were children of Spain at her highest pitch of power and pride. Gold and his God were the two objects of worship of the Spaniard of that day, and his greed did no more to sully his wild courage with cruelty than his religion, which had been given a fierce and gloomy bent towards persecution by the struggles with the Moors. In 1511 Vasco Nunez da Balboa was told in Mexico of a fabulously rich land where "gold was as cheap as iron." Balboa in the search for it achieved the fine feat of crossing from Central America the mountain rampart of the isthmus. Reaching the Pacific, he rushed into its waters crying, "I claim this unknown sea with all it contains for the King of Castile, and I will make good this claim against all who dare to gainsay it." There Balboa got clearer news of Peru, and pushed on to within about twenty leagues of the Gulf of St Michael. But the achievement of Peru was reserved for another man. In 1524 Francisco Pizarro set out upon the conquest of Peru. Pizarro had all the motives for wild adventure. An illegitimate child--his father a colonel of infantry, his mother of humble condition,--he had reached middle age without winning a fortune, yet without abating his ambition. He was ready for any desperate enterprise. After two unsuccessful attempts to reach Peru, the Spanish freebooter finally succeeded, leading a tiny force across the Andes to Caxamalco, where he encountered the Inca, who received the strangers peaceably. But no kindness could stave off the lust for gold and slaughter of the Spaniards. Because the Inca refused at a moment's notice to accept the Christian God, as explained to him by a Spanish friar, a holy war was declared against the Peruvians. The wretched people understood as little the treachery and the resolute cruelty of the Spaniards as their gunpowder and their horses. Paralysed by their virtues, they fell easy victims, as sheep to wolves. A career of rapine and bloodshed led to the complete occupation of the country by the Spaniards, and the vassalage of the natives. Civil war amongst the conquerors, into which the natives were willy-nilly dragged, aggravated the horrors of this murder of a nation. The Spaniards looted and tortured the men, violated the women, and were so merciless as to carry on their war even against the natural resources of the country. They used to kill the llama or native sheep for the sake of its brains, which were considered a delicacy. Yet Pizarro, in his instructions from Spain, which secured to him the right of conquest and discovery in Peru, and various titles and privileges, was expressly enjoined "to observe all regulations for the good government and protection of the natives." The fact that the Spaniards condescended to racial mixture with the Indians did nothing to heal the scars of such suffering. The half-breeds grew up with a hatred of Spain, and they had borrowed from their fathers some of their savagery. The mild Peruvian would have bred victims for generation after generation. The Spanish-Peruvian cross bred avengers. Early in the nineteenth century Spain was driven out of South America and a series of Latin-American Republics instituted. In 1815 the Napoleonic wars having ended with the caging of the great soldier, Spain proposed to the Holy Alliance of European monarchs a joint European effort to restore her dominion over the revolted colonies in South America. But Napoleon had done his work too well to allow of any alliance, however "holy," to reassert the divine right of kings. Whilst he had been overthrowing the thrones of Europe, both in North and South America free nations had won recognition with the blood of their people. The United States, still nationally an infant, but sturdy withal, promulgated the Monroe doctrine as a veto on any European war of revenge against the South American Republics. Great Britain was more sympathetic to America than to the Holy Alliance. The momentarily re-established Kings and Emperors of Europe had therefore to hold their hand. It was a significant year, creating at once a free Latin America and a tradition that Latin America should look to Anglo-Saxon America for protection. Passing north of the Isthmus of Panama, there come up for consideration another group of Latin-American States of which the racial history resembles closely that of South America. The little cluster of Central American States can hardly be taken seriously. Their ultimate fate will probably be that of Cuba--nominal independence under the close surveillance of the United States. But, farther north, Mexico claims more serious attention. Some time before Peru had received the blessings of civilisation from Pizarro, Mexico had reluctantly yielded her independence to Cortez, a Spanish leader whose task was much more severe than that of Pizarro. Whilst the mild Peruvians gave up without a struggle, the fierce Mexicans contested the issue with stubbornness and with a courage which was enterprising enough to allow them to seize the firearms of dead Spanish soldiers and use them against the invaders. The original Aztec civilisation was warlike and Spartan. Extreme severity marked the penal codes. Intemperance, the consuming canker of Indian races, was severely penalised. There were several classes of slaves, the most unhappy being prisoners of war, who were often used as sacrificial victims to the gods. Sacrificed human beings were eaten at banquets attended by both sexes. The Aztecs were constantly at war with their neighbours, and needed no better pretext for a campaign than the need to capture sacrifices for their gods. Grijalba was the first Spaniard to set foot on Mexico. He held a conference with an Aztec chief, and interchanged toys and trinkets for a rich treasure of jewels and gold. Cortez, the conqueror of Mexico, was sent to Mexico by Velasquez, conqueror of Cuba. He landed in Mexico with the avowed object of Christianising the natives, and considered himself a Soldier of the Cross. Like a good Crusader, he was ready to argue with the sword when words failed to convince. For some while he engaged in amicable relations with the Mexicans, exchanging worthless trifles for Mexican gold. But eventually various small wars led up to a three months' siege of the Aztec capital, which fell after a display of grand courage on the part of the Mexicans. Their civilisation, when at a point of high development, was then blotted out for ever. It was in 1521 that the Spaniards first landed in Mexico. Their rule extended over three centuries. In 1813 Mexico first declared her independence, and in 1821 achieved the separation from Spain. The war of liberation had been fierce and sanguinary. It was succeeded by civil wars which threatened to tear to pieces the new nation. In 1822 an Empire was attempted. It ended with the assassination of the Emperor, Augustin de Yturbidi. A series of military dictatorships followed, until in 1857 a Republican constitution was promulgated. Because this constitution was strongly anti-clerical, it led to another series of wars. Meanwhile greedy eyes were fixed upon the rich territories thus ravaged by civil strife. The United States to the north coveted the coastal provinces of California. Napoleon III. of France conceived the idea of reviving French influence on the American continent, and in 1864 helped to set up the second Empire of Mexico with the unhappy Maximilian at its head. Maximilian left Europe in the spring of 1864. After three years of civil war he was shot by the revolutionary commander. His rule had not commended itself to the Mexicans and was viewed with suspicion by the United States, which saw in it an attempt to revive European continental influences. Then anarchy reigned for many years, until in 1876 the strong hands of Diaz, one of the great men of the century, took control. He did for the Mexican revolutionaries what Napoleon had done for the French Terrorists. But it was different material that he had to work upon. The Mexicans, their Aztec blood not much improved by an admixture of European, gave reluctant obedience to Diaz, and he was never able to lead them towards either a peaceful and stable democracy or a really progressive despotism. For more than a quarter of a century, however, he held power, nominally as the elected head of a Republic, really as the despotic centre of a tiny oligarchy. The country he ruled over, however, was not the old Spanish Mexico. There had been a steady process of absorption of territory by her powerful northern neighbour. Over 1,000,000 square miles, included in the rich Californian and Texas districts, had passed over by right of conquest or forced sale to the United States. The present area of Mexico is 767,000 square miles. So more than half of this portion of Spanish America has passed over to the Stars and Stripes. The fall of Diaz in 1911 seemed to presage the acquirement by the United States of the rest of Mexico. There had been for some months rumours of an alliance between Mexico and Japan, which would have had an obviously unfriendly purpose towards the United States. The rumours were steadily denied. But many believed that they had some foundation, and that the mobilisation of United States troops on the Mexican frontier was not solely due to the desire to keep the frontier line secure from invasions by the Mexican revolutionaries. Whatever the real position, the tension relaxed when the abdication of Diaz allayed for a while the revolutionary disorders in Mexico. Now (1912) disorder again riots through Mexico, and again the authorities of the United States are anxiously considering whether intervention is not necessary.[5] I am strongly of the opinion that by the time the Panama Canal has been opened for world shipping, the United States will have found some form of supervision over all Latin North America necessary: and that her diplomacy is now shaping also for the inclusion of Latin South America in an American Imperial system by adding to the present measure of diplomatic suzerainty which the Monroe doctrine represents a preferential tariff system. Before discussing that point, the actual strength of Latin America should be summarised. To-day the chief nations of Latin America--all of Spanish-Indian or of Portuguese-Indian origin--are:-- The Republic of Argentina, area 3,954,911 square miles; population, 6,489,000 (increasing largely by immigration from all parts of Europe); revenue, about £20,000,000 a year. The Republic of Bolivia, area 605,400 square miles; population 2,049,000; revenue, about £1,300,000 a year. The Republic of Brazil, area 3,218,991 square miles; population 21,461,000 (there is a great European immigration); revenue, about £18,000,000 a year. The Republic of Chili, area 2474 square miles; population about 4,500,000; revenue about £1,400,000 a year. The Republic of Ecuador, area 116,000 square miles; population about 1,400,000; revenue about £1,400,000. The Republic of Uruguay, area 72,210 square miles; population 1,042,668; revenue about £5,000,000. The Republic of Venezuela, area 393,870 square miles; revenue about £2,000,000. The Republic of Paraguay, area 98,000 square miles; population about 650,000. The Republic of Mexico, area 767,000 square miles; population about 14,000,000. The total of populations is between 50,000,000 and 60,000,000. These peoples have the possibility--but as yet only the possibility--of organising appreciable naval power, and are possessed now of a military power, not altogether contemptible, and equal to the task at most points of holding the land against a European or Asiatic invader, if that invader had to face the United States' naval power also. Presuming their peaceable acceptance of a plan to embrace them in the ambit of an American Imperial system--a system which would still leave them with their local liberties,--there is no doubt at all that they could add enormously to the strength of the United States. Presuming, on the other hand, a determined plan on their part to form among themselves a grand Federal League, and to aim at a Latin-American Empire, they might make some counterbalance to the power of the United States on the American continent and in the Pacific. Neither contingency seems immediately likely. These Latin-American peoples have not yet shown any genius for self-government. They produce revolutionary heroes, but not statesmen. Among themselves they quarrel bitterly, and a Latin-American Confederation does not seem to be possible. On the other hand, Latin America is jealous of the United States: resents, whilst it accepts the benefits of, the Monroe doctrine, and would take as a danger signal any action hostile to the Mexican Republic which the Anglo-Celtic Republic should be forced to take. Any attempt on the part of the United States to "force the pace" in regard to Latin America would saddle her with half a dozen annoying wars. What seems to be the aim of United States diplomacy, and what seems to be an attainable aim, is that very gradually the countries of South America will be brought closer to the northern Republic, coaxed by a system of reciprocity in trade which would offer them advantageous terms. Commercial union would thus pave the way to a closer political union. Such a development would be a very serious detriment to British trade interests, and to the British position in the Pacific. British export trade with Latin America is very considerable, amounting to some £60,000,000 worth a year. The two greatest contributors to the total are Brazil (£16,426,000 in 1910) and the Argentine Republic (£19,097,000 in 1910). Their communications with Great Britain will be left unchanged with the opening of the Panama Canal: and that event consequently will not strengthen American influence there. The same remark applies to trade with Mexico (£2,399,000 in 1910), with Columbia (£1,196,000), with Uruguay (£2,940,000). But trade with Peru (£1,315,000) and Chili (£5,479,000) will be affected by the canal bringing New York competition nearer. There would, however, be a very serious position created for British trading interests if a proposal were carried out of an American preferential tariff system embracing the United States and Latin America. The total of British trade with Latin America (about £60,000,000) is nearly one-third of the total of British foreign trade (£183,986,000 in 1910), and is more than half the total British trade with British possessions. Moreover, it is almost exclusively in lines in which United States competition is already keenly felt. A tariff preference of any extent to the United States would drive British goods, to a large degree, out of the Latin-American market. The position of Latin America in its effect on the dominance of the Pacific may be summed up as this: racial instability will probably prevent the Latin-American nations from federating and forming a great Power; the veto of the United States will prevent them from falling into the sphere of influence of any European Power; their jealousy and distrust of the United States, whether it be without or with reason, will stand in the way of their speedy absorption in an American Imperial system. But that absorption seems ultimately inevitable (though its form will leave their local independence intact). Its first step has been taken with the Monroe declaration; its second step is now being prepared with proposals for trade reciprocity. FOOTNOTES: [5] A dispatch from Washington, February 7, 1912, stated: President Taft and Secretary Knox held a long conference this morning on the state of affairs in Mexico, which, it is believed, are worse than is officially admitted. Reluctant as the President is to take any steps that might compel intervention or the military occupation of Mexico, he is forced to view both as ultimate possibilities, and to make preparations accordingly. Thus the Army on the border is being strengthened, although thus far no important military movements have taken place, but the plans are complete for mobilisation. While Congress is opposed to involving the country in war, or to any action which will lead to hostilities with Mexico, it will support the President if war is the only alternative, and the large amount of British and other foreign capital invested in Mexico makes it incumbent upon the United States, in view of the Monroe doctrine, to protect the lives and property of foreigners in the Republic. Otherwise, the duty of protection must be undertaken by the Governments whose nationals are in jeopardy, which would be an admission on the part of the United States that the Monroe doctrine exists for the benefit of the United States, but imposes no obligations. That is an admission Congress will not make so long as there is an Army ready to take the field. CHAPTER XI CANADA AND THE PACIFIC The existence, side by side, of two races and two languages in Canada makes it a matter of some doubt as to what the future Canadian nation will be. The French race, so far proving more stubborn in its characteristics than the British race in Canada, has been the predominant influence up to recently, though its influence has sought the impossible aim of a French-Canadian nation rather than a Canadian nation. Thus it was at once a bulwark of national spirit and yet an obstacle to a genuinely progressive nationalism. Patriotic in its resistance to all external influences which threatened Canadian independence, it yet failed in its duty to promote an internal progress towards a homogeneous people. Canada, it is perhaps needless to recall to mind, was originally a French colony. In the sixteenth century, when the British settlements in America were scattered along the Atlantic seaboard of what is now the United States, the French colonised in the valley of the Mississippi and along the course of the great river known as the St Lawrence. Their design of founding an Empire in America, a "New France," took the bold form of isolating the seaboard colonies of the British, and effectively occupying all of what is now the Middle-West of the United States, together with Canada and the country bordering on the Gulf of Mexico. It is not possible to imagine greater courage, more patient endurance, more strenuous enterprise, than was shown by the early founders of New France. If they did not achieve, they at least fully deserved an Empire. French colonists in Canada occupied at first the province of Acadia, now known as Nova Scotia, and the province of Quebec on the River St Lawrence. Jacques Cartier, a sailor of St Malo, was the first explorer of the St Lawrence. Acadia was colonised in 1604 by an expedition from the Huguenot town of La Rochelle, under the command of Champlain, De Monts, and Poutrincourt. Then a tardy English rivalry was aroused. In 1614 the Governor of Virginia, Sir Thomas Dale, sent an expedition to Acadia, and took possession of the French fort. That was the first blow in a long struggle between English and French for supremacy in North America. In 1629, the date of Richelieu's supremacy in France, an incident of a somewhat irregular war between England and France was the capture, by David Kirk, an English Admiral, of Quebec, the newly-founded capital of "New France"; and the English Flag floated over Fort St Louis. But it was discovered that this capture had been effected after peace had been declared between the two European Powers, and, by the treaty of St Germain-en-Laye, Quebec was restored to France. But the French colonies in America were still inconsiderable and were always threatened by the Red Indians, until Colbert, the great Minister of Louis XIV., made them a royal province, and, with Jean Baptiste Talon as Governor, Monseigneur Laval as Bishop, and the Marquis de Tracy as soldier, French Canada was organised under a system of theocratic despotism. The new régime was strictly paternal. The colonists were allowed no self-governing rights; a feudal system was set up, and the land divided into seignories, whose vassals were known as "habitants," a name which still survives. In all things the Governor and the Bishop exercised a sway. Wives were brought from France for the habitants, early marriages and large families encouraged, and religious orthodoxy carefully safeguarded. The French Canada of to-day shows the enduring nature of the lessons which Talon and Laval then inculcated. With the growth of modern thought the feudal system has passed away, and the habitants are independent farmers instead of vassals to a seigneur. But in most other things they are the same as their forefathers of the seventeenth century. When Canada passed into the hands of the English, it had to be recognised that there was no hope of holding the country on any terms antagonistic to the habitants and their firmly fixed principles of life. In regard to religion, to education, to marriage and many other things, the old Roman Catholic ecclesiastical influence was preserved, and continues almost undiminished to this day. The French-Canadian is a Frenchman of the era before the Revolution--a Frenchman without scepticism, and with a belief in large families. He is the Breton peasant of a century ago, who has come to a new land, increased and multiplied. He is devoutly attached to the Roman Catholic Church, and follows its guidance in all things. A somewhat frigid and calculating "loyalty" to Great Britain; a deep sentimental attachment to France as "the Mother Country"; a rooted dislike to the United States, founded on the conviction that if Canada joined the great Republic he would lose his language and religious privileges--these are the elements which go to the making of the French-Canadian's national character. Very jealously the French-Canadian priesthood preserves the ideas of the ancient order. Marriage of French-Canadians with Protestants, or even with Roman Catholics of other than French-Canadian blood, is discouraged. The education of the children--the numerous children of this race which counts a family not of respectable size until it has reached a dozen--is kept in the hands of the Church in schools where the French tongue alone is taught. Thus the French-Canadian influence, instead of permeating through the whole nation, aims at a people within a people. The aim cannot be realised; and already the theocratic idea, on which French-Canadian nationalism is largely based, shows signs of weakening. There are to be found French-Canadians who are confessedly "anti-clerical." That marks the beginning of the end. One may foresee in the near future the French-Canadian element merging in the general mass of the community to the great benefit of all--of the French-Canadian, who needs to be somewhat modernised; of the British-Canadian, who will be all the better for a mingling of a measure of the exalted idealism and spiritual strength of the French element; and of the nation at large, for a complete merging of the two races, French and British, in Canada would produce a people from which might be expected any degree of greatness. Canada, facing to-day both the Atlantic and the Pacific, has the possibilities of greatness on either ocean, or indeed on both; I do not think it a wild forecast to say that ultimately her Pacific provinces may be greater than those bordering the Atlantic, and may draw to their port a large share of the trade of the Middle-West. Entering Canada by her Pacific gate, and passing through the coastal region over the Selkirks and Rockies to the prairie, one sees all the material for the making of a mighty nation. The coastal waters, and the rivers flowing into them, teem with fish, and here are the possibilities of a huge fishing population. At present those possibilities are, in the main, neglected, or allowed to be exploited by Asiatics. But a movement is already afoot to organise their control for the benefit of a British population. The coastal strip and the valleys running into the ranges are mild of climate and rich of soil. An agricultural population of 10,000,000 could here find sustenance, first levying toll on the great forests, and later growing grain and fruit. Within the ranges are great stores of minerals, from gold down to coal and iron. Everywhere are rushing rivers and rapids to provide electrical power. Fishermen, lumbermen, farmers, mountain graziers, miners, manufacturers--for all these there is golden opportunity. The rigours of the Eastern Canadian climate are missing: but there is no enervating heat. The somewhat old-fashioned traditions of the Eastern provinces are also missing, and the people facing the Pacific have the lusty confidence of youth. At present the balance of political power in Canada is with the east. But each year sees it move farther west. The Pacific provinces count for more and more, partly from their increasing population, partly from their increasing influence over the prairie farmers and ranchers. The last General Election in Canada showed clearly this tendency. In every part of the nation there was a revulsion from the political ideals represented by Sir Wilfrid Laurier: and that revulsion was most complete in the west, where as a movement it had had its birth. It would be outside of the scope of this book to discuss the domestic politics of Canada, but the Canadian General Election of 1911 was so significant in its bearing on the future of the Pacific, that some reference to its issues and decisions is necessary. Sir Wilfrid Laurier up to 1911 had held the balance even between the British and the French elements in Canada without working for their amalgamation. His aim always was to pursue a programme of peaceful material development. With the ideals of British Imperialism he had but little real sympathy, and his conception of the duty of the Canadian nation was that it should grow prosperous quickly, push forward with its railways, and avoid entangling participation in matters outside the boundaries of Canada. He was not blind to the existence of the United States Monroe doctrine as a safeguard to Canadian territory against European invasion, and was not disposed to waste money on armaments which, to his mind, were unnecessary. The Canadian militia, which from the character of the people might have been the finest in the world, was allowed to become a mostly ornamental institution.[6] At the Imperial Defence Conference in 1909, Sir Wilfrid refused to follow the lead of other self-governing Dominions in organising Fleet units, and the Canadian attitude was recorded officially as this: "As regards Canada, it was recognised that while on naval strategical considerations a Fleet unit on the Pacific might in the future form an acceptable system of naval defence, Canada's double seaboard rendered the provision of such a Fleet unit unsuitable for the present. Two alternative plans, based upon annual expenditures respectively of £600,000 and £400,000, were considered, the former contemplating the provision of four cruisers of the 'Bristol' class, one cruiser of the 'Boadicea' class, and six destroyers of the improved 'River' class, the 'Boadicea' and destroyers to be placed on the Atlantic side and the 'Bristol' cruisers to be divided between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans." Yet it had been expected that Canada would at least have followed the Australian offer of a Pacific Fleet unit at a cost of £3,000,000 a year. Sir Wilfrid Laurier's fall came when, in the natural development of his ideals of a peaceful and prosperous Canada, sharing none of the responsibilities of the British Empire, but reckoning for her safety partly on its power, partly on the power of the United States, he proposed to enter into a Trade Reciprocity Treaty with the United States. The proposal was fiercely attacked, not only on the ground that it represented a partial surrender of Canadian nationalist ideals, but also on the charge that it was against the interests of British Imperialism. At the General Election which followed, Sir Wilfrid Laurier was decisively defeated. As an indication of the issues affecting the result, there is the anecdote that one of Sir Wilfrid Laurier's supporters ascribed the defeat chiefly to "the chap who wrote 'Rule Britannia.'" Canada to-day faces the future with a purpose made clear, of cherishing her separate nationalism and her partnership in the British Empire. She will cultivate friendship with the United States, but she will not tolerate anything leading to absorption with the great Republic: and she will take a more active part in the defence of the Empire. The Laurier naval policy, which was to spend a little money uselessly, has been set aside, and Canada's share in the naval defence of the Empire is to be discussed afresh with the British Admiralty. A military reorganisation, of which the full details are not available yet, is also projected. It is known that the Defence Minister, Colonel Hughes, intends to strengthen the rural regiments, to establish local in addition to central armouries, and to stimulate recruiting by increasing the pay of the volunteers. He also contemplates a vigorous movement for the organisation of cadet corps throughout the whole country. It is a reasonable forecast that Canada, in the near future, will contribute to the defence of the Pacific a Fleet unit based on a "Dreadnought" cruiser and a militia force capable of holding her western coast against any but a most powerful invader. Her ultimate power in the Pacific can hardly be over-estimated. The wheat lands of the Middle-West and the cattle lands of the West will probably find an outlet west as well as east, when the growing industrial populations of Asia begin to come as customers into the world's food markets. Electric power developed in the great mountain ranges will make her also a great manufacturing nation: and she will suffer less in the future than in the past from the draining away of the most ambitious of her young men to the United States. The tide of migration has turned, and it is Canada now which draws away young blood from the Southern Republic. FOOTNOTES: [6] It can be at least said on behalf of the Canadian militia that their condition was no worse than that of the militia of the United States. In 1906 Mr President Taft (then Secretary for War) contributed a preface to a pamphlet by Mr Huidekoper on the United States Army. Mr Taft then wrote:-- "Our confidence in ourselves and in our power of quickly adapting circumstances to meet any national emergency so far has carried away some of our public men so that they have been deliberately blind to the commonest and most generally accepted military principles, and they have been misled by the general success or good luck which has attended us in most of our wars. The awful sacrifice of life and money which we had to undergo during the four years in order to train our civil war veterans and to produce that army is entirely forgotten, and the country is lulled into the utterly unfounded assurance that a volunteer enlisted to-day, or a militiaman enrolled to-morrow, can in a week or month be made an effective soldier. The people of this country and the Government of this country, down to the time of the Spanish War, had pursued a policy which seemed utterly to ignore the lessons of the past." Mr Huidekoper (an acknowledged expert) maintained:-- "Judged by purely military standards, the invasion of Cuba was a trivial affair; but never in modern times has there been an expedition which contained so many elements of weakness; that it succeeded at all is, indeed, a marvel. The disorders of demoralisation and incapacity which attended the opening operations were nothing but the logical outcome of the unwillingness of Congress to prepare for war until the last possible moment, and merely demonstrated once again the utterly vicious system to which our legislators have persistently bound us, by neglecting to provide a force of thoroughly trained soldiers either large enough or elastic enough to meet the requirements of war as well as peace, supported by a militia which has previously had sufficient training to make it, when called out as volunteers, fairly dependable against the regular forces of other nations." Then in 1911, Mr Dickinson, U.S. Secretary for War, in an official report, condemned absolutely the U.S. militia on the grounds that: "It is lacking in proper proportions of cavalry, field artillery, engineer, signal corps and sanitary troops; it is not fully or properly organised into the higher units, brigades and divisions; it has no reserve supplies of arms and field equipment to raise its units from a peace to a war footing; it is so widely scattered throughout the country as to make its prompt concentration impossible; its personnel is deficient in training; it is to a degree deficient in physical stamina, and has upon its rolls a large number of men who by reason of their family relations and business responsibilities cannot be counted upon for service during any long period of war." It will thus be seen that not only in Canada, but also in the United States, the militia has become "mostly ornamental." But the United States is now awakening to the possibility of having to defend the Pacific coast against an Asiatic Power or combination of Powers holding command of the ocean, and promises to reorganise her militia. It is perhaps interesting to note that whilst to-day the British Imperial Defence authorities discourage Canada from any militia dispositions or manoeuvres founded on the idea of an invasion from the United States, the militia of the Republic, when it takes the field for mimic warfare, often presumes "an invasion by the British forces." CHAPTER XII THE NAVIES OF THE PACIFIC The present year (1912) is not a good one for an estimate of the naval forces of the Pacific. The Powers interested in the destiny of that ocean have but recently awakened to a sense of the importance of speedy naval preparation to avert, or to face with confidence, the struggle that they deem to be impending. By 1915 the naval forces in the Pacific will be vastly greater, and the opening of the Panama Canal will have materially altered the land frontiers of the ocean. A statement of the naval forces of to-day, to be useful, must be combined with a reasonable forecast of their strength in 1915. Following, for convenience' sake, geographical order, the Pacific Powers have naval strength as follows:-- _Russia._--Russia is spending some £12,000,000 a year on her navy, and is said to contemplate a force of sixteen "Dreadnoughts." Of these, four are now in hand, but the date of their completion is uncertain. At present Russia has no effective naval force in the Pacific, and but little elsewhere. The "Dreadnoughts" building--which are of a much-criticised type--are intended for use in European waters. The naval force of Russia in the Pacific for the present and the near future may be set down as negligible. _Japan._--Japan has two battleships of the "Dreadnought" class, the _Satsuma_ and the _Aki_, in actual commission. By the time that this book is in print there should be two more in commission. They were launched in November 1910. According to modern methods of computation, a navy can be best judged by its "Dreadnought" strength, always presuming that the subsidiary vessels of a Fleet unit--cruisers, destroyers and submarines--are maintained in proper proportion of strength. Japan's naval programme aims at a combination of fortress ships ("Dreadnoughts"), speed ships (destroyers) and submarines, in practically the same proportion as that ruling in the British navy. The full programme, at first dated for completion in 1915, now in 1920, provides for twenty modern battleships, twenty modern armoured cruisers, one hundred destroyers, fifty submarines and various other boats. But it is likely that financial need will prevent that programme from being realised. For the current year the Japanese naval estimates amount to £8,800,000. At present the Japanese navy includes some two hundred ships, of which thirty-eight are practically useless. The possibly useful Fleet comprises seventeen battleships and battleship cruisers, nine armoured cruisers, fifty-seven destroyers, twelve submarines, four torpedo gunboats and forty-nine torpedo boats. The Japanese navy is by far the strongest force in the Pacific, and is the only navy in the world with actual experience of up-to-date warfare, though its experience, recent as it is, has not tested the value of the "Dreadnought" type, which theoretically is the only effective type of battleship. _China._--At present China has twenty-six small boats in commission and five building. Her biggest fighting ship is a protected cruiser carrying six-inch guns. The naval strength of China is thus negligible. _The United States._--The United States cannot be considered as a serious Pacific naval Power until the Panama Canal has been completed.[7] Then under certain circumstances the greater part of her Fleet would be available for service in the Pacific. She spends some £26,000,000 yearly on her navy. She has at present four "Dreadnoughts" in commission, and by the time that this book is in print should have six. Her building programme provides for two new "Dreadnoughts," and the proper complement of smaller craft, each year. In the last annual report on the United States navy (December 1911), Secretary Meyer stated that a total of forty battleships, with a proportional number of other fighting and auxiliary vessels, was the least that would place the United States on a safe basis in its relations with the other world Powers, and "while at least two other Powers have more ambitious building plans, it is believed that if we maintain an efficient Fleet of the size mentioned, we shall be secure from attack, and our country will be free to work out its destiny in peace and without hindrance. The history of all times, including the present, shows the futility and danger of trusting to good-will and fair dealing, or even to the most solemnly binding treaties between nations, for the protection of a nation's sovereign rights and interests, and without doubt the time is remote when a comparatively unarmed and helpless nation may be reasonably safe from attack by ambitious well-armed Powers, especially in a commercial age such as the present." Battleships 36 and 37, at the time in course of construction, were, he claimed, a distinct advance on any vessels in existence. These vessels would be oil-burners, and would carry no coal. They were to be of about the same size as the _Delaware_, but their machinery would weigh 3000 tons less, or a saving of 30 per cent., and the fire-room force would be reduced by 50 per cent. Concluding his report, Mr. Meyer said: "The Panama Canal is destined to become the most important strategical point in the Western Hemisphere, and makes a Caribbean base absolutely necessary. The best base is Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which Cuba has ceded to the United States for naval purposes. This base will enable the United States to control the Caribbean with all its lines of approach to the canal, and, with a torpedo base at Key West, will render the Gulf of Mexico immune from attack." A new type of war machine, which is a combination of a submarine and a torpedo boat, is now being prepared for use in the United States navy. She is known as the "sub-surface torpedo boat." There is a submarine hull with machinery and torpedo armaments, and a surface hull--said to be unsinkable--divided into compartments. The whole vessel weighs six tons, can be carried on the deck of a battleship, travels eighteen knots an hour for a radius of two hundred miles, and needs a crew of two men. She carries a thousand pounds of gun-cotton. The sub-surface boat may be used as an ordinary torpedo boat, or she may be bodily directed at a hostile ship after her crew of two have left. It is estimated that the sub-surface boat will cost about £5000, all told, and it seems possible that it will be a serious weapon of naval warfare. _Great Britain._--Great Britain spent last year nearly £45,000,000 on her navy, which is the supreme naval force of the world. But its weight in a Pacific combat at present would be felt chiefly in regard to keeping the ring clear. No European Power hostile to Great Britain could send a Fleet into the Pacific. The United States could not despatch its Atlantic Fleet for service in the Pacific without a foreknowledge of benevolent neutrality on the part of Great Britain. At the Imperial Defence Conference of 1909, it was decided to re-create the British Pacific Fleet, which, after the alliance with Japan, had been allowed to dwindle to insignificance. The future Pacific naval strength of Great Britain may be set down, estimating most conservatively, at a unit on the China station consisting of one "Dreadnought" cruiser, three swift unarmoured cruisers, six destroyers and three submarines. This would match the Australian unit of the same strength. But it is probable that a far greater strength will shortly be reached. It may be accepted as an axiom that the British--_i.e._ the Home Country--Fleet in Pacific waters will be at least kept up to the strength of the Australian unit. The future growth of that unit is indicated in the report on naval defence presented to the Commonwealth Government by Admiral Sir Reginald Henderson, a report which has been accepted in substance. He proposes a completed Fleet to be composed as follows:-- 8 Armoured Cruisers, 10 Protected Cruisers, 18 Destroyers, 12 Submarines, 3 Depôt Ships for Flotillas, 1 Fleet Repair Ship, -- 52. This Fleet would, when fully manned, require a personnel of approximately 15,000 officers and men. The Fleet to be divided into two divisions as follows:-- EASTERN DIVISION. +---------------------------+--------------------------+ | | Number. | | +-----------+-------+------+ | Class of Vessel. |In Full | With |Total.| | |Commission.|Reduced| | | | | Crew. | | +---------------------------+-----------+-------+------+ | | | | | |Armoured cruiser | 3 | 1 | 4 | |Protected cruiser | 3 | 2 | 5 | |Torpedo-boat destroyer | 8 | 4 | 12 | |Submarine | 3 | ... | 3 | |Depôt ship for torpedo-boat| | | | | destroyers | 2 | ... | 2 | |Fleet repair ship | ... | ... | ... | | +-----------+-------+------+ | Total | 19 | 7 | 26 | +---------------------------+-----------+-------+------+ | | | WESTERN DIVISION. | | | +---------------------------+-----------+-------+------+ |Armoured cruiser | 3 | 1 | 4 | |Protected cruiser | 3 | 2 | 5 | |Torpedo-boat destroyer | 4 | 2 | 6 | |Submarine | 9 | ... | 9 | |Depôt ship for torpedo-boat| | | | | destroyers | 1 | ... | 1 | |Fleet repair ship | 1 | ... | 1 | | +-----------+-------+------+ | Total | 21 | 5 | 26 | +---------------------------+-----------+-------+------+ | Grand total of both | | | | | divisions | 40 | 12 | 52 | +---------------------------+-----------+-------+------+ That would necessitate £3,000,000 a year expenditure for the first five years, rising gradually to £5,000,000 a year. To this the Australian Government is understood to be agreeable. New Zealand does not propose to organise a naval force of her own, but will assist the British Admiralty with a subsidy. That subsidy is to be devoted to the use of the unit in China waters. Canada's naval plans at present are not known. After the Imperial Defence Conference of 1909 Sir Wilfrid Laurier found both his instincts for frugality and for peace outraged by the forward policy favoured by other of the Dominions. He decided to sacrifice the former and not the latter, and embarked on a naval programme which, whilst it involved a good deal of expenditure, made it fairly certain that no Canadian warship would ever fire a shot in anger, since none would be completed until she had become hopelessly obsolete. His successor in office has stopped that naval programme. It is possible that the new administration will decide that Canada should contribute in some effective form to Imperial naval defence, and she may be responsible for a naval unit in the Pacific. _Latin America._--Brazil (whose interests, however, are in the Atlantic rather than the Pacific) has two modern battleships of the "Dreadnought" type, and one other building. Chili has at present no really modern warship, but projects two "Dreadnoughts" and up-to-date small craft. The existing Fleet consists of one battleship, two armoured cruisers, and four protected cruisers. The Republic of Argentine has at present several vessels practically obsolete, the most modern cruisers having been built in 1896. There are three battleships, four armoured cruisers, and three protected cruisers. A modern navy is projected with, as a nucleus, two 25,000-ton battleships of twenty-two knots, armed with twelve-inch guns. Mexico, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela, have no useful Fleets. The following table will give as accurate a forecast as possible of naval strength in the Pacific in the immediate future:-- "DREADNOUGHT" TYPES IN 1912 AND 1915. 1912. 1915. British Empire 20 38 Germany 11 21 United States 8 14 Japan 4 8 Brazil 3 4 Argentine Republic ... 2 Chili ... 2 _Note._--All the South American "Dreadnoughts" are open to some doubt, though Brazil has three vessels of the type actually in the water. Battleships and cruisers of the "Dreadnought" type are included in the above table. It has been computed on the presumption that there will be no change in the 1912 naval programmes. The United States, the British Empire and Japan, are stronger in battleships of the pre-Dreadnought period than is Germany. Russia is ignored, for she has no present intention of restoring her Pacific naval Power. Germany is included because of her future position as the second naval Power of the world, and her possible appearance in the Pacific as the ally of one or other of the Powers established there now. The following additional table deals not merely with warships of the "Dreadnought" type, but with the effective tonnage, _i.e._ the tonnage of ships of all classes of the three greatest naval Powers:-- "EFFECTIVE TONNAGE" IN 1912 AND 1913-14. 1912. 1913-14. British Empire 1,896,149 2,324,579 United States 757,711 885,066 Germany 749,699 1,087,399 FOOTNOTES: [7] A "Reuter" telegram from Washington, dated March 17, stated: "Significant orders have been issued by the Navy Department directing three big armoured cruisers of the Pacific Fleet to proceed immediately to the Philippines for an indefinite stay. Their arrival will make the American Fleet in the Orient the most powerful there excepting the Japanese. The vessels under order are the cruisers _California_, _South Dakota_, and _Colorado_." CHAPTER XIII THE ARMIES OF THE PACIFIC The military forces available for service in the Pacific are those (1) of Russia; (2) of China; (3) of Japan; (4) of the United States; (5) of the British Empire including India; (6) of the Latin-American peoples of Mexico and South America. The great armies of France, Germany, and Austro-Hungary can have no voice in the destinies of the Pacific Ocean unless indirectly, as, for instance, through Germany or Austria helping or hindering a Russian movement in the Far East by guaranteeing or threatening her European frontier. The Russian army, though driven back by the forces of Japan during the recent war, still demands respectful consideration in any calculations as to the future of the Asian littoral of the Pacific Ocean. The Russians, as has been pointed out in a previous chapter, fought that campaign under many serious disadvantages. The Siberian railway gave them a very slender line of communication with their base. Now that railway is being duplicated, and in a future war would have at least double its old military capacity. The conditions of unrest at home in Russia during the war were so serious as almost to paralyse the executive government. Those conditions are not likely to be repeated, since Russia has now entered upon a fairly peaceful, if somewhat slow, progress towards constitutional reform. In a war on a land frontier for which the people were enthusiastic, the military power of Russia would be tremendous, though there was never any real foundation for the bogey of Russia as an all-powerful aggressive force. The Russian army, based upon conditions of universal liability to service, can muster in the field for war some 4,000,000 of men. But considering the vast frontiers to be defended, and the great claims therefore made by garrison fortresses, it is not likely that more than 1,500,000 could be mobilised in any one district. It is reasonably possible to imagine a Russian army of a million men being brought to and maintained on the Pacific littoral: of an even greater army based on, say, Harbin. That would be a formidable force, especially if enrolled to fight for the White Races against an Asiatic peril: for then it would share the old military enthusiasm of the Cossacks. There is nothing which will give the inquirer into national characteristics a better key to the Russian than a knowledge of the old Cossack organisation. It was formed, in the days of Russia's making as a nation, from the free spirits of the land, suffering on the one side from Turkish cruelty, on the other from the devastations of the Tartars. "Cossacks" meant simply "free men," and, at the outset, they were freebooters mainly, the Robin Hoods and Hereward the Wakes of Russia. But the patriotic work of resisting the Tartars and the Turks gave them a national aim, and in time they formed a military and religious organisation, unique in the history of European civilisation. From the village Cossacks--irregular volunteer troops, pursuing normally the life of villagers, but ready ever to take up arms against Tartar or Turkish bandits, or to become in turn themselves raiders of the enemy's caravans and villages--sprung up the Cossack Zaporojskoe, garrisoning the "Setch," a great military camp in the heart of the Cossack country. The Cossacks who joined the Setch devoted themselves wholly to military life. They had to swear to complete chastity, to abstinence whilst at war from alcohol, and to obedience to the Greek Church. The Cossack could leave the Setch if he were so inclined, but while he remained within its boundaries discipline was inexorable. In the Setch there was neither organised training, nor compulsory drill, nor military manoeuvres. With the exception of a few elected officers, there were, in time of peace, no social distinctions; but the bravest and the most experienced were treated with respect. For war a Cossack was elected to command each hundred men; his power was absolute. Several hundreds formed a regiment, with a colonel at its head, a temporary officer, elected for one campaign only. The organisation had some artillery and infantry, but its chief strength lay in its cavalry. It also built a Fleet of small boats with which it repeatedly raided the Turkish coast. This military monastic order passed away with the closer organisation of the Russian nation. Despotic Czars could not tolerate a community so formidable in its virtues. Characteristically enough, it was Catherine the Great who dealt the final blow to the Cossack Setch. But the Cossack organisation and spirit, as well as the Cossack name, survive in the Russian army to-day, and the million or so men whom Russia could muster on the shores of the North Pacific might have some great say in the future destinies of the ocean. The Japanese army of to-day, an army of veterans, must be credited, in calculating its value as a military engine, with the moral force of its record of victory. I confess to a belief in the superiority of the White Man, _qua_ White Man over any Asiatic: and I am not inclined, therefore, to accept Japanese generalship and Japanese initiative at their Tokio valuation. But the 600,000 men whom Japan can put into the field, perfect in discipline, armed as to the infantry with a first-class rifle, a little deficient though they may be in artillery and cavalry, is a most formidable force, unassailable in Japan's home territory, not to be regarded lightly if called to a campaign on the Asiatic mainland. Since the war with Russia the Japanese army has been increased: the fact is evidence of the unslaked warlike enthusiasm of the people. China will probably emerge from her present revolutionary troubles, whatever may be their result, with a seasoned army of great proportions. The actual military organisation of China at the time of the outbreak of the present revolt was somewhat nebulous. But an effort was being made to organise an Imperial army (on plans laid down in 1905) which would have numbered about 360,000 men trained on the Japanese model. Should the reformed China decide to follow in the footsteps of Japan as regards military organisation, the Chinese field force of the future would number some 2,500,000 men. It is already announced that the new Chinese Republic will adopt universal military training as part of its system of national reorganisation. The United States, relying on a purely voluntary system for its military organisation, has, in the opinion of most critics, the framework of an army rather than an army. The peace strength of the United States regular army is about 100,000, and from these the Philippine garrison draws 13,000 men, and the Hawaiian garrison 1000 of all ranks. A partially trained militia numbers about 100,000 men. For the rest there are 16,000,000 of men of military age in the nation, but they are absolutely untrained. In case of a powerful enemy obtaining naval control of the Pacific, there is danger that the United States would suffer the ignominy of the occupation, for a time, of her Pacific coast. British military forces available for the Pacific come under three headings: British garrisons in India and elsewhere in the Pacific. The citizen armies of Australia and New Zealand, and the militia forces of Canada. The Sepoy forces in India. The British garrisons total some 80,000 men. They may be classed, without prejudice, among the best troops in the world, well trained and with some experience of warfare. But the majority of them are stationed in India, and few of them could be safely drawn from there in an emergency. The Sepoy troops number some 250,000, officered generally by British leaders. It is conceivable that a portion of them could be used outside of India against coloured races. The citizen armies of Australia and New Zealand must be spoken of in the future tense: for their organisation has just begun, and it will be some five years before that organisation will be well under way. But so important is the bearing on Pacific problems of the training of some quarter of a million of citizen soldiers in the Australasian Dominions of the British Empire, that attention must be given here to a description of this army of the future. Taking the Australian organisation as the model: The population of Australia in 1911 was about 4-1/2 millions, of whom there were, on the basis of the last census-- 188,000 males of 14 years and under 18 years; and 295,000 males of 18 years and under 25 years. Allowing for those living in districts too thinly populated to admit of training without excessive expenditure, or medically unfit for training, upon the figures at present available, it is estimated that Australia will have in training, when the scheme is in full operation, each year-- 100,000 senior cadets; and 112,000 citizen soldiers. The system will give in eight years' time a force of 126,000 trained men, and fully equipped. Every year afterwards will increase the reserve by 12,000 men. And if the training be extended into the country areas, the numbers may be increased by 40 per cent. Increase of population will bring, too, an increase of numbers, and my estimate of an eventual 200,000 for the Australian army and 50,000 for the New Zealand army is probably correct. For the leading positions in this army there is provision to train a number of professional officers. The Military College of Australia is already in existence, and is organised on a basis of simplicity and efficiency which reflects the serious purpose of this democratic military organisation. It is not reserved for the children of the rich. It is not allowed to become intolerable to the children of the poor by the luxury of wealthy cadets. To quote from the official conditions:-- "The Military College of Australia is established to educate candidates for commissions in all arms of the Military Forces of the Commonwealth. "Only candidates who intend to make the Military Forces their profession in life will be admitted as Cadets to the Military College. Parents or guardians are therefore not at liberty to withdraw their sons or wards at will. "Cadets, in joining the Military College, shall be enlisted in the Permanent Military Forces for a term of twelve years. Service as a Cadet at the Military College shall be deemed service in the ranks of the Permanent Military Forces of the Commonwealth. "No fees will be charged for equipment or instruction or maintenance of Cadets, and their travelling expenses within the Commonwealth between their parents' or guardians' residences and the College will be paid on first joining and on graduation. "The following charges will be admitted against the public and credited to Cadets' accounts after they have joined:-- "Outfit allowance--£30 on joining. "Daily allowance of five shillings and sixpence (5s. 6d.) to cover cost of uniform and clothing, books, instruments, messing, washing and other expenses. "No Cadet will be permitted to receive money, or any other supplies from his parents or guardians, or any person whomsoever, without the sanction of the Commandant. A most rigid observance of this order is urged upon all parents and guardians, as its violation would make distinctions between Cadets, which it is particularly desired to prevent. "No Cadet, when within the Federal Territory, or when absent on duty from College, or when in uniform, shall drink any spirituous or intoxicating liquor, or bring or cause the same to be brought within the College, or have the same in his room, tent, or otherwise in his possession. "Gambling, lotteries, and raffles are strictly prohibited. They are serious offences, which will be severely punished. "Smoking may be permitted during certain hours and in authorised places. The smoking of cigarettes is at all times prohibited. A Cadet found in possession of cigarettes is liable to punishment for disobedience of orders." Canada has a militia force credited at present with a total strength of 55,000 men. Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who controlled the destinies of Canada for fifteen years up to 1911, was no military enthusiast and believed profoundly in a peaceful future for his country. In one respect, and in one respect only, Canada under his rule progressed in defence organisation: she had her own rifle factory turning out a rifle of Canadian design. But a new spirit moves in Canada to-day in matters of Defence as in other things. I remember in 1909 speaking at Toronto in advocacy of a system of universal training for military service. Lieut.-Col. Wm. Hamilton Merritt, a Canadian militia officer who had learned enthusiasm for the idea of a "citizen army" on a visit to Switzerland, invited me to come up to Toronto from New York to speak on the Australian campaign for the universal training of citizens. The meeting was friendly but not particularly enthusiastic. My strongest recollection of it is that one Canadian paper most unjustifiably and absurdly twisted some words of mine advocating Canadian self-reliance into advice that Canada should arm "to attack the United States." But the outcome of the meeting was that a "Canadian Patriotic League" was formed, and from it sprang the "Canadian Defence League, a non-political association to urge the importance to Canada of universal physical and naval or military training." For two years and more, in spite of the earnest efforts of Canadian enthusiasts, the movement languished. After the General Election of 1911, however, a quickening came to every department of Canadian life, and this particularly showed itself in matters of Defence. In November of that year, Colonel the Hon. S. Hughes, the Canadian Minister of Militia, called a conference of experts to consider the organisation of the militia. To that conference the Canadian Defence League was invited to send representatives, and their presence seemed to inspire the whole gathering with an enthusiasm for a universal service system. Summarising from a report sent to me by the Canadian Defence League: "Universal military training has at last become a live issue throughout the Dominion of Canada. It was the mainspring behind the whole machinery of the Militia Conference; almost every man present was in favour of it, but a few, if the question had come to vote, would have either refrained from voting or voted against it, because they were afraid of the possibility of being misunderstood by the public at large. The cavalry section made no recommendation, and the infantry section discussed it, while the artillery, which is always in the front, was strongly in favour of it. Colonel Logie of Hamilton moved and Colonel Fotheringham of Toronto seconded a resolution recommending the adoption of the Australian system in Canada. This motion was with a view to placing the conference on record; but the Minister, in his wisdom, held the resolution in abeyance, and it did not come to a vote. But in the closing hours of the conference Senator Power of Nova Scotia positively and definitely advocated universal military training for the whole of Canada." A universal service system in Canada would provide a citizen army of--probably--250,000 men of the finest type: and the effect of this force on Pacific issues would be equal to that of the combined armies of Australia and New Zealand. The military strength of Latin America (the South American Republics and Mexico) it is difficult to estimate accurately. In almost all cases the constitution of the Republics provides for "universal service" but fails to provide for universal training for service. Under modern conditions of warfare, it is useless to enact that men shall serve unless the necessary sacrifices of money and leisure are made to train them to serve. Raw levies could be made of some use almost immediately in a past epoch of warfare, when the soldier with his "Brown Bess" musket had the injunction from the drill sergeant to "wait until he could see the whites of the eyes" of his enemy and then to fire. That needed stolid nerves mainly, and but little training. In these days raw levies would be worse than useless, of no value in battles, a burden on the commissariat and hospital services between battles. The Latin-American armies must be judged in the light of that fact. Apart from that caution, the numbers are imposing enough. Mexico has an army organisation providing for 30,000 men on a peace footing and 84,000 men on a war footing. The Argentine army on a peace footing is about 18,000 strong; on a war footing about 120,000 strong, exclusive of the National Guard and Territorial troops (forming a second line). In the Republic of Bolivia the peace footing of the army is 2500: the probable war footing 30,000. The Republic of Brazil has a universal service system. The peace strength of the army is 29,000 (to which may be added a gendarmerie of 20,000). On the outbreak of war there could be mobilised, it is claimed, five divisions totalling, say, 60,000 men. Chili has, on a peace footing, about 10,000 men; on a war footing 50,000, exclusive of the reserves (about 34,000). Colombia makes every man liable to service, but the training is not regular. Possibly 10,000 men could be mobilised in time of war. Ecuador maintains a permanent force of about 5000 men, and claims that it could mobilise 90,000 in case of war. Paraguay has a permanent force of 2500 men and a National Guard available for service in case of war. The South American has proved himself, on occasions, a good and plucky fighter. But I doubt whether his military forces can be seriously considered as a factor in the fate of the Pacific, except in the matter of defending his own territory from invasion. The only armies that count greatly to-day in the Pacific are those of Japan, Russia, and Great Britain, in that order, with China and the United States as potential rather than actual military forces. CHAPTER XIV TREATIES IN THE PACIFIC There is one actual alliance between two Pacific Powers, Great Britain and Japan: an _entente_ between Great Britain and Russia: and an instinct towards friendliness between Great Britain and the United States. There are several other possible combinations affecting the ocean in the future. But no Power of the Triple Alliance, nor yet France, can be considered a factor in the Pacific except in so far as it may help or hinder a Power already established there. Germany, for instance, might enter the Pacific as an ally of Japan or the United States; but she could not without an alliance bring naval or military force there unless Great Britain had first been humbled in a European war. To the alliance between Great Britain and Japan not very much importance can be ascribed since its revision in 1911. It threatens to die now of inanition, as it becomes clear that British aims and Japanese aims in the Pacific do not move towards a common end. The first British-Japanese treaty, signed on January 30, 1902, had for its main provisions-- "The Governments of Great Britain and Japan, actuated solely by a desire to maintain the _status quo_ and general peace in the extreme East, being moreover specially interested in maintaining the independence and territorial integrity of the Empire of China and the Empire of Corea, and in securing equal opportunities in those countries for the commerce and industry of all nations, hereby agree as follows:-- "The High Contracting Parties, having mutually recognised the independence of China and of Corea, declare themselves to be entirely uninfluenced by any aggressive tendencies in either country. Having in view, however, their special interests, of which those of Great Britain relate principally to China, while Japan, in addition to the interests which she possesses in China, is interested in a peculiar degree politically, as well as commercially and industrially, in Corea, the High Contracting Parties recognise that it will be admissible for either of them to take such measures as may be indispensable in order to safeguard those interests if threatened either by the aggressive action of any other Power, or by disturbances arising in China or Corea, and necessitating the intervention of either of the High Contracting Parties for the protection of the lives and property of its subjects. "If either Great Britain or Japan, in the defence of their respective interests as above described, should become involved in war with another Power, the other High Contracting Party will maintain a strict neutrality, and use its efforts to prevent other Powers from joining in hostilities against its ally. "If in the above event any other Power or Powers should join in hostilities against that ally, the other High Contracting Party will come to its assistance and will conduct the war in common, and make peace in mutual agreement with it. "The High Contracting Parties agree that neither of them will, without consulting the other, enter into separate arrangements with another Power to the prejudice of the interests above described. "Whenever, in the opinion of either Great Britain or Japan, the above-mentioned interests are in jeopardy, the two Governments will communicate with one another fully and frankly." A letter covering the treaty, addressed by the Marquess of Lansdowne to the British Minister at Tokio, Sir C. Macdonald, explained the fact that there was to be no disturbance of Chinese or Corean territory: "We have each of us desired that the integrity and independence of the Chinese Empire should be preserved, that there should be no disturbance of the territorial _status quo_ either in China or in the adjoining regions, that all nations should, within those regions, as well as within the limits of the Chinese Empire, be afforded equal opportunities for the development of their commerce and industry, and that peace should not only be restored, but should, for the future, be maintained. We have thought it desirable to record in the preamble of that instrument the main objects of our common policy in the Far East to which I have already referred, and in the first Article we join in entirely disclaiming any aggressive tendencies either in China or Corea." But that stipulation did nothing to safeguard Corea's independence, which was soon sacrificed to Japanese ambition. There was a widespread feeling of uneasiness in the British Dominions in the Pacific when this treaty was announced. At the time Canada was having serious trouble on her Pacific Coast with Japanese immigrants, and the Canadian Pacific provinces were anxious to prohibit absolutely the entry of more Japanese to their territory.[8] Australia in 1901 had made the first great deed of her new national organisation a law practically prohibiting all coloured immigration, and making the entry of Japanese colonists impossible. The Act certainly veiled its hostility to the Asiatic races by a subterfuge. It was not stated in so many words that black skin, brown skin, and yellow skin were prohibited from entry, but an educational standard was set up which might be applied to any immigrant, but needed to be applied to none. In practice it is never applied to the decent White but always to the coloured man: and its application is such that the coloured man can never be sure that his standard of education will be sufficiently high to satisfy the fastidious sense of culture of an Australian Customs officer. He may be a learned Baboo, B.A. of Oxford, and Barrister of the Inner Temple, and yet fail to pass the Australian Education Test, for the ordeal is to take dictation in any European language, not necessarily English, but perhaps Russian or modern Greek. New Zealand, without going so far by her legislation, shows an equal repugnance to any form of Asiatic immigration. The "official" view of the British Alliance with Japan, advocated with some energy, was that it was a benefit to the White Dominions in the Pacific, for it made them secure against the one aggressive Asiatic Power. But nevertheless the policy of making the wolf a guardian of the sheep-fold was questioned in many quarters. The question was asked: "Presuming a Pacific war in which the United States was the enemy of Japan?" The answer in the minds of many, in Australia at any rate, and probably also in Canada and New Zealand, was that in such event the sympathy, if not the active support, of the British Dominions in the Pacific would be with the United States, whether Great Britain kept to her Treaty or not. It was recognised, however, as almost unthinkable that Great Britain would go to war by the side of Japan against the American Republic. Great Britain is very sensitive to the opinions of her Dominions in these days of the industrious promulgation of Imperialist sentiment in Great Britain: and a Canadian or an Australian voter--though he has no vote for the House of Commons--has far more influence on the destinies of the Empire than his British compeer. The overseas objection to the Treaty with Japan had its full effect in the British Cabinet, and that effect was seen in subsequent modifications of the Treaty. On August 12, 1905, the British-Japanese Treaty was renewed, and the chief articles of the new treaty were:-- "The Governments of Great Britain and Japan, being desirous of replacing the agreement concluded between them on the 30th January, 1902, by fresh stipulations, have agreed upon the following articles, which have for their object-- "(a) The consolidation and maintenance of the general peace in the regions of Eastern Asia and of India; "(b) The preservation of the common interests of all Powers in China by insuring the independence and integrity of the Chinese Empire and the principle of equal opportunities for the commerce and industry of all nations in China; "(c) The maintenance of the territorial rights of the High Contracting Parties in the regions of Eastern Asia and of India, and the defence of their special interests in the said regions:-- "It is agreed that whenever, in the opinion of either Great Britain or Japan, any of the rights and interests referred to in the preamble of this Agreement are in jeopardy, the two Governments will communicate with one another fully and frankly, and will consider in common the measures which should be taken to safeguard those menaced rights or interests. "If by reason of unprovoked attack or aggressive action, wherever arising, on the part of any other Power or Powers, either Contracting Party should be involved in war in defence of its territorial rights or special interests mentioned in the preamble of this Agreement, the other Contracting Party will at once come to the assistance of its ally, and will conduct the war in common, and make peace in mutual agreement with it. "Japan possessing paramount political, military, and economic interests in Corea, Great Britain recognises the right of Japan to take such measures of guidance, control, and protection in Corea as she may deem proper and necessary to safeguard and advance those interests, provided always that such measures are not contrary to the principle of equal opportunities for the commerce and industry of all nations. "Great Britain having a special interest in all that concerns the security of the Indian frontier, Japan recognises her right to take such measures in the proximity of that frontier as she may find necessary for safeguarding her Indian possessions. "The High Contracting Parties agree that neither of them will, without consulting the other, enter into separate arrangements with another Power to the prejudice of the objects described in the preamble of this Agreement. "The conditions under which armed assistance shall be afforded by either Power to the other in the circumstances mentioned in the present Agreement, and the means by which such assistance is to be made available, will be arranged by the naval and military authorities of the Contracting Parties, who will from time to time consult one another fully and freely upon all questions of mutual interest. "The present Agreement shall, subject to the provisions of Article VI., come into effect immediately after the date of its signature, and remain in force for ten years from that date." It will be noted that there is, as regards the general responsibility under the Treaty, some watering down. One Power is bound to come to the help of the other Power only by reason of "unprovoked attack or aggressive action" on the part of another Power. The fiction of preserving the independence of Corea is abandoned. On April 3, 1911, a Treaty of Commerce and Navigation was entered into between Great Britain and Japan. The Japanese Government had revised its tariff in such a way as to prejudice seriously foreign trade. It was announced in Japan that certain nations would have the benefit of "most-favoured nation" rates under the new tariff, but that Great Britain would not have that benefit, since, being a Free Trade country, she was able to give no concessions in return. Then the diplomatic Treaty of 1905 was used by the British Government as an argument for securing more favoured treatment for British merchants. If the Trade Treaty of 1911 is closely studied, it will be found that the trade advantages given to Japan by Great Britain, in return for some real concessions on the part of Japan to Great Britain, are wholly illusory. It is difficult to see how they could have been otherwise, since a Free Trade country can give nothing better than Free Trade to another country. But Great Britain, a good deal out of conceit at this time with the diplomatic value of the Treaty of 1905, did not hesitate to use it as a means of securing some trade benefits. The effect on Japanese public opinion was not favourable. But the diplomatic position had so changed that that was not considered a serious circumstance in Great Britain. Two articles of the British-Japanese Trade Treaty of 1911 should be quoted to show the mutual acceptance by the two Powers of the independent right of the British overseas Dominions to restrict or prohibit Japanese immigration: "The subjects of each of the High Contracting Parties shall have full liberty to enter, travel and reside in the territories of the other, and, conforming themselves to the laws of the country, "They shall in all that relates to travel and residence be placed in all respects on the same footing as native subjects. "They shall have the right, equally with native subjects, to carry on their commerce and manufacture, and to trade in all kinds of merchandise of lawful commerce, either in person or by agents, singly or in partnerships with foreigners or native subjects. "They shall in all that relates to the pursuit of their industries, callings, professions, and educational studies be placed in all respects on the same footing as the subjects or citizens of the most favoured nation." But Article 26 makes this reservation: "The stipulations of the present Treaty shall not be applicable to any of His Britannic Majesty's Dominions, Colonies, Possessions, or Protectorates beyond the seas, unless notice of adhesion shall have been given on behalf of any such Dominion, Colony, Possession, or Protectorate by His Britannic Majesty's Representative at Tokio before the expiration of two years from the date of the exchange of the ratifications of the present Treaty." A few weeks after the conclusion of this Trade Treaty the British-Japanese Alliance was renewed on terms which practically "draw its sting" and abolish the contingency of a British-Japanese war against the United States, or against any Power with which Great Britain makes an Arbitration Treaty. The preamble of the British-Japanese Treaty now reads: "The Government of Great Britain and the Government of Japan, having in view the important changes which have taken place in the situation since the conclusion of the Anglo-Japanese Agreement of the 12th August, 1905, and believing that a revision of that Agreement responding to such changes would contribute to the general stability and repose, have agreed upon the following stipulations to replace the Agreement above mentioned, such stipulations having the same object as the said Agreement, namely: "(a) The consolidation and maintenance of the general peace in the regions of Eastern Asia and of India. "(b) The preservation of the common interests of all Powers in China by insuring the independence and integrity of the Chinese Empire, and the principle of equal opportunities for the commerce and industry of all nations in China. "(c) The maintenance of the territorial rights of the High Contracting Parties in the regions of Eastern Asia and of India and the defence of their special interests in the said regions." The chief clauses are: "If, by reason of unprovoked attack or aggressive action wherever arising on the part of any Power or Powers, either High Contracting Party should be involved in war in defence of its territorial rights or special interests mentioned in the preamble of this Agreement, the other High Contracting Party will at once come to the assistance of its ally and will conduct the war in common and make peace in mutual agreement with it. "The High Contracting Parties agree that neither of them will, without consulting the other, enter into separate arrangements with another Power to the prejudice of the objects described in the preamble of this Agreement. "Should either High Contracting Party conclude a Treaty of General Arbitration with a third Power, it is agreed that nothing in this Agreement shall entail upon such Contracting Party an obligation to go to war with the Power with whom such Treaty of Arbitration is in force. "The present Agreement shall come into effect immediately after the date of its signature, and remain in force for ten years from that date." It will be recognised that there is very little left now of the very thorough Treaty of 1902. It does not suit Japanese foreign policy that this fact should be accentuated, and public opinion in that country has been generally muzzled. Nevertheless, some candid opinions on the subject have been published in the Japanese press. Thus the Osaka _Mainichi_ last January, discussing evidently a Japanese disappointment at the failure of Great Britain to join Japan in some move against Russia, claimed that "for all practical purposes, the Anglo-Japanese Alliance ended with its revision last July." In the opinion of the _Mainichi_, "the Alliance no longer furnishes any guarantee for the preservation of Chinese integrity. So far from Japan and Great Britain taking, as the terms of the Alliance provide, joint action to protect the rights and interests of the two nations when the same are threatened, no measures have been taken at all." According to the _Mainichi_, "England is no longer faithful to the principle of the Alliance as regards the territorial integrity of China, and it is even rumoured that she has intentions on Tibet, similar to those of Russia in Mongolia. Consequently it is a matter of supreme importance to know whether the Alliance is to be considered as still alive or not, and the Japanese Government would do well to make some explicit declaration on the subject." This view was supported by the Tokio _Nichi-Nichi_, which wrote: "For a long time now the feeling between Great Britain and Japan has been undergoing a change. There is no concealing the fact that it is no longer what it was before the Russo-Japanese War. At the time of the Tariff the friendly relations were only maintained by concessions from the side of the Japanese. The revision of the terms of the Alliance has reduced it from a real value to this country to a merely nominal value. The friendship which has been steadily growing between Great Britain and Russia is something to be watched. The action of Great Britain in the China trouble has not been true to the Alliance. The tacit consent given to Russian action in Mongolia is a violation of the integrity of China, and on top of it we are informed that Great Britain at the right moment will adopt similar steps in Tibet." The British-Japanese Treaty, for as much as it stands for, is the only definite treaty affecting big issues in the Pacific to-day. To attempt to discuss all possible treaties and combinations in the Pacific would be, of course, impossible. But some notice must be given of the recent remarkable hint of the possibilities of an "understanding" between Germany and the United States on Pacific questions. In February Mr Knox, the United States Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, communicated in a formal Note to Germany some views on Pacific questions. Commenting on this, the _New York Sun_, whose correspondent at Washington is a great deal in the confidence of the Government, commented: "The significance of Mr Knox's Note as a warning will, it is thought, be clearly seen by the other Powers. The fact that the writing and publication of Mr Knox's Note are the result of an understanding between Germany and the United States will greatly add to the force of the document. The other Powers, according to the Washington view, will hesitate long before embarking upon the policy of advancing their special interests by taking advantage of China's distress when Germany and the United States are standing together before the world in opposition to any such move." An "understanding" between Germany and the United States to act together on the Asiatic side of the Pacific littoral would have its strategic importance in the fact that German power in the Atlantic would help to lessen certain risks consequent upon the United States concentrating her naval forces in the Pacific. Another reasonably possible combination should be noted. As one of three partners in the Triple Entente, Great Britain has an understanding with Russia, which might possibly affect one day the position in the Pacific. It is a fact rumoured among European diplomats that France, with the idea of maintaining the Triple Entente as a basis of future world-action, has urged Russia to build a Pacific Fleet, abandoning naval expansion in the Baltic and the Black Sea. With a strong Pacific Fleet Russia would certainly be a much more valuable friend to France and to Great Britain than at present. But that is "in the air." The actual position is that Great Britain and Russia are on such excellent terms that they can fish amicably together to-day in the very disturbed waters of Persia, and are possible future partners in the Pacific. Those who consider a British-Russian alliance as impossible, forget the history of centuries and remember only that of a generation. Anciently the Russian and the Englishman were the best of friends, and Russian aid was often of very material use to Great Britain. It was in the eleventh century that King Canute established English naval power in the Baltic, and thus opened up a great trade with the Russian town of Novgorod. He helped the young Russian nation much in so doing. After Canute's death this trade with Russia languished for five centuries. But in the sixteenth century it was revived, and some centuries later it was said of this revival: "The discovery of a maritime intercourse with the Great Empire of Russia, and the consequent extension of commerce and navigation, is justly regarded by historians as the first dawn of the wealth and naval preponderance of England." Some indeed hold that the great exploits of the Elizabethan era of British seamanship would not have been possible without the maritime supplies--cordage, canvas, tallow, spars and salt beef--obtained from Russia. The benefits of the friendship were not all on one side. In the seventeenth century England helped Russia with arms, supplies and troops against the Poles. In 1747 England paid Russia to obtain an army of 37,000 troops which was employed in Holland. Later it was agreed that Russia was to keep ready, on the frontiers of Livonia, an army of 47,000 troops beside forty galleys to be used in the defence of Hanover, for England, if needed. At a later date Catherine the Great of Russia was appealed to for 20,000 troops for service against the revolted American colonies, an appeal which she very wisely rejected. In the wars against Napoleon, Great Britain and Russia were joint chiefs of the European coalition, and a Russian Fleet was stationed in British waters doing good service at the time of the Mutiny of the Nore. A British-Russian understanding, in short, has been the rule rather than the exception in European politics since the fifteenth century. An instinct of friendliness between Great Britain and the United States, though expressed in no formal bonds, is yet a great force in the Pacific. There has been at least one occasion on which an American force in the Pacific has gone to the help of a British naval force engaging an Asiatic enemy. There are various more or less authentic stories showing the instinct of the armed forces of both nations to fraternise. Sometimes it is the American, sometimes the British sailor who is accused of breaking international law in his bias for the men of his own speech and race. It would not be wise to record incidents, which were irregular if they ever happened, and which, therefore, had best be forgotten. But the fact of the American man-of-war's-men in Apia Harbour, Samoa, finding time during their own rush to destruction at the hands of a hurricane to cheer a British warship steaming out to safety, is authentic, and can be cited without any harm as one instance of the instinctive friendship of the two peoples in the Pacific of common blood and common language. FOOTNOTES: [8] This proposal has now (1912) been revived in the face of the disquieting uprise of Chinese power. It is an indication of the stubborn resolve of the White populations to prohibit Asiatic immigration. CHAPTER XV THE PANAMA CANAL The poetry that is latent in modern science, still awaiting its singer, shows in the story of the Panama Canal. Nature fought the great French engineer, de Lesseps, on that narrow peninsula, and conquered him. His project for uniting the waterways of the Pacific and the Atlantic was defeated. But not by hills or distances. Nature's chief means of resistance to science was the mobilising of her armies of subtle poisoners. The microbes of malaria, yellow fever, of other diseases of the tropical marshes, fell upon the canal workers. The mortality was frightful. Coolie workers, according to one calculation, had a year's probability of life when they took to work on the canal. The superintendents and engineers of the White Race went to their tasks as soldiers go to a forlorn hope. Finally the forces of disease conquered. The French project for cutting a canal through the isthmus of Panama was abandoned, having ruined the majority of those who had subscribed to its funds, having killed the majority of those who had given to it of their labour. The United States having decided to take over the responsibility for a task of such advantage to the world's civilisation, gave to it at the outset the benefit of a scientific consideration touched with imagination. There were hills to be levelled, ditches to be dug, water-courses to be tamed, locks to be built. All that was clear enough. But how to secure the safety of the workers? Nature's defenders, though fed fat with victory, were still eager, relentless for new victims. Science said that to build a canal wholesome working conditions must be created: yellow fever and malaria abolished. Science also told how. The massacre of the mosquitoes of the isthmus was the first task in canal-building. The mosquitoes, the disseminators of the deadly tropical diseases, were attacked in their breeding grounds, and their larvæ easily destroyed by putting a film of oil over the surface of the shallow waters in which they lived. The oil smothered the life in the larvæ, and they perished before they had fully developed. The insect fortunately has no great range of flight. Its life is short, and it cannot pass far from its birthplace. Herodotus tells how Egyptians avoided mosquitoes by sleeping in high towers. The natives of Papua escape them by building their huts in the forks of great trees. If the mosquitoes are effectively exterminated within a certain area, there is certainty of future immunity from them within that area if the marshes, the pools--the stagnant waters generally on its boundaries--are thereafter guarded during the hatching season against the chance of mosquito larvæ coming to winged life. At Suez scientists had found this all out. Science conquered the mosquito in Panama as it had been conquered elsewhere, and the entrenchments of Nature crumbled away. Henceforth it was a matter of rock-cutters, steam shovels and explosives, the A B C of modern knowledge. But the mosquito put up a stubborn fight. Driven out of the marshes, it found a refuge in the cisterns of houses, even in the holy-water founts of churches. Every bit of stagnant water within the isthmus area had to be protected against the chance of mosquitoes coming to life before the campaign was successful. To-day the isthmus of Panama is by no means unhealthy, and the work of canal-cutting progresses so well that Mr President Taft was able to announce recently the probability of it being opened two years before the due date. That brings the canal as a realised fact right into the present. Some few facts regarding this engineering work. It will cost about £70,000,000. The total length of the canal to be made from sea to sea is 50-1/2 miles, with a maximum width on the bottom of 1000 feet. The land excavation is 40-1/2 miles of cutting through rock, sand and clay, leaving 10 miles of channel to be deepened to reach the sea at either end. Some of the other construction dimensions are these:-- Locks, usable length 1,000 feet. Locks, usable width 110 feet. Gatun Lake, area 164 square miles. Gatun Lake, channel depth 84 to 45 feet. Excavation, estimated total 174,666,594 cubic yards. Concrete, total estimated for canal 5,000,000 cubic yards. The Gatun is the greatest rock and earth-fill dam ever attempted. Forming Gatun Lake by impounding the waters of the Chagres and other streams, it will be nearly 1-1/2 miles long, nearly 1/2 mile wide at its base, about 400 feet wide at the water surface, about 100 feet wide at the top. Its crest, as planned, will be at an elevation of 115 feet above mean sea-level, or 30 feet above the normal level of the lake. The interior of the dam is being formed of a natural mixture of sand and clay placed between two large masses of rock, and miscellaneous material obtained from steam-shovel excavation at various points along the canal. Gatun Lake will cover an area of 164 square miles, with a depth in the ship channel varying from 85 to 45 feet. The necessity for this artificial lake is because of the rugged hills of Panama. A sea-level canal would have been a financial impossibility. By a lock system lifting vessels up to Gatun Lake (a height of 85 feet), an immense amount of excavation was saved. Incidentally the alarm was allayed of that ingenious speculator who foretold that the Gulf Stream would take a new path through the Panama Canal and desert the West Coast of Europe, on the climate of which it has so profound an influence. When the canal was opened England was to revert to her "natural climate"--that of Labrador! But since the canal will not be a sea-level one, it cannot of course have the slightest effect on ocean currents. The amount of Pacific and Atlantic water which will be mutually exchanged by its agency each year will be insignificant. The Panama Canal, when opened, will be exclusively United States property; it will be fortified and defended by the United States army and navy: and it will probably in time of peace be used to help United States trade, and in time of war to help the United States arms. All those conclusions are natural, since the United States has found the money for the work, and claims under the Monroe doctrine an exclusive hegemony of the American continent south of the Canadian border. But originally it was thought that the canal would be, in a sense, an international one. Later the idea was entertained, and actually embodied, in a treaty between Great Britain and the United States that whilst "the United States should have the exclusive right of providing for the regulation and management of the canal," it should not be fortified. But the Treaty of 1902 between Great Britain and the United States abrogated that, and provided for the "neutralisation" of the canal. It was stipulated that "the United States adopts, as the basis of the neutralisation of such ship canal, the following rules, substantially as embodied in the Convention of Constantinople, signed the 28th October 1888, for the free navigation of the Suez Canal." The Rules provide that the canal shall be open to the vessels of commerce and war of all nations on terms of equality, so that there shall be no discrimination against any nation or its citizens or subjects in respect to conditions or charges. Rule 2 states: "The canal shall never be blockaded, nor shall any right of war be exercised, nor any act of hostility be committed within it. The United States, however, shall be at liberty to maintain such military police along the canal as may be necessary to protect it against lawlessness and disorder." The third rule prohibits vessels of war of a belligerent from revictualling or taking on stores in the canal except so far as may be strictly necessary. Under Rule 4 belligerents may not embark or disembark troops, munitions of war, or warlike materials, except in case of accidental hindrance in transit, "and in that case the transit shall be resumed with all possible despatch. Waters adjacent to the canal within three marine miles of either end are considered as part of the canal. Vessels of war of a belligerent are not permitted to remain in those waters longer than twenty-four hours, except in case of distress." The last rule makes the plant, establishments, buildings, and the works necessary for the construction, maintenance and operation of the canal part of the canal, "and in time of war, as in time of peace, they shall enjoy complete immunity from attack or injury by belligerents, and from acts calculated to impair their usefulness as part of the canal." But it seems clear that anything, stated or implied, in that Treaty, which is calculated to limit the sovereign rights of the United States in regard to the canal, will be allowed to be forgotten, for the canal has lately, since the question of the control of the Pacific came to the front, shown to the United States even more as a military than as an industrial necessity. In war time the United States will use the canal so that she may mobilise her Fleet in either ocean. Already she has passed estimates amounting to £3,000,000 for installing 14-inch guns, searchlights, and submarine mines at either entrance. She is also establishing a naval base at Cuba to guard the Atlantic entrance, and designs yet another base at the Galapagos Islands. At present those islands belong to Ecuador, and Ecuador objects to parting with them. But it is probable that a way will be found out of that difficulty, for it is clear that a strong United States naval base must be established on the Pacific as well as the Atlantic threshold of the canal. This base, with another at Cuba, would meet the objection I saw raised by an American Admiral last year when he said: "In the event of the United States being at war with a first-class naval Power, I doubt very much whether the canal would be used once hostilities were declared. I assume that our opponent would have so disposed his Fleets as to engage ours in the Atlantic or Pacific coasts according as circumstances might require, and that if we were stupid or careless enough to be caught napping with our vessels scattered, no person in authority with any sense would risk sending our ships through the canal. Our enemy would lie in wait for us and pick off our vessels as they entered or emerged from the canal, and every advantage would be on their side and against us. This, of course, is on the assumption that the opposing force would be at least as powerful as our own. If we had preponderating strength conditions would be different, but if the navies were evenly matched it would be hazardous in the extreme to use the canal. Nor would the fortifications be of much help to us. So long as our ships remained within the waters of the canal zone they would, of course, be under the protection of the guns of the forts, but as soon as they came on the high seas, where they would have to come if they were to be of any use, the fortifications would be of little benefit to them, and little injury to the enemy." But when to the actual fortification of the canal is added the provision of a strong advanced base near each entrance, this criticism falls to the ground. Between those advanced bases would be "American water," and on either base a portion of the American Fleet could hold an enemy in check until the mobilisation of the whole Fleet. The world must make up its mind to the fact that the Panama Canal is intended by the United States as a means of securing her dominance in the Pacific, without leaving her Atlantic coast too bare of protection in the event of a great war. Great Britain is the only Power with any shadow of a claim to object, and her claim would be founded on treaties and arrangements which she has either abrogated or allowed to fall into oblivion. Probably it will never be put forward. By a course of negotiation, which, for steadiness of purpose and complete concealment of that purpose until the right time came for disclosure, might be a pattern to the most effective fighting despotism, the American democracy has surmounted all obstacles of diplomacy in Panama just as the obstacles of disease and distance were surmounted. The reluctance of a disorderly sister Republic to grant the territory for the canal was overcome by adding a beneficent one to its numerous useless revolutions. The jealousy of Europe was first soothed and ultimately defied. It is safe to venture the opinion that the reluctance of Ecuador to part with the Galapagos will also be overcome. Then from New York to Pekin will stretch a series of American naval bases--Cuba, Panama, the Galapagos, Hawaii, the Philippines. The intention, announced on some authority, of the United States to use the canal in times of peace as a tariff weapon for the furthering of American trade may arouse some protest, but it is difficult to see how such a protest can have any effect. The United States will be able to reply that it is her canal, bought with her own money, and that it is her right, therefore, to do with it as she pleases. In a special message to Congress at the end of 1911, Mr Taft urged the necessity for the establishment of preferential rates for American shipping passing through the Panama Canal. He cited the practice of foreign Governments in subsidising their merchant vessels, and declared that an equivalent remission of canal tolls in favour of American commerce could not be held to be discrimination. The message went on: "Mr Taft does not believe that it would be the best policy wholly to remit the tolls for domestic commerce for reasons purely fiscal. He desires to make the canal sufficiently profitable to meet the debt amassed for its construction, and to pay the interest upon it. On the other hand, he wishes to encourage American commerce between the Atlantic and the Pacific, especially in so far as it will insure the effectiveness of the canal as a competitor with the trans-Continental railways." The President concluded, therefore, that some experimentation in tolls would be necessary before rates could be adjusted properly, or the burden which American shipping could equitably bear could be definitely ascertained. He hinted at the desirability of entrusting such experimentation to the executive rather than to the legislative branch of the Government. In plain language, the United States Government asked for a free hand to shape rates for the use of the Panama Canal so that American shipping interests could be promoted. The shipping affected would not be merely from one American port to another, but between American and foreign countries. By the present shipping laws American "coastal trade" i.e. trade between one American port and another, even if one of the ports be Manila or Honolulu, is closely safeguarded for American bottoms by a rigid system of Protection. A _Daily Telegraph_ correspondent, writing from New York to London at the time of Mr President Taft's message, described the trend of American public opinion which was shown by the changing of the registry of the Red Star liners _Kroonland_ and _Finland_ from Belgian to American. "This morning Captain Bradshaw, an American, assumed command, and the ceremony of hauling down the foreign flag and hoisting the Stars and Stripes took place. The reasons for the change are not announced, but it is said that the approaching completion of the Panama Canal has something to do with it, and shipping circles here declare that the change of registry presages the entry of the _Kroonland_ and her sister ship the _Finland_ into the American coast trade between Pacific and Atlantic ports, _via_ the Panama Canal. It is expected that a heavy subsidy will be given to American steamships by the United States Government carrying mails from the Atlantic to the Pacific _via_ Panama, and it is generally believed that the owners of the _Kroonland_ and the _Finland_ have this in mind." Clearly the United States, having expended £70,000,000 directly, and a great deal indirectly, on the Panama Canal, intends to put it to some profitable use, both in war time and in peace time. Naval supremacy in the Pacific in war time, industrial supremacy in peace time--those are the benefits which she expects to derive. CHAPTER XVI THE INDUSTRIAL POSITION IN THE PACIFIC That our civilisation is based on conditions of warring struggle is shown by the fact that even matters of production and industry are discussed in terms of conflict. The "war of tariffs," the "struggle for markets," the "defence of trade," the "protection of our work"--these are every-day current phrases; and the problem of the Pacific as it presents itself to the statesmen of some countries has little concern with navies or armies, but almost exclusively comes as an industrial question: "Will our national interests be affected adversely by the cheap competition of Asiatic labour, either working on its home territory or migrating to our own land, now that the peoples of the Pacific are being drawn into the affairs of the world?" Viewed in the light of abstract logic, it seems the quaintest of paradoxes that the very act of production of the comforts and necessities of life can be considered, under any circumstances, a hostile one. Viewed in the light of the actual living facts of the day, it is one of the clearest of truths that a nation and a race may be attacked and dragged down through its industries, and that national greatness is lost and won in destructive competition in the workshops of the world. That industry itself may be turned to bad account is another proof that an age, in which there is much talk of peace, is still governed in the main by the ideas of warfare. The other day, to Dr Hall Edwards, known as the "X-ray Martyr," a grateful nation gave a pension of £120 a year after he had had his second hand amputated. He had given practically his life ("for you do take my life when you take the means whereby I live") to Humanity. As truly as any martyr who died for a religious idea or a political principle, or for the rescue of another in danger, he had earned the blessing decreed to whomsoever gives up his life for his brother. And he was awarded a pension of £120 a year to comfort the remainder of his maimed existence! At the same time that Dr Hall Edwards was awarded his pension, an engineer thought he had discovered a new principle in ballistics. His bold and daring mind soared above the puny guns by which a man can hardly dare to hope to kill a score of other men at a distance of five miles. He dreamed of an electric catapult which "could fire shells at the rate of thousands per minute from London to Paris, and even further." The invention would have raised the potential homicidal power of man a thousandfold. And the inventor asked--and, without a doubt, if he had proved his weapon to be what he said, would have got--£1,000,000. The invention did not justify at the time the claims made on its behalf. But a new method of destruction which did, could command its million pounds with certainty from almost any civilised government in the world. In industry also the greatest fortunes await those who can extend their markets by destroying the markets of their rivals, and nations aim at increasing their prosperity by driving other nations out of a home or a neutral market. There is thus a definitely destructive side to the work of production; and some foresee in the future an Asiatic victory over the White Races, not effected directly by force of arms but by destructive industrial competition which would sap away the foundations of White power. How far that danger is real and how far illusory is a matter worthy of examination. At the outset the theoretical possibility of such a development must be admitted, though the practical danger will be found to be not serious, since it can be met by simple precautions. There are several familiar instances in European history of a nation being defeated first in the industrial or commercial arena, and then, as an inevitable sequel, falling behind in the rivalry of war fleets and armies. In the Pacific there may be seen some facts illustrating the process. The Malay Peninsula, for instance, is becoming rapidly a Chinese instead of a Malay Colony of Great Britain. In the old days the Malays, instinctively hostile to the superior industry and superior trading skill of the Chinese, kept out Chinese immigrants at the point of the kris. With the British overlordship the Chinaman has a fair field, and he peacefully penetrates the peninsula, ousting the original inhabitants. In Fiji, again, Hindoo coolies have been imported by the sugar-planters to take the place of the capricious Fijian worker. Superior industry and superior trading skill tell, and the future fate of Fiji is to be an Indian colony with White overseers, the Fijian race vanishing. In both these instances, however, the dispossessed race is a coloured one. Could a White Race be ousted from a land in the same way, presuming that the White Race is superior and not inferior? Without doubt, yes, if the coloured race were allowed ingress, for they would instil into the veins of the White community the same subtle poison as would a slave class. The people of every land which comes into close contact with the Asiatic peoples of the West Pacific littoral know this, and in all the White communities of the ocean there is a jealousy and fear of Asiatic colonisation. The British colonies in the Pacific, in particular, are determined not to admit the Asiatic races within their border. That determination was ascribed by a British Colonial Secretary of a past era as due to "an industrial reason and a trade union reason, the determination that a country having been won by the efforts and the struggle of a White Race and rescued from barbarism should not be made the ground of competition by men who had not been engaged in that struggle." But I prefer to think that the reason lies deeper than the fear of cheaper labour. It springs rather from the consciousness that a higher race cannot live side by side with a lower race and preserve its national type. If the labouring classes have always been in the van of anti-Asiatic movements in the White colonies of the Pacific, it is because the labouring classes have come first into contact with the evils of Asiatic colonisation. It is now some years since I first put forward as the real basis of the "White Australia" policy "the instinct against race-mixture which Nature has implanted in man to promote her work of evolution." That view was quoted by Mr Richard Jebb in his valuable _Studies in Colonial Nationalism_, and at once it won some acceptance in Great Britain which before had been inclined to be hostile to the idea of "White Australia." Subsequently in a paper before the Royal Society of Arts Mr Jebb took occasion to say: "Let me enter a protest against the still popular fallacy that the Pacific attitude (_i.e._ in regard to Asiatic labour) is dictated merely by the selfish insistence of well-organised and rapacious labour. Two circumstances tell decisively against this view. One is that responsible local representatives, not dependent upon labour suffrages, invariably argue for restriction or exclusion on the higher social and political grounds in relation to which the labour question is subsidiary, although essential. The second evidence is the modern adherence to the restriction movement of nearly all Australasians and an increasing number of Canadians, who are not 'in politics' and whose material interests in many cases are opposed to the extravagant demands of labour. Their insight contrasts favourably, I think, with that perverse body of opinion, to be found in all countries, which instinctively opposes some policy of enormous national importance lest the immediate advantage should accrue to persons not thought to deserve the benefit." But whilst the industrial reason is not the only reason, nor even the chief reason, against Asiatic immigration into a White colony, there is, of course, a special objection on the part of the industrial classes to such immigration. It is for that reason that there has been in all the White settlements of the Pacific a small section, angered by what they considered to be the exorbitant demands of the workers, anxious to enlist the help of Asiatic labour for the quick development of new territories, and in some cases this section has had its way to an extent. Some of the Canadian railways were built with the help of Chinese labour: and Western Canada has that fact chiefly to thank for her coloured race troubles to-day--not so serious as those of the United States with the Negroes, but still not negligible altogether. In Australia it was at one time proposed to introduce Chinese as workers in the pastoral industry: and one monstrous proposal was that Chinese men should be mated with Kanaka women in the South Sea Islands to breed slave labour for sheep stations and farms in Australia. Fortunately that was frustrated, as were all other plans of Asiatic immigration, and as soon as the Australian colonists had been allowed the right to manage their own affairs they made a first use of their power by passing stringent laws against Asiatic immigrations. A typical Act was that passed in 1888 in New South Wales. By that Act it was provided that no ship should bring Chinese immigrants to a greater number than one for every 300 tons of cargo measurement (thus a ship of 3000 tons could not bring more than ten Chinese): and each Chinaman on landing had to pay a poll tax of £100. Chinese could not claim naturalisation rights and could not engage in gold-mining without permission. Since then the Australian Commonwealth has passed a law which absolutely prohibits coloured immigration, under the subterfuge of an Education Test. New Zealand shares with Australia a policy of rigorous exclusion of Asiatics. In Canada the desire lately evinced of the Western people to exclude Asiatics altogether has been thwarted, so far, by the political predominance of the Eastern states, which have not had a first-hand knowledge of the evils following upon Asiatic immigration, and have vetoed the attempts of British Columbia to bar out the objectionable colonists. But some measures of exclusion have been adopted enforcing landing fees on Chinese; and, by treaty, limiting the number of Japanese permitted to enter. Further rights of exclusion are still sought. In the United States there have been from time to time rigorous rules for the exclusion of Chinese, sometimes effected by statute, sometimes by agreement with China, and at present Chinese immigration is forbidden. The influx of Japanese is also prevented under a treaty with Japan. The industrial position in the Pacific is thus governed largely by the fact that in all the White settlements on its borders there are more or less complete safeguards against competition by Asiatic labour on the White man's territory: and that the tendency is to make these safeguards more stringent rather than to relax them. Nothing short of a war in the Pacific, giving an Asiatic Power control of its waters, would allow Asiatics to become local competitors in the labour markets of those White settlements. But debarred from colonisation the Asiatic has still two other chances of competition: (1) In the home markets of his White rivals in the Pacific; (2) In such neutral markets as are open to his goods on equal terms with theirs. The first chance can be swept away almost completely by hostile tariffs, which it is in the power of any of the White nations to impose. There are no Free Trade ideas in the Pacific; the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, all alike protect their home markets against any destructive Asiatic competition. If Japanese boots or Chinese steel work began to invade the markets of Australia or America to any serious extent, the case would be met at once by a hostile tariff revision. The second chance, open to the Asiatic industrial, that of competing with White labour in neutral markets, of cutting into the export trade of his rivals, is greater. But even it is being constantly limited by the tendency to-day which makes for the linking up of various nations into groups for mutual benefit in matters of trade; and which also makes for the gradual absorption of independent markets into the sphere of influence of one or other group. Some students of tariff subjects foresee the day when a nation will rely for export markets on dominions actually under its sway and on a strictly limited entrance to foreign markets paid for by reciprocal concessions. They foresee the whole world divided up into a limited number of "spheres of influence" and no areas left for free competition of traders of rival nations. Under such circumstances a Power would have free and full entry only into those territories actually under its sway. Into other markets its entry would be restricted by local national considerations and also by the interests of the Imperial system having dominion there. Present facts certainly point to the dwindling of neutral markets. An effort is constantly made by "open-door" agreements to keep new markets from being monopolised by any one Power, and great nations have shown their appreciation of the importance of keeping some markets "open" by intimations of their willingness to fight for the "open door" in some quarter or other of the world. Nevertheless doors continue to be shut and events continue to trend towards an industrial position matching the military position, a world dominated in various spheres by great Powers as jealous for their trading rights as for their territorial rights. Imagining such a position, the Asiatic industrial influence in the Pacific would depend strictly on the Asiatic military and naval influence. For the present, however, there are many neutral markets, and in these, without a doubt, Asiatic production is beginning to oust European production to some extent. In the textile industries, particularly, Asiatic production, using European machinery, is noticeably cheaper than European. Yet, withal, the cheapness of Asiatic labour is exaggerated a great deal by many economists. It will be found on close examination that whilst the Asiatic wage rate is very low, the efficiency rate is low in almost equal proportion. Some effective comparisons are possible from the actual experience of Asiatic and other coloured labour. In the mining industry, for instance, Chinese labour, the most patient, industrious, tractable and efficient form of Asiatic labour, does not stand comparison with White industry. In Australia Chinese labour has been largely employed in the Northern Territory mines: it has not proved economical.[9] The Broken Hill (silver) and Kalgoorlie (gold) mines in the same continent, worked exclusively by highly-paid White labour, show better results as regards economy of working than the Rand (South Africa) gold mines with Kaffir or with Chinese coolie labour. The Chinaman has a great reputation as an agriculturist, and at vegetable-growing he seems able to hold his own in competition with White labour, for he can follow in that a patient and laborious routine with success. In no other form of agriculture does he compete successfully with the White farmer. In Australia, for example, where the Chinese are still established as market-gardeners, they fail at all other sorts of farming, and it is an accepted fact that a Chinese tiller will ruin orchard land in a very short time if it comes under his control. In navvying work and in dock-labouring work the Asiatic coolie is not really economical. To see four coolies struggling to carry one frozen carcase of mutton off a steamer at Durban, with a fifth coolie to oversee and help the voluble discussion which usually accompanies coolie work; and to contrast the unloading of the same cargo by White labour, with one man one carcase the rule, is to understand why low wages do not always mean low labour costs. When any particular problem of production has been reduced to a practically mechanical process, when the need of initiative, of thought, of keen attention, has been eliminated, Asiatic work can compete successfully with White work, though the individual Asiatic worker will not, even then, be capable of the same rate of production as the individual White worker. But in most domains of human industry the Asiatic worker, in spite of his very much lower initial cost, cannot compete with the European. Intelligent labour is still the cheapest ultimately in most callings, even though its rate of pay be very much higher. In practical experience it has often been found that a White worker can do more whilst working eight hours a day than whilst working ten hours, on account of the superior quality of his work when he has better opportunities for rest and recreation. The same considerations apply, with greater force, to comparisons between White and "coloured" labour. A fact of importance in the discussion of this point is the effect of impatient White labour in encouraging, of patient Asiatic labour in discouraging, the invention and use of machinery. The White worker is always seeking to simplify his tasks, to find a less onerous way. (He discovers, for instance, that the wheel-barrow saves porterage.) Now that coloured labour is being banished from cotton-fields and sugar-brakes, we hear talk of machines which will pick cotton and trash cane-fields. The industrial position in the Pacific as regards White and "coloured" labour is then to-day this: Owing to the efforts, sometimes expressed in terms of legal enactment, sometimes of riot and disorder,[2] of the British race colonists in the Pacific, the settlements of Australia and New Zealand have been kept almost entirely free from Asiatic colonists: and the Pacific slopes of the United States and Canada have been but little subjected to the racial taint. Asiatic rivalry in the industrial sphere must therefore be directed from Asiatic territory. The goods, not the labour, must be exported; and the goods can be met with hostile tariffs just as the labour is met with Exclusion Acts. In neutral markets the products of Asiatic labour can compete with some success with the products of the labour of the White communities, but not with that overwhelming success which an examination of comparative wage rates would suggest. Under "open door" conditions Asiatic peoples could kill many White industries in the Pacific; but "open door" conditions could only be enforced by a successful war. Such a war, of course, would be followed by the sweeping away of immigration restrictions as well as goods restrictions. There is another, the Asiatic, side to the question. Without a doubt the Asiatic territories in the Pacific will not continue to offer rich prizes for European Powers seeking trade advantages through setting up "spheres of influence." Since Japan won recognition as a nation she has framed her tariffs to suit herself. In the earlier stages of her industrial progress she imported articles, learned to copy them, and then imposed a prohibitive tariff on their importation. Various kinds of machinery were next copied and their importation stopped. China may be expected to follow the same plan. Europe and America may not expect to make profits out of exploiting her development. A frank recognition of this fact would conduce to peace in the Pacific. If it can be agreed that neither as regards her territory nor her markets is China to be served up as the prize of successful dominance of the Pacific, one of the great promptings to warfare there would disappear. "Asia for the Asiatics" is a just policy, and would probably prove a wise one. In discussing the position of Asiatic labour in the Pacific I have taken a view which will dissatisfy some alarmists who cite the fact that the wage rate for labour in Western Canada and Australia is about 8s. a day, and in China and Japan about 1s. a day; and conclude therefore that the Asiatic power in the industrial field is overwhelming. But an examination of actual working results rather than theoretical conclusions from a limited range of facts will very much modify that conclusion. Asiatic labour competition, if allowed liberty of access for the worker as well as his work, would undoubtedly drag down the White communities of the Pacific. But when the competition is confined to the work, and the workman is kept at a distance, it is not at all as serious a matter as some have held, and can always be easily met with tariff legislation. The most serious blow to European and American industrialism that Asia could inflict would be an extension of the Japanese protective system to the Asiatic mainland. Yet that we could not grumble at; and it would have a compensating advantage in taking away the temptation to conflict which the rich prize of a suzerainty over the Chinese market now dangles before the industrial world. There are now one or two industrial facts of less importance to which attention may be drawn. The United States, with the completion of the Panama Canal, will be the greatest industrial Power of the Pacific. Her manufacturing interests are grouped nearer to the east than the west coast--partly because of the position of her coalfields,--and the fact has hitherto stood in the way of her seaport trade to the Pacific. With the opening of the canal her eastern ports will find the route to the Pacific reduced greatly, and they will come into closer touch with the western side of South America, with Asia, and with the British communities in the South Pacific. The perfect organisation of the industrial machinery of the United States will give her a position of superiority analogous to that which Great Britain had in the Atlantic at the dawn of the era of steam and steel. Western Canada is a possible great industrial factor of the future when she learns to utilise the tremendous water power of the Selkirks and Rockies. The Canadian people have the ambition to become manufacturers, and already they satisfy the home demand for many lines of manufactured goods, and have established an export trade in manufactures worth about £7,000,000 a year. Australia, too, aspires to be a manufacturing country, and though she has not risen yet to the dignity of being an exporter of manufactures to any considerable extent, the valuation of her production from manufactures (_i.e._ value added in process of manufacture) is some £180,000,000 a year. To sum up: in neutral markets of the Pacific (_i.e._ markets in which the goods of all nations can compete on even terms) the Asiatic producer (the Japanese and the Indian at present, the Chinese later) will be formidable competitors in some lines, notably textiles. But the United States should be the leading industrial Power. British competition for Pacific markets will come not only from the Mother Country but from the Dominions of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Neutral markets will, however, tend to be absorbed in the spheres of influence of rival Powers striving for markets as well as for territory. A position approaching monopoly of the markets of the Pacific could only be reached as the result of a campaign of arms. FOOTNOTES: [9] The Northern Territory has been the one part of Australia where coloured labour has been obtainable in practically any quantity for mining; yet it is the part of Australia where the experience of mine-owners has been generally the most disastrous. In 1906 the production amounted to £126,000; in the last four years, according to a report just furnished by the Chief Warden (1911), it has got down to £60,000 a year, and is now shrivelling so fast that the whole industry is threatened. "The values of the properties worked in the past are not accountable for this depressed condition," says the Chief Warden, "for there is every reason for the belief that, if the mineral wealth here were exploited, it would compare favourably with that of any of the States; but the depression has been caused chiefly through the pernicious system of mining that has been carried out in the past, and the wasteful expenditure in most instances of the capital forthcoming for development." [2] The Australian Labour organ, _The Worker_, boasted (Oct. 22, 1908): "When the law was not sufficient to guard race purity, 'selfish' Labour risked its life and liberty to go beyond the law, and to show, as was shown at another time in California, that the White Race would not tolerate Asiatic colonisation. The Chinese Exclusion Acts in various states of Australia were thus the monuments, not of the politicians who passed them into law, but of the courage of the workers who were willing--as the Eureka miners were willing--to sacrifice everything in the cause of a clean, free Australia." CHAPTER XVII SOME STRATEGICAL CONSIDERATIONS Soundly considered, any great strategical problem is a matter of: 1. Naval and military strength; rarely exercised separately but usually in combination. 2. Disposition of fortified stations and of bases of supplies. 3. The economic and political conditions of countries concerned. Such phrases as the "Blue-water School of Strategy" are either misleading, inasmuch as they give an incorrect impression of the ideas of the people described as belonging to such a school, wrongly representing them as considering naval strength, and naval strength alone, in a problem of attack and defence; or else they rightly describe an altogether incorrect conception of strategy. It will be found on examination of any great typical struggle between nations that all three matters I have mentioned have usually entered into the final determination of the issue; that superior military or naval force has often been countered by superior disposition of fortresses, fitting stations, and supply bases: that sometimes clear superiority both in armaments and disposition of armaments has been countered by greater financial and industrial resources and more resolute national character. On all questions of strategy the Napoleonic wars will provide leading cases, for Napoleon brought to his campaigns the full range of weapons--military, naval, political, economic; and his early victories were won as much by the audaciously new reading he gave to the politics of war as to his skill in military strategy and in tactics. It would be a fascinating task to imagine a Napoleon setting his mind to a consideration of the strategy of the Pacific with all its vast problems. But since to give to "strategy" its properly wide definition would be to deal again in this chapter with many matters already fully discussed, I propose to touch upon it here in a much narrower sense, and suggest certain of the more immediate strategical problems, particularly in regard to the disposition of fortified stations and bases of supplies. A glance at the map will show that the British Empire has at the present moment an enormous strategical superiority over any other Power in the Pacific. That Empire is established on both flanks, in positions with strong and safe harbours for fleets, and with great tracts of fertile country for recruiting local military forces and providing garrisons. (For the time being I put aside political limitations and consider only military and naval possibilities unhampered by any restrictions.) On the eastern flank of the Pacific Ocean is the Columbian province of Canada provided with several fine harbours and allowing of the construction of an ideal naval base behind the shelter of Vancouver Island. The coastal waters and the coastal rivers alike make possible great fisheries, and consequently are good nurseries for seamen. The coastal territory has supplies of coal, of timber, of oil. The hinterland is rich pastoral, agricultural, and mineral country capable of carrying an enormous population and, therefore, of providing a great army. Considered in relation to its neighbours in the Pacific, Canada is strategically quite safe except as regards attack from one quarter--the United States. A Russian attack upon Canada, for instance, would be strategically hopeless (I presume some equality of force), since a Russian Fleet would have to cross the Pacific and meet the Canadian Fleet where the Canadians chose, or else batter a fortified coast with the Canadian Fleet sheltering in some port on a flank waiting a chance to attack. The same remark applies to an attack from Japan, from China, or from a South American nation. As regards an attack from the United States, the position, of course, is different. But even in that case the strategical position of Canada would be at least not inferior to that of the enemy (apart from superiority of numbers), since that enemy would be liable to diverting attacks from Great Britain in the Atlantic and from Australia and New Zealand in the Pacific (whose forces would, however, have to subdue the Philippines and the Hawaiian Islands before they could safely approach the North American coast). An attack by the United States on Canada is, however, not within the bounds of present probability, and need not be discussed. The very great importance of Canada to the British position in the Pacific cannot, however, be too strongly impressed. Canada holds the right flank of the Pacific Ocean, and that flank rests upon the main British strength concentrated in the Atlantic. With the loss of Canada British mastery in the Pacific would be impossible. To make the strategical position of Western Canada (naturally very strong) secure there is needed-- (a) A British Pacific Fleet strong enough to meet any enemy in the ocean, and so stationed as to be capable of concentrating quickly either at a base near Vancouver on the outbreak of hostilities, or in the rear of any Fleet attacking the coast. (b) A greater population in Western Canada with an army (not necessarily of Regulars) capable of defending Canadian territory against a landing party. On the west flank of the Pacific Great Britain is established at Wei-hai-wei, Hong Kong, the Straits Settlements, Borneo, New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand, and various small islands. There are here possibilities of enormous strength and several points of grave danger. At the outset let us consider the continental position of the British Empire on the west flank of the Pacific. The occupation of India gives to the British Power at once a great position and a great responsibility. Occupation of India, presuming the loyalty of the majority of the native inhabitants--a presumption which seems to become more and more reasonable with the passage of time--gives great material resources and command of a vast population of good fighting men. It is admitted, however, that these native troops require a certain "stiffening" of White troops before taking the field. To provide that stiffening is the greatest single task of the British Regular army. Strategically, the transfer from Great Britain to India of a large number of soldiers to leaven the native forces is not an ideal system. The distance between the source of supply and the field of operations is so great that in peace it is necessary to have a larger force than would be necessary if that distance were reduced, and in war the repairing of wastage would be a matter of some difficulty. Further, the British soldier, coming from a very different climate, suffers a great deal from sickness in India. A more economical and effective system, if that were found to be politically possible, would be to strengthen the White garrison of India in part from Australia and New Zealand and South Africa in case of war. The defence of India has to be considered in the light of-- (a) An attack from Japan or China based on a Pan-Asiatic movement. (b) Internal sedition. (c) An attack from Russia through Persia. (d) An attack from Germany allied with Turkey by way of the Persian Gulf. The two former are the more immediate dangers. But on the whole, India is a far greater source of strength than of weakness. She makes the British Empire a great military power on the mainland of Asia, and she can contribute materially to the strength of the Pacific naval forces. Passing from India we find the British Empire in possession of several very important strategical positions on or near the coast of Asia, Wei-hai-wei and Hong Kong being the advance stations in the north, and Singapore (the favoured meeting-place of the Pacific squadron of the British Navy) being a well-situated central point. A British Pacific Fleet making Singapore its chief base would be in the best position to dominate the western littoral of the ocean. South of Singapore the large settlements (Australia and New Zealand) are friendly. From the north any possible enemy would be best watched, best met, from a Singapore base. That base would be central for aid from India and South Africa; and it would also be the best point of departure for a Pacific Fleet finding it necessary to rendezvous on the American flank of the ocean. This is a convenient point at which to call attention to one grave strategical weakness of the British Empire position in the Pacific--the lack of a fortified coaling station near to the centre of the ocean. Between Hong Kong and Vancouver there is no fortified coaling station. There are rumours, as I write, of the want being met by the fortification of Fanning Island, at present the landing-place of the Pacific cable between Vancouver and Norfolk Island. Fanning Island is not an ideal station either by position or natural advantages. But it would be better than nothing. The strategical position of Australia and New Zealand comes next for consideration. Looking to the future, these British Dominions, which can be grouped under the one title, Australasia, will probably form the most important national element in the South Pacific. Considered at present, Australia must be a source of the gravest anxiety strategically, for it has within its vast, and everywhere insufficiently populated, area one great tract, the Northern Territory, which is practically empty, and which contains to-day twice as many Asiatics as Whites. Embracing 335,000,000 acres, the Northern Territory possesses several splendid rivers, in the inland portion a great artesian water supply, and a wide diversity of land and of climate. On the uplands is a warm, dry, exhilarating area, not very rich in soil, but suitable for pastoral occupation, and giving great promise of mineral wealth. On the lowlands, with a climate which is sub-tropical to tropical, but, on account of the wide spread of the gum tree, is practically nowhere dangerously malarial, every agricultural industry is possible, from dairy-farming and maize-growing to the cultivation of coffee, sugar, sago, hemp, and spices. Almost every expert who has explored the Territory has been struck with its possibilities. Mr Dashwood, the former Government resident, considered the "area of land suitable for tropical agriculture enormous." Mr Sydney Kidman, the great cattle breeder, reported on the land about Herbert River as "ideal cattle country." A dozen other authorities acclaim the pastoral possibilities of the uplands. The probability of vast tin, copper and gold deposits is certified to by every geological explorer. The Northern Territory thus offers a tempting prize for an Asiatic Power seeking new outlets for its population. Yet, with all its advantages the Territory remains empty. It is known that the Government of Great Britain is profoundly anxious for its settlement. It is an open gate through which an Asiatic invader may occupy Australia. It is an empty land which we do not "effectively occupy," and therefore is, according to the theories of international law, open to colonisation by some other Power. Further, the Northern Territory is specially vulnerable, because an enemy landing there could find horses, oxen, pasturage, timber, some metals, a good soil, plenty of water, any number of easily defensible harbours--in short, all the raw material of war. And to prevent a landing there is nothing. The local White population is nil, practically; the fortifications are nil; the chances of an Australian force ever getting there to dislodge an enemy, nil. An ingenious Australian romance (_The Commonwealth Crisis_, by C. H. Kirness), recently published, imagines a "colonising invasion" of Australia by Japan. A certain Thomas Burt and his friend, while on a hunting trip in the Northern Territory, observe the landing of bodies of Japanese troops at Junction Bay. They ride to the south-west to bring the news to Port Darwin, the small White settlement in the Territory. For some years preceding Japan had contemplated a secret "peaceful invasion" of the Northern Territory. The project was planned with great care. First a huge military colony was organised at Formosa, and the men trained in agriculture. Later, the men were supplied with wives. Three months were allowed to elapse, and the men were transported secretly to the Northern Territory. Quite 6000 "colonists" had been thus landed before "White Australia" was able to take any action. Japan, when concealment is no longer possible, officially states through its Ambassador in London that, quite without authority from the Mikado, a private colonising organisation had settled a body of Japanese in the Northern Territory. The Mikado regretted this, and was willing that these subjects should disavow their Japanese citizenship and swear devotion to the British Flag. A deputation from the Japanese colony in the Northern Territory then arrives at Port Darwin to offer its allegiance, and to ask that schools should be established in the new settlement. From that point the story develops to the downfall of "White Australia" so far as all the north of the Continent is concerned. That romance was, though in some of its details fantastic, in its main idea possible. It was one of many efforts in warning. Such warnings seem to be taking effect now, for the Commonwealth Government is moving at last to colonise the Northern Territory, and to build a railway which will bring it into touch with the more populous portions of the Continent. A scientific expedition was sent recently to investigate the conditions of the Territory as regards productiveness and health. The preliminary report of that expedition (presented to the Australian Parliament October 1911) was generally favourable. It enlarged on the great capacity of the Territory for production, and was optimistic about the climatic conditions: "Bearing in mind that the country was visited at the time of year when the climate was most suitable for Europeans, the general health was remarkably good. The families of the second generation examined showed no signs of physical deterioration. There are none of the tropical diseases, such as malaria and dysentery, endemic in the settlements; and, as long as the necessary hygienic precautions are observed, there is no reason to anticipate their appearance. "There are, at present, men who have spent from three to four decades in the Territory, and every one of them compares favourably, both as regards physique and energy, with men of similar ages elsewhere. "The healthiest and strongest are those, both men and women, who take regular open-air exercises both in the relatively cool and in the hot season. "Life in the back country, provided the ordinary precautions necessary in tropical parts are taken, is decidedly healthy. The summer months are undoubtedly trying, but the winter months, when at night-time the temperature falls below 40 degrees F., afford recuperation from the excessive damp heat of the summer. In addition, the open-air life is in itself a great safeguard against enervation and physical deterioration." That bears out the views of those who are in the best position to know the Northern Territory of Australia. Clearly, there are no obstacles to its White settlement except such as arise from the apathy and carelessness of the governments concerned. But with the strategical question of populating the Northern Territory is bound up the other idea of populating Australia itself. In 1904, the Government of New South Wales, one of the Australian states, alarmed by the fall of the birth-rate, appointed a Royal Commission to inquire into the cause. One thing made clear by the investigations of the Commission was "that a very large section of the population keeps down the birth-rate so far as it can, and that the limit of birth-suppression is defined by the limit of knowledge on the subject." That was practically the main conclusion in the Commissioners' report. It probably did not need a Commission of Inquiry to tell the social observer of Australia so much. That the decreasing birth-rate in the Commonwealth was not primarily due to any physical degeneracy of the people, had long been the conviction of all who had had the opportunity and the desire to make the most cursory inquiry into the subject. Not lack of capacity, but lack of willingness to undertake parental responsibility, was the cause of the Australian movement towards sterility. Coming to a conclusion as to "why" was thus an easy task in investigating the dwindling birth-rate. It was quite clear that the Australian cradle did not fill, mainly because the Australian parent preferred to have a very small family. The evil--it is an evil, for there could be no better, no more welcome immigrants to any country than those coming on the wings of the stork--does not affect Australia alone, but is observable in almost every civilised country. It has successfully defied one of the strongest of natural sentiments. Every sane adult is by instinct desirous of being a parent. But instinct seems to weaken with civilisation and its accompanying artificiality of life. If, on an essentially vital point, it is to become so weak as to be ineffective, and is to be replaced by no ethical or other motive working towards the same end, then civilisation will involve extinction. That is the melancholy conclusion which some pessimists even now come to, pointing to the fact that the White races of the earth, as a whole, despite the still prolific Slav and German, show a tendency to dwindle. Alarm at such a conclusion may yet prove in itself a remedy. Already there is a general agreement that for the community's good it is well that there should be a higher birth-rate, but, so far, the general agreement lacks particular application. With a further recognition of the fate to which artificially-secured sterility points, there may be an acuter alarm, which will convert the individual not only to good belief, but to good practice. What is wanted is a generally accepted conviction that childlessness is either unfortunate or disgraceful, and that anything but a moderately large family is a condition calling for apology. In Australia that is particularly wanted. There are there--in a new country with plenty of room for many millions yet--none of the excuses which can be held to justify "small families" in more thickly populated lands. It is satisfactory to note that since the Birth-rate Commission aroused the public mind on the subject in Australia, there has been a distinct betterment of the birth-rate; and there has been an end to the old objection to immigration. "Empty Australia" is filling up somewhat more rapidly now; but the process is still far too slow, from the point of view of strategical safety. With Australia, including the Northern Territory, populated and defended, the strategical position of the British Empire on the Asiatic flank of the Pacific Ocean could be organised on a sound basis. An Imperial Fleet, contributed to by the Mother Country, by Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, and the Crown Colonies, having a rallying point at Singapore, could hold the Indian Ocean (which is to the Pacific what the Mediterranean is to the Atlantic) as a "British lake," and this powerful naval force would straddle the centre of the western littoral of the ocean, keeping secure the British communities in the south from the Asiatic communities in the north, and ready to respond to a call from Canada. On the western, as on the eastern flank, there is present all the "raw material" for Fleets and armies--great supplies of coal, oil, timber, metals, fecund fishing grounds, and enormous areas of agricultural and pastoral territory. When the strategical position of the United States in the Pacific comes to be examined, it is found to be for the moment one full of anxiety. The Power which may, five years hence, have undisputed hegemony of the ocean, holds a difficult position there to-day. The map will show that if the United States had had no expansion ideas at all, in the Pacific or elsewhere, national safety demanded that she should stretch out her arm to take in the Hawaiian Islands. This group, if held by an enemy, would be as a sword pointed to the heart of the Pacific States of the Republic: but held by the United States it is a buckler against any enemy from south or west. A foe approaching the United States Pacific coast would inevitably seek to occupy first the Hawaiian Islands and use them as a base: and just as surely would not dare to pass those islands leaving there an American Fleet. With Honolulu Harbour strongly fortified and sheltering a Fleet of any real fighting strength, the Pacific coast of the United States is safe from invasion by sea (invasion by land from Canada hardly needs to be considered; nor from Mexico). At the present time Honolulu is in the process of being fortified rather than is fortified: and a powerful American Fleet awaits the completion of the Panama Canal before it can enter the Pacific without leaving the Atlantic coast of the Republic unduly exposed. The Philippine Islands, too, are a source of anxiety rather than of strength at present. When the Panama Canal has been completed and Honolulu fortified, and the Philippines mark the terminal point of an American Fleet patrol, their strategical weight will count in the other scale, for they will then give the American Power a strong vedette post in the waters of a possible enemy. Any attack from the Pacific on the United States would in prudence have to be preceded by the reduction of the Philippines, or at least their close investment. Yet the temporary loss of the group would inflict no great disadvantage on the American plan of campaign. Thus the enemy could not afford to leave the Philippines alone, and yet would gain no decisive advantage from the sacrifices necessary to secure them. In the case of a war in which the United States was acting on the offensive against an Asiatic Power, the Philippines would be of great value as an advanced base. The ultimate strategical position of the United States in the Pacific cannot be forecasted until there is a clearer indication of how far she proposes to carry a policy of overseas expansion. But in the near future it can be seen that she will keep on the high seas one great Fleet, its central rallying point being probably Cuba, with the Galapagos Islands, San Francisco, Honolulu and Manila as the Pacific bases. At present the Galapagos belong to Ecuador, and Ecuador does not seem disposed to "lease" them to the United States. But that difficulty will probably be overcome, since the United States must have an advance guard to protect the Panama Canal on the Pacific as well as on the Atlantic side. Viewed from a purely defensive standpoint, such a strategical position is sound and courageous. If offensive action is contemplated, on the Asiatic mainland for example, a military force far greater than that existing to-day in the United States must be created. Japan has consolidated a sound strategical position by the annexation of Corea, Russian naval power having ceased to exist in the Pacific. Japan now holds the Sea of Japan as her own Narrow Water. The possibility of a hostile China making a sea attack can be viewed without dread, for naturally and artificially the Japanese naval position is very strong. Holding the Sea of Japan as securely as she does, Japan may also consider that her land frontier on the mainland is more accessible to her bases than to the bases of any possible enemy. Russia has been harshly criticised for the conception of naval strategy which gave her one Fleet in the Baltic, another in the Black Sea, and a third in the Pacific. But she was forced by her geographical position into a "straggle" policy. It is extremely unlikely that she will now adopt the policy, recommended to her in some quarters, of concentrating naval strength in the Pacific: though, should the _Entente_ with Great Britain develop into an actual triple alliance between Great Britain, France and Russia, that concentration is just possible. It would have an important effect on the strategical position in the Pacific: but is too unlikely a contingency to call for any discussion. The same may be said in regard to any possibility of a great development of power in the Pacific by Germany or France. The interest of the strategical position in the Pacific thus centres in the rivalry, or friendly emulation, between the United States and the British Empire. Without any very clear indications of a conscious purpose, the British Empire has blundered into a strategical position which is rich in possibilities of strength and has but two glaring weaknesses, the absence of a Mid-Pacific fortress and the emptiness of the Northern Territory of Australia. With a very clear idea of what she is about, the United States has prepared for a thoroughly scientific siege of the Pacific, but she has not the same wealth of natural material as has the British Empire. CHAPTER XVIII THE RIVALS The essential superiority of a White Race over a Coloured Race may fairly be accepted as a "first principle" in any discussion of world politics. There are numberless facts to be gathered from 2500 years of history to justify that faith, and there is lacking as yet any great body of evidence to support the other idea, that modern conditions of warfare and of industry at last have so changed the factors in human greatness that mere numbers and imitative faculty can outweigh the superior intellectual capacity and originating genius characteristic of the European peoples. Nevertheless it must be admitted that the conditions, in warfare and in industry, of life to-day as compared with life in past centuries, have increased the value of numbers and of a faculty of blind obedience, and have proportionately decreased the relative value of individual character. An Asiatic army to-day is relatively better fitted to cope with a European army; an Asiatic factory is relatively more efficient. It is necessary, therefore, to call to aid all the reassuring records of history if one would keep a serene faith that the future of the Pacific, and with it the future of the world, is not destined to be dominated by the Asiatic rather than by the European. Japan with her fertile people and sterile soil has done so much since she discovered that the test imposed on a people by Christian civilisation is based on their powers of destruction, that there is good reason for the alarm expressed by many thinkers (with the German Emperor as their leader) as to "the Yellow Peril." China, too, awaking now after the slumber of centuries and grasping at the full equipment of a modern nation, reinforces that alarm. It is conceivable that White civilisation may be for a while worsted and driven from some of its strongholds by the arms which it has taught the Coloured Races to use. "Asia for the Asiatics," may be a battle-cry raised in the future not without avail. But in time European superiority must again assert itself. There are many pessimists who foretell the doom of the White Races coming from a sterility self-imposed for the sake of better ease. They see in every advance of comfort a cause of further weakness, and they picture luxury as rapidly corroding the supports of our society. But it is comforting to recall that every age has had the same gloomy critics, and the Golden Age has always been represented in the past by the pessimists of the present. For myself, I am daring enough to think that the White Races of to-day are neither enervated nor decadent: that in physique, in good health and in sense of public duty they are improving rather than deteriorating; and that the Europe of next century will be more happy, more vigorous and more sane than the Europe of to-day. There _was_ a time for the joy of pessimists, but it is a past time, that dismal past century when the industrial epoch rushed on man all unawares, when the clattering machine came to sweep away handicrafts, and the new economic idea of human beings as "hands" affected poisonously all social relations. It was as though a cumbrous wain, well-built for its slow and sedate rumbling, had suddenly been hitched to a rushing steam engine. There were disturbances, clatterings, groanings, and creakings. The period of adjustment was a painful one. But it is passing. Meliorism is the justifiable faith of the future. The future of the Pacific, I hold then, is with the White Races. At the best, the Asiatic can hope to hold his own continent in security. Japan had the chance of securing a temporary dominance after the war with Russia, and at one time was said to have been on the verge of a struggle with the United States, as an assertion of that dominance. But the cloud passed over. With the opening of the Panama Canal, now a matter only of months, the opportunity of Japan will have finally passed. With the gradual re-establishment of British naval power in the ocean, a re-establishment which will come through the agency of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, if not through the Home Country, and which will be "anti-Asiatic" in purpose, a further veto will be put on any aggressive ambitions on the part of an Asiatic Power. The statesmen of Japan, indeed, seem to recognise that she has had her day of greatest power, and must be content for the future to be tolerated in her present position as one of the "Powers" forming the great council of the foremost nations. But in considering Japan, allowance must always be made for the danger of the people getting out of the hands of the oligarchy which rules them. The Japanese people, fed fat on praise of their own prowess, may one day force a mad course on statesmen asked to choose between civil and foreign war. Such a war would be doomed to failure for financial if for no other reasons. But it might leave a deep stain of blood on the Pacific. China--a Federal Republic, and rid of the Manchus if present appearances (1912) are not belied--will have no aggressive ambitions for some years to come. She may insist, and rightly insist, on more honourable treatment from foreign nations. But it is not likely that she will set Fleets ranging over the Pacific in search of conquests. By the time that China has come to a warlike mood--if she does ever come--the White Races will be fully equipped for any struggle. The greatest Asiatic peril, so far as warlike forces are concerned, is of a Japanese-Chinese alliance: and the chance of that is slight, for the two peoples are not sympathetic. It will be noted that the very first official paper of the nascent Chinese Republic is a letter of complaint to the Japanese Government. If it is agreed that the Pacific will fall, as the Mediterranean did, as the Atlantic did, to the rule of the White Man, the next step is to consider, which people? There is, in addition to much evidence, the temptation of race-pride to suggest that of all the European peoples the Anglo-Celtic (controlling the British Empire and the United States) is inherently the best equipped for world dominance. But that is not nearly so sure as is the superiority of the White over the Coloured Races. The Latin peoples--Italians, Portuguese, Spaniards--have in their day won to lofty greatness. The French--in the main Latin, but with a large element of Celtic and some element of Teutonic blood--were supreme in the world for many generations, and are not exhausted to-day. There is not an incident of Anglo-Saxon history; either of fighting against tremendous odds and winning a victory which the stars in their courses seemed to forbid; or of making disaster glorious by a Spartan death; or of pushing out on some frail plank into an unknown sea--which cannot be matched by some incident equally noble from the records of the Latin peoples or the French people. The Teutons are only now making their bid for mastery: the Slavs may have a great future. The future dominance of Europe may be for any one of the European peoples. But the position in the Pacific can be simplified for the present by the elimination of all the European Powers but two. Spain and Portugal have had their day there, and have passed away. Neither France, Germany, Austria nor Italy can venture any great force from Europe. Nor is any one of them strongly established in the Pacific. Great Britain would be content with the Atlantic but that her overseas Empire gives her duties and advantages in the new ocean. The Pacific possessions of the British Empire were unsought. But they will be held. The other European Power in the Pacific is Russia, which has been checked but not destroyed there. That the supremacy of Europe--at present held, so far as any enterprises beyond its seas are concerned, by Great Britain--may pass to other hands is not impossible; and that would affect, of course, the position in the Pacific. Speculation on that point, however, is outside the scope of this book, which has attempted to deal with the Pacific conditions of the present and immediate future. On the facts there must be a further elimination of European Powers in the Pacific, since Russia has no naval forces there and no design of creating such forces. There is at present a natural bewilderment in the Russian mind as a consequence of the recent war with Japan. That struggle destroyed her power in Europe as well as in Asia, and the European balance must be restored first. During the next five years--which will be the critical years--Russia will not count in the Pacific except as the useful ally of some powerful naval nation--either of Japan, the United States or Great Britain. Great Britain is thus left as the sole European Power capable of independent effort in the Pacific. Clearly the rivalry for the dominance of the ocean lies between her and the United States. To discuss that rivalry is to discuss the real problem of the Pacific. It may be done frankly, I trust, without raising suggestions of unfriendliness. A frank discussion of the problem, carried out on both sides of the Atlantic, would be of the greatest value to civilisation. For the position seems to be that both Powers are preparing to capture the Pacific; that neither Power can hold it against the other; and that a peaceful settlement can only be founded on complete mutual understanding. It is true that if the United States decides "to play a lone hand," she may win through if all the circumstances are favourable, for she seems destined to control the resources of all America. It is likely that within this decade the United States Flag will fly (either as that of the actually governing or the suzerain Power) over all the territory south of the Canadian border to the southern bank of the Panama Canal. Intervention has been threatened once already in Mexico. With any further disorder it may be carried into effect. The United States cannot afford to allow the chance of a disorderly force marching down to destroy £70,000,000 worth of United States property. Central America has been marked down for a process of peaceful absorption. The treaty with Honduras (a similar one exists with Nicaragua) shows the method of this absorption. It provides: "The Government of Honduras undertakes to make and negotiate a contract providing for the refunding of its present internal and external debt and the adjustment and settlement of unliquidated claims for the placing of its finances upon a sound and stable basis, and for the future development of the natural and economic resources of that country. The Governments of the United States and Honduras will take due note of all the provisions of the said contract when made, and will consult, in order that all the benefits to Honduras and the security of the loan may at the same time be assured. "The loan, which shall be made pursuant to the above undertaking, shall be secured upon the customs of Honduras, and the Government of Honduras agrees not to alter the import or export Customs duties, or other charges affecting the entry, exit, or transit of goods, during the existence of the loan under the said contract, without consultation and agreement with the Government of the United States. "A full and detailed statement of the operations under this contract shall be submitted by the fiscal agent of the loan to the Department of State of the United States and to the Minister of Finance of the Government of Honduras at the expiration of each twelve months, and at such other times as may be requested by either of the two Governments. "The Government of Honduras, so long as the loan exists, will appoint from a list of names to be presented to it by the fiscal agent of the loan and approved by the President of the United States of America, a collector-general of Customs, who shall administer the Customs in accordance with the contract securing said loan, and will give this official full protection in the exercise of his functions. The Government of the United States will in turn afford such protection as it may find necessary." Under the terms of these loan conventions the independence of Honduras and Nicaragua dwindles to nothing. The purpose of the arrangements was stated by Mr President Taft in his message to Congress: "Now that the linking of the oceans by the Isthmian Canal is nearing assured realisation, the conservation of stable conditions in the adjacent countries becomes a still more pressing need, and all that the United States has hitherto done in that direction is amply justified, if there were no other consideration, by the one fact that this country has acquired such vast interest in that quarter as to demand every effort on its part to make solid and durable the tranquillity of the neighbouring countries." "Solid and durable tranquillity" means in effect United States control. From the control of Central America to that of South America is a big step, but not an impossible one; and the United States already claims some form of suzerainty over the Latin-American peoples there. It insists upon giving them protection against Europe, whether they wish it or not, and under certain circumstances would exercise a right of veto over their foreign policy. The United States also is engaged in promoting through the Pan-American Bureau a policy of American continental unity. This Bureau was the outcome of the Pan-American Conference convened by Mr Blaine in 1890. The general object of the Bureau "is not only to develop friendship, commerce, and trade, but to promote close relations, better acquaintance, and more intimate association along economic, intellectual, educational and social lines, as well as political and material lines, among the American Republics." "The Bureau for commercial purposes," its Director, Mr Barrett, reports, "is in touch in both North and South America, on the one hand with manufacturers, merchants, exporters, and importers, doing all it can to facilitate the exchange and building up of trade among the American nations, and on the other hand with University and College Presidents, professors, and students, writers, newspaper men, scientists, and travellers, providing them with a large variety of information that will increase their interests in the different American nations." The Bureau publishes handbooks and reports on the various countries containing information relating to their commercial development and tariffs. There will be held this year (1912) at Washington a Pan-American Conference on trade, organised by the Bureau, "to awaken the commercial organisations, representative business men, and the general public of both North and South America to an appreciation of the possibilities of Pan-American commerce, and the necessity of preparing for the opening of the Panama Canal." "The Conference," says the official announcement, "will have a novel feature in that it will consider the exchange of trade--imports as well as exports--and the opportunities not only of the United States to extend the sale of her products in Latin America, but of Latin America to sell her products in the United States, for only upon the basis of reciprocal exchange of trade can a permanent large commerce and lasting good relations be built up between the United States and her twenty sister American Republics. Heretofore all discussions and meetings have considered only the export field, with a corresponding unfortunate effect on public opinion in Latin America, and her attitude towards the efforts of the United States to increase her commerce with that important part of the world. Another special feature will be a careful consideration, from the standpoint of the business interests of all the American countries interested in the Panama Canal, of what should be done to get ready for greater exchange of trade through that waterway, and to gain practical advantages to their commerce from the day it is opened." The policy of Pan-America may one day come into effect, and the United States Power command the resources of all America except Canada. (That Canada will ever willingly come under her suzerainty seems now little likely.) But from Cape Horn to the Gulf of St Lawrence is an Empire of mighty resources, great enough to sate the ambition of any Power, but yet not forbidding the ambition to make it the base for further conquests. Yet, withal, the United States cannot rely confidently on an unchecked career of prosperity. She may have her troubles. Indeed, she has her troubles. No American of to-day professes to know a solution of the negro problem. "There are two ways out of the difficulty," said one American grimly; "to kill all the negroes, and to deport all the negroes; and neither is humanly possible." To allow them to be absorbed by intermarriage with the White population is unthinkable, and would, in a generation or two, drag the United States down to the level of a larger Hayti. A settlement of the black question will one day, sooner or later, absorb the American mind for some time to the exclusion of all else. Neither the acquisition of territories with great coloured populations, nor the extension of suzerainty over half-breed countries will do anything to simplify that problem. There is also a possible social difficulty to be faced by the United States. The present differences between rich and poor are too extreme to be safe. Too many of the rich despise the poor on the ground that to be poor is to be a failure: too many of the poor hate the rich with a wolfish hatred as successful bandits. The quick growth of material prosperity has cloaked over this class feeling. When there were good crumbs for everybody the too-great wealth of the rich was not so obvious. But the time comes when the United States is no longer a Tom Tiddler's ground where everybody can pick up something: and the rivalry between those who have too much and those who have too little begins to show nakedly. In short, the United States, justified as she is to keep a superb confidence in her own resources, might find a policy of hostile rivalry to the British Power in the Pacific an impossible one to carry through, for it would not be wise statesmanship on her part to presume that her future history will be, at home and abroad, an uninterrupted course of prosperity. There is no need to presume that hostile rivalry. On the other hand, there is no wisdom in following blindly a policy of drift which may lead to that rivalry. The question of the future of the Pacific narrows down to this: Will two great Powers, sprung from the same race, take advantage of a common tongue to talk out frankly, honestly, their aims and purpose so that they may arrive at a common understanding? There are some obstacles to such an understanding. The first is American diplomacy, which, whilst truthful to the point of brusqueness, is strangely reluctant to avow its real objects, for the reason, I think, that it often acts without admitting even its own mind into confidence. The boy who makes his way to the unguarded apple orchard does not admit to himself that he is after apples. He professes to like the scenery in that direction. American diplomacy acts in the same way. It would have been impossible, for instance, to have obtained from the American Government ten years ago a confidential declaration, in a friendly way, of the Pacific policy which is now announced. Yet it should have been quite plain to the American mind after the seizure of the Philippines and the fortification of Hawaii, if the American mind would have consented to examine into itself. Now, it is not possible for two great nations to preserve a mutual friendship without a mutual confidence. Another obstacle to a perfect British-American understanding is that British diplomacy is always at its worst in dealing with the United States. That combination of firmness with politeness which is used in European relations is abandoned for a policy of gush when dealing with America. Claims for a particular consideration founded on relationship are made which are sometimes a little resented, sometimes a little ridiculed. British diplomats do not "keep their dignity" well in negotiating with the United States. They are so obsessed with the feeling that to drift into bad terms with the great English-speaking Republic would be calamitous, that they give a suspicion sometimes of truckling. There would be a better feeling if relationship were not so much insisted upon and reliance were placed instead on a mutual respect for power and on a community of purpose in most quarters of the globe. Meekness does not sit well on the British manner, and often the American's view of "relationship talk" is that it is intended as a prelude to inducing him into a bad bargain. It should always be the aim of the leaders of American and British public opinion to encourage friendship between the two nations. But it is not wise to be for ever insisting that, because of their blood relationship, a serious quarrel between them is impossible. True, a struggle between Great Britain and the United States would have all the horrors of a civil war, but even civil wars happen; and it is human nature that relatives should sometimes let bickering, not intended at the outset to be serious, drift into open rupture. The sentimental talk founded, as it were, on the idea that the United States and Great Britain are married and must hold together "for better or for worse," is dangerous. When Pacific questions come up for discussion in the near future, there is likely, however, to be a modification in the old British methods of diplomacy, for the Dominions of Canada, Australia and New Zealand must be allowed to take part in the discussions; and Australia and New Zealand have a certain impatient Imperialism on which I have remarked before. Their attitude in foreign affairs appears as almost truculent to European ideas of diplomacy. Probably Canada will show the same spirit, for it is the spirit of youth in nationhood, with its superb self-confidence still lacking the sobering effects of experience. It is a mistaken idea, though an idea generally held in some quarters, that the British Dominions in the Pacific are more sympathetic with American than with British ideas. The contrary is the case. Where there are points of difference between the Anglo-Celtic race in Great Britain and in the United States, the British Dominions lean to their Mother Country. Their progressive democracy is better satisfied with the conditions under the shadow of a Throne, which has nothing of tyranny and little of privilege, than with those offering under a Republic whose freedom is tempered a good deal with plutocratic influences. "To be exactly opposite to everything which is known as 'American'--that is the ideal of Australian democracy," said a responsible statesman of the Commonwealth. The statement was put strongly so as to arrest attention; but it contained a germ of truth. In spite of the theoretical Republicanism of a majority of the Australian people, their practical decisions would almost always favour the British rather than the American political system. The fervid welcome recently given in the Pacific to the Fleet of American battleships which circumnavigated the world, gave rise to some misconceptions. American press correspondents with the Fleet generally formed the idea that Australia in particular was ready to fall into the arms of the United States at the first advance. But that welcome was in part simply the expression of a warm feeling of hospitality for visitors of a kindred race. For the rest, it was an expression of gratitude for the reassurance which the American Fleet gave that a White Race was determined to be a Power in the Pacific. Great Britain had just renewed her treaty with Japan, which had defeated Russia, and this treaty left the Japanese Fleet as the guardian of the British interests in the ocean. To the Australian mind such guardianship was worse than useless. If it were ever a question between accepting the guardianship of the United States--with all its implied obligations--and modifying their anti-Asiatic policy, Australia, Canada and New Zealand would, without a doubt, accept the first alternative. But they would very much prefer that the British Power should be the guardian of their safety, especially a British Power largely supplied and controlled by themselves. It is towards that development that events now move. It has its danger in that there may be a growing brusqueness in British negotiations in the Pacific. The Dominions of Canada, Australia and New Zealand (I include Canada because all the indications are that she will now fall into line with the other Pacific British nations), paying so much to the piper, will want to call the tune: and whereas British diplomacy with the United States is to-day a shade too deferential, Australasian and Canadian diplomacy possibly will fall into the other error. Experience, of course, will cure the impatience of youth in time. But it is important that at the outset there should be no occasions for bad feeling. A friendly informal conference between Great Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, ushering in the opening of the Panama Canal, would provide an opportunity for beginning the frank discussion which is needed. The position in the Pacific confronting such a conference would be this: that friendly co-operation between the United States and Great Britain would give to the Anglo-Saxon race the mastery of the world's greatest ocean, laying for ever the fear of the Yellow Peril, securing for the world that its greatest readjustment of the balance of power shall be effected in peace: but that rivalry between these two kindred nations may cause the gravest evils, and possibly irreparable disasters. THE END INDEX Acadia (_see_ Nova Scotia). Adriatic, the, 41. Ainus, the, 35, 138. Albuquerque takes Malacca, 96. Alexander the Great, 21, 103. Alliance between Great Britain and Japan, 39, 42, 199 _et seq._ Amber, the Arabian search for, 22. America: a "New France" in, 165. American bureau, the, 272, 273. conferences, 272, 273. diplomacy, 224, 275, 276. --educated Chinese, 53, 54. Empire, growth of, 69. Imperial system, an, 12, 161, 164. Imperialism and the Filipinos, 82. national temper, the, 67. naval bases, 224. "relationship talk," 277. War of Independence, the, 86. Andes, the, 151. Anglo-Celtic alliance, an, 14, 15. race and the British Dominions, 278. race best equipped for world dominance, 267. Anglo-Saxon, the Elizabethan, 69, 148. Anson, Admiral, 91. Apia Harbour, Samoa, 215. Arabians search for amber, 22. Arabs and the Baltic, 22. Argentine Republic, the, 150, 160, 162. army of, 197. navy of, 183. Armies of the Pacific: Argentine, 197. Australian, 191. Bolivian, 197. Brazilian, 197. British, 191. Canadian, 191. Chinese, 190. Colombian, 198. Ecuador, 198. Indian, 191. Japanese, 189. Mexican, 197. New Zealand, 191. Paraguay, 198. Russian, 186, 187. South American, 198. United States, 190. Aryans, the, 21. _Asahi Shimbun_, the, 46. Asia, arrogance of, 40. for the Asiatics, 241, 264. Asiatic colonisation, White fear of, 231. immigration, 234. labour, 228. labour, cheapness exaggerated, 237. peril, the greatest, 266. populations, natural checks, 58. European influence on, 59. trade competition, 235, 236, 237. Asiatics as navvies and dock-labourers, 239. preventive medicine and, 59. cannot compete with Europeans, 239. Atlantic, the, and the White Man, 267. German power in, 212. Australasia, 100. Australasia and the White Race, 101. Australasian Empire, an, 126. Australia, 3, 11, 13, 21, 93, 94, 109, 248, 250, 265, 277. a "colonising invasion" of, by Japan, 253. and Imperial naval co-operation, 116. annexed by Capt. Cook, 94-95, 101, 123. anti-Asiatic policy of, 106, 279. army of, 191. Chinese poll-tax in, 234. coloured labour in the mines, 238 (footnote). Defence Act, the, 109. early settlers, 102. first Fleet sails for, 95. food production possibilities of, 119. impatient Imperialism of, 277. Imperialism of, 110. in 1901 prohibits coloured immigration, 202. keeping the Asiatic out of, 106. laws against Asiatic immigration, 234. Military College of, 192, 193. official conditions, 193. cadets, 193. gambling and cigarette-smoking prohibited, 194. nation-building material, 105. Northern Territory of, 138, 238 (footnote), 251, 252, 253, 254, 262. populating, 255. potentially the greatest asset of the British race, 118. prayers for rain, 106. prolific, 102. strategical position of, 251. universal training for military service, 108. unvisited by Asiatics in the early days of the Pacific, 58. William Dampier in, 104. Australian aboriginal race, the, 137, 138. birth-rate, 256, 257. Bushman, the, 121. as material for a great warrior nation, 122. colonists aggressively Imperial, 95. democracy, ideal of, 278. Education Test, 203, 234. Fleet unit, the, 113 _et seq._ Pacific Fleet, the, 181. sternly resolute, 106. Australians, warlike spirit of, 108. aggressive patriotism of, 117. Aztecs, the, 156. "Balance of power," 17. Balboa of Castile, 2, 153. Baltic, the, 22. Banana tree, the, 145. Barbary States, U.S.A., war with, 70, 72. Barrett, Mr, 272. Bible, the, 148. Bingham, Hiram, at Honolulu, 77. Blaine, Mr, 272. "Blue-water School of Strategy," 245. Boccaccio's story of a Christian, 53. Bolivia, 151, 160. army of, 197. Bombay, rats in, 61. Borneo, 248. Boston, 77. Botany Bay, 104. Boxer outbreak of 1900, the, 50, 59. Brazil, army of, 197. Republic of, 160, 162. Britain, military forces, 191. Roman invasion of, 87. British Admiralty and Imperial naval co-operation, 112. and Japanese, analogy between, 35. Columbia and Asiatic immigration, 45, 234. Continent in the Pacific, the, 100 _et seq._ diplomacy in Pacific, 276, 279. modification of, in the future, 277. Dominions, their loyalty to the Mother Country, 277. Empire, one grave strategical weakness, 251. foundation of, 76. strategical position of, 258. the possibilities of, 129. White population of, 129. Flag in the South Pacific, the 135. foreign policy, 17. garrisons in India, 191. Government recognise Maoris as a nation, 125. Imperial expansion, 17. intentions on Tibet, 211. --Japanese Alliance, renewal of, 208. Trade Treaty, right of British overseas Dominions regarding Japanese immigration, 207. Treaties: of 1902, 199. of 1905, 204, 209. of 1911, 199, 206, 207-208. Treaty, the, 279. provisions of, 199-201, 204-206. War against United States, contingency abolished, 208. maritime intercourse with Russia, 214. naval power in the Pacific, re-establishment of, 265. Navy: effective tonnage, 185. Pacific Fleet, a, 181. Pacific naval strength, 14. people, the, Empire-making of, 87. people, the racial origin of, 87. --Russian Alliance not impossible, 213. trade with Latin America, 162, 163. treaty with Holland, 96. Britons, Romanised, 88. "Brown Bess" musket, the, 197. "Bush," the, in Australia, 121. in New Zealand, 120. Byzantine culture and the Southern Slavs, 22. Empire, the Greek Church and the, 23. Byzantium and the Normans, 22. California, annexation of, 73. Japanese in, 45. Canada, 2, 11, 13, 259, 265, 277. and the Japanese immigrants, 202. and the Pacific, 165 _et seq._ anti-Asiatic policy of, 279. French in, 165, 167, 168. importance of, to British position in the Pacific, 248. landing fees on Chinese, 234. militia forces of, 191, 194. naval plans, 183. organisation of militia, 195. originally a French colony, 165. policy of Colonel Hughes, Defence Minister, 174. political tendencies, 170. proposed Reciprocity Treaty with United States, 174. race troubles in, 233. religion of, 168. rifle factory, 194. strategical position of, 247. the coastal waters of, 169. the new spirit regarding Defence, 194. universal military training and, 196. water power of, 243. Canadian Defence League, The, 195. feudal system, 167. Fleet unit, Sir Wilfrid Laurier on, 172. General Election of 1911, the, 171, 195. militia, the, 171. naval policy, 172. Pacific provinces and Japanese immigration, 202 (and footnote). Provinces, federation of, 73. protests against, 73, 74. railways and Chinese labour, 233. Cannibalism, 140. Canute, King, 213. Carausius, 88. Caribbean naval base for United States, 179. Sea, Spanish power destroyed, 82. the United States and the, 67. Cartier, Jacques, 166. Castile, the King of, 2. Catherine the Great, 189, 214. Caxamalco, Pizarro at, 153. Chagres, the, 219. Champlain, 166. Chang Chih-tung, 51, 52. Chili, 2, 10, 150, 151. army of, 197. navy of, 183. Republic of, 160, 163. China, 3, 25, 266. a new, 56. ancestor worship in, 55. and the German Emperor, 10. and the teeming millions of Asia, 47. and the White Race, 56. army of, 190. Chang Chih-tung's suggestions for reform, 51, 52. Christian missionaries in, 50. Confucianism in, 48, 49, 56 (footnote), 57. deprived of Malthusian checks, 57, 65. first European ambassadors to, 40. infanticide in, 57. Jesuit missionaries in, 50. legendary history of, 48. militancy in, 64. Mohammedans in, 48. nation-birth of, 8. navy of, 178. not a Power in world-politics generally, 34. persecution of missionaries, 50. population of, 8, 63. Republic of, 54. a united, 55. Republicanism in, 54, 55. Mr Kwei Chih on, 55 (footnote). Revolution in, 8. suggested alliance with France, 48. Taoism in, 49. territorial integrity of, 200, 201, 202, 204, 209, 210, 211. the Manchu dynasty, 50, 55 (footnote). the Ming dynasty, 50. the Mongol dynasty, 49. the power of, in the Pacific, 9. the Reform movement in, 51 _et seq._ Chinaman, the, arrogance of, 48. courage of the, 47. superior to Japanese, 47. China's attitude regarding Pacific issues, 65. indemnity to Japan, 26. Chinese ancestor worship, 55. Chinese, artistry of the, 34. as agriculturists, 238. as miners, 237. contempt of, by Japanese, 56. distaste for adventure, 57. Grand Khan, the, 49. exchanges greetings with Pope of Rome, 50. hatred of the Japanese, 56. immigration forbidden in United States, 235. immigration, restrictions on, 64. in the Malay Archipelago, 58. in the United States, 53. --Japanese alliance not likely, 56. labour on Canadian railways, 233. landing fees in Canada, 234. national spirit of the, 51. non-aggressive, 56. parent races of, 49. poll-tax in Australia, 234. rights in the Malay Peninsula, 142. Socialists, 49. students visit Japan, 53. war, the, 26. Christian missionaries in China, 50. _Chuen Hsueh Pien_, the Bible of Chinese moderate reformers, 52. Clayton-Bulwer treaty, the, 81. Colbert, the Minister of Louis XIV., 167. Colombia, army of, 198. Colombo, Capt. Macaulay on, 97. "Colossus of the North," the, 17, 25. Columbia, 163. Columbus, 104, 105. _Commonwealth Crisis, The_, 253. Commonwealth of Australia, birth-rate of, 256, 257. Confucianism in China, 48, 49, 56 (footnote), 57. Constantinople, Convention of, 221. Russia in, 23. the Turk in possession of, 41. Cook, Captain, 94, 101. annexes Australia, 95, 123. lands at Botany Bay, 104. visits New Zealand, 123, 141. Corea, 5, 6. and the Tartar invaders of Japan, 35. annexed by Japan, 38, 42, 260. independence of, 202. Japan and, 64. Japanese interests in, 205. territorial integrity of, 25, 200, 202, 206. Cortes, 2, 3, 156. Cossacks, the, 187, 188. the, and Siberia, 5. Courteen, Sir William, 104. Crimean War, the, 24. Cross and Crescent, 23. Cuba, 260. conquered by Velasquez, 156. fate of, 155. Guantanamo Bay, 179. naval base at, 222. Spain's misgovernment of, 82. Cushing, Mr Caleb, 81. _Cygnet_, the, 104. Dale, Sir Thomas, 166. Dampier, William, visits Australia, 104. Darius and the Greeks, 40. Dashwood, Mr, 252. Declaration of Neutrality of 1893, American, 68. De Monts, 166. De Quiros, 104. De Torres, 104. Diaz, 2. abdication of, 159. and the Mexican revolutionaries, 158. fall of, 158. Dickinson, Mr, United States Secretary for War, 172 (footnote). Drake, Sir Francis, 69, 91. "Dreadnought" types in 1912 and 1915, forecast of, 184. Ecuador, 151, 161, 260. army of, 198. Edward, Dr Hall, 229. Effective tonnage of the three greatest Naval Powers in 1912 and 1915, 185. Egyptians' device for avoiding mosquitoes, 217. Elizabeth, Queen, 24. Elizabethan Englishman, the, 69, 148. era, the, 90, 214. England, an ingenious speculation as to her climate on opening of Panama Canal, 220. Elizabethan, the spirit of, 76. her sea-power, 89. English Channel, the, 87. Englishman, the Elizabethan, 69, 148. _Entente_ between Great Britain and Russia, 199. Europe prohibits Asiatic internecine warfare, 59. European ambassadors to China, the first, 40. "balance of power," a, 17. hegemony, the, 40. relations with China, 49. scientists and Asiatics, 59. trade and missions in China, 50. Fanning Island, 251. Fiji, 3. Group acquired by Great Britain, 134. Hindoo labourers in, 231. Fijian, a typical gardener, 143. Filipinos, the, 82. Finns, the, 21. Fisher, Mr, Prime Minister of Australia, 133. Fitz-Gerald, Mr James Edward, 126. Fleet unit, the Australian, 113 _et seq._ Formosa, 4. ceded by China to Japan, 38. Fotheringham, Colonel, 196. France, 3, 10, 199. and China, suggested alliance, 48. Napoleon and, 18. trade relations with Japan, 38. Fremantle, Dr Francis, 60. French Canada of to-day, 167. under theocratic despotism, 167. French-Canadian priesthood, the, 168. French Canadians, 165, 168. their national character, 168. French project for Panama Canal, 216. Revolution, the, 124. French, the, 267. Galapagos Islands, the, 222, 224, 260. Gatun Lake, area of, 218, 219. Gengis Khan, 22, 49. German navy: effective tonnage, 185. power in the Atlantic, 212. Germans, the, in Kiao-Chau, 10. Germany, 3, 10. a possible ally of Japan, 199. a possible ally of United States, 199, 212. Gordon, General, 47. Grant, President, 74. Great Britain a Free Trade country, 206. abandons "splendid isolation" ideal, 27. acquires the Fiji Group, 134. and her Indian Empire, 86. and Japan, alliance, 14, 28, 34, 39, 199. Treaty of Commerce and Navigation with Japan, 206, 207-211. and Russia, an understanding between, 213, 214. _entente_ between, 199. friendship between, 211. and the Pacific, 269. and United States, an instinct towards friendliness, 199. friendliness between, 215. treaty with United States, 220. annexes New Zealand, 125. entry into the Pacific, 85. her naval strength in the Pacific, 14. Imperialist sentiment in, 203. navy of, 180. sensitive to opinions of her Dominions, 203. the rivalry of the United States, 269. trade relations with Japan, 38. Great Britain, where established on west of Pacific, 248. Great Lakes, the, and the United States, 70. Greek Church, the, 22, 188. and the Byzantine Empire, 23. republics, the, and the Persian Empire, 41. Greeks and Persians, 40. Grijalba in Mexico, 156. Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 179. Gulf Stream, the, 87, 219. "Habitants," 167. Hairy Ainus, the, 35. Hamilton, Alexander, 71. Hawaii and the Maoris, 139. Arms Registration Ordinance, 79. Spaniards in, 93. the coolies and traders of, 145. the key to the Pacific coast of North America, 3. Hawaiian garrison, the, 190. Group, natives helpless material for nation-making, 145. Islands, the, 77, 258, 259. annexation of, 78, 81, 83. Japanese in the, 44, 45, 58. Republic formed, 78. population: the chief element, 79, 80, 81. Hawaiians, the parent stock of the, 142, 145. _Health and Empire_, cit., 59-62. Hegemony of Pacific Ocean, 258. Heine, cit., 24. Henderson, Sir Reginald, 181. Hercules, the Pillars of, 1. Herodotus, 217. Holland, British treaty with, 96. Holy Alliance, the, 72, 155. Honduras, U.S.A., treaty with, 270-271. Hong Kong, 11, 85, 97, 248, 250. harbour of, 98. Honolulu, 12, 260. a holiday scene at, 80. Harbour, 259. Hiram Bingham's first sermon at, 77. naval base at, 78, 80. Hughes, Colonel, 174, 195. Huidekoper, Mr, 171 (footnote), 172 (footnote). Huns, the, 40. Imperial Conference of 1911, the, 127 _et seq._ Defence Conference of 1909, the, 111, 172, 181, 183. the British Admiralty memorandum concerning, 112. Navy, an, 112, 130. Imperialism of Australia, 110. Imperialist sentiment in Great Britain, 203. Incas, the, 151, 152, 153. "Independent Tribes of New Zealand," the, 125. India, 11. an independent, 9. British garrisons in, 191. defence of, 249. Great Britain's apprehensions regarding, 25. internecine warfare prohibited in, 59. occupation of, 249. Russia and, 25. the British in, 9. the _Raj_ and, 9. the Sepoy forces in, 191. western sea-passage to, 92. White garrison of, 249. Indian Empire, the, Great Britain and, 86. frontier, the, 205. Ocean, the, 85. Industrial position in the Pacific, 235, 240. "spheres of influence," 236, 240. Infanticide in China, 57. Internecine warfare prohibited by Europe, 59. Isthmian Canal, the, 271. Ivan the Terrible, 5. James I., 104. Japan, 3, 4 _et al._ a dwindling Power, 8. alliance with Great Britain, 39. an offender against China's national pride, 64. and Christianity, 32, 33. and Corea, 64. and Great Britain, alliance, 14, 199. and Manchuria, 64. and Russia, 25, 26. and Shintoism, 32. and the Christian faith, 37. and the problem of the Pacific, 42. and trade relations with White civilisation, 37, 38. army of, 189. army and navy of, 6. bases for industrial prosperity in, 7. character of her population, 43. exclusiveness of, 37. feudal, 36. Germany a possible ally of, 199. healing of local feuds in, 59. in the Pacific, strategical position of, 260. industrial expansion of, 7. labour movement in, 7. "most-favoured-nation" rates, 206. nation-making, 32. "natural capital" of, 44. natural resources of, 6. navy of, 14, 177, 178. poverty of, 5, 6. rumoured alliance with Mexico, 159. Sea of, 260. Shintoism in, 36. territories won in battle, 6. the awakening of, 31. the greatest warrior Power in the Pacific, 32. the "honoured ally" of Great Britain, 33. the Mikados of, 31, 36. the rise of, 31. the Tartar invaders of, 35. Treaty of Commerce and Navigation with Great Britain, 206, 207-211. war with China, 26. war with Russia, 7, 25 _et seq._, 265, 268. warlike confidence of, 6. Japanese acquire Formosa, 38. acquire the Pescadores, 38. ancestry of, 35. and British, analogy between, 35. annex Corea, 38, 42. arrogance of the, 46. artistry of the, 34. as painters and potters, 33. --Chinese alliance the greatest Asiatic peril, 266. contempt for Chinese, 56. disappointment with the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 210-211. emigrants, 45, 46. Government proposes State adoption of Christian religion, 32 (footnote). hatred of, by Chinese, 56. interests in Corea, 205. Minister for Home Affairs: communication to Japanese Press, 32-33 (footnote). national feeling of the, 46. naval estimates (current), 177. settlements, 44. tariffs, 241, 242. the chief element of Hawaiian population, 79, 80, 81. their reputed genius for war, 28. transformation of the race, 33. Java, 93. Java Major, 103. Jebb, Mr Richard, 232. Jesuit missionaries in China, 50. "Jingoism" of British nations in South Pacific, the, 95. Kanakas, the, 136, 142, 143, 144, 145. Kiao-Chou and the German "mailed fist," 10. Kidman, Mr Sydney, 252. Kirk, David, 166. Kirness, C. H., 253. Kitchener, Field-Marshal Lord, 111. Knox, Secretary, 159 (footnote), 212. Kouropatkin, General, 29. Kwei Chih, Mr, 55 (footnote). Labour and anti-Asiatic movements, 232, 233. movement in Japan, the, 7. Lansdowne, Marquess of, 201. Latin America, 147 _et seq._, 162, 273. and the Monroe doctrine, 162. British export trade with, 162, 163. navy of, 183. race-mixture in, 147. strength of, 160-161. summary of position of, 163. the military strength of, 196. universal service in, 197. Latin-American armies, the, 197. Empire, a, 161. Power, a, 150. Republics, the, 72, 75. United States, the Suzerain Power of, 74. Latin-Indian race, the, 147. Latin peoples, the, 267. Laurier, Sir Wilfrid, 128, 183, 194. defeat of, 170 _et seq._ Laval, Monseigneur, 167. Lesseps, Ferdinand de, 216. Levant, the, 41. Lithuania, Roman culture in, 22. Lithuanians, the, 22. Logie, Colonel, 196. _London Gazette_, the, on America, 70. Louis XIV. of France, 167. Louisiana, cession of, 72. Macaulay, Captain, 97. Macdonald, Sir C., 201. Machiavelli, 57. Magalhaes, 104. Malacca, 95. Malakiki Hill, the Gibraltar of Honolulu, 79. Malay Archipelago, the, 58. Peninsula, the, 230. Chinese rights in, 142. States, the, 142. Malays and Chinese, 230. Malaysians, the, 139. Malthusian checks, 57, 65. Manchu dynasty, the, 50, 55 (footnote). Manchuria, 5, 6, 20. Japan and, 64. Russian generals in, 29. Manchus, the, 8, 9, 266. Manila, 260. Maori flag saluted by British warship, 125. Maori, the, 122, 136, 138, 139. race in 1769, population of, 141. system of government, the, 139. War, the, 140. Maoris, cannibalism prevalent among, 140. cede their country to Queen Victoria, 125. chivalry of, 140. in New Zealand, population of, 145. results of civilisation, 141. similarity to Japanese, 141. the parent stock of the, 142. Marco Polo, 49, 103. Marsden, Rev. Samuel, 123. Maximilian, 157. Mediterranean, the, 1. and the White Man, 267. Russia and, 18, 23. Melanesia, 94. Meliorism, 265. Mencius, 52. Merritt, Lieut.-Col. Wm. Hamilton, 195. Mexicans, the aboriginal, 137. the, and Diaz, 158. Mexico, 2, 150, 259. army of, 197. Balboa in, 153. Empire of, 157. Grijalba lands at, 156. Gulf of, and the United States, 70. Republic of, 161, 163. rumoured alliance with Japan, 159. Spaniards in, 92. under Spanish rule, 157. United States and intervention, 159, 269. Velasquez in, 156-157. yields independence to Cortes, 156. Meyer, Secretary, U.S. Navy, 178, 179. Mikados of Japan, 31, 36. Military College of Australia, the, 192. official conditions of, 193. strength of Latin America, the, 196. training in Canada, 196. Militia, Canadian, a conference on organisation, 195. Militia force of Canada, 194. Ming dynasty, the, 50. Miscegenation, 148, 149. Mississippi, the, 165. Mogul, the Great, 3. Mohammedans and China, 48. Mongol dynasty, the, 49. invasion of Russia, 22. Mongolia, Russia's designs on, 211. Mongols, the, 21, 44. Monroe doctrine, the, 155, 159 (footnote), 160, 171, 220. in United States, 71, 72, 73, 75. extended in scope, 73-74. Monroe, President, 71. his formal message, 72 _et seq._ Morioris, the, 139. Moscow, 22. Mosquitoes, 217. Herodotus on, 217. massacre of, in Panama Canal-building, 217. Papuan natives and, 217. trouble of, in cutting Suez Canal, 218. Mukden, battle of, 29, 39, 40, 41, 42. Murray, His Excellency Colonel, 144. Muscovite Czars, the, 23. Napoleon, 16, 17, 18, 40, 72, 157, 246. and Russia, 24. Napoleonic Wars, the, 155. Naval forces of the Pacific, 176 _et seq._ Navies of the Pacific: Argentine Republic, 183. Australia, 182. Canada, 183. Chili, 183. China, 178. Great Britain, 180. Japan, 177. Latin America, 183. Russia, 176. United States, 178. Navy, an Imperial, 130. Neutral market, a, 230. markets, Asiatics in, 235, 236, 237. in which Asiatics can compete, 244. Negro problem, the, 274. "New France," a, in America, 165. the early founders of, 166. New Guinea, 248. annexed by Queensland, 134. New South Wales, birth-rate of, 255. Royal Commission on fall of birth-rate, 255, 257. New York, Naval Yard of, 13. _New York Sun_, the, 212. New Zealand, 3, 11, 13, 94, 248, 250, 265, 277. a Company formed to colonise, 123. its prospectus, 124. a steady flow of emigrants to, 125. and the smaller Colonies, 120 _et seq._ anti-Asiatic policy of, 279. army of, 191. Captain Cook visits, 123, 141. Christianity introduced, 123. colonists aggressively Imperial, 95. early settlers, 122. Empire, a, 134. exclusion of Asiatics, 234. formally taken over by Great Britain, 125. impatient Imperialism of, 277. Imperial patriotism of, 127. Maoris in, 145. naval agreement with, 132, 133 (footnote). naval policy of, 133. population of, 141. strategical position of, 251. the "Bush," 120. the Treaty of Waitangi, 125, 126. universal training for military service, 130. Nicaragua, U.S.A., treaty with, 270. Norfolk Island, 251. Normans, the, 22, 89, 90. Norsemen pirates, the, 89. North America, the Republic of, 150. North Sea, the, 87. Northern Territory of Australia, the, 138, 238 (footnote), 251, 252, 253, 254, 262. conditions as regards productiveness and health, 254. decidedly healthy, 254. life in, 254. Novgorod, 213. Ocean of the future, the, 1 _et seq._ "Open-door" agreements, 236, 241. Opium War of 1840, the, 50. Oregon, annexation of, 73. Osaka _Mainichi_, the, on the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 210. Ottoman invasion, the, 41. suzerainty of Europe, Napoleon and the, 40. Oversea Dominions, population of, 128, 129. Pacific armies, the chief, 198. British Dominions, uneasiness regarding British-Japanese Treaty, 202, 204. Fleet: Australian unit, 181. of American battleships, the welcome given to, 278. Russia urged to build a, 213. Pacific, the, American influence in, 11-12. and Great Britain, 269. and the United States, 269. armies of the, 186 _et seq._ British Empire and the mastery of, 11. British influence in, 11. British possessions in, 13. British trade interests in, 162. China and, 8 _et seq._ control of: an Anglo-Celtic union advisable, 14. Drake's log on entering, 91. fortresses and trading stations, 3. France and, 10. future of, Japan's chance, 265. future of, with White Races, 265. Germany and, 10. Great Britain and, 10. hegemony of, 4, 46. India and, 9, 10. industrial position, governed by excluding Asiatic labour, 235, 240. industrial position in, 228 _et seq._ Japan and, 5 _et seq._ Japan the greatest warrior Power in, 32. naval and military forces in, 15. navies of the, 176 _et seq._ no Free Trade ideas in the, 235. ocean of the future, 1. position of Japan in, 46. rivals for, 263 _et seq._ Russia in, 16 _et seq._, 268. Russian influence in, 4. South America and, 10. Spain in, 91. strategical position of Japan in, 260. of United States in, 260. strategy of, 246. Treaties in, 199. United States and, 68. Yellow and White Races and, 63. Palmyra Island, 12 (footnote). Pan-American Bureau, the, 272. Conferences, 272, 273. Panama Canal, the, 5, 12, 13, 42, 75, 160, 163, 176, 178, 179, 216 _et seq._, 218, 220, 243, 259, 260, 265, 280. and United States, 269. American commerce and, 225. amount expended by United States, 227. amount of Pacific and Atlantic water exchanged by, 220. as a tariff weapon, 224. early difficulties, 216. free navigation of, 221. intended by United States as means of securing dominance in Pacific, 223, 224. military police for, 221. naval base at Cuba, 222. "neutralisation" of the, 220. plague of mosquitoes, 217. Secretary Meyer on, 179. sovereign rights of the United States, 222. tolls, 225. treaty regarding management, 220. Panama, hills of, 219 Isthmus, the, 81, 155. by no means unhealthy, 218. the United States and, 67. Papua, natives of, and mosquitoes, 217. Papua, New Guinea, 144. Paraguay, army of, 198. Republic of, 161. Peace Societies, 109. Peace of Shimonoseki, the, and its consequences, 38. Pearl Harbour, 78, 79. Pekin, the expedition of 1900 to, 50. Penang, 95. Persia and the Greeks, 40. Persian Gulf, the, 25. Peru, 2, 10, 92, 150, 151 _et seq._, 160. occupied by Spaniards, 154. Peruvians, the, 8, 137. and the elimination of the fighting instinct, 111. Spanish description of, 152. Pescadores, the, acquired by Japan, 38. Philippine garrison, the, 190. Philippines, the, 3, 4, 12, 104, 259. Anson's attempt to subdue, 91. the Spaniards at, 104. United States acquire, 82. Pizarro, Francisco, 153, 156. "Places at table," 118. "Places in the sun," 118. Plague, the, 59. Dr Francis Fremantle on, 60. Prof. W. J. Simpson on, 61. Polk, President, 73. Polo, Marco, 49, 103. Polynesia, 94. Pope of Rome exchanges greetings with Chinese Grand Khan, 50. Portugal: trade relations with Japan, 38. Poutrincourt, 166. Power, Senator, 196. Prayers for rain, 106. Preventive medicine as aid to population, 118. Protection, a rigid system of, 226. Quebec, 166. captured by Admiral Kirk, 166. restored to France, 167. the capital of "New France," 166. Queensland annexes New Guinea, 134. Race-mixture, instinct against, 20. Race troubles in Canada, 233. Races, psychology of, 35. Raffles, Sir Stamford, 96. Rain, prayers for, 106. Raw levies, uselessness of, 197. Republicanism in China, 54, 55. Mr Kwei Chih on, 55 (footnote). Richelieu, 166. Rocky Mountains, the, 169, 243. _Roebuck_, the, 104. Roman Catholics in Canada, 168. Roman invasion of Britain, 87, 88. Romanised Britons, 88. _Rosanna_, the, conveys pioneers to New Zealand, 123. Rurik, 22. Russia, 3, 4. and a Pacific Fleet, 213. and Great Britain, _entente_ between, 199. and India, 18. and Japan, 25, 26. and Napoleon, 24. and Siberia, 25. and the Mediterranean, 18, 23. and the Napoleonic invasion, 16, 17. and the Pacific, 10. and the Persian Gulf, 25. army of, 186, 187. British dread of, 18. British maritime intercourse with, 214. Cross versus Crescent, 23. early European civilisations, 21. European jealousy of, 5. expansion of, 19. mistrust of European Powers, 24. future position of, in the Pacific, 29. Great Britain's alarm of, 24, 25. Greeks and Romans in, 21. in Constantinople, 23. interior of, 21. invasion of the Turks, 23. Lord Salisbury on, 16. national heroes of, 22. naval strategy of, 261. navy of, 176. race-mixture in, 20. religious faith, 22. service to civilisation, 23. the avenger of the White Races, 23. war with Japan, 7, 19, 25 _et seq._, 265. Russian intentions on Mongolia, 211. Russians, faith of the, 23. Russo-Japanese War, the, 7, 19, 25 _et seq._, 265. difficulties of Russians, 29. St Francis Xavier, 37. St Germain-en-Laye, Treaty of, 167. St Helena, Napoleon in, 18. St Lawrence, the, 165. Saito, Baron, 46. Salisbury, Lord, 16. Sandwich Islands, 77. San Francisco, 91, 260. Satsuma, revolt of the, 38. Sea of Japan, 260, 261. Selkirks, the, 169, 243. Semites, the, 21. Sepoy forces in India, 191. "Setch," the Cossack, 188, 189. Shimonoseki, the Peace of, 38. the Straits of, 38. Shintoism, 32, 36. Shoguns, the, 36. Siberia, Russia and, 25. the Cossacks and, 5. Siberian Railway, the, 186. Simeon, 22. Simpson, Prof. W. J., on the Plague, 61. Singapore, 11, 85, 95, 96, 250, 258. harbour of, 97. Slavs, the, 22, 267. Socialism in Japan, 7. Socialists in China, 49. Sorcerer, the, in the South Sea Islands, 149. South America, 10. South American armies, 198. South Pacific, the British Flag in, 135. the native races, 135. South Sea Islands, 93, 149. Spain: war with United States, 82. "Spheres of influence," the, 85, 236, 240. Spice Islands, the, 93. Straits of Shimonoseki forced, 38. Straits Settlements, the, 248. Strategical considerations, 245 _et seq._ Suez Canal, free navigation of, 221. the mosquito trouble, 218. Sumarai, the, 32. Sun-worship, 151. Suva, 143. Taft, President, 159 (footnote), 171 (footnote), 218, 225, 271. Talon, Jean Baptiste, 167. Taoism, 49. Tartar and Mongol tribes, the, 49. Tartary, 3, 22. Tasmania, 137. Teutons, the, 267. Texas, annexation of, 73. Thakombau, King, 134. Theodosius, Emperor, 49. Tibet, British intentions on, 211. Tokio _Nichi-Nichi_, the, 211. Tracy, Marquis de, 167. Trade reciprocity, 164, 174. Trans-Andine railways, the, 10. Treaties in the Pacific, 199. Treaties with Japan, British (1902), 199. (1905), 204-209. (1911), 199, 206, 207-211. Treaty of Commerce and Navigation between Great Britain and Japan, 206, 207-211. of St Germain-en-Laye, 167. Triple Alliance, the, 199. Triple Entente, the, 213. Truvor, 22. Turkey, Lord Salisbury on, 16. Turks, the, 23, 40. at Constantinople, 41. Russia and, 19. United States, the, 2, 3, 12, 13. a social difficulty, 274. absorption of Mexican territory by, 158. acquisition of Hawaii, 78, 81, 83. aggressively Imperial, 68. and Cuba, 82. and Germany, possibilities of an "understanding" between, 212. and Great Britain, an instinct towards friendliness, 199, 215. and the Atlantic, 67. and the Negroes, 233. and the Philippines, 82. and trade relations with Japan, 37. army of, 190. British diplomacy and, 276, 277, 279. considering intervention in Mexico, 159. control waterway from Atlantic to Pacific, 82. decide to construct Panama Canal, 216. Declaration of Neutrality, 70. established in the Caribbean Sea, 67. on the Isthmus of Panama, 67. establishing naval base at Cuba, 222. foreign policy, 75. Germany a possible ally of, 199. imperialism in, 66. in the Pacific, strategical position of, 260. lynchings in, 20. marvellous growth of, 70, 72. miscegenation in, 20. naval strength of, in the Pacific, 14. navy, 178. effective tonnage, 185. Secretary Meyer's report on, 178. neutral markets, 83. organisation of industrial machinery, 243. Pacific possessions, 84. policy, Imperialist tendency of, 77. rivals of Great Britain, 269. rules for exclusion of Chinese, 235. strategical position of, 258. the greatest factor in the Problem of the Pacific, 68. the greatest White nation of the world, 150. the "Monroe doctrine" in, 71, 72, 73, 75. the Suzerain Power of the Latin-American Republics, 74. war with Spain, 82 when Panama Canal opened, the greatest Power of the Pacific, 243. Universal military training proposed in Canada, 196. "Universal service" in Latin America, 197. Ural Mountains, the, 20. Uruguay, 161, 163. Vancouver, 251. Veddas, the, 138. Velasquez, conqueror of Cuba, 156. Venezuela controversy, the, 74. Republic of, 161. Victoria, Queen, 24, 125. Vienna and the Ottoman invasion, 41. Waitangi, the Treaty of, 125, 126. Wakefield, Mr Edward Gibbon, 124. Wallace on the black Australian, 137. War, the necessity of, 6. Ward, Sir Joseph, 127 _et seq._ Washington's farewell address, 71. Wei-hai-wei, 248, 250. Wesleyan mission to New Zealand, 132. "White Australia," 107, 254. laws, the, 20. policy, basis of, 232. White garrison of India, the, 249. labour, impatient, 240. Man and the Pacific, 63. Race, the, 2, 4, 107. conquests of, 41. superiority of, 263, 267. Races, America and the, 12. birth-rate, 257. neither enervated nor decadent, 264. the future of the Pacific with the, 265. Russia consolidated by the Normans, 22. Mongol invasion of, 22. _Worker, The_, on Asiatic colonisation, 240 (footnote). Xavier, St Francis, 37. "X-Ray Martyr," the, 229. Yellow Man, danger of overrunning the Pacific, 63. "Yellow Peril," the, 264, 280. Yellow Race, the, 2, 4. defeats the White Race in war, 39. Yellow Races, the United States and the, 13. Yturbidi, Emperor Augustin de, 157. Yuan Shih-Kai, 54. PRINTED BY NEILL AND CO., LTD., EDINBURGH. * * * * * Transcriber's note: 1. Except as noted below, spelling and inconsistencies have been retained as they appear in the original publication. 2. "X-ray" in the text appears as "X-Ray" in the index. 3. "FitzGerald" in the text appears as "Fitz-Gerald" in the index. 4. On page 205, in the sentence starting "Japan possessing paramount", "Great Britain" was "Gerat Britain" in the original. 5. On page 240, "wheel-barrow" was "wheel-barrrow" in the original. 6. The punctuation in the index has been made consistent. 7. The name "Terra Austrialia del Espiritu Santo" is correct. "Austrialia" was an invented hybrid word combining the names "Austria" and "australis" as a compliment to King Phillip III of Spain who was a member of the House of Habsburg (Austria). 8. "the cageing of the great soldier" was changed to "the caging of the great soldier" 9. "Hayti" is an old spelling of "Haiti". It has been retained. 10. On p. 155 the word "reassert" has been changed from "re-assert" to match the spelling elsewhere in the book.