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CHAPTER IX ~ “DANDY,” THE SHIP’S DINGO

We anchored under Cape Bedford (North Queensland) one day, and the skipper and I went on shore to bathe in one of the native-made rocky water-holes near the Cape. We found a native police patrol camped there, and the officer asked us if we would like to have a dingo pup for a pet. His troopers had caught two of them the previous day. We said we should like to possess a dingo.

“Bring him here, Dandy,” said the officer to one of his black troopers, and Dandy, with a grin on his sooty face, brought to us a lanky-legged pup about three months old. Its colour was a dirty yellowish red, but it gave promise of turning out a dog—of a kind. The captain put out his hand to stroke it, and as quick as lightning it closed its fang-like teeth upon his thumb. With a bull-like bellow of rage, the skipper was about to hurl the savage little beast over the cliffs into the sea, when I stayed his hand.

“He’ll make a bully ship-dog,” I urged, “just the right kind of pup to chivvy the niggers over the side when we get to the Louisiades and Solomons. Please don’t choke the little beggar, Ross. ‘Twas only fear, not rage, that made him go for you.”

We made a temporary muzzle from a bit of fishing line; bade the officer good-bye, and went off to the ship.

We were nearly a month beating up to the Solomons, and in that time we gained some knowledge of Dandy’s character. (We named him after the black trooper.) He was fawningly, sneakingly, offensively affectionate—when he was hungry, which was nearly always; as ferocious and as spiteful as a tiger cat when his stomach was full; then, with a snarling yelp, he would put his tail beneath his legs and trot for’ard, turning his head and showing his teeth. Crawling under the barrel of the windlass he would lie there and go to sleep, only opening his eyes now and then to roll them about vindictively when any one passed by. Then when he was hungry again, he would crawl out and slouch aft with a “please-do-be-kind-to-a-poor-dog” expression on his treacherous face. Twice when we were sailing close to the land he jumped overboard, and made for the shore, though he couldn’t swim very well and only went round and round in circles. On each occasion a native sailor jumped over after him and brought him back, and each time he bit his rescuer.

“Never mind him, sir,” said the mate to Ross one day, when the angry skipper fired three shots at Dandy for killing the ship’s cat—missed him and nearly killed the steward, who had put his head out of the galley door to see the fun—“there’s money in that dog. I wouldn’t mind bettin’ half-a-sov that Charley Nyberg, the trader on Santa Anna, will give five pounds for him. He’ll go for every nigger he’s sooled on to. You mark my words.”

In the fore-hold we had a hundred tons of coal destined for one of H.M. cruisers then surveying in the Solomon Group. We put Dandy down there to catch rats, and gave him nothing but water. Here he showed his blood. We could hear the scraping about of coal, and the screams of the captured rodents, as Dandy tore round the hold after them. In three days there were no more rats left, and Dandy began to utter his weird, blood-curdling howls—he wanted to come on deck. We lashed him down under the force pump, and gave him a thorough wash-down. He shook himself, showed his teeth at us and tore off to the galley in search of food. The cook gave him a large tinful of rancid fat, which was at once devoured, then he fled to his retreat under the windlass, and began to growl and moan. By-and-by we made Santa Anna.

Charley Nyberg, after he had tried the dog by setting him on to two Solomon Island “bucks” who were loafing around his house, and seen how the beast could bite, said he would give us thirteen dollars and a fat hog for him. We agreed, and Dandy was taken on shore and chained up outside the cook-house to keep away thieving natives.

About nine o’clock that evening, as the skipper and I were sitting on deck, we heard a fearful yell from Charley’s house—a few hundred yards away from where we were anchored. The yell was followed by a wild clamour from many hundreds of native throats, and we saw several scores of people rushing towards the trader’s dwelling. Then came the sound of two shots in quick succession.

“Haul the boat alongside,” roared our skipper, “there’s mischief going on on shore.”

In a minute we, with the boat’s crew, had seized our arms, tumbled into the boat and were racing for the beach.

Jumping out, we tore to the house. It seemed pretty quiet. Charley was in his sitting-room, binding up his wife’s hand, and smoking in an unconcerned sort of a way.

“What is wrong, Charley?” we asked.

“That infernal mongrel of yours nearly bit my wife’s hand off. Did it when she tried to stroke him. I soon settled him. If you go to the back you will see some native women preparing the brute for the oven. The niggers here like baked dog. Guess you fellows will have to give me back that thirteen dollars. But you can keep the hog.”

So Dandy came to a just and fitting end.

CHAPTER X ~ KALA-HOI, THE NET-MAKER

Old Kala-hoi, the net-maker, had ceased work for the day, and was seated on a mat outside his little house, smoking his pipe, looking dreamily out upon the blue waters of Leone Bay, on Tutuila Island, and enjoying the cool evening breeze that blew upon his bare limbs and played with the two scanty tufts of snow-white hair that grew just above his ears.

As he sat and smoked in quiet content, Marsh (the mate of our vessel) and I discerned him from the beach, as we stepped out of the boat We were both tired—Marsh with weighing and stowing bags of copra in the steaming hold, and I with paying the natives for it in trade goods—a task that had taken me from dawn till supper time. Then, as the smell of the copra and the heat of the cabin were not conducive to the enjoyment of supper, we first had a bathe alongside the ship, got into clean pyjamas and came on shore to have a chat with old Kala-hoi.

“Got anything to eat, Kala-hoi?” we asked, as we sat down on the mat, in front of the ancient, who smilingly bade us welcome.

“My oven is made; and in it are a fat mullet, four breadfruit, some taro and plenty of ifi (chestnuts). For to-day is Saturday, and I have cooked for to-morrow as well as for to-night.” Then lapsing into his native Hawaiian (which both my companion and I understood), he added, “And most heartily are ye welcome. In a little while the oven will be ready for uncovering and we shall eat.”

“But how will you do for food to-morrow, Kala-hoi?” inquired Marsh, with a smile and speaking in English.

“To-morrow is not yet. When it comes I shall have more food. I have but to ask of others and it is given willingly. And even if it were not so, I would but have to pluck some more breadfruit or dig some taro and kill a fowl—and cook again to night.” And then with true native courtesy he changed the subject and asked us if we had enjoyed our swim. Not much, we replied, the sea-water was too warm from the heat of the sun.

He nodded. “Aye, the day has been hot and windless until now, when the cool land breeze comes down between the valleys from the mountains. But why did ye not bathe in the stream in the fresh water, as I have just done. It is a good thing to do, for it makes hunger as well as cleanses the skin, and that the salt water will not do.”

Marsh and I lit our pipes. The old man rose, went into his house and returned with a large mat and two bamboo pillows, telling us it would be more comfortable to lie down and rest our backs, for he knew that we had “toiled much during the day”. Then he resumed his own mat again, and crossed his hands on his tatooed knees, for although not a Samoan he was tatooed in the Samoan fashion. Beside him was a Samoan Bible, for he was a deeply religious old fellow, and could both read and write.

“How comes it, Kala, that thou livest all alone half a league from the village?” asked Marsh.

Kala-hoi showed his still white and perfect teeth in a smile.

“Ah, why? Because, O friend, this is mine own land. I am, as thou knowest, of Maui, in Hawaii, and though for thirty and nine years have I lived in Samoa, yet now that my wife and two sons are dead, I would be by myself. This land, which measures two hundred fathoms on three sides, and one hundred at the beach, was given to me by Mauga, King of Tutuila, because, ten years ago, when his son was shot in the thigh with a round bullet, I cut it out from where it had lodged against the bone.”

“How old are you, Kala-hoi?”

“I know not. But I am old, very old. Yet I am young—still young. I was a grown man when Wilkes, the American Commodore, came to Samoa. And I went on board the Vincennes when she came to Apia, and because I spoke English well, le alii Saua (‘the cruel captain’), as we called him,⁴ made much of me, and treated me with some honour. Ah, he was a stern man, and his eye was as the eye of an eagle.”

Marsh nodded acquiescence. “Aye, he was a strong, stern man. More than a score of years after thou hadst seen him here in Samoa, he was like to have brought about a bloody war between my country and his. Yet he did but what was right and just—to my mind. And I am an Englishman.”

Kala-hoi blew a stream of smoke through his nostrils.

“Aye, indeed, a stern man, and with a bitter tongue. But because of his cruelty to his men was he punished, for in Fiji the kai tagata (cannibals) killed his nephew. And yet he spoke always kindly to me, and gave me ten Mexican dollars because I did much interpretation for him with the chiefs of Samoa.... One day there came on board the ship two white men; they were papalagi tàfea (beachcombers) and were like Samoans, for they wore no clothes, and were tatooed from their waists to their knees as I am. They went to the forepart of the ship and began talking to the sailors. They were very saucy men and proud of their appearance. The Commodore sent for them, and he looked at them with scorn—one was an Englishman, the other a Dane. This they told him.

“‘O ye brute beasts,’ he said, and he spat over the side of the ship contempt ‘Were ye Americans I would trice ye both up and give ye each a hundred lashes, for so degrading thyselves. Out of my ship, ye filthy tatooed swine. Thou art a disgrace to thy race!’ So terrified were they that they could not speak, and went away in shame.”

“Thou hast seen many things in thy time, Kala-hoi.”

“Nay, friend. Not such things as thou hast seen—such as the sun at midnight, of which thou hast told me, and which had any man but thou said it, I would have cried ‘Liar!’”

Marsh laughed—“Yet ‘tis true, old Kala-hoi. I have seen the sun at midnight, many, many times.”

“Aye. Thou sayest, and I believe. Now, let me uncover my oven so that we may eat. ‘Tis a fine fat mullet.”

After we had eaten, the kindly old man brought us a bowl of water in which to lave our hands, and then a spotless white towel, for he had associated much with Europeans in his younger days and had adopted many of their customs. On Sundays he always wore to church coat, trousers, shirt, collar and necktie and boots (minus socks) and covered his bald pate with a wide hat or fala leaf. Moreover, he was a deacon.

Presently we heard voices, and a party of young people of both sexes appeared. They had been bathing in the stream and were now returning to the village. In most of them I recognised “customers” of mine during the day—they were carrying baskets and bundles containing the goods bought from the ship. They all sat down around us, began to make cigarettes of strong twist tobacco, roll it in strips of dried banana leaf, and gossip. Then Kala-hoi—although he was a deacon—asked the girls if they would make us a bowl of kava. They were only too pleased, and so Kala-hoi again rose, went to his house and brought out a root of kava, the kava-bowl and some gourds of water, and gave them to the giggling maidens who, securing a mat for themselves, withdrew a little distance and proceeded to make the drink, the young men attending upon them to-cut the kava into thin, flaky strips, and leaving us three to ourselves. Night had come, and the bay was very quiet. Here and there on the opposite side lights began to gleam through the lines of palms on the beach from isolated native houses, as the people ate their evening meal by the bright flame of a pile of coco-nut shells or a lamp of coco-nut oil.

Marsh wanted the old man to talk.

“How long since is it that thy wife and sons died, Kala-hoi?”

The old man placed his brown, shapely hand on the seaman’s knee, and answered softly:—

“‘Tis twenty years”.

“They died together, did they not?”

“Nay—not together, but on the same day. Thou hast heard something of it?”

“Only something. And if it doth not hurt thee to speak of it, I should like to know how such a great misfortune came to thee.”

The net-maker looked into the white man’s face, and read sympathy in his eyes.

“Friend, this was the way of it. Because of my usefulness to him as an interpreter of English, Taula, chief of Samatau, gave me his niece, Moé, in marriage. She was a strong girl, and handsome, but had a sharp tongue. Yet she loved me, and I loved her.

“We were happy. We lived at the town of Tufu on the itu papa” (iron-bound coast) “of Savai’i. Moé bore me boy twins. They grew up strong, hardy and courageous, though, like their mother, they were quick-tempered, and resented reproof, even from me, their father. And often they quarrelled and fought.

“When they were become sixteen years of age, they were tatooed in the Samoan fashion, and that cost me much in money and presents. But Tui, who was the elder by a little while, was jealous that his brother Gâlu had been tatooed first. And yet the two loved each other—as I will show thee.

“One day my wife and the two boys went into the mountains to get wild bananas. They cut three heavy bunches and were returning home, when Gâlu and Tui began to quarrel, on the steep mountain path. They came to blows, and their mother, in trying to separate them, lost her footing and fell far below on to a bed of lava. She died quickly.

“The two boys descended and held her dead body in their arms for a long while, and wept together over her face. Then they carried her down the mountain side into the village, and said to the people:—

“‘We, Tui and Gâlu, have killed our mother through our quarrelling. Tell our father Kala-hoi, that we fear to meet him, and now go to expiate our crime.’

“They ran away swiftly; they climbed the mountain side, and, with arms around each other, sprang over the cliff from which their mother had fallen. And when I, and many others with me, found them, they were both dead.”

“Thou hast had a bitter sorrow, Kala-hoi.” “Aye, a bitter sorrow. But yet in my dreams I see them all. And sometimes, even in my work, as I make my nets, I hear the boys’ voices, quarrelling, and my wife saying, ‘Be still, ye boys, lest I call thy father to chastise thee both ‘.”

As the girls brought us the kava Marsh put his hand on the old, smooth, brown pate, and saw that the eyes of the net-maker were filled with tears.

CHAPTER XI ~ THE KANAKA LABOUR TRADE IN THE PACIFIC

The fiat has gone forth from the Australian Commonwealth, and the Kanaka labour trade, as far as the Australian Colonies are concerned, has ceased to exist. For, during the month of November, 1906, the Queensland Government began to deport to their various islands in the Solomon and New Hebrides Groups, the last of the Melanesian native labourers employed on the Queensland sugar plantations.

The Kanaka labour traffic, generally termed “black-birding,” began about 1863, when sugar and cotton planters found that natives of the South Sea Islands could be secured at a much less cost than Chinese or Indian coolies. The genesis of the traffic was a tragedy, and filled the world with horror.

Three armed Peruvian ships, manned by gangs of cut-throats, appeared in the South Pacific, and seized over four hundred unfortunate natives in the old African slave-trading fashion, and carried them away to work the guano deposits on the Chincha Islands. Not a score of them returned to their island homes—the rest perished under the lash and brutality of their cruel taskmasters.

Towards 1870 the demand for South Sea Islanders became very great. They were wanted in the Sandwich Islands, in Tahiti and Samoa; for, naturally enough, with their ample food supply, the natives of these islands do not like plantation work, or if employed demand a high rate of pay. Then, too, the Queensland and Fijian sugar planters joined in the quest, and at one time there were over fifty vessels engaged in securing Kanakas from the Gilbert Islands, the Solomon and New Hebrides Groups, and the great islands near New Guinea.

At that time there was no Government supervision of the traffic. Any irresponsible person could fit out a ship, and bring a cargo of human beings into port—obtained by means fair or foul—and no questions were asked.

Very soon came the news of the infamous story of the brig Carl and her fiendish owner, a Dr. Murray, who with half a dozen other scoundrels committed the most awful crimes—shooting down in cold blood scores of natives who refused to be coerced into “recruiting”. Some of these ruffians went to the scaffold or to long terms of imprisonment; and from that time the British Government in a maundering way set to work to effect some sort of supervision of the British ships employed in the “blackbirding” trade.

A fleet of five small gunboats (sailing vessels) were built in Sydney, and were ordered to “overhaul and inspect every blackbirder,” and ascertain if the “blackbirds” were really willing recruits, or had been deported against their will, and were “to be sold as slaves”. And many atrocious deeds came to light, with the result, as far as Queensland was concerned, that every labour ship had to carry a Government agent, who was supposed to see that no abuses occurred. Some of these Government agents were conscientious men, and did their duty well; others were mere tools of the greedy planters, and lent themselves to all sorts of villainies to obtain “recruits” and get an in camera bonus of twenty pounds for every native they could entice on board.

Owing to my knowledge of Polynesian and Melane-sian dialects, I was frequently employed as “recruiter” on many “blackbirders”—French vessels from Noumea in New Caledonia, Hawaiian vessels from Honolulu, and German and English vessels sailing from Samoa and Fiji, and in no instance did I ever have any serious trouble with my “blackbirds” after they were once on board the ship of which I was “recruiter”.

Let me now describe an ordinary cruise of a “blackbirder” vessel—an honest ship with an honest skipper and crew, and, above all, a straight “recruiter”—a man who takes his life in his hands when he steps out, unarmed, from his boat, and seeks for “recruits” from a crowd of the wildest savages imaginable.

Labour ships carry a double crew—one to work the ship, the other to man the boats, of which there are usually four on ordinary-sized vessels. They are whale-boats, specially adapted for surf work. The boats’ crews are invariably natives—Rotumah men, Samoans, or Savage Islanders. The ship’s working crew also are in most cases natives, and the captain and officers are, of course, white men.

The ‘tween decks are fitted to accommodate so many “blackbirds,” and, at the present day, British labour ships are models of cleanliness, for the Government supervision is very rigid; but in former days the hold of a “blackbirder” often presented a horrid spectacle—the unfortunate “recruits” being packed so closely together, and at night time the odour from their steaming bodies was absolutely revolting as it ascended from the open hatch, over which stood two sentries on the alert; for sometimes the “blackbirds” would rise and attempt to murder the ship’s company. In many cases they did so successfully—especially when the “blackbirds” came from the same island, or group of islands, and spoke the same language. When there were, say, a hundred or two hundred “recruits” from various islands, dissimilar in their language and customs, there was no fear of such an event, and the captain and officers and “recruiter” went to sleep with a feeling of security.

Let us now suppose that a “blackbirder” (obnoxious name to many recruiters) from Samoa, Fiji, or Queensland, has reached one of the New Hebrides, or Solomon Islands. Possibly she may anchor—if there is an anchorage; but most likely she will “lie off and on,” and send away her boats to the various villages.

On one occasion I “worked” the entire length of one side of the great island of San Cristoval, visiting nearly every village from Cape Recherché to Cape Surville. This took nearly three weeks, the ship following the boats along the coast. We would leave the ship at daylight, and pull in shore, landing wherever we saw a smoke signal, or a village. When I had engaged, say, half a dozen recruits, I would send them off on board, and continue on my way. At sunset I would return on board, the boats would be hoisted up, and the ship either anchor, or heave-to for the night. On this particular trip the boats were only twice fired at, but no one man of my crews was hit.

The boats are known as “landing” and “covering” boats. The former is in command of an officer and the recruiter, carries five hands (all armed) and also the boxes of “trade” goods to be exhibited to the natives as specimens of the rest of the goods on board, or perhaps some will be immediately handed over as an “advance” to any native willing to recruit as a labourer in Queensland or elsewhere for three years, at the magnificent wage of six pounds per annum, generally paid in rubbishing articles, worth about thirty shillings.

The “covering” boat is in charge of an officer, or reliable seaman. She follows the “landing” boat at a short distance, and her duty is to cover her retreat if the natives should attack the landing boat by at once opening fire, and giving those in that boat a chance of pushing off and getting out of danger, and also she sometimes receives on board the “recruits” as they are engaged by the recruiter—if the latter has not been knocked on the head or speared.

On nearing the beach, where the natives are waiting, the officer in the landing-boat swings her round with his steer oar, and the crew back her in, stern first, on to the beach. The recruiter then steps out, and the crew carry the trade chests on shore; then the boat pushes off a little, just enough to keep afloat, and obtrusive natives, who may mean treachery, are not allowed to come too near the oars, or take hold of the gunwale, Meanwhile the covering boat has drawn in close to the first boat, and the crew, with their hands on their rifles, keep a keen watch on the landing boat and the wretched recruiter.

The recruiter, if he is a wise man, will not display any arms openly. To do so makes the savage natives either sulky or afraid, and I never let them see mine, which I, however, always kept handy in a harmless-looking canvas bag, which also contained some tobacco, cut up in small pieces, to throw to the women and children—to put them in a good temper.

The recruiter opens his trade box, and then asks if there is any man or woman who desires to become rich in three years by working on a plantation in Fiji, Queensland, or Samoa.

If he can speak the language, and does not lose his nerve by being surrounded by hundreds of ferocious and armed savages, and knowing that at any instant he may be cut down from behind by a tomahawk, or speared, or clubbed, he will get along all right, and soon find men willing to recruit Especially is this so if he is a man personally known to the natives, and has a good reputation for treating his “blackbirds” well on board the ship. The ship and her captain, too, enter largely into the matter of a native making up his mind to “recruit,” or refuse to do so.

Sometimes there may be among the crowd of natives several who have already been to Queensland, or elsewhere, and desire to return. These may be desirable recruits, or, on the other hand, may be the reverse, and have bad records. I usually tried to shunt these fellows from again recruiting, as they often made mischief on board, would plan to capture the ship, and such other diversions, but I always found them useful as touts in gaining me new recruits, by offering these scamps a suitable present for each man they brought me.

I always made it a practice never to recruit a married man, unless his wife—or an alleged wife—came with him, nor would I take them if they had young children—who would simply be made slaves of in their absence. It required the utmost tact and discretion to get at the truth in many cases, and very often on going on board after a day of toil and danger I would be sound asleep, when a young couple would swim off—lovers who had eloped—and beg me to take them away in the ship. This I would never do until I had seen the local chief, and was assured that no objection would be made to their leaving.

(When I was recruiting “black labour” for the French and German planters in Samoa and Tahiti, I was, of course, sailing in ships of those nationalities, and had no worrying Government agent to harass and hinder me by his interference, for only ships under British colours were compelled to carry “Government agents”.)

But I must return to the recruiter standing on the beach, surrounded by a crowd of savages, exercising his patience and brains.

Perhaps at the end of an hour or so eight or ten men are recruited, and told to either get into one of the boats or go off to the ship in canoes. The business on shore is then finished, the harassed recruiter wipes his perspiring brow, says farewell to the people, closes his trade chest, and steps into his landing boat. The officer cries to the crew, “Give way, lads,” and off goes the boat.

Then the covering boat comes into position astern of the landing boat, for one never knew the moment that some enraged native on shore might, for having been rejected as “undesirable,” take a snipe-shot at one of the boats. Only two men pull in the covering boat—the rest of the crew sit on the thwarts, with their rifles ready, facing aft, until the boats are out of range.

That is what is the ordinary day’s work among the Solomon, New Hebrides, and other island groups of the Western Pacific But very often it was—and is now—very different. The recruiter may be at work, when he is struck down treacherously from behind, and hundreds of concealed savages rush out, bent on slaughter. Perhaps the eye of some ever-watchful man in the covering boat has seen crouching figures in the dense undergrowth of the shores of the bay, and at once fires his rifle, and the recruiter jumps for his boat, and then there is a cracking of Winchesters from the covering boat, and a responsive banging of overloaded muskets from the shore.

Only once was I badly hurt when “recruiting”. I had visited a rather big village, but could not secure a single recruit, and I had told the officer to put off, as it was no use our wasting our time. I then got into the boat and was stooping down to get a drink from the water-beaker, when a sudden fusillade of muskets and arrows was opened upon us from three sides, and I was struck on the right side of the neck by a round iron bullet, which travelled round just under the skin, and stopped under my left ear. Some of my crew were badly hit, one man having his wrist broken by an iron bullet, and another received a heavy lead bullet in the stomach, and three bamboo arrows in his chest, thigh and shoulder. He was more afraid of the arrows than the really dangerous wound in his stomach, for he thought they were poisoned, and that he would die of lockjaw—like the lamented Commodore Goodenough, who was shot to death with poisoned arrows at Nukapu in the Santa Cruz Group.

The skipper nicked out the bullet in my neck with his pen-knife, and beyond two very unsightly scars on each side of my neck, I have nothing of which to complain, and much to be thankful for; for had I been in ever so little a more erect position, the ball would have broken my neck—and some compositors in printing establishments earned a little less money.