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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Âmona; The Child; And The Beast; And Others, by 
+Louis Becke
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Âmona; The Child; And The Beast; And Others
+       From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other
+       Stories" - 1902
+
+Author: Louis Becke
+
+Release Date: March 29, 2008 [EBook #24952]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMONA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+ÂMONA; THE CHILD; AND THE BEAST
+
+Plus THE SNAKE AND THE BELL and SOUTH SEA NOTES
+
+From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other Stories"
+
+By Louis Becke
+
+T. FISHER UNWIN, 1902
+
+LONDON
+
+
+
+
+ÂMONA; THE CHILD; AND THE BEAST'
+
+
+Âmona was, as his master so frequently told him--accentuating the remark
+with a blow or a kick--only "a miserable kanaka." Of his miserableness
+there was no doubt, for Denison, who lived in the same house as he did,
+was a daily witness of it--and his happiness. Also, he was a kanaka--a
+native of Niué, in the South Pacific; Savage Island it is called by the
+traders and is named on the charts, though its five thousand sturdy,
+brown-skinned inhabitants have been civilised, Christianised, and have
+lived fairly cleanly for the past thirty years.
+
+Âmona and Denison had the distinction of being employed by Armitage, one
+of the most unmitigated blackguards in the Pacific. He was a shipowner,
+planter, merchant, and speculator; was looked upon by a good many people
+as "not a bad sort of a fellow, you know--and the soul of hospitality."
+In addition, he was an incorrigible drunken bully, and broke his wife's
+heart within four years after she married him. Âmona was his cook.
+Denison was one of his supercargoes, and (when a long boat of
+drunkenness made him see weird visions of impossible creatures) manager
+of the business on shore, overseer, accountant, and Jack-of-all-trades.
+How he managed to stay on with such a brute I don't know. He certainly
+paid him well enough, but he (Denison) could have got another berth from
+other people in Samoa, Fiji, or Tonga had he wanted it. And, although
+Armitage was always painfully civil to Denison--who tried to keep
+his business from going to the dogs--the man hated him as much as he
+despised Âmona, and would have liked to have kicked him, as he would
+have liked to have kicked or strangled any one who knew the secret of
+his wife's death and his child's lameness. And three people in Samoa did
+know it--Âmona, the Niué cook, Dr. Eckhardt, and Denison. Armitage has
+been dead now these five-and-twenty years--died, as he deserved to
+die, alone and friendless in an Australian bush hospital out in the
+God-forsaken Never-Never country, and when Denison heard of his death,
+he looked at the gentle wife's dim, faded photograph, and wondered if
+the Beast saw her sweet, sad face in his dying moments. He trusted
+not; for in her eyes would have shown only the holy light of love
+and forgiveness--things which a man like Armitage could not have
+understood--even then.
+
+She had been married three years when she came with him to Samoa to live
+on Solo-Solo Plantation, in a great white-painted bungalow, standing
+amid a grove of breadfruit and coco-palms, and overlooking the sea
+to the north, east, and west; to the south was the dark green of the
+mountain-forest.
+
+"Oh! I think it is the fairest, sweetest picture in the world," she said
+to Denison the first time he met her. She was sitting on the verandah
+with her son in her lap, and as she spoke she pressed her lips to his
+soft little cheek and caressed the tiny hands. "So different from where
+I was born and lived all my life--on the doll, sun-baked plains of the
+Riverina--isn't it, my pet?"
+
+"I am glad that you like the place, Mrs. Armitage," the supercargo said
+as he looked at the young, girlish face and thought that she, too, with
+her baby, made a fair, sweet picture. How she loved the child! And how
+the soft, grey-blue eyes would lose their sadness when the little one
+turned its face up to hers and smiled! How came it, he wondered, that
+such a tender, flower-like woman was mated to such a man as Armitage!
+
+Long after she was dead, Denison heard the story--one common enough.
+Her father, whose station adjoined that of Armitage, got into financial
+difficulties, went to Armitage for help, and practically sold his
+daughter to the Beast for a couple of thousand pounds. Very likely such
+a man would have sold his daughter's mother as well if he wanted money.
+
+* * * * *
+
+As they sat talking, Armitage rode up, half-drunk as usual. He was a big
+man, good-looking.
+
+"Hallo, Nell! Pawing the damned kid as usual! Why the hell don't you let
+one of the girls take the little animal and let him tumble about on the
+grass? You're spoiling the child--by God, you are."
+
+"Ah, he's so happy, Fred, here with me, and----"
+
+"Happy be damned--you're always letting him maul you about. I want a
+whisky-and-soda, and so does Denison--don't you?" And then the Beast, as
+soon as his wife with the child in her arms had left the room, began
+to tell his subordinate of a "new" girl he had met that morning in Joe
+D'Acosta's saloon.
+
+"Oh, shut up, man. Your wife is in the next room."
+
+"Let her hear--and be damned to her! She knows what I do. I don't
+disguise anything from her. I'm not a sneak in that way. By God, I'm not
+the man to lose any fun from sentimental reasons. Have you seen this
+new girl at Joe's? She's a Manhiki half-caste. God, man! She's glorious,
+simply glorious!"
+
+"You mean Laea, I suppose. She's a common beacher--sailor man's trull.
+Surely you wouldn't be seen ever speaking to _her?_"
+
+"Wouldn't I! You don't know me yet! I like the girl, and I've fixed
+things up with her. She's coming here as my nursemaid--twenty dollars a
+month! What do you think of that?"
+
+"You would not insult your wife so horribly!"
+
+He looked at Denison sullenly, but made no answer, as the supercargo
+went on:
+
+"You'll get the dead cut from every white man in Samoa. Not a soul will
+put foot inside your store door, and Joe D'Acosta himself would refuse
+to sell you a drink! Might as well shoot yourself at once."
+
+"Oh, well, damn it all, don't keep on preaching. I--I was more in fun
+than anything else. Ha! Here's Âmona with the drinks. Why don't you be a
+bit smarter, you damned frizzy-haired man-eater?"
+
+Amona's sallow face flushed deeply, but he made no reply to the insult
+as he handed a glass to his master.
+
+"Put the tray down there, confound you! Don't stand there like a
+blarsted mummy; clear out till we want you again."
+
+The native made no answer, bent his head in silence, and stepped quietly
+away. Then Armitage began to grumble at him as a "useless swine."
+
+"Why," said Denison, "Mrs. Armitage was only just telling me that he's
+worth all the rest of the servants put together. And, by Jove, he _is_
+fond of your youngster--simply worships the little chap."
+
+Armitage snorted, and turned his lips down. Ten minutes later, he was
+asleep in his chair.
+
+*****
+
+Nearly six months had passed--six months of wretchedness to the young
+wife, whose heart was slowly breaking under the strain of living with
+the Beast. Such happiness as was hers lay in the companionship of her
+little son, and every evening Tom Denison would see her watching the
+child and the patient, faithful Âmona, as the two played together on the
+smooth lawn in front of the sitting-room, or ran races in and out among
+the mango-trees. She was becoming paler and thinner every day--the Beast
+was getting fatter and coarser, and more brutalised. Sometimes he would
+remain in Apia for a week, returning home either boisterously drunk or
+sullen and scowling-faced. In the latter case, he would come into the
+office where Denison worked (he had left the schooner of which he was
+supercargo, and was now "overseering" Solo-Solo) and try to grasp the
+muddled condition of his financial affairs. Then, with much variegated
+language, he would stride away, cursing the servants and the place
+and everything in general, mount his horse, and ride off again to the
+society of the loafers, gamblers, and flaunting unfortunates who haunted
+the drinking saloons of Apia and Matafele.
+
+One day came a crisis. Denison was rigging a tackle to haul a tree-trunk
+into position in the plantation saw-pit, when Armitage rode up to the
+house. He dismounted and went inside. Five minutes later Amona came
+staggering down the path to him. His left cheek was cut to the bone by
+a blow from Armitage's fist. Denison brought him into his own room,
+stitched up the wound, and gave him a glass of grog, and told him to
+light his pipe and rest.
+
+"Àmona, you're a _valea_ (fool). Why don't you leave this place? This
+man will kill you some day. How many beatings has he given you?" He
+spoke in English.
+
+"I know not how many. But it is God's will. And if the master some day
+killeth me, it is well. And yet, but for some things, I would use my
+knife on him."
+
+"What things?"
+
+He came over to the supercargo, and, seating himself cross-legged on the
+floor, placed his firm, brown, right hand on the white man's knee.
+
+"For two things, good friend. The little fingers of the child are
+clasped tightly around my heart, and when his father striketh me and
+calls me a filthy man-eater, a dog, and a pig, I know no pain. That is
+one thing. And the other thing is this--the child's mother hath come to
+me when my body hath ached from the father's blows, and the blood hath
+covered my face; and she hath bound up my wounds and wept silent tears,
+and together have we knelt and called upon God to turn his heart from
+the grog and the foul women, and to take away from her and the child the
+bitterness of these things."
+
+"You're a good fellow, Âmona," said Denison, as he saw that the man's
+cheeks were wet with tears.
+
+"Nay, for sometimes my heart is bitter with anger. But God is good to
+me. For the child loveth me. And the mother is of God... aye, and she
+will be with Him soon." Then he rose to his knees suddenly, and looked
+wistfully at the supercargo, as he put his hand on his. "She will be
+dead before the next moon is _ai aiga_ (in the first quarter), for at
+night I lie outside her door, and but three nights ago she cried out to
+me: 'Come, Amona, Come!' And I went in, and she was sitting up on
+her bed and blood was running from her mouth. But she bade me tell no
+one--not even thee. And it was then she told me that death was near
+to her, for she hath a disease whose roots lie in her chest, and
+which eateth away her strength. Dear friend, let me tell thee of some
+things... This man is a devil.... I know he but desires to see her die.
+He hath cursed her before me, and twice have I seen him take the child
+from her arms, and, setting him on the floor to weep in terror, take his
+wife by the hand----"
+
+"Stop, man; stop! That'll do. Say no more! The beast!"
+
+"_E tonu, e tonu_ (true, true)," said the man, quietly, and still
+speaking in Samoan. "He is as a beast of the mountains, as a tiger of
+the country India, which devoureth the lamb and the kid.... And so now I
+have opened my heart to thee of these things----"
+
+A native woman rushed into the room: "Come, Âmona, come. _Misi Fafine_
+(the mistress) bleeds from her mouth again."
+
+The white man and the brown ran into the front sitting-room together,
+just as they heard a piercing shriek of terror from the child; then came
+the sound of a heavy fall.
+
+As they entered, Armitage strode out, jolting against them as he passed.
+His face was swollen and ugly with passion--bad to look at.
+
+"Go and pick up the child, you frizzy-haired pig!" he muttered hoarsely
+to Amona as he passed. "He fell off his mother's lap."
+
+Mrs. Armitage was leaning back in her chair, as white as death, and
+trying to speak, as with one hand she tried to stanch the rush of blood
+from her mouth, and with the other pointed to her child, who was lying
+on his face under a table, motionless and unconscious.
+
+In less than ten minutes, a native was galloping through the bush to
+Apia for Dr. Eckhardt. Denison had picked up the child, who, as he came
+to, began to cry. Assuring his mother that he was not much hurt, he
+brought him to her, and sat beside the lounge on which she lay, holding
+him in his arms. He was a good little man, and did not try to talk
+to her when the supercargo whispered to him to keep silent, but lay
+stroking the poor mother's thin white hand. Yet every now and then, as
+he moved or Denison changed his position, he would utter a cry of pain
+and say his leg pained him.
+
+Four hours later the German doctor arrived. Mrs. Armitage was asleep; so
+Eckhardt would not awaken her at the time. The boy, however, had slept
+but fitfully, and every now and then awakened with a sob of pain.
+The nurse stripped him, and Eckhardt soon found out what was wrong--a
+serious injury to the left hip.
+
+Late in the evening, as the big yellow-bearded German doctor and Denison
+sat in the dining room smoking and talking, Taloi, the child's nurse
+entered, and was followed by Amona, and the woman told them the whole
+story.
+
+"_Misi Fafine_ was sitting in a chair with the boy on her lap when the
+master came in. His eyes were black and fierce with anger, and, stepping
+up, he seized the child by the arm, and bade him get down. Then the
+little one screamed in terror, and _Misi Fafine_ screamed too, and the
+master became as mad, for he tore the boy from his mother's arms, and
+tossed him across the room against the wall. That is all I know of this
+thing."
+
+Denison saw nothing of Armitage till six o'clock on the following
+morning, just as Eckhardt was going away. He put out his hand, Eckhardt
+put his own behind his back, and, in a few blunt words, told the Beast
+what he thought of him.
+
+"And if this was a civilised country," he added crisply, "you would be
+now in gaol. Yes, in prison. You have as good as killed your wife
+by your brutality--she will not live another two months. You have so
+injured your child's hip that he may be a cripple for life. You are a
+damned scoundrel, no better than the lowest ruffian of a city slum, and
+if you show yourself in Joe D'Acosta's smoking-room again, you'll find
+more than half a dozen men--Englishmen, Americans and Germans--ready to
+kick you out into the _au ala_" (road).
+
+Armitage was no coward. He sprang forward with an oath, but Denison, who
+was a third less of his employer's weight, deftly put out his right foot
+and the master of Solo Solo plantation went down. Then the supercargo
+sat on him and, having a fine command of seafaring expletives,
+threatened to gouge his eyes out if he did not keep quiet.
+
+"You go on, doctor," he said cheerfully. "I'll let you know in the
+course of an hour or two how Mrs. Armitage and the boy are progressing.
+The seat which I am now occupying, though not a very honourable one,
+considering the material of which it is composed, is very comfortable
+for the time being; and"--he turned and glared savagely at Armitage's
+purpled face--"You sweep! I have a great inclination to let Eckhardt
+come and boot the life out of you whilst I hold you down, you brute!"
+
+"I'll kill you for this," said Armitage hoarsely.
+
+"Won't give you the chance, my boy. And if you don't promise to go to
+your room quietly, I'll call in the native servants, sling you up like
+the pig you are to a pole, and have you carried into Apia, where you
+stand a good show of being lynched. I've had enough of you. Every
+one--except your blackguardly acquaintances in Matafele--would be glad
+to hear that you were dead, and your wife and child freed from you."
+
+Eckhardt stepped forward. "Let him up, Mr. Denison."
+
+The supercargo obeyed the request.
+
+"Just as you please, doctor. But I think that he ought to be put in
+irons, or a strait-jacket, or knocked on the head as a useless beast. If
+it were not for Mrs. Armitage and her little son, I would like to kill
+the sweep. His treatment of that poor fellow Amona, who is so devoted to
+the child, has been most atrocious."
+
+Eckhardt grasped the supercargo's hand as Armitage shambled off "He's a
+brute, as you say, Mr. Denison. But she has some affection for him. For
+myself, I would like to put a bullet through him."
+
+Within three months Mrs. Armitage was dead, and a fresh martrydom began
+for poor Amona. But he and the child had plenty of good friends; and
+then, one day, when Armitage awakened to sanity after a long drinking
+bout, he found that both Amona and the child had gone.
+
+Nearly a score of years later Denison met them in an Australian city.
+The "baby" had grown to be a well-set-up young fellow, and Amona the
+faithful was still with him--Amona with a smiling, happy face. They came
+down on board Denison's vessel with him, and "the baby" gave him, ere
+they parted, that faded photograph of his dead mother.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SNAKE AND THE BELL
+
+When I was a child of eight years of age, a curious incident occurred in
+the house in which our family lived. The locality was Mosman's Bay, one
+of the many picturesque indentations of the beautiful harbour of Sydney.
+In those days the houses were few and far apart, and our own dwelling
+was surrounded on all sides by the usual monotonous-hued Australian
+forest of iron barks and spotted gums, traversed here and there by
+tracks seldom used, as the house was far back from the main road,
+leading from the suburb of St. Leonards to Middle Harbour. The building
+itself was in the form of a quadrangle enclosing a courtyard, on to
+which nearly all the rooms opened; each room having a bell over the
+door, the wires running all round the square, while the front-door bell,
+which was an extra large affair, hung in the hall, the "pull" being one
+of the old-fashioned kind, an iron sliding-rod suspended from the outer
+wall plate, where it connected with the wire.
+
+One cold and windy evening about eight o'clock, my mother, my sisters,
+and myself were sitting in the dining-room awaiting the arrival of my
+brothers from Sydney--they attended school there, and rowed or sailed
+the six miles to and fro every day, generally returning home by dusk. On
+this particular evening, however, they were late, on account of the wind
+blowing rather freshly from the north-east; but presently we heard the
+front-door bell ring gently.
+
+"Here they are at last," said my mother; "but how silly of them to go to
+the front door on such a windy night, tormenting boys!"
+
+Julia, the servant, candle in hand, went along the lengthy passage,
+and opened the door. No one was there! She came back to the dining-room
+smiling--"Masther Edward is afther playin' wan av his thricks,
+ma'am----" she began, when the bell again rang--this time vigorously. My
+eldest sister threw down the book she was reading, and with an impatient
+exclamation herself went to the door, opened it quickly, and said
+sharply as she pulled it inwards--
+
+"Come in at once, you stupid things!" There was no answer, and she
+stepped outside on the verandah. No one was visible, and again the big
+bell in the hall rang!
+
+She shut the door angrily and returned to her seat, just as the bell
+gave a curious, faint tinkle as if the tongue had been moved ever so
+gently.
+
+"Don't take any notice of them," said my mother, "they will soon get
+tired of playing such silly pranks, and be eager for their supper."
+
+Presently the bell gave out three clear strokes. We looked at each
+other and smiled. Five minutes passed, and then came eight or ten gentle
+strokes in quick succession.
+
+"Let us catch them," said my mother, rising, and holding her finger
+up to us to preserve silence, as she stepped softly along the hall, we
+following on tiptoe.
+
+Softly turning the handle, she suddenly threw the door wide open, just
+as the bell gave another jangle. Not a soul was visible!
+
+My mother--one of the most placid-tempered women who ever breathed, now
+became annoyed, and stepping out on the verandah, addressed herself to
+the darkness--
+
+"Come inside at once, boys, or I shall be very angry. I know perfectly
+well what you have done; you have tied a string to the bell wires, and
+are pulling it. If you don't desist you shall have no supper."
+
+No answer--except from the hall bell, which gave another half-hearted
+tinkle.
+
+"Bring a candle and the step-ladder, Julia," said our now thoroughly
+exasperated parent, "and we shall see what these foolish boys have done
+to the bell-wire."
+
+Julia brought the ladder; my eldest sister mounted it, and began to
+examine the bell. She could see nothing unusual, no string or wire, and
+as she descended, the bell swayed and gave one faint stroke!
+
+We all returned to the sitting room, and had scarcely been there five
+minutes when we heard my three brothers coming in, in their usual way,
+by the back door. They tramped into the sitting room, noisy, dirty,
+wet with spray, and hungry, and demanded supper in a loud and collected
+voice. My mother looked at them with a severe aspect, and said they
+deserved none.
+
+"Why, mum, what's the matter?" said Ted; "what _have_ we been doing
+now, or what have we not done, that we don't deserve any supper, after
+pulling for two hours from Circular Quay, against a howling, black
+north-easter?"
+
+"You know perfectly well what I mean. It is most inconsiderate of you to
+play such silly tricks upon us."
+
+Ted gazed at her in genuine astonishment. "Silly tricks, mother! What
+silly tricks?" (Julia crossed herself, and trembled visibly as the bell
+again rang.)
+
+My mother, at once satisfied that Ted and my other brothers really knew
+nothing of the mysterious bell-ringing, quickly explained the cause of
+her anger.
+
+"Let us go and see if we can find out," said Ted. "You two boys, and
+you, Julia, get all the stable lanterns, light them, and we'll start out
+together--two on one side of the house and two on the other. Some one
+must be up to a trick!"
+
+Julia, who was a huge, raw-boned Irish girl, as strong as a working
+bullock, but not so graceful, again crossed herself, and began to weep.
+
+"What's the matter with you?" said Ted angrily.
+
+"Shure, an' there was tirrible murders committed here in the ould
+convict days," she whimpered. "The polace sargint's wife at Sint
+Leonards tould me all about it. There was three souldiers murdered down
+beyant on the beach, by some convicts, whin they was atin' their supper,
+an' there's people near about now that saw all the blood and----"
+
+"Stop it, you great lumbering idiot!" shouted Ted, as my eldest sister
+began to laugh hysterically, and the youngest, made a terrified dart to
+mother's skirts.
+
+Ted's angry voice and threatening visage silenced Julia for the moment,
+and she tremblingly went towards the door to obey his orders when the
+bell gave out such a vigorous and sustained peal that she sank down in
+a colossal heap on the floor, and then went into violent hysterics. (I
+assure my readers that I am not exaggerating matters in the slightest.)
+
+My mother, who was a thoroughly sensible woman, pushed the whole brood
+of us out of the room, came after us, shut the door and locked it. _She_
+knew the proper treatment for hysterics.
+
+"Let her stay there, boys," she said quietly, "she will hurt the
+furniture more than herself, the ridiculous creature. Now, Ted, you and
+your brothers get the lanterns, and the little ones and myself will go
+into the kitchen."
+
+We ran out into the stables, lit three lanterns, and my next eldest
+brother and myself, feeling horribly frightened, but impelled to show
+some courage by Ted's awful threats of what he would do to us if we
+"funked," told us to go round the house, beginning from the left, and
+meet him at the hall door, he going round from the right.
+
+With shaking limbs and gasping breath we made our portion of the
+circuit, sticking close to each other, and carefully avoiding looking at
+anything as we hurried over the lawn, our only anxiety being to meet
+Ted as quickly as possible and then get inside again. We arrived on the
+verandah, and in front of the hall-door, quite five minutes before Ted
+appeared.
+
+"Well, did you see anything?" he asked, as he walked up the steps,
+lantern in hand.
+
+"Nothing," we answered, edging up towards the door.
+
+Ted looked at us contemptuously. "You miserable little curs! What are
+you so frightened of? You're no better than a pack of women and kids.
+It's the wind that has made the bell ring, or, if it's not the wind,
+it is something else which I don't know anything about; but I want my
+supper. Pull the bell, one of you."
+
+Elated at so soon escaping from the horrors of the night, we seized the
+handle of the bell-pull, and gave it a vigorous tug.
+
+"It's stuck, Ted. It won't pull down," we said.
+
+"Granny!" said the big brother, "you're too funky to give it a proper
+pull," and pushing us aside, he grasped the pendant handle and gave a
+sharp pull. There was no answering sound.
+
+"It certainly is stuck," admitted Ted, raising his lantern so as to get
+a look upwards, then he gave a yell.
+
+"Oh! look there!"
+
+We looked up, and saw the writhing twisting, coils of a huge carpet
+snake, which had wound its body round and round the bell-wire on top
+of the wall plate. Its head was downwards, and it did not seem at
+all alarmed at our presence, but went on wriggling and twisting and
+squirming with much apparent cheerfulness.
+
+Ted ran back to the stables, and returned in a few seconds with a
+clothes-prop, with which he dealt the disturber of our peace a few
+rapid, but vigorous, blows, breaking its spine in several places. Then
+the step-ladder was brought out, and Ted, seizing the reptile by the
+tail, uncoiled it with some difficulty from the wire, and threw it down
+upon the verandah.
+
+It was over nine feet in length, and very fat, and had caused all the
+disturbance by endeavouring to denude itself of its old skin by dragging
+its body between the bell-wire and the top of the wall. When Ted killed
+it the poor harmless creature had almost accomplished its object.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SOUTH SEA NOTES
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+That many animals, particularly cattle and deer, are very fond of salt
+we all know, but it is not often that birds show any taste for it, or,
+if so, the circumstance has not generally been noted. In 1881, however,
+the present writer was residing on Gazelle Peninsula, the northern
+portion of the magnificent island of New Britain in the South Pacific,
+and had many opportunities of witnessing both cockatoos and wild pigeons
+drinking salt water. I was stationed at a place called Kabaira, the then
+"furthest-out" trading station on the whole island, and as I had but
+little to do in the way of work, I found plenty of time to study the
+bird-life in the vicinity. Parrots of several varieties, and all of
+beautiful plumage, were very plentiful, and immense flocks of white
+cockatoos frequented the rolling, grassy downs which lay between my home
+and the German head-station in Blanche Bay, twenty miles distant, while
+the heavy forest of the littoral was the haunt of thousands of pigeons.
+These latter, though not so large as the Samoan, or Eastern Polynesian
+bird, formed a very agreeable change of diet for us white traders, and
+by walking about fifty yards from one's door, half a dozen or more could
+be shot in as many minutes.
+
+My nearest neighbour was a German, and one day when we were walking
+along the beach towards his station, we noticed some hundreds of pigeons
+fly down from the forest, settle on the margin of the water, and
+drink with apparent enjoyment. The harbour at this spot was almost
+land-locked, the water as smooth as glass without the faintest ripple,
+and the birds were consequently enabled to drink without wetting their
+plumage. My companion, who had lived many years in New Britain, told me
+that this drinking of sea-water was common alike to both cockatoos and
+pigeons, and that on some occasions the beaches would be lined with
+them, the former birds not only drinking, but bathing as well, and
+apparently enjoying themselves greatly.
+
+During the following six months, especially when the weather was calm
+and rainy, I frequently noticed pigeons and cockatoos come to the salt
+water to drink. At first I thought that as fresh water in many places
+bubbled up through the sand at low tide, the birds were really not
+drinking the sea-water, but by watching closely, I frequently saw them
+walk across these tiny runnels, and make no attempt to drink. Then
+again, the whole of the Gazette Peninsula is out up by countless streams
+of water; rain falls throughout the year as a rule, and as I have said,
+there is always water percolating or bubbling up through the sand on
+the beaches at low tide. What causes this unusual habit of drinking
+sea-water?
+
+Another peculiarity of the New Britain and New Ireland pigeon is its
+fondness for the Chili pepper-berry. During three months of the year,
+when these berries are ripe, the birds' crops are full of them, and very
+often their flesh is so pungent, and smells so strongly of the Chili, as
+to be quite uneatable.
+
+* * * * *
+
+On all of the low-lying islands of the Ellice, Kings-mill and Gilbert
+Groups, a species of snipe are very plentiful. On the islands which
+enclose the noble lagoon of Funafuti in the Ellice Group, they are to
+be met with in great numbers, and in dull, rainy weather, an ordinarily
+good shot may get thirty or forty in a few hours. One day, accompanied
+by a native lad, I set out to collect hermit crabs, to be used as fish
+bait. These curious creatures are to be found almost anywhere in the
+equatorial islands of the Pacific; their shell houses ranging in size
+from a pea to an orange, and if a piece of coco-nut or fish or any other
+edible matter is left out overnight, hundreds of hermits will be found
+gathered around it in the morning. To extract the crabs from their
+shells, which are of all shapes and kinds, is a very simple matter--the
+hard casing is broken by placing them upon a large stone and striking
+them a sharp blow with one of lesser size. My companion and myself soon
+collected a heap of "hermits," when presently he took one up in his
+hand, and holding it close to his mouth, whistled softly. In a few
+moments the crab protruded one nipper, then another, then its red
+antennae, and allowed the boy to take its head between his finger and
+thumb and draw its entire body from its shell casing.
+
+"That is the way the _kili_ (snipe) gets the _uga_ (crab) from its
+shell," he said. "The _kili_ stands over the _uga_ and whistles softly,
+and the _uga_ puts out his head to listen. Then the bird seizes it in
+his bill, gives it a backward jerk and off flies the shell."
+
+Now I had often noticed that wherever hermit crabs were plentiful along
+the outer beaches of the lagoon, I was sure to find snipe, and sometimes
+wondered on what the birds fed. Taking up two or three "hermits" one
+by one, I whistled gently, and in each case the creature protruded the
+nippers, head and shoulders, and moved its antennæ to and fro as if
+pleasurably excited.
+
+On the following day I shot three snipe, and in the stomachs of each I
+found some quite fresh and some partly digested hermit crabs. The thick,
+hard nippers are broken off by the bird before he swallows the soft,
+tender body.
+
+*****
+
+In a recent number of _Chambers's Journal_ the present writer was much
+interested in a short paragraph dealing with the commercial value of the
+skin of the shark, and, having had many years' experience as a
+trader and supercargo in the South Seas, desires to add some further
+information on a somewhat interesting subject.
+
+In all the equatorial islands of the North and South Pacific, shark
+fishing is a very profitable industry to the natives, and every trading
+steamer or sailing vessel coming into the ports of Sydney or Auckland
+from the islands of the mid-Pacific, always brings some tons of shark
+fins and tails and shark skins. The principal market for the former is
+Hong Kong, but the Chinese merchants of the Australasian Colonies will
+always buy sharks' fins and tails at from 6d. to 11d. per lb., the fins
+bringing the best price on account of the extra amount of glutinous
+matter they contain, and the which are highly relished by the richer
+classes of Chinese as a delicacy. The tails are also valued as an
+article of food in China; and, apart from their edible qualities, have a
+further value as a base for clear varnishes, &c.; and I was informed
+by a Chinese tea-merchant that the glaze upon the paper coverings of
+tea-chests was due to a preparation composed principally of the refuse
+of sharks' fins, tails, and skins.
+
+All the natives of the Gilbert, Kingsmill, and other Pacific equatorial
+islands are expert shark fishermen; but the wild people of Ocean Island
+(Paanopa) and Pleasant Island (Naura), two isolated spots just under the
+equator, surpass them all in the art of catching jackshark. It was the
+fortunate experience of the writer to live among these people for many
+years, and to be inducted into the native method of shark-catching. In
+frail canoes, made of short pieces of wood, sewn together with coco-nut
+fibre, the Ocean Islanders will venture out with rude but ingeniously
+contrived _wooden_ hooks, and capture sharks of a girth (_not_ length)
+that no untrained European would dare to attempt to kill from a
+well-appointed boat, with a good crew.
+
+Shark-catching is one of _the_ industries of the Pacific, and a very
+paying industry too. Five-and-twenty years ago there were quite a dozen
+or more schooners sailing out of Honolulu, in the Hawaiian Islands, to
+the isolated atolls of the North Pacific--notably Palmyra and Christmas
+Islands--where sharks could be caught by the thousand, and the crews,
+who were engaged on a "lay," like whalemen, made "big money"; many of
+them after a six months' cruise drawing 500 dollars--a large sum for a
+native sailor.
+
+The work is certainly hard, but it is exciting, and the writer will
+always remember with pleasure a seven months' shark-fishing cruise
+he once had in the North Pacific, the genial comrades--white men and
+brown--and the bag of dollars handed over to him by the owners when the
+ship was paid off in Honolulu.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+It is not generally known, except to scientists and those who are
+acquainted with the subject, that a large percentage of the various
+species and varieties of sea snakes are highly venomous. These snakes
+must not be confounded with the very numerous species of sea eels,
+which, though exceedingly savage and armed with strong needle-pointed
+teeth, are all non-venomous, though their bite produces high
+inflammation if not at once properly attended to and cleansed by an
+antiseptic. The sea snake is a true snake in many respects, having
+either laminated scales or a thick corduroyed skin resembling
+rudimentary scales. The head is flat, and the general structure of the
+body similar to that of the land snake. Whether any of them possess the
+true poison glands and fangs I do not know, for although I have killed
+many hundreds of them I never took sufficient interest to make a careful
+examination; and I was told by a Dutch medical gentleman, long resident
+on the coast of Dutch New Guinea, and who had made some investigation on
+the subject, that he had failed to discover any poison sacs or glands in
+any one of the several snakes he had captured. Yet in some instances he
+found what at first appeared to be the two long front teeth common to
+venomous land snakes, but on detailed examination these always proved to
+be perfectly solid; nevertheless a bite from one of these sea serpents
+was generally regarded by the natives as fatal; in my own experience
+I know of two such cases, one at the island of Fotuna in the South
+Pacific, and the other in Torres Straits.
+
+In Sigavi Harbour, on Fotuna, there is a rock to which vessels
+occasionally make fast their stern moorings. In the boat which I sent
+away with a line to this rock were several boys, natives of the island,
+who went with the crew for amusement. One of them, aged about ten,
+jumped out of the boat, and in his hurry fell on his hands and knees,
+right on top of a large black and white banded sea snake, which at once
+bit him savagely on the wrist, causing the blood to flow from a score of
+tiny punctures. The boy at once swam on shore to be treated by a native;
+in the evening I heard he was suffering great agony, in the morning the
+poor little fellow was dead.
+
+The second instance was near Raine Island, in Torres Straits. A stalwart
+young Kanaka, one of the crew of a pearling lugger, was diving for clam
+shells on the reef, when a snake about three feet in length suddenly
+shot up from below within a foot of his face. In his anger and disgust
+he unthinkingly struck it with his hand, and was quickly bitten on the
+forefinger. A few hours later he was in a high fever, accompanied with
+twitchings of the extremities; then tetanus ensued, followed by death in
+forty-eight hours.
+
+Although these sea snakes are common to all tropical seas, they are most
+frequent about the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. On any smooth
+day they may be seen disporting themselves on the surface, or rising
+suddenly from the depths, erect their heads and some inches of their
+bodies clear from the water, gaze at the passing vessel, and then
+swiftly disappear. In nearly all the Pacific Islands the natives hold
+them in detestation and horror, and when one is seen lying coiled up on
+a rock sunning itself or crawling over the surface of the reef in search
+of food, a stone, accompanied by a curse, is always hurled at it. In the
+Ellice Oroup, when catching flying-fish at night, one (or more) of these
+horrid serpents is sometimes swept up in the scoop-net before it can be
+avoided. They range from six inches to nearly four feet in length, and
+all have one feature--a blunted tail-end.
+
+Quite recently much further light has been thrown on the subject by Sir
+James Hector, of the Philosophical Society of Wellington, New Zealand.
+At one of the Society's meetings, held in April last, Sir James showed
+several specimens of _hydrida_, some from Australasian Seas, others
+from the Atlantic. The usual habitat of sea snakes, he said, were the
+tropical seas generally, but some had been captured in the comparatively
+cold waters of the New Zealand coast, at the Catlins River. These latter
+were all yellow-banded; those from the islands of the Fijian Oroup were
+black-banded, and those taken from the Australian coast grey-banded.
+There were, he said, no fewer than seventy species, which, without
+exception, were fanged and provided with glands secreting a virulent
+poison. In some of the mountainous islands of the South Pacific, such as
+Samoa, Fiji, &c, there were several species of land snakes, all of which
+were perfectly harmless, and were familiar to many people in Australia
+and New Zealand, through being brought there in bunches of island
+bananas--it was singular, he thought, that the sea snakes alone should
+be so highly venomous. "They were all characterised by the flattened
+or blunted tail, which they used as a steer oar, and were often found
+asleep on the surface of the water, lying on their backs. In this state
+they were easily and safely captured, being powerless to strike." The
+present writer, who has seen hundreds of these marine snakes daily
+for many years, during a long residence in the Pacific Islands, cannot
+remember a single instance where he has seen one of these dangerous
+creatures asleep _on the water_, though they may frequently be found
+lying asleep on the coral reefs, exposing themselves to the rays of a
+torrid sun. They usually select some knob or rounded boulder, from the
+top of which, when awake, they can survey the small pools beneath and
+discern any fish which may be imprisoned therein. In such case they will
+glide down into the water with astonishing rapidity, seize their prey,
+and after swallowing it, return to their sun bath. The natives of the
+Paumotu Archipelago informed me, however, that they are most active
+in seeking their prey at night-time, and are especially fond of
+flying-fish, which, as is well known, is one of the swiftest of all
+ocean fishes. The sea snakes, however, seize them with the greatest
+ease, by rising cautiously beneath and fastening their keen teeth in the
+fish's throat or belly. A snake, not two feet six inches in length, I
+was assured, can easily swallow a flying-fish eight inches or ten inches
+long.
+
+With regard to their habit of lying asleep on their backs on the surface
+of the water, it may be that Sir James Hector is alluding to some
+particular species, but whether that is so or not Sir James's statement
+must of course be considered authoritative, for there is, I believe, no
+higher authority on the subject in the world. Apropos of these venomous
+marine serpents I may mention that the Rev. W. W. Gill in one of his
+works states that he was informed by the natives of the Cook's Group
+that during the prevalence of very bad weather, when fish were scarce,
+the large sea eels would actually crawl ashore, and ascend the _fala_
+(pandanus or screw-pine) trees in search of the small green lizards
+which live among the upper part of the foliage. At first I regarded this
+merely as a bit of native extravagance of statement, but in 1882, when
+I was shipwrecked on Peru (or Francis Island), one of the Gilbert Group,
+the local trader, one Frank Voliero, and myself saw one of these eels
+engaged in an equally extraordinary pursuit. We were one evening,
+after a heavy gale from the westward had been blowing for three days,
+examining a rookery of whale birds in search of eggs; the rookery was
+situated in a dense thicket scrub on the north end of the island, and
+was quite two hundred yards from the sea-shore, though not more than
+half that distance from the inside lagoon beach. The storm had destroyed
+quite a number of young, half-fledged birds, whose bodies were lying on
+the ground, and busily engaged in devouring one of them was a very large
+sea eel, as thick as the calf of a man's leg. Before I could manage to
+secure a stick with which to kill the repulsive-looking creature, it
+made off through the undergrowth at a rapid pace in the direction of the
+lagoon, and when we emerged out into the open in pursuit, ten minutes
+later, we were just in time to see it wriggling down the hard, sloping
+beach into the water. Instinct evidently made it seek the nearest water,
+for none of these large sea eels are ever found in Peru Lagoon.
+
+Many of the rivers and lakes of the islands of the Western Pacific are
+tenanted by eels of great size, which are never, or very seldom, as far
+as I could learn, interfered with by the natives, and I have never seen
+the people of either the Admiralty Islands, New Ireland, or New Britain
+touch an eel as food. The Maories, however, as is well known, are
+inordinately fond of eels, which, with putrid shark, constitute one of
+their staple articles of diet.
+
+In the few mountainous islands of the vast Caroline Archipelago, in
+the North-western Pacific, eels are very plentiful, not only in the
+numberless small streams which debouch into the shallow waters enclosed
+by the barrier reefs, but also far up on the mountainsides,
+occupying little rocky pools of perhaps no larger dimensions than an
+ordinary-sized toilet basin, or swimming up and down rivulets hardly
+more than two feet across. The natives of Ponapé, the largest island
+of the Caroline Group, and of Kusaie (Strong's Island), its eastern
+outlier, regard the fresh-water eel with shuddering aversion, and should
+a man accidentally touch one with his foot when crossing a stream he
+will utter an exclamation of horror and fear. In the heathen days--down
+to 1845-50--the eel (tôan) was an object of worship, and constantly
+propitiated by sacrifices of food, on account of its malevolent powers;
+personal contact was rigidly avoided; to touch one, even by the merest
+accident, was to bring down the most dreadful calamities on the offender
+and his family--bodily deformities, starvation and poverty, and death;
+and although the natives of Strong's Island are now both civilised and
+Christianised, and a training college of the Boston Board of Missions
+has long been established at Port Lelé, they still manifest the same
+superstitious dread of the eel as in their days of heathendom. I well
+remember witnessing an instance of this terror during my sojourn on the
+island when I was shipwrecked there in 1874. I had taken up my residence
+in the picturesque little village of Leassé, on the western or "lee"
+side, when I was one evening visited by several of the ship's company--a
+Fijian half-caste, a white man, and two natives of Pleasant Island. At
+the moment they arrived I was in the house of the native pastor--a
+man who had received an excellent education in a missionary college at
+Honolulu, in the Hawaiian Islands--instructing him and his family in the
+art of making _taka_, or cinnet sandals, as practised by the natives
+of the Tokelau Group. Just then the four seamen entered, each man
+triumphantly holding up a large eel: in an instant there was a united
+howl of horror from the parson and his family, as they made a rash for
+the door, overturning the lamp and nearly setting the house on fire. In
+vain I followed and urged them to return, and told them that the men had
+gone away and taken the _tôan_ with them--nothing would induce them to
+enter the house that night, and the whole family slept elsewhere.
+
+One singular thing about the eels on Strong's Island is that they
+hibernate, in a fashion, on the sides or even summits of the high
+mountains, at an altitude of nearly two thousand feet. Selecting, or
+perhaps making, a depression in the soft, moss-covered soil, the ugly
+creatures fit themselves into it compactly and remain there for weeks or
+even months at a time. I have counted as many as thirty of these holes,
+all tenanted, within a few square yards. Some were quite concealed by
+vegetable _débris_ or moss, others were exposed to view, with the broad,
+flat head of the slippery occupant resting on the margin or doubled back
+upon its body. They showed no alarm, but if poked with a stick would
+extricate themselves and crawl slowly away.
+
+In the streams they were very voracious, and I had a special antipathy
+to them, on account of their preying so on the crayfish--a crustacean
+of which I was particularly fond, and which the natives also liked very
+much, but were afraid to capture for fear their hands might come in
+contact with the dreaded _tôan_.
+
+One afternoon I was plucking a pigeon I had just shot by the margin of a
+mountain stream. After removing the viscera, I put the bird in the water
+to clean it properly, and was shaking it gently to and fro, when it was
+suddenly torn out of my hand by a disgustingly bloated, reddish-coloured
+eel about four feet in length, and quickly swallowed. That one pigeon
+had cost me two hours' tramping through the rain-soddened mountain
+forest, so loading my gun I followed the thief down stream to where the
+water was but a few inches deep, and then blew his head off.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Âmona; The Child; And The Beast; And
+Others, by Louis Becke
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Amona; The Child; And The Beast; And Others, by
+Louis Becke
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Amona; The Child; And The Beast; And Others
+       From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other
+       Stories" - 1902
+
+Author: Louis Becke
+
+Release Date: March 29, 2008 [EBook #24952]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMONA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+AMONA; THE CHILD; AND THE BEAST
+
+Plus THE SNAKE AND THE BELL and SOUTH SEA NOTES
+
+From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other Stories"
+
+By Louis Becke
+
+T. FISHER UNWIN, 1902
+
+LONDON
+
+
+
+
+AMONA; THE CHILD; AND THE BEAST'
+
+
+Amona was, as his master so frequently told him--accentuating the remark
+with a blow or a kick--only "a miserable kanaka." Of his miserableness
+there was no doubt, for Denison, who lived in the same house as he did,
+was a daily witness of it--and his happiness. Also, he was a kanaka--a
+native of Niue, in the South Pacific; Savage Island it is called by the
+traders and is named on the charts, though its five thousand sturdy,
+brown-skinned inhabitants have been civilised, Christianised, and have
+lived fairly cleanly for the past thirty years.
+
+Amona and Denison had the distinction of being employed by Armitage, one
+of the most unmitigated blackguards in the Pacific. He was a shipowner,
+planter, merchant, and speculator; was looked upon by a good many people
+as "not a bad sort of a fellow, you know--and the soul of hospitality."
+In addition, he was an incorrigible drunken bully, and broke his wife's
+heart within four years after she married him. Amona was his cook.
+Denison was one of his supercargoes, and (when a long boat of
+drunkenness made him see weird visions of impossible creatures) manager
+of the business on shore, overseer, accountant, and Jack-of-all-trades.
+How he managed to stay on with such a brute I don't know. He certainly
+paid him well enough, but he (Denison) could have got another berth from
+other people in Samoa, Fiji, or Tonga had he wanted it. And, although
+Armitage was always painfully civil to Denison--who tried to keep
+his business from going to the dogs--the man hated him as much as he
+despised Amona, and would have liked to have kicked him, as he would
+have liked to have kicked or strangled any one who knew the secret of
+his wife's death and his child's lameness. And three people in Samoa did
+know it--Amona, the Niue cook, Dr. Eckhardt, and Denison. Armitage has
+been dead now these five-and-twenty years--died, as he deserved to
+die, alone and friendless in an Australian bush hospital out in the
+God-forsaken Never-Never country, and when Denison heard of his death,
+he looked at the gentle wife's dim, faded photograph, and wondered if
+the Beast saw her sweet, sad face in his dying moments. He trusted
+not; for in her eyes would have shown only the holy light of love
+and forgiveness--things which a man like Armitage could not have
+understood--even then.
+
+She had been married three years when she came with him to Samoa to live
+on Solo-Solo Plantation, in a great white-painted bungalow, standing
+amid a grove of breadfruit and coco-palms, and overlooking the sea
+to the north, east, and west; to the south was the dark green of the
+mountain-forest.
+
+"Oh! I think it is the fairest, sweetest picture in the world," she said
+to Denison the first time he met her. She was sitting on the verandah
+with her son in her lap, and as she spoke she pressed her lips to his
+soft little cheek and caressed the tiny hands. "So different from where
+I was born and lived all my life--on the doll, sun-baked plains of the
+Riverina--isn't it, my pet?"
+
+"I am glad that you like the place, Mrs. Armitage," the supercargo said
+as he looked at the young, girlish face and thought that she, too, with
+her baby, made a fair, sweet picture. How she loved the child! And how
+the soft, grey-blue eyes would lose their sadness when the little one
+turned its face up to hers and smiled! How came it, he wondered, that
+such a tender, flower-like woman was mated to such a man as Armitage!
+
+Long after she was dead, Denison heard the story--one common enough.
+Her father, whose station adjoined that of Armitage, got into financial
+difficulties, went to Armitage for help, and practically sold his
+daughter to the Beast for a couple of thousand pounds. Very likely such
+a man would have sold his daughter's mother as well if he wanted money.
+
+* * * * *
+
+As they sat talking, Armitage rode up, half-drunk as usual. He was a big
+man, good-looking.
+
+"Hallo, Nell! Pawing the damned kid as usual! Why the hell don't you let
+one of the girls take the little animal and let him tumble about on the
+grass? You're spoiling the child--by God, you are."
+
+"Ah, he's so happy, Fred, here with me, and----"
+
+"Happy be damned--you're always letting him maul you about. I want a
+whisky-and-soda, and so does Denison--don't you?" And then the Beast, as
+soon as his wife with the child in her arms had left the room, began
+to tell his subordinate of a "new" girl he had met that morning in Joe
+D'Acosta's saloon.
+
+"Oh, shut up, man. Your wife is in the next room."
+
+"Let her hear--and be damned to her! She knows what I do. I don't
+disguise anything from her. I'm not a sneak in that way. By God, I'm not
+the man to lose any fun from sentimental reasons. Have you seen this
+new girl at Joe's? She's a Manhiki half-caste. God, man! She's glorious,
+simply glorious!"
+
+"You mean Laea, I suppose. She's a common beacher--sailor man's trull.
+Surely you wouldn't be seen ever speaking to _her?_"
+
+"Wouldn't I! You don't know me yet! I like the girl, and I've fixed
+things up with her. She's coming here as my nursemaid--twenty dollars a
+month! What do you think of that?"
+
+"You would not insult your wife so horribly!"
+
+He looked at Denison sullenly, but made no answer, as the supercargo
+went on:
+
+"You'll get the dead cut from every white man in Samoa. Not a soul will
+put foot inside your store door, and Joe D'Acosta himself would refuse
+to sell you a drink! Might as well shoot yourself at once."
+
+"Oh, well, damn it all, don't keep on preaching. I--I was more in fun
+than anything else. Ha! Here's Amona with the drinks. Why don't you be a
+bit smarter, you damned frizzy-haired man-eater?"
+
+Amona's sallow face flushed deeply, but he made no reply to the insult
+as he handed a glass to his master.
+
+"Put the tray down there, confound you! Don't stand there like a
+blarsted mummy; clear out till we want you again."
+
+The native made no answer, bent his head in silence, and stepped quietly
+away. Then Armitage began to grumble at him as a "useless swine."
+
+"Why," said Denison, "Mrs. Armitage was only just telling me that he's
+worth all the rest of the servants put together. And, by Jove, he _is_
+fond of your youngster--simply worships the little chap."
+
+Armitage snorted, and turned his lips down. Ten minutes later, he was
+asleep in his chair.
+
+*****
+
+Nearly six months had passed--six months of wretchedness to the young
+wife, whose heart was slowly breaking under the strain of living with
+the Beast. Such happiness as was hers lay in the companionship of her
+little son, and every evening Tom Denison would see her watching the
+child and the patient, faithful Amona, as the two played together on the
+smooth lawn in front of the sitting-room, or ran races in and out among
+the mango-trees. She was becoming paler and thinner every day--the Beast
+was getting fatter and coarser, and more brutalised. Sometimes he would
+remain in Apia for a week, returning home either boisterously drunk or
+sullen and scowling-faced. In the latter case, he would come into the
+office where Denison worked (he had left the schooner of which he was
+supercargo, and was now "overseering" Solo-Solo) and try to grasp the
+muddled condition of his financial affairs. Then, with much variegated
+language, he would stride away, cursing the servants and the place
+and everything in general, mount his horse, and ride off again to the
+society of the loafers, gamblers, and flaunting unfortunates who haunted
+the drinking saloons of Apia and Matafele.
+
+One day came a crisis. Denison was rigging a tackle to haul a tree-trunk
+into position in the plantation saw-pit, when Armitage rode up to the
+house. He dismounted and went inside. Five minutes later Amona came
+staggering down the path to him. His left cheek was cut to the bone by
+a blow from Armitage's fist. Denison brought him into his own room,
+stitched up the wound, and gave him a glass of grog, and told him to
+light his pipe and rest.
+
+"Amona, you're a _valea_ (fool). Why don't you leave this place? This
+man will kill you some day. How many beatings has he given you?" He
+spoke in English.
+
+"I know not how many. But it is God's will. And if the master some day
+killeth me, it is well. And yet, but for some things, I would use my
+knife on him."
+
+"What things?"
+
+He came over to the supercargo, and, seating himself cross-legged on the
+floor, placed his firm, brown, right hand on the white man's knee.
+
+"For two things, good friend. The little fingers of the child are
+clasped tightly around my heart, and when his father striketh me and
+calls me a filthy man-eater, a dog, and a pig, I know no pain. That is
+one thing. And the other thing is this--the child's mother hath come to
+me when my body hath ached from the father's blows, and the blood hath
+covered my face; and she hath bound up my wounds and wept silent tears,
+and together have we knelt and called upon God to turn his heart from
+the grog and the foul women, and to take away from her and the child the
+bitterness of these things."
+
+"You're a good fellow, Amona," said Denison, as he saw that the man's
+cheeks were wet with tears.
+
+"Nay, for sometimes my heart is bitter with anger. But God is good to
+me. For the child loveth me. And the mother is of God... aye, and she
+will be with Him soon." Then he rose to his knees suddenly, and looked
+wistfully at the supercargo, as he put his hand on his. "She will be
+dead before the next moon is _ai aiga_ (in the first quarter), for at
+night I lie outside her door, and but three nights ago she cried out to
+me: 'Come, Amona, Come!' And I went in, and she was sitting up on
+her bed and blood was running from her mouth. But she bade me tell no
+one--not even thee. And it was then she told me that death was near
+to her, for she hath a disease whose roots lie in her chest, and
+which eateth away her strength. Dear friend, let me tell thee of some
+things... This man is a devil.... I know he but desires to see her die.
+He hath cursed her before me, and twice have I seen him take the child
+from her arms, and, setting him on the floor to weep in terror, take his
+wife by the hand----"
+
+"Stop, man; stop! That'll do. Say no more! The beast!"
+
+"_E tonu, e tonu_ (true, true)," said the man, quietly, and still
+speaking in Samoan. "He is as a beast of the mountains, as a tiger of
+the country India, which devoureth the lamb and the kid.... And so now I
+have opened my heart to thee of these things----"
+
+A native woman rushed into the room: "Come, Amona, come. _Misi Fafine_
+(the mistress) bleeds from her mouth again."
+
+The white man and the brown ran into the front sitting-room together,
+just as they heard a piercing shriek of terror from the child; then came
+the sound of a heavy fall.
+
+As they entered, Armitage strode out, jolting against them as he passed.
+His face was swollen and ugly with passion--bad to look at.
+
+"Go and pick up the child, you frizzy-haired pig!" he muttered hoarsely
+to Amona as he passed. "He fell off his mother's lap."
+
+Mrs. Armitage was leaning back in her chair, as white as death, and
+trying to speak, as with one hand she tried to stanch the rush of blood
+from her mouth, and with the other pointed to her child, who was lying
+on his face under a table, motionless and unconscious.
+
+In less than ten minutes, a native was galloping through the bush to
+Apia for Dr. Eckhardt. Denison had picked up the child, who, as he came
+to, began to cry. Assuring his mother that he was not much hurt, he
+brought him to her, and sat beside the lounge on which she lay, holding
+him in his arms. He was a good little man, and did not try to talk
+to her when the supercargo whispered to him to keep silent, but lay
+stroking the poor mother's thin white hand. Yet every now and then, as
+he moved or Denison changed his position, he would utter a cry of pain
+and say his leg pained him.
+
+Four hours later the German doctor arrived. Mrs. Armitage was asleep; so
+Eckhardt would not awaken her at the time. The boy, however, had slept
+but fitfully, and every now and then awakened with a sob of pain.
+The nurse stripped him, and Eckhardt soon found out what was wrong--a
+serious injury to the left hip.
+
+Late in the evening, as the big yellow-bearded German doctor and Denison
+sat in the dining room smoking and talking, Taloi, the child's nurse
+entered, and was followed by Amona, and the woman told them the whole
+story.
+
+"_Misi Fafine_ was sitting in a chair with the boy on her lap when the
+master came in. His eyes were black and fierce with anger, and, stepping
+up, he seized the child by the arm, and bade him get down. Then the
+little one screamed in terror, and _Misi Fafine_ screamed too, and the
+master became as mad, for he tore the boy from his mother's arms, and
+tossed him across the room against the wall. That is all I know of this
+thing."
+
+Denison saw nothing of Armitage till six o'clock on the following
+morning, just as Eckhardt was going away. He put out his hand, Eckhardt
+put his own behind his back, and, in a few blunt words, told the Beast
+what he thought of him.
+
+"And if this was a civilised country," he added crisply, "you would be
+now in gaol. Yes, in prison. You have as good as killed your wife
+by your brutality--she will not live another two months. You have so
+injured your child's hip that he may be a cripple for life. You are a
+damned scoundrel, no better than the lowest ruffian of a city slum, and
+if you show yourself in Joe D'Acosta's smoking-room again, you'll find
+more than half a dozen men--Englishmen, Americans and Germans--ready to
+kick you out into the _au ala_" (road).
+
+Armitage was no coward. He sprang forward with an oath, but Denison, who
+was a third less of his employer's weight, deftly put out his right foot
+and the master of Solo Solo plantation went down. Then the supercargo
+sat on him and, having a fine command of seafaring expletives,
+threatened to gouge his eyes out if he did not keep quiet.
+
+"You go on, doctor," he said cheerfully. "I'll let you know in the
+course of an hour or two how Mrs. Armitage and the boy are progressing.
+The seat which I am now occupying, though not a very honourable one,
+considering the material of which it is composed, is very comfortable
+for the time being; and"--he turned and glared savagely at Armitage's
+purpled face--"You sweep! I have a great inclination to let Eckhardt
+come and boot the life out of you whilst I hold you down, you brute!"
+
+"I'll kill you for this," said Armitage hoarsely.
+
+"Won't give you the chance, my boy. And if you don't promise to go to
+your room quietly, I'll call in the native servants, sling you up like
+the pig you are to a pole, and have you carried into Apia, where you
+stand a good show of being lynched. I've had enough of you. Every
+one--except your blackguardly acquaintances in Matafele--would be glad
+to hear that you were dead, and your wife and child freed from you."
+
+Eckhardt stepped forward. "Let him up, Mr. Denison."
+
+The supercargo obeyed the request.
+
+"Just as you please, doctor. But I think that he ought to be put in
+irons, or a strait-jacket, or knocked on the head as a useless beast. If
+it were not for Mrs. Armitage and her little son, I would like to kill
+the sweep. His treatment of that poor fellow Amona, who is so devoted to
+the child, has been most atrocious."
+
+Eckhardt grasped the supercargo's hand as Armitage shambled off "He's a
+brute, as you say, Mr. Denison. But she has some affection for him. For
+myself, I would like to put a bullet through him."
+
+Within three months Mrs. Armitage was dead, and a fresh martrydom began
+for poor Amona. But he and the child had plenty of good friends; and
+then, one day, when Armitage awakened to sanity after a long drinking
+bout, he found that both Amona and the child had gone.
+
+Nearly a score of years later Denison met them in an Australian city.
+The "baby" had grown to be a well-set-up young fellow, and Amona the
+faithful was still with him--Amona with a smiling, happy face. They came
+down on board Denison's vessel with him, and "the baby" gave him, ere
+they parted, that faded photograph of his dead mother.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SNAKE AND THE BELL
+
+When I was a child of eight years of age, a curious incident occurred in
+the house in which our family lived. The locality was Mosman's Bay, one
+of the many picturesque indentations of the beautiful harbour of Sydney.
+In those days the houses were few and far apart, and our own dwelling
+was surrounded on all sides by the usual monotonous-hued Australian
+forest of iron barks and spotted gums, traversed here and there by
+tracks seldom used, as the house was far back from the main road,
+leading from the suburb of St. Leonards to Middle Harbour. The building
+itself was in the form of a quadrangle enclosing a courtyard, on to
+which nearly all the rooms opened; each room having a bell over the
+door, the wires running all round the square, while the front-door bell,
+which was an extra large affair, hung in the hall, the "pull" being one
+of the old-fashioned kind, an iron sliding-rod suspended from the outer
+wall plate, where it connected with the wire.
+
+One cold and windy evening about eight o'clock, my mother, my sisters,
+and myself were sitting in the dining-room awaiting the arrival of my
+brothers from Sydney--they attended school there, and rowed or sailed
+the six miles to and fro every day, generally returning home by dusk. On
+this particular evening, however, they were late, on account of the wind
+blowing rather freshly from the north-east; but presently we heard the
+front-door bell ring gently.
+
+"Here they are at last," said my mother; "but how silly of them to go to
+the front door on such a windy night, tormenting boys!"
+
+Julia, the servant, candle in hand, went along the lengthy passage,
+and opened the door. No one was there! She came back to the dining-room
+smiling--"Masther Edward is afther playin' wan av his thricks,
+ma'am----" she began, when the bell again rang--this time vigorously. My
+eldest sister threw down the book she was reading, and with an impatient
+exclamation herself went to the door, opened it quickly, and said
+sharply as she pulled it inwards--
+
+"Come in at once, you stupid things!" There was no answer, and she
+stepped outside on the verandah. No one was visible, and again the big
+bell in the hall rang!
+
+She shut the door angrily and returned to her seat, just as the bell
+gave a curious, faint tinkle as if the tongue had been moved ever so
+gently.
+
+"Don't take any notice of them," said my mother, "they will soon get
+tired of playing such silly pranks, and be eager for their supper."
+
+Presently the bell gave out three clear strokes. We looked at each
+other and smiled. Five minutes passed, and then came eight or ten gentle
+strokes in quick succession.
+
+"Let us catch them," said my mother, rising, and holding her finger
+up to us to preserve silence, as she stepped softly along the hall, we
+following on tiptoe.
+
+Softly turning the handle, she suddenly threw the door wide open, just
+as the bell gave another jangle. Not a soul was visible!
+
+My mother--one of the most placid-tempered women who ever breathed, now
+became annoyed, and stepping out on the verandah, addressed herself to
+the darkness--
+
+"Come inside at once, boys, or I shall be very angry. I know perfectly
+well what you have done; you have tied a string to the bell wires, and
+are pulling it. If you don't desist you shall have no supper."
+
+No answer--except from the hall bell, which gave another half-hearted
+tinkle.
+
+"Bring a candle and the step-ladder, Julia," said our now thoroughly
+exasperated parent, "and we shall see what these foolish boys have done
+to the bell-wire."
+
+Julia brought the ladder; my eldest sister mounted it, and began to
+examine the bell. She could see nothing unusual, no string or wire, and
+as she descended, the bell swayed and gave one faint stroke!
+
+We all returned to the sitting room, and had scarcely been there five
+minutes when we heard my three brothers coming in, in their usual way,
+by the back door. They tramped into the sitting room, noisy, dirty,
+wet with spray, and hungry, and demanded supper in a loud and collected
+voice. My mother looked at them with a severe aspect, and said they
+deserved none.
+
+"Why, mum, what's the matter?" said Ted; "what _have_ we been doing
+now, or what have we not done, that we don't deserve any supper, after
+pulling for two hours from Circular Quay, against a howling, black
+north-easter?"
+
+"You know perfectly well what I mean. It is most inconsiderate of you to
+play such silly tricks upon us."
+
+Ted gazed at her in genuine astonishment. "Silly tricks, mother! What
+silly tricks?" (Julia crossed herself, and trembled visibly as the bell
+again rang.)
+
+My mother, at once satisfied that Ted and my other brothers really knew
+nothing of the mysterious bell-ringing, quickly explained the cause of
+her anger.
+
+"Let us go and see if we can find out," said Ted. "You two boys, and
+you, Julia, get all the stable lanterns, light them, and we'll start out
+together--two on one side of the house and two on the other. Some one
+must be up to a trick!"
+
+Julia, who was a huge, raw-boned Irish girl, as strong as a working
+bullock, but not so graceful, again crossed herself, and began to weep.
+
+"What's the matter with you?" said Ted angrily.
+
+"Shure, an' there was tirrible murders committed here in the ould
+convict days," she whimpered. "The polace sargint's wife at Sint
+Leonards tould me all about it. There was three souldiers murdered down
+beyant on the beach, by some convicts, whin they was atin' their supper,
+an' there's people near about now that saw all the blood and----"
+
+"Stop it, you great lumbering idiot!" shouted Ted, as my eldest sister
+began to laugh hysterically, and the youngest, made a terrified dart to
+mother's skirts.
+
+Ted's angry voice and threatening visage silenced Julia for the moment,
+and she tremblingly went towards the door to obey his orders when the
+bell gave out such a vigorous and sustained peal that she sank down in
+a colossal heap on the floor, and then went into violent hysterics. (I
+assure my readers that I am not exaggerating matters in the slightest.)
+
+My mother, who was a thoroughly sensible woman, pushed the whole brood
+of us out of the room, came after us, shut the door and locked it. _She_
+knew the proper treatment for hysterics.
+
+"Let her stay there, boys," she said quietly, "she will hurt the
+furniture more than herself, the ridiculous creature. Now, Ted, you and
+your brothers get the lanterns, and the little ones and myself will go
+into the kitchen."
+
+We ran out into the stables, lit three lanterns, and my next eldest
+brother and myself, feeling horribly frightened, but impelled to show
+some courage by Ted's awful threats of what he would do to us if we
+"funked," told us to go round the house, beginning from the left, and
+meet him at the hall door, he going round from the right.
+
+With shaking limbs and gasping breath we made our portion of the
+circuit, sticking close to each other, and carefully avoiding looking at
+anything as we hurried over the lawn, our only anxiety being to meet
+Ted as quickly as possible and then get inside again. We arrived on the
+verandah, and in front of the hall-door, quite five minutes before Ted
+appeared.
+
+"Well, did you see anything?" he asked, as he walked up the steps,
+lantern in hand.
+
+"Nothing," we answered, edging up towards the door.
+
+Ted looked at us contemptuously. "You miserable little curs! What are
+you so frightened of? You're no better than a pack of women and kids.
+It's the wind that has made the bell ring, or, if it's not the wind,
+it is something else which I don't know anything about; but I want my
+supper. Pull the bell, one of you."
+
+Elated at so soon escaping from the horrors of the night, we seized the
+handle of the bell-pull, and gave it a vigorous tug.
+
+"It's stuck, Ted. It won't pull down," we said.
+
+"Granny!" said the big brother, "you're too funky to give it a proper
+pull," and pushing us aside, he grasped the pendant handle and gave a
+sharp pull. There was no answering sound.
+
+"It certainly is stuck," admitted Ted, raising his lantern so as to get
+a look upwards, then he gave a yell.
+
+"Oh! look there!"
+
+We looked up, and saw the writhing twisting, coils of a huge carpet
+snake, which had wound its body round and round the bell-wire on top
+of the wall plate. Its head was downwards, and it did not seem at
+all alarmed at our presence, but went on wriggling and twisting and
+squirming with much apparent cheerfulness.
+
+Ted ran back to the stables, and returned in a few seconds with a
+clothes-prop, with which he dealt the disturber of our peace a few
+rapid, but vigorous, blows, breaking its spine in several places. Then
+the step-ladder was brought out, and Ted, seizing the reptile by the
+tail, uncoiled it with some difficulty from the wire, and threw it down
+upon the verandah.
+
+It was over nine feet in length, and very fat, and had caused all the
+disturbance by endeavouring to denude itself of its old skin by dragging
+its body between the bell-wire and the top of the wall. When Ted killed
+it the poor harmless creature had almost accomplished its object.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SOUTH SEA NOTES
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+That many animals, particularly cattle and deer, are very fond of salt
+we all know, but it is not often that birds show any taste for it, or,
+if so, the circumstance has not generally been noted. In 1881, however,
+the present writer was residing on Gazelle Peninsula, the northern
+portion of the magnificent island of New Britain in the South Pacific,
+and had many opportunities of witnessing both cockatoos and wild pigeons
+drinking salt water. I was stationed at a place called Kabaira, the then
+"furthest-out" trading station on the whole island, and as I had but
+little to do in the way of work, I found plenty of time to study the
+bird-life in the vicinity. Parrots of several varieties, and all of
+beautiful plumage, were very plentiful, and immense flocks of white
+cockatoos frequented the rolling, grassy downs which lay between my home
+and the German head-station in Blanche Bay, twenty miles distant, while
+the heavy forest of the littoral was the haunt of thousands of pigeons.
+These latter, though not so large as the Samoan, or Eastern Polynesian
+bird, formed a very agreeable change of diet for us white traders, and
+by walking about fifty yards from one's door, half a dozen or more could
+be shot in as many minutes.
+
+My nearest neighbour was a German, and one day when we were walking
+along the beach towards his station, we noticed some hundreds of pigeons
+fly down from the forest, settle on the margin of the water, and
+drink with apparent enjoyment. The harbour at this spot was almost
+land-locked, the water as smooth as glass without the faintest ripple,
+and the birds were consequently enabled to drink without wetting their
+plumage. My companion, who had lived many years in New Britain, told me
+that this drinking of sea-water was common alike to both cockatoos and
+pigeons, and that on some occasions the beaches would be lined with
+them, the former birds not only drinking, but bathing as well, and
+apparently enjoying themselves greatly.
+
+During the following six months, especially when the weather was calm
+and rainy, I frequently noticed pigeons and cockatoos come to the salt
+water to drink. At first I thought that as fresh water in many places
+bubbled up through the sand at low tide, the birds were really not
+drinking the sea-water, but by watching closely, I frequently saw them
+walk across these tiny runnels, and make no attempt to drink. Then
+again, the whole of the Gazette Peninsula is out up by countless streams
+of water; rain falls throughout the year as a rule, and as I have said,
+there is always water percolating or bubbling up through the sand on
+the beaches at low tide. What causes this unusual habit of drinking
+sea-water?
+
+Another peculiarity of the New Britain and New Ireland pigeon is its
+fondness for the Chili pepper-berry. During three months of the year,
+when these berries are ripe, the birds' crops are full of them, and very
+often their flesh is so pungent, and smells so strongly of the Chili, as
+to be quite uneatable.
+
+* * * * *
+
+On all of the low-lying islands of the Ellice, Kings-mill and Gilbert
+Groups, a species of snipe are very plentiful. On the islands which
+enclose the noble lagoon of Funafuti in the Ellice Group, they are to
+be met with in great numbers, and in dull, rainy weather, an ordinarily
+good shot may get thirty or forty in a few hours. One day, accompanied
+by a native lad, I set out to collect hermit crabs, to be used as fish
+bait. These curious creatures are to be found almost anywhere in the
+equatorial islands of the Pacific; their shell houses ranging in size
+from a pea to an orange, and if a piece of coco-nut or fish or any other
+edible matter is left out overnight, hundreds of hermits will be found
+gathered around it in the morning. To extract the crabs from their
+shells, which are of all shapes and kinds, is a very simple matter--the
+hard casing is broken by placing them upon a large stone and striking
+them a sharp blow with one of lesser size. My companion and myself soon
+collected a heap of "hermits," when presently he took one up in his
+hand, and holding it close to his mouth, whistled softly. In a few
+moments the crab protruded one nipper, then another, then its red
+antennae, and allowed the boy to take its head between his finger and
+thumb and draw its entire body from its shell casing.
+
+"That is the way the _kili_ (snipe) gets the _uga_ (crab) from its
+shell," he said. "The _kili_ stands over the _uga_ and whistles softly,
+and the _uga_ puts out his head to listen. Then the bird seizes it in
+his bill, gives it a backward jerk and off flies the shell."
+
+Now I had often noticed that wherever hermit crabs were plentiful along
+the outer beaches of the lagoon, I was sure to find snipe, and sometimes
+wondered on what the birds fed. Taking up two or three "hermits" one
+by one, I whistled gently, and in each case the creature protruded the
+nippers, head and shoulders, and moved its antennae to and fro as if
+pleasurably excited.
+
+On the following day I shot three snipe, and in the stomachs of each I
+found some quite fresh and some partly digested hermit crabs. The thick,
+hard nippers are broken off by the bird before he swallows the soft,
+tender body.
+
+*****
+
+In a recent number of _Chambers's Journal_ the present writer was much
+interested in a short paragraph dealing with the commercial value of the
+skin of the shark, and, having had many years' experience as a
+trader and supercargo in the South Seas, desires to add some further
+information on a somewhat interesting subject.
+
+In all the equatorial islands of the North and South Pacific, shark
+fishing is a very profitable industry to the natives, and every trading
+steamer or sailing vessel coming into the ports of Sydney or Auckland
+from the islands of the mid-Pacific, always brings some tons of shark
+fins and tails and shark skins. The principal market for the former is
+Hong Kong, but the Chinese merchants of the Australasian Colonies will
+always buy sharks' fins and tails at from 6d. to 11d. per lb., the fins
+bringing the best price on account of the extra amount of glutinous
+matter they contain, and the which are highly relished by the richer
+classes of Chinese as a delicacy. The tails are also valued as an
+article of food in China; and, apart from their edible qualities, have a
+further value as a base for clear varnishes, &c.; and I was informed
+by a Chinese tea-merchant that the glaze upon the paper coverings of
+tea-chests was due to a preparation composed principally of the refuse
+of sharks' fins, tails, and skins.
+
+All the natives of the Gilbert, Kingsmill, and other Pacific equatorial
+islands are expert shark fishermen; but the wild people of Ocean Island
+(Paanopa) and Pleasant Island (Naura), two isolated spots just under the
+equator, surpass them all in the art of catching jackshark. It was the
+fortunate experience of the writer to live among these people for many
+years, and to be inducted into the native method of shark-catching. In
+frail canoes, made of short pieces of wood, sewn together with coco-nut
+fibre, the Ocean Islanders will venture out with rude but ingeniously
+contrived _wooden_ hooks, and capture sharks of a girth (_not_ length)
+that no untrained European would dare to attempt to kill from a
+well-appointed boat, with a good crew.
+
+Shark-catching is one of _the_ industries of the Pacific, and a very
+paying industry too. Five-and-twenty years ago there were quite a dozen
+or more schooners sailing out of Honolulu, in the Hawaiian Islands, to
+the isolated atolls of the North Pacific--notably Palmyra and Christmas
+Islands--where sharks could be caught by the thousand, and the crews,
+who were engaged on a "lay," like whalemen, made "big money"; many of
+them after a six months' cruise drawing 500 dollars--a large sum for a
+native sailor.
+
+The work is certainly hard, but it is exciting, and the writer will
+always remember with pleasure a seven months' shark-fishing cruise
+he once had in the North Pacific, the genial comrades--white men and
+brown--and the bag of dollars handed over to him by the owners when the
+ship was paid off in Honolulu.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+It is not generally known, except to scientists and those who are
+acquainted with the subject, that a large percentage of the various
+species and varieties of sea snakes are highly venomous. These snakes
+must not be confounded with the very numerous species of sea eels,
+which, though exceedingly savage and armed with strong needle-pointed
+teeth, are all non-venomous, though their bite produces high
+inflammation if not at once properly attended to and cleansed by an
+antiseptic. The sea snake is a true snake in many respects, having
+either laminated scales or a thick corduroyed skin resembling
+rudimentary scales. The head is flat, and the general structure of the
+body similar to that of the land snake. Whether any of them possess the
+true poison glands and fangs I do not know, for although I have killed
+many hundreds of them I never took sufficient interest to make a careful
+examination; and I was told by a Dutch medical gentleman, long resident
+on the coast of Dutch New Guinea, and who had made some investigation on
+the subject, that he had failed to discover any poison sacs or glands in
+any one of the several snakes he had captured. Yet in some instances he
+found what at first appeared to be the two long front teeth common to
+venomous land snakes, but on detailed examination these always proved to
+be perfectly solid; nevertheless a bite from one of these sea serpents
+was generally regarded by the natives as fatal; in my own experience
+I know of two such cases, one at the island of Fotuna in the South
+Pacific, and the other in Torres Straits.
+
+In Sigavi Harbour, on Fotuna, there is a rock to which vessels
+occasionally make fast their stern moorings. In the boat which I sent
+away with a line to this rock were several boys, natives of the island,
+who went with the crew for amusement. One of them, aged about ten,
+jumped out of the boat, and in his hurry fell on his hands and knees,
+right on top of a large black and white banded sea snake, which at once
+bit him savagely on the wrist, causing the blood to flow from a score of
+tiny punctures. The boy at once swam on shore to be treated by a native;
+in the evening I heard he was suffering great agony, in the morning the
+poor little fellow was dead.
+
+The second instance was near Raine Island, in Torres Straits. A stalwart
+young Kanaka, one of the crew of a pearling lugger, was diving for clam
+shells on the reef, when a snake about three feet in length suddenly
+shot up from below within a foot of his face. In his anger and disgust
+he unthinkingly struck it with his hand, and was quickly bitten on the
+forefinger. A few hours later he was in a high fever, accompanied with
+twitchings of the extremities; then tetanus ensued, followed by death in
+forty-eight hours.
+
+Although these sea snakes are common to all tropical seas, they are most
+frequent about the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. On any smooth
+day they may be seen disporting themselves on the surface, or rising
+suddenly from the depths, erect their heads and some inches of their
+bodies clear from the water, gaze at the passing vessel, and then
+swiftly disappear. In nearly all the Pacific Islands the natives hold
+them in detestation and horror, and when one is seen lying coiled up on
+a rock sunning itself or crawling over the surface of the reef in search
+of food, a stone, accompanied by a curse, is always hurled at it. In the
+Ellice Oroup, when catching flying-fish at night, one (or more) of these
+horrid serpents is sometimes swept up in the scoop-net before it can be
+avoided. They range from six inches to nearly four feet in length, and
+all have one feature--a blunted tail-end.
+
+Quite recently much further light has been thrown on the subject by Sir
+James Hector, of the Philosophical Society of Wellington, New Zealand.
+At one of the Society's meetings, held in April last, Sir James showed
+several specimens of _hydrida_, some from Australasian Seas, others
+from the Atlantic. The usual habitat of sea snakes, he said, were the
+tropical seas generally, but some had been captured in the comparatively
+cold waters of the New Zealand coast, at the Catlins River. These latter
+were all yellow-banded; those from the islands of the Fijian Oroup were
+black-banded, and those taken from the Australian coast grey-banded.
+There were, he said, no fewer than seventy species, which, without
+exception, were fanged and provided with glands secreting a virulent
+poison. In some of the mountainous islands of the South Pacific, such as
+Samoa, Fiji, &c, there were several species of land snakes, all of which
+were perfectly harmless, and were familiar to many people in Australia
+and New Zealand, through being brought there in bunches of island
+bananas--it was singular, he thought, that the sea snakes alone should
+be so highly venomous. "They were all characterised by the flattened
+or blunted tail, which they used as a steer oar, and were often found
+asleep on the surface of the water, lying on their backs. In this state
+they were easily and safely captured, being powerless to strike." The
+present writer, who has seen hundreds of these marine snakes daily
+for many years, during a long residence in the Pacific Islands, cannot
+remember a single instance where he has seen one of these dangerous
+creatures asleep _on the water_, though they may frequently be found
+lying asleep on the coral reefs, exposing themselves to the rays of a
+torrid sun. They usually select some knob or rounded boulder, from the
+top of which, when awake, they can survey the small pools beneath and
+discern any fish which may be imprisoned therein. In such case they will
+glide down into the water with astonishing rapidity, seize their prey,
+and after swallowing it, return to their sun bath. The natives of the
+Paumotu Archipelago informed me, however, that they are most active
+in seeking their prey at night-time, and are especially fond of
+flying-fish, which, as is well known, is one of the swiftest of all
+ocean fishes. The sea snakes, however, seize them with the greatest
+ease, by rising cautiously beneath and fastening their keen teeth in the
+fish's throat or belly. A snake, not two feet six inches in length, I
+was assured, can easily swallow a flying-fish eight inches or ten inches
+long.
+
+With regard to their habit of lying asleep on their backs on the surface
+of the water, it may be that Sir James Hector is alluding to some
+particular species, but whether that is so or not Sir James's statement
+must of course be considered authoritative, for there is, I believe, no
+higher authority on the subject in the world. Apropos of these venomous
+marine serpents I may mention that the Rev. W. W. Gill in one of his
+works states that he was informed by the natives of the Cook's Group
+that during the prevalence of very bad weather, when fish were scarce,
+the large sea eels would actually crawl ashore, and ascend the _fala_
+(pandanus or screw-pine) trees in search of the small green lizards
+which live among the upper part of the foliage. At first I regarded this
+merely as a bit of native extravagance of statement, but in 1882, when
+I was shipwrecked on Peru (or Francis Island), one of the Gilbert Group,
+the local trader, one Frank Voliero, and myself saw one of these eels
+engaged in an equally extraordinary pursuit. We were one evening,
+after a heavy gale from the westward had been blowing for three days,
+examining a rookery of whale birds in search of eggs; the rookery was
+situated in a dense thicket scrub on the north end of the island, and
+was quite two hundred yards from the sea-shore, though not more than
+half that distance from the inside lagoon beach. The storm had destroyed
+quite a number of young, half-fledged birds, whose bodies were lying on
+the ground, and busily engaged in devouring one of them was a very large
+sea eel, as thick as the calf of a man's leg. Before I could manage to
+secure a stick with which to kill the repulsive-looking creature, it
+made off through the undergrowth at a rapid pace in the direction of the
+lagoon, and when we emerged out into the open in pursuit, ten minutes
+later, we were just in time to see it wriggling down the hard, sloping
+beach into the water. Instinct evidently made it seek the nearest water,
+for none of these large sea eels are ever found in Peru Lagoon.
+
+Many of the rivers and lakes of the islands of the Western Pacific are
+tenanted by eels of great size, which are never, or very seldom, as far
+as I could learn, interfered with by the natives, and I have never seen
+the people of either the Admiralty Islands, New Ireland, or New Britain
+touch an eel as food. The Maories, however, as is well known, are
+inordinately fond of eels, which, with putrid shark, constitute one of
+their staple articles of diet.
+
+In the few mountainous islands of the vast Caroline Archipelago, in
+the North-western Pacific, eels are very plentiful, not only in the
+numberless small streams which debouch into the shallow waters enclosed
+by the barrier reefs, but also far up on the mountainsides,
+occupying little rocky pools of perhaps no larger dimensions than an
+ordinary-sized toilet basin, or swimming up and down rivulets hardly
+more than two feet across. The natives of Ponape, the largest island
+of the Caroline Group, and of Kusaie (Strong's Island), its eastern
+outlier, regard the fresh-water eel with shuddering aversion, and should
+a man accidentally touch one with his foot when crossing a stream he
+will utter an exclamation of horror and fear. In the heathen days--down
+to 1845-50--the eel (toan) was an object of worship, and constantly
+propitiated by sacrifices of food, on account of its malevolent powers;
+personal contact was rigidly avoided; to touch one, even by the merest
+accident, was to bring down the most dreadful calamities on the offender
+and his family--bodily deformities, starvation and poverty, and death;
+and although the natives of Strong's Island are now both civilised and
+Christianised, and a training college of the Boston Board of Missions
+has long been established at Port Lele, they still manifest the same
+superstitious dread of the eel as in their days of heathendom. I well
+remember witnessing an instance of this terror during my sojourn on the
+island when I was shipwrecked there in 1874. I had taken up my residence
+in the picturesque little village of Leasse, on the western or "lee"
+side, when I was one evening visited by several of the ship's company--a
+Fijian half-caste, a white man, and two natives of Pleasant Island. At
+the moment they arrived I was in the house of the native pastor--a
+man who had received an excellent education in a missionary college at
+Honolulu, in the Hawaiian Islands--instructing him and his family in the
+art of making _taka_, or cinnet sandals, as practised by the natives
+of the Tokelau Group. Just then the four seamen entered, each man
+triumphantly holding up a large eel: in an instant there was a united
+howl of horror from the parson and his family, as they made a rash for
+the door, overturning the lamp and nearly setting the house on fire. In
+vain I followed and urged them to return, and told them that the men had
+gone away and taken the _toan_ with them--nothing would induce them to
+enter the house that night, and the whole family slept elsewhere.
+
+One singular thing about the eels on Strong's Island is that they
+hibernate, in a fashion, on the sides or even summits of the high
+mountains, at an altitude of nearly two thousand feet. Selecting, or
+perhaps making, a depression in the soft, moss-covered soil, the ugly
+creatures fit themselves into it compactly and remain there for weeks or
+even months at a time. I have counted as many as thirty of these holes,
+all tenanted, within a few square yards. Some were quite concealed by
+vegetable _debris_ or moss, others were exposed to view, with the broad,
+flat head of the slippery occupant resting on the margin or doubled back
+upon its body. They showed no alarm, but if poked with a stick would
+extricate themselves and crawl slowly away.
+
+In the streams they were very voracious, and I had a special antipathy
+to them, on account of their preying so on the crayfish--a crustacean
+of which I was particularly fond, and which the natives also liked very
+much, but were afraid to capture for fear their hands might come in
+contact with the dreaded _toan_.
+
+One afternoon I was plucking a pigeon I had just shot by the margin of a
+mountain stream. After removing the viscera, I put the bird in the water
+to clean it properly, and was shaking it gently to and fro, when it was
+suddenly torn out of my hand by a disgustingly bloated, reddish-coloured
+eel about four feet in length, and quickly swallowed. That one pigeon
+had cost me two hours' tramping through the rain-soddened mountain
+forest, so loading my gun I followed the thief down stream to where the
+water was but a few inches deep, and then blew his head off.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Amona; The Child; And The Beast; And
+Others, by Louis Becke
+
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