nakas and Torres Strait islanders, on the other
hand, bring all the money they do not spend on the pearling schooner to
the island, and "blow it in", like men. They knife each other sometimes,
and now and again have to be run in wholesale, but they are "good for
trade". The local lock-up has a record of eighteen drunks run in in
seven minutes. They weren't taken along in carriages-and-four, either;
they were mostly dragged along by the scruff of the neck.

Billy Malkeela, the South Sea diver, summed up the Japanese
question--"Seems to me dis Islan' soon b'long Japanee altogedder. One
time pa-lenty rickatta (plenty regatta), all same Isle of Wight. Now no
more rickatta. All money go Japan!"

An English new-chum made his appearance there lately--a most undefeated
sportsman. He was put down in a diving dress in about eight feet of
water, where he bubbled and struggled about in great style. Suddenly he
turned, rushed for the beach, and made for the foot of a tree, which he
tried to climb under the impression that he was still at the bottom of
the ocean. Then he was hauled in by the life-line.

The pearlers thought to get some fun out of him by giving him an oyster
to open in which they had previously planted a pearl; he never saw the
pearl and threw the oyster into the scuppers with the rest, and the
pearlers had to go down on all fours and grope for that pearl among the
stinking oysters. It was funny--but not in the way they had intended.

The pearlers go out in schooners called floating stations (their enemies
call them floating public-houses) and no man knows what hospitality
is till he has been a guest on a pearling schooner. They carry it to
extremes sometimes. Some pearlers were out in a lugger, and were passing
by one of these schooners. They determined not to go on board, as it was
late, and they were in a hurry. The captain of the schooner went below,
got his rifle and put two bullets through their foresail. Then they put
the helm down and went aboard; it was an invitation almost equivalent to
a royal command. They felt heartily ashamed of themselves as they slunk
up on deck, and the captain of the schooner eyed them reproachfully.

"I couldn't let you disgrace yourselves by passing my schooner," he
said; "but if it ever happens again I'll fire at the deck. A man that
would pass a schooner in broad daylight is better dead."

There is a fort and garrison at Thirsty Island, but they are not needed.
If an invadin