cut up in small pieces,
to throw to the women and children--to put them in a good temper.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perhaps at the end of an hour or