that recruited
labor from the westward for the German plantations on Samoa.

"Half the trouble is the stupidity of the whites," said Roberts,
pausing to take a swig from his glass and to curse the Samoan bar-boy
in affectionate terms. "If the white man would lay himself out a bit
to understand the workings of the black man's mind, most of the messes
would be avoided."

"I've seen a few who claimed they understood niggers," Captain Woodward
retorted, "and I always took notice that they were the first to be
kai-kai'd (eaten). Look at the missionaries in New Guinea and the New
Hebrides--the martyr isle of Erromanga and all the rest. Look at the
Austrian expedition that was cut to pieces in the Solomons, in the bush
of Guadalcanar. And look at the traders themselves, with a score of
years' experience, making their brag that no nigger would ever get them,
and whose heads to this day are ornamenting the rafters of the canoe
houses. There was old Johnny Simons--twenty-six years on the raw edges
of Melanesia, swore he knew the niggers like a book and that they'd
never do for him, and he passed out at Marovo Lagoon, New Georgia, had
his head sawed off by a black Mary (woman) and an old nigger with only
one leg, having left the other leg in the mouth of a shark while diving
for dynamited fish. There was Billy Watts, horrible reputation as
a nigger killer, a man to scare the devil. I remember lying at Cape
Little, New Ireland you know, when the niggers stole half a case of
trade-tobacco--cost him about three dollars and a half. In retaliation
he turned out, shot six niggers, smashed up their war canoes and burned
two villages. And it was at Cape Little, four years afterward, that
he was jumped along with fifty Buku boys he had with him fishing
beche-de-mer. In five minutes they were all dead, with the exception of
three boys who got away in a canoe. Don't talk to me about understanding
the nigger. The white man's mission is to farm the world, and it's a
big enough job cut out for him. What time has he got left to understand
niggers anyway?"

"Just so," said Roberts. "And somehow it doesn't seem necessary, after
all, to understand the niggers. In direct proportion to the white man's
stupidity is his success in farming the world--"

"And putting the fear of God into the nigger's heart," Captain Woodward
blurted out. "Perhaps you're right, Roberts. Perhaps it's his stupidity
that makes him succeed, and surely one phase of his stu