By Reef and Palm E-Book

Louis Becke

• Herausgeber: Louis Becke
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

George Lewis Becke (or Louis Becke; 18 June 1855 – 18 February 1913) was an Australian Pacific trader, short-story writer and novelist. This is a fine collection of stories. Most of the stories are about white traders in the Pacific islands who have taken native wives. Shocking and melancholy stories of trade, love, tragedy and misunderstanding in the high southern seas.

Leseprobe

By Reef and Palm

Louis Becke

To the best of our knowledge, the text of this

work is in the “Public Domain”.

HOWEVER, copyright law varies in other countries, and the work may still be under

copyright in the country from which you are accessing this website. It is your

responsibility to check the applicable copyright laws in your country before

downloading this work.

Introduction

Challis the Doubter

“’Tis in the Blood”

The Revenge of Macy O’shea

The Rangers of the Tia Kau

Pallou’s Taloi

A Basket of Bread-fruit

Enderby’s Courtship

Long Charley’s Good Little Wife

The Methodical Mr Burr of Maduro

A Truly Great Man

The Doctor’s Wife

The Fate of the Alida

The Chilean Bluejacket

Brantley of Vahitahi

Introduction

When in October, 1870, I sailed into the harbour of Apia, Samoa, in the ill-fated ALBATROSS, Mr Louis Becke was gaining his first experiences of island life as a trader on his own account by running a cutter between Apia and Savai’i.

It was rather a notable moment in Apia, for two reasons. In the first place, the German traders were shaking in their shoes for fear of what the French squadron might do to them, and we were the bearers of the good news from Tahiti that the chivalrous Admiral Clouet, with a very proper magnanimity, had decided not to molest them; and, secondly, the beach was still seething with excitement over the departure on the previous day of the pirate Pease, carrying with him the yet more illustrious “Bully” Hayes.

It happened in this wise. A month or two before our arrival, Hayes had dropped anchor in Apia, and some ugly stories of recent irregularities in the labour trade had come to the ears of Mr Williams, the English Consul. Mr Williams, with the assistance of the natives, very cleverly seized his vessel in the night, and ran her ashore, and detained Mr Hayes pending the arrival of an English man-of-war to which he could be given in charge. But in those happy days there were no prisons in Samoa, so that his confinement was not irksome, and his only hard labour was picnics, of which he was the life and soul. All went pleasantly until Mr Pease — a degenerate sort of pirate who made his living by half bullying, half swindling lonely white men on small islands out of their coconut oil, and unarmed merchantmen out of their stores — came to Apia in an armed ship with a Malay crew. From that moment Hayes’ life became less idyllic. Hayes and Pease conceived a most violent hatred of each other, and poor old Mr Williams was really worried into an attack of elephantiasis (which answers to the gout in those latitudes) by his continual efforts to prevent the two desperadoes from flying at each other’s throat. Heartily glad was he when Pease — who was the sort of man that always observed LES CONVENANCES when possible, and who fired a salute of twenty-one guns on the Queen’s Birthday — came one afternoon to get his papers “all regular,” and clear for sea. But lo! the next morning, when his vessel had disappeared, it was found that his enemy Captain Hayes had disappeared also, and the ladies of Samoa were left disconsolate at the departure of the most agreeable man they had ever known.