Blown to Bits | Page 5

he soon gave up the
management of affairs--the Group became a prosperous settlement. Its
ships traded in cocoa-nuts (the chief produce of the islands) throughout
all the Straits Settlements, and boat-buildin' became one of their most
important industries. But there was one thing that prevented it from
bein' a very happy though prosperous place, an' that was the coolies
who had been hired in Java, for the only men that could be got there at
first were criminals who had served their time in the chain-gangs of
Batavia. As these men were fit for anything--from pitch-and-toss to
murder--and soon outnumbered the colonists, the place was kept in
constant alarm and watchfulness. For, as I dare say you know, the
Malays are sometimes liable to have the spirit of amok on them, which

leads them to care for and fear nothin', and to go in for a fight-to-death,
from which we get our sayin'--run amuck. An' when a strong fellow is
goin' about loose in this state o' mind, it's about as bad as havin' a tiger
prowlin' in one's garden."
"Well, sometimes two or three o' these coolies would mutiny and hide
in the woods o' one o' the smaller uninhabited islands. An' the colonists
would have no rest till they hunted them down. So, to keep matters
right, they had to be uncommon strict. It was made law that no one
should spend the night on any but what was called the Home Island
without permission. Every man was bound to report himself at the
guard-house at a fixed hour; every fire to be out at sunset, and every
boat was numbered and had to be in its place before that time. So they
went on till the year 1862, when a disaster befell them that made a
considerable change--at first for the worse, but for the better in the
long-run. Provin' the truth, my lad, of what I was--well, no--I was goin'
to draw a moral here, but I won't!
"It was a cyclone that did the business. Cyclones have got a
free-an'-easy way of makin' a clean sweep of the work of years in a few
hours. This cyclone completely wrecked the homes of the Keelin'
Islanders, and Ross--that's the second Ross, the son of the first
one--sent home for his son, who was then a student of engineering in
Glasgow, to come out and help him to put things to rights. Ross the
third obeyed the call, like a good son,--observe that, Nigel."
"All right, father, fire away!"
"Like a good son," repeated the captain, "an' he turned out to be a
first-rate man, which was lucky, for his poor father died soon after,
leavin' him to do the work alone. An' well able was the young engineer
to do it. He got rid o' the chain-gang men altogether, and hired none but
men o' the best character in their place. He cleared off the forests and
planted the ground with cocoa-nut palms. Got out steam mills, circular
saws, lathes, etc., and established a system of general education with a
younger brother as head-master--an' tail-master too, for I believe there
was only one. He also taught the men to work in brass, iron, and wood,
and his wife--a Cocos girl that he married after comin' out--taught all

the women and girls to sew, cook, and manage the house. In short,
everything went on in full swing of prosperity, till the year 1876, when
the island-born inhabitants were about 500, as contented and happy as
could be.
"In January of that year another cyclone paid them a visit. The
barometer gave them warning, and, remembering the visit of fourteen
years before, they made ready to receive the new visitor. All the boats
were hauled up to places of safety, and every other preparation was
made. Down it came, on the afternoon o' the 28th--worse than they had
expected. Many of the storehouses and mills had been lately renewed
or built. They were all gutted and demolished. Everything movable was
swept away like bits of paper. Lanes, hundreds of yards in length, were
cleared among the palm trees by the whirling wind, which seemed to
perform a demon-dance of revelry among them. In some cases it
snapped trees off close to the ground. In others it seemed to swoop
down from above, lick up a patch of trees bodily and carry them clean
away, leaving the surrounding trees untouched. Sometimes it would
select a tree of thirty years growth, seize it, spin it round, and leave it a
permanent spiral screw. I was in these regions about the time, and had
the account from a native who had gone through it all and couldn't
speak of it except with glaring eyeballs and gasping breath.
"About midnight of the 28th the