Blown to Bits | Page 4

Hare
was a very bad fellow; a rich man who wanted to live like a Rajah, with
lots o' native wives and retainers, an' be a sort of independent prince.
Of course he was on bad terms at once with Ross, who, finding that
things were going badly, felt that it would be unfair to hold his people
to the agreement which was made when he thought the whole group

was his own, so he offered to release them. They all, except two men
and one woman, accepted the release and went off in a gun-boat that
chanced to touch there at the time. For a good while Hare and his rival
lived there--the one tryin' to get the Dutch, the other to induce the
English Government to claim possession. Neither Dutch nor English
would do so at first, but the English did it at long last--in 1878--and
annexed the islands to the Government of Ceylon.
"Long before that date, however--before 1836--Hare left and went to
Singapore, where he died, leaving Ross in possession--the `King of the
Cocos Islands' as he came to be called. In a few years--chiefly through
the energy of Ross's eldest son, to whom 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 boatbuildin' 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 bide
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, etcetera, 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