By Reef and Palm | Page 2

sheep ranche

at San Juan, Louis, still faithful to the sea, got a berth as a clerk in a
steamship company, and traded to the Southern ports. In a year's time
he had money enough to take passage in a schooner bound on a
shark-catching cruise to the equatorial islands of the North Pacific. The
life was a very rough one, and full of incident and adventure--which I
hope he will relate some day. Returning to Honolulu, he fell in with an
old captain who had bought a schooner for a trading venture amongst
the Western Carolines. Becke put in $1000, and sailed with him as
supercargo, he and the skipper being the only white men on board. He
soon discovered that, though a good seaman, the old man knew nothing
of navigation. In a few weeks they were among the Marshall Islands,
and the captain went mad from DELIRIUM TREMENS. Becke and the
three native sailors ran the vessel into a little uninhabited atoll, and for
a week had to keep the captain tied up to prevent his killing himself.
They got him right at last, and stood to the westward. On their voyage
they were witnesses of a tragedy (in this instance fortunately not
complete), on which the pitiless sun of the Pacific has looked down
very often. They fell in with a big Marshall Island sailing canoe that
had been blown out of sight of land, and had drifted six hundred miles
to the westward. Out of her complement of fifty people, thirty were
dead. They gave them provisions and water, and left them to make
Strong's Island (Kusaie), which was in sight. Becke and the chief swore
Marshall Island BRUDERSCHAFT with each other. Years afterwards,
when he came to live in the Marshall Group, the chief proved his
friendship in a signal manner.
The cruise proved a profitable one, and from that time Mr Becke
determined to become a trader, and to learn to know the people of the
north-west Pacific; and returning to California, he made for Samoa, and
from thence to Sydney. But at this time the Palmer River gold rush had
just broken out in North Queensland, and a brother, who was a bank
manager on the celebrated Charters Towers goldfields, invited him to
come up, as every one seemed to be making his fortune. He wandered
between the rushes for two years, not making a fortune, but acquiring
much useful experience, learning, amongst other things, the art of a
blacksmith, and becoming a crack shot with a rifle. Returning to
Sydney, he sailed for the Friendly Islands (Tonga) in company with the

king of Tonga's yacht--the TAUFAAHAU. The Friendly Islanders
disappointed him (at which no one that knows them will wonder), and
he went on to Samoa, and set up as a trader on his own account for the
first time. He and a Manhiki half-caste--the "Allan" who so frequently
figures in his stories--bought a cutter, and went trading throughout the
group. This was the time of Colonel Steinberger's brief tenure of power.
The natives were fighting, and the cutter was seized on two occasions.
When the war was over he made a voyage to the north-west, and
became a great favourite with the natives, as indeed seems to have been
the case in most of the places he went to in Polynesia and Micronesia.
Later on he was sent away from Samoa in charge of a vessel under
sealed orders to the Marshall Islands. These orders were to hand the
vessel over to the notorious Captain "Bully" Hayes. (Some day he
promises that he will give us the details of this very curious adventure).
He found Hayes awaiting him in his famous brig LEONORA in Milli
Lagoon. He handed over his charge and took service with him as
supercargo. After some months' cruising in the Carolines they were
wrecked on Strong's Island (Kusaie). Hayes made himself the ruler of
the island, and Mr Becke and he had a bitter quarrel. The natives
treated the latter with great kindness, and gave him land on the lee side
of the island, where he lived happily enough for five months. Hayes
was captured by an English man-of-war, but escaped and went to Guam.
Mr Becke went back in the cruiser to the Colonies, and then again
sailed for Eastern Polynesia, trading in the Gambiers, Paumotus, and
Easter and Pitcairn Islands. In this part of the ocean he picked up an
abandoned French barque on a reef, floated her, and loaded her with
coconuts, intending to sail her to New Zealand with a native crew, but
they went ashore in a hurricane and lost everything. Meeting with Mr
Tom de Wolf, the managing partner of a Liverpool firm, he took
service with him as a trader in