IN THE SOUTH SEAS.*
Mu. RANNIE entered upon his duties as a Queensland Govern- ment Agent to supervise the labour traffic in June 1884, and held the post for nine years. What he writes is therefore in a sense ancient history; there have been many changes since 1893. But the story has not lost its significance, nor is its warning unnecessary. Labour traffic of one kind or another is likely to go on for many years yet, and it is well to know something about probable sills a id possible remedies. As for Mr. Rannie's book, it is something of a wilderness. There is a map, it is true, and this is of some use. It would have been of muoh more if it had been on a larger scale—four hundred miles to the inch in a region swarming with islands is too small—and made something like a key, with references to the visits and adventures related in the text. All the same, there is no lack of interest. The chief impression left after reading the book is that this recruiting of labourers from the islands was a very dubious business, perilous to life, and even more perilous to morals. As for the danger to life, it is sufficient to glance at the contents of the successive chapters. Here are some items from one taken at random "A midnight crime," • My Advsntnres among South Sea Cansibals, By Douglas liatudo. London] Seeley, Seysiou and Co. [lac not. .1 41 a treacherous attack," "a black day," "a narrow escape," "tragedy of the ' Janet Stewart,'" "the blood of martyrs," "a most treacherous people," and all these oome within the compass of eleven pages ! We will take some of them in detail. In his first year of service Mr. Rannie was appointed to take charge of the brig 'Hinny,' a recruiting vessel. By "taking charge" is meant seeing that the recruiting was done decently and in order. The crew was principally made up of runaway sailors. • Labour vessels paid six times as much wages as " lime-juicers," and men who had signed on and apprentices were tempted to desert their ships and hide them- selves in the Brisbane slums till a chance came. That scarcely tended to good. The master was a Scot, who had been mate of the ' John Williams' (the missionary vessel), but found that way of life a little dull. He was just out of hospital. The mate of another labour vessel had shot him in the dark. At Santo he bad bad his side laid open by a native spear, and on an earlier voyage had suffered the same injury to his back- bone from a wooden sword at Malayta. His cruise on the 'Emily ' was his last. The first mate was an Irishman, who carried a steel machine-spike in the leg of his boot, to give weight to his orders, and the recruiter was a Dane. The cook was quite incompetent—that is a failure which will disturb the most saintly household. To a labour vessel it spells failure ; the sailors will not work and the natives will not enlist. The man one day came to the skipper, smothered with pea-soup which he had spoilt, and begged to be put on a desert island and allowed to die in peace. The Emily' was recruiting for certain Queensland plantations which were not then in good repute. There had been a quarrel between the whites and the Kanakas on the racecourse at Mackay. Some Kamikas had been unlawfully supplied with liquor,, and demanded more at one of the liquor booths. It was refused, and a row followed, ending in some- thing like a massacre. Some of the white men knocked down every Kanaka they met, among them a harmless old man who was sitting in his cart far from the disturbance. The first island visited was Tanna (a little to the south of the more famous Erromango). They arrived after nightfall, and shortly after midnight heard .a great fusillade. In the morning they heard that the master and owner of the vessel had been shot dead by a native in a, canoe. The vessel was dismantled and the property put for safety in the missionary's house. Then the 'Emily' and the ' Roderick Dhu,' another vessel in the same trade, went to the other side of the island. The people seemed friendly, but the recruiting party was lured into an ambush and fired upon. " We got off pretty well from our first brush, with the Tanna men with only a few scratches and lash wounds." The agent himself had a narrow escape shortly after. He was taking a swim in a freshwater pool when ho was fired at by a native, only three or four yards off, and escaped by ducking his head. The man was tracked the same day and killed. "The poor savage had Ito personal grievance against me," says Mr. Rannie. That evening he dined with the master of the 'Roderick Dhu' and beard the story of .the ',Janet Stewart' massacre, when the Government Agent and all but one of the crew on board were murdered—the others were recruiting. This is a fair allowance of horrors for a single chapter, and it might be matched else- where. Here and there are patches of brightness ; when missionaries are mentioned it is always with reepeet. They, too, suffer for the misdeeds of others. There is a shocking story relating to the death of Bishop Patteson which we do not remember to have seen before. The Bishop, it is said, was in the habit of landing on islands and conducting a short Service. A labour captain personated him at Santa Cruz, went through a blasphemous farce, lured a number of islanders on board his vessel, and sailed off with them. Now for a quite peaceful little picture. The time-expired islanders were taken hack to their homes. Hew did they fare on board? Each white sailor bad a return islander to wait on him and do his work— of course when there was no stress of weather or the like. It was a kindly relation. The sailor kept his man in tobacco and gave him cast-off clothes. "I never had occasion to object," says Mr. Rannie. But it was demoralizing to the sailor all the same.' He must have felt like a slaveowner. These ex-Kanakas were to him eticrei Soiaon.
There is much curious detail about the islanders, who seemed to differ greatly in manners and in appearance. There are even strokes of humour, as when Mr. Rannie says that be can find no parallel to the oddities of feminine dress except "in highly civilized society." And truly a hobble skirt is a match for any Polynesian oddity. Altogether this is s book to be read.
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