Following the Equator: A Journey Around the WorldTwain, Mark
General
Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World
Twain, Mark
Equator -- Description and travel; Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 -- Travel; Voyages around the world
“There are 'wrinkles' for taking the penitent Kanaka. My first
experience of the Traffic was a case of this kind in 1884. A vessel
anchored just out of sight of our station, word was brought to me
that some boys were stolen, and the relatives wished me to go and
get them back. The facts were, as I found, that six boys had
recruited, had rushed into the boat, the Government Agent informed
me. They had all 'signed'; and, said the Government Agent, 'on
board they shall remain.' I was assured that the six boys were of
age and willing to go. Yet on getting ready to leave the ship I
found four of the lads ready to come ashore in the boat! This I
forbade. One of them jumped into the water and persisted in coming
ashore in my boat. When appealed to, the Government Agent suggested
that we go and leave him to be picked up by the ship's boat, a
quarter mile distant at the time!”
The law and the missionaries feel for the repentant recruit—and
properly, one may be permitted to think, for he is only a youth and
ignorant and persuadable to his hurt—but sympathy for him is not kept in
stock by the recruiter. Rev. Mr. Gray says:
“A captain many years in the traffic explained to me how a penitent
could betaken. 'When a boy jumps overboard we just take a boat and
pull ahead of him, then lie between him and the shore. If he has
not tired himself swimming, and passes the boat, keep on heading him
in this way. The dodge rarely fails. The boy generally tires of
swimming, gets into the boat of his own accord, and goes quietly on
board.”
Yes, exhaustion is likely to make a boy quiet. If the distressed boy had
been the speaker's son, and the captors savages, the speaker would have
been surprised to see how differently the thing looked from the new point
of view; however, it is not our custom to put ourselves in the other
person's place. Somehow there is something pathetic about that
disappointed young savage's resignation. I must explain, here, that in
the traffic dialect, “boy” does not always mean boy; it means a youth
above sixteen years of age. That is by Queensland law the age of
consent, though it is held that recruiters allow themselves some latitude
in guessing at ages.
Captain Wawn of the free spirit chafes under the annoyance of “cast-iron
regulations.” They and the missionaries have poisoned his life. He
grieves for the good old days, vanished to come no more. See him weep;
hear him cuss between the lines!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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