An attempt had been made two years previous, by a firm in Liverpool, De Wolfe & Co., to establish some sort of business on the island, the planting and raising of cotton, preparing cocoanut and candlenut, and also arrowroot, by these means to enable them to supply their simple wants through their own exertions. But the little island was too far removed from any business center to make it a paying concern, and in less than two years after the attempt was made it was broken up. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XX. FRIENDLY VISITS ABOUT the middle of the year 1880 seven of the youth from Norfolk Island came on a visit to the old home of their parents. Scarcely any communication passed between the two islands, so that the event of their coming was improved in learning all about the state of the island and people they had lately left. The friends of the young men noticed with surprise that, with but one exception, they were all slaves to the tobacco habit, both chewing and smoking, for not one among the youth of the island practiced the unclean vice. The captain of the whale ship with whom they had come was himself a total abstainer as regarded both tobacco and spirits, but all his endeavors to reform the young men under his command, example and precept notwithstanding, failed to have the desired effect. He was more successful when he attempted a reform among the old men of the island, in one case at least, as the following incident will show. In a meeting held on Sunday evening the captain addressed himself to the tobacco users, seven in number, and those, five at least, the oldest men in the community. He spoke very strongly against the bad habit to which they were addicted, and its consequent evil results. Some of his hearers were for the moment impressed with his appeals, and two of them almost decided to abandon the vice forever. They respected their would-be reformer enough not to indulge in the practice in his presence. On the following morning, as one of the men was walking along the road with a lighted pipe in his mouth, he espied the captain a few yards ahead of him, waiting to give him a warm morning greeting. Regardless of the consequences, in the fear of being found out, he quickly caught the heated clay pipe from his lips and thrust it into his pocket, which was as quickly burnt through. Though smarting with the pain, he bravely shook hands with the captain and passed on, not daring to betray his pipe, even at the cost of suffering. But it was the last struggle he had with the habit, for from that day it was abandoned, and he was made free, yet “so as by fire.”