Stretched out at full length he could often be seen on the beach, with his shawl wrapped round his shoulders and chest, a great pair of bare, brown, hoary legs sticking out, and his woollen hat pulled right over his face with the nob of it where his nose ought to have been. Like this he was a sight that would have scared the life out of his “puir mither.” But such was Jock, and when sober a more amusing man would be hard to find.
[Illustration 25: SOLOMON ISLAND BOY CLIMBING AFTER GREEN COCOA-NUTS, NEAR GAVATU, NEW FLORIDA.
Nothing was to me more refreshing after or during a hot day in these islands than a long draught of milk from the green nut. On arrival at a trader’s or settler’s station, if you did not care for a “tot” of rum or “square face,” young cocoa-nuts were brought. If there were none about, a boy was sent up the nearest palm to fetch some down; when he brought them, one end was cut off with a large knife, and then you could drink long and deep. A large nut will hold more than one man can take at once. If you felt inclined you could eat the soft inside with a spoon.
In the South Seas no one thinks of eating the nut when the hard shell has come, it is then “Kaikai, belong pig,” and also made into copra.]
His hut lay a hundred yards back from the sea, hidden away in the densest part of a clump of bush, and not a white man slept within miles of him, yet Jock was happier there than he had been for years, and when the boat called he always had plenty of copra and as good a show of ivory nuts as any of the traders.
Fifty miles from here there was one day a curious scene enacted: James Clark, a new trader, whom Messrs. Burns Philp were starting, had refused to go ashore at the island for which he was destined, owing to some ghastly reports he had heard whilst the steamer was lying outside it. The supercargo, a splendid fellow, was puzzled to know what to do, but at last suggested that he should try Aoba, where a trader was waiting to give up his store. Clark jumped at the idea, though he was warned it was, if anything, worse than the place at which he had refused to stop: he was sure, he said, no place could be.
A more depressed man than Clark during the remaining week of his voyage could not have been met, for bad accounts of murdered and boycotted traders were in the air just then. However, Aoba was reached at last, and after having supplied “Tartan Jock” with his goods and relieved him of { 82} his copra, the steamer sailed on to Clark’s landing-place.