h a
man, living 'within a day's march' of the wildest cannibals in the
Pacific, who keeps up an establishment of forty or fifty men, with a
French _chef_. 'In a hitherto almost unknown island, he will give you a
dinner, every night, which could not be equalled at any private house or
club in Australia.' He keeps a yacht for private exploring expeditions,
and is to-day the principal 'trader and pioneer in the Pacific.' A
narrative of his observations and experiences would be of very unusual
interest, but like the Russian settler before referred to, he reserves
for his own benefit the knowledge he has acquired. The Germans are
pushing us hard, and in many respects they are better fitted for their
work than English traders. There seems a fair prospect of a gradual
elevation of social as well as of commercial life throughout the
Pacific. Already, lawlessness is discouraged. Not so very many years
ago, piracy was carried on openly in these seas. Mr. Romilly gives a
very interesting and curious account of one of the last pirates, a
desperado known as 'Bully Hayes,' once a boatman on the Mississippi.
This man began life by robbing his father, and soon afterwards made his
appearance on the Pacific coast the proud proprietor of a fifty-ton
schooner. 'How he had obtained possession of this schooner,' says Mr.
Romilly, 'was a matter of surmise, but he had been seen at Singapore not
long before this time, and a fifty-ton schooner had mysteriously
disappeared from that port without the knowledge of her captain and
owner.' He carried on a bold career of plunder for many years, and only
came to grief at last by an accident which he could not have foreseen.
He had stolen another vessel, and was making for some of his favourite
haunts along the coast, when the cook, who was steering, happened to
give him some offence. At that time, Hayes was accustomed to settle all
disputes off-handed with his revolver, and in accordance with this plan
he ran below to get his 'shooting irons.' Mr. Romilly thus relates the
sequel:--

'The cook objected, and, catching up the first piece of wood
he saw, got on to the top of the little deck-house over the
ladder, and, the moment Hayes showed his head above deck,
gave him a blow which killed him on the spot. This cook
seems to have been some what doubtful as to whether Hayes
was even now dead, so he fetched the largest anchor the
cutter possessed, and bound the body to it