ds, estimated at
"trade" prices at seventy-two pounds, Darro never refused to let some of
his young men "recruit" for Fiji or Samoa.

I never saw him again, but he sent messages to me by other
"blackbirding" vessels, saying that he would like me to come and stay
with him.

And, although he had told me that he had personally partaken of
the flesh of over ninety men, I shall always remember him as a very
gentlemanly man, courteous, hospitable and friendly, and who was
horror-struck when my interpreter told him that in England cousins
intermarried.

"That is a horrid, an unutterable thing. It is inconceivable to us.
It is vile, wicked and shameless. How can you clever white men do such
disgusting things?"

Darro and his savage people knew the terrors of the abuse of the laws of
consanguinity.

CHAPTER XIII ~ ON THE "JOYS" OF RECRUITING "BLACKBIRDS"

A few years ago I was written to by an English lady, living in the
Midlands, asking me if I could assist her nephew--a young man of three
and twenty years of age--towards obtaining a berth as Government agent
or as "recruiter" on a Queensland vessel employed in the Kanaka labour
trade.

"I am told that it is a very gentlemanly employment, that many of those
engaged in it are, or have been, naval officers and have a recognised
status in society. Also that the work is really nothing--merely the
supervision of coloured men going to the Queensland plantations. The
climate is, I am told, delightful, and would suit Walter, whose lungs,
as you know, are weak. Is the salary large?" etc.

I had to write and disillusionise the lady, and as I wrote I recalled
one of my experiences in the Kanaka labour trade.

Early in the seventies, I was in Noumea, New Caledonia, looking for a
berth as recruiter in the Kanaka labour trade; but there were many older
and much more experienced men than myself engaged on the same quest, and
my efforts were in vain.

One morning, however, I met a Captain Poore, who was the owner and
master of a small vessel, just about to leave Noumea on a trading
voyage along the east coast of New Guinea, and among the islands between
Astrolabe Bay and the West Cape of New Britain. He did not want a
supercargo; but said that he would be very glad if I would join him, and
if the voyage was a success he would pay me for such help as I might
be able to render him. I accepted his offer, and in a few days we left
Noumea.

Poore and I were soon on very friend