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A collection of stories, the majority of which are about Europeans in the North and South Pacific in the nineteenth century. Several of the stories appear to be directly based on Becke's own experiences.
Contents
* Contents derived from the London,
c
England,
c
c
United Kingdom (UK),
c
Western Europe,Europe,:T. Fisher Unwin,1897 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
Tom Denison tells a story of his days on Strong's Island after the wreck of 'Bully' Hayes's ship, the Leonora. Denison left Hayes's camp and was taken in by a local family. He relates the story of a fight between English Bob, and Englishman married to a local girl, and an American sailor, as told to him by English Bob's daughter.
Charles Wendall, a sailor, has lived amongst the Islanders for forty years. He is alarmed when a group of American missionaries, accompanied by an Islander convert, arrives on the island but the island chief, Togusa, has heard of missionaries and their work and turns them away. The missionaries depart, but they leave behind a deadly legacy.
A trader, separated from his wife because of her involvement with the suffragette movement, lives alone on Tarawa, an island of Kiribati, with his beloved pig, Brian. His wife writes to him and asks him to come home, but he cannot bear to leave Brian.
Prescott, an escaped convict, commits an atrocity against a group of sailors and other escapees when they refuse to join him in an act of piracy. His actions lead to his exile from Naura and he is forced to wander the Pacific trying to escape his reputation.
A young woman seeks to be reunited with her former love, now a trader in the Caroline Islands, but he has reasons for refusing to reply to her letters. Their love seems doomed, until a cyclone intervenes.
A young man is determined to collect pearl shell from an isolated part of New Britain, despite the warnings of more experienced traders. He pays a terrible price for not heeding their counsel.
A ship's captain devises a scheme to try and capture two sailors who had deserted their ships and are living on a Samoan island. The men manage to escape and are not heard of again for many years.
A ship's mate relates his experience when a group of Pacific Islanders, who are being taken to Tahiti to work on a sugar plantation, take over the ship.
A group of sailors desert from a ship to live amongst the Islanders. However their drunken and violent ways alienate the villagers, who take their revenge when the Islander wife of one of the men dies after he strikes her in a drunken rage.
A New Zealand man, left alone on a coconut plantation with his Islander wife and four labourers, plans treachery when the labourers discover a hoard of money.
An injured sailor is put ashore on an isolated island to be tended by a German doctor. The doctor declares he has given up medicine to study the mating behaviour of green turtles. The sailor is terrified when he learns what the doctor is really doing.
A sailor, imprisoned in Panama after beating a man who had insulted him, is helped to escape by a mysterious Spaniard who wants the sailor's assistance for a special mission.
To my true friend and good comrade, Tom de Wolf, I dedicate these tales. In memory of those olden days when under strange skies we sailed together in weather foul and fair.
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Troubled Waters : Australian Spies in the Pacific : Glimpses from the Early Twentieth CenturyBruce Bennett,
2010single work criticism — Appears in:
Reading Across the Pacific : Australia-United States Intellectual Histories2010;(p. 209-223)'This paper traces aspects of intelligence history and culture in the Pacific in the first quarter of the 20th century from an Australian perspective. Following Federation in 1901, Australia began to develop an intelligence capability in the Pacific. This was characterized by small-scale, 'lone ranger' operations by individuals such as William Bridges in places such as German Samoa, New Caledonia and New Guinea. Although a degree of national self-interest was involved, such exercises reinforced Australia's role in the British empire. Coverage extended to Japan before and after the Russo-Japanese war. Over time, the focus on Japan became paramount. Whereas previous activity among colonial possessions in the South Pacific had mainly involved military reconnaissance, Australian intelligence concerning Japan involved more complex, far-reaching strategic considerations. The contributions of Edmund Piesse and writer and scholar James Murdoch gave depth to Australian analyses of Japan during and after the First World War. Their advice brought them into significant conflict with Australian Prime Minister Hughes. This paper suggests that human intelligence benefits from the study of literature, culture and history. Pacific stories such as those of Louis Becke and fictional works set in Japan such as A.G.Hales's Little Blue Pigeon or James Murdoch's stories open the imagination to foreign ways of thinking and feeling. A corollary to this paper is the need for collaborative comparative studies of intelligence cultures and their histories on both sides of the Pacific.' (Author's abstract)
Literature1898single work column — Appears in:
The Sydney Mail,10 Septembervol.
66no.
19921898;(p. 643)
Literature1898single work column — Appears in:
The Sydney Mail,10 Septembervol.
66no.
19921898;(p. 643)
Troubled Waters : Australian Spies in the Pacific : Glimpses from the Early Twentieth CenturyBruce Bennett,
2010single work criticism — Appears in:
Reading Across the Pacific : Australia-United States Intellectual Histories2010;(p. 209-223)'This paper traces aspects of intelligence history and culture in the Pacific in the first quarter of the 20th century from an Australian perspective. Following Federation in 1901, Australia began to develop an intelligence capability in the Pacific. This was characterized by small-scale, 'lone ranger' operations by individuals such as William Bridges in places such as German Samoa, New Caledonia and New Guinea. Although a degree of national self-interest was involved, such exercises reinforced Australia's role in the British empire. Coverage extended to Japan before and after the Russo-Japanese war. Over time, the focus on Japan became paramount. Whereas previous activity among colonial possessions in the South Pacific had mainly involved military reconnaissance, Australian intelligence concerning Japan involved more complex, far-reaching strategic considerations. The contributions of Edmund Piesse and writer and scholar James Murdoch gave depth to Australian analyses of Japan during and after the First World War. Their advice brought them into significant conflict with Australian Prime Minister Hughes. This paper suggests that human intelligence benefits from the study of literature, culture and history. Pacific stories such as those of Louis Becke and fictional works set in Japan such as A.G.Hales's Little Blue Pigeon or James Murdoch's stories open the imagination to foreign ways of thinking and feeling. A corollary to this paper is the need for collaborative comparative studies of intelligence cultures and their histories on both sides of the Pacific.' (Author's abstract)
