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Western Europe,Europe,:T. Fisher Unwin,1899 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
A tale of life in a penal settlement and the activities of a 'flogging parson', apparently based on Samuel Marsden. The narrator tells the story of his friends, two convicts assigned to his father.
A Tahitian chief's son is betrothed to the daughter of the chief of another island, but his island is impoverished by the demands of the prospective bride's father. Following a dream Milli the Slave devises a scheme to save the island from destruction.
A Samoan island is stricken with drought and pestilence. The death of a young girl, the daughter of a trader, leads to drastic action from her alcoholic father.
An Australian trader falls victim to the villagers' schemes to extract money from him. When he attempts to beat them at their own game he is sadly outwitted.
The crew of a brigatine are made welcome by the inhabitants of an island in the Carolines, and participate in a fish drive, which the narrator describes in great detail.
An account of the ill-fated attempt by French aristocrat Charles du Breil, Marquis de Rays, to establish a new colony, to be known as 'New France', in Eastern New Guinea.
A sailor, lost at sea, learns that his wife has married his friend. Realising they genuinely thought he was dead, he does not confront them and settles in Samoa with his Samoan wife, but faces a difficult decison when his wife and his friend arrive on the island where he is living.
Describes fishing in the tidal rivers and creeks of Australia's east coast, but particularly in the Hastings River area. Becke describes a wide variety of fish, which were present in abundance.
Becke was employed as a supercargo by 'Bully' Hayes, an infamous blackbirder, for two years. Here he writes of the destruction of 'Bully' Hayes's ship, the Leonora during a cyclone.
Relates the seizing of the ship, Venus, the subsequent activities of the mutinous crew in New Zealand, and the eventual fate of the ship and some of the mutineers.
Becke relates his experience of being on board a ship that capsizes after striking a piece of wreckage, and the subsequent rescue of himself and the rest of the crew.
