14 A NATURALIST'S WANDERINGS 



the spot a call port for the repair and provisioning of 

 vessels voyaging between home and China, Australia, and 

 India. With"out then talking up residence, he proceeded to 

 England, but returned in 1827 Avith his \vife and family of six 

 children, accompanied by twelve Englishmen, one Javanese, 

 and one Portuguese. On landing he was surprised to find 

 another Englishman, Mr. Alexander Hare, in possession of a 

 third i^art of the group.. This gentleman had held a govern- 

 ment post in South Borneo during the English supremacy in 

 the Sunda Islands ; but having tried to assume the state of 

 an independent ruler, which on the reinstalnient of Dutch 

 authority, he found himself unable to hold, he retired here 

 with a large harem of various nationalities and numerous 

 slaves, whom he treated with great harshness, 



Mr. Eoss, having brought out his English apprentices on an 



understanding that, as the whole atoll was his own, there 



would be, in the development of its resources, sufficient 



outlet for their energies, was much discouraged by the turn 



affairs had assumed. Hare exhibited a very unfriendly spirit 



towards the new-comers, so that, on Mr. Koss offering his 



people a release from their agreement, all, except three (a 



woman and two men), took the first opportunity of leaving in 



one of 11. ]M. gunboats which touched at the islands, Koss 



managed, however, to increase his party by seven or eight 



persons from Java, and later on by additional Europeans, some 



of them his own relatives. With a large number of Sundanese 



coolies, hired in Batavia, ho opened a trade in cocoanuts witl 



the Mauritius, with Madras, and with Bencoolen and various 



other ports of the Archipelago. 



1 



some 



mock 



stant discord and jealousies of his retinue, and in hostility to 

 his neighbour. For the protection of what he considered an im- 

 portantly situated island, and of his own rights, Eoss solicited 

 the authorities in the Mauritius to take the group under their 

 protection— a responsibility they did not see it advisable to 

 assume. Hare, on the other hand, covertly instigated the 

 Dutch Government to claim possession, a suggestion which 

 the Batavian officials entertained only so far as to send a 

 gunboat to examine and report on the condition of the 



