CHAPTER X. 



TORRES STRAITS ISLANDS. 



WE remained for nearly four months anchored at or in the 

 neighbourhood of Thursday Island. During this period 

 our boats were employed in making a survey of the Prince of Wales 

 Channel, which is now the route almost invariably used by steamers 

 and sailing ships in passing through Torres Straits. There is a small 

 settlement at Thursday Island consisting of about a dozen houses, 

 wooden built, which are occupied by white families and their 

 coloured domestics. There is a police magistrate, whose jurisdic- 

 tion, as an official of the Queensland government, extends over 

 all the islands in Torres Straits ; an officer of customs, through 

 whose hands passes all the trade of the Straits : a staff of white 

 policemen to enforce the Queensland law ; a prison for the incar- 

 ceration of the refractory pearl shellers ; a store for the supply of 

 tinned provisions and all the miscellaneous requirements of the 

 pearl shell trade ; and, finally, there are two public-houses which 

 do a flourishing business and supply ample material for the official 

 ministration of the police. The entire population, white and 

 coloured, does not exceed a hundred. 



Thursday Island owes its importance to being the shipping port 

 for the produce of all the pearl shell fisheries in Torres Straits. It 

 is visited monthly by steamers of the "British India" and "Eastern 

 and Australian " Steamship Companies, and also by a small coast- 

 ing steamer, the Coi-ea, belonging to an Australian firm. The 

 latter plies regularly and constantly between Thursday Island 



