BLUE SHIRT 161 



ous scars proved him worthy of his blood. He was a 

 man in authority and full of territorial pride; his son's 

 dominance was undoubted, for did he not chide the 

 "big fella gubbermen" on its audacity in disposing of 

 his Island his country even to a friendly white 

 man ? 



Blue Shirt was the ruler and lawgiver of this Island 

 when a barque strove with a cyclone which eventually 

 shattered her to pieces and scattered her cargo of cedar- 

 logs to the four winds. After the wreck a boat put out 

 from a not distant port on a beach-combing cruise. The 

 boat was known as the Captain Cook. About a hundred 

 years before her namesake had reported that he had 

 seen about thirty natives, all unclad, on an adjacent 

 islet. With the captain was his mate, two other white 

 men, a black boy, and a young gin. Many derelict logs 

 were seen and certain wreckage, which made the boat's 

 company inclined to the belief that some of the cast- 

 aways might have landed on Dunk Island. They steered 

 hither, anchoring in the evening. 



Early the next morning three stalwart black boys put 

 off in canoes to the Captain Cook, and, making friendly 

 demonstrations, were invited on board. Food was 

 given them, and to the leader the captain presented a 

 blue shirt. No dweller of the Island had ever before 

 possessed such a sumptuous and glorious garment. 

 Indeed, if the absolute truth must be told, no dweller 

 had dreamt of anything more desirable than an inade- 

 quate cloak laboriously wrought from the inner bark 

 of a fig-tree, raiment sanctioned by the first of fashions. 



Having made it known that they belonged to a 

 neighbouring islet at the moment unfriendly to the 

 overbearing Dunk Island tribe, Blue Shirt and his 

 attendants mentioned that cedar-logs and other attrac- 

 tive flotsam bestrewed the beaches, and volunteered to 



