4io Incidents of Foreign Field Sport. 



commander and walked into him handsomely, and 

 told him, as he had brought her, he might keep her 

 until the arrival of the mail steamer, as I would have 

 none of her. She found her tongue, treated me to a 

 good deal of Billingsgate, and said I could not ap- 

 preciate a white woman when I got the chance. I 

 cut her short, handed her over to the quarryman and 

 a writer I then had, and saw no more of her, but 

 sent her back to the Andamans. I afterwards got 

 several letters from her husband, accusing me of 

 having been intimate with her, and wanting black- 

 mail ; but I had taken good care not to be left alone 

 with her for a minute, and I told him to go to 

 a very hot place. She, in collusion with her husband, 

 had played these tricks before in Port Blair, and had 

 caused great mischief there ; but although not then 

 thirty, I was an old bird, not to be caught with chaff, 

 and I knew all about her long before she had the 

 cheek to pay me a visit. 



It was my third season. The men had been left at 

 the Andamans during each monsoon and were always 

 (apparently) glad to get back to the Cocos, for they 

 were very differently treated by me there to what 

 they had been by the warders at the convict establish- 

 ment. I had dug numerous wells on Table Island, 

 but the water was not drinkable ; so I got across 

 daily twenty-five breakers of water. To fetch these up 

 the hill, Keid used to march down a party of twenty- 

 five Burmese and Shans and twenty-five Madrassies, 

 varying the party each day, and only telling them 

 off at the last moment. One day the boat was later 

 than usual. We had to unload her the minute she 

 arrived and to put in the empties, to enable her to 



