THE ARCHIPELAGO OF CHAUSET. 31 



spot, took possession of all the fish which the men 

 had caught, and cut up their nets. This act was 

 loudly blamed by several of their companions ; and 

 as the expedition occurred in the night of Saturday 

 and Sunday, the discussions to which it gave rise at 

 the canteen soon terminated in quarrelling. The 

 opposing parties came to blows, and on the following 

 day two of the men were laid up from the effects of 

 the fight. 



Scenes of this kind were by no means of rare 

 occurrence in this remote region, where policemen 

 are unknown, and where a half-civilised class of men 

 are left to appeal, whenever it pleases them, to the 

 right of the stronger. Dissensions would have been 

 still more frequent had it not been for the presence 

 of an old theological student of the name of Lecam, 

 who, from some inaptitude for his calling, had been 

 led to forsake his studies and enrol himself among 

 the stone-cutters. This man, after having nearly 

 completed his theological education, visited many 

 large cities, where he so assiduously frequented 

 theatres and other similar places of resort that he 

 exhibited some slight degree of confusion in his 

 recollections, and nothing was more amusing than to 

 see him between two adversaries endeavouring to 

 reconcile them, quoting a verse from the Proverbs 

 or Ecclesiastes to one, and a passage from a modern 

 drama or a couplet from a vaudeville to another, but 

 ending almost always by re-establishing a good un- 

 derstanding between the opponents. His jovial 

 humour, and his insatiable powers of eating and 

 drinking, made him popular amongst all his com- 



