2 CORAL AND ATOLLS 



Many such romances lie buried in obscurity, and from the 

 early records of the traffickings of Englishmen and Asiatics a 

 score of wonderful tales might be unfolded ; for it is not only 

 in fiction that the bo's'n who has gone ashore in foreign parts 

 has been made a ruler, or the shipwrecked waif become a 

 mighty monarch. 



It is much to be regretted that such tales should ever be 

 lost to the world, for each tells a story of enterprise and hardi- 

 hood, and offers a picture of the greatest of the birthrights of 

 the Englishman — the power that is born in him to rule an 

 alien race. 



From time to time stray paragraphs in newspapers, or 

 more pretentious articles in magazines or chapters of books, 

 have told the tale of the " Kings of Cocos " ; and though the 

 romance of the dynasty has always appealed to those who 

 penned them, they have been strangely lacking in accuracy. 

 The true details of the early days of the Clunies-Koss 

 sovereignty have never been published, and I am fortunate in 

 having at my disposal the origmal papers of the founder of the 

 Settlement. It is my great regret that these documents are 

 too lengthy to be published in their complete form, for they 

 make a splendidly told story of adventure, written by the man 

 who lived their pages through, and they tell in every line the 

 fine robust ideals of Ross Primus, who risked so much on his 

 venture at kingship. 



The history of the atoll is a thing of to-day, for it begins only 

 Avith the advent of the Clunies-Ross dynasty, and what details we 

 know of the pre-Ross period are obscure and of no great interest. 



Only one excuse could warrant the unearthuig of all the 

 early references to the atoll ; and that is the possibility ol 

 tracing the past history of the islands, so that some notion 

 of their geographical changes, and their formation, might be 

 gleaned. But Cocos- Keeling is not of sufficient account in the 

 world to possess a well- recorded history, and even were it to 

 be complete, as we reckon history, it would probably not help 

 us much in understanding the formation of the atoll, for no 

 human record can hope to mark more than a day in its long 



