14 CORAL AND ATOLLS 



He seems to have had a most pecuHar taste to guide him 

 in the choice of his new land : one thing he must have, and 

 that was the sound of the sea always in his ears, and the cities 

 of America were therefore not for him : whilst Australia he 

 decided against, for he felt it an injustice to his children that 

 they should be reared in " a country that had the taint of 

 convicts." 



He took his wife and children on the Borneo and returned 

 to the Cape (May 1825), where Hare was waiting in a ship 

 called the Hippomenes, commanded by James Ross, his younger 

 brother. 



Both ships cruised off, and it was agreed that they should 

 meet at the Cocos-Keeling Islands. Ross Primus was the first 

 to reach the meeting-place (Dec. 6, 1825), and waited for his 

 brother until the 19th, but as the Hippomenes did not 

 appear, he sailed away for the Cape again, and found that 

 Alexander Hare had not long left. He then proceeded to 

 London, for ho felt that, as he had decided to make his home 

 in Cocos, he had better make his position there somewhat 

 more assured ; and he therefore applied to John Hare — as a 

 person of some authority — to get Government possession of 

 the place. Then, thinking that all would be well, he went to 

 sea again and arrived in Cocos on Feb. 27, 1827; there he 

 found Hare fully established with his harem, and playing the 

 role of despot to his heart's content. 



The trading purposes of the Borneo's voyage were not 

 yet completed, and so, as Ross Primus says, " I hutted my 

 family on the isle, and continued my voyage." Later in the 

 year he returned, and then began the dual occupation of Hare 

 and Ross, and all the queer stories of the squabbles of the 

 rival rulers in their tiny kingdom. 



