HISTORY OF THE ATOLL FROM 1871 35 



brave as he was, and as loyal : and she it was who saved his 

 life on more than one occasion. Like S'pia Dapong, she was a 

 woman of great and good influence over the natives, and nothing 

 unseemly was done by them, lest she should be offended, and 

 nothing ill-mannered, lest she should condemn the act. 



In this way the influence of Inin was an extremely 

 fortunate thing for the islands, for though it may be done in 

 silence, and is apt to find but little place in a chronicle of the 

 doings of men, the influence of a good woman may do works 

 as great as those accomplished by the acts of a brave man. 



In every way Inin helped her husband in his task of 

 making the colony happy and prosperous, and while he ruled 

 the men with his masterful will, she stood as law for the 

 women, and ruled them by her example ; and she ruled them 

 well. The industries of the place rapidly improved, and 

 George Boss and his wife took it npon themselves to teach 

 their people and to guide them as if they had all been 

 members of their own family. 



The planting of coconut palms was carried out on a 

 large scale, work was organised, and many new schemes laid 

 down. Four years saw the whole aspect of the colony 

 changed ; for the Governor introduced modern methods into 

 the working of his islands, and instructed his people in the use 

 of European tools and appliances. He imported and set up 

 machinery, built brick factories for the preparation of coconut 

 oil, which was then the staple product of the islands. The 

 prepared oil was sent to Java to be used as lamp-oil, for at 

 that time all the lighthouses of the Malay Archipelago were 

 lit up by the oil brought from Cocos-Keeling. Under his 

 careful management, George Ross had the satisfaction of 

 seeing his home cease to be a mere jungle- clad ring of islands, 

 and become a place of ordered and fertile groves of coconut 

 palms ; and at the end of the first four years of his charge, 

 everything was smiling on him and his colony. But in 1876, 

 on January 25, the blow fell, and all the efforts of his four 

 years of patient and loving toil were brought to naught by 

 the passing of a cyclone. The cyclone of 1876 Avas one of 



