YAB-00-RAGOO ALIAS MICKIE 287 



"Well, what you write?" George's attention at once 

 became concentrated, and gazing steadfastly on the paper 

 for a minute or so for the marshalling of his wits, said — 

 " This fella say Coleman Riber, Coen Riber ? Horse Dead 

 Creek, Massac (Massacre) Riber, Big Morehead, Kennedy 

 Riber, Laura Riber." These are the names of some of the 

 streams north from Cooktown, George's country. On the 

 other scrap of paper, according to him, the names of some 

 of the islands in this neighbourhood were written. Though 

 the papers were transposed and turned upside down, 

 George could read them with equal facility. The list of 

 rivers would be read for the islands, and the islands for the 

 rivers, quite indifferently, and with entertaining naivete. 

 But he treasured the papers, and continued to delude his 

 fellows with "the display of what they considered to be 

 wonderful cleverness. 



Yab-oo-ragoo, otherwise "Mickie" 



" Mislike me not for my complexion " 



He said that his name was Mickie, and that he was an 

 Irishman, and a native of the great Palm Island — 40 miles 

 south. He hath no personal comeliness — his face is his 

 great misfortune. Though he asserts with pride his nation- 

 ality, he admits that his mother, now among the stars, " sat 

 down alonga 'nother side," and his complexion, or rather 

 what is seen of it through an artless layer of charcoal and 

 grease, applied out of respect to the memory of his deceased 

 brother-in-law, shows no Celtic trace. Yet he has a keen 

 appreciation of fun, has ready wit, and, according to his own 

 showing, is not averse to a shindy, so that, perhaps his 

 given name is at least characteristic of his assumed race. 

 A flat overhanging forehead, keen black eyes, a broad- 

 rooted, unobtrusive nose, a most capacious mouth, beard 

 and whiskers thin and unkempt, and a fierce-looking 

 moustache, a head of hair which in boyhood days had 

 probably been a mass of crisp curls, but now shaggy tufts, 



