7.V TUE COCOJS-KEELISO ISLANDS. 



17 



Fremantle, fur the island intended to be annexed was one of 

 the siime nsime somewhere in the Andaman group I It is 

 gratifyin*^, however, to know that the ishmrla are after all 

 really British territory, for I myself carried down a copy of 

 the Proclamation in the Ceylon Gazette of November 1S78, by 

 which the Cocos-Keeling Islands were annexed to the Govern- 

 ment of Ceylon^ "to prevent any foreign pow^r stepping iif 

 an<l taking possession of them, for the pnqwse of settlement, 

 or for a coaling station,*' as Russian agents, it was reported, had 

 been examining the locality with sinister views. 



The islands being of extreme salubrity, the true Keeling 

 population, now mostly of mised bloodj had rapidly increased, 

 and they enjoyed unbroken prosperity till 1862, when a 

 cyclone in a few hoiirs entirely wrecked their homes. The 

 present prttprietor, the third in succession, then a student 

 of engineering in Glasgow, was hurriedly summoned to aid 

 his father in the restoration of the islands, a task he was 

 suddenly left alone to accomplish, wlien quit« a young man, 

 by the death of his parent. Abandoning all the more 

 ambitious plans of his life, he gave himself np to the new 

 position which he had been so unexpectedly called to fill, aud 

 with the warmest heartiness threw himself into all the interests 

 of the islanders. He devised and has carried out liberal plans 

 for their improvement, and for the advancement of those com- 

 mitted to his charge. Marrying a Cocos-bom wife, who shared 

 his ideas and interests, they Ixjcame the parents of the people 

 rather than their masters and rulers. . 



As rapidly as possible he rid himself of the chain-gang men, 

 and being able, by a change in the laws at Batavia, to obtain 

 coolies of the iion-criniinal class, he engaged only those of 

 the best character. He cleared oft* the remaining forest and 

 planted the ground with palms. Success attended his efforts, 

 At length he brought into the Indian Ocean the new sounds 

 of the puffing of steam mills, the whirring of lathes and saws, 

 and the clang of the anvil. The general education of the 

 children has been under a younger brother of Mr. Ross's, 

 educated in a Scottish university. Every Cocos man has had, 

 besides performing his ordinary duties of gathering nut* 

 and preparing oil — which, exchanged in Batavia, returns as 

 gain, or th<" food which they cannot produce witfiin their own 



I! 



