i 7 
Green Dots of the Empire. 
but scarce had the smoke from the steamer’s 
funnel vanished from the horizon than the 
old leaven worked, and rifles, carefully hidden 
away from the naval men, were brought forth 
from their concealment and put to use. And 
so every few months or so the Australian news¬ 
papers notify that “ there has been fresh trouble 
in the Gilbert Group.” However, all this will 
be a thing of the past in another year or two, 
although it is safe to predict that it will be 
long ere the Gilbert Islander—man or woman 
—gives up the manufacture and use of sharks’ 
teeth swords and daggers. And as these 
weapons are not necessarily fatal, and are time- 
honoured arguments for settling public and 
family differences, perhaps it will be as well 
for the High Commissioner to let them 
possess the means of letting out in a moderate 
degree some of their quick, hot blood. 
But the people of the Ellice Group show the 
other side of the picture, and their calm, placid 
existence, undisturbed except by a family quarrel, 
explains why—saving the visit of a surveying 
ship—no men-of-war steam up to the anchor¬ 
ages outside the reefs, or into the lagoons, and 
hold courts of inquiry into native outbreaks or 
3 
