3 12 
Wild Life in Southern Seas. 
“ That’s my wife, sir. I married her nigh on 
forty years ago, an’ she’s been with me ever 
since. An’ I ain’t agoin’ to put her away—as 
the custom here is, when a wife gets old.” He 
always took great pleasure in showing visitors 
how his sons could box, and would often, old as 
he was, put on the gloves with one of his 
stalwart boys, “ to keep him from gettin’ 
rusty.” Nine sons and seven daughters, most 
of whom were married, and had families, 
made the old man’s dwelling a credit to him 
when they were all under the same roof; and 
the sincere respect and admiration they all 
evinced towards the patriarch might well have 
made him feel proud. 
Another ex-man-o’-war’s man, who lived on 
Upolu, in Samoa, had the distinction of pos¬ 
sessing about the largest family and the hardest 
pair of knuckles of any white man in Polynesia. 
He was much esteemed by the natives for this 
latter fact, as well as for the open contempt 
with which he treated the mandates of the then 
British Consul to appear before him and 
answer charges of assaulting Germans and other 
foreigners when making one of his periodical 
visits to Apia. At last, however, a stray cruiser 
