RULES ADOPTED BY THE BOARD OF REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HANAll HAY 21. 1948 VITH REGARD TO THE REPRODUCTION OF MASTERS THESES

ia> No person or corporation may publish or reproduce in any manner, without the consent of the Board of Repents, a thesis which has been submitted to the University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree, tbj ho individual or corporation or other organization may publish quotations or excerpts from a graduate thesis without the consent of the author and of the University. LQOIS BSCKEi A STUDY

A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISIOH OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF HAHAll IS PARTIAL FULFILLUEHT

OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF ARTS

AUGUST 1957

By

Margaret Anne Ingraa

¿1a) . ^ * —5 O CE5 6 & no.15' pSw cor,? Nfl ^ TABLE OF CGMTENTS

PREFACE ...... 1

FRONTISPIECE! LOUIS BSCJiE...... After page ill

CHAPTER I. LOUIS BECKE, THE MAN The Tine and Place . . . . 1 His L i f e ...... 4 Hoj&e Tie« ...... i The First V o y a g e ...... 6 Pacific Odyssey ...... 7 Retrospect ...... 14

CHAPTER II. HIS WORKS Classification ...... 21 Chronological Description ...... 22 Develop« nt of Autobiographical Tendency ...... 59 Chronological Description Continued...... 42 Conclusion ...... 60

CHAPTER III. KI3 CRAFTSMANSHIP The Scene ...... 62 The Thanes ...... 68 The P l o t s ...... 72 The Characters ...... 82 C o n c l u s i o n ...... 95

CHAPTER IV. m S VALUS Conclusion ...... 96

BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary S o u r c e s ...... 99 Secondary Sources ...... 101

Uo

*"1 23 w

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N* "I4

I _c £ E ra PREFACE

In making this study of Louis Becke, Australian author of talas

set principally in the Pacific Islands, I was dependent to a great ex­

tent on his works themselves. Very little secondary material was avail­

able: three magazine articles, five brief prefaces in collections of his

tales, sketchy or chance allusions in three or four other books — these

were my secondary references during the writing of most of this paper.

With such a paucity of critical material, it was impossible to support

my opinions or deductions invariably by reference to an authority. I have

tried to avoid broad statements and to give ample supporting evidence from

the works themselves, hut I felt that constant repetition of qualifying

phrases such as "probably,■ "in my opinion," etc, would only vitiate the

strength of the deductions thus made and supported. It is to be under­

stood throughout the paper, then, that unless reference to an authority

is cited, the opinions advanced and the statements made are my own.

While the second and third chapters of this thesis were still in rough draft, and while the first chapter, on Backs'a life, was still in outline, further information, biographical and critical, arrived from

Australia. For this I an deeply indebted to Miss Ida Lee son, the Librar­ ian, and to the Board of Trustees of the Mitchell Library of Sydney. My letters of inquiry to .the Bon. Bertram Sydney Stevens, Premier and Colo­ nial Treasurer of Sew South Wales, (whom 1 supposed to be the Bertram

Stevens of The Lone Band, said to have been Backe's literary exacu tor1), to Mr. Ernest R. Pitt of the Melbourne Public Library, and to Miss Lesson, brought full and helpful response; and upon ay application the Board of

Trustees of the Public Library of Mew South Wales granted permission to have copies made for my use of certain early letters from Becks to his

T. J. C. "Australasian Literature," The Ration, XCVII, (July 10, 1915), 50. ii

■other, newspaper interviews, and agreements between Becke and his pub­ lishers, all housed in the Itttchell Library, tt.es Leeson must have spent

« o h tine and careful thought in selecting the naterial which fitted ny description of needs. It is difficult to express ny gratitude adequately • for the courtesy and co-operative spirit shows hy tha .Tor Hr. Ttevorjs and these people of the Public Library ays ten of Australia.

The copied naterial, referred to throughout the paper as "Typescript," did not necessitate changing, except in a few minor points, either the plan or the text of this paper. It was gratifying, however, to find certain deductions substantiated by evidence outside the works of Beoke themeelves, especially *hen, as in tho discussion of the part played by Bscxe and

Jeffery respectively in their collaborations, the internal evidence was somewhat thin.2 The biographical information was of great interest — especially Beoke*s letters to his mother, written, most of then, during hie stay on Nanomaga in 1880-1881. Unfortunately this splendid record covers only a year or two; for the mast part authentic dates and means of securing an accurate chronicle of his life are unavailable now.

The Earl of Pembroke included n brief biographical sketch In his

Introduction to Becks's _§y Beef and palm, and most subsequent writers have baaed their comments on hie work. It is merely an account of Becks'• various ventures and activities, incomplete, lacking sufficient dates to make it an adequate framework on which to build with material gleaned from his stories. Furthermore, it is bassd almost entirely upon a letter which

Beoke wrote to Pembroke, evidently at the time when the latter was about to prepare his Introduction to Becks's first collection of tales. Pembroke used most of this material aB Beats presented it, much of it word for word, merely changing it from the first to the third person.

Tl Chapter II, 37, 47. ill

These autobiographical notes are so* in the Mitchell Library of

Sydney, and a copy of then is in the University of Hawaii Library. They are written in Becks»s casual, unanalytical style, and night easily be erroneous in chronology, particularly since the conflicting dates he gives in nany of his stories suggest that he fell into the island habit of let­ ting tine slip unnoticed through his fingers.

CHAPTER I

LOUIS BECKJS, THE HAH

The Time and Place

To orient George Louis Backs in point of tine with better known figures of the literary world, one has only to remember that he was al­ most the exact contemporary of Joseph Conrad. Conrad was bora Dec saber 6,

1857) Be eke, according to the best authorities available, June 18, 1855,1 although June 17, 1857^ and the year 1348" are also given as the date of his birth. The year 1865 M e n to fit with autobiographic accounts of his life, however, and so is probably the correct date. These authors' first I iff publications, Conrad's Alnayer's Polly and Becks's Beef and Pain, ware published the sane year, 1894, fay the sane publisher, T. Fisher Unwin of

London. While Conrad was writing novels of the eastern islands of the

China Sea, Becks was producing volume after volume filled with tales of

Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia. His Pacific Tales. Edward Barry. and The Strange Adventure of James Shervinton were contemporary publica­ tions with Conrad's The Bigger of the Marcia b u s . Lord Jim, and Youth.

Conrad died in 1924, Becke eleven years earlier, in 1915. fr Becke preceded Stevenson fay about twenty years as resident, or ra­ ther as wanderer, among the Pacific Islands, for he left his Australian home, according to his own account, in March, 1869, when about fourteen years old, touched at Burutu in the Tubual Group on his way out to

California, and by 1870 was already started on his career as business man

(ha varied his occupations) in the South Sea Islands.4 Stevenson began the tour which was to end in voluntary exile in 1888, but his South Sea

TI George Msckanesa, Introduction, Tales of the South Seas, by Louis Becke, vii. 2. Publisher's Bote, Bully Bayes. Buccaneer, fay Louis Becke. 5. "South Sea Hovelist," Wellington Dominion,(Sept. 9, 1908), Typescript. 4. Autobiographic Hotea, Typescript The Adventures of Louis Blake, 2, 17, 89 ff. stories and A Footnote to History preceded Beene's publications, for

Stevenson died the year By H»>f and Palm mas published. It is interesting to note, however, that although Stevenson's The Ebb Tide was published in

1894, a year before the appearance of Becke *s collection entitled The Sbb-

of the Tide, Becke disdained any indebtedness to Stevenson for the title of his book. In a letter to the Editor of the Standard, written in

London in 1897, Becke said:

Sir - In his kindly criticiea of a book of nine entitled "Pacific Tales" your Scviewer says, "If there had never been a Hebert Louis Stevenson, never an Attw&ter nor a Huish, the public would probably have paid much less attention to kin" (myself) "than he deserves. This is not saying that Mr. Becke is in any direct sense indebted to Stevenson, save, perhaps, for the title of one of his volumes." The volume of mine to which your Reviewer refers is "At the Ebbing of the Tide," a collection of stories which was published by Mr. Fisher Unwin two years ago. I sent them to hiw from Australia, »«i said in the accompanying letter, "Use your o n judgment as to the title of the book." Mr. Unwin chose as a title "The Ebbing of the Tide," which was the title of one of the stories in the volume) and this story, under that title was written by me and published by the Sydney Bulletin two years before Mr. Stevenson's story of "The Ebb Tide" appeared, either serially or in book form. Mr. Unwin will corroborate this, as cell as the Editor of the Bulletin. I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

Louis Becke.

Historically, the years which Becke passed among the islands were fraught with interest. He was in Samoa during the rebellion against the

native king Malletoa, Incited by the Germans and opposed, not entirely un­

selfishly, by the English and Americans, of which Stevenson has given a vivid account in A Footnote to History. A number of his stories tell of

his experiences there,® probably during 1875 ami 1874, for he often speaks

of the power of Stelaberger, whose influence was high from *75 to '75.'

Beoke'a sympathies, like Stevenson's, were with Malletoa, or Laupepa, al-

” tetter from Becke to Editor of Standard. (Bov. 16, 1897), Typescript. 0. Book and Pool, "The Tanlfa of Samoa;" Botes from My South Sea Log. "3? Order of the King;" The Call of the South,"To Bari, Outlaw," "The Pit of Maota,” "A Bight Run Across Fag aloe Bay.” 7, Sylvia Masteraan, The Origins of International Rivalry in Samoa,1845- -5-

though he regained neutral and friendly with the natiVBg of both parties.

At least, go ha claimed,'"' although his frequent tales of gun-running and selling iras to the loyal forces, good business though this practice was, could hardly win hin the title of an absolute neutral.

Becks also had the unquestionable privilege — to a lover of adven­ ture — of intimate acquaintance with one of the last of the buccaneers,

Captain William Henry Hayes, an American by birth, and better known as

Bully Hayes, notorious adventurer and rover in the South and China Seas 9 between 1850 and 1877. As every reader of his tales well knows, Becks sailed with Hayes aboard the famed Leonora as supercargo. In March, 1874,1

(Becke usually gives this date, although in one of his stories he puts it 1 ^ V A a year earlier, and in a letter to his mother he makes it a year later, ) as the trim little clipper brig lay at anchor in Utwe Harbor at Kusaie

(Strong's IslandV a heavy squall bore down upon her, and drove her on a coral mushroom, where she broke up in less than half an hour. Toung Becke evidently kept his head and his courage — we have it on authority other i* i than his own — remaining with the ship until Hayes himself left her, af­

ter sanding all the passengers and crew, as wall as the natives aboard,

ashore. At the last moment, when he might have thought only of his own

skin, he remembered Lmlla, the young native girl who was much attached to

him, and who had been injured in trying to help him save some trads goods

and papers. He dashed below to get her, and by saving her life saved his

own, for a moment later, as they were swept over the side, he was stunned

by a blow from some wreckage, and would have drownod had she not dragged

him to the boat.1

The Call of the South. "A Might Run Across Fagaloa Bay," 248. 9. Basil Lubbock, Bally Hayes, 19, 509. 10. Ibid, 276. 11. Beath Austral Skies, "Jack Shark," 258. 12. Letter from Becke to his Mother, (Sept. 24, 1881), Typescript. 13. Basil Lubbock, Bully Bayes, 266-275. Cast away om a tropical island at eighteen years of agel "Lui," as the natives called him, was the hoy to aake the most of his adventure.

There is no need to recount here his activities of the next few nonths, for this period remained to the end of his days his happiest memory, a chronicle of new and interesting experiences, an idyll of peacefulness, a 14 legend of glorious adventure, recounted again and again. Pembroke states 16 that the exile lasted five nonths, Basil Lubbock places it at a little over six,'*'® Becke leaves the time element out in his auto biographical notes, but it is indicative of the leisurely, dreamlike nature of his stay with Kusis and Tulpd and little Klnie that several tines in his stories 17 be says he was there for twelve months or more.

Beoke had been in the employ of the acting British consul S. F.

Williams, a shady trader-diplomat, when he delivered the E. A. Williams to Hayes in the Marshall islands and became the supercargo of the Leonora.^8

He also had some connection — probably unofficial — with the ill-fated colonisation of Houvelle France under the leadership of the infamous

■unquis de Bays. Becke*s brief account of this scheme of tragic conse­ quences1 differs considerably In interpretation, but agrees pretty well in fact with that given in The Phantom paradise, written by a descendant 20 of one of the subscribers to the colony.

Hie Life

The best way to discover what manner of man this Louis Becke was is

14. Pacific Tales, "An Island Memoryt English Bob," "The Shadows of the Dead," Yorke the Adventurer, "The River of Dreams," "Fish 'rugging in the Pacific, "The Deadly Oapj" The Strange Adventure of James Shwrvtnton, "Concerning ’Bully* Hayes," Hodman the Boatsteerer, "Laasei," Bully Hayes, Buccaneer. 15. Earl of Pembroke, Introduction, Reef and Pain, by Louis Bec*e, 14. 16. Bully Hayes, 297. 17. Yorke the Adventurer, 192j JJjr Bock and Pool, 107. 18. Basil Lubbock, Bully Hayes, 250. 19. Rldan the Devil, "The South Sea Bubble of Charles du Breil, 253. 20. Josephine Hyacinths Hiau. to read M b stories. Little by little one pieces out the picture — un­ authenticated, likely to be denied when further facte are gathered together, and therefore out of place in a thesis except so far as gone idea of M s life will throw light on his writing.

Obviously, all authors are influenced in their writing by what their lives have been, yet few sen's works, probably, are sore entirely dependent upon the life of their author than are those of Louis Becks. Bis stories, novels, and sketches from By Beef and Pain. M s first volume, to Bully

Hayes, Buccaneer, M s last, tall the story in scores of tales of M s expe­ riences or of those of M s friends or acquaintances. Still, he did not go out to the Pacific Islands, sail with a pirate, or voyage in a rotten barque with a mutinous craw, to seek material for M s pen} the prospect of adventure, the love of the sea, the desire to go out and seek M s fortune

— these called him, and he did not look beyond to the day when he would recall M s twenty years of wandering, and set down in writing for others to read, M s experiences and the node of life he had cone to know. His wild life was a pre-requisite, though not a conscious preparation, for M s authorship, for he probably would never have been a writer had he not been first a wanderer, a sea-rover, a trader in the islands of tha Pacific.

Home Ties

Becke was the youngest of a large family, and M s early boyhood in

Port Macquarie where he was born was probably well balanced between the spoiling snd petting from M s mother and sisters, and the basing and dis­ cipline of M s brothers and father respectively/^- By the time he was thir­ teen years of age, he already had a good knowledge of boats and much ex­ perience in roughing it in the bush, for M s father encouraged practical rather than book learning, and gave M s sons the responsibilities ss well

2ll The"Adventures of Louis Blake, 28-47. as the pleasures of an actin, out-of-door life.22 One's outstanding im­ pression of Becke1 s boyhood, is one of his childish enthusiasm, and the

■ill to do, to aot, which, fortunately, never was quelled. His active life, relatively uacoofined by demands of academic study and the disci- plimed routine that usually accompanies it, encouraged the habit he early developed, which ho never seems to have lost, of carrying out hlfi in­ tentions to act; however far his thoughts carried him, he followed then in fact. It was during his childhood, too, that the sympathy for the convicts which was reflected in his Australian novels and stories became deeply Ingrained in his make-up. His parents, particularly his mother, seen to have been kind-hearted, philanthropic people, ready to stand up for the rights of the down-trodden, whether ryall blacks or convicts.'®

The First Voyage

In 1868 his family moved to Sydney, where Louis attended the Fort

Street School on Observatory Hill,'4 and in 1869 he embarked with his

brother Vernon (both boys were in their middle teens) on what was to be

the first of many adventurous voyages at sea. This first voyage to

California, where the brothers ware to seem their fortunes, lasted three

months, and included a month of drifting in a dismasted vessel, a mutiny,

fturi a brief stay on Rurutu, hie first acquaintance with a tropical is- pt lend. ‘ In California he fait ruvtsrberaiions from the Franco-Prussian

22. Betas fron My South 3ea Log, "Bay o' Fundy Days," 6. 23. Rjdaa the Devil, "A Memory of the System," 19. 24. Qeorge Mackaneae, Ed., Introduction, Talee of the South Seas,by Becke, vii. 25. This version of Becke'a first voyage follows his Autobiographical Motes, Pembroke's Introduction, end The Adventures of Louis Blake. But it is aot uncontested. After his death in 1915 the Red (Literary) Page of the (Sydney) Bulletin published an autobiographical article, said to have been written the year before, in which Becue says he began his wanderings by stowing away, at the age of 12, on the Rotumah, bounu for Samoa. Basil Lubbock gives a variant of this version in Bully Bayes, (231) giving the date of the sailing as Mar.21, 1872, when Becke woulu have been 17. I prefer, however, to credit the earlier Autobiographical War, experienced some anti-British feeling, end in spite of an adventurous

time, was glad to escape fro* San Francisco, probably in 1870, for a cruise along the ooast as clerk with a steamship company.

Pacific Odyssey "Those Who Can — Do!”

With this voyage began his long years of wandering anong the islands

of the Pacific — ysars pecked so full of incident, of shifts in location

end of changes in occupation, that no two accounts seen able to agree in

trasing then. Experience in shark catching and whaling, as supercargo on various trading vessels, as resident trader in numerous islands, as pearler,

recruiter of native labor, guano collector, followed each other in quick

succession, and were interspersed by periods of roving in Australia, one at

gold prospecting, others in an attempt to "settle down," which last never

seen to have been of long duration. We have seen that he was in Samoa in

1873, (it was probably then that he was in partnership with young Alan

Strickland, a Msnahikl. half-caste-6) ana exiled on gusaie until the lest

of September 1874. An experience which rivaled in his nenoriea that

idyllic interval in the Carolines was his sojourn on Banonega and Hukufetau

in the Ellice Croup. Ha was in the enpioy of Toe de Wolf, who figures

frequently in his stories, and it was on these islands that his association

with the Samoan missionary loan* and the old native Paid a, as well as many

of his fishing experiences, occurred. 9s landed there April U , 1880, and

about a year later, after his trading station had been destroyed by a hurri­

cane, he moved to the neighboring hukufetau, going into business for him­

self. It sms wham leaving this island In August of 1881 that he was ship-

Notes, written to his friend who was to incorporate them in Becks'b book, rather than a newspaper article written in his last days, par tisularly since it appears nslodranatio and inaccurate in other re­ spects also. ("Louis Becke,” Sydney Bulletin, (Feb.£7,1913), Typescript. 26. By Book and Pool, "The Tonifa of Samoa,” 163. -ft-

{¡t- f

a rope with little compunction — a wan in the South Seas now night as well be a Chinaman as an fiaglishnan for all the pro­ tection he will reoeiwe — the first chance 1 get I will na­ turalise myself as a citiasn of the United States. Almost all the people on this island like me and are well disposed and friendly to me but X want to go further to the northward where the people are free from that curse of the islands the Missionary element, the missionaries have been here about fire years and they hare as usual succeeded in rendering the natives less fe­ rocious but ten thousand tines more cunning, lying, avaricious, and hypocrital than they were in their natural state, and in which the Almighty intended then to remain else he would not permit then to undergo such a change for the worse. Since the Venus" left me no other ressells hare been bare except the "Vaitupulenele* — tines are very much changed in the islands now, no whaleehips now cruise in this group. If I can get De V i approval I will try to get up to Strongs Inland or else in the Caroline or Marshall Gronpe. 1 an living pretty lonely at pre­ sent as I have dismissed all ay workpeople and servants and have kept only a little native girl Pautoe who keeps house for me and cooks for me native fashion and whom I have adopted, there is of course a great row going on every day meetings etc and on an average 1 receive two deputations every day imploring me to remain and not to close ay trade house but they might as well cry to a stone. I rise every day at A a.m. and bathe and then Pautoe gets my breakfast generally flying fish or lobsters and fills wy pipe (I smoke a pipe now) and cleans the house while 1 smoke and instruct her how to use a broom and wash plates etc without break­ ing more than two at one wash-up, about 10 o'clock some 20 or 50 native girls come and sit on the verandah in the shade and plait straw or slnnet and as try and wheedle a cigarette out of the white man and as they consider it a great privilege to come and talk to the white nan I make them pay for it by bringing me fish, pnraka and young eocoaauts to drink. I think I drink about SO eoooannts every day — every evening the missionary and his wife gline send me tan coooanuts and something for tea and I return the compliment by either a littla beef or biscuit or whatever 1 may h&va ready at the time. 9

It will be noticed that be has a poor opinion of the work of the mis­ sionaries, which is reflected time and again in his stories to come.

The next excerpt gives & picture of the beachcomber type of white trader in the islands:

1 forgot to say that I had a visitor here in the "Vaitupuleaele" a trader from an adjacent island fliutas Geo. Klnohconbe — four years on Hiutas and cannot yet talk the language in fact 1 had to interpret for him. she a such a nan to talk, my ears are actual­ ly tingling now, I don't know how much more I would have suffered if it had not been for a case of gin I produced and by liquoring

29. Letter from Beoke to hiB mother, (July 8, 1880), Typescript. wreaked off Pern and leak "all he possessed in the world,"27 a hitter ex­ perience reworded in "ITank the Trader" years later.26 The letters to his nether lacladed in the Typeeeript all fall within this period, from 1880 to 1882. They are newsy, brink accounts of his activities) his chief con­ cern is to keep her infomad ef his business successes and failures — even the shipwreck end the hurricane are described with this and, although

Illuminating pictures ef his node of living, his native food and housekeep­ ing arrange newts, his concern at loaing la the wreck "two splendid collec­ tions of shells one for you and one for Aubrey his brother j," as well as a box he had node "from the wreck of the 'Leonora1 when [he; was castaway on Strong island in 1875 [ale]," are included. He always Mentions any let­ ters he has received from his family) sonatinas they were as long as eighteen months in finding him. To his evident wonder mod joy, the boat which took him away fron HUkufetau brought two from his mother, one of which, ha said, "was only a month eld."

Two of these letters, written fron Isnonaga, are so expressive of the basards of the Ufa, the type of nan, native and white, he had to deal with, and his own character and personal opinion, that I shall quote ex­ cerpts from than. In the first, he has mentioned a quarrel with the na­ tives — he doesn't give its causa — which resulted in his closing his trading station and refusing to buy or sell unless they paid him ten thousand coconuts.

I have built a vary large house and outhouses and an or rather was quite settled d o n till this affair happened — most fortunately I kept calm although a few acre words would have brought on a ter­ rible nsss — and I don't want to be taken to Fiji in a man-of-war to make the acquaintance of the estlnahle Chief justice Gorrie, the High Commissioner for Polynesia for in all disputes now with natives especially if there is any blood shad an Englishman is run up with

~2T~. Latter from Becke to his mother, (dtpt. 24, 1881), Typescript. 28. jo tea from Hy South Sec log. 259. wrecked off Peru sad lost "all he possessed in the world, a hitter ex­ perience recorded in "Frank the Trader" years later.26 The letters to his

■other 1Deluded in the Typescript all fall within this period, fron 1880 to 1882. They are newsy, brisk accounts of his activities) his chief con­ cern is to keep her informed of his business successes and failures — even the shipwreck and the hurricane are described with this end, although

111uninsting pictures of his node of living, his native food and housekeep­ ing arrangements, his concern at losing in the wreck "two splendid collec­ tions of shells one for you and one for Aubrey [his brother],* as well as a box he had nade "from the wreck of the 'Leonora1 when [hej was castaway on String island in 1875 sie],a are included. He always Mentions any let­

ters he has received fron his family; sometimes they ware as long as eighteen months In finding him. To his evident wonder and joy, the boat which took him away from Hukufetau brought two from his mother, one of which, he said, "was only a month old."

Two of these letters, written from Manomaga, are so expressive of the hosarda of the life, the type of men, native and white, he had to deal with, and his own character and personal opinion, that I shall quote ex­ cerpts from them. In the first, he has mentioned a quarrel with the na­ tives — he doesn't give its causa — which resulted in his closing his

trading station and refusing to buy or sell unless they paid him ten thousand coconuts.

1 have built a very large house and outhouses and am or rather was quite settled down till this affair happened — most fortunately I kept calm although a few more words would lave brought on a ter­ rible mess — and 1 don't want to be taken to Fiji in a man-of-war to make the acquaintance of the estimable Chief justice Gorrie, the Sigh Commissioner for Polynesia for in all disputes now with natives especially if there is any blood shed an Fkgllshnaa is run up with

27T Letter fron Becke to his mother, (Shpt. 24, 1881), Typescript. 28. Botes from Mr South Sea Log. 259. -10-

hia up freely I got a little respite, he Is a fair sample of too many island traders foatl of liquor ana never happy without some grievance to relate against the natives, these are the wen that give the missionaries such a pull over all traders, thay are no better than the natives — they let their children run about wild and devote all their energies to the gLa-bottle, but still at this present tine the general island trader is as a rule a respec­ table and fairly educated nan, there are a few J.eft of the old class, the dissolute whaler or escaped convict.

After several nonths on Peru, he was glad to return to Sydney on board the George Bo hie, for he bad a poisoned foot which ships' doc­ tors were unable to help, and which was very painful. The Qeorge Bo hie

stopped at the Gilberts an route to Sydney, and fieeke net Apinoka, the

fanous island king. Bis experiences among the cannibals in lew Britain nust have followed soon,3*’ as well as his connection — whatever It was — with the colonisation of Bouvelle France in New Ireland, for Rabardy's death, which Becke claims to have witnessed,^ occurred in February, 1882,55

and in November of that year, la the last of the letters to his mother in ay possession, be referred to the misery suffered in Hew Britain,- and in

a postscript said he was then nearly dear of fever. At that tine he was

in the Marshalls, on the island of Majuru, called in some editions of By

Beef end Pain, which includes the story of the methodical Mr. Burr, Maduro.

The ten years following 1882 are again a nase of wanderings, sprink­

led sparsely with dates which I have been unable to verify. But enough has

been given to show the wide range of experience, and the really intimate

knowledge of native life and custom which Becke acquired, and to give a

realisation of the hazardous life he lived. Besides the nan of historic

note whose paths be crossed, and besides the natives with whom he lived, he

competed or exchanged yarns with unnumbered fellow traders, beachcombers,

travellers, sea captains. That he was remembered and his later career as

author followed even in those lands where so many names are "writ in rater"

30l Letter from Becke to bis mother, (Aug. 28, 1880), Typescript. 51. The Strange Adventure of Janes Sharvlnton, "South Sea Notes," 287. flldan the Devil, "Boboran," 191, 52, Ibid, "The South Sea Bubble of Charles du Breil," 243. 55. J. H. Mian, Tfee Phantom Paradise ,158. -Il­

ls recorded fay Janes Norman Hall, «bo found an unknown crony of Becks's determined to follow In his footsteps. The old captain speaks first in the conversation with Balli

"... By the way, ever hear of a nan named Beeke?* "Books? Do you moan Louis Books?" "That's the one." "Oh, yes, I've road asny of his stories." "They say he node a pile of nonoy out of 'em?" "It nay bo," I replied. "Did you know bin fay any chance? I be­ lieve he spent aost of his life in the Pacific." "Know hint I've got tbs bast of Louis Backs many a tins, trading through these islands. Be was a trader, you know. But I wouldn't have thought he had it in bin to be an author." "Bis stories have the stamp of truth on then,” I remarked, "and they're written simply. Headers like that.1 The captain snorted contemptuously. "Truth? I can tell you more truth about the South Seas in ten minutes that 'Lsio"l Louis Becks could tell you in twenty years. And that's what I've cone to see you about," he added. "I've got an of­ fer to oake you."54

Further acquaintance with Captain Bandy's literary efforts and his concep­ tion of "truth about the South Seas" make it plain that his scorn of Becke's abilities as a writer is less to be credited than Ball's praise. "It seemed incredible," writes Ball of this salty would-be author, after read­ ing his manuscript, "that a nan who had spent half a century in the Pacific should have found nothing worthy of record but his trading ventures.

Therein lies the difference between old Captain Bandy and Louis

Becks. Becks too was in the Islands for business. He was not, as has been pointed out, seeking material for stories, nor was he primarily an

Ml venturer, seeking experience for its awn sake. "Ohi I say, whatever you do, don't make ne out an adventurer,” a reporter quoted bln as saying in 1896, soon after the publication of his first books, "I'n not, you know. I'n only a plodding trader. Most nen out there do all those things for their living. It's all In the day'a work."56 Yet unlike the trader of Hall's acquaintance, and in spite of the business, always important to

54. Under the South, 158. 56. Ihld, 145. 56. "By Aeef and Palm," Daily News. (August 15, 1896), Typescript. -12-

a white man, of earning sonsy, Becks found many interests besides peouniary

o m « , euoh worthy of record besides kis trading ventures. He seems never

to her* lost the boyish urge for action; his boon curiosity sad his ener­

gy never seemed to flag. All this is evidenced again and again in his

tales and sketches, one of which seems to s u b it all up in a conscious

philosophy of life.

The title of "The Loneliness of It* was taken from a young Soot's letter to him, relating the monotony, loneliness lack of anything to do on the flat atoll in the Tokslaua share he sas stationed as trader.

The Scotsmen's description of the "uiserahle chain of coral reefs with a pool of salt water in the Middle, * and the surly or sponging natives af­ flicted with skin disease, is graphic, and according to Becks, largely true. Bat Beaks goes on to show very forcibly that it isn't the environ- awnt one is in that would a the life, but the Banner In which one reacts to that environment. The young Soot (we have no other name for hia) loathed the natives) he would read as long as possible, often until Midnight, then go to bed and "be kept awake till dawn by the confounded thumping and mnaol ng of the surf of the reef, and the eternal swish, swish, of the coco­ nut and pandanus leaves in the trade-wind. There was absolutely nothing to do next morning, but walk up and down, and round and round about through the grovea of coconut trees ... stare out at the horizon and wondar whether 57 one was alive, or only having a— drean." Books admitted the element of truth in the above statement, "... but yet my Soots correspondent, had he been differently constituted, — ntaii y and physically, and not so keen on

■aking n fortune by doing nothing, could have made his tine pass very pleas­ antly, or nt least, would never have felt trlate."^ Ob a similar low

5T, 'loath Austral Skies, "The Loneliness of It," 58. 58. Ibid. -15-

atoll, Hanonaga, Beoke, instead of walking aimlessly in circles, was ex­ ploring the entire island in the company of an enormous ton oat, helping loans build a church, (in spite of his views on Christianity among the na­ tives), learning to make coir sennit, or to build a canoe. While the young Scot stared vacantly at the horizon, Becke was gazing into the depths of the water over Tia Kan, the great submerged reef, with Uuli 'ao the fisherman, or observing a battle between killer whales sad a finback.

To him, tbs natives were wither "surly, cantankerous'1 brutes, nor “ser­ vile, sponging and hypocritical," but kind-hearted, honest, resourceful, and companionable. Becks reveals himself as an adaptable, intelligent young nan, tolerant, friendly, interested in people ana in all natural life, eager to acquire new knowledge and skills at all tines, fie was the very type to enjoy and the moat of his adventurous life. A less

intelligent person could not have learned so much or, later, related hie

experiences so skillfully, one less adaptable could not have survived,

much lees enjoyed, the vicissitudes of the life; a nan of surly and intrac­

table temperament would never have won the easy friendship of native and

shite associates alike, while a nan lass tolerant and, perhaps, more sen­

sitive, would have rebelled at the hypocrisy, cruelty, and stupidity he

was forced to witness tine and again.

Becke*• carriage to a young Irish woaan nay have occurred sometime

during this last ten years of his Pacific Odyssey. "IXtring one of his

visits to the Colonies he married a young Irish lady, a daughter of

Colonel Itaunaell of H. M. 11th fieginent, by whan he has two children."

These are the words of Pembroke in his Introduction.09 It is strange

that Becke never so such as mentions, even is his autobiographic notes,

bis marriage or his wife, although be was evidently passionately devoted

59l Ssrl”of Pembroke, Introduction, Beef and Palm, by Louis Becke, 16 14-

to the little daughter who often shared hie later trarelB40 and who appeared in a a m b e r of stories.41

Retro«oect "The Pea ie Mightier"

By 1892 or 1893 Beeke wee back in Australia. This narks the begin­ ning of the fourth and last period of his life; the twenty years of Island life ere past, end though he ie destined to be e wanderer to the end of hie deyw, his way taksw bin now nore in the petite of civilisation —

Australia, lew Zeeland, Bagland, Ireland, France, Jamaica, Eastern United

States and Canada. And though he eeens to have struggled against it, and to hare longed for the old Island life again, the chief point of his exis­ tence daring the lest two decades of hie life seems to have been the re- oording of what had gone before.

His own words, at least as quoted by e newspaper reporter, will ex­ plain how ha ease to writei

"fell, I wane up from the South See Islands about three years ago. I was in very bed health, end could get no employment in Sydney. Eventually I got e job to clear scrub at Manly. I took the contract at L5 per acre, but after I had worked about a week I felt sure that I couldn't clear an acre in less than three years. And it cost ay employer about L5 into the bargain for tools. Then I was continual­ ly in Sydney seeing if I couldn't pick up m y of my old friends. One day I net the well-known Australian explorer, Ernest Favenc. Ha said to ne, 'Cone down with ne, and I'll introduce you to some Bulletin friends of nine.' He took ne down, end I nade the acquaintance of Mr. Archibald, the Editor, and Mr. McLeod, the Managing Director. Archibald asked me if I couldn't write then something. Sell, I had never written e story, and so I was really very funky about it. 'Write just as you ere telling ne now; they will make dash good yarns,• said Archibald. And that's just what led to my connection with the Bulletin. I wrote half e dosen stories and then half a do sen nore, end those constituted the collection published in tine under the ti­ tle 'By Reef end Pain.' Veil then I got on the staff. In the mean­ time these stories had been forwarded hone, end I wrote at the sane tine to an old friend of nine, Lord Pembroke, asking him if he would reed then, and also that If he thought them good enough would he pan e preface. Hot only did he do this, but right up till the tine of

40. ''Louis Bo eke, * Free Lance, (June 18, 1896) Typescript. This article al­ ee says Becks "has but one child, a little girl of eight." 41. Wild Life in Southern Seas,"Mr Dative Servants," "Hiu6/ Botes from My South Sea Log, "Iscob and Pig," -15-

his death he assisted me In «vary possible way. This book went down very wwllj it is In five editions now. The second collec­ tion of tales, 'The Ebbing of the Tide*, has even had a greater sale than 'By Beef and Pain.* though I don't care for then so wall as the latter myself

At this tine Becke was also writing for nsgasines and periodicals.

The English Illustrated fcgsslne. Illustrated London Hews. Sketch. Sew

Bariev. Reynold's newspaper and Badminton, The fieldi Sydney Evening lews and Town and Country Journal, (whose editor, Salter Jeffery, collaborated with Beoke in a number of works), and later, the American Adventure, all published his short stories and sketches. Be sometimes wrote under such pseudonyms as *tJla Tula," *Te Matsu," and "Papalagi.*4S

Becks evidently went to London during the summer of 1896.44 Again, his activities and his movements are difficult to trace. In 1900 he wrote to his friends of the Sydney Bulletin. Messrs. Archibald and Me U)od, from the Morley Hotel in London — the same one he went to upon his arrival four years before. Be nay, or nay not, have had other travels in the meantime.

At the time the letter was written, he was undergoing medical treatment for his eyes.

I don't know what is wrong with my eyes they are very din and nisty and exceedingly painful. I told Banjo P.4£ that I think it waa caused by the shock I received on looking in the glass and see­ ing Ufwelf arrayed in Piccadilly costume. I looked like a confi­ dence nan waiting at asMfern Station for his bush prey.46

La spite of this discomfort, or perhaps with the feeling that he could shed it with the clothes and environment of civilisation, Becke was very busy at this tine waking plane to return to his old haunts. "... you will not be surprised to learn that there is a likelihood of ay return­ ing to the Islands as manager of a big company. ... As, however, nothing

42. "Louis Becks Interviewed," S. Australia Register, (June £3, 1896)Typescript. 43. "Louis Backs," free Lance,(June 18, 1896), Typescript. 44. Louis Beoke, "Some Memories," Typescript. 46. Ban jo Patterson, Australian poet, author of "The Man from Snowy River." 46. Letter from Becks to Archibald and McLeod, 1900, Typescript. -16.

definite is settled I need say no non* on this at present, except that I

■ant it kept out of the papers beyond a bare allusion to the probability of ay returning again to the Islands.“4^ He goes on to describe other ex- perieases, iatlnating a certain distrust af his publisher T. fisher Unwin,

("There is aa amed peace between us,” he wrote. "He is nost anxious to se­ cure everything of nine from Watt. Personally he has been nost assiduous in hie polite attentions (intentions} towards ne ”)?

Evidently, however, Becks*e path led, not to the Islands, but to

Ireland, soon after 1900. The dedications for By Bock and Pool end Helen

Adair were written in Dublin in February 1901 and January 1905 respectively.

At least one long Journey split even this brief residence in two, for the

Jamaica Qloaaar of June 8, 1902, carried aa item stating that "Louis Becke, the popular South Sea writer and novelist," was entertained at a luncheon welcoming bin to the island for a stay of six weeks or so. An undated aeries of memories records a visit to McGill University, end the "great time" the students showed him.

Svwry night half a dosea or more students would cone to ay room to "keep me company." Heat of then had banjos sod we ate Prince 51 ward Island oystsrs and drank Guinness's stout until the snail hours of the morning. Two waiters were kept going all the tine. ^

This visit was probably a continuation of the sane trip that took him to the West Indies.

Another Jamaica paper, probably the Telegraph, recorded his return to Greanore, County Louth, Ireland, in a news item dated December 10, 1902, awl added that he had "quite reoovwred from the effects of the accident ha sustained at Myrtle Bank hotel on the morning of his departure froa this

47! Ibid. 48. Ibid. 49. "Mr. Louis Becke," Jamaica Gleaner,(June 8, 1902), Typescript. 50. "Some Memories,” Typescript. -1 7 -

island."51, 37 the «ad of 1903 he was in France, where the dedications of

CMlnlrta'a flat, Ton Garrard, and id venture s of a Supercargo «ere written In

1903, 1904, and 1906 respectively.

Still restless, and longing for the South Seas, Beoke did not give up the idea of returning to then, if not as a trader, then as a naturalist.

In 1907, again in Bnglind, he wrote a long letter to liesars. Burroughs ffelloone end Co. of London, offering to procure for then "certain plants, roots and woods used for medicinal purposee by naoufacturiag chemists, and which arc sonatinas difficult to obtain.1,52 He was planning, ha said, "a long and extended journey throughout the Polynesian, Melanesian, and Micro- mesiaa Archipelagoes, ... for the purpose of making a Natural Bistory col­ lection. *

Whether or not the pharmacists found his suggestions of value is not reworded, but in September of the following year Louis Beck« was in

Wellington, giving an interview to a representative of the Dominion.

His present mission iw not, he states, a search for pabulun for further literary endeavour. HLs 1b a serious mission, hack \sicj by such august bodies as the Royal Geographical Society, the South Kensington Museum, and the Berlin Museum. He is to report to the Reyal Geographical Society on the Solomons, will make a collection of the fresh-water fish of the wane group for the South Kensington Museum, and make ethnological collections and investigations on behalf of the Berlin Authorities, who are tak­ ing a warn interest in his visit. Before leaving London he was assured by the German Ambassador that his way would be asde straight In the German islands, and included in the nail handed him on his arrival yesterday ware welcoming letters from the Governor of German Ms« Guinea, Samoa, and Sir Everard In Thurm, British High Commissioner for the Western Pacific. The expedition is expected to occupy 20 months or wore. As to definite arrangements, he could not apeak with certainty, as he had to consult with a German doctor, whoa he might have to proceed to Sydney to meet by Friday's steamer. The alternative was a meet­ ing at Auckland, and to proceed north by way of Fiji.3

Si. "A Leiter from Mr. Louis Bocks,M D. T., (Dec. 10, 1902), Typescript. 52* Letter from Becxe to Messrs. Burroughs Wellcome & Co.,(Dec.21,1907),Typescript. 55 "South Sea Novelist," Wellington Dominion, (Sept.9,1906) Typescript. -18—

Further Information of interest 1« given thus briefly in the final para­ graph of the article:

Hr. Beoke la accompanied by his wife and three [aicj children. Unfortunately, Mrs. Becke is suffering severely from a cheat com­ plaint, and sill probably undergo treatment in a Wellington hospi­ tal.64

Mrs. Becke must have continued the Journey, however, for early in

December the entire family arrived in flji. The Fiji Tinea gives a some­ what different version of the expedition, which, in view of tbs lack of other information, will bo quoted without comment:

Hr. end U r s. Louis Becke end two little daughters arrived from gew Zealand by the steamer Bav&u on Monday end will probably be in Fiji sons two weeks or more. Mr. Becke, es reported in these col­ umns previously, has a commission from the Royal Geographical So­ ciety of London and Berlin end the Anthropological Societies of the seme cities, to study the folklore In the pacific islands. Ho mors competent agent could have been employed by these distinguished so­ cieties for the name of Louis Becke is indisaoluibly (sic i bound with that of the various islands about which his wonderful gift of expression has woven fairy fiction or related fearsome facts. ... For the work in hand he is armed with phonograph and granaphone re­ ceivers for collecting verbatim songs and stories and also supplied with, as Mrs. Beaks says with a anile, "quantities of guns and pis­ tols.* But after three mi mates chat with Hr. and Mrs. Becke there is no doubt but that the chief assistance in the present undertak­ ing is to cone from Mrs. Becke, whose researches into the old English folklore songs (she has all of Cecil Sharp's music with her) and dances in the StfUex villages have been so successful, and whose en­ tire sympathy with the work in hand Is manifest. Like her more noted husband Mrs. Becke wields a fluent pen and has been a contri­ butor to the Hide World Magasine, the Westminister Qasetta, etc. and is now engaged on a book of remiuia^ mcas. They were each enthusi­ astic over the hospitality of the people at Rotorua where Mrs. Becke was accorded the privilege of "soaping" the big geyser at Wainangu. From Suva they will go to Samoa and thence to Tango and back to Hew Zealand where headquarters will be established. Hot that Hr. Becke intends to remain very long at any one place — but that a centre point from which to make various island trips has numerous advantages. Many residents will remember Hr. Becke'a former visits to Fiji some 25 years ago when Levuka was the capital city and the centre of com­ merce in the group.&

What cane of this mission remains a mystery. I found one further refereace to it, in an article in the Dally Telegraph of Sydney, written

54. Ibid 55. "Louis Becke, Arrival in Fiji," fljl Times. (Dec. 10, 1906), Typescript. -19-

four years later:

About four years ago Becke returned to Australia with the inten­ tion of visiting the Solomons in the interests of the Royal Geo­ graphical Society, for the purpose of collecting folk lore, ami se­ curing records of the curious chants of the South Sea natives. Ow­ ing to some disagreement with another member of the party, Becke abandoned the idea, and visited Fiji and Hew Zealand.36

This same article continues with the only further available record of Becke, outside the dates of the publications of his books, fro« 1908 until the tine of his death:

He stayed about twalve months in Hew Zealand, and about 18 months ago returned to Sydney. Later he fall into bad health and became an in­ nate of a private hospital. He recovered somewhat, and for soma time resided at the York Hotel. ^

It was in this sane York Hotel that Louis Becke was found dead, in his bed, on a morning in February, 1915^ "He evidently had been at work before retiring, for there «ere freshly-written sheets of manuscripts on the table."59 "He was not an old man in years, ... but by reason of pro­ longed ill-health he looked very old and weary long before his exit."60

"A Qnco-Brllllant Writer passed out when Louis Becke died . .."61

It was a sad «si, because an unfitting one. It was the end I an sure he dreaded. One senses it in the note of wistfulness in "Leasae/1 published only a few years before his deathi

It was at night tine that young Denison, Becke1 g counterpart in many of his stories , ex-aupurcargo of the wrecked brig Leonora. first saw the place and took a huge liking to It. And the memories of the seven happy months he spent there remains [sic] with him

56. "Death of Louis Beoke," Sydney Daily Telegraph,(Feb. 9, 1915),Typescript. 57. Ibid. 58. The typed copy of the article in the Dally Telegraph, dated Feb.9, said Beoke died "yesterday morning." The Sun of Feb. 19th also said that he died "yesterday." M&ckaness gives the latter date, Feb.18th, in his In­ troduction to Tales of the South Seas (x), and the Bulletin evidently re­ fers to the same date in its article of Feb.20, which said fisoke died "last Tuesday morning." Probably the Daily Telegraph date of Feb. 9 is a typographical error in the Typescript. 59. "Death of Louis Becke," Sydney D.T.,(Feb, 9, 191o), Typescript. 60. "Exit Becke," Sydney Bulletin, Feb. 20, 1915, Typescript. 61. Ibid. -20-

•till, thwijk he has grown griseled and respectable now goes trading no nor«. ... Still, although three-and-twenty years have passed since then, Denison often winbee he could live those seven months in Loses* over again, and lat this, his latter-day respec­ tability, go hang; because to nan like kin respectability naans trmdaanan's bills, and a deranged liver, and a feeling that he will die on a bed with his boots off, and be pawed about by shabby shawls smelling of gin.62

Becke should have died with his boots on, should have been buried

at sea, or on soma lonely atoll. Instead he was buried in a churchyard,

and as n minister of the Church of England read the burial service, that

shadowy figure, his widow, and his three older brothers — Charles Aubrey,

the banker of "Denison's Second Berth Ashore,«65 Alfred kordaunt, the

San Jrtncisco accountant in The Adventures of Louis Blake, and Vernon, his

stern critic and delightful companion on his first voyage away from h^me _ were at the graveside.6 4 Ho mention was Bade of his beloved daughter, Hora

Lois.

There la one saving note of grace in the aatiollnax of Becke'a denise.

I found it in the last sentence of the account of his funeral t

The grave is situated on the highest part of the cemetery, over­ looking the ocean.^

During his life he lived strenuously, actively, his work and his pleasure as they cane. Be evidently approved the old satire motto,

•B nat* tatou, a mat* popo.“66 Tet after he died he was to live after all, and many of his Pacific Island friends with hin, in the pages of his books.

62. Bodnea the Boatateerer. "Lease*.■ 298, 500. 65. Ridaa the Devil, 105. 6*. "Louis Becke'a funeral," Sydney Su b ,(Feb. 19, 1915), Typescript. 65, Ibid. 66, "When we die we remain dead," Wild Life in Southern Seas."In the Homing," 569. -21-

CHAPTER II

HIS WORKS

Thu works of Louis Becke fall naturally Into three roughly defined groups: short stories and miscellaneous sketches, novels, and histories.

Of these the first is probably the most important. It 1 b his short stories which seem to have been most widely read,"^ and it is largely upon them O that his reputation rests. And although one cannot point to one outstand­ ing work of Louis Becke and say, "Here is his masterpiece,* or "Here we have the very essence of what he contributed;" still it is through the aggregate impression left by his short stories and some of his sketches that we feel his sincerity and the strength of hie realism, and that we understand his worth.

In studying literature, [sir Arthur Quiller-Couch cautioned his Cambridge students], ... distrust all classification! All classi­ fying of literature intrudes "science11 upon am art, end is artifi­ cially "scientific"} a trick of pedants, that they may make it the easier to examine you on things with which no man should have any earthly concern, as I am sure he will never have a heavenly one.*

Hera the situation is reversed! the student has turned pedant, and, to make it the easier for professors to examine him, has classified and sub- classified the works of Louis Becke. In this chapter the groups above have been subdivided; Becke's short stories, sketches, long short stories, novels, and histories will be discussed in turn. This division is arbi­ trary, and was made to facilitate the description of his books, not to provide neatly labeled and tight-wolled pigeon-holes for them. For his short stories blend into his long short stories, which axe only slightly different in technique; his sketches and short stories, even as they are often bound together in a single volume, are associated in subject matter l] By Reef and pal» went through seven printings with Unwin between 1894- 1914. It, Ebbing of the Tide,and pacific Tales have bean reprinted as late as 1924 in Americe as well as in Engl and. 2. J. C. "Australasian Literature," The Nation, XCVII, (July 10,1913),30. 5. to, the Art of Writing, 129. -22-

and spirit) his novela sonstimea deal with history, and his histories fre­

quently partake of fiction. Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch's admonition, there­

fore, will not be forgotten: we shall distrust our classification, and hold

it lightly.

Backs'a first book of short stories was published in 1894. The col­

lection bears the appropriate title Beef and P*i»t a m the inappropriate

subtitle And Other Stories. (It happens that nans of the stories included

is nansd "By Reef and Pain." This error did not appear in *11 editions of

the book: it is present In Ur* Strovea's copy, published in flaglanri in

1898, but not in ay own Amsrioan edition of 1900.)

Of the fourteen stories in By Reef and Pain, nine are concerned with the affaires du coeur of white nea and native or half-caste womah) two are plotted around white couples, with native woaen in minor compli­

cating roles; one reverses this formula, and deals with the love of a half-caste nan for his native wife, while the white villain lurks in the background, »either of the renalnlng two is activated by love or desire; one is a story of native life, the other of a white nan among the natives.

Although the thanes are those of the conventional South Sea romance, these tales are objective and realistic in treatment. Whoever speaks of then, aa the Earl of Pom broke did in his Introduction to By Beef and Pain, as dealing primarily with thj "loves of white men and brown woaen, "4 is in danger of misleading the prospective reader. The phrase was deliberate­ ly avoided in the summary of the themes given above, (the French tern was substituted, non<~ too satisfactorily, as being more sophisticated ami ob­ jective), for there is relatively little In these stories of the tender

continent usually associated with the word love, and almost none of its romantic and iaeaHtic connotations. "'Us in the Blood” is a naterialis-

T. Introduction, gy Beef and palm, 11. -25-

tic tale of the fickle brown woman, who, after suceombing because of her native blood to the charms of a fascinating half-caste, sells her beauty to the highest bidder; end of the equally mercenary "fat hog of a German" who loaes on his investment in human flesh. "Long Charley's Good Little

Wife," less powerful end vivid, relates a more successful purchase of femi­ nine beauty, and "The Basket of Breadfruit," though much less calloused, presents the taking of a wife in m most casual way. "The Methodical llr.

Burr of Haduro,* anything but a love story in spite of its white nan, brown women theme, is an excellent character study — entirely in the ob­ jective manner — of the cold, dlspassionate trader, without humor, ima­ gination, or pity« "The Revenge of Hacy O'Shea" tells of a runaway con­ vict's crime of hatred and passion against his half-caste wife. O'Shea is evidently an historical character, for In Ebbing of the Tide he is men­ tioned again as one of several escaped criminals who infested the islands."

There is true affection In "The Fate of the Alida," and in "Hhderby's

Courtship, • (though the fact that it is transferred rather precipitately from one bus band to another serves to make one seek elsewhere for the real strength of the stories), as there is also in "Challis the Doubter" and

"Brantley of Vahitahi." But Challis himself is surprised and mutters in­ credulously at the realisation of his l°?e (after sons months or years of married life), end Brantley tries to avoid admitting even to himself that his Loita is anything more to him than "just a native."

The unalloyed love story of By Reef and Pain is "Pullen's Talol."

Though the picture is an objective one, though we never see into Pallou's pled and heart, the love of the great, gentle half-caste for his fiery little Taloi is the strong, dominating and motivating force of the story.

Where Becke saw that the relations between white men and brown women were

5* "Deschard of Oneaka," 162. -24-

"cynical and brutal,"6 so he painted then. Bare he sav devotion "ex­ quisitely tender and pathetic,"7 end he depicted it with simplicity and dignity, never departing from his realm of actuality, or descending to sent inemtalisn.

Of the stories not motivated by love or desire in this volume, only one need be mentioned. "The Rangers of the Tia Kau" shows the natives in conflict with nature. We have not the smiling, beneficent nature of a tropical paradise here, but a sombre tale of sudden death in the Pacific) impotent men in frail canoes are put at the mercy of wind and curling seas end hideous, bloodthirsty sharks. Standing alone as the one story of Its kind in the book, this story serves to accentuate the feeling of tdtterness and sorrow which pervades the whole.

Most men write literature of one paltry sort or another; flimsy stuff) but Becke wrote in fiction the reoord of a quarter of the world, and his tales are all that remains of the lives of millions.6

Becke was one day to record brighter scenes of this reef, Tia Kau.9 Perhaps

Hr. Rinehart was only reflecting Becke'a own thought when he wrote the lines quoted above, for in his later sketches Becke calls it the best fishing spot In the South Seas, with the possible exception of Arrecifoa and Christmas Island in the Worth Pacific, and adds, "but now, \>s wrote in 1097], since the whaling industry died, and the trading vessels are few and far between, the place is scarcely even known by nams.^

So much for Becke1 s first tales. Real they are, based on no flln? ay impressions, but on solid familiarity with his field.^ The book leaves one with that definite impression, but also with a feeling of disappointment at their unhappiness and grlmnees, and of surprise nt what

6. Earl of Pembroke, Introduction, By Beef and Pain. 11. 7. Ibid. 8. Alan Rinehart, "Legend of Adventure," The Bookman, LXII, (Feb.,1926),6. 9. Wild Life in Southern Seas, "The Tia Kau," "Deep Sea Fishing in Polynesia," 10.Ibid, "The Tia Kau," 29. U.Eerl of Pembroke, Introduction, J$y Beef and Pain, 11. -25-

seems to be a one-sided picture of island life. The Earl of Pembroke, who was influential in their being published,12 felt also a certain sense of di »appointment in then.

There la a certain no no tony, perhaps, about these stories. To sone extent this is inevitable. ... But I think it is possible that the English reader night gather from this little book an unduly strong impression of the uniformity of Island life.13

He closed his Introduction with the hope that Becke * s future books would include "some of those tales of adventure, and of purely native life custom, which mo ana could tell so well as he.”14

Becke1s answer to this was a second book of short stories published the following year (1395), and called The Ebbing of the Tide. Whether it fulfilled the expectations of the Earl of Pea broke or not I do not know, but certainly the themes of its stories are different from the majority of those in By Reef and Palm. Only six of its twenty-one stories contain the theme predominant in Reef and palm, the affaires du ooeur of the white man and the brown woman. Of these, ’Lullban of the Pool," told as

It is through the lips of a native, seems predominantly a story of "native life and c u b tom; ” "The Best Asset in a Fool's Estate" Is primarily con­ cerned with two wcite mem, one of whom uses a native woman in his djhome to rob the other of his fortune} and In "A Dead Less" the desire of the man for the woman is secondary to mercenary considerations — the story is chiefly concerned with the portrayal of the character of a calculating, cruel blackbirder. That leaves three in which the heart Interest dominates.

"Kennedy the Boatsteerer* and ' The Fallacies oi Hilliard” are cut from the same cloth as "Long Charley's Good Little wife" and "Challis the Doubter"

In By Reef and Palm; the one deals with the lust of the white trader for a native girl, the other treats of the disillusioned white — »» who electa

Tin Author's Preface, By Reef and Pain, 1898 Edition, vi. 15. Earl of Pembroke, Introduction, J y Reef and Pain, 16. - 26 -

to spend bis life In the islands with a brown wonan rather than to return

to the white one wfaon he once had lowed. "Baldwin's Loisfi," like "Brantley

of Vahitahi," treats the old these at greater length.

If the Earl of Pembroke, in hoping for nore stories of "purely na­ tive life and custom, " had in mind others which, like "The Rangers of Tia

Kan," would be concerned almout entirely with the natives, their manner of living, their beliefs, traditions, hardships, or joys, he may not have been completely satisfied with the group in The bbing of the Tide which 1 have classified as dealing primarily with native life. There are only four tales in this group,1' and every one of then deals not with natives alone, hut with white man also* "The Rangers of Tia Kau, * it is true, showed the influence of the white man: the fatal canoe trip was attempted because of a chief*a concern over the arrival of a Christian missionary) tat this motivation remains in the background, and no white characters enter the story, until at the end cate of the survivors gives his version of the tragedy to the white trader. In The KbMwg of the tide only ana story approaches "The Rangers of the Tia Kaun in this exclusion of white man from the native scene. This is "Minis," the story of a native girl who with two companions is washed to sea in a storm, and of how after many years she is ahle to return to her mother on Takai. Rather poorly organised, it begins with the story of Niais*s white father, which is told, not as ne­ cessary information subordinate to the tale of his daughter Minis, tat as though the events of his life were the chief aim of the story. The subse­ quent description of the faravery of the three little girls in the face of the swift, terrifying storm, presents a picture of native life and character which in convincing and strong.

This accounts for less than half of the twenty-one stories in The

ISl "Unia," "Hickson: A Half Caste," "At a Kava Drinking," "Lullban of the Pool." -27-

Kbblng of the Tide. Of the rest, all but one ("The Ebbing of the Tide," which treats of a negro, his half-caste daughter, and her white busband), have to do with white characters nore than with native ones, and Becke night well have written many of then with the closing sentences of Pembroke1 s

Introduction in mind. These are tales of adventure — tales of the sea,16 of the cutting off of ships,17 of revenge«18 One or two are chiefly in- 19 teres ted in describing an unusual or mysterious person, and one is set, not in the islands at all, tut in the gold nines of Borth Queensland, where

Becke spent s ow tine prospecting during his adventurous l±fe.LQ Some of these stories, such as "Laptan's Guest; A Memory of the Eastern Pacific,” with its portrayal of the life of the white trader who has settled down to live among and almost as one of the natives, and its picture of the native soul-doc tor; or such as "An Honour to the Service,” an ironical, touching account of an episode in the life of a white man who has "gone native, * contribute to the composite picture of island life which the reader begins to build up when he reads By Reef and palm; others, such as "Hrs. Liardet:

A South Sea Trading Episode," "A Boating Party of Two," and "Bell of

Holliner's Camp," have little or nothing to do with island life« Becke has widened his range in his second book; and if his stories are still pre­ dominantly sombre and dark, if he still shuns the detailed portrayal of exclusively native life and custom, he has at least given us a new kind of adventure, presented one nore facet of island life.

With the success of his short stories (By Reef and Pain was being printed for the third time a year after its first appearance) Becke was encouraged to try a more elaborate piece of work. Bis Satire Wife (1895)

IsT "Aurild. Reef." 17. "Deschard of Oneaka," "A Tale of a Mask," "The Feast of Pentecost," 18« "A Boating Party of Two," "In Noumea." 19. "The Cook of ’Spreetoo Santoo,'" (Also "A Dead Loss," "Lupton's Guest"). 20. "Sell of Mulliner's Camp." -28-

la m long abort story of two hundred pages. The plot, again. Is built around the white woman, the brown wonan, and the white man. Strangely enough, the native wife, who plays so prominent a part in the earlier books, scarcely appears in this story, though she is the motivating force of much of the action. The white wonan, heretofore behind the scenes in

Becke's stories, dominate the stage. In spite of their prominent posi­ tions, the two white women of the story are its poorest character portray­ als. Thus early is revealed a weakness which is found throughout Becke's work; his white men and his native characters are as a whole individuals, incompletely portrayed but true to life, while his white women are stock characters, conventional, unnatural, vague.®1 Helen Parker, the vUlainesa of His Native wife, shows a spark of Individuality in her unconventional and frankly expressed aversion to her husband and his missionary work, but in her reaction to Barrington, for whom she has a secret lore, she behaves according to stereotyped formula: she rises to meet him with a troubling hand and a deadly pale face, which had flushed deep rose a moment before; later, when she finds him lying unconscious cm the beach, she covers bis face with passionate kisses.2* Nevertheless, in Hia Native itlfe Becks demonstrates his ability to maintain suspense throughout a long work: one's interest is sustained till the end as the illicit love of the missionary's wife, the witchcraft of the old native grandmother, and the boiling sea conspire to keep Barrington from his "native wife."

Becke's next publications, in IB96, were The Mystery of the Langhlin

Islands and A First Fleet Family, the first two of his five or six col­ laborations with Walter Jeffery. Tho latter (I was unable to obtain the first) is not an original work, but an historical narrative based upon a

Zll Chapter III, 91. 22. Els Native Wife, 45. 25. Ibid, 167. ‘ - 29-

journal of Sergeant William Dev of the British Marines. Written as a per­ sonal memoir, the book traces the lives of some half a dozen characters through their experiences la the penal settlement at Botany Bay. Horn ac­ curate it is historically, or what part Beoae and Jeffery respectively

Mad in its compilation, I am unable to judge. Its characters, however, do stand out as individuals, their experiences are realistically portrayed.

Its editors apparently knew and handled their material well, and Becke has again widened his rang3, assayed a new form.

Pacific Talas and Wild Life in Southern Seas, by Becza, followed the collaborations In 1837.

Using the first two collections as touchstones, let us see how

Pacific Tales differs from then, what is new in its content or treatment, what has been discarded. One first realizes that Becae is lass concerned with the unity of the whole. In _§y Reef a w R p»i■ he confined himself al­ most entirely to the unhappy, grim, or tragic affaires of the white man, brown woman; in The Ebbing of the Tide, although the subject matter is more varied end the classification looser, the stories still fall within three roughly defined groups, and the unity of impression is maintained

In the continued atmosphere of harshness and grief of most of the tales.

Pacific Tales is less forceful as a unit than either of the first two books, and shows a growing tendency to include miscellaneous thomes and subjects, and a variety of treatment, within a single volume. For eaample, the tome of thaau stories ranges from the grim familiar picture of the white criminal in deeds of violence, in "Prescott of Bauraj1 through the more neutral atmosphere of "An Island Memory; Qaglish Bob,” and the bright­ er touch of "In the Evening,” to the comic element of "Mrs. Malleson's

Rival” and "The Great Crushing at Mount Sugar-Bag." The field of comedy is a new venture with Becke, and in those last two stories he shows a dry —30“

humor and a comaon man's rough and ready appreciation of a good joke. His picture of tha eccentric old H&lleson'e affection for his pig is particu­ larly well done.

When we look for the thane «1th which we became 00 familiar in

By Reef and Palm, we find that it is decidedly in the minority. And the four tales which hare to do with the white nan, the brown woman, give the theae a new twist. "The Ira of Uino Capal" is a cannibal story, a much more moving one than "The Feast of Pentecost* in The ¿bblng of the Tide, for the victim 1« the beautiful a m devoted young native girl Instead of a group of ruffians. "Cheater's 'Cross/ * besides contalalog touches of humor, * reverses the usual complication by having the white nan really in love with the white woman he has left behind; and though a happy ■»Himg la contrived, it is only by a tragedy — a hurricane washes away the trader's native wife and brings him to the arms of his white fiancio.

There are a few new subjeots — blacnbirding, a head-pick leg28 a lost treasure) other old (mss — white men gone native, M or criminals hiding from justice. But in these stories one notices an innovation which is discussed more fully in the next chapter,^ the increased atten­ tion and space devoted to description of the islands and of native scenes,

bast, we get acquainted in this book with Denison, the character who very frequently represents Beene In his stories We have heard his 31 name before, but in Pacific Tales he appears in so less than seven storit.a, Alan,~v the Hanahiki“* half-caste boatswain, and P&ckenhas, 12^ Pacific Tales, "Chester's 'Cross/" 103. 25* "Collier the Blacabirder," 26* "Dr. Ludwig Schwalbe, South See Savant." ¿7. "The Treasure of D m Bruno.11 28. "Hollis'S Debt.,■ "in Island Memory: vagilwh Bob." £9, "Prescott of Haura." 30* Chapter III, 6 ~ f V 31. The . bb,n. of the Tide, "A Dead Loss," 101. 32* ""in I s l a m Memory: :~ungli.,h Bob,""Chester>8 'Cross,'""Collier the Blackbirder," " ^ h e ^ S h a d o w ^ ^ o f ^Meduro,""The Obstinacy 33« Beene varies tiLe spelling of this name, la some stories it is Allan, in others Alan. In the text of this thesis It will appear Alan. 34. the spelling of the name of this island varies oh modern naps as well as in Beeke's stories. In the text of this thesis it will appear Msnahiki. -¿1-

the captain of the schooner which Denison sails as supercargo, are other characters who are becoming familiar to us, and whoa we meet frequently in Becks's later works. Packenham, interestingly enough, bears different

Christian names in different stories, Bed, Robert, or Harvey. But he is always the skipper of the boat, usually the Palestine or the Indiana, upon which Denison works.

Beoke tried his hssd at still another fora in Wild Life in Southern

Seas. This la the first volume to include non-fiction sketches along with short stories. There are about eighteen sketches and seven stories in the book, but so loosely organised are some of the latter, and so filled with description, that the distinction between then and the sketches is some­ times Ill-defined. In such stories as "Cto an Austral Beach," for example, or "Old Samoan Days," it is difficult to determine whether Becke intended the narrative element or the descriptive to dominate. Compared with the closely knit stories In JJy Beef and Palm they seem to be descriptive sketches, but in juxtaposition to a sketch such as "Jack in the Atolls" or "Blrgus the Bobber," they stand out as narratives, however rambling and aiaunifiad.

The sketches, which make their first appearance in this book, include a variety of subjects, and are very uneven in quality. This group will be founa to Include some of Becke's poorest work, but in my opinion it also

Includes some of his most interesting. The sketches reveal Becke's per­ sonal bent, his wide range of interest. In some of them we see to the ful­ lest his appreciation of nature, of the beauty of the reef and of the won­ ders of submarine life} in them are found some of his most intimate pic­ tures of native life and customs.

Becke's favorite subjects, all of which are represented in sketches in Wild Life in Southern Seas, are nature — especially ths observation of 32

wild Ufa,"5 Fishing Experiences, descriptions of Native Life and Cus­ toms , of Island People and Conditions, ^ and Geographical Descrl, tiona.^

Thera is also a sixth group of Seal-Historical Essays in this collection.40

In"Grca Gladiator" and "Birgus tho Robber" Beck : gives us the results of his keen observations of aninal life: the latter is a description of the appearance and habits of the pain crab, the former a highly interesting ac­ count of a whale battle. I asked two zoologists to select at randon half a dozen sketches from Wild Life and Southern Seas and his later works, read then and give their opinion of Beoke as a naturalist. They reported that in the sketches they read Becks shows more than a layman's knowledge of the forns he describes, that ha is reasonably accurate in the scientific terminology he employa, and that he correctly describes the habits of the species discussed. Too, they complimented Becke on his keen observation, on his restraint and objectivity, and on his intensely interesting manner of presenting his material. In these nature sketches, then, in addition to those qualities of writing present in his earlier stories, Beoke shows a power of detailed description, and a knowledge and appreciation of na­ tural science, not earlier revealed.

Bis fishing sketches are full of information about the sport: he

35* "Orca Gladiator," "Birgus the Robber: the Palm Crab of the Pacific Islands." 36. "The Tia Kau,rl "Jack in the Atolls," "Deep-Sea Fishing in Polynesia," "The Gigantic Albicore of Polynesia - the Takuo." 37. NNiu£: the 'Savage Island of Captain Cook," "In the Homing." 33. "Gente Heraosa: the Island of 'Beautiful People,'" 'Lave and Marriage in Polynesia." 39. "Green Dots of the Empire; The Ellice Group," "Australia's Heritage: the New Hebrides," "Rapa: the Forgotten." 40. "The Areois," "The King's Artillerymen," "'Leviathan,'" "A Spurious Utopia." 41. In Wild Life in Southern Seas he incorrectly capitalises the specific names of the whale and shark (5) \ In Neath Austral Skies he uses the family name of a shark on consecutive pages, correctly spelled the first and misspelled the second time (257,258)j both minor errors which should be attributed to the printer. 42. Dr. Charles H. Edmondson and William M. Ingram of the Zoology Department, University of Hawaii. -35-

goes into detail about the tackle and the bait,4^ the tine the place to catch each kind of fish,44 their habits and appearance.45 let tha ap­ peal of these sketches is not United to those who enjoy fishing. For it is not the joy of the catch alone that inspires him, it 1b the beauty or the interest or the solitude of the scene,46 the relaxation of a pipe after strenuous exertion.4^ In a later sketch, describing good fishing localities in Australia, he says, "That there is some excellent sport to be obtained in Port Jackson is true, but it is lacking in a very essential thing — the quietude that is dear to the heart of every true fisherman."4®

Becke, like Ixaak Walton, was a "compleat angler.”

"HittSi the 'Savage Island' of Captain Cook," and "In the Morning" are intimate, realistic descriptions of native life; in the former he re­ futes the romantic's portrayal of the scene, (the white trader does not lead the "dreamy, c&releaa, and lazily happy sort of life which Herman 49 Melville has written in those two charming books - 'Typee* and ' Omoo1"); in the latter he himself paints a more happy, placid, but still unidealized picture.

The essays of the remaining groups are more objective, more purely factual. The historical sketches are not complete — they do not pretend to treat their subjects fully; Becke merely presents some phase of a topic which interests him, as in "The Areois" and "A Spurious Utopia,” or sketches the historical highlights, and dwells on some exciting episode, as in his sketch of the whaling industry, "'Leviathan.'”

"A Bo bid Sea Game,” classed with the stories, is worthy of note not alone for its quality, but also because in it is given the first and only

43. Life in Southern Seas, "The Gigantic Albicore of Polynesia-Tbe Takuo,166. 44. Ibid, "Deep Sea Fishing in Polynesia,” U S . 45. Ibid, "The Gigantic Albicore of PolynesiaTThe Takuo," 166. 46. Ibid, "Tha Tia Kau," 29. 47. Ibid, 37. 48. Rock and Pool, "On a Tidal River," 131. 49. Wild Life in Southern Seas, "Hiu6: the 'Savage Island» of Captain Cook," £92. -¿ 4-

detailed description of surf-riding which Becxe has given. Scenes of the natives at work, fishing, hunting, and even cooking, are plentiful in his sketches and later stories, but the dances he barely ¡centions, and the surf­ ing he usually ignores. This one description of the sport is detailed and interesting. One brief quotation will serve to show its charm. Becke is describing the ride of old Pakia, who "like an old troop-horse who dozes in a field, and whose blood tingles to some distant bugle call," h*R beard the sound of merry-making ami joined the sport.

Then, as a bursting roller thundered along and swept down ufon thea, they gave hia a shove and sprang before it themselves — one on each Side. And, old and half blind as he was, he case in like an arrow from the bow of a eighty archer, his scanty white locks trailing be­ hind his poor old head like the frayed-out end of a anallla hawser, his face set, and his feeble old throat crowing a quavering, shaking note of triumph as he shot up to the very margin of the beach, amid a roar of applause from the naked and admiring spectatoes.60

Rodman the Boatsteerwr and Other Stories, published in IB'jB, con­ tains four stories whose settings are at sea, three set in Australia or

New Zealand, and thirteen scattered throughout many island groups in the

Pacific — the Moluccas, the Gilbert and Solomon Groups, the New Hebrides, the Carolines, Samoa, the Paumotus. Some of these stories show a disap­ pointing development; Becke has endeavored to incluae the conventional and conventionalized romance, which is not his forte, in his stories of lives and adventures in a quarter of the globe which he mows well, and which is his forte. "Mrs. Clinton" is interesting in so far as it describee the horrible conditions aboard the convict ship, m o such characters as the kindly old American skipper, who takes the refugees away with him "to the best country on the earth,” but it is trite melodrama in its scenes be­ tween the villain Bolger ana Mrs. Clinton, and very we ax throughout as a love story. "A Touch of the Tar Brush," too, presents an interesting

50! Wild Life in Southern Seas, "A Noble Sea Game," 156. 51. Rodman the Boatsteerer, "Mrs. Clinton," 92. - 35-

character in Dr. Rauparaha, a wealthy Representative with Maori blood In his veins, whose political influence ia entirely exert«! towards bettering the conditions of the "Bushmen." But the love story of hin and Helen

Torringley, fiancée of his political enemy and also of nixed blood, is sentimentalism, it culminates in elopement after a few days' courtship, and the note left by Helen for her aunt and cousin reminds us that this is another version of "'Tis in the Blood*

"Do not blame me. 1 cannot help it. 1 love him, and am going away with him to another country. Perhaps it is my mother's blood. Wipe me out of your memory forever.*®3

'Hina" is a fantastic love triangle, or rather, rectangle, for at firat both women are married to one cruel man, then both want to marry the kindly trader who had befriended the one and was affianced to the other. Becke 'a realism came back to M m , perhaps, at the climax, for the woman who was on the spot to throw her arms about Lester'a neck and declare her love, won him, while the one who wrote a letter received only payment in kind - ano­ ther letter. "The East Indian Cousin" likewise forces weak romance upon a good adventure story, by permitting a lady in distress to be rescued by and subsequently married to her wandering cousin. Even Rodman the Boat- steerer must have a sister who is in love with his ship's officer to add heart interest to the tale of M s mutiny and escape. T M s intrusion of the white woman and conventional romance upon a scene which does not call for them weakens Becke's work; and if we were disappointed at first in the lack of romance in By Reef and Palm, we are disillusioned by the brand of sentimentalism which goes under its name in Hodman the Boatsteerer.

But these stories are in the minority in this collection. There is

"The Cutting Off of the Queen Charlotte," an exciting story much more

52. By Reef and Palm, 35. 53. Rodman the Boatsteerer,"A Touch of the Tar Brush," 152. —36—

elaborately executed than earlier stories of the cutting off of ships,

such a«'Che Feast of Pentecost" 54 and "Deschard of Qneaka,"66 Unlike

then, it shows a cutting off party planned and executed entirely by savage natives, and its suspense is well Maintained. The humorous story, an innovation in Pacific Tales, is well represented here in "A Question of

precedence," an aauslng picture of island etiquette, which also gives us an intimate glimpse of native and trader life and psychology, as do "A

Pan ape an Canvenance," "A Point of Theology on kaduro," and "Leaas£. H

Three of the stories, like Prescott of Naura" in Pacific Tales, tell of

fugitives from justice, but » h i m the above story, and most of the oihars

of this theme, the criminals in "itha the Half-Blood," "The Escapee,■ and

"In the King's Service" are leading upright lives, one's sympathy is with

them as they try to escape the long a m of the law. "The Man of Impulse"

and "The Trader's Wife," brief, bloody episodes of island life, are typical

of Beoke's earlier stories. With the advent of sentimentalism and of the

shite "lady" in a prominent place, the brown woman has (as is mo doubt fit­

ting), almost disappeared: native or half-caste women appear in enly half

a dozen of these stories, and seldom are these in positions of prominence.

Backs and Jeffery turned for the second time to historical material

for their collaborative novel which appeared in 1898. The Mutineer is the

story of Fletcher Christian and his famous, ill-fated mutiny aboard the

Bounty. The ability of these authors to make effective use of historical

material la again demonstrated in this book, which is wall-plotted, exciting,

ntirf which, though it errs in details, conforms as a whole with the facts

as given in the more accurate historical novel Mrtilny on the Bounty, by

Char las Nordhoff and James Norman Hall.

bil The Ebbing of the Tide. 253. 55. Ibid, 157. -37-

Tbe Mutineer enphasiaea a different part of the dranatic story tfgtlgy °® tto» Bomty* It begins as the ship Is about to sail away fro»

Tahiti laden with its cargo of breadfruit trees, and follows the mutineers

In their search for an isolated island, and in their subsequent tragic life an lonely Pitcairn* The later collaboration tells the earlier part of tha story in some detail, and told as it is through the eyes of one of the midshipman who returned to Baglaad to be tried for mutiny, the fate of the mtineers on Pitcairn is learned only in an epilogue. The Mutineer also differs In detail fro» Mutiny on the Bounty, (in the former, it was

Christian's beloved Muhina who cut the Bounty cable, not the taio of one of the persecuted seamen; the mutiny was planned by many of the season before they left Tahiti, instead of breaking forth spontaneously after

Christian's rebellion; and Christian died, not among the first to be shot by the native non, as in tha later book, but by on accidental self-inflict­ ed wound during his attempt to give himself op to the first ship sighted by the lonely band), but its spirit, and the characterisation of the chief participants are ramarkahly similar.

One imagines that the framework of the plot was built by Jeffery.

The episodic quality of Becke'a early short stories, the simplicity of the complication In his one longer work to date, Hla Mative Wife, the looseness of organisation which he so easily falls into in his sketches and later stories, and the fact that up to this time he has not essayed a novel or other highly complicated form by himself, all lead one to feel that in the handling of the plot Becke has deferred to hla co author*"

56. Substantiation of this deduction was found in the material received from Australia after this chapter was completed. An article on Becke In the Tree Lance (June 16, 1636) says, He CBeck^) speaks very enthu­ siastically of his colleague [jefferyJ, possessing in a very great de­ gree a faculty denied to himself, i.e., that of collating and drawing together the threads of a plot. Becke cheerfully and modestly admits that he himself is horribly lacking in consecutiveness.* (Typescript). 38-

In the following year, 1839, Bec&e brought out Riaan the Devil, & collection of short stories and scotches, he edited Old Convict Days, a

journal of William Derricourt, an adventurer, convict, prospector, respec­ ted citizen] and, again with Walter Jeffery, he wrote Admiral Phillip, the

Founding of Saw South Wales, a history. >

Old Convict Days, like A First fleet Family, is based on a factual

Journal of a man who began life in England, and who went through many vicia- 57 situdes, including experiences in the penal settlements in Australia.

Apparently William Derricourt's journal was not so thoroughly edited as was William Dew's. Old Convict Days shows less selection of detail, less

structural organization, than The First gleet Family. Instead of being re­

written as a memoir, Old Convict Days is presented more in the style of the

journal upon which it is based. Its hero is not a virtuous and dependable,

if slightly thick-headed, yeoman, but a self-reliant rogue — a regular ID "Jack Sheppard,“ as he la called in one of the chapter headings.'' The

vicissituies of the hero, and the wandering, frank, realistic detail of

his account, make this book a fitting companion to Defoe's novel of the

18th century opportunist's life.

As in Pacific Tales, there is a miscellany of material, themes,

and manner of treatment in Riaan the Devil. The collection takes its ti­

tle from the first story in the book, which stands out in one's memory

from all the other native tales included. "Kldan the Devil" tells of a

native of the little-known island of Qneata off the coast of New Guinea,

who was taken as laborer to a German plantation in Samoa. The story of

his persecution and martyrdom, of his change from a happy, lovable, trust­

ing giant to a sulky, desperate, savage devil, and of his pathetic joy

57^ Louis Becke, Introduction, Old Convict Days, vii. 58. Old Convict Days, "A Modern Jack Sheppard," 39. -39-

and gratitude when someone at last tried to understand him, is told with

Becke'b early objectiveness, with no embellishments or sentimentalism.

There are brighter native tales in this book, even & comic one,69 as there are also tales of adventure at sea,*-0 and tales set in Australia.6^

The brown woman appears in several of the island stories,6' but in only one does the white-man-brown-woman theme form the main interest. This is

"The White Wife and the Brown Woman, " a strange triangle with an extra aide, for as in "Kina” in Rodman the Boatsteerer there are two men and two women in the complication, which is partially caused by the fictitious death of one of the quartet. This story throws the two men and the brown woman in­ to greater prominence than it does the white woman. Because of this, no doubt, it seems more real, less artificial than "Hina" and the other melo­ dramatic tales in Rodman the Boaisteerer. Beoke loses his grip on reality and veracity when he writes of the white "lady," as he so often calls her.

To complete the miscellany, Becke has included a number of sketchesi a description of Christmas Island,66 an account of various socialistic ven­ tures in the South Seas,64 much information about fishing in Australian and Pacific Island waters.66 "A Fish Drive on a Iti.croneslan Atoll" is especially worthy of note for its description of native life, and of a method of obtaining food which probably few white nan have witnessed.

One other characteristic, present in lesser degree in some of his earlier books, is so apparent in Ridan the Devil that its development should be noted here. That is the growing tendency to Include autobio- a £9. "In a Satire Tillage," 60. "Maurice Kinane," "An Adventure in the New Hebrides," "A Boating Ad­ venture in the Carolines." 61. "A Memory of the System,” "Bilger, of Sydney," etc. 62. "The Vision of Mill! the Slave,” "A Christmas Eve in the Far South Seas," "The White Wife and the Brown Woman." 63. "A North Pacific Lagoon Island." 64. "The South Sea BubuLe of Charles du Breil." 65. "The 'Killers' of Twofold Bay," "A Fish Drive on a Mcronesian Atoll," "Sea Fishing in Australia," "With Hook and Line on an Austral River." —40—

graphloal material, the more apparent use of personal experience in the stories, and an increased aunber in which "Denison," "the white Trader," or some other character who seems to represent Becks, plays an active ra­ ther than a passive role. In Beef and pel» Becks is almost entirely the objective story teller. In such tales as "The Revenge of Many O'Shea" and "The Rangers of the Tla Kan" we feel that the shite nan who talks to the natives and gets their talas, which he in turn relates in the story, in

Beck», although be appears so briefly and without emphasis that we are scarcely impressed by his presence. In "'Tie in the Blood" he in a char­ acter in the story, but plays a passive role — he stands aside and lis­ tens to the machinations of the clever rogue Alan, hears without comment

Vaega's decision to return at last to the bereaved Opemann.

In The fibbing of the Tide he plays such roles again] the reader sees him with a fallow ex-trader on a veranda in Sydney, and hears with him his old comrade's tale of "Auriai Reef." In "A Dead Loss" too he appears al­ most as the passive by-aLander, Denison, the supercargo, who neither helps the cruel Chap! in in his mercenary abduction of the girl, nor inter­ feres to undeceive h r as to his perfidious nature. Becka is a more Im­ portant character in "Hickson: A Half-Caste," but still not essential to the action of the story.

In these first two books, then, Becke, when he appears, is usually present merely as observer, or as the hearer of the tale, or as spokesman. an Be refers to himself, except in "A Dead Loss," as "the white trader,"

"the White Man"6 '’ the "supercargo,"68 or simply as

Pacific Tales shows increased esphasls of personal experience with the frequent appearance of Denison, who consistently aeons to represent

Beoke. Denison not only appears frequently in Pacific Tales,70 but at uo- By fieef and Palm, "The Rangers of the Tie Kan," 61. 67. Ihia,_,fTEe Sector's Wife," 126. 68. Ibid, "Brantley of Vahitaffi," 193. 69. Ibid, "'Tis in the Blood." 35. 7Q, See Footnote 32, p. 30, for titles of stories in which he appears. -41-

ticeably greater 1 ngth than does Becke1s counterpart In the earlier books.

In "An Island Memory: English Bob" and "The Shadows of the Dead," Becke de­ votes several introductory pages to the setting ana the circumstances of

Denison's presence; he aore frequently reveals Denison's reaction to situ­ ations he describes, as when in "Chester's 'Cross'" be tells ho« Denison was at first puzzled to see the two white nates and two of the k»maie« crew so fond of each other's company, until he learned that the white nan were brothers-in-law of the two hrown. Then he was in turn surprised that the two white sen would shamelessly invite the kanakas to go ashore with then at various ports "to paint the town red."

All these things surprised Denison — for he was very young then, and cane from a religious family. But ha gained experience later on, when he sailed with packanham in the brig Indiana, as you will see in another story.^

Furthermore, in three of the seven stories in which Denison appears in this book, ha plays an active, though minor pert in the plot.

With the prevalence of the sketch and the loosely organised, de­ scriptive narrative in Wild Life in Southern Seas, Becke's use of the first person increases. Sometimes, as in "Orea Gladiator" and "Green

Dots of the HMpire," he appears only incidentally, in other sketches, especially those on fishing, such os "The Gigantic A i m core of Polynesia

— the Takuo," he is an active and central figure, while in several of the stories too ha is relating personal experience quite undlaguisedly.

In Rldaa the Devil the autobiographical element is even more preva­ lent. Becke masks as Denison in only two tales, but in over Halof the total twenty—two he seems to be relating personal experiences, usually writing in the first person. Instead of appearing consistently as on­ looker or minor character, Backs in this book often plays the leading role.

7lZ Pacific Tales, "Chester1 s 'Cross,'" 90. 72. "Chester's 'Cross,'« "Tha Shadows of the Dead," "The Obstinacy of Mrs. Tatton." 73. "My Native Servants,""(hi an Austral Beach,""A Noble Sea Game,""Old Samoan Days." -42-

In the two Denison stories he is the central character,74 as he is in

"Bilger of Sydney,” "Boberan," and "In a Native Village,* an »■■”<"£ ac­ count of a battle of wits between the white trader (Becke) and the na­ tives. In "Bo bar an" he describes the cannibal chief of that n&me and his people, and tells of hie sojourn of six months in their village in New

Britain. In a later book, still more frankly autobiographical, he alludes again to his friendship with this chief and to hie experiences on Kabaira

Bay, giving a less detailed account, but one which agrees in all its 75 statements with this earlier tale.

There is no attempt in this book to make a chronological or uni­ fied order of events in Becke's life. "A Memory of the System" tells something of convict life in Australia, of Becke's boyhood there, and of his family- "Bilger of Sydney," two stories farther on in the book, and the next one to be told in the first person, relates as episode based on events of his post-trader days, after he has retired to Australia again.

Other stories tell of his island experiences. Some of these are straight narratives of fact] "The Wreck of the 'Leonora': A Memory of 'Bully'

Hayes," describes the breaking up of the buccaneer's famous ship, and a rare and exciting tale it iaj "A Boating Adventure" and "An Adventure in the New Hebrides" tell of thrilling and dangerous adventures at sea, ad­ ventures which, like the escape from the Leonora, Becke experienced him­ self, and which he probably relates about as they happened to him. The significance of this growing tendency to use episodes from his ora life as material for his stories is subject to interpretation; that the tendency is there ia evident.

In 1900 Becke published two novels, Edward Barry. (South Sea Pearler). and Tom Wallis, a Tale of the South Seas. Edward Barry is an adventurous,

74. "Denison Gets a Berth Ashore," "Denison's Second Berth Ashore." 75. The Call of the South. "My Friends the Anthropophagi," 115. -43-

romantic sea story, a "Mrs. Clinton"76 groan op and greatly improved. The plot has its weaknesses; loosely knit, It branches off into yarns, giving

information antecedent to the story, that retard the action.Hose Maynard's marriage and the suicide of the drees and Ranllnga seem ill-motivated; both

incidents savor of a desire to get rid of these characters quickly and

easily, although they are not entirely illogical or out of character. The

characters themselves ere not ell completely convincing: death-bed repen­

tance does not satisfactorily explain Warner's profound change froa a coarse, villainous ruffian to decent, magnanimous gentleman. But these

are minor faults, offset by the fact that in this book Bocae has combined

his adventure with his love story much more smoothly than he did im the

earlier tele with which I have compared it; has not cloyed it with senti­ mentalism, and has made of his characters acceptable people, clear cut and

realistically portrayed. Even the white woman, though her conversation is 78 occasionally a little stilted, though she is less a thing of flesh and

bone than the hero and the villain, la a real person.

Tom Wallis is a boys' book, published by the Baligious Tract Society

of London. It has little merit as a novel. Its plot is extravagant, a

confusion of diswnified adventures with miraculously happy endings; It is

monotonous and long drawn-out. It would be interesting to know whether

this book were commissioned.79 One has a feeling that the author thinks

as he writes, "Adventure is wanted, so 1 shall stick an extra one in here.

The book must not be harrowing, so I shall bring all these dead people to

life before lomg. It must be moral, so I shall insert some pious Protes-

76^ Rodman the Boatsteerer,69. 77. Edward Barry. 21, 29, 42. 78. Ibid, 103, 104. 79. I found no evidence in support of such a supposition. In an article which is too full of inaccuracies to be taken as strong evidence, he tells how after he wrote it, it was "hawked about from publisher to publisher for months" before he himself sold it to the editor of the boys' magazine Leisure Hour, as a serial. ("Louis Becke,"Bulletin Red Page, (Feb.27, 1913) Typescript), -44-

tan t remarks in this chapter.” A comparison of the religious faith ex­ pressed in Edward Barry with that of Tom Wallis shows the difference in the sincerity of the two books. The prayers of the repentant Barr ad as and the grief-s trie ken Mrs. Tracey are straight from the heart, fervent and deep,®3 while the religions remarks in Tom Wallis seem artificial and shallow by comparison, and the antl-flatholic propaganda seems intolerant and one-sided.

The bookb chief wirtnre lies in its picture of the hero, Tom, especially in the introductory pages of the book, which seem to be based on Becke1 s own childhood days. Becke reveals in these early pages that ha knows and under­ stands hoys.

Becke1s first two novels bear out the impression that the plots of his collaborations should be attributed to his co-author, Jeffery. Edward

Barry, like His Hative Wife, maintains its suspense chiefly by keeping us in doubt as to which of two women the hero will be united with, although it has the added interest and complication of the recapture of the stolen ship.

Its plot is simple, loosely woven, the devices sometimes weak or obvious, but on the whole It shows unity and restraint. Tom Wallis, an the other hand, shows neither of these two qualities; its weaknesses are patent, its plot confusion worse confounded. Neither book shows the structural skill of The liitlnaw.

In 1901 Becke published no less than four collections of short workst By Rock and Pool, On an Austral Shore, and Other Stories; Torae the

Adventurer, *»d Other Stories; Tessa,and Tha Trader's Wife; and, in col­ laboration with Walter Jeffery, The Tapn of Banaerah and Other Tales.

By Rock aiy* Pool and forks the Adventurer are more filled with sketches than with stories, in spite of their subtitles. Most of the sketches may be olassed an Fishing Experiences. They reveal the same patient and —4i>-

uloee observation of nature as did tbs earlier sketches, and give equally vivid and informational accounts of natlrs life. On different subjects,

"A Cruise in the South Seas — Hints to Intending Travellers," gives,as go its title implies, detailed advice to the prospective tourist. "The Co­ lonial Mortuary Bard" ia an essay which quotes specimens of graveyard 85 verse, with consents. This essay is uninspired, not to say boring; it night be brought forward as an illustration of the point that Becae's sketches include soae of his poorest work.

Although the sketches comprise about half of each of those two books, they do contain some good talas — along with some which are de­ cidedly- mediocre. "Solepa" in By Bock and Pool is a fine tale of a fight told by a charming old native man; bis character both as a youth ana as an ancient is well brought out, and names the story decidedly superior to

"An Island Memory" in the aane collection, where the language is flavor­ less in comparison. "The Man in the Buffalo Hide,11 almost too gruesome to think about late at night, should nevertheless be mentioned because Becke testifies to its truth and because in it he has gone so far afield — it is the story of the torture of a Chinese Li Bing Chang after the Tniping rebellion. "On Board the 'Tuoopla'* is a tale of romantic adventure. The suspense runs high, the danger at sea is exciting, and in contrast to the melodramas in Rodman the Boatsteerer this story is good fun. Here the adventure at sea, the native girls, and the seamen provide the tale with action, reality, and verve. The "fragile, violet-eyed" heroine ia sept out of the way so such that she hasn't a chance to annoy the reader with her sham "lady-likanesa."

My favorite piece in lorke the Adventurer is "The River of Dreams," which fells between the classifications of nature sicstch and story. It By Rock and Pool. 253. 85. lorke the Adventurer. 74. —46—

is rather idyllic in conception, though it branches off into Becke's

usual preoccupation with action — here, a pig hunt. But it begins with

a romantic description of the river, and his chance discovery of it;

it ends, after a number of by-paths, in the same pensive mood:

" U s a fair, good place, this, is it not?" whispered Salim, as he sat beside me - "a fair, good place, though it be haunted by the spirits*" "Aye» a fair, sweet place indeed," I answered, "and this pool and the river below shall for ever be in my dreams when X am far away from here."84

The pig hunt, a fishing excursion, and the preparation and eating of the native meal form the incongruous but intensely interesting picture within

this romantic frame.

Teesa and The Trader's Wife are two long short stories bound with­

in a single volume. Both are grim, extravagant sea stories, the former

bloody and foil of treachery, though the love theme is a happy one, the latter coldly, madly revengeful. Neither story shows any new development either in fora or in content; neither is outstanding in quality.

The Tapn of Baaderah, the last of Becke and Jeffery's collaborations, is the only one which is made up of short stories. It contains six island tales, half as many stories of the sea, two set in Australia, and three historical sketches. It can be seen at race that in subject natter this

collaborative work does not differ from Becke's own collections, unless

the historical sketches can be attributed to Jeffery's influence, for al­

though Becke'a sketches often deal with historical material, they usually

are less systematic than these straight historical assays.

The themes of the stories, too, might well be Becke 'a alone; white

traders in bloody rivalry over possessions and women, the cutting off of

ships, adventures at sea. "Susan!" is similar in tone to "For We Were

Friends Always."86 Both are plaintive pictures of unusual native girls; m lorke the Adventurer, "The River of Dreams," 112. 85. PaoiTlcTales, Zli, 47-

Susani is an island Ophelia, sweetly, pitifully insane, while the three

pathetic friends in the latter story are shown in a death conpact.

An examination of the characters shows that they too are typical

of Beoke's work. The portrayals of the traders and seamen are undetailed

tut verisimilar.®6 The native woman appears but seldom in this book, but

when she does, as in "Officer and Man," she is a familiar character, one

whom we have met many times before. The old native man, whom Becke has

pictured earlier with verve and skill,87 is charmingly portrayed in "Pekia.■

The white woman, alas, Is Becke'a own too. The "good lady" and the "bad

lady" (so amateurish is their portrayal that one is tempted to classify

them thus in infantile terns) both appear in "In the Far North." It is

strange in this story of North Queensland, with its vivid picture of

drought, and the feeling of reality it gives to Jack Barrington and his

horse as he rides through the scorching devastation, to read the silly

conversations which are supposed to reveal one woman to be a no hie martyr,

the other a selfish tyrant.

In these short stories, as in the longer collaborations, it is only

in the handling of the plot that I detected a touch which seemed to me to

bear the stamp of another author than Becke, and even here the evidence is neither consistent nor strong. The introduction of "The Tapu of Banderah," which is more smooth and formal than Becke*s characteristic beginning in

mediae res or with an isolated description of the setting; the great length

to which are drawn certain scenes, such as the conversation between the

Rear-Admiral and the Uriah Heap of a would-be missionary in "Officer and

Nan," scenes which Becxe would be expected to cut short in seed (see "In

the Old Beach-Bombing Days"68); and, in the stories just mentioned for ex-

86. "The Tapu of Banderah," "The Brothers-la-Law,■ "Officer and ban." 87. By Ro c k and Pool. "Solepa;" Wild Life in Southern Seas, "A Noble Sea Game.” 8®* Pacific Tales, 35. - 48 -

aaple, an evident attention to plot, which is not always an improvement over the unnrchitectonic yarn; all these would seem to be attribute.hie to

Jeffery, because (and I repeat, this reason is not convincing, nor offered as proof) they have not appeared as characteristic of Becke. An example of a story which la carefully motivated, but entirely unconvincingly, is "Foster's

Letter of Marque," a sea adventure whose childishly conceived plot is hung on the preference of a silly girl for naval officers.

The Jalaaco Brig, which appeared in 1902, contains two long short stories, one short story, and one sketch. In the same year Becke published

Broachiey, Black Sheep, a novel, ana The Strange Adventure of James

Shervinton, which takes its title from a long short story, and includes al­ so eight shorter worts, half of which are stories, half narratives of fact and sketches.

Of these, "The Strange Adventure of James Shervinton'' is to me the most interesting, both intrinsically, and because it shows the most note­ worthy innovation in Becte's writing. This is the use of the supernatural as an important element of the plot. The story is a strange and exciting mixture of apparent truth and fiction, of realism and of fancy, of adven­ ture romance, lie do not understand, Bec*e does not attempt to explain the strange hypno tic power of the native girl Niabon, but under the In­ fluence of her mysterious presence our hearts beat faster, the atmosphere takes on an unfamiliar, supernatural hue; the sea adventure has a flavor

«11 its own, unique among Becke's stories of the sea.

Also of special interest in this collection are two narratives of fact, "Concerning Bully Hayes," and "Apinoka of Apamama." The latter is a description of the islana king whom Stevenson has perhaps immortalized.

It adds an interesting sidelight on the good-natured but terrible King's character, «wd records a much more personal impression — as well as a more -40-

pleas ant cue — than Banks wrote in Wild Life In Southern Seas. 69

Breachley, Black Sheep Is a loosely plotted, episodic novel, set first In Australia, later In California and in the islands of the Pacific.

Few of its characters are individualised; its hero provides such unity as it attains. This is the first novel in which Becxe portrays In the life of his hero the coarseness as well as the roughness «»v* the adventuresome qualities. The hero, Breachley, has for his ideal the savage-tempered

Barry Brandon, who loves to shed blood and to intrigue with women.

Breachley does not emulate him in hie first vice, hut he does in the se­ cond, although at the end of the boos both men "enter the fold of reapeo- 90 tability." Otherwise this novel, as well as The Jalaaco Brig are pretty typical of Beaks'a adventure stories.

Helen Adair, a novel, appeared in 1905; two collections, nhimde's

Flat, which contains two long short stories, four short stories, three sketches, and Ton Garrard, a novel, followed in 1904.

Belen Adair is a sentimental story of the convict days in Australia, though before it ends its setting is changed to Becke1 s favorite locale for adventure, the high seas. It is chiefly concerned with the escape of three political prisoner» from the penal settlements, and with the romance of one of them, a beautiful young Irish girl. As is typical of Becks's novels and long short stories, the excitement of the escape adventure and the in­ terest as to which man will win the heart of the beautiful young convict provide the suspense. Beese has become more and more bold, if never very convincing, in portraying the white woman: here at last she is the main character in a full length novel. Bar presence accounts for much of the book'» sentimentality and frothiness.

"An Island King," 249. 90. Breachley. Black Sheep. 288. -50-

"Chinteiu'a Flat, 0 the long short story giving the title to the collection of that naae, Is set, like Helen Adair, in Australia, tgoiw having an Irish girl as the beautiful heroine, It provides gold «imimg as the adventuresome part of the story; while "John Frewen, South Sea

Whaler,■ In the sane volume, takes us again to the sea.

Ton Garrard follows Becks*s usual patternj a series of unrelated events and adventures in the life of its hero, ending with the consigna­ tion of his ronance. It is set in Australia, and this tine its hero is neither sailor nor gold-ulnar, but a squatter who alternately Bakes *i>h loses his fortune ia raising cattle.

The year 1906 brought the publication of two collections. Barior

Tropic Skies provides a welcome change to the old settings in the South

Sea Islands (although several stories are set in Australia9^), the old blackbird ing or pearling adventures, the autobiographical subjects. Becke appears in fifteen of the nineteen stories, 8 one tines in a major, some­ times in n minor role; he calls himself "Denison,"'Drake," or "I." Though several of the stories include the love theme, the brown woman is en­ tirely absent from the scene.

Botes fro« My South Sea Log is a heterogeneous collection of auto­ biographical notes, island tales, nature sketches, animal stories, essays, and fish stories. The only attempt at coherence in arranging the collec­ tion occurs at the and of the book, where the last five entries are sepa­ rated, end entitled "Shipwrect Memories." One has a feeling that Becke wrote them as a beginning of a full-length collection of ahipwrecic tales, but, tiring of the subject, suddenly decided to include then with the Botes.

91. "Alvord»s Luck," "Dulce £st Desipere in Loco," "The Traitor," "Larsen and the Saw-Fish," "Trinconalee." 92. "Alvord*e Luck," "The Awful Duel on Btuan," "Olmsted's Adventure," "Ayesse of Manga Reva," "Trincomalee," "Lida." 51

The autobiographical information la this booh adds considerable detail to our Knowledge of Beexe's life. "Bay o' Fundy Days* in particular is interesting for an account of his boyhood and for a picture of his fa­ ther and his tutor» and of the atari of education ha received. (An equally good picture of his «other «as seen in "A Memory of the dyatos.n) ^ "Bay o' Fundy Days1' is a rcabling, distmifisd sxetch — the first twenty of the twenty-nine pages are leading up to the subject» & description of holidays at low tide spent in hunting for pearl shells on the reef. Even when fairly started on the subject at hana, Becte is easily drawn off on a tangent in this sketch. Speaxing of pearls» which he and his brothers used to keep in natch boxes, he is reminded of the old-fashioned matches, and goes into a long aside to describe then. However, it is in the "intro­ ductory11 pages that we learn something of his boyhood life ana of his family} for that reason, ana because of his evlaent relish in recalling the old days, we would not have the a »etch changed.

"By Order of the King,* a tale set In Sanoa at the tine of the na­ tive rebellion against King halxetoa, is surely an autobiographical inci­ dent. Though told impersonally, the sest with which Becke relates how the "nice, pleasant-spoken* young supercargo outwits the English, American, and German Consuls, how, under their very noses — with their assistance even — he disposes of his arms and ammunition to the native supporters of the king, leaves little doubt in the reader's mind that modesty alone pre­ vents Becxe's disclosing the identity of the clever young trader.

"Adrift in the North Pacific* is a thrilling adventure at sea.

That it is at least partially based on fact is indicated by Becks's ex­ planation of the circumstances under which it occurred, for this narrow es­ cape from the death he so often describes belongs to that period, always

93. Hid an the Devil, 19. •62-

vivid In BecJte's mind and vividly described in his stories, when he, with

Bully Hayes and the crew of the wrecked Leonora, was in exile on Kusaie in the Carolines. His own sensations when he found himself hopelessly adrift in a frail canoe, being swiftly swept away from land by wind and current, the dauntless courage of the eleven year old girl Kinie (daughter of his chieftain friend Knsis) and the fourteen year old boy Nan, who accompanied him, give insight into Becke1 a character and reveal once more the native's self reliance when in conflict with the powers of nature.

In "Yacob and PigJ? ostensibly an animal story, we come for the se­ cond time to a story written in the first person, which ties the events narrated with events in Becke' s life mentioned before, which seams to be based on experience, and which also includes as a character in the story the four year old daughter of the narrator. "lacob and Pig" describes his second venture in farming. The farm itself and the conditions under which he begins the undertaking are somewhat more favorable than those de- 94 scribed in "Denison Gets a Berth Ashore," and the time spent in the pas­ toral occupation is evidently somawhat longer (the earlier attempt lasted only a few weeks, the time of this story covers two months or more, and does not see the end of the venture).

The shipwreck tales at the end of the book, also written in the first person, are to some extent revealing biographieally. His partner­

ship with Alan the Manahiki half-caste is described in "The Little Maid

Aianaj * Becke never falls to speak an admiring and affectionate word of this old comrade of many an exploit in the Pacific. In "Frank the Trader" his own bad experiences — particularly in gray boats, which have come to

be synonomous with b d luck to him — are recounted) in "Bill Garde of

Veil a Lava 11a" we not only are told of the tragic deaths of a number of

94. Ridan the Devil, 105. - 53-

his early associates t but also learn gone thing of his early voyages in the

South. Seas. The atory of "The Unknown Ship" was told to him by a native during his resitonce as trader on tiaduro. In 'Captain Kelly of the Milly"

Becke finds another iqysterious seaman, and tells of his meeting with him

on an otherwise uninhabited island.

In 1906 Beck.•s contribution to the world of books was another no­ vel, The Adventures of a Supercargo, and his Sketches from Normandy. I was unable to obtain the latter book, of which he wrote, "It was not a literary

success, but I was well paid for it. " 95 The hero of the former is a young lad ly the name of Tom Denison; this is the first time, according to my

observations, that Becke has used this name to refer to a fictional char­

acter instead of to correspond, at least roughly, to himself. Like Tom

Wallis, this book describes the adventures of its young hero, whose long­

ing to go to sea is suddenly and accidentally fulfilled. But this book is decidedly superior to its predecessor t it is better unified, its plot is

more carefully controlled, and its incidents, unusual though they he, are not preposterously unacceptable.

Nineteen hundred and seven is the first year since the appearance of

By Reef and Palm in 1894 which is not marked fay the publication of at least one book from Becke's pen. It is quite possible that The Naval Pioneers

of Australia, a collaboration with Jeffery, or The Settlers of Karossa

Creek and Other Stories of Australian Bush Life, whose dates of publication

I did not find, belongs here« The Pearl Divers of Roncador Reef, which

I was unable to obtain, and The Call of the South appeared in 1908.

Although Becke has shown an ever increasing reliance on events in

his own life for material, and although, as I pointed out earlier, has

passed from an objective story teller in the earliest hooks through several

95^ "Louis Becko" Sydney Bulletin, Red Page, (Peb. 27, 1913), Typescript. -CJ-

stages to raconteur of personal experiences in the sketches and his later Qg stories, ho has nowhere attempted to piece together a chronological memoir. Incidents from his childhood are interspersed with essays of personal opinion, character sketches, tales of religious persecution among 97 the natives, and reminiscences of adult adventures. While the number of tales told in the first person, with Becks playing a loading role,has stea­ dily increased, not until The Call of the South was written did he make himself the unifying, coordinating character of a book. In The Call of the

South the stories do not stand alone, as they have heretofore in his col­ lections; they are numbered chronologically as chapters, the titles be­ come chapter headings. In all but two of the twenty-nine chapters Becke appears, never as "the White Man:’ nor yet as Tom Denison, but always in his ov.n right — throughout, except in Chapters XXVII and XXIX, which maintain the impersonal point of view, he writes in the first per3on.

While this device gives a certain coherence to the booh which has not been apparent in his later heterogeneous collections, it does not ac­ complish the unity of impression given ty The Sbbing of the Tide ami By

Reef and Palm. The subject matter is almost as miscellaneous as in the collections just preceding it — the reader sees Becke in action as trader,08

q q 1 0 0 blackbirder, pearler; now he is listening to & native recount some tale of long agof^°^ now brooding over the sailing ships of olden days in contrast to modern dirty steamers, or writing a refutation of the romantic's rosy picture of the paradisiacal South Seae.-^

Bor do we get any clear idea of Becke's movements or the chronology

9Gl Chapter II, p. 39 ff. 97. Botes from My South Sea Log. HBay o' Fundy Days," "Maudie," "Salomd thy .naaulesa,* "Frank the Trader.“ 98. XXV, "A Bit of Good Luck.» 99. XI, "The kanaka Labour Trade in the Pacific. 0 100. I, "Paul the Diver. 0 101. X, "Kala-Hoi, the Net-Maker." 102. XIV, "Making a Fortune in the South Seas;" II, "The Old Sea Life." - 55-

of his life in this book. The setting of the first tale is Admiralty

Island in the South Pacific, «here Seeks 'is occupied on a pearling ship.

He is evidently a young urn, for he confesses to the diver that he has a girl in Australia whoa he hopes to marry. The second sketch is set in

Sydney, and seems to be much later in tine, for in It Becks is about to

»leave the dear old city of Sydney for an unpremeditated and long, long aosence in cold northern dimes," he speaks of his "younger days at sea," and reminisces about the changes that have occurred in Sydney and in the 1 0 4 business of shipping since he first knew them. Chapter three Is again

set on Admiralty Island, and might belong to the same period in his life as

the first story, though in that he spoke of himself as in charge of a sup­

ply boat for a fleet of pearling luggers, while in the later chapter he Is

supercargo of a trading schooner, the Metarls, and the pearl shell is ob­

tained from the natives for trade instead of from the ocean by diving. In

the next chapter Becae is a recruiter, while in Chapter five he goes back

to his very first voyage to San Francisco as a boy, and relates his ex­

periences cm ships whose crews have mutinied. He seluom gives dates, though in

relating his exciting experience with Te Bari, the outlaw of Samoa, be

Bays that the rebellion against King Malietoa was then raging, and later he

says, "More than a score of ye art. before Robert Louis Stevenson went to die

on the verdured slopes of Vailima Mountain, where he now rents, I was gain­

ing my living by running a small trading cutter between the beautiful is­

lands of Cpoiu, Savai'i, and Tutuila, and the people ever had my strong

sympathies in their struggle against Germany for independence

Tne Call of the South, then, is an improvement as a unit over its im­

mediate predecessors in haring put a check on the confusion of subject nat-

105. I, "Paul the Diver,“ 5. 104. II, “The Old Sea Life," 15, 17. 105. XXI, “The Pit of toaota," ¡ill. ter and tone which was present in Botes from My South Sea Log and Yorke the Adrenturar. However, it does not attain the unity of impression of his earliest boohs. It is particularly interesting for the light it throws on the character and personality of Becke himself. In spite of his use of personal experience as material for many of his stories, unmis­ takable and accurate biographical information is scanty throughout his work. The consistent autobiographical tone of The Call of the South gives a definite feeling of acceptance to such expressions of opinion and re­ velations of character as he does make.^®

Death Austral Skies, a collection of short works, and The Adven­ tures of Louie Blake, a novel, were published in 1909.

The former contains about an equal number of short stories and sketches. Some of the stories are reminiscent of his earlier tales in their objective treatment and in their themes. The double-edged title of

“The Man Who Was Too Small for Hia Boots“ describes a sea captain whose two main vices, avarice and cruelty, fittingly faring about his death and consignment to a cannibal oven. The love of a white nan for a half-caste woman provides the Interest In "An Incident of Marriage in the South Seas,“ and in “The Deserter" is seen the old thane of the struggle of the fugitive from justiceta evade capture.

Several stories are set in Australia) "Julius Adolphus Jenkins's

Christmas Alligator“ is especially amusing as a picture of the English

“new chum“ being initiated into the frontier life of Townsville, North

Queensland. One story — and this is an innovation — is set in France.

It is written in the first person; George the Docker, whose story it telle, is described as an acquaintance of the writer. But for the smattering of

French place names and conversation, and such minor circumstances as the

106. XXI, “The Pit of Moots,“ (see quotation above, p. S5); XI, “The vwnwka Labour Trade in the Pacific)“ XIV, “Making a Fortune in the South Seas.“ -57-

preaance of an English oar at the dock, the story might as well haws been set in the South Pacific. George might well have been, instead of a docker,

Just another beachcomber whose past disappointment In love »«d subsequent revenge against the clergy had caused his low station in life.

There are two good Denison stories in this collection! "Denison Gets fiven With Saunderson," a successor to "Saunderson and the Devil-Fish" in

Hates from Hr South Sea Log, is prefaced by an incident wherein Sauntieraon is the cause of Denison's being discovered in the act of smuggling arms to the natives, and fined five hundred dollars. In the story proper Denison gains the upper hand, and Incidentally presents an amusing picture, one of his best, of a white woman, the widow O'Doherty. It is a good example of

Becko *s humor, and of his love of a rough and ready practical Joke — very practical In this case, for it procures sweet revenge and cold cash for its progenitor, Tom.

"Denison Gives a Supper party" is another hilarious comedy. A capi­ tal story, the cleverest picaro In the long and illustrious tradition of roguery begun by Mendez could well be proud to include the episode among his exploits. Told with a verve typical of the picaresque tale, it relates how our friend Tom, very much the worse for a fist fight with his captain, leaves the boat penniless, and with a limber tongue and a borrowed ten dol­ lars, rounds up, not only innumerable guests for an all night feast in cele­ bration of his "recent inheritance of a vast fortune," but manages so well that his friends provide the food, the drink, the dancing girls. More im­ portant, his enemy the captain of his (erstwhile) ship is humbled, and drinks his health; his enemy the capitalist not only apologizes for past disparagement, but provides HI a with the command of "the smartest vessel 107 In the Pacific, the Manaia." The humor of the tale, as the hero dashes

107. Meath Austral Skies. "Denison Gives a Supper Party," 18£. —58—

about town, giving every five minutes a different explanation, each adapted to the honor of hie hearer, of hie black eye, is spontaneous end sparkling.

When he explained to the editor «ho was to give him and his fortune pub­ licity, he apologised with dignity for his carelessness in getting in tbs nay of the gib-sheet block as the brig was going about) the un subtle

Chief of Police was informed that he fell over the hatch coamings in the dark, but to the french priests he eaid,”»Dimaxiche dernier su soir en

Bortant de l'4gl±se anglicane, J'ai trdbuchs, et ja suis tombe but le perron. 11103

We gratefully acknowledge the presence of an unaffected white girl in this picture, too. Hey, Capitalist Kao Bean's niece, who is the pawn in the plot, seems to me to be more natural than any white girl Becke has portrayed before. Denison is saved fro« the implication of caddishneas in playing upon her uncle's desire to marry her to a men of fortune by the spirit of understanding and camaraderie which the boy end girl dis­ play. Her uncle is used as a tool, but Toa dose not play upon her creduli­ ty.

In The Adventures of Louis h i « a« is reached the climax of Becke'a

autobiographic writing. Bare at last he has written hie own story, made

himself the central character of e full length novel. As if to indicate

how closely ha has identified himself with hie hero, Bscke has changed

only two letters of hie own name, and has called the young adventurer of

hie last novel Louis Blake. His brothers, Alfred and Vernon, also retain

their own names in the story, as does hie Uncle Beilby, who sent thea on

their first voyage.

Bven this book, hoeever, is by no means a complete fictionined

biography. It begins at about the end of his sojourn la San Francisco,

106. Ibid, 175. -59-

sl though there is a "flashback" of seven chapters which relates sons thing of hia boyhood, of the circumstances leading up to his departure for San

Francisco, and of the trip itself. It rads only a few years later, after describing his initiation into aea life, and hia first ventures in trading, gun running, and blackbirding. As Is Beeke'a custom whan writing about himself, he has omitted the love Interest entirely. Although typical of his autobiographic style, this omission Is a departure from his usual hand­ ling of hie novels, moat of which depend largely on the heart interest for their suspense. Adventurous, but less packed with incident 1han his earlier novels, this book is mere closely knit than they, and is highly interest­ ing for its picture of hia reaction to American life in San Francisco and to the South Sea Island scene.

Only one more book was to cone from the pen of Louis Becke after the publication of 1Heath Austral Skies and The Adventures of Louis Blake.

Bis swan song, Bully Hayes. Buccaneer, and Other Stories, a little paper bound volume of short stories, was published by the Haw South Kales

Bookstall Company in 1915. This book, like his first, carries a abort biographical preface.

T«ry little is added to one's impression of Beeae and his work by this last book. The first saetch repeats part of what he has already told us of the redoubtable Bully Hayes, describes the wreck of the Leonora in 109 lass detail than in Rid an the DevilT tells us what we have already ob­ served in his frequent affectionate descriptions of his period of exilo on

Kusaie, and his many allusions to his adventures with Hays a, that those days ar. to be remembered always as the halcyon tics of his lif e . ^ * It also describes his first meeting with Hayes in San Francisco — probably a

109. "The Kreek of the ‘Leomoraj* a Memory of 'Bully' Hayes," £81. 110. Bully Hayes, Buccaneer, 17. -60-

fabrication — and givaa many first and second hand anecdotes of that robust empiricist's checkered life. "The Glory of the dale" and "The

Prospector" ore romances, conventional but less extravagant than those in

Rodman the Boatsteerer.

Conclusion

Backs'« authorship, like his life, ended in anticlimax. Indeed, both his life end his authorship might be said not to have had a sharply defined high point, not to have been narked by one climactic incident. To understand the men at least an entire section of his life — that score of years spent among the islands of the South Seas — must be known; to grasp bis contribution as an author, one n u t read not one masterpiece, but a score of his short stories and sketches, taken from works ranging through moat of his period of writing.

Becke's earliest tales were objective, realistic, compact accounts of one of the many sides of Island life he had observed in his long so­ journ in the Pacific — the stories of white men in relation to the brown native women. They became more personal, more varied in subject natter, more autobiographical In content, looser in organisation, as he continued to write. Why this is so must remain a natter of conjecture. It might be that Becks realised the artistic value of introducing and maintaining a unifying character who appears again and again, as Conrad's Marlowe does.

But If artistic development explains his increased use of the auto­ biographical style and the character Denison, It leaves the greater ques­ tion of why these changes vers accompanied by greater carelessness in organisation, and the diffuse writing which appeared in his later books.

It is ny opinion that all of these changes came with a more facile pen.

His first stories did not come easily, for he felt that he was in unsure -61-

tarrltoryj he had b o confidence in his ability to «rite. As tine went on, writing became easier, ideas same faster, end he hastened to write every- 111 , , . thing dona in the fast, unstudied Banner he acquired. His material being what it was, he must soon draw on his own experiences for subjects and plots i it wee easier to put then down as they occurred, with himself undis- gulsedly the central character, than to fietionise his own adventures,

■old then with his imagination into artistic forme. I do not believe that Becke ever considered himself seriously as an artist, any more than he considered himself an adventurer when he was living in the pacific Tli> Islands.“^ He wrote for a living, just as he had formerly worked for one ae a trader or blackbirder. Therefore he wrote and published «a ra­ pidly aa possible} and as his facility Increased he drew from a wider range of experience, his stories became more miscellaneous in subject matter and spirit, more frankly personal and autobiographical in tone, and more loosely organised.

It is to his credit that throughout he limited himself to the ma­ terial and the scene that he knew well. In spite of hie few spurious at­ tempts, which resulted in unlifeliiteneeB and sentimentalism, to portray in positions of prominence the white woman, he may be said to have writ­ ten conscientiously and sincerely. In this lies ouch of his value. -62-

CHAPTER III

HIS CRAFTSMANSHIP

The Scene

"I think if a nan hasn't got local, local, and local experience he had better not write. I have been asked by nany publishers to write Australian bush stories, but 1 have always had the conscien­ tiousness to reply that 1 know nothing about the subject. The Australian story which I penned dealt with mining, ^ but as I have been nining I know something about that." 2

Thus did Louis Becke express his credo almost at the beginning of . his career as an author. And already ha had spent twenty years gaining that "local experience," collecting unknowingly the material for the stories he was one day to write. His years of arduous work and adventure, of exploring coral reefs end wooded vnlleya, of making friends with and learning the customs of the natives, of exchanging yarns with them and with fellow traders, were an unconscious and unusual, perhaps unprecedented, preparation for the writing of Island tales. The stories in his first book alone are set ms widely apart as the Caroline Islands in Western s Micronesia and Easter Island in Eastern Polynesia., and as closely to­ gether es the tiny islands of Funafuti and Ha nonage In the Ellice group.4

¿hong the many islands of Polynesia, Melanesia, and Microneaia Bee we moves with the ease and intimacy of long, natter-of-fact association.

The value to his work of Beeke's long sojourn In the Pacific is recognised on first acquaintance with his stories, for among the first im­ pressions one receives from them is that the author is thoroughly fwmiliar with the life he depicts, completely at home in the South Seas. 6 One feels at once that he knows what he is talking about, knows it so well that most of it has long since ceased being a natter for note or wonder.

TI Probably "Bell of Jtilliner's Camp" in The Ebbing of the Tide. 185. 2. "Louis Be owe Interviewed," 8. Australia Regie ter ,~T 3hne 23, 1696), Typescript. 5. By Reef and Pain, 101, 115. 4. Ibid, 93, 36. 5, Alan Rinehart, "Legend of Adventure," The Bookman, LXII,(Feb.1926) 674. - 63-

After one has read »any of Decks'e short stories end his later island sketches one senses hie exultation in the beauties of reef, the wonders of

tropical submarine life, end the charm of island scenes, but this reali­ sation cones gradually. Ctao's first impression, received in reading hie books chronologically, is that to bin the characters and events he de­ scribes ere commonplace, the setting end background ore so familiar that he ie conscious of then only in a secondary way. Be is concerned, not

with painting a word-pieture of a scene he recognizee as unusual, but with

telling his tale, briefly, objectively, even prosaically. Stevenson, looking shoreward from the deck of his boat, writes

A strong draught of wind blew day and night over the anchorage. Day end night the sane fantastic and attenuated clouds fled across the heavens, the sane dusky cap of rain ana vapour fell end rose on the mountain.®

Becke takes all that for granted in By Raaf end Palm, and writes as

though we ore ell Bailors, end like him have been over this route a

thou6ami timest

There was the island, only ten miles away, and there it bed been for a whole week. Sometimes we had got near enough to see Long Charley's house and the figures of natives walking on the yellow beochj and then the westerly current would take us away to lee­ ward again. But that night a squall ease up, and in half on h ur we were running down to the land.7

A Conrad, a Melville, or a Stevenson would have given an atmospheric de­

scription of the island, would have taken ue through the squall, but

Becke goes straight on to the action of his story. The island is there,

the current end the squall are real} one does not feel that Becke is

avoiding unsure territory, but that be takes the surroundings entirely

as a matter of course, as the average man takes the furnishings of his

office or the appearance of his front yard.

(Ti In The South Seas. "A Story of a Plantation,* 72. 7. By Reef and Palm, "Long Charley's Gooa Little Wife," 66. —64—

The description quoted above is typical of those in his first books, succinct, matter-of-fact, devoid of detail. In some stories, "Nlnia" end

"Lupton's Guest: A Memory of the Eastern Pacific" for example in The Ebb­ ing of the Tide, ha devotee a paragraph exclusively to the picture before him. But consistently he gives his descriptions briefly, carrying on the action of the story as much as possible at the same time, after the manner of the realist. In "Brantley of Vahitahi" he limits the description of

Tatakoto to these few wordst

The island is very narrow, and as they left the beach and gained the shade of the forest of cocoanuts that grew to the margin of high-water mark they could see, between the tall, stately palms, the placid waters of the lagoon, and a mile or so across, the inner beach of th^ weather side of tho island.

However, Becke soon shows development in descriptive style. In

Pacific Tales, published in 1837, one observes that ha gives increased attention end space to description of the islands and of native scenes; he seems to have become more conscious of the setting, more desirous of presenting its detail to the reader. In "An Island ¿Semory: English Bob" he devotes two pages to a depiction of Lean a 6 village, the trees around g it, the mountain bae~ of it, tbs stream, the beach, the reef. This is quite apart from the action of the story and is entirely unnecessary to it — Becke no longer takes the exotic setting of his tales for granted.

It is as though as he writes he wains to his material, sees new possi­ bilities, realises the rarity of all that he had thought to be common­ place. Words come to bin now in a rush, head over heels often, as will be pointed out later.10 They are not inspired words; he has not attained, nor will he, the gem-llka clarity of Stevenson's "... fantastic and at­ tenuated clouds which fled across the heavens,or his "... coco-palm,

®« By HBef and Pain, 195. *• Pacific Tales, b 10. Chapter III, 78, U . In the South Seas. 72. - 65-

- that giraffe of vegetables, 00 graceful, so ungainly, to an European eye so foreign. Bovertfaelees, the descriptions in such stories as "An

Island Uemoryt English. Bob" end "The Shadows of the Dead" are in their «ay vivid no! bright.

Slowly they paddled over the glassy surface, and as the little craft out her way noiselessly through the water, the dying sun turned the slopes of vivid green on Moat Buache to changing shades on [sic! gold and purple light, and the dark blue of the water of the reef-bound lagoon paled and shallowed and turned to bright transparent green with a bottom of shining »now-white sand — over which swift black shadows swept as startled fish fled seaward in affright beneath the slender bull of the light canoe.^

In Wild Life in Southern. Suaa Becks abandons the conpact, action- filled story for the more informal, loosely organised sketch. With this change description come to the fore, and with it sore detail and a wider range of interest than he has shown formerly. Is his later books he dwells at greater length on the reef, the lagoons, the shore line, the valleys, the native villages. Be la especially skillful in picturing the still, sultry heat that sometimes lays n depressing pall over the low atollst

1 hot, steamy mist lies low upon the glassy surface of the sleep­ ing sea encompassing Hamomaga, and the Laaily swelling rollers as they rise to the lip of the reef have scarce strength enough to wash over its flat, weedy ledges Into the lagoon beyond. ...A? the ■1st begins to lift, the Bteely ocean gleam pains the eye like a vast sheet of molten lead, and the white stretch of sand above high-water nark in front of the native village seems to throb and quiver and waver to and fro; the mat coverings of the long row of slender canoes further down crackle and warp and swell upward.I4

Becks has devoted six pages to this description of a native village, its sleeping occupants, and at last to the stirring of a breeze, which wakens them and sends then to the business of the day and to the chief point of the story, from Brake's point of view — fishing.

Botes from Hr South Sea Log and Wild Life in Southern Sera contain

I T. Ibid, T. 13. Pacific Tales, "Shadows of the Dead,” 212. I4* ‘»11^ Life In Southern Sera. "The Tia Kau," 29. - 66-

some of his richest pictures of native life and custom. The Pacific Island scene and the Australian soene as far as he paints it are best portrayed in his short stories and sketches. They are given in more detail here than in his novels and long stories, which depend on action for their length ra­ ther than on richer detail in background or character portrayal.

Robert Horse Lovett in expounding "The South Sea Style" says it is characterised by the persistence of tropic color, and the recurrence of themes, of which "the beauty of sea and sky and mountains, of sunshine «nd darkness and dawn" is the first.^ The descriptions of smooth tropical waters which he quotes from Stevenson, John La Farge, and Beatrice Griashaw are very similar in tone to this one from Beckej

For many hours the Triton had sailed thus, through water as de a r as crystal, revealing full sixty feet below the daxsllng lights and aver-ohanging shadows of the uneven bottom. How and agal n she would pass over a broad arena of sand, gleaming white amid encircling walls of living coral maqy-hued, and gently swaying weed and sponge of red and yellow, which, though so far below, seemed to rise and touch the frigate*s keel and then with quivering motion sink again astern. And as the ship's great hull cast her darkening shadow deep down through the transparency, swarms of brightly coloured fishes, red and blue and purple and shining gold, and banded and striped in every conceivable manner, darted away on either side to hide awhile in the moving caverns of weed that farmed their refuge from predatory enemies.^

The realist and the romanticist meet on common ground in thiB particular.

"What wonder that they write alike when there is no longer any choice of words, for each is at the extremity of the English vocabuluxyl

However, this increased attention to the beauty of the setting has not led Becke to idealising the scene. He still has a close grip on the realism of every day life, as the following will show:

The tide was very low, and the outer edge of the black w all of reef, covered on the top with patches and clumps of round yellow and pink coral knobs, had dried, and unaer ths fierce sun-rays a sickening odour arose from the countless marine-growths and organisms.^

Throughout he presents the background in an objective, conscientious 15^ "TEa“ South Sea Style," Asia» X U - (April, 1921), 518. 16. Rodman the Boatsteerer, "TBS East Indian Cousin," 175. 17. Robert Mores Lovett, Opus cit., 519. 18. Pacific Tales. -Bikoa,* 245. -67-

mftttpar.l' Figures of speech, f .ights of fancy, are rare In his descrip­

tions, Melville appeals to the reader's emotions in a whimsical, imagi­ native nay, as whan in the opening chapter of Types he imagines the ship to be longing for land, and describes the sea's drone to be "measured, dirge-like, 1,20 Becka's seas are "lumpy"21 or 'bhoppy;'22 and although he

sometimes uses personification or metaphor to good effect, he is usually not at home with the imaginative type of writing. The following descrip­ tion of a mid-winter morning on an Australian shore shows that he is capable of producing vivid figures, but it reveals his lack of polish in shifting

so suddenly from comparison with a wilful nalden to a metaphor of a

snarling beast.

For the bar of the Port is as changeable in its moods as the heart of a giddy maid to her lovers — to-day it may invite you to come in and take possession of its placid waters in the harbour beyond; to-morrow it may roar and snarl with boiling surf and savage, eddy­ ing currents, and whirl-pools slapping fiercely against the grin, black rocks of the southern shore.*5

In my opinion, Brake's descriptive technique reaches its highest develop­ ment when the scene does not call either for fanciful figures of speech or for the superlatives which Lovett said were characteristic of the South

Sea style. " 4 At his best he is thoroughly masculine, as he is in the

passage quoted from "A Noble Sea Qamef in which the similes themselves nr are sturdy and concrete, or as he is in the quotation below, taken fron

the sane story:

A strong breeze had sprung up during the night, and the long rolling billows, which had aped waveringly along for, perhaps, a thousand miles from beyond the western sea-rim, were sweeping now in quick succession over the wide flat stretch of reef that stood out from

19. Robert Mores Lovett, Opus Git., 518. 20. Typee, 6. 21. Rodman the Boatsteerer. 8. £2. Rjdan"the Devil, 516. 25. By Hock and. Pool. "By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore," 2, 24. Robert Mors8 Lovett, Opus Cit., 319. 25. Chapter II, 34. - 68-

tho northern end of the island like a huge tadle. Two hundred yards in width fron the steep-to face it presented to the sea, it ceaeed, almost as abruptly as it began, in a bad of pure white sand, six feet below the surface of the water} and this sandy bottom continued all the way from the inner edge of the reef to the line of coco-palms fringing the island beach. At low tide, when the ever-restless rollers dashed vainly against the sea-face of the reef, whose surface was then bared and shining in the sun, this long strip of sheltered water would lay (sic] quiet and un­ disturbed, as clear as crystal and as smooth as a sheet of glass} but as the tide rose the waves came sweeping over the coral barrier end poured noisily over its inner ledge till the lagoon again became as surf—swept and agitated as tbs sea beyond. This was the favoured spot with the people for surf-swimming....^8

The Themes

The themes of Becke’s stories are treated as realistically as are their exotic settings. This may be shown in one illustration. It was pointed out in Chapter II that most of them, stripped to barest outline, seem to call for the conventional trappings of South Sea Romance.^ The first story in Reef and Palm, "Challis the Doubter, ” has for its theme the wronged white man finding consolation in the arms of a brown woman.

But mo glowing romance, voluptuous bliss, or idyllio love is here. Challis, after four years in the Tokelaus, whistles contentedly, yet still broods over his trouble at bone, and wishes his wife would send for him. After four years, as he looks "with half amused Interest" at Halia, his native wife, he flushes hotly with the sudden thought, "by God I I can't be such a fool as to begin to love her in reality 11,28 The theme is romantic, the ending happily so — he tears up his letter to his unfaithful Australian wife and decides to remain always with Halia — yet the tale, especially if one's conception of South Sea romance has been built up around such a

booh, for example, as Melville's Types, seems harsh rather than tender} it offers mo escape into a romantic paradise. Its treatment and its tone,

26. gild Life In Southern Sea3. 149. 27. Chapter XI, 22. 28. mifUBj iReef ■ i .im and■ —' ■ Palm,nm nm* 19. -69-

in spite of its romantic these, ere realistic, fiber e are the darjciy beautiful, myaterloua valleys, the thrills of unknown dangers, the rap­ tures over the beauty of Island women? Compare Brake's descriptions of his heroines with Melville's. Balia, Challis's wife, was

a slenderly-built girl with big dreamy eyes, and a heavy mantle of wavy hair. A white muslin gown, Bstened at the throat with a small, silver brooch, was her only garment, save the folds of the mavy-hlue-amd-white lava lava around her waist, which the European fashioned garment covered.

The description is typical, and about as complete as Brake's descriptions of woman ever are. Harida, Tuplin's wife in "The Fate of the Allda,n is pictured in similar terms:

Sha was m native of one of the Pole* Islands, a tall, slenderly- built girl, with pale, olive skin and big, soft eyes. A flowing gown of yellow muslin — the favorite colour of the Portuguese- blooded natives of the pelews — buttoned high up to her throat, draped her graceful figure.'®

That is all« Furthermore, these pictures arc thrown in incidentally, within paragraphs which also carry on the action of tbs story. If we seek, we can find one other description in By Reef and Palm which, though less typical of Beene, is more sentimental in tone. In "Brantley of Yahitahy*

Loita's husband watches her as she weaves the strands of pandaaus leaf into a hat for him:

Brantley, lazily stretching himself out on a rough mat-covered couch, turned towards her, and watched the slender, supple fingers — covered, in Polynesian fashion, with heavy gold rings — as they deftly drew out tbs snow-white strands of the pandanos. The long, glossy, black waves of hair that fell over her bare back and bosom like a mantle of night hid her face from his view, and the nan let his glance rest in contented admiration upon the graceful curves of the youthful figure; then be sighed softly, and again his eyes turned to the vide saillesa expanse of the Pacific, that lay shimmering and sparkling before him under a cloudless s*y of blue, and he thought again of Doris.31

But at least as typical as the description just quoted, if such less

29. By Reef rad Palm. 18. 50. Ibid, 96. 51. Ibid, 145. - 70-

gallant, la this, s&ld of Vaaga, a Samoan half-casta, in "'Tis In the

Blood i"

The future possessor of the Oppermann body and estate was a pretty girl. Only those who have seen fair young Polynesian half-castes — before they get married, and grow coarse, and drink beer, and smoke Ilka a factory chimney — know how pretty.32

These descriptions, chosen from his first book only, are representative of Becke’s style in picturing his native heroines. Here is Melville's ecstatic picture of an island beauty:

Her free pliant figure was the very perfection of female grace and beauty. Her complexion was a rich and mantling olive, and when watching the glow upon her cheeks I could almost swear that beneath the transparent medium there lurked the blushes of a faint ver­ milion. The face of this girl was a rounded oval, and each feature as perfectly formed as the heart or imagination of man could desire. Her full lips, when parted with a smile, disclosed teeth of a d ax sling whitenessi and when her rosy mouth opened with a burst of merriment, they looked like the milk-white seeds of the "arta," a fruit of the valley, which, when deft in twain, shows them reposing in rows on either side, embedded in the red and juicy pulp. Her hair of deepest brown, parted irregularly in the middle, flowed in natural ringlets over her shoulder a, and whenever she chanced to stoop, fell over and hid from view her lovely bosom. Gazing into the depths of her strange blue eyes, when she was in a contemplative mood, they seemed most placid yet unfathomablej but when illuminated by some lively emotion, they beamed upon the beholder like stars. The hands of Faraway

But the contrast is already plain enough. Aside from the greater detail of Melville, there is an ardor, a romantic abandon, an enthusiasm, never shown by Becke. Becke wrote, not in the heat of young manhood, or after ha had first glimpsed a Halia or a Herida, but when he was nearly forty years old, and after twenty years of seeing the Vaeg&'s and the Faraway*s turn coarse and licentious, or revengeful and cruel, or treacherous. liven the fair Luita, who makes, one would think, as pretty a picture as "the heart or Imagination of man could desire," is unable to keep Brantley's thoughts from wandering back to Australia. Even as he draws her to him in

32. Ibid, 23. 33. Typee, 87. -71-

an embrace, he notices the tattooing on her hands, and mutters, "Ifhat a d d pityi this infernal tattooing would give the poor devil away any­ where in civilisation. Her 8¿in is not as darn as that pretty creole I

■as b o sweet on in Galveston ten years ago. .. »¿all, she'd good enough for a broken »nan like me; but I can't take her away — that's certain.” let this is one of Becks'b tendarest tales, one of the relatively few in which the love between the white nan and the brown woman Is lasting and deep, and as dear as life itself.

In the treatment of his potentially ronantic thanes, Beoice is essen­ tially the realist. In those few stories nentioned in Chapter II in which he attempts the conventional romantic treatment, his work is decidedly in­ ferior.^ The adventure stories, like those with the love thane, are realis­ tic. They are straightforward, matter-of-fact, they do not emphasise the mystery of their settings or the special horror of their dangers, such as cannibalism, but depend on the excitement of the action and the suspense as to its outcome for their interest.

Beeke's treatment of his themes is matter-of-fact, sane. Here again his realism keeps his anri his reader's feet on the ground, he is not swept away by romantic ardor, but views his subject calmly and objectively. He are not made to shudder at mysterious am: inexplicable dark ways of his villains any more than we are led into ecstasies over his heroines] it is

enough that the cold-blooded murder of nA Truly Great Han” be told with cool

irony, or that the cruel revenge of a Macy O'Shea be related impersonally,

with only this charge* "And of his many known crimes the deed done in this

isolated spot was the darkest of all. Judge of it yourself. His unemo­

tional, level-headed treatment of his subject matter offers no escape Into

34. By Reef and Palm, "Brantley of Vahitahi," 205. 35. Chapter II, 34 ff. 36. By Reef and Palm, 44. -72-

a world, of values entirely apart from our own, but if it lacks this allure that is traditional in the literature of the South Seas, it offers in ita stead the unmistakable impression of unglossed sincerity and trueness to life.

The plots

It was noted in Chapter II that Becke is weak in plot construction.5<7

Bis short stories are usually brief — most of his early ones ranging between six and ten pages in length — they usually relate a single, simple episode uncomplicated by side issues or subtle analyses of character, and are told in a straightforward manner, keeping up the suspense, but offering no sur­ prise endings or mystery. They do not prepare f>r the complication or moti­ vate the action by introduction or a careful building up of the situation, but relate the event succinctly, without elaboration. "A trait of char­ acter suddenly shewn, a flash of light, a deed of blood — and all is over.

There is no dallying, no brooding over injuries received, no slow prepara­ tion of revenge, but the knife, revolver or rifle gives instant effect to the thought or purpose. The elemental passions are alone at work.”58 By no means do all of Becke*s stories end in violence with "the knife, revol­ ver or rifle," but it is characteristic of them that the action moves swiftly, its culmination, whatever it may be, la brought about with dis­ patch. So compact are the i-ories of his first book that their develop­ ment sometimes seems sketchy; interspersed with lines of asterisks, the paregra hs of "A Basket of Breaufrult" might almost be taken as the precis of a story instead of as the entire development of its action.

The stories of his later books average almost twice as long as those in Reef and palm, but Becke does not improve greatly in construc­ tive skill. True,"The Cutting Off of the 'Queen Charlotte1" shows that he has learned more about creating and maintaining suspense than he knew 37. ¿hapter II, 57, 44, 47 38. J. G. "Australasian Literature," The Nation, XCVTI, (July 10, 1915), -¿ q^ I -75-

whan he wau writing stories of the the sane theme in Ebbing of the Tide,

such as "The Feast of Pentecost" or "deschard of Qneajta," but as a whole

his strength lies in the unarchitectonic yarn. An attempt at a more com-

plicated plot often ends in extravagance, as it does in "Nina."

His typical novel, lime most of his tales, is episodic. Edward

Barry» Breachley, Black Sheep, The Adventures of a Supercargo. all are com­

posed of a loosely woven series of events held together by the unity of

the hero, motivated by the excitement of the various adventures.

Edward Barry has in addition a sustained romantic interest; interest as

to which of two persons the hero will marry is an important element of the

suspense. Here as in his short stories, the external action is the impor­

tant thing. Barry is not torn between two loyalities, there is no inner

conflict, but when his first lovo is disposed of by being married to her

wealthy old employer he himself is not long in taking action to marry the

other.

Three met boos of beginning a story or novel occur so frequently

throughout Becie's booms that they may be mentioned as being characteris­

tic of his technique. The first is tha beginning in media» res, plunging

into tha action and depending on one or more ‘flashbacks" to give necessary

antecedent information. The Adventures of Louis Blake, "Denison Gives a ¿n 4l 42 Supper Party," "aidan the Devil," and "Enderby's Courtship," all il­

lustrate this method, felon Adair, too, opens with no preliminaries in

the penal settlement at Waringa Creek in AusLralia, and reveals bit by bit

the action that has gone before — bo* Helen came to be a convict and an

assigned servant of Captain Latham and of his wife, the intrigue between

59, By1” " the Boatsteerer, 160, See Chapter 11, 55. 40. »loath Austral Skies, 167. 41. Rid an the Devil, 5* 42» Reef and Palm, 85. -74-

tbe latter and a young lieutenant, and the kind actions of Captain

Latham towards the prisoners.

Equally characteristic is an isolated introductory paragraph which either describes the setting or the circumstancea under which the story Ah AA was learned. "In the King's Service" and "Kennedy the Boatsteerer"1** illustrate the first, "The Revenge of Uacy O'Shea"4^ and "The Strange ffhite Woman of Maduro" the second, while "At a Kava D r i n k i n g "^7 com­ bi nee the two. The ifcvMi««or, though a collaboration of Becke and Jeffery, begins its opening chapter in a manner typical of Beckei

It was night at Tahiti, in the Society Islands. The trade-wind had died away, and a bright flood of shiimering moonlight poured down upon the slumbering waters of a little harbour a few miles distant from liatavai Bay, ana the white curve of beach that fringed the darkened line of palms sbone and glistened like a belt of ivory under the effulgence uf its rays. For nearly half a mile the hroad sweep of dazzling sand shoved no interruption nor break upon its surface save at one spot; there it ran out into & long narrow point, on wnich, under a small cluster of graceful cocos, growing almost at the water's edge, a canoe was drawn up.

Less characteristic, but still not infrequently found among his

short stories, is the opening with the conclusion or results of an action or series of actions, followed by the narration of events which led to

the known conclusion. "Hickson: A Half-Caste"^® in an introduction shows

Hickson a sulky outcast haunted by bitter memories and called "murderer of

his sister". The story relates the events which embittered his life and 50 stained his reputation. "The Cutting Off of the 'Queen Charlotte'"

shows the brigantine limping short-handed into port before describing the

unfortunate voyage which brought it to this pas?.

45. Rodman the Boatsteerer, 214. 44. Ebbing of the Tide. 91. 45. By Reai and Palm, 43. 46. Pacific Tales, 255. 47. Ebbing of the Tide. 209. 48. The Mutineer. 2. 49. Ebbing of the Tide, 115. 50. Rodman the Boatstearer, 94. -75- H

the setting, the circumstances of the tale, ana the narrator hare been

so carefully introduced. Conrad uses the same method in many of his

stories—-The Partner, Heart of barmness. Youth. Lord Jim-— but be was

consistent in completing the picture. The partner begins by introducing

Its two char actors on the verandah., where the eccentric old nan hagi««

the aggressive telling of his tale. It brings us bacx to the verandah

and to consciousness of then again at the and. The picture is completed

so in Youth. so in Lord Jin. Becks could not always, or would not, re­

organise his material, deviate from thu truth as it stood, or remold the

yarn as be heard it, to name a well balanced narrative.

Although this is a serious defect artistically, it does not, in

wj opinion, detract as much fron the value of Becke's worm as one might expect. If we are grateful for a realistic portrayal of the south seas, uncolored by the emotions of a romantic, glad lor pictures that are con­ crete and objective, seen in the hard light of day through the eyes of one who most wipe the sweat of hard labor fron his brow before pausing to view the scene, we need not be disappointed to see the action of these stories described as it hap. ens in real life, where, as in some of Becme's tales,

"events prepared for never occur, while others unexpectedly take their places." His very defects in plot construction become paradoxically an element in his strength, for reading a number of his best tales gives one an annistakahle impression of trueness to life and of actuality, in spite of their strange and sometimes almost incredible adventures or crimes. It is probably due to the greater artifice in plot construction of the stories in The Tagu of Band rah that they seen more fictional, less reed than

Becke's own, such as "The Revenge of llacy O'Shea" ^ or "Adrift in the

57. By jtoef and Palm, 45. - 76-

ing chosen Lester as the pseuaonym, he was interrupted in the midst of his tale, seized upon, a new n o s upon resuming it, ana failed to catch the discrepancy in the ha-siy re-reading.

Th6 second fault mentioned, that his motivation is sometimes poor, that he leaves situations incomplete or unresolved, may be illustrated by

"Yorke the Adventurer" in the collection ot that name. Although seventy- threi pages long, this story does not attempt to develop or motivete the plot or characters in sustained unity. It really is just a yarn elongated, or rather, four yarns in one, for had Becke utilized its material in one of his earlier books, whose stories average much shorter than those of his lator collections, he probably wo~ia hove given the episode of find­ ing Yorke with his glass-barricaded schooner as one yarn, the hurricane as another, Yorke*a "past" as a third, and the encounter with the natives as a fourth. Seen as a whole, it is almost devoid of motivation find plot.

Events prepared for never occur, while others unexpectedly taka their places.

The expedition to procure Yorke*a secret cache of pearl shell not only is not carried out, it is never referred to after the plan is made, although the preparation for it in the text of the story leads one to expect it to be the tale's chief adventure. It is such a story as this, or as "The

Doctor's Wife" in By fie if and Palm thit Alan Rinehart must have had in mi nri when he wrote, "His stories must be taken as compilation of events, rather than inventions. Be could not end a story (except rarely, and when it hap, ened so) with any other means than death or a vanishing from eg knowledge." "At a Sava Drinking" in Ebbing of the Tlae. to name another example, is line a picture which has been matted and framed on three sides, but left b^re on the fourth, in the abruptness of its enain#, after

56. A i m Rinehart, "Legend of Adventure," The Bookman, UQ1 (Feb. 1326), 674. -77•t ’ i t

During the interview in which he expressed the value to an author £1 of "local experience" Becke also revealed something of his method of writing which sight help to explain some of the weaknesses of his stories.

"I write a story and never rewrite it. 1 don't take notes but let it un­ fold itself. Then if when finished it satisfies se I seep it, but if 1 don't think it good enough I tear it up."5^

It is easy to set.* how inconsistencies or violations in point of view, unresolved situations, ana car ole at sentences might pass uncensored in the use of such a method. All these faults appear in Becke'g writing, although it seems to se that their importance is relatively minor.

For example, in "Hell of Itullinar's Camp" in £bbing of the Tide. the antecedent action of the story is introduced, by hawing Haughton re­ minisce on the romance of his partner Ballantyne and ¿ate Channing.

"Briefly stated", writes Be eke, "this is what had occurred - that is, as far as Haughton knew." But after introducing the subject as though to be related from Haughton*s point of view, Beckc continues with the om­ niscient point of view, giving- conversations Haughton could not possibly have heard at first hand and would probably not have heard second hand, 54 even to remarks about himself. In "Aurlki Beef" Becke and a friend are talking of old times, when one of them mentions the story of "Jack

Lester and his little daughter, TessaP^0 A row of asterisks is followed by the story referred to, but without explanation Lester's mime has been changed to Brayley. Obviously the change is the result of a slip on

Becke's part, whether because Lester was the man's real name and Becke forgot to change it when substituting a pseudonym, or whether because, hav- ixU Chapter III, 1. 52. "Louis Becke Interviewed," S. Australia Register.(June 23, 1628), Typescript. 55* : of the Tide. "Hell of itolliner's Camp", 186. 54. Ibid, 188. 55. Ibid, "Auriki Reef", 2©2. -78-

North Pacific,"'5® which are more improbable, since in subject matter, themes, and character portrayal the collaboration is similar to Becke'a , 59 own books.,

A sufficient number of quotations from Bee tea1 b works have been given to indicate that his style is, at best lucid and straightforward.

A single sentence will serve to illustrate how careless and wordy he oc­ casionally becomes:

A long sweeping curve of coast, fringed with tall plumed palms casting wavering shadows on the yellow sand as they sway and swish softly to the breath of the brave trade-wind that whistles through the thickly-verdured hummocks on the weather side of the island, to die away into a soft breath as, after passing through the belt of cocoanuts, it faintly ripples the transparent depths of the lagoon — a broad sheet of Hue and silver stretching away from the far distant western line of reef to the smooth, yellow beach at the foot of the palms on the easternmost islet [sic].

Fortunately, this example is an extreme one. On the whole, Becke's style is readable and simple, if not polished.

It is interesting to note that Becke often uses material more than once in his writing. The incident of the three young native girls in a death compact is related in "For We Were Friends Always" In Pacific Tales and again in "Love and Marriage in Polynesia," a sketch in Wild Life in

Southern Seas. Similarly, the tragedy of the natives of Nanomaga who met with disaster on Tia Kau, the great reef, is told in By Reef and Palm.

Becke*8 first book, and again almost at the end of his period of author­ ship, in that essay which reveals much of his philosophy of life and his el character, "The Loneliness of It." An exploit of "The Man Who Knew

Everything"0* is retold in "An Adventure with 'Grey Nurses.'" The story 64 of the head-pickier also appears in two volumes, the first Pacific Tales, the second "The Call of the South?"

58] Notes from My South Sea Log. 75. 59. Chapter II, 46 ff. 60* The Ebbing of the Tide." hup ton' s Guest: A Memory of the Eastern Pacific," 247 61. By Reef ancHFalmp "ffTSe hangars of the Tia Kau," 55.1 Neath Austral Skies.87. 62. The Call of the South, 294. - T Beath AusTral Skies. 245. K* "ur. uudwig ¡¿chWaJ.be] South Sea Savant," £81. 65* "A Night Run Across Fagaloa Bay," 244. ■79-

In each of these instances, the incident is related in the first named story in detail, as its chief event; while in the second it is referred to in passing or told as a minor incident in a longer or mors miscellaneous work.

Becke's happy days on Kusaie and his experiences with Bully Hayes, often repetitive, crop up again and again. The wreck of the Leonora is 66 67 described in Biclan the Devil. again in Bally Bayes, Buccaneer, and is 68 referred to elsewhere, while an account of their quarrel is given at least twice.

"’Frank,1 the Trader"^ relates an experience of Becke'a which is again told, more briefly, in "Some Skippers With thorn I have Sailed.

In these accounts there are, however, sone discrepancies. In both the skipper who was responsible for the catastrophe is described as little, conceited, and entirely incapable as a navigator, in both he caused the boat to be wrecked among the Lina Islands. But in the earlier story

(" 'Frank,» the Trader"), the wreck occurred near Nanouti as they were try­ ing to pass the island, in the later one it is described as having hap­ pened because they anchored too close to the reef at Peru Island. In the first story, too, Becks saved "all his personal effects — »clothes, guns and ammunition, 600 Chile dollars, and also a eat which was an old com­ rade . In the second account he lost everything he possessed except 72 "some nine hundred dollars in American and Chile money.Finally, in the earlier tale Bee** remained on the Island with Frank until an American

66. "The” Wreck of the 'Leonora'* A Memory of »Bully* i&yss," 286. 67. "’Bully' Bayes," 25. 68. The. Strange Adventure of James Shervinton, "Concerning 'Bully' Bayes," 244. 69. Ibid, 250, ana Notes from My South 3ea Log, "Adrift in the North Pacific," 7c 70. Motes from Hy South Sea Log, 259. 71. 'Neath Austral Skies■» 158. 72. Ho tea from My South Sea Log, 270 /p. * tfeath~AustrsJ. 5kies, 161. - 6 0 -

barque came to take him to the Carolines, though the little skipper de­ parted for Sydney some t me sooner; in the second end briefer account Becke took passage to Sydney in the George Mo hie.

Evidently Becke depended upon journals kept during his stay among the islands to refresh his memory and to recall to mind good story material.73

The story "'Frank,1 the Trader" mentioned above was written long years after the occurrence of the events it records, when Becke was in France. "As I sit here writing," he begins the story, "and turning over th leaves of my old log-books and island diaries, 1 can see from ay study windows a pretty . .. 74 wide expanse of th? Channel« ..." It is probable that he s Be­ times drew quite directly from his early notes an events or people. In

Pig-Headed' Sailor lien" and "Some Skippers with Whom 1 have Sailed" two essays published seven years apart, he uses almost identical words in de­ scribing a sea captain who appears in both sketches.

\The barque) was commanded by a Captain Rosser, who had sailed her for nearly twenty years in the South Sea trade, and who was justly regarded as the doyen of island skippers. He was a "Bluenose," stood six feet two in his stockinged feet, and 43 a man of the most determined courage, unflinching resolution, and was widely known and respected by the white traders and the natives all over the South Pacific.7*»

In the later essay he saysi

At this time I had taken passage in Sydney for Samoa, via Tonga, in a smart little barque (the Rinitara) commanded by a Captain Ros3ar, who was regarded as the doyen of island skippers. He was a "Bluenose," stood over six feet in his stockinged feet, was a man of the moat determined ©oarage, unflinching resolution, and was widely known and res.ected all over the South Pacific.7®

Evidently Becke has utilised (me source, such as a diary, for these two descriptions, or it may be of course that he patterned the later descrip­ tion after the first. In "A Right Run Across Fagaloa Bay" he seems to be

75^ ’"A ;,ornxnii wxth Louis Becke," The Dally Hews, (Aug. 15, 1896), Typescript. 74. lotea from Mr South Sea Log. 259. 75. Strange Adventure of James Shervinton. "'Pig-Headad' Sailor feen," 155. 76. ' Meath Austral SJri.es, "Sons Skippers with Whom 1 Hava Sailed, ” 159. - 81-

quoting a journal or similar source in describing Dr. Scbsalbe, the ethnolo­ gist who pickled heads:

Re reached the island, anchored, and the naturalist cane on board. Here is my description of him, written fifteen years ago:— "Be was bootless, and his pants and uaqy-pocketed jumper or coarse dungaree were exceedingly dirty, and looked as if they had been cut out with a knife and fork insteaa of scissors, th«y were so marvellous­ ly ill-fitting. Bis bead-gear was an - ancient Panama hat, which flopped about, and almost concealed his red-bearded face, as if trying to apologise for the rest of his apparel; ana the thin gold-rinsed spectacles he acra nade a curious contrast to his bare and sun-burnt feet, which were as brown as those of a native. His manner, however, was that of a man perfectly at ease with himself and his dear, steely blue eyes, showed an infinite courage ana resolution.n

It is interesting to compare this description with the one of the same character in his earlier stofy of the eccentric scientist. In "Dr. Ludwig

Schwalbe, South Sea Savant," Becke does not quote directly from hie notes, but gives a dose paraphrase, improving the picture by making more vivid the contrast between the civilised gold-rimmed glasses and the barbarous appearunce of his brown, dirty feet, but leaving out the picturesque simile of the 'pants and m&ny-pocketed jumper'1 that looked as if "they had been cut out wrth a knife and fork."

Tea mina tus afterward the "bug-hunter,11 as Peckanham called him, came on board, and ahoofc. hands with them. He was not at all a pro- feBsioad-looking man. First of all, he wore no boots, and his pants and jumper of coarse dungaree were exceedingly and marvellously 111- fltUng ama dirty. A battered Panama hat of great age flopped about and almost concealed his red-bearded face, in a disheartened sort of manner, as if trying to apologise for the rest of his apparel; the t-hi n gold-rimmed spectacled he wore made a curious and protestingly civilised contrast to his bare and dirty feet. Bis manner, however, was that of a man perfectly at ease with himself, and his clear, steely blue eyes, showed courage and determination./o

lot content with repealing incidents and with paraphrasing his material, onco Becke even quotes himself, not quite accurately, in a pas­ sage of nearly two pages in length taken from an earlier published saetoh,

17. The Call of the South, 2*1. 78. Pacific Tales, 284. - 82-

"The South Sea Bubble of Charles du Breil. Nor is he adverse to quoting other authors. Approximately half of the sketch."A North Pacific

Lagoon Island’1 describing Christmas Islana is a quotation from Narrative of a Whaling Voyage round the Globe, from 1855, to 1856.80 He quotes ex­ tensively from a book called Old Samoa, by a Dr, Stair, in hi3 essay "Two 81 Pacific Island Birds,” In his narrative of "Nisan Island\ A Tale of the

Old Trading Days,” he relates how he discovered traces of white men on a sa­ vage and little known island, how the explanation given him by the natives was later contraaicted by an old white man who hah once lived there, and who had heard of a cutting off by the natives of the first ship they had seen, and finally, Becwe tells how years later he discovered a book by an Ameri­ ca can woman which gave a full account of the event. well over half of the narrative is given over to quotations from Sirs. Morrell1 s book.®*5

Needless to say, those work3 are much inferior to Becwo's best writing. Such bald use of quotation appears to be the result of haste and desire to fill up space. Becks*s lack of artistry in these few swatches is noticeahle, ana a distinct detraction.

The Characters

Since the external action forms the center of attention in 3ecke*s stories and novels, he gi^es little attention to character development and little space to character analysis. His characters areuieithar com­ plicated, nor, as a rule, completely portrayed. They are sketched in rather than drasn in detail — the reader sees one side of them, their dominant characteristic, the phase that controls the actuon of the story,

79. The Call of the South. "The Crank3 of the Julia Brig,” 92. 80. Hluan the ev:.l, & i. 81. The Call of the South, 257, 62, Ibid, ”Nisan Island; A Tale of the Old Trading Days,” 55, 83. Abbpy Jane Morrell, Narrative of a Voyage to the ¿thlo^lc and South Atlantic Ocean. Indian Ocean, Chinese Sea, North and South Pacific Ocean la the Yea s 1829, 1850, 1831, (New York, 1655) J. J. Harper. -85-

no more. Yet within these limits Becks has the knack of drawing clear and vivid pictures of their kind. Captain Chaplin, cold., calculating, taciturn, utterly devoid of sensitivity to others'a suffering,84 Saundarson, well meaning but hiundering, and pompously conceited,8" Bothering ton, 86 sentimental and kindly beneath a blustering and tough exterior, José

Her rare, the emotional, passionate Latin, with the words of the Catholic religion continually on his lips, all are examples of narrowly conceived, uncomplicated but vivid characterisation.

A few lines draw the type. From that point on, Becko's characters are portrayed objectively, one's opinion of them is based almost entirely on what they do; their inner conflicts, vacillations, or philosophies are not analysed. In "An Honour to the Service" Hal lam, "a dark-faced, surly brute of fifty, ... a firm believer in the cat," is landed on one of the

PauBotus where he meets his son, whose heart has been broken by his lash­ ings aboard the Tagus, and his father's cruelty and scorn, and who has 88 hidden away, "gone native" in his shame. After being trussed up and lashed again — by Ball am — for defending the honor of his native wife, the son reveals his identity to the ship's company; then, after the ship again juts to sea, old Ballam jumps overboard. Shy? Ve can only guess.

The cat-loving old captain says it is his horror at "seeing his only son a disgraced fugitive;" it might be the shame of realising that he had caused the downfall of his son,and now had added insult to injury, but no glimpse of the old seaman's psychology is given by Backs, who confines himself to narrating the man's actions. The great, kind P&llou ip another figure

84^ The Ebbing of the Tide, "A Dead Loss," 101. 85. Notes from My South Sea Log, "Saunuerson and the Devil Fish, " 146. 85. Rounan the Boatatearer, "The Trader," 44. 87. His Native fflfa, 88. The Ebbing of the Tide. 281. - 84-

drawn vividly, with brief, sharp strokes, whom we must judge entirely 69 by what he does. Silent, self-controlled, his feelings are hidden deep beneath the surface. Yet we see, though we never have described for us, his bravery, his love for the fiery little Taloi, his fear of being torn from her by the white man's law, which would punish him for killing in self defense the brute who tried to murder his and steal her. As for

Taloi, that engaging little shrew, a few words of description — her red lips, dazzling teeth, hazel eyes, long wavy hair, attributes commonplace enough in heroines of all races, and, wore to the point, a few examples of her sharp tongue and ready epithets during a burst of temper, are all we have of her. Yet she seems vividly alive. Bec^s has the ability to in­ dividualize a character by a few sharp strokes, if he lac¿3 the power to present complete portrayals, to show development, or to reveal complicated psychology.

Sosteti-iues, however, Bec*e does make some attempt to build up his situation and to show the workings of his characters'minds. Brantley's emotions and thoughts are depicted in some detail through brief descriptions and conversations with himself,9® "Baldwin's Loisi" begins with a prelude showing the young half-caste in the home of her adopted parents in New

Zealand, depicting her dim memories of far-off days among sunny islands, and te ling how in desperation she came to desert her civilized home and s&tion in life as "Hiss Lambert" for the life of LoisS the half-blood, mistress to a captain of a trading schooner, wife of the old trader Baldwin, 91 and finally of Briee, whom she loved. Tims we get a much clearer picture of this heroine than we did of Vaega, who, like Loisl, had been reared as

a white girl, but about whose years with the Catholic sisters we are told

89^ gy Reef and Palm. "Pallou's Tail," 65. 90. Ibid, "Brantley of Vahitahi," 195. 91. The Ebbing of the Tide. 57. -85-

nothing* however, although ve are mot Left to judge Loisl or discern her feelings entirely by her actions, the transition between her life as Hiss

Lambert and her life as Lois6 the half-caste is covered by a row ef asterisks, the Inner conflict which seems inevitable is scarcely suggested. On the island, she fits in with the native life perfectly, as is evidenced by the scene with iiaturel,9^ is not uncomfortable nor unfamiliar with native cue- 93 toms," nd except whan she weeps as she is put ashore, end when, years later an her deathbed, she confesses her murder in remorse, she shows neither the conscience of her early training nor evidences that sho remem­ bers it and contrasts her civilised with her native life. Brice in this story shows vacillation between right and wrong — most of Beoke's tales begin where the action begins, and alter the vacillation is over — but once he has prepared us for the events to follow, and as the action gets under way, Beoke gradually drops the analysis of his here's and barolms's feelings, until towards the end of the story he is again carrying it on with the old rabidity, giving the reader the events of the story and the words of its characters, leaving his to interpret their feelings as he will.

Sometimes there is even a suggestion of consistent development in a character portrayal. "Clarkson's Last Chance" has the elements of tra­ gedy*94 One wonders what Conrad might have done with this portrayal of the hollow-eyed wrecx of a nan" who had bean well educated, fine, stalwart, clean looking, but who had some mysterious barrier between him and civili­ zation which prevented his returning to the only life be was fitted to lead, and which kept him at the very business he could never coro with. In his "last chance," cut off like a hunted animal, he is driven farther and farther into the corner until there is no other alternative — for him —

92^ Ibid, 45. 95. Ibid, 45, 94. 'Heath Austral Skies. IbG. -86-

but suicide. In outline, there is real chrr ctor development herej hi« desperate plea for a "last chance 1 a« trader, the manager'. remarks about his failures' being largely due to his terror of the native«, his being disposed to "swagger end consider hi kb elf a hero in 'tackling Maieknla, •" and then the growing terror, the seeming of escape, the "funking” of one

Job and then another until the fear of public opinion (the captain'a wrath) loons as large as the terror of the cannibal inland} he la landed — driven

to the corner at laat — then suicide. Lord A n could be summarised al­ most as briefly as that, yet Conrad made of his character portrayal a no­ vel; Beene'S story is bit ten pages long. Perhaps we should not credit

Beoke even with the keen perception shown in briefest outline — he pre­ faces the tale with the acknowledgement that it was told to him by "Norman

Hardy, the artist,” who was os the boat which swept Clarkson to his doom.

Having seen something of Beene's method of portraying his characters, let us summarise in brief his range — describe the people about whoa he usually writes.

Certain persons appear, especially in his later, more personal stories, again and again. Packenhan is a good-naturea skipper wean "Denison"

so often sails with. Hs appears In nany stories, "Dr. Lari wig Schwalbe;

South Sea Savant, "95 "A Question of Precedence,1,96 "The Strange White Wo- nan of Medaro,»97 to name but a fen; yet we learn little more about him than is given in the sentence Just above. Alan appear« frequently, too} he is the hero (or villain) of *'Tls in the Blood. Ve snow that he is a hand­

some, stalwart, hanahlkj half-caste, has a way with women, ana a tendency

to fight when drunk. let in spite of Beoke's evident affection for his

35. Pacific Tales, £81. 96, Rodman the Boatateerer, 125. 9 7 • fnoiflc Tales, 255. 98. Reef and Pain, 55, -87-

ome-time partner and shipmate, and of his frequent laudatory mention of him, (By Rock and Pool is dedicated to his memory), this Is about the ex­ tent of our knowledge. Saunderson is much more vividly characterized; his pompous conceit and hiundaring, simple-minded actions form the basis for more than one good comedy, and from his actions one gets a pretty good pic­

ture of the man. Bully Hayes has been mentioned as reappearing again 100 again, but aside from bis physical appearance, particularly his big mus­ cular frame and bright blue eyes, and his paradoxical actions of piracy and magnanimity, of cruelty and kindness, me learn little of his character«

Kusis, principal man of Leass£, Pakia, an old man of Banomaga, and Ioane, the Samoan missionary on the same island, are among the natives who are mentioned thus briefly but frequently in his stories.

Then there is Denison. With one exception (The Adventures of a

Supercargo), the stories in which Tom Denison appears seem to be autobio­ graphical« Denison quickly becomes synomomous with Becks in the reader's mind« Careful analysis and comparison of the Denison stories with those written in the first person and with the sketchy biographical information found in Pembroke's Introduction to By Reef and. Palm and Beebe's autobio­ graphical notes reveal considerable internal evidence which supports this impression. However, only a few instances will be cited here. In "'Bully'

Hayes" Bec^e describes his experiences with Ca. tain Hayes at tbs time of the wreck of the Leonora and their exile on Kusaie in the first person.^01

In Lord Pembroke's Introduction to By Reef and Palm their association is

mentioned,^ as it is in the autobiographical notes which Becke made, evi­

dently for Pembroke's use in pre arlng the introduction,and in Basil

99« Ctiiaxie's Flat, "Saundarson and the Dynamite," Notes from My South Sea Log, "Saunaarson and the Devil Fish," »Heath Austral Skies. "Denison Gets Even with Saunoerson." 100. Chapter III, 79. 101. Bally Hayes, Buccaneer, £5. 102. Pembroke, Introduction, Bty Reef and Palm, 15. 102. Louis Becke, Autobiographical Notes, Typescript. -88-

Lubbocx'a Bally Hayes. In a number of Becxe's stories, bo .'.ever, these in­ cidents are described as having ha,r enea to Bully Hayes and Lena son, his 104 supercargo. "An Island Memory: tingliah Bob" summarizes Bee fee's ex­ periences in a nutshell, attributing then to Denison:

But Denison hasn't got much to do with this story, so all I need say of bin is that he had been the supercargo of a brig called the Leonora; acid the Leonora had been wrecked on Strong's Island in the North Pacific; ana Denison had quarrelled with the Captain, whose name was "Bully" Hayes; and so one day he said, goodbye to the roy- atering Bully and the rest of his shipmates, ana travelled across the lagoon till he cane to a sweet little village named LeassA, and asked for Kusis, who was the head man thereof.

Therj are other stories whose hero is Tom Denison which are paralleled at least in part by events in Beoks's life. "Denison's Second Berth Ashore” 106 for example, seems to have been Inspired by his proof-reading job de­ scribed humorously in his preface to the 1896 edition of By Reef and Palm.

Tom de Wolf, Denison's friend and employer, is a real person; Becxe speaks of meeting his "former South Sea Boss and good friand" in 1896 in London. J-07

The identification of the author with his ubiquitous hero seems to be assumed even in the dedication of Rician the Devil, which reads:

To

'Hijra*

The Sheet-Anchor

Of 'Tom Denison's* Life

And Happiness.

It is not to be assumed of course that the Denison stories say be taken literally as accurate autobiography; but the evidence is strong that

Denison corresponds roughly to Becks, in those stories in which he appears

104. Pacific Tales. "An Island Memory: English Bob," "The Shadows of the Dead," Rodman the Boatsteorar, "LeassA." 106. Pacific Tales, 3, 106, Rldan the Devil, 166. 107, "Some Memories," Typescript. - 89-

merely as the observer as «all as those in which he plays the leading role.

Seeing hie so frequently, we cone to know Lenison well as a happy- go-lucky, Kind-hearted, resourceful young trader, liked b the natives, fond of hunting and fishing. We learn to know hin by watching him coc.e and .—- go, as we wonld our next door neighbor — not toy seeing into his nine, and heart through subjective analysis.

All these re real persons who sailed the seas together, not creations of Beeke's mind. It is probable, however, that few of his characters are entirely fictional. He himself stated in a newspaper interview in 1696 that all but two of his stories were based on actual facts,lJa and although at this tine only four or five of his boohs had been published, his grow­ ing tendency to utilise personal experience in his later works would load one to believe that if his statement applied to his earlier stories, it would hold true in general for his later ones also.

His characters nay be classified with fair accuracy into types. He writes of white men in the South Seas — traders, first of ail, too numerous to mention, plodding, courageous, matter-of-fact, eager for ya m s with fellow white men, fond of tobacco ana square gin. These traders are often allied, like Chester1 '1" or Hr. Burr110 or Brantley,^" with native women; sometimes they live in lonely chastity, as did Hr. HaHeson.^*' Some are unpleasant ruffians like Carter,1^"' but for the most part they are sturdy individualists, neither criminals nor villains. Ha writes, too, of seamen,

114 brave whalers, seen in'Rodman the Boatsteerer," and picturesque Yankee

108. "Louis Beene Interviewed," S. Australia Register. (June £5,1896) Typescript. 109. Pacific Tales, "Chester's ' C r o s V " 89. 110. Ear Reef and Palm. "The Methodical Ur. Burr of Madura," 105. 111. Ibid, "Brantley of Vahltahi, ” 195. 112. Pacific Tales. "Mrs. Malleson's Rival," 45, 113. Tho Taau of Banderah. "The B»othere-in-Law," 285. 114. Rodman the Boatats rer. 2. -90-

X1E skippers, such as Botherington in "The Trader." Many of bis "white wen gone native" are refugees in the Pacific Islands, upright wen, some of than. Tig who either have fled unpleasant memories, such as Challis, or have de­ serted from sons ship where their treatment has bean too cruel to be borne, 117 118 such as William Duke or young Haxlan. Then there are the fugitives from justice, the ttaoy O'Sheas «bo terrify the natives with their c ntiuued iio . crimes, " the preacotts who oust ever setreat before the vanguards of civilisation and lawfulness ^ White missionaries play sone part in his

stories, though they qppaar much less often than do derrogatory renarks about

their influence on the character end health of the natives. The Protestants,

English and American, usually are thin, ascetic individuals, ignorant of

native customs, who speak pompously »nci who do not nix as equals with either

the natives or white trauers; sonetimoe they are spoken of respectfully, as

in "The Tapu of Banderah, ^ more often with contempt, as in His Hatlve

Wife end In the Old, Beach-combing Days. The Catholic priests fare a

little better, except in Ton Wallis, which Is filled with anti-Catholic

propaganda; the old French father in "Baldwin's Loia6" is tolerant, mindly,

hospitable.1 0

In his brief, objective way Bee me pictures many native man also.

Brave and resourceful in exlag out a day by day living on low sandy atolls

or wooded islands surrounded by treacherous reefs and shark-infested wa­

ters, generous, open and friendly, many of his characters are admirable.

Tlbl Ibid, 44. 116. By Reef and Pain, "Challis the Doubter," £1. 117. 'Heath Austral Sales,"The Deserter," 37. 118. The Ibbin*-; of the Tiua. "An Honour to the Service," 261. 119. By Baaf and Palm. "The Revenge of Uaoy O'Shea," 45, 120* Pacific Tales, "Prescott of Haura," 65. 121. The Ta„u of Band ax ah. 1. 122, Pacific Tales, 19. I S. The :bbing of th* Tiae. 37. -91-

Kusis, the chief with whoa he IIred on Kusaie,^4 pallou, strong, silent, self-sacrificing, pi ti a hie Rid an, and dear old Pakia, whose portrayal 127 is perhaps the most vivid, are among his aost pleasing native characters.

Soaetiaes the natives are depicted as cruel, treacherous, full of greed.

Such are the chiefs Tuialo,*-'-8 Sralik,*^9 and Sanikan,^'3 who sacrifice the lives of their own people as well as those of white sen in puerile jealousy or desire for possessions. Beets has portrayed the Christianised native, usually spoken of with disrespect, m two extremes — the unctuous, stupid proselyte who looms upon Christianity as a kind of witchcraft which will taring him prestige and invulnerability (everlasting life) in Reverend Purity Iftl Lakolalai, and the stalwart, broad-minded native teacher who understands his people, loads then in right living without forcing them to give up their native games or to wear European clothing, in loans, the Samoan missionary on Nanomaga.^'-“

The woman in his stories are less varied in type than are the man.

Of all his characters, the white women are least s till fully portrayed, and are the only ones, unless the one-siaea picture ho usually gives of the white missionary be counted, which are consistently unacceptable as real people. For the most part his white w -men look, talk, and act alike, even when one is a vUlainess and the other a heroine — the trite sarcasm of

Mrs. Harrington^"* ana th empty stilted chatter of Mrs. Lathon*-“4 denote

1 4 , Pacific Tales, "The Shadows of the Dead," 211 j Under Tropic Skies. "Euais," 167. 125. By Reef and Palm, "Pallou*s Taloi," 6o. 126. Ridan the Devil, "Ridas the Devil," 5. 127. Wild Life in Southern Seas, "A Noble Sea Game," 147j By Rock and Pool. "Solepa," 20; Thu Tapn of Bander ah. "Paxia," 299. 128. The bbing of the Tide, "At a Kava-Dr nking,* 65. 129. Ibid, "Ninia, " 15. 150. Ibid, "Lullban of the Pool," 1. 151. Pacific Tales, "In the Old Baach-couibiog Days," 19. 152. Wild Lifo in Southern Seas, "A Noble Sea Game," 147, etc. 135. The TapU of Banda rah, "In the Far North, "87. 154. Helen Adair. -92-

unplaasantnoes, soifiahnaes, and pettiness, but the same kind of talk from

Miss Carolan and Myra in "Chinkie's Flat" denote wit, charm, and bright

girlishness. Most of Backs's whi-e w men are mere stereotyped formulas

belonging in one of two categories, "the good ladies" and "the bad ladies"

mentioned in Chapter II# 5 There are a few exceptions, however, aven

here. The picture of Mrs. O'Doherty, Saunderson's fiancée, is interesting

and individual, although these attributes are due sore to Becks's choice

of words in describing her physical appearance than to his portrayal of

her moral worth. 3he was a "lady who was close hauled upon her fiftieth

year, and would soon be to windward of It." Shan she expressed determination,

she "set her fat, square jaws, and crossea her arms across her half-a-fþ

of bosom;11 and when Saunderson tried to defend himself against the slander

of the wicked young Deni a on, she desired him to invite the young Ca, tain

to tea — ‘"Go, or else all la over between ua, ' and ehe raised her enor­ mous right arm tragically."156 Young May, in another Don!son comedy,107

and old Mary in Yorxe the Adventurer1^8 are other white woman who are por­

trayed with naturalness and the objective reality which Bec ko shows in pre­

senting most of his men and his native women.

1 have already quoted a number of Beoxe's descriptions of his native

heroines.159 Most of his native women ore of the types described in the

quotations. Beautiful, devoted and loyai, or beautiful, mercenary and

fickle, many of them ar.. half castes, or have had some educ tion in the ways of Europeans. Som«times Bec*e gives a good picture of an old native

TUb". Chapter XI, 47. 136. 'Heath Austral Skies, "Denison Outs Even, ■ 34. 137. Ibid, "Denison Gives a Supper Party," 167. 133. "Old Mary," 133. 139. Chipter III, 69 ff. - 95-

woman, such as Lupatea^4^ or TariTa^4^ or Lagisiva,-*-4- but never so vivid * t a one as of the old native nan.

Conclusion

Louis Becae, whose material is the stuff of romance, is & realist

in method. He paints the scene literally, neither darkening the shadows mysteriously nor brightening the colors to make a wonderland. He sees the

Pacific Islands as a fascinating, versatile work and play ground of na­

tural wonders and nany hasards, not as a tropical paradise.

He treats the themes of his stories in the same prosaic, matter-

of-fact, true-to-life way, never offering the South Seas, that retreat of

the romantic and of the fugitive fr-m justice, as a Utopia where lies

forgetfulness or values apart from the civilised world left behind. Law­

lessness there is, but not escape for the white man in Becks's tales. His

characters are portrayed objectively — he does not speculate on the

philosophy of the primitive mind, or analyse the motives of his many

white characters; he describes what he sees, and tells what his actors do.

The reader seas through Becxe's eyes, yet makes his own interpretations.

Bis plots reflect his preoccupation with events, with real-life

happenings, too. Bee is is nut a literary artist, using the short story as

an art form for his expression. He is a teller of tales, a yarn-spinnar,

wnH rather than build up a complicated situation around a character or an

event, and ws&ve a skillful denouement which is logical, complete, artis­

tically satisfying, Becks spins his yarn just as it came to him by obser­

vation or hearsay, he ends it or breaks it off just as it happened, he

does not search for first causes or contributing influences, for he is

140. By fleef and Palm. "A Basmot of Breadfruit," 75. 141. His Native Wife. 142. By Rauf and Palm. "The Doctor's Wife," 125. -94-

intereeted primarily in the action.

Bis strength lies in the thoroughness with which he knows the locale of which he writes, in his veracity, and in the uncolored naturalness of his writing. The length of tine that he spent on the islands whose stories he was one day to tell, thé fact that during *11 those years his curious

Bind and retentive memory were absorbing un-self-consciously the material he was one day to utilise, and the long interval between his first (*iven­ ture in the Pacific and his first thought of writing, all, 1 be Have, in­ fluenced the character of his work. The self-c-.nfid.ence born of thorough familiarity gives credence to his tales, the realism of actual life and of every-day events pervades them, they reveal the objectivity and matter-of- fact ne;) 3 of a man who not only has felt and answered the call of adventure, but has seen glamour pale before strenuous labor and bitter hardship and the monotony of repetition.

His books as a whole do not build up our romantic conception of an idyllic sea of islands, but they do leave us with the feeling that the

Marshal 1 and Gilbert Islands, tb Marquesas and paumotus, are real plaças, located on this our earth. I'Ven Conrad, who is iEu^aaur&hly Becke * s aperior in portrayal of character, in creating atmosphere, in force of style, does not write of countries as they actually exist, do^s not give a literal picture of true places, which one may see on the map and plan to visit some day. Conrad's world is a "dark, sinister, ronantic and ta roic country of the s j u I j "*- 4 it is a powerful background to his characters, looming large and dark. Becke'a islands, we know, have ch&ngad since te wrote of then, yet we could go to them today without disillusionment if we madâ allowances for lapse of time. Though Noumea in the twentieth century has a railroad, though other changes have come, the Hew Hebrides as Robert 144,! W. Somerset Maugham, Ah King. "Mail MacAdam," 258. -95-

Janea Fl tchar writes of them la that recent landmark of realistic South

Sea literature, Isles of Illusion, are familiar pictures to one who has read Becke'e tales. The scenery, the labor conditions, the trader's life are substantially the saae. Becks has not idealized his setting, or Bade of it, as Conrad did In Heart of Darkness and Melville did in Typee, a mysterious dreamland. CHAPTiSR IV

HIS VAUJE

"Becka «as & bora writer, but, curiously enough, he had no small chance of going to the end of his earthly pilgrimage without finding it out.1,1 True, only a curious chain of circumstance brought him to the at­ tention of hasare. Archibald and McLeod, and to his subsequent "blasting his reminiscences out of himself — at first slowly and painfully, but p afterwards with ewer increasing fanility. ■ And his exceptional quali­ ties as author resulted from circumstances hawing thrown a man of intel­ ligence and seme discernment into a long sojourn in a land unfamiliar to most of mankind. His books have flavor of a distinctive though not rare kind, and the force of simplicity and sincerity.

It la possible that future generations nay bless the name of I^uis

Beeka for having preserved many old tales, traditions, and names forgotten by the Inhabitants of a changed land. Meanwhile, one reads Louis Becks for an aggregate picture of island life, lived intimately, yet seen ob­ jectively, from the outside. By this I do not mean seen as an alien would ses — ss I conceive Robert Louis Stevenson to have seen — for Beckc's value and superiority lie in his having lived in the islands, not as s native, for that would have been an affectation, but as one belonging there, an integral part of the life, not a mere observer.

Unlike MelvlUA's or Stevenson's or Fletcher's, Becke's lowly profession enabled him to identify himself with the white men in the is­ lands, whether trader, beachcomber, or sailor. One has but to contrast

Becke'a picture of "Long Charlie"^ with Melville’« description of "a moat

extraordinary individual, a genuine South Sea Vagabond, who came alongside

1. "Esit Becke," Sydney Bull-din, (Feb. 20, 191^), Typescript. 2. Ibid. 5. By Reef and Palm, "Long Charlie's Goou Little Wife," 97. -97-

of us in a whale-boat as soon as we entered the bay,«4 to recognize the difference in the attitudes of the two authors. This same ability to iden­ tify himself with the placo, see with the eyes of one accustomed to the scene, is shown la Bec&e's attitude towards the natives. Be assumes the matter-of-fact point of view of the natives theaselves, neither blushing at their custom of undxuss as the missionaries did, nor describing it w-th voluptuous romanticism, as most visiters to the islands have done.

One who la interested In the Pacific Islands should read ttelviUe to be transported to another and & magical world, should read Stevenson for a fair presentation of many facte of island life — he was able to see all round a question better than most writers of the South Seas, with its missionaries, its traders, its cannibalism — bat one should read Be cite really to feel at home there, Itelvilxe wrote of the islands as of a dreamland. Stevenson wrote of them as a land, of paradox and wonder. Ho mere tourists, both men spent considerable t.me in the lands they wrote about, and Stevenson at least was a beloved confidante of many of the na­ tives, yet both men wrote as suiona. They were stationed above and out­ side the life they depicted.

This was not true of Louis Bee-a. Not for months, but for years did he live among the natives; not as a Tusitala, a fascinating stranger, a man of wealth in a floating palace, did he visit them, but as a business man who lived and versed and played beside them. Hot as an artist, con­ sciously studying and analysing their mode of life and customs did he question them, but as a companion, understanding and sympathetic — though with no great insight to carry him above and beyond his own observations — did he come to absorb a knowledge of their lives. The sincerity, sim-

4. types. 9. plicity, and In erests of an intelligent nan possessed of a tnorough knowledge of his subject, good sense, and a talent for spinning yarns are reflected in his work. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources

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His Hatlvg Wife, Sydney, A. Melrose, 1895

Paclfio Tales, London, T. Fisher Unwin, 1897

Slid Life in Southern Seas. London, T. Fisher Unwin, 1397

Hodman the Boatsteerer, and Other Stories. London, T. Fisher Unwin, 1898

Rldan the Devil, and Other Stories, London, T. Fisher Unwin, 1399

014 Convict Days (Ed. by Louis Becks), London, T. Fisher Unwin, 1899

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Ton Wallis, A Tale of the South Seas, London, The Religious Tract Society, (19007

By Rock and Pool, On an Austral Shore, and Other Stories, London, T. Fisher Unwin, 1901

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The Mystery of the Laughlin la 1 anna. T. Fisher Unwin, 1896

A First Fleet Family. A Hitherto Unpublished narrative of Certain Remarkable Adventures Compiled f rom the B B B » ¿atgpcnt William Dew of the Marines, London, T. Fisher Unwin, 1896

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Admiral ph-ilfip; the Founding of Mew South Wales, T. Fisher Unwin, 1899

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Allen, Percy S., Stewart's Hand Book of the pacific T"1*«**«. A Rsli ble Quids to All the Inhabited. Islands of the Pacific Ocean, for Tra­ ders Tourists and Settlers, with a Bibliography of Island Works. Sydney, Me Car ran, Stewart ana Co. Ltd., 1921

[Fletcher, Robert Janes}, Isles of Illusion.. Letters from the South Seas. So hum Lynch, Ed., Boston, Sun 1.1 Maynard & Co., 1923

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Lovett, Robert horse, "The South 3ea Style," Asia, X U , (April, 1921), 516-520. Basil, Lttbbock,. Bully Hayea, South Sea pirate. Boston, Charles £. Lauriat Co., 1951 hBOkaness, George, Ed., Introduction, Tales of the South Sana, by Louis Beck»} London, Thomas Nelson ik Sons, 1329, Reprinted 1955 haughan, W. Somerset, Ah king. 1. I., Doubl-day, Doran a C o 1931 halville, Herman, lypee; A Marrative of the Marquesas islands. H. I., £. P. Dutton & Co., 1907, Reprinted 121; (First published 1846).

Masteraan, Sylvia, The Orjginn of International Rivalry in Samoa 1845-1684. London, George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1954

Hiau, Josephine Hyacinths, The Phanton Paradise, the Story of the Expedi­ tion of the Marquis da Raya, Sydney, Angus & Robertson Ltd., 1956

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