YANKEE SAILOR'S ROMANCE

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 11951, 23 May 1933, Page 2

YANKEE SAILOR'S ROMANCE

an EPISODE OF TORRES STRAIT STORY pF THE EARLY DAYS. Sailing through the waters of Torres Strait, which separates Australia from New Guinea, the traveller passes dozens of palm-fringed islands. All of them are coloured with romance, for these waters were the haunt of the brcho-do-mrir seeker and the collector of mother-of-pearl, .in the days when license was unrestricted and the seas were open to all who wished to wrest wealth from themFrom the four corners of the earth men came, white men and coloured men, buccaneers and sea rovers, '‘black-birders" and legitimate tr.od-

On one of these islands, called tuassig by the people, but charted by Yorke, live the Mostly family, mingling with the natives ,of tlie Place and yet aloof from them. The mother, still alive, is a Mnstig woman. She. is tall and erect, hut black as, the mother of night. She answers to the language name of Ulood, but is equally responsive to the designation conferred on her by some white man. .of Quinine, which, perhaps, was meant to be Queen Anne. Certainly her regal carriage and dignity of bearing would justify’that title. Buton the paternal side • the Mosbv family honours the memory of a runaway American .sailor. Edward M°Bby was his name. He was called Ned. Mosbv. ,

Ned was heard of first- in the late ’sixties in Sydney, whore be had an argument with the officers of Ins slfip. He and a friend bound t-ho chief officer with ropes and fled tho ship. It was whispered that this was not the first time h ( c had deserted. Rumor said that he was wanted as a deserter by the United States Navy. That probably.. was the reason why, while he lived m tho Strait, the flag °f evel N n2w Drip wn. B carefully scrutinised through the glasses. If the Stars and Stripes shone out Ned made-it, convenient to hide in the bush until the strange? moved on.

The big-framed, red-whiskered seaman .found his way up into lorres Strait. It was a time when one of the Government officials at the poit of. Somerset,. then Australia’s - most northern port and place- of refuge lor castaways, could write that the waters .were’ a meeting place for men “a lS bad as any who ever sailed, out of any port on God’s earth With some friends Ned acquired interests in a. sailing boat, get. together ..a black crew, and searched the waters for pearl .shell. Fortune favoured him. He wa s able to establish fishing stations at some of the central islands, and the boats went out iogularlv and returned with their catch of valuable, shell and pearls. Ulood became «. *»• **#*•■• tho native type, graas-tliaKhod. This had its disadvantagee, for Sin? something had SxM «* Mtlv ' s of the island of Massig they made an attack on the tvhite ™nn who h-m settled in their midst. K» hnd taw arms- their aveapnns were tow and arrow and clobs. At night they shot fire-tipped arrows into the dry thatch, and" NCd escaped' only with difficulty. ' Tho se were primitive days, and soon the influence of the white man began to assert itself.. Ned seemed iio get on fairly well with tho peo, pie, • and■. suggested that ho .should provide them with, a **bol teacher who would initiate them into the mysteries of the “white man education.” "When some of the natives-vi?-iteci a neighbouring island and irom there imbibed a little missionary teaching old Ned showed them hmv they might distinguish the sabbath from anv other day of. tho week by giving them a sheet, of - copper on which mystic symbols denoted the day of worship, it not of test. To, tho astonished villagers lie introduced that amazing ahimal the horse and" the “devil” in the form of a horned cow. He gdve them " n e w plants for their, garden, and .bartered knive s and tomahawks ' and- > calico and.'other .delights of civilisation, for; beche-de-mcr .and ' pearls. .Sometimes • there were unexpected ■ interluds, as when one day a half-caste Maori

“.skipper” in his employ sailed in with six of the black crew-main-land natives—trailing behind at the. 'end of. a long rope. They had attempted to kill the other members of tho crow and get- away with the lugger while the men were working °n the roof. Their scheme miscarried, and the skipper gave- them the choice of drowning nr thus being taken back to the summary justice, ot the temporary king of the island in the person' of Ned. They chose the latter, and Ned,' in true sea style, had them triced up and given the .rope's end all round when they were brought ashore. Tn olio of his ndven.tnrr-s Ned lost, his leg and the deficiency was supplied with a wooden .stump. During visits to Thursday Island and meetings with convivial acquaintances the stump was a hindrance. Often townspeople would he delighted by the spectacle of Ned intoxicated, being carried on. the back of a friend from one hotel to another for drinks, while tho wooden leg found a temp ■ crary resting place in the gutter. Ned remained true to his native wife. A more commodious home was built in European style. There were now four boys and a girl to provide for. Nod bad a nest -egg at the bank and a large one hidden in his own home in the form of beautiful pear's packed in small canvas bags. Night after night the old -seaman would take them out and run them .through his fingers, gloating over them. “By and by,” he would tell his family as they reached manhood, “I am going to take you back to America with me —back to Baltimore, where mv fam ily live. These pearls are going to pay the fare.” But one night- as bo sat with his store of pearls there was a slight noise outside—just the fleeting'glimpse of a face at the window, tho face- of a Japanese diver who had heard e.f the old' man’s pearls and who wanted to acquire them. - Cautiously lie watched anci waited, At dawn he told his boys, “The pearls are buried where no one can steal them. "When I want them myself I can get them easily, hut 1 take no risks.” But both Ned amt tho diver died -without revealing the secret of the pearls,; and so there they remain, despite diligent search since. The family never reached Baltimore.

The descendants of the mysterious American sailor number 'almost three score now. Fine, upstanc.ing men, with something of the - physique ot the father and the bearing of the old island mother, they have- their own European-built homos embowered in tropical foliage., and standing apart from the native village. As owners of several pearling vessels, they arc a (registered company, and carry on tin important business.. The. boys have inter-married with women ol South Sea or half-cast stock. The latest addition to the Mosbv family, an almost white infant with blue eyes, and red hair, recalls tho old grandfather, who, whatever the crime •was that first drove him from the haunts of white men to the comparative seclusion of. the islands of Torres Straits, played no insignificant part- in the civilisation of the island ■people.