A SOUTH SEAS TRADER

Southland Times, Issue 21856, 5 November 1932, Page 11

A SOUTH SEAS TRADER

Told with arresting frankness, the story of a trader’s life in the South Seas disclosed in “White Man, Brown Woman” is an astonishing and a deeply engaging work. Is is by T. L. Richards who has been aided by T. S. Stewart Gurr, and while it has all the exciting romance of a novel it is an authentic and candid narrative. The life-story of “one who lived beyond the pale,” this book takes one to the intimate side of the association of white and brown people in the South Seas, and it is really an important contribution to the .literature-vf the Pacific. “Trader Tom”

went to the South Seas as a pearl fisher and he was warned by his father to have nothing to do with Polynesian woman, but he broke his promise and married a native and lived to write: Once I endeavoured to play the game. Now I am a human derelict who has made an unholy mess of things. It is an exciting narrative and an impressive one. Captured by German raiders during the War, he was marooned, and escaped after a terrible journey in an open boat. He was a member of the punitive expedition to Malaita, where the natives had murdered Acting Commissioner Bell, Mr Gillies and eleven native policemen, and he does not mince matters in describing the work of that vengeful effort. The author had an astounding battle with an octopus and he was a witness of a great battle between a native canoe, full of men, with a huge decapod. Understanding the natives, he writes of them with an intimacy available only to a man who has lived beyond the pale. One may not feel inclined to approve of Trader Tom’s mode of living, but of the value of this human document there can be no two opinions. It is a work of distinct importance, and of exceptional interest. “White Man, Brown Woman” by T. L. Richards, is published by Messrs Angus and Robertson, Ltd., Melbourne, whence came my copy.