stepped in before him and taken possession. This Hare was a very bad
fellow; a rich man who wanted to live like a Rajah, with lots o' native
wives and retainers, an' be a sort of independent prince. Of course he
was on bad terms at once with Ross, who, finding that things were going
badly, felt that it would be unfair to hold his people to the agreement
which was made when he thought the whole group was his own, so he
offered to release them. They all, except two men and one woman,
accepted the release and went off in a gun-boat that chanced to touch
there at the time. For a good while Hare and his rival lived there--the
one tryin' to get the Dutch, the other to induce the English Government
to claim possession. Neither Dutch nor English would do so at first, but
the English did it at long-last--in 1878--and annexed the islands to the
Government of Ceylon.

"Long before that date, however--before 1836--Hare left and went to
Singapore, where he died, leaving Ross in possession--the 'King of the
Cocos Islands' as he came to be called. In a few years--chiefly through
the energy of Ross's eldest son, to whom he soon gave up the management
of affairs--the Group became a prosperous settlement. Its ships traded
in cocoa-nuts (the chief produce of the islands) throughout all the
Straits Settlements, and boat-buildin' became one of their most
important industries. But there was one thing that prevented it from
bein' a very happy though prosperous place, an' that was the coolies who
had been hired in Java, for the only men that could be got there at
first were criminals who had served their time in the chain-gangs of
Batavia. As these men were fit for anything--from pitch-and-toss to
murder--and soon outnumbered the colonists, the place was kept in
constant alarm and watchfulness. For, as I dare say you know, the Malays
are sometimes liable to have the spirit of _amok_ on them, which leads
them to care for and fear nothin', and to go in for a fight-to-death,