Notwithstanding our share in New Guinea and the debateable land of the New Hebrides, besides the proposed cession of Santa Cruz, the Sydney of 'the thirties' wore the look of being more in touch with the South Sea Islands and the Oceanic realm generally, than at present. The wharves were redolent of the wild life of The Islands and the mysterious land of the Maori. Weather-beaten sailing-vessels showed a sprinkling of swarthy recruits, whose dark faces, half strange, half fierce, were mingled with those of their British crews. Hull and rigging bore silent testimony to the wrath of wind and wave. There were whale-ships returning in twelve months with a full cargo of sperm oil, or half empty after a three years' cruise, as the adventure turned out.

Schoolboys were fond of loitering about among them, wondering at the harpoons, lances, and keen-edged 'whale spades,' at the masses of whalebone and spermaceti, or the carved and ornamental whales' teeth, of which Jack always had a store.

In the forecastle of one ship might be seen the tattooed lineaments and grim visage of a Maori; from another would peer forth the mild, wondering gaze of a Fijian. Bows and arrows (the latter presumably poisoned), spears, clubs, and wondrous carved idols were the principal curios, nearly always procurable.

The whale fishery was at that time a leading industry. Sperm oil figured noticeably among the first items of our export trade. Merchants made advances for the outfit and all necessaries of the adventure, trusting in many instances for repayment to the skill, courage, and good faith of the com-