Besides the grim stories of the Pacific there are plenty of amusing ones, and sometimes funny anecdotes are told of weird traders who have taken up their quarters along the coast. No one can go round far without meeting one, if not more, of these oddities.
Aoba, in the New Hebrides, however, stands unique in possessing the most original, if unorthodox, trader who has visited these islands for many a long year. Maybe the old chap is dead and { 79} buried now, for I am writing of 1894 when “Tartan Jock” lived on Aoba. He was a wild Highlander with chest and shoulders like an ox. His face was as rugged as the mountains of his native country, and his accent was one you could cut with a knife. From his youth upwards he had led a life of adventure, and had come at last to the most God-forsaken island in the world to finish his days in peace and quietness, and to this end he had chosen the most dangerous and cut-throat part of the New Hebrides. Yet he seemed to have no particular desire that his death should be a sudden one. A year or so before going to Aoba he had paid a visit to his birthplace to see the old folks, but his stay there had been a short one, and the only result of it was that the brogue had gotten into his nostrils again, and judging by the sound of it would remain there till the sharp spear of one of his black neighbours let it out.
As tough a customer as ever trod these islands was Jock, but, strange to say, the natives rather liked him, as was proved by the fact that his tenancy of the tumble-down trader’s house on the beach had been longer than that of any of his predecessors.
Aoba has a reputation for being a trader’s burial { 80} ground, but, as far as I know, Jock is still above ground; he was a man, too, who seemed to love it. If ever you managed to come across him unawares he was stretched out at full length on the bright warm sand, with his arms at right angles to his body, and his great legs spread out like young logs. Jock could sleep all day like this, when there was nothing else to do and no trading boats about where he could get a “wee drappie”—Jock’s wee drops were bottles. But when the wine was in, his wits were out, and then it was a case of “look out for yourself,” for at these times Jock was dangerous, but basking on the beach he was a picture, and a quaint one too, for he had an absolute horror of civilisation and clothes, and a tartan shawl and a Tam o’ Shanter hat, with more than one hole in it, constituted his complete attire.