Away on the northernmost coast of Australia lies a little world all by itself and unlike anything else to be found in the whole immemorial East. Its chief centre is in Torres Straits, where the majority of the inhabitants employ themselves in pearl-fishing, gathering bêche-de-mer and tortoise-shell, and generally in accumulating those gigantic fortunes of which one hears so much and sees so little.
Walking the streets of Thursday Island, the smallest of the group, yet the centre of commerce and the seat of such government as the Colony of Queensland can afford it, you will be struck with the number of nationalities represented. Dwelling together, if not in unity, certainly in unison, are Caucasians and Mongolians, Ethiopians and Malayans, John Chinaman living cheek by jowl with the barbarian Englishman, Cingalee with Portuguese, Frenchman with Kanaka—all prejudices alike forgotten in the one absorbing struggle for the unchanging British sovereign. On the verandahs of the hotels sit continually men who talk with the familiarity of old friends about the uttermost parts of the earth, and whose lives are mainly spent in places to which the average man never goes nor dreams of going. If you are a good listener they will tell you many things worth knowing; and towards midnight you will feel stealing over you a hazy conviction that the nineteenth century is as yet unborn, and that you are listening to the personal narrative of Sinbad the Sailor in an unexpurgated form.
One afternoon as I was sitting in my verandah watching the China mail-boat steam to her anchorage, and wondering if I had energy enough to light a third cheroot, I felt my arm touched. Turning, I discovered a little Solomon boy, about ten years old, attired in an ancient pair of hunting breeches, and grinning from ear to ear. Having succeeded in attracting my attention, he handed me a letter. It was from my friend, McBain, the manager of a pearling station on an adjacent island, and set forth the welcome fact that he would be pleased to see me on a matter of some importance, if I could spare the time to dine with him that evening. There was nothing I could spare more easily or more willingly.
Once comfortably seated in the verandah, McBain explained his reason for sending to me. "You'll think me mad, but I've got a curiosity here that I want to examine before any one else gets hold of him."
"Black or white?" I asked, with but little interest, for we lived in a land of human curiosities.
"White."
"Nationality?"
"Cosmopolitan, I should fancy."
"Profession?"
"Adventurer, with a marvellous big A."