Stopping to talk with them, I found that they were of the well-to-do natives who owned cows and mules, but they seldom thought of taking the mules along to carry up the provisions or themselves.
It had always been the custom of their women to make pack-baskets out of their backs, and they would never think of doing otherwise. It is not easy to get these people to talk of themselves to strangers; they often resent being asked questions about their work and ideas.
Yet the young women take interest in the pretty clothes of strangers. One of them came up to me and touched a blue lapis-lazuli ring I was wearing, her eyes simply devouring it, and the other trinkets I wore of the same stone. Finally, she exclaimed that she liked them very much, and also the frock of the same colour. I am quite certain there was a momentary pang of feminine envy in her heart, and a hatred for her own incongruous garments.
By Captain G. F. Pugh.
RETRIBUTION.
A story of the bad old “shanghaiing” days, showing how a villainous crimp had the tables turned upon him in dramatic fashion. Captain Pugh heard the first part of the story while in Newcastle, N.S.W., as mate of a ship, and its sequel upon a return voyage.
In 1872 Newcastle, New South Wales, was a busy, thriving little seaport. The harbour was full of large sailing ships, loading and waiting to load coal, and bound chiefly to China, San Francisco, and the Pacific Coast ports.