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Updated: June 10, 2025
I observed with satisfaction that, when Bowata and a considerable company of the natives came down to the beach to greet us upon seeing our boat heading for the landing-place, the two seamen looked more than a trifle uneasy, fearing perhaps that I would seize the opportunity to fulfil my threat to hand them over to the charge of the blacks; and I was not sorry to let them see thus early what a powerful force of auxiliaries I had behind me should they be meditating anything in the nature of an undue assertion of independence.
I decided to do so, and, without waiting for breakfast, at once started for the cove and the boat. The wind being fair, I made a quick run across to Cliff Island; and a swift-footed native boy soon brought Bowata down to the landing-place where we usually met.
It now became apparent that Bowata was by no means devoid of shrewdness, for not only had he personally practised assiduously at the target, but he had insisted that the petty chiefs who had been entrusted with bows should do the same; and, not content with that, he had chosen some two dozen other men, all of whom he had personally trained; so that when I turned up with my gift he had already about thirty men, every one of them a quite fairly expert bowman.
I had by this time acquired a sufficient grasp of their very simple language to enable me to make a pretty shrewd guess at their meaning when they spoke to me, and also to make myself fairly well understood by them, and I gathered from Bowata that the gift was singularly opportune, inasmuch as that the apes had of late, for some inexplicable reason, been unusually pertinacious in their raids upon the island; but that, thanks to my original gift, their attacks had been successfully withstood without loss of life on the part of the natives, the invading apes having all been slain before it was possible for them to effect a landing.
The new bows and arrows being at length ready, Billy and I started for Cliff Island on a certain morning, for the purpose of presenting the weapons to their prospective owners. Upon our arrival we were received by the natives with their accustomed cordiality, and I at once handed over our gift to Bowata, the chief, who was profuse in his expressions of gratitude.
I could see nothing for it but to provide them with something in the nature of a boat wherein to navigate the channels, then to show Bowata where the wood for the bows and the shafts for the arrows could be obtained, and finally teach him and his people how to make bows and arrows for themselves.
At its conclusion I formally presented the bungalow and all that we were leaving in it to Bowata, with a strict injunction to him and his to show the utmost kindness to any shipwrecked persons who might hereafter be so unfortunate as to be cast away on the group, an injunction which they all promised to obey most faithfully.
Next, landing Billy and taking Bowata into the punt with me, I handed him a paddle, and, first directing his attention to the manner in which I manipulated my own, invited him to try his hand. He proved an apt pupil, and within the hour was able to manoeuvre the punt single-handed.
Long as we had been on the group without sighting so much as the most distant glimpse of a sail, the hope was ever present that the day would eventually dawn when we should be rescued from our imprisonment, mild and even agreeable as it was in some respects; and when that day should arrive, what would happen to Bowata and his people?
Running the boat in on the beach, we were quickly joined by Bowata, who informed us that four days earlier the apes, to the number of nine, had attempted another raid which, he proudly added, had been successfully repulsed, but at the expense of many lost arrows; and he hinted pretty broadly that a further gift of those very useful missiles would be highly appreciated.
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