It is the owner who is better
paid--the owner who sits ashore with many servants and turns his money
over."
"True, but a schooner costs five thousand dollars--an old schooner at
that," I objected. "I should be an old man before I saved five thousand
dollars."
"There be short ways for white men to make money," he went on, pointing
ashore at the cocoanut-fringed beach.
We were in the Solomons at the time, picking up a cargo of ivory-nuts
along the east coast of Guadalcanar.
"Between this river mouth and the next it is two miles," he said. "The
flat land runs far back. It is worth nothing now. Next year--who
knows?--or the year after, men will pay much money for that land. The
anchorage is good. Big steamers can lie close up. You can buy the land
four miles deep from the old chief for ten thousand sticks of tobacco,
ten bottles of square-face, and a Snider, which will cost you, maybe,
one hundred dollars. Then you place the deed with the commissioner; and
the next year, or the year after, you sell and become the owner of a
ship."
I followed his lead, and his words came true, though in three years,
instead of two. Next came the grasslands deal on Guadalcanar--twenty
thousand acres, on a governmental nine hundred and ninety-nine years'
lease at a nominal sum.
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