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Postcolonial Piracy
 THEORY FOR GLOBAL AGE
Series Editors: Gurminder K. Bhambra and Robin Cohen

Editorial Board: Michael Burawoy (University of California Berkeley, USA), Neera

Chandoke, (University of Delhi, India) Robin Cohen (University of Oxford, UK), Peo
Hansen (Linköping University, Sweden) John Holmwood (University of Nottingham,
UK), Walter Mignolo (Duke University, USA), Emma Porio (Ateneo de Manila
University, Philippines), Boaventura de Sousa Santos (University of Coimbra, Portugal).

Globalization is widely viewed as the current condition of the world, only recently come into
being. There is little engagement with its long histories and how these histories continue to
have an impact on current social, political, and economic configurations and understandings.
Theory for a Global Age takes ‘the global’ as the already-always existing condition of the
world and one that should have informed analysis in the past as well as informing analysis
for the present and future. The series is not about globalization as such, but, rather, it
addresses the impact a properly critical reflection on ‘the global’ might have on disciplines
and different fields within the social sciences and humanities. It asks how we might
understand our present and future differently if we start from a critical examination of the
idea of the global as a political and interpretive device; and what consequences this would
have for reconstructing our understandings of the past, including our disciplinary pasts.

Each book in the series focuses on a particular theoretical issue or topic of empirical
controversy and debate, addressing theory in a more comprehensive and interconnected
manner in the process. With books commissioned from scholars from across the globe, the
series explores understandings of the global – and global understandings – from diverse
viewpoints. The series will be available in print, in eBook format and free online, through
a Creative Commons licence, aiming to encourage academic engagement on a broad
geographical scale and to further the reach of the debates and dialogues that the series develops.

Also in the series: Forthcoming titles:

Connected Sociologies The Black Pacific: Anticolonial

Gurminder K. Bhambra Struggles and Oceanic Connections
Robbie Shilliam
On Sovereignty and Other
Political Delusions John Dewey: The Global
Joan Cocks Public and its Problems
John Narayan
Eurafrica: The Untold History of
European Integration and Colonialism Stark Utopia: Debt as a
Peo Hansen and Stefan Jonsson Technology of Power
Richard Robbins and Tim Di Muzio

Cosmopolitanism and Antisemitism

Robert Fine and Philip Spencer

Debating Civilizations: Interrogating

Civilizational Analysis in a Global Age
Jeremy Smith
 Postcolonial Piracy

Media Distribution and Cultural

Production in the Global South

Lars Eckstein and Anja Schwarz

 Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway

London New York
WC1B 3DP NY 10018
UK USA

www.bloomsbury.com

Bloomsbury is a registered trade mark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

First published 2014

© Lars Eckstein and Anja Schwarz, 2014

This work is published subject to a Creative Commons Attribution Non-

commercial No Derivatives Licence. You may share this work for non-commercial
purposes only, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the
publisher. For permission to publish commercial versions please contact
Bloomsbury Academic.

Lars Eckstein and Anja Schwarz have asserted their rights under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as editors of this work.

No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on

or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be
accepted by Bloomsbury Academic or the authors.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-4725-1944-3

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN

 Contents

Series Editor’s Foreword vii

Acknowledgements ix
List of Contributors x
Introduction: Towards a Postcolonial Critique of Modern Piracy 1

Part 1 Conceptions: The Domain of Postcolonial Piracy

1 Revisiting the Pirate Kingdom Ravi Sundaram 29

2 Beyond Representation: The Figure of the Pirate
Lawrence Liang 49
3 On the Benefits of Piracy Volker Grassmuck 79
4 ‘Dreaming with BRICs?’ On Piracy and Film Markets in
Emerging Economies Shujen Wang 99

Part 2 Reflections: Reframing the Discourse of Postcolonial Piracy

5 The Paradoxes of Piracy Ramon Lobato 121

6 Depropriation: The Real Pirate’s Dilemma Marcus Boon 135
7 Keep on Copyin’ in the Free World? Genealogies of the
Postcolonial Pirate Figure Kavita Philip 149
8 Interrogating Piracy: Race, Colonialism and Ownership
Adam Haupt 179

Part 3 Selections: The Work of Postcolonial Piracy

9 To Kill an MC: Brazil’s New Music and its Discontents

Ronaldo Lemos 195
10 ‘Justice With my Own Hands’: The Serious Play of Piracy in
Bolivian Indigenous Music Videos Henry Stobart 215
vi Contents

11 Money Trouble in an African Art World: Copyright,

Piracy and the Politics of Culture in Postcolonial Mali
Ryan Thomas Skinner 243
12 Hacking and Difference: Reflections on Authorship in the
Postcolonial Pirate Domain Satish Poduval 273

Index 293
 Series Editor’s Foreword

The current global situation of copyright and the challenges to it

through piracy can only be understood by locating contemporary
developments within a long history of imperial and capitalist
relations. This, in brief, is the argument framing the exceptional book,
Postcolonial Piracy: Media Distribution and Cultural Production in the
Global South, edited by Lars Eckstein and Anja Schwarz. The assertion
of personal authorship and proprietary rights, they argue, is under-
pinned by complex legal commitments, most notably the 1994 TRIPS
(Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) Agreement
that established a global standard for copyright governance. At the
same time, however, advances in technology – digital and other – have
increased the possibilities of broader sections of the global population
not only to consume, but also to create, adapt and redistribute media
and communications. The ways in which this is happening, particularly
in the global South, they suggest, can be best understood through the
conceptual framing of ‘postcolonial piracy’ which draws attention to
the deeper tensions between modernity and piracy.
Eckstein and Schwarz bring together a group of renowned scholars
to reflect on issues of ‘postcolonial piracy’ from and in different
geographical contexts and in relation to diverse disciplinary commit-
ments. As a whole, the book examines the many ways in which people
from around the globe access forms of technology, media and related
products outside of the standard logic of ‘property’ as defined within
modernist conceptions of such engagements. The chapters focus on
how people negotiate the global regimes of authority and property,
work through different understandings of copy and piracy, or explore
the tensions between notions of legality and criminality in this context.
Rather than seeking to define piracy or come to a common agreement
as to what it is, the collection offers a gripping account of what piracy
does across various contexts in the global South.
viii Series Editor’s Foreword

One of the key concerns of the Theory for a Global Age series is
to ask how we might understand our present and future differently
if we start from a critical examination of the idea of the global as
constitutive of our conceptual categories and paradigms. Postcolonial
Piracy provides a wonderfully rich gathering of topics, themes and
debates in address of such concerns. Each chapter brings something
distinctive to the book and, together, the chapters offer a strong
challenge to understandings of modernity and related concepts that
do not take the global into consideration. The postcolonial framing is
both a theoretical one and a situational one that enables the chapters
to engage across a variety of themes and build a forceful account of the
domains, discourse and work of postcolonial piracy. It is an excellent
contribution to the debates on modernity, copyright and piracy and
provides a number of openings for us to begin to think through these
issues in a new light.

Gurminder K. Bhambra
 Acknowledgements

This volume has evolved from an international symposium on

Postcolonial Piracy hosted by the University of Potsdam in cooper-
ation with the Literaturwerkstatt, Berlin, and the Haus der Kulturen
der Welt, Berlin, in December 2011. Our thanks go to the Volkswagen
Foundation, who generously funded this event, and especially to our
student staff who helped pull it off. In Carly McLaughlin we found
an invaluable critical reader of the first draft of the manuscript that
grew from selected conference papers and four additionally commis-
sioned essays. We are very grateful to Elisabeth Wood for painstakingly
compiling the index, and to our editors and readers at Bloomsbury and
Fakenham Prepress for getting everything in shape. More than every-
thing, our love goes to our partners and children for all the support and
distractions that keep us sane – Djaynab, Zoë and Marley; and Tobi
and Alois, who was born just three days after the symposium which
started this project.
 List of Contributors

Marcus Boon is Professor of English Literature at York University in

Toronto. His research interests include the history of the concept
of practice, the anthropology of imitation, and global subcultures.
Lars Eckstein is Professor of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures
outside of Britain and the US at the University of Potsdam,
Germany. His research interests include postcolonial and
decolonial theory, literary and cultural memories of empire, and
the study of global popular cultures.
Volker Grassmuck is Professor of Media Sociology at the Centre
for Digital Cultures, Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany,
where he directs the project Public Service Media 2.0. His research
interests focus on the digital revolution and include copyright, the
knowledge commons and public service media in the networked
public sphere.
Adam Haupt is Associate Professor in the Centre for Film & Media
Studies at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He is the
author of Static: Race and Representation in Post-Apartheid Music,
Media and Film, and Stealing Empire: P2P, Intellectual Property and
Hip-Hop Subversion.
Ronaldo Lemos is Professor of Law at the Rio de Janeiro State
University Law School, Director of the Rio Institute for Technology
& Society, and an internationally respected lawyer and public
commentator on intellectual property, technology, and culture.
Lawrence Liang is a researcher and lawyer at the Alternative Law
Forum, Bangalore, which he co-founded. The Alternative Law
Forum is an autonomous interdisciplinary research institution
intervening into intellectual property law and policy, and a space
that provides qualitative legal services to marginalized groups.
Ramon Lobato is Research Fellow in Media and Communications
at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne. His primary
 List of Contributors xi

research area is audiovisual distribution, with a focus on informal

and pirate networks.
Kavita Philip is Associate Professor of History with affiliate
faculty positions in Anthropology and Informatics at
the University of California, Irvine. She is the author of
Civilizing Natures, and co-editor of four volumes that curated
interdisciplinary work in radical history, political science, art,
activism, gender, and public policy.
Satish Poduval is Associate Professor of Cultural Studies at the
English and Foreign Languages University in Hyderabad, India. He
is interested in media history, cultural politics of democracy, and
contemporary Indian cinema.
Anja Schwarz is Junior Professor of Cultural Studies at the University
of Potsdam, Germany. Her research interests include memory
studies, literary and cultural productions from the Pacific region,
and the entanglements of anthropology and literature.
Ryan Thomas Skinner is Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology
in the School of Music and Department of African American
and African Studies at The Ohio State University. His research
focuses on popular culture, ethics and aesthetics, cultural politics
and economy, public piety, world music, and subaltern social
movements in Africa and its diasporas.
Henry Stobart is Reader in Music/Ethnomusicology in the Music
Department of Royal Holloway, University of London, UK.
His principal research focuses on indigenous music in the
Bolivian Andes, including such themes as performance practice,
environment, aesthetics, music video production, creativity,
copyright and media piracy.
Ravi Sundaram is Professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing
Societies (CSDS) in New Delhi. He co-founded and co-directs the
Centre’s influential Sarai programme, a platform for research and
reflection on the interfaces between cities, information, society,
technology, and culture. His work deals with the intermingling of
media technology and urban life in the postcolonial world.
xii List of Contributors

Shujen Wang is Associate Professor of Media Studies at Emerson

College, Boston, and Research Associate in the Fairbank Center
for East Asian Research at Harvard University. Her research
interests include media globalization, piracy and global copyright
governance, and issues surrounding networks, space and
technology.
 Introduction
Towards a Postcolonial Critique of Modern Piracy
Lars Eckstein and Anja Schwarz

Campinas, Brazil, 2013: A 20-year-old funk carioca MC with millions

of followers on YouTube, but no exposure in record stores, on the
radio or on TV, is shot performing on stage in front of thousands of
fans. Cochabamba, Bolivia, 2008: In a self-produced music video, an
originario musician from the northern Potosi region styles himself as
a local tinku warrior who takes ‘justice in his own hands’ by wrecking
a shop selling pirated VCD material mass-manufactured in Peru.
Bamako, Mali, 2006: An aspiring Malian dance band plays a series
of free concerts secretly hoping to be spotted for an international
booking on the world music circuit; MCs toast to the audience to
buy their officially labelled cassettes while the band liberally borrows,
embeds and layers the sounds of other artists. Cochin, India, 1995:
An ultra-leftist playwright from Kerala is taken to court for ‘stealing
literary property’ after writing a counter-play to a classic 1952
communist drama in which he examines the caste-based injustices of
communist rule.
Across the global South, converging media technologies have facili-
tated complex forms of cultural production, distribution and reception
in which globalized norms of creating, self and belonging interact
with local histories and desires in intricate ways. This volume sets out
to examine the innumerable ‘provisional compromises’ (Chakrabarty
2000: 70) resulting from this dynamic in a global age in which the
vast majority of the world’s population fails to access the flows of
technology, media, goods and ideas according to the dominant logic
2 Postcolonial Piracy

of property set as ‘modern’ standard. This standard, as it were, has

a distinct local history; it basically evolved from British utilitarian
legal models and German idealist notions of personal authorship, but
travelled quickly across the Atlantic and beyond. Entangled, since its
inception, in the imaginaries of imperialism and an emerging capitalist
world system, it was enshrined as a global doctrine with the 1994 TRIPS
Agreement which set minimal standards of copyright governance for
all WTO member states. As indicated by the above examples, however,
the notions of property and self propagated by this regime have been
thoroughly challenged over the past decades, not least by the techno-
logical interventions of the analogue and digital revolutions. While
these transformed the global North, they brought a sea change, as Ravi
Sundaram and Lawrence Liang among others have pointed out, for
large sections of the population in the South by increasingly offering
‘people ordinarily left out of the imagination of modernity, technology
and the global economy ways of inserting themselves into these
networks’ (Liang 2005: 12). These new avenues of access range from
the spread of the four-track tape machine across Asia, Africa and the
Americas in the 1970s to the introduction of various video formats in
the 1980s and 1990s; they encompass the global distribution of often
recycled computer hardware all the way to the mass dissemination of
the internet and mobile phones in the new millennium. What all these
technologies have in common is that they have allowed users not only
to consume, but crucially also to produce, share and reproduce media
in an infrastructure that is more often than not informal and volatile,
yet which has facilitated a velocity of media content which increasingly
renders difficult if not obsolete any attempts to confine it and prevent it
from travelling.
We have chosen to address a kaleidoscope of vastly different
practices which have emerged in the strained spaces between global
regimes of authority and property on the one hand, and local ‘culture[s]
of the copy’ (Sundaram 2007) on the other as cultures of piracy, with
due awareness of the ideological and conceptual complexities this
entails. This first concerns the fact that the term piracy is habitually
 Introduction 3

tied to questions of the law, be it in the rampant rhetoric of anti-

piracy campaigns by industry associations or in the discourses of
anti-copyright lobbies. Yet legalistic definitions of piracy are notori-
ously vague and at the same time too limited in scope for the kind
of engagement with the phenomenon that is envisaged here. As Joe
Karaganis points out, piracy has not had a stable legal referent across
history, nor is there any consistency today in intellectual property
legislation, let alone practices of enforcement, across national and
regional contexts, despite all efforts at international synchronization.
Piracy, he argues on these grounds, ‘is almost certainly better under-
stood as a product of enforcement debates than as a description of
specific behavior’ (Karaganis 2011: 2). If we nevertheless stick with the
term to address a highly heterogeneous set of cultural practices, this
requires some qualification. We should make it quite clear that this
volume does not seek to define what piracy is, legally or otherwise.
Rather, our interest is to describe what piracy does across a range
of different contexts in the global South. We find these descriptions
emerging in the cultural work of locally specific modes of medial
production, consumption and distribution which oscillate between
the formal and informal, within highly heterogeneous frameworks of
‘porous legalities’ (Liang 2005); yet we refrain from ‘bringing every-
thing back to intellectual property’ (Lobato, Chapter 5, this book). The
thrust of this volume, then, is to work towards an understanding of the
cultural performance of postcolonial piracy. Its aim is to assemble and
reflexively assess critical interventions conceptualizing such perfor-
mances, to relate them to specific case studies across Asia, Africa and
the Americas, and to ultimately devise new languages for thinking and
theorizing the work of piracy for a global age.
The second challenge that inevitably comes with the term piracy is
its semantic entanglement with maritime piracy, from seventeenth-
century Caribbean buccaneering all the way to the twenty-first-century
raids by Somali fishermen in the Straits of Aden. Maritime piracy
invariably functions as the vehicle of the metaphor of media piracy,
whether employed by those who lobby against it as a threat to states
4 Postcolonial Piracy

and capital, or those who celebrate it in the spirit of libertarianism or

anti-capitalism. Each party, of course, draws on a different cultural
imaginary, either highlighting connotations of violence and illegality,
or capitalizing on a long and popular cultural history of casting
pirates as figures of resistance, from Defoe’s A General History of the
Pyrates (1724) to the notorious fictionalizations of Hollywood. In any
case, the metaphor imports an affective and ideological dimension
that must be reckoned with, and demands self-reflexive positioning
against (or within) the dominant récits of heroic resistance or petty
villainy. More generally, the trope needs to be handled with care
because, while it is productive in underscoring the continuities of
power’s dealing with its others in a capitalist world system, it also
understates the difference between maritime piracy that is framed
around tangible goods and labour, and of cultures of the copy
that invest in the infinite reproducibility of increasingly intangible
content (cf. Lessig 2004: 64). Again, such differences may be bridged
by focusing less on what piracy is, and more on what it does as a
‘boundary object’ which throws into relief its framing discourses. As
Kavita Philip seminally puts it: ‘Seeing pirates as boundary objects
helps bring into focus the fields stabilizing on either side of the pirate,
and thus to see as co-emergent the pirate figure along with the fields
with which it is always imbricated’ (Philip, Chapter 7, this book; see
also Strathern (1999) for a larger anthropological grounding). The
great advantage of sticking to piracy and the figure of the pirate in
this sense is that it facilitates a larger historical perspective across
the longue durée of globalization, and allows us to tie discussions of
piracy to questions of modernity at large which also crucially inform
our reading of the ‘postcolonial’.
We have adopted our main title, Postcolonial Piracy, from Ravi
Sundaram’s seminal work on Pirate Modernity where it crops up in a
single paragraph only, yet powerfully sets some of the core parameters
of our project. Sundaram defines postcolonial piracy as a ‘post-liberal
(if not post-Marxist) cultural effect’ which ‘destabilizes contemporary
media property, both enabling and disabling creativity, and evading
 Introduction 5

issues of the classic commons, while simultaneously radicalizing

media access for subaltern groups’ (Sundaram 2009: 111–12). For his
specific interest in urban media practices in Delhi, he tends to set off
‘postcolonial’ modes from other modes of piracy by locating them in
‘local networks of bazaar exchange and face-to-face contact, rather
than individual online downloads’ (112). Such a distinction, however,
becomes increasingly difficult to maintain in view of more recent
medial developments across the South (cf. Sundaram 2012). In its most
basic sense, therefore, we take postcolonial piracy to encompass any
culture of the copy in print, analogue or digital mediascapes across the
global South, loosely associating our reading of the postcolonial with
a tricontinental focus as propagated, for instance, by Robert Young
(2003). At the same time, we draw on the postcolonial as a crucial
mode of critique that challenges Eurocentric narratives of global
modernity.
For the remainder of this introduction, we will expand on the nexus
between piracy and the modern drawn up by Sundaram, and attempt
to outline some of its wider historical and geopolitical resonances.
A postcolonial critique of the current debate, we wish to propose,
needs to engage with and intervene in the Eurocentric imaginary of
modernity which underscores the very notions of ‘property, capitalism,
personhood’ (Sundaram 2009: 111) that inform the discourse on
piracy. Let us in the following, then, briefly attempt to ‘rethink
modernity’ (Bhambra 2007) through the lens of global piracy.

Piracy and modernity

Debates about the disruptive force of media piracy and concomitant

crises of cultural authority are hardly new, but reach back at least as far
as the fifteenth century. Piracy was a formative ‘boundary object’, for
instance, across early modern discourses in England from the intro-
duction of the printing press in the 1470s, and shaped controversies
which testify to not only a slow revolution of artistic production but
6 Postcolonial Piracy

also a thorough reformulation of authorship. Up until about 1600,

artistic authority for the literary and musical elite largely remained a
function of social position defined by adequate employment, entailing
that the core medium of choice for the English courtly ‘musicus’ and
‘maker’ was the handwritten manuscript, a medium which ensured
limited circulation and the social control of textual production. Modern
questions of authorship, originality and ownership did not really matter
in this late medieval model, at least not beyond the pragmatics of the
(ephemeral) performance of manuscripts in institutional relations.
Print culture and the capitalist market, then, were initially a highly
ambivalent alternative for those who lacked or lost access to patronage
or related ways of social authorization (cf. Gillespie 2006). In fact, the
derogatory term ‘compositor’ or ‘composer’ was specifically devised by
the late medieval elite as a means to discredit the modern competition
from the presumably uneducated scribes, hacks and pirates of an age of
print ‘prostituted’ by commerce (Rupp 2005: ch. 4). The troubled rise of
the early modern composer and author, as a function of the increasing
precariousness of aristocratic and clerical employment options and the
rising opportunities of the bourgeois market, throws into ironic relief
later discourses desiring to disentangle their legitimacy from their
pirate others.
The composers and authors of the Gutenberg age of course devised,
and were subject to, new modes of social control, partly in the interests
of state censorship, but especially in view of the sudden mass repro-
ducibility of printed material. Within the world of print, notions such
as the originality of the ‘work’ or art, and of emphatic authorship tied
to the person of the artist as sovereign property, were only gradually
established and affirmed – in Foucault’s (1977) famous reading, they
were not fully conceptually and institutionally established in Europe
until around 1800. And they were the result of multiple crises of
authority which were thoroughly transnational in scope. As Adrian
Johns’s magisterial research into The Nature of the Book (1998) and
Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates (2010)
demonstrates, print piracy, while endemic across the history of Western
 Introduction 7

modernity, was particularly effective not only in the social, but also in
the geographical margins of markets. Thus, in the Anglophone world,
particularly Scottish and Irish pirate publishers unsettled the authority
of English printed matter in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
while, as Volker Grassmuck’s contribution to this volume reiterates, the
post-independence United States book market systematically failed to
recognize British copyright throughout the nineteenth century. Piracy
thus ‘fueled the development of a deliberative public sphere … and
the transfer of knowledge between more and less privileged social
groups and regions’ (Balázs 2011: 399), while at the same time driving
the economic (and imperial) centres to more firmly assert and justify
copyright control, from the 1557 Royal Charter of Incorporation of
the Stationers’ Company to the 1709 Statute of Anne, via the 1774
Copyright Case (in which the British House of Lords sided with Scottish
renegade printer Alexander Donaldson’s liberalist defence against the
proposition of perpetual copyright) all the way to the international
forays of the 1886 Berne Convention and the global regimes of TRIPS.
While there is little disagreement about the fact that, on the basis
of such evidence, Western modernity and cultures of piracy are
inextricably entwined, and that the global design of a copyright regime
based on specific notions of ‘property, capitalism, personhood’ has
emerged from the local histories of such entanglements, there is still
more than one way of framing and telling this story. In the further
course of our introduction, we wish to complicate predominantly
Eurocentric stories of the legacies of piracy and modernity, including
a relatively widely shared narrative (partly rehearsed, also, in contribu-
tions to this volume) which reads piracy as an essentially ‘transitional’
phenomenon, as a crucial phase in the establishment of peripheral
markets which will, if not criminalized and more fully ‘developed’,
naturally grow into the modern domain of copyright. We tend to
be suspicious of such narratives precisely because of the underlying
imaginary of the modern which underscores their telos.
Our critique of the piracy/modernity-nexus in this sense builds on
a larger critique of the scope and place of modernity in the Western
8 Postcolonial Piracy

philosophical and sociological imagination. Without being able to

go into detail about the long legacy of Western conceptions of the
modern from enlightenment discourses to the classical sociology of
Durkheim, Marx and Weber, from Giddens or Luhmann all the way
to, for instance, Eisenstadt’s influential ‘multiple modernities’, we wish
to follow Gurminder Bhambra (2007; cf. also Boatca et al. 2010) in
fundamentally critiquing a tacitly shared proposition across the field
that imagines Europe as the unique origin, and as the emphatically
endogenous laboratory of the modern. Modernity, in other words, is
typically attributed to a momentous transformation within European
societies following the conceit of ‘rupture and difference’ (Bhambra
2007: 1), a conceit that not only silences historical and transcultural
entanglements, but also underscores a teleology of modernization
according to a diffusionist logic which sets Europe at the global
centre from where modernity then gradually spreads out across the
remainder of the planet via the joint trajectories of colonization,
mission and trade.
Opposed to this reading, postcolonial critique has insistently
foregrounded the fact that Europe did not establish its self-ascribed
relation to modernity before, but crucially through imperialism and
colonization. As Bhambra holds, ‘colonization was not simply an
outcome of modernity, or shaped by modernity, but rather, modernity
itself developed out of colonial encounters, encounters which are
hardly captured by the idea of “diffusion”’ and continue to shape our
world to this day (Bhambra 2007: 77). Walter Mignolo, drawing on
Anibal Quijano’s notion of the ‘coloniality of power’ (Quijano 2000),
seminally expresses this in the twin concept of ‘modernity/coloni-
ality’. Coloniality, here, references the silenced ‘darker side’ (Mignolo
2011) or ‘hidden logic of modernity, the logic that justifies its place as
guiding light and point of arrival, on the one hand, and of disavowal
and dependency on the other’ for subaltern cultures and knowledges
(Mignolo 2003: 441–2). Taking seriously this critique of modernity –
a critique voiced not only in relation to Latin America but also from
across the postcolonial planet (cf. e.g. Turnbull 2000; Chakrabarty
 Introduction 9

2000; Mbembe 2000) – entails piracy having to be conceived as

inextricably tied not only to modernity, but also, on its darker side, to
coloniality.

Piracy and coloniality

Let us briefly linger with the early modern Americas to illustrate the
basic viability of thinking piracy through the entwined avenues of
modernity/coloniality and follow Barbadian historian Hilary Beckles
(1997), who declares the Caribbean contact zones of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries as foundational sites of the modern. After all, the
Caribbean imperial economy was since its inception built on a complex
network of brokers, insurers and financiers, vast schemes of trans-
continental labour recruitment, and operated the largest industrial
complexes of the day, the sugar mills, which in many ways antici-
pated industrial mass production in Europe (cf. Williams 1994). And
following C. L. R. James’s seminal history of the Haitian Revolution,
The Black Jacobins (1989), Beckles encourages us to read the Caribbean
labour regime as promoting a radical ‘proletarisation’ of the enslaved
worker which, more than a century before the Russian Revolution,
gave rise to the first manifestation of a thorough philosophical as
much as institutional renegotiation of modernity’s regimes of ‘property,
capitalism, personhood’. A view from the Caribbean along such lines
effectively questions modernity as the product of an endogenous
process within Europe, later exported to presumably ‘premodern’
societies across the globe. Instead, it fundamentally encourages us to
think of the conditions of modernity as negotiated within the violent
laboratories across the colonial contact zones, from where they were
(re)imported to the European metropolises only to be strategically
purged of their ‘other’ local histories.
Modernity, to echo Paul Gilroy (1993), is hardly ‘rooted’ in the
imperial centres, then, but is rather the product of innumerable ‘routes’
across a progressively colonized planet, and most adequately symbolized
10 Postcolonial Piracy

by the innumerable ships which transported not only tangible goods and
humans in various degrees of bondage, but also complex cosmogonies,
ideologies and ideas. This conceptual move has intriguing resonances
for our project, because if we allow ourselves to think of the imperial
slave ship as the site where the battle for modernity has been fought
out, as profoundly argued, for instance, by Ian Baucom’s Specters of the
Atlantic (2005), need we not also locate the pirate vessel at the heart of
modernity, as a foundational if ambivalent trope which both shapes and
refracts negotiations of the modern? After all, the ‘boundary object’ of
piracy, on the one hand, crucially functioned to stabilize the identitarian
discourses of Western modernity, as outlined, for instance, by Nicole
Waller in her encompassing study American Encounters with Islam
in the Atlantic World, exploring how the ‘captivity crises’ induced by
privateering off the North African coast in particular triggered ‘cultural
scripts that move beyond the scope of local histories to establish a
mapping of the world into economic, religious, and racial spheres’
(Waller 2011: 2). On the other hand, as Lawrence Liang traces in this
volume following Linebaugh and Rediker, the codes of early Atlantic
buccaneering also institutionalized some of the first distinctive counter-
cultures of modernity, crucially destabilizing the modern identitarian
politics of nation, class, capital, religion or race by creating limited
social spaces which, if only temporarily, ‘established an alternative ethic
and an alternate mode of being’ (Liang, Chapter 2, this book).
A view from the coloniality of power in this vein does not stop at
maritime piracy, of course, but encourages us to rethink the trajectories
of modernity’s conception of ‘property, capitalism, personhood’ further.
It allows us, for instance, to foreground the imperial imaginary under-
pinning John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government (1689) which, as
Adam Haupt points out in this volume, in many ways formed the philo-
sophical template for the inception of copyright legislation by the 1709
Statute of Anne. A contrapuntal reading, to use Edward Said’s phrase,
of the rise of copyright which ties the ‘work’ of art to the personhood
of clearly demarcated civil subjects by right of their invested labour,
forbids us to isolate this logic from related logics at work in the violent
 Introduction 11

dispossessions of settler colonialism in the Americas, Southern Africa

or Australia and New Zealand. It encourages us to interrogate how the
foundational writ of habeas corpus underscored notions of intellectual
as much as of human property in the discourses legitimizing (and
striving to abolish) chattel slavery. It asks us to critically interrogate the
cosmopolitan debates of the Enlightenment over the global circulation
of both human and property rights for their underpinning ideologies
and typologies of gender, class and, in particular, race. And finally, a
contrapuntal reading from the perspective of coloniality also asks us
to acknowledge, without denying the local validity and productivity of
copyright, alternative local histories and epistemologies which frame
notions of the self and its relation to the world.
Such reflections call up Michael Taussig’s Benjaminian medita-
tions on different ‘cultures of the copy’ in Mimesis and Alterity (1993),
which propose that Western capitalism facilitated a culture of ‘disen-
chantment’ that is ‘home to a self-enclosed and somewhat paranoid,
possessive, individualized sense of self severed from and dominated
over a dead and nonspiritualized nature … within a system wherein
that self ideally incorporates into itself wealth, property, citizenship’.
Taussig ventures to juxtapose this disenchantment with the ‘sympa-
thetic magic’ of cultures he conceives of as essentially ‘mimetic’,
informed by the notion of a ‘protean self with multiple images (read
“souls”) of itself set in a natural environment whose animals, plants,
and elements are spiritualized to the point that nature “speaks back”
to humans’ (Taussig 1993: 97). He advocates exploring precisely such
alternative ‘cultures of the copy’ and their potential for ‘post-capitalist
utopias organized around the playful exchange of difference, weak
chiefs, sharing, and what we may dare designate as a “human,” and
perhaps “yielding” relation to nature’ (ibid.: 98) which may allow us
to reframe the problem of piracy, as Marcus Boon proposes in his
contribution to this volume, as relating less to questions of subaltern
‘appropriation’ than to questions of ‘depropriation’.
Yet we may also bring the debates on piracy and modernity/coloni-
ality back to the postcolonial present and interrogate, with Partha
12 Postcolonial Piracy

Chatterjee, the larger viability of the presumably universal category of

‘citizenship’ across the global South. As Chatterjee famously maintains,
in most postcolonial nation states the field of politics became ‘effec-
tively split’ between what he refers to as ‘civil society’, a more often than
not very narrow domain ‘where citizens relat[e] to the state through
the mutual recognition of legally enforceable rights’, and a much wider
domain of ‘political society’. In political society, Chatterjee insists,
‘governmental agencies dea[l] not with citizens but with populations’
which critically fail to carry ‘the ethical significance of citizenship’
(Chatterjee 2011: 13–14). The multiple informal exchanges of such
‘populations’ across the South – for instance, of the urban poor whose
access to housing, water, electricity or (unspectacularly in this context)
media are more often than not ‘illegal’ according to the codes of law
– may well be tolerated if in the interest of the state. Typically, their
‘illegality’ is explained as an exception to the order of ‘property and the
rights of proper citizens’ in order not to fundamentally unsettle the
rule of law. Conversely, Chatterjee argues, the populations of political
society respond to this logic not by appealing to the law either, but by
striving to form ‘moral communities’ which pressure governments to
tolerate, again, popular exceptions (ibid.; cf. also Simone 2006 or Liang,
Chapter 2, this book).
A critique of how postcolonial piracy, in Sundaram’s terms, ‘funda-
mentally disrupts the categories of debate of property, capitalism,
personhood’ (Sundaram 2009: 111), this is to argue, needs to engage
with what it actually means to be a person, a citizen, a pirate, in the
postcolony. What is called for, therefore, is a composite picture of
locally grounded critiques which attend to distinct local histories
and epistemologies as much as to the global designs of ‘property,
wealth, citizenship’ which inform the capitalist world system. Or,
put differently, a postcolonial critique of piracy needs to combine
what Kavita Philip promotes as the genealogical analysis of piracy as
a ‘boundary object’, with what Mignolo, following Gloria Anzaldúa,
refers to as ‘border thinking’. Border thinking invariably demands,
for Mignolo, a ‘pluritopic hermeneutics’, a way of reading which
 Introduction 13

entails ‘a critical reflection on knowledge production from both

the interior borders of the modern/colonial world system … and
its exterior borders’ (Mignolo 2000: 11). The most vocal critiques
of Southern piracy that dominate both the Western media and
academic debates, we wish to argue, hardly adhere to such a
programme. Instead, they tend to read and understand piracy
within and against the monotopic narratives of modernity which we
have tried to unsettle here. Let us now rehearse some of the major
arguments.

Monotopic critiques of piracy

Our review of some of the major discourses about Southern piracy

draws heavily on Ramon Lobato’s attempt at a systematization of the
field, three of whose ‘Six Faces of Piracy’ (Lobato 2008) we wish to
briefly foreground. We are fully aware that this taxonomic reduction
rather crudely simplifies a contingent field of debate full of nuances and
ambivalences, yet we nevertheless believe that it is helpful to flag some
of its most prominent cornerstones, not least in view of their suscep-
tibility to postcolonial critique. The most common interpretation of
piracy in this context is of course the conceptualization of piracy as
theft, following the dominant logic of copyright within the capitalist
world system according to which piracy is essentially imagined as a
‘parasitic act of social and economic deviance’ (Lobato 2008: 20). This
view is supported by mainstream legal and political discourses across
the Western world (cf. e.g. Choate 2005; Paradise 1999), and continues
to be vocally lobbied by a whole range of industry associations and
alliances which have, to date, also funded most of the research into
pirate practices. The viability of such research has been critiqued in
an encompassing and nuanced way by Joe Karaganis in his opening
chapter to the timely collaborative, and very much policy-oriented,
publication Media Piracy in Emerging Economies (2011). Karaganis
outlines how industry research has typically foregrounded, without
14 Postcolonial Piracy

making their methodology transparent, dramatic financial losses

incurred by media piracy, driven enforcement campaigns across the
globe, and advocated pedagogical measures in the interest of copyright.
What is interesting from a postcolonial angle is a gradual shift in
the rhetoric of such anti-piracy campaigning especially in view of
‘developing’ markets in Asia and beyond. While media piracy has
always been associated with criminal behaviour, Nitin Govil (2004)
has seminally observed that following the events of 9/11, the rhetoric
of the ‘war’ on global piracy became thoroughly entangled with the
rhetoric of the war on terror. Kavita Philip embeds these findings in an
analysis of larger shifts in Western media coverage, observing how an
older, largely patronizing perspective on Southern piracy ‘as annoying
and inconvenient for western business, but one that will inevitably be
cleaned up with the coming of full-fledged modernity to backward
nations’ gave way to a much more fundamental anxiety, an anxiety that
is fuelled not least by the economic success of BRIC nations which,
as Shujen Wang demonstrates in this volume, have in different ways
shunned the prescribed road to modernity ‘proper’ by negotiating
their way around strong copyright enforcement. In more recent media
representations, the spectre of postcolonial piracy has thus begun to
haunt nothing less than the whole ‘Western way of life’, fuelled by a
rhetoric of crisis lamenting that ‘[t]he very technologies that appear to
embody post-Enlightenment modernity and progress seem to facilitate
the destruction of western civilization by those who “hate our values
and freedoms”’ (Philip 2005: 201).
Such discourses advocating copyright enforcement across the globe
have come under attack, not least by interventions which oppose the
social control of media in the name of free speech. The defence of free
speech has gained particular momentum and a new geopolitical twist
more recently with the upheavals caused by, among other events, the
WikiLeaks affair (as briefly critiqued by Marcus Boon in Chapter 6,
this volume) and Edward Snowden’s revelations about digital surveil-
lance practices across the Western world. Yet it also underpins a range
of liberal critiques of strong copyright enforcement which reach back
 Introduction 15

as far as the inception of copyright itself (as indicated with reference

to the 1774 Copyright Case), and which similarly gained a new quality
and urgency with the digital revolution. The prevalent libertarian
argument, here, is that copyright restriction imposed by states and
monopolists blocks the free flow of ideas and the creative powers of late
modern network societies in which all consumers are potential creators
(cf. e.g. McLeod 2007; Strangelove 2005; Vaidhyanathan 2003). By
criminalizing vital techniques of the digital age such as cut-and-paste,
remixing, ripping or sampling, the proponents of this discourse argue,
an older generation of policy-makers is stifling the creative potential
of the coming generation; accordingly, they variously advocate an
extension of fair-use regimes, thin protection or alternative copyright
systems such as the Creative Commons model under which this very
volume is licensed. In fact, we collectively agreed with our contributors
to propose our project to its original publishing house not least on the
grounds of its politics of simultaneous print and open-access electronic
distribution, hoping to facilitate circulation within as many cultures of
the copy as possible, and especially in the global South.
We are, in this sense, indebted to Lawrence Lessig in particular,
the man behind Creative Commons and doyen of the free culture
movement. Nevertheless, Lessig’s model of free culture as underscored
in his highly influential eponymous 2004 publication is also troubling
from a postcolonial perspective, and indicative of the Eurocentric
imaginary underpinning large sections of the libertarian copyright
critique. As Kavita Philip and Lawrence Liang outline, Lessig’s work
post his interventions in The Future of Ideas (2001) is marked by a
strategic distinction between piracy that is acceptable and desirable,
and piracy that is ‘wrong’, in response to criticism, both indignant and
enthusiastic, which interpreted free culture as unsettling both the law
and the market. Good piracy, for Lessig, is defined by the ‘transform-
ative uses of creative work’ (Lessig 2004: 156), whereas bad piracy does
‘nothing but take other people’s copyrighted content, copy it, and sell
it’ (63). This kind of piracy, Lessig ventures, ‘is rampant and just plain
wrong. It doesn’t transform the content it steals; it doesn’t transform
16 Postcolonial Piracy

the market it competes in’ (66) – and, strikingly, Lessig’s rhetoric and
examples locate it overwhelmingly in Asia. ‘Asian’ piracy figures tacitly
as an oriental Other which potentially jeopardizes the libertarian
pillars of free culture – the bourgeois subject, its right to property and
the free market; or, as Philip concludes: ‘Asian pirates serve as his limit
case: the limit point of difference from bourgeois law … – abandon
those lifelines and we fall into the pit of Asian sameness. We lose the
difference … that makes us creative, successful, and technologically
productive’ (Philip 2005: 212).
Unsurprisingly, this logic is inverted in (neo)Marxist readings,
which precisely reject the legitimacy of ‘bourgeois law’ and the capitalist
world system which both the discourses opposing piracy as theft and
the discourses defending ‘good’ piracy as free speech support. By
framing piracy as resistance, the interventions in this field tend instead
to conceive of the media as a ‘system of control and exploitation that
operates in the service of capitalism’ and ‘insist on the importance
of class’ (Lobato 2008: 28). Vital examples of this approach are, for
instance, Ronald Bettig’s seminal Copyrighting Culture (1996), or the
Global Hollywood volumes co-authored by Toby Miller and colleagues
(2002 and 2008). Bettig undertakes a detailed and compelling history
of ‘the political economy of intellectual property’ which fundamentally
critiques the entanglements of copyright and capital, and analyses
in depth how the US government has, in conjunction with various
industry associations, aggressively enforced a global copyright regime
in its own economic interests. The authors of Global Hollywood, in turn,
offer a profound materialist critique of the exploitative transnational
labour and hegemonic distribution regimes of major film studios which
are critically enabled by intellectual property legislation that ‘prioritizes
ownership over use, creators over audiences, and production over
reception’ (Miller et al. 2008: 226). Both approaches tend to value
piracy as a viable mode of subversion and resistance within and against
a hegemonic neoliberal and neocolonial world system.
To build on such analyses a classical Marxist critique of piracy as
resistance, however, again creates a range of problems. More generally,
Another random document with
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 Before morning a severe storm set in, and later was accompanied by a rainfall, which decided
them to rest until it abated, so that it was past noon before the weather conditions were such as to
enable them to go forward.
Chump’s wonderful constitution was bringing him around and healing his wound rapidly, and he
was out of the wagon, and made short trips each day. His deportment had entirely changed. Instead of
being glum and morose, as was his habit earlier in the days of captivity, he began to examine things
with interest, and talked and laughed with his fellows.
The remarkable one of the four Saboros was Stut’s brother. He was the most powerful of the lot,
and by far the brightest, as he grasped questions propounded by John and Blakely, with the utmost
keenness. In physical proportions he was the equal of Chief. He was more voluble than either of the
others, and judging from the manner in which he treated many of Angel’s antics, he must have been a
wit in his tribe.
One thing was noticed from the first, and that was the deference which the other three always
accorded him. John was the first to notice this, and the observing eye of the Professor was also quick
to detect it.
“From the indications I am inclined to believe that Stut’s brother is more than the ordinary
individual in his tribe. I have noticed that in our scouting Stut never attempted to do anything until his
brother was consulted.” And John related many incidents of like character.
“Suppose we endeavor to ascertain his position,” responded the Professor. “It would not surprise
me to learn that he is a chief, and if so it will be a strong factor.”
John was quick to question Stut, and together with Blakely, it did not take long to satisfy
themselves on this point. When captured neither of them had sufficient clothing to show the rank to
which they were entitled, and the certain knowledge that he was a man of distinction in his tribe, was a
most pleasing thing.
George requested John to learn his name, and this was a matter easily ascertained. Indeed they
might have known this earlier, were it not for the stirring scenes which they had passed through since
the rescue, as Stut was heard to mention the name Muro on many occasions, but during these
conversations it had never been associated with his name.
He was, notwithstanding his size, exceedingly light of foot, and could throw a spear with great
accuracy and to enormous distances. The heavy bows which they had were simply playthings in his
hands. The guns were the most fascinating things to him, and he was constantly questioning about
them, and admiring the workmanship.
When Stut pointed out Harry, and told him that he had made the guns, and in his language
pictured out the wonderful workshops at the Cataract, he could not keep his eyes from him, and
walking over to Harry put his arm around him, and patted him on the shoulder, and finally rubbed
Harry’s nose with his own.
The Professor instantly recognized this tribute, and said: “That is a sign that you are his eternal
friend. You may depend on him to the extent of his own life. It is a way many savages have of
indicating love and devotion.”
Stut easily recognized the Professor as the leader of the expedition, and walked over and
performed the same rite with him, to the extreme gratification of all. It was not necessary for him to do
more than he had in the past to show his affection for John.
Gratitude, if earned, as it was in this case, is a tie which the savage regards as sacred. The
Professor selected one of the guns, and presented it to Muro, and showed him how to fit in the cap and
to load it, and this token was exhibited in a manner that could not be mistaken.
Harry went to one of the lockers and brought forth small mirrors which had been made, and
handed one to each of the warriors, and each thanked Harry in a voluble manner. The three warriors
were then each invested with guns, but they knew that it would not be wise to do any practicing in that
locality.
Blakely, who had been an officer in the army years before, conceived the idea that it would be a
good thing to practice drilling, and this caught the fancy of the boys, who ranged themselves in line,
and with the guns went through an evolution of arms. All the boys had been taught this on shipboard
as part of the regular routine, and the precision with which this was done excited the admiration of the
Saboros.
When John and the Professor also took up the guns and stood in line, the natives did likewise, and
imitated every movement, with greater or less skill. The marching tactics were also shown, and they
became willing and interested participants.
“It is too bad,” said George, “that we can’t have an exhibition of firing.”
“We may get plenty of that later on,” answered John.
They were instructed how to care for the guns, and the caps were purposely kept off, so they
would not be accidentally fired. All this was done in preparation for the time when the services might
be needed.
“A fighting force of eleven, with guns and plenty of ammunition, is sufficient to lick the whole
island, if we understand our business,” was Blakely’s comment, after viewing the brigade in his front.
Thus, at each step, the success of the mission seemed assured. Allies had been secured on whom
they could place confidence, and they started forward with an earnestness and a determination never
before possessed.
On the way were numerous springs, which formed rivulets of clear, cold water. The landscape was
beautiful in every direction. It could be readily understood why this was such an attractive portion of
the island. The soil was a dark, rich loam, but scarcely a foot of it was tilled by the natives.
Some of the tribes, as Blakely observed, planted a few vegetables, but aside from that the
principal occupation was hunting game, and the more delectable occupation, on the part of some
tribes, to capture their fellows, and offer them up as sacrifices to their deities. What a Paradise this
Island of Wonder could be made if the people were governed by a directing hand.
How the Professor’s heart must have longed to be able to show these people the advantages of
peace and harmony. No doubt he contemplated this many times, and in his talks this was frequently
alluded to.
As evening was approaching the wagon was halted at one of the sweet springs, and the Saboros,
under the order of Muro, scattered out to form the guard for the camp. The fort was erected as usual,
and the evening meal prepared. An ample supply of food was apportioned out for each of the guards,
and the boys were about to take them to the watchers, but Muro would not permit this, and compelled
each to come in for the purposes of the meal.
John was depended on to keep the camp in proper safety, and Muro recognized this as his
function, and when later on he came to John and beckoned him to follow, the latter knew that
something of more than ordinary importance was developing.
On the way toward the northwest, from which they had come, there was an evident movement,
which could be perceived in the bright moonlight. Muro pointed to the earth and moved his hand
along, and John was quick to grasp the situation and its meaning. He meant that the savages were
trailing them by the wheels of the wagon, and this was made doubly easy on account of the heavy rain
of the day previous.
The movement in front was plainly visible to those accustomed to such things, and the situation
was carried to the wagon without delay. No attack was anticipated during the night, and they had
plenty of time to plan their defense.
 Who were the enemy? Muro did not know, but it was doubtless those who had thus kept on their
trail for two days, in the hope that they would be held in check by the Kurabus to the south of them.
Calling John and Blakely into consultation, the Professor again suggested the plan of sending
word to the Saboros through the chief Muro, or his brother, Stut. The wisdom of this course was now
apparent, so Muro was called in, and the plan outlined.
He comprehended the situation at once, and immediately called in Stut, to whom he explained the
nature of his mission. Without a word, he was provided with all the arrows which could be found, and
given one of the spears, and before leaving George had prepared a package of food, which was
gratefully accepted.
All this was done with so much celerity and in such a businesslike manner that the boys readily
understood that whatever may be said of savages, it impressed on them the earnestness and the
obedient spirit that characterized all their movements.
 CHAPTER X

THE CAPTURE OF THE PROFESSOR

There is nothing more trying than to wait during the long watches of the night, knowing there is
an enemy at your door, who awaits the morn before attacking. Light and darkness are wonderful
things to contemplate. Every variety of subject was discussed, the moon and the stars, plants, trees and
flowers, the habits of people, the seasons, and kindred topics, but the one absorbing topic that always
had a leading place was the savage.
“There is one thing I must admire in them,” said Blakely, “and that is persistency.”
“That is one of the four cardinal principles in nature,” answered the Professor.
George was at the front at once. “What are the other three?”
“Resistance, reciprocity, and equalization.”
“That is something new to me, and I do not know whether I understand the meaning of it.”
“Well, in nature, everything persists in doing and in continuing to do just what it started out to do.
For instance, a ball at rest will continue at rest forever, and if it is moving it will continue to move,
unless in either case it is acted on by some external force.”
“Now every object in nature also has resistance. It objects to a change of form or direction.”
“I can understand that, but I do not see where the other two come in.”
“Well, nature is reciprocal in its tendencies. It gives and takes, so to say. If you heat water and set
it aside, it will cool off in course of time. If the water should be placed in a receptacle that had air in it,
the water would cool down, and the air would become warmer at the same time, and the heats would
reciprocate—that is, become of the same temperature.”
Then, if you should heat up different subjects at the same time it would be found that some would
require double the length of time to take up the same amount of heat. Suppose we take a pound of iron
and a pound of aluminum. In the case of iron it would absorb, say 100 units of heat in ten minutes,
whereas it would take fifteen minutes for the aluminum. If the heat is withdrawn it will be found that
it takes the aluminum fifty per cent longer to give off its heat than the iron, and thus the process is
equalized.”
When morning came the savages were seen in force to the northwest, and Muro’s prediction that
the Brabos were on the trail was found to be correct.
This was the first time this tribe had ever faced the white men. As was afterwards learned, they
had a knowledge of the existence of the “Fire Fiends,” as they were designated, but they now had to
learn something first hand.
As soon as the sun had arisen sufficiently to distinguish objects well they moved up, keeping for
the time at a safe distance, and Muro took delight in showing himself to his late captors. This caused a
chorus of howls, at which Muro laughed.
At a signal they started forward, launching their arrows, when within shooting distance, and
without stopping, poised their spears and rushed forward. At a signal seven shots rang out, and the
leaders fell. Seven more guns were brought into position. The charge halted, and the Professor advised
all to reload. Muro saw the wonderful execution, and danced about in glee, but he could not
understand why the shooting was not continued. It was such an unheard-of proceeding.
 Fig. 9. Arrow type most frequently used.

Without stopping to gather the wounded, they retreated to a safe distance, and the party had an
opportunity to count the number of the attacking party. All agreed that over a hundred were engaged,
and it was evident that the Brabo village to the south had been called to assist.
They surrounded the wagon at a safe distance, and the siege was begun. This could have been
done only on the theory that starvation would compel a sortie or surrender. They had no idea of the
number within the fort, but they knew what the effect of the fire had been, and they respected that
warning.
Muro was instructed to confer with them, and to say that they had no hostile intentions, and this
was conveyed to them, but the only response was that the whites had commenced the hostilities by
taking their prisoners from them; which was true.
There was no common ground on which they could enter into a treaty with them, and the question
now was to fight their way out as best they could.
“We might remain here for the day and night, and if we find they persist in besieging us, must
continue to the south, and fight them as we go.”
All agreed to the Professor’s proposal; and they settled themselves to the more comfortable
pastime of waiting for the morning. A most careful watch was kept up all night, and on two occasions
parties stole up in order to secure more advantageous positions, but the chief Muro and his friends
were too much on the alert to give them any advantage.
The wounded savages were removed by their friends in the night, and as soon as breakfast was
over the entire party ranged alongside the wagon and headed for the south. This direction, it will be
understood, would bring them directly into the heart of the Kurabus’ territory.
If the two tribes were hostile toward each other this might be a factor in their favor, but if friendly
it would certainly mean a bitter fight. Muro advised a southwesterly course, and this would, of course,
avoid the necessity of fighting both tribes, but it might also lead them into another tribe just as hostile.
The direct route to Muro’s tribe was to the south, or rather to the southeast. It was a difficult
problem to decide. They must force the issue, be it right or wrong.
“We must ascertain from Muro how long it will take Stut to reach the tribe,” suggested John.
“He says two days, and two days more to get the people in motion. Muro was pretty smart. He
says he instructed them to attack the Kurabus on the south, and that would divert them from us, but the
trouble is that he has hardly reached them yet, and before night we may be within the territory of the
Kurabus.”
A southwesterly course was decided on, and the Brabos followed. Evidently they had no fear of
the Kurabus, and the intervening time might have been employed by them in sending runners to
inform them of the invasion. All these things had to be taken into consideration.
The camp that evening was made at a running brook, and in the open, as usual. The camp was
again surrounded, and pickets were established to keep them at a safe distance. There was no
indication of the appearance of the Kurabus, and this relieved the situation somewhat.
When morning came the besiegers were nowhere in sight, and this meant one of two things; either
that they had given up the fight in sheer disgust, or that the Kurabus were at hand.
 The country became more broken as they advanced, and the continual ascent indicated a ridge of
some extent, and this might be the dividing line between the limitations of the tribes on the different
sides, just as they had found the streams to effect this division, and this was also pointed out by John
and Blakely.
The best trails were selected by John who was in the advance with Muro, and at noon stopped
within a valley which had a curious rock formation that attracted the eye of the Professor. The old
instinct, to discover minerals, was too strong for him to resist, and with a pick was soon prospecting
along the rocky walls.
He was gone for an hour before his absence was particularly noted, and George was the first to
direct attention to it. John and one of the Saboros started to the south in the direction taken by him,
and returned in less than a half hour without any tidings.
It was certain he had gone to the south, and the wagon was set in motion, and hurried forward. All
was excitement now. Both sides of the ridge were examined, and indications found where the rock had
been chipped and samples set aside.
As John crossed one of the ridges, he saw in the distance a band of savages moving rapidly to the
southeast, but too far distant to be able to distinguish the individuals containing it. When Muro came
up, he gazed forward, and his sharp, piercing eyes were sufficient to confirm their fears.
The Professor had been captured!
This startling news was conveyed to the boys, and their grief was heartrending to witness. They
moved about from place to place without knowing what to say or do. The tears came in spite of their
efforts.
“What shall we do?” asked Harry through his tears.
“We must follow them,” answered John, “but the wagon cannot travel fast enough for that. Muro
and one of the Saboros will accompany me, and Blakely, you remain with the boys, and follow as I
direct.”
Then going to the highest point of the hill, he pointed to the south. “See the end of the forest in the
distance, which may be five miles beyond. You will see the glimpse of the river there. To the east of
that is an elevation, with trees very distinctly outlined. That will be your objective point. Make for that
place as rapidly as possible, unless you get information from us to the contrary.”
“That is the forest where I made my home,” said Blakely. “I know every foot of this country, and
all down beyond that point. Within ten miles of that place is a savage village, and my opinion is that
they are the ones who have the Professor.”
“Muro has just informed me that the Osagas live in that neighborhood, or somewhat farther to the
west, and beyond the river is another tribe called the Berees.”
The boys looked at John. “Weren’t you captured by them, and was not Chief from that tribe?”
“Yes, but my impression is that the Osagas are to the east of the place indicated.”
If the Osagas captured the Professor there was some hope, because they did not believe Chief
would permit him to be ill-treated. They had still to account for one, if not two, tribes in the south of
the island, and of whom they knew nothing, except the slightest rumors.
John selected six of the guns, and an ample supply of ammunition, and as the chief and his
associates had been drilled in the use of the weapons since the last fight, it was felt that with the spears
they carried they would be a match for a pretty good force.
Thus equipped they plunged forward in the direction of the disappearing band.
Let us follow the movements of the Professor. In his eagerness to collect samples, he went much
farther than he intended, and left the wagon without taking anything in the shape of a weapon. When
he had proceeded less than a half mile from the wagon, he was surrounded by a dozen warriors, whose
headdress proclaimed them to be a tribe entirely different from any that they had formed the
acquaintance of, and as he saw resistance was useless, quietly submitted, and tried by all his arts to
induce them to accompany him.
But to all his efforts they turned a deaf ear, and without waiting hurried him across the ridge and
along the southern incline. The pick was taken away from him, and his clothing examined, but to his
surprise nothing was taken from his pockets, although he carried a small knife, and other trinkets that
the boys had made.
The march was kept up for fully four hours directly to the south and then turned to the east, and
shortly before night the village came into view. His arrival created great excitement; and all turned out
to welcome the strange man.
Months before this the Professor, in the course of his experimental work, had made what is called
synthetic food—that is, the same material substances as are used in any particular vegetable, are
combined to have the same food qualities as the real article, and when put up in tablet form it requires
but a small compass to give as much nutriment as a full meal.
It was fortunate that this and the other contents of his pockets were not removed at the time of the
capture, because those tablets became a wonderful agent, as the subsequent story will show.
When he arrived his captors took him to the chief at once, and he treated the head of the tribe with
the greatest deference. The house of the chief was the most pretentious in the village, as there were
three rooms to be seen, and passing by the open passageway at one side he saw a child, probably ten
years of age, lying on a couch.
Evidently it was suffering, as its wan and drawn face indicated. After making his deference to the
chief, he turned to the little sufferer, and the women shrieked and threw themselves in his way. He
turned to the chief, and pointed to the child, and moved in that direction.
The chief gave an order, and the women stepped aside. The Professor knelt down and took the
child’s hand and felt its brow, while the chief looked on in astonishment. Turning to the chief he
motioned for water, and indicated this by making the motion of pouring water from glass to glass.
It was instantly understood, and when the water came, in a small gourd, he asked for another, or
smaller vessel. Then reaching in his pockets he drew forth one of the small vials which the boys had
made, and poured a small portion into the small gourd, and forced some of it past the lips of the little
sufferer.
 Portable
Stationary
Fig. 10. Shell Vessels.

All this was done in silence, and they looked on him with awe. His white hair and long snowy
beard, the kindliness of his face, and his brave demeanor seemed to impress them in a wonderful way.
At an order from the chief the warriors and attendants disappeared, and he was left by the side of
the couch, holding the sufferer’s hand.
In less than a half hour the attendants brought a bountiful supply of food, but he waived them
aside, and remained there undisturbed for fully two hours, during which time he had administered
three doses of the medicine.
The chief came in, and, taking him by the hand, led him away, and did all in his power to express
his thanks for the service. One of the three rooms was assigned to him, and during the night he went to
the patient many times, and to his gratification by morning the fever was broken, and the child began
to perspire freely.
When the chief came in and saw the condition of the little girl his gratification was beyond all
bounds. The Professor witnessed, for the first time, how savage affection for their own can be just as
intense as among civilized tribes.
The chief led him outside and pointed to the north, indicating that he was ready to take him back
to his friends; but the Professor shook his head, and pointed to the child. This amazed the chief, and he
could hardly believe in the refusal of his captive to leave.
 During the afternoon he was surprised to notice the arrival of a large number of warriors, who
had, evidently, returned from some skirmish, as they carried several wounded, and also three
prisoners, who were incarcerated in a hut near the center of the village.
No restraint whatever was placed on his movements, and he wandered from place to place, and
witnessed the wailings of several women who heard of the deaths of their own kindred. The Professor
reproached himself, as he thought of the suffering he had, unwillingly, caused to others, but it could
not be helped.
One of the men was severely wounded by the thrust of a spear, and the Professor instantly saw
that he was suffering from internal bleeding. Pushing aside the men who surrounded him, the
Professor knelt down, changed the position of the bleeding warrior, and pressed his hand against the
artery which led to the wound.
His presence there, and the peremptory manner in which he undertook the relief, astonished the
new arrivals, but it was for a moment only, when the hurried tales which spread from one to the other
circulated among the crowd, and as the chief stepped forward and noticed the Professor he gave a
command which plainly showed that his work had been appreciated.
The Professor held his hand on the artery for fully an hour, until the blood clots began to form,
and thus staunched the flow. The other wounded ones were attended to immediately after the critical
patient had been put into a safe condition.
The men, women and children followed him around, as he moved from place to place. Returning
to the chief’s child, he found a slight fever, but this soon abated, and the second day the little patient
began to assume a brighter appearance.
During all this time the Professor had not partaken of a mouthful of the food offered him. His only
nutriment was obtained from the tablets referred to. The chief could not understand this. Their
amazement was intensified when he again refused food the third day.
The Professor was, of course, playing a part. Mystery is the most potent thing with uncivilized
tribes. He knew that John and the boys would be able to take care of themselves, and felt sure that
before long he would hear from them. He was making a strong ally of these people, and the proper
course was pursued to bring this about.
He would have been able at any time after the first day to go back to his companions, and to add
to his service something mysterious would make his power over them more potent than the mere
healing.
It should also be understood that the motive behind this had another meaning. All tribes have their
own physicians, or medicine men, and the great factor of strength with them is the mysteries with
which they are able to shroud their cures. To heal the chief’s child, or to perform any other cures,
would mean the bitter and vindictive hatred of that class.
It was necessary, therefore, that he should be able to do that which was beyond their power to
perform. To live without eating would be such an extraordinary power that it must impress them. The
medicine men performed their incantations, but he made no objections, and it was plain that his
ministrations were distasteful to them, when he saw their frowning faces.
The chief’s power, and the grateful looks of the one which first received his attention, were
sufficient to assure him that the policy he had pursued was successful.
Meanwhile, what were his friends doing to rescue him? John and the two Saboros plunged across
the hills much faster than it was possible to urge the team. The trail was soon discovered by his
associates, and they stopped only when night fell. After partaking a hurried meal, they again moved
forward for an hour, when voices were heard in the distance.
The mumblings grew more and more distinct, and when they halted were surprised to find a
considerable body of savages ahead. If this was the same tribe which captured the Professor it must
have been reinforced by a considerable body, as there were not more than a dozen in the party which
took him.
Moving to the left quite a distance, in order to avoid them, they came unexpectedly on another
body, still more numerous. Here was a mystery which John could not solve for the moment. Muro was
the first to catch the meaning of it. This was a hostile tribe, and they were waiting for the morning
before attacking.
It now appeared evident that the Professor’s captors were with one or the other of these warring
factions, and they withdrew to the north, and found an elevation near by, so that they might be able to
follow the events of the next day.
But the wagon was coming up in the rear. It must be intercepted, and the three scouted to the north
in order to discover whether it had moved up near enough to the position before night fell. The night
passed without finding the wagon. Undoubtedly they had made camp before reaching the
comparatively level country now occupied.
In the morning the two tribes maneuvered, and the fight began. It would have been bad policy to
mix in the affair, but Muro approached as close as possible in order to discover who the combatants
were. When he returned his only words were: Osagas and Berees.
The latter were a new tribe to John, but he was gratified to know that the Osagas were so near, and
it greatly increased his interest in the affair.
 CHAPTER XI

FINDING MORE OF THE INVESTIGATOR’S BOYS

The fight was hotly contested. It was noticed that the combatants did not fight hand to hand. It
was mostly a skirmish with bows and arrows, and considerable tactics were displayed in the effort to
turn each other’s position, and to effect captures.
To say the least, the so-called battle was a tame affair. In numbers they were evenly matched.
Sometimes, under cover, one party would approach close to the other and effect a rush, but this would
be checked, and thus it raged back and forth with unvarying success. Those wounded would be
captured in these rushes, and that seemed to be the main thing they were striving for.
It was this battle that brought the wounded and the captives into the village where the Professor
was. When the fight terminated John had no idea which was the victor. Judging from their standpoint,
the side securing the greatest number of captives won in the encounter.
While the battle was going on, the team came up and it was hurriedly concealed. Muro knew that
neither tribe would come to the north, until driven in that direction by force of numbers, so the wagon
was comparatively safe.
The boys were very low-spirited, when they learned of the battle in their front. To move farther
during that day and night would be folly. The way in front must be cleared. The next day the two
forces were still facing each other. In spite of all the wit and ingenuity of the Saboros and John not a
glimpse could be obtained of the Professor. They had no fear for him if he was in the hands of the
Osagas.
It was not until the fourth day that the Professor began to have some doubts and misgivings on the
part of his own people.
He knew a battle had taken place somewhere, but he did not connect it with the conflict which
John and Muro had witnessed. With a view of learning something of the tribe with which the warriors
were engaged, he went to the miserable hut, almost in the center of the village where they had been
taken on the first day.
There, cooped in a small place, were seven prisoners, two of them very small in comparison with
the others, and both exceedingly filthy. The moment the Professor made his appearance one of them
ran to him screaming, and crying out: “Professor—how did you come here?”
He was too much overpowered to answer for the moment. The other boy turned and burst into
tears. “Oh, help us,” was all he said. The cries of the boys brought the inhabitants to the hut. The
guards made no opposition to the Professor’s movements.
The chief appeared immediately, and as the Professor saw him approaching, put his arms about
the boys, and led them out. Then walking up to the chief, with a terrible frown in his face, demanded
why they had been treated in this manner. It was a strong, bold play, but it accomplished the purpose,
for when the Professor pointed to the filthy rags that covered the poor fellows an order from the chief
was quick to bring them clothing.
The boys cowered when they saw the peremptory manner in which he approached the chief, and
the boys could not help the tears from coming, at the joy of deliverance.
“Oh, tell us, Professor, why you are here? Have you seen any of the other boys? There are some
others on the island, but we do not know where they are.”
 “I am a prisoner, as well as yourselves, and was taken only four days ago, but have no fear for
your safety.”
“But if you are a prisoner, why did you talk to the chief in that way?”
“He is under some obligations to me; but come along with me, and fix yourselves up;” and to the
amazement of the boys he led them into the chief’s house. The chief pointed to the boys and to the
Professor as he spoke to the latter. The Professor nodded, and put his arms about the boys as before.
“How long have you been here?” he asked.
“Oh, a long time; more than six months. Some of the boys may still be free; but they are way east
of here, a great many miles.”
“How do you know they are east of this many miles?”
“Because there is where we were captured.”
“Can you understand any of the language?”
“Yes; we can talk with them a little.”
“I am glad to know that. Now I will see that you get water for taking a bath. How long is it since
you have had a bath?”
“Not since we were made prisoners.”
“Is there a river near here?”
“The river is at the foot of the hill to the east.”
“Which direction does it flow?”
“To the southwest.”
“Take this clothing with you, and let us go to the river.”
“Will they let us go?”
“Never mind; follow me, and take everything for granted.”
They passed out of the door, and through the crowd, and marched unmolested to the stream, which
was not five hundred feet away. The savages followed, but the Professor waved them back in an
imperious manner, and they halted without a protest.
“You act as though you were the chief. How did you happen to be the chief’s guest?”
“I cured his daughter, and this is his grateful way of repaying me. But I have a secret to impart to
you, and you must obey my injunctions. During our stay on the island I equipped a laboratory, and
among other things made a synthetic food, which is put up in small tablets.
“I have eaten nothing that they know of since my arrival but these tablets, and it was such a
marvelous thing that it has made my influence far greater than the power of their medicine men. When
we return the chief will, no doubt, have a meal ready for us. Do not be surprised if I do not eat. Act as
though it was natural for me to live without eating.”
“But are we going back again? Why can’t we escape?”
“We don’t want to escape, without their aid.”
The boys were astounded at this statement.
 Fig. 11. Soap Plant.

“Not escape without their aid? Why do you want them to help us?”
“Some of your friends will be here before long, and when we escape we want to take the whole
tribe with us,” said the Professor, smiling.
The boys did not smile at this statement. They were quiet for a time.
“But take your bath, boys, and don’t hurry it up. We have plenty of time.”
“Gee, I wish we had some soap.”
“Soap, why certainly; I think we can find plenty of it around here, and so saying the Professor
began a search along the stream, and as his eyes lighted on a shrub with long dagger-shaped leaves,
broke off a number of the branches which carried at the top of each stem a large cluster of reddish
brown berries.
“We ate some of those on one occasion and were poisoned.”
“They are poisonous, but not dangerously so.”
“What do you do with them?”
“Simply mash them up; see how easily they saponify, and make suds.”
“And here we have been all this time without knowing anything about them.”
“Of course water is always necessary in using them,” and the Professor laughed, as did the boys
also, at the recollection that they had no water for bathing purposes for six months.
“Why it grows all over the island wherever we have been.”
 “Yes; it grows extensively in Florida, Cuba and Mexico, and it is found in many varieties
throughout China and in India, in which latter country it is called The Pride of India. In China it is
called the China Tree.”
When the boys had bathed and clothed themselves they were transformed into new beings.
“Oh, tell us about the boys, and how you happened to come down here, and who are they!”
The Professor told them the names of the boys, and continued: “I want the boys themselves to tell
you all about what they have been doing, and where we live, and what a fine time we have had ever
since we were shipwrecked.”
The Professor’s predictions were true. The chief had an elaborate meal prepared, and the boys and
the Professor sat down with the chief. He remarked to the boys: “The meal looks most inviting, and it
is a trial not to partake, but I can stand it a few days more.”
The Professor showed the greatest deference to the chief, and at every proffer of food which the
chief made to the boys he acknowledged it in the most courtly manner.
The finest woven and matted leaves were provided by the chief in a spacious hut adjoining the
chief’s home. Through the boys he began a conversation with the chief, and learned many interesting
things, which will be detailed later. His first desire now was, in the quiet of their new home, to learn
something of the rudiments of the language.
The boys knew most of the things commonly used by name, and some of the verbs, and these the
Professor quickly acquired. He had a most wonderful memory, and could memorize pages without
much effort, so that before morning he knew all that the boys had learned of the jargon, for it was but
little else.
In the morning when he approached the chief, he greeted him in his own tongue, not with great
fluency, it is true, but he used the little he did acquire to good advantage. The chief marveled at this,
because heretofore he had not uttered a word to indicate that he understood the tongue, and the chief
could not for a moment comprehend that it was possible for him to learn the language in a night.
After this first interview, the boys were no less amazed at the memory displayed.
“From the talk I had with the chief it does not seem that the language contains more than two or
three hundred words.”
“But do we use any more in talking?”
“There are millions of our own people, fairly well educated, who have never used more than two
hundred words in their whole lives. It is not the number of words, but the order of arrangement
selected that is of value. Many noted authors have written whole books by the use of less than two
thousand words. Under the circumstances, the hundred words you taught me were not much of a feat
to memorize. As it was, I learned probably twenty words more that you did not have in your
vocabulary.”
The Professor was out with the boys every moment of the time, gathering information, and
investigating the nature of the country around the villages. While on one of these excursions Jim
plucked a branch from a thick stem, and said:
“There are many of these nuts in this part of the island, and we have often wondered if they were
good to eat.”
“By all means; you have eaten ice cream with these nuts in many times. Why, we had them on
shipboard, if you remember.”
“I don’t recall it.”
“This is the Pistachio nut. Go back to the stalk where you broke off this stem and you will see the
sap coming out. That is a resin or gum, and valuable in commerce. This nut is historical. It formed part
of the present which Joseph’s brethren took with them from Canaan to Egypt, and in the latter country,
even to this day, they are placed among the sweetmeats in all presents of courtesy.”
 Fig. 12. Pistachio.

“But are they eaten raw?”

“No; they are usually boiled with a small amount of salt, and sweetened afterwards.”
“What is the salt put in for?”
“To destroy the acid in them; and that is done with most vegetables, and for the same reason.”
 CHAPTER XII

THE PURSUIT INTERCEPTED BY FIGHT BETWEEN TRIBES

The situation was a most exasperating one to John and the boys. They were actually prevented
from ascertaining which of the tribes had the Professor, and their way to the south was blocked.
In desperation John suggested that come whatever might, they would ascertain where he was held,
even though they had to enter the camps. Muro was consulted and John’s determined attitude was
sufficient to enlist his services and co-operation.
During the night the two carefully approached the scene of the battlefield, and secured the various
headdresses of the slain and wounded, the object being to effect their entrance to the rival camps by
means of the disguises.
The Berees were to their right, and not far from what appeared to be the West River. The Osagas
were to the left, and encamped on a small stream which flowed into the West. Beyond the position of
the latter stream, and less than three miles distant, was the elevation which John had pointed out as the
destination of the team.
Morning came before the headdresses could be obtained, and it was therefore impossible to invade
the Berees’ camp that night.
Five days had now elapsed since Stut had been sent off on the mission to his people. There was no
news from him, nor did the Kurabus appear on the scene, and Muro began to wonder at this silence
from his brother. He felt sure that some word should have reached them during the day, but in this all
were disappointed.
Several attacks and counter charges were made during the day, but the positions of the parties
were maintained, and night came on none too soon for John. Muro insisted that he and his companion
should undertake the investigation alone, and Blakely insisted that John should comply with their
request, as he felt that the same object would be accomplished without the risk that might be attended
in case John should expose himself to capture.
He reluctantly consented, but insisted on accompanying them close up to the lines, and Blakely
and Harry also went forward to assist. The Saboros waited until late in the night, and then made their
way to the Berees’ camp, followed by the whites.
At a safe distance John halted, and Muro and Nomo, rigged out as Berees, kept on, and shortly
thereafter entered the camp, having made their way through the line without discovery. The Berees
had no pickets along their western line, facing the river, as they did not expect an attack from that
quarter.
They were gone for a full hour, and returned as silently as they went. There were no captives in
camp. If any had been taken the probabilities were that they would have been guarded within the
limits of the camp.
A wide detour was now made by Muro and Nomo, in order to gain the southern side of the
Osagas. John and Blakely concluded it would be unwise to separate themselves from the wagon to
accompany them around the camp, and remained on the north side.
Everything was quiet for fully an hour and a half, when they were startled by a gunshot. This
could have come only from Muro and Nomo. John moved up closer, in order to get a better view of
the situation, but the darkness prevented him from learning what it meant. There was great excitement
in the camp, and the Berees became active at the noise of the gun.
 Voices were heard at the right, as well as in the immediate front. It was evident that the Berees
were concentrating and moving toward the Osagas.
It was an intense moment for the watchers, and they could do nothing to aid, as they had no idea
what caused the continued uproar. It was obvious that Muro and Nomo had been discovered, and that
the shot was in self-defense.
To prevent discovery John and his party moved back several hundred feet, nearer the wagon, and
Muro immediately reappeared, with the news that Nomo had been captured. Muro’s gun had been
accidentally discharged, as they were leaving the camp, and the possession by them of the guns was
the very thing which attracted the attention of the warriors to them.
Muro was sure, however, that there were no white captives among the Osagas, and this
information added another mystery to the situation.
“My knowledge of Chief’s attitude toward us is sufficient to justify us in going boldly into the
camp of the Osagas. I do not believe he will harm us, and it may be the quickest way to solve the
whole matter.”
Blakely and the boys questioned the wisdom of such a course, but as John insisted on going
himself, and his judgment had in the past proven correct, in all matters of this kind, his views
prevailed.
“I will undertake this mission myself, and will give you some instruction to follow in certain
emergencies. My mission must be to them during the daytime, so that as soon as possible in the
morning I will enter their camp. I intend to carry with me a gun, and one of the pistols will be
concealed. They will, without doubt, disarm me, and I shall have to depend on my ingenuity to keep
the pistol for the purpose of warning you.”
“If you hear the pistol shot, it will be the signal for you to attack; but do not attempt that under
any circumstances, unless you get that warning from me. Each one must be provided with two of the
guns, for this purpose, and the six of you can, no doubt, strike terror into them.”
“There is one thing we must consider,” said Blakely, “and that is the attitude, and probable action,
on the part of the Berees.”
“I was coming to that. The Osagas will know that the attack is on the part of my people, and the
onslaught by you will be more of a mystery to the Berees than anything else. I am counting on the
commotion caused by the firing, to effect my escape, and I can do this, if at all, before the Berees have
time to collect their wits, and determine on a course of action.”
A hurried breakfast was prepared, and John made all his arrangements for the projected visit.
Angel was in a tree, which was at the rear of the wagon, and as John was about to start, he came down
and began the telltale chatter which betokened an alarm.
George was at his side the moment he reached the ground, and Angel again ascended and pointed
to the north.
“Who are those coming in from the north?” cried out George, in excitement.
Muro saw the commotion, and sprang to the tree. “Kurabus,” was all he said.
This startling announcement was received in astonishment. Had Stut’s mission failed? It was now
the sixth day of his departure. It is true that they might easily have trailed the route the wagon had
made, but why should they openly and boldly march down into a country belonging to another tribe?
“Either this is debatable ground, and the Kurabus are at war with the two tribes in our front, or
they are after us.”
“What course would you advise?” asked Blakely.
“It is entirely out of the question for me to visit the Osagas now. I see no other remedy but to
fight, and we might as well give them the lesson of their lives. This is the time to be the aggressors. I
do not mean that we shall needlessly expose ourselves, but we must shoot to kill, and not hesitate in
the slightest.”
The boys knew what that meant, and it pleased them. The Kurabus came in sight so the tree was
not needed to distinguish their movements. The wagon had been put in such a position that it was
shielded from their foes on the south, but to the north it was exposed.
“Here, quick, boys, cut down branches of trees and put them up on the north side of the wagon to
hide the light-colored top,” was John’s first order.
The nearest bushes were selected, and a fairly good imitation of a bush was prepared in haste, and
they awaited the attack. To their surprise they saw several warriors in the lead, as scouts.
“They are getting very wise, in employing the scouting tactics, and this shows they are after some
game, whether it is the other tribe’s or some one else.” John cautioned silence, and then continued:
“Their scouts will, of course, discover us before the main body comes up. We must not fire on the
advance parties. Wait until they attempt a rush, so we can get enough of them in reach to make it
count.”
The advance warriors did not discover the presence of the wagon until within a hundred feet of it,
and the scramble to the rear, and the falling and crawling tactics displayed in their eagerness to protect
themselves and get away, was too amusing to prevent the boys from laughing.
When the scouts reported the presence of the wagon in front, there was a hurried consultation, and
instead of moving forwardly to the wagon, they circled around to the right, keeping away a sufficient
distance to keep outside of the range of the guns. They had learned to respect them at the last meeting.
“What a magnificent surprise they will get if they go far enough in that direction,” said John, with
a broad smile.
“See, the Osagas and the Berees are at it again,” and the movements of the two parties were
plainly evident. Within fifteen minutes the battle began, and the noise of the conflict reached the ears
of the Kurabus.
“The information we shall get within the next half hour will be sufficient to decide our course,”
murmured John, as he gazed at them.
“Do you think,” responded Harry, “that they will join forces with either of the parties?”
“That is the point exactly. From the manner in which they are acting the Kurabus are after us and
not either of the tribes before us. But see what they are doing? Why are they going back?”
They doubled back on their tracks and made a circling movement around the wagon to the right,
and in that manner came up behind the Berees.
John quickly communicated his views to the party. “Now is our time to act. Take in the fort at
once, and move to the east.”
This looked like a hazardous thing to do, to the boys, but Muro saw the situation at once, and he
assisted in the work, and it did not take ten minutes to set the wagon in motion, Blakely leading the
way, and John and Muro serving as a rear guard.
The singular thing about this whole proceeding was, that the Kurabus did not even send out scouts
to watch the movements of the parties in the wagon. This was one of the reasons why John adopted
this apparently rash movement.
Afterwards, when George questioned him as to the reason for taking that hazardous course, he
replied: “In war you must never do that which the enemy thinks you are going to do. The more
hazardous the movement, the more likely it is to succeed. The history of stratagems is full of such
instances. This is the way I diagnosed the situation: The Kurabus marched to the position behind the
Berees, either for the purpose of attacking or to assist.
“Now, it is perfectly obvious that in either event, we were at their mercy, as soon as the fight was
over. If they assisted the Berees, they would doubtless win over the Osagas. If they attacked to assist
the Osagas, they would also be the winners, beyond question, and in either event the two tribes which
were successful would, according to their way of thinking, put us at their mercy.”
“The theory then was, that the Kurabus would have considered our leaving a most hazardous thing
to undertake, and that was just the risk you considered safest?” asked Blakely.
“That states the position exactly.”
“As subsequent events showed, you were right.”
Directing the course of the wagon down the slight incline, and veering to the left, Blakely soon
got the wagon behind the crest of the hill. Ralph came back to assist, and when John saw him he
hurriedly whispered to him: “Run to the wagon and tell Harry that as soon as the wagon gets over the
crest, to drive forwardly at all speed directly to the east.”
“Have you any objective point to go to?”
“No, no, never mind that. Go to the east; we will know how to follow.”
John and Muro remained on the crest of the hill for a full half hour before they began to retreat.
During this time there was no attack by the Kurabus, and another puzzling thing was presented.
Muro did not know that any enmity existed between the tribes, although such might be the case
since he had been away. But this half hour was a precious period, and the wagon was now at least two
miles away. It is true they were now bound for the Kurabus’ territory, and if the movement could be
concealed until night, they might break through the line somewhere during the darkness, and thus get
into touch with Muro’s people.
The character of the country now grew rougher and rougher, and the wagon’s movements slower
and slower. In some places it was so cut up with ravines that they could not go a half mile an hour. In
one respect this was an advantage, as the trails were more or less concealed at various places.
“I am sure they will trail us the moment the issue between the parties is decided,” said John, “and
we must, therefore, conceal our track by making a plain one.”
Harry laughed at the contradictory nature of the suggestion.
“Certainly; I mean that, exactly. Did you ever hear the story of Robert Bruce in the Scottish wars,
how he deceived his pursuers by reversing the shoes of his horse? The same thing was done by the
noted highwayman, Dick Turpin.”
“But the yaks haven’t any shoes to turn around.”
“Then we shall have to adopt another plan.”
“Tell us what to do at once.”
“Get a quantity of the ramie cloth; better still, take off the top and cut it up into eight pieces, and
fold it so as to make a boot for the feet of the yaks.”
“I have plenty of cord,” exclaimed George.
“Now hold; don’t be too fast. Some of you go ahead of the team, after it is turned around, and
carefully obliterate the tracks made by the animals coming this way. Then drive the animals back
along the path before we put on the boots, until we reach the place where we came into this little
valley. You see we entered it at about right angles. We must put the boots on at the place where we
entered the valley, or a few hundred feet beyond.”
“But how can we hide the tracks made by the wheels?”
“I don’t want to hide them. This will take some careful driving, Harry, as I want you to follow
along in the exact tracks made by the wagon in coming this way. The animals’ tracks will now plainly
show that the wagon is going to the north.”
The wagon was driven back carefully to the north, and beyond the point where they had entered
the valley.
 “Now, boys, put on the boots. This seems to be a good place to make the change, as the ground is
firmer, and the grass grows closer and thicker. Leave one foot on each animal unshod.”
“This is a new wrinkle, isn’t it?” asked Tom, laughingly.
“I suppose it is,” he answered, “but you will see the point in a moment. Now drive forward for a
hundred feet or so. That is right. Take out all the traces of the wagon you can.”
“But we can still see the prints of the unshod feet.”
“That is good. Now put the boot on the foot of the other yak, so only one foot will show in the
tracks.”
“How far shall we drive with this one foot showing?”
“About fifty to a hundred feet. Are you getting out of the wheel tracks?”
“Yes. What shall we do now?”
“Put on the remaining boot.”
“Oh, I see; you didn’t want the tracks to disappear all at the same time?”
“That is the idea. You see, this is pretty firm ground. Now, Harry, can we turn the team around at
right angles and go up over that steepest part?”
“I am afraid it will be a big pull.”
“All right, then; there are plenty here to help the yaks over. This is a capital place to leave the trail.
I imagine they will follow it up along the valley, and not suspect that we have hauled the wagon across
the hill.”
The object of this maneuver was now fully comprehended. The most infinite pains were taken to
eliminate all traces of the wagon, and Muro was on hand at every point, and was most expert in the art
of concealing.
The proceeding amused him exceedingly, as was shown by the constant smile that manifested
itself in a chuckle, to the delight of the boys. This was real fun, and surely the boys needed it; but with
all that they could not keep their minds from the Professor, and the constant speculations as to his fate.
 CHAPTER XIII

THE BEREES WARRIORS UNDER COMMAND OF THE PROFESSOR

“But you boys have not told me your names. I know yours is William, and you are James. Why,
yes; I should not have forgotten James Redfield and William Rudel.”
“But we are only Will and Jim, you know,” and the Professor smiled at the earnestness of Will to
be sure and give them the right designations.
Early that morning there was more or less commotion in the village and as Jim went out to
investigate, several warriors appeared, but he was not able to get much information. They could be
heard in the chief’s house, and soon enough was learned to assure them that the warriors in the field
were having a bitter fight.
This was on the sixth day after the Professor had been brought to the village. “Can you learn with
whom they are fighting?” asked the Professor.
Will went out and mingled with the crowd that now gathered about the chief’s quarters. On his
return, he said: “It is a tribe to the east, called the Osagas.”
This news stirred the Professor into activity. “The Osagas! We must take a hand in this,” and he
rushed out of the hut, and made his way to the chief. Calling him aside he stated that if he was at war
with the Osagas, he might be able to effect a reconciliation, as he had befriended one of their chiefs,
and then inquired if he knew Uraso, the chief.
At the mention of that name the chief started, and looked at the Professor keenly, before replying.
This is what he replied, in substance:
“Uraso was the chief of the Osagas, but he was captured by some white people like yourselves,
and offered up as a sacrifice by them. A new chief, his brother, called Krami, was now at the head of
the tribe. If Uraso were still chief we would not have this trouble. They took the two white men away
from us, and when we took the boys they determined to be revenged, and we have now been fighting
for six weeks.”
“Did you take the boys from the Osagas?”
“No.”
This information tallied exactly with the news given Uraso when he was their captive, as to the
men, and also explained that another tribe had the boys. Things were beginning to clear up.
During the evening of the sixth day, the warriors began to come in rapidly, with news of their
defeat. In the hurried conversations and animated snatches of information which the boys could
gather, the names of the Kurabus figured most prominently, and this led the Professor to inquire the
facts more particularly from the chief.
The Professor gave the chief this information:
“We were on our way to see you, when we found ourselves opposed to the Kurabus and the
Saboros, who attacked us. We tried to inform them of our peaceful intent, but they refused to listen to
any proposals. We resisted them and during the night the two tribes attacked each other.
“We captured two of their wounded, and took them back with us to our home at the eastern end of
the island, and on this trip brought them with us. We learned that one of them was the brother of the
Saboro chief, whom we rescued from the Kurabus, nearly two weeks ago. The chief and another of his
tribe are now with my friends, where your warriors captured me.”
“Was Muro the chief?” he inquired.
 “Yes.”
“And he is my friend.”
Without making explanations of any sort, the chief summoned his warriors, and stated to them that
the Professor was their friend, and had beaten the Kurabus, and that the act of taking the Professor
from his friends was a wrongful act. He commanded them to follow the Professor, and be guided by
his directions. Preparations were now made for the departure.
The Professor now plainly exhibited his delight, which, had it been shown in the presence of his
boys, would have made them view him with wonder. The evening meal was brought in, and the boys,
as well as the Professor on this occasion, sat at the ring around which the food was spread, and the
first act of the Professor was to partake sparingly of the different things offered.
This was extremely gratifying to the chief, who showed that he appreciated it. During the meal the
Professor said: “What do you know about the winds and the lightning and the thunder?”
The chief studied for a moment. “There is a great spirit that does those things. He is way up in that
direction,” pointing to the north.
“But is it a good spirit?” asked the Professor.
“We do not know whether he is good or bad. Sometimes he will be bad to us and sometimes
good.”
“Do you ever pray to him?”
“I do not understand what that means.”
“Don’t you ever ask him to help you?”
“That would not do any good. He is too big and too far away.”
“Did the Great Spirit make you?”
The chief opened his eyes, with the suggestion of a smile, as he replied: “No; how could he make
beings like us? He is a spirit, and spirits do not make men.”
“Then how did you come on the island? Somebody must have made the first man.”
“No; man always was, and always will be.”
“But somebody must have made the first bow and arrow.”
“Yes; man made that.”
“If man made the first bow, then somebody must also have made man.”
“No; I do not understand it that way. Man did not make the trees. They grow from seeds or roots,
and if there had been no seeds or roots there would have been no trees. Bows do not grow, they are
made.”
Here was the savage philosophy.
“But if there is a great spirit, and you know that he makes the terrible winds and the lightnings and
thunder, don’t you think he would help you if you should ask him?”
He mused for a while, and then answered slowly: “It would do no good, because if the Kurabus
should pray to him at the same time we are praying to him, how would we know which side he would
fight for? Sometimes we win, and sometimes they win, and the Great Spirit acts the same to
everybody all the time.”
The boys could not help but smile at the character of this argument.
The Professor was not yet satisfied with the information as to his beliefs.
“Do not some of the tribes offer up sacrifices to the captives?”
“Yes; some do. But we do not believe in it.”
“Do the other tribes here believe about the great spirit the same as you do?”
“Yes; about the same.”
 “Well, when they offer up sacrifices, what is that done for, or to whom are the sacrifices made?”
“Ah! there; you do not understand why, nor do we know. In each tribe are wise men, and they tell
us that sometimes the Great Spirit asks for some sacrifice, and that when we have sickness it will
make us well, and that we will be successful in battle, and we carry out the sayings of the wise men.”
“Isn’t that a kind of prayer to the Great Spirit?”
“Oh, no! In a prayer you only ask. In a sacrifice, you give. When you give something to a man it
is different from asking him for something.”
The above conversation is given, not in the exact language of the chief, because that would have
been impossible, and it is therefore translated and arranged so as to make it more readable.
In the morning the warriors were lined up, and the brother of the chief, whom he called Ralsea,
was in the immediate charge of them. The chief gave explicit instructions as to their behavior, and that
the good will of the white chief would be of the greatest service to them and their people.
The chief on this occasion showed the wonderful power over his tribe. He was advanced in years,
and unable to take active part in their struggles, but his address impressed all of them, and when he
finished all held up the right hand, and bowed to the earth, and the boys seeing the Professor do
likewise they also made a like obeisance, an act they had witnessed many times before.
In the meantime, what were John and his party doing? They left the deceptive trail, and crossing
the ridge, hurried rapidly along the uneven ground toward the east. If it had been an open plain this
attempt at concealment would not have availed them.
Traveling along in the narrow gulches and contracted valleys, which trended, in a general way, to
the east, their movements were concealed, and at midday they estimated that the distance from the
battle-ground was fully eight miles.
Stopping only long enough to allow the cattle to feed, and taking their luncheon in the meantime,
the yaks were turned to the south, in the effort to reach the border line of the territory occupied by the
Saboros.
They were now compelled to go across the ridges, instead of following along the more easy route
with the streams. This made exceedingly slow going, but it was far safer, as Muro advised them, and
night came all too soon for them.
The utmost vigilance was exercised during the night, as stray bands might be upon them at any
moment. Once out of the Kurabus’ territory, and they would be safe from attack.
“Isn’t it singular,” exclaimed Ralph, as they sat within the wagon that night, “what a small portion
of the island is really inhabited by these people?”
“There is a very good reason for that,” answered John. “The continual warfare among the tribes
prevents the spread of the population. Another thing also tends to keep it down. The people have no
ambition; nothing to work for. The only thing is the primal one of self-preservation.”
“What a magnificent place this would be to promote,” suggested Blakely.
“What, promote it with all the savages here?” and Tom laughed at the idea.
“Yes, indeed; they would be just the fellows to use in the promotion.”
“What is there here to promote?” asked Ralph.
“What is there here? The finest wood in the world; and besides that the island is full of mineral, or
I am much mistaken. But that isn’t all. This soil is as rich as any upon the Nile or the Amazon, and it
is well watered. Why, this could be made a paradise.”
“Do you mean to raise things?”
“Why, certainly. Almost everything which grows in the tropics could be cultivated here.”
“But where would the natives come in?”
“To do the work, and in the doing of it, there would be a means to work out their own salvation.”
 “What would they want to work for, anyhow?” asked Tom.
John laughed at the question. “I can understand your view-point. As it is, they have absolutely no
need of work. They exist, and that is the whole philosophy of life with them.”
“Then how can you change it?”
“By making them want something else.”
“How can you do that?”
“Show them something they want, and you have started them on the right road.”
“Well, as it now is, they want something and go out with their bows and arrows and spears, and
try to take it.”
“Quite true; they haven’t learned the first principle in the white man’s philosophy.”
“What is it?”
“The law of least resistance.”
“What does that mean?”
“Another way of expressing it is to say that we try to get things by the easiest and quickest
methods. But there is another law which must also be instilled.”
“And what is that?”
“That property is sacred; and it necessarily follows that to acquire what is mine, requires
something from you in return.”
“But I do not see how you are going to put any ideas of that kind in the minds of these devils.”
“I will answer that in this way: You have brought with you a number of little mirrors, and various
trinkets. The savages value things of that kind immensely. In their present condition, the plan on
which they work, is to take them by force. Suppose I should say to them: ‘Bring fifty pounds of ramie
fiber, or twenty pounds of barley, or some game, and I will give you a mirror.’ Such a proposal would
show him the easiest route, unless he was too infernally lazy, to get the coveted article.”
“But suppose he should say that he doesn’t want to buy it, and purposes to take it in his own
way?”
“Then he must be made to understand, by forcible means, that there is only one way to get it, and
that is by barter.”
On the following day the course did not improve; they were still on the ridge that separated the
two rivers, one flowing to the north, and the other to the south. Before nine o’clock Muro came back
with the intelligence that some band could be discerned directly ahead of them, and in the line of their
travel.
To go southwest would bring them right into the heart of the Kurabus’ territory, and southwesterly
of their position would bring them within range of the two hostile tribes. The band was still too far
away to distinguish them. Muro hoped it was his own people, but this was not considered likely, since
they had not sent any runners to inform Muro of the course they were taking.
Muro knew that this would be done in any event. Blakely asked: “May it not be possible that the
messengers were sent in the direction of our wagon in the north?”
“I told him where we were going, and they would follow the wagon trail.”
Stut would know how to do this, and it was therefore likely that the band in sight was either the
Kurabus or the Osagas. A strong position was selected for the erection of the portable fort, and this
was concealed as well as possible by shrubbery, so that unless they came too close in their march it
would be unnoticed.
Muro was far in advance when they came up, but having discovered the identity of the tribe,
hurried back with the startling intelligence that they were the Brabos.
“Well, they have gone through the Kurabus country. What does all this mean?”
 “I infer that they are making a raid on account of the absence of the Kurabus to the southwest,”
answered John.
Fortunately, it was not a large party, but that was the more singular, and it was the perplexing part
of the whole matter.
“It does not seem conceivable that less than two dozen of the Brabos should venture down here,
 “‘Do you think they will be able to read that?’ asked
Will.”
[See p. 176]

unless they had some larger party somewhere near.”

John conferred with Muro, and he seemed to be puzzled at the new situation.
“We must fight these fellows, if they discover us, and overwhelm them. They must be scattered
to the wind. It is our only alternative. Get the guns and ammunition ready, and give them volley
after volley if they attempt to attack us in any way.” John was determined now.
 Despite their efforts at concealment, the Brabos discovered the wagon, and without waiting for
argument commenced the fight with bows and arrows.
“Now let them have it.”
The first volley was a fearful one in its effect. They halted in the rush, and turned to the east.
“Out, boys, and after them; take the extra guns, and follow them up.” With a shout the boys ran
forward, ahead of Blakely and John, but Muro was, nevertheless, in the lead. Two who had been
wounded at the fire, fell, and were soon overtaken.
“Don’t go over a half mile,” shouted John. It was useless to follow the fleet warriors. As they
passed the fallen Brabos, both were found to be wounded in the legs, and to their surprise, begged to
be taken to the wagon.
Muro spoke to them. John interpreted their appeal to mean that they were really at war with the
Kurabus, and did not want to be left in the enemy’s country in their disabled condition. This was the
fact as Muro gathered it from the captives.
The four lying on the battle line were dead. Muro was told to inform the captives of their
peaceful intention, and that they were on a trip through the island on a mission, and not to secure
captives. They were further informed that friendship on their part would be advantageous to them,
and providing them with food, and a sheltered spot, the fort was replaced, and the wagon proceeded.

Fig. 13. Pineapple.

The boys had here the first opportunity to see the pineapple, which grew in patches along their
path. The boys could not be restrained, and Angel was called into requisition. With his strong arms
he broke off dozens of them, and the singular thing about it was he never made a mistake. His
faculty for getting the ripe ones was unfailing.
 “I didn’t know these grew here,” said Harry.
“Yes,” answered John; “but only in certain sections, or in particular soils. It grows in semi-
tropical countries, and is a native fruit in Mexico, Central America, Guiana and Brazil. It is claimed
that the pineapple contains all the essential elements of every fruit.”
“Did you ever see such leaves?”
“Many varieties have leaves over three feet long, and are valuable because the most beautiful
silken fiber is found in them from which the finest fabrics are woven.”
 CHAPTER XIV

THE WAGON IN THE FIGHTING ZONE OF FOUR TRIBES

The Professor had made a most careful examination of the population of the village, and an
estimate of the total number of the Berees in the entire tribe. He found that their territory extended
to the west and south as far as the ocean, and besides the village in which the chief lived, there were
two or three others, smaller, and all contributed their quota to the warring force.
On the night before their departure, he questioned the chief as to the numbers in the different
tribes, but of this he could only estimate the warriors.
“How many warriors have the Kurabus?”
“About two hundred.”
“Do you know about the others?”
“The Brabos have one hundred and seventy-five; the Osagas one hundred and fifty; the Saboros
the same number; the Tuolos two hundred and twenty-five; and the Illyas more than two hundred
and fifty.”
“So that you have about the same number as the Osagas and the Saboros?”
“Yes; about one hundred and fifty.”
“How many women and children have you in all the villages?”
“About the same number as warriors.”
“Are there any more tribes than you have mentioned?”
“No; but there are some wild people who are not members of any of the tribes, but they live near
the mountains.”
“What kind of people are the Illyas?”
“They are very mean, and are the enemies of all the others; and so are the Tuolos.”
When the warriors were mustered the Professor found ninety strong, vigorous specimens, the
picked ones of the tribe. It need not be added that the Professor unfolded a scheme whereby he
hoped to stop all further wars, and to greatly enrich all of them, and it was fortunate that he found in
the chief a willing listener to the proposal.
With this explanation it will be the more readily understood with what enthusiasm he placed his
people at the disposal of this strange man. He explained the strength of the white man, and showed
him how the arts of peace were cultivated, and of the friendship which existed between all the great
people of the world.
It must not be thought that the chief refrained from asking a great many questions during the
course of their conversation.
“Is the country you come from very large?”
“It is more than two thousand times larger than all of this country.”
“I do not know how much that is. Is it more than two hundred times greater?”
“Yes, more than ten times that number.”
The chief marveled at this statement.
“And how many people are there?”
“I could not tell you, but so many you could not count them.”
 “And do you have many tribes in your country?”
“No; we have only one tribe.”
All this was conveyed and expressed, not in the order given, but by careful explanations, and by
counting the numbers with pebbles, as they had no numbers beyond twenty which could be
indicated by any words in their language.
When the warriors were ready for the start, the Professor was surprised to find that the chief had
prepared a litter, to be carried by four of the warriors. This was to be his carriage of state. He did not
refuse to accept his place in it, as he knew that it would have been in bad taste, and he was the more
gratified when he learned from the boys that it was the chief’s own litter.
The cavalcade marched directly to the north, the speed being about three miles per hour. What a
glorious reunion he anticipated with his boys and friends, for he had no fear of their ability to cope
with the various tribes, unless all combined, and this he knew would be very unlikely.
He had been careful to get from the chief an outline of the enmities and the feuds which existed,
and the knowledge of this would the better enable him to deal with the different ones when brought
into contact with them.
Ralsea, the sub-chief, was a powerful warrior, and the Professor found him a most agreeable
man. In respect for his position, every order was a request made through him, and it was soon
perceived that the deference which the Professor extended, flattered him beyond measure.
Thus, by a diplomatic policy, he made a friend of the next most powerful personage in the tribe.
He took him into his confidence, and explained his plans in the best manner possible, to the great
satisfaction of the native.
Before the end of the day, an additional band of their own people came in from the north, with
tidings of their defeat, and with them were a number of wounded. The Professor was at their side at
once, and began the work of ministering to their wounds.
They learned of the action of the Kurabus, in attacking them in the rear, and joining with the
Osagas to crush them. The Professor inquired if they had seen his own people, or had heard about
them, and they replied that a wonderful people who had fought the Brabos and the Kurabus, were
traveling eastwardly into the Kurabus country, and that the latter were now pursuing them.
Questioned whether the Saboros were also in league with them, the answer was, yes. It was thus
probable that they had a force of fully two hundred to cope with, as it must be understood these
tribes did not, except in the most urgent cases, put all their warriors in the field at one time.
This would certainly be dangerous in the extreme, and consulting with Ralsea, he made the
plans for proceeding against the allied tribes. There was no love between them and the Kurabus, but
there had been peace for a long time between the Berees and the Osagas, until the new chief took
Uraso’s place.
The allied forces were between John’s party and the Professor’s warriors. The defeat
administered by the combined forces would doubtless satisfy the Kurabus and Osagas that the
Berees would not attack from that quarter.
The plan outlined by the Professor was this:
“The main fighting force of the Osagas is now in the north, and their villages are unprotected
against such a force as they had. Our plan now is, to proceed as rapidly as possible to their villages,
and capture them.”
“Yes; and destroy them,” answered Ralsea.
“By no means. We have more power with them, by preventing their destruction.”
What manner of man was this, who would not destroy his enemies’ homes if they were put in
his power! This was a new thing to him.