AustLit

A picaresque series of sea adventures, told by sailor Martin Vallance.

'"Ormon the Gulfer" is an avaricious gold-digger in North Queensland, who "struck it rich," and ran off with the gold, leaving his mate in the bottom of the shaft. An Afghan hawker found the mate, and relieved him from his perils. Years pass and the two men meet on a ship bound to London. The relation of this story is realistic beyond any quibble. Only those who understand the spirit of gold-seekers when the fever is on them properly, could write such a psychological account of the mental make up of these two men, Ormon the Gulfer and his mate Frank Davies.'

Source:

'Literature', West Australian, 10 December 1910, p.14.

'"My Kaffir" is a Kaffir who swallowed a few diamonds on the Rand, and died in cbnsequence, but not before he had told the story-teller of the great value of his stomach. A sea-voyage friendship–there are always plenty of them–results in a fruitless search for the dead Kaffir, but in two discoveries far richer than was anticipated by the searcher.'

Source:

'Literature', West Australian, 10 December 1910, p.14.

A down-on-his-luck sailor takes on a position at a remote Dutch-run lighthouse, only to stumble across a scheme run by the assistant keeper and his mother.

On his birthday, Bob Panton, skipper of a pearling vessel, has each man open an oyster, to see what luck the new year will bring. The new hand turns up an enormous, pear-shaped pearl, which Bob names the 'Birthday Pearl'. But the next morning, both the new hand and the Birthday Pearl are missing.

A young woman travelling to Australia aboard the steamer Illimani is not all that she seems–and neither is her accomplice.