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Custom Search – Discover more:
 Custom Search –
Discover more:

A Complete Guide to Google

Programmable Search Engines

Irina Shamaeva and David Galley

First Edition published 2021
by CRC Press
6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300, Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742

and by CRC Press

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

Reasonable efforts have been made to publish reliable data and information, but the author
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Library of Congress Cataloging‑in‑Publication Data

Names: Shamaeva, Irina, author. | Galley, David, author.
Title: Custom search - discover more: a complete guide to Google programmable search
engines / Irina Shamaeva, David Galley.
Other titles: Google.
Description: First edition. | Boca Raton : CRC Press, 2021. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020048129 | ISBN 9780367567392 (paperback) | ISBN
9780367569686 (hardback) | ISBN 9781003100133 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Search engines.
Classification: LCC TK5105.885.G66 S53 2021 | DDC 025.04252–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020048129
ISBN: 978-0-367-56968-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-56739-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-10013-3 (ebk)

Typeset in Minion
by SPi Global, India
Contents

INTRODUCTION
GOOGLE VS. CSES
THE GAP TO COVER
CUSTOM SEARCH ENGINE USERS
WHAT WE SKIPPED
PRIVACY AND DISCLAIMER
ERESOURCES

PART 1 Introduction to Google Custom Search Engines

(CSEs)

CHAPTER 1 Simple and Advanced Google Search

SIMPLE GOOGLE SEARCH
THE MAIN SEARCH PRINCIPLE – "VISUALIZE SUCCESS"
SURFACE WEB
BASIC BOOLEAN SEARCH SYNTAX
ADVANCED SEARCH OPERATORS
SEARCH OPERATOR ASTERISK * – "FILL IN THE BLANKS"
INCLUDE OMITTED RESULTS
 GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH
NOTES FOR PRACTICAL SEARCHING
NUMBER OF RESULTS
CROSSED-OUT WORDS IN RESULTS (SOFT "AND")
SEARCHING VERBATIM
SEARCHING BY DATE RANGE

CHAPTER 2 What Is a Google Custom Search Engine?

A BIT OF HISTORY
CSES VS. GOOGLE – ADVANTAGES AND CHALLENGES

CHAPTER 3 Creating Your First CSE

CHAPTER 4 Editing and Testing Your CSEs

RESULTS FOR DIFFERENT END-USERS
CSES FOR END-USERS

PART 2 Configure a CSE

CHAPTER 5 What Are You Looking For?

"SOFT" SITE SEARCH
URL PATTERNS
CAREERS CSE
BEHANCE RESUMES CSE
"KEYWORDS"
AUTOMATICALLY ADD SEARCH TERMS
PDF FILES CSE
GMAILS CSE

CHAPTER 6 Search Refinements

CHAPTER 7 Synonyms
SYNONYMS EXAMPLE
SYNONYMS EXAMPLE CSE #1
WORKING WITH SYNONYMS XML FILES
SYNONYMS EXAMPLE CSE #2
HOW TO USE SYNONYMS TO IMPLEMENT LONG OR
STATEMENTS
WOMEN'S NAMES (LINKEDIN) CSE

CHAPTER 8 Configuration Files

BACKING UP, SHARING, AND DUPLICATING

CHAPTER 9 Other Features of Note

LOCALIZATION
IMAGE SEARCH
SEARCH IMAGES CSE

CHAPTER 10 Troubleshoot Your CSE

PART 3 Discover more: Advanced CSEs

CHAPTER 11 Metadata Types

SCHEMA.ORG OBJECTS
SCHEMA.ORG OBJECTS AND CUSTOM SNIPPETS IN GOOGLE
SEARCH
MICROFORMATS
META TAGS

CHAPTER 12 Schema.org and Custom Search

BUILDING A CSE WITH A SCHEMA.ORG OBJECT
 TIP: EASILY BUILD CSES FOR PUBLIC PROFILES
BEYOND THE PERSON

CHAPTER 13 Knowledge Graphs

SELECTING KGES IN CSES
TIP: KG BOOLEAN
EXAMPLES OF CSES THAT SEARCH FOR KG ENTITIES

CHAPTER 14 Fascinating CSE Advanced Search Operators

THE PERSON OBJECT: A CLOSER LOOK
THE REALITY IS NOT PERFECT
NON-STANDARD OPERATORS
HOW TO IDENTIFY STRUCTURED DATA ON A PAGE
HOW TO SEARCH FOR STRUCTURED DATA WITH ANY CSE –
ADVANCED SYNTAX
MORE: OPERATORS FOR REFINEMENTS
HOW TO FIND OBJECTS
TIP: SEARCH FOR PROFILES ON A SOCIAL SITE
FIND WHICH SITES AND PAGES CONTAIN WHICH OBJECTS
WITH "SEARCH EVERYTHING"
NEXT: SEARCH BY FIELDS AND VALUES
MULTIPLE OBJECTS AND INSTANCES IN ONE PAGE
ORDER OF BOOLEAN OPERATIONS
CSE OPERATORS FOR LESS TECHNICAL END-USERS
CSE OPERATORS FOR THE OPEN WEB

CHAPTER 15 API and Other Considerations

CUSTOM SEARCH ENGINE APIS
STEPS TO IDENTIFY ADVANCED MORE:P: SYNTAX
META TAGS
 SORTING RESULTS

PART 4 How We Built Our CSEs

CHAPTER 16 Basic CSE Examples

GOOGLE SCHOLAR PROFILES CSE
ABOUT.ME CSE
DIVERSITY ASSOCIATIONS CSE
EMAIL FORMATS CSE
HOOVERS CSE OPERATORS
LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY CSE
HIDDEN RESUMES CSE
DEVELOPER RESUMES CSE
URL SHORTENERS CSE
SEARCH EVERYTHING CSE

CHAPTER 17 Object-Oriented CSEs

DEV.TO CSE
PHYSICIANS CSE
ACCOUNTANTS CSE
SOFTWARE CODE CSE
META TAGS

CHAPTER 18 Determining CSE Operators for Social Sites and more:

GITHUB CSE OPERATORS
LINKEDIN CSE OPERATORS
SLIDESHARE CSE OPERATORS
REUTERS CSE OPERATORS
ROCKETREACH CSE OPERATORS
DOXIMITY CSE OPERATORS
 XING CSE OPERATORS
RESEARCHGATE CSE OPERATORS
GOOGLE SCHOLAR CSE OPERATORS
VITALS CSE OPERATORS
ZOCDOC DOCTORS CSE OPERATORS
SPEAKERHUB CSE OPERATORS
CLUSTRMAPS CSE OPERATORS

SUMMARY
GLOSSARY
APPENDIX A: LIST OF OUR CSEs
APPENDIX B: COMPLETE LIST OF GOOGLE SEARCH OPERATORS
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
INDEX
Introduction

GOOGLE'S CUSTOM SEARCH ENGINES (CSEs) offer search

opportunities that are unavailable with any other tool. CSEs have advanced
settings and search operators that do not work in regular Google searches.
Anyone can create CSEs for themselves and others to use, uncover extra
results, and boost research productivity.
With this book, we hope to popularize this fun and powerful tool so that
many more people become aware of it and include CSEs in their research.
To our disappointment, Google has recently renamed "Custom Search
Engines" to "Programmable Engines." But we like the old, long-lived name
better and will continue using it.
You might be wondering why the word more: in the title is not
capitalized and followed by a colon. It is intentional and has a double
meaning (!). You will find out what we meant in the second half of the
book.
We want to thank several colleagues who generously spent their time
reviewing the manuscript draft: Julia Tverskaya, Elena Pavlovskaia, Pierre-
André Fortin, Glenn Gutmacher, and Guillaume Alexandre. Our sincere
thanks for your honest, constructive, and encouraging feedback.

GOOGLE VS. CSES

"Google it!" Most people search Google with a few keywords looking to
find one piece of information and find what they need as a first or second
result.
As a researcher, however, you need to get some control over results and
are often looking for as many results as possible, not just one. As a practical
example, you might be looking to find social site profiles that fit additional
requirements, such as a location, employer, or job title. Or you might be
interested in top management moves in manufacturing. You can find the
target information on Google, but you would need to run a series of
advanced searches that are unlike "simple searching with keywords."
Google allows you to control results with advanced search operators,
advanced search dialog, and settings. You can narrow the search to a given
site, file format, or words in the page title or URL. For example, you can
search for pages on the site slideshare.net with the word "CV" in the title.
But you cannot filter results by the type of content pages represent, such as
people or company profiles.
CSEs are a software layer Google built on top of its search. CSEs get
results by filtering search results from Google to match the CSE settings.
They allow you to use the same operators and settings as Google's. They
also have additional parameters and search operators.
CSEs can do many things that Google cannot. You can narrow down to a
country or language. You can set "soft" parameters that would make your
CSE rank pages higher if they have given keywords or are on a given site.
You can run long OR searches, overcoming Google's 32 keywords
limitation.
What is of particular interest to us is that CSEs can search for standard
types of structured information and values. You can search for people,
restricting results to a given employer, job title, location, or school. You can
search for Microsoft as an employer or director as a job title, not just a
keyword. You can achieve the filtered search writing out advanced CSE
operators. We will present detailed explanations of the operators' syntax,
along with examples for you to recreate.

THE GAP TO COVER

Lots of professionals use existing CSEs, for instance, in talent acquisition to
source for "passive" job candidates, in digital journalism or with other
research goals. But few people have experience creating them. Even fewer
know about advanced CSE-only search operators.
We think that the main reason CSEs are not as widespread as they should
be is that it is not easy to get educated on CSE creation There is little
information online and no books (other than the one you are reading). Only
sketchy information is available on the "structured" operators, which are by
far, the best CSE feature.
Another reason for the lack of popularity of CSEs is that Google's help
and posts are oriented towards website owners. What is of interest to us are
CSEs that search on sites that we did not build.
Help documentation is also not aligned 1-to-1 with what you see. Many
links in Google's CSE support documentation refer to guides for
programmers. It is as if they do not believe anyone will create or edit CSEs
via the regular user interface (UI, called the Control Panel).
Yet another reason is that the terminology is too technical, and the UI is
archaic. Context, Annotations, Refinements, Knowledge Graph, and
Schema.org Objects on the front "basic" page in the Control Panel, as well
as "JSON API," do not communicate anything to non-coders. Beginners get
discouraged.
You can find some educational videos about CSEs, but none of them go
in-depth.
We wrote the book to cover the gap.

CUSTOM SEARCH ENGINE USERS

There are two ways to engage with CSEs: as a creator and as an end-user.

The creator can set up CSEs for themself and others (e.g., less
technically savvy colleagues or clients). Even simple CSEs can be
quite useful. But to take advantage of more advanced functionality, the
creator needs a deeper understanding of how Google search and CSEs
work.
CSEs allow end-users to perform advanced searches without the need
to use (or even understand) complex operators. For the more
sophisticated end-user, CSEs' unique search operators allow for a
high-precision web search unavailable anywhere else.
If you want to become an advanced CSE end-user and creator and search
like Miss Marple, this book is for you. We highly recommend following
each link and recreating each CSE we describe.

WHAT WE SKIPPED
In the book, we focus on creating and using CSEs to enhance web searches
and explain features that Google does not cover in its documentation.
We do not expect readers to have a scripting background or marketing or
site-building goals. Consequently, we have chosen not to cover specific
features, such as usage statistics, advertising, and promotion, customizing
the end-user UI, or programmatic implementations of CSEs.

PRIVACY AND DISCLAIMER

In cases where searches yield results showing non-public individuals, we
have blurred or masked individually identifiable information out of respect
for their privacy. This instructional book is not affiliated with nor endorsed
by Google.

ERESOURCES
This book has been formatted with embedded hyperlinks to completed
searches to facilitate access for eBook users. Readers of the printed versions
of this book are encouraged to download their free eResources, including a
full listing of these links as well as other published website links, from the
Publisher’s website at https://www.routledge.com/9780367569686.
 1

Introduction to Google Custom

Search Engines (CSEs)
CHAPTER 1

Simple and Advanced Google

Search

BACK IN 2007, OUR AGENCY Brain Gain Recruiting placed a software

engineer we found on Google. A few minutes' effort (plus, of course, all the
interactions) made us about $25,000. We were quite impressed. We also
enjoyed what felt like "treasure hunting" on Google. It was both educational
and fun.
Since then, we have been digging deep into Google and using creative
search strings to get hard-to-find results.
If you are in the business of finding information, advanced Google is
your best friend. Custom Search Engines are an elaborate software layer on
top of Google that you can utilize as well.
To understand how CSEs work, you first need to get familiar with
Google search and its advanced operators. We have included a section about
Google.com search and the advantages of using CSEs vs. searching on
Google. They should provide you with some background, but You must run
and modify the examples we have provided.
Let us start with two definitions related to Google search.

Search engine results pages (SERP) are web pages served to users
searching for something with a search engine, such as Google. The
user enters their search query (often using specific terms and phrases
 known as keywords), upon which the search engine presents them
with a SERP (source: https://www.wordstream.com/serp).
Search result snippets are the additional context included with each
result on the search results page. Google displays them under clickable
links to resulting web pages, which it shows along with the page titles.
Snippets include blocks from the page text highlighting your search
terms in bold font. They may also show specific-to-the-web-page
attributes, such as recipe ratings or event dates. They may show the
last updated dates for the page. They are an essential tool to help
searchers to find what they are looking for. (We picked part of the
explanation from this source.)

SIMPLE GOOGLE SEARCH

"Google it!" Most people Google simply by entering a few keywords and
look to find one "right" piece of information. Google search is optimized to
provide one answer to your question. Users nearly always see the desired
result as the first or second on the search results page.
In recent years, Google seems increasingly focused on providing a single
"best" result for any search. In addition to standard search results, Google
shows Knowledge Graph entities (to the right of search results) and
Featured Snippets. Featured Snippets are an expanded preview of
information from a site Google considers authoritative. They appear above
the first search result. We will cover Knowledge Graph entities in more
depth later in this book.
Here are some examples of Google providing answers to clear questions.
We have provided multiple examples to show the broad scope of queries for
which Google would give you "the" answer along with the search results.
Click the links to view them. (As time goes, Google's ranking algorithm
will get better in semantic search because it is a learning algorithm.)

what is DNA
how many people live in New York
Paris to Hamburg
COVID-19 statistics
places to see in Croatia
 baby wipes
Walgreens near me
how far is the moon
what is the tastiest Russian food
how many people work at Google
what is the difference between Java and javascript
who is the president of Epam
who is CTO at Oracle
where are Google's offices in Europe
how many people work at Deutsche Bank
what are DevOps certifications
top retail companies in Japan
top SaaS companies Germany
competitors of Glaxosmithkline
Salesforce hq
Amazon growth rate
software testing skills
requirements for CISCO certification
RN salaries in Texas
New Jersey area codes
Kansas City zip codes
common Latino last names
women's names in India
how many members on reddit
how old is Meryl Streep

Google also recognizes queries in foreign languages. It often (though not

always) includes terms' translations to English in the search results.
Example: питон линкедин (a query in Russian).
Google may provide "the" answer to a query in a language other than
English (say, in Russian.) Examples:

как далеко до луны

 погода завтра
кафе неподалеку
сколько от москвы до санкт-петербурга
сколько лет генеральному директору гугл

If you have a question that you can comfortably put in one sentence,
Google will likely know a satisfying answer. Use simple queries, for
instance, to investigate terminology or to find target companies for further
research.
For example, we would run queries like top US transportation companies
before looking for transportation professionals to identify the major
industry players. But to proceed further, you need to use a different way of
thinking and searching for the cases when your target cannot be identified
by one question.

THE MAIN SEARCH PRINCIPLE – "VISUALIZE

SUCCESS"
Google displays web pages that include the terms you enter. To search
productively, you should use keywords (and key phrases) that you expect to
find on the resulting pages. As a past version of Google Help reads,
"Choose words that are likely to appear on the site you're looking for."
Think of what a person could have written about themselves or what
others could have written about them. Identify and use such keywords and
phrases that your target pages have, and other pages (the ones of no interest
to you) do not contain. Then you will get the desired results faster. We call
the search principle "Visualize Success." Start thinking in this manner, and
your results will significantly improve. Once you begin magically
encountering superb results (like never before), you will understand how to
think about the terms to type into the search box.
The following strings demonstrate searching by that principle: imagining
the words and phrases you will find in the results and then constructing
search strings using that text.
Examples:
 "is a software engineer at Google " – most results are pages talking
about someone and naming that person's job title and employer.
"is a member of women in technology" – each result is a member of
WITI (likely, a woman). These two examples represent what
specialists call "Natural Language Search."
vp finance "earned her MBA from " – results will likely contain
womens' names for VP Finance with an MBA.
site:linkedin.com "join to connect" - the phrase "Join to connect" is
part of every public English language LinkedIn profile and is rarely
found elsewhere on the LinkedIn site. So, searching for the phrase will
narrow results down to LinkedIn profiles. You will not see the
LinkedIn company, group, articles, jobs, or other types of pages in
your results.
association recruiters "local chapter" California – a page of an
association chapter site may contain these words.
"back to staff directory " – a page that says this will likely lead us to
an organization staff directory.

Using words and phrases that you expect to find within results helps you to
surface excellent results. Compared to simple search strings with keywords
and phrases, strings with additional Boolean syntax elements provide
further control over search results. For example, you could be looking only
for files of a given type or only for files on a given site. We have included
detailed descriptions of Google's Boolean syntax and operators below.
Searching for contact lists is another excellent application of the
"Visualize Success" principle. You are more likely to find contact lists by
searching for:

several email domains, including "gmail.com"

country email extensions like "uk" and "fr"
phone area codes
postal codes
common first or last names
job titles
certification abbreviations,
than if you "pose a question" such as email lists of big four consultants.
Example search:
association "registered nurses" "gmail.com" "yahoo.com "
– naming what we expect to find: a page on an association site containing
some email addresses. Using two email extensions in the quotation marks
as keywords, we hope that we will discover contact lists). Compare results
with contact lists for registered nurses association. The last search will take
you to sites that sell lists – not what you wanted.
Companies with email domains that are different from site domains are
especially easy to look up in contact lists. Some separate email domain
examples include the following:

fb.com
us.nestle.com (and similar domains for countries)
us.pwc.com
us.ibm.com
us.panasonic.com
ra.rockwell.com
yahoo-inc.com
pge-corp.com

If you search for any of these values, you are likely to find employees'
email addresses.
Searches that will find pages with contact emails of these companies'
employees include the following:

"fb.com" senior recruiter

"ca.ibm.com" "management consultant"
"pge-corp.com" officers
"ca.ibm.com" "yahoo.com" "gmail.com" mike lee

Here are other contact-list-finding examples, benefiting from looking for

more than one email domain or phone area code (by the way, you can
search a postal or phone code, and Google will show you the relevant
locations):
 "raytheon.com" "lmco.com" "ngc.com" defense research
members "nl" "co.uk" "de" +44 +31 +49 textile packaging materials
members "nl" "co.uk" "de" +44 +31 +49 Europe pharmaceutical
site:marc.info "redhat.com" "gmail.com "
"astrazeneca.com" "merck.com" filetype:xlsx
email filetype:PDF "bankofny.com" "wellsfargo.com "
"sorted by name" "gmail.com" "us.ibm.com "
"pfizer.com" "novartis.com" "merck.com" "roche.com" David Pat
senior manager
Michigan "accenture.com" "deloitte.com" "vendor activity "
206 425 "accenture.com" "bah.com "
+91 +66 "Novartis.com" "Pfizer.com "
+65 +62 +66 "th" "sg" "id" pharma phone list
"gmail.com" "hotmail.com" "aol.com" mining geosciences alumni
"exxonmobil.com" "chevron.com" manager government relations
David Barbara
"deloitte.com" "accenture.com" 415 650 408

(We have included so many search strings for you to experience remarkable
results for each and to convince you to use the technique.)
Any list is worth exploring if you think it may contain even a few
contacts of interest.
When you search for contact information, you might want to limit results
only to the recent two or three years since contacts get outdated fast –
especially work emails. (Search with no date restriction too.) But if you find
"gmail.com" or other free email domain-based addresses, people usually
keep them for life. We explain how to limit results to a time interval later in
this chapter.
Finding email lists is a favorite sourcing method because an email
address points to a person you can identify, along with the name, location,
and social profiles, by using available tools. These tools identify lists of
people by email addresses alone, without a need to supply any other
information. For example, you can find registered LinkedIn profiles by
uploading an email list to your account. (You can do it regardless of your
subscription.) All you need is email addresses. You will see all profiles of
LinkedIn members who have used an included email in your list.
Tools like pipl.com, Contacts+, Clearbit, People Data Labs, and others
have databases of professional and social media data. None of the tools
provide very good precision, especially for phone numbers, so you need to
run some sort of output verification to make sure you do not end up
contacting the wrong people. But these tools can work with lists. You can
query them in bulk by uploading lists of emails. You can download the
output in Excel format. It will typically contain names, employers, job
titles, and links to social profiles if those are present in their databases.
(Most tools charge the user based on the number of returned results.) Some
tools also try to get results dynamically, based on your query, by running
and processing output from some search engines and systems. They might
be mistaken in vague user input cases more often, but you can be sure the
results are at least as up-to-date as Google's index.
To find results for sophisticated queries, you should learn how to use
advanced Google operators.

SURFACE WEB
When you click the "search" button, Google (or any other web search
engine), the results you get back are not based on a real-time snapshot of
the web as it is at that moment. Instead, the results come from the search
engine's index. A search engine's index is much like the index an author
provides at the end of a book.
For many search terms, Google has a list of the hundreds of billions of
web pages containing that term. Whenever Googlebot visits and gathers
information about a web page, it updates the index for every term in the
page. This is also true of other information, like structured data (such as
Schema.org objects, Meta tags, and microformats) in the page.
Google has determined that some pages change frequently (like the front
page of major news outlet websites), while others change infrequently (like
many of these search results). Googlebot optimizes the frequency of
revisiting pages accordingly. Google revisits (re-indexes) some pages many
times a day and others only a few times per year. Therefore, search results
may show an older version of a web page that is not up to date. A page may
be gone, but a cached copy (a page copy stored in the index) is still
available. Often both the cached and live versions of pages are of interest.
Access to cached pages gives us an advantage in research.
What can you find by searching on Google.com? Can you find any page
on the web? We sometimes ask our attendees this question, and it takes a
minute before someone responds – often incorrectly.
A factor to consider when determining what Google can find is that
search engine crawlers like Googlebot cannot visit every page on the web.
Website owners can submit a list of pages on their websites for Googlebot
to visit. They can prevent crawlers from accessing their pages. To visit a
web page, Googlebot must have permission to visit the page. Googlebot
may also discover pages by following hyperlinks (just like a regular user
would).
Unlike a person browsing the web, Googlebot follows some well-defined
rules about what pages it can and cannot copy to its index. Links on the web
contain invisible metadata that tells Googlebot (and other crawling
software) what links to follow or not to follow and what information it can
index from which pages.
Most websites contain a special file called robots.txt that tells web robots
(like Googlebot) which pages it can and cannot visit or index on that
specific site. Finally, Googlebot (obviously) does not log into websites. It
does not have user accounts on Facebook, LinkedIn, or the American
Institute of Certified Public Accountants' website. So, if a user must log in
to view a specific page on any website, Googlebot will not be able to view
that page or index it.
All of the web pages that Google can visit and index are collectively
referred to as the Surface Web. All of the pages that Google cannot visit, or
index, are collectively referred to as the Deep Web.
The deep web is much more extensive than the surface web. Take a look
at some graphical representation of surface vs. deep web: surface deep web.
The two terms are usually represented as parts of an iceberg (Figure 1.1):
FIGURE 1.1 Illustrating data available on the deep web vs. surface web.

While many times smaller than the deep web, the surface web is still
enormous. Google does not disclose the total number of pages available via
Google search, but it supposedly has 100 million gigabytes of data and 30
trillion pages in its index. That is certainly enough information for us to pay
attention!

BASIC BOOLEAN SEARCH SYNTAX

Boolean search means using the Boolean logic to combine search terms
with AND, OR, and NOT in the ways a search engine recognizes.
Use the Boolean logic AND and NOT to narrow results and OR to
expand them. After running an initial search:
 Add keywords to get fewer, more targeted results – AND
Remove keywords to exclude unwanted results – NOT
Vary search terms to get more results – OR
Put the quotation marks around phrases (sequences of keywords) to
narrow the search to pages with the exact phrase, get fewer results

As some examples, you can search for professionals who are

Engineers but NOT Managers AND NOT Recruiters

Employees of Google OR Facebook OR Microsoft
Have a Bachelor's OR a Master's Degree in Physics OR Computer
Science
Living in the Bay Area but NOT in San Francisco
Have a job title containing the phrase "Call Center Manager"

While Google supports Boolean logic, you cannot search using the
capitalized "NOT" to exclude terms. Make sure you follow the correct
Google syntax for the Boolean search. For exclusions, use the minus (-)
right in front of a word or a phrase.

OR statement - OR needs to be capitalized: scientist OR researcher

Alternative OR syntax - scientist | researcher
AND statement - no operator (don't use AND in search) - everything is
combined by default: profile LinkedIn Chicago mathematics
NOT statement - the minus right in front of a word: -recruiter -
president -director
Put phrases in the quotation marks to find them exactly: "big data"

Unless you put a word inside quotation marks, Google automatically also
includes pages containing variations of the word, synonyms, and related
terms in the results. Because of that, you do not need to use OR statements
for synonyms (e.g., developer OR "software engineer" OR coder). In fact, if
you use an OR statement, Google will no longer look for synonyms – so,
controversially, with ORs, you may get fewer results than without them. It
is unwanted behavior. We recommend against using ORs on Google.
 On Google, the order of Boolean operators is predetermined. The
operator OR always has the highest priority. You could include OR
statements in parentheses – e.g., (apples OR oranges) bananas – but the
search will be equivalent to apples OR oranges bananas. Google will look
for pages that contain either "apples" or "oranges" and "bananas."

ADVANCED SEARCH OPERATORS

To start reviewing how advanced search operators look, use Google's
Advanced Search Dialog (Figure 1.2):

FIGURE 1.2 Google's Advanced Search dialog.

You can enter values in the fields

all these words: (AND logic)

 this exact word or phrase:
any of these words: (OR logic)
none of these words: (NOT logic)
numbers ranging from:
this exact word or phrase:
any of these words:
type OR between all the words you want:

to set the Boolean logic for your query after you press ENTER.
These values entered in the advanced dialog generate Google advanced
search operators (site:, inurl:, intitle:, intext:, and filetype:):

site or domain:
terms appearing:
filetype:

Once you press ENTER, you will see the correctly constructed search string
with operators.
Note, however, that it is not practical to continue using the advanced
dialog because you can only generate a limited range of searches with it.
Google has other search operators, which do not appear on the advanced
dialog, but these are the most useful ones for research. (We have included a
complete operator list in Appendix X). Note that Google's help no longer
documents most of the advanced operators. So, the majority of people who
Google are not aware of them.
Here is how advanced operators affect your search results. You can
combine them with each other and with keywords.
site: (also called X-Raying) – look for results from a given domain

site:edu – search websites that end in edu (i.e., educational

organizations)
site:nih.gov – search the National Institute of Health website
site:ie.linkedin.com – search LinkedIn Ireland
site:stackoverflow.com/users – search for Stack Overflow user profiles
intitle: Search for keywords or phrases in the title of a web page (the blue
text in Google search results):

intitle:"about us " – the phrase "about us" must appear in the page title
intitle:"member directory " – the phrase "member directory" must
appear in the page title

inurl: Search for keywords or phrases in page URLs:

inurl:careers – the word "careers" must appear in the URL

inurl:directory faculty earth environmental sciences – adding
keywords to inurl: search

intext: Search for keywords or phrases in the text of a web page (not in the
title or URL).

intext:gmail.com

filetype: (can also be written as ext:) – search for a specified file type, such
as PDF, DOC, TXT, or XLSX:

filetype:pdf resume engineer – PDF files

filetype:xlsx contact list – Excel files

Operator and keywords combinations:

intitle:"member directory" clinical research professional association –

This search will find web results with the exact phrase "member
directory" appearing in the web page titles. Further, results must
contain the keywords clinical, research, professional, and association
in either the title, URL, or body of the page.

Google may also return results that contain alternate spellings, variations,
synonyms, or related words for any of those four keywords. The
expectation would be that results would include member directory listings
of professional associations serving clinical researchers.
intitle:chevron site:businessinsider.com 2020 – A search for pages with
Chevron in the title, from the domain businessinsider.com, containing
the number 2020. Here, you would expect to find articles about the
corporation published by Business Insider in the year 2020.
inurl:orgchart internal audit – A search for pages with "orgchart" in the
URL that contain both terms internal and audit (or alternate spellings,
variations, synonyms, or related words) somewhere on the page. This
search represents an attempt to find organizational charts posted online
that include listings for internal audit staff.
Other examples:site:usgbc.org/people intitle:leed ap "green building
council "
site:crunchbase.com/person intitle:UX intitle:designer san francisco
site:contactout.com intitle:"business analyst "
site:doximity.com/pub intitle:urology intitle:"new york "
inurl:authors site:fossies.org
site:xing.com/profile intitle:"regulatory affairs "
site:specialtyfood.com/organization packaging
site:ohio.gov insurance agent verify license
site:apua-asea.org filetype:pdf liste
site:com/about minority-owned
site:gov "do not distribute" 2020
site:uk intitle:"delegate list "
site:constructionequipment.com/company e-mail
site:npidb.org/doctors/pharmacy/pharmacist "medical center" OR
"university hospital "
site:chrome.google.com email extractor
site:reuters.com/finance/stocks/officer-Profile "human resources "
site:youracclaim.com/users Cisco
site:facebook.com filetype:smith
filetype:pdf "advanced search" Google Boolean tips library site:edu
site:napw.com/users certified financial planner
site:amazonaws.com intitle:"management team "
director marketing filetype:xlsx name company title email
 site:research.google.com/pubs author machine learning neural vision
site:dou.ua/users java back-end
site:prweb.com healthcare appointed CEO
"voir ce profil dans une autre langue" "Région de Paris, France"
site:fr.linkedin.com
email format deloitte.com
site:apha.org roster
site:angel.co/p "ios developer" bay area
site:espeakers.com/marketplace/speaker/profile women in business

SEARCH OPERATOR ASTERISK * – "FILL IN THE

BLANKS"
We would like to introduce one more Google operator (or, rather, search
modifier), the asterisk *. In some search systems, the asterisk replaces part
of a word. It works differently on Google – it stands for one word or a few
words.
An excellent application of the asterisk is to look for poems or song
lyrics for which you may have forgotten some words.
Example: "I * lonely * cloud."
You can use more asterisks if you forgot two or more words: "we all * *
* submarine."
In research, you can use the asterisk to collect pages with similar
information that only differ in some words. Examples:

"email me at * * com "

"joined * as chief * officer "
"senior * engineer at * inc OR llc "
"have * years of experience "

These searches apply the idea of Natural Language Search, with the
convenience of skipping some words within a sentence.
INCLUDE OMITTED RESULTS
An important setting that you need to be aware of is "include the omitted
results." By default, Google shows only representative results. You can
include the omitted results either by clicking a link on the last page of
results that says "repeat the search with the omitted results included" or by
adding &filter=0 to the search URL. (You will still get up to 300–500
results, not "all.")
When you are looking for a quick answer, including omitted results is not
necessary. But if you are looking to see as many results as possible, do use
the setting.

GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH

Once you enter your query into the box and press ENTER, you can switch
to specialized searches: Images, Maps, Videos, News, Shopping, Books,
Flights, and Finance.
In addition:
If your search implies jobs, colleges, or events, Google will take you to
those specialized searches (which do not have dedicated web pages or links
on the search page).
Further,

if it is about services, Google will show a map

if you are researching a product, you will see shopping sites
if you are looking to travel, you will get a flight search page
if you are looking for a song, you will see videos

The image search is quite useful in research. Note that it does not include
any promotions, and it is not a place where most sites compete for visibility.
Therefore, with image search, you may unearth relevant results that the
"All" search will not show until the second or third page, if at all.
Unfortunately, recently, the image search has lost some parameters: if
you search on Google and switch to Images, some previously available
options will be missing. Use the Advanced Image Search to be able to enter
every possible parameter. The image search also has its own operator
imasize:.
Image search supports narrowing results by the following:

Image size
Aspect ratio
Color
Type (such as face or photo)
Region
From site
Image format
Usage rights

It is quite practical to be searching for faces if you are looking to find

people and information about them.
You can search for different image aspect ratios in subsequent searches to
see new results.
Here is an example of using image search from our practice. We were
looking to find Flight Test Specialists, Safety Engineers, and Propulsion
Engineers with experience at a company that makes passenger aircraft. But
we were not familiar with the players. Searching by a company name
showed us either passenger planes or military planes, small planes, engines,
or helicopters. If we needed to narrow down the search, we would look for
the "photo" types. Those companies that displayed helicopters, for example,
were not our target. Comparing the screenshots on the left and right (Figure
1.3), it took seconds to assess each company:
FIGURE 1.3 Comparing image search results to determine a company's products.

Another use case was searching for employees for a company that
develops and tests drugs. Images returned by searching for a company name
showed either testing equipment or listed software testing features and
computer screens. We needed companies that make both equipment and
software and could pick them from the image search results by choosing
photos with testing equipment.

NOTES FOR PRACTICAL SEARCHING

Important Note on Keyword Variations. For keywords (without the
quotation marks), Google looks for synonyms and variations. However,

For a word used with the minus -, only this exact word is excluded
(but not its synonyms or variations)
For a word following an advanced operator (intitle:, inurl:, etc.), the
exact word is used (no variations)

There is no way to exclude all synonyms of a word using the negation

operator minus (-). If you need to be thorough, you have to think about
possible variations or spot them from the results page and adjust the search
by excluding additional terms. Add exclusions until your results have
mostly "correct" pages.
 Word Order. The word order matters in searching. Google gives higher
ranks to pages with the same word order as in the search string. (So, when
you search, try putting your keywords in the order you expect to find them
– e.g., type software engineer, not engineer software.) Pages containing the
entered keywords in close proximity and the same word order (but not
necessarily one after another) will also be ranked higher. If you type a long
phrase into the search bar, the top results will typically include the phrase,
even if you do not use the quotation marks.
Changing the word order in a search string can change the order of
results and affect the number of returned results.
The order of advanced operators within a search string is less important
than the keyword order. (But it may affect the order of results as well.)
Auto-Corrections. Pay careful attention when Google suggests spelling
corrections and other changes to your search. While helpful in avoiding
common typos, this feature often misfires on uncommon (but correct)
words and technical terminology.
Note that Google usually wants to auto-correct the spelling e-mail to
email. But searching for "e-mail" sometimes provides more results (which
also include pages with the word "email").

NUMBER OF RESULTS
In theory, Google never shows more than 1,000 results. Try to find results
beyond 1,000, and you will see a message from Google about the maximum
number of results (Figure 1.4):
FIGURE 1.4 Demonstrating Google's cap of 1,000 search results.

Google used to show up to 1,000 results, but with the index volume
getting bigger and various algorithm modifications, it no longer does.
However, in most cases, Google provides fewer results – it "maxes out" at
300–500. We do not know of a Google search that currently delivers over
500 results.
Google's displayed number of results is often off by orders of magnitude.
(It's just not a high priority for Google to display a number that closely
reflects the total number of results in Google's index). It is a matter of
constant user confusion. Some users compare numbers of results for
different searches, but it is impossible to do so since the numbers are
removed from reality.
Instead of the unreliable number, we wish Google would display a
qualitative characteristic like "many results."
The number of results is not to be trusted on any global search engine.
CROSSED-OUT WORDS IN RESULTS (SOFT "AND")
In some cases, where Google can't easily find pages containing all the
keywords, it provides suggested results in which one or more keywords are
missing. It does this because it wants to give at least some results for any
query.
Google shows crossed-out keywords below the search results in cases
like these. If you want a word to appear in the results for sure, you can put it
in quotation marks and search again.

SEARCHING VERBATIM
You can select the Verbatim option under the search bar after you choose
the Tools button. It instructs Google to provide no interpretation of any kind
of a search string. Using Verbatim will result in Google looking for the
keywords precisely as they are, not their variations or synonyms. However,
sometimes, Google may still decide to show some results with crossed-out
keywords.

SEARCHING BY DATE RANGE

You can choose a date range for the search results. Google provides a
calendar dialog for that when you first search and then click the "Tools"
button.
In 2019, Google introduced the operators before: and after: to search
within a date range.
If you choose a date range, Google will display the last updated dates in
the snippets. To see the latest results, you can restrict your search to the last
minute or even a second.
While restricting the dates to more recent may seem like a good search
strategy, you should keep in mind that a page "date" is often technically
hard to identify. It appears that Google has many pages in its index for
which it "doesn't know" the date. (Many LinkedIn profiles have this
quality.) This happens due to pages not having enough information about
the updated dates.
 Some sites attempt to "hack" the date range by modifying the date
without changing the content. When you set a date range restriction in
Google search, you will stop seeing matching results with no specified date.
Our practical advice is to only search by a date range when looking for
information that strongly correlates with a date or period of time, such as an
event. For most searches, you do not need to utilize the date range; Google
automatically ranks higher newer results.
CHAPTER 2

What Is a Google Custom Search

Engine?

GOOGLE CSEs SEARCH THE surface web, just like Google does. They,
too, search within Google's Index (data collected by Googlebot) in
particular ways, defined for each CSE by its creator.
The purpose of CSEs is to provide end-users with custom ways to search
within Google's Index.
Google's CSE help is primarily oriented towards website owners wanting
to offer their site search for visitors. Many sites use this technology. Here is
a list of over 500K domains that use CSEs. However, CSE applications go
way beyond your own site search, allowing you to search sites built by
others from which you want to extract information. That is our focus.

A BIT OF HISTORY
Google introduced CSEs back in 2006. A blog post from one month after
the launch, highlighted the rapid adoption of CSEs:

Less than four weeks after Google launched its Custom Search Engine,
a tool to create customized search engines, the Net is being flooded by
search boxes stamped with the phrase "Google Custom Search."
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
 What was it I saw under water? I never knew, but I guessed as
much as I wanted, a day or two later, when I saw a native, fishing
on the reef near my bathing-place, draw up a big devil-fish, with
eight limp dangling arms’ over six feet long, and carry it away. A
trader told me that he had once pulled up one himself, while out
fishing in a light canoe, and that it seized hold of the little boat, and
made such a fight that he barely escaped with his life. It is the
pleasant habit of this fish, when attacked by a human being, to fling
its hideous tentacles over his head and face, and force them up into
eyes, nostrils, and mouth, so as to suffocate him, if he cannot
master the creature.
“Do you think there were any sharks about the day I bathed?” I
inquired.
“Well, if the girls were blowing, I should say there must have
been. They wouldn’t do it for fun altogether,” he replied.
“Surely they wouldn’t bathe, if they knew there were any about?”
“Oh, wouldn’t they, though! They don’t mind them. No native is
afraid of anything in the sea.”
I believed this with reservations, until a day came in another
island, when I nearly furnished a dinner for a shark myself, and
thenceforth gave up bathing in unprotected tropical waters, for
good. It was in Rakahanga, many hundreds of miles nearer the Line,
and I had left the schooner to enjoy a walk and a bathe. A native
Rakahangan girl, who had never seen a white woman before, and
was wildly excited at the thought of going bathing with this unknown
wonder, found a boat for me, and allowed me to pick my own place
in the inner lagoon of the island. I chose a spot where the lagoon
narrowed into a bottle-neck communicating with the sea, and we-
started our swim. The girl, however, much to my surprise, would not
go more than a few yards from the boat, and declined to follow me
when I struck out for the open water. I had been assured by her, so
far as my scanty knowledge of Maori allowed me to understand, that
there were no sharks, so her conduct seemed incomprehensible until
a stealthy black fin, shaped like the mainsail of a schooner, rose out
of the water a few score yards away, and began making for me!
The native girl was first into the boat, but I was assuredly not long
after her. The back fin did not follow, once I was out of the water.
But the heat of that burning day far up towards the Line, was hardly
enough to warm me, for half an hour afterwards.
I found, on asking the question that I should have asked first of
all, that the bottle-neck entrance of the lagoon was a perfect death-
trap of sharks, and that more than one native had been eaten there.
“Why on earth did the girl tell me there were none, and why did
she venture into such a place herself?” I asked.
“Well,” said the only white man on the island, “I should think she
knew that any shark will take a white person, and leave a native, if
there’s a choice. And if you had that red bathing-dress on that you’re
carrying, why, you were simply making bait of yourself!”
“But why should she want to see me killed?”
“Oh, she didn’t. She only wanted to have the fun of a bathe with a
white woman, and just took the chances!”
So much about bathing, in the “sunny isles of Eden.” One is sorry
to be obliged to say that it is one of the disappointments of the
Pacific. Warm, brilliant water, snowy coral sands, and glancing fish of
rainbow hues, are charming accompaniments to a bath, no doubt,
but they are too dearly paid for when snakes, sharks, sting-rays, and
devil-fish have to be counted into the party.

Nothing in curious Niué is quite so curious as the native fancies

about ghosts and devils. In spite of their Christianity, they still hold
fast to all their ancient superstitions about the powers of evil.
 Every Savage Islander believes, quite as a matter of course, that
ghosts walk the roads and patrol the lonely bush, all night long.
Some are harmless spirits, many are malignant devils. After dark has
fallen, about six o’clock, no one dares to leave his house except for
some very important errand; and if it is necessary to go out so late
as nine or ten o’clock, a large party will go together—this even in the
town itself. Every native has a dog or two, of a good barking
watchdog breed, not to protect property, for theft is unknown, but to
drive away ghosts at night! Devil possession is believed in firmly.
When a man, takes sick, his neighbours try, in a friendly manner, to
“drive the devil out of him.” Perhaps they hang him up by his
thumbs; possibly they put his feet in boiling water, causing fearful
scalds; or they may drive sharks’ teeth into him here and there. But
the most popular method is plain and simple squeezing, to squeeze
the devil out! This often results in broken ribs, and occasionally in
death. It is a curious fact, in connection with this “squeezing,” that
the natives are remarkably expert “masseurs,” and can “drive the
devil” out of a sprain, or a headache, or an attack of neuralgia, by
what seems to be a clever combination of the “pétrissage” and
“screw” movement of massage. This, they say, annoys the devil so
much that he goes away. Applied to the trunk, however, and carried
out with the utmost strength of two or three powerful men, Savage
Islander massage is-(as above stated) often fatal—and small
wonder!
When a man has died, from natural or unnatural causes, a great
feast is held of baked pig and fowl, yams, taro, fish, and cocoanuts.
Presents are given to the dead man’s relatives, as at a wedding, and
other presents are returned by them to the men who dig the grave.
The corpse is placed in a shallow hole, wrapped in costly mats; and
then begins the ghostly life of the once-loved husband or father, who
now becomes a haunting terror to those of his own household. Over
his grave they erect a massive tomb of concrete and lime, meant to
discourage him, so far as possible, from coming out to revisit the
upper world. They gather together roots of the splendid scarlet
poinsettia, gorgeous hibiscus, and graceful wine-coloured foliage
plants, and place them about his tomb, to make it attractive to him.
They collect his most cherished possessions—his “papalangi” (white
man’s) bowler hat, which he used to wear on Sundays at the five
long services in the native church; his best trousers; his orange-
coloured singlet with pink bindings; his tin mug and plate—and place
them on the grave. Savage Island folk are very avaricious and
greedy; yet not a soul will dare to touch these valuable goods; they
lie on the grave, in sun and storm, until rotted or broken. If it is a
woman’s grave, you may even see her little hand sewing-machine
(almost every island in the Pacific possesses scores of these) placed
on the tomb, to amuse the ghost in its leisure hours. There will be a
bottle of cocoanut hair-oil, too, scented with “tieré” flowers, and
perhaps a little looking-glass or comb—so that we can picture the
spirit of the dark-eyed island girls, like mermaids, coming forth at
night to sit in the moonlight and dress their glossy hair—if ghosts
indeed have hair like mortal girls!
 Mosquito-curtains, somewhat tattered by the wind, can be seen
on many graves, carefully stretched over the tomb on the regulation
uprights and cross-pieces, as over a bed. This is, no doubt, intended
to help the ghost to lie quiet, lest the mosquitoes should annoy it so
much that it be driven to get up and walk about. Certainly, if a
Savage Island ghost does walk, it is not because every care is not
taken to make it (as the Americans would say) “stay put.”
There are no graveyards on the island. Every man is buried on his
own land, very often alongside the road, or close to his house. The
thrifty islanders plant onions and pumpkins on the earth close about
the tomb, and enjoy the excellent flavour imparted to these
vegetables by the essence of dead ancestor which they suck up
through the soil. In odd contradiction to this economical plan, a
“tapu” is placed upon all the cocoanut trees owned by the deceased;
and for a year or more valuable nuts are allowed to lie where they
fall, sprouting into young plants, and losing many tons of copra
annually to the island. Groups of palms unhealthily crowded
together, bear witness everywhere to the antiquity of this strange
practice.
The main, and indeed the only good road, across the island, owns
a spot of fearsome reputation. On a solitary tableland, swept by salt
sea-winds, stand certain groups of clustered cocoa-palms, sprung
from tapu’s nuts on dead men’s lands. Here the natives say, the
ghosts and devils have great power, and it is dangerous to walk
there at night alone, even for white men, who take little account of
native spirits. Many of the white traders of the island are shy of the
spot; and some say that when riding in parties across the island at
night, their horses shy and bolt passing the place, and exhibit
unaccountable fear. Only a year or two ago, a terrible thing
happened in this desolate spot, as if to prove the truth of local
traditions. There was one native of the island, a “witch-doctor,”
learned in charms and spells, who professed not to be afraid of the
devils. He could manage them, he said; and to prove it, he used
sometimes to walk alone across the island at night. One morning, he
did not return from an excursion of this nature. The villagers set out
in a body to look for him in the broad light of the tropical sun. They
found him, at the haunted spot, lying on the ground dead. His face
was black and his body horribly contorted. The devils had fought
him, and conquered him—so the natives said. And now no gold
would induce a Savage Islander to pass the fatal spot after dark.
I asked the white missionary doctor resident at the time of my
visit on the island, if he could account for the death. He said that he
had not held a post-mortem and therefore could not say what the
cause might be; but the appearance of the corpse was undoubtedly
as described by the natives.
Being anxious to investigate the truth of these stories, I
determined to spend a night on the spot, and see what happened.
The natives were horrified beyond measure at the idea; and when
an accident on a coral reef laid me up from walking exercise until
just before the schooner called again at the island to take me away
—thus preventing me from carrying out the plan—they were one and
all convinced that the fall was the work of devils, anxious to prevent
me from meddling with their doings!
The problem, then, remained unsolved, and rests open to any
other traveller to investigate. But as Savage Island lies far off the
track of the wandering tourist, its ghosts are likely to remain
undisturbed in their happy hunting-grounds for the present.
 Mrs. Joe Gargery would certainly have liked Niué, for it is a place
where there is none of the “pompeying” so obnoxious to her Spartan
soul. And yet, if you stay there long, you will find out that Savage
Island practises certain of the early Christian virtues, if it has
dropped a few of its luxuries manufactured by civilisation. If you
want a horse to ride across the island—a gentle, native creature that
goes off at both ends, like a fire-cracker, when you try to mount,
biting and kicking simultaneously, and, when mounted, converts
your ride into a sandwich of jibbing and bolting, you will call in at
the nearest trader’s, and tell him you want his horse and his
neighbour’s saddle and whip. All these will appear at your door, with
a couple of kindly messages, in half an hour. You will time your
arrival at the different villages so as to hit off some one’s meal-
hours, walk in, ask for a help of the inevitable curried tin, and carry
off a loaf of bread or a lump of cake, if your host happens to have
baked that morning and you have not. When a ship comes in—
perhaps the bi-yearly steamer from Samoa, with real mutton and
beef in her ice-chest—and the capital gorges for two days, you, the
stranger within their gates, will meet hot chops walking up to your
verandah between two hot plates, and find confectioners’ paper
bags full of priceless New Zealand potatoes, sitting on your
doorstep. You will learn to shed tears of genuine emotion at the
sight of a rasher of bacon, and to accept with modest reluctance the
almost too valuable gift of one real onion. Hospitality among the
white folk of Savage Island is hospitality, and no mistake, and its real
generosity can only be appreciated by those who know the supreme
importance assumed by “daily bread,” when the latter is dependent
upon the rare and irregular calls of passing ships.
For, like a good many Pacific Islands, this coral land is more
beautiful than fertile. Its wild fantastic rocks, which make up the
whole surface of the island, produce in their clefts and hollows
enough yam, taro, banana, and papaw to feed the natives; but the
white man wants more. Tins are his only resource—tins and biscuits,
for flour does not keep long, and bread is often unattainable. Fowls
or eggs can seldom be bought, for the reason that some one
imported a number of cats many years ago; these were allowed to
run wild in the bush, and have now become wild in earnest,
devouring fowls, and even attacking dogs and young pigs at times.
Why, then, if the island is valueless to Europeans, and the life hard,
do white men live in Savage Island and many similar places? For the
reason that fortunes have been piled up, in past years, by trading in
such isolated spots, and that there is still money to be made, though
not so much as of old. Trading in the Pacific is a double-barrelled
sort of business. You settle down on an island where there is a good
supply of copra (dried cocoa-nut kernel, manufactured by the
natives). You buy the copra from the islanders at about £8 a ton,
store it away in your copra-house until the schooner or the steamer
calls, and then ship it off to Sydney, where it sells at £13 to £14 a
ton. Freight and labour in storing and getting on board, eat into the
profits. But, in addition to buying, the trader sells. He has a store,
where cheap prints, violent perfumes, gaudy jewellery, tapes and
buttons and pins and needles, tins of beef, shoes, etc., are sold to
the natives at a price which leaves a very good profit on their cost
down in Auckland.
The laws of all the Pacific Colonies forbid the white trader to buy
from the natives, except with cash; but, as the cash comes back to
him before long over the counter of the store, it comes to much the
same in the end as the old barter system of the early days, out of
which money used to be, quickly and easily made. Sometimes the
trader, if in a small way of business, sells his copra to captains of
calling ships at a smaller price than the Auckland value. But
nowadays so many stores are owned by big Auckland and Sydney
firms that most of the stuff is shipped off for sale in New Zealand or
Australia. “Panama” hats, already mentioned, are a very important
article of commerce here. Every island has some speciality of its own
besides the inevitable copra; and the trader deals in all he can get.
The trader’s life is, as a rule, a pleasant one enough. Savage Island
is one of the worst places where he could find himself; and yet the
days pass happily enough in that solitary outlier of civilisation. There
is not much work to do; the climate is never inconveniently hot; the
scenery, especially among the up-country primaeval forests, is very
lovely. There is a good deal of riding and bathing, a little shooting,
and a myriad of wild and fantastic caves to explore when the spirit
moves one. The native canoes are easy to manage and excellent to
fish from.

It is traditional in Savage Island for the few white people—almost

all rival traders—to hang together, and live in as friendly a manner as
a great family party. If the great world is shut out, its cares are shut
away, and life sits lightly on all. No one can be extravagant; no one
can “keep up appearances” at the cost of comfort; no one is over-
anxious, or worried, or excited over anything’—except when the
rare, the long-expected ship comes in, and the natives rend the air
with yells of joy, and the girls cocoanut-oil their hair, and the white
men rush for clean duck suits and fresh hats, and the mails come in,
and the news is distributed, and cargoes go out, and every one
feasts from dawn till dusk, and all the island is in a state of frantic
ebullition for at least three days. Then, indeed, Niué is alive.
We were all getting hungry when the Duchess came in again, after
nearly two months’ absence, for provisions were short, and most of
us had come down to eating little green parrots out of the bush, and
enjoying them, for want of anything better. It was certainly
tantalising to see the ship off the island beating about for three days
and more, before she was able to approach, but that is an usual
incident in Niué. She came up at last, and I got my traps on board,
and paid my bills, and carried away the model canoes and shell
necklaces, and plaited hats and baskets, that were brought me as
parting presents, and gave-a number of yards of cotton cloth, and a
good many silk handkerchiefs, in return. And so the big sails were
hoisted once more with a merry rattling and flapping, and away we
went, northward a thousand miles, to desolate, burning Penrhyn and
Malden Island.
 CHAPTER XI
A Life on the Ocean Wave—Where They kept the Dynamite—How
far from an Iced Drink?—The Peacefulness of a Pacific Calm—A
Golden Dust Heap—Among the Rookeries—Sailing on the Land—All
about Guano.

T
HE pirate captain was gone when the schooner reappeared off
Niué, and a certain ancient mariner had taken his place.
Things were not quite so exciting on the Duchess under the
new régime, but the order which reigned on board was something
awful; for the ancient mariner had been a whaling captain in his day,
and on whaling ships it is more than on any others a case of “Growl
you may, but go you must,” for all the crew. The ancient mariner
was as salty a salt as ever sailed the ocean. He had never been on
anything with steam in it, he was as tough as ship-yard teak, and as
strong as a bear, though he was a grandfather of some years’
standing, and he was full of strange wild stories about the whaling
grounds, and odd happenings in out-of-the-way comers of the Pacific
—most of which he seemed to consider the merest commonplaces of
a prosaic existence.
We suffered many things from the cook, in the course of that long
burning voyage towards the Line. The Duchess’s stores were none of
the best, and the cook dealt with them after a fashion that made me
understand once for all the sailor saying: “God sends meat, and the
devil sends cooks.” Pea-soup, salt pork and beef, plum duff, ship’s
biscuit, sea-pie—this was the sort of food that, in the days before I
set foot on the Duchess, I had supposed to form the usual table of
sailing vessels. I fear it was a case of sea-story-books, over again.
What we did get was “tinned rag” of a peculiarly damp and viscous
quality, tea that usually tasted of cockroaches, biscuit that was so
full of copra bugs we had to hammer it on the table before eating it,
an occasional tin of tasteless fruit (it ran out very soon), and bread
that was a nightmare, for the flour went musty before we were out a
week, and the unspeakable cook tried to disguise its taste with
sugar. Board-of-trade limejuice, which is a nauseous dose at best,
we were obliged, by law to carry, and I think we must have run
rather near scurvy in the course of that long trip, for the amount of
the oily, drug-flavoured liquid that the mates and myself used to
drink at times, seemed to argue a special craving of nature. But à la
guerre comme à la guerre—and one does not take ship on a Pacific
windjammer expecting the luxuries of a P. and O.
We were not going direct to Malden, having to call first at Samoa
and Mangaia. Three days of rough rolling weather saw us in Apia,
about which I have nothing to say at present, since I paid a longer
visit to Stevenson’s country later on. We had about forty native
passengers to take on here for the Cook Islands and Malden. There
was nowhere to put them, but in the South Seas such small
inconveniences trouble nobody.
I am very strongly tempted here to tell about the big-gale that
caught us the first night out, carried away our lifeboat, topsail,
topgallant, and main gaff, swamped the unlucky passengers’ cabin,
and caused the Cingalese steward to compose and chant all night
long a litany containing three mournful versicles: “O my God, this is
too much terrible! O my#God, why I ever go to sea! O my God, I
never go to sea again!” But in the Pacific one soon learns that sea
etiquette makes light of such matters. So the wonderful and terrible
sights which I saw once or twice that night, clinging precariously to
anything solid near the door of my cabin, and hoping that the
captain would not catch me out on deck, must remain undescribed.
Nearly seven weeks were occupied by this northern trip—time for
a mail steamer to go out from London to New Zealand, and get well
started on the way home again. We were, of course, entirely isolated
from news and letters; indeed, the mails and papers that we carried
conveyed the very latest intelligence to islands that had not had a
word from the outer world for many months. Our native passengers,
who were mostly going up to Malden Island guano works as paid
labourers, evidently considered the trip one wild scene of excitement
and luxury. The South Sea Islander loves nothing more than change,
and every new island we touched at was a Paris or an Ostend to
these (mostly) untravelled natives. Their accommodation on the ship
was not unlike that complained of by the waiter in “David
Copperfield.” They “lived on broken wittles and they slept on the
coals.” The Duchess carried benzoline tins for the feeding of the
futile little motor that worked her in and out of port, and the native
sleeping place was merely the hold, on top of the tins.
 “Do you mind the dynamite remaining under your bunk?” asked
the ancient mariner, shortly after we left Samoa.
“Under my bunk?”
“Yes—didn’t you know it was there? The explosives safe is let into
the deck just beneath the deck cabin. I’ll move it if you’re nervous
about it—I thought I’d tell you, anyways. But it’s the best place for it
to be, you see, right amidships.” And the ancient mariner, leaning his
six foot two across the rail, turned his quid, and spat into the deep.
“What do we want with dynamite, anyhow?” asked the bewildered
passenger, confronted with this new and startling streak of local
colour.
“We don’t want none. The Cook Islands wants it for reefs.”
“Oh, leave it where it is—I suppose it’s all the same in the end
where it starts from, if it did blow up,” says the passenger
resignedly. “What about the benzoline in the hold, though?”
“Every one’s got to take chances at sea,” says the captain, easily.
“The mates have orders to keep the natives from smokin’ in the hold
at night.”
And at midnight, when I slip out of my bunk to look on and see
what the weather is like (it has been threatening all day), a faint but
unmistakable odour of island tobacco greets my nose, from the
opening of the main hatch! Benzoline, dynamite, natives smoking in
the hold, one big boat smashed, one small one left, forty native
passengers, five whites, and three hundred miles to the nearest
land!
Well, à la guerre comme à la guerre, and one must not tell tales at
sea. So I don’t tell any, though tempted. But I am very glad, a week
later, to see the Cook Islands rising up out of the empty blue again.
We have had head winds, we have been allowanced as to water, we
are all pleased to have a chance of taking in some fruit before we
start on the thousand miles’ run to Malden—and above all, we leave
that dynamite here, which is a good thing; for really we have been
putting rather too much strain on the good nature of the “Sweet
little cherub that sits up aloft, to keep guard o’er the life of poor
Jack,” this last week or two.
If proof were wanted that the cherub’s patience is about at an
end, our arrival at Mangaia furnishes it—for we do take fire after all,
just a couple of hundred yards from shore!
It does not matter now, since half the natives of the island are
about the ship, and the case of explosives has just been rowed off in
our only boat, and the blaze is put out without much trouble. But,
two days ago!
Well, the sweet little cherub certainly deserved a rest.

Now the Duchess’s bowsprit was pointed northwards, and we set

out on a thousand miles’ unbroken run up to Malden Island, only
four degrees south of the Line. For nine days we ploughed across
the same monotonous plain of lonely sea, growing a little duller
every day, as our stores of reading matter dwindled away, and our
fruit and vegetables ran out, and the memory of our last fresh mess
became only a haunting, far-off regret. Squatting or lying about the
white-hot poop in the merciless sun—which burnt through our duck
and cotton clothing, and scorched the skin underneath, but was at
least a degree better than the choking Hades of a cabin below—we
used to torture each other with reminiscences and speculations,
such as “They have real salt beef and sea-pie and lobscouse and
pea-soup, and things like that, every day on Robinson’s schooner; no
tinned rag and musty flour”; or “How many thousand miles are we
now from an iced drink?” This last problem occupied the mates and
myself for half a morning, and made us all a great deal hotter than
we were before. Auckland was about 2,300 miles away, San
Francisco about 3,000 as far as we could guess. We decided for
Auckland, and discussed the best place to buy the drink, being
somewhat limited in choice by the passenger’s selfish insistence on a
place where she could get really good iced coffee. By the time this
was settled, the captain joined in, and informed us that we could get
all we wanted, and fresh limes into the bargain, only a thousand
miles away, at Tahiti, which every one had somehow overlooked.
Only a thousand! It seemed nothing, and we all felt (illogically)
cheered up at the thought.
Late in the afternoon we came near attaining our wish for a
temperature of thirty-two degrees in rather an unexpected way. The
bottom of the Pacific generally hovers about this figure, some miles
below the burning surface, which often reaches the temperature of
an ordinary warm bath; and the Duchess had a fairly narrow escape
of going down to look for a cool spot without a return ticket. A giant
waterspout suddenly formed out of the low-hanging, angry sky that
had replaced the clear heat of the morning. First of all, a black trunk
like an elephant’s began to feel blindly about in mid-air, hanging
from a cloud. It came nearer and nearer with uncanny speed,
drawing up to itself as it came a colossal cone of turbulent sea, until
the two joined together in one enormous black pillar, some quarter
of a mile broad at the base, and probably a good thousand feet
high, uniting as it did the clouds and the sea below. Across the
darkening sea, against the threatening, copper-crimson sunset,
came this gigantic horror, waltzing over leagues of torn-up water in a
veritable dance of death, like something blind, but mad and cruel,
trying to find and shatter our fragile little ship. Happily, the dark was
only coming, not yet come; happily, too, the wind favoured us, and
we were able to tack about and keep out of the way, dodging the
strangely human rushes and advances of the water-giant with
smartness and skill. At one time it came so close that the elephant
trunk—now separately visible again—seemed feeling about over our
heads, although the captain afterwards said it had been more than
three hundred yards away—and the immense maelstrom underneath
showed us the great wall of whirling spindrift that edged its deadly
circle, as plain as the foam about our own bows. Every one was
quiet, cool, and ready; but no one was sorry when the threatening
monster finally spun, away to leeward and melted into air once
more. A waterspout of this enormous size, striking a small vessel,
would snap off her masts like sticks of candy, kill any one who
happened to be on deck, and most probably sink the ship with the
very impact of the terrible shock.
“One doesn’t hear much about ships being sunk by waterspouts,”
objected the sceptical passenger to this last statement.
“Ships that’s sunk by waterspouts doesn’t come back to tell the
newspapers about it,” said the captain darkly.
Life on a South Sea schooner is not all romance. For the officers of
the ship it is a very hard life indeed. Native crews are the rule in the
South Seas, and native crews make work for every one, including
themselves. Absolutely fearless is the Kanaka, active as a monkey
aloft, good-natured and jolly to the last degree, but perfectly
unreliable in any matter requiring an ounce of thought or a
pennyworth of discretion, and, moreover, given to shirk work in a
variety of ingenious ways that pass the wit of the white man to
circumvent. Constant and keen supervision while at sea, unremitting
hurry and drive in port, are the duties of a South Sea mate, coupled
with plenty of actual hard work on his own account. I have known a
case where a small schooner was leaking badly, many days from
port, and almost constant pumping was required. The pump broke
while in use; and the watch, delighted to be released, turned in at
eight bells without having done their spell, and without reporting the
accident. The water gained steadily, but that did not trouble them;
and when the mate discovered the accident, and set them to mend
the pump at once, they were both surprised and grieved!
“Watch and watch” is the rule on small sailing-vessels: four hours
on and four hours off, day and night, except for the “dog watches,”
four to six and six to eight in the evening, which create a daily shift
in order that each man may be on watch at a different time on
successive days. Always provided, of course, that the ship has any
watches at all! I have sailed in a Pacific schooner where the crew
spent most of their time playing the accordion and the Jew’s harp,
and slept peacefully all night. In the daytime there was generally
some one at the wheel; but at night it was usually lashed, and the
ship was let run, with all sails set, taking her chances of what might
come, every soul on board being asleep. One night the cook came
out of his bunk to get a drink from the tank, and found the vessel
taken aback. The whole spirit of South Sea life breathes from the
sequel. He told nobody! The galley was his department, not the
sails; so he simply went back to his bunk. In the morning we fetched
up off the northern side of an island we had intended to «approach
from the south; having, strange to say, somehow escaped piling our
bones on the encircling reef, and also avoided the misfortune of
losing our masts and getting sunk.
If there is a good deal of hard work on most schooners, and
something of risk on all, there is also plenty of adventure and
romance, for those who care about it. One seldom meets an island
skipper whose life would not furnish materials for a dozen exciting
books. Being cut off and attacked by cannibals down in the
dangerous western groups; swimming for dear life away from a boat
just bitten in two by an infuriated whale; driving one native king off
his throne, putting another on, and acting as prime minister to the
nation; hunting up a rumour of a splendid pearl among the pearling
islands, and tracking down the gem, until found and coaxed away
from its careless owner at one-tenth Sydney market prices—these
are incidents that the typical schooner captain regards as merely the
ordinary kind of break to be expected in his rather monotonous life.
He does not think them very interesting as a rule, and dismisses
them somewhat briefly, in a yarn. What does excite him, cause him
to raise his voice and gesticulate freely, and induce him to “yarn”
relentlessly for half a watch, is the recital of some thrilling incident
connected with the price of cargo or the claims made for damaged
stuff by some abandoned villain of a trader. There is something
worth relating in a tale like that, to his mind!
 The passenger on an island schooner learns very early to cultivate
a humble frame of mind. On a great steam liner he is all in all. It is
for him almost entirely that the ships are built and run; his favour is
life or death to the company. He is handled like eggs, and petted like
a canary bird. Every one runs to do his bidding; he is one of a small
but precious aristocracy waited on hand and foot by the humblest of
serfs. On a schooner, however, he is ousted from his pride of place
most completely by the cargo, which takes precedence of him at
every point; so that he rapidly learns he is not of nearly so much
value as a fat sack of copra, and he becomes lowlier in mind than he
ever was before. There is no special accommodation for him, as a
rule; he must go where he can, and take what he gets. If he can
make himself useful about the ship, so much the better; every one
will think more of him, and he will get some useful exercise by
working his passage in addition to paying for it.
Here is a typical day on the Duchess.
At eight bells (8 a.m.) breakfast is served in the cabin. The
passenger’s own cabin is a small deck-house placed amidships on
the main deck. The deck is filled up with masses of cargo,
interposing a perfect Himalayan chain of mountains between the
main deck and the poop. It is pouring with tropical rain, but the big
main hatch yawns half open on one side, because of the native
passengers in the hold. On the other side foams a squally sea,
unguarded by either rail or bulwark, since the cargo is almost
overflowing out of the ship. The Duchess is rolling like a porpoise,
and the passenger’s hands are full of mackintosh and hat-brim. It
seems impossible to reach the poop alive; but the verb “have to” is
in constant use on a sailing-ship, and it does not fail of its magical
effect on this occasion. Clawing like a parrot, the passenger reaches
the cabin, and finds the bare-armed, barefooted mates and the
captain engaged on the inevitable “tin” and biscuits. There is no tea
this morning, because the cockroaches have managed to get into
and flavour the brew; and the cabin will none of it. The captain has
sent word by the native steward that he will “learn” the cook—a
strange threat that usually brings about at least a temporary reform
—and is now engaged in knocking the copra-bugs out of a piece of
biscuit and brushing a colony of ants off his plate. Our cargo is
copra, and in consequence the ship resembles an entomological
museum more than anything else. No centipedes have been found
this trip so far; but the mate-stabbed a big scorpion with a sail-
needle yesterday, as it was walking across the deck; and the
cockroaches—as large as mice, and much bolder—have fairly “taken
charge.” The captain says he does not know whether he is sleeping
in the cockroaches’ bunk, or they in his, but he rather thinks the
former, since the brutes made a determined effort to throw him out
on the deck last night, and nearly succeeded!
It grows very warm after breakfast, for we are far within the
tropics, and the Duchess has no awnings to protect her deck. The
rail is almost hot enough to blister an unwary hand, and the great
sails cast little shade, as the sun climbs higher to the zenith. The
pitch does not, however, bubble in the seams of the deck, after the
well-known fashion of stories, because the Duchess, like most other
tropical ships, has her decks caulked with putty. A calm has fallen—a
Pacific calm, which is not as highly distinguished for calmness as the
stay-at-home reader might suppose. There is no wind, and the island
we are trying to reach remains tantalisingly perched on the extreme
edge of the horizon, like a little blue flower on the rim of a crystal
dish. But there is plenty of sea—long glittering hills of water, rising
and falling, smooth and foamless, under the ship, which they fling
from side to side with cruel violence. The great booms swing and
slam, the blocks clatter, the masts creak. Everything loose in the
cabins toboggans wildly up and down the floor. At dinner, the soup
which the cook has struggled to produce, lest he should be
“learned,” has to be drunk out of tin mugs for safety. Every one is
sad and silent, for the sailor hates a calm even more than a gale.
Bonitos come round the ship in a glittering shoal by-and-by, and
there is a rush for hooks and lines. One of our native A.B.s produces
a huge pearl hook, unbaited, and begins to skim it lightly along the
water at the end of its line, mimicking the exact motions of a flying-
fish with a cleverness that no white man can approach. Hurrah! a
catch! A mass of sparkling silver, blue, and green, nearly twenty
pounds weight, is swung through the air, and tumbled on deck.
Another and another follows; we have over a hundred pounds
weight of fish in half an hour. The crew shout and sing for delight.
There are only seven of them and five of us, but there-will not be a
scrap of that fish left by to-morrow, for all the forecastle hands will
turn to and cook and eat without ceasing until it is gone; after which
they will probably dance for an hour or two.
To every one’s delight, the weather begins to cloud over again
after this, and we are soon spinning before a ten-knot breeze
towards the island, within sight of which we have been aimlessly
beating about for some days, unable to get up. Our crew begin to
make preparations. Tapitua, who is a great dandy, puts two gold
earrings in one ear, and fastens a wreath of cock’s feathers about his
hat. Koddi (christened George) gets into a thick blue woollen jersey
(very suitable for Antarctic weather), a scarlet and yellow pareo or
kilt, and a pair of English shoes, which make him limp terribly; but
they are splendid squeakers, so Koddi is happy. (The Pacific islander
always picks out squeaking shoes if he can get them, and some
manufacturers even put special squeakers into goods meant for the
island trade.) Ta puts on three different singlets—a pink, a blue, and
a yellow—turning up the edges carefully, so as to present a fine
display of layered colours, like a Neapolitan ice; and gums the gaudy
label off a jam tin about his bare brown arm, thus christening
himself with the imposing title of “Our Real Raspberry.” Neo is
wearing two hats and three neck-handkerchiefs; Oki has a cap with
a “P. & O.” ribbon, and Union Steamship Company’s jersey, besides a
threepenny-piece in the hollow of each ear. Truly we are a gay party,
by the time every one is ready to land.
And now after our thousand mile run, we have arrived at Malden.
Malden Island lies on the border of the Southern Pacific, only four
degrees south of the equator. It is beyond the verge of the great
Polynesian archipelago, and stands out by itself in a lonely stretch of
still blue sea, very seldom visited by ships of any kind. Approaching
it one is struck from far away by the glaring barrenness of the big
island, which is thirty-three miles in circumference, and does not
possess a single height or solitary tree, save one small clump of
recently planted cocoanuts. Nothing more unlike the typical South
Sea island could be imagined. Instead of the violet mountain peaks,
wreathed with flying vapour, the lowlands rich with pineapple,
banana, orange, and mango, the picturesque beach bordered by
groves of feathery cocoanuts and quaint heavy-fruited pandanus
trees, that one finds in such groups as the Society, Navigator’s,
Hawaiian, and Cook Islands, Malden consists simply of an immense
white beach, a little settlement fronted by a big wooden pier, and a
desolate plain of low greyish-green herbage, relieved here and there
by small bushes bearing insignificant yellow flowers. Water is
provided by great condensers. Food is all imported, save for pig and
goat flesh. Shade, coolness, refreshing fruit, pleasant sights and
sounds, there are none. For those who live on the island, it is the
scene of an exile which has to be endured somehow or other, but
which drags away with incredible slowness and soul-deadening
monotony.
Why does any one live in such a spot? More especially, why should
it be tenanted by five or six whites and a couple of hundred
Kanakas, when many beautiful and fertile islands cannot show nearly
so many of either race; quite a large number, indeed, being
altogether uninhabited? One need never look far for an answer in
such a case. If there is no comfort on Malden Island, there is
something that men value more than comfort—money. For fifty-six
years it has been one of the most valuable properties in the Pacific.
Out of Malden Island have come horses and carriages, fine houses,
and gorgeous jewellery, rich eating, delicate wines, handsome
entertainments, university education and expensive finishing
governesses, trips to the Continent, swift white schooners, high
places in Society, and all the other desirables of wealth, for two
generations of fortunate owners and their families. Half-a-million
hard cash has been made out of it in the last thirty years, and it is
good for another thirty. All this from a barren rock in mid-ocean! The
solution of the problem will at once suggest itself to any reader who
has ever sailed the Southern Seas—guano!
This is indeed the secret of Malden Island’s riches. Better by far
than the discovery of a pirate’s treasure-cave, that favourite dream
of romantic youth, is the discovery of a guano island. There are few
genuine treasure romances in the Pacific, but many exciting tales
that deal with the finding and disposing of these unromantic mines
of wealth. Malden Island itself has had an interesting history
enough. In 1848, Captain Chapman, an American whaling captain
who still lives in Honolulu, happened to discover Malden during the
course of a long cruise. He landed on the island, found nothing for
himself and his crew in the way of fruit or vegetables, but discovered
the guano beds, and made up his mind to sell the valuable
knowledge as soon as his cruise was over. Then he put to sea again,
and did not reach San Francisco for the best part of a year.
Meantime, another American, Captain English, had found the island
and its treasure. Wiser than Captain Chapman, he abandoned his
cruise, and hurried at once to Sydney, where he sold the island for a
big price to the trading firm who have owned it ever since.
This is the history of Malden Island’s discovery. Time, in the island,
has slipped along since the days of the Crimea with never a change.
There is a row of little tin-roofed, one-storeyed houses above the
beach, tenanted by the half-dozen white men who act as managers;
there are big, barn-like shelters for the native labourers. Every three
years the managers end their term of service, and joyfully return to
the Company’s great offices in Sydney, where there is life and
companionship, pleasant things to see, good things to eat,
newspapers every day, and no prison bar of blue relentless ocean
cutting off all the outer world. Once or twice in the year one of the
pretty white island schooners sails up to Malden, greeted with
shrieks and war-dances of joy; discharges her freight of forty or fifty
newly indentured labourers, and takes away as many others whose
time of one year on the island has expired. On Malden itself nothing
changes. Close up to the equator, and devoid of mountains or even
heights which could attract rain, its climate is unaltered by the
passing season. No fruits or flowers mark the year by their ripening
and blossoming, no rainy season changes the face of the land. News
from the outer world comes rarely; and when it does come, it is so
old as to have lost its savour. Life on Malden Island for managers
and labourers alike, is work, work, all day long; in the evening, the
bare verandah and the copper-crimson sunset, and the empty
prisoning sea. That is all.
The guano beds cover practically the whole of the island. The
surface on which one walks is hard, white, and rocky. This must be
broken through before the guano, which lies a foot or two
underneath, is reached. The labourers break away the stony crust
with picks, and shovel out the fine, dry, earth-coloured guano that
lies beneath, in a stratum varying from one to three feet in
thickness. This is piled in great heaps, and sifted through large wire,
screens. The sifted guano—exactly resembling common sand—is
now spread out in small heaps, and left to dry thoroughly in the
fierce sun. There must not be any trace of moisture left that can
possibly be dispersed; for the price of the guano depends on its
absolute purity and extreme concentration, and purchasers generally
make careful chemical tests of the stuff they buy.
When dried, the guano is stored away in an immense shed near
the settlement. If it has been obtained from the pits at the other
side of the island, eight miles away, it will be brought down to the
storehouse by means of one of the oddest little railways in the
world. The Malden Island railway is worked, not by steam, electricity,
or petrol, but by sail! The S.E. trade-wind blows practically all the
year round on this island; so the Company keep a little fleet of land-
vessels, cross-rigged, with fine large sails, to convey the guano
down to the settlement. The empty carriages are pushed up to the
pits by the workmen, and loaded there. At evening, the labourers
climb on the top of the load, set the great sails, and fly down to the
settlement as fast as an average train could go. These “land-ships”
of Malden are a bit unmanageable at times, and have been known to
jump the rails when travelling at high speed, thus causing
unpleasant accidents. But the Kanaka labourers do not mind a trifle
of that kind, and not even in a S.E. gale would they condescend to
take a reef in the sails.
As it is necessary to push these railway ships on the outward trip,
the managers generally travel on a small railway tricycle of the
pattern familiar at home. This can be driven at a fair speed, by
means of arm levers. Across the desolate inland plain one clatters,
the centre of a disk of shadowless grey-green, drenched clear of
drawing and colour by the merciless flood of white fire from above.
The sky is of the very thinnest pale blue; the dark, deep sea is out of
sight. The world is all dead stillness and smiting sun, with only the
thin rattle of our labouring car, and the vibration of distant dark
specks above the rookeries, for relief.
The dark specks grow nearer and more numerous, filling the
whole sky at last with the sweep of rushing wings and the screams
of angry bird voices. We leave the tricycle on the rails and walk
across the thin, coarse grass, tangled with barilla plants, and low-
growing yellow-flowered shrubs, towards the spot where the wings
flutter thickest, covering many acres of the unlovely, barren land
with a perfect canopy of feathered life. This is the bird by which the
fortunes of Malden have been made—the smaller man-o’-war bird. It
is about the size of a duck, though much lighter in build. The back is
black, the breast white, the bill long and hooked. The bird has an
extraordinarily rapid and powerful flight. It might more appropriately
be called the “pirate” than the “man-o’-war” or “frigate” bird, since it
uses, its superior speed to deprive other seabirds of the fish they
catch, very seldom indeed exerting itself to make an honest capture
on its own account. Strange to say, however, this daring buccaneer
is the meekest and most long-suffering of birds where human beings
are concerned. It will allow you to walk all through its rookeries, and
even to handle the young birds and eggs, without making any
remonstrance other than a petulant squeal. The parents fly about
the visitors’ heads in a perfect cloud, sweeping their wings within an
inch of our faces, screaming harshly, and looking exceedingly fierce,
with their ugly hooked bills and sparkling black eyes. But that is their
ordinary way of occupying themselves; they wheel and scream
above the rookery all day long, visited or let alone. Even if you
capture one, by a happy snatch (not at all an impossible feat), you
will not alarm the others, and your prisoner will not show much
fight.
The eggs lie all over the ground in a mass of broken shells,
feathers, and clawed-up earth. Those birds never build nests, and
only sit upon one egg, which is dirty white, with brown spots. The
native labourers consider frigate-bird eggs good to eat, and devour
large numbers, but the white men find them too strong. The birds
are also eaten by the labourers, but only on the sly, as this practice
is strictly forbidden, for the reason that illness generally follows. The
frigate-bird, it seems, is not very wholesome eating.
It is not in the insignificant deposits of these modern rookeries
that the wealth of the island lies, but in the prehistoric strata
underlying the stony surface crust already mentioned. There are
three strata composing the island—first the coral rock, secondly the
guano, lastly the surface crust. At one time, the island must have
been the home of innumerable myriads of frigate-birds, nesting all
over its circumference of thirty-three miles. The birds now nest only
in certain places, and, though exceedingly thick to an unaccustomed
eye, cannot compare with their ancestors in number.
The schooner called on a Sunday, and so I could not see the men
at work. One of the managers, however, showed me over the
labourers’ quarters, and told me all about their life. There is certainly
none of the “black-birding” business about Malden. Kidnapping
natives for plantation work, under conditions which amount to
slavery, is unfortunately still common enough in some parts of the
Pacific. But in the Cook Group, and Savage Island, where most of
the labourers come from, there is no difficulty in obtaining as many
genuine volunteers for Malden as its owners want. The men sign for
a year’s work, at ten shillings a week, and board and lodging. Their
food consists of rice, biscuits, yams, tinned beef, and tea, with a few
cocoanuts for those who may fall sick. This is “the hoigth of good
’atin” for a Polynesian, who lives when at home on yams, taro root,
and bananas, with an occasional mouthful of fish, and fowl or pig
only on high festival days.
The labourers’ quarters are large, bare, shady buildings fitted with
wide shelves, on which the men spread their mats and pillows to
sleep. A Polynesian is never to be divorced from his bedding; he
always carries it with him when travelling, and the Malden labourers
each come to the island provided with beautifully plaited pandanus
mats, and cushions stuffed with the down of the silk-cotton tree. The
cushions have covers of “trade” cottons, rudely embroidered by the
owner’s sweetheart or wife with decorative designs, and affectionate
mottoes.
From 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. are the hours of work, with an hour and
three-quarters off for meals. There is nothing unpleasant about the
work, as Malden Island guano is absolutely without odour, and
apparently so dry and fine when taken from the pits, that one
wonders at the necessity for further sifting and drying. Occasionally,
however, one of the workers develops a peculiar intestinal trouble
which is said to be caused by the fine dust of the pits. It is nearly
always fatal, by slow degrees. Our schooner carried away one of
these unfortunates—a Savage Island man who had come up to
Malden in full health and strength only a few months before. He was
the merest shadow or sketch of a human being—a bundle of bones
clad in loose brown skin, with a skull-like face, all teeth and eye-
sockets—he could not stand or walk, only creep along the deck; and
he was very obviously dying. Poor fellow! he longed for his own
home above everything—-the cool green island, sixteen hundred
miles away, where there were fruit and flowers in the shady valleys,
and women’s and children’s voices sounding pleasantly about the
grassy village streets, and his own little pandanus-thatched cottage,
with his “fafiné” and the babies at the door, among the palms and
oranges above the sea. But the schooner had a two months’ voyage
to make yet among the Cook and other groups, before Savage
Island could be reached; and Death was already lifting his spear to
strike. We left the poor fellow as a last chance on Penrhyn Island, a
couple of hundred miles away, hoping that the unlimited cocoanuts
he could obtain there might do him some good, and that by some
fortunate chance he might recover sufficiently to take another ship,
and reach Niué at last.
The guano of Malden Island is supposed to be the best in the
world. It is extremely rich in superphosphates, and needs no
“doctoring” whatever, being ready to apply to the land just as taken
from the island. As the company are obliged to guarantee the purity
of what they sell, and give an exact analysis of the constituents of
every lot, they keep a skilled chemist on the island, and place a fine
laboratory at his disposal. These analyses are tedious to make, and
require great accuracy, as a mistake might cause a refusal of
payment on the part of the purchaser. The post of official chemist,
therefore, is no sinecure, especially as it includes the duties of
dispenser as well, and not a little rough-and-ready doctoring at
times.
The temperature of the island is not so high as might be expected
from the latitude. It seldom goes above 90° in the shade, and is
generally rendered quite endurable, in spite of the merciless glare
and total absence of shade, by the persistent trade-wind. Mosquitoes
are unknown, and flies not troublesome. There are no centipedes,
scorpions, or other venomous creatures, although the neighbouring
islands (“neighbouring,” in the Pacific, means anything within three
or four hundred miles) have plenty of these unpleasant inhabitants.
The white men live on tinned food of various kinds, also bread, rice,
fowls, pork, goat, and goat’s milk. Vegetables or fruit are a rare and
precious luxury, for the nearest island producing either lies a
thousand miles away. Big yams, weighing a stone or two apiece and
whitewashed to prevent decay, are sent up from the Cook Islands
now and then; but the want of really fresh, vegetable food is one of
the trials of the island. It is not astonishing to hear that the salaries
of the Malden officials are very high. A year or two on the island is a
good way of accumulating some capital, since it is impossible to
spend a penny.
 The native labourers generally leave the island with the greatest
joy, glad beyond expression to return to their sweet do-nothing lives
at home. Why they undertake the work at all is one of the many
puzzles presented by the Polynesian character. They have enough to
eat and enough to wear, without doing any work to speak of, while
they are at home. Usually the motive for going to Malden is the
desire of making twenty-five pounds or so in a lump, to buy a bicycle
(all South Sea Islanders have bicycles, and ride them splendidly) or
to build a stone house. But in most cases the money is “spreed”
away in the first two or three days at home, giving presents to
everybody, and buying fine clothes at the trader’s store.
So the product of the year’s exile and hard work is simply a tour
among the islands—in itself a strong attraction—a horribly hot suit of
shoddy serge, with a stiff white shirt, red socks, and red tie, bought
up in Malden from the company out of the labourer’s wages, and
proudly worn on the day the schooner brings the wanderer home to
his lightly clad relatives—a bicycle, perhaps, which soon becomes a
scrap-heap; or, possibly, a stone house which is never lived in. The
company has the labour that it wants, and the money that the
labour produces. Every one is satisfied with the bargain, doubtless;
and the faraway British farmer and market-gardener are the people
who are ultimately benefited.
 CHAPTER XII
Pearl-fishing at Penrhyn—The Beautiful Golden-Edge—Perils of the
Pearl Diver—A Fight for Life—Visit to a Leper Island—A God-forsaken
Place—How they kept the Corpses—The Woman who sinned—A
Nameless Grave—On to Merry Manahiki—The Island of Dance and
Song—Story of the Leper and his Bird—Good-bye to the Duchess.

A
DAY or two after leaving Malden we sighted Penrhyn, lying
five degrees further south, but for some unexplained reason a
very much hotter place than Malden. Penrhyn is an island that
is famous all over the South Sea world, and not unknown even in
Europe. Its pearl-shell and pearls, its strange, wild, semi-amphibious
natives, and its melancholy leper station, make it a marked spot
upon the Pacific map; and a certain rather fictitious value attaching
to its stamps has made the name of the island familiar to all stamp
collectors at home. The general impression conveyed to the voyager
from kinder and fairer islands is that Penrhyn is a place “at the back
of God-speed,” a lonely, sultry, windy, eerie spot, desolate and
remote beyond description.
It is an atoll island, consisting merely of a strip of land some
couple of hundred yards in width, enclosing a splendid lagoon nine
miles long. The land is white coral gravel; nothing grows on it but
cocoanut and pandanus and a few insignificant creepers. Fruit,
vegetables, flowers, there are none. The natives live entirely on
cocoanut and fish. They are nominally Christianised, but the veneer
of Christianity is wearing uncommonly thin in places. They are
reckless and daring to a degree, notable even among Pacific
Islanders. Any Penrhyn man will attack a shark single-handed in its
own element, and kill it with the big knife he usually carries. They
are, beyond comparison, the finest swimmers in the world; it is
almost impossible to drown a Penrhyn Islander. He will swim all day