The family of the Buccaneer in time increased to such an extent that it began to overflow the narrow limits of his island home. His sons therefore carried their zeal and energy and their manners and customs to unknown countries. Under their hands forests disappeared, lands became cultivated, and the aborigines changed their habits or cleared out. It was no business of the young chips of this ancient block, that the soil had already its owners, if not its tillers. If these people did not like the new order of things, they had an alternative. Of course the young chips would commit no act of flagrant injustice, for such would have been against the teachings of their parent's Book, but it was generally noticed that where they went they staid; and that they succeeded in the long run in clearing the land of all rubbish, using for this purpose the toes of their boots as well as their hands. Should the aborigines elect to stay, they could; but then they were made clearly to understand that they must live respectable lives. If they had anything to sell the Buccaneers bought, putting upon the articles their own price, for it could not be expected that the simple children of the soil could know the value of things. They generally gave about half of what was asked, and when the natives, to correct this, put on, to begin with, double the price they intended to take, the Buccaneers were horrified at such innate depravity, which could, as they thought, only come direct from the devil himself. The antidote was their Book. This they immediately presented to these vicious, ignorant, and immoral people, with many of the pages turned down for reference.

Wherever the Buccaneer's sons went they always took a cargo of their intoxicating drinks. These they sold to the gentle savage who showed his readiness to be civilized by getting as drunk as he could, as often as he could, thereby manifesting again his shocking depravity. The Buccaneer at home, when he heard of all this, turned up his eyes to heaven in pious horror, and immediately sent out a cargo of missionaries to counteract the evil effects of his cargoes of drink. These good people wrestled with the devil; prayed for the savages and preached to them, gave them more Bibles and explained it to them; told them to fear God; to shun the devil and all his works; begged them to give up their wicked ways and to lead new lives; to be honest and just in all their dealings; not to be extortionists; not to seek after riches, for that heaven was for the poor. Begged them to do unto others as they would be done by. In the meantime the Buccaneer's sons gave a practical illustration of this beautiful doctrine by selling strong drink and other merchandise at double and treble their value.

These missionaries were godly, self-sacrificing men, but their teachings to the untutored mind must have sounded strange, supplemented as it was by the actions of the Buccaneer's traders. Then again, they found that rival sects, although they professed to follow the same great Master, preached rival doctrines, and hated each other with a peculiar fervour. At one time they painted God as the God of love, at another time they implanted fear and horror in the heart by depicting Him as a revengeful and malicious demon, full of the worst of human failings. They taught these simple savages that life was a kind of tight rope, along which they had to walk; holding in their hands the balancing pole of religion. If they slipped, which likely as not they would, then there was God's rival underneath ready with his net to catch them, and to throw them into a fire that is never quenched.

It could not be expected that the ignorant savage would understand, all at once, the many nice distinctions of modern civilization. No doubt it must have seemed strange to him that the Buccaneer, in the face of what he preached, seldom went away empty-handed—taking indeed at times a goodly patch of land, just by way of recompense; for it was generally found, that, wherever his sons placed their feet, some of the soil always stuck to the soles of them.

Thus were the first seeds of civilization sown; but other and better things were to follow. The nakedness of the savage had to be clothed, and the long black coat and tall hat of respectability had to be introduced. The result of all this was not far to find. It was a natural consequence; for where the Buccaneer found simple human beings, worshipping God after their own way, dark if you like, but at least honest, he frequently left an accomplished lot of hypocrites, drunkards, liars, thieves and rascals generally, who having cast off the few rags of virtue which their own benighted religion had clothed them in, had put on a garment made up of most of the vices of civilization, and only stitched together with the thinnest threads of Christian virtues, which threads were liable to snap at any time. Of course this was not the fault of the Buccaneer's sons. It was entirely due to the wretched soil they had to work upon; you cannot grow figs on thistles, nor can you make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

What is civilization, do you ask? It is a veneer, sometimes thick and sometimes thin, which is thrown over human nature by culture and what not. From under this cloak the old Adam will from time to time peep out and take a good look round. Did he not peep out to some purpose amongst one of the Buccaneer's neighbours, and playing the part of Cain did he not draw his knife, called the guillotine, across many a brother's throat, kicking them unshriven into eternity? It is right to give every one their due, and it must be owned that the Buccaneer's footsteps were not always written in dust. He often found a people at war amongst themselves, and tearing each other to pieces. These he brought under subjection and gave them law and order, and if he could have kept his sons from selling strong liquors to them, and teaching them some of the pernicious principles of trade, he would have done very much good, but with his Book he took his bottle, and the latter was more readily received than the former.

It sometimes so happened that the ignorance of the heathen was so great, and their minds so clouded by prejudice, that they misunderstood altogether the nature of the missionary. Experience had taught them that the Buccaneer's Bible was generally the harbinger of the Buccaneer's sword, which he cleared the way for the Buccaneer's man of business, who, it was found, generally got the advantage in any bargain that was made. What wonder then, if the simple children of nature, the gentle savage, mistook food that was meant for the mind, as food meant for the body, and consumed the missionary instead of his teachings? This is an expensive way of converting a people, but it might be expected that a devoured missionary would not be without its effect upon the consumer. The disposition is naturally affected by the state of the body, the latter by the food that is taken in to nourish it. A violent fit of indigestion might bring on a deep remorse, and then the body would be in a proper state to receive the good seed, which taking root in the heart of one man even, might spring up and spread amongst a whole people. There is consolation here for those who have lost a friend or relation in the above manner.

By the simple methods thus related the Buccaneer managed to get an outlet for his surplus population, and he then increased his dominions, until it was his boast that the sun never set upon them. There was not a clime too inhospitable for him. He conquered not only the people but every natural disadvantage. His sons too travelled into every land as the bearers of the veneer called civilization. Their footprints could be traced upon the desert sands of Arabia. The ring of their rifles was to be heard in the remotest parts of India; on the wild prairies of America, and on the untrodden plains of Africa. They loved to beard the lion and the tiger in their native lairs; to shoot the alligator on the banks of the Nile, and the wild goats high up on the slopes of the vast snow-capped Himalayas. This to them was a pleasurable recreation, while for pastime they loved to climb the highest ice-bound peaks, and the mangled corpse of some adventurous comrade lying at the foot of some precipice in no way damped their ardour. They recovered the body, sang a pean in praise of his temerity, gently placed him in the tomb of oblivion, where so many good people lie, and then commenced their dangerous climb. They were a brave and adventurous lot were the sons of this bold Buccaneer.