This explained what the skipper meant, on first telling him about the island, when he said the inhabitants were "mulattoes"; although Fritz thought them only of a brunette tinge, for they were of much lighter hue than many Spaniards and Italians whom he had met on the Continent.
Glass, the ex-artilleryman and original founder of the English settlement, was a Scotchman, born at Kelso.

He seems to have been a man of great principle and energy, these qualities gaining for him the complete confidence of the little community over which his authority was quite of a patriarchal character.

For thirty-seven years he maintained his position as leader, representing the colony in all its transactions with passing ships and showing himself just and honest in his dealings.
The islanders had always been English-speaking, and having strong British sympathies, "Governor Glass," as he was styled, received permission from one of the naval officers visiting the island to hoist the red ensign, as a signal to vessels going by.

This slight official recognition was all the notice that the settlement has received from England ever since its establishment--that is, beyond the sending out of a chaplain there by the "Religious Tract Society," who remained for five years and when leaving spoke of the members of the little settlement as being so highly moral that they did not require any spiritual ministration, "there not being a vice in the colony to contend with!" To this latter statement, Fritz found the skipper had appended an eccentric footnote:-- "'Cos why, there ain't no rum handier than the Cape, the little to be got from the whalers visiting the spot--an' they have little enough from me, you bet!--being speedily guzzled down by the old birds, an' the young uns never gettin' a taste o' the pizen!" On Glass's death, he was succeeded in the leadership of the colony by Green, the next oldest man, who now lived in the house of the late founder of the settlement and hoisted the English ensign in his turn.
Green was a venerable-looking man, with a long white beard, and seemed, from what Fritz could gather in his different conversations with the islanders, to have successfully followed in his predecessor's footsteps.
Since the Duke of Edinburgh's visit in the _Galatea_, many other stray men-of-war have occasionally called to see how the islanders were getting on; but the principal trading communication they have has always been with American whalers, some round dozen of which call at Tristan yearly for the purposes of barter.
"An' I guess it's a downright shame," said Captain Brown, when mentioning this latter fact to Fritz, "thet they don't fly the star- spangled banner instead o' thet there rag of a British ensign! If it weren't for us whalers, they'd starve fur want of wood to warm themselves in winter; an', who'd buy their beef an' mutton an' fixins, if we didn't call in, hey ?" "That's a conundrum, and I give it up," answered Fritz with a laugh.
"Ah, you're a sly coon," said the skipper, sailing away to his cabin.
"I guess it's 'bout time to bunk in, mister, so I'm off.

Good-night!" "Good-night!" returned Fritz, shutting up the log book and going his way likewise to the small state room set apart for the use of himself and his brother, where he found Eric asleep and snoring away soundly, the tramping about ashore having completely tired out the lad..