Ebook By Reef and Palm

Louis Becke (AKA George Lewis Becke) was an Australian short-story writer and novelist. 
As a child Becke twice ran away and when he turned 16 he was a stowaway on a ship bound for Samoa. When he was 18 Becke met William "Bully" Hayes who later became a central character in Becke's writings. When shipwrecked in 1874 Becke was arrested as a pirate and was later acquitted. 

A collection of his brilliant and amusing stories from the Bulletin was published in 1894 in "By Reef and Palm."