William Keeling

The islands are administered as an Australian external territory, a bureaucratic arrangement under the federal government structure.

The islands are believed to have been discovered in 1609 by Captain William Keeling, hence the name.

They were uninhabited until 1826 when Alexander Hare, an English merchant and polygamist, moved his family to Home Island.

This was a harem of some 40 enslaved women of Malay ethnicity.

To others it came as a great surprise.

Captain Keeling, in his story mentioned above, does not for obvious reasons name anyone who helped them.

Now it does not matter.

Officers sang loudly and long to prevent the nearest sentry from hearing the noise of rusty nails being pulled out of a door not many feet away from him, though hidden from view.

As far as we could make out, he never missed a night's prowl.

A fez, a false beard, and a civilian overcoat were the only props he used.

This was undoubtedly the man to help Keeling's party out of the town, for the by-streets were better known to Prosser in the dark than they were to other prisoners by daylight.

Accordingly, he led the four officers out of Castamoni.