CORRESPONDENCE.

THE SOUTH-SEA ISLANDS COOLIE.—HOW I WENT TO FETCH HIM.

[Fit051 A CORRESPONDENT.]

Sin,—The South-Sea Islands Coolie, or, as he is commonly called, the Kanaka, has been, is, and will be a person of considerable importance, both to the Australian sugar-planter who hires him, and to the English politician who talks about him. I venture, therefore, to ask for some small space in your valuable columns in which to show any of your readers whom the subject may interest or amuse, who the Coolie is, where he comes from, and how I went to fetch him.

Anything approaching the question of the rights of labour at home and abroad is now-a-days so delicate a matter, that in the present letter I feel inclined to confine myself entirely to the sub- ject of the South-Sea Islanders, and to give my personal experi- ence of their life on their own islands, and of their treatment in the Australian colony, which has lately raised so much discussion.

The Australian labour-market has been at various times supplied with convicts, free and assisted emigrants, Chinamen and Germans ; but it is only within the last few years that the introduction of sugar-growing industry into Queensland has turned our attention to that large group of islands, the New Hebrides, lying within a week's sail of our own colony, and crowded with an indigent and savage population. The planters, in despair at the restless -character of the English workman, became naturally very eager to obtain a quantity of cheap and reliable labourers for the sugar season—men who could stand the heat of the sun, who would work together in gangs without grumbling, and above all, who would bind themselves to their employers for at least three years.

Under these circumstances, several small ships started for the New Hebrides in quest of men, and the first arrival of woolly, stupid-looking Kanakas was regarded with great curiosity by all classes. Most of us had heard of the South Seas, and vaguely connected the subject with coral, cocoa-nuts, and Masterman Ready, but few English working-men, I fancy, had imagined that actual South-Sea Islanders would ever be brought to compete with them on their own ground, the general opinion evidently being that Chinamen or Germans had already sufficiently encroached upon their rights, and that the idea of anything like a " nigger " lowering their wages was monstrous and absurd ; indeed, I remetn- ber that an aboriginal boy whom I brought down to Brisbane from the bush to lead my spare horses, after a long examination of his rival, coolly turned away from him with the contemptuous expres- sion, "That fellow all same dog !" It is hardly necessary for me to tell any of your readers who know Australia that the said boy had nothing on him save an old ragged red shirt of mine, and was then perhaps better dressed than he had ever been before.

Now the planters must acknowledge and probably would not care to deny that the system of importing labourers as carried on pre- viously to 1868 was liable to grave abuses. The Polynesian Labourers' Act of 1868, however, abolished most of this, and com- pelled intending employers, before they were allowed even to apply for leave to import coolies, to enter into heavy bonds, by which they engaged to give them rations on the Government scale, con- sisting of 1 lb. meat and 1 lb. flour per diem, with vegetables, tea, sugar, tobacco, and soap ; to pay them at the rate of 16 per annum for three years, and at the expiration of that time to send them back to their native country. In fact, the Queensland Government paid almost more attention to the welfare of the coolie than to that of the assisted immigrant from England or Germany. The Act, however, does not seem to have been very stringently enforced at first, and Captain Palmer, of H.M.S. Rosario, in his interesting book on the subject, has already told us his story of the cruise of the Daphne, and of the attempt of the charterers of that vessel to evade its very ambiguous terms.

For nearly two years the importation of coolies had almost ceased, as the islanders had got tired of waiting for the return of their countrymen, and I verily believe suspected us of having eaten them- For my own part, I had always had a great longing for a ovum among these islands, and at last made up my mind that I would go myself and see whether I could not procure some labour- ers for the plantation. I was much amused by the conflicting

pieces of advice I received on the occasion, everybody, however, agreeing that I must go armed to the teeth, while one man gravely informed me that the modes operandi was this :—You should take a trade musket, value say 15s., and having found a chief, present him with it, requiring so many men, on which he would say to his subjects, " You go to Queensland ; when you get there, in about a mouth's time, white man will probably eat you, but if you dare to stop here I'll eat you myself to-morrow."

Lovers of the picturesque would, I believe, have been almost satisfied could they have been present at the start from Brisbane of tile little schooner I had engaged. Cheers and chaff from the lookers-on upon shore, the warlike get-up of myself and trading- master, and the happy faces of the returning islanders who had served their time on some plantation, and were going home, each with a huge chest containing £18's worth of calico, axes, grind- stones, knives, &c., and last, but not least, each "darkie," despairing of getting rid of his money in any other way, and not appreciating the good old Australian custom of drinking it, had bought him- self a silk umbrella, and held it over his head with great glee, though there was neither sun nor rain to wash out the grease with which he had plentifully bedaubed his long frizzled locks.

I shall cut short the account of the voyage to the New Hebrides, —how we landed at one of the French islands, and how I was in- continently seized upon by two dirty soldiers without shoes, but with chassepOts, who after a good deal of trouble succeeded in telling me, in what they called French, that all English trading ships were forbidden to stop there, and that I must give an account of myself to the Commandant ; of my interview with that gentle- man, and how, after an animated, but to me unpleasant conversa- tion, we fraternized, and toasted "La belle France" in ruin of my own providing ; and how glad I was to leave my new acquaint- ance and get on board again, picking up our anchor in, I believe, as short a time as ever anchor was got up in 12-fathom water. It is all over now, and I can only add that the respect I have for France and her representatives has prevented my showing myself in that port again. A brisk north-east breeze took us over to Tanna, a distance of some 60 miles, before, I believe, M. le Commandant had awakened to the fact that light claret is scarcely good training for new Queensland rum.

I wish I had been an artist, to paint the beautiful view that rose before me that morning, the long swell breaking heavily upon the sunken coral reef, the glassy water beyond ; then the cocoa-palms down to the water's edge, the steep rocks matted with such ver- dure as perhaps only Tanna produces; and in the distance the light cloud of smoke hanging over the sulphur volcano that crowns this island, catching the rays of the morning sun, and standing out against the sky like a mountain of gold.

I think I never appreciated the lines

Where every prospect pleases, And only man is vile,"

till I landed there, for a viler-looking lot it had never been my ill-fortune to behold. The shore was literally black with the lordly savage, every man with a musket over his shoulder, and every man daubed to the eyes with vermilion. It was with great satisfaction that I made out that this display merely meant that the gentlemen had had their breakfast, and were going out to fight their next neighbours—a tribe headed by a warrior who had acquired the name of "Washerwoman," certainly not from his habits or his linen—in which little employment they regularly spent their days, coming back in the afternoon happy and hungry, in much the same way as we should come in from shooting in England to afternoon's tea in the drawing-room. I must say, however, to give them their due, they very seldom hurt anyone, an islander's military tactics generally consisting in walking along with his musket at full cock, performing at the same time on an instrument resembling Pandeau pipes hung round his neck ; and if during his martial progress he should happen to see anybody or anything, or think he did, he would let fly forthwith, and without waiting to see whether he had bagged anything, he would scamper back to his own bit of beach, where after a long harangue to the women he would reload his weapon and repeat the dose. In this style of fighting the great advantage is that you are always pretty sure, judging from your own case, that your adversary's musket won't go off.

The hand-shaking with those veterans was something after the manner of Martin Chuzzlewit's reception. The trade-box was taken out of the boat, and a brisk trade in yams, cocoa-nuts, and pigs was started forthwith, the native showing much shrewdness in feeling the market with small pigs before producing big ones ; sometimes, however, his cupidity got the better of his judgment, and if he saw anyone with an object that struck his fancy in the

way of a pipe or tomahawk, that article he would have at any

'sacrifice. I have often wondered at the imperfect idea of

number which a native possesses,—he grasps easily the idea of one pig for one axe, but three pigs for three axes bothers him. I

looked round for a chief •and tried to open the conversation with him, with a view to my great object, recruits for Queensland, and

-commenced an animated harangue, pointing out to him the ad-

-Vantages the men would gain in going with me, and the strength they would add to the tribe when they brought back their muskets

and powder. The chief smiled graciously, and manifested a ,sudden fancy for my sheath-knife, which being in a moment of weakness given to him, he walked off, leaving me to a crowd of applicants for more sheath-knives of the same sort. I was not a little mortified at finding out afterwards that he had not under- stood a single word, being of a different tribe from my interpreter.

And BO I learnt a great and most important lesson, in all deal-

ings with the natives, and which I cannot help thinking might ,be profitably taken to heart by charitable London ladies,-

" Never give away anything without value received, unless you wish to put a stop to all trade and make everybody a beggar.' Man after man shook his head when I asked him to coins over to Queensland. The universal cry was, "We are willing enough to -go and work and get muskets and powder, but we should like to see some of our brothers back here first, to hear what they say of your country."

It has never been my good fortune to contest an election in the .old country, but I had heard that "the woman once gained, the erten follows," is a maxim in canvassing, and acting on this plan, I approached a matronly looking lady, with a ring in her nose and it baby on her shoulder, and tried to make friends, upon which, drawing her grass petticoat-fringe close round her, she set up such it piteous howling, that I concluded the progress of civilization had not yet wafted the notion of womm's rights to those distant regions, and that far from having any influence over her husband, she actually seemed to be afraid of him ! However, on the arrival of a happy boat-load of returning brothers, every little hitch was smoothed over, and forgetful of yams and pigs, all rushed off to inspect the contents of the chests they had brought, and in the struggle that ensued in carrying those heavy chests through the breakers, I could not help thinking that a little less sea-water would have been advantageous to the silk umbrellas. Glad was I, then, that these men had been well treated in Queens. 'land, for I am convinced that had a bad character been given of us, they would have knocked us on the head with as little com- punction as a child among the Vril-ya would have killed a krek. Surrounded by a group of admiring spectators, we overhauled

• the chests of these the first men that had ever returned to Telma from Queensland. Every article, from a fish-hook to a grindstone,

was hailed with shrill cries of delight, and I had little difficulty in 'improving the occasion and recruiting twenty or thirty young men from the crowd around. It was when it catne to parting that the great difficulty arose. The old women on one side insist- ing that their sons should not go, and the young men on the other indignant at being treated as children, made a very pretty quarrel as it stood, while I, having learnt the wisdom of the aphorism that you should never interfere in family differences, stood by -endeavouring to look as unconcerned as possible.

In my subsequent experience of the islands, I found the in- --variable custom of leave-taking to be as follows :—The intending emigrant would strip himself of all he had on, consisting probably -of only one bracelet, and sitting down on the beach, would howl melodiously in the middle of a circle of women, after tho payment -of which tribute to nature he would step briskly into the boat, as gleeful as a child in prospect of a holiday. If asked to bring the women with him he would indignantly refuse, evidently thinking be was already well out of that mess, and would become quite re- .conciled to his new life before the south-east trades had blown us over to Vat. But I fear that I have already trespassed too far on your valuable space, and will, with your permission, leave the rest of my cruise to another letter.-1 am, Sir, &c.,