north-east part of the island, but had defeated their enemies with great slaughter. Unfortunately the French stationed in Noumea heard rumours of wars going on in an island which, by a pleasant fiction, was supposed to be under French protection, and, seizing the opportunity, appeared as arbitrators on the scene.

The settlement of the dispute, I need scarcely say, was speedy; indeed, the matter was very simple. When I was at school I remember having a bloody and ferocious combat with another boy of about my own age, in which I am bound to say, in case this should happen to meet his eye, I got decidedly the worst of it, when lo! a mediator in the shape of the head-master, who, having listened to both sides of the story, very impartially thrashed us both, and, for the further improvement of the occasion, administered a very fair caning to the bystanders, pour encourager les autres,' as the French master told us afterwards. After all, the Commandant was quite justified in thinking that nations who, in the nineteenth century, could disgrace themselves by going to war on the frivolous pretext of some pretended aggression of the other side, did not deserve to govern themselves, but should be treated like children under the English system of compulsory

6

FRENCH DISCIPLINE.

29

education, especially as he had the advantage of being both school board and inspector in his own person.

So this is what he did. He put everyone he could catch into handcuffs at night (by the way, my informant could not tell me how he happened to have, at this precise juncture, so many of these useful articles by him), and set them to work in the daytime to build him a house and barracks for his soldiers, as he was graciously pleased to inform them that he had come to stay, and that in fact he had brought his things with him. The house and barracks have been finished long ago, but, alas! for the natives, the roads are still in progress, and if we are to judge from the architecture of the house, will scarcely do credit to the sudden stride in civilization the Maré men are supposed to have made. To do the French justice, however, I must say that they have at least maintained discipline in their new possessions, and that going to war with his neighbour is for the native a dream of the past, partly because such proceedings do not chime in with French ideas, but chiefly because they have been left no arms to fight with. Perhaps the Maré men would get on better if they understood French, but as the English missionaries have been beforehand, it is a little hard

to expect a savage to speak three languages; and I actually had to interpret between a soldier and a native, the former telling me what he wanted in French, while I, in broken English, adapted it to the comprehension of the latter.

When I look at these beautiful Loyalty Islands, occupied by really the highest type of coloured men I have seen, blessed with a glorious climate and fair soil, I cannot help thinking of what they might have been under English rule. Where only a dense jungle spreads over the whole island, English enterprise would have had thousands of acres of cotton; harbours would have been made; and where my little craft was looked upon as a curiosity, and forbidden to stop for a single day, a whole fleet of trading vessels would have been peacefully lying at anchor. only bright spot in the whole arrangement was that little settlement where Mr. M-, the missionary, notwithstanding the hostility of the French priests, had collected a few scholars around him out of the large and degraded population of the island.

The

Island on Tanna-Military Tactics-Hair-dressing-Tattooing.

I WISH I had been an artist to paint the glorious scene that rose before me on the morning of my arrival at Tanna-the long swell breaking heavily on the sunken coral-reef, the glassy water beyond, then the cocoa palms down to the water's edge, the steep rocks matted with such verdure 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 has 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 the 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 named '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 tea in the drawing-room. I must say,

however, to give them their due, they very seldom hurt any one, an islander's military tactics generally consisting in walking along with his musket at full