The men were just starting for Mr. Ch.'s, and took me with them. My adventure had taught me the impassableness of the forest, and after that experience I was never again tempted to make excursions without a guide.
A few days later the English steamer came, bringing my luggage but no hope of improvement in my dull existence. A French survey party arrived too, and set to work, but as they had not enough boys with them, I could not join them. I spent my days as well as I could, collected a few zoological specimens, and read Mr. Ch.'s large stock of French novels until I felt quite silly.
At last an occasion offered to see primitive natives. George, the son of a neighbour, had agreed to go recruiting for Mr. Ch. As I have said before, providing sufficient labour is one of the most important problems to the planter in the New Hebrides. Formerly there were professional recruiters who went slave-hunting as they would have followed any other occupation, and sold the natives to the planters at a fair profit. In their schooners they hung about the shore, filled the natives with liquor and kidnapped them, or simply drove them on board wholesale, with the help of armed Loyalty boys. Their methods were as various as they were cruel, murder was a daily occurrence, and, of course, the recruiters were hated by the natives, who attacked and killed them whenever they got a chance. The better class of planters would not countenance this mode of procedure, and the natives are now experienced enough not to enlist for work under a master they do not know. Also the English Government keeps a strict watch on the recruiting, so that the professional recruiter is dying out, and every planter has to go in search of hands for himself. But while the English Government keeps a sharp eye on these matters, the French Government is as lenient in this as in the question of the sale of alcohol, so that frequent kidnapping and many cruelties occur in the northern part of the group, and slavery still exists. I shall relate a few recruiting stories later on: some general remarks on the subject may not be amiss here.
In years past the natives crowded the recruiting schooners by hundreds, driven by the greed for European luxuries, by desire for change, and inexperience; to-day this is the case in but very few and savage districts. Generally the natives have some idea of what they may expect; moreover, by trading with coprah they can buy all they need and want. They enlist nowadays from quite different motives. With young people it is the desire to travel and to "see the world," and to escape the strict village laws that govern them, especially in sexual matters, and to get rid of the supervision of the whole tribe. Sometimes, but only in islands poor in cocoa-nut trees, it is the desire to earn money to buy a woman, a very expensive article at present. Then many seek refuge in the plantations from persecution of all sorts, from revenge, or punishment for some misdeed at home. Some are lovers who have run away from their tribe to escape the rage of an injured husband. Thus recruiting directly favours the general anarchy and immorality, and indirectly as well, since the recruiters do their best to create as much trouble as possible in the villages, knowing it will be to their advantage. If they hear of a feud raging between two tribes, they collect at the shore and try to pick up fugitives; if there is no war, they do their best to occasion one, by intrigue, alcohol, or agents provocateurs. They intoxicate men and women, and make them enlist in that condition; young men are shown pretty women, and promised all the joys of Paradise in the plantations. If these tricks fail, the recruiters simply kidnap men and women while bathing. This may suffice to show that, as a rule, they do not use fair means to find hands, and it is hardly surprising that where they have been they leave behind them wrecked families, unhappiness, enmity, murder and a deep hatred of the white man in general as the cause of all this misery. This recruiting is not only immoral in the highest degree, but also very harmful to the race, and it is to-day one of the principal reasons for its decay.