Chapter 3

THE SEGOND CHANNEL--LIFE ON A PLANTATION

When the tide rose, we returned to the yacht and continued our cruise northward, passed the small islands of Rano, Atchin, Vao and others, crossed the treacherous Bougainville Strait between Malekula and Santo, and came to anchor in the Canal du Segond formed by Santo and Malo. This channel is about eight miles long and three-quarters of a mile wide at its narrowest point. On its shores, which belong to a French company, is a colony of about a hundred and fifty Frenchmen. The Segond Channel would be a good harbour but for very strong currents caused by the tides, which are unfavourable to small boats; its location, too, is not very central. The shores are flat, but rise abruptly at some points to a height of 150 m. There are level lands at the mouth of the Sarrakatta River and on the tablelands.

The Sarrakatta is one of the sights of the New Hebrides, and a pull up the narrow stream affords one of the most impressive views to be had of tropical vegetation. The river cuts straight through the forest, so that the boat moves between two high walls of leafy green. Silently glides the stream, silently broods the forest, only the boat swishes softly, and sometimes a frightened fish splashes up. Every bend we round shows us new and surprisingly charming views: now we pass a giant tree, which towers up king-like on its iron-hard trunk far above the rest of the forest, trunk and limbs covered with a fine lacework of tender-leaved lianas; now we sweep along a high bank, under a bower of overhanging branches. The water caresses the tips of the twigs, and through the leaves the sun pours golden into the cool darkness. Again we glide into the light, and tangled shrubbery seams the river bank, from which long green strands of vines trail down and curl in the water like snakes. Knobby roots rise out of the ground; they have caught floating trunks, across which the water pours, lifting and dropping the wet grasses that grow on the rotten stems. Farther up the bushes are entirely covered with vines and creepers, whose large, thick leaves form a scaly coat of mail under which the half-strangled trees seem to fight in vain for air and freedom. In shallow places stiff bamboos sprout, their long yellow leaves trembling nervously in an imperceptible breeze; again we see trees hung with creepers as if wearing torn flags; and once in a while we catch sight of that most charming of tropical trees, the tree-fern, with its lovely star-shaped crown, like a beautiful, dainty work of art in the midst of the uncultivated wilderness. As if in a dream we row back down stream, and like dream-pictures all the various green shapes of the forest sweep by and disappear.

The Resident introduced me to the French planters, Mr. and Mrs. Ch., and asked them to take me in, which they agreed to do. Having rented an old plantation from the French company, they had had the good fortune to find a regular frame house ready for them.

After I had moved into my quarters the Resident returned to Vila, and I remained on the borders of the wilderness. What followed now was a most unsatisfactory time of waiting, the first of many similar periods. Having no servants, I could undertake nothing independently, and since the planters were all suffering from lack of hands, I could not hire any boys. As the natives around the French plantations at the Canal du Segond are practically exterminated, I saw hardly any; but at least I got a good insight into the life on a plantation, such as it was.

With his land, Mr. Ch. had rented about thirty boys, with whom he was trying to work the completely decayed plantation. Many acres were covered with coffee trees, but owing to the miserable management of the French company, the planters had changed continually and the system of planting just as often. Every manager had abandoned the work of his predecessor and begun planting anew on a different system, so that now there was an immense tract of land planted which had never yet yielded a crop. In a short time such intended plantations are overgrown with bush and reconquered by the wilderness; thus thousands of coffee trees were covered with vines and struggled in vain for light and air. It seem incredible that in two weeks, on cleared ground, grass can grow up as tall as a man, and that after six months a cleared plantation can be covered with bushes and shrubs with stems as thick as one's finger. The planter, knowing that this overwhelming fertility and the jealous advances of the forest are his most formidable enemies, directs his most strenuous efforts to keeping clear his plantation, especially while the plants are young and unable to fight down the weeds. Later on, weeding is less urgent, but in the beginning it is the one essential duty, more so than planting. Mr. Ch. had therefore an enormous task before him, and as he could not expect any return from the coffee trees for two or three years, he did as all planters do, and sowed corn, which yields a crop after three months.

His labourers, dark, curly-haired men, clad in rags, were just then occupied in gathering the big ears of corn. Sluggishly they threw the golden ears over their shoulders to the ground, where it was collected by the women and carried to the shed on the beach--a long roof of leaves, without walls. Mr. Ch. urged the men to hurry, as the corn had to be ready for shipment in a few days, the Pacific, the French mail-steamer, being due. Produce deteriorates rapidly in the islands owing to the humid climate, so it cannot be stored long, especially where there is no dry storehouse. Therefore, crops can only be gathered just before the arrival of a steamer, making these last days very busy ones everywhere. It is fortunate for the planters that the native labourers are not yet organized and do not insist on an eight-hour day. As it was, Mr. Ch. had to leave more than half his crop to rot in the fields, a heavy rain having delayed the harvesting.

The humidity at the Segond Channel is exceptionally great. As we stood on the fine coral sand that forms the shores of the channel, our clothes were damp with the rain from the weeds and shrubs which we had passed through while stumbling through the plantation. The steel-grey sea quivers, sleepy and pulpy looking; in front of us, in a grey mist, lies the flat island of Aore, the air smells mouldy, and brown rainclouds roll over the wall of primeval forest surrounding the clearing on three sides. The atmosphere is heavy, and a fine spray floats in the air and covers everything with moisture. Knives rust in one's pocket, matches refuse to light, tobacco is like a sponge and paper like a rag. It had been like this for three months; no wonder malarial fever raged among the white population. Mr. Ch., after only one year's sojourn here, looked like a very sick man; he was frightfully thin and pale and very nervous; so was his wife, a delicate lady of good French family. She did the hard work of a planter's wife with admirable courage, and, while she had never taken an active part in housekeeping in France, here she was standing all day long behind a smoky kitchen fire, cooking or washing dishes, assisted only by a very incapable and unsophisticated native woman.

On our return to the house, which lies about 200 metres inland, we found this black lady occupied with the extremely hard and puzzling task of laying the table. It seemed to give her the greatest trouble, and the deep distrust with which she handled the plates found eloquent expression in queer sighs and mysterious exclamations in her native tongue, in resigned shakes of the head and emphatic smacking of the lips. She was a crooked bush-woman from the north of Malekula, where the people, especially the women, are unusually ugly and savage. A low forehead, small, deep-set eyes, and a snout-like mouth gave her a very animal look; yet she showed human feeling, and nursed a shrieking and howling orphan all day long with the most tender care. Her little head was shaved and two upper teeth broken out as a sign of matrimony, so she certainly was no beauty; but the sight of her clumsy working was a constant source of amusement to us men, very much less so to her mistress, to whom nothing but her sincere zeal and desire to help could make up for her utter inefficiency.

It cannot be denied that the women from those islands, where their social standing is especially low, are not half so intelligent and teachable as those from places where they are more nearly equal to the men; probably because they are subdued and kept in degradation from early youth, and not allowed any initiative or opinions of their own. But physically these women are very efficient and quite equal to the men in field work, or even superior, being more industrious.

The feat of setting the table was accomplished in about an hour, and we sat down to our simple meal--tinned meat, yams and bananas. Then the foreman came in. Only a short time ago he was one of the finest warriors in the interior of Malekula, where cannibalism is still an everyday occurrence. He, too, wears his hair short, only, according to the present fashion, he lets the hair on his forehead grow in a roll-shaped bow across the head. He is well built, though rather short, and behaves with natural politeness. His voice is soft, his look gentle and in the doorway his dark figure shines in the lamplight like a bronze statue.

Mr. Ch. tells him that the boys will have to work all night, at the same time promising an encouragement in the shape of a glass of wine to each. The natives' craving for alcohol is often abused by unscrupulous whites. Although the sale of liquor to natives is strictly forbidden by the laws of the Condominium, the French authorities do not even seem to try to enforce this regulation, in fact, they rather impressed me as favouring the sale, thus protecting the interests of a degraded class of whites, to the detriment of a valuable race. As a consequence, there are not a few Frenchmen who make their living by selling spirits to natives, which may be called, without exaggeration, a murderous and criminal traffic.

Others profit indirectly by the alcoholism of the islanders by selling liquor to their hands every Saturday, so as to make them run into debt; they will all spend their entire wages on drink. If, their term of engagement being over, they want to return to their homes, they are told that they are still deep in debt to their master, and that they will have to pay off by working for some time longer. The poor fellows stay on and on, continue to drink, are never out of debt, and never see their homes again. This practice has developed of late years in consequence of the scarcity of labour, and is nothing but slavery. It might easily be abolished by a slight effort on the part of the Government, but there is hardly any supervision over French plantations outside Port Vila, and in many plantations conditions exist which are an insult to our modern views on humane treatment. On English plantations there is but little brutality, owing to the Government's careful supervision of the planters and the higher social and moral standing of the settlers in general.

My host had some European conscience left, and treated his hands very humanely, but I dare say that in course of time, and pressed by adverse circumstances, even he resorted to means of finding cheap labour which were none too fair. The French by-laws permit the delivery of alcohol to natives in the shape of "medicine," a stipulation which opens the door to every abuse.

The boys were soon on hand, each awaiting his turn eagerly, yet trying to seem blase. Some drank greedily, others tasted the sour wine in little sips like old experts; but all took care to turn their backs to us while drinking, as if from bashfulness. Then they went to work, giggling and happy.

Meanwhile, those on the sick-list were coming up for the planter's inspection. The diseases are mostly tuberculosis, colds, indigestion, fever and infections, and it is evident that if they receive any medical treatment at all, it is of a primitive and insufficient description. The planters work with fearfully strong plasters, patent medicines and "universal remedies," used internally and externally by turns, so that the patient howls and the spectator shudders, and the results would be most disheartening if kind Nature did not often do the healing in spite of man's efforts to prevent it. Naturally, every planter thinks himself an expert doctor, and is perfectly satisfied with his results.

Mr. Ch. was ill with fever, nevertheless we went down to the work-shed. It was a pitch-dark night, the air was like that in a hothouse, smelling of earth and mould. The surf boomed sullenly on the beach, and heavy squalls flogged the forest. Sometimes a rotten branch snapped, and the sound travelled, dull and heavy, through the night.

From far away we hear the noise of the engine peeling the corn-ears. Two of the natives turn the fly-wheels, and the engine gives them immense pleasure, all the more, the faster it runs. The partners are selected with care, and it is a matter of pride to turn wheels as long and as fast as possible; they encourage each other with wild shrieks and cries. It seemed as if the work had turned to a festival, as if it were a sort of dance, and the couples waited impatiently for their turn to drive the engine. The delight of the boys in the noise of the machinery was very favourable to the progress of the work, and at midnight a long row of full sacks stood in the shed. We stopped the work and told the boys to go to sleep. But the demon of dancing had taken hold of them, and they kept it up all night, and then went straight to work in the fields when the sun rose. By the third evening everything was ready for the arrival of the Pacific, and the boys were deadly tired and lame.

We were just sitting down to dinner one dull, heavy night, when we heard a steamer's long, rough whistle. The Pacific. Everyone jumps up in excitement, for the Pacific brings a taste of civilization, and her arrival marks the end of a busy week and breaks the monotony of daily life. We run to the shore and light strong lamps at fixed points, to indicate the anchorage, and then we rush back to finish dinner and put on clean clothes. Meanwhile, the boys have been roused, and they arrive, sleepy, stiff and unwilling, aware that a hard night's work is before them, loading the produce into the tenders.

The steamer approaches quickly, enormous and gay in the darkness, then she slowly feels her way into the harbour, the anchor falls, and after a few oscillations the long line of brightly lit portholes lies quiet on the water, only their reflection flickers irregularly on the waves through the night. In all directions we can see the lights of the approaching boats of the planters, who come to announce their shipments and to spend a gay evening on board. There are always some passengers on the steamer, planters from other islands on their way to Vila or Sydney, and soon carousing is in full swing, until the bar closes.

All next day the steamer stays in the channel, taking on produce from every plantation, and for two days afterward merrymaking is kept up, then the quiet monotony of a tropical planter's life sets in once more.

Sometimes a diversion is caused by a boy rushing up to the house to announce that some "men-bush" are approaching. Going to the veranda, we see some lean figures with big mops of hair coming slowly down the narrow path from the forest, with soft, light steps. Some distance behind follows a crowd of others, who squat down near the last shrubs and examine everything with shy, suspicious eyes, while the leaders approach the house. Nearly all carry old Snider rifles, always loaded and cocked. The leaders stand silent for a while near the veranda, then one of them whispers a few words in broken "biche la mar," describing what he wants to buy--knives, cartridges, powder, tobacco, pipes, matches, calico, beads. "All right," says Mr. Ch., and some of the men bring up primitive baskets of cocoa-nut leaves, filled with coprah or bunches of raw cocoa-nuts. All of them, especially the women, have carried great loads of these things from their villages in the interior on the poorest paths, marching for days.

The baskets are weighed and the desired goods handed to the head-man. Here the whites make a profit of 200-300 per cent., while on the other islands, where there is more competition, they have to be satisfied with 30 per cent. Each piece is carefully examined by the natives: the pipes, to see if they draw, the matches, whether they strike, etc., while the crowd behind follows every movement with the greatest attention and mysterious whispers, constantly on the watch for any menace to safety. The lengthy bargaining over, the delegation turns away and the whole crowd disappears. In the nearest thicket they sit down and distribute the goods--perhaps a dozen boxes of matches, a few belts, or some yards of calico, two pounds of tobacco, and twenty pipes, a poor return, indeed, for their long journey. Possibly they will spend the night in the neighbourhood, under an overhanging rock, on the bare stone, all crowded round a fire for fear of the spirits of the night.

Sometimes, having worked for another planter, they have a little money. Although every planter keeps his own store, the natives, as a rule, prefer to buy from his neighbour, from vague if not quite unjustified suspicion. They rarely engage for any length of time, except when driven by the desire to buy some valuable object, generally a rifle, without which no native likes to be seen in Santo to-day. In that case several men work together for one, who afterwards indemnifies them for their help in native fashion by giving them pigs or rendering them other services. On the plantations they are suspicious and lazy, but quite harmless as long as they are not provoked. Mr. Ch. had had about thirty men working on his plantation for quite some time, and everything had gone well, until one day one of them had fallen into the Sarrakatta and been drowned. According to native law, Mr. Ch. was responsible for his death, and should have paid for him, which he omitted to do. At first there was general dismay, no one dared approach the river any more; then the natives all returned to their villages, and a few days later they swarmed round the plantation with rifles to avenge their dead relative by murdering Mr. Ch. He was warned by his boys, who were from Malekula for the most part, and this saved his life. He armed his men, and after a siege of several weeks the bushmen gave up the watch and retired. But no one would return to work for him any more.

Altogether, the bushmen of Santo are none too reliable, and only the memory of a successful landing expedition of the English man-of-war a year ago keeps them quiet. On that occasion they had murdered an old Englishman and two of his daughters, just out of greed, so as to pillage his store. They had not found much, but they had to pay for the murder with the loss of their village, pigs and lives.

I tried to find boys at the south-west corner of Santo, where the natives frequently descend to the shore. A neighbour of Mr. Ch., a young Frenchman, was going there in a small cutter to buy wood for dyeing mats to sell to the natives of Malekula, and he kindly took me with him. We sailed through the channel one rainy morning, but the wind died down and we had to anchor, as the current threatened to take us back. We profited by the stop to pay a visit to a Mr. R., who cultivated anarchistic principles, also a plantation which seemed in perfect condition and in direct opposition to his anti-capitalistic ideas. Mr. R. was one of those French colonists who, sprung from the poorest peasant stock, have no ambitions beyond finding a new and kindlier home. Economical, thrifty, used to hard work in the fields, Mr. R. had begun very modestly, but had prospered, and was now, while still a young man, the owner of a plantation that would make him rich in a few years. This good, solid peasant stock, of which France possesses so much, makes the best colonists, and as a rule they succeed far better than those who come to the tropics with the idea of making a fortune in a few years without working for it. These fall into the hands of the big Noumea companies, and have the greatest trouble in getting out of debt. Not only do these firms lend money at exorbitant interest, but they stipulate that the planter will sell them all his produce and buy whatever he needs from them, and as they fix prices as they please, their returns are said to reach 30 per cent.

Besides these two kinds of French settlers, there is a third, which comes from the penitentiary in Noumea or its neighbourhood. We shall meet specimens of these in the following pages.

After having duly admired the plantation of Mr. R.--he proved himself a real peasant, knew every plant by name, and was constantly stopping to pick a dead leaf or prune a shoot--we continued our journey and arrived at Tangoa. Tangoa is a small island, on which the Presbyterian mission has established a central school for the more intelligent of the natives of the whole group, where they may be trained as teachers. The exterior of this school looks most comfortable. One half of the island is cleared and covered with a green lawn, one part is pasture for good-looking cattle, the other is a park in which nestle the cottages of the teachers,--the whole looks like an English country-seat. At some distance is a neatly built, well-kept village for the native pupils. I presented an introduction to the director. He seemed to think my endeavours extremely funny, asked if I was looking for the missing link, etc., so that I took a speedy leave.

We spent a few lazy days on board the little cutter; the natives would not come down from their villages, in spite of frequent explosions of dynamite cartridges, the usual signal of recruiters to announce their arrival to the natives. It rained a good deal, and there was not much to do but to loaf on the beach. Here, one day, I saw an interesting method of fishing by poisoning the water, which is practised in many places. At low tide the natives rub a certain fruit on the stones of the reef, the juice mixes with the water in the pools and poisons the fish, so that after a short while they float senseless on the surface and may easily be caught.

After a few days I was anxious to return to the Segond Channel, as I expected the arrival of the English steamer, which I wanted to meet. I could not find any guide, and the cutter was to stay for some days longer, so I decided to go alone; the distance was only about 15 km., and I thought that with the aid of my compass I would find my way along the trail which was said to exist.

I started in the morning with a few provisions and a dull bush-knife, at first along a fairly good path, which, however, soon divided into several tracks. I followed the one which seemed most likely to lead to my destination, but arrived at a deep lagoon, around which I had to make a long detour. Here the path came to a sudden stop in front of an impenetrable thicket of lianas which I could hardly cut with my knife. I climbed across fallen trunks, crawled along the ground beneath the creepers, struck an open spot once in a while, passed swamps and rocks,--in short, in a very little time I made an intimate acquaintance with the renowned Santo bush. Yet I imagined I was advancing nicely, so much so that I began to fear I had gone beyond my destination. About four o'clock in the afternoon I struck a small river and followed its crooked course to the coast, so as to get my bearings. Great was my disappointment on finding myself only about 1 1/2 km. from the lagoon which I had left in the morning. This was a poor reward for eight hours' hard work. I was ashamed to return to the cutter, and followed the shore, not wishing to repeat that morning's experience in the forest. The walk along the beach was not agreeable at all, as it consisted of those corroded coral rocks, full of sharp points and edges, and shaped like melted tin poured into water. These rocks were very jagged, full of crevices, in which the swell thundered and foamed, and over which I had to jump. Once I fell in, cut my legs and hands most cruelly and had only my luck to thank that I did not break any bones, and got safely out of the damp, dark prison. But at least I could see where I was, and that I was getting on, and I preferred this to the uncertain struggle in the forest. In some places the coast rose to a high bank, round which I could not walk. I had to climb up on one side as best I could and descend on the other with the help of trees and vines. Thus, fighting my way along, I was overtaken by the sudden tropical night, and I had to stop where I was for fear of falling into some hole. A fall would have been a real calamity, as nobody would ever have found me or even looked for me on that lonely coast. I therefore sat down where I was, on the corals where they seemed least pointed. I did not succeed at all in making a fire; the night was quite dark and moonless, and a fine rain penetrated everything. I have rarely passed a longer night or felt so lonely. The new day revived my spirits, breakfast did not detain me long, as I had nothing to eat, so I kept along the shore, jumping and climbing, and had to swim through several lagoons, swarming, as I heard afterwards, with big sharks! After a while the coral shore changed into a sand beach, and after having waded for some hours more in the warm water with the little rags that were left of my boots, I arrived dead tired at the plantation of Mr. R. He was away, so I went to his neighbour's, who was at dinner and kindly asked me to join him. Although it was only a flying-fox, I enjoyed it as a man enjoys a meal after a twenty-four hours' fast.

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.