The tremendous heat of these fields is beyond description, owing to the number of the canes.

Many of the natives who have gone for a term of three years become so fond of the life that they remain on for much longer periods. Many have been known to petition the Queensland Government to be allowed to remain in the country altogether. They mix up with natives from all the islands, and intermarry in quite a friendly way. If by chance a native of Malekula happened to be left, on his return, in the Solomon islands by mistake, he would probably be made into mincemeat: but abroad they get on very well together.

The labour trade in New Guinea was stopped some years ago, partly by Governor Macgregor, and partly through the natives’ objection to work. In this trait they resemble the Fijians, and consider work is a form of slavery and so beneath them.

There is very little real affection between the natives, they part from one another when going to Queensland with hardly any show of regret. Sometimes when a woman is going her companions cry, but such scenes are exceptional.

On their return, however, things are very {190} different, for they come laden with new and interesting goods and money.

The chief immediately appropriates all the best of these articles, and by so doing confers a great honour on the home-comer. The returned one’s relatives then swarm round him, and each takes what he or she fancies; and the welcoming party, consisting of fellow-tribesmen, receive their little lot for having welcomed the returned one home. The remainder of the goods are taken to their owner’s shed, where they probably remain a few days. Other claimants soon come forward, so that in less than a week the hut is empty of all save the worker and his three years’ experience.

In the old days the labour traffic, or “black birding” as it was called, was one of the most disgraceful trades ever carried on by British subjects. So bad did it finally get that the Government stepped in, and warships were kept on the lookout for these slave-traders, and eventually, after a lengthy period and, strange to say, much opposition, the labour traffic was made into an honest business.