Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 14, 1903.djvu/275

 Tlic Natives of New Caledonia. 249

are silent, they do not use the foul language of an English street-quarrel, and they are not hasty in temper over trifles. The women, in these things, are the reverse of the men ; apt to thump each other, amid showers of the most obscene abuse.^

The natives cultivate " I'independance du coeur " in the matter of gratitude, at least to white men. I have heard of a native who, grievously ill, had been taken into a white man's house and there cared for till convalescent. The wretch afterwards actually wanted to be paid for the time during which he was being nursed. What do you think of the follow- ing story as showing their moral qualities and characteristics? Some years ago, I hired for working a batch of Tauna men. These had been taken from different parts of their coast, and were divided into as many separate parties, and were deadly enemies enough in their own country. But I never had any trouble with them on that account. In fact they got very friendly together, and were always willing to help one another in any row with natives of any other island. There was one bright little merry lad among them, who, from his extreme youth (being but eight), I put into the kitchen as a light sort of work for him. Here he showed himself to be so very sharp, and to have such a turn for cooking, that he soon rose to be chief butler, and as such became the very esteemed friend of all the other natives, they being naturally appreciative of the tit-bits his position allowed him to procure for them. One-eyed Tom (he had lost an eye) stopped with me nearly five years, and then home-sickness came on him — he wanted to see his mother. "You see mother belong me think me dead," said Tom, and so despite my persuasions he made up his mind to go. He procured a cedar-wood box with a lock and key, the ambition of all Kanakas, bought an infini- tude of clothes with rare things for his mother, and with

' " The women are, in general, much inferior to the men" (Moncelon). — A. L.