[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]

CHAPTER IV

RECRUITING FOR NATIVES

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 re-
cruiters who went slave-hunting as they would have
' followed any other occupation, and sold the natives
t0 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
I 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
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