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Waikato Times, Volume I, Issue 18, 11 June 1872, Page 3

"IX Qi;KST OF COOLIES."—Bv J. L. Hopk. The question about the treatment of South Sea Inlander* —which was started by Captain Palmer, was forced upon our attention by the murder of Hishop Putteeon, jindis now bofoie Parliament —gives a temporary importance to this litile book. Mr. Hope, however, has merit* of his own, and his lively and clever sketches deserve to make their way without any such assistance. Jt is Irne that the book scarcely touches on the existence of those kidnapping , practices which Captain Palmer tried so haul to suppress, but we can well undersland, from Mr. Hope's account of the pressure put upon the islanders, that emigration lias not always been a matter of choice. The provisions of the Act passed by the Queensland Government in 1808 have probably put a stop to the most flagrant abuses of the former system, but its memory must still Bur-vivp, and on some of the islands visited by Mr. Hope a good deal of suspicion was felt and shown openly. Luckily for Mr. Hope, his vessel took back to their native parts a number of islanders who had served their three years in Queensland, and who could give their possible successors some information about, the while man's habits. But for this the islanders might have believed that they were being decoyed away for ever from home and friends, to be exposed to some feai fwl and unknown fa to, worse than any thing that could befall them at the hands of their brother-caniiibalfii. Mr. 1 lope starts by telling us that the New Hebrides islands are "densely crowded with a, population who, having nothing lo do and sometimes very little to cat, spend their whole time in killing one another, not ns we do in Europe for the sake of an idea, but for the salu; of a, dinner." And according to one of his informants the way in which these islanders were procured was this: " Yon took a trade musket, value aboutfifreen shillings, and, having found a chief, presented it to him, requiring so many men ; upon which he said to his subjects, 'You go to Queensland ; when you get there, in about a month , s time, the white man will probably cat you, but if you dare to slop here, I'll cat you myself to-morrow.'" Such thoughts ns these, however, were dissipated by the sight of the returning coolies, all of them laden with chests containing the most miscellaneous assortment of articles, beginning with a grindstone and ending with a silk umbrella. The prospect of acquiring similar treasures ir fluetieed others, and Mr. Hope was not long in making up his complement. Cruising from island to island he had some singular experience, and he gives us many curious details of native life and manners. The illustrative drawings are grotesque in the extreme, presenting heads of natives wilh their hair trained to stand on end ; of men wearing chignons, and of a sick chief being solemnly doctored by the-administration of a blue-pill at the precise moment of sunset. We hear too of trading with the natives for pigs, yams, and other articles of food, the invariable price for a pig being an axe, but it beiny iinpossib e to peisua.de the sellers that, they ought to give three, pigs for three axes. Once when Mr. Mope had put off in his boat, a man came running to the beach with a pig in one hand and a musket in the other, and was so enraged at (.he boat-not-putting back for the purpose of trading with him, that ho deliberately fired into the middle of the crew. The zeal for business which is thus displayed may have been praiseworthy, but it would hardly advance the interests of commerce, and Mr. Hope more than once learnt that it was well to keep at a safe distance.