“The afternoon of our arrival
at Leper Island the schooner was lying almost
becalmed under the lee of the lofty central portion
of the island, about three-quarters of a mile
from the shore. The boats were in sight
at some distance. The recruiter-boat had run
into a small nook on the rocky coast, under a
high bank, above which stood a solitary hut backed
by dense forest. The government agent and mate
in the second boat lay about 400 yards to the westward.
“Suddenly we heard the sound
of firing, followed by yells from the natives
on shore, and then we saw the recruiter-boat push out
with a seemingly diminished crew. The mate’s
boat pulled quickly up, took her in tow, and
presently brought her alongside, all her own crew
being more or less hurt. It seems the natives
had called them into the place on pretence of
friendship. A crowd gathered about the stern
of the boat, and several fellows even got into her.
All of a sudden our men were attacked with clubs
and tomahawks. The recruiter escaped the
first blows aimed at him, making play with his fists
until he had an opportunity to draw his revolver.
’Tom Sayers,’ a Mare man, received
a tomahawk blow on the head which laid the scalp
open but did not penetrate his skull, fortunately.
’Bobby Towns,’ another Mare boatman,
had both his thumbs cut in warding off blows,
one of them being so nearly severed from the hand that
the doctors had to finish the operation.
Lihu, a Lifu boy, the recruiter’s special
attendant, was cut and pricked in various places,
but nowhere seriously. Jack, an unlucky Tanna
recruit, who had been engaged to act as boatman,
received an arrow through his forearm, the head
of which—apiece of bone seven or eight inches
long—was still in the limb, protruding
from both sides, when the boats returned.
The recruiter himself would have got off scot-free
had not an arrow pinned one of his fingers to
the loom of the steering-oar just as they were
getting off. The fight had been short but
sharp. The enemy lost two men, both shot dead.”
The truth is, Captain Wawn furnishes such a crowd
of instances of fatal encounters between natives and
French and English recruiting-crews (for the French
are in the business for the plantations of New Caledonia),
that one is almost persuaded that recruiting is not
thoroughly popular among the islanders; else why this
bristling string of attacks and bloodcurdling slaughter?
The captain lays it all to “Exeter Hall influence.”
But for the meddling philanthropists, the native fathers
and mothers would be fond of seeing their children
carted into exile and now and then the grave, instead
of weeping about it and trying to kill the kind recruiters.
He was as shy as a newspaper is when referring to
its own merits.
—Pudd’nhead
Wilson’s New Calendar.
