New Caledonia

“ We lay to all night, in hopes that the weather would be more favourable the next day.
In the direction of the land of New Caledonia, we observed several islands surrounded with reefs, and connected together by sand banks and other shoals.
29th. During the night, the wind had made us fall off so much, that we lost sight of the northern extremity of New Caledonia, which we found to be in 19° 58′ south latitude, and 161° 10′ east longitude. That island presents a chain of mountains, extending about eighty nautical leagues, from the south-east to the north-west. ”

“ All the natives of the South-Sea islands, excepting those only which Tasman found on Tonga-Tabboo and Annamocka, (and those perhaps had been informed of what had passed between Le Maire, and the natives of Horne, Cocos, and Traitor's island, some years before,) made some attempt to drive away the strangers who came to visit them. But the people of New Caledonia, at the first sight of us, received us as friends; they ventured to come on board our ship, without the least marks of fear or distrust, and suffered us to ramble freely throughout their country as far as we pleased. ”

“ At the two extremities of New Caledonia, parallel longitudinal ranges of mountains enclose valleys; for the rest the island consists essentially of confused masses and ranges of mountains, rising to an extreme elevation of 5387 ft., the plains being chiefly the deltas of rivers. The landscape is rich and beautiful, varied with grand rock scenery, the coast-line being broken by numerous small bays, into which flow streams rarely navigable even for short distances, but often skilfully utilized by the natives for irrigation ”

“ Only New Caledonia, the most southerly of the larger islands, differs somewhat from the rest in its comparatively cool climate and scanty flora.517 The natives of the islands belong to the Melanesian race. They are dark-skinned and woolly-haired and speak a language which is akin to the Polynesian language. In material culture they stand roughly on the same level as the natives of New Guinea, a considerable part of whom in the south-eastern part of the island, as I pointed out before, are either pure Melanesians or at all events exhibit a strong infusion of Melanesian blood. ”

“ The natives of New Caledonia are in general of the middle size, we however, saw one who was more than six feet in height, but very ill built. Their hair is woolly; their custom of pulling it up by the roots is very general; but we saw some of them who let their beards grow. The colour of their skin is as dark as that of the inhabitants of Diemen's land. ”

“ New Caledonia was discovered by Alexander Mackenzie in 1793; its posts were begun under Simon Fraser (1805-06) . During the fur-trading period, it was an important division of the Hudson's Bay Company's Pacific provinces; but was dependent upon the Columbia district, with headquarters at Vancouver. The chief posts of New Caledonia were St. James, Stuart Lake, and Alexandria. For its boundaries, etc., consult Ross's Oregon Settlers, in our volume vii, p. ”

“ Had we been stronger than we are we should long since have made the presence of the French Government in New Caledonia a casus belli.
The Mother Country is so indifferent to our aspirations and our needs, that she has never given herself the trouble to recognise the gravity of this special cause of complaint. At least 300 cases of escape from New Caledonia to Australian shores are known and recorded. In the case of the ‘exiles’ we naturally rejoice. ”

“ Population.—At the census of 1901 the population of New Caledonia numbered 51,415, consisting of 12,253 free Europeans (colonists, soldiers, officials) , 29,106 natives, 10,056 convicts. In 1898, however, the introduction of convicts into the island ceased. The centres of population are Nouméa (Numea) , the capital, on a fine harbour of the west coast near the southern extremity of the island, with 7000 inhabitants ”

“ Let us, for instance, suppose, that the people of New Caledonia are the offspring of a nation, who, by living in affluence and in a genial climate, have not been stinted in their growth; the colony which removed into the barren soil of New Caledonia, will probably preserve the habit of body of their ancestors for many generations. The people of Tanna may have undergone a contrary revolution, and being descended of a slender and short race, like the Mallicollese, the richness of their present country may not yet have entirely taken effect. ”

“ There is New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, the Friendly Islands, the Societies' Islands, the Marquesas, Tahite, and the Pelew Islands; but each navigator gives them a new name, so that it is hard to say which is which; all you can do is to say that there is an island in latitude so and so and longitude so and so, but the name is almost out of the question. ”

“ Thus I was obliged, as it were by necessity, for the first time, to leave a coast I had discovered, before it was fully explored.—I called it New Caledonia; and, if we except New Zealand, it is perhaps the largest island in the South Pacific Ocean. For it extends from the latitude of 19° 37', to 22° 30', S., and from the longitude of 163° 37' to 167° 14' E. It lies nearly N.W. 1/2 W., and S.E. 1 E., and is about eighty-seven leagues long in that direction; but its breadth is not considerable, not any where exceeding ten leagues. It is a country full of hills and valleys ”

“ Our poor brothers of old Caledonia shall yet have another Scotland in the New World. Our dear country must possess in these seas a colony of her own, where she can find that independence and prosperity that are wanting in many European empires."
"That is well said, captain," replied Lady Helena. "It is a noble project, and worthy of a great heart. But this island——?"
"No, madam, it is a rock, only large enough to support a few colonists; while we need a vast territory, rich in all primitive treasures."
"Well, captain," cried Glenarvan, "the future is before us! Let us seek this land together!" ”

“ New Caledonia has long been a thorn in the Australian side. It is only 700 miles from the coast of Queensland, and the northern colony and its parent neighbour have long since tired of being overrun by escaped French convicts of the vilest type. You, in England, have little conception of the resentment which is inspired in the breasts of the most loyal Australians by the supineness and folly which allowed the Home Government to sit idly by whilst a French penal settlement was established so near our shores. ”

“ How the natives chided and sneered at her at first for not marrying a great white lord as her sister did!
Beautiful women, and men also, I have met in strange places. I have found them in the hovels and among the scum of life, and sometimes in the palatial home of affluence. Convicts of New Caledonia in the calaboose or toiling in chains, breathing, yet as dead as dust, with hollow, sad eyes, corpses from La Belle France—my poor brothers! Old men and women begging by the kerb-side in the far-away civilised Isle of the Western Seas! ”

“ They have 1,000 men in New Caledonia, steamers and frigates of war; and he told me plainly that this island and Nengone are considered as natural appendages of New Caledonia, and practically French possessions already, so that, of course, to attempt doing more than secure for the people a religious liberty is out of the question. He promised me that if the people behaved properly to him and his people, he would not send for the soldiers, nor would he do anything to interfere with the existing state of the island. ”

“ The present work is not concerned at all with one of the four groups above mentioned, that of New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands, nor with the larger southern members of the New Hebrides group; its view is confined, except for occasional illustration, to the Solomon Islands, Ysabel, Florida, Savo, Guadalcanar, Malanta, San Cristoval, Ulawa, to the Santa Cruz group, the Banks' and Torres Islands, and three of the northern New Hebrides, Aurora, Pentecost and Lepers' Islands. ”

“ Early in the seventies, I was in Nouméa, New Caledonia, looking for a berth as recruiter in the Kanaka labour trade; but there were many older and much more experienced men than myself engaged on the same quest, and my efforts were in vain.
One morning, however, I met a Captain Poore, who was the owner and master of a small vessel, just about to leave Nouméa on a trading voyage along the east coast of New Guinea, and among the islands between Astrolabe Bay and the West Cape of New Britain. ”

“ Recent discoveries in New Caledonia have proved the existence in these far-off islands, as in Brittany, Scotland, and Ireland, of these strange symbols, coupled with the concentric and spiral designs which are usually associated with the genius of Celtic art. In the neighbourhood of Glasgow, and in the south-west of Scotland generally, stones inscribed with designs closely resembling those on the New Caledonian rocks have been found in abundance, as at Auchentorlie 47 and Cockno, Shewalton Sands, and in the Milton of Colquhoun district, where the famous ‘cup-and-ring altar’ was discovered. ”

“ The inhabitants of New Caledonia do not owe their kind disposition to a total ignorance of wars and disputes; the variety of their offensive weapons being alone sufficient to put this matter out of doubt. By conversing with them we learnt that they have enemies, and that the people of an island called Mingha had a very different character from their own. Civilization is much farther advanced in some respects among them, than with their more opulent neighbours. ”

“ These are coral islands, slowly raised, but continuous, created by the daily work of polypi. Then this new island will be joined later on to the neighboring groups, and a fifth continent will stretch from New Zealand and New Caledonia, and from thence to the Marquesas.
One day, when I was suggesting this theory to Captain Nemo, he replied coldly:
"The earth does not want new continents, but new men." ”

“ In civilization, New Caledonia exhibits an advance upon Tasmania, and, farther north, there is a still greater improvement. But the bows and arrows, the perched houses, the outrigger canoes, the habits of betel-chewing and of kawa-drinking, which abound more or less among the northern Negritos, are probably to be regarded not as the products of an indigenous civilization, but merely as indications of the extent to which foreign influences have modified the primitive social state of these people. ”

“ Australia, in the past, has often shown a quite pardonable restlessness, in face of the irritating, though comparatively unimportant, foreign complications which have been forced on her attention. New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, New Guinea, have each in turn been used by the bolder sort of colonial politician as an excuse to force the hand of a supposedly neglectful Colonial Office. ”

“ When Blake Shorland stepped from the steamer Belle Sauvage upon the quay at Noumea, he proceeded, with the alertness of the trained newspaper correspondent, to take his bearings. So this was New Caledonia, the home of outcast, criminal France, the recent refuge of Communist exiles, of Rochefort, Louise Michel, Felix Rastoul, and the rest! Over there to the left was Ile Nou, the convict prison; on the hill was the Governor’s residence; below, the Government establishments with their red-tiled roofs; and hidden away in a luxuriance of tropical vegetation lay the houses of the citizens. ”

“ The people of New Caledonia, it appears, do not decorate their clubs or other weapons. Only one of the specimens in my possession is marked in any way. They are good artists, however, and scratch figures on wood with neatness and skill. ”

“ About five in the evening, we had sight of New Caledonia in the N.W., distant above twenty thousand toises, and we steered towards it; but about sun-set, we were obliged to lay to for the Esperance, which always sailed much worse than our ship. We then had a view of the coast, from 32° to the northward of west, to 32° to the westward of north; but we were still too far distant to see the reefs, between that island and the Isle of Pines. The Esperance joined us about eight at night. It was proper for us to make many tacks during the night, but it was so calm that the ship did not obey her helm. ”

“ They tattoo themselves so as to have the appearance of wearing breeches. Most of them go naked; some few wear a maro which is made either of fine Indian cloth of a reddish color, of a wild kind of parsley, or of a species of sea-weed."
GEORGE. "There are more small islands before we go to New Zealand or Australia, and I have an account of one,—viz., New Caledonia, lying south-west of the New Hebrides. It is rather a large island, rocky for the most part; and there not being much food for animals, very few are found there. ”

“ New Caledonia in the Australian Pacific was annexed to France in 1853. Ten years later it became a new settlement for convict emigrants. A first shipload was disembarked in 1864 at Noumea, and the foundations of the city laid. Prison buildings were the first erected and were planted upon the island of Nou, a small breakwater to the Bay of Noumea. Outwardly all went well under the fostering care of the authorities. The population steadily increased; an average total of 600 in 1867 rose in the following year to 1554. In 1874 the convict population exceeded 5000 ”

“ The island imports wines, spirits, tissues, clothing and ironmongery; and exports ores, nickel, cobalt and chrome (which represent over three-quarters of the total exports in value) , preserved meats and hides, coffee, copra and other colonial produce. There are about 150 m. of carriage roads, and in the mountainous regions there are many footpaths. A railway running north-westward from Nouméa to Dumbéa, &c., is designed to connect the capital with Bourail. The islands annexed to the colony of New Caledonia are the Isle of Pines, used as a place of detention for habitual criminals ”