Our English footman, originally a boy from Middleton village, was considerably taken aback when he found that the only attendance in our rooms was the sudden inroad of a party of kanakas (natives) who ran in with feather brushes, stirred up a little dust, and rapidly disappeared. “Well, Henry,” said Mr. Goschen, “either you or I will have to make His Excellency’s bed.” And, stimulated by this and by my maid’s example, Henry turned to, and we were made perfectly comfortable.
Fortunately for the peace of mind of our kind hosts, the Government and Municipality, we came in for the Fêtes de Juillet, so though they could not carry out the special entertainments projected for us, they had three balls, and some races, already arranged. It was rather strange to have the music supplied by a Convict Band in their penal garb, but it was very good.
In the middle of one of the balls we were summoned to witness a “pilou-pilou,” that is a native dance by the kanakas—merry-looking people with tremendous heads of wool standing straight up. They danced a kind of ballet with much swaying of their bodies and swinging of their weapons, which they afterwards presented to me. I did not much like taking them, but was assured that it was the custom.
These kanakas were darker and of a more negro type than the Samoans whom we afterwards visited, but not so dark as the Australian aboriginals, nor so savage as the inhabitants of the New Hebrides or New Ireland.
We saw two of their villages, and their system of irrigation by little watercourses on the hill-side, which showed considerable capacity for agriculture. The Roman Catholic missionaries claimed to have converted about ten thousand of them, and it was curious to find in a dark little hut of bark and reeds, with little inside except mats and smoke, two or three Mass books and a crucifix. Some of the priests whom we met had gone into the wilds of New Caledonia before the French annexed it in 1853, and regardless of danger had worked there ever since.
THE CONVICT SETTLEMENT
We were taken to see the chief buildings of the Convict Settlement, which appeared to be large and well planned, but one had rather a painful shock when the first object pointed out was the site of the guillotine. Naturally the convicts were divided into different classes. We entered one long building where a number were confined in common, and seemed fairly cheerful, but others were in little separate cells from which they were only brought out, and then alone, for a very short time each day. Some had only a brief period of such solitary confinement, but in one small cell we found a very big man who almost seemed to fill it with his body when he stood up at our entrance. He had been condemned to seven years of this penance for having assaulted a waiter. He implored the Governor either to have him executed at once, or to allow him a little more liberty. I backed up his plea, and M. Laffon promised some consideration, which I trust was effectual.
The worst thing we saw was the lunatics’ prison, inhabited by men who had gone mad since their arrival in the Island. One man had a most refined and intellectual head; he had been a distinguished lawyer at Lyons and was transported for having killed a man who, if I recollect rightly, had been his sister’s lover. No wonder that shame, exile, and his surroundings had driven him mad. Another was much happier; he was quite harmless, and was allowed to wander about and indulge his mania, which was the decoration of the little chapel. I have no reason at all to think that the convicts were ill-treated, but we did not see the place where the worst criminals were confined, and one of the French ladies mysteriously remarked, “Ils ont des temps durs ceux-là.”
I always feel, however, that philanthropists who are ready to condemn the treatment of convicts in any part of the world fail to realise the difficulty of keeping order amongst large bodies of men, most of whom, at all events, have criminal instincts. The heroes of novels and plays who undergo such imprisonment are almost invariably represented as unjustly convicted, probably scapegoats for real criminals, and all our sympathy is evoked on their behalf. No doubt, particularly in the early days of Australia, there were many cruelties and much undue severity, but the comparatively few officers and men who were put to guard and govern masses of criminals had no easy task. They were far removed from any possibility of summoning help in cases of mutiny, and probably many of them deteriorated mentally and physically through much anxiety and the hardships which they themselves had to encounter.
CONVICTS IN FORMER DAYS