192 A NATURALIST IN CANNIBAL LAND 



necessary to inflict punishment when they attempt 

 any nonsense. In effect, I find that you must treat 

 the natives like you would treat the boys of a junior 

 school, a school from which the cane has not been 

 abolished. But any acts of cruelty, that is to say, 

 of causeless infliction of pain, do no good at all to 

 white interests in the Pacific, apart from the un- 

 happiness they inflict on the natives. In my opinion 

 if a white man in those quarters is convicted more than 

 once of cruelty to the natives he should be prevented 

 for ever after from having native men under him. 



It is an unfortunate thing that for the acts of 

 cruelty of some white man in the Islands other white 

 men, quite innocent of such acts, may have to suffer. 

 When deeds of cruelty are inflicted the natives get 

 into their heads a hatred, not so much of the man who 

 has done the cruel deed, as of all white men ; and a 

 quite guiltless trader may suffer with his life for the 

 drunken or careless cruelty of another many miles 

 away. 



I found San Christoval Island a very poor place 

 for collecting, it being all limestone country and not 

 at all rich either in vegetation or in lepidoptera, 

 Nearly all the male natives of this island have been 

 away at some time or another on white plantations, 

 either in Queensland or elsewhere, and so they were 

 all fairly civilised, spoke good English and were very 

 entertaining when talking over their experiences of 

 civilisation. A less happy sign of their having come 



