NEW CALEDONIA 



her parents, etiquette demands that, for the sake of appearances, she shall make some show of 

 reluctance. It sometimes happens that a bride who is really unhappy takes the earliest 

 opportunity of running away from her hushand, and seeks a home with a man she likes 

 better. In such a case, if the parents perceive that nothing will induce her to return to her 

 injured husband, they offer him a pig as solatium, to soothe his wounded feelings; and there 

 the matter ends. We are indebted to Captain W. Acland for the two excellent photographs 

 reproduced on pages 40 and 41. At the Santa Cruz (or Queen Charlotte) Islands, between the 

 Solomon Islands and the New Hebrides group, we find the same custom of infant betrothal. 

 The father, without telling the boy, seeks a bride for his son. Some time elapses before the 

 son is told that a girl is engaged for him. His parents do not say who she is, but only warn 



Photo by Captain W. Acland, 



A GROUP OF NATIVES, PENTECOST ISLAND. 



him that he must not go near the particular house in which she lives for it is not 

 allowed to betrothed ones to meet. Youths sometimes show great reluctance to marry the 

 brides thus chosen for them. 



NEW CALEDONIA. 



A LITTLE to the south of the New Hebrides lies the island known as New Caledonia. Its 

 inhabitants appear to be distinctly Papuan, having dark skins and frizzly hair; but here again 

 there is evidence of intercourse with the brown Polynesian race. There are many tribes, each 

 having its chief. The people Kanakas, as the French call them (though the term is used 

 very loosely) wear very little clothing, have no bows and arrows, and were all cannibals 



