SLAVERY. 33 



always looked down upon by their brethren of the coast. " Man- 

 busli" is with the latter a term of reproach, implying stupidity and 

 ci-ass ignorance. I have frequently heard this epithet applied to 

 natives who handled their canoes in an awkward manner or who 

 stumbled in their walk whilst accompanying me in my excursions. 

 On one occasion, when trying to obtain stone axes from the natives 

 of Alu, I was referred wdth a smile to the bushmen of the neigh- 

 bouring island of Bougainville, who still employ these tools. In the 

 larger islands the bush-tribes and the coast natives wage an un- 

 ceasing warfare, in which the latter are usually the aggressors and 

 the victors — the bushmen captured during these raids either afford- 

 insf materials for the cannibal feast or being detained in servitude 

 by their captors. But there prevails in the group a recognized 

 system of slave-traffic, in which a human being becomes a market- 

 able commodity — the equivalent being represented in goods either of 

 native or of foreisfn manufacture. This custom which came under 

 the notice of the officers of Surville's ex{)edition, during their visit 

 to Port Praslin in Isabel, in 1709,^ obtains under the same con- 

 ditions at the present time. These natives were in the habit of 

 making voyages of ten and twelve days' duration with the object of 

 exchancrint; men for " fine cloths covered with designs," articles 

 which were manufactured by a race of people much fairer than 

 their own, who were in all probability the inhabitants of Ontong 

 Java. 



The servitude to which the victims of this traffic are doomed is 

 not usually an arduous one. But there is one grave contingency 

 attached to his thraldom which must be always before the mind of 

 the captive, however lightly his chains of service may lie upon him. 

 When a head is required to satisfy the offended honour of a neigh- 

 bourino- chief, or when a life has to be sacrificed on the completion 

 of a tambu-house or at the launching of a new war-canoe, the 

 victim chosen is usually the man who is not a free-born native of 

 the village. He may have been bought as a child and have lived 

 amongst them from his boyhood up, a slave only in name, and en- 

 joying all the rights of his fellow natives. But no feelings of com- 

 passion can save him from his doom ; and the only consideration 

 which he receives at the hands of those with whom he may have 

 lived on terms of equality for many years is to be found in the cir- 

 cumstance that he gets no warning of his fate 



1 " Discoveries to the south-east of New Guinea," hy il. Fleurieu, p. 143, Eng. edit. 



C 



