42 THE FEMALE SEX. 



teraptiiously on the ground, when a woman, in order to light her 

 own pipe, stretched out her hand to take it from him. 



The custom of infanticide throws a shade over not a few of these 

 islands. During my frequent walks over the island of Ugi, Avhere 

 one may pass through a village without seeing a single child in arms, 

 1 often experienced a feeling of relief in leaving behind such a village 

 where the prattle of children is but rarely heard. In Ugi, infanticide 

 is the prevailing custom. When a man needs assistance in his 

 declining years, his props are not his own sons but youths obtained 

 by purchase from the St. Christoval natives, who^ as they attain to 

 manhood, acquire a virtual independence, passing almost beyond the 

 control of their orioinal owner. It is from this cause that but a 

 small proportion of the Ugi natives have been born on the island, 

 three-fourths of them having been brought as youths to supply the 

 ]>lace of offspring killed in infancy. Yet some bright experiences, 

 brighter, perhaps, in the contrast, recur to my mind. In the small 

 island of Orika (Santa Catalina) the visitor will be followed about 

 by a little train of children, of both sexes, with smiling, intelligent 

 faces, and clad only in the garb which nature gave them. Whilst 

 having an evening pipe in front of the house of Haununo, the young 

 chief, Mr. W. Macdonald and I were surrounded by a varied throng 

 of the natives of the village, both old and young. Numerous young 

 children, from babes in arms to those three oi* four years old, formed 

 no inconsiderable proportion of the number around us. Bright- 

 looking lads, eight or nine years of age, stood smoking their pipes as 

 gravely as Haununo himself; and even the smallest babe in its 

 father's arms caught hold of his pipe and began to suck instinctively. 

 The chief's son, a little shapeless mass of flesh, a few months old, was 

 handed about from man to man with as much care as if he had been 

 composed of something brittle. It would have taken many ship- 

 loads of " trade," as Mr. Macdonald remarked to me, to have pur- 

 chased the hopeful heir of the chief of Orika. 



But to return to the subject of the position held by the women. 

 When away with a recruiting party from the labour-ship " Redcoat," 

 on "the JSt. Christoval coast, I was present at the parting on the beach 

 of six natives, who had elected to proceed to Fiji to work for a terra 

 of three years on the plantations. But little regret was observable 

 in the faces of those whose friends were leaving them. Son parted 

 with father, and brother with brother with apparently as little con- 

 cern as if they were merely parting for the hour. The mother or 



