NEW CALEDONIA. 349 



adduces. And coud reason is there to be on one's ouard. 

 From the brutal trader who boasts that he has shot down 

 the natives in sport, and wlio occasions, for ti'ade purposes, 

 the ferocity he trumpets and exaggerates, up to the seh- 

 satisfied missionary, wlio persuades himself and others that 

 all that is good in them is of his own donation, there is a 

 combination of misreport which makes a just estimate of 

 thek" real charactei', as long as Ave are dependent on such 

 interested authorities, next to impossible. It is deeply to 

 be regretted, in the interests of ethnological science, that 

 competent observers have not made tliem the subject of 

 study, and, in their own interest, that the more advanced 

 civilisation by which they are being instructed comes to 

 them unfiltered, and tainted with overmuch that is vilest and 

 most degrading in itself. That the Missionaries are doing 

 much, though not unmixed, good, seems to be the general 

 testimony ; but how much more beneficial would be their 

 action if with their zeal they combined knowledge, if they 

 were men of more cultivated intellects, and of a greater 

 social refinement, in one category of which, that is manners, 

 they are often much inferior to those they teach, and 

 thereby, as we have seen, abridge their own influence. 

 Hence it is much to be regretted that the standard of 

 native refinement will be lowered instead of raised, by 

 those who will have the power of moulding it. But it 

 is useless to complain. The rough work of a higher, but 

 inefficiently imparted, civilisation will go on as it has 

 begun ; and it will be a matter of interest hereafter to 



