336 AUSTEALASIA. 



In the New Hebrides the women are as a rule very harshly treated. Many 

 things permitted to the husband are declared " taboo " for the wife by the chiefs 

 and priests. The latter are potent Avizards, who control wind and rain, conjure 

 or expel the spirits and ailments, hold converse with the ancestry, the gods of the 

 tribe, and communicate their pleasure to the living. They formerly presided at the 

 cannibal banquets, for anthropophagy, till recently more prevalent in eastern 

 Melanesia than in any other oceanic region, had assumed a religious character. 

 Prisoners of war and the enemy slain in battle were devoured, in order to acquire 

 their strength and courage ; but the taste for human flesh had also introduced the 

 custom of eating their own dead, or else exchanging them for those of friendly 

 tribes. 



These practices could not fail to earn for the Santa-Cruz and New Hebrides 

 natives a reputation for ferocity and wickedness. Nevertheless there can be no 

 doubt that in the mutual relations between Melanesiaus and whites the latter have 

 been far more treacherous and cruel than the former. If Bishop Patteson was 

 killed in the island of Nukapu in 1871, he fell by the hand of a man who had 

 just been robbed of his children. According to Markham, the natives of Erro- 

 mango who murdered the missionary Williams make use of firearms only against 

 the whites, whom they regard as kidnappers. In their local wars between 

 kindred tribes they woidd consider it disgraceful to eraplo}^ the new weapons. 



Cannibalism survives only in a small number of islands ; in the southern groups, 

 the most frequented by Europeans, it has become a mere tradition. In point of 

 fact, several of the New Hebrides, although not officially annexed by any European 

 power, belong none the less to the whites, who govern the people and make them 

 work on the plantations, thus gradually reducing them to the condition of the 

 proletariate classes in Europe. 



Anatom (Aneitium), lying nearest to New Caledonia, is exclusively in- 

 habited by Christian converts who can both read and write. In some other 

 islands, also, the Christian congregations already outnumber the pagan element. 

 But Espiritu Santo, largest of the New Hebrides, despite the brilliant future 

 predicted for it by its discoverer, Queiros, is one of those that have been least 

 visited by Europeans, and that still possess but slight economic value. Its vast 

 and perfectly sheltered "port" of Vera Cruz, where "four thousand vessels 

 might easily find room," has remained almost deserted ; nor has any planter yet 

 settled on the banks of the " Jordan." 



In 1828 the discovery of sandalwood in Erromango gave rise to a nefarious 

 trafiic with China, which gradually ceased with the disappearance of the forests. 

 The traders added to the traffic in sandalwood that of "living ebony," and 

 especially of women. 



The commercial centre of the New Hebrides is the island of Yaté, or Efat, 

 better known by its English name of Sandwich. Some European settlers have 

 established themselves near Forf Huvaunah and in other parts of the island, where 

 they cultivate maize, rice, cotton, tobacco and coffee ; in 1882 the coffee planta- 

 tions alone comprised one hundred thousand shrubs. But Sandwich, although 



