The New Hebridean Men and Women. 143 
so. When you see the different modes of life which they respec- 
tively lead, you cease to wonder at the miserable appearance 
of the women as compared with the men. The latter, naturally 
the stronger, have little hard work and plenty to eat; while the 
former, naturally the weaker, have much hard work, compara- 
tively little to eat, and, besides, receive much ill-treatment and 
and indignity. The result is, as a matter of course, that the 
men are strong, well formed, and consequential; while the 
women are bent in form, meagre in person, worn and dejected- 
looking. 
All the men are polygamists, generally having three or four 
wives apiece; slaves I should rather call them, for they are 
treated quite as such, having to do all manner of work for their 
lord and husband, who, when out of temper, beats them 
unmercifully, and even kills them, when it suits him to 
do so. 
In nothing, perhaps, is there a greater difference between a 
Christian and a heathen people than in the treatment of 
women; and when the inhabitants of one of these islands 
abandon heathenism in favour of Christianity, there is no one 
feels the immense benefit the change produces, more than these 
poor, down-trodden, much-abused women. 
As a natural consequence arising from this intermingling of a 
dark with a light-coloured race, the New Hebrideans exhibit a 
great many shades, ranging from the copper-coloured tint of 
the Fili natives to the dusky hue of the Eramangans; while 
their hair varies from light brown to jet black, and is generally 
of a woolly nature. Apropos of hair, it is worthy of notice 
that the men and women here reverse our fashion, for the 
women wear it short and the men let it grow long. The latter 
grow little hair upon their faces, and what they have got, they 
are (in imitation of their betters) commencing to cut off, 
operating principally on the upper lip. Since this practice was 
