HINTS TO TRAVELLERS. 
303 
protecting the occupier from any loss for im¬ 
provements, plant, or other expenditure. All 
these contracts should, however, be registered at 
the English Consulate before the purchase money 
is paid ; and some pressure is generally necessary 
to get them completed, as delay at present im¬ 
pedes so much of the routine business of the 
island. These delays are due, however, not so 
much to supineness or want of interest on 
the part of the Hovas, as to their imperfect 
acquaintance at present with the working of the 
new order of things which is gradully being 
introduced amongst them. 
Here, as in New Zealand, South Central Africa, 
and in fact every place where the original inheri¬ 
tors of the soil are the weaker race, the “ Land 
Question ” is a “ burning one.” It is the source 
of endless complications and disturbances, and it 
is most important that a speedy end should be 
put to this very undesirable condition of things, 
by a well considered scheme of long leases, duly 
authenticated and registered. Unprincipled men 
have been known to dispose of the same plot of 
ground over and over again, and of course 
such roguery can only be checkmated by all 
transactions connected with the purchase, hire, 
or sale of landed property passing through a 
regularly constituted Government department. 
Nevertheless, our sympathies in this matter are 
