MELANESIA AND ITS PEOPLE. 197 
The various villages, even if they provide any food at all for the crews 
(and most of them will do a little to that end), soon tire of feeding 
strangers, and so the missionary has to buy food for his crew and carry 
it about with him in addition to paying them. 
In Malaita and San Cristoval there never was any difficulty in ob- 
taining crews, nor was there any bargaining about price (but this was 
before the return of the Kanakas from Queensland and the consequent 
introduction of a very different set of ideas), whereas in Florida the 
missionary has had regularly to hire his crew and appoint a fixed rate 
of wages before leaving. In places other than Florida half a crown a 
week was reckoned very good pay. A man would gaily leave on a six 
weeks’ tour with no luggage beyond his pipe, shoulder-bag, and one 
loin-cloth. On the morning of departure our yard would be thronged 
with men and a spokesman from among them would approach and ask: 
“Are many going with you?”’ “‘Why?” “Oh, I did not know whether 
you had enough.”’ Our own experience was that men had to be turned 
away at such times, and a double crew could always be got. But 
though they were content with their pay, no one of them would have 
been willing to go for nothing, while at the same time the home duties of 
them all were practically nil. They and their people were being bene- 
fited very materially by the presence of the missionary, but it was per- 
haps too much to expect them to give their services free in carrying 
him about; moreover, they viewed the work as a chance of earning a 
little, and aah chances were rare. 
The Melanesian attitude with regard to presents is peculiar. A 
number of women would come with yams in baskets for sale; one special 
basket would be reported as “not for sale,” its contents (often inferior 
yams) were a gift—but it would have been the height of foolishness to 
accept such a gift without making a corresponding return. On being 
discharged from hospital a man would ask for a present in that he had 
been cured! Where there is no sense of debt there can be no showing 
of gratitude, gratitude being a spiritual and not a natural gift, a sense 
of the need to try to make a return for favors rendered. A Melanesian 
knows nothing of social duties; his life is lived apart from that of his 
fellows; he has no social sense, no dependence on his fellows, no common 
bonds a. union such as spring up in community life; he asks nothing 
from his fellows nor they anything from him; he owes them nothing, 
and in consequence his circumstances have never been such as would 
be likely to encourage the growth of gratitude. He has never received 
anything; he has nothing to return. 
The average Melanesian is a person of few worldly possessions; his 
house furniture consists of a few wooden bowls, a mortar for pounding 
yams or taro, a supply of vegetables smaller or larger according to his 
energy, an axe or a cane-knife; also a little stock of native money and 
perhaps a canoe. Of clothes he has practically none and the mis- 
