The cultivation of copra—The labour traffic; when slavery really existed, and the traffic in natives of to-day.

Copra is the staple industry of the New Hebrides, as they say in the geography books, but the output of it is about as reliable as the rainfall, for the supply depends not, as might be expected, on the demand, but on the whim of the natives; if they feel industrious, or are hard pressed for tobacco and provisions, they will go into the bush and bring in a sufficient quantity to meet their needs; but as a rule they will only collect it from their own particular trees near their village and will not go far afield, where they could get double the amount for half the labour.

Cocoa-nut palms grow in patches all over the islands, and particularly along the coast, and they make a charming picture viewed from the sea, with their swaying trunks, and the quaint cluster of leaves at the top: storm-tossed as they are, owing to {184} being top-heavy, they all lean in one direction, the way the wind blows strongest, and give the islands a wild appearance. The rustle of their leaves as one walks beneath them makes a strange noise, and the falling of the nuts on a windy day is a thing one has to be careful to avoid, as a good-sized nut would seriously injure, if not kill, the person on whom it fell.

I have seen a natural grove of these trees nearly a mile long; the dark stems and sage-green leaves against a blue sky, a bright yellow road underneath which scintillated in the sun, and at its far end was all blurred by the heat which rose as heat does from a stove making everything quiver, presenting a beautiful picture not easily forgotten.

All along the coast of Malekula and Tanna the cocoa-nuts grow in abundance. At Samari, New Guinea, there is one giant tree standing by two others and away from the rest, the height of which has been the means of many a sovereign changing hands. For the first thing a new chum, fresh trader, or captain is asked is to guess its height, and few ever guess it correctly, for a more deceptive-looking tree was never born. It grows just behind the village and towers over everything, and is a landmark that guides many a wanderer by land and sea.
THE ISLAND OF SAMARI, BRITISH NEW GUINEA
{185}

The copra trade is of course carried on all over these and the adjoining islands, but one sees more of it going on in the New Hebrides than in the Solomons or New Guinea.

Copra is the white of the cocoa-nut and is not eaten by the natives at all; all they do with the nuts is to drink the milk and use the fibre. Nearly everything out there is made either of the leaves or fibre, and even the trunks of the tree come in very handy for manufacturing articles. When gathering copra the natives scale the trees to get at the nuts, and having collected a good supply they sit down, break them open, and lay them out to dry in the sun.

The oil of the cocoa-nut is chiefly made in England and America, and the only process the nut goes through in the islands is that of drying. When the nuts have been collected they are split in halves very carefully with an axe, and then the halves are laid out in the sun. Very soon the heat loosens the kernel, which comes away and is then broken up into pieces. It is again put in the sun on mats, where it remains until it is thoroughly dried; then it is collected in sacks and sold by weight. Some traders, however, go in for making cocoa-nut oil, but not many, and if they do, a different process {186} has to be gone through. The nut, instead of being split open, has the husk cracked on a sharp pointed stake, it is then torn off and the inside split in two. Next the kernel is scraped out on an iron scraper, which is attached to a stool on which the native squats during the operation, and the white part drops from the scraper into a vessel underneath, and is then put into a cask to rot, after which it is pounded and made into a pulp and placed at the end of a tilted trough—a hollowed-out log or old canoe—until all the oil runs out of it. This oil is then strained and put into casks.

The stench of a copra boat is proverbial, and this, without the copra bugs, is enough to make one keep clear of them as much as possible. Each trader has his copra shed and drying ground, and when Burns Philp’s trading boats call, the sacks of copra are taken out by the resident trader’s “boys” and again sold, this time to be shipped home for further handling. When the oil is extracted in England, nearly double the quantity is obtained from the same amount of nuts, and the refuse is made into cakes for cattle.
A TRADER RECEIVING COCOA-NUTS, AOBA, NEW HEBRIDES

When the trading steamers come it is quite an event in the monotonous life of many of the small traders. Mails and provisions are sought with an {187} eagerness that is delightful, for when a man has talked nothing but native languages, and seen nothing but black men for weeks, these visits are naturally the important event, and a newspaper or two, if such luxuries can be found, no matter how old, are seized on by traders as if they were gold.

Copra is practically the only industry that flourishes without artificial aid. Even that is now being helped along, as the natives see there is money in it, and some of the thrifty chiefs are making their men plant the trees and look after them.

Traders and settlers now have plantations of coffee, bananas, and a few other profitable products, as I have already mentioned, and this industry is beginning to be successful. Taros and yams are cultivated by the natives, and require a good deal of attention, and so nearly all the work is left to the women. Yams vary from about the size of a small marrow to a much larger affair. The “C............