HENRI ROCHEFORT ON NEW CALEDONIA.

Kumara Times, Issue 1156, 12 June 1880, Page 4

HENRI ROCHEFORT ON NEW CALEDONIA.

Count Victor-Henri de RochefortLnoay, better known as Monsieur Henri Rochefort, the most conspicuous Frenchman who remains in exile under the Third Republic, has just published a noteworthy book relating his experience as a political convict in New Caledonia. It appears, indeed, under the form of a romance, entitled the “ Evadb,” but there are many indications that it is a pesonal record of some of the moving adventures which happened to himself while actually detained at Noumea. He gives an account, half ludicrous, half melancholly of the penal settlement to which he was sent, and every page of his narritive is alive with that sportive and astonishing humor which has made him so redoubtable an apponent, and so amusing a writer. M. Rochefort assures his readers that the geographical form of New Caledonia is no more poetic than that of a boot-leg, to which it has a remarkable likeness. He observes that Captain Cook, taking a true British commercial view of his discovery, abandonded it to France on acount of its aterlity, for that, being steadfastly determined to pfesevere in its resemblance to the boot-leg he has already mentioned, it produces no more than a morsel of leather. The natives devour a sort of green clay to assuage the panga of hunger, and support their stomachs against the void of utter eruption which is abhorred by nature. They are nourished, however, when they can really get food, upon liaards, spiders of a hairy sort, and a kind of cockchafer, all of which they eat alive with an evident sense of relish. The climate of the country is such that whenever Noumea is not a cistern it becomes an oven. The houses are no more substantial than though they were made of packing cases, and even the official building, to which the pompous name of “ the Governor’s Palace” is given, can only be compared to a Swiss chalet. The European population is composed of the worst sweepings of society—-political and financial riff raff, dead-beats from Monaco, swindlers from the Stock Exchange, runaway lads who have brought disgrace on their families and ladies of no character. These persons naturally form a strong contrast to the ideal patriots who figure In M. Rochefort’s novel and he has drawn some types of character with a masterhand—types also which are quite new. It is perhaps saying quite enough for a novel to record that it is a faithful and vivacious portraiture of manners, containing passages of true wit and pathos ; but it Is nevertheless not easy to lay down M. Rochefort’s book without a feeling of disappointment. For a considerable time he was the most popular man in France. He wss courted both by the Press and the Government. Now, here is this ex- ' Minister, this brilliant writer and popular tribune, without place, calling, or profession* when somewhat past middle age, and constrained to write for his living.