CRUISE OF THE MEG MERRILIES. GERMAN PROCEEDINGS IN THE ISLANDS.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 249, 24 March 1888, Page 3

CRUISE OF THE MEG MERRILIES. GERMAN PROCEEDINGS IN THE ISLANDS.

The Meg Merrilies, which has returned horn a cruise in the islands, reports that at Aoba, she sighted the topsail-schooner Moonta from Townsville with a party of diggers on board prospecting for black sand, but they were tcturning without having found a patch, a sample of which induced them to come down to the New Hebrides.

One thing is very noticeablo in the New Hebrides, and that is the increasing number of trading 1 stations. But the increase consists more of off-shoots from the head stations than independent new establishments, and most are the property of the New Hebrides Company, and the head station of a district is generally managed by an Englishman ; the next in importance by Frenchmen, who are many of them lihere's, and the third class is in charge of natives, ; geneially of some other island, The trade | consists of little else than pipos, tobacco and i rum. This liquor has superseded the old i square gin, and is manufactured in Noumea specially for the Island trade. It has been generally understood, that if a man would not fight after getting outside of a low nips of Havannah Harbour gin, he was either a coward or did not like lighting, but this new brand of rum has entirely superseded the old "square oh !" in that respect. As a sample of German justice to natives, the following is mentioned. Sometime in November, a Queensland vessel landod a man who. before he recruited, was implicated, if he was not the principal, in the murder of a white. On his landing, lie was arrested and forwarded as a prisoner to Duke of York ibland, the head-quarters of the Government, and as there was no gaol available, an iron band was riveted round his body and he was kept Chained to a tree. When the Meg left, the only thing to be decided wa«< whether he was to be hung there or on tho scene 9*' the murder ; the inhabitants of which, by the way, were very properly punished by H. I. M.S. Albatross or Adler. Numbers were killed, several villages burned and the peoplo dispersed. This, according to native ideas, would end the aflair, oven though tho actual murderer escaped with his life. Now for the other side of the scale. About the same time a? the above arrest took place, or perhaps a little later, and at only about 20 miles Irom Kapsu, the place where the two white men vere murdered and terribly avenged, a German trader had some row with the natives of a village and commenced to burn some houses down. Some natives attempted to prevent him, when ho shot one. This man simply changed his station, and has, 80 far not oven been called on by the authorities for an explanation. After calling at Eononga on Jan. B, to land three of the Meg's crew, we anchored at Rubiana on January 10th., where we laid out some very dirty N.YV. weather. The Uvea come in for shelter the next clay. She is recruiting for Samoa and makes no disguise of giving sniders. She wanted to ship some boats' crews to go to JNJalatta, ana promised sniders and ammunition in payment for the trip. This vessel has recruited something liko three hundred men on Malatta alone, and every man was paid for with a snider. There is no Govern- I ment Agent, the recruiting and landing being entirely under tho control of the captain. Tho Upolu has been doing the same for some three years in tho New Hebrides but she does not get so many men as she has to take them to Samoa, whereas the Uvea's men are transhipped at Mioko for the same place.