The Canton advocate. [volume] (Canton, D.T. [S.D.]) 1877-1897, 1880-10-28
COOLIES AND COCOANUTs IN FIJI

saved my life.-Casseu's Magazine.
COOLIES AND COCOANUTS IN FIJI
How the Nuts Are Picked. Packed
and Exported. and the Uses to Which
They Are Put.
Chief Justice Gorrie in Contemporary Review.
Our sojourn on the island for the
next ten days, however, far more than
compensated for the trouble. The
house is finely situated, on spur over
looking the bold hills of Nanua Lew.
The long Undu point closes in the view
toward the north, making the part of
the sea visible appear one great lake,
and all around us and up the slopes of
the hills and at our feet in the plain
the young cocoanuts are waving. Let
us 60 down to the beach to visit the
machinery houses, and thus get an idea
of the work upon an estate of this de-
scription. These vast heaps of cocoa
nuts are gathered from all parts of the
island, which has a circumference of
about thirty miles, and, after the ker-
mel has been extracted and dried on the
long tables or in the steam drying
house, which is the more improved
method, it is packed in bags for trans
port by the inter-inland steamers to
Levuka or by some of the small craft
which the merchants employ to collect
their cargoes. The price in the island
is about GA per ton. But after the
kernal has been disposed of the husk is
attacked, and by means of various ma
chimes popularity called devils" it is
torn into the fibre of which it is com
posed and cleaned Of its dust (which
is a valuable compost) and turned into
brushes or treated as fibre to be packed
into bales for export. All of the labor
ers who attend to these machines are
Polyneslans, many of them on Rambi
being the wild looking Tokalans from
the Gilbert and Marshall. Let us watch
for a moment the two who are from
New Hebrides turning the screw-press
by which the fibre is compressed into
bales. One of them is survivor of the
Carl massacre, who refused to 90 home
when one of her majesty's ships came
to repatriate the remnant who escaped.
Three of them felt they had enough of
the sea and its incidents, and perferred
to remain where they were They are
naked black giants, and as they throw
their force to the handle of the screw,
capstan-fashion, their muscles stand
out, and the whole frame is model of
Herculean power. The storehouse is
full of bales ready for the steamer by
which we expect 10 leave, and these
find a market in Sydney, while the
bristles go to England. We pass along
by the laborers' houses and there we
find the familiar coolies, and hear again
the "Salaam, Sahib," often heard when
l sojourned in Mauritius. Mr.. Hill is the
only proprietor yet who has had the
good sense to take up about one hun
dred of the first hip.load of Indian i'm
migrants. They live quite friendly
side by side with the Polynesians, whom
they term "Inglais.' A curious traffic
has arisen between them, the Polyne-
slams going out to the woods to hunt
the wild pigs, which they sell to the In
dams, who get much better wages than
themselves, for dollar pig; and on
the bread-fruit, which grows in profu-
sion, and other extras, the coolies are
becoming fat and sleek. Passing on,
we got into a cocoa-nut grove, which
stretches a long distance along the
coast, the lap of the full tide coming up
to the very roots of the first line of
trees. On some of the trees the nuts
are so thick as to defy computation
being indeed top crowded for growth.
AS many as three hundred have been
counted on one tree, but this is only
when they are as small as apples, for
they fall abundantly in the struggle of
the tlttest to survive. Still further along
the coast we come to other flats and
valleys which are also being cleared out
for planting with cocoanuts or cotton,
and 1t IS easy to perceive that the ex-
ports from this one island alone will,
IN not many years, equal the exports
from the whole colony when L arrived.
On one occasion, when the ladies went
by boat on a picnic to locality called
Georgi ia, where the proprietor has an
other house, walked with Mr.. Hunt
er, the chief police magistrate of Levu-
ka, along the coast distance which
was stated to be six miles, but which in
the heat Of the day, without a breath
of wind in the woods, I took to be
double the distance. The immense
vatu trees were shedding their long tas-
sells of pink and white flowers which
filled the whole air with a delicate per-
fume. The path passed through tim
Der which from its majestic growth
showed the richness of the soil, and on
our return in the evening by sea we
had good opportunity Of viewing the
finely wooded hills, which, even in the
days when Commodore Wilkes made
his survey Of the group, caused Rambi
to be distinguished among the islands.
The Iinonee, the successor Of the Pref
ty Jane, and a steamer more worthy of
the colony, arrived all too soon to
cut short our expeditions in search of
wood pigeons and wild pigs, and our
at lawn tennis when the sun
was dipping behind the mountains of
Vanua Lavu. She was filled up with
cotton and copra from the Windward,
with bales of fibre from Undu point,
and when she had taken in the Ram
bi bales, with some hundreds of bags
of copra from Yuma point, Taviuni, she
sailed for Levuka, via Savu-savu bay,
bearing us homeward to Ovalau, which,
after all, can hold its own in loneliness
with any island in the group.
My yarn is spun, and I will have ac-
complished what I intended if it Gre
ates some greater interest in the colo
ny, and enables the reader to perceive
that we are not living among club-bran-
dishing savages, but in settled COM
and that the little we have yet
been able to achieve has been but the
first feeble efforts of young giant be-
ginning to feel the limits which he will
soon use with greater and ever-increas-
ing power and effect.
Poisoned Atmosphere,
And poisoned water, having lost their purity and
become contaminated with the rank efiuvium and
noxious soluble products of decaying vegetation,
breed not only malaria in its various forms, but
give rise to disorders of the stomach, liver and
bowels, always of dangerous character. No an
tidote to malarial poison has yet been discovered
which has so signally demonstrated its remedial
yalue R;ttor- which l,,,ool,,