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 “Chief’s Yam” is pale pink in colour, and the ordinary ones are like a white mealy potato. In taste they resemble a cross between an artichoke and a potato. Nearly all the villages possess a yam-house, which is a sort of platform made of bamboo with a thatched roof over it; the yams are hung from the top or lie on the platform to dry. {188} There is a kind of arrowroot which grows wild in the bush, besides a few other native vegetables, but the latter are not of much account unless they are cultivated. The knowledge of agriculture learned by some of the natives who have returned from Queensland comes in useful. Sometimes evidences of it are to be seen here and there, but it is a lamentable fact that they do not make better use of their opportunities. Whilst in Queensland they work well, especially the women, and nowadays there is no difficulty experienced in getting labour from these islands. When the labour boat calls, the recruiting agent is soon able to fill his vacancies, and the men he brings back laden with goods make an excellent bait for others. When engaging the natives a small quantity of money in advance is, I believe, paid to them as an inducement to go, and then they sign on for two, three, or more years to work at the Queensland Sugar Refining Company’s places at Bundaberg, Mackay, and elsewhere on the Queensland coast. When there, they live chiefly in compounds, and seem to enjoy the change of life. Their chief duties are to cut the sugar-cane, stack it, and put {189} it on the trolleys, which carry it to the refinery works. [Illustration 65: COPRA BOYS OFF TO THE SHORE, NEW HEBRIDES] The tremendous heat of these fields is beyond description, owing to the number of the canes. Many of the natives who have gone for a term of three years become so fond of the life that they remain on for much longer periods. Many have been known to petition the Queensland Government to be allowed to remain in the country altogether. They mix up with natives from all the islands, and intermarry in quite a friendly way. If by chance a native of Malekula happened to be left, on his return, in the Solomon islands by mistake, he would probably be made into mincemeat: but abroad they get on very well together. The labour trade in New Guinea was stopped some years ago, partly by Governor Macgregor, and partly through the natives’ objection to work. In this trait they resemble the Fijians, and consider work is a form of slavery and so beneath them.