The English steamers fly the flag of Burns, Philp & Company, the great Australian firm which trades with numerous island groups of the South Seas. Their steamers touch the Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands, stop for a few days at Vila, then call in a four weeks' cruise at nearly all the plantations in the islands. They carry the mail and ply a profitable trade with the planters; they also do errands for the colonists in Sydney, procuring anything from a needle to a horse or a house. Being practically without serious competitors they can set any price they please on commodities, so that they are a power in the islands and control the trade of the group; all the more so as many planters are dependent on them for large loans. To me, Burns, Philp & Company were extremely useful, as on board their ships I could always find money, provisions and articles for barter, send my collections to Vila, and occasionally travel from one island to another. The French line is run by the Messageries Maritimes, on quite a different plan: it is merely for mail-service and does not do any trading. Its handsome steamer travels in three weeks from Sydney to Noumea and Port Vila, visits about three plantations and leaves the islands after one week. This line offers the shortest and most comfortable connection with Sydney, taking eight days for the trip, while the English steamers take eleven. The port of entrance to the group is Port Vila, chosen for its proximity to New Caledonia and Sydney; it is a good harbour, though somewhat narrow. CHAPTER I NOUMEA AND PORT VILA On April 26, 1910, I arrived at Noumea by the large and very old mail-steamer of the Messageries Maritimes, plying between Marseilles and Noumea, which I had boarded at Sydney. Noumea impresses one very unfavourably. A time of rapid development has been followed by a period of stagnation, increased by the suppression of the penitentiary, the principal source of income to the town. The latter has never grown to the size originally planned and laid out, and its desolate squares and decayed houses are a depressing sight. Two or three steamers and a few sailing-vessels are all the craft the harbour contains; a few customs officers and discharged convicts loaf on the pier, where some natives from the Loyalty Islands sleep or shout. Parallel streets lead from the harbour to the hills that fence the town to the landward. Under roofs of corrugated sheet-iron run the sidewalks, along dark stores displaying unappetizing food, curios and cheap millinery. At each corner is a dismal sailors' bar, smelling of absinthe. Then we come to an empty, decayed square, where a crippled, noseless "Gallia" stands on a fountain; some half-drunk coachmen lounge dreaming on antediluvian cabs, and a few old convicts sprawl on benches.