value in Australia, and he had
therefore made no attempt to buy it.'

But the pearl fishery on these coasts is becoming less lucrative every
year, and it is now falling almost entirely into the hands of natives,
who can stay under water longer than men of our own race, and seem to be
endowed with greater powers of endurance. As for the 'labour trade' of
which we all have heard so much, Mr. Romilly gives us to understand that
it is dying out. It arose under the stimulus which the American war gave
to cotton growing, and to the sudden necessity for procuring assistance
for the planters. At first, the natives were found ready enough to
volunteer for the service, but the treatment they received was not
calculated to encourage the spirit of volunteering. Then all sorts of
artifices were tried to deceive them. Sometimes the labour-hunters
pretended to be missionaries. 'On the usual question being asked, "Where
shippy come?" they would reply, "Missionary." Perhaps they would all
pretend to sing a hymn very slowly, while the hatches would be left
open, and several tins of biscuits would be put into the hold.'
Curiosity would gradually draw the natives aboard, and then the hatches
would be clapped on, and the man-stealers made off for Queensland or
Fiji. It is to be hoped that Mr. Romilly is right in stating that these
practices have ceased, but unless we are mistaken, accounts have
appeared in colonial journals, within a very recent period, of organized
raids upon these coasts for the purpose of carrying off the natives. It
is needless to say, that a sentiment of hostility to all white men is
likely to remain as the permanent result of this abominable system.

The fact is, that the white men who had the run of these islands down to
a few years ago were chiefly the off-scourings of other countries. They
found among the savages far fewer vices than they brought with them from
the civilized world. Some of them had run away to escape from the
vengeance of the laws which they had outraged; others were attracted by
the freedom which an entirely new life opened up to them. From them have
sprung a brood of half-castes who are the curse of the islands--like
many other half-castes, they manage to combine the evil qualities of
both races. The chief traders along the Pacific are now becoming much
more respectable. Some of them, indeed, appear to emulate the style and
condition of the prosperous English merchant. Mr. Romilly knows suc