The site of Noumea seems to be the most unfortunate that could be chosen.  It is a barren, rocky spot, divested of all luxuriance of vegetation, and the nearest water, a brook called Pont des Francais, is ten miles away.  The appearance of the town, which fronts the harbor in the form of an amphitheatre, the houses and gardens rising higher and higher as they recede from the sea, tended somewhat to reassure the explorer, who had been wondering that human stupidity should have been equal to selecting in a tropical country, and in one of the best-watered islands of the world, such a situation for its capital.  Wells are of little account, for the water thus obtained is at the level of the sea, and always salt.  The population has to depend upon the rain that falls on roofs, and as the cleanliness of these is of prime importance, domesticating pigeons is strictly forbidden.  This might not be much of a deprivation in most places, but in New Caledonia, of all the world, there is a kind of giant pigeon as large as a common hen!  This is the noton, (sic) the Carpophage Goliath of the naturalist.

The hotel at Noumea was a kind of barracks, with partitions so slight that every guest was forced to hear every sound in his neighbors’ rooms.  M. Garnier, to escape this inconvenience, purchased a garden-plot, had a cottage built in a few days, and so became a proprietor in Oceanica.  Before setting out on his exploring expedition into the interior he tried to interest the government in a plan for cisterns to supply the city with water—­a project easy of execution from the natural conformation of the locality.  But his scheme received no encouragement from the old-fogyish authorities.  They were at that moment entertaining one which for simplicity reminded Garnier of the egg problem of Columbus.  This was to distill the sea-water.  He made a calculation of the cost of thus supplying each of the sixteen hundred inhabitants with five quarts of water a day, which showed that the proposition was impracticable under the circumstances.

From the showing of official accounts, this French colony of New Caledonia must be one of the most absurd that exists.  The military and naval force far exceeds in number the whole civil population; and this, too, when the natives are quiet and submissive, few in number, and fast dying out through the inordinate use of the worst kind of tobacco, pulmonary consumption and other concomitants of civilization not necessary to enumerate.  Contrast this with the rich and populous province of Victoria, which has only three hundred and fifty soldiers; with Brisbane, which has only sixteen to a population of one hundred thousand; and finally Tasmania, which has only seven soldiers for two hundred thousand colonists!