CHAPTER XXI.

CLIMATE OF NEW CALEDONIA—­SCENERY—­NATURAL PRODUCTIONS—­ANIMALS—­FISHES—­NATIVES—­THEIR MANNERS AND CUSTOMS—­DUELLING—­GAMBLING—­L
ICENTIOUSNESS—­LANGUAGE.

Ere I proceed on my long journey, I must pause for a little to describe more particularly the country, which I am about to quit, perhaps for ever, and the manners of its savage inhabitants.  The climate of New Caledonia is exceedingly variable at all seasons of the year.  I have experienced at Stuart’s Lake, in the month of July, every possible change of weather within twelve hours; frost in the morning, scorching heat at noon; then rain, hail, snow.  The winter season is subject to the same vicissitudes, though not in so extreme a degree:  some years it continues mild throughout.  These vicissitudes may, I think, be ascribed to local causes—­proximity to, or distance from the glaciers of the Rocky Mountains, the direction of the winds, the aspect of the place, &c.  Fort St. James is so situated as to be completely exposed to the north-east wind, which wafts on its wings the freezing vapours of the glaciers.  The instant the wind shifts to this quarter, a change of temperature is felt; and when it continues to blow for a few hours, it becomes so cold that, even in midsummer, small ponds are frozen over.  The surrounding country is mountainous and rocky.

Frazer’s Lake is only about thirty miles distant from Fort St. James (on Stuart’s Lake), yet there they raise abundance of vegetables, potatoes and turnips, and sometimes even wheat and barley.  The post stands in a valley open to the south-west,—­a fine champaign country, of a sandy soil; it is protected from the north-east winds by a high ridge of hills.  The winter seldom sets in before December, and the navigation is generally open about the beginning of May.

Few countries present a more beautiful variety of scenery than New Caledonia.  Stuart’s Lake and its environs I have already attempted to describe, but many such landscapes present themselves in different parts of the country, where towering mountains, hill and dale, forest and lake, and verdant plains, blended together in the happiest manner, are taken in by the eye at a glance.  Some scenes there are that recall forcibly to the remembrance of a son of Scotia, the hills and glens and “bonnie braes” of his own poor, yet beloved native land.  New Caledonia, however, has the advantage over the Old, of being generally well wooded, and possessed of lakes of far greater magnitude; unfortunately, however, the woods are decaying rapidly, particularly several varieties of fir, which are being destroyed by an insect that preys on the bark:  when the country is denuded of this ornament, and its ridges have become bald, it will present a very desolate appearance.  In some parts of the country, the poplar and aspen tree are to be found, together with a species of birch, of whose bark canoes are built; but there is neither hard wood nor cedar.