on the dark vest of forest.  The total area in use is near ten thousand acres.  Hedges of fragrant lime enclose, broad avenues intersect them.  You shall walk for hours in parks of palm-tree alleys, regular, like soldiers on parade; in the recesses of the hills you may stumble on a mill-house, toiling and trembling there, fathoms deep in superincumbent forest.  On the carpet of clean sward, troops of horses and herds of handsome cattle may be seen to browse; and to one accustomed to the rough luxuriance of the tropics, the appearance is of fairyland.  The managers, many of them German sea-captains, are enthusiastic in their new employment.  Experiment is continually afoot:  coffee and cacao, both of excellent quality, are among the more recent outputs; and from one plantation quantities of pineapples are sent at a particular season to the Sydney markets.  A hundred and fifty thousand pounds of English money, perhaps two hundred thousand, lie sunk in these magnificent estates.  In estimating the expense of maintenance quite a fleet of ships must be remembered, and a strong staff of captains, supercargoes, overseers, and clerks.  These last mess together at a liberal board; the wages are high, and the staff is inspired with a strong and pleasing sentiment of loyalty to their employers.

Seven or eight hundred imported men and women toil for the company on contracts of three or of five years, and at a hypothetical wage of a few dollars in the month.  I am now on a burning question:  the labour traffic; and I shall ask permission in this place only to touch it with the tongs.  Suffice it to say that in Queensland, Fiji, New Caledonia, and Hawaii it has been either suppressed or placed under close public supervision.  In Samoa, where it still flourishes, there is no regulation of which the public receives any evidence; and the dirty linen of the firm, if there be any dirty, and if it be ever washed at all, is washed in private.  This is unfortunate, if Germans would believe it.  But they have no idea of publicity, keep their business to themselves, rather affect to “move in a mysterious way,” and are naturally incensed by criticisms, which they consider hypocritical, from men who would import “labour” for themselves, if they could afford it, and would probably maltreat them if they dared.  It is said the whip is very busy on some of the plantations; it is said that punitive extra-labour, by which the thrall’s term of service is extended, has grown to be an abuse; and it is complained that, even where that term is out, much irregularity occurs in the repatriation of the discharged.  To all this I can say nothing, good or bad.  A certain number of the thralls, many of them wild negritos from the west, have taken to the bush, harbour there in a state partly bestial, or creep into the back quarters of the town to do a day’s stealthy labour under the nose of their proprietors.  Twelve were arrested one morning in my own boys’ kitchen.  Farther in the