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Updated: May 17, 2025
In years past the natives crowded the recruiting schooners by hundreds, driven by the greed for European luxuries, by desire for change, and inexperience; to-day this is the case in but very few and savage districts. Generally the natives have some idea of what they may expect; moreover, by trading with coprah they can buy all they need and want. They enlist nowadays from quite different motives.
We saw also edible fungus, exported to San Francisco, and thence to Hong Kong, solely for the use of the Chinese; tripang, or bêche-de-mer, a sort of sea-slug or holothuria, which, either living or dead, fresh or dried, looks equally untempting, but is highly esteemed by the Celestials; coprah, or dried cocoa-nut kernels, broken into small pieces in order that they may stow better, and exported to England and other parts, where the oil is expressed and oil-cake formed; and various other articles of commerce.
The production of coprah varies greatly on the different islands. While on some of them there is scarcely any to be had, there are others which are practically covered with cocoa-nut trees; this is chiefly the case on islands of volcanic origin, on which springs and rivers are very scarce.
Only by compelling each native to work for a definite period could a sufficient amount of labour be produced to-day; but such a system, while extremely beneficial to the race as a whole, stands but a poor chance of being introduced. The products of the islands are coprah, coffee, corn, cocoa and, of late years, cotton.
When the coprah has been bought and paid for, they all go to the store, where they buy whatever they need or think they need. The native of the coast districts to-day goes beyond needs to luxuries; he buys costly silks, such as he may once have seen in Queensland, and he samples sewing-machines or whatever else tempts him.
When they have found the passage through the reef, they pull down the sails with much noise and laughter, and come to anchor; then the whole crowd wades through the surf to the shore, with the loads of coprah, and waits patiently for business to begin.
M., who managed a cocoa-nut plantation for an Australian company with boys from the Solomons. My first task was to find servants, as none had dared accompany me from the New Hebrides to the ill-famed Santa Cruz Islands. Through his coprah trade Mr.
Next day we arrived at Epi, and I landed at Ringdove Bay. The station of the Messrs. F. and H. is one of the oldest in the islands. Besides running a plantation, they trade with the natives, and their small cutters go to all the neighbouring islands for coprah and other produce.
In consequence of competition, the prices for coprah and the wages of labour are unreasonably high, and the natives might profit greatly by this state of things if they knew the value of money or how to use it to advantage.
While the crew was loading the coprah and landing a quantity of goods, the host started his beloved gramophone for the general benefit, and a fearful hash of music drifted out into the waving palms. Presently some one announces that the cargo is all aboard, whereupon the supercargo puts down his paper and remarks that they are in a hurry.
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