very worst criminals are taken to the Isle of Pines, a little coral spot on the sea about thirty miles southward, where prisoners can not escape except by boat. The other convicts are scattered over New Caledonia, some in penitentiaries, but more at work on farms and in the houses. Many convicts by diligence and good behavior have earned

the right to have farms for themselves, and some remain on the island after finishing their sentences.

We spend a while in Noumea practicing our French on the storekeepers, changing our shillings and pence into francs and sous. We buy some of the curious weapons used by the natives, and enjoy the bananas, pineapples, oranges, and cocoanuts, which cost so little that we can get all we want to eat for a very few sous.

We call upon the governor, and by his assistance make

a trip into the interior, going from village to village visiting the natives. We learn that New Caledonia is quite large. It is as wide as Porto Rico, and more than twice as long.

Noumea has many native tribes; some of them are of the Papuan Race, of which we shall see more as we go on with our journey. The Papuans inhabit New Guinea and many of the smaller islands of the Pacific. They are far different from the Australians, and not at all like the Malays, from whom come our little brown cousins of the Philippine Islands. They have dark faces, frizzly hair, and in features are more like negroes than white men. They wear but few clothes, some of them going almost naked.

The different Papuan tribes vary somewhat in appearance and customs. Here in Caledonia they are hospitable and quiet among themselves, although they have frequent wars with their neighbors. Each tribe has its chief who acts as ruler and leads in its wars. The people live in villages of circular houses, each of which has a top like a cone. The houses are made of wood and thatched with grass and leaves. They have narrow doors and no chimneys, so that when we visit them the smoke makes our eyes smart. We ask one of the chiefs why he does not have chimneys; and he replies that the smoke does no harm, and it keeps out the mosquitoes.

We learn that the island has excellent timber, including the kauri and other pine trees which we saw in New Zealand. There are mines in the mountains not far from the coast, which yield coal, iron, and copper, and also nickel and cobalt used for plating iron and other metals. In the lowlands the French have established sugar, tobacco, and

coffee plantations, and rice and corn are also grown. They have pretty little one-story houses of wood roofed with galvanized iron. They have large pastures and fine cattle and sheep. The island is healthful, and were it not for the convicts, it might make a pleasant home.

"They have pretty little one-story houses of wood roofed with galvanized iron."

The French own also the Loyalty Islands and some islets not far from New Caledonia; but their population is small, and they are not of enough importance for us to go out of our way to look at them.

We shall not be able to visit the Society Islands, the Marquesas (mär-ka'sas), and the many other little islands which form the Paumotu (pä-oo-mo'too) and other archipelagoes lying in the Pacific Ocean northeast of New Zealand. These islands all belong to the French, and they are governed by a French governor who lives at

Papeiti (pä-pā-ē'tē) in Tahiti (tä'hē-tē), the largest of the Society Group.

These French islands are of but little importance. Their only export of value is copra or dried cocoanut meat, which is extensively used in soap making, and their people are few in number and rather lazy than otherwise. They are not unlike the natives of the Samoan and Tongan islands, among whom we shall travel later on. They have dark brown complexions, broad noses, rather thick lips, and beautiful teeth. The men are tall and well formed, and the women are fine looking. They were formerly cannibals, but many of them are now Christians.

CON

14. NEW GUINEA

ONSIDERING Australia a continent, New Guinea is, next to Greenland, the largest island on the globe. It is longer than the distance from New York to Omaha, and its width in places is as great as the distance from Boston to Washington. It would make more than seven states the size of Kentucky, and about thirty-eight as big as Massachusetts.

Turn to your map and look at it. What is it like? A crocodile? Yes, a little; but more like a gigantic bird squatting on the Arafura Sea and Torres Strait, its islandfeathered tail extending eastward into the Pacific, and its ragged head about to swallow some of the islands of the Malay Archipelago.

This vast country was discovered by Menezes, a Portuguese navigator, in 1526, only thirty-four years after