my next expedition was to include the forest camps to the south-west of the island, and a visit to the isle of pines, an ocean paradise of which i had read much in the days of my youth; wherefore i looked forward with some anticipation to seeing it with the eyes of flesh. there would be no steamer for three or four days, so the next day i took a trip over to the peninsula of ducos, to the northward of the bay.
the glory of ducos as a penal settlement is past. there are now only a few “politicals,” and traitors, and convicts condemned a perpétuité; that is to say, prisoners for life, with no hope of remission or release. a considerable proportion of them are in hospital, dragging out the remainder of their hopeless days, waiting until this or the other disease gives them final release.
the peninsula of ducos. in the background is ile nou with the central criminal dep?t.
on another part of the peninsula, in a semi-circular[195] valley, hemmed in by precipitous hills, there is a piteously forlorn colony, that of the liberés collectifs; that is to say, convicts who have been released from prison, but are compelled to live in one place under supervision. they are mostly men whose health has broken down under the work of the bagne, or who have been released on account of old age.
they live in wretched little cabins on the allotments, which it is their business to keep in some sort of cultivation. they have the poor privileges of growing beards and moustaches if they like, and of wearing blue dungaree instead of grey, and of earning a few pence a week by selling their produce to the administration.
this is not much, but they are extremely proud of it, and hold themselves much higher than the common for?at. they do not consider themselves prisoners, but only “in the service of the administration.” i have seldom, if ever, seen a more forlorn and hopeless collection of human beings in all my wanderings.
there was, however, a time when ducos was one of the busiest and most important of the new caledonian settlements, for it was here that the[196] most notorious and most dangerous of the communards were imprisoned after their suppression in 1872. here lived louise michel, the high-priestess of anarchy, devoting herself to the care of the sick and the sorrowing with a self-sacrifice which rivalled even that of the sisters of mercy, and here, too, henri rochefort lived in a tiny stone house in the midst of what was once a garden, and the delight of his days of exile.
louise michel’s house has disappeared in the course of improvements. rochefort’s house is a roofless ruin in the midst of a jungle which takes a good deal of getting through. it was from here that he made his escape with pain and humbert and two other communards in an english cutter, which may or may not have been in the harbour for that particular purpose.
one night they did not turn up to muster, but it was explained that rochefort and humbert had gone fishing, and the others were away on a tour “with permission.” as they did not return during the night search-parties were sent out for them. meanwhile, they had kept a rendezvous at midnight with the cutter’s boat and got aboard.
the next day was a dead calm; and, as the cutter[197] lay helpless at her anchor, the fugitives concealed themselves about her cargo as best they could. the hue and cry was out all over the coast, but the searchers looked everywhere but just the one place where they were. if the next day had been calm they must have been caught, for the authorities had decided on a thorough search of every vessel in the harbour. happily for them a breeze sprang up towards the next morning, and the cutter slipped quietly out. once beyond the outward reef the fugitives were in neutral water, and, being political prisoners, they could not be brought back.
by daylight the truth was discovered, but pursuit was impossible. the cutter had got too long a start for any sailing vessel to overtake her in the light wind, and the only steamer which the administration then possessed had gone away to bourail to fetch back the governor’s wife. if it had been in the harbour that morning, at least one picturesque career might have been very different. macmahon was president at the time, and of all men on earth he had the most deadly fear of rochefort, so he took a blind revenge for his escape by ordering the governor to expel every one who was even suspected of assisting in the escape.
[198]
the story was told to me by one who suffered through this edict quite innocently, and to his utter ruin. he was then one of the most prosperous men in noumea. he owned an hotel and several stores, and had mail and road-making contracts with the government. unhappily, one of his stores was on the peninsula of ducos, and the man who managed it was reputed to be very friendly with rochefort.
this was enough. he was ordered to clear out to australia in two months. it was in vain that he offered himself for trial on the definite charge of assisting a prisoner to escape. the governor and every one else sympathised deeply with him, but they dare not even be just, and out he had to go. he is now canteen-keeper on the isle of pines, selling groceries and drink to the officials and relégués at prices fixed by the government. he told me this story one night at dinner at his own table.
the general amnesty of 1880 released louise michel and the rest of those who had survived the terrible revolt of 1871 from ducos and the isle of pines.
there are, however, two other celebrities left[199] on ducos. one of them is a tall, erect, grizzled arab, every inch a chieftain, even in his prison garb. this is abu-mezrag-mokrani, one of the leaders of the kabyle insurrection of 1871, a man who once had fifteen thousand desert horsemen at his beck and call. now he rules a little encampment in one of the valleys of the peninsula, containing forty or fifty of his old companions-in-arms, deported with him after the insurrection was put down.
when the kanaka rebellion broke out in new caledonia in 1878, abu-mezrag volunteered to lead his men against the rebels in the service of france. the offer was accepted and the old warriors of the desert acquitted themselves excellently among the tree-clad mountains of “la nouvelle.” when the rebellion was over a petition for their pardon was sent to the home government, but the remnant of them are still cultivating their little patches of ground on ducos.
the other surviving celebrity is known in caledonia as the caledonian dreyfus, and this is his story:
in 1888 louis chatelain was a sous-officier of the line stationed in paris. he was dapper,[200] good-looking, and a delightful talker. he engaged the affections of a lady whose ideas as to expenditure were far too expansive to be gratified out of the pay of a sous-officier. poor chatelain got into debt, mortgaged or sold everything that he had, and still the lady was unsatisfied. finally, after certain recriminations, and when he had given her everything but his honour, she suggested a means by which he could make a fortune with very little trouble. she had, it appears, made the acquaintance of a gentleman who knew some one connected with a foreign army, who would give twenty thousand francs for one of the then new-pattern lebel rifles.
he entered into correspondence with the foreign gentleman, addressing him—c/o the —— embassy, paris. his letters were stopped, opened, photographed, and sent on. so were the replies. then the negotiations were suddenly broken off, chatelain was summoned before the military tribunal and confronted with the pièces de conviction. he confessed openly, posing as a martyr to la grande passion—and his sentence was deportation for life.
the remains of henri rochefort’s house.
the bedroom of louis chatelain, “the caledonian dreyfus” in ducos. the photographs on the wall and the one on the table are those of the woman who ruined him.
when i went into his little sleeping-room at[201] ducos, i found on a little table beside his mosquito-curtained bed, a photograph of a very good-looking young woman. on the wall above the table there were two others of the same enchantress, the evil genius of his life. the moment he fell she deserted him. unlike many another frenchwoman, who has done so for lover or husband, she did not follow him across the world to caledonia, and yet every night and morning of his life louis chatelain kneels down in front of that table as he might before an altar, and says his prayers with his eyes on those photographs.
