from the farm of uro, after a drink of delicious milk, which, for some reason or other, took me back instantly to far-away england, we went on a few miles along the road to the ateliers, or workshops, where all kinds of industries, from boot-making to waggon-building, were being carried on in a somewhat leisurely style, and under what seemed to me very slight supervision.
“this is a hard school for them to learn and us to teach in,” said the commandant. “the for?ats generally know a trade and are accustomed to work, if they have not been gentlemen; but these have been brought up to hate the name of work. yet you see we have made something of them. everything that is used on the island is made here. in fact, we make something which will be used a long way from here.”
i saw this later on during our visit to the prison,[220] which was too similar to the others to need any description. about a score of the occupants of a big shed within the walls were busy plaiting a long, reedy grass which others, squatted about the yard, were stripping and preparing for them. they had to get through so much a day or their rations were docked. the unhappy wastrels didn’t seem to like the regime at all, but they worked, if only for their stomachs’ sake.
when we left the prison we went to a long shed, where the plaits were being worked up into matting—miles of it there appeared to be—and when i asked what it was all for, i learnt that it was destined to be trodden by the millions of careless feet which would saunter through the halls and corridors of the paris exhibition.
this was the contribution of this far-away spot to the great show. of course, those who were making it knew what it was for. perhaps their thoughts—if they had any by this time, beyond their daily meat and drink, or any dreams of delight, beyond the little luxuries that their hard-earned pence could buy them at the canteen—were travelling even as they stitched back to the elysium of crime and idleness which they would never see[221] again. from what i saw and heard i doubt not that many a bitter thought was woven in with the miles of matting which afterwards covered the exhibition floors.
the next day we went to make the acquaintance of the lady reléguées, who are accommodated in the convent, as it is called, under the charge of a mother superior and six sisters of st. joseph, among whom i was a little surprised to find one who, learning that i was english, came and greeted me in a deliciously delicate irish brogue. she was an irish lady who had taken the vows in a french convent, and had voluntarily exiled herself to this far-away foreign land to spend the rest of her days in a prison. still, she and her french sisters appeared to be most cheerfully contented with their lot.
they had, however, one little trace of feminine vanity left. they sorely wanted their photographs taken, and my irish compatriot wanted it most of all. it was against the rules not only of the administration, but of their order, wherefore the photographs which i did take of the convent and its occupants did not turn out successes.
there were one hundred and seventy-six female[222] reléguées in the convent just then, mostly healthy, hearty-looking women of all ages, from twenty to sixty. their faces were, if anything, more repulsive than the men’s. they had committed almost every possible crime, but most of them were there for infanticide. i was the first man—not an official—that they had seen, perhaps, for a good many years, for there are few visitors to the isles of pines, and fewer still to the jealously guarded convent.
a little before dinner that evening i was sitting under the trees in front of the canteen jotting down some notes when i heard a voice, with a suspicion of tears in it, asking whether “monsieur would speak for a minute with an unfortunate woman.”
i turned round, and saw the gaunt figure and unlovely face of marie, the reléguée housemaid of the canteen. here was another human document, i thought, so i told her to go on.
she was in great trouble, she told me, and as i was a friend of the government and of the administration i could help her if i would. she had been released from the convent to take service at the canteen, but though she was comfortable,[223] and had a good master and mistress, her heart was pining for the society of her husband, who was working in enforced celibacy in far-away bourail. they had been parted for a trifle, and she was sure that if “milor” interceded for her with the director she would be restored to his longing arms.
when she had finished, i said:
“and what was your husband sent out here for?”
“il a éventré un homme,” she murmured.
“and what are you here for?” i continued.
“j’ai tué mon enfant,” she murmured again as softly as before.
i did not think the reunion desirable, and so the petition was not presented. nevertheless, it would have probably been a very difficult matter to have convinced that woman that she hadn’t a perfect right to rejoin her husband, raise a family, and become with him a landed proprietor. i learnt afterwards that she had been relegated to the isle of pines for theft aggravated by assault with a hatchet.
somehow the food that she handed round the table at the canteen that night didn’t taste quite as nice as usual, in spite of the conversation of[224] madame blaise and her two charming daughters, the elder of whom, though she had never been farther into the world than noumea, might, as far as grace of speech and action went, have just come out from paris.
in the course of the next few days i wandered, sometimes in the commandant’s carriage and sometimes afoot, all over the island, and ascended its only mountain, the pic ’nga, on the top of which there are the foundations of an old fort and look-out tower, dating back, so they say, to the old days of the pirates of the southern seas. from here you can see every bay and inlet round the coast, and a very lovely picture the verdant island made, fringed by its circlet of reefs and coral islets, with their emerald lagoons and white breakers, and the deep blue of the open ocean beyond.
another day i went through the native reserve, and visited the settlement of the marist brothers, a most delightful little nook where the good brothers lead a contented existence, teaching their bronze scholars the beauties of the catholic faith, and the beneficence of the good french government, which graciously permits them to live in a part of their own country, and sell their produce to[225] the officials and such of their prisoners as have money à prix fixe.
after this i visited the coffee plantation—the only actually profitable industry in which prisoners are employed in new caledonia—the hospitals and the disciplinary camps, which i found practically the same as those which i had already seen on the mainland.
the hospital was, however, an even more delightful abode of disease and crime than the one on ile nou. it stands well up the hillside behind the convent, and the view from its terraces is one of the most beautiful i have ever seen. with the exception of the man who died of blood-poisoning under suspicion of the plague, the principal disease seemed general decay and old age. in fact, out of a criminal population of over twelve hundred, there were only thirty patients, for which reason the isle of pines, with its perfect climate, reminded me of mark twain’s californian health resort, which was so healthy that the inhabitants had to go somewhere else to die.
later on i saw a much more mournful place than the hospital. this was the camp des impotents.
i don’t think i ever saw a more miserable,[226] forlorn-looking collection of human beings than i found here. they were not suffering from any specific disease, or else, of course, they would have been in the hospital. they are just mental and physical derelicts, harmless imbeciles, cripples incapable of work, and men dying quietly of old age.
of course, the camp was exquisitely situated, and their lot struck me as being, after all, not a very bad ending to a useless, hopeless life—to dream away the last years under that lovely sun, breathing that delicious air, and waiting quietly for the end without anxiety or care.
the poor wretches looked at me somewhat as they might have looked at a visitor from some other world. they had ceased to be criminals or prisoners. they had no more crime left in them, and they would not have escaped if they could, so in their case discipline was relaxed and i spent a few francs in buying some of the rude carvings and a few walking-sticks which they had made out of lianes, the only work with which they whiled away the long sunny hours. it was worth twenty times the money to see their feeble, almost pitiful, delight as they looked at the little[227] silver coins in their brown, shrivelled hands, and i really think that some at least of the blessings which followed me out of the camp were sincere. but when i said this to the commandant he only smiled, and said:
“perhaps! but no doubt they would like a visitor from england every day.”
a few days after i had finished my round of visits to the prison camps i had the privilege of assisting at a session of the disciplinary commission, a court whose function it is to hear complaints, grant redresses and privileges, try offences against the penal regulations, and inflict punishment. the commandant is president, ex officio, and he is assisted by an officer of the administration, who is a sort of civil magistrate and the conductor of works. these functionaries sit at a curved desk on a platform, and here, for the first time, i took my seat on a judicial bench.
there was a space of about twelve feet between the end of the platform and the railing which divided off the rest of the hall. here the principal surveillant sat at one desk, and opposite to him on the other side of the room the greffier or clerk of the court.
[228]
the court being a french one, precedence was, of course, given to the ladies. they were brought in one by one through a side door between the railings and the platform. the triviality of their complaints testified eloquently to the narrowness of the little lives they led.
one woman accused another of stealing her needle and thread so as to get her into trouble. another wanted three halfpence of her savings, which she said the mother superior was unjustly keeping from her. a third wanted to know why she hadn’t had a letter from a friend of hers in service in noumea, and was gravely informed that the plague had seriously interrupted communications and the letter would probably arrive as soon as possible. another had rheumatism, and wanted to be taken off the field-work; besides, she was getting too old, she was nearly seventy—and her request was promptly granted.
then a few were accused of little acts of idleness or insubordination or wastefulness. these were either fined a penny or so, according to the magnitude of the offence, or dismissed with a caution.
it must not, however, be imagined from this that the ladies of the relégation at the isle of pines[229] are exactly models of female deportment, for, as the commandant told me afterwards, they once revolted, and before help could be got they had caught two surveillants, stripped them stark naked, and made them run the gauntlet of the convent between two rows of beautiful palms, after which they douched them well in a muddy duck-pond. they were proceeding to treat the good sisters in the same way when rescue arrived from kuto and the other camps.
the male prisoners were a terribly hard-looking lot. they were brought up in twos and threes—plaintiff, defendant, and witnesses—and they accused each other of every sort of crime, from stealing a bit of bread to attempted murder.
the english axiom about dog eating dog does not hold good among relégués. they will steal from each other just as cheerfully as they will from anybody else, and will descend to any little meanness to spite each other. most of the offences were of the pettiest and meanest kind, such as stealing each other’s clothes, or food, or tools and selling them for a penny or so to some one else who had lost his.
others were up for being out of bounds after[230] hours, and i noticed that these nearly all said they’d been fishing, which was not inappropriate.
during the proceedings i was very much struck by the appearance of an arab in the grey uniform of the quartier disciplinaire. he was a tall, well-built, handsome fellow of about thirty, with a frank, open expression and an ever-smiling mouth which continually showed a magnificent set of teeth. there was a wonderful difference between him and his fellow-scoundrels, but i learned afterwards that he was the biggest scoundrel of the whole lot.
two or three hundred years ago he would probably have commanded a fleet of corsairs, and made his name a terror from one end of the mediterranean to the other. now, thanks to changed environment, he was only a deserter and a common thief who could not even keep his hands off the property of his fellow-thieves.
the procedure of the court was quite different to anything we have in england. the prisoners were all, as i say, brought up and examined individually with accusers and witnesses. then they were taken away what time the court deliberated and fixed the sentence. then the whole lot were brought in and ranged up along the two sides[231] of the room. the greffier called out the names, and each man stepped forward, heard his sentence, and was marched out. the arab took his fifteen days’ prison with an even jauntier smile than usual.
while this was going on i had been making a study in criminal physiognomy, and i came to the conclusion that if forty criminals were taken at random from english prisons, dressed exactly as these forty french criminals were, and mixed up with them, it would be absolutely impossible to tell which were french and which were english. there is no nationality in crime. criminals belong to a distinct branch of the human family, and the family likeness among them is unmistakable.
as we were driving back that morning the commandant invited me to a picnic which he was giving in honour of the commandant of ile nou and myself. naturally i accepted, and, being on the subject of pleasure excursions, i said:
“of course you must have some delightful yachting and fishing about these lovely bays. i have been wondering why i haven’t seen any sailing craft about.”
“that is forbidden,” he said. “no one may own even a rowing boat without the licence of[232] the administration in noumea, and even then he would have to give guarantees for its safety. you see these fellows would think nothing of stealing a boat and trying to escape in it, and the owner of the boat would be responsible for any escapes. twenty-five of the politicals once managed to make a big canoe and got away in it, but they were all drowned or eaten by the sharks. now all boats, even the kanakas’ canoes, have to be kept locked and chained and guarded from sunset to sunrise.”
this, then, was why these smooth, sunlit waters were sailless and deserted—another effect of the curse of crime on paradise.
the picnic was a great success, and the commandant proved a most excellent host. there were four wagonette loads of us, with a fair sprinkling of pretty girls, among whom, of course, were my host’s daughters. everybody seemed to have forgotten for the time that i was an englishman, and so i passed a very jolly day.
we camped in a big white stone building which had once been a gendarmerie barracks, standing in a delightful valley near to the entrance of a magnificent limestone cavern. we lunched sumptuously under the verandah, and i think i[233] prattled french more volubly than i had ever done before. then we went and shot pigeons, quite half as big again as the english variety, and splendid eating. the woods of the isle of pines swarmed with them and other feathered game whose names i don’t remember.
of course, we wound up with a dance, and this was the queerest dance i had ever seen. our drivers and attendants were, of course, all relégués, and so were the musicians. one ingenious scoundrel led the orchestra with a fiddle that he had made himself, even to the strings and the bow. it had an excellent tone, and he played it very well. i wanted to buy it, but he loved it and wouldn’t sell.
i must say that i pitied these musicians not a little as i watched them standing in a corner looking with hungry eyes upon the forbidden and the unattainable as it floated about the room in dainty light draperies with the arms of other men about its waist—for the relégué is not like the for?at. he has no hope of marriage, even with the meanest of his kind. his sentence includes, and very wisely too, perpetual celibacy.
all the same, i tried to picture to myself a[234] picnic, say, at dartmoor, with a company of english men and maidens dancing in one of the prison halls to music made by a convict band!
when the feast was over every bottle, full and empty, every knife, fork, spoon, plate, cup, and dish was counted over. the remnants were given away, but everything else was packed under the official eye. if the slightest trifle had been overlooked it would have been immediately stolen. this is one of the peculiarities of picnicing in prisonland.
a few days afterwards my pleasant exile came to an end. the ungainly form of la france waddled into the bay, bringing news of the outside world. the principal items were to the effect that the plague was increasing merrily in noumea, and that the victorious boers were driving the british into the sea.
we had quite a sad little supper that night at the canteen, for i was rapidly becoming quite one of the family. still this was the turning-point in my thirty-thousand-mile journey. at daybreak the snub nose of la france would point toward home, and so when i had said good-bye for the third or fourth time i pulled out across the bay[235] which lay like a sheet of shimmering silver under the glorious tropic moon, and boarded the wretched little hooker for the last time with feelings something akin to thankfulness.
when many days afterwards, i got back to noumea the director asked me what i thought of the isle of pines.
“if you want my candid opinion,” i said, “i think it is an earthly paradise which you have used as a dust-heap to shoot your rubbish on. if the french government would give me a hundred years’ lease of it, with power to do as i liked as long as i didn’t break the law, i would find capital enough in england and australia to make it the monte carlo of the south pacific. i’d have everything there that there is at monte carlo, and a couple of fast boats to bring the people over from sydney in two days. i’d have all the wealth and fashion of australia and a good many people from europe there every year. in fact, your paradise should pay you a million francs a year and me twenty millions.”
“ah!” he said, after a few moments of silence. “that is just like you english. that is enterprise. here we only have government.”
