[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]

38 WITH NATIVES IN THE WESTERN PACIFIC

ground, grass can grow up as tall as a man, and that
after six months a cleared plantation can be covered
with bushes and shrubs with stems as thick as one’s
finger. The planter, knowing that this overwhelming
fertility and the jealous advances of the forest are his
most formidable enemies, directs his most strenuous
efforts to keeping clear his plantation, especially while
the plants are young and unable to fight down the
weeds. Later on, weeding is less urgent, but in the
beginning it is the One essential duty, more so than
planting. Mr. Ch. had therefore an enormous task
before him, and as he could not expect any return
from the coffee trees for two or three years, he did as
all planters do, and sowed corn, which yields a crop
after three months.

His labourers, dark, curly-haired men, clad in
rags, were just then occupied in gathering the big
ears of corn. Sluggishly they threw the golden ears
over their shoulders to the ground, where it was
collected by the women and carried to the shed on
the beach-—-a long roof of leaves, without walls. Mr.
Ch. urged the men to hurry, as the corn had to be
ready for shipment in a few days, the Pacific, the
French mail-steamer, being due. Produce deteriorates
rapidly in the islands owing to the humid climate,
so it cannot be stored long, especially where there
is no dry storehouse. Therefore, crops can only be
gathered just before the arrival of a steamer, making
these last days very busy ones everywhere. It is
fortunate for the planters that the native labourers are
not yet organized and do not insist on an eight-hour