NEW CALEDONIA.

 About 800 miles east from the coast of Australia, and 1000 miles north-west from the North Cape of New Zealand, lies the island of New Caledonia, now a French colony and penal settlement. It is almost 200 miles in length, with a mean breadth of 30 miles, and extends between the parallels 20 degrees and 23 degrees south latitude. The aboriginal inhabitants are said to bear a considerable resemblance to the now extinct natives of Tasmania. They are, however, better looking, and wear a less savage aspect, which may be accounted for by their being more abundantly supplied with the necessaries of life. Their hair is crisp, nearly woolly, and is frequently worn frizzed out, after the fashion of the Papuans. The color of the skin is very dark; and they have projecting lips, narrow, retreating ears, and noses artificially flattened. Many of them have the lobes of the ears distended to an enormous extent, pieces of wood gradually increasing in size being employed for that purpose. Although their hair is short as a rule, at a distance many of them might be taken for long-haired people, on account of a habit they have of adorning themselves with artificial tresses made out of fine grass, and the hair of the large fruit bat. Some of these appendages are so long as to descend to the middle of the back. Round the head a net with wide meshes is occasionally worn, and the chiefs adopt an odd sort of head-gear, resembling a chimneypot hat, without either brim or crown. These cylindrical hats have a circular ornament on either side, with a plume of feathers at the top. Having no Crown, it offers no protection to the head, but it is merely worn as an emblem of rank. Those who adopt the fashion of frizzing out the hair use a ' scratcher,' or rude sort of comb, which is composed of a number of sticks of hard wood, about the thickness of knitting needles, fastened together at one end. The men go about almost naked, having at the most only a small wrapper or a strip of soft bark round their loins ; whilst the women wear a narrow girdle of fringe five or six inches deep, their hair being invariably cropped short.

The New Caledonians in their moonlight dances (which somewhat resemble those of the Australian aborigines, known as 'corroboree') wear a large mask, called a ' momo,' which consists of a hideous face, carved out of wood, and painted black, to which are attached long masses of woolly human hair and feathers, whilst a sort of coarse net work descends below, enveloping the wearer as far down as the knees.

 Although naturally the New Caledonians possess thick and copious beards they take great pains to remove them, the hair being pulled out by the roots by means of a pair of bivalve shells employed after the manner of pincers. It is a singular fact that the same practice obtains amongst the New Zealanders, although the latter people belong to an entirely different race, being true Polynesians. The New Caledonians, however, do not tattoo themselves, but paint themselves with broad charcoal lines drawn diagonally across the breast. Necklaces of various kinds are worn, most of them consisting of shells or carved bones, or the seeds and berries of plants. Their houses resemble beehives, with painted roofs, and are generally ornamented on the top with a projecting post carved with grotesque images, and decorated with the white shells of the ovulum, In building a house the native architect commences by digging a hole in the earth, and firmly planting in it a stout pole some fifteen feet high. A number of smaller poles are set in the ground in a circle, their tops leaning against the central standard. The sides are then interlaced with reeds and branches, and the roof securely thatched with dry grass. The entrance is a hole only just large enough to admit of a man bent double. This is closed with a rude door made of palm branches, and sometimes in the better class of huts there are regular doorposts carved in imitation of the human figure.  Within the hut a fire is kept burning, not so much for the sake of warmth as for a defence against the mosquitoes. Within each hut depends a sort of hanging shelf suspended by cords; and outside a fence some four or five feet high surrounds the dwelling. The New Caledonians, like the Fijians and the people of Eastern New Guinea, manufacture pottery, which they color with red ochre, and glaze with the gum or resin of the dammara pine. In these they cook roots and fish. All the cooking is done by the women, who also collect vast quantities of shellfish along the seacoast which forms an extensive article of diet amongst them. Then are, however, two singular luxuries to which these people are partial which are worthy of notice. The one is a large species of spider, which spins large nests in the woods. They are not eaten raw, but stewed in a covered earthen jar over the fire. The other delicacy consists of a soft greenish steatite or clay, which crumbles very easily, and has the property of distending the stomach and allaying the cravings of hunger.

 They cultivate the ground, and have plantations of taro, plantains, cocoanuts, yams, and other esculents. They also build walls along the sides of the hills to confine the soil, forming the arable surface into a succession of terraces. There is reason to believe that formerly these people were in a more advanced state than at the present time, as remains of ancient aqueducts, several miles in length, have been discovered in some parts of the island, also vestiges of paved roads and fortified strongholds. It is possible that these remains of a superior civilisation may have been the work of another race who have passed into oblivion, but at any rate their presence in New Caledonia is, to say the least, remarkable. In the building of their canoes these islanders evince considerable skill and ingenuity. They carve them with axes and tools made of serpentine or green jade, which is of a lighter color than that of New Zealand. Their largest canoes are mostly double, two boats being place alongside one another and connected above by a platform. They have a single mast stepped towards one end of the vessel, and are provided with sails of matting ; whilst a fire placed on a thick layer of clay, is generally kept burning on the platform.

Southern Argus (Port Elliot, SA : 1866 - 1954), Thursday 1 February 1877, page 2