aroundworldortra00peebiala-1

144 AROUND THE WORLD.
to see their native land. They complained bitterly of the
deception ; but no number of Chinese complaints could
avail in court against a Spaniard's oath. The reported industry
of these Chinamen reaching the ears of
Cuban planters,
ships were sent out bringing cargoes of them to labor
on their plantations. But when those who first went out
with the Spanish captain on the " Don Pedro,'' and those who
afterwards sailed for Cuba, and other islands in the west, did
not retui'n to their homes and families ; and when rumors
returned that these Chinese labor-emigrants had been
enslaved, or slain for insubordination, — no more would ship
for that land afar over the waters. Then commenced that
wretched system of buying, kidnapping, and chaining, which
disgraced our comm.on civilization. Ship-owners and traders,
saihng into Chinese ports, organized bands of thieves to
steal and kidnap coolies by thousands. And these poor
Chinamen seized in rice-fields, and boys in schoolrooms, were
gagged, and dragged by force down into the ill-aired holds
of vessels, to be borne away, the veriest slaves, to toil in the
guano-islands, or other portions of the distant West. And
all this under the flag of European civilization ! Guilt}- of
theft, and red-handed, wholesale murder, these Christian
nations have the cool impudence to send missionaries to
heathen Chinamen
Kidnapping is still quite a business in the South-Sea Islands.
A little prior to our reaching Australia, the brig
"Carl," owned by Dr. J. P. Murray, sailed under the British
flag from Melbourne towards Fiji, for the ostensible
purpose
of pearl-fishing ; but really engaged in man-stealing in the
southern sea. This was afterwards proved in the court of
justice that arraigned Mr. Mount. Dr. Murray, now professedly
pious and prayerful, was guilty of deception, of
stealing natives, and downright murder. Some of the
wounded Bougainville natives were throivn overboard alive.
Is it strange that missionaries find it so difficult to convert
South-Sea Islanders to Christianity ?