N E W N E W 377 others, and have a good deal of grotesque hand carving, something like but inferior to that seen in New Zealand. The food is chiefly vegetable, so that there is considerable scarcity at certain seasons ; but almost anything is eaten, including all sorts of insects, and a steatite earth which contains a little copper. The exception is the lizard and the gecko, 1 of which they have a superstitious dread. They believe in the power of spirits to take up their abode in persons or inanimate objects, and employ the aid of the soothsayer in this and many other emergencies of life. The dead are supposed to go down into the sea at the west end of the island. Cocoa-nut trees, a valuable sacrifice, are cut down on the death of a chief. Like other cannibals, they have a certain knowledge of anatomy and surgery, and also of medicine. Their music is quite rudimentary, and consists of little else than beating or sounding in time. Their money is made of different sorts of shells, but other articles of value axes, skins, mats, &c. are used as mediums of exchange. The languages of the different tribes are mutually unintelligible. They express abstract ideas imperfectly. Dr Patouillet says that there are several words for eating, each applied to a particular article of food. Their reckoning shows the same peculiarity. The numbers go up to five, and for living objects the word bird is added, for inanimate yam, for large objects ship. 2 There are other terms for bundles of sugar-canes, rows (planted) of yams, &c. ; and sometimes things are counted by threes. Ten is two fives, 15 three fives, 20 is a "man" (ten ringers and ten toes), 100 is "five men," and so on. The free white population, settlers and miners, numbers about 3000 ; officials and troops, 3000 ; transportes and deportes (ordinary and political convicts), with their families, 4000 and 6700 respec tively. Some of the planters and graziers are fairly prosperous, but the material development of the country does not advance rapidly. There seems a general want of energy, a deficiency of banking facilities and of roads and means of "transport. It is in fact found difficult to work the settlement both as a free and as a penal colony. The larger proprietors are free immi grants, but are being swamped by the more numerous small ones, who are "liberes," holding small concessions, and bound theore tically at least not to leave the country. The deportes and trans portes are under separate regulations. The latter when well- behaved are hired out to the free settlers at 12 francs a mouth. The liberes either receive a very small allowance from Government, or are permitted to take service, receiving 30 to 50 francs a month, with their board. The sending out of the families of convicts, with the view to promote settlement, has not answered well. Free concessions are offered with the same object, especially to retired officials and others. Large concessions have also been made to agricultural colonies, which have mostly failed. The agricultural establishments worked by convicts have answered better, the lands belonging partly to colonists, and the convict labourers eventually obtaining a certain status, and permission to marry. Out of a total area of about 1,600,000 hectares, half is unfit for cultivation or pasture. Up to 1877, 130, 965 hectares were taken up, and probably half the available land is now taken. The miners in New Cale donia are chiefly Australians, but out of several hundred concessions of mines, chiefly nickel, only a few have been worked. The inten tion of the French Government to send yearly to New Caledonia 5000 rccidivistes or habitual criminals, to be released after three years detention, causes serious uneasiness in Australia. The trade was valued in 1874 at 13,471,000 francs, the imports being three times the value of the exports, and the greater part carried in foreign vessels. Principal Authorities. Ch. Lemire, La Colonisation Franfaise en SovreUe Cale Jonie; papers (geological) by Jules Gamier in Annales ilcs Mines, 1867, and by Herteau, Ibid., 1876, and (anthropological) by Dr Bourgarel in Hfe m. cte la Soc. d Anthropologie de Paris, vol. i. ; Dr J. Patouillet, Trois am en Nouvelle Cale donie. (C. T.) NEWCASTLE, or in full, for the sake of distinction, NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE, a city (with the constitution of a county), municipal and parliamentary borough, market- town, and seaport in the county of Northumberland, Eng land, is situated on the north bank of the river Tyne, 8 miles above its mouth, and on the main line of the North-Eastern Railway, 275 miles north of London and 70 east of Carlisle. Some of the streets in the older portion of the town along the river side are narrow and steep, and still contain several of the quaint gable-fronted houses of the time of Eliza beth. The business portions of the town principally erected from the plans of Richard Grainger are character ized generally by spacious streets with imposing buildings and fine shops ; and in the northern and western suburbs 1 Fourteen varieties have been found. 2 A similar usage exists in Malay. See paper by Colonel Yule in Jour. Anthrop. Inst., ix. p. 290. there are numerous terraces and villas inhabited by the wealthier classes. The important town of GATESHEAD (q.v.), on the south side of the river, is connected with Newcastle by three bridges a high level bridge, an hy draulic swing bridge, and a suspension bridge. The high level bridge has been already described (see vol. iv. p. 337), The hydraulic swing bridge, on the low level a little farther down the river, was built to replace a stone structure erected in 1781 on the site of a bridge dating from 1250, and destroyed by a flood in 1771. The Roman bridge, the Pons JElii, probably built by the emperor Hadrian, is said to have spanned the river at the same point. The hydraulic bridge was begun in 1868, and opened for traffic 15th June 1876, at a cost of about .200,000. It consists of one large centre pier, two mid stream piers, and two abutments ; and its foundations are iron cylinders resting on the solid rock, 60 feet below the bed of the river. Two spans, which open simultaneously by machines impelled by steam, allow 103 feet of water way for vessels going up and down the river. About half a mile farther up the stream is the Redheugh bridge, com menced in 1867, and opened in 1871 at a cost of 40,000. Newcastle is well supplied with public parks and recreation grounds. To the north of the city is the Leazes. ornamental park of 35 acres, and beyond this the town moor and racecourse, an extensive common, the survival of the pasture land of the township. Eastward from the town moor is Brandling Park. The picturesque grounds of Armstrong Park to the north-east of the city extend to about 50 acres, the larger half of which was presented by Sir W. G. Armstrong, who also has presented the beauti fully wooded grounds of Jesmond Dene. Elswick Park in the south-west of the city, extending to 8f acres, and in cluding Elswick Hall, was purchased by the corporation and opened as a recreation ground in November 1878. The earliest artificial method of water supply for New- castle was by pipes of elmwood from Heworth and from springs about 3 miles north of the town. In 1845 a water company was formed to supply the town with water from Whittle Dene. The reservoirs of the company have been extended from time to time, and the water of various other streams utilized to meet the increasing necessities of the. town. The gas supply is also in the hands of a company. Of the old walls of the town, which, according to Leland, " for strength and magnificence far surpassed all the walls of the cities of England and of most of the towns of Europe," and the circuit of which was 2 miles 239 yards, there still remain some towers in good preservation, although the fortifications were allowed to go into dis repair after the union of Scotland and England. The castle, from which the town takes its name, stood on a slight elevation rising abruptly from the river, and was erected by Henry II. between 1172 and 1177 on the site of an older structure built in 1080 by Robert eldest son of the Conqueror. It was originally the strongest fortress in the north of England, and its keep is now one of the finest specimens of the Norman stronghold remaining in the country. While it was still incomplete, William the Lion was led within its walls after his capture at Alnwick; and within its great hall Baliol, on 26th December 1292, did homage for the crown of Scotland to Edward I. The area of the castle within its outer walls and fosse was 3 acresv Fragments of these walls, with the principal entrance o? Blackgate (portions of which are, however, of later construc tion), and the Watergate or southern postern, still remain, but the inner wall surrounding the keep has been entirely removed. The massive keep, with walls 14 feet thick, is in a state of good preservation, as is also the chapel, a beautiful specimen of the Late Norman style, for some time used as the cellar of a public house. The castle was XVII. 48
