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“Something will have to be done about them,” I said, “and the thing to do is to let them alone. What worried me most was the business enterprise that the Lord of the White Sands was showing. Anything for iron. Trade the women’s services for a knife or a busted chisel. Rennell is leaping from the Shell Age into the Iron Age. They’ve never touched the Stone Age, because they hardly know what stone is. Before somebody brought in the white man’s ax they did surprisingly well with a clamshell on the end of a stick. They don’t seem to like missionaries, but they’re mad to learn European ways because that knowledge will bring more trade. Their ‘virtue’ as we call it? Well, virtue is about the same the world over. In some countries women are tabu. They don’t happen to be in Rennell, where the women are the only thing that appeals to the white man as trade. From a doctor’s angle, virtue’s great virtue is this: It’s prophylactic.
“Imported disease; that’s what threatens Rennell, sure as God made little apples. Now they’re healthier than the average in San Francisco, say. From what I could find out, their only ills have come from the few visits white men or Japanese have made there—except hookworm. I wish I knew more about that parasite on Rennell.
“They’re so susceptible to imported germs that I’ll tell you what happened. Before the France came to the White Sands, remember, I examined everybody on board for the slightest trace of anything ‘catching.’ Except for the sore-eyed cook, whom we tried to keep out of the way, we were all apparently clean as a whistle. Yet we hadn’t been on the island ten days before an epidemic of head colds swept the people. They didn’t know what was the matter with them; they didn’t even know how to blow their noses.”
“Where did they pick up those colds?” Crocker asked.
“They caught them from us. Our noses and throats were full of latent germs to which we had an immunity, whereas the Rennellese had none. They wore few clothes, they slept out in the rain, they were exposed to winds and drafts, yet the common cold was an absolute stranger to them. They had had an influenza epidemic, once; the white man brought it. They had had gonorrhea, once; the white man brought that too. Once they caught dysentery, from a ship that was supposedly clean of it. Bring in more ships and Rennell will go down and out, as so many other islands have. And I don’t want Rennell to go down and out.”
“Because they’re a unique people?” Crocker asked.
“Because they’re the only living relic, that I know, of a prehistoric race, changed so little that they will make an invaluable study for scientific research. But not for casual sailors and traders. There’s nothing on Rennell Island worth trading for.... What I should like to see done is this: Have the Government put ‘No Admittance’ on both Rennell and Bellona—except for an honest scientific expedition, coming there for no other reason than legitimate research. For those islands are nothing more or less than studies in the history of mankind.”
So Templeton Crocker went back to his ship.
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