But I had to wait until 1930 to see Rennell Island.
The Koonakarra of 1921 was so busy trading, recruiting and supervising plantations that I had to pick up what information I could get between stops. I had an opportunity to draw one large conclusion: that natives from the big islands to the north, near the infesting trade routes, were much the more heavily diseased. Disease diminished steadily as we moved down toward the less frequented parts. My superficial look at a population which, for lack of an accurate census, was estimated at 100,000, verified my theory: Epidemics are the fruits of island hospitality.
In those days little could be done to improve conditions. That group of a half-dozen enormous islands, and the many little outlying ones, was served by one lone Medical Officer, and some missionary doctors who strove with a bravery against conditions that should have broken their valiant spirits.
Among the unsung heroes—but no missionary—was my friend J. C. Barley, Oxford M.A., who had voluntarily given his life to a God-forsaken post at Kirakira. In his jungle house he was like something out of Kipling, dressing for the evening, having his spot of gin and bitters before dinner, his sound cigar afterward. He might have gone anywhere in the colonial service, for as a young Oxonian he had outranked hundreds in competitive examinations. But he was too clean a sportsman to play politics. His passion for ethnology and his affectionate responsibility for the natives kept him where he was. He had become the people’s advocate, and knew more about the Solomons than any official report could ever tell. His trips for inspection and research were his only relief from solitude.
I only speak of Barley because he was so useful to my future work and because of pleasant memories of his charming mind; in fact I should not write at all of this brief survey, except that I wish to point out a few spots where in later years I returned and marked the changes wrought by contact with the outer world.
Bill Tully and I worked mostly at night, lecturing by lantern light. The ship would be off in the early morning. At Star Harbour on San Cristoval, the largest island on the unfrequented southeast, the naked people carried candlenut torches as they wound down the mountain trail. It was like something out of “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream,” that twisting stream of light. Few traders and no missionaries had come to them, and they showed a low rate of infection. A friendly, backward Negroid people, they were endangered by their own hospitality. Charley One Arm, the policeman, our fierce black guide, couldn’t understand us when we refused the temporary gift of two island daughters. I went away dreading what might happen when more trading ships came in.
Santa Ana lay so near that one of their canoes, bastard ebony with mother-of-pearl insets, could take you there in an hour or two. Yet the Santa Ana folk were light-skinned and their features almost Caucasian. They wore bones in their noses and shark’s teeth around their necks. There was more trading, hence more hookworm. I gave treatments to Trader Kuper’s two little half-caste sons. It was a good investment, and later I shall tell you why.
Graciosa Bay was so wild that Mr. Mathews, Lever Brothers’ representative who had lived there fifteen years with an armed guard, warned us not to come ashore. With knives and fishhooks we lured a few of the untamed to come aboard the launch and be examined. In fifteen years the population had dropped from 3,000 to 500. Somehow, in spite of their savagery, they had allowed vicious malaria and tuberculosis to get in.
Near-by Reef Island showed a different, lighter breed. Somewhat missionized, largely pagan, it had a murderous reputation. It was in its harbor, Mohawk Bay, that an incident occurred which I remembered for twelve years. After a lantern-light lecture I was resting in the whaleboat. In the dim moonlight a naked man came floundering toward me. I reached for a hatchet, and a mild voice told me that it was only Sam, the Christian teacher. I had made a mistake, Sam told me, and gone to a heathen village. His was the Christian village I should have given my magic tins to. And wouldn’t I come? It was too late for that, so I let him stand waist-high in the water while I taught him the outline of my pidgin English lecture. I gave him tins and told him to bring them back to me in the morning. He brought them to me at dawn, and I admired his Christian fortitude. Poor devil—like the others, he thought our tins were magic boxes that would cure the people. I waited twelve years to hear the sequel to that story....
At Mohawk Bay I found that a young native was selling the services of his fiancée to our sailors. Brides were expensive there, and he had formed a syndicate to buy her, then rent her out until she had earned the price. It was “the fashion.” Not as a moralist, but as a doctor I asked the question: Who would educate people like these, upon fast-opening trade routes? Who would teach them self-protection? The missionaries? Perhaps. But the doctor must follow, or there would be nobody left to educate.