Jethro Gray, now confined to the hold, would not be getting his first edition of A Naturalist Among the Head-Hunters signed by its author. Terrapin granted Owen two hours at the government station in Tulagi and the trader rowed the dinghy onto the beach without passengers. The makeshift station was patrolled by five Fijian policemen and a sergeant from Guadalcanal. Even if Jethro had come ashore in hopes of flattering his fellow scientist into a personalized inscription, it was unlikely that Charles Woodford would have received him. He was preoccupied and not taking visitors just at the moment. The Anglican mission of Siota looked set to be placed under quarantine and there had been a spike in outbound correspondence. Among his other duties, Woodford sold New South Wales stamps to the Europeans in the islands and arranged passage for postal items on government steamers. The missionaries, all those strapping English lads and freckled Australian girls eager for Christian service, were now brought down by every strain of milkpox, cottonpox, and Cuban itch, so that the mailbags were filled with deathbed epistles and codicils, entreaties for forgiveness and reconciliation, strands of hair coiled inside feverishly licked envelopes, night poems filled with remorse.
What do You think about Bright And Distant Shores?
