The Foot of Time: A Novel of Australia and the South Seas: (1933)

122 THE FOOT OF TIME
inch of soil furnished its own natural crop, and
artificial handling did nothing, was, indeed, incapable
of doing anything to increase it.
So Tuamonti remained unspoiled. Remained true
Polynesian. Under slight regulation love was as
free as the crops, trial marriage with easy cleavage
being the wisdom of the rule. It did utterly no
harm, except in the mind of fatuous bigotry and
untravelled ignorance.
Drink, other than the Creator's hydrogen cum
oxygen gift was unknown, as also was vice in any
form. Pinkerton's name of "Garden of Eden" for
the spot was appropriate, for tins of bully found
no place on Tuamonti, nor any boric treated artificiality
of diet.
Influenza was either an accident sent from Russia
or maybe a dispensation to keep down the surplus
population. What happened before the advent of
the scourge about 18 5 0 is unknown, but it was surmised
that prior to that date the paradise remained
undiscovered.
And so Bruce and Pinkerton took launch, hired
at the trading island for a couple of months,
churned over to their holiday sphere, and were welcomed
by the natives. Pinkerton they knew. He
was not unpopular. Polynesia is no more a white
man's country with white man's necessary codes
than is the East the West. And this was the spot
chosen in all innocence by the Sydney undergraduate
to bring Bruce, the son of his father. Can one
wonder at the perfectly natural outcome of it?
Now Bruce had very definite views of his own
THE FOOT OF TIME 123
upon all moral, psychological and physiological
ethics. The bulk of present-day advanced students
have, and they are without the remotest regard to
the views of their predecessors. The modern student
may agree with them, or he and she may not;
but they are not influenced by them. They think
for themselves.
Taken as a whole, the opinions of Bruce Swinton
were inclined towards convention, but convention
spelled with a particularly small C. Free love, trial
marriages, and such like, were matters upon which
his healthy young mind rarely dwelt. He regarded
it as delving into detail for which he had
little time. His thoughts were almost entirely concentrated
upon his passion for ship building, and
all the branches of science involved in it. At the
same time, he presumed to hold opinions on other
subjects, and they were not lacking in strength
however little sleep they lost him.
Except to administer wiser laws than they could
frame and uphold for themselves, and to continue
the splendid medical help so bravely and unselfishly
dealt out by missionaries, Bruce believed in leaving
colour to look after itself. The interference of the
white man, in his view, brought more harm in its
train than good. When a people had no religion he
thought it sounded feasible enough to endeavour
to give them one. Contrarily, when a race was
found whose religious beliefs were beyond any
Parallel with the white races, he considered the
totally vain effort of trying to eradicate this real
thing, and then presume to think you could replace