"
"At any rate, his news to-night has given me a better insight into the
life down here," Joan said. "And it is colourful life, to say the least.
The Solomons ought to be printed red on the charts--and yellow, too, for
the diseases."
"The Solomons are not always like this," Sheldon answered. "Of course,
Berande is the worst plantation, and everything it gets is the worst. I
doubt if ever there was a worse run of sickness than we were just getting
over when you arrived. Just as luck would have it, the _Jessie_ caught
the contagion as well. Berande has been very unfortunate. All the old-
timers shake their heads at it. They say it has what you Americans call
a _hoodoo_ on it."
"Berande will succeed," Joan said stoutly. "I like to laugh at
superstition. You'll pull through and come out the big end of the horn.
The ill luck can't last for ever. I am afraid, though, the Solomons is
not a white man's climate."
"It will be, though. Give us fifty years, and when all the bush is
cleared off back to the mountains, fever will be stamped out; everything
will be far healthier. There will be cities and towns here, for there's
an immense amount of good land going to waste."
"But it will never become a white man's climate, in spite of all that,"
Joan reiterated.
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