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The Confessions of a Beachcomber

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Title: The Confessions of a Beachcomber

Author: E. J. Banfield


        
Release date: February 1, 2004 [eBook #5113]
                Most recently updated: December 28, 2020

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CONFESSIONS OF A BEACHCOMBER ***




Produced by Col Choat colc@gutenberg.org.au





The Confessions of a Beachcomber by E J Banfield




"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he
hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears."
THOREAU


To the Honourable Robert Philp, M.L.A.
"Exact in his life,
Extensive in his charity,
Exemplary in everything he does,"
THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY ONE WHO OWES
TO HIM MUCH OF HIS LOVE FOR TROPICAL QUEENSLAND.




    CONTENTS



    PART I


    INTRODUCTION

    CHAPTER I

    THE BEACHCOMBER'S DOMAIN
    OFFICIAL LANDING
    OUR ISLAND
    EARLY HISTORY
    SATELLITES AND NEIGHBOURS
    PLANS AND PERFORMANCES

    CHAPTER II

    BEACHCOMBING
    TROPICAL INDUSTRIES
    SOME DIFFRENCES
    ISLAND FAUNA

    CHAPTER III

    BIRDS AND THEIR RIGHTS
    A CENSUS
    THE DAYBREAK FUGUE
    THE MEGAPODE
    SWAMP PHEASANT
    "GO-BIDGER-ROO"
    BULLY, SWAGGERER, SWASHBUCKLER
    EYES AFLAME
    THE NESTFUL TREE
    "STATELY FACE AND MAGNANIMOUS MINDE"
    WHITE NUTMEG PIGEON
    FRUIT EATERS
    AUSTRALIA'S HUMMING BIRD
    "MOOR-GOODY"
    THE FLAME-TREE'S VISITORS
    RED LETTER BIRDS
    CASUAL AND UNPRECISE

    CHAPTER IV

    GARDEN OF CORAL
    QUEER FISH
    THE WARTY GHOUL
    "BURRA-REE"
    FOUR THOUSAND LIKE ONE
    THE BAILER SHELL
    A RIVAL TO THE OYSTER
    SHARKS AND SKIPPERS
    GORGEOUS AND CURIOUS
    TURTLE GENERALLY
    THE MERMAID OF TO-DAY
    BECHE-DE-MER

    CHAPTER V

    THE TYRANNY OF CLOTHES
    SINGLE-HANDEDNESS
    A BUTTERFLY REVERIE
    THE SERPENT BEGUILED
    ADVENTURE WITH A CROCODILE
    THE ARAB'S PRECEPT

    CHAPTER VI

    IN PRAISE OF THE PAPAW
    THE CONQUERING TREE
    THE UMBRELLA-TREE
    THE GENUINE UPAS-TREE
    THE CREEPING PALM
    MAUVE, GREEN AND GREY
    STEALTHY MURDERERS
    TREE GROG

    CHAPTER VII

    "THE LORD AND MASTER OF FLIES"
    A TRAGEDY IN YELLOW
    COLOUR EFFECTS
    MUSICAL FROGS
    ACTS WELL ITS PART
    GREEN ANT CORDIAL
    WOOING WITH WINGS
    THE GREED OF THE SNAKE
    A SWALLOWING FEAT


    PART II

    STONE AGE FOLKS

    CHAPTER I

    PASSING AWAY
    TURTLE AND SUCKERS
    A "KUMMAORIE"
    WEATHER DISTURBERS
    A DINNER-PARTY
    BLACK ART
    A POISONOUS FOOD
    MESSAGE STICKS
    HOOKS OF PEARL
    "WILD" DYNAMITE
    A CAVERN AND ITS LEGEND
    A SOULFUL DANCE
    A SONG WITHOUT WORDS
    ORIGIN OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS
    CROCODILE CATCHING
    SUICIDE BY CROCODILE
    DISAPPEARANCE OF BLACKS

    CHAPTER II

    GRORGE: A MIXED CHARACTER
    YAB-OO-RAGOO: OTHERWISE "MICKIE"
    TOM: HIS WIVES: HIS BATTLES
    "LITTLE JINNY": IN LIFE AND IN DEATH
    THE LANGUAGE TEST
    LAST OF THE LINE

    CHAPTER III

    ATTRIBUTES AND ANECDOTES
    COMMON AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS
    THE "DEBIL-DEBIL"
    CLOTHING SUPERFLUOUS
    BROTHER AND SISTER
    THE RAINBOW
    SWIMMING FEATS
    SMOKE SIGNALS
    THUNDER FACTORY
    THE ORACLE
    A REAL LETTER
    A BLACK DEGENERATE
    JUMPED AT A CONCLUSION
    PRIDE OF RACE
    "YANKEE CHARLEY"
    MYALL'S BAKING
    EVERYTHING FOR A NAME
    THE KNIGHTLY GROWTH
    HONOUR AND GLORY
    FIRE JUMP UP
    SLOP TEETH
    A FASCINATED BOY
    AWKWARD CROSS-EXAMINATION
    THE ONLY ROCK
    SAW THE JOKE
    ZEBRA'S VANITY
    LAURA'S TRAITS
    ROYAL BLANKETS
    HIS DAILY BREAD
    HUMAN NATURE
    AN APT RETORT
    MISSIS'S TROUSERS
    DULL-WITTED
    STRATEGY
    LITERAL TRUTH
    MAGIC THAT DID NOT WORK
    ANTI-CLIMAX
    LITTLE FELLA CREEK SAILOR
    A FATEFUL BARGAIN
    EXCUSABLE BIAS
    THE TRIAL SCENE
    A REFLECTION ON THE HORSE
    TRIUMPH OF MATTER OVER MIND
    THE RUSE THAT FAILED
    THE BIG WORD
    MICKIE'S VERSION
    HONOURABLE JOHNNY
    THE TRANSFORMATION
    MONEY-MAKING TRICK
    HONOURABLE CHASTISEMENT
    "AND YOU TOO"
    PARADISE

    CHAPTER IV

    AND THIS OUR LIFE

    * * * * *





PART I




THE CONFESSIONS OF A BEACHCOMBER



INTRODUCTION


Does the fact that a weak mortal sought an unprofaned sanctuary--an
island removed from the haunts of men--and there dwelt in tranquillity,
happiness and security, represent any just occasion for the relation of
his experiences--experiences necessarily out of the common? To this
proposition it will be for these pages to find answer.

Few men of their own free will seek seclusion, for does not man belong to
the social vertebrates, and do not the instincts of the many rule? And
when an individual is fain to acknowledge himself a variant from the
type, and his characteristics or idiosyncrasies (as you will) to be so
marked as to impel him to deem them sound and reasonable; when, after
sedate and temperate ponderings upon all the aspects of voluntary exile
as affecting his lifetime partner as well as himself, he deliberately
puts himself out of communion with his fellows, does the experiment
constitute him a messenger? Can there be aught of entertainment or
instruction in the message he may fancy himself called upon to deliver?
or, is the fancy merely another phase of the tyranny of temperament?

We cannot always trust in ourselves and in the boldest of our illusions.
There must be trial. Then, if success be achieved and the illusion
becomes real and transcendental, and other things and conditions merely
"innutritious phantoms," were it not wise, indeed essential, to tell of
it all, so that mayhap the illusions of others may be put to the test?

Not that it is good or becoming that many should attempt the part of the
Beachcomber. All cannot play it who would. Few can be indifferent to that
which men commonly prize. All are not free to test touchy problems with
the acid of experience. Besides, there are not enough thoughtful islands
to go round. Only for the few are there ideal or even convenient scenes
for those who, while perceiving some of the charms of solitude, are at
the same time compelled by circumstances ever and anon to administer to
their favourite theories resounding smacks, making them jump to the
practical necessities of the case.

Here then I come to a point at which frankness is necessary. In these
pages there will be an endeavour to refrain from egotism, and yet how may
one who lives a lonesome life on an island and who presumes to write its
history evade that duty? My chief desire is to set down in plain language
the sobrieties of everyday occurrences--the unpretentious homilies of an
unpretentious man--one whose mental bent enabled him to take but a
superficial view of most of the large, heavy and important aspects of
life, but who has found light in things and subjects homely, slight and
casual; who perhaps has queer views on the pursuit of happiness, and who
above all has an inordinate passion for freedom and fresh air.

Moreover, these chronicles really have to do with the lives of two
people--not youthful enthusiasts, but beings who had arrived at an age
when many of the minor romances are of the past. Whosoever looks for the
relation of sensational adventures, exciting situations, or even humorous
predicaments, will assuredly be disappointed. Possibly there may be
something to interest those who wish to learn a few of the details of the
foundation of a home in tropical Australia; and to understand the
conditions of life here, not as they affect the man of independence who
seeks to enlarge his fortune, nor the settler who in the sweat of his
face has to eat bread, but as they affect one to whom has been given
neither poverty nor riches, and who has proved (to his own satisfaction
at least) the wisdom of the sage who wrote--"If you wish to increase a
man's happiness seek not to increase his possessions, but to decrease his
desires." Success will have been achieved if these pages reveal candour
and truthfulness, and if thereby proof is given that in North Queensland
one "can draw nearer to nature, and though the advantages of civilisation
remain unforfeited, to the happy condition of the simple, uncomplicated
man!"

In furtherance of the desire that light may shine upon certain phases of
the character of the Australian aboriginal, space is allotted in this
book to selected anecdotes. Some are original; a few have been previously
honoured by print. Others have wandered, unlettered vagrants, so far and
wide as to have lost all record of legitimacy. To these houseless
strangers I gladly offer hospitality, and acknowledge with thankfulness
their cheerful presence.

Grateful acknowledgments are due to Mr F. Manson Bailey, F.L.S., the
official botanist of Queensland, for the scientific nomenclature of trees
and plants referred to in a general way.

E. J. BANFIELD.
BRAMMO BAY, DUNK ISLAND,
November, 1906.




CHAPTER I



THE BEACHCOMBER'S DOMAIN


Two and a half miles off the north-eastern coast of Australia--midway,
roughly speaking, between the southern and the northern limits of the
Great Barrier Reef, that low rampart of coral which is one of the wonders
of the world--is an island bearing the old English name of Dunk.

Other islands and islets are in close proximity, a dozen or so within a
radius of as many miles, but this Dunk Island is the chief of its group,
the largest in area, the highest in altitude, the nearest the mainland,
the fairest, the best. It possesses a well-sheltered haven (herein to be
known as Brammo Bay), and three perennially running creeks mark a further
splendid distinction. It has a superficial area of over three square
miles. Its topography is diversified--hill and valley, forest and jungle,
grassy combes and bare rocky shoulders, gloomy pockets and hollows,
cliffs and precipices, bold promontories and bluffs, sandy beaches, quiet
coves and mangrove flats. A long V-shaped valley opens to the south-east
between steep spurs of a double-peaked range. Four satellites stand in
attendance, enhancing charms superior to their own.

This island is our home. He who would see the most picturesque portions
of the whole of the 2000 miles of the east coast of Australia must pass
within a few yards of our domain.

In years gone by, Dunk Island, "Coonanglebah" of the blacks, had an evil
repute. Fertile and fruitful, set in the shining sea abounding with
dugong, turtle and all manner of fish; girt with rocks rough-cast with
oysters; teeming with bird life, and but little more than half an hour's
canoe trip from the mainland, the dusky denizens were fat, proud,
high-spirited, resentful and treacherous, far from friendly or polite to
strangers. One sea-captain was maimed for life in our quiet little bay
during a misunderstanding with a hasty black possessed of a new bright
tomahawk, a rare prize in those days. This was the most trivial of the
many incidents by which the natives expressed their character.
Inhospitable acts were common when the white folks first began to pay the
island visits, for they found the blacks hostile and daring. Why invoke
those long-silent spectres, white as well as black, when all active
boorishness is of the past? Civilisation has almost fulfilled its
inexorable law; but four out of a considerable population remain, and
they remember naught of the bad old times when the humanising processes,
or rather the results of them, began to be felt. They must have been a
fine race, fine for Australian aboriginals at least, judging by the stamp
of two of those who survive; and perhaps that is why they resented
interference, and consequently soon began to give way before the
irresistible pressure of the whites. Possibly, had they been more docile
and placid, the remnants would have been more numerous though less
flattering representatives of the race. You shall judge of the type by
what is related of some of the habits and customs of the semi-civilised
survivors.

Dunk Island is well within the tropical zone, its true bearings being 146
deg. 11 min. 20 sec. E. long., and 17 deg. 55 min. 25 sec. S. lat. It is
but 30 miles south of the port of Geraldton, the wettest place in
Australia, as well as the centre of the chief sugar-producing district of
the State of Queensland. There the rainfall averages about 140 inches per
annum. Geraldton has in its immediate background two of the highest
mountains in Australia (5,400 feet), and on these the monsoons buffet and
break their moisture-laden clouds, affording the district much
meteorological fame. Again, 20 miles to the south lies Hinchinbrook
Island, 28 miles long, 12 miles broad, and mountainous from end to end:
there also the rain-clouds revel. The long and picturesque channel which
divides Hinchinbrook from the mainland, and the complicated ranges of
mountains away to the west, participate in phenomenal rain.

Opposite Dunk Island the coastal range recedes and is of much lower
elevation, and to these facts perhaps is to be attributed our modified
rainfall compared with the plethora of the immediate North; but we get
our share, and when people deplore the droughts which devastate
Australia, let it be remembered that Australia is huge, and the most
rigorous of Australian droughts merely partial. This country has never
known drought. During the partial drought which ended with 1905, and
which occasioned great losses throughout the pastoral tracts of
Queensland, grass and herbage here were perennially green and
succulent--the creeks never ceased running.

Within the tropics heat is inevitable, but our island enjoys several
climatic advantages. The temperature is equable. Blow the wind
whithersoever it listeth, and it comes to us cooled by contact with the
sea. Here may we drink oft and deep at the never-failing font of pure,
soft, beneficent air. We have all the advantages which residence at the
happy mean from the Equator bestows, and few of the drawbacks. By its
fruits ye shall know the fertility of the soil.

Birds are numerous, from the "scrub fowl" which dwells in the dim jungle
and constructs of decaying leaves and wood and light loam the most
trustworthy of incubators, and wastes no valuable time in the
dead-and-alive duty of sitting, to the tiny sun-bird of yellow and
purple, which flits all day among scarlet hibiscus blooms, sips nectar
from the flame-tree, and rifles the dull red studs of the umbrella tree
of their sweetness.

The stalled ox is not here, nor the fatted calf, nor any of the mere
advantages of the table; but there is the varied harvest of the sea, and
all the freshness of an isle clean and green. The heat, the clatter, the
stuffy odours, the toilsomeness, the fatigue of town life are abandoned;
the careless quiet, the calm, the refreshment of the whole air, the tonic
of the wide sea are gained. From the moment the sun illumines our hills
and isles with glowing yellow until it drops in fiery splendour suddenly
out of sight leaving a band of gleaming red above the purple western
range, and a rippling red path across to Australia, the whole realm of
nature seems ours to command.

OFFICIAL LANDING

Dunk Island was not selected haphazard as an abiding place. By
camping-out expeditions and the cautious gleaning of facts from those who
had the repute of knowing the country, useful information had been
acquired unobtrusively. We were determined to have the best obtainable
isle. More than one locality was favourably considered ere good fortune
decided to send us hither to spy out the land. A camp-out on the shore of
then unnamed Brammo Bay--a holiday-making party--and the result of the
first day's exploration decided a revolutionary change in the lives of two
seriously-minded persons. A year after, a lease of the best portion of
the island having been obtained in the meanwhile, we came for good.

Wholly uninhabited, entirely free from traces of the mauling paws of
humanity, lovely in its mantle of varied foliage, what better sphere for
the exercise of benign autocracy could be desired? Here was virgin
country, 20 miles from the nearest port--sad and neglected Cardwell cut
off from the mainland by more than 2 miles of estranging ocean, and yet
lying in the track of small coastal steamers--here all our pet theories
might serenely develop.

But it was an inauspicious landing. With September begin the north-east
winds, and we had an average experience that afternoon. Was it not a
farce--a great deal more than a farce: a saucy, flippant imposition on the
tender mercies of Providence--for an individual who could not endure a few
hours of tossing on the bosom of the ocean without becoming deadly sick,
to imagine that he possessed the hardihood to establish a home even in
this lovely wilderness? We had tents and equipment and a boat of our own,
a workman to help us at the start, and two faithful black servants.

The year before, we had made the acquaintance of one of the few survivors
of the native population of the island--stalwart Tom. Although our project
and preparations had been kept fairly secret, he had overheard a casual
reference to them; had made a canoe, and paddling from island to island
with his gin, an infant and mother-in-law, had preceded our advent by a
week. His duties began with the discharging of the first boatload of
portable property. He comes and goes now after the lapse of years.

They spread out tents and rugs for the weak mortal who had greatly dared,
but who, thus early, was ready to faint from weariness and sickness. They
made comforting and soothing drinks, and spoke of cheery things in cheery
tones; but the sick man refused to be comforted. He wished himself back,
a participator in the conflicts of civilisation, and was fain to cover
his face--there was no wall to which to turn--and fancy that the most
dismal sound in the universe was the surly monotone the north-easter
harped on the beach. We reposed that night among the camp equipment, the
sick man caring for naught in his physical collapse and disconsolation.

But the first morning of the new life! A perfect combination of
invigorating elements. The cloudless sky, the clear air, the shining sea,
the green folded slopes of Tam o' Shanter Point opposite, the
cleanliness of the sand, the sweet odours from the eucalypts and the
dew-laden grass, the luminous purple of the islands to the south-east;
the range of mountains to the west and north-west, and our own fair
tract-awaiting and inviting, and all the mystery of petted illusions
about to be solved! Physic was never so eagerly swallowed nor wrought a
speedier or surer cure.

Feebleness and dismay vanished with the first plunge into the still
sleepy sea, and alertness and vigour returned, as the incense of the
first morning's sacrifice went straight as a column to the sky.

Over half a century before, Edmund B. Kennedy, the explorer, landed on
the opposite shore, on his ill-fated expedition up Cape York, to find the
country inland from Tam o' Shanter Point altogether different from any
previously-examined part of Australia. We gave no thought to the gallant
explorer, near as we were to the scenes of his desperate struggle in the
entanglements of the jungle.

The island was all before us, where to choose our place of rest, and the
bustle of the transport of goods and chattels to the site in the thick
forest invisible from the sea began at once. Before sunset, tents were
pitched among the trees, and a few yards of bush surrounding then
cleared, and we were at home.

Prior to departing from civilisation we had arranged for the construction
of a hut of cedar, so contrived with nicely adjusting parts and bolts,
and all its members numbered, that a mere amateur could put it together.
If at the end of six months' trial the life was found to be unendurable,
or serious objection not dreamt of in our salad philosophy became
apparent, then our dwelling could be packed up again. All would not be
lost.

The clearing of a sufficient space for the accommodation of the hut was
no light task for unaccustomed hands, for the bloodwood trees were mighty
and tough, and the dubious work of burning up the trunks and branches
while yet green, in our eagerness for free air and tidiness, was
undertaken. It was also accomplished.

For several weeks there was little done save to build a kitchen and shed
and widen the clearing in the forest. Inspection of the details of our
domain was reserved as a sort of reward for present task and toil.
According to the formula neatly printed in official journals, the
building of a slab hut is absurdly easy--quite a pastime for the settler
eager to get a roof of bark or thatch over his head. The frame, of
course, goes up without assistance, and then the principal item is the
slabs for walls. When you have fallen your tree and sawn off a block of
the required length, you have only to split off the slab. Ah! but suppose
the timber does not split freely, and your heavy maul does; and the
wedges instead of entering have the habit of bouncing out as if they were
fitted with internal springs, and your maul wants renewal several times,
until you find that the timber prescribed is of no account for such
tools; and at best your slabs run off to nothing at half length, and
several trees have to be cut down before you get a single decent slab,
and everybody is peevish with weariness and disappointment, the rudest
house in the bush will be a long time in the building. "Experience is a
hard mistress, yet she teacheth as none other." We came to be more
indebted to the hard mistress--she gave us blistering palms and aching
muscles--than to all the directions and prescriptions of men who claim to
have climbed to the top of the tree in the profession of the "bush." A
"bush" carpenter is a very admirable person, when he is not also a bush
lawyer. Mere amateurs would be wise if they held their enthusiasm in
check when they read the recipe--pat as the recipe for the making of a
rice-pudding--for the construction of even a bark hut. It is so very easy
to write it all down; but if you have had no actual experience in
bark-cutting, and your trees are not in the right condition, you will put
your elation to a shockingly severe test, harden the epidermis of your
hands, and the whole of your heart, and go to bed many nights sadly ere
you get one decent sheet for your roof.

We do not all belong to the ancient and honourable family of the Swiss
Robinsons, who performed a series of unassuming miracles on their island.
There was no practical dispensation of providential favours on our
behalf. Trees that had the reputation of providing splendid splitting
timber defiantly slandered themselves, and others that should have almost
flayed themselves at the first tap of the tomahawk had not the slightest
regard for the reputation vouched for in serious publications.

But why "burden our remembrance with a heaviness that's gone?" Why recall
the memory of those acheful days, when all the pleasant and restful
features of the island are uncatalogued? Before the rains began we had
comfortable if circumscribed shelter. Does not that suffice? Our dwelling
consisted of one room and a kitchen. Perforce the greater part of our
time was spent out of doors. Isolation kept us moderately free from
visitors. Those who did violate our seclusion had to put up with the
consequences. We had purchased liberty. Large liberties are the
birthright of the English. We had acquired most of the small liberties,
and the ransom paid was the abandonment of many things hitherto deemed to
form an integral part of existence.

Had we not cast aside all traditions, revolting from the uniformity of
life, from the rules of the bush as well as from the conventionalities of
society? Here we were to indulge our caprices, work out our own
salvation, live in accordance with our own primitive notions, and, if
possible, find pleasure in haunts which it is not popularly supposed to
frequent.

Others may point to higher ideals and tell of exciting experiences, of
success achieved, and glory and honour won. Ours not to envy superior
qualifications and victories which call for strife and struggle, but to
submit ourselves joyfully to the charms of the "simple life."

OUR ISLAND

    "Awake, O North Wind, and come, thou South,
    Blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out."

Our Island! What was it when we came into possession? From the sea,
merely a range displaying the varied leafage of jungle and forest. A
steep headland springing from a ledge of rock on the north, and a broad,
embayed-based flat converging into an obtruding sand-spit to the west,
enclose a bay scarcely half a mile from one horn to the other, the sheet
of water almost a perfect crescent, with the rocky islet of Purtaboi,
plumed with trees, to indicate the circumference of a circle. Trees come
to the water's edge from the abutment of the bold eminence. Dome-shaped
shrubs of glossy green (native cabbage--SCAEVOLA KOENIGII), with groups
of pandanus palms bearing massive orange-coloured fruits; and here and
there graceful umbrella trees, with deep-red decorations, hibiscus bushes
hung with yellow funnells, and a thin line of ever-sighing beech oaks
(CASUARINA) fringe the clean untrodden sand. Behind is the vistaless
forest of the flat.

Run the boat on the sand at high-water, and the first step is planted in
primitive bush--fragrant, clean and undefiled. An empty jam tin or a
broken bottle, spoors of the rude hoofs of civilisation, you might search
for in vain. As difficult would it be to find either as a fellow to the
nugget of gold which legend tells was used by a naked black as a sinker
when he fished with hook of pearl shell out there on the edge of the
coral reef,

One superficial feature of our domain is distinct and peculiar, giving to
it an admirable character. From the landing-place--rather more up towards
the north-east cusp than the exact middle of the crescent bay--extends a
flat of black sand on which grows a dense bush of wattles, cockatoo
apple-trees, pandanus palms, Moreton Bay ash and other eucalypts, and the
shapely melaleuca. This flat, here about 150 yards in breadth, ends
abruptly at a steep bank which gives access to a plateau 60 feet above
sea-level. The regularity of the outline of this bank is remarkable.
Running in a more or less correct curve for a mile and a half, it
indicates a clear-cut difference between the flat and the plateau. The
toe of the bank rests upon sand, while the plateau is of
chocolate-coloured soil intermixed on the surface with flakes of slate;
and from this sure foundation springs the backbone of the island. On the
flat, the plateau, and the hillsides, the forest consists of similar
trees--alike in age and character for all the difference in soil--the one
tree that does not leave the flat being the tea or melaleuca. In some
places the jungle comes down to the water's edge, the long antennae of
the lawyer vine toying with the rod-like aerial roots of the mangrove.

The plateau is the park of the island, half a mile broad, and a mile and
more long. Upon it grows the best of the bloodwoods (EUCALYPTUS
CORYNBOSA), the red stringy bark (E. ROBUSTA), Moreton Bay ash (E.
TESSALARIS), various wattles, the gin-gee of the blacks (DIPLANTHERA
TETRAPHYLLA). PANDANUS AQUATICUS marks the courses and curves of some of
the gullies. A creek, hidden in a broad ribbon of jungle and running from
a ravine in the range to the sea, divides our park in fairly equal
portions.

Most part of the range is heavily draped with jungle--that is, on the
western aspect. Just above the splash of the Pacific surges on the
weather or eastern side, low-growing scrub and restricted areas of
forest, with expansive patches of jungle, plentifully intermixed with
palms and bananas, creep up the precipitous ascent to the summit of the
range--870 feet above the sea. So steep is the Pacific slope that,
standing on the top of the ridge and looking down, you catch mosaic
gleams of the sea among the brown and grey tree-trunks. But for the
prodigality of the vegetation, one slide might take you from the cool
mountain-top to the cooler sea. The highest peak, which presents a
buttressed face to the north, and overlooks our peaceful bay, is crowned
with a forest of bloodwoods, upon which the jungle steadily encroaches.
The swaying fronds of aspiring palms, adorned in due season with masses
of straw-coloured inflorescence, to be succeeded by loose bunches of red,
bead-like berries, shoot out from the pall of leafage. In the gloomy
gullies are slender-shafted palms and tree-ferns, while ferns and mosses
cover the soil with living tapestry, and strange, snake-like epiphytes
cling in sinuous curves to the larger trees. The trail of the lawyer vine
(CALAMUS OBSTRUENS), with its leaf sheath and long tentacles bristling
with incurved hooks, is over it all. Huge cables of vines trail from tree
to tree, hanging in loops and knots and festoons, the largest (ENTADA
SCANDENS) bearing pods 4 feet long and 4 inches broad, containing a dozen
or so brown hard beans used for match-boxes. Along the edge of the
jungle, the climbing fern (LYNGODIUM) grows in tangled masses sending its
slender wire-like lengths up among the trees--the most attractive of all
the ferns, and glorified by some with the title of "the Fern of God," so
surpassing its grace and beauty.

September is the prime month of the year in tropical Queensland. Many of
the trees are then in blossom and most of the orchids. Nocturnal showers
occur fairly regularly in normal seasons, and every sort of vegetable is
rampant with the lust of life. It was September when our isolation began.
And what a plenteous realisation it all was that the artificial emotions
of the town had been, haply, abandoned! The blood tingled with keen
appreciation of the crispness, the cleanliness of the air. We had won
disregard of all the bother and contradictions, the vanities and
absurdities of the toilful, wayward, human world, and had acquired a
glorious sense of irresponsibleness and independence.

This--this was our life we were beginning to live--our very own life; not
life hampered and restricted by the wills, wishes and whims of others;
unencumbered by the domineering wisdom, unembarrassed by the formal
courtesies of the crowd.

September and the gin-gee, the quaint, grey-barked, soft-wooded tree with
broad, rough, sage-green leaves, and florets massed in clumps to resemble
sunflowers, was in all its pride, attracting relays of honey-imbibing
birds during the day, and at night dozens of squeaking flying-foxes.
Within a few yards of high-water stands a flame-tree (ERYTHRINA INDICA)
the "bingum" of the blacks. Devoid of leaves in this leafy month, the
bingum arrays itself in a robe of royal red. All birds and manner of
birds, and butterflies and bees and beetles, which have regard for colour
and sweetness come hither to feast. Sulphur-crested cockatoos sail down
upon the red raiment of the tree, and tear from it shreds until all the
grass is ruddy with refuse, and their snowy breasts stained as though
their feast was of blood instead of colourless nectar. For many days here
is a scene of a perpetual banquet--a noisy, cheerful, frolicsome revel.
Cockatoos scream with excitement and gladness; honey-eaters whistle and
call; drongos chatter and scold the rest of the banqueters; the tiny
sun-bird twitters feeble protests; bees and beetles maintain a murmurous
soothful sound, a drowsy blending of hum and buzz from the rising of the
sun until the going down thereof.

The dark compactness of the jungle, the steadfast but disorderly array of
the forest, the blotches of verdant grass, the fringe of yellow-flowered
hibiscus and the sapful native cabbage, give way in turn to the greys and
yellows of the sand in alternate bands. The slowly-heaving sea trailing
the narrowest flounce of lace on the beach, the dainty form of Purtaboi,
and the varying tones of great Australia beyond combine to complete the
scene, and to confirm the thought that here is the ideal spot, the freest
spot, the spot where dreams may harden into realities, where unvexed
peace may smile.

There is naught to remind of the foetidness, the blare and glare of the
streets. None of

    "The weariness, the fever and the fret,
    There, where men sit and hear each other groan."

You may follow up the creeks until they become miniature ravines, or
broaden out into pockets with precipitous sides, where twilight reigns
perpetually, and where sweet soft gases are generated by innumerable
plants, and distilled from the warm moist soil. How grateful and
revivifying! Among the half-lit crowded groves might not another Medea
gather enchanted herbs such as "did renew old Aeson."

Past the rocky horn of Brammo Bay, another crescent indents the base of
the hill. Exposed to the north-east breeze, the turmoil of innumerable
gales has torn tons upon tons of coral from the out-lying reef, and cast
up the debris, with tinkling chips and fragments of shells, on the sand
for the sun and the tepid rains to bleach into dazzling whiteness. The
coral drift has swept up among the dull grey rocks and made a ridge
beneath the pendant branches of the trees, as if to establish a contrast
between the sombre tints of the jungle and the blueness of the sea.
Midway along the curve of vegetation a bingum flaunts its mantle--a
single daub of demonstrative colouring. Away to the north stand out the
Barnard Islands, and the island-like headland of Double-Point.

Rocky walls and ledges intersected by narrow clefts in which the sea
boils, gigantic masses of detached granite split and weathered into
strange shapes and corniced and bridged at high water-mark by oysters,
bold escarpments and medleys of huge boulders, extend along the weather
side. No landing, except in the calmest weather, is possible. To gain a
sandy beach, the south-east end of the island, passing through a deep
channel separating the rocky islet of Wooln-garin, must be turned.
Although there are no great cliffs, no awesome precipices on the weather
side, the bluff rocks present many grotesque features, and the foliage is
for the most part wildly luxuriant.

From what has been already said, it may be gleaned that in the opinion of
the most interested person the island is gilt-edged. So indeed it is, in
fact, when certain natural conditions consequent on the presence of coral
are fulfilled. A phenomenally high tide deposited upon the rocks a slimy,
fragile organism of the sea, in incomprehensible myriads which, drying,
adhered smoothly in true alignment. With the sun at the proper angle
there appeared, as far as the irregularity of the coast line permitted, a
shining band, broken only where the face of the rock was uneven and
detached--a zone of gold bestowed upon the island by the amorous sea. But
on the beach the slime which transformed the grey and brown rocks was
nothing but an inconsistent, dirty, grey-green, crisp, ill-smelling
streak, that haply vanished in a couple of days. As I see less of the
weather side than I do of the beach, I argue to myself that it is nearer
perfection to be minus a streak of dirt than plus a golden edge.

At no season of the year is the island fragrantless. The prevailing
perception may be of lush grasses mingled with the soft odour of their
frail flowers; or the resin and honey of blossoming bloodwoods; or the
essence from myriads of other eucalyptus leaves massaged by the winds.
The incomparable beach-loving calophyllums yield a profuse but tender
fragrance reminiscent of English meadow-sweet, and the flowers of a
vigorous trailer (CANAVILA OBTUSIFOLIA), for ever exploring the bare sand
at high-water mark, resembles the sweet-pea in form and perfume. The
white cedar (MELIA COMPOSITA) is a welcome and not unworthy substitute in
appearance and perfume for English lilac. The aromatic pandanus and many
varieties of acacia, each has its appointed time and season; while at odd
intervals the air is saturated with the rich and far-spreading incense of
the melaleuca, and for many weeks together with the honeyed excellence of
the swamp mahogany (TRISTANIA SUAVOSLENS) and the over-rich cloyness of
the cockatoo apple (CAREYA AUSTRALIS). Strong and spicy are the odours of
the plants and trees that gather on the edge of and crowd in the jungle,
the so-called native ginger, nutmeg, quandong, milkwood, bean-tree, the
kirri-cue of the blacks (EUPOMATIA LAURINA), koie-yan (FARADAYA
SPLENDIDA), with its great white flowers and snowy fruit, and many
others. Hoya, heavy and indolent, trails across and dangles from the
rocks; the river mangrove dispenses its sweetness in an unexpected
locality; and from the heart of the jungle come wafts of warm breath,
which, mingling with exhalation from foliage and flower, is diffused
broadcast. The odour of the jungle is definite--earthy somewhat, but of
earth clean, wholesome and moist--the smell of moss, fern and fungus
blended with balsam, spice and sweetness.

Many a time, home-returning at night--when the black contours of the
island loomed up in the distance against the pure tropic sky tremulous
with myriads of unsullied stars--has its tepid fragrance drifted across
the water as a salutation and a greeting. It has long been a fancy of
mine that the island has a distinctive odour, soft and pliant, rich and
vigorous. Other mixtures of forest and jungle may smell as strong, but
none has the rare blend which I recognise and gloat over whensoever,
after infrequent absences for a day or two, I return to accept of it in
grateful sniffs. In such a fervid and encouraging clime distillation is
continuous and prodigious. Heat and moisture and a plethora of raw
material, leaves, flowers, soft, sappy and fragrant woods, growing grass
and moist earth, these are the essential elements for the manufacture of
ethereal and soul-soothing odours suggestive of tangible flavours.

I know of but one particular plant that is absolutely repellent. Its
large flowers are of vivid gold, pure and refined; the unmixed odour is
obscene. A creeper of the jungle bears small yellow flowers (slightly
resembling those of the mango, save that they are produced in frail loose
cymes instead of on vigorous panicles), the excessive sweetness of which
approaches nauseousness. But its essence mingles with the rest, and the
compound is singularly rich and acceptable.

On sandy stretches and along the deltas of the creeks are fragrant,
gigantic "spider lilies" (CRINIUM). I do not pretend to catalogue
botanically all the plants that contribute to the specific odour of the
island. I cannot address them individually in scientific phraseology,
though with all I am on terms of easy familiarity, the outcome of
seasoned admiration. They please by the form and colour of their
blossoms, and ring ever-recurring and timeful changes, so that month by
month we enjoy the progress of the perfumes, the blending of some, the
individual excellence of others. In endeavouring to convey to the unelect
an impression of their variety and acceptableness, am I not but
discharging a debt of gratitude?

As far as I am aware, but four or five epiphytal orchids add to the
scents of the island; and as they have not Christian names, their pagan
titles must suffice--CYMBIDIUM SUAVE, ERIA FITZALANI, BULBOPHYLLUM
BAILEYI, DENDROBIUM TERETIFOLIUM and D. UNDULATUM. The latter is not
commonly credited with perfume; but when it grows in great unmolested
masses its contribution is pleasant, if not very decided. The pretty
terrestrial orchid (CYRTOSTYLIS RENIFORMIS) is delicately fragrant, but
the great showy PHAIUS GRANDIFOLIUS (the tropical foxglove) and the meek
GEODORUM PICTUM (Queensland's lily of the valley) are denied the gift.

The forest, the jungle, the grassy spots, the hot rocks (with hoya and
orchids), and even the sands, with the native sweet-pea, are fragrant. A
lowly creeping plant (VITEX TRIFOLIA), with small spikes of
lavender-coloured flowers, and grey-green silvery leaves, mingles with
the coarse grasses of the sandy flats, and usurping broad areas forms an
aromatic carpet from which every footstep expresses a homely pungency as
of marjoram and sage. The odour of the island may be specific, and
therefore to be prized, yet it gladdens also because it awakens happy and
all too fleeting reminiscences. English fields and hedges cannot be
forgotten when one of our trees diffuses the scent of meadow-sweet, and
one of the orchids that of hawthorn. "Scent and silence" is the phrase
which expresses the individuality of our island, and better "scented
silence" than all the noisy odours of the town.

However showy the flora of the island, the existence of kindly fruits
must be deplored. Immense quantities, alluring in colour and form, are
produced; but not a single variety of real excellence. The raspberries
(two kinds) have but little flavour; the native "Cape gooseberry"
(PHYSALIS MIMIS), which appears like magic when the jungle is felled and
burnt off, is regarded with hostility, though unworthily, even by the
blacks; the" wild" grapes are sour and fiery, and among the many figs
only two or three are pleasant, and but one good. "Bedyewrie" (XIMENIA
AMERICANA) has a sweetish flavour, with a speedy after-taste of bitter
almonds, and generally refreshing and thirst-allaying qualities; the
shiny blue quandong (ELAEOCARPUS GRANDIS), misleading and insipid; the
Herbert River cherry (ANTIDESMA DALLACHYANUM), agreeable certainly, but
not high class; the finger cherry "Pool-boo-nong" of the blacks
(RHODOMYRTUS MACROCARPA), possesses the flavour of the cherry guava, but
has a most evil reputation. Some assert that this fruit is subject to a
certain disease (a kind of vegetable smallpox), and that if eaten when so
affected is liable to induce paralysis of the optic nerves and cause
blindness and even death. Blacks, however, partake of the fruit
unrestrictedly and declare it good, on the authority of tradition as well
as by present appreciation. They do not pay the slightest respect to the
injurious repute current among some white folks. Perhaps some trick of
constitution or some singularity of the nervous system renders them immune
to the poison, as the orange pigment said to reside in their epidermis
protects them from the actinic rays of the sun. Does not Darwin assert
that while white sheep and pigs are upset by certain plants dark-coloured
individuals escape. At any rate blacks are not affected by the fruit,
though large consumers of it, and many whites also eat of it raw and
preserved, without fear and without untoward effects. Some of the Eugenias
produce passable fruits, and one of the palms (CARYOTA) bears huge
bunches of yellow dates, the attractiveness of which lies solely in
appearance.

Quite a long list of pretty fruits might be compiled, and yet not more
than half a dozen are edible, and only half that number nice. The
majority are bitter and acrid, some merely insipid, and of the various
nuts not one is satisfactory.

Why all this profuse vegetation and the anomaly of tempting fruits and
nuts cram-full of meat and yet no real food--that is, food for man? Is it
that man was an after-thought of Nature, or did Nature fulfil herself in
his splendid purpose and capacities? She supplies abundantly food
convenient for birds and other animals lower in the scale of life, but
man is left to master his fate. Even when uncivilised he is called upon
to exercise more or less wit before he may eat, and the higher his grade
the more stress upon his intelligence.

When one contemplates the unpromising origin of the apple of today, and
the rich assortment of fruits here higher in the scale of progression
than it, imagination delights to dwell upon the wonders which await the
skill of a horticultural genius. The crude beginnings of scores of
pomological novelties are flaunted on every side. The patient man has to
come.

EARLY HISTORY

To that grand old mariner, Captain Cook, belongs the honour of the
discovery of the island. The names that he bestowed--judicious and
expressive--are among the most precious historic possessions of Australia.
They remind us that Cook formed the official bond between Britain and
this great Southern land, and bear witness to the splendid feats of quiet
heroism that he performed, the privations that he and his ship's company
endured, and the patience and perseverance with which difficulties were
faced and overcome.

In his journal, on 8th June 1770, Cook writes--"At noon we were by
observation in the lat. of 17 degrees 59 minutes and abreast of the N.
point of Rockingham Bay which bore from us N. 2 miles. This boundary of
the Bay is formed by a tolerable high island known in the chart by the
name of Dunk Isle; it lay so near the shore as not to be distinguished
from it unless you are well in with the land... At this time we were in
the long. of 213 degrees 57 minutes, Cape Sandwich bore S. by E. 1/2 E.
distant 19 miles, and the northernmost land in sight N. 1/2 W. Our depth
of water in the course of this one day's sail was not more than 16 nor
less than 17 fathoms."

In those history-making days the First Lord of the Admiralty was George
Montagu Dunk, First Earl of Sandwich, Second Baron and First Earl of
Halifax, and Captain Cook took several opportunities of preserving his
patron's name. Halifax Bay (immediately to the north of Cleveland Bay)
perpetuates the title; "Mount" Hinchinbrook (from his course Cook could
not see the channel and did not realise that he was bestowing a name upon
an island) commemorates the family seat of the Montagus; Cape Sandwich
(the north-east point of Hinchinbrook) the older title, and Dunk Isle the
family name of the distinguished friend of the great discoverer of lands.

From this remote and unheard of spot may, accordingly, be traced
association with a contemporary of Robert Walpole, of Pitt and Fox, of
Edmund Burke, of John Wilkes (of the NORTH BRITON), of the author of THE
LETTERS OF JUNIUS and of JOHN GILPIN, and many others of credit and
renown. The First Earl Sandwich of Hinchinbrook was the "my lord" of the
gossiping Pepys. Through him Dunk Island possesses another strand in the
bond with the immortals, and is ensured connection with remote posterity.
He gambled so passionately that he invented as a means of hasty
refreshment the immemorial "sandwich," that the fascination of basset,
ombre or quadrille should not be dispelled by the intrusion of a meal.
He, too, was the owner of Montagu House, behind which "every morning saw
steel glitter and blood flow," for the age was that of the duellist as
well as the gambler.

Rockingham Bay was so named in honour of the marquis of that title, the
wise Whig premier who held that while the British Parliament had an
undoubted right to tax the American colonies, the notorious Stamp Act was
unjust and impolitic, "sterile of revenue, and fertile of discontent!"

Cook and his day and generation passed, and then for many years history
is silent respecting Dunk Island. The original inhabitants remained in
undisturbed possession; nor do they seem to have had more than one
passing visitor until Lieutenant Jeffereys, of the armed transport
Kangaroo, on his passage from Sydney to Ceylon in 1815, communicated with
the natives on then unnamed Goold Island. Captain Philip P. King,
afterwards Rear-Admiral, who made in the cutter MERMAID a running survey
of these coasts between the year 1818 and 1822, and who was the first to
indicate that "Mount" Hinchinbrook was probably separated from the
mainland, arrived in Rockingham Bay on the 19th June 1818. He named and
landed on Goold Island, and sailing north on the 21st, anchored off
Timana, where he went ashore. "Dunk Island," he writes, "a little to the
northward, is larger and higher, and remarkable for its double-peaked
summit."

Those natives who are versed in the ancient history of the island, tell
of the time when all were amazed by the appearance of bags of flour,
boxes of tobacco, and cases of goods drifting ashore. None at the time
knew what flour was; only one boy had previously smoked, and the goods
were too mysterious to be tested. Many tried to eat flour direct from the
bag. The individual who had acquired the reputation of a smoker made
himself so sick that none other had the courage to imitate him, and the
tobacco and goods were thrown about playfully. In after years the
inhabitants were fond of relating how they had humbugged themselves.

The next ensuing official reference of particular interest is contained
in the narrative of the voyage of H.M.S. RATTLESNAKE, by John
Macgillivray, F.R.G.S., naturalist of the expedition. The date is 26th
May 1848, and an extract reads--"During the forenoon the ship was moved
over to an anchorage under the lee (north-west side) of Dunk Island,
where we remained for ten days. The summit of a very small rocky island,
near the anchorage, named, by Captain Owen Stanley, Mound Islet
(Purtaboi), formed the first station. Dunk Island, eight or nine miles in
circumference, is well wooded; it has two conspicuous peaks, one of which
(the north-west one) is 857 feet in height. Our excursions were confined
to the vicinity of the watering-place and the bay in which it is
situated. The shores are rocky on one side and sandy on the other, where
a low point runs out to the westward. At their junction, and under the
sloping hill with large patches of bush, a small stream of fresh water,
running out over the beach, furnished a supply for the ship, although the
boats could approach the place closely only at high-water. Among the
most interesting objects of natural history are two birds, one a new and
handsome fly-catcher (MONARCHA LEUCOTIS), the other a swallow, which Mr
Goold informs me is also an Indian species. Great numbers of butterflies
frequent the neighbourhood of the watering-place; one of these (PAPILIO
URVILLIANUS) is of great size, and splendour, with dark purple wings,
broadly margined with ultramarine, but from its habit of flying high
among the trees I did not succeed in catching one. An enormous spider,
beautifully variegated with black and gold, is plentiful in the woods,
watching for its prey in the centre of a large net stretched horizontally
between the trees. The seine was frequently hauled upon the beach with
great success. One evening through its means, in addition to plenty of
fish, no less than five kinds of star-fishes and twelve of crustacea,
several of which are quite new, were brought ashore. Among the plants of
the island the most important is a wild species of plantain or banana,
afterwards found to range along the north-east coast and its islands, as
far as Cape York. Here I saw for the first time a species of
Sciadophyllum (BRASSAIA ACTINOPHYLLA, the umbrella-tree) one of the most
singular trees of the eastern coast-line of tropical Australia; a slender
stem, about thirty feet in height, gives off a few branches with immense
digitate dark and glossy leaves, and long spike-like racemes of small
scarlet flowers, a great resort for insects and insect-feeding birds.
Soon after the ship had come to an anchor, some of the natives came off
in their canoes and paid us a visit, bringing with them a quantity of
shell-fish (SANGUINOLARIA RUGOSA), which they eagerly exchanged for
biscuit. For a few days afterwards we occasionally met them on the beach,
but at length they disappeared altogether, in consequence of having been
fired at with shot by one of two 'young gentlemen' of the BRAMBLE on a
shooting excursion, whom they wished to prevent approaching too closely a
small village where they had their wives and children. Immediate steps
were taken in consequence to prevent the recurrence of such collisions
when thoughtless curiosity on one side is apt to be promptly resented on
the other if numerically superior in force... The men had large
cicatrices on the shoulders and across the breast and belly, the septum
of the nose was perforated, and none of the teeth had been removed. I saw
no weapons, and some rude armlets were their only ornaments."

Tam o' Shanter Point derives its title from the barque of that name, in
which the members of the Kennedy Exploring Expedition voyaged from
Sydney, whence they disembarked on 24th and 25th May 1848. H.M.S.
RATTLESNAKE had been commissioned to lend Kennedy assistance, and
Macgillivray relates that everything belonging to the party (with the
exception of one horse drowned while swimming ashore) was safely landed.
The first camp was formed on some open forest-land behind the beach at a
small fresh-water creek. On the 27th Mr Carson, the botanist of the party,
commenced digging a piece of ground, in which he sowed seeds of cabbages,
turnips, leek, pumpkin, rock and water melons, pomegranate, peach-stones
and apple-pips. No trace of this first venture in gardening in North
Queensland is now discernible. No doubt, inquisitive and curious blacks
would rummage the freshly turned soil as soon as the back of the
good-natured gardener was turned. It occurred to me that possibly the
pomegranate seeds might have germinated, and the plants become
established and acclimatised, but search proved resultless. Carson makes
no reference to the coco-nut palm which once flourished at the mouth of
the creek. The inference is that the nut whence it sprang drifted ashore
after his attempt to civilise the vicinity by the planting of seeds.
Dalrymple refers to the tree which, at the date of his visit (September
1873), was "about fourteen feet in height, but without fruit!" It grew to
a great tree, and blacks found in the fruit a refreshing, nutritious
food; but an evil thing came along one day in the shape of a thirsty
Chinaman, and as he could not climb the tree he cut it down, and blacks,
even to this day, hate the name of Chinaman. Opposite the Point is the
Island of Timana, known to some as "the Island on which the Chinaman was
killed!" Whether "the Chinaman" was the person who cut down the coco-nut
palm is not known, but somehow his fate and that of the palm have become
associated.

The only traces of the expedition of half a century ago are marks upon
trees at the mouth of the Hull River--2 miles to the south, at the spot
which it appears to have crossed. The object of Kennedy's expedition was
to explore the country to the eastward of the dividing range running
along the north-east coast of Australia. Difficulties assailed them at
the outset, as many weeks passed before they got clear of Rockingham Bay,
its rivers, swamps, and dense scrubs fenced in by a mountain chain. The
cart was abandoned on July 18th and the horses were packed. An axle and
other ironwork of a cart was found many years ago in the neighbourhood of
the upper Murray River. As the axle was slotted for the old style of
linchpins, no reasonable doubt exists as to its identity, and its
discovery affords collateral proof of a statement published in Mr
Dalrymple's official report--"It is noteworthy that several gins of the
Rockingham Bay tribe now in service in private families, and with the
native police are unanimous in their statements that an elderly white man
is still resident amongst them, and they associate his capture with
'white fellow leave him wheel-barrow along a scrub.' Kennedy abandoned his
horse-cart in the scrub of the Rockingham Bay Range before these gins
were born!" Kennedy's expedition was a disastrous failure. The brave
leader was killed by the blacks far up Cape York Peninsula while he was
heroically pushing on to obtain succour for his famishing and weary
followers. Three only were subsequently rescued. All this has, perhaps,
little to do with Dunk Island: but the scene is so close at hand that the
temptation to include a slight reference to one of the most sensational
and romantic episodes in the exploration of Australia could not be
resisted.

Twenty-five years lapsed, and then another official landing took place.
In the meantime the island had been frequently visited, but there are no
records, until the 29th September 1873, when the "Queensland North-East
Coast Expedition," under the leadership of Mr G. Elphinstone Dalrymple,
F.R.G.S., landed. Three members of the party have left pleasing
testimonies of their first impressions, and I turn to the remarks of the
leader for geological definitions. He says--"The formation of Dunk Island
is clay slates and micaceous schist. A level stratum of a soft, greasy,
and very red decomposing granitic clay was exposed along the southwest
tide-flats, and quartz veins and blue slates were found on the same side
of the island further in!" The huge granite boulders on the south-east
aspect and the granite escarpments on the shoulders of the hills above
did not apparently attract attention.

One feature then existent has also disappeared. The explorers referred to
the belt of magnificent calophyllum trees along the margin of the
south-west beach, and Mr Dalrymple thus describes a vegetable wonder--
"Some large fig-trees sent out great lateral roots, large as their own
trunks, fifty feet into salt water; an anchor-root extending
perpendicularly at the extremity to support them. Thence they have sent
up another tree as large as the parent stem, at high-water presenting the
peculiarity of twin-trees, on shore and in the sea, connected by a
rustic root bridge." These trees have no place or part now.

My chronicles are fated to be tinged with the ashen hue of the
commonplace, though the scenes they attempt to depict are all of the
sun-blessed tropics.

SATELLITES AND NEIGHBOURS

Consultation of the map will show that Dunk Island has four satellites
and seven near relations. Though not formally included in the Family
Group it stands as sponsor to all its members, and overlords the islets
within a few yards of its superior shores. The official chart has been
revised,

Only a few examples of current titles are given, as the crowding in of
the full list would have obscured the map in a maze of words. Many of the
geographical titles of the blacks are without meaning, being used merely
to indicate a locality. Others were bestowed because of the presence of a
particular tree or plant or a remarkable rock. Some few commemorate
incidents. Two places on Dunk Island perpetuate the names of females. The
coast-line is so varied that specific names for localities a few hundred
yards apart hardly seem necessary; but the original inhabitants, frugal
of their speech, found it less trouble to strew names thickly than to
enter into explanations one to another when relating the direction and
extent which the adventures and the sport of the day led them. Few names
for any part of the island away from the beach seem to have existed,
although the site of camps along the edge of the jungle, and even in
gullies as remote as may be from the sea, are even now apparent. Camps
were not honoured by titles, but all the creeks and watercourses and other
places where water was obtainable were so invariably, and camps were
generally, though not always, made near water.

Brief reference to each of the satellites and neighbours of Dunk Island
may not be out of place; if only to preserve distinctions which were
current long before the advent of white folks, and to make clear remarks
in future pages upon the different features of the domain over which the
Beachcomber exercises jurisdiction. Not to many men is permitted the
privilege of choosing for his day's excursion from among so many
beautiful spots, certain in the knowledge that to whichsoever he may
elect to flutter his handkerchief is reserved for his delight; certain
that the sands will be free from the traces of any other human being;
certain that no sound save those of nature will break in upon his musings
and meditations.

Purtaboi, the first and the nearest of the satellites, lies
three-quarters of a mile from the middle of the sweep of Brammo
Bay--always in view through the tracery of the melaleuca trees.
Mung-um-gnackum and Kumboola, to the south-west, are linked at low-water
spring tides to Dunk Island and to each other; and Wooln-garin, to the
south-east, is separated from the rocky cliffs and ledges of the island
by 300 yards of deep and swiftly-flowing water.

Purtaboi--dainty and unique--its hill crowned with low-growing trees and
shrubs, a ruddy precipice, groups of pandanus palms, beach lined with
casuarinas, banks of snow-white coral debris, ridge of sharped-edged
rocks jutting out to the north-western cove and out-lying reef of coral,
tangle of orchids and scrub all in miniature--save the orchids--gigantic
and gross and profuse of old-gold bloom. In October and November hosts of
sea-birds come hither to nest, and so also do nutmeg or Torres Straits
pigeons, blue doves, peaceful doves, honey-eaters, wood-swallows, the
blue reef heron, and occasionally the little black cormorant. The
large-billed shore plover (ESACUS MAGNIROSTRIS) deposits her single egg
on the sand, merely carelessly whisking aside the casuarina needles for
its reception.

Hundreds of terns (six species) lay their eggs among the tinkling coral
chips, and discarding all attempts at concealment, practise artistic
deception. So perfect is the artifice that the eggs are frequently the
least conspicuous of the elements of the banks of drift, broken coral and
bleached shells. Not until each square yard is steadfastly inspected can
they be detected, though there may be dozens around one's feet, the
colours--creamy white with grey and brown and purple spots, and blotches
and scribblings--blending perfectly with their environment. The eggs, by
the way, are a great delicacy, sweet, nutty, and absolutely devoid of
fishy flavour. When the downy young are hatched they, too, are almost
invisible. They cunningly lie motionless, though within a few inches of
your hand, and remain perfectly passive when lifted. Snoodling beside
lumps of coral or beneath weather-beaten drift-wood, they afford
startling proof of the effect of sympathetic coloration. When one stoops
to pick up a piece of wood, whitened and roughened by the salt of the
sea, and finds that more than half its apparent bulk is made up of
several infants in soft swaddles, crowded together into a homogeneous
mass, the result is pleasing astonishment. Only when individuals of the
group move do they become visible to their natural enemies. These tender
young birds enjoy no protection nor any of the comfort of a nest; and if
they were not endowed from the moment of birth with rare consciousness of
their helplessness, the species, no doubt, would speedily become
exterminated, for keen-sighted hawks hover about, picking up those which,
failing to obey the first law of nature, reveal themselves by movement.
If the wind is tempered to the shorn lamb, what is the provision of
Nature which enables so tender a thing as a young bird, a mere helpless
ball of creamy fluff, to withstand the frizzling heat with which the sun
bleaches the broken coral? Many do avail themselves of the meagre shadow
of shells and lumps of coral, but the majority are exposed to the direct
rays of the sun, which brings the coral to such a heat that even the
hardened beachcomber walks thereon with "uneasy steps," reminding him of
another outcast who used that oft-quoted staff as a support over the
"burning marl." Gilbert White relates that a pair of fly-catchers which
inadvertently placed their nests in an intolerably hot situation hovered
over it "all the hotter hours, while with wings expanded and mouths
gaping for breath, they screened the heat from their suffering young."
Parental duty of the like nature does not appear to be practised for the
benefit of the young tern; but they are well fed with what may be
considered thirst-provoking food. Thirst does occasionally overcome the
instinct which the young birds obey by absolute stillness, and a
proportion of those which give way to the ever-present temptation of the
sea falls to the lot of the hawks. Mere fluffy toddlers, with mouths
gaping with thirst, slide and scramble down the coral banks, waddle with
uncertain steps across the strip of smooth sand to be rolled over and
over in their helplessness by the gentle break of the sea. They cool
their panting bodies by a series of queer, sprawling marine gymnastics,
swim about buoyantly for a few minutes, are tumbled on to the sand, and
waddle with contented cheeps each back to its own birthplace among
hundreds of highly-decorated eggs, and hundreds of infants like unto
themselves.

The parents of the white-shafted ternlet (STERNA SINENSIS), the most
sylph-like of birds, with others of the family, ever on the look-out,
follow in circling, screaming mobs the disturbance on the surface of the
sea caused by small fish vainly endeavouring to elude the crafty bonito
and porpoise, and take ample supplies to the ever-hungry young. How is it
that the hundreds of pairs recognise among the hundreds of fluffy young,
identical in size and colour, each their particular care?

The picture "where terns lay" testifies to the solicitude of Nature for
the preservation of types. The apparent primary carelessness of the terns
in depositing their eggs is shown, when the chicks are hatched, to have
been artfulness of a high order. At least a dozen, if not more, young
birds were sharply focused by the camera, but so perfectly do their
neutral tints blend with the groundwork of coral, shells and sand that
only three or four are actually discernible, and these are perplexingly
inconspicuous. A microscopic examination of the photograph is necessary
to differentiate the helpless birds from their surroundings.

On another island within the Barrier Reef several species of sea-birds
spontaneously adapted themselves to altered circumstances. They, in
consonance with the general habits of the species, were wont to lay their
eggs carelessly on the sand or shingle, without pretence of nests. A
meat-loving pioneer introduced goats to the island, the continual
parading about of which so disturbed the birds, and deprived them of
their hope of posterity, that they took to the building of nests on dwarf
trees, out of the way of the goats. That birds unaccustomed to the
building of nests should acquire the habit, illustrates the depths of
Nature's promptings for the preservation of species; or is it that the
faculty existed as an hereditary trait, was abandoned only when its
exercise was unnecessary, and resumed when there was conspicuous occasion
for it? On a neighbouring island of the same group unstocked with goats,
no change in the habits of the birds has taken place.

Among the rocks of Purtaboi, in cool dark grottoes, the brown-winged tern
rears her young. She often permits herself to be trapped rather than
indicate her presence by voluntary flight. One of the most graceful of
the sea-swallows this. Brown of back and greenish-white under surface;
noisy, too, for it "yaps" as a terrier whensoever intruders approach the
island during the brooding season; and its puff-ball chicken, crouching
in dim recesses, takes the bluish-grey hue of the rock.

The Blue Reef heron builds a rough nest of twigs on the ledges of the
rocks, sometimes at the roots of the bronze orchid (DENDROBIUM
UNDULATUM), and endeavours to scare away intruders by harsh squawks,
stupidly betraying the presence of pale blue eggs or helpless brood. When
the blue heron flies with his long neck stiffly tucked between his
shoulders, he is anything but graceful; but under other circumstances he
is not an ungainly bird. Occasionally my casual observations are made
afar off, with the medium of a telescope. Then the birds are seen
behaving naturally, and without fear or self-consciousness. The other day
the cute attitudes of a beach curlew interested me, as he stood upon a
stone just awash, and ever and anon picked up a crab. A blue heron
flapped down beside him, and the curlew skipped off to another rock. In
a minute the heron straightened his neck, poised its long beak for
striking, and brought up a wriggling fish, which with a jerk of its head
it turned end for end and swallowed. Another actor came within the field
of the glass--the mate of the heron, alighting on the stone beside her
lord and master. He was in a peckish humour, and instantly the tufts on
his shoulders, the long feathers on the neck, and the rudimentary crest
were angrily erected, and he made a peevish snap at her. You can imagine
his reproof--"Get away from this. Don't crowd a fellow. Go to a rock of
your own. This is my place. You spoil my sport!" Then, remembering that
domestic tiffs were not edifying to strangers--and there was the sober
brown curlew looking on--the bird let his angry feathers subside, and made
way for his spouse on the best point of the rock. Each on one leg, they
stood shoulder to shoulder, the very embodiment of connubial bliss. I
noticed, too, that the mistress was allowed to fish to her heart's
content, the master never raising a feather in remonstrance, though she
gobbled up all that came along.

Low-lying Mung-um-gnackum, the abode of the varied honey-eater, the
tranquil dove, and the brooding-place of the night-jar (CAPRIMULGUS) and
lovely Kumboola, lie to the south-west, a bare half-mile away.

Kumboola's sheltered aspect is thickly clad with jungle; a steep grassy
ridge springs from the blue-grey rocks to the south-east; and on the
precipitous weather side grow low and open scrub and dwarf casuarina.
Here is a natural aviary. Pigeons and doves coo; honey-eaters whistle;
sun-birds whisper quaint, quick notes; wood swallows soar and twitter.
Metallic starlings seek safe sleeping-places among the mangroves, ere
they repair last year's villages, and join excitedly in the chorus; while
the great osprey wheels overhead, and the grey falcon sits on a bare
branch, still as a sentinel, each waiting for an opportunity to take toll
of the nutmeg pigeons. The channel-billed cuckoo shrieks her discordant
warning of the approaching wet season; and the scrub fowl utters those
far-off imitations of the exclamation of civilised hens. Sundown at
Kumboola towards the end of September, when the sea laps and murmurs
among the rocks, and great white pigeons gather in thousands on the dark
foliage, or "coo-hooing" and flapping, disappear beneath the thick leafy
canopy, and all the other birds are saying their good-nights, or
asserting their rights, or protesting against crowding or intrusion, is
an ever-to-be-remembered experience. Added to the cheerful presence of
the noisy birds, are the pleasant odours which spring from the jungle as
coolness prevails, and the flaming west gives a weird tint of red to the
outlines of the trees, and of purple to the drowsy sea.

Of entirely different character is the last of the satellites to be
mentioned, Wooln-garin. Lying 300 yards off the south-western end of Dunk
Island, across a swift and deep channel, it is naught but a confused mass
of weather-beaten rocks, the loftiest not being more than 50 feet above
high-water. A few pandanus palms, hardy shrubs and trailers, and
mangroves, spring from sheltered crevices, but for the most part the
rocks are bare. The incessant assaults of the sea have cut deep but
narrow clefts in the granite, worn out sounding hollows, and smoothed
away angularities. Here a few terns rear their young, and succeeding
generations of the sooty oyster-catcher lay their eggs just out of the
reach of high-tide. A never-ending procession of fish passes up and down
the channel, according as the tide flows and ebbs, though they do not at
all times take serious heed of bait. To one who generally fishes for a
definite purpose, it is tantalising to peep down into the clear depths
and watch the lazy fish come and go, ignoring the presence of that which
at other times is greedily snapped at. Turtle, and occasionally dugong,
favour the vicinity of Wooln-garin which on account of its distinctive
character is one of the most frequented of the satellites.

The neighbouring islands include Timana, 2 1/2 miles from the sand-spit
of Dunk Island and 1 1/2 mile from Kumboola. Bedarra lies a little to the
southward; Tool-ghar three-quarters of a mile from Bedarra; Coomboo half
a mile from Tool-ghar; and the group of three--Bud-joo, Kurrambah and
Coolah--still further to the south-east. These comprise the Family
Islands of the chart.

On Timana are gigantic milkwood trees (ALSTONIA SCHOLARIS) which need
great flying buttresses to support their immense height, their roots
being mainly superficial. For many generations two ospreys have had their
eyrie in one of these giant trees, fit nursery for imperial birds! With
annual additions, the nest has attained immense proportions, and as years
pass it will still further increase, for blacks capable of climbing such
a tree and disturbing the occupants are few and far between. Great
distinction and pride, however, are the lot of the athlete who secures
the snowy down of the young birds to stick in tufts on his dirty head
with fat, gum or beeswax, for he will be the admired of all admirers at
the CORROBBOREE. Vanity impels human beings to extraordinary exertions,
trials and risks, and the black who desires to outshine his fellows, and
who has the essential of strength and length of limb, will make a loop of
lawyer vine round the tree, and with his body within the loop begin the
ascent. Having cut a notch for the left great toe, he inclines his weight
against the tree, while he shifts the loop three feet or so upwards. Then
he leans backward against the loop, cuts a notch for his right great toe,
and so on until the nest is reached. There has been but one ascent of
this tree in modern times, and the name of the black, "Spider," is still
treasured.

A heavy, slovenly-patched mantle of leafage, impervious to sunlight,
covers the Isle of Timana, creating a region of perpetual dimness from
western beach to eastern precipice, where orchids cling and palms peer on
rocks below. All the vegetation is matted and interwoven, only the
topmost branches of the milkwood escaping from the clinging, aspiring
vines. Tradition asserts that not many years since Timana was much
favoured by nutmeg pigeons, now sparsely represented; but the varied
honey-eater and a friar bird possessing a most mellow and fluty note,
cockatoos and metallic starlings are plentiful. Although there is no
permanent fresh water, the pencil-tailed rat leaves numerous tracks on
the sand, and scrub fowls keep the whole surface perpetually raked.

From a mound adjacent to the beach a black boy brought fifteen eggs as we
picnicked on the beach, and though some of them were nigh upon hatching,
not one was covered with white ants--which, an authority asserts,
particularly like crawling over the eggshells, so as to be ready when
wanted by the chicks. Nor have I ever seen an instance of this alleged
exhibition of self-sacrifice on the part of the white ant. Another boy
had eaten his very substantial lunch, but the eggs were tempting and he
baked two. One, and that new-laid, is ample for an ordinary mortal. The
condition of the first resembled that which the embarrassed curate
described as "good in parts"; but "Mickie" was not nice over a
half-hatched egg. Indeed, was it not rather more piquant than otherwise?
The second proved to contain a fully developed chicken. Now the chick
emerges from the shell feathered, and this, but for the unfortunate
accident of discovery, would have begun to scratch for its living in a
day or so. Mickie flicked away the fragments of shell from the steaming
dainty and laid it snugly on a leaf. "That's for Paddy"--an Irish
terrier, always of the party. It was an affecting act of renunciation.
Presently "Paddy" came along; but "Paddy," who, too, had lunched,
bestowed merely a sniff and a "No, thank you" wag of the tail. "What, you
no want 'em? All right." No second offer was risked, and in a moment, in
one mouthful, the chick was being crunched by Mickie, feathers and all.
The menu of the Chinese--with its ducks' eggs salted, sharks' fins and
tails, stewed pups, fowls' and ducks' tongues, fricasseed cat, rat soup,
silkworm grubs, and odds and ends generally despised and rejected--is
pitifully unromantic when set against the generous omnivority of
Australian blacks.

A mile beyond Timana is Bedarra, with its lovely little bays and coves
and fantastically weathered rocks, its forest and jungle and scrub, and
its rocky satellite Pee-rahm-ah.

Several of the most conspicuous landmarks are associated in the minds of
blacks with legends, generally of the simplest and most prosaic nature.
About this rough rock Pee-rahm-ah is a story which in the minds of the
natives satisfactorily accounts for its presence.

In the far-away past two nice young gins, they say, were left by
themselves on Dunk Island, while the others of the tribe went away in
canoes to Hinchinbrook. Tiring of their lonesomeness, they made up their
minds to regain the company of their relatives by swimming from island to
island. Kumboola was easily reached; to Timana it is but a mile and a
half, and a mile thence to Bedarra. Leaving the most easterly point of
Bedarra, they were quickly caught in the swirl of a strong current and
spun about until both became dazed and exhausted. As they disappeared
beneath the water they were changed to stone, and the stone rose in
fantastic shape, and from that day Pee-rahm-ah has weathered all the
storms of the Pacific and formed a feature in the loveliest scene these
isles reveal.

The largest of the neighbouring isles, Bedarra, has less than a square
mile of superficial area; the smallest but 4 or 5 acres. The smaller are
made up of confused masses of granite, for the most part so overgrown
with fig trees, plumy palms, milkwoods, umbrella-trees, quandongs,
eugenias, hibiscus bushes, bananas and lawyer vines, as to be
unexplorable without a scrub-knife; for the soil among the rocks is soft
and spongy, the purest of vegetable mould, and encourages luxurious
growth. The jungle droops over the grey rocks on the sheltered side.
Twisted Moreton Bay ash and wind-crippled scrub spring up among the
clefts and crevices on the weather frontage--the south-east--while a
narrow strip of sand, the only landing-place, is a general characteristic
of the north-west aspect. Birds nest in numbers in peace and security,
for the islets are off the general track. Seldom is there any disturbance
of the primeval quietude, and in the encompassing sea, if the fish and
turtle suffer any excitement, rarely is the cause attributable to man.

The islands immediately to the south-east form the Family Group--triplets,
twins and two singles. I like to think approving things of them; to note
individual excellences; to familiarise myself with their distinguishing
traits; to listen to them in their petulance and anger, and in that
sobbing subsidence to even temper; to their complacent gurglings and
sleepy murmurs. One--and the most Infantile of all--not of the Family, has
a distinctive note, a copyright tone which none imitates, and which
becomes at times a sonorous swelling boom, a lofty recitative, for even an
island has its temper and its moods.

PLANS AND PERFORMANCES

"The folly of this island! They say there's but five upon this isle; we
are two of them; if the other three be brained like us the State
totters!"


The scheme for the establishment of our island home comprehended several
minor industries. This isle of dreams, of quietude and happiness; this
fretless scene; this plot of the Garden of Eden, was not to be left
entirely in its primitive state. It was firmly resolved that our
interference should be considerate and slight; that there should be no
rude and violent upsetting of the old order of things; but just a gentle
restraint upon an extravagant expression here and there, a little
orderliness, and ever so light a touch of practicability. A certain
acreage of land was to be cleared for the cultivation of tropical fruits;
of vegetables for everyday use, and of maize and millet for poultry,
which we proposed to breed for home consumption. Bees were to be an
ultimate source of profit. There are millions of living proofs of direct
but vagrant descent from the Italian stock, with which we started,
humming all over this and the adjacent islands to-day.

How we went about the practical accomplishment of our plans; in what
particulars they failed; what proportion of success was achieved, and the
process of education in rural enterprises generally, it were idle to
account. Rather, an attempt must be made to give particulars of the
project as a whole as it stands after a period of nine years. Be it
understood that we depended almost solely on the aid of the blacks. Means
at command did not permit the employment of even a single white workman,
save for a brief experimental period. Indeed, there is yet to be found in
Australia the phase of tropical agriculture which affords payment of the
ruling rate of wages. The proximity of countries in which cheap labour
predominates counterbalances the minimum demand of white men in these
parts. Those who have had experience of aboriginals as labourers,
understand their erratic disposition; yet with considerate treatment, the
exact and prompt fulfilment of obligations and promises, the display of
some little sympathy with their foibles, interest in their doings, and
ready response to any desire expressed to "walk about," they are not
wholly to be set at naught as labourers. Some are intelligent and honest
to a degree, and when in the humour will work steadily and consistently.
When not in humour, it is well to accept the fact cheerfully.

Here I must have leave to be candid, so that the reader may be under no
misapprehension as to the exact circumstances under which the undertaking
progressed. Income from the land as the result of agricultural operations
was not absolutely necessary. This acknowledgment does not imply the
possession of, or any disrespect for, "the cumbersome luggage of riches,"
nor any affectation; but rather an accommodating and frugal
disposition--the capacity to turn to account the excellent moral that
poor Mr Micawber lamented his inability to obey. Profit from the sale of
produce and poultry would have supplied additional comforts which would
have been cordially appreciated; but if no returns came, then there was
that state of mind which enabled us to endure the deprivation as the
Psalmist suffered fools. And shall not this be accounted unto us for
righteousness? Shall we not enjoy the warm comfort of virtue? We were at
liberty to reflect with the Vicar of Wakefield--"We have still enough
left for happiness, if we are wise; and let us draw upon content for the
deficiencies of fortune." Certainly, we were not inclined to risk that
which thriftily employed provided for all absolute necessaries on the
chance of securing that which might, after all, prove to be superfluous.
At least, there remains the consciousness of having lived, and of having
wrought no evil (not having interfered in recent Federal Legislation),
and being able to enjoy the sleep which is said to be that of the just.

Occasionally there are as many as four blacks about the place. They come
and go from the mainland, some influenced by the wish for the diet of
oysters for a time. "Me want sit down now; me want eat oyster." At rare
intervals we are entirely alone for months together, and then cultural
operations stand still. Twice, a considerable portion of the plantation
was silently overrun by the scouts of the jungle, and had to be
re-surveyed in order to locate smothered-up orange-trees. Our staff,
domestic and otherwise, usually consists of one boy and his gin, and save
for the housework, affairs are not conducted on a serious or systematic
plan. The spur necessity not being applied, there is no persistent or
sustained effort to make a profit, and, of course, none is earned.

In a few months from the felling of the first strip of jungle and the
burning off of the timber and rubbish, however, we grew produce that went
towards the maintenance of the establishment. That pious old man who
lived to the majestic age of 105, and during the last ninety years
existed wholly upon bread and water, was not the only one who had "a
certain lusting after salad." Until we grew fruit, the papaw, the
quickest and amongst the best, vegetables were more necessary.

Our plantation, all carved out of the jungle, has an area of 4 1/2 acres.
We have orange-trees (two varieties), just coming into bearing, and from
which profits are expected; pineapples (two varieties), papaws, coffee
(ARABICA), custard apples, sour sop, jack fruit, pomegranate, the
litchee, and mangoes in plenty. Sweet potatoes are always in successive
cultivation, also pumpkins and melons, and an occasional crop of maize.
Bananas represent a staple food. We have had fair crops of English
potatoes, and have grown strawberries of fine flavour, though of
deficient size, among the banana plants. Parsley, mint, and all "the
vulgar herbs" grow freely. Readers in less favoured climes may hardly
credit the statement that pineapples are so plentiful in the season in
North Queensland that they are fed to pigs as well as horses. Twenty good
pines for sixpence!--who would cultivate the fruit and market it for such
remuneration? Hundreds of tons of mangoes go absolutely to waste every
year. The taste for this wholesome and most delicious fruit has not yet
become established in the large centres of population of Australia. At
one time the same could he said of bananas; but now the trade has become
prodigious. The era of the mango has yet to come.

The original cedar hut now forms an annexe to a bungalow designed, in so
far as means permitted, as a concession to the dominating characteristics
of the clime. Around the house is an acre or so given over to an attempt
to keep up appearances.

Poultry are comfortably housed; a small flock of goats provides milk and
occasionally fresh meat. There are two horses (one a native of the
island) to perform casual heavy work; the boat has a shed into which she
is reluctantly hauled by means of a windlass to spend the rowdy months;
there is a buoy in the bay to which she is greatly attached when she is
not sulking in the shed or coyly submitting to the caresses of the waves.

It may have been anticipated that I would, Thoreau-like, set down in
details and in figures the exact character and cost of every designed
alteration to this scene; but the idea, as soon as it occurred, was
sternly suppressed, for however cheerful a disciple I am of that
philosopher, far be it from me to belittle him by parody.

A good portion of the house represents the work of my own unaccustomed
hands. I have found how laborious an occupation fencing is, and how very
exasperating if barbed wire is used; that the keeping in order of even a
small plantation in which ill-bred and riotous plants grow with the
rapidity of the prophet's gourd, and which if unattended would lapse in a
very brief space of time into the primitive condition of tangled jungle,
involves incessant labour of the most sweatful kind. A work on structural
botany tells me that "the average rate of perspiration in plants has been
estimated as equal to that of seventeen times that of man." Only dwellers
in the tropics are capable of realising the profundity of those pregnant
words. Nowhere does plant life so thrive and so squander itself. And to
toil among all this seething, sweating vegetation! No wonder that the
trashing of sugar-cane is not a popular pastime among Britishers.

Given a quiet and contented mind, a banana-grove, a patch of sweet
potatoes, orange and mango and papaw trees, a few coffee plants; the sea
for fish, the rocks for oysters; the mangrove flats for crabs, and is it
not possible to become fat with a minimum of labour? Fewer statements
have found wider publicity than that the banana contains more nutriment
than meat. I have good reason to have faith--faith in it. In Queensland
every man has to find money for direct and indirect taxation; but apart
from the imposts upon living, moving and having being, what ready money
does a man want beyond a few shillings for tea, sugar and other luxuries,
and some few articles of essential clothing? But I am attempting to
describe a special set of circumstances, and would not have it on my
conscience that I indirectly offered encouragement even to a forlorn and
shipwrecked brother to abandon hope of becoming the prime minister of the
Commonwealth, and to enter upon a life of reckless irresponsibility such
as mine.

As soon as test and trial proved in this special case that life on the
periphery of the whirl of civilisation was not only endurable but "so
would we have it," arrangements were made with the Government of the
State for a change in the tenure upon which the right of possession was
upheld.

In obedience to those altruistic tendencies which, with due recognition
of the law of self-preservation, comprehend the duty of man, it is
necessary that the terms and conditions upon which others may acquire
freehold estates in tropical Queensland--the most fruitful and the most
desirable part of Australia--should be briefly detailed. As insurance
against intrusion, a small area of the island had been secured from the
Government under special lease for a term of thirty years, at the rental
of 2 shillings 6 pence per acre per annum. This lease was maintained
only for the period during which our verdant sentiments were put to the
test. That phase having passed without the destruction of a single
illusion, no restraint was imposed upon the passion to possess the land.
Negotiations resulted in a certain acreage being proclaimed open to
selection, and in such case the original applicant has the prior right.
What is termed under the exceedingly liberal land laws of Queensland an
agricultural homestead may comprise 160 acres, 320 acres, or 640 acres,
in accordance with the classification of the land as of first, second, or
third quality. The selector must pay 2 shillings 6 pence per acre at the
rate Of 3 pence per acre for ten years, and must reside continuously on
the land. Five years are allowed for the completion of
improvements--house, clearing, fencing, cultivation, etc., which in
valuation must equal 10 shillings, 5 shillings, or 2 shillings 6 pence
per acre respectively, according to the classification of the land. At
the end of the five years the selector may pay in a lump sum the second
moiety of rent, making the total 2 shillings 6 pence per acre, and he is
thereupon entitled to the issue of a deed of grant of the land in
fee-simple. Otherwise payments may extend over the term of ten years,
when the land becomes freehold. Briefly, for the sum Of 2 shillings 6
pence per acre distributed over ten years, in addition to a trifle for
survey fees (also payable in easy instalments) and the construction of
improvements equal in value to 2 shillings 6 pence per acre, the freehold
of land unsurpassed in fertility in the whole world may be acquired. The
selector may build his own hut and erect his fences of timber from his
clearing, and the officials assess improvements on a liberal scale. Who
would not be a landed proprietor under such terms? Other clauses of the
Land Act are far more encouraging. Not only are payments held in abeyance
until the selector is able to meet them out of his earnings from the
land, but in special cases monetary assistance is afforded him. Literally
the meekest of men may inherit the choicest part of the earth.

What has been said of the natural features of Dunk Island is applicable
to the coastal tract extending, say, 300 miles, than which no land is
more fertile. A very notable advantage is enjoyed here. Brammo Bay is but
three or four minutes' steam from the track of vessels which make weekly
trips up and down the coast, and by arrangements with the proprietary of
one of the lines we have the boon of a regular weekly mail and of cheap
carriage of supplies. Without this connecting link, life on the island
would have been very different. The Companies running parallel lines of
steamers, one skirting the coast and the other outside the islands in
deep water, have done much to open up the wealth of the agricultural land
of North Queensland. Trade follows the flag. Here the flag of the
mercantile marine has frequently been first planted to demonstrate the
certainty of trade.

Without apology, a few facts are submitted which utterly condemn the
practicability of one department of island enterprise, and which possibly
(without protest) may provide a reason for the placing of other branches of
industry beyond the pale of recognition by those who devote every moment
of time to, and make never-ending sacrifices of ease and health and
comfort on behalf of, what folks term the main chance. When after some
expenditure in the purchase of plant and material, and no little labour,
the couple of beehives that formed the original stock of a project for
the harvesting of the nectar which had hitherto gone to waste or been
disposed of by unreflecting birds, had increased to a dozen, and honey
of pleasant and varying flavour flowed from the separator at frequent
intervals, hopes ran high of the earning of a modest profit from one of
the cleanest, nicest, most entertaining and innoxious of pursuits.

No one who takes up bees and who studies their manners and methods can
allow his admiration to remain dormant. It is not the fault of the bees
if he does not become ashamed of himself in some respects; nor are they
to blame if the wisest men fail quite to comprehend some of the wonders
they perform. Only by those "who list with care extreme," are their
gentle tones heard aright; and even from such are some secrets hidden.
How is it that an egg deposited by the queen-mother in a more than
ordinarily capacious compartment hatches a grub, "just like any other,"
which grub, feasting upon the concentrated food stored within its cell,
expands and lengthens and emerges an amber queen in all her glory?
Bee-keepers learn that the queen and the drones are the only perfect
insects in the hive, the hoard of willing, bustling slaves being females
in a state of arrested development. Each worker might have been a queen
but for the fact that environment and a special food were not vouchsafed
in the embryonic stage. By making artificial queen-cells, which the
workers provide for, men bring about the birth of queens at will. Not yet
has the secret of the manufacture of royal jelly been revealed. But is it
not the common belief that the spacious compartment and the special food
work the transformation of what otherwise would have been a brief-lifed
toiler to an insect of majestic proportions, regal adornment and imperial
instinct, whose wants are anticipated and who has no duty to perform save
that of increasing and multiplying her faithful subjects? Man controls
the development of an insect. May not those who complain of the disparity
between the births of females and males still listen to hope's
"flattering tale"? Such is one of the homilies of the hive.

Interest in bee-culture grows; and some of the habits of the insect came
to be understood and, inevitably, admired, the while all convenient
vessels available, even to the never-to-be-despised kerosene tins, were
utilised to store the nectar garnered from myriads of blossoms. But as
time passed the fair prospects faded. Less and less quantities of honey
were stored. The separator seldom buzzed with soothing melody as the
honey, whirled from the dripping frames of combs, pattered against its
resonant sides. Bees seemed less and less numerous. An air of idleness,
almost dissoluteness and despair, brooded over some of the hives. The
strong robbed the weak; and the weak contented themselves with gathering
in listless groups, murmuring plaintively. If the hives were inquiringly
tapped, instead of a furious and instant alarm and angry outpouring of
excited and wrathful citizens, eager to sacrifice themselves in the
defence of the rights of the commonwealth, there was merely a buzzing
remonstrance, indicative of decreased population, weakness and
disconsolation.

The cause of so great a change in the character and demeanour of citizens
who erstwhile worked as honey carriers all day, and who during the hot,
still nights did duty as animated ventilating fans to maintain a free
circulation of air through the hive, had to be investigated. Soon it was
revealed in the presence of two species of birds, the Australian
bee-eater (MEROPS ORNATUS) and the white-rumped wood-swallow (ARTAMUS
LEUCOGASTA). The former is one of the handsomest of the smaller birds of
Australia, its chief colouring being varying shades of green with
bronze-brown and black head and blue back; and to add to its appearance
and pride two graceful feather-shafts of black protrude from the green
and yellow of the tail. It travels in small companies of, say, from four
and five to a couple of dozen, and in its flight occasionally seems to
pause with wings and tail outspread, revealing all its charms. Fond it
is, too, of perching on bare twigs commanding a wide survey, whence It
darts with unerring precision to catch bees and other insects on the
wing. If its prey takes unkindly to its fate, the bird batters it to
death on its perch ere swallowing it with a twitter of satisfaction. The
wood-swallow wears a becoming suit of soft pearly grey and white, to
contrast with its black head and throat. It has a graceful, soaring
flight and a cheerful chirrup. At certain seasons scores congregate on a
branch, perching in a row, so closely compact that their breasts show as
a continuous band of white. When one leaves his place to catch an insect,
the others close up the ranks and dress the line, and on returning,
wrangle and scold as he may, he needs must take an outside place. Let a
bush fire be started, and flocks of wood-swallows whirl and circle along
the flanks of the circling smoke, taking flying insects on the wing, or
deftly pick "thin, high-elbowed creatures," scuttling up tree-trunks out
of the way of the flames. Those were the marauders who confounded
anticipations of a comfortable livelihood in the decent calling of an
apiarist. They devoured bees by the hundred every day. Every hive paid
dreadful toll to them, for they found food so plentiful, and with so
little exertion, that they made the vicinity of the hives a permanent
abiding place. For a brief season I found myself confronted by a problem.
I had to apply my own favourite theories and arguments to myself and
weigh against them practical advantages. Honey was plentiful and, given
that the bees were protected against voracious enemies, might have been
stored in marketable quantities. But was I not bound by honour as well as
sentiment to protect the birds? Was not my coming hither due to a certain
extent to a wish for the preservation of bird-life? Was there not in my
presence an implied warranty to that effect? Had not the island since my
occupancy become a sanctuary, a city of refuge, a safe abiding place, a
kingdom where all the birds of the air--save tyrants and cannibals were
welcomed with gladness and enthusiasm? Had I not warned others of the
dreadful consequences that would befall any disturbance of the sacred air
by so much as the unauthorised report of a gun? How then was I to deal
out justice to the defenceless bees that I had hurried hither,
willy-nilly, without consideration of their likes and dislikes and their
multitudinous descendants? How protect my investment in apiarist plant?
How maintain the stock of honey, white, golden and tawny brown,
excellent, wholesome delicious food, and still preserve the natural
rights, the privileges of the birds? Had not the birds the right of prior
occupancy and other legitimate claims, in addition to sentimental demands
upon my conscience? Not only, too were the birds beautiful to look upon
and of engaging habits; not only had they become companionable and
trustful; not only were they among the primeval features of the island
that I was so eager to leave unspotted from the world; but they were
eminently useful in the work of keeping within bounds the rampant host of
insects to which mankind is in the habit of applying the term injurious.

It took no long time to make up my mind. Gladly came the determination to
abandon the enterprise rather than do violence to the birds. Fortunately
a kindly friend took the entire plant and the hives off my hands. We are
the worse off in respect of honey; but we have the birds, and the thought
comes that there are now hundreds of colonies of bees from the original
stock, here and on the mainland, working out their own destinies. Had the
enterprise been allowed to flourish, it would have been at the cost of
the lives of hundreds of graceful birds; and hundreds of others that now
merrily make so free would have been scared away. The money that would
have been spent in cartridges is applied to the purchase of honey from
foreign parts. No one is much the worse off. Indeed, my friend who
purchased the stock is the richer by my abandonment of the calling, and
am not I conscious of consistency?

So, these my vocations drift into the gentle and devious stream of
inconsequence. It would be vain-glorious, no doubt, to assert that there
is placid indifference to vain-glory, which Carlyle declares to be, with
neediness and greediness, one of the besetting sins of mankind; but am I
not free from the cares that obtrude on those of tougher texture of mind
who find joy in the opposite to this peace and unconcern for the rewards
and honours of the world? Better this isolation and moderation in all
things than, racked with worries, to moan and fret because of non-success
in the ceaseless struggle for riches, or the increase thereof; better
than to bow down to and worship in the "soiled temple of Commercialism"
that haughty and supercilious old idol Mammon; better than to offer
continual sacrifices of rest, health, and the immediate good of life to
appease the exacting and silly deities of fashion and society.

There may be some who, in a disparaging tone, will at this stage of my
confessions enter an accusation of impracticableness. To such a charge I
would plead guilty; but to those who proffer it, I neither appeal, nor do
I fear their judgment. These writings are for those who see something in
life beyond the mere "getting on in world," or making a din in it.




CHAPTER II



BEACHCOMBING


"For the Beachcomber, when not a mere ruffian, is the poor relation of
the artist."

In justification of the assumption of the title of "Beachcomber," it must
be said that, having made good and sufficient provision against the
advent of the wet season (which begins, as a rule, during the Christmas
holidays), the major portion of each week was spent in first formal and
official calls, and then friendly and familiar visits to the neighbouring
islands and the mainland.

Duty and inclination constrained me to find out what were the states and
moods of all the bays and coves of all the isles; the location and form
of rocks and reefs; the character of shrubs and trees; the nature of the
jungle-covered hilltops; the features of bluffs and precipices; to
understand the style and manner and the conversation of unfamiliar birds;
to discover where the turtle most do congregate; the favourite haunts of
fishes. I was in a hurry to partake freely of the novel, and yearned for
pleasure of the absolute freedom of isles uninhabited, shores untrodden;
eager to know how Nature, not under the microscope, behaved; what were
her maiden fancies, what the art with which she allures.

But there was an excuse, rather an imperious command, for all the
apparent waste of time. Before the rains came thundering on the iron roof
of our little hut, the washed-out and enfeebled town dweller who gave way
to bitter reflections on the first evening of his new career, could
hardly have been recognised, thanks to the robustious, wholesome effects
of the free and vitalising life. Fourteen, frequently sixteen, hours of
the twenty-four were spent in the open air, ashore and afloat.

What a glowing and absolutely authentic testimonial could be written as
to the tonic influence of the misrepresented climate of the rainy belt of
North Queensland on constitutions that have run down? According to
popular opinion, malaria ought to have discovered an exceptionally easy
prey. Ague, if the expected had happened, should have gripped and shaken
me until my teeth rattled; and after alternations of raging fever and
arctic cold, I ought to have gone to my long home with the fearful shapes
of delirium yelling in my ears. But there are places other than Judee
where they do not know everything. At the fraction of the fee of a
fashionable doctor, and of the cost of following his fashionable and
pleasing advice--a change to one of the Southern States--in three months
one of the compelling causes for the desertion of town life had been
disposed of by agreeable processes. None of the bitter, after-taste of
physic remained. I knew my island, and was on terms of friendly
admiration--born of knowledge of beauty spots--with all the others. I had
become a citizen of the universe.

During this period of utter abandonment of all serious claims upon time
and exertion came the conviction that the career of the Beachcomber, the
closest possible "return to Nature" now popularly advocated, has charms
none other possesses. Then it was that the lotus-blossom was first eaten.

Unfettered by the laws of society, with the means at hand of acquiring
the few necessaries of life that Nature in this generous part of her
domain fails to provide readymade, a Beachcomber of virtuous instinct,
and a due perception of the decency of things, may enjoy a happy life.
Should, however, he be of the type that demands a wreck or so every month
to maintain his supplies of rum or gin, and other articles of his true
religion, and is prepared if wrecks do not come with regularity, to
assist tardy Nature by means of false lights on the shore, he will find
no scope whatever among these orderly isles.

The Beachcomber of tradition parades his coral islet barefooted, bullying
guileless natives out of their copra, coco-nut oil and pearl-shell; his
chief diet, turtle and turtle eggs and fish; his drink, rum and coco-nut
milk--the latter only when the former is impossible. When a wreck happens
he becomes a potentate in pyjamas, and with his dusky wives, dressed in
bright vestiture, fares sumptuously. And though the ships from the isles
do not meet to "pour the wealth of ocean in tribute at his feet," he can
still "rush out of his lodgings and eat oysters in regular desperation."
A whack on his hardened head from the club of a jealous native is the
time-honoured fate of the typical Beachcomber.

Flotsam and jetsam make another class of Beachcomber by stimulating the
gaming instincts. Is there a human being, taking part in the rough and
tumble of the world, who can honestly make confession and say that he has
completely suffocated those inherent instincts of savagedom--joy and
patience in the chase, the longing for excitement and surprise, the crude
selfishness, the delight in getting something for nothing? Society
journals have informed me that titled dames have been known to sit out
long and wearisome evenings that they may obtain some paltry favour in a
cotillon. And when the sea casts up its gifts on these radiant shores, I
boldly and with glee give way to my beachcombing instincts and pick and
choose. Never ever up to the present have I found anything of real value;
but am I not buoyed up by pious hopes and sanguine expectations? Is not
the game as diverting and as innocent as many others that are played to
greater profit? It is a game, too, that cannot be forced, and therefore
cannot become demoralising; and having no nice feelings nor fine shades,
I rejoice and am glad in it.

And then what strange and varied things one sees! Once a "harness-cask,"
hostile to every sense, came trundled by waves eager to expel it from the
vicinity of these oxless but scented isles. It overcame us as we sailed
by, 20 yards off, and the general necessity for temperate diet and
restricted dishes came as a sweet and a comforting reflection. No marvel
if the ship whence it was ejected was in bad odour among the sailors.
Leaving, as it lurched along, a greasy, foul stain on the sea, it may
have poisoned multitudes of uncomplaining fishes during its evil course.

Occasionally a case of fruit, washed from the decks of a labouring
steamer, drifts ashore. One was the means of introducing a valuable
addition to the products of the island. It gave demonstration of how man
may unwittingly, and even in opposition to his wit, assist in scattering
and multiplying blessings on a smiling land--blessings to last for all
time, and perhaps to amend or ameliorate the environment of a budding
nation.

Many years ago--in 1878, to speak precisely--a ship laden with fragrant
cedar logs from the valley of the Daintree River--140 miles to the north--
touched on Kennedy Shoal, 20 miles to the south-east of Dunk Island.
Crippled though she was she managed to make Cardwell, where she was
temporarily patched up, and whence she set sail for Melbourne. It was the
critical month of March, and the MERCHANT--clumsy and cumbersome, but a
good and safe ship given ample sea-room--before sailing many miles on her
course, was caught in the coils of a cyclone, the violence of which is
well remembered by old residents on the coast to this day, and was lost
with all hands. She is supposed to have struck on a reef to the southward
of the Palm Islands, as the bulk of her cargo was cast ashore in Ramsay
Bay, Hinchinbrook Island. Portions of the wreckage were found on the
Brook Islands; her figurehead--the spread eagle of the United States--and
a seaman's chest were picked up on the beach here. Her windlass, with a
child's pinafore entangled with it--for the skipper had taken his wife and
two children to bear him company--drifted on the South Franklands, 40
miles to the north, and a large portion of the shattered hulk on a reef
eastward of Fitzroy Island, 25 miles still farther up the coast. Fate did
her worst for the poor MERCHANT, and not yet content, relentlessly
pursued two (if not more) of the vessels which sought to recover her
cedar, strewn on the treacherous sands of Ramsay Bay. Some of the logs,
however, drifted to our quiet coves, and portions remain sound to this
day. One more promising and accessible we beachcombed. It provided
planks for a punt, besides various articles of furniture, and gave me
some most practical homilies on contentment. Having found and duly
salvaged that log, it was necessary to cut it up; and then I began to be
thankful that pit-sawing was not forced upon me as a profession in the
days of inexperienced youth. Pit-sawing is deceptive. It has the
appearance of being easy, though not genteel, when others are the
toilers, and in the red dust, torn by the polished steel teeth from out
the heart of the dull log, do you not "inhale the balmy smells of nard
and cassia which the musky wings of the zephyrs scatter through the
cedared groves of the Hesperides?" Is not that fragrance sufficient
compensation for your toil, with the clean red planks profit over and
above legitimate earnings? Yet that long saw tugs at our very
heart-strings, and you know that to get a real, not merely sentimental,
liking for the craft of the sawyer, you must take to it very young,
before the possibilities of other occupations and pastimes have distorted
your genius. This worthy lesson comes from the gentle art of
Beachcombing.

Again, a German barque, driven out of its course, found unexpectedly a
detached portion of the Great Barrier Reef 200 miles away to the south.
When the south-easters came, they pounded away so vigorously with the
heavy runs of the sea that in a brief space nothing was left of the big
ship save some distorted fragments of iron jammed in among the
nigger-heads of coral and the crevices of the rocks. A few weeks after,
portions of the wreck were deposited on Dunk Island, and the beach of the
mainland for miles was strewn with timber. That wreck was the greatest
favour bestowed me in my profession of Beachcomber. Long and heavy pieces
of angle-iron came bolted to raft-like sections of the deck; various
kinds of timber proved useful in a variety of ways. What? was I to leave
it all, unclaimed and unregarded--in excess of morality and modesty--on
the beach, to be honey-combed by white ants or to rot? or to honestly own
up to that sentiment which is the most human of all? Without affectation
or apology, I confess that I was overjoyed--that my instincts, pregnant
with original sin, received a most delightful fillip. I wallowed for the
time being in the luxury of beachcombing.

Upon sober reflection, I cannot say that I am of one mind with the pastor
of the Shetland Isles who never omitted this petition from his long
prayer--"Lord, if it be Thy holy will to send shipwrecks, do not forget
our island"; nor yet with the Breton fishermen, who to this day are of
opinion that wreckage is the gift of God, and who therefore take
everything that comes in a reverential spirit, as a Divine favour,
whether casks of wine or bales of merchandise. But, after all, who am I
that I should claim a finer shade of morality than those, with their
sturdy widespread hands and perpetual blessing? My inherent powers of
resistance to such temptations as the winds and tides of Providence put
in their way have never been subject to proof. Does virtue go by default
where there is no opportunity to be otherwise than virtuous? The very
first pipe of port, or aum of Rhenish, or bale of silk, which comes
rolling along may wrestle with my morality and so wrench and twist it as
to incapacitate it for ordinary usage for months, or may even permanently
disable it. And must not I, venturing to regard myself as a truthful
historian, frankly admit a sense allied to disappointment when the white
blazing beaches are destitute of the most trivial of temptations?

No, the grating of the battered barque, upon which many a wet and weary
steersman had stood, now fulfils placid duty as a front gate. No more to
be trampled and stamped upon with shifty, sloppy feet--no more to be
scrubbed and scored with sand and holystone; painted white, it creaks
gratefully every time it swings--the symbol of security, the first
outward and visible sign of home, the guardian of the sacred rights of
private property, the embodiment of the exclusive. Better so than lying
inert under foot on the deck of the barque thrashing through the cold
grey seas of the Baltic, or scudding before the unscrupulous billows of
Biscay.

Moreover, what notable and precise information this derelict timber gave
as to the strength and direction of ocean currents. The wreck took place
on the 26th October 1900 in 18 deg. 43 min. S. lat., 147 deg. 57 min. E.
long., 72 1/2 miles in a direct line from the port of Townsville, and
about 200 miles from Dunk Island. She broke up, after a11 the cargo had
been salvaged, early in January 1901, and on Tuesday, 5th February, at
10 a.m., the seas landed the first of the broken planks in Brammo Bay.
Then for a few days the arrivals were continuous. For over 50 miles along
the coast the wreckage was scattered, very little going farther north.

Nothing goes south on this part of the coast. Yes, there is one exception
during my experience. A veritable cataclysm coincided with a stiff
north-easterly breeze, and hundreds of bunches of bananas from
plantations on the banks of the Johnstone River--25 miles
away--landing-stages and steps, and the beacons from the mouth of the
river, drifted south. Most of the more buoyant debris, however, took the
next tide back in the direction whence came.

When there are eight or ten islands and islets within an afternoon's
sail, and miles of mainland beach to police, variety lends her charms to
the pursuit of the Beachcomber. Landing in one of the unfrequented coves,
he knows not what the winds and the tides may have spread out for
inspection and acceptance. Perhaps only an odd coco-nut from the Solomon
Islands, its husk riddled by cobra and zoned with barnacles. The germ of
life may yet be there. To plant the nut above high-water mark is an
obvious duty. Perhaps there is a paddle, with rude tracery on the handle,
from the New Hebrides, part of a Fijian canoe that has been bundled over
the Barrier, a wooden spoon such as Kanakas use, or the dusky globe of an
incandescent lamp that has glowed out its life in the state-room of some
ocean liner, or a broom of Japanese make, a coal-basket, a "fender," a
tiger nautilus shell, an oar or a rudder, a tiller, a bottle cast away
fat out from land to determine the strength and direction of ocean
currents, the spinnaker boom of a yacht, the jib-boom of a staunch
cutter. Once there was a goodly hammer cemented by the head fast upright
on a flat rock, and again the stand of a grindstone, and a trestle, high
and elaborately stayed. Cases, invariably and disappointingly empty, come
and go, planks of strange timber, blocks from some tall ship. A huge
black beacon waddled along, dragging a reluctant mass of iron at the end
of its chain cable, followed by a roughly-built "flatty" and a huge log
of silkwood. A jolly red buoy, weary of the formality of bowing to the
swell, broke loose from a sandbank's apron-strings, bounced off in the
ecstasies of liberty, romped in the surf, rolled on the beach, worked a
cosy bed in the soft warm sand, and has slumbered ever since to the
soothing hum of the wind, indifferent to the perplexities of mariners and
the fate of ships. The gilded masthead truck of a smart yacht, with one
of her cabin racks, bespoke of recent disaster, unknown and unaccounted,
and a brand new oar, finished and fitted with the nattiness of a
man-o'-war's man, told of some wave-swept deck.

That which at the time was the most eloquent message from the sea came
close to our door, cast up on the snowy-white coral drift of a little
cove, where it immediately attracted notice. Nothing but an untrimmed
bamboo staff nearly 30 feet long, carrying an oblong strip of soiled
white calico between two such strips of red turkey twill. Tattered and
frayed, the flags seemed to tell of the desperate appeal for help of some
forlorn castaway; of a human being, marooned on a lonely sandbank on the
Barrier, without shelter, food or water, but not altogether bereft of
hope. BECHE-DE-MER fishers have in times past been marooned on the Reef
by mutinous blacks, and left to die by slow degrees, or to be drowned by
the implacable yet merciful tide. A makeshift rudder well worn bespoke
strenuous efforts to steer a troubled boat to shelter, but this crude
signal staff, deftly arranged, told of present agony and stress. It might
have been the emblem of a tragic event that the Beachcomber single-handed
was not able to investigate. As a matter of fact, it was only a temporary
datum of one of His Majesty's surveying ships engaged in attempting to
set the bounds of the Barrier.

Rarely do we sail about without enjoying the zest of the chance of
getting something for nothing. Not yet has the seaman's chest,
brass-bound, with its secret compartments full of "fair rose-nobles and
bright moidores," been lighted upon; but who can say? Perhaps it has
come ashore but now, after leagues of aimless wanderings, and awaits in
some cosy cove the next Beachcombing expedition. That from the ill-fated
MERCHANT came hither years before my time, and was, in any case,
pathetically unromantic.

Peradventure there are many who deem this solitary existence dull? Why,
it is brimful of interest and sensation. There are the tragedies of the
bush to observe and elucidate; all cannot be foreseen and prevented, or
even avenged. A bold falcon the other day swooped down upon a wood-swallow
that was imitating the falcon's flight just above my head, and bore it
bleeding to a tree-top, while I stood shocked at the audacity of the
cannibal. A bullet dropped the murderous bird with its dead victim fast
in the talons. There are comedies, too, and you have the wit to see them,
and in these Beachcombing expeditions expectation, fairly effervesces.

One lucky individual--a mere amateur--casually picked up a black-lip
mother-of-pearl shell on an island some little distance away. It
contained a blue pearl, the price of which gave him such a start in life,
that he is now an owner of ships. May not other tides cast up on other
shores other oysters whose lives have been rendered miserable by the
presence of pearls?

Byron says--"Even an oyster may be crossed in love." Science, more
precise and frank than the frankest of poets, tells us that oysters are
afflicted with tapeworms, and to kill the germ of these indecent pests,
enclose them in untimely tombs, which from the human standpoint are among
the most lovely and precious of gems. The assertions of the scientific
are often the reverse of poetical. We are constrained to believe them,
but like our poetical delusions better, and for the origin of the pearl
prefer the quaint fable of the Persians to the unpleasant fact of the
zoologist. A drop of water of ineffable purity falls from heaven to the
sea, an oyster gapes and swallows it, the drop hardens and ripens, and
becomes a pearl; and who is so devoid of the perception of purity, beauty
and worth as to despise a pearl?

Here about, pearls were found. We delight in them, though they prove the
previous existence of a filthy ailment. Any oyster may contain a pearl, a
pearl of great price--a thing of beauty, a joy for ever. Every gold-lip,
every black-lip oyster, is a chance in a lottery. Was there ever a
Beachcomber so pure and elevated of soul as to refuse the chances that
Nature proffers gratuitously? My meagre horde includes pearls of several
tints, black, pink, and white. They represent the paltriest prizes. in
the lottery that no Government, however paternal, may prohibit, being
mere "baroque," fit only to be pounded up as medicine for some Chinaman
luxuriously sick. Yet there is a chance. Some day the great prize may be
drawn. And then, "Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook?" The
Beachcomber may be perverted into--well, the next best on the list. Yet
they say in pitiful tones, those who rake among the muck of the streets,
"What a dull life! What a hopeless existence! He is out of it all!" Yes,
with a gladsome mind, and all its sounds, if not forgotten, at least
muffled by music, soft as dawn, profound as the very sea.

Kennedy Shoal has been mentioned incidentally. Some miles further north
are two bare sandbanks. Prior to the year 1890 they were occupied by a
BECHE-DE-MER fisherman, whose headquarters were on the chief of the South
Barnard Islands--some 12 or 14 miles to the north. In fateful March of
that year a cyclone swooped down on this part of the coast with the
pent up fury of a century's restraint. The enormous bloodwood-trees torn
out by the roots on Dunk Island testified to the force and ferocity of
the storm. The sandbanks, are isolated, dreary spots, the highest portion
but 2 or 3 feet above the level reached by spring tides. A cutter--THE
DOLPHIN--with a crew of aboriginals, in charge of a couple of Kanakas, was
anchored at the shoal, and as the cyclone worked up, the Kanakas decided
that the one and only bid for life was to run before it to the mainland.
It was a forlorn hope--so forlorn that four or five of the aboriginals
declined to take part in it, deeming it safer to trust to the sandbank,
which they imagined could never be entirely swept by the besoms of the
sea. The cutter fled before the storm, only to capsize in the breakers
off the mouth of the Johnstone River. Clinging to the wreck until it
drifted a few miles south, the Kanakas and crew battled through the waves
and eventually reached the shore. Of those who placed their faith on the
sandbank not one was spared. The seas raced over it, pounded and
flattened it. The men upon it were unconsidered trifles.

The tall and handsome Scandinavian whose fortune thus assailed was at his
home with his wife and children and brother. His yacht--THE MAUD--in the
height of the storm, began to drag her anchor. He and his brother went
out in a dinghy to secure her. At dusk the wife, young, petite and
pretty, with strained anxiety watched the efforts of the men to beat back
to shelter. Darkness came, blotting out the scene and its climax. Never
after was anything seen or heard of the brothers or the yacht. And for
nearly a fortnight the disconsolate wife and her little ones were alone on
the island.

Ten years later, on one of the two bare patches of sand, another
BECHE-DE-MER smoke-house was built. While the owner a swarthy Arabian,
was out on the reef miles away, a phenomenally high tide occurred. His
wife--a comely girl of British descent--was alone on the shoal. She
watched the rising water apprehensively, until all the sand was covered
save the few feet on which the frail shelter stood. One more ripple and
the floor was swamped. Then, wading and swimming, she managed to reach a
punt, and so saved her life. Since then these patches of sand have not
been regarded as a safe outpost even by those most venturesome of
people--BECHE-DE-MER fishers.

This is not an apology, but a confession; not a plea of defence, but a
justification--a fair and free chronicle, a frank acknowledgment of the
tributes of impartial Neptune--Neptune who gives and who takes away--who
stealthily filches with tireless fingers, and who, when in the mood, robs
so remorselessly, and with such awful, such majestic violence, that it
were impious to whimper. Who beachcombed my three rudders, the one
toilfully adzed out in one piece from the beautiful heart of a bean-tree
log, another cunningly fitted with a sliding fin, and that of red cedar
with famous brass mountings? Who owns the pair of ballast tanks once
mine? Who the buoy deemed securely moored? Who the paddles and the
rowlocks and the signal halyards, lost because of Neptune's whims and
violence? Beachcombing is a nicely adjusted, if not quite an exact art.
Not once but several times has the libertine Neptune scandalously seduced
punts and dinghies from the respectable precincts of Brammo Bay, and
having philandered with them for a while, cynically abandoned them with a
bump on the mainland beach, and only once has he sent a punt in return--a
poor, soiled, tar-besmirched, disorderly waif that was reported to the
police and reluctantly claimed.

A mind inclined to casuistry, could it not defend Beachcombing? Does not
the law recognise it under the definition of trover? Why bother about the
law and the moralities when it is all so pleasing, so engrossing, and so
fair?

The Beachcomber wants no extensive establishment. His possessions need
never be mortgaged. The cost of living is measurable by a standard
adjustable to individual taste, wants and perceptions. The expenditure of
a little manual labour supplies the omissions of and compensates for
the undirected impulses which prevail, and the pursuit--not the
profession--leads one to ever-varying scenes, to the contemplation of many
of the moods of unaffected, unadvertised Nature. Ashore, one dallies
luxuriously with time, free from all the restrictions of streets, every
precious moment his very own; afloat in these calm and shallow waters
there is a never-ending panorama of entertainment. Coral gardens--gardens
of the sea nymphs, wherein fancy feigns cool, shy, chaste faces and
pliant forms half-revealed among gently swaying robes; a company of
porpoise, a herd of dugong; turtle, queer and familiar fish, occasionally
the spouting of a great whale, and always the company of swift and
graceful birds. Sometimes the whole expansive ocean is as calm as it can
only be in the tropics and bordered by the Barrier Reef--a shield of
shimmering silver from which the islands stand out as turquoise bosses.
Again, it is of cobalt blue, with changing bands of purple and gleaming
pink, or of grey blue--the reflection of a sky pallid and tremulous with
excess of light. Or myriad hosts of microscopic creatures--the Red Sea
owes to the tribe its name--the multitudinous sea dully incarnadine; or
the boat rides buoyantly on the shoulders of Neptune's white horses, while
funnel-shaped water spouts sway this way and that. Land is always near,
and the flotsam and jetsam, do they not supply that smack of
excitement--if not the boisterous hope--bereft of which life might seem
"always afternoon?"

These chronicles are toned from first to last by perceptions which came
to the Beachcomber--perceptions which lead, mayhap, to a subdued and sober
estimate of the purpose and bearing of the pilgrimage of life. Doubts
become exalted and glorified, hopes all rapture, when long serene days
are spent alone in the contemplation of the splendours of sky and sea,
and the enchantment of tropic shores.

TROPICAL INDUSTRIES

Was there not an explicit contract that some of the experiences and
events of a settler's life should be duly described and recorded? How to
fulfil that obligation and at the same time avoid what is ordinarily
regarded as the dull and prosaic, the stale, the flat, the unprofitable,
is the trouble. I would gladly shirk even this small responsibility, even
as greater ones have been outmanoeuvred, but a written promise
unfulfilled may be troublesome to a conscience, which, when reminiscent
of ante-beachcombing days, is not altogether unimpressionable.

Well, the life of a settler--the man who drags his sustenance, all and
every part of it, from the soil in tropical Queensland, as a mere settler
very closely resembles that of others who cultivate. If an abstract of
the universal experience were obtainable, it would very likely be found
to go towards the establishment of a standard from which many would
cheerfully desire many cheerful changes. After all, that represents a
condition not altogether monopolised by settlers.

Yet, when once the life is begun, how few there are who attempt to
withdraw from it? It grows on the senses and faculties. It appeals to the
emotional as well as to the stolid humours. The cares of this world as
expounded in town life, and the sinfulness of never-to-be-acquired riches
are foreign to the free, bland air which has filtered through the myriad
leaves of the mountain, and which smacks so strongly of freedom.
Sometimes the settler takes up studies and relieves the sameness of his
duties by pastimes. One never went to his maize field, along narrow
gloomy aisles through the jungle, without a net for the capture of
butterflies. His humble home was as resplendent as the show-cases of a
natural history museum. But he was singularly favoured. A lovely
waterfall was the jewel on his estate. That was the shape of beauty that
moved away the pall from his dark spirit and gave colour to his life and
actions. Another took to collecting birds' eggs; another to the study of
botany; another to photography. Each wreathed, according to his
predilections, a flowery band to bind him to the earth, finding that even
the life of a settler may be filled with "sweet dreams, and health and
quiet." But the great majority seem to have taken to the scrap heap of
Federal politics with such ardour that they clutch but the fag ends of
the poetry of life.

Many become great readers and are knowing and knowledgeable. Those who
drift away from country life are for the most part men who hustle after
the coy damsel fortune by searching for minerals, and just as many who
have succeeded in that arduous passion settle quietly on the land. Each
may and does desire amendments to and amelioration in his lot. There is
still left to all the healthy impulse of achievement, the desire for
something better, the noble and inspiriting virtue of discontent.

Rare is a deserted home. Even the first rough dwelling of a settler
possessing the slenderest resources is invested with tender sentiments.
There is his home--a poor one, perhaps, but his own, and to it he clings
with desperation, sees in and about it attractions and beauty where
others perceive nothing but untoned dreariness, unrelieved hopelessness.
His little bit of country may be remote and isolated, but Nature is warm
and encouraging, and profuse of her stimulants here. She responds
off-hand without pausing to reflect, but with an outburst of goodwill and
purpose to appeals for sustenance. She has no despondent moods. She never
lapses in prolific purposes. She may be wayward in accepting the
interferences of man, but all her vigorous impulses are expended in
productiveness. She cannot sulk or idle. Kill, burn and destroy her
primeval jungle, and she does not give way to sadness and despair, nor
are any of her infinite forces abated. Spontaneously she begins the work
of restoration, and as if by  magic the scar is covered with as rich and
riotous a profusion of vegetation as ever. Nature needs only to be
restrained and schooled and her response is an abundance of various sorts
of food for man.

The routine that cultivators of the soil have to obey is diverse, but the
life of the dweller in the country in tropical Queensland can be asserted
with perfect safety to be more comfortable than that of the average
settler in any other part of Australia. There are no phases of
agricultural enterprise devoid of toil, save perhaps the growing of
vanilla, the very poetry of the oldest of pursuits, in which one has to
aid and abet in the loves and in the marriage of flowers. But vanilla
production is not one of the profitable branches of agriculture here yet.
We have to deal only with things that are at present practicable.

Whether the settler grows maize, or fruit or coffee, or as a collateral
exercise of industry gets log timber, or raises pigs or poultry, the life
has no great variations. If he farms sugar-cane, being resident within the
zone of influence of a mill, he belongs to a different order--an order
with which it is not intended to deal. My purpose refers only to men who
do not employ labour, who have to depend almost solely upon their own hard
hands. The conditions upon which the land is acquired demand personal
residence during a period of five years and the erection of permanent
improvements, such as fencing, thereon, and there are not many who take
up a selection who are in the position to pay wages. The selector must do
the clearing, and the preparation of the soil for whatever crop in his
experience or the experience of others is considered the most
remunerative. During this period his love for the particular piece of
land by-and-by to become his own begins. More realistically than anyone
else he knows the quantity of his energy and enthusiasm, his very life,
the land has absorbed. It becomes part of himself even in the early days
of toil, and though when in the fulness of time and the completion of
conditions he may lease the land to Chinese cultivators, and become a
resident landlord, he cannot leave the place even for the attraction of
town life, for possibly the rent he receives does not make him
independent quite. At any rate he lives on the land. The alien race does
the hard work, and takes the greater portion of profit; but he enjoys the
luxury of possession, and must make sacrifices accordingly.

I am fearful of entering upon a description of the cultivation of maize,
or bananas, or citrus fruits, or pineapples, or mangoes, or coffee, or
even sweet potatoes, because experience teaches me that others know of
all the details in a far more practical sense.

Would it not be presumptuous for a mere idler, an individual whose
enterprise and industry have been sapped by the insidious nonchalance of
the Beachcomber, to tell of practical details of cultural pursuits--the
enthusiasm, the disappointments, the glowing anticipations, the
realisation of inflexible facts, the plain emphatic truths which others
have reason to know ever so much more keenly?

But it may be forgiven if I generalise and say that the minor departments
of rural enterprise in North Queensland are in a peculiar stage--a stage
of transition and uncertainty. Coloured labour has been depended upon to
a large extent. Even the poorest settler has had the aid of aboriginals.
But with the passing of that race, and prohibition against the employment
of any sort of coloured labour, the question is to be asked, Can tropical
products be grown profitably unless consumers are willing to pay a
largely increased price--a price equivalent to the difference between the
earnings of those who toil in other tropical countries and the living
wage of a white man in Australia?

Fruit of many acceptable varieties can be grown to perfection with little
labour in immense quantities. Coffee is one of the most prolific of
crops. Timber is obtainable in magnificent assortment and unrealisable
quantities. Poultry and pigs multiply extraordinarily. Apart from bananas
the fruit trade is shifty and treacherous. The markets are far away and
inconstant, the means of transport not yet perfect. Many assert that not
half the pine-apples and oranges, and not one-hundredth part of the
mangoes produced in North Queensland are consumed. That the quantity
grown is trivial in comparison with what would be, were the demand
regular and consistent, is self-evident. We want population to eat our
produce, and then there will be no complaint.

In the case of coffee a plentiful supply of cheap labour is essential to
success. Those who by judicious treatment of the aboriginals command
their services have so far made profit. A coffee plantation suggests
pleasant, picturesque and spicy things. The orderly lines of the plants,
in glossy green adorned for a brief space with white, frail, fugitive
flowers distilling a deliciously sweet and grateful odour, the branches
crowded with gleaming berries, green, pink and red, present pleasing
aspect. As a change to the scenery of the jungle, a coffee estate has a
garden-like relief. But picking berry by berry is slow and monotonous
work, vexatious, too, to those mortals whose skin is sensitive to the
attacks of green ants. Then comes the various processes of the removal of
the pulp, first by machinery, finally by the fermentation of the still
adhering slimy residuum; then the drying and saving by exposure to the
sun on trays or on tarpaulins until all moisture is expelled; and the
hulling which disintegrates the parchment from the twin berries; then
winnowing, and finally the polishing. Do drinkers of the fragrant and
exhilarating beverage realise the amount of labour and care involved
before the crop is taken off and preserved from deterioration and decay?
A few berries that may have become mildewed during the slow, tedious and
anxious process of drying in the sun, may violate the delicate flavour
and aroma which the grower has been at pains to secure and fix. In coffee
it is as with many other features of rural life in Australia. The men who
undertake the production are for the most part those who have gained
their knowledge by personal experience on the spot. Reading and the
advice of experts who have graduated in countries where climatic
conditions are diverse and where the labour is cheap, yet skilled by
reason of generation after generation of occupation in it, do not
complete necessary knowledge. Problems have to be faced that have no
theoretical nor official solution, and blunders paid for, until by the
process of the elimination of mistakes the right way is discovered.
Losses mount up until either patience and means are exhausted, or success
crowns the application of intelligent enterprise. Then, when the coffee
planter, self-taught, in each and all of the departments of culture and
preparation, glories in the assurance of his capabilities to offer to the
world an article of indubitable character, he discovers that the vulgar
world, for the most part, prefers its coffee duly adulterated; indeed has
become so warped and perverted in perception that the pure and undefiled
article is looked upon with suspicion and distaste. Its flavour and aroma
are quite foreign to the ordinary coffee drinker. The contaminated
beverage is regarded as pure, and the genuine article is soundly
condemned as an imposition, and the seller of it is liable to be accused
of fraud. It is in a similar position to the good grape brandy which
Victorians produce, and which drinkers of some imported stuff (described
as one part cognac and three parts silent spirit) fail to recognise as
real brandy. If coffee is not muddy and thick and does not possess a
mawkish twang of liquorice, it is suspected. The delicate aromatic
flavour, the fragrant odour, the genial and stimulant effects are now
almost unknown, except in limited circles. North Queensland is capable of
growing far more than sufficient coffee for the Commonwealth, but coffee
is not a popular Australian beverage, and as it entirely loses its
specific balsam and identity under the manipulation of manufacturers, it
cannot get the chance of becoming popular. Australian wines, Australian
spirits and Australian coffee might well be the popular beverages of
Australians. But preference is given to foreign importations, of the
genuineness of some of which there are strong grounds for suspicion; or
in the case of coffee its elements are so disguised by adulteration that
a revolution in public taste must take place before it can possibly find
general favour.

But there are other branches of tropical agriculture to which the settler
may devote himself. Rubber offers belated fortune. Cotton, rice, tobacco
and fibre--plants flourish exceedingly, and in the production of ginger
and some sort of spices and medicinal gums, profit may be possible. The
manufacture of manilla rope from the fibre of the easily cultivated MUSA
TEXTILIS may be a remunerative industry. It is amply demonstrated that
butter quite up to the standard of exportation is to be manufactured in
tropical Queensland.

No one need starve or pine for lack of wholesome appetising and
nutritious food while the banana grows as it does in North Queensland,
and common as it is, the banana is one of the curiosities of the
vegetable world. One writer says: "It is not a tree, a palm, a bush, a
vegetable, nor a herb; it is simply a herbaceous plant with the stature
of tree, and is perennial." He adds that the fruit contains no seed,
though he qualifies the latter statement by remarking that he has heard
of fully developed seeds occasionally appearing in the cultivated fruit
"when left to ripen on the tree," and further that wild varieties of the
banana which propagate themselves by seed are reported to be found in
some parts of Eastern Asia. A high botanical authority includes in his
description of the species indigenous to Queensland, "Fruit oblong,
succulent, indehiscent; seed numerous; tree-like herbs. Herbs with
perennial rhizome."

There are three if not more species of bananas native to Queensland, and
they form a conspicuous feature of the jungle. With remarkable rapidity
one of the species shoots up a ruddy symmetrical, slightly tapering
stem--smooth and polished where the old leaf-sheaths have been shed--to a
height of 20 and 30 feet, producing leaves 15 feet long and 2 feet broad,
small and crude flowers, and bunches of dwarf fruit containing little but
shot-like seeds. The energy of these plants seems to be concentrated in
the production of an elegant and proud form, the fruit being a mere
afterthought. But the effect of the broad pale green leaves, even when
frayed and ragged at the edges in and among the dark entanglement of the
jungle is so fine that the absence of edible fruit may be almost
forgiven.

In the most popular of the cultivated varieties, the far famed MUSA
CAVENDISHII, there is little of graceful form, save the broad leaves
mottled with brown. All the vitality of the plant is expended in
astonishing results. A comparatively lowly plant, its productions
in suitable soil are prodigious. In nine or ten months after the
planting of the rhizome, it bears under favourable conditions a bunch
weighing as much as 120 lb. to 160 lb. and comprising as many as
forty-eight dozen individual bananas. So great is the weight that to
prevent the downfall of the plant a stake sharpened at each end--one to
stick in the ground and the other into the soft stem--is needed to
buttress it. Before the fruit has fully developed, other shoots have
appeared; but each plant bears but one bunch, and when that is removed
the plant is decapitated and slowly decays, and the second and third and
fourth shoots from the rhizome successively arrive at the bearing stage
and are permitted to mature each its bunch and then fated to suffer
immediate decapitation. And so the process goes on for five or seven
years, by which time the vigour of the soil has been exhausted, and
moreover the rhizomes, originally planted about a foot deep, have grown up
to the surface, and are no longer capable of supporting a plant upright.
Then a fresh planting of rhizomes elsewhere takes place. It must not be
thought that the banana defertilises the soil. Phenomenal crops of sugar
cane are produced on a "banana-sick" land.

A traveller relating his tropical experiences glorifies the banana,
stating that he has eaten it "ripe and luscious from the tree!" In
North Queensland bananas ripening on the plant frequently split, and
seldom attain perfect flavour. The ripening process takes place after the
fully developed bunch is removed and hung up in a cool, shady, well-aired
locality. Then the fruit acquires its true lusciousness and aroma. Other
climes, other results, perhaps; but a banana, "ripe and luscious from the
tree," is not generally expected in North Queensland. The fruit may
mature until it falls to the ground, yellow and soft, yet lack that
delicate finish, that benign essential, the craft of man bestows. It
would seem that the plant has been cultivated for so long a period that
it has become dependent upon man not only for its existence but for the
excellence of its crowning effort. An abandoned banana grove soon
disappears, for although seeds are undoubtedly produced, the occasions
are so rare that the reproduction of the cultivated varieties depends
solely upon the rhizome, and these very speedily deteriorate if
neglected. Another feature of the banana, of which man takes full
advantage, is that though the bunch be removed before the fruit is
matured as to size, the ripening process proceeds, just as though there
had been no untimely interference. The bananas may be small, but will, as
a rule, be almost as sweetly flavoured as those allowed to develop on the
plant. Yet the superfine aesthetic essence is not for the delight of
those to whom the fruit is tendered after it has undergone a sea voyage.
Let there be no misunderstanding with respect to the desirableness of the
coastal tract of North Queensland as a territory capable of supporting a
large, prosperous and healthful population. It is no part of the present
purpose to extol the mineral or the pastoral districts. They lie apart.
But in North Queensland agriculture is almost solely confined to the
coast and is essentially tropical. The tropics represent that portion of
the earth's surface wherein man may live with the minimum of exertion,
where actual wants are few, and wherein ample comforts may be enjoyed by
those who seek them with a quiet mind and easy understanding. Although
the question may be perhaps beyond proof, it might be safely asserted
that a larger proportion of men of the yeomen class, represented by those
who have succeeded in tropical agriculture in North Queensland, are
independent to-day, than of the men in Victoria and New South Wales, who
devoted their energies to sheep-farming, wheat-growing and dairying. Out
of the comparatively few sugar-cane farmers in North Queensland, a
considerable percentage have acquired independence, and many wealth. Few
have failed. Fortunes have been made and are being made out of sugar
lands; immense profits have been earned and are being earned in the
production of bananas, and from other easily grown tropical fruits, good
incomes are realised. When private enterprise invests many thousands of
pounds in the building of jetties and tram-lines to facilitate the
shipment of fruit, evidence in support of these statements is
unnecessary.

The prosperity of the farmer and fruit-grower in North Queensland does
not unhaply depend upon himself, but upon the existence of large
populations within reasonable range. Land of unsurpassed fertility and
meteorological conditions which represent perfection for the growth of
all fruits, ranging from the tomato to the mango, and, with few
exceptions, all the commoner as well as all the more delicate, but none
the less desirable vegetables are the heritage of the people. If the
coast of North Queensland does not in a few years support a large,
well-to-do, lusty, and therefore contented population, it will not be
because of the lack of any of the essentials, but because the population
has failed elsewhere, and that consequently there is no demand for the
easily grown fruits of the earth.

Each and all of the branches of cultured industry mentioned (with the
exception of the growth of sugar-cane) were at disposal for trial here.
Soil, climate and aspect are extremely favourable when not approaching
absolute perfection, while the advantages of direct communication with
the markets are unique. But my disposition, "that rash humour which my
mother gave," impelled me to disregard all the encouraging prospects of
fortune, and to easily tolerate circumstances and conditions under which
few would remain content. True it is that some few acres of jungle have
been cleared and various sorts of fruit-trees planted, that corn and
potatoes are grown, and that there are evidences of work; but no one is
better qualified than I to realise the insignificance of the results of
my labours in comparison with what they might have been, had the
accomplishment of them been undertaken with harder hands and more
determined purpose.

SOME DIFFERENCES

"The weather may be extremely fine; but not without such varieties as
shall hinder it from being tiresome."


What higher or better reward could be desired than the reflection that
one had attempted to assist in the dispersion of the mists of ignorance
which obscure some of the aspects of the land of his adoption? Australia
is vast and of infinite variety. The efforts of an individual isolated by
remoteness and the sea, must necessarily be circumscribed.

No Australian is able to affirm that his knowledge of the country is
entirely satisfactory to himself. There are some points upon which the
best informed stand to the correction of others whose general knowledge
may be admittedly inadequate. We who are scattered about in odd and
out-of-the-way corners, pick up in the school of experience scraps of
local knowledge, and may without presumption present them to others to
confirm and to conjure with.

The term "Australia" as generally used ignores most of the continent out
of sight of Melbourne and Sydney, though both Victoria and New South
Wales could be stowed away in little more than half the area of
Queensland. Do we reflect that Australia includes some of the driest
tracts in the world, as well as areas in which the rainfall approaches
the phenomenal--that not very much more than half of the territory of the
Commonwealth lies within the temperate zone--that there are as marked
differences between Tasmania and North Queensland as between the South of
England and Ceylon? That the one is the land of the potato, apple,
apricot, cherry, strawberry and blackberry, and the other the land of
sugar-cane, coffee, the pine-apple, mango, vanilla and cocoa; that though
there exist no imposing geographical boundaries, such as chains of lofty
mountains or great rivers to emphasise climatic distinctions, these
distinctions nevertheless exist, and that they imply special policies on
the parts of Government and Administrations.

Do we realise that the voice of the tropic half of Australia is drowned
in the torrent of the temperate? It may be possible to misrepresent
opinions and to obscure the fair view of things, to defeat aspirations;
but are we to be denied the right of being heard and of explaining
ourselves. Politicians to whose loud and profane voices electors listen,
have declared that North Queensland shall become a desolate and silent
wilderness, rather than that their views shall be gainsaid. Do such as
these reflect that North Queensland is a fruitful country, capable of
producing food and immense wealth, and giving employment to millions, and
that other nations will not stand idly by and see the worth of so much
land wasted because of the vanity of men who do not, and who apparently
will not, endeavour to comprehend the magnificence of its extent and the
width of its capabilities. The world is not so vast that any part of
it--still less a part so situated and so highly favoured as this--can be
left unpeopled. If not peopled by Australians or those of British blood,
it will assuredly be by people for whom the average Australian entertains
but scant respect.

Australians cannot with justice complain when the good old folks at home
blunder in their geography and perceptions, the while that so much local
misapprehension prevails.

Error was ingrained in the youthful days of middle-aged Australians. Their
school-books told them in swinging rhyme that they lived in a world of
undiscovered souls, that 'twas Heaven's decree to have these lost souls
brought forth; that man should assert his dignity and not allow "brutes"
to look upon him. Discoveries are still being made. Heaven's decree is
replaced by the decree of wild talkers, the dignity of man is found to be
the vanity of a paid politician, and but few of the "brutes" of Australia
are left to look down upon anything. But there are some of saving grace
who frankly acknowledge shame upon finding how little they really know
of their native country.

Young Australians were once taught that Australian trees cast no
shade--that the edges of the leaves were presented to the sun to avoid the
heat of the cruel luminary; that Australian flowers had no scent, and
Australian birds no song; that the stones of Australian cherries grew on
the outside of the fruit, that the bees had no sting, and that the dogs
did not bark. In those days a gentleman with a military title improved
upon the then popular list of contradictions by asserting that in
Australia the compass points to the south, the valleys are cold, the
mountain-tops warm, the eagles are white, and so on. Many accordingly
took their natural science as "Tomlinson" did his God--from a printed
book--and that compiled in England. Until they began to investigate they
were puzzled by contradictions. The first prompt bee-bite--there are many
varieties of Australian bees, some pugnacious and pungent--diverted
attention from the school-book romances. It was discovered that thousands
of square miles of Australian soil never catch glimpses of the sun in
consequence of the impenetrableness of the shade of Australian trees;
that the scent of the wattles, the eucalypts, the boronias, the hoyas,
the gardenias, the lotus, etc., etc., are among the sweetest and
cleanest, most powerful and most varied in the world; that many of the
birds of Australia have songs full of melody; that the so-called
Australian cherry is no more a cherry than an acorn; that the Australian
dog (though "the only true wild dog in the world") is deemed to be a
comparatively recent introduction--a new chum of Asiatic origin who
entered the glorious constellation of the State something before the era
of exclusive legislation--so naturally he does not bark, for barking is an
evidence of civilisation; but he soon learns the universal language of
the dog.

Many years ago most of this gross and superficial ignorance was brushed
away here, though now and again evidence crops up that a good deal yet
adheres in the old country. Australian school-books of the present day
contain so much that is grossly false and misleading of the natural
conditions of certain portions of the Commonwealth as to leave no room to
doubt the present duty. We are continually making mutually beneficial
discoveries, and may it be granted these efforts be blessed with happy
purpose. All is not known yet even in Australia. The number of
"observers" who believe that snakes swallow their young in time of
danger, and allow them to emerge when it is past, and that the end of the
death adder to avoid is the tail, which is fitted with a slightly curved
spur, become fewer every year; but we are still sincere in many of the
honourable points of ignorance. Some discredit such facts as climbing
fish, oysters "growing" on living trees, birds hatching eggs without
sitting on them, egg-laying mammals and mammals producing young from eggs
within their bodies, plants that sow the seed of continents to be--yet
these facts are of everyday occurrence here.

As to climate, will general credence be given to the statement that Dunk
Island is more "temperate" than Melbourne? We experience neither the
extreme heat nor the extreme cold of the metropolis of Victoria--nearly
2000 miles to the south; we have four or five times the volume of rain,
yet a greater number of fine days--days without rain. The general
principle that where the rainy days are fewest the amount of rain is
greatest, is apt to be forgotten. During 1903 the rainfall of Dunk Island
amounted to 153 inches. What is meant (to follow the phrase of Huxley)
when one says in technical language that the rainfall of a place was 153
inches for a certain year? Such a statement means simply that if all the
rain which fell on any level piece of ground in that place could be
collected--none being lost by drying up, none running off the soil and
none soaking into it--then at the end of the year it would form a layer
covering that piece of ground to the uniform depth of 12 feet 9 inches!
An inch of rain signifies 114 tons, or 27,000 gallons per acre!

Let me repeat that in 1903 the rainfall here totalled 153 inches. During
the same period the mean rainfall of the State of Victoria was 27.36
inches. In one locality, reputed to be the wettest, 42.11 inches were
registered, and occasioned no little surprise. In another Australian
state, among the natural advantages of land offered for close settlement,
was catalogued an annual rainfall of 18 inches; in another an official
inducement of an average rainfall of 27 inches was offered, in yet
another 24 inches, with a not too shrewd note that 15 inches of rain was
ample.

Some of the denizens of a dry area in Victoria find it hard to credit the
simple facts recorded by my rain-gauge. The rainfall for the month of
January 1903, on Dunk Island was 26.60 inches, only 0.76 inches short of
the mean for the whole year in Victoria, and more than twice the quantity
that blessed the thirsty soil in some parts of Queensland. The total
rainfall of the wettest locality in Victoria was 42.11 inches. Here the
month of March alone gave 44.90 inches.

At Thargomindah (South-Western Queensland) 11.37 inches were registered
for 1903, and 9.82 inches for 1904. The two driest months of Dunk Island
fell short by a trifle more than 2 inches of the total fall for 1904 for
that parched area. At Eulolo (Mid-Western Queensland) 13.68 inches
represented the sum of the blessing for 1903, while during 24 hours in
December that year the Dunk Island gauge registered just 11 inches, and
that quantity was 3 inches more than could he spared for Eulolo for the
whole of 1904.

During 1904 Cape Otway Forest (Victoria), registered 40.92 inches,
Townsville (North Queensland) 26.32 inches, and Dunk Island--only 110
miles from Townsville--94.14 inches. That was a dry year with us. What
is known in this neighbourhood as "the drought year" gave just 60 inches.
Plants unaccustomed to such hardship, and therefore devoid of inherent
powers of resistance, then gave way with pitiful lack of resource, and as
speedily recovered on the return of normal conditions. Yet the 60 inches
of "the drought year" represented more than twice the average rainfall of
London.

The average annual rainfall for the State of Victoria during the last
thirty years has been 26.68 inches. Townsville (considered to be one of
the driest places on the coast of North Queensland) averaged 45.54 inches
during the period of thirty-four years.

Twenty-five miles further north the rainfall for 1904 exceeded that of
Dunk Island by 6 inches more than the average rainfall of the upper basin
of the Thames Valley, which is given as 28 inches. Australia is big--there
is bigness in our differences.

Here in the tropics we have the finer weather--no excess of either heat or
cold, no sudden, constitution-shattering changes. At Wood's Point
(Victoria) rain fell on 185 days in 1903, and on 166 days in 1904. At
Dunk Island rain occurred on 107 days in 1903 and On 92 days in 1904. We
had many more days of picnic weather, notwithstanding our overwhelming
superiority in quantity of rain. Moreover, in the tropics the bulk of the
rain falls after sundown. After a really fine day in the wet season the
hours of darkness may account for several inches of rain. Here over 12
inches have been collected between sundown and nine o'clock the following
morning.

Particular references are confined to seasons three or four years past
because recent official data, necessary for enlightening comparisons are
not available, but in confirmation of statements concerning the
meteorological conditions of the coast of tropical Queensland, the
record of rainfall at Dunk Island since 1903 may be quoted:

1904                         94.41 inches.
1905                         89.06   "
First nine months of 1906   134.70   "

Of the latter total, 56 inches occurred in February, two days (6th and
18th), accounting for 22.95 inches--more than half the average rainfall of
the State of Queensland.

An illustration--homely but graphic--of climatic differences may be
given. During the first five months of 1904 the rainfall of Dunk Island
amounted to 75.15 inches, the lowest monthly record being May (5.30
inches) and the highest March (29.05 inches). At the end of May on the
Burdekin Delta--150 miles to the south--the sugarcane was beginning to be
affected by the hot, dry weather, and irrigation was about to be resorted
to. Here in January it became necessary to repair the roof of the
boat-shed, and to keep the ridge covering of paper-bark in position,
two long saplings were tied parallel with the ridge pole. At the end
of May these saplings were taken down in order that the whole of the
thatch might be renovated, when it was found that both had started to
grow, several of the shoots being 8 and 10 inches long. While sugarcane
was languishing for lack of moisture, 150 miles away down the coast,
a roughly-cut sapling exposed on the roof of a building found the
conditions for the beginning of a new existence so favourable and
stimulative that it had budded as freely as Aaron's rod. "Through the
scent of water it had budded and brought forth boughs like a plant."

Nearly as much misapprehension prevails in the Southern States of the
Commonwealth as to the characteristics of North Queensland as seems to
prevail among the good old folks "at home" as to Australia generally. If
the few facts presented excite even mild surprise, they will not be
altogether out of place in these pages.

Dunk Island has a mean temperature of about 69 deg.; January is the
hottest month with a mean of 87 deg, and July the coolest, mean 57 deg.
Taking the official readings of Cardwell (20 miles to the south), I find
the greatest extremes on record occurred in one year, when the highest
temperature was 103.3 deg. and the lowest 36.2 deg. At Geraldton (25
miles to the north) the extremes were 96 deg. and 43.4 deg.

Rainfall and temperature, the proportion of clear to cloudy skies, calms,
the direction, strength and the duration of winds, do not wholly
comprehend distinctive climatic features. There are other conditions of
more or less character and note, some hard to define, yet ever present.
Here the air is warm and soothing, seldom is it crisp and never really
bracing. Hot dry winds are unknown, but in the height of the wet
season--which coincides with the dry season of the Southern States--the
moisture-laden air may be likened to the vapour of a steam bath. While
the rain thunders on the roof at the rate of an inch per hour, inside the
house it may be perspiringly hot. After a fortnight's rain the damp
saturates everything. Neglected boots and shoes grow a rich crop of
mould, guns demand constant attention to prevent rust, and clothes packed
tight in chests of drawers smell and feel damp. But the atmosphere is so
wholesome that ordinary precautions for the prevention of sickness are
generally neglected without any fear of ill consequence.

However sharply defined by reason of the personal discomfort it inflicts,
this steamy feature of the wet season is no more a general characteristic
than the hot winds are of Victoria. Warm as the rains are, they bring to
the air coolness and refreshment. Clear, calm, bright days, days of even
and not high temperature, and of pure delight, dovetail with the hot and
steamy ones. The prolifigacy of vegetation is a perpetual marvel; the
loveliness of the land, the ineffable purity of the sky, the glorious
tints of the sea--green and gold at sunrise, silvery blue at noon, purple
pink and lilac during the all too brief twilight, a perpetual feast.

For six months it may be said the prevailing wind is the south-east,
followed by gentle breezes from the east and north-east. North-easters
begin in September and are intermittent until the beginning of the wet
season. The south-east monsoons are regular and consistent; the
north-east, which precede the rainy monsoon, fitful and wayward, never
continuing long in one stay, and lasting but four out of the twelve
months. Rare is the wind from the west, rarer from the south-west.
North-easters are a pronounced feature. They work up by diurnal and
easy grades from gentleness to strength, thunder coming as a climax.
After a succession of calm days and days of gentle breezes from the
east-south-east and east, the north-easter begins softly, and daily
gathers courage and assumption, to find in the course of a week or
two its haughty spirit subdued by thunder and rain showers. Calms
prevail for a few days. Easterly breezes come, to give way to the
north-east again, and so the programme is repeated with variations
which none may foresee, and which set at naught the lengthiest experience.
At last, at Christmas or the New Year, the rains come with a boisterous
beginning. A north-easter accompanied by thunder lasted a whole July
afternoon. It was as strange as a crop of mangoes would have been at
that time of year.

During the cool season--a generous half of the year--dews are common--not
the trivial barely perceptible moisture called dew in some parts, but most
ungentle dew, which saturates everything and drips from the under sides
of verandahs as the sun warms the air; dew which bows the grass with its
weight, soaks through your dungarees to the hips, and soddens your thick
bluchers, until you feel and appear as though you had waded through a
swamp; dew which releases the prisoned odour of flowers irresponsive to
the heat of the sun, which keeps the night cool and sweet, which with the
first gleam of the sun makes the air soft and spicy and buoyant, and
inspires thankfulness for the joy of life.

Are we not all apt to fall into the error of estimating the character of
a country by its extravagances rather than its average and general
qualities?

North Queensland has the reputation of being the home of malaria and the
special sport of any cyclone that may have mischief in view. Being
tropical, we have malaria, but it is of no more serious consequence than
any one of the ills to which human flesh is heir in temperate climes. It
does not exact such a toll of suffering and death as influenza, nor as
typhoid used to do in crowded cities; nor is it as common as rheumatism
in damp and blustering New Zealand, where the thermometer ranges from 100
deg. in the shade to 24 deg. of frost. Malaria touches us lightly, and it
is chosen as a bugbear with which to scare people away. A southern
critic, honestly pitiful of our ill state, urges that the experiment of
destroying those mosquitoes which disseminate the germ of malaria, by
sealing up lagoons and swamps with kerosene, is worthy the attention of
town and country residents in tropical Queensland, "where attacks of
malaria are felt every summer." Mere idle words of pernicious
consequence. Many a wretch who has done less mischief than "these
utterers of forged tales, coiners of scandal and clippers of reputation,"
has had his liberty restricted. But a small and an annually lessening
proportion of our population suffers from malaria, and yet all have the
renown of an annual attack! In that case the writer ought to have had
twenty-five attacks, and thousands of others, lusty and toneful fellows,
forty and forty-five attacks. With as much claim upon reason might
one say that because of the sudden jerks of their climate (40 deg.
of difference within twelve hours) all Victorians have to make
three changes of raiment every day in order to avoid ill consequences;
or that every man, woman and child in merry England has had instead
of expects or dreads or hopes to have appendicitis, since King
Edward the Peacemaker suffered, and renown came upon that disorder.
Malaria is fleeing before civilisation. It cannot--at any rate in North
Queensland--long endure the presence of the white man.

Unfeigned pity is bestowed upon the denizens of North Queensland on
account of the pains and penalties and discomforts alleged to be the
sentence of all who dare select it as home. We who know can but smile and
wait; and ever call call to mind pleasant and happy experiences,
everlasting truths and "the falsehood of extremes."

Even in the matter of cyclones--often quoted as one of its
detriments--North Queensland has nothing to hide. At intervals Nature
does indulge in a reckless and violent outburst, but not more frequently
here than in other parts of the world. Year after year the seasons are
passive and pleasant, and in every respect considerate of humanity and
encouraging to humanity's undertakings. Then, abandoning for a few hours
her orderly and kindly ways, Nature runs amok, raving and shrieking. Her
transient irresponsibleness and mischievousness are then cited as
everyday, persistent vices. Not so. Nature is rational even in her most
passionate moments. Vegetation, rank and gross as in an unweeded garden,
requires vigorous lopping and pruning. These twenty-year-interval storms
comb out superfluous leaves and branches, cut out dead wood, send to the
ground decayed and weakly shoots, and scrub and cleanse trunks and
branches of parasitic growths. All is done boldly, yet with such skill
that in a few weeks losses are hidden under masses of clean, insectless,
healthy, bright foliage. The soil has received a luxurious top-dressing.
Trees and plants respond to the stimulus with magical vigour, for lazy,
slumbering forces have been roused into efforts so splendid that the
realism of tropical vegetation is to be appreciated only after Nature has
swept and sweetened her garden.

A more vivid and more idealised medium than the poor one which with
diffidence I employ were essential if entertainment alone were sought in
these pages; but even faint and imperfect etching of one Australian
scene, little known even to Australians, may in some degree tend to
enlightenment.

Many have told of the thin forests of Queensland, the open plains, and
the interminable downs whereon the mirage plays with the fancies of
wayfarers; and of the dust, heat and sweat of cattle stations. Has not
the "Never Never Country" inspired many a traveller and more than one
poet? It is well to realise that we have such bountiful land, and to be
proud of the men capable of investing its vastness, monotony and prosaic
wealth with poetic imagery. Is it not also wise to remember now aagain
that Queensland possesses two types of tropical climate, accentuated by
boundaries having far great significance than those which divide tropical
from temperate Australia, and worlds apart in their distinctions? Is not
the land of the banana, the palm and the cedar, entitled to recognition,
as well as the land of the gidyea, the boree, and the bottle-tree? Who
has yet said or sung of the mystery of the half-lit jungles of our coast,
in contrast to the vivid boldness of the sun-sought, shadeless western
plains; of our green, moist mountains, seamed with gloomy ravines, the
sources of perennial streams; of the vast fertile lowlands in which the
republic of vegetation is as an unruly, ungoverned mob, clamouring for
topmost places in unrestrained excess of energy; of still lagoons, where
the sacred pink lotus and the blue and white water-lily are rivals in
grace of form, in tint and in perfume?

If I am successful in convincing that North Queensland is neither a
burning fiery furnace nor yet a sweltering steamy swamp; that the country
is not completely saturated with malaria; that there are vast areas which
no drought can tinge with grey or brown, where there are never-failing
streams, where cool fresh water trickles among the shale and shattered
coral on the beaches, where sweet-voiced birds sport and resplendent
butterflies flicker, then these writings will have been to some purpose.

ISLAND FAUNA

While the bird life of our island is plentiful and varied, mammalian is
insignificant in number. The echidna, two species of rats, a flying fox
(PTEROPUS FUNEREUS) and two bats, comprise the list. Although across a
narrow channel marsupials are plentiful, there is no representative of
that typical Australian order here, and the Dunk Island blacks have no
legends of the existence of either kangaroos, wallabies, kangaroo rats or
bandicoots in times past. But there are circumstantial details extant,
that the island of Timana was an outpost of the wallaby until quite a
recent date. A gin (the last female native of Dunk Island) who died in
1900 was wont to tell of the final battue at Timana, and the feast that
followed, in which she took part as a child. This island, which has an
area of about 20 acres, bears a resemblance to a jockey's cap--the sand
spit towards the setting sun forming the peak, a precipice covered with
scrub and jungle, the back. Here, long ago, a great gathering from the
neighbouring islands and the mainland took place. Early in the morning
all formed up in line on the sand spit. Diverging, but maintaining order,
men, gins, piccaninnies, shouting, yelling, and screaming, and clashing
nulla-nullas (throwing-sticks), supported by barking and yelping dogs
swept the timid wallabies up through the tangle of jungle, until like the
Gaderene swine they ran, or rather hopped, down a steep place into the
sea, or fell on fatal rocks laid bare by the ebb-tide. Those who partook
of the last of the wallabies have gone the way of all flesh, and the
incident is instructive only as an illustration of the manner in which
animals may suddenly disappear from confined localities, leaving no relic
of previous existence. Considering the bulk of Dunk Island (3 1/2 square
miles), and recognising the rule that islands are necessarily poorer in
species than continents, it is yet remarkable that no evidence of
marsupials is to be found, and that the oldest blacks maintain that none
of the type ever existed here.

Though the drawings in caves depict lizards, echidna, turtle and men,
there is no representation of kangaroo or wallaby. It is highly probable
that if such had been common, the black artists would have chosen them as
subjects, since nearly all their studies are from Nature.

The largest and heaviest four-footed creature now existent on Dunk Island
is the so-called porcupine (spiny ant-eater or echidna). An animal which
possesses some of the features of the hedgehog of old England, and
resembles in others that distinctly Australian paradox, the platypus,
which has a mouth which it cannot open--a mere tube through which the
tongue is thrust, which in the production of its young combines the
hatching of an egg as of a bird, with the suckling of a mammal, and which
also has some of the characteristics of a reptile, cannot fail to be an
interesting object to every student of the marvels of Nature. When
disturbed, the echidna resolves itself into a ball, tucking its long
snout between its forelegs, and packing its barely perceptible tail close
between the hind ones, presenting an array of menacing prickles
whencesoever attacked. While in this ball-like posture, the animal, as
chance affords, digs with its short strong legs and steel-like claws,
tearing asunder roots, and casting aside stones, and the ease and
rapidity with which it disappears in soft soil are astonishing. The
horrific array of prickles presented as it digs an undignified retreat,
and the tenacity with which it holds the ground, have given rise to the
fiction that no dog is capable of killing an echidna. No ordinary dog is.
He must be cunning, daring, brave, insensible to pain, and resourceful.
Then the feat is quite ordinary. Indeed, once the trick is learned, the
trouble is to keep the dog from attacking its innocent, useful and most
retiring enemy. The echidna has the ill-luck to possess certain subtle
qualities, which excite terrific enthusiasm for its destruction on the
part of the dog. Either there is an hereditary feud between the dog and
the echidna, which the former is bound in honour to push to the last
extremity, or else the dog regards the prickly creature as a perpetual
affront, or specially created to provide opportunities for displaying
fanatic hatred and hostility. No dog of healthy instinct is able to pass
an echidna without some sort of an attempt upon its life. The long
tubular nose of the echidna is the vital spot. This is guarded with such
shrewdness and determination as to be impregnable. But the dog which
pursues the proper tactics, and is wily and patient, sooner or
later-regardless of the alleged poisonous spur--seizes one of the hind
legs, and the conflict quickly comes to an end.

By the blacks the echidna, which is known as "Coombee-yan," is placed on
the very top of the list of those dainties which the crafty old men
reserve for themselves under awe-inspiring penalties.

Next in size to the echidna is the white-tipped rat (UROMYS HIRSUTIS?),
water-loving, nocturnal in its habits, fierce and destructive. A
collateral circumstance revealed absolute proof of its existence, which
had previously depended upon vague statements of the blacks. Cutting
firewood in the forest one morning, I came across a carpet snake, 12 feet
long, laid out and asleep in a series of easy curves, with the sun
revealing unexpected beauty in the tints and in the patterns of the skin.
Midway of its length was a tell-tale bulge, and before the axe shortened
it by a head, I was convinced that here was a serpent that had waylaid
and surprised or beguiled a fowl. Post-mortem examination, however,
proved once more the unreliability of uncorroborated circumstantial
evidence. The snake had done good and friendly service instead of ill,
for it had swallowed a white-tailed rat--the only specimen that I have
seen on the island.

Next comes the little frugivorous rat of russet brown, with a glint of
gold on its fur tips. A delicate, graceful creature, nice in its habits,
with a plaintive call like the cheep of a chicken; preferring ripe
bananas and pine-apple, but consenting to nibble at other fruits, as well
as grain. The mother carries her young crouched on her haunches, clinging
to her fur apparently with teeth as well as claws, and she manages to
scuttle along fairly fast, in spite of her encumbrances. The first that I
saw bearing away her family to a place of refuge was deemed to be
troubled with some hideous deformity aft, but inspection at close
quarters showed how she had converted herself into a novel perambulator.
I am told that no other rodent has been observed to carry its young in
this fashion. Perhaps the habit has been acquired as a result of insular
peculiarities, the animal, unconscious of the way of its kind on the
mainland, having invented a style of its own, "ages ahead of the
fashion."

Mr C. W. de Vis, M.A., of the Queensland Museum, who has considerately
examined specimens of this rat, pronounces it to be extraordinary, in
that it combines types of three genera--the teeth of the mus, the mammae
of the mastacomys and the scales on the tail of the genus UROMYS. In the
bestowal of a name he has favoured the latter genus. The animal has been
introduced to the scientific world under the title UROMYS BANFIELDI, by
Mr de Vis, who, referring to it as "eccentric," says, "The female first
sent to us as an example of the species had no young with her, nor were
her mammae much in evidence; consequently, the advent of a specimen
caught in the act of carrying young was awaited with interest. Fortune at
length favoured our correspondent with an opportunity of placing the
correctness of his observation beyond question. (A mother with a pair of
infants attached to the teats was chloroformed and sent to Brisbane). On
arrival, the young were found detached. The conical corrugated nipples
are, compared with the size of the animal, very long; one, especially,
20 mm. in length, calls to mind a marsupial teat."

By the examination of adult specimens the age at which the young
disassociate themselves from the mother has been ascertained. Long after
the time of life at which other species of rats are nibbling an
independent way through the world, U. BANFIELDI clings resolutely to its
parent, obtaining from her its sole sustenance. Not until the "infant" is
nearly half the size of the mother does it begin to earn its living and
trust to its own means of locomotion.

The presence of the echidna in three colours--black, grey, and straw--and
two species of rats emphasises the absence of marsupials, unaccountable
unless on the theory of extermination by the original inhabitants in the
remote past.




CHAPTER III



BIRDS AND THEIR RIGHTS


"As the sweet voice of a bird,
Heard by the lander in a lonely isle
Moves him to think what kind of bird it is,
That sings so delicately clear, and make
Conjecture of the plumage and the form."


Frankly it must be admitted that the idea of retiring to an island was
not spontaneous. It was evolved from a sentimental regard for the welfare
of bird and plant life. Having pondered upon the destructive instinct
which prevails in mankind, having seen that, though the offences which
man commits against the laws of Nature are promptly detected and
assuredly punished, they are yet repeated over and over again, and having
more pity for the victims of man's heartlessness and folly than regard
for the consequences which man suffers in the blows that Nature inflicts
as she recoils, the inevitable conclusion was that moral suasion was of
little purpose--that there must be more of example than precept. In this
particular case how speedy and effective has been the result will be seen
later on. Man destroys birds for sport, or in mere wantonness, and the
increasing myriads of insect hosts lay such toll upon his crops and the
fruit of the earth which by the exercise of high intelligence and noble
perseverance he has improved and made plentiful, that the national loss
is to be counted by hundreds of thousands. In this, as in all other
interferences with natural laws, we blunder unless we reckon


"With that
Fixed arithmic of the universe,
Which meteth good for good, ill for ill,
Measure for measure."


There may be a sort of satisfaction in the reflection, that for, perhaps,
every insectivorous bird wantonly killed, some proportion of its weight
in silver has to be paid indirectly by the country. But the satisfaction
is of no avail to the dead bird nor to the species, unless the taxpayer
feels the smart and becomes indignant. We want to save the lives of the
birds, and the silver, then to moralise; not kill the bird and be
compelled to spend the silver in destroying insects that the bird would
have delighted to consume, and moralise upon the destructiveness of some
hitherto insignificant bug or beetle, which has suddenly developed into a
national calamity.

So it was resolved, as other phases of island life matured, that one of
the first ordinances to be proclaimed would be that forbidding
interference with birds. That ordinance prevails. Our sea-girt hermitage
is a sanctuary for all manner of birds, save those of murderous and
cannibalistic instincts. We give all a hearty welcome and make friends of
them if possible. During the eight years of our occupancy many shy
creatures have become quite bold and familiar; though I am fain to admit,
with disappointment, that but slight increases in the species represented
have been noticed. Four strange species of terns, which are wont to lay
on the bare reef patches of the Barrier, now visit Purtaboi regularly
every season, depositing their eggs among those of two other species,
which in spite of disturbance by the blacks, year after year refused to
abandon the spot. Possibly the fact that a haven of refuge has been
established has not been widely promulgated among our friends. Those who
are with us or visit us have peace and security, and are for the most
part friendly and trustful.

Man--the late-comer, the last work, the perfect form--is not always
kindly disposed towards the lower orders, though the dominion he
exercises over them is absolute. Were not the beasts of the field, the
birds of the air, the very fish of the sea, given over to his arbitrary
authority? Here the interest in birds is mainly protective. The printed
law of the land says in ponderous paragraphs all duly numbered and
subdivided, that it is unlawful to kill many Queensland birds; and the
pains and penalties for disregard thereof, are they not set out in
terrifying array? But who cares? Take, for an example, the lovely
Gouldian finch. The law makes it an offence to kill the birds, or to take
their eggs, or to have them in possession dead or alive. Yet trappers go
out into the habitation of the bird and snare them by the thousand. Fifty
thousand pairs have been sent away in a single season. Not one tenth of
those which twitter so faintly and yet so sweetly to their tiny loves of
their own land and their erstwhile freedom, ever live to be gloated over,
because of their fatal gift of beauty, in London or on the Continent.

A CENSUS

While this census ignores several birds of the island as to the identity
of which doubt exists in the mind of the compiler, it acknowledges the
presence of all permanent residents familiar to him, as well as casual
visitors, and those which stay for a few hours or days, as the case may
be, for rest or refreshment during migratory flights. Chastened by the
half-averted face of irresponsive science, the glowing desire to inflate
the list gave way to the crisper sort of satisfaction which is like the
joy that cometh in the morning.


BIRDS OF PREY

White Goshawk                ASTUR (LEUCOSPIZA) NOVAE HOLLANDIAE.
Goshawk                      ASTUR APPROXIMANS.
Sparrow-Hawk                 ACCIPITER CIRRHOCEPHALUS.
Wedge-tailed Eagle           UROAETUS (AQUILA) AUDAX.
White-bellied Sea-Eagle      HALIAETUS LEUCOGASTER.
White-headed Sea-Eagle       HALIASTUS GIRRENERA.
Kite                         MILVUS AFFINIS.
Black-shouldered Kite        ELANUS AXILLARIS.
Black-cheeked Falcon         FALCO MELANOGENYS.
Grey Falcon                  FALCO HYPOLEUCUS.
Black Falcon                 FALCO SUBNIGER.
Kestrel                      CERCHNEIS (TINNUNCULUS) CENCHROIDES.
Fish Hawk or Osprey          PANDION LEUCOCEPHALUS.
Boobook Owl                  NINOX BOOBOOK.
Rufous Owl                   NINOX HUMERALIS.
Lurid Owl (De Vis)           NINOX LURIDA.

PERCHING BIRDS

Pied Crow-Shrike             STREPERA GRACULINA.
White-winged Chough          CORCORAX MELANORHAMPHUS.
Manucode                     PHONYGAMA (MANUCODIA) GOULDI.
Yellow Oriole                ORIOLUS FLAVICINCTUS.
Yellow-bellied Fig-bird      SPHECOTHERES FLAVIVENTRIS.
Drongo                       CHIBIA BRACTEATA.
Magpie Lark                  GRALLINA PICATA.
Brown Shrike-Thrush          COLLYRIOCINCLA BRUNNEA.
White-bellied Cuckoo-Shrike  GRAUCALUS HYPOLEUCUS.
Little Cuckoo-Shrike         GRAUCALUS MENTALIS.
Barred Cuckoo-Shrike         GRAUCALUS LINEATUS.
Caterpillar-cater            EDOLIISOMA TENUIROSTRE (JARDINII).
Pied Caterpillar-eater       LALAGE LEUCOMELAENA.
Northern Fantail             RHIPIDURA SETOSA (ISURA).
Ruffis-fronted Fantail       RHIFIDURA RUFIFRONS.
Black and White Fantail      RHIPIDURA (SAULOPROCTA) TRICOLOR
                                 (MOTACILLOIDES).
Leaden Fly-catcher           MYIAGRA RUBECULA (PLUMBEA).
Blue Fly-catcher             MYIAGRA CONCINNA.
Pied Fly-catcher             ARSES KAUPI.
Shining Fly-catcher          PIEZORHYNCHUS NITIDUS.
White-eared Fly-catcher      PIEZORHYNCHUS LEUCOTIS.
Spectacled Fly-catcher       PIEZORHYNCHUS GOULDI.
Black-faced Fly-catcher      MONARCHA MELANOPSIS (CARINATA).
Tawny Grass-Bird             MEGALURUS GALACTOTES.
Rufous-breasted Thickhead    PACHYCEPHALA RUFIVENTRIS.
Sun-bird                     CINNYRIS (NECTARINIA) FRENATA.
Dusky Honey-eater            MYZOMELA OBSCURA.
Yellow White-eye             ZOSTEROPS LUTEA.
Varied Honey-cater           PTILOTIS VERSICOLOR.
Fasciated Honey-eater        PTILOTIS FASCIOGULARIS.
Yellow-tinted Honey-eater    PLILOTIS FLAVA.
Friar Bird                   PHILEMON CORNICULATUS.
Helmeted Friar Bird          PHILEMON BUCEROIDES.
Flower-Pecker
    or Mistletoe Bird        DICAEUM HIRUNDINACEUM.
Black-headed Diamond Bird    PARDALOTUS MELANOCEPHALUS.
Eastern Swallow              HIRUNDO JAVANICA.
Swallow                      HIRUNDO NEOXENA (FRONTALIS).
White-rumped Wood-Swallow    ARTAMUS LEUCOGASTER.
Shining Starling             CALORNIS METALLICA.
Noisy Pitta                  PITTA STREPITANS.

PICARIAN BIRDS

Large-tailed Nightjar        CAPRIMULGUS MACROURUS.
Roller or Dollar-Bird        EURYSTOMUS AUSTRALIS.
Bee-eater                    MEROPS ORNATUS.
Blue Kingfisher              ALCYONE AZUREA.
Little Kingfisher            ALCYONE PUSILLA.
Leach Kingfisher             DACELO LEACHII.
Sacred Kingfisher            HALCYON SANCTUS.
Mangrove Kingfisher          HALYON SORDIDUS.
Bronze Cuckoo                CHALCOCOCCYX PLAGOSUS.
Koel                         EUDYNAMIS CYANOCEPHALA.
Channel-bill                 SCYTHROPS NOVAE HOLLANDIE.
Coucal                       CENTROPUS PHASIANUS.

PARROTS

Red-collared Lorikeet        TRICHOGLOSSUS RUBRITORQUIS.
Glossy Cockatoo              CALYPTORHYNCHUS VIRIDIS (LEACHIT).
White Cockatoo               CACATUA GALERITA.
Red-winged Lory              PTISTES ERYTHROPTERUS.

PIGEONS AND DOVES

Rose-crowned Fruit Pigeon    PTILOPUS EWINGI.
Purple-crowned Fruit Pigeon  PTILOPUS SUPERBUS.
Purple-breasted Fruit Pigeon MEGALOPREPIA MAGNIFICA.
Allied Fruit Pigeon          MEGALOPREPIA ASSIMILIS.
Nutmeg Pigeon                MYRISTICIVORA SPILORRHOA.
White-headed Fruit Pigeon    COLUMBA LEUCOMELA.
Pheasant-tailed Pigeon       MACROPYGIA PHASIANELLA.
Barred-shouldered Dove       GEOPELIA HUMERALIS.
Ground Dove                  GEOPELIA TRANQUILA.
Little Dove                  GEOPELIA CUNEATA.
Little Green Pigeon          CHALCOPHAPS CHRYSOCHLORA.

GAME BIRDS

Brown Quail                  SYNAECUS AUSTRALIS.
Scrub Fowl                   MEGAPODIUS DUPERREYI (TUMULUS).
Bald Coot                    PORPHYRIO MELANONOTUS.
Little Quail                 TURNIX VELOX.

RAIL

Pectoral Rail                HYPOTAENIDIA PHILIPPINENSIS.

CRANE

Crane or Native Companion    ANTIGONE AUSTRALASIANA.

PLOVERS, ETC.

Stone Plover                 BURHINUS (OEDICNEMUS) GRALLARIUS.
Long-billed Stone Plover     ORTHORHAMPHUS (ESACUS) MAGNIROSTRIS.
Turnstone                    ARENARIA (STREPSILAS) INTERPRES.
Pied Oyster-catcher          HAEMATOPUS LONGIROSTRIS.
Black Oyster-catcher         HAEMATOPUS UNICOLOR.
Masked Plover                LOBIVANELLUS MILES.
Red-capped Dottrel           AEGIALITIS RUFICAPILLA.
Black-fronted Dottrel        AEGIALITIS (MELANOPS) NIGRIFRONS.
Red-necked Avocet            RECURVIROSTRA NOVAE-HOLLANDIAE.
Curlew                       NUMENIUS CYANOPUS.
Whimbrel                     NUMENIUS VARIEGATUS.
Barred-rumped Godwit         LIMOSA NOVAE-SEALANDIAE
Common Sandpiper             TRINGOIDES HYPOLEUCUS.
Greenshank                   GLOTTIS NEBULARIUS (GLOTTOIDES).
Snipe                        GALLINAGO AUSTRALIS.

SEA BIRDS

Crested Tern                 STERNA BERGII.
Brown-winged Tern                 STERNA ANAESTHETA.
Sooty Tern                   STERNA FULIGINOSA.
White-shafted Ternlet       STERNA SINENSIS.
Black-naped Tern             STERNA MELANAUCHEN.
Noddy                        ANOUS STOLIDUS.
White-capped Noddy           MICRANOUS LEUCOCAPILLUS.

IBISES

White Ibis                   IBIS MOLUCCA.
Straw-necked Ibis            CARPHIBIS SPINICOLLIS.

HERONS

Plumed Egret                 MESOPHOYX PLUMIFERA.
White Egret                  HERODIAS TIMORIENSIS.
White-fronted Heron          NOTOPHOYX NOVAE-HOLLANDIAE.
Reef Heron                   DEMIEGRETTA SACRA.
Little Mangrove Bittem       BUTORIDES STAGNATILIS.
Yellow-necked Mangrove
    Bittem                   DUPETOR GOULDI.

POUCHERS

Little Cormorant             PHALACROCORAX MELANOLEUCUS.
Darter                       PTOLUS NOVAE-HOLLANDIAE.
Masked Gannet                SULA CYANOPS.
Red-legged Gannet            SULA PISCATOR.
Brown Gannet (Booby)         SULA SULA (FIBER).
Lesser Frigate Bird          FREGATA ARIEL
Pelican                      PELICANUS CONSPICILLATUS.

DIVER

Black-throated Grebe         PODICIPES NOVAE-HOLLANDIAE.

DUCKS

Black Duck                   ANAS SUPERCILIOSA.
Grey Teal                    NETTION (ANAS) GIBBERIFRONS.


Why have we no residential parrot, though cockatoos are plentiful; no
scrub turkey though the megapode scampers in all directions in the
jungle; no common black crow, nor butcher bird, though other shrikes (the
magpie for instance) come and go; no wren, no finch, no lark? Scrub
turkeys (TALLEGALLA LATHAMI), mound builders like the megapode, are
plentiful all along the coast, at certain seasons visiting the scrub
which margins the opposite beach, but they are not found on these
islands. The blue mountain parrot (red-collared lorikeet), the red-winged
lory, the black cockatoo (Leach's), and other well-known species, fleet
and venturesome, to whom two miles and a half of "salt, estranging sea"
cannot be any check, certainly do not use the island for nesting as birds
of "innocent and quiet minds" might. Gauze-winged butterflies flit across
the channel, occasionally in great numbers. What law restrains virile
birds from the venture?

The absence among the residents of swimming birds, save the beach
frequenters, is due to the lack of open fresh water, though there are
indications of the past existence of at least one swamp, and also that it
was drained naturally by the fretting away of a sand ridge by the sea.

How is it, that though we have echidna in three different colours--black,
grey and straw--there is no typical marsupial, large or small, no iguana
(rather, monitor lizard), though a fair variety of other reptiles, from
white, house-haunting geckoes to carpet snakes? Though the CYCAS MEDIA is
plentiful on the seaward slopes of the adjacent mainland, no trace of
that interesting old-world plant has been discovered here. and but one
casual representative has been found of the graceful fan palm (LICUALA
MUELLERI), another relic of the far beginning of Australia. No doubt the
seed whence the single fan palm sprung would be brought hither by a
nutmeg pigeon; but there is no bird-carrier for the CYCAD, and the set of
the current is opposed to its transport by the sea.

In birds and in mammals and in plants, wide-spread Australian groups are
unrepresented.

THE DAYBREAK FUGUE

Before there is any visible sign of the break of day, some keener and
finer perception than man possesses reveals it to the noisy pitta, or
dragoon bird, which in duty bound makes prompt proclamation. Man trusts
to mechanism to check off the watches of the night; birds to a
self-contained grace more sensitive if not so viciously exact. The noisy
pitta bustles along the edge of the jungle rousing all the sleepy heads
with sharp interrogative whistles before there is the least paling of the
Eastern sky. He scents the sun as the ghost of Hamlet's father the
morning air. His version of "Sleepers, wake," echoes in the silence in
sharp, staccato notes. Seldom heard during the heat of the day, they are
oft repeated at dusk and late in the evening. Of all the birds of the day
his voice is the last as well as the first, and from that the natives
derive his name, "Wung-go-bah."

As the dawn hastens a subdued fugue of chirps and whistles, soft,
continuous and quite distinct from the cheerful individual notes and
calls with which the glare is greeted, completes a circle of sounds.
Wheresoever he stands the listener is in the centre of ripples of melody
which blend with the silence almost as speedily as the half lights flee
before the pompous rays of the imperial sun. This charming melody is but
a general exclamation of pleasure on the recovery of the day from the
apprehension of the night, a mutual recognition, an interchange of
matutinal compliments. Those who take part in it may be jealous rivals in
a few minutes, but the first impulse of each new day is a universal
paean, not loud and vaunting, but mellow, sweet and unselfish.

THE MEGAPODE

The cackle and call of the scrub fowl (MEGAPODIUS DUPERREYS) are
nocturnal as well as sounds of the day, being repeated at intervals all
through the night. Rarely venturing out of the shades of the jungle, the
eyesight of this bird is, no doubt, specially adjusted to darkness and
subdued lights, and is thus enabled to detect and prey upon insects which
during the day lurk under leaves and decayed wood, or bury themselves in
the surface of the ever moist soil. Astonishment is excited that there can
by any possibility be any grubs or beetles, centipedes and worms,
scorpions and spiders left to perpetuate their species, when the floor of
the jungle is raked over with such assiduity by this powerful and active
bird. During the day the megapode is sometimes silent, but ever and anon
it gives way to what may in charity be presumed to be a crow---an
uncouth, discordant effort to imitate the boastful, tuneful challenge of
the civilised rooster. In com

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