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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tropic Days, by E. J. Banfield
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Tropic Days
+
+Author: E. J. Banfield
+
+
+Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7324]
+This file was first posted on April 14, 2003
+Last Updated: May 31, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TROPIC DAYS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Col Choat
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TROPIC DAYS (1918)
+
+By E. J. Banfield
+
+
+Author Of "The Confessions Of A Beachcomber" And "My Tropic Isle"
+
+
+"Peace and silence. . . combined with the large liberties of nature."
+
+                                                           De Quincey
+
+
+TO
+
+MY BROTHER BEACHCOMBERS; Professing, Practising
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S NOTE
+
+
+In my previous books the endeavour was to give exact if prosaic details
+of life on an island off the coast of North Queensland on which a few
+of the original inhabitants preserved their uncontaminated ways. Here
+is presented another instalment of sketches of a quiet scene. Again an
+attempt is made to describe--not as ethnological specimens, but as men
+and women--types of a crude race in ordinary habit as they live, though
+not without a tint of imagination to embolden the better truths.
+
+I thankfully acknowledge indebtedness to my friends Mr. Charles Hedley,
+of the Australian Museum (Sydney); Dr. R. Hamlyn-Harris, Director of
+the Queensland Museum; and Mr. Dodd S. Clarke, of Townsville, N.Q., for
+valuable aid in the preparation of my notes for publication.
+
+DUNK ISLAND.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+PART I--SUN DAYS.
+
+IN IDLE MOMENT
+ETERNAL SUNSHINE
+FRAGRANCE AND FRUIT
+THE SCENE-SHIFTER
+BRACE PLANTS
+SHADOWS
+"SMILING MORN"
+ANCESTRAL SHADE
+QUIET WATERS
+"THE LOWING HERD"
+BABBLING BEACHES
+THE LOST ISLE
+
+
+PART II--THE PASSING RACE.
+
+
+THE CORROBOREE
+THE CANOE-MAKER
+TWO LADIES--NELLY, THE SHREW; MARIA DANCES
+SOOSIE
+BLUE SHIRT
+THE FORGOTTEN DEAD
+EAGLE'S-NEST FLOAT
+NATURE IN RETALIATION
+"STAR RUN ABOUT"
+BLACKS AS FISHERMEN
+    HOOKS
+    NARCOTICS AND POISONS
+    FLY-FISHING
+
+
+PART III--MISCELLANEA.
+
+
+PEARLS
+    WHAT IS A PEARL?
+    A PEARL IN THE MAKING
+    STRANGE PEARLS
+    PEARLS AND HIGH TRAGEDY
+SNAKE AND FROG PRATTLE
+THE BUSH TRACK
+THE LITTLE BROWN MAN
+UP AND AWAY
+"PASSETH ALL UNDERSTANDING"
+TIME'S FINGER
+THE SOUL WITHIN THE STONE
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+AT HOME ON THE TROPIC STRAND
+"DEBIL-DEBIL"
+NATURE'S PUZZLE: FIND THE BIRD
+ORCHID (PHAIUS GRANDIFOLIUS)
+ORCHID (BULBOPHYLLUM BAILEYI)
+A SPIDER CRAB
+A SPIDER CRAB DISGUISED
+CASUARINAS
+TOURNEFORTIA ARGENTA
+MACARANGA TANARIUS
+UMBRELLA TREE SHADOWS
+SUN-SALUTED TREE FERNS
+"THE LOWING HERD"
+PERFECT HAPPINESS
+GIGANTIC OYSTER (OSTREA CRISTA GALLI)
+SANDSPIT SWIRL
+GLOOM AND GLEAM
+COWRIES
+"SOOSIE'S" TYPE
+TAPES
+LEAF VARIATIONS (FICUS OPPOSITA) TYPICAL FORM RIGHT HAND TOP CORNER
+TELLINA
+A SHELL COLLECTION
+TRITON
+DOMESTIC DUTIES
+PEARL-ENTOMBED FISH AND RACEMOSE PEARL
+CATTIERS
+PEARL-IMPRISONED CHITON
+TWO STRANGE PEARLS
+TWO BUBBLE SHELLS
+PEARL JOSSES
+WHITE APPLE (EUGENIA CORMIFLORA)
+CYCADS
+DESERTED
+CYCAD AND PALMS
+WIND-TORMENTED FIG-TREE
+THE IDLE OCEAN
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PART I--SUN DAYS
+
+
+
+
+IN IDLE MOMENT
+
+
+
+"'Are you not frequently idle?' 'Never, brother. When we are not engaged
+in our traffic we are engaged in our relaxations.'"--BORROW.
+
+On the smooth beaches and in the silent bush, where time is not
+regulated by formalities or shackled by conventions, there delicious
+lapses--fag-ends of the day to be utilised in a dreamy mood which
+observes and accepts the happenings of Nature without disturbing the
+shyest of her manifestations or permitting 'the-mind to dwell on any but
+the vaguest speculations.
+
+Such idle moments are mine. Let these pages tell of their occupation.
+
+As the years pass it is proved that the administration of the affairs of
+an island, the settled population of which is limited to three, involves
+pleasant though exacting duties. It is a gainful government--not
+gainful in the accepted sense, but in all that vitally matters--personal
+freedom, absence of irksome regulations remindful of the street, liberty
+to enjoy the mood of the moment and to commune with Nature in her most
+fascinating aspects. Those who are out of touch with great and dusty
+events may, by way of compensation, be the more sensitive to the
+processes of the universe, which, though incessantly repeated, are
+blessed with recurrent freshness.
+
+The sun rises, travels across a cloudless sky, gleams on a sailless sea,
+disappears behind purple mountains gilding their outline, and the day is
+done. Not a single dust-speck has soiled sky or earth; not the faintest
+echo of noisy labours disturbed the silences; not an alien sight has
+intruded. What can there be in such a scene to exhilarate? Must not
+the inhabitants vegetate dully after the style of their own bananas?
+Actually the day has been all too brief for the accomplishment of
+inevitable duties and to the complete enjoyment of all too alluring
+relaxations.
+
+Here is opportunity to patronise the sun, to revel in the companionship
+of the sea, to confirm the usage of beaches, to admonish winds to
+seemliness and secrecy, to approve good-tempered trees, to exchange
+confidences with flowering plants, to claim the perfumed air, to rejoice
+in the silence--
+
+    "Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach,
+    Which pries not to th' interior."
+
+How oft is the confession that the fullest moments of life are achieved
+when I roam the beaches with little more in the way of raiment than
+sunburn and naught in hand save the leaves of some strange, sand-loving
+plant? Then is it that the individual is magnified. The sun salutes. The
+wind fans. The sea sighs a love melody. The caressing sand takes print
+of my foot alone. All the world might be mine, for none is present to
+dispute possession. The sailless sea smiles in ripples, and strews its
+verge with treasures for my acceptance. The sky's purity enriches my
+soul. Shall I not joy therein?
+
+Though he may be unable to attain those moments of irresistible
+intuition which came to Amiel, when a man feels himself great like the
+universe and calm like a god, one may thrill with love and admiration
+for Nature without resigning sense of superiority over all other of her
+works or abating one jot of justifiable pride.
+
+Even in tropical Queensland there is a sense of revivification during
+the last half of August and first of September, and the soul of man
+responds thereto, as do plants and birds, in lawful manner. Perhaps it
+is that the alien dweller in lands of the sun, when he frisks mentally
+and physically at this sprightly season, is merely obeying an imperative
+characteristic bred into him during untold generations when the winter
+was cruelly real and spring a joyful release from cold and distress. The
+cause may be slight, but there is none to doubt the actual awakening,
+for it is persuasive and irresistible.
+
+The lemon-trees are discarding the burden of superfluous fruit with
+almost immoderate haste, for the gentle flowers must have their day.
+Pomeloes have put forth new growth a yard long in less than a fortnight,
+and are preparing a bridal array of blooms such as will make birds
+and butterflies frantic with admiration and perfume the scene for the
+compass of a mile. The buff-and-yellow sprays of the mango attract
+millions of humming insects, great and small. Most of the orchids are
+in full flower, the coral-trees glow, the castanospermum is full of
+bud, loose bunches of white fruit decorate the creeping palms, and
+the sunflower-tree is blotched with gold in masses. The birds make
+declaration of attachment for the season.
+
+Great trees, amorous birds, frail insects, perceive the subtle influence
+of the season, and shall not coarse-fibred man rejoice, though there
+be little or nothing to which he may point as special evidence of
+inspiration? He may feel the indefinable without comprehending any
+material reason why. He may confess, although there is but a trifle more
+sunshine than a month ago--and what influence a trifle where there is
+so much--and scarcely any difference of temperature, that Nature is
+insisting on obedience to one of her mighty laws--the law of heredity.
+Why, therefore, refrain from justifying the allusion? Why persist in
+declining the invitations of the hour? Far be it from me to do so. Is
+sufferance the cognizance of this Free Isle?
+
+All my days are Days of the Sun. All my days are holy. Duty may suggest
+the propriety of contentment within four walls. Inclination and the
+thrill of the season lure me to gloat over the more manifest of its
+magic. Be sure that, unabashed and impenitent, shall I riot over
+sordid industry during the most gracious time of year to hearken to the
+eloquence and accept the teachings of unpeopled spaces.
+
+Such is the silence of the bush that the silken rustle of the
+butterflies becomes audible and the distinctive flight of birds is
+recognised--not alone such exaggerated differences as the whirr of
+quail, the bustle of scrub fowl, and the whistle and clacking of nutmeg
+pigeons, but the delicate and tender characteristics of the wing
+notes of the meeker kinds of doves and the honey-eaters, and also the
+calculated flutterings of the fly-catchers. In the whistling swoop of
+the grey goshawk there is a note of ominous blood-thirstiness, silent
+though the destroyer has sat awaiting the moment for swift and decisive
+action.
+
+Seldom, even on the stillest evening, may the presence of the night-jar
+be detected, except by its coarse call, while the sprightly little
+sun-bird flits hither and thither, prodigal of its vivid colours
+and joying with machine-like whirring. The sun-bird exemplifies the
+brightness of the day. All its activities are bold and conspicuous.
+Aptly named, it has nothing to hide, no deeds which will not withstand
+the scrutiny of the vividest rays.
+
+To work out its destiny the night-jar depends on secret doings and on
+flight soft as a falling leaf. It is a bird of the twilight and night.
+Startled from brooding over its eggs or yet dependent chicks, it is
+ghost-like in its flittings and disappearances. In broad daylight it
+moves from its resting-place as a leaf blown by an erratic and sudden
+puff, and vanishes as it touches the sheltering bosom of Mother Earth.
+Mark the spot of its vanishment and approach never so cautiously, and
+you see naught. Peer about and from your very feet that which had been
+deemed to be a shred of bark rises and is wafted away again by a phantom
+zephyr.
+
+The chick which the parent bird has hidden remains a puzzle. It moves
+not, it may not blink. Its crafty parent has so nibbled and frayed the
+edges of the decaying brown leaves among which it nestles that it has
+become absorbed in the scene. There is nothing to distinguish between
+the leaf-like feathers and the feather-like leaves. The instinct of
+the bird has blotted itself out. It is there, but invisible, and to
+be discovered only by the critical inspection of every inch of its
+environment. You have found it; but not for minutes after its instinct
+has warned it to possess its soul calmly and not to be afraid. So firm
+is its purpose that if inadvertently you put your foot on its tender
+body it would not move or utter cry. All its faculties are concentrated
+on impassiveness, and thus does Nature guard its weakest and most
+helpless offspring.
+
+While you ponder on the wonderful faith of the tiny creature which
+suffers handling without resistance, the shred of bark, driven by the
+imperceptible zephyr, falls a few yards away, and in an agony of anxiety
+utters an imploring purr, or was it an imprecation? That half purr, half
+hiss has been the only sound of the episode. It is a warning to be gone
+and leave Nature to her secrets and silences.
+
+A month's abstinence may not be a very severe penance for an island on
+which the rainfall averages 124 inches per year; but when vegetation
+suffers from the cruelty of four almost rainless months, promises and
+slights amount to something more than mere discourtesy. How genuine
+the thanksgiving to the soft skies after an incense-stimulating shower.
+Insects whirl in the sunshine. Among the pomelo-trees is a cyclone of
+scarcely visible things. Motes and specks of light dance in disorderly
+figures, to be detected as animated objects only by gauzy wings catching
+the light and reflecting it. Each insect, wakened but an hour ago by
+the warmth of the moist soil, in an abandonment of the moment, is a
+helioscope transmitting signals of pure pleasure. Drops still linger
+on myriads of leaves, and glitter on the glorious gold of the Chinese
+laburnum; the air is saturated with rich scents, and the frolicking
+crowd, invisible but for the oblique light, does not dream of disaster.
+Their crowded hour has attracted other eyes, appreciative in another
+sense. Masked wood-swallows, swiftlets, spangled drongos, leaden
+fly-eaters, barred-shouldered fly-eaters, hurry to the circus to
+desolate it with hungry swoops. The assemblage is noisy, for two or
+three drongos cannot meet without making a clatter on the subject of the
+moment. They cannot sing, but clink and jangle with as much intensity
+and individual satisfaction as if gifted with peerless note. It is the
+height of the season, and a newly matched pair, satisfied with an
+ample meal, sit side by side on a branch to tell of their love, and
+in language which, though it may lack tunefulness, has the outstanding
+quality of enthusiasm. But why waste clamorous love-notes on a world
+busy with breakfast? The sportful, tail-flicking dandy flits and alights
+so that he may address himself solely to his delighted and accepting
+spouse, peering into her reddish eyes the while, and in ecstasy
+proclaiming, in tones as loud and unmusical as her own, that life
+overflows with joy when mutual admiration surcharges the breast.
+
+The noise stays a company of metallic starlings in headlong flight from
+the nest-laden tree in the forest to the many-fruited jungle. Though
+they most conscientiously search the fronds of coco-nut palms for
+insignificant grubs and caterpillars, starlings do not hawk for insects.
+Held up by the excitement--for by this time other birds have darted
+to the feast--the starlings alight among the plumes of the laburnum,
+interrogating in acidulous tones, their black, burnished, iridescent
+feathers and flame-hued eyes making a picture of rare vividness and
+beauty.
+
+How thin becomes the throng! Last night's shower, the morning warmth of
+the soil, have brought forth a gush of life that wheels and sparkles in
+the sun and becomes bait for birds. Are droughts designed by Nature to
+test endurance on the part of animal and vegetable life? Leaves fall
+from evergreen trees almost as completely as from the deciduous, and
+even the jungle is thickly strewn, while every slight hollow is filled
+with brittle debris where usually leaves are limp with dampness and
+mould. The jungle has lost, too, its rich, moist odours. Whiffs of the
+pleasant earthy smell, telling of the decay of clean vegetable refuse,
+do issue in the early morning and after sundown; but while the sun is
+searching out all the privacies of the once dim area, the wholesome
+fragrance does not exist.
+
+Drought proves that certain species of exotic plants are hardier than
+natives. Wattles suffer more than mangoes, and citrus fruits have powers
+of endurance equal to eucalyptus. Whence does the banana obtain the
+liquid which flows from severed stem and drips from the cut bunch? Dig
+into the soil and no trace of even dampness is there; but rather parched
+soil and unnatural warmth, almost heat. Heat and moisture are the
+elements which enable one of the most succulent of plants to bear a
+bunch of fruit luscious and refreshing, and when heat alone prevails,
+the wonder is that the whole patch of luxuriant greenness does not
+collapse and wither. But the broad leaves woo the cool night airs, and
+while the thin, harsh, tough foliage of the wattles becomes languid and
+droops and falls, the banana grove retains its verdancy, each plant a
+reservoir of sap.
+
+A noteworthy feature of the botany of the coast of tropical Queensland
+is its alliance with the Malayan Archipelago and India. Most of the
+related plants do not occur in those parts closest to other equatorial
+regions in the geographical sense, but in localities in which climate
+and physical conditions are similar. Probably there are more affinities
+in the coastal strip of which this isle is typical than in all the
+rest of the continent of Australia. One prominent example may be
+mentioned-viz., "the marking-nut tree." When the distinctiveness of
+the botany of the southern portions of Australia from that of the old
+country began to impress itself on the earliest settlers, the miscalled
+native cherry was the very first on the list of reversals. The good
+folks at home were told that the seeds of the Australian cherry "grow
+on the outside." The fruit of the cashew or marking-nut tree betrays
+a similar feature in more pronounced fashion. The fruit is really the
+thickened, succulent stalk of the kidney-shaped nut. The tint of the
+fruit being attractive, unsophisticated children eat of it and earn
+scalded lips and swollen tongues, while their clothing is stained
+indelibly by the juice. Botanists know the handsome tree as SEMECARPUS
+AUSTRALIENSIS, but by the indignant parent of the child with tearful
+and distorted features and ruined raiment it is offensively called the
+"tar-tree," and is subject to shrill denunciations. The fleshy stalk
+beneath the fruit is, however, quite wholesome either raw or cooked, but
+the oily pericarp contains a caustic principle actually poisonous, so
+that unwary children would of a certainty eat the worst part. The tree,
+which belongs to the same order as the mango, has a limited range, and
+there are those who would like to see it exterminated, forgetful that in
+other parts of the world the edible parts are enjoyed, and also that a
+valuable means to the identification of linen is manufactured from it.
+A tree that is ornamental, that provides dense shade, that bears pretty
+and strange fruit, an edible part, and provides an economic principle,
+is not to be condemned off-hand because of one blot on its character.
+
+An Indian representative of the genera produces a nut which when
+roasted is highly relished, though dubiously known as the coffin-nail
+or promotion nut, but there is no reason to believe that it is specially
+indigestible unless eaten in immoderate quantity.
+
+One of the many bewilderments of botany is that plants of one family
+exhibit characteristics and habits so divergent that the casual observer
+fails to recognise the least signs of relationship. Similar confusion
+arises in the case of plants of the same species producing foliage of
+varied form. One of the figs (FICUS OPPOSITA) displays such remarkable
+inconsistency that until reassured by many examples it is difficult to
+credit an undoubted fact. The typical leaf is oblong elliptical, while
+individual plants produce lanceolate leaves with two short lateral
+lobes, with many intermediate forms. As the plant develops, the abnormal
+forms tend to disappear, though mature plants occasionally retain them.
+There seems to exist correlation between foliage and fruit, for branches
+exhibiting leaves with never so slight a variation from the type are,
+according to local observation, invariably barren. The leaves, which,
+when young, are densely hairy on the underside, on maturity become so
+rough and coarse that they are used by the blacks as a substitute for
+sandpaper in the smoothing of weapons. The fruit is small, dark purple
+when ripe, sweet, but rough to the palate.
+
+During the fulness of the wet season, a diminutive orchid, the roots,
+tuber, leaf, and flower of which may be easily covered by the glass of a
+lady's watch, springs upon exposed shoulders of the hills. So far it
+has not been recorded for any other part of Australia, or, indeed, the
+world. Science has bestowed upon it the title of CORYSANTHES FIMBRIATA,
+for it is all too retiring of disposition to demand of man a familiar
+name. Probably it may be quite common in similar localities, but its
+size, its brief periodicity, and inconspicuousness, contribute to make
+it, at present, one of the rarities of botany. Beneath a kidney-shaped
+leaf a tiny, solitary, hooded, purple flower shelters with becoming
+modesty, the art of concealment being so delicately employed that it
+seems to preserve its virginal purity. There is proof, however, that the
+flower does possess some "secret virtue," for if the plant be immersed
+in glycerine the preservative takes the hue of the flower. Nature having
+ordained that the plants should be elusive, they appear in remote spots
+and unlikely situations with foothold among loose and gritty fragments
+of rock, and with cessation of the sustaining rains disappear, each
+having borne but a single leaf and produced but a solitary flower.
+The leaf does not seem to be attractive to insects, nor is the flower
+despoiled or the tuber interfered with. The first dry day sears the
+plants, and succeeding days shrivel them to dust and they vanish. What
+part in the great scheme of Nature does the humble flower fulfil? Or is
+it merely a lowly decoration, not designed to court the ardent gaze of
+the sun, but to brighten an otherwise bare space of Mother Earth with a
+spot of fugitive purple?
+
+Widely different are the ant-house plants, of which North Queensland has
+two genera. One is purely an epiphyte, growing attached to a tree
+like many of the orchids. In both genera the gouty stems are hollow, a
+feature of which ants take advantage; they are merely occupiers, not the
+makers of their homes. Few, if any, of the plants are uninhabited by
+a resentful swarm, ready to attack whomsoever may presume to interfere
+with it. It is discomposing to the uninitiated to find the curious
+"orchid," laboriously wrenched from a tree, overflowing with stinging
+and pungent ants, nor is he likely to reflect that the association
+between the plant and the insect may be more than accidental.
+
+Some of the commonest wattles exhibit singularity of foliage well
+worth notice. Upon the germination of the seeds the primary leaves are
+pinnate. After a brief period this pretty foliage is succeeded by a
+boomerang-shaped growth, which prevails during life. Botanists do not
+speak of such trees as possessing leaves, but "leaf-stalks dilated into
+the form of a blade and usually with vertical edges, as in Australian
+acacias." If one of these wattles is burnt to the ground, but yet
+retains sufficient life to enable it to shoot from the charred stem, the
+new growth will be of pinnate leaves, shortly to be abandoned for the
+substitutes, which are of a form which checks transpiration and fits
+the plant to survive in specially dry localities. Several of the species
+thus equipped to withstand drought are extremely robust in districts
+where the rainfall is prolific. There are no data available to support
+the theory that such species in a wet district are more vigorous and
+attain larger dimensions than representatives in drier and hotter
+localities. In her distribution of the Australian national flower,
+Nature seems to be "careless of the type," or rather regardless in
+respect of conditions of climate.
+
+Human beings, and occasionally animals lower in the scale, deviate
+distressingly in their conduct from the general. Plants, too, though
+lacking the organ of brain, are subject to aberrations of foliage almost
+as fantastical as the mental bent which in man is displayed by the
+sticking of straws in the hair. "Phyllomania" is the recognised term for
+this waywardness. One of the trees of this locality, the raroo (CAREYA
+AUSTRALIS), seems singularly prone to the infirmity, for without
+apparent cause it abandons habitual ways and clothes its trunk and
+branches with huge rosettes of small, slight, and ineffective leaves,
+evidence, probably, of vital degeneration.
+
+Among the beautiful trees of this Island there is one, PITHECOLOBIUM
+PRUINOSUM, possessing features of attraction during successive phases of
+growth. The young branches, foliage, and inflorescence, are coated with
+minute silky hair, as if dusted with bronze of golden tint. The dense,
+light, semi-drooping foliage produces a cloud-like effect, to which the
+great masses of buff flowers add a delightful fleeciness, while the ripe
+pods, much twisted and involved (to carry similitude as far as it
+may), might be likened to dull lightning in thunderous vapour. The tree
+flourishes in almost pure sand within a few yards of salt water, and,
+being hardy and of clean habit, might well be used decoratively.
+
+Standing with its feet awash at high tide, the huge fig-tree began life
+as a parasite, the seed planted by a beak-cleaning bird in a crevice of
+the bark of its forerunner. In time the host disappeared, embraced and
+absorbed. Now the tree is a sturdy host. Another fig envelops some
+of its branches, two umbrella-trees cling stubbornly to its sides, a
+pandanus palm grows comfortably at the base of a limb, tons of staghorn,
+bird's-nest, polypodium, and other epiphytal ferns, have licence
+to flourish, orchids hang decoratively, and several shrubs spring
+aspiringly among its roots. But the big tree still asserts its
+individuality. It is the host, the others merely dependents or tenants.
+Most of the functions of the tree are associated with the sea. Twice a
+year it studs its branches with pink fruit, food for many weeks for a
+carnival of birds, the relics of the feast dully carpeting the sand.
+Before the first fruiting the old leaves fall, and for a brief interval
+the shadows of branches and twigs, intricate, involved, erratic, might
+be likened to unschooled scribblings, with here a flourish and there
+a blot and many a boisterous smudge. Soon--it is merely a question of
+days--the swelling buds displace millions of leaf-sheaves, pale green
+and fragile, which fall and, curling in on themselves, redden, and again
+the yellow sand is littered, while overhead fresh foliage, changing
+rapidly from golden, glistening brown to rich dark green, makes one
+compact blotch. And when the wind torments sea and forest, and branches
+bend and sway, and creepers drift before it, the white blooms of the
+orchids, so light and delicate that a sigh agitates them, might be "foam
+flakes torn from the fringe of spray" and tossed aloft.
+
+The technical description of a fairly common tree--IXORA TIMORENSIS--is
+silent on a quality that appeals to the unversed admirer almost as
+strongly as the handsome flowers, which occur in large, loose panicles
+at the terminals of the branches. Boldly exposed, the white flowers as
+they lose primal freshness change to cream, but last for several weeks.
+The omitted compliment from formal records is the singular fragrance
+of the flowers--strong, sweet, and enticing, though with a drug-like
+savour, as if rather an artificial addition than a provision of Nature.
+During December the perfume hangs heavily about the trees, being
+specially virile in the cool of evening and morning. Being confined to
+the tropical coast, away from the centres of population, and flowering
+at a season when visitors avoid the north, the scented Ixora has so far
+remained uncommended. Those who are familiar with it in its native scene
+dwell on its unique excellence, and are proud to reflect that when
+a comprehensive catalogue of the flowering and perfumed plants of
+Australia comes to be compiled it will stand high in order of merit,
+being unique and characteristic of the richness of that part of the
+continent in which it exists naturally.
+
+Twice during lengthy intervals have I been perturbed by the conduct of
+the sea-swallows (terns) which breed in this neighbourhood. They select
+for their nurseries coral banks, depositing large numbers of eggs beyond
+the limit of high tides. In obedience to some law, the joyful white
+birds began to lay in September, five or six weeks earlier than usual.
+It seemed to be a half-hearted effort to maintain the strength of the
+colony, the unanimous and general purpose being postponed for three
+months, when numerous clutches and marvellously variegated eggs
+embellished the coral. But that which was a perfectly safe and wise
+undertaking in September was a foolish and dangerous experiment in
+December. The tides then approach their maximum, flooding areas denied
+three months previously. Wholesale tragedy was inevitable. The full
+moon brought bereavement to many parents, for the sea overwhelmed the
+nurseries, or the best part of them. Many wise birds had laid their eggs
+above the limit of the highest tide. Others screamed in protest against
+the cruelty of the sea, for eggs and fluffy chicks do not surely
+represent legitimate tribute to Neptune. Several fledglings were found
+half buried in sand and coral chips, some with merely the head with
+bright and apprehensive eyes obtruding. Why were not the whole of
+the parents of the colony prudent when in default the penalty was
+inevitable? Five score were wise, five hundred were foolish, and
+the natural increase from the second brood must have been seriously
+diminished. Several of the parent birds had brooded over their eggs
+until overwhelmed by the surges and drowned. Some on the tide limit
+squatted buried to the eyes in sand and seaweed. Of one the tip of a
+wing only protruded. It was alive, fostering unbroken eggs.
+
+The metallic starlings have again built on a favourite tree--not massive
+and tough, but a slim though tall Moreton Bay ash, the branchlets of
+which are not notoriously brittle. They withstand a certain weight,
+beyond which they snap. Why do these otherwise highly intelligent birds
+so overstrain branches with groups of nests that "regrettable incidents"
+cannot be averted? First there came to the ground a group of four, and
+then twenty nests, all containing eggs or helpless young. By these and
+similar mishaps during the season the colony suffered loss to the extent
+of at least a hundred.
+
+        "But, like the martlet,
+    Builds in the weather on the outward wall
+    Even in the force and road of casualty."
+
+How often, too, do we find nests in places absurdly wrong? Wonderfully
+and skilfully constructed nests are attached to supports obviously
+weak, and eggs are laid on the ground right in the track of man and less
+considerate animals. Some birds seem to lay eggs and rear young solely
+that snakes may not lack and suffer hunger, while how large a proportion
+of beautiful and innocent creatures are destined to become prey to
+hawks?
+
+Years ago scientific visitors to a coral islet found almost innumerable
+sea birds and eggs. The multitude of birds and their prodigious
+fecundity inspired the thought that the "rookery" for the whole breadth
+of the Indian Ocean had been discovered. Investigations showed that the
+islet was also the abiding-place of a certain species of lizard which
+subsisted entirely on eggs. It was calculated that not one egg in
+several hundred was hatched out; yet in spite of such an extraordinary
+natural check the islet was enormously overpopulated. Thousands of birds
+every year laid eggs for the maintenance of fat and pompous reptiles,
+without reflecting that there were other and lizardless isles on which
+the vital function of incubation might be performed without loss.
+Years after other men of science sought the isle. Birds seemed to be as
+numerous as ever, but the lizards had disappeared. Had the birds been
+wise enough to perceive that the plague of lizards had been sent as
+reproof for overcrowding, or did the lizards become victims to physical
+deterioration incident upon gluttony and sloth?
+
+"Into every instinctive act there is an intrusion of reasoned act."
+No doubt; but in the case of the terns--sea-frequenting and
+sea-loving--which had not the wit to lay their eggs beyond the reach of
+spring tides, the reasoning is the merest intrusion. Yet an instance of
+what seems to be the reasoned act of a wasp may be cited. The insect had
+selected a dead log of soft wood as a site for its egg-shaft. It was at
+a spot to which the occupations of the season took me daily, so that the
+boring operations were watched from beginning to end. The work was done
+rapidly and neatly, and when all was ready for the deposit of the eggs
+the insect constructed from papier-mache-like material a disc-shaped lid
+exactly fitting the mouth of the excavation, to which it was attached on
+its upper edge by a hinge. Then round and about the disc similar stuff
+was plastered, so as to form an irregular splash, imitative of a bird's
+droppings to the-degree of perfect deception. In the centre was the lid
+with the hinge, and whensoever the insect visited its nursery the lid
+swung up, closing behind it. On departure it fell into position. Unless
+the insect by its presence betrayed its secret, the shrewdest observer
+at close quarters would have been misled.
+
+There are reasons for the belief that green tree-ants understand and
+respect the laws of neutrality. There are several communities in the
+mango-trees, and since some of the trees overhang the fence, the top
+wire is used as a highway. When a gate is opened traffic is suspended.
+In a minute or two of a busy day there will be considerable gatherings
+on the latch-style, and if the intervening space is narrowed by the
+swing of the gate the impatient insects begin to make a living bridge
+across the perilous gap. At one particular gate, which is opened and
+shut many times a day, it has been noticed that the ants never seem to
+resent interruptions or to be vexed by them. If they happen to get on
+the hands or fingers, they submit to be restored to the gate; but go
+to the formicary on the mango-tree half a dozen yards away and offer
+a friendly finger, and you will find dozens of pugnacious individuals
+ready to defend their home. Do they recognise that they are but pilgrims
+of the fence, enjoying certain rights on sufferance, that it is a path
+of peace on which belligerents must not intrude, a neutral tract under
+the custody of the law of nations, which ants, as well as men, must
+respect? Whatsoever the reason, the deportment of the truculent ant on
+the highway is that of an upholder of peace at any price. It is to be
+doubted if the animal world holds more illustrious examples of heroism
+than a green tree-ants' nest. Two or three individuals may be despised
+as long as their assaults are confined to the less sensitive parts of
+the body; but let a huge colony up among the branches of an orange-tree
+be disturbed, and the first army corps instantly mobilised, and it
+will not be cowardly hastily to retreat. So eager for the fray are
+the warriors, so well organised, so completely devoted to the
+self-sacrificing duty of protecting the community, that two distinct
+methods of advance and attack are exercised forthwith in the midst of
+what appears to be calamitous confusion. Swarming on the extremity of
+the branches among which the formicary is constructed, the defenders,
+projecting their terminal segments as far into space as possible, eject
+formic acid in the direction of the enemy. Like shrapnel from machine
+guns, the liquid missile sweeps a considerable area. Against the
+sunlight it appears as a continuous spray, and should one infinitesimal
+drop descend into the eye the stoutest mortal will blink. Attacks are
+made singly and in detachments. Heroes actually hurl themselves from
+the branches, and, failing to reach the enemy, run along the ground and,
+scaling his legs, inflict punishment on the first convenient patch of
+unprotected skin. Detachments muster in blobs, fall in a mass to
+the ground, and charge. If one of these forlorn hopes happens to be
+successful, the observant man will retire with little of his dignity
+remaining.
+
+It is interesting to note how readily birds acquire tastes for the sweet
+fruits which man cultivates. One of the honey-eaters, the diet of which
+ranges from nectar to the juice of one of the native cucumbers, as
+bitter as colocynth, has become an ardent advocate for the thorough
+ripening of bananas. While on the plant the fruit is not appreciated,
+but after the bunch has been hung for a week or so and the first fruits
+are changing colour the bird is enthusiastic. Formerly bunches were
+ripened in a thatched building for the the most part open, and the bird
+got the very best of the bunch. Now the process takes place where the
+bird has to venture through wire-netting. It has no fear, entering
+without ceremony, loudly complaining when inadvertently disturbed, and
+flying to other parts of the house to express remonstrance when the
+supply is exhausted.
+
+Scarcity of surface-water sharpens the powers of observation of some
+birds and increases the trustfulness of certain species towards human
+beings in a region wherein they are held to have rights on equality with
+those of their superiors in the animal world. For years, during the few
+weeks which generally intervene between the disappearance of
+accustomed water reserves and the beginning of the wet season, with
+its super-abundance, the metallic starlings have been wont to obtain
+refreshment from a hollow far up a huge tea-tree, the supply in which
+seemed to be inexhaustible. The tyrant's plea, necessity, ordained the
+destruction of the never-failing tree, and now the starlings descend by
+the hundred into the deep and shady ravine whence water is pumped,
+and drink also from the cattle-trough and bathe therein with noise and
+excitement of happy children on the beach. It is quite within the mark
+to compute the starlings by the hundred. The trough is edged nearly all
+day long by thirsty or dirty birds, while scores sit round among the
+shrubs waiting turn and commenting on the frolics and splashings of
+others in excitable tones. When, perhaps, there are but a poor dozen or
+so round the trough, you may chance to see the birds in attitudes more
+varied than those of Pliny's doves, and catch the shadows of burnished
+necks darkening the water, as in that famous mosaic, and even the
+glistening reflection of the red, jewel-like eyes. Other birds, with far
+less assurance and shrill clamour than the lovely starlings, visit
+the trough regularly and by the score. Two species of honey-eaters are
+seldom unrepresented. The barred-shouldered dove, the spangled drongo,
+the noisy pitta, the red-crowned fruit pigeon, the pheasant-tailed
+pigeon, are less frequent visitors; and though the purple-breasted
+fruit pigeon--the most magnificent of all--talks to his mate in coarse
+gutturals from the trees above, he has not been seen actually drinking.
+So shy and furtive a bird would choose his time for refreshment when
+there is little likelihood of interruption. In the ravine there are
+often metallic starlings by the dozen, and little green pigeons--for
+those domiciled come and go at all hours of the day. Occasionally a
+sulphur-crested cockatoo comes sailing down to the diminishing pool
+through interwoven leafage noiselessly as a butterfly; but scrub
+fowls, scared by the apparition in white, scamper off with a clatter,
+scattering the dead leaves. In such narrow quarters, birds are under
+restraint, and show anxiety and apprehension. There is no sport or
+play. They drink quickly and with faculties strained, and flutter off
+excitedly on the least alarm. Well may they be suspicious, for is
+not the cool spot attractive to the sly enemy, the green snake, which
+conceals its presence by faithful resemblance to the creepers among
+which it glides? Here, too, come millions of industrious bees, and in
+the dusk the big pencil-tailed water-rat, which the masterful dog kills
+with as little ceremony as he does the bird-scaring snakes.
+
+It was late for cockatoos to start on their daily flight to the mainland
+from the big tree close to the twin palms half-way up the hill, and
+as they flew hastily and in close company they scolded each other in
+unmannerly terms. The language must have been vexing, for as they sped
+along far above the passionless sea one jostled the other. It was just
+the sort of action to provoke hungry, peevish birds to vindictiveness.
+That which had been jostled turned on the offender with angry
+shrieking, and instantly a clamorous fight was in progress. Claws became
+interlocked, and they fell each with distended crest, like a gilt-edged
+cloudlet following the setting sun. Shadow and substance met with a
+splash. The sea momentarily swallowed the combatants. Then a yellow note
+of exclamation appeared, and with laboured flutterings, using his
+enemy as a base, one rose and struggled to the beach oaks. Frantic
+wing-beating showed that the other bird was in serious difficulties.
+It was a hundred yards out, but the enjoyment of a sunbath after a sea
+frolic enabled one to proceed to the rescue without preliminaries. Half
+drowned and completely cowed, the bird was now confronted by a more
+awful peril than that of the sea. A bedraggled crest indicated horror
+at the steady approach of the enemy man, whose presence stimulated the
+sodden bird to such extraordinary efforts that it succeeded in rising
+and in making slow, low flight to the beach.
+
+At dawn a bat flew into a spider's web spun during the night, the
+extremities of the wings being so entangled that struggling was almost
+impossible. A big spider pounced on it. Not a minute elapsed from the
+entanglement until the bat was released, but the venom of the spider had
+done its work. There was not a sign of life. The spider is dark grey
+in colour, bloated of body, slothful, and of most retiring disposition.
+Huddled up into almost spherical form, it lurks in dark places, which it
+soon makes insanitary. In the open it crouches among dead leaves which
+have gathered in the fork of a tree, and will construct a web which
+spans the coconut avenue with its stays. From one aspect its rotund body
+invites a good-humoured smile, for the marking exactly simulates the
+features of a tabby cat, well fed, sleepy, and in placid mood. Venom
+of virulence to kill a bat almost instantly would be severe enough to a
+human being. This dirty, obese spider deserves little consideration at
+the hand of man.
+
+A moonless, cloudless night. The little praam takes the ground in the
+bay a few yards from the beach, and in the midst of a constellation of
+"jelly-fishes" spherical in form and varying in size. The larger are so
+many pale blue orbs floating lazily in a luminous mist, the only visible
+manifestation of life being a delicate but rhythmical deepening of the
+central hue. The wash of my wading seems not to affect them. I become
+conscious of the sudden appearance and swift disappearance of lesser
+spheres of startling brilliance. They emerge from nothingness, pause
+for a moment, and shoot towards me with extraordinary impulse. Each is
+a mere globule, resplendently blue. The tint intensifies as with
+accelerated velocity the atom flies until of its own excessive energy
+it explodes with a shell-like flash, leaving a sinuous trail of
+golden light. To burst into sight, gather force, to flash and slowly
+vanish--such is the sum of life of a speck of sea-jelly. To be the
+centre towards which scores of the watery meteors gravitate, to
+witness their apparently spontaneous beginning, their swift, brief, but
+ineffectual career and lingering end, delights this night of darkness.
+How many of the race of man are there whose post-mortem glory outshines
+life tenfold?
+
+Beneath a slab of dead coral on the reef there was revealed one of those
+primitive and curious marine animals which has no common name, but
+which science recognises as SYNAPTA BESELLI. It is a relation of the
+béche-de-mer, of snake-like form, with a group of gills differentiating
+the head. Playing about it were three or four little fish which
+immediately took advantage of the only remaining cover, the body of the
+Synapta, snoodling beside it so artfully that they were quite concealed.
+The protector did not appear to resent the close company of the fish,
+which remained perfectly motionless. In a few seconds the Synapta
+began to extrude its feathery gills, which had been partly retracted on
+disturbance. I counted the gills, and while my forefinger indicated the
+sixth, a little fish, not previously noticed, appeared at the focus
+and edged off to the margin of the pool, now and again making decided
+efforts to regain its sanctuary. It was about an inch long and a third
+deep, ruby red, with pink undersides and pink, transparent fins. Three
+narrow bands of silver edged with lavender extended across the shoulder.
+Life gave it jewel-like lustre. The companionship between the slow
+and feeble Synapta, one of the most primitive of sea things, and the
+brilliant, agile fish may be another instance of commensalism.
+
+No one who parades a coral reef can fail to be impressed by the various
+means adopted by its weaker denizens to evade the consequences of
+conspicuousness. Among the vast multitude of creatures, mostly hostile
+to each other, few are more remarkable than the crabs, not only on
+account of form and habit, but for care of themselves during the
+periodic casting of their shells. They therefore represent an
+entertaining study and a never-ending source of pleasure to the
+observer, who, as he happens on some fantastic member of the family,
+wonders, remembering his Shakespeare, what impossible matter will Nature
+make easy next. Dreamy little ripples were laying on the strands sprays
+of seaweed, torn from the reef which was not quite out of the influence
+of the easterly swell. The conditions were ordinary, but one fragment
+made itself noticeable by slight, almost undiscernible, but still
+distinctive efforts to regain the water, whence it was separated by a
+few inches. Seaweed alone was visible as it rested on the palm of the
+hand. Presently it moved hesitatingly and with infinite slowness,
+and, being reversed, revealed itself as a "watery" crab under living
+disguise. The specimen was sent to the Australian Museum, Sydney, where
+it came under the hands of my friend Mr. Allan R. McCulloch, who devotes
+himself to the phenomena of the sea; and since his references to it
+are explicit and authoritative, they will be more acceptable than
+generalities from an uninformed pen: "The crab you sent is the second
+specimen known of ZEWA BANFIELDI, which I described from a dried
+specimen received from you some years ago. Not only the species, but the
+genus also, was unknown until you gave me the opportunity of describing
+this interesting beast. It is one of the spider crabs, or Oxyrhynchus,
+most of which have long horns projecting from the rostrum, and are more
+or less thickly covered with stiff curled setae, to which seaweeds,
+sponges, and other marine growths--selected according to the taste of
+the bearer--are attached. When these crabs shed their shells, which they
+must do periodically to allow of growth, they retire to a dark corner
+and draw themselves out of a slit between the back and the abdomen,
+legs and all, which must, I imagine, be a delicate and somewhat painful
+proceeding. After emerging, they are, of course, quite soft, and the
+setae on the carapace and legs are flexible. The crab then selects
+choice bits of weed from its old shell and fastens them to itself by the
+setae, which soon curl at the tips like the tendrils of a vine, and so
+hold them firmly. The weeds and sponges, requiring no roots, but merely
+a secure base, readily grow in their new position, and so cover their
+host with a sheltering disguise, enabling it to sally forth in quest
+of fresh loves and other adventures. I am sending the reprint with the
+original description and figure, also a sketch of the crab with its
+weedy garments. Much of the weed had become detached on its arrival
+here, which is, perhaps, fortunate, since the sketch would otherwise
+have shown merely a cluster of weeds." It could be well wished that the
+specimen had retained the whole of its floral cloak, for then the sketch
+would have shown its deceptive qualities in perfection. Masquerading as
+a spray of seaweed, the crab eludes its enemies, the mask being of such
+high order that even man, with his perceptions, does not penetrate it
+unless he exercises his reasoning faculties. Because he knows that a
+spray of seaweed is not endowed with independent movement, when it does
+walk about he, at first, is as incredulous as was Macbeth when told of
+that "moving grove" of Birman.
+
+
+
+
+ETERNAL SUNSHINE
+
+
+
+"North Queensland is my country. I love it. I live in it. I would die
+for it."--DODD S. CLARKE.
+
+To those who earnestly believe that a country exercises dominance over
+its inhabitants, mental as well as physical, the present state of North
+Queensland offers interesting problems. Save for a fast-disappearing
+remnant, gone are the original occupiers of the land. The most
+listless, the least thrifty of the old peoples, have given place to
+representatives of the most adventurous, the most successful--men and
+women of British blood, of progressive ideas, vaunting and independent
+spirit, but with slight respect for the traditions of their race. Apt
+to regard their own land as all-sufficient, to resent the incoming of
+strangers (especially those of dark complexion), determined to exclude
+coloured labour from tropical fields, while demanding higher and yet
+higher recompense for work which in other equatorial regions is deemed
+to be servile, on what grounds do they base the hope of adapting
+themselves to their environment, of becoming children of the soil?
+
+The genius of the race forbids degeneracy. Marked and sudden improvement
+may be expected if examples drawn from the lower animals and certain
+plants are applicable. Huxley laid it down that "the animals and plants
+of the Northern Hemisphere are not only as well adapted to live in
+the Southern Hemisphere as its own autochones, but are in many cases
+absolutely better adapted, and so overrun and extirpate the aborigines.
+Clearly, therefore, the species which naturally inhabits a country is
+not necessarily the best adapted to its climate and other conditions."
+Australian aboriginals having given way before a race better fitted
+to flourish, what will the future of the new race be? What ideal is at
+present pursued?
+
+To one who firmly upholds the theory of the evolution of Australian
+types, and who thinks he perceives convincing evidence in support of his
+belief, it seems likely that on the tropical coast, where the influence
+of the sun is all-powerful, rainfall abundant, and vegetation prolific,
+the type will not only be more rapidly developed, but that it will be
+pronounced in bodily form, in tongue, and in temperament. One of the
+reasons compelling towards such conclusion is the decided desire--nay,
+the ambition--on the part of native-born Australians to do glad and
+seemly homage to the sun.
+
+If a traveller from distant and friendly lands were to accept as germs
+of a type those who sport in the surf at fashionable watering-places, he
+might infer from the display of brown backs and shoulders that Australia
+had not escaped a smudge of aboriginal blood. But this ardently
+cultivated tint is notoriously impermanent. Contradictory as it may be,
+the most earnest advocates of the "White Australia" principle use more
+than the average quantity of oil, which makes the skin to shine
+and embrown under the influence of the much-loved sun. Do not their
+shoulders bear testimony to the sun's wholesome salutations, and does
+not the too fair and thin-skinned individual smart under his peeling
+and display envy against the favoured ones who burn to the tint of
+old copper? Naturally, those who have the most intense longing for a
+coloured skin, who persistently seek to acquire it by exposure to
+the sun seconded by anointings, will prevail. In the course of a few
+generations--it would be idle to say how many--the type will be fixed
+and the unguent superfluous; in the meantime the use of coco-nut oil
+has become one of the confirmed customs of the country, as in Fiji and
+elsewhere in the Pacific.
+
+If "beauty born of murmuring sound" may enhance the charms of
+maidenhood, is it too much to expect that sunburn, fervently desired,
+may not only permanently darken the complexion, but affect the mien of
+the race? And thus in years to come the white Australian may be of
+the past--transformed physically by the supremacy of soil and sun,
+and improved in disposition and character by economic observances as
+irrefutable as the laws of Nature. The horses of out dry, stony uplands
+have already developed hoofs in shape and texture well adapted to the
+country over which they roam, and have become surer-footed and more
+active and durable. Conditions and circumstances which in a few
+generations effect desirable changes in horses will assuredly be
+influential in respect of the physique and stamina and moralities of
+man. North Queensland will establish a type, just as Tierra del Fuego
+did many centuries since, and the type will be that which is best fitted
+to maintain itself. It will be brown of complexion, hardy and alert.
+North Queensland is expansive and varied. It comprises a marvellous
+range of geological phenomena, from which may be expected remarkable
+variants. The sheep-grower of the treeless downs will differ from the
+denizen of the steamy coast who supplies him with sugar and bananas. The
+man from among the limestone bluffs may be in temperament strange to the
+dweller on the black soil plains and to the individual who lives among
+barren hills seamed with copper. Readers of English books and magazines
+are familiar with the little prominence given to matters which stand for
+good and worthiness and the stress laid on the seeming disadvantages of
+life in tropical Australia. A favourite magazine may contain a series
+of articles, sumptuously illustrated, conveying information concerning
+country life in Canada. It is impossible not to visualise the miles
+of wheat-fields, the imposing elevators, the railways cutting across
+endless prairies or winding among wonderful mountains, snowcapped as a
+stage effect merely. The pictures of chubby children and buxom girls and
+sturdy boys tell of the healthfulness and invigorating qualities of the
+climate. Is it not always spring or summer in Canada? Would not the man
+who whispered of snow and ice be a renegade, a dastard, a rebel? North
+Queenslanders do not attempt to belittle the reputation of Canada as a
+field for the activities of the surplus population of the old country.
+We are of the same blood and breed, and merely ask for a proper
+understanding of our own good land. The comfort given to Canada is all
+in the family, and an Empire which extends from pole to pole must needs
+embrace differences of climate and productions.
+
+Do not we all take upon our shoulders the burden of Empire? Here we bear
+our share stripped to the buff, while Canada bustles under an equally
+honourable but heavier load. Occasionally, no doubt, the most patriotic
+son of our Lady of Snows would joy in the heat of North Queensland noon;
+while the sweatful North Queenslander may often pant for the superfluous
+ice of his far-away cousin.
+
+The denizens of the different parts of the Empire quite understand
+one another, and realise that to be great the Empire must disregard
+temperatures as it does prickly heat and chilblains. Only the casual
+visitor fails in this.
+
+Sun Days are essential to the production of sugar and bananas and
+mangoes, to say nothing of pineapples and other fruits of the tropics.
+When we are called upon to endure extraordinary heat, we tell one
+another of the penance and find excuse for extra drinks. But neither
+the heat nor the comparison of personal experiences is of the injurious
+nature of some of the refreshments. The weather is not compounded of
+excesses, but of means. Is it not true that few countries in the wide
+world would be considered fit for habitation by human beings if the
+character of the climate was estimated by its extremes?
+
+No North Queenslander will resent records of high temperatures. He will
+be quite content to be shown enjoying and flourishing in the heat in
+which sugar-cane thrives, for thereby is to be proved a fact theorists
+seem unable to grasp--viz., that such is the soundness and virtue of the
+British race that it adapts itself with equal success to the long, dark,
+cold winter of Canada and the perpetual summer of North Queensland.
+Who is to say that the Canadian in his thick woollens and furs is
+a healthier subject, a worthier type, than the North Queenslander,
+stripped to the waist in the full blaze of the sun, glorying in his own
+vigour, proud of his magnificent heritage, and scornful of the
+opinions of those who have never experienced that supreme zest of life
+unpurchasable outside the tropic zone?
+
+With intent to picturesquely demonstrate that soil will tell, some are
+ready to assert that we owe Christianity to the horizontal limestone
+formation of Palestine. Accepting the theory with whole-hearted
+enthusiasm, and admitting that North Queensland comprehends tracts of
+country not dissimilar from the Holy Land, mark what the future may have
+in store for the race. Do you want old age?--Methuselah, Noah, Isaac.
+Strong men?--Gosselin, Samson, Saul. Beautiful women?--Ruth, Rebecca,
+Esther. Does not David, the man after God's own heart, appeal? Was not
+Solomon, the wise, the glorious, the prolific, a superior type? And,
+with all reverence be it said, was not the Founder of the Christian
+religion a solar product?
+
+Hotter lands beyond the bounds of Palestine gave to the world men and
+women whose deeds and influence still astound and stimulate millions
+of mankind--the Queen of Sheba, Cleopatra, Pharaoh the Great, Moses the
+leader, whom the Lord knew face to face, Joseph the organiser, Mahomet,
+the benign Buddha, and all the sages, the poets, the historians, the
+architects of the gorgeous East. May not those who elect to live in
+lands of high temperature and who are strong in their faith cite apt
+and illustrious precedents, and make bold to say that none has exercised
+more influence on the minds and destinies of mankind than those born in
+the lands of the Sun?
+
+
+
+
+FRAGRANCE AND FRUIT
+
+
+
+"The woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant
+to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise."--Holy Writ.
+
+While the remnant of the crop of citrus fruits still hangs on the trees,
+after providing refreshing food for six months and more, the blooms
+which promise next year's supplies decorate the branches. Is it not
+pleasing to have such graceful promises before the burden of the passing
+season has disposed of all its sweetness? Possibly these early flowers
+are destined to produce fruit for the admiration of living things
+upon which the gardener bestows anything but a welcome. It may come
+to maturity just after the wet season, when flies and moths feast and
+corrupt in riot which provokes to wrath. Inconsequent feeders, they
+probe the fruit and flit away after a sip which does not absorb a
+thousandth part of its keen juices, or they use a comely specimen in
+which to deposit eggs, which in the course of Nature become grubs. All
+such infected fruit the trees abandon until the ground is strewn with
+waste. Such disaster happens when the air is favourable to the breeding
+of quivering gauze wings; but there comes a time when the fruit suffers
+little or no ill, and then the heart of the orchardist rejoices as does
+that of the fisher when the wind comes up from the sea. Then does he
+accept fine promises in good faith, for it has come to be the fashion
+for certain varieties of citrus fruits to provide two crops, and the
+second, which ripens about the beginning of August, the superior in
+size, appearances generally, and distinctly in flavour. The fruit is
+just as juicy as that which ripens when the air is saturated with the
+moisture of the wet season, while its fragrance almost equals that
+of the snowy flowers whence it sprang. These facts hasten to this
+conclusion--that the orange-grower has something beyond mere money in
+compensation for his toil. Can it be called toil? Does he not for the
+most part, after the first and essential preliminaries are of the past,
+permit Nature to have her own wayward will with his dutiful trees? Does
+he always and invariably cut out the dead wood which tells of much too
+strenuous efforts on their part to justify their existence and his care?
+Does he attempt to exterminate the pretty flies which send to the ground
+a certain percentage, while yet the fruit is immature and bitter? Does
+he let the light of the caressing sun into the hearts of his pet trees
+by removing superfluous twigs? Well does he know that if he tended them
+as he should their bounty to him would be much magnified. Yet does
+he dream on, accepting that which comes, admiring leafage, bloom, and
+fragrant fruit, and always postponing the day when substantial aid and
+credit should be given. There is something to be said in favour of this
+happy attitude towards good-natured trees. Should it not suffice to
+have given them monopoly and choice? Many others, and some of far
+nobler proportions, have been exterminated for their special benefit and
+advantage. They have been grown from seed of most highly complimented
+fruit; their infancy and youth have been nurtured and protected; each
+has been assigned its proper place with due regard to the welfare of
+neighbours; less promising vegetation has been summarily checked; the
+first flowers have been sniffed with high delight, the first fruits
+sampled with extravagant praise. Having bestowed upon trees care and
+attention, while they were yet mere sprouts of tender green, and admired
+their sturdy development, and approved their best efforts, is it not
+yours to accept whatsoever they offer as reward and recompense for past
+labour and present appreciation?
+
+From the artistic standpoint the most admirable of all the citrus-trees
+is the pomelo, which, however, lacks merit from the commercial side.
+The tree grows more sedately than the orange or the mandarin, but on
+a grander scale. The leaves are bigger, tougher, and the appendages
+on either side of the stalk (which botanists call the stipules) more
+developed. The blooms are greater, and endowed with a much richer
+perfume than the orange; the fruit is huge and fragrant, though somewhat
+disappointing to the individual who expects the sweetness of the
+mandarin; while, if the views of the learned in such attributes are
+trustworthy it possesses medicinal qualities which are foreign to its
+dainty, diminutive relative. It would be mere affectation to refrain
+from these compliments to the pomelo when the atmosphere is saturated
+with the perfume from lusty trees. Certainly one has to wait patiently
+for many a long year ere his trees greet him with white flowers which
+pour out perfume of rare density and enrich him with golden fruit
+almost as big as footballs. From nine to twelve years must elapse, but
+expectancy is not wholly measurable by the arbitrariness of time. The
+true standard is the desire, tempered by the patience of the custodian
+of the trees.
+
+In August the pomeloes put on their most attractive appearances. The
+young leaves of lively tint contrast with the almost sombre green of the
+older foliage, and flowers in clusters give a most becoming adornment.
+Big and beautiful as they are, scent is their most conspicuous feature.
+Even in the open air it is rich almost to cloyness. It hangs about the
+tree while the wind is still, and the slightest movement of the air
+wafts it hither and thither. It stings sensitive folk with its intensity
+at close quarters, but when diffused is fragrance of ethereal delight.
+All day long birds frolic in the trees, some to cull the nectar, some
+to search for insects attracted for like purpose, some to nibble and
+discard white petals. All the moist soil beneath is strewn with snowy
+flakes, for at night flying foxes blunder among the branches, destroying
+more blooms than they eat. But why grumble? Birds which nip off petals
+and musty foxes which brush down whole posies in their clumsiness are
+but positive checks to overproduction. Do they not avert the unthankful
+task of carting away dozens of barrow loads of superfluous fruit? Last
+night at dusk there was a sensation of the coming of rain, though the
+air was still and the sky clear. I paused under the trees to expand my
+lungs with their scented breathings. A semi-intoxicated bird twittered
+drowsily among the branches,
+
+    "His happy good-night air,
+    Some blessed hope, whereof he knew,
+    And I was unaware."
+
+Dozens of sphinx moths--big torpedo-shaped bodies carried by wings of
+soft brown and dull red--floated about, sipping where and when and as
+long as they liked. Sometimes the sphinx has almost an aggressive tone
+In his flight--hasty, important, brooking no interference. Last night's
+note was of supreme content. A rich and overflowing feast was spread
+and the insects hovered over the posies and sipped and fluted like
+merry roysterers, without a care or thought of the morrow. It was a
+love-feast, for the still night seemed to invite the trees to give of
+their richest and best; the psalm of the insects was audible, not to the
+distance whence the perfume was dissipated, but for many a scented yard.
+The trees seemed sanctified, and I stood bare-headed among them and gave
+my silent praise for a delightsome experience. Expectancy and patience
+had been overpaid.
+
+
+
+
+THE SCENE-SHIFTER
+
+
+
+"We are all going to the play or coming from it."--DICKENS.
+
+
+In a few hours came "the season's difference." The scene-shifter worked
+with almost magical haste, with silence, and with supreme effect. The
+gloomy days and nights of misty hill-tops and damp hollows, where the
+grass was sodden and the air dull and irresponsive to sound, gave way
+to bright sunshine, cloudless skies, calm seas, echoing hills, and the
+tinge of that which for lack of the ideal word we call "spring." Spring
+does not visit the tropical coast, where vegetation does not tolerate
+any period of rest. When plants are not actually romping with excess of
+vital force, as during the height of the wet season, they grow with the
+haste of summer. And yet immediately on the dispersal of the mists of
+July the least observance could not fail to recognise that a certain and
+elaborate change had taken place. The mango-trees had been flowering for
+several weeks in a trivial, half-hearted way, but when the sun sent
+its thrills down into the moist soil the lemons and pomeloes began to
+sweeten the air; the sunflower-tree displayed its golden crowns among
+huge soft leaves, and the last blooms of belated wattles fell, showing
+that it is possible for tributes representative of May and September to
+be paid on one and the same date.
+
+The scene-shifter came softly "as the small rain upon the tender herb,"
+but with an orchestra of his own. Years of observation have shown that
+the weather does control the habits of some birds--birds of distinct and
+regular methods of life. Two such are common--the nutmeg pigeon and the
+metallic starling. Both species leave this part of the North during the
+third week of March, flying in flocks to regions nearer the equator.
+For several weeks the starlings train themselves for the long Northern
+flight and its perils, dashing with impetuous speed through the forest
+and wheeling up into the sky until they disappear, to become visible
+again as black dots hurtling through space when the sunlight plays on
+their glossy feathers as the course of the flock is changed. With the
+rush of a wind of small measure but immense velocity, the flock descends
+earthwards, among and over the trees, perfecting itself by trials of
+endurance and intricate alertness. The birds return during the first
+week in August, in small and silent companies, to reoccupy favourite
+resorts in common. The nutmeg pigeons are also of exact habit, the time
+for their return generally coinciding with that of the starlings. This
+year (1916) both birds were noticed just after the scene-shifter had
+swept the hills of mists, and now other birds seem to have awakened to
+the conditions which the starlings and the nutmegs brought with them
+from hotter lands. The swamp pheasants are whooping and gurgling, and
+that semi-migratory fellow, the spangled drongo--a flattering name, for
+he jangles but does not spangle--sits on the slim branch of the Moreton
+Bay ash which held last year's nest and chatters discordances in the
+very ears of his responsive mate. They will start building a loose nest
+on the brittlest branch forthwith, and while the lady sits on her three
+eggs he will screech defiances to the high heavens and perform aerial
+gymnastics with delirious delight.
+
+The sun-birds are searching the lemon blooms. The breast of the gay,
+assertive little bird is far richer in tint than the brightest of the
+lemons. A minute ago one perched on a ripe fruit as if to shame it by
+contrast, and the fruit has since seemed a trifle dull of tint, and with
+light-hearted inconsequence the pair are now probing narrow throats of
+papaw flowers. The ground has been too much overgrown with grass and
+weeds for the comfort of the little green pigeons which come strutting
+down the paths for seeds and crumbs. Dry soil, which may be easily
+scanned and scratched, is more to their liking, so they keep to the
+forest, where in some places the undergrowth of wattles is so dense that
+the sun may not visit the ground, and the bare places glitter with seed.
+
+When rain was seriously deficient, proof was given that some proportion
+of the wattle seeds eaten by pigeons are not digested. In the crevices
+of logs supporting the water-trough, which proved to be a popular
+refreshment spot of many species of birds, clamorous with thirst, seeds
+were deposited, and when the rains came the trough was fringed and
+decorated with pinnate leaves of sprouting wattles, some of which grew
+so strongly, notwithstanding the absence of soil, save that which occurs
+from the slow decay of seasoned bloodwood, that if summary measures had
+not been taken the trough might have been embowered. The season seems to
+have been too damp for the night-jars, though quite to the taste of
+all species of pigeons. In the course of a few minutes the voice of
+the timid, tremulous, barred-shouldered dove came from among the
+yellow-flowered hibiscus of the beach, while the pheasant-tailed pigeon
+sounded its rich, dual note, the red-crowned fruit pigeon tolled its
+mournful chime, and the guttural of the magnificent fruit pigeon--often
+heard, but seldom seen--came from the jungle close at hand. Not one of
+these birds was visible, nor was the fluty-voiced shrike thrush, which
+answers every strange call and mimics crude attempts to reproduce its
+varied notes. The blue kingfisher is investigating the tumour made by
+white ants in the bloodwood wherein the nest is annually excavated,
+and soon the chattering notes of the pair will be heard. A week ago
+few signs of the approach of the scene-shifter were discernible. He
+has come, and plants and birds respond to his genial and becoming
+presence--plants with richer growth and more abundant flowers, birds
+with the unreflecting gaiety of nuptial days.
+
+
+
+
+BEACH PLANTS
+
+
+
+"Remove the vegetable kingdom, or interrupt the flow of its unconscious
+benefactions, and the whole higher life of the world ends."--HENRY
+DRUMMOND.
+
+
+Strolling on the curving footway of broken shells and coral chips
+marking the limit of the morning's tide, a vague attempt was made to
+catalogue the plants which crowd each other on the verge of salt water,
+and so to make comparison with that part of Australia the features
+of which provoked Adam Lindsay Gordon to frame an adhesive phrase
+concerning bright scentless blossoms and songless, bright birds.
+Excluding the acacias and eucalypts, said to have given sameness to
+the scenes among which the exotic poet ranged, a long list might be
+compiled; nor will the pleasant sounds of the afternoon be set down in
+formal order to the vexing of his memory, for possibly he never heard
+the whoop and gurgle of the swamp pheasant or the blended voices of
+hundreds of nutmeg pigeons mellowed by half a mile of still, warm air.
+
+Nor may such unassuming vegetation as the grasses--at least a dozen
+varieties--find place in an enumeration which appeals primarily on the
+grounds of prominence, though it would not do to despise the soft and
+pleasant carpet beneath the orderly row of Casuarinas which the tide
+planted during the last big cyclone with gardener's art. The common
+name for the trees--"she" (or "shea" oaks, as the late F. Manson Bailey
+preferred)--mimics the sound of the wind among the branches, which the
+slightest zephyr stirs and, the storm lashes into sea-like roar. The
+bright green of the grasses sets off the dull green and bronze of the
+steadfast harps of the beach. At certain seasons and in some lights,
+when the sun is in the west, the minute scales at the joints of
+the slender, pendulous branchlets shine like old gold, producing a
+theatrical effect which, if not experienced before, startles and almost
+persuades to the belief that the complaining trees have been decorated
+by one who "has sought out many inventions." But the slant of the sun
+alters, the light fades, leaving them sombre in hue and whispering
+more and more discreetly as the night calm settles over the scene. Such
+communicable trees should stand together, commenting on passing events,
+booming in unison with the cyclone, and mimicking the tenderest tones of
+the idlest wind. During a storm, when the big waves crash on the beach
+and the Casuarinas are tormented, the tumult is bewildering; but however
+loud their plaint, very few suffer, though growing in loose sand; for
+the roots are widespread and, like the trunk and main branches, tough,
+while the branchlets stream before the wind.
+
+Close behind the screen of Casuarinas is a magnificent specimen of a
+wide-spreading shrub, in form a squat dome, which commemorates the name
+of a French naturalist--TOURNEFORTIA ARGENTA. The leaves, crowded at
+the ends of thick branchlets, are covered with soft, silky hairs of
+a silvery cast, which reflect the sun's rays. It would be gross
+exaggeration to say that the finely shaped shrub shines like silver, for
+the general hue of the foliage is sage green, but that it has a silvery
+cast, which in certain lights contrasts with the dull gold of its
+neighbours, is an alluring fact which must not be strained. Moreover,
+the shrub covers an almost perfect circle, about thirty feet in
+diameter, and since it is not more than ten feet high, its form is as if
+Nature had designed the creation of a circus of shadow, dense and cool,
+for the comfort of mankind.
+
+At high-water mark stands one of the Terminalias with big terminal light
+green leaves, musty flowers, and purple fruit--gold, silver, and purple
+in close array--while over the sand the goat-footed convolvulus sends
+long, succulent shoots bearing huge pink flowers complementary to the
+purple of the beach-pea (CANVALIA OBTUSIFOLIA).
+
+Under the she-oaks young coral trees have sprung up, but the red flowers
+are of the past, and so also have the gold and white of the Calophyllums
+disappeared. But in the evening the breeze brings whiffs of a singular
+savour, pleasant yet not sweet, which comes from the acre or two of
+native hops a few yards back. The bruised leaves thereof give off
+anything but an attractive odour, yet the faint natural exhalations
+from the plant are sniffed eagerly and to the revivification of pleasant
+recollections.
+
+Among a crowd of massive shrubs sprawls a plant of loose habit known as
+CAESALPINA BONDUCELLA, the long clinging branches and the pods of which
+are armed with hooked prickles. It is a plant of wide range, for the
+bluish-grey seeds are said to be used in Arabia for necklets. In the
+idle days of the past the blacks were wont to enclose a single seed in
+a miniature basket woven of strips of cane for the amusement of
+infants--probably the first of rattles. It has seized for support some
+of the branches of a rare tree (CERBERA ODOLLAM) which bears long,
+glossy, lanceolate leaves, large, pink-centred, white flowers,
+delicately fragrant, and compressed oval fruit, brilliantly scarlet. The
+tempting appearance of the fruit is all that may be said in its favour,
+for it is hard and bitter, and said to be vicious in its effects on
+the human system; hence the generic title, after the three-headed dog,
+guardian of the portals of the infernal regions.
+
+Grouped here and there are pale green, big-leaved shrubs (PREMNA
+OBTUSIFOLIA,) bearing flowers and fruit calling to mind the elder of
+the old country. The wood is deep yellow in colour, but apparently of no
+practical use.
+
+Another small tree, suggesting in its regular and well-balanced shape
+the use of the pruning-knife, is GUETTARDIA SPECIOSA, the flowers of
+which are white with a tinge of pink in the centre and highly fragrant.
+The fruit is a hard, woody drupe, containing small seeds. TIMONIUS
+RUMPHII, belonging to the same Family, but of more frequent occurrence,
+bears small white flowers and globular fruit. The white, finely grained
+wood is said to resemble English sycamore. Though harsh and flaky, the
+surface of the bark seems to retain moisture, making it attractive to
+several species of fungi and epiphytal ferns, the most conspicuous of
+the latter being the stag's-horn. Few of the trees near the beach are
+free from such encumbrances.
+
+To unaccustomed eyes the Pandanus palm is chief among the noticeable
+features of the flora of the coast of tropical Queensland. Two species
+are represented on these accommodating sands, each suffering no ill,
+from imbibing salt water, each exhibiting the peculiarity whence the
+genus derives its common name--the screw palm, the arrangement of the
+long, narrow, prickle-edged leaves displaying in the most regular
+and demonstrative style the perfect spiral. The single stem of youth
+frequently deteriorates and occasionally disappears altogether,
+adventitious roots, descending from various heights, forming an
+elaborate and sure and ever-developing support. The huge, bright
+orange-tinted fruit of the species known as Odoratissimus is highly
+attractive in appearance, and to the uninitiated offers pleasing hopes
+and delicious expectations. It is, however, delusive, being constituted
+of woody drupes in close clusters collected into a globular head,
+with meagre yellow pulp at the base of each group, the pulp having an
+aromatic and unsatisfactory flavour. Each drupe contains an oblong oval
+kernel, pleasant to the taste, but so trivial in size as to be hardly
+worth the trouble of extraction unless there is little else to occupy
+attention save the pangs of hunger. These defects do not detract from
+the parade of the tree--picturesque, singular, and replete with interest
+to the observer of the infinite variety of the vegetation of the
+tropics.
+
+The cockatoo apple (CAREYA AUSTRALIS), which has several useful
+qualities, flourishes exceedingly. The ripe fruit, green and insipid,
+was wont to be eaten by the blacks, bark from the branches was twisted
+into fishing-lines, that of the roots used for poisoning fish, while
+the leaves, heated over the fire until the oil exuded, were applied to
+bruised and aching parts of the body. Extraordinary tenacity of life
+distinguished the tree, the axe, fire, and poison failing under some
+circumstances to vanquish it.
+
+Another and closely related member of the same Family (Myrtaceae)
+is BARRINGTONIA SPECIOSA, which, so far as local experience is to be
+trusted, is restricted to the beaches, growing lustily in pure sand
+at the very verge of high-water mark. The glossy leaves of this
+many-branched tree often exceed a foot in length; the flowers, too,
+are large and singular in style, the petals being comparatively
+insignificant, while the numerous stamens attain a length of four inches
+and are of a lovely shade of red. Like its relative, the cockatoo apple,
+the flowers of the Barringtonia have a meaty smell, which seems to
+attract many species of insects. In keeping with other characteristics,
+the fruit is large, consisting of a thick, woody covering, as if Nature
+designed that the single seeds should be adequately protected during a
+protracted oceanic drift. It is often cast up on the sand, but the seed
+does not germinate as consistently as that of the cannon-ball-tree; but
+when it does it rarely fails to become established.
+
+Two species of Ficus deserve to be mentioned, though this catalogue does
+not claim to be exhaustive. FICUS FASCICULATA, as the title implies,
+bears its inedible fruit in bundles, branches, trunk, and exposed roots,
+being alike fertile, and is almost as retentive of life as the cockatoo
+apple. Opposita is remarkable for varied form of foliage, referred to
+particularly elsewhere, and for the sweetness of its fruit.
+
+One of the loveliest and most remarkable plants of the beach is the
+seacoast laburnum (SOPHORA TOMENTOSA), with its pinnate leaves of sage
+green, hoary with silvery fur as soft as seal-skin, and bearing terminal
+spikes of golden flowers with scent invoking slight comparison with
+mignonette. The thick, silky leaves, the yellow flowers, and the strange
+pods, are distinctive qualities, which atone for the absence of the
+special sweetness of the garden favourite. The pods begin as slender,
+silvery, dangling threads, which speedily lengthen and become
+constricted. When the breeze flusters the shrubs, revealing the
+undersides of the leaves at a reflective angle and shaking the tasselled
+pods, and the splashes of gold sway hither and thither, the character
+of the shrub as one of the most attractive ornaments of the beach is
+so truly displayed that it might be likened to the tree of the sun
+described by Marco Polo--green on one side, but white when perceived on
+the other.
+
+This quality, however, is not special or peculiar. The brown kurrajong
+(COMMERSONIA ECHINATA) exhibits it even more conspicuously, and, when
+the dusty white flowers--displayed in almost horizontal planes--are
+buffeted by the winds and the white undersides of the leaves are
+revealed, the whole style of the tree is transformed as a demure damsel
+is by tempestuous petticoats.
+
+With the grey-green of the Sophora is often intertwined the leafless
+creeper CASSYTHA FILIFORMIS, which in the days of the past the blacks
+were wont to use with other beach plants in the composition of a crude
+seine net. The long-reaching, white-flowered CLERODENDRON INERME and the
+tough, sprawling BLAINVILLEA LATIFOLIA, with its small, harsh flowers,
+yellow as buttercups but resembling a daisy in form, were also embodied
+in the net.
+
+The Poonga oil-tree, the new and old leaves the colour of new copper,
+and the mature the darkest of green, bears spikes of pale lavender
+flowers, and makes a decided blotch among the light green succulent
+leaves of the native cabbage (SCAEVOLA KOENIGII), with its strange white
+flowers and milk-white fruit. All parts of the plant are said to be
+emetic.
+
+Two varieties of VITEX TRIFOLIA, each bearing pretty lavender flowers,
+but in other respects sharply contrasted, are among the commonest of
+denizens of the beach. The one is a prostrate plant with sage-coloured
+and sage-scented leaves; the other a shrub or small tree with light
+green foliage, the underside of which is mealy-white, and flowers paler
+than those of its lowly kin. Each is pretty, and the creeping variety
+(known in Egypt as the "Hand of Mary") decidedly one of the most eager
+lovers of the sand, to which it keeps strictly.
+
+Almost within reach from high water are representatives of a tall,
+shining-leaved shrub known as MORINDA CITRIFOLIA, the flower-heads of
+which merge into a berry which has a most disagreeable odour and a still
+more objectionable flavour. It is related that when La Perouse was cast
+away on one of the islands of the South Pacific, a native undertook
+to ward off the pangs of hunger by converting the fruit into an
+edible dish. But his manipulation seemed but to intensify original
+nauseousness, and the brave Frenchman and his companions found
+semi-starvation more endurable than the repugnant mess.
+
+Magnificent representatives of the umbrella-tree (BRASSAIA
+ACTINOPHYLLA), unique among the many novelties of the tropical coast,
+are massed in groups or stand in solitary grace close to the sea.
+Queensland has a monopoly over this handsome and remarkable tree, the
+genus to which it belongs being limited to a single species occurring
+nowhere else in a native state. Discovered by Banks and Solander at
+Cooktown in 1770, the second record of its existence, it is believed,
+was made from specimens obtained on this island by Macgillivray and
+Huxley in 1848. Possibly the very trees which attracted their attention
+still crown their rayed and glossy leaflets with long, radiating rods
+thickly set with red, stud-like flowers. Such foliage and such flowers
+would appeal gloriously to an enthusiastic botanist, and to so devoted,
+indefatigable, and successful a searcher after the wonders and the
+higher truths of the world as Huxley.
+
+Few of the ornaments of the beach are more noticeable than that known
+commonly as the sunflower-tree and by the natives as Gingee (DIPLANTHERA
+TETRAPHYLLA), with its big leaves, soft of surface when young, but harsh
+and coarse at maturity. The golden flowers, grouped in huge heads, are
+rich in nectar, attracting birds and butterflies by day and flying foxes
+at night. The fruit, enclosed in a crisp capsule, is tough and leathery,
+in shape a flattened oval, and is entirely covered with silken seeds
+lying close and dense as the feathers of the grebe. When numbers of the
+capsules open simultaneously, the seeds float earthwards like a silvery
+mantle or stream before the wind like a veil. Rarely the capsule falls
+to the ground complete, and then the parting of the valves reveals the
+fruit, in form not unlike a small fish covered with glistening scales.
+The soft white wood is generally condemned, but duly seasoned it becomes
+tough, and is durable when not exposed to the weather. Like other
+quick-growing trees, the Gin-gee takes no long time in arriving at
+maturity, and its life is comparatively brief. Often big trees die from
+no apparent cause, and the wood becoming dry and tindery, the limbs
+crash to the ground suddenly, and in a few months the whole substance
+disappears in dust and mould.
+
+Though the flowering season of the Calophyllum is of the past, the tree
+which bestows on the beaches the deepest shade and is handsome in all
+its parts must not be disregarded, for does it not, ever and anon,
+strive after a higher purpose than the production of goodly leaves,
+white flowers, and nuts "harsh and crude"? On rare occasions the
+external covering of the nut turns yellow on the tree, and is then found
+to enclose a thin envelope of pulp of aromatic and rather gratifying
+flavour. Such a phenomenon seems to manifest inherent excellencies, a
+laudable effort towards self-improvement, a plea for assistance on the
+part of some approving and patient man, an indication of the lines on
+which he might co-operate. The tree does not need gloss for its perfect
+leaves or fragrance for its flowers, nor need the qualities of its pink
+wood of wavering figure be extolled. With the exception of the stamens,
+all parts of the inflorescence, inclusive of the long pedicles, are
+milk-white, and the perfume is as sweet and refreshing as an English
+spring posy. Chemists tell us that the oil from the kernels contains a
+green pigment which changes to yellow on saponification, and that the
+resin is emetic and purgative, and healing when applied as plaster.
+If botanical science can develop the meritorious tendencies the fruit
+occasionally exhibits, the Calophyllum would certainly rank as one of
+the most wonderful of all tropical fruits. And may it not be wise to
+indulge the highest hopes when it is borne in mind that at the head
+of the Family to which the Calophyllum belongs stands that queen of
+fruits--the mangosteen? Faith in the probable idealisation of the
+Calophyllum is justified by reference to the "Prefatory and Other Notes"
+to the late F. M. Bailey's great work, the "Comprehensive Catalogue of
+Queensland Plants," where is to be found these encouraging words: "When
+any particular plant is said to furnish a useful fruit, it must not be
+imagined that the fruit equals the apple, pear, or peach of the present
+day, but all so marked are superior to the fruits known to our far-back
+forefathers."
+
+Two eucalypts--bloodwood and Moreton Bay ash (CORYMBOSA and TESSELLARIS
+respectively)--and two acacias are represented, the former developing
+into great trees of economic value, the latter being comparatively
+short-lived and ornamental. The young shoots of Acacia flavescens are
+covered as with golden fleece, and its globular flowers are pale yellow.
+The wood resembles in tint and texture its ally, the raspberry-jam wood
+of Western Australia, though lacking its significant and remarkable
+aroma. ACACIA AULACOCARPA displays in pendant masses golden tassels rich
+in fragrance.
+
+The yellow-flowered hibiscus (cotton-tree) overhangs the tide, and the
+small-leaved shrub the blacks name Tee-bee (WIKSTRAEMIA INDICA), the
+pink, semi-transparent fruit of which is eaten in times of stress,
+springs from pure sand.
+
+A tall, almost branchless shrub (MACARANGA TANARIUS), the Toogantoogan
+of the natives, grows in close clumps conducive to the production of
+light, straight, slim stems used as fish-spears. The bark peels readily
+in long strands, easily convertible into lines, and the sap from incised
+stems, which crystallises with a reddish tint, is a fast cement. Huge
+platter-shaped leaves are supported on long stalks from nearly the
+centre, whence radiate prominent nerves of pale green. Some plants
+exhibit leaf-stalks of ruby red, with central leaf-spot and nerves like
+in hue, producing the most beautiful effect. If the growth of the plant
+could be kept within bounds it would be gladly admitted as a garden
+shrub. The stems and the base of the leaf-stalk are coated with,
+glaucous bloom, like that of a ripe plum. The bloom, easily to be rubbed
+off, is said to derive its title from that Glaucus who took part in the
+Trojan War and had the simplicity, or the wisdom, to exchange his suit
+of golden armour for one of iron.
+
+The length of the beach thus casually examined is not more than a
+quarter of a mile long, and no plant mentioned is more than a few yards
+from high-water mark, the soil being almost pure sand. Imagine some
+three square miles of country varied by hills and flats of rich soil,
+with creeks and ravines, precipices and bluffs, dense jungle and thick
+forest, hollows wherein water lodges in the wet season, and granite
+ridges, and then endeavour to comprehend the botany of one small island
+of the tropical coast!
+
+To obtain demonstration of the vitalising and nourishing principles in
+maritime sands under the effects of heat, light, and moisture, it
+is necessary to retrace our steps and walk round the sandspit to the
+transfigured and degenerate mouth of that once mangrove-creek known to
+the blacks by a name signifying that a boy once tethered in it a sucking
+fish (Remora). Obstructed by a bank, the creek is dead and dry save when
+the floods of the wet season co-operate with high tides and effect a
+breach, to be repaired on the cessation of the rains. No more than four
+years have passed since the formation of the bank began. It is now a
+shrubbery made by the incessant and tireless sea from materials hostile,
+insipid, and loose-sand, shells, and coral debris, with pumice from some
+far-away volcano. On this newly made, restricted strip one may peep and
+botanise without restraint, discovering that though it does not offer
+conditions at all favourable to the retention of moisture, plants of
+varied character crowd each other for space and flourish as if drawing
+nutriment from rich loam.
+
+Several botanical Families are represented, the genera and species
+being:
+
+   Casuarina equisetifolia (she-oak)
+   Avicennia officinalis (white mangrove).
+   Clerodendron inerme.
+   Premna obtusifolia.
+   Vitex trifolia.
+   Vitex trifolia, var. obovata.
+   Carapa moluccensis (cannon-ball-tree).
+   Erylhrina indica (coral-tree).
+   Sophora tomentosa (sea-coast laburnum).
+   Pongamia glabra (poonga oil-tree).
+   Vigna luteola (yellow-flowered pea).
+   Calophyllum inophyllum (Alexandrian laurel).
+   Terminalia melanocarpa.
+   Ximenia americana (yellow plum).
+   Scoevola koenigii (native cabbage).
+   Hibiscus tiliaceus (cotton-tree).
+   Wikstroemia indica. Macaranga tanarius.
+   Euphorbia eremophilla (caustic bush).
+   Dodonaea viscosa (hop-bush).
+   Passiflora foetida (stinking passion fruit).
+   Ipomea pes caprae (goat-footed convolvulus).
+   Ionidium suffruticosum, Form A.
+   Ionidium suffruticosum, Form B (spade-flower).
+   Blainvillea latifolia.
+   Gnaphalium luteo-album (flannel-leaf or cud-weed).
+   Vernonia cinerea (erect, fluffy-seeded weed).
+   Remirea maritima (spiky sand-binder).
+   Cyperus decompositus (giant sedge).
+   Erigeron linifolius (cobbler's pegs or rag-weed).
+   Tribulus terrestris (caltrops).
+   Triumfetta procumbens (burr).
+   Salsola kali (prickly salt-wort).
+   Mesembryanthemum aequilaterale (pig's face).
+   Anthistria ciliata (kangaroo-grass).
+   Paspalum distichum (water couch-grass).
+   Zoysia pungens (coast couch-grass).
+   Lepturus repens (creeping wire-grass).
+   Panicum leucophaeum (pasture-grass).
+   Andropogon refractus (barbed wire-grass).
+   Tragus racemosus (burr-grass).
+   Eragrostis brownii, var. pubescens (love-grass).
+
+With the exception of some of the grasses and two noxious weeds, this
+assemblage is representative of plants which grow just beyond the
+sweep of the waves, and are prosperously at home nowhere else. One,
+the cannonball-tree, is so highly specialised that its presence is but
+temporary, for it endures but a single set of conditions--saline mud
+and the shade of mangroves. The thick, leathery capsule contains several
+irregularly shaped seeds, somewhat similar to Brazil nuts, but larger in
+size and not to be reassembled readily after separation. When stranded,
+germination is prompt, but the young plants, lacking essential
+conditions, invariably perish. One of the trailers--the caltrops--has
+trilobed, saw-edged leaves (harsh on both sides), yellow flowers of
+unpleasant odour, and fruit which, perhaps, formed the model of the war
+weapon of the time of the Crusaders. In whatever position it rests on
+the ground it presents an array of spikes to the bare foot. Though
+all its superficial qualities are graceless, it performs the admirable
+office of binding sand, and thus prepares the way for benign and
+faultless vegetation.
+
+That his garden might not only be instructive but profitable to mankind,
+Neptune heaved on to its verge three coco-nuts, the goose-barnacles on
+two of which bore testimony to a long drift. That which retained the
+germ of life fell into the hands of a visiting black boy, who split it
+open to feast on the pithy and insipid "apple" within its shell at
+the base of the sprout. This mischance ruined for the time being the
+prospect of a fine effect; but the perseverance and prodigality of
+Neptune none may estimate. He will certainly bring from distant
+domain another nut which may escape the observation of the
+never-to-be-satisfied black boys until the young plant itself has
+assimilated its concentrated food, and begins to spread its glossy
+fronds in the face of the sun. In the meantime the garden displays four
+weeds, two of the nature of pests, two of discomfort merely; ornamental,
+scented, and flowering shrubs, and trees promising to be conspicuous and
+picturesque, so that credit is to be divided--the sea made the site, the
+adjacent land provided all the becoming plants.
+
+What are the elements in this primitive spot which afford nutriment
+to vegetation of such varied character? Probably there are few of the
+beaches of islands within the Great Barrier Reef on which the majority
+of the plants do not exist. It is typical, therefore, not of isolated
+experiments on the part of Nature, but of conditions and processes
+repeated in similitude wheresoever in the region raw sand heals the
+wounds inflicted by the sea or the grumbling sea retreats before the
+sibilant, incessant sand.
+
+
+
+
+SHADOWS
+
+
+
+"The wish--that ages have not yet subdued--In man to have no master save
+his mood."
+
+                                   BYRON.
+
+
+Before the coming of the obscuring grey of these wet-season days, when
+the tranquil sea absorbed the lustrous blue of the sky, I discovered
+myself day-dreaming for a blissful moment or two ere the crude anchor of
+the flattie slipped slowly to the mud twelve feet below. The rough iron
+and rusty chain cast curious crinkled shadows, and presently, as the
+iron sank into the slate-coloured mud and the chain tightened, the
+shadow was single but infirm. Light and the magic of the sea, which,
+though it takes its ease, is forbidden absolute rest, transformed
+it until imagination created similitude to a serpent in its natural
+element. Its half-concealed, formless head was verified by a flake of
+rust just where a watchful eye might have been, and the sun played upon
+it.
+
+So here at last was the sea-serpent with alert eye and without end. It
+was all so realistic and endowed with such benignity and such gentleness
+of motion that I gazed at it with the gladness of a discoverer. In
+response to a slight motion of the hand, the sea-serpent wriggled as
+though in haste; but wriggle as it might the end never came.
+
+The boat drifted back. The serpent became seriously elongated, but
+though the beginning was now a grey blotch in the mud, the end was not.
+I might beat up a little foam with the chain, and see below a giddy
+dance or at least lively flourishes and swaying. Yet there was something
+lacking--the end. But for that very commonplace default did there not
+here exist a very good beginning for another romance of the sea?
+
+The phantom, born of light and limpid salt water and iron into which
+rust had deeply gnawed, gave zest to the pursuit of shadows. What is
+commoner under the tropic sun? The boat was now over the sand of the
+steeply shelving beach, where the water takes the tint of the chrysolite
+and creatures of fairy lightness come into view. Often on still days
+small sea-spiders sport under the lea of the boat, each of the eight
+legs supported by a bubble. With astonishing nimbleness, the spider
+slips and glides over the surface as a man in laborious snow-shoes over
+the snow. Having basked in the sun and frolicked with its kind, the
+spider abandons its pads, takes to its hairy bosom a bubble of air,
+and dives below. The shadows, not the spiders alone, gave pleasing
+entertainment. Each vague shadow and the eight bubble-shod feet formed
+a brooch-like ornament on the yellow sand--a grey jewel surrounded by
+diamonds, for every bubble acted as a lens concentrating the light. When
+the frail creatures darted hither and thither--the majestic sun does not
+disdain to lend his brilliance to the most prosaic of happenings--the
+shadows of the bubbles became jewels or daylight lightnings. The hour
+was so restful, the light so searching, that many of the spiders, long
+of leg and pearly-grey of body, gathered about the boat, the shade
+of which seemed to be grateful. A wave of the hand dispersed the gay
+assemblage, but in a few seconds the playful creatures--not too easily
+to be deprived of their place in the sun--reappeared from nowhere,
+and the beads and flashes on the floor of old Ocean once more began to
+glitter.
+
+Small, slim fish took shelter from the intense light. Some hung
+motionless in the water; others nibbled daintily the green and lazy
+slime on the batten at the bilge, their gently waving shadows being
+barely perceptible, for their delicate, semi-transparent bodies absorbed
+but the merest particle of the brightness of noonday.
+
+The unnoticeable swing of the tide took the responsive boat out from
+the beach, and again the serpent swayed sleepily. Down in the mud an
+organised conflict was taking place between a tiny soft-bodied crab
+and four molluscs which used whip-like tentacles with unceasing energy,
+while the crab defended itself with ever-ready claws. Borne down by
+numbers, it sank into the mud, the energy of the victors creating a
+tiny spiral of slush. A huge stingray passed on its way, the edges of
+extended wings rippling never so gently, its shadow half the size of the
+boat; and presently, with ghostly glide, a dull-skinned shark came into
+view with motion so steady and apparently effortless that it might have
+been a spectre. The pectoral fins swayed listlessly. The swirl of the
+tail was as tender as a caress. Passing the boat a few yards, it turned
+with a gracious sweep and nestled in its shade, and, though motionless,
+it was wide awake. The eyes on each end of the projecting extremities of
+the head blinked up at the boat. It was comfortable, but suspicious. Was
+its conscience quite clear? The hammer-head has not the reputation
+of being an active enemy of man. Why should it be distrustful? This
+hammer-head would not sleep in the shadow, so let it be made aware of
+the serpent. I took hold of the chain cautiously, the shark watching,
+and with a quick turn of the wrist the docile serpent lashed
+offensively. Then did the shark, frightened of a shadow, flee with
+mud-stirring haste, like the wicked when no man pursueth.
+
+The hour of day-dreaming was past. I slip over the side of the boat to
+roll and splash in tepid water limpid almost to invisibility, and to
+test the wondrous buoyancy of the substantial part of man. Sit down, the
+lips just awash, so that the accurately ballasted portion cushions on
+the cleanly sand. Stretch out the legs so that the heels barely rest.
+Head thrown back and arms extended, fill the lungs to their utmost
+capacity with the placid, revivifying air, and you will find yourself so
+uplifted that the heels alone gently touch the sand. At each inspiration
+almost sufficient air is imbibed to float the whole bulk and machinery
+of the body. And when the radiant air is all one's own, why be
+niggardly? Let it be gulped greedily, strongly, wilfully, and let the
+smiling sea, responding to the embraces of your widespread arms, salute
+your lips with ripples.
+
+
+
+
+"SMILING MORN"
+
+
+
+"The light of the morning, When the sun riseth, even a morning without
+clouds; As the tender grass springing out of the earth By clear shining
+after rain."
+
+                                         Holy Writ.
+
+
+A cloudless sky, the long grass wet with the night's gentle shower,
+a thin veil of mist on the hills, a glassy, steel-blue sea, the air
+saturated with the essences from myriads of leaves and scented with
+the last whiffs from the tea-trees and the primal blossoms of the
+wattles--such are the features of this smiling morn.
+
+A spangled drongo--ardent lover of light and free air--talkatively
+announced the dawn long before its coming; the noisy pitta--bird of the
+moist soil and leafy gloom--triumphs in three notes. For an hour the
+scrub fowl have been violently noisy, but have retired to the recesses
+of the jungle, whence comes an occasional chuckle of satisfaction or
+a coarse, triumphant crow. The fasciated honey-eater has loudly called
+"with a voice that seemed the very sound of happiness"; the leaden
+flycatcher, often silent but seldom still, has twittered and whispered
+plaintively; the sun-birds are playing gymnastics among the lemon
+blossoms, and the centre of activity for butterflies is the red-flowered
+shrub bordering the wavering path.
+
+Since--sometimes wantonly, often thoughtlessly--man interferes with
+plants, time out of mind the banqueting-table of the butterflies, is
+it not a duty to provide substitutes for devastated natural vegetation?
+When it is discovered that a plant, introduced to give satisfaction to
+the lust of the eye, provides from year's end to year's end nectar as
+unfailing as the widow's cruse of oil, is it not becoming to reproduce
+it plentifully so that excited and virtuous insects may be encouraged
+to return to former scenes? If not a duty, at least it is a source of
+happiness, for the particular insects which revel in the nectar of the
+perpetually flowering shrub are the two most gorgeous butterflies of the
+land--pleasantly known as Ulysses and Cassandra.
+
+Science changes its titles so frequently that unless the intellect is
+to be increasingly burdened it is well to refuse to be divorced from
+the old and often explicit and fulfilling names. Cassandra is the lovely
+green and gold fly which dances in the air so delightfully when he
+woos his sober, fluttering mate. That of gorgeous royal blue with black
+edging to the wings and dandyish swallow-tails, which wanders far and
+wide and flies high and swiftly, is Ulysses.
+
+This glorious morn the ruddy shrub is as lively as a merry-go-round with
+the feasting and antics of flitting gems, and there are others by the
+dozen attentive to less seductive fare. For half an hour the courtship
+of a perfect Ulysses has interfered with the staid ways of those not
+in holiday humour. Unlike Cassandra, there is little in appearance to
+distinguish the sexes, nor in the wooing does the dame exhibit staid
+demeanour. The object of Ulysses' love is almost, if not quite,
+as brilliantly decorated as himself. She is not, therefore, to be
+fascinated by the display of blue no more lustrous than that of her
+own proud wings. He may flit and toss about her, but she seems to take
+scanty notice of his affected aerial limpings. Her raiment is just as
+brave, and she has swallow-tails too. The wider black margin on her
+wings is no badge of subserviency, but rather an additional charm
+inciting tremulous fascination. She may soar over the mango-trees with
+ease as careless as his, and slide down straight to the red flowers
+with like certainty. She is not to be bewildered by his gyrations, nor
+thrilled by mock hostile swoops. However sprightly his activities,
+she has a mood to correspond and power to mimic. Indeed, is she not
+indifferent?--so much on an equality with him that she might say:
+
+"If thou thinkest I am too easily won, I'll frown and be perverse, and
+say thee nay."
+
+Might she not say more at the moment, since her airs are those of
+independence? Possibly she imagines hers to be the superior sex. Is she
+to be distinguished from her wooer as she flits from him disdainfully?
+Can she not imitate his most audacious feats? Ah! but for how long may
+she restrain primal emotions? The blue-mantled dandy understands his
+art. His wings beat with the passion of the dominant lover. He tosses
+himself before her, impeding her flight until she imitates his antics.
+Tossing is not the privilege of his sex. She exercises her right to
+toss, and the pair toss in delightful but bewildering confusion, like
+jewels sent skyward by a conjurer. And thus having established her
+rights if not her equality, she consents to play the part Nature
+decrees, and the pair tumble and toss over the mango-trees, while half a
+dozen others sip contentedly the red flowers.
+
+Many other winged creatures flit and glisten in the garden and down
+along the grass-invaded path between the coco-nuts. Dragon-flies hover
+over the moist spots, transparent wings carrying coral-red bodies,
+and two sand-wasps pilot my steps, following the narrow ribbon of bare
+ground as a fish the course of a shallow stream, buzzing ominously as if
+in warning of some possible mischance. They are friends, and will in a
+moment swerve, and boom back to the shafts they have excavated in sand
+as depositaries for their eggs, and into which they will pack living
+caterpillars as fresh food for their young. They dig with such deftness
+and vigour that the sand is expelled in a continuous jet. When the mouth
+of the shaft, round to exactness, is lumbered with soil, the insect
+emerges backward and shovels away dog-like with its forelegs. Then it
+disappears again, until the sand-jet has made another encumbering heap.
+
+These alert and furiously resentful insects are endowed with
+resourcefulness and "intelligence" in keeping with their physical
+activities. One had foraged a caterpillar in bulk and weight beyond
+its flight strength, and was, therefore, compelled to haul it along the
+toilful earth. On the wing the wasp finds its home unhesitatingly. On
+the unfamiliar ground it lost its bearings, and, moreover, the lumbering
+caterpillar had to be tugged through a bewildering forest of grass
+stems, among which it went astray. During a pause the wasp surveyed the
+scene, and, locating the shaft, after stupendous exertions deposited
+its prey conveniently thereto, to find itself confronted with a problem,
+since the diameter of the caterpillar exceeded that of the shaft.
+It seemed to reflect for a few moments, and then with feverish haste
+enlarged the shaft. Another difficulty had then to be overcome. Was it
+possible to force such a bulky and unwieldy body head first down--the
+habitual way? The insect came to a rapid decision in the negative.
+Backing into the shaft, it seized the caterpillar by the head and drew
+it down, presently emerging, and how it managed to squeeze past so tight
+a plug is another of the magics of the morn. Having butted with its
+highly competent head the caterpillar well home, the wasp selected
+a neatly fitting stone as a wad, and, filling the shaft with earth,
+strewed the surface with grass fragments, to the artistic concealment of
+the site.
+
+On the beach is another industrious winged miner which has not learned
+the art of the rapid evacuation of the spoil, but follows the slower
+ways of the crab, carrying the sand in a pellet between the forelegs,
+and as it backs out jerking it rearward until a tidy heap is made. But
+it is a fussy worker, so charged with nervous energy that its glittering
+wings quiver even while down in the depths of its shaft, as you may
+assure yourself if you hearken attentively when neither the sea nor air
+makes competitive noises.
+
+
+
+
+ANCESTRAL SHADE
+
+
+
+"Time was when, settling on thy leaf, a fly Could shake thee to the
+root--and time has been When tempests could not."
+
+                                       COWPER.
+
+
+If it were possible to recall the spirits of the departed of this Isle
+to solemn session and to exact from them expression of opinion as to
+the central point of it, the popular, most comfortable and convenient
+camping-place, there can be no question that the voice of the majority
+would favour the curve of the bay rendered conspicuous by a bin-gum
+or coral tree. Within a few yards of permanent fresh water, on sand
+blackened by the mould of centuries of vegetation, close to an almost
+inextricable forest merging into jungle, whence a great portion of the
+necessaries of life were obtained, and but ten paces from the sea,
+the tree stood as a landmark, not of soaring height, but of bulk and
+comeliness withal.
+
+Generation after generation of careless coloured folk must have been
+born and bred under its branches. When the soil became rank because of
+continuous residence and insects of diabolical activity pestered its
+occupants, the camp would shift to another site; but there existed
+proofs that the bin-gum-tree localised the thoughts of those aimless,
+unstable wanderers to whom a few bushes stuck in the sand as a screen
+from prevailing winds represent the home of the hour and all that the
+word signifies and embodies. Many a one was laid to rest beneath its
+spreading branches, for it was the custom of the pre-white folk's days
+to swathe the dead in frail strips of bark, knees to chin, and place the
+stiffened corpse in a shallow pit in the humpy which had been in most
+recent occupation. If the dead during life had possessed exceptional
+qualities, burial rites would be ceremonious and prolonged. With tear
+and blood stained faces (for the mourners enforced grief by laceration
+of the flesh) incidents in the admirable career of the departed would
+be rehearsed in pantomime. The enactment of scenes from the life of the
+hunter and fighter might occupy hours. The art of the canoe or sword
+maker would be graphically mimicked. The life of the woman found
+rehearsal from infancy until she passed from the protection of her
+father into the arms of her lover. If she had died childless, a
+protesting infant or an effigy in bark would be placed on her shrunken
+bosom, so that she might not suffer the reproach of matrons who had
+preceded her to the mysterious better country.
+
+The ancestral shade was a birth-place, an abiding-place, a cemetery,
+and the soil grew ever richer, and the thick-trunked tree displayed its
+ruddy flowers and gave of its best in nectar for birds and butterflies
+and gauze-winged, ever-flitting creatures.
+
+It was not a comfortable tree to climb, for its grey-green branches were
+studded with wens each armed with a keen prickle, long and tough. It
+offered the hospitality of its shade to man, but little else, save
+flowers to gladden his eyes, though it stood as a perpetual calendar, or
+rather floral harbinger, of some of the most excellent things in life.
+At a certain season its big, trilobed, hollow-stalked leaves changed
+from bright green to pale yellow and lingeringly fell, and often before
+the last disappeared, flower-buds registered the date with almost
+almanac exactitude. Then, as the rich red began to glow here and there,
+and impatient small birds to assemble in anticipation of the annual
+feast, the old inhabitants of the Isle would comfort one another with
+reminiscences of the "Oo-goo-ju," the nutmeg pigeon, which was wont to
+congregate in such numbers that adjacent and easily accessible isles
+were whitened. There would be plenty of eggs then, and in a few weeks
+squabs quiveringly, helplessly fat.
+
+It was a good tree, for it gave good tidings, and it centralised the
+shelter of the Isle. Its blooms were delightfully, dashingly red, and
+they lasted long--that is, if the camp--the soil rectified by sun
+and rain--happened to be in residence, for then the sulphur-crested
+cockatoos would be scared. Otherwise the profligate birds would sever
+the heavy racemes of flower in their eagerness for honey until the
+ground beneath glowed with a furnace-hued shadow. But there would be
+still plenty for the gay sun-birds and the honey eaters, while the grey
+goshawk would make the site of regular call, for the bibulous lesser
+birds could not always be on the alert, ready to dart into adjacent
+tea-trees. The hawk would abide its time, and have occasion, after its
+kind, to be grateful because of the tree and its seductive nectar which
+translated artless little songsters into shrill-tongued roysterers,
+careless of the ills of life, or at least less watchful for the presence
+of crafty enemies. Flying foxes would swoop into the tree at sundown to
+squeak and gibber among its repellent branches till dawn, when some, too
+full for flight, would hang among the lower limbs all day, sleeping with
+eyes veiled by leathery wings.
+
+For many a long day the bin-gum tolerated no undergrowth. Despotic over
+its territory, the shade was clean but for a carpet of ferns, and its
+branches free from the embraces of orchids, save that which bears the
+ghostly white flowers which set off its own of bold red. But as it
+passed its maturity shrubs and saplings began to encroach, until it was
+the centre of a circus of upstart vegetation, though still stretching
+big, knotty limbs over the slim youths of yesterday. Anterior to this
+era a neglected fire had scorched a portion of its trunk. Decay set in.
+A huge cavity gradually appeared, betokening vital injuries. The soft
+though tough wood does not patiently endure the annihilating fret of
+time. Far up in a recess of this cavity a toy boomerang was found,
+placed there by some provident but forgetful piccaninny. At the date of
+the discovery of the missile the age of the resident blacks had passed
+away; but still the tree stood, stout of limb, while the encompassing
+saplings shot up until sun-seeking shoots caressed the branches and
+familiarised with the blooms, as if taking credit for the seasonal
+gaiety of the patriarch.
+
+In the prime of life the wood of the bin-gum is of pale straw colour
+with a faint pinkish tinge, and tough though light. Sapless age makes
+it tindery, and the decaying fibre descends in dust--glissades of dust
+which form moraines within the hollow of the base. Then the end is not
+far off.
+
+The old tree might have been credited with premonition of its fate.
+However fanciful to ascribe to it power of utterance, some phenomena,
+perhaps associated with the dusty flux draining its vitals, gave
+it distinct voice. On silent days it was often heard--a whispering,
+whimpering sing-song, pitifully weak for so great a tree, but not
+without appeal. Did it not suggest the sanctuary of some wood-nymph
+chanting never so faint a death psalm--a monotone which the idlest
+zephyr might still?
+
+Disdaining to die while consenting to disappear, the great tree, proudly
+green of head, did not fall headlong, like a giant, in its pride, but
+subsided silently behind its leafy screen while all the winds were
+still, and as one who passes away full of years and with untarnished
+conscience.
+
+Though the saplings and shrubs which fought for its place decently
+conceal its shattered relics, addressing glossy leaves to the face of
+the sun, is it quite vain to expect that its graceful proportions--a
+true and stately dome--will be transmitted to the most worthy of its
+descendants? Or that they will escape for so long a term the many
+mischances that befall soft-wooded trees? No; the bin-gum of the bay was
+unique. Afar off its flowers assumed a bricky shade, which contrasted
+with the sage-green background of huge and overtopping melaleucas, while
+but a strip of creamy sand intervened between its low and spreading
+branches and the shallow sea, with its varying tints of pale green and
+blue. So lovely and conspicuous a feature is not to be reconstituted
+under a century.
+
+If it be permitted to assume that trees are sentient, that each--since
+it differs from all others in some material quality and condition--has
+its individuality, and that one may stand out from the rest as a
+figure and representative of its age, then was this old monarch which
+maintained its red robes to the last an examplar of the race whose
+births, nuptials, pastimes, deaths and burials it witnessed from the
+date when the good ship ENDEAVOUR slowly plodded along the alien coast.
+The dust of the witness is blending in common decay. A few months and
+not a trace will be discoverable, and what is left of those who rested
+in its shade? In the pages of history they will be unchronicled, for
+were not their lives less beautiful than the life of a tree, and their
+renown no more durable?
+
+
+
+
+QUIET WATERS
+
+
+
+"Like playhouse scenes the shore slid past."
+
+                                     KIPLING.
+
+
+Lovable as is the open sea when the spray drenches the scanty clothing
+of the steersman and rains upon his lips salty salutation, yet is there
+rare delightsomeness in reverse of the wet frolic.
+
+A few minutes past the deck glistened in the sun as each rollicking
+billow sent its herald over the bows, and here the surface of the river
+is almost rippleless. Shallows and uncertainties perplex its union with
+the ocean. Sombre green mangroves screen its muddy banks at full tide
+and trail leathery leaves and the tips of spindly fruit on its placid
+surface. Pendant roots and immersed branches create on each hand a
+continuous scroll of wavering ridges and eddies bordered with the
+living tints of the steadfast wall of leafage. The sun so burnishes the
+midstream ribbon that the boat seems to float on an invisible element.
+Though the topmost leaves of the mangroves fail to disclose any movement
+in the air, an unceasing and inharmonious hum tells of the sea idly
+shouldering the orange-hued sands outside.
+
+The original inhabitants of the country knew the stream as Marang.
+None call it so; but half stranded on the bank at the mouth lies a raft
+typical of the past, and of the ease and resource with which those of
+the day are wont to avail themselves of Nature's suggestions in the art
+of crossing flooded waters. The name of the river has gone, but not that
+of the three buoyant logs lashed together with strips of cane which with
+sullen lurch, take the wash of the boat. The boys jerk their heads in
+the direction and murmur "wur-gun," and speculate on the last user.
+The day is young. For the time being the best the ancient river has to
+show--the quintessence of the season, superb October--shall be ours. The
+cloudless sky is richly blue, lighter in shade than the shapely mountain
+which seems to block the way miles ahead. The sun gives a taste of its
+quality, not to fret or discomfort, but merely to add a slightly richer
+tint to skin glowing with previous marks of his fervour and favour.
+
+All the sounds of the little engine are maliciously exaggerated as the
+boat forges ahead. The silent green river has become vociferous with
+echoes, which snap and grunt, groan and hiss, in mockery of inevitable
+and earnest doings. Out at sea the merry moods of the boat and hasty
+and determined throbs of the engine are manifestations of something
+accomplished in the overcoming of distance. Here it is all mere idle
+fancy, while the echoes jeer. Surely the uncouth imps of the dimly-lit
+jungles need not proclaim their spite with such exaggerated fuss.
+
+With but little effort of imagination the boat becomes stationary on
+a shining ribbon with strips of dark green on each side, and the banks
+glide past with never so gentle undulations. The tide screens most of
+the mud on which the many-rooted trees stand. Some are in full bloom,
+the hawthorn-like flowers breathing perfume as from an orangery
+soliciting the raids of millions of bees. Scents cling to the placid
+surface. It is as a stream of scent, bounded and confined by changeful
+tints as the sun toys with the shadows, and curve after curve, reach
+after reach, slip by. Sometimes the chattering boat heads due east.
+South she knows too, and then she bows her duty to the west, along
+reaches which run straight and clean as a canal; and round hairpin bends
+she sweeps with disdainful air, as if conscious of besoiling banks.
+
+Gradually the monopolistic mangroves become more tolerant of the rights
+of other vegetation. Tea-trees with white papery bark and pale yellow
+flowers dripping with spirity nectar, the sunflower-tree with its masses
+of gold, an occasional wattle, and slim palms mirror themselves, and
+here and there compact jungle, with its entanglement of ponderous vines
+and smothering creepers, shoulders away the salt-loving plants.
+Scents may vary as the river's fringe; but only a delicate blend is
+recognised--the breathings of honey-secreting flowers and of sapful
+plants free from all uncleanliness. Many trees endure sadly the
+decoration of orchids in full flower, some lovely to look on and
+deliciously scented. The snowy plumes of one species sway gently, as
+if offering friendly greeting. A worthy similitude to the lily of the
+valley clings to a decaying limb, and a passing smudge of lustrous brown
+is but the reflection from a mass of the commonest of the Dendrobiums
+which encumbers a long-suffering host. Where forest trees and wattles
+guard the bank the water is of a different hue, as if the face of the
+river had absorbed less of the actualities of the sun. The screen
+of vegetation is not only higher, but it is varied and impresses its
+individuality. Only during the pelting rains of the wet season may
+this delightful stream be monotonous, for at intervals brief and
+narrow vistas open out on patches of yellowing grass, and beyond lie
+forest-clad hills.
+
+All save the boat is wonderfully still. The birds are silent, for this
+is the first hot day of the season, and they have retired to the patches
+of jungle where shade and dimness afford relief from the sunlight
+spaces. For many a mile a cormorant, lacking valour to double on its
+tracks, has fled before the boat, settling out of sight ever and anon,
+only to be scared further from its nest. A mangrove bittern sitting
+humpbacked on a root and roused from its night thoughts has flown ahead,
+following the bends of the stream until it crossed a familiar loop and
+so evaded incessant harrying.
+
+No murmur of the sea is audible, though the water is as briny as at the
+mouth. Mangroves still reinforce the muddy banks at intervals, and big
+barramundi swirl aside to give the boat precedence in the narrow way.
+If in no impetuous haste, one might drift with the tide up and down with
+but little exertion except during periods of flood, which quickly rise
+and quickly subside. Drifters become familiar with characteristics of
+the stream unknown to those who hurry up and down in an echo-rousing
+motor-boat. They see crocodiles basking on their sides, as many as
+seven on a sunny morning in the cool season, and many curse them in
+De Quincey's phrase as "miscreated gigantic vermin" because the rifle
+happens to be unavailable. Crocodiles have their moods. Sometimes they
+are lazy and indifferent and will not be disturbed though the boat may
+clink and chatter as it passes, and the then easygoing man disposes
+of them. More often the faculties of the crocodile are disappointingly
+acute. He is visible for such a fragment of time that the authoritative
+man who has promised sport looks foolish and tries to relieve the strain
+by the relation of anecdotes in which circumstances have not been all
+in favour of the illusive creature. He tells of the slumbering one which
+lay on a mud-bank with its jaws distended, weary of the monotony of
+the mangroves, and took but sleepy notice when upbraided for being a
+sluggard. And of that other monstrous beast which, with eyelids like
+saucers and a bulk which filled a narrow tributary of the river,
+floundered, splashed, and flurried into deep water, while the awestruck
+individual with the rifle was too astounded to fire a shot. He may tell,
+too, of another instance of good luck on the part of the crocodile.
+How, drifting down silently with the ebb, the black boy indicated the
+presence of game on a slide overhung by a deep verandah of mud; how a
+shot was fired and a big log splashed into the water and the little
+one remained bearing the bullet-wound, the real having been too big and
+impressive for sight.
+
+The day is well spent among strange plants. Here is a tall hibiscus with
+coarse leaves, diversely lobed, and great pink, fragile flowers, each
+with a blotch of maroon at the base and each containing a fat and
+lumbering bee spangled with maroon-tinted pollen. A trailing eugenia
+bears dark red flowers shaped like a mop, and a tiny white lily with
+petals and strangely protuberant anthers scents the air as with honey
+and almonds.
+
+The tide ebbs fast. All the country teems with entertainment, and the
+river, cool in the dusk, and black, reflects the dead mangroves, white
+and spectral, on its brink.
+
+This breathless night the sea is as tetchy as petrol. Trailing fingers
+are terminals which ignite living flames, and the propeller of the
+little boat creates an avengeful commotion of light which trails far
+astern. Blobs of light are cast off from her bows as she rounds the
+familiar sandspit and glides to her moorings.
+
+
+
+
+"THE LOWING HERD"
+
+
+
+"Your cattle, too--Allah made them; serviceable, dumb creatures;
+they change the grass into milk; they come ranking home at evening
+time."--CARLYLE.
+
+
+Remote from the manners and the sights of the street, here are we secure
+against most of the pains which come of the contemplation, casual
+or intimate, of other folk's sufferings. No hooded ambulance moves
+joltlessly, tended by enwrapt bearers, on pathless way; no formal
+procession paces from the house of death to the long last home. Immune
+from the associations which oft subdue the crowd, as well as from
+its too exciting pleasures, and participating only indirectly in its
+inevitable sorrows, yet we are occasionally forced to remember that
+troubles do come to all that is flesh, and that keen is the grief
+attendant upon enforced separations even among animals which cannot call
+reason to their solace. Man cannot claim to be the sole proprietor
+of the luxury of woe, and may he not draw edifying lessons from
+contemplating the transient sorrows of his pets and domestic animals?
+Is he to confine his schooling on the wholesome theme of the frailty
+of flesh solely to his own species? It is not to be denied that animals
+lower in the scale than mankind have acute sense of bereavement, though
+it is equally certain that in their case the healing influences of time
+are more prompt and potent.
+
+An illustration may be cited. Two favourite Irish terriers, in violation
+of an all-precautionary training, molested a death adder, the emulation
+of each inciting the other to recklessness. When the fray was over and
+the wicked little serpent lay squirming in death, both dogs took joyful
+credit on account of the feat. An hour after one began to froth at the
+lips, and in another hour he lay dead. His son and companion, as well as
+rival in all rat and lizard hunts, softly approached the body, lifting
+each foot with almost solemn deliberation. He sniffed, and catching a
+whiff of the scent of death, sat on his haunches, threw back his head,
+and in loud and piercing tones lamented the tragedy until from very
+hoarseness he could howl no longer. He stood the solitary spectator of
+the burial, and as the soil was patted down tenderly, sniffed the spot,
+whimpered plaintively, and followed with downcast mien. Unable to fathom
+the mystery of death, yet fearful, if not resentful, he wandered about
+for days rebuking the moon, or its dire influence, and hailing passing
+steamers with weak whines. Time soon soothed the mental hurt.
+
+Since I became a milker and tender of pet cows many instances have been
+revealed of the patience and amiability of these inestimable beasts. The
+man who owns the cattle on a thousand hills, who employs stockmen by the
+dozen, who sends off hundreds of fat, contented, happy, liberty-loving
+oxen in droves to end their days in an unknown locality amid the clatter
+and swish of machinery and with the fearful scents of blood and decaying
+offal defiling the air, has few opportunities of studying the nicer
+qualities of his possessions. He may be full of bullock lore and able to
+recite sensational and entertaining stories illustrative of the ways of
+the big mobs which tramp from native hills and downs to the city of the
+thousand deaths. He knows, perhaps, something of the individualities of
+his herds, and will tell how fat beasts form friendships, and how
+they pine when separated. Then will he register his personal regrets,
+counting in the measure for fat, for, refusing food, the animals fall
+away in condition, so that the sorrows of two fat bullocks due to
+parting, enforced by determined men on horseback, cracking whips and
+using violent and threatening language, come home to the owner in terms
+of pounds, shillings, and pence.
+
+Here are few sordid considerations, for does not the full-fed and
+contented herd supply generously milk and cream with no apprehensions
+of the butcher? Perhaps on that account the sentiments of the sleek cows
+are more tender. At least it has been noticed that when the time comes
+for the flash young bulls to be banished, and they are transported, the
+mother's grief is loud-voiced and prolonged. Under stress of departure
+and all the novel excitement of a first experience of the motion of the
+sea, the fat calf, which has rollicked in all that makes for good temper
+and ease and comfort, becomes mute. Tears trickle from big, affrighted
+eyes, and the head is turned wistfully when terms of comfort are
+uttered. He is of the make of man and will not whimper. But the mother,
+on the discovery of her bereavement, arouses the echoes of the hills
+with her calls.
+
+Accustomed to the voices of the individuals of your herd, your ears are
+also attuned to the significant tones of each--the low warning hum of
+the mother to her safely hidden new-born, the imperative command to
+obedience, the note of inquiry when the wandering offspring is out of
+sight, the anxious call when it is absent from her side unaccountably,
+the angry bellow when she thinks injury is being done.
+
+The other day a lusty young bull which had been wont to treat me as a
+chum, and perhaps as a slightly inferior animal, was reluctantly
+parted from. His face displayed his emotions-astonishment, grief,
+resignation--and once, and only once, did he permit himself to protest
+vocally. But for a week his mother's sorrow has been insistent. Early on
+the morning following, the banishment, she led off the rest of the
+herd in Indian file, to search accustomed scenes. At times she
+hastened--perhaps she heard in fancy the loved one's voice--but more
+often and with rare persistency she shrewdly scrutinised every possible
+hiding-place, lowing plaintively and with a coaxing, wistful tone.
+Frequently, attended by silent, sympathising companions, she made
+frantic appeals to me, and then there seemed to be a note as of
+upbraiding, if not accusation, in her voice. Knowing her feelings, it
+was easy to interpret them, and her doleful mood and loud yet melodious
+protests against the arbitrary usage of man affected the wonted serenity
+of the Isle.
+
+How many lusty, fat, sleek, good-humoured, straight-backed, frolicsome
+calves had she reared, and when they had come to the age when a
+mother's pride must be in the full, each in its turn had mysteriously
+disappeared. Was this not a subject of moan? Why should she not tell
+her grief to the responsive hills, and send it as far as her voice might
+carry over the irresponsive sea?
+
+Time soothes all such pangs. She calls now when she spies me in the
+forest, still suspecting where responsibility rests, and mumbles as she
+crops the succulent herbage. A few more days and her sturdy offspring
+will be forgotten; but the recollection of her material woes excites the
+thought that human beings, in guiding the destinies of domestic animals,
+may not always be conscious of certain moral aspects of such incidents.
+Are we justified in lacerating the feelings of those creatures, which
+have become accustomed to our ways, which submit to our arbitrary
+authority with wondrous patience, which depend on us in many ways, and
+which trust us with unquestioning fidelity?
+
+Against all precedent, the dairy herd was started with a bull. Though
+such a beginning is not to be recommended as a general precept, it must
+be confessed that in this particular instance developments proved its
+wisdom. Unjust fears were overcome while yet he was undistracted by
+society of his kind. Having no other company, he sought ours in frank
+and friendly manner. Occasionally he would accompany me on indefinite
+excursions in the bush, and would oft tempt me to play. With the fable
+of the frogs and the boys in mind, I had to decline participation in his
+sportful moods, for what would have proved pure frolic to him might have
+been fraught with disaster to me. At this period of the dairy herd,
+he spent most of his leisure moments in the paddock where poultry
+congregates, and where many of the domestic rites are performed. He
+was at home, and he was a gentleman, and did no one premeditated ill.
+Longing for something to play with, he would make hostile demonstration
+against the wheelbarrow, but that dull-hearted vehicle never responded
+except by ignominious collapse at tenderest touch of horn. One evening,
+when all the good little chicks had been put to bed for the night, the
+bull, impatient for play, overturned two coops so suddenly that two of
+the inmates were crushed flat. There was no sheltering mother to protest
+against such violation, and so the adjoining coop was visited. But for
+once he went wrong in strategy. The coop contained an exceptionally
+numerous family, the mother of which richly deserved the name of
+"Scotty." The coop was overturned none too politely; the squeaking
+chicks vanished in the grass and remained discreetly silent; the irate
+hen, with the valour of ignorance and all feathers on end, flew in the
+face of the startled bull. Though a white leghorn, she has fighting
+blood in her veins, and as she hurled herself--stuttering with
+frantic exclamations--at the violator of her home, he backed with a
+mirth-provoking look of surprise and dismay. He seemed to wish to say
+that he regretted the intrusion, and would apologise and ask permission
+to retire. The hen was not in the mood to accept apologies, however
+seemly the cringing attitude of the bull. Making herself ever so much
+bigger than Nature intended, she followed up her advantages, slapping
+her enemy's face with widespread wings until he winced again, and
+clawing with truly feminine extravagance and uncertainty of aim. The
+first round was all to the credit of the hen, and the startled poultry
+cackled derisively as the bull retreated. Sure of victory, the hen
+followed him up, skipping, flapping, clawing, and scolding as only an
+irate hen in transports of rage can. Still the bull backed. He was a
+gentleman, and genuinely afraid of female tantrums. With half-shut eyes,
+he submitted to the buffets of the wings, while encouraging remarks
+from friends and companions further excited the delirious pugnacity
+of "Scotty." Then it seemed to dawn on him that honour was at stake.
+Gallantry forbade him to do violence to a lady; honour forbade him to
+run away. What other recourse was open? He must treat the whole episode
+as a joke. So, rubbing his muzzle on the ground, he invited the hen to
+come on. She did so. There was a splash of outspread feathers against
+his front and more clatter than ever. He pawed the ground, jerking
+little clods over his shoulders, and, lowering his head, menaced the
+hen with horns that could have tossed her over the highest of the
+mango-trees. But there was a smile on his face the while, and the
+spectators knew, though "Scotty" did not, that it was all a joke. Again
+and again she flew in his face. Just as often he refused to take her
+seriously, though all the pantomime of battle was displayed. She cackled
+in impotent anger. He bellowed with gratification. Not a fowl in the
+yard saw the joke, and all the little chicks in adjacent coops strained
+their necks to watch the battle and their voices in shrill comments.
+Having made not the slightest impression on the jovial little bull,
+"Scotty" retired, feinting and scolding, while he, still blue mouldy
+for a game, coaxed her by unmistakable gesticulation to one round
+more. Twice during the night "Scotty" dispelled the silences with loud
+exclamations of wrath and defiance. She was fighting her battle again in
+her dreams, and though I was not there to see, I am very sure that the
+gentle bull beguiled his wakeful moments with smiles. There are several
+white hens in the yard, and whensoever one crosses his path the
+bull, who does not pretend to discriminate, tosses his head with an
+interrogative gesture. "Do you want to fight?" he says, and the hens
+flee--all except "Scotty."
+
+The herd comprises a dainty little cow of most placid disposition.
+Nothing disturbs her placidity, incites her to hurry, or bewilders her.
+Cure the dove of its timidity and shrinking and you will have a good
+prototype of Parilla, who, taking life easily and affably, is fat and
+amiable. When she brought home her firstborn, mooing plaintively, he,
+big and fat for his age, walked into the byre as a matter of course.
+Here was the first evidence of heredity. It was patent that Fillo
+Billaroo was born with a mind like that of his sweet-tempered mother.
+He earned his name because of acute dissimilarity to the swiftlet which
+swoops about the cleared spaces, never resting save in a dark and dirty
+cave.
+
+Though, apparently, entirely unselfconscious, Fillo Billaroo at once
+established himself as a superior sort of creature. He did not exact any
+rights. They were conceded with all possible grace. He enjoys privileges
+none other dares to imagine. When he has exhausted for the time being
+the maternal source of refreshment, he visits other mothers, and with
+such a pompous, patronising, good-humoured, thoroughly appreciative and
+yet gentle way, that the absurd creatures are flattered. They realise he
+is something quite out of the common, and give agreeably of their best.
+Thus he has become a favourite, and he drinks so much and has become so
+fat that he could not for a couple of weeks accompany his lazy-pacing
+mother on her daily rounds, but would be planted in shade and coolness
+with cautions against straying until called for late in the afternoon.
+Often would Parilla forget the hiding-place, or rather pretend to,
+and beseech in wistful tones for help in the search, and when it was
+successful the greetings she bestowed displayed the bigness of her
+heart.
+
+Once the little mother left Fillo Billaroo in charge of Lady Clare,
+a much more experienced matron, who cannot bear to permit her frisky
+heifer out of her sight for a moment unless safely planted, and then the
+treasure must not be wandered from more than a hundred yards. Parilla
+went off for the day. Late in the afternoon, Lady Clare with her heifer
+and Fillo Billaroo were found far away from the mob and driven home. It
+had been hot, and the big calf has an enormous appetite and apparently
+Lady Clare had been coy. When he saw his mother and his mother saw him,
+he stooped with uplifting nose, sniffing; she stopped feeding and begin
+to sniff. He seemed to say to himself, "I do believe I know that little
+creature. Yes; I am certain I must have met her before. She rather
+resembles my own mother; but I have so many fond, kind, and obliging
+aunts that it is not so very easy to make sure. She has a special look.
+Can I be mistaken? I really hope not, for I am painfully hungry."
+
+In the meantime Parilla was saying to herself--you could see it all
+plainly written in her big, round, bulging eyes, so full of inquiry,
+hope and longing--! "The sight of that really fine fellow reminds me
+that I, too, am a mother. He is a pretty fellow; I fancy that Fillo
+Billaroo is not unlike him. I now recollect with dismay that I have not
+seen him since morning, when Lady Clare condescended to look after him.
+And there's Lady Clare! Oh! if she's mislaid Fillo Billaroo! But can
+that fine, beautiful fellow be mine? I must inquire. Come!" And she
+moo'd, and Fillo Billaroo murmured "Mum," and they rushed to one
+another, and the look in Parilla's face was that of perfect happiness.
+
+
+
+
+BABBLING BEACHES
+
+
+
+"By the wisdom of Nature it has been appointed that more pleasure may be
+taken in small things than in great."--Ruskin.
+
+
+On a breezy day, when the sun scorches the sand and the wind
+continuously sweeps off the dry surface, and your ears detect the
+musical sound accompanying the process--vague as the visible part of it
+is blurred and misty--then it is that you are made aware of the agencies
+by which time creates geographical differences. Precipitated at the apex
+of the spit, the sand as it sinks tints the verge of the sea, while
+the lighter spoil, leaves and wisps of seaweed, trip off on independent
+voyage. The current from the south pares the spit, preserving its
+shapeliness. The ebb from the bay maintains the fluent inner curve.
+The dry wind, the current with its northerly set, and the ebb in
+conjunction, push the spit to the north, and as the sand advances,
+vegetation consolidates the work. Then comes the season of northerly
+winds, when the apex of the spit is forced backwards and outwards into
+a brief but graceful flourish, in the bight of which small boats may
+nestle, though the seas roar and show white teeth a few yards away.
+Since the winds of the north are less in duration and persistency than
+those from the south and east, the tendency of the spit--in defiance
+of the yearly setback--is to the north. Driftwood, logs, and huge trees
+with bare, branchless limbs become stranded, to dry and whiten in the
+sun and reinforce the sand, and in their decay, with ever contributed
+seaweed, to make mould for vegetation. The work of encroachment and
+consolidation is incessant and strangely rapid, for vegetation never
+lacks pioneers of special character to prepare the way for the less
+venturesome and less hardy. Often before vegetation appears, coral
+chips, shells, small stones, and sharp gravel, are concreted into
+platter-shaped masses which seem to become the base of blocks of rough
+conglomerate, capable of resisting the attacks of the sea; and a few
+yards back, where a mangrove-bordered creek once existed, the mud and
+decayed fragments of wood have been transformed into a black, cheesy
+substance which might be mistaken for soft coal. So do these beaches lay
+bare their secrets.
+
+When the mainland streams pour out their floods and the commingled
+volume hurries north in a mud-tinted, sharply delimited current, and
+whole trees are cast up on the beaches of far-away isles, vivid examples
+of the dispersion of animate and inanimate things by purely natural
+means are afforded. Weighty stones are found locked among roots which,
+as the wood decays, are deposited on alien sands, thereafter to invite
+speculation as to origin and means of transport. On one such raft
+voyaged a living specimen of the white and black banded snake, one of
+the most singular of the family, for Nature has bestowed on it a placid
+disposition, and provided it with an unmischievous mouth and fangs
+so minute that, although classed as venomous, it is not considered
+injurious to man. Though strange and interesting, on the plea that the
+family is quite sufficiently represented, the derelict was unwelcome,
+save as a living proof of the practicability of natural transports.
+By what grace, indeed, could the creature which earned the Almighty's
+bitter curse be accepted as "wilsam"--goods of God's mercy driven
+ashore, no wreck or ship being visible?
+
+This small bay never ceases the laying of tribute at one's feet. There
+are seasons when the amount is less than at others; but how seldom
+are its sands trodden without a display of the infinite variety of
+productions of the ocean? When the mood of the sea is savage and the
+spoil from the reef is flung in ridges among the vegetation of the
+shore--coral in blocks and shattered masses, shells, seaweed, sponges,
+and other dead marine animals and driftwood, heap on heap--days of
+enthusiastic toil might be spent in sorting out the oversurplus of the
+secrets of the sea. But for months together the beach maintains its
+cleanly orderliness, and during these dreamy days the sea will tell of
+many a pretty treasure which the sands will reveal in the face of the
+sun.
+
+The most famous of botanists compiled a floral almanac; the months,
+and in some cases the weeks, being associated with the development and
+flowering of significant plants. So might it be possible to ascribe to
+particular months the tokens with which the obliging sea bestrews the
+beaches. It is not proposed herein to attempt any such design, which
+would involve special knowledge of the science of conchology and the
+compilation of the records of years of patient observation. A few
+examples of the material on which the delightful work might be
+undertaken are given, so that the wealth of one brief strip of beach may
+be taken as typical of a vast stretch of calm waters within the Great
+Barrier Reef.
+
+The ridges and furrows of the cyclone season, when the clean sand is
+covered and stained with weed, dead and living molluscs, coral, leaves
+carried from the hills by flooded streams, all fermenting in the heat,
+tell that Christmas is past and March not yet over. Many a year passes
+without such a storm as compels the groaning ocean to ravage its reefs.
+Then the beaches, during the first three months are not particularly
+fertile, nor are the shells to be found special or peculiar. In April
+many specimens of the mollusc known as Tapes, of which there are several
+species, are cast ashore, empty but fresh. In life the animal buries
+itself in the mud at the edge of the sand, and some disturbance of
+natural conditions, possibly due to the fresh water from flooded rivers,
+causes seasonal mortality. The most conspicuous of the species is that
+known as "literati," because of the erratic scribblings decorating its
+valves. With others of the genera, it is to be found cast away at other
+times of the year, but the end of the wet season seems exceptionally
+direful.
+
+April is confirmed, too, but transiently, by the presence of a frail
+mollusc (HAMINAEA CYMBALUM) which is washed ashore attached to seaweed,
+soon to disappear desiccated by the sun and ground to powder. The shell
+is semi-transparent with a sandy tint, and in form not unlike that of
+a common snail. As the weather becomes cooler, a thin, delicate bivalve
+decorates high-water mark. It is one of the tellinas--semi-transparent,
+lustrous, and fragile--which occurs in muddy sand, but why the species
+should be more susceptible to the ills of life during a particular
+season is not apparent. When the fates do conspire against its welfare
+dozen of bright specimens may be picked up during a casual stroll, the
+animal having disappeared. The epidemic the beach thus announced
+with pink and glittering shells coincides with low night tides, which
+possibly leave the inefficiently protected animals exposed to the
+attacks of uncustomary enemies which thrive only when the muddy banks
+are exposed. The cause of the exhibition of the relics is not of so much
+concern to the unlearned observer as the relics themselves and the part
+they play in signifying the progress of the season. If strong winds
+occur during the cool months, among the wreaths of broken seaweed thrown
+on the beach may be found unbroken and fresh specimens of a singularly
+beautiful and fragile univalve known commonly and most appropriately as
+the "bubble shell" (HYDATINA PHYSIS), which when alive is a most lovely
+object, its fine spiral lines being black and faint yellow with faint
+purple edges, while the mantle is fringed with light blue intermingled
+with pale yellow. In some specimens the base colouring is fawn, the
+lines, of varying width, being brown and "comely crinkled," like the
+face of the pleasant old woman of whom a poet wrote. Such a frail shell
+is subject to many mischances before it reaches the beach, and a few
+hours of exposure to the sun tarnishes its lustre. To obtain it in
+perfection the beach must be patrolled every day during due season,
+and very rarely is the collector rewarded by the discovery of unsullied
+specimens.
+
+When the chill is out of the surface the spring-time of the sea begins.
+Vegetable life is strenuous, so that one may chance to see a lazy turtle
+bearing on its back a weedy garden. The water is alive. Miles of space
+are belted with that plant to which Captain Cook applied a significant
+name, likening it in its myriads to "sea sawdust." Some dare call it
+"whale spawn," forgetful that the whale is not a fish. Others assert it
+to be none other than the "coral insect," which does not exist save in
+the minds of those who write odes to such creatures:
+
+    "Ye build, ye build, but ye enter not in,
+    Like the tribes whom the desert devoured in their sin."
+
+It consists of minute vegetation in bundles, to be individualised under
+a strong microscope, though when countless billions drift on to the
+beaches and die and become green and grey with corruption, the fumes are
+by no means in proportion to the marvellous littleness of the individual
+plants. Then we know by the organs of scent and sight that August has
+come. The beaches are foul. The breakers roll in unbroken or with a
+muddy, froth, for the scum acts as oil, calming even troubled water.
+
+The Red Sea is said by some authorities to derive its title from the
+scum formed by this plant (TRICHODESMIUM ERYTHRAEUM), which is strongly
+impregnated with iodine. It emits a most disagreeable odour and exhales
+a gas which affects the mucous membrane, causing in some individuals
+sneezing and inflammation of the eyes. One amateur fisherman of
+considerable experience and by no means susceptible to intangible
+irritations, and not to be diverted from his sport by trifles, has
+frequently been compelled to move from a favourite ground by a stream of
+the scum drifting to his anchored boat. The fumes gave intense smartness
+to the eyes, which were relieved by a gush of tears, but keen discomfort
+recurred when the tears were wiped away.
+
+Following the least desirable of marine phenomena is that which is known
+as the "blanket weed," which floats ashore in loathsome blobs, a hand's
+breadth and more, the centre a grey, solidified slime, with a periphery
+of long, dull green, slimy, shapeless fringes Individual plants coalesce
+on the sand and, mingling with other weeds, cover respectable beaches
+with a woolly, compact mass not unlike a rough, thick blanket, but
+teeming with unpleasantnesses. Isolated plants cling to ropes, which
+become garlanded with thickened slime, from which evil-smelling mud
+oozes. Offensive to man afloat and ashore, the "blanket weed" is a
+luxury to mullet and garfish, for during its period both may be seen
+in shoals skimming the surface of the sea in abandonment of habitual
+shyness, and the stomachs of both are found to be full of the
+greenish-grey slime. With the compliance of the sun the impurity
+disappears, giving place to the graceful weed of vivid green that
+attaches itself to dead and whitened shells and fingers of coral covered
+at low water. Every flood-tide deposits a zone of shells splashed
+with green, while the shallows glow as a field of rich pasturage. In
+favourable situations, such as the upper part of a long immersed log,
+coated to the water-line with goose barnacles, the plant grows long and
+luxuriantly, falling on each side like a silken mantle.
+
+One other season, ephemeral but universal, do the babbling but
+truth-telling beaches record. No rocky cove, no smooth strand, no
+rubbish-accumulating creek, no mangrove-fringed islet, no coral
+esplanade white under the tropic sun, no sand-bank with crest of
+windshaken bush, is free. It is Christmas. Christian and pagan alike
+tell it to the sea, and the sea tells it to the beaches in--corks.
+
+Though there are grounds for the belief that some molluscs are seasonal
+in their appearances and disappearances, the majority are always with
+us, though subject to many casualties. A few months since an epidemic
+broke out among a certain species of sea urchins (Echinus), spherical
+animals with shells thickly set with spines, keen and exceedingly
+brittle. The beaches were strewn with thousands of the dead, no apparent
+exterior injury having been suffered. The particular species afflicted
+gathers to itself, seemingly as a disguise, but perhaps as ballast, the
+dead shells of cockles, which are retained by the spines. It was noticed
+that the dead were not encumbered.
+
+A curious and one of the rarest of local shells is that known as the
+elephant's tusk (DENTALIUM APTINUM). Pure white and slightly fluted
+longitudinally, it typifies the marvellous extent of Nature's
+requirements and her fertility in design. It is especially interesting
+to note that the existence of the species in Australian waters has not
+hitherto been recorded, the nearest known locality being the Moluccas.
+
+The DRUPA RICINUS (so specifically called because of resemblance to
+the prickly seeds of the castor-oil plant) has another feature almost
+unique--two ivory-white projections in the mouth, singularly like a
+baby's teeth. In the waters of Florida is a distinct curiosity in the
+form of an altogether different mollusc which is commonly known as the
+"bleeding-tooth shell," the gory stains about the base of the tooth
+being highly significant. The local example of the whimsicality of
+Nature owes its excellence to absolute purity. No fond mother crooning
+to her first-born ever looked on budding teeth more delightful in
+modelling and pearliness.
+
+CHAMA LAXARUS belongs to the same family as the clams, the largest of
+living molluscs, its specific title being an allusion to the tattered
+raiment of the beggar of the most edifying of parables. Occasionally the
+china-white upper valve is decorated with a broad streak of buff. Some
+of the genera are attached to coral or rock indifferently by
+either valve, and it is exceptional to find on the beach a perfect
+specimen--that is, the valves united. Since on the reef the shells are
+frequently protectively disguised with seaweed and other growth, it is
+only after the violence of a cyclone that the amateur collector expects
+to be rewarded.
+
+Unlike some others of the family, the cockscomb oyster, though not
+objecting to the near-by presence of its kind, seems to hate a crowd.
+Half a dozen may occupy separate areas on a rock, and solitary specimens
+lie embedded and strongly anchored in the sand. A typical example may
+weigh over seven pounds. So big and weighty a shell can scarcely
+be sensible of its invariable burden of parasites and other
+encumbrances--but the variety of such tenants never fails to excite
+curiosity. That which is illustrated accommodated another oyster of
+delicate texture, a thorny clam (which has the reputation of being
+poisonous), a mass of seaweed, a serpentine mollusc, two species of
+coral--the red organ-pipe and a mushroom--three burrowing crabs, besides
+a number of smaller animals, fixed and mobile, in addition to the
+congregation of less obvious life critical examination would undoubtedly
+have revealed.
+
+Most species of univalves are wanderers, many bivalves are free,
+and multivalves become fixed at an early stage of existence. The
+goose-necked barnacle, with its five valves, comes in its myriads
+attached to derelict coco-nuts, floating logs, and pumice-stone. The
+species owes its name to the fabulous belief that it was the preliminary
+state of the barnacle goose of the Arctic regions, the filaments
+representing the plumage and the valves the wings. It has been found on
+shells, whales, turtles, and marine snakes.
+
+In the mud close to the edge of the beach sand one of the most singular
+of marine animals exists, and often its empty, horny, flexible,
+semi-transparent shell, always tinted green, may be found. It is known
+in some works as LINGULA ANATINA, and by the natives of this Isle, by
+whom a certain part of it is eaten, as "Mill-ar-ing." A pinhole in the
+mud indicates the presence of the animal, and the hungry black boy,
+thrusting his hand with outspread fingers below it, closes the fingers
+and withdraws anything but an inviting morsel. To the tongue-shaped
+shell is attached a pedicle or stalk, attaining a length of ten inches,
+opaque and tough, which is broken off, seared over the fire, and eaten
+with apparent relish. It is remarkable that in localities in which this
+mollusc is found a seaweed occurs similar in shape and size, the chief
+difference in appearance being in the length of the stalk, which in the
+plant is thin and membranous.
+
+The Phorous, or carrier, otherwise the mineralogist, is remarkable for
+its extraordinary habit of cementing to its exterior stones of irregular
+size, and in some cases dead shells of other species, an office
+performed by the use of an exceptionally long tongue. Its movements are
+said to be very clumsy and erratic, as if its self-imposed burden was
+too cumbersome for its strength. Personal observation fails to verify
+its staggering gait, for dead specimens only have been found. The
+stones are, no doubt, designedly acquired as a disguise and so represent
+another form of life insurance. When stationary the mineralogist
+successfully baffles observation; but some day, peradventure, in a
+moment of preoccupation, it will reveal itself lurching along over the
+rough country it favours. How few living things escape the "penalties of
+Adam." Some bear sorrows, some stones.
+
+Among the fixed molluscs are what is known as the winged shells, to
+which the "pearl oysters" belong. The name is apt, for the expanded
+valves are not unlike the form of a bird in flight. The illustration
+shows a rare species, several specimens of which were found attached to
+the mooring-chain of a buoy by what is known as the "byssus," a bunch
+of tough fibres which passes through an hiatus in the margins of the
+valves. Like the king's daughter of the Psalmist, PTERIA PEASEI is "all
+glorious within," the nacreous surface, margined with lustrous black,
+shining like silver with a tinge of blue.
+
+Only a very small proportion of the species of shells to be found on the
+shore of this bay have been enumerated. In a work of general character a
+complete commentary on any particular branch of natural science would
+be out of place, nor is it competent for one who has but a trifling
+knowledge of a special subject to deal with it in an enlightening
+manner. It would be highly interesting to ascertain by study and
+observation why the denizens of so many parts of the ocean meet in
+community in such a narrow space, though it may not be very difficult to
+present a fairly satisfactory theory for the continuous presence of
+many species by reference to existing features and prevalent conditions.
+Within the area of the bay the water varies in depth from a few feet to
+four fathoms, the rise and fall of the tide being about two fathoms. The
+fringing coral reef represents all stages of development and decay--live
+growth on the outer edge, ever encroaching on the deeper water, and
+comprising many varieties; dying masses on the shore-side, and a
+considerable extent of dead and denuded relics lying in mud. There are
+also weedy patches, bare sand-banks of limited extent, uncovered at low
+water, and muddy depressions both in the deep and shallow portions and
+clean sand. Strong currents race past the sand-spit and across the bay,
+carrying, no doubt, continual supplies of spat from elsewhere to settle
+in quiet places. No one who has lived on the margin of the tropic sea
+can be astounded at its prolific life, though it may be a matter of
+unceasing wonder that along a beach not more than four hundred yards
+in extent should be found shells representative of species existing in
+nearly all the warm waters of the world.
+
+And there are other isles with other beaches. One may present a narrow
+strip of soft sand, cringing and squeaking under foot, almost entirely
+composed of finely ground coral and shells, among which polished
+fragments of red coral are to the beach-comber as the "colours" the gold
+fossicker may find in his dish--prospective of reward. They reinspire
+the like fervour which leads to the discovery of mountains as well as
+microbes, for may they not signify the existence within the bounds of
+the Great Barrier Reef of the precious coral of the Mediterranean and
+the Red Sea? Above such hopeful sands lies a band formed of stag's-horn
+coral, bleached snow-white, each time lying at right angles to the sea,
+and higher up on the strand are blocks and lumps of weather-stained
+coral among which vegetation is springing. A few yards further back
+stands a group of Pandanus palms, the van of the dense and intricate
+jungle covering rock and ridge.
+
+The shore of the sister islet may at the moment be but series of steeply
+shelving banks of coral debris, to the base of the granite ramparts over
+which the luxuriant foliage falls.
+
+Each islet has its distinguishing features, each beach its budget of
+news for ears attuned to "small measures," each its display of seemly
+things--the sweepings of the floor of the sea.
+
+
+
+
+THE LOST ISLE
+
+
+
+"Some unsuspected Isle in far-off seas."
+
+                               BROWNING.
+
+
+In a region of rare serenity it lay--a blue stud on a silver
+shield--aloof from other lands--unmapped, untarnished, pure, gleaming in
+the dawn of exultant day.
+
+Emblem of perfection, its charms were imperative, partly because of
+remoteness from the taint of man-trodden land, mainly because, by right
+of discovery, it was joyfully mine. Could anything be more desirable
+than such a blending of jungle-clad mountains, verdurous hills,
+sheltered valleys, orange-tinted beaches, with the shadows of white
+headlands staining the sea purple?
+
+An all-comprehending glance revealed the Isle in the shape of a
+five-rayed star, each ray irregularly serrated. Here was promise of many
+a landlocked cove to which the breathings of the sea would be foreign.
+Unsalted streams wound among the foothills of the central mountain,
+whence a spire of rose-red porphyry shot into the luminous sky from
+unbroken jungle, the superficies of which were soft and brilliant as
+sodden moss.
+
+Some of the valleys showed in succession ever-green, flower-bedecked
+glades, with great trees and blossoming shrubs in scattered clumps and
+patches, among which sinuous ribbons of jungle denoted the courses of
+deep hidden streams. Others were merely precipitous depressions in the
+unbroken mass of foliage, variegated with aspiring palms so slender of
+shaft that their unceasing swaying in the still air seemed an act of
+unconscious affectation for the display of huge bunches of gaudy fruit,
+seductive and dulcet to the taste. Spider-webbed tree-ferns with
+furry, water-bespangled trunks stood in crowded groves on the brink of
+spray-creating cascades and along the margins of cool rivulets which
+murmured as they hurried to the sea.
+
+Water-dripping moss padded the lintels of grottos, before which dangled
+translucent ferns of delicate form, yet so rich and intense with
+life that crozier-tipped fronds took the hue of flowers--coral-red,
+golden-bronze, and yellow; while golden dust clung to hairy undersides
+like pollen to the thighs of hive-returning bees. Deep in perpetual
+shadow lived a shy plant with heart-shaped leaves, so succulent and
+distended as to resemble green capsules, and in association with each
+leaf was a single semi-transparent fruit, pink with a central glow
+like the fire of opal, but so frail that upon touch it resolved into a
+dewdrop which glistened, trembled, and was gone in a moment.
+
+In the full blaze, feather-foliaged trees crowned with gigantic red
+blossoms offered as a sacrifice fruit which blushed before the insistent
+gaze of the sun; while beneath this gay canopy vine and creeper and
+pliant shrub wove an undergarment which screened the moist earth and
+created a realm of subdued light in which all the flowers were pale of
+tint and tremulously fragile, though of almost forbidding magnitude of
+form.
+
+Birds of painted plumage and loud and sonorous note sang and fluttered
+among the flowers and fruit with no ill thing to disturb them, no
+dissonance to compel them to silence and fear.
+
+Whithersoever I gazed, the lone and lovely Isle denoted a paradise of
+unkempt vegetation, unfeared birds. No stump was there to betray
+the passing of the devastating axe. No footprint except that of
+birds--erratic, rectangular, scribbling--dented the sand. No human being
+had ever visited those groves perfumed by orchids, gauzy as the wings of
+the butterflies which poised over them and sipped the nectar stored in
+their slender throats.
+
+Each bay and inlet and cove differed in delightsomeness. Unsoiled,
+weedless sand littered with shells floored this deep and sheltered nook,
+where shadow and substance blended to the complete deceit of the closest
+scrutiny. The next was as a garden of shrubs with living blossoms and
+fruit in strange shapes and gaudy colours. Many of the subaqueous plants
+expanded and retracted their blossoms harmoniously, as if to the strains
+of music audible only to the mute denizens of the sea--a measured,
+waving dance, fantastic and wondrously beautiful. Crystalline clearness
+magnified the detail of the next, the portals of which were coral, dyed
+extravagantly and variously according to the secret of the sea, with its
+inexhaustible chemicals. Fish in unimaginable shapes, fantastic hues,
+and sea-things harmless and educative to the sight, roamed the coral
+gardens, retiring at will into sapphire-blue caverns or flashing in
+the clearness with lightning speed and scarce visible effort. Cream
+and yellow, old gold, blue, pink and lavender, the corals flourished in
+myriad shapes. Anemones, large as plates, royal blue and greyish-green,
+and each bristling with thousands of independent activities, embossed
+snow-white blocks.
+
+Opening out into an oval basin, the inlet was again constricted, the
+bottle-neck entrance to a perfect haven being guarded by huge masses of
+limestone, weathered grotesquely, from the crevices of which sprays
+of peach-coloured orchids quivered, while the flora of land and sea
+commingled on the lustrous surface. Beyond again, the inlet wound round
+the base of it cliff vocal with the fugue of birds which flew from
+flowery parapet to flowery parapet.
+
+
+Gradually the cliffs retreated, leaving fair banks with shrubs and great
+trees with branches pendulous over unbroken placidity, and there, on
+a knoll, stood a palm, rigid and straight as a column, crowned with
+shimmering fronds which shielded masses of nuts, brown and green,
+and great sprays of straw-coloured infloresence. More palms beyond,
+thick-set; and beyond again an avenue in perfect alignment, each tree
+perfect in stately form, with one blotch of glorious purple--as high and
+compact as a church--to block the diminished distance.
+
+The boat drifted to the landing never touched by foot of man. Lost in
+admiration of the imposing and manifold perfections of the Isle, eager
+to wander at will among those enticing glades, and to make festival with
+their genial gods, I stepped out--and into nothingness!
+
+Can it be that never again shall be discovered in the Land of Dreams the
+Lost Isle?
+
+
+
+
+
+PART II.--THE PASSING FACE
+
+
+
+THE CORROBOREE
+
+
+"No ceremony that to great ones 'longs."
+
+                            SHAKESPEARE.
+
+
+Summoned, invited, children, men, women, and piccaninnies assembled to
+participate in the duties and recreations of the moment.
+
+Message-sticks had been carried into unfamiliar country by nervous boys.
+One of the organisers at ease with his pen sent to his kin formal and
+official invitations mingled with social and affectionate greetings. All
+responded.
+
+The beach sent its silent-footed contingents trailing along the yellow
+sands, carrying in well-worn dilly-bags oysters and scraps of half-baked
+fish smeared with smoke, and gritty. All their lives had they trudged
+along the convenient margin of the sea, where the receding tide leaves
+a firm, level, springy track. They were familiar with all its moods, and
+took little heed of any.
+
+The fame of a previous Parliament had spread far and wide, even to that
+aspect of the Dividing Range which sends its waters to the great shallow
+gulf to the west. Natives who, though living among the mountains but two
+days' journey from the coast, had never seen the sea, hastened thither
+in bee-line, passing through unknown but not unfriendly country. Though
+the age of tribal feuds was past, special weapons of defence were
+carried, for did not strange jungles teem with spectral denizens whom
+imagination endowed with appalling shape, with cunning, and with rending
+ferocity? Unmolested, the party arrived one evening, to gaze with
+mute astonishment on the sea. It was almost as incomprehensible, and
+therefore almost as fearsome, as the phantoms of the bush. Mysterious,
+vast beyond the range of vision, here grumbling on the sand, there
+mingling with the sky, the strangers peered at it through the screen
+of whimpering casuarinas and trembled. The rustle of the subsiding
+north-easter made for fear. They told one another that the big salt
+water was alive. It talked in austere tones, while their own sleepy
+lagoons were silent and tame. Wonderingly, they retreated to the jungle
+for the night, there to take counsel of the long-shoremen.
+
+"That b-i-g fella salt water, him talk all asame?"
+
+"Yowi! Him sing out plenty. Mak'm b-i-g fella row!"
+
+"That fella him walk about lika that?"
+
+"Yowi! Him walk about. Quiet little bit. Sometime run about splash'm
+water; mak'm boat capsize. Plenty men drown finis!"
+
+The strangers shivered and longed to return to their cool hills; but the
+long-shoremen beguiled them with descriptions of the fish and the crabs
+and oysters the generous sea gave, and told that in the morning it would
+be "quiet fella" and that they need not be afraid.
+
+With taut-strung nerves, the highlanders approached the sea, which shone
+in matutinal placidity. When the ripples wavered on the smooth sand and
+ran in caressing ripples towards their feet, they started and shrunk.
+The incomprehensible ocean was alive and much to be feared, for was it
+not so big that no one could see where it ended? They sat and watched
+its enticing gestures, and, gathering courage, stood tremulously while
+the tide splashed their feet and retreated. The boldest walked in
+ankle-deep and danced in daredevilry, and soon young and old were
+gambolling uncouthly, tasting the sea's quality, shouting and splashing.
+None ventured more than knee-deep; some crawled and wallowed in the wet
+sand, too fearful to trust their lives to so big a thing which showed
+itself to be alive by breathing and moving. The morning was spent in
+moist frolics, and when the north-easter began to work up a little sea,
+which spoke in menacing tones, the terrified strangers withdrew.
+
+Late in the afternoon the corroboree began, many of the participators
+having spent hours in the assumption of the festive costume of the down
+of sulphur-crested cockatoos plastered to the skin with grease and
+the blood. It is not to be supposed that white down in the hands
+of experienced dressers is incapable of variation in style. Several
+original designs excited the approbation of spectators. The down was
+arranged in tufts following the perpendiculars of the body from shoulder
+to shin, or in a series of circles accurately spaced, or in intersecting
+spirals, while the heads of all performers and combatants were converted
+into white mops.
+
+And with the clapping of hollowed hands and the clicking of boomerangs
+the function began. And having danced to their own satisfaction and the
+delight of the crowd, the warriors with ostentation and bluster recited
+private grievances and challenged those against whom they had real or
+fancied wrongs to combat. Most of the noisy declamation was ill-founded.
+The many had no grievances and no intentions of fighting, but out of the
+shouting crowd stepped two big men who sought compensation for "another
+Helen." Though not lovely or winsome or an heiress, she sufficed as the
+motive for an honourable and public strife, quite as sincere as many
+of the scuffles without the walls of Troy. Spears and boomerangs were
+thrown viciously and dodged and evaded skilfully until one of the men
+found a boomerang sticking fast in his leg. The wound was decisive, and
+with much hullabaloo the defeated warrior limped away, while the lady,
+whom niggardly Nature had denied the grace of blushing, passively went
+to the victor.
+
+Among the strangers to the coast was an old man but a yard and a
+quarter high, with unkempt, grisly beard, a head which needed not the
+glorification of cockatoo's down, long, thin arms, huge hands, thick,
+stump legs, and sprawling feet. No far-reaching crab of the reef just
+showing its worn brown tusks off-shore was more grotesque of mien and
+gait. To emphasise his malignant mood, he carried a huge boomerang,
+which seemed to obey and embody his whims. It sprang from his powerful
+hands in resolute and impetuous flight, whirred threateningly overhead,
+and returned to foot, fluttering and purring, as if endowed with
+affection for its unlovable master. None so mastered the missile; but
+for all his weird influence over it, he was subject to the restraints of
+another weapon which seldom left his hands. Is there not a spiritual
+law which imposes checks on the bombastic tricks of crude and cultured
+alike, or was it by force of gravity that the point of the dwarf's
+long and slender spear dipped into the ground, punctuating mock martial
+struts with perverse irregularity? Prodigious in his own estimation, his
+jibes and taunts were almost as terrifying as the erratic flights of his
+boomerang; for the dwarf was a privileged individual, the Thersites
+of the campaign, and with one advantage over his prototype--he really
+wanted to fight. So he swaggered, heeding not the reproving spear; he
+fumed; he mocked; for no warrior affected to notice his vainglorious
+absurdities. He was as much in earnest as those who fought on account
+of elemental love, and far more so than any of the blusterers who talked
+big and looked small. He longed to fight, and for money.
+
+Each warrior was challenged individually, and when none responded he
+railed against all for cowards and sent the boomerang hissing defiance
+against the blue sky, to fall with mutter and thud at his feet. In his
+rage the little man became hysterical, and the more he scolded the less
+important, while the swaying spear emphasised increasing agitation,
+but brought him neither humility nor jibe, for the race does not
+intentionally relieve its drama with comedy.
+
+No more influential personage was present than "Mooty," the crafty,
+determined, plausible philosopher--the sagest of the counsellors, the
+most flowery of orators, the most weird of the wizards. Long before
+he had established his reputation as a medicine-man. A settler had
+purchased some cast-off goats in a distant town, and had employed a
+black boy of the district as assistant drover, and the name of the boy
+was Tom. Since there are many "Toms," a distinguishing surname had to
+be bestowed, so "Goat" was affixed, and as "Tom Goat" the stranger was
+known. Having no sweetheart, he made love to several dusky dames, all
+of whom rejected him because his absurd name made him a figure for
+fun. Rosey, wife of Jack, was persistently courted, and scornfully she
+despised her wooer. That individual, however, was not without malignant
+resource. Rosey complained of a sore throat, and as she got worse her
+boy became similarly afflicted. The faces and throats of both swelled
+alarmingly, so that Mooty, who had the cases in hand, gave up hope. Both
+were resigned, when Mooty, to his own horror and the dismay of everyone,
+caught the dread disease.
+
+No such illness had ever been known in the district, and since it had
+not only baffled Mooty's skill, but had irreverently seized him--the
+only physician of credit and renown--its cause must be supernatural.
+Thus did he reason, as he began occult investigations. Jack and Rosey
+lay in their camp passively dying. Mooty prowled about, the sleeves of
+a discarded shirt tied under his distended jaws. No physical origin
+for the mysterious disease was found during the two days he devoted to
+methodic search and secret rite. Then an anticipated discovery rewarded
+him and made his name thrill among his race. To a condescending white
+man he told of his skill in these terms:
+
+"Two fella him close up finis. Me bin look out camp belonga two fella.
+B'mbi me bin find'm little fella fork stick close up alonga groun'. Me
+frait. My word, me bin pick'm up easy fella. Me look out longa little
+fella hole. Me bin see hair, too much, belonga Tom Goat. That hair bin
+mak'm two fella no good. Him mak'm me fella no good. Me catch'm that
+fella hair along two fella stick. Tchuck'm along ribber. My word! That
+fella hair no good! Him go phuff! Kill'm fish, too many. B'mbi me fella
+go alonga camp. Me tell'm two fella, 'You no more mak'm die. Me bin
+find'm that fella hair belonga Tom Goat.' B'mbi two fella him get up;
+him no more die; he walk about."
+
+Exasperated by such impropriety, aghast at the consequences,
+Mooty--doctor alike of laws, of science, and of medicine, and a man of
+imperative mood--sharpened his tomahawk at the Chinaman's grindstone,
+theatrically testing its edge with distorted thumb. Tom Goat disappeared
+as silently as last night's dew, for Mooty does not hesitate to
+summarily administer his own judgment when his professions are scorned,
+his family bewitched, his countenance distorted with mumps.
+
+With feasting and fighting, with dancing and storytelling, quarrelling
+and reconciliations, the assemblage spent a happy week. Then the jungle
+reabsorbed the nervous hillmen, and beach-combers straggled along the
+yellow sands.
+
+
+
+
+THE CANOE-MAKER
+
+
+
+"Last scene of all, . . . Is second childishness and mere oblivion."
+
+                              SHAKESPEARE.
+
+
+A tottering old man, frail alike in frame and mind, squats dying in an
+alien camp. His teeth have almost disappeared, worn to the gums by
+the mastication of food in which sand has been mingled in immoderate
+proportion. All his life has been spent on the verge of the sea. He has
+never known smooth food. Before he left his mother's breast grit was on
+his lips, for in her sleep she snoodled naked in the sand. Hers was the
+age of bark rugs or none, and was ever lord of the beach who shared with
+his lady so rare a comfort?
+
+Counterparts of Cassowary's babyhood are extant to this
+day--milk-bellied, nose-neglected, fumbling-fingered toddlers, who
+smash with stones almost beyond their strength infant oysters and gulp a
+mixture of squash and sand.
+
+As he grew up his food, seared on a fire on the beach, was always more
+or less gritty. Possibly it would hardly have been relished if the
+accustomed condiment had been absent.
+
+For many a long year Cassowary was a sort of king in the locality of his
+birth, though this rank brought him no isolation. Now he is without rank
+and grim in his lonesomeness. True to the sentiments of his race, the
+men and women who knew him when he was strong and lusty strive to make
+him comfortable in his dotage; but he is repellent. His surliness does
+not vex them. They pity and excuse and endeavour to soothe. To strangers
+whom Cassowary has never loved and would now assault with spear and
+nulla-nulla, they apologise.
+
+"Poor fella, Cassowary. Him no good. Close up that fella finis."
+
+Then they tell of his strange fantasies. Similar delusions have
+afflicted notable men of the world, and even to this day are there not
+apprehensive monarchs whose precautions are similar to those of
+the age-worn savage? He imagines that he is regarded as a useless
+encumbrance, and that his fellows would gladly hasten his departure to
+that country on the bourne of which he painfully lingers. Suspicious of
+plots to rob him of the poor vestiges of life, he is ever on his guard
+against poison, his special dread. Rather than run risk he submits to
+semi-starvation, for the decayed monarch of a narrow strip of shore
+has no servitor on whom to impose the office of taster of his dishes. A
+stranger may of his goodwill offer a tribute of tobacco. It is cast away
+with every manifestation of indignation and haste. He is sure that the
+one solace of existence has been drugged, and that if he indulges he
+must die. How marvellous the self-denial! How many of us would purchase
+half an hour's existence such as his at the cost of declining the one
+luxury of life!
+
+Flour from his master's hands is served like the stranger's tobacco,
+though he may not have tasted food for days; nor does he accept a
+portion of the damper cooked in his presence until he has seen others
+eat. Then he feeds reluctantly and with extreme caution, not to gratify
+the palate, but to maintain life.
+
+Was ever monarch or Roman pontiff beset by more vindictive and envious
+foes than this helpless old savage who possesses nothing save a grimy
+shirt and the fragments of a blanket?
+
+Cassowary, an old man when I first met him, was of the sort which does
+not make friends with white men. Silent, resolute, reserved, a man
+apart, he disdained the race-shattering language his fellows hastened
+to acquire. His pidgin English, limited to a few words, was almost as
+unintelligible as his own rude tongue. Once I landed on the beach which
+was his favourite resort, and as the anchor slipped into the sea, smoke
+puffed and drifted from the camp and the lonesome man's dogs barked; but
+by the time the camp was reached the smell of the fire had gone, and all
+tracks had been obliterated as if by the efficient touch of the wind.
+The heat of the sand at the entrance of the dome-shaped humpy revealed
+the site of the covered embers, and the rest was silence.
+
+At the back of the humpy, concealed by carelessly disposed bark and
+grass, was a bark canoe which Cassowary, fisherman and oyster-eater,
+was never without. In those days he deserved the reputation of being an
+unrivalled maker of canoes which, during the first few weeks of their
+prime, were sound, neat of appearance, quite seaworthy, though of small
+dimensions and exceedingly light. Others might be expert fishermen and
+skilful in more exacting sport of turtle and dugong catching, but all
+acknowledged his special superiority. Though custom had made him a king,
+Nature had designed him for a canoe-maker, while with that invincible
+irony with which she rebukes the self-esteem and baffles the ambitions
+of mortals, she discounted her gift by the bestowal of frank distrust
+of the sea. He was so impelled to the exercise of the one talent that
+during youth and manhood his chief occupation and never-ending delight
+lay therein. That which his right hand had found to do he did with
+all his might, his frail craft being the admiration of all, while the
+confidence with which others managed them proved their quality. They
+toyed with the sea in its placid moods, and were deferential in its
+ill-humour. But Cassowary never ventured beyond easy hail from the
+shore, however urgent the occasion or propitious the day.
+
+Fear also restricted his wanderings in the bush, which kept him within
+sound of the dreaded waves. He was an unaffected beach-comber. Neither
+the food-bestowing sea nor the safe dry land was for him.
+
+By instinct he seemed to be guided to the best trees for bark, generally
+selecting "gulgong," though others were equally pliant in his hands. Raw
+from the tree, he would soak the single sheet in water, and while sodden
+steam it over a smoky fire, and, as it softened, mould it with hand
+and knee. Bringing the edges of the end designed for the stem into
+apposition, using a device on the principle of the harness-maker's
+clamp, he sewed them together with strips of freshly cut cane.
+Two stretchers gave to the craft beam, and the necessary sheer and
+thwart-ship stays of twisted cane stiffness. Gunwales of cane were
+sewn on, the stitches being cemented with gum made plastic by frequent
+renderings over the fire on a flat stone, and then the canoe was
+complete save for the hand-paddles, spoon-bowl-shaped pieces of bark.
+
+Each canoe sat well down by the stern when the fisherman knelt in it,
+crouching forward like a jockey on the withers of his mount, and sending
+it along by the alternate strokes.
+
+Cassowary was wont to scan each new work with the tilted head of an
+artist. All the stitches were regularly spaced, and since they were
+burnished with smoke, the canoe became a study in brown, braided with
+gold, representative of something more than a means towards earning
+a diet of fish, and inevitable grit. It was neat and of harmonious
+colouring; innocent of the least touch of finery; not a scratch expended
+on ornament. All its lines, save those of the stretchers and stays
+which stood for rigidity, were fluent. It was not made to model or
+measurement, but developed under the maker's hard hands and tough
+fingers--a tribute to his artistry and skill. On the water it was as
+blithe as a bubble.
+
+Often had the wish to possess one of Cassowary's masterpieces arisen.
+He scorned barter by abandoning his property whenever the interferer
+appeared. When the camp was deserted while the boat was being brought
+to anchor there was a strong temptation to take the canoe, leaving some
+adequate reward. The self-denial is almost regretted, for the old
+man with the thin white tuft on his chin, his shyness, his hatred of
+strangers, and delusions of his decrepitude, are characteristic of an
+age soon to be of the irrecoverable past. A canoe from such accomplished
+hands would have represented a complimentary record of a race deficient
+in the elements of history.
+
+Several years have elapsed since Cassowary made his last canoe. He
+acknowledged that his fingers had lost their cunning, but the fates
+ordained that his ideas should blossom as his manipulatory skill
+withered Gradually he became feeble in mind and body, and was wont to
+spend his time crouched in a rough shelter dreaming prodigious dreams.
+He would wake not only his fellows, but a pitying neighbour of other
+complexion, with enthusiastic shouts announcing that a "big fella
+steamer" was whistling out at sea; that it was his steamer; that it
+carried two bags of flour, and tea and sugar and tobacco, and one
+"good fella trousis"; and he would demand help in the landing of his
+merchandise. Worn with age, sleep would soon again claim him, but never
+and anon his great cry, hailing the phantom steamer with her beneficent
+cargo, would wake the poor and squalid camp.
+
+The time came when Cassowary could no longer obtain for himself the
+coarse and trivial food essential to life, and he and another outcast,
+blind and maimed, quartered themselves on the camp on the beach; arid
+in spite of fretfulnesses and suspicions, their fellows administered
+to their wants. Being brought face to face with facts, the State gave
+orders which meant an old-age pension for the outcasts. The dole was
+liberal enough. The mistake was that it came too late.
+
+There was no reaction, as is oft the case with those who retire after
+the bustling phase to live on the bounty of the State, for Cassowary and
+his blind companion had never been strenuous workers or brain-compelling
+men. The pension represented unexampled abundance. It was real, and yet
+it came from a source almost as intangible as Cassowary's ship. Food
+and tobacco! What more could the heart of a casual relic of such a race
+want? Actually he wanted nothing more, save, peradventure, a blanket;
+but he dreamt he did, and no earthly agent could diminish the festal
+extravagance of the scenes among which he revelled, conducted by the
+enchanted sleep.
+
+Cassowary had at last come to his kingdom. His time had always been his
+own. The ready-to-hand food gave him leisure. His days were all dreams.
+Weary of crouching over the fire before the opening of his humpy, he
+began to wander in the flesh as he was wont to wander in mind. He was
+seen a mile away from the cheerless camp, where his companions, with
+smoke-dried eyes, lamented his absence.
+
+Was he searching for a tree which might provide bark for yet another
+canoe--his last work, a paragon? A few days passed and it became known
+that Cassowary was missing. His shrunken body disordered a patch of buff
+sand just above high water.
+
+Had the desolate old man, in his fancy, made the best of all canoes, and
+for once ventured out to sea?
+
+
+
+
+TWO LADIES
+
+
+
+"To one, resolution; to another, a disposition to dance."
+
+
+NELLY, THE SHREW.
+
+
+As the steamer from the South enters the bay, the traveller sees ahead
+the fringe of houses on the low lands fronting the inlet where shipping
+finds safe and convenient harbourage. To the left he may be introduced
+to a strip of open beach between two low points of grey granite, back
+from which are scattered groups of modest buildings and huts which form
+the aboriginal settlement. The choice of the site for the settlement
+was influenced by the character of the country. Although but a short
+distance by sea from the port, it is isolated by its background of hard
+and inhospitable hills patched with almost impenetrable jungle. Few
+consigned there ever leave of their own motive, however earnest the
+longing may be. The home-sick realise that escape is difficult and, if
+successful, futile, for are not the police everywhere, and strong and
+compelling? Why undertake the unknown perils of unknown hills--spiritual
+perils more to be dreaded than physical--when capture and again
+banishment are certain?
+
+Nellie Oongle-bi, among whose matrimonial experiences was Tom, of this
+Isle, and who since his death has gone from bad to worse, had been
+found under the protection of a coloured alien, sadly degenerated and
+saturated with opium. For her own salvation she was transported to
+the settlement afar off, with its frontier of sea and background of
+repulsive hills. She went, being in the clutches of a superior force,
+tractably enough, but with none of her unconquerable love of country
+subdued. Nelly has nothing of an attractive nature. She has a vixenish
+temper at times; is always on the alert for fancied slights; is by no
+means cleanly, unless under duress; and does not hesitate to foment
+subjects of quarrel. Few among her relations and friends would mourn her
+exile. Even her own son, Jim, was scoffingly indifferent. She was far
+from being so, but played her part well, being obedient, quite tame, and
+ever observant.
+
+She "sat down" at the settlement, and made friends with two or three of
+the women there with whom she had previously been acquainted; but while
+she talked with apparent resignation, she scanned the hills, especially
+fixing in her mind a particular gully which leads up to a ridge
+promising an outlook to the south, upon which her hopes were fixed.
+Soon after dark on the second night she took to the bush, carrying
+a dilly-bag and a blanket. She is now one of the population of a
+far-distant settlement, the site of which happens to be within her
+own country. How she overcame the distance without food, friends, or
+resources, has to be told, though not altogether in her own language,
+for such would be unintelligible to the ordinary reader.
+
+She was determined to run away as soon as the steamer landed her, for
+that part of the North was not her country, and she could not live
+anywhere else. Besides, she was "sorry belonga that boy Jim." During the
+first night of her homeward pilgrimage she never ceased walking among
+rocks and through the scrub, for she was fearful of being recaptured.
+Without pause she clambered on until well into the next day, when she
+slept for a little while. Then on again until dark. One big "mung-um"
+(mountain) stood in the hopeful direction. Thitherwards she hastened,
+losing count of the days and nights. Nelly has no conception of figures
+beyond one, two, and a great many. The climbing of the mountain
+occupied many days. She was bewildered, for she could not "catch'm
+that sal'water" which would lead her home. At last from a spur of the
+mountain she saw the sea--"L-o-n-g way. Too far. Me close up sing out."
+Though she might cry, the sight of big salt water beside which all her
+life had been spent was a joy and a stimulant. Pushing and worming her
+way through the jungle, she encountered nothing but birds, wallabies,
+and snakes.
+
+Once she was startled by what seemed to be a worn narrow track.
+Advancing cautiously along it, she came across a huge carpet snake
+coiled "all a same rope alonga boat." It was asleep where an opening in
+the roof of vegetation made a patch of sunlight on the jungle floor, and
+she passed by, treading noiselessly. For food she had the fruits of the
+jungle, crude, harsh, and bitter. Food, indeed, was almost repugnant,
+for her thoughts were concentrated on her country, so she hastened down
+towards the now hidden sea. Far inland she heard its welcome noise--a
+greeting and a call from home which made her forgetful of all weariness
+and fret.
+
+In course of time--a weak woman carrying a blanket and living on
+innutritious foods does not struggle through jungle at any remarkable
+speed--the foothills and then the low-lying country at the junction
+of two rivers were reached. Here she took off her few and bedraggled
+garments, and, making them into a bundle with her blanket and bag, waded
+through swamps, eventually emerging on a sandy beach, which she intended
+to follow until she regained her country, many a weary mile to the
+south. Providence provided an easy means of crossing the estuary of the
+rivers--a kindly white man, owner of a "little fella boat, little fella
+ingin." To him she told the story of her escape and her longing for her
+own country and her own people, and was ferried across. Then she picked
+up a camp of her race, the members of which, sympathising with her,
+accompanied her on her way for a couple of days. One day she woke from
+her sleep on the edge of the mangroves with her blanket sopping with
+blood which had flowed from her mouth and nose during sleep. "Me bin
+sorry belonga that boy Jim. Me bin sorry belonga country. That 'nother
+country no good belonga me. Me think me die. Me walk alonga sandy beach.
+Some time alonga b-i-g fella rock. Me close up tumble down altogether.
+Me tired. B'mbi catch'm Liberfool Crik (Liverpool Creek). Plenty fella
+sit down. He bin sing out, 'Hello! You come back from that place?' Me
+bin say 'Yes; that country no good belonga me.'"
+
+A month or so after Nelly was again found in the service of a coloured
+alien, tugging away with another weak gin at what she calls a "two-fella
+saw." For her task of sleeper-cutting her reward would probably be a
+handful of rice and a dose of opium per day.
+
+Nelly is now at her leisure within a mile or so from the place of
+her birth, hardly conscious of the feat represented by her solitary
+pilgrimage. Occasionally she has the company of her tall and indifferent
+boy. She enjoys the society of her relations, and indulges as oft as
+may be in exhilarating misunderstandings with them. Without a vehement
+squabble now and again life would be intolerably insipid. Anger,
+accompanied by fluent abuse, is to her a kind of spiritual blood-letting
+for the casement of her suddenly plethoric temperament. But such is of
+her frailty. Proof of her strength of purpose, has it not been given?
+
+
+MARIA DANCES.
+
+
+In her youth Maria gave promise of a rare condition among coastal
+blacks--tendency to width and breadth. As she grew in bulk she seemed,
+if not to decrease in stature, at least to remain stationary. Thus it
+was that her figure became perfect.
+
+If there be one feature of animal physiology more adorable than aught
+else in the eyes of the lords of the soil, it is fat--fat under any
+and every circumstance. They admire it in animals of the chase, and
+the paltry, greasy relics of a feast may be smeared over the body with
+something of the pride and gratification derivable in other and cleaner
+walks of life from perfumed powder, pink and white.
+
+Being fat and shiny as a girl, Maria had keen and ardent lovers. She was
+an adorable novelty.
+
+Blacks do not gaze into the faces of their sweethearts. They have
+never found chaste delight in the writing of woeful ballads to their
+mistress's eyebrows, or to the glorification of their snubby and
+expansive noses. If any of Maria's admirers had been lyrical, her buxom
+condition would have been the theme of their idealisations. In time she
+became the mother of children, still retaining that charming superiority
+of bulk which excited the rage of sisters whose skins did not shine,
+whose flesh did not quiver whensoever they walked, talked, or even
+smiled.
+
+No marvel that her matrimonial experiences were the comment of the camp
+and gave rise to many differences, but, since placidity and fat have
+been known among so-called civilised peoples to blend in the individual,
+Maria's demeanour called for no comment. It was not her fault, but the
+flightiness and whimsicality of Nature which had contrived to make her
+the belle of the camp. And why not enjoy the obvious admiration of the
+stalwart youths as well as the discomfort of the sisters who had not an
+ounce of irresistible fascination of which to boast.
+
+For some years the form of Maria had not waddled across accustomed
+scenes. Quite unexpectedly it loomed up as large and buoyant as ever.
+The light-hearted denizens of the camp had arranged an evening's
+entertainment. The fires burned low, the sea babbled, making
+white-skirted frolic on the hard level sand, and the piping voices of
+the honey-seeking flying foxes among the tea-trees seemed to chide
+the parrots of the day for having left so little refreshment in the
+blossoms. Behind a screen of faded blankets the warriors of the camp
+were adorning themselves with white clay and feathers and long, shaggy
+beards of bark, while the leader of the orchestra began to tune his
+boomerang and fire-hardened sticks, and his attendants to squat ready to
+drum on thighs and lap with hollowed hand in time with his refrain and
+clicking music. The fires flared up, and the band emerged with thumping
+step and emphatic grunts to illustrate the ceremonious visit of
+strangers to a camp at which the nature of the reception was in doubt.
+One individual, in chalk for the most part, advanced, half nervously,
+half anxiously, to the musician, and modestly retired, and advanced
+again and retired, until reassured, and then the crowd came forward
+whirling and grunting, and, with high-waving arms in unison and swaying
+bodies, gave token of happiness.
+
+ACT II.--The master of ceremonies carried to the front a big and rough
+sapling. The fires glowed again, the orchestra clicked and thumped, and
+a single boy in an ancient red handkerchief and chalks danced into the
+light, and, keeping time with the music, began in pantomime to fashion
+the sapling into a sword, using a fictitious shell, with which he
+scraped off imaginary bark. While absorbed in his work, his companions
+came from the screen in haste, skipping round him and mimicking all his
+actions and grunting in unison with him, while making the sand-ridge to
+quiver with intensity of tread. Presently all flopped down on haunches
+in close formation round the sword-maker, still maintaining rhythmical
+sway of body and limb, and while some held the sapling, others toiled
+strenuously towards the completion of a good and true weapon, the master
+of ceremonies encouraging and exhorting the workers until nature could
+hold out no longer, and they bounded to their feet and, with grunts
+and signs and with bodies reeking with perspiration, whirled away into
+darkness.
+
+ACT III.--Each of the noisy players came suddenly into the glare
+carrying a rotund, compact bundle, and, squatting down, began with
+grunts and sighs the great "coco-nut" act, obviously one of the
+masterpieces of the corroboree. In perfect time the sham coco-nuts
+were beaten with hands in lieu of sticks or tomahawks, while the
+accompaniment became faster and faster. Ever and anon each, still
+rocking, would peer closely at his prize to satisfy himself as to its
+quality, and forthwith continue the resonant belabouring of the shell,
+until the meat therein was available with joyous shout.
+
+ACT IV.--Most of the accumulated bark and leaves having by this time
+passed into flame and smoke, the attendants raided the nearest gunyah
+for fresh supplies of material for illumination. The big fires lit up
+the arena anew, and, marshalled by the conductor, the band rushed out
+of the darkness uttering grunts which rang a change on the monotony of
+previous vocal efforts. A masterpiece of composition, it conjured up the
+dimness of the jungle and the smell of damp vegetation. All squatted in
+a double ring, back to back. This formation was not strictly maintained,
+for each individual made half turns to right and left alternately,
+simultaneously scratching the sand with distended fingers and kicking
+vigorously until the sand ascended in the smoke-tinged glow, heads
+bowing and ducking with mechanical regularity, as the entertainers
+sought--and with conspicuous success--to portray a community of scrub
+turkeys building an incubating mound.
+
+Then it was that the favourite and belle of the camp, the fascinating
+creature whose magnificent condition bestowed privileges undreamt of
+by other ladies, became conspicuous. Her costume had evidently been
+designed for a lady not divinely tall, but considerably less of flesh
+than the wearer. Maria did not actually overflow, though perilously near
+that point. Surely buttons were never designed to resist such strain.
+Coloured ladies generally sit meekly among the audience and chatter
+and maintain the drum-beats, lacking which no corroboree could be
+successful. During the intervals they may emboss pictures in the
+impressionable sand with cunning forefinger and giggle, for the subjects
+are often quaint. Maria, sure of her privileges, waddled out from the
+flame-obscuring dusk, turned an ample back upon the double ring of boys,
+and played her part as one of the giddy and industrious wild-fowls. Her
+fingers scratched the air and her feet the dust with a realism not to
+be excelled by the most gifted of the boys, while her half grunt, half
+chuckle, exactly imitative of the social garrulity of the turkey, gave
+artistic finish to a scene which would have been absolutely delusive
+if feathers had been in fashion. Maria, a fleer at mere ponderosity,
+skipped and whisked from left to right with fay-like airiness of foot
+until a thrill of delight went through the camp. The frolicsome turkeys
+scratched and scattered leaves that were not, and gobbled and clucked,
+until, panting and perspiring, all rose, and with a simultaneous
+shout scampered for the screen, while the master of ceremonies shouted
+"Finis!" The music ceased, the flames faded, and substantial Maria
+dissolved in the gloom.
+
+
+
+
+SOOSIE
+
+
+
+"No legend! Well, let us invent one."--SCOTT.
+
+
+A crinkled fist, fumbling and twisting, protruded from a rent in a
+dilapidated dilly-bag. It had done so with infinite feebleness for many
+an hour in unavailing protest against the woes and weight of life, for
+faint scratch smeared with blood denoted the friction of tender skin
+against the broken edges of the cane-made bag.
+
+A scarcely audible, inhuman wail--pathetically staccato--told of
+unceasing pain. Whomsoever the bag contained was enduring martyrdom.
+
+"That fella, him no good. Close up finis. B'mbi me plant'm along scrub."
+
+Thus spoke the pleasant-faced gin who passed with the dilly-bag along a
+narrow aisle of the jungle, intent upon ridding herself of a vexatious
+encumbrance, and at the same time performing the rite of unrighteous
+burial.
+
+Squirming in dirt was a naked infant-black, foul, and but a few days
+old.
+
+"Mother belonga that fella him dead--finis. That fella, him no good. Him
+sing out all a time. More better tchuck'm away."
+
+Frail outcast--the very scum of a blacks' camp, its repulsiveness was
+tragic. Dirt and odour sickened, yet its appeal was irresistible. That
+universal language, a human cry, which everywhere and always quickened
+the pulse, stirred pity to its depths. I seized the stained bag (it
+was a desperate deed) and, breaking down its worn sides, displayed its
+contents--a girl in all the infamy of neglect, starvation, and dirt--a
+panting mummy reeking with offence.
+
+Spreading out a handkerchief, I put the awful atom on it gingerly, while
+the foster-mother reiterated her counsel to "tchuck'm alonga scrub."
+
+In the guise of a frail bundle at arm's-length was Soosie conducted to a
+civilised home.
+
+Dismay tempered with pity greeted her.
+
+"How horrible! How dirty!"
+
+"Is it really a little girl? It looks like a wild animal."
+
+"Do let me nurse it."
+
+Thus was crinkled-faced Soosie welcomed.
+
+Many successive baths did she endure, faintly wailing, until dirt soaked
+off and the wails ceased for the time being as Soosie sucked ravenously
+at a tiny sugar-bag.
+
+What a frail little life it was--feeble beyond expression, and ugly
+with the ugliness of savagery. She wriggled and screwed up her skinny
+features with inane ferocity. A motherless wallaby would have submitted
+to human solace and ministrations with daintier mien; but the whole
+household thrilled with excitement. Could the spluttering spark of life
+be made to glow? That was the all-absorbing topic for days. Gradually
+some sort of a human rotundity became manifest, and on the occasion
+of the bath it was more and more apparent that instead of being
+impenetrably black the skin-tint was a mingling of pale brown and pink;
+and as regular nourishment began to be effective the features changed,
+losing their gross animalism.
+
+Just because of the waif's helplessness was repugnance to her conquered.
+She had no other redeeming quality. In a certain sense she was fearsome;
+she required unremitting attention and care; her whimpering fits,
+in beast-like monotone, shook the nerve of the most patient of her
+attendants. She was a charge to keep and foster, and the duty was
+performed with devotion, which took little concern for self-sacrifice.
+Before many months had passed Soosie had been transformed into a fat
+roly-poly with a perpetual smile and gurgles of satisfaction, which even
+vocalised sleep.
+
+All this happened years ago. In infancy Soosie had been informally
+adopted. She was now a bright, sensible, slender girl, whose full,
+melting eyes pleaded for inevitable facial defects, and whose complexion
+was very greatly at fault. She grew up more averse from the manners
+and moods of her mother than those of us who better understand the
+differences of race. To her a black was more abhorrent than a snake.
+She loathed the sight of those who came about the place, and would not
+defile herself by touching the cleanest--kind-hearted "Wethera," who had
+so nearly interred her, and to whom she was as a princess; "Wethera,"
+who was wont to say, "That fella Tchoosie, too flash. Close up me bin
+tchuck'm away. Boss he bin catch'm."
+
+Soosie evaded all possible reference to her kin, and when others spoke
+in sympathetic terms would say: "How can you bear to think of those
+horrible people who live in dirt and only half dressed in the bush? I
+love the scrub, and but for them would like to wander in it all day. I
+dare not while they are about, for some day one of them might touch me,
+and I would never feel clean again."
+
+We often wondered at the irreconcilable attitude which Soosie (she was
+always "Miss Soosie" to all but members of the household) adopted to her
+own race, for she well understood where she had been born and the manner
+of her salvation from imminent death.
+
+Though no special training had been hers, none of the domestic arts were
+unknown to her. She acquired them with ease and practised them with the
+air of a dignified princess and neat-handed facility. While the other
+children of the house stewed over lessons and rebelled against essential
+tasks, to Soosie everything seemed to make for holiday. She read
+voraciously, so that her application of English became so keen that she
+was the first to detect verbal dissonances. She, the youngest of two
+girls and a boy, would often correct their speech, not as a budding
+pedant, but because her ears were delicately attuned to the music of the
+tongue and could not, without offence, hearken to discords. She was an
+affected prude. Her self-chosen style of dress, her pose, her disdainful
+airs, her repugnance to coarse work, her inclination towards occupations
+and pastimes which involved isolation, showed that self-consciousness
+ruled her life. She lived within herself, and her life was gentle,
+contrasting with the boisterous playfulness of her foster sisters and
+brother, upon whose romps she smiled indulgently, but in which she
+never took part. In her own estimation she was a girl quite out of the
+ordinary, and one to whom the most honoured of guests must be polite, if
+not deferential. She exacted little niceties of demeanour from all,
+her equals and inferiors, for was she not treated as a daughter of the
+house? Often, however, in her preoccupied moods would she assume an air
+of detachment and jealousy towards the other children, for she could not
+but contrast herself with them. They were white; she was pronouncedly of
+the despised race. How wistfully would she scan the face of strangers!
+How teeming with resentment against fate her inevitable conclusions!
+In all save features she was white. Over her inheritance, the cruellest
+which fortune could bestow, she was shudderingly horrified. Not all the
+longings of an untainted mind could make her skin less tawny. Its stain
+was too deep to be blanched by the most fervent of prayers. Her outlook
+on life, her intensest wishes, were those of a white girl of more
+than decent perceptions--of actual refinement, for they tended to the
+avoidance of everything unpleasant and unsightly. In other respects,
+too, she was an absolute variant from the type, for her sensitiveness to
+the pain of others and of the lower animals amounted almost to a mania;
+for though she had a girlish horror of blood, her eagerness to solace
+sufferings made her so courageous that she became most apt and prompt
+in the administration of first aid. Her big, startled eyes showed
+the sincerity of her feelings, while her firm, slender fingers deftly
+applied bandages as she spoke in soothing tones.
+
+The soul of a white damsel was in habitation of the body of one whose
+parents had been black and utterly degraded. In the days of old evil
+spirits were believed to be capable of taking spiteful possession of the
+bodies of the weak to work, in unseemlinesses and indecencies, for the
+mischief of the soul. Here was a good and gentle spirit which strove
+undemonstratively for the salvation of a being the circumstances of
+whose birth bordered on the infernal. It was as if the baths of infancy
+had purified the soul, while the permanence and perversity of blood
+triumphed in feature and complexion.
+
+While the other children of the house deserved and obtained love
+and affection in full measure, towards Soosie were exhibited similar
+sentiments, with, perhaps, more consideration, for was it not plain that
+her life was a continual conflict--a conflict between body and soul--a
+body self-abhorred, a soul which needed no purification?
+
+A creek which had its source in a ravine of the huge mountain which
+intercepted the rising sun and caused accustomed shadow an hour after
+the illumination of the western hills, ran past the lonely little
+house, which stood in a clearing the upright walls of which were on the
+sky-line scalloped with fan-palms. For many years Soosie never ventured
+into the jungle unaccompanied, yet she seemed to possess a sense of
+happenings beyond the almost solid screen of vegetation. Primal instinct
+contended against her affections and her love for a sheltered, clean
+life. Though she had always avoided association with the children of the
+camp, and her knowledge by imitation or precept was negative, yet
+was the bush an open book to her. She knew when and where to look for
+birds'-nests. She knew at a glance a venomous from a non-venomous snake,
+an edible from an inedible nut. As a child her favourite head-dress was
+a squat, fat mantis, the bright orange and yellow of which contrasted
+boldly with her fuzzy, coarse hair; and when the insect palled as an
+ornament it would be frizzled and slyly eaten.
+
+Once as we strolled on the bank of the creek gazing at the lazy,
+red-finned fish among the swaying weeds, her wandering eyes detected
+a neat circular bore in the trunk of a huge silky oak. Having shrewdly
+scrutinised the bark, she judged the tenant to be at home. With a
+portion of one of the "feelers" of creeping palm stripped of all the
+prickles save two, she probed the tunnel and, screwing the instrument
+triumphantly, withdrew a huge white grub, which she ate forthwith; and
+then, with a grimace, assumed an air of shame and contrition, for she
+had astonished herself as well as others by an exhibition of untaught
+bush-craft and ancestral appetite.
+
+She more than once confessed in shamefaced terms to an almost
+uncontrollable impulse to rush away to the mountain, that she might
+solace herself with the solitude and food in plenty there; but that when
+she conjured up the chance of meeting some "dreadful native" she thanked
+God for home and loving companions. How frequent and how intense was
+this unconfessed lust for the bush we knew not.
+
+When Soosie was fourteen there came to the neighbourhood a hardy young
+fellow who began to clear a small area of jungle land; for civilisation,
+which had been marking time for nigh upon two decades, now marched
+slowly, and to no throb of drum, in our direction. Times were changing,
+and in some details less desirable conditions arose. The infinite
+privacy of the bush suffered. The little clearing was no longer our own.
+Soosie's demeanour became more reposeful. She had seemed to think that
+it might be her fate, in common with others, to become a ward of the
+State at some mission-station; but as settlement advanced, though still
+miles away, for we were the furthest out, and no interfering guardian of
+the peace came to enforce officialdom and insist upon obedience to the
+letter of the law, it was comforting to reflect that this unofficial
+daughter might be permitted to live out her life unhampered even by the
+goodwill expressed, in the first stages, by the visit of a policeman.
+
+Her presence was necessary, not only on account of her amiable
+disposition and self-sacrificing ways, but for the actual load she bore
+of the duties of a quiet home. We had failed, however, to take into
+calculation the chances of another means of separation. There was now
+no disguising the fact that our new neighbour, Dan, was casting sheep's
+eyes in Soosie's direction, and to her evident dismay. It was of little
+avail to upbraid him as to the unseemliness of attachment to a girl who,
+however civilised, was of inferior race and despised colour. He frankly
+confessed that he wanted a wife as a companion and helpmeet; that he
+could not hope, in consideration of his own lowly birth and slender
+means and uphill task, to induce a white girl to halve his loneliness.
+He had studied Soosie, and was sure that she was his superior except
+in matter of colour. She was far better schooled and had been used to
+softer life.
+
+"What," he asked, "don't you and the Missis and Miss Clare and Fan, and
+Bob, here, love her? You couldn't help it; and you are not ashamed. You
+treat her as your own child. It would be no sin for me to take her as my
+own wife. If she'll have me I'll marry her before the best parson in
+the North. What of her complexion? It's only a little more sunburnt than
+mine."
+
+But Soosie was shy--more than shy. Her sensitiveness amounted to
+physical repulsion. She declared that, though she liked Dan, she would
+never marry.
+
+"I do feel in my heart that I am nothing more than a black girl, and
+almost a savage. What if some day the horrible part of me got stronger,
+and I did go to the mountain by myself? I have heard you say that blood
+will tell. Often I am frightened of myself, especially when the nights
+are very still and I listen to the scrub hens chuckling and the flying
+foxes squealing, and smell the scents of the scrub. It must be very
+nice to live away from everybody in the very loneliest part of the big
+mountain, and to feel at home with actually wild things."
+
+There was no affectation between us, so I said in comfort: "But my dear
+girl, you are whiter at heart than many a girl born white. It is only
+your skin that is dark. Perhaps if in a year or so you did marry Dan it
+would be the best, for a good woman, no matter what her complexion, will
+always earn respect. Society may not want you, but you would not want
+society; and it will be very many years before society hampers life in
+this part of the bush."
+
+Soosie thought for a few minutes, and then replied with delicate
+discretion. "I can never marry Dan. Sooner or later he would despise
+me. It might be all right while I was young, but--we--we--blacks get
+old very soon. Fancy Dan having an old gin in his house; for he won't be
+living in a one-roomed hut all his life!"
+
+"You are spiteful against yourself, and that's not like you, Soosie."
+
+"I have my feelings. How else may I restrain them?" she petulantly
+exclaimed. "He must never think of me. It might drive me to the
+mountain--just to save him from me."
+
+Dan, good fellow, was discreet. He decided to play the laggard in love,
+realising that any show of impetuosity might frighten Soosie. It came
+to be understood that in time she might see the wisdom of accepting
+him, and I, knowing both, and to whom mixed marriages are abhorrent,
+was convinced that no girl could have been better qualified to fill the
+position of a bushman's wife. Modest, clever, sympathetic, healthful,
+none of the stains of the town had ever tarnished her mind. Her
+voice was that of a well-schooled white girl, and all her perceptions
+coincided. If the wander lust was to be suppressed for ever, it seemed
+to me that Soosie must marry, and marry young.
+
+While Soosie's demeanour was still the cause of earnest solicitude, a
+perplexing complication arose. An old man of the camp whence she had
+been discarded began to do his best to attract her attention.
+
+Gifts of birds'-nests, eggs, ferns, orchids in flower, a cassowary
+chick, neat dilly-bags, gay with crude Pigments, were brought to the
+house with messages such as this:
+
+"That fella 'Pad-oo-byer' he bin gib'em alonga 'Ky-ee-rah.'"
+
+"Ky-ee-rah" (the evening star) had been proclaimed to be Soosie's
+totemic name, and "Pad-oo-byer" we knew as "Duckbill," because of a
+fancied resemblance to a platypus.
+
+The gifts were tearfully repudiated. They seemed to announce that
+Soosie, was regarded by her mother's kin as one of themselves,
+notwithstanding her civilised environment.
+
+Though for the girl's sake, not on account of any personal repugnance or
+despiteful attitude, the blacks had been kept at arm's length, I was on
+good terms with all in the district, and took interest in their doings
+and folk-lore. One of their primary beliefs was that children, black
+and white, were actually the produce of the locality, belonging, not to
+chance parents, but to the very land on which they were born. The germs
+of life, they assumed, came from the soil; the soil assimilated all
+flesh after death. Infants were but phases of the life with which the
+soil teemed. All the neighbourhood belonged to the camp--the land and
+everything which sprang from it, for they were the original possessors.
+It was their country. They argued that such things as sweet potatoes,
+pumpkins and mangoes, the very roses which adorned a sprawling bush, the
+richly tinted crotons, the flaunting alamanda over the gateway, were,
+strictly speaking, common property. So, too, over those children born
+on the place certain proprietary rights were claimed. They were akin
+to them, alien to their parents. Whites and blacks born in the same
+district must, according to their ideas, be more closely related
+than folks whose birthplaces were separated by distances beyond
+comprehension.
+
+Such being the general opinion, fortified by undeviating oral tradition,
+in Soosie's case the theory was ever so much the more arguable. She was
+claimed, not alone on the grounds that she was a native of their own
+land, but because, having been born in their own camp, she must be
+subject to it.
+
+Duckbill intercepted me on the edge of the clearing one morning
+especially to propound the law of the land.
+
+Soosie, he told in his pidgin English, had been given to him by her
+uncle. She was to be his gin now that she was grown up. "More better you
+hunt that fella. Him want sit down alonga camp."
+
+The bald proposition shook me, for I could not but see the logic of it
+from Duckbill's standpoint. He was the "big man," a wizard--ugly, old,
+and villainously dirty. Here was the camp's husband for the coloured
+girl with the white heart. The idea was revolting, and then and there I
+resolved at whatever cost to save the girl from such degradation.
+
+"Clear out!" I shouted, assuming frantic anger. "You fella chuck'm
+Soosie away when she little fella piccaninny. That one belonga me now.
+Suppose you fella kick'm up row big fella government come clear you
+fella out. No more let you sit down longa this country."
+
+"Country belonga me. You no humbug. You bin catch'm that fella Tchoosie
+l-o-n-g time. You bin make'm good fella. Belonga me now."
+
+The disgusting old fellow went on to explain that he intended to come up
+to the house that evening. "You hunt'm that fella Tchoosie, me catch'm.
+No good belonga you."
+
+I was to drive the gently nurtured girl out of the house so that this
+foul creature might seize her as he would a struggling wallaby, and take
+her to live a degraded life in the camp! Explanations and threats were
+of no avail. Duckbill, who was unable to comprehend that he and others
+of the camp had by abandonment forfeited all rights to Soosie and that
+she was now a "white Mary," made it plain that he would forcibly
+abduct her if I would but give him the slight assistance of expulsion.
+Otherwise he would catch her himself.
+
+Threatening the camp with the presence of the "big fella government" if
+he or any of them dared to interfere, I went off, while he shouted his
+orders to "hunt that fella close up karrie badgin!" (sunset).
+
+Forthwith the house was put in a state of semi-siege. Soosie, with
+tearful eyes and tremulous hands, hysterically implored us to protect
+her from a fate worse than death. A message brought Dan, who first
+disdained to take Duckbill seriously. Told how Soosie had been wooed
+with gifts, and that her maternal uncle had officiously bestowed her
+upon the gaunt, ill-favoured king of the camp in accordance with tribal
+law, which regarded her as a mere chattel at the disposal of the
+whim and fancy of the nearest relative or at the demand of the most
+authoritative man, he became concerned and installed himself as Soosie's
+special guardian.
+
+A few minutes after sundown Duckbill appeared, quite unconscious of
+offence against civilised customs, carrying a waddy with which to
+administer an anodyne should his capture prove the least refractory.
+Threats and scoldings were lost. He was incapable of comprehending
+why there should be a moment's hesitation about the fulfilment of his
+legitimate rights and demands.
+
+Though protests were vain, the fact that Soosie did not show herself
+imparted some glimmering of sense of the situation to him, and he
+wandered off in the gloom grumbling "That fella too flash," and frankly
+announcing "B'mbi me catch'm."
+
+For weeks Soosie kept within doors, or if she ventured out was
+accompanied by one or other well able and determined to protect her. Her
+nerves were at acute tension; her life that of a hunted creature; for
+though she thought her fate inevitable, she concentrated her mind on
+what seemed to others pitiably weak and inconsequent schemes for the
+bafflement of Duckbill.
+
+Was it that some ineffaceable trait told her that the tribal law as
+expounded by Duckbill was so wise that resistance to it was vain, and
+that the trivial plans over which she worried were merely invented as a
+sort of temporary palliative? She scorned the possibility of existence
+in the camp, yet strove to contest it by the use of fantastical devices.
+She urged that Dan and I should get some fearsome masks and rush the
+camp in the gloom, at the same time setting off fireworks, and so create
+such terrifying effects that none would venture near the spot again.
+With bated breath, she even suggested that I should make a "death-bone"
+to be employed for the secret ill of Duckbill; she thus exposed the
+dross of hereditary superstition which rose to the surface during mental
+ebullition.
+
+It was quite in the nature of things that under stress such a nature
+should break down. She nestled close to Dan, promising to be his
+sweetheart on the condition that, rather than that Duckbill should take
+her away, he would shoot her. If it came about that the dreadful black
+man was himself driven off or disposed of by some other means and the
+country made safe for her, then she would marry the man who had saved
+her, and she hoped that she might never disgrace him.
+
+Dan accepted the guardianship. His hut was two miles away and on the far
+side of the river. He saw little of it for the next few weeks.
+
+Duckbill and his friends, as we were well aware, knew of our plans for
+the defeat of his proposed outrage. If Soosie could be ceremoniously
+married to the faithful Dan, no black in the neighbourhood would
+endeavour to molest her. Indeed, all, even to Duckbill, would be
+flattered and demonstrative of pride in the alliance.
+
+A fortnight later Duckbill again intercepted me. Since the previous
+verbal encounter I had gone armed. He carried, somewhat ostentatiously,
+a tomahawk and a couple of nulla-nullas.
+
+"No good you keep'm that fella Tchoosie. Me bin look out plenty. That
+fella belonga me. Suppose you no lat'm come, more worse b'mbi. Me want
+mak'm that fella all asame black fella. You gib it Clare belonga Dan."
+
+My fingers twitched on the butt of the revolver. It was an ultimatum.
+That which from other lips would have been resented as complacent
+insolence had to be endured with apparent calmness. Threatening him
+with all the consequences of a visit from the "big fella government," I
+hurriedly left, for I was not too sure of self-control.
+
+A stricter watch than ever was maintained, for the least relaxation of
+precautions might have involved results for which a lifetime of regrets
+would not have atoned. Though of such a low type of the human race, the
+North Queensland aboriginal possesses certain admirable characteristics.
+His mind seldom swerves from a set purpose within view of attainment.
+He may be rebuffed and disappointed, and may assume indifference to or
+forgetfulness of his purpose; but in his heart he does not accept defeat
+until an absolutely decisive blow is received. Invisible to us, the old
+man persistently waited, and watched. The dogs frequently detected
+his presence, if their eloquent alarms and their excursions were to
+be credited. Though she continued to pit her wits against the secret
+cunningness of the dreaded old man, Soosie was often preoccupied,
+seeming to regard herself as one not primarily concerned. Her calmness
+was preternatural, contrasting strangely with her previous petulant
+agitation and tragic despair. She avoided Dan, while clinging with
+profuse demonstrations of affection to her foster-sisters.
+
+The reason for her change of policy and manner was revealed with
+distressing suddenness. At daylight one morning the door of the room in
+which she slept under lock and key was wide open, and on her quaintly
+embellished table a primly written note:
+
+
+"DEAR MUM,
+
+"That horrible man who wants to take me away is right, and the Bible is
+right. I belong to this country, and must go. I would rather die than go
+to the camp; but I must know the big mountain. The dreadful people don't
+go there. They are frightened of it; I love it. I shall live there by
+myself till I die, and Dan will never be disgraced. You and Dada and
+Clare and Fan and Bob have been all the world to me. You did your best
+to make me white at heart; but since this trouble began I have thought
+and thought, and found that the black in me smudges all the good out.
+Don't try to come after me. I shall hide. I would be too much ashamed
+ever to look at you again. Forget me, for I am nothing but an ungrateful
+little savage.
+
+"SOOSIE."
+
+
+In all haste Dan and I set out for the camp, a mile or so further in
+the jungle. It was situated in a natural, symmetrical clearing, a circus
+hemmed in by sullen vegetation, and upon which no plant save blady grass
+ever invaded.
+
+The camp was deserted. Save for a few still warm spots indicative
+of artfully smothered fires, there were few signs to indicate recent
+occupation. An hour's search revealed definite tracks leading east--to
+the mountain.
+
+No pains had been taken to baffle pursuers. Apparently the blacks had
+just wandered off aimlessly in obedience to a whim of the moment. There
+was nothing but conjecture to support the opinion that the decampment
+had anything to do with the disappearance of Soosie. Probably the blacks
+were aware, in advance of ourselves, that she had stolen away. If so,
+they would inevitably get her, having, possibly, the advantage of hours
+of start and being efficient in the art of tracking. Our plan was to
+hasten so that we might, if fortune favoured, be in time to save the
+distracted girl from the repulsive and obscene ceremonies to which she
+would be subject if she fell into the hands of Duckbill.
+
+An hour's walk brought us to the foothills of the mountain. The tracks
+turned abruptly north, winding indeterminately as if no special object
+had been in view. It might be that while the men of the camp had
+been intent on following Soosie's tracks, the women and children had
+straggled after as if the quest was of no special concern to them.
+
+In the broken country well in to the base of the mountain all traces of
+the exodus was lost, though bush instinct, supplemented by the actions
+of the dogs, gave sense of its direction. Blundering down into a ravine
+where blanched vegetation betokened complete seclusion from the sun, we
+clambered up the opposing steep emerging from an entanglement of jungle
+on a high and open ridge which commanded an unimpeded view to the
+west--a scene of theatrical clarity with a single theatrical smear. From
+a hollow far below slothful smoke filtered through the matted,
+sombre, dew-bespangled foliage, rose a few feet, and drifted abruptly,
+dissolving from diaphanous blue to nothingness. The resonant whooping
+of a swamp pheasant, antiphonal to a bell-voiced, crimson-crowned fruit
+pigeon in a giant fig-tree, the screeches of a sulphur-crested cockatoo
+as it tumbled in the air, evading the swoops of a grey goshawk,
+materialised the peace and the conflicts of a scene upon which no man
+had made mark.
+
+The phantom trail of smoke betrayed the resting-place of the fugitives,
+though all tracks on the uneasy earth had failed. Odours of the jungle
+soothed my mind, contradicted the transaction of any unholy orgy, and
+gave assurance that the men had unravelled Soosie's wanderings until she
+had begun to ascend the mountain, and that, being then on strange and
+terrifying ground, they had abandoned the search, returning to familiar
+level country free from the excursions of dreaded spirits.
+
+With light hearts we descended the ridge, and, plunging again into the
+dimness of the jungle, struck as direct a route as possible for the
+smoke-revealed camp. Crossing a narrow creek, we peered silently through
+the screen of ferns and banana plants, where in a secluded glade were
+the wanderers in happy festival.
+
+Could any scene approach nearer the ideal? Men, women and children,
+mostly unclad, talking and laughing in modulated tones, while amusing
+themselves with trivial occupations and eating convenient food in the
+depths of the jungle, sanctified by distance and scene and sound! Peace
+smiled, propriety approved. They ate of the fruits of the earth. The
+fern-embowered stream gave them to drink. No sign of the white man, with
+his interfering and desolating ways, assailed the sight. It was as if
+the mist of centuries had lifted, and for once time-soiled mortals were
+permitted to gaze on a Garden of Eden free from danger and innocent of
+sin. There was none here to make the quiet folk afraid or discontented.
+
+As I stepped out, the scene changed with pantomimic celerity. We were in
+the midst of a community of excitable and resentful people, who, viewing
+us, if not with active hostility, at least with surprise and anger,
+seemed embarrassed by guilty knowledge. None of the customary greetings
+welcomed us. None offered other than scowls.
+
+"Where Soosie?" I demanded in authoritative tones of a boy accustomed to
+treat my slightest word with respect.
+
+With averted face he sullenly said: "That fella Tchoosie he run away. He
+go l-o-n-g way, alonga mountain!"
+
+"Look here! You no humbug. Where Soosie sit down? Plenty row along
+white man suppose Soosie no come back. That fella Soosie belonga Missis.
+Missis very sorry. She bin make'm Soosie all asame white Mary."
+
+Still the face-averting boy reiterated: "That fella Soosie he bin go
+long way--more far. You fella make'm Soosie no good."
+
+Others gathered round. Several carried weapons--nulla-nullas and wooden
+swords--and assumed hostile attitudes.
+
+Dan became uncontrollably excited, storming for the production of
+Soosie, and being met with inconclusive statements and evasions. Being
+one who knew no fear, who deemed his questions justifiable, who felt
+himself more than a match for the whole camp, and was convinced that the
+blacks were in possession of essential information, he urged the policy
+of chastising the sullenness out of a couple of incommunicative boys.
+His attitude, and mine, hitherto, towards the blacks had been of cheery
+good-nature tempered with considerate authority. Present moroseness was
+novel, and he was eager to sweep it away with a sturdy stick, and thus
+to demonstrate that when a friendly white man visited a camp blacks
+should be deferential and alert to assist his mission.
+
+In the mood of the men tragedy was inevitable unless both of us kept
+cool. What would be the ending of a fray between two white men and
+many armed blacks, some of whom were aching under a prolonged, however
+inconsequent, grievance against a white family?
+
+"Look here, Dan. Leave those fellows alone," I said firmly but quietly.
+"There'll be sorrow for some if you begin a row."
+
+"I don't care for a hundred blacks! I'd kick myself if I could not floor
+half a dozen single-handed! Where that Soosie?"
+
+To distract attention from Dan, I moved off a few yards.
+
+"What you ki-ki?" I asked of Wethera, who gnawed with concentrated
+satisfaction at a charred bone. "You ki-ki wallaby?"
+
+"No wallaby! This one 'mandee' (hand) belonga Tchoosie!"
+
+Scorched flesh and blackened bone had left their smear on the face of
+the kindest cannibal of them all. On the fire was a foot with
+charred ankle-bones; in a dilly-bag other fragments, but in Wethera's
+countenance no consciousness of evil-doing.
+
+"Come here!" I shouted.
+
+The excited man strode to the spot.
+
+"Soosie," I said, in the calmest tones I could command, "has been
+murdered. This is a cannibal feast!"
+
+With a bound he upset the gin, who shrieked as she grovelled in the
+embers.
+
+"You wretches! You kill Soosie! I kill you!"
+
+As he drew his revolver from his belt I seized his hand, and,
+restraining him as best I could for a moment, spoke authoritative and
+soothing words, and led him away weak and tremulous.
+
+
+
+Not for many months--long after Dan had left the district--did exact
+information as to the fate of the hapless girl reach our ears. Wethera
+told of the tragedy. Duckbill had followed her tracks from the house
+towards the mountain, had overtaken her, and, since she had fought
+frenziedly, had "killed her alonga head little bit," not intending to
+kill her "dead, finis." Carried to the camp, it had been found out that
+she was actually dead. Then all had become stricken and run away.
+
+By her obstinacy Soosie had offended tribal law. She had suffered. In
+the necessitous jungle animal food is never wasted, be it beast, bird,
+or reptile.
+
+It had been an edifying sacrament, too, founded on immemorial truth,
+for had it not been devoutly believed that Soosie's most excellent and
+potent personality would remain with and glorify every participant?
+
+
+
+
+BLUE SHIRT
+
+
+
+"A strong, untutored intellect, eyesight, heart; a strong, wild
+Man."--CARLYLE.
+
+
+Half a century ago, when hardy and adventurous men made laws unto
+themselves, and their somewhat hasty and inconsiderate hands began to
+sting the aboriginal population, there lived on this Isle a stalwart
+native whose force of character constituted him a captain among his
+fellows.
+
+Possibly he was Tom's father. Before he passed away, Tom had often told
+that his father was king of this realm and a man of parts. He it was
+who harpooned a huge green turtle to the east. The game was so
+extraordinarily strong that others hastened to his aid, for the capture
+was beyond the capabilities of one man kneeling in a tucked-up sheet of
+bark. The whole fleet of canoes barely succeeded in towing the massive
+and reluctant creature to the nearest beach, and Tom was wont to
+tell that it took eight strong men to turn it on its back. It was
+"kummaoried" on the sand, and Tom oft pointed out the very spot as proof
+of the most famous feast within the range of tradition.
+
+Let it be accepted, then, that Blue Shirt was Tom's father, since
+history is silent on the point, and none is left to question or
+authenticate it. He was a big man, and his son was like him. He was
+fond of colours; so, too, was his son. He was a fighter; his son's
+meritorious scars proved him worthy of his blood. He was a man in
+authority and full of territorial pride; his son's dominance was
+undoubted, for did he not chide the "big fella gubbermen" on its
+audacity in disposing of his Island--his country--even to a friendly
+white man?
+
+Blue Shirt was the ruler and lawgiver of this Island when a barque
+strove with a cyclone which eventually shattered her to pieces and
+scattered her cargo of cedar-logs to the four winds. After the wreck a
+boat put out from a not distant port on a beach-combing cruise. The boat
+was known as the CAPTAIN COOK. About a hundred years before her namesake
+had reported that he had seen about thirty natives, all unclad, on an
+adjacent islet. With the captain was his mate, two other white men, a
+black boy, and a young gin. Many derelict logs were seen and certain
+wreckage, which made the boat's company inclined to the belief that some
+of the castaways might have landed on Dunk Island. They steered hither,
+anchoring in the evening.
+
+Early the next morning three stalwart black boys put off in canoes to
+the CAPTAIN COOK, and, making friendly demonstrations, were invited on
+board. Food was given them, and to the leader the captain presented a
+blue shirt. No dweller of the Island had ever before possessed such a
+sumptuous and glorious garment. Indeed, if the absolute truth must
+be told, no dweller had dreamt of anything more desirable than an
+inadequate cloak laboriously wrought from the inner bark of a fig-tree,
+raiment sanctioned by the first of fashions.
+
+Having made it known that they belonged to a neighbouring islet at the
+moment unfriendly to the overbearing Dunk Island tribe, Blue Shirt and
+his attendants mentioned that cedar-logs and other attractive flotsam
+bestrewed the beaches, and volunteered to conduct the strangers to the
+best places on the understanding that they, being alien and hostile,
+should remain under the protection of the rifle-carrying white men.
+
+The captain, two men, and the black boy, followed Blue Shirt ashore;
+but, although he was conspicuously clad, could not find him or any other
+man. A few old and casual women represented the hospitable inhabitants,
+while Sabbath quietude brooded over the scene as they strolled along the
+yellow beach. By chance one of the party glanced towards the spot where
+they had landed, and saw half a dozen vigorous gins endeavouring to haul
+the boat above tideway.
+
+How excellent the strategy!
+
+The designing but faint-hearted women fled when the white men charged
+for the boat, which now was seen to be endowed with an incredible,
+uncanny rocking movement of its own. Looking beneath, they saw a huge
+cripple straining himself, Atlas-like, to heave it over. In spite of
+inferior legs, his brawny shoulders had almost accomplished the feat
+when he was unceremoniously interrupted. While he sprawled away, a mob
+of blacks rushed suddenly from the cover of some rocks, the leader
+of the assailants being Blue Shirt, who had painted his unclad parts
+martial red and white. The strength of the party was guessed at thirty.
+An exact census was not taken, for with spears and nulla-nullas and big
+swords, each warrior having the protection of a shield, the treacherous
+band swept on the deluded guests of their leader, whose hostile yells
+scandalised the meek phrases and friendly signs of a short hour before.
+
+The captain, poor, outwitted man, had laid his rifle beside the boat.
+It was too late now to bring it into decisive action. Keeping close
+together, the defenders warded off the first rush with whatever came
+to hand. The rifle was recovered; but Blue Shirt, recognising that it
+represented victory, struggled for it determinedly. A spear was thrown
+at close quarters straight for the captain's neck, but one of the men
+deftly twitched it off, a feat that so enraged the warriors that they
+made him their special target, until at last one of their spears pierced
+his hand. Being rough and thready, the black palm-point made an ugly
+wound; but the resolute man drew it out, and, breaking the spear in
+twain, threw it into the boat, and as he did so, another grazed his
+abdomen. While he was thus defending himself against the spears and
+nulla-nullas of outrageous fortune, the captain made wide, sweeping
+movements with the butt of his rifle, and the other man and the boy, the
+boat being by this time afloat, tugged at the oars. The attacking party
+followed, the captain making good misuse of the rifle, the odd man and
+the boy occasionally perverting an oar to wrongful but, at the crisis,
+effective purpose, while the wounded suffered the hate of him who earns
+personal as well as racial animosity. He sustained a cut on the head
+from a wooden sword, yet he fought on, retaining his wits, while a
+kind Providence, and his own artfulness and agility protected him from
+hurtling spears.
+
+The cost of the little excursion was paid in wounds and bruises and,
+eventually, putrefying sores, while the souls of all instantly mortified
+under the sight of triumphant Blue Shirt jeering and gesticulating as
+only an uncouth black dare, as he waved over his head a tomahawk he had
+abstracted from the boat during the morning's pleasant entertainment.
+
+No one of the poor, depraved representatives of the race has any
+knowledge of the event in which Blue Shirt showed himself to be a
+successful plotter, a bold strategist, an original tactician, and a
+brave fighter. His son is dust. His grandson, though true in complexion,
+knows more about engines than he does of wooden swords and how to use
+them. The zest of life was with his ancestor, who during a long life had
+but one shirt.
+
+
+
+
+THE FORGOTTEN DEAD
+
+
+
+"Of lonely folk cut off unseen."
+
+                          HOOD.
+
+
+A few months ago chance bestowed the opportunity of listening to the
+conversation of one who for very many yearn has hung upon the skirts of
+civilisation. A bushman of rare resourcefulness, wide knowledge of the
+dry as well as the moist parts of North Queensland, a reader, and
+an acute and accurate observer of natural phenomena, he has often
+entertained me with the relation of episodes in his career which, though
+quite unsensational, is of the material of which the history of the
+bush must be compiled. He is now settled on a tidal creek, his nearest
+neighbours miles away. Independent of the regular assistance of
+blacks in the cultivation of his land, he is one of those who, while
+acknowledging no such thing as comradeship, and who, true to his
+sentiments, keeps them at arm's-length, has, albeit, acquired
+confidences rather unusual.
+
+When his reading matter has become exhausted, he has sat night after
+night for months together absorbing the lore of the camp. To him has
+been disclosed many a well-guarded secret. Not unto every man who asks
+do the blacks tell their thoughts or impart their legends. You may study
+them; but they, too, are discreet students, who often keep their counsel
+while seeming to comply with your anxiety to learn of their ways and be
+wise as they are wise.
+
+My friend is one of those undemonstrative, self-contained men in whom
+some of the coloured, cautious metaphysicians find a congenial
+soul. Therefore is he a compendium of much out-of-the-way and covert
+knowledge.
+
+As we talked on the subject of the unexplained disappearances of men in
+the bush of Australia, he told the incidents of the forgotten dead to
+which these writings have special reference. I use my own words, so do
+not bind myself to historic exactness.
+
+He had been away earning his own living, for his estate, fruitful as it
+is, did not then quite provide for his sustenance, markets being
+distant and far from consistent. Returning, he found the blacks who had
+associated themselves with his humble establishment had in the interval
+sought change of scene. The land that he called his had belonged
+to their ancestors centuries before Cook tied the ENDEAVOUR to that
+disputed and historic tree, and was theirs when he had first intruded.
+His hut, his horses, his implements, were much as he had left them. The
+camping-place of the blacks appeared to have been unoccupied for some
+time. Such was in accordance with usual happenings. Going about his
+lonesome work, he reflected that his dusky acquaintances would return
+in their own good time, and being a man of mental resource, the solitude
+was by no means irksome.
+
+Within a fortnight they appeared unceremoniously, and, taking casual
+part in the ordinary work, the affairs of the isolated estate went on as
+smoothly as before. There was a stranger in the camp, a middle-aged man,
+timorous, and knowing little of the ways of white men. Of him scarcely
+any notice was taken. Yet in a few weeks it was evident that the
+stranger was determined to make himself pleasant. Accordingly, the white
+man refrained from advances, while for the love of mental exhilaration
+he pondered: "That boy wants to tell me something. He shall tell me all
+he wants to in his own way, while I will play the part of an indifferent
+auditor."
+
+That the stranger had some secret on his soul was apparent. My friend
+resolved to receive that secret in the spirit of gracious condescension.
+So played he his part, and line upon line, here a little and there a
+little, the story was told.
+
+Few of the tribe of the stranger had ever seen a white man. None
+had ever visited the coast. All were myalls, living naked among the
+mountains in gorges gloomy with jungle, and but rarely hunting on the
+foothills. One day consternation and curiosity spread through the camp.
+Three strange men with yellow faces and short black hair had been seen.
+They carried nothing in their hands, and seemed frightened. Thus the
+nervous couriers of the camp spoke.
+
+Next morning the men took up the tracks, and, sneaking close up,
+followed, alert and unseen, the unsuspecting visitors to their country.
+
+Bewildered in the jungle, the queer-looking men wandered aimlessly,
+moaning and wailing. They were lost. Suddenly the blacks appeared.
+Two of the strangers, glad of the company of any sort of human beings,
+smiled and gesticulated pleasantly, making it plain that they were
+hungry, tired, and frightened, and, longing to get back to the coast,
+would bestow upon their guides unheard-of blessings for safe-conduct
+thither. Strangely, the black men accepted the trust. Four each took
+a hand of the confiding strangers, and, pointing ahead and chattering,
+induced them to walk quickly in a direction in which by signs they
+indicated the dwelling of a white man.
+
+The third wanderer had run away, blundering through the jungle, and the
+blacks had refrained from following him. Nodding gaily and jabbering
+volubly, but with mutual intelligibility, hosts and guests paced along a
+narrow track, each of the latter personally and firmly conducted by
+two of his newly found and most attentive friends. Others of the tribe,
+"like frightful fiends, did close beside them tread"; and while the
+escorts lured the yellow men with comforting pantomime, the frightful
+fiends fell on them suddenly with great wooden swords, killing them
+off-hand and on the very verge of the camp.
+
+Willingly hurrying to the place of execution, the murdered men had saved
+the calculating blacks the trouble of carrying their carcasses.
+
+Then four went back for the nervous escapee. He was safe, for the tracks
+were as obvious to them as a plough furrow to a European. Crouching
+beside a fallen, decaying tree, where bird's-nest ferns grew
+outrageously gross, they found him; and they jeered. He screamed and
+shouted in unknown tongue, while the brisk, stubby hair of his head
+stood on end. (My friend's hair-brush was alluded to in graphic
+illustration.) They struck him down, and, smashing in his head and
+seizing arms and legs, jogged back to the camp.
+
+And the festival lasted many days, though plenty made gluttons of them
+all.
+
+The forgotten dead were Javanese--deserters from a sugar-plantation; for
+the tragedy happened long ago, when labour was being drawn from Java
+and other oversupplied countries. Desertions were not uncommon, for the
+sanguine men of the equator endure with less philosophy than others that
+sickness of the heart which comes from love of one's native land when
+absent from it.
+
+From Java's seething millions were the nostalgic three ever missed?
+
+
+
+
+EAGLES-NEST FLOAT
+
+
+
+"My raft was now strong enough to bear any reasonable weight."
+
+                                              ROBINSON CRUSOE.
+
+
+Those who study primitive races, applying their wisdom and learning to
+the investigation of the origin of domestic and other implements and
+contrivances, inform us that the first boat was probably a log, on which
+the man sat astride, using a stick as a means of propulsion. In time the
+idea of hollowing the log occurred, Nature undoubtedly presenting
+the model and inviting the novice to squat inside. But what was the
+inhabitant of a certain island in the Gulf of Carpentaria to do since
+Nature failed to provide a tree big enough to possess the degree of
+buoyancy necessary for his frail frame, when he wished to cross the
+narrow channel separating him from a lesser island where turtle are
+plentiful and unsuspicious?
+
+Being in status something above a wallaby--the largest animal other than
+himself of his native land which, when hunted, occasionally swam towards
+the opposite shore, he constructed one or other of two rafts or floats,
+both derivable from Nature's models. One was in the form of an eagle's
+nest, and not nearly so large as that in which some eaglets are reared,
+made by interlacing branchlets of white mangrove until the mass was
+sufficient to support his weight. With a double ended paddle rudely
+shaped from the thin buttress roots of the red mangrove, and comic in
+the crudeness and disproportion of its parts, he felt himself safe
+miles out to sea. When he approached a passing vessel he presented the
+illusion, not of walking, but of sitting on the water, for the float
+was almost completely submerged. If it became necessary for his wife to
+attend him on his marine excursions, she was towed behind, and used her
+own pedal power. Possibly this primitive raft is the pathetic expression
+of man's first struggle against the restrictions of the sea.
+
+The other resource of the boatless islander was another description of
+float, also retrogressive from the log; the idea not transmitted to
+him by any high-minded bird, but forced upon his attention by elemental
+strife. He would have seen that the wind and the waves occasionally
+tore from his beaches Pandanus palms, and that the matted, fibrous roots
+thereof floated. Pondering in his dim way, and being sadly an hungered
+and aware that fat and lazy turtle were basking in the sighed-for
+shallows, he took a bundle of buoyant roots and light sticks and lashed
+it securely at one end with strips of bark. He then spread out the other
+end until it took the shape of a fan, and weaved the strands loosely
+together with beach trailers. His raft was complete. At least this
+description applies to that in use to-day, which represents the highest
+stage to which the design has been brought.
+
+Under the influence of the peril-ignoring hunger, the hunter sat on
+the float with legs extended frontally. Across his thighs crouched
+his favourite dog, and behind him, her thin shanks outside his and her
+skinny arms round his slim waist, sat, uncomfortable, his cowed wife--a
+necessary part of his equipment. Can he be imagined half turning to his
+deferential spouse, and saying: "My dear, in the words of Shakespeare,
+
+    "On such a full sea are we now afloat
+    And we must take the current when it serves
+    Or lose our'--turtle"?
+
+Is it not edifying, too, to reflect that the timid man, encouraged
+by the object-lessons of Nature, given in pity of his simplicity, had
+contrived the only rafts the resources of his island made possible?
+And does not the fact that he had courage to cross the estranging deep
+thereon give graphic proof of the inhospitality of his native soil?
+
+Flat and generally of sad aspect, the country of the raftsman lies
+remote and uncommended. The scented sandalwood is there, dwarfed,
+attenuated, worthless. The most fragrant of the Pandanus palms is
+plentiful, the fruit forming the chief part of the vegetable diet of the
+lean and stunted inhabitants, who find difficulty in fashioning weapons
+with which to obtain fish and turtle, the land failing to supply
+straight sticks of the length needed for spears. Each has to be spliced.
+The islands are expressed in the race they sustain--possibly the lowest
+of Australian types. Does it not bespeak much to the credit of men
+and women who have been used to the cities where the advantages of
+civilisation are at command and its comforts available, that they should
+abandon the society of kin and friends and isolate themselves in a drear
+and unfriendly tract for the sake of a few coloured folk whose mental
+capacities are feeble and whose habits are shockingly disgusting?
+
+
+
+
+NATURE IN RETALIATION
+
+
+
+"Red in tooth and claw."
+
+               TENNYSON.
+
+
+In a mangrove creek a shoal of barramundi had been bombed with dynamite.
+Immediately after the explosion the white onlookers as well as the
+blacks dived off-hand into the stream to secure the helpless fish. One
+of the party seized a weighty and unconscious victim of the outrage, and
+to retain it thrust his fist through the gills and found himself unable
+to withdraw, and when the fish began to revive he realised that he was
+not master. With a supreme effort he did manage to get his head above
+water to gulp a mouthful of air, but the gallant fish promptly exerted
+itself, and a deadly struggle took place on the muddy bottom. Once more
+the fish was tugged to the surface, only to dive just as the man became
+conscious of the applause of the interested spectators. When they came
+to the surface again ill luck on the part of the fish had brought it
+into the shallows caused by a ridge of rocks, and the man hauled his
+prize ashore, frankly acknowledging that the happy chance of the rocks
+and not his own wits and strength had given the victory into his hands.
+
+On another occasion heartless dynamite was used in a creek, where had
+assembled many blacks, who scrambled riotously in the muddy water for
+the spoil, among which were several huge crabs, some dismembered by the
+force of the explosion, some stunned, some merely agitated. Dilly Boy,
+the biggest and the greediest of the crowd, acquired several fish and
+three or four crabs, the largest of the latter of which seemed sound
+asleep. The dynamite had ministered an anodyne from which, apparently,
+there would be no awakening. It the boy disregarded, while he secured
+those which were more or less active. Busily engaged, he was not aware
+that a crab when he seems asleep may be merely plotting. This hero was
+hatching out a scheme whereby it might be revenged for the outrage.
+It watched and deliberated, and as the boy sat down grabbed him with
+ponderous and toothed pinchers on that part of the body which is said to
+be most susceptible to insult. The boy rose. Not half a plug of
+dynamite could have given more hearty impulse, not all the clamour of a
+corroboree equal his yell of surprise and anguish. He capered. The crab,
+which had not speculated on the caper, and to avert summary divorce,
+locked its claws, now guaranteed to hold to death and beyond it--to
+destruction. Astounded--indeed, petrified--by the high antics of the
+boy, none of the spectators could venture to his aid. They were fully
+engaged with unrestrained and joyful hysteria. The more the boy
+yelled and cavorted, the more frantic the fun. Blood trickled down the
+chocolate-coloured skin, but the valiant crab held on. It was there for
+a definite purpose. The hour and the crab had arrived. Vengeance for
+centuries of wrongs to the race and heroic self-sacrifice animated brain
+and inspired the claw with the dynamics of ten; while the afflicted
+victim imagined--he had no mirror to hold up to Nature--that he was the
+sport of a lusty crocodile.
+
+Amidst his shrieks he commanded the ministration of his wife. She ran
+to meet him with a waddy. True to the limitations of her sex, though her
+intentions were admirable and dutiful, the result was disastrous. The
+boy got a paralysing blow on the small of the back, and flopped down. Up
+jumped Dilly Boy, and the gin raced after him, murderously inclined
+to the crab. Half her blows were misses and the other half seriously
+embarrassed her husband, as his tumbles testified. She belaboured him
+impartially and with perverted goodwill from shoulder to heel, for she
+aimed invariably at the crab, and where is the woman who ever hit where
+she designed? The crab was merely tickling; the faithful spouse, with
+the tenderest motives, was cruelly beating her lord and master to
+disablement, and it can scarcely be credited that the echo of his
+remarks has yet subsided. In his fervour the boy made an exceptionally
+vicious threat against the gin, and in response she missed him and hit
+the crab. Under such forceful compulsion the crab parted with its claw.
+It was ponderous and toothed, be it remembered, and well and truly
+locked, and retained its grip. The target being smaller, the aims of
+the gin went more and more astray. The back of the boy, owing to the
+incessant misses of the waddy, changed from brown to purple, and a red
+ribbon wavered down his thigh. Still he ran, and the devoted gin coursed
+after him with the energy of a half-back, the fury of a disappointed
+politician, and the riot of three-dozen cockatoos scared from a
+corn-field. Almost worn out, the boy sprang round, and, seizing the
+waddy, began to chastise the gin, whose screams blended with his
+unwholesome threats. But the claws held on--not like grim death; they
+were grim death. Every second blow was directed aft--one blow forward,
+which generally severely disagreed with the gin; one blow astern, which
+afforded neither mental relief nor physical comfort. The gin fled from
+the infuriated boy; the boy from the fearsome relic of the crab, and
+called louder as he ran. When in full flight, the gin tripped over a
+mangrove root, and, spread-eagled, fell. The boy came tumbling after,
+but the remnants of the crab--the bony bud of a tail--stood erect and
+firm. Then the pitying spectators seized Dilly Boy, and, holding
+him, unlocked the pinchers. He rolled over--it was the only easeful
+attitude--as he cursed all gins, crabs, and dynamiters with wondrous
+fluency. And may the potency of those coloured curses rest upon the
+latter!
+
+
+
+
+"STAR RUN ABOUT"
+
+
+
+        "It is the stars,
+    The stars above us, govern our conditions."
+
+                                   SHAKESPEARE.
+
+
+Primitive folk have ever looked up to the heavens for signs of good and
+ill. Celestial appearances have fought for them terrestrial battles, or
+have weakened their arms by prognostications of impending disaster.
+
+Appeals have been made to passionless planets for justice against
+mundane decrees, and when coincidences have been favourable the devout
+student of the skies has loudly proclaimed them as proof of supernatural
+interest in trivial, transient occurrences. In accordance with the
+degree of poetry in the fibre of the people, so, in a certain degree,
+has the belief in stellar influence been manifest.
+
+The blacks of North Queensland, being, possibly, the least of the races
+in a poetic sense, have but slight regard for the interference of the
+stars in their poor little affairs, and in this respect are saner than
+many a nation which has given abundant proof of wisdom. One of their
+beliefs is that meteors are baleful, though under given conditions they
+derive from such phenomena longed-for assurance. A meteor is described
+as "Star run about." "That fella no good; him kill'em man!" Yet in
+circumstances to be mentioned they find in a meteor a sign that life has
+been restored to an individual whom they have done to death. It is the
+opinion of men who have studied the customs of the blacks that they--and
+to their honour be it said--were never among themselves premeditated,
+gluttonous cannibals. Human flesh was eaten, if not with solemnity, at
+least with ceremony, for the belief exists to this day that the moral
+and physical excellencies of the victim are assimilated by those who
+partake of his flesh.
+
+Reincarnation is prompt and practical, and unaccompanied by wasteful
+and delusive hope. Herein lies the explanation of many a deliberate and
+confessed killing, while to the meteor have the perpetrators looked for
+absolution and remission of their sin. That which in the eyes of the
+white man is regarded as an atrocious murder has not been, in their
+semi-religious code, in any sense criminal, but a rite from which many
+if not all the camp must inevitably benefit.
+
+In one respect the killing of a boy is the highest compliment which may
+be paid him, for it is proof that he has personal qualities which are
+the envy and admiration of others, and for general welfare should be
+shared by all. The boy who so dies is an unconscious patriot. This is
+proved sufficiently by the fact that only what are considered to be
+the more vitalising portions of the boy's body are eaten, whereas if
+gluttony were the impulse of the deed the whole of the body would be
+consumed.
+
+An illustrative incident has been told me by one who has gained the
+confidence of the blacks, and to whom other facts connected with it were
+personally known. Not many years ago a boy from from a distant locality
+visited a certain district in company with his master. He was tall, well
+favoured, a good rider, quite an athlete, an accomplished performer with
+the mouth-organ and concertina; ready and persuasive of tongue. These
+qualities provoked unaffected admiration; for the natives of the place
+are undersized, ill-looking, and deficient generally in the arts of
+pleasing. Before the master left, Caesar was persuaded by his envious
+fellow-countrymen to remain with them to be flattered and courted.
+
+To evade trouble, the whole camp took to the hills for a while. In the
+meantime Caesar's master departed, thinking, no doubt, that the boy
+would follow him to his own "more better country." After several weeks
+the local blacks returned, but Caesar was not of the party, and it did
+not occur to any of the white residents to ask questions concerning
+him. In accordance with the love of notoriety which affects humanity
+irrespective of complexion, one of the boys began to boast of being as
+good as Caesar, and to prove his contentions by aping the manners of his
+absent friend. It was not long before he blurted out the secret by which
+he had become superfine--he had participated with others in a cannibal
+rite after Caesar had been good-naturedly killed.
+
+Rumours of the tragedy came to the ears of the police. The ringleaders
+of the assassins were arrested, and one at least endured a term of
+imprisonment as punishment. Caesar had been lured away and killed
+because he was a good fellow and strong, and because his murderers
+wanted to be good and strong like him. Certain parts of his body were
+eaten, without relish, but with fervent hope. A remarkable circumstance
+in connection with the sacrifice and ceremonial rite for the general
+welfare is that the perpetrators console and comfort themselves with the
+belief that should a meteor appear it is a sign that the victim did not
+actually die, or if he died under their hands, that he has come to life
+again. Those who were concerned in the killing and who had partaken of
+the flesh sat together for several evenings gazing with expectation into
+the sky. A meteor flashed across it, and it was hailed as a sign that
+Caesar was alive and had gone to his own country. The contrary
+evidence of relics of the dead was waved away before the imperious and
+disinterested testimony of the falling star. "No matter. That fella him
+no dead--finish. Him walk about 'nother country. Him good fella. That
+fella star run about bin tell 'em."
+
+They felt themselves to have benefited materially and spiritually by
+participation in the rite, and were calm in their belief that the victim
+was none the worse for the temporary misfortune from which he suffered.
+
+In another locality a meteor signifies the death of an individual,
+and is referred to as "Tee-go-binah." When a death cannot be directly
+attributed to it locally, the phenomenon is referred to with such rustic
+logic as this: "Some fella dead alonga 'nother camp. Might be longa
+way." The ancients felt "the sweet influences of the Pleiades." One
+of the two intimacies of the blacks of North Queensland with
+stellar phenomena which has come to my knowledge is associated with
+reincarnation after a deed of blood. Their faith is as absolute,
+perhaps, as was that of the men of old.
+
+
+
+
+BLACKS AS FISHERMEN
+
+
+
+"For I tell you, scholar, fishing is an art, or at least it is an art to
+catch fish."--IZAAK WALTON.
+
+
+Along the coast of North Queensland evidence may still be obtained,
+though it ever becomes more difficult to secure practical demonstration,
+of several novel methods of killing fish in vogue among the blacks prior
+to the advent of civilisation. In many parts, indeed, the presence of
+the white man has swept away not only the use of decent, if trivial,
+pursuits and handicrafts, but the knowledge also that they ever existed.
+
+The few facts here presented are, with some slight reservations, drawn
+from actual observation. No doubt the well-informed on such subjects
+will have plenary reasons--if ever these lines are honoured by perusal
+of the class--for the accusation that there is nothing in them having
+the virtue of newness or novelty. But I am not a professor with a mind
+like a warehouse, rich with the spoils of time, but a mere peddler,
+conscious of the janglings of an ill-sorted, ill-packed knapsack of
+unconsidered trifles.
+
+Some pioneers know more about the acts of the past than the best
+informed of the younger blacks, who look with wonder and unconstrained
+doubt when shown articles similar to those which their grandfathers must
+have used almost every day.
+
+Though the blacks of the past had but casual knowledge of the cruel
+little barb that the resourceful white fisherman finds essential to
+sport, and had neither neat tackle, nor reels, nor creels; though they
+were denied the solace of tobacco, and every other accessory, they were
+adepts at fishing. They had at command a stock of accumulated lore so
+graphically transmitted that the babe and suckling must have seemed to
+acquire it almost intuitively. They knew much of the habits of fish.
+Their methods of laying under tribute the harvest of the sea were
+so varied and unconventional that when one expedient failed, others,
+equally free from the ethics of sport, were available at the shortest
+notice. Fishing was not a pastime, but a serious occupation in which
+nearly everyone was proficient.
+
+Times are changing; but still the mouths of smaller creeks are sometimes
+dammed, save for certain sluices and by-washes where puzzling pockets
+are set. Weirs formed by stakes driven into the sand and interwoven with
+twigs guide incoming fish into ingenious traps, whence they are scooped
+up in dilly-bags. Occasionally the whole camp, dogs and piccaninnies
+included, take part in a raid upon the sea. Men in deeper water, women
+and boys and girls forming wings at right angles to the beach, enclose
+a prescribed area in the ever shifting, mobile fence. Certain of the men
+have huge dilly-bags made of strips of lawyer-cane, and shaped like a
+ninepin with a funnel for a head. The tactics of the party combine to
+drive the fish towards the silent men having charge of the dilly-bags,
+who manipulate what certainly has the appearance of being a very awkward
+utensil in the water with great skill and alertness. Hurried to frenzy
+by the shouting and splashing of the crowd, and the flurrying of the
+surface with bushes, the fish dart hither and thither until most of them
+have found their way into the bags, at the only spots where, for the
+time being, peace and quietude prevail. At other times a somewhat
+similar design of basket is used for trapping eels.
+
+Men armed with spears surround and exterminate a shoal detected in
+shallow water; and the boomerang and the nulla-nulla as well as the
+spear form the weapons of the solitary fisherman. On one of the islands
+of the Gulf of Carpentaria the boomerang (I am told) alone is used, the
+blacks being so expert that little is left to chance.
+
+Though the wommera, or, as it is known locally, the yellamun, is common
+in the neighbourhood of Dunk Island, it is not employed as an accessory
+in the spearing of fish. Further north it is so almost universally, a
+combination of boomerang and wommera being the most popular form. This
+dual-purpose weapon is merely a boomerang to one of the ends of which is
+fitted a spur, which engages the socket in the butt of the spear. While
+on this subject, it is interesting to note that, though the common form
+of the implement for increasing the velocity and range of the spear
+is generally considered to be peculiar to Australia, its principle is
+embodied in a contrivance which was used for a similar purpose in the
+New Hebrides in Captain Cook's day.
+
+Describing some of the arts of the inhabitants of Tanna, Cook ("Voyages
+of Captain Cook round the World," vol. i., chapter vi.) says that in
+the throwing of darts "they make use of the becket, that is, a piece of
+stiff plaited cord, about six inches long, with an eye in one end and a
+knot in the other. The eye is fixed on the forefinger of the right hand,
+and the other end is hitched round the dart where it is nearly on
+an equipoise. They hold the dart between the thumb and the remaining
+finger, which serve only to give direction, the velocity being
+communicated by the becket and forefinger. The former flies off from the
+dart the instant its velocity becomes greater than that of the hand, but
+it remains on the finger ready to be used again."
+
+It is obvious that the Australian implement is much the more reliable
+and effective. Cook mentions that with the dart the Tanna Islanders "are
+sure of hitting a mark within the compass of the crown of a hat at a
+distance of eight or ten yards; but at double that distance it is chance
+if they hit a mark the size of a man's body, though they will throw the
+weapon sixty or seventy yards." Such a standard of marksmanship would be
+regarded with contempt by the average black of North Queensland. The
+use of this becket (introduced very many years ago by the Kanaka) is a
+fairly common accomplishment among coastal blacks.
+
+In shallow water, too, fish are chased until they become so exhausted
+and nerve-shaken that they partially bury themselves in the sand, or
+endeavour to elude observation by concealing themselves beneath stone
+or coral, or by remaining passive among seaweed, trusting, no doubt, to
+protective tints and assimilation with their surroundings. Few of these
+stratagems of the fish are of avail when once a hungry black is on its
+track. The science of war, we are bidden to believe, is not designed
+for the slaughter of mankind, but so to impress the enemy with a
+demonstration of overwhelming power, force, and majesty, that he may
+become mentally unable or unwilling to offer resistance, because of its
+obvious futility. So it is with the black in pursuit of a fish or turtle
+in shallow water. By noise and bluster he works on the senses of the
+fish until it becomes semi-paralysed. Then he proceeds callously to the
+killing, which, in the case of fish, if his right hand is encumbered,
+he generally accomplishes by a crunching bite into the back-bone at the
+shoulders.
+
+At rare intervals the black varies his tactics by a night attack, which
+is often highly demoralising. When the moon is on the other side of the
+world, with spears and flaring torches of paper-bark, he rushes in a
+band to raid the reef, to the dismay of startled and bewildered fish.
+Substitute for the gurgling cadences of semi-submerged coral and
+muteness and universal dimness instant noise and splashing, and dazzling
+lights here and there and everywhere, and it is not to be considered
+strange that the fish--tipsy with panic and confusion--fail to exercise
+their habitual alertness.
+
+At a certain season of the year--November and December in the
+neighbourhood of Dunk Island--myriads of fish, about the size of a
+sardine, appear in shoals, an acre or so in area, or encircle the
+islands with a living, bluish-grey frill yards broad. The blacks bestow
+on this godsend, popularly known as "sprats"--HARENGULA STEREOLEPIS
+(Ogilby)--the name of "Oon-gnahr."
+
+How skilfully does Nature dovetail her designs! This great multitude
+of fish appears when it is most needed. The terns (sea-swallows)
+are rearing their families, and ever need fresh food in unstinted
+quantities. The small fry come to an excited and enthusiastic market.
+Slim, silvery kingfish, grey sharks, and blue bonito, harry the shoals,
+ripping through them with steel-like flashes, and as the little fish
+ruffle the surface of sea or emerge therefrom in living silvery spray,
+in frantic efforts to escape, the terns take all they want, screaming
+with satisfaction. Then, too, the blacks join in the work of
+destruction. When the frill of fish lies limp on the beach, they
+fabricate a seine net, cheap, but admirably suited for the purpose. Long
+strands of beach trailers and grass and slender twigs are rolled and
+twisted up--apparently without the slightest art--into a huge loose
+cable eight inches in diameter. The men run out the cable into the water
+at right angles to the beach while still the gins, with nervous haste,
+are adding to its length. If it breaks, a few twists and pokes suffice
+to repair it. The men at the lead curve in towards the beach, and the
+gins and piccaninnies wade out in line to meet them. Gradually the
+cable, shocking in its frailty, is worked in, enclosing a patch of
+the fish in a perilous coffer dam. Tumult and commotion are almost
+as necessary contributories to the success of the stratagem as is the
+cable. But before they realise what has happened, they are in such close
+company that escape is impossible; dilly-bags are filled in a single
+dip, and it may take half an hour to pick out those "meshed" in the
+cable. It is all the work of a few minutes, and the haul often amounts
+in quantity to a surfeit for the whole camp.
+
+One of these rude seines which was overhauled was composed largely
+of the long, leafless, twine-like branches of the leafless parasite
+CASSYTHA FILIFORMIS (which the blacks term "Bungoonno"), IPOMEA
+PESCAPRAE ("Koree"), Blady-grass ("Jin-dagi"), and the tough sprawling
+branches of BLAINVILLEA LATIFOLIA ("Gallan-jarrah"), the whole being
+reinforced with withes of CLERODENDRON IMERME ("Missim"), all of which
+plants grow on the verge of the sea.
+
+Vast as is the congregation of small fry, it gradually fritters away,
+martyred to fish, flesh, and fowl. By the time the little terns are
+thrown upon their own resources the violet frill of the sweet islands is
+frayed and ragged, and drifts loosely in shabby remnants.
+
+For large fish--groper, the giant perch, king, bonito, rhoombah,
+sweet-lips, parrot-fish, sea-mullet, and the sting-rays (brown and
+grey)--a harpoon and long line are used. When iron is not available a
+point is made of one of the black palms, the barb being strapped on with
+fibre, the binding being made impervious to water by a liberal coating
+of a pitch-like substance prepared from the resinous gum of the
+arral-tree (EVODIA ACCEDENS).
+
+The point is eight or ten inches long, the barbless end being swathed in
+fibre so that it may fit easily into the socket of the eight or ten feet
+shaft. A long line is tied to a point above the swathing, and, being
+drawn taut along the shaft, is secured to the end by a series of
+clove-hitches. When the fish is struck the point is drawn from the
+socket, while the shaft acts as a cheek on, and an indicator of, its
+course when just below the surface. Such harpoons and lines are also
+used for the capture of dugong and turtle, the line being made of the
+inner bark (the bast layer) of one of the fig-trees, and is of two
+strands only. Occasionally the HIBISCUS TILLIACEUS is laid under tribute
+for ropes and lines, which, however, are not considered as durable as
+those from the fig. Nets, set and hand, are also made with twine from
+the fig or hibiscus.
+
+When, at low spring tides, the coral reef is uncovered, small rock-cod,
+slim eels, parrot-fish, perch, soles, the lovely blue-spotted sting-ray,
+catfish, flathead, etc., are poked out unceremoniously with spears or
+sharp-pointed sticks from labyrinthine mazes, or from the concealment
+afforded by the flabby folds and fringes of the skeleton-less coral
+(ALCYONARIA), or from among the weeds and stones--a kind of additional
+sense leading the black to the discovery of fish in places that a white
+man would never dream of investigating. At this opportune time, too,
+huge, defiantly armed and brilliantly coloured crayfish are exposed to
+capture. A statement was published recently that this was the speediest
+of all marine animals. The assertion is much to be questioned, but there
+can be no doubt that the crayfish is a wonderful sprinter. Familiar with
+its lack of staying power, blacks race after it uproariously as it flees
+face to foe, all the graduated blades of its turbine apparatus beating
+under high pressure. Two or three rushes and the crayfish pauses, and
+then the agile black breaks its long, exquisitely sensitive and brittle
+antennae, deprived of which it becomes less capable of taking care of
+itself; or it may find its gorgeous armour-plates smashed with a stone
+or penetrated by a spear. For the most part, however, the crayfish
+lurks in coral caves, sweeping a considerable frontal radius with
+ever-shifting antennae--not in pride or conceit of their beautiful tints
+and wonderful mechanism, but with a pitiful apprehension of danger, for
+the admirers of the creature are many and ever so much in earnest--the
+earnestness of unceasing voracity.
+
+Having a decided partiality for eels, the blacks of North Queensland
+have devised several means of capture, one of which does not call for
+the exercise of the least skill on the part of the individual whose
+longing for the dainty becomes imperative. His placid perseverance,
+too, is of no avail, unless luck favours. Wading in a shallow,
+mangrove-bordered creek, he blindly probes the bottom with a six-feet
+length of fencing wire, the modern substitute for the black palm spear.
+Frequently he trifles thus with coy Fortune for hours, an inch or so
+separating each prod; and again, in a spasm of indignant impatience,
+he stabs determinedly into the mud at random. Non-success does not make
+shipwreck of his faith in the existence of the much-desired food in
+the black mud, for as far back as his own experience and the camp's
+traditions go, substantial reason for that faith has been plentifully
+revealed. He returns to the monotonous occupation until an unlucky eel
+is impaled, and then it is given no chance of escape.
+
+Pushing his spear a couple of feet through, the boy grips the prize
+with both hands, or bends the wire into the form of a hook. Fortune may
+continue to smile, and the boy takes several during the afternoon.
+
+Many boys enhance the charms of solitude by ingeniously tricking
+eels, Nature presenting them with an efficient engine of deceit and
+destruction, so designed that neither the agitations of art nor the
+invention of science could much improve it. About two feet of the thong
+or lorum of one of the creeping palms (CALAMUS OBSTRUENS) is all that
+is necessary. These lora are armed with definitely spaced whorls of
+recurved hooks, keen as needles, true as steel, about one-eighth of
+an inch long. Three or four of the whorls are removed to provide an
+unfretful but firm grip. The pot-holes and shallow pools and gullies
+and trickling creeks are populated by nervous, yet inquisitive,
+semi-transparent prawns, upon which eels liberally diet. So silent and
+steady of movement is the boy that even the alert prawns are unaware
+of, or become accustomed to, his presence; and what is there to warn the
+eel, enjoying its comfort among the dead leaves in the gloomiest corner
+of the pool, of danger? Could any but a black boy detect the difference
+between the brown sodden leaves and the half-inch of body which the eel
+has unwittingly exposed? The "pig-gee" (as some term the lorum) is used
+with almost surgical delicacy of touch to hook away two or three of the
+leaves. Then it is placed parallel to whatever increased length has thus
+been made visible, and with a decisive twitch the eel is torn from its
+retreat and killed off-hand.
+
+Even the shy, long-armed little prawns (PALAEMON AUSTRALIS) do not
+escape special means for their destruction. A pliant rod about four
+feet long is improvised from the midrib of the creeping palm before
+mentioned, to the end of which is fastened a slender thread of the same
+material, split off by using the nails of the thumb and second finger.
+This strand, which is about four inches long, is delicately noosed.
+Standing a few feet away from the water-hole, the black so manipulates
+the line that the noose encircles the tail of the prawn, which, making
+a retrogressive dart upon alarm, finds itself fatally snared. The prawns
+are not, as a rule, eaten, being reserved for bait.
+
+In creeks and lagoons thin, hollow logs are submerged. Eels naturally
+seek such refuges, and in due course the boy dives, and, sealing the
+ends with his hands, brings log and eel to land. Dr. W. E. Roth mentions
+that crayfish and a certain fish resembling the rock-cod are similarly
+captured, and remarks that the log is lifted at an angle, with one hand
+closing the lower aperture, in which position it is brought to and held
+above the surface, when the water trickles out between the fingers of
+the sealing hand.
+
+Yet another method (analogous to "bobbing") is practised for securing
+eels. Huge worms, found under decaying logs, are threaded by means of a
+needle formed of a thin strip of cane on a line from ten to twelve
+feet long until several feet of bait are available. The line is merely
+doubled, the ends made fast to a stout pole, and the loop dangled in the
+water. The boy fishes patiently, nor does he strike at the first nibble,
+but permits the eel to swallow slowly what might be considered an undue
+proportion of the bait, when it is landed and compelled to disgorge for
+the benefit of the next comer.
+
+Among coastal blacks--all of whom may be said to be fishermen--some are
+ardent devotees to the sea. Others of the same camp restrict themselves
+to unsensational creeks and lagoons. The frog in the well knows nothing
+of the salt sea, and its aboriginal prototype contents himself with
+milder and generally less remunerative kind of sport than that in which
+his bolder cousins revel. Such a man, however, may possess aquatic lore
+of which the other is admittedly ignorant, and be apt in devices
+towards which the attitude of the salt-water man is adverse, if not
+contemptuous. The fresh-water man is skilful in the use of a net shaped
+something like the secondary wings of a certain species of moth, and
+expanding and closing similarly. It is made of fine twine (one-inch
+mesh), preferably from the bark of one of the fig-trees or the brown
+kurrajong, tightly stretched on two pieces of lawyer-cane each bent
+to form the half of an irregular ellipse. This net ("moorgaroo") is
+manipulated by two men working in concert, principally for the capture
+of eels. They do not wait for the eel to come to them, but by shrewd
+scrutiny discover its whereabouts under the bank of the creek or among
+the weeds and roots. Then one silent man holds the net widespread, or
+adroitly dodges it into intercepting positions, while the other beats
+the luckless fish in its direction with more or less fluster. The
+persistency with which the creeks are patrolled by men with spears,
+netted and poisoned, invites one to marvel that any fish escape, and yet
+once again quite a haul is made.
+
+That great philosopher, Herbert Spencer, once in his life made a joke
+and confessed to it, with apologies for its littleness. Lunching at a
+tavern in the Isle of Wight, he asked: "Oh, is not this a very large
+chop for such a small island?" Similarly, I have been astonished at
+the apparent disproportion between the size of the eel and the
+insignificance of the creek whence the exultant black has hauled it.
+
+An instance of the poor part which the slimmest eel plays when pitted
+against the Smartness and resourcefulness of the black may be related.
+A large eel, in a moment of indiscretion, showed itself in a fairly deep
+creek. Bewailing the absence of his wing-net, or "moorgaroo," the boy
+hunted the elusive fish hither and thither with cunning determination.
+At last it disappeared under a log. In most of his activities the black
+boy sniffs at conventions. Hastily stripping, the boy dived and when
+he reappeared the eel was vainly squirming in one of the legs of his
+trousers which had been knotted below the knee.
+
+Another boy, a stranger, brought with him traditions which he
+successfully materialised in favour of the employment of several light
+darts instead of a single heavy spear for fishing. The subject was
+frequently debated, but none of the camp adopted George's theories. His
+favourite weapons were the dried stems of an all too common weed, which
+generally grows straight and true. Into the thick end he would insert a
+four-inch length of No. 10 fencing wire, sharpened to a delicate point,
+and with a battery of eight or ten of these he would sally forth. His
+bag averaged high. Often he treated me to practical demonstrations of
+the success of his methods. A big flathead reposed in two feet of
+water, half buried in the sand. George had one of his darts fast in a
+twinkling, and the fish flashed away, the tip indicating its movement.
+In a few minutes the hapless flathead was carrying no less than six
+darts, and as such a handicap was absurd it abandoned the race for life.
+
+On another occasion he struck a big sting-ray so full of his impish
+darts that it resembled an animated pincushion of monstrous proportions.
+It, too, realised the futility of kicking against so many pricks. On
+the other hand, Tom, with his heavy shaft and barbed point, relied on
+a single weapon. It seldom failed, for his right arm was strong and
+disciplined to a nicety.
+
+On a shallow tidal creek a settler had made a corduroy crossing of
+the fibrous trunks of the Pandanus palms, which the blacks of the
+neighbourhood turned to account in the capture of fish. A few frail
+sticks, artlessly interwoven with grass, formed a primitive weir at
+the down-stream end of the crossing. Fish which went up with the tide
+frequently found themselves stranded on the way down, for the water
+passed freely between the palm-tree trunks without affording them right
+of way, and the rude weir often stopped for ever belated bream, mullet,
+and barramundi. This simple trap, though it does not appear to be put
+into use on the coast generally, seems almost to indicate an instinctive
+knowledge of a studied design described to me by an observant friend who
+has travelled into many an odd nook and corner of Queensland. On a deep
+but narrow tributary of the Georgina River a permanent trap on a large
+scale was wont to be maintained. A tree had been felled across the
+stream so that each end of the trunk was supported by the respective
+bank. Straight stakes were driven firmly into the bed of the creek as
+closely together as possible, the heads resting against the horizontal
+tree-trunk. This palisading formed the base of an embankment of packed
+grass and rubbish, sufficiently tight to raise the level of the stream
+about three feet. In the middle of the embankment, and about one foot
+below water-level, a hole about one foot square had been cut. A platform
+about ten feet long by three feet wide, having a fall of about one
+foot and formed of a number of straight saplings laid parallel with the
+stream, and supported by a couple of transverse bearers on four stout
+forked sticks, received the escape from the sluice. At the lower end of
+the platform was a rough weir of twisted grass, which was continued up
+each side for about half its length. Water passed with little hindrance
+through the platform, while jew-fish, yellow-tail, and bream, were
+retained in considerable numbers.
+
+Many years have elapsed--peradventure centuries--since the blacks of
+Missionary Bay, Hinchinbrook Island, built a weir of blocks and boulders
+of granite which oysters cemented here and there. On the fulness of
+spring tides fish frolicked over and among the boulders. Those which
+delayed their exit found themselves in an enclosed pool which at certain
+seasons of the year runs dry. To this day the sea continues to pay
+tribute, though the blacks of the locality have passed away, and there
+is none but the red-backed sea-eagle or the heavy-flighted osprey and a
+rare and casual white man, to receive it. Among the few emblems of the
+vanishing race, this persistent weir-taking toll of the fish month after
+month, year after Year, for the benefit of successive generations of
+eagles and ospreys, appeals vividly to the imagination.
+
+
+HOOKS.
+
+
+From what can be ascertained at this late date, pearl shell hooks
+were very sure and killing, but seem to have been used principally for
+smaller fish--whiting, perch, bream, flathead, etc.--the occurrence
+of large hooks being exceedingly rare. Mullet (if tradition is to be
+credited) were seldom caught by hook and line, but were speared among
+the mangroves at high tide--a practice which prevails to this day.
+The Dunk Island examples have a resemblance to one of the forms of
+pearl-shell hooks used by the Tahitians in Captain Cook's day.
+
+Tortoise-shell hooks capable of holding large kingfish and fair sized
+sharks are common among the natives of Darnley Island, Torres Straits.
+During the process of cutting and paring the hooks to the size and
+design required, the shell is frequently immersed in boiling water,
+which temporarily overcomes its inherent toughness. Incidentally, it may
+be pointed out that the evidence derivable from these fish-hooks does
+not afford proof of Papuan influence on the mind of the Australian
+aboriginal, except at the extreme north of Cape York Peninsula and a few
+miles down the eastern coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria. This default
+seems the more remarkable in face of the fact that outrigger canoes,
+doubtless of Papuan or Malayan origin, were known as far south as the
+Johnstone River.
+
+To say that the coastal blacks of North Queensland had no knowledge of
+the use of barbed hooks is misleading. In sheer desperation, when the
+supply of pearl-shell hooks was exhausted, they were wont to attach
+bait to their harpoon-points, and they used such unpropitious means
+successfully, and occasionally made a miniature hook by tying a sharp
+spur to a thin, straight stick. Recent proof has been obtained of the
+use of the lorum of one of the creeping palms, from which all the spurs
+save three at the thicker end were scraped off. With the knowledge of
+the efficacy of the barb under extraordinary circumstances, is it not
+the more remarkable that they failed to employ it systematically? Dr.
+W. E. Roth describes crescentic hooks of coco-nut shell and wooden hooks
+with bone barb, and also barbs improvised from one of the spines of the
+catfish. He also mentions as "the most primitive form of hook" the
+dried tendril of HUGONIA JENKENSII ("pattel-pattel" of the Dunk Island
+blacks). To anyone familiar with the crescent pearl-shell hooks, the use
+of the singular tendrils of the Hugonia would immediately be suggested;
+but my observation, inquiries, and opinion do not support the theory.
+The shape of the tendril is all that can be said in its favour. It is
+neither sharp nor tough enough for actual use.
+
+With these barbless hooks the bait was not impaled, but strapped on with
+shreds of bark.
+
+
+NARCOTICS AND POISONS.
+
+
+It is said of the great Mogul Emperor Babur that he boasted of being
+able to make fish drunk so that he might haul them in shoals, and when
+"Carathis" pronounced her "barbarous incantations" the fish with one
+accord thrust forth their heads from the water. Is it generally known
+that the North Queensland blacks also are expert in the use of narcotics
+and indifferent to the ethics of sport? The most commonly used of the
+fish poisons on the coast of North Queensland is likewise employed by
+the natives of Zambesi Land for a similar purpose. The plant is known
+botanically as "Derris." Two varieties, "scandens" and "uligijiosa," are
+known in this State. The aboriginal titles vary in different localities,
+but "Paggarra" will suit the present purpose. Some blacks are so
+offensively civilised that they know the plant by the name of "Wild
+Dynamite." Possibly it owes its popularity among fish poisons to the
+fact that it is the handiest of all. It trails over the rocks, just out
+of touch of high-water mark, but not beyond the reach of the spray
+of surges. With roots investigating inclement crevices, and salt air
+damping its leaves, the plant flourishes, and flowers prettily in
+graceful racemes. In the semi-obscurity of the crevices the flowers put
+on a tinge of pink, literally blushing unseen. The heartless blacks tear
+up the plant, branches, leaves, flowers and all, coarsely bundle them
+together, and, wading into an enclosed pool where fish are observed,
+beat the mass (after dipping it into the water and while held in the
+left hand) with a nulla-nulla. The action is repeated until the bark and
+leaves are macerated, and then the bundle is thrown into the pool. In
+a few minutes the fish rise to the surface, gasping and making
+extraordinary efforts to get out of the infected water. Death ensues
+rapidly, but the fish are quite wholesome as food.
+
+Another of the vegetable poisons is known as "Raroo" (CAREYA AUSTRALIS).
+The bark at the base of the trunk and of the roots contains an effective
+principle, which is released in a somewhat similar fashion to that
+employed with "Paggarra."
+
+The fruit of the handsome, shrubby tree known botanically as DIOSPYROS
+HEBECARPA is also a most effective fish poison. It is oval-shaped, red
+when ripe, and, as the name implies, covered with soft, fine hair. For
+all its lofty title and attractive appearance, the fruit is deceptive,
+for it bites and blisters the lips and tongue like caustic, and on
+being bruised and thrown into a pool on the reef, all fish are killed
+outright.
+
+A different and, for a black, singularly complicated process is employed
+for the extraction of the noxious principle residing in the plant known
+as "Koie-yan" (FARADAYA SPLENDIDA). This is one of the most rampant and
+ambitious of the many vines of the jungle.
+
+It combines exceeding vigour with rare gracefulness. The leaves are a
+light glossy green, ovate, and often a foot long, while the flowers
+are pure white (resembling slightly the azalea, but free from its
+fragility), large, and with an elusive scent, sweet and yet indefinite.
+The fruit, smooth and of porcelain whiteness, varies in size and shape,
+and is said to be edible, though blacks ignore it. A large marble and
+an undersized hen's egg may dangle together, or in company with others,
+from the topmost branches of some tall tree, which has acted as host to
+the clinging vine. The handsome but inconsiderate plant is turned
+from its purpose of lending fictitious and fugitive charms to quite
+commonplace but passive trees to the office of stupefying uncomplaining
+fish. But the element which holds such deadly enmity to the sense of the
+fish is not obtainable by the simple primary means successful with other
+plants. Indeed, the process is quite elaborate, and goes to prove that
+the Australian aboriginal has to his credit as a chemist the results of
+successful original research, and that he is also a herbalist from whom
+it is no condescension to learn. In this detail, at any rate, he is
+distinctly an accomplished person. Portions of the vine are cut into
+foot lengths; the outer layer of bark is removed and rejected, the
+middle layer alone being preserved. This is carefully scraped off and
+made up into shapely little piles on fresh green leaves. One might
+imagine that a black boy preparing the deadly "Koie-yan" was really
+playing at chemist's shop with neat-handed scrupulousness. When a
+sufficiency is obtained it is rubbed on to stones previously heated by
+fire. The stones then being thrown into a creek or a little lagoon left
+by the receding tide, the poison becomes disseminated, with fatal effect
+to all fish and other marine animals.
+
+It is pointed out, however, by Dr. Hamlyn-Harris that the nature of the
+active principle of the "Koie yan" does not permit of elaboration by
+such means. The heating of the shredded bark would, therefore, appear
+to fall into line with the gibberish of ancient alchemists. It would
+bewilder the uninitiated without enhancing results.
+
+Many other plants supply the means of killing small fish wholesale, or
+of reducing them to palsied cripples. The three described are fairly
+common, and have, therefore, been selected to point a moral. Poisoning
+fish is a poor sort of sport, perhaps, but there are two classes of
+fishermen--the hungry and the artistic. The latter use flimsy tackle and
+complicated gear, and play the game, giving the victims to their wiles a
+sporting chance. Though not the only representative of the hungry class,
+the black boy generally fishes on an empty stomach, and his demeanour
+coincides. No slobbering sentiment affects him. Yet he is not so cruel
+as the mean white who throws a plug of dynamite into the river while
+the fish are enjoying their crowded hour, though he will with as little
+taint upon his conscience poison a pool full of fish as drag with hooked
+stick a reluctant crab piecemeal from its burrow among the mangrove
+roots. But then he is responding to the appeals of a clamant and
+not over-particular stomach, while your dynamitard is occasionally a
+well-fed barbarian with a queasy palate.
+
+
+FLY-FISHING.
+
+
+The neatest and most artistic method by which the blacks kill fish
+necessitates the employment of a particular species of spider known to
+the learned as NEPHILA MACULATA PISCATORUM. This spider was discovered
+on Dunk Island by Macgillivray, the naturalist of the expedition of
+H.M.S. RATTLESNAKE in 1848. It has a large ovate abdomen of olive-green
+bespangled with golden dust; black thorax, with coral-red mandibles;
+and long, slender legs, glossy black, and tricked out at the joints with
+golden touches. A fine creature, gentle and stately in demeanour, it
+spins a large web, strong enough to hold the biggest of beetles
+and other insects, and, to harmonise with the superior air of the
+manufacturer, the gossamer is of golden-green. The great spider at the
+focus of the resplendent web is a frequent and conspicuous ornament
+to the edges of the jungle, and having no fear, and no indocility of
+temper, it undergoes the ordeal of admiration with an assumption
+of disdainful coquettism. The local name of this comely creature
+is "Karan-jamara." Shameless polyandrist, she maintains several
+consorts--from three to five seems to be the average number--and
+they, semi-transparent, feeble, meek, subdued little fellows, maintain
+precarious isolated existences in the outskirts of the web.
+
+Though my own experience is negative, direct incontrovertible evidence
+is extant to the effect that birds often meet their fate by blundering
+into the web, to be devoured by the nimble and gaily decorated owner. I
+have frequently seen karan-jamara disposing of hard-shelled beetles
+as big in bulk as some birds, and the strongest of butterflies, once
+entangled, is powerless. The long-legged spider leaps on the struggling
+prey and stills its beating wings with one pinch of powerful red
+mandibles. March flies form the most frequent diet. One has been
+observed to dispose of fourteen of the great stupid flies in a single
+evening, and if the flies could reason they might, while whimpering
+because of the existence of such voracious spiders, acknowledge that
+they design their webs in a very perplexing and masterly manner.
+
+In pursuance of inquiries--the results of which are herein recorded--a
+casual black boy, a stranger to these parts, and therefore unfamiliar
+with the local name and the special purpose to which the spider is put,
+was cross-examined. At first he failed to recognise the photograph, but
+when it was explained by the pointed allusion to a living Maltese-cross
+spider close at hand, a gleam of intelligence brightened his bewildered
+face, and he delivered a self-satisfied dissertation on the order
+Arachnida that is worth quoting:
+
+"That fella Oo-boo-boo. That fella mammy belonga 'nother fella
+altogether. You no savee, come close up--that fella ply way. You no
+savee, come close up, that fella no good; that fella vite."
+
+And the boy looked gravely sagacious and smiled the wide, wise smile
+betokening proud superiority of information. Had Macgillivray but known
+that the "Oo-boo-boo" was the parent of all the many species, and that
+it belongs to the discreetly valorous class that "vites" and flies away,
+and lives to "vite" another day, he might have achieved renown of a
+more popular kind than is the reward of the unromantic naturalist who
+discovers merely a superior spider.
+
+This spider is used on some of the rivers as a lure, virtues almost
+irresistible being ascribed to it. Experiments in salt water, though not
+absolutely negative in their results, have not afforded any specially
+exciting sport; but possibly the fascination of the lure is more
+efficient in fresh than in salt water, and is influential over the
+habitual caution throughout a certain species of fish only. The trick is
+worked in the following manner:
+
+The angler takes a light, thin switch and entangles one end in the web,
+which, by dexterous waving action, is converted (without being touched
+with the fingers) into a strand about two feet long. The spider is
+secured and squashed, and the end of the line moistened in the juices of
+the body, some of the fragments of which are reserved for bait, and
+also to be thrown into the water as a preliminary charm. These buoyant
+titbits attract shoals of small fish, among which the line, with its
+extract of spider, is delicately trailed; a fish rises to the lure, the
+gossamer becomes entangled in its teeth, and it is landed by a brisk yet
+easy movement of the wrist. A great angler recently said that throwing
+a fly is an act of feeling or instinct rather than reason. So the black
+boy with a careless flourish fills his dilly-bag, while he smiles at the
+serious attempts of the white man to imitate his skill.
+
+Owing to the brevity and the frailness of the line, the catch is limited
+to fish under the recognised standard as to size. Tests prove that the
+breaking strain of the line is nearly three-quarters of a pound, but the
+weight of the individual is of no great consideration, since numbers are
+caught quickly. The gossamer is singularly sticky. The viscid substance
+with which it is coated is not readily dissolvable in water; indeed,
+water seems to have the effect of hardening it, so that the line'
+wears longer than might be expected. Piquant morsels of the spider are
+entangled in the frayed end of the line as its original potency becomes
+non-effective.
+
+A friend for whose edification this novel method was demonstrated thus
+writes it:
+
+"It did not take the boy long to get ready. They simply broke a switch
+about three feet long and attached a portion of the web about six inches
+long to the end; squeezed out on to a leaf the fluid internals of the
+spider, into which they dipped the end of the line, started a rather
+melodious chant, and put the line in shallow water. I was only a few
+feet away and could see no fish at first, but they came very soon. They
+were very small, about one and a half inches long. They fasten their
+teeth in the web, and are lifted out quite slowly. Some require to be
+pulled off the line after being landed. I watched for about ten minutes,
+during which time seventeen were caught."
+
+Sir William Macgreggor, ex-Governor of Queensland, has described the
+Papuan art of fishing by means of kites, the lure being a tassel of the
+web of a spider of the Nephila species. No doubt the blacks here made an
+independent and original discovery, and in their simplicity applied
+it in a different, but none the less effective, style from that of the
+advanced Papuan.
+
+Thus, to use the web and the fragments of a spider for fly-fishing is
+certainly meting out poetic justice to the spider on account of the many
+ensnared flies; and the black angler never pauses to reflect whether
+the comminuted remains of a spider can possibly be construed into a fair
+fly.
+
+
+
+
+
+PART II--MISCELLANEA
+
+
+
+
+PEARLS
+
+
+
+WHAT IS A PEARL?
+
+
+What is a pearl? The substance of a sensation--the consolidation of
+discomfort on the part of an oyster or other nacre-secreting mollusc. It
+is a globular deposit of carbonate of lime, with a very small proportion
+of water, generally enclosing a trifle which is its cause and core
+and, so to speak, is a waste product of the body's chemistry. In the
+restricted, scientific sense, "true pearls are bodies consisting of
+calcareous material with an organic basis." Similar bodies having cores
+of sand grains or other foreign substance are known as "blisters."
+
+Science, which peers and probes into the innermost affairs of oysters,
+and speaks of them in terms of uneasy familiarity, asserts that pearls
+are frequently caused by a parasite to which they are subject.
+
+It would ill become one who has no scientific pretensions to suggest
+other definitions, though he may claim to be among the few who have
+been privileged to observe a pearl in the making, or, rather, to watch
+Nature's finishing touches.
+
+In the case of the oyster the radical home cure for the living irritant
+or insoluble substance which had gained entrance between its valves
+is an encasement of pearl-film. If this encasement is globular or
+pear-shaped, or takes the form of a button and is lucid, lustrous,
+flawless, and of large size, it may be of almost inestimable worth.
+
+Does the proud beauty who glories in the possession of a pearl
+condescend to imagine that she flaunts on her bosom just so many tombs
+containing the dust of the germs of a parasite? Does she not rather love
+to think of the gems as emblems of almost celestial purity, and to dwell
+on the fable of the Persians rather than the audacious modern fact?
+
+Addison has set the fable in imperishable gold: A drop of water fell out
+of a cloud into the sea, and finding herself lost in such immensity of
+fluid matter, broke out into the following reflection: "Alas! What an
+inconsiderable creature am I in this prodigious ocean of waters; my
+existence is of no concern to the universe; I am reduced to a kind of
+nothing, and am less than the least of the works of God." It so happened
+that an oyster which lay in the neighbourhood chanced to gape and
+swallow it up in the midst of this its humble soliloquy. The drop, says
+the fable, lay a great while hardening in the shell, until by degrees it
+was ripened into a pearl, which, falling into the hands of a diver after
+a long series of adventures, is at present that famous pearl which is
+affixed on the top of the Persian diadem.
+
+Though one may count his pearls by the score, the hoard may be
+valueless. Upon such examples entertaining, if not valuable, experiments
+may be made without affectation or giving hostages to fortune. In all
+the little deformed specimens thus dissected the core has been found to
+consist of a foreign substance, generally what seemed under a microscope
+of limited power a speck of dirt. The heart of one was a blob of
+mud, which gave off a most baleful vapour. This was the result of the
+house-cleaning of a common, edible rock oyster, and the pearl, dirty
+green and lustreless, merely a thin casket, for the noisome mud had not
+solidified. The care with which the impurity had been rendered innocuous
+demonstrated the correct ideas of the oyster on sanitation. No doubt the
+germ of the special form of tape-worm which troubles oysters, irritates
+to pearl-making, and passes through other transformations in other
+hosts, and completes its cycle in the body of a shark, would be too
+minute for inexpert detection. The fact that molluscs do intern foreign
+and obnoxious substances is testimony to their decency and love of
+cleanliness, and so may the pearl be still accepted as the embodiment of
+purity. Though all its little soul be dirt, the pearl is pure, and but
+for the dirt or the germ of a filthy ailment it would not be pearl.
+
+So many molluscs produce pearls that it would be absurd for the great
+oyster family to set up exclusive rights. They do not, for your oyster
+is ever humble even when tenanted with a rivalless pearl. On the coast
+of North Queensland, within the Great Barrier Reef, pinnas of at least
+two species are among the producing agents, which, covering a wide
+range, seem to meet in two distinct genera, far apart in appearance and
+habit. There is the frail, flat, translucent "window-shell" (Placuna),
+the valves of which fit so closely that the poor little inhabitant
+is squeezed to a wafer, a film, a fragment of muscle. Yet in some
+localities nearly every individual has a pearl, pretty in tint, but
+too minute to be of value. An allied species is common on the coast of
+China, where the pearls are collected for export to India, to be reduced
+to lime by calcination for the use of luxurious betel-nut chewers. These
+almost microscopic pearls are also burnt in the mouths of the dead who
+have been influential and wealthy.
+
+Coal-black pearls occur in one of the pinnas, the interior of which
+is sooty, shot with iridescent purple, and since the pearl, whether
+produced by oyster, mussel, pinna, or window-shell, is generally more
+brilliant than the containing shell, that of the black pinna, with the
+high lights of its environment concentrated, may be a gem of surpassing
+novelty and beauty. But the habitual product of this pinna is small,
+dull, mud-tinted or brown, and of no value whatever. Another of the
+genera grows "seed" of excellent lustre, corresponding with the azure
+brightness of the shell.
+
+The chief source of orient pearls on the coast of North Queensland
+is the gold-lip mother-of-pearl PINCTADA MAXIMA, while the black lip
+PINCTADA MARGARITIFERA occasionally yields fine and flawless specimens
+of a silvery lustre. One which is still lovingly remembered was of pale
+blue and wonderfully lighted. The commonest of the giant clams TRIDACNA
+GIGAS sometimes betrays evidence of past internal trouble by the
+presence of a concretion of porcelain whiteness and of porcellaneous
+texture, but such are not to be described as pearls and to be prized as
+rarities only.
+
+That some huge molluscs produced pearls before man, with his faculty for
+admiration, came on the scene is proved by their existence as fossils in
+chalk. Hemispherical specimens have been found on the inner surface of a
+shell which has no living representative--viz., the Inoceramus (some
+of which attained a length of two feet)--and spherical ones of the same
+prismatical structure occur detached in the chalk. It were curious
+to let the imagination run over the fact that the hosts of these
+uncommended gems died ages before the advent of man. The best of modern
+prizes may be puny in comparison with those which caused distress to
+the giant molluscs of the age when the Ichthyosaurus, Plesiosaurus, and
+Pterodactylus were the aristocrats of the animal world. Such gems have
+gone for ever, and even during this age of insatiable and adventurous
+search man does not secure a tithe of the ocean's tribute, for, since a
+pearl is a source of discomfort to its host, the unceasing effort of
+the animal is towards expulsion. The greatest and possibly the most
+magnificent are cast out as rubbish on the ocean floor, or are retained
+within the valves when the animal dies of old age.
+
+So-called pearls have been found in elephants' tusks and semi-adherent
+to the bones of fish, and concretions--hard, smooth, and round, and
+of the flat hue of skimmed milk--in coconuts and in the cavities of
+bamboos; but in the production of the real gem neither oyster nor mussel
+nor pinna need fear the rivalry of anything on the earth's surface. The
+pearl belongs to the sea.
+
+Completely spherical pearls can be formed only loose in the mantle or
+soft parts of the body of the animal; but intrusions incite a deposit
+of nacre in the form of a projection on the interior, which projection,
+often a mere bubble, but sometimes semi-detached, may take the shape and
+dimensions of the foreign substance. Or an inoffensive mollusc may be
+goaded by the piercing of its shell from the exterior to create that
+for which men venture into the depths of the sea. If a pearl-secreting
+oyster be inherently robust, its defence against assault from without
+may consist of the strengthening of the interior at the point of attack
+by deposits of nacre. Thus, a slight protuberance arises which becomes
+the base of a blister or button or the starting-point of a pear-shaped
+gem. Many a lovely gem is, therefore, nothing more than the imperishable
+record of aggression on the part of a flabby sponge on a resourceful
+oyster. Occasionally valuable pearls are found within huge blisters.
+Such pearls originate, no doubt, in the ordinary way, but, becoming
+an intolerable nuisance on account of increasing size, are confined in
+nacre.
+
+One of the accompanying illustrations shows the fate which befell
+an infant chiton upon intrusion on a small black-lip oyster, and
+coincidentally the origin of a blister. The chiton family being
+notorious for stolidity, the infant could not have realised the risks of
+its trespass until the strait-jacket made its retirement impossible.
+The nacre has reproduced the details of the chiton's exterior with the
+fidelity of a casting, and further reveals the fact that it was alive
+when entombed, for its struggles to escape are solidified.
+
+This deliberate act of the oyster may not stand comparison with the
+stone of Pyrrhus's ring, which had the figure of Apollo and the nine
+Muses in the veins of it produced by the spontaneous handiwork of Nature
+without any help from art. The marvellous stone belonged to the fabulous
+past; the imprisoned chiton to the prosaic present.
+
+Another illustration is that of an accumulation of nacre which has
+assumed accidental resemblance to a miniature shark. It was found in a
+gold-lip pearl shell in Torres Straits. The like quantity in globular
+shape would represent a pearl of great value.
+
+
+A PEARL IN THE MAKING.
+
+
+On a calm and luminous day I waded, disrobed, in shallow water as limpid
+as the fictitious stream which legend says King Solomon improvised
+at the foot of his throne when the Queen of Sheba attended his court.
+Lifting her robes--for she imagined the crossing of the water to be a
+ceremonial device--the gorgeous Queen displayed her shapely calves. The
+water resting on the verge of the lovely Isle was as delusively clear,
+but was not deceptive.
+
+It revealed living coral, good to avoid by the barefooted; clams with
+patterned mantles of various tints--grey, slate-blue, sea-green, brown,
+and buff; anemones in many shapes, some like spikes of lavender,
+and irritant and repellent to the touch; some platter-shaped and
+cobalt-blue; some as living vases with the opalescent tints of Venetian
+glass, which, abhorring the hand of man, retreat into the sand until
+only an inconspicuous fringe of neutral tint is visible. Sea-slugs
+in almost endless form and variety of hue, and many other strange sea
+things, were among the inhabitants of the reef--a closely packed arena
+of never-ceasing slaughter.
+
+In the middle of a clump of brown seaweed, which had fallen apart like
+the neatly dressed hair of a woman, was a black streak, signifying the
+gape of a wedge-shaped mollusc known as a pinna. The gape was about as
+long as the parting of a woman's hair and about thrice as wide. As I
+crouched to note the functions of the animal, my shadow intervened and
+the caution of the creature was roused, the valves closing so that no
+sign of the presence of the shell was distinguishable among the slightly
+wavering, minute particles of alga. Changing my position, so that the
+pinna might not be deprived of its share of the rays of the sun, the
+valves soon furtively opened. A slight movement on my part and they
+closed again, without having revealed any hidden charms.
+
+After a few minutes, a certain confidence being established between us,
+the pinna emerged from its retirement, in so far as such creatures are
+permitted by Nature. The mantle of this particular species is shown as
+a delicate fringe of lace in old gold and black. It ripples along the
+upper edges of the confining valves, which are intensely black with a
+pearly lustre. The pretty movements of the mantle--like the swinging
+of the skirts of a well-apparelled damsel--attracted admiration, and on
+peering into the shell a glimpse of something precious was obtained.
+
+Tossed and twirled about just below the old gold fringe was a black
+pearl about the size of a pea. The prize was safe. Without risk of loss
+it could be watched in its unceasing revolutions. It seemed as if the
+animal, with automatic perseverance, attempted to eject the incubus, the
+weight of which kept it about an inch below the aperture of the valves.
+Such motion would naturally tend to perfection. Whatsoever its lustre,
+it would certainly be a sphere. Besides, it was a pearl in the making.
+As long as it remained within the pinna and it could not be voluntarily
+rejected, its size would inevitably increase. It was the rolling stone
+to which time and the secretions of the animal would add weight and,
+peradventure, beauty.
+
+Was mortal ever before privileged to watch over the growth of a black
+pearl? The activities of the mantle, a blending of enticing colour
+and poetic motion, were slow, free, and light-attracting. The ancients
+believed that some pearls were constituted by flashes of lightning
+playing on bubbles within the oyster. A relative of the family here
+seemed to be wooing the tropic sun of its beams, if not to vitalise, at
+least to burnish its treasure.
+
+Close scrutiny showed that the pearl was not absolutely free. It was
+enclosed in a transparent membrane, the merest film, which confined
+it to a particular position in the mantle, while it seemed to possess
+independent actions--vertical and revolutionary. Perhaps the rays of
+light which fell unequally on it through the water created the illusion
+of revolutions, but it is certain that the pearl seemed to be playing a
+game of hide-and-seek.
+
+Was it possible for human nature to deny itself so easily gotten
+and pretty a prize? I confess, though the possibility of the pearl
+increasing in size and loveliness was obvious, that the fact that pinnas
+are subject to ills, chances, and mishaps, was also recognised. Left to
+be slowly tossed about, the pearl would become greater; but size, though
+an important feature, is not the only desirable quality. And while it
+grew might not another barefooted beach-comber discover it? Or might not
+one of the many unintelligent admirers of the pinna itself find entrance
+by drilling or by the violent crushing of the valves, and, ignoring the
+treasure, destroy the organs and the substance by and from which it
+was being delicately elaborated? Suppose, I argued, I remove the gaping
+shell, I shall no longer be able to enjoy the rare, the unique pleasure
+of presiding over the gradual perfection of a pearl, an aesthetic
+advantage to which I alone had been made free. Could present possession
+of a little sphere of carbonate of lime, polished and sooty black,
+compensate for the continuance of the chaste joy of watching one of the
+most covert and intimate processes of Nature? Balancing the immediate
+material gain against the inevitable moral loss, I was almost persuaded
+to self-denial, when, with a sudden impulse, begot of the consciousness
+of rightful acquisition, the pinna was forcibly yet carefully drawn out
+of the sand in which it was deeply embedded and in which it was anchored
+by toughened byssus. Directly the valves were prised apart the pearl
+fell into my hand. Never before had I seen one so loosely retained
+within its shell. Generally, in the case of the pinna, pearls
+are embedded in the muscles or soft parts, and are not primarily
+discernible, but have to be sought for by passing the "meat" through
+the fingers. On this occasion all previous experience had been set at
+naught, so that it might seem that the prize had been presented by the
+animal as its perfect and most opulent work.
+
+
+STRANGE PEARLS.
+
+
+The engaging theory of the ancients that pearls were made of glutinous
+dewdrops condensed by the sun's heat does not take into account the
+fact that some of the rarest, though not the most valuable, have assumed
+contrary and fantastic shape. Fish, crabs, and marine insects have
+proved a common origin of pearly developments while they have been
+regarded by some as almost miraculous conceptions on the part of the
+afflicted mollusc.
+
+Hamed of Jeddah, the stubby Arab who deals in fish and oysters, and who
+professes to have groped over in his youth a considerable extent of
+the Red Sea for coral and pearls, relates many experiences in which
+the popular gem takes pride of place. Oriental that he is, he loves
+exaggeration, and while lending a propitious car to the stories in which
+he enshrines his prime, when he could dive deep and long, and when the
+precious red coral was "thick" and every shell contained a pearl, it is
+discreet to disregard obvious breaks and bulges along the prim path of
+truth. The very crudeness of his embellishments invests with kind of
+comic relief some of his fables, which end invariably with insipid
+uniformity. All the pearls which have slipped through Hamed's rough
+hands have been valued at five hundred pounds, never more or less. It is
+not for me to rub the gilt off the innocent inventions of the emotional
+Arab, but merely to relate one of his time-beguiling tales, and one
+which, probably, is of clean-cut truth.
+
+A huge gold-lip, found four fathoms deep, where the sea grass sways
+indolently long, contained a tinted pearl like:
+
+"That fella sitting down along a tree and sing out along night time."
+
+"Flying fox?" I guessed grimly.
+
+"No!" snapped Hamed indignantly. "'Nother fella."
+
+"That bird which says 'chump, chump, chump?'" I meekly asked.
+
+Again Hamed sneered ironically. "No bird. No bird carn get along oyster.
+Little fella-green like leaf. Sing out 'Ko-rog, ko-rog, ko-rog!'"
+
+"Oh! Frog!"
+
+"Yes. Like frog. Me call him 'ghouk' along my country. That fella inside
+gold-lip. One inch long. Leg, hand, mouth, eyes all asame. I bin get
+five hundred pounds for that fella."
+
+Azure pearls in the similitude of tiny fish can be vouched for by people
+far more careful of their facts than Hamed--fish which have intruded
+themselves on the oysters and have been encased in nacre. Probably the
+rarity which fell into Hamed's hands was the pearly presentment of a
+crustacean, for marine frogs are infinitely rarer than pearls. Several
+molluscs admit tenants, one particular species a rotund crab; but in
+the case in point the wrong mansion was entered and, so to speak, the
+obtruder was transformed.
+
+A common and neat industry in China is the production of fraudulent
+pearls, pretty and in accordance with submitted design, in which the
+co-operation of the obedient but frail mussel is necessary. If a round
+pearl is desired, a naked shot is introduced between the valves so much
+to the discomfort of the animal that it proceeds to cover it decently
+with layer after layer of pearl-film, the bulk of which depends upon
+the length of life granted to the mussel. Sometimes little josses are
+stamped out in thin uncorrosive metal, which, being presented to the
+mussel, are faithfully modelled, the thrifty Chinese obtaining in course
+of time quaint pearly gods--as potent as the best--without money and
+without price.
+
+Not so long as a quarter of a century ago a spirit-bottle full
+of pearls--buttons, blisters, and chips of all sorts, sizes, and
+shapes--was purchased in North Queensland by one who had but the crudest
+ideas as to the value of such gems. The vendor was a whity-brown man,
+thin, and thinly clad in cotton. The complexion of the buyer was ruddier
+than the cherry, for the tropic sun had beamed ardently on his peachy
+Scotch skin, proclaiming him a new-chum, a bright and shining new-chum.
+Because he was new he was alert to the value of money. Had he not come,
+as all new-chums do, to Tom Tiddler's ground to pick up gold and silver?
+Hence, when the hatless, spare, whity-brown man in soiled cotton offered
+for sale the odd-shaped beads in a besmeared whisky-bottle for five
+pounds, his national trait expressed itself in a scoff.
+
+The whity-brown man's seriousness, his confidentiality, his keen
+desire to sell, his mysticism and misty English, the ruddy young man
+interpreted as manifestations of the arts and wiles by means of which
+innocent strangers from far away lands are tempted into bankruptcy
+bargains. The seller, anxious to dispossess himself of ill-gotten gains
+prejudicial to his love of liberty, pursued the Scotch youth almost
+tearfully, until the bottle changed hands, but at a considerable
+reduction on the price originally demanded. Shortly after a friend
+enlightened the youth as to the probable value of the collection, and
+gave him some cheap advice, especially on the desirableness of secrecy.
+The youth accepted the advice so literally that the story ends. No one
+ever knew how, when, where, and for what consideration, he disposed of
+his embarrassments. Fresh from the land of his birth, and with the text
+of Burns's poetic letter in his mind, he kept that something to himself.
+
+The days of such sensational deals are past. The primal crop has long
+since been harvested. Science is now bidden to stimulate the docile
+oyster, for the rage for pearls is as the rage of the heathen. Is it
+not the wish of every woman, old and young, to possess pearls? And while
+subject man, flushed with hope, ventures to the "utmost port, washed by
+the furthest sea," for such merchandise at the caprice of woman, Science
+plods sedately after man, beguiling him with the hope of some less risky
+and laborious means of acquiring the gems, while at the same time
+she soothes the irrepressible passion of every damsel with strings of
+artistic counterfeits manufactured from the scales of silvery fish, and
+as pleasant to glance at as many an orient.
+
+The Spaniards say that a paper cigarette, a glass of water, and the kiss
+of a pretty girl, will sustain a man for a day without eating. But what
+is a man to do who has no tobacco, only stale water, who is separated
+from the nearest girl by seventy miles of perilous seas forlorn, and
+whose appetite sickens at the sight of the coarse fare of a béche-de-mer
+boat? There is but one resource for such a martyr. He must do "a
+perisher." That is precisely what the master of a lonely boat in an
+odd angle of the Coral Sea was doing when a joyful sail appeared--a
+dove-like messenger from civilisation and shops. It was a pitiable
+famine. No one had had a smoke for a week. The black boys had broken
+up their nicotine-saturated clay pipes and masticated them to pulp, and
+still treasured the quids, while the "Boss" pondered cigars during the
+day and dreamt them at night. But relief was at hand. The master of the
+strange craft, though well stocked, was not disposed to be generous,
+until tempted by the sight of a lovely yellow pearl, about the size of a
+small marble and of satiny lustre--sweet to look upon, sweeter still
+to possess. Aware of the other man's agonising needs, he drove a hard
+bargain, and the gem became his at the cost of a box of tobacco. He
+hugged himself for joy, and after a decent lapse, during which he acted
+the part of the virtuous who had relieved another's necessities out of
+sheer goodwill (for the pearl was only a curio, was it not?), he set
+sail for the nearest port.
+
+Certain that fortune had at last beamed upon him, he laid up his lugger,
+wound up his affairs, and hurried off to Sydney, secretly, to dispose
+of his prize first-hand. An expert weighed the treasure, scrutinised it
+shrewdly through a microscope, and handed it back with a casual remark
+that it was a pretty curio, but that its market value was about half a
+crown. "It has been exposed to great heat, and may crumble to pieces at
+a change of temperature. Get me one like that uncooked and I'll give you
+twelve hundred pounds."
+
+Some time after, the grasping man discovered that the pearl had been
+found in the "meat" of a "helmet" shell which had been roasted by a
+hungry and tobaccoless boy.
+
+Without appearing to suggest anything beyond a trifling blemish in this
+story, replete as it is with edifying illustrations of the frailties of
+human nature, it would be well to remember that the helmet shell (CASSIS
+FLAMMEA) is not nacreous and could not therefore produce a true pearl,
+but merely g porcellaneous concretion, which, however, might possess a
+most attractive tint, possibly pale salmon or orange. Such a gem might
+be valuable.
+
+Great pearls are not generally found on shallow reefs. He who would
+search for them systematically must dive, and if he does not possess the
+proper costume and accessories his trips below are but brief, and not
+always profitable. When a diver boasts that he can remain under water
+two or three minutes--and the boast is very common--he has gauged his
+endurance by his sensations, not by the clock. Once an expert was timed,
+a coloured gentleman who had great repute among his companions, all
+capable divers. He made a special and supreme effort, and though the
+watch recorded barely seventy seconds, he was much distressed. Recovery
+was, however, speedy; of ten subsequent minutes he spent more than
+half out of sight. It is not argued that human beings cannot remain
+voluntarily under water more than seventy seconds, but the feat is so
+rare that those who accomplish it are not usually pearl-divers.
+
+The natives of some parts of Borneo declare that the valves of the
+oysters containing the largest pearls are always open, and that by
+peering into the water the pearls may be seen. They tell a story of a
+gigantic pearl which was thus discovered by the men of old and actually
+brought while within the oyster into a canoe, but had slipped from the
+fingers of a careless holder into deep water.
+
+Spencer St. John, author of "Life in the Forests of the Far East," had
+among his friends a chief who ventured most of his possessions in a
+pearling cruise. Disaster attended the enterprise, but without subduing
+his faith in luck; mortgaging everything, even to his wife and child, he
+went out to woo fortune again. His slave-boy was preparing to dive one
+day when he started back, touched his master's hand, and with signs of
+great emotion pointed into the water. The chief looked, and there, seven
+fathoms below, lay an oyster with an enormous pearl distinctly visible.
+Without a moment's reflection he plunged in, and, diving with skill
+and speed, reached the shell before it closed, his fingers being caught
+between the valves. He quickly rose to the surface, and was helped into
+the boat by his anxious follower. Upon the oyster being forced open, a
+pearl, unsurpassed in size and of extraordinary beauty, was revealed.
+Returning to his native village, the chief sold all his smaller pearls,
+and having redeemed his wife and child, set sail for Manila, where lived
+an English friend who advanced him money, to whom he said: "Take this
+pearl, clear off my debt, give me what you like in return. I shall be
+satisfied." The author adds: "The merchant took the pearl, gave him what
+he considered its value--at all events enough to make Sulu ring with
+his generosity--and sent the pearl to China; but what became of it
+afterwards I could never distinctly trace; but I learned that a pearl in
+Bengal called 'The Mermaid' originally came from China, and as the one
+found in Sulu was said to be shaped like a woman's bust, it is probably
+the same."
+
+
+
+Possibly the golden age of the pearl is passing as the golden age of the
+reptile has passed, for can it not be imagined that, in those far-back
+days when oysters attained a length of two feet and better deserved
+the title of Tridacna (three bites) than the present clams, pearls
+of corresponding magnificence of size were produced? Or are robust
+pearlless oysters to be accepted as the type of the strong era, and
+small oysters and pearls merely as signs of degeneracy? The largest of
+modern pearls measured two inches long by a circumference of four inches
+and weighed eighteen hundred grains. The containing shell may have been
+big only in comparison with its contemporaries. A very small man has
+been known to be afflicted with a disproportioned goitre, and there are
+some who argue that the goitre may be but the prototype of the pearl.
+
+Is fact or fable to claim the most glorious of pearl stories? Some
+verily believe that Cleopatra did quaff the costliest beverage the world
+has ever known. The incident is so faithful to the character of "that
+rare Egyptian" that all sober record shall not discount delight in its
+transcendent sumptuousness. Though the pearl may have been worth eighty
+thousand pounds of our money, though Cleopatra was gay, though her
+extravagance was impious, she was a glorious woman, and she had at least
+one glorious, if nauseating, drink. The pearl decoction was merely an
+episode in her policy, which was to fascinate Antony--Antony who had
+called her to account for having aided his enemies in their war against
+him. And what was an eighty thousand pound bauble in the high affairs
+of State? "She was at the age when a woman's beauty is at its prime, and
+she was also of the best judgment. So she furnished herself with a world
+of gifts, stores of gold and silver, and of riches and other sumptuous
+ornaments as is credible she might bring from so great a house and from
+so wealthy and rich a realm as Egypt. But yet she carried nothing
+with her wherein she trusted more than herself, and in the charms and
+enchantment of her surpassing beauty and grace."
+
+And then the supper following the magnificent pageant! Anything less
+than an eighty thousand pound pearl would have been an anti-climax, a
+mean and clumsy culmination of a "gaudy night." That soul-delighting gem
+which vanished in foam told of a superb Cleopatra's "calm felicity and
+power."
+
+Some say that, the jewel--cast away so majestically was one of a pair
+which Cleopatra wore as ear-rings, and that when Antony restrained
+his hostess from a repetition of the draught, she presented the now
+matchless pearl to him. Another version implies that the ear-ring had
+been originally one monster pearl, which Cleopatra had caused to be sawn
+in two to gratify her lust for unique and lavish ornament.
+
+It is said, too, that the pearl was dissolved in wine. By a simple
+practical test and at the sacrifice of a small quantity of baroque,
+proof was obtained that ordinary culinary vinegar is a solvent of
+pearls. The experiment also yielded these notable conclusions--that
+either the wine of Cleopatra's age was much more corrosive than the
+vinegar of ours, or that the costly beverage was prepared beforehand,
+or that the stately banquet was long-drawn-out while the inestimable gem
+spluttered and simmered in the goblet. The dissolution of such a large
+pearl must have been slow, and the product far from nice, but it was one
+of the effects by which a sovereign woman conquered the "most courteous
+lord" of his day.
+
+A curious superstition prevails in some parts of the East Indies, it
+being believed that if gold and pearls are placed by themselves in a
+packet they will certainly decrease in quantity or number, and in the
+end totally disappear; but, if a few grains of rice are added, the
+treasure is safe. Rice is thought not only to preserve the original
+number of pearls, but to actually cause increase.
+
+Tarnished pearls are occasionally submitted to the process of
+"skinning"--the removal with fine steel files under a magnifying
+glass of the outer 'layer, on the chance of the existence of a better
+underneath. The ancients treated lustreless gems differently, placing
+them before doves, under the belief that they could be polished by being
+pecked and played with by the gentle birds.
+
+In some respects pearls are superior to all other gems. They are
+emblematic of serenity, and serenity is often power in the highest
+manifestation. None ever said an unkind word of pearls; no dubious
+legend clings to them, making the timid afraid. They come to us
+perfectly fashioned. No coarse handiwork has touched them, no soulless
+machine ground them to conventional pattern. The last diamond may be,
+the last pearl never, until the sea gives up more than its dead, its
+very being. Pearls may begin and end in foam; but the beginning is now
+and always, and the ending rare, for the Cleopatras are gone. Emblems
+of purity, refinement, and peace, they are truly the gems for woman.
+Queenly or demure, they become her, and she bestows on them a quality
+hard to define, but singularly sweet and acceptable. Gold and precious
+stones may occupy billions of years in the making, or may be the product
+of--
+
+
+        "The war of elements,
+    The wrecks of matter, and the crash of worlds."
+
+
+Once we find these hard, cold things and take hold of and seize them, we
+know that we have, to use a homely simile, eaten our cake. The supply
+of pearls is continuous, and under the control of the cruel ingenuity of
+man they grow to an ordinary size in less than a decade.
+
+Many years ago an opinion was expressed that the increasing knowledge
+'of the mollusc and its habits would enable man literally to sow the sea
+with pearls as he sows a field with grain, and that the harvest would
+be certain. Under natural conditions not one oyster in a hundred is
+troubled with a pearl, and not one pearl in the hundred is of any real
+value. It is demanded that unsuspecting oysters shall be inflicted with
+a kind of plague, so that there shall be not one but several pearls
+in every suffering individual, and in the greater number chance
+will contrive a larger proportion of orients. Every oyster has
+its potentialities; Science seeks to convert potentialities into
+certainties.
+
+
+PEARLS AND HIGH TRAGEDY.
+
+
+Such merchandise has ever provoked the spirit of adventure in hardy,
+healthy men, and pearls have claimed the lives of the best among them.
+The health and figure of the friend who beguiled many an evening were
+sacrificed to the lustrous gem so prized of women. A model of stalwart
+manhood of the Viking strain, he died early, worn out with the stress
+with which he sought the most serene of personal adornments. There may
+have been some slight exaggeration in the popular belief that he had
+walked along the bottom of the sea from one end of the Great Barrier
+Reef to the other, a stretch of over one thousand miles; but that he had
+accomplished more than that distance in the aggregate of his submarine
+wanderings may be quite credible. Probably there was no human being who
+possessed such intimate knowledge of the character of the ocean floor
+within the living bounds of the Great Barrier; and since he was silent,
+reserved, and self-contained to all save friends of long standing, was
+never guilty of boasting, and ever reluctant to tell of his adventures,
+the world is little the wiser from his work, though at the best time
+of his life most of his days were spent under water in fairyland-like
+scenes. It may seem absurd to associate fairyland with the depths of the
+sea; but the shy explorer of many a coral grove has been heard to say
+that the scenes fulfilled his ideals of what the realms of the fairies
+might be like.
+
+Pearl-divers are more susceptible to the charms of wayward Fortune than
+those who have not realised the thrill of expectancy with which a huge
+goldlip, encrusted with coral and swathed with seaweed, is seized. It
+may contain a gem worth a king's ransom, or but an animal which, though
+it may be crossed in love, is not engaging in appearance or in any
+feature or quality commendable. There is the chance; and it appeals
+to most rational men. Secretive Fortune lures on, promising the bubble
+pearl 'and proffering that which satisfieth not, until the stress and
+perils of the avocation tell on the enthusiast, who finds himself not
+exuberant as wont; that Fortune has been tricking him; that in the
+pursuit of pearls Chance is oft repellent; and that the prize which
+seemed impossible to avoid has eluded the most devoted seekers.
+
+It may be that my captain did not seek his pearls with zeal beyond that
+which is common to the calling the world over; but that his enthusiasm
+beguiled him into remote and odd parts of the Barrier, that he became
+familiar with rare scenes (denied to all save submarine adventurers
+in tropical waters), that he was oft in peril of his life, and that he
+could pause in the midst of strenuous, nerve-racking work to watch
+the never-ceasing hostilities of the denizens of the sea, may not be
+questioned.
+
+Not long before he passed away he told of one of his adventures in a
+few hurried words, after the manner of one who loves not to dwell on
+personal reminiscences, save as a text for the rectification of popular
+error in respect of sensational happenings. The story is here repeated,
+for it throws light on an incident which sent one ship of warfare on
+dubious patrol, and reveals the manner of the men who sought pearls in
+the old days.
+
+"Have you found that pearl?" he asked smilingly; for we had often talked
+of the possibility of being rewarded with a fortune-bestowing gem.
+
+"Yes, indeed, I have; and a real beauty. I very much doubt if you, for
+all your experience, ever saw such perfect shape and fine lustre. Here
+is an instance of the perversity of Chance. You, tied up in a rubber
+bag, rake the floor of the Barrier, fighting sharks and being hustled
+by turtle, and never find anything out of the way. I stroll about the
+beaches, and see what Fortune bestows!"
+
+The size of a small marble, it lay swathed in white wadding. Minute
+furrows sculptured the surface in radiating lines from pole to pole,
+enhancing rare radiance.
+
+The captain took the little casket in his hand that he might gloat over
+the treasure, as, his eyes shining, he said:
+
+"You lucky fellow! Where did you get it? I never saw a finer pearl, and
+I have seen a few in my days. Fair numbers have passed through my hands;
+but--you fraud!"
+
+He lifted it, revealing a counterfeit, which had once ornamented a
+hatpin.
+
+In good-humour he settled down on a lounge and gradually drifted into
+reminiscences.
+
+"About two years before what I am going to tell you happened, I heard
+of a patch of shell off an island Sud-Est way; I kept the tip to myself,
+determined to work the spot on my own account if ever I got the chance.
+I waited till I saved a few pounds, and, taking in a mate, fitted out a
+craft, and with a crew of very fair boys sailed away. I found the spot
+all right; but--my usual luck--someone had been there before me. Strange
+to say, the spot was by no means worked out, though it was fairly good
+ground and easy working, and the shell large. We did good business for
+a while, until one day I got a proper start. The life-line fouled on
+something, and I found that it had taken a turn round the bowsprit of a
+wreck. I got on top pretty quick, and, having had a talk with my mate,
+went down again. Very soon I knew the boat. It was the ----, and she
+had belonged to a man I had known very well. The strange part about the
+business was that the boat had been burned. Her deck was gone; she had
+burned to the water's edge and had sunk, and there she rested on her
+keel. I knew that the owner had left port some months before on a secret
+cruise. Someone must have given him the tip, too. He was well known and
+liked, and generally did good business. My mate and I talked over the
+business. We wanted to clean up that patch, so decided to remain a few
+days longer before clearing out to report. I was convinced that murder
+had been committed-that the natives of the island had massacred the
+party and had sunk the lugger.
+
+"While I was below next day an urgent message came down. I bobbed up
+pretty quickly. A boat was sneaking out from the beach, apparently with
+the plan of cutting us off from our lugger, which was anchored some
+distance off, with only a couple of boys on board. You bet, we got up
+steam pretty quickly. When we got on board we reached for our rifles,
+and then felt safe.
+
+"The boat was then making straight for us, and it appeared to be crowded
+with darkies. We had been off the island for four days, and had not seen
+the sight of a native. I knew there were plenty, and the fact that they
+had kept away had made me a bit suspicious. As the boat came along I
+was sure they meant mischief, and was determined, no matter how friendly
+they wanted to be, not to let one of the beggars on deck.
+
+"About half a mile away we saw one of them, who appeared to be a bit
+lighter in colour than the rest, stand up in the bow and wave a kind
+of message. He kept one arm going like a semaphore. Then we saw that
+he carried under the other arm a basket--a peace-offering of yams and
+fruit, no doubt. He had only a shirt on, and still he kept his right
+arm working. When he got within hailing distance, the man in the bows
+shouted my name. He was a brawny chap. I thought to myself that if it
+came to a row I would pot him first, for he was ringleader.
+
+"All the rest were naked. His scanty uniform marked him out. Probably
+he got that shirt from the owner of the sunken lugger. I wetted my lips
+with my tongue as I thought it might be my duty to wipe him out. Then my
+name was shouted out again, and, recognising the voice, I discovered the
+man in the shirt to be a well-known character who goes under the name of
+----.
+
+"I've got something nice for you, captain! Don't look so nasty with that
+rifle to an old friend!'
+
+"Still keeping our rifles ready, we let the boat come alongside and the
+tinted man passed up the basket, It was native-made, and all the top was
+covered with green leaves. Thinking of fresh yams and fruit, I pulled
+off the leaves, and there--poof!--the head of a man-an old man who must
+have died a violent death about two days before.
+
+"The man in the shirt laughed loud and long at the disgust in my face,
+and, coming on board, soon told of the tragedy of which the awful head
+was a symbol of retaliation.
+
+"The owner of the sunken lugger had fitted her out with unusual care.
+His crew consisted of natives of the island off which we were lying. As
+a special inducement to one of the boys, whose name was Massai, he had
+promised a rifle, but designedly withheld the gift until towards the end
+of the term of agreement. Massai had persistently begged for the rifle,
+and it having become necessary for the Boss' to take a trip to the port,
+he had definitely, promised to bring it with him. Again he designedly
+forgot. Massai became morose. Things went on calmly enough until one
+day, when the mate was below, the 'Boss' was suddenly thrown overboard.
+As he floundered on the surface one of the boys struck at him with a
+tomahawk, and then he must have realised that his life was at stake.
+
+"Diving until well clear of the boat, he swam off to the lugger, about
+a quarter of a mile away. As his master came up, Massai leaned over the
+side, his master's rifle in his hand.
+
+"'Don't shoot me, Massai,' he shouted. 'I give you good rifle belonga
+yourself.'
+
+"Massai shouted back, 'Me catch 'em plenty riple! You no good!' and
+fired. The bullet splashed over the man's head. The next struck him fair
+in the forehead, and he sank.
+
+"In the meantime Massai's confederates were sporting with the diver,
+hauling him up to the surface, pumping sufficient air to keep him alive,
+shutting it off until he must have been nearly suffocated, reviving him
+with fresh supplies, and with joy prolonging life until the fun of the
+thing ceased; then they had cut the pipe so that he might drown.
+
+"The lugger having been ransacked, she was fired, and she had sunk at
+her anchorage.
+
+"A few days after the man with the shirt arrived at the island, and
+since these simple children of Nature cannot keep their doings to
+themselves, he very soon was made a confidant, learning the whole
+details of the tragedy by pidgin English and expressive pantomime, and
+obtaining as proof the coat of the reckless man who had made a promise
+to Massai which, possibly, he had never intended to fulfil. The plot of
+the revenge and murder had been hatched out ashore at the instigation of
+Massai's mother.
+
+"Fortified with full information, he sailed away to a neighbouring port,
+where he exhibited the coat of the murdered 'Boss.' Being impressed, the
+official representing the majesty of the law gave some vague commission
+to the man, who now wears other clothes than a shirt, and he sailed away
+for ports unknown.
+
+"Interpreting his commission to make further inquiries very broadly,
+he appeared off the island, and received a cordial welcome, for he was
+'Hail fellow well met' with the inhabitants of many a remote isle. He
+made himself very friendly, and the frank natives rather gloried than
+otherwise in the recitation of evidence which condemned them.
+
+"Then he made plans for unauthorised punishment. Having disarmed
+suspicion--just as the boat's crew had done in the case of his
+friend--he waited, and one dark night surrounded the village with a
+well-armed, hostile force. These Papuan villages are fortified in a
+certain sense. Some of the exits are set with traps and spring spears,
+and none but those in the secret dares venture along a track when the
+village has been made secure for the night.
+
+"The man with the shirt posted his forces so that the exits were
+commanded, and waited for dawn, his instructions being that no
+demonstration was to be made until he gave the signal. Before the
+designed time a shot was fired, and the conscience-stricken community
+fled, all save one old man and infant, who met their fate.
+
+"The village was spoiled and fired, and thus retributive justice done
+to those who had wantonly murdered two white men and destroyed their
+property.
+
+"Once again," said the captain, "my luck was out. Goodness knows! There
+might have been a big pearl in that patch. We didn't wait to find it!"
+
+
+
+
+SNAKE AND FROG PRATTLE
+
+
+
+"Surely, then, it interests us to know the lot of other animal
+creatures. However far below us, they are still the sole created things
+which share with us the capability of pleasure and the susceptibility to
+pain."--HUXLEY.
+
+
+It may be edifying to confess a particular interest in man's first
+enemy-not such interest as the man of science displays when he seeks to
+add to the knowledge of the world, but a kind of social concern. None
+of us is likely to forget that on the authority of Holy Writ the serpent
+became familiar with mankind very shortly after his appearance on earth,
+and whispered injurious secrets into guileless ears. Ever since the
+scene in the Garden of Eden, war between man and the serpent has
+prevailed, and now, if we are to credit the sayings of the wise, the end
+of all reptiles, if not actually in view, cannot be long postponed.
+Is it not mete, therefore, to take fair opportunity of studying the
+characteristics and qualities of an animal, closely associated with
+us by fable and in fact, which is doomed to extinction by the ruthless
+strides of civilisation, which is regarded by some as cleanly and
+decent, and by others as repulsive and direful? Plain, unromantic,
+unsensational statements make for the acquirement of knowledge
+illustrative of the habits and faculties of the creature against
+which the hand of the average man is raised with a mixture of wrath,
+vengeance, and fear.
+
+By study and observation one may come to understand the higher
+principles of Nature, and so learn how to withstand influences inimical
+to his interests without upsetting laws which tend to his welfare.
+
+Occasionally quite casual happenings and bare and slight matters of fact
+show that those who study natural history first-hand acquire information
+not to be obtained from authoritative works. Let one instance concerning
+the varied diet of the death adder be quoted, since it confounds the
+experience of one of the most learned men in Australia on the subject.
+On the beach just at high-water mark, beneath an overhanging shrub,
+several birds sounded an alarm, notifying by peculiar and persistent
+screeching the presence of an enemy. After a few minutes' search, for
+the strained attitudes of the birds indicated the direction, a death
+adder was seen gliding among thickly strewn brown leaves with a limp
+bird between its jaws. It was quickly killed, and then the bird, a dusky
+honey-cater, was seen to be dead. Dusky honey-eaters generally spend
+their days among the topmost sprays of flowering trees and shrubs, while
+death adders habitually seek the seclusion of the shadiest places on the
+surface of the soil. In this case the adder was small, so small that it
+seemed to be a vain if not impossible feat for it to swallow the bird.
+
+Hitherto the food of the adder had been deemed to be frogs, lizards,
+beetles, and such game of the ground. Was it curiosity which brought
+the sun-loving bird within reach of the shade-loving snake? Upon the
+incident being referred to Mr. Dudley Le Souef, who has quite an uneasy
+familiarity with Australian snakes, dating from the days of ardent
+youth, when he was wont to carry some species about with him in his
+pockets, that authority wrote: "I did not know that death adders ever
+killed birds; I did not think they were active enough, their usual
+prey being frogs, lizards, etc. The honey-eater must have been taken
+unawares."
+
+Though scientifically regarded as "the most dangerous and probably the
+most deadly" of Australian snakes, the death adder has to its credit
+many everyday proofs to the contrary: so many, indeed, that some are
+inclined to class it as comparatively harmless, the reasons for such
+opinion being--(1) the small size of the creature, reducing the risks
+of its being interfered with inadvertently; (2) its amiability; (3) the
+fact that unless the sensitive membrane at the end of the tail, to which
+the curved spine is the culminating-point, is trodden on or otherwise
+insulted, the chances are that there will be, no active resentment.
+While adopting all precautions, accepting no risks, and being very eager
+to reduce the number by all and every possible means, it is well to
+avoid overexcitement; for though the reptilian age is passing away,
+those who live in the bush are too often reminded that snakes are still
+numerous, and some of them decidedly vicious.
+
+To disappoint the snake and at the same time to discredit its
+reputation, calmness on the part of the individual who may happen to be
+bitten is counselled. He should behave as a neighbour who one dark night
+stepped off his verandah barefooted on to nearly cleared land. As he
+strode along the scarcely distinguishable track, he trod on something
+other than a half-burnt stick. Almost instantaneously the Scripture was
+fulfilled--the serpent had bruised the man's heel. Now, this man has
+been in many strange, not to say fear-provoking, situations, and has
+listened to more than one close call without spoiling the occasion by
+anticipatory and hideous outcry. He does not smoke or drink whisky or
+give way to any nerve-affecting habit. He lives within hearing of the
+soothing lullaby of the sea. When his heel was gripped he did not
+jump or offend the air with unmanly plaint and ineffectual clamour,
+or otherwise fluster his heart with pernicious apprehension. With calm
+deliberation he put his hand into his pocket and drew forth--no! not a
+razor-edged knife, with which to slash the region of the punctures, but
+a box of matches, so that the scene might temporarily be surveyed. He
+saw, not the expected death adder, not a deadly copper head, not the
+venomous black which flattens and distends the neck like a cobra when
+its passions are roused, not the great red pugnacious beast which has
+been known to kill off-hand a big horse, but a shame-faced carpet snake,
+which, though innocent and inoffensive, will, like the worm, turn if
+rudely trodden on. The snake was quite ready to apologise for impulsive
+and graceless misbehaviour; but it seemed fascinated by the sudden
+light--how little of brightness bewilders such lovers of darkness--and
+maintained its repentant attitude until the sacred law was finally
+vindicated by the fatal bruising of its head.
+
+Many years ago a locality a few miles away suffered from a raid by bush
+rats, which congregated in great numbers. Similar plagues have often
+been recorded from the western downs; but the coastal visitation was
+singular, for it was associated with death adders, which seemed to be on
+good terms with the rats. One of the settlers was growing sweet-potatoes
+on a fairly large scale for pig food, the plough being used for the
+harvesting of the crop. Seldom was a furrow run for the full length of
+the field without turning up both adders and rats. Suddenly the rats
+migrated, and then the death adders disappeared, few of either
+being seen for a decade, when the association between them was again
+sensationally illustrated. The daughter of a settler rose at dawn, and
+with others ran off to the vegetable garden for salads for breakfast.
+While she was looking for a seemly cucumber, a rat was disturbed, and
+almost immediately after she was bitten by a death adder which had lain
+inert at the very spot whence the rat had fled. The child recovered,
+while the deceptive snake, which will not submit to have its tail
+saluted even by the airiest of treads, was killed. Not only have we here
+another proof of the non-fatal character of the bite of an adder, but a
+singular instance of association between an adder and a rat. Why and for
+what purpose does this apparent amicability exist?
+
+Sometimes mankind is startled by the unexpected appearance of a snake.
+Will credit be given to an almost magic disappearance? Those who hearken
+to the voices of birds learn to discriminate between the language of
+content and happiness and love and that of dismay and terror. A number
+of loud and pleasant-noted fasciating honey-eaters suddenly changed
+their tune to that indicative of fear. They were, gathered on a
+thick-leaved tree on the edge of the jungle in a crude circle, with
+heads pointing to a common centre. It was simplicity to conclude that
+a snake was present, but not at all easy to see it, for the flustered
+birds began to change their manoeuvres directly help was at hand.
+Eventually a thin brown snake was seen doubled up and apparently sound
+asleep among the branchlets The gun was called for, and two others
+hastened to the scene, each of whom distinctly saw the snake. When the
+shot was fired, a peephole was made through dense leafage just where the
+snake had reposed, but with the report it had 'disappeared. Fragments
+of twigs and leaves came to Mother Earth, but even a smart black tracker
+failed to find a trace of the snake, though the force of the explosion
+must have carried portions out into the open. The point of this artless
+narrative is that the black boy formed the firm opinion that that which
+he and two others had concluded to be a snake must have been "'Nother
+kind. Him no good. Close up 'debil-debil!'" To him a visible snake was
+quite commonplace; but one that vanished under the impulse of a charge
+of shot represented a mystery which called for caution and hasty
+departure, and the boy strode away with the suggestion of hot bricks
+below. But the tell-tale birds, suspicious of the material only,
+returned, stared at the vacancy, and fluttered off with--was it?--a note
+of thankfulness.
+
+The serpent has one infallible, perhaps because it is automatic, regard
+for its own comfort and well-being--it cannot be induced to tie itself
+into a knot. It is in mind that once in the old country a very long
+and very cold lethargic boa constrictor became benumbed and forgot the
+primal instinct of the family, and paid for its absent-mindedness
+with its life. But the ordinary snake under extraordinary conditions,
+whatsoever its length, is most careful to disentangle itself even when
+knots are designed for the special purpose of embarrassing it. Though
+the head of a snake be battered until all apparent sense is obliterated,
+the lithe body will cleverly evade attempts to cause it to disregard the
+great law. However tight the corner into which it may squeeze or narrow
+the quarters into which it may be driven, and though head and tail may
+be close together and in the midst of a complication of coils, and the
+twisting and writhing may appear to be without method, yet the snake
+emerges a triumph of single purpose.
+
+A complication was presented to a 6 foot 8 inch specimen, and truth bids
+me say that the snake did not seem in the least bewildered. From a nest
+of eggs six had disappeared in one night. The loss was debited to a
+snake, and it being calculated that the meal would suffice for several
+days, no particular zeal was displayed in tracing out the thief.
+Experience has taught that snakes do not wander very far when good and
+nutritious food is to be obtained by intrusion on the cosy quarters of a
+pet hen., Three days were permitted to pass, and then in the nest a rat
+trap was placed baited with two eggs, the door being secured with
+wire. The bait proved to be irresistible and the trap effective. In
+the morning the trap was crowded with snake, which had thrust its head
+between the wires, swallowed the eggs, and was a prisoner until they
+were dissolved by the processes of digestion or the door was unbolted.
+The natural process was not complete when the discovery was made, but
+the snake had managed to make itself as comfortable as possible in its
+temporary habitation. The trap seemed almost suffocatingly full, and
+when the occupant thrust its head and more than half its length between
+the bars, only to be checked by the hard-hearted eggs, it was thought
+that possibly, in its confusion, the snake might entangle itself; but
+invariably it retired into the trap without putting itself into any
+false position. It was killed, the executioner justly reflecting that a
+snake has mental limitations. Nothing could induce it to tie itself into
+a knot, and yet, wilfully and with its eyes open, it had entered a trap
+from which there was no possibility of escape until in the course of
+nature it had digested the bait.
+
+Is it generally known that a snake does everything with its eyes
+open--that it is denied the privilege of closing its eyes? Such is the
+indisputable fact. 'But without presuming to trespass on the preserves
+of men of science, the belief may be expressed that some species, if
+not in possession of a movable eyelid, have some means of suspending the
+faculty of sight. Indeed, there is evidence in support of the view that
+one species has a membranous eyelid similar to, but slighter than,
+that of a bird. It is not to be doubted that another reptile--the green
+turtle--is thus endowed, and that the "winking membrane" is found in
+many animals at the inner angle or beneath the lower lid of the eye.
+This membrane is represented in animals by a rudiment only. In the eyes
+of human beings the small reddish patch in the corner corresponds to the
+winking membrane--indeed, is the vestige of it. In monkeys, and in most
+mammals below them, there is present in this vestige a small piece of
+cartilage, and this is found occasionally in man. In white races it is
+very rare, occurring, as far as observations have shown, in less than
+one per cent. Recent investigations by Dr. Paul Bartels show that in
+twenty-five South African natives whom he had examined it occurred
+in twelve. Another investigation found it five times in twenty-five
+Japanese. It is curious to find that vestige more common in certain
+races, as it shows that in this small point they are less advanced than
+the white race.
+
+This quotation from a forgotten source supplies important links in the
+chain of evidence in favour of the theory that certain species of snakes
+may have the winking muscle, which exists in marine reptiles and
+is present in some human beings. Apart from theory, it has been my
+good-fortune to see a sleeping snake the eyes of which were obscured
+by a greyish film, giving it the appearance of being "wall-eyed."
+Being satisfied that it was blind, for it betrayed no uneasiness at a
+threatening demonstration, a determination was made to preserve it for
+critical examination. As soon as the snake was touched the cloudy veils
+were withdrawn, and the eyes flashed with the fire of malignity. It
+appeared to be spiteful because it had been caught napping. The specimen
+was not preserved, although it was bottled.
+
+The blacks of this district are more nervous about adders than any
+other snake, with the exception of that known to them as the "Wat-tam"
+(pronounce the "a" as in cat), and believed to belong to the same genus
+as the brown snake. This is a large snake, reddish-brown in colour,
+the underside, for about half the length, being bright orange, the
+tint gradually subsiding to pale yellow towards the tail. Post-mortem
+examination of the first specimen detected on this Island cleared up a
+bush tragedy. A nest had been built in a conspicuous spot by a pair
+of shrike thrushes, which the blacks, according to locality, know as
+"Moorgoody" and "Too-dring." The birds are the sweetest-voiced of all
+natives, and become wondrous tame and confiding. After the big spotted
+and blotched eggs were hatched, the hen would perch on the side of the
+nest within a foot of admirers, accepting compliments with tilted head
+and bright and twinkling eyes. One night the brood disappeared, and
+desperate things were held in store if ever a snake were found in the
+neighbourhood. Two days after, the alert dog gave tongue, his language
+demanding urgency and extreme caution. Within twenty yards of the site
+of the violated nest he was found "setting" at a big snake, which had
+raised the forepart of its body and appeared to be concentrating
+its strength and agility on one fatal and perfidious spring. But the
+faithful dog was watchful too, and agile, as he crouched fearlessly
+across the track of man's first enemy, with its crafty pose and
+glittering eyes. The black boys stood afar off, for the "Wat-tam" is
+so arrogant and pugnacious that it does not hesitate to attack a man,
+invariably with fatal results if great vigilance be not exercised--at
+least, such is their belief. Science, however, shows that though the
+snake has poison fangs, they are located so far back in the jaws as to
+be practically ineffective. Its fierce demeanour is probably, therefore,
+assumed for the purposes of intimidation. The gun speedily put the
+wicked-looking snake out of action, and a bulge in the body indicated
+the site of the last meal--the confiding thrush and her fledgeless
+brood. The incident illustrates another favourite theory--viz., that
+venomous snakes have a specific, distinctive odour, which warns animals
+likely to be attacked of their presence. The dog kills green tree,
+ordinary whip snakes, and the black, white-bellied species fond of
+reposing in the mounds of scrub hens, without ceremony and with all the
+zest and enthusiasm of a good sport; but in the case of venomous species
+so far he has not failed to call for help, but if assistance be delayed
+he takes the law into his own hands.
+
+
+
+Be it far from me to cast doubt on the truth of that which follows. The
+record is found in "Memoirs of the Queensland Museum," vol. ii., page
+43: "Although the scientific worker is hopelessly handicapped by
+the vividly imaginative journalist when snake stories are told, yet
+occasionally there are noticed incidents startling enough in their way.
+During the cooler months a young and lithe DIEMENIA PSAMMOPHIS, Schleg,
+popularly known as a 'whip snake,' usually retired under a piece of bark
+placed in its case, and it was only to be tempted out on warm and sunny
+days. On one occasion a small skink lizard was introduced, and the snake
+commenced a lively chase. The lizard ran under the bark, and on reaching
+the other side scampered back over the top, closely pursued by the
+snake. Again the lizard entered the bark tunnel, through which the tail
+of the snake was rapidly disappearing, making a spurt to keep up with
+the main body. The snake darted for the lizard, missed it, and then
+seized its own retreating tail about two inches from the tip. With
+characteristic pertinacity it held on, and apparently the classic
+episode of a snake swallowing itself was to be attempted. It was not
+until the snake was taken, out of the case and forcibly handled that
+it let go, there being apparently no distinction to the ophidian palate
+between its own flesh and that of its favourite lizard." The only
+comment that an unversed student of Nature may presume to make on this
+incident is that, possibly, the snake retained its tail because it
+could not do otherwise. Are not the jaws and teeth of some snakes so
+constructed, that the privilege of rejection is denied? The interests
+alike of science and the speculative world demanded that in the
+circumstances Nature should not have been balked. Why deprive the
+serpent of having its own blundering way with its own tail?
+
+There is no doubt that man does directly benefit by the conflicts which
+rage continuously between living things lower in the scale of life
+than himself; but the common slaughter is at times so cruel and so
+inexplicable that it is not given the average intellect to discover good
+and sufficient cause, though he may observe the more obvious habits and
+appetites of frogs and snakes. The former oft implore aid against the
+attacks of green tree snakes and of a big light brown lizard, fond of
+sleeping in hollow logs, and since one does not understand from the
+beseeching tones of the frog whether it is being molested by the
+universal enemy or not, he often hastens to the rescue, laboriously cuts
+down to the scene, to find, instead of a snake, a lizard, perhaps
+more useful in the harmony of Nature than a frog, and certainly more
+endearing, since it possesses the habit of silence. Unless the frog
+is past recovery it has become a practice to scare the lizard, and to
+suggest to the frog the sanctuary of another hollow.
+
+But frogs are not always considerate of other and gayer creatures. A
+friend who possessed a pet canary noticed that one morning in the cage
+of his pet there sat a panting frog, blinking in the sunlight. Thinking
+that the intruder had entered the cage to assuage his thirst, he did not
+eject it. It was the habit of the canary to hail the smiling morn with
+cheerful carol. In a few minutes unaccustomed silence prevailed, and
+then it was noticed that the frog was distended to a degree which must
+have caused it infinite satisfaction, while the canary had vanished. The
+conclusion was obvious and damning. Being accustomed to post mortems, my
+friend settled the point forthwith, the warm canary being revealed, with
+but slightly disarrayed feathers.
+
+A further illustration of the capacious and criminal appetite of the
+frog may be quoted. The wet season had been generous and prolonged, the
+crop of frogs prolific. The verge of a lagoon was crowded with active
+and lusty creatures, belonging, if colour was to be accepted as
+evidence, to different species, in fairly equal numbers. A casual glance
+inspired the thought that the occasion was nothing more than a vast
+assembly of greys and greens enjoying the pastime which boys imitate.
+All round were leaping frogs engaged in contests--greys against
+greens. Suspecting no evil intent, it was interesting thus to note the
+derivation of the game we have all played in sportful youth; but closer
+inspection proved that, instead of a friendly tournament on the grand
+scale, the rival frogs were indulging in shocking cannibalism. A grey
+frog would approach a green, when each would appear to become fascinated
+by the appearance of the other. Thus would they squat for several
+minutes, contemplating each other's proportions and perfections. Then
+both would leap high with mouths agape, and that which timed the feat to
+the best advantage, or had the widest gape, seized the less fortunate,
+and slowly and with much straining and little apparent joy swallowed it.
+Often the rivals would not meet in mid air, and the lapse provided the
+delusion of innocent play. There were hundreds of examples of absorption
+of the least fit by the fittest to survive, and the chronicling of the
+cannibal feast would be incomplete if a singular detail were unrelated.
+The participators seemed of like size. Complexion alone varied and
+foppish discrimination was exercised, for since dog does not in a
+general way eat dog, greys did not eat greys or greens greens. With
+unswerving decision, greys swallowed greens and greens greys, and
+extreme corpulency was the inevitable result. Does this not smack of
+the snake story? It certainly does, but it has the virtue of being
+unexaggerated, and why shrink from the telling of the plain truth?
+
+An unwitnessed tragedy may be told in a very few words. About
+twenty-five feet above high-water mark was the shaft of a white
+sand-crab. The site was not common, for the crabs are in the habit of
+burrowing well within the range of the tide. For two or three
+days--for the spot was at the back of the boat-shed and under daily
+observation--the alert creature was oft disturbed by my coming and
+going. One morning it remained motionless on the verge of its retreat.
+It seemed to be on guard, and as a companionable feeling had been
+aroused, I was careful as I passed not to unduly affright it. The
+statuesque position being abnormally retained, I stooped down, to find
+the crab dead, with the froth still on the complicated lips, while
+beside it was a huge wolf spider, "tremendous still in death," with head
+crushed to pulp. One may theorise that the spider invaded the crab's
+burrow and was promptly evicted; a fight took place for possession of
+the retreat, resulting in untoned tragedy. Venom and ponderous weapon
+each had done its work. Each participant had been victorious, each a
+victim.
+
+A still more singular bush conflict was witnessed by a friend. He heard,
+and not without concern, the pleading of a frog from the assaults of
+an enemy, but having far too many of them about the premises decided on
+noninterference, thinking that the hungry snake would soon silence
+the clamour. But the cries becoming shriller and more piteous, he
+investigated, finding among the leaves of a creeper on the verandah a
+large green Mantis--religiosa, too--voraciously making a meal off the
+hind-leg of a little green frog, which it grasped firmly. Almost the
+whole of the flesh of the limb had been eaten, and the observer was
+of opinion from the rapacity of the insect that there would have been
+little left of the screaming frog if he had not interfered.
+
+
+
+
+THE BUSH TRACK
+
+
+
+"They trade with Nature and the earth--a trade by which all that breathe
+upon the earth live."--RALEIGH.
+
+
+It has no beginning. It ends--who shall say where Every high tide
+smooths away the footprints of those who use it now, just as it did the
+erratic tramplings of the host of the past. In those free, unregulated
+days piccaninnies sprawled and scampered hard, glistening beach; young
+men and girls there; men lazed and fought on its convenient spaces;
+women wandered on the serious business of food-getting. The camps stood
+a pace or two above high-water mark in the meagre shelter of sighing
+casuarinas, and were often changed, for there were six miles of gently
+curving, ripple-embroidered shore on which to rest. To this day most of
+the traffic is regulated by the tide. High water drives the wayfarer
+to the loose, impeding sand, over which the great convolvulus sends its
+tireless tentacles, to be thrown back twisted and burnt by salt surges.
+
+The ebb discovers a broad space, firm and wellnigh unimpresslonable. The
+barefooted traveller may walk for miles and be trackless, so tough and
+elastic the moist sand. It is not an officious thoroughfare, made formal
+and precise by coarse hands working to plans correct to a hair, but
+subject to economic deviations of some soulless contractor. It was not
+laid with the foundation of the earth, and compacted by heat and stress.
+It is still in the making, and sand, coral, and shell-grit ground to
+pollen-like fineness and certain chemicals from the reef outside
+are among its component parts. One other element invokes perpetual
+thanksgiving--the flaked mica, which glistens delusively with hues of
+silver and gold, and gives to the tide-swept track that singular pliancy
+which resists the stamp of passing generations.
+
+Midway between high and low water is a zone sensible to the airiest
+tread, being fitted for such temporary effect by a mechanical operation.
+Millions of the smallest of crabs, sand-tinted, delicate, apprehensive
+and alert, possess this area, working out their destiny by digging
+circular shafts. Obedient agents in the execution of the imperative
+ordinances of Nature, they have the quality of compacting the almost
+fluid spoil and carrying it to the surface in pellets complementary to
+the size of the individual, and such pellets retain their rotundity.
+They are scattered about, not without design, as may be seen if the
+industrious workers are closely observed, and in such profusion that the
+feet of the user of a crab-infested zone must press them flat. Then
+it is that the track becomes visible as far as the eyes reach. But
+the incoming wavelets, babbling in unison, dissolve the myriads of
+laboriously lifted pellets, effacing the record of the passing of man.
+As the tides ebb, the crabs begin their work again, preparing for the
+next-coming wayfarer. There is something almost incomprehensively great
+in the tireless activities of the nervous crabs, for not only do they
+carry compacted sand from their burrows, but they seem to spend odd
+moments in forming similar globes from material gathered from the
+surface. Digging, furrowing the surface in stellate patterns, moulding
+pellets which to the tenderest ripple are but the plaything of a moment,
+so are the lives of the shy crustaceans spent. What may be the motive
+for the perpetual labour, as useless, apparently, as the rolling of
+Sisyphus's stone? For part of the year the beach is the resort of the
+red-necked sandpiper, which has an enormous appetite for the small, live
+things of the sea's margin. To bewilder the birds and so reduce the risk
+to life, Nature imposes the task upon the crabs of forming replicas of
+themselves not readily distinguishable in size and tint, which
+represent labour unconsciously expended as life insurance, and serve the
+subsidiary purpose of detecting the passing of man.
+
+What material has been left by the wayside for the history, not to be
+altogether despised because of its rusticity, of the unstable ways of
+one of the ancient peoples of the world, now few in numbers, forgetful
+of the past, estranged from the customs of their fathers, and dying
+without mourners and without records? Search the sites of camps the
+track passes, and there is naught to tell of the manner of those who
+recently occupied them save a tomahawk or a rare domestic implement of
+stone, and such stones do not preach thrilling but distinctive sermons.
+Why hurry along this pleasant way? Is not the one domestic appliance of
+the long-deserted camps worthy of passing notice? There it rests, half
+buried in the sand--a worn stone, with two others complementary to it
+to be had for the searching. It is meet that the most primitive of mills
+should be examined, and that one of the several and slow processes
+by which a poisonous, repugnant, and intractable nut was wont to be
+converted into food should be cited to the credit of the economic
+forethought of the most thriftless of people.
+
+On adjacent flats and slopes grow survivals from one of the most ancient
+of all plants--a Cycad, that botanical paradox, combining some of the
+characteristics of the lie palm and of the pine with the appearance of a
+tree-fern, while being of distinctive order, which flourished during
+the age when the Iguanodon and the Polacanthus and other monstrous and
+ungainly reptiles roamed the land.
+
+Let us rest awhile reviewing the earlier operations by which its nuts
+were rendered innocuous, and while the ghosts of the past make and bake
+their bread.
+
+The fresh nuts of the plant (CYCAS MEDIA) known as Kim-alo, were
+roasted, and while hot bruised between two stones, the upper (Ookara) a
+sphere flattened at the poles into which the use of ages wore thumb
+and finger indentations, the nether (Diban) flat with a saucerlike
+depression. Fragments of the husks were carefully eliminated. The coarse
+meal was put into a dilly-bag and placed in running water below a slight
+fall, from the lip of which fluming, improvised from the leaf of native
+ginger, conducted a gentle stream. Two days were sufficient to leach the
+poisonous principle; but if the initial process of roasting the nuts
+was omitted--as in some districts--the meal was submitted to the
+purification of water for as long as two months, when it would be
+tasteless. It was then ground on the nether stone by the Moo-ki
+(almost a perfect sphere), used with a rotary action, until reduced to
+flour-like fineness, when it was made into flat or sausage-shaped cakes,
+wrapped in green leaves and baked. The intractability of the Cycad
+is such that if cattle eat the leaves they die or become permanently
+afflicted with a disease of the nature of rickets. To the human palate
+the fresh nuts-are inflammatory, and are said to cause intense pain
+ending with death. That the blacks discovered the means of converting
+such a substance into desirable food proves that they were often
+enterprisingly, daringly hungry.
+
+Let us push on, there is far to go. Chance rather than principle, it
+has been said, turned the paths of old England into roads. Here may
+be studied the germ of the primal path worn by the tread of the least
+reflective and least mobile of human beings, the causes of its erratic
+course, and the transitions by which, with amendments due to the
+irrefutable facts of topography, it becomes formal and authoritative--a
+highway for the usurping race.
+
+Leaving the shore, one branch of the track crosses the high-water fold,
+follows the bend of a mangrove creek, through which it Makes a muddy
+ford, and is firmly impressed through forest country where every tree is
+orchid-encumbered, and where the eager soil produces its own varieties.
+It wriggles up and along a ridge, with the glaucous spathes of grass
+trees standing like spears on each hand, and where wattle and tough
+she-oaks grow leanly out of hard soil, thickly strewn with buckshot
+gravel, rust-coloured.
+
+Soon it descends into a low valley and through a belt of fan-palms
+and jungle bordering an ever-flowering stream the banks of which are
+knee-deep in fat, rich loam. Huge tea-trees stand in the water, where
+the fibrous roots are matted like peat.
+
+Out of the moist coolness the track abruptly ascends to a pleasant
+forest, and thence drops almost imperceptibly to tea-tree flats
+intersected by Pandanus creeks, which bulge here and there into
+sedge-margined lagoons. In this "devil-devil" country it is barely the
+width of the foot, and it wanders sinuously like the trail of a lazy
+snake. Sometimes it is barely more discernible than such a trail, and
+again in the soft places it broadens and deepens, for the man with boots
+has taken the place of the original soft-footed traveller, and horses
+and cattle are ever fond of the short-cuts which their owners design.
+
+Here a distinct branch is made towards a river, across which Nature, the
+first of bridge-builders, many a generation ago afforded an easy, dry
+passage by throwing down a huge tree. It spans from bank to bank, and
+the wood is worn to slippery smoothness by the passing of shoeless feet.
+Thence it leads through forest and jungle and mangrove belts to another
+river, and away south.
+
+The western branch keeps to forest and jungle, following, generally,
+the ridges, for in the wet season the grass lands are flooded, when the
+track is but a silvery grey ribbon on a carpet of green. With careless
+indecision it trends west, with here an angle and there a curve, dipping
+and twisting, crossing gullies and creeping up slopes. The men whose
+feet made it in ancient days knew all the landmarks. Mostly it keeps to
+sound ground, albeit its wanderings perpetuate wayward impulses.
+
+Imagination may follow the blacks of bygone days as they swung past,
+a fallen tree; where sportful youths wandered a few yards to throw
+grass-tree spears at white-ants' nests on bloodwood-trees; where
+they turned aside for a drink from the palm creek. Possibly the track
+deviated to follow the run of a scrub turkey, or because the boys knew
+of a scrub hen's mound, where the rich pink eggs were raked out by the
+gins. It was gin's work to overhaul the mounds; the boys did not like
+to do the digging with their hands, for often little snakes bedded
+themselves in the warm compost--snakes, though they bite not to the
+death, make one's hands big and sore. Why incur any risk when there was
+a well-disciplined woman to take it? There was a turn off (which was
+officially followed) leading to a huge tree where in the hollow bees had
+hived; and another straggled up the creek to the pool where eels secrete
+themselves in the moist, decaying leaves.
+
+Six or seven miles from the beach, where the scarcely discernible
+crabs, with persistency as eternal as the sea, are strewing the way with
+millions of tell-tale pellets, the track, skirting swamps, following
+the bends of a river, passing through forest and jungle, is lost in
+vagueness and indecision.
+
+When it was ordained that roads should be defined in the interests
+of settlers, it was natural that the original track as it then
+existed--broadened and amended and bridged by the good bushmen who had
+used it for practical purposes--should be followed. On the plan the
+formal road runs a strangely erratic course, for in many places it is
+faithful to the footpad. Some of the zigzags of the long past, some of
+its elbows and angles, its stringent lines and curves, have been copied
+and confirmed, for the bush track is one of the fundamental things,
+bearing the stamp of Nature, and no more to be obliterated by the
+trivialities of art than is the sand of the shore and the illimitable
+crabs.
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE BROWN MAN
+
+
+
+"Care, that troubles all the world, was forgotten in his
+composition."--CHARLES LAMB.
+
+
+If you chance to visit the Chief Protector of Aborigines on board
+his yacht the MELBIDIR, one of the first to greet you, be you an old
+acquaintance or a stranger, may be "Jimmy," the cook.
+
+He is a little brown man who wears blue shoes, which are also socks, and
+a perpetual smile. The shoes, which are of some soft material, have
+a separate compartment for the great-toe, and hook down the heel. The
+Chief Protector has a similar pair of combination shoes--a gift from
+"Jimmy"--and is given to smiling; but he does not pretend to compete
+with his cook in that quality. "Jimmy's" smile is almost a fixture. It
+is set, yet not professional. It is the smile of a happy man, and of one
+who is a diplomat as well as a ship's cook. His customary costume is of
+holland. When on duty he wears an exaggerated bib, and "Jimmy" without
+his bib would be as little conceivable as "Jimmy" without his smile. He
+may discard it when he puts on his sky-blue pyjamas for the night, but
+that he smiles in his sleep is sure. The honourable wrinkles on his
+mahogany-hued face forbid him to relax the appearance of unceasing
+good-humour, and who would suggest that his serenity is artificial?
+
+When he takes a hand with the whole of the ship's company to get up sail
+or hoist the dinghy on board, he whistles as well as smiles, and then
+the black boys laugh, and life on the trim ship is more buoyant than
+ever. He goes down into the doll's-house galley backwards, smiling. Now,
+it is no smiling matter to be jambed up against a hot stove on a hot
+day when the seas run high and the yacht digs her crescent nose into the
+blue and washes her own decks with Neptune's suds. But "Jimmy" will bob
+up again in due season with a plate of hot cakes or, perhaps, even cool
+cakes--and the smile. He has been smiling to the oven, which is inclined
+to gymnastics, only it is restrained by effectual bolts. "Jimmy" is a
+gymnast, and his free great-toes enable him to cook under circumstances
+and conditions which others not so equipped would profane.
+
+Smiles are his antidote for all injurious mental ferments, and how many
+diseases of the mind are there which are not to be alleviated by such
+apt physic?
+
+It has been said that "Jimmy" is a diplomat. He certainly is. The
+MELBIDIR had run within hailing distance of another yacht, the owner and
+commander of which is an old friend of the Protector and "Jimmy." When
+we did hail, a silvery head and a sunburnt pair of shoulders popped
+up from below, and with a comprehensive wave of sunburnt arms--the red
+type--vanished. Soon the same head and the same shoulders, decently
+but loosely clad in blue and followed by the rest of the hearty body,
+emerged, and in a few minutes friends were gripping each other's hands
+and talking furiously about a particular island, pilots, pearls, and
+Torres Straits "Jimmy" passed, and the florid man in blue said, nudging
+his friend, "I seem to know that boy."
+
+"Of course you do," replied the Protector; "that's 'Jimmy' from T. I."
+
+When "Jimmy" next appeared he had a jug of water in his hand and a
+bigger smile than ever.
+
+"Well, 'Jimmy,' you haven't forgotten me?" suggested the big man in
+blue.
+
+"No. You capitain! My word, you young fellow now!"
+
+And we all laughed, for though the years had been tender to the man in
+blue, still, they had come and gone by the decade since the previous
+meeting. "Jimmy's" smiles became vocal. Professional diplomats use
+the great gift of speech, it is said, to delude the enemies of their
+country. "Jimmy's" adroit compliment was the more delicate in that it
+was not official and he cannot possess an enemy.
+
+When he puckers his lips to whistle, "Jimmy's" smiles are singularly
+infectious. The Protector's yacht is not a missionary, but merely, as
+her name signifies, a messenger; but the Protector does not forbid the
+hymnal. "Jimmy" has one, and as he studies the pious poems, for he reads
+fluently, whistles appropriately. While we lolled on deck, familiar
+tunes wooed my wandering thoughts. "Jesu, Lover of my Soul," came line
+after line, verse after verse, precisely, though the tone was soft.
+Was the black boy thus accompanying his work at the pump? No; for the
+strokes were not in time, and the boy occasionally chatted with his
+chum. I asked, and was told that "'Jimmy' mak'm good fellow corroboree."
+Presently he came up--smiling, and with the last notes of "Abide with
+Me" on his lips. Then I questioned him, and for a space we discussed our
+favourite hymns and hummed them, or rather I did, for "Jimmy" was too
+shy to do more than nod in time before a stranger. He confided, almost
+in a whisper, that when he was alone he learned the words of the hymns,
+and afterwards picked up the tunes. Is it not pretty to think of the
+wrinkled Japanese in bunk beside the hot and clamorous engine conning
+hymnal--a trifle blotched with grease here and there--and whistling
+softly those endearing tunes on which so many of us were brought up?
+
+Long may "Jimmy" cook and wear blue shoes a modestly supplicate "For
+those in Peril on the Sea"! That he may smile to the last would be a
+superfluous prayer. He cannot do else.
+
+
+
+
+UP AND AWAY
+
+
+
+"Man is the merriest species of creation; all above and below him are
+serious."--ADDISON.
+
+
+"Let's up and away, Bill," said Breezy Jim, as he started to his feet.
+"I'm dog tired of this game. We're just working for tucker for the boys
+and nothing--not even a smoke--for ourselves."
+
+"Don't be in such a flurry. We might drop on a patch yet. I vote we stay
+for another week. The anchorage is all right, and the season's
+young. The little bit of fish we've got ain't too stinking. It'll pay
+expenses." Placid and patient, the half-caste Solomon Islander, Billy
+Boolah, kept cheek on his impetuous partner, whose restless disposition
+forbade him to continue long in one stay unless circumstances were
+essentially favourable.
+
+Certainly fish were not too plentiful, but the aboriginal crew worked
+well, and were lighthearted almost to a fault. They had had no credit
+to pledge for the season's stores. They had merely to pick up inert and
+unresisting béche-de-mer from among the coral five fathoms down, where
+the deceptive sea looked no more than ten feet deep under the squalid
+flatties; to smoke and jabber in idle moments; to eat and to sleep, and
+to listen to Mammerroo's version of the opening phrases of "The Last
+Rose of Summer" on a mouth-organ worn with inveterate usage to the bold
+brass. The tune was not quite beyond recognition, and no musician was
+ever more in earnest, ever more soul-tied to an elusive, unwritten air
+than the black boy who wore little else than his own unwashed complexion
+and a strip of red Turkey twill. For long months he had pursued it with
+all the fervour of his simple soul, and though it said him nay, still
+did he hope and woo. Out of his scanty earnings he bought mouth-organs
+by the dozen, for he believed that owing to some defect on the part
+of such instruments the tune was impossible save to one. Would he ever
+obtain that prize? The organ which could play that tune as he had
+once heard it when his boss took him to a concert at Cairns had to
+be discovered, and to earn money to buy it Mammerroo shipped on these
+detestable béche-de-mer cruises. In the meantime he would play with all
+his energies and with endless repetition the halting, nerve-disturbing
+notes he knew to be incorrect.
+
+"That boy will drive me mad. He bought ten mouth-organs at Cooktown, and
+he hasn't got the one that plays the tune yet. Does this smell like 'The
+Last Rose of Summer'? Why, you can hear those fish of yours humming!
+What with hardly any fish, the stink of the whole boat, and that
+maddening mouth-organ, I feel almost inclined to jump overboard and
+marry a mermaid. Let's chuck it."
+
+"It's you as got the bad breath, Jim. Every man when he gets nasty
+temper he gets bad breath. That tune it's little bit close up. He can
+play right up to the 'left blooming alone' sometimes."
+
+"He's taken four months to get up to the 'left blooming alone'! At that
+rate it will be years before he gets to the finish. I'll be mad if he
+stays on this hooker another month. I'll chuck the three of them--organ,
+boy, and tune--overboard."
+
+"If you make yourself a fool like that, no more work from that boy.
+Don't be a fool and spoil this game. We're out till November. Let's make
+the best of it."
+
+It was not clean work. The reek of the fish-raw, cooked, smoked, and
+drying in the sun-saturated everything, even the damper. The brown,
+shrivelled things were scattered in orderly profusion wherever the
+sun could catch them to top them off prior to bagging. The bitter,
+eye-searing smoke from the red mangrove fire in the hold, where the
+meagre catch of yesterday was lying on a couple of trays, stung the
+nostrils. The odour was as interminable as the half-accomplished tune,
+and Breezy Bill writhed. He was not new to the game, but bad luck had
+been the portion of the ship from the start, and small things irritated
+him, rasping his far from sensitive soul.
+
+"I think you are going to catch fever, Jim. That's what's the matter
+with you. At the mission I used to read about that bird you call the
+brain-fever bird. It just keeps on whistling the same old thing, and
+white men go mad. That 'Last Rose of Summer,' it's got hold of you.
+Don't be a fool! It's only a good tune half done. It won't kill
+anybody--at any rate, a tough old shell-back like you!"
+
+"Oh, bother! Stinks and rotten 'Last Rose of Summer' are driving me mad.
+I could stand lots of both if we were doing well. They might be forty
+overproof and played by forty bands, and every darned piccolo of them
+out of tune, if only we were making money. Come, let's up stick and
+away. We can't do worse and we might do better on that bit of 'reef
+Mammerroo talks about. Here, Mammerroo, stop that blasted corroboree!
+Come and tell us where that little fella reef sit down."
+
+Mammerroo shuffled down to the hatchway covering and traced a chart of
+the locality with a grimy forefinger.
+
+"That fella reef sit down 'nother side Red Hill alongside mainlan'. No
+deep water. Plenty mangrove--my word full up pigeon. Reef him little
+fella. Full up tit fish, calla-calla, mainlan' black. Fill'um up boat.
+Take'm alonga Thors'dilan'. Come back. Fill'm up one time more. Too
+much. Full up."
+
+"The same old yarn. I've been all over that ground. There's no reef
+there, and if there had been it would have been found and skinned years
+ago," said dogmatic Billy, with a sneer.
+
+"I see," said Jim; "the season's over as far as you are concerned. You
+can go where you like. I'm sick of it now."
+
+TROPIC DAYS
+
+The next morning saw the NAUTILUS scudding before a strong south-east
+breeze, Jim, true to his name, sulky as a toad-fish. The good wind
+harped on the rigging as Mammerroo tirelessly lagged after the ever
+evasive tune. Jim heard him not. Billy, in a rage, was inclined to
+bundle the boy and his battered instrument overboard, for he saw in the
+race north nothing but a waste of time.
+
+Three days later the NAUTILUS anchored to the north of Red Hill under
+the lee of a low mangrove island uproarious with nutmeg pigeons.
+
+All hands turned out to prospect, with Mammerroo as pilot. He was not
+long in locating the reef--a forgotten and neglected patch that teemed
+with fish. Béche-de-mer lay in shallow water, thick and big, by
+the ton.. The reef, with its clear sandy patches, seemed to be the
+gathering-ground, the metropolis, the parliament of the curious creature
+which makes feeble eddies with its distended gills, moves with infinite
+and mysterious deliberation, and which, though it may be two feet long
+and three inches thick, can pass through a half-inch space, constricting
+its bulging body during the progress.
+
+The mangroves of the islet provided the best of fuels for the
+preservative smoke. The fortnightly steamer passed not so very far out,
+so that it would be possible to send away a couple of tons at a time
+without leaving the locality or suspending work for more than an hour or
+two.
+
+With cheerfulness and enthusiastic haste all started to work. No
+irritating odour, no vexing tune, was perceptible or audible. Boys
+brought in such quantities of fish that the mates could hardly cook and
+cure them. Money was being coined, and the making of money begat dreams.
+Seamen do not invariably build castles in the air. They devise aerial
+fleets. They build bigger, better, and faster boats to sail on bluer
+seas into more prosperous and happy havens than belong to this too
+substantial world. Each sketches out the boat of his desire, and fits
+her with wondrous comfort and conveniences. He glances, approving head
+thrown back, up her tall, tapering, well-oiled masts, silver-topped
+with golden trucks. He paints her in rival colours, rigs her with silken
+sails, names her after a sweetheart, and sails away to lands fairer than
+any of the isles of the Pacific--those isles of dreams where in coral
+groves the gold-lip is embarrassed with pearls of ineffable lustre and
+of excessive size.
+
+As they day-dreamed they gathered in actual riches, for the lazy fish
+were big and almost overlying each other in their crowded spaces.
+
+Never was there a happier béche-de-mer cruise, for the prospects of good
+wages soon and a quick return to accustomed camps overladen with the
+spoils of the Cooktown stores made each boy as joyful as a cherub and as
+industrious as a scrub hen. Mammerroo saw visions of mouth-organs,
+one of which was sure to contain the coveted tune. Little deaf Antony
+thought of tobacco unlimited, a silver-mounted pipe, and plenty of
+unforbidden rum. Indeed, most of the boys contented themselves with
+these ingredients to fill the cup of happiness. But big lazy Johnnie's
+fancy went to a small jockey's cap of red and yellow, to be worn with a
+football jersey of orange and green in stripes, and blue trousers. This
+gorgeous costume was to compensate for present pains and humiliation,
+for he had nothing but a scanty and dirty loin-cloth, a necklace of
+grass beads, and a chip of lustrous black-lip pearl-shell stuck in one
+ear. As they worked they let their fancies range, and thus was the
+toil eased and the bags of dried fish safely stowed in the hold.
+With twenty-eight bags in prime condition, the NAULITUS sailed out to
+intercept the steamer--the LAVA KAVA. The honest stuff was sent off to
+the agent at the Island post, and back the stout little vessel went to
+the reef.
+
+"As good as a gold-mine," said Breezy Jim, who every day became
+breezier, so that he threatened to develop into a gale of good humour.
+
+"Better than splitting coco-nuts at the Mission Station," said Billy
+Boolah.
+
+"Do you ever feel like chucking Mammerroo overboard now?"
+
+Another fortnight saw another big load on the way to the agents.
+Mammerroo poured out his soul in fervency over the limping phrases of
+his besetting tune, and even Boisterous Jim applauded his persistency.
+
+"That boy will catch 'The Last Rose of Summer' some day if the
+mouth-organ market holds out. I'll give him the best to be got in
+Cooktown, and I'm bothered if I don't teach him the tune!"
+
+Late one afternoon a strange sail came into view. Slowly the big cutter
+made for the anchorage, for the wind, busy elsewhere, could spare only a
+few idle puffs for her business.
+
+"That's a dago, I bet," said Bill. "And I know who it is! Why, it's that
+humbug, Black Charley!"
+
+"We'll have to be pretty spry, or he'll have some of this patch. We'll
+head him off, and ship what we've got to-morrow."
+
+A flattie slid over the side of the cutter and plopped into the water,
+and Black Charley, with a couple of downcast boys, came alongside the
+NAUTILUS.
+
+"Hullo, Bill! Hullo, Jim! How's yous getting on? Yous drop on good
+place. I see yous boys picking up fish like a hen picking up corn."
+
+"Not much," replied Jim. "It was pretty thick, but it was only a small
+patch, and we've pretty well cleaned it up. Sent away half a dozen bags,
+mostly mainlan' black. Too close in to be much good."
+
+"Well, I suppose you'se no objection to me anchoring here for a bit and
+'seeing what I can do with the leavings?" said Black Charley.
+
+"We found the patch, and it's too small for two boats. We'd be better
+friends if you cleared off and left it to us," replied Jim. "But if
+you're up to dirty tricks stay where you are. We don't want sneaks on
+board this craft."
+
+"It's no good being nasty. All the fish on the Barrier don't belong to
+yous. I got a ton and more on board now, and I'm going to run out with
+it to-morrow."
+
+"So are we. Come on board and have a drink"
+
+It was late in the afternoon when the smoke of the LAVA KAVA showed
+south-east. Both boats were waiting as she slowed down in her course,
+and while they made fast transhipment began. Then she steamed slowly
+ahead.
+
+"Better send you'se boys back with the NAUTILUS," suggested Black
+Charley, "and me and my mate will take yous back when we've had a drink
+and a bit to eat. It's a long time since I've had a decent feed, and
+Captain Andrews, he won't mind."
+
+Breezy Jim and Bill agreeing, the NAUTILUS cast off, with instructions
+to anchor at the old spot and to work until the bosses returned.
+
+There was more than one drink as the steamer forged ahead, with Black
+Charley's cutter romping and curtseying behind. Then tea-time came, and
+the captain asked his guests to remain. Black Charley had had so many
+refreshments that he was scarcely fit company for the saloon, so he
+offered his excuses and they were accepted with politely veiled relief.
+
+The mates told of their bad luck down at the Barnards and the Palms;
+how they had been driven away by the unmusical black boy in desperate
+pursuit of "The Last Rose of Summer," and of their great stroke of luck
+on the reef of which he had told.
+
+"There's plenty more fish on it yet. We'll be troubling you to stop for a
+couple of months yet."
+
+"You won't be making a very early start to-morrow if we jerk your boat
+much further," remarked Captain Andrews, with a smile.
+
+"Come," urged Bill. "We'll hunt up Charley and cut away back."
+
+The well-contented partners strolled on deck, anticipating a very tipsy
+Charley, whom neither steward nor bo'sun could discover.
+
+The sun had just set. A bewildering blank astern excited a wide and
+comprehensive survey, and there in the blue-grey of the south-east Black
+Charley's big white-winged cutter was fast fading from view.
+
+When the partners got back to the reef, via Thursday Island and
+Cooktown, a fortnight later, the boys were there, looking somewhat
+jaded. The NAUTILUS was as trim as ever, for which the owners were
+sufficiently thankful; but cute Black Charley, working both crews day
+and night like galley slaves, had mopped up the patch as clean as the
+floor of a hospital ward.
+
+"We've bin had proper, Bill, old fellow. Let's up and away for Cooktown.
+Mammerroo moans for that mouth-organ!"
+
+And the Christian in Billy Boolah smiled as he hummed "Left blooming
+Alone."
+
+
+
+
+"PASSETH ALL UNDERSTANDING"
+
+
+
+"Whence has the man the balm that brightens all?"
+
+BROWNING.
+
+
+Though not popular, perhaps Tsing Hi was the best known of his
+contemporaries on the tableland through which the Palmer River wanders
+a hundred miles from the Gulf of Carpentaria. Short, slimly made as a
+fourteen-year-old boy, nimble, fussy, plausible, he stood out from
+among his countrymen as one having authority, while he posed among
+the Europeans as a kind of diplomatic agent, explaining away
+misunderstandings, conciliating grievances, and generally comporting
+himself as the chartered representative of the horde of yellow new-chums
+which invaded the most sensational of all Australian goldfields. He
+appeared to have cousins among every fresh shipload from China, as well
+as among the hundreds who ferreted in the gullies. There was not a white
+man, from the Police Magistrate to Frank Deester's off-sider, with whom
+he was not on terms of easy familiarity.
+
+Had he not often confidentially consulted the Warden when a cousin had
+blundered into the hands of the police, embarrassing that flustered
+official with torrents of half intelligible speech, the purport of which
+generally was to flout the proceedings with evidence of indubitable
+alibi? All this he translated to his countrymen as proof of personal
+influence with court authorities, and, what was more to the point, made
+them pay for it.
+
+No case in which a Chinaman was concerned as the accused, or plaintiff,
+or disinterested witness, but Tsing Hi took, if not an official, an
+officious part. Every new-comer from the Flowery Land passed through his
+hands. He knew what personal property each possessed, and the value of
+the gold of the lucky departing ones. That he prospered exceedingly was
+evident. The fact was expressed in his costume. Beyond the court fees
+as interpreter, the merry, chirping little fellow had really no lawful,
+visible means of support. Yet he glistened and gleamed with emblems of
+riches. He was a dandy from the soles of his shiny elastic-side boots
+to the crown of his jaunty hard-hitter. Across a yellow waistcoat hung
+a very aggressive chain, from which dangled a huge masonic jewel
+in gold-and-blue enamel, and the frequently consulted watch--a big,
+bold-faced lever--ticked with snappy determination. Tsing Hi had much
+more to live up to than the huge watch, the chain, and the emblem;
+but they seemed to constitute special and peculiar insignia. They were
+always to the front. He was one of the men of his day and scene--to
+be admired, feared, and to be conciliated by his fellow-countrymen all
+along the traffic-torn road.
+
+The dust from that tortuous road rose in an earth adhering cloud from
+out which honest, clean-souled men came like pain-distorted spectres,
+wearing grey tear stained masks with pink-rimmed eyeholes and mud edged
+mouths. But the dust was less distressing than that which Tsing Hi threw
+in the eyes of bewildered mankind by this burst and gusts of speech.
+
+In the heyday of his fame and prosperity Tsing Hi disappeared.
+His absences were customary, for did he not flit here, there, and
+everywhere? The police were not troubled to make inquiries. They knew
+where he was, and the reason for his sudden retirement from accustomed
+scenes. The next day all Byerstown knew also.
+
+Tsing Hi, within the rough-hewn walls of the lock-up, was sad and
+silent. He had been arrested for gold-stealing.
+
+It was a clear case. Hundreds of complaints had been made. Dozens of
+suspects had been shadowed, until a quick-witted detective intuitively
+fastened the responsibility on the court interpreter, who, on the
+instant of arrest, had become dumb.
+
+The ransacking of his hut revealed a magazine of riches, the earthen
+floor beneath the bunk being honeycombed with pits containing easily
+portable but valuable property. In a jam-tin were several nuggets, among
+them the very specimen which Bill Haddon had given to Mrs. Sinclair,
+landlady of the Carriers' Arms--a plane of crystal from which rose a
+wonderfully true pyramid of gold. It had been admired by hundreds,
+and could be sworn to by everyone who had seen it. There was the white
+sapphire, with a tell-tale flaw running down the middle, which had been
+found in the hopperings at Revolver Point (where fighting Cameron made
+his pile) by Sam Kickford, and likewise bestowed on Mrs. Sinclair as a
+"curio," and because that bounteous lady had mothered the unlucky Sam
+and nursed him through the fever which took him to the very gates of
+a filthy hell. Dozens could swear to it, but ever so many more were
+capable of bearing witness against Tsing Hi on account of the specimen
+which Sam's mate, who had died of the fever, had given to Mrs. Sinclair,
+having picked it out from the face of his drive. It was a slug of rough
+gold in the shape of a tiny canoe, with an upright splinter of white
+quartz at each end. Sam's mate had intended it for a girl down at
+Ballarat, and she eventually got it--an emblem of what might have been.
+Dozens of fancy slugs were brought to light, in addition to two hundred
+ounces of fine gold against which no one could make good claim.
+
+Another tin held six rings, two of decidedly suspicious metal, the
+others genuine and with good stones. A fine pearl was wrapped in a
+fragment of silk. A pale green jade amulet, with three sets of. Chinese
+toilet contrivances--ear-cleaners, tongue-scrapers, back-scratchers--in
+ivory, were in a box with two rolls of gold-embroidered silk illustrated
+with weirdly indecent scenes. Three gold watches wrapped in silk
+handkerchiefs were stuffed into a ginger-jar. The sordid hut was a mine
+of wealth, and the buzzing town became furious. It had accepted Tsing
+Hi as a character, but not as a bad one. Being deceived, it swerved
+from tolerance to righteous indignation and absolute wrath. The quaking
+thief, not too comfortable, for the bloodwood slabs seemed too frail
+a partition against the virtuous anger of the crowd, was condemned
+forthwith.
+
+All the identifiable gold and other property was handed over to those
+who successfully established claims, and Tsing Hi, limp and dejected,
+passed into the custody of Tim Mullane for escort to Cooktown.
+
+Tim was rough and raw, teeming with good-nature and blessed with a
+brogue as thick as the soles of the massive boots made for him by
+his cousin Terence at misty Ballinrobe. The once perky Tsing Hi slunk
+alongside the far-striding Tim, and Tim looked down at him and was half
+ashamed of such a "wee scrap of a Chinkee" as his first prisoner.
+
+"Come away wid ye, me little fella--come away. Doan give me trouble, and
+ye'll fin' me gintle wid ye. Thry to maake a fool af me, and be the Holy
+Saints ye'll have occasion to be sorrowful." And he picked Tsing Hi
+up with one hand and set him down again with as big a jolt as such a
+fag-end of humanity could expect to produce. Tsing Hi remained meek.
+The crowd was unanimously against him. Big Tim might jolt him again and
+again rather than he would take the risk of venturing among his recent
+friends, for tales of his thieving, his acceptance of bribes, and
+imposition of levies, were coming in so fast and thick that the crowd
+would have relished adding something on its own account.
+
+Before daylight next morning Tim left with his disconsolate captive, who
+wore handcuffs and was manacled to the "D's" in the saddle of the horse
+which he bestrode manifestly ill at case. In front of him was a huge
+swag containing the unidentifiable gold, three watches, three rings,
+silk stuffs, three pairs of elastic-side boots., several pairs of
+puce-coloured socks, flash neckties, four hats, three suits of clothes,
+and other clothing., All this was his own, to be handed over at the
+expiration of the sentence. Tim merely held the inventory. There was
+some sort of gratification for ill-doing, for the swag contained a
+fortune. He savagely reflected that six months would soon pass. He would
+then vanish from "Qee'lan," to enjoy himself for the rest of his days.
+The sadness which had stagnated during the past week began to dissolve.
+He sought to make a friend of his escort.
+
+"I tink we cam' harp way to-ni', Tim."
+
+"Shut up, you implicating tadpole! Wasn't I ordhered to hold convarse
+wid me prisoner? Spake win Ye're spoke ter and be civil, Or I'll jolt
+the teeth troo your hat!"
+
+Tim jogged on, and the led horse bearing Tsing Hi jogged after. Tsing Hi
+bumped until he was fain to lean heavily on his precious swag, trying to
+discover by sensation an' unbruised part of his body on which to jolt.
+
+"Hi! hi!" he shouted. "Horsey, him no goo'! You l'me walk!"
+
+Tim whistled and jogged. Tsing Hi jolted and whimpered. The hot miles
+wriggled slowly past. Dust lay a foot deep on the track. It was a
+windless day. Tsing Hi, gripping with fearful intensity his swag, could
+not lift a finger to wipe the stains which stood for many tears and
+coursed down his cheeks in tiny rivulets, making puddles on his cramped
+hands. He, the dandy, smothered in dust, weeping, sore in every
+bone, blistered and scalded, pondered over his petty sins, moaned
+continuously, and longed for the hard floor of the gaol.
+
+He, a disciple of Confucius, found no present relief in the tags of the
+master's philosophy that he could call to mind. Tears made him a grim
+spectacle. The beautiful yellow waistcoat was indistinguishable beneath
+dirt and dust. His carefully tended queue shook out in disordered
+loops, and finally dangled, dust-soiled, behind. His trousers worked and
+wrinkled up to the knees, chafed his unaccustomed skin, and still Tim in
+a cloud of dust jogged on singing:
+
+    "Until that day, plase God, I'll shtick
+    To the wearin' o' the green."
+
+
+It was a poor little prisoner, but his first and his own, and Tim
+was elated, and when a true Irishman is happy he becomes poetically
+patriotic. But happy though he undoubtedly was, even Tim was not sorry
+when the chance came of stretching his legs and incidentally sluicing
+down the dust. The halfway house looked cool and clean to him. In fact
+it was neither. It must have appeared a celestial scene to moaning Tsing
+Hi. The rough upright slabs (once rich yellow, now dingy) promised some
+sort of refuge from the dust, and the narrow strip of verandah a thin
+slice of shade. The mound of broken bottles at the rear betokened
+the drinks of the past, while the mind dwelt lovingly on those of
+the present. Three panting goats, all aslant, but tressed themselves
+determinedly against the end of the house, and two boys, long since dust
+immune, occasionally hunted the goats into the sun and away among the
+ant-hills. But when Tsing Hi slid from the horse and into the shade, he
+felt like a saint in bliss. They gave him water, and he wailed until
+Tim silenced him with threats of jolts and locked the manacles round the
+middle post.
+
+Tim sighed profoundly as he scented beer. "I do belave I'm dhry, Jerry.
+Give's a long un. I've swallowed mud by the bucket. Give the wee little
+divil outside a pannikin o' tay. Maybe it'll revoive, him!"
+
+Tim drank long and well.
+
+"I've heard about the case," Jerry said, as he filled the thick glass a
+third time. "Fancy the little beggar, an' him commin' and goin' as flash
+as ye make 'ern, and pickin' and thavin' all the time. Maybe he got the
+ear-rings the missis is after missin'."
+
+"Nawthin' o' the sort's in the swag we took with the raskil."
+
+A bit of dinner in the back room waited, for Jerry believed in keeping
+well in with the force. Tim fed heartily, and, in spite of dust, heat,
+and the chatter of the children, dozed, to wake with a start.
+
+"Me sowl to glory! It's aslape I've bin! Let's hav' a look at the little
+fella and be off."
+
+The horses stood limply, as much out of the shade as in, the big swag
+leaned against the wall, the handcuffs lay half buried in the dust, but
+Tsing Hi had vanished.
+
+"Me sowl to glory! The little divil's scooted! It's a ruined man I am!
+In the name of the Saints, why is blasted Chinkees made with han's an'
+'em like a 'possum? Look at the wee han's on 'em to slip out of
+darbies like the same. He's slipped out as aisily as meself out of a
+horse-collar, and the face a' him as bould and as big as the hill o'
+hope! I'm the ruined man, I am!"
+
+"Off after him," advised Jerry. "There's his tracks."
+
+"Just none o' your blasted interfarances! Lave 'm to me. He's away back
+to hell, an' I'll folly him! How much does I owe yer, Jerry!"
+
+"Nothing at all, sure, Tim. 'Tis little ye've had, and yer welcome as
+posies in May, though it's little we see of 'em here. And good luck.
+Shall I tell him away, back to look out V'
+
+"Say nothing and be damned to yer! Keep your mout closed and lave me to
+do the bizinis me own road," shouted Tim as he disappeared in the dust,
+led horse, swag and all.
+
+A mile and a half back and a bit off the road lay the narrow, sheltered
+flat between two forbiddingly barren ridges which Hu Dra, the gardener,
+had converted into an oasis. Thin-leaved tea-trees fringed the little
+dam whence the industrious fellow hauled water for his vegetables.
+Drought-stricken, broad, blue-leaved, scented ironbarks stood in envious
+array on the steep sides of the ridges, and grass-trees, blackened at
+the butts, struggled with loose boulders for foothold. The muddy water
+which the forethought of Hu Dra had conserved created the green patch
+which insulted the aridity of the ridge. He was a proud and happy man,
+a follower of the healing Buddha, a new-churn with scarce a word of
+English, and a gardener. He had a way with vegetables. They prospered
+under his hands, and he also prospered, for next to gold, vegetables
+were highly prized in that dry, almost verdureless country. Just now he
+swayed along with a pair of heavy baskets slung on a bamboo all the way
+from Wu Shu, as the pilgrim under his load of sin, and as he swayed he
+sang in a weak falsetto a ditty which sounded like--
+
+    "Nam mo pen shih shih chia
+    Man tan lai lei tsun fo;
+    Hu fa chu t'ien p'u sa,
+    An fu ssu, Li she tzn."
+
+
+His baskets, each screened with languid gum-leaves, held the week's
+output of his garden, representing in money value at least two pounds.
+It wag not likely to yield half as much, for, being a new-chum, he was
+fair game, and it was considered smart to impose on his good-nature.
+He also paid through an agent a weekly levy to Tsing Hi, which he
+understood purchased the tolerance, if not goodwill, under all and every
+circumstance of the dreaded police and the populace generally. It was a
+tax; but Hu Dra was patient under such exactions, as all his ancestors
+had been. They were unavoidable, inevitable, a part of the mystery of
+life, and consequently to be endured, if not with complacency, at
+least without murmur. His profits for the week might total one pound,
+a princely sum considering the scene and circumstances of his birth and
+upbringing in far Li-Chiang, where his father had reared a large family
+in a shed over a sewer, and had never possessed property or estate worth
+more than five shillings. Soon, if this money-making business continued
+to thrive, he would return thither. He might--for had he not been reared
+to the art of living in such places?--resume the sewer habit; but with
+three hundred pounds in good English gold what sewer in Li-Chiang could
+not be transformed into Paradise?
+
+One basket contained a huge fruit which he understood his white
+customers to term "plonkn"; with it was a broad-bladed knife, with which
+he would slice off slabs according to demand. That one item might
+bring him in more money than his revered father's fortune. Wrapped in
+day-dreams, he hummed again his chant, dwelling on the refrain with
+lyrical gladness--
+
+
+    "Li she tzu."
+
+
+Perhaps it was the name of the maiden he proposed to ask to share his
+fortune and his portion of the sewer, and so he repeated--
+
+---"Li she t----!"
+
+
+A big, strong, authoritative hand had gripped him by the shoulder.
+
+He screamed. The baskets sat down plump.
+
+"Come away wid ye! I've cotched yer! I'll tache ye to escape from lawful
+custody!"
+
+"No savee! No savee!" screamed Hu Dra.
+
+"I'll tache ye, thin V' shouted Tim, and Hu Dra reeled under the
+severity of the first lesson--a back-hander across the face.
+
+"Wha' for?" asked Hu Dra, still staggering.
+
+"Come on! You know wha' for! I'll stan' none o' yer wha' for's!"
+
+Hu Dra clung to the basket-stick threateningly.
+
+"Fwhat! Resisting the pollis in the execution of dooty. Me bhoy, ye're a
+new-chum or yer niver wad be so bould. It is sarious bizinis." The stick
+flew out of Hu Dra's hands, and, as if by magic, he found his hands
+clamped in iron bands, which pinched his wrists excruciatingly.
+
+He yelled with vexation, fear, and pain.
+
+"Ye can holler as much as ye have the moind ter. Be jabers, the next
+haythen Chinkee that gits out of the darbies I clap on'm 'll be a
+slippery, slathery eel, and meself after fergittin' to maake a knot in
+his taale! Come quiet, me good haythen, and I'll dale aisy wid yer."
+
+Hu Dra securely manacled to a scented gum, Tim dealt with the baskets,
+capsizing the contents and belabouring them with the bamboo until they
+looked as if they had been the playthings of a baboon. Hu Dra watched
+the foundation of his fortune vanish. He wailed.
+
+"Come away, me bhoy! I arrest ye, Tsing Hi, fer escaping from lawful
+custody. Ye may be charged also with resisting the pollis in the
+execution of dooty. It's a sarious charge. If ye come quiet I'll maake
+it aisy fer ye. If ye maake it a haard job for me, be gorra I'll inuake
+ye sorryful!"
+
+Hu Dra gathered that it was a case of mistaken identity. He endeavoured
+to explain that he was Hu Dra, and not Tsing Hi. Tim curtly informed
+him that he was none other than Tsing Hi, that he had been convicted of
+stealing gold, and while on the way to Cooktown had wilfully and with
+malice aforethought escaped from legal custody. He would be taken to
+Cooktown at once. Hu Dra understood but little of the harangue, but
+being a pious Buddhist, having once climbed the Holy Mountain to gain
+merit, and being in the hands of a strong man armed, he accepted the
+fate of the moment. Meekly he followed Tim to the spot where the horses
+had been left, and was hoisted into the saddle and manacled. It was all
+a dreadful mystery, but he was sage enough to accept hard facts.
+
+"Me Hu Dra," he explained over and over again, in vain repetition.
+
+"Ye're Tsing Hi, I tell yer. Ye're Tsing Hi in the name of Her Majesty.
+Haven't I arrested ye as sich?"
+
+"Me Hu Dra," reiterated the captive as they jogged on. "Me come Coo'tow'
+one yar."
+
+"Shut yer mout! Didn't I tell yer before that ye're Tsing Hi? Didn't yer
+wilfully and knowingly escaape from me whin I was having a bite to ate,
+and I had yer tied to the post at the shanty back beyant there! Naw,
+I'll hear no more of yer Hu Rahin'. Kape a civil tongue betune yer
+taath, or, be gorra, worse 'll happen yer."
+
+Hu Dra was patient. He thought of his pilgrimage long ago to the top of
+Mount Omei. Was this the reward he had gained?
+
+He solaced his soul by murmuring the pious invocation which all pilgrims
+to the Sacred Mount have perpetually on their lips--"Om mane padme om!"
+
+Torn from his secluded garden and happy and profitable toil, bruised and
+manacled, bundled on to a fear-provoking horse, hurried off he knew not
+whither, through a drought-stricken land under a searing sun, the road
+reeking with dust--what a plight for a devout Buddhist, who had sought
+to avert calamity and prolong life by the ascent of the chill mount
+where, alone in all the world, is revealed the "Glory of Buddha."
+
+Mystic that he was, he found sure comfort in pious meditations. Present
+pains of body and mind vanished as with half-shut eyes he drifted into
+the chill realm where he hearkened to chants of priests, the tinkling of
+the temple bells, the fervent response of hundreds of pilgrims as meek
+as himself--"Om mane padme om!"
+
+Such was the potency of the mechanical repetition of the all-healing
+words that Tim presently found himself echoing them, and brought himself
+up with a jerk.
+
+"It's all haythen rubbish and cussing. The pore fule's daft wid the hate
+and the dust and the welt I give him. Shure it's the way I have to be
+sorry for the crature."
+
+Like the refrain of an infectious song, the musical phrase would not be
+banished from Tim's mind and lips, and so the tough, rough Irishman
+and the gentle exile from the Flowery Land went on their way, scarce
+conscious of the grimy miles, both dreamingly hailing the jewel in the
+lotus.
+
+Three days later the travel-stained pair arrived at Cooktown, where Hu
+Dra--henceforth to be known officially and authoritatively, and in spite
+of all protest, as Tsing Hi--was duly consigned to the custody of the
+lock-up keeper, to await escort to the town where his sentence was to be
+served.
+
+"He's that quare in his hid," Tim informed Jock Egan, who now had
+charge. "He's bin Tsing Hi-in and Hu Rah-in' and Paddy Om-in' (d'ye know
+the maan, Jock?) all along the thrack till it's fair fascinated I am.
+And barrin' him bein' the very thafe o' the wurrld, it's a poor honest
+body he be. Shure it's little enough truble he give me, and me all alone
+be meself. An' the swag of him! Glory be to God, I dunno but it's wort
+five hundred pounds if it's wort a sint! Yirra! but it's weery I am.
+It's little slape I've had. Shure the whole beesely thrack be lousy wid
+shnaakes; and show me the man as cud slape shweet wid maybe four of the
+varmint all ascroodging and squaaking nath his blanket!"
+
+"It's quare in yer head yerself," ye're exclaimed Jock. "Be off to bed
+wid ye. If the sargint gets ye a-talkin' like that, he'll be afther
+thinkin' ye're in dhrink."
+
+"Then, me sowl to glory; he'll jist be thinkin' fwhat I'm wishful for.
+It's that farefull dhry up there on the Palmer I could dhrain a bucket."
+
+"Get to bed, yer fool! Ye're talkin' that wild, ye'll have no care for
+yerself. It's meself that'll git the good woman beyant there to git ye a
+cup o' biling hot tay."
+
+With that Jock got him out, with papers all in order.
+
+Hu Dra had disappeared from the tableland as suddenly but not as'
+tracklessly as a phantom. Lonely men in their tents and three or four
+mothers of families in their slab humpies looked out vainly for him for
+three days, anticipating necessary vegetables, and, being disappointed,
+slandered him courageously, while they found consolation in the
+reflection that if he ever came his round again they would distress and
+vex him by withholding payments for the vegetables of the past. Not
+a customer but owed him something. His country men gave notice of his
+disappearance to the police, and black-trackers off-hand told a graphic
+and obvious story. Hu Dra had begun his weekly round when he had been
+attacked by myalls. They had capsized his baskets and wantonly battered
+them to pieces. For him had been reserved the customary fate. He had
+been hustled off to the gorges contiguous to Hell's Gates, to be killed
+and eaten in peace and comfort. His hut, his cherished garden
+were forthwith occupied and tended by another of the race-claiming
+cousinship. The newcomer even demanded payment of debts owing to his
+unfortunate relation, but the whole population sniffed with such vigour
+that the claim was not persisted in. Once a Chinaman had left the
+district unceremoniously, more especially at the forcible persuasion
+of flesh-hungry blacks, his dues lapsed by unanimous consent. He became
+merely a fragrant remembrance. It is so still, and the virtue is as
+virile as the odour of musk.
+
+To himself Hu Dra was always so. Be his official and authoritative title
+for the time being what it might, he was determined not to sacrifice his
+identity.
+
+The gaoler found him a docile and obedient creature with an abiding
+affection for plants, which sprang up under his hands like magic.
+Within two months corners of the desert yard began to blossom, to bear
+cucumbers and radishes, and to be fragrant with shallots.
+
+The pride of the gentle gardener lay in a few plants of zinnias close
+to a dripping tap. In bright red, gold, and white, he accepted them as
+substitutes for the sacred lotus, and prison flowers never flaunted more
+freely. As innocent as they, he deftly, tirelessly trained each plant,
+caressed each opening bud, cherished it as if it were a jewel, and
+found surcease of the pangs of exile, easement for the restraints upon
+liberty, and blissful consolation. Tendance upon the garden under the
+strait shadow of wall was to him, not a duty, not a pastime, but a
+ritual. The captive was happy, for here was the end of his pilgrimage.
+
+Exemplary conduct, combined with the art with which he forced salads
+from the boorish soils, found him favour and earned privileges and
+concessions.
+
+Hu Dra kept no count of the passing months. What was time to a
+contemplative Buddhist whose being was permeated with the hope of
+release from delusions and sorrow and of attaining final sanctification?
+
+One morning he was summarily marched into the presence of the big
+loud-voiced man whose orders were obeyed with instant smartness, who
+told him, to his amazement and despair, that he must depart with his
+property. The seals of a sack were broken before him, and its contents
+displayed and duly accounted for--a sleeping-mat, a small red blanket,
+the elastic-side boots, two scrolls of sinfully painted silk, a hard
+round hat stuffed with gaudy handkerchiefs, three watches and varied
+jewellery in a ginger-jar, the quaintly carved toilet devices, the
+jam-tin full of nuggets, and a chamois-leather bag delusively heavy with
+fine gold.
+
+The same authority which had ordered his affairs ever since he had been
+torn from the burnt hills now commanded him to begone.
+
+For nigh upon two years he had dwelt passively in dream-land. This was
+but another wonderment entrancingly agreeable. Without endeavouring to
+elucidate the incomprehensible, he accepted the gifts of the gods, and
+asked for a yellow zinnia. It was a reality, a guarantee, an assurance.
+
+Good, though gruff, the gaoler was wont to say that his departing guest
+gazed on the flower with almost religious fervour and mumbled over it
+a prayer; and the gaoler's insight was true, for in comparison with a
+flower, the masonic emblem, the pride of Tsing Hi's life was to Hu Dra
+but tinsel.
+
+It passed all understanding.,
+
+Hastening to escape from the land of bewilderment and easily gotten
+riches, Hu Dra-the quietest, the happiest, the wealthiest of a great
+company of his fellows boarded a steamer for Hong-Kong.
+
+
+
+Many a long year after, Tim, who had blossomed into a sub-inspector,
+had retired on pension, and had lost most of his brogue in the process,
+confided in me the whole story.
+
+"You see, my friend, it was either the sack or Chinkee for me. I got the
+Chinkee. There were plenty of 'em!"
+
+
+
+
+TIME'S FINGER
+
+
+
+"The more cleer and the more shynynge that Fortune is, the more brutil
+and the sooner breketh she."--CHAUCER.
+
+
+High up on the auspicious shoulder of the Island mountain stands
+the Sentinel, a coarse, truncated pinnacle of granite, roughened
+and wrinkled by the toll of the moist breezes, alternating with the
+scorching flames of the sun. It overlooks the league-long sweep of
+the treacherous bay, with its soft and smothering sands, the string of
+islets of the Yacka Eebah group, while Bli and Coobie lie close under
+foot, set in a swirling sea.
+
+One aspect of the Sentinel commands all the map-like detail of Pun-nul
+Bay, with its labyrinthian creeks among a flat density of mangroves,
+like lustrous, uncertain byways in a sombre field, erratic of shape,
+magnificent of proportion. Beyond are many islets--dark blue on a
+lighter plain. In the distance, on the other hand, islands and islets
+trail away until lost in the vague blending of sea and sky; and for a
+background is all Australia. In front alone does the Sentinel peer
+over uninterrupted space, and not always, for at times patches of white
+filigree mark the outliers of the Great Barrier Reef.
+
+Looking up from Pun-nul Bay before sunrise, the base of the Sentinel
+'was swathed in white--night's rumpled draperies not yet tossed aside.
+As the east glowed it stained the mist pink, and so warmed it that it
+parted into patches of luminous fluff which floated up and dissolved
+into crystalline air, and the great lumbering rock stood naked and bold
+in the sunshine.
+
+Then it was that the apex of a splintered peak beyond the Sentinel
+glittered, and that Chutter-murra Wylo, the one survivor of the
+truculent natives, told once more of the wonderful stone for which
+many had ventured, which had caused the disappearance of several, which
+decoyed man and beast, and stored their bones close to the awful hole
+whence issued the smoke which made the rain, and the dread lightning,
+and the thunder.
+
+None ever ventured there now; but sometimes in the early morning the
+stone twinkled for a moment like a malignant sprite, watchful all night,
+but abashed yet impudent to the authoritative sun.
+
+Chutter-murra Wylo had so often indicated the exact locality of the
+stone, and had described its dire influence with such sincerity that,
+when it twinkled, a resolution which had been long in the back of my
+mind became wilful and imperative. He said that it was "on top, along
+oo-nang-mugil"--a gloomy place among rocks--and that the old men of the
+country had been wont to say that this particular "oo-nang-mugil" was
+the favourite resort of the "debil-debil," the to whose arrogance and
+awful deeds the bones of man and beast bore terrifying testimony.
+
+Between the Sentinel and a spur to the south is a narrow ravine, from
+which in the rainy season mist rises like jets of steam, and this
+was the very spot whence the lightning and thunder ranged when the
+"debil-debil" lifted the mighty stone which blocked the entrance to
+the cave of the winds. All about was fantastic ground, peopled by evil
+spirits who resented the intrusion of human beings and inflicted upon
+trespassers peculiar punishments. Ill befell everyone who invaded that
+remote, almost inaccessible, uninviting region, at the very centre of
+which the alluring stone glittered. Of those who rashly determined to
+gaze at the prodigy at close quarters, some never returned. Those who
+did come back were vexed with burning and smarting pains; they suffered
+illnesses; their skin broke out into blotches; they became old
+and enfeebled prematurely and all, whether they survived for a few
+irritating weeks or a few sad years, wore to the end a startled,
+awe-struck air. "That fella no more sit down quiet; him frait all time,"
+Wylo explained. And the stone was good to look at. Sometimes it was
+white like water; sometimes blue, like the sea; sometimes red, like
+"carrie-wy-in-gin" (sunrise). Sometimes it shook, and then it became so
+bright that the eyes were dazzled. The star-like stone had been on
+the rock for all time, protected by distance and mystery. Was it not,
+indeed, the eye of the "debil-debil" who had custody of the lightning
+and thunder imps, and could it not be elevated or depressed like the
+eye of a sand-crab? No intruder had ever escaped its vigil or the
+consequences of his temerity.
+
+We were camped under the lee of a low sand-dune, the top of which
+commanded Pun-nul Bay. As the wind swayed its scalp-lock of twisted
+shrubs, the dune quivered, and rivulets of singing sand, almost as
+fluid and as unstable as water, trickled down, for it was one of the
+rubbish-heaps of the sea, over the brink of which waste was unceasingly
+shot.
+
+The maze of mangroves whence weird hoots and bubbling cries and sharp
+clicks came at night, the stealthy sand marching over the land, the
+barren slopes of the mountain, and the misshapen rock, gave one's
+thoughts a twist in the direction of the vague and mysterious. Wylo's
+continual harping on the wonderful stone renewed the old longing for
+adventure. He had seen it from a safe distance, but from the present
+aspect only the indecorous glint at sunrise was visible.
+
+The stone was a crystallised fact, but why had the blacks invested it
+with such ill omen? Here was a worthy quest--a beautiful if not precious
+crystal betokening the actual presence of a wary demon guardant over
+the mouldering skeletons of Wylo's forefathers! What quest could be more
+sensational or likely to be so famously rewarded?
+
+Wylo was prepared to climb the mountain to the base of the Sentinel,
+but no higher. Secrets hidden from his intemperate, insistent gaze must
+surely be inconsequent. Once and for all, the legend of the crystal
+might be disposed of at the cost of two or three hours' climbing. I
+would bring it back to prove to Wylo that no irreverent "debil-debil"
+would ever again blink at the sun from that particular spot. As for the
+skeletons, they were, without doubt, as mythical as the evil spirit, and
+in any case a few old bones were not to scare me from venturing to the
+boldly obvious summit of the mountain.
+
+Wylo went wellnigh naked, carrying a day's provisions and the rifle. I,
+too, was lightly clad, but wore thick-soled boots, freely studded, and
+with a tomahawk felt efficiently armed.
+
+Beyond the entanglement of the beach scrub the way was open, though
+rough, with granite boulders half hidden among rampant blady grass. The
+country was decidedly hostile to the climber, though far from actually
+forbidding, and with Wylo in the lead--for I held myself in reserve for
+the final clamber up the ravine, to which the ascent to the base of the
+Sentinel was merely a prelude--the pace was respectable and sure. Closer
+acquaintance forced a certain sort of respect for the Sentinel, which
+was more massive, more venerable and time-worn than could be imagined
+from afar off, while all the scene below seemed softer and smoother and
+more fairyland-like than in reality.
+
+Having indicated what he deemed to be the direct route, and firmly
+resolving to take no risks by peering into the domain of the
+"debil-debil," Wylo sat in the shadow of a huge boulder whence he could
+command a view of the entrance to the rock-bestrewn gorge. Not more than
+eight hundred feet separated the spot from the summit of the peak. A
+couple of hours at most and I would be down again, and, semi-seriously,
+I counselled Wylo to stop where he was until late in the afternoon, and
+if I had not then appeared to return to the camp, where he was to remain
+for a couple of days, when he would be at liberty to make his way to the
+head of the mangrove creek where the boat was anchored, with the design
+of bringing help to kill the "debil-debil" that detained me in his
+clutches. He was not too cheerful in his parting injunctions. "No
+good you fight'm that fella. Suppose he catch'm you, he kill you one
+time--finis. No good me come back. Me clear out quick!"
+
+In all seriousness he undertook to "sit down" for two days, and
+finally imparted advice which might enable me to out-manoeuvre the
+"debil-debil," and either curb him or throw him out from his lair "with
+wondrous potency." Up the gorge I would find a prickly bush, from which
+I was to cut a leafy branch as a frontal shield. Then, when the
+fiend swooped upon me, its long arms and pliant hands, furnished with
+needle-like nails, would become embarrassed by the "nails," of the
+branch, and while it howled and danced I could "kill'm alonga leg" with
+the tomahawk. I was to be careful not to look up, for the eye of the
+"debil-debil" was so bright and hot that it burnt up mortal sight,
+leaving the intruder a blind and hopeless victim.
+
+Discreetly valorous, Wylo was quite enthusiastic, anxious, indeed, that
+the quest should be accomplished by an audacious white man and at no
+risk to himself. Therefore did I accept his counsel gravely, and in
+parting promised to bring down one of the hands of the long-standing
+terror of the mountain as proof that I had exacted the last penalty for
+many demonic deeds.
+
+Thus, good-humouredly, I began to clamber up the ravine through a
+perplexity of shrubs growing among loosely packed stones, thankful
+for strong boots and hands toughened by the sun. Overhanging trees and
+shrubs almost converted the ravine into a tunnel, but here and there a
+greenish light wrought changeful patterns on the gloomy rocks, and ferns
+of sombre green with unfolding fronds of ruddy brown occupied crannies
+and crowned rocks favoured by drips. No sound of animal life came to my
+cars, but an ever-increasing current of air was perceptible as the walls
+closed in and became almost precipitous.
+
+The narrow footway was swept bare of loose stones and vegetable rubbish,
+save where the wet-season torrents had scooped out basins, or where a
+ledge of resisting rock made a wet-season water fall. Such places had to
+be discreetly scaled, for the rock was worn to polished smoothness and
+hand and foot holds were few and far between. Aerial roots, thin as
+whipcord, hung from the branches of trees crowding on the brink of the
+ravine, and with tasselled terminals sopped up moisture. A melancholy,
+humming monotone pervaded the ravine, seeming to increase in
+remonstrance and warning the higher I ascended. Wylo had told of the
+noise like a steamer's whistle a long way off. His local knowledge was
+being authenticated at every step. Such a sound was almost uncouth in
+such a locality; and there, overhanging a jutting angle of red rock, was
+the predicted bush with keen prickles thickset on limber branches.
+Half amused, I climbed to the spot, and, clinging precariously to the
+principal stem, cut off a branch which, falling into the ravine, slipped
+several yards down the smooth floor. It was not worth recovering, but
+a certain half-humorous sense of obedience to the black boy's cautions
+induced me to return for it; and as I trimmed off some of the prickles
+that it might be grasped comfortably, a stone clattered down, bouncing
+on the rock almost at my feet.
+
+A substantial mystery! What invisible agency had given this hard fact
+its force? A gleeful chuckle followed by a discordant crow dissipated
+doubt-the stone had been dislodged by an industrious scrub fowl raking
+on the brink of the ravine. A sense of fellowship with the harsh-voiced
+bird manifested itself. A transient sensation of relief--I had not been
+conscious of the least mental depression--followed the thought that in
+and about the ravine there were other living things besides myself and
+snakes. The death adder, the head of which I had fatally bruised just
+now, had been the only sign of life, and it had been as dull-coloured
+and almost as inert as the rock on which it lay--an emblem of death
+at home in this almost lifeless seclusion. Dwelling with amusement on
+Wylo's suggested precautions, I bore the branch before me as I climbed
+a steep face, the tomahawk in my belt, intent for the time being, and as
+cautious and suspicious as a black boy. On the lip of what seemed to be
+a hollow a fig-tree grew, the naked, interlacing roots of which made the
+final stages of the ascent easy and safe. Briskly hauling myself up, I
+stepped over the edge of the depression, and the solid rock lapsed and
+slid underfoot.
+
+In a flash the head of a python arose, and with gaping jaws struck as
+the branch fell from my hand.' In a moment I had whipped the tomahawk
+from my belt and slashed at the body of the snake squirming at my feet,
+as, baffled for a moment by the falling branch, it gathered itself for a
+second attack.
+
+Few of the enemies of man are more easily disabled than a snake. Always
+zealous in obedience to the Biblical law, it is honest to confess to a
+decided preference for elbow-room when engaged in its actual fulfilment.
+This was a fight with man's first enemy in close and awkward quarters--a
+precipice behind, walls of rock in front and at either hand. Three times
+my length, strong enough to constrict to death a giant, wily enough to
+seek the cover of the matted roots of the tree, several points were in
+favour of the snake. My first wild haphazard stroke, which had merely
+scored its flesh, seemed to have roused its vindictiveness. Once in
+those coils, the chances of victory would be remote indeed.
+
+Part of the python's still gliding length was within reach, while (the
+forepart resting on a branch) the head was but slightly higher than
+mine, though beyond the radius of the tomahawk.
+
+The bulging head drew slowly back, as the snake released sufficient of
+its length to encompass me. The yellow, blinkless eyes, with knife-edge
+pupils, flashed with the hate of agelong feud as I edged against the
+wall. My arm was free. The lust of battle tightened every nerve. Neither
+flashing eyes nor strangulating length made for fear. The hitherto
+all-conquering snake, lord and master of the ravine, bade defiance,
+joining issue with the craft of its kind.
+
+Slowly the pendant portion increased as the subtle beast seemed to
+concentrate all its energies on one triumphant, invincible effort.
+
+Anticipating the fateful instant, I slashed with all my force at the
+portion of the body within reach, ducking simultaneously. Shooting over
+me, the head of the enemy struck the rock with brain-bemuddling impact.
+For once the serpent had been foiled. With jaws awry, the head swung
+limply, like a ceasing pendulum. One blow with the back of the tomahawk
+established the right of man to wander at will among the rough and
+secret places of the mountain.
+
+Still did the swaying reptile cling with a single coil round the
+figtree's branch, while chill blood dripped and splashed among the
+intertwined and snake-like roots. A sudden tug brought the body down a
+squirming mass. With rough-shod heel, I fulfilled the letter of the law,
+bruising the battered head, and then were revealed the bosses by which,
+with the tail, the snake had sustained its dead weight.
+
+Was this the "debil-debil" which had scared so many from the quest--a
+python which any man might kill in the open without running any risk,
+and which a black boy, with time on his hands, would joy to eat? Yet I
+own that I was somewhat flustered, and not a little tired and bruised
+and angry, because such an impediment had had to be cleared from the
+track. Was there not cause for indignation? Why should a gormandising
+serpent, full to repletion, lie slothfully across a highway open to
+all, to the checking of a holiday-making mortal in lawful pursuit of
+a demon-protected crystal? Let me once more vindictively stamp on its
+head.
+
+But which way? Here was a dead and unscalable wall to right and left and
+in front, and all in deep shadow. I estimated that another one hundred
+feet would take me to the mountain-top, whence it would be possible to
+survey the scene in relation to the bejewelled rock. Descent was the
+only practicable preliminary towards further ascent. Utilising the
+interlacing roots of the fig-tree, the way down was easy enough, and,
+choosing the left wall of the ravine, I began a perilous climb out of
+gloom into sunshine, upon a conglomeration of immense granite boulders,
+over which the Sentinel cast a shadow. This shadow indicated that the
+ascent had occupied at least three hours, and in my self-complacency
+I had calculated to beard the "debil-debil" in his den, dislodge the
+crystal, and be back at the camp gloating over the escapade to open-eyed
+Wylo in less time.
+
+Though a night was to be spent in the haunt of the evil spirit, yet
+would I proceed. I found not one but many "oo-nang-mugils," lowering
+caves and clefts in which scores of fearsome "debil-debils" might lurk,
+but which, as far as a vigilant mortal could detect, were given over to
+innocent bats and those sun-loving swiftlets which rear their young in
+nests adherent to rocks in dusky places.
+
+Over and beneath boulders, squirming through bolt-holes and up flue-like
+openings, bruised and with bleeding hands, at last the top was reached,
+harsh with granite, and there to the right, on a gigantic splintered
+boulder which seemed to block the end of the ravine and to peer down
+into the blue bay below, was the crystal glinting in sunshine. It was
+not more than fifty yards away, and, easeful of mind, I sat down to
+munch a piece of damper. Close by a patch of vivid green moss indicated
+the existence of moisture and the further possibility of water. Sure
+enough, twenty yards down spongy moss and fern spread over a lip of
+rocks, and from dangling tufts and drooping fronds water dripped in
+melodious splashes into a shallow depression, and overflowed in a
+fan-shaped film. The facets and apex of the crystal reflected harsh
+brightness as unsullied as the moss-filtered, unstable drips which
+gathered second by second and were gone. How like those drips, how
+unlike the scarred, time-chastened rock, that steadfast slip of light
+which since the dawn of creation had flashed messages across the
+unresponsive sea.
+
+From a ledge in which ferns and orchids grew in careless
+profusion--bird's-nest fern and polypodium and white-flowering
+orchid--the crystal might be reached by a little manoeuvring. But why
+hurry? Every minor crevice was embossed with spongy moss, from which
+sprang modest little flowers, a flower of mountaintops alone, lacking a
+familiar name, but which in its dainty form and rich mauve is none the
+less precious. While all the rest of the way had been barren or gloomy,
+here was brave sunshine and space, a jewel-like crystal, and moss and
+ferns and flowers, and calm and cool serenity which' bespoke remoteness
+from the "debil-debil" and all his works, and from the noisy cave of
+the winds. Magic there was in plenty-the air tingled with it--that
+exhilarating, mind-expanding silence of mountain-tops which is the most
+thrilling magic of all.
+
+Leisurely glances at the mass of granite from which the crystal shone
+showed that from the ferny ledge it would be beyond reach, and that
+unless care was exercised in the dislodgment it might fall among a
+confusion of boulders far below and be lost for ever. My plan was of
+to build a buttress of loose stone on which to stand to tap it with the
+tomahawk. Like a miniature railway cutting, the ledge ran out on the
+face of the rock, so that standing upon it one looked down into the
+ravine; but it was broad enough to afford safe and even convenient
+footing.
+
+As a final preliminary to the beginning of operations, I clambered up
+on to the ledge. Ferns grew among decaying vegetable matter in masses
+difficult to push through. Polypodiums with brown, oak-leaf like,
+infantile fronds clung tightly to the rocks with furry fingers, and the
+birds'-nests were big enough to conceal a man. A broad and comfortable
+path it was, leading directly under the crystal, and with haste and
+confidence I pushed along, smiling inwardly at "shynynge" fortune, to be
+in another moment dismayed by her "brutilness." The earth sank under me.
+I shot into an acute fissure with ferns and dust piled overhead!
+
+Gasping and coughing, I cleared away the smothering rubbish, to find
+myself a fixture--jambed fast between walls of granite. Deceptive ferns
+had masked the crevice. I had walked along a treacherous track until at
+a weak spot it had given way as the gallows' trap beneath the feet of a
+murderer.
+
+Light came from ahead, too. There the lancehead-shaped fissure opened on
+the ravine, whence it was flushed with cool air.
+
+Was ever mortal in such a plight? A drop of eight from the spacious
+top of the mountain had lodged me a prisoner in the narrowest of cells.
+Dismayed but not despairing, I struggled frantically, working with
+shoulder and arms against the walls of granite. The right foot was
+firmly fixed, while a sensation of easiness was perceptible with regard
+to the left. Gently yet firmly, and fearful lest the slight grain of
+comfort might be fraudulent, I felt the weight of my body on the left
+foot, while scrutinising in detail the horrible trap into which the
+crystal bait had lured me.
+
+There, a few feet below and further towards the ravine, was the skull
+of a human being, and still further down, where space was more confined,
+other bones were fixtures. There was a weird fascination about the
+skull, for at noon it would receive the benediction of the sun, and the
+diurnal glare into the secrets of the crevice had made a patch of white
+desert in an oasis of grey mould. The bones below, green and earthly
+with age, lay in disorder and confusion--poor fragments of the framework
+of man and harmless beasts, sharing a common fate.
+
+Though fast a prisoner, nothing to live on but hope and fresh air, a
+sense of relief, somehow, sometime, established itself in my mind.
+Most of the significant features of the adventure had been faithfully
+foretold by Wylo--the prickly bush, the snake (archetype of the fiend),
+the mocking delusive stone, the stored bones of man and beast-all as he
+had described. He must have known more than he had voluntarily told, and
+assuredly would he come', when he would coo-ee, and I would shout
+for very joy. In the meantime would I possess my soul in patience and
+conserve all the strength of my lungs and power of endurance.
+
+Just beyond the platform of ferns a splash of lovely tints illuminated
+the edge of the time-recording shadow--the solar spectrum produced by
+the prism which had beckoned from afar. Was there no escape from the
+wizardry of the crystal? No hope of evading comparison of its beauty
+and permanence with the muddy and fleeting passions of mankind? Yet how
+fruitless its functions--to glorify for aeons the intractable rock,
+and to leave it ever unstained! For once in all the centuries may not a
+human hand be interposed between those ineffectual flames and the surly
+rock? Cannot even that small measure of space be overcome?
+
+A few inches from the tips of my outstretched fingers were the prismatic
+tints with which the crystal daily registered the decline of the day;
+but not for all my striving and all my wit could I get within reach.
+They were as remote as the creating sun!
+
+The narrowness of the cleft forbade effort to reach down so that I might
+unlace my boots. There wan but one chance of deliverance--the coming of
+Wylo. And would he, agitated by superstitious awe, dare to venture into
+the haunt of the evil spirit when he began to realise that I, too, had
+fallen into the clutches he so much dreaded? Yet he must come! Of what
+special impiety had I been guilty that so rare and terrible a fate
+should have been reserved for me. He must come!
+
+Yes. Listen! I hear his coo-ee far below! He is making his way up the
+ravine! And with, all my vocal power I coo-eed and yelled. But the
+muffling rocks stifled all noise at lips. Listen! Yes! The sound
+again--merely the mellow cadences of a swamp pheasant whooping among the
+blady grass.
+
+Wylo dared not venture to the very door of the cave of the winds. I was
+alone with my fate! Could I master it?
+
+The clean-cut shadow crept up the rock, and with it the colour splash
+receded. As I gazed it glittered and was gone. It would not be visible
+again until the next afternoon. Would I be here to watch it illuminate
+the rock once more? Could I contain myself until then, and perhaps
+after, and for day after day, until the last? And were my bones to
+be added to the secret horde mouldering within a few feet of the
+mountain-top? A few feet of nothingness--mere empty space--separated me
+from lost and lovely liberty, and with frantic hands I strove against
+the hard face of the rock, and cried aloud in agonising protest.
+
+The old rock had disregarded similar protests and supplications, and had
+endured like infantile pushings! Call, and who shall listen? Push and
+shove and fight, and what availed it?
+
+In my delirium I cursed and blasphemed, and "full of shriekynge was that
+sory place."
+
+Darkness followed brief twilight, and up the ravine came the murmuring
+I had heard below--a sobbing sound which at first affrighted and then
+soothed, for it could be nothing but the echo of the sea on the curving
+beach below; and in its comfort that lulled all ineffectual clamour, and
+eventually to fretful but frightful sleep. Always I awoke panting with
+thirst, stiff and strained, and with unmanly cries of fear and pain
+on my lips, while the chaste stars danced across the narrow slit as I
+strove to stem the turbid stream of despondency.
+
+About midnight a singular peacefulness possessed me, overcoming me in
+spite of myself. Feverish impatience and resistance seemed futile, and
+in my resignation I began to realise that to avert cramp and disablement
+from cold--for a chill, moist breeze from the ravine played continuously
+on me--some sort of exercise must be undertaken.
+
+My left foot was certainly not so compressed as the right. Though
+it could not be raised, it was possible to move it ever so slightly
+forwards and backwards. Might it not be possible, by never-ceasing
+friction, to so abrade the edges of the sole of the boot that it might
+be reduced to such dimension as would permit it to be raised?
+
+With all the force of my mind concentrated on the one idea, I began to
+work in a passion of patience. At first the play of the boot was hardly
+to be registered; but hour after hour of ceaseless and calculated effort
+not only counterbalanced mental tension and imparted some degree of
+warmth to my body, but so amended the shape of the boot that it began
+to move with some degree of freedom. The more easy the fit, the more
+cautious and calm I became.
+
+No insipid monotony pervaded the remote, cold crevice. The operation was
+lubricated with hope. Once every heart-beat--for I kept strict tally, as
+further mental relaxation--my boot rubbed against the rock, and each
+rub wore away minute particles of leather. As time passed and the work
+became still easier, it became more engrossing, until calmness gave way,
+and every nerve thrilled with excitement, and I was convinced that
+I would win a joyful passage from this narrow strait by dint of the
+resolute continuation of the simplest of processes.
+
+But the long night was not to end with such placid and entertaining
+occupation. Absorbed in it, sternly waving off all sense of weariness or
+despair, I was staggered and stunned by the fall, among an avalanche
+of fern debris, of a heavy living body on my head and shoulders--a
+grunting, struggling thing which kicked and scratched.
+
+With a despairing shriek, 'all my vibrant nerves collapsed, as in the
+darkness and confusion I fought against infernal odds. For one appalling
+instant I was convinced of the reality of Wylo's most diresome fact, and
+did furiously believe that I was actually entrapped in the stronghold of
+a demon at that moment, intent upon tearing me limb from limb. The most
+fantastic and horrific of nightmares was actually materialised.
+
+But at that instant a familiar odour sluiced away all mystery. This
+struggling thing, from the shock of which my very soul still trembled,
+was but a fellow-victim--a wallaby which, feeding along the ledge, had
+happened on the trap made by my fall.
+
+In a flash of remorseless energy, I seized the panting body, felt for
+the throat, and, expelling pity from my heart, gripped until all was
+still. How precious and comforting it was! And once again all my powers
+of will and muscle were centred on a single design and action as with
+machine-like rhythm the boot wore itself against the rock. Disengaged
+from every other theme, my mind dwelt on the one steady, inevitable
+purpose. Rub! Rub! Rub! And I fancied I saw leathern dust fall like
+filings from iron down deeper into the crevice. Before dawn the boot was
+working freely, and with one arm on the compressed body of the wallaby
+to case my weight, rest was possible. The plan for the disengagement of
+the right foot, painfully rigid and cold, was perfect in theory. Would
+it hold in practice? When the left was free I would, by friction of the
+iron studs In the sole, wear away the laces of the engaged boot so that
+the foot might be withdrawn.
+
+But physical weakness became imperious. The distraction of cramped
+and bruised flesh had to be withstood the while the constancy of the
+function was maintained. Continual comfort came from the dead body of
+the ill-fated wallaby--a sort of fellowship, and a feeling that with its
+co-operation the contest between living flesh and blood and the inert
+force of the mountain was not altogether one-sided. Light was certainly
+cheerful, but the crevice filled with mist which distilled on the rock,
+and a chill current of air benumbed my aching limbs.
+
+Under the pressure of fierce determination the task persisted, until,
+quite unexpectedly as it seemed, the boot was free; and then, shoving
+and squeezing the wallaby as a cushion for my right arm, the sole of
+the left boot began to rasp away at the instep of the right. In such a
+constrained position the operation, which could be persevered in by fits
+and starts only, was exasperatingly slow. The sun sopped up the morning
+mist and boldly explored the crevice, revealing the marvellous precision
+of the space between the walls. No work of art could be more regular.
+The sheer simplicity of the trap made it the more effectual. The
+sunlight showed, too, that the fissure was the skylight of a cave which
+opened out on the ravine. Dry boulders were strewn about fifty feet
+below, while ahead I could catch a glimpse of a narrow ribbon of blue
+sea. This provoking sight of unattainable water aggravated thirst almost
+beyond endurance. Throughout the night had my longing increased, but
+now the pangs were extreme. The most gratifying of all drinks--cool,
+fern-filtered, flower-decorated water, water dripping in iridescent
+spangles from green moss soft as velvet--splashed incessantly into a
+hollow out there a few yards away in the free space of the mountain.
+Here, manacled with "adamant eterne," in an agony of impatience I
+quaffed the thirst-stimulating draught of unsatisfied longing as I
+strove fitfully to wear away the stubborn strips of leather which held
+me in bondage. In a doze or dream the action went on. Startled, I awoke
+to find myself pommelling with inane savagery the poor crumpled body of
+the wallaby, and to the realisation that the imprisoned foot was loose
+in the boot.
+
+A luxurious stupor took possession of my mind. I was at liberty to work
+out of the crevice knees and shoulders; yet an impalpable force detained
+me. It was not that I was not master of my fate, but that out there in
+the glare of the sun was patient water, dripping for the refreshment
+and cleansing of my grimy lips. So enchanting a thought was not to be
+abruptly ended. Was it not deliciously dreamy to hold myself in
+suspense awhile, to linger over anticipated sweetness and prolong blest
+gratifications indefinitely?
+
+Strange drowsiness and peace bewitched the sunlit chink. Why should I
+struggle more? Could I not, in fancy, hearken to the measured splash of
+the drops from the sodden moss? Could anything be more consoling than
+this cushion to my bruised and aching arms? Ease and sloth were sweet
+indeed. I was free, but not at large. The amazing adaptability of the
+human mind had reconciled me in a few suffering hours to this confined
+space. Verily do I believe that the overcoming of this subtle anodyne
+demanded the expenditure of more vital force than the sum of all the
+long-sustained automatic exertion by which I had won physical release.
+
+One supreme mental tug and the baneful torpor was dispelled, and with
+stiffened legs and bruised hand@ I began to screw myself up to the free
+air cautiously and painfully; and there, in a beam of light from the
+crystal, was the slow-dripping flower-bedizened water-celestial nectar
+to parched lips.
+
+Hours after I awoke as from a dream. Far below a column of smoke showed
+that Wylo still watched. My first act was to send up a responsive
+signal. In a fit of petty passion I flung the toil-worn boot into the
+ravine, and began the descent by way of the spur to the west.
+
+Wylo seemed scared by the sight of the staggering and tattered
+scarecrow, barefooted, and stained with blood and dirt, who stumbled
+into the camp at dusk, too weary to talk, almost too spent to eat;
+and to this day he is convinced that I was actually detained by the
+"debil-debil," whom I had overcome by some means of which wonder-working
+white men alone have the secret.
+
+After two days' rest I climbed the mountain again, blocked the fissure
+with loose stones, and built a buttress, standing upon which I tapped
+the crystal gently with the tomahawk. It quivered. A shaft of rainbow
+tints dazzled my sight. I tapped again. As I touched it it third
+time, the fragile finger with which the gaunt old rock had scorned the
+plodding centuries vanished in a splutter of spangles!
+
+
+
+
+THE SOUL WITHIN THE STONE
+
+
+
+"These ghosts of the living and of the dead assuredly illustrate in
+a striking manner the mysterious workings of the human mind, and the
+unsuspected influence of soul on soul."--PRODMORE.
+
+
+Not more than a hundred yards from its mud-besmeared mouth the
+convenient mangroves disappear and the little creek assumes becoming
+airs. Huge tea-trees, with cushiony bark, straddle it, and ferns grow
+strongly in all its nooks and bends. When the big trees blossom in
+watery yellow, yellow-eared honey-eaters, blue-bibbed sun-birds, and
+screeching parrots in accordant colours, assemble joyously, for the
+aroma, as of burnt honey, spreads far and wide, bidding all, butterflies
+and jewel-backed beetles which buzz and hum, to the feast, until the
+aerial anthem is harmonic to the rustle of the sea.
+
+The sturdy feet of the trees stand in black peat, through which the
+water from the wholesome hills oozes and dribbles, and the russet stain
+from discarded leaves is on their white bases. Russet, too, is the
+surface of the ever moist soil. Some element in the water derived from
+pacted roots of palm and fern tinctures whatsoever in it lies, so that
+the bottoms of the shallow, erratic pools are thick with russet slime.
+All above is bright and pure, and the water which flows over the
+slime-smudged roots limpid and refreshing. If you cut into the bark
+of the tea-tree you will find water in beads and trickles, water which
+sparkles with purity and has a slightly saline taste. The bare roots
+alone suffer defilement.
+
+Many a tall tea-tree stands sentinel on the margin of the creek, and
+there are groves of slim palms with narrow truncated leaves--palms which
+creep and sprawl over vegetation of independent character, and palm&
+which coquette with the sun with huge fans. Orchid& display sprays of
+yellowish-green flowers, which contribute a decided savour to the medley
+of scents, and palm-like Cycads meander from the low bank out Into the
+forest.
+
+But there is one tree which, if not superior to the rest in broadness
+of base, height, fairness of bark, and fullness of bloom, has especial
+endowment. It stands at the spot where generation after generation of
+the original owners of the soil has crossed the creek, wearing a waving
+path upon which ferns ever encroach and which every flood amends. In a
+recess in its massive roots reposes "Kidjo-bang," the restless stone--a
+boulder, man's-head size, stained with a rim of sober brown.
+
+This is its accustomed scat. It roves the locality, returning,
+swallow-like, to the close-fitting hollow of the root. The embraces of
+the root are sometimes so strong that the dingy stone may not be moved.
+But the floods of the wet season maintain an unceasing cataract to its
+dislodgment, and then, according to the legends of the blacks, it begins
+to "walk about." It may rest a month just out of reach of the disturbing
+water among the ferns. It has been known to appear mysteriously on the
+sandy beach two hundred yards away, to which spot it is said to travel
+by way of the grass lands, avoiding the slur of the muddy creek.
+
+Whether it seeks change of scene beyond the ripple of dead leaves and
+spoil of the flood, or whether it ventures out on to the open beach,
+where the breezes from the Pacific play upon it, the round white stone
+returns, independent of the agency of man, to the sanctuary which time,
+ever-flowing water, and the hospitable roots of the tree, have combined
+to afford. It is there this day. Should it be taken to one or other of
+the blue islands in the broad bay, sooner or later it will be discovered
+nestling cosily in the grotto in which the dyed slime smears it as with
+pale blood.
+
+To the ordinary investigator of the whimsicalities of "Kidj-o-bang" the
+blacks betray no secret, though they would verify, with what to them is
+proof positive, that it does on occasion appear in unexpected places
+and unaccountably reoccupies its cell. Discreetly pursue the subject and
+peradventure you may be told precisely why the stone may not always rest
+in the one spot in the whole world which it fits as a kernel its shell.
+It has been, they assert, associated with an evil deed of which it is
+now the emblem. Among the many the mysteries of "Kidj-o-bang" dwell
+with the past, though it is still associated with the ceremonies of the
+bestowal of totemic names on the children of a certain father.
+
+More than one legend concerning it is extant, and the young fellows of
+the present day frankly scoff at them all, while the old men believe
+each other's versions and repeat them with bated breath. They cannot
+discredit stories which were accepted as established facts when they
+were young, which no one then ever dreamed of doubting, and which
+provide a comfortably satisfactory account for otherwise perplexing
+incidents.
+
+Musing on the spot, the legend of the roving stone usurped my thoughts.
+The trivial and uncertain notions of the black boy who was the first to
+tell it, and by theatrical gestures to illustrate its verities, became
+more and more indistinct. The soothsayers of the long past had been
+forbidden by Nature to doubt that which was the lore of the camp. Was it
+that Nature re-asserted her influence--that the essences of the scene,
+subtle and pervasive, had recurred, creating a receptive spirit, so
+deep a religion of assent that shadow and substance intermingled to my
+bewilderment? I was permitted to be a sensitive percipient in the midst
+of the ashes of shiftless folk who had passed away, catching but a
+casual and deceptive glimpse of the coming of the desolating white man.
+
+Piln-goi, the black boy, had wandered up the creek. A thrilling silence
+prevailed. Stooping down, I laved my hands in the softly flowing water,
+idly intent on lifting the stone. The tawny slime defeated irresolute
+efforts, and my slipping hands bestowed a baptismal splash.
+
+Instantly I became conscious of a strange presence, and, glancing
+over my shoulder, saw an unfamiliar black boy lurking behind a
+glistening-fronded Cycad.
+
+The whole scene had undergone wishful transformation. The white-barked
+trees, purified of smears from the sooty fingers of fire, stood out in
+splendid contrast to a richer, thicker, a flowery undergrowth. Tall fern
+trees spread green cobwebs to entrap sunbeams. The Cycad under which the
+boy crouched was slim-shaped, and its foliage resembled that of one of
+the most beautiful of ferns, with languorous, dolorous fronds, while it
+was crowned with a huge fruit of golden-brown. All the scene had
+been wondrously transfigured. Time's treacheries had been defeated.
+A garden-like age had been restored. The sword-leaved orchid dangled
+yard-long sprays of brilliant yellow flowers, which saturated the air
+with delicate perfume. Fearless birds fluttered among and hovered over
+the pendant blooms, whistling and calling. Water-rats sported in the
+lily-bespangled stream, and a platypus basked, on the bank.
+
+From the strained and expectant attitude of the boy, it was apparent
+that he was hunting. He stepped cautiously out of cover, and, using a
+wommera of dark wood with oval clutches of white shell, threw a spear
+into the long grass. A kangaroo, mad with fear and pain, staggered
+forward, knowing not whence fate had struck it, and, lurching
+helplessly, sank among the ferns on the margin of the water. Ignoring my
+presence the boy, having completed the hunter's office with a blow from
+a nulla-nulla, called in a thin, shrill voice:
+
+"Yano-lee!" (We go this way).
+
+In a few seconds a young girl of his own race stepped through the leafy
+screen. She cast casual glances at the dead kangaroo, and without saying
+a word to her companion came to the pool, stooped down beside me, and
+drank eagerly and noisily, using a scoop improvised from a leaf. Her
+back glistened with perspiration, and her coarse, fuzzy, uncleanly hair
+ceased in tufts on her neck. It was a slim and shapely little figure.
+The plumes of the orchid, golden and syrupy, swayed over her heedless
+head and seemed to caress it. Her eyes, round, large, and brimful of the
+bewildering eagerness of youth, relieved the unobtrusive expansiveness
+of her nose and almost atoned for her savage lips. Though almost
+touching me, the most shy, wild creature of the bush seemed unconscious
+of my presence. She was in fact and deed:
+
+"We have the receipt of fern-seed; we walk invisible." I was the
+phantom--invisible, intangible. The pair beside, the unembarrassed
+realities.
+
+Do phantoms reflect? That privilege was mine. Let memory treasure every
+detail of the scene, every vestige of its incidents.
+
+"Kidj-o-bang" had vanished. There was its cell. A full and stainless
+stream, in a gurgling cataract, sparkled over the big root, while high
+among the blossoms birds clambered incessantly for nectar.
+
+The primitive pair were at home, but not at case, In this Garden of
+Eden. They spoke in mumbling tones, of which I could catch but stray
+phrases, though I listened eagerly. Presently the girl took up two
+dry sticks, and, using one as a drill between the palms of her hands,
+essayed to make a fire.
+
+The boy imperatively intervened. "Poo-nee imba!" (No fire).
+
+The girl started up, and instantly both slid into the jungle as silently
+and as tracklessly as snakes.
+
+The dead kangaroo, the expectant phantom (gifted for the time being with
+a faculty more subtle than any moral sense), remained alone among the
+birds and the orchids, while shy pencil-tailed water-rats began to sniff
+and peer among the sedges. So enthralling was the scene that time passed
+insensibly. The sun was overhead when the pair reappeared noiselessly.
+Smears of shell and grit betrayed an intervening meal of oysters. Swarms
+of green ants, in a scramble for food, almost obscured the blood-stains
+on the fur of the kangaroo, and, brushing them away, the boy made and
+enlarged with his fingers an opening in the body, and having torn out
+the heart, liver, and kidneys, made a fire, scarce a hand's-breadth wide
+and smokeless, on which the meat was singed prior to being munched with
+grim deliberation. They ate largely, some of the flesh from the hind
+quarters being also eaten, scrap by scrap.
+
+Were they fugitives? Tall and strong, the boy was as alert and
+suspicious as a dingo. Every sense was strained. He seemed intent upon
+subduing the very noises in his head as he slowly crushed his food and
+gulped.
+
+A forlorn cry, half appeal, half gurgle, filtered through the leafage as
+from the beach, and on the instant the jungle had soundlessly absorbed
+the affrighted pair. The handful of fire and the mutilated kangaroo
+remained as the only evidences of the handiwork of man.
+
+What of the intruder? The cry was almost too weird to be human. Again it
+thrilled through the leafage, a trifle stronger, and seemed to convey a
+threat commingled with a prayer for succour.
+
+The scene held me. I was powerless, but not indifferent; capable of
+sight, incapable of action or utterance. Something in the tone of the
+voice told of a member of my own race in sore distress. Yet I could not
+respond to his appeal or move to his aid.
+
+Half an hour of intense silence passed, and then a lusty shout startled
+the air. Surely, I thought, the wayfarer who makes such outcry in this
+unpeopled wilderness is an uncouth fellow who has lost his way and
+thinks to dialogue with echoes for relief of loneliness. Presently the
+cracking of branchlets and a rumble of discontented phrases told of
+someone blundering along through the mangroves. Accustomed to the
+gentle sounds and the delicious silence of the jungle, the clumsy noises
+irritated while preparing me for the sight of the intruder--a big,
+aggressive, weather-scored man, his only clothing a pair of short pants
+of canvas, stained with wear and stiff and whitened with frost like
+sea-salt. The ocean had but an hour ago cast him like its scum on the
+beach.
+
+He burst on the scene to plunge his broken lips into the water at my
+feet. Like the natives, he drank long and noisily, and when his thirst
+was allayed called to an imaginary mate--"Pietro, Pietro!" cursed freely
+when no answer came, and whimpered like a babe.
+
+Huge of body, strong of limb, bully and brute stamped on his coarse
+features, yet did his dread of loneliness piteously overcome him. His
+bald pate, hung about with scant reddish ringlets, had been roasted by
+the tropic sun until it glowed, and eyes and nose strove for supremacy
+of inflammation. An unkempt moustache did not hide teeth of disreputable
+tint; chin and jowl were covered with a fortnight's growth of streaky
+hair.
+
+Turning from the water, he saw the dismembered kangaroo, and, seizing
+one of the legs, tore the flesh from the bones and with ravenous greed
+began an uncleanly feast. The impure drank of the pure water and gulped
+the strong flesh until his gorged stomach swelled cask-shape, and then
+he slept as noisily as he had eaten and drank.
+
+A leathern belt, cracked and whitened, furrowed his distended girth,
+and as he lay stretched with the sun scrutinising his face, flies and
+mosquitoes and carnivorous green ants feasted on his blood at will.
+Each leaden-tinted, lean fly revelled until it assumed similitude to
+a colouring grape, some "reeled to and fro and staggered like drunken
+men"; bloated mosquitoes and green ants, commingling, made a living
+mosaic on the skin of the unconscious man. What could the assaults and
+stings of myriads of insects avail against fatigue so formidable?
+
+But a decree had gone forth that the sleeper should wake, and who is man
+that he should flout imperious commands? The merciless sun insisted. The
+strong man fidgeted under the persistent blaze. Perspiration poured from
+his skin; he snarled; his eyelids twitched and quivered; the veins
+of neck and forehead throbbed ominously. The sun does not tolerate
+disobedience. A thin trickle of blood issued from the grimy nose, and
+with a snort the man awoke, his flame-red eye% swilled with enforced
+tears. Dazedly he plunged his head into the water and drank greedily,
+and, sitting up, spat sullenly and with signs of disgust and contempt.
+What comfort could cold water afford so repleted a stomach?
+
+Having disdainfully spurned the remnants of the kangaroo, he sat head
+between knees, grumbling against fate. To him the fruitful and pleasant
+land was disconsolate. A castaway, he had drifted on to its welcome
+shores, and all that it could offer was loneliness, cold water, the raw
+flesh of a strange animal, and denial of the solace of sleep. Out of the
+depths of his misery and dejection he called imperatively on his God,
+and taking from the lining of his belt a thumb-sized purse, of netted
+silver, displayed a glorious pearl, which he held aloft, and with an
+admixture of supplication and imprecation proffered it to the Most High
+as grudging ransom from a God-abandoned country.
+
+Who is there that delights not in the susceptible purity of pearls? The
+gem which symbolises virginal placidity was like to be contaminated by
+the coarse handling of the fretful, bargaining castaway.
+
+Did I lean forward acquisitively to accept it from the noisome fingers,
+reluctant that so serene a prize should be retained in so coarse a
+setting?
+
+The man started, for the votive offering had vanished, and blasphemous
+lamentations and curses against the Supreme Being, whom he abused for
+defrauding him of fortune by trickery, shocked the quietude. Then a
+spasm of religious fervour jerked him to his knees as he patronised the
+Almighty for having accepted a pledge for safe-conduct from death-like
+solitude. After transports of impious piety, as uncouth and boisterous
+as his struggles through the labyrinth of mangroves to the purifying
+water, he sat bareheaded in the sun.
+
+Steamy heat distilled strong aromatic odours from the myriad leaves;
+languid flowers gave copiously and of the best of their fragrance; ferns
+and lotus did obeisance to high noon. The birds had ceased to whistle,
+and the droning of bees gave to the upper air slumbering rhythm of its
+own.
+
+Again the intruder slept. Again the sun commanded and he woke raging.
+Standing, he cursed both loud and long, eyes protuberant, face purpling
+under the strain of vindictive oaths.
+
+What an unflattering contrast to the unclad natives who had dominated
+yet blended with the scene-the girl the prototype of a swaying palm, the
+boy that of a tough young bloodwood beside the creek, among the topmost
+branches of which a crimson-flowered mistletoe made a splash of colour
+in harmony with the single red feather from the wing of a black cockatoo
+which the soft-tongued youth had entangled in his hair.
+
+This gross, profane, sun-smitten, sea-rejected herald of civilisation,
+disowned by his fellows, disinherited of the world, defiled the spot,
+and his voice created an inaugural discord.
+
+With arms uplifted, he muttered ineffectual curses against his fellows,
+upbraided his saints, and defied his deity. But while his lips frothed
+with the passion of a stuttering tongue, the provoked but just genius
+of the spot passed sentence, and swiftly and silently the messengers of
+Death came. Four slender spear& penetrated his shaggy chest, as with
+a &cream which ended lit a gulp he splashed back into the water. His
+struggles and splutterings soon ceased. Silence resumed its fascination.
+
+Blood welled from the mouth and nose and spear wounds, which the eager
+water carried off in wavy, independent streams, while the dead face
+whitened.
+
+Many minutes elapsed before a dozen white-eyed natives cautiously oozed
+through the Jungle, stimulating each other's nervousness by reassuring
+gestures. Certain that the trespasser on their dominion was incapable of
+mischief, they began to chatter, showing fidgety interest in the body,
+which they touched and poked fearsomely with spears.
+
+Dead eyes stared unblinkingly at the sun through a curtain of water,
+which had already cleaned them of heat and passion, and wisps of red
+hair drifted over the forehead.
+
+The untimely yelp of a dingo some few yards in the jungle inspired a
+similar response from one of the men, and without shyness or reserve the
+boy and girl joined the throng, and all began to talk excitedly. Some
+of the men assumed threatening attitudes towards the girl, who stood
+submissively, while the boy talked in a rage of excitement. He had
+chosen his mate, and would not, even on pain of summary death, abandon
+her.
+
+So trivial an incident as the love affairs of boy and girl could not
+compare with the phenomenon in the water. The crisis was momentary.
+Amazement was pictured in every face, and not a man but subjected the
+bleeding body to gross contempt and what passed among them for ridicule.
+They mimicked the high stomach as they stood, as the dead man had stood,
+with arms aloft in rebellion against his lot, and fell back, as he had
+fallen, screaming, to kick and wallow on the ground. Here was plot and
+matter for ludicrous corroboree, the first rehearsal of which took place
+on the scene.
+
+Soon curiosity took possession of the unstable actors. The belt was
+removed, and on the purse being fumbled with, several small pearls fell
+out. They were disregarded; but the strong man of the party looped the
+belt about his own inadequate waist, the girl hid the purse (which had
+been passed from hand to hand) in her hair, while the men tore the bone
+buttons from the pants and fitted them into their ears as they strutted
+foppishly.
+
+The dead eyes stared defiantly up into the sky, the face whitened, and
+the stains of blood seemed to settle on it.
+
+A harsh sound came as an electric shock, and I heard as from afar off
+Piln-goi shout:
+
+"You bin sleep long time, boss! Big low water. We fella look out
+pearl-shell!"
+
+The scene had resumed everyday aspects. The sun concentrated its rays on
+my head through a rift in the jungle, and the stone, stained dull red,
+lay in its cell, while rootlets fringed with tawny slime wavered over
+it.
+
+Had soul communed with soul on that illusive borderland we range in
+dreams, the emblem of a deed of blood eloquent to reveal its secret? And
+now that the tale is told, will it cease from bewildering the simple old
+men of the soil who with one hand grapple the magical past and with the
+other the realities of the present?
+
+Piln-goi's impatience drew me from the spot and out on to the reef laid
+bare by the ebb. The beguiling pearl still eludes him, but memory holds
+a rarer treasure than all the fecund sea contains.
+
+
+
+End
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Tropic Days, by E. J. Banfield
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