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29 chapters
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
Had I a plantation of this Isle, my lord— * * * * * I' the Commonwealth I would by contraries Execute all things; for no kind of traffic Would I admit . . . riches, poverty And use of service, none. How quaint seems the demand for details of life on this Isle of Scent and Silence! Lolling in shade and quietude, was I guilty of indiscretion when I babbled of my serene affairs, and is the penalty so soon enforced? Can the record of such a narrow, compressed existence be anything but dull? Can one
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
"'Be advised by a plain man, (said the quaker to the soldier), 'Modes and apparels are but trifles to the real man: therefore do not think such a man as thyself terrible for thy garb nor such a one as me contemptible for mine.'"—ADDISON. Small must be the Isle of Dreams, so small that possession is possible. A choice passion is not to be squandered on that which, owing to exasperating bigness, can never be fully possessed. An island of bold dimensions may be free to all—wanton and vagrant, unlov
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
"Go and argue with the flies of summer that there is a power divine yet greater than the sun in the heavens, but never dare hope to convince the people of the South that there is any other God than Gold."—KINGLAKE. No "saint-seducing gold" has been permitted to ruffle this placidity. Gold! Our ears were tickled by the tale that good folks had actually thrilled when we slunk away to our Island. Rumour wagged her tongue, abusing God's great gift of speech, until scared Truth fled. She said—how che
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
"Who has not hearkened to Her infinite din?"—THOREAU. Free alike from the clatter of pastimes and the creaks and groans of labour, this region discovers acute sensibility to sound. Silence in its rarest phases soothes the Isle, reproaching disturbances, though never so temperate. All the endemic sounds are primitive and therefore seldom harsh. Even the mysterious fall of a tree in the jungle—not an unusual occurrence on still days during the wet season—is unaccompanied by thud and shock. Encompa
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
"The pot herbs of the gods."—THOREAU. Those branches of the cultural enterprise which depend upon my own unaided exertions fail, I am bound to confess, consistently. However partial to the results of the gardener's art, I admit with lamentations lack of the gardener's touch. Since bereft of black labour by the seductions of rum and opium, the plantation of orange-trees has sadly degenerated; the little grove of bananas has been choked with gross over-bearing weeds, the sweet-potato patch has bee
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
"And therefore is the glorious planet, Sol, In noble eminence enthron'd and spher'd Amidst the ether, whose medicinable eye Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil." Twelve years of open-air life in tropical Queensland persuade me that I am entitled to prerogative of speech, not as an oracle or a prophet on the prodigious subject of the weather at large, but of the effect thereof on my sensations and constitution, since the greater part of that period has been spent under condit
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
"Come and compare Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek, With Nature's realms of worship, earth and air, Nor fix on fond bodies to circumscribe thy prayer." For a week the wet monsoon had frolicked insolently along the coast, the intermittent north-east breeze, pert of promise but flabby of performance, giving way to evening calms. Then came slashing south-easters which, having discourteously bundled the cloud banks over the mountains, retired with a spasm upon the reserv
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
"Silence was pleased." As I lounged at mine ease on the veranda, serenely content with the pages of a favourite author, I became conscious of an unusual sound-vague, continuous, rhythmic. Disinclined to permit my thoughts to wander from the text, at the back of my mind a dim sensation of uneasiness, almost of resentment, because of the slight audible intrusion betrayed itself. Close, as firmly as I could, my mental ear the sound persisted externally, softly but undeniably. Having overcome the fi
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
"He doubted least it were some magicall Illusion that did beguile his sense; Or wandering ghost that wanted funerall, Or aery spirite under false pretence." He was a tremulous long-legged foal on the Christmas Day we became known to each other. I accepted him as an appropriate gift, and he regarded me with a blending of reserve, curiosity, and suspicion, as he snoodled beside his demure old mother. The name at once suggested itself. It seems the more appropriate now, for he i
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
"A populous solitude of bees and birds And fairy-formed and many-coloured things." Was ever a more glorious season for butterflies, and, alas! be it said, for sand and fruit and other flies of humble bearing but questionable character? Light-hearted, purely ornamental insects, sober and industrious, ugly, mischievous, destructive, all have revelled—and the butterfly brings the art of inconsequent revelling to the acme of perfection—in the comparatively dry air, in the glowing skies, and
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CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
"Dire and parlous was the fight that was fought." With logic as absolute as that of the grape that can "the two-and-twenty jarring sects confute," Nature sets at naught the most ancient of axioms. How obvious is it that the lesser cannot contain the greater! Yet that Nature under certain circumstances blandly puts her thumb unto her nose and spreads her fingers out even at that irrefragable postulate, let this plain statement of fact stand proof. Where the grass was comparatively sparse a little
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CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XII
From the tinted tips of fragile corals to the ooze on the edge of the beach sand there is seething life. Exposed by the ebb tide, the sun-caressed slime glitters and shimmers, so that if the observer is content to stand still for a few moments he shall see myriads of obscure activities, graceful and uncouth, of the existence of which he has not previously dreamt and among which his footsteps make a desolating track. Perhaps in no other earthly scene do the gradations of life blend so obviously i
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CHARTER XIII
CHARTER XIII
"And call up unbound In various shapes old Proteus from the sea." During the cool season the tides on the coast of North Queensland offer peculiar facilities to the observer of the thousand and one marvels of the tropic sea. Spring tides throughout the warm months range low at night and high during the day. In other words, the lowest day spring-tide in winter exposes far more of the reefs than the lowest day tide of summer, while the highest night tide of summer sweeps away the data of t
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CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
Though certain species of molluscs have their respective habitats, and that which is considered rare in one part may be common in another, there are few which have not a general interest for the scientific conchologist. Collectors prize shells on account of their rarity and beauty; the man of science because of the assistance they afford in the working out of the universal problems of nature. Neither a collector nor a scientific student, my attitude towards marine objects is that of a mere obser
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CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
"Reasoning, oft admire How Nature, wise and frugal, could commit Such dispositions with superfluous hand." So much of the time of the Beachcomber is spent sweeping with hopeful eyes the breadths of the empty sea, policing the uproarious beaches, overhauling the hordes of roguish reefs, and the medley concealed in cosy caves by waves that storm at the bare mention of the rights of private property, that he cannot avoid casual acquaintance with the scores of animated things which c
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CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI
"Up with a sally and a flash of speed As if they scorned." The rains which came at the New Year flooded all the creeks of the Island. Accumulations of sand usually form beds through which the sweet water slowly mingles with the salt, but with the violence and impetus of a downpour of ten inches during the night, each torrent had cut a channel, through which it raced from the seclusion of the jungle to the free, open sea. Twice in the twenty-four hours the impassive flowing tide subdued t
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CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVII
"The north-east spends his rage; he now shut up Within his iron cave, the effusive south Warms the wide air and o'er the vault of heaven Breathes the big clouds with vernal showers distent." Just as in the spring a young man's fancies lightly turn to thoughts of love, so at the beginning of each new year in tropical Queensland the minds of the weather sages become sensitive and impressionable. All the tarnish is rubbed off the recollection of former ill manners on the part of the
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CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XVIII
"Some day ere I grow too old to think I trust to be able to throw away all pursuits, save natural history, and to die with my mind full of God's facts instead of men's lies."—CHARLES KINGSLEY. August 2, 1909. A lanky grasshopper with keeled back and pointed prow flew before me, settling on a leaf of blady grass, at once became fidgety and restless; flew to another blade and was similarly uneasy. It was bluff in colour with a narrow longitudinal streak of fawn, while the blades of grass whereon i
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CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XIX
Among those birds of North Queensland jungles which have marked individualistic characters is that known as the koel cuckoo, which the blacks of some localities have named "calloo-calloo"—a mimetic term imitative of the most frequent notes of the bird. The male is lustrous black, the female mottled brown, and during most parts of the year both are extremely shy, though noisy enough in accustomed and quiet haunts. The principal note of the male is loud, ringing, and most pleasant, but its vocabul
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CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XX
Among the resident birds one of the most interesting from an ornithological standpoint is that known as the grey-rumped swiftlet (COLLOCALIA FRANCICA), referred to by Macgillivray as "a swallow which Mr. Gould informs me is also an Indian species." That ardent naturalist is, therefore, entitled to the credit of discovery. Sixty-one years had passed since Macgillivray's visit, during which no knowledge of the life-history of the bird which spends most of its time hawking for insects in sunshine a
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CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXI
Repeated observations and diary records have established August 12th as the beginning of the local "bird season." About that date two of the most notable birds arrive from the North—the nutmeg pigeon (MYRISTICIVORA SPILORRHOA) and the metallic starling (CALORNIS METALLICA). Having spent five months in Papua, Java, Borneo, and the Malay Peninsula, the former revisit the islands for incubating purposes. Where the metallic starlings spend their retreat I know not; but they return with impetuous has
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CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXII
Among the commonest of fish in the shallow waters of the coast are the rays, of which there are many species—eighteen, according to the list prepared by Mr. J. Douglas Ogilby. Some attain enormous size, some display remarkable variations from the accepted type, and at least two are edible though not generally appreciated, for the hunger of the littoral Australian is not as a rule sufficiently speculative to prompt to gastronomic experiment, else food that other nations cherish would not be deeme
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CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIII
"Live forgotten and die forlorn." Am I, living in or rather off the land of magnificent distances, entitled to claim as a neighbour a friend one hundred miles away? Sentiments obliterate space. With the lonesome individual who dwelt in an oven-like hut of corrugated iron on rocky, sunburnt Rattlesnake Island, and who lost the habit of living a few years ago, I was on social terms—terms of vague but cosy intimacy. On occasions of our rare meetings we found ideas in common. Peradventure similariti
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CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXIV
"Caravans that from Bassora's gate With Westward steps depart; Or Mecca's pilgrims, confident of fate And resolute of heart." More of a Dutchman in build than Arab—broad-based, bandy-legged, stubby, stolid, and slow; spare of his speech, but nimble with his fingers in all that appertains to the rigging and working of small boats, as much at ease in the water as a rollicking porpoise—such is Hamed of Jeddah. His favourite garment is a light green woollen sweater. He wears other, but less obvious
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CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXV
"Behold the child by Nature's kindly law, Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw." Not all the energies of the blacks of North Queensland in their natural state are absorbed in the search for and pursuit and capture of food; nor are all their toys imitative of weapons of offence or the chase. They have their idle and softer hours when the instincts of the young men and maidens turn towards recreations and pastimes, in some of which considerable ingenuity and skill are exhibited, whilst thei
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CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVI
Tom, who holds himself well in reserve, stood once before an armed and angry white man, defiant, unflinching, bold. As I have had the privilege of listening in confidence to both sides of the story, and as the main facts are minutely corroborative, I judge Tom's recitation of them to be quite reliable. He was "mate" at the time of a small cutter, the master of which could teach him very little in practical seamanship. The captain was rather hasty and excitable. Tom never hurries, fusses, or falt
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CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVII
"As, however, there is no necessity whatever why we should posit the existence of devils, why, then, should they be posited?" Some of the blacks of my acquaintance are ardent believers in ghosts and do posit the existence of personal "debils-debils." Seldom is a good word to be said of the phantoms, which depend almost entirely for "local habitation and a name" upon the chronicles of old men steeped to the lips in the accumulated lore of the camps. Many an old man who talks shudderingly of the "
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CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXVIII
"He on honey-dew hath fed And drunk the milk of Paradise." A gaunt old man with grizzled head, shrunk shanks, and a crooked arm was the most timid of the strange mob of blacks who, under the guidance of some semi-civilised friends, visited the clearing of a settler on one of the rivers flowing into Rockingham, Bay. Shy and suspicious, his friends had difficulty in reassuring him of the peace-loving character of the settler, whose hut stood in the midst of an orange-grove. In a few days, for no d
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CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXIX
"In accordance with Nature's designs as he was a good artist he was also good. He possessed nothing but his individuality." Wylo was an artist, and, like all true artists, an artist by grace of God. His family was not in any sense artistic. Of his lineage all had been forgotten, save a few of the many failings of his grandsire. So none could tell whence the talent that burst into blossom with him had sprung. It had not been transmitted. It was spontaneous; it was a gift; and all such gifts—are t
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