Tropic Days by E J Banfield

AUTHOR OF "THE CONFESSIONS OF A BEACHCOMBER" AND "MY TROPIC ISLE"

Production Note: 37 Illustrations--not included in this eBook

"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 f