The Confessions of a Beachcomber | Page 6

birthright of the English. We had acquired most of the small liberties,
and the ransom paid was the abandonment of many things hitherto
deemed to form an integral part of existence.
Had we not cast aside all traditions, revolting from the uniformity of

life, from the rules of the bush as well as from the conventionalities of
society? Here we were to indulge our caprices, work out our own
salvation, live in accordance with our own primitive notions, and, if
possible, find pleasure in haunts which it is not popularly supposed to
frequent.
Others may point to higher ideals and tell of exciting experiences, of
success achieved, and glory and honour won. Ours not to envy superior
qualifications and victories which call for strife and struggle, but to
submit ourselves joyfully to the charms of the "simple life."
OUR ISLAND
"Awake, O North Wind, and come, thou South, Blow upon my garden,
that the spices thereof may flow out."
Our Island! What was it when we came into possession? From the sea,
merely a range displaying the varied leafage of jungle and forest. A
steep headland springing from a ledge of rock on the north, and a broad,
embayed-based flat converging into an obtruding sand-spit to the west,
enclose a bay scarcely half a mile from one horn to the other, the sheet
of water almost a perfect crescent, with the rocky islet of Purtaboi,
plumed with trees, to indicate the circumference of a circle. Trees come
to the water's edge from the abutment of the bold eminence.
Dome-shaped shrubs of glossy green (native cabbage--SCAEVOLA
KOENIGII), with groups of pandanus palms bearing massive
orange-coloured fruits; and here and there graceful umbrella trees, with
deep-red decorations, hibiscus bushes hung with yellow funnells, and a
thin line of ever-sighing beech oaks (CASUARINA) fringe the clean
untrodden sand. Behind is the vistaless forest of the flat.
Run the boat on the sand at high-water, and the first step is planted in
primitive bush--fragrant, clean and undefiled. An empty jam tin or a
broken bottle, spoors of the rude hoofs of civilisation, you might search
for in vain. As difficult would it be to find either as a fellow to the
nugget of gold which legend tells was used by a naked black as a sinker
when he fished with hook of pearl shell out there on the edge of the
coral reef,

One superficial feature of our domain is distinct and peculiar, giving to
it an admirable character. From the landing-place--rather more up
towards the north-east cusp than the exact middle of the crescent
bay--extends a flat of black sand on which grows a dense bush of
wattles, cockatoo apple-trees, pandanus palms, Moreton Bay ash and
other eucalypts, and the shapely melaleuca. This flat, here about 150
yards in breadth, ends abruptly at a steep bank which gives access to a
plateau 60 feet above sea-level. The regularity of the outline of this
bank is remarkable. Running in a more or less correct curve for a mile
and a half, it indicates a clear-cut difference between the flat and the
plateau. The toe of the bank rests upon sand, while the plateau is of
chocolate-coloured soil intermixed on the surface with flakes of slate;
and from this sure foundation springs the backbone of the island. On
the flat, the plateau, and the hillsides, the forest consists of similar
trees--alike in age and character for all the difference in soil--the one
tree that does not leave the flat being the tea or melaleuca. In some
places the jungle comes down to the water's edge, the long antennae of
the lawyer vine toying with the rod-like aerial roots of the mangrove.
The plateau is the park of the island, half a mile broad, and a mile and
more long. Upon it grows the best of the bloodwoods (EUCALYPTUS
CORYNBOSA), the red stringy bark (E. ROBUSTA), Moreton Bay
ash (E. TESSALARIS), various wattles, the gin-gee of the blacks
(DIPLANTHERA TETRAPHYLLA). PANDANUS AQUATICUS
marks the courses and curves of some of the gullies. A creek, hidden in
a broad ribbon of jungle and running from a ravine in the range to the
sea, divides our park in fairly equal portions.
Most part of the range is heavily draped with jungle--that is, on the
western aspect. Just above the splash of the Pacific surges on the
weather or eastern side, low-growing scrub and restricted areas of
forest, with expansive patches of jungle, plentifully intermixed with
palms and bananas, creep up the precipitous ascent to the summit of the
range--870 feet above the sea. So steep is the Pacific slope that,
standing on the top of the ridge and looking down, you catch mosaic
gleams of the sea among the brown and grey tree-trunks. But for the
prodigality of the vegetation,