BOOKS.RESEAU.ORG - Une bibliothèque franco-anglaise en ligne

- Extraits -

Page 1 : Notes: Italics in the book have been capitalised in the eBook. Illustrations in the book have not been included in the eBook. This eBook uses 8-bit text. MY TROPIC ISLE BY E. J. BANFIELD AUTHOR OF "THE CONFESSIONS OF A BEACHCOMBER" T. FISHER UNWIN LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE LEIPSIC: INSELSTRASSE 20 1911 TO MY WIFE "What dost thou in this World? The Wilderness For thee is fittest place." MILTON. "Taught to live The easiest way, nor with perplexing thoughts To interrupt sweet life." MILTON. PREFACE Much of the contents of this book was published in the NORTH QUEENSLAND REGISTER, under the title of "Rural Homilies." Grateful acknowledgments are due to the Editor for his frank goodwill in the abandonment of his rights. Also am I indebted to the Curator and Officers of the Australian Museum, Sydney, and specially to Mr. Charles Hedley, F.L.S.

Page 13 : One memorable day, casually glancing at the mainland, I saw on the beach something moving at astonishing speed. Whereupon the telescope was brought to bear, and to my dismay revealed, actually and without fiction, a practical spring cart, drawn by a real horse at a trot, which horse was driven (as far as the telescope was credible) by a man! Over four years have elapsed since I saw any wheeled vehicle other than my own barrow--the speed of which is sedate (for I am a sedate and determined man, and refuse to be flurried by my own barrow). Nervousness and excitement began to play. Thank the propitious stars, two miles and more of mighty ocean separated me from the furious car. Otherwise, who may say? I might in my confusion have been unable to avoid disaster. This place is becoming thrilling. Let me move farther from the rush and bewilderment of traffic.

Page 25 : Another date (January 10, 1910) may verify details of such a sybaritic soak in the sea as is to be indulged in only in the tropics and remote from the turmoil of man. Between noon and 3 p.m. the thermometer hanging on the wall of the house under the veranda, five feet from the corrugated iron roof, wavered between 89° and 90°, while the unshaded sun registered 98°. My noontide bath failed to detect any difference in temperature between air and water, and putting my perceptions to scientific test found the sea to be heated to 90°. With the bulb buried in the sand six feet from the edge of the water, the mercury rose to 112° in a few seconds and remained stationary. It being far more blissful to lounge in the sea than on the veranda, I sat down, steeped chin deep in crystal clearness, warmth, and silence, passively surrendering myself to a cheap yet precious sensation.

Page 37 : Rest and safety at last! But at that moment ironic Fate--having twice averted drowning, twice waved off the hand of man--flashed out in the guise of a twittering wood swallow. In the last stage of exhaustion no evading swerve was possible. Two blue wings on the snow-white coral marked where the wanderings of Ulysses had ended, while at the corner of the little cove a dozen heedless Cassandras rioted amongst the rays of the umbrella-tree in curves and swoops of giddy flight. CHAPTER XI FIGHT TO A FINISH "Dire and parlous was the fight that was fought." With logic as absolute as that of the grape that can "the two-and-twenty jarring sects confute," Nature sets at naught the most ancient of axioms. How obvious is it that the lesser cannot contain the greater! Yet that Nature under certain circumstances blandly puts her thumb unto her nose and spreads her fingers out even at that irrefragable postulate, let this plain statement of fact stand proof.

Page 49 : Found a small cowry shell of remarkable beauty on dead coral in the Bay. At first sight it appeared as a brilliant scarlet boss on the brown coral, and upon touching it the mantle slowly parted and was withdrawn, revealing a shell of lavender in two shades in irregular bands and irregularly dotted with reddish brown spots; the apertures were richly stained with orange, and the whole enamel exceedingly lustrous. Most of the molluscs of the species conceal themselves under mantles so closely resembling their environments as to often render them invisible. In this case the disguise assumed similitude to a most conspicuous but common object of anomalous growth, seeming to be a combination of slime and sponge. CHAPTER XIV SOME CURIOUS BIVALVES Though certain species of molluscs have their respective habitats, and that which is considered rare in one part may be common in another, there are few which have not a general interest for the scientific conchologist.

Page 61 : Testimony confirmatory of the contention that adders do diffuse a specific odour, too subtle for man's perception though readily detectable by the sensitive faculties of lower animals, and that such odour affrights and therefore protects them from the reptiles, is contained in Captain Parker Gillmore's work, "The Great Thirst Land." Having killed a small specimen of the horned adder--the "poor venomous fowl" with which Cleopatra ended her gaudy days--and having handled it to examine the poison glands and returned to his pony, he writes: "As soon as I advanced my hand to his head-stall to reverse the reins over his head, he shied back as if in great alarm, and it required some minutes before he would permit me to closely approach. The reason of this conduct in so staid and proper-minded an animal is obvious. In handling the adder some of the smell attached to its body must have adhered to my hands.

Page 73 : Having ventured so far by way of preface, it is quite possible that the reader may have concluded that something exceptionally marvellous is to follow. Disappointment was inevitable from the first. The relation of some of the quaint distinguishing traits of the Island fauna must be left until the historian imagines that he has established a reputation for subduing, rather than heightening, the tone of his facts. This introduction has not a particular but a wide bearing. Chief among the birds of prey are the osprey, the white-headed sea-eagle, and the white-bellied sea-eagle. The great wedge-tailed eagle (eagle-hawk) is a rare visitor, and is not a fisher. The others are resident and are industrious practisers of the art which, according to their interpretation, is anything but gentle. As they indulge in it, the sport is so rough and boisterous and clumsy that one wonders that so many fish should be caught.

Page 85 : The history of the Recluse of that undesirable island, a mass of granite and thin, unkindly soil is far removed from the prosaic. His was the third life sacrificed because of the lust of man to own the unromantic spot. He came to be known as "The Recluse of Rattlesnake," but the pain of his life lies in the fact that his seclusion was not voluntary. The earlier history of the "Recluse" embodies nothing very extraordinary. Men have fallen in love as impetuously as he. The prologue of the little drama in which he played the leading part was neither new nor strange. The originality came after, and then only was it understood how completely the divine passion had shattered his soul. This, then, is the record of a part of his life--its dominating theme--its dramatic and pathetic ending. A fine young fellow they were wont to call him--blue-eyed, fair-haired, sharp and shrewd and up to all the moves as becomes a man alert and successful in business.

Page 97 : To tell of that other incident that caused Tom to look wicked and so bellicose. The captain of the cutter lost half a crown. His excitement began to simmer at once. A hasty general search was made without result, every nook and corner of the boat and all the captain's garments and the belongings of Tom and the other blacks being ransacked. The money declined to be found, and the captain, like David of old, refused to be comforted, and further following the fashion of the psalmist, said in his haste all blacks are thieves.

Page 109 : Now, the sarcastic jibes of a black fellow are not translatable, or rather not to be printed beyond the margin of strictly scientific works. Courageously free and personal, they would be beyond comprehension in these chaste pages. Why, therefore, attempt to repeat them? A genius has been described as a deviation from the average of humanity. This definition exactly suited Wylo, for it was discovered when jibes were flashing about that he was positively inspired. They were as sharp as his spears, as stunning as his sword'. Yan-coo, the wit of the tribe, a stubby, grim old man, who spent most of his time making dilly-bags and modelling grotesque debils-debils in a pliant blending of bees' wax and loam, to the horror of every piccaninny, soon found that Wylo could talk back with such withering effect, such shatteringly gross personalities that he, who with the spiteful ironies of his venomous tongue had kept the camp in awe, was dazed to gloomy silence by Wylo's vivid flashes of wit.