CHAPTER VII

"THE LORD AND MASTER OF FLIES"

Among the curious creatures native to the island is a fierce

cannibalistic fly. Fully an inch in length and bulky in proportion, it

somewhat resembles a house-fly on a gigantic scale, but is lustrous grey

in colour, with blond eyes, fawn legs, and transparent, iridescent

wings, with a brassy glint in them. The broad, comparatively short wings

carry a body possessing a muscular system of the highest development,

for the note flight produces indicates the extraordinary rapidity of the

wing vibrations. Some swift-flying insects are said to make about eight

hundred down strokes of the wing per second. This big fair fellow's

machinery may not be equipped for such marvellous momentum, but the

high key that he sounds under certain circumstances indicates rare force

and speed. No library of reference is available. The specific scientific

title of the insect cannot therefore be supplied. Possibly it does not

yet possess one, but it is a true fly of the family ASILIDAE, and being

a veritable monster to merely sportful and persistent if annoying flies

of lesser growth, no doubt it will continue to perform its part even

though without a formal distinction. Its presence is announced by an

ominous, booming hum. It passes on one side with a flight so rapid as to

render it almost invisible. You hear a boom which has something of a

whistle, and see a yellowish glint; the rest is space and silence. In

half a minute the creature returns; and thus he scoops about, booming

and making innocent lightnings in the clear air. The tone is

demonstrative, aggressive, triumphant; but the monster is only

reconnoitring--seeing whether you have any flies about you. You may

have boasted to yourself--there being no friends about to tolerate your

egotistical confidences that there are no flies about you; but the big,

booming creature has his suspicions. Apparently in his opinion you

are just the sort of country to attract and encourage flies, and

he does not immediately satisfy himself to the contrary. But should

you witlessly happen to have attracted the companionship of ever

so innocent a fly, the awful presence seizes it on the wing and is

away with the twang of a bullet. It will pick a fly from your

sunburnt arm--no occasion for coats here--with neatness and despatch

and leave wondering comprehension far behind. And having seized its

prey, it may, haply, seek as it booms along the nearest support on which

to enjoy its meal. Then you see what a terrific creature it is. One

favoured me with a minute's close observation. By a hook on one of the

anterior legs (it possesses the regulation half-dozen) it had attached

itself to a tiny splinter on the under-side of the verandah rail, and so

hung, the body being at right angles to its support. Thus stretched, the

leg appeared fully two inches long, and with the rest of its legs it

clasped to its bosom the unfortunate little fly, shrunken with distress,

the very embodiment of hopeless dismay. No sight which comes to memory's

call equals for utter despair that of the little insect, which no doubt

in its day had provoked a big lump of irritation and strong but

ineffective language. Hugged by its great enemy, it seemed aware of its

fate, yet unreconciled to it. Pendant by the one long, slender leg, as

if hung by a thread, the blond monster seemed quite at ease over its

repast. That was its customary pose and attitude at meal-times. As far

as observation permitted, it was pumping out the blood of its prey, but

before the operation was finished it forbade closer scrutiny by humming

away with a note of savage resentment--a rumble, a grumble and a growl,

ending in a swelling shriek.

It would be interesting to know how many flies of the common vexing kind

such a ferocious creature disposes of during the day. He preys upon the

lustrous bluish-green fly, which draws blood almost on the moment of

alighting, and also on the sluggish "march" fly, which goes about the

business of blood-sucking in a lazy, dreamy, lackadaisical style; and I

am inclined to acknowledge him as a friend and as a blessing to humanity

generally.

A TRAGEDY IN YELLOW

Quite a distinct tragedy occurred the other day. The little yellow

diurnal moth commonly known as "the wanderer" has a partiality for the

nectar of the "bachelor's button," as yellow as itself. The morning was

gay with butterflies. A "wanderer" poised over a yellow cushion

fluttered spasmodically, and remained fixed and steadfast with

tightly-closed wings. It allowed itself to be touched without showing

uneasiness, and when a brisk movement was made to frighten it to flight

it was still steady as a statue. Closer inspection revealed the cause.

The body was tightly-gripped in the mandibles of a spider, a yellow

rotund spider with long, slender, greeny-yellowy legs. Under cover of

the yellow flower the yellow spider had seized the yellow moth. A

general inspection showed that the tragedy was almost as universal as

the flowers. There were few flowers which did not conceal a spider, and

few spiders which had not murdered a moth. The conspiracy between the

flower and the spider for the undoing of the moth (a conspiracy from

which both profited) was repeated thousands of times this bright

morning, and it illustrated the profundity of Nature's lesser tragedies,

the sternness with which she adjusts her equilibriums.

COLOUR EFFECTS

A favourite food of the great green, gold and black butterfly

(ORNITHOPTERA CASSANDRA) is the nectar of the hard, dull-red flowers of

the umbrella-tree, and this fact assisted in an observation which seems

to prove that plants play tricks on insects. Among the introduced plants

of the island is one of the acalyphas. Butterflies which have feasted

among the umbrella-trees on the beach and on the edge of the jungle flit

about the garden and almost invariably visit the red but nectarless

acalypha. One began at the end of the row, examined the topmost leaves,

flitted to the next, and so on, lured by the colour and disappointed by

the absence of nectar, twenty-five times, in succession, until it

blundered on the red hibiscus bushes and began to feed.

The gorgeous blue swallow-tail (PAPILIO ULYSSES) seems to have a fancy

for yellow, for it pays frequent visits to the golden trumpets of the

tecoma and the alamanda. The living gold of the flowers and the imperial

blue of the insect form a sumptuous if everyday scene.

MUSICAL FROGS

A marked feature of the wet season is the varied chant of happy frogs.

During the day silence is the rule. A low gurgle of content at the

sounding rain is occasionally heard on the part of a flabby, moist

creature unable to restrain its sentiments until the approach of

evening. But as the sun sets, each of the countless host utters a song

of thankfulness and pleasure. To the unappreciative it may appear merely

an inharmonious vocal go-as-you-please, in which each frog is the

embodiment of the idea that upon its jubilant efforts the honour and

reputation of the race as vocalists depend. But to one class of listener

the opera is decently if not scientifically constituted. There is the

loud and cheerful, if not shrill, bleating of the soprano, the strenuous

booming of the bass, the velvety softness and depth of the contralto

and the thin high tenor. Hordes of the alert, sharp-featured, far-leaping

grass frog represent the chorus, and they have a perfectly rehearsed

theme. Down on the flat along the edge of the pandanus grove the

preliminary chords are uttered--a merry, unreflective, chirrupy strain,

gay as "the Fishermen's Chorus." The motive is taken up nearer among the

coco-nuts, and is in full swing in the pools below the terrace. Thence

the sound passes on through the wattles and bloodwoods to the narrow

tea-tree swamp lined with dwarf bamboos and dies in echoes in the

distance. A brief interlude, and the pandanus choir gives voice again,

stronger and resonant; the companions of the coco-nuts join lustily, the

strain reverberates from the wet lands below, resounds through the

forest, and is lost in the mellow distance of the tea-trees. And so the

sound rises and falls, swells and dwindles away in chords and harmonies,

until presently every amphibian is alert and tremulous with emotion and

emulation. If an attempt is made to analyse the music, you may discover

sounds sharp as those of the fife, deep and hollow as drum-beats,

sonorous and acrid, tinny and mellow.

I have heard that those who are not disciples of Wagner find it

necessary to undergo a process of education ere they acquire an

unaffected taste for the composer's masterpieces. Possibly those who

have not listened, wet season after wet season, to the light-hearted

chant, may be inclined to suggest that there can be no such thing as

music in the panting bellows of a North Queensland frog. But music "is

of a relative nature, and what is harmony to one ear may be dissonance

to another." The Chinese opera proves that "nations do not always

express the same passions by the same sounds." If one obtains music from

the clang and clamour of full-throated frogs, may it not be because his

ears are more attuned to natural than to artificial harmonies, not

because, of any defect in, or aberration of, hearing, or any lack of

melody on the part of the frogs?

ACTS WELL ITS PART

"A living drollery! Now I will believe

That there are unicorns; that in Arabia

There is one tree, the phoenix throne; one phoenix

At this hour reigning."

Few insects repay observation better than the mantis and the stick

insect, which generally, of most voracious habits themselves, resort to

all manner of disguises and devices to elude their enemies and lure

their prey. Nearly all furnish striking examples of colour protection.

One variety of the mantis here is black and rugged, and is to be found

only on charred wood. The wing-cases present the characteristic grain

and glint of fresh charcoal, distinctly showing the influence of the

condition of its environment. Another is grey, to match its groundwork

of dead wood; another brown and slightly hairy, to coincide with the

bark of the particular eucalyptus upon which it lurks. Another, and the

most graceful, resembles two bright green leaves, the midrib and the

nerve system being imitated perfectly.

Among the most singular is one of the stick insects (PHASMA). A fair

specimen may be a foot and more long. The body presents the general

appearance of a dry stick; the posterior legs, held at different and

erratic angles to the grey and brown body, are as sunburnt twigs; the

intermediary pair seem to be used primarily as supports. The anterior

are stretched out to their fullest extent parallel to each other, and so

close together as to resemble one tapering termination, with the head

closely packed between the thighs, in each of which is a complementary

depression for its accommodation. When the insect is motionless it is

difficult to detect. By its long posterior legs, stiffly held aloft, it

proclaims to every bird--"Do not be so absurd as to imagine these dry

twigs to be legs, belonging to a body good to eat." And if the bird does

not take the resemblance for granted and is inquisitive and approaches

too familiarly, it finds that instead of a dinner it has discovered a

snake. The insect seems to say--"I am a stick! Look at the twigs. No, I

am a snake! Long live the serpent!"

The long, slender anterior legs--used more frequently as arms than as

legs--form the tapering tail; the other end is the head with mouth open,

ready for action--eyes and jaws and protruding tongue complete. This

end sways as does the head of an excited snake, and curves round as if

to strike, and the boldest of little birds fly off with a note of

apprehension and alarm. I have had these strange creatures under

observation many weeks, and invariably found that when one was

interfered with in any way it used its snake-like aft end as a bogey,

curving it round towards the molesting hand. A fowl that will attack an

8-inch centipede without hesitation, makes a sensational fuss and

clatter when it detects a stick insect, especially when the stick insect

feints, however ineffectually, with its perfectly harmless tail. If it

is capable of imposing upon a sagacious fowl, the effect of its

terrifying aspect upon an unsophisticated little bird can well be

understood.

Richard Kerr, the author of NATURE: CURIOUS AND BEAUTIFUL, describes a

specimen of the stick insect from a cabinet specimen and a pen-and-ink

drawing in the museum of the Hon. W. Rothschild, at Tring. This

particular insect originally came from Malacca, and is jointed somewhat

after the style of a Malacca cane, and of it the author says--"It is

said that when the insect is attacked by its foe, or is in danger of

attack, it has the power to protrude telescopically the tenth (terminal)

segment, which has a mouth-like opening and a tongue-like organ which at

once gives the creature the appearance of a snake. There is also a spot

that answers to the appearance of an eye on the ninth segment."

The Dunk Island representative of the family does not possess the power

of protruding and withdrawing its terminal segment, but it certainly

assumes a resemblance to a snake, and a pugnacious snake too. Further,

the Tring insect does not appear to possess wings. My friend does--though

she flies as the Scotchman admitted he joked--"wi' deefeeculty." She

spreads her light, gauzy, grey, and shockingly inadequate, skirts, and

romps and rollicks away, giving one a fleeting impression of a bold and

most disorderly ballet girl. "She" is quite the proper mode of

address, for there can be no mistake as to the sex.

The male is a slim individual, not half the length, and about one-fourth

of the circumference of the female. Though (unlike his consort) he is in

his general demeanour sprightly and alert, taking to the wing at the

slightest impulse, in his love-making he is most deliberate, courtly and

formal, the consummation of it all continuing for several days. So we

see that the character of the snake which the female plays with so much

art is not disturbed during the most emotional period of her existence.

Nature holds the mirror to herself with inimitable skill. While the male

takes long flights, those of the female are short and uncertain and

seldom voluntary. Immediately she alights the anterior legs are

extended, the head is depressed between the thighs, and the legs which

are at liberty become as rigid as twigs. Among the branches of a shrub

her action is cautious and stealthy; but the stick insect is seldom to

be caught napping. It is very wide awake when it plays the dual part of

a sleepy snake and four crooked twigs. In youth, the colouring of the

female is ashy green, almost exactly the tint of the most common of

arboreal snakes, and at the time of life when it is less able to defend

itself it seems to spend all its days in the snake-like posture.

In some respects this insect resembles the MANTIS RELIGIOSA; but it does

not seem to possess the voracious appetite of that insect, which assumes

the supplicatory attitude that it may the more readily seize its prey.

Indeed, although two specimens were under observation for three months,

at morning, noon and eve, I only once saw one eating, and then it was

partaking sparingly of orange leaves. The insect is well-known as a

vegetarian, but the manner of its feeding is singular. The part that it

takes of a motionless snake would be ineffective if the head moved while

eating, and Nature provides against any blundering of that sort. The

edge of a leaf is guided to the mouth, which appears to open

vertically--not horizontally as mouths usually do--by a set of palpi or

feelers, three on each side. The palpi move the leaf along, the while a

crescent-shaped strip is rapidly nibbled away. Then they move the leaf

back again to the original starting point, and another crescent is

devoured, and so on, while the extended anterior legs, hooked on to a

twig, pull the body forward with a gliding, almost imperceptible motion

as the leaf is gradually consumed. Between meals, the palpi are folded

flat close to the mouth, like the blades of a pocket-knife.

Blacks classify most of the works of Nature under two headings--"Good to

eat," "Not good to eat," and nearly everything is included under the

former. The "Taloo" or "Yam-boo" is included in the larger class.

Ruthlessly deprived of its limbs, the insect is placed squirming on hot

embers until it becomes crisp, when it is eaten with great relish.

GREEN-ANT CORDIAL

White ants, black ants, red ants, brown ants, grey ants, green ants;

ants large, ants small; ants slothful, ants brisk; meat-eating ants,

grain-eating ants, fruit-eating ants, nectar-imbibing ants; ants that

fight, ants that run away; ants that live under coldest stone, ants that

dwell among the treetops; silent ants, ants that literally "kick up"

a row; good ants, bad ants, ants that are merely so so--we have them

all and would not part with any--not even the stinging green ants, which

are among the most singular of the tribe, nor even the "white ant"

(which is not an ant), that would literally eat us out of house and home

if not rigorously excluded and warred against with poison, for they are

the great scavengers of woodeny debris.

Green ants do disfigure orange and mango trees with their "nests," and

they have the temper of furies; but they wage war on many of the insects

which bother plants, and clear away insect carrion, and carrion, in

fact, of all sorts. This ant, to which has been given the official title

of "emerald-coloured leaf dweller," constructs a pocket with leaves of

living trees (and, very rarely, of the blades of living grass), and

dwelling therein establishes populous colonies. The queen or mother ant

sets up her separate establishment by curling a small leaf or the corner

of a large one, joining the edges with a white cottony fabric, and

forthwith begins to raise a family. She is a portly creature--unlike her

slim, semi-transparent workers and warriors--and most prolific, and her

family increases marvellously. As it multiplies, ingenious additions of

living leaves are made to the pocket or purse, until it may assume the

size of a football and be the home of millions of alert, pugnacious,

inquisitive, foraging insects, whose bites are dreaded by individuals

whose skin is extra sensitive.

Is it not astonishing that insects, possessing even in combination such

trivial muscular power as the green tree-ant, should be able to cause

leaves 12 inches long by 8 inches wide to curl up so that the apex shall

almost touch the base, or that the parallel borders shall be brought

together with the nicest apposition? The astonishment increases when it

is recognised that at the founding of a colony there are but few workers

to co-operate in the undertaking.

The minute caterpillar of a certain species of moth mines leaves, and

eating away the cellular structures, causes them to twist irregularly,

and eventually spins on the spot a cocoon of green silk in which it

undergoes metamorphosis. A local caterpillar, too, converts the tough

harsh leaves of a fig-tree (FICUS FASCICULATA) into a close and perfect

scroll by an elaborate system of haulage, spinning silken strands as

required, having primarily rendered the leaf the more easy to manipulate

by nibbling away a portion of the midrib. In this scroll the insect

dozes until in process of time it is transformed, and emerges a bright

but short-lived butterfly.

But, as far as my personal observation goes, the green tree-ants do not

effect any alteration in the superficial appearance nor destroy the

structure of leaves, nor employ any physical power at the first stages

of the construction of a habitation. The process by which a leaf is

curled extends over several days, and but few take part in it. Half a

dozen ants may be seen perpetually engaged in, apparently, an

unmethodical but extremely minute and critical inspection of the rhachis

and the nerves or ribs of the leaf. Days pass. The ants are there all

the time, examining the leaf and communicating with each other

whensoever they meet. Imperceptibly the leaf begins to curl. The ants

continue to make mesmeric passes over the nerves with ever-waving

antennae.

In accordance with the will and the design of the architects, who merely

stand by and gesticulate, the opposite margins approach, or the apex

curls towards the base, or towards one of the sides to form a miniature

funnel. When the extremities are so close that the intervening space may

be spanned, threads of white gossamer are laced across, and the slack

being taken up by degrees, in a few days a cosy pocket with

closely-fitting seams is completed.

How is this folding of the leaf accomplished? A theory which presents

itself is that the ants eject some active chemical principle into

certain of the cells of the leaf tissue, and that the stimulus is

transmitted by excitation from cell to cell, bringing about a general

and uniform contraction without destroying the vitality of the leaf.

Further, by the application of the injection to specific cells the ants

convey impulses to specific nerves, causing the leaf to curl

longitudinally or laterally, or at any angle they design. The poison

that a single ant injects into the neck of a brawny man so affects his

nervous system that he twists and writhes and stamps his feet with

energy sufficient to destroy millions of the species. Maybe a slightly

different compound is reserved for vegetable substances, which can offer

only a flabby sort of remonstrance. If this theory be supported on

investigation, surely the green tree-ant will deserve to be catalogued

among creatures who have solved labour-saving problems--who employ

consciousness, if not rational thought, to compensate for physical

frailty. This theory is applicable to the manipulation of a single leaf

only, and of a leaf of considerable size. Yet these feeble folk more

frequently take up their quarters in trees bearing small leaves, of

which scores are embodied in a mansion. Immense and concentrated

exertion is necessary to draw far-flung branchlets and leaves together,

and the feverish host accomplishes a seemingly impossible feat by an

organised combination of engineering with co-operative labour. Spaces

between leaves and twigs four and five inches wide are bridged by chains

of ants--each individual clasping with its mandibles above the abdominal

segment its immediate companion; occasionally the ant grips its fellow

by the posterior legs, and is so held by the next in order. In the

construction of these chains ants hastily mass at each side of the gulf

to be spanned, and crawling, or rather running over each other, form

pendant strands, each ant a living link. The chains sway until the

terminal links engage, when they are immediately shortened up. Several

of these chains are swung across parallel to each other with astonishing

rapidity; and in addition to the constant strain of the hauling workers

at each end they are used as bridges by innumerable other workers and

fussy superintendents, the traffic on them being almost as voluminous

and bustling as that of a Thames thoroughfare. Gradually the most

obstinate branchlet with its spray of leaves is drawn into juxtaposition

with the main part of the mansion. Then the living spans become more

numerous, presenting the appearance of great stitches. As the edges of

the leaves are brought together they are fastened with white gossamer

while the tireless workers strain themselves, heroically holding the

edges in apposition. The gossamer seems to be obtained in part from the

pupuae, which, borne in the mandibles of workers, are passed to and fro

as weavers' shuttles. As a rule, insects which house themselves in

leaves are vegetarian, but the green ant is demonstratively carnivorous,

using leaves solely for shelter.

An aboriginal--to repeat perhaps a needless observation--regards the

most of things of this earth from a dietetic standpoint. He does not so

regard the green tree-ant in vain. He knows when the pocket is packed

with white larvae and white helpless infant ants, or with helpless green

ones big of abdomen, and consenting to the assaults of the adults, cuts

away the supporting branch and shakes off the furious citizens, or

expels them with the smoke and fire of paper-bark torches, or, maybe,

casts the pocket into water so that the adult ants may swim ashore,

abandoning those that cannot, on account of immaturity or incompetence,

to their fate.

Eaten raw, the larvae are pungent morsels, or macerated in water in

company with relatives distended to the degree of helplessness, form a

cordial that is sharp to the palate, scarifying to the throat, and

consoling to the stomach replete with the cold and sodden foods with

which blacks often have to be content.

Tetchy and quarrelsome, staccato in action, the warriors of a colony

bury their forceps in the skin and stand upon their heads to give all

their weight to the attack; but each individual retains its grip until

squashed and crumpled up, and the human being who has suffered the

assault comments on it in language corresponding with the sensitiveness

or otherwise of his skin. Consequently the green tree-ant is not as a

rule regarded with any tenderness or consideration, and there never

existed a green ant which hesitated to attack the greatest man. He is

quite as heroic as a bee--though armed much less efficiently--and far more

resentful.

A brilliant black ant imitates its green cousin in the construction of a

leafy dwelling somewhat similar in design but on a smaller scale, and

having no apparent weapon of defence, save odour--and not very much of

that--adopts a novel plan of protecting its refuge against assaults.

However gently the leafy house is touched the denizens set up a violent

agitation, the simultaneous efforts of hundreds making a sound quite

loud enough to scare away intruders whose senses are attuned to the

silence and rustlings of the jungle. The noise, which resembles that

which results from the easy agitation of coarse sand in a crisp paper

envelope, seems to be caused by the ants kicking or drumming on the

sides and partitions of the house, the partitions being composed of a

light brown fabric, tense, tough and resonant.

WOOING WITH WINGS

Among the many engaging scenes and frolics that are ever taking place

along the flounces of the jungle, where the serrated leaves of the fern

of God make living lacework up and among the tangle of foliage, none is

prettier than the love flight of the green and gold butterfly

(ORNITHOPTERA CASSANDRA). Human beings, who in their marriage ceremonies

array themselves to the best advantage and assume their most charming

traits, can hardly withhold attention from other and more ethereal

creatures when they become subject to the divine passion. All have their

moments of bliss, and the butterfly--"the embodiment of pure felicity

--happy in what it has and happier still in searching for something

else"--reveals its "love-sickness and pain" as the bloom of its gay and

sportful existence.

In the courtship of this particular species the male exercises a

singular fascination, while the female gracefully and without hesitation

submits to the spell. He has flitted airily in the sunshine, glorying in

a livery of green and gold and black, has daintily sipped nectar from

the scarlet hibiscus flowers, has soared over the highest bloodwood in

wild but idle impulse, and in a flash, is fervently in love. Judged by

appearance alone he has chosen quite an unworthy bride. She is much the

larger, darker and heavier, and has little of the colouring of her

passionate wooer on her wings, though her body is decorated with

unexpected red. Her flight, ordinarily, is cumbersome and slow, and her

demeanour pensive--almost prim. She seems to be of a steady, matronly

disposition, whereas the shape of the wings of her mate alone denotes

quite a different ideal of life. He is all alert, charged to the full

with nervous energy--free, careless, inconsequent, but absolutely

irresistible.

When the pair meet, what time the fancies of butterflies lightly turn to

thoughts of love, he swoops impetuously towards her and rises in a

graceful curve, seeming to enchant her with the display of his colours.

She forthwith amends her staid behaviour, and begins a quivering,

fluttering flight, rising and falling with gentle, rhythmical grace. He,

hovering about with rapid wing movements, harmoniously responds to her

undulations. Still maintaining her coy contours she floats over the

tree-tops, or descends among the ferns or bushes, past the blue berries

of the native ginger, while with quaint courtliness he pays his

compliments and bewilders by his audacity. As the amorous dalliance

proceeds, he flits in brilliant spirals round and before her, and

again resumes his tremulous flight, consonant with her emotional

flutterings. However intricate, however long the dance she leads,

he follows, blithesomeness and confidence in all his poses. Exhausting

work this aerial flirtation. The bride alights among the red knobs

of the umbrella-tree for refreshment. Her wings quiver as she sips,

while her admirer poises a yard in the air above her, flashes hither

and thither, briefly steadying his flight in positions whence all

his loveliness may be advantageously revealed; poises again a yard

above her; gyrates with the air of a dandy of over-weening assurance,

vanity, and pride; swoops until his wings in their down-strokes salute

her; and then the dainty pair dance into the sunless mazes of the

jungle.

It is all a vivid but soundless symphony--a concord of tender harmonies

and sprightly trills and passionate phrases.

THE GREED OF THE SNAKE

In another place in these artless chronicles proof has been given of the

fact that though serpents were long enough ago declared to be the most

subtle of the beasts of the field, they may be imposed upon. I would

like now to cite an instance of their greed and their grasping nature.

Our chicken coops were made snake-proof, but a more than ordinarily,

crafty individual burglariously broke into one, and the hen and chickens

sounded the alarm. It was night, and the lantern revealed the snake. The

affrighted chickens with their anxious parent issued forth as soon as

the door was opened, all save two, one at each end of the snake. A

gunshot through the open door divided the snake. When the coop was

lifted away, each end retained tightly a dead chicken, one partially

swallowed, the other throttled and held by three encircling coils of the

tail. Apart from the gunshot there was a tragic element in this case.

When once it has firmly seized with its teeth its prey, a snake must

swallow it whole or burst in the attempt. Nature has denied some species

the privilege of rejection. Now the chicks were several sizes too large

for the snake, and consequently the sides of its mouth, its neck and

body, for a length of about 4 inches, had been ripped in the vain

endeavour to perform an impossibility.

A SWALLOWING FEAT

Everyone knows that small snakes are capable of swallowing comparatively

large eggs. But is the way in which the feat is accomplished generally

understood? That is the question. No doubt a big snake glides jauntily

to a moderately-sized egg, grips it with its in-curved teeth, the jaws

loosen and begin their alternating movement, and unhook themselves at

the bases to permit of the eggs passing down the throat. That is easy.

But how does a small snake, the neck of which is an inch and a half in

circumference, swallow whole an egg 5 inches and more in circumference?

Actual observation enables me to explain. If the snake were to begin the

act straightforwardly, the egg, presenting but little resistance, would

be continuously pushed away. The snake slides its head and neck over the

egg, and pressing downward upon it with that part of its body which for

the present purpose may be termed the bosom, prevents it moving. The

head turns over as if the snake was preparing for a somersault; the jaws

fit over the end of the egg, the upper below and the lower above, and

begin to work. Presently the upper and lower jaws become entirely

disassociated, the egg is encompassed and forced down into the throat.

The process seems a most distressing one to the snake, for so great is

the distension of the flesh tissues and the skin that they become

semitransparent, revealing the colour of the egg. When the egg is safe

in the stomach, the shell submits to the action of the gastric juices,

and the meal is digested. That is if it is a hen's egg. A porcelain

counterfeit, which the most subtle snake cannot distinguish from a

natural egg, passes on its way unblemished,

PART II

STONE AGE FOLKS

CHAPTER I

PASSING AWAY

Some investigators tell us that the aborigines of Australia came out of

Egypt carrying with them their ancient signs and totemic ceremonies;

others, that they are representatives of the Neolithic Age; others

assert that Australia is the cradle of the human race, the primitive

inhabitants the stock whence all sprung.

Without pausing to hazard an opinion upon any of these theories, it may

be said that stone axes, shell knives, and fish-hooks of pearl and

tortoiseshell now in use are among the credentials of a people whose

attributes and conditions are in line with those who, in other parts of

the world, had their day and fulfilled their destiny ages upon ages ago,

leaving as history etchings on ivory of the mammoth and the bone of the

reindeer. Implements similar to those which are relics of a remote past

elsewhere are here of everyday use and application. The Stone Age still

exists.

To speculate upon those phases of aboriginal life and character which go

to establish the antiquity of the race and its profound

unprogressiveness, is no part of the present purpose, which is merely to

relate commonplace incidents and the humours of to-day. Much of that

which follows is necessarily matter of common knowledge among those who

have studied the blacks of the coast.

There is nothing obscure, and but little that concerns even the

immediate past, in the philosophy of those natives of North Queensland

with whom I am in touch. With the black, to-day is--"to be, contents

his natural desire!" The past is not worth thinking about, if not

entirely forgotten; the future unembarrassed by problems. Crafts and

artifices, common enough a few years ago, are fast passing away. New

acquirements are generally saddening proofs of the unfitness of the

aboriginal for the battle of life when once his primitive condition is

disturbed by the wonder-working whites. Bent wire represents a cheap and

effective substitute for fish-hooks of pearl-shell, which cost so much

in skill and time, and ever so shabby and worn a blanket more

comfortable and to the purpose than the finest beaten out of the bark of

a fig-tree.

Many of the wants of the race are supplied through the agency of the

whites, and there are so many new tasks and occupations and novelties

generally to occupy attention, that the decent and often ingenious

handicrafts lapse and are lost. Our blacks still decorate rocks and the

bark of trees with rude charcoal drawings; but the art of making stone

axes is lost, though trees yet exhibit marks of those handled by the

fathers of the present generation.

In passing, an example of the difficulties that must inevitably be faced

by inquirers a few years hence who may seek information first hand may

be cited. The grandfathers of the blacks of Hinchinbrook Island and the

islands of Rockingham Bay have been popularly credited with the art of

making out-rigger canoes, such as were common a few miles to the north.

One living representative of the race gave me a detailed description of

this style of canoe, and pointed out with pride the particular tree

whence it was invariably fashioned, by hollowing out a section of the

trunk, leaving the ends solid and shaping them. A different and very

buoyant timber, according to him, was used for the out-rigger. This boy

had travelled. He had seen the canoes further north as well as those of

New Guinea, and it was found on investigation that his description of

the local craft was quite imaginary. Captain Philip P. King, who came

hither from Sydney in 1818, anchoring at Goold Island, thus describes

the canoe of the period--"Their canoes were not more than five feet

long, and generally too small for two people; two small strips of bark

five or six inches square serves the darkie's purpose of paddling and

for baling the water out, which they are constantly obliged to do to

prevent their canoes from sinking." These details are applicable to the

canoes of the present day.

As a matter of fact, out-rigger canoes were not known in this locality,

though but 20 miles to the north hollowed logs with out-riggers of the

stems of banana plants were common. This fact definitely fixes the

point--geographical and also historical--at which the advanced ideas of

the Papuan in the science of boat-building ceased to influence the tardy

Australian. Ere knowledge of the counterbalance crept further south, the

advent of the arbitrary white man brought its progress to a full and

final stop. Fragile single canoes of bark were the only means of

navigation here, and not many men in these degenerate days can

successfully imitate the work of their fathers. Owing to disuse, the

talent in that direction has almost been lost. Lost, too, are many of

the legends which were wont to be handed down from one generation to

another, and forgotten the very names of common objects. But these

investigations do not pretend to depth, nor are they presented in any

authoritative manner. No attempt is made to discuss the Australian

aboriginal in general nor from any particular standpoint. A few

side-shows and character sketches, are offered in the attempt to

interest and entertain.

In some respects our blacks, said to be among the finest physically in

Queensland, and desperately deceitful, are cute and as independent of

artificial aids as ever.

TURTLE AND SUCKERS

Generally unprogressive and uninventive, the aboriginals of the coast of

North Queensland apply practically the result of the observation of a

certain fact in the life-history of a fish in obtaining food. By them

the sucker (REMORA) is not regarded as an interesting example of a fish

which depends largely upon turtle, dugong, sharks and porpoises for

locomotion, but as a ready means of effecting the capture of the two

first-mentioned animals, always eagerly hunted for their flesh.

In the days of hoary antiquity it was believed that this strange fish

was wont to affix itself to the bottom of a ship, and was able of its

malice to hold it stationary in a stiff breeze though all sails were

set. According to the legend (a popular method by means of which the

descendants of great men explained away their faults and blunders), at

the famous sea-fight at Actium, Mark Antony's ship was held back by a

remora in spite of the efforts of hundreds of willing galley-slaves.

Shakespeare may say that Cleopatra's "fearful sails" were the cause of

Antony's fatal indecision and flight, and a lesser poet may cast the

blame upon her "timid tear"; but the tribute to the remora's

interference with the fate of nations was accepted in good faith at the

time, and was, moreover, supported and confirmed by the inglorious

experience of other great men who hung back when they should have sailed

boldly on to victory or noble disaster.

Vulgarly known nowadays as "the sucker," and to science as the "ECHENEIS

REMORA" and "ECHENEIS NAUCRATES," and to the blacks as "Cum-mai," the

fish upon which such grave responsibility was thrown by the ancients

monopolises the sub-order of ACANTHOPTAYGII (DISCOCEPHALI). Its

distinguishing feature is a shield or disc extending from the tip of the

upper jaw to a point behind the shoulders, and said to be a modification

of the spurious dorsal fin. This structure consists of a midrib and a

number of transverse flat ridges capable of being raised or depressed.

The disc has a membranous continuous edge or margin. When the fish

presses the soft edge of the disc against any smooth surface and

depresses the ridges and the intervening spaces, a vacuum is formed,

giving it enormous holding power. Other countries have sucker fish of

different form; but it remained for the benighted Australian blacks,

among a few other savage races, to make practical use of the creature,

which, as a means of locomotion, forms strong attachments to the dugong,

turtle, shark and porpoise. It can hardly be called domesticated, yet it

is employed after the manner of the falcon in hawking, save that the

sucker is fastened to a light line when the game is revealed.

Some assert that the sucker swims on its back when not adhering to its

host, but my observation denounces that theory. Becalmed among the

islands, where the water is transparently clear, I have seen the sucker

swim cautiously to the boat, apparently reconnoitring. Shy and easily

startled, a wave of the hand over the gunwale is sufficient to scare it

away; but it comes again, keeping pace as the boat drifts, and liking to

remain in its shadow. Then it is easily seen that it swims with the

sucker uppermost.

Occasionally when the blacks harpoon a turtle or a dugong a sucker is

secured. They declare that it stays in one locality until a suitable

host happens along, and then forms a life-long attachment.

If one is seen among the rocks the blacks are at pains to catch it, and

as it is shark-like in its nervousness, the sport demands considerable

skill and patience. "Feed 'em plenty" is the ruling principle.

Delectable morsels of fresh fish are tendered abundantly until the

sucker abandons his usual caution, and then when he is feeding freely a

hook temptingly baited is let down casually among the other dainties,

and if the fish has been liberally and yet not over fed, it will

probably accept the line, and after protesting and holding back to the

best of its ability, find itself flapping in the bark canoe. Should it

get away--"Well! Plenty more alonga salt water. Catch 'em to-morrow."

When determined to secure a sucker whose haunt they have discovered, the

blacks will feed it at intervals for a day or two to overcome its

nervous apprehension. In other localities along the coast the fish is

plentiful and by no means shy, taking bait ravenously.

Having secured the sucker, the blacks farm it in their haphazard

fashion. They fasten a line above the forked tall so securely that it

cannot slip, nor be likely to readily cut through the skin, and tether

it in shallow water, when it usually attaches itself to the bottom of

the canoe. When, as the result of frequent use and heavy strain, the

tail of the sucker is so deeply cut by the line that it is in danger

of being completely severed, a hole is callously bored right through

the body beside the backbone, and the line passed through it for

additional security.

Turtle being wanted, the blacks voyage out each in a bark canoe, which

weighs about 40 lbs., is 8 feet long, 2 feet beam and 1 foot deep

midships, where the sides are much depressed, leaving little more than

an inch of freeboard. There is a good sheer forward and a slight tilt at

the stern, while the bottom is level. Occasionally two men fit

themselves into a canoe of the dimensions given. The canoe is

constructed of a single sheet of bark, preferably of "Gulgong"

(EUCALYPTUS ROBUSTA) or "Carr-lee" (ACACIA AULACOCARPA), or "Wee-ree"

(CALOPHYLLUM INOPHYLLUM) brought neatly together at the ends, which are

sewn with strips of lawyer cane. Pieces of lawyer cane are sometimes

also stitched in to represent stem and stern posts, and the chaffing

pieces also are of cane, though occasionally thin pliant saplings are

strapped and sewn on. Across the bow and the stern are stays of cane,

with generally a stronger thwart midships. When new, and the stitches of

yellow cane regular and bright, the canoe represents about the neatest

and nattiest of the few constructive efforts of the blacks, and is as

buoyant as a duck. The seams are caulked with a resinous gum,

"Tambarang," of the jungle tree known as "Arral" (EVODIA ACCEDENS), and

is prepared by being powdered on a flat stone previously moistened with

water. The powdered resin is melted by heat, allowed to solidify, and

pounded and melted again, and after being rolled and kneaded into a

lump, is wrapped in a leaf until wanted. The finished article, which is

also used as a cement, is known as "Toon-coo."

Motor power for the canoe is a shovel-shaped piece of bark 5 inches by 3

1/2 inches, each man having a pair. Ever and anon the aft man ejects

leakage by a rapid succession of dexterous back strokes of his paddle.

Naked and unashamed, the blacks are well equipped for sport. They may

have three or four harpoons of their own manufacture, besides a live

fire-stick lying on a piece of bark sprinkled with sand, or they may

carry a couple of dry sticks for raising a fire by friction. The haft of

the harpoon is probably red or orange mangrove (BRUGUIERA RHEEDI), heavy

and tough. It has been duly seasoned and straightened by immersion in

running water and exposure to fire. At the heavy end it is hollowed out

to a depth Of 4 inches. The point is preferably of one of the black

palms (ARCHONTOPHOENIX JARDINEI), and a barb is strapped to it with the

fibre of the "Man-djar" (HIBISCUS TILIACEOUS) and cemented with

"Toon-coo."

I have never known one of these barbs to break or come loose, so adept

are the blacks in securing them. The point is about 6 inches long, and

on the barbless end is tightly wound successive layers of fibrous bark,

until its size is adjusted to the socket in the haft. Above the swathing

of bark a strong line is made fast; the padded end is fitted into the

socket, the line is made taut along the whole length of the haft, and

secured by three or four half hitches about a foot from the thin end. A

neat coil of perhaps 50 yards of line lies in the bottom of the canoe.

Probably each of the blacks will have his fishing-line, for sometimes

the turtle do not rise according to expectations. At high tide these

feed among the rocks close to the shore, at low water out among the

coral on the reef, and the hunters wait and watch and fish silently and

with all passivity. Then, when maybe they have caught schnapper, red

bream and parrot-fish, they drift among the turtle, and the sport

begins.

In sight of the game the sucker which has been adhering to the bottom of

the canoe is tugged off and thrown in its direction. As a preliminary

the disc and shoulders of the sucker are vigorously scrubbed with dry

sand or the palm of the hand, to remove the slime and to excite the

ruling passion of the fish. It makes a dash for a more congenial

companionship than an insipid canoe. The line by which it is secured is

made from the bark of the "Boo-bah" (FICUS FASCICULATA) and is of two

strands, so light as not to seriously encumber the sucker, and yet

strong enough to withstand a considerable strain. Two small loops are

made in the line about an interval Of 2 fathoms from the sucker, to act

as indicators.

As soon as the sucker has attached itself to the turtle, a slight pull

is given and the startled turtle makes a rush, the line being eased out

smartly. Then sport of the kind that a salmon-fisher enjoys when he has

hooked a 40-pounder begins. The turtle goes as he pleases; but when he

begins to tire, he finds that there is a certain check upon him--slow,

steady, never-ceasing. After ten minutes or so a critical phase of the

sport occurs. The turtle bobs up to the surface for a gulp of air, and

should he catch sight of the occupants of the canoe, his start and

sudden descent may result in such a severe tug that the sucker is

divorced. But the blacks watch, and in their experience judge to a

nicety when and where the turtle may rise; telegrams along the line from

the sucker give precise information. They crouch low on their knees in

the canoe, as the game emerges, with half-shut eyes and dives again

without having ascertained the cause of the trifling annoyance to which

he is being subjected. The line is shortened up. Perhaps the turtle

sulks among the rocks and coral, and endeavours to free himself from the

sucker by rubbing against the boulders. Knowing all the wiles and

manoeuvres, the blacks play the game accordingly, and hour after hour

may pass, they giving and taking line with fine skill and the utmost

patience. The turtle has become accustomed to the encumbrance, and

visits the surface oftener for air. One of the harpoons is raised, and

as the turtle gleams grey, a couple of fathoms or so under the water,

the canoe is smartly paddled towards the spot whence it will emerge, and

before it can get a mouthful of air the barbed point, with a strong line

attached, is sticking a couple of inches deep in its shoulder.

There is a mad splash--a little maelstrom of foam and ripples, the line

runs out to its full length, and the canoe careers about, accurately

steered by the aft man, in the erratic course of the wounded creature.

As it tires, the heavy haft of the harpoon secured by the half hitches

round the thin end being a considerable drag, the line is shortened up,

but too much trust is not placed on a single line; some time may pass

before the canoe is brought within striking distance again. When that

moment arrives, a second harpoon is sent into the flesh below the edge

of the carapace at the rear. Unable to break away, the turtle is hauled

close alongside the canoe, secured by the flippers and towed ashore. I

have known blacks, after harpooning a turtle, to be towed 6 miles out to

sea before it came their turn to do the towing.

How they accomplish the feat of securing a turtle that may weigh a

couple of hundredweight from a frail bark canoe, in which a white man

can scarcely sit and preserve his balance, is astonishing. In a lively

sea the blacks sit back, tilting up the stem to meet the coming wave,

and then put their weight forward to ease it down, paddling, manoeuvring

with the line and baling all the time. The mere paddling about in the

canoe is a feat beyond the dexterity of an ordinary man.

It must not be concluded that these blacks invariably have the

co-operation of a sucker in securing turtle. Its use is comparatively

rare. Generally both turtle and dugong are harpooned as they rise to the

surface to breathe, the sportsmen being very cunning and skilful. They

descry the turtle on the bottom, and softly follow its movements as it

feeds on the marine vegetation, and then as it rises harpoon it; or

they follow one that has betrayed itself by rising, observation and

experience enabling them to judge fairly accurately when and where it is

likely to rise again. But patience, solemn silence, and the avoidance of

anything like sudden movements, are among the principal rules to be

observed.

In passing, on the point of the turtle endeavouring to rid itself of the

sucker, a European pearl-sheller told me of a unique experience that

befell him in Torres Straits. Groping along the bottom, pushing his way

against an impetuous current, he was almost knocked down by a move-on

sort of shove. Instinctively his hand clutched the life-line, when he

was again pushed disrespectfully, and in the greenish light saw that a

monstrous turtle was using him as the afflicted Scotch were said to use

the stones set up by the humane and sympathetic Duke of Argyle, and

without so much as invoking a blessing.

A "KUMMAORIE"

Having caught their turtle and brought it ashore, and having seen the

extent to which the tail of the sucker (which has been faithful to its

host to the death) has been cut by the line, and having decided that it

will do one time more and put it back in the water tethered, or "that

fella no good now," and cast it callously on the sand, to writhe about

until dead, the blacks proceed to the cooking. Possibly the camp decides

upon a "Kummaorie."

A big fire is made and a dozen or so smooth stones about the size of

saucers put on the embers to get red hot. In the meantime the turtle is

killed, the head, neck, and sometimes the two fore flippers, removed.

The entrails and stomach are taken out, and after being roughly cleansed

are put back into the cavity. A hole is scraped in the sand, and the

turtle stuck tail-first into it, the sand being banked up so that it

remains upright. Then the red-hot stones are lifted with sticks and

dropped into the turtle, hissing and spluttering, and stirred about with

a stout stick. Another hole has been scooped in the sand and paved with

stones, upon which a roaring fire is made, When the stones are hot

through, the fire is scraped away, and the steaming turtle eased down

from its upright position, care being taken not to allow any of the

gravy to waste, and carefully deposited on the hot stones--carapace

down. Quickly, so that none of the "smell" escapes, the whole is covered

with leaves--native banana, native ginger, palms, etc., and over all is

raised a mound of sand. In the morning the flesh is thoroughly cooked.

The plastron (lower shell) is lifted off, and in the carapace is a rich,

thick soup. No blood or any of the juices of the meat have gone to

waste--the finest of meat extracts, the very quintessence of turtle,

remains. What would your gourmands give for a plate of this genuine

article? Who may say he has tasted turtle soup--pure and unadulterated--

unless he has "Kummaoried" his turtle to obtain it? With balls of grass

the blacks sop up the brown oily soup, loudly smacking and sucking

their lips to emphasise appreciation. Then there are the white flesh

and the glutin, the best of all fattening foods; and having eaten to

repletion for a couple of days, the diet palls, and they begin to speak

in shockingly disrespectful terms of turtle.

WEATHER DISTURBERS

In the arid parts of Australia, where rain rarely occurs, the blacks

have acquired much out-of-the-way knowledge on the means of obtaining

water. White men, unable to read the secret signs of its existence, have

perished in all the agonies of thirst in country in which water, from a

black fellow's point of view, was plentiful and comparatively easy to

reach. Here there is never any anxiety on the subject. The minds of the

blacks turn rather upon attempts to account for the rain, at times

excessive and discomforting. Bad weather, in common with other untoward

circumstances, is frequently ascribed to the machinations of evilly

disposed boys. A boy may accept the credit or have the greatness thrust

upon him of the manufacture of a gale which has brought about general

discomfort, and to spite him, regardless of consequence to others,

another boy will promise a still more destructive breeze next year. And

so the game of wanton interference with the meteorological conditions of

the continent proceeds, each successive infliction being arranged to

serve out the author of the one preceding. It may be that the instigator

of a gale lives far away, at the Palm Islands, or on Hinchinbrook, or

at Mourilyan. Those who are terrified or inconvenienced agree to ascribe

it to him, and having done so there is nothing of the mysterious to

explain away. Usually the boy upon whom the responsibility is fixed is

not available for cross-examination; but that renders the fact all the

more conclusive. Here is the storm. Peter of the Palms must have made it.

An old gin known as Kitty, and who lived on Hinchinbrook Island, was

famed on account of her successful manipulation of the weather. She was

a grim personage--held in respect, if not awe, because of the peculiar

distinctions ascribed to her. She could command not only the wind and

the rain, but the thunder and lightning also, and to offend her was to

run the risk of bringing about a terrifying storm. Years after her death

blacks had faith in her potency for ill. One of the few white men who

have attempted to climb the highest peaks of the island mountain,

informed me that when he reached a certain elevation, the boys who

accompanied him never spoke above an awe-struck whisper, and solemnly

reproved him whensoever he uttered an unguarded exclamation. They were

afraid that the debil-debil might be aroused; that Kitty would resent

the intrusion of her haunt. At last they refused to go higher, and the

ascent up in the dreaded regions was continued alone, while they

abandoned themselves to sinister prognostics. One lonely night was spent

high up on the mountain, and when the adventurer came back on his tracks

in the morning, the boys were surprised to find that no harm had

befallen him. To go into the very stronghold of mischievous and

vindictive spirits, and to come away again, was to them almost beyond

comprehension, and because no hurricane swooped down upon them, as they

hurried to the lower and safer levels, nothing short of the marvellous.

However fantastic this supposition of human influence on the weather,

there is an inclination to treat it with a semblance of respect when it

is borne in mind that up to a comparatively recent date a similar belief

prevailed even in enlightened England. Addison has a sarcastic reference

to the superstition in one of his delightful essays. Detailing the news

brought from his country seat by Sir Roger de Coverley, he says that the

good knight informed him that Moll White was dead, and that about a

month after her death, the wind was so very high that it blew down the

end of one of his barns. "But for my own part," says Sir Roger, "I do

not think that the old woman had any hand in it." In this particular,

blacks are not so very far in the wake of races quite respectable in

other points of civilisation.

Among other causes to which bad weather is ascribed is the eating by the

young men of the porcupine (ECHIDNA), a dainty reserved for the wise,

conservative old men. If young men should eat of the forbidden flesh, a

terrible calamity will befall--the clouds will "come down altogether!"

One day Tom picked up a young porcupine before it had time to dig a

refuge in the soil, and took it to his camp alive. That afternoon a

south-east gale sprang up, masses of rain-clouds driving tumultuously to

the mountains of the mainland, but Tom was still youthful, and we felt

fairly safe in respect of the stability of the dull and heavy, and

wind-swept firmament. As we watched, a cloud settled on the summit of

Clump Point mountain, assuming shape as fancy pictures the

Banshee--drooping head and shoulders, and arms with pendant drapery

uplifted as in imprecation. The boys, in awe-struck attitude, pointed

to the vapoury spectre, and prognosticated fearsome rain and wind. It

all came during the night. Next morning one of the boys was eager to

declare that the nocturnal tempest was due to Tom, who had eaten the

porcupine. We had seen his weird mother-in-law, aged and decrepid,

preparing it for supper. When Tom appeared, he was duly denounced, and

challenged with the responsibility of the storm. "No!" he cried with

scorn. "Me no eat 'em that fella porcupine; chuck 'em away!" He had

intended to, but the thought of the apparition on Clump Point mountain,

and of the awful responsibility of causing the collapse of the clouds

had taken away his inclination.

But the other boy was not to have his theories as to the weather brushed

aside lightly. It was "that fella along a mountain," who caused the

trouble, or else "another boy alonga Hinchinbrook!" Having thus

completely and satisfactorily settled the point, his face assumed a

slow, wise smile, and his agitated mind rested. Was it not all another

palpable proof, a precedent to be cited, of the manner in which a

no-good-boy wantonly brought about a big wind?

Most of the dainties are forbidden the young members of the camp. Bony

bream and bony herring will be passed on to the boys and girls, and, so

too, the rough parts of turtle; but the sweet fish and flesh are

retained by the old and lusty men, who proclaim that they alone may eat

of such things with impunity. No youngster will dare to partake of

ECHIDNA ("coom-be-yan") at the risk of the prescribed consequences; and

to the old men the fiction stands in the place (as was recently pointed

out) of an annuity or old age pension.

A DINNER-PARTY

To fare sumptuously every day was not the lot of the natives of Dunk

Island. In excessively rainy weather they were often glad of the

coarsest and hardest of foods. Certain sharks are eaten with avidity

whenever they are secured; but some species are too rank and tough to be

endurable under any but extraordinary circumstances. Oysters were always

plentiful, but a diet restricted to the most delicate of molluscs palls

on the palate even of a black fellow. Ordinarily, food was abundant. For

the most part it had only to be picked up and cooked. Frequently it was

eaten on the spot, fresh from bountiful Nature's hands; but blacks

appreciate changes of diet--even when the change is retrogressive--from

the well-cooked, clean food of a white household to that of the sodden

and strong stuffs common to the camp. When, as sometimes happened, the

desire for novelty came, the whole population would paddle away to the

mainland or to one or other of the adjacent islands, voyages being

undertaken as far away as distant Hinchinbrook. Turtle do not favour

the beaches and sandbanks of Dunk Island generally as safe depositories

for their innumerable eggs, and when the longing came for these

delicacies the inhabitants would with one accord travel to those islands

in the security of which turtle still exhibit faith. The drift of the

population hither and thither was not due to the scarcity of food but to

a wayward impulse. As a rule there was little for the population to do

save to eat, drink, laze away the hotter hours of the day, and

"corrobboree" at night.

Astonishment can scarcely be withheld when an attempt is made to

catalogue the available foods of the island, the variety and quantity.

No effort was made at cultivation. Blacks took no heed of the morrow,

but accepted the fruits of the earth without thought of inciting Nature

to produce better or more abundantly, and yet how plenteous were her

gifts!

Permitting imagination to soar away into regions of romance, one might

picture a dinner-party of the bygone days, the lap of Mother Earth

furnished with edibles and dainties, and the hungry and expectant

members of the camp squatted round in anticipation of the various

courses. Such a scene would be worthy of being classed among the most

improbable; but as it would not be absolutely impossible, may not an

attempt be made to treat it as a reality?

The repast might be initiated with a few oysters on the shells (with a

choice of three or four varieties); a selection of many fish would be

succeeded by real turtle ("padg-e-gal") soup (in the original shell),

and made as before described; the joint, a huge piece of dugong

("pal-an-gul") kummaoried, rich and excellent, with ENTREES of turtle

cutlets and baked grubs ("tam-boon"), ivory white with yellow heads, as

neat and pretty a dish as could be seen, and rather rare and novel too.

When the beetles (APPECTROGASTRA FLAVIPILIS) into which these stolid

grubs and fidgetty nymphs develop, are chopped out of decayed wood, they

have the odour of truffles, and emit two distinct squeaky notes from the

throat and the abdominal segments respectively. Each maintains a duet

with itself until the hot embers impose silence and convert them into

dainty nutty morsels. Roast scrub fowl eggs would be no novelty, and

baked crayfish ("too-lac"), bluey-white and leathery--"such stuff as

dreams are made on"--might lend a decorative effect. Raw echinus

("kier-bang"), saline and tonic, would clear the palate for succeeding

delicacies.

The tough sweet yam ("pun-dinoo"), the heart of the Alexandra palm

("koobin-karra"), the hard rhizome of BOWENIA SPECTABILIS ("moo-nah")

after being allowed weeks to decompose, the core of the tree fern

("kalo-joo"), the long root-stock of CURCULIGO ENSIFOLIA ("harpee")

crisp and slightly bitter, the broad beans of the white mangrove

("kum-moo-roo"), would stand as vegetables.

Sweets would be the weakest part of the menu. One pudding might

certainly be included, VERMICELLI (shredded bean-tree

nuts--"tinda-burra") with honey and orange-coloured balsamic custard,

scraped from the outside of the drupes of the PANDANUS ODORATISSIMUS

("pim-nar").

Dessert, on the other hand, might be plentiful and varied. "Bed-yew-rie"

(XIMENIA AMERICANA), thirst-allaying and palate-sharpening; "Top-kie"

(Herbert River cherry, ANTEDISMA DALLACHYANUM), resembling red currants

in flavour; "Pool-boo-nong" (finger cherry, RHODOMYRTUS MACROCARPA),

sweet, soft and appeasing; "Panga-panga," raspberry (RUBUS ROSAEFOLIUS);

"Koo-badg-aroo" (Leichhardt-tree, SARCOCEPHALUS CORDATUS), resembling a

strawberry in shape, but brown, spicy and hot; "Murl-kue-kee"

(snow-white berries of EUGENIA SUBORBICULARIS), vapid, and as insipid as

an immature medlar; "Raroo" (CAREYA AUSTRALIS), mealy and biting.

Various figs, ranging in size from a large red currant to a tennis-ball,

and in colour from white through all the tints from pale yellow and green

to red, purple and black, sweet and generally mawkish. The banana would

be there in the MUSA BANKSIA ("boo-gar-oo"), although "close up all bone";

but the Davidsonian plum, plentiful on the mainland, would be absent.

The scape of the ELETTARIA SCOTTIANA, oozing viscid nectar, might stand

as a sweetmeat.

Then, dallying with tomahawks and flat stones with the tough nuts of the

"Moo-jee" (TERMINALIA MELANOCARPA), and the drupes of the "Can-kee"

(PANDANUS AQUATICUS) to extract the narrow sweet kernels, and sipping the

while cordial compounded of the larvae of green tree-ants ("book-gruin"),

acidulous and nippy, the men might indulge in after-dinner stories

and reminiscences, as the gins and piccaninnies drink heartily of water

sweetened with sugar-bag (honey-comb), and chew the seeds contained in

the china-blue pericarp of the native ginger--"Ool-pun" (ALPINIA CAERULA).

Many vegetable foods would still be unenumerated, and there would be

numerous shell-fish--periwinkles, cockles, mussels, scallops, dolphins,

besides crabs. On rare occasions a scrub fowl (the blacks had no

reliable means of capturing that wary bird, and when fortune favoured,

it was an instance of bad luck on its part), with pigeons, carpet

snakes, and sea-birds' eggs might make high tea.

BLACK ART

Time, and diligent search revealed the location on the island of two art

galleries, or rather independent studios, where there are exhibited

works of distinct character. Tradition points to the existence of a

third, the discovery of which gives zest to each exploratory expedition.

Possibly it may also display original exploits in the realms of fancy,

and so confirm the opinion that the black artists were not mere copyists

of each other, but belonged to different schools, each having his own

method and allowing his talent free and untrammelled development.

What may be designated the Lower Studio is on the eastern slope, and is

only to be approached from the sea in calm weather, the alternative

route being a tiresome climb, a long and tormenting struggle through

the jungle, and a descent among a confusion of rocks and boulders. It is

situated about a couple of hundred feet above sea-level, quite hidden in

the leafy wilderness which covers that aspect of the island from

high-water mark to the summit of the ridge. Unless the spot was

indicated, one might search for it for years in vain, and though I had

made frequent inquiries, its existence was made known only by chance,

its importance being considered insignificant compared with the other

studio, the glories of which had frequently been descanted upon. Taking

the sea-route, there is a natural harbour available, just capacious

enough for a small dingy, and up above the rocks, swept bare by the

surges, a dense and tangled scrub "whereto the climber upwards turns

his face," and taking advantage of such aids as aerial roots, slim

saplings, and the reed-like growths of the so called native ginger,

begins the steep ascent. Where the rock does not emerge from the

surface, the black soil is loose and kept in perpetual cultivation by

scrub fowl, the wonder being that earth reposes at such an angle. But

for interlacing and matted roots all must slide down to the sea.

A few minutes' exertion lands one at the portal of the studio, which is

of the lean-to order of architecture, a granite boulder having one

fairly vertical face being overshadowed by a much higher rock having a

dip of about 60 degrees.

Here originally there were five exhibits. Two have weathered away almost

to nothingness, some faint streaks and blotches of red earth, in which

medium all the pictures have been executed, alone remaining. Those

subjects that are readily decipherable are mutilated after the style of

certain much-prized antiques.

Of those which have successfully withstood the ravages of time, two

apparently represent lizards, and the third seems to portray a

monstrosity--a human being with a rudimentary tail. A German philosopher

might possibly build upon this embryonic tail a theory to prove that the

Australian aboriginal is indeed and in fact the missing link, and

thereby excel in ethnological venture those who merely recognise in him

the relic from a prehistoric age of man. Could it not be argued that the

picture reveals an act of unconscious cerebration--an instinctive

knowledge of ancestors with tails?

However that may be, the unconscious artist took further artless

liberties with the human form divine. He had been at pains, too, to

smooth down the face of the rock for the reception of the unshaded daubs

of terra-cotta, using peradventure the flat stone upon which he was wont

to bruise the hot and biting roots of the aroid (COLOCASIA MACRORRHIZA)

which formed part of his diet. The utensil lies there at the entrance

where he left it; the plants grow in profusion close by among the rocks;

but of the artist there is no record, save the crude and grotesque

figures in fading red on the grey granite.

Most of the central figure is clearly discernible; but parts of the

outline have become blurred and irregular. Tradition says that all the

figures once had black heads--the only attempts at the introduction of a

second colour--but no traces of the black heads are now visible. They must

have succumbed to the tender but irresistible assaults of Time long ago.

In one case, fact seems to belie tradition, for there exist faint

suggestions of a red head--and a red-headed black is as rare as a black

with a tail; but the traces are so extremely vague and indeterminate as

to render any attempt at restoration hopeless. But does not this

obscurity and partial dismemberment lend an air of antiquity, much

prized elsewhere, to these savage frescoes?

Of quite a different order are the works in the Upper Studio at the sign

of the White Stripe. This lies close to the backbone of the island, in

the heart of a bewildering jumble of immense rocks overgrown with

jungle. Circumstantial accounts of the treasures there to be seen had

determined me to persevere in attempts to discover it; but though the

traditions of the blacks were strengthened by a mild sort of enthusiasm,

and the exhibition of no little pride, they did but slight service

towards revealing the precise locality. None of the living remnants of

the race had seen the paintings. All trusted to the saying of "old men"

and had faith. Experience had taught me to accept with caution and

reserve legends founded on the unverified testimony of "old men" which

had passed down to the present generation; but being much interested,

and having become elated with the hope of discovering that which had not

been seen by white folks, nor, indeed, by any living person, I also

trusted and persevered.

From ships that pass to the East may be seen a bold white streak on the

face of a huge rock, so sharply defined and accurate in alignment that

it might be mistaken for a guide to mariners, or rather a warning, for

the floor of the ocean is strewn with patches of coral, and the rocks

are singularly forbidding, save on calm days. Opinion current among the

blacks asserted that the paintings were on a rock below the disjointed

precipice on the top of the ridge made conspicuous by the broad white

band. The sign was found to be due to the bleaching of the rock face by

the drainage from a mass of stag's horn fern. Possessed of this

information, which proved in the long run to be trustworthy, several

exploratory trips were undertaken. To reach the locality from Brammo

Bay, one must cross the middle of the backbone of the island, and

descend some little distance on the Pacific slope.

I scaled and scrambled over and crawled upon huge rocks, peered into

gloomy crevices with daylight edges fringed with ferns and orchids,

squeezed through narrow tunnels, and groped in dark recesses without

finding any evidence of prehistoric art. Blacks do not care to venture

into places where twilight always reigns, though they are curious to

learn the experiences and sensations of other explorers of the gloom. At

last, however, patience was rewarded, and beneath a great granite rock,

which on three previous excursions had been overlooked, the paintings

were discovered. In their execution the artist must have lain on his

back, for the "cave" does not permit one to sit upright in it, except

towards the wide and expansive front, and the subjects are on the

ceiling, which is fairly flat. The floor, thick with a fine brown dust

mingled with shining specks of decomposed granite, and dimpled with

hundreds of pitfalls of the ant-lion, slopes upward. It is cool, and a

dry, secure spot. Not even the torrential rains of many decades of wet

seasons have damped the floor. One feels as though he were disturbing

the dust of ages; when sitting back to admire the decorated ceiling, he

necessarily imprints patterns which are the replicas of those made by

flesh and bone long since numbered among the anonymous dead.

The sea laves the hot rocks 600 feet below, and booms and gobbles in the

cool crevices; but up here the outlook is obscured by rocks and giant

trees, and an artistic soul, longing for some method of expression,

might serenely gratify itself in accordance with its lights--crude though

they were. Here, at the entrance, lie a couple of charred sticks,

significant of the last fire of the artist, which smouldered out perhaps

half a century ago. On the very doorstep is a disc of pearl-shell, the

discarded beginning of a fish-hook. These relics give to the scene a

pathetic interest. As I looked at them ponderingly, a frog far in the

back of the cave gave a discordant, echoing croak, which started the

sulky and suspicious black boy who attended me into an abrupt

exclamation of semi-fright; while a scrub fowl, scratching for its living

overhead, dislodged a chip of granite which went clicking down the

rocks. "Tom," at the instant, felt that the spirit of the departed was

manifesting, in the hollow tones of a frog and the activity of a bird,

resentment at the intrusion of his haunts, and was warning us to begone.

But we had come far on a toilsome errand, and were not to be scared away

by trifles, though a transient feeling of reluctance to disturb the

solemnity of the studio could not be withheld.

Remembering the fervid praises of the treasures by those who had not

seen them, a sense of disappointment when they came to be examined was

inevitable. They are not to be classed in any standard beyond that

displayed on early school-slates; but imperfect as they are, they

possess a certain symmetry and proportion, and the facts that they are

where they are, and that the artist--dead and forgotten--had no light or

leading, and was in other respects probably one of the most rude, most

uncouth of human beings, are sufficient to lend to the drawings an

interest as absorbing (though of a nature quite apart) as that with

which the average individual contemplates the stiff works of masters of

Continental fame.

One able critic of aboriginal art refers to similar rock paintings as

frescoes, for lack of a significant title. Apparently the rock surface

was slightly smoothed where inequalities existed--in one case the design

follows the ridges and hollows--the subjects being worked in, in dry

earth of a chalky nature, dull red in colour. Animated nature and still

life have been studied and reproduced. The turtle is true, and the most

conspicuous and sharply-defined study the least convincing. It resembles

those fantastic interwoven shapes that some men in fits of abstraction

or idleness sketch on their own blotting-pads, and which signify

nothing.

Comparing the works of the two studios, there is little doubt that there

were at least two artists native of Dunk Island in times past, and in

that respect the island was infinitely superior to its present state.

Each appears to have effected a different kind of work--one devoting

himself to realistic reptiles and the human form debased, and the other

almost solely to the creation of conventional designs, and the

representation of the animals and of weapons of his age. One illustrated

man, and even gave to one of his reptiles a semi-human shape; the other

exercised an exuberant fancy for ornamentation. Each bequeathed to the

present day and generation works that are at least free from the

subtleties of art.

Most of us have had moments of rapture before the glowing embodiment of

the inspiration of some great artist, whose gifts have been developed to

maturity by enthusiastic and patient striving for perfection. Do not

these clumsy drawings, too, reveal that which, considering their

environment, is talent--original and unacademic. Here is the sheer

beginning, the spontaneous germ of art, the labouring of a savage soul

controlled by wilful aesthetic emotions. For these pictures are not

figurative, not mere signs and symbols capable of elucidation, but the

earliest and only efforts of an illiterate race, a race in intellectual

infancy, towards the ideal--a forlorn but none the less sincere attempt

to reach the "light that quickens dreams to deeds!"

The last of the series of "Black Art" pictures is not local. It occurs

on the reverse of a shield, the spear-punctured lower edge of which

verifies its eventful history. The warrior-artist silhouetted a

sweetheart's figure, where, at supreme moments, it came before his fancy

and gave the battle to his hands.

A POISONOUS FOOD

One of the chief vegetable foods of the blacks is the fruit of

"tinda-burra" (Moreton Bay chestnut--CASTANOSPERMUM AUSTRALE). The

plentiful pea-shaped flowers range in colour from apple-green, pale

yellow, orange to scarlet, and contain large quantities of nectar, which

attracts multitudes of birds and insects. Blacks regard this tree with

special favour and consideration. A casual remark, as I observed the

industry of insects about the flowers, that the bean-tree was good for

bees, elicited the scornful response, "Good for man!" The tree is of

graceful shape, the bole often pillar-like in its symmetry, and the wood

hard and durable and of pleasing colour, and so beautifully grained that

it is fast becoming popular for furniture and cabinet-making. It bears a

prolific crop of large beans, from two to five in each of its squat

pods, but they are, as Mr Standfast found the waters of Jordan, "to the

palate bitter, and to the stomach cold," and require special treatment

in order to eliminate a poisonous principle. Many chemists analysed the

beans (one finding that they may be converted into excellent starch)

without discovering any noxious element; but as horses, cattle, and pigs

die if they eat the raw bean, and a mere fragment is sufficient to give

human beings great pain, followed by most unpleasant consequences, the

research was continued, until within quite a recent date the presence of

saponin was detected. Before science made its discovery, the blacks were

very positive on the point of the poisonous qualities of the bean, and

took measures to eliminate it. In some parts of the State the beans,

after being steeped in water for several days, are dried in the sun,

roasted in hot ashes, and pounded between stones into a coarse kind of

meal, which may be kept for an indefinite period. When required for use

the meal is mixed with water, made into a thin cake or damper, and baked

in the ashes. Prepared in this way the cake resembles a coarse ship's

biscuit. In other parts, the beans are scraped by means of mussel-shells

into a vermicelli-like substance, prior to soaking in water. Our blacks

have a more ingenious method of preparation, and employ a specially

formed culinary implement, which is used for no other purpose. They take

the commonest of the land shells--"kurra-dju" (XANTHOMELON

PACHYSTYLA)--and breaking away the apex grind down the back on a stone

until but little more than half its bulk remains. The upper edges being

carefully worked to a fine edge, the only housewifery implement that the

blacks possess is perfect. With the implement in the right hand, between

the thumb and the second finger--the sharp edge resting on the

thumb-nail--the beans are planed, the operator being able to regulate

the thickness of the shaving to a nicety.

It is women's work to collect the beans, make the shell-planes, and do

the shredding. In the first place the beans are cooked, the oven

consisting of hot stones covered with leaves. In three or four hours

they are taken out and planed, a dilly-bag (basket made of narrow

strips of lawyer cane or grass) full of the shavings is immersed in

running water for two or three days, the food being then ready for

consumption without further preparation. In appearance it resembles

coarse tapioca, and it has no particular flavour. To give it zest,

some have a shell containing sea-water beside them when they dine,

into which each portion of the mess is dipped. As saponin is very

soluble in water, by soaking the shredded beans for a few days the

blacks resort to an absolutely perfect method of converting a

poisonous substance into a valuable and sustaining, if tasteless,

food. No doubt, made up into a pudding with eggs, milk, sugar and

flavouring, shredded beans would pass without comment as a substitute

for tapioca.

MESSAGE-STICKS

There came to our beach one afternoon some poor exiles from Princess

Charlotte Bay--300 miles to the north. Exiled they felt themselves to

be, and were longing to return to their own country although their

engagement for a six months' cruise in quest of the passive beche-de-mer

had but just begun. One boy stepped along with an air of pride and

importance. His companions were deferential to a certain extent, but

they, too, exhibited an unusual demeanour. Some of the glory and honour

that shone in Mattie's face was reflected in theirs. With the assurance

of an ambassador bearing high credentials he saluted me--

"Hello, Mister! Good day."

"Good day," I responded. "You come from that cutter?"

Mattie--"Yes, mister. Mickie sit down here, now? Me got 'em letter.

Brother belonga gin, belonga Mickie; him gib it!"

"No; Mickie sit down alonga Palm Islands. Come back, bi'mby."

Mattie (with a downcast air)--"My word! Bo'sun (the brother-in-law) gib

it letter belonga Mickie."

"Where letter?" I asked.

Mattie--"Me got 'em," and drawing out a very soiled little parcel, he

proudly exposed a piece of greyish wood, about the size and shape of a

lead pencil, on which had been cut two continuous intersecting grooves.

"Me giv' 'em Mickie; Bo'sun alonga Cooktown. He want to come up this

way now."

The letter was a mere token of material expression of the fact that the

sender was in the land of the living, and of his faith in the bearer,

who was charged with all the personal messages and news. It was a sad

rebuff to Mattie, elated with responsibility and eager to unburden

himself of the latest domestic intelligence, to find that Mickie was not

on the spot to receive it all. And, after fondling the wooden document

for a while, he wrapped it up and carefully bestowed it within the bosom

of his shirt. The disappointment was general. The gleam faded from the

faces of the boys. For several days, first one and then another was

entrusted with the honourable custody of the missive. Whoever possessed

it for the time being was the most favoured individual. His worthiness

for the office he acknowledged with an amusing air of self-consciousness

and pride. The transmission of a letter is not an ordinary occurrence,

and though there is an entire absence of form and ceremony in its

delivery, the rarity of the event lends to it novelty and importance.

Aboriginal letters are of great variety, and some there are who profess

to interpret them. The despatches are, however, invariably, in my

experience, transmitted from hand to hand, the news of the day being

recapitulated at the same time. It is not essential that the unstudied

cuts and scratches on wood should have any significance or be capable of

intelligible rendering. Though blacks profess to be able to send

messages by means of sticks alone, the pretension is not recognised by

those who have crucially investigated it

On a certain station a youthful son of the proprietor was accidentally

drowned in a creek not far from the homestead. The grief of the parents

was participated in by all engaged on the station, for the boy, full of

promise, had been a general favourite. None seemed more sorrowful and

gloomy than the blacks camped in the neighbourhood, and when the first

shock of sorrow was of the past, they were eager to send the news to

distant friends. A letter was laboriously composed. It was a short piece

of wood, narrow and flat; an undulating groove ran from end to end on

one side, midway was an intersecting notch. These were the principal

characteristics, but there were other small marks and scratches. Bearing

this as his credentials, a messenger departed, and in a week or so

members of camps hundreds of miles away had seen the letter and were in

possession of all the details of the sad event, the messenger in the

meantime having returned. The letter was duly credited with having

conveyed the particulars. Is it not obvious, however, that the news had

been transmitted orally, and that the crude carvings on the stick merely

indicated an attempt to give verisimilitude to the intelligence--the

wavy line indicating the creek, and the notch the fatal waterhole. If

not, then a black's message-stick is a model of literary condensation,

their characters marvels of comprehensiveness and exactitude.

Another letter is before me--one of the best specimens with regard to

workmanship I have ever seen. Upon one edge of a piece of brown wood 6

inches long, 1 inch broad, flat and rounded off at the edges and ends,

there are five notches, and on the opposite edge a single notch. Close

to the end is a faint, crude representation of a broad arrow, below

which is a confusion of small cuts, in a variety of angles, none quite

vertical, some quite horizontal. On the reverse is a single--almost

perpendicular--cut, and a bold X, and near the point, two shallow,

indistinct diverging cuts. So far no one to whom the letter has been

submitted has given a satisfactory reading. Blacks frankly admit that

they do not understand it. They examine it curiously, and almost

invariably remark--"Some fella mak' em." No attempt to decipher it is

undertaken, because no doubt it was never intended to be read. Yet a

plausible elucidation is at hand. The single notch, let it be said,

represents a black who wishes to let five white fellows (who have made

inquiries in that direction) know that a corrobboree is to begin before

sundown, the setting sun being represented by the broad arrow, which

seems to dip over the end of the stick. The guests are expected to bring

rum to produce a bewildering, unsteady effect upon the whole camp--none,

big or little, but will stagger about in all directions and finally lie

down. On the other hand the guests are not to bring "one fella"

policeman with handcuffs (the cross), otherwise all will decamp--the two

last are seen vanishing into space. By a rare coincidence this very free

interpretation could be made to apply to an actuality at the time

the "letter" was received, but as a matter of fact it came from quite a

different source to the black fellow who had engaged to let some

students of the aboriginal character know when the next corrobboree

would take place. It still remains undecipherable. My investigations do

not support the theory that the blacks are capable of recording the

simplest event by means of a system of so-called picture-writing, but

rather that message-sticks have no meaning apart from verbal

explanations. Blacks profess to be able to send messages which another

may understand, but the tests applied locally invariably break down.

Another message-stick was made on the premises by George, but not to

order. A genuine, unprompted natural effort, it is merely a slip of

pine, 4 inches long, a quarter of an inch broad and flat, upon which

are cut spiral intersecting grooves. George's birthplace is Cooktown,

and his message-stick resembles in design that brought by Mattie from

Bo'sun of Cooktown for Mickie of the Palms. Now George professes to be

able to write English, but he is so shy and diffident over the

accomplishment that neither persuasion nor offer of reward induces him

to practise it. When he produced the "letter," more than usual

interest was taken in it, for it seemed to offer an exceptional

opportunity for ascertaining the extent of his literary pretensions. I

asked him--"Who this for, George?" George looked at the stick long

and curiously with a puzzled, concentrated expression, as one might

assume when examining a novel and interesting problem demanding prompt

solution. With an enlightening smile he in time replied--"This for

Charlie."

"Charlie" is the name of a boy who recently visited the island, but who

hitherto had not been known by George.

"Well, what this letter talk about?" A very long pause ensued during

which George appeared to be putting his imaginative powers to frightful

over-exertion. His forehead wrinkled, his lips twitched, his head moved

this way and that, once or twice a gleam of inspiration passed over his

face, and then the expression of the deep and puzzled thinker came on

again. Finally he said--"Y-e-e-s. Me tell 'em, sometimes me see Toby."

Toby is the tallest of the survivors of Dunk Island, another

acquaintance of George's, who refers to him as a hard case, for it is

said Toby's affections are very fitful and uncertain.

"Then that letter tell 'em something more?" The strenuous pause, the

desperate plunge into thought again, and George continued--"This for

Johnny Tritton, before alonga Cooktown; now walk about somewhere down

here. Might be catch 'em alonga mainland!"

This message-stick was freshly made, and its meaning, had it possessed

any, might have been repeated pat. But it was evident that the boy was

putting a devastating strain upon an unexuberant and tardy wit when he

endeavoured to ascribe to it a literary rendering. His hesitancy and

contradictions were at least amusingly ingenuous.

Exceptional opportunities were available in this neighbourhood recently

for the formation of an opinion upon the value of message-sticks for the

transmission of intelligence. The bushman who on horseback carried His

Majesty's mails inland among the settlers and to distant stations, was

frequently also entrusted with the delivery of message-sticks by blacks

along the route. Invariably the stick was accompanied by a verbal

communication--a request for some article (a pipe, a knife,

looking-glass, handkerchief) or an inquiry as to the whereabouts or

welfare of some relative or friend. The mailman quickly found that the

often elaborately graven stick was to no purpose whatever without the

verbal message. Frequently the sticks would become far more hopelessly

mixed up than the babes in PINAFORE; but as long as he recollected the

message aright, not the slightest concern or dissatisfaction was

manifested.

HOOKS OF PEARL

In this neighbourhood the making of pearl-shell fishhooks is one of the

lost arts. The old men may tell how they used to be made, but are not

able to afford any satisfactory practical demonstration. Therefore, to

obtain absolutely authentic examples, it was necessary to indulge in the

unwonted pastime of antiquarian research. During an unsystematic,

unmethodical overhauling of the shell heap of an extensive kitchen

midden--to apply a very dignified title to a long deserted camp--

interesting testimony to the diligence and patience of the deceased

occupants was obtained. It was evident that the sea had been largely

drawn upon for supplies, if only on account of the many abortive and

abandoned attempts at fishhooks in more or less advanced stages of

completion. The brittleness of the fabric and the crudeness of the tools

employed had evidently put the patience of the makers to severe task,

who for one satisfactory hook must have contemplated many disappointments.

The art must be judged as critically by the exhibition of its failures

as by its perfections, as Beau Nash did the tying of his cravats.

"Those are our failures," the spirits of the departed, brooding

over the site of the camp, might have sighed, as we sorted out crude and

unfashioned fragments. Presently the discovery of a small specimen

established the standard of perfection--a crescent of pearl, which alone

was ample recompense for the afternoon's research. Smaller than the

average hook, it represented an excellent object-lesson in patience and

skill. Many other examples, some complete, have since been found, and

have been arranged for illustration to exhibit the process of

construction in several stages. Do they not confirm the opinion that the

maker of shell fish-hooks suffered many mishaps and disappointments, and

that he had high courage in discarding any that evidenced a fault?

The method of manufacture was to reduce by chipping with a sharp-edged

piece of quartz a portion of a black-lip mother-of-pearl shell to a disc.

A central hole was then chipped--not bored or drilled--with another tool

of quartz. The hole was gradually enlarged by the use of a terminal of

one of the staghorn corals (MADEPORA LAXA) until a ring had been formed.

Then a segment was cut away, leaving a rough crescent, which was ground

down with coral files, and the ends sharpened by rubbing on smooth

slate.

Discs were also cut out of gold-lip mother-of-pearl shell, but by what

means there is no evidence to tell. When such a prize as a gold-lip

shell was found, it was used to the last possible fragment. Most

frequently the black-lip mother-of-pearl was the material whence the

hooks were fashioned, and, when none other was available, the hammer

oyster. In one case an unsuccessful endeavour had been made to fashion a

hook from a piece of plate-glass, obtained, no doubt, from the wreck of

some long-forgotten ship. The fractured disc lying among other relics of

the handicraft spoke for itself.

Not only have many samples of partially-made hooks been found, but also

the tools employed in the process. The sharp-edged fragment of quartz used

to chip away the shell, the anvil of soft slate upon which the shell

rested during the operation, the quartz chisel for chipping the central

hole, the coral terminals, resembling rat-tail files, and the smooth stone

upon which the rough edges of the hook were ground down and finished.

Hooks without barbs and manufactured of such materials as pearl-shell and

tortoiseshell may throw light upon the Homeric quotation "caught fish

with the horn of the ox." In those far-off days, bronze wire rope,

similar in design to the steel rope which is of common use in the

present time, was employed. Ancient Greeks, though they anticipated one

of the necessities of trade nowadays, depended upon fish-hooks

resembling those just being abandoned by the Australian blacks. Fish are

guileless creatures. They are captured today with hooks of the style

upon which fishermen of the Homeric age depended.

From the appearance of the camps, and the age of the islander who took

part in the various searches, and who was ready to admit that though

pearl-shell hooks were used when he was a piccaninny he had never seen

one made, I judge the age of these relics of a prehistoric art to be

between thirty and forty years.

This boy has supplied samples of hooks made by himself with the aid of

files, etc., in imitation of the old style, being careful to explain

that the old men made them much better than any one could in these

degenerate days of steel. Two of these modern hooks bound to bark lines

are illustrated. What was the origin of the peculiar pattern of the

pearl-shell fish-hooks? To this question, those who maintain that no

handiwork of man exists which does not borrow from nature, or from

something precedent to itself, may find a satisfactory answer offhand.

As it weathers on the beach, the basal valve of the commonest of the

oysters, of these waters occasionally assumes a crude crescent. Indeed,

several of these fragments have at odd times attracted attention, for

they have so closely resembled pearl-shell hooks in the rough that

second glances have been necessary to dispose of the illusion that they

were actually rejects from some old-time camp. Is it not reasonable to

suppose that the original design was copied from this elemental model,

as, in like manner the boomerang is traceable to a leaf? The pattern is

so profoundly persistent in the minds of the blacks of to-day, that in

fashioning a hook from a piece of straight wire they invariably form a

crescent, though the superiority of the shape approved by civilisation

must have been exemplified to them times out of number. In this

particular the blacks seem unconsciously to follow the idea of their

ancestors as birds obey instinct in the building of nests and in

migratory flights.

Piccaninnies at this date remind us of the genesis of the boomerang as

they sport with the sickle-shaped leaves (or rather PHYLLODIA) of the

ACACIA HOLOCARPA as with miniature boomerangs. The piccaninny of the

remote past chuckled gleefully as the jerked leaf returned to it. As a

boy he fashioned a larger and permanent toy, surreptitiously using his

father's stone tomahawk and shell knife, while the old man was after

wallaby with a waddy. As a young man, hunting or fighting, he found his

boyish toy a very effective missile. Even for a straight shot it had a

longer range and far higher velocity, with less strength expenditure,

than the waddy or nulla-nulla; and its homing flight had practical if

not frequent uses. In his childhood, adolescence and maturity the black

of to-day so graphically summarises a chapter in the history of his race

that he who runs may read.

In the origin of the boomerang and the shell fish-hook we have

instances, hardly to be doubted, of direct inspirations from Nature,

proofs of the art and the infinite patience with which she sets her

copies and expounds her texts.

WILD DYNAMITE

All the blacks of my acquaintance have had the rough edges of savagedom

worn down. Consequently I lay no claim to original research or to the

possession of any but common knowledge of the race at large. Learned

societies and learned men have done and are doing all that is possible

to acquire and accumulate information of the fast vanishing race. I

merely record odd incidents, which may or may not prove useful and of

interest, or which may bear repetition. An occasional gleam of

satisfaction is vouchsafed even to casual and superficial students of

human nature.

The supply of bait run out one day when we were fishing off the rocks

with throw-lines. Mickie said--"We catch 'em plenty little fella fish

with wild dynamite!" I asked him what he knew about dynamite. "Not

white fella's dynamite. Wild dynamite--I show you."

Growing on the blistering rocks, with roots, down in the crevices, was a

lowly vine, or rather a diffuse, creeping shrub with myrtle-like leaves

and racemes of white flowers. "That fella wild dynamite," said Mickie,

as he tore up several strands of the plant and bunched them, leaves and

all, in his hand. He made a small bundle, and going to an isolated pool

in the rocks in which were small fish he beat the leaves with a

nulla-nulla, dipping the bruised mass frequently in the water. In a few

minutes the fish were darting about erratically, apparently making

frantic efforts to get out of the water. One by one they became

stupefied and helpless, floating belly up. Mickie filled his hat with

them, and as the soporific effects of the juice of the leaves passed

off, the remaining fish recovered and were soon swimming about again as

if nothing had happened. Mickie had seen dynamite used to kill fish

wholesale, hence his adaptation of the name of the plant known to him as

"Paggarra," and to botanists as DERRIS SCANDENS.

Another method by which the blacks secure fish in pools left by the

receding tide is to scrape off the inner bark of the "Koie-yan"

(FARADAYA SPLENDIDA) with a shell and spread it evenly on the bottom of

a shallow pit in the sand, and place thereon stones made hot in the

fire, or they may rub the powdered bark on hot stones. While still warm

the stones are thrown into the water, when the fish become helpless.

They die if left in water so impregnated; while the effects of the

DERRIS SCANDENS is merely temporarily soporific. How blacks became

acquainted with this process of speedily extracting the toxic principle

of the FARADAYA, and as speedily dissipating it, is unknown. One

generation passes on the knowledge to the other without explanation,

and it is accepted as a matter of course, without comment or inquiry.

A CAVERN AND ITS LEGEND

Caves and caverns in the rocks and the tops of the mountains are not

favourite resorts of blacks. According to them nearly every mountain has

its mysterious lagoon, which none but old men have visited, but which

teems with fish and waterfowl. When direct inquiries are made as to the

precise locality of any particular lagoon, invariably inconclusive

evidence is tendered. "Old man, he bin see 'em;" and, the old man is

never forthcoming for cross-examination. The origin of the romance, no

doubt, is to be attributed to the desire of the blacks to account to

themselves for the water which glitters on the face of the rocks far up

the mountains. One boy gave an exceptionally graphic description of a

lagoon on the top of one of the highest peaks of Hinchinbrook Island, in

which all manner of sea fish revelled. When doubt was expressed as to

the possibility of sea-water and sea-fish getting up so far "on top" and

it was suggested--"What you think, that old man humbug you?" "Yes,"

was the ready response; "me think that old fella no tell true. Him

humbug." Some blacks possess something wiser than knowledge.

On the northern aspect of Dunk Island, where the sea swirls about the

buttresses of the hills, there is a cavern only approachable by boat. The

mouth is overhung by vines and ferns, and through the moss which covers

the lintel water trickles and splashes with pleasant sound. When the

bronze orchid lavishly decorates the rocks with its crinkled flowers of

dull gold, the entrance has a specific character; and quite another when

the glossy leaves of the umbrella-tree form the relief and its long

radiating spikes of dull red, bead-like flowers attract the brilliant

sun-bird, and big blue and green and red butterflies. Even when the sea

is lustrous the cavern, with all the artfulness and grace of the

decorations of its portals, is a black blotch--the entrance to something

unknowable and unknown--at least to the blacks. None had ever ventured

near it and they never will. They tell you how it came to be made. How a

long, long time ago, a big man, "all a same debil-debil," took out with

his mighty fingers a plug of rock and put it "on top alonga

Hinchinbrook." Now the particular decapitated pinnacle of Hinchinbrook

is 20 miles away, and out of all proportion. But these facts do not

affect the legitimacy of the legend. There is the hole, and there on the

top of the far-away mountain the prodigious plug demonstrative evidence

too obvious to be set aside on any such plea as the eternal fitness of

things. Is not the blue point of the mountain a defiantly triumphant

fact? Is not the legend authenticated by tradition and confirmed by

topography?

Why, therefore, doubt it for a moment?

And the hole--it goes a long, long way under the mountain. It is a bad

place, a very bad place. No one has ever been there. Suppose any fella

go inside, bi'mby that fella sick, bi'mby that fella die.

Braving all the honest traditions, one fine day I took a lantern in the

boat and induced the boys to row to the entrance of the cave. Neither

would venture in; indeed, they did all they could to dissuade me,

protesting that evil was sure to befall. A minute's exploration showed

that the cave did not extend 30 feet, and that it was dry, and resonant

with "the whispering sound of the cool colonnade," with no suggestion

of unwholesomeness or weirdness. But the blacks still pass it by. The

legend is as indestructible as the odour of attar of roses. Although the

boys persist in their account of the origin of the cave, it is known to

them as "Coo-bee co-tan-you," which signifies "that hole made by the

meteor," or, literally, "falling-star hole."

Romance, too, follows the Hinchinbrook pinnacle. Some local blacks

regard it with awe, believing that it covers a deep hole in the mountain

in which the winds and rain are pent up. When a malignant "debil-debil"

lifts the peak away the elements escape, roaring and hissing with

anger and mischief. When tired, they retire sulkily to the hole, which

the "debil-debil" blocks with the monstrous rock. Fine weather then

prevails, and the rock, which has been hidden away among the mists by

the fiend, becomes visible once more.

A SOULFUL DANCE

Of the many corrobborees that I have witnessed, the most novel in

conception was performed on Dunk Island by blacks who came from the

neighbourhood of Princess Charlotte Bay, some 200 miles to the north.

The imitation of the frolicsome skip and wing movements of the native

companion is one of the typical dances of the aboriginals frequenting

open plains where the great birds assemble. In its performance the

men--decorated with streaks and daubs of white and pink clay, and

wearing in their hair down and feathers--form a circle, and bowing their

bodies towards the centre, chuckle in undertones to the pianissimo

tapping of boomerangs and the beating of resonant logs. In strict time,

to a crescendo accompaniment, the performers throw out their arms,

extend their necks downward and upward, simultaneously utter squawks in

imitation of the bird, and finally whirl about, flapping their arms,

ceasing instantly by a common impulse. The ballet is modelled in

accordance with a study of Nature.

The corrobboree of the Princess Charlotte Bay boys also owes its origin

to Nature, but Nature in one of her most unpoetical moods--a mood as

typical of Constantinople as of their native shores, for its motive is

nothing more than an everyday dogfight.

Shall the uncultured blacks not have their own way when they seek

entertainment, holding "as it were the mirror up to Nature," and finding

that it reflects the commonest of all themes? They among all the nations

of the world alone have discovered what to them is music and the poetry

of motion in an occurrence that has no geographical limitations, is not

restricted by language, nor to be withered by age.

While the orchestra taps its boomerangs and claps its hands and grunts,

two boys in mere nature progress towards the fire in a series of stiff,

stilty jumps, the legs from the hips to the ankles being rigid; then the

knees shake in a rapid succession of spasmodic jerks; the actors emit

sounds resembling the preliminary growling and snarling of a couple of

angry dogs. Action and utterance develop in speed and time as the fight

begins in earnest, and the art of the performance consists in its

duration--the powers of sustained effort, the accuracy of time maintained

between the orchestra and the actors, and the fidelity to nature of the

vocal effects. A singularly uncouth subject for an opera or even a

ballet--the snarling, scuffling and snapping of quarrelsome dogs whose

fury is working up to a climax, and it soon becomes as monotonous to

unaccustomed ears as the masterpieces of some German composers to those

whose musical education is below the required standard; but the boys

will spend the best part of the long night in its unvarying repetition.

Once a variation did take place. "Yellowbelly" (pronounced decently

"Yellowby") danced first in the company of giggling "Peter;" and then

fat "Charley" and big "Johnny," shy "Mammeroo" and little deaf

"Antony," in turns, his body glistened with perspiration, and his eyes

sparkled with the joy of a phenomenal accomplishment. All beholders were

filled with wonder and gratification. It was Yellowby's night out. The

spirit of Terpsichore was upon him. His enthusiasm amounted to

exultation. He was astonishing not only the silent and subdued natives

of Dunk Island, but even his own familiar friends. Never had any seen

such a classic interpretation of the theme, such brilliant leg movement,

nor heard such realistic growling and snapping and intermittent yelps,

such muffled, sob-like inspirations. Yellowby danced as dances the

artist, so graphically interpreting the subject that the bewildered

orchestra forgot itself. All were borne away in spirit to the scene of

some far-off, familiar camp, where the scents of decayed fish and

turtle-bones, and of a multitude of uncleanly dogs commingled with the

bitter smoke of mangrove wood fires, where amid the yells of gins and

the screeches of piccaninnies and the walloping of men, two mangy curs

noisily wrestled. It brought home sweet home to each of the exiles, so

vividly that all sat still and transfixed, and as the last chord of the

orchestra "I trembled away into silence," Yellowby, panting and

sweating, gasped as he fell flat on the sand--"No good you fella

corrobboree like that fella, belonga me fella." But for the collapse of

the orchestra, due to his own inimitable art, he would have danced till

dawn.

A SONG WITHOUT WORDS

Mickie is a famous vocalist, although his repertoire is limited. He

sings lustily and with no little art, putting considerable expression

into his phrases, and ever and anon taking a sharp but studied rest to

increase his emphasis, when he will burst forth again with full-throated

ease. His masterpiece is not original. Indeed he claims no title to the

gifts of a composer. "Jacky," a Mackay boy, taught Mickie his

favourite romance, and it came to Jacky in a dream. Mickie explains--

"Cousin alonga that fella die. Jacky go to sleep. That fella dead man all

a same like debil-debil--come close up and tell 'em corrobboree close up

ear belonga Jacky."

"What that debil-debil say?"

Mickie--"No talk--that fella. Just tell 'em corrobboree. No talk."

It was just a song without words--the final phrases being three guttural

gasps, diluendo, which Mickie says represent the wail of the "debil-debil"

as he retires into the obscurity of spirit-land.

Mickie sings this song of inspiration most vigorously, when Jinny, his

portly spouse, comes to "wash 'em plate" in the evening, and she

explains with a fat chuckle--"Mickie corrobboree loud fella. He fright.

He think subpose he corrobboree blenty debil-debil no come up."

ORIGIN OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS

Blacks are students of natural events. The winds have their specific

titles, and they catalogue all the brighter and more conspicuous stars

and planets, while their astronomical legends are quaint and

entertaining.

According to Mickie, the Southern Cross is of earthly origin. He thus

"repeats the story of its birth."

"You see that fella. That one me call 'em dooey-dooey--all a same

shubel-nose shark, like that fella you bin shoot longa lagoon. Two

fella, more big, come close up behind dooey-dooey, two fella black boy.

Black boys bin fishing alonga reef close up alonga where red mark,

alonga Cape Marlow--you know. They bin sit down alonga canoe. Bi'mby

spear 'em that dooey-dooey--beeg fella, my word! That dooey-dooey when

catch 'em spear he go down quick, come up under canoe capsize 'em. Two

fella boy swim about long time by that reef; no catch 'em that canoe.

Swim; swim l-o-n-g way; no catch 'em beach; go outside; follow canoe all

time. One fella say--'Brother, where we now?' 'Long way yet. Swim more

far, brother.' Bi'mby two fella talk--'Where now, brother?' 'Long way

outside. Magnetic close up now. We two fella swim more long way. Bi'mby

catch 'em Barrier.' One fella catch 'em hand--'Come along, brother,

youn-me go outside.'

"Two fella boy swim-swim-swim. Go outside altogether; leave 'em Barrier

behind. Swim; finish; good bye; no come back! Swim where cloud catch

'em sea. Swim up-up-long way up! You see now. Sit down up there

altogether. Dooey-dooey first time; two fella boy come behind!"

Does not this stand comparison with that referred to by the SCIENTIFIC

AMERICAN in answering the question, "Why do you refer to the Great Bear

as feminine?" We must go back into the age of classical mythology for

the reason. It was known to the Egyptians, who called it hippopotamus.

The people of southern Europe saw in the same stars the more familiar

figure of a bear, and the legends which grew up around it were finally

given permanent shape by Ovid in his METAMORPHOSES. As he tells the

story, Callisto, an Arcadian nymph, was beloved by Jupiter. Juno, in

fierce anger, turned her into a bear, depriving her of speech that she

might not appeal to Jupiter. Her son, Arcas, while hunting, came upon

her, and failing to recognise her in her metamorphosed form, raised his

bow to shoot. Jupiter, moved by pity, prevented the matricide by

transforming the son into a bear, and took them both up to the heavens,

where they were placed among the constellations.

CROCODILE CATCHING

Though they have a wholesome dread of crocodiles generally, the blacks

of the Lower Tully River (some 5 miles down the coast) have, in a

limited circle, the reputation of indulging in the sport of catching

them for food. Natives of the locality tell me that the last occasion of

the death of a crocodile in the manner to be described was very many

years ago. Some would have you believe the practice is of common

occurrence. The story goes (though for its truth I do not vouch), that

having located a crocodile in a reach of the river when the tide has run

out, the blacks form a cordon across, and harry it by splashing the

water and maintaining a continuous commotion. The crocodile is poked out

of secluded nooks beside the bank and from under submerged logs, never

being allowed a moment's peace. When it is thoroughly cowed (and it is

an undoubted fact that crocodiles may be frightened into passiveness), a

rope of lawyer vine is passed round a convenient tree and held by half a

dozen boys, while a running noose is made on the other end. A daring

black dives into the water, and cautiously approaching the bewildered

creature, slips the noose over its head and backs away. Should he turn

his face, the blacks say the crocodile would immediately seize him. The

party on the bank hauls on the line, and in spite of protests and

struggling the game is landed, to be chopped and beaten to death with

tomahawks and nulla-nullas. Then follows a feast, the inevitable

surfeit, and the dire conclusion that crocodile as "tucker" is no good.

The flesh is said to be "All a same turtle. Little more hard fella!"

My investigations lead to the opinion that a crocodile was once caught

in the manner described, and that upon a single instance the proud feat

has been multiplied by the score.

SUICIDE BY CROCODILE