Tropic Days by E. J. Banfield

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Produced by Col Choat

TROPIC DAYS (1918)

BY

E. J. BANFIELD

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

"Peace and silence. . . combined with the large liberties of nature."

De Quincey

TO

MY BROTHER BEACHCOMBERS;
Professing, Practising

AUTHOR'S NOTE

In my previous books the endeavour was to give exact if prosaic details
of life on an island off the coast of North Queensland on which a few of
the original inhabitants preserved their uncontaminated ways. Here is
presented another instalment of sketches of a quiet scene. Again an
attempt is made to describe--not as ethnological specimens, but as men and
women--types of a crude race in ordinary habit as they live, though not
without a tint of imagination to embolden the better truths.

I thankfully acknowledge indebtedness to my friends Mr. Charles Hedley,
of the Australian Museum (Sydney); Dr. R. Hamlyn-Harris, Director of the
Queensland Museum; and Mr. Dodd S. Clarke, of Townsville, N.Q., for
valuable aid in the preparation of my notes for publication.

DUNK ISLAND.

CONTENTS

PART I--SUN DAYS.

IN IDLE MOMENT
ETERNAL SUNSHINE
FRAGRANCE AND FRUIT
THE SCENE-SHIFTER
BRACE PLANTS
SHADOWS
"SMILING MORN"
ANCESTRAL SHADE
QUIET WATERS
"THE LOWING HERD"
BABBLING BEACHES
THE LOST ISLE

PART II--THE PASSING RACE.

THE CORROBOREE
THE CANOE-MAKER
TWO LADIES--NELLY, THE SHREW; MARIA DANCES
SOOSIE
BLUE SHIRT
THE FORGOTTEN DEAD
EAGLE'S-NEST FLOAT
NATURE IN RETALIATION
"STAR RUN ABOUT"
BLACKS AS FISHERMEN
HOOKS
NARCOTICS AND POISONS
FLY-FISHING

PART III--MISCELLANEA.

PEARLS
WHAT IS A PEARL?
A PEARL IN THE MAKING
STRANGE PEARLS
PEARLS AND HIGH TRAGEDY
SNAKE AND FROG PRATTLE
THE BUSH TRACK
THE LITTLE BROWN MAN
UP AND AWAY
"PASSETH ALL UNDERSTANDING"
TIME'S FINGER
THE SOUL WITHIN THE STONE

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

AT HOME ON THE TROPIC STRAND
"DEBIL-DEBIL"
NATURE'S PUZZLE: FIND THE BIRD
ORCHID (PHAIUS GRANDIFOLIUS)
ORCHID (BULBOPHYLLUM BAILEYI)
A SPIDER CRAB
A SPIDER CRAB DISGUISED
CASUARINAS
TOURNEFORTIA ARGENTA
MACARANGA TANARIUS
UMBRELLA TREE SHADOWS
SUN-SALUTED TREE FERNS
"THE LOWING HERD"
PERFECT HAPPINESS
GIGANTIC OYSTER (OSTREA CRISTA GALLI)
SANDSPIT SWIRL
GLOOM AND GLEAM
COWRIES
"SOOSIE'S" TYPE
TAPES
LEAF VARIATIONS (FICUS OPPOSITA) TYPICAL FORM RIGHT HAND TOP CORNER
TELLINA
A SHELL COLLECTION
TRITON
DOMESTIC DUTIES
PEARL-ENTOMBED FISH AND RACEMOSE PEARL
CATTIERS
PEARL-IMPRISONED CHITON
TWO STRANGE PEARLS
TWO BUBBLE SHELLS
PEARL JOSSES
WHITE APPLE (EUGENIA CORMIFLORA)
CYCADS
DESERTED
CYCAD AND PALMS
WIND-TORMENTED FIG-TREE
THE IDLE OCEAN

PART I--SUN DAYS

IN IDLE MOMENT

"'Are you not frequently idle?'
'Never, brother. When we are not engaged in our traffic we are
engaged in our relaxations.'"--BORROW.

On the smooth beaches and in the silent bush, where time is not regulated
by formalities or shackled by conventions, there delicious
lapses--fag-ends of the day to be utilised in a dreamy mood which
observes and accepts the happenings of Nature without disturbing the
shyest of her manifestations or permitting 'the-mind to dwell on any but
the vaguest speculations.

Such idle moments are mine. Let these pages tell of their occupation.

As the years pass it is proved that the administration of the affairs of
an island, the settled population of which is limited to three, involves
pleasant though exacting duties. It is a gainful government--not gainful
in the accepted sense, but in all that vitally matters--personal freedom,
absence of irksome regulations remindful of the street, liberty to enjoy
the mood of the moment and to commune with Nature in her most fascinating
aspects. Those who are out of touch with great and dusty events may, by
way of compensation, be the more sensitive to the processes of the
universe, which, though incessantly repeated, are blessed with recurrent
freshness.

The sun rises, travels across a cloudless sky, gleams on a sailless sea,
disappears behind purple mountains gilding their outline, and the day is
done. Not a single dust-speck has soiled sky or earth; not the faintest
echo of noisy labours disturbed the silences; not an alien sight has
intruded. What can there be in such a scene to exhilarate? Must not the
inhabitants vegetate dully after the style of their own bananas?
Actually the day has been all too brief for the accomplishment of
inevitable duties and to the complete enjoyment of all too alluring
relaxations.

Here is opportunity to patronise the sun, to revel in the companionship
of the sea, to confirm the usage of beaches, to admonish winds to
seemliness and secrecy, to approve good-tempered trees, to exchange
confidences with flowering plants, to claim the perfumed air, to rejoice
in the silence--

"Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach,
Which pries not to th' interior."

How oft is the confession that the fullest moments of life are achieved
when I roam the beaches with little more in the way of raiment than
sunburn and naught in hand save the leaves of some strange, sand-loving
plant? Then is it that the individual is magnified. The sun salutes. The
wind fans. The sea sighs a love melody. The caressing sand takes print of
my foot alone. All the world might be mine, for none is present to
dispute possession. The sailless sea smiles in ripples, and strews its
verge with treasures for my acceptance. The sky's purity enriches my
soul. Shall I not joy therein?

Though he may be unable to attain those moments of irresistible intuition
which came to Amiel, when a man feels himself great like the universe and
calm like a god, one may thrill with love and admiration for Nature
without resigning sense of superiority over all other of her works or
abating one jot of justifiable pride.

Even in tropical Queensland there is a sense of revivification during the
last half of August and first of September, and the soul of man responds
thereto, as do plants and birds, in lawful manner. Perhaps it is that the
alien dweller in lands of the sun, when he frisks mentally and physically
at this sprightly season, is merely obeying an imperative characteristic
bred into him during untold generations when the winter was cruelly real
and spring a joyful release from cold and distress. The cause may be
slight, but there is none to doubt the actual awakening, for it is
persuasive and irresistible.

The lemon-trees are discarding the burden of superfluous fruit with
almost immoderate haste, for the gentle flowers must have their day.
Pomeloes have put forth new growth a yard long in less than a fortnight,
and are preparing a bridal array of blooms such as will make birds and
butterflies frantic with admiration and perfume the scene for the compass
of a mile. The buff-and-yellow sprays of the mango attract millions of
humming insects, great and small. Most of the orchids are in full flower,
the coral-trees glow, the castanospermum is full of bud, loose bunches of
white fruit decorate the creeping palms, and the sunflower-tree is
blotched with gold in masses. The birds make declaration of attachment
for the season.

Great trees, amorous birds, frail insects, perceive the subtle influence
of the season, and shall not coarse-fibred man rejoice, though there be
little or nothing to which he may point as special evidence of
inspiration? He may feel the indefinable without comprehending any
material reason why. He may confess, although there is but a trifle more
sunshine than a month ago--and what influence a trifle where there is so
much--and scarcely any difference of temperature, that Nature is insisting
on obedience to one of her mighty laws--the law of heredity. Why,
therefore, refrain from justifying the allusion? Why persist in
declining the invitations of the hour? Far be it from me to do so. Is
sufferance the cognizance of this Free Isle?

All my days are Days of the Sun. All my days are holy. Duty may suggest
the propriety of contentment within four walls. Inclination and the
thrill of the season lure me to gloat over the more manifest of its
magic. Be sure that, unabashed and impenitent, shall I riot over sordid
industry during the most gracious time of year to hearken to the
eloquence and accept the teachings of unpeopled spaces.

Such is the silence of the bush that the silken rustle of the butterflies
becomes audible and the distinctive flight of birds is recognised--not
alone such exaggerated differences as the whirr of quail, the bustle of
scrub fowl, and the whistle and clacking of nutmeg pigeons, but the
delicate and tender characteristics of the wing notes of the meeker kinds
of doves and the honey-eaters, and also the calculated flutterings of the
fly-catchers. In the whistling swoop of the grey goshawk there is a note
of ominous blood-thirstiness, silent though the destroyer has sat
awaiting the moment for swift and decisive action.

Seldom, even on the stillest evening, may the presence of the night-jar
be detected, except by its coarse call, while the sprightly little
sun-bird flits hither and thither, prodigal of its vivid colours and
joying with machine-like whirring. The sun-bird exemplifies the
brightness of the day. All its activities are bold and conspicuous. Aptly
named, it has nothing to hide, no deeds which will not withstand the
scrutiny of the vividest rays.

To work out its destiny the night-jar depends on secret doings and on
flight soft as a falling leaf. It is a bird of the twilight and night.
Startled from brooding over its eggs or yet dependent chicks, it is
ghost-like in its flittings and disappearances. In broad daylight it
moves from its resting-place as a leaf blown by an erratic and sudden
puff, and vanishes as it touches the sheltering bosom of Mother Earth.
Mark the spot of its vanishment and approach never so cautiously, and you
see naught. Peer about and from your very feet that which had been deemed
to be a shred of bark rises and is wafted away again by a phantom zephyr.

The chick which the parent bird has hidden remains a puzzle. It moves
not, it may not blink. Its crafty parent has so nibbled and frayed the
edges of the decaying brown leaves among which it nestles that it has
become absorbed in the scene. There is nothing to distinguish between the
leaf-like feathers and the feather-like leaves. The instinct of the bird
has blotted itself out. It is there, but invisible, and to be discovered
only by the critical inspection of every inch of its environment. You
have found it; but not for minutes after its instinct has warned it to
possess its soul calmly and not to be afraid. So firm is its purpose that
if inadvertently you put your foot on its tender body it would not move
or utter cry. All its faculties are concentrated on impassiveness, and
thus does Nature guard its weakest and most helpless offspring.

While you ponder on the wonderful faith of the tiny creature which
suffers handling without resistance, the shred of bark, driven by the
imperceptible zephyr, falls a few yards away, and in an agony of anxiety
utters an imploring purr, or was it an imprecation? That half purr, half
hiss has been the only sound of the episode. It is a warning to be gone
and leave Nature to her secrets and silences.

A month's abstinence may not be a very severe penance for an island
on which the rainfall averages 124 inches per year; but when vegetation
suffers from the cruelty of four almost rainless months, promises and
slights amount to something more than mere discourtesy. How genuine the
thanksgiving to the soft skies after an incense-stimulating shower.
Insects whirl in the sunshine. Among the pomelo-trees is a cyclone of
scarcely visible things. Motes and specks of light dance in disorderly
figures, to be detected as animated objects only by gauzy wings catching
the light and reflecting it. Each insect, wakened but an hour ago by the
warmth of the moist soil, in an abandonment of the moment, is a
helioscope transmitting signals of pure pleasure. Drops still linger on
myriads of leaves, and glitter on the glorious gold of the Chinese
laburnum; the air is saturated with rich scents, and the frolicking
crowd, invisible but for the oblique light, does not dream of disaster.
Their crowded hour has attracted other eyes, appreciative in another
sense. Masked wood-swallows, swiftlets, spangled drongos, leaden
fly-eaters, barred-shouldered fly-eaters, hurry to the circus to desolate
it with hungry swoops. The assemblage is noisy, for two or three drongos
cannot meet without making a clatter on the subject of the moment. They
cannot sing, but clink and jangle with as much intensity and individual
satisfaction as if gifted with peerless note. It is the height of the
season, and a newly matched pair, satisfied with an ample meal, sit side
by side on a branch to tell of their love, and in language which, though
it may lack tunefulness, has the outstanding quality of enthusiasm. But
why waste clamorous love-notes on a world busy with breakfast? The
sportful, tail-flicking dandy flits and alights so that he may address
himself solely to his delighted and accepting spouse, peering into her
reddish eyes the while, and in ecstasy proclaiming, in tones as loud and
unmusical as her own, that life overflows with joy when mutual admiration
surcharges the breast.

The noise stays a company of metallic starlings in headlong flight from
the nest-laden tree in the forest to the many-fruited jungle. Though they
most conscientiously search the fronds of coco-nut palms for
insignificant grubs and caterpillars, starlings do not hawk for insects.
Held up by the excitement--for by this time other birds have darted to the
feast--the starlings alight among the plumes of the laburnum,
interrogating in acidulous tones, their black, burnished, iridescent
feathers and flame-hued eyes making a picture of rare vividness and
beauty.

How thin becomes the throng! Last night's shower, the morning warmth of
the soil, have brought forth a gush of life that wheels and sparkles in
the sun and becomes bait for birds. Are droughts designed by Nature to
test endurance on the part of animal and vegetable life? Leaves fall from
evergreen trees almost as completely as from the deciduous, and even the
jungle is thickly strewn, while every slight hollow is filled with
brittle debris where usually leaves are limp with dampness and mould. The
jungle has lost, too, its rich, moist odours. Whiffs of the pleasant
earthy smell, telling of the decay of clean vegetable refuse, do issue
in the early morning and after sundown; but while the sun is searching
out all the privacies of the once dim area, the wholesome fragrance
does not exist.

Drought proves that certain species of exotic plants are hardier than
natives. Wattles suffer more than mangoes, and citrus fruits have powers
of endurance equal to eucalyptus. Whence does the banana obtain the
liquid which flows from severed stem and drips from the cut bunch? Dig
into the soil and no trace of even dampness is there; but rather parched
soil and unnatural warmth, almost heat. Heat and moisture are the
elements which enable one of the most succulent of plants to bear a bunch
of fruit luscious and refreshing, and when heat alone prevails, the
wonder is that the whole patch of luxuriant greenness does not collapse
and wither. But the broad leaves woo the cool night airs, and while the
thin, harsh, tough foliage of the wattles becomes languid and droops and
falls, the banana grove retains its verdancy, each plant a reservoir of
sap.

A noteworthy feature of the botany of the coast of tropical Queensland is
its alliance with the Malayan Archipelago and India. Most of the related
plants do not occur in those parts closest to other equatorial regions in
the geographical sense, but in localities in which climate and physical
conditions are similar. Probably there are more affinities in the coastal
strip of which this isle is typical than in all the rest of the continent
of Australia. One prominent example may be mentioned-viz., "the
marking-nut tree." When the distinctiveness of the botany of the southern
portions of Australia from that of the old country began to impress
itself on the earliest settlers, the miscalled native cherry was the very
first on the list of reversals. The good folks at home were told
that the seeds of the Australian cherry "grow on the outside." The
fruit of the cashew or marking-nut tree betrays a similar feature
in more pronounced fashion. The fruit is really the thickened,
succulent stalk of the kidney-shaped nut. The tint of the fruit
being attractive, unsophisticated children eat of it and earn
scalded lips and swollen tongues, while their clothing is stained
indelibly by the juice. Botanists know the handsome tree as SEMECARPUS
AUSTRALIENSIS, but by the indignant parent of the child with tearful and
distorted features and ruined raiment it is offensively called the
"tar-tree," and is subject to shrill denunciations. The fleshy stalk
beneath the fruit is, however, quite wholesome either raw or cooked, but
the oily pericarp contains a caustic principle actually poisonous, so
that unwary children would of a certainty eat the worst part. The tree,
which belongs to the same order as the mango, has a limited range, and
there are those who would like to see it exterminated, forgetful that in
other parts of the world the edible parts are enjoyed, and also that a
valuable means to the identification of linen is manufactured from it. A
tree that is ornamental, that provides dense shade, that bears pretty
and strange fruit, an edible part, and provides an economic principle, is
not to be condemned off-hand because of one blot on its character.

An Indian representative of the genera produces a nut which when roasted
is highly relished, though dubiously known as the coffin-nail or
promotion nut, but there is no reason to believe that it is specially
indigestible unless eaten in immoderate quantity.

One of the many bewilderments of botany is that plants of one family
exhibit characteristics and habits so divergent that the casual observer
fails to recognise the least signs of relationship. Similar confusion
arises in the case of plants of the same species producing foliage of
varied form. One of the figs (FICUS OPPOSITA) displays such remarkable
inconsistency that until reassured by many examples it is difficult to
credit an undoubted fact. The typical leaf is oblong elliptical, while
individual plants produce lanceolate leaves with two short lateral lobes,
with many intermediate forms. As the plant develops, the abnormal forms
tend to disappear, though mature plants occasionally retain them. There
seems to exist correlation between foliage and fruit, for branches
exhibiting leaves with never so slight a variation from the type are,
according to local observation, invariably barren. The leaves, which,
when young, are densely hairy on the underside, on maturity become so
rough and coarse that they are used by the blacks as a substitute for
sandpaper in the smoothing of weapons. The fruit is small, dark purple
when ripe, sweet, but rough to the palate.

During the fulness of the wet season, a diminutive orchid, the roots,
tuber, leaf, and flower of which may be easily covered by the glass of a
lady's watch, springs upon exposed shoulders of the hills. So far it has
not been recorded for any other part of Australia, or, indeed, the world.
Science has bestowed upon it the title of CORYSANTHES FIMBRIATA, for it
is all too retiring of disposition to demand of man a familiar name.
Probably it may be quite common in similar localities, but its size, its
brief periodicity, and inconspicuousness, contribute to make it, at
present, one of the rarities of botany. Beneath a kidney-shaped leaf a
tiny, solitary, hooded, purple flower shelters with becoming modesty, the
art of concealment being so delicately employed that it seems to preserve
its virginal purity. There is proof, however, that the flower does
possess some "secret virtue," for if the plant be immersed in glycerine
the preservative takes the hue of the flower. Nature having ordained that
the plants should be elusive, they appear in remote spots and unlikely
situations with foothold among loose and gritty fragments of rock, and
with cessation of the sustaining rains disappear, each having borne but a
single leaf and produced but a solitary flower. The leaf does not seem to
be attractive to insects, nor is the flower despoiled or the tuber
interfered with. The first dry day sears the plants, and succeeding days
shrivel them to dust and they vanish. What part in the great scheme of
Nature does the humble flower fulfil? Or is it merely a lowly decoration,
not designed to court the ardent gaze of the sun, but to brighten an
otherwise bare space of Mother Earth with a spot of fugitive purple?

Widely different are the ant-house plants, of which North Queensland has
two genera. One is purely an epiphyte, growing attached to a tree like
many of the orchids. In both genera the gouty stems are hollow, a feature
of which ants take advantage; they are merely occupiers, not the makers
of their homes. Few, if any, of the plants are uninhabited by a resentful
swarm, ready to attack whomsoever may presume to interfere with it. It is
discomposing to the uninitiated to find the curious "orchid," laboriously
wrenched from a tree, overflowing with stinging and pungent ants, nor is
he likely to reflect that the association between the plant and the
insect may be more than accidental.

Some of the commonest wattles exhibit singularity of foliage well worth
notice. Upon the germination of the seeds the primary leaves are pinnate.
After a brief period this pretty foliage is succeeded by a
boomerang-shaped growth, which prevails during life. Botanists do not
speak of such trees as possessing leaves, but "leaf-stalks dilated into
the form of a blade and usually with vertical edges, as in Australian
acacias." If one of these wattles is burnt to the ground, but yet retains
sufficient life to enable it to shoot from the charred stem, the new
growth will be of pinnate leaves, shortly to be abandoned for the
substitutes, which are of a form which checks transpiration and fits the
plant to survive in specially dry localities. Several of the species thus
equipped to withstand drought are extremely robust in districts where the
rainfall is prolific. There are no data available to support the theory
that such species in a wet district are more vigorous and attain larger
dimensions than representatives in drier and hotter localities. In her
distribution of the Australian national flower, Nature seems to be
"careless of the type," or rather regardless in respect of conditions of
climate.

Human beings, and occasionally animals lower in the scale, deviate
distressingly in their conduct from the general. Plants, too, though
lacking the organ of brain, are subject to aberrations of foliage
almost as fantastical as the mental bent which in man is displayed by the
sticking of straws in the hair. "Phyllomania" is the recognised term for
this waywardness. One of the trees of this locality, the raroo (CAREYA
AUSTRALIS), seems singularly prone to the infirmity, for without apparent
cause it abandons habitual ways and clothes its trunk and branches with
huge rosettes of small, slight, and ineffective leaves, evidence,
probably, of vital degeneration.

Among the beautiful trees of this Island there is one, PITHECOLOBIUM
PRUINOSUM, possessing features of attraction during successive phases of
growth. The young branches, foliage, and inflorescence, are coated with
minute silky hair, as if dusted with bronze of golden tint. The dense,
light, semi-drooping foliage produces a cloud-like effect, to which the
great masses of buff flowers add a delightful fleeciness, while the ripe
pods, much twisted and involved (to carry similitude as far as it may),
might be likened to dull lightning in thunderous vapour. The tree
flourishes in almost pure sand within a few yards of salt water, and,
being hardy and of clean habit, might well be used decoratively.

Standing with its feet awash at high tide, the huge fig-tree began life
as a parasite, the seed planted by a beak-cleaning bird in a crevice of
the bark of its forerunner. In time the host disappeared, embraced and
absorbed. Now the tree is a sturdy host. Another fig envelops some of its
branches, two umbrella-trees cling stubbornly to its sides, a pandanus
palm grows comfortably at the base of a limb, tons of staghorn,
bird's-nest, polypodium, and other epiphytal ferns, have licence to
flourish, orchids hang decoratively, and several shrubs spring aspiringly
among its roots. But the big tree still asserts its individuality. It is
the host, the others merely dependents or tenants. Most of the functions
of the tree are associated with the sea. Twice a year it studs its
branches with pink fruit, food for many weeks for a carnival of birds,
the relics of the feast dully carpeting the sand. Before the first
fruiting the old leaves fall, and for a brief interval the shadows of
branches and twigs, intricate, involved, erratic, might be likened to
unschooled scribblings, with here a flourish and there a blot and many a
boisterous smudge. Soon--it is merely a question of days--the swelling
buds displace millions of leaf-sheaves, pale green and fragile, which
fall and, curling in on themselves, redden, and again the yellow sand is
littered, while overhead fresh foliage, changing rapidly from golden,
glistening brown to rich dark green, makes one compact blotch. And when
the wind torments sea and forest, and branches bend and sway, and
creepers drift before it, the white blooms of the orchids, so light and
delicate that a sigh agitates them, might be "foam flakes torn from the
fringe of spray" and tossed aloft.

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