My Tropic Isle by E J Banfield

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MY TROPIC ISLE

BY

E. J. BANFIELD

AUTHOR OF "THE CONFESSIONS OF A BEACHCOMBER"

T. FISHER UNWIN

LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE
LEIPSIC: INSELSTRASSE 20

1911

TO

MY WIFE

"What dost thou in this World? The Wilderness
For thee is fittest place."

MILTON.

"Taught to live
The easiest way, nor with perplexing thoughts
To interrupt sweet life."

MILTON.

PREFACE

Much of the contents of this book was published in the NORTH QUEENSLAND
REGISTER, under the title of "Rural Homilies." Grateful acknowledgments
are due to the Editor for his frank goodwill in the abandonment of his
rights.

Also am I indebted to the Curator and Officers of the Australian Museum,
Sydney, and specially to Mr. Charles Hedley, F.L.S., for assistance in
the identification of specimens. Similarly I am thankful to Mr. J.
Douglas Ogilby, of Brisbane, and to Mr. A. J. Jukes-Browne, F.R.S.,
F.G.S., of Torquay (England).

THE AUTHOR.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER.

I. IN THE BEGINNING
II. A PLAIN MAN'S PHILOSOPHY
III. MUCH RICHES IN A LITTLE ROOM
IV. SILENCES
V. FRUITS AND SCENTS
VI. HIS MAJESTY THE SUN
VII. A TROPIC NIGHT
VIII. READING TO MUSIC
IX. BIRTH AND BREAKING OF CHRISTMAS
X. THE SPORT OF FATE
XI. FIGHT TO A FINISH
XII. SEA WORMS AND SEA CUCUMBERS
XIII. SOME MARINE NOVELTIES
XIV. SOME CURIOUS BIVALVES
XV. BARRIER REEF CRABS
XVI. THE BLOCKADE OF THE MULLET
XVII. WET SEASON DAYS
XVIII. INSECT WAYS
XIX. INTELLIGENT BIRDS
XX SWIFTS AND EAGLES
XXI. SOCIALISTIC BIRDS
XXII. SHARKS AND RAYS
XXIII. THE RECLUSE OF RATTLESNAKE
XXIV. HAMED OF JEDDAH
XXV. YOUNG BARBARIANS AT PLAY
XXVI. TOM AND HIS CONCERNS
XXVII. DEBILS-DEBILS
XXVIII. TO PARADISE AND BACK
XXIX. THE DEATH BONE

ILLUSTRATIONS
(Not included in this eBook)

"AT ONE STRIDE COMES THE DARK"
Photo by Caroline Hordern
COCONUT AVENUE
Photo by Caroline Hordern
THE BUNGALOW
FERN OF GOD
PARASITIC FERN
THE COVE, PURTABOI
BRAMMO BAY, FROM GARDEN
PANDANUS PALM
PECTINARIAN TUBES
CLAM SHELL (Tridaena gigas) EMBEDDED IN CORAL
FIRE FISH (Pterois lunulata).
TRIGGER FISH (Balistapus aculeatus)
CORALS
EGG CAPSULES OF BAILER SHELL
DEVELOPMENT OF BAILER SHELL
EGG CAPSULES OF MOLLOSC, ATTACHED TO FAN CORAL
HARLEQUIN PIGFISH (Kiphocheilus fasciatus)
"FAERY LANDS FORLORN," TIMANA.
NEST OF GREEN TREE ANT
MATCH-BOX BEANS
PALL-KOO-LOO
WHERE SWIFTLETS BUILD
SWIFTLETS' NESTS
H. Barnes, Jun., Photo. Australian Museum
UMBRELLA TREE (Brassaia actinophylla)
Photo by Caroline Hordern
HAMED OF JEDDAH
BLACKS' TOYS--1. PIAR-PIAR; 2. BIRRA-BIRRA-GOO; 3. PAR-GIR-AH
TURTLE ROCK, PURTABOI
DISGUISES OF CRABS
WYLO DEFIANT
THE DEATH BONE
YANCOO'S LAST RITE

MY TROPIC ISLE

CHAPTER I

IN THE BEGINNING

Had I a plantation of this Isle, my lord--

* * * * *

I' the Commonwealth I would by contraries
Execute all things; for no kind of traffic
Would I admit . . . riches, poverty
And use of service, none.

SHAKESPEARE

How quaint seems the demand for details of life on this Isle of Scent and
Silence! Lolling in shade and quietude, was I guilty of indiscretion when
I babbled of my serene affairs, and is the penalty so soon enforced? Can
the record of such a narrow, compressed existence be anything but dull?
Can one who is indifferent to the decrees of constituted society; who is
aloof from popular prejudices; who cares not for the gaieties of the
crowd or the vagaries of fashion; who does not dance or sing, or drink to
toasts, or habitually make any loud noise, or play cards or billiards, or
attend garden parties; who has no political ambitions; who is not a
painter, or a musician, or a man of science; whose palate is as averse
from ardent spirits as from physic; who is denied the all-redeeming vice
of teetotalism; who cannot smoke even a pipe of peace; who is a casual, a
nonentity a scout on the van of civilisation dallying with the universal
enemy, time--can such a one, so forlorn of popular attributes, so weak
and watery in his tastes, have aught to recite harmonious to the, ear of
the world?

Yet, since my life--and in the use, of the possessive pronoun here and
elsewhere, let it signify also the life of my life-partner--is beyond the
range of ordinary experience, since it is immune from the ferments which
seethe and muddle the lives of the many, I am assured that a familiar
record will not be deemed egotistical, I am scolded because I did not
confess with greater zeal, I am bidden to my pen again.

An attempt to fulfil the wishes of critics is confronted with risk. Cosy
in my security, distance an adequate defence, why should I rush into the
glare of perilous publicity? Here is an unpolluted Isle, without history,
without any sort of fame. There come to it ordinary folk of sober
understanding and well-disciplined ideas and tastes, who pass their lives
without disturbing primeval silences or insulting the free air with the
flapping of any ostentatious flag. Their doings are not romantic, or
comic, or tragic, or heroic; they have no formula for the solution of
social problems, no sour vexations to be sweetened, no grievance against
society, no pet creed to dandle. What is to be said of the doings of such
prosaic folk--folk who have merely set themselves free from restraint
that they might follow their own fancies without hurry and without
hindrance?

Moreover, if anything be more tedious than a twice-told tale, is it not
the repetition of one half told? Since a demand is made for more complete
details than were given in my "Confessions," either I must recapitulate,
or, smiling, put the question by. It is simplicity itself to smile, and
can there be anything more gracious or becoming? Who would not rather do
so than attempt with perplexed brow a delicate, if not difficult, duty?

I propose, therefore, to hastily fill in a few blanks in my previous
sketch of our island career and to pass on to features of novelty and
interest--vignettes of certain natural and unobtrusive features of the
locality, first-hand and artless.

This, then, is for candour. Studiously I had evaded whensoever possible
the intrusion of self, for do not I rank myself among the nonentities--
men whose lives matter nothing, whose deaths none need deplore. How
great my bewilderment to find that my efforts at concealment--to make
myself even more remote than my Island--had had by impish perversity a
contrary effect! On no consideration shall I part with all my secrets.
Bereave me of my illusions and I am bereft, for they are "the stardust I
have clutched."

One confessedly envious critic did chide because of the calculated
non-presentation of a picture of our humble bungalow. So small a pleasure
it would be sinful to deny. He shall have it, and also a picture of the
one-roomed cedar hut in which we lived prior to the building of the house
of comfort.

Who could dignify with gilding our utterly respectable, our limp history?
There is no margin to it for erudite annotations. Unromantic,
unsensational, yet was the actual beginning emphasis by the thud of a
bullet. To that noisy start of our quiet life I meander to ensure
chronological exactitude.

In September of the year 1896 with a small par of friends we camped on
the beach of this Island--the most fascinating, the most desirable on the
coast of North Queensland.

Having for several years contemplated a life of seclusion in the bush,
and having sampled several attractive and more or less suitable scenes,
we were not long in concluding that here was the ideal spot. From that
moment it was ours. In comparison the sweetest of previous fancies became
vapid. Legal rights to a certain undefined area having been acquired in
the meantime, permanent settlement began on September 28, 1897.

For a couple of weeks thereafter we lived in tents, while with clumsy
haste--for experience had to, be acquired--we set about the building of a
hut of cedar, the parts of which were brought from civilisation ready for
assembling. Houses, however, stately or humble, in North Queensland, are
sacrificial to what are known popularly as "white ants" unless special
means are taken for their exclusion. Wooden buildings rest on piles sunk
in the ground, on the top of which is an excluder of galvanised iron in
shape resembling a milk dish inverted. It is also wise to take the
additional precaution of saturating each pile with an arsenical solution.
Being quite unfamiliar with the art of hut-building, and in a frail
physical state, I found the work perplexing and most laborious, simple
and light as it all was. Trees had to be felled and sawn into proper
lengths for piles, and holes sunk, and the piles adjusted to a uniform
level. With blistered and bleeding hands, aching muscles, and stiff
joints I persevered.

While we toiled our fare, simplicity itself, was eaten with becoming lack
of style in the shade of a bloodwood-tree, the tents being reserved for
sleeping. When the blacks could be spared, fish was easily obtainable,
and we also drew upon the scrub fowl and pigeon occasionally, for the
vaunting proclamation for the preservation of all birds had not been
made. Tinned meat and bread and jam formed the most frequent meals, for
there were hosts of simple, predestined things which had to be painfully
learned. But there was no repining. Two months' provisions had been
brought; the steamer called weekly, so that we did not contemplate
famine, though thriftiness was imperative. Nor did we anticipate making
any remarkable addition to our income, for the labour of my own hands,
however eager and elated my spirits, was, I am forced to deplore, of
little advantage. I could be very busy about nothing, and there were
blacks to feed, therefore did we hasten to prepare a small area of forest
land, and a still smaller patch of jungle for the cultivation of maize,
sweet potatoes, and vegetables. Fruit, being a passion and a hobby, was
given special encouragement and has been in the ascendant ever since, to
the detriment of other branches of cultural enterprise.

I have said that our Island career began with an explosion. To that
starting-point must I return if the narration of the tribulations our
youthful inexperience suffered is to be orderly and exact.

While we camped, holiday-making, the year prior to formal and rightful
occupancy, in a spasm of enthusiasm, which still endures, I selected the
actual site for a modest castle then and there built in the accommodating
air. It was something to have so palpable and rare a base for the
fanciful fabric. All in a moment, disdaining formality, and to the,
accompaniment of the polite jeers of two long-suffering friends, I
proclaimed "Here shall I live! On this spot shall stand the probationary
palace!" and so saying fired my rifle at a tree a few yard's off. But the
stolid tree--a bloodwood, all bone, toughened by death, a few ruby
crystals in sparse antra all that remained significant of past
life--afforded but meagre hospitality to the, soft lead.

"Ah!" exclaimed one of my chums, "the old tree foreswears him! The Island
refuses him!"

But the homely back gate swings over the charred stump of the boorish
tree burnt flush with the ground. Twelve months and a fortnight after the
firing of the shot which did not echo round the world, but was merely a
local defiant and emphatic promulgation of authority, a fire was set to
the base of the tree, for our tents had been pitched perilously close.
Space was wanted, and moreover its bony, imprecating arms, long since
bereft of beckoning fingers, menaced our safety. I said it must fall to
the north-east, for the ponderous inclination is in that direction, and
therein forestalled my experience and delivered the whole camp as
hostages into the hands of fortune.

In apparent defiance of the laws of gravity the tree fell in the middle
of the night with an earth-shaking crash to the south-east. There was no
apparent reason why it did not fall on our sleeping-tent and in one act
put an inglorious end to long-cogitated plans. Because some gracious
impulse gave the listless old tree a certain benign tilt, and because
sundry other happenings consequent upon a misunderstanding of the laws of
nature took exceptional though quite wayward turnings, I am still able to
hold a pen in the attempt to accomplish the task imposed by imperious
strangers.

And while on the subject of the clemency of trees, I am fain to dispose
of another adventure, since it, too, illustrates the brief interval
between the sunny this and the gloomy that. Fencing was in progress--a
fence designed to keep goats within bounds. Of course, the idea was
preposterous. One cannot by mere fencing exclude goats. The proof is
here. To provide posts for the vain project trees were felled, the butts
of which were reduced to due dimensions by splitting. A dead tree stood
on a slope, and with the little crosscut we attacked its base, cutting a
little more than half-way through. When a complementary cut had been made
on the other side, the tree, with a creak or two and a sign which ended
in "swoush," fell, and as it did so I stepped forward, remarking to the
taciturn black boy, "Clear cut, Paddy!" The words were on my lips when a
"waddy," torn from the vindictive tree and flung, high and straight into
the inoffensive sky, descended flat on the red stump with a gunlike
report. The swish of the waddy down-tilted the frayed brim of my
cherished hat!

The primary bullet is not yet done with, for when the tree which had
reluctantly housed it for a year was submitted to the fires of
destruction among the charcoal a blob of bright lead confirmed my
scarcely credited story that the year before the datum for our castle,
then aerial and now substantial, had been established in ponderous metal.

What justification existed for the defacement of the virginal scene by an
unlovely dwelling--the, imposition of a scar on the unspotted landscape?
None, save that the arrogant intruder needed shelter, and that he was
neither a Diogenes to be content in a tub nor a Thoreau to find in boards
an endurable temporary substitute for blankets.

It was resolved that the shelter should by way of compensation be
unobtrusive, hidden in a wilderness of leaves. The sacrifice of those
trees unhaply in prior occupation of the site selected would be atoned
for by the creation of a modest garden of pleasant-hued shrubs and
fruit-trees and lines and groves of coconut-palms. My conscience at least
has been, or rather is being, appeased for the primary violation of the
scene, for trees perhaps, more beautiful, certainly more useful, stand
for those destroyed. The Isle suffers no gross disfigurement. Except for
a wayward garden and the most wilful plantation of tropical fruit-trees,
no change has been wrought for which the genius of the Isle need demand
satisfaction.

Though of scented cedar the hut was ceilingless. Resonant corrugated iron
and boards an inch thick intervened between us and the noisy tramplings
of the rain and heat of the sun. The only room accommodated some
primitive furniture, a bed being the denominating as well as the
essential feature. A little shambling structure of rough slabs and iron
walls contrived a double debt to pay--kitchen and dining-room.

From the doorsteps of the hut we landed on mother earth, for the verandas
were not floored. Everything was as homely and simple and inexpensive as
thought and thrift might contrive. Our desire to live in the open air
became almost compulsory, for though you fly from civilisation and its
thralls you cannot escape the social instincts of life. The hut became
the focus of life other than human. The scant hut-roof sheltered more
than ourselves.

On the narrow table, under cover of stray articles and papers, grey
bead-eyed geckoes craftily stalked moths and beetles and other fanatic
worshippers of flame as they hastened to sacrifice themselves to the
lamp. In the walls wasps built terra-cotta warehouses in which to store
the semi-animate carcasses of spiders and grubs; a solitary bee
constructed nondescript comb among the books, transforming a favourite
copy of "Lorna Doone" into a solid block. Bats, sharp-toothed, and with
pin-point eyes, swooped in at one door, quartered the roof with brisk
eagerness, and departed by the other.

Finding ample food and safe housing, bats soon became permanent lodgers.
For a time it was novel and not unpleasant to be conscious in the night
of their waftings, for they were actual checks upon the mosquitoes which
came to gorge themselves on our unsalted blood. But they increased so
rapidly that their presence became intolerable. The daring pioneer which
had happened during its nocturnal expeditions to discover the very
paradise for the species proclaimed the glad tidings, and relatives,
companions, and friends flocked hither, placing themselves under our
protection with contented cheepings. Though the room became mosquitoless,
serious objections to the scavengers developed. Before a writ of ejection
could be enforced, however, a sensational cause for summary proceedings
arose.

In the dimness of early morning when errant bats flitted home to cling to
the ridge-pole, squeaking and fussy flutterings denoted unwonted
disturbance. Daylight revealed a half concealed, sleeping snake, which
seemed to be afflicted with twin tumours. A long stick dislodged the
intruder, which scarce had reached the floor ere it died violent death.
Even the snake spectre did no seriously affright the remaining bats,
though it confirmed the sentence of their immediate banishment. In the
eye of the bats the sanctuary of the roof with an odd snake or two was
preferable to inclement hollow branches open to the raids of
undisciplined snakes. Definite sanitary reasons, supplemented by the fact
that where bats are there will the snakes be gathered together, and a
pious repugnance to snakes as lodgers, made the casting out of the bats a
joyful duty.

So we lived, more out of the hut than in it, from October, 1897, until
Christmas Day, 1903. We find the bungalow, though it, too, has no
ceiling, much more to our convenience, for the hut has become crowded. It
could no longer contain our content and the portable property which
became caught in its vortex.

In the designing of the bungalow two essentials were supreme, cost and
comfort--minimum of cost, maximum of comfort. Aught else was as nothing.
There was no alignment to obey, no rigid rules and regulations as to
style and material. The surroundings being our own, we had compassion on
them, neither offering them insult with pretentious prettiness nor
domineering over them with vain assumption and display. Low walls,
unaspiring roof, and sheltering veranda, so contrived as to create, not
tickling, fidgety draughts but smooth currents, "so full as seem asleep,"
to flush each room so sweetly and softly that no perceptible difference
between the air under the roof and of the forest is at any time
perceptible.

Since the kitchen (as necessary here as elsewhere) is not only of my own
design but nearly every part of the construction absolutely the work of
my unaided, inexperienced hands, I shall describe it in detail--not
because it presents features provocative of pride, but because the ideas
it embodies may be worth the consideration of others similarly situated
who want a substantial, smokeless, dry, convenient appurtenance to their
dwelling. Two contrary conditions had to be considered--the hostility of
white ants to buildings of wood, and the necessity for raising the floor
but slightly above the level of the ground.

A bloodwood-tree, tall, straight, and slim, was felled. It provided three
logs--two each 15 feet long and one 13 feet. From another tree another
13-foot log was sawn. All the sapwood was adzed off; the ends were
"checked" so that they would interlock. Far too weighty to lift, the logs
were toilfully transported inch by inch on rollers with a crowbar as a
lever. Duly packed up with stones and levelled, they formed the
foundations, but prior to setting them a bed of home-made asphalt
(boiling tar and seashore sand) was spread on the ground where they were
destined to lie. Having adjusted each in its due position, I adzed the
upper faces and cut a series of mortices for the studs, which were
obtained in the bush--mere thin, straight, dry trees which had succumbed
to bush fires. Each was roughly squared with the adze and planed and
tenoned.

Good fortune presented, greatly to the easement of labour, two splendid
pieces of driftwood for posts for one of the doors. To the sea also I was
indebted for long pieces to serve as wall plates, one being the jibboom
of what must have been a sturdily-built boat, while the broken mast of a
cutter fitted in splendidly as a ridge-pole. For the walls I visited an
old bean-tree log in the jungle, cut off blocks in suitable lengths, and
split them with maul and wedges into rough slabs, roughly adzed away
superfluous thickness, and carried them one by one to the brink of the
canyon, down which I cast them. Then each had to be carried up the steep
side and on to the site, the distance from the log in the jungle being
about three hundred yards.

Within the skeleton of the building I improvised a rough bench, upon
which the slabs were dressed with the plane and the edges bevelled so
that each would fit on the other to the exclusion of the rain. Upon the
uprights I nailed inch slats perpendicularly, against which the slabs
were placed, each being held in place temporarily until the panel was
complete, when other slats retained them. The rafters were manipulated of
odd sorts of timber and the roof of second-used corrugated iron, the
previous nail holes being stopped with solder. A roomy recess with a
beaten clay floor was provided for the cooking stove. Each of the two
doors was made in horizontal halves, with a hinged fanlight over the
lintel, and the window spaces filled with wooden shutters, hinged from
the top. The floor (an important feature) is of asphalt on a foundation
of earth and charcoal solidly compressed. But before carting in the
material boards were placed temporarily edgeways alongside the bedlogs
round the interior. Then when the earthen foundation was complete the
boards were removed, leaving a space of about an inch, which was filled
with asphalt, well rammed, consistently with the whole of the floor
space.

All this laborious work--performed conscientiously to the best of my
ability--occupied a long time, and from it originated much backache and
general fatigue, and at the end I found that I had been so absorbed in
the permanence rather than the appearance of the dwelling that one of the
corner posts was out of the perpendicular and that consequently the
building stood awry. Grace of style it cannot claim; but neither "white
ants" nor weather trouble it.

And to what sweet uses has adversity made us familiar! When I bought a
boat to bring hither I knew not the distinguishing term of a single
halyard, save the "topping lift," and even that scant knowledge was idle,
for I was blankly ignorant of the place and purpose of the oddly-named
rope. Necessity drove me to the acquirement of boat sense, and now I
manage my home-built "flattie"--mean substitute for the neat yacht which
necessity compelled me to part with--very courageously in ordinary
weather; and I am content to stay at home when Neptune is frothy at the
lips.

A preponderant part of the furniture of our abode is the work of my own
unskilled hands--tables, chairs, bookshelves, cupboards, &c. There is
much pleasure and there are also, many aches and pains in the designing
and fashioning serviceable chairs from odd kinds of bush timber.

In the making of a chair, as in the building of a boat by one who has had
no training in any branch of carpentry, there is scope for the personal
element. Though the parts have been cut and trimmed with minute care and
all possible precision, each, according to requirements, being the
duplicate of the other, when they come to be assembled obstructive
obstinacy prevails. One of the most fiendish things the art of man
contrives is a chair out of the routine design made by a rule-of-thumb
carpenter. Grotesque in its deformities, you must needs pity your own
mishandling of the obstinate wood. Have you courage to smile at the
misshapen handiwork, or do you cowardly, discard the deformity you have
created? How it grunts and groans as pressure is applied to its stubborn
bent limbs! Curvature of the spine is the least of its ills. It limps and
creaks when fixed tentatively for trial. Tender-footed, it stands awry,
heaving one leg aloft--as crooked and as perverse as Caliban. In good
time, botching here, violent constraint there, the chair finds itself or
is forced so to do, for he is a weak man who is not stronger than his own
chair. So, after many days' intense toil--toil which even troubled the
night watches, for have I not lain awake with thoughts automatically
concentrated on a seemingly impossible problem, plotting by what illicit
and awful torture it might be possible for the tough and stubborn parts
to be brought into juxtaposition--there is a chair--a solid, sitable
chair, which neither squeaks, nor shuffles, nor shivers. May be you are
ashamed at the quantity of mind the dull article of furniture has
absorbed; but there are other reflections--homely as well as philosophic.

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