What is termed under the exceedingly liberal land laws of Queensland an agricultural homestead may comprise 160 acres, 320 acres, or 640 acres, in accordance with the cla.s.sification of the land as of first, second, or third quality. The selector must pay 2 shillings 6 pence per acre at the rate Of 3 pence per acre for ten years, and must reside continuously on the land. Five years are allowed for the completion of improvements--house, clearing, fencing, cultivation, etc., which in valuation must equal 10 shillings, 5 shillings, or 2 shillings 6 pence per acre respectively, according to the cla.s.sification of the land. At the end of the five years the selector may pay in a lump sum the second moiety of rent, making the total 2 shillings 6 pence per acre, and he is thereupon ent.i.tled to the issue of a deed of grant of the land in fee-simple. Otherwise payments may extend over the term of ten years, when the land becomes freehold. Briefly, for the sum Of 2 shillings 6 pence per acre distributed over ten years, in addition to a trifle for survey fees (also payable in easy instalments) and the construction of improvements equal in value to 2 shillings 6 pence per acre, the freehold of land unsurpa.s.sed in fertility in the whole world may be acquired. The selector may build his own hut and erect his fences of timber from his clearing, and the officials a.s.sess improvements on a liberal scale. Who would not be a landed proprietor under such terms? Other clauses of the Land Act are far more encouraging. Not only are payments held in abeyance until the selector is able to meet them out of his earnings from the land, but in special cases monetary a.s.sistance is afforded him. Literally the meekest of men may inherit the choicest part of the earth.
What has been said of the natural features of Dunk Island is applicable to the coastal tract extending, say, 300 miles, than which no land is more fertile. A very notable advantage is enjoyed here. Brammo Bay is but three or four minutes" steam from the track of vessels which make weekly trips up and down the coast, and by arrangements with the proprietary of one of the lines we have the boon of a regular weekly mail and of cheap carriage of supplies. Without this connecting link, life on the island would have been very different. The Companies running parallel lines of steamers, one skirting the coast and the other outside the islands in deep water, have done much to open up the wealth of the agricultural land of North Queensland. Trade follows the flag. Here the flag of the mercantile marine has frequently been first planted to demonstrate the certainty of trade.
Without apology, a few facts are submitted which utterly condemn the practicability of one department of island enterprise, and which possibly (without protest) may provide a reason for the placing of other branches of industry beyond the pale of recognition by those who devote every moment of time to, and make never-ending sacrifices of ease and health and comfort on behalf of, what folks term the main chance. When after some expenditure in the purchase of plant and material, and no little labour, the couple of beehives that formed the original stock of a project for the harvesting of the nectar which had hitherto gone to waste or been disposed of by unreflecting birds, had increased to a dozen, and honey of pleasant and varying flavour flowed from the separator at frequent intervals, hopes ran high of the earning of a modest profit from one of the cleanest, nicest, most entertaining and innoxious of pursuits.
No one who takes up bees and who studies their manners and methods can allow his admiration to remain dormant. It is not the fault of the bees if he does not become ashamed of himself in some respects; nor are they to blame if the wisest men fail quite to comprehend some of the wonders they perform. Only by those "who list with care extreme," are their gentle tones heard aright; and even from such are some secrets hidden.
How is it that an egg deposited by the queen-mother in a more than ordinarily capacious compartment hatches a grub, "just like any other,"
which grub, feasting upon the concentrated food stored within its cell, expands and lengthens and emerges an amber queen in all her glory?
Bee-keepers learn that the queen and the drones are the only perfect insects in the hive, the h.o.a.rd of willing, bustling slaves being females in a state of arrested development. Each worker might have been a queen but for the fact that environment and a special food were not vouchsafed in the embryonic stage. By making artificial queen-cells, which the workers provide for, men bring about the birth of queens at will. Not yet has the secret of the manufacture of royal jelly been revealed. But is it not the common belief that the s.p.a.cious compartment and the special food work the transformation of what otherwise would have been a brief-lifed toiler to an insect of majestic proportions, regal adornment and imperial instinct, whose wants are antic.i.p.ated and who has no duty to perform save that of increasing and multiplying her faithful subjects? Man controls the development of an insect. May not those who complain of the disparity between the births of females and males still listen to hope"s "flattering tale"? Such is one of the homilies of the hive.
Interest in bee-culture grows; and some of the habits of the insect came to be understood and, inevitably, admired, the while all convenient vessels available, even to the never-to-be-despised kerosene tins, were utilised to store the nectar garnered from myriads of blossoms. But as time pa.s.sed the fair prospects faded. Less and less quant.i.ties of honey were stored. The separator seldom buzzed with soothing melody as the honey, whirled from the dripping frames of combs, pattered against its resonant sides. Bees seemed less and less numerous. An air of idleness, almost dissoluteness and despair, brooded over some of the hives. The strong robbed the weak; and the weak contented themselves with gathering in listless groups, murmuring plaintively. If the hives were inquiringly tapped, instead of a furious and instant alarm and angry outpouring of excited and wrathful citizens, eager to sacrifice themselves in the defence of the rights of the commonwealth, there was merely a buzzing remonstrance, indicative of decreased population, weakness and disconsolation.
The cause of so great a change in the character and demeanour of citizens who erstwhile worked as honey carriers all day, and who during the hot, still nights did duty as animated ventilating fans to maintain a free circulation of air through the hive, had to be investigated. Soon it was revealed in the presence of two species of birds, the Australian bee-eater (MEROPS ORNATUS) and the white-rumped wood-swallow (ARTAMUS LEUCOGASTA). The former is one of the handsomest of the smaller birds of Australia, its chief colouring being varying shades of green with bronze-brown and black head and blue back; and to add to its appearance and pride two graceful feather-shafts of black protrude from the green and yellow of the tail. It travels in small companies of, say, from four and five to a couple of dozen, and in its flight occasionally seems to pause with wings and tail outspread, revealing all its charms. Fond it is, too, of perching on bare twigs commanding a wide survey, whence It darts with unerring precision to catch bees and other insects on the wing. If its prey takes unkindly to its fate, the bird batters it to death on its perch ere swallowing it with a twitter of satisfaction. The wood-swallow wears a becoming suit of soft pearly grey and white, to contrast with its black head and throat. It has a graceful, soaring flight and a cheerful chirrup. At certain seasons scores congregate on a branch, perching in a row, so closely compact that their b.r.e.a.s.t.s show as a continuous band of white. When one leaves his place to catch an insect, the others close up the ranks and dress the line, and on returning, wrangle and scold as he may, he needs must take an outside place. Let a bush fire be started, and flocks of wood-swallows whirl and circle along the flanks of the circling smoke, taking flying insects on the wing, or deftly pick "thin, high-elbowed creatures," scuttling up tree-trunks out of the way of the flames. Those were the marauders who confounded antic.i.p.ations of a comfortable livelihood in the decent calling of an apiarist. They devoured bees by the hundred every day. Every hive paid dreadful toll to them, for they found food so plentiful, and with so little exertion, that they made the vicinity of the hives a permanent abiding place. For a brief season I found myself confronted by a problem.
I had to apply my own favourite theories and arguments to myself and weigh against them practical advantages. Honey was plentiful and, given that the bees were protected against voracious enemies, might have been stored in marketable quant.i.ties. But was I not bound by honour as well as sentiment to protect the birds? Was not my coming hither due to a certain extent to a wish for the preservation of bird-life? Was there not in my presence an implied warranty to that effect? Had not the island since my occupancy become a sanctuary, a city of refuge, a safe abiding place, a kingdom where all the birds of the air--save tyrants and cannibals were welcomed with gladness and enthusiasm? Had I not warned others of the dreadful consequences that would befall any disturbance of the sacred air by so much as the unauthorised report of a gun? How then was I to deal out justice to the defenceless bees that I had hurried hither, w.i.l.l.y-nilly, without consideration of their likes and dislikes and their mult.i.tudinous descendants? How protect my investment in apiarist plant?
How maintain the stock of honey, white, golden and tawny brown, excellent, wholesome delicious food, and still preserve the natural rights, the privileges of the birds? Had not the birds the right of prior occupancy and other legitimate claims, in addition to sentimental demands upon my conscience? Not only, too were the birds beautiful to look upon and of engaging habits; not only had they become companionable and trustful; not only were they among the primeval features of the island that I was so eager to leave unspotted from the world; but they were eminently useful in the work of keeping within bounds the rampant host of insects to which mankind is in the habit of applying the term injurious.
It took no long time to make up my mind. Gladly came the determination to abandon the enterprise rather than do violence to the birds. Fortunately a kindly friend took the entire plant and the hives off my hands. We are the worse off in respect of honey; but we have the birds, and the thought comes that there are now hundreds of colonies of bees from the original stock, here and on the mainland, working out their own destinies. Had the enterprise been allowed to flourish, it would have been at the cost of the lives of hundreds of graceful birds; and hundreds of others that now merrily make so free would have been scared away. The money that would have been spent in cartridges is applied to the purchase of honey from foreign parts. No one is much the worse off. Indeed, my friend who purchased the stock is the richer by my abandonment of the calling, and am not I conscious of consistency?
So, these my vocations drift into the gentle and devious stream of inconsequence. It would be vain-glorious, no doubt, to a.s.sert that there is placid indifference to vain-glory, which Carlyle declares to be, with neediness and greediness, one of the besetting sins of mankind; but am I not free from the cares that obtrude on those of tougher texture of mind who find joy in the opposite to this peace and unconcern for the rewards and honours of the world? Better this isolation and moderation in all things than, racked with worries, to moan and fret because of non-success in the ceaseless struggle for riches, or the increase thereof; better than to bow down to and worship in the "soiled temple of Commercialism"
that haughty and supercilious old idol Mammon; better than to offer continual sacrifices of rest, health, and the immediate good of life to appease the exacting and silly deities of fashion and society.
There may be some who, in a disparaging tone, will at this stage of my confessions enter an accusation of impracticableness. To such a charge I would plead guilty; but to those who proffer it, I neither appeal, nor do I fear their judgment. These writings are for those who see something in life beyond the mere "getting on in world," or making a din in it.
CHAPTER II
BEACHCOMBING
"For the Beachcomber, when not a mere ruffian, is the poor relation of the artist."
In justification of the a.s.sumption of the t.i.tle of "Beachcomber," it must be said that, having made good and sufficient provision against the advent of the wet season (which begins, as a rule, during the Christmas holidays), the major portion of each week was spent in first formal and official calls, and then friendly and familiar visits to the neighbouring islands and the mainland.
Duty and inclination constrained me to find out what were the states and moods of all the bays and coves of all the isles; the location and form of rocks and reefs; the character of shrubs and trees; the nature of the jungle-covered hilltops; the features of bluffs and precipices; to understand the style and manner and the conversation of unfamiliar birds; to discover where the turtle most do congregate; the favourite haunts of fishes. I was in a hurry to partake freely of the novel, and yearned for pleasure of the absolute freedom of isles uninhabited, sh.o.r.es untrodden; eager to know how Nature, not under the microscope, behaved; what were her maiden fancies, what the art with which she allures.
But there was an excuse, rather an imperious command, for all the apparent waste of time. Before the rains came thundering on the iron roof of our little hut, the washed-out and enfeebled town dweller who gave way to bitter reflections on the first evening of his new career, could hardly have been recognised, thanks to the robustious, wholesome effects of the free and vitalising life. Fourteen, frequently sixteen, hours of the twenty-four were spent in the open air, ash.o.r.e and afloat.
What a glowing and absolutely authentic testimonial could be written as to the tonic influence of the misrepresented climate of the rainy belt of North Queensland on const.i.tutions that have run down? According to popular opinion, malaria ought to have discovered an exceptionally easy prey. Ague, if the expected had happened, should have gripped and shaken me until my teeth rattled; and after alternations of raging fever and arctic cold, I ought to have gone to my long home with the fearful shapes of delirium yelling in my ears. But there are places other than Judee where they do not know everything. At the fraction of the fee of a fashionable doctor, and of the cost of following his fashionable and pleasing advice--a change to one of the Southern States--in three months one of the compelling causes for the desertion of town life had been disposed of by agreeable processes. None of the bitter, after-taste of physic remained. I knew my island, and was on terms of friendly admiration--born of knowledge of beauty spots--with all the others. I had become a citizen of the universe.
During this period of utter abandonment of all serious claims upon time and exertion came the conviction that the career of the Beachcomber, the closest possible "return to Nature" now popularly advocated, has charms none other possesses. Then it was that the lotus-blossom was first eaten.
Unfettered by the laws of society, with the means at hand of acquiring the few necessaries of life that Nature in this generous part of her domain fails to provide readymade, a Beachcomber of virtuous instinct, and a due perception of the decency of things, may enjoy a happy life.
Should, however, he be of the type that demands a wreck or so every month to maintain his supplies of rum or gin, and other articles of his true religion, and is prepared if wrecks do not come with regularity, to a.s.sist tardy Nature by means of false lights on the sh.o.r.e, he will find no scope whatever among these orderly isles.
The Beachcomber of tradition parades his coral islet barefooted, bullying guileless natives out of their copra, coco-nut oil and pearl-sh.e.l.l; his chief diet, turtle and turtle eggs and fish; his drink, rum and coco-nut milk--the latter only when the former is impossible. When a wreck happens he becomes a potentate in pyjamas, and with his dusky wives, dressed in bright vest.i.ture, fares sumptuously. And though the ships from the isles do not meet to "pour the wealth of ocean in tribute at his feet," he can still "rush out of his lodgings and eat oysters in regular desperation."
A whack on his hardened head from the club of a jealous native is the time-honoured fate of the typical Beachcomber.
Flotsam and jetsam make another cla.s.s of Beachcomber by stimulating the gaming instincts. Is there a human being, taking part in the rough and tumble of the world, who can honestly make confession and say that he has completely suffocated those inherent instincts of savagedom--joy and patience in the chase, the longing for excitement and surprise, the crude selfishness, the delight in getting something for nothing? Society journals have informed me that t.i.tled dames have been known to sit out long and wearisome evenings that they may obtain some paltry favour in a cotillon. And when the sea casts up its gifts on these radiant sh.o.r.es, I boldly and with glee give way to my beachcombing instincts and pick and choose. Never ever up to the present have I found anything of real value; but am I not buoyed up by pious hopes and sanguine expectations? Is not the game as diverting and as innocent as many others that are played to greater profit? It is a game, too, that cannot be forced, and therefore cannot become demoralising; and having no nice feelings nor fine shades, I rejoice and am glad in it.
And then what strange and varied things one sees! Once a "harness-cask,"
hostile to every sense, came trundled by waves eager to expel it from the vicinity of these oxless but scented isles. It overcame us as we sailed by, 20 yards off, and the general necessity for temperate diet and restricted dishes came as a sweet and a comforting reflection. No marvel if the ship whence it was ejected was in bad odour among the sailors.
Leaving, as it lurched along, a greasy, foul stain on the sea, it may have poisoned mult.i.tudes of uncomplaining fishes during its evil course.
Occasionally a case of fruit, washed from the decks of a labouring steamer, drifts ash.o.r.e. One was the means of introducing a valuable addition to the products of the island. It gave demonstration of how man may unwittingly, and even in opposition to his wit, a.s.sist in scattering and multiplying blessings on a smiling land--blessings to last for all time, and perhaps to amend or ameliorate the environment of a budding nation.
Many years ago--in 1878, to speak precisely--a ship laden with fragrant cedar logs from the valley of the Daintree River--140 miles to the north-- touched on Kennedy Shoal, 20 miles to the south-east of Dunk Island.
Crippled though she was she managed to make Cardwell, where she was temporarily patched up, and whence she set sail for Melbourne. It was the critical month of March, and the MERCHANT--clumsy and c.u.mbersome, but a good and safe ship given ample sea-room--before sailing many miles on her course, was caught in the coils of a cyclone, the violence of which is well remembered by old residents on the coast to this day, and was lost with all hands. She is supposed to have struck on a reef to the southward of the Palm Islands, as the bulk of her cargo was cast ash.o.r.e in Ramsay Bay, Hinchinbrook Island. Portions of the wreckage were found on the Brook Islands; her figurehead--the spread eagle of the United States--and a seaman"s chest were picked up on the beach here. Her windla.s.s, with a child"s pinafore entangled with it--for the skipper had taken his wife and two children to bear him company--drifted on the South Franklands, 40 miles to the north, and a large portion of the shattered hulk on a reef eastward of Fitzroy Island, 25 miles still farther up the coast. Fate did her worst for the poor MERCHANT, and not yet content, relentlessly pursued two (if not more) of the vessels which sought to recover her cedar, strewn on the treacherous sands of Ramsay Bay. Some of the logs, however, drifted to our quiet coves, and portions remain sound to this day. One more promising and accessible we beachcombed. It provided planks for a punt, besides various articles of furniture, and gave me some most practical homilies on contentment. Having found and duly salvaged that log, it was necessary to cut it up; and then I began to be thankful that pit-sawing was not forced upon me as a profession in the days of inexperienced youth. Pit-sawing is deceptive. It has the appearance of being easy, though not genteel, when others are the toilers, and in the red dust, torn by the polished steel teeth from out the heart of the dull log, do you not "inhale the balmy smells of nard and ca.s.sia which the musky wings of the zephyrs scatter through the cedared groves of the Hesperides?" Is not that fragrance sufficient compensation for your toil, with the clean red planks profit over and above legitimate earnings? Yet that long saw tugs at our very heart-strings, and you know that to get a real, not merely sentimental, liking for the craft of the sawyer, you must take to it very young, before the possibilities of other occupations and pastimes have distorted your genius. This worthy lesson comes from the gentle art of Beachcombing.
Again, a German barque, driven out of its course, found unexpectedly a detached portion of the Great Barrier Reef 200 miles away to the south.
When the south-easters came, they pounded away so vigorously with the heavy runs of the sea that in a brief s.p.a.ce nothing was left of the big ship save some distorted fragments of iron jammed in among the n.i.g.g.e.r-heads of coral and the crevices of the rocks. A few weeks after, portions of the wreck were deposited on Dunk Island, and the beach of the mainland for miles was strewn with timber. That wreck was the greatest favour bestowed me in my profession of Beachcomber. Long and heavy pieces of angle-iron came bolted to raft-like sections of the deck; various kinds of timber proved useful in a variety of ways. What? was I to leave it all, unclaimed and unregarded--in excess of morality and modesty--on the beach, to be honey-combed by white ants or to rot? or to honestly own up to that sentiment which is the most human of all? Without affectation or apology, I confess that I was overjoyed--that my instincts, pregnant with original sin, received a most delightful fillip. I wallowed for the time being in the luxury of beachcombing.
Upon sober reflection, I cannot say that I am of one mind with the pastor of the Shetland Isles who never omitted this pet.i.tion from his long prayer--"Lord, if it be Thy holy will to send shipwrecks, do not forget our island"; nor yet with the Breton fishermen, who to this day are of opinion that wreckage is the gift of G.o.d, and who therefore take everything that comes in a reverential spirit, as a Divine favour, whether casks of wine or bales of merchandise. But, after all, who am I that I should claim a finer shade of morality than those, with their st.u.r.dy widespread hands and perpetual blessing? My inherent powers of resistance to such temptations as the winds and tides of Providence put in their way have never been subject to proof. Does virtue go by default where there is no opportunity to be otherwise than virtuous? The very first pipe of port, or aum of Rhenish, or bale of silk, which comes rolling along may wrestle with my morality and so wrench and twist it as to incapacitate it for ordinary usage for months, or may even permanently disable it. And must not I, venturing to regard myself as a truthful historian, frankly admit a sense allied to disappointment when the white blazing beaches are dest.i.tute of the most trivial of temptations?
No, the grating of the battered barque, upon which many a wet and weary steersman had stood, now fulfils placid duty as a front gate. No more to be trampled and stamped upon with shifty, sloppy feet--no more to be scrubbed and scored with sand and holystone; painted white, it creaks gratefully every time it swings--the symbol of security, the first outward and visible sign of home, the guardian of the sacred rights of private property, the embodiment of the exclusive. Better so than lying inert under foot on the deck of the barque thrashing through the cold grey seas of the Baltic, or scudding before the unscrupulous billows of Biscay.
Moreover, what notable and precise information this derelict timber gave as to the strength and direction of ocean currents. The wreck took place on the 26th October 1900 in 18 deg. 43 min. S. lat., 147 deg. 57 min. E.
long., 72 1/2 miles in a direct line from the port of Townsville, and about 200 miles from Dunk Island. She broke up, after a11 the cargo had been salvaged, early in January 1901, and on Tuesday, 5th February, at 10 a.m., the seas landed the first of the broken planks in Brammo Bay.
Then for a few days the arrivals were continuous. For over 50 miles along the coast the wreckage was scattered, very little going farther north.
Nothing goes south on this part of the coast. Yes, there is one exception during my experience. A veritable cataclysm coincided with a stiff north-easterly breeze, and hundreds of bunches of bananas from plantations on the banks of the Johnstone River--25 miles away--landing-stages and steps, and the beacons from the mouth of the river, drifted south. Most of the more buoyant debris, however, took the next tide back in the direction whence came.
When there are eight or ten islands and islets within an afternoon"s sail, and miles of mainland beach to police, variety lends her charms to the pursuit of the Beachcomber. Landing in one of the unfrequented coves, he knows not what the winds and the tides may have spread out for inspection and acceptance. Perhaps only an odd coco-nut from the Solomon Islands, its husk riddled by cobra and zoned with barnacles. The germ of life may yet be there. To plant the nut above high-water mark is an obvious duty. Perhaps there is a paddle, with rude tracery on the handle, from the New Hebrides, part of a Fijian canoe that has been bundled over the Barrier, a wooden spoon such as Kanakas use, or the dusky globe of an incandescent lamp that has glowed out its life in the state-room of some ocean liner, or a broom of j.a.panese make, a coal-basket, a "fender," a tiger nautilus sh.e.l.l, an oar or a rudder, a tiller, a bottle cast away fat out from land to determine the strength and direction of ocean currents, the spinnaker boom of a yacht, the jib-boom of a staunch cutter. Once there was a goodly hammer cemented by the head fast upright on a flat rock, and again the stand of a grindstone, and a trestle, high and elaborately stayed. Cases, invariably and disappointingly empty, come and go, planks of strange timber, blocks from some tall ship. A huge black beacon waddled along, dragging a reluctant ma.s.s of iron at the end of its chain cable, followed by a roughly-built "flatty" and a huge log of silkwood. A jolly red buoy, weary of the formality of bowing to the swell, broke loose from a sandbank"s ap.r.o.n-strings, bounced off in the ecstasies of liberty, romped in the surf, rolled on the beach, worked a cosy bed in the soft warm sand, and has slumbered ever since to the soothing hum of the wind, indifferent to the perplexities of mariners and the fate of ships. The gilded masthead truck of a smart yacht, with one of her cabin racks, bespoke of recent disaster, unknown and unaccounted, and a brand new oar, finished and fitted with the nattiness of a man-o"-war"s man, told of some wave-swept deck.
That which at the time was the most eloquent message from the sea came close to our door, cast up on the snowy-white coral drift of a little cove, where it immediately attracted notice. Nothing but an untrimmed bamboo staff nearly 30 feet long, carrying an oblong strip of soiled white calico between two such strips of red turkey twill. Tattered and frayed, the flags seemed to tell of the desperate appeal for help of some forlorn castaway; of a human being, marooned on a lonely sandbank on the Barrier, without shelter, food or water, but not altogether bereft of hope. BECHE-DE-MER fishers have in times past been marooned on the Reef by mutinous blacks, and left to die by slow degrees, or to be drowned by the implacable yet merciful tide. A makeshift rudder well worn bespoke strenuous efforts to steer a troubled boat to shelter, but this crude signal staff, deftly arranged, told of present agony and stress. It might have been the emblem of a tragic event that the Beachcomber single-handed was not able to investigate. As a matter of fact, it was only a temporary datum of one of His Majesty"s surveying ships engaged in attempting to set the bounds of the Barrier.
Rarely do we sail about without enjoying the zest of the chance of getting something for nothing. Not yet has the seaman"s chest, bra.s.s-bound, with its secret compartments full of "fair rose-n.o.bles and bright moidores," been lighted upon; but who can say? Perhaps it has come ash.o.r.e but now, after leagues of aimless wanderings, and awaits in some cosy cove the next Beachcombing expedition. That from the ill-fated MERCHANT came hither years before my time, and was, in any case, pathetically unromantic.
Peradventure there are many who deem this solitary existence dull? Why, it is brimful of interest and sensation. There are the tragedies of the bush to observe and elucidate; all cannot be foreseen and prevented, or even avenged. A bold falcon the other day swooped down upon a wood-swallow that was imitating the falcon"s flight just above my head, and bore it bleeding to a tree-top, while I stood shocked at the audacity of the cannibal. A bullet dropped the murderous bird with its dead victim fast in the talons. There are comedies, too, and you have the wit to see them, and in these Beachcombing expeditions expectation, fairly effervesces.
One lucky individual--a mere amateur--casually picked up a black-lip mother-of-pearl sh.e.l.l on an island some little distance away. It contained a blue pearl, the price of which gave him such a start in life, that he is now an owner of ships. May not other tides cast up on other sh.o.r.es other oysters whose lives have been rendered miserable by the presence of pearls?
Byron says--"Even an oyster may be crossed in love." Science, more precise and frank than the frankest of poets, tells us that oysters are afflicted with tapeworms, and to kill the germ of these indecent pests, enclose them in untimely tombs, which from the human standpoint are among the most lovely and precious of gems. The a.s.sertions of the scientific are often the reverse of poetical. We are constrained to believe them, but like our poetical delusions better, and for the origin of the pearl prefer the quaint fable of the Persians to the unpleasant fact of the zoologist. A drop of water of ineffable purity falls from heaven to the sea, an oyster gapes and swallows it, the drop hardens and ripens, and becomes a pearl; and who is so devoid of the perception of purity, beauty and worth as to despise a pearl?
Here about, pearls were found. We delight in them, though they prove the previous existence of a filthy ailment. Any oyster may contain a pearl, a pearl of great price--a thing of beauty, a joy for ever. Every gold-lip, every black-lip oyster, is a chance in a lottery. Was there ever a Beachcomber so pure and elevated of soul as to refuse the chances that Nature proffers gratuitously? My meagre horde includes pearls of several tints, black, pink, and white. They represent the paltriest prizes. in the lottery that no Government, however paternal, may prohibit, being mere "baroque," fit only to be pounded up as medicine for some Chinaman luxuriously sick. Yet there is a chance. Some day the great prize may be drawn. And then, "Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook?" The Beachcomber may be perverted into--well, the next best on the list. Yet they say in pitiful tones, those who rake among the muck of the streets, "What a dull life! What a hopeless existence! He is out of it all!" Yes, with a gladsome mind, and all its sounds, if not forgotten, at least m.u.f.fled by music, soft as dawn, profound as the very sea.
Kennedy Shoal has been mentioned incidentally. Some miles further north are two bare sandbanks. Prior to the year 1890 they were occupied by a BECHE-DE-MER fisherman, whose headquarters were on the chief of the South Barnard Islands--some 12 or 14 miles to the north. In fateful March of that year a cyclone swooped down on this part of the coast with the pent up fury of a century"s restraint. The enormous bloodwood-trees torn out by the roots on Dunk Island testified to the force and ferocity of the storm. The sandbanks, are isolated, dreary spots, the highest portion but 2 or 3 feet above the level reached by spring tides. A cutter--THE DOLPHIN--with a crew of aboriginals, in charge of a couple of Kanakas, was anch.o.r.ed at the shoal, and as the cyclone worked up, the Kanakas decided that the one and only bid for life was to run before it to the mainland.
It was a forlorn hope--so forlorn that four or five of the aboriginals declined to take part in it, deeming it safer to trust to the sandbank, which they imagined could never be entirely swept by the besoms of the sea. The cutter fled before the storm, only to capsize in the breakers off the mouth of the Johnstone River. Clinging to the wreck until it drifted a few miles south, the Kanakas and crew battled through the waves and eventually reached the sh.o.r.e. Of those who placed their faith on the sandbank not one was spared. The seas raced over it, pounded and flattened it. The men upon it were unconsidered trifles.
The tall and handsome Scandinavian whose fortune thus a.s.sailed was at his home with his wife and children and brother. His yacht--THE MAUD--in the height of the storm, began to drag her anchor. He and his brother went out in a dinghy to secure her. At dusk the wife, young, pet.i.te and pretty, with strained anxiety watched the efforts of the men to beat back to shelter. Darkness came, blotting out the scene and its climax. Never after was anything seen or heard of the brothers or the yacht. And for nearly a fortnight the disconsolate wife and her little ones were alone on the island.
Ten years later, on one of the two bare patches of sand, another BECHE-DE-MER smoke-house was built. While the owner a swarthy Arabian, was out on the reef miles away, a phenomenally high tide occurred. His wife--a comely girl of British descent--was alone on the shoal. She watched the rising water apprehensively, until all the sand was covered save the few feet on which the frail shelter stood. One more ripple and the floor was swamped. Then, wading and swimming, she managed to reach a punt, and so saved her life. Since then these patches of sand have not been regarded as a safe outpost even by those most venturesome of people--BECHE-DE-MER fishers.
This is not an apology, but a confession; not a plea of defence, but a justification--a fair and free chronicle, a frank acknowledgment of the tributes of impartial Neptune--Neptune who gives and who takes away--who stealthily filches with tireless fingers, and who, when in the mood, robs so remorselessly, and with such awful, such majestic violence, that it were impious to whimper. Who beachcombed my three rudders, the one toilfully adzed out in one piece from the beautiful heart of a bean-tree log, another cunningly fitted with a sliding fin, and that of red cedar with famous bra.s.s mountings? Who owns the pair of ballast tanks once mine? Who the buoy deemed securely moored? Who the paddles and the rowlocks and the signal halyards, lost because of Neptune"s whims and violence? Beachcombing is a nicely adjusted, if not quite an exact art.
Not once but several times has the libertine Neptune scandalously seduced punts and dinghies from the respectable precincts of Brammo Bay, and having philandered with them for a while, cynically abandoned them with a b.u.mp on the mainland beach, and only once has he sent a punt in return--a poor, soiled, tar-besmirched, disorderly waif that was reported to the police and reluctantly claimed.