The Confessions of a Beachcomber | Page 3

this Dunk Island is the chief of its group,
the largest in area, the highest in altitude, the nearest the mainland, the
fairest, the best. It possesses a well-sheltered haven (herein to be known
as Brammo Bay), and three perennially running creeks mark a further
splendid distinction. It has a superficial area of over three square miles.
Its topography is diversified--hill and valley, forest and jungle, grassy
combes and bare rocky shoulders, gloomy pockets and hollows, cliffs
and precipices, bold promontories and bluffs, sandy beaches, quiet
coves and mangrove flats. A long V-shaped valley opens to the
south-east between steep spurs of a double-peaked range. Four
satellites stand in attendance, enhancing charms superior to their own.

This island is our home. He who would see the most picturesque
portions of the whole of the 2000 miles of the east coast of Australia
must pass within a few yards of our domain.
In years gone by, Dunk Island, "Coonanglebah" of the blacks, had an
evil repute. Fertile and fruitful, set in the shining sea abounding with
dugong, turtle and all manner of fish; girt with rocks rough-cast with
oysters; teeming with bird life, and but little more than half an hour's
canoe trip from the mainland, the dusky denizens were fat, proud,
high-spirited, resentful and treacherous, far from friendly or polite to
strangers. One sea-captain was maimed for life in our quiet little bay
during a misunderstanding with a hasty black possessed of a new bright
tomahawk, a rare prize in those days. This was the most trivial of the
many incidents by which the natives expressed their character.
Inhospitable acts were common when the white folks first began to pay
the island visits, for they found the blacks hostile and daring. Why
invoke those long-silent spectres, white as well as black, when all
active boorishness is of the past? Civilisation has almost fulfilled its
inexorable law; but four out of a considerable population remain, and
they remember naught of the bad old times when the humanising
processes, or rather the results of them, began to be felt. They must
have been a fine race, fine for Australian aboriginals at least, judging
by the stamp of two of those who survive; and perhaps that is why they
resented interference, and consequently soon began to give way before
the irresistible pressure of the whites. Possibly, had they been more
docile and placid, the remnants would have been more numerous
though less flattering representatives of the race. You shall judge of the
type by what is related of some of the habits and customs of the
semi-civilised survivors.
Dunk Island is well within the tropical zone, its true bearings being 146
deg. 11 min. 20 sec. E. long., and 17 deg. 55 min. 25 sec. S. lat. It is but
30 miles south of the port of Geraldton, the wettest place in Australia,
as well as the centre of the chief sugar-producing district of the State of
Queensland. There the rainfall averages about 140 inches per annum.
Geraldton has in its immediate background two of the highest
mountains in Australia (5,400 feet), and on these the monsoons buffet

and break their moisture-laden clouds, affording the district much
meteorological fame. Again, 20 miles to the south lies Hinchinbrook
Island, 28 miles long, 12 miles broad, and mountainous from end to
end: there also the rain-clouds revel. The long and picturesque channel
which divides Hinchinbrook from the mainland, and the complicated
ranges of mountains away to the west, participate in phenomenal rain.
Opposite Dunk Island the coastal range recedes and is of much lower
elevation, and to these facts perhaps is to be attributed our modified
rainfall compared with the plethora of the immediate North; but we get
our share, and when people deplore the droughts which devastate
Australia, let it be remembered that Australia is huge, and the most
rigorous of Australian droughts merely partial. This country has never
known drought. During the partial drought which ended with 1905, and
which occasioned great losses throughout the pastoral tracts of
Queensland, grass and herbage here were perennially green and
succulent--the creeks never ceased running.
Within the tropics heat is inevitable, but our island enjoys several
climatic advantages. The temperature is equable. Blow the wind
whithersoever it listeth, and it comes to us cooled by contact with the
sea. Here may we drink oft and deep at the never-failing font of pure,
soft, beneficent air. We have all the advantages which residence at the
happy mean from the Equator bestows, and few of the drawbacks. By
its fruits ye shall know the fertility of the soil.
Birds are numerous, from the "scrub fowl" which dwells in the dim
jungle and constructs of decaying leaves and wood and light loam the
most trustworthy of incubators, and wastes no valuable