OUR ISLAND 17 



hard beans used for match-boxes. Along the edge of 

 the jungle, the climbing fern (Lygodium) grows in tangled 

 masses sending its slender wire-like lengths up among 

 the trees the most attractive of all the ferns, and glorified 

 by some with the title of " the Fern of God," so surpassing 

 its grace and beauty. 



September is the prime month of the year in tropical 

 Queensland. Many of the trees are then in blossom and 

 most of the orchids. Nocturnal showers occur fairly regu- 

 larly in normal seasons, and every sort of vegetable is 

 rampant with the lust of life. It was September when our 

 isolation began. And what a plenteous realisation it all 

 was that the artificial emotions of the town had been, haply, 

 abandoned ! The blood tingled with keen appreciation of 

 the crispness, the cleanliness of the air. We had won dis- 

 regard of all the bother and contradictions, the vanities and 

 absurdities of the toilful, -wayward, human world, and had 

 acquired a glorious sense of irresponsibleness and inde- 

 pendence. 



This this was our life we were beginning to live our 

 very own life ; not life hampered and restricted by the 

 wills, wishes and whims of others ; unencumbered by the 

 domineering wisdom, unembarrassed by the formal 

 courtesies of the crowd. 



September and the gin-gee, the quaint, grey-barked, 

 soft-wooded tree with broad, rough, sage-green leaves, and 

 florets massed in clumps to resemble sunflowers, was in all 

 its pride, attracting relays of honey-imbibing birds during 

 the day, and at night dozens of squeaking flying-foxes. 

 Within a few yards of high-water stands a flame-tree 

 (Erythrina indica] the " bingum " of the blacks. Devoid 

 of leaves in this leafy month, the bingum arrays itself in a 

 robe of royal red. All birds and manner of birds, and 

 butterflies and bees and beetles, which have regard for 

 colour and sweetness come hither to feast. Sulphur-crested 

 cockatoos sail down upon the red raiment of the tree, and 

 tear from it shreds until all the grass is ruddy with refuse, 

 and their snowy breasts stained as though their feast was 



