44 TROPIC DAYS 



does prickl}- heat and chilblains. Only the casual 

 visitor fails in this. 



Sun Days are essential to the production of sugar and 

 bananas and mangoes, to say nothing of pineapples and 

 other fruits of the tropics. When we arc called upon 

 to endure extraordinary heat, we tell one another of the 

 penance and find excuse for extra drinks. But neither 

 the heat nor the comparison of personal experiences is 

 of the injurious nature of some of the refreshments. 

 The weather is not compounded of excesses, but of 

 means. Is it not true that few countries in the wide 

 world would be considered fit for habitation by human 

 beings if the character of the climate was estimated by 

 its extremes ? 



No North Queenslander will resent records of high 

 temperatures. He will be quite content to be shown 

 enjoying and flourishing in the heat in which sugar- 

 cane thrives, for thereby is to be proved a fact theorists 

 seem unable to grasp — viz., that such is the soundness 

 and virtue of the British race that it adapts itself with 

 equal success to the long, dark, cold winter of Canada 

 and the perpetual summer of North Queensland. Who 

 is to say that the Canadian in his thick woollens and 

 furs is a healthier subject, a worthier type, than the 

 North Queenslander, stripped to the waist in the full 

 blaze of the sun, glorying in his own vigour, proud of 

 his magnificent heritage, and scornful of the opinions 

 of those who have never experienced that supreme zest 

 of life unpurchasable outside the tropic zone ? 



With intent to picturesquely demonstrate that soil 

 will tell, some are ready to assert that we owe Chris- 

 tianity to the horizontal limestone formation of Palestine. 

 Accepting the theory with whole-hearted enthusiasm, 

 and admitting that North Queensland comprehends 

 tracts of country not dissimilar from the Holy Land, 



