SOOSIE 1 45 



A creek which had its source in a ravine of the huge 

 mountain which intercepted the rising sun and caused 

 accustomed shadow an hour after the illumination of 

 the western hills, ran past the lonely little house, which 

 stood in a clearing the upright walls of which were on 

 the sky-line scalloped with fan-palms. For many years 

 Soosie never ventured into the jungle unaccompanied, 

 3'et she seemed to possess a sense of happenings beyond 

 the almost solid screen of vegetation. Primal instinct 

 contended against her affections and her love for a 

 sheltered, clean life. Though she had always avoided 

 association with the children of the camp, and her 

 knowledge by imitation or precept was negative, yet 

 was the bush an open book to her. She knew when and 

 where to look for birds '-nests. She knew at a glance a 

 venomous from a non-venomous snake, an edible from 

 an inedible nut. As a child her favourite head-dress 

 was a squat, fat mantis, the bright orange and yellow 

 of which contrasted boldl}^ with her fuzz}', coarse hair; 

 and when the insect palled as an ornament it would be 

 frizzled and slyly eaten. 



Once as we strolled on the bank of the creek gazing at 

 the lazy, red-finned fish among the swaying weeds, her 

 w^andering eyes detected a neat circular bore in the 

 trunk of a huge silk}- oak. Having shrewdly scrutinised 

 the bark, she judged the tenant to be at home. With a 

 portion of one of the "feelers" of creeping palm stripped 

 of all the prickles save two, she probed the tunnel and, 

 screwing the instrument triumphanth^ withdrew a huge 

 white grub, which she ate forthwith; and then, with a 

 grimace, assumed an air of shame and contrition, for 

 she had astonished herself as well as others b}' an 

 exhibition of untaught bush-craft and ancestral appstite. 



She more than once confessed in shamefaced terms 

 to an almost uncontrollable impulse to rush away to the 



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