EAGLE'S-NEST FLOAT 171 



" ' On such a full sea are we now afloat 



And we must take the current when it serves 

 Or lose our ' — turtle " ? 



Is it not edifying, too, to reflect that the timid man, 

 encouraged by the object-lessons of Nature, given in 

 pity of his simplicity, had contrived the only rafts the 

 resources of his island made possible ? And does not 

 the fact that he had courage to cross the estranging deep 

 thereon give graphic proof of the inhospitality of his 

 native soil ? 



Flat and generally of sad aspect, the country of the 

 raftsman lies remote and uncommended. The scented 

 sandalwood is there, dwarfed, attenuated, worthless. 

 The most fragrant of the Pandanus palms is plentiful, the 

 fruit forming the chief part of the vegetable diet of the lean 

 and stunted inhabitants, who find difficulty in fashioning 

 weapons with which to obtain fish and turtle, the land 

 failing to supply straight sticks of the length needed for 

 spears. Each has to be spliced. The islands are 

 expressed in the race they sustain — possibly the lowest 

 of Australian types. Does it not bespeak much to the 

 credit of men and women who have been used to the 

 cities where the advantages of civilisation are at com- 

 mand and its comforts available, that they should aban- 

 don the society of kin and friends and isolate themselves 

 in a drear and unfriendly tract for the sake of a few 

 coloured folk whose mental capacities are feeble and 

 whose habits are shockingly disgusting ? 



