66 CONFESSIONS OF A BEACHCOMBER 



Tropical Industries 



Was there not an explicit contract that some of the ex- 

 periences and events of a settler's life should be duly 

 described and recorded ? How to fulfil that obligation and 

 at the same time avoid what is ordinarily regarded as the 

 dull and prosaic, the stale, the flat, the unprofitable, is the 

 trouble. I would gladly shirk even this small responsi- 

 bility, even as greater ones have been out-manoeuvred, but 

 a written promise unfulfilled may be troublesome to a 

 conscience, which, when reminiscent of ante-beachcombing 

 days, is not altogether unimpressionable. 



Well, the life of a settler — the man who drags his 

 sustenance, all and every part of it, from the soil — in 

 tropical Queensland, as a mere settler very closely resembles 

 that of others who cultivate. If an abstract of the universal 

 experience were obtainable, it would very likely be found 

 to go towards the establishment of a standard from which 

 many would cheerfully desire many cheerful changes. 

 After all, that represents a condition not altogether 

 monopolised by settlers. 



Yet, when once the life is begun, how few there are 

 who attempt to withdraw from it ? It grows on the senses 

 and faculties. It appeals to the emotional as well as to 

 the stolid humours. The cares of this world as expounded 

 in town life, and the sinfulness of never-to-be-acquired 

 riches are foreign to the free, bland air which has filtered 

 through the myriad leaves of the mountain, and which 

 smacks so strongly of freedom. Sometimes the settler 

 takes up studies and relieves the sameness of his duties by 

 pastimes. One never went to his maize field, along narrow 

 gloomy aisles through the jungle, without a net for the 

 capture of butterflies. His humble home was as re- 

 splendent as the show-cases of a natural history museum. 

 But he was singularly favoured. A lovely waterfall was 

 the jewel on his estate. That was the shape of beauty that 

 moved away the pall from his dark spirit and gave colour 



