84 CONFESSIONS OF A BEACHCOMBER 



softly, and daily gathers courage and assumption, to find in 

 the course of a week or two its haughty spirit subdued by 

 thunder and rain showers. Calms prevail for a few days. 

 Easterly breezes come, to give way to the north-east again, 

 and so the programme is repeated with variations which 

 none may foresee, and which set at naught the lengthiest 

 experience. At last, at Christmas or the New Year, the 

 rains come with a boisterous beginning. A north-easter 

 accompanied by thunder lasted a whole July afternoon. 

 It was as strange as a crop of mangoes would have been at 

 that time of year. 



During the cool season — a generous half of the year — 

 dews are common — not the trivial barely perceptible 

 moisture called dew in some parts, but most ungentle dew, 

 which saturates everything and drips from the under sides 

 of verandahs as the sun warms the air ; dew which bows 

 the grass with its weight, soaks through your dungarees to 

 the hips, and soddens your thick bluchers, until you feel 

 and appear as though you had waded through a swamp ; 

 dew which releases the prisoned odour of flowers irrespon- 

 sive to the heat of the sun, which keeps the night cool and 

 sweet, which with the first gleam of the sun makes the air 

 soft and spicy and buoyant, and inspires thankfulness for 

 the joy of life. 



Are we not all apt to fall into the error of estimating 

 the character of a country by its extravagances rather than 

 its average and general qualities ? 



North Queensland has the reputation of being the 

 home of malaria and the special sport of any cyclone that 

 may have mischief in view. Being tropical, we have 

 malaria, but it is of no more serious consequence than 

 any one of the ills to which human flesh is heir in tem- 

 perate climes. It does not exact such a toll of suffering 

 and death as influenza, nor as typhoid used to do in 

 crowded cities ; nor is it as common as rheumatism in damp 

 and blustering New Zealand, where the thermometer ranges 

 from 100 deg. in the shade to 24 deg. of frost. Malaria 

 touches us lightly, and it is chosen as a bugbear with 



