A POISONOUS FOOD 259 



Most of us have had moments of rapture before the 

 glowing embodiment of the inspiration of some great artist, 

 whose gifts have been developed to maturity by enthusi- 

 astic and patient striving for perfection. Do not these 

 clumsy drawings, too, reveal that which, considering their 

 environment, is talent — original and unacademic. Here is 

 the sheer beginning, the spontaneous germ of art, the 

 labouring of a savage soul controlled by wilful aesthetic 

 emotions. For these pictures are not figurative, not mere 

 signs and symbols capable of elucidation, but the earliest 

 and only efforts of an illiterate race, a race in intellectual 

 infancy, towards the ideal — a forlorn but none the less 

 sincere attempt to reach the " light that quickens dreams 

 to deeds." 



The last of the series of " Black Art " pictures is not 

 local. It occurs on the reverse of a shield, the spear- 

 punctured lower edge of which verifies its eventful history. 

 The warrior-artist silhouetted a sweetheart's figure, where, 

 at supreme moments, it came before his fancy and gave 

 the battle to his hands. 



A Poisonous Food 



One of the chief vegetable foods of the blacks is the 

 fruit of " tinda-burra " (Moreton Bay chestnut — Casianos- 

 permum australe). The plentiful pea-shaped flowers range 

 in colour from apple-green, pale yellow, orange to scarlet, 

 and contain large quantities of nectar, which attracts multi- 

 tudes of birds and insects. Blacks regard this tree with 

 special favour and consideration. A casual remark, as I 

 observed the industry of insects about the flowers, that the 

 bean-tree was good for bees, elicited the scornful response, 

 " Good for man ! " The tree is of graceful shape, the bole 

 often pillar-like in its symmetry, and the wood hard and 

 durable and of pleasing colour, and so beautifully grained 

 that it is fast becoming popular for furniture and cabinet- 

 making. It bears a prolific crop of large beans, from two 

 to five in each of its squat pods, but they are, as Mr Stand- 



