NATIVE FLORA OF TROPICAL QUEENSLAND. 395 



or bring him down, but the fiend only laughed and threatened 

 to drop him. At last, exasperated, the father hurled his 

 spear at the fiend and impaled him through the abdomen , 

 when he let go of the boy, and the father opening his mouth 

 caught his son safely. 



It is well known that the natives had a curious dread of 

 some evil spirit on the summits of these mountains, and an 

 elderly blackfellow who was one of my guides, had never 

 been to the actual top of Bellenden Ker until he went with 

 me in August 1913. 



Mr. Hill relates that his party passed an enormous fig tree 

 growing in a peculiar depression down the slope. Merrewah 

 pointing to the tree said, (through the interpreter), in that 

 tree the first mappees which lived in this region started 

 their existence, male and female; but gradually they so 

 increased in numbers that one night the whole tree and the 

 ground beneath it collapsed under their weight, and the 

 tree-climbers found themselves being buried under the 

 earth. Ultimately, by following an underground channel, 

 two of them, male and female again, found themselves on 

 the surface. This worthy couple, decided that never again 

 would they or their descendants live more than two in a 

 tree together, and this custom, Merrewah continued, they 

 follow to the present day. 



Mr. Hill adds that it is a fact that only two of these 

 animals are ever found together, and they do not go in 

 numbers like their near relatives, the Rock Wallaby 

 (Petrogale penicillata). 



KURANDA TO MAREEBA AND ALMA-DEN. 



Kuranda is situated near the famous Barron Falls, twenty- 

 one miles by railway from Cairns, and at about 1,100 feet 

 above sea-level. The spot is just at the summit of the 

 steep ascent from Cairns, and on the eastern margin of a 

 gently rising plateau. 



