24 
MACNADE HOUSE 
CHAP. 
landed in a small tender at Dungeness on the main- 
land at the mouth of the Herbert River. It is a 
miserable, low-lying, dead-and-alive place ; and here 
we sat and broiled in the sun for five hours, waiting 
for the tide to take us up in the tender. 
The hotel was so unprepossessing, and the people 
about looked such rough customers, that I preferred to 
keep as far away from it and them as possible, and 
sat melting slowly under a scorching sun until we 
were ready to start. The low banks of the river 
here were covered for six or seven miles up with 
mangrove trees. As we got higher it narrowed and 
the vegetation became very tropical ; here were large 
palms and wild native chestnut trees as large as any 
English ones, their branches covered with orange and 
yellow coloured pea -shaped blossoms ; beautiful blue 
and white Ipomeas were trailing in masses along the 
banks, and there were numberless other flowers that I 
did not know. 
I was landed at a pier close to the Macnade 
Sugar-Mill, and I walked from there up to the house 
with one of the clerks. They had neither had my 
letters nor telegrams (another piece of carelessness on 
the part of the post-office), but they gave me a 
most warm welcome. The house is a perfect one for 
this climate, built high up on the banks of the river, 
with a very fine garden all round it. I recognised 
many old Colombo and Indian friends in it. I was 
glad to get under the shade of that long verandah ; it 
had been the hottest day they had known that season, 
and never did cup of five-o’clock tea taste sweeter than 
mine that evening. Mrs. N. next day showed my 
flower-drawings to some of the Kanakas, and they were 
delighted at being able to recognise them, though they 
insisted on looking at them upside down ; they went 
