THURSDAY ISLAND 
CHAP. 
136 
tea, rowing back to Thursday Island in the cool of the 
evening. On our way back we passed a small island, 
where, several years ago, the bodies of eight natives 
were found completely mummified and fastened up in 
bark. 
After dinner, we told stories ; each one of us was 
called upon to tell one — most of them were thrilling 
tales of hairbreadth escapes. I told my story of the 
candle. You remember years ago, when we were 
travelling in Western Australia, we stopped to take 
shelter for the night from a thunderstorm at a shepherd’s 
bark hut, the only one within thirty miles, and consist- 
ing of only two rooms. The man made us welcome, 
but told us that his mate, who was in the next room, 
had died only that afternoon. The storm was raging 
outside, and there was an oppressive gloom on the four 
of us as we sat round the table by the dim light of one 
tallow candle stuck in the broken neck of an old black 
bottle. Suddenly the flame lengthened, and shooting 
up, left the wick without a spark behind, and went up 
and up to the ceiling before it went out. I always tell 
the story just as we all saw it, in the hope that some 
day I may come across some one scientific enough to 
explain this curious phenomenon to me. 
Then we had our bumps electro-biologised : my bump 
of firmness (no, not obstinacy) was well developed, my 
intellectual faculties were weak. I always knew this, 
but it was unfeeling to tell me so. It blew (as I thought) 
such a gale in the night that I expected at least to find 
the house roofless in the morning, but as no one re- 
marked about it, I suppose it is no unusual thing here. 
The next day I left Thursday Island to stay with 
Mr. and Mrs. Jardine at Somerset ; the latter I had 
the pleasure of meeting here with her three charming 
children. 
