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Walter Goodfellow—A Collector on Melville Island



A COLLECTOR ON MELVILLE ISLAND


By Walter Goodfellow


Since my recent return to England, when I have said I had been to

Melville Island, in nearly every case I have been asked “ Where is it! ”

Therefore for the benefit of those who read this and are equally hazy

about its geographical position, I may as well commence by saying

that it lies in the Timor Sea, 80 miles due north of Darwin in the

Northern Territory of Australia and in extent is roughly 80 miles

by ninety.


Darwin used to be called “ one of Australia’s backyards Now

it is on the air route they call it “ Australia’s front door It is hardly

a town in our sense of the word, but a very straggling settlement

overgrown and dust-ladened, and certainly as a “ front door ” needs

a vast amount of clearing up in more senses than one, for life is very

primitive there.


To go to Melville Island I had to go by the monthly schooner belonging

to the Catholic Mission on Bathurst Island. The narrow Apsley Straits

divides the two islands, and if these could be pushed together, all the

bends would fit in exactly like the parts of a jig-saw puzzle. No white

people live on Melville, and only the mission fathers on Bathurst.

The island is flat, rising to a ridge of slightly higher land in the centre,

and where it is not swamp, it is covered with what the Australians

designate bush. This bush is ugly decrepit vegetation, mostly ill-grown,

and has almost without exception harsh and brittle foliage. There

are some fine and well-grown trees, but they carry a mere handful

of leaves, and all of a general grey green tone throughout. As most

of the leaves hang vertically, there is little shade. Half the amount

of bush and trees over here would make delightful shady woods, but

there one might as well be out in the open for all the shade one gets.

In the breeze there is no gentle rustling of the leaves as in our woods ;

instead it is a rattle. There is not much undergrowth, and that consists

chiefly of the long saw-edged scrub pandanus which lacerates one

at every step, and in the wet season, long coarse grass in addition.

As far as the eye can see through the bush, it is a wilderness of bleached

tree trunks great and small. Such is the scenery of most of the island,



