Permitting imagination to soar away into regions of romance, one might picture a dinner-party of the bygone days, the lap of Mother Earth furnished with edibles and dainties, and the hungry and expectant members of the camp squatted round in anticipation of the various courses.  Such a scene would be worthy of being classed among the most improbable; but as it would not be absolutely impossible, may not an attempt be made to treat it as a reality?

The repast might be initiated with a few oysters on the shells (with a choice of three or four varieties); a selection of many fish would be succeeded by real turtle ("padg-e-gal”) soup (in the original shell), and made as before described; the joint, a huge piece of dugong ("pal-an-gul”) kummaoried, rich and excellent, with entrees of turtle cutlets and baked grubs ("tam-boon"), ivory white with yellow heads, as neat and pretty a dish as could be seen, and rather rare and novel too.  When the beetles (APPECTROGASTRA FLAVIPILIS) into which these stolid grubs and fidgetty nymphs develop, are chopped out of decayed wood, they have the odour of truffles, and emit two distinct squeaky notes from the throat and the abdominal segments respectively.  Each maintains a duet with itself until the hot embers impose silence and convert them into dainty nutty morsels.  Roast scrub fowl eggs would be no novelty, and baked crayfish ("too-lac"), bluey-white and leathery—­“such stuff as dreams are made on”—­might lend a decorative effect.  Raw echinus ("kier-bang"), saline and tonic, would clear the palate for succeeding delicacies.

The tough sweet yam ("pun-dinoo"), the heart of the Alexandra palm ("koobin-karra"), the hard rhizome of BOWENIA SPECTABILIS ("moo-nah”) after being allowed weeks to decompose, the core of the tree fern ("kalo-joo"), the long root-stock of CURCULIGO ENSIFOLIA ("harpee”) crisp and slightly bitter, the broad beans of the white mangrove ("kum-moo-roo"), would stand as vegetables.

Sweets would be the weakest part of the menu.  One pudding might certainly be included, vermicelli (shredded bean-tree nuts—­“tinda-burra”) with honey and orange-coloured balsamic custard, scraped from the outside of the drupes of the pandanus ODORATISSIMUS ("pim-nar").

Dessert, on the other hand, might be plentiful and varied.  “Bed-yew-rie” (XIMENIA Americana), thirst-allaying and palate-sharpening; “Top-kie” (Herbert River cherry, ANTEDISMA DALLACHYANUM), resembling red currants in flavour; “Pool-boo-nong” (finger cherry, RHODOMYRTUS MACROCARPA), sweet, soft and appeasing; “Panga-panga,” raspberry (rubus ROSAEFOLIUS); “Koo-badg-aroo” (Leichhardt-tree, SARCOCEPHALUS CORDATUS), resembling a strawberry in shape, but brown, spicy and hot; “Murl-kue-kee” (snow-white berries of Eugenia SUBORBICULARIS), vapid, and as insipid as an immature medlar; “Raroo” (CAREYA Australis), mealy and biting.  Various figs, ranging in size from a large red currant to a tennis-ball, and in colour from white through all the tints from pale yellow and green to red, purple and black, sweet and generally mawkish.  The banana would be there in the Musa BANKSIA ("boo-gar-oo"), although “close up all bone”; but the Davidsonian plum, plentiful on the mainland, would be absent.  The scape of the ELETTARIA SCOTTIANA, oozing viscid nectar, might stand as a sweetmeat.