In the far-away past two nice young gins, they say, were left by themselves on Dunk Island, while the others of the tribe went away in canoes to Hinchinbrook.  Tiring of their lonesomeness, they made up their minds to regain the company of their relatives by swimming from island to island.  Kumboola was easily reached; to Timana it is but a mile and a half, and a mile thence to Bedarra.  Leaving the most easterly point of Bedarra, they were quickly caught in the swirl of a strong current and spun about until both became dazed and exhausted.  As they disappeared beneath the water they were changed to stone, and the stone rose in fantastic shape, and from that day Pee-rahm-ah has weathered all the storms of the Pacific and formed a feature in the loveliest scene these isles reveal.

The largest of the neighbouring isles, Bedarra, has less than a square mile of superficial area; the smallest but 4 or 5 acres.  The smaller are made up of confused masses of granite, for the most part so overgrown with fig trees, plumy palms, milkwoods, umbrella-trees, quandongs, eugenias, hibiscus bushes, bananas and lawyer vines, as to be unexplorable without a scrub-knife; for the soil among the rocks is soft and spongy, the purest of vegetable mould, and encourages luxurious growth.  The jungle droops over the grey rocks on the sheltered side.  Twisted Moreton Bay ash and wind-crippled scrub spring up among the clefts and crevices on the weather frontage—­the south-east—­while a narrow strip of sand, the only landing-place, is a general characteristic of the north-west aspect.  Birds nest in numbers in peace and security, for the islets are off the general track.  Seldom is there any disturbance of the primeval quietude, and in the encompassing sea, if the fish and turtle suffer any excitement, rarely is the cause attributable to man.

The islands immediately to the south-east form the Family Group—­triplets, twins and two singles.  I like to think approving things of them; to note individual excellences; to familiarise myself with their distinguishing traits; to listen to them in their petulance and anger, and in that sobbing subsidence to even temper; to their complacent gurglings and sleepy murmurs.  One—­and the most Infantile of all—­not of the Family, has a distinctive note, a copyright tone which none imitates, and which becomes at times a sonorous swelling boom, a lofty recitative, for even an island has its temper and its moods.

PLANS AND PERFORMANCES

“The folly of this island!  They say there’s but five upon this isle; we are two of them; if the other three be brained like us the State totters!”