Grateful acknowledgments are due to Mr F. Manson Bailey, F.L.S., the official botanist of Queensland, for the scientific nomenclature of trees and plants referred to in a general way.

E. J. Banfield. 
Brammo bay, Dunk island,
November, 1906.

CHAPTER I

THE BEACHCOMBER’S DOMAIN

Two and a half miles off the north-eastern coast of Australia—­midway, roughly speaking, between the southern and the northern limits of the Great Barrier Reef, that low rampart of coral which is one of the wonders of the world—­is an island bearing the old English name of Dunk.

Other islands and islets are in close proximity, a dozen or so within a radius of as many miles, but this Dunk Island is the chief of its group, the largest in area, the highest in altitude, the nearest the mainland, the fairest, the best.  It possesses a well-sheltered haven (herein to be known as Brammo Bay), and three perennially running creeks mark a further splendid distinction.  It has a superficial area of over three square miles.  Its topography is diversified—­hill and valley, forest and jungle, grassy combes and bare rocky shoulders, gloomy pockets and hollows, cliffs and precipices, bold promontories and bluffs, sandy beaches, quiet coves and mangrove flats.  A long V-shaped valley opens to the south-east between steep spurs of a double-peaked range.  Four satellites stand in attendance, enhancing charms superior to their own.

This island is our home.  He who would see the most picturesque portions of the whole of the 2000 miles of the east coast of Australia must pass within a few yards of our domain.

In years gone by, Dunk Island, “Coonanglebah” of the blacks, had an evil repute.  Fertile and fruitful, set in the shining sea abounding with dugong, turtle and all manner of fish; girt with rocks rough-cast with oysters; teeming with bird life, and but little more than half an hour’s canoe trip from the mainland, the dusky denizens were fat, proud, high-spirited, resentful and treacherous, far from friendly or polite to strangers.  One sea-captain was maimed for life in our quiet little bay during a misunderstanding with a hasty black possessed of a new bright tomahawk, a rare prize in those days.  This was the most trivial of the many incidents by which the natives expressed their character.  Inhospitable acts were common when the white folks first began to pay the island visits, for they found the blacks hostile and daring.  Why invoke those long-silent spectres, white as well as black, when all active boorishness is of the past?  Civilisation has almost fulfilled its inexorable law; but four out of a considerable population remain, and they remember naught of the bad old times when the humanising processes, or rather the results of them, began to be felt.  They must have been a fine race, fine for Australian aboriginals