two long saplings were tied parallel with the ridge pole.  At the end of May these saplings were taken down in order that the whole of the thatch might be renovated, when it was found that both had started to grow, several of the shoots being 8 and 10 inches long.  While sugarcane was languishing for lack of moisture, 150 miles away down the coast, a roughly-cut sapling exposed on the roof of a building found the conditions for the beginning of a new existence so favourable and stimulative that it had budded as freely as Aaron’s rod.  “Through the scent of water it had budded and brought forth boughs like a plant.”

Nearly as much misapprehension prevails in the Southern States of the Commonwealth as to the characteristics of North Queensland as seems to prevail among the good old folks “at home” as to Australia generally.  If the few facts presented excite even mild surprise, they will not be altogether out of place in these pages.

Dunk Island has a mean temperature of about 69 deg.; January is the hottest month with a mean of 87 deg, and July the coolest, mean 57 deg.  Taking the official readings of Cardwell (20 miles to the south), I find the greatest extremes on record occurred in one year, when the highest temperature was 103.3 deg. and the lowest 36.2 deg.  At Geraldton (25 miles to the north) the extremes were 96 deg. and 43.4 deg.

Rainfall and temperature, the proportion of clear to cloudy skies, calms, the direction, strength and the duration of winds, do not wholly comprehend distinctive climatic features.  There are other conditions of more or less character and note, some hard to define, yet ever present.  Here the air is warm and soothing, seldom is it crisp and never really bracing.  Hot dry winds are unknown, but in the height of the wet season—­which coincides with the dry season of the Southern States—­the moisture-laden air may be likened to the vapour of a steam bath.  While the rain thunders on the roof at the rate of an inch per hour, inside the house it may be perspiringly hot.  After a fortnight’s rain the damp saturates everything.  Neglected boots and shoes grow a rich crop of mould, guns demand constant attention to prevent rust, and clothes packed tight in chests of drawers smell and feel damp.  But the atmosphere is so wholesome that ordinary precautions for the prevention of sickness are generally neglected without any fear of ill consequence.

However sharply defined by reason of the personal discomfort it inflicts, this steamy feature of the wet season is no more a general characteristic than the hot winds are of Victoria.  Warm as the rains are, they bring to the air coolness and refreshment.  Clear, calm, bright days, days of even and not high temperature, and of pure delight, dovetail with the hot and steamy ones.  The prolifigacy of vegetation is a perpetual marvel; the loveliness of the land, the ineffable purity of the sky, the glorious tints of the sea—­green and gold at sunrise, silvery blue at noon, purple pink and lilac during the all too brief twilight, a perpetual feast.