E. J. (Edmund James) Banfield - My Tropic Isle

Title: My Tropic Isle

Author: E J Banfield

Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7177] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on March 22, 2003]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Notes: Italics in the book have been capitalised in the eBook. Illustrations in the book have not been included in the eBook. This eBook uses 8-bit text.

1911

"What dost thou in this World? The Wilderness
For thee is fittest place."

"Taught to live
The easiest way, nor with perplexing thoughts
To interrupt sweet life."

Much of the contents of this book was published in the NORTH QUEENSLAND REGISTER, under the title of "Rural Homilies." Grateful acknowledgments are due to the Editor for his frank goodwill in the abandonment of his rights.

Also am I indebted to the Curator and Officers of the Australian Museum,
Sydney, and specially to Mr. Charles Hedley, F.L.S., for assistance in
the identification of specimens. Similarly I am thankful to Mr. J.
Douglas Ogilby, of Brisbane, and to Mr. A. J. Jukes-Browne, F.R.S.,
F.G.S., of Torquay (England).

ILLUSTRATIONS (Not included in this eBook)

"AT ONE STRIDE COMES THE DARK"
Photo by Caroline Hordern
COCONUT AVENUE
Photo by Caroline Hordern
THE BUNGALOW
FERN OF GOD
PARASITIC FERN
THE COVE, PURTABOI
BRAMMO BAY, FROM GARDEN
PANDANUS PALM
PECTINARIAN TUBES
CLAM SHELL (Tridaena gigas) EMBEDDED IN CORAL
FIRE FISH (Pterois lunulata).
TRIGGER FISH (Balistapus aculeatus)
CORALS
EGG CAPSULES OF BAILER SHELL
DEVELOPMENT OF BAILER SHELL
EGG CAPSULES OF MOLLOSC, ATTACHED TO FAN CORAL
HARLEQUIN PIGFISH (Kiphocheilus fasciatus)
"FAERY LANDS FORLORN," TIMANA.
NEST OF GREEN TREE ANT
MATCH-BOX BEANS
PALL-KOO-LOO
WHERE SWIFTLETS BUILD
SWIFTLETS' NESTS
H. Barnes, Jun., Photo. Australian Museum
UMBRELLA TREE (Brassaia actinophylla)
Photo by Caroline Hordern
HAMED OF JEDDAH
BLACKS' TOYS1. PIAR-PIAR; 2. BIRRA-BIRRA-GOO; 3. PAR-GIR-AH
TURTLE ROCK, PURTABOI
DISGUISES OF CRABS
WYLO DEFIANT
THE DEATH BONE
YANCOO'S LAST RITE

Had I a plantation of this Isle, my lord

* * * * *

I' the Commonwealth I would by contraries
Execute all things; for no kind of traffic
Would I admit... riches, poverty
And use of service, none.

How quaint seems the demand for details of life on this Isle of Scent and Silence! Lolling in shade and quietude, was I guilty of indiscretion when I babbled of my serene affairs, and is the penalty so soon enforced? Can the record of such a narrow, compressed existence be anything but dull? Can one who is indifferent to the decrees of constituted society; who is aloof from popular prejudices; who cares not for the gaieties of the crowd or the vagaries of fashion; who does not dance or sing, or drink to toasts, or habitually make any loud noise, or play cards or billiards, or attend garden parties; who has no political ambitions; who is not a painter, or a musician, or a man of science; whose palate is as averse from ardent spirits as from physic; who is denied the all-redeeming vice of teetotalism; who cannot smoke even a pipe of peace; who is a casual, a nonentity a scout on the van of civilisation dallying with the universal enemy, timecan such a one, so forlorn of popular attributes, so weak and watery in his tastes, have aught to recite harmonious to the, ear of the world?

Yet, since my lifeand in the use, of the possessive pronoun here and elsewhere, let it signify also the life of my life-partneris beyond the range of ordinary experience, since it is immune from the ferments which seethe and muddle the lives of the many, I am assured that a familiar record will not be deemed egotistical, I am scolded because I did not confess with greater zeal, I am bidden to my pen again.

An attempt to fulfil the wishes of critics is confronted with risk. Cosy in my security, distance an adequate defence, why should I rush into the glare of perilous publicity? Here is an unpolluted Isle, without history, without any sort of fame. There come to it ordinary folk of sober understanding and well-disciplined ideas and tastes, who pass their lives without disturbing primeval silences or insulting the free air with the flapping of any ostentatious flag. Their doings are not romantic, or comic, or tragic, or heroic; they have no formula for the solution of social problems, no sour vexations to be sweetened, no grievance against society, no pet creed to dandle. What is to be said of the doings of such prosaic folkfolk who have merely set themselves free from restraint that they might follow their own fancies without hurry and without hindrance?

Moreover, if anything be more tedious than a twice-told tale, is it not the repetition of one half told? Since a demand is made for more complete details than were given in my "Confessions," either I must recapitulate, or, smiling, put the question by. It is simplicity itself to smile, and can there be anything more gracious or becoming? Who would not rather do so than attempt with perplexed brow a delicate, if not difficult, duty?

I propose, therefore, to hastily fill in a few blanks in my previous sketch of our island career and to pass on to features of novelty and interestvignettes of certain natural and unobtrusive features of the locality, first-hand and artless.

This, then, is for candour. Studiously I had evaded whensoever possible the intrusion of self, for do not I rank myself among the nonentities men whose lives matter nothing, whose deaths none need deplore. How great my bewilderment to find that my efforts at concealmentto make myself even more remote than my Islandhad had by impish perversity a contrary effect! On no consideration shall I part with all my secrets. Bereave me of my illusions and I am bereft, for they are "the stardust I have clutched."

One confessedly envious critic did chide because of the calculated non-presentation of a picture of our humble bungalow. So small a pleasure it would be sinful to deny. He shall have it, and also a picture of the one-roomed cedar hut in which we lived prior to the building of the house of comfort.

Who could dignify with gilding our utterly respectable, our limp history? There is no margin to it for erudite annotations. Unromantic, unsensational, yet was the actual beginning emphasis by the thud of a bullet. To that noisy start of our quiet life I meander to ensure chronological exactitude.