fired at with shot by one of two 'young gentlemen' of the BRAMBLE on a shooting excursion, whom they wished to prevent approaching too closely a small village where they had their wives and children. Immediate steps were taken in consequence to prevent the recurrence of such collisions when thoughtless curiosity on one side is apt to be promptly resented on the other if numerically superior in force... The men had large cicatrices on the shoulders and across the breast and belly, the septum of the nose was perforated, and none of the teeth had been removed. I saw no weapons, and some rude armlets were their only ornaments." Tam o' Shanter Point derives its title from the barque of that name, in which the members of the Kennedy Exploring Expedition voyaged from Sydney, whence they disembarked on 24th and 25th May 1848. H.M.S. RATTLESNAKE had been commissioned to lend Kennedy assistance, and Macgillivray relates that everything belonging to the party (with the exception of one horse drowned while swimming ashore) was safely landed. The first camp was formed on some open forest-land behind the beach at a small fresh-water creek. On the 27th Mr Carson, the botanist of the party, commenced digging a piece of ground, in which he sowed seeds of cabbages, turnips, leek, pumpkin, rock and water melons, pomegranate, peach-stones and apple-pips. No trace of this first venture in gardening in North Queensland is now discernible. No doubt, inquisitive and curious blacks would rummage the freshly turned soil as soon as the back of the good-natured gardener was turned. It occurred to me that possibly the pomegranate seeds might have germinated, and the plants become established and acclimatised, but search proved resultless. Carson makes no reference to the coco-nut palm which once flourished at the mouth of the creek. The inference is that the nut whence it sprang drifted ashore after his attempt to civilise the vicinity by the planting of seeds. Dalrymple refers to the tree which, at the date of his visit (September 1873), was "about fourteen feet in height, but without fruit!" It grew to a great tree, and blacks found in the fruit a refreshing, nutritious food; but an evil thing came along one day in the shape of a thirsty Chinaman, and as he could not climb the tree he cut it down, and blacks, even to this day, hate the name of Chinaman. Opposite the Point is the Island of Timana, known to some as "the Island on which the Chinaman was killed!" Whether "the Chinaman" was the person who cut down the coco-nut palm is not known, but somehow his fate and that of the palm have become associated.