The Confessions of a BeachcomberBanfield, E. J. (Edmund James)
History
The Confessions of a Beachcomber
Banfield, E. J. (Edmund James)
Dunk Island (Qld.); Natural history -- Australia -- Queensland
One feature then existent has also disappeared. The explorers referred to
the belt of magnificent calophyllum trees along the margin of the
south-west beach, and Mr Dalrymple thus describes a vegetable wonder--
"Some large fig-trees sent out great lateral roots, large as their own
trunks, fifty feet into salt water; an anchor-root extending
perpendicularly at the extremity to support them. Thence they have sent
up another tree as large as the parent stem, at high-water presenting the
peculiarity of twin-trees, on shore and in the sea, connected by a
rustic root bridge." These trees have no place or part now.
My chronicles are fated to be tinged with the ashen hue of the
commonplace, though the scenes they attempt to depict are all of the
sun-blessed tropics.
SATELLITES AND NEIGHBOURS
Consultation of the map will show that Dunk Island has four satellites
and seven near relations. Though not formally included in the Family
Group it stands as sponsor to all its members, and overlords the islets
within a few yards of its superior shores. The official chart has been
revised,
Only a few examples of current titles are given, as the crowding in of
the full list would have obscured the map in a maze of words. Many of the
geographical titles of the blacks are without meaning, being used merely
to indicate a locality. Others were bestowed because of the presence of a
particular tree or plant or a remarkable rock. Some few commemorate
incidents. Two places on Dunk Island perpetuate the names of females. The
coast-line is so varied that specific names for localities a few hundred
yards apart hardly seem necessary; but the original inhabitants, frugal
of their speech, found it less trouble to strew names thickly than to
enter into explanations one to another when relating the direction and
extent which the adventures and the sport of the day led them. Few names
for any part of the island away from the beach seem to have existed,
although the site of camps along the edge of the jungle, and even in
gullies as remote as may be from the sea, are even now apparent. Camps
were not honoured by titles, but all the creeks and watercourses and other
places where water was obtainable were so invariably, and camps were
generally, though not always, made near water.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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