Read Ebook: My Tropic Isle by Banfield E J Edmund James

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"When thus I hail the moment flying, Ah! still delay, thou art so fair!"

Sea, coral reefs, forest, jungle afford never ending pleasure. Look, where the dolorous sphinx sheds gritty tears because of the boldness of the sun and the solvency of the disdainful sea. Look, where the jungle clothes the steep Pacific slope with its palms and overskirt of vines and creepers! Glossy, formal bird's-nest ferns and irregular mass of polypodium edged with fawn-coloured, infertile fronds fringe the sea-ward ending. Orchids, old gold and violet, cling to the rocks with the white claws of the sea snatching at their toughened roots, and beyond the extreme verge of ferns and orchids on abrupt sea-scarred boulders are the stellate shadows of the whorled foliage of the umbrella tree, in varied pattern, precise and clean cut and in delightful commingling and confusion. Deep and definite the shadows, offspring of lordly light and steadfast leaves--not mere insubstantialities, but stars deep sculptured in the grey rock.

And when an intemperate sprite romps and rollicks, and all the features of prettiness and repose are distraught under the bluster and lateral blur of a cyclone, still do I revel in the scene. Does a mother love her child the less when, contorted with passion, it storms and rages? She grieves that a little soul should be so greatly vexed. Her affection is no jot depreciated. So, when my trees are tempest-tossed, and the grey seas batter the sand-spit and bellow on the rocks, and neither bird nor butterfly dare venture from leafy sanctuary, and the green flounces are tattered and stained by the scald of brine spray, do I avow my serenity. How staunch the heart of the little island to withstand so sturdy a buffeting!

In such a scene would it not have been wicked to have delivered ourselves over to any cranky, miserly economy or to any distortion or affectation of thrift? Had fortune smiled, her gifts would have been sanely appreciated, for our ideas of comfort and the niceties of life are not cramped, neither are they to be gauged by the narrow gape of our purse. Our castles are built in the air, not because earth has no fit place for their foundations, but for the sufficient reason that the wherewithal for the foundations was lacking. When a sufficiency of the world's goods has been obtained to satisfy animal wants for food and clothing and shelter, happiness depends, not upon the pleasures but the pleasantnesses of life; not upon the possession of a house full of superfluities but in the attainment of restraining grace.

It might be possible for us to live for the present in just a shade "better style" than we do; but we have mean ambitions in other directions than style. Style is not for those who are placidly indifferent to display; and before whom on a comely, scornful Isle shall we strut and parade? "You and I cannot be confined within the weak list of a country's fashions," for do we not proclaim and justify our own? Are we not leaders who have no subservient, no flattering imitators, no sycophantic copyists? The etiquette of our Court finds easy expression, and we smile decorously on the infringements of casual comers.

Once a steamer anchored boldly in the bay--a pert steamer with a saucy, off-duty air. Certain circumstances forewarned us of a "formal call." So that the visit should not partake of an actual surprise a boat containing ladies and gentlemen was rowed ostentatiously across to land awkwardly at such a point as would herald the fact and afford a precious interim in which we were plainly invited to embellish ourselves--to assume a receptive style of countenance and clothes and company manners. Careless of dignity, the charitable prelude was lost upon us. Our self-conscious and considerate visitors dumbly expressed amazement at their informal reception and our unfestive attire. Yet my garments were neat, sufficient, and defiantly unsoiled. Had I donned a full, white suit, with neat tie and Panama hat, and stood even barefooted on the beach, conspicuous, revealed as a "gentleman" even from the decks of the defiant steamer, the boat-load would have come straight to the landing smiling, and chatting, to drop "their ceremonious manna in the way of starved people." They would have been elated had I assumed robes of reverence--a uniform indicative of obligation--a worthy response to their patronage. With compliments expressed in terms of functionary clothes they had hoped to soothe their vanity. White cotton and a tinted tie would have been smilingly honoured; and the mere man was not flattered to perceive that he was less in esteem than the drapery common to the species. I never will be content to be a supernumerary to my clothes.

Our visitors reflected not on their intrusion. My precious privacy was gratuitously violated, and in such circumstances that my holiday humour was put under restraint for the time being. Though I do profess love for human nature, for some phases I have but scant respect.

But our house was open. None of the observances of the rites of hospitality was lacking. Gleams of good humour dispersed the gloom on the faces of our guests. They had penetrated the thin disguise of clothes, and it was then that I silently wished in Portia's words that "God might grant them a fair departure."

Another class of visitor came on a misty morning in a fussy little launch. After preliminary greetings on the beach he remarked on my name, presuming that I belonged to a Scotch family.

"A good family, I do not question."

"Oh, yes. A family of excellent and high repute."

"Then, I cannot be any connection, for I am proud to confess that our family is distinguished--greatly distinguished--by a very bad name. It comes from Kent. I am a kinsman of a king--the King of the Beggars!"

"Ah! Quite a coincidence. I remarked to my friend as we came up to your Island: 'If the exile is a descendant of the King of the Beggars, this is just the kind of life he would be likely to adopt.'"

"Exactly. I am indeed complimented. Blood--the blood of the vagabond--will tell!"

And my friendly visitor--a man whom the King had delighted to honour--with whimsical glances at my clothes, which tended to "sincerity rather then ceremony," strolled along the beach.

If we were disposed to vaunt ourselves, have we not, in this simplicity and lack of style, the most persuasive of examples?

Indifferent to style, we do indulge in longings--longings pitifully weak--longings for the preservation of independence toilfully purchased during the poisonous years of the past. Beside all wishes for books and pictures and means for music and the thousands of small things which make for divine discontent, stands a spectre--not grim and abhorrent and forbidding, but unlovely and stern, indicating that the least excess of exotic pleasures would so strain our resources that independence would be threatened. If we were to buy anything beyond necessities, we might not be certain of gratifying wants, frugal as they are, without once more being compelled to fight with the beasts at some Australian Ephesus. Rather than clog our minds with the thought of such conflict and of fighting with flaccid muscles, dispirited and almost surely ingloriously, we choose to laugh and be glad of our liberty, to put summary checks upon arrogant desires for the possession of hosts of things which would materially add to comforts without infringing upon pleasures, and find in all serene satisfaction.

We have not yet pawned our future. No sort of tyranny, save that which is primal, physical, and of the common lot, puts his dirty foot on our haughty, sun-favoured necks.

"It is still the use of fortune To let the wretched man outlive his wealth, To view with hollow eye and wrinkled brow An age of poverty."

May Heaven and our thrift avert the fate!

The nervous intensity, the despotic self-sufficiency of this easy and indifferent existence may expose us to taunts; but how sublimely ineffective the taunts which are never heard and which, if heard through echoing mischance, would provoke but serene smiles; for have we not avoided the aches of uniformity, the seriousness of prosperity, most of the trash of civilisation, and the scorn of Fortune when she sniggers?

How magnificently slender, too, is our boasted independence! What superb economists are we! Astonishment follows upon an audit of our slipshod accounts at the amount spent unconsciously on small things which do not directly affect the actual cost of living. Taking the mean of several years' expenditure, the item "postage stamps" is a little larger than the cost of my own clothing and boots. The average annual cost of stamps has been ?5 4s.; clothing and boots, ?4 12s. Indeed, this latter item is inflated, since, while I have stamps worth only a few shillings on hand, clothes are in stock sufficient to last twelve months. The "youthful hose, well kept," with other everlasting drapery brought from civilisation, is still wearable. The original clothing, such as conformity with the rules of the streets implies, remains serviceable, however obsolete in "style," which is another word for fashion, "that pitiful, lackey-like creature which struts through one country in the cast-off finery of another." For the privilege of citizenship in what, at present, is the freest country in the world my direct taxation amounts to ?1 5s. per annum; and, since "luxuries" are not in demand, indirect contributions to State and Commonwealth are so trivial that they fail to excite the most sensitive of the emotions. All our household is in harmony with this quiet tune, and yet we have not conquered our passion for thrift but merely disciplined it.

A young missionary who became a great bishop, after some experience of "the wilds," expressed the opinion that there were but six necessaries--shelter, fuel, water, fire, something to eat, and blankets. Our practical tests, extending over twelve years, would tend to the reduction of the list. For the best part of the year one item--blankets--is superfluous. Water and fuel are so abundant that they count almost as cheaply as the air we breathe; but we do lust after a few clothes--a very few--which the good missionary did not catalogue. Our essentials would therefore be--shelter, something to eat, and a "little" to wear. Fire is included under "something to eat," for it is absolutely unnecessary for warmth. We do still appreciate a warm meal. Our house contains no means for the production of heat, save the kitchen stove.

Fruit, vegetables, milk, eggs, poultry, fish, and nearly all the meat consumed--emergency stocks of tinned goods are in reserve--are as cheap as water and fuel. Our unsullied appetites demand few condiments. Why olives, when if need be--and the need has not yet manifested itself--as shrewd a relish and as cleansing a flavour is to be obtained from the pale yellow flowers of the male papaw, steeped in brine--a decoration and a zest combined? Our mango chutney etherealises our occasional salted goat-mutton--and we know that the chutney is what it professes to be.

What more wholesome and pleasant a dish than papaw beaten to mush, saturated with the juice of lime, sweetened with sugar, and made fantastic with spices? What more enticing, than stewed mango--golden and syrupy--with junket white as marble; or fruit salad compact of pineapple, mango, papaw, granadilla, banana, with lime juice and powdered sugar?

We lack not for spring chicken or roast duck whenever there is the wish; for the best part of the year eggs are despicably common. Every low tide advertises oysters gratis, and occasionally crabs and crayfish for the picking up. Delicate as well as wholesome and nutritious food is ours at so little cost that our debt to smiling Nature, if she kept records and tendered her accounts, would be somewhat embarrassing. And if Nature frowns with denial and there are but porridge and goat's milk and eggs and home-made bread and jam, thank goodness she blesses such fare with unjaded appreciation!

Since deprived of the society of blacks, our domestic expenditure has dwindled by nearly one-half. Indeed, it is almost as costly to feed and clothe three blacks as to provide essentials for three whites of frugal tastes. Here are a few items of annual domestic expenditure, proffered not in the spirit of gloating over our simplicity or of delighting in economy of luxuries, but to illustrate how few are the wants which Nature leaves unsatisfied. The figures are presented with the utmost diffidence, but with indifference alike to the censure of those who may scent obsequiousness to the stern philosophy of Thoreau in the matter of diet, or to the jeers of others who despise small things:

And the irreducible minimum has yet to be reached. For many years my exacting personal needs demanded the luxury of coffee. Pure and unadulterated, I quaffed it freely, and neither did it enhance my wisdom nor enable me to see through anything with half-shut eyes. Yet did it make me too glad. Under such vibrant, emphatic fingers my frail nerves twanged all too shrilly, and of necessity coffee was abandoned--not without passing pangs--in favour of a beverage direct from Nature and untinctured by any of the vital principles of vegetables. Thus is economy evolved, not as a foppish fad but as due obedience to the polite but imperious decrees of Nature.

And having confessed--far too literally, I fear--to so much on the expenditure side of the simple life in tropical Queensland, it might be anticipated that the items of income would be stated to the completion of the story. The affairs of the busy world were discarded, not upon the strength of large accumulated savings or the possession of means by inheritance or by the success of investments or by mere luck, but upon merely imperative, theoretic anticipations upon the cost of living the secluded life. We had little in reserve, how little it would be unbecoming to say. Our theories proved delusive, though not bewildering. Some of the things abandoned with unphilosophic ease at the outset proved under the test of experience to be essential. Others deemed to be needful to desperation were forsaken unconsciously. Under the light of experience forecasts as to actual requirements were quite as vain as our preconceptions contrariwise. No single item which was not subjected to regulation. Without imposing any more impatient figures, be it said, then, that, though all preliminary estimates of ways and means underwent summary evolution, the financial end was close upon that on which we had calculated. Compulsion had all to do with the result. During each of the years of Island life our total income has never exceeded ?100 and has generally fallen considerably below that amount. From the beginning we felt--and the foregoing lines have failed of their purpose if this acknowledgment has not been forestalled

"To be thus is nothing, But to be safely thus";

and to draw again from the unplumbed depths of Shakespeare:

"What's sweet to do, to do will aptly find."

"MUCH RICHES IN A LITTLE ROOM"

"Go and argue with the flies of summer that there is a power divine yet greater than the sun in the heavens, but never dare hope to convince the people of the South that there is any other God than Gold."--KINGLAKE.

No "saint-seducing gold" has been permitted to ruffle this placidity. Gold! Our ears were tickled by the tale that good folks had actually thrilled when we slunk away to our Island. Rumour wagged her tongue, abusing God's great gift of speech, until scared Truth fled. She said--how cheap is notoriety!--that secret knowledge of hidden wealth which good luck had revealed during our holiday camp had induced us to surreptitiously secure the land, that in our own good time we might selfishly gloat over untold gold! Some came frankly to prospect our hills and gullies, others shamefacedly, when our backs were turned; for had it not been foretold that gold was certain to be found on the Island, and were not the invincible truths of geology verified by our covert ways? Had not one of the natives told of a lump so weighty that no man might lift it and on which hungry generation after hungry generation had pounded nuts? Had not another used a nugget as a plummet for his fishing-line? It mattered not that the sordidly battered lump proved to be an ingot of crude copper--probably portion of the ballast from some ancient wrecks--and that Truth was sulking down some very remote well when the fable of the golden sinker was invented. Ordinary men--men of the type whom Kinglake designated "Poor Mr. Reasonable Man"--men with common sense, in fact, the very commonest of sense--were not to be beguiled by the plain statement that apparently sane individuals wilfully ventured into solitude for the mere privilege of living. Gold must be the real attraction--all else fictitious, said they. "They have" "the option of an unwitnessed reef, sensationally, romantically rich, or know of a piratically and solemnly secreted hoard." Indeed, we did think to enjoy our option, but over something more precious than gold.

But one visitor was so confidentially certain about the gold that he boldly made a proposition to share it. A fair exchange it was to be. He would, then and there, lead to a shaft 60 feet deep, and deep in the jungle, too, at a spot so artfully concealed that no mortal man could ever unguided hope to find it, where was to be revealed a reef--a rich reef blasted by the mere refractoriness of the ore, a disadvantage which would vanish like smoke before a man of means. To this sure and certain source of fortune he would provide safe and speedy conduct if on our part we would with like frankness confide in him our secret.

Our lack of secret, was it not boldly writ on our faces? But it was fair to assume an air of mystery. "Our secret," said we, "is more desirable than gold, yea, than much fine gold. Yours, at the best, is but dross!"

The very worst that could happen would be the discovery on this spot of anything more precious than an orchid. Gold, which would transform the Isle into a desert, is therefore selfishly concealed, and the reason for the concealment remains an incomprehensible enigma. Was it not the pinnacle of folly to retire to an Island where gold was not to be gotten either by the grace of God or by barter or strife with man? So bold a foolishness was incredible. Yet we get more out of the life of incredible folly than the wise who think of gold and little else but gold.

The singular perfection of our undertaking--"the rarity to run mad without a cause, without the least constraint or necessity," the exercise of that "refined and exquisite passion"--stamped me a disciple of Don Quixote, and such I remain.

Some ancient said that the more folly a man puts into life the more he lives--a precept in which I steadfastly believe, provided the folly is of the wholesome kind and on a sufficient and calculated scale.

For several years prior to our descent no blacks had been resident on the Island. After the blotting out of the great multitude, the visits of its descendants had been irregular and brief. Therefore--and the assurance is almost superfluous--most of the evidences of the characteristics of the race had, in the course of nature, been obliterated. A few frescoes adorning remote rock shelters, a few pearl shell fish-hooks, stone axes and, hammers, a rude mortar or two , shells on the sites of camps, scars of stone axes on a few trees--these were the only relics of the departed race.

Has a decade of occupation by wilful white folks wrought any permanent change in the stamp of Nature? None, save the exotic plants, that time, fire, and "white ants" might not consume. My kitchen midden is less conspicuous than those of the blacks, and, decently interred, glass and china shards the only lasting evidence thereof, for the few fragments of iron speedily corrode to nothingness in this damp and saline air. Unwittingly the blacks handed down specimens of their handicraft--the pearl shell fish-hooks, a thousand times more durable in this climate than hooks of steel. Geologists tell us that shells with iridescent colours are found in clays of such ancient date that if stated in centuries an indefinite number of millions would have to be assigned to them. It is not strange, then, that some of my pearl shell hooks are as lustrous and sharp to-day as when the careless maker mislaid them in the sand for me to find half a century later. We leave no records on the land itself which would betray us after the lapse of half a dozen years. Is it not humiliating to find that the white man as the black records his most durable domestic history in rubbish, easily expungible by clean-fingered time?

Is humanity ever free from worries? What it has not it invents. Remote though we are from the disturbance of other folk's troublous cries, the ocean does not afford complete exemption from the sight of the shocking insecurity of the street.

One memorable day, casually glancing at the mainland, I saw on the beach something moving at astonishing speed. Whereupon the telescope was brought to bear, and to my dismay revealed, actually and without fiction, a practical spring cart, drawn by a real horse at a trot, which horse was driven by a man! Over four years have elapsed since I saw any wheeled vehicle other than my own barrow--the speed of which is sedate . Nervousness and excitement began to play. Thank the propitious stars, two miles and more of mighty ocean separated me from the furious car. Otherwise, who may say? I might in my confusion have been unable to avoid disaster. This place is becoming thrilling. Let me move farther from the rush and bewilderment of traffic. Let me flee to some more secluded scene, where my sight, unsoiled hitherto by motor-car, may for ever preserve most excellent virginity. I have since made inquiries, and have been assured that the nerve-shocking juggernaut of the opposite beach is palsied--liable, indeed, to dissolution at any moment. When the collapse occurs I propose to venture across to inspect the remains and renew youthful memories of the species of conveyance to which it belonged.

How do we spend our day? How fill up the blank spaces? Goats are to be milked', fowls to be fed, dough to be kneaded, breakfast to be prepared, firewood to be cut, house to be looked after. Most of the substantial improvements have long since been finished, but there is no place but has to be kept in repair. One day, a week practically, is bestowed on the steamer. All odd moments and every evening are devoted to books.

During the cool season, when day tides range low, hours are passed on the coral reef, as often as conscience permits, in contemplation of the life of that crowded area. Seldom do we leave the Island, and rarely does any but a casual visitor break in on our privacy. Satisfied of the unpotentiality of wealth, here we materialise those dreams of happiness which are the enchantment of youth, the resolve of maturity, the solace of old age. Let other questants abandon hope, for I have found the philosopher's stone.

My concerns are far too engrossing to permit my mind to wander on the trivial, unreal, incomprehensible affairs of the Commonwealth, for the command of which practical politicians continuously grapple, though, I am one of those who mourn for democracy, since democracy has chosen to indulge in such hazardous experiments. The Government of a country which gives equal voice in the election of its representatives to university professor and unrepentant Magdalene is not altogether in a wholesome way, even though over a dozen Houses of Parliament clamour to manufacture its laws.

It is enough for me to possess the Isle of Desire--the evergreen isle that "sluttish time" has never besmeared with ruin--where one may wander whithersoever the mood of the moment wills, or loll in the shade of scented trees, or thread the sunless mazes of the jungle--that region of shadow where all the leaves are dumb--listening for faint, ineffective sounds, or bask on the sand--on clean, unviolated, mica-bespangled sand--dreamily gazing over a sea of flashing reflections where fitful zephyrs, soft as the shadows of clouds, alone make blueness visible.

The individual whose wants are few--who is content, who has no treasure to guard, whose rights there is none to dispute; who is his own magistrate, postman, architect, carpenter, painter, boat-builder, boatman, tinker, goatherd, gardener, woodcutter, water-carrier, and general labourer; who has been compelled to chip the superfine edges of his sentiments with the repugnant craft of the butcher; who, heedless of rule and method, adjusts the balance between wholesome toil and whole-hearted ease; who has a foolish love for the study of Nature; who has a sense of fellowship with animate and inanimate things; who endeavours to learn the character and the purpose of varied forms of life; whose jurisdiction extends over fifteen sacrosanct isles; who is never happier than when reading--need never bewail the absence of human schemes and sounds or fret under the galling burden of idleness. Here is no bell to affright; nor are we subject to the bidding or liable to the assault of any passer by. Smooth-flowing time knows not mud or any foulness, while its impassive surface, burnished by August sunshine, reflects fair scenes and silent doings.

The freedom from care, the vague sense of selfish property in the whole scheme of Nature, the delicious discovery of the virtues of solitude, the loveliness of this most gay and youthful earth, and the tones of the pleasant-voiced and often surly sea fill me with joy and embellish hope--vague and unsubstantial--for is not this Isle the "place where one may have many thoughts and not decide anything"?

For all my occupations, I am often driven to "dialogue with my shadow" for lack of less subservient auditor, and though, as the years pass, I find that I become more loose of soul and in broad daylight indulge the liberty of muttering my affairs and addressing animals and plants and of confiding secrets to the chaste moon--poets and dramatists term such incontinence of speech soliloquy and employ it for the utterance of edifying inspiration--it is because it is impossible to be ever quite alone. Not so very long ago in Merrie England if a person muttered to himself it was enough on which to establish a charge of wizardry; but it is also said that real witches and wizards, though subject to the most ticklish tests, never perspired--a default which hastened conviction. Therein is my hope of salvation. If it be my fate some day to be found

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