Page:Rambles in Australia (IA ramblesinaustral00grewiala).pdf/271

 fish. Perhaps one day they would have seen ascending smoke behind that rocky ridge, and realised that hostile natives were waiting to fall on them. Long, long they would have waited for help and rescue, and perhaps have left only their whitening bones to tell other mariners in other years that rescue came too late

If you would add verisimilitude to these fancies you can find it, for on a secluded beach of Magnetic Island lies the skeleton of a ship that was wrecked there. It will lie there for many years to come, for it is worth no one's while to salve it. But to one who saw it a year ago it was a priceless relic, for it proved to him that even now in Queensland the old romance, the old adventure, and the spirit of them still linger in the lands that lie within our reach beyond the seas.