Page:Rambles in Australia (IA ramblesinaustral00grewiala).pdf/324

 near the coast, and reaching Cairns the same night. Cairns is the port of Trinity Bay—"a large and deep bay which I called Trinity Bay after the day on which it was discovered," says Captain Cook, who had spent the intervening days in coasting up here from Whit-Sunday Passage. At Cairns we wished profoundly that the stringent Australian labour laws would prohibit night work, for our boat was lading or unlading with all the clangour and shouting incidental to these operations till 3 a.m. We had to be called early, because we were only to wait long enough in port to give the passengers an opportunity of making the return journey to the famous Barron Falls, about twenty miles inland from the coast, among some of the most celebrated Australian scenery. From the porthole of the ship's corridor we looked straight into a mangrove swamp, beyond was a background of misty dark hills with heavy clouds rolling down them.

Cairns, apart from its fame for the beauty of its falls and mountain scenery, is already an important place, and will become much more so, for it is the port for the rich inland districts, with which it is connected by railway. This fertile country is suitable for bananas, maize, for dairying, as well as for the timber trade. In the