Page:Rambles in Australia (IA ramblesinaustral00grewiala).pdf/344

 children were at once to repair to certain specified places of refuge. The little native children are extraordinarily tough, and must be nearly as difficult to finish off as a koala bear. We saw a small black naked baby of about two years old fall off a verandah. It rolled down a steep flight of steps like a football. We were hurrying forward to pick it up, but it immediately scrambled to its feet, whimpered a little, and trotted off, none the worse.

The post office to which we went to see if there were any telegrams, with news from home, had rows of private letter boxes with glass windows, as it was the custom for people to fetch their own letters. A notice warned the owners that they must do their own repairs to these boxes, as their messengers were in the habit of smashing the glass to extract the letters. Another notice proclaimed that a murderer was wanted. He was eighteen years old, the son of a half-caste Chinese mother and a Kanaka father, a parental combination which one could imagine was fraught with dire possibilities. We walked about the island in an almost intolerably hot sun, on loose cobbles, alternating with deep, soft sand. It is an arid, stony place, and bristled with khaki-clad men. Inside the provision stores, which stood wide open, Japanese were mending sails.