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 have an agreeable, esoteric flavour, quite incomparable to anything else. It was all very pretty and comfortable, despite the absence of servants. The Port Darwin housewife has to wage an active and unceasing warfare against insect pests. Food cannot be left on the table for a short time without ants swarming on it. Large cockroaches three or four inches long lurk behind furniture; the destructive silver fish conceal themselves in unopened drawers, and mosquitoes make life a continual irritation, unless ceaseless precautions are taken. Still, active vigilance will reduce all these pests to a minimum.

The pleasant evening slipped away too soon. It was time to return to the port. We strolled back through the mysterious night, moist and warm and scented by flowering frangipani in the gardens of the dimly seen bungalows. Our boat lying below in the harbour was a blazing patch of light; the glow of a distant bush fire lit up the opposite coast; and that was all—all that we saw of the Northern Territory, mysterious fascinating, and beautiful, with its vast and intricate problems of labour and climate waiting solution. For with early morning we slipped away from its red and green shores, just as the rising sun had crimsoned all the glassy sea. That