Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/50

26 never left me since. Whose dog it is I know not, but it has simply adopted me right away, and is my friend for the time being. Then down came a tame cassowary, and after stalking all round me once or twice, also joined in the walk. Then I saw a boy run to a tree, climb it hastily, and come to meet me with some of its fruit—another friend! So am I not in clover—a nice, cheery, kind boy, a dog, and a cassowary, all determined to be my friends? Besides this, at the hotel are two tame pelicans and various other birds and animals, all equally friendly, so there is not the slightest danger of my being dull.

I ascended the hill behind the town, and amidst some “scrub,” as they call a tropical jungle in Australia, came on some blacks camping and having a sort of corroboree. From the hill are perfectly lovely views of the green wooded islands and coral reefs all round, with here and there a glimpse of white houses, pearl-fishing stations, and between the islands always lovely stretches of sea of the most exquisite turquoise blue, pale green and yellow in the shallows, and amethyst purple where the shadows rest. At each island “station” lies a group of sailing-boats, and small white-sailed schooners are plying everywhere. Why, it is quite a lovely place, and the more I have seen of it the more I have admired it. I know no prettier spot anywhere about Australia. Sky, sea, and land, it is all beautiful. They are astonished at my admiration, and I see them cast surprised looks round.

“Scenery!—what's the good of scenery? There is nothing to be got out of that.” That I could be such a born idiot as to come here merely to look at the scenery, they cannot, will not believe.

One day all these islands in the Straits are to be the Sanatoria of Northern Australia and New