My Tropic Isle Part 2

Flour 4 5 0 Groceries, lighting, &c. 40 0 0 Sundries 12 0 0 -------- Total 56 5 0

And the irreducible minimum has yet to be reached. For many years my exacting personal needs demanded the luxury of coffee. Pure and unadulterated, I quaffed it freely, and (being no politician) neither did it enhance my wisdom nor enable me to see through anything with half-shut eyes. Yet did it make me too glad. Under such vibrant, emphatic fingers my frail nerves tw.a.n.ged all too shrilly, and of necessity coffee was abandoned--not without pa.s.sing pangs--in favour of a beverage direct from Nature and untinctured by any of the vital principles of vegetables.

Thus is economy evolved, not as a foppish fad but as due obedience to the polite but imperious decrees of Nature.

And having confessed--far too literally, I fear--to so much on the expenditure side of the simple life in tropical Queensland, it might be antic.i.p.ated that the items of income would be stated to the completion of the story. The affairs of the busy world were discarded, not upon the strength of large acc.u.mulated savings or the possession of means by inheritance or by the success of investments or by mere luck, but upon merely imperative, theoretic antic.i.p.ations upon the cost of living the secluded life. We had little in reserve, how little it would be unbecoming to say. Our theories proved delusive, though not bewildering.

Some of the things abandoned with unphilosophic ease at the outset proved under the test of experience to be essential. Others deemed to be needful to desperation were forsaken unconsciously. Under the light of experience forecasts as to actual requirements were quite as vain as our preconceptions contrariwise. No single item which was not subjected to regulation. Without imposing any more impatient figures, be it said, then, that, though all preliminary estimates of ways and means underwent summary evolution, the financial end was close upon that on which we had calculated. Compulsion had all to do with the result. During each of the years of Island life our total income has never exceeded 100 and has generally fallen considerably below that amount. From the beginning we felt--and the foregoing lines have failed of their purpose if this acknowledgment has not been forestalled

"To be thus is nothing, But to be safely thus";

and to draw again from the unplumbed depths of Shakespeare:

"What's sweet to do, to do will aptly find."

CHAPTER III

"MUCH RICHES IN A LITTLE ROOM"

"Go and argue with the flies of summer that there is a power divine yet greater than the sun in the heavens, but never dare hope to convince the people of the South that there is any other G.o.d than Gold."--KINGLAKE.

No "saint-seducing gold" has been permitted to ruffle this placidity.

Gold! Our ears were tickled by the tale that good folks had actually thrilled when we slunk away to our Island. Rumour wagged her tongue, abusing G.o.d's great gift of speech, until scared Truth fled. She said--how cheap is notoriety!--that secret knowledge of hidden wealth which good luck had revealed during our holiday camp had induced us to surrept.i.tiously secure the land, that in our own good time we might selfishly gloat over untold gold! Some came frankly to prospect our hills and gullies, others shamefacedly, when our backs were turned; for had it not been foretold that gold was certain to be found on the Island, and were not the invincible truths of geology verified by our covert ways?

Had not one of the natives told of a lump so weighty that no man might lift it and on which hungry generation after hungry generation had pounded nuts? Had not another used a nugget as a plummet for his fis.h.i.+ng-line? It mattered not that the sordidly battered lump proved to be an ingot of crude copper--probably portion of the ballast from some ancient wrecks--and that Truth was sulking down some very remote well when the fable of the golden sinker was invented. Ordinary men--men of the type whom Kinglake designated "Poor Mr. Reasonable Man"--men with common sense, in fact, the very commonest of sense--were not to be beguiled by the plain statement that apparently sane individuals wilfully ventured into solitude for the mere privilege of living. Gold must be the real attraction--all else fict.i.tious, said they. "They have" [Rumour is speaking] "the option of an unwitnessed reef, sensationally, romantically rich, or know of a piratically and solemnly secreted h.o.a.rd." Indeed, we did think to enjoy our option, but over something more precious than gold.

But one visitor was so confidentially certain about the gold that he boldly made a proposition to share it. A fair exchange it was to be. He would, then and there, lead to a shaft 60 feet deep, and deep in the jungle, too, at a spot so artfully concealed that no mortal man could ever unguided hope to find it, where was to be revealed a reef--a rich reef blasted by the mere refractoriness of the ore, a disadvantage which would vanish like smoke before a man of means. To this sure and certain source of fortune he would provide safe and speedy conduct if on our part we would with like frankness confide in him our secret.

Our lack of secret, was it not boldly writ on our faces? But it was fair to a.s.sume an air of mystery. "Our secret," said we, "is more desirable than gold, yea, than much fine gold. Yours, at the best, is but dross!"

The very worst that could happen would be the discovery on this spot of anything more precious than an orchid. Gold, which would transform the Isle into a desert, is therefore selfishly concealed, and the reason for the concealment remains an incomprehensible enigma. Was it not the pinnacle of folly to retire to an Island where gold was not to be gotten either by the grace of G.o.d or by barter or strife with man? So bold a foolishness was incredible. Yet we get more out of the life of incredible folly than the wise who think of gold and little else but gold.

The singular perfection of our undertaking--"the rarity to run mad without a cause, without the least constraint or necessity," the exercise of that "refined and exquisite pa.s.sion"--stamped me a disciple of Don Quixote, and such I remain.

Some ancient said that the more folly a man puts into life the more he lives--a precept in which I steadfastly believe, provided the folly is of the wholesome kind and on a sufficient and calculated scale.

For several years prior to our descent no blacks had been resident on the Island. After the blotting out of the great mult.i.tude, the visits of its descendants had been irregular and brief. Therefore--and the a.s.surance is almost superfluous--most of the evidences of the characteristics of the race had, in the course of nature, been obliterated. A few frescoes adorning remote rock shelters, a few pearl sh.e.l.l fish-hooks, stone axes and, hammers, a rude mortar or two (merely granite rocks in which shallow depressions had been worn by the pounding of nuts), sh.e.l.ls on the sites of camps, scars of stone axes on a few trees--these were the only relics of the departed race.

Has a decade of occupation by wilful white folks wrought any permanent change in the stamp of Nature? None, save the exotic plants, that time, fire, and "white ants" might not consume. My kitchen midden is less conspicuous than those of the blacks, and, decently interred, gla.s.s and china shards the only lasting evidence thereof, for the few fragments of iron speedily corrode to nothingness in this damp and saline air.

Unwittingly the blacks handed down specimens of their handicraft--the pearl sh.e.l.l fish-hooks, a thousand times more durable in this climate than hooks of steel. Geologists tell us that sh.e.l.ls with iridescent colours are found in clays of such ancient date that if stated in centuries an indefinite number of millions would have to be a.s.signed to them. It is not strange, then, that some of my pearl sh.e.l.l hooks are as l.u.s.trous and sharp to-day as when the careless maker mislaid them in the sand for me to find half a century later. We leave no records on the land itself which would betray us after the lapse of half a dozen years. Is it not humiliating to find that the white man as the black records his most durable domestic history in rubbish, easily expungible by clean-fingered time?

Is humanity ever free from worries? What it has not it invents. Remote though we are from the disturbance of other folk's troublous cries, the ocean does not afford complete exemption from the sight of the shocking insecurity of the street.

One memorable day, casually glancing at the mainland, I saw on the beach something moving at astonis.h.i.+ng speed. Whereupon the telescope was brought to bear, and to my dismay revealed, actually and without fiction, a practical spring cart, drawn by a real horse at a trot, which horse was driven (as far as the telescope was credible) by a man! Over four years have elapsed since I saw any wheeled vehicle other than my own barrow--the speed of which is sedate (for I am a sedate and determined man, and refuse to be flurried by my own barrow). Nervousness and excitement began to play. Thank the propitious stars, two miles and more of mighty ocean separated me from the furious car. Otherwise, who may say? I might in my confusion have been unable to avoid disaster. This place is becoming thrilling. Let me move farther from the rush and bewilderment of traffic. Let me flee to some more secluded scene, where my sight, unsoiled hitherto by motor-car, may for ever preserve most excellent virginity. I have since made inquiries, and have been a.s.sured that the nerve-shocking juggernaut of the opposite beach is palsied--liable, indeed, to dissolution at any moment. When the collapse occurs I propose to venture across to inspect the remains and renew youthful memories of the species of conveyance to which it belonged.

How do we spend our day? How fill up the blank s.p.a.ces? Goats are to be milked', fowls to be fed, dough to be kneaded, breakfast to be prepared, firewood to be cut, house to be looked after. Most of the substantial improvements have long since been finished, but there is no place but has to be kept in repair. One day, a week practically, is bestowed on the steamer. All odd moments and every evening are devoted to books.

During the cool season, when day tides range low, hours are pa.s.sed on the coral reef, as often as conscience permits, in contemplation of the life of that crowded area. Seldom do we leave the Island, and rarely does any but a casual visitor break in on our privacy. Satisfied of the unpotentiality of wealth, here we materialise those dreams of happiness which are the enchantment of youth, the resolve of maturity, the solace of old age. Let other questants abandon hope, for I have found the philosopher's stone.

My concerns are far too engrossing to permit my mind to wander on the trivial, unreal, incomprehensible affairs of the Commonwealth, for the command of which practical politicians continuously grapple, though, I am one of those who mourn for democracy, since democracy has chosen to indulge in such hazardous experiments. The Government of a country which gives equal voice in the election of its representatives to university professor and unrepentant Magdalene is not altogether in a wholesome way, even though over a dozen Houses of Parliament clamour to manufacture its laws.

It is enough for me to possess the Isle of Desire--the evergreen isle that "s.l.u.ttish time" has never besmeared with ruin--where one may wander whithersoever the mood of the moment wills, or loll in the shade of scented trees, or thread the sunless mazes of the jungle--that region of shadow where all the leaves are dumb--listening for faint, ineffective sounds, or bask on the sand--on clean, unviolated, mica-bespangled sand--dreamily gazing over a sea of flas.h.i.+ng reflections where fitful zephyrs, soft as the shadows of clouds, alone make blueness visible.

The individual whose wants are few--who is content, who has no treasure to guard, whose rights there is none to dispute; who is his own magistrate, postman, architect, carpenter, painter, boat-builder, boatman, tinker, goatherd, gardener, woodcutter, water-carrier, and general labourer; who has been compelled to chip the superfine edges of his sentiments with the repugnant craft of the butcher; who, heedless of rule and method, adjusts the balance between wholesome toil and whole-hearted ease; who has a foolish love for the study of Nature; who has a sense of fellows.h.i.+p with animate and inanimate things; who endeavours to learn the character and the purpose of varied forms of life; whose jurisdiction extends over fifteen sacrosanct isles; who is never happier than when reading--need never bewail the absence of human schemes and sounds or fret under the galling burden of idleness. Here is no bell to affright; nor are we subject to the bidding or liable to the a.s.sault of any pa.s.ser by. Smooth-flowing time knows not mud or any foulness, while its impa.s.sive surface, burnished by August suns.h.i.+ne, reflects fair scenes and silent doings.

The freedom from care, the vague sense of selfish property in the whole scheme of Nature, the delicious discovery of the virtues of solitude, the loveliness of this most gay and youthful earth, and the tones of the pleasant-voiced and often surly sea fill me with joy and embellish hope--vague and unsubstantial--for is not this Isle the "place where one may have many thoughts and not decide anything"?

For all my occupations, I am often driven to "dialogue with my shadow"

for lack of less subservient auditor, and though, as the years pa.s.s, I find that I become more loose of soul and in broad daylight indulge the liberty of muttering my affairs and addressing animals and plants and of confiding secrets to the chaste moon--poets and dramatists term such incontinence of speech soliloquy and employ it for the utterance of edifying inspiration--it is because it is impossible to be ever quite alone. Not so very long ago in Merrie England if a person muttered to himself it was enough on which to establish a charge of wizardry; but it is also said that real witches and wizards, though subject to the most ticklish tests, never perspired--a default which hastened conviction.

Therein is my hope of salvation. If it be my fate some day to be found

"With age grown double, Picking dry sticks and mumbling to myself."

I shall claim a profuse prerogative, and continue to saunter down into the gloom at the foot of the hill of life unblinking in the sun.

CHAPTER IV

SILENCES

"Who has not hearkened to Her infinite din?"--Th.o.r.eAU.

Free alike from the clatter of pastimes and the creaks and groans of labour, this region discovers acute sensibility to sound. Silence in its rarest phases soothes the Isle, reproaching disturbances, though never so temperate. All the endemic sounds are primitive and therefore seldom harsh. Even the mysterious fall of a tree in the jungle--not an unusual occurrence on still days during the wet season--is unaccompanied by thud and shock. Encompa.s.sing vines and creepers, colossal in strength and overwhelming in weight, which have strained the tree to breaking point, ease their burden down, m.u.f.fling its descent, though now and again the primal rupture of trunk or branch rings out a sharp protest, and following the fall is silence--that varying, elusive sensation not to he expressed by the absence of actual noise.

There are silences which tinkle or buzz in the ears, causing them to ache with stress and strain; silences dull and sad as a wad of wool; silences as searching as the odour of musk--as soothing as the perfume of violets.

The crisp silence of the seash.o.r.e when absolute calm prevails is as different from the strained, sodden, padded silence of the jungle as the savour of olives from the raw insipidity of white of egg, for the c.u.mbersome mantle of leaf.a.ge is the surest stifler of noise, the truest cherisher of silence.

The most imperious hour of this realm of silence is three o'clock in the afternoon, when the sun has absorbed the energies of the most volatile of birds and insects. An hour later all may begin to a.s.sert themselves after a reviving, siesta; yet during the intensest hour of silence any abrupt noise--a call, or whistle, or bark of a dog--finds an immediate response.

No sound has been heard for an hour. All the birds have been stricken dumb or have been banished, yet as an echo to any violation of the silence comes the sweet, mellow, inquisitive note of the "moor-goody" (to use the black's name, for the shrike thrush). The bird seems fond of sound and will answer in trills and chuckles attempts to imitate its call.

The condition of perfect silence is not for this noisy sphere. The artist in so-called silences merely registers certain more or less delicate sound-waves flowing in easy contours, which others have not the leisure to distinguish. Often have I found myself as I strolled gloating over the exquisite absence of sound--enjoying in full mental relish the quaint and refined sensation. Yet when I have stopped and listened determinedly, viciously a.n.a.lysing my sensations, have I become aware of a hubbub of frail and interblended sounds. That which I had thought to be distilled silence, was microphonic Babel--an intimate commingling of a.n.a.logous noises varying in quality and intensity. By wilful resistance to what Falstaff called "the disease of not listening," I have been privileged to become aware of the singing of a quiet tune, some of the phrases of which were directly derivative from inarticulate vegetation--the thud of glossy blue quandongs on the soft floor of the jungle, the clicking of a discarded leaf as it fell from topmost twigs down through the strata of foliage, the bursting of a seed-pod, the patter of rejects from the million pink-fruited fig, overhanging the beach, the whisper of leaves, the faint squeal where interlocked branches fret each other unceasingly, the sigh of phantom zephyrs too elusive to be felt.

Echoes from vistas of silence far in the jungle lost their individuality in a sob. Gra.s.shoppers clinked in the forest, the hum of bees and beetles, the fluty plaint of a painted pigeon far in the gloom, the furtive scamper of scrub fowl among leaves made tender by decay, the splash of startled fish in the shadows, commingled and blended to the accompaniment of that subdued aerial buzz by which Nature manifests the more secret of her functions and art--that ineffable minstrelsy to which her silent battalions keep step. Preoccupation, the whirl of my own temperate thoughts, scared silence, while as soon as the mental machine was stilled, the very trees became vocal. Thus have I caught fleet silences as they pa.s.sed in chase of fugitive sounds.

Since the morning stars sang together, absolute silence has not visited the uneasy earth. In this Silent Isle the ears--