A Cast for Fortune (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1890 Excerpt: ...that day An ancient enemy who pled Forgiveness for an ill long dead, And in quick words with wrath aglow He silenced his repentant foe William H. Hayne. INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A TORRES STRAITS ISLANDER. BETWEEN Cape York, the most northerly extremity of Australia, and that island of marvels, New Guinea, is a narrow strait which possesses the unenviable reputation of being one of the most intricate and dangerous of all water-routes. Scattered among its coral reefs are numerous islands, varying in size from a tiny sand-bank to a hilly island some twelve miles across, in some of which I spent many months of 1888 and 1889. Situated well in the tropics, the sun beats fiercely upon these islands, but the climate is for the greater portion of the year tempered by the prevailing southeast trade-wind. At the change of monsoons and at intervals during the rainy season dead calms occur, and the sun pours down its vertical rays on the heated soil and on the glassy sea. The sand-beach dazzles the eye with its glare and burns the feet with its heat. At such times life in the daytime becomes endurable only when passed in quietness and shade; the relief of the evening, the wondrous beauty of the night, and the glory of the early morning, however, are compensations for the burden and heat of the day. The sandy islets rarely have more than a vegetation of low scrub, but the rocky hills of the western islands are more or less clothed with trees. Still, there is a somewhat poverty-stricken appearance in many of them, especially towards the close of the dry season. It is only in the few volcanic islands at the eastern entrance to the Straits that vegetation becomes rampant, and there one finds large areas covered with coco-nut palms and bananas and gardens of yams and sweet ...