Finally got my new lenses today after 10 days of not quite right viewing thru old glasses. This did not stop me finishing this book by EJ Banfield. It was the one I got from the bookstore in Koroit two weeks back. It was written about 1904 and records his observations of life on Dunk Island. He was a newspaper man in Townsville and his health deteriorated from tuberculosis. He leased 320 acres on Dunk Island for 30 years and spent the remainder of his life there with his deaf wife. Maybe that is why he used so much detail in describing his surroundings so his wife could read it. The text is the flowery stuff of the time.
"There, 4 miles away, lay the island and close at hand the turtle were ever and anon rising, balloon-like, from coral gardens to gulp greedy draughts of air, which not even the salty essences of the ocean could rob of its perfume."
This guy decscribed the internal parts of the island, plants, animals, birds and aboriginal sites. Also the shoreline, the reefs and the fish. He observed the aboriginal activity and how they did things. There were other books as well but one of these is probably enough.
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| The house that EJ built |
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