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The palms, tree-ferns, cacti, and other semi-tropical and sub-tropical plants are beautiful in themselves, and are arranged and intermingled with other trees and shrubs in a most artistic manner. Another organisation which is generally efficient and well conducted is that of the fire brigades.
But the greatest novelty and most striking feature to my eyes were the tree-ferns, which, after seven years spent in the tropics, I now saw in perfection for the first time.
The limpid waters were nearly at boiling point, while some neighboring springs spread out like sheets of glass. Gigantic tree-ferns grew beside them, in conditions analogous to those of the Silurian vegetation. On every side jets of water rose like park fountains, out of a sea of vapor; some of them continuous, others intermittent, as if a capricious Pluto controlled their movements.
In front was an open plain, sloping slightly upwards and dotted with clumps of tree-ferns, the whole curving before us until it ended in a long, whale-backed ridge. This we reached about midday, only to find a shallow valley beyond, rising once again into a gentle incline which led to a low, rounded sky-line.
In the gloomy gullies are slender-shafted palms and tree-ferns, while ferns and mosses cover the soil with living tapestry, and strange, snake-like epiphytes cling in sinuous curves to the larger trees. September is the prime month of the year in tropical Queensland. Many of the trees are then in blossom and most of the orchids.
Jem wanted no persuasion, and in five minutes he was breathing very heavily, while Don sat watching the beauties of nature, the clouds of steam floating above the volcanic island, the wondrous sheen of the sea in the sun, the great lace-like tree-ferns which drooped over the mossy growth at the forest edge, and the beautiful butterflies which floated about like gaily-painted flowers in the golden light.
It was accordingly consigned to Roger Trew's bag, our uncle saying that he would preserve it when we stopped to rest. The tree-ferns also were very graceful, of various heights and forms, from eight to fifteen feet high, their tall leaves waving over in the most picturesque manner. "We shall soon have a stream to cross," said my uncle, "which I consider the boundary of my domain.
Then Dot looked up, and saw that there was no sky to be seen; for they were passing under a forest of tree-ferns, and their lovely spreading fronds made a perfect green tent over their heads. The sunlight that came through was green, as if you were in a house made of green glass.
Nowhere did I see the Melastomas more luxuriant; and among them, arching over our heads like parasols of green lace, between us and the sky, were tall tree-ferns, as fine as those on the mountain slopes. In front of us opened a flat meadow of a few acres; and beyond it, spur upon spur, rose a noble mountain, in so steep a wall that it was difficult to see how we were to ascend.
The whole island is, or rather I should say was, heavily forested almost to its peak, with a grand and varied type of forest, very rich in oil palms and tree-ferns, and having an undergrowth containing an immense variety and quantity of ferns and mosses. Sugar-cane also grows wild here, an uncommon thing in West Africa.
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