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But to Dodd and his entertainer, all this amenity of the tropic night, and all these dainties of the island table, were grown things of custom; and they fell to meat like men who were hungry, and drifted into idle talk like men who were a trifle bored. The scene in the club was referred to. "I never heard you talk so much nonsense, Loudon," said the host.
The flowers, the birds, the insects, are all a hundred feet over your head as you walk along in the all but lifeless shade; and half an hour therein would make you feel how true was Mr. Wallace's simile that a walk in the tropic forest was like one in an empty cathedral while the service was being celebrated upon the roof.
And so they did yesterday, and the day before; and so they did centuries ago, when the Danes swept past them, battleworn, and sad of heart for the loss of the magic raven flag, from the fight at Appledore, to sit down and starve on 'the island of Bradanrelice, which men call Flat Holms. Ay, and even so they leapt and fell, before a sail gleamed on the Severn sea, when the shark and the ichthyosaur paddled beneath the shade of tropic forests now scanty turf and golden gorse.
Like the call of the wood pewee, the wren's radiates coolness and shadowy quiet. No matter how tropic or breathless the jungle, when the flute-like notes arise they bring a feeling of freshness, they arouse a mental breeze, which cools one's thoughts, and, although there may be no water for miles, yet we can fairly hear the drip of cool drops falling from thick moss to pools below.
It is about three hundred and sixty miles from Sydney to New Caledonia, a long, narrow island lying just north of the Tropic of Capricorn, and completely surrounded by belts of coral reef crenellated here and there, and forming channels or passes where ships may enter.
She has lifted them out of grief and care and doubt and fear, and made their lives beautiful; she found them wandering forlorn in a wintry wilderness, and has led them to a tropic paradise like that of which the poet sings: "O, islands there are on the face of the deep Where the leaves never fade and the skies never weep."
Further north a few grapes are grown, but not in any great quantities, and I consider that the profitable cultivation of good table grapes on the coast extends from our Southern border to a short distance north of the tropic of Capricorn and inland to all districts where there is either a sufficient rainfall or a supply of water from artesian bores, or otherwise, to enable them to be grown.
Since these men left their fatherland, a great Literature and Philosophy have breathed like a tropic upon that land, and the superstitions have been wrought into poetry and thought; but that raw material of legend which in Germany has been woven into finest tissues on the brain-looms of Wieland, Tieck, Schiller, and Goethe, has remained raw material in the great valley that stretches from New York to Upper Alabama.
In a moment Harry Needles entered in cavalry uniform with fine top boots and silver spurs, erect as a young Indian brave and bronzed by tropic suns. "Hello!" he said as he took off his belt and clanking saber. "I hang up my sword. I have had enough of war." He had ridden across country from the boat landing and arriving so late had left his horse at a livery stable.
We waited until the tide had fallen still lower and until the whole surface of the great sweeping curve of reef stood out, bare and steaming, under the bright tropic sun. Westward lay the ocean, blue and smooth as a mill pond, with only a gentle, heaving swell laving the outer wall of the coral barrier.
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