Last Leaves From Dunk Island

9781465531377

Library of Alexandria

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Overview

THE TEMPEST Early in the year 1918 two great storms visited the coast of North Queensland. One centred off the port of Mackay, four hundred miles to the south of Dunk Island, on 21st January, and the other about twenty-five miles to the north, on 10th March. Forty-eight hours prior to the Mackay storm premonitory effects were observed here, succeeding a memorable tidal jumble. During a breathless calm a mysterious northerly swell set in. To ears accustomed to the silence and the musical whisperings of a sheltered bay, the roar and burst of the breakers of a wind-forgotten sea suggested a confused mental picture—a blending of black and grey without form. Heaving, as with deep-drawn breaths, out from the beach the sea seemed to be both restless and angry, as glistening rollers heaved themselves on to the strand, to be shattered into spray. They rifled the Barrier Reef, threw on the sand lumps of coral to which brown seaweed hung, like the scalps of mermaids, and swept them to and fro with savage persistency. They brought driftwood from afar, and claimed all sorts of sun-dried relics from previous depositary moods. After a time the sea became silent again, with a sparkling, wavering ripple, while the noise of its assault on the mainland beach had the tone of distant, unceasing thunder