ar reef.

NATIVES IN DISTRESS.

On the north-west island we saw a small party of natives from the
mainland, consisting of two men and a boy, in great distress from want of
water, until Lieutenant Yule kindly supplied their wants. They had been
wind-bound here for several days, the weather for some time previously
having been too boisterous to admit of attempting to reach the shore,
although only a few miles distant, in their split and patched-up canoe.
This was of small size, the hollowed-out trunk of a tree, with a double
outrigger, and altogether a poor imitation of that used by the islanders
of Torres Strait; the paddles were of rude workmanship, shaped like a
long-handled cricket-bat. Their spears and throwing sticks were of the
same kind as those in use at Cape York, to be afterwards described. These
people were wretched specimens of their race, lean and lanky, and one was
suffering from ophthalmia, looking quite a miserable object; they had
come here in search of turtle--as I understood. Each of the men had lost
a front tooth, and one had the oval cicatrix on the right shoulder,
characteristic of the northern natives, an imitation of that of the
islanders. They showed little curiosity, and trembled with fear, as if
suspicious of our intentions. I made a fruitless attempt to pick up some
scraps of their language; they understood the word powd or peace of
Torres Strait.

On this island the principal trees are the leafless Erythrina, with waxy,
pink flowers. Great numbers of pigeons resorted here to roost. I found
here a large colony of that rare and beautiful tern, Sterna melanauchen,
and mixed up with them a few individuals of the still rarer Sterna
gracilis.

CAIRNCROSS ISLAND.

We anchored under Cairncross Island, on the afternoon of September 3rd,
and remained during the following day. The island is about a quarter of a
mile in length, low and sandy, covered in the centre with tall trees, and
on the outskirts with smaller ones and bushes. These large trees (Pisonia
grandis) form very conspicuous objects from their great dimensions, their
smooth, light bark, and leafless, dead appearance. Some are from eighty
to one hundred feet in height, with a circumference at the base of twenty
feet. The wood, however, is too soft to be useful as timber. Nowhere had
we seen the Torres Strait pigeon in such prodigious numbers as here,
crossing over in small flocks to roost, and returning in the morning; yet
many remained