sea-level. The regularity of the outline of this bank is remarkable.
Running in a more or less correct curve for a mile and a half, it
indicates a clear-cut difference between the flat and the plateau. The
toe of the bank rests upon sand, while the plateau is of
chocolate-coloured soil intermixed on the surface with flakes of slate;
and from this sure foundation springs the backbone of the island. On the
flat, the plateau, and the hillsides, the forest consists of similar
trees--alike in age and character for all the difference in soil--the one
tree that does not leave the flat being the tea or melaleuca. In some
places the jungle comes down to the water's edge, the long antennae of
the lawyer vine toying with the rod-like aerial roots of the mangrove.

The plateau is the park of the island, half a mile broad, and a mile and
more long. Upon it grows the best of the bloodwoods (EUCALYPTUS
CORYNBOSA), the red stringy bark (E. ROBUSTA), Moreton Bay ash (E.
TESSALARIS), various wattles, the gin-gee of the blacks (DIPLANTHERA
TETRAPHYLLA). PANDANUS AQUATICUS marks the courses and curves of some of
the gullies. A creek, hidden in a broad ribbon of jungle and running from
a ravine in the range to the sea, divides our park in fairly equal
portions.

Most part of the range is heavily draped with jungle--that is, on the
western aspect. Just above the splash of the Pacific surges on the
weather or eastern side, low-growing scrub and restricted areas of
forest, with expansive patches of jungle, plentifully intermixed with
palms and bananas, creep up the precipitous ascent to the summit of the
range--870 feet above the sea. So steep is the Pacific slope that,
standing on the top of the ridge and looking down, you catch mosaic
gleams of the sea among the brown and grey tree-trunks. But for the
prodigality of the vegetation, one slide might take you from the cool