fragrance reminiscent of English meadow-sweet, and the flowers of a
vigorous trailer (CANAVILA OBTUSIFOLIA), for ever exploring the bare sand
at high-water mark, resembles the sweet-pea in form and perfume. The
white cedar (MELIA COMPOSITA) is a welcome and not unworthy substitute in
appearance and perfume for English lilac. The aromatic pandanus and many
varieties of acacia, each has its appointed time and season; while at odd
intervals the air is saturated with the rich and far-spreading incense of
the melaleuca, and for many weeks together with the honeyed excellence of
the swamp mahogany (TRISTANIA SUAVOSLENS) and the over-rich cloyness of
the cockatoo apple (CAREYA AUSTRALIS). Strong and spicy are the odours of
the plants and trees that gather on the edge of and crowd in the jungle,
the so-called native ginger, nutmeg, quandong, milkwood, bean-tree, the
kirri-cue of the blacks (EUPOMATIA LAURINA), koie-yan (FARADAYA
SPLENDIDA), with its great white flowers and snowy fruit, and many
others. Hoya, heavy and indolent, trails across and dangles from the
rocks; the river mangrove dispenses its sweetness in an unexpected
locality; and from the heart of the jungle come wafts of warm breath,
which, mingling with exhalation from foliage and flower, is diffused
broadcast. The odour of the jungle is definite--earthy somewhat, but of
earth clean, wholesome and moist--the smell of moss, fern and fungus
blended with balsam, spice and sweetness.

Many a time, home-returning at night--when the black contours of the
island loomed up in the distance against the pure tropic sky tremulous
with myriads of unsullied stars--has its tepid fragrance drifted across
the water as a salutation and a greeting. It has long been a fancy of
mine that the island has a distinctive odour, soft and pliant, rich and
vigorous. Other mixtures of forest and jungle may smell as strong, but
none has the rare blend which I recognise and gloat over whensoever,
after infrequent absences for a day or two, I return to accept of it in