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Fantasy Football Challenge presents
My Tropic Isle

55 of 70

"but some are good." He writes thankfully "the milk is grand." The diary described his life during the next few months "in a sort of way." He builds a punt which he christens the GREAT EASTERN, the launching of which is briefly chronicled: "Launched the GREAT EASTERN. Sank below Plimsoll mark--like a sieve." He returns disheartened from one or two trial trips, having to "man the pump." 'He complains of having to dig up and eat little miniature sweet potatoes and asks piteously: "What am I to do? I'm hungry and have nothing else!" His feet become cut and sore, and in every day's entry is a plaintive wail at the pain. Sept. 9. Treasure--a stranded coco-nut, quite good. A rare treat. My teeth are sore through not being used. Sept. 26. This continuous hunger begins to tell. My blood's poor and sores won't heal. Can't help it! I can't better my lot in any way so must just endure it. Octr. 31. Surely to goodness something will happen to put an end to my long drawn out misery. No sleep last night. A "Goanna" that he killed and ate was a God-send. Now. 6. Disappointed! Made sure of truffles after rain. None. No grub. I get weaker and weaker. Can hardly crawl. Now. 11. Done up! Lay down and went to sleep. No sign from shore. The good Lord pity me in my weakness! Novr. 12. Never thought I could get so weak and live. No sign anywhere. Must try to catch some big green frogs--good food. Novr. 13. So awfully weak. Novr. 14. Too weak to look out for . . . (the writing becomes unintelligible). Wrote my old friend . . . making over all property here to him absolutely. Blowing too hard for punt. I dare not try to walk I'd never get back. The final entry is dated Nov. 15th: "Caught three big frogs, cleaned and stewed them--delicious--like chicken! What fools we are with our likes and dislikes!" They searched the adjacent island and the coastline, and finally concluded that the Recluse, having made a desperate attempt to reach the mainland in his wretched punt, had become overcome with exhaustion, and had drifted away to drown when the boat swamped in the breakers. Six weeks or so after the date of the final entry in the diary a Chinese fisherman found a punt near the mouth of a mangrove creek on the mainland. In it was a skeleton, a fish spear, some empty oyster shells. A few fair hairs adhered to patches of dried skin on the skull. So the tale is told--a brief, passionate love idyll a strange, tedious, and tragic epilogue. Were ever the days and dreams of a strong man more completely dismantled and dismembered by a passing flick of Cupid's wing! CHAPTER XXIV HAMED OF JEDDAH "Caravans that from Bassora's gate With Westward steps depart; Or Mecca's pilgrims, confident of fate And resolute of heart." More of a Dutchman in build than Arab--broad-based, bandy-legged, stubby, stolid, and slow; spare of his speech, but nimble with his fingers in all that appertains to the rigging and working of small boats, as much at ease in the water as a rollicking porpoise--such is Hamed of Jeddah. His favourite garment is a light green woollen sweater. He wears other, but less obvious things. His green sweater sets all else at naught. If it be a fact that one of the pleasures to which the true Mohammedan looks forward in the region of the blest is to recline in company with the Houris on green sofas while contemplating the torments of the damned, Hamed was merely foretasting that which is to come. The everlasting green sweater became a torture--at least to me. Perhaps he was aware of the fact, and because he knew that my damnation is inevitable his unsoothing preliminary was merely human. For Hamed is amicable in all respects. Though his sentiments may be truly Arabian, his figure, as I have remarked, is a travesty on that of the typical Arabian--the Arab of the boundless and comfortless desert. I have tried to picture him as a lean and haughty mameluke in loose, white robes, mounted on a dust-distributing camel, and, lance in hand, peering ferociously across the desert "The desert with its shifting sand And unimpeded sky." But the tubby form in the green sweater and those bleached dungarees shortened in defiance of all the prescriptions of fashion, positively refuses to be glorified. Except for his swarthiness Hamed is unreconcilable to the ideals of an Arab, and he has a most heretical dislike to the desert. All his best qualities are under suppression on dry land. He is the Arab of the dhow. His eyes are muddy. The pupils begin to show opacity. He follows slowly and with stumbling steps through the bush and often misses his way, for he cannot see far ahead and you cannot always be looking backward and hailing him. Still, he is never lost. When he fails to recognise landmarks and his guide is out of sight, his cup-shaped ears detect the faintest call of the sea. Then he works in a direct course to the beach, where everything is writ large and plain to his understanding. Of his own motive he never ventures inland without a compass, and with that in his hand he is safe, even in a strange place and out of sound of the sea. Hamed tells a wonderful story of a ride that befell him in his early youth. By the way, there is something to be said of his age which, according to his own account, varies. Sometimes he is 72, then 48, and again 64 and 35. Like the present-day almanacs of his race, his age is shifty and uncertain. Hamed's ride occurred "a long time ago"--that hazy, half-obliterated mark on life's calendar. Pious Mohammedan that he is, he undertook a pilgrimage to Medina. To that holy orgy he rode on a donkey. So miraculous was the chief event of the journey that it is due to Hamed that his own uncoloured version should be given. "So hot the sun of my country you carn ride about alonga a day. Every time you trabel alonga night--sit down daytime. We start. We ride all night. I ride alonga dunkee. Sit down one day, ride night time. Dunkee he no go quick--very slow. I am tired. That dunkee tired. B'mbi that dunkee he talk. He say--'Hamed, you good man, you kind man. Subpose you no hammer me too much I take you up, alonga Medina one time quick.' I say, 'I no want hammer you.' My word, that dunkee change!--dunkee before, horse now--Arab horse. Puff! We along Medina! Wind bin take 'em!"

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