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BOOK of the WEEK
STORY OF
ADVENTURE
Ion Idriess's Six
Months On
Lonely Island
'ftf ADMAN'S ISLAND' was
the first book that Ion L.
Idriess wj-ote. At the time,
though — 1927 — there was' no de
mand for Australian 'true' ad
venture stories, and at the re
quest of Messrs. Angus & Robertson
Mr. Idriess turned his book into a
npvel.
It is now published in its original
form. Its fronteSpiece shows a por
tion of the log book on the blank
pages of which the story was orig
inally written; there is a number of
illustrations— line drawings by Percy
Lindsay from scenes described by the
author.
'Madman's Island' relates one of
the strangest and most adventurous
episodes in Mr. Idriess's wandering
.life.
'A rough diary, written on an old
sea-log to save myself from going
mad,' is the author's modest descrip
tion of it. The tattered log was sal
vaged from the bones of the Sea
Foam's wreck on Howick Island beach.
The other man on the island, Idriess's
?mate, went mad, and the stores were
exhausted. For six months the two
men lived on speared giant-crab and
fish. The king tides salted the fresh
water, and the trader with the long
overdue stores misread Idriess's sig
nal, and sailed away instead of drop
ping anchor, a shark nipped Idriess's
leg
The coastline around which 'Mad-
man's Island' is written holds many
a story of Australian history and ro
mance. A few miles north of the
island lies Restoration Rock, the first
land to gladden Bligh's eyes on his
terrible voyage after the mutiny on
the Bounty. Along the coast opposite
Madman's Island is the rugged coun
try that Kennedy followed, in a jour
ney that ended in his own death and
in the death of nearly all of his men.
On desolate Nobel Island nearby is
the tunnel in which old Formaceni,
the prospector, barricaded himself
against the blacks, his dead mate be
side him.
*
Along these waters 'sailed the ven
turesome little vessels that heralded
the great pearl shell rushes. Many
did not return. Some struck hidden
reefs and went down with all hands.
Others ran aground, and the crews
were massacred by the warlike natives
of the Strait. But the main fleet suc
ceeded, and by degrees became fami
liar with those dangerous waters and
their thousands of square miles of
hidden reefs.
Some distance north of Madman's
are the palm-clad isles of the Strait,
with their little grass house villages
and brown men and girls. In the days
of the early pearlshell rushes the men
were fighters, great eeamen who
cruised the Coral Sea in gigantic war
canoes rigged with fighting platforms
high above the water. Some vessels
were two-masted, the sails huge
things of coconut matting. The girls
were athletic and good to look at, great
swimmers and singers.
Madman's Island grows no palms,
nor has it any brown maids. Life
there to the author and his mate
proved a desperate struggle for exis
tence.
North of Madman's on the coast is
Lloyd's Bay, where Hughle Giblett,
the 'Sandalwood King,' made his
famous camp. A- solitary man in a
whaleboat, he sailed from Cooktown
and landed on the coast among wild
blacks just opposite Madman's. He
battled through and lived to found
a great sandalwood industry, and make
a fortune out of it. Thus started the
huge sandalwood depots to which the
lusters from Thursday Island sailed
with stores, returning loaded with
sandalwood that was shipped to China
and sold for many thousands of
pounds. The wild doings in those
sandalwood camps is a romance of the
great Peninsula.
*
Not far from Madman's lies Forbes
Island, the 'Spirit Island' of the
natives. Here in the gardens have
been found old-time cannon balls,
buried deep, as if the island at some
time had suffered a cannonade. When
the pealers landed there first they
were astonished by the remains of a
stone wall, built as if for a rough for
tification, it is believed that the island
at one time was a base for the law
less blackbirders who fought out their
own fights. A story is also current
that it was bombarded by a frigate
?when the Colonial Government of
the day was trying to drive the black
birders and 'she]] pirates' from the
Coral Sea.
Every square mile of that fascinat
ing reef and sea has its story, but
none so strange as this story of Mad
man's Island, acted in -grim realism
since the War.
The style of this book by Ion Idriess
is powerful; it makes the reader suf
fer, endure, and exult with him in
wild and splendid adventure. It is a
thrilling story.
?'Madman's Island,' by Ion L.
Idriess. - Angus & Robertson,
Sydney.)
$