Tropic Days

Book excerpt: "'Are you not frequently idle?' 'Never, brother. When we are not engaged in our traffic we are engaged in our relaxations.'"-BORROW. On the smooth beaches and in the silent bush, where time is not regulated by formalities or shackled by conventions, there delicious lapses-fag-ends of the day to be utilised in a dreamy mood which observes and accepts the happenings of Nature without disturbing the shyest of her manifestations or permitting 'the-mind to dwell on any but the vaguest speculations. Such idle moments are mine. Let these pages tell of their occupation. As the years pass it is proved that the administration of the affairs of an island, the settled population of which is limited to three, involves pleasant though exacting duties. It is a gainful government-not gainful in the accepted sense, but in all that vitally matters-personal freedom, absence of irksome regulations remindful of the street, liberty to enjoy the mood of the moment and to commune with Nature in her most fascinating aspects. Those who are out of touch with great and dusty events may, by way of compensation, be the more sensitive to the processes of the universe, which, though incessantly repeated, are blessed with recurrent freshness.