shiny blue quandong (ELAEOCARPUS GRANDIS), misleading and insipid; the
Herbert River cherry (ANTIDESMA DALLACHYANUM), agreeable certainly, but
not high class; the finger cherry "Pool-boo-nong" of the blacks
(RHODOMYRTUS MACROCARPA), possesses the flavour of the cherry guava, but
has a most evil reputation. Some assert that this fruit is subject to a
certain disease (a kind of vegetable smallpox), and that if eaten when so
affected is liable to induce paralysis of the optic nerves and cause
blindness and even death. Blacks, however, partake of the fruit
unrestrictedly and declare it good, on the authority of tradition as well
as by present appreciation. They do not pay the slightest respect to the
injurious repute current among some white folks. Perhaps some trick of
constitution or some singularity of the nervous system renders them immune
to the poison, as the orange pigment said to reside in their epidermis
protects them from the actinic rays of the sun. Does not Darwin assert
that while white sheep and pigs are upset by certain plants dark-coloured
individuals escape. At any rate blacks are not affected by the fruit,
though large consumers of it, and many whites also eat of it raw and
preserved, without fear and without untoward effects. Some of the Eugenias
produce passable fruits, and one of the palms (CARYOTA) bears huge
bunches of yellow dates, the attractiveness of which lies solely in
appearance.

Quite a long list of pretty fruits might be compiled, and yet not more
than half a dozen are edible, and only half that number nice. The
majority are bitter and acrid, some merely insipid, and of the various
nuts not one is satisfactory.

Why all this profuse vegetation and the anomaly of tempting fruits and
nuts cram-full of meat and yet no real food--that is, food for man? Is it
that man was an after-thought of Nature, or did Nature fulfil herself in