days the less worn the higher the degree of comfort, and upon comfort
happiness depends. Sick of a surfeit of pleasures, the whining monarch,
counselled by his soothsayers, ransacked his kingdom for the shirt
of a happy subject. He found the enviable man--a toil-worn hind who had
never fidgeted under the discomfort of the badge of respectability.

In his native state the black fellow is nearer the ideal than the white
alien in his body clothes, starched shirt, high collar, cloth suit, and
felt hat. The needs and means of the black are non-existent. His dress
corresponds, whereas the white usurper of his territory--servile to the
malignant impositions of custom and fashion--suffers from general
superfluity and winces under his sufferings. Would he not be wiser owning
subservience to the sun, and adopting dress suitable to actual needs and
the dominant characteristics of the land of the sun? He would pant less,
drink less, perspire less, be more wholesome and sweeter in temper, and
more worthy of citizenship under the sun, against whose sway there can
be no revolt. Kings and queens are under his rule and governance. His
companionship disdains ceremonious livery, scorns ribbands, and scoffs at
gew-gaws. Bronze is his colour, native worth the only wear.

Whosoever has seen (himself unseen) an unsophisticated North Queensland
black parading his native strand has seen a lord of creation--an inferior
species, but still a lord. His bold front, fluent carriage, springy step,
alert, confident, superior air proclaim him so, innocent though he be of
the frailest insignia of civilisation. The monarch arrayed in seven
colours ascends the steps of his throne with no prouder mien than that in
which the naked child of the sun lords it over the empty spaces.

In civility to his Majesty the Sun do I also proudly testify to his
transcendent gifts as a painter in the facile media which here prevail.