One was the means of introducing a valuable
addition to the products of the island. It gave demonstration of how man
may unwittingly, and even in opposition to his wit, assist in scattering
and multiplying blessings on a smiling land--blessings to last for all
time, and perhaps to amend or ameliorate the environment of a budding
nation.
Many years ago--in 1878, to speak precisely--a ship laden with fragrant
cedar logs from the valley of the Daintree River--140 miles to the north--
touched on Kennedy Shoal, 20 miles to the south-east of Dunk Island.
Crippled though she was she managed to make Cardwell, where she was
temporarily patched up, and whence she set sail for Melbourne. It was the
critical month of March, and the MERCHANT--clumsy and cumbersome, but a
good and safe ship given ample sea-room--before sailing many miles on her
course, was caught in the coils of a cyclone, the violence of which is
well remembered by old residents on the coast to this day, and was lost
with all hands. She is supposed to have struck on a reef to the southward
of the Palm Islands, as the bulk of her cargo was cast ashore in Ramsay
Bay, Hinchinbrook Island.
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