"
Now to proceed with the deliberate intention of dragging by the ears
into these pages a crocodile yarn. We have not a single "alligator" in
Australia, our crocodiles being wrongly so called, but this perversity
of nomenclature does not affect the anecdote.
To tell of the coast of Queensland, and to omit reference to an
adventure with one of those wary beasts would be to court criticism
likely to cast a shadow upon the veracity of more than one of the
incidents and occurrences herein to be chronicled.
I approach the duty to the readers as well as to myself with diffidence,
for has it not been stated that these pages were fated to be
unsensational and unromantic, and can any one imagine an unsensational
adventure with a crocodile? Therein lie the virtue of and the apology
for this story.
If the reader will take the trouble to scan the revised chart of the
Island, he will notice on the eastern coast an indentation entitled
"Panjoo," which, in the language of the blacks, seems to indicate "nice
place." A steep grassy slope comes down to the sea, separated therefrom
by a line of pandanus palms. To the north is a jungle-covered
spur, along the foot of which is a palm-tree gully; to the south a
ridge with low-growing, wind-bent acacias.
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