Oysters were always
plentiful, but a diet restricted to the most delicate of molluscs palls
on the palate even of a black fellow. Ordinarily, food was abundant. For
the most part it had only to be picked up and cooked. Frequently it was
eaten on the spot, fresh from bountiful Nature's hands; but blacks
appreciate changes of diet--even when the change is retrogressive--from
the well-cooked, clean food of a white household to that of the sodden
and strong stuffs common to the camp. When, as sometimes happened, the
desire for novelty came, the whole population would paddle away to the
mainland or to one or other of the adjacent islands, voyages being
undertaken as far away as distant Hinchinbrook. Turtle do not favour
the beaches and sandbanks of Dunk Island generally as safe depositories
for their innumerable eggs, and when the longing came for these
delicacies the inhabitants would with one accord travel to those islands
in the security of which turtle still exhibit faith. The drift of the
population hither and thither was not due to the scarcity of food but to
a wayward impulse. As a rule there was little for the population to do
save to eat, drink, laze away the hotter hours of the day, and
"corrobboree" at night.
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