I rather think that but for the nightly rum ration Joe would never have stuck out the trip with us. That evening spot, and Joe always made it a good one, seemed to hold him together. Dinner over, Geoff would take charge of "the baby" and carry it to his tent for safety. The bottle was not locked away as a rule, and if the routine was forgotten, Joe seldom took advantage of the lapse. It seemed to be a point of honor with him not to swipe liquor. I remember only one or two occasions when the temptation was too much for him. Joe was not so finicky about helping himself to our preserving [illegible]. We carried ten gallons of 95% grain alcohol in a screw-topped can in a locked case. George Tate, who used the stuff most, had it in his charge, and the case usually was locked - at the start of the trip. Later on, for we used the alcohol for pre-heating our lamps, the case was often left open. That slackness ended at Iron Range, when George discovered the spirits were disappearing pretty fast, and for several days the cook showed signs of drink. When we got to Cooktown the 2 or 3 gallons of alcohol remaining were poured off into a 5-gallon kerosene drum and the locked can filled with Geoff's snakes and lizards. There was no way of securing the 5-gallon drum, and, at Shipton's Flat, Joe got at it. The first I knew about it was when George came up to our cottage, where I was working on plants one afternoon, to say he had seen Joe at the spirits can with a pint pannican in hand, and that he was then stretched out on his bed, obviously drunk. Then Geoff came with a sample from the can. It was the reddishbrown color of weak tea and had a pungent and aromatic smell. Joe, with only about ten days to go to finish the trip, had broken down and lost all control of himself. Losing all caution, he had doctored the alcohol to make it more palatable, using Kiwi boot polish, I suspected from the smell of the stuff. I suppose I should have fired the poor devil, pronto, as urged by sundry advisors, but Joe would have been the least inconvenienced by that, and besides, we had come a long way, and Joe had confounded all the wise prophets of the Peninsula by sticking it out as long as he had. Our three blackboys departed with various presents and without any show of emotion. Each had his camp cot and swag cover as parting gifts, and a share in hurricane lamps, pots and pans and cutting tools. They had handouts of used clothing, too, and to Willie I gave the tent they had slept in. All had gifts of surplus plug tobacco. I doubt if much of their accumulation of pocket money allowance and Sunday pay was left when the Wandana sailed. They enjoyed the kudos they got through having been with us. They were proud of their exploits, and glad to be going home. As Willie said, they would have "big stories" to tell. The stories started on the Wandana, where tourists, fresh from southern cities, showed great interest in the boys. Geoff attended to last farewells on the Wandana. I visited my German mission- ary friend, Mr. Swarz, and from there followed a car road to the unintended light- house World War II defense works on Grassy Hill. Grassy Hill is the high point of land between the harbor and the sea. Captain Cook, when his ship was being repaired in the harbor, climbed the hill daily with his telescope, trying to spy out a passage through the coral. I was on top of the hill, making color photos, when the Wandana came out of the little harbor and headed for a passage which perhaps Cook had found. Besides the coral, out to sea, the Cooktown harbor has an entrance bar of silt brought down by the Endeavour River. The bar is not dredged in these days of Cooktown's decay, and even a small vessel like the Wandana must cross it on the tide.