Publisher's Synopsis
Northward from an Australian city, and hidden from seaward view by high wooded bluffs and green belts of dense wind-swept scrub, there lies one of the oldest and quaintest little seaport towns on the whole eastern sea-board, from the heat-smitten rocks of Cape York, in the far north of torrid Queensland, to where, three thousand miles to the south, the sweeping billows from the icy Antarctic leap high in air, and thunder against the grim and rugged walls of stark Cape Howe. The house in which the Wallis family lived stood at the foot of one of these bluffs, within a stone's throw of the beach, and overlooking the bar; and at night time, when the swift outward rush of the river's current met the curling rollers from the open sea, the wild clamour and throbbing hum seemed to shake the walls of the old-fashioned building to its foundations. But to the two Wallis boys--who were born in that house--the noise of the beating surf, the hoarse shrieking notes of the myriad sea-birds, and the sough of the trade wind through the timbered slopes, were voices that they knew and understood, and were in a manner part and parcel of their own adventurous natures.
