[Editor: This review of They That Sit in Darkness: A Story of the Australian Never-Never (written by John Mackie) was published in The Press (Christchurch, NZ), 2 September 1897.]
They That Sit in Darkness.
“Weekly Press and Referee.”
By John Mackie.
A story of the Australian Never-Never is welcome to those whose interest has been stimulated by the occasional glimpses given in Henry Lawson, Barcroft H. Boake, and other Australian writers of that strange and dangerous country.
Mr John Mackie is in this case ‘the man who has been there’ and he paints a vivid picture of the Gulf Country, the comparatively untenanted shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria, where in midwinter the mercury stands all day at ninety in the shade, and the sun is a ball of fire in a cloudless steel-blue sky.
He was the first white man to build a house and settle on the Van Alphen river, and there he supported life for weeks together on a diet of crows, hawks, snakes and currajong roots. We don’t know the formula of palatableness of currajong root, but if it be at all considerable, the vegetarian must have the best of the kreophagist when ordinary tucker gives out in the Northern Territory.
Whether he owed it to green meat or white, however, Mr Mackie survived the experience he has shared with Julius Caesar and other distinguished men, and after further adventures and some previous literary efforts now produces a fresh and interesting novel, filled with the local colour of the Never Never Country.
His squatter and squatter’s daughter, his stockmen, police magistrates and blackfellows — especially his blackfellows — are all drawn from life, or at least adapted from life, and he shews genuine literary skill in the pourtraying of character. He opens with a striking scene, a murder by the blacks, and proceeds to develop a good working plot, which we shall not spoil for our readers in any way.
Two things, however, can safely be praised, the womanly though unconventional heroine, and the hero’s behaviour under misfortune. In these Mr Mackie proves his knowledge of the human heart, and exhibits the value of his candid unaffected style.
Source:
The Press (Christchurch, NZ), 2 September 1897, p. 6, column 6
Editor’s notes:
It appears that this item was previously published in the Weekly Press and Referee; however, at the time of this posting, that newspaper was not available on the Papers Past (NZ) site.
Never-Never = remote and isolated sparsely-inhabited desert country in Australia (may be rendered with or without a hyphen)
pourtray = an archaic spelling of “portray”
shew = an archaic spelling of “show”
squatter = in the context of Australian history, a squatter was originally someone who kept their livestock (mostly cattle and sheep) upon Crown land without permission to do so (thus illegally occupying land, or “squatting”); however, the practice became so widespread that eventually the authorities decided to formalise it by granting leases or licenses to occupy or use the land; and, with the growth of the Australian economy, many of the squatters became quite rich, and the term “squatter” came to refer to someone with a large amount of farm land (they were often regarded as rich and powerful)
tucker = food
[Editor: Changed “glimpes” to “glimpses”, “Barford H. Boake” to “Barcroft H. Boake”.]
[Editor: The original text has been separated into paragraphs.]
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