UNKNOWN AUSTRALIA.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 25, 30 January 1926, Page 22

UNKNOWN AUSTRALIA.

We all like a modest and unassuming man who.does a good thing well and with quiet courage and endurance. "Across Unknown Australia," by Michael Terry (Herbert Jenkins), is a very pleasantly readable account of a motor journey over previously untravelled country. Mr. Terry is a man of action and a gentle humorist withal. Since we read Giles' report of his trip into and out of Central Australia we have met with no better or clearer description of the "Never Never." Blacks, bush fires, outback stations, reiffote "townships," flora, fauna, and human exiles, are all food for Mr. Terry's mind and pen. His criticism is of the kindliest, and the way in which he meets reverses a lesson in pluck. It is not, of course, intended as a yarn for boys, but "Across Unknown Australia" may be profitably introduced to these. A score of Michael Terrys would open up the Northern Territory in a few years. Australia, as a continent, is yet untamed. Born Australians mostly love their country, but they love their towns too well to discover for themselves how thoughtlessly a bad name has been given, to places beyond the beaten track, and how recklessly the word "desert" haa been bestowed upon thousands of miles of country because small parts of it have been visited when denuded by a rainless season. Australia's peculiar system of underground rivers should make men hesitate to call any unexamined locality "waterless." That a motor car made this remarkable journey, as Mr. Terry relates, explodes many fictional statements. His book Iβ a handeome addition to the "travele" shelf. The numerous photograph* mn w*tt «hoMO.