ON PATROL ON AUSTRALIA'S "FRONTIER"

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 66, 19 March 1938, Page 10 (Supplement)

ON PATROL ON AUSTRALIA'S "FRONTIER"

FEW contrasts could be more striking than that of the stage of material progress attained in the south-east of Australia and the primitive state of the northwest. Of the first much has been made lately on the occasion of the sesquicentenary celebrations in New South for a description of the second, readers may turn to "Over the Range (Angus and Robertson), the latest book written by that deservedly popular Australian author lon Idriess. The country of which Mr. Idriess writes is known to few Australians, and probably not many could point to it on a map. Indeed, but for aviation, its existence would be almost completely unknown to the general public. However, both Australians and New Zealanders well remember the adventure of the late Sir Charles Klngsford Smith and Mr. C. P. T. Ulin when, beginning a flight to England, they came down in wild, inaccessible country and were lost for manv davs. The place where they were found is in the East Kimberley region of North-west Australia, and it was into this remote, almost inaccessible land that Mr. Idriess went in 1033, accompanying a police patrol. They covered 1200" miles in country where there are to be found about 20 white men and only a comparatively small number of aboriginals, whom Mr. Idriess describes as "Stone Age men." When white men die in the Kimberley region, he* remarks, they "die with their boots on." The region is. in fact, the Australian equivalent of the old American "frontier." "Showing the Flag" The purpose of the patrol which Mr. Idriess accompanied was to round up a few aboriginals who had committed serious crimes, according to the white man's law, to "show the flag," to take into protective custody natives found to be suffering from leprosy, and generally to observe the scattered population, and to see that the white men in it were well. All responsibility fell on Constable Laurie O'Neill, who was assisted by two native trackers. O'Neill, a member of the Western Australia-Mounted Police, is one of a body of men of whom Australia ought to be proud. Their life is as difficult, and almost as dangerous, as were dhe lives of the pioneers among the North American Indians. In one respect it is more difficult, for whereas in the last century little was thought of shooting natives, these Australians must control, and where necessary arrest, wild men without recourse to firearms. Such a task calls for fine

qualities in the policemen, and Mr. Idriess, while refraining from making a conventional "hero" out of Laurie O'Xeill, draws of him a picture which many readers of the book will like to remember. % Naturally a. large part of the book is concerned with the aboriginals, now —- as» Mr. Idriess informs us —a quicklydying race. He, and, he says, most people who know them well, regret their apparent inability to resist the white man's civilisation. "The stone-age man," he quotes O'Xeill as saying, "is no fool in anything thqt touches his own way of life and that interests him. But he is chained to the primitive by a mental chain that he will never break." Of the marvellous natural powers of these natives several instances are given in the book. One may be mentioned. - A woman, seeing a native bee. followed its flight as she ran after it, dodging bushes, vines, stones and logs with effortless instinct. Away ahead of her the bee disappeared in the branches of a tall tree. With tomahawk handle in her teeth she "simply walked up the trunk," located the nest and brought down tlie honey. "It was all aone so quickly the old loiterers at the tail-end of the patrol had not long trudged past her when she was running to catch up." There are many anecdotes of equal interest in the book, which is profusely illustrated with photographs taken by Mr. Idriess on the patrol. ♦ + + + Books in Local Demand The following list of books in demand flt the Auckland Public Libraries is supplied by the chief librarian: — FICTION. North West Passage—By Kenneth Roberts. Wheel of Fortune—By Alberto Moravia. You Play the Black and the Red Comes Up—By Eric M. Knight. Desperate Remedy—By Ren Bolt. Case of the Tudor Queen—Ry Christopher Rush. Son of Spain—Ry A. R. and R. K. AVeekes. The K Code Plan—Ry Graham Seton. The Giving of a Ring—By Elizabeth Carrrae. A Shot in the Woods—By Ottwcll Binns. The Silver Sickle Case—By Lynn Brock. NON-FICTION. The Garden Beyond—By Marian Cran. With Alienby in the Holy Land—By Lowell Thomas. New Fashions in Wage Theory—Bv Jurgen Kuczynski. Boadilla—By Esmond Romilly. History of Evolution—By Sir Edward P. Poulton. Science and Music—By Sir JameseJeans. Silent Knight—By Humbert W'oirc. The Changing Scene—By Arthur CalderMarshall. An Outline of Statistics—By Samuel Hays. World Finance, 1935-193?—tiy Paul Einzig.