NEW BOOKS RECEIVED

Taranaki Daily News, 27 January 1934, Page 14 (Supplement)

NEW BOOKS RECEIVED

LIFE IN THE “NEVER NEVER LAND.” “The Journal of a Jackeroo.” Told by Frank Hives, and written down by Gascoigne Lumley. John Lane, the Bodley Head Limited, London, per A. J. Fyfe Ltd., New Plymouth. Price Bs. Fr?nk' Hives was a bookkeeper and rouseabout on a North Queensland cattle station in the days when the country to the west of Townsville was . known as the “Never Never” country. In his days the aborigines were a real menace to the safety of the white pioneers. To-day there is a wider recognition that there was the blackfellow’s viewpoint to be considered, for there is no doubt that many of the bush tragedies Mr. Hives describes so vividly arose from sheer misunderstanding between the white man and the black. In many respects life on the wayback cattle stations of Australia is much the same as described by Mr. Hives, though the “jackeroo” is now very rarely met with. The description of the work and surroundings of station life half a century ago is most interesting, while the adventures with the blacks are full of thrills. The “Never Never”, lands were no place for weaklings in those days, but for the youth with a love of the open air and a willingness to work and make his own amusement the life, then and now, is by no means unattractive.