Episodes from a life spent among the native tribes of Australia. Set mainly in the Northern Territory.

Dr. Basedow was Chief Medical Officer and Protector of Aborigines in the Northern Territory, and later Special Aborigines Commissioner. Dr Basedow led both Government and private expeditions into Central and Northern Australia, and made a world-wide reputation as a geologist and anthropologist.

This book deals not so much with those aspects of his career as with the observations of the Aborigines as fellow human beings, with the frailties and virtues of any folk, and possessed of a nobility of character, the nature and fineness of which, even now, is not widely appreciated. It is as one of themselves that Dr. Basedow wrote this fascinating story of the Aborigines' lore, tribal customs and ceremonies, pitched battle and duel, bird and animal hunts. It is a narrative in which broad comedy, touching pathos and tragedy blend into a living and beautiful pattern. Nobody will ever again see all that is here described.