THE DEAD HEART OF AUSTRALIA.
account of a journey, round Lake Eyre in the summer of 1901-2, with some description of the Lake Eyre basin and the flowing wells of Central Australia. The primary objects of the expedition to Lake Eyre—which was once, not the dead, but the living heart of Australia—were "to secure a collection of the fossils of that area, to determine with greater precision the age of the giant marsupials that once lived there, to gain fresh information as to the geo- logical history of Central Australia, and to see what lights geology could throw on the legends and original home of the aborigines."
This book partially tells how these objects were accomplished,— partially, because we gather from Professor Gregory's preface that he has dealt more fully with the aborigines in another work, which he had hoped to publish at the same time as this volume. But this book is profoundly interesting. It describes the journey to Lake Eyre, gives the history of what is now the dead heart of Australia, and deals exhaustively with the possibilities of its restora- tion to life by means of such schemes as the flooding of the lake from the sea. How Professor Gregory can write may be gathered from this account of night in the desert :—" Night in the desert brings absolute silence. At first the perfect stillness is disturbed by the clank of hobble-chains ; by the crackling of the cooling embers or stones beneath the fire ; and by the screech of the goliah-parrot, the coo of the pigeon, and the hoot of the owl, till the last bird has flown back from the water-hole to its safe nest in the scrub. At length the camels grow quiet or wander out of hearing, the embers are cold, even the last prowling dingo has gone to its lair, and there is nothing to break the absolute quiet but the steady audible thump of one's own heart. The camp is wrapped in a silence that appears to have crept down with the stars and is more delicious than the sweetest music. At times this perfect peace is gently broken by a faint, scarcely perceptible, humming, caused perhaps by the wind rustling some distant scrub or the trickle of blood through the capillaries of the brain." Professor Gregory's account of the customs, myths, and religion of the aborigines is very full ; nowhere have we read a better or fuller representation of the ceremonial known as a " corroboree. ' What he says on the very interesting subject of the religion and government of the aborigines may be judged by these passages :—" The statement that the aborigines have no religious belief is quite misleading. They have an intense conviction of immortality—of a future life in a land which, the Dieri think, has a much better water supply than their own The political system of the aborigines is no mere crude anarchy. Each tribe is ruled according to traditional laws interpreted by a council of the older men of the tribe There is nothing like the arbitrary rule by an irresponsible despot as in the tribes of the South Sea Islands. Every capable man in the tribe has a voice in its government; and practically each man's influence is proportional to his ability."
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