Note of Thanks

I WOULD LIKE to thank Southern Arts, and also the Arts Council of England, for the grants they have kindly provided. This novel would not have been possible without their generous help.

Note on Language

ONE OF THE CHARACTERS in this novel is a Tasmanian aboriginal. When I wrote his sections my intention was to portray someone intelligent and interested in words, who is from a culture wholly remote from that of white men but has been educated by them, absorbing English phrases, both formal and informal, that were common in the 1830s. He does not sound like a modern mainland Australia aboriginal speaker, nor is meant to: my hope was to depict a particular character from this distant time.