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简介:William Thornhill, an illiterate Thames bargeman and a man of quick temper but deep feelings, steals a load of timber and is transported to New South Wales in 1806. Like many of the convicts, hes pardoned within a few years and settles on the banks of the Hawkesbury River. Perhaps the Governor grants him the land or perhaps he just takes it - the Hawkesbury is at the extreme edge of settlement at that time and normal rules dont apply. However he gets the land, its prime riverfront acreage. It looks certain to make him rich. Theres just one problem with that land: its already owned. Its been part of the territory of the Darug people for perhaps forty thousand years. They havent left fences or roads or houses, but they live on that land and use it, just as surely as Thornhills planning to do. They arent going to hand over their land without a fight. Spears may be primitive weapons, but settlers know that they can kill a man as surely as a ball of lead from a musket. As he realises all this, Thornhill faces an impossible choice. Some of his neighbours - Smasher Sullivan, Sagitty Birtles - regard the Darug as hardly human, savages with as little right to land as a dog. When the Darug ob