Från Stenbockens vändkrets

Genom södra halvklotet går den som ett band- stenbockens vändkrets "Tropic of Capricorn". Här en bild från Queensland i Australien (lånad).

Jag blev nyfiken på namnet "Capricornia" och nu har jag lärt mig att med detta avses bland annat norra delen av Australien - och i Xavier Herberts bok med samma namn hamnar man i det som idag kallas för "Northern Territory". Det är ingen plats för veklingar- extrem hetta, oväder och farliga djur/insekter överallt. Ändå skulle den vite mannen erövra området- till varje pris.

Xavier Herberts "Capricornia" kom ut 1938 och anses än i dag vara en av de "större romanerna" från Australien. Inledningsorden är verkligen mäktiga:

"Although that northern part of the Continent of Australia which is called Capricornia was pioneered long after the southern parts, its unofficial early history was even more bloody than that of the others. One probable reason for this is that the pioneers had already had experience of subduing Aborigines in the South and hence were impatient of wasting time with people who they knew were determined to take no immigrants. Another reason is that the Aborigines were there more numerous than in the South and more hostile because used to resisting casual invaders from the near East Indies. A third reason is that the pioneers had difficulty in establishing permanent settlements, having several times to abandon ground they had won with slaughter and go slaughtering again to secure more. This abandoning of ground was due not to the hostility of the natives, hostile enough though they were, but to the violence of the climate, which was not to be withstood even by men so well equipped with lethal weapons and belief in the decency of their purpose as Anglo-Saxon builders of Empire."

Bokens titel får mig också att tänka på Henry Miller och hans "Tropic of Capricorn"- men det är en helt annat berättelse ....