'This thoroughly entrancing volume falls somewhere between an antiquarian treasure and a nineteenth century graphic novel. It is also possibly the best and most valuable ethnographic work of the last two centuries. Most of it consists of worked up photographs with explanatory captions, depicting intimate and intricate details of Aboriginal life in the lower Murray in the 1850s recorded by the eccentric Polish-German researcher William Blandowski and his team. Blandowski worked among Aboriginal people at a critical time, while the old ways still persisted despite the encroachments of the pastoralists.' (Introduction)