Taj has an uneasy relationship with another member of the group, Tommy Oldham, an Aboriginal boy who accompanied Giles on an earlier, unsuccessful expedition to cross the continent. A revelation later in the novel leads to understanding and friendship. Hawke does not flinch from portraying Giles’s cultural insensitivity towards Tommy and its awful cost. An encounter with Wangkatja people underscores his lack of cultural understanding. In contrast, Taj has a welcome, if very twenty-first century, sensibility concerning the explorers’ drinking dry the water holes that the Aborigines rely on, and their naming in English of places already named in Wirangu.

This was an arduous crossing, in which the grinding search for water was the prime focus – not an exciting premise for a narrative. There is little tension in the novel, despite encounters with Aborigines, the adoption of dingo pups, and the brutal killing of camel calves.

While the Englishmen claim the glory for the expedition’s success, the camels and Saleh and Taj are the real heroes. Each animal has a personality, an understanding of which informs how Saleh and Taj care for them. Their camel lore, religious adherence, and love of their culture (Saleh is a wonderful storyteller) provide the greatest interest in the narrative. Hawke’s story is a fitting tribute to the Afghan cameleers whom Taj and Saleh represent.