I'm about halfway through at the moment and enjoying rereading it, including bits that I had forgotten about. In the first few pages, it firmly establishes that fear of the unknown when Gemmy arrives in the settlement:
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The country he had broken out of was all unknown to them. Even in full sunlight it was impenetrable dark. (Page 8)
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And this on the connections between the Aboriginals' language and their way of being one with the land:
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There was no way of existing in this land, or of making your way through it, unless you took into yourself, discovered on your breath, the sounds that linked up all the various parts of it and made them one. Without that you were blind, you were deaf, as he had been, at first, in their world. (Page 65)
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