In The Far North by Louis Becke

-"Out on the wastes of the Never Never-- That's where the dead men lie! There where the heat-waves dance for ever-- That's where the dead men lie!" - Barcroft Boake, in the Sydney Bulletin.

Jack Barrington, nominal owner of Tinandra Downs cattle station on the Gilbert River in the far north of North Queensland, was riding slowly over his run, when, as the fierce rays of a blazing sun, set in a sky of brass, smote upon his head and shoulders and his labouring stock-horse plodded wearily homewards over the spongy, sandy soil, the lines of Barcroft Boake came to his mind, and, after he had repeated them mentally, he cursed aloud.