To the accompaniment of throbbing tom-toms, a safari though Darwin op shops produced many trophies and the need for several swigs of jungle juice to settle the nerves .
The first thrilling encounter -in an Anglican shop- was with the stirring adventure book for trigger happy boys ,The Gorilla Hunters, by R. M. Ballantyne , who penned many dramatic books .
An inscription in this foxed and bumped copy revealed it had been a Christmas present in 1933.
Apart from potting a Gorilla or two , you had to be ready to defend yourself from Lions and the odd marauding Buffalo - not the tame Northern Territory kind that Crocodile Dundee found easy to handle .
Robert Mitchell Ballantyne , the nephew of James Ballantyne , who printed the works of Sir Walter Scott, was employed from 1841-48 as a clerk in Canada by the Hudson Bay Fur Company .
For seven years he was employed by the Edinburgh publisher and printer, Thomas Constable .
In 1855 he began writing his long series of adventure books for boys with The Young Fur Traders . The Coral Island followed in 1857 and The Gorilla Hunters was first published in 1862 and ran to many editions . Ballantyne died in Rome in 1894.
UPCOMING : Books from the library of an extraordinary woman , the Chamberlain Case .
