AustLit

'Perhaps, amongst all his [Feilberg's] writings, the one in which he shows the most of his inner-self, is in a sketch called, " A Strange Exploring Trip," a story of the same class as Haggard's " King Solomon's Mines," but written years before that master of fable came to the front. In wealth of imagery, it may be slightly behind that gorgeous fiction, but the captivating romance of the plot is welded to seeming probability in a way that Mr. Rider Haggard could not surpass. And the quaint moral of the last few chapters, wherein the hero—an unlettered bushman—after his long residence amongst the "Batcheri," the heathen, half-caste tribe of the interior (whose laws were so practical, that charity was unknown, utility being only aimed at), finds his way back to civilization, and fails to discover any more christianity [sic], amongst a professedly-christian [sic] people, than he did during his captivity in the interior, is worked out with thorough originality.'

Source: 'In Memoriam. Carl Feilberg', Sydney Quarterly Magazine, 1 December 1887, p.378.