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more at ease, or at least sustained by hope; but now nearly a year[1] has gone by without any intelligence from home. I had hoped it would have been otherwise; and I had reason to hope; and I will still cling to hope, "even against hope."
Crash! crash! a tree fallen! I have burned down three to-day, and expect to have two more consumed to-night.
12th.—On referring to the date of my last letter, you will find that we were uneasy about the scarcity of provisions; but I have this day heard of the arrival of the Merope from Van Diemen's Land, with flour and twenty barrels of pork; and with, what is still more cheering to me, a settler of some importance—Major Nairn. The circumstance of his coming here is powerfully in favour of the superiority of this colony to that in Van Diemen's Land; for he had been a long time there, had come here, liked the place, and bought a lot of land, and then gone back to Van Diemen's Land for stock—and here he is to live among us.
It is now approaching to our winter; yet the weather is so mild that I am sitting without a coat, and in my undress; have been out all day burning the stumps of trees, so no wonder for me to doff the outer garment; the thermometer standing at 80°. James and John have learned to use the cross-cut saw, which enabled me to clear away, with the subsequent aid of fire, the gum trees, which are extremely hard and heavy, not unlike sycamore in colour, but much more ponderous.
14th.—My thermometer has fallen this morning to 52°. I have been digging out potatoes—a miserable crop; but no wonder, for the seed was very wretched, and planted in a very dry spot, which will not answer in our dry summer. Thermometer up again to 62°; lovely moonlight night
Two pigs smothered by their mamma's awkwardness; and Letty came in like the Trojan of old, "so dull, so dead in
- ↑ Accidents had detained letters from his affectionate family.
