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CHAPTER V.

A new servant—Make-shifts in cooking—Kaolin—Camp-ovens—A native "batch"—Variety of out-door premises—Nature of the Australian hard woods as fuel—Alarm of fire—Sandalwood and "stink-wood" as fuel—Trade in sandalwood—Licence for cutting wood in bush—Bush-fires—Sudden deafness caused by fright—Infant burnt—Beauty of bush-flowers, and want of any useful food—Great scarcity of edible roots in bush—Promise of dried fruits from vine, apricot, and other introduced trees—Oranges and lemons—Potatoes—Curious objection of settlers to eat spinach—Name of spinach growing wild—Dubbeltje—Origin of name—Pig-melons for apple-pies—Sugar-beer—Native brewing—Ned's fear of bad Spirit soothed by sugar-beer.

The domestic who had accompanied us from England having left us a few months after our arrival, we thought ourselves fortunate in obtaining the services of a rosy smiling girl, the daughter of a free settler in our own district, whose sweetness of temper and quickness of wit soon disposed us to believe either that colonial servants were much better than they had been represented, or else that we had happened to alight upon the exception that proved the rule as to their inefficiency.

Together with some amusing seafaring expressions which she had picked up from her father, who had been in the marines, Rosa had inherited a sailor's aptness at contrivances and a happy dexterity, which would have gained her much applause even within easy reach of all the conveniences of life, but which were qualities of priceless value in a country where to contrive and to "make shift" seemed the order of the day. The prospects, for