In Gippsland there was luckily no loss of life, and the destruction of property was trifling, oyving to small population and sparse settlement. But the fiery tempest there lost none of its fury, and was even more awe-striking, as m a y be imagined from the folloyving extract, printed about a fortnight after in the Church of England Messenger:— "DARKNESS IN GIPPSLAND."
" Among the effects of those terrible fires which will make the 6th of February memorable in the annals of this colony, was one of which very little notice has been taken, and which is perhaps almost unknoyvn to the public generally, but excited the greatest awe, and even terror, in the minds of many who witnessed it. W e allude to a total darkness which overspread the whole of Gippsland, and literally changed day into night. This darkness, according to the accounts which yve have received of it, began to be perceived about one o'clock in the afternoon, and gradually increased until it became so intense as to hide from sight even the nearest objects. Settlers yvere obliged to feel their way from their out-houses to their huts. O n e gentleman told us that in unsaddling his horse he actually could not see the animal while he was standing close beside it. Throughout the remainder of the day it continued perfectly dark, and many went to their beds fearful lest they should never see the break of day again. Such a phenomenon was indeed calculated to inspire in all a vague and undefined dread of some impending evil. For the smoke, yvhich, carried by the north winds from the burning forests on the ranges over the plains below, totally intercepted the sun's light, yvas so high as scarcely to be perceived by the smell, and to produce none of that suffocating sensation yvhich might have been expected, and hence few conjectured the real cause of the sudden and complete darkness in yvhich they yvere enveloped. W e do not wonder, therefore, that thus, unaccountable as it appeared to them, accompanied moreover by the rolling of distant thunder and occasionalflashesof lightning, deepened also, rather than relieved, in m a n y places by the blaze of the fires yvhich were crackling in the neighbouring woods, running with a fearful rapidity through the open country, or perhaps threatening their home-stations with destruction, it should have suggested to m a n y the thought that the end of the world was at hand, and that m a n y trembled under the expectation of the immediate coming of the Lord to Judgment. That expectation was indeed groundless. O n the following morning the sun rose in unclouded brightness, and the terrors of the preceding day were dissipated." S o m e of the Gippsland aborigines, yvho had acquired a small smattering of the English vocabulary, accounted for the physical phenomenon in a very matter-of-fact way, by sagely wagging their curly heads and declaring that " bright fellow (pointing towards the sun) had got the blight in his eye." Throughout the country generally traffic yvas temporarily suspended, and the carriers of several of the inland mails yvere intercepted by bush fires. T h e coasting vessels at sea so perceptibly experienced the immense heat bloyving from land, that several passengers were oppressed with mingled feelings of sleepiness and incipient suffocation. Even twenty miles from shore flakes offirewere seen shooting about, and the air wasfilledwith cinders and dust, which fell in layers on the vessels' decks. There are not m a n y n o w in the colony yvho had actual experience of the horrors of the Black Thursday of 1851, to yvhom one can apply for any written recollections of the calamity. From a kind friend (Mr. A. C. L e Souef, Usher of the Legislative Council) I have received an extremely interesting communication corroborating some of the particulars embodied in m y narrative. From this document I transcribe the following sombruous, eloquent extract:—" For some days before, the weather was exceedingly hot, and bush fires were burning in several directions. T h e sun in the morning rose like a ball of blood, and an intensely hot wind bleyv from an early hour, which, as day advanced, fanned and spread the fires already burning. B y eleven the heat was almost unbearable; a fierce, scorching, and blasting wind withered all before it. Dense volumes of smoke, rising in all directions, enshrouded portions of the country in partial obscurity. T h efiresextended from Cape Otway to Cape Schanck"; and northwards to the Murray. In viewing it from an eminence all Victoria appeared a vast conflagration. Vesselsfiftymiles at sea had their decks covered with leaves and ashes. Going over the big hill on the Sydney R o a d after dark yvas a sight I shall never forget—the yvhole forest lighted up with a most indescribable unearthly glare—the lofty trees burning to their very tops with a sullen, angry roar—while above hung a dense canopy of heavy
