140
it measures from the point of the bill to the tip of the toes, as the skin now hangs, no less than two feet eight inches; it is, in fact, a great long tube of feathers. Mr. Browne made me an offer of a mare for £50, which I accepted; and I rode from his house on the first horse (for every mare is a horse) which has called me master in this colony.
5th.—On my return home, after remaining at Mr. Brockman's last night, in consequence of flood in the river, I found my men washing the sheep preparatory to shearing. As to the weather in general, we have had much more rain and cold this winter than we experienced last year. September and October seem to be the months of flood, for although there may be more rain in the earlier months, yet the thirsty soil then absorbs it; but now it is satisfied even to saturation, and every drop tends to the swelling overflow of our river.
Viewed my wheat on the land where I had potatoes last year: it is upwards of five feet high. Got a good specimen of a red root, which must have singular properties, as both pigs and cockatoos seem to be fond of it,—have planted cucumber seed and melon to-day, and got potatoes dug. The splitters finished one tree, and have commenced another, which they managed to let fall upon a tent I had put up for them—it has been woefully torn. In one of your letters you speak of lining the boxes with tin; it is useful on the voyage to keep out cock-roaches and vermin; and it is very useful here to keep out mice and white ants, which are destructive if not well watched. I should have lost considerably but for the lining of tin; the white ants entered at the bottom of a chest, crept up the sides, and got under the tin at one corner where it did not fit well. I bought a tinned chest to-day to keep sugar in, and there issues from it a constant stream of small black ants across the floor to a hole on the other side of the room, each carrying a grain of the sugar: these are so minute that you scarcely notice them; but by treading, burning, and scalding, I have nearly banished them.
