recollection of the oldest settlers. We arrived at Brookong and camped there on the Thursday before the memorable 12th July. It began to rain on Friday, and that night 120 points fell. All day Saturday it poured, and the lamb-markers were working all through it. On Saturday night Mr. Dixon, the sheep-overseer, came in from the camp at Green's Gunyah, and told us that they had been up to the waist in water all that day crossing sheep, and that the creek was rising very fast.
The buildings at Brookong are scattered all over the place; the manager's house, bachelors’ quarters, men's huts, and kitchens being down near the creek, while Mr. Halliday's house and garden, the stables, and the office and store, are a couple of hundred yards away. Raymond and I were installed in the old schoolroom, which stands away by itself from the store. We used it for an office, and slept in the bedroom adjoining. Mr. L. had a room in the big house across the garden from us. He used to walk over to Mr. Grierson's (the manager's) house for meals, while we used to go to the barracks.
On Saturday night the water was up in Grierson's back yard; but we never expected to see it as it was on Sunday morning. Staines, the storekeeper, whose room was just opposite the schoolroom, accompanied us down to look for breakfast. In order to get to the barracks we had a hundred yards of water up to our knees. When we got down, there was six inches of water on the kitchen floor, and it was just commencing to ooze into the dining-room. It was running like a mill-race in the passage between the two houses.
After breakfast Syd. Welman, Staines, and I got the boat out and started to take the letters out to the mail. The mail change is about a mile away, but the water was right over the plain. Syd. and I took the oars, and away we went. All the time it was pouring in torrents and blowing half a
