covered with tobacco-ashes and liquor-stains, composed the furniture of either apartment. After a long and ineffectual sonata on the hand-bell (no other description being seen, save in a very few of the very best colonial houses), just as I began to despair of its power, a young girl shuffled along the hall from some of the back settlements, and holding fast by the door-handle, for she was almost too much intoxicated to stand, took my orders for luncheon, and after many vain attempts at length succeeded in wiping the table with a ragged, very dirty apron. Her dull light-coloured hair hung in matted tangles about her neck and ears; her dress was disordered, torn, and dirty; and her face bloated and stupid from the effects of drink ;-never did drunkenness wear a more revolting aspect, and I felt relieved when the wretched creature left the room. My companions had a similar tale to tell of the male portion of the establishment; every soul was drunk, and it was some time before they could arouse any one to attend to the horses. The same unfortunate girl I had before seen, laid our cloth, and brought what we wanted, or rather what we could get, for I imagine the copious libations indulged in by the whole household had made them regardless of eating, and the larder was accordingly very ill supplied. Bread and a few eggs (positively without ham!), which our ministering Bacchante rolled on the floor as she staggered in with them, formed our repast, but she took pains to impress upon us the pleasing assurance that "There was plenty o' ale an' sperrits." We strolled down to the banks of the little rivulet, where I found many beautiful flowering shrubs, and the verdure of the adjacent little flats showed how excellent a garden might be made there, but I fear never will; idleness and drinking are such besetting sins, and money to provide them both so easily earned by "keeping a public" in this Colony, that nothing demanding bodily exertion is attempted. Meat can run about and feed itself on the wild hills, and flour they can buy; fruit and vegetables they "don't heed," as they would demand some little labour to produce.

As we returned towards the house, I looked at it again, as it stood in raw, shiny, comfortless newness, like a great toy freshly unpacked. Behind it lay a crowd of dirty, old, ruinous hovels,

that formerly served in its stead, and still were used as outhouses, stables, &c., all broken, and half unthatched. All the fences within sight exhibited the same dilapidated aspect, whilst ashheaps and other less sightly things lay all around. How different would be the state of almost everything in this Colony, were that greatest curse man ever created out of God's good gifts, intoxicating liquor, less easily obtained by those who ought to be the industrious and prosperous, but, alas! too generally are the idle and worthless part of the community. Time, money, character, decency, feeling, principle, ambition, and honesty-all are sacrificed to the demoralizing passion for rum, when once it gains the ascendency; and to know how often that is, we need only observe and listen to the sad evidence so continually passing around us. I perhaps praise the tidy appearance and good cookery of a friend's servant : 66 Ah! yes, she is an excellent cook, but we can so seldom keep her sober.' The coachman of another seems quite a model for his class, till you hear he is so confirmed a drunkard that his mistress dares not trust him to drive her home alone from a party. Another family have an honest old "majordomo," faithful and good in every other point; may be trusted with "untold gold," but not with a bottle of rum. It is a universal failing, and a really sober servant or mechanic may consequently be held as a pearl of great price. Age and sex make no difference; your dainty lady's-maid or pretty young nursegirl is just as likely to be over-liberal in her libations to Bacchus as your groom or shoeblack; and no threats, no bribes, no punishments avail to keep the besotted creatures from the dram-bottle, if it be by any means or in any shape accessible. I have known a female servant drink camphorated spirits of wine, and suspect the same individual of consuming a pint of hartshorn which mysteriously disappeared about the same time from my room; its evident strength being no doubt too tempting. Eau de Cologne and lavender-water, I know, they drink whenever they are left about, or anything else believed to contain spirit. The universality of this vice is most dreadful to contemplate, and far worse to witness and endure. Almost the only exceptions among the lower classes are the families of English emigrants, who, accustomed to poor living and hard work at home, continue sober and industrious, thankful for the many hitherto unknown

comforts and luxuries they can enjoy, and carefully and fearfully abstaining from all excess. Of this class I have known excellent examples, both old and young, male and female, and can only hope that in time their better and wiser course may be appreciated and emulated by other portions of this now numerous population.

CHAPTER IX.

"Hassan's Walls"-Grass-trees-Mount Lambey-Victoria Inn-Specimen of Benevolent Politeness-Colonial Bridges-First View of BathurstThe "Settlement"-Dearth-Climate-Hot Winds-Processions of Whirl

winds-Hurricanes.

OUR road now lay over hilly ground again, sometimes skirted by live trees and a slight semblance of herbage, and often approaching in wild and sterile grandeur the scenery we had before traversed. A singular range of perpendicular cliffs form a striking feature in the landscape at a place called "Hassan's Walls." These walls or cliffs rise, I should think, to a height of about 300 feet perpendicularly above the road, and their summits, broken and fissured in various fantastic forms, exactly resemble a ruined castle crowning the brow of the sheer precipice, with here and there a stunted tree or graceful shrub growing from crevices in the dark rock. Had I been travelling in an old country, I should at once have decided that these were truly the ruins of some mighty mountain-fortress of former days; loopholes, arches, battlements, and buttresses were, as it seemed, so clearly remaining, and extending far along the airy heights of these genii-haunted crags, for such I half fancied them, especially when a turn in the road gave to view a colossal head standing well out against the clear, bright, blue sky, and bearing a strong resemblance to the venerable and veteran Duke of Wellington. We paused to contemplate the rude though striking likeness; and then, as we slowly drove on, the features changed, and a judge with a flowing wig stood frowning down on us; another turn, and another change came over the mountain statue, and then it again resolved itself into a mere turret of the hoary

ruin. I thought of the mysterious castle of St. John,* with its wizard transformations, and of how much romance would attach to these fantastic crags in a romantic or legendary country; but the existence of poetry or imagination in New South Wales is what none who know and have felt the leaden influence of its ledger and day-book kind of atmosphere would believe it guilty of suffering.

The grass-tree (Xanthorrhea arborea?) is one of the most strikingly novel plants I observed in our mountain journey, and is common in most hilly or rocky places both in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land. A young grass-tree appears merely a large reedy-leaved plant without a stem, the leaves being very long, narrow, and sharp, and growing erect for a foot or more, then curving over and nearly touching the ground, forming a thick boss or circle; but as the tree becomes older, the lower eircles of leaves drop off, the young growth all rising from the centre; and in time a thick stem appears, from one to eight or ten feet in height, and two feet in circumference, rough with the scars left by the fallen leaves, and bearing on its summit an immense drooping cluster of foliage, which reminded me of a palmtree (although, it must be confessed, by rather a clumsy resemblance). From the centre of this cluster the scape rises like an enormous bullrush or typha, frequently measuring ten feet and

Which well he guess'd the hold

Of wizard stern, or goblin grim,

Or Pagan of gigantic limb,

The tyrant of the wold."

For the magic and gramoury of the Castle, vide Sir Walter Scott's 'Bridal

of Triermain."