and windows in warm weather, I here found (as a matter of course, so near the antipodes) a most imprudent course to pursue, as the only chance of preserving a moderately endurable existence during the continuance of the sirocco is, immediately on 'its approach to shut every door and window, and with closelydrawn blinds to await, as patiently and movelessly as half-suffocated mortals may be expected to do, the abatement of the terrible visitation. With us, however, a few hours of faintness, thirst, and misery generally comprise the whole evil (though sometimes the hot winds blow almost without intermission for several days), but the luckless fields and gardens escape not so easily. Every green thing looks as if a salamander had been held over it, either drooping and dying, or dried up like half-burned paper. I have seen large tracts of cultivated land, covered with luxuriant green crops of wheat, barley, or oats just going into ear, scorched, shrivelled, absolutely blackened by the heat, and fit for nothing but to cut as bad litter. Less important, though extremely vexatious, is the destruction caused in gardens, where the most delicate and beautiful flowers are ever the first to wither under the burning breath of this fervid Air-king.

These siroccos always blow from the north-west, and by some persons are supposed to derive their heat from tracts of unknown deserts in the intertropical regions of this island-continent. Their power is felt strongly, though less frequently, in Van Diemen's Land. One might almost fancy the Ancient Mariner to have experienced one during his ghostly voyage, he so accurately describes their aspect :

"All in a hot and copper sky

The bloody sun at noon

Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the moon."

I several times observed at Bathurst a phenomenon by no means unusual on the large plains of New South Wales, in dry weather, being a procession across them of tall columns of dust-whirlwinds in fact, which preserve a nearly uniform diameter throughout their whole length, the upper end seeming to vanish off, or puff away like light smoke, and the lower apparently touching the earth. They move in a perpendicular position, quietly and majestically gliding along one after another, seeming, at the

distance I saw them, to be from seventy to a hundred feet high, and about twenty broad. Thus viewed, they do not appear to travel particularly fast, but Mr. Meredith tells me he has vainly endeavoured to keep pace with them for a short time, even when mounted on a fleet horse. When they are crossing a brook or river, the lower portion of the dust is lost sight of, and a considerable agitation disturbs the water, but immediately on landing the same appearance is resumed. As some vanish, others imperceptibly arise, and join the giant-waltz; and when I first observed this most singular display, I amused myself by fancying them a new species of genii relaxing from their more laborious avocations, and having a sedate and stately dance all to themselves. When the dance ends, these dusty performers always appear to sit down among the neighbouring hills.

I never heard of these gregarious whirlwinds being at all mischievous; they only pick up dust, leaves, little sticks, or other light bodies, which whirl round in them with great velocity; but other and far more terrible visitations occur in the hurricanes, which, like those of the western world, devastate the tract of country over which they pass. Mr. Meredith, in returning from his visit to the Murrumbidgee, encountered one of the most fearful of these terrific tempests. At Bathurst on the same day we had a violent thunder-storm, with a heavy fall of rain and large hailstones, but the fury of the tempest passed chiefly near the river Abercrombie. I shall avail myself of my husband's observations in his own words :

"I have often seen the effects of former hurricanes in New South Wales, the indications being the total destruction of all trees in the course the hurricane had taken, which course I generally observed to be from the north-west. The length to which the devastation extended I had no opportunity of estimating, but the breadth averaged from 400 to 800 yards. On one occasion I saw the spot where a hurricane had terminated in a whirlwind. My companion and myself had ridden for some distance along the path it had pursued, the direction of which was plainly indicated by the trees it had uprooted in its course all lying one way; the termination was as plainly shown by a circle, in which the trees lay all ways; and such is their partiality, or rather, so clearly are the boundaries of both hurricane and whirlwind defined, that

in cases where the blast did not reach the trunk of a tree, the branches were torn off from one side, without uprooting the stem.

"In the beginning of November, 1839, I was journeying from Goulburn to Bathurst by the direct route of the Abercrombie river, through a wild country, covered almost entirely with forests of very lofty gum-trees. On my departure from Mr. M'Allister's station in the morning, the wind was blowing strong, and the sky betokened tempestuous weather. As the day advanced, the gusts of wind became more and more violent, occasionally bringing down the branch of a tree. When I had arrived within three or four miles of the Abercrombie river the air became suddenly warm, and a few flashes of vivid lightning accompanied by loud thunder denoted the approach of a storm. A strong instinctive sensation of fear came over me, such as I never before experienced; and in a short time, perhaps a minute, I heard a strange, loud, rushing noise; the air grew rapidly dark and thick, and my horse was evidently, like myself, under the influence of intense fear, and trembling violently. I exclaimed (although alone), 'This is a hurricane!' and jumped off my horse at the end of a fallen tree; the poor animal endeavoured to shelter himself by backing under a growing tree, which I prevented by a violent pull at his bridle, and then for the space of a minute or two saw nothing; the hurricane, for such it was, had reached me, and everything was in total darkness. I fell on my knees, still holding my horse's bridle. The roaring, crashing sound was deafening, but it soon passed by, and the atmosphere again became clear enough to admit of my observing surrounding objects. My horse and myself stood alone in what a few seconds before had been a high and dense forest; every tree was prostrate, either broken or uprooted, including the one from under which I had luckily pulled my horse, its ponderous trunk lying within a few feet of us. Fortunately the track of the hurricane was in the same direction as that in which the fallen tree lay at the end of which I dismounted, and thus the small space was left which saved us both. Immediately that the hurricane had swept by, the rain fell in torrents, exceeding anything I ever witnessed in the tropics, and a heavy gale continued for two days."

The horse Mr. Meredith had with him then, a beautiful creature, and a great favourite, retained an evident recollection of his terror in the hurricane long after-indeed, until we parted with him, on leaving the Colony. If a branch of a tree only lay before him in the road, or a twig blew across him, he would look fearfully at it, start, snort, and tremble, which, as he never used to notice such things before the occasion above • mentioned, we believed to be the result of some remembrance or association in his mind. Perhaps the term mind is wrong as applied to a brute, however noble in nature, but this evident memory seems something above instinct.

CHAPTER X.

Bathurst Society and Hospitality—"White Rock”—Native Dance and Ceremony-Kangaroo Dance--Appearance of Natives-Children-" Gins ;" their marriage-slavery and sufferings-Family Dinner-party-Adopted Children-Infanticide-Religion--“ Devil-devil "-Language-Story of Hougong and Jimmy-" Ay, Ay?”—Duties of the Toilet-Native Songs— Mimicry-Fondness for English Dress-Boundary Laws-Legal Parricide -Habitual Treachery.

Ir savours strongly of an Irishism to say so, but the chief inhabitants of Bathurst live at some distance from it; many of the wealthy, and also higher class of settlers, having farms and good residences within a few miles, which renders the society superior to that of Colonial settlements in general. Nearly all are situated on the verge of the plains, combining both the flat and hilly country in their surrounding scenery, and their gardens and vineyards, which at the time we were there were slowly recovering their former verdure and luxuriance, seemed morsels of a brighter world, when compared with the arid waste around the township. Among these the pretty and picturesque residence of our good and venerable friend Captain Piper is as much distinguished by its beautiful situation as by the long-proved worth and hospitality of its owner, than whom I heard of no person in New South Wales more universally respected. Hospitality is so general a feature in Australian society, and I remember with so much pleasure the kind attentions which I, as a "stranger in the land,” received for my husband's 's sake, that only a very remarkable preeminence would induce me to break my prescribed rule of abstaining from all personal allusions in these pages.

About three miles from Bathurst, near a pretty cottage on the Macquarie (in a district ehiefly granite), is a singular group of low rocks rising abruptly from the turf of the plains, and perfectly white; they appeared to me to be masses of pure quartz, of which many specimens occur a few miles higher up the river.