Page:An Australian Parsonage.djvu/229

200 is far superior to ox-tail for all culinary purposes. To see two people skinning a kangaroo's tail is like watching the game that children call "French and English"; one cannot help wondering which of the pair will first tumble backwards, so great is the strength with which the skin adheres to the sinews, which are, owing to their toughness, used by the natives in place of thread in the seams of their fur mantles. If kangaroo is dressed like jugged hare the deception is complete, and the plan also answers well of salting a piece of the loin and then hanging it up the chimney to dry in the smoke until it becomes hard enough to be grated like Hamburg beef.

There is a much smaller kind of animal called the rock kangaroo, of which I employed Khourabene to bring me skins enough to make a large hearth-rug. The fur is softer and longer than that of the large kangaroo, and prettier also, but far inferior in durability. Rosa rather deplored my fancy for the Australian furs, since she had seen them so constantly used as coverings for the beds in the poorer sort of colonial houses, that she could not reconcile herself to my adoption of the same custom in our own. She failed, however, to talk me out of my predilections, for the nights were cold in winter, and foot-mats of kangaroo skins, or counterpanes of opossum fur rendered us less sensible of the fact that our house was by no means impervious to wind and weather. A very moderate degree of cold, too, seemed to us severe indeed after the intense heats of summer, and when the rain has been accompanied by cold wind we have found ourselves chilly indoors, even though the thermometer in the verandah might be standing above 60°.