Page:Diary of ten years.djvu/111

 93 own wheat in my steel mill, which grinds well and fast. I had been apprehensive on finding my store of flour so low, but now I have as much as relieves me from all danger of want. Flour is at present 7d. per pound; but the usual price, when there is a supply from the Cape or Van Diemen's Land, is 3d. per pound.

Towards this morning I was aroused by the sound of a boat, in which E—arrived, on his way to Mr. Tanner's to parade the soldiers there, in order to recognise some who had committed an outrage. He and Mr. Dale took beds with me. This making of beds must surprise you,—I managed it easily enough; having three matrasses, we have only to stretch one for each guest on the floor, with sheets and blankets. The colonising system (like "misery,") "makes us acquainted with strange beds" as well as with "strange bed-fellows."

I could not hang my new door—reason why—the doorposts are crooked. I shall have sad and warm work at them. Ther. 90°.

How different my rural life from that which I had imagined it would be! Instead of being demi-savage and romantic, it is civilised (often ceremonious) and uniform; with less of privation and much more of occupation for mind and body than I had anticipated. But where are all the flocks and herds?—Where?

It cost me £32 to get a cow and a calf, and the cow is dead. Sheep are £3 each; so that it would take all my capital to possess a flock—even less than the patriarch's—such as would afford the keeping of a shepherd. From one sow I have had thirty pigs—the only stock which has multiplied with me—and a much larger number I could not support. It is easy for a person at home to say, " You can keep pigs and poultry without limit as to numbers," but they must be fed in summer at considerable expense; and as our fences are generally bad, the pigs eat down the wheat and destroy the gardens, and the poultry soon devour their