Page:Diary of ten years.djvu/117

 99 and discouragement. A helping hand is now greatly needed; and a little extra aid from the Government would enable us to procure working cattle, milch cows, and sheep, and would place us beyond the chance of poverty or privation. This is a country where there are few natural productions that are edible, but it produces crops inferior to none in England, and with less trouble: indeed the soil is capable of producing any crop, and its herbage is abundant for the support of cattle. I should not, perhaps, have touched on this point, had it not been the subject of conversation in a company which I have just left; and, indeed, this point is the general topic of conversation in the colony at present. I fear my letter is calculated to give you an unfavourable impression of our situation; yet I am convinced, when the Government at home shall have been fully informed of our circumstances, that we shall receive such assistance as it will be consistent with good policy to grant.

21st.—I have been about fourteen months in the colony, and what a change everywhere here! How much has been effected by the unassisted, unencouraged industry of a few individual settlers! We are all eating the produce of our own fields, and how sweet our bread! This is made in the simplest way—we grind the wheat in our own hand-mills, troubling neither flour-dressers nor millers, for a reason we have.

I had written thus far, and was going to bed, when a voice hailed for a boat from the other side of the river; it was that of Captain Shaw, bringing the news from Perth that vessels had arrived.

22nd.—Sat up a great portion of last night reading all your letters, papers, &c. I regret that I did not keep a list of those which I sent to you, so as to refer to them, in the diplomatic way, by numbers, 1, 2, 3, &c.: I could then ascertain whether any had miscarried in transitu: I have let no opportunity pass without sending a letter of some sort, no matter how hurried.