Page:Diary of ten years.djvu/127

 109 look, so woe-begone, and would have told me—" all my pork was out. But it is no joking matter, nor am I in a humour for heroics now, for it is a sad truth that my last bit of pork was boiled this day.

Oh, for some of that which you have in Dublin for twenty shillings per cwt.! You, master Joseph, would think salt pork very sorry food, especially without cabbage, or any other vegetable; but we colonists think it sumptuous at this present moment. I am breakfasting on bread and coffee, without butter, milk, or eggs—but next year I hope to fare better: and as to the dinner of to-day, I shot three pigeons before breakfast. Our usual hour for dinner is one, a very natural time for eating. An additional blanket at night is now acceptable, although by day the thermometer is 72°; and woollen clothes in the morning and the evening are agreeable.

23rd.—Here has been an hiatus—valde deflendus—of a week; but I have had nothing to enter in the log, except a walk to Guildford and Perth, where I had some troublesome cases to settle in court. On Wednesday I purchased a cask of pork (price £10), and three bushels of wheat, and saw Major Nairn, who is in love with the climate, and on Saturday evening walked to Guildford, carrying not only my fishing-basket, but two hundred cabbage plants, which I got from the Governor's gardener: this morning I had them planted, and have just made up my mind to cover the two or three acres of wheat which I am about to sow by the spade and shovel, as I have no cattle for the plough;—apropos of cattle: for the first time, I have killed a young pig for my own table; and this, let me tell you, is an extravagant dish here.

26th.—Mr. Brockman has made an exchange with me: I gave him three young pigs for eight bushels of wheat, worth fifteen shillings a bushel, which will afford me an ample supply of seed. A sad misfortune has occurred to me: my