Page:Diary of ten years.djvu/147

129 feet high (which I obtained from a gardener in Perth, at one shilling a piece), twelve sets of sugar-cane, strawberry plants, some Cape gooseberry and rose-tree cuttings, and a few slips of the Cape or Hottentot fig. After all these useful operations, Letty brought me some butter, the first produce of my young cow's milk.

25th.—You will suppose that we are not addicted to the indiscretion of very early marriages, when I state that this day I met a grand cortége escorting a sexagenerian man and woman on the high road to matrimony. The bridegroom elect was mounted on his master's horse, and the bride rode behind him.

I have been clearing brushwood away at such a rate that the very natives will not know the place when they see it again. May it be long until they do see it! The old plague of servants again.

One of Mr. Tanner's has been sent to gaol for refusing to work; many are out of employment, yet demand as high wages as ever: fifteen shillings a hundred for slitting paling, and thirty shillings a month, besides diet, for a boy-man, or hobble-de-hoy. Some of the improvident mechanics at Perth give at the rate of 4s. 6d. and 5s. a dozen for eggs sent there by the settlers at the head of the river.

27th.—The weather now is of a delightful temperature; I bathed at sunset last night, after having previously warmed myself well by cutting down trees—you know that bathing when warm is an old and favourite practice of mine. We now say that winter is over.

"Frigora mitescunt Zephyris."

29th. Our discussions about the proposed bank have been renewed. Numerous borrowers, but no lenders! I have