Page:Diary of ten years.djvu/74

 58 kangaroo soup, a fine haunch of ditto, lamb, a pair of fowls, ham and sausages, turnips, lettuce, onions, fruit-pies, and plum and custard puddings. Just think of such fare on the Swan River, and confess whether your organs of taste can resist an extra humidity "from bare imagination of the feast." You know, however, that I care little for these things, and detail them merely to show that we have not always hard fare.

It falls frequently to my lot to settle disputes about boundaries: the Dii Termini are very troublesome divinities to me; this day I have been arbitrator in a case of this nature, besides one on a disputed point concerning a sale of horses.

I have to finish a certain memorial to the Home Government, to attend an agricultural meeting on the second of next month, and to prepare for an exploring expedition over the mountains on the fourth, and have just written for Mrs. Tanner a song about this colony, of which she wishes to send her friends a copy; but I have not time now to transcribe it, but must do so at some other time.

I have a song in my mind, suggested by that of a bird's notes; and if I can get my flute mended, shall set it for you. I mean to try the system of robbing my own potatoes—viz., taking away the large ones from the roots, which is practised here with good effect.

23rd.—You will think me a most dissipated dog when I tell you that I have dined with the same large party three successive days!

Servants' wages are extremely high, and all work proportionably so; £2 10s. per month for inside servants; from 5s. to 7s. per day (without diet) for labour. At present the cultivation of new ground will not pay where there is any difficulty beyond mere ploughing, and that can only be performed in cleared flat meadows. The quantity of stock is still insufficient to support a shepherd. There are not yet more than a dozen persons possessing large flocks, but we are in daily expectation of arrivals of sheep from Van Diemen's