Page:Extracts from the letters and journals of George Fletcher Moore.djvu/283

 Rh yet, by six weeks, for this is the most trying season: we must manage better another time. My present shepherd is very attentive, but must not be interfered with in any way: he dresses the sheep frequently for the scab, which the new flock brought with them—spirits of turpentine and tobacco-water are his remedy.

After an early dinner, I rode back to the hills this day, to my northern boundary; got on a high hill, with a level top, and had great difficulty in descending by another route: I was quite surprised to find how much of my time it occupied to reach the summit, and how much more rugged and higher it is than I had fancied.

The soil to the very highest points is reddish loam. There is very little mahogany on my grant; and where there is any, it is much intermixed with red gums, which indicate that the sub-stratum is clay at no great depth. The trees are principally white and red gum. Towards the tops of the hills we find grass (kangaroo and other sorts), lucerne (so called here), chrysanthemum, &c., &c.

I saw two kangaroos; but it was when we were among the rocks, and they in the plains below. Juno stood on a jutting precipitous rock, and pointed them, a little frightened, yet half inclined to take a bound after them. Carlo had a run after a wallabee; but it requires a practised dog to kill one, and he is yet inexperienced.