Slight as was the drought of 1865 in that country compared with what was suffered in South Australia from the same cause, yet it was felt severely. Horses perished in the bush, and ewes were too much weakened by insufficient food to survive the lambing season; whilst on many a poor man's field, that had been sown to feed a family of children, pigs were the only reapers of the stunted stalks which, from want of rain, had never ripened into ears of corn.
I always felt it a matter for surprise that, with so many prisoners who needed employment, the Government had not set the example of making large tanks for husbanding the rain-water, of which, in an ordinary winter, there is a greater fall during the rainy season than occurs in England throughout the year.
Floods are almost as characteristic of Australia as droughts, and two years before we went there rain fell to an excess which will be matter of tradition at Barladong so long, at least, as anyone remains to remember going to school in a boat instead of by the footpath in that wet winter. I heard an anecdote of that sloppy period from a family with whom we became intimate, who told me that their farm-yard was divided by a narrow river pool, on one side of which stood the house, and on the other the stables, with a little wooden foot-bridge between. In the course of one day the water increased so much in height and strength, that the sons who had been since the morning on that side of the stream which was nearest to the stables were unable to cross it at eventide, although within speaking distance of their family, and near enough for their sisters to throw them over provisions. After waiting two days or so, the waters showing no diminution,
