Page:Extracts from the letters and journals of George Fletcher Moore.djvu/102

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THE NATIVES.

of course. I had just gone into bed and was very snug, when two drunken men arrived; one of them could not and the other would not go any farther, so I allowed the rascals to lie by the kitchen fire, and then obtained some sleep myself, after having removed the cow to the shed, which we had covered pro tempore with a tent.

11th.—A budget of news by Corporal Doherty (an Irishman to be sure) from Perth, where it appears the natives are exceedingly troublesome, and that a settler has been killed. The Governor and Captain Irwin are gone in pursuit. By one of the letters which I have received, I learn that I have been elected a member of the Institution here,[1] and that we are to have a small detachment of mounted police or cavalry established near this. Government speak of sending to the Cape for horses rather a long look out. A lovely day for vegetation, warm and damp. No flood yet.

12th.—The cow is dead! Dies atro notandus lapillo!

13th.—Cut up and salted my poor deceased companion, and made candles of the tallow. Query, shall I make a mourning suit from the hide, which is jet black? I dined sumptuously on one of poor dear Cowsy's marrow-bones—and now she's gone—"marrow-bones, and all."


  1. A kind of Literary Society.—Ed.