a constant breeze from one quarter or another.  Deniliquin is in between 35 and 36 degrees south latitude.  The trees are almost exclusively gum trees, but they differ in appearance and leaves, according to age and locality.  This gives the appearance of variety, when, in fact, there is none.  The wood is hard and splits easily.  The bark is tough and thick, and can be converted into canoes by closing the ends of a piece taken from half the circumference of a tree, and tying a cord round the centre to keep it from spreading.  The colour is of a beautiful red.  A moisture sometimes exudes from the leaves in such abundance as to convey the idea of an animal having been slain under the branches.  It has the smell of carraways and is agreeably sweet.  “How it would delight Bessy and Hannah,” (his young sisters, then quite children), he says, “to go into the woods, picking up comfits under the trees!”

He then speaks of the blacks in that district; of their habits and ideas; but expresses a low opinion of their intellectual powers, and thinks little can be done with them.  In May, he wrote to his mother and myself conjointly, fearing his former communications might not have reached us, and briefly recapitulating their purport.  I afterwards heard at Deniliquin that he had successfully performed a surgical operation.  A shearer had run the point of his shears into the neck of a sheep, and opened the carotid artery.  My son having a small pocket case of instruments, secured the vessel and saved the animal.  I remember when it was considered a triumph in practice to effect this on a human subject.  The letter I am now alluding to concludes by hoping that we were all as comfortable at home as he and his brother were in the bush.  He never tired of expatiating on the beauties of Australia and its climate.  His next, in August, gave a more extended account of local peculiarities and features.  Deniliquin is at this time (1862) a place of considerable importance, with a thriving population.  The island on which my sons shepherded their rams is formed by two branches of the Edward River, which is itself a branch of the Murray.

CHAPTER 3.

I arrive in Australia. 
Join my two Sons at their Sheep-station. 
Return to Melbourne and Remove to Ballaarat. 
Visit to Mr. Skene. 
My son studies Surveying. 
His rapid proficiency. 
Appointed to take charge of a Party. 
Letters on various Subjects to his Mother and Brother at Home.

In the month of August, 1853, I reached Melbourne, after a good voyage, having obtained an appointment as superintending surgeon of a government emigrant ship, commanded by Captain Young, a perfect sailor, and a gentleman I shall always remember with pleasurable feelings.  More than two months elapsed before I could discover where my sons were.  Having, at length, ascertained their locality, I purchased a horse and performed the journey in four days, resting one day on the road, at the station of Mr. Jefferies, on the Campaspe.  I started at daylight, and made my fifty miles before halting, as I generally did about two P.M.  I arrived at the shepherds’ hut at five o’clock on a beautiful summer’s evening, having remained two hours at the hotel at Deniliquin to refresh.