V. 



THE LIME IN THE MORTAR. 



I SHALL presume in all my readers some slight 

 knowledge about lime. I shall take for granted, for 

 instance, that all are better informed than a certain 

 party of Australian black fellows were a few years 

 since. 



In prowling on the track of a party of English 

 settlers, to see what they could pick up, they came 

 oh joy ! on a sack of flour, dropped and left behind 

 in the bush at a certain creek. The poor savages had 

 not had such a prospect of a good meal for many a 

 day. With endless jabbering and dancing, the whole 

 tribe gathered round the precious flour-bag with all 

 the pannikins, gourds, and other hollow articles it 

 could muster, each of course with a due quantity of 

 water from the creek therein, and the chief began 

 dealing out the flour by handfuls, beginning of course 

 with the boldest warriors. But, horror of horrors, 

 each man's porridge swelled before his eyes, grew hot, 

 smoked, boiled over. They turned and fled, . man, 

 woman, and child, from before that supernatural 



