KIDD'S OWN JOUKNAL. 



77 



to form a ' dead-wood fence ;' that is, a mass of 

 timber four or five feet thick, and five or six high, 

 the lower part being formed of the enormous 

 trunks of trees, cut into lengths six or eight feet 

 long, laid side by side, and the upper portion con- 

 sisting of the smaller branches skilfully laid over, 

 or stuck down and inter-twisted. The first field 

 being cleared, fenced, ploughed, and sown, other 

 land underwent the same transformation. I often 

 vainly interceded for the life of some noble tree, 

 which, as its tall kindred fall all around it, looked 

 so grand and ornamental, and so pleasing an 

 object in the general clearance, that I would 

 gladly have preserved it ; but the harbour which 

 trees in the middle of fields afford to the opossums 

 and the destructive, but most beautiful, little 

 parrots which abound here, was always urged 

 against me, and the death-doom was rarely 

 averted, even by the most eloquent pleading : 

 still both our lovely rivers being skirted by forest 

 land and fine belts of trees, besides the numbers 

 which adorned the unploughed marsh and sheep- 

 run, amply redeemed our pretty spot from the 

 charge of bareness, usually so well merited by 

 colonial farms. 



Each time that I rode or walked up from 

 Eiversdale, some evident improvement was visible, 

 in clearing, fencing, draining, or building ; and 

 as spring advanced, the sheep and cattle feeding 

 in the deep, long, green grass of the marshes, and 

 the pretty little soft white lambs skipping about, 

 looked like a bit of England. How beautiful 

 were our broad deep drains, with bright cold 

 water bubbling up in them from countless springs, 

 and flowing generously along in a never-failing 

 stream ! And how often we used to stand in our 

 green meadows, looking into them and talking of 

 the dry and parched ground of our homes at Home- 

 bush and Bathurst, as a kind of additional zest to 

 our keen enjoyment of the inestimable blessings of 

 a temperate climate and abundance of pure water! 



Sometimes in the summer we joined the pic- 

 nic parties from Cambria ; and sometimes, after 

 exhausting my small store of the simple airs and 

 merry old tunes — my husband's favorites — that I 

 could play from memory, I resolutely dived among 

 my old music-books, loaded the piano-desk, and 

 filled up an evening with somewhat lame revivals 

 of the strains of other, although not happier days ; 

 but all these were indulgences in my usual sewing, 

 nursing, housekeeping life. At first I found the 

 business of the store-room the most novel of my 

 household duties, and the weekly or semi-weekly 

 distribution of rations the least pleasant of them ; 

 for besides our own hired farm-servants — who of 

 course received their supplies from us — there were 

 the sawyers, stonemasons, carpenters, drainers, 

 and fencers, all of whom we had to supply with 

 flour, meat, tea, sugar, salt, soap, tobacco, and 

 ' slops ' [i.e. shirts, trowsers, jackets, &c.) ; so that 

 accurate accounts must be kept, and I confess I 

 did not much admire this indispensable huck- 

 ster's shop affair, the business of which also 

 included the giving out the materials for the 

 building and articles for farm use — such as nails 

 of all kinds, ropes, files, glass, glue, oil, paint, 

 whiting, turpentine, blankets, bed-tick, rugs, wine, 

 and other commodities; but all this is (or rather 

 was at the time in question) a matter of course in 

 a settler's establishment. 



We will conclude our notice, by a " picture 

 in little," of the ladies of Hobarton ; who, it 

 appears, make " dancing" their god, — sing- 

 ing and music being rather tolerated than en- 

 couraged : — 



At the period of which I am writing, 

 Hobarton was certainly not in advance of Sydney 

 in point of society or intelligence, and the constant 

 efforts of Sir John and Lady Franklin to arouse 

 and foster a taste for science, literature, or art, 

 were more often productive of annoyance to them- 

 selves than of benefit to the unambitious multi- 

 tude. Among the young ladies, both married 

 and single, in Tasmania, as in Sydney, a very 

 1 general oneness ' prevails as to the taste for 

 dancing, from the love of which but a small share 

 of regard can be spared for any other accom- 

 plishment or study, save a little singing and 

 music ; and Lady Franklin's attempts to intro- 

 duce evening parties in the ' conversazione ' style 

 were highly unpopular with the pretty Tasma- 

 nians, who declared that they 'had no idea of 

 being asked to an evening party, and then stuck 

 up in rooms full of pictures and books, and shells 

 and stones, and other rubbish, with nothing to do 

 but to hear people talk lectures, or else sit as mute 

 as mice, listening to what was called good music. 

 Why could not Lady Franklin have the military 

 band in, and the carpets out, and give dances, 

 instead of such stupid preaching about philosophy 

 and science, and a parcel of stuff that nobody 

 could understand ? ' 



These Tasmanian ladies are, we fear, be- 

 yond the reach of our journal ; else should 

 we dearly like to have a few evenings' gossip 

 with them. They have, we know, pretty 

 faces ; and we see no valid reason why they 

 should not have hearts and minds to match. 

 Beauty without mind, is like a flower without 

 smell. 



THE HUMAN MOUTH. 



The mouth is the frankest part of the face. It 

 can the least conceal the feelings. We can neither 

 hide ill-temper with it, nor good. We may affect 

 what we please, but affectations will not help us. 

 In a wrong cause, it will only make our observers 

 resent the endeavor to impose upon them. 



A mouth should be of good natural dimensions, 

 as well as plump in the lips. When the antients, 

 among their beauties, made mention of small 

 mouths and lips, they mean small only as opposed 

 to an excess the other way, a fault very common 

 in the south. The sayings in favor of small 

 mouths, which have been the ruin of so many 

 pretty looks, are very absurd. If there must be 

 an excess either way, it had better be the liberal 

 one. A pretty pursed-up mouth is fit for nothing 

 but to be left to its complacency. Large mouths 

 are oftener found in union with generous dispo- 

 sitions than very small ones. 



Beauty should have neither ; but a reasonable 

 look of openness and delicacy. It is an elegance 

 in lips, when, instead of making sharp angles at 

 the corner of the mouth, they retain a certain 

 breadth to the very verge, and show the red. 

 The corner then looks painted with a free and 

 liberal pencil. — Leigh Hunt. 



