nly person at
home at the time, and was unarmed; all his men were engaged in a distant
field; and he was threatened with instant death, should he give the
slightest alarm. Resistance, therefore, was impossible. Such
depredations have latterly been much checked by the exertions of the
mounted police. This very efficient body is composed of men drafted from
Her Majesty's regiments stationed in the Colony, who are mounted and
dressed at the expense of the local Government, and trained for their
work. They patrole the country in all directions, and have captured and
brought to justice many of the most desperate Bush-rangers, as well as
given a check to the several organized bodies of cattle-stealers.

Those parts of the Colony most distant from the capital, are, naturally,
most annoyed by bad characters of all description; and many of the
settlers trust to their own strength, more than to the police, to defend
their property. A friend of mine residing in Wellington Valley, three
hundred and fifty miles west of Sidney, used to arm himself and his
groom, and sally out in search of any desperate character he might have
heard of as being in the neighbourhood: he was more than once
successful, and became quite a noted man among the Bush-ranging
fraternity, who took good care to keep at a respectable distance from
him. Were some other settlers blessed with as much nerve and courage as
the gentleman I allude to, Bush-rangers would soon become less numerous.

A settler's life in an agricultural district, is pleasant enough, but it
has its drawbacks. A season of drought makes sad work in his fields, and
among his flocks. In the season of 1838-39, water became so scarce, that
many of the best pasture-lands in our neighbourhood were of necessity
abandoned, and the sheep as well as cattle were kept down on the banks
of the river, then reduced to a mere chain of pools, the intervening
channel being quite dry. The herbage was completely eaten up, and the
trees in many parts were cut down, in order that the hungry animals
might eat the leaves. One of my neighbours, to save his flocks, turned
them on his half-grown crop of wheat, by which means he saved some
thousands of sheep, but lost his wheat. Tens of thousands of sheep and
cattle, all over the country, died during this season; and grain crops
failed everywhere, except on the banks of my three favourite rivers;
namely, the Hunter, the Paterson, and the Allyn. There was scarcely a
sett