d then forced into the fore-ground.

[* And he did not trust in vain. We saw him from time to time for several
weeks walking about with the spear unmoved, even after suppuration had
taken place; but at last heard that his wife, or one of his male friends,
had fixed their teeth in the wood and drawn it out; after which he
recovered, and was able again to go into the field. His wife War-re-weer
showed by an uncommon attention her great attachment to him.]

On the 27th the _Sovereign_ sailed for Bengal; and on the last day of the
year the signal for a sail was made at the South Head, too late in the
day for it to be known what or whence the vessel was.

The harvest formed the principal labour this month both public and
private. At Sydney, another attempt being made to steal a cask of pork
from the pile of provisions which stood before the storehouse, the whole
was removed into one of the old marine barracks. The full ration of salt
provisions being issued to every one, it was difficult to conceive what
could be the inducement to these frequent and wanton attacks on the
provisions, whenever necessity compelled the commissary to trust a
quantity without the store. Perhaps, however, it was to gratify that
strong, propensity to thieving, which could not suffer an opportunity of
exercising their talents to pass, or to furnish them with means of
indulging in the baneful vice of gaming.

At the Hawkesbury, in the beginning of the month, an extraordinary
meteorological phenomenon occurred. Four farms on the creek named Ruse's
Creek were totally cut up by a fall, not of hail or of snow, but of large
flakes of ice. It was stated by the officer who had the command of the
military there, Lieutenant Abbott, that the shower passed in a direction
NW taking such farms as fell within its course. The effect was
extraordinary; the wheat then standing was beaten down, the ears cut off,
and the grain perfectly threshed out. Of the Indian corn the large thick
stalks were broken, and the cobs found lying at the roots, A man who was
too far distant from a house to enter it in time was glad to take shelter
in the hollow of a tree. The sides of the trees which were opposed to its
fury appeared as if large shot had been discharged against them, and the
ground was covered with small twigs from the branches. On that part of
the race-ground which it crossed, the stronger shrubs were all found cut
to pieces, while the weaker, by yielding to the storm,