ess to the extraordinary
heat.

When we were out of doors that Sunday evening, we noticed immense banks
and masses of clouds, but they were not in the quarter from whence our
usual heavy rain comes; and besides, in New Zealand clouds are more
frequently a sign of high wind than of rain. However, about midnight
F---- felt so ill that he went in to bed, and we had scarcely got under
shelter when, after a very few premonitory drops, the rain came down
literally in sheets. Almost from the first F---- spoke of the peculiar
and different sound on the roof, but as he had a great deal of fever
that night, I was too anxious to notice anything but the welcome fact
that the rain had come at last, and too glad to hear it to be critical
about the sound it made in falling. I came out to breakfast alone,
leaving F---- still ill, but the fever going off. The atmosphere was
much lightened, but the rain seemed like a solid wall of water falling
fast and furiously; the noise on the wooden roof was so great that we
had to shout to each other to make ourselves heard; and when I looked
out I was astonished to see the dimensions to which the ponds had.
swollen. Down all the hill-sides new creeks and waterfalls had sprung
into existence during the night. As soon as I had taken F---- his tea
and settled down comfortably to breakfast, I noticed that instead of Mr.
U---- looking the picture of bright good-humour, he wore a troubled and
anxious countenance. I immediately inquired if he had been out of doors
that morning? Yes, he had been to look at the horses in the stable.
Well, I did not feel much interest in them, for they were big enough to
take care of themselves: so I proceeded to ask if he had chanced to see
anything of my fifty young ducks or my numerous broods of chickens. Upon
this question Mr. U---- looked still more unhappy and tried to turn the
conversation, but my suspicions were aroused and I persisted; so at last
he broke to me, with much precaution, that I was absolutely without a
duckling or a chicken in the world! They had been drowned in the night,
and nothing was to be seen but countless draggled little corpses, what
Mr. Mantilini called "moist unpleasant bodies," floating on the pond or
whirling in the eddies of the creek. That was not even the worst. Every
one of my sitting hens was drowned also, their nests washed away; so
were the half-dozen beautiful ducks, with some twelve or fourteen eggs
under each. I felt angry with t