An epidemic appeared among the cattle, and twenty-six fine bullocks died within a few days; five Australian horses died during the first year, and everything seemed to be going into the next world as fast is possible.
Having made up my mind to all manner of disappointments, these casualties did not make much impression on me, and the loss of a few crops at the outset was to be expected; but at length a deplorable and unexpected event occurred.
The bailiff's family consisted of a wife and daughter; the former was the perfection of a respectable farmer's wife, whose gentle manners and amiable disposition bad gained her many friends; the daughter was a very pretty girl of nineteen.
For some time Mrs.Fowler had been suffering from an illness of long standing, and I was suddenly called to join in the mournful procession to her grave.

This was indeed a loss which I deeply deplored.
At length death left the little settlement, and a ray of sunshine shone through the gloom which would have made many despond.

Fortune smiled upon everything.

Many acres of forest were cleared, and the crops succeeded each other in rapid succession.

I had, however, made the discovery that without manure nothing would thrive.