Page:Diary of ten years.djvu/432

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nothing of them, but they are to be entertained on Thursday next at a dinner given by the officers of the 21st on their departure. This will be a busy week with me. To-morrow there will be an Executive Council; Wednesday will be our day of quarter sessions, when some natives will be tried for murders committed; Thursday will be our next meeting of the Legislative Council, with the dinner afterwards; and on Friday is the meeting of the Agricultural Society at Guildford, when I am anxious to be present, for several reasons—one being to mention that I have received from Mr. Manning, of London, two vols, or numbers of the transactions of the English Agricultural Society, with a receipt for a year's subscription, making me a member. This was done for the purpose, I suppose, of bringing our little society into correspondence with the English Agricultural Society. I do not know how he came to write to me and pay me the compliment. He thought me the chairman perhaps. Another reason is that I have just received from South Australia a letter requesting Mr. Roe, Mr. Leake, and myself to form a committee, to co-operate with one formed there for the purpose of exploring a route of overland communication between that colony and this. They have subscribed pretty largely there (on paper at least), and want us to do the same. Verily they seem to have more money at command than we have. I have received by the same conveyance a letter from W—, dated 23rd June, 1839—more than a year ago. The weather is exceedingly pleasant and bracing now. There is a slight frost every morning, but the middle of the day is like your good summer. I ventured to bathe to-day, and enjoyed it very much; yet this is the middle of our winter, past the shortest day. July and August, however, are wet. I do not know how I shall be able to endure the climate of home again, should I arrive there in the winter. I almost dread it. Non sum qualis cram, I'm not what I was in many respects; to say the truth you will see a great change in me. Time has