emotional than the starched and painted consumptive marionettes that society sticks up in high places for common people to laugh at.
When the women had all got fairly out of the station, they lost no time in assisting to pack their different treasures into the six drays which had been sent up with them, while the men harnessed the horses, and put all the crockery and utensils that they could into the drays. There were about thirty children, all of whom they managed to carefully stow away on the drays along with a few of the women, most of whom preferred, however, to walk along in conversation with their male relatives and friends, as the distance they had to traverse was not very great. Forty more cows had been sent up with them, and they helped form part of the procession.
On arriving at the houses, all the men who could be spared instantly set to work to put the different things into them. They had managed to bring a few bedsteads and bedding with them from the station, and these were soon made ready, and the children, who were worn out with fatigue after so long travelling, were very soon soundly sleeping in them. As soon as the drays were emptied, they returned to the station to bring up the remainder of the beds, which were soon got in readiness for the women who were all sleeping soundly in them before the night was much advanced, every separate family occupying one house, while the single women slept together in groups of six to each house, and the unmarried men occupied the remaining houses and the tents.
Next day the men went down to the station and brought up the household furniture, the forty colonial ovens, a single-furrow plough, two harrows, two scarifiers, a steam plough, and the balance of the live stock consisting of five hundred fowls, and forty hives of bees. The steam plough had been purchased by the society at a cost of £700 to save labor on the part of the pioneers, a deposit having been paid on it, with the understanding that it became their's if the balance with current interest were paid within two years.
There were now two hundred men and women, besides the children, on the land, and already the place commenced to wear a busy aspect. They were not long setting to work. The men started sowing sixty acres with wheat; another sixty acres they planted with vines, peaches, apricots, figs, and other fruits, besides planting various kinds of vegetables in between the fruit trees so as to utilize the ground while waiting for the fruit to arrive at maturity; they also planted twenty acres with tomatoes. The women attended to the household duties, besides cultivating flower gardens around the cottages, attending the poultry and the cattle and looking after the bees, the men giving them occasional assistance. Although the weather continued to be very boisterous and heavy rains were falling most of the time, they managed to get on very well with their work. Next month the directors sent them up a first-class incubator, capable of hatching 200 eggs, and twenty-five superior bee-hives; besides another month's provisions, which were regularly forwarded to them so that they should not need to depend on the product of their own land for some considerable time to come. They, in their turn, managed
