[* 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, were only beaten down.  The two succeeding days were remarkably mild; notwithstanding which the ice remained on the ground nearly as large as when it fell.  Some flakes of it were brought to Lieutenant Abbott on the second day, which measured from six to eight inches long, and at that time were two fingers at the least in thickness.

On this officer’s representing to the governor the distress which the settlers had suffered whose farms had lain in the course of the shower such relief was given them as their situations required.  Nothing of this kind had been felt either at Parramatta or at Sydney.