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Dunstan Times, Issue 258, 5 April 1867, Page 3

1% Hot Day in Victoria.— A. hot scorching day. 'J ho winds, having travel-! r led over hundreds of miles of arid plain and smoking bush, floated into Melbourne t ' laden with blazing heat. The skv glared 1.. . • f : down whitoly, and the blinding sun, ! scorched up moisture, and vegetation with ■ ; its eye of fire, The very clouds were | white with heat, and to leek up at them ■ made one dizzy. Jn the city, mankind | panted with thirat and fatigue, and, re- | gardless of consequences, revelled inord'. . i nately and greedily in ices and cool drink-. | Womankind retreated to cellars and shady i nooks, and divesting itself of superfluous I attire, indulged, gratefully, in water !me ous; and mankind, coining home i i ' i wearied and parched, joined womankind j in her retreat, and lay at her feet tamely. I Pogkind panted and lolled out its tongue, distressfully ; but though it wandered in despair through the streets, it found no relieving moisture in kennel or gutter; and being, by its constitution and laws, de tarred from the luxury of ices and cool drinks, it endured agoaics of silent suffering. Clerks fell asleep over their ledgers, and storekeepers grew dozy behind their desks. At the sea side the very waves were too wearied to roll, and lay, supine beneath the dreadful glaufl of tho sun. The beaches were deserted ; not even a j crab was to bo sec In tho country the bush smoked and blazed, and wretched l oxen strained at their chains, and did their ; half-a-nvle an hour in dire distress. With ! suffering noses almost toueliirg the ground, i they smell in vain along the earth for li-

quid life. The driver:; with their cabbagetree hats slouched over their eyes, were too lazy to crack their whips and too fatigued to sweir loudly at their cattle; but determined not to be cheated of their privilege, tlicy growled and cursed in voices almost .inaudible.. The leafless trees smoked beneath the glare of the sun, aud stretched their bare branches to the sky as if for pity, but got none. On the gild fields, diggers stripped to their shirts, and were glad to plunge into cool drives, and to hide themselves, with bottles of lager beer or billies of cold tea by their sido ; these who cou'd find no such shelter threw themsolves upon their stretchers, and longed eagerly for the night. Everywhere, business, except where bare-armed men or muslin-clad barmaids served long drinks ic thirsty to;;!?, w.:s at a standstill. Merchant? were too luzy to haggle. ! Percentages were forgotten, and invoices .; disregarded."—From " Urif," a st ry of • I Colonial Life, by B. L. ! arjeon.