COLONIAL INTELLIGENCE.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 487, 3 April 1850, Page 3

COLONIAL INTELLIGENCE.

Opthalmia. — This painful disorder, so injurious to ocular faculties, is now quite in fashion, and has become so common that there is scarcely a family but some of its members are touched with this visionary complaint. As it appears to be caused by the bite of a bushfly, the veil is now much in use as a preventive, not only among bipeds, but the equestrian, who is " merciful to his beast," has also his horse's head covered with green gauze. Some of our carriers have also used the same precaution with their horses. As for the plague of flies, the pest of 1846 was nothing to it. On Saturday last, two wool teams were coming through the town with their tarpaulins literally black with them. — Maitland Mercury.

The Weather. — The long continuance of dry weather has been productive of the most serious injury to the small settlers on the Hawkesbury and elsewhere. The fruit and vegetables are, for the most part, very inferior and unmarketable in their quality, and as to the maize, there is likely to be almost a general failure, if a much longer period of time elapses before we are blessed with a few days' rain. The grass is also stinted and parched, and what with bad food and scarcity of water the dairy cattle are falling sadly away. — He-

raid. The Comparative Prices of Land in Geelong and Melbourne. — If the value of town sites for buildings in Melbourne and Geelong be any criterion of commercial prosperity, Geelong certainly has the advantage over the city. The highest price given for land in the best business parts of Melbourne has not been for some time past so much by £2 per foot as that given for the best business sites here. Suburbau land has never rated there from £2 : 10s. to £3 : 3s. per foot, as it has here in good situations. A.t a rough estimate, land to the amount of changes hands in Geelong weekly. — Geelong

Advertiser. Van Diemen's Land Sheep. — Among the presentations to the Museum of the Royal Society of Van Diemen's Land, at the last monthly meeting of the Fellows, was a prodigiously large concretionary mass, of an oblong shape, taken from the stomach of a sheep, composed of thin layers of ill-digested, but finely subdivided, vegetable fibre, closely compacted. In reference to this donation, the Hobart Town Courier remarks :—lt: — It appears that these concretions affect sheep in almost every district of the island, more or less ; that they do not arise from noxious herbage, still less from the presence of any one particularly poisonous plant, as had been supposed ; that they do not necessarily proye fatal, or even seriously inconvenient to the animals in which they are found, so as to interfere with their ordinary health and condition ; but that, on the contrary, they have been known after a season to disappear from a flock universally affected by them. A deficiency of bitter herbs in our pastures may, probably, by impairing the ruminant and digestive powers, give origin to the nucleus which is afterwards increased by mere mechanical accretion ; and it seems probable that the introduction of parsley, thyme, chicory, clover, &c, amongst our native grasses, may, to a great extent, obviate or prevent the evil, if such it be, to any material extent. — Argus.

A Bushman's Notion of Ease and Comfort. — A great deal has been said and written upon the happy independent lives of bushmen, the fact of such assertions being illustrated and proved by reference to the numbers of these gentry who are possessed each of a good and frequently valuable horse, which he employs to convey himself to and from the stations whick he may be engaged at. At the present day a shearer is thought nothing of — really nothing — by his fellovrbushmen if he cannot sport his chesnut or bay ; and so common has it become among this class of men, that a horse is now reckoned an indispensable adjunct to a pair of shears. We know also that shepherds frequently follow their flocks on horseback, the animal being their own property ; and it is now becoming quite common to that class of beings yclept "hutkeeper," if they wish to be considered at all the " thing," to have a pony to carry them to the home station for their rations. What has been said here of shearers, shepherds, and hutkeepers, settlers generally know to be quite true ; but we witnessed something yesterday which will be apt to startle them, as it certainly did us. This was nothing more uor less than a bullockdriver coolly driving his team through the town while mounted on horseback. The animal was his ow,d," and bought for the purpose it subserved. The whip-handle which he used was about half as long again as those in ordinary use, to enable him the better, as he expressed it, to "touch 'era up" when they

required if. After this, we expect nothing less than to see the whole brotherhood of bul-lock-drivers coming in and leaving town on their nags. In fact, having expressed as much to the individual herein mentioned, he, with an expression which would - have cost him at the very least 40s. if he had been overheard by any one of the members of the police force, wished to know "why a bul-lock-driver shouldn't have a horse of his own, or forty, if he didn't steal 'em." — Geelong Advertiser.

Snakes. — A gentlemen from Gipp's Land reports an almost incredible number of snakes, as infesting tbat locality. Tbe recent floods have, in a great measure, contributed to the presence of these unwelcome guests in many places where a snake was never seen before. Many providential escapes have occurred, in consequence of the reptiles entering the houses of the settlers, aud some very large ones have been killed.

Bush Fires. — It was anticipated that -the bush fires which recently illuminated the harbour for several days would have devastated most of the country in the vicinity of Middle Harbour and Pittwater. Happily, however, this has not been the case. One or two settlers near the head of Middle Harbour, and between that place and the sea, have had their fences burnt ; and one gentleman we hear has lost some valuable fruit trees ; but beyond this there has been no damage and the Pittwater settlers have escaped scatheless. On Sunday, however, a new fire sprung up within a few miles to seaward of Hillary's Ferry, at Middle Harbour, which, if the present dry weather continues, will probably extend to a very considerable distance along the wooded lands between Middle Harbour, Pittwater, and the sea. It is hardly probable, however, that it will do much damage as far as the settlers are concerned. The fire appeared to originate at a place where some person had been clearing a piece of land in order to build a house. Probably the bush had been wilfully set fire to in order to shorten the clearing process. This practice we understand is often restored to, but it is a very foolish one, for when such a fire has been once lighted there is no saying where it will stop. In dry seasons like the present bush fires advance with wonderful rapidity. When the fire at present alluded to was met with by the writer of this paragraph, it did not cover more than an acre of ground. Two hours afterwards he saw it from the waters of Middle Harbour, and it had then»~to"allappea'ranco'incV£ase'd its sphere' of action to the extent of more than a square mile. A little later and the tracks through that part of the country would have been wholly impassable. It is dangerous indeed to approach a bush fire in a scrubby country, for it travels along the dry grass and low shrubs with greater rapidity than a man, can walk, and if there is much country of this kind in his track, the unfortunate traveller runs much risk of having to undergo the disagreable process of roasting before he comes to the termination of his journey. — Herald,