THE DROUGHT.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2569, 27 December 1888, Page 3

THE DROUGHT.

(from our own correspondent.) Sydnkv, December 12. Wki.comk rain fell lately in the metropolis and coast districts. It also extended to the interior, but hardly to the extent that is denired. It is, however, thankfully hailed as a break up of the drought, and as Riving reasonable ground for hope that there is more to follow. It was indeed badly needed, the drought boing so severely felt in the interior that forage was rapidly mounting to famine prices. One feature of the drought has been an earnest discussion as to the efficacy or otherwise of prayer for rain. I need hardly say that the two parties make very lit'lo progress towards agreement. Each persists in looking solely on its own side of the shield, ftnd each, moreovor, postuatos assumption which the other side regard as inadmissible. As a matter of fact, it would be impossible by any train of reasoning to prevent anyone praying who had experienced the blessings of which prayer is the channel. \ou might as well undertake to prove to him that tho sun dues not shino as attempt to show that facts which come within the range of his own observation have no existance. It is as though the mineral or the vegetable, in solemn conclavo assembled, shuuld declare that no higher form of life than the mineral or vegetable was possible, because any higher torm would transcend the limits of thair own experience. Ihe complacency, with which undertake to abolish tho sublime realities of religious experience is not one whit less absurd. At the same time it must bo remembered that no conceivable amount of discussion or argument can impress a vital sense of those realities on those who are unwilling to be impressed. Hence the fruitlessness of such discussions as that which have been taking up so much space in the columns of the Herald. When a man recognises his dependence and his need ho will pray. He won't step to argue. Certainly by nothing seems better calculated to secure such a recognition than extremity, which oannot be foreseen or guarded against whether it be drought or anything else. Then, when it is once conceded, that prayer is the natural expression of a feeling that is common to the whole of human kind, tho question as to what shall be prayed for is simply a question as to where the worshipper shall draw the line in his confidence towards the being, whose _ assistance he invokes. As a general thing 1 fancy the more common fault is that we do not pray sufficiently, rather than that we pray too much. (JHAPHIC nETAILS. A special reporter of the Age gives the following graphic description ot the state of affairs in the districts of New South Wales, so badly suffering from drought lately--"The lecords of the roadside are appalling, and in the bleaching bones of cattle and sheep and horses that strew the track and sprinkle the barren plains, there i-i a pitiful lesson on the result of lmprovidence and neglect. The few Government tanks have been of much assistance, and, in fact, if they had not been there very little stock would have crossed the country at all; but there are not enough of them, and of those already made some are useless, because the water is not fit to drink. Over this same ground a flock passed south a week or two ago, coming from Tom Lake, twenty miles on the other side of Booligal. They started with 5000, fairly strong in condition, and by the time they g»>t to Hay they had lost just one-half of them. They weie going to Echuca for the Sandhurst market, but the drover did not expect to get any of them to the end of the journey at all. At that stage of their journpy they had gone f«ur days together without water and were about to face another spell of three davs' thirst. Their condition was gone, and" tliey could just crawl about two miles a day. There is no escape from a miserable death. The poor creatures go till at last they have not strength to move another step. They then stand, and silently stare straight ahead, or a sheep may lio down if it has strength enough for it. You will say it does not need much strength to lie down. True, but it needs some, and very often sheep d«m't lie down at all. They just drop in a heap on the spot when they can't stand any longer. There they wait for their wretched end. Most of them lie on their side, with the head thrown back, as most of such animals do, but many of them die couched on their knees, just as they sit. In the newly dead it is often hard to say whether they are dead at all, their position is so lifelike. Here is one with his head away in his flank as if asleep ; another, also, sits quite straight, and his head straight in front, bowed a little towards the ground. Some heaps of wool and bones over there are all that remains of a little family clustering together till the end came, and so they dropped one after the other. A.t some parts of the road the dead sheep are lying about three and four feet deep ; in other places groups of fifteen to twenty have been counted. This piece of track of fifty miles from Hay to 13ooligal is sprinklod with carcases more or less close together all tho way, and it is estimated that about 40,000 sheep have died by the road this summer along this section alone. Where the carcases lie thickest they have counted 600 in half a mile. Booligal is a very old settlement, older than Hay, but it does not grow. Instead of growing, those back townships are likely to be wiped out altogether unless some enterprising company or practical Government comes to the rescue. Nearly everything is against them, planted away out here in the desert like tin toy houses on a big table, with the sun last week making 110 in the shade. How men and women can fit into life in such a wilderness is a question in human character, which, if properly worked out, would fill a lot of space."