Instead of songs of praise in New South Wales—
"Wails!"
[Original]
THE following ballad suggested itself to the Author while in the remote interior and suffering from a severe attack of indigestion, he having rashly partaken of some damper made by a remorseless and inexperienced new-chum. Those who do not know what ponderous fare this particular species of bush-luxury is when ill-made may possibly think the sub-joined incidents a little over-drawn. If a somewhat gloomy atmosphere be found pervading the narrative, it is to be attributed to the fact that all the horrors of dyspepsia shadowed the Author's soul at the time it was written, and, if further extenuation be required, it may be stated that he had previously been going through a course of gloomy and marrow-freezing literature, commencing with Edgar Poe's "Raven," and winding up with the crowning atrocity (or albatrossity) which saddened the declining years of Coleridge's Ancient Mariner.