A BRICKFIELDER PUTTING IN ITS WORK.
"The brickfielder lasted all day and far into the night, and then it suddenly stopped. With its cessation there was a heavy fall of rain, which converted the dust into mud and made pedestrianism anything but comfortable. They tell us that these winds sometimes last two or three days, or even longer; they are always followed by rain and a cool wind from the south, and never was cool wind more acceptable than at such a time. Nobody can predict when the wind will come, whether in a day, a week, or a month; and when it does come everybody prepares to stay in-doors, if he can possibly do so, and wait till it is over. Every man, woman, and child has a dust-cloak or dust-coat to be worn when necessity compels going out-of-doors in a brickfielder.
"One gentleman says these winds prefer to put in their appearance on Sunday morning, just as the congregations are assembling in church. The dates of large picnic parties are also favorite times for their appearance, and when they come the picnic ceases to be a delight. He says that some years ago, in one of the Australian cities, arrangements had been made for a grand banquet out-of-doors, the finest that had ever been known in the colony. The date had long been fixed and extensive arrangements made, invited guests came from afar, the best speakers of the antipodes were present, and all was going finely, when suddenly, just as the early courses of the banquet had been served, a brickfielder came, and the scene was as disorderly as a political meeting in one of the lower wards of New York. The feast came to a sudden end and not a speaker opened his mouth, lest it might be filled with dust.
"One swallow may not make a summer, but one brickfielder is enough for a whole year."
Consulting the railway time-table, Doctor Bronson found that the express train for Melbourne left at 5.15 p.m., and ran through in nineteen hours, thus making the greater part of its journey in the night. As our friends wished to see as much of the country as possible during their tour through Australia, they decided to take a slower train at 9 a.m., which would bring them to Goulburn, one hundred and thirty-four miles, at 4 p.m. Another train at 10.35 the following morning would reach the frontier at Albury, three hundred and eighty-six miles from Sydney, at eight o'clock in the evening. In this way they would get a good view of the country, and be able to say far more about its features than if whizzed through on an express train at night.
BUILDING A RAILWAY ON THE PLAINS.
The first railway in the colony of New South Wales was projected in 1846, and within two years the surveys for the line to Goulburn were completed. Ground was broken in July, 1850, the first turf being turned by the Hon. Mrs. Keith Stewart, in the presence of her father, Governor Fitzroy, and a large assemblage of people. The first railway-line in the colony, from Sydney to Paramatta, was opened in 1855.