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95
Afterwards however he followed my advice and is fairly improving bettering. Lying as they are the whole day in a green shady bower, none inclined to speak or merely breaking the silence by some hard word on musquietoes or sandflies fancies come in their heads and they ask some times for strange things, as persy for a pinch of snuff though he had never taken snuff during his whole life
Our goats commenced kidding during the last week and have continued I daresay think about 12-15 kidds and the old goats supply us with various quantities of milk which is very salutory to us. The tonic? which was gurnea? coloured has taken its natural colour again But in counting the goats I found that a great number of them have been lost, as several sheep, they have either been rusked by native dogs or by natives. The number of these small animals is too great to be counted [?] quickly over and even even if we could, at liberty as they are to feed about in every direction, we should have little chance to recover a small number of them. Many of them are kidding out in the bush, [?] the young one and loose it frequently. I commence to believe that it would have been much better not to have any Billy goat amongst them at all though the milk is very grateful in our tea. The cattle have kept remarkably well and the horses and mules have come regularly to the camp every day.
The weather has been very agreeable, not too hot , with frequently strong breezes from E and NEast and North. The thermometer this morning was 62°. Afternoon 20th March One of the most diagreeable changes I have to mention is that of Wommai my second blackfellow. Instead of the active willing ever stirring lad he has turned out an idle impudent vagabond, who shams illness whenever he dislikes works. The cause of this is allmost solely Mr. Turnbull. He showed him so much attention