2-190 (Raw)

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I shall most anxiously look for letters from Britain bearing glad tidings of your welfare. The distance between us is indeed depressingly great and to reflect on the probabilities and possibilities of the non-arrival of our letters is discouraging I allow - but that must not deter us from writing to each other; on the contrary, let us take every opportunity. Our general opportunities of sending letters are via Van Diemen's Land, for it is not once in six months that a vessel leaves this for England direct. [79]
If we could get you here without having to undergo the discomforts of a voyage I feel sure you would all be delighted with the country - a migration of capitalists is exceedingly wanted. Provisions are exceptionally dear and money as scarce
We are still sleeping in tents and marquees. Our new house will be very commodious - we are having our domain walled in and a well dug. Our present thatched mud cottage is very pleasantly situated fronting the River Torrens. I shall try and send a plan of our intended future residence and a sketch of our present.
The land here is very dry and the grass parched, but in the Mount Lofty Range all agree that it is magnificent. My husband and Mr. Hall rode to the top of Mount Lofty the other day and returned quite delighted. They say we can judge nothing of the beauty either of country and scenery here - that about us is just like a nobleman's park nicely wooded and there is nothing in the scene to remind one that we are so far from our native land - we shall have some cows as our ground is railed in - at present we pay 8d. per quart for milk.
The Captain of the Lloyds made me a present of a couple of ducks and a couple of fowls - valuable here - the former £1 a piece and the latter 11/-, eggs 4d. each. Tell dear Mrs. Henry with my love that I hope she will send me a dress and bonnet and cap each year such as she thinks suitable for a Governor's wife - the sun is very powerful, and she must consider that in her choice of colours and let either Miss Cox or Mrs. Beeland be employed to make them...
I have not any brown sewing silk to mend my brown silk dress. I wish, therefore, my friends would recollect one in the way of different coloured sewing silks and beg our friends to muster some old clothing for the Aborigines. The most common print here is 1/- per yard. Send also some gauze cap ribbons. Only think that we are scorched with heat while perhaps you are freezing with cold. This climate is not one which pleases me. The air is mild and balmy, and we are told most healthy. It is not to be depended on - hot and cold - hot winds and dust smother oneself, furniture and victuals in an instant. The hot winds are as though putting your face to the mouth of a baker's oven. .
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