The following extracts are taken verbatim from the Adelaide Observer, to prove to my readers that I do not exaggerate the effects of heat in the colony, and to give them a specimen which the panegyrists, of a magnificent climate are compelled, through common decency, to insert, although rather disastrous to their general superlative expressions relative to the "fair and fertile province." These extracts will certainly not err on the side of exaggerating the dark side of the colony.

THE LATE HEAT.

"The effects of the heat of Saturday and Sunday last have been most disastrous to garden produce. In many directions the plums and apples have been completely roasted, the cucumbers and marrows have been irreparably scorched, and the grapes have been shrivelled to something like currants. In a vineyard not far from Gawler, but elevated some five hundred feet above the sea level, quite half the grapes, which were perfectly green on the Thursday, on Sunday evening were thoroughly brown and withered, fit only for pig food while the leaves had become as sear as in the depth of autumn. It has been the same, we learn, in many a garden in and near town, where the trees and vines were at all exposed to the immediate action of the hot-air blast which swept the colony the day in question. This will, it is feared, tell very seriously upon the prospects of our Vignerons for the vintage of 1860.”

THE LATE HEAT AND THE GARDENS.

"From almost every quarter accounts reach us of the great injury sustained by the gardens of the colony, both hill and plain, through the hot winds of Saturday and Sunday last. That the fruits on the plains would suffer was nothing more than what every one expected, and is certainly what every one

having a garden on the plains has seen by this time to have been the case. The apples brought from Kensington by Mr. Filgate, and exhibited in Mr. Muirhead's window, are only a specimen over which the motto might be written, "Ex uno disce omnes." But gardens of high elevation, and well secured by hills and plantations, are precisely in the same infelicitous predicament.

Mr. McEwin of Glen Osmond, who generally shows as fine apples as any gentleman in the colony, and whose garden is as favourably circumstanced to escape the withering force of the heat, informs us that half his apple crop is spoiled. Apples of a pound weight are so scorched and roasted as to be fit for nothing but pig food, and the leaves of the trees are as dry and black as if a fire had passed over them. His grapes are injured in an almost equal degree. We believe the same disastrous effects have been experienced in the garden at Highercombe, and in almost all the gardens in the hills, however favourably situated."

It has been a matter of debate where the hot winds come from, but this subject does not interest many of the colonists, who know unfortunately too well of their existence, and have little comfort in studying their origin.

Some disinterested describers of South Australia have stated these winds are only a partial infliction and blow about ten days in the year. I have myself kept a meteorological register and noted down the prevailing winds, and found that these siroccos blew sixty times in one year, which perhaps is only a partial infliction to some, being only a sixth part of it. These winds blow in winter as well as in summer; in the former case the blast is not hot, but has the influence of spoiling what might be

otherwise fresh air.

The peculiar merits of the climate may be concisely summed up as follows:Intense heat in summer, often accompanied by hurricanes of sand and small stones-and dust, so opaque that colonists have lost themselves for some time only a few hundred yards from their dwellings. After a fiery sirocco a little rain, which gives you a kind of vapour bath from the exhalations of earth baked to the utmost extremity. Little rain when actually required-and a deluge when not desired, with extraordinary transitions of temperature at all seasons, will comprise a few of the striking phenomena of a climate which has been modestly described to be far surpasssing France-superior to Italy without its sirocco-and, lastly, by an Irishman, who is reported to have stated, that it was one consolation, that at least the climate of Paradise seemed to have survived the fall in South Australia.

CHAPTER IV.

PLEASURES INCIDENTAL TO A FINE CLIMATE.

TROPICAL DELIGHTS.-Insects are the curse of tropical climates. Flies get entry into your mouth, into your eyes, into your nose; you eat flies, drink flies, and breathe flies. Lizards, cockroaches and snakes get into your bed; ants eat up the books: scorpions sting you on the foot. Everything bites, stings, or bruises. An insect with eleven legs is swimming in your tea-cup; a nondescript with nine wings is struggling in the small beer, or caterpillar, with several dozen eyes in his belly, is hastening over your bread and butter. All this reconciles us to our dews, fogs, vapours and drizzle to our apothecaries rushing about with gargles and tinctures-to our old British constitutional coughs, sore throats, and swelled faces.-Rev. Sydney Smith.

AMONGST the pleasures incidental to a fine climate, must be classed, in the first rank, the myriads of mosquitoes which infest the habitations of the colonists, and prey unmercifully on those who have got any blood remaining worthy of their critical attention. It is difficult for persons who have not had the advantage of living in a place where the climate is supposed to resemble that of Paradise, and who have led a miserable life in a temperate clime, to imagine the indefatigable pursuits of these predatory insects, when you retire entirely exhausted to your feverish couch in the vain endeavour of getting a little sleep after the conflicts of weariness, suffocation, and dulness generally experienced during a summer's evening in Adelaide. If you are a recent arrival, and possessing anything like pure blood and in good condition after a sea voyage, you have the pleasing alternative of relapsing into a genial state of partial suffocation under the coverlet, or

being bitten to such a degree that in the morning it is probable your nearest relative might make an error of disputed identity. These interesting insects are particularly partial to infants and juveniles, as they offer less resistance to their sanguinary indentations, and it is perfectly ludicrous to see a child ornamented in a manner that an aggravated case of measles is a trifle to it, as in combination with the biting embellishments, small swellings accompany them in proportion. In addition to their blood-sucking propensities, these insects add insult to injury before the attack, by humming about your ears in a dreary style of melody, evidently meditating an attack on some part of your person, where it is most vulnerable and consistent with their own safety, and previous to the final plunge they give a hum significant of pleasure, and pounce upon you, and in spite of your dexterity, it is probable that blood will be sacrificed before the enemy escapes.

In the morning you will see some of your friends gently slumbering on the walls in a state of utter repletion after the assiduous labours of the night, and, in spite of your just indignation, it is hardly advisable to immolate them on the spot as the effect is rather disgusting; for, notwithstanding the small size of the insects, it is astonishing the quantity of your blood they can contain, as I do not exaggerate when I state that I have seen the blood spurt from the insect when inflicting summary chastisement, and bedaub the wall of the room. In this peculiar manner it may be considered that nearly all the colonists are involuntarily made to bleed for their adopted country. If this was only a partial infliction, and lasted a short time, it might hardly be worth expatiating upon, but as these insects revel in ferocity and might during four months of summer,