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Our tents stood on ground high above the reach of flood. The soil was excellent, and the brushes behind us abounded with a new species of melaleuca. The heat of the weather, at this time, was extremely oppressive, and the thermometer was seldom under 100 degrees of Fahr. at noon.
We were received by the chief under the house, and there we had to sit for a very long time until his wife returned from the plantation with sugar-cane. Our carriers chewed large quantities of sugar-cane, got a few betel-nuts, and then set off on the return journey. We are now thirteen miles north- east from Port Moresby, 360 feet above sea-level, the thermometer 84 degrees in shade.
McDougall was in disfavour with the Dominion ministry, and had returned to Ottawa, M. Riel's influence began to diminish sensibly. "Let us hear what Donald Smith has to say to us," they began to cry; and the Arch Rebel was fain to consent. A monster meeting of 1,100 people was held in the open air, with the thermometer twenty degrees below zero.
"As soon as it was daylight I went with Mr. Thorn to see the ruins. All around the melted snow had frozen like iron; the thermometer, which was hung on the verandah, was found uninjured; nothing was found but a table and one stove; all gone. Mr. Thorn went for Dr. Holden and a coffin, and the remains were brought to Mr. Elliott.
The thermometer, which had marked five degrees at ten a.m., got broken through being placed on the ground where there was an escape of sulphuric vapour. There are upon the sides and in the crater numerous fumerolles which send forth the native sulphur, which forms the base of the peak. The rush of the vapour is so rapid as to sound like shots from a cannon.
In summer these very plains are equally the cause of the hot wind; for when the rains cease, and the sun acquires his summer power, the water is quickly evaporated, the clay becomes baked, and the heat is reflected from the hard heated surface quite sufficiently to raise a thermometer to 110 degrees in the shade.
During many days I had anxiously watched the smoky red hot sky for some appearance of rain: no dew nourished the grass, which had become quite yellow, and the river upon which I set my hopes was rapidly drying up. In my tent the thermometer generally reached 100 degrees of Fahrenheit during the day.
Then began as dreary an evening as I ever have spent. We dined, long before anybody else, in a tempest of rain which sent down the thermometer Heaven knows how many degrees. Half-way through dinner we were washed from the terrace into the empty dining-room. There was thunder and lightning ad libitum. "A night like this it's absurd," said I. "The absurder the better," she replied.
Heraclitus signs his contract with a shudder, and trembles as he places his realized premium in the bank. Democritus laughingly subscribes his name to thousands, and chuckles as he beholds his favourite stock ascending in the thermometer of the share-market. Heraclitus sells Democritus holds; and thus the great point of wisdom at issue between them, is reduced to a mere question of time.
Our own sensations are so variable, independently of external and obvious causes, that we cannot at all times judge for others, especially for infants. The absolute and real state of temperature in a room can only be ascertained by the aid of a thermometer; and no nursery should ever be without one.
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