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Updated: June 27, 2025
"Our American friends are right," said Colonel Hensen, "and if your excellency is disposed to comply with their request no time is to be lost." "God bless me, then let them go to work without delay. I give them full power to take as many men as they please to work the engines, and if they succeed in quenching the flames they shall be well rewarded."
Hensen said that abstinence is not to be unconditionally approved. Rumpf replied that abstinence was not harmful for most before the age of thirty, but after that age there was a tendency to mental obsessions, and marriage should take place at twenty-five.
I saw the frown vanish from the brow of Colonel Hensen, and a look of good nature passed over his face; but before he had an opportunity to speak, the governor had his eye-glass up, and exclaimed, "God bless me, you don't mean to say that because you are Americans you can extinguish this fire? Pray, what part of the United States do you come from, that you possess such assurance?"
I think that Hensen may have been deceived by the walls of old burrows, lined with black earth, having sunk in or collapsed; for black streaks are thus left, and these are conspicuous when passing through light-coloured soil, and might be mistaken for completely filled-up burrows.
We thanked his excellency in suitable terms, and were about turning away, when an almost imperceptible movement on the part of Colonel Hensen claimed our attention. Slight as it was, we understood him, and determined to strike while the iron was hot.
This earth forms the dark-colored, rich humus which almost everywhere covers the surface of the land with a fairly well-defined layer or mantle. Von Hensen placed two worms in a vessel eighteen inches in diameter, which was filled with sand, on which fallen leaves were strewed; and these were soon dragged into their burrows to a depth of three inches.
According to Hensen, old burrows are habitually used for this purpose; but as far as my experience serves, this is not the case, excepting with those near the surface in recently dug ground.
The governor smiled good-humoredly as we hesitated, and before we knew how to frame an excuse we were moving towards the dining-room arm-in-arm with Colonel Hensen and the captain of police. That dinner will long live in my memory, not only for the good cheer, to which we had long been strangers, but for the social manner in which we were treated by the governor and his guests.
Even at this distant day, I think that I have a faint recollection of walking through the streets of Melbourne at a late hour on the afternoon that we dined with the governor and I also think that we were escorted to our home by Colonel Hensen, and a number of other gentlemen, although who they were I have not the slightest recollection.
Although worms usually live near the surface, yet they burrow to a considerable depth during long-continued dry weather and severe cold. In Scandinavia, according to Eisen, and in Scotland, according to Mr. Lindsay Carnagie, the burrows run down to a depth of from 7 to 8 feet; in North Germany, according to Hoffmeister, from 6 to 8 feet, but Hensen says, from 3 to 6 feet.
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