some very tempting looking fish which had been caught, and pronouncing them dangerous to eat. On one very memorable occasion, when dinner was over, one of the senior boys being cook, and one of the most poisonous of fish having been served and partaken of by all, this youth without a change of feature saying to some remark that was passed, “Oh! Yes, we die in our country if we eat that fish.” This was reassuring after what had passed, and we eyed one another with wistful and anxious faces, thinking whether or not perchance our end may have been hastened by our wilful inadvertence in thus partaking of deadly poison. But we neither swelled, nor fell down dead, and felt no ill effects. Many a time, too, since, I have eaten the same fish with the like happy and successful result. This particular kind of eel, however, has played the same _post mortem_ tricks before, and taken his revenge for wrongs received before going into the oven. The people tell me that those who have eaten, have become like mummies, their hair and skin have changed to a ghastly leaden hue, and have fallen off like a snake’s skin. How far this is true or fable, I know not, but it may be partially credible. Nothing of the sort has happened fortunately, at this present crisis, and the sufferers are about again. A dull, dark evening ushered in a blustery, rough night, and the coughs and sneezings and other demonstrative sounds peculiar to people who do not carry pocket handkerchiefs, bore testimony to the fact of an epidemic catarrh, contracted during a very inclement week. Like the Norfolk Islanders, they look for the source of such things in the world without, and accuse my friend Mr. Blackburne of having brought it here, all the way from Queensland. In what part of his luggage he secreted so desirable a communication I know not, but they are decidedly of opinion that he it was who ‘gave them’ the cold, and they were unwise enough to ‘catch it’ from him. He ‘had’ the cold, they said, when he came here, and certainly said I, I believe he took it away again. However, as colds are catching, I suppose they must be left content with their belief, and to ‘bless him,’ I hope, every time they sneeze.