. The
change is almost sudden. The day is over, and night has already come
on. Darkness follows daylight so suddenly that in nights when there is
no moon, and it is cloudy, one has to hasten homeward, so as not to
miss the track or run the risk of getting benighted in the bush.

But, when the moon is up, the nights in Australia are as brilliant as
the days. The air is cool, the sky cloudless, and walking in the bush
is then most delightful. The trees are gaunt and weird-like, the
branches standing in bold relief against the bright moonlight. Yet all
is so changed, the distant landscape is so soft and lovely, that one
can scarcely believe that it is the same scene we have so often looked
upon in broad daylight. It is no exaggeration to say that the
Australian moonlight is so bright that one may easily read a book by
it of moderately-sized type.

But Australian summer weather has also its _desagremens_. The worst of
these is the hot north wind, of which I have already described my
foretaste; though old colonists tell me that these have become much
less intolerable, and occur much seldomer, since the interior of the
country has been settled and comparatively cultivated. But the hot
winds are still bad to bear, as I can testify. They blow from the
parched lands of Central Australia, and bring with them clouds of dust
and insects. I should think they must resemble the African simoom. The
Melbourne people call these burning blasts the "brick-fielders." The
parching wind makes one hot and feverish, and to fly to the bar for
cooling drinks; but there even the glasses are hot to the touch. Your
skin becomes so dry and crisp that you feel as if it would crackle
off. The temperature rises to 120 deg.--a pretty tidy degree of heat!
There is nothing for it but to fly within doors, shut up every cranny
to keep out the hot dust, and remain in darkness.

While the hot wind lasts, the air is of a heavy copper colour.
Everything looks yellow and withered. The sun appears through the dust
dull red, and no bigger than the moon, just as it does on a foggy
morning in London. Perhaps after an hour or two of this choking heat
the hot wind, with its cloud of dust, passes away southward, and we
have a deliciously cool evening, which we enjoy all the more
contrasted with the afternoon's discomfort. The longest time I have
known the hot wind to last was two days, but it is usually over in a
few hours. The colonials say that these winds are even