Black Thursday has been so much written about by others that I had best
confine myself to my own experiences. I rode in to business, as usual,
from my Merri Creek residence, 4 1/2 miles north of the city. The
weather had been unusually dry for some days with the hot wind from the
north-west, or the direction of what we called Sturt's Desert, where hot
winds in summer, and almost as distinctly cold winds in midwinter, were
manufactured for us. The heat had been increasing daily, and this, as we
comforted ourselves, was surely the climax which was to bring the
inevitable reversion of the southerly blast and the restoring rain, for
it was felt as the hottest day in my recollection. In town we did not
hear of much that day, although reports came from time to time of
sinister-looking signs from the surrounding interior, whence an unusual
haze or thick mist seemed to rise towards the cloudless sky. Some few,
however, who were more active than others in their trading or gossiping
movements, became aware in the afternoon, or perhaps were favoured with
the news as a secret, that Dr. Thomson had ridden posthaste from Geelong
to Alison and Knight, our early and leading millers and flour factors,
to warn them that the whole country was in flames, with incalculable
destruction of cereals and other products; whereupon the said firm at
once raised the price of flour thirty per cent.
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