I can never hope to describe the curious delight with which I perused my precious newspaper.

I showed the pictures in it to my children and the natives, and they were more than delighted,--especially with the pictures of horses in the race at Paramatta.

In the course of time the sheets of paper began to get torn, and then I made a pretty durable cover out of kangaroo hide.

Thus the whole of my library consisted of my Anglo-French Testament, and the copy of the _Town and Country Journal_.
But I have purposely kept until the end the most important thing in connection with this strangely-found periodical.

The very first eager and feverish reading gave me an extraordinary shock, which actually threatened my reason! In a prominent place in the journal I came across the following passage: "_The Deputies of Alsace and Lorraine have refused to vote in the German Reichstag_." Now, knowing nothing whatever of the sanguinary war of 1870, or of the alterations in the map of Europe which it entailed, this passage filled me with startled amazement.