Rain to the Southward

8 September 1851 The Moreton Bay Courier

The Port Phillip mail, due yesterday, did not arrive. From Gundagai northward, all the mails duly came to hand. 

In the Murrumbidgee district, there had been very heavy rains. The following extract from a letter written at Gundagai, on Friday last, will give some idea of the state of the country.

I little thought when I last wrote, that my next would be the bearer of bad news. We have had a fearful flood; some of the houses on the lower part of the town were literally covered with water.

The Frenchman's store has been washed down, completely turned over on its side.

They got nearly all their goods out, but still their loss must be very heavy.

My house, although one of the highest in the township, had two feet of water in. it for nearly twenty-four hours . . . I had to send my wife and children away in boat to the other side of the river.

The boat took them in at the front door, and they then had to go nearly a mile, before they could be landed. 

You cannot conceive the state we are in; nothing but one vast sea around us; some of the houses being completely covered with water.

The river fell last night, but we are in great dread of to night; if the rain cease, we will be able to go out in the morning, but if much more rain falls, God only knows what will happen to us.

Excuse all blunders, for I am shivering with the cold and wet, having been in this state for the last three days and nights. Thank God no lives have been lost.

Dreadful accounts have come in from the Tumut ; they say poor ---- house has been swept away, and nearly all his things lost. In fact, the whole country has suffered severely."