Euroa, on the Severn Creeks, Dec. 8. 1852.

My writing to you was suddenly cut off by illness; and to this day—seventeen days—I have not been able to hold a pen. As I always mean to tell you the worst, as well as the best, which befalls us, I shall now tell you exactly what has happened. We had not been many days waiting for our cart-wheel, when I was seized with a violent attack of dysentery. I believe the place was an unhealthy one. Though perfectly dry at this time of the year, during the winter it is almost entirely under water; and therefore, no doubt, an unwholesome miasma arises from it. The creek, too, was sluggish, and had vast quantities of fallen trees rotting in it. However, we all more or less felt the effect of it, but I far more than any of the rest. In fact, the complaints which prevail in this country, as in all warm ones, don't trifle with you. They are rapid and resolute, and make short work with you; and this seemed as if it would make very short work with me. We were thirty miles from any medical man. Edward's pills, which he had brought with him as a perfect nostrum in this disease, so fatal here, produced not the slightest effect. We did not know who, or if anybody, lived anywhere near us in the woods.