e
will, however, be no time for another letter by this mail; but I will
leave one to be posted after we sail for New Zealand.

Letter II: Sight-seeing in Melbourne.

Melbourne, October 1st, 1865. I have left my letter to the last moment
before starting for Lyttleton; everything is re-packed and ready, and
we sail to-morrow morning in the _Albion_. She is a mail-steamer--very
small after our large vessel, but she looks clean and tidy; at all
events, we hope to be only on board her for ten days. In England one
fancies that New Zealand is quite close to Australia, so I was rather
disgusted to find we had another thousand miles of steaming to do before
we could reach our new home; and one of the many Job's comforters who
are scattered up and down the world assures me that the navigation is
the most dangerous and difficult of the whole voyage.

We have seen a good deal of Melbourne this week; and not only of the
town, for we have had many drives in the exceedingly pretty suburbs,
owing to the kindness of the D----s, who have been most hospitable and
made our visit here delightful. We drove out to their house at Toorak
three or four times; and spent a long afternoon with them; and there I
began to make acquaintance with the Antipodean trees and flowers. I hope
you will not think it a very sweeping assertion if I say that all the
leaves look as if they were made of leather, but it really is so; the
hot winds appear to parch up everything, at all events, round Melbourne,
till the greatest charm of foliage is more or less lost; the flowers
also look withered and burnt up, as yours do at the end of a long, dry
summer, only they assume this appearance after the first hot wind in
spring. The suburb called Heidelberg is the prettiest, to my taste--an
undulating country with vineyards, and a park-like appearance which,
is very charming. All round Melbourne there are nice, comfortable,
English-looking villas. At one of these we called to return a visit
and found a very handsome house, luxuriously furnished, with beautiful
garden and grounds. One afternoon we went by rail to St. Kilda's,
a flourishing bathing-place on the sea-coast, about six miles from
Melbourne. Everywhere building is going on with great rapidity, and you
do not see any poor people in the streets. If I wanted to be critical
and find fault, I might object to the deep gutters on each side of the
road; after a shower of rain they are raging torrents for a shor