[Illustration: THE ENVIRONS OF MELBOURNE.]

The city is not built on the sea-coast, but two or three miles from
the shore, its port being Sandridge, with which it is connected by
railway. Vessels of all nations crowd the harbor, and the streets are
as full of busy life and gay frivolity as those of Havre or
Marseilles. The drives in the environs of the city are replete with
picturesque beauty--meadows dotted with many--tinted flowers and
magnificent forest trees, about which are festooned flowering vines
and creepers. Their thick branches are the resort of cockatoos,
parrots and paroquets in brilliant plumage, and perhaps most beautiful
of all, because most rare, sparrows, not clothed, like ours, in sombre
gray, but rejoicing in vestments of green and gold. But brilliancy of
plumage is the solitary charm of these feathered beauties, for their
voices are harsh and their song a very burlesque on the name of music.




FORECAST.


When I, for ever out of human sight,
Shall seem beyond the wish for anything,
Oh then believe at morning and at night
My soul shall listen for thy whispering.

The work of life may so fill up the day
That not a thought of me shall venture there;