of nothing but a delightful idleness. The keenest enjoyment is a
fresh-water bath, and next to that is the new and agreeable luxury
of the ample space for dressing; and then it is so pleasant to
suffer no anxiety as to the brushes and combs tumbling about. I
should think that even the vainest woman in the world would find her
toilet and its duties a daily trouble and a sorrow at sea, on
account of the unsteadiness of all things. The next delight is
standing at the window, and seeing horses, and trees, and dogs--in
fact, all the "treasures of the land;" as for flowers--beautiful as
they are at all times--you cannot learn to appreciate them enough
until you have been deprived of them for two months.

You know that I have travelled a good deal in various parts of the
world, but I have never seen. anything at all like Melbourne. In
other countries, it is generally the antiquity of the cities, and
their historical reminiscences, which appeal to the imagination; but
_here_, the interest is as great from exactly the opposite cause.
It is most wonderful to walk through a splendid town, with
magnificent public buildings, churches, shops, clubs, theatres, with
the streets well paved and lighted, and to think that less than
forty years ago it was a desolate swamp without even a hut upon it.
How little an English country town progresses in forty years, and
here is a splendid city created in that time! I have no hesitation
in saying, that any fashionable novelty which comes out in either
London or Paris finds its way to Melbourne by the next steamer; for
instance, I broke my parasol on board ship, and the first thing I
did on landing was to go to one of the best shops in Collins Street
to replace it. On learning what I wanted, the shopman showed me
some of those new parasols which had just come out in London before
I sailed, and which I had vainly tried to procure in S---, only four