ed about this capital of Victoria. No
stranger could anticipate beholding so grand a city in this far-away
South-land of the Pacific. Where there was only a swamp and uncleared
woods a few years ago, there has risen a city containing to-day a
population of fully four hundred and twenty thousand, embracing the
immediate suburbs. This capital is certainly unsurpassed by any of the
British colonies in the elegancies and luxuries of modern civilization,
such as broad avenues, palatial dwellings, churches, colossal
warehouses, banks, theatres, and public buildings and pleasure-grounds.
It is pleasant to record the fact that one fifth of the revenue raised
by taxation is expended for educational purposes. Of what other city in
the New or the Old World can this be said? Universities, libraries,
public art-galleries, and museums lack not for the liberal and fostering
care of the Government. No city except San Francisco ever attained to
such size and importance in so short a period as has Melbourne.

The public buildings of the city are mainly constructed of a sort of
freestone brought from Tasmania, as the local quarries, being mostly of
a volcanic nature, are too hard for favorable working, though some use
is made of their material. The new and elaborate Roman Catholic
Cathedral, now nearly completed, is entirely constructed of this stone.
Melbourne covers a very large area for its population; indeed, we were
told by those who should be well informed in such matters that its
extent of territory is nearly the same as that of Paris. In the environs
are many delightful residences, embowered with creeping vines and
surrounded with flower-gardens. These dwellings could hardly be made to
look more attractive externally, though simple architecturally. They are
mostly vine-clad; Flora has touched them with her magic finger, and they
have become beautiful. Many of these suburbs are named after familiar
European localities, such as Brighton, Kew, Emerald Hill, Collingwood,
St. Kilda, Fitzroy, and so forth. The streets of St. Kilda must have
been named about the period of the late Crimean war, as the following
names were observed among them: Raglan, Sebastopol, Redan, Cardigan,
Balaklava, and Malakoff.

Lake Yan-Yan supplies Melbourne with drinking-water by means of a system
embracing a double set of pipes. This water-supply for domestic and
general use is beyond all comparison the best we have ever chanced to
see. The valley of the riv