n house is laid, out in an oblong
block bisected by a three to eight foot passage. The first door on one
side as you go in is the drawing-room, on the other the dining-room. Then
follow the bedrooms, etc., with the kitchen and scullery at the end of
the passage, or sometimes in a lean-to at right angles to the hinder part
of the house proper. This kind of cottage is almost universal in Adelaide
amongst the middle and upper middle classes, and invariable in the
working-class throughout Australia. In the other colonies the upper
middle classes often live in two-storied houses; i.e., ground-floor and
one floor above. Their construction is almost as simple as the cottage,
the only difference being that the bedrooms are on the upper story, and
that a pair of narrow stairs face the front-door and take up half the
passage-way, directly you get past the drawing and dining-room doom
doors. The cottage is not high enough to strike the eye, but the
squareness, or more properly the cubeness, of these two-storied houses is
appalling. They look for all the world like houses built of cards, except
that the cards are uncommonly solid. For my own part, I should never care
to live in a two-storied house again, after experiencing the comfort of
never having to go upstairs, and having all the rooms on the same floor.
At first one is prejudiced against it. I was so, until during my second
year in Australia I had to live on the third floor in Sydney. It was only
then that I realized the advantages of the simpler plan.

The strong light and heat of the sun has the effect of a window-tax in
limiting the size and number of the windows. A few French windows are to
be found in Adelaide, but the old sashes are almost universal. Of, late a
fashion has sprung up for bow-windows, which, however pretty, have here
the great disadvantage of attracting the sun unpleasantly. Shutters are
not much used. Venetian blinds are more common. On a hot summer day it is
absolutely necessary to shut all windows and draw down the blinds if you
wish to keep at all cool. About five o'clock, if there is no hot wind,
the house may be opened out.

Nearly every house that can afford the space has a veranda, which
sometimes stretches the whole way round. The rooms are usually lofty for
their size, in winter horribly cold and draughty, in summer unbearably
stuffy in small houses, the science of ventilation being of recent
introduction. Even in large establishments all the li