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years in a small country town, and then write a book of his travels headed "England." And yet this is the way in which the Victorians complain, and with justice, that they are treated by English writers. Some eminent man arrives in the colony, spends a few weeks in it, perhaps rushes through it by railway, and hastens home to publish some contemptuous account of the people whom he does not really know, or some hasty, if not fallacious, description of the country which he has not really seen. I am sure that, however crude my description may be, Victorians will not be offended with what I have said of themselves and their noble colony; for, small though the sphere of my observation was, they will see that I have written merely to the extent of my knowledge, and have related, as faithfully as I was able, the circumstances that came within the range of my own admittedly limited, but actual experience of colonial life.

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Last Christmas in Australia.-Start by Steamer for Sydney.-The "Great Britain."-Cheap Trips to Queenscliffe. - Rough Weather at Sea.Mr. and Mrs. C. Mathews.-Botany Bay.-Outer South Head.-Port Jackson.-Sydney Cove.-Description of Sydney.-Government House and Domain.-Great future Empire of the South.

I SPENT my last Australian Christmas with my kind entertainers in Melbourne. Christmas scarcely looks like Christmas with the thermometer at 90° in the shade; but there is the same roast beef and plum-pudding nevertheless, reminding one of home. The immense garnishing of strawberries, however, now in season-though

extremely agreeable-reminds us that Christmas at the Antipodes must necessarily differ in many respects from Christmas in England.

The morning after Christmas Day saw me on board the steamer" Raugatira,” advertised to start for Sydney at eleven. Casting off from our moorings at the Sandridge pier, the ship got gradually under weigh; and, waving my last adieu to friends on shore, I was again

at sea.

We steamed close alongside the "Great Britain," which has for some time been the crack ship between Australia and England. She had just arrived from Liverpool with a great freight of goods and passengers, and was lying at her moorings-a splendid ship. As we steamed out into Hobson's Bay, Melbourne rose up across the flats, and loomed large in the distance. All the summits seemed covered with houses-the towers of the fine Roman Catholic Cathedral, standing on the top of a hill to the right, being the last building to be seen distinctly from the Bay.

In about two hours we were at Queenscliffe, inside the Heads-at present the fashionable watering-place of Melbourne. Several excursion steamers had preceded us, taking down great numbers of passengers, to enjoy Boxing-day by the sea-side. The place looked very pretty indeed from our ship's deck. Some of the passengers, who had taken places for Sydney, were landed here, fearing lest the sea should be found too rough outside the Heads.

There had been very little wind when we left Sandridge, and the waters of Port Phillip were comparatively smooth; but as we proceeded the wind began to rise,

and our weatherwise friends feared lest they should have to encounter a gale outside. We were now in sight of the white line of breakers running across the Heads. There was still a short distance of smooth water before us, but that was soon passed, and then our ship dashed her prow into the waves, and had to fight her way as for very life against the heavy sea that rolled in through Bass's Straits from the South Pacific.

The only distinguished passengers on board are Mr. and Mrs. Charles Mathews, who have been "starring" it in Victoria to some purpose. A few nights ago Mr. Mathews took his leave in a characteristic speech, partly humorous and partly serious; but the enthusiastic audience laughed and cheered him all the way through; and it was rather comic to read the newspaper report of next morning, and to find that the actor's passages of the softest pathos had been received with " roars of laughter."

Mr. Mathews seems to be one of the most perennially juvenile of men. When he came on board at Sandridge he looked as frisky and larky as a boy. He skipped up and down the deck, and took an interest in every thing. This lasted so long as the water was smooth. When he came in sight of the broken water at the Heads, I fancy his spirit barometer went down a little; but when the ship began to put her nose into the waves freely, a total change seemed to pass over him. I very soon saw his retreating skirts. For the next three days-three long, rough, wave-tossing days-very little was seen of him; and when he at length did make his appearance on deck, alas! he seemed no longer the brisk and juvenile passenger that had come on board at Sandridge only a few days before.

Indeed, it was a very rough and "dirty" passage. The passengers were mostly prostrate during the whole of the voyage. The sea was rolling in from the east in great billows, which our little boat breasted gallantly; but it was tossed about like a cork, inclining at all sorts of angles by turns. It was not much that I could see of the coast, though at some places it is bold, at others beautiful. We passed very near to it at Ram Head and Cape Howe-a grand promontory forming the southwest point of Australia.

On the third day from Melbourne, about daybreak, I found we were steaming close along shore, under dark brown cliffs, not very high, topped with verdure. The wind had gone down, but the boat was pitching in the heavy sea as much as ever. The waves were breaking with fury and noise along the beach under the cliffs. At 9 A.M. we passed Botany Bay—the first part of New South Wales sighted by Captain Cook just a hundred years ago. It was here that he first landed, and erected a mound of stones and a flag to commemorate the event.* Banks and Solander, who were with him, found the land covered with new and beautiful flowers, and hence the name which was given it of "Botany Bay"-afterward a name of terror, associated only with crime and convict life.

*

We steamed across the entrance to the Bay until we

*The Hon. Thomas Holt, on whose property the landing-place is situated, last year erected an obelisk on the spot, with the inscription "Captain Cook landed here 28th April, A.D. 1770," with the following extract from Captain Cook's Journal: "At daybreak we discovered a bay, and anchored under the south shore, about two miles within the entrance, in six fathom water, the south point bearing S. E., and the north point east. Latitude 34° S., Longitude 150° 37' E.

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