it is true, always bathed in perspiration, and it was difficult for any considerable time to remain awake if you sat reading or writing. I could find no one to explain why perspiration exuded much more copiously when sleeping than waking, though this was undoubtedly the case.

The temperature, which reached 89° on the lower deck, altered very slightly as long as we were within the tropics, no matter how near we might come to the line.

We were driven so far to the west that on August 3rd the Captain determined to bear up for Rio: we were then in 18° South and 37° West; few fish had been seen, but now porpoises and flying fish appeared in abundance; the same day several sharks were seen and one was caught. Shark's flesh is very coarse, nevertheless as it was fresh meat the sailors were wonderfully eager after it. As soon

as the fish was laid upon the quarter deck, the men closed in on all sides and worked away with their long knives like mad fellows; though close to the fish I could not get a glimpse of it for about a minute, and when at the end of that time the mob opened, nothing remained of a ten foot shark but a heap of entrails; the whole of the body had been hacked to pieces and carried away by the different messes. His stomach contained nothing but a cuttle fish and sea hedgehog. One of the suckers usually attached to a shark was still clinging to him when brought on deck.

August 8th. The light on Cape Frio in sight: it is one of the most elevated in the world and can be seen thirty miles off. Next morning we were within four miles of the coast; the hills were many and irregular-green, but bare of trees. We were so fortunate as to see on one side of us a thrasher and whale fighting; every now and again we could see the thrasher spring out of the water to the attack, and the whale lash the water into foam as he struck at the enemy. The whale seemed to be faring badly, but we lost sight of the combatants before the battle was finished.

About half-past eleven we steamed into the harbour between the two forts at the entrance (fort Santa Cruz on the east, and a fort on the sugar loaf rock on the west), and anchored at midday just opposite the town.

Rio is built on the west side of one of the finest harbours in the world (seventeen miles in length, eleven in extreme width) and about two or three miles from the entrance; on the opposite side of the harbour stands the suburb of Braganza. As you enter, the sugar loaf hill is on your left,

and a very high mountain called the Corcovada or hollow back (from the shape of its summit) nearly faces you. The harbour is surrounded by hills: the town is built on a level space between two of them with a comparatively narrow front towards the harbour. The town is at present undrained: the principal streets are well lit by gas, and a magnificent aqueduct supplies the city with

water.

As an English squadron has its head quarters here an Englishman can make himself understood in most respectable shops. There is plenty of life and bustle in the main streets, but in them only. The fronts of the inferior houses are plastered with a salmon coloured wash, the blank spaces between the windows, &c. are relieved by lines of blue, green, or any staring colour. The paint once put on seems never to be renewed: in process of time the colours fade, the plaster begins to crack and a few patches fall off; the open door reveals an interior, bare, dirty, faded, and slovenly to correspond, and the whole has an appearance of age, ruin, and decay, that makes it simply a misnomer to call this new world-at any rate it is a new world rapidly sinking into the decrepitude of old age.

Rio possesses good public gardens running down to the water's edge, along which a terrace is built; the flowers and trees are on a grander and more luxuriant scale than our English favourites, and yet, in spite of their luxuriance and wonderfully bright colours, bearing a resemblance to some of our modest favourites in England.

Part of this garden was laid out as a lawn, though the grass was rather coarse. The town is indebted to the Emperor for these gardens: he hoped that his subjects might be induced to mix more freely together. The project was such an innovation upon Brazilian prejudices, that when the visitors first saw the counter for sale of refreshments, and the tables, seats, &c. set out in the open air, they were amused at the absurdity of supposing that respectable people would ever be persuaded to eat in public.

The churches fell much below my expectations: they are all built on the same model: at the end facing the street are two towers capped with cupolas, the windows are close to the roof and filled with unstained glass so that the 'dim religious light' is entirely absent, the ceiling flat and the white walls relieved by gold mouldings. There was nothing venerable or ecclesiastical about them. Excellent as concert rooms they failed as churches. We were rather

shocked by seeing them used as polling booths for an election even on Sunday.

Along the opposite shores of the harbour the modern suburb of Braganza is built: here you see the influence of new ideas, the streets are broad and macadamized; whilst the houses are no more painted, but rows of glazed tiles or some more enduring decoration is used to ornament the blank spaces of the fronts. Here is a botanical garden and a sanatorium to which convalescents are sent from the Rio hospital.

There are not many ways of spending money at Rio in purchasing curiosities, presents, &c.; humming-birds prepared for stuffing, feather flowers dyed not pure white as in Madeira, and the body of a dark green beetle used for studs, pins, &c. make up the list, unless you add cigars and guava jelly. The shop windows are full of brooches and other jewellery, but they are all imported from France.

The tropical fruit is rather disappointing; it has externally a coarse, uninviting appearance, and internally a large stone or cluster of bitter seeds or some such hinderance to enjoyment; the edible matter lies around the stone in the form of a pulp, and it must be confessed that this atones for many defects.

We arrived there in the coldest part of the year; the temperature during midday never changes, the evenings however are sensibly chilly.

There were representatives of five navies in Rio harbour, viz. English, French, Portugese, Brazilian, and Dutch.

We left Rio August 15th, and made the run to Simon's Bay in a little over twenty days-an unusually short time for an armed vessel. Sea fowl now began to keep us company, the most numerous being a small bird larger than a pigeon but with the same plumage, called in consequence the Cape pigeon; there was also a dark brown bird the size of a hawk, and generally a pair of albatrosses. The plumage of these birds does not become white until they begin to grow old, and I may remark in passing that the word albatross has nothing to do with white, but is derived from the Spanish word for a sea fowl.

It was to me a never ending subject of speculation where these birds rested, and for what purpose they existed; they joined us about twenty minutes from land, and yet when we had weeks without sighting land nearly the same number surrounded us. Never making long flights, nor those with great rapidity, it seems almost impossible that they could

frequently resort to the shore, and yet never did they offer to come on board except when the waves were so violent and broken that they cannot sleep as they float.

We passed to the south of the Cape, September 6th, it is here a long rocky promontory coming down to a point: at seven we anchored in Simon's Bay. A lottery had been got up, the prize to be given to the man who should draw the hour on which we should anchor. A midshipman drew the lucky number, but with true naval recklessness he had sold his ticket for a fifth of its value. Simon's Bay is a tolerably sheltered inlet in False Bay, and affords the safest anchorage to be found near the Cape: yet when the wind blew from the sea the waves were washed into the windows of the cabins. Here is the government dockyard establishment: there was a church once, but recent economists have retrenched the chaplain and converted the church into a store. We stayed here six unpleasant days.

Simon's Town lies at the base of a ridge of rocky hills that end in the Cape of Good Hope. I made some excursions among them and would have been richly rewarded had I been a botanist. The soil is thin and meagre, yet this unpromising field seems to produce abundantly; geraniums were almost the common wild flowers; arums (colonially known as "pig lilies") grew by the side of the watercourses; but the sandy soil seemed to suit heaths exactly, and many pretty varieties flourished luxuriantly.

Cape Town is about thirty miles distant, it has a fine site and a very exposed anchorage. The dust is a perpetual plague. The town has a fine library building and a good collection of books. The booksellers were full of the Colenso controversy; judging by the display, orthodoxy seemed in great demand.

We proceeded on our course under steam on the 12th until we reached 36° south. This is not so far south as merchant vessels usually go, but it secures more moderate weather.

Coal was getting rather low before we reached Sydney, so our course was shaped for Melbourne, and we anchored off Sandridge (the Queenstown of Melbourne) at twelve on October 15th. At daylight we passed the heads and had since been steaming across Port Philip. We landed as soon as we could: passing on our way a number of splendid clipper ships ranged along the two piers. The railway carried us to Melbourne in about ten minutes.

A glance at Melbourne shows that the town was built

by people who had determined to have a regularly built city come what may. Having plenty of time to make preparations for the coming population they had laid out the streets, &c. with great regularity; the city is built on a gentle slope, with streets intersecting at right angles. A stream of water running down each side of the street gives abundance of water for cleaning pavements, laying dust, &c. The two principal streets, George and Burke Street, have a macadamized road nearly as broad as Regent Street, but the pavement is narrower and sometimes raised several feet above the street. The greatest attention has been paid to regularity, so that the streets are from end to end as straight as possible-not even a bulging shop breaking the line. The houses are not quite worthy of the streets, few are more than two stories high and several are built of wood. Many of the shopkeepers have thrown a light verandah of wood over the street in their front: although the houses look mean the shops are very good-there is, it is true, a rawness as I might say about them; for instance, you may see the bare rafters and slates that cover the back part of the shop and sometimes the naked plaster of the side walls, but the essential parts are always good; the shop windows are light and large, though plate glass is more the exception than the rule; they never seem inclined to hide the light of their goods under a bushel of dust, but everything is spic and span in good style and well arranged. We were struck by the numerous butchers' shops all full of meat. I have said that the shops are good though the houses are mean: this is explained by a visit to the suburbs, where, after leaving the town proper, you drive for miles past allotments of ground, some with a frontage of no more than thirty or fifty feet, but each containing its little one-storied or two-storied house with a balcony round it, almost hid in a perfect forest of flowers and creepers: each with a well-to-do appearance about it, even when no larger than an English labourer's cottage. The fact is, that land can be acquired so easily that the country-house becomes a necessary rather than a luxury. All that is considered in a place of business is that the shop is a good one. To us fresh from Rio and the Cape the town seemed intensely English-the women particularly so. The men are bearded as the rule and whiskered as the exception. Even the better class of people put up with very bad hats or mambrinos of all shapes and sizes. But with first impressions corrected by Sydney and Auckland, I see Melbourne has a strong infusion of