Thamanampalli Surekha

the time for such families to house a truly golden harvest from their combined exertions, if possessed of a small shore of the needful to begin with. The market for their produce is just at their doors on the alluvial lands around Ballarat and Mount Alexander, where the hungry gold-diggers with heavy purses are their customers. Both our horses and ourselves were pretty considerably fagged by the time we reached the outskirts of the town, which was in the dusk of the evening. And as we stopped at a comfortable-looking house of accommodation called the "Retreat Inn," we gladly put up there for the night. exports-Public and private buildings -Sketch of an Australian merchant's business-Hints to profit by- Shopkeepers and their large profits-Innkeepers and their customers-Necessity of maintaining temperate habits-The gold-diggers in town-Effects of the want of labour-A household without servants-All building and improvements put a stop to-Deserted shipping-Collingwood-Richmond-Princes Bridge-South Melbourne and the government sale-Road to the beach-Decision the watchword of the colonists-St. Kilda-Brighton. As you approach Melbourne from the interior, the extent of the town is better seen than from the river, for you travel around open hilly ground, which commands a comprehensive view of the city and its environs. It is built for the most part in a small valley running north and south, and sloping down to the river, with gentle rising ground towards its eastern and western suburbs, consequently the mass of buildings which form the centre of the town are inconveniently situated on this low ground, which is flooded by the rains in winter, and scoured by the dust in the summer. The town itself was originally one mile long and three quarters of a mile in breadth, going back from the river; but the whole of this space has been long since built upon, and it may be now said to cover double that superficies, the extreme ends being carried over the two eminences. On the outside of this is a reserve of considerable extent, the trees on which have fortunately been preserved, beyond this, again, the lands which were sold in small lots of twenty-five acres have divided and formed onto streets, which are in fact an extension of the city of Melbourne, having the reserve, a beautiful park, in the centre. The appearance of the town from the top of the goal, the signal-station, and other elevated spots, is most interesting one might say splendid; and the country and immediate vicinity when green has a most charming appearance, though there is wanted what many call the picturesque; and persons coming from Sydney, accustomed to its matchless harbour and beautiful scenery, might be tempted to make a comparison where none can be made, each having advantages and beauties of its own. In the distance you see the spacious estuary of Part Philip girding the horizon, and the shipping in Hobson Bay peering over the low land between the river and the beach. In the foreground the town lies at your feet for two miles along the bank of the river; the streets intersecting each other at right angles in the direction of the four points of the compass. Collins- street, Bourke-street, and Elizabeth-street, are fine, wide, airy streets, well paved and macadamised; between them, however, there are narrow lanes, which neither add to the beauty of the town nor the health of the inhabitants. Lanes in a modern city like Melbourne ought to have been expunged from the plan; but we presume that the surveyor who laid it out 1837 little dreamt what it would be 1852. Two years after the first allotments were sold, there were scarcely 500 inhabitants on the spot; in 1851 , before the gold discoveries, there were nearly 24,000; at thus present moment, from the influx of emigrants, there may be 50,000 people congregated in the city and suburbs. The rapid progress of the place h=before the gold discoveries is a proof of the richness of the country of which its port is one of the outlets. "Prior to the discovery of her gold," according to the report of the chairman of the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce," the export produce of Victoria was proportionately larger than that which any other of our colonies has exhibited. For the year 1850, for example, when the value of colonial produce exported was 1,042,000l., and the average population 70,000 souls, we have an export at the rate of nearly 15l. per head, which for every person on the colony gives a power for the introduction of all kinds of necessaries that must effectually promote at once the business of the colony and resources of enjoyment to its society" What this average may be for the financial year of 1852-53, when probably 15,000,000l. of gold may be the thrown into the scale, it is impossible to tell. The sober figures of statistics seen to start form their propriety at the calculation. The public buildings, such as the Court-house, the goal, the Custom-house, the Mechanics' Institute, the several churches of different denominations, the banking-houses, and many of the merchants' warehouses and shops, private dwelling- houses and hotels, are such as would not suffer from comparision with the public or private buildings in any well-built town in england; and we may safely say that business, in all its branches,