I shall not attempt an elaborate description of the town of Melbourne, or its neighbouring villages. The town is very well laid out; the streets (which are all straight, running parallel with and across one another) are very wide, but are incomplete, not lighted, and many are unpaved. Owing to the want of lamps, few, except when full moon, dare stir out after dark. Some of the shops are very fair; but the goods all partake too largely of the flash order, for the purpose of suiting the tastes of successful diggers, their wives, and families; it is ludicrous to see them in the shops--men who before the gold-mines were discovered toiled hard for their daily bread taking off half-a-dozen thick gold rings from their fingers, and trying to pull on to their rough, well-hardened hands the best white kids, to be worn at some wedding party, whilst the wife, proud of the novel ornament, descants on the folly of hiding them beneath such useless articles as gloves. The walking inhabitants are of themselves a study; glance into the streets--all nations, classes, and costumes are represented there. Chinamen, with pigtails and loose trousers; aborigines, with a solitary blanket flung over them; Vandemonian pick-pockets, with cunning eyes and light fingers--all, in fact, from the successful digger in his blue serge shirt, and with green veil still hanging round his wideawake, to the fashionably attired, newly-arrived "gent" from London, who stares round him in amazement and disgust. You may see, and hear too, some thoroughly colonial scenes in the streets. Once, in the middle of the day, when passing up Elizabeth Street, I heard the unmistakable sound of a mob behind, and as it was gaining upon me, I turned into the enclosed ground in front of the Roman Catholic Cathedral to keep out of the way of the crowd. A man had been taken up for horse-stealing, and a rare ruffianly set of both sexes were following the prisoner and the two policemen who had him in charge. "If but six of ye were of my mind," shouted one, "it's this moment you'd release him." The crowd took the hint, and to it they set with right good will, yelling, swearing, and pushing with awful violence. The owner of the stolen horse got up a counter demonstration, and every few yards the procession was delayed by a trial of strength between the two parties. Ultimately, the police conquered; but this is not always the case, and often lives are lost and limbs broken in the struggle, so weak is the force maintained by the colonial government for the preservation of order. THE DIGGINGS