Melbourne has a river. One knows this mostly by crossing the bridges, as otherwise the Yarra plays but a small part in the social arrangements of the community. The lower portion of the stream is being greatly improved. It is to be straightened and deepened, so that the largest liners are to come up to the city, as already do 2000-ton intercolonial steamers. The works, which will cost millions, are now (1886) about half-way through. Near Melbourne the stream is muddy and nasty. Sluicers use the water for gold-washing purposes twenty miles away, and factories were allowed years back to be started upon its banks, and though new tanneries and new fellmongeries are forbidden, the old evil-smelling establishments remain. Few who look upon the sluggish ditch at Melbourne would imagine that five and forty miles away it is a brisk and sparkling river, parrots and satin birds and kingfishers floating about it, ferns bending over and hiding its waters, and the giant gum rising from its banks to double the height of any city spire. The improvements will make the Yarra below the city a grand stream, bearing the commerce of the world on its bosom, and one may look forward to the time when the city portion itself will be purified, and the river made worthy of its romantic mountain home. [Illustration: THE YARRA YARRA, NEAR MELBOURNE.] The city has its drawbacks. There is dust in the summer, which the water-carts seek in vain to control; and there is mud in winter, which no raving against the Corporation appears to affect; and the less said on the drainage question the better. Again, as to weather, there are people who protest against the suddenness of the change when the wind in January chops round from north to south, and after panting in the morning you begin to think of a fire at night. But the three hundred delightful days of the year, when existence is a pleasure, are to be remembered, and not the odd sixty-five when ills have to be endured. A favourable impression is usually made upon visitors by the city with its charm of suburbs, its wealth and reserves, its crowds of well-dressed people, always busy about either their pleasure or their business, always obliging, the poorest showing no signs of poverty, nor yet the lowest of the influence of drink. And if a visitor had ideas of his own he would withhold any adverse dictum until he was away, and would not seek to wound the feelings of his hospitable hosts. With them, at any rate, it is a cardinal principle of faith that their much-loved home is entitled to the proud appellation of the 'Queen City of the South.'