Nor is Melbourne a very pleasant or healthy place in which to spend either winter or summer. It is more agreeable in either spring or autumn. The hot winds of summer and the cold winds of winter are alike disagreeable there. And if, by any chance, there is a day without wind, fog and smoke will sometimes hang over Flinders Street and the low plain stretching towards the bay, making _longo intervallo_ an imitation of a London fog. The hospital was crowded with consumptive patients while I was there; but it would not be fair to lay too much of this to the charge of climate. Ill built houses account for much. The comparatively small number of days on which rain falls and the rapidity with which the ground dries make people careless about making their houses waterproof, or draining them properly. Kitchens and servants’ rooms are sometimes separated by an open roofless space from the rest of the house, and on rainy days constant wet feet and damp clothes are the consequence. Much illness, too, must be attributed to the bad drainage of Melbourne. A new-comer is at first delighted with the clear running water which is always flowing down the gutters of the principal streets, like Hobson’s Conduit at Cambridge. But if he passes by at night his nose informs him that the once limpid stream is neither more nor less than the common sewer of the houses on each side. There are no underground sewers. The rush of water in the hilly streets after heavy rain is so great and sudden that it has been hitherto found impracticable to construct any sewer which would stand against it without bursting. I believe projects are on foot for an effective system of drainage; the Victorians are never sparing of money for public works. But as yet Melbourne is as ill-drained as almost any city I ever saw inhabited by Englishmen, and if cholera or any other bad epidemic ever reached Australia the consequences might be fearful. Even the abundant supply of water, which is such an inestimable advantage in all other respects, makes the evil worse. For before it was obtained, the dry air and especially the hot winds acted as effectual deodorizers by drying up all that was disagreeable, and preventing any effluvium from it. Now there is too much dilution for this to happen, and in parts of the town are to be seen green pools of liquid, poisoning the surrounding air.