I do not wish to disparage European refuges from English winters. But my belief, founded on my own experience, is that in most cases infinitely more benefit is to be obtained by invalids from the Australian than from any European climate. And climate is not the only thing to be considered. What is more depressing, more humiliating to one who seeks to be free, as far as poor humanity may, from the trammels of enfeebled flesh, than the daily routine of a _poitrinaire_ at a winter watering-place;—the club room, the tittle-tattle of politics in which he is never likely to take an active part, the still more insipid gossip about other peoples’ affairs, the whist by daylight, the weekly weighing to see if flesh is being made or lost? Compare the net result, mental and physical, of a continuance of this sort of life with the rich harvest of memories gathered in from a sight, however limited, of the new southern world. Six months’ absence from a profession and from ordinary occupations is in many cases fatal to an immediate resumption of them, and little would really be lost by extending it to a year and a half, which would give ample time for a visit to Australia. The time might be distributed thus: Leaving England by sailing-ship in August or September, and arriving in Melbourne in November or December, a traveller might spend the summer in Tasmania, the autumn in Victoria, and the winter and spring in Queensland and New South Wales, returning to Melbourne some time in the second summer, and sailing thence so as to get home again before the English summer begins. In this way both cold weather and also extreme heat will have been avoided, and two English winters missed. If the whole of the second summer can be spared for going to New Zealand so much the better, or if the mail-steamer’s route by way of Galle be taken, a short stay in India during the cool season may be made. Whichever way home is chosen, a much pleasanter voyage may be anticipated if it is begun during the summer months—that is, between the beginning of November and the end of March; for by Cape Horn the cold, by the Red Sea the heat, and round Cape Leuwin and the Cape of Good Hope the adverse winds, become worse as the year advances.