The manner in which Sunday is observed, is highly creditable to the district. The utter desertion of the holes and washing stations, the quietude and propriety of the tentwalks, and the readiness with which a congregation is collected, whenever any person could be found who had benevolence and zeal enough to shew an interest in the religious welfare of the poor miner, present very pleasing features to the visitor. Only upon one instance did I observe tossing on a Sunday. Never did I hear of an instance of interruption of divine worship, nor even of private religious meetings. With no ordinary feelings of pleasure have I heard in the calmness of a Sunday evening, voices from several tents mingling in sacred harmony. Stopping for a night on Campbell’s Creek, I was delighted with the sounds of psalmody proceeding from an opposite tent. Several favorite airs were sung, and the several parts well maintained. All at once a company near struck up a song. Immediately loud cries issued from the neighbouring tents of “lay down, lay down.” The revellers yielded to the pressure from without, and again the sweet notes of praise to Jehovah resounded through the quiet glen. All this is the bright side of the picture. The reverse is not so pleasing. Swearing is an almost all prevailing vice. The recklessness begotten by the wild and uncomfortable life, induces this licentiousness of speech. That kind of existence, also, is peculiarly antagonistic to habits of reading and reflection. No retirement is to be found in the tent. Fatigue indisposes one for mental exertion, and there is not the great incentive to reading—a wish to please. The evening’s talk is about the work of the day, the probability of success, arrangement for future labor, and, too often, some coarse and spicy anecdote to sustain that excitement of spirit natural to men. No woman’s soft voice is there to soothe and to refine. Under no circumstances could I have known better the moral influence of woman in the element of civilization, than in a sojourn at the gold fields. The filth, the disorder, the domestic misery give place at the presence of a female to cleanliness, regularity and comfort. When I passed a tent in which there was a swept floor, a bit of furniture, nicely washed plates, bright pannicans, a sheet to the bed with a clean counterpane over, with here and there a sack or piece of old carpet laid down, I knew that the genial influence of woman had been there. A man once alluding to his home under these circumstances said to me, “you can’t tell how comfortable we are.” There was a pretty sight to be witnessed at Bendigo; a young, and not an ugly wife, standing under the green bough porch of her tent, playing with a pair of beautiful canaries in a cage.