the shearer and harvester, they, too, carry their billies in one hand, as inevitably as they carry their swag—their blanket and store of flour, and mackintosh sheet or bit of oilcloth. And for them there are dry, fragrant eucalyptus leaves and twigs—inflammable as tinder to the least spark from flint and steel—to boil their water over; the very fact of its having to be boiled, and therefore insuring some measure of safety from typhoid germs, being one of the best possible excuses for the universal popularity of tea, particularly among such wanderers, and dwellers in country districts. One of the first difficulties that confronts the new arrival in Melbourne is that of suitable lodgings, when he shall have tired of hotel and Coffee Palace. I know I walked innumerable streets and answered innumerable advertisements, before I began to realize that those lodgings with one or two bedrooms, a sitting-room, and privately served meals—probably presided over by an ubiquitous ex-butler and cook—which we regard so completely as a matter of course in England, are almost unknown in Australia, and so scarce and expensive as to be an impossibility, excepting for the very wealthy. Either a place was frankly a boarding-house, or one was termed a guest, and expected to have meals with the landlady, her family, and occasional friends; once I remember at an up-country lodging the “friend” being an Assyrian pedlar—certainly the most interesting person I ever met there—while someone who could play the piano or recite, and was generally of a friendly turn of mind, was greatly to be preferred.