The American steamers from San Francisco land one at Sydney, of which charming place Mr. Trollope says:—“I despair of being able to convey to my readers my own idea of the beauty of Sydney Harbour;” he considers that it excels Dublin Bay, Spezzia, and New York. And the colonists, left to themselves—for England maintains no troops there now—have fortified it strongly. Mr. Trollope tells us of five separate armed fortresses, with Armstrong guns, rifled guns, guns of eighteen tons’ weight, with loopholed walls and pits for riflemen, as though Sydney was to become another Sebastopol. “It was shown,” says he, “how the whole harbour and city were commanded by these guns. There were open batteries and casemated batteries, shell‐rooms and gunpowder magazines, barracks rising here and trenches dug there. There was a boom to be placed across the harbour, and a whole world of torpedoes ready to be sunk beneath the water, all of which were prepared and ready for use in an hour or two. It was explained to me that ‘they’ could not possibly get across the trenches, or break the boom, or escape the torpedoes, or live for an hour beneath the blaze of the guns. ‘They’ would not have a chance to get at Sydney. There was much martial ardour, and a very general opinion that ‘they’ would have the worst of it.” New South Wales and Victoria have about 8,000 volunteers and a training‐ship for sailor boys; while an enormous monitor, the _Cerberus_, presented by the mother country, forms its war‐fleet of one. [Illustration: VIEW IN COLLINS STREET, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA.]