Among the little things to be taken, no good traveller will, of course, omit a pocket corkscrew and a flask of cognac; nor will he neglect soap. If he have not made it a rule in all travelling to use his own soap, he is charged at foreign hotels 1 franc for _savon_. I have heard a man growling over the ‘imposition,’ but it served him right, while the article was just sold to him like anything else, with the usual 200 or 300 per cent. hotel profit added. We considered it advisable, especially in view of travelling in Italy, where the water is said to be often impure, and consequently unsafe to drink, to take with us a small filter; but although we used our filter occasionally, I cannot say we were frequently conscious of drinking bad water. It is, however, a proper precaution, as water may be bad without betraying its quality by the taste. An Ashantee filter with a quart tin bottle, to be had from Atkins and Co., 62 Fleet Street, London, occupies little space, and costs 8s. Were Messrs. Atkins to devise a portable little filter for use at the table by insertion in a tumbler, so as to purify the drinking water without the fuss of a large filter, which it is inconvenient to carry, and which one cannot bring to the public room, it would be of much use. It must be borne in mind, however, that filters do not destroy organic matter suspended in the water, and for this purpose permanganite of potash may be employed. A drop or two of a solution of this substance, which may be purchased in dry grains at any chemist’s (easily dissolved when wanted), effects destruction of organic matter, but gives so unpleasant a bitterness to the flavour of the water that we scarcely ever used it. * * * * *