into. They say it is cleansed before it comes to us, but all I know is that it is quite yellow. This water we must drink, as it is, in tea or coffee; as for milk, that is quite out of the question, none under 4d. per quart; and beer as good as the worst in Birmingham, so far as I can learn, would be a novelty. Gin is all the 'go' with the Cockneys. But I am comforted on this score with the thought that I shall be far away when the droughty weather comes. The fogs, too, choke us. The cats (for there are six or seven at the house where we lodge) make horrid noises day and night, but perhaps all Cockneys do not think it necessary to keep as many as the old ladies where we lodge, so I will not call that a London nuisance. I tell you these bits of news merely to make you merry, for I feel half merry myself.
I am in high hopes of Australia, as well I may be when I compare my chance of living there with my chance of doing so here; but I cannot give you much information now or I should be up all night. The colony of New South Wales is three times as large as England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, and as beautiful a country as this. The soil produces almost everything which this produces, together with pomegranates,
