them, but the trunks of the trees, the posts that support the houses, and even the fronts and roofs of the buildings themselves, are so covered with creeping and flowering plants that scarcely any of the original wood or other material is visible.
"Evidently Melbourne knew that we had been treated to a brickfielder in Sydney, and was therefore determined to give us a taste of its climatic peculiarities before our departure. To offset the hot wind of Sydney we had a 'southerly burster' in Melbourne, and also two or three showers of rain that came down with such vigor as to fill the gutters of the lower streets to a depth of two or three feet. Most of the crossings are bridged, so that one can walk over the temporary rivers in safety, but in former times accidents were not infrequent. 'Another Child Drowned in the Gutters Yesterday' was by no means an unusual heading in the Melbourne papers, and sometimes full-grown men fell victims to the streams that flowed like mill-races while they lasted.
"A gentleman says that quite recently he saw a man try to jump across a gutter, but he made a miscalculation and fell into it. Instantly the stream took him off his feet and carried him partly under a low bridge, where he would have been drowned had not the spectators pulled him out by the heels. Melbourne streets are very muddy in wet weather and very dusty in dry times. The mud in winter is said to be something almost surpassing belief, unless one has actually seen and tested it. Most of the streets are macadamized with a basaltic rock which breaks up into a very irritating and disagreeable dust that is said to be trying to the eyes of a good many people.
"But about the burster, which I had forgotten for the moment. The weather was fine and warm, with a north-east breeze and not a cloud in the sky. In the morning Doctor Bronson remarked that the barometer was falling, and during the forenoon it continued to go down with considerable rapidity.
"We were going on an excursion, but the gentleman who had invited us came around to suggest a postponement, as we were about to have a burster. 'We always expect it,' said he, 'when the barometer falls rapidly in the forenoon, as it is doing now.'
"So we stayed in and watched for the storm. There was an appearance as if a thin sheet of cloud was being rolled up before the advancing wind; in fact it was not unlike the beginning of the brickfielder in Sydney. Then came a high wind which brought clouds of dust, and then the breeze chopped suddenly to the south and blew with great
