The drainage is defective, but the water-supply good.  There is still a great deal to be done to the footpaths, and until quite recently the municipal arrangements were in every respect almost as bad as those of Sydney.  But an able, energetic, and liberal mayor, Mr. E. T. Smith, in the course of two years so stirred up the citizens that pavements have been laid down, additional gas-lights provided, the Torrens artificial lake constructed, the squares and park-lands transformed from untidy wildernesses into handsome oases, and the general aspect of the city entirely transformed.  I do not know that I ever saw so much done entirely at the initiative and by the energy and persistence of a single man.

Of the shops there is not much to be said.  They are not at all up to the average of most of the institutions of the town, with the one exception of those of the jewellers and silversmiths, the work in which is original and artistic, throwing altogether into the shade similar shops in Melbourne and Sydney.  The cabs are all waggonettes, similar to those used in Melbourne, but drawn by two horses instead of one.  Adelaide abhors hansoms.  They exist, but are never used by respectable people, who have come to look upon them as unholy in themselves.  The tramway system is the most complete in Australia.  All the trams are drawn by horses; to such of the suburbs as are too thinly populated to have trams large waggonettes for the most part run in lieu of omnibuses.  Adelaide is the only Australian town in which the American system of buying land, and making a railway to bring population to it, has been carried out.  The idea was first tried with tramways, the writer having taken some part in originating and promoting it.  Of the hotels of Adelaide, the best is the York.  It is better than the best, in Sydney, but inferior to the best two in Melbourne.

Owing to the excellent plan on which the city is laid out, it is surrounded on every side by suburbs at the short distance of half a mile, connected by horse-tramways.  Beyond these, however, there is the flourishing watering-place of Glenelg at a distance of only seven miles by train; and now that the railway has been carried into the hills, it will not be long before large suburbs grow up in them.  Wealth in South Australia is more equally divided than in the sister Colonies.  Hence there are only a few large mansions, but comfortable six to ten-roomed cottages abound.

Houses.

The inevitable ‘newness’ of everything cannot but strike the eye disagreeably.  This is especially noticeable in the buildings and houses, few of which date back more than ten years.  In the growth of towns, as well as in the progress of individuals and institutions, there are three periods to be gone through.  Here the first stage is that of the log-hut.  This is succeeded by the weather-board cottage, which in turn gives place to brick and stucco.  Finally comes the stone building with its two or three