’Don’t you ever talk to me about any of your English watering-places and sea-port towns!  No one knows anything about what an harbour can be for perfect beauty of earth, air, and sea, for wooded banks and rocky heights, and fine shipping and handsome buildings, and all the bustle and stir of a town of 80,000 inhabitants somehow lost and hidden among gum trees and Norfolk Island pines and parks and gravel walks; and everywhere the magnificent sea view breaking in upon the eye.  Don’t be angry, darling, for I love Dawlish very much, and would sooner go and sail the “Mary Jane” with you in some dear little basin among the rocks at low tide, and watch all the little crabs and other creatures with long Latin names, than walk about Sydney arm-in-arm with the Bishops of New Zealand and Newcastle, to call on the Governor.  But I must say what I think about the natural scenery of places that I visit, and nowhere, even in New Zealand—­no, not even in Queen Charlotte’s Sound, nor in Banks’s Peninsula, have I seen anything so completely beautiful as this harbour—­’"heoi ano” “that’s enough.”  The Governor told us yesterday that when he was at Hobart Town, he made the convicts cut a path through one of the deep gullies running down from a mountain 4,500 feet high to the sea.  The path was two miles long, and all the way the tree-ferns, between twenty and thirty feet high, formed a natural roof arched and vaulted like the fretted roofs of our Tudor churches and chapels.  There is a botanical garden here with a very good collection of all the Australian trees and shrubs, and with many New Zealand and many semi-tropical plants besides.  All the English flowers and fruits grow here as well, so that in the warmer months it must look beautiful.  It is close to the sea, which runs here in little creeks and bays close up among the public walks and buildings; and as the shore is all rocky and steep at low water, there is no mud or swamp or seaweed, but only clear green water quite deep and always calm and tranquil, because the harbour is so broken up and diversified by innumerable islets, gulfs, &c., that no wind can raise any sea of consequence in it.

’Just now it is winter time—­slight frost at night, but no appearance of it after the sun is up; bright hot days, and bracing cold nights, the very perfection of a climate in winter, but in summer very hot.  It is so funny to me to see regular stone and brick houses, and shops, and carriages, and cabs, &c., all quite new to me.

’To-night there is a great missionary meeting.  Bishops of Sydney, New Zealand, and Newcastle present.  Bishop of Newcastle and a Mr. King advocate the cause of the Australian blacks, and the Bishop of New Zealand and unfortunate I have to speechify about Melanesia.  What on earth to say I don’t know, for of course the Bishop will exhaust the subject before me.

’However, I must try and not be in a great fright; but I would sooner by half be going to have a talk with a parcel of Maoris.  Now, you must get Fanny Patteson to tell you all about our voyage from New Zealand, our adventure at Norfolk Island, &c.