Sydney

“ The poetry of Sydney harbour, with its sights and turmoil of sound, lives in my memory as though to-day is far-off yesterday. I even remember, and feel again, my strange romantic loneliness as I watch the silent ships lying out in the bay. Night, like life, is on the deep, tide-moving waters; in the dark depths the fixed mirrored stars shine steadfastly like Eternity, while over them the waters ebb seaward or flow towards the shore. The outline of North Shore, like another continent, rises across the wide harbour, and exactly opposite are the spires of the grand, silent, sea-board city. ”

“ They certainly need a little of the Victorian spirit in Sydney. The Melbourne people, with such a site for a city, would soon have made it one of the most beautiful places in the world. As it is, nothing can surpass its superb situation; the view over the harbour from some of the higher streets being unequalled,—the numerous ships lying still, as if asleep on the calm waters of the bay beneath, whilst the rocky promontories all round it, clothed with verdure, are dotted with the villas and country mansions of the Sydney merchants. ”

“ Sydney flourishes and is happy, with her big streets, her skirts dipping into the bay, her bright Botanical Gardens, a kind of tropical Hyde Park kissed by curling sea waves, and near those gardens is the wide Domain. What a happy hunting-ground for an Australian Charles Dickens that Domain would have been, and still is! The emigrants still go seaward and are dumped down to scramble to hell or dubious fame and fortune, while the ships go flying homeward to old England full up with the remnants who landed on the preceding voyage out! ”

“ I was pleased to see the lovely shores of Sydney harbour again. That same night I stood on deck and saw the beautiful sea-board city rising grandly, with her spires and walls, as moonlight crept over the horizon.
Sydney by night is a sight that makes you easily understand the Cornstalks’ pride in their beloved city. Next day we berthed by Circular Quay. It was fearfully hot, real dog-day weather. Hospitality abounds in Sydney, and one never need feel lonely, for on stepping on to the wharf I was once more enthusiastically welcomed by an immense crowd of mosquitoes! ”

“ The plantain throws its broad leaves over the water, the vine encircles the cottages, and the market of Sydney is abundantly supplied with every culinary vegetable.
In a climate, therefore, so soft that man scarcely requires a dwelling, and so enchanting that few have left it but with regret, the spirits must necessarily be acted upon,--and the heart feel lighter. Such, indeed, I have myself found to be the case; nor have I ever been happier than when roving through the woods or wandering along one of the silent and beautiful bays for which the harbour of Port Jackson is so celebrated. ”

“ Hobart Town takes the premium for hospitality and picturesque beauty; but Sydney bears the impress of genuine English aristocracy, in combination with a sort of Creole piquancy singularly in contrast with English exclusiveness, yet giving a wonderful charm to the society of this city of high life, so full of gayety, brilliancy and luxury. Who would recognize in the Sydney of to-day, with its four hundred thousand inhabitants, its churches, theatres and libraries, the outgrowth of the penal colony of Botany Bay, planted only eighty-seven years ago on savage shores? ”

“ One always thinks of a harbour as a round place full of shipping, with crowded, dirty wharfs. Sydney Harbour is quite different from this; it is a series of creeks running up into the land, its different arms separated by wooded hills, whose trees are rapidly disappearing in a tide of villas. Wherever you are in Sydney, you are never far away from some fresh aspect of the harbour.
Our car ran on to a steam-ferry, already crowded with cars and carts, climbed the bank on the other side, and passing a terrace of houses, like an old-fashioned London suburb, drew up at a garden gate. ”

“ And yet, undoubtedly, Sydney has—or so it seems to me—a rich and rare possession of her own, and one which is worth as much as that of Melbourne, even as emotion is worth as much as intellect, as poetry is worth as much as prose. ”

“ Newer Sydney, with its suburbs and homes along the numerous peninsulas projecting into the waters of Port Jackson, is modern, clean, and airy, and really convenient. Man is a lazy animal and prone to dote on nature's beauties, neglecting his responsibilities to nature. Sydney, proud of its harbor, builds there and forgets its city-self. There are no fine structures to speak of, no monuments, no art, and even the library has to borrow a roof for itself in a building essentially excellent but neglected as a municipal white elephant. ”

“ Don't you think, Ned, that you might see a little bit of real Sydney? Strangers come here for a few days and go on the steamers and through the gardens and along George-street and then go away with a notion of the place that isn't the true one. If I were you, Ned, right from the bush and knowing nothing of towns, I'd like to see a bit of the real side and not only the show side that everybody sees. We don't all go picnicking all the time and we don't all live by the harbour or alongside the Domain. ”

“ Or a panting steam-tug drags a merchant ship amongst the hulls and masts and funnels which fringe the innermost part of the harbour. Above the masts, with miles of winding wharfage at its base, stands Sydney. At sunrise or sunset on a calm day there is something almost Oriental in the brilliancy of colour, something dreamy and unsubstantial in the water, the shores, the black hulls and spars, seen through the sun-lit haze, like pictures one sees of the Golden Horn—such as Turner would have delighted to paint. Port Jackson, both for use and beauty, is almost unsurpassed in the world. ”

“ On approaching Sydney, a stranger cannot fail of being delighted with his first glance at the noble estuary which spreads before and around him. After sailing along a coastline of cliffs some 200 feet in height, and in general effect and outline not unlike those of Dover, he observes an apparent breach in the sea-wall, forming two abrupt headlands, and ere he has time to speculate upon the cause of that fancied ruin, his ship glides between the wave-worn cliffs into the magnificent harbour of Port Jackson. ”

“ It is on the southern shores of this side of the harbour that the commercial life of Sydney is centred, the great and busy city with all its thronging wharves. On the northern shores are the picturesque houses of the well-to-do residents; for Sydney is also a pleasure city, and the land-locked waters of the upper reaches of the harbour are delightful for sailing, rowing, fishing, and bathing, while in the immediate neighbourhood are the popular surf-bathing beaches of Manly and Coogee. ”

“ Manufactories are already springing up in the neighborhood of Sydney, adding to the whirl and the bustle of the town, and adding, too, to its enormous population, already disproportionate to that of the colony in which it stands. As the depot for much of the trade of Queensland and New Zealand, and as the metropolis of pleasure to which the wealthy squatters pour from all parts of Australia, to spend, rapidly enough, their hard-won money, Sydney would in any case have been a populous city ”

“ Yet the citizens of Sydney need not fear comparison of their beloved city with any other in the world, except, as I have said, in the matter of the roads and the noise of the trolley-cars. The buildings are truly splendid, the two chief, the Post Office and the Town Hall, being certainly the finest in the whole of Australasia, and worthy to take rank with any similar buildings at home. Indeed, it is nothing short of marvellous how so comparatively small a population can manage to erect and maintain such splendid buildings as these, and many others which greet the eye on every hand. ”

“ Sydney by day is the real Sydney, the working Sydney, and like every other place in which men work and congregate, it has its dull and drab and depressing features. But the strangely marked personal characteristics are there still. They have taken on new phases, and they make a different kind of appeal. Your mistress has no longer the sparkle in her eyes and the diamonds on her brow; she no longer scintillates to dazzle you, and no longer challenges you to admiration by her life and movement. ”

“ It is amazing to think that New South Wales holds two-fifths of the population of the whole Commonwealth and that Sydney holds more than half of the population of New South Wales. That fact alone shows the vast importance, not only to the Commonwealth, but to the future of the whole Empire, of this state and its lovely capital. Sydney is indeed the London of the Southern Hemisphere. ”

“ How a stranger who visits Sydney is to avoid seeing the harbour is a great puzzle. Whichever way you walk you must come to the harbour—its ramifications extend in all directions. Although it has only one entrance, and is seldom more than a mile in breadth, often being much less, it is said to measure round its shore line more than seventeen hundred miles. Sydney people and Australians, when abroad, are for ever doing all they can to create a prejudice against this beautiful corner of creation. ”

“ But if they were not so ill-kept, and the footpaths so wretchedly paved, I could forgive the narrowness and crookedness of the Sydney streets, on account of their homely appearance. They are undeniably old friends, such as you can meet in hundreds of towns in Europe. Their very unsuitableness for the practical wants of a large city becomes a pleasant contrast to the practical handsomeness of Melbourne and Adelaide. The size and handsomeness of individual buildings is lost in the Sydney streets. You look at the street from one end, and put it down in your mind as no better than a lane ”

“ What charm it works, when in the blood-red streaks of sunset the tidal floods cool the peaceful turquoise; when the busy little ferries of day become fairy transports with streaks of shimmering light as escort, moving across the still waters; when on Sunday morning Sydney across the way relaxes, amazing with revelations. With street and sky-line clear, quiet hangs in the air ”

“ Indeed, after their long absence from civilised life, they very naturally thought Sydney a magnificent city, as indeed it is; rising as it does gradually from its superb harbour, and thus exhibiting to advantage its fine public buildings and substantial residences ”

“ Miss Mack’s verses to Sydney are the kind of tribute one would wish to pay to a lover of happier days. For that reason they may awake some kind of echo in the breasts of many hundreds of persons who will confess to a fondness for Sydney, but who are indifferent to the ways and methods of the lofty rhyme. For the place has a strong personality. One never thinks of it as merely so many houses and so many people. ”

“ First and foremost, owing to the more limited area of the business part of the town, the Sydney buildings are much loftier. Melbourne and Adelaide always look to me as if some one had taken his seat upon the top of them and squashed them down. Sydney is taller and more irregular. It climbs up and down a whole series of hills, and protrudes at all kinds of unexpected points. The city proper has no very definite boundaries, and you hardly know where the city begins and the suburbs end. ”

“ Once again I changed my course to wander among the South Seas and leave Sydney for the future.
Yet even on land he who has been brought up on a continent cannot escape a feeling of isolation, the consciousness of being completely surrounded by water. After you have had the deep beneath you for seven days, and again seven days, you begin to feel that even the islands are but floating in the same fluid. ”

“ After I have seen his work I shall feel full of reverence every time I pass that fine statue which adorns the mall side of the great Admiralty building.
And now we are out in the open sea, with Melbourne, Sydney and love in front of our prow. Behind the sun sets in a slur of scarlet above the olive green hills, while the heavy night fog, crawling up the valleys, turns each of them into a glacier. A bright star twinkles above. Below a light shines out from the gloom. Farewell, New Zealand! ”

“ In European cities, where professional beggary is so often resorted to as a regular occupation, one hardens his heart and passes these people heedlessly by; but here in Sydney he drops a trifle in the hat. Every street-corner has its bar-room, about whose doors are congregated a disreputable crowd of bloated faces and bleared eyes, among whom are seen only too many of the youth of the town, beginners in vicious habits, besides numerous idle but able-bodied representatives of the laboring classes. No part of London even is more numerously supplied with gin palaces and low tap-rooms than Sydney. ”

“ Sydney lures men and women from the back-blocks and makes them feel human again, makes them forget the plains are sear, and that manliness is next to cleanliness. It affords dull station-owners a chance to mix with folk where sweetness and refinement, and not crudeness, is the order of the day and of life. It takes men and women who have been told that to increase and multiply is the only contribution they can make to the welfare of the community and shows them that there is something in life besides that. ”