SYDNEY.

I suppose that nearly everyone has heard of the beauties of Sydney

Harbour--'our harbour,' as the Sydneyites fondly call it. If you want a

description of them read Trollope's book. He has not exaggerated an iota

on this point. Sydney Harbour is one of those few sights which, like

Niagara, remain photographed on the memory of whoever has been so

fortunate as to see them. With this difference, however--the impression

of Niagara is instantaneous; it stamps itself upon you in a moment, and

though further observation may make the details more clear, it cannot add

to the depth of the impressions. But Sydney Harbour grows upon you. At

the first glance I think you will be a little disappointed. It is only as

you drink in each fresh beauty that its wonderful loveliness takes

possession of you. The more you explore its creeks and coves--forming

altogether 260 miles of shore--the more familiar you become with each

particular headland or reach, the greater your enchantment. You fall in

love with it, so to speak, and often I look up at the water-colour sketch

of Double Bay which hangs over my dining-room mantelpiece, and hope the

hope which partakes of expectation, that before long I shall see Sydney

Harbour again.

And it is as admirable from a practical as from an artistic point of

view. The _Austral_ and the _Orient_ can be moored alongside natural

wharves in the very heart of the city. There are coves sufficient to hold

the combined fleets of the world, mercantile and naval. The outer harbour

is the paradise of yachtsmen; the inner, of oarsmen. The gardens of

suburban villas run down to the water's edge along the headlands and

points, and there are thousands of unoccupied building sites from which

you can enjoy a view fit for the gods.

One feels quite angry with the town for being so unworthy of its site.

Certainly, one of the greatest charms of the harbour must have been

wanting when it was uninhabited, and the view of the city and suburbs as

you come up into port is as charming and picturesque, as that of

Melbourne from Port Philip is commonplace and repellent. But when you get

near the wharf the charm vanishes. Never was there a more complete case

of distance lending enchantment to the view. Not but that there are

plenty of fine buildings, public and private; but the town is still much

farther back in its chrysalis stage than Melbourne. Time alone can, and

is rapidly making away with the old tumble-down buildings which spoil the

appearance of their neighbours. But time cannot easily widen the streets

of Sydney, nor rectify their crookedness. They were originally dug out by

cart-ruts, whereas those of nearly every other town in Australia were

mapped out long before they were inhabited. 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; you walk down it without noticing the merits of the

buildings it contains; whereas in Melbourne both the general effect and

each individual building are shown off to the greatest advantage; but

there is a certain picturesqueness and old-fashionedness about Sydney,

which brings back pleasant memories of Old England, after the monotonous

perfection of Melbourne and Adelaide.

The most unpleasant feature about Sydney is, that there is a thoroughly

untidy look about the place. It is in a perennial state of _déshabille_;

whereas Melbourne nearly always has its dress-clothes on. In keeping with

the wretched pavements, the muddy crossings, and the dust, are the

clothes of the people you meet in the streets. Nobody seems to care much

how they dress, and without being exactly countrified in their apparel,

the Sydneyites succeed in looking pre-eminently dowdy.

The water-supply is not always quite as plentiful as could be wished; but

on the other hand, there is an excellent system of deep drainage, and the

eye is not offended by open sewers, as in Melbourne. You will notice that

there are not so many private carriages here, and fewer horsemen. The

traffic appears greater, but this is entirely owing to the narrowness of

the streets. It is not so rapid, as you will easily perceive.

You land, as I think I mentioned, in the heart of the city, and, unless

you prefer Shanks's pony, must perforce take a hansom to your hotel, or,

if you have much luggage, two hansoms, for four-wheelers are almost

unknown. In compensation, the Sydney hansoms are the cleanest and fastest

you will ever have the good fortune to come across. Steam trams run out

to the railway station, which is at the farther end of the town, and to

all the suburbs. There is practically but one hotel to go

to--Petty's--and that very inferior. In most matters of this kind Sydney

is only a second-rate edition of Melbourne.

The beauties of Sydney are certainly rather natural than artificial, and

since one can always see a big town more or less like Melbourne, whilst

the scenery of Sydney Harbour is almost unique of its kind, if I were

obliged to see only one of the two places, I would rather see Sydney. But

although, Sydney is poorly laid out, it must not be imagined that it is

poorly built. On the contrary. Its buildings are put in the shade as

regards size by those of Melbourne but if you had not seen Melbourne

first, you would certainly have been surprised by the number and size of

the public buildings of Sydney. The rich man loses his sense of the

proportionate value of moneys. But Sydney has the great advantage of

possessing superior building material in a red and grey sandstone of

great durability, which forms the substratum of the whole district in

which it is built, while Melbourne has mainly to rely on a blue stone

found at some distance, and has to import the stone for its best

buildings from either Sydney or Tasmania. I must confess too, that I

prefer the general style of architecture in Sydney to that most common in

Melbourne. 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.

Of the public buildings of Sydney, the handsomest are the Treasury, the

Colonial Secretary's office, and the Lands Office, each four or five

stories high, and close to the water's edge. The Colonial Secretary's

office is only second to the Melbourne Law Courts amongst the completed

buildings of Australia. It is lofty, massive, and dignified outwardly,

elegant and spacious inside, although it has been fitted up in the most

incongruous fashion with odds and ends of third-rate statuary, imitation

bronzes, etc., until it looks like an old curiosity-shop. The University,

though comparatively an old building, still holds its ground amongst the

best, and may well be proud of its splendidly proportioned hall, built in

fifteenth-century Gothic. The Roman Catholic Cathedral, which has just

been opened, is also well proportioned. The length is 350 feet; width

within transept 118 feet; width of nave and aisle 74 feet; height about

ninety feet. There is to be a central tower 120 feet high, and two towers

with spires which will rise to a height of 260 feet. The Anglican

Cathedral, though not large, is a handsome building with two towers, in

fourteenth-century Gothic. The Post Office will for many years remain a

fragment of what may or may not be a handsome building. The Town Hall has

evidently been built with the idea of at all hazards making it larger

than the Melbourne Town Hall. So far it is a success. But architecturally

it is nothing more than a splendid failure--over-decorated and

ginger-bready. Curiously enough it is built upon the site of the

burial-place of the early settlement---forming a sort of Westminster

Abbey for the first settlers. There are four theatres, but none well

fitted or decorated. Palatial hospitals and asylums of course abound, but

the Parliament House is wretchedly small.

Unfortunately Sydney has very few reserves, and those few she keeps in

bad order, with the exception of the Botanical Garden, situated on an arm

of the land almost entirely surrounded by water. It is the most charming

public garden I have ever seen; inferior to that of Adelaide in detail,

but superior in the _tout ensemble_. Almost equally beautiful is the

situation of Government House, a comfortable Tudor mansion, but rather

small for purposes of entertainment.

Amongst the commercial buildings, the new head offices of the Australian

Mutual Provident Society are pre-eminent. They cost no less than £50,000.

The banks are not equal to either the Melbourne or the Adelaide banks.

But the insurance offices, warehouses, etc., though not nearly as

numerous, are quite up to the Melbourne standard in size, although for

the reasons already given they do not show to so great an advantage as

their merit deserves. Of the appearance of the shops I have already

written in my letter about Melbourne. They are not so fine as in

Melbourne nor so well stocked, and are pretty much on a level with those

in an English town of the same size.

The names of the principal streets proclaim the age of the town. George

Street and Pitt Street are the two main thoroughfares, and there are

Castlereagh, Liverpool, and William Streets, while King, Hunter, Bligh,

Macquarie, and Philip Streets, and Darlinghurst preserve the names of the

first governors. The suburbs first formed preserve the sweet-sounding

native names--Wooloomooloo, Woolahra, Coogee, Bondi. Of a later date are

Randwick, Newtown, Stanmore, Ashfield, Burwood, and Petersham--the last

four along the railway line.

The good people of Sydney do not spend their money so much upon outward

show as the Victorians. Hence the number of large houses in the suburbs

is very much smaller. But whereas the country around Melbourne for miles

is mostly flat as a pancake, the suburbs of Sydney literally revel in

beautiful building sites. For choice, there are the water frontages below

the town or up the Parramatta river, which is lined with pretty houses,

whose inhabitants come up to Sydney every morning in small river

steamers. The principal suburbs, however, are much closer to the city

than in Melbourne, being connected by steam tramways instead of railways.

New suburbs are also springing up along the railway lines, but until the

railway station is brought into the centre of the town, they can never be

nearly so populous as the Melbourne suburbs.