THE BEAUTY OF SYDNEY
Robert Louis Stevenson, who knew and loved the Southern Pacific,
declared that he loved Sydney “for its bits of old London and Paris.”
That sentence raises the veil, and reveals to the stranger one of the
chief characteristics of Sydney. “It is so English!” is the exclamation
of all Britons who see it for the first time. Its English-like
character is at once its charm and its drawback. Its charm, for it
transports the visitor immediately to the Old Country; its drawback,
for it is not at all Australian, as are the other capitals of the
Commonwealth. After Perth, Adelaide, and Melbourne, with their
abnormally spacious thoroughfares, Sydney streets appear too narrow for
the climate. Day after day I have stood in George Street and imagined
myself to be in Manchester or Liverpool or some other English city.
In the heart of Sydney it is difficult to realise that one is really
in Australia. To me they appear to be disadvantageous--these narrow
streets; to others they appear to be a great boon, especially in the
summer-time, when they afford some little shadow from the great heat of
the sun.
The architectural mistakes of the early builders of Sydney are now
being repaired--in truth, the city is in process of rebuilding. Entire
districts of inferior buildings have been sponged out. In their place
new and noble erections are rising. More than five millions of pounds
sterling have been spent in city buildings since the year 1907. One day
Sydney will wear a new aspect, and become as Australian in appearance
as it is now in spirit. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Sydney
to-day is the boom in building that has been in progress during the
last few years. According to official statements, the amount spent
in building in Sydney and suburbs during the last four years exceeds
sixteen millions of pounds sterling. This includes city buildings,
suburban buildings, State Government buildings, schools, etc. It is a
prodigious sum of money. Practically a new suburb is being added to the
city every year. The State is greatly prospering commercially; indeed,
it has never been more prosperous. Everybody seems to have plenty of
money to spend. The rapid building of houses is not due to speculation,
but to genuine investment on the part of people who desire to purchase
their own houses. The splendid municipal electric car system has linked
up all the suburbs, and has thus contributed largely towards the
general prosperity of the city. With the memory of the great land boom
in Melbourne, one is at first disposed to ask whether this prosperity
is as genuine as it appears to be upon the surface. It is assuring
to learn from the Government Commissioner that “this prosperity is
not ephemeral, and that even should the State be visited by serious
drought conditions there would be no marked effect in the building
trade for some years to come.”
There exists, without doubt, a certain degree of jealousy between the
cities of Melbourne and Sydney. Sydney is the older city, and it is
perhaps natural that her children should claim for her the superiority
due to age. For my part, I do not interfere in these quarrels and
jealousies. I smile at both parties, and point out the excellent
qualities possessed by each city--Melbourne, every time, for ample
thoroughfares, push, and American hustling; Sydney, for narrower
streets and a more English type of life, and, above all, for unexcelled
natural beauty. Melbourne has been deliberately made upon a definite
plan. Sydney has grown as a tree grows; hence some of its branches are
long and some are short. There is an immense difference between the
two cities, but both are places of great importance. A century hence
(unless, through sheer wicked indolence, a white population of British
settlers not having been encouraged, the country is in the hands of one
of the yellow races) Sydney and Melbourne may be a twin London.
If there exists in any part of the world a finer train than the
express between Melbourne and Sydney, I have yet to hear of it. With
observation car, dining and sleeping saloons, it represents the last
word in luxury. There is only one drawback attached to it--the journey
is not continuous in the one train. On the border of New South Wales
passengers change trains, owing to the difference in the gauges of
the two railway lines. This inconvenience is the heritage which early
stupidity has bequeathed to the present generation. Years ago, before
the Federation, the States were opposed to each other, even to the
extent of constructing railway lines of a different gauge. To remedy
this folly will be a costly piece of work. Just one little town on the
route awakens my interest and recalls a famous episode. It is the town
of Wagga Wagga. When the name is called out, instantly the Tichborne
trial comes to mind. For it is in this remote, scarcely known town that
Arthur Orton, the claimant, traded as a butcher. Here came to him the
newspaper containing the advertisement for the heir to the Tichborne
estates. And here was hatched in the butcher’s brain the little plot
which ultimately sent him to penal servitude. Who could have imagined
that from this hidden spot in the Australian bush there would issue an
influence sufficiently strong to agitate the entire British nation?
* * * * *
The approach to Sydney by rail is unpromising. It is only when the
city is traversed, and the visitor is out upon the water, that the
unparalleled beauty of the situation of Sydney is realised. It is easy,
then, to understand why Sydney folk are proud of their harbour. There
is nothing exactly like it in the whole world. I had always conceived
the harbour as an immense circle, or semi-circle, of water, flanked
by hills and houses. Instead of that, I found it to be a series of
a hundred little harbours, formed in the most surprising manner, and
consisting altogether of a frontage of two hundred miles. A natural
harbour, it has the commercial advantages of an artificial one, for the
water is deep, often fathoms deep, to the very edge. Thus the great
liners of the Orient, P. and O., North German Lloyd, and other lines
are berthed at the quays. One first rapid glance at the harbour near
the quays gives the impression of a great maritime centre where boats
flying all flags find refuge. There is a forest of funnels, a vast
array of floating iron and steel.
The shipping out of sight, the remainder of the harbour is a panorama
of natural beauty, of which thousands have taken advantage. All the
slopes and all the heights are crowded with residences, large or
small. In the more modest quarters the houses are small, but always
picturesque. In the wealthier parts we are confronted with a series of
small palaces. Picture Clovelly, Ilfracombe, Lynton, and Lynmouth all
placed together, and united by a number of harbour inlets, and there
you have an image of Sydney Harbour. To this add a sentimental touch
of Italian life--the balcony--and the picture is complete, when the
area of the whole is extended to embrace the frontage of 200 miles. The
balconies! If I were to select the chief charm of these houses built
upon the edge of the water, it would be, without the least hesitation,
the balconies. Their variety is astonishing. No two are alike. Every
house is a fresh surprise. It would seem as if architects and builders
had exhausted all possible combinations of wood and stone for the
production of the last word in picturesque effects. The gardens of
these houses slope right down to the water’s edge. And what gardens! Is
there any spot upon earth where so many roses are gathered together as
at Sydney? Roses everywhere, whole bowers of them. Gardens ablaze with
roses of every colour! We step into one garden belonging to a pastor
of the city and find ourselves in a perfect paradise of flowers. Walls
covered with trailing roses. Garden path lined with roses. Flower beds
one mass of roses. Thousands of them! It is a unique spectacle. Sydney
might add to its industries, if it has not already done so, that of
preparing the attar of roses.
Nobody ever wearies of the harbour. In the early morning, or at noon,
or late at night the charm, ever varying, never fails to hold the
visitor. The craft upon the water in the daytime, the million twinkling
lights at night, conquer the beholder. Every excursion discloses some
new beauty. On the north side of the harbour a great and important town
has sprung up. At every other bend in the road a vision of the water
appears. Built upon a hill, or a series of hills, the whole northern
suburb gathers to the harbour. Magnificent residences are rising every
week. All is quiet, retired, attractive, and yet a brief ferry ride
brings one to the Circular Quay, the heart of a throbbing business
life. Retirement and bustle are but a stone’s throw from each other.
On one side of the harbour are yachts, terraced houses, splashes of
red-roofed houses nestling amongst masses of green shrub and tree and
garden; on the other side, within coo-ee of the yachts, mammoth ocean
liners lie, awaiting the moment of departure for East and West. This
combination of suburbia and shipping very rarely exists in the world.
Shipping generally means long lines of quays and docks removed from the
residential quarters of the city. Here in Sydney, suburbia, on both
sides of the harbour, looks down at the ever-expanding mass of shipping
on the quays and in the coves. Even the largest steamers are moored
near the Circular Quay, within a few minutes’ walk of the heart of the
city.
Many of the larger houses have their own enclosed sea baths, built of
stone, and admitting the water through a netted grill. It is impossible
to bathe in the open harbour on account of the sharks which abound.
The grill admits the water into the private bath, but excludes the
sharks. The wretched creatures, however, often haunt the vicinity of
these baths, in the hope of surprising a dainty human morsel. A novice
experiences strange and uncanny sensations when, taking his modest
dip, he sees the snout of a hungry shark thrust against the grill. If
that grill gave way!!! The harbour is dotted with numerous suburbs,
most of which are pleasure resorts. Of these Manly beach is said to
be the best; it is the home of surf bathers. There is a magnificent
service of ferry boats and electric trams running to every nook and
corner in the harbour. And the fares are surprisingly low. It is not
difficult to understand how, on a sultry summer evening, when the city
is stifling, Sydney abandons itself to an aquatic life. And the harbour
explains the pleasure spirit which dominates Sydney. A journalist who
visited Australia a few years ago, declared that Adelaide was the city
of culture, Melbourne the city of business, and Sydney the city of
pleasure. It is altogether too sweeping a summary. There is culture and
business in Sydney, as elsewhere. But to a visitor the pleasure element
seems to be dominant. It certainly is so at night time, on holidays,
and especially on Sundays. The harbour is alive with craft on Sundays.
Far, far more people are out bent on pleasure than are ever found in
the churches. Religious work is not easy in Sydney. The churches have
to compete with the harbour. There are no old Church traditions to
bind the young people as “at home.” Young people, for the most part,
do as they like. From the spectacular point of view it is striking and
attractive, this wooing of the harbour. From the moral point of view it
is disquieting, for it means that a generation is arising which knows
neither the form nor the force of religion. And this for a young nation
is a serious menace.
* * * * *
Under the gleam of the midday sun in spring, when the blinding light
of the sun is softened by the kiss of the green leaves of thousands of
trees, Sydney Harbour is a paradise of beauty. When night falls and the
city is illuminated with artificial light, the harbour is a dream of
romance. We had the happiness of seeing the harbour under the light of
the full moon. This, together with the half-million lights from city
and steamer and home which danced upon the waters, transported us into
fairyland. Darting from one side to the other were the ferry-boats,
ablaze with electric light. Lying at the quays were the great liners,
studded with stars. And all the lights of harbour, of city and suburbs
were multiplied a hundredfold in these waters already made silvern by
the beams of the moon. It was a sight never to be forgotten.
For those who love the country, with its broad spaces and its
incomparable perfume, the environs of Sydney offer endless attractions.
First of all there are the Blue Mountains, with their awesome
precipices, cascades, and gum-tree-covered slopes, and the famous
Jenolan Caves, an enchanted world of stalactite, fashioned into every
kind of fantastic shape. Within an hour of the capital is the vast area
of the National Park, covering over 30,000 acres; and, beautiful as
any of them, the Hawkesbury river. The railway route to the Hawkesbury
passes through lovely scenery. Within an hour of Sydney this “Rhine
of Australia” is reached. There is also a touch of Norway--just a
touch--in the waterways which run inland like miniature fiords. On the
banks of the Hawkesbury, cottages and bungalows are being multiplied,
to be occupied by the business men of the capital, who find here a
retreat from the bustle of the city.
Sydney is nearer, by 500 miles, to the tropics than Melbourne. Life
lived on the verge of the tropical region is not marked by the same
strenuousness as that of a more rigorous climate. And Melbourne is a
little more rigorous than Sydney, especially in the winter-time. In
Sydney there is only a difference of 17 degrees between the average
temperatures of winter and summer. The climate is wonderful, Sicilian
in its softness. In Melbourne they pass in an hour from midsummer to
midwinter. Perhaps this is why Melbourne is more strenuous than Sydney.
But, _chacun à son goût_. Sydney people believe their city to be the
best in the world, and nothing will ever convince them to the contrary.
There is no need to quarrel about it.