FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF SYDNEY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume I, Issue 22, 7 June 1851, Page 3

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF SYDNEY.

The following is the fust of a series of papers published some time since in the Wellington Independent. Its insertion here may serve to give new colonists some idea of the comparatively great Australian metropolis. No. I. The Harbour, —The Crrr, —The Climate. From the close connection in many points, and'the amount of intercourse between Sydney and New Zealand, it may not be uninteresting to many of your readers to peruse a brief description of a few of the leading objects in and around Sydney, as they appear at first sight to one of yourselves. It is not to be expected that a sojourn of six weeks can enable me to give either a full or accurate account of such a town as Sydney, or such a country as New South Wales ; a few superficial notices, struck oif, if possible, with the freshness of a first view, is all that I shall attempt; let succeeding visitors, if inclined, correct my errors, and supplement my deficiencies. From reading, and especially from hearing so much about Sydney, I approached it with expectations unusually high ; so much so, that, as is commonly the case in these circumstances, a disappointment would have been a very likely result. I was agreeably surprised, however, when T found that all my expectations were more than realized. The iirst thing that naturally strikes a stranger as he approaches Sydney, is the harbour. An inlet or arm of the sea runs up inland as far as Paramatta ; about twenty miles. This inlet is navigable for vessels of any burthen for six or seven miles, and for small craft as far as Paramatta. It is indentiiied with numerous small bays on both sides, and thus furnishes inexhaustible resources for the forming of new harbours as often as these may be required. For safety and convenience the harbour of Sydney has, perhaps, never been surpassed. The town of Sydney stands about five or six miles up this inlet, on the south side of it. In its appearance the town realizes very little of the idea of " colonial," except that it is mostly new. It appears to be the result t<f much capital, great enterprise, and well-sustained energy. It is mostly built of white drab-coloured sandstone; few buildings are of brick. The houses are in general two and three stories high. The streets are wide, well made, and clean ; though here and there the foot pavement, after having caused by its roughness an untold amount of damage to the shoes of^the citizens, is now worse worn itself than the toe of St. Peter's statue at Home by the lips of the pilgrims, and calls loudly for the attention of the JMiles. The streets run mostly parallel, or cross each other at right angles. The two principal business streets are George-streefc and Pitt-street, running north and south the whole length of the town; the two principal streets crossing these, are Hunter-street and King-street. It is the general appearance of the town rather than any particular edifice that excites admiration. Government House, a large elegant castellated edifice, is almost the only public building that attracts particular notice. From the regularity of the streets and buildings, and the white sandstone of which they are built, the town has more resemblance to the New Town of Edinburgh, or the West End of Glasgow than any of the English towns I have seen. If not a city of palaces, yet as seen from the harbour and rising up, street above street, it has all the air of a large commercial city. The population is estimated at 50,000, and is rapidly increasing. Wooloomooloo, a suburban town, as large to appearance as Wellington, has sprung up within the last two or three years; and in all directions ■"tlie suburbs are being fast swallowed up by the town. .Business! talk of business, Sydney is like a bee-hive. From the harbour to the Haymarket all is alive and in motion. At the Docks, between the pressing of wool, and the loading and unloading of vessels, all is bustle and activity. Along George-street, Pitt-street, King-streetaud others, you see not those omnium gatherums, called very expressively stores, where you are furnished with every thing after a sort, and which are so necessary in the early stages of a colony, where every man must do everything, or deal in everything ; these have disappeared, and that division of business which is indicative of high advancement in wealth and arts has resumed its place as in old established communities, and you find shops and warerooms of every kind, second to

very few in the principal towns of England. Indeed Sydney has all the appearance of a long established flourishing sea-port. " To judge of a nation," says Samuel Rogers, " we have only to throw our eyes on the markets and the fields ; if the marketsare well-supplied, the fields well cultivated, all is right. If otherwise, we may say, and say truly, these people are barbarous or oppressed." Whoever will visit the market in George-street, on a Saturday afternoon, or on a market day, will conclude that in this respect all is right in Sydney. The cornucopia is full to overflowing, and Peace with benignant smile is showering abundance from the Horn of Plenty. Sydney is well supplied with sources of health and innocent enjoyment; Hyde-park, in the centre of the town, is a spacious, well laid out pleasure ground, for walking or athletic amusements. The Government Domain, contiguous to the lower part of the town next the harbour, is open to the public. The Botanical garden is also open, and is a perfect treat to every person of taste, and every lover of nature's beauties; where health and science may be wooed at, the same time. A small painted board tells the name of every plant, and specimens are arranged according to both the artificial system of Linnaeus and the natural system of Jussieu. Public baths and bathing places are provided, so that frequent ablutions, so essential to health and comfort in a warm climate, can be readily enjoyed. The town is also wellsupplied with water, brought in pipes from reservoirs at some distance. These advantages, with others, will contribute much to make Sydney a healthy town. The town is also lighted with gas; and as light is the greatest terror to thieves and evil-doers, it must prove the most effective police, by preventing instead of punishing crime. The drainage of Sydney appears to be the most defective part of its police regulations. Attempts however, are being made to have a bill passed to secure this, and in an age like ours, when sewerage and sanitary reform are so much before the public everywhere, it is not likely that the spirited citizens of Sydney will allow an object so important, so intimately connected with public health and municipal prosperity, long to slumber. The cemeteries are outside the town. A stranger, especially from New Zealand, is struck at first in Sydney with the number of horses and wheeled carriages of all kinds. Nowhere, except in London, have I seen any thing like the same number of cabs and kindred conveyances running in the streets. It reminds one of Cowper's lines in John Gilpin :— Smack went the whip, round went the wheels, Were never folks so glad ; The stones did rattle underneath, As if Cheapside were mad. Coaches run from Sydney to all parts of the colony: for the number and excellence of its horses, Sydney seems a second Egypt. The number of public houses is another striking, but much less pleasant, feature of the city. These, in Sydney and the suburbs, number about 350. From the apparent wealth in Sydney, its horses and its Bacchanalian Temples, I was at first continually reminded of a passage in an old Oriental poet, one of Homer's contemporaries. In describing one of the eastern countries he says—for the sake of the mere English reader, I copy from an old translation made some two hundred and odd years ago :— Their land also is full of silver and gold, Neither is there any end of their treasures ; Their land also is full of hurses, Neither is there any end of their chariots; Their land also is full of idols, They worship the work of their own hands, That which their own fingers have made. The climate and the weather are objects patent to all strangers. I have seen the first six weeks of summer: but a stranger is apt to judge relatively by "his own feelings, rather tliau really by more correct atmospheric meters. From all accounts and by all appearances the climate is salubrious. The public health in town and country appears to be good ; and people soon get attached to the climate. In winter, I should suppose, it must be agreeable, yea delightful; but the heat of summer, to a stranger at least, is often oppressive. The climate here, as in every place on earth, has several serious drawbacks. It is changeable; one day, it is broiling hot, yon have to dress in your lightest clothing, and after all you are perspiring and feeling perfectly exhausted with the most moderate exertion ; next day, or the same evening, perhaps, the wind veers, the thermometer

fails, and you must make serious enquiries after a great coat, or some warm garments to secure you from the cold. Then these hot winds ! They come blowing from the N.W., and produce such a debilitating effect, that you feel yourself perfectly languid and useless, without being able to assign a cause. Then come the brick-fielders ! so called from blowing originally over the brickfields close to the town. These are a sort of hurricanes, that spring up suddenly, and bring clouds of sand, dust, and every moveable thing before them, and are extremely disagreeable. Thunder storms are also common. Within the last two weeks we have had quite a succession of them. In describing them, such graphic lines as the following would scarcely need to claim poetic license— Near and more near the thunders roll, The lightnings flash from pole to pole, A few evenings ago, for two hours the sky seemed to be in one continuous blaze. The forked or chain lightning is more frequent here than I have ever seen it anywhere else. You look at a mass of densely black thunder clouds, and ever and anon you see the electric fluid descend in a zig-zag line from the summit of the clouds to the ground. This very week, a man was struck by the lightning while sitting at dinner at his own table, and almost instantaneously killed ; but accidents of this kind are not numerous, perhaps not more so than in Britain. During the spring months this year, there had been an unusual amount of stormy weather. I observed on my arrival here that roads, bridges, and other places afforded clear proof of the extent and violence of the floods. Still the want of rain is the most frequent complaint in this country —fair weather is the rule, bad weather is the exception.

While the people are in general healthy, and consequently in possession of the first requisite to make them lmppy,—while they in general like the climate, and speak well of the country; (and it would be cruelty as well as folly to make them think or speak otherwise, and thus diminish their happiness) it does appear that the heat—the summer heat especially—has a debilitating- effect upon the system. With a profusion of table comforts, few are lusty. You do here and there meet with a Boniface, suggesting the idea of " two single gentlemen rolled into one." But in general there is no tendency to corpulency ; and men, women, and children are almost all more or less pale in the complexion. The youth grow up very fast, tall but lank ; the young men, all arms and legs. In nothing perhaps has New Zealand the advantage over Sydney and New South Wales more than in the appearance of the inhabitants, especially the young of both sexes. A proverb of a past age, now in sentiment happily exploded, expresses with considerable truth the respective appearances of the female population of New Zealand and New South Wales, —■ Bed and rosy, ) ike a hussy, White antl pale, like a lady. On this principle the ladies of New Zealand would be all hussies, and the women of New South Wales all ladies. There would be nothing but vulgar beauty in the one, nothing but delicate gentility in the other. But as it is the amount of mind, —of intelligence and goodness —and not of blood, appearing in the countenance, that constitutes the true and permanent test of real beaut}', the ladies of both countries will feel perfectly indiffereut on that point, whether the roses on their cheeks are white or red. And it is so long since the Houses of York and Lancaster were united, that the wars of the roses, it is hoped, will never return.

We find the following* under the head of Meteorology, in a late Sydney paper : — "On Friday the 18th April, between 10 minutes to 9 and 20 minutes past, p. m,, an extremely beautiful and perfect lunar rainbow was visible:—The moon was from 15 degrees to 20 degrees above the eastern horizon, some heavy nimbus encompassed the western hemisphere, and rain was falling from all parts of them. The southern extremity of the arch rested on Vaucluse, the northern sank in the hollow on the side of Lang's Point. The prismatic colours were well defined at both ends, and extended perceptibly to about midway towards the vertex of the arch, then gradually faded into a silvery white light;but the lines of each colour continued distinct throughout. The whole atmosphere, enclosed within the arch, was resplendent with a hazy silvery light, which

contrasted in a remarkable manner with the dark clouds surrounding the exterior of the bow. As the upper arch of it faded away, this internal light corresponding to it, and converging towards the centre of the bow, also disappeared, leaving- at last the two extremities supported, as it were, by internal wedges of rays or buttresses of light. During the latter stages of the phenomenon, the moon being quite disengaged from clouds, and the atmosphere particularly transparent, an excellent opportunity was afforded for observing through the telescope its physical constitution ; the borders of its upper northern limb were lost in shade, exhil biting in a beautifully distinct manner the imevenness of its surface."