THE LAND OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 7328, 11 August 1885, Page 3

THE LAND OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE.

By Geokge AtrcttSTtJs Sala,

V.—ASPECTS OF SYDNEY

The beginnings of George street, and of Sydney itself, were of the most modest"-arid simplest kinds. And, may I ask, is there anything more delightful to the patient student of civilisation than to trace the origin of a great and prosperous centre of population ? This may be broadly divided into those which have slowly grown, and those which, with almost magical rapidity, have been : created. The modern capital of Russia was, from a mundane point" of view, absolutely and literally the creation'of Peter the Great. When he was determined to buiid in the morass hard by the Lake'of Ladoga a window which, as lie phrased it, should look oui into Europe, he took up his abode in his little log cabin on'tho bank of the Neva;-and decreed the erection of a City of Palaces as arbitrarily as Kubla Khan, in' Coleridge's magnificent fragment of verse, decreed the stately pleasure dome at Xanadu. There were tens of thousands of Peter's slaves to lay wooden piles in the marsh for a foundation ; there were thousands more slaves to build the palaces, the churches, the barracks, and the prisons. Autocracy rubbed its hands with glee, and Petropolis was created. Odessa was in a degree a creation of the Duke of Richelieu George the Fourth, ..when Prince of Wales> found Brighton a humble little fishing village, and left it an aristocratic and splendid city. The Second Empire in France virtually created Trouville and Biarritz; and the late M. Blanc, ..disgusted witli the meanness of Little Monoca, created Monte Carlo. Lord Brougham, driven from Nice, where cholera was rife,, went away, and was the making of Cannes; and half-a-dozen pretty and smiling townships sprang up with gourd-like suddenness round Norwood and Sydenham almost as soon as the Crystal Palace had reared its glittering head. Trieste, again, was virtually a created city, designed by a crafty malevolent Austrian statesman to ruin the maritime trade of Venice) while Leghorn was equally the creation of an enlightened Florentine Grand Duke, who was resolved that in his dominions there should be at least one city of religious toleration. But who shall trace the beginnings of London unless we go back to the fables of Brate and the siege of Troy? Before the actual Paris there was Lutetia; but what was theie before Lutetia? Before Constantinople there was Byzantium, but what before?

The beginnings of Sydney are, however, very plainly discernible, and were, as I have already hinted, of the simplest possible kind. On a bright, summer morning—the 10th of January 1788—Governor Phillip, with a little squadron of warships and transports, oast anchor in Botany Bay. Governor Phillip did not think much of the resources of Botany. He " prospected around" for a more propitious place of settlement; he breasted the entrance to Port Jackson, and passed the Heads, which command the entrance to the enchanting haven called by him Sydney Cove, in honour of Thomas Townshend, Viscount Sydney. The head of the cove is now the magnificent wharf called the Circular Quay, where the hugest ocean steamers afloat find safe moorings close to the busiest streets of the city, thus more than realising Thackeray's enthusiastic description of "Limerick prodigious," standing "with quays " and bridges, and bringing " muslin from the Indies," with " ships up to the wiudics," on the Shannon shore. Literally do the biggest of ships come "up to the windies," or windows, at Sydney. On the Boomyes at Rotterdam, you will remember, you can sit at your open window and watch the gigantic East Indiamen, bound-to or from Batavia, taking in or discharging their immense cargoes. You can do the like at the Circular Quay, Sydney. You can ride down in a hansom right .down to—almost on board—the P. and O. which is to take you home. Brindisi is only over the way—for who thinks anything of the Kcd Sea and the Suez Canal now-a-days ? —while the Straits of Gibratar, the Bay of Biscay, and Plymouth, Devonshire, England, are only just round the corner. To my thinking, to be able to board your ship by means of a hansom when you go away, and to spring from your ship into a hansom when you reach your destination, robs departure of half its bitterness, and doubles the joy of coming home. How often have I held in hatred the tender in the Mersey—the tender which has taken me to the off-lying Cunard steamer —hated it not for its outward but for its returning trip ; for did it not carry away with her to shore, that unfeeling little j tender, all that was dear to you in the world ?

Governor Phillip experienced the hardest of hard times before he could make anything like a town at Sydney. It was not very encouraging in the first instance to be met at every point by yells of defiance from the Aborigines and cries of "Warra Warra"—Go away. The earliest Government House at Sydney was made of canvas, a. mere tout, which was pitched on the bank of a rivulet close to where Pitt and Spring streets now intersect. Afterwards his Excellency removed to a little cottage built on ground near the present office of the Illustrated Sydney News, and thence to a somewhat more imposing mansion between Bridge and Bent streets. Small beginnings indeed, when it is borne in minel, that the existing Government House is a vast and stately pile in the Tudor Gothic style, the internal fittings of which are i'H of Australian cedar, while the chimney-pieces are all of Colonial marble. The Great Hall is hung with n. continuous series of fulllength life-size portraits in oil of all the Governors of New South Wales from Captain Arthur Phillip downward. That energetic proconsul had in the first instance hard work to keep the 700 male and the 250 female convicts in order, and the 200 soldiers and marines, besides a few free women and children, from starving. -In 17;)0 the infant settlement was horribly distressed for food, and yxpeeted supplies from the Capo

failing to make their apiiearniice, the Governor was fain to reduce the daily rations to' almost infinitesimal proportions. Captain Phillip threw his.own scanty supply of provisions into the general stock; and it is said that when his Excellency .gave an oilicial dinner at GovernHouse the guests were expected to bring their own eatables with them. Not unadvisedly do I thus cite a story which to Australian ears must bevery stale and old indeed. But I have quoted it in order that English people may know that in the Australia of the present day animal food is absolutely superbundnnt, and is ridiculously cheap—ridiculously so. at least, to the observer from Home. Prices, of course, may vary according to markets and seasons, but I have heard of mutton at from 2d to 4d per lb, of beef from 3^l to Gd per lb, Veal I have soen quoted ist »' s d, and fresh pork at Gd. I'here are. excellent nmrkets in Sydney —iil Cfeuffjo street mid this. Belwore marketswell stacked; according id tiui season"; witii fftijt and vegetables. The" cauliflowers, among tlie marked garden produce arc almost as fine as those grown at Valencia, in Spain, and at Salt Lake City, in Utah; and if the New South Welshmen would only adopt the careful system of irrigation adopted by the Valencians and the Mormons they in this luxuriant land of sunshine and rich soil might grow all the fruits of the earth in almost illimitable profusion. True it_ is that in the Sydney market, even in midwinter, you can obtain large supplies, in addition to cauliflowers and potatoes,: of other kinds of greenstuff. Pumpkins, too, are abundant, and- much more extensively eaten than at Home. The fruit is magnificent, the-, apples being in particular superb in appearance and delicious in flavour. Oranges grown in this Colony, and us near to Sydney as Parramatta (only 14 miles away), abound ; and there is a teeming wealth of pineapples and bananas from Queensland and Fiji. With all this, I doubt whether New South Wales-grown vegetables are as cheap in Sydney as they should be. I have heard of cauliflowers ■imported from Melbourne and potatoes from Now Zealand, Moreover, it is' notorious that Sydney is mainly dependent for ii regular supply of vegetables on the Colony of Chinese market-gardeners at Botany. Throughout the Colony, indeed, the condemned but useful Celestial is habitually the only provider of vegetables, Repeatedly T have asked at an upcountry lidtel what vegetables we could have for dinner, and the re ]y lias bdeji delayed be'calistf,, "the, Chinaman hadn't come yet:" fiesh'rew the_ Chinaman ! Why cannot the colonists grow their own vegetables and eat more of them? | Don't talk to me about this being a "young country "so far as the growing of greenstuff is concerned. Adam and Eve lived in a very young country indeed. Advance Australia, and do not arrive at the disastrous conclusion that the smnmum bimtm of material enjoyment has been attained when the labouring man, as he docs in this country, .can eat meat three times a day. I most earnestly wish that he would eat less.. Not for his stomach's snke—l have nothing to do.' with his digestion, but for the saKe of the. culinary art. Too much solid food—too much meat —means .invariably, .inferior cookery. I am not a vegetarian, but were I 10 years younger I declare that I would make a lecturing tour throughout the length and breadth of these magnificent Colonies,pcrsistontly preaching the doctrines of vegetarianism, always in the interests of an improved school of Colonial cookery, Of course I can guess at the cause of the present excessive consumption of animal food in Aus« tralia. Is not this not only the Land of the Golden Heece, but of gold-producing beeves as well ? The original settlers, the pioneer squatters—all honour to them—lived on the produce of their runs. They grow nothing but beef and mutton, and they and their work-people eat nothing but beef and mutton, and mutton and beef, all the year round. They get enough flour from Sydney to make their " dampers " of, and enough tea to boil in their " billies," and with this simple provand and the solace of an occasional "fig" of tobacco, these primitive shepherd kings were satisfied. There is one kindly product of mother earth which is really cultivated with energy and success in New South Wales. ■ The vineyards are spleildid. Grapes m the season are exquisite in flavour, and wonderfully cheap-=fronr Id to 3d a pound. The manufacture of wine is steadily progressing, and When the Australian viynerons can afford to keep their vintages long enough for the purpose of acquiring " character" and maturity, Australia should become one of the greatest mne'jprqducing countries in the world. As it is, the wines grown and Uiade near Alburvj in New South Wales, on the Victorian border, at the vineyards of Mi' Gallon, who lias immense cellars in Albury itself—one of them storing not less than 350,000 gallons in casks, the dimensions of which almost remind you of the Great Tun of Heidelberg—and Who has an entrepot for the sale of his wines at Sydney, are extensively Consumed throughout the' Colony, arid are beginning to acquire renown in England. At the pretty and flourishing township of Inverell, on a flat bordering: on the Macmtyre River, nearly 400 miles from Sydney, there are also numerous and important vineyards in a splendid soil; and at the house of Mr Mather, a well-known vinegrower of jtnverell, I saw a whole easeful of gold and silver medals awarded to that enterprising gentleman at different international exhibitions. On the whole, I would sooner drink Australian wines, which; after all, are the pure juice of the grape, than potato sherry from the river Elbe.

Sydney lias three distinct asi>eet's—a harbour and shipping aspect, an urban aspect; and a suburban one. Detailed notices of aquatic and maritime Sydney I must defer until time is propitious for the description of a grand " Chowder Convention," at which I was a guest some few weeks ago; at a charming spot callod Vaucluse. Of urban Sydney it would be desperately wearisome to English readers to describe the great city of Sydney and its many and j noble public buildings in guide-book. Those readers would derive but: little'profit from' tlie* information that, in addition, to George street; Pitt street; Market street; Hunter street are all handsome and busy thoroughfares full of wellstocked shops and warehouses. At a distance of so many thousands^" miles, why should I become tiresome by dwelling on the architectural magnificence of the new general post-office, of the" new town hall," of the new treasury buildings, the houses of parliament, and the courts of law, on the sylvan,- beauty of the domain—one of the .most beautiful pleasaunces. in the world—a great' recreation-ground overlooking the harbour, the Anglican and Roman Catholic cathedrals, of a multitude of other places of worship, and of .agreat host of'banks and Insurance offices. Of the splendid Gothic Hall of the Sydney University I shall have to speak at ■ some length "when I come to describe a University " Commencement" with the granting of degrees, the delivery of gubernatorial, cancel-, larial, and professional addresses, and so forth. Club life in the different Colonies I also reserve as a theme for special treatment; and I hope to be able to say something shortly about the beautiful arcades which, both at Sydney and Melbourne, lent such picturesque cheerfulness to the every-day life of the Australian cities. Finally the theatres, opera-houses, and concert halls will_ at a future time claim attention; nor shall 1 fail to say a word concerning what I may term " Madame Tussaud in Australia " —I mean the highly amusing and characteristic wax-work shows. Theseexhibitions present to the observer from Home a very curious and original interest indeed. They show him-what the convict of the remote past, and the bushranger of more recent times, were physically like. For the image both normal and material of the dark days of couvictism long since departed from this now happy and prosperous land, you must study the pages of the late Marcus Clarke's wonderful romance " For the Term of his Natural Life." In other respects urban Sydney is not unlike urban Boston or Massachusetts; but it does not—in my humble opinion at least—hear the slightest resemblance to any city that I have seen in the United States. With a very few exceptions, which I shall presently point out, Sydney is thoroughly and entirely English in its actual aspect and suggestiveness. Now you may fancy that you are wandering in Church street, Liverpool, or in Dale street, or in Market street, Manchester. • Anon you might, so you think, be in Birmingham or in Leeds. Pitt street has a savour of our Strand; Hunter street might be a part of our Holborn. The stock-in-trade m the shops—the windows of which are admirably'"dressed," in pleasing contradistinction to the dressing of American shop-windows, which is, as as a rule, very ugly, careless, and tasteless—differs in no important particular from the commodities which are retailed for sale at Home. The chemists'shops are very handsome, and you caii obtain there all and every description of article in which druggists deal at Home—from pepsinc .wine to blue pills, from stramonim to cannibis indica^from Kcating's cough lozenges to Powell's balsam of aniseed. The drugs retailed are much dearer than they should be in a freetrado Colony. A shilling pot of cold cream is only the size of a sixpenny pot in | England. Perfumery of every description is wonderfully abundant and good, and as cheap as it is at our Parkins and Gotto's or Partridge and Cooper's. The butchers' shops tiro simply splendid. Most of the large butchers are also makers of sausages, and even of the historical " polony !" The sausage-meat is admirable in quality, but they are not sufficiently unctuous ; and Australian sausages, so far as I have found them, are somewhat hard and dry. The grocers are, in the way of tea, coffee, and cocoa, pickles, preserves, canned meat, and so forth, in all respects equal to our own : but in the rural districts the grocery expands into a general store, or " everything shop," where almost anj'thing that a mortal of modest aspirations can desire is obtainable—from a spade to a box of night lights, from a perambulator to a packet of " lollies" or sugarplums, from a scrubbing brush to a sewing-machine. The Australians are, as a race, great smokers of tobacco. There are a few —a very few—tobacconists in Sydney where you can obtain a tolerably good cigar; but if you want a choice Havana you had"besfc find favour in the eyes of a manager of ;i wholesale house, who may haply import a few chests of genuine Havanas every year for their customers aiuong the weal thy squatters. The safest cigar to buy is the Manilla. In the interior the cigars sold ;u-e ordinarily of German manufacture, and are as a rule detestable. Hence vast numbers of devotees of nicotine content themselves With the peaceful pipe. The youth of the country are, to a painful extent, partial to cigarettesmoking ; but that baneful practice in Australia strikes me as falling very far .short of the almost monstrous—the maniacal proportion:; which the habit of cigtirctte-smokirit: has attained in Fwlnnd and in the States. The drapers' shops' are comely, well stocked, and well appointed. Almost everythingsoid .seems to be imported from Home. Gloves arc glove:-;—that is to say, kill gloves of the; very best quality-are about 20 percent, dearer than they arc in London. On the-oilier hand there are plenty of cheap gloves of inferior quality. Ladies' " fal-lals " differ little in their prices from Uiu rates which rule at Homo. Fresh Howerti—the loveliest I have ever scon

■ ■' -I-' s r;i. ... (;• ...,,,.,„ out of Nice or iHoren'ce—'ftStouml at a-quarter of. the price which would be cba'rge'ct fo'f, theftp in the central.avenueof Covent Garden Market. You can get a splendid " buttonhole " for threepence. Think of that, yo " Mashers ""of Regent street, ye "Johnnies" of Piccadilly, ye. " Chappies" of Pall Mall ! Colonial-madd boots are as moderate- in price as boots are in England; but the Coloniiil-nmde article leaves much to bo desired in the wny of durability. ■Thero is, however, one " native " bootmaker in Sydney who sold me. a pair of patent-leather shoes of really superior quality. To be sure ho charged me 32s for them, ready-made,'and for ready-money. Tho instances in which the aspect of Sydney differs from that of a,populous,prospcrous,chcerful, and enlightened English city are, as I have already snid, few and far between ; still they a.re distinctive) ond peculiar to Australia. I set little store by tlie fact that in many of the JQWeiiei's' sliop>windows you see the indigenous eititi egg prettily' sS!I in silveiytc) serVe--uow as a cigar-holder, now as nil ingstacd; jiotirflS a casket for. the table in a lady's bouuoir ,'. tj^t some of the goldsmiths exhibit"nu,g'get" watchchains and breast-pins of gold-bearing quart^; that models in gold and silver of the exquisitely graceful tyre bird are occasionally to be met with; and that at the taxidermist's you may see opossum, kangaroo, and wallaby skins, and the skins of a;, multitude of birds of brilliant plumage—more beautiful than any that I have ever seen out of Mexico. ■■ In London the cosmopolitan, may you not, if you keep a sharp look-out around you, see all these things around yon ? Would it so much astonish you to find emu eggs sec in gold or silver at a jeweller's in Bond street, or 'possum and kangaroo and wallaby skins at a furrier's in Regent street, or birds of strange form and rainbow plumage at a taxidermist's in Piccadilly? Sydney, the first Australian city that I beheld, struck mo as differing from an English town only in the following respects :—I found myself in what I may term " Verandah Land." Nearly all the shops have large verandahs on tile first floor, and the arcades—or " squaricacles," if I may so Call thoinj in contradistinction to the Austialian aicadea proper, which combine tho features of the Parisian passages and our Burlington and Lowther—afford a cool find sh'My promenade m hot weather and a very coinement shelter oil ■wet days. In this maivpHoUs climate, -where the nun shines brilliant^, I should pay, nb least 300 i dnjs v jfcai* the vdiftudali and tho arcade are absolute lieldssitrt's. They lend as much, pictu'iesqu'e vaiiotyto the streets df Sydney as I our own qnadiant—Nash's masteipiece, thlo of ' the few examples of street architecture of which ' Londoners could reasonably be proud, and the wanton destruction of which should ever be regretted—imparted picturcsquencss to ltegent street. There are. it is true, two w,atering-places in England—one on the sea, the other one inland —one or two of the thoroughfaros in which will give English people a faint ulcji of the aspect—;the delightful aspect—of Verandah Land in Australia. The Marina, at St Leonaids-by-Hasting.«, is one of the streets to which I.< allude, another will be found in the dear old Pantiles at Tunbridge Wells. So strongly sometimes has the " block " iuGeoigestioet, Sydney, with its pietty shops under cover, reminded mo of the Pantile that I have tried to conjure up the well-remembered strains of the famous Pantiles band of music For ti! fi e-it o musicjhon ever, at Sydney you must wait till evening Wjnyiud squaie, close to George itieet <uid the Posl-o/ilcf!, ami where is, situated Mr L. Uhde's Grand Hotel,r a very clean'and comfortable hostelry, becomes after nightfall lull of instiumental music. A German band— or is it a native one ?—renders melodies- from the "-Traviata" and tho " Trovatore" in Wynydrd square every c\rning ; and late iv the night season I havp-even hoard the enlivening drone of the Scottish bagpipe. Of street acrobats and street nigger minstrels I have not >et seen any in Sydney, and Punch's shows and fantoccini aie also conspicuous by their absence. I have not as yet been importuned, or even accosted, by a beggar in any one Australian city, town, or village in which I have soiourned. or through which I ha\e passed, al--1 hough m Sydney a \ery few ciipples and blind folk aie permitted by tho authorities to btand in quiet places, where they cannot obstruct the 1 horoughfarcs, and sell matches, or some such bm.ill w.ucs Good people at Home, please to bo.v in mind that this is a country wheie there aie no poor-rates and where there is no incometax. Theie It. a Benevolent Asylum, supported by donations., legacies, and giants of land, for Iheieliofot poor, aged, and distressed persons in the Colony. Homeless and deserted children are taken care of until they can be removed to other asylums ; but a great army of paupers, such as London, for her sins, has in'her midst, nilft always with her, is in this country absolutely non-existent. Nobody need ho poor in Australia who is able and willing to work, and the nearest approach in Australia to the English destitute is the incorrigible loafer and the incurable drunkard.

David Hanmill, who was injured by a bla,st at ■Miillocky Gully on Friday, is piogressing fa\ ourably.