Last Christmas in Australia—Start by Steamer for Sydney—The 'Great Britain'—Cheap Trips to Queenscliffe—Rough Weather at Sea—Mr. and Mrs. C. Mathews—Botany Bay—Outer South Head—Port Jackson—Sydney Cove—Description of Sydney—Government House and Domain—Great Future Empire of the South.

I spent my last Australian Christmas with my kind entertainers in Melbourne. Christmas scarcely looks like Christmas with the thermometer at 90° in the shade. But there is the same roast beef and plum-pudding nevertheless, reminding one of home. The immense garnishing of strawberries, however, now in season—though extremely agreeable—reminds us that Christmas at the Antipodes must necessarily differ in many respects from Christmas in England.

The morning after Christmas Day saw me on board the steamer 'Raugatira,' advertised to start for Sydney at eleven. Casting off from our moorings at the Sandridge pier, the ship got gradually under weigh; and, waving my last adieu to friends on shore, I was again at sea.

We steamed close alongside the 'Great Britain'—which has for some time been the crack ship between Australia and England. She had just arrived from Liverpool with a great freight of goods and passengers, and was lying at her moorings—a splendid ship. As we steamed out into Hobson's Bay, Melbourne rose up across the flats, and loomed large in the distance. All the summits seemed covered with houses—the towers of the fine Roman Catholic Cathedral, standing on the top of a hill to the right, being the last building to be seen distinctly from the bay.

In about two hours we were at Queenscliffe, inside the Heads—at present the fashionable watering place of Melbourne. Several excursion steamers had preceded us, taking down great numbers of passengers, to enjoy Boxing Day by the sea-side. The place looked very pretty indeed from our ship's deck. Some of the passengers, who had taken places for Sydney, were landed here, fearing lest the sea should be found too rough outside the Heads.

There had been very little wind when we left Sandridge, and the waters of Port Phillip were comparatively smooth. But as we proceeded, the wind began to rise, and our weather-wise friends feared lest they should have to encounter a gale outside. We were now in sight of the white line of breakers running across the Heads. There was still a short distance of smooth water before us; but that was soon passed; and then our ship dashed her prow into the waves and had to fight her way as for very life against the heavy sea that rolled in through Bass's Straits from the South Pacific.

The only distinguished passengers on board are Mr. and Mrs. Charles Mathews, who have been "starring" it in Victoria to some purpose. A few nights ago, Mr. Mathews took his leave in a characteristic speech, partly humorous and partly serious; but the enthusiastic audience laughed and cheered him all the way through; and it was rather comic to read the newspaper report of next morning, and to find that the actor's passages of the softest pathos had been received with "roars of laughter."

Mr. Mathews seems to be one of the most perennially juvenile of men. When he came on board at Sandridge, he looked as frisky and larky as a boy. He skipped up and down the deck, and took an interest in everything. This lasted so long as the water was smooth. When he came in sight of the broken water at the Heads, I fancy his spirit barometer went down a little. But when the ship began to put her nose into the waves freely, a total change seemed to pass over him. I very soon saw his retreating skirts. For the next three days—three long, rough, wave-tossing days—very little was seen of him, and when he at length did make his appearance on deck, alas! he seemed no longer the brisk and juvenile passenger that had come on board at Sandridge only a few days before.

Indeed, it was a very rough and "dirty" passage. The passengers were mostly prostrate during the whole of the voyage. The sea was rolling in from the east in great billows, which our little boat breasted gallantly; but it was tossed about like a cork, inclining at all sorts of angles by turns. It was not much that I could see of the coast, though at some places it is bold, at others beautiful. We passed very near to it at Ram Head and Cape Howe—a grand promontory forming the south-west point of Australia.

On the third day from Melbourne, about daybreak, I found we were steaming close along shore, under dark brown cliffs, not very high, topped with verdure. The wind had gone down, but the boat was pitching in the heavy sea as much as ever. The waves were breaking with fury and noise along the beach under the cliffs. At 9 a.m. we passed Botany Bay—the first part of New South Wales sighted by Captain Cook just a hundred years ago. It was here that he first landed, and erected a mound of stones and a flag to commemorate the event.[14] Banks and Solander, who were with him, found the land covered with new and beautiful flowers, and hence the name which was given it, of "Botany Bay"—afterwards a name of terror, associated only with crime and convict life.

We steamed across the entrance to the bay, until we were close under the cliffs of the outer South Head, guarding the entrance to Port Jackson. The white Macquarie lighthouse on the summit of the Head is seen plainly at a great distance. Steaming on, we were soon under the inner South Head, and at the entrance to the famous harbour, said to be the finest in the world.

The opening into Port Jackson is comparatively narrow,—so much so, that when Captain Cook first sailed past it, he considered it to be merely a boat entrance, and did not examine it. While he was at breakfast, the look-out man at the mast-head—a man named Jackson—reported that he saw the entrance to what seemed a good anchorage; and so the captain, half in derision, named it "Port Jackson." The Heads seemed to me only about four hundred feet apart from each other, the North Head somewhat overlapping the South. The rocks appear to have broken off abruptly, and stand up perpendicularly over against each other, about three hundred feet high, leaving a chasm or passage between them which forms the entrance to Port Jackson. When the Pacific rolls in full force against the Heads, the waves break with great violence on the cliffs, and the spray is flung right over the lighthouse on the South Head. Now that the sea has gone somewhat down, the waves are not so furious, and yet the dash of the spray half-way up the perpendicular cliffs is a grand sight.

Once inside the Heads, the water becomes almost perfectly calm; the scenery suddenly changes; the cliffs subside into a prettily-wooded country, undulating and sloping gently to the water's edge. Immediately within the entrance, on the south side, is a pretty little village—the pilot station in Watson's Bay. After a few minutes' more steaming, the ship rounds a corner, the open sea is quite shut out from view, and neither Heads nor pilot station are to be seen.

My attention is next drawn to a charming view on the north shore—a delicious little inlet, beautifully wooded, and surrounded by a background of hills, rising gradually to their highest height behind the centre of the little bay. There, right in amongst the bright green trees, I observe a gem of a house, with a broad terrace in front, and steps leading down to the clear blue water. A few minutes more, and we have lost sight of the charming nook, having rounded the headland of the inlet—a rocky promontory covered with ferns and mosses.

But our attention is soon absorbed by other beauties of the scene. Before us lies a lovely island prettily wooded, with some three or four fine mansions and their green lawns sloping down to the water's edge; while on the left, the hills are constantly varying in aspect as we steam along. At length, some seven miles up Port Jackson, the spires and towers and buildings of Sydney come into sight; at first Wooloomooloo, and then in ten minutes more, on rounding another point, we find ourselves in Sydney Cove, alongside the wharf. Here we are in the midst of an amphitheatre of beauty,—a wooded island opposite covered with villas and cottages; with headlands, coves and bays, and beautiful undulations of lovely country as far as the eye can reach. Altogether, I think Port Jackson is one of the most charming pieces of water and landscape that I have ever seen.

After our three days tossing at sea, I was, however, glad to be on shore again; so, having seen my boxes safely deposited in the Californian baggage depÔt, I proceeded into the town and secured apartments for the few days I was to remain in Sydney.

From what I have already said of the approach to the landing, it will be inferred that the natural situation of Sydney is very fine. It stands upon a ridge of sandstone rock, which runs down into the bay in numerous ridges or spines of land or rock, between which lie the natural harbours of the place; and these are so deep, that vessels of almost any burden may load and unload at the projecting wharves. Thus Sydney possesses a very large extent of deep water frontage, and its wharfage and warehouse accommodation is capable of enlargement to almost any extent. Of the natural harbours formed by the projecting spines of rock into the deep water, the most important are Wooloomooloo Bay, Farm Cove, Sydney Cove, and Darling Harbour.

From the waterside, the houses, ranged in streets, rise like so many terraces up to the crown of the ridges,—the main streets occupying the crests and flanks of two or three of the highest. One of these, George Street, is a remarkably fine street, about two miles long, containing many handsome buildings.

My first knowledge of Sydney was acquired in a stroll up George Street. We noticed the original old market-place, bearing the date of 1793; a quaint building, with queer old-fashioned domes, all shingle-roofed. A little further on, we came to a large building in course of erection—the new Town Hall, built of a yellowish sort of stone. Near it is the English Cathedral—a large and elegant structure. Further on, is the new Roman Catholic Cathedral,—the original cathedral in Hyde Park having been burnt down some time ago.

Altogether, Sydney has a much older look than Melbourne. It has grown up at longer intervals, and does not look so spic and span new. The streets are much narrower and more irregular—older-fashioned, and more English in appearance—occasioned, doubtless, by its slower growth and its more hilly situation. But it would also appear as if there were not the same go-ahead spirit in Sydney that so pre-eminently characterises her sister city. Instead of the splendidly broad, well-paved, and well-watered streets of Melbourne, here they are narrow, ill-paved, and dirty. Such a thing as the miserable wooden hut which serves for a post-office would not be allowed to exist for a day at Melbourne. It is the original office, and has never been altered or improved since it was first put up. I must, however, acknowledge that a new post-office is in course of erection; but it shows the want of public spirit in the place that the old shanty should have been allowed to stand so long.

The railway terminus, at the end of George Street, is equally discreditable. It is, without exception, the shabbiest, dirtiest shed of the kind I have ever seen. 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.

One of the busiest parts of Sydney is down by the quays, where a great deal of shipping business is carried on. There are dry docks, patent slips, and one floating dock; though floating docks are of minor importance here, where the depth of water along shore is so great, and the rise and fall of the tide is so small. Indeed, Sydney Harbour may be regarded as one immense floating dock. The Australasian Steam Navigation Company have large ship-building and repairing premises at Pyrmont, which give employment to a large number of hands. Certainly, the commanding position of Sydney, and the fact of its being the chief port of a great agricultural and pastoral country in the interior, hold out the promise of great prosperity for it in the future.

Every visitor to Sydney of course makes a point of seeing the Government House and the Domain, for it is one of the principal sights of the place. The Government buildings and park occupy the double-headed promontory situated between Wooloomooloo Bay and Sydney Cove. The Government House is a handsome and spacious castellated building, in every way worthy of the colony; the views from some parts of the grounds being of almost unparalleled beauty. There are nearly four miles of drives in the park, through alternate cleared and wooded grounds,—sometimes opening upon cheerful views of the splendid harbour, then skirting the rocky shores, or retreating inland amidst shadowy groves and grassy dells. The grounds are open to the public, and the entrances being close upon the town and suburbs, this public park of Sydney is one that for convenience and beauty, perhaps no capital in the world surpasses.

The Botanical Gardens are situated in what is called the outer Domain. We enter the grounds under a long avenue of acacias and sycamores, growing so close together as to afford a complete shade from the noonday heat. At the end of the avenue, we came upon a splendid specimen of the Norfolk Island pine, said to be the largest and finest tree out of the island itself. After resting for a time under its delicious shade, we strolled on through other paths overhung with all sorts of flowering plants; then, passing through an opening in the wall, a glorious prospect of the bay suddenly spread out before us. The turf was green down to the water's edge, and interspersed with nicely-kept flower beds, with here and there a pretty clump of trees.

Down by the water side is a broad esplanade—the most charming of promenades—running all round the beautiful little bay which it encloses. Tropical and European shrubs grow in profusion on all sides; an English rose-tree in full bloom growing alongside a bamboo; while, at another place, a banana throws its shadow over a blooming bunch of sweet pea, and a bell-flowered plant overhangs a Michaelmas daisy. A fine view of the harbour and shipping is obtained from a part of the grounds where Lady Macquarie's chair—a hollow place in a rock—is situated;—itself worth coming a long way to see. Turning up the gardens again, we come upon a monkey-house, an aviary, and—what interested me more than all—an enclosed lawn in which were numerous specimens of the kangaroo tribe, from the "Old Boomer" standing six feet high, down to the Rock kangaroo not much bigger than a hare. We hung about, watching the antics of the monkeys and the leapings of the kangaroos until it was time to take our departure.

The country inland, lying to the south of Sydney, is by no means picturesque. Much of it consists of sandy scrub, and it is by no means fertile, except in the valleys. But nothing can surpass the beauty of the shores of the bay as far up as Paramatta, about twenty miles inland. The richest land of the colony lies well into the interior, but the time at my disposal was too short to enable me to do more than visit the capital, with which the passing stranger cannot fail to be greatly pleased.

Altogether, it seems a wonderful thing that so much should have been done within so short a time towards opening up the resources of this great country. And most wonderful of all, that the people of a small island like Britain, situated at the very opposite side of the globe, some sixteen thousand miles off, should have come hither, and within so short a time have built up such cities as Sydney and Melbourne,—planted so large an extent of territory with towns, and villages, and farmsteads—covered its pastures with cattle and sheep—opened up its mines—provided it with roads, railroads, and telegraphs, and thereby laid the firm foundations of a great future empire in the south. Surely these are things of which England, amidst all her grumblings, has some reason to be proud!

Auckland, New Zealand. Auckland, New Zealand.