Five Years Under the Southern Cross: Experiences and Impressions. Frederic C. Spurr

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.

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      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.