That was written by a poet of another harbour, but it catches better than any description I can give, the life, the humanity of Sydney Harbour.
It will be the same, perhaps not less beautiful, fifty years hence. But people who have lived there long, look at the encroaching villas of Mosman’s Bay, and all the suburbs on that side, and say rather sadly, “I can remember the time—ten years ago, twenty ... when there wasn’t a house there.” And one cannot help an apprehension lest in years to come, the tree-clothed heights and headlands may not all be whity-brown with the houses of citizens. Doubtless on the side of the harbour opposite to Circular Quay another Sydney will spring up which will be to the old one what Brooklyn is to New York, and will have its own factories and its own Mayor. One can hope only that it will grow up maintaining some idea of public parks—which ought all to come down to the water, and fend off the encroachments of houses—and of town-planning. There is plenty of room now. Room will be dearer later on.
Sydney itself is an object-lesson. It is a fine town in parts. It has a fine park. Macquarie Street is fine; so is the enclosure of the University; and there are the Botanic Gardens, and the Domain. You cannot ask for better than that. At least I cannot, who am a Cockney, and found in Sydney a town which had grown up haphazard very much like London. Its best streets rather narrow and far from straight, just like London’s; its Circular Quay bearing signs of reform that must have been very much needed; its plebeian insertion of Wooloomooloo dropped in the middle of the town much as Clare Market and Drury Lane were, or are, left in between the Strand and Holborn. To a Londoner Sydney will always be a homelike place. Those who live there will seem to him like lifelong friends, and it will be his fault if they are any less.
The Glasgow Scot, it will be remembered, said that Glasgow was a gran’ place to get out from; and New South Wales is very accessible from Sydney. During most of the year the inhabitants do not live very far from the city; for it is so much more easy to reach the spring woodlands, the summer and the sun than it is from London. Manly Beach and surf-bathing are just over the road; Broken Bay, where the simple life presents itself without affectation, is round the corner; Pitt Water and sounds and creeks and broads, where in September the wild swans come, are a cycle ride away. In the background hover the Blue Mountains; rather mysterious heights, because the light reflected from the glossy leaves of the trees which wrap these hills as closely as fur, gives always to them a bluish sheen. Even Melbourne admits the Blue Mountains, and says without grudging that nowhere is there anything quite like them. In the hot days of summer ... it can be hot in Australia—once on a scorching day at Lord’s I remember that Jim Phillips, the umpire in many Test matches, responded to a remark on the heat: “Hot? Why, in Australia they’d call this ‘a break in the heatwave!’” ... in the hot days of summer people take bungalows in the Blue Mountains and come by morning train to town. It is worth it. In the winter, by way of contrast, the holidaymakers can go still farther up-country, and obtain ski-ing.
CHAPTER XIV
SYDNEY AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD
The approach to Sydney by rail lies through wooded hills with beautiful views of dark ranges in the distance. It had been raining overnight, and everything was glistening in the early morning sun that lighted up the red shoots of the gum trees. Along the line were small encampments of workmen, who have to live under canvas to be within reach of their employment on the railway.
We had been told that Sydney would be very hot, but our first impression was one of all-pervading moisture, for after the long spell of dusty, dry weather, the rain had caught us up at last; a fine driving rain that made everything sodden. Our host met us at the station, and took us to identify our luggage, which was lying in the mud on another platform. Our first view of Sydney was of tall houses crowded together in narrow streets, more like those of a European town; for the city has grown up anyhow, instead of being schemed on the rectangular, spacious plan of the newer capitals. We caught passing glimpses of fine buildings and open spaces, “Hyde Park,” and Macquarie Street, the Harley Street of Sydney, where all the doctors live, advertising their whereabouts with immense brass plates on the railings of their houses.
Descending this broad street, we were on the famous Sydney Harbour, the most beautiful in the world, Valparaiso its only rival. One always thinks of a harbour as a round place full of shipping, with crowded, dirty wharfs. Sydney Harbour is quite different from this; it is a series of creeks running up into the land, its different arms separated by wooded hills, whose trees are rapidly disappearing in a tide of villas. Wherever you are in Sydney, you are never far away from some fresh aspect of the harbour.
Our car ran on to a steam-ferry, already crowded with cars and carts, climbed the bank on the other side, and passing a terrace of houses, like an old-fashioned London suburb, drew up at a garden gate. We never saw anything prettier in Australia than that garden. A sloping tree-shaded lawn, bordered by grey, close-clipped salt bush, led down to an old house, chocolate-coloured, two-storied, gabled. On the right of the path was a large tree, still bare of leaves, but covered with long, scarlet blossoms. It was the coral-tree (erythrina), common in the warm north-eastern latitudes of Australia. The house itself had an old-world charm, and a certain exquisite freshness that caused us some anxiety as to the effect of our very travel-stained luggage on its spotless interior; but the wise Australian hostess, whom long experience has acquainted with the treatment her guests’ trunks will have received at the hands of railway officials, sets an uncarpeted room apart for their reception. Here the muddy, battered things are deposited, and their owner can gingerly approach them there, for it is not usual in Australian households for the maids to unpack visitors’ luggage, and, generally speaking, one may say this is fortunate for the visitor.