Daylight found a few of us kindred spirits on deck in pyjamas sniffing the keen ozone-laden air, and watching with awe and admiration the amazing miracle of the sunrise. And here let me say that while I have often experienced terrific weather in these waters, I know of no other part of the world where, when the weather is fine, a man can feel the zest of living more keenly than he can here even in summer if he be up early. But now, in what they call winter, it is delightful beyond expression. It is revivifying to the invalid who withers under a cold blast and languishes in the warm airs, but having the air exactly tempered to the happy medium cannot but feel the desire of life return, the malaise of feeble health passing away until existence puts on bright hues and the greyness of things disappears as do the morning mists before the conquering sun. We linger on and on, trying to pick out once familiar headlands from the blue outlines of the land far on our port beam, until the warning bugle sends us scurrying below, etiquette demanding that all déshabille be tabu after 8 a.m. But only fools and ladies linger long over their toilet on board ship. Experience soon teaches the landsman to be like the sailor in that respect, and so most of us are on deck again in a few minutes, unwilling to miss the gorgeous panorama of Bass's Straits near Wilson's Promontory, which we are rapidly nearing. Here is that marvellous dome of rock rising sheer from the sea to a height of about 400 feet, and almost as symmetrical as St. Peter's, except that on the southern side a huge cavern, whose floor is 40 feet above high-water and whose roof is over 100 feet high, has been scooped out by the hand of Nature—a cave inaccessible save by the sea-birds, whom, however, I have never seen entering it: a place that impels the beholder to dare all dangers in order to investigate its mysteries, but even on a day like this, when the ocean is peaceful as the bosom of a sleeping child, the gigantic swell of the South thunders up against those sheer walls of rock, and says, in unmistakable language, that for any intruder it is the place of death.
But we glide rapidly past it at our sixteen miles an hour, round the much-dreaded Wilson's Promontory, which seems to be a gathering-point of storms, and along the picturesque coast, passing on our way many inter-colonial steamers befouling the bright air with their black columns of smoke, the coal they burn being native, and not of a quality conducive to clean burning; that is reserved to the coal from Wales which we are still using, and in consequence showing but a misty feather from our twin funnels hardly discernible against the sky. This is the invaluable fuel which we are so eagerly selling to our enemies to be used against us in the near future. But, of course, when we give away our trade with both hands, when we send abroad our best bone and muscle, and employ wastrel alien labour instead, a little thing like selling our incomparable naval coal to the enemy is a mere detail. I was asked the other day why Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and his henchmen did not, while in power, make short work of their opportunities and invite the Germans to take possession of South Africa, tell the Colonies to look after themselves, and suggest that it was unchristian to keep Great Britain under British rule, since it was manifestly more righteous, according to Bannerman, Massingham, Stead & Co. that it should be run by Michael or Uncle Sam than by John Bull & Co. This question I could not answer, but it was a fair sample of what every nation in the world thinks of us to-day. It is about the only thing they are agreed upon—that Britain is a sort of Jubilee Juggins, in the common slang, who stands in the market-place and invites the tricksters and the shysters of the world to come and divide between them not merely the contents of his pockets but his heritage. It is fast becoming difficult to avoid being ashamed to bear the name of Englishman.
But we are nearing Sydney and all my interest is at concert pitch, for with the exception of a couple of days, while on my passage South from Brisbane in '80, I have not been here for thirty-five years. Of course I know that the amazing beauties of Port Jackson cannot be altered by the hand of man, but I am very curious to see what the superficial changes are. In the glory of a perfect morning we draw near the Heads, so close in that I am able to pick out the track of the electric cars going to Bondi or Botany Bay, the only alteration that I can see. When to me comes a young gentleman with an awful (yes, I can't help the word) collar that almost decapitates him, and seizing me by the arm, exclaims with almost frenzied eagerness, "D'you see that gap there? That's where the Dunbar was lost, lemme see, ever so many years ago. Y'ore a stranger, come in the smoke-room and have a drink, an' I'll tell you all about it." (At 7.30 a.m.!) I gaze upon him benignantly, allowing no facial sign to betray the fact that when lamp-trimmer of the old A.S.N. Co.'s boats out here thirty-five years ago I had made many grateful shillings and eke half-crowns retailing that yarn to wondering passengers. And he beams upon me through his gold-rimmed spectacles as he retails a mass of distorted fact, what time I cling to the rail and refuse to be drawn smoke-roomwards at any hazard, for I want, in the words of Wan Lung, "makee looksee go in." He finally concludes with the encomium, "Well, old chap, you're a good listener, anyhow. Come and dig me out, won't you? I room at so-and-so, and I'll show you Sydney, real; I was born here." I compose my features and accept his card, never once, thank goodness, losing command of my features; but I am equally grateful to say that I never saw him again, knowingly.
A swift pilot steamer ranges alongside, drops a boat as smartly as heart could wish, and (I timed it) in eight minutes from our "slow down" bell we were going full speed for the entrance and the boat was rehoisted on board the pilot steamer, she making frantic efforts to keep up with us as we swept grandly in for the narrow entrance. And then came the old familiar thrill as, sweeping round the South Head with the helm almost hard a-starboard, we open the harbour, so cunningly hidden by nature that even our greatest navigator sailed past it and did not realise what lay within. The frowning scarp of the North Head towered above us in all its grim majesty, the wake made a perfect semicircle on the glassy sea, and, behold, the opening closed in behind us and all the lovely panorama of the most beautiful harbour in the world unfolded before us as we glided swiftly towards our goal. My longing eyes saw little change as yet. All was as it had been—a few dwellings dotted here and there as if haphazard among the wooded eminences, except that the trolley lines showed up here and there. A pause for the doctor, a merely perfunctory visit anyhow, and away we went again, turning a sudden corner which showed me what a splendid city Sydney has become. But a spasm of horror went through me as I noticed that the city was enshrouded in a pall of filthy smoke belching from a forest of chimneys and hiding its beauties most effectually. And I wondered mightily at the gall of Sydney folks whom I had met in London complaining about our atmosphere! However, that is a reflection that will continually occur to the Londoner, abroad especially, after he has grown to accept it as unanswerable that London is the grimiest, gloomiest, and altogether most uninhabitable city in the world. I suppose it is a part of our national magnanimity to acquiesce in all the hard things that are said of us and the vaunts of our visitors, but I don't know whether the time has not arrived when we might with advantage talk back, in some directions at any rate.
It is now that the visitor, returning after the lapse of many years, realises for the first time what immense changes time has wrought in the appearance of a place once so familiar. Adelaide, and even Melbourne, do not impress one until close attention has been paid and improvements pointed out by residents, for in their general aspect they remain the same as they did a quarter of a century ago. But Sydney bursts upon the view, dominating its magnificent bay as the veritable Queen of the Waters, and when seen in the early dawn, before the aforesaid disfiguring pall of black smoke has been spread, beautiful and picturesque to the limit of expression. But it is in the aspect of the harbour itself that a seafarer will find the greatest change. When I came here first, thirty-five years ago, Sydney was most noticeable for the magnificent fleets of noble sailing ships that lay reposing in all their stately beauty on the waters adjacent to the city, or were ranged all around the Circular Quay. All the grand old classic names which thrill the hearts of old sailors with memories of wonderful ocean races are associated with Sydney as with no other port in the world. The splendid fleets of Devitt and Moore, of George Thompson, the Duthies, Greens, Wigrams, represented by such flyers as the Thermopylæ, Sobraon, Parramatta, Brilliant, Abergeldie, Superb, and a host of others whose names leap to the memory, lay here as much at home as they were in London, and of course seen to much greater advantage. For Sydney lends itself so easily and naturally to maritime display, and its visitors were almost invariably of the aristocracy of the sea. No ship could hope to compete successfully for the immense valuable freightage of wool unless she were of the highest class and speed, and had also good passenger accommodation. And so the noble company of vessels which burst upon the beholder's gaze as his vessel rounded the quaint little island fort of Pinchgut impressed him mightily.
Steam was in those days only just beginning to make itself felt in shipping out here. The P. & O. sent an infrequent ship, and a company had just crept into being which was endeavouring to institute a steam service from the Old Country with a few vessels of poor size and low power; but the dainty clippers ignored these grimy interlopers, looking down upon them as if with conscious pride in their own beauty from their splendid panoply of tophamper soaring into the skies. The Australasian coasting trade was beginning to be dominated by steamers which, however, in those days, were a collection of the quaintest freaks ever seen outside of a naval museum of antiquities. Yet such as they were they earned golden harvests for their owners in spite of their evil accommodation, their snail-like pace, and general unpunctuality. The food supplied was good and plentiful, if fairly rough in its preparation, and in any case the Colonial coasting passengers had not then learned to be fastidious. But these vessels used to sneak into Sydney and past the splendid host of sailing ships into their own out-of-the-way corner, as if ashamed of their ungainly hulls and their habit of befouling the bright air with the belching black clouds from their funnels—the result of burning native coal. They never dared to aspire to an honoured glance at the swagger curve of Circular Quay or Sydney Cove; that was reserved for sailing ships alone. It is a beautifully-shaped indentation in the shores of the harbour, the bow of which comes into what might be called the heart of the city. Its waters are deep and uniform; in fact, it is a natural dock of the most perfect type and in the most suitable place. But in those days its shores were sloping and unembanked, so that the ships were moored as close to as they could get, and long, massive stages connected them with the bank, for it was so sheltered that this primitive arrangement was quite undisturbed by weather.
That is all altered now. There is as great a change as from the Dido and Basilisk, ancient men-of-war of the Australasian Squadron of those days to the Powerful and Challenger lying in Farm Cove adjacent, which we have just passed. The few sailing ships that are here now are anchored in out-of-the-way coves far from the city, and they look as if pitifully aware that they are only here on sufferance, that their day of pride and power has gone, never to return.