As our friends were looking at the forest of masts and funnels, Harry was the first to break the silence.
“You could start from here,” he remarked, “for almost any other part of the world. You could set out for Greenland’s icy mountains or India’s coral strand with very little ease.”
“I don’t know about Greenland’s icy mountains,” said Ned, “as I don’t believe there is any line running to them from Sydney, but the P. & O. boat and several other boats will take you to India’s coral strand; of that I am sure.”
Circular Quay was formerly called Sydney Cove, and it was at the head of this little cove that the first settlement was made. It is the principal one of the coves or harbors where ships can lie, though Darling Cove is nearly as important as the one just mentioned. The sheet of water into which these coves open is called Port Jackson, and extends inland some twenty miles from The Heads. Islands of various sizes are scattered through Port Jackson, some of them occupied, and some remaining in a state of nature. Our friends planned, while strolling about Circular Quay, to make an excursion up the harbor as soon as they could do so conveniently, and then, as it was getting pretty late in the afternoon, they returned to their hotel.
On their arrival at the house they met a gentleman to whom they had a letter of introduction. He had heard of their arrival, and came to hunt them up without waiting for the delivery of their letter. This circumstance led Harry to write as follows in his journal:—
“Wherever we go we are received with the most open-handed hospitality. Persons who are entire strangers to us are always civil, ready to answer any question we ask, and every one of them seems quite willing to go out of his way to serve us. We have made the acquaintance of men in railway trains and around the hotels, or elsewhere, who have ended up a brief conversation by inviting us to visit their country places, their sheep or cattle stations, if they have any, or their business establishments in the city, and this, too, without knowing anything about us other than that we are strangers in Australia. Those to whom we have letters throw their houses open to us, and in every instance urge us to a longer stay whenever we intimate that we must depart. Those to whom we are introduced by these people are equally courteous and equally ready to show us any hospitality. The whole country seems open to us, and if we could and would accept half the invitations that have been given to us, we should remain in Australia for years, perhaps for a decade or two.
“Many Australians, some of them born here of English parents, together with natives of England who have lived here many years, complain that when they go back to the old country they are received very coldly. It is no wonder they feel that English customs are very frigid, when they contrast them with the general kindness and liberal hospitality that universally prevails throughout this island continent. Men who have received strangers as freely as is the custom here, must have a sensation of having ice water poured down their backs when they go to London or New York, and are greeted with the formality customary to those two cities.
“I have been told that it is not infrequently the case that an old Australian who goes to England with the intention of spending not less than a year there, is back in the antipodes in less than six months. The cold formality is not at all to his liking, and, as one man expressed it, he feels as though a southerly burster had dropped on him all at once; and yet his English friends are no doubt glad to see him, and have no thought whatever of giving the least offense.
“They are only adhering to the customs of centuries, and unless they themselves have been in Australia, which is very rarely the case, they cannot understand why the stranger should feel that he is being unkindly treated. I am told that thirty years ago there was the same contrast between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States, but since railways have traversed the American continent, and communication is made easier, the forms of hospitality of the peoples of the two sections have become pretty much the same.
“Of one thing you may be sure: we shall never forget the courtesies that we have received, and when we leave the shores of Australia we shall treasure long in our memories the warm hospitality which we have encountered since the day we first set foot upon Australian soil.”