Sydney, Wednesday June 15th, 1898.[1]

I posted my journal at Brisbane on Saturday afternoon. The mail was due to close at 6:20 on Monday morning for England, & the train I came on here with carried the bags. On Saturday afternoon I went to Mr. Ferguson‘s by appointment & spent a very cheery time till after 10 o’clock. His wife’s brother & wife & boy was there on a passing visit, & all had tea together. Mr. & Mrs. Barr is the name. Mrs. Ferguson had come out here about 3 years ago & assisted Mr. Barr in the business, wholesale & retail fruiter. So also are the Finlaysons fruiters. Mrs. Finlayson is Mr. Ferguson‘s sister. They have a fine family all up grown & doing. After Mr. & Mrs. Barr left, we went into the Finlaysons’, 3 doors away, & spent the night very pleasantly (Glasgow folk). On Sunday forenoon I went to one of the Presbyterian churches, Revd. Mr. McQueen, Wickham Terrace Presby. Church. He has only been here 4 Sundays. They called him from Melbourne. He is a handsome looking man, prematurely grey but very sweet features & comely to look upon, & a wonderful rare voice, & I enjoyed the service thoroughly. Good choir, fine organ, & a congregation, I should say, 4 to 500, & I was told at night the aisles are seated too. After the “voluntary”, the choir stand up, so do congregation, & sing “Praise God from whom all blessings flow”, then the minister began the service by intimating the singing of the 125 Ps. Service exact ours, even to children’s sermon & hymn 427, “Come children join to sing”. Church praise is used. After the 125 Ps. then prayer, then Hy. 262, 427, 272, lessons, Ps. 121 & Ps. 125 & 2 for text, “As the mountains are round about Jerusalem” &c. &c. The children’s text was “Give us this day our daily bread”, & nice he was with little folk. I did enjoy it.

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One of the sons Finlayson, who is delicate & lives at Maryborough, up the coast from Brisbane (they carry on a business there also), who is down home. He is married & has his wife with him, not long joined. He trysted[2] to meet me at the Presby. Church door ¼ to 11 (he likes the new minister), so we sat together & his folk was [sic] at the door when we came out, waiting for him with their conveyance. They attend the Wesleyan, so does Fergusons. Mr. Ferguson‘s brother was senior minister at Loftus in Cleveland Wesleyan Church, & died there. Mr. Scarborough preached his funeral sermon. They have the paper, so they let me read it, & Mr. F. was quite pleased when I told him I knew Mr. Scarborough, but he wasn’t aware he had, soon after going to Darlington from W. H’pool, died.

In the afternoon I went alone into the park & botanical gardens. Very spacious park, but poor gardens. These are on the river bank. Many people were squatted about & seated under shady trees. It was very hot during the afternoon. At night I went to the Wesleyan Church. Service commences at 7:30. Mr.  & Mrs.  Ferguson called for me at 7 o’clock. Beautiful church & has a very grand, costly organ, & a fine choir, which are a great attraction on account of the music.

I have a fly sheet on which the service is printed, the night service being called, “the people’s service”. Mr. Ferguson has a fine pony & carriage, & on Friday afternoon, he came to hotel for me & gave me a drive around the city. This I think I did tell you in my former writing.

On Monday at 7:30, I left Brisbane for Toowoomba. It is on the direct line to Sydney, 5 hours’ ride from Brisbane. On arrival at station, the train stops 20 minutes, & luckily for me it was so, as after having all my baggage turned out of van, [4:42] intending to stay in Toowoomba all night, & resume journey next day by same train (only one train daily) & intending to call upon Dr. Hogg at the asylum, which it appears is about 4 miles off, so the porter told me. It occurred to me I might telephone to him, should there be telephone service. I enquired, & the station master had the service in his office. I found him in, fortunately, & he told me Dr. Hogg had gone home about a fortnight ago, out of health. I thanked him & hurried to have my baggage replaced, & resumed the journey through to Sydney, where I arrived at 11:40 a.m. Tuesday. I had intended breaking journey at Newcastle, where we arrived at 8 o’clock. I had breakfast in the refreshment room. It was so very foggy & damp, & so uninviting, that I considered it wiser to go right on. The station is quite close to the shipping & through the fog, could just see ships’ masts.

We passed Morpeth & several familiar named places en route. The railway journed [sic] is by no means interesting, all forest & bush. Some of the points are rather pretty, especially between Brisbane & Toowoomba, rising ground all the way there. The famous “Darling Downs”, where the land is so rich & under cultivation, is very fine. Orange groves are numerous hereabouts, & much country cleared of trees. Here & there all the route you see clearings & squatters. You see real pioneering here, where settlers from home have taken up land & cleared it for either grazing or cultivation. Only the “Darling Downs” seemed to be cultivated & under plough, very black, rich soil. I only saw one Kangaroo on all the journey. Of course, it was dark at 6 & until nearly 7 the next morning. We had to leave [4:43] the Queensland train at the frontier of NS Wales. The former is narrow gauge & the latter the broad, & here on entering Queensland from NS Wales, all baggage & merchandise is examined by the customs. NS Wales is a free colony, so no examination on coming into it, so all we had to do was just to change trains across the platform. Luggage is all looked after & checks given each passenger for same, & at destination give porter these checks, & he looks after the baggage. The scenery between Newcastle & Sydney is very fine at parts. The Hawkesbury River, a fine stretch of water, studded with islands & residences on the banks of the river where, I suppose, merchants & others reside. Easy distance from Sydney. The Newcastle region is all collierys[3] [sic] & the coal shipped at that port. Very busy it is. It sounded quite home-like to hear these familiar places named. Sydney I hope to view at leisure. On my arrival, I went to the Oxford Hotel, a very fine house, & central. I went to p. office for letters, & amongst these was one from Mr. Whitfield inviting me to stay with them & gave me his address in the city, where I would find him. I went in the afternoon & arranged I should remove from the hotel. So I got a van & had my baggage conveyed to his home, a long way out from city center. A suburb, but few people live in or about the city. Only they who are compelled. It is cooler outside & trams, busses [sic], & trains are available every few minutes. By tram, it only takes about 13 minutes, station to station, & the house is only 10 minutes from the station, and train 3 minutes.

(I leave off here & will resume it tomorrow morning.)

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[1] Inserted on facing page: “700 miles Brisbane to Sydney”.

[2] To make an appointment or arrange a meeting with.

[3] A coal mine and its connected buildings.