Sydney, Thursday June 23/98.

I posted my letter on Tuesday, & while in the city I made calls upon Mr. McLean & Willie Stoddart, & while in the Civil Service Store, Willie asked me if I knew Trotter the grocer of Berwick. His son, who served his time with Christison, has a responsible position in the same store & we were soon brought face to face. I remembered he called 2 or 3 times to see me when he was in the Hartlepools. He then travelled for some firm. He was very entertaining & shewed me through the premises, & a fine interesting sight it was. They do an immense business & keep 2 shifts of men. He himself is doing well, & the climate suits him. He asked many questions about Berwick & things in general. I did tell you I thought Willie Stoddart was looking well, quite furnished. Trotter says he – Willie – gets on well. Yesterday, Wednesday, I visited the city & spent some time in the gardens (public). The Governor’s palace[1] is in these gardens, & overlook the harbour. I entered my name in the visitors’ book at the palace. The weather since Monday has been very bad & very cold, & the weather reports published daily describe the coast as very stormy. I did not expect to find such cold weather here – raw & damp & rain. Today, Thursday, I have not been out as it is not very pleasant in the city on wet days, & the rain does come down heavy in these climates. I have had a sorting up [5:5] day. I had intended, had the weather been fine, to go to the Blue Mountains & the Jenolan Caves, & from there to Bathurst to see D. Whitehead[2]. This I would have had to do on Tuesday to get back here on the Saturday, but owing to the bad weather, I did not go. The alternative was going to Melbourne by steamer, & she was detained till the Wednesday, so I did not go as the sea was reported stormy. I may go by rail after all. The Oruba goes on Saturday & she is a very beautiful steamer, however, if I go by rail, I will take a “sleeper”. There is only one train each way daily, & from here for Melbourne it leaves at 7:25 p.m. & reaches Melbourne 12:30 p.m. next day. Then from Melbourne 4:40 p.m. & arrives at Adelaide at 10 a.m. next day. Long journeys, aren’t they? Of course I break my journey at Melbourne & again at Ballaarat [sic]. I must confess, I don’t like long railway journeys. The boats are decidedly preferable if the weather be anything like, you get rest & comfort in your berth & every attention. Maggie has washed all my dirty cloth[e]s & done all very nice. They are very kind & quite pleased to have me to stay with them, & they have a comfortable house & makes me quite at home. We have so much to talk about & they do enjoy it, as I know so much they are familiar with. Besides, they get the Berwick paper weekly & are well posted up.

[5:6]

At the back of the house, they have a nice bit of ground & they have lots of violets. In fact the borders are all violets. Also they grow peaches, tomatoes, figs, passion fruits,[3] apricot. Then there are geraniums, lillies [sic] plentiful, & they cultivate vegetables, generally in the summer. Maggie still lingers after home but she begins to feel that this is her home. Her two girls are very healthy & lively, & occupy much of her time. Mr. W., as I told you, leaves at 25 to 8 every morning & gets back at 20 to 7. Saturdays home at 20 to 2. Maggie has asked often & much about Charlie & can hardly realize he is so old & big. I let her see his photo alongside his grandfather & Mr. Gradon, & she was surprised at his height. She has very happy remembrances of her associations with Mary at Berwick, & often relates her experiences & much about both mother & father. We have many very pleasant chats about the days gone by.

Now, about Sydney. It is a very fine city indeed, & its magnitude & importance grows upon you, very magnificient [sic] shops. I never saw finer good pavements, but the roads for vechiles [sic], except in the principal streets, are not good. They are soft & very uneven. The architecture is fine & some very handsome & imposing buildings. The town hall, I did tell you, is a grand building. Then the harbour. It is beyond description. The Clyde[4] in few respects resembles it with the lovely bays & residences behind. The traffic about the quays & wharves is very great & some [5:7] very fine ships & steamers are always to be seen. One sailing ship exactly like the Andorinha is laying at anchor. She had to be brought in. A terrible sight, fore mast gone by about 20 ft. from the deck & all the other rigging shattered. She was from Newcastle, NSW, with coals for the cape & caught in a gale just a few days out.[5] The trams are a great acquisition here & do much service. They are simply street railways & drag 2-3 & sometimes 4 cars, each of which seat 70. Often you see 3 so full that you find it difficult to get in. All belongs to the NSW government. Then they also have a beautiful cable service. I had a run end to end yesterday, 3 miles to Double Bay, a beautiful place, one of the many bays of the harbour, & they are laying a service near the centre of city & alongside the new market (this I did describe only very meagrely). This, I think, is to be electric. (In Brisbane they were erecting, in a street, poles exactly like we now have in Church St., centre of the street.) Sydney is rich in parks & open spaces, hundreds of acres count for little here, & the government wisely conserve open spaces. The foliage therein is most beautiful: flowers, shrubs, lillies [sic], heliotrope, camellias are abundant, large trees of them, & varied colours.[6] In fact, every variety conceivable, & all open to the public, seats plenty, & shelters here & there, lakes with fowl, black swans, &c. &c. The post office, too, is a sight well worth seeing. Its many departments all easy of access, & they are now adding another storey to its already lofty structure.

Banks & insurance offices[7] seem to possess [5:8] the choicest sites & architecture, & there are many of them. There are also some fine arcades & McLean‘s offices are in the Strand Arcade (I omitted to say, while on parks, that there are some very fine statues, large & small, in each, more especially in the one where the Governor’s palace is). Unfortunately I’ve not done much sight seeing this week so far, owing partly to the bad weather, but I do hope to see more of the district by & bye [sic]. Yesterday, Wednesday, was mail day. I called at the post office in full hope of receiving letters, but met a disappointment. No papers either. The last news I had was at Hong Kong & that was April 13th, after me coming back from Amoy. These letters informed me of father‘s death.

On Friday, June 24/98, I paid a visit to Mr. Lawson during the morning & got his second daughter’s address. She lives at Paramatta, ¾ hour rail ride from Sydney. I went there in the afternoon & found them easily. Mr. Kedge is 3rd master in the King’s College there. I found them very kind indeed, & pleased I had called. Mrs. Wood had telegraphed them I was coming. Mrs. Wood is the 4th daughter of Mr. Lawson, & he stays with her. Mr. Kedge shewed me around the school. It is similar to, but by no means so large or pretentious as, Barnard Castle. Holidays are on just now. I had tea then left a little after 6 & got home to Lewisham St. at 7. On Saturday 25th, I left Sydney[8] at 3 p.m. by SS Peregrine for Melbourne where [5:9] where [sic] I arrived yesterd[ay], Monday, at 4 p.m. I did no visiting as darkness soon set in, but I wrote to Mrs. Manning (Mary Pile’s Cousin, & daughter of Harry Colville, & sister of the Mr. Colville who visited England a few years ago. I will call on him. He is in the government offices), & told her I would visit them during this Tuesday morning about noon. Also I am going to call on James Purvis. The Whitfields were very anxious I should do so.

It is very cold here, more so than at Sydney.[9] It is about 600 miles south of Sydney, & Adelaide will be even colder. The mail leaves here tomorrow at 1 o’clock, so I will post what I have ready early tomorrow morning.

I hope all are well with you. It is quite a disappointment not to have a letter, but I do hope some are awaiting my return to Sydney.

[1] Inserted on facing page: “Governor’s palace (Sydney) NSW”.

[2] David Whitehead

[3] Inserted on facing page: “Passion fruit: egg-shaped & fine”.

[4] Inserted on facing page: “Clyde”.

[5] Typhoon that Carl Hertz describes in his autobiography?

[6] Inserted on facing page: “Sydney flowers”.

[7] Inserted on facing page: “Banks & ins. buildings”.

[8] Inserted on facing page: “Leaving Sydney”.

[9] Inserted on facing page: “Cool at Melbourne”.