84 AUSTRALIAN PICTURES. 



1 Complete your picture of the present by a glance up the long estuaries 

 of the Paramatta and Lan Cove rivers, and a look across the rolling 

 woodlands westward to the giant barrier of the Blue Mountains. Look also 

 across the harbour, where right below you the round tower of Fort Dennison 

 stands in mid-channel, and a little lower down the perfect half moon of 

 Rose Bay, blue as the sky above. Look down to the Heads, where a dozen 

 craft are entering upon the long huge rollers which break upon bluff Dobroyd 

 opposite, or die down to ripples upon the innumerable beaches of Middle 

 Harbour. Watch the many lights and colours of the water, the ultramarine 

 of the mid-channel, the indigo in the shadow of the hills, the emerald of a 

 strip close beneath the cliff, where no wind moves, nor any pulse of tide or 

 ocean stir is felt ; the glories of opal and amber, where fierce sun rays 

 burn about rocky shores. 



' Take in all the greatness and beauty of the present, and then try to 

 realise the picture in the square miles of buildings already raised. You 

 can see how they are growing, how far away to south and west, and 

 through the forest and beside the waters of the north coast, houses and 

 establishments of various kinds are rising like avant couriers of the compact 

 masses whose advance is by no means slow. Look from them to a point of 

 the city where roofs and chimneys are most closely packed, where the smoke 

 of the labour of human life seems ascending perpetually, and you may see a 

 succession of white puffs, and hear a louder, sharper pulse of toil pierce the 

 low murmur of distant and multitudinous sounds, and you know that you look 

 upon the present centre of the railway system of the colony ; you have fixed 

 your eye upon the focussing point of two thousand miles of railways. These 

 are the feeders of the city ; these reaching out divide and grip and drain the 

 colony. They gather its produce, the results of its labour, and bring them 

 down to this city, which stands without rival or competitor along 800 miles of 

 coast. 



' Let us travel along each of these lines, radiating somewhat as the fingers 

 of a spread hand from south to north. 



' The South Coast Railway, the most recently opened and not yet completed 

 line, runs down the south coast to Kiama. This line is a purveyor of many 

 luxuries and necessaries of life, leading out first to broad suburban breathing 

 grounds on the country between the southern bank of Port Jackson and 

 Botany Bay, making a hundred square miles of good building country 

 accessible, crossing the historic bay three miles up the tidal estuary of 

 George River, crossing a somewhat barren plateau, and arriving at the National 

 Park. It penetrates next vast forests and overruns tremendous gorges, wind- 

 ing about precipices, and getting down by a way of its own to the country 

 at the foot of the Bulb Pass. All the seaward slopes and ravines of this 

 pass are as a vast natural conservatory. They take all the morning sun, they 

 are never touched by western or southern wind, they are plentifully watered 



