SYDNEY AND PRINCIPAL TOWNS. 263 



some town lialls bear evidence to tlie generally prosperous condition 

 of tlie municipal councils and to the stability of the institutions, and 

 at the head of these stands the monumental edifice of the Sydney Town 

 Hall, completed in the centennial year. Its great hall is one of the 

 largest in the world, covering a superficial area of 14,110 feet, the 

 length, breadth, and height being respectively IGGi, 85, and Go feet. 

 The splendid proportions and 20U-feet tower of the Town Hall make 

 it a conspicuous object in the centre of the city, and a fitting centre 

 for that municipal organisation which has dotted the face of New- 

 South Wales with important and Avell-governed toAvns during the past 

 fifty years. Among other noticeable edifices which serve as the land- 

 marks of the city may be named the University and associated college 

 buildings, giving an old-world air to the scenes in which they are 

 appropriately placed ; the two cathedrals, the palatial public ofiices of 

 the Colonial Secretary, Lands, and Works; the Post Office with its 

 tower of 250 feet and its splendid Italian facade of colonnaded granite 

 and sandstone 353 feet in length ; the Museum, many of the banks, 

 insurance officers, and commercial buildings, a.nd the Australia Hotel. 

 In certain parts of the city, as in Pitt-street, the way is lined with a 

 succession of these magnificent buildings, testifying at once to the 

 wealth of the metropolis and to its position as the great commercial 

 port of the continent. 



The history of the growth of Sydney has been plainly written in its 

 ground-plan and in the direction of its streets. Here, again, we get 

 something of that distinctively old-world look which has struck so 

 many travelled observers as characteristic of this metropolis. It grew 

 lip from year to year as settlement progressed, without much fore- 

 thought, and certainly without much deliberate plan. In the old 

 charts and views the outline of what is now George-street and the 

 main artery of the city may be traced as a winding bullock-track, 

 starting from the vicinity of Dawes Point or of what was once the 

 King's Stores, and pursuing its sinuous way round obstacles and past 

 certain fixed points without any regard whatever to mathematical 

 directness. These general characteristics the great thoroughfare still 

 preserves, though its course is now marked by great buildings and the 

 most valuable business frontages in this part of the world. On the 

 promontory that lies between Circular Quay and Darling Harbour still 

 survives a good deal of picturesque old Sydney, with its rocky cuttings, 

 its narrow streets rising by steep steps, and its quaintly old-fashioned 

 houses, the whole reminding the observer in its general features more 

 of the appearance of the older parts of Naples than of what might be 

 expected in an Australasian city. The movement of progress is rapidly 

 clearing away these features, and assimilating this oldest quarter and 

 by-drift of the city to the conditions that rule everywhere else. But 

 even in the city itself the streets, which are sometimes narrow and 

 vrinding, have that picturesque and comfortable irregularity which never 

 fails to have a pleasing effect on the eye, while in the hot summer 

 months these peculiarities afford a grateful shade which the citizen 

 would sadly miss. The process of beautifying the city is continually 

 going on, not without regard to this accidental picturesqueness, though 

 the enormously increased value of street frontages is an obstacle in the 

 w-ay. In some portions of the metropolis the casual observer might 



