150 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



The extreme point on the western side is not a wharf at all, but a reserve in 

 front of Dawes' Battery, the guns of which point eastward straight clown the Harbour ; 

 the grassy slope in front generally dotted over with nurse-maids and children makes on 

 a summer afternoon a pleasant contrast to the adjoining jetties, steamers and sheds, 

 always alive with strenuous labour. South of these jetties is the berth occupied by the 

 Peninsular and Oriental boats, one of which is always lying alongside, the lascars and 

 coolies on deck, with their red caps and blue smocks, relieving the black hull with bits 

 of foreign colour, while on the slope of the land rise the red brick offices built by the 

 old "A.S.N." Company. South of the "P. and O." steamer begins the Government 

 portion of the wharf, with a fine berth for a large vessel, and behind it may be seen 

 the Sailors' Home, the Mariners' Church and the Commissariat Store. This last is one 

 of the oldest stone buildings in the colony, plain but substantial, built of material 

 quarried on the spot, and shewing that Sydney sandstone can weather a hundred years 

 of exposure without deterioration. The centre of the crescent was once ordinary wharfage, 

 but it has now been entirely given up to waterman's stairs and for the accommodation 

 of Harbour steamers, the passenger traffic focalizing here, connected as this place is 

 with the tram service and the omnibus routes. Clustering on the water's edge, along 

 the dark stone coping of the Quay, are the waiting-rooms attached to the jetties of the 

 Harbour ferry-boats. On the eastern side, a portion of the wharf is devoted to outward- 

 bound ships, which load up their cargoes from the great produce-stores, separated from 

 the wharf by only the width of the road. Northward the Orient Company has rented 

 a portion of the wharf frontage, with one of its covered goods-sheds, and beyond that 

 again lie the boats of the l\/cssagcrics Maritinics, lively with foreign uniforms and 

 costumes, and telling of that intermingling of the peoples of many lands which follows 

 so closely in the train of commerce. Adjoining this berth is the boat-shed of the 

 Harbour Police, and next to that the steam-ferry for horses and carts which plies all 

 day long to Milson's Point. The eastern, like the western tongue, is still a public reserve, 

 the site of Fort Macquarie, one of the ancient structures, but probably destined to give 

 way to a railway-shed. Leading up to the Fort is a rocky escarpment, the pathway 

 along the summit of which has received the borrowed name of the Tarpeian Way. 



Glancing round the wharf the great produce-stores arrest the attention of the 

 observer at once, as indicating the character, as well as the extent, of the business done. 

 The largest and one of the earliest of these is Goldsborough and Mort's wool-store, 

 which occupies the whole frontage between Phillip and Castlereagh Streets. It stands 

 foursquare, simple, massive, elegant, striking as it were the key-note to the commercial 

 movement of the colony. A little distance behind it is the tall stone-built store of 

 Messrs. Harrison, Jones and Devlin, while all along the east front of the Quay runs a 

 line of stores ending with the high handsome warehouse lately built for the business of 

 Messrs. Maiden, Hill and Clark. The number and capacity of these stores tell the tale 

 of the magnitude of the business for which they were constructed, while their quality 

 displays the enterprise and taste of their proprietors, and the confidence felt in the 

 future. On the high ground behind Mort's store may be seen the upper windows of two 

 palatial structures built for the accommodation of some of the Civil Service Departments, 

 used as offices for the Colonial Secretary, the Minister for Works and the Minister for 



