1 66 



A USTRALASIA ILL USTRA TED. 



, 



AN EARLY BARRACK-VAN. 



their business. This part of Sydney, which is still known as " The Rocks," has a quaint 

 Old World air about it. It has a suggestion of old Folkestone, with a touch of Wapping 

 and a reminiscence of Poplar Those who are in search of primitive Sydney will find 

 more of it here than anywhere else. What are now called hovels were once respectable 

 tenements ; but in Upper and Lower Fort Streets there are substantial houses, once the 

 homes of well-to-do merchants and skippers. The great commercial buildings have since 

 settled themselves in another direc- 

 tion, in positions more central to 

 business, and to which the access by 

 road is easier. But old Sydney still 

 remains very much as first fashioned, 

 a little straightened and smoothened, 

 but in its main outlines what it 

 originally was. 



Of late years the neighbourhood 

 of Lower George Street has become 

 the favourite haunt of the Chinese 

 immigrants, who naturally gravitated 



to the older and shabbier part of the town, and here their stores, their lodging-houses 

 and their furniture-shops abound. It is half China-town, sprinkled with Caucasian trade- 

 marks. Opium fumes are in the air, and indications also of the peculiar cookery of China. 

 Mongolian wares are seen in the windows. In the open shops the Turanian is busy making 

 and polishing furniture, and half-breed children play upon the steps. Signs and symptoms 

 of fan-tan, lotteries and other games of chance may sometimes be noticed by the initiated, 

 though the police occasionally make official raids upon these gambling establishments. The 

 Chinese show unremitting industry, and yet afford a singular contrast to the smartness 

 and enterprise of colonial commerce. Their quarter in Sydney is thoroughly intermixed 

 with European establishments, and is by no means so exclusively national as the Chinese 

 quarter in San Francisco, or even in some other Australian cities. 



The route from Lower George Street round to Miller's Point, by way of Dawes' 

 Battery, was in the early days considered inconveniently circuitous, while to take laden 

 drays over the height was out of the question. So a passage, known as the "Argyle 

 Cut," was driven through the rock, the intersected streets being preserved by means of 

 overhead bridges. This was a more important passage when first made than it is now, 

 for before Circular Quay was improved by the Government the wharves and warehouses 

 on the western side of the Point gave the principal accommodation to the shipping ; and 

 even that accommodation was subject to one great drawback, namely, the steepness of 

 all the roadways to the water's edge. The harbour-frontage is all that can be desired, 

 but the access to it is very inferior. In the early days the streets were laid out on 

 the natural gradients, for there were no funds available for expensive works and 

 bullocks and horses were left to do the best they could. The " Druitt Street test " used 

 to be the warranty given with a horse, for an animal that could draw a ton straight 

 up from Darling Harbour into George Street was considered stanch. Since the 

 commerce of Sydney has increased the inconvenient access to the wharves of Darling 



