Maturin Ballou - Under the Southern Cross

On the way back to our hotel from visiting the Art Gallery we stopped at the Free Public Library, which contains over one hundred thousand volumes arranged after a most admirable system. Not only do the immediate residents of the city and its environs enjoy the advantages of this collection, but the books are sent all over New South Wales, upon application from local authorities, in boxes containing one hundred volumes each, free of transportation. To secure this privilege in any instance, it is only necessary for the town authorities to sign a bond, making themselves responsible for the return of the books within a given period, or agreeing to pay for any that are lost. This system of distribution, we were told, worked admirably, involving no loss and no more wear and tear than any other consistent use of the books, while the benefits of the library are thus extended to half a million of people.

Another circulating library, known as Maddock's Select Library, was found in George Street, after the style of Mudie's in London, or Loring's in Boston, the object of which was to supply its patrons with the best books and serial publications as soon as published. Besides the periodical literature of the day, this establishment contains thousands of standard books, which are constantly lent for a moderate sum to the reading public. This library, we were told, has been established for twenty years, and has really become a city institution. It is only upon visiting places which do not possess such convenient literary resorts that one can properly estimate their public value and importance.

Walking about the wharves in the early morning we one day saw and awaited the mooring of the incoming boat from Parametta. It was crowded with merchants' clerks, shop-keepers, and business people generally who are employed in the city during the day, but who return to their suburban homes to sleep. Among these were women from the shores of the river and harbor, with baskets of cut-flowers for the Sydney market. They were all neatly dressed, bright-looking girls and women, as rosy as their lovely wares. Some of them had two long light frames of wire which they carried in each hand, and in the openings of which were double rows of flowers, enabling each girl to carry a score and more of bouquets. These were glowing with morning freshness imparted by "some sweet mystery of the dew," and were composed of camellias in three or four colors, lilies of the valley, blue violets, and tea-roses, with sheltering borders of maiden's-hair fern and other varieties of green. All these were of out-door growth. Truly, flowers are appreciated, cultivated, and loved all over the world; even here in Eldorado they delight the eye with their beauty and the senses with their fragrance.

A brief day devoted to a trip from Sydney to the town of Parametta will well repay the visitor; and to vary the scene one should go thither by steamboat and return by the Sydney and Bathurst Railroad. This excursion gives one a better idea of the harbor in detail than can be acquired in any other manner. The comfortable little passenger-boat skirts the shore and winds among the small islands, stopping at many of them to land or to take up passengers. These islands are clotted with villas and cottages, each having a two-story veranda, generally decked with vines, and all overlooking the bay. The boat passes under a picturesque iron bridge painted white, which crosses an arm of the sea. Skilled oarsmen are constantly pulling up and down the Parametta River in their long, pointed, egg-shell boats, for here is the famous boat-race course. Verdant and well-wooded lawns of exquisite green sweep grandly down to the water's edge. Orange and lemon trees, with here and there a group of bananas and other tropical plants, bend gracefully over the tide. Now and again the Australian ivy beautifies the shore, creeping over the quaint little cottages and bursting out at times in clouds of yellow blossoms on rocky promontories and gently swelling knolls. One recognizes also the scarlet nasturtium and beds of soft blue violets intermingling with fragrant jonquils. The lily of the valley, forgetting that it is winter here, opens its bell-like blossom of snowy-white and fills the whole air with dainty sweetness. The green and striped aloe grows wild in clusters affording variety and beauty of effect to all around. There were here and there clusters also of the yellow-leaved wattle, producing by its foliage almost the exact effect of blossoms; and as the river is ascended, an abundance of the water-loving mangrove is seen bordering the banks, like willows in New England. And if one turns for a moment from the enchantment near at hand, far away over the plains and undulating country, mingling with the very clouds, are seen the Blue Mountains. All far-away mountains present an aspect of blue, but those of New South Wales are indeed cerulean.

A quiet aspect of stupid respectability, if we may be permitted the term, environed the town of Parametta. It is a dull place, and fully merits its expressive nickname of Sleepy Hollow. One is half inclined to look for a coating of blue mould over the streets and houses. While driving in the neighborhood, where everything seemed so purely English, one felt the sight of the many orange-trees in full bearing, or the flitting about of small paroquets, to be a sort of incongruity. The early colonists, as we were told, tried to raise wheat hereabout, but the soil was ill adapted to that cereal, though for raising oranges and semi-tropical fruits Parametta has since become quite famous.

The town is just fifteen miles from Sydney, and has in its environs some beautiful drives. Rocky Hall, the residence of a hospitable and wealthy citizen, not far from the town of Parametta, contains in its spacious grounds an orchard with a marvellous variety of growing fruits. The proprietor, Mr. James Pye, is good authority on all subjects relating to horticulture. The salubrious character of the climate has enabled this gentleman to produce in abundance thriving specimens of nearly every known fruit either tropical or hardy, added to which he has a large and choice variety of flowers.

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