The Government House commands the bay with the imposing mien of a
fortress, and the magnificent reception-rooms are worthy of a
sovereign's court. The garden surrounding it occupies a beautiful
promontory, its borders washed by the sea, the walks shaded by trees
imported from Europe, and the whole parterre redolent with tropical
beauty and fragrance. On the promenades are frequently assembled at
evening two or three hundred ladies and gentlemen in full dress, while
military bands discourse sweet music for the entertainment of the
brilliant throng.

Ballarat may be called the city of gold; Melbourne, of clubs, democracy
and thriving commerce; Hobart Town takes the premium for hospitality and
picturesque beauty; but Sydney bears the impress of genuine English
aristocracy, in combination with a sort of Creole piquancy singularly in
contrast with English exclusiveness, yet giving a wonderful charm to the
society of this city of high life, so full of gayety, brilliancy and
luxury. Who would recognize in the Sydney of to-day, with its four
hundred thousand inhabitants, its churches, theatres and libraries, the
outgrowth of the penal colony of Botany Bay, planted only eighty-seven
years ago on savage shores? It was in May, 1787, that the first colony
left England for Botany Bay, a squadron of eleven vessels, carrying
eleven hundred and eighteen colonists to make a lodgment on an unknown
shore inhabited by savages. Of these eleven hundred and eighteen, there
were six hundred male and two hundred and fifty female convicts, the
remaining portion being composed of officers and soldiers to take charge
of the new penal settlement, under the command of Governor Phillip. From
so unpromising a beginning has grown the present rich and flourishing
settlement, and in lieu of the few temporary shanties erected by the
first colonists there stands a magnificent city of more than ordinarily
fine architecture, with banks and hospitals, schools and churches--among