by a natural impulse I gave God the praise. The citizen
did not seem altogether satisfied. He said:

"It is beautiful, of course it's beautiful--the Harbor; but that isn't
all of it, it's only half of it; Sydney's the other half, and it takes
both of them together to ring the supremacy-bell. God made the Harbor,
and that's all right; but Satan made Sydney."

Of course I made an apology; and asked him to convey it to his friend.
He was right about Sydney being half of it. It would be beautiful
without Sydney, but not above half as beautiful as it is now, with Sydney
added. It is shaped somewhat like an oak-leaf--a roomy sheet of lovely
blue water, with narrow off-shoots of water running up into the country
on both sides between long fingers of land, high wooden ridges with sides
sloped like graves. Handsome villas are perched here and there on these
ridges, snuggling amongst the foliage, and one catches alluring glimpses
of them as the ship swims by toward the city. The city clothes a cluster
of hills and a ruffle of neighboring ridges with its undulating masses of
masonry, and out of these masses spring towers and spires and other
architectural dignities and grandeurs that break the flowing lines and
give picturesqueness to the general effect.

The narrow inlets which I have mentioned go wandering out into the land
everywhere and hiding themselves in it, and pleasure-launches are always
exploring them with picnic parties on board. It is said by trustworthy
people that if you explore them all you will find that you have covered
700 miles of water passage. But there are liars everywhere this year,
and they will double that when their works are in good going order.
October was close at hand, spring was come. It was really spring
--everybody said so; but you could have sold it for summer in Canada, and
nobody would have suspected. It was the very weather that makes our home
summers the perfection of climatic luxury; I mean, when you are out in
the wood or by the sea. But these people said it was cool, now--a person
ought to see Sydney in the summer time if he wanted to know what warm
weather is; and he ought to go north ten or fifteen hundred miles if he
wanted to know what hot weather is. They said that away up there toward
the equator the hens laid fried eggs. Sydney is the place to go to get
information about other people's climates. It seems to me that the
occupation of Unbiased Traveler Seeking Informa