ntains; he
simply dries up and disappears. Another passenger said that once, when a
town was founded in the Blue Mountain district, the people wanted to
start a graveyard, and took along an elderly man who was in the last
stages of consumption. They had agreed to pay his expenses and give him
a grand funeral, on the condition that he lived until he reached the
site of the town. Not only did he live until he got there, but he
continued to live for many years, and finally dried up and blew away.
The people felt that they had been defrauded, and if the man had left
anything in the way of property, they would have brought suit for the
recovery of damages.

Harry recorded the above anecdote in his notebook, adding to it the
words, "Interesting, but of doubtful authenticity."

CHAPTER XVIII.

SIGHTS OF SYDNEY----BOTANY BAY AND PARAMATTA.

After leaving the Blue Mountains behind them, our friends were whirled
onward through a more fertile country than the one they had traversed on
the western slope. As they approached Sydney, they found the country
dotted with pleasant residences and diversified with fields and forest
in a very picturesque way. At the appointed hour the train rolled into
the station at Sydney, and landed the strangers in that ancient city;
ancient from an Australian point of view, as it is the oldest settlement
on the island continent, but exceedingly modern when compared with
London, Paris, and other European capitals.

As our friends drove in the direction of the hotel where they intended
to stay, they were struck by the narrowness of the streets, which seemed
to them very narrow indeed, after the wide streets of Melbourne.

Harry wondered how the difference of the streets of the two cities could
be accounted for.

"Oh, I understand," said Ned. "Sydney was laid out by an English
surveyor, and Melbourne by an American. Being a native of the little
island called England, the Britisher felt that he must make the most of
the land he had, while the American, coming from his own wide-spreading
country, took all the room that he wanted. That's the way of it, I'm
sure."

"Well, that will do for an explanation," said Harry, "until we get at
the real facts in the case."

"The probabilities are," the doctor remarked, "that as Sydney was
originally a convict settlement, the officers that came out in charge of
the expedition felt that it should be made as compact as possible for
the greater facility o