at the top of the buildings--are a favorite resort for ladies and
promenaders generally. On entering these arcades one steps from
deafening and confusing noise into a quiet atmosphere, with most
agreeable surroundings. Not far away on George Street is the general
vegetable and fruit market, where poultry and flowers are also sold. The
articles are displayed with an artistic eye for color and appropriate
effect. Young women are employed to sell the fruit and flowers, whose
pleasant and by no means obtrusive importunity with visitors makes many
purchasers. George Street is fragrant on a sunny afternoon with
button-hole bouquets, purchased of these flower-girls, who evince
admirable taste in the graceful and effective manner of arranging their
floral gems. The display of fruit is remarkable, and the article is as
cheap as it is tempting; so that those who in England or in many parts
of America would not feel able to afford to indulge in oranges, apples,
pears, and bananas, not forgetting the appetizing fruit of the
passion-plant, here make of these a wholesome addition to their daily
food-supply. Sydney is only rivalled in this respect by San Francisco,
which city cannot be surpassed in the cheapness or quality of its fruit
from tropical and semi-tropical regions within its own borders.

Many floral establishments solely devoted to the sale of plants and
cut-flowers were observed in different sections of the city with very
beautiful displays in their large plate-glass windows. It is only a
liberal population of refined taste which will support these attractive
establishments; their manifest thrift tells its own story.

If in these notes we speak most frequently of the common classes,
depicting scenes illustrative of humble and every-day life among the
masses, it is because such are the most representative; but the reader
may be sure that there is another class happily existing in Sydney, and
in all of these Pacific colonies, where the author met with and shared
the hospitality of many cultured people, who exhibited a degree of
refinement unsurpassed in the best of our own home circles. Some writers
choose to dilate upon their intercourse with such people, giving the
names of officials and the initials of private individuals from whom
they received entertainment; but it seems to us better to avoid such
personal mention, in which the reader can feel very little interest.

The University of Sydney, admirably situated about a