Page:Rambles in Australia (IA ramblesinaustral00grewiala).pdf/106

76 The locomotive from the East, with puffs which politeness had hitherto repressed, would yield the point about antiquity in order to show that in the more modern period the East had done very well with its time. On the progress of Melbourne and Sydney it would not enlarge; suffice it to point out the advantages of Adelaide.

It lies between the hills and the sea, a trap for sunbeams; a garden city sweet with almond blossom in spring, tree-shaded in summer. A girdle of parks is about its comely waist, and beyond them lie suburbs, where the houses all have room to breathe. In the towns of the old world the houses are on the top of one another, and the people too. In Adelaide expansion takes place laterally, stretching out always to the encircling range of hills; and the houses are one-storied. The city is linked with its suburbs by radiating tramlines; and here one may pause to interpolate an anecdote. Some years ago, when the writer was in Naples, he was journeying by one of the trams which runs round the rim of Naples' incomparable bay. On the garden seat in front of him were two Americans, who looked with him at the lovely vision, and said one of them: "Well, I've been most everywhere, and seen most everything, but I've never seen anything to compare with" The writer leaned