Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/150

 in Chicago, and paid $3.50 per day for a room. What we call "the European plan" is almost unknown at hotels here Melbourne is a better town than I expected to find it. Its citizens admit that Sydney is larger, and growing more rapidly; indeed, I have heard them say Sydney will continue to grow more rapidly, as it has a better country around it. But Melbourne is a beautiful city, and Sydney has nothing to match its St. Kilda Road. This is a great driveway leading from the city to a sort of Coney Island. This driveway is lined with flowers, green grass and beautiful homes. And I did not see a bathing-beach in Sydney as handsome as St. Kilda beach. Melbourne has wider streets than Sydney, and seems to be more modern. "Don't you think," one man asked me, "that Melbourne is more like one of your American cities than Sydney?" The people here are as familiar as the people of New Zealand with the fact that we are Americans, but they see more Americans, and are not so much interested in them. Every man I talk with reminds me that I am an American; always politely. I went yesterday to see about my baggage. "Don't you find our system almost identical with yours in the United States?" the very agreeable and accommodating baggage agent asked. And the system of handling baggage here is the same as our system I think the people of Melbourne are sick and tired hearing of Sydney's beautiful harbor; particularly as Melbourne's harbor is not very large. There is a great bay here, but it is not a harbor; it is almost as much of an open roadstead as Manila bay Melbourne has cable cars, but the system was not adopted because of