A Trip to Australia and New Zealand
Sydney
- The Rocks
Now we are going into the old part of The Rocks that escaped the wrecking ball in the twentieth century rush to mindless modernity. These are the original homes, streets, stores, alleys, warehouses, parks, churches, stairways, and walls - the foundations of which were constructed by convicts that had been transported to Australia for their misdeeds in merry old England.
These alleys and doorways sheltered prostitutes, pimps, cut purses, shanghai gangs, gamblers, and assorted other riffraff during the heyday of the Age of Sail. Once a man left San Francisco going west there was not a lot of "civilized entertainment" for an eighteenth century seamen out of Amsterdam, London, New York or any of the other great cities of the world. Carving scrimshaw on a walrus tusk would get old after the first three or four months of sailing, the rum ration would have run out or was watered down to the point that you couldn't taste the lightening any more, and a man of the world definitely needed more in life. The Rocks was there to cater to that need.
