“They sat on the tram-car and ran for miles along a coast with ragged bush loused over with thousands of small promiscuous bungalows, built of everything from patchwork of kerosene tin up to fine red brick and stucco, like Margate. Not far off the Pacific boomed. But fifty yards inland started these bits of swamp, and endless promiscuity of ‘cottages’.
The tram took them five or six miles, to the terminus. This was the end of everywhere, with new “stores” – that is, flyblown shops with corrugated iron roofs – and with a tram-shelter, and little house-agents’ booths plastered with signs – and more ‘cottages’; that is, bungalows of corrugated iron or brick – and bits of swamp or ‘lagoon’ where the sea had got in and couldn’t get out.”
