Ballou Maturin Murray - Foot-prints of Travel: or, Journeyings in Many Lands стр 23.

The whole island has now a population of about one hundred and thirty thousand, and a total area of over twenty-four thousand square miles. It is not quite so large as Ireland. Lying nearer to the Antarctic Circle it is of course cooler than the continent, but the influence of the sea, which completely surrounds it, renders the climate more equable. The general aspect of the country is that of being occupied by thrifty farmers of advanced ideas, such as carry on their calling understandingly, and more like well-populated America than sparsely-inhabited Australia. Our native fruits apples, peaches, pears, and the like thrive here in such abundance, as to form a prominent item in the exports, besides promoting a large and profitable industry in the packing of preserved fruits, which are in universal use in Australia and New Zealand. These canned fruits have an excellent and well-deserved reputation. Here, also, we find enormous trees, with a circumference of eighty feet near the ground, and a height of three hundred and fifty feet. Fern-trees, with their graceful palm-like formation, are frequently seen thirty feet in height. The country is well-wooded generally, and traversed by pleasant watercourses; it is singularly fertile, and rich in good harbors, especially upon the east coast. In short, its hills, forests, and plains afford a pleasing variety of scenery, while its rich pastures invite the stock-breeder to reap a goodly harvest in the easiest manner.

Launceston is situated at the head of navigation, on the Tamar, where the town nestles in the lap of a valley surrounded by high elevations. It is regularly laid out in broad streets, lighted by gas, and has a good water-supply brought from St. Patrick's River, fifteen miles east of the city. There are numerous substantial stone buildings, and everything bears a business-like aspect. There is a public library, and several free schools of each grade. The North and South Elk Rivers rise on different sides of Ben Lomond, and after flowing through some romantic plains and gorges, they join each other at Launceston. The sky-reaching mountain just named is worthy of its Scotch counterpart; between it and Launceston is some of the finest river and mountain scenery in all Tasmania. Ben Lomond is the chief object in the landscape, wherever one drives or walks in this part of the island. Tasmania possesses vast mineral wealth. The richest and most profitable tin mine in the world is that of Mount Bischoff, situated about a hundred and fifty miles from Launceston. The Beaconsfield gold mine is only thirty miles from the city, besides several others not much further away, which are rich in their yield of the precious metal.

The journey from here to Hobart, a distance of one hundred and twenty miles, takes us through the length of the island in a southeasterly direction. We pass through lovely glades, over broad plains, across rushing streams, and around the base of abrupt mountains. Hobart was so named in 1804, in honor of Lord Hobart, who was then Secretary of State for the Colonies. It is surrounded by hills and mountains except where the river Derwent opens into lake form, making a deep, well-sheltered harbor, whence it leads the way into the Southern Ocean. Among the lofty hills in this vicinity Mount Wellington towers forty-two hundred feet above the others, so close to the city as to appear to be within rifle range. The shape of the town is square, and it is built upon a succession of hills, very much like Sydney. It has broad streets intersecting each other at right angles, lined with handsome, well-stocked stores and dwelling-houses, serving an active and enterprising population of thirty thousand and more. Of these shops, two or three spacious and elegant bookstores deserve special mention, being such as would be creditable to any American city. It must undoubtedly be a cultured

community which affords support to such establishments.

Yet we cannot forget that Hobart has scarcely outlived the curse of the penal association which encompassed its birth. Between thirty and forty years ago, the British government expended here five thousand dollars a day in support of jails and military barracks. The last convict ship from England discharged her cargo at Hobart in 1851, since which year the system has gradually disappeared. The city is supplied with all the necessary charitable and educational institutions, including a public library and art gallery. The street scenes have the usual local color, embracing the typical miner, with his rude kit upon his shoulder, consisting of a huge canvas bag, a shovel, and pick. The professional chimney-sweep, with blackened face and hands begrimed, he whom we lost sight of in Boston years ago, is here seen pursuing his antiquated vocation. Market-men have the same peculiar mode of delivering purchases to their customers that we have noticed elsewhere in this country, and are seen galloping about upon wiry little horses, bearing upon their arms large well-filled baskets. Women, with small handcarts full of slaughtered rabbits, cry them for sale at twelve cents a pair, besides which they receive a bounty for killing these pests.