BOTANY OF VAN DIEMEN’S LAND. 231 
posed of Beech, Atherospermum, etc., with the usual amount of Gums 
(Hucalypti), and returned in the evening to our bivouac on the table-land. 
Next morning we collected seeds, etc.,and then retraced our steps through 
the tangled jungle to Cheshunt. On ascending the day before we had 
lighted a fire, which by the time we returned had spread over many 
acres, and had reduced a great part of the Bedfordia obstructions to 
ashes; while many of the larger trees were still on fire and falling (like 
the summer avalanches of the Jungfrau) on all sides of us. The fire 
was still spreading, and by the end of the week, when I left the coun- 
try, had burned the greater part of the mountain-sides and was still 
extending! All the result of a lucifer match! Several days while I 
was at Cheshunt the smoke from bush-fires on all sides was so great 
as to conceal all but the foreground of the landscape; the smoke look- 
ing exactly like a London fog. 
From Cheshunt I returned to Launceston, and started for Hobart-town 
by coach, 120 miles, at a cost of £6 (£4 for seat and £2 luggage); the 
former rate (before gold-fields) having been 30s. The road is excellent, 
and the driving like that of Jehu ; but the stoppages at every grog-shop - 
on the way wearying. We regularly pulled up for a quarter of an hour 
to twenty minutes at every public house, and they are not far apart 
along the whole line. In Hobart-town I made a point to call on your 
correspondent Mr. Oldfield, but found that he now resides at the Huon, 
where he superintends a school. I saw his brother, also a school- 
master, and have since had a letter from himself. His brother told me 
that Augustus has no taste for his present occupation, and a strong de- 
sire to be a natural history collector and traveller, for which he seems 
well fitted; that he has a competent knowledge of mathematics and 
practical astronomy, sufficient to enable him to map his course cor- 
rectly, and that he is full of zeal for science of all kinds. I mention 
this to you, as you may possibly have it in your power to recommend 
him for some collector’s appointment, should you be called on by 
Government for one for any of the Australian exploring expeditions, 
failing Drummond or otherwise. ° ; 
My only excursion in the neighbourhood of Hobart-town (except the 
ascent of Mount Wellington) was to Port Arthur, the convict station 
on Tasman’s Peninsula, where I went in a Government steamer, and 
remained a fortnight, hospitably entertained in the house of one of the 
Officers. Port Arthur is a very picturesque and well-sheltered harbour, - 
