446 VAN DIEMEN'S LAND. [chap. xix. 



well-informed people, that a man who should try to improve, 

 could not while living with other assigned servants ; his life 

 would be one of intolerable misery and persecution. Nor must 

 the contamination of the convict-ships and prisons, both here 

 and in England, be forgotten. On the whole, as a place of 

 punishment, the object is scarcely gained ; as a real system of 

 reform it has failed, as perhaps would every other plan ; but as 

 a means of making men outwardly honest, of converting vaga- 

 bonds, most useless in one hemisphere, into active citizens of 

 another, and thus giving birth to a new and splendid country a 

 grand centre of civilization it has succeeded to a degree perhaps 

 unparalleled in history. 



30th. The Beagle sailed for Hobart Town in Van Diemen's 

 Land. On the 5th of February, after a six days' passage, of 

 which the first part was fine, and the latter very cold and squally, 

 we entered the mouth of Storm Bay : the weather justified this 

 awful name. The bay should rather be called an estuary, for it 

 receives at its head the waters of the Derwent. Near the mouth, 

 there are some extensive basaltic platforms ; but higher up the 

 land becomes mountainous, and is covered by a light wood. The 

 lower parts of the hills which skirt the bay are cleared ; and the 

 bright yellow fields of corn, and dark green ones of potatoes, 

 appeared very luxuriant. Late in the evening we anchored in 

 the snug cove, on the shores of which stands the capital of Tas- 

 mania. The first aspect of the place was very inferior to that of 

 Sydney ; the latter might be called a city, this only a town. It 

 stands at the base of Mount Wellington, a mountain 3100 feet 

 high, but of little picturesque beauty : from this source^ how- 

 ever, it receives a good supply of water. Round the cove there 

 are some fine warehouses, and on one side a small fort. Coming 

 from the Spanish settlements, where such magnificent care has 

 generally been paid to the fortifications, the means of defence in 

 these colonies appeared very contemptible. Comparing the town 

 with Sydney, I was chiefly struck with the comparative fewness 

 of the large houses, either built or building. Hobart Town, from 

 the census of 1835, contained 13,826 inhabitants, and the whole 

 of Tasmania 36,505. 



All the aborigines have been removed to an island in Bass's 



