226 THE FOUNDING OF HOBART. 



and Lady Nehon ai'e lying within half a cable length of 

 the shore in nine fathoms water." The inhabitants of 

 Hobart Avill hardlj recognise their harbour in Collins' 

 description. The filling up has been so considerable as 

 to obliterate the original natural features. The creek has 

 been diverted from its course, and the island, which 

 Collins named Hunter's Island, after his old patron, has 

 been swallowed up in the Old Wharf. Originally the 

 Cove was much more extensive than it is at present. 

 The island, which now forms the extremity of the Old 

 Wharf, was then in the middle of the bay. This island 

 was connected with the rhainland by a long sandspit, 

 covered at high water, and the site of which is now 

 occupied by the long range of stores forming the Old 

 Ocean's Juog. Wharf. The bottom of the Cove was marked by a 

 yellow sandstone bluff, since cut aTiray, and now forming 

 the cliff overhanging the creek at the back of the hospital. 

 A little below this was the original mouth of the creek, 

 which issued out of a dense tangle of tea-tree scrub and 

 fallen logs, surmounted by huge gum trees. It fell into 

 the river just at the intersection of Campbell-street and 

 Macquarie-street, at the lower angle of the New Market 

 building. The land at the creek mouth was flat and 

 marshy for some distance. On the side towards the 

 town the beach curved round the site of the old Bonded 

 Stores, thence, along a slope covered with gum trees, by 

 the back of the Town Hall, by Risby's Saw-mill and the 

 Parliament Houses, past St. David's churchyard, and 

 thence along the line of stone stores on the New Wharf 

 to the Ordnance Stores, and round the old Mulgrave 

 Battery Point. On the side of the creek towards the 

 Domain was a low swampy flat, extending over Wapping 

 and Lower Collins and Macquarie Streets to the Park- 

 street rivulet and the present bridge leading to the Domain. 

 Thence the beach ran round the foot of a wooded slope 

 by the present Gas Company's office, along the course 

 of the railway embankment, to Macquarie Point.* 



*I am indebted to my friend Mr. Mault for a beautifully executed 

 plan (see Appendix) which shows very clearly the original features 

 of the ground, and the position of the iirst camp, and also indicates 

 the alterations which have since taken place. I't is taken from a sur- 

 vey made by Surveyor- General Harris in 1804-5. The original plan 

 was discovered many years ago in the Lands Office at Sydney, and 

 was presented by the New South Wales Government to our Lands 

 Department. The Deputy-Commissioner of Crown Lands, Mr, 

 Albert Reid, kmdiy presented me with a tracing of it. 



