532 



NEW SOUTH WALES. 



Jan. 1836. 



exists what may be called a legal reform^ and comparatively 

 little which the law can touch is committed^ yet that any moral 

 reform should take place appears to be quite out of the ques- 

 tion. I was assured by 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 for- 

 gotten. 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 vagabonds most use- 

 less 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. 



VAN DIEMEn's land. 



January 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 ba- 

 saltic platforms ; but higher up, the land becomes mountain- 

 ous 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 Tasmania, 

 as Van Diemen^s Land is now called. The first aspect of the 

 place was very inferior to that of Sydney ; the latter might 

 l^e called a city, this only a town. 



In the morning I walked on shore. The streets are fine 



