Feb. 1836. 



ABORIGINES. 



533 



and broad ; but the houses rather scattered : the shops ap- 

 peared good. The town stands at the base of Mount WeUing- 

 ton^ a mountain, 3100 feet high, but of very little picturesque 

 beauty : from this source, however, 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 set- 

 tlements, where such magnificent care has generally been paid 

 to the fortifications, the means of defence in these colonies 

 appeared very contemptible. Comparing the town to Sydney, 

 I was chiefly struck with the comparative fewness of the large 

 houses, either built or building. This circumstance must indi- 

 cate that fewer people are gaining large fortunes. The growth, 

 however, of small houses has been most abundant ; and the 

 vast number of httle red brick dwellings, scattered on the hill 

 behind the town, sadly destroys its picturesque appearance. 

 Hobart Town, from the census of this year, contained 13,826 

 inhabitants, and the whole of Tasmania 36,505. 



All the aborigines have been removed to an island in 

 Basses Straits, so that Van Diemen^s Land enjoys the great 

 advantage of being free from a native population. This most 

 cruel step seems to have been quite unavoidable, as the 

 only means of stopping a fearful succession of robberies, 

 burnings, and murders, committed by the blacks ; but which 

 sooner or later must have ended in their utter destruction. 

 I fear there is no doubt that this train of evil and its conse- 

 quences, originated in the infamous conduct of some of our 

 countrymen. Thirty years is a short period, in which to 

 have banished the last aboriginal from his native island, — 

 and that island nearly as large as Ireland. I do not know a 

 more striking instance of the comparative rate of increase of 

 a civilized over a savage people. 



The correspondence to show the necessity of this step, 

 which took place between the government at home and 

 that of Van Diemen^s Land, is very interesting : it is pub- 

 lished in an appendix to BischofPs History of Van Diemen^s 

 Land. Although numbers of natives were shot and taken 

 prisoners in the skirmishing which was going on at intervals 



