XIX 
HOBART TOWN 
475 
on the shores of which stands the capital of Tasmania. 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, 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 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 
HOBART TOWN AND MOUNT WELLINGTON. 
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 
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 ; and which sooner or later 
would have ended in their utter destruction. I fear there is no 
doubt that this train of evil and its consequences originated in 
the infamous conduct of some of our countrymen. Thirty years 
