Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

624 HOBART TOWN — KING GEOEGE SOUXD. Jan. del Fuego. But this was only a first impression, on a bluster- ing wet day. Fields of ripe corn, dotted, as it were, about the hilly woodlands, told us that the climate must generally be favourable ; and the number of red brick cottages, thickly scat- tered about, though apparently at random, proved an extent of population incompatible with an iniproductive place. During a few days"' stay in Sullivan Cove, the chief anchor- age, we had opportunities of going to some distance into the country, and seeing things which led me to think that there is a more solid foundation for future prosperity in Van Diemen's Land than can be found near Sydney. Natural advantages are greater ; and likely to increase as the country is cleared and inhabited — because rain is now almost too plentiful, though corn ripens well and is of excellent quality. As a convict colony, it of course partakes of the evils I have mentioned ; but it does so in a far less degree, partly because the convicts ^ent there were of a less profligate and more reclaimable class than those landed at Sydney, and partly because an excellent local govern- ment restrained the licentious, and encouraged the moral to a far greater extent than was, or perhaps could be effected among the more numerous and dispersed population of Sydney and its environs. On the 17th, we sailed out of the picturesque Derwent, an arm of the sea extending inland many miles beyond Hobart Town, and thence worked our way southward round the Land of Van Diemen. W^e then steered westward, or as much so as the contrary winds would admit, until we made the land off" King George Sound on the 6th of> March ; and a few hours after- wards moored in the principal anchorage, called Princess Royal Harbour ; a wide but shallow place, with a very narrow en- trance. The country round King George Sound has a dull, uniform aspect ; there are no mountains or rivers ;* few trees are visible ; white, sandy patches ; scrubby bushes ; bare masses of granite ; and a slightly undulating outline meet and disap- point the eye of a stranger. * Unless a few brackish, indeed salt-water, brooks can be termed rivers.