Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.3)

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 be called a city, this only a town. , In the morning I walked on shore. The streets are fine