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

Feb. 1836. aborigines. 533 and broad ; but the houses rather scattered : the shops ap- peared good. The town stands at the base of Mount Welhng- ton, a mountain, 3100 feet high, but of very little picturesque beauty : from this source, however, it receives a good supjDly 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 little 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 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 ; 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 BischofF's History of Van Diemen's Land. Although numbers of natives were shot and taken prisoners in the skirmishing which was going on at intervals