29th. We walked to Elizabeth Town, usually called New Norfolk, in consequence of a number of persons, formerly residing on Norfolk Island, being settled in the neighbourhood. The distance from Hobart Town is about 22 miles, by the road, which is a pretty good one for carriages; and, which passing through the little villages of New Town, O'Briens Bridge, and Glenorchy, winds under the mountains by the side of the Derwent, which retains the appearance of a chain of picturesque lakes most of the way. It is navigable for small vessels to New Norfolk, where it is about as wide as the Thames at Battersea. The mountains are clothed with wood; but in many places the timber is not so thick as to exclude the growth of grass. Some narrow flats of good land, partially cultivated, occur near the river. The rocks exposed by cutting the road are basalt and sandstone, or more dense silicious formations, and limestone imbedding marine fossils. A considerable piece of road has been recently cut near New Norfolk, by a chain-gang, stationed in three poor looking huts, into one of which we stepped, to give the men a few tracts. They were without Bibles, which one of them remarked, they might often spend half an hour advantageously in reading. This we represented to one of the Episcopal Chaplains of the Colony, who caused the deficiency to be supplied, and placed some copies of the Scriptures at our disposal, to apply in other cases of need. Evening closed in, very dark, before we reached our destination, and the noise of strange birds, lizards and frogs, became great, and very striking to an English ear. We passed several neat farm houses, and some decent inns on the way, and at the end of our journey found accommodation at the Bush Inn, little inferior to that of decent inns, a step below first-rate, in England.

3rd mo. 1st. The site of New Norfolk is so laid out, that the streets will cross at right angles. The houses were at this time about thirty in number, exclusive of an Episcopal place of worship and an unfinished hospital. We visited the latter, which contained about forty patients, under the superintendence of one of the Colonial Surgeons. We also visited a respectable boarding-school, of about twenty fine looking

boys, kept by a young man with whose family I was acquainted in England.

2nd. We returned to Hobart Town, calling at a few small cottages on the Sorell-rivulet; where we reasoned with the occupants on "temperance, righteousness, and judgment to come." Learning that there was "a marked tree road," or a way through "the bush," as the forest is termed in this country, marked by pieces of bark being chopped off the sides of trees, we ventured to take it; and though the distance was five miles, and it was extremely hilly and rough, the variety was pleasant. Some of the species of Gum-tree have deciduous bark, and consequently white trunks; these are generally blackened at the base by fire, that has been kindled to clear off the underwood and long-grass, at various intervals; long strips of bark hang from the branches, and great numbers of dying and dead trees, the wreck of ages, lie on the ground in these forests. The only quadruped we saw was an Opossum. A flock of Black Cockatoos were screaming and tearing off the bark from dead trees, to obtain the grubs on which they feed. Near the main road, a prisoner was at work splitting the wood of the Peppermint-tree, a species of Eucalyptus, into posts and rails: he was one who, as well as his master and family, had been recently awakened to the inportance of eternal things, by the labours of John Leach, and belonged to a little congregation of Wesleyans, at O'Briens Bridge. The warmth of feeling of the master was like that described by the apostle Paul, in some of the early converts to Christianity; who, he says, "If it had been possible, would have plucked out their own eyes, and given them to him."

5th. Apprehending it would be right for us to take the first opportunity of visiting the penal settlement, at Macquarie Harbour, we conferred with the Lieut. Governor, on the subject, and received his sanction.-6th. We accompanied the Lieut. Governor to the Old Orphan School, and to an unfinished building, designed for the better accommodation of this institution. The latter is prettily situated near New-town, and is intended for about six hundred children.

On the 7th, we went to New Norfolk by a coach, which

changed horses at the Black Snake Inn, on the road; and on the 8th, accompanied by Robert Officer, the surgeon in charge of the Hospital, made calls on several of the inhabitants, and visited a Government School at the Back River. On the 9th, we accompanied George Dixon, an old school-fellow of mine, and three of his nieces, to his house at Green Valley, on the Lower Clyde, travelling twenty seven miles on foot, by the side of a little cart, drawn by four oxen and driven by a prisoner, and proceeding at the rate of about two miles and a half per hour, along a road, a large part of which was a mere cart track. Much of the country was settled: it consisted of hills, generally covered with open grassy forest, and interspersed with little patches of cultivated ground. In locations of land of two or three thousand acres, it is seldom that as many hundreds have been tilled. Large portions are of woody and rocky hills that cannot be ploughed, but on which sheep feed. In this country, these animals keep in good health in the woods, the climate being exceedingly dry. Where the ground is free from timber, the grass is in tufts, often not covering more than one-third of the surface.

On the way we looked into a school near Macquarie Plains, and called at the huts of a chain-gang, employed at a place called the Deep Gulley, in cutting a point of land, so as to admit the road to pass by the side of the Derwent. At this place coal is visible, in narrow strata alternating with sandstone and shale. On Macquarie Plains we called on John Terry, an emigrant from Yorkshire, who has a corn mill at New Norfolk, and who was here shearing his sheep. He is a scrupulously honest man, who left England at a time when farmers were suffering adversity, and notwithstanding many difficulties that he has had to contend with, he thinks his circumstances have been greatly improved by the change. A few miles beyond his cottage is the Woolpack Inn; the sitting-room of which would not disgrace a market town in England. We called also at the hut of a Scotchman, to get a drink of water, no more being to be had for nine miles. Here we met a person of our acquaintance, who, like many other young men, on first arriving in the colony, was too much excited with the notion of shooting Kangaroos and