er winds in a succession of reaches,
narrowing to a deep channel cleft between rugged and towering cliffs. A
line drawn due north from the source of the Derwent would strike another
river winding out from the northern part of the island, as the Derwent
winds out from the south. The force of the waves, expended, perhaps, in
destroying the isthmus which, two thousand years ago, probably connected
Van Diemen's Land with the continent has been here less violent. The
rounding currents of the Southern Ocean, meeting at the mouth of the
Tamar, have rushed upwards over the isthmus they have devoured, and
pouring against the south coast of Victoria, have excavated there that
inland sea called Port Philip Bay. If the waves have gnawed the south
coast of Van Diemen's Land, they have bitten a mouthful out of the south
coast of Victoria. The Bay is a millpool, having an area of nine hundred
square miles, with a race between the heads two miles across.

About a hundred and seventy miles to the south of this mill-race lies
Van Diemen's Land, fertile, fair, and rich, rained upon by the genial
showers from the clouds which, attracted by the Frenchman's Cap, Wyld's
Crag, or the lofty peaks of the Wellington and Dromedary range, pour
down upon the sheltered valleys their fertilizing streams. No parching
hot wind--the scavenger, if the torment, of the continent--blows upon
her crops and corn. The cool south breeze ripples gently the blue waters
of the Derwent, and fans the curtains of the open windows of the city
which nestles in the broad shadow of Mount Wellington. The hot wind,
born amid the burning sand of the interior of the vast Australian
continent, sweeps over the scorched and cracking plains, to lick up
their streams and wither the herbage in its path, until it meets the
waters of the great south bay; but in its passage across the straits it
is reft of its fire, and sinks, exhausted with its journey, at the feet
of the terraced slopes of Launceston.

The climate of Van Diemen's Land is one of the loveliest in the world.
Launceston is warm, sheltered, and moist; and Hobart Town, protected by
Bruny Island and its archipelago of D'Entrecasteaux Channel and Storm
Bay from the violence of the southern breakers, preserves the mean
temperature of Smyrna; whilst the district between these two towns
spreads in a succession of beautiful valleys, through which glide clear
and sparkling streams. But on the western coast, from the steeple-rock