Hobart, Tasmania

“ Hobart (25) , capital of Tasmania, is situated on the estuary of the Derwent, at the base of Mount Wellington; is handsomely laid out in the form of a square; is the seat of government, and has many fine public buildings; has a splendid natural harbour; the manufacture of flour, jam, leather, besides brewing, shipbuilding, and iron-founding, are its chief industries; it has extensive suburbs, and is a favourite health resort.
Hobart Pasha, Turkish admiral; was a son of the Duke of Buckingham; distinguished himself in the British navy before he entered the Turkish service ”

“ The university of Tasmania, established in 1890, and opened in 1893, has its headquarters at Hobart. The town is celebrated for its invigorating climate, and its annual regatta on the Derwent attracts numerous visitors. The harbour is easy of access, well sheltered and deep, with wharf accommodation for vessels of the largest tonnage. It is a regular port of call for several intercolonial lines from Sydney and Melbourne, and for lines from London to New Zealand. The exports, of an average value of £850,000 annually, consist mainly of fruit, hops, grain, timber and wool. ”

“ They find a ready market in Australia, a matter of only a few miles away. So in time Tasmania is bound to be one of the great fruit-growing countries in the world.
Where once the first convict colony made its camp the beautiful city of Hobart stands. It is every bit an English town. The business part of the city consists of fine, substantial buildings; most of the residences are low-built and half hidden in gardens of roses. The school-houses are as good as those in any American city of the same size, and the schools themselves are equal to the best anywhere. ”

“ Tasmania, and especially Hobart, has had a reputation for the beauty of the women; Anthony Trollope and other writers mention it. Many men from Melbourne have brought their wives from across the straits. I am bound to say that my own observation scarcely bore out this tradition, but one must be very insensible not to admire the fresh and clear complexions both of women and men; they have the same complexions as we see in England, than which there cannot be higher commendation. Although the total population of Tasmania is so small, the machinery of government is large. ”

“ John Wallop, were coming by the steamer to Melbourne. Hobart has a very dull, sleepy look, and the people we met in the streets seemed to be chiefly the passengers off the Manapouri. The town, like the whole of Tasmania, is utterly devoid of enterprise. The colony contains 127,000 inhabitants, of whom 2000 are in Hobart. So little has been done to improve the land, that the beef and mutton for home consumption have to be imported from New Zealand—witness our cargo of cattle—and the only flourishing industry is the jam trade, of which 150,000 lbs. are annually sent to Victoria. ”

“ At Hobart Town invalids sometimes suffer from the sea-breeze, which after a hot morning in summer generally blows somewhat keenly in the afternoon, coming up with remarkable regularity at about one o’clock. But a few miles inland its keenness is no [189] longer felt. In summer Tasmania is a delightful refuge from the heat of the continent. The winter there, though colder than that of Victoria, is far warmer, drier, and, above all, lighter and sunnier, than that of any place in England. ”

“ Here again is Government House, since Hobart is the political capital of Tasmania: notice the lake 59 and the trees. Everything around us suggests a mild and not very dry climate.
If we climb Mount Wellington, the aspect of the 60 country soon changes. The mountain is not an isolated peak, but merely the south-eastern corner of the central plateau. From the summit is a fine view of the fertile lowland valley and the great expanse of fiords and islands. But the summit itself is a wild confusion of boulders with low scrub and heath. ”

“ We called at Hobart, Tasmania, and after experiencing stiflingly hot weather crossing the Indian Ocean eventually arrived at Colombo. The natives came clambering on board and attempted to take possession of all our portable property. They are a dark mahogany-coloured people, a cheerful-looking folk. All their actions seem to be guided by a strong commercial instinct. ”

“ Thus, at Hobart Town, men, for mere faults, have been sentenced to exposure and the scourge, in the view of hundreds: the flagellator extinguished the last feeling of the man, and roused the temper of the demon. An old compositor, within a month of his freedom, was charged with some trifling breach of convict discipline, and though the father of grown up children, was ordered by a chief police magistrate, this cruel disgrace. He is dead—and his oppressor is dead! ”

“ At the beginning of this century a few tribes of natives were the sole human inhabitants of Tasmania, but about 1803 a party of English military, with a gang of convicts under their charge, came from New South Wales and formed a settlement, which is now a flourishing English town called Hobart Town. Sheep-raising is now the principal industry of this island, and large exports of wool are made yearly. ”

“ At the north end of Tasmania we saw many rocky islands. These islands have the same general character as the eastern coast of Tasmania itself, which is high and mountainous.
It was a cold, clear, fine morning when we entered the beautiful harbour of Hobart. I forgot to say that the people in Sydney when they wave their hand across their harbour, tell you that it would afford anchorage for all the navies in the world. I should think that the harbour at Hobart might do the same.
In all directions there are high hills to be seen. Some of these rise from the edge of the waters. ”

“ Hobart—in the parish of Hobarton, and county of Buckingham, is the chief town of the colony, and is in lat. 42°. 53'. S., and long. 147°. 21'. E. It was named after Lord Hobart, once secretary for the colonies; and stands on the shores of Sullivan's Cove, about 15 miles from the entrance of the Derwent. It is finely situated on a rising ground, and covers a surface of nearly two square miles. On the western side it is bounded by a range of wooded hills, with Mount Wellington, a snow-capped mountain, 4,000 feet high, in the back-ground. ”

“ Tasmania does not escape the summer visit of an Australian hot wind. Hobart and Launceston, being near the sea, have greater equability of temperature, with rare frosts. The mean temperature of Hobart is 54°, of Waratah in the north-west 44°. Hobart averages 22 inches of rain, less than Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane. Inland, in the settled parts, cold is severe in winter, but only for a short period. The wooded north-west shore has no cold and no excessive heat, but plenty of showers. Up in the lake country the climate rather resembles the Highlands of Scotland. ”

“ Tasmania has been looked on mainly as a health resort, with her quays often covered with a glut of fruit, and with no more exciting question to debate than whether her capital should be called Hobart, Hobart Town, or Hobarton. But all this may be changed by the growth of the mineral output, and by the stimulus of the Federal markets: and it is highly probable that more than nine thousand acres of new land may be broken up annually for many years to come. Federation has been, all along, mainly a commercial question for Tasmania. ”

“ Circumstances, the relation of which would in no way interest the reader, required me to make the journey from Kingston (10 miles south of Hobart Town) to the neighbourhood of Oyster Cove, the dwelling place of the few remaining aboriginal people of Tasmania, which is distant, overland from Hobart Town, about 23 miles. ”

“ Different people mean different things by it, and feel the tendency from prosperity to adversity in different ways, but few or none dispute the fact. Elderly ladies lament the old days when there was more society, and a more abundant supply of soldier and sailor ball-partners; merchants and tradesmen the time when Hobart Town promised to be the emporium if not the metropolis of Australia. It is seldom indeed that anyone can be heard to speak cheerily of the present, or hopefully of the future of Tasmania. ”

“ Tasmania is about half the size of England, but its population is only 120,000. There are only two towns of any size [Pg 62] —Hobart in the south and Launceston in the north. A great deal of the interior is marshy, and there are lakes of some considerable size, which in the winter are sometimes frozen. The north-west coast is very barren and sparsely inhabited. The doctors and clergy in these parts have often long journeys to make through the bush. In climate, Tasmania is preferable to Australia. The temperature is much more equable, and therefore not so trying to weak constitutions. ”

“ Enterprising young men, inured to the bush, were requested to attach themselves to the small military parties at the out stations, and, under military officers, to scour the northern country.
Men, holding tickets-of-leave, were required to enrol under the magistrate of their district, and settlers were enjoined to equip and detach whatever servants they could spare, reserving only sufficient strength for the protection of their families. The inhabitants of Hobart Town, in public meeting assembled, tendered their service to the government, for the furtherance of the object. ”

“ On account of its beautiful mountain scenery, Tasmania is called the Switzerland of Australia. Deep winding valleys, clothed with groves of ferns, give added charm to its scenery. In recent years it has become a famous summer resort for Australians, many of whom pass a portion of the hot season in its wonderful forest solitudes and secluded fern-tree vales.
No attempt to colonize Tasmania was made until 1803. In that year four hundred convicts were brought there and the vessel containing the prisoners sailed up Derwent River and landed them where the city of Hobart now stands. ”

“ The south-western coast, washed by the Southern Ocean, is high and cold, but the climate of the northern and inland districts is one of the finest in the temperate zone, and produces in abundance and variety all the fruits which are found under the same latitude in Europe. The harbor of Hobart is one of the finest in the world. The principal rivers are the Derwent, Ouse, Clyde, Jordan, Coal, Huon, and Dee, in the south; and the Tamar, North and South Esk, Macquarie, Lake, Mersey, Leven, Arthur, Blyth, Forth, and Meander, in the north. ”

“ Onward, still onward, was the order of the indomitable Robinson. No one ignorant of the western country of Tasmania can form a correct idea of the traveling difficulties. While I was resident in Hobart Town, the Governor, Sir John Franklin, and his lady, undertook the western journey to Macquarrie Harbor, and suffered terribly. One man who assisted to carry her ladyship through the swamps, gave me his bitter experience of its miseries. Several were disabled for life. No wonder that but one party, escaping from Macquarrie Harbor convict settlement, arrived at the civilized region in safety. ”

“ In 'the old days,' as the past is happily and conveniently termed in Tasmania, there were only two settlements—Hobart and Launceston; and it became as necessary to establish others as to connect them. At that time hundreds of convicts were being landed from England, and the additional necessity to find employment for them induced the governing authorities to embark upon the enterprise of making the road and making new towns. It cost more than a railway would cost nowadays, for prison labour has always been expensive. ”

“ In referring in a preceding page to the arrival of the two duly-accredited pioneer priests, Fathers Therry and Conolly it was stated that, whilst the former made Sydney his headquarters, the hitter established himself in the new settlement at Van Diemen's Land, the "isle of beauty" lying to the south of the Australian continent, and afterwards christened under its present sweeter and shorter name, Tasmania. Father Conolly landed at Hobart, the capital of Tasmania, in 1820, and, during the succeeding fifteen years, he was the only resident priest and Catholic chaplain on the island. ”

“ At a distance of little more than a dozen miles from Hobart Town is a huge island called Bruny, containing much about one hundred thousand acres, which was formerly inhabited by a considerable tribe of natives. In past years, these people had often committed the usual outrages of the Tasmanian savage on his white neighbour. But this ill-feeling had partly died out through the intercourse they had had with large parties of whalers, stationed for long periods of every year in some of the bays of the island, where they prosecuted, what was then termed the Bay Fishery. ”

“ The mutinies and sea fights!
Hobart in Tasmania, Twofold Bay in New South Wales, and many New Zealand ports were the great whaling stations, and Sydney the commercial headquarters. Fifty years ago there were something like twenty whalers in the Hobart Fleet alone; now, one or two hulks lying in Whaler's "Rotten Row" is practically all that survives of the trade. ”

“ The day before the arrival of the natives, an invalid servant belonging to the establishment of Mr. George Meredith, of Oyster Bay, who was just discharged from the Hobart Town Hospital, and was journeying homewards, arrived at Gatehouse's farm hut; but being still weakly, he was unable to proceed further without a day or two of rest, after travelling sixty miles of one of the worst bush roads in Tasmania. The unfortunate fellow's request was granted directly, and he was admitted. He was William Hollyoak. ”