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Rh banished from Van Diemen's Land. It bore traces of having been at one time a large settlement, but now exhibited only neglect, dilapidation, and decay; the roofs fallen in; doors and windows without existence, or fallen down; the chapel, once dedicated to the service of the Almighty, used as a barn and a store for farm implements; and the fences torn down and disappearing, evidently for firewood; the cemetery, where lay the remains of our uncivilized but still brethren, trodden down, and turned into a stockyard and sheepfold. The whole bore such a pitiable sign of wanton neglect and destruction, that it was hard to conceive that some few years before life, numerous life, had in its active state been busy and employed, and now so silent and desolate. Although foreign to the purpose of these notes, I cannot but remark on the shameful neglect that could allow a building dedicated under God, and the last resting-place of these poor exiles, to be thus desecrated."

Such is the last sad scene of the Flinders' drama. Since the departure of the Aborigines, I have passed by the island some half a dozen times; and not many weeks ago from the moment of writing this passage, I sailed along the western and northern shores for forty miles. As I gazed upon its storm-torn coast, and my eyes rested upon its bleak and fantastic hills, the whole story, in all its varied and stirring phases, came before me, and I felt quickened in my resolution to tell my countrymen the sorrows of the Tasmanians.