Page:Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies.djvu/103

1832.] in the scale of society. Few of this class have retained their possessions; and the greater strictness in the penal discipline of latter years, combined with the new regulations, which put a stop to the granting of land, and only allow it to become the property of settlers by purchase, now precludes such men from becoming proprietors. The day was bright and pleasant. Numbers of little green Parrots were extracting honey from the flowers of the Black-butted Gumtree; and Anguillaria dioica, a little, purple-spotted, white-blossomed, bulbous plant, was decorating a sunny bank, as one of the first harbingers of spring.

28th. We have lodged a few nights at the Lenox Arms, a good inn, but with higher charges than in England. This evening we returned to Glen Ayr, after attending a meeting for the formation of a Temperance Society, and visiting some caves, in a range of hills near Richmond, called the Oven Hills. Formerly they were the resort of a horde of bush-rangers, the name of the chief of whom was Michael Howe. These hills are of silicious sandstone, and are clothed chiefly with thin grass, and Gum and She Oak trees.

29th. We visited Orielton, a fine estate, on which a considerable quantity of land has been brought into cultivation. Our guide thither was a prisoner constable, from Birmingham. On remarking to him, that we met with many prisoners from that place, he replied, that many of them were persons who had formed bad habits, beginning with drinking; and that they were often drawn into this practice by having their wages paid at public-houses, or by the wages of several being paid to one man, which occasioned them to resort to public-houses for change, in order to divide the sum. From Orielton we went to Sorell Town, and became the guests of James Norman, one of the Colonial Chaplains, with whom we became acquainted in Hobart Town.

30th. Sorell Town, often called Pitt Water, from being situated on a little gulf of that name, has a neat Episcopal place of worship, a parsonage, a Government School-house, and a watch-house of stone, as well as about 50 houses and cottages, most of which are of wood. There is likewise