Page:Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies.djvu/104

68 near the town, a bird-cage windmill,—a lively object, and rare in this country. The land in the vicinity is considered the richest in the Colony; some of it is said to have produced sixteen crops of wheat in succession, many of them self-sown: but this careless sort of agriculture, has in some places allowed Perennial Cress, an imported plant that has become a troublesome weed, to take almost exclusive possession of the land.—An estate of 400 acres is now on sale. The price asked is £2,000—a large sum for this country. A meeting was held for the formation of a Temperance Society: it was the first for a philanthropic purpose ever held in the place.

31st. We visited the lower settlement on Pitt Water, and dined with James Gordon, a native of Middleton Tyas, Yorkshire, who was acquainted with some of the older branches of my family, and was one of the first persons who welcomed me to this land, where a knowledge of family connexions, is a source of great interest, often producing pleasant recollections. At his house we found several of the females landed from the Princess Royal, and formed an acquaintance with Charles Price, an Independent Minister, who came out as superintendent of the female emigrants, and had much trouble with some disorderly individuals, who were injudiciously put on board, to the destruction of the comfort of all the others. In the evening we had a meeting with a small company in the Government School-house at Sorell Town.

9th mo. 1st. Accompanied by J. H. Butcher, who again joined us at Sorell Town, we visited a number of the settlers to the north of that place, to invite them to a meeting. Some of these were born on Norfolk Island and others in this Colony; and, as is the case in numerous instances, these are less intemperate than many originally from Europe.—The view from behind Sorell Town is striking and beautiful. Undulating, cultivated ground, divided into fields by post and rail fences, and ornamented by the scattered dwellings of settlers, stretches in various directions among the woody hills, except to the south, where the lively-looking little town stands on the shore of Pitt Water, in