Page:Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies.djvu/170

134 14th. We returned to Launceston, where we visited the prisoners in the jail, and penitentiary; the latter are about 170 in number; we also held a meeting for worship in the Court House, and distributed a considerable number of tracts.

17th. This morning the mountains visible from Launceston, to the north-east, were covered with snow. This was also the case in the south of the Island, down to 1,000 feet above the level of the sea. Snow is unusual in summer in this country, notwithstanding summer frosts are by no means of rare occurrence.

21st. We set out for Hobart Town, and had a religious opportunity with Nottmans Road-party, consisting of 130 prisoners, several of whom work in chains. They are lodged in huts of the humblest character; twenty-one to twenty-eight in each hut. They were very still and attentive while we revived among them the invitation, "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God for he will abundantly pardon." We became the guests of Theodore B. Bartley, of Kerry Lodge, a pious man, who had previously invited us to resort to his house when in the neighbourhood.

22nd. On the way to the Eagle Inn, a solitary house in the forest, we passed through Perth, and round one end of the Hummocky Hills, which form the only striking exception to low country, in this part of the extensive vale of the South Esk and Macquarie Rivers.

23rd. We proceeded to breakfast to an inn, by the side of a rushy lagoon or pool, such as is common in this part of the Island, and were grieved on entering it, to hear a man cursing and using blasphemous language, because one of his horses had strayed, as they often do in a country so sparingly intersected by fences.—The conduct of a poor black native, who cut the feet of seven women, whom he attacked as they slept, because his wife had broken a bottle that he valued, has been referred to as a proof of savage character and want of intellect; but what is it when compared with the conduct of persons, who, because offended