Page:Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies.djvu/177

1833.] for life, it made him dull to think of liberty, as the time would be long before he could even obtain any such a mitigation of sentence, as in this country is called Indulgence; and that transportation had taught him a lesson, which would make him use his liberty very differently to what he had formerly done, if ever he had it again.—A track over a series of open, forest hills, brought us to Prossers Plains, an extensive grassy opening with a few settlers houses; in one of which, occupied by a person named Richard Crocker, we found a hospitable reception.

10th. We crossed the Thumbs Marsh, a grassy opening under the Three Thumbs Mountain, and met our friend Francis Cotton, who proved a most welcome guide in passing through the rugged, woody, ravine of the Prossers River, which is ironically called Paradise. We forded the River, at a rocky place, and travelled along the side of some very rough, steep hills, called the Devils Royals, to the sandy beach of Prossers Bay, on which there were the skeletons of two whales. On again entering the forest, the path lay by the side of a rushy lagoon, near which was a bushy species of Conospermum, a shrub with narrow, strap-shaped leaves, and small white flowers. This was the only place in which I met with a plant of this genus in V. D. Land. Passing a few grassy hills of open forest, we reached the habitation of Patrick M'Lean, at Spring Bay, by whom we were kindly received, and on whose land we viewed with satisfaction, the agricultural progress of one who had beaten his sword into a ploughshare.

11th. The country which we passed through was a continued series of open forest, abounding with Kangaroo-grass, Anthistiria australis, which affords the best pasturage of any of the native grasses of this island, and is less affected by drought than those from Europe; but as there is a tinge of brown upon it, even while growing, the grass lands of Tasmania do not, at any season of the year, present a lovely green like English pastures and meadows. There are a few settlers on the best pieces of land near Spring Bay, and we were hospitably entertained by one named John Hawkins, in Little Swan Port, who had also been brought up to a military life.