Page:Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies.djvu/188

150 Lovely Banks, Bothwell, Hamilton, the Dee River, and New Norfolk to Hobart Town; where we arrived on the 9th of 8th month; having held religious meetings, and meetings for the promotion of temperance at the several towns; and religious meetings almost every evening, at the houses of the settlers, who kindly allowed us to invite the neighbouring families to their dwellings.

The weather at this period was tolerably mild, and generally remarkably fine for the season; we had seldom to use umbrellas as a defence against rain, and the tracked roads were but little cut up. The tops of the mountains, adjacent to the low country in which we were travelling, were often covered with snow, and there, the weather seemed to be wild and stormy. We felt that we had cause, gratefully to acknowledge the merciful guidance of the good Spirit of our Lord and Master, by which we were led to visit the interior this winter, during which it was pleasant travelling on foot, and to go to places accessible by sea, last winter, when the wet would have rendered travelling in the interior very unpleasant.

We found some families affected with a low fever, which occasionally occurs in this country, but is seldom fatal. The most direful diseases in the Colony, are the result of the free use of intoxicating liquors. Delirium tremens, under its varied forms of horror, is one of these. Apoplexy is also common: an instance of it occurred in one of the prisoners, that came out in the Science, who died lately in a public-house at New Norfolk, in an awfully hopeless state. He fell lifeless from his seat, as he declared, with a horrid imprecation, that he would never forgive the landlady, because she refused to supply him with more rum, when his money was spent.

While waiting in the Police Office at Campbell Town, for a person, temporarily acting as Police or Paid Magistrate, who kindly accompanied us in calling upon the neighbouring settlers, some pensioners made application for the office of constable, stating themselves to be from forty to fifty years of age; but their appearance was more like that of men of from sixty to seventy. This was attributable, in, great degree, to