Page:Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies.djvu/66

34 and four hundred criminals to execution, nineteen out of twenty of whom, had been drawn into the commission of the crimes for which they forfeited their lives, either directly or indirectly by intemperance.

On the 15th of 4th month, we held a meeting with some sawyers, in their huts, at a place called the Kings Pits, on the ascent of Mount Wellington, at an elevation of about 2,000 feet, and about four miles from the town. These people seemed a little interested in the counsel given them, and received a few tracts gratefully. The forest among which they are residing is very lofty: many of the trees are clear of branches for upwards of 100 feet. It caught fire a few months ago, and some of the men narrowly escaped. The trees are blackened to the top, but are beginning to shoot again from their charred stems. The brushwood is very thick in some of these forests. A shower of snow fell while we were at the place. Acacia Oxycedrus, 10 feet high, was in flower on the ascent of the mountain. This, along with numerous shrubs of other kinds, formed impervious thickets in some places; while, in others, Epacris impressa, displayed its brilliant blossoms of crimson and of rose colour.

The brook that supplies Hobart Town with water, flows from Mount Wellington through a valley at the foot of the mountain. Here the bed of the brook is rocky, and so nearly flat as scarcely to deserve the name of The Cascades, by which this place is called. Many dead trees and branches lie across the brook, by the sides of which grows Drymophila cyanocarpa—a plant, allied to Solomon's Seal, producing sky-blue berries on an elegantly three-branched, nodding top. Dianella caerulea—a sedgy plant—flourishes on the drier slopes: this, as well as Billardiera longiflora—a climbing shrub, that entwines itself among the bushes—was now exhibiting its violet-coloured fruit. In damp places, by the side of the brook, a princely tree-fern, Cybotium Billardieri, emerged through the surrounding foliage. A multitude of other ferns, of large and small size, enriched the rocky margins of the stream, which I crossed upon the trunk of one of the prostrate giants of