Page:Some account of the wars, extirpation, habits.djvu/118

110 farms are to be found, the best soils of which are very little inferior to those of Pittwater. Mr. Baynton's farm is very prolific, and his house and homestead are excellent though, in strict accordance with the prevailing tastes of Tasmanian farmers, every tree that once stood near it has been carefully rooted out, thus imparting an air of nakedness to the place which is most displeasing. Farmers, like others, must consult their own tastes and not those of passers-by, but it has often surprised me to see the indifference with which they throw down all the indigenous forest trees in the neighbourhood of their dwellings, many of which are often exquisitely handsome, and after destroying in a few weeks what a century could not replace, they then often commence planting. But it is not the reproach of Mr. Baynton to have done anything to give shelter to his substantial farm-house, or to beautify its neighbourhood.

A short walk from hence and we reach the shores of North West Bay, along which the road leads for a little distance. This is a large arm of the sea, but, being shit in on all sides by unpicturesque hills, it is not a pleasing place. Approaching North West Bay River, the soil sensibly improves in character, and the coarse grey sands we have passed over are succeeded by a rich red soil of great fertility. The farms hereabouts are small and strictly agricultural, the breeding of stock not being attended to. At this place the stream flows through a rich alluvium, second to nothing in Tasmania.

The floods of lust year (1854), having demolished the bridge that used to span this stream (a Government structure and therenot meant to last), we floundered through it with luckily no more damage than a few contusions, the usual penalty of fording a Tasmanian river, and halted at a road-side inn called the "Half-way House," (half-way to where I was not so fortunate as to discover, as all beyond it is a wilderness of forests). It is kept by a person named Groombridge, whose studious civilities made some slight amends for his rough exterior; and, that our brief stay at his house might be as pleasant as possible, he obliged us with his company at breakfast, and gratified us with the details of many local and domestic matters that no one cared anything about but himself. Still had it not been for rather an unpleasant practice he had of now and then blowing his nose in the corner of the tablecloth, he would have passed for a very nice fellow. Near the Half-way House are several cottages, possibly the nucleus of a future town. Two or three of these already assume the name, if not the reality, of "general stores," but judging from the wares exhibited in the windows, which are limited to a few boxes of lucifers, pipes, and a very small unostentatious