Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/342

318 "We have read to you our notes," said he, "about the settlement of New South Wales by the fleet of ships that came out from England by order of the Government. New South Wales was thus the parent colony, and the others, with one exception, are offshoots from it. In 1790 New South Wales established a penal colony on Norfolk Island, which has since been given up to the Pitcairn Islanders, descendants of the mutineers of the Bounty. Van Dieman's Land, or Tasmania, was settled as a penal colony in 1803, by Lieutenant Bowen, who was sent from Sydney with a few convicts and their guards, and formed a settlement near the spot where the city of Hobart now stands. Queensland, under the name of Moreton Bay District, was settled in 1825 from Sydney, and became a separate colony in 1859. Victoria, then known as Port Phillip, and forming part of New South Wales, was colonized in 1803, and afterwards abandoned; it was permanently settled from Tasmania in 1835, and on July 1, 1851, the colony was separated from New South Wales and became independent.

"South Australia was colonized by emigrants from Great Britain in 1836, and West Australia by a detachment of soldiers and convicts from Sydney in 1826. New South Wales can thus claim the parentage of all the colonies of the continent and its adjacent island, Tasmania, with the single exception of South Australia.

"West, or Western, Australia is described by its name, as it occupies the entire western part of the continent. South Australia is a misnomer; the parent colony is in the southern part of the continent, but its jurisdiction extends from ocean to ocean to the northern shore, and includes the so-called Northern Territory, or Alexandra Land, which will one day, no doubt, form an independent government. To the eastward of the Northern Territory and South Australia is Queensland, and south of Queensland and eastward of South Australia is the parent colony of New South Wales. Then comes the colony of Victoria, south of New South Wales; territorially it is the smallest of all the colonies, but it isn't small in any other way. Tasmania is a hundred and fifty miles south of Victoria, from which it is separated by Bass's Strait, which preserves, the name of its discoverer, Dr. George Bass of the Royal Navy."

Frank paused a moment and gave Fred an opportunity to speak of something he had just read about Doctor Bass. "He made his first expedition," said Fred, "in 1796, in an open boat eight feet long, in company with Midshipman (afterwards Captain) Flinders and a crew of one