craft that navigates these
seas can lie close to the wharf and the warehouses. A visit to the Lake
District of Tasmania affords many delightful views, where those inland
waters just referred to lie in their lonely beauty, now overhung by
towering cliffs, like those bordering a Norwegian arm of the sea, and
now edged by pebbly beaches where choice agates and carnelians abound.

The charming cloud-effects which hang over and about the lofty hills
which environ the capital of Tasmania, recall vividly those of the Lake
of Geneva, near Chillon, while the Derwent itself, reflecting the hills
upon its blue and placid surface, forms another pleasing resemblance to
Lake Leman. In ascending Mount Wellington, the lion of Tasmanian
scenery, when we find ourselves at an elevation of about two thousand
feet, it is discovered that we have reached the Old World ocean-floor.
Here, there are plenty of remains of the former denizens of the
ocean,--fossils, telling the strange and interesting story of
terrestrial changes that have taken place in the thousands upon
thousands of years that are passed.

About twenty miles from Hobart we find a forest of the remarkable
gum-trees of which we have all read,--trees which exceed in height and
circumference the mammoth growths of our own Yosemite Valley, and fully
equal those of Victoria. The immediate locality which contains them is
known as the Huon District. A walk among these forest giants fills one
with wonder and delight; their lofty tops seem almost lost in the sky to
which they aspire. No church steeple, no cathedral pinnacle reared by
the hand of man, but only mountain peaks reach so far skyward.

Tasmania is largely occupied for sheep-runs and wool-raising. The
eastern side of the island is studded with lovely homesteads carefully
fenced, the grounds about the residences being covered with fruit trees
and flower plats. There does not appear to be any waste land, all is
carefully improved in the peopled districts. The roads are often lined
with thrifty hedges, symmetrically trimmed, frequently consisting of the
brilliant, constant flowering, fragrant yellow gorse, and sometimes of
the stocky species of scarlet geranium. This sort is not fragrant but
becomes very thick by being cut partly down annually, until it makes an
almost impenetrable hedge. Prosperity and good taste are everywhere
noticeable, amid a succession of landscapes like those of the populous
New England States.

[Illust