that the land teems with undeveloped mineral
wealth, besides being full of beautiful lakes and fertile valleys.

Tasmania indeed might well be the Elysium depicted by Hesiod and Pindar,
the Island of the Blest in the far Western Ocean. As a whole it pleased
us greatly. The women were handsome, the children bright-eyed and
rosy-cheeked, the men dignified and intelligent. The dwellings were neat
and substantial, the grounds and gardens trim and picturesque. The walls
were ivy-grown, and the fields divided by hedges. Prosperity and good
taste were observable everywhere, presenting a succession of landscapes
like those of populous New England. The roads are equal to the best
European highways, having been built at great expense by convict labor,
winding through fields that recall, as we have said, the finest of
American rural scenery, presenting at the same time scarcely a shade of
newness. The people who have built such complete cottage homes here have
surely done so with the intention of staying. The very sunshine seemed
more golden, the trees more green and graceful, and the skies clearer
and bluer than on the continent left behind. Indeed, Tasmania might be a
big slice detached from England and drifted into the South Sea. The
rural scenery of Kent or Surrey is not more charming, while the thrifty
hop-fields here heighten the general resemblance. Gold-mining, though
followed to a certain extent in Tasmania, has not seemed to demoralize
the people, and is really a secondary occupation to others that pay
better both in a moral and a pecuniary sense.

As we have shown, Launceston is situated at the head of navigation on
the Tamar River, where the town nestles in the lap of a valley
surrounded by hills. The population numbers about twelve thousand. It is
regularly laid out in broad streets lighted by gas, and has a good
water-supply brought from St. Patrick's River fifteen miles east of the
city. There are numerous substantial public buildings of brick and
stone, and everything bears a thorough business aspect indicating great
prosperity. There is a Public Library containing over ten thousand
volumes, and there are also five or six well-appointed schools of the
several grades. The Town Hall is a very fine and substantial building of
dressed stone, and several large brick buildings for business purposes
were observed to be in course of erection. The city is not without its
Botanical Garden, embracing twelve or fifteen acres o