_Frontispiece_
Reduced Map of Van Diemen's Land 1
Travellers in the Bush 8
Explorers finding the Bed of a dried-up River 42
Opossum Hunting 97
Natives of the Murray Islands in Boats 120
Sydney in its Infancy--View from the South 186
North View of Sydney 243
Hobart Town 266
Cape Pillar, near the Entrance of the Derwent, Van Diemen's Land 286
Conveying Cattle over the Murray, near Lake Alexandria 325

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[Illustration: VAN DIEMEN'S LAND.]

INTRODUCTION.

The vast tract of country which it is the object of the present volume
to describe in its leading features, both moral and natural, may be said
to consist of two islands, besides many small islets and coral reefs,
which lie scattered around the coasts of these principal divisions. The
larger island of the two, which from its size may well deserve the
appellation of a continent, is called New Holland, or Australia; and is
supposed to be not less than three-fourths of the extent of the whole of
Europe. The smaller island, so well known by the names of Van Diemen's
Land, or Tasmania, (from those of the discoverer, Tasman, and the Dutch
governor of Batavia, Van Diemen) is not to be compared in size to the
other, being about equal in magnitude to Ireland, and, like that island,
abounding in fine and excellent harbours. Although, strictly speaking,
the name of Australia is confined to the former of these two islands,
yet it may be understood to include the smaller island also; and under
this name it is proposed to make the reader familiar with the chief
objects of curiosity in the natural world, and likewise with the state
of human society, whether savage or civilised, in the two islands of New
Holland and Van Diemen's Land, so far as both of these have been
hitherto known and explored.

It is by no means certain what nation may justly lay claim to the honour
of the discovery of New Holland, the coasts of which were probably seen
by the Spaniards, Quiros or Torres, in 1606, and are by some supposed to
have been known to the Spanish and Portuguese yet earlier than this
date, but were