The journal of a voyage from Calcutta to Van Diemen's Land, from original lettersSmith, Elder & Company, 1833 - 117 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
acres amusement bank Batavia beautiful boats breeze Calcutta called Cape captain China Chinese climate coast colony convicts cottage covered cultivation Derwent Diemen's Land distance Dutch eight Elizabeth Town England English equally farm fear feet flowers fruit garden Governor harbour heard hills Hobarton horse houses India inhabitants island Java journey jungul labour Launceston LETTER looked magnificent Malacca Malays ment miles morning Mount Nelson Mount Wellington mountains natives neat Newtown night Norfolk Norfolk Plains o'clock passed pasture Penang plain pretty Punkahs rain residence rise river river Derwent road rocks rocky Roseneath Ferry rupees sailed scarcely servants settlement settlers shelter ship shore shrubs side sight Sincapore soon South Esk steep Straits Straits of Malacca Straits of Sunda Sullivan's Cove Sumatra surrounded Tasmania thick trees Van Diemen's Land vegetables vessels voyage whilst whole wind woods
Popular passages
Page 50 - ... supply all demands of this nature; and if the histories of every house were made public, you would shudder. Even in our small menage, our cook has committed murder, our footman burglary, and the housemaid bigamy ! But these formidable truths are hushed up, or tried to be so.
Page 75 - Land abounds in such fine rivers, and is surrounded by the sea, the inhabitants should not have advanced even to the construction of the slightest raft; but they are undoubtedly in the lowest possible scale of human nature, both in form and intellect. They have small hollow eyes, broad short noses, with nostrils widely distended, uncommonly large mouths, jaws elongated like the Ourang Outang, and figures scarcely more symmetrical. They are dark, short in stature, with disproportionately thin limbs...
Page 50 - Freemen find so many ways of making money here, that they will not take service ; and so the convicts, or, as they are delicately called,
Page 110 - I am just now in treaty for 1 001. worth of land, which, six years ago, sold for 41. per acre, and is now valued at 401. Adjoining to houses in Hobarton, land sells at 300Z. per acre ; my purchase is not a quarter of a mile off. The city will spread there in five years, and then it will be worth 7501.
Page 103 - ... the banks are constituted upon the safest possible principle — the business is almost confined to discounting bills — security is insisted on, and mortgages declined, lest land should be obtained instead of money. The quarter of the globe in which all these profits are to be safely made is so little known, that capital has not been drawn to it.
Page 105 - Lands to be granted in square miles, in the proportion of one square mile, or 640 acres for every £500 sterling of capital, which the applicant can immediately command, to the extent of four square miles or...
Page 51 - ... the light, consequently pervious to every wind. A retired military officer next advanced, with a proposal to keep house with him in his beautiful farm, at Newtown, a village, two miles from Hobarton. Here then, am I, writing at a window, with the best garden in the world, and one of the loveliest of views before me. Every kind of English fruit is hanging from the trees, in luscious abundance. I am preparing to feast on those rarities to an Indian — gooseberries and currants. Our neat well-finished...
Page 50 - ... awaited us at the end of our walk, a blazing fire, tea, toast, and exquisite butter, at the Macquarie Hotel. We sat for an hour with our feet on the fender, enjoying all this, and when the captain returned to his ship with apples, bread, and news of the accommodations we had secured, I marched E2 over the way to my friend B 's precious fireside and family circle.
Page 54 - ... to the foliage which clothes these hills; but he should visit the place to form an adequate idea of what is so very different from the pale green verdure of Old England. These dark woods form a rich back ground to the town as you view it from the water; they are principally composed of gumtrees, which, standing alone, are far from beautiful, being scraggy and bare of foliage below, but when united in groupes, they form a mass of dark leaves enlivened by their white irregular trunks. They are...
Page 54 - The view from the harbour would make the most magnificent panorama in the world, were a painter to give the deep brown and purple tints to the foliage which clothes these hills; but he should visit the place to form an adequate idea of what is so very different from the pale green verdure of Old England.