thing like the questions which a man should put to him- | and in five years, the flocks of all ages would be 5464. self, and answer satisfactorily, before plunging into the The cost of 670 sheep is estimated at £1005; the exbusiness of an Australian sheep-farmer. Consenting pense of management in the first year, £80, and in the to submit to difficulties and privations, nothing more fifth year, £365. For the wool in the first year the alarming may intimidate the proposing emigrant. All settler would receive £213, 9s.; in the fifth year, £922, accounts coincide in representing the business of sheep- which, after deducting the cost of management (£365), farming, or, properly speaking, wool-growing, as most would leave him an income of £557. The value of the lucrative, and professionally less difficult than it is in flock is estimated, at the end of the fifth year, at £5851, Britain. To go into this business, a man should possess 15s. Mr. Gouger, in similar calculations, states the a capital of at least £2000, only a portion of which is to increase of stock at 80 per cent., and the loss from be laid out at first, and the remainder as it may appear deaths at 5 per cent.; the latter, we understand, is rather afterwards advisable. We should recommend young above than below the mark on an average of seasons. men who have but a moderate capital and little experience, to employ themselves for a time as assistants to the store-farmers. By doing so, there is a plan not unusual, of buying a quantity of ewes and getting permission to rear them with the employer's flock-he, the employer, haying a third of the wool and a third of the lambs as remuneration for the keep. A few extracts from letters of settlers will convey more precise information than any thing we can say from our own know ledge.

In a letter from a settler in South Australia, dated April 9, 1839, and published in the South Australiun, a London newspaper, the following details are given :"With respect to sheep-farming, there is only one opinion, that it is a certain fortune if a man has sufficient capital to start with, and goes into the country and attends to it. I think this a very good country for persons having £2000 or upwards, and also for the lower class; but young men with a few hundred pounds, and not uble to work, are sadly mistaken in coming here. I have purchased 600 ewes at 33s. each, and 300 at 35s., and intend getting about 300 more, so as to make two flocks of 600 each. It is usual to have a shepherd and a hutman for each flock of 600—the former at 20s., and the latter at 15s. a week, with rations, which consist of 12 lbs. of flour, 9 lbs. of pork, a quarter of a pound of tea, and 1 lb. of sugar. I shall, however, employ an overseer instead of one of the hutinen, as I find I must be a great deal in town, and have agreed to give him part of the increase of the flock in lieu of wages. I intend sending my sheep to a station about twenty-five miles north from Adelaide: there are some good sheep runs about fifty miles from hence, which is at present thought a great distance, but within a short time it will be thought nothing of."

The following account of the increase of sheep stock is from the Sydney Herald:-66 Early in April, 1838, Mr. Robert R. Leake, a young gentleman well instructed in pastoral affairs, and formerly employed by the South Australian Company, landed in the province 390 ewes and 10 rams. The dropping of lambs unfortunately commenced immediately after landing, and while the ewes were suffering from the effects of the voyage, so that a considerable number were lost. The produce, however, of the flock, on the 1st June, amounted to 351 lambs. On the 1st of January following, the same ewes lambed the second time, and the produce was 306 lambs, making the increase of Mr. Leake's flock as under :May 1, original flock, ewes and rams, 400; June 1, increase lambs, 351; January 2, increase lambs, 306; actual increase within seven months, 657; total flock, 13th January, 1057. The lambs of the first dropping will produce in August next, along with the imported ewes, and Mr. Leake calculates that his increase of lambs upon the whole flock during that month will amount to 510, which added to the present flock of 1057, shows an increase upon the original importation of 400, of 1197 within little more than sixteen months."

These statements are fully corroborated by tables annexed to Captain Sturt's Expedition into Australia, who supposes that, with a flock originally amounting to 670, the increase at the end of the first year would be 595, VOL. IL-91

In the small work, "Three Years of a Settler's Life," we find a letter communicating advice designed for a young emigrant who possessed only a small capital, and from it we take the following extract: In the firs place, I must acquaint you that £900 is but a drop in tl.e bucket to commence settling with, even if he understood how to make the best of it; however, I think, if he could not employ himself profitably in Sydney, it would do him a service to see the country. But, before he turns settler, he must know how to work. By the by, I wil explain how he may invest his capital profitably while he is seasoning his fingers. He must not be above soiling them-he must think it no degradation to load a cart and drive a team of bullocks; in fact, he must be a perfect farmer, and he should and must learn, if he wishes to prosper in this country, to be industrious; he must plough his own ground, sow, and reap, and afterwards not be above grinding it. When he can do all this, and be content that God has given him bodily strength sufficient for it, then he will become a rich

man.

In seven years' time, with his capital judiciously managed, he will be worth £1500 per annum.

"Let him purchase 300 good sound ewes, and give them out to some honest man on the usual conditions, namely, thirds of increase and wool. [By this is meant, as already said, that the farmer who keeps the ewes is to receive a third of the young lambs and a third of the wool from the flock annually, leaving the two-thirds of increase in both cases as the property of the owner of the ewes.] In three years' time he may begin for himself; he will by that time, if ever, be acquainted with the customs of the country, and probably the management of his en establishment. His accounts will most likely be as t flow:-1834, 300 ewes; 1835, 270 lambs, less 90 of thirds; 1836, 270 lambs, less 90 of thirds; 1837, 350 lambs, less 117 of thirds. Total, 1190, less 297, leaving a balance of 893 sheep. The wool account will be

Thus, in three years from November, 1834, which we will say is the time he will purchase, he will have 893 sheep, and £192, 4s. returned to him for his £300 This is a moderate calculation, and is most likely to be exceeded; but you will not be able to trace it, as I have cut off for deaths, casualties, odd numbers, &c."

The following are extracts from letters written by two young men, brothers, who left Leith for Port Philip in April, 1839, giving a description of their voyage and settlement. They both possessed a small patrimony which they carried with them as a capital to adventure in sheep-farming, or any other suitable line of business. The vessel in which they sailed reached the Cape on the 3 P

considered the best ground for sheep, as it affords good wilderness. It is of importance to observe, that no one sheiter from the cold, and shade from the sun. There in such circumstances can reasonably expect to avoid are really many beautiful parts, and more like the park experiencing such sensations. Take any man from a scenery around a nobleman's seat than a wilderness. counter or desk, much more from a respectable drawingBut there are other places which look as wild and bleak room, and oblige him to attend to the drudgeries of as you can conceive-immense plains with nothing but sheep-farming even in Lincolnshire or Roxburghshire, short grass on them-no water-and stretching away and he would in all likelihood feel precisely the same to the horizon. You cannot see a tree or any thing on disgust. But such disagreeables must only have a temthem; and they are only inhabited by wild dogs, turkeys, porary operation. After a little while, the man's nature and snakes. The grass in most part of these plains will become in some measure accommodated to them. affords excellent pasturage for sheep, but, from the want they will be in themselves diminished, and other circumof wood and water, they are useless. You must be stances will arise to palliate and compensate for them. near some river or water-holes, in order that the sheep All, then, that the emigrant has to contemplate at the may drink every day; this they will always do when beginning is, how he is to get over the first shock. That there is no rain and the weather has been dry for some passed, it is to be hoped that, with a fair share of vigour time, when the grass becomes so dry, that if you take a and perseverance, he will begin to find pleasures he did little you can rub it in your hands till it is like snuff. not contemplate in a simple rural life. Our place is very pretty, being on a creek or water-holes, The last letter of our two young friends, dated June, which are connected with a river, of which we do not 1840, tends to support these views. It is written in a know the name. These water-holes [or series of pools] much more cheerful spirit than those previously sent, run during winter, but become dry in the summer, ex- things having begun to improve in appearance. The cept the very deep holes. Adjacent are some large gum-lambing season had passed, leaving fully a thousand trees, some fallen into the water, and some half buried, but still flourishing, with the grass long and luxuriant, and forming excellent feeding for our bullocks. Our hut is placed a few. yards from these holes, with the sheep yard immediately behind; on one side we have a woody country, going back nobody knows how far, affording shelter to the natives, kangaroos, and emus."

From other passages in these letters, we learn that the writers are far from being satisfied with their situation-the miseries of living in a turf-built hut-the swarms of fleas the dreadful solitude they are compelled to endure, being twenty miles from any other settlement -their half-savage mode of life-their recollections of home-all tend to inspire distaste of their lot. We believe that such sensations are common to all young emigrants who have abruptly left refined society and plunged all at once into the novel career of sheep-farming in the

young lambs, and another dropping equally good was expected in November; " but," says the writer, "there has been a great outlay, and there will be little return till the third year; the wool should then pay all expenses, the increase of flock being the profit. The first stock we will have to sell will be wethers, which are at present selling for 20s. each." The party had also begun to cultivate a few acres of land, for the purpose of raising wheat, which is excessively expensive in the colony, also to lay out a garden, and to rear fowls. The only drawback, it is added, is the want of labourers, and this keeps every thing behind. The writer now rather laughs than laments over the domestic arrangements" of the hut: one of his companions had commissioned a wife from Scotland, and sent for two nephews to assist in the farm, while all were looking forward to a course of moderate prosperity and comfort.

EMIGRATION TO VAN DIEMEN'S LAND AND NEW ZEALAND.

VAN DIEMEN'S LAND.

GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION AND GENERAL HISTORY.

VAN DIEMEN'S LAND is an island lying off the southern extremity of the mainland of Australia, from which it is separated by a channel 120 miles broad, called Bass's Strait. Its situation is between latitude 41° and 44° south, and between longitude 144° 40′ and 148° 20′ east of Greenwich. The length of the island is about 210 miles, and its breadth 150. It was first discovered in the year 1642, by Abel Jansen Tasman, a celebrated Dutch navigator, and was by him called Van Diemen's Land, in honour of Anthony Van Diemen, at that time governor-general of the Dutch possessions in the East Indies. Nothing, however, immediately resulted from this discovery, and for upwards of a hundred years the island was lost sight of. In 1773, it was visited by Captain Furneau, the first English navigator who had ever touched at it; after this it was visited from time to time by several celebrated navigators, and among these by Captain Cook, in the year 1777. It was not, how

ever, until 1803 that any settlement was made upon the island; in that year it was formally taken possession of by Lieutenant Bowers, as a receptacle for convicts, with a party from Port Jackson, in New South Wales, where a penal establishment had been already fixed; and to this purpose Van Diemen's Land was exclusively devoted until the year 1819, when it was thrown open to free settlers. It is thus only since the very recent period just named that it has exhibited the character of a colony. Its progress, however, has been since then extremely rapid. Van Diemen's Land is sometimes called Tasmania by its inhabitants, in honour of Tasman its discoverer.

The continent of Australia and Van Diemen's Land are totally different in character, the one being flat and ill-watered, so as to be suitable chiefly for pasturing, while the other is mountainous, and more resembling Ireland or Scotland. The appearance of Van Diemen's Land from the sea is exceedingly picturesque, presenting an endless succession of lofty mountains, covered to their summits with wood; while tall rocks and precipices, glens and hills, contribute to increase the interest of this

romantic island. Nor does a nearer inspection materi-banks of the Derwent, and south of Hobart Town in the ally alter this general character of the scene.

On traversing the island, it is found to present a constant alternation of hill and dale, with occasional flats or plains; but these are comparatively few in number, though some of them are of great extent, consisting in several instances of not less than from 8000 to 10,000 acres, and one in particular is said to be six miles in length, and from two to three in breadth. These plains are in general exceedingly fertile, and being often but thinly interspersed with trees, present a most delightful appearance. There are some of them, again, very poor, presenting a cold thin soil, of little value. Van Diemen's Land, though it cannot be called a well-watered country, is yet much superior in that respect to New South Wales. Besides several extensive lakes scattered throughout the interior, it possesses a considerable number of rivers; and in almost every district of the island water is to be found. The names of the two largest ivers are the Derwent and the Tamar.

In another important particular, this island is pecuiarly fortunate, that is, in the number and capacity of its harbours, no place of similar extent in the world probably being equal to it in this respect. The principal harbours are the Derwent on its southern side, Port Davey and Macquarrie Harbour on the western, Port Sorrel and Port Dalrymple on the northern, and Oyster Bay and Great Swan Port on the eastern coast. Besides these, there are many other harbours, bays, and creeks, distributed along its shores. The coast is in general high and rocky, particularly on the south, east, and western sides of the island: on the north, however, it presents a line of low alternate sandy beaches, on which the surf rolls with great impetuosity during the prevalence of northerly winds. From the extremely hilly nature of the country, there is but a comparatively small proportion of it adapted for the plough, though presenting abundance of excellent pasturage. The extent of really available land throughout the known part of the island, has been estimated at one-third of the whole, and this is again divided into four parts, giving one for the plough and the other three for pasture: thus, out of 1000 acres of land, about 100 will be found fit for cultivation, and from 300 to 400 for grazing. This is, of course, a rough estimate, and may be found not to be correct in many instances, but in general we believe it will not be far from the truth.

DIVISION-DISTRICTS, &c.

Van Diemen's Land was originally divided into two counties, Buckingham and Cornwall; the former occupying the northern, and the latter the southern portion of the island. These counties have been again subdivided into the following districts :-Hobart Town, New Norfolk, Richmond, Clyde, Oatlands, Oyster Bay, Campbeltown, Norfolk Plains, and Launceston.

Hobart Town District, though the smallest in extent of any in the island, is yet the most important in the colony, as well from the circumstance of its including Hobart Town, the capital of the island, as from its possessing many superior local advantages; and, among these, that of its being accessible by water on three different sides by the Huon river, which forms its southern boundary, by the Derwent on the north and east, and by the sea on the east. The whole district, including the island of Bruny, which lies off the mouth of the Huon river, and forms part of it, comprises 400 square miles, or about 25,000 acres. The country in this district, however, is in general so hilly, that out of these 25,000 acres there are not above 1600 under tillage; and it is said that the first cost of clearing and preparing these lands for the plough greatly exceeds what they would now bring altogether if put up to public sale. The best and principal farms here are situated on the

direction of Fairlie's Cove; behind this, interiorly, there are but few locations, nor does the appearance of the country tend much to invite future settlers, the soil being in general so thin, and so heavily encumbered with trees, that even its vicinity to the capital is scarcely an inducement sufficient to any one to attempt its cultivation.

In this district, Hobart Town, the capital of the colony, as we have already said, is situated. Hobart Town is built on the left bank of the River Derwent, at the head of a beautiful cove or bay, distant about twenty miles from its junction with the sea. The town is pleasantly situated on a gently rising ground, which, gradually retiring, terminates ultimately in hills of considerable height, covered with wood, and presenting a most romantic appearance. These, again, are overlooked by one of still greater altitude, called Mount Wellington, which rises to the height of 4000 feet above the level of the sea. Hobart Town is thus happily placed between highly picturesque hills on the one hand, and a beautiful bay or arm of the sea on the other; for, though the Derwent be here called a river, it can so be called only in a very extended sense, the water being still salt, and of considerable width. The town itself covers somewhat more than a square mile of ground; the houses are principally constructed of wood, though many of them are of brick and freestone. The streets are regularly laid out, and those of them that have been completed are macadamized, and present on either side long rows of large and handsome shops. The town derives a peculiar and highly pleasing character, too, from the circumstance of the houses in general standing apart from each other, each having a small plot of ground, from a quar ter to a half an acre in extent, attached to it. Its publie buildings are numerous, and many of them would be considered handsome even in Britain. The town contains breweries, tanneries, distilleries, flour-mills, two or three banks, hospitals, churches, schools, charitable and stipendary, inns, taverns, hotels, and grog-shops ad infinitum, and every thing else which bespeaks a thriving, bustling, industrious, and civilized community. Nor are they behind in the department of literature: two or three newspapers are here published weekly, besides a yearly almanac, containing a great deal of statistical and other interesting information regarding the colony, and an official gazette.

New Norfolk District lies immediately behind the former, and is entirely inland, no part of it approaching the sea: its extent from east to west is about fifty miles, and from north to south about thirty-thus comprising 1500 square miles, or 900,000 acres. This district is in general much more fertile than that of Hobart Town, returning on an average from six to eight bushels of wheat per acre more than the latter. The farms, too, are of much larger extent, many of them amounting to 2000 acres, some of which are delightfully situated on the banks of the Rivers Derwent and Jordan, the latter of which streams, after passing through an exceedingly beautiful tract of country, ultimately falls into the former at a place called Herdsman's Cove. In this district there is also a large proportion of rich sheep pasture. New Norfolk is intersected, in a north-westerly direction, by a chain of lofty mountains, covered with the most magnificent timber, and exhibiting snow on their summits throughout the greater part of the year. From its vicinity to Hobart Town, and the advantage of water car riage which the lower part of the district possesses, there is a greater proportion of agricultural produce raised in it than in many of the other districts. It is remarkable, however, that, with all its superiority of soil, its crop of potatoes is about one-seventh less than that of the Hobart Town district. Here is a pleasantly stated little town or village, bearing the name of district, and distant