Atlas Page 102
By James Smith

APPROACHED from the sea, or viewed from the other side of the estuary of the Derwent, the city of Hobart is seen to occupy a position resembling that of Genoa, Naples, and Constantinople, but with a far more imposing background than any of these. If its architectural features suffer by comparison with those of the capitals we have named, its natural surroundings amply compensate for such deficiencies as these; for look in what direction the observer may, the eye finds everywhere something delightful to rest upon. The city itself creeps up an undulating range of foothills, with tenderly curved outlines and hollows full of restful shadow, and the shore line all around the estuary is equally graceful in contour. The rising ground behind is cultivated to the edge of the forest, stretching away to the summit of the mountain chain of which Nelson —looking seaward as becomes an eminence which bears the naval hero’s name —is the outpost, and Wellington the predominating mass. The silhouette of the latter, especially when sharply defined against the evening sky, may be compared to that of some monstrous plesiosaurus stretched out in sleep, the head and neck depressed and bending down towards the north, its back elevated near the shoulders, and its tall tapering down for miles in a southerly direction, while the "organ-pipes" resemble a portion of its vast anatomy laid bare in ghastly conflict with some "dragon of the prime." In the matter of colour the mountain is a veritable chameleon, changing its hues with the varying position of the sun, and with the condition and temperature of the atmosphere. And it has its moods of gloom and moroseness, of brightness and gaiety; sometimes veiling its head with wreaths of impenetrable vapour, and haughtily secluding itself from view for days together; and at others revealing every feature of its rugged face with startling distinctness; while in the winter months, and often in the early autumn and the late spring, it wears a stainless crown of snow with a dignity becoming its venerable age.

Another good general view of the city is obtainable from either of the hills upon its northward side, dotted with villa and cottage residences, and rendered verdant and fragrant by fruitful orchards and flowery gardens. From such a point it is like looking down upon a map of the city in alto relievo; and in the pure clear air every building of any importance stands out, sharp and distinct, while beyond the beautiful shoreline the blue waters of the Derwent interpose their lustrous surface between the more compact quarters of the city, and the triple tier of mountain ranges on the other side of the estuary, concealing the land-locked expanse of Pitt Water which lies some little distance beyond.

As the seat of government, the social and commercial capital of the southern half the island, and a popular place of resort during the summer months by some hundreds of visitors from New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia, Hobart enjoys an importance which cannot fail to go on increasing with the lapse of years, and with the increasing facilities of intercommunication which these will bring with them. For while its climatic attractions are considerable the beauty of its situation and of its environments prefers a perpetual claim upon the admiration. Elsewhere, picturesque points of view have to be sought out. Here they thrust themselves upon the attention of the spectator so that he cannot escape them. The grandeur of the natural forms, the grace of line, the loveliness of colour, and the variety of detail are constantly in evidence. Every little eminence and "coign of vantage" offers to the tourist a novel combination of the elements of scenic beauty which abound in this favoured region. They are few in number —mountain, estuary, wood, and sky —but the combinations of which they are susceptible are infinite in number and Protean in charm as in variety.

The city itself has an aspect both of solidity and brightness, owing to the fact that most of its public and a large proportion of its private edifices are built of an excellent sandstone, quarried in the neighbourhood, and retaining its original freshness of colour in many instances, while mellowing down to a soft grey in others. The principal streets have been laid out at right angles to each other; and the main streams of traffic, as in most Australian cities, are confined to a couple of thoroughfares running north and south, and two others running east and west. Another characteristic feature of Hobart is its verdure. There are large gardens and even orchards in close proximity to the very centre of the city; and in the immediate vicinity of the wharves and the government offices, the wayfarer can step out of a busy street into the comparative seclusion of a little park, where the statue of Sir John Franklin rises out of a miniature island, covered with flowers and foliage, and surrounded by a basin of water flecked with the broad green leaves and wiry flowers of the water lily. This garden occupies the site of the old Government House. The newer edifice has been erected upon a pretty promontory, half a mile or so beyond the northern boundary of the city, on the west bank of the Derwent. It resembles a Tudor mansion in design and detail; and its state apartments and Gothic ballroom are worthy of its external appearance. Few palaces outside of Bavaria command so superb a prospect on all sides, as government house at Hobart; embracing as it does the broad expanse of the Derwent, the city backed by the august form of Mount Wellington, and ranges of mountains encircling the landscape in every direction, save where the river, flowing seaward, opens out into Ralph’s Bay on one side of a peninsula, and the south arm upon the other. The Queen’s domain close by is ail extensive and elevated reserve, dedicated to the use of the public in perpetuity, and laid out so as to present a variety of drives, and a diversity of pleasant prospects. An obelisk and drinking fountain, erected upon it in memory of Charles Meredith, serve to perpetuate the name of a prominent Tasmanian public man.

On the borders of the domain, the battlemented parapet and mullioned windows of a monastic-looking building arrest the eye; and the stranger learns upon enquiry that it is Christ’s College, an Institution which has rendered, and is rendering valuable service in the higher education of the young on Christian principles. Another scholastic institution, erected in memory of Archdeacon Hutchins, constitutes one of the ornaments of Macquarie Street; where its ivy-mantled gables, its central tower, and its generally antique appearance cause it to resemble a hit of mediaeval Oxford, dropped down amidst the commodious and comfortable modern residences which abound in that neighbourhood. Some of the more important of the public buildings of the city are to be found in the same street. Foremost among these is the town hall, handsome structure of freestone, containing, besides the usual municipal offices, a large and well proportioned ballroom, an excellent free library, and a reading room liberally supplied with British and colonial periodicals and newspapers. The various government offices are conveniently grouped together in a massive pile of buildings, the principal facade of which abuts upon Murray Street; while the supreme court is separated from the town hall by the bowery square containing the statue of Sir John Franklin, previously described. A little to the eastward of it is the fine esplanade bearing the name of Castray, the commissary-general by whom it was designed and executed. The Protestant cathedral, dedicated to St. David, occupies the site of the somewhat primitive structure it displaced in 1868, at the intersection of Murray and Macquarie Streets. Its style is early English, its plan cruciform, and the material employed a brown stone, with white stone dressings. It contains a fine organ and several stained-glass windows, and, when completed according to the original design, with its detached tower and spire, will constitute one of the most prominent architectural adornments of a city not poor in public buildings.

The members of the Roman Catholic denomination have with their characteristic liberality, erected a beautiful cathedral, dedicated to St. Mary, in Harrington-street; the interior of which has been rendered additionally striking by a carved stone pulpit, a fine organ, and a stained glass window at the east end of the sanctuary, set up in memory of Bishop Wilson and Vicar-General Hall, who were fellow labourers together in Hobart for upwards of twenty years, and went to their rest within a few days of each other. Near the cathedral are the bishop’s palace, the Presentation convent, and some schools conducted by the Sisterhood of the latter. At the other end of the same street are the church and orphanage of St. Joseph, belonging to the same denomination, but receiving a good deal of moral and pecuniary support from liberal Protestants, in recognition of the beneficent work it is accomplishing in the rescue of the neglected children of the city from probable grief and possible guilt, and in training them up to become useful and reputable members of society.

The Church of England as it is represented in Hobart possesses altogether four churches and a mission chapel within the boundaries of the city, one of them, the Holy Trinity, possessing a remarkably fine peal of bells; the Wesleyans have three places of worship, the Presbyterians two, the Congregationalists three, the Baptists two, and the Free Church of Scotland, the United Methodists, the Friends, the Jews, the Primitive Methodists, the Brethren, the "Christians," and the Mariners one each. The Parliament Houses and the Custom House are covered by the same roof in Lower Murray-street, and the Exhibition Building and the market adjoin each other in Campbell-street, which also contains the Theatre Royal and the gaol; while a solid block close by is covered by the buildings and grounds of an excellent hospital, which has recently been enlarged. Four banks externally symbolise the solidity of the business transacted inside their walls; the Museum of the Royal Society at the corner of Macquarie and Argyle-streets, contains an interesting collection of objects interesting to the naturalist, the geologist, and the mineralogist and three clubs —one of them founded by working-men —offer to members and visitors all the advantages incidental to such institutions in other cities. For the cultivation of music, horticulture, photographic art, literary and political discussion, and all kinds of out-door sports and recreations, special associations have been organised, and Hobart is deficient in few of the means of social enjoyment and intellectual culture attainable in the more populous capitals on the mainland.

In the summer months, however, its supreme charm is to be sought for in its environs, in the numerous picturesque walks and drives which present themselves in all directions, and in the ascent of Mount Wellington. The Springs, half-way up the mountain, can be reached on horseback, or in a carriage, the road lying through sylvan scenery of great beauty: and having crossed the "ploughed field" —the ridges and furrows of which are composed of enormous boulders and their intervening fissures —the tourist gains the rocky plateau, and is rewarded by a prospect of remarkable extent and variety. He looks down, indeed, upon a considerable portion of four counties —Monmouth, Pembroke, Buckingham, and Kent. The city of Hobart, diminished by distance, resembles some hundreds of miniature dice thickly scattered upon a, green cloth. The Derwent glitters like a sheet of silver in the sun, and beyond it are the numerous Promontories and thickly-wooded hills of a peninsula, upon the farther shores of which Pitt Water and Frederick Henry Bay interpose their irregular outlines and shining surfaces between the undulating ridges of the nearer peninsula and the wavy outlines of one which has the ocean for its outer margin, and runs down to Cape Raoul and Cape Pillar. Looking southward, the eye takes in a magnificent combination of land and water outspread

"As in a map, before the adventurer’s gaze—
Ocean and earth contending for regard."

The embouchure of the Derwent, Storm Bay, Franklin Island, Tasman’s Peninsula, North-west Bay, the islands of North, and South Bruni, D’Entrecasteaux Channel, and the romantic country in the neighbourhood of the River Huon, are among the more striking features of a scene to which a mystic beauty is imparted by little islands of white vapour, floating in the air at a lower altitude than that occupied by the spectator, and projecting their shadowy duplicates upon the otherwise sunny landscape below.

The foot of Mount Wellington may be described as clothed with perennial verdure, for the streams which flow from its summit lend unfading freshness to fern-tree bowers overarching babbling brooks and noisy cataracts, upon the cold surface of which no glint of sunlight is ever permitted to fall by the interlacing boughs and branches of the majestic forest trees that attain to such a lofty altitude overhead. Along the spurs of the mountain winds the Huon Road, one of the most beautiful of the many beautiful drives outside of Hobart. By a steady ascent, full of picturesque windings, it climbs to a height of one thousand six hundred feet, and thence descends to the valley which is the natural habitat of the Huon pine, and contains the estuary of the river whence the tree derives its name. The roadside scenery is a. romantic combination of mountain forests, filled with gigantic timber rising out of a perfect jungle of musk, sassafras, honey-plants, grass-trees, scrub-vines, yellow dog-wood, and the native pear-tree, with its wand-like stems thickly clustered together; cataracts, rushing over rocky ledges; fern-tree gullies, overshadowed by the greenest’ of fronds; and knolls which have been cleared of their timber and thus enable the coach passenger to look across the summits of the trees, so thickly massed in a hollow below, to the distant Derwent, as it stretches away to the mountain range forming its eastern boundary and to the various bays which indent its shore-line to the southward. Here and there, here a bush-fire has swept through the forest, the foliage of many of the scorched saplings —beautiful in death —is almost resplendent in colour, the predominating tints being old gold and a satin crimson. Mount Wellington itself offers some of the finest scenery in the island and one such view is obtainable from the Cascades, looking across a billowy sea of leafiness up to the cliff-like face of the mountain, which is there seen to detach itself from all the surrounding and subordinate eminences, with every ridge and furrow of its crest sharply accentuated against the sky; the "organ-pipes" well defined by reason of the shadows in their grooves and crevices; and streaks of snow variegating the rugged declivities of the central mass. The profile of the mountain is nowhere seen to such advantage as from the high ground overlooking Cornelian Bay near Risdon, a little to the northward of Hobart; a spot rendered additionally interesting from the fact of its having been selected, in the first instance, as the site of the future capital by Lieutenant Bowen and the earliest party of settlers from New South Wales; a choice set aside a year afterwards by Lieutenant-Governor Collins. In this part of its course the Derwent appears to be so completely land-locked as to resemble a beautiful lake, recalling in its general features those of Cumberland and Westmoreland. It is girdled by hills; and above the flowing lines of these, in a southerly direction, the extended mass of Mount Wellington, with a huge dome at one end and a sharply-defined cliff at the other, forms a majestic and imposing boundary to the landscape.

Quitting Hobart by the railway which follows the course of the Derwent to New Norfolk, the tourist is carried past the pretty suburb of New Town, embosomed in gardens and orchards, and Glenorchy, with its picturesque little church, and a distant view of the landslip which has left a great scar on the shaggy slopes of Mount Wellington, and through hop gardens, and along the margin of a succession of diminutive bays, and across a long causeway at Bridgewater. Thenceforward the line hugs the eastern bank of the river, and sweeps round the base of the ranges which here dip down to the water’s edge, leaving an occasional margin, however, of reedy marsh, or a ledge of scrubby pasture; while on the other side of the broad stream the mountains recede, affording ample space in the valley for cornfields and pastures and comfortable homesteads. Just before reaching New Norfolk the river passes through a species of gorge, and the tall cliffs on either side are so regularly laminated as to resemble artificial masonry executed upon a colossal scale, and the rocks are so curiously weather-worn in places as to present fantastic analogies to the recessed porches of a minster facade; to vacant niches, ruined canopies, windows that are crumbling to decay; buttresses which have lost their crowning pinnacles, and mouldings and string courses which have been eaten away by the tooth of time. The town itself has been built upon a shelf of land considerably higher than the level of the river, which is bordered by native and weeping willows, acacias, and poplars. Hop-gardens, orchards, and trim gardens emboss the slopes, the hawthorn hedges remind the traveller of those of the English Kent, and in the autumnal season they are one mass of rich maroon, while those of sweetbrier are a vivid scarlet. There is Just such an old-fashioned inn as Washington Irving and Charles Dickens delighted to describe, and in whatever direction the eye directs its gaze, the pleasant landscape is seen to be enclosed and framed by mountain ranges, the more distant rivalling the sky in their soft azure, while the less remote vary in colour from a russet brown to a dingy yellow. In the salmon ponds a few miles to the north-westward of New Norfolk, the work of acclimatizing that valuable and migratory fish is being pursued with a tenacity of purpose and a confidence of ultimate success which no difficulties or disappointments have been allowed to dishearten, and there is every reason to anticipate that at no very distant period salmon fishing will attract as many visitors to the banks of the Derwent, as are now drawn to the streams of Scotland and Norway during the season set apart for that sport.

Two small steamers trading between Hobart and Tasman’s Peninsula enable the tourist to visit one of the loveliest regions of the island —that which is associated with some of the darkest days and darkest deeds of its history as a penal settlement. In point of scenic beauty Port Arthur, which is reached by crossing the peninsula from Taranna in Norfolk Bay, is a little Eden; just such a place as a benevolent enthusiast might select as the locality of an experiment for the reconstruction of society in accordance with some idyllic dream of human perfection; but that it should have been deliberately chosen as a sort of cloaca maxima —a receptacle for the criminal sewage of Great Britain, is altogether astounding. Never was one of the fairest recesses of a virgin land more shockingly desecrated. Never did one of the finest sanctuaries of nature receive such terrible defilement. Seen from the stone pier facing the former residence of the commandant, the broad inlet presents all the appearance of an inland lake set in a double zone of mountains; the inner one having softly undulating outlines, and the outer one rising into stately domes and pinnacles. A little tumulus, called " the island of the dead " rises from the bosom of the water a mile or so to the eastward. It covers the mortal remains of seventeen hundred persons, bond and free —but all enfranchised now. Hard by is a narrow promontory known as Puer Point, to which a ghastly legend is attached —that of its having been the scene of a collective suicide perpetrated by a number of youthful criminals, who, linked hand in hand, leaped into the sea. Among the wooded ranges which rise behind this promontory, and from the opposite shore of the bay a conical eminence, which has received the name of Arthur’s Peak, assumes a marked predominance. The whole landscape, especially when flushed with the softened splendour of an autumnal sunset, seems bathed in an atmosphere of serenity and peace; and nothing breaks the repose but the rhythmical pulsing of the tiny wavelets on the stony beach, or the last notes of a honey-sucker as it sinks to rest amidst the leafy covert of an English oak. Of this stately tree, as well as of the elm and ash, there are some of the noblest specimens at Port Arthur to be met with south of the line —trees that were planted half a century ago. And amidst the perpetually renovated youth of nature there are heaps of ruins —large areas covered with the debris of dismantled buildings; a spacious penitentiary peopled with awful memories; its barred windows admitting a dismal light into cells associated with hideous crimes and terrible sufferings; its sentry-boxes falling to decay; and some of its roofs collapsing with their own weight; while children gambol up and down the steps of the battlemented tower, the lower part of which was formerly a condemned cell for such of the soldiers as had incurred the penalty of death. Port Arthur, or Carnarvon as it is now called, contains what is probably the only ecclesiastical ruin in Australia, —the rootless walls and pinnacled tower of a free-stone church, never consecrated on account of a murder committed within its precincts, and gutted by an accidental fire which left its solid shell of masonry intact. This is almost concealed by a luxuriant growth of ivy. The structure is approached by a grassy avenue of umbrageous oaks; at the entrance of which are two massive stone pillars, the adjuncts of which exactly resemble those described by Hood in his "Haunted House": —

"Unhinged the iron gates half-open hung
Jarred by the gusty gales of many winters,
That from its crumbled pedestal had flung
One marble globe in splinters."

Inside the church some of the charred rafters are seen protruding from the naked walls, and the stone pavement, trodden by the feet of so many miserable criminals, is littered with fragments of iron contorted by the action of the fire. The place looks very uncanny when the light of a young moon faintly illuminates its gaping void, and the rustling ivy seems to be whispering ghostly secrets to the shadowy trees in the dark avenue that slopes downward from the hollow towers.

Other parts of the peninsula abound in objects of interest. Where Port Arthur widens out into Mangon Bay, the two promontories which mark its southerly extremities, and are about ten miles apart, terminate in Cape Pillar on the eastern and Cape Raoul on the western side. Both of these romantic headlands are composed of basaltic pillars, six hundred or seven hundred feet high, massed together in some instances and detached in others by the action of the waves, which, within the memory of persons now living, have undermined and swept away some scores of the columns of which Cape Raoul is composed. In its immediate neighbourhood are no less than three blow-holes, with their accompanying caverns scooped out of the soft rock by the irresistible sea.

The narrow isthmus connecting Tasman’s with Forestier’s Peninsula is known as Eagle Hawk Neck, which was guarded in the older days by a cordon of powerful dogs so as to prevent the escape of convicts; and if the latter plunged into the sea on either side it was almost impossible for them to elude the vigilance of the sharks, which were encouraged by judicious feeding on the part of the penal authorities to haunt the bay in either side. In the immediate vicinity of this isthmus is the remarkable freak of nature known as Tasman’s Arch, consisting of an enormous mass of rock superimposed upon two huge monoliths, or piers, with the sea ebbing and flowing between them. Equally remarkable is the "Tesselated Pavement," composed of stars of basalt, so uniform in size, so level in surface, and so regularly laid as to resemble a work planned by human skill and wrought by human hands.

From North Bay on the eastern side of Forestier’s Peninsula it is only a couple of hour’s sail with a fair wind to Maria Island, which has been compared, and not inaptly, to Capri, in the Bay of Naples. Tradition attributes its name to Tasman, who is alleged to have given it in honour of the daughter of his patron, Governor Van Diemen. Originally a penal settlement, it is now leased to some capitalists, who are cultivating vines and olives and otherwise endeavouring to convert the land to profitable uses. On the northern side of the island cliffs of basalt rise almost perpendicularly to a height of more than two thousand three hundred feet; but its geological formation also includes granite, limestone, and sandstone. The island is almost cut in two by the deep indentation of Oyster Bay on the one side, and of Reidle Bay on the other; as these are only separated by a narrow isthmus. A central mountain spine is described by Mrs. Charles Meredith as "broken up by deep ravines, and clothed with forests, while gentle slopes skirt the floor upon the western side." Returning southward by sea, and crossing the entrance to Storm Bay, the tourist sees the two islands of Bruni, connected by a mere ligature or narrow sand-spit, serving as the eastern boundary of the tortuous and dangerous estuary upon which Rear-Admiral D’Entrecasteaux conferred his name. Into it the Huon pours its affluent flood, collected from many a distant mountain range, and swollen by numerous tributaries; and the channel is bordered by numbers of beautiful bays, surrounded by sylvan solitudes, destined hereafter to become the sites of cities as charmingly situated as Mentone, Nice, or Monaco. Between the south-east and the south-west capes, the most southerly points of Tasmania, there are many islands and "merchant-marring" rocks; and when the second of these headlands has been passed, the coast trends round to, the northward until Port Davey opens out; after which the most conspicuous headlands are those of Rocky Point, Point Hibbs, and Cape Sorell; the latter guarding the narrow entrance to the magnificent sheet of water which bears the name of Macquarie Harbour, an serves as the natural gateway as it were to some of the wildest and grandest scenery in Midland Tasmania.

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