Launceston, Van Diemen's Land, July 8th, 1854.

The country, the farther we advanced towards Hobart Town, increased in beauty. The valley along which we drove became narrower, the hills more lofty, and much more varied in their outlines than any Australian scenery which I have yet seen. The valleys were rich and, for the most part, as well cultivated as in England. Owing to the difference of tenure here and in Victoria, a very different state of things has been the result. Here the occupiers of the land are the owners, not mere squatters, who have no sure tenure of the land, and, therefore, do nothing to it. Here, then, instead of mere isolated wooden huts, standing in the unappropriated forest, we have a constant succession of towns and villages, bearing the singular medley of names which colonists delight in, Ross, Oatlands, Green Ponds, Brighton, Bagdad, Jericho, Jerusalem, and, of course, the river Jordan.

All round these villages, which consist of substantial and even elegant houses, extend the richest fields all enclosed, with hedges generally of sweet briar, or furze, or broom, but also a good many of honest English hawthorn. There you see cattle, sheep, pigs enormously fat, and abundance of poultry of all kinds, feeding and flourishing in their several resorts, the meadows, the woodland slopes, or the farm-yards. It is England all over.