Page:Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies.djvu/171

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1833.]
VAN DIEMENS LAND.
135

by a fellow-mortal, or perplexed by the straying of a beast, will insult the Majesty of Heaven?—After breakfast we pursued our route over a second Epping Forest, a sandy track more thickly timbered than the generality of this part of the country; and emerging from it near a good looking house called Wanstead, soon arrived at the dwelling of John Mc. Leod, a hospitable Scotchman, residing upon the Elizabeth River, near Campbell Town.

24th. In the forenoon, we had a meeting with about two hundred persons in the Court House at Campbell Town, a place consisting of a Court-house, a small wooden jail, and about a score of houses, some of which are of brick. Being helped on our way by J. Mc. Leod, who provided us with horses, we had a meeting in the evening at Ross, eight miles further from Launceston: this, like the one at Campbell Town, was a general assembly of the neighbouring settlers and their servants, to whom the Gospel was freely proclaimed.—We lodged at the. house of George Parramore, a venerable and pious settler, whom we considered it a privilege to visit.

25th. We breakfasted at Mona Vale, with William Kermode, an opulent sheep-farmer, who accompanied us across Salt Pan Plains, an open grassy district, over which a low, drooping species of Gum-tree is thinly scattered. Upon W. Kermode's estate, near the junction of the Blackman River with the Macquarie, there is a piece of ground that yields about forty bushels of wheat per acre, but it is of small extent.—Salt Pan Plains are more valued as sheep pasture, than for agriculture. These plains are terminated southward by woody hills, among which is an opening called St. Peter's Pass, through which lies the road to Oatlands, a town of about twenty houses of freestone, adjoining a rushy lagoon, called Lake Frederick.—About eight miles further is a little scattered settlement named Jericho, upon a small periodical stream, designated The Jordan. Here we found comfortable accommodation at a respectable inn.

26th. We proceeded by another little settlement called The Lovely Banks, and by the Cross Marsh, to Green Ponds. The Cross Marsh is a rich flat, intersected by the Jordan, which in the drier seasons of the year, is reduced to a chain of