The city of 'balmy summers and cheerful winters' stands on the big-volumed Derwent. The river rises far inland, up among high mountains, where Lake St. Clair and Lake Sorell reflect the snowy peaks of their basaltic guardians. It runs through rich country, where settlement has become permanent, down to New Norfolk, where it bends and twists, and skirts lofty cliffs, passes through hop-fields, whose golden crops in the autumn make the landscape beautiful and the air fragrant, develops into a noble course a little farther on, and at Hobart is in some places seven miles in width, and in no place less than a mile. There are high mountains on both sides, and the valleys are exceptionally productive. The city is seated on seven hills; behind it is Knocklofty, a respectable eminence; and behind that again Mount Wellington, 4166 feet in height, forms a grand background. The population numbers about thirty thousand, and the citizens are tolerably thrifty, although not so enterprising nor so wealthy as the colonists of the mainland. The city was established early in the century, and for very many years it was the _entrepôt_ for the thousands of wretched convicts expatriated from Great Britain. It was an important military station, and its palmiest days were thirty-five years ago, when the Imperial Government spent £1000 a day in the maintenance of the gaols and the barracks. At that time the city was an important place, but the curse of transportation was upon it. In 1851 the last convict ship discharged its cargo, and since then the system has gradually run down, and is now very little more than a memory. The traces must necessarily linger, but their ultimate effacement is only a question of time. It is a pity that so fair a spot was ever used for so ill a purpose. Being the capital, Hobart possesses all the usual official institutions: a Government House in a beautiful garden on the Derwent, in which resides a well-paid representative of Her Majesty; Parliament Houses, in which sit two Chambers, who legislate upon the most approved constitutional plan; a Supreme Court, Civil Service Court, and other accessories suited to the requirements of the colony. Its monetary and trading institutions are sound, and its commercial relations with other ports expanding. The harbour is lined with well-built wharves, and the depth of water is astonishing. Twelve miles down the river are the Heads. The Southern Pacific is beyond; and so easy is the navigation that vessels very rarely have to employ pilots. Reefs and shoals are unknown.