9. From this desperate state the colony was delivered by Colonel Arthur on his appointment as governor. To him Tasmania owes the foundation of its prosperity. He spared no pains to ascertain his duty and was as rigid as rock in doing it. Under his leadership the settlers banded together against the bushrangers, and defended their homesteads as soldiers in regular warfare. They loopholed their buildings, posted men as sentinels, and held themselves in readiness to fight, both by day and night. The governor rewarded the capture of any bushranger with a grant of land, and before the end of two years the whole gang was taken and executed. 10. Arthur's next care was to relieve the colony of the blacks, between whom and the whites a deadly feud existed. His desire was to collect all the natives and confine them to one district. He assembled all the settlers to aid his troops in driving the poor savages out of their haunts. He placed his men at intervals, so as to form a line stretching across the island, with orders to advance and either catch the blacks or coop them up in a corner of the island. After two months of marching, at an expense of £30,000, the whole operation resulted in the capture of a man and a boy. But kindness succeeded where force failed. They were persuaded by George Robinson, who had proved himself their friend, to withdraw to Flinders Island in Bass Strait. There, to his grief, they rapidly dwindled, and in the course of a few years became extinct. 11. Both natives and convicts have long disappeared from Tasmania, and the colonist can now live there in peace and quietness, in a land of natural beauty with an agreeable climate. It is not a country where a fortune can be rapidly made, but where food is plentiful and labour well paid. (5) PIONEER WORK IN AUSTRALIA. 1. The chief source of wealth in Australia is, and always has been, its excellent wool. The founder of the wool industry was Captain McArthur, whose quick eye saw from the first that the country was best adapted to sheep-farming. He also saw that the value of sheep in this far-away country, with its scanty population, would depend upon their wool rather than their flesh. He accordingly introduced some Spanish merino sheep, and succeeded in producing a breed of animals that thrived well on the grasses of the country and grew wool of the finest quality. MacArthur, therefore, is entitled to the credit of having laid the foundation of Australian prosperity. With the same stroke of business, he did a great service to the mother-country. The war then raging with France and Spain--just before their defeat at Trafalgar--had cut off from English looms the supplies of Spanish wool on which they had hitherto relied. Thus the colony that had been chiefly valued by the Home Government as a dumping-ground for criminals, rose high in their estimation as a country to which our woollen manufacturers would be able to turn for their much-needed wool.