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Updated: May 17, 2025
An island like Van Dieman's land might fairly be expected to go on more rapidly to good manners and sound institutions than a wide region like Australia.
Then it unites with a current which flows round the south of Van Dieman's Land, which also divides, and the southernmost current is supposed to cross the Pacific until it strikes Cape Horn, around which it flows, dividing as before.
The passage from the lake to the ocean was not without interruption, from the shallowness of the sandy channel, otherwise Captain Sturt, in his little boat, would have coasted round to Port Jackson, or steered for Launceston, in Van Dieman's Land; and this he declares he would rather have done, could he have foreseen future difficulties, than follow the course which he did.
From Ram Head the southernmost part of the coast that had been examined by Cook-Bass began to reap a rich harvest of important discoveries, and another three hundred miles followed, the appearance of which confirmed his belief in the existence of a strait between the continent and Van Dieman's Land. It was with great reluctance he returned before verifying this belief beyond doubt of others.
By the late accounts from England, it appears that the most exaggerated and false reports prevail regarding the present state and probable prospects of the colony, like all other reports that are a mixture of truth and falsehood; and as it is usual to paint the latter in the brightest colours, so it usually stands foremost in the picture: they have been industriously disseminated by a set of idle, worthless vagabonds, and have been eagerly taken up by the inhabitants of Cape Town and Van Dieman's Land.
I found no less than twelve different species of terrestrial Planariae in different parts of the southern hemisphere. Some specimens which I obtained at Van Dieman's Land, I kept alive for nearly two months, feeding them on rotten wood. Having cut one of them transversely into two nearly equal parts, in the course of a fortnight both had the shape of perfect animals.
It was, at first, his benevolent intention to make an additional present to Van Dieman's Land, of a young bull and cow, together with some sheep and goats. But, upon reflection, he laid aside this design; being persuaded that the natives would destroy them, from, their incapacity of entering into his views with regard to the improvement of their country.
I would have given my life to talk with him. But I shook my head. "No," I said, "my name is not Brower. You are mistaken." 'Then I walked away and Nemy Brower stayed in his grave. 'Well, two years later we were cruising from Sidney to Van Dieman's Land. One night there came a big storm. A shipmate was washed away in the dark. We never saw him again.
Fortunately his range is not extensive, as he is confined to the island of Van Dieman's Land, and has not been observed elsewhere. Only one species has been yet discovered. Another pouched animal, equally carnivorous, is the Ursine Opossum. This is a burrowing creature about the size of a badger, and of equally voracious habits.
When the country cast off the disgrace of being a penal colony, the name it bore was very judiciously changed from Van Dieman's Land to that of Tasmania, in honor of its first discoverer, Abel Janssen Tasman, the famous Dutch navigator of the seventeenth century. We should perhaps qualify the words "first discoverer."
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