Mr. R. Burford, the most successful panorama painter of his day, has
lately completed a View of Hobart Town, Van Dieman's Land, and the
surrounding country, which he is now exhibiting in the Strand. It is not,
perhaps, the most striking picture this ingenious artist has produced, yet
it is certainly one of the most interesting. The embellishments of books
of travels, the sketches of tourists, and the extravagant _annual_ prints,
have familiarized the stay-at-home reader with almost every city on the
European continent; but a view in Van Dieman's Land is much more of a
novelty. It is comparatively a _terra incognita_, about which every one
must feel some curiosity, though more rationally expressed than that of a
King of Persia, who asked what sort of a place America was--"underground,
or how?" For the purpose of giving a general idea of a country, a
panoramic painting is well adapted: the size of the objects is at once
natural, there is no straining of eyes to make them out, and the effect of
the whole scene is that of being dropped in the midst of the country, and
its surface at once spread before us.
Of Hobart Town we quote a brief description from Mr. Burford's pamphlet,
or key to the picture:--
"The capital and seat of government of Van Dieman's Land, or Tasmania, is
delightfully situated at the head of Sullivan's Cove, on the south-east
side of the river Derwent, about twelve miles from its mouth. The town is
built on two small hills and the intermediate valley, the whole gently
sloping towards the harbour from the foot of Mount Wellington--a rock
which suddenly rears its snow-clad summit to the height of 4,000 feet.
Through the centre of the town a rapid stream takes its course, giving
motion to several mills, and affording a constant supply of most excellent
water for all domestic purposes, as well as increasing the salubrity and
beauty of the neighbourhood. From the summit of one of these hills, the
present panorama was taken, which, although it does not include the
buildings in the lowest part of the valley, exhibits every object
particularly deserving notice, as well as the broad expanse of the
Derwent, covered with ships, boats, &c. Beyond the town, and on the
opposite side of the river, the eye ranges over a vast extent of country,
richly variegated and diversified by gently rising hills, broad and
verdant slopes, farms, and pasture lands, in the highest state of
cultivation, presenting the most agreeable scenes, replete with the useful
product of a rich soil and fine climate; the whole bounded by lofty
mountains, clothed with rich and almost impervious forests of evergreens,
occasionally intermixed with high and nearly perpendicular rocks, whose
summits are, for a great part of the year, covered with snow;--the whole
forming one of the most agreeable, picturesque, and romantic scenes that
can be conceived.
"Van Dieman's Land is, from north to south, one hundred and sixty miles in
length; and from east to west, one hundred and forty-five miles in width;
being separated from the main land by Bass's Straits, which are nearly one
hundred miles across. The whole island, which is, almost without
exception, of the most fertile and beautiful description, is divided into
two counties--Buckingham and Cornwall--of which Hobart Town and Dalrymple
are the capitals: the distance between them is one hundred and twenty
miles.
"Hobart Town contains at present, upwards of one thousand houses, and has
a resident population exceeding seven thousand persons. The town is well
planned, and the streets, which intersect each other at right angles, are
wide, the law compelling persons who build to leave at least sixty feet in
width for carriage and foot ways: they are Macadamized, and are, as well
as the numerous bridges over the stream, kept in excellent condition by
the chain gangs. The houses are generally built at a short distance from
each other, and are partly surrounded with gardens, which, with a very
little attention, not always bestowed, become very ornamented and useful,
producing, not only the many beautiful trees and shrubs of the country,
but every fruit, flower, and vegetable, common in England. The houses are
generally of two, sometimes of three, stories in height, well built of
brick or stone, and covered with shingles of the peppermint tree; some few
are still only weather boarded. The bricks are of a good and durable
quality, and the free-stone of a very beautiful description, but
exceedingly dear. Many buildings are formed of rough hewn stone, stuccoed
with a good white cement, which keeps very clean. Macquarrie-street,
running in a straight line from the Pier, contains many very handsome
public buildings and private houses, being the residences of the principal
settlers, merchants, &c. Rents are in general very high;--a small house of
four rooms and a kitchen, will let for sixty or eighty pounds per annum;
and a large one, adapted for a store, will obtain from two to three
hundred. It cannot be expected at this early period, that the public
buildings should display much architectural ornament; it is sufficient
that they are large, substantially built, and well adapted for the several
purposes for which they were erected.--Besides the church, there is a
Scotch church, a neat stone building, near the barracks; a Wesleyan
meeting, a stuccoed building in Bathurst-street; and a small Catholic
chapel in Patrick-street. There are several excellent academies, and a
seminary for young ladies, where first-rate accomplishments are taught,
and every possible care taken of the health and morals of their pupils, by
Mrs. Midwood and Miss Shartland; there are also day charity schools, on
the Lancastrian system, for the children of convicts, labourers, &c. The
boarding houses and hotels are well conducted and comfortable; at the
latter, every accommodation to be found in one of the best English inns
may be had, but at a truly English price; the low public houses and the
grog shops are of the vilest description. An active and vigilant police
has been recently reorganised, under the superintendence of two officers
from England, whose exertions are already attended with the most
beneficial results.
"The climate is most salubrious, the mean temperature being 60 deg.
Fahrenheit; the extremes, 36 deg. 80 deg. The spring usually commences in
September; the summer in December; the autumn in April; and the winter,
seven weeks of which is very severe, in June."
The Panorama is well executed throughout, and in parts, with much delicacy
and finish. The distant country, bays, and points, are for the most part
delightfully painted. Here and there are spots which almost remind us of
Virgil's
--locos loetos, et amoena vireta,
Fortunatorum nemorum, sedesque beatas:
and, without any view to a transportable offence, a man might well wish to
settle himself here "for life."
Mr. Burford's "Descriptions" are perhaps better drawn up than those of
exhibitions in general. In the Keyplate before us, fifty-two points or
objects are denoted, and further illustrated by half-a-dozen pages of
letter-press.--In the town are seen the barracks; the governor's,
commissary's, and judges' residences; hotel, jail, lime-kilns, church,
court-house, bank, hospital, treasury, pier, &c., and Mrs. Midwood's
seminary. Groups of convicts enliven the picture--we had almost said
en_lighten_ it, from recollection of the picking propensities to which
hundreds of them are indebted for their abode here. They are deplorable
specimens of fallen nature--such as may be seen in droves slinking to
their work in the dock-yard at Portsmouth, or elsewhere, and still bearing
the front of humanity in their begrimed features, but harrowing the
spectator with painful recollections of their moral abandonment. One of
the groups is a chain gang at work--breaking stones for the road--or, a
last effort at self-improvement, by mending the ways of others. How
different would these worthies appear in a rabble rout at a London fire,
or in all the sleekness of civilization, as exhibited in the sundry
avocations of picking a pocket, in easing a country gentleman of his
uncrumpled or bright dividend, or studying our ease and comfort by helping
themselves to all our houses contain without the rudeness of disturbing
our slumbers. A neighbouring group of natives, though less sightly than
these fallen sons of civilization, in a moral point of view, would be a
happy contrast, could we but look into the hearts of both parties, and see
what is passing therein.
But we are moralizing, and this may not be the most showy inducement for
the reader to visit Mr. Burford's Panorama, and admire its pictorial
beauties. Let him do so; and before he leaves the place, turn about, and
think for himself, and be assured there is good in every thing.
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