“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.”