AUSTRALIA

[AUSTRALIA]. John Greenwood. Missionary. Series of three Autograph Letters Signed and three Autograph Manuscripts, 19 pages in total, various sizes, Hobart Town, Tasmania, 1860 - 1862. To My Dear Christian Friends, describing his trip by sea, and at length, the living conditions, food, people, terrain, and religious matters in Tasmania. Fine condition.

November 22, 1860: “...we landed at port...in the bay Melborn a plesant place...the streets are wide & straight for half a mile or more...& they cross at right angle with narrow streets in these squares. And in the wide streets the cab men stand waiting to carry passingers...the foot passage is...3 feet wide...with large stone all swept clean with water...&...there is a tap & a little pan chained & if you were thirsty you can stop to drink.... We are living on the road from Hobart Town to Lanserton...and the stage runs...every day, & the Telegraf wire by the same route.... There are some English famelies near us Irish & Scottish. We have a griss Mill close by us which runs by wind.... Hobart Town water is very scarce in this part of the Island...but the houses have...troughs & large tubs to catch rain water.... Garden vegetables appear to grow very fast & some that we have not seen since we left England before. This is the most hilly country we have even seen in American or England....” October 22, 1861: “...We had a good rain that freshened up the grass & the Grain but ...I do not expect to see such crops of grain rais’d again from the way they work the land. They cut no Grass to make hay for cows & horses but plows the ground & sow wild oats barley tars...mix’d all together and when ready they cut it & let dry & then stack it & call it Hay....” June 20, 1862: “...the land here is...too much clay & sandy and dug...plown to death year after year for 10 or 12 or More so that it bears very little but sorel and thisels and other weeds. And...there is a great many frosty mornings that hurts potato...& tender plants.... And the butter is all in half pouns kept up in a square of white cotton cloth dipt in cold water.... There is no Baptist place that I can go, there is Congregational Church...they have a Musical instrument but it is so strong & rough that the music is lost in my view....”

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