CHAPTER I.
LAKE SORELL AND THE GIANT'S CASTLE.
The lakes of Tasmania are, with one or two exceptions, situated on the higher levels of the mountains. The mountains occupy a large space-some thousands of square miles—in the centre of the island. They rise abruptly from a surrounding belt of level plains, which are bounded by other mountains nearer to the sea. On these plains, which are relieved by occasional hills and valleys, the settlers of the colony have created many handsome, and even elegant, mansions; and they have brought into cultivation, and stocked with sheep and cattle, valuable lands which one hundred years ago were the domains of black and naked savages, who lived on kangaroos, opossums, and snakes. From a moderate distance the mountains present a magnificent appearance, being broken at irregular intervals by precipices and bold headlands, which the inhabitants call bluffs. No lover of the picturesque and wild beauties of the world can look upon these gigantic walls without feeling an anxious desire to scale them, and see for himself what is on the other side. That was the wish I formed the first time that I saw them, but it was only after the lapse of several years that I was able to gratify the wish.
Having become acquainted with a family of sheep-owners
