Tasmania, together with the five states of Australia, forms what is called the Commonwealth of Australia. It is a heart-shaped island, with its top less than two hundred miles from Australia and its point toward the Pole. It is considered as the Switzerland of the southern Pacific, and one of the most healthful and beautiful lands of the globe. Hobart, the capital and largest city of the island, is twenty-five hundred miles below the Equator, with nothing but ocean between it and the frozen lands of the Antarctic. It lies on a fine harbour in a nest of hills on the banks of the Derwent and has beautiful Mount Wellington for a background.