and has been dragged into society by a
rope fastened round his middle. These
convicts form the Rescue Gang; and any one
of them who saves a life enjoys a shortened
period of punishment . If it should happen
that the boat is not upset, the visitor
stands in it for a little time, tossing on the
water near the pier. Then, watching his
opportunity, when he is on the top of a wave,
he leaps out of the boat into the arms of a
Rescue man extended to receive him.

Norfolk Island consists of a series of hills
and valleys beautifully interfolded, rising in
green ridges one above another, till they all
culminate in the summit of Mount Pitt, the
highest point in the Island, about three
thousand feet above the level of the sea.

The population of the Island is composed
of eight hundred convicts, and the local
staff essential for their proper management.
The free community consists, therefore,
wholly of Government officials and their
families, together with a military force of
about one hundred and fifty men and four
or five officers. The good society or first
rank of Norfolk Island is composed of the
civil commandant, the officers of the garrison,
the engineer and commissariat, the two
clergymen,—one Protestant, the other Roman
Catholic—and a medical officer or two.
Superintendents and overseers of convicts
make a second rank. Common soldiers are
a third rank;  and the convicts are, of course,
the least respectable.

The capital of Norfolk Island is the gaol.
There is, besides, a spacious quadrangle of
buildings for the convict barracks, for
schoolrooms, and for places appointed for divine
service.  There are commodious barracks
for the army of occupation of Norfolk Island.
There is the mansion of the commandant,
on a beautiful green mound;  there are
handsome houses for the officials;  and, in
picturesque, convenient nooks, lurk pleasant
cottages for overseers.  About three miles
from the gaol is Longridge, where a number
of prisoners are employed in farming operations.
There is also an establishment on the
opposite side of the Island called the Cascades,
the business of which place is now
declining.

From the boundary of the settlement there
runs a well-trodden pathway to the Cemetery,
which is enclosed on three sides by tear-
dropping hedges of the manchineel; and, on
the fourth side by a restless mourner, the vexed
sea.  The climate is healthy, but the graves
are numerous and new.  A sudden end has
closed in this Island many a rugged way of
vice.  Born in a country which professes to
be too religious to give education to its
masses, left to be reared in infamy till the
day comes—which is so long in coming—when
sectarian pride is to give place to Christian
charity, the men who sleep here in the graves
among the manchineels are to be visited with
human sorrow. In me the common graveyard
reverence was not the less for want of
tombstone eulogies.  "He was a thankless
son, a cruel husband, a hard father, and a pot-
house friend.  Banished for all his burglaries
by an indignant country, he lies buried here.
His end was violent: he died, in quarrel,
by the knife of an associate."  That might be
the kind of epitaph which would speak truth
among the mounds here, far away in Norfolk
Island, about which no foot of wife or sister
has been treading.

A large crop of the graves in Norfolk Island
has grown out of those attempts at revolt;
which formerly were frequent, and could be
put down only by brute force.  In 1834 a
conspiracy was formed; of which the aim was
to destroy the military inhabitants by poisoning
the wells, and then to put the Island into
the possession of the convicts. That was
defeated; and thirty-one revolters on that
occasion suffered the penalty of death. The last
outbreak occurred in 1846. The object on that
occasion was to destroy certain overseers who
had, by bringing men frequently to punishment,
made themselves objects of a wild hate.
The leader on this occasion was a certain
William Westwood, commonly called Jacky
Jacky; that name having been given to him
by the natives of New South Wales, when he
was leading there a lawless life. By a convict,
who was this man's close companion and
confederate, I have been favoured with a
Newgate calendar of details.  Like many of
such details, black and repulsive in the mass,
they show here and there, through all the
mist, a glimmer of that true light of humanity
which might have brightened the man's
life.

There was indeed some good mixed even
with the evil deed that had brought Jacky
Jacky into Norfolk Island. Bent upon plunder,
he with his associates had visited a
settler's house, during the absence of the
master. They confined the servants, and
proceeded to the best room; in which the
lady of the house, with a young lady, her
friend, were preparing the children for bed,
and perhaps teaching them their prayers.
Jacky Jacky stated briefly the object of his
visit; and, having left an unaccustomed
confederate in charge of the affrighted women,
went up-stairs. The report of a gun, followed
by screams, called him down again. The lady
of the house lay on the floor, surrounded by
the children, bleeding profusely from a gunshot
wound, which had divided the femoral artery.
Jacky Jacky promptly called the whole house
  to his aid, bound the wound round with
sheets as tightly as he could, ordered the
settler's horse to be put to the gig;  and, as
soon as the lady had recovered consciousness,
had her placed carefully on cushions at the
bottom of the vehicle. Then taking the reins,
himself, he quitted his plunder, drove with
utmost speed twelve miles to the nearest
station; and, knocking up the doctor,
committed the wounded lady to his care. Then