the sleeping places being built up in separate
berths, formed of cross battens, like very
strong wooden cages for bears. The
occupants of the upper tier ascend by means of a
wooden bracket which juts out about half
way up. Here I did see one foot protruding,
belonging probably to some tall man who
was not in irons. A lanthorn is suspended
from the centre of the roof, by a cord which
is passed over a pulley, and runs through a
hole above the door, so that the guard can
raise it or lower it at any time during the
night without opening the door. When the
light needs trimming, the lanthorn being
lowered, one of the prisoners, whose turn it
is, has to get up and attend to it. The gleam
it sheds is very melancholy, almost funereal.
Hard natures, indeed, must they be, who,
lying awake sometimes in the night, are not
softened to a few serious thoughts or emotions
as they look around them; but hard no
doubt they are, and most of them of the
hardest.

The Superintendent has work to do in his
office— letters, reports, calculations,
accounts, &c.; he becomes absent and taciturn,
and I betake myself to bed. Throughout the
whole night, I am awakened every half hour
by the Stockade bell, and am five times
informed, by the different voices of five
sentinels, heard in succession from different points
of the building, near and remote, that "all's
well!" After the sixth or seventh round of
this, however, I get used to it, and drop to
sleep again after hearing the satisfactory
announcement.

Early in the morning, Billy—the aboriginal
—comes bolt into my room with my boots in
one hand, and a jug of hot water in the
other. He neither utters a word, nor looks at
me (except in a way he has with his eyeballs
turned from me), but places the boots on the
floor, hovering with one hand over them in
case either of them should fall sideways, and
then sets the jug upon the dressing-table.
He stares at it with a warning, or rather a
threatening, look, when, seeing that it stands
firmly, his gloomy features relax, and he
departs as abruptly as he entered.

At seven o'clock the bell calls the convicts
to a general muster in the principal yard,
preparatory to the different gangs being
marched off to their various descriptions of
work. Mr. Barrow accompanies me into the
yard. We pass through the little narrow
massive gate, and I am at once in the presence
of the thrice picked and sifted incorrigibles
of the mother country and her Australian
colonies. Sentinels, with loaded muskets,
patrol the outskirts of the yard, and officers
and constables armed with truncheons stand
on guard outside the ranks. Many of the
convicts have irons on their legs, but the
majority are quite free, and can "make a
rush" if they will.

The convicts are ranged like a regiment of
soldiers at muster, the rear ranks taking
open order. They are all dressed in the
usual grey, or dark pepper-and-salt coarse
cloth. The yard is quite silent, and the
names are called over. None of the black
sheep are missing. I look along the ranks
from face to face—with apparent indifference,
casually, and with as little offence or purpose
in my gaze as possible; and I am quite sure
that it is not from knowing what they are, but
really from a genuine impression of what is
written by the fingers of experience in very
marked lines and characters, and fluctuating
or fixed shades, that I am persuaded there is
not one good face among them. No, not one.
On the contrary, nearly every face is
extremely bad. I go over them all again in the
same casual, purposeless way (they are not
deceived by it a bit), and I feel satisfied that
a worse set of fellows never stood in a row
than those before me. Beneath that silent
outwardly subdued air there is the manifest
lurking of fierce, depraved, remorseless
spirits, ready with the first chance to rush
away into the course of crime that brought
them here. By this time they are all
at work upon me, quietly speculating on
who I am, what I want, and if my visit
portends anything to them. The yard is
covered with loose stones of broken granite;
and I notice close to my feet, and looking up
directly into my face, a magpie. He also,
holding his head on one side interrogatively,
seems to ask my business here. I take a
fresh breath as I look down at the little
thing, as the only relief to the oppressive
sense of prison doom that pervades the heavy
scene.

The different working gangs are now
marched off, about twenty at a time, with a
sufficient interval both of time and distance
between each, in case of a combination for a
rush. Some go to work at building, some on
the roads, some to the bridges, some to shoe-
making, carpentering, &c. Tramp—tramp—
tramp—with a jingle of irons—and they are
all gone, and the little, narrow, massive gate
is closed. The yard is vacant and silent, with
nothing to be seen but the magpie hopping
over the broken granite, and nothing now to
be heard but the faint retiring jingle of the
chains, the low continuous quire of the frogs
in the swamp, and the distant lowing of a
forlorn cow.

It will have been evident before this, that
everything is conducted here on a fixed
system, rigidly and undeviatingly enforced, and
that this is perfectly necessary, considering
the subjects that have to be dealt with. No
loud voice of command is ever heard, and
the Superintendent has strictly forbidden all
strong language on the part of the various
officers and constables; the convicts are all
controlled by the Stockade bell. When the
bell orders them to come forth, they come
forth; when the bell orders them to retire,
they retire; if they are talking after retiring
to rest, and the bell rings for silence, they are