wish to die.[169]

These cases indicate the rapid process by which the habits of
cannibalism are formed: the details of his trial were given in the
_Gazettes_ of the period, and are contained in the parliamentary papers;
but who could bear to examine the diary of such a journey, or to
describe the particulars of those sacrifices which fill the soul with
unutterable loathing!

Arrests were constantly made, but did not diminish the number, or daring
of new adventurers. Their exploits were contagious: many fled from the
employ of government, and the service of settlers, and forfeited their
lives after a short career. An instance will show the extent of their
operations. By his spies the police magistrate was aware that a large
quantity of goods would be offered to a certain person for sale, whom he
instructed to purchase, and to pay partly by check and partly in cash.
At midnight he surrounded a house in Hobart Town, with soldiers and
constables: there he found the men he sought--their arms, their plunder,
and the check. They had pillaged the dwelling of Mr. Haywood at the
Macquarie, a district rarely free from depredations. One of the robbers
was formerly, and a second more lately, in the service of the
prosecutor, and a third was a neighbour. They had entered, by pretending
to deliver a message, and assaulted both Mr. Haywood and his wife: they
fired several shots, and left them with threats. They were promptly
tried and executed.

Not long after, the same establishment was visited by Brady: he took but
little, and assured the prosecutor he need not fear retaliation, for
Broadhead, the leader of the last party, _was not a bushranger_!
Eighteen were taken in one week, but they increased with equal rapidity.

The Governor, baffled by their lengthened defiance of the efforts to
quell them, attributed cowardice and corruption with an unsparing
bitterness; yet the difficulties even of the well-disposed were great,
and they were often ignorant of the movements of the robbers. Their
retreats were often in the forests, and known only to themselves; and at
some future time property will be detected, the relics of early robbers,
who carried with them to the grave the secret of their hidden spoil.
Occasionally, the hut of a bushranger has been observed: one, curiously
formed, was found by soldiers on the brow of Mount Wellington; and
before the door, a salting apparatus. The servants of the Van Diemen's
Land Company saw a hut a