we entered
this famous prison, which is only a naked, unplastered chapel, with
an altar against one of the sides and two galleries. On entering this
place, a scene presented itself altogether unparalleled on the earth,
and in every point of view capable to sustain the feelings raised in the
mind by the midnight scenery of the lake as seen during the ablutions.
The prison was full, but not crowded; for had it been crowded, we would
have been happy. It was, however, just sufficiently filled to give every
individual the pleasure of sustaining himself, without having it in his
power to recline for a moment in an attitude of rest, or to change that
most insupportable of all bodily suffering, uniformity of position.
There we knelt upon a hard ground floor, and commenced praying; and
again I must advert to the policy which prevails in this island.
During the period of imprisonment, there are no prescribed prayers nor
ceremonies whatever to be performed, and this is the more strange, as
every other stage of the station has its proper devotions. But these are
suspended here, lest the attention of the prisoners might be fixed on
any particular object, and the supernatural character of drowsiness
imputed to the place be thus doubted--they are, therefore, turned in
without anything to excite them to attention or to resist the propensity
to sleep occasioned by their fatigue and want of rest Having thus
nothing to do, nothing to sustain, nothing to stimulate them, it is very
natural that they should, even if unexhausted by previous lassitude, be
inclined to sleep; but everything that can weigh them down is laid upon
them in this heavy and oppressive superstition, that the strong delusion
may be kept up.

On entering the prison, I was struck with the dim religious twilight
of the place. Two candles gleamed faintly from the altar, and there was
something I thought of a deadly light about them, as they burned feebly
and stilly against the darkness which hung over the other part of the
building. Two priests, facing the congregation, stood upon the altar in
silence, with pale spectral visages, their eyes catching an unearthly
glare from the sepulchral light of the slender tapers. But that which
was strangest of all, and, as I said before, without a parallel in
this world, was the impression and effect produced by the deep, drowsy,
hollow, hoarse, guttural, ceaseless, and monotonous hum, which proceeded
from about four hundred individuals