s built a guard-house, where soldiers from
the barrack on the mainland relieved each other night and day; and on
stages, set out in the water in either side, watch-dogs were chained.
The station officer was charged "to pay special attention to the feeding
and care" of these useful beasts, being ordered "to report to the
Commandant whenever any one of them became useless". It may be added
that the bay was not innocent of sharks. Westward from Eaglehawk Neck
and Woody Island lay the dreaded Coal Mines. Sixty of the "marked men"
were stationed here under a strong guard. At the Coal Mines was the
northernmost of that ingenious series of semaphores which rendered
escape almost impossible. The wild and mountainous character of the
peninsula offered peculiar advantages to the signalmen. On the summit
of the hill which overlooked the guard-towers of the settlement was a
gigantic gum-tree stump, upon the top of which was placed a semaphore.
This semaphore communicated with the two wings of the prison--Eaglehawk
Neck and the Coal Mines--by sending a line of signals right across the
peninsula. Thus, the settlement communicated with Mount Arthur, Mount
Arthur with One-tree Hill, One-tree Hill with Mount Communication, and
Mount Communication with the Coal Mines. On the other side, the signals
would run thus--the settlement to Signal Hill, Signal Hill to Woody
Island, Woody Island to Eaglehawk. Did a prisoner escape from the Coal
Mines, the guard at Eaglehawk Neck could be aroused, and the whole
island informed of the "bolt" in less than twenty minutes. With these
advantages of nature and art, the prison was held to be the most secure
in the world. Colonel Arthur reported to the Home Government that
the spot which bore his name was a "natural penitentiary". The worthy
disciplinarian probably took as a personal compliment the polite
forethought of the Almighty in thus considerately providing for the
carrying out of the celebrated "Regulations for Convict Discipline".

CHAPTER XXI. A VISIT OF INSPECTION.

One afternoon ever-active semaphores transmitted a piece of intelligence
which set the peninsula agog. Captain Frere, having arrived from
head-quarters, with orders to hold an inquiry into the death of
Kirkland, was not unlikely to make a progress through the stations,
and it behoved the keepers of the Natural Penitentiary to produce
their Penitents in good case. Burgess was in high spirits at finding so
congenial a soul s