to keep order, but of course he never attempts to do so; indeed, as he
is locked up in the ward every night from six o'clock in the evening
until sunrise, without light, it is possible that he might get
maltreated did he make himself obnoxious.

The barracks look upon the Barrack Square, which is filled with lounging
prisoners. The windows of the hospital-ward also look upon Barrack
Square, and the prisoners are in constant communication with the
patients. The hospital is a low stone building, capable of containing
about twenty men, and faces the beach. I placed my hands on the wall,
and found it damp. An ulcerous prisoner said the dampness was owing to
the heavy surf constantly rolling so close beneath the building. There
are two gaols, the old and the new. The old gaol stands near the sea,
close to the landing-place. Outside it, at the door, is the Gallows. I
touched it as I passed in. This engine is the first thing which greets
the eyes of a newly-arrived prisoner. The new gaol is barely completed,
is of pentagonal shape, and has eighteen radiating cells of a pattern
approved by some wiseacre in England, who thinks that to prevent a man
from seeing his fellowmen is not the way to drive him mad. In the old
gaol are twenty-four prisoners, all heavily ironed, awaiting trial by
the visiting Commission, from Hobart Town. Some of these poor ruffians,
having committed their offences just after the last sitting of the
Commission, have already been in gaol upwards of eleven months!

At six o'clock we saw the men mustered. I read prayers before the
muster, and was surprised to find that some of the prisoners attended,
while some strolled about the yard, whistling, singing, and joking.
The muster is a farce. The prisoners are not mustered outside and
then marched to their wards, but they rush into the barracks
indiscriminately, and place themselves dressed or undressed in their
hammocks. A convict sub-overseer then calls out the names, and somebody
replies. If an answer is returned to each name, all is considered right.
The lights are taken away, and save for a few minutes at eight o'clock,
when the good-conduct men are let in, the ruffians are left to their
own devices until morning. Knowing what I know of the customs of the
convicts, my heart sickens when I in imagination put myself in the place
of a newly-transported man, plunged from six at night until daybreak
into that foetid den of worse than wild beasts.

May 15t