e interview was when I reminded him
that we had met before. He shrugged one shoulder, as if in pain or
anger, and seemed about to speak, but, casting his eyes upon the group
in the cell, relapsed into silence again. I must get speech with him
alone. One can do nothing with a man if seven other devils worse than
himself are locked up with him.

I sent for Hankey, and asked him about cells. He says that the gaol is
crowded to suffocation. "Solitary confinement" is a mere name. There are
six men, each sentenced to solitary confinement, in a cell together. The
cell is called the "nunnery". It is small, and the six men were naked to
the waist when I entered, the perspiration pouring in streams off their
naked bodies! It is disgusting to write of such things.

June 26th.--Pounce has departed in the Lady Franklin for Hobart Town,
and it is rumoured that we are to have a new Commandant. The Lady
Franklin is commanded by an old man named Blunt, a protege of Frere's,
and a fellow to whom I have taken one of my inexplicable and unreasoning
dislikes.

Saw Rufus Dawes this morning. He continues sullen and morose. His papers
are very bad. He is perpetually up for punishment. I am informed that
he and a man named Eastwood, nicknamed "Jacky Jacky", glory in being the
leaders of the Ring, and that they openly avow themselves weary of life.
Can it be that the unmerited flogging which the poor creature got at
Port Arthur has aided, with other sufferings, to bring him to this
horrible state of mind? It is quite possible. Oh, James North, remember
your own crime, and pray Heaven to let you redeem one soul at least, to
plead for your own at the Judgment Seat.

June 30th.--I took a holiday this afternoon, and walked in the direction
of Mount Pitt. The island lay at my feet like--as sings Mrs. Frere's
favourite poet--"a summer isle of Eden lying in dark purple sphere of
sea". Sophocles has the same idea in the Philoctetes, but I can't
quote it. Note: I measured a pine twenty-three feet in circumference.
I followed a little brook that runs from the hills, and winds through
thick undergrowths of creeper and blossom, until it reaches a lovely
valley surrounded by lofty trees, whose branches, linked together by the
luxurious grape-vine, form an arching bower of verdure. Here stands the
ruin of an old hut, formerly inhabited by the early settlers; lemons,
figs, and guavas are thick; while amid the shrub and cane a large
convolvulus is e