and the bond of iniquity! This Island, beautiful by nature, and comparable to the Garden of Eden, is rendered, not only a moral wilderness, but a place of torment to these men, not so much by the punishments of the law, as by their conduct one to another. They form schemes of mischief, and betray one another; and being idly disposed, they are very generally chafed, by the exertions of the prisoneroverseers, to keep them at work. Being surrounded by the ocean, and all other lands being so distant, the hope of escape is precluded. This renders the wicked, very wretched, particularly men of bad conduct, sentenced for life. Those of reformed character might be moderately comfortable, were it not for the society of the depraved.

4th mo. 2nd. We walked to the north side of the Island, to visit a "felling-gang," whom we found busy, rolling the trunk of a large Pine, to a saw-pit. While they were thus engaged, we explored an adjacent gulley, shaded by dense forest, and abounding with ferns, and young palms. On the upper branches of the trees four epiphytes of the orchis tribe, and some ferns and Peperomias were plentiful. The Peperomias, which are spreading, green plants, allied to Pepper, grow also on moist rocks, on the dark sides of which, Trichomanes Bauerianum, a membranaceous fern, of great beauty, forms tufts exceeding a foot in height.

Having had a religious interview with the men, we proceeded to visit some others, near Ansons Bay, who have charge of a flock of sheep, kept for supplying the officers with fresh meat: of this privilege the well-conducted prisoners also, are occasionally permitted to partake. Some cows and pigs are likewise kept on the Island, and each free person is allowed a small quantity of milk, daily.

On the rocks of the south coast, Asplenium diforme, a fern resembling the Sea Spleenwort, Asplenium marinum, of England, is found. At a short distance from the shore, its leaves become more divided, and in the woods, in the interior of the Island, they are separated into such narrow segments, that the lines of fructification are thrown upon their margins. It then becomes Canopteris odontites. But every possible gradation is to be met with between

this state and that in which it grows, on rocks washed by the sea.

4th. After visiting a gang of invalids, employed in breaking stones, I walked to a place called The Cascade, on the north-west side of the Island. A little brook descends from the woody hills, and winds among the grassy ones, bordered, in many places, with copses, and straggling treeferns, till it reaches an open valley, formerly inhabited by settlers, where their old chimneys are still standing, and their orchards have run wild, and have spread Grape Vines, Lemons, Figs, and Guavas, all around. Their Sugar-canes have also become naturalized, and border the streamlet thickly, till it falls over a basaltic rock, about twenty feet high, decorated with ferns, and a variety of other plants. Here the brook is again narrowed by woody hills, and margined by luxuriant plants, of the broad, sedgy-leafed New Zealand Flax, and Water Cress, till it emerges on an open, flat, basaltic promontory, from the very point of which, it falls, about twenty feet, to the sea beach, where it is lost among the large, rounded, tumbled stones.-Among the Sugar-cane and scrub at this point, a beautiful convolvuluslike plant, Ipomoea cataractæ, is entwined, and exhibits its large, purple flowers, shot with red. It was named from this place, by Bauer, a celebrated botanist, who accompanied one of the earliest navigators of these seas, and whose Flora of Norfolk Island, has lately been published by a person named Endlicher.

Ipomoea carinata, a large plant of the Convolvulus tribe, having white flowers, with long tubes, that open at night, climbs among the trees, in the borders of the woods. Among the bushes there are two pretty species of Passion flower, Disemma adiantifolia and D. Baueriana, with copper-coloured blossoms.

From the Sugar-cane, the old settlers of Norfolk Island succeeded in making molasses, but they failed in obtaining sugar, not being aware, that the addition of a little lime, or potash, was needful to make it crystallize. They also distilled rum, and injured themselves greatly by drinking it; but they imagined the pernicious effects of the rum were

produced by the lead of the worms, used in the distillation. They never seemed to dream, that they were suffering from the deleterious property of the "balmy spirit of the cane;" under which, many of them sank prematurely to the grave; and others became so enthralled, that the love of strong drink has gone with them, as a curse, into other lands, blighting their prospects of temporal prosperity, and bringing them hopeless and unhonoured to the end of their days.

Near the foot of the Cascade, there is a rock, forming a natural jetty, from which boats are hauled up out of the sea, when they are unable to land on the south side of the island.

5th. We visited the congregation of free and military Protestants, to which the Commandant's Clerk read the prayers of the Episcopal Church, and a sermon. The sermon was a very pointed one, on 2 Peter iii. 3. At the conclusion, my dear companion and myself, again availed ourselves of the opportunity afforded us, to bear a plain testimony to the necessity of becoming the servants of Christ, in order to obtain salvation, and to the impossibility of being saved whilst remaining servants of the devil, through sin. We also directed the attention of the congregation, to the convictions of the Spirit of Truth, making sin manifest in the conscience, as the drawing of the Father leading to the Son, in order that mankind may obtain repentance, and remission of sins through him, and know, through him, a capacity wrought in them, to will and to do the good pleasure of God.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Norfolk Island.-Cave.-Remarkable Shrubs.-Mount Pitt.-Group of Islands. -Capture of a Parrot.-Marrattia.-Petty Sessions.-Marine Animals.Tree-ferns.-Animals.-Visit of Officers to Phillip Island.-Guavas.-True Church.-Return of Officers.-Wild-boar.-Runaway Prisoner.-Religious Interviews.-Luminous Fungus.-Prisoner's History.-Tidings.-Relapses.

Parting Opportunities.-Penitent Prisoners.-Departure.-Prisoners Letters.

-Voyage.-Storm.-Lord Howes Island.-Portuguese Man-of-War.-Arrival at Sydney.-Disorderly Soldiers.

4th mo. 6th. We went to see a singular little cave, not far from the Commandant's house. In this place, two men who absconded, a few months since, concealed themselves in the day-time, and for a considerable period, eluded detection. The cave is in the rugged limestone, that forms two low hills, the flat, and the reef on the south of the Island. Nepean Island, and a rock that resembles a ship under sail, off the north of Phillip Island, are of the same formation of limestone. The cave was near to a lime-kiln, and was concealed by a stone, drawn over its mouth. The Sandstone, adjoining this limestone, is very hard and sonorous: it is valued for making filtering stones.

The rocky shore of this Island is accessible from the land, in some places, on the south-west. In a few of the valleys, near the sea, in this direction Euphorbia obliqua, a remarkable shrub, forms copses, attaining, when shaded by trees, to 15 feet in height, and 2 feet in circumference. Here also, as well as in most of the other shady woods throughout the island, Botryodendron latifolium, a shrub of singular form, allied to the Ivy, but of a very different appearance, prevails. Its figure may be compared to that of a long-leaved cabbage, mounted on a broom-stick. Its stem is about five feet high,

and five inches round; its largest leaves are about two feet long, and one foot broad. The prisoners in the out-stations, wrap their bread in these leaves, and bake it in the ashes. The fruit is a dense cluster, of greenish, purple berries, not edible, produced in the centre of the crown of leaves.

8th. In company with Major Anderson, and the military surgeon, we ascended Mount Pitt. The vegetation is of the same general character, as on other parts of the north of the Island. Lemon trees grow at the very top. On the northern ascent, a Pine was measured, 29 feet in circumference, and a Norfolk Island Bread-fruit, Cordyline australis, 2 feet 9 inches. The last, sometimes attains 20 feet in height: it branches from within a few feet of the ground, and forms several heads, with flag-like leaves, and long, branched spikes of greenish, star flowers, succeeded by whitish, or bluish-purple berries, that are eaten by parrots. It often forms a striking object, where a woody valley runs out into grass, growing at the extreme margin of the wood.

Niphobolus serpens and Polypodium tenellum, two climbing ferns, ascend the trunks of trees, in the northern portion of the Island; and the Norfolk Island Pepper, Piper psittacorum, which produces a yellow, pulpy, pendent, cylindrical fruit, of a spicy, sweetish taste, is every where plentiful, in the woods. It rises, with a few, jointed, cane-like, green stems, to from four to ten feet high, bearing large, heart-shaped leaves.

From the top of Mount Pitt, by ascending a tree, we could see the whole circuit of the Island, which approaches a triangle in form; it is rendered very beautiful, by the variety of hill and dale, wood and open land. Nepean and Phillip Island are also included in the view; the former being very small, and rising only a few feet out of the ocean, and the latter, about five miles in circumference, steep and lofty, and varied by thick wood, and bare, red peaks. These three islands form the whole of this remote group. Norfolk Island is the only one inhabited.

9th. The gangs being too busily occupied in harvesting Maize, to allow us to have interviews with them, I made another excursion into the bush, having as guide, a prisoner