I thought I had long wished to behold a particular locality, whose beauties had been often and glowingly described to me. Such terms as ‘Garden of the Earth’, ‘Second Paradise’, and ‘Another Eden’ excited my curiosity and longing to visit so fair a spot. Yet, strange as it may sound, small was the number of those who of their own accord sought this paradisaical region, and, though I would willingly have added one to its visitors, for a long period access to it was denied me.
At length accident threw an unexpected opportunity my way, and I found myself wafted on a favouring breeze, and in agreeable company, to the region of anticipated delights.
I dreamt, then, that I was there at last, or, at all events, within half an hour (as the foreigners say) of this happy territory, and, looking round on all sides, I was bound to confess too much praise had not been bestowed on the beauties that already surrounded me.
I thought the harbour we entered was apparently landlocked; behind us we had left pillars and peaks, island rocks and stern promontories, but the hills that extended their ranges to support these, would not let us out of their sight; they stood, in patriarchal grandeur, flanking us still, and their brown rugged tops put on a smile of welcome in the brilliant noonday sunshine. Before us gleamed the great white walls, the tower-like guardhouse, and the closely-huddled habitations, whose mysteries I so wished to penetrate, with gardens and trees and verdure shooting up from every crevice where a living plant could grow; on our right extended a charming walk under an avenue of gum trees, whose shade looked quite refreshing in the fervid heat, with pretty cottages and gardens dotting the banks of the bay; and on the left, a long sharp promontory, with white glittering beaches, shot out to meet us, as if to ask what right we had to invade the peaceful solitude it guarded. Its point was high, steep, perpendicular, and rocky, bearing a strong resemblance to the side of a quarry after picks and spades have cut many feet through the rock, and the waves rolled up to the perpendicular wall without let or obstruction; a row of heavy cannon pointed seaward was all that was needed to complete the warlike garniture of this grim promontory.
But, with greater delight than ever, my eyes rested on a small but most lovely islet, that stood out half a mile or so from its stern neighbour, the fortress-point. Some said the two had joined at one time—being no geologist, I leave that to wiser heads to determine; but, undoubtedly, a greater contrast between point and island could not exist. The latter was about a mile in circumference, oval in form, shaped like a mound, with the outer edges sloping gently and roundly to the sea; and, instead of the sterile desolate front of its neighbour, it presented a luxuriance of vegetation charming the eye. Tall trees of every description waved their feathery branches leisurely in the breeze, and creeping plants and variegated blossoms drooped to the water’s edge. White stones glanced here and there from the luxuriant foliage, and added the finishing touch of beauty to the picture.
‘The Island of the Dead!’ said the friend whose hand had guided me into this Paradise; and I felt the appellation most appropriate, and the taste faultless that had chosen so exquisite a spot for the last resting place of the departed.
But we turned our backs on that, and landed. Yet I saw the island still in my dream; and, indeed, into so small a compass were compressed all the features of scenery I have described, that, go where I would, I never lost sight of one of them, unless when diving into the recesses of some dewy valley. The protecting hills, the shaded promenade, the bristling promontory, the romantic island, the glancing waters, and the white gleaming houses, were always present to my sight, with many an inland height and verdurous field beside; and I exclaimed with rapture, ‘Beautiful! Beautiful beyond all that my fancy painted!’
Dreaming still, and dreaming pleasantly, I was taken into a fine garden, a public place of resort, at the head of which was built a pretty verandahed house, called Government Cottage. The indigenous floral beauties of this garden were such as tempted one constantly to break through the prohibition to pluck them; the winding brook that flowed, fringed by weeping willows, through the lower end, and the latticed octagon summerhouse built round a monster willow, where a dancing party had been held, with variegated lamps hanging from the tree and musicians seated among its branches—all this was like fairyland. Imagination conjured up the romantic scene the garden must have presented on such a night, when the principal walks were all illuminated, and the octagon summer house was the centre of light and music and gaiety. How the light-hearted dancers must have revelled in the scene as in a dream of enchantment, and almost expected to find it all vanish if they rubbed their eyes!
Then, in my dream, it seemed that it was Sunday, and I was taken to the large, old-fashioned, but picturesque church, which, as well as Government Cottage, overlooked this pleasant garden, and was approached by a long avenue of handsome trees—acacia, mimosa and wattle, all in bloom, and breathing ambrosial fragrance. The long, feathery, delicately-coloured blossoms of an uncommon species of mimosa, enchanted me most; they drooped over the road, and their scent was delicious. The ground beneath the tree was planted with beautiful indigenous flowering shrubs in admirable variety, many of them very rare, amongst which may be named the splendid native laurel, which shoots up its branches, tufted at the points with a rich circle of green leaves, within which grows the white waxy blossom in clusters of two or three dozen.
From all this outward beauty and glorious sunshine, I stepped into the lofty, cold, stone church, and was shut up in the quaintest of old-fashioned square pews, smothered with drawn scarlet curtains, and forced to creak my neck to look up to the antiquated pulpit, that towered, tier upon tier, three parts of the way to the arched roof. First and lowest stood the desk, where the hymns were given out; above that rose the reading-desk, as high and as large as any pulpit I had ever seen; and beyond again, some six feet higher, the real pulpit, with its immense sounding-board threatening the preacher’s life. The echo in that great half-empty church was tremendous, and the ascent of the stairs to the pulpit quite a task, as I found when curiosity led me to mount them.
Scarce was I seated, when I thought the service commenced, and so great was the shock my nerves received, that I was almost startled out of my dream. A sound as of a hundred heavy chains suddenly rattling and clanking together close to me, surrounding me, yet unseen, marred the quaint solemnity of the place, and scared all pleasurable emotions away. It was so sudden, so unexpected, that it needed all my self-command to recollect it was human beings, and not wild beasts, that had risen up to worship God, side by side, but parted off and screened from the sight of the free-limbed worshippers such as I. Some dim recollection memory conjured up, of scenes such as this long ago, of sounds of clanking chains on the limbs of a man who chanted holy hymns every Sabbath; and some faint remembrance I had of pity for the shackled unfortunates, whose cold heavy irons disturbed the solemn service in a church as old-fashioned and as out of date as this. But now the once familiar sound was a sound of horror! it was as if an ugly skeleton, that had been buried for years, and was all but forgotten, had sprung into light again, and rattled its bones in my face.
My sensations of alarm were not lulled by finding that a guard, or escort, with loaded revolvers under their belts, marched these criminals to and fro, and paraded outside the church door; but I was reassured by being told this was a mere form, an old custom, quite unnecessary, but which had never been countermanded. At one time far greater precaution was found advisable, and a large troop of soldiers occupied a portion of the church, a long file being told off to sit facing the fettered convicts during divine service, with loaded muskets between their knees.
My horror, and struggles to escape from these hideous sounds, these unseen clanking phantoms, nearly awoke me, when a hand drew me gently away from all this disquietude, and led me along a woodland path, where flowers and shrubs and clustering parasitical plants festooned the trunks of the trees, whose tops formed evergreen arches overhead.
So deep was the shade and humid the air, that from every branch and twig dropped heavy beads of moisture; and on either side of the road trickled tiny rivulets with a pleasant chattering murmur, while ever and anon a rustic bridge had to be crossed, the creek that flowed underneath being usually pretty well blockaded by huge trunks of trees that had fallen in tempestuous weather, and lain there till their timbers were hoary with age and slippery with the greenest of moss.
‘A most delightful road!’ said I, charmed with its refreshing sylvan beauty.
‘Fine!’ answered my guide; ‘especially when it blows three gales at once, and pours like a deluge, and you have to ride some dozen miles or so on a pitch dark night, with the trees falling round you and across your path with startling crashes, and the comfortable conviction that if one of them struck you or your horse there would be small prospect of reaching home alive. A most delightful road at such a moment, I cannot deny.’
‘How do you manage, then, to escape injury?’ I asked, my enthusiasm somewhat dampened by this description.
‘Lay my head on the horse’s mane, clasp my hands round his neck, and let him go full drive. He never slackens his gallop till he reaches his own gate, I can assure you.’
Again the scene changed, and I was made to traverse a narrow bush path, so densely bordered with tall interlaced trees that sunlight never ventured there, and a duskiness as of evening obscured the vision. The air was heavy with fragrance, and cool even to chilliness, and a continuous drip, drip, followed our steps as we picked our way in single file.
Wondering much where this dark passage would lead, and too busy with my footing to look about me, I was agreeably surprised—nay, enchanted, on stepping out suddenly into broad sunshine, to find myself in a fairy nook that might have served Queen Mab and her train for a picnic.
A small irregular square, hedged in, so to speak, on three sides by lofty stone walls, quarried out in time gone by and abandoned, even with the tools rusting in the open air, and on the fourth by the still loftier umbrageous trees, standing still and solemn in a dense mass, only opening to indicate dimly the path which we had traversed. A low rustic hut, half in ruins, and almost buried beneath a heavy growth of Macquarie Harbour vine, immense masses of tangled climbing plants clothing, with a motley veil of tapestry, the greater part of the ragged walls; a group of fine specimens of mimosa—among which was conspicuous the pale tassels of my favourite— in one corner, and a small pond in another, completed the picture. Nothing else could be seen from this secluded spot but the blue sky, and no sound broke the stillness but the joyous warble of birds.
Here was a nook so completely shut out from the world that one could not believe a few minutes’ walk would carry one again into the busy haunts of men.
‘Oh!’ said I, thinking aloud, rather than speaking in my rapture, ‘what a delicious place for a picnic on a hot day! How overjoyed some of those unhappy beings, who are frizzling on the other side of the Straits, would be, to feast their eyes on this perpetual greenness! If I could only transplant a few of them here, even for half-an-hour! How I wish I had Aladdin’s lamp, with power to use it as I liked! Wouldn’t I pick up a friend here, and another there, from the hottest towns, and blind their eyes, all aching with the heat and glare, and set them down just here, take off the bandage, and wait to hear what they had to say? Would they ever forget this fairy scene? Wouldn’t they sigh for its refreshing coolness and picturesque beauty ever afterwards, when a hot wind blew and scorched up the blood in their veins? And wouldn’t that continual trickle, trickle, be the sweetest music to their ears? Where does that water drip from? I believe there’s a spring high up that wall, in that lovely corner behind the mimosa. I shall try and find it out.’
‘You’d better not,’ said a warning voice. ‘The wisest thing you can do, is to keep out of “that lovely corner.” It’s as likely a place as I know of for snakes.’
Alas! ‘The trail of the serpent was over it all.’ I relinquished my investigation of Queen Mab’s own retreat, and considerably more prosaic in spirit, plodded back again through the dim avenue (it was a region of avenues), which after all had a suspicion of neuralgia and rheumatism about it.
My dream, which was a long one, carried me on to a day when I was taken to see ‘the lions’, a process which was not accomplished without some diplomatic negotiation with the higher powers. These had to be officially ‘requisitioned’ to issue an order permitting my important self to visit various buildings, to which the politest of answers was returned, commending me to the guidance of sundry official personages, whose duty it was to guard these lions. Then orders went round in all quarters to prepare for the proposed visit, and finally I found myself admitted into the mysterious precincts, whose doors closed upon me with a harsh grating noise that suggested the thought of that terrible one where those who entered were advised to leave Hope behind.
Well, it wasn’t anything very novel. Upstairs and downstairs, and long corridors and narrow cells, very cold and chill, and everywhere spotless cleanliness and a glaring naked whiteness, rather painful than otherwise; then, set off by a very pretty garden, a handsome new building, with stylish octagon hall leading off in various directions to noble apartments, and so arranged that it could be metamorphosed into a commodious and elegant theatre, with all the appurtenances of stage drop scenes and musical instruments. The hall, rooms, and garden swarming with crankies, in different stages of modified lunacy; then a plainer—more unpretending—edifice set apart for the outrageous crankies, whose shouts and wails often fill the air. Lastly, the peculiar institution and pride of the place, which presented only a high blank circular whitewashed wall to public view, and was known as ‘The Model’. Ah! that Model!—the thought of it haunts me still. Dreaming, I entered it, and dreaming, I came out; yet it looms up before my eye with a vivid distinctness as I think of it now, and so strange, awful, and unlooked for was the impression it made, that years will not efface the horror of the silent spectacle.
I was ushered into a fine spacious hall, also octagon, and the heavy sullen bolts were drawn immediately. The spotlessly white stone floor was ornamented with long strips of pretty brown matting, of ‘Model’ manufacture, which met in the centre and diverged into eight different directions. The effect was striking, added to the loftiness of the apartment, lit by a glass dome above by day, and handsome hanging kerosene lamps by night. The perfect cleanliness and beauty of the design drew forth an exclamation of surprise and pleasure, which was quickly checked by a subdued murmur of expostulation from the soft-mannered keeper, to the effect that one mustn’t speak loud in ‘The Model’.
‘Why not?’ said I, speaking low in spite of myself, awed a little by his noiseless manner.
‘Silent system,’ was the reply; and, listening for an instant, the explanation needed not to be repeated. The silence of the long corridors, leading away like dusky avenues, where watchful constables walked with stealthy tread, and the grave-like stillness of the cells, indicated by the many closed and heavily bolted doors, was simply awful. I looked at the keeper, a pale melancholic man, who had lost all elasticity of spirit as well as the use of his voice, and to whom the solitude of the building had imparted much of its gloom. Awe-struck, and as silent as could be desired, I followed where he chose to lead.
We went, with echoless steps, into an empty cell, painfully white, and saw the scanty accommodations, and the cloth mask which the wretched occupant had to wear whenever he quitted his dreary cell for his dreary monotonous hour’s walk every day, or his still drearier hour in chapel; observed the number hung outside the door of the cell, by which only the criminal was known, for he lost such trifling things as name and identity when these pitiless doors closed on him; a number that was made to spring out from the wall with a resounding click whenever the prisoner needed anything, and which was his only allowable method of making his wants known besides writing on a slate that hung inside the cell; were shown three small yards—nearly triangular in shape— whose grated iron gates were placed side by side and formed an angle in each, while the other two angles extended to the circumference of the outer wall. The three yards were divided by walls as high and blank as that outside, and into these yards three solitary sufferers were marched, one at a time, masked and guarded, and obliged to walk smartly about for an hour under the eye of the constable who, posted at the gratings, could watch all three at once; and visited the refractory cell, closed in by four massive doors of double thickness, black as midnight, and silent and chill as the grave, where one human creature had remained seventeen days without touching the bread thrust in to him daily, and yet lived, and was still living, a hopeless inmate of a solitary cell. And, as we walked to and fro, there was not a sound in the building. Yes! one occasionally; the clank of heavy fetters, which resounded with startling distinctness through the oppressive silence.
Then we stole quietly up a short staircase, covered with matting, leading from the hall into a chapel, whose silent horrors were more effectually depressing than all the rest. At the door stood two sentry boxes with seats, where two armed constables guarded the entrance to each aisle at the time of divine service. Steps, each lower than the other, led down the aisles, and at the door of each pew, if pews they could be called, that were five feet in height in front and seven behind, and which were divided by high thick doors at about two foot distances, into each of which a man was bolted and made to stand the whole time of the service, sat the constable who locked them in. These pews held six or seven solitary wretches, all masked, who could neither see behind nor sideways, only over the high partition in front. The prospect comprehended a flat square, on which stood a plain box pulpit, whence issued the only words that reached the ears of these men from year’s end to year’s end, and close in front of the pulpit was a tall stand containing a revolving box of numbers, which signalled to the prisoners in what order they were to leave their chapel cells. Thus, No. 1 being shown in the stand, informed the unhappy being answering to that number, that he should leave his place silently, singly, and guarded as he entered; No. 2 followed, and so on, till the chapel was emptied and left to solitude, scarcely more desolate than when full of human beings.
Methought I shuddered at this, and not being allowed to give vent to my excited feelings, longed for fresh air, and the right side of these terrible walls, to overcome the sense of oppression produced by this whited sepulchre. What was all its spotless cleanliness, its commodious design, and its elegant vestibule, for one destined to wear out a long life within its hopeless environs? Darkness, and the most unattractive plainness, would better have suited his despair.
Bolts and bars gave way happily at a wish, and my friends and I stood once more under the broad free heavens, and began to breathe again. Does Bunyan say, ‘Stone walls do not a prison make?’ I should think these stone walls made a very real and dismal prison, even to the superintendent of it, and the children reared under its shadow.
It was some moments ere speech could be recovered, and then our voices sounded strange to us. No wonder the keep always bore that subdued and melancholy mien, walked gingerly, and spoke, even outside the walls, in low toned whispers. The superintendents of the other departments were jolly and outspoken enough, like men who did their duty and were kindly inclined towards it in spite of its onerousness; even the penitentiary gaoler waxed garrulous in praise of his domain, and officiously dilated on its management and regulations; but the low spirited keeper of ‘The Model’, had almost become a silent member himself.
‘I wouldn’t be that man for a thousand-a-year,’ said I. ‘What can compensate for the sorrowful restraint of such a post? Ah! the horrors of it! I wish I hadn’t gone in. It’s like a waking nightmare! The utter solitude and staring blank whiteness is enough to drive the inmates mad.’
‘Exactly so,’ answered my guide. ‘Drink has filled the Insane Departments; but this “Model” will help to keep them going. Look, here’s the cage.’
We were then underneath the ‘Model’ walls, and close to a high circular iron structure, which contained a covered seat placed in the centre. Into this, upon fine afternoons, a few well-behaved criminals from the ‘Model’ were permitted, singly, to take an hour’s exercise. The masked prisoner was brought out, guarded by a constable and the keeper, and marched into this enclosure, and locked in, and obliged to walk round and round, like a caged beast, under the watchful eye of the constable, who patrolled outside it.
The ‘Model’ and its cage were stationed on a fine mound exactly opposite, and within earshot of my temporary abode; and having now explored the mysteries of the silent tomblike building, I began to take a mournful interest in the daily walks of these unfortunates, and to look for their appearance in the enclosure; which, miserably suggestive of a menagerie as it was, must have been to them a break in the wretched monotony of their existence. Doubtless they looked forward to their promenade in it as the event of the day.
But my cup of enjoyment was poisoned. What mattered it that I was free, to go whither my fancy chose to lead, to utter my thoughts in the loudest key; to laugh and gambol on the broad verandah with happy babyhood, or plan pleasure excursions with attentive friends? One glance cast towards the opposite hill showed me the dismal circular walls of the ‘Model’, and the iron cage where the solitary criminal was taking his airing, within sight of life and freedom, and bustle and happiness, but debarred from it all; and the laughter faded sadly away, and the jest died on one’s lips.
Alas! alas! that ‘trail of the serpent’; it was everywhere.
So—growing almost weary of the monotony of prison sights, diversified only by dresses all yellow, or part yellow and part grey, or all grey, and longing for some more cheery music than the perpetual clank, clank, of noisy fetters—I wondered not at—nay, half felt inclined to endorse—an expression that often fell from the lips of one wearied to death with the wretched unvarying round of this existence, ‘A Paradise do they call it? An Eden, indeed! There is but one place in the whole length and breadth of creation that can be worse, and that is—down below!’
One spot only retained its romance, and bore no disappointment in its train. Dead Island. Beautiful inexpressibly was its situation and its surroundings; and solitude did not detract from its charm. Even the burial of a criminal could not derogate from its fascination; the man was unfettered at last, and the boat that carried him softly and slowly over the waters, the ivy-grown arbour above the little jetty where his body was placed for a few minutes; the lonely guardian of the island, who came forward to receive, and, as it were, to welcome, the dead, and help to lay him in the grave, beneath waving branches and singing birds, was a fairer termination to his miseries than his life could have anticipated. That trail of the serpent, which had left its indelible mark everywhere around, touched indeed here, but then faded, having no more power to terrify.
Altogether, when the hour came to part from this fair nest of gardens, I was not unwilling to say,
‘Fare thee well! and if for ever,
Still, for ever fare thee well!’
The latter part of my dream was rough, decidedly. Methought I was tossed upon truly unromantic waves, and distressed by sickness that felt miserably real. Hours of groaning misery were followed by a welcome lull, and I struggled to the crowded deck, and saw the fair round moon, shining on quiet wharves and ghostly houses, with the dark looming form of Mount Wellington guarding the sleepy city. The clock of St. David’s just then struck midnight, and thoroughly dissipated the spell that had bound me, and a voice congratulated me on having ‘done my sentence.’
Then I knew I had been at Port Arthur.