boiling water to make it strong. The convicts' breakfast consisted
of oatmeal porridge, and the hungry seamen used to crowd round the
galley every morning to steal some of it. It would be impossible for
a nation ever to become virtuous and rich if its seamen and convicts
were reared in luxury and encouraged in habits of extravagance.

When the transport cast anchor in the beautiful harbour of Port
Jackson, the ship's blacksmith was called out of his bunk at
midnight. It was his duty to rivet chains on the legs of the
second-sentence men--the twice convicted. They had been told on
the voyage that they would have an island all to themselves, where
they would not be annoyed by the contemptuous looks and bitter jibes
of better men. All night long the blacksmith plied his hammer and
made the ship resound with the rattling chains and ringing manacles,
as he fastened them well on the legs of the prisoners. At dawn of
day, chained together in pairs, they were landed on Goat Island;
that was the bright little isle--their promised land. Every
morning they were taken over in boats to the town of Sydney, where
they had to work as scavengers and road-makers until four o'clock in
the afternoon. They turned out their toes, and shuffled their feet
along the ground, dragging their chains after them. The police could
always identify a man who had been a chain-gang prisoner during the
rest of his life by the way he dragged his feet after him.

In their leisure hours these convicts were allowed to make
cabbage-tree hats. They sold them for about a shilling each, and the
shop-keepers resold them for a dollar. They were the best hats ever
worn in the Sunny South, and were nearly indestructible; one hat
would last a lifetime, but for that reason they were bad for trade,
and became unfashionable.