The construction of the Barrack has already been very fully described, and a glance at Plate V. will be sufficient to give a pretty correct idea of the nature of our singular dwelling. Immediately under the wooden tower was an open gallery, the floor of which was removed at the end of each season, so as to allow free space for the passage of the sea during the storms of winter, but on which, during the summer, we kept the stock of coals, the tool-chests, the beef and beer casks, and other smaller materials which we could not, even at that season, safely leave on the Rock itself. Next came the kitchen and provision store, a six-sided apartment about 12 feet in diameter and somewhat more than 7 feet high, in which small space, curtailed as it was by the seven beams which passed through it, stood a _caboose_, capable of cooking for forty men, and various cupboards and lockers, lined with tin, for holding the biscuits, meal, flour, barley and other things needful for the sustenance of the human frame. That apartment, for protection against fire, was coated, partly with tin and partly with sheet-lead, which latter, although not in all respects the most desirable material to come in contact with that element, was found to be the only one which we could in some parts conveniently apply. The next storey was divided into two apartments, whereof one was shared by Mr Thomas Macurich, who superintended the landing of all the materials and Mr Charles Stewart, the foreman of the builders, and the other was allotted to myself. The apartments thus occupied consisted of a twelve-sided narrow space twisted around a centre pyramid, whose bevelled faces formed, as will in part be seen by inspecting Plate V., their sloping walls on one side. The half of that space constituted my apartment, which, I think, would be generally pronounced not over commodious; and when it is added that it contained my bed, desk, chair and table, and a stock of groceries, it will readily be imagined I had little room to spare for myself. So much attention was paid to economy of space, that the recesses of the pyramid formed by the meeting of the beams were boarded over and made into cupboards; while my _cot_, or framed hammock (which, during the night, rested upon brackets which could be folded close to the wall when not required), was, during the day, hoisted by pullies to the roof of the apartment, so as to leave me as much space to move about in as a prisoner could expect. The cornice of the apartment consisted of a narrow shelf adorned with books, which I found very needful helps to solitary life. The highest apartment was also twelve-sided, surmounted by a pyramidal roof and a small six-sided lantern or ventilator, and was lined round the sides with four tiers of berths, capable of accommodating thirty people. The closeness of that room was most intolerable, especially during the heat of fine weather in summer, at which time several of the men preferred taking