The principal home for the _forçats_ in the penal stage of exile is still on the island of Nou, already mentioned and immediately opposite Noumea, the capital of the colony, which is now, after fifty years of life, a pretty white town of villas and squares, and streets of shops brightened by a luxuriant tropical vegetation. On the island of Nou a pleasant looking settlement of white houses and shady streets has been formed at the foot of a hill crowned with the imposing and extensive prison buildings. On this commanding site and at this remote point, so-called penitentiary science has planted the same sort of machine for the coercion of erring humanity as may be seen nearly everywhere else on the civilised globe. The latest experiment is being made with the oldest methods. Here are separate cells, dark cells and condemned cells, bolts and bars, iron doors and loaded revolvers. France desires to emancipate her criminals and set them on the high road to regenerated life, but they must tread the old thorny paths and suffer the same trials by the way as their predecessors elsewhere. Discipline must be maintained, and it is enforced at times by terrible means. The lash and the "cat-o'-nine-tails" are not permitted, but a most ingenious deceptive method of torture has been invented, mild enough at first sight, yet more cruel than the rack, thumb-saw or boot. Mr. George Griffith's description of the punishment as it existed when he saw it--happily much modified soon afterward--is horrifying in the extreme. The "black cell" was absolutely isolated. Not a sound reached it, not a ray of light penetrated it, and in his day the doors were only opened once in thirty days, when the hapless inmate was extracted for an hour's exercise and the doctor's inspection. The effect of this treatment may be best realised by Mr. Griffith's own words when he was permitted to extend relief to one of the inmates. "Out of the corner (of the cell) came something in human shape, crouching forward, rubbing its eyes and blinking at the unaccustomed light. It had been three years and a half in that horrible hole about three yards long and half as wide. I gave him a feast of sunshine and outer air by taking his place for a few minutes. After the first two or three, the minutes lengthened into hours. I had absolutely no sense of light. I was as blind as though I had been born without eyes. The blackness seemed to come down on me like some solid thing and drive my straining eyes back into my head. It was darkness that could be felt, for I felt it, and the silence was like the silence of upper space. When the double doors opened again, the rays of light seemed to strike my eyes like daggers. The criminal whose place I had taken had a record of infamy which no printable words could express, and yet I confess I pitied him as he went back into that living death of darkness and silence."