The day's work began at the several settlements at daylight, when all the men were roused by a bell. Any, and they were not few, who felt idle and indisposed to work, remained behind in bed. But presently--let us stand and look on--six or seven hundred men have collected in the barrack yard, and are to be seen walking leisurely about, waiting for the chaplain to say morning prayers, or if he failed to appear--and this was not unusual--waiting for the commencement of muster. Should the chaplain show himself, some ten or twenty prisoners go with him to the chapel which is close at hand; the rest remain outside, and no effort is made by the overseers to compel their attendance. The overseers are indeed powerless then, as at other times, and exercise no authority whatever. Prayers over, muster follows; but the performance is as unlike the strict parade it should be as anything it is possible to conceive. There is no attempt at formation by classes, messes, or wards; no silence, no order. The convicts lounge to and fro, hands in pockets, and talking to one another while their names are read out by convict clerks from the superintendent's office--the assistant superintendent, whose duty this would be, being generally unable to read or write. As each convict hears his name he answers or not, as it suits him, and then saunters over to join the working gang for which he has been detailed. As soon as the muster is concluded the men disperse, leaving the yard in groups or one by one, and proceed to breakfast. Here the whole force breakfast on hominy--or paste made from maize meal--seated under cover or in the open areas, preserving no appearance of order, talking and laughing just as they please among themselves. Breakfast over, some go to work, but a great many do not. They have their bread to bake; and this each man does for himself, spending half the day in sifting meal, kneading dough, and loitering leisurely to the bakehouse and back. The only men told off to regular labour are the two gangs who work the crank-mill, and the labour there was so regulated that half usually were idle half the day; while those at work were riotous and disorderly, shrieking, yelling, hooting and assailing every passer-by, whether subordinate official, magistrate, or the commandant himself, with the vilest personal abuse. The great mass of the convicts were engaged in quarrying or in agricultural pursuits. They were superintended by convict sub-overseers, and not by free persons; and the work done was naturally not large, more particularly as these convict overseers went in daily terror of their lives. Indeed, at the time of which I am writing--after the introduction of "probation," that is to say, and probably before it too--there was practically little or no discipline whatever maintained among the convicts. But for the bayonets and bullets of the military guard by which they were more or less awed--though even