Quoting further and speaking of one man just flogged, the same writer says: “He was only twenty years old. He had been a soldier and was rather a fine man, tall and well-made, with a bronzed skin. His back, uncovered down to the waist, had been seriously beaten and his body trembled with fever beneath the damp sheet applied to his bleeding sores. For the first half hour he walked up and down the room in agony. I looked in his face; he seemed to be thinking of nothing, his eyes had a strange expression at once wild and timid; they fixed themselves with difficulty upon surrounding objects. He stared at the hot tea I had before me steaming in its cup. I offered it to the poor creature who stood there shivering, with chattering teeth, and he drank it down at one gulp, without looking at me or making a sign, then put the cup down silently and resumed his walk. His pain was too intense for words or thanks. No one questioned him or spoke; the other prisoners attended to the changing of the cold compresses, thinking rightly that he would prefer that to outspoken compassion, and the sufferer seemed satisfied and grateful to be left severely alone.” That the convicts, even the most criminal and degraded, were not quite heartless or insensible to the finer feelings, was to be seen in their demeanour when a sick comrade died in hospital. The passing away of one poor victim of consumption is told with infinite pathos and much painful realism. Toward the end he became almost unconscious, his sight was confused, he recognised no one and was evidently suffering acutely. His respiration was painful, deep and irregular; his breast rose and fell convulsively as he struggled for breath, and he cast off his bedding as an intolerable burden. When exposed, it was terrible to see his immensely long body—with fleshless arms and legs, and ribs as clearly marked as a skeleton’s—which was absolutely naked but for the cross pendent from his neck and his leg irons. As his last moment approached, a death-like stillness prevailed, no one spoke or only in whispers. The convicts stepped on tiptoe across the floor, gazing furtively at the dying man, who caught with trembling hand at the cross, which seemed to be suffocating him, and tried to tear it off; the rattling in his throat grew more and more pronounced, and at last he died.