I will also postpone to another chapter such account as I may be able to give of alienation from the Crown of lands of the colony. The manner in which this should be done, and the manner in which it has been and shall be done, have been of all questions the most important to the Australian colonies generally. As a new law on this subject was proclaimed in March, 1872, when I was in the colony, and as the changes made are of vital importance, I will endeavour to explain the present condition of the matter when speaking of the colony as it now is. And thus Western Australia has struggled on since 1829, having undergone many difficulties; not much heard of in the world; never doomed like Sierra Leone or Guiana; never absolutely ruined as have been some of the West Indian Islands;--but never cropping up in the world, an offspring to be proud of, as are Victoria and Canada. CHAPTER II. ROTTNEST AND FREEMANTLE. Rottnest is an island some twelve miles distance from Freemantle, and Freemantle is the seaport town nearest to Perth,--very deficient in its qualifications in that respect, as I shall explain hereafter. The two places are now spoken of together as containing two convict establishments,--that at Rottnest for black men or aboriginals, and that at Freemantle for European and colonial white prisoners. I will speak of Rottnest first, because it was established for its present purposes before convicts were sent out from England to Western Australia. The island is about four miles long and two miles broad, and was originally almost covered with bush. The soil is sand throughout. Here and there through one end of the island there are five or six small salt lakes. Here black convicts were confined and made to work very soon after the colony was first established. In the course of a few years they were taken to the mainland, in order that they might be employed on the roads. But they ran away, and could not by any amount of chaining and repression which was compatible with work be kept from escaping. Then the establishment at Rottnest was reopened, and has since been maintained as a penal settlement for black convicts, who have been regularly tried and condemned in accordance with British law. When I visited Rottnest there were sixty-five of these aboriginals in the island,--not a large number, perhaps hardly sufficient to justify any special mention; but the special mention is made because it seemed to me that the black men whom I saw in the prison were very much nearer to a state of civilization, and were upon the whole in a better condition, and indeed happier, than any whom I encountered in other conditions. Of course they desired their liberty, though by no means with that pining desire which creates brooding melancholy; but they were clothed and fed and housed, and constrained to work,--though by no means to work heavily,--and had assumed the look and bearing of human beings. They were not subject, either by night or day, to solitary