We perspired sitting still and making no more exertion than was necessary for breathing, so you can imagine how those poor wretches tugging at the chains sweated—and, great heavens, how they stank!—though the most fastidious, under the circumstances, could hardly blame them for this.
For very shame’s sake I got off and walked whenever there was an excuse. It made breathing pleasanter. So did the Doctor, who was a botanist and found us Venus’ Fly-Traps and other weird vegetable monsters. The Forester also got off now and then, not from motives of mercy, but to point out varieties of timber to the Commandant. The Chief Surveillant sat tight, probably on account of his weight, until I wanted to put him into one of the halters.
But what, though I hardly like to say so, disgusted me most was the absolute callousness, as it seemed to me, of the two little girls. Perhaps the worst of it was that it was absolutely innocent. They had been born and bred in Prisonland, and I don’t suppose they really saw any difference between that sweating, straining, panting team of human cattle and a team of mules or donkeys.
At last, to my own infinite relief, the journey was over. What it must have been like to our team I can only guess from the fact that in a distance of a little over four miles they had dragged us up one thousand five hundred feet! It took an hour and three-quarters to do it. They were dismissed when we got to the top and allowed to have a drink—of water.
The Doctor took us back. He understood the brake, and in consideration for the young ladies he kept the speed moderate. We got back in twelve minutes and a half. He said he had done it in six; but I wasn’t with him then, and didn’t want to be.
Although forestry is, of course, the same all the world over, and, therefore, not the sort of thing to describe here in detail, there were two other camps that I visited which had interesting peculiarities of their own. One of these was the Camp of Bonne Anse, a pretty little spot whence a very steep and stony path led over a little range to a promontory called Cap Ndoua, which is the telegraph station for the Isle of Pines. I don’t know whether there are any other telegraphic stations which have neither cables nor wires and make no use of electricity, but this and the one on the Isle of Pines were the only ones I have ever seen.
When I was taken into the operating-room at Cap Ndoua I saw an apparatus which looked to me like a gigantic magic-lantern with a telescope fixed to its side. In the front of the big iron box there was a huge lens about eighteen inches across, behind this was another smaller one, and behind this again a powerful oil lamp, with a movable screen in front of it, worked with a sort of trigger; on a table in the corner of the room were the usual telegraphic transmitters and receivers in connection with the general telegraphic system to Noumea and the cable to Sydney.
Every evening at seven, when it is of course quite dark, the operators go on duty until nine. If Ndoua has a message to send to the island the lamp is lit, and the man at the telescope in the observatory above the hospital on the island sees a gleam of white light across the forty-six miles of sea. He lights his lamp, and the preliminary signal twinkles through the darkness. Then the shutter begins to work. Short and long flashes gleam out in quick succession, the dots and dashes of the Morse system in fact; and so the words which have come over the wire from Noumea, or, perhaps, from the uttermost ends of the earth, are translated into light, and sent through the darkness with even more than electrical speed.
Saving only fogs, which are not very frequent in those latitudes, the optic telegraph is just as reliable as the cable and the wire, and they are good for any distance up to the range of the telescope. The apparatus cost about £50 apiece, while a cable would cost several thousands; and it struck me that for quick communication between the mainland and islands or distant light-houses, the optic telegraph is worthy of a wider use than it seems to have.
The other visit was to Port Boisé, near to Cape Queen Charlotte, which is the extreme north-western point of Caledonia. Port Boisé is, like so many other of the Caledonian convict camps, a most beautiful spot. It is fertile, too, thanks to the existence of ancient bog lands, which make it possible to temper the heat of the ferruginous soil, and so skill and patience have made it a delightful oasis in the midst of the vast forest and jungle which surround it on all sides save the one opening to the sea.