Our friends saw the prisons at Port Arthur, but the prisoners have been gone since 1876. The massive buildings remain without tenants, and are going to decay as fast as solid stone structures can go. Frank and Fred were specially interested in "The Neck," the narrow isthmus which connects the main-land with the peninsula, where the prisons stand. Across The Neck savage dogs were formerly chained at such close intervals that a man could not pass between them; the isthmus is not more than a hundred feet in width, and as there were fifteen dogs kept there, a man had no chance of passing them. If he attempted to swim around them at night, the dogs were expected to give warning by barking; and the waters are so infested with sharks that a person swimming has little chance of getting away with his life.
"LAND, HO!"
The dogs were also used for hunting down the few prisoners who managed to get past the line. The number of escapes was very small; but in spite of all precautions, escapes did occur. The most notable instance is that of three men, Martin Cash, Jones, and Cavanagh, who swam across the bay one night, reached a farm-house in the early morning, and there provided themselves with weapons and ammunition before their escape was discovered. Thus equipped for highway robbery and defence, they remained free for years, but were taken and hanged at last. Convicts at Port Arthur and other Tasmanian prisons were known as "yellow-birds," on account of the yellow uniform they wore.
ON THE PIER.
"Rather suddenly," said Fred, "we left Hobart one day for South Australia, as we found that if we waited for the next steamer we should be detained longer than we cared to be in Tasmania. Three days carried us to our destination at Port Adelaide, where we again set foot on the Australian continent.
"We passed up the Gulf of St. Vincent, and entered Port Adelaide between two large shoals of sand which are marked by light-houses. The captain of the steamer told us that the port was formerly difficult of entrance and quite shallow, but it has been deepened within the past few years, and the channels have been widened, so that it is now accessible for very large ships. As its name implies, it is the port of Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, seven miles away, and easily accessible by a double-track railway.