CHAPTER IV.
STRANGE ADVENTURES—AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINALS.
One of the youths asked how the convicts were employed after they came to Australia.
“At first,” said the doctor, “they were employed almost entirely on government works. A city was laid out, and of course it was necessary to grade the streets, build bridges, and do other things in connection with putting the place into shape. There were prisons, warehouses, wharves, and other buildings necessary to a convict establishment to be erected. Gardens and fields were to be laid out and planted, and altogether there was no lack of work to be performed. The prisoners were required to work under guard, and the worst of them were ornamented with ball and chain, like the occupants of many a prison in different parts of the world. They were treated just as rigorously as they had been on board the ships that brought them out. Their lodgings were somewhat more spacious, but by no stretch of fancy could they be called luxurious. The supply of food in the colony was not large, and the fare of the prisoners was scanty.
“Free emigration to Australia began a few years after the convict emigration, and most of the free emigrants came here with the view to employ the convicts under contracts with the government. They were principally men of capital, and the most of them established farms or factories near Sydney and entered into agreements with the government to supply them with labor. Where they were close to the city, the convicts were sent out to their work in the morning and returned to prison at night; but where the distance from the city was considerable, other plans had to be followed. Sometimes soldiers were detailed to guard the convicts at their working places, and in others the employer himself supplied the guard. The convicts were also made to understand very clearly that if they ran away they would be caught and severely punished.
“I should think they would run away in spite of all these threats, especially where their sentences were for long terms,” Harry remarked.
“It was not so easy as it may seem for anybody to escape,” said the doctor. “A man could not stay around the colony more than a day or two, or a few days at the farthest, without being discovered, and when found he was sure to be severely flogged, put on bread and water, and shut up in a dark cell. If he escaped into the bush, he was pretty certain to starve to death unless found by the natives, in which case he was generally murdered. Many a convict ran away to the bush and was never heard of. Others remained there until starvation forced them to come in and give themselves up.”
“Did the free settlers increase as fast as the convicts?”
“Yes, they increased faster as the word went out through the British Islands that Australia offered great possibilities for emigrants. For twenty years the military and convicts were more numerous than the free settlers; but by the end of thirty years the latter were in the ascendency. In the year 1830, there were twenty-seven thousand convicts in the colony, and forty-nine thousand others.