bride elect flies round to her pals, bidding hasty adieus, and the bridegroom leads her out. "I'll give you three months before you 're returned!" cries one, and "It's a bargain you've got, old stringy-bark!" cries another. Hubbub and confusion mark the exit of the couple, and the bride's character is immediately picked to pieces by the neglected, as soon as her back is turned, and the appearance of her husband elect most scientifically blasted, after the usual manner of decrying sour grapes. The clothes of the convict are returned to her, and, dressed again like a free woman, she hies with her suitor of an hour to the church. Government gives her a "ticket of exemption" as a dower, and she steps into her husband's carriage to go to his farm.

Such a carriage! In it is previously deposited something hardly less beloved by the planter than his wife-a five-gallon keg of Cooper's gin. The harness is bark cordage, the body may be slabs, or bark, save the bottom, and as for springs, they are an unnecessary luxury. The beast is oftener a bullock, or a brace of bullocks, than a horse. The sixty or seventy miles' journey nearly achieved, the bride begins to look anxiously for the farm, picturing to herself such a house and homestead as she had been used to in England. Perhaps a bark cottage heaves in sight—“Is that your house?" "No!" and she breathes again. But the end of the journey reveals nothing better.

Bark or log, perhaps plastered, and perhaps not -surrounded by stumps with black tops, and half burned trees-the whole scene conveying to the new comer the idea of discomfort and desolation, rather than the home feeling of a farm; Mrs., the new made bride, indignantly refuses the hand which her attentive husband offers to help her from the chariot. "Help yourself then, if you like it!" and while the husband proceeds to unharness the bullocks, she makes one jump to the ground, careless of concealing either her angry disappointment or her legs. The interior of the house over which she has come to preside, contains full room to chase a cat round, if puss would take the precaution to double up her tail. The bed is the everlasting stringy-bark, which the reader, has heard before as the settler's soubriquet; the furniture, a broken stool or two, and a table; the cooking utensils, a broken spider for frying, and a royal George, alias a big kettle, for boiling, with a few corresponding articles. The first feeling of disappointment over, she concludes even this preferable, with liberty, to Paramatta and the dingy white frock; and by the time her husband enters with the five-gallon keg, and other town-purchased merchandise under his arm, she has found her tongue.

Then comes the wedding party. Neighboring settlers, if there be any, with their wives, and stock-keepers who have charge of the cattle

grazing in the interior, knowing when to expect the bridegroom, come unbidden to welcome him home with his better half. The royal George is slung over the fire, and in such a teapot is the beverage fresh from Paramatta concocted. The

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damper," a wheaten cake of hugeous dimensions, is clapped flat on the clay hearth, and buried in hot ashes. Less adheres to the cake than one would imagine; so little that à very little use accustoms the settler to it. The damper baked, the royal George is set in the middle of the floor, into which the guests dive with their pannikins, diluting the tea with an abundance of fresh milk, it having been sweetened in the pot. The damper is laid upon the table, flanked with a firkin of butter, and all hands fall to without other preparation, assisting the bread with a slice of cold meat. The dishes are rounds of logs, sawed off thin. The damper finished, the table is cleared, and the keg of Cooper's best set upon it, duly guarded round the bung with a leather tongue. The pannikins which had just served for tea-cups now act as drinking-glasses, and the liquor is taken neat, that is to say, without the enervating introduction of water. Pipes and tobacco are produced, and an edifying conversation commences between the new wife and her female visiters-an exchange of experiences, in which each details how cruelly she was "lagged" on suspicion; all innocent as the fifteenth

generation yet to be born, of the crime for which the magistrates had the tyranny to convict her; the dirty vagabonds of witnesses cruelly swearing her life away!

If the party separates without a row, one is next to inevitable between the new-married couple. The husband drunk-wife do.-mad, crazy, from her first regular "tuck-out," probably, for a year. Such is the first lesson of the married convict, the burden of whose punishment government has shifted to her husband. She may run away to the bush within a week, she may stay a fortnight before she elopes, she may remain till her husband complains of her at Paramatta, or she may, by the last possibility, remain "till death do them part," as the liturgy hath it. The above is a faithful picture of too many "factory weddings." When an assigned servant woman is married, the consent of her master or mistress is first to be obtained. The form of proclaiming the bans in church is also, in such matches, adhered to. They are in every way more respectable, as the parties know each other some weeks at least. In such matches, the husband has also the right of turning his wife into the factory again; but in all cases he is bound to take her out when her term of punishment has expired. If he does not, her board is charged to him.

CHAPTER IV.

Male convict ships.-Security of prisoners.-Jane Shore. -Convict boatswains.-Jealousy.-Food.-Barracks. Employment of male convicts.-Wellington Valley.— Better sort of convicts.-Their discipline-employment. -Its effects.-Punishment.-"Saffron Miners."-Convict overseers.-Their tyranny.-Convicts "taking to the bush.”—Banditti.—“A surveyor's kit.”—Expedition of Mr. Oxley.-Discovery of a colony of "bushrangers." -Their sorrow at detection.-Farm.-Good character and contentment.-Breaking up.-Disposal of the fugitives. Inducements to give information of runaways.— "Bush constables."-Guided by scent!-Danger in apprehending runaways.-Punishment.-Execution.-Dying game.

Of a female convict ship I have spoken from observation. The ships used for the transportation of males are managed in like manner, except the additional precautions necessary for restraining men. The usual number of females conveyed in one ship is about ninety; why an exception was made in the case of the Phoenix, I have forgotten. Male convicts are usually ironed, or a majority of them, on the passage. At night a strong grating separates each berth from the centre of the hold, and a guard of about thirty men are always on duty. I believe the only instance on record