the scorching of our knees, while our spinal marrow was frozen
into a solid icicle. Then we would turn our backs to the fire, and
sleep again ; but, in five minutes, our knees and toes were frozen ;
our moustaches stiff with ice, our spinal marrow dissolving in
the heat. Then up again another smoke, another talk.
The dawn reddened at last ; and the mountains beyond Arthur's
Lakes to the west glowed purple We expected to find the horses
stiffened and half dead ; for they were both accustomed to be
stabled and bedded at night ; and this was the most savage night
I had ever experienced in the country. But well-bred Van Die-
men's Land horses have great life and unconquerable pluck ; the}'
were fresh as the dawn. We soon found the track, and in half
an hour rode up to old Job's door. It happens that Job's house
was the first place Meagher had stopped at for rest and refresh-
ment, a year and a half ago, on his ride from Lake Sorel ; and the
moment Job saw me, he knew what business was in hand. He
received us joyfully, bade his wife prepare breakfast, and we went
with him into the stable, to get our horses fed. Then breakfast
before a roaring fire. Meagher, it seems, had shaved off his mous-
tache here for the better disguise ; so, after breakfast, Job pre-
sented me with a razor, looking glass, basin, and soap, wherewith
JAIL JOURNAL 315
I made a complete transfiguration of myself. I wrote a short note
to my wife, to tell her which way I had taken, and without the
least hesitation entrusted it to Job Sims, who was to go over to
Bothwell the next day with some cattle for Mr. Russell, and who
undertook to deliver the note personally at Nant. This man is
an Englishman, and has been an old prisoner ; yet I know he
would not sell that note to the enemy for a thousand pounds.
Mounted after three-quarters of an hour's delay ; and Job rode
with us two miles, to show us the ford of the Lake-river. After
that H and I held on over a rough mountain, but with a
pretty well-defined track. We intended to make first for the
house of a Mr. Grover,* whose son, a well-affected Tasmanian
native, was known to be ready to aid me in any such affair.
Neither of us had ever seen this young Grover ; his father is a
magistrate of the colony ; but we had no hesitation about going
stright up to the house.
As we slowly descended the narrow track, at a sudden turn
among the trees, we encountered two gentlemen, riding up the
mountain. We exchanged salutations and passed, when H
said to me, " I never saw Charles Grover, but I am almost sure
the elder of those two is he." The " natives " of this island
generally know one another by some sort of freemasonry a cir-
cumstance which I had not at that moment time to investigate
and trace philosophically. " We must not let him pass," said
H . " Then coo-ee to him." H sung out the coo-ee
loud and clear ; and in a minute the two gentlemen were seen
riding back to meet us. " You are Mr. Charles Grover," said
H . "Yes.' "This is Mr. Mitchel." He asked two or
three eager questions ; found out in a moment how the case
stood ; asked if our horses were fresh, and where we intended to
stop that night. The horses were tired ; we were making for
Mr. Wood'sf place in Westbury. Our new friend instantly
turned with me ; gave up the business, whatever it was, that
urged him to his journey ; told H he might go back to
Bothwell, and leave me with him ; made his companion give up
his horse to me, and mount Donald, with directions to take him
to his (Grover 's) father's house, to be cared for after the journey ;
and then started off with me, to bring me by the most secrel
* Grover is not the gentleman's real name, t Wood is also a fictitious name
316 JAIL JOURNAL
road to Mr. Wood's. " I am glad I met you," he said, " because
it will save you the necessity of calling at my father's house ;
the governor, you know, is a magistrate ; and it is as well not to
run risks."
Most gratefully and affectionately I parted from H , who
turned, intending to go back for that night to Job's ; and next
day, by a circuitous route, to Bothwell. For me, I committed
myself, without a moment's thought, to the care of my new
acquaintance. We rode on merrily, got out of the mountain
region, and skirted along the base of the great Western Tier, at
its northern side. Before dusk we rode into th"e yard of a large
and handsome house, where a tall gentleman came to meet us.
It was Mr. Wood. " Here is our friend," said Grover (I had never
seen Wood before), " Mr. Mitchel." " Ah ! " he said, quietly, " I
have been expecting you here these two months." Last night I
spent with this gentleman and his amiable family. But as there
is a police station within a hundred yards of his gate, and as
the police of Westbury were certain to be on the watch all over
the district, from this day or to morrow, it was thought best to
remove me this morning to the farm-house of a fine young
Irishman, named B , six miles from Mr. Wood's, and here I
am this day, awaiting new? of the movements of Nicaragua and
Sir William Denison.
June i^th. Mr. B. and his wife are very kind to me ; keep
me in great privacy ; seem almost proud to have the charge of
so illustrious a patriot (as myself) ; and assure me I am safe
enough here, for a month to come. However, I do not go out,
even into the woods, except at night, and never without loaded
arms. No news yet of Nicaragua.
ibth. News at last of Nicaragua. On the day he and I
parted in the woods near Bothwell, he arrived safely at Oatlands,
but was hotly pursued ; left Fleur-de-lis, a well-known mare of
mine, in the stable of the inn, reeking with sweat ; made urgent
inquiries whether he could have a horse to travel eastward to
Spring Bay then, at night, left the hotel, through the garden ;
climbed over several walls at the back of the houses ; came round
to the road outside the village ; waited for the coach, and
travelled northward to Launceston, where he is now, duly
shaved and disguised.
JAIL JOURNAL 317
At Bothwell there was violent excitement. Seven mounted
police were instantly despatched thence, to scour the country on
all sides in pursuit. They traced Nicaragua to Oatlands ; found
my Fleur-de-lis in the stable ; learned that the gentleman had
asked for a horse to carry him to Spring Bay ; and, accordingly,
all that region is diligently scoured, and videttes, on the pro-
montories of the coast, are exchanging anxious signals.
I find, also, that Mr. Davis, at Bothwell, charged one of the
constables who were present (an Englishman), with failing in his
duty, by not securing me, when ordered ; and, further, charged
him with having been bribed. He, therefore, dismissed him ;
whereupon the man got drunk on the spot, and spent the evening
invoking three cheers for me. It is not true that this poor fellow
was bribed : but I wish he had been ; for, it is now clear he was
open to a bribe, wanted a bribe, and deserved a bribe.
The Westbury police are patrolling night and day, for my sake ;
but this is no more than the constables of all other districts are
doing ; evidently, all trace of me is lost ; and the government
folk have no reason for supposing me to be in this district, rather
than any other. At anyrate, in any case, whatever may befall
me, I feel absolutely out of the enemy's power. The end of
the enterprise now, must be America or a grave.
CHAPTER XXIII
June 20th, 1853 Westbury, V. D. L. I have been now a week
at Burke' s farm-house, and in the closest privacy. Even the few
friends in this district, who know of my whereabouts, do not dare
to come to the house in daylight ; but the staunch O'K , on
whose own house a strict watch is kept by the police, contrived
last night to evade their vigilance, leaving home in the afternoon,
riding first in some other direction, and then making a circuit, so
as to come down upon Burke's after midnight. With him came
a Launceston friend, who brought me a note from Nicaragua
Smith. Nicaragua is now in Hobart Town, and has not been
molested, although it is well known that he was with me at the
Bothwell police office ; but as no violence was actually done, nor
even arms exhibited, there is nothing to endanger him. However,
all his movements, also, are under strict surveillance.
He assures me, in his note, that the enemy have not the
slightest suspicion of my having come to this part of the island,
and the impression is general that I am already at sea. Bets are
pending in Hobart Town as to the direction I took as to my
having sailed, or not and if so, by what ship. In the meantime,
he is negotiating about a brigantine, the Don Juan, one of Mr.
Macnamara's ships. She is to sail shortly from Hobart Town,
bound for Melbourne ; and he hopes to arrange it so that she
will call on the north side of the island, in some lonely bay, to
take me up I to make my way to the rendezvous as I best
may.
22nd. Special messenger from Nicaragua. The Don Juan is
to call at Emu Bay, five days hence ; the distance is about
eighty miles from my retreat ; but there are four rivers to cross,
and no road, no bridges. And now. fate has apparently declared
against me ; for within the last two days, Emu Bay has become
totally inaccessible by land. The winter floods have begun. It
has rained furiously in the mountains ; and the Forth, Mersey, and
Don, all fordable in the summer, are rushing down now, in raging
318
JAIL JOURNAL 319
torrents, that would sweep us into the sea if we were mounted on
elephants. Then, if we go down to the sea-shore, and attempt to
pass westward, by crossing the mouths of the river in boats, a
difficulty arises there are generally no boats to be found there,
except the police boats ; and every river mouth is watched by
constables, who have all received a special warning to be on the
look out for a man thirty-five years of age or so, with dark hair,
stature five feet ten inches, etc., etc.
What is to be done ? The Don Juan will certainly call in at
Emu Bay, and wait there two days. My Launceston friend de-
vises a plan. He has hurried off to Launceston, to employ the
captain of a small coasting smack, as a messenger to Emu Bay,
with directions for the Don Juan to come eastward again, if the
weather permit, and to lie off and on at a solitary beach, between
West Head and Badger Head, a little to the west of the Tamar
mouth. To that place I can go without crossing any river ex-
cept the Meander. The plan does not look feasible, because the:
weather has grown wild, and the Don Juan, if she can even leave
Emu Bay, and coast eastward, may find it impossible to lie to
off that dangerous coast. It is determined, however, that I am
to try the chance.
The country between this place and Port Sorel is wild, marshy,
rocky, and desolate all the better for our purpose, if we can only
cross the Westbury road, and get through the settled country
south of the Meander, without exciting suspicion. Our course is
to be due north the distance nearly seventy miles ; we are to
set forth about ten o'clock at night, and if possible, to reach the
sea the next day.
Latest accounts from Bothwell tell me that all is well at Nant
Cottage ; all our good neighbours of Bothwell are delighted at my
escape (which they think is an accomplished fact already), and
kindly attentive to my family. My wife, however, knows that I
am still on the island, and every morning expects to hear either of
embarkation, capture, or death. If I should even have the good
fortune to get on board the Don Juan, my adventures will have
only begun. For she goes to Melbourne. At Melbourne there is
doubtless a warrant against me, long since in the hands of the
police, with description of eyes, hair, and stature ; and, since the
discovery of gold mines there, careful note is taken by the
320 JAIL JOURNAL
authorities, of every passenger and every sailor coming irom Van
Diemen's Land. Many captures are made every week. To get
into Melbourne, and to get out of it again, will be about equally
perilous ; but the " work of the hour " is to get out of Van Die-
men's Land.
2^th. We start to-night. It is gloomy winter weather ; the
country having been first thoroughly drenched, is now frozen ;
but the moon is out and on duty. I am to have a considerable
cavalcade and body-guard : the two Burkes, Mr. Wood, and his
brother, O'K , O'Mara, brother-in-law to my host, and Foley,
a powerful Tipperary man, somewhere between six and seven
feet high. If we meet a patrol of constables either on the
journey or at the coast, the meeting will not serve the cause of
" law and order."
I have written two letters, one to my wife at Bothwell, one to
my mother at New York a kind of provisional adieu, indeed
for I scarcely hope to meet with this Don Juan ; and, failing
her, I shall have to disperse my party, and retire from the coast
again with all speed and secrecy. Mr. Wood, in that case, pro-
poses to send me to a very remote " station " of his, among the
mountains of the north-west, to spend the winter there, and
let all thought of pursuit die out. Meanwhile, my kind hostess,
Mrs. Burke, is busied in preparations for our departure, and in
providing what is needful for our journey. Amongst other
things, the good creature gets some lead and judiciously casts
bullets. Her husband comes with us, as well as his brother ;
and their father lends me a good horse.
26th Port Sorel, Bass's Straits. We are here, but the Don
Juan is not. The night before last, as had been arranged, about
ten o'clock, after taking farewell of Mrs. Burke and her little boy
(whose principal nurse I have been for a fortnight), I rode away
accompanied by the two Burkes, O'K , O'Mara, and Foley.
We were to meet the Woods on the Westbury road, at a given
point. It was cold, but clear, and the moon shone brightly on
the hoar frost. Having been joined by the Woods, we rode nearly
due north ; and some time after midnight descended through some
dark and winding gullies to the valley of the Meander. Just on
the farther bank, and in a very solitary place, stood the house of
our friend O'K . He is a respectable farmer, an intelligent
JAIL JOURNAL 321
well-informed man, who emigrated hither, after Lord Hawarden's
great extermination of tenantry in Tipperary. O'K was one
of the tenants turned out upon that occasion ; and saw his house
pulled down, while all the neighbours on the adjoining townlands
were warned not to shelter him, or any member of his family.
Some natural tears he shed, and uttered some natural impreca-
tions ; but shot neither landlord, nor agent, nor sheriff's officer
which would have been natural, too. With the help of some
good friends he found means to emigrate hither, and has a good
farm, far from Lord Hawarden ; but still hates with a holy
hatred (as in reason he ought) the British aristocracy and British
Government. Of course he takes an interest in Irish rebels, and
was Meagher's faithful companion and guide on his last Tas-
manian excursion. The river was high and rapid ; the banks
were steep and rough ; but O'K knew the ground and led
the way ; the flood dashed up to our horses' shoulders ; but in
a few minutes we had scaled the opposite bank, and galloped
up to O'K 's door.
Here we halted to sup and feed our horses. The family
were asleep : but ere long, a roaring fire blazed, beef-steaks
hissed, and at the head of his rough but kindly board, O'K
welcomed me (he hoped for the last time) to the hospitalities
of the Tasmanian bush.
One of the peculiarities of Westbury district is that you find
Irish families, and whole Irish neighbourhoods, associating
together and seldom meeting foreigners : for even the assigned
convict- servants whom these people select are all Irish. Thus
they preserve, even in the second generation, Irish ways and
strong Irish accents ; and but a few weeks have gone by since, in
this very house, on the death of O'K 's old mother, a regular
wake was held, and experienced crones raised a true caoine
over the corpse, startling the cockatoos with their wild and un-
wonted ululu.
The two Woods are native Tasmanians, of English stock, and
do not fully understand the Tipperary enthusiasm and Munster
demonstrativeness of O'K and his wife. They are men of
very large property, bold horsemen, indefatigable bushmen, and
seem to have come into our present enterprise for the sake of the
excitement as well as from a sincere regard for Irish rebels. They
322 JAIL JOURNAL
sat smoking and looking on in silence, while O'K narrated
the black story of the clearing of his village in Tipperary.
At last, it was time to mount once more. The moon had gone
down and the night was dark. Seven miles farther on we found
ourselves near a hut, which Mr. Wood recognised as the stock-hut
of his nephew, young Lilly. He said the owner was in it, and
insisted that we should all dismount, knock him up, and demand
some tea. I objected, supposing that there might be other
strangers in the house, and it was not expedient (seeing I was
almost certain we should miss the Don Juan) that my journey
in this direction should come to be known. In vain I objected.
Wood only laughed, and said it was all right, and thundered with
his hunting-whip on the hut door. After some grumbling in the
inside, the door was cautiously opened by a man with a gun.
Four men were within, including Lilly, the proprietor, who had
come that way to give directions to his stock-keepers. He
quickly tumbled out of his opossum-rug, recognised my friends,
but did not know me, and invited us all to partake the usual
bush-fare.
Though displeased at the delay and risk of blabbing, I went in :
and we remained an hour ; so that dawn was breaking before we
resumed our journey Young Lilly was informed, before I left,
of the nature of the excursion, and undertook to keep his shep-
herds, and also a strange shepherd who was there, closely em-
ployed about the place for some days, lest they should spread
abroad the intelligence that such a party o horsemen had been
riding coastward upon such a night.
When the morning reddened in the sky, we found ourselves in
as wild and impervious a country as I have yet seen in Van
Diemen's Land no mountains, -but countless hills, divided
almost uniformly by dangerous marshes ; rocks, dead trees,
deep " creeks " with rotten banks ; such, without intermission
for forty miles, was the scene of our tedious travel. The only
comfort was, that no constables would venture into those
wildernesses in winter.
Once O'K , who was mounted on a powerful black mare,
sunk unexpectedly deep into a morass, covered with treacherous
herbage. He flung himself off the saddle ; and, by dint of some
desperate plunges, the mare was extricated. We came into a
JAIL JOURNAL 323
narrow gorge, very rocky and entangled with almost impassable
" scrub." Down the gorge flowed, or rather oozed, through the
slimy soil and prostrate decayed trees, a kind of creek, which we
must cross : but never in all my bush riding had I seen so hideous
and perilous-looking a task for a horseman. Last winter, the
floods had been peculiarly heavy hereabouts ; and the channel had
been much deepened and widened. Immense dead trees lay
along and athwart it in all directions ; the banks were high and
composed of soft red soil ; and in the bottom, wherever the bottom
could be seen, there seemed to be nothing but unfathomable red
mud. We struggled a full hour along the bank, looking for a
point where it was possible to cross ; and every moment going
farther out of our way, as was too apparent by the sun.
O'Mara, who was mounted on a fine young bay horse, once
dashed at the creek, shouting, " Follow me ! " He went dov.'n
the slope safely ; and in a moment we saw the noble horse
springing up against the opposite bank, O'Mara leaning over his
neck and urging him with spur and voice. He gave two or three
tremendous bounds, but the soft earth always gave way under
his feet ; and, at length, with his fore-feet pawing wildly in the
air, down he went backwards to the bottom ; but O'Mara,
grasping a branch of a dead tree, swung himself from the saddle,
and thus saved himself from interment in red slime under his
horse. We spent an hour in extricating the poor animal, which,
by dint of main force, we accomplished ; but it was too clear
that was not a placs for crossing.
Over the creek, however, we made our way, and late last
evening, came out from the hills upon the broad tide- water of
the Tamar, near a small settlement called York. Avoiding the
houses, which might have contained disaffected persons to wit,
constables we proceeded about a couple of miles into the woods
beyond, but were still five miles from the sea-coast at Badger
Head.
Darkness came on ; and the country before us was almost
impassable even in daylight ; so we bivouacked in the wood.
Fortunately it was a grassy place, and the horses could pick up
something to eat. We lighted a good fire, roasted upon forked
sticks certain pieces of mutton we had carried with us from
O'K 's, finished the supply of brandy, and having duly
324 JAIL JOURNAL
smoked our pipes, fixed saddles under our heads for pillows, and
slept.
At daybreak this morning we were astir ; for we all thought it
quite possible that the Don Juan, if her captain had received
the message recalling him, might have been off the designated
beach yesterday evening ; and if so, the wind of last night,
blowing in towards the shore, would have obliged her to work
as far to seaward as possible, otherwise, the rocks of Badger
Head would be fringed with her shivered ribs this morning. It
was calm and mild weather as we started from our lair ; and,
after four miles' difficult journeying, through marshes, we heard
the roar of the sea, and saw Badger Head towering to our left.
Still, the water was invisible, for the shore was bordered by a
line of high sand-hills, clothed with honey-suckle trees and
boobialla. We scaled the sand-hills ; and there was the blessed
sea but as far as the eye could sweep it, not a sail !
We gazed blankly into one another's faces. Determined, how-
ever, to wait there all day, and look out for a sail. The coast
here makes a fine sweeping curve between the two rocky pro-
montories ; and there is a broad smooth beach of sand.
A vessel suddenly hove in sight, round the point of Badger
Head. A brigantine ! She was four miles off, and we had no
doubt, from her apparent tonnage and rig, that she was the Don
Juan. She stood out to sea, and seemed to be coming out the
Tamar mouth, where she had probably taken shelter last night.
Now we eagerly watched her movements, expecting every
instant that she would tack. From the distance, we were unable
to see whether she had Macnamara's signal-flag at her mast-
head : but we gathered some dried branches, and set fire to them
and to the long grass that covered a sand-hill. Soon a pillar of
smoke rose into the air that might have been visible thirty miles.
The insensible brigantine made no sign, nor swerved from her
steady course, steering direct for Melbourne. In an hour she
was out of sight, and we took counsel what we should do next.
There we could stay no longer, if only for want of food ; and it
was necessary that the party should separate. Mr. Wood re-
newed his proposal of sending me to his stock-station among the
north-western mountains, where I might stay all winter as a
'tock-keeper. In the meantime we agreed to ride in the evening
JAIL JOURNAL 325
to the house of a gentleman named Miller, about nine miles to
the west of us, on the shore of Port Sorel inlet ; stay with him all
night, and consult with him in the morning.
The coast all along is totally uninhabited ; and we did not see a
human creature all day. Half a mile from Miller's, we halted,
and Wood rode on to make sure that no strangers were about
the place. Miller himself returned with Wood. He had never
seen me before ; but seemed delighted that we had come to him.
He assured us that as he had no servants at that time, and as his
house was quite off all tracks and roads, I might, if necessary,
remain three months there unsuspected. On the other side of
Port Sorel inlet, which is not half a mile wide at the mouth,
stands a township, with police office, magistrate, and the rest of
the apparatus ; and Miller says the last stranger who appeared
at his house was a constable from Launceston, bearing the
despatch a fortnight ago to all the stations along that coast,
announcing my departure from Bothwell and enjoining vigilance
for my sake.
" All special messengers," said he, " bearing despatches from