The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1889-03-06
TASMANIA.
GLIMPSES OF WILD LIFE IN A
SOUTH SEA PENAL COLONY.
Terrible Adventures Of Fugitive
Felons-ChoSed by the 1mpen-
etrabIe Scrub-Melancholy
Tales OF the AboriEines.

A New York Times correspondent
writes an interesting account Of Taslla-
MIA, an island lying more than two hun
ared and fifty miles from Australia, and
known in the biographies OF thirty
vears ago as Van Dieman's Land. Tas-
mania once contained a notorious eng
ish penal settlement. The writer closes
bis letter as follows:
The chief employment of the convicts
was telling the huge forest trees, In which
work many lives were lost. After a
breakfast Of flour and water they started
from their prison On Sarah Island to the
mainland, worked all day without other
food, returned to their chief meal, and
went to rest. Those who were separated
from the others for punishment more
severe were lodged on rock, to which,
often in chains, they passed, waist deep,
through the surf and lay down without
bedding or fire in their wet clothes to
catch such sleep as they could. ashes
and chains, abuse of inhuman jailers,
starvation and illness, and abandonment
of hope drove them to the most desperate
efforts to escape-and here nature Joined
the cruelty of man, and caught and ex-
hausted them and choked out their Life
in the horrible "scrub" which is charac-
teristic of Tasmania. The Government
geologist and statstician, Mr.. Robert NJ.
Johnston, has graphically described the
terrors and difficulties Of progress
through the dense forests of the western
part Of the island, which are so thickly
set with luxuriant vegetation that it is
impossible to pursue course in one dl-
rection for any distance without literally,
Ak in hand, cutting track wide enough
to squeeze the body through.
The ''horizontaP and "banera"
shrubs are the chief terror OF explorers.
The horizontal is tall shrub, which
sometimes attains length of sixty feet.
Its peculiar habit-to which it owes its
name-is for the main stem to assume a
horizontal position after reaching the
height of 8 few feet, from which ascend
secondary, and from these tertiary,
branches, which assume the same hori-
zontal direction. All of these interlock
and form with other shrubs-an occa-
slonal erect gum tree furnishing pillar
to strengthen the whole-an absolutely
impervious barrier. The lower labyrinth
is thickly encased with moss, dripping
with moisture concealing deep holes,
into which when man drops he is lost
entirely to sight und often cannot extri-
cate himself without assistance. Many
missing mineral prospectors are thought
to have lost their lives in these traps.
The banera scrub forms q thick and
springy mass of wiry branches, which
are too tough and too much oss-grown
to cut, so that the only way to pase them
is to throw ones self upon the soft,
branching mass and roll over upon the
other side. Such progression is ex-
hausting, aud is made additionally inter
esting by the usual presence in these To-
calit.es ~ef venomous snakes. Under
these circumstances it is not strange that
hardly q convi,t who attempted to make
his way to tho settlement was ever seen
alive again.
The only man who made his way
through the scrub was convict named
Pearce, who set out with seven COM
panions. They endured the most fright.
full sufferings, lived on berries and roots,
and finally the stronger murdered the
weaker for food, until only Pearce and
man named Greenhill remained. These
continued on with growing weakness un-
til they could 60 no further. Then they
stopped, and for two days and nights
they watched each other. Grecnhill had
the axe with which the way had been
cut through the brush aud the others of
the party had been killed Finally ex-
hausted nature could endure no more,
and Greenhill, putting the axe under
his head to guard against surprise, de-
cided the fearful lottery by being the
first to sleep. When Fearce. two days
later, came out among group of sheep
herders, they fed from him at sight Of
the horrible provision he carried in his
hands. Pearce was taken and executed.
and his confession, describing that ter
rible experience in the bush, was read
from the scaffold, and forms one Of the
most hideou' recita.s to which human
cars ever listened.
The stiffness of the laws may be un-
derstood from the statistics of punish
ment that were inflicted upon the notori-
Gus Brady gang Of rangers, who, escap-
ing from Macquaric llarbor, drew after
them more than 100 probation and ticket
of-leavc men, pilIaged the country, and,
attacking the settlers, treated Tasmania
to something very like combination Of
Indian and border warfare. Finally The
whole country was aroused; the Gov
ernor placed himself at the head of the
troops and the citizens, and in 1926 and
and 1926 no less than 103 desperadoes
were captured and hanged, and bash
ranging was forever played out" in
Tasmania. Thirty.seven were convicted
at single sitting of court; tweaty-thrcc
were hanged within fortnight-nine
together On the same scaffold--and the
law, whose license of inhuman brutality
at Macquarie Harbor had made these
men what they were, vindicated itself
by destroying the structure Of despera-
tion and hopelessness which it had been
chiefly instrumental in building
Another matter of interest to the visit
or in Tasmania is the melancholy history
of the native population. When the
country was first settled, in 1902, it is
estimated that there were some 1000
aborigines in Tasmania. They were an
amiable race and treated the settlers
we'll, and lived with them OF terms of
triendliness The establishment OF the
convict settlements and the appearance
in the colony of dissolute sailors and
others who followed the course of trade
had bad effect upon the blacks, as upon
the whites. The native women and
children were stolen and carried away
by the sealers and bird catchers who in =
feete5 the southern coast while murders
of the unotIending people, of all ages
and both sexes, were common. The
blacks naturally retortcd in kind, and