dry that it sunk one-half in its dimensions when dressed. Our usual method of cooking it was to cut off the daily morsel and toast it on a fork before the fire, catching the drops which fell on a slice of bread or in a saucer of rice. Our flour was the remnant of what was brought from the Cape by the Sirius, and was good. Instead of baking it, the soldiers and convicts used to boil it up with greens.'
Can anyone nowadays imagine the hideous isolation of the place? Railways, telegraphs, steamships have made such a complete cutting off from the world, in these times, a matter of impossibility. Upon Phillip alone rested the duty of finding food and caring for a thousand persons, nine hundred of whom, from ignorance and viciousness, would have died of starvation sooner than have done a hand's turn to help themselves.
Maxwell, one of the lieutenants of the Sirius, had gone melancholy mad, was discharged from the ship, and was at this time wandering about the settlement. Says Collins:—
'Mr Maxwell, whose disorder at times admitted of his going out alone, was fortunately brought up from the lower part of the harbour, where he had passed nearly two days, without sustenance, in rowing from one side to the other in a small boat by himself. He was noticed by a sergeant who had been fishing, and who observed him rowing under the dangerous rocks of the Middle Head, where he
