470 CHARLES DARWIN 



tent and unhappiness. As an intelligent man remarked to 

 me, the convicts know no pleasure beyond sensuality, and in 

 this they are not gratified. The enormous bribe which Gov- 

 ernment possesses in offering free pardons, together with the 

 deep horror of the secluded penal settlements, destroys con- 

 fidence between the convicts, and so prevents crime. As to a 

 sense of shame, such a feeling does not appear to be known, 

 and of this I witnessed some very singular proofs. Though 

 it is a curious fact, I was universally told that the character 

 of the convict population is one of arrant cowardice : not 

 unfrequently some become desperate, and quite indifferent as 

 to life, yet a plan requiring cool or continued courage is 

 seldom put into execution. The worst feature in the whole 

 case is, that although there exists what may be called a legal 

 reform, and comparatively little is committed which the law 

 can touch, yet that any moral reform should take place 

 appears to be quite out of the question. I was assured by 

 well-informed people, that a man who should try to improve, 

 could not while living with other assigned servants; his 

 life would be one of intolerable misery and persecution. Nor 

 must the contamination of the convict-ships and prisons, both 

 here and in England, be forgotten. On the whole, as a place 

 of punishment, the object is scarcely gained; as a real system 

 of reform it has failed, as perhaps would every other plan; 

 but as a means of making men outwardly honest, of con- 

 verting vagabonds, most useless in one hemisphere, into 

 active citizens of another, and thus giving birth to a new 

 and splendid country a grand centre of civilization it has 

 succeeded to a degree perhaps unparalleled in history. 



30th. The Beagle sailed for Hobart Town in Van Die- 

 men's Land. On the 5th of February, after a six days' pas- 

 sage, of which the first part was fine, and the latter very cold 

 and squally, we entered the mouth of Storm Bay: the weather 

 justified this awful name. The bay should rather be called 

 an estuary, for it receives at its head the waters of the Der- 

 went. Near the mouth, there are some extensive basaltic 

 platforms; but higher up the land becomes mountainous, and 

 is covered by a light wood. The lower parts of the hills 

 which skirt the bay are cleared; and the bright yellow fields 



