They take great pride in showing visitors their own work.

It is an interesting though sorrowful sight to see these poor fellows--some of them deprived of their liberty for life, perhaps for crimes into which they have been driven by the treatment they receive from those who have deprived them both of their land and of their liberty.

Many, if not most of them, are in some measure unconscious of guilt; and they are almost incapable of appreciating the relation between what they have committed and the punishment which has fallen on them.

Their minds are plunged in the darkest ignorance; or if they know anything beyond the means of satisfying their immediate wants, it is that they have been deprived of their rightful possessions by the men whose chains they wear.

Surely this reflection should now and then present itself to the white man who is accustomed to treat them so harshly, and induce him to judge more leniently of their acts, and instead of confining himself to coersive measures for protection, make him resort to the means which are within his reach of raising the despised and oppressed savage more nearly to a level with himself in the scale of humanity.
The native prisoners at Rottnest collect salt from the lagoons, cut wood, and at present almost grow sufficient grain to keep them, so that in a short time they will be a source of profit rather than of loss to the crown.