o vigilant for evasion and too strong for resistance. Brute force
overmatches even genius and divinity in the ultimate appeal. Prometheus
lies chained to his Caucasian rock, in eternal pain though in eternal
defiance; and Napoleon frets away his mighty life at St. Helena watched
by the callous eyes of Sir Hudson Lowe.

About three o'clock my cell door was again unlocked and I was invited to
take a bath. In the corridor I met my two fellow prisoners, and we were
all three marched back to the reception room. Three good baths of warm
water were awaiting us. What a glorious luxury after the six days'
confinement, without any means of washing one's skin! Some of the
prisoners, I understand, regard the first bath as the worst part of the
punishment. They are brought up in dirt, and love it; like the Italian
who deserted the English girl he was engaged to, and justified himself
by saying: "Oh, if I marry her, she wash me, and then I die." We,
however, splashed about in our baths, uttering ejaculations of pleasure,
and congratulating each other on at least one pleasant bit of prison
experience.

The doors of our bath-rooms were about five feet high, with an open
space of nine or ten inches between the bottom and the floor. Over the
top of these an officer passed us each a couple of shirts (under and
over), a pair of drawers, a pair of trousers, and worsted stockings.
The drawers and the under-shirt were woollen, and the outer-shirt coarse
striped cotton. The trousers seemed a mixture of cotton and wool. They
are brown when new, but they wash white, and look then very much like
canvas. My pair was a terrible misfit, and had to be exchanged for
another nearly twice the size. We were also provided with a net bag to
put our own clothes in. My good black suit, dirty linen, hat and boots,
were all crushed in together After this performance the bags are hung
up, and either the next day, or at their leisure, the officials make an
inventory of the contents, and stow them away until the day before the
prisoner leaves, when they are taken out in readiness for donning on the
blessed morning of release.

Clad in shirt, trousers and stockings, we walked from our baths to the
reception room, where we found several officers and the Governor and
Deputy-Governor, who had apparently come to superintend our toilet. Each
of us was fitted with a new pair of shoes, a waistcoat and a coat. These
arrangements were the subject of a good deal of pleasa