taining a garrison of soldiers, who are there to enforce the
quarantine rules. These rules are considered as very defective, and in
some respects quite absurd, and are productive of many severe evils to
the unfortunate emigrants.

When the passengers and crew of a vessel do not exceed a certain number,
they are not allowed to land under a penalty, both to the captain and
the offender; but if, on the contrary, they should exceed the stated
number, ill or well, passengers and crew must all turn out and go on
shore, taking with them their bedding and clothes, which are all spread
out on the shore, to be washed, aired, and fumigated, giving the healthy
every chance of taking the infection from the invalids. The sheds and
buildings put up for the accommodation of those who are obliged to
submit to the quarantine laws, are it the same area as the hospital.

[* It is to be hoped that some steps will be taken by Government to
remedy these obnoxious laws which have repeatedly entailed those very
evils on the unhappy emigrants that the Board of Health wish to avert
from the colony at large.

Many valuable lives have been wantonly sacrificed by placing the healthy
in the immediate vicinity of infection, besides subjecting them to many
other sufferings, expenses, and inconvenience, which the poor exile
might well be spared.

If there must be quarantine laws--and I suppose the evil is a necessary
one--surely every care ought to be taken to render them as little
hurtful to the emigrant as possible.]

Nothing can exceed the longing desire I feel to be allowed to land and
explore this picturesque island; the weather is so fine, and the waving
groves of green, the little rocky bays and inlets of the island, appear
so tempting; but to all my entreaties the visiting surgeon who came on
board returned a decided negative.

A few hours after his visit, however, an Indian basket, containing
strawberries and raspberries, with a large bunch of wild flowers, was
sent on board for me, with the surgeon's compliments.

I amuse myself with making little sketches of the fort and the
surrounding scenery, or watching the groups of emigrants on shore. We
have already seen the landing of the passengers of three emigrant ships.
You may imagine yourself looking on a fair or crowded market, clothes
waving in the wind or spread out on the earth, chests, bundles, baskets,
men, women, and children, asleep or basking in the sun, some in motion
busied wi