Most of the fugitives were probably more anxious for change and adventure than anything else, while each individual secretly cherished the idea that he could succeed, though many had failed, in accomplishing a final exit from the colony. As a riddance of the prison dress must of course be effected without loss of time, the first act always was to enter some lonely house and seize upon clothes and such fire-arms as came to hand, and, when once possessed of these, the bushrangers, as they were thenceforth called, wandered about till recaptured, seldom committing worse violence than frightening people into giving them anything and everything that they demanded.
To inspire the degree of dread sufficient for levying supplies guns were absolutely necessary, and those householders who owned a fowling-piece or rifle were, on that very account, more liable than other persons to receive domiciliary visits in search of weapons. I have seen the mistress of a family oppressed with a sense of insecurity because it was "known" that there was a revolver in her house, and a call might therefore be looked for from the bushrangers who were then abroad, on any day that they had ascertained the absence of the master.
Compared with the number of prisoners who were at large, whilst we were in the colony, there were not as many cases of attacks fatal to life as might have been expected, but the encounter with the police, when the prisoners were once more apprehended, rarely took place without bloodshed, and two captured men were at different times brought in wounded to Barladong. One party of bushrangers deliberately murdered a former convict, in whose house they had taken shelter whilst evading the police, and also
