Page:Songs from the Southern Seas and Other Poems (1873).djvu/72

So a plan was proposed,—'twas deemed safest and best
To imprison the natives in Rottenest.

And so every time there was white blood spilled,
There were black men captured; and those not killed
In the rage of vengeance were sent away
To this bleak sand isle in Fremantle Bay;
And it soon came round that a thousand men
Were together there, like wild beasts in a pen.
There was not a shrub or grass-blade in the sand,
Nor a piece of timber as large as your hand;
But a government boat went out each day
To fling meat ashore—and then sailed away.

For a year or so was this course pursued,
Till 'twas noticed that fewer came down for food
When the boat appeared; then a guard lay round
The island one night, and the white men found
That the savages swam at the lowest tide
To the shoal that lay on the landward side,—