It’s not a boat you want to get on.

First of all, it was once a slave transport. The shackles still hang from the wall. The crew wouldn’t mind clamping those irons around your legs.

As for the food, well, this cruise line hates to throw money away if they can keep it clamped in their fists. Same goes for repairs to the ship. You might experience a good deal of sea spray shooting through the cracks. So, if you spend the voyage locked up in the shackles, you’re apt to arrive “starving . . . chilled to the bone on soaked bedding, unexercised, crusted with sea salt . . . and vomit, festering with scurvy and boils.” That is, if you don’t die en route. If you do perish, your chain-mates probably won’t tell the crew, the better to get your rations.

This is the story Robert Hughes tells in The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia’s Founding.

Most countries build jails for their criminals. But Great Britain, not long after the American Revolution, conceived of a handy scheme for dealing with the undesirables littering her streets: ship them off to Botany Bay, clear across the world. Sheep thieves, forgers, swindlers and prostitutes found themselves riding away from the homeland, sucked into “a system of human trash-disposal.” In Australia, they fell into the hands of brutal or inept governors.

As for the governors, I’m sure it’s a sizeable headache ruling an entire continent of criminals. And what if they commit more crime? Where do you ship them off to then? How do you show the toughest, most desperate meanie-faces in your colony that you are in charge?

Then again, how much punishment is too much? What will a person do if they run out of hope?

Finally, what kind of a nation rises up when the whole thing was founded on shame and painful memories?

There’s nothing quite like Australia. It’s unusual history matches the strangeness of its plants and insects. I loved Hughes’ book.

Hughes convinces me not to forge or swindle. If I have to choose between the Big House and my own house, I’ll stick with my own. The food  is better.20150517_185132 (2)

And today, the food was Cheesy Sausage Stromboli and Caesar Salad.