tributes to bis memory; but it was not until the first
week in May that the written despatches and records
with a letter from the young fellow himself. This is the young
adventurer’s l e t t e r •
“ Some years ago I grew tired of home.and the monotonous humdrum
of my daily toil, and resolved to visit different lands. I had
already been over a great part of Europe, hut was not satisfied, so I
determined to go to Australia. After much hesitation, my father gave
me a good outfit, bought me both farming and mining implements,
tents, and everything which we considered might he necessary, gave
me a tidy siim of money, paid my passage on board an A 1 clipper,
had a cabin built for me and my companions on deck (for there were
five or six of us in company), and said, ‘ Good-hye ! ’ to us a few miles
down the Mersey. I see him now standing on that little steam tug
which separated us. He had lost a worse son than I had a father.
We had a cheerful and merry voyage of ninety-seven days. We
landed at Melbourne. After a few days of sight-seeing, when we
managed to get rid of a good deal of our money, we went up country
to look for gold. Ah me! what a life we led ! It chills my blood to
t hi nk about it. Toil, toil, toil, so wearily from morning till night,
sometimes up to the waist in water, sometimes up to the knees in mud,
sometimes in quartz so hard it was like chiselling at steel, and finding
no gold, getting poorer and weaker and thinner every day, ready to
sink at night as we lay out in the open air, covered with a rug, and
thinking of the comfortable homes we had been such fools to leave.
Sometimes we would wake up half frozen, while our feet, which
were towards the fire, were scorched. Well, I went on digging and
had better luck, turned shopkeeper, and lost all my money again ;
then turned cattle driver, was first one thing and then another, till I
scraped enough money together to take me home. But I would not
go to England. I was determined, when I did go, it should be as a rich
man, not as a pauper. So I stayed on, and moved about from place
to place, seeing strange sights and doing various things, till I worked
my way down to the coast, a healtby man with a well-lined purse.
Then I fell in with a Yankee skipper who was engaged in the coasting
trade aboard a schooner of about 200 tons burden, with a crew of six
men. I took a passage on board the schooner, and calculated on
landing in North America in about twelve months. We set sail for
Peru, got on the Brazilian coast, landed at various stations to barter
our cargo ; had all sorts of sport—at one place a bit of lion hunting,
.of tbe inquest were complete. The facts may be briefly
condensed in this place. The official record is printed
at another chamois hunting, then a bit of shark fishing, and first one
thing and then another, until at last we found ourselves on the coast
of Chili. Here we were becalmed, so we landed. The British Consul,
hearing of our arrival, sent me an invitation to stay with him, and
here I am, comfortably lodged in his house, smoking a pipe and writing
this. To-morrow we are going inland to see if we can rouse a few
lion-cubs or other small fry for sport. To-morrow night I shall
finish this, and give an account of our excursion.”
Seven days later the letter was continued as follows :—“ Here lam
in bed, in the British Consul’s house, scribbling a few lines as best I
am able with a pencil. I was to have finished my letter the night of
our hunting party, but I have been obliged to postpone it. We went
into the mountains cub hunting, but we made a terribly long march
before we found anything. About two o’clock I was getting through
some tangled brushwood, and my gun went off, shooting my arm
through above the elbow. My word, how it bled! All the shot went
clean through, making a hole as big as an apple, and splintering the
hone. I very soon fainted from loss of blood, and when I came round
I was lying on the back of a mule, being taken gently down the
mountains towards the coast. My newly-found friends were very
kind and attentive, especially the Consul—he is a downright good
fellow, a regular Englishman. He came alongside and told me all
about it. He said he had been travelling in this style for three hours,
and he was taking us to the nearest station where we could find a
doctor. There is only one doctor about every three hundred miles in
these parts, and we were fortunately near one. They had tied my
handkerchief tightly round my arm to stop the bleeding, but it began
to feel very bad with the jolting of the mule and the tight bandage:
When we got down to the' coast we hired a small boat, and I was
lifted on board. We were then sixteen hours on the open sea, and all
this while you can imagine my shattered arm was not very comfortable.
At last we got home, and the doctor was quickly on the spotl
He soon saw what was amiss, and told me he should have to take off
my arm, as it had been too long without attention to render recovery
possible. I didn’t much like parting with so valuable a limb, for we
had been together many years, and it had done me good service at one
time or another. I t had given many a man a hearty welcome in
civilized countries, and knocked many an one on the head in the jungles