33 Sport and Life. 



the pressure of that solid 3oft. of water behind those bulging 

 ^in. plates, that had they not at once been shored up with stout 

 beams, disaster would have speedily followed, and even then the 

 water kept spurting through the smallest crannies it could find. 

 The swish of the water, together with the resounding blows 

 of the floating furniture, piano, &c., striking the iron sides, as 

 the ship lurched from side to side, heard down there in the 

 semi-darkness, were among the spookiest sounds imaginable, the 

 anxious suspense of the whole situation making it, of course, all 

 the worse. 



One funny little incident connected with this mid-ocean 

 adventure may be added to this, I fear, tedious chapter. At the 

 time the shipwreck occurred my wife was in Victoria, happily 

 unconscious of my plight. As it happened, the first garbled and 

 much exaggerated Press cables published in the local paper also 

 escaped her notice. Others, however, read it, and soon it became 

 known in Victoria that I was one of the passengers on the liner. 

 A dear old lady, rather hard of hearing and an old resident of 

 Victoria, who in her earlier life had been much troubled by a 

 husband and by a son addicted to what out West is known as 

 going on the spree, grasped the details of the rumour concerning 

 poor " Mrs. Grohman's husband " in a mistaken sense. She 

 rushed off to my wife to offer her deep sympathy : " Such a 

 dreadful thing, you know, to have a telegraph from the other 

 end of the world that one's husband is on the spree ! " 



To speak in guide-book fashion of the various resources of 

 British Columbia would be an unnecessary infliction. Some 

 remarks about the mines I have confined to a few pages in the 

 Appendix (Note IV.). Of the wonderful timber along the coast 

 everyone has heard, so I will not add to that literature. Of 

 British Columbia farming I would prefer to let others who know 

 more about it have their say. Hitherto it has not been the general 

 success it should be, considering the splendid markets which 

 the mining camps furnish. It is generally said that the 

 outrageous freight charges of the C.P.R. in the interior of the 



