8o A SPORTSMAN'S EDEN. 



we unsaddled at the ' Nine Mile Creek ' where 

 an Irishman and his half-breed wife dispense 

 hospitality to the pack animals, at the somewhat 

 exorbitant charge of 50 cents apiece for a graze, 

 or 1 dollar apiece for a feed. However, it was 

 no good grumbling, so we paid the money, or 

 rather gave a cheque for it upon Wardle's, and 

 then got the woman to cook us some supper. I 

 think I never came across a more miserable little 

 home ; the scenery stern, the place remote, our 

 hostess sulky and forbidding ; the only servant the 

 most abjectly melancholy of Chinamen, who lived 

 in a ruinous wet old tent at the back of the 

 house, where were two bald, lonely, unkempt- 

 looking patches of ground set round with white 

 boulders, within which last year were buried the 

 woman's first family her husband and little child. 

 The second husband of this lady landowner is 

 indeed a daring son of old Erin, and I wish him 

 luck. What astonishes the traveller here is, 

 that neither white nor Indian seems to do any 

 cultivation. All the labour is spent on fencing, 

 and when that is accomplished nothing more 

 seems to be attempted, so that really all the 

 settlers rely upon are these rough pastures for 

 their cattle and horses. Once only I came across 

 a potato patch ; and when, later on, the Admiral's 

 party arrived, I heard of an energetic ranche- 



