i8 2 A SPORTSMAN'S EDEN. 



your Celestial well, he seems to me to be a 

 treasure beyond price. As a matter of fact, you 

 have to pay him thirty to forty dollars a month 

 as cook; housemaid, and buttons. He is all three, 

 and will do any odd jobs, such as gardening or 

 wood-cutting, as well. He may pass his even- 

 ings in the consumption of opium, in playing 

 shocking games of chance, or in eating nameless 

 horrors, but when he comes to your house in the 

 morning he looks fresh and clean as a new print- 

 dress. He is not confidential like some English 

 cooks, not talkative even, and if he were, you 

 could not understand him ; but he is generally 

 good-tempered, and infinitely better in the 

 kitchen than nine out of ten of the so-called 

 ' good plain cooks ' you get at home. But ' John ' 

 has his little faults like the rest of us, and the 

 most painful of them all is a habit he has of 

 leaving you without warning, not waiting even 

 for arrears of pay in some cases. My own im- 

 pression is, that he is sharp enough to have 

 noticed how necessary he is as a domestic to the 

 white people of B.C., and to have noticed, too, 

 that though the number of his people in Victoria 

 has decreased, a fresh class of white servants has 

 not yet arisen to take the place of the Chinamen. 

 It is a terrible thing to feel that if you lose 

 your temper with him, though his face may 



