154 MY ROOM AT THE HOTEL, 



which in any respect whatever had anything to do with 

 a vine. Coffee was bad, and tea worse; and, as to 

 cooking and quality of meat, it was as if the Fiend 

 himself had toasted a lean and incorrigible sinner, and 

 sent him up not in his general humour, but for once to scare 

 his fellows from coming to his fire. If a fowl was killed, 

 it died without reference to age, and was sent to table 

 the same day. Pastry, water-melons, and pumpkins, 

 some very good sardines and eggs, were there the only 

 wholesome things to be procured ; and some of this fare 

 so much demanded strengthening, that, with a heavy sigh, 

 I had to break in on a flask of whiskey of the better sort 

 given to me by a friend on the railway. It would not 

 have been wise, of course, to intrude on my stock of 

 brandy and wine, or I might become short of it when 

 most needed in the desert. Mine host and his pretty 

 daughter did all they could to make me comfortable and 

 to amuse me, and I was very well waited on by a man 

 of colour as well as by a white waiter, but the crickets 

 and beetles that came to inspect me in the night, and to 

 hold levees on the floor of my room, nomen illis legio^ and 

 I could very well have dispensed with their attentions. 



My first step at further preparation for the prairies 

 was to order a covered little four-wheeled waggon, to be 

 drawn by one stout mule, for my dogs ; the ingress to it 

 to be from behind, and the door on hinges, at the bottom 

 of the cart, barred across, to make them a sort of stairs to 

 get in by, when the door was inclined by being supported 

 on a staff. Beneath the driver's seat in front was a 

 little box to hold anything that might be required. The 

 waggon I had made out of old materials very old ; for 

 the maker of it, with true coachmaking craft, for a cus 

 tomer that he might never see again, did not fail to put 



