4 START FOR FORT CARLTON. 



We found here about thirty Englishmen, who, having been 

 tempted by a bubble company to subscribe forty pounds apiece 

 on the understanding that they should be transported to the 

 gold mines of British Columbia, had been cast adrift here, most 

 of them without money, and we found them sweeping the streets, 

 chopping wood, and doing any work they could find, some of 

 them being broken-down gentlemen, and none of them ever 

 having done any manual labour before. 



In spite of much good advice as to the danger of proceeding 

 any further, we took our places in the express waggon a four- 

 horse coach which made the journey between St. Paul's and 

 Georgetown once a week, stopping for the night at small log 

 stage stations, where the accommodation and food were both 

 very rough, the latter being almost invariably pork and corn 

 bread, with very bad coffee. The first portion of the drive 

 was through a very pretty country, and, as the driver let us 

 get out now and then to shoot grouse and ducks, the time 

 passed very quickly. There was, however, the chance that the 

 Indians might attack us at any moment; so that the front 

 seat of the waggon was a complete armoury, the driver having 

 a revolver and a rifle beside him, and the conductor, who sat 

 behind, being armed in the same way. The conveyance itself 

 was like a long waggon, with three cushioned seats across it, 

 hung on leather straps, which were very long, and caused it 

 to sway a good deal from side to side, the whole having a 

 cover on (< bows," which could be rolled up ; the luggage 

 being placed behind, where there was also a small seat for 

 the conductor. The teams were very good indeed, but often 

 quite new to the work, and unused to being driven four-in- 

 hand, so that sometimes they would run away, and we flew 



