2 COLLECTOR'S RAMBLES 



I received a letter from my father, Dec. 5, 1881, asking 

 me to go to Australia to help him, I was greatly elated. 



Father, and my brother next in age to myself, had 

 gone to Australia some six months before ; and the 

 letter I received asked me to meet them in Dunedin, 

 a city in the southern part of New Zealand. 



The steamer was advertised to leave San Francisco 

 on the 19th of the month ; and no time was to be lost, 

 as the delay of one day might lose me the vessel. 



In the trunk with my clothing I packed my stanch 

 old double-barrelled shotgun ; and, with a few extras 

 in a satchel for immediate use on the journey, I was off 

 by the early morning train of the following day. 



What pleasant dreams of the future filled my mind 

 as the fast express tore over the dreary winter land- 

 scape ! What might I not see and learn before I re- 

 turned ! Would I ever come back? Perhaps not, for 

 a trip half way round the world was so much in ad- 

 vance of anything I had tried before that I felt dazed 

 at the thought of it. My journey lay on the Grand 

 Trunk Railroad, which took me into Canada, across 

 the great Victoria Bridge to Montreal. The day was 

 so cold and disagreeable that I did not care to look 

 about the city, and I was very glad when the train 

 started for the West. 



1 think the journey from Detroit to Chicago was 

 over the roughest track it has ever been my fortune to 

 travel. The way we were shaken up and thrown about 



