"BEDSTEAD GULLY" 83 



I stopped a few minutes at a place called the Devil's 

 Boots to observe the singular shapes of a number of 

 isolated, water-worn masses of limestone. Some ingen- 

 ious miner had utilized part of a cave for a kitchen, 

 drilling a hole through the roof for a chimney. The 

 people for the most part were Scotch, and I often had 

 considerable difficulty in understanding them. 



After climbing a high limestone hill, covered with 

 tree-ferns and "supple jacks," or climbing vines, I came 

 to a little valley among the hills, where half a dozen 

 miners' cabins clustered like barnacles in the crevices 

 of the wave-worn rocks. This place was my destina- 

 tion, and it went by the very inappropriate name of 

 "Bedstead Gully;" for, as I afterward learned to my 

 sorrow, there was not a bedstead in the place. 



Introducing myself to the good-looking Scotch 

 woman who answered my knock, I was soon seated 

 beside the comfortable fire. I was given a corner in 

 the low attic where two bags stretched on a couple of 

 poles and covered with a quilt did service for a bed. 

 The proprietor came home at six o'clock from the 

 mine, and supper was served on the bare wooden 

 table. 



I was surprised to see how really contented and 

 happy these poor people seemed. Here they were 

 thousands of miles from their native country, shut in 

 among the mountains in a wild, remote corner of a 

 thinly populated island, far from all that makes life 



