How I became an Idler. 2 1 



opposite shore, where there is no cliff nor high bank, 

 and the low level green valley extends back four or 

 five miles to the grey barren uplands, there is 

 another small town called La Merced. In these 

 two settlements I spent about a fortnight, and 

 then, in company with a young Englishman, who 

 had been one or two years in the colony, J started 

 for an eighty miles' ride up the river. Half way to 

 our destination we put up at a small log hut, which 

 my companion had himself built a year before ; but 

 finding, too late, that the ground would produce 

 nothing, he had lately abandoned it, leaving his 

 tools and other belongings locked up in the 

 place. 



A curious home and repository was this same 

 little rude cabin. The interior was just roomy 

 enough to enable a man of my height (six feet) to 

 stand upright and swing a cat in without knocking 

 out its brains against the upright rough-barked 

 willow-posts that made the walls. Yet within this 

 limited space was gathered a store of weapons, 

 tackle, and tools, sufficient to have enabled a small 

 colony of men to fight the wilderness and found a 

 city of the future. My friend had an ingenious 

 mind and an amateur's knowledge of a variety of 

 handicrafts. The way to make him happy was to 

 tell him that you had injured something made of 

 iron or brass a gun-lock, watch, or anything com- 

 plicated. His eyes would shine, he would rub his 

 hands and be all eagerness to get at the new patient 

 to try his surgical skill on him. Now he had to 



