246 EAMBLES AFTEE SPOET. 



ferry boat^ whicli had an awkward habit of blowing up 

 twice a month or so_, I had some pretty shooting at the 

 pheasants as they call them. As they almost always 

 treed, I soon discarded my double gun for a heavy 

 Yankee rifle, about twelve pounds in weight, with a ball 

 the size of a pea. It was so beautifully sighted that at 

 thirt}^ paces I could, after a little practice, take the head 

 off a pheasant clean. On one of my excursions I got 

 away some twenty miles or so, and I stayed at a 

 settler's hut for an hour or two; I never met with 

 such a man in my life in hatred to what he called 

 that " darned pusillanimus cuss, the King of the 

 Britishers. '^ I in vain endeavoured to persuade him 

 that there was no king of England, but a queen; 

 it wasn't the slightest good, he only " darned " all 

 monarchies, kings, queens, and such like rubbish more 

 and more, till I left him. He certainly was the most 

 remarkable man I met in the country. I found the 

 farmers, generally speaking, a very good set of fellows ; 

 they are rather fond of old rye whisky, and are apt to 

 think Oregon is the United States. I should say about 

 thirty per cent, only of their farms are under cultivation, 

 the crops being principally wheat and oats. I had some 

 of the best deer shooting possible, the time of the year 

 being right and game plentiful. The best fun was 

 to wait on a moonlight night outside a clearing, and pot 

 them with a rifle as they came down to eat the vegetables. 

 Another deadly method was to sit down by the side of 

 one of their runs, close by a drinking place, and put a 

 bullet through their heart as they drank at the stream. 

 There were plenty of bears in the coast-range mountains 

 not very far off, but as I had to be down in San 

 Francisco in a month's time, I determined to spend all 



