266 



RAMBLES AFTER SPORT. 



bears any more ; they are no good when you do get 

 them, and the odds are you come out second best, 

 unless you tree securely ; and even then you have 

 very little sport for your time and trouble. They take 

 a deal of killing, as their heads are continually on the 

 move and uncommonly thick, and they appear to have 

 no heart — at least a vulnerable one. Of course every 

 hunter in California has killed ^Hots of bars;" and 

 equally of course they all give him a very wide berth, 

 as he is not good eating, and consequently worth 

 nothing. 



I took leave of friend Eyles with regret, as he was 

 a good sort of man altogether. I went back alone, 

 stopping here and there on my way ; at one small place, 

 the name of which I forget, I saw an announcement 

 that in the evening Miss Bethida Ramsbottom would 

 lecture on '^ Second-sight and Medium Spiritualists, con- 

 sidered in their Moral and Social Relations." I felt an 

 inclination to go, more especially after the boss of the 

 hotel informed me that it would be a " gay old time, and 

 that Elijah Shocum had made up his mind to fix her 

 right away.''^ The meeting was held in a hall which was 

 filled with some two hundred people. After a while 

 Miss Ramsbottom appeared on the stage, and was intro- 

 duced by a limp gentleman in black as the ^' Great 

 American supernal Wizard of the Spirits of the De- 

 parted," at which Miss R. put on a tragic air, tapped 

 her forehead with her forefinger three times, shut her 

 eyes, opened them again, and then requested the 

 audience to go ahead straight away with any questions 

 they liked. Hereupon some dozen got up, but order was 

 called by the limp man on the stage, and a flufiy -haired 

 youth with weak eyes wanted to know the " exact value 



