Flow I became an Idler. 21 
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, I 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 
