VI MRS. S IS ENGAGED 69 
boy, rode, while he Jed the other (all black boys 
seemed to be called Jackey). I had also engaged the 
services of Mrs. S. — a treasure they told me, a woman of 
ample and masterly proportions, and a motherly sort of 
old body — ^to help me on the way, for this journey is 
not noted for its ease or luxury. At Mount Albion 
we stayed the night 
From here, we next morning made an early start 
for Watsonville. This is all a great tin-bearing district, 
and we were shown some wonderful specimens of the 
metal, some of which were given to me. The only 
available hotel was full, and we had to make our way 
to a settler's house some distance off. Everyone was 
most civil and couldn't do enough for us. One of the 
men here brought me in a new and beautiful variety of 
bauhinia, and a handsome grevillea, which I at once 
set to work to paint, and though our quarters were 
of the roughest description (for we were quite off the 
track of civilisation), and the heat and flies rather dis- 
tracting, I put up smilingly with every discomfort for 
the sake of this flower. 
My bedroom looked out on a foreground of cabbages 
and turnips, and a prosaic clothes-line with a portion 
of the family linen in a more or less tattered condition ; 
the hope of the family had just been warmly chastised 
by his sister, and with the strength of his robust lungs 
he filled the air with wholesome sound ; a fat man, 
with, a bit of looking-glass on a bench where he had 
been performing his ablutions, was undergoing the 
operation of shaving, and there was a charming aspect 
of homeliness about the whole scene. 
We had supper in broad daylight. I watched the 
bread being taken out of the camp oven in the back- 
yard, it was at any rate hot and fresh, and the loaf the 
size of an ordinary footstool. The tea is better not ' 
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