Chap. XII. THE " GRUMBLERS." 299 
employment in the meanwhile. Their principal fault 
has been that of fraternising with the worthless set 
who have a less right to grumble than themselves. 
For my part, I would rather have hung my coat on a 
peg and worked at labourer's wages, keeping my 
capital safe in a box until a better day should come, 
than live the fretful and thin-skinned life they often 
sink into leading, in the company of men who have not 
half their worth, and who have no claims to be their 
associates. 
Another class of grumblers are too ridiculous to 
require much notice. These are people who have been 
minor lions, scientific or otherwise, for a few months 
in London, and who hope to be still more so in a small 
colony. Through some inadvertence, the young society 
has not been taught, and fails to discover their peculiar 
vanity — they are talked to for a time more about the 
progress of the colony than about their own heroic 
achievements ; and they become neglected when the 
colonists discover that they can do nothing but talk. 
These are, perhaps, the most vicious grumblers ; but 
they are quite harmless, because easily discovered by 
the levelling of their growls principally at the really 
very good society of the higher class of settlers. 
The grumblers are a dangerous shoal, upon which 
the newly -arrived colonist is very apt to founder. But 
the danger requires no buoying off to the old colonist. 
He keeps in the straight channel of brave perseverance 
and endurance, beating steadily to windward between 
the sands to whose formation he has been a witness, 
and occasionally warning a stranger of their where- 
abouts. 
This leads me to speak of another class of people, 
sometimes met with in the colony, of whom the oldest 
colonists are not at first aware. They come from 
