stirrups, waist deep in water, carrying their gear for them on the pack-horse. Unable to start again until they had dried their clothes, they again camped together for the night. Round a big camp fire, in the general talk some oaths were rapped out, till a big fellow, a sort of leader amongst them, got up, and said: "Look here, mates, this old gentleman and his son have done us a good turn; I make a proposition. Here's a tin; every fellow who lets out a bad word shall pay half-a-crown into it, and we'll give it to the first hard-up chap we meet. That's agreed, is it, so long as this gentleman is with us?" "Aye, aye!" "Well, then, I'll take charge of the tin, and I'm d——d if I don't make you pay up." Shouts of laughter as he had to drop his half-crown into the tin. I don't fancy they recognized the Bishop even as a parson, for he was bespattered with mud from head to foot, as his horse "Dick" had rolled over with him in a swamp, his hat crushed out of shape, reduced to the colour of clay.
As a result of his work, I found an energetic committee established; a small, four-roomed cottage nearly ready for me; a large rough wooden church, just completed, both standing in amongst huge stumps of pine trees lately fallen, a most picturesque scene, with tents and miners' huts wherever there was a little clear space; all encircled by a background of magnificent forest. Going to an hotel—it was Saturday evening—for the night, I came across a man I had known in Canterbury, a typical specimen, younger son of a good family, impecunious, but enterprising and never at a loss, ready for any job to pay his way. "You here!" said he, "Well, you have your work cut out; such a crowd!" "And you?" "Oh, I
