empty packing-case in front of his tent, whittling a piece of

its wood.
'Pray sir,' said I in my best Louis Quatorze manner, 'have I

the pleasure of speaking to Major Dooker?'
'Tucker, sir. And who the devil are you?'

Let me describe what the Major saw: A man wasted by
starvation to skin and bone, blackened, almost, by months of

exposure to scorching suns; clad in the shreds of what had
once been a shirt, torn by every kind of convict labour,

stained by mud and the sweat and sores of mules; the rags of
a shooting coat to match; no head covering; hands festering

with sores, and which for weeks had not touched water - if
they could avoid it. Such an object, in short, as the genius

of a Phil May could alone have depicted as the most repulsive
object he could imagine.

'Who the devil are you?'
'An English gentleman, sir, travelling for pleasure.'

He smiled. 'You look more like a wild beast.'
'I am quite tame, sir, I assure you - could even eat out of

your hand if I had a chance.'
'Is your name Coke?'

'Yes,' was my amazed reply.
'Then come with me - I will show you something that may

surprise you.'
I followed him to a neighbouring tent. He drew aside the

flap of it, and there on his blanket lay Fred Calthorpe,
snoring in perfect bliss.

Our greetings were less restrained than our parting had been.
We were truly glad to meet again. He had arrived just two

days before me, although he had been at Salt Lake City. But
he had been able there to refit, had obtained ample supplies

and fresh animals. Curiously enough, his Nelson - the
French-Canadian - had also been drowned in crossing the Snake

River. His place, however, had been filled by another man,
and Jacob had turned out a treasure. The good fellow greeted

me warmly. And it was no slight compensation for bygone
troubles to be assured by him that our separation had led to

the final triumphal success.
Fred and I now shared the same tent. To show what habit will

do, it was many days before I could accustom myself to sleep
under cover of a tent even, and in preference slept, as I had

done for five months, under the stars. The officers
liberally furnished us with clothing. But their excessive

hospitality more nearly proved fatal to me than any peril I
had met with. One's stomach had quite lost its discretion.

And forgetting that
Famished people must be slowly nursed,

And fed by spoonfuls, else they always burst,
one never knew when to leave off eating. For a few days I

was seriously ill.
An absurdincident occurred to me here which might have had

an unpleasantending. Every evening, after dinner in the
mess tent, we played whist. One night, quite by accident,

Fred and I happened to be partners. The Major and another
officer made up the four. The stakes were rather high. We

two had had an extraordinary run of luck. The Major's temper
had been smouldering for some time. Presently the deal fell

to me; and as bad luck would have it, I dealt myself a
handful of trumps, and - all four honours. As the last of

these was played, the now blazing Major dashed his cards on
the table, and there and then called me out. The cooler

heads of two or three of the others, with whom Fred had had
time to make friends, to say nothing of the usual roar of

laughter with which he himself heard the challenge, brought
the matter to a peaceful issue. The following day one of the

officers brought me a graceful apology.
As may readily be supposed, we had no hankering for further

travels such as we had gone through. San Francisco was our
destination; but though as unknown to us as Charles Lamb's

'Stranger,' we 'damned' the overland route 'at a venture';
and settled, as there was no alternative, to go in a trading

ship to the Sandwich Islands thence, by the same means, to
California.

On October 20 we procured a canoe large enough for seven or
eight persons; and embarking with our light baggage, Fred,

Samson, and I, took leave of the Dalles. For some miles the
great river, the Columbia, runs through the Cascade

Mountains, and is confined, as heretofore, in a channel of
basaltic rock. Further down it widens, and is ornamented by

groups of small wooded islands. On one of these we landed to
rest our Indians and feed. Towards evening we again put

ashore, at an Indian village, where we camped for the night.
The scenery here is magnificent. It reminded me a little of

the Danube below Linz, or of the finest parts of the Elbe in
Saxon Switzerland. But this is to compare the full-length

portrait with the miniature. It is the grandeur of the scale
of the best of the American scenery that so strikes the

European. Variety, however, has its charms; and before one
has travelled fifteen hundred miles on the same river - as

one may easily do in America - one begins to sigh for the
Rhine, or even for a trip from London to Greenwich, with a

white-bait dinner at the end of it.
The day after, we descended the Cascades. They are the

beginning of an immense fall in the level, and form a
succession of rapids nearly two miles long. The excitement

of this passage is rather too great for pleasure. It is like
being run away with by a 'motor' down a steep hill. The bow

of the canoe is often several feet below the stern, as if
about to take a 'header.' The water, in glassy ridges and

dark furrows, rushes headlong, and dashes itself madly
against the reefs which crop up everywhere. There is no

time, one thinks, to choose a course, even if steerage, which
seems absurd, were possible. One is hurled along at railway

speed. The upreared rock, that a moment ago seemed a hundred
yards off, is now under the very bow of the canoe. One

clenches one's teeth, holds one's breath, one's hour is
surely come. But no - a shout from the Indians, a magic

stroke of the paddle in the bow, another in the stern, and
the dreaded crag is far above out heads, far, far behind;

and, for the moment, we are gliding on - undrowned.
At the lower end of the rapids (our Indians refusing to go

further), we had to debark. A settler here was putting up a
zinc house for a store. Two others, with an officer of the

Mounted Rifles - the regiment we had left at the Dalles -
were staying with him. They welcomed our arrival, and

insisted on our drinking half a dozen of poisonous stuff they
called champagne. There were no chairs or table in the

'house,' nor as yet any floor; and only the beginning of a
roof. We sat on the ground, so that I was able

surreptitiously to make libations with my share, to the
earth.

According to my journal: 'In a short time the party began to
be a noisy one. Healths were drunk, toasts proposed,

compliments to our respective nationalities paid in the most
flattering terms. The Anglo-Saxon race were destined to

conquer the globe. The English were the greatest nation
under the sun - that is to say, they had been. America, of

course, would take the lead in time to come. We disputed
this. The Americans were certain of it, in fact this was

already an accomplished fact. The big officer - a genuine