you doing? Putting your boots out to be cleaned? Well, that is
one thing you won't get done here, it is not the custom; you will have
to go down to the basement and have them cleaned on your feet, and tip
the man who does them then and there. I'll come too, because we have to
make a very early start to-morrow. I wish we hadn't, for some things.
There is capital shooting and fishing here, though a great deal of the
island, which, by the way, is more than twice the size of Wales, is
covered with impenetrable forests. It is difficult to get about at all
in the interior, but we could have gone around by the coast and explored
the inlets, and with luck we might have seen something of the moose and
the bear, to say nothing of wild fowl and salmon and trout, but we can't
manage it this time. A friend of mine, who is in charge of a
salmon-cannery on the coast of British Columbia, is going to put us up
for a day or two, and he has arranged that we shall cross over on the
cannery steamer, the _Transfer_, which leaves so early that we'll have
to be up at half-past four in the morning.

* * * * *

Ugh, I'm sleepy! But I see the sun is already up and shining in a
cloudless sky. It is a trifle cold when we get out at first in the
morning, but as we walk briskly down to the steamer we feel warmed up.
The wharf shows a busy scene; there are numbers of blue-clad Chinamen
rushing backwards and forwards loading boxes on to our little steamer,
which floats by the wharf, and what a comic steamer she is! She is like
nothing so much as a great fan-tail pigeon sitting on the water! That is
because her immense paddle-wheel is tucked away at the back. There is a
very good reason for this too! The steamer gives an agonised scream from
her siren, the Chinamen on board chatter and gesticulate frantically to
their comrades left behind, there is a terrific commotion, and for the
moment no one could help believing that something has gone wrong; but
no, this is only the way the Celestials say good-bye, for when we are
fairly off all the noise stops and a great calm falls on board.

[Illustration: "ONE PIECY EAT BREAKFAST."]

The view from the deck is glorious; in this brilliant light we can see
the mountains rearing up behind the town. While we are admiring them a
voice says, "One piecy eat breakfast, Master," and turning we see a
Chinaman in spotless white bowing before us. We gladly accept and go
below, where we fin