pole had been suggested, or the South-pole, or any other
terrestrial pole that happened to exist at the time, I was quite ready
to "rush in" where even a Franklin might "fear to tread!"

This incident was but a slight one, yet it was the little hinge on which
turned my future career.

We had a relation--I won't say what, because distant relationships,
especially if complicated, are utterly beyond my mental grasp--who was
high up in the service of the Hudson's Bay Fur Company. Through Iain I
became a clerk in the service with a salary of 20 pounds for the first
year. Having been born without a silver spoon in my mouth, I regarded
this as an adequate, though not a princely, provision.

In due time I found myself in the heart of that vast North American
wilderness which is variously known as Rupert's Land, the Territories of
the Hudson's Bay Company, and the Great Nor'west, many hundreds of miles
north of the outmost verge of Canadian civilisation.

I am not learned in the matter of statistics, but if a rough guess may
be allowed, I should say that the population of some of the regions in
which I and my few fellow-clerks vegetated might have been about fifty
to the hundred square miles--with uninhabited regions around. Of course
we had no libraries, magazines, or newspapers out there. Indeed we had
almost no books at all, only a stray file or two of American newspapers,
one of which made me acquainted with some of the works of Dickens and of
Lever. While in those northern wilds I also met--as with dear old
friends--some stray copies of _Chambers's Edinburgh Journal_, and the
_Penny Magazine_.

We had a mail twice in the year--once by the Hudson's Bay ship in
summer, and once through the trackless wilderness by sledge and
snow-shoe in winter. It will easily be understood that surroundings of
such a nature did not suggest or encourage a literary career. My
comrades and I spent the greater part of our time in fur-trading with
the Red Indians; doing a little office-work, and in much canoeing,
boating, fishing, shooting, wishing, and skylarking. It was a "jolly"
life, no doubt, while it lasted, but not elevating!

We did not drink. Happily there was nothing alcoholic to be had out
there for love or money. But we smoked, more or less consumedly,
morning, noon, and night. Before breakfast the smoking began; after
supper it went on; far into the night it continued. Some of us even
went to sleep with the pipes in