I reached the hut at about six o’clock, and introduced myself to the shepherd, who was a nice, kind old man, commonly called Harris, but his real name he told me was Horace--Horace Taylor. I had the conversation with him of which I have already told the reader, adding that my father had been unable to give a coherent account of what he had seen, and that I had been sent to get the information he had failed to furnish. The old man said that I must certainly wait a couple of days before I went higher up the river. He had made himself a nice garden, in which he took the greatest pride, and which supplied him with plenty of vegetables. He was very glad to have company, and to receive the newspapers which I had taken care to bring him. He had a real genius for simple cookery, and fed me excellently. My father’s £5, and the ration of brandy which I nightly gave him, made me a welcome guest, and though I was longing to be at any rate as far as the foot of the pass into Erewhon, I amused myself very well in an abundance of ways with which I need not trouble the reader. One of the first things that Harris said to me was, “I wish I knew what your father did with the nice red blanket he had with him when he went up the river. He had none when he came down again; I have no horse here, but I borrowed one from a man who came up one day from down below, and rode to a place where I found what I am sure were the ashes of the last fire he made, but I could find neither the blanket nor the billy and pannikin he took away with him. He said he supposed he must have left the things there, but he could remember nothing about it.” “I am afraid,” said I, “that I cannot help you.” “At any rate,” continued the shepherd, “I did not have my ride for nothing, for as I was coming back I found this rug half covered with sand on the river-bed.” As he spoke he pointed to an excellent warm rug, on the spare bunk in his hut. “It is none of our make,” said he; “I suppose some foreign digger has come over from the next river down south and got drowned, for it had not been very long where I found it, at least I think not, for it was not much fly-blown, and no one had passed here to go up the river since your father.” I knew what it was, but I held my tongue beyond saying that the rug was a very good one.