“I hope you flourish still on this terrestrial sphere. I have been watching my chance to hook it for a long time: however, I may get a chance to-morrow. If I do, I will write and let you know immediately. This is a nice country, only there are a great deal too many trees. We have been up to Portland, and are now down at Astoria again, waiting for 250 tons more cargo, and the ship will proceed to Queenstown for orders, so that if I do go home in her, I shall not get home till about, the month of August. There was a bark wrecked here the other night, and the crew spent a night in the rigging; hard frost on, too. We have had snow, ice, frost, and rain in great abundance. The salmon are just beginning here, and are so cheap and fresh. I am steward now, as the other steward has run away.” “Brookfield, Columbia River, Oregon, “I have just started another business, and knocked off going to sea: yours truly is now going in for salmon fishing. I had quite enough of it, and the ship would have been very unpleasant, because she was very deep, and I think short-handed. “One night five figures without shoes on (time 1 a.m.) might be seen gliding along the decks, carrying a dingy. We launched her over the side, and put our clothes, provisions, etc., in her, and effected as neat a clear as one could wish to see. We had been watching our chances for the last week or so, but were always baffled by the vigilance of the third mate: however, I happened to hear that he and the boatswain had also arranged to clear, so we all joined together. We were to call the boatswain at twelve o’clock: the third mate and all of us had our clothes up on deck, and the boatswain backed out of it, and the third mate said he wouldn’t go; but it would have been impossible for him to go in the ship, for all must have come out” [gentle persuasion, employed on boatswain, given no account of]. “We started: favoured by the tide, we pulled fifteen miles to the opposite shore; concealed the boat, had breakfast, and slept. At twelve that night we started again, and went oh a sandbank; got off again, and found a snug place in the bush. We hauled the boat up, and built a house, and lay there over a fortnight, happy and comfortable. At last the ship sailed, and we got to work.... We live like princes, on salmon, pastry, game, etc. These fishermen take as many as 250 (highest catch) in one boat in a night. I suppose there are about five hundred boats out every night; and the fish weigh” [up to sixty pounds—by corrections from next letter], “and for each fish they get 10d.—twenty cents. They sell them to canneries, where they are tinned, or salt them themselves. They pay two men a boat from £8 10s. a month. If I can raise coin for a boat and net (£100), I shall make money hand over fist. Land is 10s. an acre: up-country it is cheaper.” “Care of Captain Hodge, Hog’em, Brookfield.