I had been there six months at that time, and had never taken any money of my wages beyond what I received when I started, but when I asked for three pounds per week my employer was very dissatisfied. I wanted him to cancel the agreement. He refused, and I accused him of having taken an unfair advantage of me. He assured me that as he had got me he would keep me. "Very well," said I, "do your best to obtain your pound of flesh, but do not charge too high a day's wages when you send me away after this; I might not suit." From that day there was war between us, war to the knife. Still I was, and had been, well treated there, and so far I had done my best to deserve it. When I think of it now, I am glad that before this occurred I had an opportunity to show my willingness. What my master's profit on me was I do not know, but it cannot have been large. What with my inability to speak the language, the learning how to handle the different tools used here, and one thing and another, it was unreasonable for me to expect the full wages at once. When I compare my fate with that which befell some of the other immigrants, I ought to have thought myself very fortunate. Some of these were sent out in the bush around the town, and among those who were a few miles distant, I heard much dissatisfaction existed. I will here relate how some, at least, were treated. One man and his wife, and four single men, were engaged at a station fifty miles away. Their agreements were all the same, thirty pounds per annum and rations. The woman, however, was not engaged. When they arrived at the place they found a small house in the middle of the bush. When they asked where were their rooms or place to camp in, their employer told them they might camp anywhere they liked as long as they did not come inside _his_ house. They had then got some bags and branches of trees put together and slept under them, but there was no protection from rain, and the poor woman, who was not well at the time, thought she was going to die. Instead of food, they were served, as I have before stated, with raw beef and flour. The reader may imagine what sort of doughboys they were making. This was strictly and correctly the truth, although these poor people certainly never knew the true intent of the agreement. They would not work, they said, unless they got proper food, but their employer was abusing them every day. They had to fell trees and split timber for fences. Of course such hard work, with no cooked food to eat and no bed to sleep in, was an unreasonable thing to expect from them. After six or seven weeks of this one of them went away, empowered by the others to go to town and complain for the others. He came into town, where he told me what I now relate; but his "boss" was after him quickly, and instead of obtaining redress, he was put in the lock-up fourteen days for absconding from his hired service, and then compelled to go back again! While he was in the lock-up, my "boss"