An invitation from the manager of the railway to the Commissioner to sleep at their messhouse was by him gladly accepted; a favour not extended to myself, so I had to take up my quarters at the ‘Howard House.’ Now the ‘Howard House’ was managed precisely on the same plan as a travelling wild-beast show; the entire attraction was on the outside. The bar-room, brilliantly lighted, and glittering with gilt, glass, and gaudy ornaments, was open to the street; an array of rocking-chairs, before the pillars supporting the verandah, enabled the luxurious lounger to sit with his heels higher than his head, and in smoky abstraction contemplate his toes. The barman, all studs and shirt-front, hardly deigned to answer my request for a bed, but, pointing to the entry-book, said, ‘Waal, you’d better sign.’ My name duly inscribed on the page of a huge and particularly soiled book, a key was handed me, adorned with a brass label, attached to a chain of like material, with No. 10 on it. ‘Guess, stranger, I want a dollar—and you jist look here: there are two beds, so if anyone comes along, he’ll jist have to room with you.’ This I decidedly objected to. ‘Waal, can’t help it nohow; thar ain’t no other room.’ ‘If I pay for both beds,’ I replied, ‘surely I can have it all to myself?’ This was at length agreed to, the money paid, and at an early hour I turned in, to enjoy a good sound sleep ashore. Excepting two miserable, hard, curtainless beds, an old rickety chest of drawers, and a couple of chairs, the room was destitute of furniture; but spite of all discomfort, mosquitos, and other pests, _felt_ if not seen or heard, I fell fast asleep, soon to be roused again by a loud knocking at my door, the sound of numerous feet scuffling hurriedly up and down the passage, and a very Babel of voices. Hardly awake, my ideas were in a jumbled sort of chaos as to the cause. Fire, burglars, riots, a house-fight, were all mixed in strange confusion, until an angry voice, that appeared to come through the speaker’s nose, yelled, rather than spoke, ‘Say, ar you agwine to open this door? Our women want them beds for a lay-out, and jist mean to havin em, anyhow.’ ‘Ah!’ thought I, ‘they want the spare bed I have paid for.’ Of course I refused—who would not?—and, dragging the old chest of drawers against the door, defied them to do their worst. In the angry parley that ensued, I discovered that a steamer had just arrived from New York, en route to the new gold-diggings in British Columbia, with 1,500 passengers, who, rowdy-like, demanded everything. Threats of administering the summary law of Judge Lynch—of firing their six-shooters through the door, and riddling me like a rat in a hole—together with sundry hard names (it is better to imagine than mention), were heaped profusely on my devoted head. As it appeared to me quite as unsafe to surrender as to remain in my fortress, I determined on holding out to the last.