because of seven islands at the mouth
of the bay coming between them and the outpost. My next neighbour, in
command of a similar post up the gulf, was about seventy miles distant.
The nearest house down the gulf was about eighty miles off, and behind
us lay the virgin forests, with swamps, lakes, prairies, and mountains,
stretching away without break right across the continent to the Pacific
Ocean.

The outpost--which, in virtue of a ship's carronade and a flagstaff, was
occasionally styled a 'fort'--consisted of four wooden buildings. One of
these--the largest, with a verandah--was the Residency. There was an
offshoot in rear which served as a kitchen. The other houses were a
store for goods wherewith to carry on trade with the Indians, a stable,
and a workshop. The whole population of the establishment--indeed of the
surrounding district--consisted of myself and one man--also a horse! The
horse occupied the stable, I dwelt in the Residency, the rest of the
population lived in the kitchen.

There were, indeed, five other men belonging to the establishment, but
these did not affect its desolation, for they were away netting salmon
at a river about twenty miles distant at the time I write of.

[Illustration: drawing by Geo. Hutchinson

signed: R. M. Ballantyne]

My 'Friday'--who was a French-Canadian--being cook, as well as
man-of-all-works, found a little occupation in attending to the duties
of his office, but the unfortunate Governor had nothing whatever to do
except await the arrival of Indians, who were not due at that time. The
horse was a bad one, without a saddle, and in possession of a pronounced
backbone. My 'Friday' was not sociable. I had no books, no newspapers,
no magazines or literature of any kind, no game to shoot, no boat
wherewith to prosecute fishing in the bay, and no prospect of seeing
anyone to speak to for weeks, if not months, to come. But I had pen and
ink, and, by great good fortune, was in possession of a blank paper book
fully an inch thick.

These, then, were the circumstances in which I began my first book.

When that book was finished, and, not long afterwards, submitted to
the--I need hardly say favourable--criticism of my mother, I had not the
most distant idea of taking to authorship as a profession. Even when a
printer-cousin, seeing the MS., offered to print it, and the well-known
Blackwood of Edinburgh, seeing the book, offered to publish it--and did
publish it--my ambition