safe on the trail as in her own home--a thing that
civilization never understands about a wild mining camp. Mrs Cameron,
wife of the famous Cariboo Cameron, lived with her husband on his claim
till she died, and many other women lived in the camps with their
husbands. When the road opened, there was a rush of hurdy-gurdy girls
for dance-halls; but that did not modify the rough chivalry of an
unwritten law. These hurdy-gurdy girls, who tiptoed to the concertina,
the fiddle, and the hand-organ, were German; and if we may believe the
poet of Cariboo, they were something like the Glasgow girls described
by Wolfe as 'cold to everything but a bagpipe--I wrong them--there is
not one that does not melt away {90} at the sound of money.' Sings the
poet of Cariboo:

They danced a' nicht in dresses licht
Fra' late until the early, O!
But O, their hearts were hard as flint,
Which vexed the laddies sairly, O!

The dollar was their only love,
And that they loved fu' dearly, O!
They dinna care a flea for men,
Let them court hooe'er sincerely, O!

Cariboo was what the miners call a 'he-camp.' Not unnaturally, the
'she-camps' heard 'the call from Macedonia.' The bishop of Oxford, the
bishop of London, the lord mayor of London, and a colonial society in
England gathered up some industrious young women as suitable wives for
the British Columbia miners. Alack the day, there was no poet to send
letters to the outside world on this handling of Cupid's bow and arrow!
The comedy was pushed in the most business-like fashion. Threescore
young girls came out under the auspices of the society and the Church,
carefully shepherded by a clergyman and a stern matron. They reached
Victoria in September of '62 and were housed in the barracks. Miners
camped on every inch of ground from which the barracks could be {91}
watched; and when the girls passed to and from their temporary lodging,
their progress was like a royal procession through a silent, gaping,
but most respectful lane of whiskered faces. A man looking anything
but respect would have been knocked down on the spot. We laugh now!
Victoria did not laugh then. It was all taken very seriously. On the
instant, every girl was offered some kind of situation, which she
voluntarily and almost immediately exchanged for matrimony. In all,
some ninety girls came out under these auspices in '62-'63. The
respectable girls fitted in where they belonged. The disr