fabricated. Old potato-sacks,
flour-bags, and the like have been utilized. The stuffing is of fern,
feathers, mounga, and sundry other matters. Each of us has two or more
blankets, which, I regret to say, are a trifle frowsy as a rule.
O'Gaygun's call for special remark.

This descendant of Hibernian kings is content to undergo even greater
inconveniences than he necessarily need do, since he has determined to
make his fortune in the shortest possible space of time. Moreover, he
professes the profoundest contempt for luxury and even comfort. He holds
that almost anything civilized is an effeminacy, and out of place in the
bush, where he considers that life ought to be lived in a stern and
"natchral" way. He is intensely conservative in the primitive usages and
habits of the roughest pioneering times, and emphatically condemns any
innovations thereupon. He works with furious zeal and unflagging
energy, and saves all the money he earns, generally investing it in
gold-mine scrip, or something that rarely turns out well.

In the matter of blankets and bedding, the spirit of O'Gaygun's economy
and self-sacrifice is apparent. His bedding is like that of all of us,
except that it is less bulky--O'Gaygun asserting that a soft bed is a
sin. His blankets have long been worn out; in fact, they are the mere
shreds and tatters of what once were blankets. Bunk he has none. It
would go against his principles to get one. If any of us is absent,
O'Gaygun borrows his bunk for the time. When all are present he contents
himself with the inverted table, his especial four-poster.

To see this eccentric Milesian settling himself for the night is
invariably a mirthful spectacle, and, it may be added, that, no one of
us is more volubly humorous and laughter-loving than O'Gaygun himself.
Reclining on the sacks which he has spread out upon the table, he
proceeds to draw his tattered blankets carefully over his lengthy limbs.
Piece by piece he spreads the coverings. First one foot and then
another, then the waist, and so on, until at last he is entirely
covered. The process is troublesome, perhaps; but when it is finished
O'Gaygun lies as warm and comfortable as need be. Why should he go to
the expense of new blankets?

Of course there is in the shanty a litter of cans, kegs, old
packing-cases, and the like, which come into use in various ways. Among
them are the remains of former state, in the shape of certain trunks,
portmanteaus, and boxes.