ss Cariboo the most exquisite hats, dresses, and laces, just to
acquaint her with the fashionable style and solicit her distinguished
patronage; dry-goodsmen sent her rare patterns of their costliest and
richest stuffs, perfumers their most exquisite toilet-cases, filled with
odors sweet; jewellers, their most superb sets of gems; and florists and
visitors nearly suffocated her with the scarcest and most delicate
exotics. Pictures, sketches, and engravings, oil-paintings, and
portraits on ivory of her rapturous admirers, poured in from all sides,
and her own fine form and features were reproduced by a score of
artists. Daily she was feted, and nightly serenaded, until the Princess
Cariboo became the furore of the United Kingdom. Magnificent
entertainments were given her in private mansions; and at length, to cap
the climax, Mr. Worrall, the Recorder of Bristol, managed, by his
influence, to bring about for her a grand municipal reception in the
town-hall, and people from far and near thronged to it in thousands.

In the meantime the papers were gravely trying to make out whether the
Cariboo country meant some remote portion of Japan, or the Island of
Borneo, or some comparatively unfamiliar archipelago in the remotest
East, and the "Mirror" was publishing type expressly cut for the purpose
of representing the characters of the language in which the Princess
spoke and wrote. They were certainly very uncouth, and pretended sages,
who knew very well that there was no one to contradict them, declared
that they were "ancient Coptic!"

Upon reading the sequel of the story, one is irresistibly reminded of
the ancient Roman inscription discovered by one of Dickens' characters,
which some irreverent rogue subsequently declared to be nothing more nor
less than "Bil Stumps His Mark."

All this went on for about a fortnight, until the whole town and a good
deal of the surrounding country had made complete fools of themselves,
and only the "naughty little boys" in the streets held out against the
prevailing mania, probably because they were not admitted to the sport.
Their salutations took the form of an inharmonious thoroughfare-ballad,
the chorus of which terminated with:

"Boo! hoo! hoo!
And who's the Princess Cariboo?"

yelled out at the top of their voices.

At length one day, the luggage of her Highness was embarked upon a small
vessel to be taken round by water to London, while she announced,
through her "agent," h