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 ascertaining wliat outfit would be really requisite for my progress into the interior, but I had been sanguine enough to anticipate that I should be in a position to earn the means that would enable me to carry out my design. So favourably had the prospect been represented to me, that I had accepted the proposition of the Fauresmith merchant in all confidence; perhaps my helplessness and complete want of resources had made me too trusting; I was, perchance, the drowning man catching at a straw.

A very few days of actual experience were enough to dispel any bright anticipation in which I had indulged. I could not conceal from myself that I was a burden upon the very man who had offered to befriend me, and induced me to come; his good offices in my behalf necessarily placed him in a false position with an older friend, a physician already resident in the town, and to whom he was now introducing a rival; it was only to be expected that his long-established friendship with him should prevail over his recent goodvall towards myself; he saw his mistake, and soon took an opportunity of telling me that if I proceeded to the diamond-fields I should find myself the right man in the right place.

I took the counsel into my best consideration, and quickly came to the conclusion that nothing else was to be done. Accordingly, I made arrangements to start.

But my difficulties were great. I had hardly