We are young fellows with slender purses but boundless hopes, an immense belief in ourselves and our golden prospects; but with the vaguest possible idea of what manual labour, roughing it, and colonial work really mean. Therefore, we have decided that there is no reason to plunge at once into the middle of things, that we will look about a bit, let ourselves down gently, and taste a little comfort before proceeding further.
Our hotel is a solid, comfortable-looking edifice of stone, standing on a wide street that traverses a high ridge, and commanding a fine view of the harbour. It is well furnished throughout in English fashion, resembling any first-class family and commercial hotel of the old country. There is a long bar or saloon occupying the ground floor, with a parlour behind it; there are also a spacious dining-room and business-room. Upstairs there is a billiard-room, smoking-room, ladies' drawing-room, and bedrooms capable of accommodating thirty or forty guests. Behind the house is a large courtyard, round which are ranged the bath-rooms, kitchens, offices, and stables; while further back is the garden, principally used for strictly utilitarian purposes.
According to colonial custom there is little or no privacy, no private sitting-rooms, and if a visitor have a bedroom to himself, it is not quite such a sanctum as it would be in Britain. People stopping in the house are free to permeate it from kitchen to attic, if so minded.
There are three common meals--breakfast, luncheon-dinner, and dinner-supper--and any one who is not present at them, or who is hungry between times, will have to go without in the interval, and wait till the next regular meal-time comes round, unless he dare to invade the kitchen and curry favour with the cook, or goes down to some restaurant in the city.
Generally speaking, the table is furnished in a style most creditable as to both quantity and quality of the viands. There may not be such a show of plate and glass and ornament as there would be at a London hotel of similar status, but there is a plenteous profusion of varied eatables, fairly cooked and served up, to which profusion the home establishment is an utter stranger. Fish, fowl, butcher's meat, vegetables, breads and cakes, eggs, cream, and fruit, appear in such abundance that, when every one is nearly gorged, we wonder what can possibly be done with the overplus, especially since we are told that this is a city without paupers, as yet.