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British Columbia Historical Books Collection
Claudet, Max, 1840-1893
"This book is compiled from the most recent and trustworthy authorities it has been possible to find. The chief amongst these are the Parliamentary papers relative to the affairs of British Columbia (1858- 1861), the Colonization Circular (1862), The Times newspaper (1858-1862), the reports of Mr. W. Downie, a gentleman in Government employ, and the printed information by Mr. McLean, an officer of the Hudson's Bay Company." -- Preface.
82 pages : illustrations, map (folded) ; 18 cm
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HANDBOOK OF BRITISH COLUMBIA HANDBOOK OF BRITISH COLUMBIA PREFACE, This book is compiled from the most recent and trustworthy authorities it has been possible to find. The chief amongst these are the Parliamentary papers relative to the affairs of British Columbia (1858-1861), the Colonization Circular (1862), Si The Times newspaper (1858-1862), the reports of Mr. W. Downie, a gentleman in Government employ, and the printed information by Mr. McLean, an officer of the Hudson's Bay Company. BEITISH COLUMBIA, CHAPTER I. BEITISH COLUMBIA. The knowledge England has gained within the last two or three months of the value of British Columbia, enables us to look upon that colony as the second marvel of the year 1862, the Great Exposition alone taking precedence of it as a national good- Since last Christmas time—since the date when Albert the Good, in dying, awoke the people of the prince's adopted land to his worth and magnanimity, we have learnt that a new England, a new home, as like that of the fatherland as any territory beyond its boundaries can be, is in existence and ready to afford many thousands of the people of our overpopulated kingdom the means of living in a new country; the climate, soil, and general products of which assimilate most wondrously to those of the native land. British Columbia is apparently a second England, with the added advantages of gold fields the richest in the world. It is computed to contain about 200,000 square miles of land, fitted to the labor of the agriculturist, as yet unreclaimed, Cnd inhabited by the Bed Indian alone. Nor is it the least remarkable fact in connection with the marvellously and hourly increasing knowledge of this colony, that it has been known as a gold- bearing district for some years. It is the impression of most people that the discovery of the auriferous nature of British Columbia is of exceedingly recent date; that it is but a few months old. This is an error. So far back as 1857 the value of this colony as a gold field was made public. Mr. William €arew Hazlitt published a very important and brilliant work on the subject in 1858, and through the medium of this gentleman's book, and the publication of several letters in The Times, from the |j own correspondent | of that paper, considerable public attention was drawn to "Western America. The subject also occupied much of the attention of Parliament, about the same time, and several heavy and interesting blue books were the result. But, most unaccountably, public attention was soon called a.2 •. A. MCKELVIE RUE at. BOX 142 ** QS A away from the rising importance of British Columbia. Upon some consideration, we might be inclined to come to the conclusion that this neglect was due to the anxiety the affairs of India still caused the kingdom; but a further analysis of the question must lead us to the belief that the merely passing interest excited by the discovery of the gold-fields of British Columbia, was due to one of these inexplicable phases of national ^difference for which we, as a people, are celebrated. The sudden importance which British Columbia has acquired, is due, indisputably and wholly, to the efforts The Times has been making during the present year to bring this colony into public favour. The efforts of the editors of that journal to effect this purpose have been as steady as partial. All that can be said in favour of the colony is urged in its favour. The climate is shown to be splendid, the salubrity of the colony beyond dispute, its agricultural capabilities almost illimitable, and its gold supplies the most prolific in the world. Apparently, no drawback to the advantages of British Columbia exists. To The Times alone we are indebted for the publicity of the facts of the new colony, and should the powerful support of this journal be followed by the rapid colonization of British Columbia, the paper in question will be able to add this laurel to the weighty wreath it already bear3, that by its power another Anglo-Saxon kingdom was founded, an immense tract of the world's fair surface claimed from sterility and made fruitful, and the fatherland ^elie red from the pressure of many thousands of Englishmen, who, in leaving tfieir country, however great the pang of separation, felt that, in quitting one England, they were cheered by the hope of settling in a land more like their own than any other portion of the world's surface. Until within the past two months, our knowledge of British Columbia was meagre in the extreme, and most of those particulars of which we were in possession were valueless. The Government information, even at this date, is positively contemptible .when compared with that offered by the special correspondent to The Times. In the colonization circular for this very year, issued by the Emigration Commissioners, we read, | There seems good reason to suppose that the gold-fields of British Columbia are both extensive and rich." And this is published in the early part of 1862, and after The Times correspondent has posted his letter, which, when it appears, informs us that during last summer many a man was finding several ounces of gold each day. The writer of The Times letters lays great stress upon the in- valuable nature of the climate and the soil; but when we turn to the Government statement on these points, we find the follow-.. ing meagre statement by W. B. G. Young, Esq., the Colonial 'Secretary, in a report dated Yictoria, 22nd February, 1861. He says :—" British Columbia being a gold producing country, with little else than the gold yet developed, it is difficult to re- - commend any particular class to emigrate to its shores. Amongst the miners are to be found men of every class and trade, who, when sufficient inducements offer, by there being a demand for their particular calling, will readily abandon the one occupation to engage in the other, and. vice versa. But the resources of the country, independently of gold, are undoubtedly great, and the prospects held out to an industrial population by no means discouraging, even in this early stage. Land can be easily acquired by pre-emption without immediate payment, and the soil is abundantly fruitful; while the demand for its productions hitherto far exceeds the supply. Men of steady and industrious habits, possessed of small capital, who would be content to forego the glittering, though perhaps meretricious, allurements of the gold fields, remembering that where one man may realise a com- ; petence, hundreds do actually fail in procuring more than a. livelihood, would, there is but little doubt, do well in following agricultural pursuits in British Columbia. Those who have done so, hitherto, have reaped a rich harvest. Men of the {navigator' class would also, it is believed, do well, for the Government are ■engaged in the almost interminable work of opening out roads and communications to the interior, and the cost of labour hitherto upon such works as these has, in consequence of the principal portion being drawn from the gold fields, been very heavy. "Eemale domestic servants would meet with instant employment, and for this class there is, and would be, a continual demand, as the disproportion of males is so great, that an unmarried woman who has reached the age of 20 is, it is believed, mot to be found in the colony, I Vancouver's Island offers good inducements to farm labourers, mechanics of every description, and domestic servants of both sexes, but especially to female domestics, as the few at present to be found in the island readily obtain places at wages varying from £4 to £6 per month. A large proportion of the vegetables consumed in Vancouver's Island are imported from the neighbouring American territory, and it may, therefore, be fairly assumed that agricultural pursuits would yield a good return. $mall farmers would do well, but they must be possessed o >siiffieient capital to be independent for the first twelve months. *&. I The pre-emption system is established in Vancouver's Island, and rich and valuable land within a short distance of Victoria, the capital, if not open to pre-emption, can be readily leased at a ground rent of from 4s. to £1 per acre per annum." I The climate in this island is stated to be excellent, and has been compared to the climate of the milder parts of England or to that in the South of Erance. Indeed, it is said to be preferable to that of England, as it has more fine steady weather, is far less changeable, and on the whole milder. The days in summer are warm, but not oppressive, and free from glare; the evenings are cool, with a gentle sea breeze. Heavy rains are said to fall in September. The winter is a little cold, but not severe, and rather wet. There are occasional falls of snow, but they never last long. " The climate of British Columbia is represented as variable, and the transitions, though periodically regular, as remarkably sudden if not violent, but, on the whole, remarkably healthy and invigorating. "Mr. McLean, one of the Hudson's Bay Company's servants, states that at Stewart's Lake in the month of July he experienced every possible change of weather within twelve hours, frost in the morning, scorching heat at noon, and then rain, hail, and snow. I The winter season is subject to the same vicissitudes, though not in such extreme degrees. "Mr. A. C. Anderson, late Chief Trader of the Hudson's Bay Company's service, states that snow begins to fall in the mountains early in October; that the summer climate about the forks of the Thompson Biver is dry and the heat great; that during winter the thermometer indicates occasionally from 20° to 30° of cold below zero of Eahrenheit, but that such severe cold seldom lasts on the upper parts of Eraser's Biver for more than three days. The thermometer will then continue to fluctuate between zero and the freezing point, until, possibly, another interval of cold arrives. | He adds that the winters are extremely capricious throughout those regions, that no two resemble each other very closely, and that in general the snow does not fall deep enough along the banks of the main streams to preclude winter travelling with pack animals. "In ascending Eraser's Biver mosquitoes are very numerous during the summer season, and as the sea breeze is seldom felt the air is extremely sultry. The mosquitoes cease,, however^ below Port Hope. msmm VIEW OF WESTMINSTER, BRIT COLUMBIA.—COLUMBIA-STREET, .jfim^i. wmmwm n "Governor Douglas in a despatch dated the 21st January, 1859, states that the climate at Lytton on the Eraser, near the junction of the Thompson, is pleasant and temperate, and that the weather is generally clear and dry in so remarkable a degree that from the 24th of August to the 19th December, 1858, there had not been, in all, more than 12 hours' rain or snow." The meagre unsatisfactory nature of these Government reports is indisputable. But it is in perfect accordance with the general statements which had, prior to the more recent Times correspondence received from British Columbia, been current with disregard to this colony. A cursory examination of the article upon Vancouver's Island, in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, a book of reference of the highest standard, will show how erroneous were the views of British Columbia held in the best informed quarters. In that article we are led to believe this district (and in all questions of climate and soil which refer to Vancouver's Island British Columbia may be classed with that insulated colony), was a barren inhospitable land, where the ground yielded no return, and the atmosphere frowned in eternal gloom, wet, and frost; while in truth the combined colonies possess more advantages of soil and climate, similar to those of England, than any other division of the English empire. The stupendous truth of this colony, which is so rapidly rising to the importance it so justly deserves, lies in the fact that it is better fitted by all its natural qualifications to the English emigrant than any colony in the possession of the crown. British Columbia does not experience the extremes of cold to which Canada is exposed, it is free from the periodical heat which is felt to be overpowering by the newly arrived emigrant in Australia, while the air is comparatively humid, and therefore resembles the atmosphere of England in a far greater degree than that of either Australia or $Tew Zealand. In the course of a few years, when British Columbia is a fioiirishing agricultural as well as gold producing colony, its inhabitants will justly and unceasingly marvel at the fact that British Columbia remained many years an appanage of the English crown, neglected and unpeopled, while the Government were unceasingly occupied in relieving an over populated country by encouraging emigration to other colonies than that of British Columbia, and far less suited to the natural instincts and educated wants of English emigrants. The extended establishment of the rapidly growing colonies of Vancouver's Island and British Columbia, will be due, and due alone, to the enterprise, power, and will of the most imperial and omniscient journal in the wide world. IN V I CHAPTER II. GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA. The title of British Columbia is comparatively recent, the colony known by that name having previously been called New Caledonia. British Columbia is situated in North Western America, being bounded on the north by Simpson's Biver, on the south by the most northern of the States we must perforce call the American since they have since ceased to be entitled to the epithet I United B on the east, by the great chain of the Bocky mountains, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean. A number of islands, including Queen Charlotte's, form a portion of the colony, but Vancouver's Island, by far the largest of the many which fringe the coast still remains unincorporated with the colony, though it is most probable that it will not long remain colonially separated from British Columbia. This magnificent colony, until the twenty-second year of her Majesty's reign, was known as a district of the Columbia division of the territories of the Hudson's Bay Company, who with justice looked upon it as the richest of their posesessions. The mainland of the colony is about 420 miles by 300. Captain Cook bestowed upon this colony its Caledonian name. It was so late as 1806 that white men first trod the land of. this colony in any other way than that of the discoverer. The pioneer of this band of men, sent out by the North-west Company, one Erazer, gave his name to the river which has now become notorious as the stream which encircles Cariboo, the most productive gold land in the world. The Bocky Mountains, in which the river takes its rise, form a portion of the chain which irregularly divides western from eastern North America. There can be no doubt the first Europeans to sight British Columbia were Spaniards. So great was the excitement caused by the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, that Spain, at that time the most maritime nation of the world, became possessed with a mad ambition for the discovery and appropriation of new worlds. Originally sailing westward, with a view of finding a quicker route to India than that round the Cape of Good Hope, the Spanish pioneers of civilization soon abandoned the early motive of their expeditions, and gave themselves up to the feverish delight of searching the coasts of the newly-discovered continents. Gold, and gold alone, was the basis of the audacity and perseverance with which the Spaniards 9 prosecuted their researches along the American coasts. They were perpetually seeking a second Peru, a new El Dorado, where the natives should be found weighing themselves down with golden ornaments, and who would smilingly yield the treasure, of the value of which to the Spaniards they could have no knowledge. Perhaps the latitudes of British Columbia were the highest to which the Spaniards sailed, and it is remarkable that this very colony is now found to be the land of gold which the Spaniards of the sixteenth century were ever seeking, and which they never found. However, some Spanish writers maintain that no Spanish expedition ever reached a higher latitude on the western shore of North America than 30°, that of a district now called Sonora, a corruption of Senora, which title is supposed to have been given in honor of a Spanish viceroy who carried in his escutcheon an image of Nuestra Senora de Buena Guia—Our Lady of Good Guidance. The Spaniards had been encouraged in their northward expeditions on the authority of a Bull, issued by Pope Alexander VI., and empowering Eerdinand and Isabella to take possession of all territory, in that amongst other directions. In fact, all land sighted by Spanish expeditionists sailing north-west was recognised in Europe as belonging to the Spanish crown till the era of the Reformation. But when England threw off her allegiance to the Pope, she very justly denied the right of that pontiff to confer new worlds as he thought fit, and her government asserted the right of the British to sail over any ocean, settle in any land not in the actual occupation of Christians, and trade with any people who would trade with them. Camden, in his "Annals of Queen Elizabeth," records the great Protestant queen's protest against the Spanish king's preposterous avarice. "I do not understand," she said to the Spanish ambassador, "why either my subjects, or those of any other European prince, should be debarred from traffic in the Indies: as I do not acknowledge the Spaniards to have any title by donation of the Bishop of Rome, so I know no right they have to any places other than those they be in actual possession of. As to their having touched here and there upon a coast, and given names to a few rivers and capes, these be such insignificant things as could in no way entitle them to a proprietary, farther than in the parts where they have settled, and continue to inhabit." This protest was quickly followed by action. The bold Admiral Drake, who is still an English household word, was soon upon the waters, the natural element of the insulated Englishman, and 10 leading the five small vessels with which he calmly undertook to defy the Spanish navy, he set sail for the western coast of America. A storm ultimately reduced the little squadron to one vessel and fifty men, with which and whom Drake still defied the whole Spanish nation, Drake gained the prize of cool audacity, and ultimately returned home laden with immense booty. Whether to Drake or to the Spaniards belong the honor of discovering British Columbia, it is certain that to the former must be yielded the honor of having distinctly chronicled the position of the colony, or of a district which still forms part of it. Drake bestowed upon it the name of New Albion, as we learn from his spirited work, the "Eaimous Voiage happily performed round about the World by Sir Erancis Drake." He says:— "We came within 38° towards the line, in which height it pleased God to send us into a fair and good bay, with a good wind to enter the same. I In this bay we anchored, and the people of the country close by the water-side showed themselves unto us, and sent a present unto our general. "When they came unto us, they greatly wondered at the things that we brought, but our general (according to his natural and accustomed humanity), courteously treated them, and liberally bestowed on them necessary things to cover their nakedness, whereupon they supposed us to be gods, and would not be persuaded to the contrary; the presents which they sent to our general were feathers and cauls of net-work. " Their houses are digged round about with earth, and have from the uttermost brims of the circle, clifts of wood set upon them, joining close together at the top, like a spire steeple, which by reason of that closeness are very warm. " Their beds are the ground, with rushes strewed on it, and lying about the house, have the fire in the midst. The men go naked, the women take bulrushes, and comb them after the manner of hemp, and thereof make their loose garments, which being knit about their middles, hang down about their hips, having also about their shoulders a skin of deer, with the hair upon it. These women are very obedient and serviceable to their husbands. " After they were departed from us, they came and visited us the second time, and brought with them feathers and bags of tobacco as presents; and when they came to the top of the hill (at the bottom whereof we had pitafced our tents) they stayed themselves; where one, appointed for speaker, wearied himself 11 with making a long oration, which done, they left their bows upon the hill, and came down with their presents. " In the meantime, the women remaining on the hill, tormented themselves lamentably, tearing their flesh from their cheeks, whereby we perceived they were about a sacrifice. In the meantime our general with his company went to prayer and to reading of the Scriptures, at which exercise they were attentive, and seemed greatly to be affected by it; but when they were come to us, they restored to us those things which before we bestowed on them. "The news of our being there being spread through the country, the people that inhabited round about came down, and amongst them them the king himself, a man of goodly stature and comely person, with many other tall and warlike men; before whose coming were sent two ambassadors to our general, to signify that their king was coming, in doing of which message their speech was continued about half an hour. This ended, they, by signs, requested our general to send something by their hand to the king as a token that his coming might be in peace; wherein our general having satisfied them, they returned with glad tidings to their king, who marched to us with a princely majesty, the people crying continually after their manner; and as they drew near us, they strove to behave in their actions with comeliness. "In the forepart was a man of goodly personage, who bore the sceptre or mace before the king, whereupon hanged two crowns, a less and a bigger, with three chains of a marvellous length: the crowns were made of net-work wrought artificially with feathers of divers colours: the chains were made of a bony substance, and few are the persons among them that are admitted to wear them. Next to him that bore the sceptre was the king himself, with his guard about his person, clad with cony skins and other skins : after them followed the naked common sort of people, every one having his face painted, some with white, some with black, and other colours, and having in their hands one thing or another for a present, not so much as their children, but they also brought their presents. " In the mean time our general gathered his men together, and marched within his fenced place, making against their approaching a very warlike show. They being trooped together in their order, and a general salutation being made, there was presently a general silence. Then he that bore the sceptre before the king, being informed by another, whom they assigned to that office, with a manly and lofty voice proclaimed that which the other spoke to 12 him in secret, continuing half an hour; which ended, and a general Amen as it were given, the king, with the whole number of men and women! (the children excepted), came down without any weapon, who descending to the foot of the hill, set themselves in order. " In coming towards our bulwarks and tents, the sceptre- bearer began a song, observing his measures in a dance, and that with a stately countenance, when the king with his guard, and every degree of persons following, did in like manner sing and dance, saving only the women, who danced and kept silence. The general permitted them to enter within our bulwark, where they continued their dance and song a reasonable time. When they had satisfied themselves, they made signs to our general to sit down, to whom the king and divers others made several orations, or rather supplications, that he would take their province and kingdom into his hand, and become their king, making sings that they would resign unto him their right and title of the whole land, and become his subjects. In which to persuade us the better, the king and the rest with one consent and with great reverence, joyfully singing a song, did set the crown upon his head, oncircled his neck with all their chains, and offered to him many other things, honouring him with the name of Hioh, adding thereto, as it seemed, a sign of triumph, which thing our general thought it not meet to reject, because he knew not what honour and profit it might be to our country. Wherefore, in the name and to the use of Her Majesty, he took the sceptre, crown, and dignity of the said country into his hands, wishing that the riches, and treasures thereof might so conveniently be transported to the enriching of her kingdom at home, as it aboundeth in the same. | The common sort of people leaving the king and his guard with our general, scattered themselves, together with their sacrifices, among our people, taking a diligent view of every person; and such as pleased their fancy (which were the youngest) they, enclosing them about, offered their sacrifices to them with lamentable weeping, scratching, and tearing the flesh from their faces with their nails, wherefrom issued abundance of blood. But we made signs to them that we disliked this, and stayed their hands from force, and directed them upwards to the living God, whom only they ought to worship. They showed us their wounds, and craved remedy for them at our hands; whereupon we gave them lotions, plasters, and ointments, according to the state of their complaints, beseeching God to cure their diseases. if 13 Every third day they brought their sacrifices unto us, until they understood that we had no pleasure in them; yet they could not be long absent from us, but daily frequented our company till the hour of our departure, which seemed so grievous to them, that their joy was turned into sorrow. They entreated us that being absent we would remember them, and by stealth provided a sacrifice, which we disliked. I Our necessary business being ended, our general with his company travelled up into the country into their villages, where we found herds of deer by one thousand in a company, being very large and fat of body. " We found the whole country to be a warren of a strange kind of conies, their bodies in bigness equal to the Barbary conies, their heads like our conies, the feet of a want, and the tail of a rat, being of great length; under her chin is on either side a bag, into which she gathers her meat, when she has filled her belly abroad. The people eat their bodies; and make great account of their skins, for their king's seat was made of them. " Our country called this country Nova Albion ; and that for two causes, the one in respect of the white banks and cliffs, which lie towards the sea; and the other, because it might bear some affinity to our country in name, which was sometime so called. " There is no part of earth here to be taken up, wherein there is not some probable show of gold or silver. "At our departure hence, our general set up a monument of being there, as also of her Majesty's right and title to the same, namely a plate, nailed upon a fair great post, whereon was engraven her Majesty's name, the day and year of our arrival there, with the free giving up of the province and people into her Majesty's hands, together with her Highness's picture .and arms, in a piece of sixpence of current English money under the plate, whereupon was written also the name of our general. I It seems that the Spaniards hitherto had never been in this part of the country, neither did they ever discover the land by many degrees to the south of this place." The example set by Drake was soon followed by many Englishmen, and amongst others by one Cavendish, who with small means did much injury to the Spanish navy. This maritime contention between England and Spain raged unceasingly till the fall of the Spanish Armada; from the date of which catastrophe the supremacy of England over the seas of the world may be said to commence. 14 The next navigator in connection with British Columbia was a Greek adventurer, known, however, by a Spanish name, that of Juan de Euca. It is said that this mariner endeavoured to enter the English service, but without success, after growing tired of the Spanish Government. On the other hand, however, Humboldt doubted if a navigator of this name ever existed. The philosopher based his doubt on the fact that he had never found the name mentioned in a single document. Erom the end of the sixteenth to the middle of the seventeenth century we hear no more of any navigation along the northwestern shores of North America. The first of what may be called the modern explorers of the region was the unhappy Behring, who crossed from Kamschatka to the American shore, whence he sailed far enough southward to sight the mountain which still bears the name he gave it—Mount St. Elias. Behring never returned home; he died on the island which to this day is distinguished by his name. Singularly enough Behring's expedition incited the Spanish Government once more to equip an expedition, which was put under the command of Juan Perrez. The voyage was without result, though it is supposed the Spanish captain touched at the island which is now known as Queen Charlotte's. The next important navigator identified with British Columbia was a man of high mark, being no other than Captain Cook, who, in common with Juan Perrez, sailed in the North Pacific in order to achieve that impracticable chimera of navigators, even of the present day, the discovery of a north-western passage connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic. Government offering a reward of £20,000 for the discovery of such a passage, Cook, then in the zenith of his fame, essayed the task. His failure is historical, as also is that of his latest imitator, Franklin. But as the old alchymists in seeking to transmute the baser metals into gold, discovered many of the secrets of nature which have been far more valuable than would have been a successful issue of the work upon which they were engaged, so Cook, balked in his endeavours to penetrate from one ocean to the other, explored lands which, till his time, were only known by faint tradition, and which are destined, beyond a doubt, to become great civilized nations. Cooked doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and ultimately crossing the Pacific diagonally, reached the land now known as British Columbia and Vancouver's Island. The Indians populating the shores of what is now called Nootka Sound, receiving the adventurers without fear, Cook was led to believe that the white man was not unknown to them, 15 especially as one of the more important chiefs wore a couple of Spanish silver spoons as neck ornaments. The navigators however became convinced, after investigation, that the small amount of curiosity the natives displayed was entirely owing to natural indifference and easiness of spirit. "The people," writes the captain, "were docile, courteous, and good-natured, but quick in resenting that which they looked on as an injury; and, like most passionate people, they as easily forgot their anger as indulged in it." This testimony to the character of the Indian races of the colonies is directly contradictory to that of more recent authorities, most of whom agree in describing the Indians of British Columbia and Vancouver's Island as the most morose, treacherous, and savage of all the Indian tribes of North America. We come then to the conclusion either that Cook's statement was erroneous, or that great changes have taken place in the characters of the Indians. If the latter, it would be a curious subject of investigation to ascertain how far the invading white race has been instrumental in this unhappy mutation. To Oook belongs the honor of being the first true explorer of the coast-line of British Columbia and Vancouver's Island, and to this navigator was owing the earliest information of the abundance of animals with exquisite furs which inhabited this region. The Russians, as great consumers of furs, were the first people to avail themselves of this information, which resulted in the acquisition by their government of what is at present known by the title of Russian America. The publication, however, of the journals of Cook's expedition in 1784-5, brought powerful competitors into these seas, not the least celebrated of whom was La Perouse, who was the first to suspect that Vancouver's Island was separated from the mainland. Dixon, Portlock, and Duncan were the next English explorers in these seas, their voyages all tending to the development of the fur trade. In 1788, a company of Bengal merchants, under the captainship of one Meares, made further observations along the coast, and it is in the journal of this expedition that we first find mention of any ferocity on the part of the native tribes. Upon Meares endeavouring to land at a spot near the present site of the metropolis of Vancouver's, the Indians savagely and successfully resisted all attempts made to effect a landing. Captain Meares also found enemies in the Spaniards, who seized his vessel. This act led to a convention between England and Spain, by which a mutual right of making settlements on land unoccupied by white men was formally recognized. About this time Captain Berkeley explored the southern coasts T5 9, igmam 16 of British Columbia and Vancouver's Island, and this navigator experienced severe treatment at the hands of the Indians, who destroyed a number of his crew in the most treacherous and malicious manner. The independence of the United States having been recognised, the Americans had leisure to turn their attention to the fur trade of the North Pacific, and it was the explorations made during the years which immediately followed the proclamation of American freedom, upon which were based the United States' claim in the affair of the Oregon question, and which resulted, in 1846, so much to the advantage of the Americans. In 1792 Vancouver and Broughton, haunted with the desire to gain the pr ze which the government still offered to the discoverer of a north-western passage, began that voyage which resulted in the discovery that Vancouver's Island was separated from the mainland. A Spanish expedition having been instrumental in this discovery, Vancouver came to an agreement with Quadra, the Spanish captain, that the land should thenceforth be known as the Island of Quadra and Vancouver's Island. It has, however, ceased to bear its Spanish title, and is now known, and figures in all maps, as Vancouver's Island. The coast of the mainland is extremely broken, and fringed with an immense number of small islands, which make navigation difficult, and, in some cases, exceedingly dangerous. The Strait of Juan de Fuca, by which the capital of Vancouver's Island is reached, is, however, free from obstacles of this kind. Commodore Wilkes says, " The Strait of Fuca may be safely navigated. The wind will be found, for the greater part of the year, to blow directly through them, and generally outwards; this wind is at times very violent. The shores of the strait are bold, and anchorage is to be found in but few places. We could not obtain bottom in some places with sixty fathoms of line, even within a boat's length of the.shore. I The entrance is about ten miles in width, and varies from that to twenty with the indentations of its shores, running southeast for upwards of one hundred miles; its farther progress is suddenly stopped by a range of mountains. The southern shore of this strait is composed of sandy cliffs of moderate height, falling perpendicularly into the sea, from the top of which the land takes a farther gentle ascent, where it is entirely covered with trees, chiefly pines, until the forest reaches a range of high craggy mountains, which seem to rise from the woodland in a very abrupt manner, with a few scattered trees on their sterile sides, and their tops covered with snow." N3 17 CHAPTER. III. INLAND BRITISH COLUMBIA—ITS INHABITANTS AND ITS PRODUCTS. The acquisition of furs, which first drew attention to the shores of British Columbia and Vancouver's Island, was also the cause of the exploration of the island. Science, however, had not been indebted to hunter or trapper for much knowledge beyond the little information which existed concerning this colony up to the year 1789, when an investigator of education and genius presented himself in the shape of Sir A. Mackenzie, who, prompted by the desire which had animated many others, that of finding a north-western passage, sailed inland by Hearne River till he reached a stream which now bears his name. He upon his return was enabled to give much information touching the inland character and capabilities of British Columbia. After a lapse of twenty years, Mackenzie again set out upon an exploring expedition, and upon this occasion, in sailing up the Unijah Biver, he must have passed through the districts which are now become so famous as gold bearing land; and it is interesting to contemplate the fact, that while prosecuting this voyage, withjthe chief aim of gaining the £20,000 prize offered by the Government for the discovery of a strait which, if it exists, is quite useless for all commercial purposes, he must frequently have been within a stone's throw of surface gold far exceeding that sum in value, and which lay on the ground ready to the hand of any fortunate finder. Some years after, in 1806, Mr. Frazer, an official of the great fur company, established a post in the district now called Cariboo, which is almost surrounded by the river to which this gentleman gave his name; and a Mr. Harmon, who succeeded Frazer in exploring this region, published the results of his observations in 1822. It appears that the entire gold-bearing district of British Columbia is so intersected by lake and river, that it is computed one-sixth of its surface is water. The lakes vary greatly in size. Stuart's, one of the largest, is 50 miles in length, while Frazer's Lake is 85 miles round, M'Leod's 55. These lakes, and the rivers into which they flow, absolutely swarm with salmon of the most magnificent size and character. Mr. M'Leod has declared that the scenery frequently reminded him of his native Scotland, but more modern travellers deny this advantage to British Columbia. 18 M The principal rivers are Frazer's, Salmon, Thompson's, Ques- nel's, and Chilcotin. The Frazer receives all these rivers,, itself debouching in the Gulf of Georgia, the water which in part divides Vancouver's from the mainland. Thompson River district was the first land, watered by these- streams, to gain a perfect notoriety both as a pastoral and a gold bearing country. A Mr. Cooper, in evidence to the Hudson's Bay Committee, 1857, says:—"I have not myself personally visited Thompson's River, but I have my information from persons who have lived there themselves for thirty or forty years in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company. They say that it is one of the most beautiful countries in the world; and that gold is discovered in that and the neighbouring .district now. When I left, the miners were getting from four to twenty dollars a day. I believe, from all I have heard and seen, that it is capable of producing all the crops that we produce in England. Its climate bears no comparison to Canada; it is much more mild, much finer; decidedly as much as Great Britain to the Eastern States- of America." Colonel Grant, in a paper read by him in 1857, on British Columbia and Vancouver's, before the Royal Geographical Society,, says:—"Along. Thompson River, at a distance of about 200 miles from the sea-coast, there is a magnificent extent of pasture land. It may be said to extend from Fraser River to Lake Okanagan, at one of the sources of the Columbia River- It may comprise some 300 miles, all of it nearly excellent open pasture; there are, however, no means yet known of getting to it, except up Fraser River, and from that up Thompson River." The evidence offered with respect to the climate of British Columbia has been very conflicting, this contradiction in all probability arises from its variability. However an immeasurable- balance in its favor has been offered by the most recent authorities,. Mr. Mc'Lean, whose name frequently figures in the Government papers relating to British Columbia says:— 11 have experienced at Stuart's Lake, in the month of July, every possible change of weather within twelve hours—frost in the morning, scorching heat at noon, then rain, hail, and snow.. The winter season is subject to the same vicissitudes, though not to so extreme a degree. Some years it continues mild throughout.. These vicissitudes may, I think, be ascribed to local causes—proximity to, or distance from, the glaciers of the Rocky Mountains,, the direction of the winds, the aspect of the place." \J 19 On the other hand, a second gentleman, speaking of the summer, says:— " The ground, previously saturated with moisture, produces myriads of annoying flies and insects. This heat and glaring sunshine are succeeded in September by fogs of such palpable darkness that until noon it is seldom possible to distinguish objects at a longer distance than one hundred yards. In November the winter sets in speedily, freezing the lakes and smaller rivers. The cold, however, is not so intense as might be imagined in such a country and climate." The most recent and the most authentic investigator of the inland of British Columbia, is Mr. W. Downie, who, towards the end of 1859, made the following report to Governor Douglas. He says:—"I beg to make the following report of my trip to Queen Charlotte's Island, and my journey thence by Fort Simpson to the interior of British Columbia. I left Victoria on the 27th July with twenty-seven practical miners, having stores, &c, for three months. We arrived in Gold Harbour, Queen Charlotte's Island, safely on the 6th of August, and immediately set about prospecting, as we expected to see the gold shining in the water. We examined the spot where a large quantity of gold was formerly taken out, and discovered a few specks of gold in the small quartz seams that run through the slate ; two of the party blasting the rock, while others prospected .round the harbour. " I then proceeded in a canoe to Douglas Inlet, which runs in south of Gold Harbour, hoping to find traces there of the Gold Harbour lead, but without success. The nature of the rock is trap or hornblende, with a few poor seams of quartz straggling over the surface. Granite was found at the head of this inlet, but not a speck of gold could we discover. Next day we went up an inlet to the north of Gold Harbour, and here a white rock showed itself on the spur of a mountain, and like old Califor- nians, up we must go to see if this was a place where our fortunes were to be made. After a difficult ascent we found it to be nothing but weather-beaten, sun-dried granite instead of quartz. Further up the inlet we saw a little black slate and some talcose rock, but nothing that looked like gold. On our return we found that the men engaged in blasting the rock had given it up, the few surface specks being all the gold that could be found. The character of the rock is generally trap or hornblende. I The large amount of gold that was formerly found with so H-l little difliculty existed in what is called an off-shoot or blow. The question then arises, how did the gold get here ? Some of our party were of opinion that a gold lead existed close at hand. But it can only be put down to one of the extraordinary freaks of nature so often found in a mineral country. The offshoots in question are not uncommon—I have often seen them in California. On such a discovery being made, hundreds of miners would take claims in all directions near it, and test the ground in every way, but nothing further could be found, except in the one spot about 70 feet in length, running S.E. and N.W.; on being worked about 15 feet it gave out. Before work commenced, I have blown the sand off a vein of pure gold. 11 now proposed to test the island further, so we started for the Skidegate Channel. At a village of the Crosswer Indians, where we were wind bound, the appearances were more favourable—talcose slate, quartz, and red earth; we tried to discover gold, but without success. Sulphuret of iron was found in abundance, and we discovered tracks of previous prospecting. The Indians understand the search for gold well, and detect it in the rocks quicker than I can. The coast from the Crosswer Indian village to Skidegate Channel, is wilder than any I have ever before travelled, and we did not care to hunt for gold in such a place. Five Indians were drowned here to-day while fishing. At the Skidegate Channel we found black slate and quartz, travelling further north granite appears, and then sandstone and conglomerate, and as we were now in a coal country it was no use to look for gold. We saw coal here, but I cannot speak as to its quality, not being a judge of it. The formation is similar to that of Nanaimo. From here we returned to Gold Harbour. A party who had remained behind to prospect inland had met with no better success than ourselves. We then consulted what was the best thing to do. I did not wish to return to Victoria, as I had been desired to explore some of the inlets on the mainland, so I left Gold Harbour with a party of fourteen men for Fort Simpson, and arrived there in eight days. 11 left Fort Simpson for the Skeena Biver on the 31st August; from Fort Simpson to Port Essington is about 40 miles. The salt water here is a light blue colour, like the mouth of Frazer River, and runs inland about 30 miles. The coarse-grained quartz of Fort Simpson is no longer seen here, and granite appears; and the banks of the river are low, and covered with small hard wood and cotton trees, with some good sized white oaks, the first I have seen west of Frazer's River. 21 "Vessels drawing more than four feet of water cannot go more than twenty miles up the Skeena River, and it is very unlike the deep inlets to the southward. At our camp here some Indians visited us ; they told us they were honest, but next morning the absence of my coat rather negatived their statement. Next day we found the river shallow, even for loaded canoes, as it had fallen much. At our next camp I went up a small river, called Scena- toys, and the Indians showed me some crystallized quartz, and, to my surprise, a small piece with gold in it, being the first I had seen in this part. The Indian took me to a granite slide, whence, he asserted, the piece of quartz in question had come. I found some very thin crusts of fine quartz, but no gold. I am of opinion, however, that good paying quartz will be found here. From the River Scenatoys to Port Essington, at the mouth of the Skeena River, is 75 miles; a little below the Scenatoys an Indian trail leads to Fort Simpson; it is through a low pass, and the distance is not great. " From this, 10 miles further up, was a river called the Toes, on the south side; hence is an Indian trail to the Kitloops, on the Salmon River. The south branch of Salmon River is called Kittama. By this time we were fairly over the coast range, and the mountains ahead of us did not look very high, the current here was very strong, and much labour required to get our canoe along, and we had to pull her up by a rope from the shore. Gold is found here a few specks to the pan, and the whole country looks auriferous, with fine bars, and flats with clay on the bars; the mountains look red, and slate and quartz can be seen. Next camp was at the village of Kitalaska, and I started in a light canoe ahead of my party, as our canoe, by all accounts, could not get much further, and I then determined to penetrate to Port Fraser. The Indian who was with me told me that a large stream called the Kitchumsala comes in from the north; the land on it is good, and well adapted for farming; here the Indians grow plenty of potatoes. To the south is a small stream called the Chimkoatsh, on the south of which is the plumbago mountain; I had some in my hand. It is as clear as polished silver, and runs in veins of quartz. " Near to this are the words ' Pioneer, H.B.C.,' on a tree, and nearly overgrown with bark ; the Indians told me it was cut by Mr. John Wain, a long time ago. From here to the village of Kitcoonsa the land improves, the mountains recede from the river, and fine flats run away four or five miles back to their bases, where the smoke is seen rising from the huts of the 22 Indians engaged in drying berries for the winter, which abound here. These Indians were very kind to us, and wished me to build a house and live with them. I Above the village of Kitcoonsa the prospect of gold is not so good as below, where a dollar a day might be made. As the season was so advanced, I was not able to prospect the hills, which look so well about here, and unless the Government take it in hand, it will be a long while before the mineral resources of this part of British Columbia are known. I think this is the best looking mineral country I have seen in British Columbia. From here to the village of Kitcoonsa the river is rocky and dangerous, and our canoe was split from stem to stern. At Kitsagatala we entered a most extensive coal country, the seams being in sight, and cut through by the river, and running up the banks on both sides, varying in thickness from three to thirty-five feet. The veins are larger on the east side, and are covered with soft sandstone, which gives easily to the pick; on the west side quartz lines the seams, which are smaller. The veins dip into the bank for a mile along the river, and could easily be worked by tunnels on the face, or by sinking shafts from behind the flats as they run into soft earth. I have seen no coal like this in all my travels in British Columbia and Vancouver's Island. " We experienced some dangers from Indians here, but by a small present of tobacco, and by a determined and unconcerned aspect, I succeeded in avoiding the danger of a collision with them. We could go no further than Kittamarks, the Forks of the Skeena river in the canoe, and we had been twenty days from Fort Simpson, though the journey could have been done in a third of that time. I On the 21st September I left Kittamarks with two white men and two Indians, and started over a fine trail and through a beautiful country for Fort Fraser. We crossed over an Indian suspension bridge and entered some first-rate land, our course being about east; we completed about twelve miles that day. Next day it rained hard, but we succeeded in doing twelve miles, passing through as fine a farming country as one could wish to see. To the south-east a large open space appeared, and I have since learnt that a chain of lakes runs away here, being the proper way to Fort Fraser; but as I always follow my Indian guides implicitly, I did so on this occasion. The third day the weather was fine, but the trail not so good. It ran along the side of a mountain, but below, the trail was good, and grass abundant. My Indians started after a goat on the mountain, but were quickly 23 driven back by three bears. The fourth day we crossed what is called the rocky pass, which may be avoided by keeping the bottom. To the north a chain of mountains could be seen covered with snow, distant about thirty miles, where the Hudson Bay Company have a post called Bear Fort; to the south is the Indian village Kispyattes; along the bottom runs the Skeena, past the village of Aliagasomeda, and further up is the village of Kithathratts on the same river. " Fifth day we encountered some dangerous looking Indians, but we got away from them. We passed through a fine country with cotton trees and good soil. We now arrived at the village of Naas Glee where the Skeena River rises, and were again on the river we left five days before, having travelled fifty-five miles when we might have come by the river. We had great difficulty with the Indians here, and it was fortunate I knew the name of the chief, as otherwise they would have taken all our property: as it was they surrounded us and were most importunate. One wanted my coat, another my gun, a third took my cap from my head, and I really thought they would murder us. These Indians are the worst I have seen in all my travels. Naas Glee is a great fishing station, and all the worst characters congregate here, leading an indolent life, as they live on the proceeds of their salmon fishery. Thousands of salmon were drying at this village. " We hardly knew what to do, for they told us it was ten days to Fort Fraser, and had we returned, they would have robbed us of everything; so I determined to go on if the chief Norra would accompany me, and on giving him some presents he consented to do so. I was never so glad to get away from an Indian village, but I am ready to go again and prospect this country if it should be desirable. The river from Naas Glee downwards is very rapid; but as the banks are low and flat a waggon road or railroad could easily be made. The land around Naas Glee is first rate, and wild hay and long grass abound. Potatoes are not grown here, owing to the thieving of the Indians. There is no- heavy pine timber hereabouts; the canoes are made of cotton wood. " Above Naas Glee the river was very rapid, and it required all our energy to row, as we had but a small lot of dried salmon to last us ten days. Ten miles above Naas Glee is an old Indian village called Whatatt; here the shoal water ends and we enter the Babine Lake, going through a fine country; we accomplished twenty miles this day; the lake is broad and deep. Next morning, to my surprise, I found a canoe at our camp, with m i Frenchmen and Indians in charge of Mr. Gavin Hamilton, an officer in the service of the Hudson Bay Company, from Fort St. James Stuart's Lake, New Caledonia, whither we were bound: he was on his way to Naas Glee to purchase fish. He advised me to go back with him to Naas Glee, and then to return with him to Stuart's Lake; but as I had seen enough of Naas Glee I refused with thanks. In fact I was very anxious to reach Fort St. James, as I did not wish to be disappointed this time. Mr. Hamilton expressed his surprise that we had managed to get away from Nass Glee, as we were the first white men who had come through this route, and even he found much difficulty with the Indians there. Having persuaded Narra the chief to let us have his canoe, we said farewell to Mr. Hamilton, and proceeded on our journey. " It was fortunate we sent back our two Indians, otherwise we should have suffered from starvation; as it was we reached Stuart's Lake with difficulty. We made a fine run to-day before a fair wind to Fort Killamours. This post is only kept up in the winter. Our course from Naas Glee to this place was S.E., and the distance about fifty miles. The land is good the whole way, with long grass on the benches near the Fort. It is a very lonely place. No sound save your own voice. It seems a great pity to see this beautiful land, so well adapted for the wants of man, lying waste, when so many Englismen and Scotchmen would be glad to come here and till the soil. Babine Lake is deep, and in some places five or six miles wide, and there are islands and points of land for shelter from the storm, blow whence it may. From Fort Killamours to the head of Babine is about forty miles direction S.S.E., only from the head down about twenty miles it runs E. and W. We arrived at the head of Babine the seventh day after leaving Naas Glee. We had seen no Indians, and had made a favourable journey. Neither had we seen snow. The country we had passed was well adapted for farming ; of course some of the land is rocky, but on the whole it is a fine country. " At the head of Babine Lake there is a fine site for a town, and a good harbour could be made; a stream runs down which would supply a town with water. This is what I call the head water of the Skeena River; the lake is navigable for steamers, and 100 miles in length. From here to Stuart's Lake there is a portage over a good trail, through the finest grove of cotton wood I have ever seen, to Stuart's Lake: the ground was thickly strewed with yellow leaves, giving the scene quite an autumnal appearance, and presenting a picture far different to what we 25 expected in this part of British Columbia. Six miles from Babine we came to a small lake where were some Indians herring fishing; on our approach they appeared undecided whether to run or remain ; I asked them for some food, and they soon provided us with some fish, which refreshed us much; having paid for our repast, we started again. From here a small stream runs, a distance of four miles to Stuart's Lake. Arrived at Stuart's Lake, we found no means of crossing, no Indians to direct us, and no food to sustain us ; nor had we any shot to enable us to kill ducks. We camped here three nights without food, sleeping the greater part of the time to stifle our hunger. The only thing that supported us was the grand idea of the enterprise we were engaged in—-that of being the first party to explore the route from the Pacific to Fraser's Biver, which will one day connect the Atlantic with the Pacific Ocean.* "We had, meantime, to see what could be done to free us from our present difficulties. One of our party found an old canoe split to pieces; this was rigged on a raft of logs as well as circumstances would admit. " I returned to the Indians above mentioned, and purchased a few herrings. I walked back to our camp with difficulty, and found my limbs giving way. Next morning we started on our frail raft, expecting every moment she would go down. We were obliged to sit perfectly still, as the least movement would have upset us. A slight breeze sprung up, and a small sea washed ever us: and we had to run for a lee shore, where kind Providence sent an Indian to succour us. He welcomed us with a bonjour, invited us to his lodge, and gave us most excellent •salmon trout, taken from the lake. We had at last reached, with thankful hearts for our preservation through many dangers, a home. We stayed a night with this Indian, and next day gave him a blanket to take us to the Fort. We abandoned our old canoe without regret, and proceeded towards our destination. The Indians all along here were very kind to us, and seem a good set of people. || About half-way across Stuart's Lake we obtained & small prospect of gold. On the north side of the lake, for about twenty miles, the ground is rocky, but south, towards the Fort, the land is as good as can be, and will produce anything." Mr. Downie's experience of the British Columbian Indians is * This statement proves that the hope of a north-western passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans still occupies the attention of at least one adventurous and sanguine traveller. 26 « irl > 1 ■ffl 4 I certainly condemnatory. That of Mr. Cox is not much better. He says:— " They are fond of feasting, and on particular occasions invite their friends from 30 or 40 miles distant. When the entertainment is over, the guest has nothing more to expect; and no matter how long he may remain, there is no renewal of hospitality." Like most "noble savages," they gorge horribly, but those tribes amongst them which claim to belong to the Takelly are peculiar, from the fact that they patronize a drama—dull certainly, but apparently legitimate. A writer, speaking on this- subject, says:— " Old Quaw, the chief of Nekaslay, first appeared on the stage in the character of a bear, an animal which he was well qualified to personate. Rushing from his den and growling fiercely, he pursued the huntsman, the chief of Babine portage, who defended himself with a long pole, both parties maintaining a running- fight until they reached the far end of the building, when they made their exit. Enter afterwards a jealous husband and his wife wearing masks (both being men). The parts these acted appeared rather dull; the husband merely sat down by the side of hi& ' frail rib,' watching her motions closely, and neither allowing her to speak to nor look at any of the young men. As to the other characters, one personated a deer, another a wolf, a third a strange- Tsckany. The bear seemed to give the spectators most delight."' Mr. Cox is especially hard on the noble Takelly. Who can have much reverence for that individual, when we learn that he is supremely dirty, and fall of vermin, which he takes great pleasure in eating. This statement is crowned by the remark, "the women are worse than the men." The winter costume of these Indians is composed of furs, but, in summer, the full dress- generally seems to be confined to bangles and paint. However,, a European shirt is a dignified luxury, which is carried at any time it can be obtained, and worn in a flowing fashion. Before the European eye the effect is not great. The gentlemen wear- nose-rings, and the young ladies rouge, not only on their cheeks, but all over the countenance. Both sexes are given to eating their aged parents, when these progenitors are too old for work, and the women are given with horrible regularity and matter-of- fact determination to the practice of foeticide. However, as the- observer approaches the coast, and therefore, civilization, he finds the native grows more delicate, and for the greater part abandoning the candour of nudity, and taking to respectable blan- 27 kets. The north western Indians seem to be the most refine^ or rather the least repulsive of their races. They are somewhife gentle, their houses endurable, and fishing apparatus good. However, every tribe hates all others with unabated rigor, and the war-whoop is always heard when three of one kind mee#si an individual of another, and can therefore massacre him in comfort, and quite without danger to their own scalps. The canoes of the natives are generally about thirty feet long, formed of a fir or cedar trunk scooped out. They are propelled with paddles about five feet long—each rower managing one of them. The rowers are placed in pairs, and kneel to their work. The rudder is formed of a similar paddle, and generally wielded by a lady Indian. These canoes are used on the most tempestuous seas, and. ride the waves like water fowl. The chiefs of the Indian tribes of British Columbia wield their power by a kind of intellectual superiority in the shape of an assumed witchcraft. A chief is believed to have the evil eye, to be able, if he choose, to cause misfortune of body or state to any man by looking at him. The dominion is one of fear. Chiefs claim also the power of miracles, assuming to cure mala* dies at will; and the faith of the patient being in some cases beneficial, these quacks not only continue to deceive their subjects, but are known in many instances to deceive themselves, precisely as a clever rogue may be thought an honest man till he himself comes to a similar conclusion. The Indian chief— apt imitator of the old Egyptian hierarchs—turns his power to account by acting on the reMgious fears of his people. At a great gathering he will appear as the physical natural god of the Indian, the Sun, believed to be an irradiated man ever moving round the earth; and when the chief disports himself in this character, his subjects, moved by the association of ideas, literaHjjSt fall down and worship him. It is therefore but natural that him should ultimately beheve himself a god, and, thus possessed, he^ will go out into the forest to hold commune with the great deilpSi To see him while on this pilgrimage is a sentence of death. The sacred forest must not be entered till its holy character is dis£# solved by the return of the chief, who generally comes home in a desperate state of hunger and misery. Arrived in his villagi$t:; he illustrates the axiom that alhisavage theology is cruel. He lea^s upon a subject, and bites a piece out of him, pounces upoA another to repeat the operation, and this hideous performance goes on till he is gorged, when he goes home, is very sick and! ill, and respected accordingly. The j agged wounds of the victims 28 frequently prove mortal, but the Indian youth are so proud of these "holy gashes," that they frequently inflict spurious sacred bites upon themselves to give their bodies a character. These statements touching the Indian almost induce one to wish that rum, or fire-water, would do its best, and sweep these libels upon man from the earth, but the Christian voice of Mr. Bancroft crushes such a desire. He points out that the Cherokee Indians who have bowed before civilization increase and advance daily in all the beauty and truth of Christian life—true charity, not forgotten, as was proved by the agricultural Indians of Upper Canada, who contributed to the Patriotic Fund collected in 1855-7. The houses of the British Columbian Indians are as deplorably dirty as their persons. The character of these wooden mansions may be gained by learning that an extraordinarily stout Indian cannot pass the ordinary door, which is a hole cut in the wall. Several families live in one house, and cook in one pot, which in fact is a wooden box, within which the flesh or salmon is put, together with water. Boiling is then effected by pitching a series of red hot stones into the cookery; under this ordeal, a salmon is sufficiently stoned and cooked to be ready for the fingers in about twenty minutes. Marriage amongst these Indians is chiefly brought about by presents between the bridegroom and the friends of the bride. Divorce, on the plea of adultery, is not repudiated amongst them, nor is polygamy dishonourable. In fact the greater number of wives the Indian can keep the higher he holds his head. Marriage being naturally followed by burial, some reference may be permitted to the especial tribe, the Takelly Indians, who burn their dead ten days after death, and with great merriment. If a stranger be present, it is part of the ceremony to rob him, which event is so delightful, that the friends of the dead go home in a most amiable state of mind; should the softening influence of a stranger have been absent, they generally set to and fight dread- fuUy. Another peculiarity of this burial lies in the fact, that the portable property of the deceased is burnt with him, and, in cases of consequence, it is a great comfort to be able to ornament the defunct with a European pair of breeches. It is also a singular fact, as suggesting that this custom comes from Hindostan, that the widow or widows lie on the funeral pile, and are only permitted to leave it after the fire has been applied, and their bodies have become more or less honorably blistered. Sometimes the husband's relations insist upon the widow being made a com- 29 ;plete burnt-sacrifice, her own friends object to this proceeding, and the poor creature is nearly pulled into pieces. She has then to faint, when friends and enemies leave her for a time to herself and nature. The incremation complete, the widow has to collect the bones of the husband, wrap them up, and carry them for life, enduring meanwhile the state of a complete pariah, or slave, unless indeed her husband's relations are merciful, and release her from this thraldom, when she is once more at liberty to marry. Happily these terrible customs are dying-out. Let them be proved to be thoroughly ridiculous and the Indian is proud enough to abandon them. Christianity is advancing, though slowly, amongst the tribes of British Columbia, and more especially amongst those who inhabit the more southern and sea coast portions of the colony, but missionaries have, so far, little cause to congratulate themselves on the success of their work. Some years ago a couple of young Oregon men adapted Christianity to the least objectionable of the Indian religious ceremonies, and it is interesting to learn that the success of this eminently practical idea was very great. For many years to come it will be impossible to spread the knowledge of a spiritual religion amongst the Red Indians. To be truly successful amongst those tribes Christianity must be made as material as the elasticity of its doctrines will admit. Let this evident fact be ignored, and disappointment must be the result. The native theology may be called a Protean monotheism. There is but one God, of many forms,—his chief the sun, his angry form thunder, his most gentle shape, pure water or soft rain. The evil spirit which is minor in power to the God, is propitiated, exactly as in all low forms of religion. The destroyer is treated with consideration, and is supposed to exist in fire. The Indian certainly believes in the immortality of the soul. In fact, the native theology seems to be a good basis on which to build Christianity, with its noble train of social and self-sacrificial advantages. CHAPTER IV. THE EARLIEST GOLD DISCOVERIES IN BRITISH COLUMBIA. The obscurity in which the capabilities of British Columbia have been hidden is in a great measure due to the selfishness of the Hudson Bay Company, who, desirous of excluding all men except c 2 Bb their own officials from the region, represented this continent as- barren and agriculturally worthless. A short time previous to the date when British Columbia was wrested from the grasp of this monopolizing company, Sir George Simpson, the governor of those traders, exhibited himself in an extraordinary light. As an/author he declared British Columbia to be Paradise, as a gentleman giving his evidence before a Committee of the Parliament, where the asserted rights of the Company had been impugned, he described the land to be a wilderness. The incubus of this company was formally destroyed by the Legislature in 1858, and in the September of that year an instrument under the royal sign manual revoked so much of the crown grant of 30th May, 1838, to the Hudson's Bay Company, for exclusive trading with the Indians, as related to the territories comprised within the colony of British Columbia. Upon the same day were signed letters patent under the great se^iappointing James Douglas, Esq., to be governor and commander-in-chief in and over the colony of British Columbia and itssrdependencies. And in the accompanying instructions to the newly-installed governor to make laws for the well-ordering of the new colony, it is inspiriting to read such a royal command as the following:— " You are not to make any law whereby any person may be impeded in establishing the worship of Almighty God in a peaceable and orderly manner, although such worship may not be conducted according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of, England." The appointment of Governor Douglas was soon followed by a more truthful knowledge of the value of the colony. We immediately learn that | cereals are successfully cultivated, up to 60° north latitude, and occasionally in some spots situated 5° further north. I In the neighbourhood of the Mackenzie, the sixtieth parallel, may be considered as the northern limit of the economical culture of wheat. Potatoes may be raised with ease; and deer, fish, game, and hay, are abundant. The mildness of the temperature along this coast is great, when compared to the eastern coasts of this continent." The governor had not been appointed more than six months when he dated his first communication having reference to the gold fields. In the course of a second despatch, relating to the Couteau gold mine, he says:— "After journeying four days we reached Fort Hope, the next establishment of the Hudson's Bay Company on Fraser's River, 31 and about 80 miles distant from Fort Langley. The aetual gold diggings commence on a bar of Eraser's River about one mile below the point on which Fort Hope is situated, and from that point upwards to the commencement of the Falls, a distance of 20 miles, we found six several parties of miners successfully engaged in digging for gold on as many partially uncovered river bars; the number of whites on those bars being about 190 men, and there was probably double that number of native Indians promiscuously engaged with the whites in the same exeiting pursuit. The diggings became sensibly richer as we ascended the stream as far as ' Hill's Bar,' four miles below the Falls, which is the richest point workable in the present high state of the river. The gold on those bars is taken entirely from the surface, there being no excavation on any of them deeper than two feet, as the flow of water from the river prevents their sinking to a greater depth. Mr. Hill, the party after whom the bar is named, produced for inspection the product of his morning's (six hours') work, with a rocker and three hands besides himself, the result being very nearly six ounces of clean float ;gold, worth $100 in money, giving a return of-$50 a day ■for each man employed. That return the party observed was the largest day's work he had ever made on Fraser's River, and he further remarked, that the same good fortune did not attend him every day. The other miners whom I questioned about their earnings, stated that they were making, from $2J, the lowest, to $25, the highest usual return to the man a day. The greatest instance of mining success which I heard of in course of our journey fell to the lot of a party of three men, ~who made 190 oz. of gold dust in seven working days on 'Sailor's jBar,' a place about 10 miles above the Falls, giving a return of nearly 9 oz. a day for each man employed. Mr. Richard Hicks, a respectable miner at Fort Yale, assured me that ^e had found 'flour gold,' that is, gold in powder, floating on the waters of Eraser's River during the freshet, and he is of opinion that by means of quicksilver gold will be found in every part of Fraser's River, even to its discharge into the Gulf of Georgia. On the arrival of our party at | Hill's Bar,' the white miners were in a state of great alarm on account of a serious affray which had jusfcoccurred with the native Indians, who mustered under arms in a tumultuous manner, and threatened to make a.^clean sweep of the whole body of miners assembled there. The quarrel arose out of a series of provocations on both sides, and from the jealousy of the savages, who naturally feel annoyed at the large T 32 quantities of gold taken from their country by the white miners.. I lectured them soundly about their conduct on that occasion, and took the leader in the affray, an Indian highly connected in their way, and of great influence, resolution, and energy of character, into the Government service, and found him exceedingly useful in settling other Indian difficulties. I also spoke with great plainness of speech to the white miners, who were nearly all foreigners, representing almost every nation in Europe. I refused to grant them any rights of occupation to the soil, and told them distinctly that Her Majesty's Government ignored, their very existence in that part of the country, wbich was not open for the purposes of settlement, and they were permitted to* remain there merely on sufferance; that no abuses would be tolerated; and that the laws would protect the rights of the Indian, no less than those of the white man." This was in June, 1858. In the previous month, however, a serious conflict had taken place between English troops, commanded by Col. Steptoe, and Indians. The command consisted of five companies, or 400 men. The Indians were 1,500 strong, and composed of the-Snake, Palouse, and other tribes. The action resulted in 3 officers and 50 men killed. The Indians took 2 howitzers which belonged to the command, and all but 60 pack animals. In fact, the officer in command was compelled to fall back with the utmost precipitation. The battle took place while the regulars were in the act of crossing the river ^ Col. Steptoe had proceeded into the Snake country peaceably to treat with the Indians, the object of his visit being to demand the murderers of the emigrants of 1854. Before the following August the stream of emigration into the new colony had commenced. "We are led to the belief," says Governor Douglas in a despatch, " that the Fraser River district has in six weeks gained an increase in its inhabitants to the number of 10,000." The highest Fraser River gold returns about this date were as follows:— One rocker yielded in 8 days a quantity of gold dust equal in value to . . . $830 • 0 A second rocker yielded in 12 days . . 800 \ 0 A third rocker yielded in 5 days . . . 248 * 0 So great was the rush of emigrants to the Fraser district that the Governor entreated that "the naval force of this quarter should be largely reinforced." The disputes between the white and red men daily growing more alarming, the attention of the Government was called to 33 the whole question by the Aborigines' Protection Society, whose members have for their object the protection and improvement of the native Indians of America. The Society pretty plainly intimated their belief that the whites were the chief cause of the disturbances, and desired to justify their belief by pointing to a parallel case in the disputes between the native Indians of California and the gold miners of that country. The state of affairs in California the Society illustrated by the following extract from The New York Times:— "The country is perfectly wild, and a dense forest, full of warlike Indians; and, with the well-known injustice of the miner towards anything of the genus Indian or Chinaman, and their foolhardiness, they will get up a series of little amusements in the way of pistolling and scalping, quite edifying. It is the custom of miners generally to shoot an Indian as he would a dog; audit is considered a very good joke to shoot at one at long shot, tc see him jump as the fatal bullet pierces his heart. And when, ii the spirit of retaliation, some poor hunted relative watches his mportunity, and attacks a straggling white man, the papers at mce teem with long accounts of Indian outrages. And yet the nen that shoot down these poor Indians are not the ruffians we are led to suppose are always the authors of atrocities, but the respectable sovereign people, brought up in the fear of God by piois parents, in the most famed locations for high moral character. The Indian and Chinese murders are more frequently committed by men brought up in the quiet country viUages cf eastern states, and who return looking as innocent as lambs. There never yet existed so bad a set of men on the face of this :air earth as a certain class of the highly respectable sovereigis of the states who find their way to the frontiers. It is much to be rejoiced at that the Fraser River Indians are of a serious urn of mind, and can't take a joke; and in their ignorance of the sports and pastimes of the great American nation may depive some of the practical jokers of their 'thatches.'" In reding this extract, as applying to the gold miners on Fraser liver in 1858, it must not be forgotten that they were, almost t a man,. Americans. The influx of emigration, chiefly from Cdifornia, had scarcely commenced before the presence of gambles and roughs of every description set the authorities at defianc. Not only was the payment of government dues denied, but HJ officials were openly and wantonly assaulted. The first attempt to suppress the frightful gambling which ever accompany the gold miners, led to a positive riot. Governor Douglas wries:— ■•.ft! ''Intelligence has arrived here from* Mr. Justjfce Whamiell, of Fort Yale, reporting that he had met with serious opposition in the discharge of his official duties^from a party of gamblers and refftees from justice, wJo have collected about Hill's Bar and For^S%le. They are reckless desperadoes, requiring the strong ipnto curb them. BLithertff'they have been very guarded in their conduct, and the presenjrdifiiculfy would not have occurred but for the attempt made to suppress'gambling at Fort Yale, in consequence of an atrocious murder which Justice '^^atinell mentions in his letter as having been lately committed jn one of those unhallowed resorts. ....... Justice Whannell was not properly supported by the Fort Yale Police, who fell away at |he first appearance of danger, a fact showing that we cannot rely on a force raised frlm the mining population, pf therefore would strongly urge that a! least 150 o? the Irifji Constabulary Force, fully^armed and equipped, should be shipped "Without delay for British Columbia." To return to the mining operations of the first /old season cm. ^Eraser's River. As the cmd weather advanced me emigrants rapidly deserted the new grounds. The governor writing home ^Srll^ovember, says : — ^^5he exodus from Eraser's River continues a^ about the rate of 100 persons a week. The reasons assigned ly those persons Wr leaving the country are various, some havingfamilies to visit and business to settle in California, others dreadiig the supposM ISverity of the climate, otherf alleging the scarcity \ and high ^ice of provisions, none of them assigning as a reason for his departure a want of gold." Probably the true reason of this movement lay in the fact ^.at almost' the whole of the miners were men who] had impulsively flocked to the Fraser River district from (tlifornia, "IS®!1 who, accustomed to the warm winter temperatur of that ^e%ion, feared the commencement of cold weather, and %h,e threat of unaccustomed snow, and went southward in great %im;bers. ^fn fact it may be said, that after the spirt of the Fraer River Jgmd season in 1858 the district lost its rising notoiety and remained neglected till last summer (1861), when the tiscoveW ^ the new gold fields (C$ariboo), lying a couple of hundjfcd miles to the north-east of the district already worked, onb more brought the colony into notice as a gold-producing land. It must not, however, be supposed that the emigratiq. to Eraser's River district has at any time, since 1858, compitely 35 leased. The spring of 185% witnessed renewed exertions on the part of miners, and Governor Douglas writes, in the April of that year:— i The migration of miners to the upper districts of Eraser's jjfciver continues. Three hundred boats, carrying on an average five white men each, had passed Fort Yale previously to the 24th of March, and a greater number of men are reported to have gone towards the same quarter by land, having packed their provisions either on mules or on men's backs, to the various diggings; giving thus a collective number of about 3,000 men. Favourable reports continue to arrive from Bridge Biver. ^It has just come to Mr. Brew's knowledge that two men had arrived at Fort Yale wiM^OO ounces of gold dust, which they had washed out during the winter at Boston Bar, forty miles beyond Fort Yale. A nugget, weight three ounces less two pennyweights, was lately found at Bridge Biver, which I herewith forward for your inspection, on account of its being the largest piece of gold yet found in British Columbia." During the Parliamentary Session of 1858, considerable attention was given by the Legislature to British Columbian affairs, and this interest was repeated in the following year. Early in 1859 the Governor Douglas forwarded to the Colonial Secretary of State, a communication to the effect that the liege colonial subjects of the colony were desirous that her Majesty the Queen 3&uld name the metropolis they were desirous of founding. The desire was at once graciously complied with, her Majesty deciding that the capital of British Columbia should be called ' New Westminster.' " The proclamation was received in the colony with unbounded applause, and the commanded title was given to the nucleus of a city which had hitherto been called Queensborough, or Queen- jffibrough. NejW; Westminster is built near the mouth of Fraser River, and is admirably suited to all commercial requirements. The two views we present were taken about twelve months Spice, .and after the city had been in existence about two years. "At tliat time it consisted," says an informant, '§>f but a single thoroughfare, called Columbia Street, running parallel with the river, at a height of nearly a hundred feet above the level of the water. The wild pine forests raise their heads still in all directions around the new settlement, and the red-skinned native catches his salmon in view of the dwellings of the white." The harbour, with a view of which we present our readers, is as beautiful as applicable to commerce. Its fringe of exquisite pines m\f 36 aids in the general loveliness of the scene. Even at tho present moment it does not require the expenditure of an hour to walk round the city, while a few months ago the metropolis of New Westminster could boast of but one street. This thoroughfare, however, contains some important buildings, for that in the foreground, and on the left, is the Treasury, while of the huts to the right, one is the house of his Excellency the Governor, who generally resides at Victoria, (Vancouver's Island,) and the other the residence of the bishop. The idea of the bishop of so new a colony as British Columbia may create a smile, but \ any satire which this early establishment of a bishopric may excite, must be converted into earnest respect when it is known that the foundation of that ecclesiastical curacy is due to the liberality and goodness of Miss Burdett Coutts, who furnished an endowment to the see to the amount of £15,000. The episcopal jurisdiction is large, comprising a territory of nearly a quarter of a million of square miles; but the income of the bishop, taken in comparison with the extent of his see, rather than the number of souls under his religious direction, is moderate, it being only £600 a year. The day on which the first disposal of land in this colony took place is one of memorable date in its annals. The governor speaking of this inaugurative sale, which took place in November, 1858, says :— I The first operation of disposing of public lands in British Columbia took place here on the 25th instant, under the direction of Mr. Pemberton, Colonial Surveyor for Vancouver's Island. " The spot selected for sale was the site of a former establishment of the Hudson's Bay Company, known as | Old Fort Langley," on the left bank of Fraser's River, about 28 miles from its debouche into the Gulf of Georgia. The anchorage is good, and the river deep enough for ships close into the bank. With a cheerful aspect, a surface well adapted for buildings and drainage, it has the disadvantage of being in part low, and occasionally flooded by the river. The greater part of the site is, however, a dry, elevated table land, closely covered with bush and lofty pine trees. "On the whole it is a place to which public attention was strongly directed as being a very advantageous site for a commercial town. I therefore directed that it should be surveyed, and laid out in convenient lots for sale. The main streets, 78 feet wide, are intended to run parallel with the river, connected by cross streets at right angles with the former, the whole site 37 covering 900 acres of land, being divided in 183 blocks of five by ten chains, and each of those blocks being further subdivided into 18 building lots, 64 by 120 feet in extent, forming in all 3,294 building lots. "It was arranged that the upset price was to be $100 or £20 16s. 8d. There was a large assemblage of people on the morning of the sale, and much competition for lots. The highest price obtained for single lots was $725, and about 187 lots were sold on the first day's sale, and 155 lots on the second day, the whole yielding a sum of about £13,000." A score of years hence these lots will be worth a hundred times the price at which they were sold, and should the original purchasers be alive and still continue the ownership they will in the majority of cases be millionaires. CHAPTER V. RECENT DISCOVERIES, AND MINING DISTRICTS. The Times having been so powerful an instrument in making known the true value of British Columbia and Vancouver's Island, it will be interesting to reproduce the various reports upon those colonies which have, at two distinct dates, appeared in its columns. It was in 1858 that the first series of articles commendatory of these colonies appeared; but the attractive accounts contained in those letters from the own correspondent of that journal then published, fade into insignificance before the brilliancy and patronage to be found in the second series of articles, the first of which was published a few months since, the last within a fortnight past. The earlier letters, those of 1858, were c ated at San Francisco, the following communication being, perhaps, the first of the series which may be said to have drawn serious, though but temporary, attention to the colonies. " San Francisco, Thursday, June 14th, 1858. " On the morning of the 5th, just as the last mail steamer was about to leave for Panama, a steamer arrived from Vancouver's Island with great news of the most glowing and extravagant tenor as to the richness of a new gold country in the British possessions. " The only way in which I can give an intelligible statement in a moderate compass, is to sift the facts from the mass of correspondence and personal details at hand. The following is the experience of a man from San Francisco, weU known here, con- -—5*- 38 nected with a business firm in this place, and whose statement is worthy of credit. He left San Frangiseo in April, and, in company with seven others, ascended the Fraser River 275 miles. I wiU let him tell his story in his own way, interposing only such remarks of my own as will be explanatory of his ' terms' and of the localities mentioned. ' We prospected all along coming up from Fort Hope to Sailor's Bar, several days' travel, and in some Maces got two bits to the pan, and in some places five cents.' Two ' bits' may be set down as of the value of a shilling sterling. 'We camped and commenced mining at Sailor's Bar,' about twenty-five miles above Fort Yale, ' which has rich diggings, in some places paying as high as six bits to the pan.' The 'pan,' most readers know by this time, is a small tin basin with which the miner ' washes' the gravel containing the gold. ' When I arrived miners were making as high as six ounces a day to the rocker.' These are enormous earnings. Six ounces of gold, at its market value of $16 the ounce, would be nearly £20 sterling as the product of the daily labour of two men, which a 'rocker' should have to work it efficiently—one to ' fill' and another to I rock,' and not hard work either, barring the inconvenience of being in the water. Such results were frequent in the early times of California mining, when the soil was ' virgin.' ' We mined along the banks of the river (the Fraser), and the average was from two tojhree ounces per day to "the rocker. Miners are at work all along the banks of the river,' for twenty-five miles above Fort Yale. ' They average from two to four ounces a day.' These returns refer to minings carried on on such ' bars' ,|^ the Fraser River as were exposed; but the rise of all of the water from the melting of the snow in the mountains far up, rendered the work uncertain till August, when the waters subside for the season. ' The river sometimes rises three feet in a night,' and, as a consequence, ' a man cannot make his expenses there.' " It appears from the concurrent testimony of all who have been up the Fraser and Thompson Rivers, that the higher they go up^ the more plentiful the gold becomes. This corresponds exactly with Californian mining experience. The gold is retained where the bed of the stream is gravelly. "This man describes the country as 'very rich and j^eautiful, but high and mountainous. You are surrounded by mountains entirely. There is plenty of timber, and everything a miner can wish for, except game and provisions.' This is rather a grave desideratum, as even miners cannot eat gold. However, there is 7WW»'i.j- 39 some 'balm in Gilead.' 'There are plenty of salmon jn the river, and brown bears in the woods. They (the bears) are very good eating.' They are much more accommodating £ bears' than their ' grizzly' brethren of California, whose flesh is as tough as- shoe-leather. 'Wherever we 'prospected' (above Fort Yale) we found gold—at some places more, at others less; but we found gold everywhere? ' At the Rapids or Falls,' twenty odd miles above Fort Yale, ' where the water fell near fifteen feet over the rocks and prevented our ascending higher (in their canoe), we prospected and found gold very plenty. ' Near the Falls, and from Sailor's Bar up, many miners were at work, all with rockers. Gold very fine—requiring blankets to be spread in the bottom of the rockers to save the fine particles.' ' There are, undoubtedly, plenty of 'bars' containing gold.' 'By the use of quicksilver twice as much gold could be saved, as some of it is as fine as flour.' The person from whose narrative I have been quoting left his mining ' claim' in charge of two partners. He brought down to San Francisco some of the ' dust' dug by him above Sailor's Bar. It is in fine scales of a dark brownish colour, as if alloyed with copper. He has returned to the Frazer River with supplies of provisions, &c. "The special correspondent of the San Franisco Bulletin, a reliable authority, writes from Fort Langley, 25 miles up the Fraser, under date May the 25th, that he had just come down from Fort Yale—the locality above spoken of—where he found. 60 men and 200 Indians, with their squaws, at work on a 'bar' of about 500 yards in length, called 'Hill's bar,' one mile below Fort Yale and 15 miles from Fort Hope, all trading posts of the Hudson's Bay Company. ' The morning I arrived two men (Ker- risoft and Co.) cleaned up 5J ounces from the rocker, the product of half a day's work. Kerrison and Co. the next day cleaned. up 10j ounces from two rockers, which I myself saw weighed.' This bar is acknowledged to be one of t|ie richest ever seen, and well it may be, for here is a product of 15 J ounces of gold, worth $247\, or £50 sterling, from it in a day and a half, to the labour of two rockers. ' Old Californian miners say they never saw such rich diggings. The average result per day to the man was- fully $20; some much more. The gold is very fine; so much so that it was impossible to save more than two-thirds of what went through the rockers.' This defect in the 'rocker' must be remedied by the use of quicksilver to j amalgamate I the finer particles of gold. This remedy is at hand, for California produces quicksilver sufficient fozSuie consumption of the whole world in ..! ! 40 mne. her mountains of Cinnabar. Supplies are going on by every vessel. "At Sailor Diggings, above Fort Yale, they are doing very well, averaging from $8 to $25 per day to the man. I am told that the gold is much coarser on Thompson River than it is in Fraser River. I saw yesterday, about $250 of coarse gold from Thompson River in pieces averaging $5 each. Some of the pieces had quartz amongst them. Hill, who was the first miner on the bar bearing' his name, just above spoken of, with his partner, has made some $600 on it in almost 16 days' work. Three men just arrived from Sailor Diggings have brought down 670 dollars in dust, the result of 12 days' works. Gold very Rising of the river driving the miners off for a time. "Another authority, a Californian miner, known in San Francisco, also lately returned from the Fraser and Thompson Rivers, testifies to the existence of gold in great quantity, jjj This statement,' he says, 'is true; gold does exist in this new country, and there is no doubt in my mind that the upper mines «ire much like the upper mountain mines of California. The first diggings are not far from the Sound (Puget Sound); but there, as in California, the richest mines will be found far up in the mountains.' "He advises the multitudes now rushing up in such mad haste I to be the first there,' that ' there is no occasion to hurry, as the gold wont run away, nor be dug up in a day, nor in years.' " Correspondents from several places on the Sound, both in the English and American territories, men of various nationalities, write that the country on the Fraser River is rich in gold, ' and equal to any discoveries ever made in California.' This is the burden of every song from Victoria, Vancouver's Island; Port Townsend, Bellingham-bay, Olympia, Whatcom, Scheme, Portland, and other places. Wherever a letter can be posted, or a steamer boarded in the north-western countries of Oregon, Washington, and the British territory, the same news is wafted to San Francisco. " Of the existence of gold as reported I have no doubt, but I have no information as to the extent of the auriferous country except what I can gather from two letters written at Bellingham- bay, describing and advocating a land route or ' trail' from the coast to Thompson's River, and the higher portions of the Fraser. The writer of one of these letters asserts that ' there are rich diggings in the Cascade Mountains, between Fort Hope and Fort Yale, as well as to the southward and eastward of Fort Hope.' 41 And the writer of the other letter reports that ' Mines have also been discovered in the interior, at a great distance inland from the Fraser River,'—some 190 miles to the north and east of the mouth of that river, as well as I can make out the locality from the description. He augurs that when a route by land shall have been opened to them, ' these mines will cause the Fraser River mines, which only last some six months in the year, owing to the freshets of ice, to be almost forgotten.' This is most important, if true, as upon the extent of mineral region must depend its ultimate success and permanency as a field for the labour and support of a large mining population. In short, we have no reliable information of the existence of a gold-field in the interior, as we have of the existence of gold in quantity on the rivers. I cannot suppose that the gold is confined to the beds of the rivers; and believing it to exist in the latter, leads one to the conclusion, judging from California experience, that there is a gold-field in shape of 'placers,' 'ravines,' and 'hill-diggins' in the country traversed by these same rivers. Of its extent I can say nothing at present, but the problem will soon be solved. " The preceding imperfect sketch describes the sunny side of the picture. But the sun does not always shine upon the miner in New Caledonia; and so, to be impartial, we must have a look at the shady side. Overlooking the disagreeables and risks of the voyage from San Francisco, made at .high rates of fare, in crazy old vessels, not one of which is really seaworthy, where men and women are crowded 'like herrings packed in a barrel,' to borrow a comparison from one of the 'cargo,' as a misery of short duration—only five to six days—we come to where the miner finds himself dropped on the beach at Victoria, Bellingham Bay, or elsewhere. "Now his real difficulties and hardships commence, and his helplessness becomes painfully apparent. He is from 100 to 250 miles from the mines, without food and without shelter, in a variable climate. Several of his fellows tell the tale of his troubles in a few short but significant items:—' Canoes are very scarce; the price has from $50 and $80 to $100 each. Many parties have built light boats for themselves, but they did not answer.' ' We have got up but we had a hard time coming.' 1 Jordan is a hard road to travel; lost all our outfit, except flour. Our canoe was capsized in the Falls, and was broken to pieces. Six other canoes capsized and smashed the same day, near the same place. Four whites and two Indians belonging to these six" canoes drowned.' Provisions high up the river are exorbitant, of fi£ 42 course, as they can only be brought up in canoes requiring long 'parages.' Here's the tariff at Sailor's Bar and other bars:— 'Flour, $100 a barrel, worth in San Francisco, $11 to $12; molasses, $6 a gallon; pork, $1 per lb.; ham, $1 25c. per lb.; tea, at one place, $1 per lb., but at another, $4; sugar, $2 per lb.; beans, $1 per lb.; picks, $6 ; and shovels, $2 each. There were no fresh provisons.' I should have been greatly surprised to hear that there had been. ' At Fort Hope there was nothing to be had but dried salmon.' ' At Fort Langley, plenty of black flour at $9 a Jiundred, and salt salmon four for $1.' What lively visions of scurvy these provisions conjure up! The acme of ^extravagance was not arrived at, however, until the poor miner came to purchase auxiliaries to his roeker. At Sailor's Bar 'rocker irons were at an ounce of gold each ($16), and at Hill's Bar $30.' This \ iron' is simply a plate of thin sheet-iron measuring 18 inches by 20 inches, perforated with round holes to let the loose dirt pass through. I priced one of them, out of curiosity, at a carpenter's shop in San Franciso this morning— $2j. In England this thing would be worth 2s. At Sailor's Bar it would be worth £3 4s., and at Hill Bar's it would fetch £6. Quicksilver was also outrageously high, but not being of such prime necessity as ' rocker irons,' didn't come up to their standard of value. At one place it was sold at $10 per lb.; but at Jfort Langley a man bought one pound, paying $15 for it,' and had to carry it a great distance. The price in San Francisco i& 60c. the pound (half a crown), and on the Fraser River £3^ 'Nails brought from £1 to $1 50c. per lb. One lot of a doze**-: pounds brought $3, or 2 bits a nail,' which, being interpreted into Queen's English, means Is. a nail! These are some of the outgoings which tax the miner's earnings in a new unpeopled country; but these are not his only drawbacks. ' There being boards to be had, we had per force to go in the woods and he#& out our lumber to make a rocker,' causing much loss of time^ Then came the hunt for nails and for the indispensable perforated/^ ' iron,'which cost so much. But worst of all the ills of the^ miner's' life in New Caledonia, are the jealousy and the audacious thieving of the Indians ' who are nowise particular in seizing- on the dirt of the miners.' ' The whites,' being in the minority, and the Indians being a fierce athletic set of raseals, ' suffered much annoyance and insult' without retaliating. What a trial to the temper of Oregon men who used to shoot all Indians who came within range of their rifle as vermin in CabL^ fornia in 1848 and 1849. ^The,difficulties of access to tl$e *nsj|es will soc-n be ameliorated, as small steamers are to be put on %3 river, to ply as fa&up as the rapids will permit them; but as ^ the Indian ' difficulties^ it is much to be feared they will increase until a military force is sent into the country to overawe them. The prices of pr$| visions and of mining tools and $ther necessaries will soon J|& regulated by the competition of the San Francisco merchants, and the miners will not be long subjected to exorbitant rates. They have a vast advantage in the proximity of San Francisco, abounding, as it does, in supplies for all their wants, j^hen I recall our early troubles and 'Tpctimizings, I almost cease to pity the victims of the 'rocker irons,'^ £6 a plate. In 1849 I paid $1 50c. for the simple luxury cf a fresh egg. I might have had one laid onj&he Atlantic^board&gor in Chiller the Sandwich Islands for less, it is true; butfthes^ required French cookery to ' disguise' their true state and condition, and I being^then 'fresh' myself was somewhat par^cular. Even this did not cap the climax, for I paid a sum in American currency equal to £!§; sterling for a pair of boots the day I was burnt out by the first* fire in the same year. And such J]pair ! They were ' navvy's' boots, andt worth in England about Ms. j The New Caledonians must not complain, for we have ensured more (and survived it too) than they arerMkely to suffer.";? "Wednesday, June 16% 185%^ "Tha permit business is the first ground of complaint, ifjgjj they may be in the right for aught I know at present. Mattejg, cannot long rest in »j$eace and q#etness as they are now. Tim Government will act wisely in taking? prompt measures to meet the emergency which has so suddenly arisen. "I believe I stated in a former letter that Victoria was a free port. No duties are levied on merchandise^This, independently of its favourable position, carries all British and other foreign goods liable to American duties, to Victoria, in preferences to a|| the American ports on the north-west coast, an important fact which will be duly appreciated in England by ' the men who go down to the sea in ships.' "When I add to the statement of facts from the Fraser Biver, already given in this letter, that we have received many more accounts of mining having been carded on in April and May in several other places besides those mentioned in my statement, and with the like good results; that sundry persons have reported having seen returned miners on the coast of Puget Sound and elsewhere in the British and American territories with considerable ■ ; ■ D 44 quantities of gold, the usual' parcels of dust,' 'big lumps, 'bags of gold, fine and coarse,' ' rich specimens,' ' sums of from $300 to $500 worth' in the hands of so [many persons, ' exchanging gold for goods to take back into the mines;' and when I add further, what two of the principal San Francisco papers have told us—namely, that the truth of the stories of the fabulous richness of these mines was verified by ocular demonstration— i glittering evidences' in the possession of two or three passengers who arrived here on the 5th inst.; that two (other) miners had $6000 between them, one of whom said his last day's work amounted to $144, both statements given as ascertained facts; that one man had a shot bag filled, with gold, and another 50 ounces, the two latter statements given on hearsay—when I add all this to my statement, I shall have given a pretty complete summary of all that is known here as yet concerning the new gold country. " My own conclusion is that the Fraser and its tributary the Thompson are rivers rich in gold, and that I have no reliable evidence of the existence of a goldneld beyond those rivers. " Only a very inconsiderable quantity of gold has come down to San Francisco in the regular channels of trade—there have been but very trifling consignments, the bulk having come in private hands; but the paucity of consignments, although it has caused some suspicion of the truth of the reported wealth of the mines in the mind of the more cautious (I must confess a small class with us), yet the stories of what was seen and heard, and eould be earned, have sufficed to unhinge the masses, and to produce an excitement which results in an unparalleled exodus. "From the 1st of this month till to-day (June 17th), seven sailing vessels and four steamers have left San Francisco, all for the new mines. They all went to Victoria except two of the sailing vessels, which went to Port Townsend and Bellingham Bay, but the final destination of all was the same,—'Eraser River.' All took passengers in crowds. One of the steamers carried away 1000 persons, and another upwards of 1200, and multitudes are left behind waiting for the next departure. There are still thirteen vessels in the harbour for the same destination, all filling with passengers and goods. One of these is a steamer, five of them are large clippers, three ships of considerable size, and the rests barks, brigs, and schooners, so that if the next news from the North is favourable this fleet will carry away a goodly crowd. "From San Francisco itself a great many have gone, and more 45 are going. Common labourers, bricklayers, carpenters, printers, cabinet-makers, &c.—in short, all the mechanical arts are already represented in Vancouver's Island. Other classes go as well; in fact, the major portion whose interests can permit, are going. People seem to have suddenly come to the conclusion that it is their fate to go. 'Going to Fraser's River?' 'Yes; oh, of course, I must go.' 'You going?' 'Yes, sir; I'm bound to go.' None are too poor and none too rich to go. None too young and none too old to go ;—even the decrepit go. Many go with money, many go without; some to invest in ' real estate,' that arrant representative of humbug and swindling on this continent ; some to see what may turn up—these are men cunning in the ' Micawber' theory ; some out of curiosity, some to gamble, and some to steal, and, unquestionably, some to die. "Merchandise of all sorts, building materials, mules, and sundry necessaries to supply immediate wants, are, of course, being sent on in ample quantities. People of all nations are going. Men who can't speak a word of English are going, accompanied by interpreters. " This feverish state of the public mind cannot last long. As the rivers had risen so that the ' bars' could not be worked after the latter part of May, and as the waters will not abate till the beginning or middle of August, and as thousands of miners who went up without spare money, are idle on the coast, we shall, no doubt, soon hear that many of them are dying of hunger. This will cool the ardour of many in this country. " The fares up by the steamers are—for the ' nobs' $60, and for the 'roughs' $30; the fare so-so; and the attendance and other comforts can easily be guessed when I state the decks of the steamer which I left to-day were so crowded with passengers, that it was almost impossible to move through them. I suppose the waiters win have to fight their way when serving ' the quality.' "A gentleman who went down to the wharf and 6n board to see the sight, says the crush actually lifted him off the deck. It resembled a crowd at one of the London theatres on a ' star I night. The paper of to-day says, ' She appeared perfectly black with human beings, crowded in every part of her when she drew away from the wharf.' Her proper complement is 800, and she would not be comfortable with more than 600 passengers. She took to-day 1,600 ' at least,' it is commonly said. Persons in the way of knowing the fact estimate that of the labourers in every class of the State, all the unemployed and one-half the employed have already gone." d 2 m 46 "June 19th, 1858. iWThe amount of fraser River gold received at the Mint in Sin Ffencisco since the 19th of May was only 385 ozs.; average :^^ess, 837; worth $17 30c. the oz., making in all $6676 59c. in value. "Everything is redolent of Fraser River, the boxes and cases at all the doors have it painted on them. No one speaks of anything else. Wages have jumped to-day from $4 to $7 in consequence of it. jfhe editor of the Bute Record, an up-country paper, says waggishly of his fellow-townsmen, 'Every joke that is cracked is mixed in Fraser River water, and Fraser forms a part and parcel of everybody's meat, drink, and apparel." As we have said, the nation remained unaccountably indifferent to the advocacy of The Times in favor of British Columbia and Vancouver's Island. That journal, following its ordinary ipjicy of abandoning a question abandoned or rejected by the public, after a time ceased to publish any special correspondence from these colonies. So matters rested till the commencement of this year, when the glowing accounts of the gold harvest which are rapidly following each other in the columns of the most powerful and most subtly conducted paper in the world, were ushered in by a couple of letters written by a Mr. Dallas. An epistolary prefacp to any question The Times editors wish to bring before the public is an ordinary policy exercised by those gentlemen. The letters—as usual in all cases where a communication in this form precedes the agitation of a question in The Times-^Meie written in a very attractive and popular style, as the following extract, with which the second terminated,, will show— I Spring is^/the best season in which to arrive in British Columbia. The pons asinorum is how to get there, and at what cost. The shortest route is by the Isthmus of Panama, which can be reached vid New York, or by the West India steamers to St. Thomas's. The latter route ought to be adopted only in winter and spring, as the emigrant may be detained some days both at St. Thomas's and Panama, waiting for the connecting, steamers, and both those places are subject to the visitations of yellow fever. St. Thomas's has been much maligned for its heat and insalubrity, but I heard a Glasgow skipper say it was the finest climate he was ever in, as he was ' aye drinking and aye dry.' The West India steamers book passengers through from Southampton to Victoria for £35; but, whether by St. Thomas's or New York, no emigrant need calculate on reaching, i N3 47 his destination under £50 or £60. The voyage round Cape Horn can be made for £30, or even less, but it generally occupies five or six months. As the passenger is fed and lodged for such a period some may consider this an advantage, and, in comparing the voyage with the shorter one via Panama, and the cost, be of the same way of thinking as the Highlander, who gbmplained of a professional dentist that he charged him half-a-crown for puling out a tooth, which was done in a second, while a blacky, smith, in extracting another grinder, dragged him all round the smitjiy for a quarter of an hour and charged only 6d." The letters have prepared the way for a climax in the ordinary way, the following letter appeared creating all the effect it was intended to produce. "Victoria, Vancouver Island, Nov. 29, 1861. " I have not written much on the subject of British Columbia of late, because the accounts which reached us throughout the summer and autumn were of so glowing a character, and gave so superlative a description of the wealth of the upper gold country, as appeared fabulous. The reports from Cariboo were really so extravagant in their character that I did not feel justified in giving circulation to them on hearsay evidence. Being noww however, in possession of proof of the general accuracy of the very flattering reports which regularly reached Victoria by every succeeding steamer from British Columbia during the whole period of the mining season just over, I feel justified in communicating them. " The portion of British Columbia jwhich has yielded nearly all the gold produced this year, and which is destined to attract the notice of the world to a degree hitherto not accorded to the country in the aggregate, is a newly discovered district called Cariboo (a corruption of ' Cerf-bceuf,' a large species of reindeer which inhabits the country). The district is about 500 miles, in the interior, north (or north-east rather) from the coast of British Columbia and the mouth of Fraser River. It is not far from the sources or "head waters" of the south branch of Fraser River and the Rocky Mountains, an<|v forms a patch of country—a broken, rugged mass of mountains and streams, 50 miles from north to south and 30 miles from east to west, as far as yet known from recent exploration—round three sides of which the south branch of the Fraser makes a great bend or semicircle from its source to its junction with the north branch, near Fort George, a trading station of the Hudson's Bay Company, in about lat. 53° 50' N. ;'For the sake of accuracy, I should mention that this branch ><< 48 w of the Fraser, although now popularly called the south branch (and which the Hudson's Bay Company called the north branch from the northerly direction of the first portion of its course), is really the main body of the river. Its sources are at a distance- of some 60 or 70 miles westwardlv from the main chain of the- Rocky Mountains. The bend of the river, which embraces the" new mineral region within its curve, runs a course north-west" 180 miles, and then takes a south-west, course of about 50 miles* in length. This large section of country is believed, from the- appearances presented on various parts of the surface, to be auriferous, both in quartz (gold matrix) and in placeres, throughout its whole extent; but the portions hitherto ' prospected' (as the miners' phrase is for the search for and for the discovery of gold) are confined to the dimensions given above—50 by 30 miles. " Fraser River does not acquire its great velocity in this part of its course, which runs through a comparatively level country until it enters the regions of the Cascades and other mountains, through which its waters rush with an impetuosity which causes many obstructions to navigation. Consequently the river is navigable from Fort Alexander, in lat. 52° 37' north for steamers of light draught of water, say three to four feet, up to Swift River, a distance of 45 miles, and which is within 40 miles of Antler, in Cariboo—a fact which will facilitate the traffic of next year by shortening the land carriage of the present route. "Cariboo is in New Caledonia, as known in the division of districts west of the Rocky Mountains, by the Hudson's Bay Company, when they held the license to trade with the Indians in the country which now forms the colony of British Columbia. I cannot state the geographical position of Cariboo with accuracy, but the centre of that portion of the district which was the scene of this season's mining may be taken as lying between the sources of Antler Creek, Swift (or Cottonwood) River, and Swamp River, all of which flow, and run in opposite directions, from a chain of mountains called " The Bald Mountains," traversing the district. This central point (by a correction of Arrowsmith's map) is in north latitude 53*20°, west longtitude 121-40° " The mining localities are distinguished by local names given to them by the miners this year. Here are some of them :-— Antler-creek, Keithley's-creek, Hawey's, Williams's, Nelson's^ Lowhee, Cunningham's, Lightening, Vanwinckle, California, Canon, Grouse, Goose, Steven's, Salt Spring, Burns's, Snowshoe, Jack of Clubs, and Last Chance Creeks, all being streams, (creeks) of various sizes; most of them of small size, issuing from the 49 Bald Mountains, which rise to a height of from 7,000 to 8,000 feet above the level of the Pacific Ocean. " Other mining localities are called Chisholm's Gulch, Davidson's Gulch, and Hall's Gulch, &c. ('Gulch' is Yankee for a ravine.) " I insert these names, because they give an idea of the extent of the gold diggings hitherto unequalled for their productiveness, because they are likely from this fact to acquire celebrity abroad, when their wealth begins to be distributed over the world, and also because the nomenclature will assist the reader to understand the references in the following narrative. " Cariboo was discovered late in the season of last year, but its riches were not developed till this summer. I can only spare room for an epitome of the mining operations of the season. " The truth of these accounts was doubted at the time, but they had the effect of inducing a considerable emigration of miners from all the other diggings in the country to Cariboo, which increased the mining population to about 1,400 by the end of May, and the number was constantly receiving fresh accessions. On the 9th of June $30,000 (^6,000) in gold arrived from Cariboo, besides the sums carried by 35 men who came down on business, and who, it is supposed, returned to the mines. The same day $40,000 (£8,000) arrived, some of which was also from Cariboo. These receipts awakened confidence, and a description of the gold of the district, which corresponded with the character of that just received, accounted for the enormous earnings. The gold was all coarse gold, granulated, gravelly stuff, mixed with pellets and pebbles of pure metal of considerable size. Of the fine-scale gold of Fraser River, a man could not physically wash out so much as the reported individual earnings, but of such nuggets as then came down it was easy to take out pounds' weight in a day. Freshets from the melting snow carried away the flumes, and the miners' labours were suspended for some time towards the end of May by the floods from the melting snows of the adjacent mountains, and there was a scarcity of food. The roads, or tracks and trails, at any time only fit for mule travel, were then impassable for animals, and provisions had to be carried on the backs of Indians, who were paid $50 (£10) a day for "packing." Labouring men, who had no mining claims of their own, were hired to work those of the miners at $7 (£1 8«.) and $8 (£1 12s.), and found. Provisions were relatively high in price. Flour was at 38c. {Is. Id.) per lb.; bacon 75c. (3*. l%d.); beans, 40c. (1*. Sd.); tea, $1 50c. (6s. 3(?.); sugar Ill I and coffee, 75c. perfhto Single meals at the restaurant's, coij|| sisting of beans and bacon and a cup of bad coffee, cost $2, (8s. id.). A correspondent of one of the newspapers in Victoria, writing from Cariboo at this time, quotes the prices of what, in the grandiose style of these parts, he calls 'miners' luxuries,' as follows:—A tin pan (worth §$.) sold for (£1 12s. 9d.); picks and shovels, $6 each; ditto, wit|fvhandles, i.e., shovels, $7 50c. each (£1 4s. 6d. and £1 lrOs. 6d.). Washing was charged for at $6 a dozen pieces (£1 4s. 6d.) The latter is the only item of 'luxury' I see in the 'Price Current,' and I cannot believe that the laundryman was much patronise^ It was added that 'business of every description was lively.' At such prices a man would need to earn his £5 to £20 a day to enable him to keep ' busmess-fively.' These wages and prices show the large gains of the miners. " The first news of operations in June exceeded the glowing accounts of May. The melting of the snow kept many miners idle, and the country was covered with mud and slush, which :|)|ade travelling almost impossible. However, those who could work earned largely, one >' rocker' washing out 50 ounces of a ftgenoon, and three men 'washing out' 100 ounces from a flume in a week. Omitting these 'big strikes,' which fell to the lot of the favoured few, we find that the fickle goddess was more sparing in her gifts to others. $50 to $100, and as low as $20 a day, are quoted as individual earnings. A person on the spot wrote, what seems to have been the truth, judging from what one knows of the temper and habits of the miner,-—' Those who have claims are making piles. Those who have not are msfeing nothing and have nothing. These were the unlucky ones, who would not choose to work on hire, and who were waiting on Providence fop? ' something to turn up,' and for good weather to set out on a ' prospecting ' tour, from which many of ftem would return footsore and 'strapped,' i.e., 'dead broke.' " "In June intelligence reached Cariboo that gold had been discovered on the east side of the Rocky Mountains in British territory. This news, and the return to Antler Creek of exploring parties with a report that they had found ' favourable indications of gold and plenty of rich quartz veins, 30 miles off,' added intensity to an excitement already at fever heat. Many of the miners wandered about the pathless wilderness 'prospecting ' for rich and yet richer ' claims' which would contain the philosopher's stone, and lost their time and their strength and health in their restless wanderings, and earned nothing. Mi H 51 " Presently the weather improved, provisions became abundant, new discoveries were being made at great distances apart, ana success attended the efforts of all who worked steadily and struck to one spot. On Keithley's Creek a party of fire 'divided' $1&00 dollars (£250) from one day's labour, and their daily average was a pound weight of gold a day. "Several 'sluices' were set to work on this creek, and the results were $20 (£4 3s. 4d.) to $50 (£10 8s. 4d.) per man per day. There were 200 men on this creek, of whom seventy-five were at work about the middle of June. The gold found was in small nuggets, of the value of 6s. to 8s. sterling each piece. Net quicksilver was used to amalgamate the gold, which made a vast saving in time and expense, and which enabled the miner to make such large gains as I have stated above. Another fact, peculiar to the Cariboo Diggings generally, is that the gold is found near the surface—a few inches, a foot or two, andij very |eldom more than six feet below the surface. There is an efflorescence of gold near the surface in the virgin soil of most gold-bearing countries, but I never knew it so general as it is here. " The diggings on Snow-shoe Creek were opened in June, and yielded $12 (£2 10s.) to $25 (£5 4s. 2d.) to the hand per day. "Here are a few statistics of this remote country, noted down in June by a traveller:— "A little town springing up at Keithley's, consisting of three grocery stores, a bakery, a restaurant, a butcher's shop (cattle had by this time been driven up from Oregon and the Lower Fraser), a blacksmith's shop, and several taverns, some in tents and some in log-houses. At Antler ten houses are erected, and a sawmill on the Creek. In all Cariboo there are five white Women and three physicians. Several vegetable gardens started at various points. 1 The native Indians fairly quiet, civil, and industrious; very useful as carriers of provisions, &c. The mule trails rendered Impassable; but the Government appropriated $2,000 (£416 13s.) for opening a bridle road to the district, and the miners of Antler and of Keithley's subscribed $800 to open a trail to the former place. Labourers' wages at Antler, $8 a day; at Keithley's $7 a day—and board in both cases. A considerable mumber of hands are thus employed. When a member of a 'company' cannot work himself, he puts a hired man in his place. "We had fj?pm the first discovery of tMs gold district heard 52 most unfavourable reports of the severity of the winter season, which was said to render the country uninhabitable. The matter was set at rest by some Canadians who wintered in Cariboo last year. They found the intensity of the cold so much less than in the Canadas, that they represented the climate as mild compared with that of their native country. It is inhospitable from the altitude and the abundance of mountains, the level land being about 3000 feet, and the mountains 5000 feet more, above the level of the sea. The spring is wet, and the summer subject to frequent rains. The snow falls in October, and when the winter is fairly set in the weather continues cold, clear, and dry. The mining season continues from May to October at present; but when accommodations increase, and the miners begin to tunnel the banks and hills for gold, and they soon will do, the winter will present no obstacles to continuous work, under cover, during the whole season. " A mining claim is a parallelogram (square) piece of ground 100 feet wide, from bank to bank of a creek. The depth is indefinite, varying, of course, with the width of the creek. Each miner is entitled to one of these ' claims,' and there may be several miners associated together to work a ' claim.' In case of such an association amounting to nve miners, the ' company' would be entitled to 500 feet of ground in width, and running from bank to bank. .At first many miners ' took up' claims in simulated names, and thus caused a monopoly—an evil which was remedied by the Government Gold Commissioner when he visited the country in the summer. "Under the mining laws of British Columbia, which are well adapted to the country, the miners have the power to regulate their own mining affairs, such as settling the size of claims, which must vary in different localities, &c, with the assent and assistance of the Gold Commissioner in each district, and subject to the approval of the Governor. " The provisions of the mining laws are very seldom, if ever, complied with in all respects; but still the mining operations are conducted with exemplary propriety, and no body of men, upon the whole, could conduct themselves more peaceably than do the miners of British Columbia. All disputes are submitted to the Commissioner, and if his decision is not acquiesced in, an appeal' is taken to the Judge of the supreme Court of Civil Justice, (the only one in the whole colony), who goes circuit to all the inhabited parts of the country. " While on this subject I should not be doing justice to the I 53 country if I failed to remark upon the absence of crime generally in British Columbia. The fact is as remarkable, considering the heterogeneous nature of the population, as it is gratifying. It speaks well for the miners, and for the magistrates also, who are a very efficient and respectable body, all young men in the prime of life; and I am certain, from my knowledge of his character, that the moral effect of the judge's free intercourse with all classes, of his disinterested counsel when appealed to extrajudicially—as he frequently is, to settle disputes—and of his urbanity, is very beneficial. The exercise of his good-nature prevents litigation, and the fearlessness with which he punishes crime prevents the commission of heinous offences. " July opened with increased exertions and proportionate results, in consequence of the disappearance of the snow. Six miles from Antler, 31 ounces were ' cleaned out' in one day in a hole only two feet under the surface. The bottom was composed of ' rotten slate,'—a favourable formation, indicative of gold- $8,000 had previously been taken out of the same claim. Another spot was discovered where the pay-dirt was two feet thick and full of nuggety gold. $1,000 was paid for a claim, which the purchaser resold shortly afterwards at a profit of $500. Wages now rose $10 a day. Quartz leads (the matrix of gold) of considerable breadth was discovered near Keithley's. Some claims began to pay as high as $1,000 a day, and several from 20 to 25 ounces. Four days' work yielded a man 104 ounces, and some men from Victoria were making 2 and 3 ounces each a-day. The town of Antler growing ' like magic' Instead of 10 houses, as it counted last month, it now boasts of 20 substantial stores, whisky shops, and other edifices, surrounded by any number of tents. " The prosperity of the town was in part indebted to an evil influence. Professional gamblers track the successful miner as the carrion crow scents the dead on a battle field. ' The chink of money' and the sound of gamblers' voices are heard at all hours. Monte and Paro Banks and Poker Games are all the go. Large sums of money change hands constantly ; I heard of one party who lost, between three of them, $27,000. " I met a Spaniard on his return from Cariboo. He is a muleteer, and was engaged in packing. On my asking him about the richness of the mines, he answered that the gambling was as rife and carried on as high as in California in her palmiest days. The Spaniard did not penetrate far into the mining region, neither did he gather many statistics. He saw piles of gold 54 ,i I1, I ■ ! I if bullion and of 20 dollar pieces laic&fcut on the gambling tables, and he saw a bank of portentous size, and he saw large stakes played and won and lost; and all these evidences of wealth satisfied him that ' the country was saved' without going beyond Antler. He had been informed that Cariboo was a ' fizzle'; but at Antler he changed his opinion, and went vigorously into the packing business, made money, and is now budding a house to enjoy his otium cum dignitate. "It is hard to suggest a cure for this vice of new mining countries. The miner requires relaxation, and no healthy means of relaxation exist. He will adopt the first and readiest. "I do not see what the Government can do except to discourage it. It cannot put it down with the strong arm, for the rapid growth of population and of wealth outrun Government administration in these cases of sudden developments of the treasures of the earth. The magistrate intimated that he would hold the tavern-keepers, who permitted gambling in their houses, responsible. Beyond this his means of enforcing the law would not carry him. The vice will wear itself out, as it did in California. "In August and September mining was at its height. Here are a few facts culled from a mass of correspondence and verbal information received:—On the Antler Creek the rocker yielded 50 ounces of gold of a forenoon. The average yield on the fluming claims is 60 ounces a-day to the hand. Later the creek yielded 100 and 130 ounces a-day from small claims. Three quarters of a-mile below the town of Antler 40 to 60 ounces a day to the hand, obtained by a company of two men from one of the richest claims on the stream. Since last spring these two men have taken out $18,000 with a rocker. M. Donnell's claim not paying so well for the last three weeks, but up to that time it gave $60 to $100 a day. The town site is threatened to be washed away, as the miners are entitled to all mineral ground which lay waste when they staked it off for mining. Water for sluicing sold at 50c. (2s.) an inch (cubic measure, flowing through a square tube,) yet after paying this heavy charge, the yield left $40 to $60 a day to the miner. Eleven companies on the creek making large gains. Others not doing so well—15, 20, $30, and up to $50 a day to the hand only. " On Keithley's Creek the companies were making from $50 to $100 a day to the hand, and on the hill side (dry diggings) $120 a man per day. " The miners were by this time enabled to extend their means 55 and appliances to save manual labour. Flumes were built of enormous size ano^Jength, with numerous wheel-pumps to supply water for washing the gold, which were to be seen turning constantly, ' as far as the eye could reach.' ' The magnitude of the works was surprising., These were due to the neighbouring sawmill, which produced lumber on the spot, and must have also yielded a rich return to the proprietors, for the price was high, of course, 25c. a foot and upwards. " The mining holes were described as shining with gold. When the bed rock was laid bare, it was found studded or paved with lumps of gold, and in every shovelful contained a considerable amount, in some cases to the amount of £10 sterling, and required no washing, the nuggets or pellets of gold being picked out by hand. " The diggings were now found to be not only rich, but extensive, which led to a new enterprise. A drift was driven into one of the hills. This tunnelling is now the chief mode of working practised in California, where the efflorescence of gold has been long exhausted, and where the places are nearly so£. Labourers were in delnand (in Cariboo) for this work, at $8 a day and board; so that, with health, no man who chose to labour could fail to make money. A miner told my informant, at this time, that his claim would last him 10 years to work it out. " The Lowhee Creek yielded to four miners on the first two days of their work $5,200, and on the third day 72 ounces.. These returns appeared fabulous, yet private information and published accounts agreed as to the facts, and in due time similar statements were verified by the appearance of the miners with the gold in New Westminster and Victoria. I The miners were now in good heart. Their condition was much improved by the abundance of salmon caught in the Fraser and other up-country rivers. There was abundance of grass, also, on the mountains all through the summer—a supply as necessary as human food, as all commodities being 'packed,' there were many mules and horses to feed. " A miner writes that his gains far surpass anything ever produced in California, and cites the fact of $1,700 having been dugout of two crevices in the rock less than three feet under the surface. In fact, the explanation of the enormous yields is, as I before stated, the large, solid, nuggety character of the gold, and its proximity to the surface. Men who had never mined tefore, tradesmen, mechanics, and labourers new to the work, didjust as well as the old practised miner. This result will cease as the efflorescence of gold near the surface becomes exhausted. Then some skill and much labour will be required to produce far less results than paid the exertions of the Cariboo men last season. " Veins and boulders of quartz are seen in every direction in the hills, such as would of themselves create an excitement in any other country," but they are here neglected for the placeres, which are so much more easily worked. A person writing from the diggings says, " The country is covered with quartz, and with indications of volcanic action," and concludes "that this is the richest gold country in the world." The development of the wealth which lies in quartz must be obtained by the application of capital, and engineering and mining skill. It is a fit subject for the capitalists of England; and as capital has just as much production in British Columbia as in any part of the Empire, and property and life are equally as well protected, I have no doubt the quartz magnet will attract the necessary capital in due time, and that we shall hear the Stock Exchange resound with the quotations of shares in many mining companies in Cariboo and elsewhere in the colony by and by. "At this time (in autumn) a man who left Victoria penniless arrived with $2,000 in dust, which he had dug in about two months. William's Creek, which finally turned out the greatest successs of all the creeks for rich single yields, began in August to produce. Dawson and Co. took out 50 ounces in one day, and in a few days reached the bed-rock, when in one pan of pay- dirt they got $600. Abbott and Co., on sinking three to four feet, obtained $900 in one pan-full of dirt. This extraordinary fact was confirmed by Mr. Abbott himself when he came down to Victoria the other day. He and his two partners made each a fortune in less than three months. I will come to their cash more in detail presently. " Several new creeks discovered in July and August which well prospected. Several layers of pay-dirt, that is, strata of gold- bearing gravel and of blue clay, one over the other, with layers of earth between, now found, so that increased, workings lower down in the same ground produced gold. " On Vanwinckle Creek the best claim produced $100 to $200 a day to the hand. The companies above and below, average $50 and $60 a-day to the hand; and the diggings near the surface, just as they were in California in 1849, equally rich. "fiold'dust was worth $16 30 c. to $16 50 c. the ounce, (£3 6s. lOd. and £3 7s. 7d.,) and it was taken in exchange for goods at $17 the ounce. The average ley of the gold has not yet 57 been accurately ascertained. Some of it gave 918-1000ths fine, which is very high. Some gave from 800 to 900-1000ths fine, and the average is taken at 850 fine. "I need hardly remark to you that I would not have lent myself to giving currency to these marvellous stories were I not fortified by my own knowledge of the general truth of all I write." The sensation produced by this letter, which appeared in the middle of January, was very great, nor has the excitement been allowed to pass away. A second and still more attractive letter, has been published in The Times, and the nation is beginning seriously to contemplate the fact, that the richest and most inviting colony belonging to the British crown is comparatively unpeopled, and able to welcome millions within its boundaries. This letter we copy. "Victoria, Vancouver's Island, January 20, 1862. " I shall send this letter by express vid Panama, because I am informed that the mail stages across the continent have broken down. It may take longer to reach you, but the old route is much safer than the overland route. In my last letter I gave a detailed account of the mining operations in British Columbia during the season of 1861. In this letter I purpose to give a general sketch of the mineral region, with the view of conveying to such as have not been in the country a definite conception of the extent and capabilities of the gold field. "Beginning with Fraser River, the main artery of the auriferous region, I may state that gold is known to exist and has been worked at a great many places in the river and on its banks from a point about 45 miles from the mouth of the river up to near its source in the Rocky Mountains; in other words, from the 49th up to the 35rd parallel of the north latitude, a distance (taking the windings) of some 800 miles. The south branch of the Fraser has its source near Mount Brown, in the Rocky Mountains, in about 53° north latitude, 118° 40' west longitude. Thence this branch flows for 290 miles to Fort George, a post of the Hudson's Bay Company. The north branch rises in an opposite direction. It receives its supplies from a series of lakes lying between 54° and 55° of north latitude, longitude about 124° 50' west, and runs a course of 260 miles to its junction with the south branch, some miles below the 54th parallel of north latitude. Here the union of the two branches forms the Fraser River proper. Adding the north branch, which is also a gold- bearing stream, which was j worked' last season to the other 58 I i i arm, the two will give us a continuous stretch of auriferougf riverain territory upwards of 1,000 miles in length, extending for many miles back into the country on both sides, but not including the tributary rivers which fall into the Fraser. In short, the river itself is nW known to be auriferous and to pass through a gold-bearing country throughout its whole course. Gold is also found in most of the tributaries of the Fraser, of? which no less than Mty^ane are known. The great length of the main river and the number of its tributaries will give some idea of the auriferous resources of the country " But these facts do not by any means convey a comprehensiyj|r or accurate view of the vast extent of the area of the gold fields because they are limited to the central portions of the country^ while the whole of the upper portion of British Columbia, fron% its southern to its northern boundary, is auriferous. "Besides the gold, found in the beds and on the shores of thfiee streams, the Fraser itself and many of its tributaries are skirted or bordered by terraces, all of which yield gold alsQ?| These terraces, or 'benches,' as the miners call them, run, at, intervals, along both sides of the rivers for miles in lengtjh; and they recede* where the mountains!retire, for distances baejg) into the valleys, varying from a few acres to a few miles ik$ breadth. They are objects of curiosity and speculation, and add much to the beauty of the rude scenes in which they occur fronJ| the regularity and evenness of their structure. They generally* occur on both sides of the river (opposite to each other), at the same place, sometii&es at the same elevations on both sides, sometimes at different elevations, high on this and low on the other side of the river ; and in some places they ar% multilpied into several successive level parallel plateaux, rising one above the other as they recede from the bank. These ter% races are composed of the ordinary alluvial deposits—loam, gravel, stone, sand, and boulders; and they are thick masses rising generally to a height of 150 to 200 feet. "This geological formation occurs more frequently on the- Eraser^ than on the other rivers. The terraces are also larger on the main river, in some cases assuming the proportions of hills, all with regular and perpendicular faces. Their formation is, perhaps, due to the fact that the valleys between the mountains were at one period dijlled up, or perhaps, formed lakes. Each ' bench' may mark successive periods of drainage or subsidence of the water; and their present elevation above the rivers may be due to their having been cut away by the rapid-flowing streams.. ■is The tumultuous and swift-flowing Fraser would soon cut a bed for itself (as it has done) down to the rock. "Leaving the solution of their formation to the learned in such matters I will hasten to explain their value to the miner. They contain vast deposits of gold; and to be worked to advantage the 'bench diggings' must command a stream of water supplied from a source higher than their own surfaces, so as to give a fall to enable the miner to apply the water to the 'face of the ' bench' by a hose. The force of the stream is due to the height of the fall. A good strong stream playing upon the face of the hill will desintegrate a great quantity of "pay dirt" in a short time. The floating rubbish or 'dirt,' is caught in a long sluice at the base, provided with ' riffles' on the bottom, and spread with quicksilver to catch the gold. This mode of mining is called by the miners ' hydraulic mining.' Such is the wealth of Cariboo that no quicksilver was used, for the miner could afford to lose all the ' fine dust' and to be satisfied with the 'lumps.' " It happens, fortunately, that Fraser River and most of its tributaries supply water in abundance at an elevation which affords the necessary fall, from the elevated and broken character of the country; while there are inexhaustible supplies in the numerous lakes dispersed all over the upper district. Timber for the erection of flumes is also abundant everywhere. "British Columbia is better supplied with water for mining purposes, obtainable both from streams at great elevations, and from lakes situated in high altitudes, then either California or Australia. » Some of the 'ditches' in California are of great length; some 40 miles, owing to the absence of streams running on elevated planes. The cost of construction is consequently very great. But Australia is much worse off, for there is an actual scarcity of water. The canal system of British Columbia will be comparatively inexpensive from the abundance of water and its eligibility, encouraging facts to the miner, because the small outlay of capital required will keep his ' water dues' low. " It may not be out of place to mention here, that a good deal of capital has been already invested, profitably in 'water ditches' or canals for the supply of the miners on the Fraser by old miners who had saved money and by persons unconnected with mining. This interest will in time become a good subject for the. investment of English capital, as the mining population increases. " I have something to say upon this subject, which I may as E Mil; 60 well state here as elsewhere, as it interests all who may wish to come with or to send capital to this country. It is supposed to be attended with unusual risk to send capital for investment to a gold country. The fear is well grounded. All the English capital which was sent for mining purposes to California became permanent with a vengeance. It remained there, and without ' return.' " British Columbia, I am happy to say, offers a much brighter and safer prospect. Property of this class is fully protected by law, and its legitimate profits are secured to the capitalist who has invested his money in canals not more by the operation of the Goldfields Act than by the existence of a healthy public sentiment. On the one hand, while the capitalist is allowed to realise a handsome return from his charges for the supply of water, the miner is, on the other hand, protected from extortion. Differences do arise, but they are always settled in a rational and peaceable way, either by appeal to the Gold Commissioner of the district, who has the power to take cognizance of such cases, or to the Judge of the colony who acts judicially. Such scenes as very frequently occurred in California, where the miners dictated to the ditch owner how much it might please them, of their good and sovereign will and pleasure, to pay him, and gave him the alternative of accepting their 'rate,' or having the water taken by force without remuneration, and this, too in violation of their own engagements, has not occurred here, and I am very confident it never will. "To return to the 'bench diggings.' Whenever they have been ' worked' they have paid well. They have been neglected for the greater attractions of the ' placer diggings,' where the gold is found nearer the surface and with less labour. But I consider this class of diggings of great prospective value. They will give employment to two interests—capital and labour. They are generally situated within easy reach of supplies. They are more accessible to all the influences of civilization than more interior localities. They are in the neighbourhood of some good land, which will enable the labourer to alternate his time between mining and husbandry, and where he can make his home—the great wants which the mines generally do not supply. "Although now neglected, the 'benches' will be appreciated and come into play when the efflorescence of gold near the surface shall have been exhausted. When this happens they will supply wealth and a profitable living to a mixed population of miners, ditchowners, traders, and labourers, and that for a 61 long period of time, of whieh no one can compute the numbers of the one nor the duration of the other. "Apropos to the subject of river mining, I would notice the remarkable fact that the streams which flow from the east are observed to be all auriferous, while those which run from the west are not so. Does this distinction prove that the source of all the gold spread over the goldfield is in the Rocky Mountains ? The circumstance lends feasibility to this theory, and it is strengthened by the discovery of gold on the east side of the Rocky Mountains in rivers which take their rise in the same chain, but at the opposite side. You are aware that gold is worked on the Saskatchewan, the sources of which are not very far from those of the Fraser. We have also late information of the finding of gold on Peace River, which has its source also in the Rocky Mountains. We are informed that Peace River ■country contains silver and other ores—a specimen of one of which goes to the Exhibition. " The reports of the mining this season on the Fraser in the space between Fort Hope and Fort George, a distance of about 270 miles, give the daily individual earnings at all sums between $3 and $15. Very little has as yet been done between these two points, and very little will be done so long as the attractions of $100 to $1,000 a day continue elsewhere. I will now carry you to other mining localities. " Leaving the Fraser at Fort Hope, 100 miles from its mouth, ;and following in the track of the miners to the southward and •eastward for 60 miles, we come to the Similkameen. These mines yielded, last season, $16 to $17 a day to the hand occasionally. A party of three men took $240 in three days' work from ' sluice diggings;' and the ' rocker' used in ' wet diggings,' yielded $4, $5, and up to $8 a day to the hand. Number of miners 200, of whom 150 were Chinese. A waggon road for twenty-five miles from Hope, and a bridle road of fifteen miles in continuation, approaches this district. 1 Sixty miles further to the southward comes Okanagan. The average yield here was only $4 a day, and the miners were few—some twenty-six men, some of whom divided their time between mining and husbandry. Okanagan Lake, a beautiful sheet of water, in a rich pastoral district, is from 80 to 100 miles long, and eight to ten miles wide, deep, and well suited to navigation. There is a small population in the valley, chiefly French Canadians, and a Catholic mission. There are two small lakes tributary to the great lake, and nineteen streams fall into the latter, of which seven yield gold, e 2 = 1 1 % 62 " In the same general direction, and distant from Fort Hopa 150 miles, is Rock Creek, close to the American frontier (lat. 49° north), and 60 miles west of the Columbia River. The longitude of Rock Creek is 119° west. This place acquired a temporary reputation in 1860 for the richness of its mines, when a considerable population flocked to it and extemporized a town. In 1861 most of the miners were seduced away by the superior attractions of Cariboo, the latest and richest El Dorado yet discovered, so that only 30 white men and 225 Chinamen remained. " A party of three white men saved in the season $12,000 that I know of, after paying expenses; $100 a day to the hand was sometimes made. The average earnings are returned at $7 a day per man. There are both 'bench' and ' wet' diggings, and both are productive and extensive. The place is now abandoned. " The Chinese who came to this country cannot endure the rigour of the British Columbia winter; consequently, they have nearly all left for California. Some of them will return next summer. The Cariboo miners threatened to drive them out, and would have done so had they ventured to poach upon their preserves ; but the Chinamen were very wary, and kept out of the way of mischief. " There being no more mining localities of any note on the southern frontier, we will proceed to the northward and westward for about 120 miles, passing on the way several auriferous streams flowing southward, and, in fact, in every direction, as well as a pastoral and agricultural country of great extent, without comment for the present, and get into the heart of the Thompson Biver country, as established by the Hudson's Bay Company in their nomenclature of local divisions of the ' Indian Country.' " If you could fancy yourself on the banks of the Thompson, you would find it a large, swift-flowing river, rolling with considerable impetuosity between high rocky banks. € Near its mouth it is too full, too rapid, and too rocky for mining. Its source is not in the mountains, but comes from the overflow of a series of lakes dispersed over a large extent of the central portion of the country which lies to the eastward of the Fraser, and stretches over more than two degrees of latitude and as many of longitude. It falls into the Fraser, after running a very tortuous course of perhaps 100 miles, at the small town of Lytton, a mining and trading hamlet on the forks of the two rivers, 75 miles (above) north and a little to the west of Fort Hope. Several streams flow into the Thompson,—the Nicaomeen and 63 the Nicola on its left or east bank. We are now in what may emphatically be called the "Lake District." The last-men- mentioned little river drains two lakes, Nicola Lake and Stump Lake—the first 8 miles by 3, the other much smaller. The next tributary is the Buonaparte, on the opposite side,—a very important river, from its rich auriferous deposits and from the valuable arable soil through which it flows. It drains nine lakes, two of which, Loon and Vert, are each about 12 miles long. After receiving the Buonaparte, the Thompson describes' three great tortuous bends, which brings it up to Lake Kamloops, which empties into it (I am describing the river up stream). Lake Kamloops is 20 miles long by 5 miles wide. From this lake the river continues its course to the east and north, receives the waters of North River, and extends to Shushwap Lake, which also discharges into the Thompson. Shushwap Lake, a fine sheet of water, situated in a rich pastoral country, 45 miles long, 5 to 10 miles wide, and studded with islands, receives the waters of two other lakes, which discharge by the Barriere River, as well as those of two rivers of considerable length which rise in the. range that divides the valley of the Fraser from that of the Columbia. The lake is a little below the 51st parallel of north latitude, and the 119th degree of west longitude passes over the east end of it. Kamloops Lake is about a degree further west, and about 12 miles further south. The Tranquille and the Copper Biver both fall into the latter lake. "A few miles from the east end of Lake Kamloops, where, as I have said, the Thompson is joined by the North River, and which is its principal affluent, the Hudson's Bay Company's fort of Kamloops stands. This has always been an important trading station of the fur trade. Since the discovery of gold it has acquired an increased importance, and carries on a large trade with the miners in the district. "The North River, already mentioned, runs nearly due north for a great portion of its course. Correctly speaking, it runs from the north, but I am describing as if I were ascending the river. This river has several tributaries of great length, some rising far to the eastward in the watershed of the great valley of the Fraser, and others draining a long chain of lakes stretching far up into the country beyond the 53rd parallel of north latitude, and embracing nearly three degrees of longitude; while its 'head waters' flow from a range which is the watershed of Swamp River, flowing in an opposite direction into the Cariboo countrv. 64 ttfit "All the streams which I have mentioned are auriferous— those which are tributary to the Thompson itself,, and those which are tributary to its affluents. 11 have returns of last season's workings from some of them,. " Such portions of the Thompson as run through somewhat level ground are also auriferous. Seven miles from Kamloops, 150 miners worked upon one of such portions and made $16 a day to the man, ' rocking' on the ' bars' in the bed when the river was low. The banks are very extensive, but require water ditches for 'washing' them, as they run high. Tranquille yielded $7, $15, and $20 a day to 'a crowd of Chinamen.' North Biver gave $8 to $10 a day to the hand; and on the Barriere a community of French Canadians made as high as $50 a day to the hand. Beyond the portions of North Biver,. which have been worked for gold near its embouchure, the country hereabouts has not been prospected. This is about the centre of the colony, and about 80 miles of this space from south to north, by about 100 miles from east to west, have not been developed. It may be auriferous; but its character on the face of the soil is pastoral. It is a high table-land which produces abundant pasture, free from forest, and only interspersed with timber. Its climate in summer is dry and equable, and in winter cold, but not severe; and noted for its salubrity. In fact, the climate of British Columbia is good throughout the whole extent of the country, and there is no drawback except from the presence of mosquitoes in summer. These insects are so numerous as to form a pest while they prevail. "I fear I am getting tiresome, and must hasten to close this part of the subject by retracing my steps down the North River to Fort Kamloops. If we could pursue a straight western course from the Fort to Fraser River for about 100 miles we should strike the new town of Lillooett, situated at a point where the two great routes of travel into the interior meet that from Hope and Lytton by the river, and that by the Harrison Valley and the Lillooett chain of lakes. Lillooett is the great final starting point to the northern mines, and beyond this there is no made road/ and no other means of transport than horses, mules, and what the miners expressly term 'footing it.' "Lillooett is distant from the mouth of the Fraser (on the gulf of Georgia) by the river route, via Hope, Yale, and Lytton, 220 miles; and by the Harrison route, via Harrison Lake, by steamer, Douglas, portages, and four lakes, crossed by steamers, 238 miles. The first route commands steamers up to Yale, the rest of the 65 journey must be ridden or walked. The other route commands steamers to Douglas, a stage coach thence to Williams' Lake 29J miles, on a road made along the Harrison River, chiefly by the Royal Engineers; an open boat on the first lake of 5 miles, steamers on the other three lakes, which are together 49 miles long, and the portages between the lakes and Lillooett, which in the aggregate of the four of them are 33f miles long, can be ridden or walked. Both routes afford prospects of beauty and grandeur seldom seen elsewhere; but I dare not trespass on your space so far as to describe them, nor could I do justice to the subject if I tried. From Lillooett to the first or lower Cariboo mines the distance is about 260 miles. "A few miles beyond Lillooett, and on the same (the west) side, Bridge River falls into the Fraser. Bridge River is very rich in gold. The Indians of the neighbourhood make considerable earnings in it, working in the rudest manner with the most inefficient implements. It was here the Bishop of Columbia found them making an ounce a-day to the hand, as I mentioned in my last letter. Nodules of pure copper have been found in the bed of the river, indicating the existence of copper veins in the neighbouring banks. "I have already stated that the Fraser yielded $3 to $15 a-day on the various points at which it has been worked, for a space of 270 miles. I shall therefore omit all further detail of the river from the point where Bridge River empties into the Fraser, about 20 miles below the 51st parellel of north latitude, up to the point where it receives the Quesnelle River a little below the 53rd parallel. This river has two branches, one of which drains Quesnelle Lake, lying a degree and a-half to the eastward of the Fraser, and which is 50 miles long. The other branch drains Cariboo Lake, which receives Swamp River and Lower Cariboo Lake, into which Keithley's Creek, one of the Cariboo streams, empties. At the junction of the two branches a town, the nearest to Cariboo diggings, is built chiefly for the supply of the latter. The place is called 'the Forks of Quesnelle.' "Both branches of the Quesnelle are highly auriferous. Mining began here in 1859, and led to the discovery of Cariboo, situate 50 miles further north. The returns for last summer were that nine out of ten of the claims paid over an ounce a-day to the hand. The river banks enable the miners to work in winter. The diggings must be rich to have retained any miners so close to Cariboo, where fortunes are made in the course of a few weeks. "There are many mining localities which I have omitted to 66 notice, my intention being to notice mining districts rather than to describe special localities. There is one grand prominent feature of the country, pre-eminent from its extent and character, which I must not omit, for without a knowledge of it no adequate conception can be formed of the era or resources of the great goldfield of British Columbia. I allude to a chain of mountains which run from our southern frontier (on 49° north latitude) in a north-westerly direction through the country, and, in fact, beyond the northern limit of the colony. This range is in many parts very lofty, runs nearly parallel to the Rocky Mountains, and bears the successive names of the Snowy Mountains, the Bald Mountains, and the Peak Mountains, from the height of several of the more elevated portions having induced the belief that these portions were detached mountains, and not parts of a connected chain. It is now known that the different eminences, which at a distance seem to be isolated, in reality form but one vast range subordinate to the Rocky Mountains. It, in fact, forms the water-shed of the great basin of the Fraser River, one side of which drains itself into the valley of the Fraser, and the other into that of the Columbia. The whole of this vast range is now known to be auriferous. It has been traced for 400 miles, and I fine and coarse gold is everywhere found on its western slopes. from Rock Creek in the south to Cariboo in the north.' Cariboo itself is but one point in the range. It is nearly all in British territory, extending, as already remarked, beyond the northern frontier of British Columbia and into the Indian territory of Stikeen, to the east of the Russian possessions on the Pacific. It is the longest stretch of continuous inland gold-bearing country yet discovered in the world. Its value and importance are incalculable both to the mother country and to these colonies, for when it comes to be efficiently worked by tunnelling, it may continue to produce gold for ages, as long, perhaps, as gold retains its value among mankind. Cariboo, the greatest and richest of all the gold districts, I described with sufficient minuteness in my last letter. I shall therefore pass it; but shall take the opportunity of supplying an omission in that letter of a case which confirms my report of the wonderful wealth of this district. Governor Douglas was good enough. to furnish me with the following statement in writing, taken down by himself from a Cariboo miner, Mr. Steele; but I received it after I had finished my letter:—• " Steele's company consisted of five partners, of which Mr. Steele, an American, was one. Their claim was on Williams's 67 Creek (Cariboo, of course). In the summer they sawed the lumber themselves and made their own sluices. Their claim did not prospect as good as many other claims. Nevertheless, they went at it with a will; made nothing the first three days; persevered, and the fourth day, made four ounces; the fifth day, ten ounces; and the sixth day, forty-one ounces, (the market value of forty-one ounces of gold in sterling is £290 4s. 2d.). From that time, after the sixth day's work, when the return rose to 41 ounces a-day, it kept increasing, until it reached 387 ounces a-day; and the last day's work yielded a return of 409 ounces. The uyq partners employed ' four hired hands \ to assist them to clear away the tailings. The claim was one of the most difficult to work, as it required eight feet to eighteen feet of top- stripping of superincumbent earth which covered the auriferous stratum or 'pay dirt.' This latter was composed of a blue clay, six feet thick, mixed with gravel and decomposed slate. The whole area of the mine worked was only eighty feet by twenty- five feet, and the yield amounted to $105,000, equal to £21,875. That so much gold was dug out of so small a space as eighty feet by twenty-five feet is a pregnant fact. It proves that the wealth buried in this remote region, lies concentrated in masses thick and plentiful, which is corroborated by the shortness of the period of labour—not over two month's actual work. This is a short period to have earned £21,875 in, certainly, yet the exuberance of the gold of these mines is more clearly demonstrated by the rapidity of the accumulation. I shall show this result more clearly by converting Mr. Steele's gold ounces into American currency. The produce of the labour of the first day that the claim yielded anything was $68; that of the next day, $170; of the folio wing, day, $697; and so on, increasing until it reached the astounding sum of $6579 in a day; and culminated in a | return' of $6953 on the ' last day's work.' " To prevent any exaggeration in my conversion of the gold- dust, I have taken the money value of the ounce at $17, although the average value of Cariboo ' dust' is $17 65c. and 37-1000th, so that I am under the mark. In other words, this company's gold produced to the partners more money in the market than I have valued it at. Their gold may have been worth $18 the ounce. " To show still more clearly to your English readers the prospects and rewards of labour in British Columbia, I will paraphrase Mr. Steele's statement, which will place it in another and, perhaps, more practical light. I will suppose that the five miners I 1H iifill : J| J § '1 i | If I I iV i . H l H who owned this mining claim were Englishmen, and that they had sent their earnings home. The gold would, by the rub of trade, go to the Bank of England, and be converted into sterling money—say in London. I will deduct all the charges of remitting the bullion (gold dust), and then see what the miners would have net money in London. The fruit of their first day's 'yield' would be £13 10s. 2d.; of the next day's yield, £34 14s. 2d.; the following day's yield, £1,343 4s. 3d.; and the last day's yield would be £1,419 lis.' 5d. The mine would have been to them a prolific mother, for the last day's return shows an increase of £76 7s. 2d. over and above the general run of the yield of 'lucky days,' as the miners term their successful and satisfactory periods. Mr. Steele's return of the gross yield was corroborated by the quantity of gold-dust brought to Victoria, where he remained for some time. Indeed, the miners seldom exaggerate their earnings. Their general reports take opposite direction. Their partners return to their claim in Cariboo in the spring to resume work, and they expect to do much better next season, as the mine is already well opened. To have made the statement complete, I should have mentioned that the four hired men did not share in the profits. They were paid $8 a day wages and ' found;' and they did not work during the whole season. " In reading the returns of the daily labours of the miners, as well in my former letters as in this one, you will be surprised to find no mention made of small earnings. None are lotv, while all are high—which, without explanation, would induce a doubt as to the accuracy of my reports. The omission looks certainly as if the miners ' geese were all swans.' The fact is, we never hear of the low earnings. They are never reported; and, on a broad view of the actual circumstances at present attaching to British Columbia mining, I may assert that there are no low earnings. Here is exactly how the matter stands: Some of the Chinamen, while serving their novitiate, are satisfied with such poor diggings as yield only $1 to $2 a day, but they are soon forced by their taskmasters, who paid their expenses from China and San Francisco, and for whose benefit they labour, and who tax them both for repayment of these expenses and for a profit on the venture, to abandon such poor diggings for richer. And as to white miners, not one of them will work for the small earnings I have mentioned. If a miner cannot fall upon a rich ' claim,' he will hire himself to other more fortunate claim- owners, who will pay him from $5 to $10 a day, according to %>^i 69 location and circumstances. In this way it comes that no poor diggings are worked. The surface of the mineral region is being 'skimmed'—not efficiently worked. But by and by the miners will be satisfied with ground which they now reject. The time is distant, however, owing to the extent of the field, unless the country receives a large addition to its mining population. I suppose it would take half a million of miners to bring the mines into play. It would take a much larger population to developc them efficiently. " Another cause influences the miner in his conduct. Wages generally are high for all kinds of labour. Common labourers get $3 a day at the lowest, some get more. Farm labourers get £6 a month and are ' found.' I pay an English labourer, whom I found working on the roads, £10 a month, and he ' finds' himself, for looking after my horse and doing odds and ends about the place. This was his pay from the road contractor. Mechanics get $5—£1—a day. With these rates of wages in competition with mining, and with the prices of provisions very high in the remote mining country, owing to the expense of transport, the miner naturally abandons poor diggings which yield a low return ; so you understand why there are no low returns. " In the foregoing sketch I have confined my observations to such portions of the country as have been proved to be auriferous. To give a perfect description of the goldfield is out of the question. In fact, much of it is still undiscovered, and must continue unexplored in a country of such dimensions as British Columbia, extending over five degrees of latitude, and embracing a great portion of ten degrees of longitude, and which contains some 200,000 square miles of surface. Such an extent of country, and having such resources of gold, silver, and other metals, and a large quantity of agricultural and pastoral land, is an empire, and will require a large population even to explore it thoroughly. Suffice it to say, that as gold has been discovered at many points all over this vast surface, and in quantities hitherto unequalled, the goldfield of British Columbia is, practically, illimitable, and its wealth inexhaustible. " My advice to emigrants from the old country will be short, and while it can easily be remembered, cannot be misunderstood. British Columbia wants, two classes only—men with money and men with bodily strength—capitalists and labourers* Both classes will do well. The one will find lucrative employment for its capital, the other still more profitable employment for its labour. If either fails it will be its own fault. Should either HJMfc mm ill ! 70 of these two classes be married, let them bring their wives and families; the more numerous the progeny the better." "To be continued " is the pregnant line with which this information concludes. Gradually but surely The Times will turn the tide of English emigration towards British Columbia, and perhaps of all the noble work The Times has achieved, not any will be more worthy of renown and gratitude than that of making known a colony whose natural qualifications are won- drously similar to those of England, and the value of which the Government have failed in impressing upon the public, in spite of voluminous blue books, and much parliamentary and official industry. CHAPTER VI. THE EMIGRANT'S GUIDE TO BRITISH COLUMBIA ; VARIOUS ROUTES, &C. As the great majority of emigrants to British Columbia during the present year will belong to one of two classes, the first capitalists, the second comparatively poor but strong men, going out to seek fortune, it would appear the best course that the tenor of these observations should be addressed to both. But this is an error. To offer suggestions to capitalist classes would be a waste of time. They have most advantages at their command, and those they have not, they can pay for. With the comparatively poor, yet not poverty-stricken, emigrants who go out blessed with determination and strength, it is a different matter. This book would be incomplete without a few observations directed to these classes. The emigrant most wanted in British Columbia is the small farmer who in England has been the master of a few acres. The best mode of emigration such a man can adopt is to set out in partnership with several of his own class. The advantages to be derived from such a partnership are that those who compose it will be able to work together, and avoid much outlay for labour, which, in the new colony, is scarce and dear. La^ bourers in British Columbia are all tending to the gold fields, which are no more productive than the agricultural field will, in its way, soon be, the rising demand for food in the colony of course rising with the population. Many thousands of emigrants will - sail for British Columbia with the end of trying their fortunes at gold-finding; but as many more will make for the colony led away by the splendid announcements published of the per- ^.li 71 fection and capabilities of the soil. To these latter we are as desirous of offering our counsel as to the former. Farming in British Columbia, on a large scale, cannot yet be recommended; precisely for the reason we have assigned as that which induces us to recommend all small farmers to emigrate in companies—the great demand for labour, and its small and exorbitantly priced supply. The expense of agriculture on a large scale in British Columbia would be enormous; and again, the circumstances of to-day in a new colony differ widely from those of to-morrow, and, therefore, the agricultural capitalist might find that after vast expense and trouble, the tide of emigration might be turned in another direction than that which it favored when he made his calculations. He would consequently be a great loser. On the other hand, the small farmer would have laid out but the capital of strength, and this he could not lose, while his labour, if not, under such supposed circumstances, very remunerative, would at least supply him with daily necessaries. The small farmer must sooner or later make money. Such a man can buy land on easy terms, land which in the course of a short period must rise very much in value, and which in the course of years he will be able to sell at a good profit. Nor need he. pay the entire purchase-money of an estate upon taking possession of it. The Government give every facility for payment by instalment upon the purchase price of four shillings and two pence per acre. Nor it is absolutely imperative that the emigrant shouldpurchase land. He is able to squat upon unsurveyed lands, and he may rest assured he will obtain a title when they are^ surveyed. Good land in the neighbourhood of towns is by this time almost wholly appropriated. It seems to be pretty well ascertained that by far the greater portion of all the agricultural land in British Columbia is good, although in many places it is light and sandy. Again, the majority of witnesses speak in favour of the general climate of the colony, both winter and summer. Men fond of sport will not lack for excitement in British Columbia. It, however, has one drawback in the shape of rattlesnakes, which however are confined to the interior of the mainland. The mosquito is very troublesome in low swampy parts, but in all probability it will decrease as agriculture advances. With respect to the kind of emigrants of value to the colony, it has been said that the most available man, apart from the gold digger, is the small farmer, who has a little capital and can endure hard work. As to the labour required on the gold fields, it may per- Bit haps be asserted that any moderately strong, willing, healthy,lind temperate man will find his account in venturing, with some amount of caution, upon this labour. Another class of emigrants much required in British Columbia is working women. A recent writer on this subject says: — "Maids of all work I must say would be quite as welcome as flowers in May, and, indeed, they would very soon become wives of all work, for if there is one thing more than another a miner sighs for after a hard day's work, is to see either his tent, or his log hut, brightened up by the smiles of a woman, ,and tidied by woman's hand; for truth to tell, men themselves are but poor hands at keeping a hut or a tent in order. It is one of the misfortunes of British Columbia in general, and of the mining districts in particular, that they possess few women. Especially at the gold fields, men stand up to look at a woman go past, and I have known the arrival of a fresh female face in a gold digging district create such a stir that the miners have knocked off work for the day, and had a kind of here and there meeting over the event. Whence the new arrival has come—what she is going to do— who has sent for her—has she come of her own accord—and who knows her—these are the questions asked a hundred times over amongst the little groups which assemble on such high days and holidays as those upon which women arrive at the diggings." A writer in The Times, speaking on this subject, says:—"I believe there is not one to every 100 men at the mines ; without them the male population will never settle in this country, and innumerable evils are the consequence. A large number of the weaker sex could obtain immediate employment as domestic servants at high rates of wages, with the certainty of marriage in the back ground. The miner is not very particular—' plain, fat, and 50,' even would not be objected to ; while good-looking girls would be the nuggets, and prized accordingly. An emigration of such a character would be as great a boon to the colony as I am sure it would be to the many of the under paid, under fed, and over-worked women who drag out a weary existence in the dismaTback streets and alleys with which London is crowded." It is almost impossible to give any very accurate information respecting the expense of reaching British Columbia, or rather Victoria, Vancouver's Island, from England. The intending emigrant must search the second page of The Times for information on this point, and it varies daily. The West India Royal Mail Steam Packet Company advertise the overland route in thirty- five days, through to San Francisco, which is considerably below 73 Victoria, at £35 and upwards. The Cyclone, which is to be followed by other vessels belonging to her owners, has just sailed, direct round by Cape Horn, the long route, the fares being, first cabin, 50 guineas; second cabin, 35 guineas; third cabin, 25 guineas. The overland route is by far the quickest, in fact via Panama one may reach the new gold fields in one-fourth the time it takes by the direct—that is, the long route. But on the other hand, by the latter course the traveller avoids crossing Panama and its bay, both of which are horribly unhealthy. Should the intending English emigrant, by the Panama route, not leave England till the present month of April is ended, we strongly advise him to go by the long route round Cape Horn. By the direct road he would reach Panama just as the unhealthy season is setting in. He would run considerable danger of being seized with yellow fever, which, supervening on a long confined voyage, would be attended with great danger. Perhaps in this place it will be as well to lay down a few observations with respect to the food of the new emigrant. It is not advisable to consume much of the salmon and other fish which is so plentiful in the colony. Mutton, beef, plain potatoes and bread, tea, and a little spirits, form about the best regimen that can, for a time, be adopted. Again, addressing intending and working emigrants, it may be said that upon arriving in the colony, their bodies, after the long sea voyage, are not in a condition to meet the difficulties of a gold miner's work, and therefore it is desirable, if possible, to take a probationary course of lighter work before attention is turned to the gold fields; indeed, all men should be advised not to refuse good wages on their arrival in the colony. Until emigrants become thoroughly acquainted with the labour of the country they are of comparatively little value to employers. With regard to outfit, Mr. Anderson says:—" Every miner is recommended, by whichever road he may travel to the Couteau mines, to supply himself well beforehand, as he can depend upon little in that region, save what is imported by himself and -others." Mr. Anderson does not here mean that the emigrant should burden himself with a vast quantity of materials. There can be no greater mistake than this. The Government, in their general recommendation to all intending emigrants, say:—" The following is a list of the principal articles required; but it cannot be too strongly impressed, as a general rule, that the more abundant the stock of clothing each person can afford to take, the better for health and comfort during the voyage." Single Man's Outfit. 1 beaverteen jacket (warm lined) 1 ditto waistcoat with sleeves 1 ditto trousers (warm lined) 1 duck ditto 1 coloured drill jacket . 1 ditto trousers 1 ditto waistcoat . 1 pilot overcoat or jacket Or, 1 waterproof coat . 2 blue serge shirts, or Jersey frocks 1 felt hat .... 1 Brazil straw hat 6 blue striped cotton shirts, each 1 pair of boots 1 pair of shoes 4 handkerchiefs, each . 4 pairs worsted hose, each 2 pairs cotton hose, each 1 pair braces 4 towels, each Razor, shaving-brush, and glass s. d. 6 6 4 6 6 6 2 3 2 9 2 6 2 0 10 0 7 6 4 6 2 0 0 10 1 6 8 6 5 0 0 6 1 0 0 9 0 3 0 4 1 6 It will be seen that the expense is very slight, while the quantity is not burdensome. It is really a valuable list of the clothing wanted by the emigrant. If any article is more necessary to be added than another, it is Guernsey shirts, both thick and thin, for while the former afford great warmth, the latter are unequalled by any other kind of clothing in hot weather. By the way, boots are bad wearing at sea, shoes, and slippers especially, are the most useful wear. The Government Emigration Commissioners recommend the following recipe as a capital one for keeping leather soft when exposed to the action of sea water—"Linseed oil, 1 gill; spirits of turpentine, 1 oz. ; bees' wax, 1 oz.; Burgundy pitch, 1 oz. To be well melted together, and kept covered in a gallipot. Lay it on the leather rubbing it in well, and set the shoes or slippers in a hot sun or before the fire." It may be well here to add that the intending emigrant should provide himself before starting out with a store of lime juice, sulphate of quinine, some mercurial preparation, and a half dozen of bottles of champagne. The first of these articles is a great health-preserver during long voyages, and though unpleasant at Ik sss m first, it soon becomes palatable. The sulphate of quinine is an admirable stimulant, which, if it should do no good, can by no possibility cause any harm. It may however, be the means of preventing yellow fever when the emigrant reaches tropical latitudes. The dose of this medicine is about as much as will lie on a fourpenny piece, melted in a glass of water with which a few drops of sulphuric acid have been mixed. The mercurial preparation is for use should yellow fever, or its premonitory symptoms, set in. Any druggist should know how to prepare it if told, that it is to be used as a preventive to yellow fever. He will give full directions with the medicine. The champagne will perhaps save life should the fever really set in. A bottle of champagne is the new and most approved remedy in cases of yellow fever. Many emigrants have a desire to take out with them all the tools they have used in England. This is a mistake. The expense of carriage, especially overland, is very considerable. However favourite tools, if small, should not be left behind. Their features, being old friends, are better with the emigrant than not. Emigrants may also be assured that economy is a great element of success at the gold fields. To spend money on luxuries at these spots is literally eating gold, so exorbitant have been the charges, even for necessaries, on all recent occasions when the supply of all kinds of necessaries is not so great as the demand. By temperance and abstinence from gaming, money-making at the British Columbian gold diggings seems almost as certain as any speculation in the world can be. "Sale of Crown Lands. British Columbia.—All town and suburban lots and surveyed agricultural lands are to be offered for sale, in the first instance by public auction; and if not sold, may afterwards be purchased by private contract at the upset price, 4s. 2d. per acre, to be paid on delivery of the deed of grant. "Pre-emption Bights.—Settlers can obtain without immediate payment small portions of unsurveyed land. "British subjects and aliens who shall take the oath of allegiance may acquire unoccupied, unreserved, and unsurveyed Crown Lands (not being the site of an existent or proposed town or auriferous land, or an Indian reserve or settlement) in fee simple on taking possession and recording their claim with the nearest resident magistrate, to any quantity not exceeding 160 acres. The fee to the magistrate for this record is 8s. " When the Government survey shall extend to the land thus pre-empted, as it is termed, the claimant or his heirs or (if he F shall have obtained from the nearest magistrate a certificate that he has made permanent improvements thereon, to the value of 10s. an acre) his assigns shall be entitled, if there has been a continuous occupation of land, to purchase it at 4s. 2d. per acre, " Priority of pre-emption is secured by the person in occu^ pation who shall first record his claim. " On payment of the purchase-money the purchaser obtains a conveyance, which, however, reserves to the Crown the precious minerals, with the right to enter and work them by its assignees and licensees; but if this right is exercised, reasonable compensation is to be made for the waste and damage done, to be settled in case of dispute by a jury of six. " In addition to the land thus 'pre-empted,' the claimant may purchase any quantity of unsurveyed land not otherwise appropriated by an immediate payment of 4s. 2d. an acre." ' \ Sale of Crown Lands. Vancouver's Island.—The Crown lands in this island are divided into four classes: (1) country lands; (2) mineral lands; (3) town lands ; (4) suburban. " Price.—The upset price of all country land is to be 4s. 2d. per acre. "Pre-emption.—Male British subjects, and aliens above the age of eighteen, who shall take the oath of allegiance, may preempt, as it is termed, in any district (not being an Indian reserve or settlement) unsold Crown lands to the extent of 150 acres for a single man, and 200 acres for a married man, whose wife is resident in the colony, with an additional ten acres for each of his children under eighteen years of age, if also resident. " British subjects who may have become subjects or citizens of any foreign state must take the oath of allegiance before they can exercise the right of pre-emption. "Immediately after occupation, the pre-emptor must record his claim at the office of the surveyor-general.at Victoria, paying a fee of 8s. 4d. " Unsurveyed Zand.—The lots which may be selected for pre-emption must be of a rectangular (square) form, the shortest side* being two-fifths the length of the longest side, and the boundaries must run as nearly as possible by the cardinal points of the compass; but natural boundaries may be taken where they exist. The claimant must give the best possible description thereof, in writing, with a map, to the surveyor-general, and identify the land by placing a post at each corner of the lot. " Surveyed Zand.—The description of these must be based on the landmarks of the government survey. m • 77 " Payment.—If the land be unsurveyed, the claimant must, as soon as it is surveyed, pay into the Land Office at Victoria the purchase-money, at the rate of 2s. 4d. per acre. If the land be already surveyed, the payment is to be made in three separate instalments, the first of Is. Id. per acre, within one year from the date the claim was recorded; the second, of a similar sum, within two years from such date; and the balance of 2s. an acre within three years. On any default in payment the pre-emption'claim, and any paid-up instalments, are fofeited. ."Priority of title is secured by the person in occupation who first records his claim. " When any person ceases to occupy pre-empted land for two months, the surveyor-general may summarily cancel his claim, and record de novo the claim of a fresh applicant. " When the Crown, or its assignee, acts on the reserved right to enter land and work the precious metals, reasonable compensation for waste and damage is to be paid to the landholder. Disputes on this point are to be settled by a jury of six men, to be summoned by the Surveyor-General. " Gold Regulations.—The following is the substance of the Gold Fields Act, 1859, passed on the 31st of August of that year, which came into operation as regards Queen Charlotte's Island, on the 1st of January, 1860, and as regards the rest of British Columbia on the 1st of September, 1859. " This Act and the former regulations will be found printed in full in the Appendix to the Engineer Commissioners' Annual Report for 1861. "The Governor may appoint Gold Commissioners, who, within certain district, may issue ' free miners' certificates,' authorising the holder to mine upon Crown lands, and may register claims (i.e** allotments of auriferous land to individual miners); £1 is to be paid for a free miner's certificate, which must be countersigned by the miner and is not transferable, and 4s. for the registration of a claim. Each is valid for a year. 1 The Gold Commissioner is to possess all the authority of a Justice of the Peace, with power to try and settle summarily all miners' disputes and abate encroachments. He is to be Judge of law and fact, subject to an appeal to the Supreme Court, when in civil cases the value of the matter in dispute exceeds £20., or when in criminal matters the fine exceeds that sum, or the imprisonment exceeds 30 days. He may also mark out plots of 5 acres for the occupation of the miners as gardens or residences, and other plots for the occupation of traders. f2 78 i 1 The Governor may also lease auriferous lands under regulations to be prescribed by himself. " On the petition of 100 free miners in any district, the Governor may establish a ' Mining Board,' to consist of from six to twelve persons, elected by the miners. A majority of the Board, with the concurrence of the Gold Commissioner, or of two- thirds without that concurrence, may make by-laws respecting the size of claims, sluices, registration, and mining matters generally. Three members are to retire annually, but are eligible for immediate re-election. "A person convicted (after his election) of misdemeanour, felony, or assault with a deadly weapon, vacates his office, and is not re-eligible. " The Governor may dissolve the Board, or in the absence of a Board may make by-laws for the above purposes. " Pending the constitution of these Boards, the Governor, in exercise of the power reserved to him by the 12th section of the Act, issued a set of regulations, of which the substance is as follows :— " j The size of registered claims is to be,— " ' In dry diggings 25 by 30 feet. In bar or river diggings, 25 feet in breadth from the highest line to which the river rises in flood indefinitely into the stream. " ' Provision is made for letting " exclusive water privileges," for which a rent is payable to the Government equal to one day's estimated receipts per month. The privileged person is bound to supply all miners with water, and not to waste it. Divisions of 3 feet in width are to be left between claims. I 'Leases of auriferous lands may be made for periods not exceeding ten years, and of spaces not exceeding 10 acres in- dry diggings, and in river or ravine diggings half-mile in length of unworked, or 1J mile of abandoned diggings.' " " Assay Office.—The establishment of an assay office in British Columbia has recently been sanctioned by the home Government. " Banking AccoMMODATioN.T—The only banking accommodation for both British Columbia and Vancouver's Island is the Bank of British North America, Victoria, and Vancouver's Island. This bank is incorporate. The amount of the share is £50. The extent of the shareholder's liability is not great. In most colonial banks he is liable to twice the amount of the share, but in the case of the bank of British North America the liability is limited to paid-up capital. The head office of the bank is situate at 7, St* Helen's Place, Bishopsgate, London. The capital of this bank is £1,000,000, all of which is paid up." 79 CHAPTER VIL That The Times has done its very best towards populating British Columbia, and making known its value, no reasoning man will deny. The publication of the letters of The Times' own correspondent of this year will go far towards increasing next year's population returns of British Columbia. The official statement of the population in 1860, as found in the Colonization Circular for this year, gives 5,000 as the total number of whites in that colony, the official estimate for Vancouver's Island showing a similar number; but either these figures are inaccurate, or the advance in population and resources of these twin colonies have been marvellous between 1860 and the present time, for we learn that the colonies have voted £1000 towards fitting up the Vancouver's and British Columbian Court in the Great Exposition of this year, and that the Colonial Commissioners are able to indulge in the expensive luxury of forwarding to England a pine-spar 230 feet in height. The mere cost of the transport of this huge pine from the place of its growth to Kensington will be so great, that it is astounding the young colony whence it is sent should Vhave ventured upon exporting it. The act as thoroughly proves the easy circumstances of Vancouver's and British Columbian exhibitors, as their spirit and commercial enterprise. In concluding this work, we cannot do better than print the powerful "leader" in The Times which accompanied the publication of the last letter from Vancouver's Island published in that journal. It would be difficult to surpass this composition in earnestness or close reasoning. It must already have influenced the future lives of many—its perusal has been, and will be, the turning point in the lives of thousands. As it stands we give it—a very monument of energy and outspoken candour directed to one of the best of purposes, that of advancing the condition of our struggling countrymen. " Many of us have seen in our travels, and some of us may often see at our own homes, the sudden clearing of a mist from a magnificent landscape. The morning rose over a sea of fog, in which it was just possible to discern a few hills or inequalities of surface. All at once the pall lifts. Then are seen, distinct and bright, mountains and vales, broad reaches of winding rivers^ green meadows, dark woods, bold bluffs, and snug recesses, lakes below lakes, horizon beyond horizon, perhaps snowy peaks and the distant ocean. What the eye cannot reach the mind may if i m w.m 80 supply and may summon to the imagination, the swarming hives of industry, the warm homes of rural wealth and happiness, the busy haunts, the sweet retreats, scattered over that fair scene. This is just such a change as has come very suddenly indeed over a portion of that ideal landscape, the map of the British Empire, $ But the other day, as recent as the Oregon Treaty, when we were told of the line that must henceforth be the southern limit of British America, people shivered at the thought of the territory left to us by American audacity. Vancouver's Island and the neighbouring mainland were believed to be fit only for the hardy settlers of the Hudson's Bay Company—a region of ice, mud, and mist—where one could do nothing but hunt the fur-bearing animals. The Americans, of course, had managed to keep California to themselves, and left us forests and swamps, Indians and bears. The Dutchman who gave his name to Vancouver's Island might find the place as inhabitable as his own Boeotian soil; but the Englishman had too much affinity with brighter suns and livelier races to exist in a region which was supposed to be something between Labrador and Tierra del Fuego. All at once the veil is raised, and in the letters of our Correspondent, more than ever in the one which we publish today, this dull and heavy region stands out as a Land of Promise^ an El Dorado, a Canaan, the glowing West, over which the golden sun, ever travelling westward, sinks at last into the sea* Nothing Can be more beautiful than the country hitherto so mysteriously hid from Our eyes. Nowhere is there such a field for adventure, and so good an opening for that surplus population and struggling enterprise, and dissatisfied ambition, that fret, and boil, and threaten to burst the bounds of this narrow isle. I The letter of ' Our Own Correspondent' is very much in the form of a Handbook for British Columbia. The brief and Cursory notice, which is all he can give to our prosperous settlements, shows how rapidly the supposed desert has become populous and industrious. So rapidly, however, has one discovery followed Upon another, that by the time any one of our readers could land at Victoria he would probably find the last novelty more attractive than any here described. But here is a region conj siderably larger than the British Isles, of as habitable a climate, and apparently containing as much productive land. A magnificent chain of mountains rims from north to souths subsidiary to the Rocky Mountains, to all appearance an inexhaustible treasury of gold for all ages. All the streams flowing from these mountains are auriferous, and it is the mere washings brought 81 down from them that have hitherto been explored. The beds of the Fraser and its two principal branches, making together a thousand miles, and the beds of more than sixty smaller tributaries flowing westwards from the mountains, all contain gold. There are vast placers, or plains, underlaid with gold. The ' dirt' lies in such abundance as is nowhere else to be found; but its quantity alone is not the chief point. Running water is necessary to separate the gold from the rubbish brought with it from the mountains, and, while water is often only obtained with much difficulty and cost in California, and as often not to be had at all in Australia, it always abounds in British Columbia. There is, too, a singular disposition of the surface which favours the application of this useful agent. The land lies in successive levels, separated by 'benches,' as they are called, or old sea beaches, as our geologists name them; so that it is always easy to direct the water of a level to flush and scour the channels cut on the 'bench,' or the dip, to a lower level. It is true that the canals required to bring this water to the gold are sometimes long; but here, again, comes a further difference, much in favour of British Columbia as compared with California. The law is strong, and public opinion is sound under British rule. The capital sent to San Francisco does not return. It is invested in works which multitudes are glad to use, but refuse to pay for when the day comes. It is not so under our flag. British Columbia, thus we are told, offers a good investment both for labour and for capital. Already, in the marvellously short time that has passed since Hhe news that the Americans had managed to leave us a gold field north of their line, the country is full of costly and not less profitable operations on a colossal scale. "It is no exaggeration, but a simple fact, according to our correspondent, that the gold digging of British Columbia is a lottery in which there are no blanks; and the prizes are indeed splendid. While Indians, with rudest hand labour, and Chinese are often found getting an ounce of gold a-day, and while the hired labourers at the work, without sharing its risk, get £2 a-day, besides their keep, we are told of irve men in two months obtaining, in a spot which promised ill at first, more than £20,000. As the work, however, can only be carried on during a part of the year, perhaps the wealth of the country is more correctly represented by the wages of a labourer in permanent employment. It is probable that the class of persons whom benevolent people would wish to send out to the colony would be better adapted for some regular service than for the hardships and risks of gold digging, Such persons, by farm service, by road making, by the care of horses, and other ordinary employment, may obtain in British Columbia from 12s. to a pound a-day, besides their rations. The country is beautiful, abounding in wood, water, and grass, with a soil so deep as often to form a serious addition to the labour of the gold digger, and with the certainty of a good market for produce. How many a man born under the reign of George III. and Lord Eldon must wish himself young again, that he might try his luck in that equally favoured and less burdened land! When there are such openings before the youth of this day, we will confess that we have little patience with the numerous gentry who are daily appealing to our purses or our interest for some narrow ledge of standing room in this crowded little island. Here is a letter asking for our interest to procure a place in the Post Office, or 2s. a-week more for a youth already placed there, or a lift at the Admiralty, or some nice little corporation job, or a nomination to some very indifferent free school, or a naval cadetship, or a small living in the gift of the Chancellor. To all these people, elder or younger, lay or cleric, whatever they are, we are tempted to reply, ' Do, pray, try a new and open country. We do not mean you to plunge into the desert, to drain swamps, to cut down forests, to fight with savages, to hunt wild beasts. Of course, we do not wish you to go outtof the British pale. But here is a fair country, of much the same latitude as ours, and, being on the western coast of the continent, nearly the same climate. It abounds with every natural and material wealth. It enjoys law and order. There you will find elbow room, a fair field, and no favour. No doubt, you will see there,* as here, the dark side of human nature as well as the bright side, but you cannot find worse men there than here, or be more exposed to injustice, fraud, and other social wrongs. So go to British Columbia, and be a free man, instead of a mendicant. There you can make your own fortune. You will find it in all respects pleasanter to have made it yourself than to owe it to another ; and should you succeed, and go through the usual phases of human happiness, you will leave behind you a family of independent colonists, instead of another brood of beggars.' FINIS. ? >.) LAMBETH : PRINTED BY H. KEMSHEAD, LOWER KENNINGTON LANE.
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Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
London : W. Oliver
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Gold mines and mining--British Columbia
The handbook of British Columbia, and emigrant's guide to the gold fields, with map and two illustrations, from photographs by M. Claudet
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