CHAPTER I

VICTORIA, V. I.

"Say, Hugh, what is that Indian doing in that canoe? I thought at first that he was paddling, but he doesn't seem to move, and that doesn't look like a paddle that he has in his hand."

"To tell you the truth, son, I don't know what he is doing. This business here on the salt water puzzles me, and everything is strange and queer. This ain't like the prairie, nor these ain't like any mountains that I've ever seen. I am beginning at the bottom and have got to learn everything. But about that Indian in the canoe, you can see that the boat doesn't move; and you can see, too, if you look sharp, that he's anchored. Don't you see that taut line reaching down into the water?"

"That's so," said Jack; "he surely is anchored, but he works his arms just as if he were paddling. I am going to ask this man over here."

Jack walked over to a sailor who stood leaning against the rail of the deck on which they were sitting, and who was looking over the water, and said to him: "Will you tell me, sir, what that Indian is doing in the canoe over there?"

The man turned his head and looked in the direction in which Jack was pointing, and said: "Yes, I can tell you what he is doing; he is fishing. Don't you see that every stroke he makes he is bringing up some herrings?"

"No, I don't see it, and I will be much obliged to you if you will describe to me how he is fishing."

"Of course I will," said the man. "You see his canoe is anchored there in that deep water, just this side of that point around which the tide runs strong. At this season of the year the herrings gather in big schools in that eddy there. Of course we don't know just how they lie, but they must be mighty thick together. That thing the Indian has in his hand is a pole about a dozen feet long, flattened on the sides, and maybe a couple of inches across in its widest part. The flattening makes the pole sort of oval shaped, if you should saw through it; and each of the narrow edges of the pole is studded with a row of sharp nails, about an inch or two apart. These nails are firmly driven into the wood and the points that stick out for about an inch are very sharp. The nails run for about one half the length of the pole. The Indian, sitting in his canoe and holding the upper part of the pole in his two hands, as you see, just as he would hold a paddle, sweeps the end of it, that has the nails in, through the water, using just the same motion that he does in paddling. The herrings down there are so thick that every time he passes the pole vertically through the water it strikes the bodies of three or four of the fish with force enough to drive the nails into them; and as the man continues the stroke they are pushed ahead of the pole. When the stroke is finished and the end of the pole brought out of the water, the fish are still sticking on the nails. Then, you will see, if you watch him, he brings the nailed end of the pole in over the canoe, taps the pole on the canoe, and the fish drop off into the bottom of the boat. Don't you see the white shiny specks on the pole every time he makes a stroke?"

"Yes," said Jack, "of course I see them, but that is a new way of fishing to me, and I never should have guessed what he was trying to do. I should think it would take a long time to get fish enough for a mess in that way."

"Don't you believe it," said the sailor; "one of those fellows may get a bushel or two of fish in two or three hours. Just you watch the pole as one brings it up and see how many fish he gets to a stroke, and then figure how many strokes he makes to a minute."

Jack watched for a few minutes and saw that at every sweep of the pole two or half a dozen fish were brought up and knocked loose so as to fall into the canoe, and he made up his mind that after all this was a quick and easy way of fishing.

In the meantime Hugh had strolled up and was listening to their talk, but without making any comment.

Presently Jack said to the sailor: "We are not near enough to make a very good guess at the size of those fish; how big are they?"

"Oh," said the sailor, "they are not very big, maybe not more than four or six inches long, but there are lots of them, as you can see. They catch oolichans in that way too, when they are here, but they have gone now. We only have them during the month of May, but then they gather in certain places and there are worlds of them. The Indians catch them, and the white folks catch them; in fact, for a little while pretty nearly everybody lives on oolichans. They are mighty good eating, I can tell you, and besides those eaten fresh, lots of them are smoked and salted. The Indians don't save many of them. What they don't eat fresh they use to make oil with, for the oolichan is an awful fat fish and you can get lots of oil out of them. They are so fat, that after they have been dried you can light them at one end and they will burn just like a candle. I expect that is the reason that sometimes they are called candle-fish."

"Say, friend," said Hugh, "you ain't joking, are you?"

"No," said the man, "I ain't joking; that's just the way it is, like I tell you."

"Well, no offence," said Hugh. "Where I come from, in the mountains and in the cattle country, sometimes the boys, when a stranger comes around, sort of josh him in a good-natured way, and tell tall stories just to see how much he will believe. I didn't know that maybe you had such a custom as that out here."

"No, sir," said the sailor, "we don't do anything like that here. We suppose that people ask us questions about the country because they want to know how things really are, and we tell them just what the facts are."

"Well," said Hugh, "it seems to me, from what I have seen, that the facts are strange enough here, and it wouldn't be necessary for you to stretch them a mite to astonish folks."

Soon after this Hugh and Jack went back to the place where they had been sitting, in the shelter of the deck cabin, and sat there looking over the beautiful view that was stretched out before them. Neither said very much. Both were impressed by the beauty of the scene and the novelty of their surroundings; for neither of them had ever seen anything like it before.

"I tell you, son," said Hugh, "this here is a wonderful country to me, and I never saw anything to match it. You see it's the first time that I ever got down to the edge of the salt water. I don't know what to make of it all. Everything is different; the mountains and timber, the people, the animals, and the birds. And as for fish--why! I never supposed there was any place in the world where fish were as plenty as they are here."

"Yes," said Jack, "it's surely a wonderful country. There is something new to look at every minute; and it's all just as different as can be from anything I ever saw before. I was talking to one of the passengers here a little while ago and he told me that these Indians here live almost altogether on fish. They dig clams and catch mussels and catch the salmon and the herrings and those little fish this sailor was talking about; and they kill seals and porpoises and even whales. It's all mighty strange, but doesn't it show just how people fit themselves to the conditions that surround them? Now, suppose you take one of the Blackfeet, turn him loose on his horse at the edge of the water, and how do you think he would go to work to get his next meal? Why, he would starve to death."

"He surely would," said Hugh. "Don't you know, that the things these Indians here eat would be sort of poison to the Blackfeet? It is against their medicine to eat fish or most anything that lives in the water. They think those things are not fit to eat, and many of them would starve before they would even touch them."

The vessel ploughed its way through the strait with the land rising high on the right and lower on the left-hand side. Both coasts were rock-bound, and the heavy swell dashed against the shore great waves, whose foam flew high into the air. Away to the south rose high rough mountains, their summits white with snow. To the north the land rose gently, and green fields, dotted here and there with white houses, stretched away for miles. Beyond were hills, forest-clad.

The travellers were busy looking in all directions at the beautiful prospect spread before them. Suddenly, not far from the ship, a great head rose above the water, remaining there for a moment looking at the boat. Jack saw it and called out to his companion: "O Hugh! that must be a sea-lion or a fur seal! It's bigger than the seals that I have seen on the coast of Maine." After a moment the head disappeared beneath the water. But in a few moments several other heads were seen; and these seals, less timid than the first, swam along not far from the boat, showing their great bodies partly out of the water, and sometimes, in chasing one another, jumping high into the air. Further along, the boat startled from the surface of the water a group of black birds. Less in size than ducks, they flew swiftly along, close to the water's surface. Jack could see that on the shoulders of each bird was a round spot of white, while the legs were coral-red.

"There is a new bird to me, Hugh, and I bet it is to you, too. That must be one of the birds they call guillemots. They live up in the North and breed on the ledges of the rock. I have read about them often."

"Well," said Hugh, "there's surely plenty to see here; and I wouldn't be surprised if you and I travelled around all the time with our mouths open, just because we are too surprised to remember to shut them."

All this time the boat was moving swiftly along. Toward afternoon she rounded a sharp point of rocks; and, proceeding up a narrow channel, the buildings of the town of Victoria were soon seen in the distance. Hugh said:

"That must be our landing place, son. I'll be glad to get ashore and stretch my legs. I take it, this here land that we are coming to is an island, and very likely there won't be a horse in the place. We'll have to do all of our travelling afoot, or in one of these cranky canoes, and I haven't much of a notion of getting into one of them. I'll be a good deal like you were the first time you got on a horse--afraid I'll fall off; and yet I don't know as they'll be any harder to ride in than the birch canoes I used to travel in up in the North."

Victoria, where our travellers landed that afternoon, was a charming, quiet town of six or seven thousand inhabitants, situated on the extreme southeastern point of Vancouver Island. For many years after its settlement it had been nothing more than the Hudson's Bay fort and trading post, with a few dwellings occupied by those employed there. But the discovery of gold in small quantities on the Frazer River in 1857, and later on at the placer mines on the Quesnelle and at Caribou, made a great change in the prospects of the place. Word of the new diggings travelled fast and soon reached California, causing a world of excitement among the mining population of that State, then ripe for a fresh move. A rush took place, and all those who travelled toward the new mines in British Columbia passed by the drowsy old Hudson's Bay fort, where hitherto the only event of the year had been the arrival of the ship from England with the mail. Now the fort was startled by the coming of twenty thousand miners, who pitched their tents about it and founded Victoria. Buildings sprang up and trade was attracted. Every one going to the mines or coming from them passed through the town and paid its tribute, and high hopes were entertained of its future importance. People who lived there began to call it "the emporium of commerce," "the metropolis of the northwest coast of America." But, unfortunately for Victoria, the mines, which caused this excitement soon ceased to pay; and the town's commerce fell off. It did not fulfil the promises of its early youth, and its growth has since been slow. Now, however, there was a prospect of speedy communication with the rest of the world; for during the summer when our travellers reached there, the Canadian Pacific Railroad was being built and the loyal inhabitants of Victoria were again anticipating that the place would become a great city--"a second San Francisco." There was reason for their hopes. While the railroad could not directly reach Victoria, its terminus on the mainland would be within easy reach of the Island City, and would give Vancouver Island a market for its products. Its trade at that time was little or nothing, for the goods sent to the United States had to pay a heavy duty, which left little margin for profit.

Hugh and Jack spent several days at Victoria. The country was picturesque and attractive, and the roads good. They took long walks into the country to the Gorge and to Cedar Hill, from which a beautiful view of the city could be obtained. The panorama included also a view of the Straits of Fuca, the Gulf of Georgia with its hundreds of islands, and the mainland, rough with mountain peaks, among which, rising above all, stood Mt. Baker, calm and white, a snow-clad monarch. While they remained in the town they lived literally on the fat of the land. Victoria boasted one of the best hotels in the world; not a pretentious structure, but one where everything that was good to eat, in abundance, well cooked and well served, was furnished. There were fish of many sorts,--salmon and sea bass, herring and oolichans, oysters and clams, crabs, game, delicious vegetables, and abundance of fruit.

Mr. Sturgis had given to Hugh a letter to an acquaintance of his in Victoria, and one day Hugh and Jack called on Mr. MacTavish. He was an old Hudson Bay man, who, after retiring from the service of the Company had come to Victoria to live. He had a delightful family, and a charming house, full of a multitude of interesting curiosities, picked up during his long service in the North. Of these, one of the most interesting was a complete set of dinner dishes, carved out of black slate by the Haida Indians of the North. While the figures exhibited on these were conventional in form and of Indian type, the carving was so remarkably good that it was hard for Hugh and Jack to believe that the work was Indian. Neither had ever seen anything done by Indians more artistic than the ordinary painted skins of the plains' Tribes; and when they saw such delicate, beautifully carved work, often inlaid with the white teeth or fragments of bones of animals, it was hard for them to understand how it all could have been done by native artists.

Mr. MacTavish told them much about the life of the island,--the fishing and hunting. He said that at that very time, during the month of July, the salt waters of the Straits and of the Gulf of Georgia abounded with salmon, which were readily taken by trolling; and when thus taken, on a light rod, furnished fine sport. Many of the brooks of the island, too, afforded excellent trout fishing.

About Victoria there were found, he said, two species of grouse,--the ruffed grouse and the blue grouse. The California quail had been introduced and seemed to be increasing, but sportsmen did not care much for it, because it did not lie well to a dog, but ran when alarmed and took to the thickest brush, where it was impossible to shoot it. In the autumn ducks and geese occurred in great numbers; and, on the whole, shooting was good. Their host also told them there was a considerable variety of big game. Deer were abundant within a few miles of Victoria; and it was not uncommon for people, starting out in the evening, to drive into the country and return the next night with several. There were some places where still-hunting could be successfully followed; but in most cases it was necessary to use hounds to drive the deer to the water, for the timber was so thick, and the underbrush and ferns so dense and tangled, that it was impossible to travel through the forests without making a great deal of noise.

Their entertainer astonished Hugh and Jack by telling them that further north on the island, in the neighborhood of Comox, elk were to be found. They were not abundant, he said, and were hard to approach on account of the character of the forest; but they were certainly there. Bears and panthers were everywhere quite abundant. Sooke, a village about twenty miles from Victoria, was a great place for bears. Many of those killed were black or cinnamon; but it was reported that there were also grizzlies at Sooke. The panthers were little hunted, except in places where farmers had flocks or herds to protect. They lived principally on the deer, which were very abundant. There were a few wolves, but except in winter they were seldom seen.

Mr. MacTavish had a good knowledge of natural history; and he had much to say to Jack, who was interested in the subject, about the curious forms of life found in the surrounding waters. When he heard that Jack and Hugh had come up there to spend a month travelling among the islands, he told them that the best thing that they could do would be to go over to the mainland, and there make the acquaintance of Jack Fannin, a cobbler, living on Burrard Inlet, as he knew more about the birds and mammals of the Province than any other man.

"Fannin is the man for you," said Mr. MacTavish, "and you should see him before you make up your minds to do anything. He will give you the best advice possible; and perhaps you can even get him to go with you. That would be a great thing; it would add enormously to your pleasure, and would save you many delays. And as he has mined, hunted, canoed, and chopped logs over much of the coast, he knows it as well as any one."

Our friends spent a long, delightful afternoon with Mr. MacTavish, and when they spoke of returning to their hotel he would not let them go, but kept them with him for the evening meal. They walked back through the clear, cool moonlight to Victoria, and before they had reached there had agreed that they would go by the first steamer to New Westminster to hunt up Mr. Fannin.

The next day when they told Mr. MacTavish of their decision, he congratulated them on their good judgment and gave them a letter to a friend in New Westminster, who would take care of them and see that they lost no time in finding the man they wanted.

The hospitality and kindness shown the two Americans by Mr. MacTavish was typical of the treatment they received everywhere in British Columbia. People there, they found, had time to enjoy life. They did not rush about, after the headlong American fashion, but took things quietly and easily. The stores were opened about nine or ten in the morning, and at twelve they were closed. The shop-keepers went home to lunch, appearing again and reopening their places about two o'clock; keeping them open until four or five in the afternoon. Then their day's work was over and they closed up for the night.