sure to succeed. It is such men as these that are now flocking over to the New El Dorado. Intent upon speedy gain, they are ready to brave every risk, face every danger, and bear with every hardship and privation. Dauntless, fearless, and restless, they will brook no opposition nor restraint, but with a wild self-dependence of character, plunge, wherever gold attracts them, defying everything, and surmounting all obstacles.

There is a savage heroism in this, which the pampered conservative may denounce, but which, nevertheless, all must admire. It is such men as these that are now populating the new colony on the banks of Frazer River; they have strength, courage, and enterprise; and although chiefly Americans, they enjoy an affinity of race and language with ourselves, and will no doubt endeavour to preserve those friendly relations with us in British Columbia which ever ought to subsist between two great nations, the one the offspring of the other, and each emulous of higher advancement and the maintenance of a growing prosperity.

CHAPTER II.

THE RUSH FROM CALIFORNIA.

It was on the 20th of April of the present year, that the first rush by steamer of four hundred and fifty adventurers took place from San Francisco to the gold mines on Frazer's River, and between that time and June the 9th, two thousand five hundred people, mostly miners from the interior of California, had taken their departure from San Francisco. It was estimated then that an additional number of five thousand were collected in Puget Sound en route.

The exodus continued. All California was in a ferment; the excitement was universal.

Hundreds that would not wait for the steamer, and if they had, could not have been taken by her, set out on the journey overland, starting from Shasta and from Yreka in the north, and travelling through Oregon to the New El Dorado. This is a perfectly practicable route, and the time necessary to the performance of the journey is about eighteen days. From all points squads of miners were to be seen making for San Francisco, and to ship themselves off, or taking the direction towards Oregon. Stock was being driven overland, horses, mules, and cattle through the Puget Sound country. It was calculated that fifty thousand souls would leave California before the end of August. Business in the interior, as a natural consequence, was deranged, suspended, or broken up, rents were diminishing, and all, save San Francisco, was being deserted; the latter city was rejoicing at the great influx of the miners, and still more at the prospect of the new trade with the Frazer River settlement. Storekeepers from the interior were hurrying down to set up as inerchants in San Francisco, and all was uproar and delight.

It was on July the 8th that on the order for its second reading, Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer Lytton, Secretary of State for the Colonies, brought prominently, in an able speech, before the House of Commons a Bill for the Government of New Caledonia; of that extensive region, which extends from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, a region which has hitherto been alone trodden by the Red Indian, or the traders of the Hudson's Bay Company in the pursuit of peltries.

The bill proposed to constitute the district of "New Caledonia," on the north-west coast of America, a British colony, saying, "Whereas divers of her Majesty's subjects and others have, by the license and consent of her Majesty, resorted and settled there for mining and other purposes, and it being desirable to provide for the civil government of such territories, it is proposed to enact that her Majesty shall be enabled, by order in Council, to provide for the making of laws for the government of the colony; her Majesty is, as soon as she may deem it expedient, to constitute a local council and assembly, to be appointed or selected, sub

ject to such regulations as may be considered suitable to the requirements of the colony."

The bill does not empower the crown to annex Vancouver's Island to the mainland, but there is a clause conferring that authority at a future date, should the legislature of Vancouver pray for such incorporation, the present object being simply to provide some form of government, deferring a fuller measure until the colony is more advanced, and its character and circumstances are more decided than they can be for some time to come.

The solution of the question, which had from time to time been raised, as to what should be done with the territories which the Hudson's Bay Company have held under royal license during the last forty years, was forced upon the cabinet by the gold discoveries.

It is a difficult thing to form any kind of government for such men, desperate, heedless, un

* This measure was to empower the crown for a period of five years to make laws for the district by orders in council, and to establish a legislature, such legislature to be appointed in the first instance by the Governor alone, but subsequently it would be open to establish a representative assembly.