in almost every instance that the Spaniards had been before him.

From this time down to the final abandonment of this part of the coast by the Spaniards, and the plant

after which names were given to Gardner Canal, points Hopkins, Cumming, Hunt, and Pearce, Hawkesbury Island, Cape Ibbetson, Pitt Archipelago, 'after the Right Honorable William Pitt, Stephens Island, after Sir Philip Stephens of the admiralty,' and Grenville Canal. Canal del Principe was navigated and named by Caamaño. Some of the other places seen and named by Vancouver in this voyage were Brown Passage, after the commander of the Butterworth;' Dundas Island, after the Right Honorable Henry Dundas; Point Maskelyne, 'after the astronomer royal;' Point Ramsden, after Mr Ramsden, the optician;' Cape Fox, 'after the Right Honorable Charles James Fox; ' Point Alava, in compliment to the Spanish governor at Nootka;' Slate Islet; Point Nelson, 'after Captain Nelson of the navy;' Point Sykes, after one of the gentlemen of the Discovery;' points Trollop, Fitzgibbon, Lees, Whaley, Escape, Higgins, Davidson, Percy, and Wales, the last named in honor of his schoolmaster; Burrough Bay; Traitor's Cove; Revilla Gigedo Island; Behm Canal; Cape Northumberland; Portland Canal; Moira Sound; Wedge Island, after the surgeon of the Chatham;' Walker Cove, 'after a gentleman of the Chatham;' Bell Island; after Mr John Stewart, one of the mates,' Port Stewart; points Le Mesurier, Grindall, Rothsay, Highfield, Madan, Warde, Onslow, Blaquiere, Howe, Craig, Hood, Alexander, Mitchell, Macnamara, Nesbitt, Harrington, and Stanhope; Bradfield Canal; Prince Ernest Sound; Duncan Canal; Bushy Island; Duke of York Islands; points Baker, Protection, Barrie, Beauclerc, Amelius, St Alban, Hunter, North, Frederick, Buck, and Borlase; Conclusion, Coronation, and Warren Islands; Cape Pole; Cape Henry; Affleck Canal; Duke of Clarence Strait; Englefield Bay; Prince of Wales Archipelago; Cartwright Sound; and Cape Decision, the last having been given on making up his mind that the earlist reputed discoveries of the Spaniards were fabulous. The continent between Desolation Sound and Gardner Canal he named New Hanover, to the northward of Gardner Canal as far as Point Rothsay, New Cornwall, and to the northward of New Cornwall as far as Cross Sound, New Norfolk. These with New Georgia and New Albion completed a very pretty stretch of new dedicated continent, extending from Lower California to Alaska. To this illustrious navigator be the further honor of inflicting from his endless vocabulary the nameless names of personal friendships upon the places visited by him in his voyage of 1794 as follows: Point Macartney, Sullivan, Ellis, Harris, Cornwallis, Kingsmill, Hobart, Vandeput, Walpole, Astley, Windham, Anmer, Coke, Styleman, Salisbury, Arden, Hugh, Gambier, Pybus, Napean, Woodhouse, Bingham, Sophia, Frederick, Augusta, Townshend, Gardner, Samuel, Parker, Marsden, Retreat, Bridget, St Mary, Seduction, and after the seat of my ancestors, Couverden;' Chatham Strait, after Lord Chatham;' Cape Addington, after the Speaker of the House of Commons;' ports Camden, Malmesbury, Houghton, Snettesham, Mary, Conclusion, Althrop, and Fidalgo; Prince Frederick Sound; Cape Fanshaw; Holkham Bay; Douglas Island, Stephens Passage, Barlow Cove, Seymour Canal; Cape Edward; King George the Third Archipelago; Berners Bay; Lynn Canal; points Dundas, Wimbledon, Lavinia, Latouche, Manby, Fremantle, Pellew, Pakenham, Pigot, Nowell, Culross, Countess, Waters, and Pyke; Knight Islands; Digges Sound; Wingham Island; Cape Spencer; Passage Canal; Cape Puget; Hawkins Island; Bligh Island; and points Elrington, Bainbridge, Bentinck, Witshed, Campbell, Mackenzie, and Woronzow. I think we may safely say that no one man ever gave so many geographical names, which remained permanently placed as Vancouver; I wish I might truthfully add that no one ever exercised better taste in the execution of such a task. Among the names given by the Spaniards in this region, and for the most part respected by Van

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ing of the post of Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River, by the Americans, in 1811, many ships of various nations coasted Vancouver and Queen Charlotte Islands and the adjacent mainland, chiefly for purposes of traffic with the natives, and after and along with them the adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay, first in vessels only, and then with all the paraphernalia for permanent establishments, further allusion to which is not necessary in this connection. couver, were the Canal de Revilla Gigedo, as represented on the chart of Caamaño Estrecho de Fuentes, Puerto del Cañaveral, Entrada del Carmen, Cape de Chacon, Isla de Zayas, Cabo Caamaño, Puerto del Baylio Bucareli, discovered by Bodega y Cuadra in 1775, Cabo de San Bartolomé, Puerto de Valdés, the Puerto Gravina Fidalgo; but, as a rule, the names given by Russian and Spanish explorers who had preceded Vancouver in these parts were in his re-naming ignored.

CHAPTER II.

GENERAL VIEW OF THE NORTHWEST COAST.

EASTERN PARALLELS-CONFIGURATION OF NORTH-WESTERN AMERICA-BRITISH COLUMBIA COAST-PUGET SOUND-VANCOUVER ISLAND QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS CLIMATIC SECTIONS OF THE MAINLAND-NEW CALEDONIA-HEIGHTS OF LAND-THE COLUMBIA AND FRASER PLATEAU BASIN SKEENA AND STIKEEN-OREGON, WASHINGTON, AND IDAHO NORTHWEST COAST CLIMATES-THE TEMPERATURE OF VARIOUS LOCALITIES-FAUNA AND FLORA-THE ABORIGINES-ATTITUDES OF THE FURTRADERS AND SETTLERS TOWARD THE NATIVES-PEACEFUL RÉGIME UNDER THE GREAT MONOPOLY-THE CHINOOK JARGON.

HAVING thus sufficiently refreshed our memory as to the earliest appearance of Europeans in these parts, before proceeding in chronological order with the affairs of British Columbia, I do not regard it time. lost to take a general survey of the condition of things at this juncture throughout the north Pacific slope; for although the careful reader of that part of this history entitled the Northwest Coast must have some knowledge of the present state of affairs, another glance, as at a picture of the whole, cannot fail to give a clearer and more lasting idea of the country at the beginning of what may be termed British Columbia history proper.

California is opposite Spain; Oregon and Washington are on the parallels of France; British Columbia is in the latitude of Great Britain; as the world is round and revolving, there is no reason why one side of it should be better than another. Nor is it. Civilization is harder upon soils than savagism; and the steppes of Russia and Siberia, though perhaps some

PROMINENT FEATURES.

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33

what more densely occupied, and with somewhat more advanced indigenous populations, are neither so attractive nor so virgin as the prairies, lake lands, and river and mountain districts of northernmost America. Each hemisphere has its freezing eastern side, and its warmer western side, thanks to the modifying ocean streams which come sun-beaten from the tropics; and for the rest, there is little to choose; that little, however, always being in favor of what each of us may call our own country.

The Northwest Coast, if we comprise within the limits of that term the territory from California to Alaska, and between the Rocky Mountains and the ocean, is more varied in its configuration, some would. say more grandly beautiful, than the opposite eastern. plains. The rock formations of the former are more disturbed; the region is mountainous, with a high irregular plateau between two principal ranges, subordinate plateaus intervening in places between subordinate ranges, and all having in the main the general trend of the coast. Thus dropping the appellation of the great continental chain which binds the two Americas from Alaska to Patagonia, and adopting local nomenclature, we have for the representatives of the Bitter Root Mountains of Idaho, taken collectively, the Purcell, Selkirk, Columbia, Cariboo, and Omineca mountains of British Columbia; the Cascade Range is a continuation of the Sierra Nevada; Vancouver and Queen Charlotte islands are a continuation of the Coast Range; the great plateau region of the Columbia, the Fraser, and the Skeena rivers is a continuation of the Utah and Nevada basin.

Western British Columbia is essentially mountainous, breaking on the border into innumerable islands and ocean inlets, presenting a bold rocky front, heavily timbered to the water's edge.

Exceedingly beautiful and very grand is the water system of Puget Sound, and the labyrinth of straits, inlets, bays, and islands all along the coast of British

HIST. BRIT. COL. 3

Columbia. And while St Lawrence Gulf and Lake Superior are wrapped in biting cold, roses sometimes dare to bloom here, and green pease and strawberries to prepare for their early gathering.

The island of Vancouver presents a mountainous interior, subsiding at either end, and at places along its eastern side. The shores are exceedingly picturesque, bold, rocky, and rugged, broken on the western side into numerous bays and inlets like those of the mainland, with intervening cliffs, promontories, and beaches, while on the northern and eastern sides the absence of ocean indentations is remarkable. The island is generally wooded, the borders with fir, back of which are hemlock, and the mountains with cedar. Between the ridges which cross and interlace are small valleys affording but moderate agricultural facilities; but on the southern and eastern border there are extremely fertile tracts susceptible of easy cultivation, the open spots offering the first attraction to settlers. Lakes, streams, and water-falls everywhere abound, though the rivers are none of them large

The Queen Charlotte Islands are mountainous, like all adjacent lands; and while there are tracts, particularly around the border, which might be successfully cultivated, it is more to the mineral resources here embedded that we must look for profitable returns. East of the high interior of Moresby Island is a flat belt growing alders. All these islands are densely wooded, cypress and spruce being prominent, with redundant undergrowth. The climate is mild and moist; the natives are light-complexioned, intelligent, courageous, and cruel.

Stili following the all-compelling mountains, the mainland of British Columbia may be divided into three sections, the first comprising the coastwise strip between the ocean and the eastern slope of the Cascade Range, extending back, for instance, on the Fraser as far as Yale; the second, a parallel strip