ed British Columbia with hardy adventurers in search of the precious metal. It was then that Victoria reaped her harvest. The Hudson's Bay Company, finding their post the chief base from which to furnish supplies for the new mines, laid out at that point the present town, and sold lots to an eager army of traders and speculators for the nominal price of fifty dollars each. The company made a handsome figure by the transaction, but their first purchasers reaped a much greater profit. Desirable business - lots soon ran up in value to thousands of dollars, buildings were erected with marvelous rapidity, and the sanguine investors were confident that San Francisco would fade into insignificance before the rising splendor of their new metropolis of the North-west.

But a few short months sufficed to change the entire prospects of Victoria. With the approach of winter thousands of disappointed miners flocked back to the town, penniless, and cursing the folly which had led them to abandon a certainty of plenty in California for the hard vicissitudes of a northern winter, and had left them beggars in a strange land. They were as anxious to get back as they had been to leave the Golden State. In December, 1858, and January, 1859, Victoria was estimated to contain nearly 40,000 people, the greater part of whom were destitute of resources and eager to do anything to ward off starvation or secure a passage back to their homes. Besides the difficulty the multitude found in obtaining food, the supply of water was limited and in the hands of a few, who doled out the indispensable element at extortionate rates. Owing to the rocky nature of the soil and the difficulty of digging wells, most of the water used was gathered in broad shallow pits which collected the surfacedrainage after the rains. For the privilege of drawing a bucketful of muddy water from one of these pits, twenty

five cents was the usual charge. During this state of affairs great distress could not fail to exist in the town. Professional men were glad to get the most menial occupation. Lawyers, doctors, and clergymen could be found at work in the kitchen, or humble dependents upon the favors of those more accustomed to manual work. The gold-bubble had burst; with it went the dream of Victoria's immediate greatness. The millionaire in city-lots in September found his property comparatively valueless in March.

The gold-fields of the Frazer were found to be limited in area and irregular in their yield. Instead of giving wealth to an army of a hundred thousand miners, it was found that they would not support a twentieth of that number. The disappointment was a bitter lesson to the multitude who were congregated at Victoria, but it was a wholesome one. It gave an experience which went far to check the tendency of Californians at that time to swarm from point to point in whichever direction gold was rumored to be found.

To the American from the United States visiting Victoria, the distinctive English character of the place is particularly noticeable. As compared with the Pacific Coast towns within the limits of his own country, with their restless, energetic, driving people, who seem hardly to know what rest and recreation mean, Victoria seems almost lifeless in its business. But a residence of a few days in the town will generally show the stranger that the Victorians, though quiet in their way, do an amount of trade far surpassing that of many larger and more showy places.

The people of the town seem to live for the sake of enjoying their journey through this world instead of rushing through existence like a rocket. Their homes are plain, comfortable, and inexpensive. Their social life is pleasura

marked. The same figure, complexion, and high cheek-bones mark both races; and, when dressed in the same garb, it is often difficult to distinguish between them.

The Indians of British Columbia are more numerous and more industrious than those of the lower coast of the Pacific, and seem to take more kindly to the restraints of civilization. Perhaps this may in a measure be due to the superior policy of the Dominion Government, which casts upon the Indian more personal responsibility than is given by the United States to its native wards. While the policy of the last-named government in the management of the Indian tends to keep him an improvident vagabond and dependent, the system pursued by the Dominion of Canada is well adapted to cultivate in him a selfreliant and ambitious spirit. But on the North-west Coast, as elsewhere, strong drink and immorality are the great obstacles to bar the progress of the Indian

race.

The Indians are largely employed with profit in the fisheries, which are fast becoming a prominent source of revenue to Victoria. Large quantities of fish are also cured by the Chinese and Indians in their quarter of the town; and, between the peculiar Chinese opium smell and the pronounced presence of decayed fish, the combined odors of the orient and the occident render this part of the town anything but agreeable to the visitor.

Among the places of note in the Indian quarter is the Indian mission chapel. This is a neat little wooden edifice, built and paid for entirely by the Indian converts. It is under control of the Wesleyans. The worshipers in this church are chiefly Indians and halfbreeds, who in their Sunday attire make a most respectable-looking congregation. The Indian converts often lead in the singing and prayers, and show an ear

nest devotion too seldom seen in more aristocratic houses of worship.

The term siwash is applied to all the Indians of the coast, without regard to their tribal relations. It is a corruption of the French sauvage, which was applied to the natives by the early French explorers. The common language used between the natives and Whites in their intercourse is a jargon manufactured by the employés of the Hudson's Bay Company for the purpose. It is without a grammar or system, and seems to embrace the rudiments of words from almost every known tongue. The Indians use their native language between themselves, and only employ the jargon in talking with the outside races. This common vehicle of thought, though framed in somewhat of the style of the "pigeon English" of Hongkong and other Chinese ports, is far less intelligible to the stranger, and requires months of patient effort to master it.

The water-front and much of the immediate vicinity of Victoria consists of the naked bed-rock of the country. So destitute of soil is the portion which first greets the visitor's eyes, that it would seem as if nothing more promising than the magnificent crop of rocks could be raised. But a walk through the gardens which skirt the town to the north and east serves to reveal the possibilities of the soil and climate. Rich black loam supports fruit- trees heavily loaded and propped up with their burdens of apples, pears, and plums. Nearly all the vegetables of the kitchen - garden flourish in and about Victoria with a luxuriance unknown save on the Pacific Coast. The summers are not warm enough for the grape and peach to flourish, but the small fruits are delicious in flavor and abundant. The latitude of Victoria is higher than that of the most northern part of Maine, being about 48° 22′, and yet, owing to the warm currents of the Pacific, its mean temperature is like that

of the southern part of England. The thermometer seldom gets as low as zero in winter, or above eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit in summer. The fogs and rains keep the grasses of the country perennially green, and as but little snow falls in winter, stock is in many instances permitted to go without housing the entire year.

As with the Mohammedans everything dates from the hegira of their prophet, so with the Victorians the Frazer River rush seems to mark an era. Nearly all of the business part of the town was built at that time, and all the old firms that have survived the shock incident to the bursting of that bubble have inscribed upon their signs, "Established in 1858." None date their foundation beyond that epoch save the Hudson's Bay Company, which still does the heaviest business of the coast. Few repairs or improvements have been made to the private buildings of Victoria in the business streets since the collapse of 1858-9, and they present a weather-beaten antique appearance in consequence.

By reason of its position, Victoria is of prime importance to England as a naval station for the North Pacific. At Esquimault, four miles to the south of Victoria, is an excellent harbor for large ships. At this point the British Gov

ernment contemplates the erection of a stone dry-dock, and an appropriation of $500,000 has been made for that purpose. The Dominion Government of Canada, under whose protecting wing British Columbia was placed in 1871, is especially generous in its appropriations for public works and improvements at Victoria. Possibly these generous concessions to this little outlying English community may be prompted by a halfdefined fear that the strong and growing American interests at Victoria and Nanaimo may eventually lead to the transfer of Vancouver Island from the flag of England to that of the United States. Be that as it may, the Victorians seem to have unbounded faith in the ability and willingness of their government to make their city a great commercial metropolis. They look forth with confidence to the near future in which a Canadian - Pacific railroad shall span the continent and find its terminus at Victoria. They look to their government for the millions necessary to build and equip the road, and bridge the straits which separate their island from the main-land. When this is done the patient and hopeful Victorians will sit down in smiling contentment, and the riches of the Old World and the New will pour into their laps. Happy Victorians!

I

IN ENGLAND.

T was at school that he first made her acquaintance. He was the youngest son of an English baronet, the head of his form in the class-room, and the pride of the school in the play-ground. She was only the daughter of a draper in the town—a well-to-do respectable person enough in his way, no doubt, but assuredly not the social equal of Gerald

Langley. But it was his first love-his "calf-love" some would contemptuously have styled it-and it threw a halo of romance for him over the dreary routine of his studies, and brightened up the gray old cathedral town with a fresher poetry than he could cull from the classics.

What was it that he saw in little Ruth Gwynne to attract him? She was a

proper prim little maiden in those early days of their acquaintanceship, with scarcely an idea save what she had gleaned from notoriously puritanical parents; and he was—well, pretty much what nine out of every ten British youths are, save that Gerald was blessed, or cursed, with a poetic soul, and a strong appreciation for the beautiful both in nature and art. And many would have called Ruth pretty, even beautiful. Her hair-primly rolled up as it always was in tight plaits, or confined under a Quakerish little cap -was very abundant, and of that rare shade of brown which seems to alternate in various lights from dark to golden. Her eyes were undeniably fine, though Gerald had never satisfactorily determined in his own mind whether they were blue or gray; and for the rest, she had a complexion of lilies and roses (of which demure Miss Ruth was extremely careful), a plump little figure, and hands and feet of the daintiest. Such as she was she had all Gerald's heart, though he never could learn. if he had any of hers.

Gerald did well at Cambridge, and even achieved some literary distinction, of which he was disproportionately proud. At Cambridge, too, he made his first strong friendship. Lawrence Pagetstroke of his college boat, a crack shot, a straight and plucky rider to houndscould pick and choose his acquaintance from the best the university afforded; and, indeed, so could Langley. So it was scarcely wonderful that these two should become in a short time firm friends; so firm that, when they went to London to read for the bar and struggle out life on a younger son's allowance, they took rooms together in a dingy little street off the Strand, and smoked and read and idled and dissipated in company.

But all this time Gerald never forgot Ruth, and he took the earliest opportunity, while ostensibly paying a visit to

his old master, to call and see her. He found the queer little shop in the High Street just as he had left it. There are places that never seem to change; and persons, too, Gerald thought, when he met the demure little damsel he had come to see.

Her father and mother were out, but Ruth, with a quiet cordiality all her own, asked him to tea. Conventionalism was not very strong in the old cathedral city, and Mrs. Grundy's supervision was rarely exercised in the little Quaker's rank of life.

Needless to say Gerald accepted. He had a great deal to say, and wanted nothing better than such an opportunity of saying it. He had made up his mind to propose to the little Puritan maiden that evening, and he was not usually bashful, yet they had nearly finished tea before he saw what he considered a good opening to his subject.

Ruth was picking up crumbs absently, and Gerald was watching her with a preoccupied air. He did not see that she was aiming at the same goal as he was himself, and was now marveling at his stupidity and slowness.

"Do you know, Ruth, you remind me very much of your old ancestress-namesake rather, I mean-in the Bible, you know," he began rather nervously.

She looked up with a most encouraging smile. "How is that?"

"Well, she went in for gleaning wheat and barley, or whatever it was, the same as you are picking up those crumbs now. Do you know, I don't think I'd have let her glean too much if I'd been the old party?—at least, not if I wanted good partridge in the stubbles that year."

This was provoking. He had commenced quite hopefully, and here he was drifting away again, goodness knows where. But Ruth was a general, and she knew her time was short.

"Yet, after all, Ruth had the best of it; and she got a rich husband by it,